The RNG Q&A Thread

Inigo Montoya

Hatman/Imakuni?/Not Not-TDL
Member
I've been seeing quite a few threads based on RNG problems lately, and I decided, 'Hey! Why not make a thread for it?' And so, this thread came to be. Here are some things you should probably mention before posting a question here.

1. State whether you are using a C-Gear seed or a Non C-Gear seed.
2. State what you are going after, a wild Pokemon (tall grass), encounter Pokemon (most legendaries), etc.
3. State what you are trying to get on the Pokemon, such as Perfect IVs, a specific Nature, getting a Shiny, or any combination of the three.

Of course, you don't have to state what doesn't relate to your problem, like if you're having trouble calibrating it, you obviously aren't going to have a Pokemon to go after or specific traits of it.

If you don't have any idea on what RNG is, here is a good paragraph to get you informed (by Chariblaze)

To sum it up, RNG refers to the process of predicting the game's pseudo-random number generator. This is done with all sorts of calculations using all sorts of processes (though programs do all of this for you), but when done properly, it's possible to basically control when you get shinies, good IVs, certain natures, etc. It's possible to do this on Emerald, the 4th Gen games, and Black and White.

If you think I'm missing anything, please let me know in this thread!
 

Chariblaze

When you add it all up...
Member
RE: RNG Q&A Thread

Not a bad idea. I'll ask the first, albeit very simple question (preceded by the backstory):

Currently, I'm trying to abuse for a near-flawless, Female Timid Cottenee. Seeing as how Pinwheel Forest has wandering NPCs, and Abundant Shrine has a lower chance of encountering one, I went with Lostlorn Forest. After trying to find a nice, long row or column of grass to run through when I advance my frame (it needed to have walls so I don't need to worry about running out of the grass), the best spot was above the waterfall, in some dark grass.

Anyway, how are IVs/nature and anything else having to do with the PIDRNG decided in a double wild battle? Does one of the Pokemon receive the current frame, and the other the next? Are they both alike? Does something completely different happen? And so on and so forth.
 

Porygon-X

There's No Place Like 127.0.0.1
Member
Hey, I need a good guide on how to RNG a roaming Legendary. (Thunderous) I know that the rain advances the frame, so how do I get around that?

Thanks.
 

Gary Walsh

The Pride of Pallet Town
Member
@Chariblaze: If you encountered the Pokémon normally, theoretically they should have a frame difference of 1 from each other (Sweet Scent would be 2). Otherwise, BW might still use the occidentary frame system, which 4th Gen used to jump frames somewhat erratically after encounters (you could go into a battle on frame 600 and come out on frame 714 for example, or any other combination depending on the seed and starting frame). However, at least the version of RNG Reporter I have (BETA 9.75) doesn't list occidentary frames, so perhaps the games don't use them now, I haven't seen a mention of it anywhere online. That being said, you could always test it for yourself by verifying your seed and then finding the IVs of the two Pokémon you've caught in RNG Reporter to determine what frames they land on and how far away they are from each other, if there is some sort of a pattern.

@Porygon-X: The rain, as far as I know, only advances the PIDRNG, so the MTIVRNG should remain normal, meaning the IVs you want will be intact with whatever frame you hit based on known actions, no worries there. The only problem with the PID aside from the fact the rain messes around with it is that, because it's a roamer, you can't use a Synchronizer. So in that case, it might be worth your while just to do trial-and-error until you get the right nature, it might not be practical to go nuts trying to calculate the frame advancements from rain if it's just one odd case. That being said, the IVs, again, do remain relatively controllable, so it's that much less painful already.
 

Inigo Montoya

Hatman/Imakuni?/Not Not-TDL
Member
Hey, I haven't actually done any RNGing in B/W yet, and I watched the video Porygon X posted. I went to Victory Road, in the last cave, and I forgot that Cheren was there. Would Cheren affect anything while calibrating?
 

Chariblaze

When you add it all up...
Member
Not to my knowledge. He doesn't move in the least, so he's not counted as a roaming NPC, and would therefore not mess anything up.
 

Gary Walsh

The Pride of Pallet Town
Member
Cheren's presence itself shouldn't do anything (edit: sorry Chariblaze, didn't see your post :p). I assume though you battle Cheren in Victory Road (haven't gotten that far myself), in which case I may be incorrect, but if I remember correctly a battle only causes the PIDRNG to advance, which is unnecessary for calibrating (at least for DS parameters and C-Gear abuse delays). Even if battling Cheren does affect the MTIVRNG, as long as you know the date/time you started the game, RNG Reporter can look at any IV frame to determine what seed you hit (because they're much more varied and specific as opposed to PID frames that only include nature/gender/ability/shininess), so if you have to battle him, it shouldn't be a problem either.
 

Purpose

Poking people is still a hobby (FKA hipoke)
Member
I tried to calibrate, but when I click for results nothing happened. Is there a reason why?
 

Gary Walsh

The Pride of Pallet Town
Member
@superpokemon67: Wandering NPCs advance the frame in an erratic, often unpredictable fashion (in some cases you can predict the general frame advancements of an NPC, but generally speaking it's not stable enough to rely on). In BW this only affects the the MTIVRNG, responsible for Pokémon's IVs, though without an overworld method to check what frame you're on in a seed (like calling Elm in HGSS), NPCs will more often than not cause you to overshoot your target frame, and ultimately become somewhat frustrating, especially when there's more than two of them in one area (area counts as a single "map," like a route, floor of a building, etc.; not just the view presented around your character at any particular instant).

@hipoke: What exactly are you calibrating for? Standard/Non C-Gear abuse doesn't use delays that you would need to calibrate for.
 

Chariblaze

When you add it all up...
Member
Might want to put something like this in the first post, Hatman:

To sum it up, RNG refers to the process of predicting the game's pseudo-random number generator. This is done with all sorts of calculations using all sorts of processes (though programs do all of this for you), but when done properly, it's possible to basically control when you get shinies, good IVs, certain natures, etc. It's possible to do this on Emerald, the 4th Gen games, and Black and White.
 

Gary Walsh

The Pride of Pallet Town
Member
The Pokémon species is tied directly to the frame of a particular seed (at least if BW follows the same mechanic as Gen. 4, which it should), in Black and White's case the IV frame in particular (haven't tested this myself, but logically it would make sense. Regardless, it doesn't change the process). In order to predict the species and level of Pokémon that will appear given a certain set of circumstances, you can use what's called an "encounter table." Here are two reliable encounter tables for Black and White, they vary slightly depending on which version you have:

Black
White

The process here is that you find what Pokémon you're looking for in a certain area, and if applicable, at a certain time, season, or level. Once you've found it, record its encounter value, and in RNG Reporter, you can generate encounter slots in the clipboard (the main screen), given a seed and what type of abuse you are doing (i.e. Standard/C-Gear). Now you can go about looking for a good spread just as you would otherwise, the only catch is that now you have to take into account the encounter slot as well; only those frames with the same encounter number as the value you found on the table will produce a Scraggy.
 

superpokemon67

Aspiring Trainer
Member
I need to know how to check the encounter slots of your seed. When I specify an encounter slot in the timefinder the same seed appers every time. I tried pasting the seed into the main thing that shows up when you open RNG reporter, and right clicking, but there isn't an option to check encounter slots. Thank you very much.
 

Gary Walsh

The Pride of Pallet Town
Member
Ah, I apologize superpokemon67; I was able to get on RNG Reporter just now, and I found out that the encounter slot is actually tied to the PID frame rather than the IV frame. I was using prior knowledge based on 4th Gen abuse, before the PIDRNG and MTIVRNG were separated, so I made the assumption it'd be the same, sorry for the discrepancy caused by the PM. If you want to find your target spread's encounter slot value, just click "Generate" on the clipboard with "Method 5 PIDRNG" selected, it appears next next to the frame number. Interesting, you learn something new every day… :)
 
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