Hack Series: Pokémon Eternal X & Wilting Y [Version 2.67 Released]

[Lithobraker]

Oh wow that's a pretty big roster, there must be quite a bit of grinding involved in keeping them all levelled. Looks well balanced though, and I do like the nicknames (might have to steal that Escargoo one if I ever use a Goodra). Is Luxray performing well with Strong Jaw?

Corona's doing pretty well. It's nice to have physical Electric STAB that's stronger than Wild Charge without recoil, and her bulk is pretty great as well. Ice Fang and Crunch provide great coverage, too, and she makes a good bulky phazer with Roar.

 

[destinedjagold]

I defeated the Champion last weekend and will be uploading my battle against her (and AZ) later this weekend. Thanks for this hack, btw. I found the challenge to be quite fun!

 

[Buffel Saft]

I defeated the Champion last weekend and will be uploading my battle against her (and AZ) later this weekend. Thanks for this hack, btw. I found the challenge to be quite fun!

I'll definitely have to watch that, it'll be interesting to see if the Champion actually uses her team as expected. Glad you enjoyed the hack!

 

[MightyBirdy]

Rutile Ruby/Star Sapphire now includes a "modified OR/AS v1.4 Update CIA that enables online play without feature loss on CIA builds". Is there a way to do this for Eternal X and Wilting Y?

 

[Buffel Saft]

Rutile Ruby/Star Sapphire now includes a "modified OR/AS v1.4 Update CIA that enables online play without feature loss on CIA builds". Is there a way to do this for Eternal X and Wilting Y?

There is, but unfortunately I can't get the programs required to do it to run on my PC. I'll take a look at it again in a few weeks once my exams are over, it should be possible with ctr tool or something similar.

 

[MightyBirdy]

There is, but unfortunately I can't get the programs required to do it to run on my PC. I'll take a look at it again in a few weeks once my exams are over, it should be possible with ctr tool or something similar.

Thanks, dude!

Also, I took the encdata and made an amateur attempt at a no-additional-Legendaries/Starters-added 641 build for personal use. Not going to post it, but just an idea for the future if you're interested.

 

[Buffel Saft]

Thanks, dude!

Also, I took the encdata and made an amateur attempt at a no-additional-Legendaries/Starters-added 641 build for personal use. Not going to post it, but just an idea for the future if you're interested.

No problem! Ideally I'd like the 1.5 patch to be the only thing needed to install the hack (as long as you also have an XY game in your 3DS), hopefully I'll be able to get it working.

Honestly the game would be better without the crazy legendary locations, but there's no way to have proper events for them right now. Removing them is a good idea, but I have too many versions of these games (ten if you count the Viola nerfs) already. I'll definitely consider making it an option for Sun and Moon though!

 

[MightyBirdy]

No problem! Ideally I'd like the 1.5 patch to be the only thing needed to install the hack (as long as you also have an XY game in your 3DS), hopefully I'll be able to get it working.

I'm going to try something that I came up with, but it would only work for NTR/layeredFS.

According to a /hbg/ thread on /vg/ back in February:

>You can have a romhack coexist with an installed patch, but the patch will overwrite certain features of the romhack (definitely code.bin changes such as Mart items, etc) but also sometimes romfs changes like trainer changes/pokemon changes
>You can prepatch a .cia with the patch files then overwrite them with the hack files, but this will remove features of the patch and it may outright refuse to boot. If you overwrite the patch code.bin with the hack code.bin the cia will definitely not boot. If you don't, you lose code.bin features again.
>You can use the patch as a base and rebuild your hack changes using pk3DS on the patch files, but the code.bin doesn't play nice and again the hack may outright refuse to boot. Even if you hex edit the code.bin changes into the patch's code.bin it still won't boot because apparently there are some extra sig checks in place.

And another in March:

When you install an update, the system loads the code from the update instead. The updated code then opens both the original RomFS and the update RomFS, looking for stuff in the update RomFS first (handled at SDK level, game devs don't have to do anything for this). If you were to rebuild an update with v1.0 code.bin, the rest of the update would effectively be ignored, except for things like N3DS clockspeed flags. If you were to rebuild an update with v1.1+ code.bin, you'd lose code.bin mods like item sell prices and stuff.

So, to my understanding, the official update is essentially a runtime-level layeredFS and loads on top of the base game.

Which means if you were to move the entire update's romfs into EW/WY, would it work? I see a series of posts on /vp/ about attempting to build a cia through this method and failing to have it load or have code changes stick, but layeredFS will automatically redirect all calls to the new romfs folder. And Luma3DS has a code.bin replacement feature.

The only issues would be the conflicts between the one .cro and the two garcs, but at least we have this confirmed about that:

I messed around with these a bit, turns out a/0/7/4 isn't actually needed at all and a/0/1/2 was easily fixed by slapping a patch on it.

 

[Buffel Saft]

I'm going to try something that I came up with, but it would only work for NTR/layeredFS.

Which means if you were to move the entire update's romfs into EW/WY, would it work? I see a series of posts on /vp/ about attempting to build a cia through this method and failing to have it load or have code changes stick, but layeredFS will automatically redirect all calls to the new romfs folder. And Luma3DS has a code.bin replacement feature.

The only issues would be the conflicts between the one .cro and the two garcs, but at least we have this confirmed about that:

That sounds like it should work; I've never used layeredFS but I can't see any problems with that method. I didn't realise the code.bin had sig checks, that's interesting. It shouldn't be an issue as long as the hex changes are made before feeding it into Asia81's patch pointer tool, though (I assume the signature is recalculated by the tool, I don't think it would work otherwise).

That discussion on /vp/ was a while ago, I couldn't help much at the time as I was still using hans over CFW. I don't think we tried building the update ROMFS into the game ROMFS at any point, that should work too. I also don't know if the game would realise it's on 1.5 using that method, though, so it may not work online. The update garcs (and possibly the .cro file too) from the update turned out to be exactly the same as the ones in the base game, so those can be safely replaced with the modified files.

Let me know how it goes anyway, I'd be very interested to see whether or not it works.

 

[MightyBirdy]

That discussion on /vp/ was a while ago, I couldn't help much at the time as I was still using hans over CFW. I don't think we tried building the update ROMFS into the game ROMFS at any point, that should work too. I also don't know if the game would realise it's on 1.5 using that method, though, so it may not work online.

I found this about making sure it realizes it's version 1.5 (or at least so that it stops bugging you about updates):

first run the v5.3 CR to rebuild. ignore the generated cia file.

then change the minor and micro version to the current newest official one, and run the command under the same directory. (set makerom to the envir or copy to the current working path)
below example is for Pokemon X v1.5:
MakeRom -f cia -content CustomPartition0.bin:0:0x00 -minor 7 -micro 0 -o patch.cia

if you don't know the version number, use fbi check the official update: 1.copy offcial patch cia to sd card 2. go to sd card move the cursor 3. find the patch and check the version number inside of the brackets.
above pokemon X v1.5 patch should display as (5.7.0)

-major <version> Any value between 0-63 (inclusive) Specify the version major for the title. This cannot be used with "-dver".
-minor <version> Any value between 0-63 (inclusive) Specify the version minor for the title. This cannot be used with "-dver".
-micro <version> Any value between 0-15 (inclusive) Specify the version micro for the title.

It's in the last few posts of Asia81's custom Pokemon update tutorial on gbatemp, I also think he's trying to implement the feature into his tool.

 

[Krakanous]

Hey, I know this is slighlty Off Topic, but I can't seem to find a clear answer in understanding max damage I am outputting.

Ok so, I have a Steelix with "Sheer Force", he know the move "Iron Tail", he is a steel type, obviously, am I correct in stating that the damage output I produce is:

100 (base) + 50% (for STAB) which is now 150 + 30% for "sheer force" trait (30% on the base 100) = 180 damage in total?

Second example with "Heavy Slam" and "Sand Force" during a sandstorm (mega steelix example for AS/OR)

If target is 20% of the weight of me. Base power is 120. So 120 (base) + STAB (180) + 30% from sand force+sandstorm = 216 total damage...correct? If so, that's INSANE awesome :D.

Nearly completed this hack btw, very much enjoy!

 

[Buffel Saft]

Hey, I know this is slighlty Off Topic, but I can't seem to find a clear answer in understanding max damage I am outputting.

Ok so, I have a Steelix with "Sheer Force", he know the move "Iron Tail", he is a steel type, obviously, am I correct in stating that the damage output I produce is:

100 (base) + 50% (for STAB) which is now 150 + 30% for "sheer force" trait (30% on the base 100) = 180 damage in total?

Second example with "Heavy Slam" and "Sand Force" during a sandstorm (mega steelix example for AS/OR)

If target is 20% of the weight of me. Base power is 120. So 120 (base) + STAB (180) + 30% from sand force+sandstorm = 216 total damage...correct? If so, that's INSANE awesome :D.

Nearly completed this hack btw, very much enjoy!

That's almost correct. The base damage multipliers (STAB and abilities in this case) are multiplicative rather than additive, so it's even better! For Sheer Force Iron Tail you get 100 (base) x 1.5 (STAB) x 1.3 (Sheer Force) = 195 effective base power. If you also have a Life Orb (no recoil with Sheer Force and a boosted move of course), then you get a ridiculous 253 power attack.
For Sand Force Heavy Slam it's 120 x 1.5 x 1.3 = 234.

This doesn't give you the actual amount of damage you deal (you need to factor in attack, defense and a few other things for that), but you're effectively using a move around the power level of selfdestruct or Explosion here.

Glad to hear you're enjoying the hack!

 

[MightyBirdy]

That sounds like it should work; I've never used layeredFS but I can't see any problems with that method. I didn't realise the code.bin had sig checks, that's interesting. It shouldn't be an issue as long as the hex changes are made before feeding it into Asia81's patch pointer tool, though (I assume the signature is recalculated by the tool, I don't think it would work otherwise).
…
Let me know how it goes anyway, I'd be very interested to see whether or not it works.

Good news, I've made a 1.5 spoof with EXWY 1.4 that retains the code.bin changes — mostly because that's the only thing I replaced in the 1.1 update. (I had to resign the 1.1 update - anything later gave the infinite waves error, or would not allow the EXWY .code to run at all.

Alternatively, I now think I could theoretically resign the entire pre-patched game to show as version 1.5, and then you could use NTR to load mod updates/changes.

Bad news - it crashes NTR 3.2 when running the regular game and loading EXWY via NTR.

Still going to test if the 1.5 update can be used by layeredFS, then at the very least someone could use a pre-patched full .cia, install the spoof update, and have NTR run on top of the spoof to load the update without any file conflicts.

Actual bad news: the update's files are what causes it to crash. The spoof fully works, but the Lumiose Save glitch and whatever other nonsense bugs will still be present. It seems you can have only have online and the bug fixes, or online and the .code changes.

UPDATE: extracted all changed garcs between 1.0 and 1.1 and compared all the files. Only differences are in a/0/7 and a/2/2 - nothing to do with the .cros at all. So unless the title language UI, text, or language selection has something to do with the Lumiose City save glitch, it's only fixed via the partially-editable update .code. There's no point in keeping the romfs update files except maybe 0/3/6 that was changed in update 1.3.

 

[Buffel Saft]

Good news, I've made a 1.5 spoof with EXWY 1.4 that retains the code.bin changes — mostly because that's the only thing I replaced in the 1.1 update. (I had to resign the 1.1 update - anything later gave the infinite waves error, or would not allow the EXWY .code to run at all.

Alternatively, I now think I could theoretically resign the entire pre-patched game to show as version 1.5, and then you could use NTR to load mod updates/changes.

Bad news - it crashes NTR 3.2 when running the regular game and loading EXWY via NTR.

Still going to test if the 1.5 update can be used by layeredFS, then at the very least someone could use a pre-patched full .cia, install the spoof update, and have NTR run on top of the spoof to load the update without any file conflicts.

Actual bad news: the update's files are what causes it to crash. The spoof fully works, but the Lumiose Save glitch and whatever other nonsense bugs will still be present. It seems you can have only have online and the bug fixes, or online and the .code changes.

UPDATE: extracted all changed garcs between 1.0 and 1.1 and compared all the files. Only differences are in a/0/7 and a/2/2 - nothing to do with the .cros at all. So unless the title language UI, text, or language selection has something to do with the Lumiose City save glitch, it's only fixed via the partially-editable update .code. There's no point in keeping the romfs update files except maybe 0/3/6 that was changed in update 1.3.

Thanks for trying this, it's a shame it didn't work. Though if NTR can't do it, surely there must be some way to build a custom update cia with a modified code.bin? Rutile/Star definitely have .code changes, so it must be possible.

EXWY don't modify 0/3/6 at all so there's no harm in including it. It's strange that they added so many .cros to the updates, given that they don't do anything.

 

[MightyBirdy]

Thanks for trying this, it's a shame it didn't work. Though if NTR can't do it, surely there must be some way to build a custom update cia with a modified code.bin? Rutile/Star definitely have .code changes, so it must be possible.

EXWY don't modify 0/3/6 at all so there's no harm in including it. It's strange that they added so many .cros to the updates, given that they don't do anything.

The way the RRSS update is made seems to be the same way I made the EXWY update - it just has a second copy of the hacked .code. Attempting to change the mart with the ORAS 1.4 .code also errors out pk3DS the same way. However, he probably had an easier time, given that the XY updates eventually have larger .codes, rather than staying the same size - probably because they had to roll out the Lumiose City fix so quickly, they had to do some voodoo, and just kept using that method to fix things, rather than the garcs containing anything really important.

But yeah, it seems that with neither set of games can you include the most major bug fixes if you want to keep the .code changes.

EDIT: changed the way my file comparer was scanning, and the .cros are different - but not all of them. A lot of them made changes while maintaining the exact same byte-size, but I'm not sure if I can just stick them into the same folder if they call on the 1.5 .code. DllField.cro for sure is different but not sure how. I'll try to mock something up. 0/1/2 needs to have dec_120.bin replaced with the 1.5 update's — it's connected to Lumiose City in some way. But 0/7/0 and 2/2/5 definitely can't be touched — crashes the game on boot, or lets you start a new save with the language options all garbled, but you can't load a game.

 

[qwertyuii]

Really excited about the concept of this game, do you know if it works on 2ds or only 3ds?

 

[Buffel Saft]

Really excited about the concept of this game, do you know if it works on 2ds or only 3ds?

It'll work on either as long as you have a way to play it (custom firmware, the homebrew channel or a flashcart).

 

[pokemonlover493]

So, how would I go about downloading this onto my 3ds and Pokemon X? I wouldn't mind restarting my Pokemon X file if it meant playing this. Thanks in advance.

 

[Buffel Saft]

So, how would I go about downloading this onto my 3ds and Pokemon X? I wouldn't mind restarting my Pokemon X file if it meant playing this. Thanks in advance.

It depends on which firmware version you have on your 3DS; you can check by going to system settings, it'll be on the bottom right of the top screen.

If you're on 11.1 or 11.2, the only way to play it is with a hardware mod (might be other options for 11.1, I'm not sure), though I wouldn't recommend that unless you're confident with a soldering iron. 11.1 will have a way to play it soon, though, so if you're on that now, don't update your console.

If you're on 11.0, you can play easily by setting up browserhax and running the game with a homebrew app called hans.

If you haven't updated in a while, and you're on 10.7 or earlier, you should be able to install custom firmware by following Plailect's guide. The guide may look intimidating, but as long as you follow it carefully it's perfectly safe to do. It will also take a while, but it's worth it.

You also won't need to restart your X save, as you can back it up with a homebrew before playing. Hope that helps!

 

[Talimvidya]

So I've never played a Pokemon romhack before and decided to try Eternal X's insanity mode last week before playing Sun and Moon, since it's been a while since I've touched a pokemon game. I never got past the third gym in Vanilla X because it was so dull, but I'm about halfway through Eternal X and I don't think I've enjoyed a pokemon game playthrough this much in a very long time. There are a couple bullshit fights (don't know if I can forgive you for that rival double battle on route 7, though you did warn me that insanity was not fair) but for the most part it's been very fun and a refreshing, if painful at times, challenge.

It's actually made me not want to play Sun and Moon until something similar is available, since the difficulty of vanilla Pokemon games has appealed less and less to me as the years have gone by. Just wondering, but might you have any plans on working on a similar romhack for S/M once the tools become available?

Whether you plan to or not, mostly just wanted to say thanks for this hack, it's pretty sweet.