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I created the current NES River City Ransom TASes, for 1 player and 2 players. This run appears to be slower than the RTA world record. I suggest watching that for inspiration.
Button-mashing is seen as sloppy, because it's preferable to use savestates and frame advance to figure out the first frame that you can take an action on. This applies to the opening menus, but it also applies to finding the first frame at which you can effectively throw a punch, or start to sprint, or jump to the end of an area. I spent a lot of time on my RCR TASes just saving a state and then narrowing down the exact frame I could start an attack successfully.
On the NES RCR, I found that the frame I exited a stage could alter enemy spawn positions and enemy types in the next area. This was important for reaching enemies quickly, being able to hit multiple enemies with one attack, and for spawning the weakest enemies possible in every boss fight area.
Good luck with your next run. I've always thought an EX TAS would be interesting to see.
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Voting yes. I found the use of redbar very impressive, and considering that it saves several minutes, definitely worthwhile. RTAs use it, and I don't think sacrificing several minutes for better audio is worthwhile.
TiKevin83 wrote:
These numbers say that non-redbar Tackle is 10 frames faster with animations turned on. Is it possible that a future run could save 20 frames by fighting the first Rival with animations on, and only enter the options menu afterwards? Or would this cause problems with the good RNG you found in this run?
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Voting yes. I found the use of redbar very impressive, and considering that it saves several minutes, definitely worthwhile. RTAs use it, and I don't think sacrificing several minutes for better audio is worthwhile.
TiKevin83 wrote:
These numbers say that non-redbar Tackle is 10 frames faster with animations turned on. Is it possible that a future run could save 20 frames by fighting the first Rival with animations on, and only enter the options menu afterwards? Or would this cause problems with the good RNG you found in this run?
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Why is it faster to use RTA strats after the first three halves? Is it just that it's not possible to outmaneuver the AI defenders without releasing the Up button? Or is it related to the clock having only 30 seconds on it?
Also, did you test running out of bounds instead of running directly into the defenders? For example, in High School first half, that stops the first play at your 41-yard line instead of your 44-yard line, so it's slightly sooner and will let the clock run down a bit more.
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Jadextreme wrote:
Will switch to use any dogs go any faster (from ecruteak)?
Amazed to noticed this was done back in 2006!
There's a Pokémon GSC thread to discuss this, but the answer to your question is probably no. I know it's useful for the unassisted Crystal speedrun, but because of luck-manipulation, Graveler gets a one-hit KO on almost everything in this TAS. Taking a detour of a couple minutes to catch a legendary dog doesn't seem to be worth the time.
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deuxhero wrote:
How about adding in Stadium 1 (which will require minimal modification from the existing Gym Leader Castle run, just manipulating the gifted Pokemon, redoing the final battle while the other runs are running+connecting at the end) to get extra fossils, Eevees and Hitmons (and maybe starters) for Yellow? Is it technologically possible?
Three games is the minimum to get diplomas in Gold and Crystal. We could make it faster by adding Red, or Blue, or maybe Pokémon Stadium if the technology allows, but I think the goal should be to use the minimum number of games to achieve this.
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You're making great points. I'm sure that Clefairy, Hitmonchan and Hitmonlee should all come from Yellow, because they take so long to acquire in G/C, and Yellow will have time to spare. I figure that we want Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle to gain EXP and evolve in Yellow. That means they will be acquired in Yellow before it resets, then traded probably from Crystal to Gold, then the post-reset Yellow run will get them from Gold in exchange for Pikachu, Pidgey, and Pidgeotto, or similarly convenient 'mons that can be caught before Pewter.
Elekid is a tricky one. It hatches in 6400 steps and Electabuzz can only be acquired in Kanto, but there are some enticing time savings that require not resetting Crystal. I've done a lot of route planning on my own for this route, I'm going to get it more organized and post it soon.
Edit: I've done a bit of testing and estimate it would take 2:30 to get Tyrogue from the Karate King instead of the Odd Egg. With the way Eggs work in Gen 2, breeding Electabuzz would take a very short amount of time once we go back to Johto, but the difficulty is that the Egg takes 6,400 steps to hatch and I don't see how we'd plausibly take that many steps without simply wasting time. Picking up every hidden Rare Candy in the game is one way to take up steps productively, and finding Ho-oh and Lugia is another, but that doesn't add up to 6,400.
Edit 2: Fortranm, you were right, it's better for Crystal to be the run that resets. I realized that the timesave of trading a Pokémon with Cut from one run can still be done if Crystal is the run that resets. Also, it's better for Gold to be the leading run because it's faster to catch the Legendary Pokémon in Gold instead of going through all the cutscenes and 3 extra battles required in Crystal to catch Suicune. The ability to pick up another Odd Egg is icing on the cake.
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What mandatory NPCs are in Gold but not Crystal? My notes say that Gold should be the one to restart, so Crystal can reach morning sooner. Crystal has a lot more morning-only Pokémon than Gold. Your point about multiple Odd Eggs is intriguing, but breeding is very fast with luck manipulation so I don't think it's that important. Crystal has a lot of morning-only Pokémon and I think it slows down the run if it has to wait until morning to catch them. I strongly disagree that Tyrogue is a bad choice; the difference between level 5 and 10 is only 875 EXP, and Mount Mortar is an absolute labyrinth that takes a couple of minutes to navigate.
EXP is probably the bottleneck. There just isn't enough to go around. I made a list of everything that needs EXP or Rare Candy to evolve that can't be evolved in Yellow, the levels, and how much EXP it is:
Meganium (5-32: 26,886)
Typhlosion (5-36: 39,872)
Feraligatr (5-30: 21,625)
Azumarill (20-21(18): 1,008)
Jumpluff (26-27: 2,633)
Forretress (10-31: 28,791)
Magcargo (32-38: 22,104)
Piloswine (26-33, 22,951)
Houndoom (18-24: 9,990)
Hitmontop (10-20: 7,000)
Tyranitar (40-55: 127,968)
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cheeze42 wrote:
Speaking of which, according to the wiki, Gen I trading is only possible after a 24 hour wait period, not just waiting for morning. If that's the case, then a diploma run would just be an autoscroller, right?
I've tested it, you just need to wait until after midnight. So it's a matter of timing it so that the first run reaches Ecruteak Pokémon Center just before midnight. The other run needs to get Fly before midnight in order to pick up the Green Apricorn east of Ecruteak and bring it to Kurt precisely before midnight, in order to get a Friend Ball after midnight.
Increasing Friendship is such a slow process for evolving Chansey that it's faster to catch it with a Friend Ball (+130 friendship!) than any other method. As for Eevee, Togepi, and Zubat, they can be caught early enough in the game that they'll gain a lot of friendship from walking around and being in the party during Gym Leader battles. It'll still be necessary to raise their Happiness with vitamins, extra level-ups, or the Haircut Brothers. One run (almost certainly Crystal) will always want Zubat, Eevee, and the Odd Egg (to hatch Tyrogue) in the party, and the other will always want Togepi and Eevee in the party.
Eggs take a staggering amount of time to hatch when the player is walking in straight lines to the next objective instead of wandering all over the map. I just measured the route and I estimate that Togepi will hatch in the Rocket Hideout in Mahogany, and both runs will need to carry the egg until then because trading a freshly hatched Pokémon costs -50 Friendship.
That's basically a debugger intended to fix a desynchronized clock, definitely inappropriate for a glitchless run. I'd say manipulating Daylight Savings Time to make morning come an hour earlier is fine, though.
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I found that it's possible to catch 'em all with Yellow, Gold, and Crystal. One key event is arriving in Ecruteak City before midnight, because there's an event that unlocks trading with generation 1 but only once the next day begins. Some Pokémon can only be caught during the day, but most can simply be traded from Yellow. Only one Pokémon absolutely can't be acquired during night or morning: Sunkern, which evolves into Sunflora with the Sun Stone. This means that either Gold will have to restart after catching Sunkern, or it won't ever be able to trade with Yellow, which seems weak. Gold and Crystal will be much slower than Yellow, so we want to minimize the number of trades they do.
It's possible, although not a huge timesave, that if Gold outpaces Crystal before the first reset it could trade over something with Cut so Crystal can skip acquiring that HM. However, I'm not sure if Crystal can waste enough time between New Bark Town and Azalea Town to make that timing happen.
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When I think about routing a co-op diploma run of this game, I'm frustrated by the fact that a glitchless run could catch no more than 249 Pokémon with the use of Yellow, Gold, and Crystal. Is there any precedent for an "almost glitchless" category that would use no glitches until it's necessary to catch Mew right at the end of the run?
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Mantidactyle wrote:
The only case I knew this was possible was walking through the customers in Celadon department store.
If there's a way to go through the guard, how much time would that save from glitchless ?
It wouldn't be a glitchless run if it used that glitch, and all the glitched categories skip Silph Co. and Saffron Gym anyway.
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Sappharad wrote:
Chamale wrote:
I turned off NES with QuickNES and it's still not working. Although, I've noticed that when I quit Bizhawk and restart it, I have to force quit it after waiting five minutes because it won't quit normally.
That's a known issue, at least I've noticed it for the last few releases but keep forgetting about it. I should probably fix it in the next release. You don't need to force quit, just click the red close button on the window instead of going File->Quit or pressing command-Q.
As for the error, thanks for the large screenshot. If you delete BizHawk and unzip a fresh copy, does it happen the first time you run the app or only on subsequent times running it? It may have something to do with Apple's changes to macOS 10.12 which force unsigned applications to be sandboxed, so that recent documents and other files generated internally by BizHawk can no longer be found after launching it again. This is just a theory, I'm not actually sure yet but I'll look into it.
I fixed the quitting error, thanks. Deleted and reinstalled Bizhawk, the ROM error still happens.
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Sappharad wrote:
Chamale wrote:
Jba03 wrote:
Ok, its working now, but when i load a rom it says: A core accepted the rom, but threw an exception while loading it
I'm getting this same bug in 1.11.8.2 and 1.11.9.1, but for all NES ROMs.
(MacOS 10.12.2)
Works fine for me on 10.11.6, with every single NES ROM I tested, both ones for QuickNES and NESHawk. Have not tested 10.12 due to my primary machine not supporting it, but I can upgrade my 10.12 Virtual Machine and test it there.
If you go to Config->Cores and turn off "NES With QuickNES" do NES games work?
I turned off NES with QuickNES and it's still not working. Although, I've noticed that when I quit Bizhawk and restart it, I have to force quit it after waiting five minutes because it won't quit normally. NES with QuickNES is turned on again when I restart the program.
Screenshot of the error.
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A staggering milestone. I remember when the exploit was discovered that allowed a 1-star TAS to be possible, and now we're reducing the number of keys. Yes vote.
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Brilliant. Ever since I learned about the problems with TI-83 TASing, I thought it would be great to do a speedcode TAS that then plays the game. I agree that Snake is not the best choice, but I'm voting Yes because this is a great proof of concept. Perhaps Drugwars would be another good game choice for the TI-83?
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ais523 wrote:
Anyone who knows this game, is there any chance that (given an appropriate TASbot) this game could be console-verifiable? I'm mostly worried about the RNG, because I don't completely understand how it works. How sensitive would it be to things like temperature and slight variations in clock speed?
A frame-precise bot would work with this run, but not one that uses hard resets to save corrupt. Save corruption is unpredictable because it depends on precisely when different parts of the Gameboy lose power and timing differences of less than a frame can make a difference.
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ALAKTORN wrote:
FractalFusion wrote:
ALAKTORN wrote:
I thought he meant getting Graveler just to use for the Agatha fights, then switch back to Nidoking. Would that be slower?
Is there really no better Pokémon than Nidoking?
I meant whether it was possible to replace needing to glitch L100 Nidoking (which takes a while) with something else.
Clearly. I went on to ask the question I thought you were asking myself, though.
Edit: watching the Japanese TAS, I honestly wasn’t annoyed at all by the red bar glitch. Seems like it would save a lot of time in a no/low glitch run, too.
It's not a glitch, it's a feature, to reduce the amount of time the player has to listen to the red bar sound. I'm planning to test it and see if it would speed things up to let Charmander take damage against Missingno and end up in red bar health.
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andypanther wrote:
To the experts here: How fast can Gen I be beaten without any memory corruption? Because that would make much more sense to me as a category than "no glitched warps".
Technically I don't think this route uses memory corruption, but it heavily abuses the game's strange behaviour when it loads an unexpected value from the memory. A run that never got the game to load an unexpected value would avoid glitched warps, trainer-fly encounters, and Missingno, although the Safari Zone walk-through-walls would arguably be acceptable since it only involves triggering an event at an abnormal time. It's very tricky to define what level of glitching is allowed in a Pokemon run R/B/Y because there are so many glitches that break the game in different ways.
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thatguy wrote:
Some small queries:
1) Why aren't you getting critted in the rival battle to lose faster?
2) Why are you so concerned with Charmander's DVs? I have been following real-time speedrunners recently and none of them have mentioned it being needed for Brock Through Walls. Please don't tell me those nineteen million rerecords were for nothing...
1) It wouldn't be any faster, because at low levels critical hits don't deal double damage. Squirtle would still need four attacks to win the fight, but they'd take more time because of the critical hit dialogue box.
2) There are many ways to achieve Brock Through Walls, all of them involve getting the game to load 1024 (in hexadecimal) in certain parts of the memory. This can be done by having a Pokemon with the correct Special stat of 16 in party slot 1, followed by a Pokemon with 8, 10, 13, 15, or 17 health remaining in party slot 2. It can also be done by having the first Pokemon have 16 PP remaining for move #2 and 36 PP remaining for move #3. Lastly, it can be done by manipulating Charmander to have exactly the DVs 1/0/2/4, which is what MrWint did. The chances of manipulating the right DVs are 1 in 65536, so it's impractical for human speedrunners.
MrWint, the first 6000 frames of this run are identical to the optimal route for the glitch warp run, and you perfected the most difficult luck manipulation of the run. Would it be alright if I used your input for that part of my run, and gave you coauthor credit for the upcoming any% TAS?
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Shenanagans wrote:
Chamale wrote:
There's a problem with the Pidgey route, and I'm not sure exactly why. I end up stuck in something similar to the faint Trainer-Fly glitch, where I can't talk to most NPCs and I need to use a PC to save and restart.
Yeah this is an issue which we just recently discovered. 16 hp Pidgey puts you into the trainer fly state which forces a reset in Safferon. 8, 10, 13, 15, and 17 HP Pidgey all work fine and don't force a reset.
That's not too bad, then. I just need to manipulate one more max-damage crit in that fight. I'll need to compare that with the time for a level 2 Rattata that can get red HP against Missingno.
Poison works differently than I expected, so using a Pokeball still results in Rattata losing 1 HP in the Bellsprout fight. That puts the route back at 3 Pokeballs, 2 Potions.
