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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I don't think there's a precedent category for holding off glitches until the end, but there is a similar case with the Swordless runs of Legend of Zelda, which hold off on getting the sword until the last possible moment and then only use it when strictly required.
Holding off on glitches for the event Pokémon at the end could work somewhat similarly as a category, I suppose, although as noted it wouldn't be necessary for the diploma anyway.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Doesn't one of the GSC games have to reset anyway to get the extra starter and maybe Tyrogue? If Gold gets Torchic, Tyrogue, and Sunkern, trades them off, then resets and gets the Gen I trading event on the second playthrough, it should be fine.
Games of Interest:
-Pokemon Rumble (Wii)
-Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories (GBA)
-Kingdom Hearts: re:Coded (NDS)
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?
Games of Interest:
-Pokemon Rumble (Wii)
-Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories (GBA)
-Kingdom Hearts: re:Coded (NDS)
Somewhat off topic, but is there any new tricks for the "glitchless" (mostly?, probably game too broken tbh) run? I haven't really followed the tricks for this game, but I assume something would be found since the last run from 2006?
Somewhat off topic, but is there any new tricks for the "glitchless" (mostly?, probably game too broken tbh) run? I haven't really followed the tricks for this game, but I assume something would be found since the last run from 2006?
The submission text of that movie mentions a few obvious improvements:
Get a fifth Escape Rope and use it in the Underground Tunnel.
Get an Ether instead of a Max Ether.
It also saves time to get Kenya instead of catching a bird for Fly.
Using a Poké Doll to escape from shiny Gyarados instead of fighting it might save time.
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.
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.
Well couldn't that prove to be a problem for the other Egg Pokemon that need to be hatched? Pichu, Cleffa, Igglybuff, Smoochum, Elekid, and Magby all need to be bred, so that could end up being a lot of walking. Might even be the main bottleneck (either that or XP).
Games of Interest:
-Pokemon Rumble (Wii)
-Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories (GBA)
-Kingdom Hearts: re:Coded (NDS)
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.
Tyrogue is probably not the best choice for Odd Egg. The Tyrogue you get in Mt. Mortar is 5 levels higher than the ones hateched from eggs so it will be faster to raise this one to lv20. Hitmonlee and Hitmonchan should both be acquired in Yellow since you have much less things to do and have to reset after reviving one fossil anyway.
cheeze42 wrote:
Might even be the main bottleneck (either that or XP).
You can walk around with up to 5 eggs at the same time so hatching eggs is not likely to be the bottleneck.
Fortranm wrote:
A key difference in Crystal is that Sneasel is found at the Ice Path instead of at Mt. Silver, and Larvitar can be purchased at Celadon Game Corner with 8888C. This Larvitar is at Lv40, which is much higher than the level of any wild Larvitar you can find at Mt.Silver.
However, Misdreavus is only available at Mt. Silver in all Gen 2 games, thus it is the bottleneck of the run, just like Mewtwo in MrWint's R/B 150 TAS. The best plan is probably to have either G or S rush to Mt. Silver by getting all Kanto Badges and C collect legendaries(since you have to revive three beasts any way) and getting coins in Celadon Game Corner for Larvitar.
Chamale wrote:
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.
If one Gen 2 game has to restart, it better be Crystal because it has fewer mandatory NPCs although it has additional cutscenes, but as I mentioned, that might make it better to have Crystal catch the legendaries. You can also get two Odd Eggs this way.
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)
Most NPCs are the same, but some trainers are repositioned so that you can walk around them. This is evident by the fact that Crystal RTA WR(http://www.speedrun.com/pkmncrystal) is 5 minutes faster than Silver RTA WR(http://www.speedrun.com/pkmngoldsilver). I didn't know about version exclusive morning-only Pokémon though.
Electabuzz, Clefairy, and Pikachu can only be caught in Kanto in all Gen 2 games so breeding them that late in the game is probably not a good idea. Getting Elekid from Odd Egg is not a worse idea than getting Tyrogue from it. I'm not sure about getting Clefairy and Hitmonlee/Hitmonchan from Yellow, but sending Pikachu from Yellow to Gen 2 immediately is probably a good idea because it allows you to start breading Pichu early and Pikachu doesn't serve much purpose in Yellow for speedrunning.
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.
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?
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.
If using Gold Version, you'll need to get TM46 (Thief), give it to a Pokemon, but don't use it. Then you have to clone the Pokemon holding same TM. Then teach the move to two of a Pokemon of your choice, but they need to be opposite genders. After doing that you'll have an Ariados (its Pokedex entry won't update), which you need to get a Spinarak, then evolve it into Ariados.
If using Silver Version, You'll have to catch two Level 20 Smeargle, one male, one female. Use Sketch in battle, level up to 21, use Sketch again, level up to Level 31. Do the Celebi Egg trick (works with any Pokemon) You'll get a Ledian (its Pokedex entry won't update), which you need to breed to get a Ledyba, then evolve it into Ledian.
Another way is with the Japanese Red and Green with the select bug.
The best way is with Crystal and Red/Blue. Using ACE to get All the Pokemon in Gen I, 39 different kinds of MissingNo., and 60 other glitched Pokemon and nicknaming them accordingly. The only Pokemon you can't get with the Time Capsule Exploit is Celebi. After doing the Celebi Egg trick, we get a Celebi holding a GS Ball so we can catch Celebi so we can complete the Pokedex.
