Soul Silver Glitchless FAQ

      Pokemon Soul Silver 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 Cyndaquil?
A: Because the Cyndaquil 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, Cyndaquils starting stats, Raikous starting stats, Raikous starting position, and the lottery so I win the Master Ball

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 17998. 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, but it takes ~3 seconds to check so I tend to instead...
2) I 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 the girl faces down the entire time I approach her until I turn down, I got it (she will then turn left, but I know before she turns)
If I don't get it I know 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 Cyndaquil, and only 2 encounters to Falkner (both of which I want)

Q: Why don't you check Cyndaquils stats? What are Cyndaquils stats like?
A: Cyndaquils 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 Cyndaquils IVs are 22 HP, 22 Att, 8 Def, 30 SP Att, 16 SP Def, 24 Speed with a Mild nature

Q: What encounters will you get?
A: The encounters can be manipulated because the RNG does not change if your movement is perfect; so if you just move correctly you wont get encounters on the first route. The Guide Gent at Cherrygrove complicates things do to the textboxes, but if done correctly, I'll get a Level 3 Pidgey right after the Apricorn Box (which I kill for experience) and a Level 3 Sentret on Route 29 after getting Poke Balls (which I catch as a Cut/Surf Slave)

Q: You also manipulate Raikous stats? How is that possible?
A: You don't specifically know at what seed the RNG is on when releasing Raikou, so it's a bit trickier. What you do instead, is get encounters in Burnt Tower to tell you what seed you are on. After that it's a simple matter of advancing the RNG the correct amount of times to hit the target Raikou. It's IVs are: 19 HP, 24 Att, 29 def, 26 SP Att, 22 SP def, 27 Speed with a Rash nature. Because of these specific IVs, it's Hidden Power is Ground with a power of 66.

Q: And then you manipulate it's position...how?
A: Well if I hit my target Raikou it always goes to the same spot, so if I make the same movement to down below ecruteak it will follow me, because luckily this Raikou starts on the route just east of ecruteak.

Q: And then how do you plan on catching it?
A: The starting seed, when I get my trainer id, also starts a few other things in the game. One of them is the starting lottery number, and one of the reasons this seed is so desirable is that they line up, so I scoop up a free Master Ball before I catch him

Q: Who is the magical god who came up with all of this?
A: MKDasher, pay your respects (was honestly a team effort with a group of people, but none of it possible without him)

Q: So why don't you just manipulate everything in the game?
A: 1) 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.
2) Some things simply aren't worth it, as they are limited by the amount of possibilities in the game. For example, I could manipulate say Pokerus, but if I added that in to as well manipulating the lottery and encounters and stats, the overall product would be slower, as I would have to use worse IVs on my Pokes, as a seed with them as good as they are does not exist

Q: Why not Heart Gold?
A: Heart Gold and Soul Silver are the same for one key difference, the legendary pokemon you must visit. While Ho-Oh takes less time to reach, I actually catch Lugia so I can teach it Waterfall. This still makes the time roughly even, but there is also a Rare Candy in Whirl Islands that takes about 10 seconds to reach, and is needed for this exp route. The one in Tin Tower takes about a minute to reach, making Soul Silver the clear choice by ~50 seconds.

For any%, Heart Gold is 5 frames faster. There is barely any difference, but the Pokemon you kill at the start of the run. Pidgey has a cry 5 frames shorter than Ledyba

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

Q: Why do you name yourself and Cyndaquil '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? Mewtwo maybe?
A: Just the Sentret for Cut/Surf, and free Spearow for Fly, along with Raikou to switch to as my main Pokemon.

Q: What is WR?
A: http://www.speedrun.com/pkmnhgss (Remember this is IGT. My Splits are the 3:39 IGT you see here)

Q: What is your goal time?
A: To beat my time at all, with a good run. (A 3:38 would be good enough so long as I execute well in it)

Q: Where can you save the most time in your splits?
A: I hit 2 spinners, 1 on Clair's split, 1 on Janines. My luck early game wasn't great, I can save small pieces that add up to 1-2 before Morty. Just small pieces everywhere aside from that, but my last 2 fights were insanely good, so I probably want a decent lead before going into them.