Emerald hack: Pokemon Conversion Emerald [beta v175]

I don't have six screenshots of new areas, so this hack is going into the sideshow showcase as per the "Progressing hacks" guidelines.

DOWNLOAD : https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2apjtCrclBkcDNpem9xQjVVVWM
This .ips patch is for Pokemon Emerald (U)

SCREENSHOTS : http://imgur.com/a/apSGJ





INTRODUCTION
The main goal of this hack is REBALANCING EVERY POKEMON to be competitively(OU) viable, either through changing their base stats, or by changing their Type. The secondary goal is to make strong Pokemon easier to obtain and raise, by making important items more accessible, and by making weaker moves more useful.

DEVELOPMENT
This hack was created by me (Ravendeth) and my wife Taelle over the course of one month, for a friend who was going to go through head surgery and would have nothing to do while sitting around.

FEATURES

• NEW TYPES : Many redundant or oddball pokemon have been given new secondary types to better fit their movepools or the team niche that they try to fill. Fairy type is also implemented.
• REBALANCED BASE STATS : Most of the pokemon in the game have been given increased base stats to better show off their strengths, mostly based on their previous placements on the tier list.
• MORE ACCESSIBLE ITEMS : Prices reduced, important items easier to come by.
• ALL 386 POKEMON CATCHABLE (75% done) : the goal is to have 6 pokemon catchable in each area, to increase variety and teambuilding choices.
• TYPE VARIETY : Redundant types diversified. No more rat/bird/fishpocalypsemon. Many humanoid pokemon have been changed into Fairy types rather than the animal-based Normal type. Less psuedodragons and more Dragon types.
• QUALITY OF LIFE CHANGES : Reusable TMs, Rewriteable HMs, shorter annoying texts, clearer and concise descriptions.
• TYPE REBALANCING : Ice type resists Normal and Flying attacks. Fairy type is weak to Bug attacks.
• IMPROVED BREEDING : Any two pokemon can breed, like in many other monster games. Egg hatch times halved.
• Shiny Pokemon : Shiny rate is 0.5% (one in 200), making them uncommon instead of impossible to find during a casual playthrough. Many pokemon have new shiny colors.
• Special Evolution : Pokemon who have trade or other special evolution methods can now also evolve through friendship.
• Catch Rates : Pokemon have a flat 10% added to their catch rates. Similar feel, helps with sableye and legendary PTSD.
• Surfing/Fishing : Surf encounter rates reduced. Fishing now finds non-magikarp and 1 new pokemon for each rod tier.
• Day/Night System : Caves also use natural illumination to make your nature hike and evolutions more memorable.
• System Time : The Gamecube at your house can be used freely to change the system time.
• HM sanity : Pokemon with wings can use Fly, pokemon with claws can use Cut, etc.
• Egg Move sanity : Many pokemon have improved learnsets with important moves such as Will-o-Wisp, Dragon Dance, Heal Bell, and Baton Pass.
• Run anywhere : Able to use running shoes indoors.

KNOWN BUGS/ISSUES

1. Some pokedex entries are missing, seems to be a vanilla emerald bug? This will get filled in for the release version.
2. Old legendaries and sea caves, safari zone, victory road not yet finished.
3. Brandon rides a missingno in the intro (compressed graphics corruption). Not sure how to fix this.
4. Ocean Route 124 (Relic Reef) is filled with Pupitar (L1-50). Not sure how to fix this, seems to be a bug caused by the map editor.
5. The important features should have NPCs or signs to explain them in the release version.
6. Some attack descriptions don't fit (bad linebreaks) due to the rushed nature.

SPECIAL THANKS AND TOOLS USED

• Taelle for most of the colors (I am green-colorblind) and helping with type and feature ideas.
  
• Taelle, Ricardolax, Shade, Notkastar, and Vandaeron for playtesting.
  
• MrDollSteak for his guide on hacking the Fairy type into Emerald.
  
• HackMew for their guide on Assembly.
  
• FBI for their guide on inserting assembly routines into your ROM and their THUMB compiler.
  
• diegoisawesome for the XSE scripting tutorial.
  
• The PokeCommunity for hosting buttloads of assembly routines and hacking guides.
  
• Advancemap 1.92 by LU-HO Poké.
  
• Gen3Tools 2.9.1 by Kurapika.
  
• NamelessSpriteEditor 2.1 by Link12552.
  
• PGE (PokemonGameEditor) by Gamer2020.
  
• G3HS (Pokemon Gen III Hacking Suite) by karatekid552.
  
• XSE 1.1.1 and FreeSpaceFinder by Hackmew.
  
• DayAndNight tool v1.02 by Mastermind_X, ZodiacDaGreat, and Interdpth.
  
• Critical hit damage nerf ASM routine (2x to 1.5x damage) by KDS
  
• Highlighted nature stats ASM routine by DizzyEgg
  
• Code for running shoes indoors by HackMew
  
• Code for reusable TMs by Lost Heart
  
• Code for overwiting HMs by CynicalUnicorn
  
• Gen III Move data structure from Bulbapedia

This is, to be frank, exactly what I've been looking for in a hack.
Just a few questions- is the difficulty increased? Is EV training expected? Will my team need things like a lead/hazard setter, phazer, Wish user, and/or rapid spinner/defogger?
Ideally I'm looking to get completely trashed by bosses several times over, although not due to hax or being mysteriously underleveled.

Is there any PSS Split?

Looks very interesting! Might try this one very soon!

BTW, i find some of the bugs really funny.

Sorry for not responding earlier, I am not very good at forums and I was not subscribed to this thread apparently (lol).

Lithobraker said:

Just a few questions- is the difficulty increased? Is EV training expected? Will my team need things like a lead/hazard setter, phazer, Wish user, and/or rapid spinner/defogger?

Click to expand...

The difficulty is slightly increased (mostly because of single-forms and certain evolutions having higher stats), but is not the focus of the hack since I want it to be easier to play and to get to the important gear/TMs. Since attacks have higher base power and more pokemon have STAB moves, you can expect it to be harder to heal with potions during battles.

EV training is not mandatory, and is present purely for the optional content and to help with gyms/training, and for battling other players. Having a team with a variety of types that complement each other is recommended, since certain new variations can be more threatening than expected.

What roles will end up being "needed" in a wacky new metagame like this still remains to be seen. With a whopping 185 Pokemon out of 212 fully evolved re-attempting to enter the metagame, I cannot even begin to guess. Having a good lead pokemon, stable tanks and some kind of sweeper(s) and wallbreaker(s) is always a good idea in any Pokemon game. Experiment with different team cores and simply try to build a cohesive gameplan for now.

I don't have any particular predictions for what sort of team strategies will be stronger in this, since there are boosts and new team members across the entire teambuilding spectrum. My sincere wish is that different team types and different support moves will all be equally useful, but without buttloads of priority moves or choice scarf, phazers and speed control may become more important than in modern titles.

Zapmolticuno said:

Is there any PSS Split?

Click to expand...

There is not, and this is intentional. I accept that this is going to be a point of contention with a lot of people, but it's my opinion that Gengar/Gyarados/Tyranitar/Dragons/Breloom/Scizor/Alakazam are more than strong enough without having as big of a movepool as other pokemon with less optimized type+ability+stat combinations.

If anyone wants to make a version of this with the PSS split, or if they want to use any of the pokemon variations in this for any of their hacks, then they have my full permission to do so without asking.

hackstar said:

BTW, i find some of the bugs really funny.

Click to expand...

Yes, they reflect the dangers of invasive species.

I have fished up a Geodude before, but I've only done it once and I could not figure out for the life of me whether it was my hack or whether it's just a bug from vanilla Emerald. Nobody seems to be able to replicate it since a couple of versions ago, and nobody knows why. *X-Files theme*

this is definitely a cool idea. do you have a link to the changes you made to the pokemon?

bynine said:

this is definitely a cool idea. do you have a link to the changes you made to the pokemon?

Click to expand...

I have been trying to make a text guide out of our very messy dev's changelog, and that has been going slowly. You can see the early version here.

I tried to make a wiki, and I failed miserably at it. I would like to make a guide that is more like a comprehensive pokedex, but I am not sure how.

I promise that I am still alive, I have been spending the past week trying to finish up the maps' catch lists since many players have already gotten to Lilycove or Shoal Cave. I spend several hours on each map screen, to try to make the encounter rates feel "right", otherwise traveling through certain areas just feel like a gigantic pain instead of fun. The flow of the game, catching, training, etc, is actually very important to me.

I will release the completed hack when finished, and I will try to release the guide at the same time.

Question: How do I evolve Slowpoke into Slowking???