Pokemon Scarlet and Violet will be the first fully open-world games in the franchise, and they are seemingly taking all the right elements from Pokemon Legends: Arceus' exploration and travel, which was quite expansive thanks to Basculegion and Braviary, in particular. In Gen 9, players won't need a plethora of pocket monsters to freely explore Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's Paldea, but rather they will use the box Legendaries, Koraidon and Miraidon, and their multiple forms. Gen 9 will also get rid of random encounters in tall grass, making all the Pokemon in the game only appear in the overworld, be it as clusters or alone. Furthermore, Gen 9 will bring about another revolution in the form of co-op.
Multiplayer co-op will be available for all players, as they will be able to invite friends over to join their game or vice versa. Because all shiny critters in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet will be available either from eggs, Tera Raids, or in the overworld, co-op should be adjusted based on this aspect to prevent untethered or tethered exploration from creating cascading issues. As such, shiny Pokemon should always be mainly available for the hosts, rather than allowing guests to snatch them if they encounter any.
Pokemon Scarlet and Violet Need to Balance Co-Op Around Shiny Pokemon
Having tethered co-op in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet would mean that there is a certain distance that the host and their guests have to keep from one another in order not to be booted from the game or lose their connection. For example, maybe players could not be in two different towns at the same time without running into issues, which does make sense to a degree in order to avoid a set of rippling problems there could be, but it also means that Gen 9's free exploration is limited in co-op. While theoretically it would be a good change of pace to allow players to just go wherever and catch whatever Pokemon they like in a friend's world, there are several potential pain points to consider if this turns out to be the case.
For starters, co-op likely doesn't mean that players can do exactly whatever they please in another person's world, and things like story progression or having access to features that players haven't unlocked in their game should and probably will be off the table. Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's version exclusives are a different beast, however, and players could be able to get critters their game version doesn't feature from a friend's world if they own the other version. But if this is the case, then it also means that shiny Pokemon could prove to be problematic to handle.
Shiny Pokemon are often among the most sought-after things in the franchise, and they are quite hard to come by in the wild, especially when one wants to farm for a specific species. Gen 4 remakes had plenty of issues with shinies, for example, as there were multiple instances of shiny Pokemon being uncatchable for one reason or another. If Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's free exploration does apply to co-op as well, then there needs to be a way to make hosts either the priority or the exclusive recipient of shiny Pokemon found in their own world.
Having guests show up and go wherever they want in the world and also catch a shiny Pokemon could cause a fair amount of backlash from the community. On the other hand, negating them the chance to get shiny Pokemon altogether would not be the best course of action, and Gen 9 needs to find a way to balance these potential issues with the way exploration really works. Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's Paradox Pokemon and Tera types are also another good example of this, as they might be among the hardest critters to farm in Gen 9, meaning that a way to manage co-op settings would be not only helpful, but needed.
Pokemon Scarlet and Violet release on November 18 for Nintendo Switch.