Doubts and questions about a whole transfer from Gen 4 to 8

[Phoney]

Hi, this is my first post as mostly a lurker without an account, so if this the incorrect forum to post, I apologize in advance.

Now then, I have a few doubts in regards to some small project I'm planning on doing very soon. It's mostly playing all the games from Gen 4 all the way to 8 (or Home for those that cannot be moved to SwSh).

The process would be something like this:

Pokémon Platinum/HGSS (ROMs) > Pokémon White (Cartridge) > Pokémon Black 2 (ROM) (though I'd transfer all the Pokémon to Gen 6 with the White cartridge) > Pokémon Y/X (Digital) > Pokémon ORAS (Digital) > Pokémon Sun/Moon (Digital) > Pokémon USUM (Digital) > Home through Pokémon Bank. I have PKHeX, PKSM and Checkpoint to my disposal.

Still, I'm a bit puzzled about certain aspects of the whole process, so any help will be highly appreciated.

Having said that, my questions are as follows:

1. I'm planning on injecting all possible Events that may interest me. I was wondering if I should inject the Wondercards into their respective slots, or simply inject the desired Pokémon into my PC Boxes straight from the Mystery Gift Database.
2. Also, my goal is strictly legality to avoid getting obliterated by HOME or Pokémon Bank. However, since all Pokémon transferred from Gen 4 to 5 retain the date of the transfer, technically speaking, a Shiny Suicune (GAMESTP) obtained on 31/01/2011 (I'm using DD/MM/YYYY to avoid confusion) that happened to be transferred today (January 2nd 2022) to Pokémon White, would have its met date be the most recent one, right? I'm noticing I may have to make some changes for Gen 5-7 met dates however.
3. Moreover, I'd like to create my own Shiny collection by catching them all, using cheats that make it easier to find Shinies (increasing odds?). All I've found so far by using usrcheat.dat on Twilight Menu++, are "Wild Shiny Encounter" codes that make all Pokémon Shiny. What I'm concerned about is if this cheat works in a different way that would make the Pokémon any less legal than, a simple code that increases the odds on HGSS to 255, for example. I'd be worried if some of those cheats made some Shiny-Locked Pokémon actually Shiny on Gen 5+.
4. What would be the best way of transferring Pokémon from Gen 4 to 5? My only option right now consists in opening two PKHeX tabs with a HGSS save and a White one (both from ROMs), and moving them to White. I'm merely curious whether the PKHeX method fully replicates how a legit transfer from Gen 4 to 5 would change the Pokémon's information, and then from Gen 5 to 6 using the same method.
5. Something tells me I should mass-remove all items when transferring Pokémon from one game to another, right?
6. I think I've managed to understand how to simulate a trade to evolve Pokémon that only evolve through, well, trading. You are supposed to change their species. I assume this change doesn't persist once you move it back to the desired save? Otherwise I'd be left with an Alakazam whose species is...Empoleon. I'm stupid, don't mind that. How's the process for Gen 6 any different, though?

Edited January 2, 2022 by Phoney

[theSLAYER]

1 hour ago, Phoney said:

I'm planning on injecting all possible Events that may interest me. I was wondering if I should inject the Wondercards into their respective slots, or simply inject the desired Pokémon into my PC Boxes straight from the Mystery Gift Database.

Either works. 

1 hour ago, Phoney said:

Also, my goal is strictly legality to avoid getting obliterated by HOME or Pokémon Bank. However, since all Pokémon transferred from Gen 4 to 5 retain the date of the transfer, technically speaking, a Shiny Suicune (GAMESTP) obtained on 31/01/2011 (I'm using DD/MM/YYYY to avoid confusion) that happened to be transferred today (January 2nd 2022) to Pokémon White, would have its met date be the most recent one, right? I'm noticing I may have to make some changes for Gen 5-7 met dates however.

Even if your mon was illegal, unless it is super illegal, you won't get obliterated by HOME or Bank. They got terrible hackchecks.

However, for the sake of discussion, I'll be continuing with a 'strictly completely legal and correct' mindset.

For the record, for most mons, the met date of a mon don't truly matter; they could be met at any date due to the fact you can change your NDS/3DS to a large date range.
So they just need to caught within the date range. Going by your example.

Suicune received on 31/01/2022 Gen 4.

Suicune -> Gen 5 (via Relocator) -> Met date changes to 02/01/2022 [Met Date changes with Relocator/Poke Transfer]

1 hour ago, Phoney said:

Moreover, I'd like to create my own Shiny collection by catching them all, using cheats that make it easier to find Shinies (increasing odds?). All I've found so far by using usrcheat.dat on Twilight Menu++, are "Wild Shiny Encounter" codes that make all Pokémon Shiny. What I'm concerned about is if this cheat works in a different way that would make the Pokémon any less legal than, a simple code that increases the odds on HGSS to 255, for example. I'd be worried if some of those cheats made some Shiny-Locked Pokémon actually Shiny on Gen 5+.

I will recommend against using cheats. A lot of games have PID correlations for the mons. While Gen 5 isn't one of them, there's a weird quirk with the PID having to end with odd/even due to OT Gender or something, and the cheats tend to ignore that.

The 'shiny rate 100%' for 3DS games we have is probably a better option, just don't use it with wonder cards.

1 hour ago, Phoney said:

What would be the best way of transferring Pokémon from Gen 4 to 5? My only option right now consists in opening two PKHeX tabs with a HGSS save and a White one (both from ROMs), and moving them to White. I'm merely curious whether the PKHeX method fully replicates how a legit transfer from Gen 4 to 5 would change the Pokémon's information, and then from Gen 5 to 6 using the same method.

As long as your trainer name and nickname don't have weird characters, that would be a purely optimal option.

Tools > Data > Dump Boxes in the Gen 4 save, then Tools > Data > Load Boxes in the Gen 5 save.

1 hour ago, Phoney said:

Something tells me I should mass-remove all items when transferring Pokémon from one game to another, right?

If I'm not mistaken PKHeX should do it for you. If it doesn't, then yeah remove those items with batch editor.

Do note that some forms are dependent on items, so check through all your mons after that.

1 hour ago, Phoney said:

I think I've managed to understand how to simulate a trade to evolve Pokémon that only evolve through, well, trading. You are supposed to change their species. I assume this change doesn't persist once you move it back to the desired save? Otherwise I'd be left with an Alakazam whose species is...Empoleon. I'm stupid, don't mind that. How's the process for Gen 6 any different, though?

Same thing, just trade the mon into another save, and change the Species. The key difference in Gen 6 and up is you need to fill in the field Latest (Not OT) Handling Trainer.

 

If this field is empty, this mon hasn't been traded.

Also, I don't think I've answered anything pertaining to Gen 8?

[Phoney]

Thanks a lot for your assistance, that clears out many questions.

16 hours ago, theSLAYER said:

For the record, for most mons, the met date of a mon don't truly matter; they could be met at any date due to the fact you can change your NDS/3DS to a large date range.

That's neat. In that case Gen 4 is taken care of with the Relocator. I will need to edit every date for anything Gen 5+ nevertheless

16 hours ago, theSLAYER said:

I will recommend against using cheats. A lot of games have PID correlations for the mons. While Gen 5 isn't one of them, there's a weird quirk with the PID having to end with odd/even due to OT Gender or something, and the cheats tend to ignore that.

That's rather unfortunate. I've seen some guides, written by you no less, about ROM Hacking with a HeX editor about increased Shiny Chances, both DS and 3DS games. Would this make it less problematic?

16 hours ago, theSLAYER said:

The key difference in Gen 6 and up is you need to fill in the field Latest (Not OT) Handling Trainer.

What do I have to put in there if you don't mind me asking? All saves use the same name (Example: John).

If I tried to trade a Pumpkaboo from Y to Omega Ruby back and forth, when would I need to fill that field?

16 hours ago, theSLAYER said:

Also, I don't think I've answered anything pertaining to Gen 8?

I think I've managed to understand most of it, so that's fine. Though now that you mention it, I remember it being possible to trade Gen 8 Pokémon from USUM to Sw/Sh by doing some modifications. I want to inject Gen 8 Pokémon like HOME Zeraora, but I don't have a Switch with CFW, unfortunately. I've also heard there are sysbots which you can feed .pk8 files, and then they'll generate the desired Pokémon to trade with you on Sw/Sh.

Edited January 2, 2022 by Phoney

[theSLAYER]

1 minute ago, Phoney said:

That's rather unfortunate. I've seen some guides, written by you no less, about ROM Hacking with a HeX editor about increased Shiny Chances, both DS and 3DS games. Would this make it less problematic?

If we're going by written by me, only the 3DS ones (as per what I recommended earlier). The NDS ones are "visual only", and won't carry into future titles or unmodded games (pretty sure I have that specified in the guide too).

2 minutes ago, Phoney said:

What do I have to put in there if you don't mind me asking? All saves use the same name (Example: John).

If I tried to trade a Pumpkaboo from my Y to Omega Ruby saves, when would I need to fill that field?

The other trainer's name.

It literally just stores the name.

3 minutes ago, Phoney said:

I think I've managed to understand most of it, so that's fine. Though now that you mention it, I remember it being possible to trade Gen 8 Pokémon from USUM to Sw/Sh by doing some modifications. I want to inject Gen 8 Pokémon like HOME Zeraora, but I don't have a Switch with CFW, unfortunately. I've also heard there are sysbots which you can feed .pk8 files, and then they'll generate the desired Pokémon to trade with you on Sw/Sh.

Not trade. Transfer.
You cannot trade directly from 3DS into Switch.

PKHeX allows conversion of pk7 into pk8 by dragging the mons from a gen 7 save (or any other generation, really) into a SWSH save.

[Phoney]

On 1/2/2022 at 9:25 PM, theSLAYER said:

If we're going by written by me, only the 3DS ones (as per what I recommended earlier)

So they're only visual, interesting. And yes I read about that, I was just a bit confused. Apparently it will take many more tries to get a true Shiny Pokémon from what I've heard. Luckily enough, PKHeX seems to be able to display whether it is truly Shiny or not. At least it'd take less tries than a normal Shiny hunt (?).

Like I said, my goal is to get all legitimate Pokémon with "a helping hand" in a what-if scenario where I happened to be able to have the patience to SR the game for days, attend every single Wi-Fi event etc. Example: Increasing Shiny rate, injecting Event Pokémon, completely unmodified besides met date.

On 1/2/2022 at 9:25 PM, theSLAYER said:

PKHeX allows conversion of pk7 into pk8 by dragging the mons from a gen 7 save (or any other generation, really) into a SWSH save.

I see, so that'd required a modified Switch, so to speak. Well that's a shame. But I appreciate the help nonetheless, you've helped me a lot.

[theSLAYER]

3 hours ago, Phoney said:

So they're only visual, interesting. And yes I read about that, I was just a bit confused. Apparently it will take many more tries to get a true Shiny Pokémon from what I've heard. Luckily enough, PKHeX seems to be able to display whether it is truly Shiny or not. At least it'd take less tries than a normal Shiny hunt (?).

I'm gonna try to simplify it.

Imagine every Pokémon having a hidden unchangeable value, and that value and range from 0 to 4095.
In GBA/NDS games, if a Pokémon has any value between 0 to 7, it would be shiny.

Those methods you mentioned don't change the value the Pokémon can have. It simply expands the shiny limit of 0 - 7, to let's say, 0 - 255.

So let's imagine we have a Pokémon with value 255.
In the modified game, it appears shiny.
However, if you transfer or trade the Pokémon back to any non-modified game, the Pokémon will be (correctly) non-shiny, as the shiny range is only from 0-7.
[255 > 7]

Does that explanation help?

3 hours ago, Phoney said:

I see, so that'd required a modified Switch, so to speak. Well that's a shame. But I appreciate the help nonetheless, you've helped me a lot.

For modifying Gen 8 saves directly, yes you need a modified Switch

[Phoney]

On 1/4/2022 at 8:22 AM, theSLAYER said:

It simply expands the shiny limit of 0 - 7, to let's say, 0 - 255.

Powers of 2, I get it. That would explain why I'm always seeing so many familiar numbers for Shiny odds. But like I said, that Pokémon could still potentially be Shiny if it fell within the range of 0 and 7, right? In fact, it should be visible in PKHeX if it's truly Shiny, as seen in some screenshots here. Thing is... it's still be 8192 or 4096 odds, which is still very high. Maybe I should try to do that on the 3DS games. Also sorry for the confusion, I didn't mean to. I just like understanding how things work.

[theSLAYER]

9 hours ago, Phoney said:

Powers of 2, I get it. That would explain why I'm always seeing so many familiar numbers for Shiny odds. But like I said, that Pokémon could still potentially be Shiny if it fell within the range of 0 and 7, right? In fact, it should be visible in PKHeX if it's truly Shiny, as seen in some screenshots here. Thing is... it's still be 8192 or 4096 odds, which is still very high. Maybe I should try to do that on the 3DS games. Also sorry for the confusion, I didn't mean to. I just like understanding how things work.

Yeah if it fell in the range of 0-7 on a modified game, that potentially means you probably encountered ‘an actual shiny’. (I say probably because it depends on whether you used cheat codes or modifications that also messed with other data of the mon)

yeah 3DS games doubled the odds. Range is from 0-15.

anything that is range 8-15 in NDS/GBA games get their values changed when transferred into 3DS game, to keep their non-shininess consistent.

(imagine if they were non shiny before, and became shiny after transfer. GF can’t have that..)