[Other] Stop Binary Hacking; It's Holding Back the Entire Community

[ShinyTillDawn]

Gonna add my piece too, as I think a few practical examples of why the decomps are easier to work with would be useful here. It seems to me that a lot of the arguments against using the decomps come from a lack of knowledge (and I don't mean that as an insult - obviously we aren't all programmers, and it can be hard to find good information on this), and a lot of the arguments for it are a little too technical, so that makes binary hacking seem easier. There's no denying that downloading a map editor and diving straight into changing stuff is faster and easier than setting up the decomp, and there's still value in using that as an entry point to ROM hacking. Plenty of the basic knowledge you pick up from binary hacking even carries over to the decomps, so if you're going in with no idea what you're doing and no programming knowledge at all, that's not a bad way to get your feet wet.

However, in the long run, the decomps are MUCH easier to work with AND more user friendly. No binary hacking tool is even remotely comparable to the ease of use VS code provides, porymap blows advance map out of the water, and working with actual, structured, human-readable code is infinitely easier than working with a binary editor that can't even edit most of the game in a meaningful way. Sure, using the command line for the first time can be quite intimidating, but look at it this way: to set up the decomp, all you're doing is pasting things into a box and pressing enter. If you can post on this forum, you can use the command line. You don't need to be an expert or even fully understand what you're doing; you simply follow a tutorial, just like most of us did/still do with ASM routines! On top of that, you only need to go through it once. After the initial setup you'll be typing "make" the vast majority of the time.

But what if you can't code, and don't care to learn? Consider this: if your hack requires any sort of story change, you're probably going to need to learn to script, which means spending a few hours (or more) reading a scripting tutorial and playing around with some basic scripts. Either way, you ARE going to have to sit down and learn something, so why not learn the thing that will ultimately make your life easier? In the time it takes to go through an XSE tutorial, you could learn enough C to get a good foundation for using the decomps. Again, you don't need to be an expert, and you definitely don't need to know the entire language. Learning just the basics gets you:

• A trainer editor
• A Pokémon editor
• A text editor
• An intro editor
• A move editor
• An ability editor (want to make Blaze's boost apply to everything, all the time, and do 100% more damage? Trivial in the decomps - not so much in binary)
• Much more!

And it's all in one program, with built in find and replace, and all in a simple, human-readable format that allows for extremely quick editing - no more clicking through a billion drop down menus. I assume this is another point where binary hacking seems easier, because it's not immediately obvious how to find all those things in the code. It's a lot easier than you might think - just make VS code find it for you! As an example, let's say you want to edit Youngster Joey's team, but have no idea where it is. Search for "Joey", and look through the names of the files that appears - you'll see "trainer_parties" and "trainers" - Trainer parties sounds promising, so click that and the editor will jump straight to Joey's party, which looks like this:

static const struct TrainerMonNoItemDefaultMoves sParty_Joey[] = {
    {
    .iv = 0,
    .lvl = 9,
    .species = SPECIES_MACHOP,
    }
};

That's readable even if you've never seen C before, no? If you want to give him more mons, or custom moves, you can go to other trainers in the same file to see how that should look, then jump straight back to Joey with a single click and make your changes based on that. As this is a text file, you have full access to copy and paste, which make this incredibly quick and easy. VS Code can even autocomplete Pokémon species and moves for you! The code essentially doubles as documentation; it's like using existing XSE scripts as examples for your own, but for the entire game.

You could also follow this same process to make the silly Blaze change I mentioned: searching for "blaze" leads you to "ABILITY_BLAZE", and searching for that leads you to this code in "battle_util":

   case ABILITY_BLAZE:
        if (moveType == TYPE_FIRE && gBattleMons[battlerAtk].hp <= (gBattleMons[battlerAtk].maxHP / 3))
            MulModifier(&modifier, UQ_4_12(1.5));
        break;

Again, even if you can't code yet, you can see that second line mentions maxHP / 3, so that must be Blaze's activation condition - the mon needs to have one third or less of its max HP. It also mentions moveType == TYPE_FIRE, which you may have guessed, makes it only boost fire moves. So we're in the right place! Get rid of that line make the boost on all the time, and affect all attacks. The next line looks like gibberish, but that 1.5 stands out - that must be the 50% damage boost. Change that to 2.0 and it's now a 100% damage boost. Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that the decomps are, in fact, user friendly. The reason there are so few GUI tools for them is that they wouldn't be helpful for editing things like this - they'd be restrictive, time wasting, and ultimately end up being more of a hindrance than a help. A program like VS code already does everything they would do, but better.

All that said, if your hack NEEDS Dynamax, you're stuck with binary hacking for the time being, so it's got that going for it! Seriously though, if you're making a big hack, I would highly recommend giving the decomps a serious try before resorting to binary. You can do it, and it's well worth the effort.

Well spoken! This is probably the best post in the article that puts the pros of decomps in perspective. Perpetuating stuff like that would encourage more and more people to decomp hack instead of binary hack, which is the objective of the thread.

AMap is being replaced by HMA


more mons - HMA
custom moves - HMA

full access to copy and paste - HMA (not to mention, automatic editing through HMA's python interface)



You get the picture.

For all the begging that is done about "just TRY the decomps first", it's embarrassing that none of you seem to want to TRY something like HMA to see WHY people think it's easier to work with and flock to it. Your whole post is trying to guess why people "incorrectly" assume binary is easier when a few clicks through HMA will literally explain it to you. There is a reason people choose it and you're spinning your own narrative.

This thread has proven one thing to me and that is 99% of the arguments for decomp assume binary hacking is still where it was years ago. Guess what, it isn't. HMA alone is going to be objectively better for anyone who doesn't need to touch the base engine and you're going to keep crying about it indefinitely

- HMA's map editor is still new, and there are currently 25 known bugs related to it. Thus, using HMA's map editor isn't much different from using Advance Map's. There are trade-offs.
- You can't expand Pokémon with HMA anymore. It's way too complicated to implement, and the development team has different plans and priorities right now.
- Custom Moves via HMA have their own limitations. You need to learn how to animation script, which is very complicated (probably slightly less so in the decomps) if you want to make new move animations with it. Let's not forget move effects (like Shell Trap's). You need to know how to ASM edit/battle script (also complicated) edit in order to get certain move effects working. At that point, it'd be more practical to use decomps in that specific setting.
- Python interface vs. programming in C. Pick your poison. Sure, Python looks like it's simpler, but HMA's automation tool limits what part of Python's API you can use.
- "...it's embarrassing that none of you seem to want to TRY something like HMA to see WHY people think it's easier to work with..." That's basically Deokishisu's argument that they have used before, but switching HMA and decomps around.
- Sure, binary hacking has improved, but when comparing HMA (and the CFRU) to the decomps, yt's basically two Uber Pokémon fighting against 6 OU Pokémon.

My bias still lies in favor of binary hacking because I devote a lot of my time to HMA (and I have no regrets), so I'm not supporting dropping binary entirely in favor of decomps, but there are merits to the argument you were quoting. HMA is the best binary hacking tool in history, but binary hacking itself is called "legacy" for a reason.

I think this debate will never end...

The more posts, the merrier!

 

[DeadSkullzJr]

As someone who does reverse engineering and actually studies assembly language, and has watched a few scenes and people in general over the years, there appears to be one common occurrence that doesn't make much sense to me here, that being the state of comfort with all of this. Hear me out, I am someone that did start out messing with ROMs at the binary level, doing small changes here and there, and I won't lie, I wasn't sure what or how I was doing anything considering the tools I was using at the time pretty much did most of the dirty work for me, on paper that sounds great, it was a comfortable experience, however there was and still is a huge glaring issue when doing this, you learn hardly anything if anything at all. Let me explain, the tools out there let you do various things, and I'm not being specific to a game series mind you, this is in general, you can change audio, backgrounds, sprite graphics, etc. All sounds and looks nifty when you think about it and well look at it for yourself, how is the game really handling any of this though, do you know? Answer will likely be no, you might think you do based on whatever the tools spit out in front of you, but internally chances are you aren't quite sure. Results may vary from scene to scene since the way things are handled vastly varies for each platform you try your hand with. Binary hacking has its useful applications, much like decompilation projects do, however neither is really a problem, the main issue is how either of them is handled and or executed, in short, people.

From my perspective:
As someone who started ROM hacking years ago, I used to think it was easy because we (everyone in the respective scenes) had the tools that we had to work with, I was obviously pretty foolish for thinking that the more I grew and learned about things as time went on, eventually I realized this isn't just something someone does to just to do it, this is something that requires genuine dedication, passion, etc. Here I am today trying to put my knowledge to good use and growing even more with my own personal projects. Now here is where things might get a little "controversial" as a lot of people love throwing around, I believe some people simply shouldn't touch a keyboard at all, hop on the internet, release anything, etc. That sounds harsh, but here is why, for the most part we seem to keep encouraging comfort over actually learning, comfort is nice to have, but it's also very impractical with growth at times, mentally you aren't going to get anywhere sitting in one place doing one specific thing in one specific way your entire life, that's just boring and you'll do nothing but live with regrets as time flies past you, many people do this without thinking or realizing, that's how common it is unfortunately, doesn't matter with ROM hacking or working for a mega corporation in the real world as a software developer, engineer, etc. The problem I find is a lot of people want to get into things so much, but literally don't want to put an ounce of effort to actually learning about what they want to get into, optimizing their knowledge and skills, etc. a "fan" who isn't an actual fan metaphorically speaking. They want to talk the talk but are incapable of walking the walk out of "comfort", not because things are too "advanced" or "too hard" but because these folks artificially and arbitrarily limit themselves mentally, and in some circumstances, maybe even physically, it's not to say there isn't a difficulty curve (there definitely is), but that difficulty is only impossible to overcome if you make it like so. In the case of ROM hacking, a lot of folks are so bent on making a hack(s), but don't give an ounce of care with whether or not what they are doing is the right way to go about things, many hackers don't even research whether or not their vanilla ROM dump(s) is good or bad when making their hacks (a story for a different day), they don't want to learn and make their work better in the sense that they surpass whatever the tool(s) allow them to do, they limit themselves within the confines of other people's solutions, instead of figuring stuff out themselves, or having some help at least, they'd rather have another solution do the dirty work or have someone else clean up their mess for them, THAT is a problem (something to also note, many of these same people can't even seem to find their way around using simple patching tools for some reason). Doesn't matter if you do binary hacking or decompilation related work, both sides are littered with some folks who practically speaking want to be lazy, THAT in my opinion is the problem with any and all ROM hacking scenes out there. There is a massive difference between comfort and laziness, I think a lot of people tend to mislabel the lazy elements they work by and call that "comfort" a lot of times, this usually is met with a lot of denial and a lot of rebuttal points that usually end up being mostly pointless or straw man arguments. You can achieve really solid solutions via binary hacking if you study the art enough and know what you are doing, you can optimize your work flow, you can hone your knowledge, you can even get to the point where you provide solutions of your own that demonstrates actual growth and improvements for the scene, it actually takes binary understandings to make stuff like disassemblies and or decompilations possible in the first place, it all starts with a single byte edit and it grows from that to massive understanding of how the entire piece of software works. I guess the summarized version of all this is, it's not a matter of binary hacking vs. decompilations really, it's a matter of how people use it, which quite frankly some folks are problematic when using this stuff, much like they usually are with other subject matters even in the real world (yet another story for another day), not everyone is ROM hacking material, some quite literally need to just stay away if they can't offer or do anything worthwhile, we don't need bloat, we need dedication, passion, etc. that's just how the cookie crumbles. I should establish that there is a huge difference between not knowing and trying to learn versus those who wing things to be lazy, the things I stated are NOT towards those genuinely learning and trying to grow.

Lastly, I've seen some mentions here of this just being a hobby for some, that's great, but how can you have a hobby but don't want to delve into that hobby, that's counterintuitive don't you think? Last I checked, when you have a hobby, you tend to learn and know all that you can about said thing you are a hobby of, improving your knowledge and or skills by the end of it depending on what it is.....so.......In the case of ROM hacking, how can it be a hobby if you choose to be lazy about it? This implies other potential reasons why you would be doing this in the first place, most notably fame, because many folks do tend to want their name out there for whatever reason (stop that, it's dumb, make a name for yourself by actually providing something of quality, not of cheap generic and inefficient rubbish). I kind of hope this hobby argument was referring to the genuine folks learning and growing and not to every person doing it.

Slightly related note, it's this same laziness that also liters many of the other things we use in general in the perspective of software development and usage. We will never truly see the potential of the hardware we have if we don't take the time to fine tune the other elements that work alongside it in the first place, a majority of that being software. We don't need a million other examples of basically Microsoft breeding more rubbish solutions held together by strings, we need actual stable solutions that will work and last us a long time.

Regardless, we should encourage people to learn and grow, no matter the method, not sitting with weird "comfort" logic. You aren't going to get anywhere if you don't step outside the box and take in new knowledge. Comfort is something you can build as you grow, laziness is not a great thing to get comfortable with, if you think it is, then I suggest you evaluate your life thoroughly, maybe stand in front of a mirror and get a good look at yourself while you do so.

None of this being said is to come off offensive, but I also don't plan to candy/sugar coat the reality of things.

 

[RonaldHuntsman]

I guess the summarized version of all this is, it's not a matter of binary hacking vs. decompilations really, it's a matter of how people use it, which quite frankly some folks are problematic when using this stuff, much like they usually are with other subject matters even in the real world (yet another story for another day), not everyone is ROM hacking material, some quite literally need to just stay away if they can't offer or do anything worthwhile, we don't need bloat, we need dedication, passion, etc

wtf kinda elite programmer-brain opinion is that 😂😂😂😂
"not everyone is rom hacking material"
"stay away if they can't offer or do anything worthwhile"
"we don't need bloat, we need dedication, passion, etc"
No we don't big brain. No one has to be doing this for your reasons. It's so weird how you people think anything worthwhile has to push boundaries and cascade into inspiration and knowledge for other people or even oneself down the line. If a kid just wants to put something into a game he likes using a tool (hAviNg AnOTher soLutIoN dO tHe dIrTy wORk 😂😂😂) to show his friends and ends up with cHeAp gENeRic aNd inFfFiCieNt RuBbIsh that's just as valid as pioneering the greatest hack of the year. If that kid learns absolutely nothing in the process except how to press a button that's still entirely valid. If you think anyone starts hacking because they want to learn tech, then you're a goddamn loser

Learn to take things less seriously, you must live a very stressed out life if you think every hobby requires that you learn "aLL thAt yOu CAn" about it. Sounds like someone who has no hobbies outside of tech whatsoever.

 

[DeadSkullzJr]

wtf kinda elite programmer-brain opinion is that 😂😂😂😂
"not everyone is rom hacking material"
"stay away if they can't offer or do anything worthwhile"
"we don't need bloat, we need dedication, passion, etc"

Um ok? Never considered myself an elite of any kind, but thanks I guess??? Am I supposed to be insulted?

No we don't big brain. No one has to be doing this for your reasons. It's so weird how you people think anything worthwhile has to push boundaries and cascade into inspiration and knowledge for other people or even oneself down the line. If a kid just wants to put something into a game he likes using a tool (hAviNg AnOTher soLutIoN dO tHe dIrTy wORk 😂😂😂) to show his friends and ends up with cHeAp gENeRic aNd inFfFiCieNt RuBbIsh that's just as valid as pioneering the greatest hack of the year. If that kid learns absolutely nothing in the process except how to press a button that's still entirely valid. If you think anyone starts hacking because they want to learn tech, then you're a goddamn loser

Never said anyone has to do anything according to my reasons, but good job some how shoehorning that in. I never said a kid couldn't do whatever with his hack, I'm not talking about the kid wanting to do something personal and cool to show his friends, I'm talking the bigger field of people who make the claim of wanting to get into things, yet don't want to take the time to get to know what they are getting into properly, they just beat around the bush, it's counterintuitive, and quite frankly is a bit of a lie to others genuinely into the art and even to themselves, sorry if somehow that basic sense is beyond understanding. This has nothing to do with making hacks of the year or whatever your weird standards are, this has everything to do with valuing the concept and actually properly taking off with it, something anyone who has actual interest can do. If you consider learning about your favorite games, consoles, etc. and actually trying to make something worthwhile for yourself or for others if you so choose to go that route, to the point you could even potentially make something revolutionary or do something big in the world from said growth a "loser" concept, then man you must be a gleaming ray of sunshine in life, you sound like someone who hasn't accomplished anything in life and that somehow irks you enough to lash out on others. Whether that's actually true though I don't know, I hope not honestly. Either way, for the record, the foundation of a lot of revolutionary things, in this case of the technical field, actually happens from those who actually goes all the way with their interests, because those interests tend to lead to career choices and positions that allow said person(s) to do a lot of revolutionary things in the world, of course not everyone has to do so, you don't need to, but even those that don't still push their interest by learning about the things they do in their own personal ways, because that's how genuine interest works generally, I mean it's one of the main reasons actual enthusiasts exist, but I guess they are losers too if some happened to get where they are by learning through hacking and such right? What about game developers that actually started out hacking games and learning to make games that way, are they also losers?

Learn to take things less seriously, you must live a very stressed out life if you think every hobby requires that you learn "aLL thAt yOu CAn" about it. Sounds like someone who has no hobbies outside of tech whatsoever.

I didn't knowing delving into your own hobbies was considered "serious" business, I always thought it was enjoyment, fun, actual passion, etc. and not seriousness that fueled people pursuing their own hobbies (I mean I guess a sense of seriousness exists if you enjoy something so much to treat it like so more than others), but hey, society loves redefining what things mean and overcomplicating things, must be one of those things again, another lovely day isn't it lol. I draw and read by the way, nothing really serious when I perform my hobbies, I just have actual interest about my hobbies, and want to spread my wings in such departments....much like most people I know who also have hobbies and pretty much operate in the same manners. But I guess I have to be serious and a loser to maybe improve my vocabulary by reading, or by improving my own art skills when I draw? If that's the case, then guilty as charged, I'm a serious hobbyist loser 😃. I'll be sure to spread the good word of your logic good sir with my fellow hobbyist humans.

 

[RonaldHuntsman]

(I guess a sense of seriousness exists if you enjoy something so much to treat it like so more than others), but hey, society loves redefining what things mean and overcomplicating things, must be one of those things again, another lovely day isn't it lol.

Oh my god, you're one of those society weirdos.

I hope you realize you're not worth a discussion when this is the type of stuff you come up with.

 

[LCCoolJ95]

Oof, just noticed the original Emerald Battle Engine and Overworld Formes for binary are deleted. RIP binary hacking indeed 😬

EDIT: Nvm, found it lol just want to preserve them.

 

[captainSeaking]

I just registered on PM because I'm planning a ROM hack and I was going to use CFRU as the engine. But after reading your post I'm going to take a look at pokeemerald first since I have basic C programming skills. The only problem is that there is far less resources available for decomps compared to binary hacks. Can you point to useful resources that a decomp beginner could find useful? (other than the main posts in the decomp section of this forum)

 

[HunarPG]

Check Pokeemerald Wiki it has a lot of nice tutorials
https://github.com/pret/pokeemerald/wiki/tutorials
and on pokecommunity there is a forum called simple modifications directory too
https://www.pokecommunity.com/threads/416647/page-1

 

[ortz3]

I agree with parts of this post, but also disagree with others. For any up and coming romhacker, I would never recommend that they go down the pure Binary route. I would tell them to either use CFRU or Decomps. Sure, CFRU will have some shackles that might prevent someone from implementing a certain feature to their game, but for like 98% of romhackers, they will be able to accomplish everything they want using CFRU. There is no need to force Decomps upon them. All the modern pokemon mechanics that people want in their romhack comes built in with CFRU. Yes, I know that this also exists in Decomps, however I believe there is an overestimation in terms of what CFRU can't do.

While I agree that straight binary hacking with hexmaniac, pge or any other tool is severely debilitating and limiting in terms of what you can do, CFRU is not and is essentially the halfway mark between binary and decomps.

If I were to restart my romhack from scratch I'd probably go down the Decomps route, for the sole reason that maybe in the future I might want to implement a very specific thing that I can't do with CFRU, however as of right now, everything that I want to add and have added to my romhack was made possible with CFRU without any technical problem. I have added plenty of gen 9 content into my romhack which bypasses the supposed "limits" that comes with binary hacking, for example, the built in limit of 255 abilities. A very simple programming implementation curtesy of Skeli and his dev branch, and now their is essentially no limit to the amount of abilities we can add.

You also have to keep in mind that many new romhackers are in their early teens, and decomps would quite frankly go above their heads. Binary hacking is the easiest point of entry which is why tools like Hex Maniac Advance is so important. Over time once they get more comfortable they will be able to explore the world of CFRU or Decomps. Personally speaking, if my first exposure to romhacking was CFRU or Decomps, I probably wouldn't be romhacking today because to a newbie CFRU/Decomps is extremely intimidating.

I'm glad to see their wasn't any slander to my Move Animation Creator :D

 

[Pierangeli]

I'm new in this area, I started 2 days ago on the journey of making my hack rom. I am extremely lost with so much information that I have absorbed in the last 48 hours, until I arrived at this topic. Passing on a little from my vision as a beginner in this subject, I became much more interested in decomps because of the incredible variety of things that can be added with a few lines of code, but I miss a program that makes things easier, such as, for example, going up the clean rom and mark the options: I want these pokemons, I want the bw repel system, I want the iv panel, I want mega-evolution, and when I click on do, the hack will come out pre-molded. I don't want to delve entirely into c or binary code, I just want a playable file with whatever stuff I choose. I couldn't even recompile the files from a decomp, I tried twice and found the process extremely difficult for my current level (base wordpress sites count as programming? xD).

The binary system is as complete and complex as the decomps, both need a good knowledge base to run good functionality. There are excellent guides for both ways as well. The decomps have a greater potential but I already missed two features:

1- A decomp easier to move and add whatever you want. (The porymap is excellent, I could easily use it to change some route pokemons and some texts, but I didn't find any decomp tool that could more easily add new pokemons, instead of going file by file and adding the corresponding lines ( If there is such a tool send me). There is a step-by-step tutorial that took me about 50 minutes to add a pokemon (and I don't even know if it worked, because I couldn't recompile the files). A tool in the style of porymaps or HMA would be great coming.

2- An extremely easy compilation tool. If it exists, please show me, I haven't come across it yet and I'm quite new to this part of programming. A tool that I can just point to the files directory and start without worrying would be perfect. With a nice and intuitive layout, the programmer's tools are little refined in the layout.

This would already help the decomps side too much. Mainly on the code/programming side. If you have a tool where you choose the function and it changes the necessary codes automatically in seconds, it would be an enabler for the 90% of the mass who just want a few simple changes without going too deep into programming.

HMA came with this line of thinking, but it still needs a lot of development. I liked playing with it too, I uploaded a clean pokemon emerald rom on it and managed to change texts, type of pokemon and everything else, but it has no part for the features, which left me lost again. The other pokemon addition programs or other things I couldn't even use. (Did I mention that I started programming at 48 hours?)

My goal: Make the most complete and modular Hackrom possible, with literally all the quality improvements, all the pokemons, their forms and all the stories together (I've only seen one with 3 regions so far). And give the player the possibility to configure and choose exactly how he wants to play. Example:

The player will choose the region that will start and the others will climb levels.
The player will choose which generations of pokemon he wants in the game (ex: from 1-3 with all pre / evolutions and regional forms and mega evolutions)
The player will define mode, difficulty, ramdomization, etc.

It sounds ambitious, and I don't even know if it all fits in a hackrom. I need to start learning how to recompile first.

Finally, I'm not defending or condemning any side, I want that regardless of binary or decomp, the game works. And I'm going to use the best and easiest tools possible for this and to be quite honest, Decomps look more promising to me. Who knows in about 3 years this Hackrom will come out.

PS: If there really is an easier recompilation tool, or tutorial, or a way, please send me a message, I'm willing to learn.
The same goes for the tool to add new pokemons.

 

[Five-Gate Omega]

See here some of us cannot afford a nice laptop or a chromebook to do all that fancy hacking with those decomps, so some of us stuck with a phone(mine is an android phone) has nothing to hack with but a hex editor and a spreadsheet. We literally have access to no tools whatsoever.

Best I can do with Pokeemerald is try and figure out how certain data is formatted and try and sift through the data to figure out the corresponding bytes of that data then open a hex editor to search for the data in byte form then edit it accordingly.

It takes hella longer and indeed it's prone to completely going awry past the point of no return at times, but for some of us, it's the only way we can romhack.

Maybe one day when we can easily run these decomps and all that with ease on an Android Phone, which will likely be never, then I'll talk abandoning binary hacking.

 

[Novale]

While I don't quite think people working with the outdated system of binary hacking are inherently holding back the entire community as a whole, I will certainly agree that they're holding themselves back. Sometimes I see these really cool hacks but then quickly realise they're made with binary when you see the same cut and paste patches that're on 1,000+ other romhacks listed in the credits and they've only got sub 400~ mons in the game like it's Dexit all over again. It can be pretty saddening to see all the work, love, and care someone put into a romhack where they were clearly limited by the technology of their time (or rather, thought that they were limited because they didn't know about the decomps). I do hope more people move over into the next generation of romhacking, but I understand why some people would prefer to stick with the tools they've always known. It's comprable to making the jump from a pirated copy of Sony Vegas 2011 directly into a modern subscription of Adobe Premier Pro. It can be quite the culture shock, and it's something that needs to be handled with grace. So while I do agree with the initial post I can see why so many people responded negatively to it because of how forward the post comes off in it's tone. I think that's something to take into consideration when trying to persuade people into their 'Premier Pro' chapter of their life.

 

[Civrux]

I think the most important task on the way to change in this matter is to present convenience to people as the main benefit.
The entry threshold may actually seem high for people who like old and proven solutions. The problem is that people don't like change and like easy and undemanding beginnings. Once this method becomes more popular and people see that it is well documented and there are plenty of solutions to help them fulfill their ambitions, I think it will naturally replace binary romhacking. Ultimately, imagination is the most important thing and if old methods make it impossible or too difficult to implement some ideas, this is where decomps will triumph.