Article: One week later: Scarlet and Violet’s performance flubs amid massive sales

One week later: Scarlet and Violet’s performance flubs amid massive sales

One week later: Scarlet and Violet’s performance flubs amid massive sales

They’re fun to play and sold millions of copies! If only it wasn’t for the fps drops, the glitches, the game crashes, the questionable game design decisions, the limited and regressive …
bobandbill

bobandbill

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    An opinion article, based on the glitches but also the massive sales (10 millions in 3 days!) Let me know your thoughts.
     
    On one hand its really amazing that despite its graphical jank, gen 9s core gameplay idea shined through and made way to huge success and sales.

    On the other hand you could say that the game is a giant mess that didn't deserve to sell so much because gamefreak probably wont bother trying that hard with graphical stuff in the future because "oh the game sold well so people dont care"

    Both opinions valid, neither are wrong. Depends what you value. Im member of the former, great to see a new take on the series pay off this much
     
    The fact that a game that runs so godawfully bad that it can crash the Switch and potentially cause seizures to people playing it got released in 2022 and sold well is both funny and sad. Wonder what will happen with the quality control on the game now that Nintendo got to the point of giving refunds for it.

    Anyways, glad I'm still holding out on buying a switch. This looks horrible.
     
    I wonder if there are performance differences based on if you buy digital vs physical, how often you save and boot off / take a break, etc. I haven't encountered nearly any alarming glitches. Only one I've consistently seen is if there isn't enough space for the trainer to stand back when initiating a battle, your trainer stands in the middle of the combat. Also, the frame rate was horrendous in the huge lake area.
     
    They are offering refunds for it now. Supposedly. It's been reported at least.

    Instead of complaining constantly... just get your god damn refund. It's as simple as that at this point really. Instead of complaining every five seconds it feels like and all these god damn 'videos' that also feel like crop up every five seconds it feels like (yes my 'shoot' included) just get your god damn refund and spend it on something else. I could care less.

    Excuse me for wanting to have fun playing a game and enjoying playing a game. I don't know if I'm going to have the same problems or not. I don't. But as long as I'm having fun? Literally nothing else matters to me and I just don't care. But I have a god damn backlog that I refuse to circumvent just to see if I have the same problems. It's not going to happen. I have the order I play my games with in the order that I play them in for a reason. Excuse me for not wanting to get lost and wanting to use a god damn guide. It'll like be 2024 or longer before I get to it myself and guess what? The issues will be fixed then. But will anyone say as much? Will there be another one of these to point out the issues have been fixed? Because they will be. Inevitably and eventually. At least in terms of bugs anyway. Even if it takes until the DLCs come out (also inevitable). The answer is obviously no. Because of course it won't be pointed out. Ever. Because it's always about being more negative and initial narratives.

    What exactly do you think is going to change? I really want to know this. Because with 10 million copies sold in three freaking days... it's clearly going to be nothing. Why should they change? They literally have no incentive to because they know they can continue to get away with it because they know they can. Why the hell are you even surprised at this? I want to know this too. Like seriously. How are you surprised by this? I guess it really literally is only me because I'm not surprised by this in the slightest. They have been getting away with this for years. It didn't just start now all of a sudden out of the god damn blue.

    But whatever. I'm the moron. I'm the idiot. I'm 'out of touch.' I'm the dumbass. I'm blinded by nostalgia. Yep. Your absolutely right.

    I'm sure the franchise ending is exactly what should happen and won't have an effect on the monster catching genre in general. Yep. I'm sure that would be totally fine and not get everyone to change their tunes immediately. Shut this forum down then if that's the case.

    But your right. I'm the moron. Absolutely.

    Go get your god damn refund.


    MAJORLY IMPORTANT EDIT: And no I'm not defending GameFreak and TPC. Because you literally can't. It's indefensible. That is literally not what I'm doing. I'm just saying how all of this is utter nonsense and utter BS.
     
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    I started playing the games over the weekend. In my experience, I have yet to experience any major glitches. Instead, I have only encountered minor graphical issues with frame rate and minor clipping with the environment in some locations, but nothing game-breaking that ruined my overall experience. However, I did play the game with a friend of mine, the user Jiggykoopbob here, and he experienced an issue where his game crashed during the end of our playthough. While I haven't experienced any hard crashes, a hard crash does seem like a major problem that Game Freak needs to address. However, my issues with Pokémon Scarlet and Violet have nothing to do with the glitches (thus far), but rather the lack of variety for these games' Pokédex. I plan on mentioning this in a future article as well.
     
    I must have received a different copy of the game to a lot of people because I haven't been playing a pervasively buggy game marred by game crashes. I've had an incredibly enjoyable experience with a few drops in framerate when there's a lot on the screen (notably raindrops and large quantities of grass). At one point there was a jitter during a battle and the mountainside to the left of my character disappeared before reappearing a couple of seconds later, which was weird.

    By contrast, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 shipped with an entire nonfunctional mechanic, had an exploit allowing the player to access an area substantially earlier than intended, and outright crashed at one point while I was playing it forcing me to repeat a few minutes of travel time.
     
    Squirtkipfan01 said:
    Lack of variety? In what dimension? From what ive personally been playing id say this game has some of the best variety in the series. Alot to choose
    Click to expand...

    The vast majority of Pokémon are missing from the Pokédex. This game only has 400 Pokémon total right now, which is much less than Sword and Shield and even Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl. Sure, more Pokémon are going to be included in the spring when Pokémon HOME compatibility becomes available for this game, but still, this is absurd. In addition to that, based on what I've noticed thus far, the game doesn't have any Water-type special sweepers. Pretty much every specially attacking Water-type sweeper didn't make it to generation 9 thus far. Nearly all the Water-type Pokémon are physical attackers, including the Water-type starter. If they are special attackers, then they're typically really slow or generally bulky. This is why I had such a hard time planning my teams. Also, not only that, but I also realized that this game didn't introduce any new fossil Pokémon, nor did any of them return for this game. Because of this, there really isn't any Pokédex variety, especially when you're trying to plan a (competitive) team. Hopefully, Game Freak realizes this and fixes this when they drop some DLC. This is the first time I ever had this issue when playing any Pokémon game.
     
    I'm curious to see how much more S/V sells over time. 10 million in 3 days is absolutely nuts and is a number a lot of games/series can only dream of attaining in their lifetimes. Like, SwSh has sold just over 24 million at the moment, so like....is Scarlet/Violet gonna do as much, more, less, what exactly?

    The Mega Champion said:
    Excuse me for wanting to have fun playing a game and enjoying playing a game. I don't know if I'm going to have the same problems or not. I don't. But as long as I'm having fun? Literally nothing else matters to me and I just don't care. But I have a god damn backlog that I refuse to circumvent just to see if I have the same problems. It's not going to happen. I have the order I play my games with in the order that I play them in for a reason. Excuse me for not wanting to get lost and wanting to use a god damn guide. It'll like be 2024 or longer before I get to it myself and guess what? The issues will be fixed then. But will anyone say as much? Will there be another one of these to point out the issues have been fixed? Because they will be. Inevitably and eventually. At least in terms of bugs anyway. Even if it takes until the DLCs come out (also inevitable). The answer is obviously no. Because of course it won't be pointed out. Ever. Because it's always about being more negative and initial narratives.

    What exactly do you think is going to change? I really want to know this. Because with 10 million copies sold in three freaking days... it's clearly going to be nothing. Why should they change? They literally have no incentive to because they know they can continue to get away with it because they know they can. Why the hell are you even surprised at this? I want to know this too. Like seriously. How are you surprised by this? I guess it really literally is only me because I'm not surprised by this in the slightest. They have been getting away with this for years. It didn't just start now all of a sudden out of the god damn blue.

    But whatever. I'm the moron. I'm the idiot. I'm 'out of touch.' I'm the dumbass. I'm blinded by nostalgia. Yep. Your absolutely right.

    I'm sure the franchise ending is exactly what should happen and won't have an effect on the monster catching genre in general. Yep. I'm sure that would be totally fine and not get everyone to change their tunes immediately. Shut this forum down then if that's the case.

    But your right. I'm the moron. Absolutely.
    Click to expand...
    please try to relax hon
     
    Welp. It feels like it's kinda become common practice to shove games out the door first and fix them later.
    Not just for Pokemon btw.

    I haven't yet played it though, there are things I insist on finishing first before playing my Violet copy now that it has finally arrived today.

    @Winwood: I'm not turning a blind eye to anything. Games might've gone up in complexity, but the sheer amount of bugs and lack of polish they have nowadays is out of proportion, plain and simple. Sad as it is.
    A lot of which could likely be prevented simply by postponing the release date. Sadly companies put more emphasis on meeting a deadline than delivering a polished product.

    Sweet Serenity said:
    The vast majority of Pokémon are missing from the Pokédex. This game only has 400 Pokémon total right now, which is much less than Sword and Shield and even Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl.
    Click to expand...

    Pre-DLC Sword Shield also had 400 though. https://www.serebii.net/swordshield/galarpokedex.shtml
    So the amount on launch is actually the same then. Especially given that Home didn't launch till several months after Sword/Shield did.

    Interesting to see them go with the exact same amount for the base game PokeDex though.
    I was kinda hoping for a higher number for the base game.
     
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    ReKoil said:
    Welp. It feels like it's kinda become common practice to shove games out the door first and fix them later.
    Not just for Pokemon btw.
    Click to expand...
    I have no time for this sentiment anymore because it turns a blind eye to all the bugs that existed in old games. Some off the top of my head:
    Software ships with bugs. This is never going to not be true, and it's not a new phenomenon. The general public find many more bugs than any quantity of QA engineers, and even when QA engineers do find bugs it's not always possible to fix them before the game has to go out to meet its release date.
     
    Squirtkipfan01 said:
    On one hand its really amazing that despite its graphical jank, gen 9s core gameplay idea shined through and made way to huge success and sales.

    On the other hand you could say that the game is a giant mess that didn't deserve to sell so much because gamefreak probably wont bother trying that hard with graphical stuff in the future because "oh the game sold well so people dont care"

    Both opinions valid, neither are wrong. Depends what you value. Im member of the former, great to see a new take on the series pay off this much
    Click to expand...
    Or both. :v As said, I'm enjoying it so far and am looking forward to the endgame. On the other hand, it is the worst performing games from Pokemon by far. Another year of development and it'd be a contender for GOTY or whatnot all round, and not be remembered for... well, look at the article's cover image.
    TwilightBlade said:
    I wonder if there are performance differences based on if you buy digital vs physical, how often you save and boot off / take a break, etc. I haven't encountered nearly any alarming glitches. Only one I've consistently seen is if there isn't enough space for the trainer to stand back when initiating a battle, your trainer stands in the middle of the combat. Also, the frame rate was horrendous in the huge lake area.
    Click to expand...
    There shouldn't be a difference between digital or physical, unless your SD card is especially janky. Closing the game often does help however! Part of the issues is due to memory leaks, so the longer you play, the more issues that occur.

    Nonetheless, this still won't prevent game crashes. I've done two multiplayer session with friends, maybe 2-3 hours tops. Between us already four crashes resulting in needing to remake the group. And then trying to do a trade outside of a Union Circle took multiple attempts.

    ThomasWinwood said:
    I must have received a different copy of the game to a lot of people because I haven't been playing a pervasively buggy game marred by game crashes. I've had an incredibly enjoyable experience with a few drops in framerate when there's a lot on the screen (notably raindrops and large quantities of grass). At one point there was a jitter during a battle and the mountainside to the left of my character disappeared before reappearing a couple of seconds later, which was weird.

    By contrast, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 shipped with an entire nonfunctional mechanic, had an exploit allowing the player to access an area substantially earlier than intended, and outright crashed at one point while I was playing it forcing me to repeat a few minutes of travel time.
    Click to expand...
    Sv has had non-functional mechanics too, also has exploits for skipping areas even before you get to the school, and as said, many people have had game crashed. Sure, no game is perfect, but I'm quite confident that XC3 on average has performed far better than SV has (and for that matter XC2 going from my own experience there). And it looks far better too.

    Sweet Serenity said:
    The vast majority of Pokémon are missing from the Pokédex. This game only has 400 Pokémon total right now, which is much less than Sword and Shield and even Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl. Sure, more Pokémon are going to be included in the spring when Pokémon HOME compatibility becomes available for this game, but still, this is absurd. In addition to that, based on what I've noticed thus far, the game doesn't have any Water-type special sweepers. Pretty much every specially attacking Water-type sweeper didn't make it to generation 9 thus far. Nearly all the Water-type Pokémon are physical attackers, including the Water-type starter. If they are special attackers, then they're typically really slow or generally bulky. This is why I had such a hard time planning my teams. Also, not only that, but I also realized that this game didn't introduce any new fossil Pokémon, nor did any of them return for this game. Because of this, there really isn't any Pokédex variety, especially when you're trying to plan a (competitive) team. Hopefully, Game Freak realizes this and fixes this when they drop some DLC. This is the first time I ever had this issue when playing any Pokémon game.
    Click to expand...
    As mentioned, SWSH also had only 400 Pokemon at launch. But 400 is limiting in both cases, and even if you allow a couple hundred more from eventual DLC that is a lot of Pokemon not making it into the game.
     
    ReKoil said:
    Pre-DLC Sword Shield also had 400 though. https://www.serebii.net/swordshield/galarpokedex.shtmlSo the amount on launch is actually the same then. Interesting to see them go with the exact same amount for the base game PokeDex though. I was kinda hoping for a higher number for the base game.
    Click to expand...

    bobandbill said:
    As mentioned, SWSH also had only 400 Pokemon at launch. But 400 is limiting in both cases, and even if you allow a couple hundred more from eventual DLC that is a lot of Pokemon not making it into the game.
    Click to expand...

    I know, they started out with 400 Pokémon, but technically, you can make the argument that more than that existed in Pokémon Sword and Shield because the games got Pokémon HOME compatibility when Pokémon HOME was released. However, Pokémon HOME already exists now as we speak, but despite that, we have to wait until spring to gain access to the rest of the Pokémon that exist in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet's data. That is inexcusable in my opinion because we shouldn't have to wait at all. While I love the adventuring aspect of the game thus far, this game is definitely going to be highly unbalanced from a meta standpoint until Game Freak adds more Pokémon to balance the roster.
     
    Sweet Serenity said:
    I know, they started out with 400 Pokémon, but technically, you can make the argument that more than that existed in Pokémon Sword and Shield because the games got Pokémon HOME compatibility when Pokémon HOME was released. However, Pokémon HOME already exists now as we speak, but despite that, we have to wait until spring to gain access to the rest of the Pokémon that exist in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet's data. That is inexcusable in my opinion because we shouldn't have to wait at all. While I love the adventuring aspect of the game thus far, this game is definitely going to be highly unbalanced from a meta standpoint until Game Freak adds more Pokémon to balance the roster.
    Click to expand...
    Either way, you could only transfer Pokemon in the SWSH dex from HOME until the DLC dropped, and that's going to be the case here as well.

    That's another point for more time between releases. I'd much rather they put in more Pokemon than less.
     
    The Mega Champion said:
    They are offering refunds for it now. Supposedly. It's been reported at least.

    Instead of complaining constantly... just get your god damn refund. It's as simple as that at this point really. Instead of complaining every five seconds it feels like and all these god damn 'videos' that also feel like crop up every five seconds it feels like (yes my 'shoot' included) just get your god damn refund and spend it on something else. I could care less.

    Excuse me for wanting to have fun playing a game and enjoying playing a game. I don't know if I'm going to have the same problems or not. I don't. But as long as I'm having fun? Literally nothing else matters to me and I just don't care. But I have a god damn backlog that I refuse to circumvent just to see if I have the same problems. It's not going to happen. I have the order I play my games with in the order that I play them in for a reason. Excuse me for not wanting to get lost and wanting to use a god damn guide. It'll like be 2024 or longer before I get to it myself and guess what? The issues will be fixed then. But will anyone say as much? Will there be another one of these to point out the issues have been fixed? Because they will be. Inevitably and eventually. At least in terms of bugs anyway. Even if it takes until the DLCs come out (also inevitable). The answer is obviously no. Because of course it won't be pointed out. Ever. Because it's always about being more negative and initial narratives.

    What exactly do you think is going to change? I really want to know this. Because with 10 million copies sold in three freaking days... it's clearly going to be nothing. Why should they change? They literally have no incentive to because they know they can continue to get away with it because they know they can. Why the hell are you even surprised at this? I want to know this too. Like seriously. How are you surprised by this? I guess it really literally is only me because I'm not surprised by this in the slightest. They have been getting away with this for years. It didn't just start now all of a sudden out of the god damn blue.

    But whatever. I'm the moron. I'm the idiot. I'm 'out of touch.' I'm the dumbass. I'm blinded by nostalgia. Yep. Your absolutely right.

    I'm sure the franchise ending is exactly what should happen and won't have an effect on the monster catching genre in general. Yep. I'm sure that would be totally fine and not get everyone to change their tunes immediately. Shut this forum down then if that's the case.

    But your right. I'm the moron. Absolutely.

    Go get your god damn refund.


    MAJORLY IMPORTANT EDIT: And no I'm not defending GameFreak and TPC. Because you literally can't. It's indefensible. That is literally not what I'm doing. I'm just saying how all of this is utter nonsense and utter BS.
    Click to expand...

    I am getting bored of reading these narratives where you seem to think people are attacking you when, literally no one had even said anything. Please also stop painting yourself as this like weird martyr against literally every other person as if you're the only one that exists with this opinion and the world is out to get you, because that isn't even the case and it's just causing you to be hostile in tone for literally no reason.

    ThomasWinwood said:
    I have no time for this sentiment anymore because it turns a blind eye to all the bugs that existed in old games. Some off the top of my head:
    Software ships with bugs. This is never going to not be true, and it's not a new phenomenon. The general public find many more bugs than any quantity of QA engineers, and even when QA engineers do find bugs it's not always possible to fix them before the game has to go out to meet its release date.
    Click to expand...

    Main issue with your comparison here is that they didn't really have the capability of being able to fix them en masse once they were released, whereas in this day and age tha definitely is possible (and has already happened with recent titles as seen with the day zero BDSP update and such), so as much as bugs are inevitably going to come up (something by the way that I think people aren't necessarily complaining about, just the fact that sort of issues that are coming out really shouldn't be), by now some form of patch should at least have been mentioned will be coming, imo.
     
    Arcaneum said:
    Main issue with your comparison here is that they didn't really have the capability of being able to fix them en masse once they were released
    Click to expand...
    They had the ability to ship new versions of games with bugs fixed, and sometimes they did—nowhere near all of them, sure, but it was a lot harder for information about bugs to get from the players to the developers back in the early nineties (not to mention we've had three decades to find bugs in the original Sonic games). In a lot of cases bugs don't get fixed by patching the old game because nobody is getting paid to do that—Squaresoft are famous for having taken this to the extreme of allegedly throwing away the source code for each game after they ship—so the patch ends up in the next release instead. (Pokémon is an example of this: Game Freak don't seem to have been using much source control when developing the original Pokémon games, so our Red and Blue was a frankenstein codebase which combined the game content of Japanese Red and Green with the engine of Japanese Blue, which included some bugfixes.)
     
    This' unacceptable. Dont care whats the reason. Besides all these major companies, now even Nintendo has no quality assurance.

    Legends Arc i had fun with. It was my 1st new Pokemon game in a while but i got it used for 40/50 a yr after launch. Hoped S/V would improve a whole lot + release in a finished-ish state at least..
     
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