Pokemon Platinum All Gold Prints Glitched FAQ

Q: What is this run?
A: This is a speedrun of getting all gold prints from the battle frontier from a fresh save file as quickly as possible. Unlike in glitchless, however, glitches are allowed

Q: What glitches will you be using?
A: I only use one and it's called tweaking. The game is loaded by 32x32 tile grids and I use the bike to quickly move over the load lines where these grids intersect. Since the game can't handle loading multiple grids in a short amount of time, this causes the game to load certain parts of the map incorrectly. This lets us access places we're not supposed to and thus, allows us to skip portions of the game such as the entire Distortion World, various cutscenes, and various trainers.

Q: How does glitches affect the battle frontier? Do they make it any easier?
A: Unlike in Emerald, there are no known game-breaking glitches that can make battle instant-wins so the only way glitches affect the frontier portion of the run is that is that they change what team will be used. Since we're skipping a large portion of the game, the starters gets outleveled quickly and thus, are no longer viable choices for completing the game, and by extention, the frontier as well. In a similar vain, Azelf is no longer viable for the frontier since it can only be obtained after doing the Distortion World, which we don't do. As a result, an entirely different team is used for the frontier than the team that would have been used if glitches were not allowed.

The team used for the glitched category (Garchomp/Starmie/Tentacruel) is overall much worse than the one used for the glitchless category (Infernape/Garchomp/Azelf) since Tentacruel is much less useful than Infernape in the frontier but it is still manageable and faster overall than making a better team.

Q: Wouldn't Arbitrary Code Execution allow you to generate a poke that instantly wins battle?
A: To my knowledge, it isn't fully developed. Even if it was, categories that allow glitches would almost certainly be separated by ACE/No ACE. That's how it was done in gens 1 and 2 speedrunning and there's no reason why gen 4 should be any different.

Q: What team are you using and why are these the best pokes?
A: Garchomp/Starmie/Tentacruel

Garchomp can be obtained and brought to level 50 very quickly and is insanely good in the frontier for every reason you can think of. Very fast (fast enough to outspeed base 100s even with only 10 carboses and a Jolly Nature), strong, incredible STAB combination, bulky, and can sweep with Swords Dance. Garchomp is so good, that it is tasked with doing 90% of the work in the frontier and it still gets the job done.

Starmie can also be obtained and brought to level 50 very quickly and compliments Garchomp very well. It switches into Ice type attacks for Garchomp while Garchomp absorbs Electric type attacks for it. It's also a fast special attacker while Garchomp is a fast physical attacker and its incredible coverage overall makes it very reliable for the frontier.

The last slot is Tentacruel, who is the poke used to complete the game as quickly as possible to unlock the frontier since, with tweaking, I can catch it right before Wake at level 50 and use it to steamroll the rest of the game with Specs Surf. It's not very good in the frontier but it's overall faster than catching a better poke for the frontier. It's also not completely useless as it can set up Swords Dance on pokemon with Ice type attacks, with Garchomp fails to do

Q: What sets will you be using?
A:
Garchomp
Adamant Nature
-Earthquake
-Dragon Claw
-Swords Dance
-Substitute

Starmie
Modest Nature
-Surf
-Thunderbolt
-Ice Beam
-Power Gem/Psychic

Tentacruel
Mild Nature
-Waterfall
-Poison Jab
-Swords Dance
-Surf

The items these pokes use heavily vary. Zapdos and Starmie sometimes use Choice Specs, Lum Berry, and Focus Sash while Garchomp sometimes uses Focus Sash, Lum Berry, and Choice Scarf.

Q: How did you get such good IVs on your pokemon?
A: Rng manipulation! Rng in pokemon games is not actually random as making a proper random outcome is unfeasibly hard, so the game uses various algorithms to make it appear random. This allows us to manipulate rng to give us favorable outcomes.

In order to get ideal ivs on our pokemon, we need to encounter them on the correct primary rng frame. Primary rng determines a pokemon's IVs, nature, ability, etc so if we are on the correct primary rng value when a pokemon's stats are generated, we will get the same IVs every time. In order to get the primary rng value to the one we want, we need to advance the rng, and this is most commonly done by NPC advancement. NPCs that move randomly advance the primary rng so we can take advantage of that by waiting for them to advance the rng to the value we want. This is why you would often see me moving in weird ways near the beginning of the game. We can also use other tactics to advance primary rng such as using the Journal, and running in wild grass.

My explanation is oversimplifying this a bit so if you want a more in-depth explanation on rng manipulation, I highly recommend Im a Blisy on Youtube who covers rng manipulation extensively (https://www.youtube.com/c/imablisy)

Q: What else do you use rng manipulation for?
A: Getting no encounters until after the first gym, getting pokerus after the second rival fight, getting a Starly encounter (for Fly), and getting good stats on Chimchar, Golduck, Tentacruel, Starmie, and Garchomp. We also use rng manipulation extensively in the frontier to always face the same pokemon every time and have an easier time winning.

It must be noted that rng manipulation has its limits and we can't manipulate everything to give us the absolute best results. We can't really make every battle in the frontier an instant-win and thus, there will be a few scary fights that are just unavoidable. This is also why we need to do some weird movement near the beginning of the game, there simply isn't a path that gives us no encounters *while* doing the most optimal movement possible.

Q: Why did you flip the journal?
A: To advance the rng! Primary rng advances by 2 every time the journal displays a pokemon name so I can use it to advance the rng to a desirable value.

Q: What facilities are the easiest or hardest? How does the Battle Frontier actually work?
A: From easiest to hardest: Hall, Castle, Tower, Arcade, Factory
Explanations for each facility:
Factory FAQ:  https://pastebin.com/CDfCUjxF
Hall FAQ: https://pastebin.com/49067yhY
Castle FAQ: https://pastebin.com/ZxJd5PnU
Arcade FAQ: https://pastebin.com/mfx5XDkT

Q: What order do you do the facilities in and why?
A: Factory, Hall, Castle, Arcade, Tower

Factory is done first because we do not need to have any pokemon prepared for it so we can use the BP earned to get Vitamins for Starmie and Garchomp. Tower is done last because the rng manipulation for it is completely separate from the other facilities so doing it last means we won't need to worry about manipulation for the other facilities while doing the tower. The order of Hall, Castle, and Arcade honestly isn't that important but Hall is done second because it's the closest to the vendor that sells vitamins meaning we need to walk less after buying the vitamins and Castle is done third because it is the closest to Hall.

Q: Why do you pick Chimchar?
A: Short answer: it's the fastest.
Long answer: The starter only needs to be used until after the first Jupiter fight, and Chimchar does that portion of the game the fastest. While it does the Roark section the slowest of the three starters, both Piplup and Turtwig do horribly against Gardenia, while Chimchar breezes past her, so Chimchar ends up being the fastest.

Q: Why did you catch Golduck?
A: By tweaking into the water on Route 205 (left of Eterna City), I can catch a lvl 40 Golduck which is far higher level than all of the next trainers I face. Golduck gets used for every fight until I get Tentacruel.

Q: Why not HGSS?
A: Another speedrunner named Werster already did a frontier run for HGSS (see here: https://youtu.be/uo_59YiIFPk), although he did his run glitchless. Using glitches would obviously make it faster but it really wouldn't change the run that much since the team used for the frontier would be the exact same regardless of whether or not you use glitches (Raikou/Gyarados/filler) so the run would just end up being the exact same run Werster did but an hour faster which just isn't interesting enough for me to do it.

Q: Will you ever do a battle frontier run in Platinum without glitches allowed?
A: Honestly, most of the reason why I did this was because another runner named Minnow already routed this but for glitchless and I wanted to route something new myself. So I probably won't do this glitchless anytime soon.

Q: Why do you pick the girl?
A: 1. She's cute 2. It's faster (see: https://youtu.be/G9pD4oLiFyo)