xd Pokemon XG: NeXt Gen

[Tyrantium]

In the same vein as Dusclops, I noticed Gengar can't learn Energy Ball either. I swear I'm not finding these intentionally.

[Tyrantium]

Also, does anyone know where the rest of the Shadow Machines are? I'm already at the end of Citadark Isle and I still only have the SM for Shadow Rush.

[StarsMmd]

I found a an issue which causes the game to crash at the Cipher Key Lair in v1.1.8 and prevents progress in the game. I have fixed it in v1.1.8-2 but will not be able to upload it until later today.

EDIT: v1.1.8-2 is now available for download.

On 9/28/2018 at 11:20 PM, EtrianThotyssey said:

Awesome, excited to try out the new patch!

Enjoy your time in Africa!

Thank you!

On 9/30/2018 at 12:53 AM, Xeno1023 said:

I just caught a scyther and want to know could I get scizor without trade?

Pokémon that would normally require a trade evolve at level 40 in XG.

On 9/30/2018 at 7:11 AM, Tyrantium said:

In the same vein as Dusclops, I noticed Gengar can't learn Energy Ball either. I swear I'm not finding these intentionally.

This has been added in v1.1.8-2.

On 9/30/2018 at 9:08 AM, Tyrantium said:

Also, does anyone know where the rest of the Shadow Machines are? I'm already at the end of Citadark Isle and I still only have the SM for Shadow Rush.

There are only 2 shadow machines so far. The second is obtained in the post game. I will add a couple more in a future update.

Edited October 1, 2018 by StarsMmd

[TrainerX493]

Hi, this looks like a really great hack, and I learned a lot of interesting things about the base game, like how shadow sky boost shadow attacks, shadow Pokemon gets a 50% speed boost (is that a flat 50% boost or a stage 1 boost?), and that there's shadow levels of the Pokemon (Farfetch'd). Are there any other interesting workings of the game?

Some thing I always wondered about was do shadow Pokemon have 3 types with the shadow being its 3rd, or is it just a flag saying to resist shadow moves and similar effects but otherwise just the same type?

I saw that there was a limit to the # of shadow Pokemon you can add, is there a similar limit to the number of Pokemon, moves and abilities you can add or is there more than enough room to work with?

You mentioned possibly adding fakemons to the hack, that and other newer gen Pokemon would be awesome, but I'm curious if you had any in mind and what they might be.

I also wouldn't mind making some custom textures for shadow Pokemon, or at least stuff like the dog trio. But I need more free time to do the stuff I'm supposed to do first and wasn't sure if you want anything like that anyway.

[StarsMmd]

On 9/24/2018 at 4:58 PM, InsaneGlitch said:

I was going to ask, are there any plans on adding mewtwo to the game? Since it's the only legendary not available in this hack. Also, I was wondering if there was a way you can develop like a hardcore mode for people who would like to do a challenge run, shadowlocke, etc? I think that would be amazing, with a steeper level curve and possibly harder battles? I love the hack, I'm so glad you took the time to make something as amazing as this. You have my vote for years top rom hack!

On a side note, is there a way to edit the ups file for the hack? Because I was wanting to go in and change a few things to my liking as to make it harder for myself.

It's just dawned on me that I didn't answer your question in its entirety. As for the built in challenge modes I don't think it would be worth the work when there's a long history of players creating and self enforcing whichever rulesets they please. Especially with there being so many versions and variations of them. In terms of simply making the battles harder that is certainly feasible. Of course the levels can always be increased but also most NPC teams have min EVs and IVs and a neutral nature. This could be changed so that they are more competitive. The movesets could also be more optimised and even the choice of pokemon themselves could be improved. I've considered making different variants of XG but the game still changes so frequently that it wouldn't be feasible to keep updating multiple versions. When everything is more or less locked in I can start thinking about such. Of course, there are hack tools available and I welcome anyone to use XG as a starting point.

It isn't possible to edit the ups file directly in a meaningful way. The patch file just tells the patching program to change certain bytes in the ISO from one value to another. It doesn't in itself contain any information about the game at all and could theoretically be applied to any file. Just when applied to the exact data for Pokemon XD, changing those particular bytes happens to produce the exact data for Pokemon XG. That's why it's common to distribute such mods via patches - it avoids the legal drama of distributing copyrighted files and it's up to the end user to procure the original data (hopefully legally).

If you want to make changes then the best option is Gale of Darkness Tool (link in my signature). It's for Mac OSX only for now though as that is the current scope of my skillset. If you don't have access to a mac you'd need to either borrow one or set up a virtual machine.

 

4 hours ago, TrainerX493 said:

Hi, this looks like a really great hack, and I learned a lot of interesting things about the base game, like how shadow sky boost shadow attacks, shadow Pokemon gets a 50% speed boost (is that a flat 50% boost or a stage 1 boost?), and that there's shadow levels of the Pokemon (Farfetch'd). Are there any other interesting workings of the game?

Some thing I always wondered about was do shadow Pokemon have 3 types with the shadow being its 3rd, or is it just a flag saying to resist shadow moves and similar effects but otherwise just the same type?

I saw that there was a limit to the # of shadow Pokemon you can add, is there a similar limit to the number of Pokemon, moves and abilities you can add or is there more than enough room to work with?

You mentioned possibly adding fakemons to the hack, that and other newer gen Pokemon would be awesome, but I'm curious if you had any in mind and what they might be.

I also wouldn't mind making some custom textures for shadow Pokemon, or at least stuff like the dog trio. But I need more free time to do the stuff I'm supposed to do first and wasn't sure if you want anything like that anyway.

I don't recall where the 50% speed boost comes from. It may have been an old misinterpretation of the shadow levels before they were discovered, unless I'm forgetting something.

It's a common misconception that there's a "shadow type". Shadow moves are all set as normal type moves by default. However, if a move's ID is after all the regular moves then it is treated as a shadow move. The damage calculations treat shadow moves as ??? type (not a shadow type but just the type used for the move curse) which is neutral against all other types. After the damage calculations, a special check is done to see if it's a shadow move and whether or not the target is a shadow pokemon. This is then used to override the super effectiveness of the move. This code also checks to see if the move is weather ball under shadow sky and if so applies the same rules as shadow moves. It makes sense this way otherwise shadow moves would deal 4x damage to pokemon with 2 types as the shadow type would be super effective against both types. As a result, there is no flag or data value that makes a move a shadow move. The game always just checks if the move id is at least 356 (psycho boost, the last gen 3 move by id, is 354). In order to add more shadow moves in XG, I had to rewrite the game's programming to check a flag (I happen to use the HM flag since it's irrelevant in XD apart from stopping you from deleting moves) rather than basing it on the id number. 

The limit to the number of shadow pokemon is based on the fact that all the shadow data is stored on the memory card. I have no idea where to even begin with restructuring how the game saves its data so at least for now I would not be able to increase the amount of space allocated for it. Fortunately, Genius Sonority allocated enough for 128 unique shadow pokemon even though they only used 83 in the end. It's possible that there happens to be some extra padding or unused bytes after the shadow data in which case it could probably be expanded a little further but I haven't looked into that. The pokemon, moves and abilities don't have this restriction. While they don't have extra space by default, it's a relatively straightforward process to move the data tables to a position in the file with enough free space to accommodate the extra data. The real challenge is finding data that can be removed in order to create the free space. The US version of XD curiously contains the localised text for the European language versions. I took all this data out as it was completely unused in the US version and this didn't pose any problems.

In order to keep the game feeling authentic and familiar I don't intend to add fakemons in XG (but maybe in another hack or variant of XG). As for later gen pokemon my first priority would be gen IV pokemon that evolve from previous gens such as rhyperior, electivire, gliscor, weavile, etc. Following this would be as many pokemon as I can fit in so would be an attempt to choose popular pokemon. Technical considerations also have to be taken into account. E.G. I don't currently have the prowess to program abilities like stance change for aegislash or illusion for zoroark and I can't do mega evolutions either. When it comes to the models and animations I'm a total noob so once the gurus figure out what's possible it'll shape what direction it goes in. 

As for other little know tidbits...

Shadow pokemon have custom catch rates which override their default catch rate for their species. However, the vast majority use the same catch rate as the species anyway. IIRC the few exceptions are the first shadow pokemon (teddiursa/makuhita) which are set to max catch rate of 255, the legendary birds in XD which are set to 25 and the legendary beasts in Colosseum which are set to 15.

In XD each shadow pokemon has a hidden value I call "aggression" which determines how often it enters reverse mode. It is a value between 1 and 5 and the lower it is the more likely the shadow pokemon is to enter reverse mode. I haven't looked into colosseum enough to know if it has a similar system.

It is commonly stated online that colognes (vivid scent etc.) increase a pokemon's happiness. I found no evidence of this in XD. I haven't look at colosseum though.

In XD, there are files for unused beta thumbnails for each area that you see on the world map. 

These include one with an early design for the protagonist in an early gateon port: 

Not as interesting but here are the rest: old map snapshots.zip

When you fail to catch a shadow pokemon, you can reattempt the snag from miror b. When you encounter him the shadow pokemon he has is randomly generated. I'm not sure if this has been documented anywhere but each shadow pokemon is given a certain weighting. The shadow pokemon from admins have a lower weighting, making them less likely to be chosen.

Bonsly is playable in the special battle bingo card. The developers only filled in just enough data for bonsly to work in battle bingo so it's missing key data such as its exp rate which mean that it doesn't function when hacked into your possession. It is pretty straight forward to add the rest of the data though. Munchlax on the other hand has no data whatsoever in XD apart from its name. It doesn't have a battle model, cry, stats, icon, moves, etc. 

When the spot monitor is triggered, a random pokemon is chosen to appear at the pokespot with a certain pid, ability, gender, nature, etc. Upon visiting the pokespot the pokemon is actually generated. The game checks the species of the pokemon and uses this to find it's pokespot data to figure out the level range it can be generated at. The devs put in a fail safe check before the pokemon is generated so that if the data can't be found (e.g. a pokemon not in the pokespot list is chosen), it'll generate a default pokemon. It isn't possible for this to happen during normal gameplay of XD though. The default pokemon are hoppip for oasis, sandshrew for rock and interestingly, geodude for the cave pokespot. Geodude isn't one of the options at any pokespot in XD but this suggests that it may have been in an early build of XD.

This is mainly stuff that I believe had not been discovered before I started. If anything else comes to mind I'll let you know but that's all I've got for now

Thanks for keeping me occupied while waiting for the upload of the new update!

 

[Tzuzu]

Any news on possible getting Alolan Sandslash in?

[frostycold]

I encountering a bug where if my pokemon gets frozen the whole game crashes any idea how to fix this?

[StarsMmd]

19 hours ago, Tzuzu said:

Any news on possible getting Alolan Sandslash in?

Retexturing the XD Sandslash model looks pretty horrendous so it will have to wait until custom models can be added. There is currently no time frame on this though.

6 hours ago, frostycold said:

I encountering a bug where if my pokemon gets frozen the whole game crashes any idea how to fix this?

Thanks for reporting! This has been fixed in v1.1.8-3 which is currently being uploaded.

EDIT: Pokemon XG v1.1.8-3 is available for download.

Edited October 3, 2018 by StarsMmd

[duelistjp]

well maybe i just never noticed in the original xd but i just went to mt battle for the first time after getting the info from xander and it says i can start my challenge in the first 3 areas.  shouldn't i have to start from the first? also is there documentation readable in a normal text editor.  the documentation seems to be missing ton and has lots garbled at least when i use text on chromeos to look at it.  it mentions apple sometimes though does it need to be read on os x?

[StarsMmd]

9 hours ago, duelistjp said:

well maybe i just never noticed in the original xd but i just went to mt battle for the first time after getting the info from xander and it says i can start my challenge in the first 3 areas.  shouldn't i have to start from the first? also is there documentation readable in a normal text editor.  the documentation seems to be missing ton and has lots garbled at least when i use text on chromeos to look at it.  it mentions apple sometimes though does it need to be read on os x?

Yes this is a feature in vanilla XD. IIRC, you can't proceed to area 4 until you've completed each of 1-3 but you are free to complete them in any order. Now that you bring it up I think I may look into making all areas accessible from the start. It's nice to have the option to choose a suitable level to start at.

As for the documentation, it was only brought to my attention recently that people were having trouble reading it. I was so used to it I hadn't realised it wasn't that intuitive . I've started included instructions in the most recent updates.

Essentially, the information in some of the files is specifically aligned for easier viewing but this means that if it doesn't all fit on screen in looks weird. You need to increase the window size and/or decrease the font size until it all lines up properly. 

Before resizing it looks like this:

 

But after resizing it should look like this:

Alternatively, if the program you're using has an option for "word wrapping" you can turn it off and it will give you the option to scroll across a line rather than breaking the alignment.

The documentation files are automatically generated by code since it would be far too much work to do by hand and keep up-to-date with the latest version updates. I'll look into some other formats.  

Edited October 3, 2018 by StarsMmd

[Emalisha]

Hey !

Got hit by what I assume was a Rocky Helmet after getting flinched by Cipher Peon Smarton's Skarmory's Iron Head.

Edit: On 1.1.8-2 btw

Edited October 4, 2018 by Emalisha

[Tzuzu]

16 hours ago, StarsMmd said:

Retexturing the XD Sandslash model looks pretty horrendous so it will have to wait until custom models can be added. There is currently no time frame on this though.

Thanks for reporting! This has been fixed in v1.1.8-3 which is currently being uploaded.

EDIT: Pokemon XG v1.1.8-3 is available for download.

I'm not sure how to edit models so I'd need to do texture replacement through dolphin to check, but you think if I could get it looking decently good it could help its chances of being in? It'd be such a nice thing to have alongside the nintetails

[Michael Morningstar]

Hey StarsMmd, something's wrong with the newest update.

Did you happen to confuse Version 1.16 with 1.18 when you fixed the bugs for the latter? The reason I'm asking is because the moment I update to the newest one, I suddenly notice that all my Ability Capsules got turned into Wise Glasses? When I rushed over to Mt. Battle, I notice that the Ability Capsules and a few other TMs got removed? 

[Drexdo]

18 hours ago, Michael Morningstar said:

Hey StarsMmd, something's wrong with the newest update.

Did you happen to confuse Version 1.16 with 1.18 when you fixed the bugs for the latter? The reason I'm asking is because the moment I update to the newest one, I suddenly notice that all my Ability Capsules got turned into Wise Glasses? When I rushed over to Mt. Battle, I notice that the Ability Capsules and a few other TMs got removed? 

I also noticed that my Bagon has now Attract instead of Fire Fang

[StarsMmd]

On 10/3/2018 at 7:28 PM, Tzuzu said:

I'm not sure how to edit models so I'd need to do texture replacement through dolphin to check, but you think if I could get it looking decently good it could help its chances of being in? It'd be such a nice thing to have alongside the nintetails

If it looks good enough I'll happily add it in. I'm not the most artistic myself so it's entirely possible that someone a little more competent could make it work. 

The texture files you use in dolphin are the same ones I'd use so if it looks good you can just send them my way and I can do the rest.

I'll also record the process at some point so it's documented for future reference.

19 hours ago, Michael Morningstar said:

Hey StarsMmd, something's wrong with the newest update.

Did you happen to confuse Version 1.16 with 1.18 when you fixed the bugs for the latter? The reason I'm asking is because the moment I update to the newest one, I suddenly notice that all my Ability Capsules got turned into Wise Glasses? When I rushed over to Mt. Battle, I notice that the Ability Capsules and a few other TMs got removed? 

36 minutes ago, Drexdo said:

I also noticed that my Bagon has now Attract instead of Fire Fang

Yep, my bad! Accidentally uploaded my back up copy. Currently uploading the actual v1.1.8-3.

The real v1.1.8-3 is now available under the same link. Sorry for the mix up!

Edited October 4, 2018 by StarsMmd

[StarsMmd]

On 10/3/2018 at 3:20 PM, Emalisha said:

Hey !

Got hit by what I assume was a Rocky Helmet after getting flinched by Cipher Peon Smarton's Skarmory's Iron Head.

Edit: On 1.1.8-2 btw

Thanks for reporting! I'll add it to my list

[Tyrantium]

I've noticed something strange about Rocky Helmet. When you put a Pokemon to sleep, sometimes they take Rocky Helmet damage anyway, which I learned the hard way when trying to catch Shadows. Is it because that Pokemon targets the holder while asleep even when they don't actually attack and take damage?

[Tyrantium]

I think something's gone wrong with Chaser Tyler's Alakazam in Duel Square. I got way too much experience and my Salamence gained 5 and a half levels at Lv. 66 from a Lv. 60 Pokemon. I don't know if that Alakazam was bugged or if it's a greater issue, but it happened right after I updated to 1.1.8-3.

[face235]

I'm totally enjoying this mod so far, but I did encounter an oddity when I updated from 1.1.6 to 1.1.8-3. I was in the middle of training at Mt.Battle, and I sent out my Swellow. For some reason, it suddenly needed 12,000 Exp. to level up from Lv.23 to Lv.24. I had to use my Rare Candy on it, and it now levels up normally.

[Dandra]

Hello there!

I joined this site for the explicit purpose of saying how much I'm loving this hack you've made. Pokemon XD is one of my favorite games, and going through it again, trying to snag all the Shadow Pokemon, and forging through the increased difficulty is a lot of fun. I'm especially enjoying the different pokemon that I have at my disposal, and how it seems like each and every one of them are viable in their own way. And it just makes me excited to see what other Shadow Pokemon are in the game.

That being said, I do have a complaint or two, I'm sorry to say. This specifically goes towards the AI and their decisions of choosing a move against me. Up until the end of the Shadow Pokemon lab, I felt like the AI did employ strategies and moves that would keep me on my toes, but afterwards, something seemed to changed. The AI began choosing one specific move and spamming it every turn, despite whether or not it would be useful. For a specific example, the move protect has shown up on a number of Pokemon, which admittedly isn't the problem. The problem is that if they have protect, 9 times out of 10, the enemy AI chooses to spam it every turn, despite the chance of it failing every successive turn. I've had a battle in the middle of Pyrite, battle square, where both enemy pokemon chose to spam protect, and nothing else, which forced the battle to go on for ten minutes longer, with me just trying to get a hit in, as I didn't have a pokemon with Feint. And that's my main issue with this AI pattern. If they have protect, it becomes a game of chance as to whether or not Protect will fail on the next turn or not, which just wastes my time and ends up not being a very fun battling experience. I'm not sure if it's intentional, but I'd rather the AI not choose to spam one move over and over again, especially if it's a move that just negates anything I do to it.

This isn't the only time the AI has done this. In a battle during the Cipher Raid of ONBS, against the battle with a Shadow Torkoal, the AI had it use Shadow Burn repeatedly on a single pokemon, a Clefairy. Even after Clefairy was burned, it kept using it on Clefairy, not even choosing to use it's other shadow move.

Apart from that, I've been having a lot of fun raising up the Pokemon here, despite the rather harsh level curved at MT. Battle.

EDIT: I realize that I was playing version 1.0.7-4, rather than the most recent version that was released, so my 'complaints' might not even mean anything. That being said, I still am glad this is being so readily updated.

Edited October 10, 2018 by Dandra

[Nisio]

Hi

I found this great hack rom of mi favorite pokemon game, i really like the game

I had to report a bug in the battle with cipher Smarton in the S.S Libra, he have no pokemon in battle, and ends inmediately, i can progress in the game but i can see that he have a shadow Sableye and i want to catch it, maybe will another pacth to solve this problem?

Sorry for my bad english 

[falcus]

On 10/21/2018 at 12:21 PM, Nisio said:

Hi

I found this great hack rom of mi favorite pokemon game, i really like the game

I had to report a bug in the battle with cipher Smarton in the S.S Libra, he have no pokemon in battle, and ends inmediately, i can progress in the game but i can see that he have a shadow Sableye and i want to catch it, maybe will another pacth to solve this problem?

Sorry for my bad english 

Are you using cheat codes?the same thing happens to me using the snag trainer pokemon code(non-shadow)

hopefully you did not save after using that code...

[Nisio]

8 hours ago, falcus said:

Are you using cheat codes?the same thing happens to me using the snag trainer pokemon code(non-shadow)

hopefully you did not save after using that code...

yes, i used it just to catch the RoboGroundom from Chobin, so this is the problem? any solution or i have to restart the game from the beginning without use that code? 

[Xd001lug]

I would try this Mod too, but i cant Patch it.. It says, "that the Patch doenst match the File. Patching canceled"... Could someone help me or just send me a link where it is written?

would be really Awesome

 

 

Nevermind, just use a Us Version and not Eu version.

Edited October 25, 2018 by Xd001lug
Fixed

[falcus]

On 10/24/2018 at 11:14 PM, Nisio said:

yes, i used it just to catch the RoboGroundom from Chobin, so this is the problem? any solution or i have to restart the game from the beginning without use that code? 

i have always restarted the game;the only fix i could find