Pokemon Platinum any% FAQ

      Pokemon Platinum Any% (Glitched) FAQ

Q: Is this a new route?
A: Yes! Since my current PB this is quite a different route.

A: What is the new route?
A: It uses Golduck (L40 catch) to beat the whole game instead of just Fantina/Maylene, instead of using Tentacruel (L50 catch) afterwards.

Q: Why is this faster?
A: The big comparative advantage Golduck has over Tentacruel is incredibly stupid - it has a much faster 'entry animation'. That is, it spend less time sliding between the screen when you send it out. Over the course of the run, Tentacruel would spend almost a full extra minute just wiggling across the screen.

That being said, Tentacruel still does the fights faster outside of that. Even taking that into account, and the additional almost 2 minutes to catch the Tentacruel, the routes are still very close together. To the point that in an 'optimal' run, Tentacruel would still be faster, but only just, and is far more inconsistent than Golduck because Tentacruel has to use inaccurate moves (Hydro Pump, and Fog route, whereas Golduck has Cloud Nine so it renders the Fog useless), along with being a very difficult execution mid run to catch the Tentacruel, making Golduck better on average.

Q: Is there anything else new about this route?
A: Yes, and it saves more time - doing a low EXP route at the start of the game, and doing a Save and Quit to manip the Roark battle. The older route would fight 5 trainers before Roark to evolve into Monferno as Chimchar basically can't win. This route skips all of those fights, and does a S+Q before Roark to manip the battle to win with Chimchar.

This in part is also why the Golduck route works, because doing a mid run S+Q allows for getting a more optimal Golduck seed too.

This saves a lot of time before Roark, but then loses a decent amount of that time between Roark and catching Golduck, as you have less experience and therefore the battles afterwards are a bit harder / slower.

Overall the new route saves between 1-1.5 minutes over my PB.

Q: How do you know you've hit the manipulation for Roark?
A: There are 2 workable battle seeds next to each other for Roark, and you can tell if you've hit them (and which one), by the first turn, and then do the rest of the fight different depending on which one is hit.
On the really good one, Geodude misses Rock Throw.
On the pretty good one, you burn Geodude with Ember.

Note however the battle manip for Roark is separate to the Golduck seed, and I need to hit both.

Q: How do you know you have hit the Golduck seed?
A: After leaving the Gym, I check the NPCs in Oreburgh. If the lady to the right turns upwards, I've (almost certainly) hit the right Golduck seed.

Q: Are you doing Fly or Teleport?
A: Currently still doing Fly. Teleport is known to be just faster *assuming* you catch Abra straight away (27.973%), but if it takes more than 2 balls, it's slower. Given how incredibly reset heavy the start of the game is now with this route, doing Teleport on top of that is not something I want to deal with... yet.

Q: Why aren't you comparing to your own PB?
A: Because the route is so different the splits would make no sense.

Q: So what are you comparing to?
A: The current WR, 2:37:54 by March (aka linewashere on twitch)

Q: And what is your PB?
A: 2:38:47 with the old route.

Q: What part is the hardest or most likely to reset in this run?
A: The most likely break point is hitting the Roark + Golduck manip mid run. It isn't random, it's just tough execution.
The most random part of the run to die to is to catch Golduck. A Net Ball has just over a 1/3 chance to catch (33.695%) and you have 2 of them. Poke Balls have just over 1/10 chance to catch (10.661%), you generally have 4 of these, but don't get to use them, as Golduck can kill you if you don't catch it.

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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 choose Chimchar? I thought you used Piplup for Platinum?
A: My glitchless runs of Platinum use Piplup, but Any% uses Chimchar. The reason for this is simple, Chimchar is much faster for the first part of the game, whereas Empoleon is much faster at the latter part than Infernape. However in Any%, you switch your main Pokemon after Eterna City, so Chimchar is the way to go for the start.

Q: There are glitches in this run, yes?
A: Correct. Only one, but it is used multiple times. It's quite well known, it's called tweaking.

Q: What is tweaking?
A: Tweaking is a glitch in all gen 4 pokemon games. The games are loaded by 32x32 tile grid, and by moving quickly over various load lines where these grids intersect, you can cause the game to load/unload certain collisions and character sprites allowing you to get to areas before you're supposed to.

Q: How much do you skip in this game?
A: Some, but not a whole lot. The biggest skip comes after Candice, as you can go to Sunnyshore early (skipping huge Galatic sections & Distortion World). There are several other instances, such as skipping the Psyducks (Skipping cutscenes and fight with the grunt, and Cynthia) and going into Lake Valor early (which skips the cutscenes at the Library), and tweaking into Pastoria Gym early. There are 18 tweaks in total used in this run.

Q: Do you use Chimchar the whole run, or catch something else?
A: Chimchar/Monferno is used until just after Gardenia, more accurately until I get the Bike. With the Bike I can do impactful tweaks, which allow me to tweak into the water and catch higher level Pokemon there.
Once I can do this I switch my main to Golduck.

Q: So...Golduck? Why, what can Golduck do that other Pokemon can't?
A: By tweaking once you get the Bike, you can place yourself above water, and access one at level 40 after the bike, and that level gap is huge. It is a water type, which is crucial (Surf + Specs ruins), and it's speed is excellent, outspeeding every Pokemon in the game without any X Speeds bar for Mars's Purugly. It's offensives are pretty average, but it still manages very well throughout the game.

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.

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, Pokerus, and Chimchar's starting stats, along with getting an instant Level 40 Golduck with great stats after Eterna.

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 13283, 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.

If done correctly, The first NPC (Man to the left) will be facing Right and turn Up, and the second NPC (Girl above and to the right) will be facing Down, and turn Left and then back Down.

Q: Why don't you check Chimchar's stats? What are Chimchar's stats like?
A: Chimchar's 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 29 HP, 31 Att, 24 Def, 27 Sp Att, 24 SP Def, 28 Speed with a Naive nature.
The Golducks IVs are 21 HP, 18 Att, 10 Def, 31 Sp Att, 24 Sp Def, 30 Speed with a Modest nature.

Q: Why is your movement so strange at the start of the run?
A: This is 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 so that I can avoid these encounters

Q: What encounters will you get?
A: I will get only 1 encounter before Eterna City, a Level 2 Starly.
No other HMs slaves are caught in this run (All other HMs are given to Monferno/Golduck)

Q: How do you manipulate the L40 Golduck?
A: When I enter Roark's Gym, I save and quit, set the time and hit a new seed. From there, I manipulate the game to not get any encounters, and advance the RNG exactly 1663 times before using the Honey on the water after the first tweak, to always get the desired Golduck.

Q: What is Battle RNG?
A: As it sounds, the Battle RNG is the RNG that impacts the battles (like what moves the opponent uses, how much damage it does, whether it crits, and most importantly, whether a Ball will catch or not).
Battle RNG is computed the same way as regular RNG, but the thing that makes it harder is that it's reseeded for each battle, meaning in this case the seed for the Roark battle is made right before the battle starts.

As one of the factors of the seed creation is the in-game frame count, and lag frames do NOT count towards that, it means you have to control the amount of lag that has passed to that point.
This is doable for Roark, since you save inside the gym, you just have to control movement inside the Gym, and make sure an arrow appears on every textbox.
However for catching the L40 Golduck (or anything else), this is impossible, you just have to throw Net Balls and hope for the best.

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 past the first fight (which is still frame perfect)

Q: Is there anything else in the game you manipulate?
A: Yup, I also manipulate Pokerus in this run. It's obtained off the Burmy fight on Route 202.

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 'J'?
A: Because it's faster to name them one character for text purposes, and the letter 'J' is close to the OK selection. As for my name, I'm holding the DS sideways to optimise mashing through the intro cutscene, so I just pick whatever is doable in quick time.

Q: Why DON'T you name the Rival a 1 character name?
A: Because there isn't enough time to hit the initial seed if I spend the time to name him. This is ideal though, to have a seed that I don't have to spend extra time waiting on.

Q: What is WR?
A: http://www.speedrun.com/pkmnplat#Any

Q: So what is your goal time?
A: Just to get WR back for now.