Well, there is already a topic about this game on GBA forum, but as DS version is faster for several reasons, I think it's a good idea to create a topic for this version.
After some discussions, it finally appeared that Cubone was the best starter choice, so I made a testrun/WIP of the beginning quizz + dialogues before Tiny Woods.
Partner choice : My first choice was Pikachu because I thought he was strong against legendary birds, but as the level will be very low in this part of the run, I changed my mind and chosed Totodile. The main reason is that he learns Rage, a very useful move as I want my attack stat to be as high as possible. Rage's operation in PDM is really different from the main series, since it's not an offensive move. But I think buying/picking up some Oran Berries to increase Totodile's attack stat pretty much should be worth it.
Link to video
Now, about luck manipulation... I don't know anything about RNG in this game, except from the fact that it depends on inputs. Maybe more experimented people could give me some advices/tricks about finding RAM addresses ? :p
I problably made mistakes, sorry for my bad English, I'm French :v
For RNG, it was mentioned before that all floors are determined for the dungeon as soon as you enter, but not sure was it mentioned how manipulable it is.
Also I'm curious is it possible to get all the stair wells appear underneath you for the entire dungeon, or are they'll limits on how many times this can happen consecutively.
Yes, I know that everything is determined before entering in the dungeon, but that would be a less big problem if I knew which adresses I had to watch to determine my position.
Also, I think that the best route wouldn't be to appear just above the stairs every time, maybe when you need to make an extra fight or pick up an item it's better to spawn near the stairs, and during the turn you move to step on the stairs, your partner pick up the item or make the fight. But I guess there should be a limitation, but I have at the moment no way to test it D:
I problably made mistakes, sorry for my bad English, I'm French :v
He actually beated this time during the Pokemon Speedruns marathon, I think he got a 2:18:xx.
By the way RTA runners now use RNG manipulation by quicksaving and reloading the save at specific floors, which might be useful to figure out how the floor layouts are determined. I'd like to dig into that but I have no experience in dissassembling or anything like that :/
I problably made mistakes, sorry for my bad English, I'm French :v
Joined: 8/14/2009
Posts: 4083
Location: The Netherlands
Actual current WR is 2:18:26 by Werster, which was indeed achieved at Pokémon Speedruns Marathon a few weeks ago.
Twitch VoD is here.
EDIT: YouTuber:
Link to videoEszik wrote:
By the way RTA runners now use RNG manipulation by quicksaving and reloading the save at specific floors, which might be useful to figure out how the floor layouts are determined. I'd like to dig into that but I have no experience in dissassembling or anything like that :/
It's not really RNG manipulation (as Werster says in the commentary of above marathon run). It's just that after quicksaving, the next floor patterns are consistent. Presumably the RNG seed used for generating the dungeon isn't saved into the quicksave, and after reloading it uses a default seed instead.
http://www.youtube.com/Noxxa
<dwangoAC> This is a TAS (...). Not suitable for all audiences. May cause undesirable side-effects. May contain emulator abuse. Emulator may be abusive. This product contains glitches known to the state of California to cause egg defects.
<Masterjun> I'm just a guy arranging bits in a sequence which could potentially amuse other people looking at these bits
<adelikat> In Oregon Trail, I sacrificed my own family to save time. In Star trek, I killed helpless comrades in escape pods to save time. Here, I kill my allies to save time. I think I need help.
Would that then be 'abuses programming errors' or 'heavy luck manipulation'? Either you're abusing a seed reset error or else you're manipulating the seed favorably.
He actually beated this time during the Pokemon Speedruns marathon, I think he got a 2:18:xx.
By the way RTA runners now use RNG manipulation by quicksaving and reloading the save at specific floors, which might be useful to figure out how the floor layouts are determined. I'd like to dig into that but I have no experience in dissassembling or anything like that :/
That's quite clever. Are the RNG's specific to floors or did they just quicksave before a certain floor since the default seed had decent items/layouts after said floor?
You mentioned position address being hard. I think I can find that. Wait.
Edit:
02124EDC - This seems to be X
02124EDE - This seems to be Y
02124F52 - Partner X
02124F54 - Partner Y
Not sure if it's dynamic however. Initial tests doesnt seem to indicate that however. Also looking at cheat code sites seems to show that the stat addresses are also static.
Joined: 8/14/2009
Posts: 4083
Location: The Netherlands
If I recall correctly, Blue lags less than Red. Also, there's the touch screen for faster menuing.
http://www.youtube.com/Noxxa
<dwangoAC> This is a TAS (...). Not suitable for all audiences. May cause undesirable side-effects. May contain emulator abuse. Emulator may be abusive. This product contains glitches known to the state of California to cause egg defects.
<Masterjun> I'm just a guy arranging bits in a sequence which could potentially amuse other people looking at these bits
<adelikat> In Oregon Trail, I sacrificed my own family to save time. In Star trek, I killed helpless comrades in escape pods to save time. Here, I kill my allies to save time. I think I need help.
state = 0x5D588B65 * state + 1;
int hi = state >> 0x10;
state = 0x5D588B65 * state + 1;
int lo = state >> 0x10; -- arithmetic shift, lol
return hi << 0x10 | lo;
The main RNG (0x020E9FC0) is used to generate each dungeon's initial seed (0x02115414), and it handles the personality quiz and "daily" randomness like the Kecleon Shop/Wares inventory. Also, it's input-based, as others have suspected. It is called at least once or twice per frame, depending on previous user input. More specifically:
KEYINPUT (0x04000130) is a short, and for the purposes of this pseudocode, rngCycle (0x020EA158) is a byte
With careful inputs, the RNG can be manipulated fairly easily. For example, the personality quiz can be manipulated for the shortest questions possible without losing any time:
Link to video
Unfortunately, in-dungeon RNG (0x021C278C) is not input-based. It is also set to a value derived from the floor's seed (0x021C2790) at the beginning of each floor, so crits, misses, and such cannot be manipulated on a previous floor.
Hey thanks very much for that!
With that said, how possible is it to manipulate every floor before hand to start on the stairs? I presume stylus input also counts, so that might make it "easier" to manipulate.
Finally, any limits on the RNG? Example, I presume it would be highly unlikely (or impossible) to manipulate 99 floors all starting at stairs, or every single hit crit before hand. It'd be great if I was wrong however.
With that said, how possible is it to manipulate every floor before hand to start on the stairs? I presume stylus input also counts, so that might make it "easier" to manipulate.
Actually, no, stylus input doesn't count. It isn't included in KEYINPUT, as it's also used on the GBA. And even if it were included, only the lower 8 bits of rngCycle matter, which are the DPad, A, B, Start, and Select.
jlun2 wrote:
Finally, any limits on the RNG? Example, I presume it would be highly unlikely (or impossible) to manipulate 99 floors all starting at stairs, or every single hit crit before hand. It'd be great if I was wrong however.
The former would be difficult, but it probably could be done in a somewhat reasonable amount of time. The latter is pretty unreasonable because crit RNG isn't input based
EDIT: Actually, considering the odds are exponential by floor count, 99 floors is definitely pushing it lol. For Tiny Woods it's easy, because it has a very low floor count and very few rooms per floor, but in longer and more labyrinthine dungeons it very quickly becomes mathematically insane
Timed all the partner dialogue. Final tally is:
Squirtle, Totodile: 41353
Chikorita, Torchic: 40859
others: 40980
So Squirtle or Totodile really shouldn't be chosen unless they save a solid amount of time against bosses, while Torchic and Chikorita should be seriously considered. Particularly Torchic, who levels up much slower than Chikorita (a few levels don't really matter when you can't do >1 damage to bosses without defense drops)
Heyy guys!
Me and Kobral have done some TAS stuff, but nothing past Thundewave cave yet.
Our Idea was to use Frustration a copious amount of times to 1 or 2 hit boss fight while not killing anything else the whole game.
This would be possible since Frustration is a set dmg move so the attack stat wouldn't influence it at all.
There is a couple of things that are up in the air though, like can we soft reset? Soft resetting to input Wondermail codes saves 5 seconds over having to use the in game mechanic of quicksaving as means to get to the title screen.
The Deciding factor of who to choose might be who learns the least amount of moves from start to finish and who levels up the least, but with my prior testing it seems that the level curves for the pokemon are different in PMD than in the main series. Chikorita seems to be a very strong canidate because she only has 3 moves until lvl 12 and then a 5th move is learned at lvl 15, I doubt that we will even get to lvl 12, let alone 15.
Choose Totodile as player, and Torchic as partner. I don't have the math anymore, but I can explain my reasoning.
Accounting for everything, including levels gained, amount of moves learned, length of the move names, and species name length, Machop and Totodile are the fastest player characters, with Totodile barely edging out Machop. Iirc, they both end at level 10. However, Machop/Totodile is a bad pick because of discrepancy in dialogue length, assuming English version. Accounting for dialogue, Torchic turns out to be the best partner pick, leaving Totodile available for the player slot.
Eevee is a solid pick, but just barely worse than Totodile and Machop, by one level.
About the RNG (context: likeanoob PM'd me), I don't have the input file immediately available, but I can get it to you at some point.
How the RNG manip works is hard to explain without getting technical. Basically, the main RNG is a huge cycle, with a guaranteed next value. In order to make it more unpredictable, the game sometimes picks the number two times later in the cycle, rather than the next number.
To be more specific, the RNG will advance twice if bit 1, 6, or 7 is 1. For example, given the value of address 0x020EA158 is 0x45, its representation in binary is 01000101. Bit 0 is the rightmost number, and bit 7 is the leftmost number. Bit 1 is 0, bit 6 is 1, and bit 7 is 0, thus the RNG is advanced twice.
EDIT: Wait a sec, I know you! Aren't you the person who was considering speedrunning Zero Isle?
EDIT: Wait a sec, I know you! Aren't you the person who was considering speedrunning Zero Isle?
No, you must be thinking of TheGuesst :p but anyway thanks for the info, I'll try my best but I'm certain when I'm finished there will be things to improve :p
Also if you can find it that would be great, not having to optimize the quiz would be great :)
I think that about the species choice, the most important thing is picking the ones that would take down the bosses as fast as possible.
I think the best choice as protagonist would be Machop, because his Leer+Focus Energy+Karate Chop combination is devastating, because is almost sure to give a critical hit.
About the partner, I think Charmender is good, because of Leer that would stack with Machop's and Ember that would damage a lot Skarmory, Articuno, and Groudon (thanks to Drought).
I'm not sure if this setup would be stronger than using Frustration... It would require some test to check.
By the way, here is the damage formula: http://upcarchive.playker.info/0/upokecenter/content/pokemon-mystery-dungeon-damage-calculation.html
And here about Frustration: http://upcarchive.playker.info/0/upokecenter/content/pokemon-mystery-dungeon-attack-explanations.html#return-frustration
So Frustration deals a 45 HP damage.
II think the best choice as protagonist would be Machop, because his Leer+Focus Energy+Karate Chop combination is devastating.
Not at level 10
Frustration does fixed 45 damage. Skarmory and Team Meanies are likely to be the only boss fights where any move but Frustration will be used
ThunderAxe31 wrote:
About the partner, I think Charmender is good, because of Leer that would stack with Machop's and Ember that would damage a lot Skarmory, Articuno, and Groudon (thanks to Drought).
I agree that Charmander is a possibility, because of Skarmory. Torchic learns Ember at level 10, making it basically unavailable that early, while Charmander learns it at level 7. Other than that, player/partner choice has little to no impact on boss fights.
Likeanoob wrote:
No, you must be thinking of TheGuesst :p
You sure? They had the username jacobcraft, and said they had PMD1 S&Q WR
Likeanoob wrote:
Also if you can find it that would be great, not having to optimize the quiz would be great :)
No, you'd still have to repeat it. Iirc it wasn't from a hard reset
You sure? They had the username jacobcraft, and said they had PMD1 S&Q WR
Dang I'd be I guess I must have at some point :p
Anty-Lemon wrote:
I agree that Charmander is a possibility, because of Skarmory. Torchic learns Ember at level 10, making it basically unavailable that early, while Charmander learns it at level 7. Other than that, player/partner choice has little to no impact on boss fights.
I was planning on them being both lvl 5 for that fight and throwing a G-rock at Skarmory for the extra needed damage. Also to optimally do the Meanies fight I think we are going to need a throw a Grock as well, so it would be worth picking it up for Skarmory.
Anty-Lemon wrote:
Likeanoob wrote:
Also if you can find it that would be great, not having to optimize the quiz would be great :)
No, you'd still have to repeat it. Iirc it wasn't from a hard reset
well yeah no duh but it would be nice to eliminate unnecessary guesswork
II think the best choice as protagonist would be Machop, because his Leer+Focus Energy+Karate Chop combination is devastating.
Not at level 10
Frustration does fixed 45 damage. Skarmory and Team Meanies are likely to be the only boss fights where any move but Frustration will be used
I'm sorry but I have bad news about the Frustration TM...
1) TASVideos guidelines discourage the use of passwords unless they can be used to unlock an harder difficulty setting or extra stages, so using Wondermail would probably make the run being rejected;
2) The earliest dungeon in which Frustration TM can be found is Mt. Thunder;
3) Missions that give Frustration TM as reward can appear only after finishing Mt. Thunder;
4) I don't know if Frustration TM can be found in the Keckleon Shop in Pokémon Square before Skarmory fight, but I must note that costs 3000 Poké.
I'm sorry but I have bad news about the Frustration TM...
1) TASVideos guidelines discourage the use of passwords unless they can be used to unlock an harder difficulty setting or extra stages, so using Wondermail would probably make the run being rejected;
2) The earliest dungeon in which Frustration TM can be found is Mt. Thunder;
3) Missions that give Frustration TM as reward can appear only after finishing Mt. Thunder;
4) I don't know if Frustration TM can be found in the Keckleon Shop in Pokémon Square before Skarmory fight, but I must note that costs 3000 Poké.
I already knew all this, and I'm sure likeanoob does too, possibly besides site rules. What's your point?
I already knew all this, and I'm sure likeanoob does too, possibly besides site rules. What's your point?
I'm sorry, I have misunderstood your words. I thought you said that only Frustration is going to be used for the first boss fights...
By the way, I think using Blast Seeds would be the best strategy aganist Skarmory and Team Meanies.
I see what you guys are getting at... idk why TASVids would disallow anything that would make the game faster (isn't a TAS trying to make the game as fast as possible?) but I've never been apart of the TAS community so I wouldn't know these things. The thing is that we need a great amount of frustration TMs in order to accomplish the idea we are going for (1-2 shotting all the bosses in the game) so idk how we would do that efficiently that would be any faster than using wonder mail, the only thing I see is that we buy a frustration TM in the shop after Skarmory, then find a ton in Mt. Thunder and also finding a link box to link them all together (my original plan was to have 4x frustration on partner and 3x on starter with a move that can kill the Mankey in Uproar forest)
I just think it's a little dumb that we cannot use a feature of the game to speed it up but what do i know ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
