Pokémon (Not-So) Griefing Thread - Scarlet and Violet Released with 10 Million Copies in First 3 Days in Buggy States

[X-avier cuck]

Do you guys think that the real-time battle system is only for za or would you like to see it continue for the main series?

 

[Anonitolia]

Do you guys think that the real-time battle system is only for za or would you like to see it continue for the main series?

I really hope that it's for Z-A only and just an extension of LA's "style" system. Some dumb battle gimmick to get people interested instead of a mainstay. I really do not trust Gamefreak to pull off a real-time combat system well, nor do I especially want them to transition to real-time combat, and if gen 10 transitions over to real-time then I'll for sure be calling it quits after that game.

 

[Grayback]

Do you guys think that the real-time battle system is only for za or would you like to see it continue for the main series?

Everything in the main series games is built around their current battle system, with turns and static positioning. Switching, predictions, speed, priority tiers, accuracy, spread, abilities, etc.
All of that would be gone if GameFreak went to real-time battles with player input for stuff like positioning, aim, and timing. They would have to re-imagine and re-balance every single move, ability, and probably even stat distribution now that Pokémon would be able to use their stats differently. They would have to just throw out all of their old mechanics (which they know work) and introduce new ones that interacted with the new gameplay system.

It would be so much work to remake all of that—and for what?
What happens when players don't like the new system (never mind its potential merits) just because you've gotten rid of everything that they've gotten used to over thirty years? What happens when none of the Pokémon that they've been transferring up with them since as far back as Gen 3 act like they used to, and it feels like they've been changed so unrecognizably that you've basically taken them away?

I can see new mechanics working for side games. Those are games with little or no built-up expectations for their systems, so GameFreak can experiment. New stuff to potentially draw in new players, and to keep old players interested. But I don't think that they're using these side games to test potential options for future main series games.
In the main series, I think that the mechanics (at least for the battles) are going to stay the same forever.

 

[Chin of Campbell]

Gamefreak can't even be bothered to put stuff that's already done in their games, I don't know what makes you think rebuilding everything from the ground up would be something they'd ever do.

 

[X-avier cuck]

Gamefreak can't even be bothered to put stuff that's already done in their games, I don't know what makes you think rebuilding everything from the ground up would be something they'd ever do.

I say that because Ohmori has stated that he wanted to ape ideas from other games, basically at the last few JP Awards.

They're so autistic atm, that you never know what they will or won't do IMHO

 

[Celebrate Nite]

I say that because Ohmori has stated that he wanted to ape ideas from other games, basically at the last few JP Awards.

Y tho?

Pokemon didn't need a shake-up or to be exactly like other things. It was fine doing it's own thing, and fixing what wasn't broken is how we wound up in this mess to begin with.

If they really want to change things, howabout starting with their dev team by getting competent people to program their shit properly, so it doesn't constantly bug out on day 1 or run like complete ass.

 

[Anonitolia]

Gamefreak can't even be bothered to put stuff that's already done in their games, I don't know what makes you think rebuilding everything from the ground up would be something they'd ever do.

They are already remaking the entire system for this one game. What’s to stop them from taking the work they’ve already done, copy/pasting it into gen 10, and adding some new dongles?

 

[30+GameOvers]

Gamefreak can't even be bothered to put stuff that's already done in their games, I don't know what makes you think rebuilding everything from the ground up would be something they'd ever do.

We can pretty much expect everything going forward to be open world slop like Legends and SV, they worked too hard for these two tech demos to not make use of their templates in future games.

They are already remaking the entire system for this one game. What’s to stop them from taking the work they’ve already done, copy/pasting it into gen 10, and adding some new dongles?

I don't trust the same company who is too lazy to put all the Pokemon and moves that exist in one game to smoothly transition from turn based combat to real time combat. Seen it, been there, done that, hated it every time. Gamefreak won't be the ones to make the transition work, that would require too much work and skill beyond what they're capable of.

 

[X-avier cuck]

The wild factor is champions tbh.
That's basically Pokemon Stadium with micro transactions, so they can have their cake and eat it too.
It has all the gimmicks and seems to be using the new models they created for scarlet and violet / Legends.

 

[Abella]

Excuse me but what are you refering to? I tried searching for ownership of the TCG going from nintendo to TPC but couldn't find anything, besides isn't TPC a joint venture between nintendo, gamefreak and creatures?

TPCI as an entity themselves stepped in after a very technical deck centered around gardevoir and gallade won worlds. They decided to take control of the game as opposed to just Nintendo or creatures having control over gameplay designs. They made it a mission to make the game as simplified as they could so that you wouldn’t need older cards to have a sense of parity with other players.

The problem with TPCI as opposed to just Nintendo, creatures or even WotC is that they took this into overdrive. First it was bringing back the ex mechanic as EX, where ex Pokemon were 2 prizes if you knocked them out, but were often evolutions meaning you had to build up to them. EX (in capitals for differentiation) were entirely basic Pokemon even if normally not like charizard and tyranitar. This was after the Lv X mechanic was rotated out, which had a limit that the Lv X contributed towards the X/4 limit of deckbuilding. The changes they made to the game to accommodate this would have ripples down the line as they decided to put more and more power into 2 prize and, eventually, 3 prize Pokemon.

This caused a lot of players to grow bored of the game as it became central to the game to have to run these Pokemon in order to compete as single prize Pokemon couldn’t compete on this smoothed out playing field. With these players dipping out, they needed to find a way to make up for the drop in money coming in so they came up with making alternate art versions of cards that had lower ratios to pull than the base version of the card. It was a way to drum up interest from collectors as offering limited variants leads to chasing cards.

Spoiler: My favorite example of this:

As future sets were released, they’d try to incorporate this alongside more and more powerful mechanics built off the back of ex to EX, like Pokemon V/Vmax/Vstar taking from the EX and M EX mechanic of evolving a Pokemon into itself but with better numbers, or before it the GX mechanic that also had an attack you could only use once per game. This lead to many chase cards which are variants with huge price tags such as the umbreon Vmax called “moonbreon”, the SARs from the 151 set or the tag teams like latios & latias GX, called “lala” by collectors, which iirc a PSA is ~$15k. This all stems from power creep creating disinterest and TPCI instead turning to lottery cards to get money.

TL;DR - TPCI themselves run the TCG as an entity and resorted to appeasing gambling addicts because people don’t like power creep.

ETA: I also forgot about radiant Pokémon and ace spec trainer cards.

 

[Squawking Macaw]

Y tho?

Pokemon didn't need a shake-up or to be exactly like other things. It was fine doing it's own thing, and fixing what wasn't broken is how we wound up in this mess to begin with.

If they really want to change things, howabout starting with their dev team by getting competent people to program their shit properly, so it doesn't constantly bug out on day 1 or run like complete ass.

One of the most common normie criticisms of the franchise is that it's stagnant and that every game is the same base template. They have a point in some respects (8 badges, evil team, awaken legendary, battle champion, even when GF tries diverging they end up falling into this formula), but the turn-based combat isn't one of them, it'd be like complaining that Mario is a platformer or that Street Fighter is a 2D fighting game. Yes, we know, that's why we play the game.

One thing's for sure, GF is starting to experiment a lot with real-time and hybrid systems not to attempt to go real-time in the future. It's a shit idea because of what @Grayback mentioned, but they're clearly trying to push it towards that. Personally, I want to see it happen just so it craters the franchise and turns it into Final Fantasy 2.0. It'd be funny.

 

[Coon Cheese]

Does an actual market exist for rare or expensive Pokémon card or is it just grifters, scalpers and resellers buying and constantly reselling to each other. My understanding is that the game still gets played but it's mostly kids and early teens so they aren't the ones shelling out 1000 bucks for a booster box.

 

[Anonitolia]

Legends Z-A is releasing on October 16th.
Preorders begin June 5th, for the masochistic out there. The preorder bonus in Canada/the UK is a random Sitting Cuties plush of one of the starters.

They completely redid the site for this occasion, but funnily enough the news date implies that this redesign was supposed to go up nine days ago. I know that this is super late because yesterday evening the site was completely different. For whatever fucking reason I felt like checking it, after weeks of not even thinking about Z-A, and not even six hours later the entire thing got overhauled and the release date got announced. I'm scared. Not even TPC care about this game lmao.


Also, the box art's up. I don't know why this is in such tiny resolution on Z-A's site, but I found a (slightly) better resolution and logoless version in the official key art archive.

I guess they really want to move away from the Sugimori style if they're making the box art look like this. It's very soft and pastel, nonthreatening and kind of dull. I appreciate that it isn't just a box legendary, and the cover is a lot more dynamic than LA's, but I'm still not a huge fan. At least Tepig gets a spotlight, that's nice.

Also curious that they've thrown Noivern, Bunnelby, Helioptile, Dedenne and Zygarde in there with a bunch of mega-evolved Pokémon. It's probably nothing, I'm assuming it's just a bunch of more well-known Kalos mon for marketing purposes, but I do find it a funny coincidence: Noivern and Heliolisk have been speculated to have a mega/need a mega or evolution for ages now, Zygarde was outright confirmed to be getting one through the Teraleak, Diggersby stirred up a bunch of discussion because it had a mega bar in the bottom right of its battle screen during a trailer, and Dedenne recently took part in a Pokémon GO event centered purely around smaller Pokémon undergoing drastic changes... upon evolution. It was the only Pokémon in the entire event roster that did not evolve in any way shape or form, so that's curious.


Additionally, I am almost certain that the trainer being fought here is Emma, and if I had to speculate on the arm in the full key art I'd guess Sonia. It looks like the arm on her jacket, anyways, and it'd make sense for her to be here with Galar's assumed proximity to Kalos.



It could always be someone else just wearing similar-looking clothes, which I think is possible, but hey. You never know.

Anyways, Emma is still wearing her expansion suit underneath her clothing, but now she's also got a Key stone in it. That's probably important to the plot.


Some other oddities I spotted:

Spoiler: spoilered to keep the post relatively short

This tower seems to be modeled after a Claydol, but I swear i've seen this exact pattern before. Somewhere in gen 3, I think? My first guess is either a Rangers game (leaning towards Shadows of Almia even if that's gen 4) or one of the Colosseum games.


Mega Salamence confirmed in the background. I can't remember if any trailers showed it, and I know that the site doesn't show it, so here you go. Enjoy, Salamence fans.
EDIT: it was confirmed in the March trailer ignore me


Mega Scizor too, but I think that was already in a trailer somewhere. Not sure. Either way, rejoice! If you like Mega Scizor, anyways.


Looking at this image hurts my brain. It feels like i'm staring at something out of Artbreeder. I swear I can see a purple umbrella of some sorts, but the resolution is so insanely low that I really can't make out a single detail. For all I know, this could just be a blob of weirdly-shaped snowflakes that's catching my attention due to background contrast, but something tells me that isn't the case. I think I can make out some kind of crystals jutting out of a black body, and floating above it, in different shapes... but that's about it, and I'm not even certain that's actually what this is.
No clue what this is, but I suppose keeping an eye on it isn't a bad idea. If I'm just missing something and this is actually recognizable, please enlighten me because this is hurting my brain.


For some reason, my first thoughts upon seeing this couple were "younger Sada and Turo?" and I don't know why. Maybe due to being barely able to make out anything of the guy on the right's face except a similar hairstyle. Again, insanely low-quality, and I'm not sure these are even important characters. They are probably not Sada and Turo when they were younger; if anything, the girl on the left looks more like Lacey.
Anyways, the Furfrou is trimmed. GO players might finally have their holy grail taken from them.

And, finally...

my girl got some attention

Nothing else on the site is new, it's just a bunch of reorganization of what was already there. Sad!

At least there's a Presents coming on July 22nd yes, really that will clear all this basic confusion up once and for all.


In two months.

God the marketing for this game sucks.

Spoiler: Edits with more info, mostly minutia and better key art.

EDIT: Japanese site had a third version of the key art with the clearest resolution yet:

This version of the art is unfortunately also cropped, but has some odd changes. Both the Mega Steelix and Mega Salamence are completely absent, half of the artwork is just Lumiose City's tiling, almost every single character depicted here has been moved around in different ways (for example, Chikorita is now the one covering Lumiose's Tower instead of Paxton's hand), and you can now see something peeking out of one of the windows. (EDIT: it's just a preschooler's head. I don't think they even bothered to redraw the official art, they just shrunk it down to a ridiculously tiny size.)

Also, I think the Mega Lucario's pose is traced from the model.

It wouldn't surprise me if it was, anyways. Gamefreak's already been caught doing this before.

EDIT 2: final edit, probably. Found a good resolution of the American key art on /vp/.

This version of the key art makes two Mystery Niggas (Jett and her bodyguard) clearer, in the top right,

which is making me even more suspicious because I swear the Shadows of Almia antagonists did something almost exactly like this. Used some weird machine to fuck around with Pokémon and make them go crazy at night, that is.

Also there are Shuppets here apparently.

Spoiler: schizo mega speculation

That leaves the amount of Pokémon here without Megas more prominent than those that have them.

With Megas: Steelix, Absol, Salamence, Lucario, Banette, Scizor, Gardevoir. 7 lines total.
Without Megas: Furfrou, Talonflame, Diggersby, Heliolisk, Dedenne, Slurpuff, Aromatisse, Noivern, Vivillon. 9 lines total.

I don't think every single line here without a Mega is getting one anymore. It's also worth noting that every line save for Pikachu's is from Kalos, while the Megas are fairly spread out across prior regions (none from Kanto, two from Johto, four from Hoenn, one from Sinnoh, none from Unova). There's probably no relevance to the Kalos selection besides marketability, and I doubt all of them are getting Megas anymore.

I'm still keeping my eye on Dedenne though. That GO event was too suspicious.

 

[30+GameOvers]

Looks like the most generic PokemonTM thing ever, still don't care. Boy, not giving a shit about a franchise you used to love sure is a blessing.

 

[Squawking Macaw]

Also, the box art's up. I don't know why this is in such tiny resolution on Z-A's site, but I found a better resolution and logoless version in the official key art archive.

Something about this image's composition doesn't scream "box art".

 

[Abella]

I remember playing haymaker when I was 10 and going onto pojo after school to see if there were any new lists or cards to try out. Despite what nostalgiatards and genwunners will try to tell you, no one actually played charizard and he was considered to have always been terrible back then. I remember William Hung going back-to-back against those kinds of janky big number decks and being able to chug through and take all 6 prizes or empty bench KO back when you could gust a charmander and knock him out in one hit.

I genuinely miss the early days of the game and none of these collectorfags will ever know the fun of the game prior to black & white.

Does an actual market exist for rare or expensive Pokémon card or is it just grifters, scalpers and resellers buying and constantly reselling to each other. My understanding is that the game still gets played but it's mostly kids and early teens so they aren't the ones shelling out 1000 bucks for a booster box.

There’s a market, but most modern (SV) stuff is manipulated like hell. The only stuff worth serious money are the 20+ year old sets.

 

[Anonitolia]

Something about this image's composition doesn't scream "box art".

Absolutely, it seems like key art that they rushed into a cover. The fact that it's so much better-looking as proper key art and not box art probably speaks to that. It was very clearly drawn to be in a much wider resolution, to the point where the box art looks noticeably cut-off and cramped, and there's a serious lack of focus that doesn't really draw your eye to anything in particular. The mega evolution is too subdued to catch the eye, so Lumiose's gym catches the eye instead, but that's partly covered by a hand and so bright across such a huge area that it's really hard to find someplace for the eye to rest. It probably doesn't help that the box art is slanted to the right, which it was absolutely not drawn to accommodate for.

I'm not a great artist, so this could obviously all be bullshit, but it's definitely not a good cover. It was too obviously made for a different aspect ratio, without any clear focus, and the colors are so muddy that it doesn't really grab attention. That's my two cents on the matter, anyways.

 

[Squawking Macaw]

Additionally, I am almost certain that the trainer being fought here is Emma, and if I had to speculate on the arm in the full key art I'd guess Sonia. It looks like the arm on her jacket, anyways, and it'd make sense for her to be here with Galar's assumed proximity to Kalos.

It seems to be Looker, his jacket has the same dark buttons and he's the one to help Emma in XY, so it'd make more sense to be him.
Quick edit: I noticed now that the jacket has different details around the sleeve, but given Looker's role in XY's postgame I'd still say it's him.

No clue what this is, but I suppose keeping an eye on it isn't a bad idea. If I'm just missing something and this is actually recognizable, please enlighten me because this is hurting my brain.

It's a Mega Steelix

Absolutely, it seems like key art that they rushed into a cover.

You've said it better than I did. It being a messy cropped section from a wider picture really shows how much they care. They couldn't even be bothered to design a proper box art.

 

[Anonitolia]

It seems to be Looker

Honestly, it could go either way. I personally think the color of the coat-arm is way too light for that, matching Sonia's beige near-perfectly but being quite a ways off from Looker's yellower-brown, but you're right that it would make more sense for Looker to be there. Maybe it'll be both of them? Who knows lol.

It's a Mega Steelix

Fuck, you're right. I guess I didn't pick up on it because it's a design that relies a whole lot on details, which that very muddy silhouette had basically none of. It's a perfect match now that you bring it up, though.

...why is a mega steelix atop a roof? How is a mega steelix atop a roof?

 

[X-avier cuck]

---

If the rumors are to be believed then the brown girl is basically the columbo with the game that helps us research what's going on with all of the crazy rogue megas.

Also, I actually quite like the deviation away from just the box legendary awkwardly looking at you on the box art, because at least it sells the idea of what you're supposed to be doing.

It's very odd that they announced a presents a month in advance though.

We'll see if the alleged 27 mega evolutions begin to pop up because several of the species have been featured in the couple of trailers they posted