|
qnqnx posted:If someone told me the cuts were intentional, with the objective to sell more DLC I'd believe it Because gamefreak, while somehow being forced to put out a new generations every 2-3 years, somehow hasn't learned to just move mechanical poo poo forward when it works and tightening it up. ASIDE: After playing PL:A I am goign to run for Senate and the first law I'm making is that unless you are making a game like MGS or Thief you can't put stealth mechanics your game.
|
# ? May 22, 2022 19:56 |
|
|
# ? Jun 6, 2024 07:11 |
|
On this topic of upgrading a series' experience while keeping the same "feel" over time: when you're updating a big RPG / monster collectathon there are a million things you can update without even scratching the surface of the out-of-combat, out-of-menus gameplay experience. Sw/Sh got blasted for terrible plot hooks AND not enough pokemon in the dex AND not enough pokemon attack animations, among other things... but the combat and menus worked fine and people still bought both copies and DLC so they still have control of the niche for now.
|
# ? May 22, 2022 19:59 |
|
As someone who hates stealth sections in games, Legend's iteration of "stealth" (Pokemon are normally too stupid to see you in grass) works great for me.
|
# ? May 22, 2022 20:00 |
|
Lux Animus posted:On this topic of upgrading a series' experience while keeping the same "feel" over time: Therefore, all Pokemon needs to sell is the usual three or four marketable creature families and the barest minimum UI off RPGMaker. The power of brand
|
# ? May 22, 2022 20:05 |
|
Zuzie posted:As someone who hates stealth sections in games, Legend's iteration of "stealth" (Pokemon are normally too stupid to see you in grass) works great for me. Same. Even as someone that's very much not happy with modern Pokemon (even beyond SwSh's mediocrity, the price hike on Home was loving unacceptable and made me give up on the livingdex I've kept for years), Arceus was a lot of fun and I hope we get more like it in the future. Honestly I'm not sure if I'll buy SV if it doesn't keep at least the much faster menus and interfaces from Arceus, watching SwSh in action now is agonizingly slow.
|
# ? May 22, 2022 20:07 |
|
Zuzie posted:As someone who hates stealth sections in games, Legend's iteration of "stealth" (Pokemon are normally too stupid to see you in grass) works great for me. It works fine its just intensely boring and doesn't really add much since you can also just throw a mud ball at then then throw a poke ball. It's a pointless mechanic that exists to slow you down and give catching pokemon any depth. It's just meaningless. It and how just awful battling felt in that game really soured me on it. Just felt like busy work even for a game where 99% of what I'm doing is catching pokemon I'm immediately going to be deleting.
|
# ? May 22, 2022 20:07 |
|
Zuzie posted:As someone who hates stealth sections in games, Legend's iteration of "stealth" (Pokemon are normally too stupid to see you in grass) works great for me. I could see in future Legends iterations that some pokemon's player-detection methods might get more complex for deeper immersion (Zubats can hear you moving in grass since they are blind, Nosepass can smell you approaching if you're upwind, Luxrays can literally see you through walls, etc) but right now in PLArceus, once you learn the limitations of the wild pokemons' awareness and then learn how long pokemon take to eat food (10 chomps) you are golden for hunting Alphas with the basic heavy balls and basic oran berries you get access to near game start.
|
# ? May 22, 2022 20:08 |
|
Lux Animus posted:I could see in future Legends iterations that some pokemon's player-detection methods might get more complex for deeper immersion (Zubats can hear you moving in grass since they are blind, Nosepass can smell you approaching if you're upwind, Luxrays can literally see you through walls, etc) but right now in PLArceus, once you learn the limitations of the wild pokemons' awareness and then learn how long pokemon take to eat food (10 chomps) you are golden for hunting Alphas with the basic heavy balls and basic oran berries you get access to near game start. idk why people even put that much effort into things when you can instantly catch most alphas by just throwing one of your pokemon at them then just throwing an ultra ball to catch them first try if you're levelled higher than them.
|
# ? May 22, 2022 20:11 |
|
I really wish we could purge the word "entitlement" out of the gamer vernacular already. It has never once been used to describe a situation correctly, and seeing it here is really silly. The vast majority of complaints leveled at GF can be summarized as "can you please not break or abandon something you already did and told me was important?", and if that's entitlement then I'm not sure what isn't. It's true that you can't just throw more money or more bodies or yell "be more talented!" loudly to fix problems. However, the thing about Game Freak is that so many of their problems are self-owns. They constantly are repeating the same loop of "problem -> pretty good solution -> oops we abandoned or broke the solution -> worse problem??" It's not that they're being overly ambitious, or that the problems are exceptionally technical or expensive. They just have an issue with prioritizing the right things and they're way too ok shipping something unfinished or janky
|
# ? May 22, 2022 20:11 |
|
Spanish Manlove posted:idk why people even put that much effort into things when you can instantly catch most alphas by just throwing one of your pokemon at them then just throwing an ultra ball to catch them first try if you're levelled higher than them. I find it infinitely more satisfying to catch a pokemon in PLA without starting a fight and without throwing mudballs since they're "expensive". I don't want any nice pokemon to get hurt or angry!
|
# ? May 22, 2022 20:17 |
|
Character 1: I’m going to perform an action! *fade to black* *fade back in on the previously animated frame* Character 2: Wow, thanks!
|
# ? May 22, 2022 20:39 |
|
indigi posted:Character 1: I’m going to perform an action!
|
# ? May 22, 2022 20:51 |
|
If Nintendie gave gamefreak more time and money between each pokemon game they would probably be better games
|
# ? May 22, 2022 20:59 |
|
Improbable Lobster posted:If Nintendie gave gamefreak more time and money between each pokemon game they would probably be better games Ultimately this is the solution but it doesn't change the problems that make it to release
|
# ? May 22, 2022 21:03 |
|
I think it is short-sighted of whoever makes the decisions not to allow a little more time between releases. I also think GF did a pretty good job with PLA! It is much better than Sword/Shield as a single-player experience, but also it feels very fresh, it's nice to sometimes have something totally new. I think GF should be more open (within the main game series) to occasionally doing things again that were popular in previous games, rather than going "well that was fun and everyone liked it, now let's never do it again". Things like Join Avenue (I know they did something a little bit like it in gen 7 but it wasn't as good)
|
# ? May 22, 2022 21:13 |
|
Yeah, they used to take more time and have like gap years but ever since Gen V its been at least one major release per year. And the schedule has clearly derailed and gotten out of control.
|
# ? May 22, 2022 21:16 |
|
Zore posted:Yeah, they used to take more time and have like gap years but ever since Gen V its been at least one major release per year. And the schedule has clearly derailed and gotten out of control. They took 2011 and 2015 off, but other than that...yeah. They REALLY need longer breaks between things. The rate they're pumping out games has gotten ridiculous.
|
# ? May 22, 2022 21:27 |
|
Also they jumped from 2D sprites with some 3D elements to 3D handheld to HD console in the span of 5 years. For a company that did 2D spriting for 15 years, it was never gonna be a pretty transition. And then you release 3 games in the space of 12 months. It's just nuts.
|
# ? May 22, 2022 21:29 |
|
Yeah, the accelerated release scheduler has clearly had a detrimental effect on the game quality.
|
# ? May 22, 2022 21:37 |
|
Vandar posted:They took 2011 and 2015 off, but other than that...yeah. They REALLY need longer breaks between things. The rate they're pumping out games has gotten ridiculous. the team who did BDSP wasn’t even Gamefreak so I’m not sure how much that impacts their workload if st all, it may as well have been a year off. but again that’s the solution - have separate teams working on separate releases, like Pixar, so the swish team wasn’t pressured to wrap up USUM and then didn’t have to worry about working on scarvi
|
# ? May 22, 2022 22:29 |
|
I think they do have different teams on different things but that only takes the dev time to 2 years per game. Which isn't a lot in today's gaming landscape.
|
# ? May 22, 2022 22:31 |
|
It worked when the games themselves were on smaller hardware that was easier to figure out.
|
# ? May 22, 2022 22:35 |
|
SyntheticPolygon posted:I think they do have different teams on different things but that only takes the dev time to 2 years per game. Which isn't a lot in today's gaming landscape. if the team working on SUMO finished that and began development on scarvi that’s 5 years
|
# ? May 22, 2022 22:42 |
|
I do agree that carrying forward every Pokemon is kind of unsustainable. No other franchise has that burden of expectation on it. Literally no other franchise. But Pokemon also doesn't make enough changes to justify that. Let's go to our closest available comparison, Digimon. The last three games to release for Digimon are a raising sim, a traditional story-driven RPG, and a tactics RPG / VN that is finally kramering out of development hell. Completely different gameplay styles, completely different graphics styles, completely different rosters. Nobody's expecting all of these games to have the same content. But until Legends, mainline Pokemon games have been pretty much the same core Red/Blue/Yellow format repeated over and over and over again. The expectation is that each game needs to be The Last Game, But Better because, frankly, that's all mainline Pokemons are. And when you've had "every single Pokemon is available in some form" as a core design mantra for every generation outside of debatably Gen 3 (a decision that proved INSANELY unpopular and was walked back in a panic), not doing so is an easy way to seem Worse. Not that changing the gameplay for the sole sake of changing the gameplay is a smart decision either, of course. Look at Sonic, a series that didn't have a core identity outside of "remember Green Hill Zone" for the longest time. But the series needs to at least put in the work to evolve and show that Dexit was the right move, and frankly when you release a game like SwSh right on the heels of that decision, it's really hard for it to seem justified. I'm not even going to say it isn't a fun game! The core Pokemon formula is fun, so it's hard to flat-out call it a Bad game. But it's ultimately a 3DS game with less content and better shaders, and that isn't enough to carry a fundamental shift in a franchise. It's a Star Allies tier release.
|
# ? May 22, 2022 22:44 |
|
I don't think they've got so many teams that the SM guys weren't involved in the 4 games in between. I also remember something from this thread saying that every team in gamefreak was working on Legends at some point although likely that's hearsay that can't be trusted. E: Pokemon and Digimon aren't really comparable in any way at this point tbh.
|
# ? May 22, 2022 22:46 |
|
Also Star Allies was good.
|
# ? May 22, 2022 22:50 |
|
The Bee posted:I do agree that carrying forward every Pokemon is kind of unsustainable. No other franchise has that burden of expectation on it. Literally no other franchise. no other franchise is comparable to the core conceit of pokemon, which is adventuring with your poke friends and filling up your dex. it’s silly to just handwave that away by saying “well CoD doesn’t have to have 1000 pokemon in every installment” no, because that’s not what CoD is. Digimon was the only possible comparison and they got out of that game years ago to do MMO poo poo iirc
|
# ? May 22, 2022 22:50 |
|
Its also probably on them to have built up the idea that "this Pokemon you caught in Ruby as a kid is still usable now". Its neat that you could possess Pokemon that are older then most of the target audience, but it becomes increasingly harder to do so as the years go by and you need more things like old systems to do so.
|
# ? May 22, 2022 22:51 |
|
I'm really only comparing in the arena of "franchise with a metric fuckton of player-usable monster designs." And even then, yeah, I don't think Digimon and it's 1,400+ designs have ever thrown the number of designs into a single game that Generation 3 of Pokemon has. We're now 8 generations in and about to brush up against 3 times Gen 3's number. Star Allies has become very good but at launch it was kinda tepid and I still wish I got it at 3DS prices instead of Switch prices. The Bee fucked around with this message at 22:55 on May 22, 2022 |
# ? May 22, 2022 22:52 |
|
lmao at Digimon mmo. This thread definitely knows what its talking about.
|
# ? May 22, 2022 22:52 |
|
Zuzie posted:Its also probably on them to have built up the idea that "this Pokemon you caught in Ruby as a kid is still usable now". Its neat that you could possess Pokemon that are older then most of the target audience, but it becomes increasingly harder to do so as the years go by and you need more things like old systems to do so. I enjoy taking all my oldest teams through each Elite 4 to get that region's ribbon.
|
# ? May 22, 2022 22:52 |
|
SyntheticPolygon posted:lmao at Digimon mmo. yep https://m.thisisgame.com/webzine/nboard/225/?n=125984?n=125984
|
# ? May 22, 2022 22:55 |
|
SyntheticPolygon posted:lmao at Digimon mmo. I mean, there was an MMO I think? But I've also literally heard nothing about it and am pretty sure it's been going around for 11 years. If anything, what Digimon's been up to lately has been an endless parade of mobile games, the long wait for Digimon Survive, and a press conference where the answer to every fan question was "boy I sure wish Bandai gave us money." Edit: poo poo, I forgot Super Rumble was a thing that existed. Seems to be another KMMO, but I'm pretty sure the one I'm talking about is one too. Man, Korea loves its MMOs, huh?
|
# ? May 22, 2022 22:56 |
|
I just discovered that you can in fact stun Alpha pokemon by throwing items at them. It's just more difficult than for non-alphas, I think. I had been under the impression that you couldn't do that.
|
# ? May 22, 2022 22:56 |
|
The Digimon MMO was a low-budget Korean-styled grindfest. It was loving awful and I hate that I waste the money in the cash shop to get a Veemon egg. indigi posted:the team who did BDSP wasn’t even Gamefreak so I’m not sure how much that impacts their workload if st all, it may as well have been a year off. but again that’s the solution - have separate teams working on separate releases, like Pixar, so the swish team wasn’t pressured to wrap up USUM and then didn’t have to worry about working on scarvi Honestly PLA released early enough in the year that I think it's safe to fudge the numbers and call it a 2021 release, but that's just me.
|
# ? May 22, 2022 22:57 |
|
The powerful set of Korean only Digimon mmos which were obviously the big thing in the Digimon ip. Like, Digimon was just never comparable to Pokemon in what its games were and what it was trying to do. As a brand the comparison is worthwhile but for the games themselves not really. I don't think there was ever anything in digimon about transferring mons between games and Digimon World, what you would probably consider the "main" videogame franchise for digimon, wasn't even about monster collecting. E: The Digimon Story games are closer to Pokemon in the monster collecting sense (at least probably i've only played the later ones so maybe they were different at the start too) but that franchise only started in the mid 2000s and only has a few titles. Though obviously Cyber Sleuth is better than most Pokemon games. SyntheticPolygon fucked around with this message at 23:02 on May 22, 2022 |
# ? May 22, 2022 22:59 |
|
SyntheticPolygon posted:The powerful set of Korean only Digimon mmos which were obviously the big thing in the Digimon ip. To a degree, that is kinda my point. Digimon never had the expectation of "put every Digimon in the series", or a super-strict main format for the games, and that means it isn't the end of the world if they leave something out. Pokemon's made that the core of its identity and has such a direct 1 to 1 format with its main games that "we can't put everyone in anymore" gets a "why not?" in response. And frankly, Gamefreak hasn't shown me "why not" yet. Cyber Sleuth is really good, but get ready for bad translations and, uh. Character Design.
|
# ? May 22, 2022 23:02 |
|
I believe Digimon was all about the titular monsters just fighting one another, no collecting involved. Also being just "data" in cyberspace or whatever means that they can go with the most outlandish designs possible and they don't have to worry about animation or censorship since it'll only show up in one game and never again. Heck, Bandai used to frequently have contests where children can design their own digimon and they'll be included in something official. Pokemon would never do this.
|
# ? May 22, 2022 23:04 |
|
Digimon also started as a Tamagotchi for boys and then built the multimedia empire with anime and manga before delving into games. Not to mention they're more willing to use alternate forms and recolors and call them a new mon. Pokemon having 800+ unique designs is kinda nuts even for a 25+ year old franchise.
|
# ? May 22, 2022 23:21 |
|
|
# ? Jun 6, 2024 07:11 |
|
No doubt. Is there any other franchise with Look At All The Monsters as a hook that doesn't have recolors? Monster Rancher practically makes recolors its brand with how subspecies work. Yokai Watch and Dragon Quest Monsters have plenty of recolors. Hell, the closest thing Pokemon did have to recolors, the genies, got people pissed off for existing!
|
# ? May 22, 2022 23:27 |