Pokemon Scarlet and Violet

[pinetree]

Arceus is not open world though? (Thankfully.)

[Mattias]

Isn't it? Large revisitable open areas with multiple quests and points of interest is pretty open world to be.

[pinetree]

I mean, there's no interconnectedness at all and you can't actually explore beyond what the story allows you to. You don't travel between different locales in a world map, you use menus to go between a central hub and a few different stages with large maps.

[Skull]

Speaking of "Open World", another curiosity I have is how the whole Three Storylines thing is going to work. Say hypothetically that they are the Gym Challenge (confirmed), the Evil Team and the Legendary Plot-line. If I chose to get the familiar Gym Challenge out of the way, would that mean I would then start fighting scrubs from the Evil Team who are at LV20 with my LV80 Starter?

[Laserman]

I'd hope not.

[Ismail2002]

Speaking of "Open World", another curiosity I have is how the whole Three Storylines thing is going to work. Say hypothetically that they are the Gym Challenge (confirmed), the Evil Team and the Legendary Plot-line. If I chose to get the familiar Gym Challenge out of the way, would that mean I would then start fighting scrubs from the Evil Team who are at LV20 with my LV80 Starter?

I think is taking a bit of inspiration from the anime where the main cast of three have wildly different goals. Like in Gen 3, 4, and 6 anime the main girl always is a contest girl. The other two stories would be something similar. Though from what I can see in the trailers one would have to do with racing as was shown by the racing flags that were prominently shown and another would have something to be with archeological research with the ancient towers also being prominently shown in the trailers

[Skull]

By the by, in regards to Koraidon's "wheels", it looks like it'll be a case of it looking fine when its just chillin' in its natural form, but when he changes into his "ride on" form it causes the dewlap in his throat (and groin) to expand to look much more like a tyre.

What I mean by "normal form"

[pinetree]

Speaking of "Open World", another curiosity I have is how the whole Three Storylines thing is going to work. Say hypothetically that they are the Gym Challenge (confirmed), the Evil Team and the Legendary Plot-line. If I chose to get the familiar Gym Challenge out of the way, would that mean I would then start fighting scrubs from the Evil Team who are at LV20 with my LV80 Starter?

Yeah, I'm already expecting the ideal experience to be playing each story individually with separate pokemon teams.

[TomPen94]

Breed a different starter for each one.

[Deathhappens]

I liked the "open world RPG, a first for Pokemon" line. Way to throw Arceus under the bus. Then back over it a few times just to be sure.

I also kind of love the stupid that comes from having a motorcycle pokemon who just runs. Combine that with Professor Ayla and I know which I'll get, if I pick up this gen.

Eh, Arceus is only sort of open world.

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Speaking of "Open World", another curiosity I have is how the whole Three Storylines thing is going to work. Say hypothetically that they are the Gym Challenge (confirmed), the Evil Team and the Legendary Plot-line. If I chose to get the familiar Gym Challenge out of the way, would that mean I would then start fighting scrubs from the Evil Team who are at LV20 with my LV80 Starter?

I'm going to assume there's intersection points between the three storylines (and this being Pokemon, at least one or two stupid arbitrary barriers like "can't enter this city until you have this level Pokemon" or equivalent) to keep you from doing exactly that. Which means the "choose your own storyline" thing is kinda moot, but it's more in line with what you'd expect from a mainline game and at least doesn't overcomplicate the plot by having you go through gym challenges and saving the world at the same time (like most mainline games).

[GDB]

Speaking of "Open World", another curiosity I have is how the whole Three Storylines thing is going to work. Say hypothetically that they are the Gym Challenge (confirmed), the Evil Team and the Legendary Plot-line. If I chose to get the familiar Gym Challenge out of the way, would that mean I would then start fighting scrubs from the Evil Team who are at LV20 with my LV80 Starter?

Most likely, since they couldn't even be assed to make the gyms scale.

[Deathhappens]

I said it before and I'll say it again, nothing kills challenge in a game as fast as level scaling.

[bassgs435]

I mean, the way they're doing it people can have some challenge by doing the higher lvl stuff first. Level scaling as I understand it makes challenege impossible by design, as no matter what order you follow the levels will be the same (low to high) and you can't chase higher level opponets with your low level starting stuff, as if you're low leveled, so are the enemies

[GDB]

I said it before and I'll say it again, nothing kills challenge in a game as fast as level scaling.

Not like grinding levels as basically everyone does is in Pokemon and other similar games is exactly challenging.

I mean, the way they're doing it people can have some challenge by doing the higher lvl stuff first. Level scaling as I understand it makes challenege impossible by design, as no matter what order you follow the levels will be the same (low to high) and you can't chase higher level opponets with your low level starting stuff, as if you're low leveled, so are the enemies

Scaling can, and often does, have a floor to keep people from trying to cheese otherwise challenging content by going to it at low levels.

[Spinach]

While the comparison doesn't really have merit and I'm sure people have gotten tired to death of it, the freedom of going up against an impossible boss right from the get go is very Dark Souls-y.

Well, no, that's not Dark Souls-y at all.

Or perhaps Elden Ring-y

A little more correct.

I said it before and I'll say it again, nothing kills challenge in a game as fast as level scaling.

Ehh. This conversation will already be dumb because it's about challenge in a mainline Pokemon game, but if the only thing sustaining your "challenge" was stat disparities, then there was never a real challenge in the first place.

[Mattias]

Aren't RPG bosses just puzzles anyways? They always have some gimmick you have to figure out, rather than just power leveling and sweeping. It's really the only thing that separates them from generic random battles.

[TomPen94]

Yes but look at Pokémon, been here 26 years and has had very little of that. I guess the Totem Pokémon can qualify for that, and even they fall into the Type effectiveness + power leveling strategy. Eternatus was basically a scripted fight and the Dynamax raids only added the stupid shields that you need to whack a few times. Other than those, the "boss fights" where you tend to think the most are Legendary Pokémon that you want to catch.
Though I reckon gimmicks within battles are not really needed in Pokémon, it's a very simple but very effective battle system at its core. That battle system has been the thing to carry this franchise since the start. What we really need is another Cynthia, someone with a team balanced enough that even as an AI trainer they can give you a good challenge.

(Though maybe PLA has added that, haven't yet finished cuz I take 3 hours to move 100 meters in that game... I get distracted very easily by wandering Pokémon, also TM stuff)

[pinetree]

PLA actually does have a boss with a gimmick and it's the best one in the franchise.
It's not balanced at all though, but that's more on PLA battle system than the boss itself. Still, super fun either way.

[Mattias]

I always saw Gyms as having 2 gimmicks, the typing and the TM. Most early game gyms don't have much variation in type, but some of the later ones really like to throw a double type in there that's immune to the normal weakness. It's never much of a hassle if you've got a good spread of types and attacks but it's there. Then you get ones like Whitney in GS where the gimmick is burst down this Milktank before it party wipes you.

It's not Persona levels of 'the boss alternates between absorbing and taking double damage whenever add X is on the field', but it's still something more than Youngster Joey and his Caterpie.

[Deathhappens]

Well, no, that's not Dark Souls-y at all.

What, y'all never went to the Catacombs or New Londo fresh off the Asylum and cursed every aspect of your miserable existence before? (Also got for real cursed so you had to do Undead Parish at half HP?)

A little more correct.



Ehh. This conversation will already be dumb because it's about challenge in a mainline Pokemon game, but if the only thing sustaining your "challenge" was stat disparities, then there was never a real challenge in the first place.

I mean, it's a turn based RPG, stat disparities and gimmicks are the only things that COULD be providing a challenge and Pokemon is, after all, a children's game so they generally avoid gimmicks.

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Anyway, my point isn't that Pokemon is or ever was "hard" without level scaling, it's more that adding level scaling would level (heh) every possible curve in difficulty and leave you in fights where you pretty much only ever press Attack.