Pokemon Pearl Glitchless FAQ

      Pokemon Pearl Glitchless FAQ

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 choose Chimchar?
A: Because the Chimchar evolution family is the best for the speedrun.

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, and Chimchars starting stats

Q: What causes the resets?
A: I missed the initial seed. There are 2 ways to check to see if I hit the right seed, one is to check my Trainer ID which should be 2084, and the other is to check to movements of the NPCs outside my house. Checking Trainer ID is faster for resets, but obviously takes a few seconds. The RNG for the seed advances every frame, so it is a frame perfect trick

Q: Why don't you check Chimchars stats? What are Chimchars stats like?
A: Chimchars starting stats are the same every time RNG manipulation is used, and also quite decent using RNG manipulaton, but not perfect. The reason for this is because there are a limited amount of seeds you can RNG manipulate for, as you are manipulating so many things, it's literally a game limitation how good they can be.
The Chimchars IVs are 25 HP, 31 Att, 26 Def, 30 SP Att, 27 SP Def, 31 Speed with a Naughty nature. This is also important as it gives a Hidden Power of Grass with 69 Power

Q: Why is your movement so strange at the start of the run?
A: This is to advance the RNG is specific ways to get desired outcomes; these being to get the right Chimchar, and to manipulate encounters. You can't just find a seed that gets no encounters with a perfect Chimchar by just running straight through (again, game limitation; there isn't one), so I need to do specific movement to manipulate the RNG to get these things.

Q: What encounters will you get?
A: I will catch a Bidoof (For Cut/Rock Smash) on Route 202, and then a Starly (For Fly) on Route 203. I will also catch a Bibarel (For Strength/Surf/Rock Climb/Waterfall) on Route 209.

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. The main use of RNG Manipulation ends after I return to Jubilife City, the double cutscene after the Galatic Double makes keeping consistent RNG after that point near on impossible, and it's also not very relevant after that point as you have repels as well.

Q: I heard you/hear a bunch of people talking about Lucky Egg strats? What is that?
A: The main reason I returned to this game. New strats (that once again started as a joke); after the aforementioned Bibarel on Route 209 I am going to manipulate the next encounter. It will be a Chansey holding a Lucky Egg. I will teach Theif, and steal said Lucky Egg, and give it to Monferno for the rest of the run.

Q: How on earth are you going to do that?!
A: I've mapped out every Bibarel at pretty much every possible RNG Frame at the point that I get to Route 209. After catching it, I will check it's Level, Gender, Item, and Nature (Potentially not Nature if first 3 are rare enough, potentially also need to check Att or Defense if all 4 are very common), to determine exactly what my RNG Frame is. From there, I can do specific movement to advance the RNG to a specific point that I know will generate a Lucky Egg Chansey.

Q: Was this strat brought on because of the new RTA timing?
A: Actually, this strat does not involve saving and quitting at all, and could've been done before the switch. I just didn't think it was feasible. But it definitely is.

Q: So how much does Lucky Egg change the run? (What does it do?)
A: Lucky Egg gives 1.5x experience from that point. Which is a lot. It makes the mid game a lot more consistent, but it doesn't actually change that many fights, or make them any faster. Just gets rid of a lot of ranges. The biggest change to the route because of Lucky Egg is that with the extra levels Infernape is strong enough to take on the whole game by himself, so I do -not- catch Palkia anymore, making the late game entirely different.

Q: So how much time does Lucky Egg save?
A: Not much, if any at all. Lucky Egg strats lose a lot of time early on (getting the Egg itself, and have to fight an extra trainer before Roark for speed because you take a Naughty nature instead of Hasty), but make a lot of it back up afterwards. Overall though, it's almost exactly equal timewise. However, I find this route to be a lot more consistent, as the extra levels through midgame make them a lot more bearable, and not having to rely on good stats from Palkia is very nice as well.

Q: Why Pearl and not Diamond?
A: Actually, with this route there is absolutely no difference between the two versions. Making it the only game where for all runs, glitches or not, the brother sister titles are both equal. I just happen to have a Pearl cart
Note: There's certainly some text that is slightly different between the two games in the cutscenes, but I haven't timed it, and I'm not buying a Diamond cart to save 3 frames in this game lmao.

Q: Why do you play as the girl?
A: The counterpart talks less to you if you are the girl

Q: Why do you name yourself and Chimchar '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: What is World Record?
A:  http://www.speedrun.com/pkmndp (See: Splits) | I'm comparing against my run with Lucky Egg strats, and not my PB, because these splits make more sense for comparison sake.

Q: What is your goal time?
A: Not sure, I'd like to see how this route plays out time wise first before making a benchmark. At this point, I guess any PB would be great.