Emerald hack: Pokémon Inclement Emerald: A Decomp Difficulty Hack [Version 1.13]

[Buffel Saft]

Hey can you guys help me find the coin case?? The lady that gives it out doesn't seem to have it…

Hey, it's still given by the same lady as vanilla. What's happening when you talk to her?

 

[MustBeSean]

I just downloaded the file and was reading all the Pokemon, move and ability changes cause I'm a nerd to theorycraft my team, and then I was hit with Delcatty entry and the Wailord sprite. And just then, even before applying the patch, this just became one of my favorite ROM hacks.

 

[Buffel Saft]

I just downloaded the file and was reading all the Pokemon, move and ability changes cause I'm a nerd to theorycraft my team, and then I was hit with Delcatty entry and the Wailord sprite. And just then, even before applying the patch, this just became one of my favorite ROM hacks.

Haha, glad you liked those! The Delcatty entry will have to go one day, but Wailord won't ever change! I'll have yet another bug fix release up tomorrow, so you might want to wait for that before starting.

 

[Ribafish]

First of all congrats for the hack. It surely gets much attention and praise.

I'd appreciate if you answer couple of my questions...

1. Apart from minor bugs which is normal for any hack, is this game fully playable from start to becoming a champion? No game-breaking bugs?
2. Any idea for how long do you plan to support the hack with bug fixes? I see you keep releasing fixes almost daily which is great but I also keep wondering if I should wait a month or so before doing the first playthrough.

 

[Buffel Saft]

First of all congrats for the hack. It surely gets much attention and praise.

I'd appreciate if you answer couple of my questions...

1. Apart from minor bugs which is normal for any hack, is this game fully playable from start to becoming a champion? No game-breaking bugs?
2. Any idea for how long do you plan to support the hack with bug fixes? I see you keep releasing fixes almost daily which is great but I also keep wondering if I should wait a month or so before doing the first playthrough.

Thanks!
1. There are some bugs which can freeze the game, with the two worst ones being a random freeze before berry tree encounters (which I hope I've just fixed), and the multibattle with Steven (if his whole team faints the game freezes). There may be others, especially in battle as the engine is still a WIP. If you can avoid those though you can play all the way through to becoming champion and then tackle the post game rematches and legendaries.
2. I'm currently in covid lockdown for at least the next 5 days, so there will be plenty of fixes in that time. After that, who knows? I've supported my other hacks for years so hopefully I can do the same for this one! It probably wouldn't hurt to wait at least a day or two before starting a playthrough.

 

[zapperil]

Speaking of berry encounters ; it sometimes still freezes if you encounter it in succession. I just experienced it earlier , on the Berry tree north of Rustboro one.

Also , is it possible blender new berries like Occa and Yache in Lilycove ?

 

[Buffel Saft]

Speaking of berry encounters ; it sometimes still freezes if you encounter it in succession. I just experienced it earlier , on the Berry tree north of Rustboro one.

Also , is it possible blender new berries like Occa and Yache in Lilycove ?

Yeah, the fix for that will be next patch, assuming I've actually found the problem! I'll try successive encounters as a way to replicate it, it's been tricky to do so far.

It is, but make sure you save before using the blender - I'm pretty sure it's still broken, and I haven't been able to find the cause. Not even sure if it's something I did or an issue with the item expansion!

 

[Pokekilla1992]

Hey, it's still given by the same lady as vanilla. What's happening when you talk to her?

I guess I need the harbor mail

 

[gokudera89]

Hey, it's still given by the same lady as vanilla. What's happening when you talk to her?

I think the difference is that she gives you the case if you bring her an ice stone, as she mentioned this in her talk. I think it was different in vanilla Emerald?

 

[DerpyKira]

Hey Buffel, gonna bother you again but your doc says the breeder npc at the daycare always gives you a togepi as her first egg, however from my testing, it's not the case, i've gotten a wimpod and a pichu on her first egg.

 

[Omarick548]

No cheats yet. Vanilla cheats definitely won't work.

I'm looking forward to working on it! Got plenty of fixing to do first though.

Not when you get them from Birch, but you can use an Ability Patch on them later.

Thanks for the response. I ask because in the magma hideout I'm unable to proceed within it because of a grunt blocking a room(I'm thinking it's the bosses room or one close to him) and not sure if that's because I have to do something first before entering there or if it's because of a bug. I know this is optional, but I'd still like to do it.

 

[MustBeSean]

I'm using Skill Link Trumbeak holding Metronome and it doesn't seem to increase multi hit move damage.

Even in the original 3DS/Switch games Metronome only boosts damage of moves used in successive turns. Multi hit moves hit multiple times in the same turn so those don't benefit any more than single hit moves. If it doesn't ramp up damage at all even in successive turns, that would be a bug. But something like, say, Trumbeak's Bullet Seed or Cloyster's Icicle Spear isn't supposed to ramp up in damage with every single hit in the span of the same turn, if that's what you meant.

Haha, glad you liked those! The Delcatty entry will have to go one day, but Wailord won't ever change! I'll have yet another bug fix release up tomorrow, so you might want to wait for that before starting.

Nice, I'll wait till tomorrow then.

 

[NuclearNecro]

Heyo, I ended up dowloading the rom hack since I already really enjoyed your USUM one (though I imagine you could have seen that already), but there's a couple of questions I wanted to ask:

Is it possible for wild Pokemon to get hidden abilities without the Dream Ball? Because if not, then I kinda think that those should be made available a bit earlier, probably after the second gym, or at least have a low chance to have said ability (really wanna have a Stall Slakoth but having to go through half the game to get one makes me :(.).

Second off, are there any more original Mega Evolutions that you have planned, specifically for Gens 5-7 (Gen 8 already has a couple candidates by just changing some of the Gigantamaxes into em)?

Spoiler:

also this is mainly wishful thinking, but once you get around to adding all the legendaries back in, maybe change Perfect Zygarde and Ultra Necrozma into Mega Evolutions instead of just another forms, would make them closer to big dad Mega Rayquaza

Spoiler:

ALSO also i wish meltan was gettable before post-game :(

EDIT BECAUSE I FOUND A WEIRD BUG: Okay, so for some reason the rom just crashes if you leave it on idle for a little while while sped up? Not sure if it's an mGBA problem or a rom problem, but I figure i'd still mention it.

 

[HabringerofLight]

Can this game trade with Radical Red and unbound?

 

[yakyu]

This hack looks so good and I really loved wild pokémon lvls going up, but I don't think I'll be able to finish it because of game freezing all the time.
Is this an emulator issue or something like that?

 

[Mr Business]

Revelation dance freezes the game. I discovered this when I return to Mt. Chimney to fight the trainers there, and the trainer "Beauty Shirley" had a Oricorio.

EDIT: Found another one. When you EV train any of the eeveelutions, and revert it back into a Eevee, the EVs reset to 0. You can find this out after you lvl it up once, and you see the stats decrease. Didn't notice this until the battle with Norman, where my Jolteon somehow got outsped by his Tauros haha

-Mega evolving Mawile temporary increases its level by 4. Definitely has to do with Mawile's exp growth being changed, but the mega uses a different exp growth.
-Decidueye's SPDEF in the pokemon changes is listed as base 90, but ingame it's base 70.

 

[goldteamrules]

This looks really cool! I've been anticipating a comprehensive Emerald decomp hack since the pret guys finished pokeemerald, and Inclement looks like it's exactly that. I think I'm going to try to exercise some self-control and wait to play it until the Battle Frontier is implemented, since that's probably the thing I'm looking forward to the most (no rush, I know it'll take some time).

Regarding the Delcatty dilemma I'm with you: I think it should stay a Normal type with Normalize since that's the most unique thing about it. I'm sure there's another way to balance it.

I'm definitely gonna poke around the source code when I get the chance and take a look at how you programmed the AI. Making an Emerald decomp hack with a really robust enemy AI is a longstanding goal of mine, although I don't know if I'll ever actually have the time to get around to it. Mind if I ask you questions about how you approached the AI programming every once in a while, and use Inclement for inspiration if I ever get around to making my own hack?

Thanks for making this! It's always such a huge gift to the community when a creator puts their time and energy into making an incredible hack.

Think my post got lost in the activity, so replying to myself to draw attention.

 

[sarydactl]

I've been looking for a while, but Woobat's encounter rate in Seaspray Cave seems to be incorrect (no encounters out of hundreds, tons of Stunfisk though, makes me wonder if Stunfisk was put in twice instead of Woobat). I could just be astronomically unlucky, though.

 

[Corveone]

Looks pretty cool, definitely going to keep an eye on this. I'm not much into the rebalanced approach and the custom megas though, so if there's a more vanilla/standard mode coming I guess I'd rather wait a bit more.

 

[Buffel Saft]

Hey Buffel, gonna bother you again but your doc says the breeder npc at the daycare always gives you a togepi as her first egg, however from my testing, it's not the case, i've gotten a wimpod and a pichu on her first egg.

Hey, yeah that's bugged due to some questionable code, will be fixed in the next version.

Thanks for the response. I ask because in the magma hideout I'm unable to proceed within it because of a grunt blocking a room(I'm thinking it's the bosses room or one close to him) and not sure if that's because I have to do something first before entering there or if it's because of a bug. I know this is optional, but I'd still like to do it.

Could you post a screenshot? I don't think I've moved any grunts around in there aside from the two admins, and they're not blocking anything.

Heyo, I ended up dowloading the rom hack since I already really enjoyed your USUM one (though I imagine you could have seen that already), but there's a couple of questions I wanted to ask:

Is it possible for wild Pokemon to get hidden abilities without the Dream Ball? Because if not, then I kinda think that those should be made available a bit earlier, probably after the second gym, or at least have a low chance to have said ability (really wanna have a Stall Slakoth but having to go through half the game to get one makes me :(.).

Second off, are there any more original Mega Evolutions that you have planned, specifically for Gens 5-7 (Gen 8 already has a couple candidates by just changing some of the Gigantamaxes into em)?

Spoiler:

also this is mainly wishful thinking, but once you get around to adding all the legendaries back in, maybe change Perfect Zygarde and Ultra Necrozma into Mega Evolutions instead of just another forms, would make them closer to big dad Mega Rayquaza

Spoiler:

ALSO also i wish meltan was gettable before post-game :(

EDIT BECAUSE I FOUND A WEIRD BUG: Okay, so for some reason the rom just crashes if you leave it on idle for a little while while sped up? Not sure if it's an mGBA problem or a rom problem, but I figure i'd still mention it.

Hey, no Dream Balls are the only way to get hidden abilities on wild mons. They used to be available earlier, I'm not entirely sure why I thought they needed to be moved. Will fix that!
Yep, there are a little less than 20 placeholder mega stones that will eventually be something. I haven't decided what yet though!
IMO Zygarde is fine as is, but Ultra Necrozma will need some changes seeing as Z-moves aren't in.

I've never seen that one before, where were you when you left it running?

Can this game trade with Radical Red and unbound?

No, it can't. Or at least I highly doubt it, never tried!

This hack looks so good and I really loved wild pokémon lvls going up, but I don't think I'll be able to finish it because of game freezing all the time.
Is this an emulator issue or something like that?

Thanks! I'm not sure what the freezes are caused by; I've had a few reports of these but never with enough details to check! There are some known issues that cause freezes, but you'll need to tell me exactly what froze to get a useful answer!

Revelation dance freezes the game. I discovered this when I return to Mt. Chimney to fight the trainers there, and the trainer "Beauty Shirley" had a Oricorio.

EDIT: Found another one. When you EV train any of the eeveelutions, and revert it back into a Eevee, the EVs reset to 0. You can find this out after you lvl it up once, and you see the stats decrease. Didn't notice this until the battle with Norman, where my Jolteon somehow got outsped by his Tauros haha

-Mega evolving Mawile temporary increases its level by 4. Definitely has to do with Mawile's exp growth being changed, but the mega uses a different exp growth.
-Decidueye's SPDEF in the pokemon changes is listed as base 90, but ingame it's base 70.

- Please make sure you're on the latest version! Long move names have been fixed.
- The Eevee one was originally an intentional thing that I later decided against, but apparently didn't remove from the code. Will fix that!
- I'll fix those stat issues too!

This looks really cool! I've been anticipating a comprehensive Emerald decomp hack since the pret guys finished pokeemerald, and Inclement looks like it's exactly that. I think I'm going to try to exercise some self-control and wait to play it until the Battle Frontier is implemented, since that's probably the thing I'm looking forward to the most (no rush, I know it'll take some time).

Regarding the Delcatty dilemma I'm with you: I think it should stay a Normal type with Normalize since that's the most unique thing about it. I'm sure there's another way to balance it.

I'm definitely gonna poke around the source code when I get the chance and take a look at how you programmed the AI. Making an Emerald decomp hack with a really robust enemy AI is a longstanding goal of mine, although I don't know if I'll ever actually have the time to get around to it. Mind if I ask you questions about how you approached the AI programming every once in a while, and use Inclement for inspiration if I ever get around to making my own hack?

Thanks for making this! It's always such a huge gift to the community when a creator puts their time and energy into making an incredible hack.
Think my post got lost in the activity, so replying to myself to draw attention.

Hey, sorry about that! Glad you like the looks of it so far.
Yeah I think buffing Normalize itself and Delcatty's level up moves might be the way to go, as right now both are pretty useless!
For now the AI is a modified version of vanilla + Dizzy Egg's changes + some of my own tweaks to account for new moves and abilities, as well as some extra C code to handle switching. It used to just find a mon that did super effective damage, but now it predicts what type of move the player will use (using only information it could actually have, no cheating!) and then finds a mon that resists that move. At some point I want to completely overhaul it as it still has issues in a lot of situations.

I've been looking for a while, but Woobat's encounter rate in Seaspray Cave seems to be incorrect (no encounters out of hundreds, tons of Stunfisk though, makes me wonder if Stunfisk was put in twice instead of Woobat). I could just be astronomically unlucky, though.

Yep can confirm, the encounter tables are missing Woobat. I'll fix that in the next patch!

Looks pretty cool, definitely going to keep an eye on this. I'm not much into the rebalanced approach and the custom megas though, so if there's a more vanilla/standard mode coming I guess I'd rather wait a bit more.

Thanks! Yeah I'll be working on that version as soon as the bug list isn't so big!

And thanks for all the bug reports everyone! It really helps, I'll do my best to get them all fixed!