[Sword & Shield] How will experience work in gen 8?

It's occurred to me we've seen changes in the last few gens on how Pokemon gain experience. Gen 5 has a different exp method that was dropped in gen 6 but brought back in gen 7 (that is, less exp goes to Pokemon at a higher level). LGPE changed this again too, probably because of the no-battling-wild-Pokemon deal.

On top of that we have the EXP Share, which changed from a hold item to a Key Item you could toggle on or off in XY/ORAS/SM/USUM, but couldn't turn off in LGPE.

So how do you think these factors will be handled in Sword and Shield, and/or should be handled?

I could care less about gen 5's exp method. I never noticed the difference.
I love the EXP share as a key item. It's the best way to include difficulty settings in a pokemon game.
If rare candies could be purchased in the postgame, then training competitive pokemon would be much more convenient.

I love the EXP share as a key item.

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Agreed here. Wouldn't say it's the best way to incorporate a difficulty setting into the games (would rather this come with increased opponent level and more Pokémon on the opposing side's team, among other things) but Exp. Share works well when it's not a held item. Moving that between Pokémon was frustrating, especially when I wanted to level multiple at once.

Leveling as a higher level in gen V and VII was a bit tedious because of the less exp given as your level goes up, but I'd be okay with the same system provided there's a method to gain lots of exp. aka some way to quickly encounter Audino or Chansey/Blissey, like with Blissey Super-Secret Bases in ORAS and the Blissey Poni Plains SOS encounter in SM/USUM 👍

This is a really good question.

I'd appreciate some kind of EXP Share on or off toggle, but at the same time it's experience- the more the better, eh?

Personally I like the Gen 5 EXP mechanics and I think that's the most probable version, with an EXP share ON/OFF choice. But maybe they'd also add an extra "classic" function where the EXP share was used as an item as well! That would actually be neat now that I'm writing it down and thinking about it and it would definitely make older and more challenge based fans very happy!

A part of me really misses the days where the EXP Share was an item. Although Gen 5 EXP mechanics are ok as well and I've gotten more than used to that.

As long as I can turn the EXP Share mechanic off in Gen 8, Game Freak can do whatever they want and it won't bother me much.

I don't care for the Gen 5/7 experience curve, as it makes the later levels feel like a slog. I also don't really care for Audino grinding or the like; I would rather just have a bunch of powerful endgame trainers that give a large, standard amount of experience regardless of your level.

A mix of Exp. Share options would be nice. The newer method makes it easy to level up, and I suspect they'll stick with it (along with the gen 5/7 exp curve), but if you don't want to be super overpowered, you either have to turn off the exp share entirely (which makes training weak Pokémon a slog), or you have to constantly shuffle your team (which is what I usually do in my main file these days, but I don't really get attached to my team anymore as a result). Being able to toggle Exp Share for each Pokémon might be nice (e.g., you have an option for global Exp Share, which is the default, or you can toggle it for each Pokémon). It could be a menu option for each Pokémon to avoid taking up an item slot.

I wonder if raids will be a good way to farm high amounts of exp?

Castform said:

I wonder if raids will be a good way to farm high amounts of exp?

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Ooh, good observation. It might be a good source indeed. I also wonder, as an aside, if they're going to have good IVs or high chance of a hidden ability or somesuch...

bobandbill said:

Ooh, good observation. It might be a good source indeed. I also wonder, as an aside, if they're going to have good IVs or high chance of a hidden ability or somesuch...

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Could be. I feel like it's a great opportunity to make Max Raid Battles a more utilized mechanic by the average Pokémon player.

Experience on the other hand I feel like will be pretty similar to Gen VII's, since the main series mechanics are back. But yeah, I do hope for experience farm-able Audino and Blissey.