[Other] Discussing measures to stop softlocks (GEN 3 ONLY)

745x571 · May 31, 2018

Oh, haha! For some reason I thought you were trying to make a near-soft lock game. The simplest way to prevent soft is to make HMs key items you and make them mandatory in the story. That way they cannot be deleted, deposited into the PC, and are not dependent on your current party. Red and Blue had a surfboard item when it was datamined. It's a free surf, and other than interaction with your own pokemon, I don't know why they scrapped it.

As for pokemon, maybe you could have an NPC in each town that will trade you any pokemon for something leveled to the area. The Polished Crystal rom is a Crystal hack that has wonder trade! It's in one town and it just generates a random pokemon to give you, but if you can have wonder trade in Gen 2, anything goes.

BirdstarCat13 · May 31, 2018

745x571 said:
Oh, haha! For some reason I thought you were trying to make a near-soft lock game. The simplest way to prevent soft is to make HMs key items you and make them mandatory in the story. That way they cannot be deleted, deposited into the PC, and are not dependent on your current party. Red and Blue had a surfboard item when it was datamined. It's a free surf, and other than interaction with your own pokemon, I don't know why they scrapped it.

As for pokemon, maybe you could have an NPC in each town that will trade you any pokemon for something leveled to the area. The Polished Crystal rom is a Crystal hack that has wonder trade! It's in one town and it just generates a random pokemon to give you, but if you can have wonder trade in Gen 2, anything goes.

Finally, the exact discussion I was trying to spark! :D The HMs bit is definitely a key point I'm implementing in my own hack. it's not hard to create a map/script combo that funnels the player onto a specific tile, then either

a) blocks the path with a "hidden item" PokéBall tile that is actually just the TM/HM (easy route, which is what I'd do, since I don't know how to script NPC encounters), or

b) has an NPC encounter that gives you the HM, with no option to refuse (much harder to script, like I sad I have no idea how to do that yet but it'd be a lot more polished despite stopping the player for much longer)

Alternatively, you can just make it so the default inventory has all the HMs and TMs already, which would make much more sense if you were targeting an audience of players that already know a lot about the game.

As far as the level curve is concerned, there's an easy fix that ShayMay mentioned in his Omega Ruby analysis (best 7 hours I've ever wasted TBH) and that's making crossroads with insane level differences - for example, the wild encounter rate on Route 22 (FireRed) can be increased to something like 75/255 (which would nearly guarantee at least one encounter) and then make the spawns a bunch of relatively speedy high-level Pokémon (like a wild level 44 Pidgeotto, or a wild level 40 Swellow, or a wild level 48 Raichu) so the player would never be able to make it through there without being near the end of the game (aka far enough through that the route becomes relevant, to begin with)

745x571 · Jun 1, 2018

BirdstarCat13 said:
Finally, the exact discussion I was trying to spark! :D The HMs bit is definitely a key point I'm implementing in my own hack. it's not hard to create a map/script combo that funnels the player onto a specific tile, then either

a) blocks the path with a "hidden item" PokéBall tile that is actually just the TM/HM (easy route, which is what I'd do, since I don't know how to script NPC encounters), or

b) has an NPC encounter that gives you the HM, with no option to refuse (much harder to script, like I sad I have no idea how to do that yet but it'd be a lot more polished despite stopping the player for much longer)

Alternatively, you can just make it so the default inventory has all the HMs and TMs already, which would make much more sense if you were targeting an audience of players that already know a lot about the game.

As far as the level curve is concerned, there's an easy fix that ShayMay mentioned in his Omega Ruby analysis (best 7 hours I've ever wasted TBH) and that's making crossroads with insane level differences - for example, the wild encounter rate on Route 22 (FireRed) can be increased to something like 75/255 (which would nearly guarantee at least one encounter) and then make the spawns a bunch of relatively speedy high-level Pokémon (like a wild level 44 Pidgeotto, or a wild level 40 Swellow, or a wild level 48 Raichu) so the player would never be able to make it through there without being near the end of the game (aka far enough through that the route becomes relevant, to begin with)

Yasss I just finished ShayMay's video yesterday, time well spent. While I have no idea where this tutorial is, I know there is a scripting tutorial to check to see if a player has an item or pokemon in their team. Maybe the NPC will not allow passage until the HM is picked up.

Also, I don't know how hard this would be to implement, but hidden grottos are good for respawning items as well as pokemon. If you had one on each route, the player would never truly run out of poke balls, but they would have to wait an X number of hours to refresh so they could not spam it.

BirdstarCat13 · Jun 1, 2018

745x571 said:
I know there is a scripting tutorial to check to see if a player has an item or pokemon in their team. Maybe the NPC will not allow passage until the HM is picked up.

I think the idea of stopping the player until they get the item is good, but it slows down the gameplay and interrupts the player if they don't know how or where to get the HM (but if they did know how/where, they more than likely already picked it up)

Another thing that would prevent the softlock in Pikasprey's video would be not allowing the player's last two HM users to be put in the daycare, but that would be insanely difficult to add since it'd require a lot of ASM (which I'm 100% avoiding in my hack)

BirdstarCat13 · Aug 2, 2018

Enpatsu Shakugan said:
Don't you just white out?

I've never heard of such a flaw.

Hi, yes, hello, that is how you get softlocked.

~Have all HMs be on just two Pok?mon in the entire playthrough.
~Have an Abra with Teleport and no other moves.
~Have your an Electrode that only knows Selfdestruct (You'll need Move Deleter)
~Heal at the Ever Grande Pok?mon Centre.
~Fly to the Day Care.
~Use Teleport.
~Release Abra.
~Try to have an encounter or any kind of battle
~Electrode OHKOs himself
~You go back to Ever Grande.
~You cannot make progress.

This is why I made this thread. The solution to this particular lock (which I discuss in the main post) is that you make Flash mandatory, so the player always has it with them at that stage in the game, and the player would always have the option to give Flash to Electrode (the only HM it learns) to make wild MEditite and Medicham in Victory Road faint themselves so Electrode can gain EXP and level up, and learn new moves.

Zeturic · Aug 2, 2018

Any and all HM related softlocks could be entirely avoided by switching from HMs to Ride Pokemon summoned by Ride Pager Key Items. Then, just ensure that no Ride Pagers are missable.

BirdstarCat13 · Aug 3, 2018

Sagiri said:
Any and all HM related softlocks could be entirely avoided by switching from HMs to Ride Pokemon summoned by Ride Pager Key Items. Then, just ensure that no Ride Pagers are missable.

lolwut

BirdstarCat13 · Aug 4, 2018

wait what

Zeturic · Aug 4, 2018

In short: Softlocks that are related to HMs are directly a result of the fact that it is possible to get rid of Pokemon that know the moves or are able to learn the moves.

You can't get rid of Key Items. If, for example, rather than the ability to move boulders around being granted by having a Pokemon know the move Strength, it was having a particular Key Item that enabled you to move boulders, it would be entirely impossible to get stuck because you're on the wrong side of boulders that need to be moved.

Same for literally any other HM.

The Pokemon series has actually already made that change. Sure, the Ride Pokemon in your Ride Pager aren't literally Key Items in Gen VII (instead getting their own menu), they basically are, and if I recall correctly, there is Key Item data for them, suggesting that they were intended to literally be Key Items at some point in development.

BirdstarCat13 · Aug 4, 2018

Sagiri said:
In short: Softlocks that are related to HMs are directly a result of the fact that it is possible to get rid of Pokemon that know the moves or are able to learn the moves.

You can't get rid of Key Items. If, for example, rather than the ability to move boulders around being granted by having a Pokemon know the move Strength, it was having a particular Key Item that enabled you to move boulders, it would be entirely impossible to get stuck because you're on the wrong side of boulders that need to be moved.

Same for literally any other HM.

The Pokemon series has actually already made that change. Sure, the Ride Pokemon in your Ride Pager aren't literally Key Items in Gen VII (instead getting their own menu), they basically are, and if I recall correctly, there is Key Item data for them, suggesting that they were intended to literally be Key Items at some point in development.

Wait...you can sell HMs in Gen 3???