This topic is for the purpose of discussing #8622: drkspace's GBA Pokémon: Emerald Version "Professor Oak Living Dex Challenge Glitchless" in 14:23:26.50

isn't the cloning glitch useful? from what i recall it's faster to catch pokemon than it is to evolve, so i dont get why you have so many multiples of some of them,you could catch a wingull later... this opmitzation happens a lot in the r2 frlg tas as an example. the more i watch the less i like it, why didn't u just speedrun the game and cloned rare candies, i'm either clearly missing something or you didn't do any additional research

isn't the cloning glitch useful? from what i recall it's faster to catch pokemon than it is to evolve, so i dont get why you have so many multiples of some of them,you could catch a wingull later... this opmitzation happens a lot in the r2 frlg tas as an example. the more i watch the less i like it, why didn't u just speedrun the game and cloned rare candies, i'm either clearly missing something or you didn't do any additional research

They wanted it glitchless. The fact it's glitchless + need to catch and obtain 1 of every Pokemon before a gym kinda makes it very boring.

isn't the cloning glitch useful? from what i recall it's faster to catch pokemon than it is to evolve, so i dont get why you have so many multiples of some of them,you could catch a wingull later... this opmitzation happens a lot in the r2 frlg tas as an example. the more i watch the less i like it, why didn't u just speedrun the game and cloned rare candies, i'm either clearly missing something or you didn't do any additional research

To be fair, if they allow glitches, they would have to have a constrained allowance of glitches (i.e. only allow the Battle Tower Duplication Glitch) to prevent the pomeg berry from making things even more boring. With the pomeg berry and all the fun that entails you can just outright complete the dex entirely, by just constantly corrupting to get eggs which hatch into the Pokemon you need. Which is even worse with Professor Oak Challenge rules, which would make it so once the 4th gym is complete you have to obtain the entire rest of the dex right then and now and can't complete the 5th gym until you do so. Not to mention glitches which can allow for skipping gyms kind of makes the challenge itself somewhat moot, if the requirement of not completing a gym can be cheesed with glitches to outright skip gyms. Also, not sure if you just didn't read the description, but they can't just speedrun the game and clone Rare Candies, if not just due to wanting to be glitchless, but that not work as well as you might think due to the "Professor Oak Challenge" rules, which stipulate that you must obtain all the dex entries for Pokemon before you complete the next gym. So the Battle Tower Duplication Glitch can only be effective against Pokemon which are only obtainable after the 8th gym (or is it only Pokemon which are only obtainable after E4/Champion, is E4/Champion considered a "gym" under the Professor Oak Challenge? I don't know, still doesn't change the point). To be fair again however, not reading the description would be somewhat proof of the esoteric nature of the goal presented here (although you still missed the "Glitchless" part of the goal here). "Professor Oak Challenge" makes no sense for anyone who doesn't know the series, as "Professor Oak" is just the professor in Kanto region, who is never even mentioned in Emerald, so it requires knowledge of the game series itself. Not to mention "Professor Oak" as a character doesn't even have this kind of challenge, it's a fan created challenge. Professor Oak in the Kanto games just gave you the Pokedex and wanted you to complete it, but not with any of the restrictions placed in with by the fan created challenge (the fan created nature of the challenge could be seen as a parallel to a Nuzlocke challenge). To complicate this even further, this TAS places an additional challenge on top of the Professor Oak challenge. A "Living Dex" stiuplates that you need a member of every single species, evolved, mid-stage evolution, and unevolved, in your party/boxes/breeding house. Also by that, it is somewhat an independent challenge which has to be accomplished alongside the Professor Oak Challenge (i.e. you can very well do a Living Dex without Professor Oak Challenge or do the Professor Oak Challenge without a Living Dex requirement). Although this TAS, I assume, would tie them together as to mean the Professor Oak Living Dex Challenge needs to complete the Living Dex as much as possible before each gym. Ultimately however, "Living Dex" does make some sense if you know the game a little (Dex is short for Pokedex, the thing that tracks all Pokemon seen/caught, and Living means that you have each Pokemon Living in your party/boxes/breeding house), but still it is a fan created term here and not entirely clear to someone who doesn't have knowledge of what it means exactly (granted, the fact it makes sense with some knowledge means it's not too esoteric here). Considering too the kind of boringness that this TAS has, that at least has been seen so far in responses, it's probable too that this TAS might not be publishable per se, and would just go to Playground.

Considering too the kind of boringness that this TAS has, that at least has been seen so far in responses, it's probable too that this TAS might not be publishable per se, and would just go to Playground.

And with how "boring" this run is (I'm not saying that sarcastically, you have to skip over the grinding sections while watching) imagine a few hours of just menuing to get a complete living dex (and that would include every gen I-III mon) and then just doing a regular playthrough. I would also think any 14h+ run would be boring (the longest TAS here is [3386] PSX TOCA Touring Car Championship "max points" by Noxxa in 10:37:18.72). The most interesting thing about this run to me is the pickup abuse. Maybe a more "exciting" run would be the challenge in Ruby/Saphire since pickup doesn't depend on levels, so you don't need to initially grind up a zigzagoon to level 21 before you start collecting rare candies. I think that run could easily be sub 10 hours, maybe even sub 9. Personally (completely biased), I think it should be published since it'll be the longest TAS by a wide margin.

Personally (completely biased), I think it should be published since it'll be the longest TAS by a wide margin.

You probably missed the Desert Bus maximum score submission undergoing publication, which is over 33 days (so your submission would be a solid 2nd place if published). Regardless, the issue I point out is due to the goal of this movie. It is not a "Standard" class goal. Standard goals do not have to worry about entertainment in order to be published, if you do a TAS and it is with a standard goal it will be published (assuming the game is publishable in the first place, which official non-AO games will always meet, and the TAS is optimal/beats all records/etc). If you do a TAS and it does not have a Standard goal, it will be judged under the "Alternative" class. These don't have the goal restrictions that Standard has, but the TAS must be deemed "entertaining" by the audience. The esoteric nature of this submission's goal also hurts it due to this Alternative class guideline:

Your goal choice should be clearly defined and sensible, especially to those who do not know your chosen game. Assume that the audience is seeing the game for the first time.

When the goal is not Standard, and the run is not entertaining by our community, it falls under our "Playground" class. This class doesn't actually entail any publication, in its current form it's just left as a submission which has a flag indicating it's in the Playground.

Your goal choice should be clearly defined and sensible, especially to those who do not know your chosen game. Assume that the audience is seeing the game for the first time.

not sure I entirely like the last sentence of this guideline. Like the first part is decent advice but sometimes goals just won't really mean as much to somebody who hasn't played the game and I think that's ok.

I'm the original creator of the Professor Oak Challenge. This is a very impressive technical achievement, and a significant improvement over your first TAS of this category. In my opinion, this goal choice is not ideal for a TAS because of the large amount of level grinding in the early game. The "Co-op Diploma" category would be faster and more entertaining, with a clearer goal choice to the casual viewer. I think Gabraltar has looked into doing that for Ruby/Sapphire, but I don't know if he's actually started on it. Anyway, I still found this TAS very interesting. I especially enjoyed the use of Linoone as a main battler, and the optimized Berry Blender to evolve Feebas. I support putting this in the Playground.