SwSh Sword & Shield: Expansion Pass

[prog rocker]

This was actually the most infuriating battle I've ever experienced. Lillie went deadweight, and then I somehow ended up in a position where Faba would use (and hit!) Hypnosis on me every turn. I'd use and Awakening, he'd use Hypnosis. I'd try sitting it out, get one hit in, then get Hypnosised again. This went on for at least another 15 minutes.

Not only that, but from what I remember, the Employee can buff both himself and Faba. Yay...

EDIT: Okay, I might be really wrong about what I said here, but I feel I want to suppress that battle from memory.

 

[Grass Type Gardenia]

Question: Should we have something for the Champions to each Region? Something like The Undefeatable Six? Second Champions, Red and Blue of course don't count for this as this is based on Anime and lore.

Lance with Dragonite of Kanto and Johto
Steven with Metagross of Hoenn
Cynthia with Garchomp of Sinnoh
Alder with Volcarona of Unova
Diantha with Gardevoir of Kalos
Leon with Charizard of Galar

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

Question: Should we have something for the Champions to each Region? Something like The Undefeatable Six? Second Champions, Red and Blue of course don't count for this as this is based on Anime and lore.

Lance with Dragonite of Kanto and Johto
Steven with Metagross of Hoenn
Cynthia with Garchomp of Sinnoh
Alder with Volcarona of Unova
Diantha with Gardevoir of Kalos
Leon with Charizard of Galar

1. Way too random.
2. Why would the games base their champions on the anime? The latest champions would be the canon ones for the games.
3. No Alola?

Pretty unlikely, it’s pretty clear all of them are defeatable and there’s no reason for such a group to exist in the games.

 

[TdDBergamo96]

Question: Should we have something for the Champions to each Region? Something like The Undefeatable Six? Second Champions, Red and Blue of course don't count for this as this is based on Anime and lore.

Lance with Dragonite of Kanto and Johto
Steven with Metagross of Hoenn
Cynthia with Garchomp of Sinnoh
Alder with Volcarona of Unova
Diantha with Gardevoir of Kalos
Leon with Charizard of Galar

Neat concept

I would much rather have different region tournaments.

Like the galar region finals

Have 4 people made up of Gym leaders / or / members of that regions elite 4 and then have the champion battle.

Kanto could be

Brock, Lt surge, Sabrina, Blaine and finally a champion battle against Lance

So on and so on

 

[Grass Type Gardenia]

1. Way too random.
2. Why would the games base their champions on the anime? The latest champions would be the canon ones for the games.
3. No Alola?

Pretty unlikely, it’s pretty clear all of them are defeatable and there’s no reason for such a group to exist in the games.

Not much of anime, it's just established Champions. Also I'm unsure why Mustard is classified as a Champion as if you face him again, since he was a former Champion. Also, Alola has no properly established Champion.

 

[Ambrose7]

So the twilight wings episode was short and sweet. I wonder if some characters which'll be explored there might appear in the expansion packs.

 

[Phosphene]

Question: Should we have something for the Champions to each Region? Something like The Undefeatable Six? Second Champions, Red and Blue of course don't count for this as this is based on Anime and lore.

Lance with Dragonite of Kanto and Johto
Steven with Metagross of Hoenn
Cynthia with Garchomp of Sinnoh
Alder with Volcarona of Unova
Diantha with Gardevoir of Kalos
Leon with Charizard of Galar

>Undefeatable Six
>All of them have been defeated at some point

Considering how Leon-the-unbeatable-champion was handled in SwSh, I'm not too keen on a whole group of supposedly unbeatable characters. Leon being unbeatable didn't make him seem terrifyingly powerful, it made the rest of the league, especially Raihan, look like fools in my opinion. While Leon did defeat three of my Pokemon, he never gave me the kind of trouble that has apparently made Raihan lose ten times. Nothing suggests he's unbeatable outside of the dialogue so it all falls apart when I sweep almost all of his team with a Sandaconda. I figure the same would apply to a league of unbeatable characters unless they're actually designed to be very difficult. And even then I'm still not a fan of putting characters on pedestals.

 

[Knightwolf09]

>Undefeatable Six
>All of them have been defeated at some point

Considering how Leon-the-unbeatable-champion was handled in SwSh, I'm not too keen on a whole group of supposedly unbeatable characters. Leon being unbeatable didn't make him seem terrifyingly powerful, it made the rest of the league, especially Raihan, look like fools in my opinion. While Leon did defeat three of my Pokemon, he never gave me the kind of trouble that has apparently made Raihan lose ten times. Nothing suggests he's unbeatable outside of the dialogue so it all falls apart when I sweep almost all of his team with a Sandaconda. I figure the same would apply to a league of unbeatable characters unless they're actually designed to be very difficult. And even then I'm still not a fan of putting characters on pedestals.

If he literally lost to no trainer except you, then yes that's kinda logical he was unbeatable till now

 

[Daren]

Considering how Leon-the-unbeatable-champion was handled in SwSh, I'm not too keen on a whole group of supposedly unbeatable characters. Leon being unbeatable didn't make him seem terrifyingly powerful, it made the rest of the league, especially Raihan, look like fools in my opinion. While Leon did defeat three of my Pokemon, he never gave me the kind of trouble that has apparently made Raihan lose ten times. Nothing suggests he's unbeatable outside of the dialogue so it all falls apart when I sweep almost all of his team with a Sandaconda. I figure the same would apply to a league of unbeatable characters unless they're actually designed to be very difficult. And even then I'm still not a fan of putting characters on pedestals.

I have to disagree with this. Previous champions who were part of the main story instead of "superbosses" were only a few levels higher than the Elite Four member before them.
Leon?
His ace is 10 levels above Raihan's.

I absolutely buy Leon being undefeated--nobody else we see in the main story is even close to his party in levels.

 

[Phosphene]

I have to disagree with this. Previous champions who were part of the main story instead of "superbosses" were only a few levels higher than the Elite Four member before them.
Leon?
His ace is 10 levels above Raihan's.

I absolutely buy Leon being undefeated--nobody else we see in the main story is even close to his party in levels.

Leon's team being several levels higher than Raihan's still doesn't make him seem unbeatable or threatening in my opinion. It just shows that he relies on higher stats rather than smarts, strategy, skill, experience, etc. to beat his opponents. Anyone can curbstomp their opponents if they have the level advantage. Youngster Joey with his six Rattata could beat Leon if they were all level 100. Also, what's stopping Raihan from using a higher level team? How do we even know if Raihan uses the same team he uses to fight the player? If I remember correctly, you can access the PC in between his fight and Leon's.

The way the game sets up Leon implies that he has more than just the level advantage on his side. I figure the same thing would occur with an unbeatable league of trainers, hence my issue with it.

 

[Esserise]

power levels are bullshit

I think reading into those as an explanation for things is only going to cause headaches.

Implicitly, we're supposed to assume that all the high-profile Trainers are expert tacticians and masters of the field. But the actual AI is never going to give us that. Like, Kabu is supposedly some huuuuuge roadblock for people taking on the Gym Challenge, but all I did to beat him was employ simple type advantages... -laughs in Carkol-

 

[AngryBinacle]

power levels are bullshit

I think reading into those as an explanation for things is only going to cause headaches.

Implicitly, we're supposed to assume that all the high-profile Trainers are expert tacticians and masters of the field. But the actual AI is never going to give us that. Like, Kabu is supposedly some huuuuuge roadblock for people taking on the Gym Challenge, but all I did to beat him was employ simple type advantages...

Yeah, that can of worms should stay closed.

Anyway, with a lack of anything else to discuss, when do you guys think will we see some more info? My guess in march, but I hope someone else has a more positive analysis.

 

[Daren]

Leon's team being several levels higher than Raihan's still doesn't make him seem unbeatable or threatening in my opinion. It just shows that he relies on higher stats rather than smarts, strategy, skill, experience, etc. to beat his opponents. Anyone can curbstomp their opponents if they have the level advantage. Youngster Joey with his six Rattata could beat Leon if they were all level 100.

Thing is Youngster Joey doesn't have a bunch of level 100 Rattata or he'd be the champion; better stat and levels than the other guys is how every NPC trainer in the story works throughout Pokémon history. A few occasionally uses tricks like Raihan's weather team but that's on top of running a higher level team than the previous boss. Leon at least tried to use Aegislash properly when I fought him by alternating forms, which is more than most of the AI enemies in this game can manage--the one I had trouble buying was Hop, who I found even easier than the Gym Leaders but he was apparently beating them without much trouble up to Kabu.

Leon is really no different from how the final boss in other RPGs get hyped up than are simply somewhat higher numbers than the previous boss.

Also, what's stopping Raihan from using a higher level team? How do we even know if Raihan uses the same team he uses to fight the player? If I remember correctly, you can access the PC in between his fight and Leon's.

Is there any reason to think Raihan has a higher level team he could use against Leon? They seem to use weaker parties for the Gym Challenge but I doubt they do for the tournament when they're hoping to win and become the next champion.

Like, Kabu is supposedly some huuuuuge roadblock for people taking on the Gym Challenge, but all I did to beat him was employ simple type advantages... -laughs in Carkol-

See, I buy Kabu, too, from a story perspective; judging from what we see most trainers in Galar are type specialists (look at the other Gym Challengers in the post game, for instance) so most don't have a type advantage against him, and Kabu is the first leader with a team that's all fully evolved. I buy a lot of people don't get past him even if he's easy for the player.

What this all boils down to; Pokémon main stories are easy, and always have been. It's why we never see a champion with a really good strategy who makes good use of switching or similar tactics.

 

[TdDBergamo96]

Ill stand by my opinion that the next news drop for the isle of armor will be around the end of February / Pokemon day.

No better time to announce more about the upcoming project and at the same time reveal more info on Gmax Venusaur and Gmax Blastoise then a day about Pokemon.

 

[Daren]

Ill stand by my opinion that the next news drop for the isle of armor will be around the end of February / Pokemon day.

No better time to announce more about the upcoming project and at the same time reveal more info on Gmax Venusaur and Gmax Blastoise then a day about Pokemon.

I hope so. I'd like a steady release of details on what the DLC will include.

 

[Knightwolf09]

I hope so. I'd like a steady release of details on what the DLC will include.

I mostly want to know what unseen fist as well as the new gmax moves can do. Venusaur and Blastoise are easy to guess though.

 

[Esserise]

See, I buy Kabu, too, from a story perspective; judging from what we see most trainers in Galar are type specialists (look at the other Gym Challengers in the post game, for instance) so most don't have a type advantage against him, and Kabu is the first leader with a team that's all fully evolved. I buy a lot of people don't get past him even if he's easy for the player.

From a story perspective, I don’t really buy the idea of type specialists in the first place. For Gym Leaders, sure, because it’s their job to teach Trainers the fundamentals, but as for the Gym Challengers, restricting yourself to a single type is an absolutely egregious tactical fault that should definitely have been beaten out of them by the time they reach the third Gym (even moreso when the area before a Gym usually offers Pokémon of advantageous types), and so I can only assume that they don’t actually care about winning the Gym Challenge all that much and aren’t taking their careers seriously. You could maybe say that one of them here or there are subjecting themselves to a monotype challenge, or maybe is practicing to become a Gym Leader themselves, but would that really be the case for all of them (except conspicuously the player and Hop)?

 

[prog rocker]

power levels are bullshit

I think reading into those as an explanation for things is only going to cause headaches.

God, you're reminding me of the whole "X character has Y bounty, therefore he's stronger" thing that happens in One Piece. Doesn't help that the author himself showed that it wasn't like that since the start, but people keep mentioning that.

From a story perspective, I don’t really buy the idea of type specialists in the first place. For Gym Leaders, sure, because it’s their job to teach Trainers the fundamentals, but as for the Gym Challengers, restricting yourself to a single type is an absolutely egregious tactical fault that should definitely have been beaten out of them by the time they reach the third Gym (even moreso when the area before a Gym usually offers Pokémon of advantageous types), and so I can only assume that they don’t actually care about winning the Gym Challenge all that much and aren’t taking their careers seriously. You could maybe say that one of them here or there are subjecting themselves to a monotype challenge, or maybe is practicing to become a Gym Leader themselves, but would that really be the case for all of them (except conspicuously the player and Hop)?

The only thing I can think about is both "only that type appeals them" and "gameplay and story segregation".

 

[Knightwolf09]

From a story perspective, I don’t really buy the idea of type specialists in the first place. For Gym Leaders, sure, because it’s their job to teach Trainers the fundamentals, but as for the Gym Challengers, restricting yourself to a single type is an absolutely egregious tactical fault that should definitely have been beaten out of them by the time they reach the third Gym (even moreso when the area before a Gym usually offers Pokémon of advantageous types), and so I can only assume that they don’t actually care about winning the Gym Challenge all that much and aren’t taking their careers seriously. You could maybe say that one of them here or there are subjecting themselves to a monotype challenge, or maybe is practicing to become a Gym Leader themselves, but would that really be the case for all of them (except conspicuously the player and Hop)?

I mean, they're called type "specialists" for a reason. Whether it's their favorite types or what they're simply masters in, they fight using what they're best at.

 

[Esserise]

I mean, they're called type "specialists" for a reason. Whether it's their favorite types or what they're simply masters in, they fight using what they're best at.

But I’m talking about the Gym Challengers, most of whom seem to be novices.