From what I understood, it's not *all* paradox pokemon that have this issue. Some (like WW/IL) had correctly set to not drop the "material", others however did and would drop this nonexistant item which would cause a game crash (likely due to a null ref pointer)
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Great Tusk & Iron Treads 5* Raid Announced
- Thread starter Chou Toshio
- Start date
Serebii's idea is that they weren't in the Paldea dex.
Custom item drop tables are possible, so I guess WW/IL had custom tables from the get-go, perhaps also related to them being restricted catches like 7* raids despite being only 5*. I would guess they just used the standard 5* template for tusk/treads, which caused the item issue, but not sure why they didn't just whip some up some custom tables for them.
I was using WW/IL as example (of course, considering GT/IT are the only other event Paradoxes it's not like there were any others to use as example) because I noticed it specifically said "material" drops and considering the only Pokemon that don't have any that are in the Pokedex are Paradox Pokemon, and WW/IL aren't in it, thus event exclusive, I was thinking that was the case. I probably should've worded it better.
TL;DR if GF hadn’t been stingy with the item drops and made this a vitamin factory then everything would’ve been cool. Or some cool gimmick like Soft Sand— how about a small chance for Sour Herba Mystica because they are the Earth Titan mons? So uncreative…
These raids also need a generous serving of EV-reducing berries, too.
Actually, rather than materials why not make it so Paradox Raids have a chance at dropping a Booster Energy?
My guess is one of two things.
1. The Raid table checks the Pokemon's Pokedex number and then checks for its Material Drop, resulting in the Null issue for Paradoxes, but not Pokemon out of the Dex (which may just have an "else" case for "if not in the Dex, just skip this drop check")
2. Raids that can have variable Tera Types still run on a templated drop table, while "fixed" Tera types as the 7*'s and Walking Wake/Iron Leaves had are fixed and ensured not to carry Material drops.
With that said, we know from things like the Blissey event that they can set up new Raid Tables (Blissey would exclusively drop Candy and Tera Shards, no Happiny Materials), so this feels like a massive oversight. Best guess there is they used a "normal" template since compared to the Blissey event and such, the drops were an after thought and the Pokemon themselves are the "main" prize for the Paradox Raids.
Here's my lukewarm take: Just make the Paradoxes drop their "normal" counterparts' materials (so in this case Phanphy/Donphan). Even if we debate the "actual time travel vs made by the Machine" topic, it's clear these Pokemon have a deliberate resemblance to the "Present" Pokemon that everyone is aware of even within the story (the Earth Titan co-exists with normal Phanphy/Donphan and Penny mistakes a Paradox for its normal in Area Zero).
1. The Raid table checks the Pokemon's Pokedex number and then checks for its Material Drop, resulting in the Null issue for Paradoxes, but not Pokemon out of the Dex (which may just have an "else" case for "if not in the Dex, just skip this drop check")
2. Raids that can have variable Tera Types still run on a templated drop table, while "fixed" Tera types as the 7*'s and Walking Wake/Iron Leaves had are fixed and ensured not to carry Material drops.
With that said, we know from things like the Blissey event that they can set up new Raid Tables (Blissey would exclusively drop Candy and Tera Shards, no Happiny Materials), so this feels like a massive oversight. Best guess there is they used a "normal" template since compared to the Blissey event and such, the drops were an after thought and the Pokemon themselves are the "main" prize for the Paradox Raids.
Here's my lukewarm take: Just make the Paradoxes drop their "normal" counterparts' materials (so in this case Phanphy/Donphan). Even if we debate the "actual time travel vs made by the Machine" topic, it's clear these Pokemon have a deliberate resemblance to the "Present" Pokemon that everyone is aware of even within the story (the Earth Titan co-exists with normal Phanphy/Donphan and Penny mistakes a Paradox for its normal in Area Zero).
Getting the feeling that something similar would happen if we had Paldea Starter raids.
Very likely yeah. Starters, Paradoxes, Legends dont have materials listed
guess we should be glad they decided to do the HA starters through Home and not a celebration for the anniversary!
Looking back on it a week later, I feel like these bugged paradox raids have accidentally been a great example of gameplay and story integration, being the first raids to feature paradoxes from the base game and reminding us why they were so dangerous by breaking the game with their presence.
In the finale of Scarlet and Violet, we learn that the paradoxes are a hostile threat that would bring destruction to the ecological balance of Paldea, even turning on the professor themself and debilitating Mabosstiff on a level beyond what normal healing could treat. In the postgame, they just end up being treated as regular Pokemon that you can catch and have picnics with, and the story beats from the finale are mostly dropped, other than mentioning that terastal energy from the crater being the source of the black crystal raids.
The paradox raids create a fitting parallel to the end of Scarlet and Violet that's happening in real time, with gamefreak themselves in the role of the misguided professor trying to reintroduce paradoxes into the environment of Paldea, and the result being immediate chaos that forced them to be locked away again. Fortunately unlike the original professor, it seems like gamefreak was still able to stop their event raid distribution on their own and didn't have to force an AI to carry on their legacy for now, but this has still left a lasting impact by delaying the usual 7-star raid schedule and leaving only uncertainty for the future.
It makes for a creative example of immersive storytelling where first we were told about the consequences, but now we're seeing for ourselves how the paradoxes can attack on our level beyond just their role in the game's story. The dangers of the paradoxes extend to their materials being incomprehensible enough to cause a game crash, which is a threat that glitches and glitchmons have posed before, but now it's tied to an actual threat in the story canon, though overall I feel like the universe of Scarlet and Violet might just be irreversibly unstable with all the tera energy involved in changing types and rewriting reality.
EDIT: We also can't forget that the paradoxes have directly struck via raids once before with Walking Wake and Iron Leaves taking the form of bad eggs, forcing gamefreak to fix it in an update and rerun the raid specifically for everyone who caught the bad egg the first time.
In the finale of Scarlet and Violet, we learn that the paradoxes are a hostile threat that would bring destruction to the ecological balance of Paldea, even turning on the professor themself and debilitating Mabosstiff on a level beyond what normal healing could treat. In the postgame, they just end up being treated as regular Pokemon that you can catch and have picnics with, and the story beats from the finale are mostly dropped, other than mentioning that terastal energy from the crater being the source of the black crystal raids.
The paradox raids create a fitting parallel to the end of Scarlet and Violet that's happening in real time, with gamefreak themselves in the role of the misguided professor trying to reintroduce paradoxes into the environment of Paldea, and the result being immediate chaos that forced them to be locked away again. Fortunately unlike the original professor, it seems like gamefreak was still able to stop their event raid distribution on their own and didn't have to force an AI to carry on their legacy for now, but this has still left a lasting impact by delaying the usual 7-star raid schedule and leaving only uncertainty for the future.
It makes for a creative example of immersive storytelling where first we were told about the consequences, but now we're seeing for ourselves how the paradoxes can attack on our level beyond just their role in the game's story. The dangers of the paradoxes extend to their materials being incomprehensible enough to cause a game crash, which is a threat that glitches and glitchmons have posed before, but now it's tied to an actual threat in the story canon, though overall I feel like the universe of Scarlet and Violet might just be irreversibly unstable with all the tera energy involved in changing types and rewriting reality.
EDIT: We also can't forget that the paradoxes have directly struck via raids once before with Walking Wake and Iron Leaves taking the form of bad eggs, forcing gamefreak to fix it in an update and rerun the raid specifically for everyone who caught the bad egg the first time.
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So this is finally back. Did a couple of Iron Treads last night and hosted a couple of Great Tusk and I'm probably done with online raids for this event. :P
It's too bad there's no replacement for the shiny den rerolling trick from swsh so that these events could be used to farm the opposite counterpart shinies.
It's too bad there's no replacement for the shiny den rerolling trick from swsh so that these events could be used to farm the opposite counterpart shinies.