Topic by Tilus

Posted: 8/22/2005 4:08 AM

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Tilus

Former player

Joined: 9/24/2004
Posts: 177

After a bit of a lull, I'm back in action, and this run is continuing on. After annoying me thoroughly, the Pewter City trainers blocking the road to Mt. Moon have finally been conquered, and I've also shortened the trip by what I hope is quite some time through much more aggressive timesaver searching. I'm currently through Mt. Moon on the way to Cerulean City. The most annoying part of the run is about to come up though (aka the Nugget Bridge gauntlet + friends on the way to Bill's house), but thankfully after that most of the enemies I face will go down in two turns or less, making battle optimization much much easier. I've also determined that I'm NOT going to pick up Body Slam.. for it to be useful throughout the remainder of the run I'll have to pick up a dedicated Strength slave (as no Pokemon in R/B that's not well out of the way can learn both Cut and Strength), which adds a few more seconds, not to mention I'll have to hexedit/redo the run to purchase a fifth Pokeball, and while I still don't know where on the SS Anne the TM is located, I figure in the very best case scenario it'll still take about 4-5 seconds to pick up.. and Body Slam will most definitely not shave off 5-6 turns on its' own. ..And as for catching a Mew, I'll see what I can do. XD

Posted: 8/23/2005 5:36 PM

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antimatter

Joined: 4/21/2005
Posts: 32
Location: Georgia, USA

Tilus wrote:

(as no Pokemon in R/B that's not well out of the way can learn both Cut and Strength)

Actually, Sandshrew can learn both, and he's not really out of the way if you use the Blue version. Plus, you're already to the point where you can catch one.

Posted: 8/23/2005 7:25 PM

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Tilus

Former player

Joined: 9/24/2004
Posts: 177

Gack~ I totally forgot about Sandshrew.. I knew there was one sitting in the back of my mind that I thought was pretty close, but could never find it.. Thankfully I'm not TOO far ahead at this point. Now, I have to go back to my hardcopy version, which is already at the SS Anne, and figure out where on that ship the Body Slam TM is.. if indeed I won't have to go through an additional trainer to get it, I'll definitely redo the Nugget Bridge Gauntlet to pick up a Sandshrew. (EDIT: Just found it. It is in a cabin on the optimal path through the SS Anne, however there is a trainer blocking it - but the trainer's only Pokemon is a lv21 Nidoran(M). It should go down in only two turns. As for whether I'll save time by picking it up, though.. that's another story. I'll have to think about it. I am getting a heck of a lot of mileage out of Bubble's speed reduction at the moment, so that plus the enemy Pokemon being unable to attack may swing my decision toward getting it.)

Posted: 8/24/2005 12:03 AM

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antimatter

Joined: 4/21/2005
Posts: 32
Location: Georgia, USA

Of course, rather than doing that, if you've not progressed far in Cerulean City, you could bypass the Sandshrew and utilize the Trainer-Fly glitch to catch a Mew and use him as your HM slave, since he can learn all 4 HM's you'll use. I'm not sure how much time that would really save, though. *Edit: Though at this point, I should call it the Trainer-Teleport glitch, since you don't have fly yet. Oh well, semantics.

Posted: 8/26/2005 5:21 AM

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Tilus

Former player

Joined: 9/24/2004
Posts: 177

I'm not going to be using the Trainer/Fly glitch in the run. It takes too long to execute for it to be worth anything. (If you're talking about catching Mew, though, I'll be making a separate movie to execute that glitch to catch Mew.) Meanwhile, just as it looked like I had gotten past all the annoying parts in the game (managed to catch my Abra on the first step in the grass patch on the way to the Hidden Bonus Dungeon with only a few frames luck manipulation delay after pulling my hair out trying to manipulate an Abra encounter in the grass patch on the way to Bill's house, and after much insanity finally managed to make the two lv13 Oddishes blocking the way to Bill's house miss with Absorb).. I begin to realize that the lv17 Machop the Rocket who stole the Dig TM uses only knows Karate Chop and is JUST high enough level to avoid being one hit with Water Gun. -_-; So yes, it does seem you get three opportunities to see me force an attack with "perfect" hit rate to miss. (It's a shame I won't be able to encounter an enemy who uses Swift and uses it before I one hit it.. I would've loved to sneak a manipulated Swift miss into the run even if it costs me 10 seconds to manipulate it..) Thankfully, though, after this that should be the last of the extremely difficult/boring parts of the run to make. Most of the rest of the run should go much more smoothly as most of the enemies I fight from this point on are one hit with powerful moves. And, for those that are wondering, I am now up to 24 seconds ahead of the test run at this point, up from about even at my last update. The gap should continue to widen, as well, as the three seconds saved every time the Shift prompt no longer appears will begin to add up from this point on. I'll post a new update once I finish off the next two Gyms, which won't take much longer.

Posted: 9/4/2005 6:31 AM

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Tilus

Former player

Joined: 9/24/2004
Posts: 177

Yay, progress[/url]! Completed the third gym, and I'm now up to ~1min 10sec faster than the test run. I ended the run by Teleporting back to Cerulean, which should save another 45 seconds to a minute compared to the test run, as well. Also, here are some savestates[/url], saved after the completion of the first two gyms. I did struggle defeating a few trainers in this section of the game - I can tell already that the Squirtle I generated this time around has higher Special but lower Attack.. I noticed there were a few enemies I was able to one hit I suddenly can't anymore, and vice versa. Thankfully I'll be relying on Special more than Attack, so overall I should gain more ground than I lose with the tradeoff. There are also some potential timesavers I didn't use in this run, but they take too long to test out and save too little time to be of any practical use (chances are most of these possible bonuses would be lost in all the luck manipulation I do through the run anyways). Once the run's submitted I'll list some of these, in case any speedrunners with way too much free time on their hands would want to try them out. If you've got any questions about the run up to this point, feel free to fire away.

Posted: 9/4/2005 7:22 AM

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Kitsune

Joined: 4/29/2005
Posts: 1212

Well, Squirtle is the physically weakest of the three starters. I would have gone for Bulbasaur, since they have well rounded stats, and have strong specials against Ground/Water/Rock, and are able to withstand electricity. Plus a Bulbasaur's Razorleaf would be good to have in the long run, since it ALMOST always criticals in R/B/Y, which could make it almost unstoppable. But yea, that's just me. ;3 Squirtle is never a really good Physical Attacker, the only really good stats it gets are Defense and Special. Just rely on Specials like Surf, Hydro Pump, Bubblebeam, etc.

Posted: 9/4/2005 7:49 AM

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Bag_of_Magic_Food

He/Him

Active player (278)

Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712

Hey, couldn't you save a step by talking to Lieutenant Surge on the left side?

put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude

Posted: 9/4/2005 9:01 AM

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Ego_Buff

Joined: 4/11/2005
Posts: 57

It's not whether bulba has better stats or not - it's about the speed you go throught this game. Squirtle can defeat the first gym really fast - both bulba and charmander require high levels or long battles. There aren't any major time-wasters for squirtle at any point. That combined with the good attacks makes squirtle the absolute number 1 starter. Razor Leaf is great and all, but manipulating critical hits isn't that hard. Venusaur has no really special advantages at any point of the game.

I won't give up unless my victory is assured!

Posted: 9/4/2005 2:52 PM

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Tilus

Former player

Joined: 9/24/2004
Posts: 177

Bag of Magic Food: Nope - while talking to him on the left side might look a little bit cleaner, the path I took doesn't waste any time. I'm still going to have to take the same amount of steps using either path - it's just with your route, the extra step is vertical instead of horizontal. Kitsune: Yes, as the others said, I chose Squirtle because of its' versatility. It has excellent TM compatibility, allowing for the Blastoise to learn moves which affect a wide range of enemies (my eventual moveset will be Ice Beam/Dig/Strength/Surf, which in the later half of the game one hits just about everything besides Lorelei's (of the Elite 4) group, and scroll back a bit to see how I handle that). It also isn't weak during any other part of the run, so Squirtle is by far the best choice for a Pokemon R/B speed run.

Posted: 9/4/2005 3:40 PM

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Bag_of_Magic_Food

He/Him

Active player (278)

Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712

Okay, sorry, I was just confused. So is there a delay for turning in this game?

put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude

Posted: 9/4/2005 4:21 PM

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antimatter

Joined: 4/21/2005
Posts: 32
Location: Georgia, USA

Tilus wrote:

my eventual moveset will be Ice Beam/Dig/Strength/Surf

Wouldn't it make more sense to use Earthquake over Dig, since they're equally powerful, but Dig wastes a turn in battle? Is the EQ TM too far out of the way to really save any time? Or will you be using Dig as a teleportation move? Of course, if you're catching a Sandshrew for Cut, you could teach him Dig for teleporting and give Squirtle EQ when you get it.

Posted: 9/4/2005 4:41 PM

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Bag_of_Magic_Food

He/Him

Active player (278)

Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712

He caught a Bellsprout for Cut...

put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude

Posted: 9/4/2005 4:49 PM

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antimatter

Joined: 4/21/2005
Posts: 32
Location: Georgia, USA

Mmm, this is why I should probably watch the WIPs before I open my mouth, eh? Disregard that part, then.

Posted: 9/4/2005 6:03 PM

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Tilus

Former player

Joined: 9/24/2004
Posts: 177

Any sort of turn lag won't matter because any time saved manipulating this lag down will be lost in the luck manipulation for battle. I'm pretty much disregarding any potential timesavers that would save less than 30 frames per instance for this very reason. As for Dig vs Earthquake, the reason I'm not using Earthquake is the same reason why I'm not using Body Slam - getting the Earthquake TM is out of the way, I need to face a trainer to get to it (I don't know how many Pokemon this trainer uses or how quickly I can take out these Pokemon), and the time saved using Earthquake isn't all that much, really.. actually, there's a bigger downside and a smaller upside to using Earthquake over Dig than there is to use Body Slam over Strength/Bite. Also, if you watch the WIP, you'll notice that I'm already aggressively looking for ways in which I can reduce the amount of times I use Dig.

Posted: 9/4/2005 6:22 PM
(Edited: 11/3/2005 2:36 PM)

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Maza

Joined: 5/27/2005
Posts: 465
Location: Turku, Finland

I made a map for all of you of how to get Earthquake (TM26). You can find it here: http://koti.mbnet.fi/maza-/pics/Pokemon_-_Earthquake.jpg I'm pretty sure you'll need to fight that Rocket on that corner (like Tilus said). So it would take some time to beat him. Plus the detour to the TM would also take some time. (I might remove the map from there after few days so don't come yelling me that the link doesn't work :) ) EDIT: fixed the link

Which run should I encode next? :)

Posted: 9/5/2005 6:03 AM

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FractalFusion

Editor, Skilled player (1941)

Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 3247

I wonder if you guys saw David Kim's speedrun of Pokemon Yellow. He gets the Earthquake for Nidoking in that run. It's a great run, too, even though it's Yellow. It may be better to get some exercise. In other words, see whether climbing stairs is faster than using the elevator. As for turning, I don't think there is any delay at all. Wait, I almost missed the update! Watching now. Edit: Good job, Tilus! I didn't think you would have caught an Abra. You're going for a no-damage run, right? As for Squirtle's DV's, you could have saved the game and checked the memory location where Squirtle's DV's would be located. Also, I want to point out that in the Rock Tunnel, there is a battle you can skip. Near the second ladder with the Hiker and some other guy. Just stay close to the right wall until you reach the top.

Posted: 10/3/2005 4:42 PM

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Hamm

Joined: 7/29/2004
Posts: 136
Location: Temple City, CA

Just checking in to see how this run is going. Any progress?

"How can you prove you exist? Maybe we don't exist..." -Vivi Ornitier (Final Fantasy IX)

Posted: 10/3/2005 5:10 PM

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Tilus

Former player

Joined: 9/24/2004
Posts: 177

Just got back into the run yesterday, I'm currently midway through the Rock Tunnel. You should see another WIP posted here fairly soon.

Posted: 10/7/2005 4:27 PM

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Tilus

Former player

Joined: 9/24/2004
Posts: 177

And here's that update you've been waiting for! I've finished the fourth gym, finally. Movie file is at the usual place[/url], and the savestates[/url] .zip has been updated with a savestate for the end of the third gym. This update puts me timewise over the halfway point in the run, and I'm currently 108 seconds ahead of the test run at this point. I think someone mentioned somewhere that one of the trainers in the Rock Tunnel could be avoided.. I checked every trainer in the original run to see which could be avoided and which couldn't, but I double checked here and every trainer I run into is unavoidable. I noticed a couple rather large timesavers while making this segment, including noticing I've got the resources left in my Wartortle to make it all the way to the purified zone in Pokemon Tower, so I completely bypassed visiting the Pokemon Center in Lavender Town, and moved learning Ice Beam to right after teaching my Doduo how to Dig to avoid having to scroll all the way back to the top of the menu when using the Bicycle to get to the fourth Gym (which takes much longer than really necessary to do). Doing a bit of testing, walking up the stairs in the Celadon dept. store really is faster than taking the elevator (by about 100 frames), but it is slightly faster to take the elevator back down, and looks a bit cleaner too. I also unfortunately had to do a bit of moving around to luck manipulate a Doduo out of the bushes west of Celadon (catching it instead of a Spearow would save a good 10 seconds or so by avoiding the whole "X wants to learn Y! But, X can't learn more than 4 moves!" speech, as Doduo only knows 1 move at that point). As always, if you've got questions/comments, fire them away here.

Posted: 10/7/2005 11:09 PM

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FractalFusion

Editor, Skilled player (1941)

Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 3247

Run looks great. I didn't even realize the purified zone restores your PP. I believe that it is possible to pull a Missingno glitch in Cerulean City via the Trainer-Fly glitch, although this in no way should destroy your run, or any run based on what you are doing. Such a glitch could give you 129 of the 6th item (Rare Candies, perhaps).

Posted: 10/10/2005 12:46 PM

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Maza

Joined: 5/27/2005
Posts: 465
Location: Turku, Finland

Could someone tell me what is the famous Trainer-Fly glitch and how to do it?

Which run should I encode next? :)

Posted: 10/10/2005 9:32 PM

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Spriteless

Joined: 8/7/2004
Posts: 51

It is to catch Mew in Red/Blue. It is explained in detail here.

mew.

Posted: 10/11/2005 9:14 PM

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Patashu

He/Him

Joined: 10/2/2005
Posts: 4017

It can be applied to pretty much any trainer, though, and can yield other pokemon.

My Chiptune music, made in Famitracker: http://soundcloud.com/patashu My twitch. I stream mostly shmups & rhythm games http://twitch.tv/patashu My youtube, again shmups and rhythm games and misc stuff: http://youtube.com/user/patashu

Posted: 10/13/2005 5:24 PM

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Tilus

Former player

Joined: 9/24/2004
Posts: 177

Well, while the site was down (and just before I got the sickness I've had the last couple of days..), I concocted this up. It runs off a savestate created from the full Pokemon Blue run after leaving the 4th gym, and should be able to be edited into the movie if you want absolute undeniable proof that this is doable. =P