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Sonictrainer

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All I see are lame excuses. Maybe if the models and animations were actually significantly different rather than almost identical, or if the game's visuals were higher quality I could almost get the idea. But no. It's pure time crunch.

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1 hour ago, Splash the Otter said:

As for the "too many Pokemon" thing, if there really are getting to be too many (and I'm not saying there aren't) then maybe GameFreak should stop making new ones.

You think people wouldn't riot just the same if they did that?

They're in an unwinnable situation here.

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I also consider most of these excuses to be pretty flimsy when everything we've seen so far doesn't really coincide with what they're saying.  Extra attention to make the models aesthetically pleasing, despite the fact that they're all just upscaled versions of 3DS models, with animations that are hardly different.  At the same time, I do agree that anything GameFreak does will be met with controversy, but that can be said about pretty much everything GameFreak does.

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1 hour ago, Tara said:

I also consider most of these excuses to be pretty flimsy when everything we've seen so far doesn't really coincide with what they're saying.  Extra attention to make the models aesthetically pleasing, despite the fact that they're all just upscaled versions of 3DS models, with animations that are hardly different.  At the same time, I do agree that anything GameFreak does will be met with controversy, but that can be said about pretty much everything GameFreak does.

ITs never been to this extent however. Sure, you can say this was the straw that broke the camel's back, but nothing they've done until now has gotten people up in arms about this. 

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I guess it's refreshing having fans hate on a new Gen early instead of doing so in retrospect when the succeeding Gen is revealed like they always do. 

For real thought. I'm all for criticism of GF's rightfully stupid choices. I'm not for the smug dipshits who come after people who don't care about this stuff with accusations of being sheep who just swallows what GF feeds them. That is peak Sonic Fandom shit that I don't wanna see crop up elsewhere 

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I got out of Pokémon awhile back, but the controversy about this game really does make me rethink a lot of the changes from Gen V onward that had turned me off the series.

Like the move from sprites to polygons. I was absolutely blown away by B/W’s spritework— despite having at least 600 Pokémon to make front, back, and overworld sprites for at that point, they all turned out so lively, detailed, and crisp. It was a definite step up from Gen IV and one of the few changes in Gen V that I completely loved. So when GF announced that they were doing away with them in exchange for polygons... well, I was an unhappy girl. Maybe polygons could have won me over with mainline Pokémon (lord knows I love Pokémon Snap) but the way GF went about them was just really disappointing. They were rough around the edges, and the polygons didn’t breathe like B/W’s sprites did. I know it’s awkward sounding but I can’t think of a better word than breathe to describe the difference between B/W and, for example, OR/AS. I had chalked it up to personal taste before, especially since I still can’t articulate very well what exactly is off about the new polygons that the sprites don’t have an issue with. But I wonder now if Sword and Shield is the culmination of some shift at GF that has been happening for years, be it lower budgets, changing staff, changing office culture, or who knows what, and the shift to disappointing polygons was an omen for things to come.

And the overabundance of Pokémon. The issue had been creeping for awhile— you could argue it started with Gen II introducing 140 new Pokémon which is kinda excessive (though I personally give Gen II a pass, as most of the “new” Pokémon introduced there were actually intended to be in Red/Blue and totally game ready, but had to be cut last minute because the GB Classic didn’t have enough memory for them). But I did always wonder when it’d start being.more of a liability than asset, and it looks like GF has hit the oversaturation wall before the general public has, a conflict of perspectives that seldom ends well for franchises.

Sword and Shield kinda pulls a reverse-Sonic to deal with this by putting all the new characters in the spotlight while leaving older ones out, but as we’ve learned from Sonic, implementing the opposite problem isn’t actually a solution. I don’t know how GF didn’t anticipate that people would have a problem with this. Gen III got raked over the coals back in the day for not being able to accept trades from Gen II or I, and not only did it still have Pokémon from Johto and Kanto available to catch, but it also had an actual not-BS reason for disallowing trades (the way EVs/IVs are calculated in Gen III is so radically different from Gen II and I that GF understandably decided that they were fundamentally incompatible. And there needed to be a massive overhaul of the EVs/IVs system, since the first one was limited by excessive simplicity and also kinda sexist.).

I hope for people who still like Pokémon that things get sorted out amicably for everybody and there’s good things ahead, but so far the future looks very rocky and confused for Sword and Shield.

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38 minutes ago, Soniman said:

I guess it's refreshing having fans hate on a new Gen early instead of doing so in retrospect when the succeeding Gen is revealed like they always do. 

For real thought. I'm all for criticism of GF's rightfully stupid choices. I'm not for the smug dipshits who come after people who don't care about this stuff with accusations of being sheep who just swallows what GF feeds them. That is peak Sonic Fandom shit that I don't wanna see crop up elsewhere 

Not that it excuses the behavior, but...well...it's true. Most of the casuals were willing to put up with Game Freak's bullshit because it didn't personally affect them. They were still able to trade and breed their favorite Pokemon, so they didn't have to care. It's a selfish mindset sure, but if a perceived problem does not affect your enjoyment of the game, then it's not going to be something you're worried about. So now that the casuals can't trade or breed their favorite mons, well...there's no reason for them to put up with said bullshit anymore. 

Game Freak took the audience for granted; they were under the impression that any change made to the series wouldn't affect the fandom much because nothing before has. So that allowed them to get away with cutting corners and being forgiven for it because "Pokemon can do no wrong" and they were validated by that mindset because every game made bank because it's fucking Pokemon. 

You can call out those "smug dipshits", but they were usually the ones who saw the cracks and were trying to (perhaps with the worst attitude) warn people about it, but were usually written off as a vocal minority, and none of their complaints affected the sales of the games.

 

Its hilariously similar to how Sega handles Sonic, but the difference is that Sonic's reputation is already down the drain, so Sega knows there isn't much they can do to turn people off any more than they already have and the games still sell despite the series' poor reputation among the gaming crowd.  The movie was by far the most outcry the series had ever gotten, and sure enough it was enough to delay it. I can't see that happening with the game series though because the younger crowd are too young to understand and the older crowd just kind of threw their hands up and moved on or are still raging to this day. 

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17 minutes ago, Mad Convoy said:

(the way EVs/IVs are calculated in Gen III is so radically different from Gen II and I that GF understandably decided that they were fundamentally incompatible. And there needed to be a massive overhaul of the EVs/IVs system, since the first one was limited by excessive simplicity and also kinda sexist.).

"Sexist"? WHAT!?!

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51 minutes ago, PublicEnemy1 said:

"Sexist"? WHAT!?!

Basically this:

Quote

In Generation II, a Pokémon's gender is determined based solely on its physical Attack when compared to its gender ratio. A Pokémon is female if its physical Attack IV is less than or equal to its species' gender ratio, otherwise it is male. For species that are exclusively one gender or have no gender, the calculation based on the physical Attack IV is ignored.

Due to this calculation, it is impossible to obtain a female Pokémon with high physical Attack, unless the Pokémon is a member of an all-female species like Jynx or Chansey. Starter Pokémon and others with a gender ratio of seven males to one female suffer the most, with the maximum physical Attack IV for a female Pokémon of those species being 1.

 

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1 minute ago, Sonictrainer said:

Basically this:

 

I wouldn't call that sexist. In the animal kingdom, the male creatures tend to be bigger and weigh more than females, and thus have more attack power. If it were humans, yeah, that'd be pretty sexist, but these are animals, fictional animals, I might add. That logic is kinda stupid, when you think about it, especially when applying it to non-humans.

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20 minutes ago, PublicEnemy1 said:

I wouldn't call that sexist. In the animal kingdom, the male creatures tend to be bigger and weigh more than females, and thus have more attack power. If it were humans, yeah, that'd be pretty sexist, but these are animals, fictional animals, I might add. That logic is kinda stupid, when you think about it, especially when applying it to non-humans.

Pokemon never had much in the way of extreme physical differences in their designs. Males aren't inherently bigger nor do they weigh more. Its not made to resemble the real animal kingdom in any way, so such a difference in value shouldn't exist.

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1 hour ago, Wraith said:

Pokemon never had much in the way of extreme physical differences in their designs. Males aren't inherently bigger nor do they weigh more. Its not made to resemble the real animal kingdom in any way, so such a difference in value shouldn't exist.

They have started to introduce more noticeable gender differences in Pokemon to reflect the animal kingdom. I'm not gonna say that Pokemon should strictly adhere to that, but I don't believe the mere existence of it makes it sexist.

That said, using such structure to make females inherently weaker than males isn't good since it'd railroad the gameplay to cater to the latter.

Gender differences are fine, but not if they impact the way you play the game.

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1 hour ago, PublicEnemy1 said:

I wouldn't call that sexist. In the animal kingdom, the male creatures tend to be bigger and weigh more than females, and thus have more attack power. If it were humans, yeah, that'd be pretty sexist, but these are animals, fictional animals, I might add. That logic is kinda stupid, when you think about it, especially when applying it to non-humans.

@Wraith and @Sonictrainer pretty much got it down, but my own personal contention with the system was how it rendered most female Pokémon basically nonviable in Gen I and II based metagaming based solely on them being female, as your Pokémon pretty much have to dominate in every EV and IV category to stand much of a chance in tournaments. It does not help that the weakest type by far is the Bug type, as bugs often use a matriarchal system where the females well surpass the males in terms of strength, capabilities, and intelligence. By extension, Pokémon who are often female without being exclusively so get underrepresented in Gen I and II tournaments because it is downright tedious to catch a wild male with max IVs on top of maxing out their EVs.

And, well, wild animals and animal species vary but generally speaking, a sufficiently determined animal or group of animals are more than capable of holding their own in a fair fight regardless of their gender or gender population ratio. For example, a deer’s legs and jaws aren’t just for show. A doe might not have antlers or big muscles like a stag but she can still kick your ass as painfully as any stag can when provoked. Literally and metaphorically.

Early Pokémon games were based off of beetle fighting, a sport that’s apparently quite popular in Japan and one that Iwata participated in as a kid. The species of beetle used for that sport handles mating by having males fight for dominance. As a result the males make for excellent fighters while the females, though capable of some self defense, are only useful in the sport for breeding your best male fighters with. However, several Pokémon are clearly not based on or inspired by beetles. Many are based on fantasy creatures like dragons where gender often doesn’t really matter much in terms of strength, and others are anthropomorphic objects like sludge where, c’mon, gender doesn’t make a lick of difference in terms of how much a living mass of pollution tackling you sucks.

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...............What in the world. I get off work and come home and wondering where the thread is at and I walk into people talking about if pokemon is sexist cause they base it off the animal kingdom.....whhhhaaat!?!

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Just now, Meta77 said:

...............What in the world. I get off work and come home and wondering where the thread is at and I walk into people talking about if pokemon is sexist cause they base it off the animal kingdom.....whhhhaaat!?!

...no, it's sexist to make a blanket assumption that all females are physically weaker. In some species the males tend to be larger and stronger. In some species it's the reverse. In others, they're essentially the same. And we're talking about a video game about fictional monsters so nothing about the actual animal kingdom has to apply unless the designers decide it does, anyway. It was a dumb, slapdash decision that was rightfully fixed in later games.

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16 minutes ago, Meta77 said:

...............What in the world. I get off work and come home and wondering where the thread is at and I walk into people talking about if pokemon is sexist cause they base it off the animal kingdom.....whhhhaaat!?!

I mentioned a previous controversy that Gen III got a ton of flack for not having backwards compatibility with the previous generations, even though it was less restrictive than Sword and Shield in the sense that you could still catch Kanto and Johto Pokémon and also because the reason for disallowing backwards compatibility was not-BS. That’s because Gen III overhauled the EV and IV system in a way that made it incompatible with Pokémon from Gen I and II, and one of the reasons why the change wasn’t arbitrary was because before Gen III, it was literally impossible for female Pokémon to have a high physical attack unless the specific Pokémon species was female-only. Hence basically making nearly all female Pokémon non-viable in the only Pokémon metagame that existed up until Gen III changed things up.

My overall point is that I didn’t know how GF wouldn’t expect people to be upset about Sword and Shield when an actually reasonable example of deciding on and handling lack of backwards compatibility from several years ago was nevertheless almost universally despised by the fans. But somebody took umbrage with that tiny part of my post about getting rid of sexism in EVs and IVs, and here we are.

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It was sexist because it enforced a slant in favor of males.

Like, tail/whisker/hair length as well as different colorings are one thing. Those add variety within Pokemon.

Giving girl Pokemon a disadvantage in attack just makes her undesirable. It's not even neutral like a gender difference, it's a flat out negative.

And, like said by @Mad Convoy, Female animals can still mess you up if you provoke them. A female bear might be smaller, but she's by no means less of a threat. In fact, you should stay far away from momma bears, let alone most other mother animals.

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Okay, okay, I get it. I messed up. I am now informed. I was just mostly surprised than anything, and I didn't mean to come across as taking offense at your post, @Mad Convoy. I hope that the things I said don't make me come across as sexist, because I'm really not.

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Lord I am glad I never get that deep into pokemon stat wise. I just get the move thunder and spam it on water types. That and brave bird. I just like seeing those two moves go off. Fry all the fish. Even if they dodge it.

51 minutes ago, Mad Convoy said:

I mentioned a previous controversy that Gen III got a ton of flack for not having backwards compatibility with the previous generations, even though it was less restrictive than Sword and Shield in the sense that you could still catch Kanto and Johto Pokémon and also because the reason for disallowing backwards compatibility was not-BS. That’s because Gen III overhauled the EV and IV system in a way that made it incompatible with Pokémon from Gen I and II, and one of the reasons why the change wasn’t arbitrary was because before Gen III, it was literally impossible for female Pokémon to have a high physical attack unless the specific Pokémon species was female-only. Hence basically making nearly all female Pokémon non-viable in the only Pokémon metagame that existed up until Gen III changed things up.

My overall point is that I didn’t know how GF wouldn’t expect people to be upset about Sword and Shield when an actually reasonable example of deciding on and handling lack of backwards compatibility from several years ago was nevertheless almost universally despised by the fans. But somebody took umbrage with that tiny part of my post about getting rid of sexism in EVs and IVs, and here we are.

Well you guys continue. I was just super confused how in the world a game like pokemon brought up such a topic.  I just play to catch pokes myself.

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I think the Gen 2 IVs are more a case of unfortunate implications than outright sexism.

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Remember how in Gen III it was possible for Azurill to change gender upon evolution because of the messed up gender ratio?

...shame they couldn’t incorporate into other Pokemon. Like, imagine if there was a clownfish Pokemon that turned from male to female upon evolving?

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I know this may be tiered, but it looks like everything (Pokemon, Items, moves, move-sets via level-up, etc)from gen 7 was ported into Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee.

Things add up even less.

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I don't think that was ever up for debate regarding Let's Go though? Everything about it suggested a lower budget to begin with.

As for Sword and Shield, it's possible that the new camping gimmick (replacing Amie or whatever) includes new animations, which might go some way to explain their claim that the Pokémon require extra work to put in the game. I can't imagine it satisfying people either way, but I feel there must be some truth to their official line on this. Because they can't seriously believe the usage of the same models would ever go unnoticed.

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@Pawn Camping? Has that been officially revealed yet, or is it just a rumour from one of the leaks? Cause I'm avoiding the leaks and haven't heard anything about it...

That said, I wish they'd axe the garbage features like Amie, Refresh and whatever camping is supposed to be. Never found any enjoyment in them personally. They're tedious and boring, but apparently people like them? I can't imagine too many people would really miss the feature, but that's going to be biased because I really dislike the whole virtual pet thing. And if the amount of animation involved in them is going to hinder what can be included in the main game, just cut them. It's a huge amount of work for a totally optional feature.

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I haven't played pokemon in several generations so I can't comment on the specific executions, but I feel like interacting with your pokemon as more than just sets of moves and stats is actually a good thing and could probably stand to get more focus. Part of the reason I lost interest in the series is that it got hard to see them as anything more than that (combined with the mechanical side of training pokemon just being a huge tedious nightmare). The whole spectacle of finding, catching, and training fantastic monsters kinda falls apart when they just feel like a list of numbers with a face drawn on.

I do get that it's probably pretty costly to develop, though, and could easily cut into fleshing out other parts of the game.

All the more reason to reboot and refocus, IMO.

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