Just tested; SaveRAM fails to be automatically flushed when BizHawk closes and the user's progress is lost.
I'm using the Linux version of BizHawk, so it's possible that the bug only happens on Linux. Nothing is printed to console out when BizHawk closes.
Thanks, I didn't know so many games used SRAM as scratchpad. I thought it would only be written to when the game saved.
Does there exist an option to flush SaveRAM whenever the user saves in-game? Or is it intended behavior that the user must always go to File -> Save RAM -> Flush Save Ram after every save to avoid the risk of losing progress?
I know there's the "AutoSaveRAM every 5 minutes" option, but this wouldn't help in the common case of "Pokemon game -> play for an extended period of time -> save in-game -> close BizHawk and forget to manually flush SaveRAM, losing a huge amount of progress".
I wonder how much of this still applies now. NDS Wi-Fi's been shut down, and I know at least some parts of the Switch Pokemon games use secure RNG that can't be manipulated. (Not sure if that applies to battle RNG, and not sure about the 3DS games.)
Out of curiosity, do any routing differences happen if the branch is timed from the very beginning of the save file instead of after beating the game? (E.g. Are there any places where it would be faster to prepare for the Battle Frontier before beating the game, at the cost of beating the game slower?)
So, does aiming for all these side goals count as full completion or would they count as speed/entertainment tradeoffs (assuming that they do indeed cost time)?
EDIT: I completely missed the blurb that they don't cost time in the submission text, silly me.
Looks like bronze/silver AC is the only medal that costs time; if I understand correctly, Masterjun mentions that the game start (after power-on) was delayed by some frames to get a good starting piece sequence. I wonder how difficult it would be to try to get all 3 AC medals during the 100-299 section where non-Tetrises are free, to save these frames. (Since all 3 CO medals also have to be obtained in the same two sections, probably quite difficult.)
"Memory wrote:
The fact that the medals are included makes this able to be considered both fastest and full completion. If a run that was faster than this was performed that didn't get all the medals, I admittedly am unsure whether or not it would be able to be considered as a new branch or not since it'd presumably be so similar. My first inclination is no but I am not sure.
This might just be a pedantic answer, but my first thought is that such a run would go to Vault while this run would remain Moons. The hypothetical new run fits the Vault criteria of fastest time, while not having enough entertainment value (too similar to the 100% branch) to fit Moons.
Likes:
• The Mushroom Kingdom II unlock message at the beginning (I've known it was possible but this is my first time actually seeing it)
• The Zelda battle
• Sniping the trophies with eggs and meteor smashing them into the funnel
• Picking Captain Falcon for the horde battle
• The first Egg Throw on Master Hand just barely not missing
• Constantly parrying the Hands' attacks in the final battle (didn't even know this was a mechanic!)
• Getting Crazy Hand to appear at exactly 180 HP and KO'ing them both at the same time
• The synchronized hits on Master and Crazy Hand between 137 HP and 95 HP
• The No Damage Clear
• Playing out the challenger unlock battle
• Returning to the main menu at the end of the encode (such a small thing that acts as great closure)
Questions:
• In the Team Battle, is it at all possible to prevent the teammate from taking damage the same way as the Giant Battle? It's well known that teammates on Very Hard difficulty are notoriously weak, so being able to protect them would be a good additional measure of TAS superhuman play.
• I vaguely recall it should be possible to one-hit KO the opponent during the Metal Battle with one Egg Lay at 0%, because of their fast fallspeed and poor recovery? Did you choose not to do this for entertainment purposes, or am I remembering things wrong?
• Is 173 credits the max possible from a fresh save file, or is it possible to e.g. pick up more trophies that unlock extra credits?
There's also no timer in this fight, which means I can't even replicate any of the popular aMSa vs. Hungrybox tournament battles.
• Sorry, I'm confused - how does the lack of a timer weigh in here?
Dislikes (only one):
• Having heard of moonwalks but not Charlie walks before, and having seen moonwalking used frequently in TASes as a way to show off during downtime, the multiple turnarounds during Race to the Finish look a little too much like "purposely dawdling to show off" instead of "a movement option only barely slower than optimal". Reading the submission text, it looks like this is just a visual misconception on my end, but other audience members might think this too.
I'm not sure if you'd prefer "GR Dan Sanjou!" in the game name; googling Pokemon Card GB2 suggests that "Here Comes Team GR!" has become the most common subtitle (and is used on Bulbapedia and Speedrun.com).
We always use the romanised title when the game was never released in the USA, not the translated title. There's at least one precedent.
Does this apply to bootlegs also? As a fan of Pokemon TASes specifically, it's frustrating to see "Platinum Edition" smack dab in the middle of this page where its placement (right after Pearl, by coincidence) makes it much more easily confused with Platinum Version. If we're using romanized titles instead, the bootleg's title screen says 口袋妖怪 白金版 and the romanization can be found in the submission's ROM filename.
Sorry for the slight off-topic.
Regarding the changed obsoletion chain, shouldn't 504M and 548M belong to the glitched chain instead of the glitchless chain? Those two movies use the Mew glitch which involves memory corruption. That would leave the glitchless chain with only two movies (this one and the very earliest R/B one), the only ones to obey the glitchless rules.
I've always thought of the 0:00 branch as "hard resets allowed" and the other branches as "no hard resets allowed", since it implies an extra input button on the 'controller' that isn't usually considered input (the power button). The fact that the hard reset is required to corrupt save data is secondary, sort of.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zSukvRdRYo
This is the closest attempt I know of, but the player's game freezes when they try to open the Pokemon menu to fly out of the void.
Meh vote for naming everyone "A" making battles extremely hard to follow, and the vague category description. There has to be a stronger, more objective definition of "glitchless" right?
Just to make sure I understand correctly: The particular problem refers to this specific 451 report, and the underlying problem refers to people in general giving false reports to Google and Google failing to have an adequate mechanism for dealing with them?
My interpretation is that MrWint's tests could only get to within ~11 frames of the frame rule, while @HappyLee you got to within 1 frame of the frame rule. This means that there must be some strategy or other thing that MrWint's tests did not cover.
TASes that use the equivalent of the RTA ruleset for "Any% Glitchless" should be published with label "no memory corruption".
That doesn't sound like a good idea. I'm pretty sure there are tons of glitches that don't fall under the definition of memory corruption, but would still very obviously be banned in any glitchless ruleset. Like, for example, Brock skip: Is that glitch using memory corruption?
Ah, thanks. That tears a pretty big hole in my "no memory corruption" idea, because I can't think of anything during Brock skip that reads or writes unintended data. The root cause of that is "the game disables the directional buttons but forgets to disable the other 4 buttons for a couple of frames".
I disagree with the assumption of difficulty in defining glitch. The "glitchless" category used in the RTA community is based on a very straightforward definition of "no arbitrary code execution."
"No ACE" isn't sufficient, because loads of inarguable glitches don't cause ACE. To demonstrate, ACE wasn't discovered until 2012, but the first RBY movie here that uses glitches was published in 2006.
But as ThunderAxe31 says, "no memory corruption" should be sufficient on its own. If you define it as "no reading or writing unintended memory", then:
- Mew glitch is banned, because the game (at least) reads Attack & Special stages as level and species.
- Old Man glitch is banned, because the game reads your name as wild Pokemon data.
- Missingno. is triple-banned, because the game reads (and writes) an item quantity as a Pokedex flag, reads (and writes) Hall of Fame data as sprite pixels, and reads Biker party data as base stats.
- Fight Safari Zone Pokemon glitch is arguably not banned, because "the game doesn't clear wild Pokemon data" isn't reading or writing anything, and "the game reads the wrong subtile when generating encounters" happens on literally every step of the game. This is useless in a speedrun though.
- Poke Doll on Marowak is not banned, because running from a battle and ending it is intended behavior. "The developers forgetting that there's a way to run without pressing Run" doesn't read or write anything.
- Bike Shop keep-instant-text is not banned, because the game turns instant text on and off all the time (whenever the Start menu is opened/closed, for example). "Forgetting to turn it off" doesn't read or write anything.
I think that using Poké Doll to skip Marowak's ghost goes aganist the purpose of the branch of beating all mandatory opponents since it arbitrarily skips the whole Rocket Hideout, not to mention that it can be considered as an actual glitch since this usage is clearly possible due to a development oversight. In fact, this is not allowed for the Any% Glitchless (Classic) RTA branch on speedrun.com.
About the entertaining side, I have to say that I disliked the choice of exploiting the red bar due to its annoying noise. Also, I don't like the idea of getting hit just for the sake of saving time, because it breaks the flow. While I appreciate all the efforts put into optimizing everything optimally, included abuse of red bar, I'm not much entertained and I voted Meh.
By the way, why did you set Earphone 3 option? There is no mention of it in the submission text.
My interpretation of RBY "glitchless" has always been "no memory corruption", since that conveniently handles unavoidable glitches such as 1/256 miss and Viridian Forest no-encounters oversight. Then using the Poke Doll on Marowak and the (fixed in Yellow) Bike Shop keep-instant-text oversight don't count as memory corruption.
