PRO speedrun rules, routing and category creation

[Kazar]

Hello hunters, pvp-ers, traders and perhaps potential speedrunners !

 

Pokemon games are always a treat to play and spectate, and this one even more as it is a bit more challenging (thanks Misty nerfs though).

Regarding speedrunning, there are all sort of crazy speedruns so might as well create a category for our beloved game PRO !
There is not yet any leaderboard for PRO, seems to me there is a free Rank#1 world record title to grab

 

I've been working these past few days on a speedrun of Kanto elite4, with the following rules decided on the fly :

- No trade, no contact with other players (/foreveralone);

- No major glitches (nothing I know of yet);

- Video proof, obviously;

- Gliches allowed:

Disconnecting and reconnecting to exit a fight (and lose it) to avoid unecessary long ones (such as Red and Lance with OP fights), dodge hard trainers (early on), repop in Pkmn Center;

Pressing "Escape" while cruising forward after stepping on an "arrow-trap", used in Celadon's Rocket hideout, which lets the player move freely faster;

Abusing A.I. with misscoded moves such as "Disable".

- In case of disconnecting (I've been hit a few times with that), showing the trainer card and moving it around instantly after reconnecting should suffice to provide proof that the run uploaded on speedrun.com is not "segmented" nor tempered;

- No EXP modifiers (guilds, events, membership);

- No impactful spawn modifiers (events, outbreaks);

- No mouse/keyboard macros to help menuing;

- The timer stops when you pop back in your room in Pallet Town after Prof. Oak congratulates you.

 

So far my route is: Blastoise WaterPulse+AquaTail+Bite with a handful of Sturdy pokemons to help hard fights, and TMs for elite4.

My first try was 8h54 of gameplay time, but I did a lot of writing/thinking/unnecessary hunting (Aerodactyl outbreak was tempting) so there is more than an hour to scrap off of it.

This was a reaaally careful run, elapsed in a few days which I hope I'll be able to shorten a lot.

 

Current time losses :
 

Spoiler

 

- Fitting the Bike quest in my route:

Ditto can be repel-tricked easily West of Lavender Town;

Gathering the 60k for the quest is a bit much considering that's about the sum I ended gathering total;
Time gain would be significant depending on how early we can grab the bike.

- Figuring out the best lvl to evolve starter,

- Blastoise managed to beat everything easily (even grass gym) . Perhaps Charmander would be harder to setup (Misty wall) but faster in Elite4,

- Figuring out the best possible time skips with escape ropes. I'm really happy with the fact I never entered the Fuschia pokecenter and could rope back to celadon after getting Surf,

- Optimizing items and menuing.

 

 

 

I don't even know yet if speedrun.com will accept a request for the PRO category as it is a multiplayer game, but I'll try my luck 

Also I haven't found resources regarding optimized routes except Letrix' guide, I might have missed some topics.

I will share all info in a pastebin later on, if anyone is interested in competing for rank#1 for Kanto% Glitchless 

Rules and restrictions are welcome to adjustment if you have an opinion on them!

 

I will share here any progress with my adventure

 

Take care you all!

Kazar, soon to be worldchampion

 

 

 

 

---

 

Spoiler

https://tinyurl.com/PROKantoStoryGuide
https://prowiki.info/index.php?title=Main_Page (needs updates for some trainers)

 

 

 

[Giorgio883]

Although I really like the idea of speedrunning PRO, as of today, it isn't possible.

The reason? According to PRO Rules - Overall Game Rules, you're allowed to have a maximum of 4 accounts. Assuming you have created only one account (which is already a stretch), you'd have 7 tries before breaking the rules and incurring in their punishment. To develop strategies, to be able to restart bad runs, to reach a level of expertise in a particular game, you definetely need more tries than that.

I love watching people speedrun games, and I enjoyed trying (and failing) from time to time; however this is currently not possible on PRO.

For this to work, the staff would have to support Speedrunning directly, releasing a specific client to speedrun on. Sadly this option is also rather unlikely, because I assume there aren't many people interested in Speedrunning PRO.

[Kazar]

2 hours ago, Giorgio883 said:

Although I really like the idea of speedrunning PRO, as of today, it isn't possible.

The reason? According to PRO Rules - Overall Game Rules, you're allowed to have a maximum of 4 accounts. Assuming you have created only one account (which is already a stretch), you'd have 7 tries before breaking the rules and incurring in their punishment. To develop strategies, to be able to restart bad runs, to reach a level of expertise in a particular game, you definetely need more tries than that.

I love watching people speedrun games, and I enjoyed trying (and failing) from time to time; however this is currently not possible on PRO.

For this to work, the staff would have to support Speedrunning directly, releasing a specific client to speedrun on. Sadly this option is also rather unlikely, because I assume there aren't many people interested in Speedrunning PRO.

 

Thanks for raising this point Giorgio,

It is true there is an inconvenient limit in there. First thing I did was checking how to delete an account to reset it - there is no easy way to do so, even through the self-care dashboard.

 

In my opinion, this is indeed a valid point when it comes to a solid speedrun community/environment, but for the time being creating one account and doing 2 tries is already a lot of investment not many people will be tempted to do. I'd say this is unlikely this will lead to any additional load for our staff nor our servers.

I think we can comply with the rules while still playing on official servers, it is still an interesting topic I'd love to have the feedback of our staff on

 

Regards,

Kazar.

[Kazar]

Here I am again with an update: a glitchless run done in approx. 4H32 in game time to be Kanto champion !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a--PAW2-_iM

The game category creation is ongoing on speedrun.com, it takes a week or two for a manual verification by sr.c admins.

 

There was one defeat on Brock trainer, and I figured my Memento Muk was not needed in the end (I wanted it for Steel Mewtwo) so there is a lot of time to save. I would say that with optimization, this run can go sub-4 hours.

 

So far I see the Squirtle run as the fastest one because Charmander, the other contender:

- needs draco-rage, which is at the end of the viridian maze.

- needs a set-up for Misty. I haven't found a move decreasing sp.atk yet to allow Charmander to survive, but maybe there might be one.

- has access to sword dance (NPC exchange for a soda) so can cruise through the late game faster than Blastoise's Bite (except Blaine)

 

Also, I am currently blocked by my 4 accounts limit (I did 7 runs total, and my account being the 8th one). I will try to reach out to the staff to see if we can delete accounts or extend the limit for speedrunning purpose.

 

HF everyone.

 

[Kazar]

Hello, update on this topic, from Dabomstew (the one who made pokemon randomizers resources, bless him):

Quote

Hi at the moment the fact that every runner is limited to 7(?) runs ever without breaking ToS does not really make for a healthy speedrunning environment worthy of a leaderboard. If you are able to work this issue out with the devs please contact me again.

There won't be any update then before I have an answer from admins, it seems at the moment to be impossible to progress on this project.

HF

[Gawerty]

I got to admit I think this would be pretty cool. Here's to hoping that it becomes allowed past the 4 account limit if there are certain restrictions (Like maybe checking "this is a speedrun account" which disables trading or something /shrug)

[Sbyz]

The solution could be to ask your friends to lend you their alt accounts, it could benefits both of you

For example I can lend you one of my alt, so you can try a new speedrun and from my side, you have done the story, it is a win-win

If I am right, story services are allowed on PRO so we aren't going against the rules.

 

PM me if you are interested

[Kazar]

4 hours ago, Sbyz said:

The solution could be to ask your friends to lend you their alt accounts, it could benefits both of you

For example I can lend you one of my alt, so you can try a new speedrun and from my side, you have done the story, it is a win-win

If I am right, story services are allowed on PRO so we aren't going against the rules.

 

PM me if you are interested

Haha I see why it would be interesting, props to you for asking
I think that the limits set by admins are there to prevent the economy to go wild, so speedrunning with your accounts (which I would totally enjoy doing) would hinder my request to the admins

Thanks for your feedback @Gawerty, I've also had other players telling me they'd love to try, so let's hope admins can see an interest in this aswell

Disabling trades, forcing /foreveralone, using the dev server.. all of these options would require dev time so not sure they will accept

Edited April 10, 2021 by Kazar
typo