The Open World of Gen 9

[Dizzard]

Well, the official website confirmed it. You can visit any area in any order.

Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet | Official Website

Learn more about the open-world experience of Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet, including multiplayer gameplay.

scarletviolet.pokemon.com

They even upped the ante by not only letting you explore it wherever you want, but with up to 3 other players. Co-op was something that completely fell off my radar when speculating about these games (probably because I figured they would have other priorities) but I'm glad it's here.

Next big question: can we complete gyms (or whatever equivalent they may decide to include in this game instead) in any order? It's not confirmed yet, but at this point it's looking incredibly likely. I just can't see them letting you get to the entrance of the gym and them saying "sorry, but you need the ____ badge to challenge this gym". I thought they might confirm this today as well, but they may be saving that for a later reveal.

This could get me to finally add a new ice type Pokemon to my team. I pretty much never have ice types on my main team (even if I really like them, like Frosmoth) because they're never available early on. Also, just the idea of exploring the snowy area earlier on is appealing to me.

Although they could pull a Breath of the Wild and require the player to obtain warm clothes before they can go to the icy area....

 

[isrrael120]

"not in an order dictated by the story" would seem to indicate that we'd be able to challenge whichever, whenever. unless they're going on some kind of inane technicality with "story."

it may be possible, perhaps the school is for that purpose!

 

[Dizzard]

Yeah, following pokemon only really worked in 2D in my opinion. Seems 3D just doesn't mesh all that well with that mechanic.

I'm playing Digimon Cybersleuth right now and the digimon in that game follow along easily with the player character.

I don't understand why it's such a struggle for Pokemon games to have following Pokemon that can keep up. I think in this case, not having Pokemon fall behind is more important than realism, put some jets on Snom!

 

[LuxrayOfTheWild]

Things just got a whole lot more interesting now that we know the game is non-linear and we can play co-op. We don't know the extent of what we can do together, but just the fact that we can join each other on our journey together is just exciting.

 

[Emmy]

Can't say I'm super pumped for a non-linear story. Given my past experiences with Open World games I dread it will be less of a strong narrative and more "a bunch of stuff happens as you move from quest to quest".

 

[godiego]

Can't say I'm super pumped for a non-linear story. Given my past experiences with Open World games I dread it will be less of a strong narrative and more "a bunch of stuff happens as you move from quest to quest".

pokemon has never been that great with stories, so i'm intrigued to see how it will turn out with an intentionally lighter story.

 

[Norzan]

My biggest fear is that the balance is gonna be all out of wack. I mean, Gamefreak lately can't even balance a linear game in terms of level curve and difficulty, and open world games are notorious for having balancing issues (the fact you can go anywhere makes it really hard for the devs to make a proper difficulty curve).

This is the time to finally have proper difficulty options (with a good implementation unlike that BW2 fiasco) and allow the players to turn off the Exp. Share, so that the players can tweak the difficulty in several ways.

 

[godiego]

My biggest fear is that the balance is gonna be all out of wack. I mean, Gamefreak lately can't even balance a linear game in terms of level curve and difficulty, and open world games are notorious for having balancing issues (the fact you can go anywhere makes it really hard for the devs to make a proper difficulty curve).

This is the time to finally have proper difficulty options (with a good implementation unlike that BW2 fiasco) and allow the players to turn off the Exp. Share, so that the players can tweak the difficulty in several ways.

there are definitely some safeties that can be implemented that have already been experimented with some though. for instance, in SwSh, you cannot capture Pokemon above a certain level without a number of badges. PLA makes it so that the usual badge obedience restriction applies to every Pokemon, and not just traded.

as for the exp. share: at this point, i think at this point it's just going to become "party exp" in general. to keep wishing for a toggle-able version is just asking to be disappointed tbh.

 

[Nichole the Otter]

T

My biggest fear is that the balance is gonna be all out of wack. I mean, Gamefreak lately can't even balance a linear game in terms of level curve and difficulty, and open world games are notorious for having balancing issues (the fact you can go anywhere makes it really hard for the devs to make a proper difficulty curve).

This is the time to finally have proper difficulty options (with a good implementation unlike that BW2 fiasco) and allow the players to turn off the Exp. Share, so that the players can tweak the difficulty in several ways.

This was definitely my biggest concern with the completely non-linear gameplay. I imagine it means fighting Gyms (or equivalent means of progression) in any order, but it also raises questions of how the level curve will be handled. I do likely also agree that we’ll see the player not being able to catch Pokémon that are above the current obedience level like in Sw/Sh and LA.

 

[Bolt Strike]

This was definitely my biggest concern with the completely non-linear gameplay. I imagine it means fighting Gyms (or equivalent means of progression) in any order, but it also raises questions of how the level curve will be handled. I do likely also agree that we’ll see the player not being able to catch Pokémon that are above the current obedience level like in Sw/Sh and LA.

My guess is that it'll basically be like SwSh but instead of having fixed areas and gym orders, it'll scale based on the amount of badges you have. So basically, when you start the game out, most of the wild Pokemon (maybe some of the tougher evolved forms like the ones we see in SwSh and LA could be Lv. 30+ but most of them will probably be low level across the entire region) will be around Lv. 5-10 and the first gym leader (or other equivalent boss) you choose to fight would be around Lv. 10-15. Then after you beat that gym leader maybe the wild Pokemon in the whole region bump up to Lv. 10-15 and the second gym leader you choose to fight would be around Lv. 15-20. And it repeats like that throughout the whole game.

 

[Nichole the Otter]

My guess is that it'll basically be like SwSh but instead of having fixed areas and gym orders, it'll scale based on the amount of badges you have. So basically, when you start the game out, most of the wild Pokemon (maybe some of the tougher evolved forms like the ones we see in SwSh and LA could be Lv. 30+ but most of them will probably be low level across the entire region) will be around Lv. 5-10 and the first gym leader (or other equivalent boss) you choose to fight would be around Lv. 10-15. Then after you beat that gym leader maybe the wild Pokemon in the whole region bump up to Lv. 10-15 and the second gym leader you choose to fight would be around Lv. 15-20. And it repeats like that throughout the whole game.

As in like, the star ranking system in LA?

 

[Bolt Strike]

As in like, the star ranking system in LA?

Well the star ranking system didn't affect wild Pokemon levels IIRC, it just unlocked the next area and gave you a few perks. SwSh is a better example, you visited the Wild Area throughout the entire game and throughout the course of the game the wild Pokemon go from Lv.10ish to Lv. 60.

 

[Articfoxgamez]

I will add that it's not entirely out of the realm of possibility that while the story might not ever block you from exploring, it's entirely possible Pokemon levels might, so you can go to places ahead of time but only if your able to deal with stronger Pokemon while under leveled.
Not confirmed and would kind of defeat the point of open world in my opinion but also very much possible.

 

[Dizzard]

Can't say I'm super pumped for a non-linear story. Given my past experiences with Open World games I dread it will be less of a strong narrative and more "a bunch of stuff happens as you move from quest to quest".

I know legends arceus wasn't a full open world game, but I was pretty satisfied with the story we got for that game. It felt like one of the more engaging Pokemon stories. (by Pokemon standards anyway)

So I'm cautiously optimistic for Scarlet/Violet, although I'm not expecting too much either.

 

[Daren]

I will add that it's not entirely out of the realm of possibility that while the story might not ever block you from exploring, it's entirely possible Pokemon levels might, so you can go to places ahead of time but only if your able to deal with stronger Pokemon while under leveled.
Not confirmed and would kind of defeat the point of open world in my opinion but also very much possible.

That is not too rare, though; even in Breath of the Wild some parts of the map have stronger and better equipped enemies (going into Hyrule Castle very early on is dangerous), and a lot of older non-linear games either didn't scale at all or only scaled some things.

*

About the story--I'm gonna level Legends was the only mainline Pokémon game where I cared at all about the story (though I didn't play gen 5) so I'm not really concerned about that.
Edit: But I don't really think they'll need to change the story that much, to be fair. A lot of the story events in Pokémon games could be placed anywhere and for those that can't telling someone to "go to location X" is common in open games.

 

[Poke Dragon]

From Sun and Moon onwards, there was an indication of where to go next in the story, so even if you forgot, you can take a quick look at somewhere where they tell you to go without being hopelessly lost.

Giving indications to where the player should go next is a must in open-world games so there is some sort of safety net for the player to lean into just in case he forgets due to taking a break. PLA did this perfectly since even the sidequests with more than one part were updated accordingly. And no, this doesn't harm exploration whatsoever.

 

[Greninjaman]

Do you guys think we might not be able to go anywhere at first before doing the tutorial (after which we are free to roam around)?

 

[Emmy]

Do you guys think we might not be able to go anywhere at first before doing the tutorial (after which we are free to roam around)?

Feels rather obvious, since we've had that sorta thing since Gen 1 with the Player not being able to leave the starting town until they've completed the beginning story stuff and gotten their first Pokémon.

 

[isrrael120]

Do you guys think we might not be able to go anywhere at first before doing the tutorial (after which we are free to roam around)?

it's likely to happen!

 

[BigBadButterfree]

Ngl it would be pretty rad (and very much unlike Pokemon) if they didn't even make you go through a tutorial. You start the game, leave your house, and can choose to go anywhere and get wrecked by wild Pokemon if you so choose. Who knows, maybe there could even be some obscure way you could obtain a PokeBall and catch something other than the starter as your first Pokemon.

Would never happen, but it's fun to dream.