The Isle of Armor & The Crown Tundra DLC - GENERAL DISCUSSION Thread

[Entradius1]

The new areas do look kind of cool and the new pokemon and g-max pokemon look interesting. That being said my top three wishes for the expansion pass would be evolutions for the fossil pokemon, an easier way to get master balls and mints, and updated/better move sets for the new pokemon. Basically, some quality of life changes and some less derpy looking fossil pokemon.

 

[yefluke]

I hope they will add multi battle since I want to co-op with my friend.

 

[Ophie]

I want to see Wales represented by getting some DLC! These are clearly Ireland and Scotland! Where’s Wales!!!!

I believe Spikemuth and the area around it (Route 9 Tunnel, Outer Spikemuth, possibly Circhester Bay) are intended to be the counterpart to Wales. Geographically, Wales doesn't take up a lot of space, so there honestly wouldn't be that much for it in Galar either.

I wonder though if any of the returning pokémon will have any new abilities or stat boosts. There weren't that many in the base game, but hey, Koffing got some new abilities so who knows.

The one I'd like to see the most is Lurantis getting Chlorophyll. This would help compensate for its low Speed, enough that it can do single-turn Solar Blades, heal more with Synthesis, and do Fire-type Weather Balls while going first.

Assuming all Pokémon have maxed out Speed, however, Lurantis with doubled Speed would still barely fall short of Dragapult at Level 50, by a single point (212 for Lurantis, 213 for Dragapult). It'd fall short by 7 points at Level 100 (414 versus 421). Would outrun Barraskewda though.

If we get D/P remakes after this Expansion pass, they'll need to bring Hidden Power back since it's the only move that Unown knows.

My idea would be that if Hidden Power is still gone (and I am guessing they did so because they wanted Hidden Power to turn into its corresponding type's Max Move but couldn't do so without it being horrendously overpowered), then Unown would get new moves, possibly a new Ability to go with those moves. The Trading Card Game did just this with all three times they released the full set of Unown (26 the first time, 28 the second and third), such that there were popular competitive decks centered around them while some others were essential support Pokémon.

Reflecting the TCG's interpretation of them, for instance, Unown Q, which represents "QUICK," could have an Ability and/or new move that would have +1 priority and function like After You, which would effectively allow its partner Pokémon in a double battle to have increased priority on any move. This is, of course, offset by the fact that Unown Q has incredibly low stats, cannot do damage, and is extremely predictable due to knowing only one move. There would also need to be a lot of conditions and exceptions to keep this from being overpowered (like being unusable on Dynamax Pokémon or that the move works only once per battle).

Which brings up the question of how they're going to stop new players from becoming overpowered in the main story if they take a detour to play through the expansion pass as soon as they reach the wild area.

One possibility is to not gain any EXP at all. We don't know how Kubfu evolves, after all, and if Max Raid Battles are the main thing for both of them, they could leave that unchanged as you don't gain any direct EXP from them (though you do get EXP Candy).

It just hit me but since the expansion pack is like a third version, I guess we should expect new music for online multiplayer. There's some good music in the Vanilla version but nowhere as much as Gen 7.

What I'd like to see are new environments for online multiplayer. I know there are a limited amount of locations with enough room for both sides to Dynamax, but there are some, even in the base game, that were left out. Ones that come to mind are the Max Raid Battle dens and the Energy Plant, though I'd like to see an original, non-stadium location too.

The new areas do look kind of cool and the new pokemon and g-max pokemon look interesting. That being said my top three wishes for the expansion pass would be evolutions for the fossil pokemon, an easier way to get master balls and mints, and updated/better move sets for the new pokemon. Basically, some quality of life changes and some less derpy looking fossil pokemon.

That's the point of the fossil Pokémon though. They're also strong enough as they are; they don't need evolutions. The last thing anyone wants to see is an even tougher Dracovish, except for Dracovish users.

Of course, one reason I enjoy these new fossil Pokémon so much are not only because they reflect early paleontologists' interpretations of dinosaur skeletons, but because I had been wondering for quite a while what happens when fossils are broken into pieces. (It's also not unrealistic to keep running into only one part of a prehistoric animal's skeleton over and over. I mentioned it elsewhere, but people found dozens of Triceratops skulls before they found any other part of it. As a result, people knew what a Triceratops head looked like, but they had no clue if it was even bipedal, quadrupedal, or swam in the waters. The legs and heads being on backwards is not unrealistic either, as it took until the 1970s for palentologists to realize they've been assembling dinosaur leg bones wrong the whole time. Compare a Tyrannosaurus's legs in Fantasia compared to Jurassic Park, for instance.)

 

[Sponge]

One possibility is to not gain any EXP at all. We don't know how Kubfu evolves, after all, and if Max Raid Battles are the main thing for both of them, they could leave that unchanged as you don't gain any direct EXP from them (though you do get EXP Candy).

I feel like being blocked from gaining any experience would be very weird for a DLC that's supposed to have "Growth" as its main theme/inspiration.

Also I feel like from a progress point of view it would be very strange and offputting not to be leveling up as you explore the DLC.

 

[Kangaflora]

With the returning Pokémon that will be coming with the DLC, the question is, will Magneton need a Thunder Stone in order to evolve into Magnezone?

 

[Pokemon Fan]

Seems likely, since the requirements were the same as for Vikavolt.

Gotta say I do love that Gamefreak showed they are willing to do away with some of the old evolution mechanics. Consistency with old games isn't necessary if the change is one that is logical.

 

[Ophie]

I feel like being blocked from gaining any experience would be very weird for a DLC that's supposed to have "Growth" as its main theme/inspiration.

Also I feel like from a progress point of view it would be very strange and offputting not to be leveling up as you explore the DLC.

It would make sense to continue to gain EXP in the DLC places, though it still wouldn't address the issue of becoming overleveled as you go through the game. The other restriction they could do is prevent you from going to certain parts of each place until you've acquired a certain number of Badges or defeat Leon (the latter of which would make sense since if there's anyone in Galar who'd be stronger than Leon, it would be Mustard).

That being said, I still think Kubfu evolves through a special means that isn't tied to level, like fighting X battles with it in your party, gaining Y experience points, or reaching area Z.

I'm not sure what other games where you level up through EXP handle DLC parts though, at least ones that aren't restricted to postgame.

 

[Kingudora]

Seems likely, since the requirements were the same as for Vikavolt.

Gotta say I do love that Gamefreak showed they are willing to do away with some of the old evolution mechanics. Consistency with old games isn't necessary if the change is one that is logical.

I find it a bit funny however, that in these games were they removed the old location-based evolutions, they also introduced the most convoluted location-based evolution so far with Runerigus.

I also wonder if Nosepass gets added in the expansions, will it also evolve into Probopass with a Thunderstone? Or would it get another method? I think it would be a bit strange for a pokémon that isn't Electric-type to have evolved with a Thunderstone.

 

[Reinhardt]

I also wonder if Nosepass gets added in the expansions, will it also evolve into Probopass with a Thunderstone? Or would it get another method? I think it would be a bit strange for a pokémon that isn't Electric-type to have evolved with a Thunderstone.

It wouldn't be too much of a stretch for Nosepass to evolve with a Thunder Stone, it and Probopass have a magnetic theme going on, magnetism is usually grouped in with electricity in the Pokeon world (Magnemite, Alola Geodude), plus they do learn some Electric-type moves through level-up. I've always thought Probopass should be Rock/Electric and not Rock/Steel, but it is what it is. Not to mention evolution stones in relation to types don't always make sense, like why does Poilwhirl gain the Fighting-type when it evolves into Poliwrath with the Water Stone?

 

[Bguy7]

Gotta say I do love that Gamefreak showed they are willing to do away with some of the old evolution mechanics. Consistency with old games isn't necessary if the change is one that is logical.

Disagree entirely on that one. It's not logical at all that we could have used a Thunder Stone on a Magneton any number of times in the past four generations, but it never would have worked, and now suddenly it does. That's the opposite of logical.

It also ruins the uniqueness of the Pokémon. Gimmicks like area-based evolution are part of the lore of the franchise that helps to make every Pokémon feel different, and is not something should be gotten rid of.

And in all honesty, why? It's not like area-based evolutions were that hard to implement at all. There's plenty of snow routes to throw a Ice Rock into, two forests to throw a Mossy Rock into, and any number of places in the Wild Area were they could have arbitrarily said has an electromagnetic field.

 

[WhiteBlair]

Disagree entirely on that one. It's not logical at all that we could have used a Thunder Stone on a Magneton any number of times in the past four generations, but it never would have worked, and now suddenly it does. That's the opposite of logical.

It also ruins the uniqueness of the Pokémon. Gimmicks like area-based evolution are part of the lore of the franchise that helps to make every Pokémon feel different, and is not something should be gotten rid of.

And in all honesty, why? It's not like area-based evolutions were that hard to implement at all. There's plenty of snow routes to throw a Ice Rock into, two forests to throw a Mossy Rock into, and any number of places in the Wild Area were they could have arbitrarily said has an electromagnetic field.

Touching an Ice Rock and exposing to an Ice Stone aren't different, thus is a logical change. Doubt the electromagnetism from a Thunder Stone is much of a stretch either. I'd agree, if evolution method for Sylveon also changed to Shiny Stone, which would then have no relation with how it used to evolve before.

They could've made it so that you could evolve Vikavolt at Power Plant, Glaceon and Leafeon at a rock when the specific location in Wild Area was snowy/sunny. But, that'd be annoying to find the right time or yet another wait until the late game to obtain the Pokémon you want; especially Glaceon. Altered evolution methods were only given to the ones that made sense.

 

[Bguy7]

Touching an Ice Rock and exposing to an Ice Stone aren't different, thus is a logical change. Doubt the electromagnetism from a Thunder Stone is much of a stretch either. I'd agree, if evolution method for Sylveon also changed to Shiny Stone, which would then have no relation with how it used to evolve before.

Except the Ice Rock is a completely different object from an Ice Stone. If the rocks and stones were the same thing, then we would have been evolving Leafeon with Leaf Stones since Gen IV (or even I, since the Leaf Stone existed back then) and evolving Vileplume at the Mossy Rock since Gen IV as well. They're similar, but clearly not the same.

yet another wait until the late game to obtain the Pokémon you want; especially Glaceon

Hasn't been a problem in the past, why is it now?

 

[Pikasaur]

Silly hope here, but i'd like the DLC to give us Overalls like our characters mom wears.

and the Liepard Jacket i've seen some NPC's wear as well

They could've made it so that you could evolve Vikavolt at Power Plant, Glaceon and Leafeon at a rock when the specific location in Wild Area was snowy/sunny. But, that'd be annoying to find the right time or yet another wait until the late game to obtain the Pokémon you want; especially Glaceon. Altered evolution methods were only given to the ones that made sense.

I know waiting 90% of the game to evolve a Charjabug in S/M was annoying personally

 

[WhiteBlair]

Hasn't been a problem in the past, why is it now?

The alterations were already made in USUM when Vikavolt and Magnezone were allowed to evolve in Ula Ula instead of Vast Poni Canyon. They must've brainstormed how to make it further accessible, easier and plausible during Generation 8's development.

 

[Bguy7]

The alterations were already made in USUM when Vikavolt and Magnezone were allowed to evolve in Ula Ula instead of Vast Poni Canyon. They must've brainstormed how to make it further accessible, easier and plausible during Generation 8's development.

I actually had no idea they made that change. Still, they kept it centered at a power plant to maintain logic.

 

[Ophie]

Disagree entirely on that one. It's not logical at all that we could have used a Thunder Stone on a Magneton any number of times in the past four generations, but it never would have worked, and now suddenly it does. That's the opposite of logical.

It also ruins the uniqueness of the Pokémon. Gimmicks like area-based evolution are part of the lore of the franchise that helps to make every Pokémon feel different, and is not something should be gotten rid of.

And in all honesty, why? It's not like area-based evolutions were that hard to implement at all. There's plenty of snow routes to throw a Ice Rock into, two forests to throw a Mossy Rock into, and any number of places in the Wild Area were they could have arbitrarily said has an electromagnetic field.

It's no different from how Cryogonal got increased HP and Defense for Generation VII or how Aegislash got decreased Defense and Special Defense for Generation VIII. It's also no different from how sound-based moves could bypass Substitute where it couldn't before, or how Gengar's Ability was changed from Levitate to Cursed Body. It's how video games work. They make changes between games for the benefit of the players.

Almost every video game with a popular competitive scene makes dozens of changes to the characters via post-release balance updates. Rachel in the BlazBlue games has gone through dozens of changes as the players deem her too overpowered, too underpowered, or too difficult to use. Heimerdinger in League of Legends has undergone a roller coaster ride of player reactions to him as he began as a joke character (and thus Heimerdinger players had trouble joining teams), became a lethal joke character (some were accepted but was largely shunned), became like any other character (became mostly accepted), then got nerfed again (and so the players were back to square one). The Rapid Blaster in the Splatoon games has had many, many changes done to it too as part of a years-long attempt to make it equal in potential with the other weapons. Smash Bros.' Pokémon Trainer's Pokémon began together, then was split up to be just Charizard, then put back together again with a lot of changes to the speed and mechanics of Pokémon Switch to address issues he had in Brawl with how slow and exploitable it was, as well as eliminating how they'd start moving slower and more sluggishly if you didn't switch them for too long.

 

[Bguy7]

It's no different from how Cryogonal got increased HP and Defense for Generation VII or how Aegislash got decreased Defense and Special Defense for Generation VIII. It's also no different from how sound-based moves could bypass Substitute where it couldn't before, or how Gengar's Ability was changed from Levitate to Cursed Body. It's how video games work. They make changes between games for the benefit of the players.

Except for maybe Gengar's ability change, those are really just behind the scenes mechanical changes. Evolution methods are more of a front and center piece of in-universe lore, and changing them changes the way the world itself works, rather than just the video game mechanic interpretation of the world.

Almost every video game with a popular competitive scene makes dozens of changes to the characters via post-release balance updates. Rachel in the BlazBlue games has gone through dozens of changes as the players deem her too overpowered, too underpowered, or too difficult to use. Heimerdinger in League of Legends has undergone a roller coaster ride of player reactions to him as he began as a joke character (and thus Heimerdinger players had trouble joining teams), became a lethal joke character (some were accepted but was largely shunned), became like any other character (became mostly accepted), then got nerfed again (and so the players were back to square one). The Rapid Blaster in the Splatoon games has had many, many changes done to it too as part of a years-long attempt to make it equal in potential with the other weapons. Smash Bros.' Pokémon Trainer's Pokémon began together, then was split up to be just Charizard, then put back together again with a lot of changes to the speed and mechanics of Pokémon Switch to address issues he had in Brawl with how slow and exploitable it was, as well as eliminating how they'd start moving slower and more sluggishly if you didn't switch them for too long.

And none of those have absolutely anything to do with in-universe lore and consistency.

 

[Ophie]

Except for maybe Gengar's ability change, those are really just behind the scenes mechanical changes. Evolution methods are more of a front and center piece of in-universe lore, and changing them changes the way the world itself works, rather than just the video game mechanic interpretation of the world.

And none of those have absolutely anything to do with in-universe lore and consistency.

That's the thing though: it's a retcon (or, if you prefer the full name,"retroactive continuity"), in which changes are made to a setting or characters to better suit the audience experience, and retcons have been a thing for at least as long as fiction itself. (Other examples include Superman getting the ability to fly without explanation, the back of the house in The Simpsons changing from a graveyard to the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, and Classic Sonic the Hedgehog being 14 years old when he defeated Dr. Eggman for the first time in Sonic 1 but was 10 years old when that happened in Sonic Generations.) I consider balance and mechanics patches in the same category of allowing different evolution methods. I don't see evolution methods as front-and-center, as all that NPCs ever talk about on the subject are that Pokémon evolution exists and the different ways you could do it. The only Pokémon-specific cases I can think of, which would be part of the lore and not just gameplay mechanics, are that Haunter evolves by trade (NPCs in Kanto trading Haunters and one of them being surprised that it evolved; Gaspar in Sinnoh holding an Everstone), that Eevee evolves via a Water Stone, Thunder Stone, or Fire Stone (NPCs in Kanto and Johto telling you how to get Vaporeon, Jolteon, or Flareon), and that Poipole evolves in a way other than friendship and leveling up (Ultra Recon Squad in Alola attempted them and weren't successful). The most ever said of these location-based evolutions are that certain areas give out a magnetic charge that can allow certain Pokémon to evolve, and the most said about the evolution stones themselves are that they emit a radiation that induces evolution in certain Pokémon. The in-game explanations never contradict the changed evolution methods.

There are much, much bigger changes whenever an enhanced remake comes out--Mauville City was an ordinary-looking town in Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald but was changed to an indoor town in OmegaRuby and AlphaSapphire, with a second-floor residential complex placed on top of it. Similarly, the latter set of games have a Battle Maison that didn't exist in the original Hoenn games, and Kyogre and Groudon got Primal forms they didn't have before. The official explanation for the drastic differences in the regions, the characters, the mechanics, etc. is that there are multiple Pokémon universes, each of which operate under different rules. So even if it seems really weird you could use a Thunder Stone to evolve Charjabug into Vikavolt or an Ice Stone to evolve Eevee into Glaceon, there is still that explanation that Sword & Shield could be set in a different universe than the other games. After all, Zinnia does speak of universes where Mega Evolution does not exist--these games might be one of them.

Functionally (that is, from a Doylist perspective), this was most likely done so they wouldn't have to shoehorn a mossy rock, an icy rock, and a magnetically charged area into every region and make sure they're located at the right parts of the games that those Pokémon should be allowed to evolve. There were issues in the past in which FireRed and LeafGreen rendered Espeon and Umbreon unobtainable in-game due to a lack of day/night cycles (the Orre games addressed this by just alowing you to catch Espeon and Umbreon), and these are issues Game Freak probably didn't want to do again. The Pokémon games are already a MASSIVE victim of feature creep, and location-based evolutions are likely a lot of work from a design perspective. (Probably not so much from a programming perspective, but the people who design the regions themselves would have an increasingly tough job as more location-based evolutions get made.)

 

[BCVM22]

It's not logical at all that we could have used a Thunder Stone on a Magneton any number of times in the past four generations, but it never would have worked, and now suddenly it does. That's the opposite of logical.

It's perfectly logical to occasionally make gameplay changes in the name of removing tedium. Grubbin/Charjabug/Vikavolt is Alola's regional bug and a readily accessible Pokémon in Alola's early going - I would question where the logic was of making its final evolution unobtainable until one of the final areas in the original Sun & Moon. It's great to have idiosyncrasies like dictating that Pokémon can only evolve in certain areas but I'd argue it's equally great to know when to occasionally take bits like that and quietly render them defunct in the name of the greater good.

 

[Orphalesion]

Disagree entirely on that one. It's not logical at all that we could have used a Thunder Stone on a Magneton any number of times in the past four generations, but it never would have worked, and now suddenly it does.

It's not logical to keep hanging on to a needlessly inconvenient gimmick just to preserve some sort of "consistency" or "canon". Pokemon is a video game and video games get updated with new releases.

Plus...just like using the Lapras you are supposedly riding on in battle never made sense, so any cry for "Why couldn't we use x stone to evolve it before?" never made sense to me. In Gen one we could already love our Pokemon and treat them well...yet no Golbat ever evolved into Crobat... There were no Sentret on Route 1 (in GSC there suddenly were) and NPCs kept saying that there were only 150 Pokemon, when they really should have known about all the others.
Or why couldn't my Vulpix learn Will-O-Wisp in Gen 1? After all I got it to level 24, so it should have learned it, shouldn't it?
There was never consistency in those in any of those areas. So why insist on those evolution gimmicks just to explain "why couldn't we use the Thunder Stone before?" ?

I'm really glad that they finally streamlined those evolutions, especially since they were just inconvenient and often kept you from getting certain evolutions (such as Vikavolt) until late in the game. What's so special about some crummy rock with moss on it anyway that a Leaf Stone shouldn't be able to to?