Legends Arceus certainly could have been markedly worse about it, at least
anyway whoooooooo wants to test affection!!!!
A RECAP on the assumption that Affection & Happiness work similar to Gen 8
-Happiness & affection are now rolled into one thing
-Friendship evolutions now proc at 160
-Up to 179 points, no bonus go into effect
-In SWSH, you are locked at 179 until you do something that breaks past it. Camping, Curry and Following Pokemon all did this (despite what bulbapedia says, Following Pokemon absolutely breaks it) as does apparently the EV reset berries. Bulbapedia also claims that it still must use these methods to continue increasing Happiness (following absolutely still does this just btw) since the other methods 0 out but I have doubts.
-In BDSP the lock wasn't there at all, everything all the time increased it.
-Once you breached 180 you would start to see Affection effects. Early onset affection would be messages showing up in battle and shaking pokemon.
-Incidentally Legends Arceus had no affection at all. but we know gen 9 has it so....oh well.
OK so Chansey is in the game so this should be a much easier time to check. Its base friendship is 140, a mere 20 away from Blissey and a hypothetical mere 40 away from the lock (if there is one)
My ideas for testing are as follows:
-The baseline Chansey: just normal usage, probably primarily through level ups. Supposedly exp items didn't give extra happiness in SWSH but we'll ignore that. Once you hit Blissey you should be within earshot. Who knows how far you'll have to go to really confirm, but shouldn't take too long.
-The slightly less baseline Chansey: like above but you're willing to use more items on it. There's lot of little ones like the Berries but can't rule out that other items might now break it too.
-The runner Chansey: Chansey but you just run all around Paldea using Let's Go. Following Pokemon really seemed to just sky rocket affection despite what the data appears to say. Occasionally go into battles to check the messages and probably evolve at some point. This one especially relevant to anyone wanting to use Pawmot since it's evolution method requires Let's Go. Probably also use Let's Go to collect items and stuff
-The picnic Chansey; a Chansey you just let out for picnics, but not feeding anything. Probably best to use one of the baselines as a starting point here. Basically does merely having Chansey out in a Picnic increase friendship and break the affection barrier
-The sandwich Chansey: i mean we can all kind of assume without any insight that making sandwiches probably does increase affection but like, gotta know. for the data.
-The cafeteria Chansey: you can just buy sandwiches so like does eating those also increase affection or is it only the ones you make. Are they made with love?!
It should also give an idea of how quickly these things start increasing.
