>>48646054It's actually way worse; ever since LGPE, affection's been removed and its benefits have been merged into certain checkpoint values in the 'friendship' value:
https://www.serebii.net/swordshield/happiness.shtmlIf they have the same cap of 160 as SwSh, it might take a while for following pokemon to get to shonen-effect strength, but it's still a pain in the ass. Anyway, have a cat.