Pokemon Soul Silver Wooper+ FAQ

      Pokemon Soul Silver Wooper+ FAQ

Q: What does Wooper+ mean?
A: It means I'm going to catch a Wooper, and use it (along with it's evolution) to beat the whole game. In other words, an alternate Pokemon run using Wooper!
The + in Wooper+ is to differentiate it from a potential alt run with *just* Wooper, where you would never evolve it

Q: Is this run Glitchless or not?
A: Yes, it is glitchless. Alt poke runs are glitchless unless explicitly said otherwise.

Q: Where will you catch Wooper?
A: On Route 32, just after entering Violet City.

Q: So is this faster than using Raikou?
A: No, the entire point of an alt Pokemon run is that it is not the fastest way to beat the game. Otherwise it would just be...the fastest way, and it'd be the main category.

Q: So how much slower is this going to be?
A: A fair bit. Might get under 4:30, and the Glitchless run with Raikou sits at 3:34.

Q: How good is Wooper?
A: Wooper is an itty bitty critter who tries its very best.

Q: What are the hardest fights in this run?
A: Basically everything that Wooper does. Elder Li, Falkner, Rival 2, and especially Bugsy are all quite rough. Whitney too, but not quite as much. Even the Slowpoke Well fights can be really bad, especially because you're under pressure of running out of healing items because the other fights are so bad.

As Quagsire, the immediate gym fights in Morty and Chuck are still quite bad. Afterwards it gets a bit better. Towards the end game the worst fights are by far Sabrina and Erika.

On the bright side, Quagsire is the best Alt Main for Red, as it has absolutely perfect typing for Pikachu!

Q: Do you manipulate the Wooper? If so, what are it's stats?
A: Yes. It's IVs are 30 HP, 31 Att, 23 Def, 31 Sp Att, 26 Sp Def, 30 Speed with a Rash nature. It's Female (to avoid Attract), and has Water Absorb as its ability (some trainers can still use water moves on it, so it helps)

Q: Why do you pick Chikorita as the starter?
A: There are two reasons for this. Most obviously, it's so that the rival takes Cyndaquil, which is the best matchup for Wooper to beat. Bayleef would be impossible to kill at Rival 2, and while Croconaw would be possible, it's quite a bit slower.

Chikorita is also surprisingly move valuable than Cyndaquil to support for the early fights. This is most evident at Bugsy, where Chikorita can bait Scyther into using U-Turn, so you can fight it last (it would QA vs Cyndaquil), and without doing this Bugsy is straight up impossible as Wooper.

Q: What are the moves you use in the run?
A: Water Gun, Mud Shot, Slam, Tail Whip, Ice Beam, Surf, Amnesia, Earthquake, Waterfall, and maybe Attract.

Q: What are the rules for alt main pokes?
A: You can find the rules across the series here: https://pastebin.com/uTqgXp6m

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Q: What are you playing on, it is emulator?
A: No, I'm playing on a DS (phat) with a capture board installed allowing me to record game footage

Q: Why do you keep resetting and changing the time?
A: I need to use a specific time in order to use RNG manipulation, so I set the clock in such a way that I can use it.
 The timer counts down to when I need to reset for the correct second.

Q: What is RNG?
A: Random Number Generator, the thing that determines everything random within the game, such as stats, encounters and pokerus.

Q: What is RNG Manipulation?
A: RNG manipulation is used in this speedrun, which involves resetting on a specific second starting from a specific time, and hitting the correct frame for the correct seed after resetting. This allows for manipulating of the wild encounters, Wooper's stats, and Pokerus.

Q: What causes the resets?
A: I missed initial starting seed. There are 2 ways to check whether I hit the correct seed:
1) I check my Trainer ID. The one I am aiming for is 62721. I know if I get this ID, I hit the right starting seed, as that is generated at the same time. This is what I used to do, as it is the first thing you can do to check.
2) I can also check the movement of the NPCs in New Bark Town. Because their movement is derived from the RNG, I can tell I hit it based on their movements.
If not I didn't hit the right seed, so I reset. The RNG for the seed advances every frame, so it is a frame perfect trick

Q: Why is your movement so strange at the start of the run?
A: Because you can't get the best possible results off the bat. The movement that I do is designed specifically to manipulate the RNG (from NPCs movement around me, and the like) so that I get my great Wooper, Pokerus in Slowpoke Well, and no unwanted encounters to Falkner (ideally all the way to Goldenrod).

Q: Why did you just talk to your Wooper?
A: Because it advances the RNG! This is used to advance the RNG to not get an encounter, and also to get Pokerus later on.

Q: So why don't you just manipulate everything in the game?
A: There are multiple RNGs at play, and not all of them can be controlled the same way. Battle RNG for example, advances just about every frame, including lag frames, making it totally unpredictable.

Q: Why not Heart Gold?
A: Lugia is slightly faster to get to than Ho-Oh, and there is a faster to get Rare Candy in Whirl Islands too.

Q: Why do you play as the girl?
A: The counterpart does the catching tutorial, and the male does it faster, so it’s faster to choose the female for yourself
See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HI1-PJ7Sy1w

Q: Why do you name yourself and Wooper 'I'?
A: Because it's faster to name them one character for text purposes, and the letter 'I' gives a nice spin as if the game was self-narrating

Q: Do you catch anything else?
A: I do obtain other Pokes. Those are: Ekans (Strength + Intimidate), Dratini (Whirlpool), Kenya (Fly), and Snorlax (Rock Climb)

Q: What is WR?
A: https://www.speedrun.com/pkmngen4ext#Alt_Main_Pokes_HeartGoldSoulSilver | See: Splits

Q: What is your goal time?
A: Sub 4:30 first. Sub 4:20 is possible, but would need a very good run.

Q: Do you plan to do other Alt Pokemon runs?
A: Yeah, in the future. I've already done a few of these in other games, which you can view here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKdCHbtiZdhA63-FROqfqamattnoWR0xd

I've got quite a few more on my list to do in the future (mostly across Gen 4/5). I definitely don't need suggestions on more - I've thought about and considered everything you can imagine. It's hard to find the right mix of something you get early enough in the game that is actually still interesting to use. But I've certainly got some more planned, it just takes a long time to route the whole game with something else.

Q: What is with those split icons? What does A and B mean?
A: This is a grading system for all of my splits. I'm sure you are familiar with grades, A+ being the best then going down from there. So the idea is, if the split has an A+ next to it, my time there was really good and would be very difficult to beat. If it's a C though for example, it was quite poor, and I should be able to save time there pretty easily.

This way, everyone watching has more accurate information on where I can save time, and where I should be making up time. Also that all time loss is not equal, as losing time vs an A+ split isn't really that bad, whereas losing time vs a C split is really bad. It'll probably take a while for a lot of people watching to pick up the meaning so I will appreciate everyone who explains how this works (correctly) in chat to new people.