Try the "Beginning.sgm" savestate.
Actually, it works if you load any savestate and then reset. Edit: Reset, meaning play the movie again.
To quote nitsuja:
nitsuja wrote:
Actually this is still a problem with the current version. If it happens (and it's really likely to desync the first time you watch it), just play it again and there's a good chance it will be fine next time. (Reason for the problem as I understand it: There's some code I missed that messes with the clock time if there's no SRAM present, which can affect the randomness or timing of this game.)
Joined: 8/8/2005
Posts: 296
Location: NSW, Australia
Alright, time for me to weigh in on the situation.
Firstly, and I have no real basis for this, but I believe Totodile is the optimal choice. The key here is that it learns Rage very early on, which can be very useful in the early gym battles.
Not to mention being able to use Surf right away, which as well as being quite powerful allows you to catch the Red Gyarados for Waterfall and Whirlpool.
The alternative being discussed is giving Surf to Poliwag and fighting through with Typhlosion - I think you're going to run into a lot of strife particularly in the Ghost and Fighting gyms if you try this approach.
Secondly, Flash is completely unnecessary - you only need to get through the first part of Mt. Silver without it, and I differed with Brown_Bomber in that I traversed Rock Tunnel backwards. Which is the quicker Kanto path is still up for debate, our tests showed the paths were quite close. Ironically, the Sprout Tower where you get Flash is probably the major deterrent for using Totodile. =P
Thirdly, items like the Magnet and Hard Rock and other such items are largely irrelevant - 10% of an attack is not that much, especially when you're manipulating luck for critical hits anyway.
I finally had a look at Brown Bomber's speedrun and I was quite impressed at how the game was handled. There were some things in the speedrun that I failed to do in my run, such as buying and using Escape Rope. The battle with Red was completely unexpected, too.
There are a couple things I would like to mention, though. First, some of the trainer battles (not the ones that look around randomly) are avoidable. Also, Totodile seems to have a bit of a problem with the second gym. One reason I used Geodude was to knock out the second gym easily, although Geodude lacks speed and special and it is problematic later on.
I wrote a detailed response to his run somewhere in the discussion thread... let me find.
Here
Not sure how many of these points would directly benefit a TAS, however.
I've decided to go with Geodude for most of the run.
Here is the run up to the first gym beaten:
http://rapidshare.de/files/19472770/PokeGold.vbm.htmlNote: Delete .sav file before playing.
About two minutes faster than my previous run.
I'm planning on redoing this part because I think it can be done faster, but this seems to be the best strategy for raising Geodude's levels while beating the first gym reasonably fast. Geodude happens to learn Rock Throw just before the Vulpix in Union cave, which is good.
I hope pressing ABAB... to dispose of dialog is optimal.
I hope pressing ABAB... to dispose of dialog is optimal.
As long as it doesn't slow down the text (from three characters every three frames?) or otherwise cause the game to pause, it should probably be fine. A few quick questions/comments:
4930: I've noticed that initiating coversations from straight on in Red/Blue saves two frames over having to turn. You could move one step right before talking with Prof. Elm. This would also put you two steps closer to the table, which would save you ~36 more frames when you have to pick up your Totodile.
6360: It seems that starting stats are rolled before you name your pokémon instead of afterwards, which is unfortunate because it lowers your window for manipulation. The starting stats you rolled were E4FC (14/15 attack, 4/15 defense, 15/15 speed, and 12/15 special). Overall pretty good stats, but would it be worth it to trade a little speed for a higher special (if at all possible)?
7400: Would moving one step to the left before the Assistant stops you save any time? It would cost you an additional step, but it would save him two. He seems to path faster than you, so it would probably only save a few frames, if any.
17000: Battle with rival: is manipulating a growl miss faster than letting it succeed? Or doesn't G/S have the 1/256 miss chance as in Blue/Red?
23100: Assistant pathing again.
26300: The DV's of the Geodude you rolled are FCA0... great attack, but not so great speed and no special. Or doesn't this matter?
31800: No critical hits? Tail whip miss faster than landing?
39000: Only one pokémon. Is Rage the fastest choice?
I must say I was quite surprised by your method to 'power-level' your geodude to level 8. Definitely a good strategy.
I don't know; didn't we determine that tapping A when the text was already set to the highest speed in the first game slowed it down a little?
Strangely, although pressing A_A_... slows down fast text, pressing ABAB... does not. I want to make sure the lines advance as fast as possible, though.
primorial#soup wrote:
4930: I've noticed that initiating coversations from straight on in Red/Blue saves two frames over having to turn. You could move one step right before talking with Prof. Elm. This would also put you two steps closer to the table, which would save you ~36 more frames when you have to pick up your Totodile.
Thanks. I somehow thought about it months ago and forgot when I made the run. Same with the assistant.
primorial#soup wrote:
The starting stats you rolled were E4FC (14/15 attack, 4/15 defense, 15/15 speed, and 12/15 special). Overall pretty good stats, but would it be worth it to trade a little speed for a higher special (if at all possible)?
To be honest, I didn't look at the stat DV's when getting the Pokemon because I didn't know where they were in memory. It was only a coincidence that both Pokemon DV's turned out to be as good as they are. I could only look at its gender for its attack level. It would be nice if you could you tell me where I can find the stat DV's, as well as other important variables like enemy HP.
My future strategy is to stick with Geodude because its moveset is so powerful. Since Geodude is so slow, I must give it the Quick Claw.
For Totodile, high attack DV is priority, followed by high speed DV. High defense DV helps, but it really depends on if I can get my strategy to work. Unless my future strategy changes, I won't be using Totodile for long, so special DV doesn't matter.
For Geodude, high attack DV is priority, followed by high speed DV and high defense DV. Special DV doesn't matter because it's wasted due to exceptionally low special levels.
primorial#soup wrote:
17000: Battle with rival: is manipulating a growl miss faster than letting it succeed? Or doesn't G/S have the 1/256 miss chance as in Blue/Red?
Most stat-only-modifying moves miss frequently, but it's actually slower to miss, much to my surprise. Why there is such a long pause between "... uses Growl/Sand-attack/Tail-whip/..." and "But it failed!" is beyond me. This is only in G/S.
G/S has no 1/256 miss chance for 100%-accuracy moves under unmodified Accuracy/Evade stats.
I missed some critical hits and Pidgey-Tackle-misses; it's not easy to get them and I was concerned more with the strategy, but I'll redo them. By the way, what is your method for manipulating critical hits in R/B?
primorial#soup wrote:
39000: Only one pokémon. Is Rage the fastest choice?
I think Rage and Scratch take the same number of moves, but Rage requires one less critical hit.
It would be nice if you could you tell me where I can find the stat DV's, as well as other important variables like enemy HP.
Although the memory locations weren't exactly where there are in R/B, they were surprising close, and pretty easy to find if you know what to look for. All of the following locations are in the upper RAM (0xFF80):
D0F5: DVs of current opponent. I've noticed that the DVs for the rival are DDDD, which is quite a bit higher than 9888 for all other trainers. This location is good to know when encountering wild pokémon which you wish to catch, such as Geodude.
D100: Stats of current opponent. This is the main address to use while battling (as you can also see the amount of damage, as below). First is the current HP, followed by total HP, attack, defense, speed, special attack, and special defense. Each value is two bytes.
D142: Amount of damage current attack is about to do. Damage is rolled directly after the entire "- used such-and-such" dialog is displayed. A very nice thing about this is, one frame before the actual damage is calculated, the maximum damage possible is also stored in this memory location, which can help you to plan attacks and to know what exactly is possible or not.
DA30: Start of record of pokémon in your party. Each pokémon has 48 bytes (3 lines) worth of information. The only thing important to know is the DVs for rolling your starting pokémon, which are at DA3F and roll over to the next line DA40.
FractalFusion wrote:
By the way, what is your method for manipulating critical hits in R/B?
The goal of my method is such: never to wait more than 10 frames for any manipulation. How exactly this is done depends on a number of factors: whether I am faster or my opponent, whether I need a max (or near max) critical or if any crit will do, whether I need a max damage normal hit, etc. This is the procedure for producing a critical hit when you are faster (the base case, so to say):
1. Before the battle, keep a save state at the last dialog button press (usually, either "- wants to battle!" or "- gained so many exp. points").
2. When selecting an attack, try the 11 possibilites waiting 0-10 frames.
3. If you didn't get a critical in those 11 attacks, return to the previous save state, and wait one frame before pressing A, and then try again (this time only waiting 0-9 frames, as not to surpass the 10 frame wait limit).
Repeat these three steps until either you get a critical hit, or you've gone through all 66 possibilities. In practice, I've found that crits are about a 1/20 chance, so in most cases you will have found one. If you didn't however, how to progress further depends if you need a max (or near max) crit or not. If you do, expand this limit to 15 frames, and go back through all of the new possibilities again (once you've found a crit, you can then manipulate it for damage by changing the duration of the button press). If any crit will do, it is often possible to manipulate a normal hit into a critical by adjusting the duration of the button press. This is a very long and tedious process however, as each of the 66 generated attacks has about 20 or so active button press durations. To cut this down a bit, I usually bring it down to only waiting 5 frames (21 possibilities), then up it to seven (15 more), and then finally up to 10 (30 more, although truthfully said, I've only ever found myself in this situation once). Good luck :)
Thanks, primorial#soup. So it allows two degrees of freedom for manipulating critical hits, which is good. I always went with one degree of freedom.
I am very busy this week so don't expect anything from me for a while. I'm also working on a secret TAS (some other).
I did, but it keeps regenerating as the movie's playing! I even deleted it right before that Rattata encounter you weren't supposed to get, and you still got it!
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
I did, but it keeps regenerating as the movie's playing! I even deleted it right before that Rattata encounter you weren't supposed to get, and you still got it!
I found that I also had this problem... but only if I held spacebar through that section. Very strange indeed. Letting it play at normal speed seems to work fine.
I did, but it keeps regenerating as the movie's playing! I even deleted it right before that Rattata encounter you weren't supposed to get, and you still got it!
You have to close VBA first, then delete, then try again.
I chose this workaround over the previous because it makes life easier for those whose ROMs are fresh off the download. The desync happens if you play it again after watching.
Started again, and now I am trying to catch Geodude. Is there a good way of getting a good L3 Geodude to appear? It's hard enough to get any Geodude to appear.
By the way, it is not possible to control the character on first entrance to Prof. Elm's lab, so I can't get any closer to the table.
Edit: I managed to roll a couple set of DV's for L3 Geodude: D8FE and FB79. It's a hard decision, but which one is better?
Since some of us don't know much about hex(editing), maybe you could tell us what those values mean? ;)
Those are the DV values, the 'stat genes' for the pokémon. The first half byte (one hex character) is the Attack DV, then Defense, Speed, and Special (both special defense and special attack use the same DV).
My advice to you, is to keep rolling until you get both max Attack and Speed. If you don't, I guarantee that you will kick yourself at least once for it (a pokémon being 1 HP outside the manipulatable damage range, being slower against a pokémon that you were faster against in a test run, etc.). Keep one savestate before you enter the building, one right before you exit, and one right before you enter the grass. This should give you a lot of opportunities to roll.
Actually getting the pokémon you want to spawn is a bit trickier, as you probably noticed. I did a small analysis for my Mew run (when I had to catch Abra), which can be found here:
http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2352&p=69323#69323
You might find it useful.
First gym done.
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1166/PokeGold.vbmNote: Delete .sav file before opening VBA. If it still doesn't work, copy ROM to new folder and try again.
I made a slight change in the first gym strategy and had Geodude take only the experience from the L9 Pidgeotto. As a result, I am about 45 seconds ahead of the previous run.
I also spent much time rolling DV's. I had once rolled FFF8, but with one problem. The Geodude was only L2. I kept trying for a high level L3 Geodude, and eventually settled for a FAE2 L3 Geodude. It's a risk I am willing to take, but not too much of a risk, since I get Quick Claw later. I also took a E5FB Totodile.
Totodile was fast; in fact, too fast. If Totodile was slow enough to tie speed with Falkner's Pidgey, Rage could be powered up in one less move. I'm not going to try that. Besides, speed would be tied with the previous two Pidgeys as well, if I am correct.
Edit: It's not possible to get any closer to the table on first visit to Elm's Lab, since the game controls you there.
This run shows a lot of improvement over your last run, especially the battle scenes. The leveling technique for Geodude also looks a lot cleaner now, without the switching back and forth.
One detail though. Around frame 14200, you talk to Mr. Pokémon two dialogs boxes longer than you need to (the "I'm depending on you!" dialog comes up three times...).
Best to catch things like that now instead of when you're further along in the run, I suppose.
That is so funny. I don't know how I could have missed that. I actually went up to Union Cave before reading this.
I guess that means rolling Geodude's DV's over again. But what do I have to lose? I might get FFFF. :)
I also noticed that I had Chikorita use a Tackle and a Growl. At the time, I had trouble manipulating the enemy moves but I noticed later that enemy moves can be luck-manipulated before the last dialog before the battle menu. I'm not exactly sure whether Tackle miss or Growl hit is faster, but I'll try and figure out.
I'll also catch Pidgey later. It is best, after getting the Togepi egg, to switch Totodile with the Egg so that the Egg can be deposited right away and Geodude remains at the top. Having Pidgey in the mix slows me down when feeding Totodile HM's.
Edit: Rolled FCFF! This is good.
No matter what I try, I can't get the Emulator to play the movie without Desyncing within the first five minutes, which has gotten to be a real pain.
I've tried deleting the Save File for the rom, I have tried turning on Read Only mode. It just won't work!
I seem to have really bad luck with Emulators when it comes to watching movies.. -.-
It's Pokemon Gold now, not Pokemon Silver (Sorry for not making that clear).
I am also using v17 VBA.
If that's not the problem, then maybe check the settings. 44Hz, Flash 64K save, real-time clock (I thought the movie was responsible for these settings).
Delete the .sav before opening VBA to play the movie, or try copying the ROM to a new folder before playing.
That's all I can think of. I didn't have any problems.
I just tried all of that. I even downloaded the latest version of VBA from the Forum. But nothing seems to be working for me. I knew it was Gold already though.
All of the settings for the Emulator were set. I just don't know what's wrong. I tried moving the Rom, deleting the Save File. Nothing works.
