Official Pre-Pokémon Sword & Pokémon Shield Speculation & Leaks thread

[StephenNParker]

Every time I think about a Pokémon Switch game I always picture it more like Xenoblade, not BOTW. BOTW is not really an RPG, its more an action adventure sandbox game, and Xenoblade is a pure JRPG with real time battles in the overworld, something that would actually fit Pokémon really well, and get it closer to the anime in terms of battling.

I finally have some one share the same opinion with me about Pokemon maybe like Xenoblade lol you can almost bring everything of xeno to Pokemon and it still work

 

[LSD Jellyfish]

The reason why Pokémon can’t be openworld, or open region, is that unless gamefreak heavily mechanically alters the leveling system(which in turn would modify a lot of poke evolutions and learn sets) the game would have really bad balancing.

If you started in one region or area and just completed it, you’d wind up going to another area and just curb stomping it. It almost happens in Kanto in HGSS, but they were smart to up the levels on the gym leaders and still then....

You could just make areas have higher and higher level Pokémon, but then you run the risk of reaching the level cap in terms of difficulty, and it’d be weird to see level 78 zigzagoob in the wild.

 

[TheElderKing]

The reason why Pokémon can’t be openworld, or open region, is that unless gamefreak heavily mechanically alters the leveling system(which in turn would modify a lot of poke evolutions and learn sets) the game would have really bad balancing.

If you started in one region or area and just completed it, you’d wind up going to another area and just curb stomping it. It almost happens in Kanto in HGSS, but they were smart to up the levels on the gym leaders and still then....

You could just make areas have higher and higher level Pokémon, but then you run the risk of reaching the level cap in terms of difficulty, and it’d be weird to see level 78 zigzagoob in the wild.

A way to solve this would be to slow down levelling.

But I don’t think they’d go that way anyway. They might just increase the size of their world, but not so much that it’d cause those problems.

As someone said before, a middle ground. Which, in truth, is what many developers should do I instead of making their games too big.

 

[goncalomgs]

The reason why Pokémon can’t be openworld, or open region, is that unless gamefreak heavily mechanically alters the leveling system(which in turn would modify a lot of poke evolutions and learn sets) the game would have really bad balancing.

If you started in one region or area and just completed it, you’d wind up going to another area and just curb stomping it. It almost happens in Kanto in HGSS, but they were smart to up the levels on the gym leaders and still then....

You could just make areas have higher and higher level Pokémon, but then you run the risk of reaching the level cap in terms of difficulty, and it’d be weird to see level 78 zigzagoob in the wild.

There could still be the pre-determined levels like we have now for wild Pokémon, I don't think that would need to change at all, and I honestly never liked the idea of having the game rising levels based on our team's level, I don't thing its a doable thing at all and like you said it would be weird and ruin immersion to have a Zigzagoon almost level 100.

 

[Thanos]

Shame they are probably fake

The 4chan artist that created this even said it was fake.

 

[LSD Jellyfish]

Slowing down leveling would actually be a great solution, but then you’d still have to go back and change all the levels specific Pokémon evolve at. Like instead of a starter evolving at level 16, make it level 10 or something.

The other problem is that for open world games, there needs to be difficulty balancing in terms of where you go generally. Most open world games have scaled enemies (a concept I don’t like). Pokémon could do that, but most certainly you could cheese things.

I don’t think Pokémon could ever be truly open world, but I could see it playing like Dark Souls (difficulty curve wise). A lot of dark souls is actually available from the beginning, and there’s many different progression paths, that ultimately lead to the same ending. The player has the ability to go where they want, but that doesn’t mean the game is going to be easy, or modify itself to meet where the player is at.

 

[BobbyBobbertbobbertson]

Guys, what if the upcoming Pokemon has

...

Loot Boxes?? Probably all the UI people they are looking for hire is just to make an interface for the box opening animation...

 

[dvor]

Guys, what if the upcoming Pokemon has

...

Loot Boxes?? Probably all the UI people they are looking for hire is just to make an interface for the box opening animation...

The fans will burn game freak office

 

[TheElderKing]

Guys, what if the upcoming Pokemon has

...

Loot Boxes?? Probably all the UI people they are looking for hire is just to make an interface for the box opening animation...

I’d enjoy the sh*tstorm that would invade the net, then.

Seriously, it’d be really, really bad.

 

[SodiumChloride]

We truly don't really know how long they've been working on this game, and we know next to nothing about the games other than unconfirmed "titles" and that it's for the Switch. Please stop jumping to conclusions, and please stop saying it needs to be Zelda in order to please fans.

With GO is the titles, I think it is safe to assume it started development after go became a hit, so july 2016

 

[Team Gaara]

Every time I think about a Pokémon Switch game I always picture it more like Xenoblade, not BOTW. BOTW is not really an RPG, its more an action adventure sandbox game, and Xenoblade is a pure JRPG with real time battles in the overworld, something that would actually fit Pokémon really well, and get it closer to the anime in terms of battling.

Graphically, it's not really going to match up to Xenoblade either, though~

 

[goncalomgs]

Graphically, it's not really going to match up to Xenoblade either, though~

Unfortunately it won't.

 

[TheElderKing]

While graphics on the same level of XC2 would be great, they’re not necessary, although I do expecting improvements compared to USUM.

 

[Team Gaara]

Agreed, those graphics are gorgeous but I don't think it's necessary for Pokemon. A game can look good without having to surpass another~ And Pokemon generally improve from console to console so I'm expecting it to be good~

 

[Scarftail]

It's disappointing to see people act so entitled when it comes to this new Switch game. Game Freak is not making the game just for you, but for millions upon millions of other Pokémon fans as well.

I disagree that it's entitlement to criticize the fact that this game might be delaying the next generation by two and a half years even though a new console launched a year ago.

 

[Starchie's Here!]

The other problem is that for open world games, there needs to be difficulty balancing in terms of where you go generally. Most open world games have scaled enemies (a concept I don’t like). Pokémon could do that, but most certainly you could cheese things.

I don’t think Pokémon could ever be truly open world....

Well, I've thought about that, and the way I see it, an open world experience could be done, if only to improve the kinda linear stuff we have to play wth pokemon usually. So, I see a region with 8 gyms, and a league, and an evil team like usual, but with expanded routes like an open world game. Here's how it'd be different though:

A) You could travel anywhere in a region you wanted to, across any cities and routes, without having your progress stopped, y'know? No more weird blockades, cuz a pokemon region is a place where people and pokemon live, and they should be able to travel around realistically for pokemon to grow as a franchise. The only exceptions to this would be if you need to travel by sea or air, which would require buying a ticket or a boat. If you have the money, though, you can do it. It's realistic!

B) No more traveling through deep grass to go from place to place. That's not safe for people who don't have pokemon to go around, so do other folks just stay in their little cities forever, or take their chances? That's another good bit of world building, I mean traveling down roads and fields would still be involving with trainers and all, and you could go off the main road to explore the routes more thoroughly, through woods, into caves, over mountains, to beaches, etc. That's how you find rare pokemon, exploring! Not just walking down the main road to the next town, and no more having to go through crazy obstacles in a living, breatheing place. Talking geographics, you might still need to sometimes go through passes and things like that, but there's still going to be a main road and all. Why wouldn't there be, y'know?

C) Trainers would be all over, like usuall, but no more of that "meet the eyes forced to fight stuff", I mean that should be illegal! How could you force someone to do sometning just because they have pokemon? What about kids, the elderly, and folks just going from place to place, who just happen to have pokemon for fun or protection? Instead, maybe you'd approach them and they'd ask to challenge them. Maybe some trainer's eyes meet with you, and ask you to battle, but you can decline. I think this is important for open world exploration to work, and also to add more realism. The one exception to this should be the evil teams, or bad trainers. They threaten a fight, and you can't refuse because their bad guys, you know? I guess if you walk into a gym wth the clear intention of earning a badge, you also couldn't refuse being challenged inside of the gym. Maybe rival battles would also be unavoidable, but only if they tie into the story?

D) Another thing about trainers, too, is that I think an open world experience needs trainers of mixed strength on every route for variety and general level grinding. okay, so you start out with a level 5 starter, and you go to any route you want, not worrying about deep grass or trainers, which are now optional. The way I see it, the levels of the wild pokemon would be the best if tied to gym completion and different bioms or grass patches on each route. So let's say whichever gym leader you fight first will have a level 14 pokemon as their strongest? Then no wild pokemon will be over like level 10 until you get your first badge. So some grass patches or particualr biomes on each route will have level say, level 2-5 pokemon, and maybe some have level 6-8 pokemon, and the strongest patches will have level 8-10, maybe. So, maybe every patch or area could have a warning sign indicating the strength of this area's pokemon, from 1-8 (to add a new leveled batch to each route upon completing a gym). Or, the pokedex could have a function where it measures the strength of individual area's pokemon. Something could work.

E) So, you beat a gym, and now the next gym's strongest pokemon will be, say, level 18, and so stronger leveled pokemon will be introduced to each of the biomes or grass patches. But how then would you level weaker pokemon later on n the game? The way I see it, you wouldn't level scale for wild pokemon, since each route/area is organized with 8 or so (at least 8 levels to match the gyms) different mini areas with different pokemon strength levels. You beat the first gym, and 1 type of patch or subarea keeps the weaker pokemon levels (say the easiest ones to get to?), from 2-10 (level 1 area). The other 7 patches (or types/areas), get gradually stronger levels to help you progress in the game to battle the next gym. So say now up to 15 or so. That happens for every gym you beat, with another type of patch keeping the levels from before the second gym battle (level 2 area), and each gym now scaling up to the current level, somewhere in the 20's for the third gym battle. Also, as the level raises in individual mini areas, new evolutions emerge of pokemon you ran into before (since their level has increased). This lets you catch both evolved and unevolved pokemon in every area of the game, by going to the right sub areas/ grass patches on a route. All that stuff would give us an easy way to access any gym or area of the game, and be able to train any level of pokemon in any place, so lots of freedom there.

F) So about the trainers, it'd be realistic with the freedom this region has (level gaining in rpgs is primarily showing off gaining experience and tactics, as opposed to literally gaining power, after all) for there to be strong tariners and weak trainers in every route or area. This shows that they started their journies in different places, and allows you to travel anywhere in the region and still find your level of challenge, which really drives the freedom thing home, you know? Here's how I see it- you talk to a trainer, and it show how many pokemon they have up to six, and what their challenge rating is, from 1 to 9. A challenge rating 1 trainer is a good match for people with no badges (so their max level pokemon would be under level 14 or whatever), while a challenge level 9 opponent would be like the strongest under the elit four, so like a victory road trainer. No scaling necessary! This also let's casual players maybe choose to battle a trainer with only 3 pokemon, and someone else battle a lot of trainers with six. About gym leaders though, is I think however many pokemon you bring with you to the fight, the gym leader also has for the fight. This allows it to be not only more challenging, but also to show the credibility of a gym challenge. Their really official! Any way, they should never have fewer than three, though, even if you bring one or two. So, 3-6 (to match up to your number).

G) One last thing is that the only places barred to you should be private property of corporations or bad guy hide outs or whatever. An exclusive club or a restricted laboratory should require getting permission or a key item to go into. This let's us separate the story from the gym quest, and all that stuff I talked about before from routes to trainers to gyms, has no bearing on the story. You don't even need to do it at all! More freedom for the open world experience, where your progress isn't blocked at all. Choose to do the story? Than you need to get key items and solve puzzles or whatever. Each little part of the story, organized by dungeon or location, would need to match the difficulty levels of each gym scale, so I guess the story would be really easy to you or really hard, depending on when you decided to do it. Maybe if you wait til post champion the enemies will be stronger. I guess the fuzziest thing here is how the story parts would work, but I say the easiest way would be to have 8 main dungeons/confrontations, and to have each one match the challenge level of each of the 8 gyms (though the order of the gyms is totally up to you, thanks to the system I proposed). Choosing whether or not to do the story adds freedom, too.

Anyway, Those are just my thoughts. It makes sense to me, and even though the grass isn't in the way, the routes have a fast track, and challenges aren't being unavoidable unless you fight bad guys, the game isn't any easier, as you still need to train just as much as usual to do the gym battles and stuff. You just get to choose how to do it, where to do it first, and which pokemon to use (barring rare ones like legendaries) in any order. So in this way, the open world model could work, I guess.

Gosh, this was way longer than I thought it would be! Sorry, folks. Anyway, all that may seem abit to neat and organized, but I think to both have an open world game and a true pokemon experience, this model works pretty good. Also, imagine challenging, willingly, a strong trainer on any given route knowing you probably couldn't win. That would be kind of silly, but it sounds exciting, you know? With optional battles and challenge ratings, it's possible.

 

[SodiumChloride]

More leaks

 

[Plubio]

Not this again : (

 

[Lillie Blossoms]

More leaksView attachment 110320

1 gym leader comes to mind and that is Blaine getting changed maybe Blue as well maybe, Janine was the new one that replace her father Koga, the rest are iconic and popular to change.

 

[Poke Dragon]

Why the "Pokeball missing" thing is brought up again? It's a mechanic that doesn't belong in the games.