Topic: Nintendo Switch --OT--

@Ralizah lol I didn’t quite know what to make of the photo of him with the women and the babies, but having looked into it, that’s pretty funny. Fair play to him, his life must have been pure hell frankly but he seemed to take it all on the chin during the game! I am assuming Nia is Mio’s mum, though not sure how all that was supposed to play out frankly. Maybe I’ll find out more as I carry on with the Hero Quests. Enjoying having her back in the party as a Hero, though.

New Pokemon S/V update is apparently already smoothing out some of the game's rougher patches in terms of performance. The issues in these games usually go unresolved, so it's promising to see improvements happening so soon.

@Ralizah I have a feeling that my sister might be getting me Violet for Christmas so hopefully it’s got a little less giant terrifying humans and awooga eyes by then 😂

@nessisonett

Haven't run into any of the hilarious looking bugs in this game yet.

Plenty of terrifying looking NPCs, though

20 hours into Pokémon Violet now and my first major criticism is the lack of level scaling. At first I thought there was level scaling in the game because as I progressed, the areas and gyms were very close around my level. But when I got to the east side of the map as I was going around it clockwise, the Pokémon started appearing 10 levels lower than my team. Then I realised the more south I went, the more lower-leveled the Pokémon would become, as would the gyms. This really sucks as I thought the game would adjust accordingly but it doesn't.

So I've decided to "temporarily start over" by choosing a new team of low-leveled Pokémon and go east from Mesagoza this time. There are multiple new Pokémon I've wanted to train anyway so this works out perfectly. It also means that all the challenges on the right side of the map won't be pushovers due to me having a high-leveled team. So I guess the fact that there is no level scaling can be seen as something negative but also positive. But obviously, you shouldn't have to do something like this in order to have a balanced experience. So I still stand by that this is probably the biggest flaw of these games.

@LtSarge level scaling sucks though, what’s the point in making your party stronger if everything just gets stronger with you..?

I do get it can feel frustrating steam rolling some enemies and bosses, but the way I see it you’ve earned that luxury and as long as there are other same level/higher level encounters available elsewhere I am good with it.

@LtSarge I'm actually having less of an issue with the lack of level scaling than I thought I would. Mostly because the flow of how the open world is laid out invisibly guided me to areas that were around my level.

There were a couple of gyms I was wildly overleveled for, a few that I was underleveled for, and the others were around where I should have been at the time.

As such, the difficulty has been more satisfying as well. Some of these base raids and titans have actually provided a bit of a challenge! Not enough to kill me, but enough that I had to use potions, revival items, and come up with strategies to keep from dying, which is all I want in one of these games, tbh.

Approaching the end of the game now, since I've apparently reached the endpoints for all three story paths.

@kyleforrester87 I mean, enemies generally grow stronger in games as you progress anyway. Level scaling just ensures you can experience the game at an optimal level of challenge at all times. Also, leveling up Pokemon allows them to learn better skills, and progressing through the game gives you access to more mons.

@kyleforrester87 Because half of the game you'll have a normal experience while the other half you'll be overpowered. The further you progress north in the game, the harder the areas/gyms become. Which means if you go around in a circle (as you do in this game), you'll go from easy to hard to easy again. This is the issue of having an open world RPG with no level scaling.

@Ralizah I just can't imagine challenging the grass-type gym that will probably be between level 10-20 with my team of level 40s. It's not just fun. But the thing is that I've always rotated out my Pokémon in the previous games, so this isn't something new for me. But it's still weird that it's structured like this. It doesn't feel like a true open world because some areas have high-leveled Pokémon and some have low-leveled Pokémon. I want to feel like I can go wherever I want and still encounter the same level of challenge but I'm not getting that feeling in Violet. It still feels like I need to follow a certain path, just like the previous games.

@LtSarge @Ralizah but why have levels at all then in an openworld Pokémon? I see what you’re saying and it’s arguably a problem but it’s also maybe a lazy solution too

@kyleforrester87 You learn new moves. Pokemon evolve. It provides a sense of progression.

In a well-balanced linear RPG, you don't need to level grind anyway, so it amounts to the same thing.

I guess the flipside is that it does feel great being able to tackle higher level challenges early on. I'm fighting for my life in some of these endgame challenges in Scarlet, and that's largely because I'm a tad underleveled. For the second time in a year, a Pokemon game is kicking my teeth in. And I didn't need to handicap myself: I just didn't go out of the way to grind or anything.

Maybe the solution is to have partial level scaling. No scaling for wild Pokemon, but bosses have to be at least as high level as your weakest Pokemon if that's higher than the bosses' default level?

Something to avoid situations where you can just roll up to an early gym you missed and steamroll Pokemon 20 levels below you.

This has always been an issue with RPGs with any level of openness, IMO. It makes returning to early game areas a real drag.

But as I said, it's less of an issue than I expected. GF did a great job balancing XP gain and how tough enemies are allowed to be near the end.

@Ralizah Xenoblade Chronicles - it can be a bit strange going back to areas with level 3 enemies when you’re pushing 90, but also in those games they throw enemies of various levels into different parts of the same areas so when you go back there are pockets of challenges in the earlier areas. Then of course you get a few super bosses scattered throughout that you could bump into early game but have no chance of beating until you’re at a high level. That’s not perfect, but ultimately more interesting to me than just everything being a similar level to me at all times.

(I do understand what you mean though, if level scaling just makes easier enemies harder what is the problem with a level 3 enemy getting stronger to maintain the challenge. But I like to feel like I am getting stronger and eventually overpowered, going back and fighting starter monsters on the same footing after 50 hours would just feel silly to me. Back to XBC, systems like bonus XP and the ability to level down once you’ve completed the game all give helpful options for people to overcome this problem/“problem”)

@Ralizah without re-reading what I was saying last night, I hope it made sense - I had 4 hours sleep the night before followed by an 80 mile bike ride and then 10 more hours of being awake and working my way through a litre of Baileys with my girlfriend 🤷‍♂️ was pretty proud of myself still being conscious by 11pm to be fair. I even watched Eraserhead in the afternoon!

@kyleforrester87 No worries. I thought your posts were perfectly coherent and well thought out.

Try the same thing, but end the evening with Lynch's marathon 3 hour swan song "Inland Empire" instead. It's feels like a never-ending fever dream.

@Ralizah thanks man 😂 all a blur!!

The lack of level scaling isn't an issue I think. Plenty of games don't have it. The problem is the world lay out. I've looked up the "intended" route, based on gym/titan levels, and you have to run from left to right constantly if you want to beat the game that way. In some areas there are level 20 Pokemon, you cross a bridge over a little stream and suddenly they're level 50. It does mean that wherever you are, there are strong Pokemon for you to find, but it also guarantees you will be overleveled for parts of the game.

Just finished the story! Very strong climax for a Pokemon game. Also really satisfied with the level of challenge in the final hours of the game (even with Pokemon in the 60s/70s, I barely managed to squeak through several battles), the interesting final dungeon, and the surprisingly emotional plot twist near the end.

Not sure how it'll fare in terms of total content and playtime overall (especially when considering the potential for a huge expansion of content via upcoming DLC), but purely in terms of the main story path, it's become one of my favorite mainline Pokemon games. Between this and Legends: Arceus, my faith in the brand has been mostly renewed.

But yeah, performance and image quality-wise, uh... this probably needed to stay in the oven longer. It's playable, for sure, but it's a shame to see what would otherwise be a positive reception to this game being marred by complaints about technical issues. Hopefully this enjoys a decent amount of post-launch support in that regard, if only to smooth out the framerate a bit.

Also, more than any previous game, THIS NEEDS VOICE ACTING. So many parts of this game would've been so much better if there had been voice work. It's time, Game Freak.

Still, overall, I'm pretty happy with it. I'll definitely keep playing after the credits over the coming weeks, and this is coming from someone who dropped Shield, Let's Go! Eevee, and Shining Pearl halfway.

@Ralizah I honestly feel like most discussions about Scarlet/Violet have so far been so uninteresting as they've mostly focused on the technical side of things. I mean we get it, but what about the actual game? Our discussion the other day about level scaling is probably the first interesting topic about the game that I've seen so far. Everything else has been glitches this, performance that. Blown out of proportion might I add as I've played for 25 hours and seen very little oddities. The experience obviously differs from person to person, but I still think it's so redundant that one person experiences an awooga glitch, then hundreds of thousands of people share that and suddenly everyone thinks that's what the game is like. The amount of ridicule this game is receiving is completely undeserving. It should be called out but not to this extent.

It's funny you should mention voice acting because I've seen some great clips of people showcasing what it would be like if the game had voice acting, such as this one:

@LtSarge That YouTube video is getting a lot of traction.

Good.

I don't know how far in you are, but there's a particularly egregious bit near the end where characters in your party are conversing while you're running around, and... like... it's good dialogue, but I have to stop playing because I can't play and read the on-screen text at the same time. So much is lost without voice work.

As for performance concerns dominating discussion online about the games, this has become the norm for the series. Some aspect of the new generation will be seen as controversial/bad, and people will harp on about that controversial/bad thing relentlessly when they first releases. The games will sell 20 million copies anyway, and the angry discourse will largely cease as people who were piling on get bored and find something else to be angry about.

@Ralizah Playing Dragon Quest XI has reminded how great voice work can elevate a JRPG. None of your terrible 4Kids dubs, just actors delivering material with exactly the amount of respect that it deserves. Pokémon’s more cinematic entries like the Cube games already could have had voice acting reasonably but it’s probably more egregious these days.

@nessisonett Ironically, I believe the original Japanese PS4 release of DQXI didn't even include voice acting. The localized PS4 release added in an English track, and then one of the more publicized features of XI S on Switch was the inclusion of Japanese vocals.

Complex modern JRPGs with cinematic setpieces and cutscenes absolutely need voice acting. It's insane that they'll feature voice acting in promotional teasers for Scarlet, but not in the game itself.