ROM Hack [PSA] True story regarding PKMN-NTR (GAME CHANGING tool with POWERFUL downsides)

[Detoxboss]

Hi everyone!

I hope you enjoy this little, 100% based on a true experience, story of mine. Let's get started (Yes, there will be a TL: DR; for those who don't... read.)

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WHAT HAPPENED TO ME:
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So, I caught wind of exactly what PKMN-NTR is fully capable of today in a really unfortunate series of battles I had with some Japanese random.. The first battle did NOT go well for me, so I decided... screw it! I'm gonna rematch this jerk! Sure enough, he gladly accepts. It was to my complete surprise however.. than in round 2, I would be facing my EXACT/COMPLETE team compilation I used in the previous round. Before you go there... No, they were not like-pokemon with any differences whatsoever.. They were MY pokemon. Same names, same OTs, same stats, same everything.

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WHAT I FOUND/REALIZED:
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So, as I was becoming a whole nutha level of violated.. and LOSING to my own team.. I dipped out mid battle and did some research.. Before I knew it was all possible.. Something smelt like Memory Manipulation to me.. I felt a familiar feeling of "CheatEngine" and its on-the-fly capabilities in all things PC..

It didn't take me long to stumble across some stuff that I KNEW about.. but thought was "in the past now".. For example NTR (obviously not in the past, but.. meh) but more specifically NTR Debugger/NTR Client, which i GUESS if you absolutely knew what you were doing with these original tools, you could make SOME stuff happen..

But then, I stumbled across a GAME CHANGER (/Ruiner?)... "PKMN-NTR". The features that stood out the most to me where the scan/dump abilities based on a box/slot of your choosing, the currently offered pokemon in any trade, your opponents currently drawn out pokemon, pokemon within a Battle Box, and any pokemon from your Party. Then, hand-in-hand with that, it is one click away from being copied to a box/slot of yours... IN REAL TIME/ON THE FLY..

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OH, BUT IT GETS WORSE:
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I am not sure just how recently this was discovered.. but it has been proven possible to read/copy/clone/quick save pokemon from a RECORDED BATTLE VIDEO!!! That's right people... NOW they never even need to physically face you themselves.. that is, if they have the means of obtaining a recorded battle with you/your pokemon in it..

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FINAL THOUGHTS:
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I will say, I do have to hand it to the developers.. This tool looks clean, seems to work pretty flawlessly, and its capabilities are that of which I had never seen yet.. As soon as I was starting to think that I had seen it all as far as pokemon hacking goes.. It managed to pwn me by surprise...

HOWEVER, when you truly think about this and how it can negatively impact the game.. it can potentially cause a "Why bother?"-like scenario for many reasons.. One that pops into my head right off the cuff is.. It makes the need/desire/enjoyment of trading incredibly OBSOLETE and USELESS/WASTE OF TIME. And of course.. it inevitably renders your life's greatest achievements in pokemon, AND your right to show them off, MEANINGLESS & INSTANTLY TARNISH-ABLE.

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Annnyyywayyys..
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I thought that was a pretty epic share-worthy/teachable moment that other people should know. Let's just hope that THIS post isn't what starts Arma-GAY-ddon with a sudden influx in this being done..

Take care guys! Feel free to let me know what you think!

- JASON


*** TL: DR; ***

1. Had casual battle against random Japanese person. Didn't go well for me. Wanted a rematch.

2. Upon getting started with the rematch.. Noticed opponents pokemon/team comp was MY comp from last battle (MY OWN PKMN!).

3. Did research, found the culprate (PKMN-NTR Tool), played with it, discovered the pokemon sun/moon equivalent of the invention of the nuclear bomb.

4. Additionally, discovered that pokemon could also be read/cloned through watching past Recorded Battle Videos.. Crapped my pants a little thinking about the inevitable outcome.. (Loved/Hated it equally)

5. Came here to tell my story, and then you didn't read it. THE END.

 

[MichiS97]

Yeah it also makes you able to automatically hunt for shiny Pokemon, specific IVs and other stuff with bots so...as a person who has helped in developing the tool: Don't be so salty.

 

[Detoxboss]

Oh believe me, I am not trying to come off salty. Sorry if it comes off that way.

Color me TRULY EFFIN IMPRESSED man.

Like I said, I loved/hated it equally (I mean, how could you not? Just the sheer BRILLIANCE of the concept alone is hilarious/admirable. nevermind the actual WORK needed to be put in to create something that robust..)

Just thought it was a really good story is all.. Interesting and curiosity-inducing at the very least!

 

[gnmmarechal]

Don't think it is anything special, tbh.

 

[Thelostrune]

Can someone sum this up better?
aka
Is this just a fucking opinion piece or are there legitimate, objective downsides to this plugin? Like getting banned, losing stuff and whatnot?

 

[Detoxboss]

Can someone sum this up better?
aka
Is this just a fucking opinion piece or are there legitimate, objective downsides to this plugin? Like getting banned, losing stuff and whatnot?

Well, honestly, there are many potential red flag possibilities that come to mind for me.. Maybe not as much in the STABLE releases... but everything depends on how certain aspects of these processes are handled/carried out. I would need more than a minute to really explore that.. but, one thing I COULD see being a big factor is.. both how the original dump is stored/saved and more importantly, how it is WRITTEN to the game (because it is on-the-fly and unpredictable, therefore would probably require ALOT more fore-thought/conditions/checks to make sure that IF there IS windows of time or scenarios that COULD get you caught/banned, that the application WILL NOT LET YOU do it during these times/scenarios.. if that makes sense...

Now, I can see how the memory is read (which as far as i know is safe to assume that memory READING is always totally safe/fine) and how it is dumped/saved (and currently it DOES do this SAFELY/CORRECTLY, as it merely becomes a pkhex pokemon backup/dump file in a folder on your PC. Therefore, posing no risk.. YET)

However, I do not know enough about how the application writes or what it must be doing/utilizing to write to memory WHILE the game is ALSO managing/manipulating the SAME memory regions and whatnot.. (but, I assume at some point it MUST use the typical NTR commands you have available to you while using the original NTRClient)

So, I cannot/will not attempt to comment further on that as i could potentially make myself look stupid.. and there are 5-6 MUCH MORE intelligent developers on this project that have actually LIVED IT themselves.

Honestly, besides the little ban wave last month.. and what it PROVED as far as nintendo's CURRENT methods/efforts to detect illegal/sketchy activity (Almost not at all... basically just Game-Sync related shit.) They have yet to prove that they care about the majority of this "world" when it comes to negative impact. I'm sure they are still making a boat load of money from somewhere/some idiots, so they are happy/unmotivated. If i had to guess, not much will change, but we wil still have to consider things like Game-Sync and Before/After style comparisons, as well as potential "traps" set out by gamefreak/nintendo such as goodies with such little chance of obtain-ability that it may as well be 0%, therefore people WITH those goodies, are immediate suspects.. I donno, just some loose thoughts i suppose.

 

[DrkBeam]

I know pokemons are simple bits, but it has a story how you've caught, breed and trained them, that's the main reason why I'm against clonation and how the others can play with your Pokemon, at least is not something generalized, the funny thing I don't think I have played 10 online battles on Pokemon moon, maybe 3.

 

[Izual Urashima]

Honestly, it isn't as bad as you try to paint it.

The story is amusing in the sense that, facing one's own team can be an interesting challenge, revealing your own strengths and weaknesses and giving you ways to go around them. What is bad, however, is your reaction.

No, this isn't the equivalent of a nuclear bomb. No, this isn't a game changer or ruiner, since it needs one battle to be saved, and outside of competitions (where consoles are checked and banned if tampered with), you'll probably only have one battle with someone else, and tourmanent players tend to change often their teams. And especially, no, blaming it on a program being made and used isn't the solution. It's what people do with it that can be blamed, you don't blame the gun when someone uses one to shoot someone else.

And yea, some people have stories of capture, breeding and training with their pokes, but even if that would have happened to me with my long-time team (a 3rd gen one that followed me up to SM), I wouldn"t have thrown such a fit, since in the end, pokes are just data, and you don't cry over copied data.

 

[The Catboy]

An interesting note, this really isn't new stuff for us. Also this isn't reddit, we don't do PSA and we also know what we are doing around here

 

[Deltaechoe]

You encountered a "hacker", it's a game and there are people who like to cheat and that's NEVER going to change, just report them and move on. Taking to a forum and creating a wall of text about how you were wronged in game is usually the most unproductive reaction you can have to somebody cheating.

 

[Detoxboss]

Honestly, it isn't as bad as you try to paint it.

The story is amusing in the sense that, facing one's own team can be an interesting challenge, revealing your own strengths and weaknesses and giving you ways to go around them. What is bad, however, is your reaction.

No, this isn't the equivalent of a nuclear bomb. No, this isn't a game changer or ruiner, since it needs one battle to be saved, and outside of competitions (where consoles are checked and banned if tampered with), you'll probably only have one battle with someone else, and tourmanent players tend to change often their teams. And especially, no, blaming it on a program being made and used isn't the solution. It's what people do with it that can be blamed, you don't blame the gun when someone uses one to shoot someone else.

And yea, some people have stories of capture, breeding and training with their pokes, but even if that would have happened to me with my long-time team (a 3rd gen one that followed me up to SM), I wouldn"t have thrown such a fit, since in the end, pokes are just data, and you don't cry over copied data.

Wow, I want to thank you for coming in here with real points. I have to say, I agree with you in almost all your very well put points/examples/analogies.

In fact, I agree with you so much, that it has suddenly become painfully obvious that I am being misread and misinterpreted. Though, I dont blame you for seeing it the way you did.

So, let's try to clear the air on some things. Allow me to define my position on all this a little better.

1. I now feel that the [PSA] tag I used in the title was a bit misleading and may have resulted in some understandable pre-judgement on what this post was really supposed to be. If I could revise it I would. It's more just an amusing story of my experience/growth in a recently taken up Interest in Pokemon sun combined with homebrew/Cfw.
2. I did not Intend for this post to be any form of complaint, condemn mentioned, or bad-mouthing/bashing on what is clearly a very intuitive and amazing peice of software. Like I said, I am impressed and happy with the outcome of my experience and new found knowledge.
3. If Hypothetically, It was in my ability to decide whether or not this tool was a thing or not 100/100 times I would choose to have it exist and maybe even go as far as doing everything I could to make sure it progresses through its max potential and capabilities. Even though every individual feature of this tool has existed in one way or another within other console/game hacks, I still see this as a fresh and intuitive invention that deserves a world of credit. Developers should be proud.
4. Though the nuclear bomb comparison may have been harsh, I still believe that this creation is nothing to underestimate. Not because of the ability to mimic a trainers entire team, no. Because you are correct, in the end, data is data and its probably less about the pokemon you have in your team, and more about the actual matchups/decisons/timing/etc. What I think makes this tool superior is the fact that it is completely RealTime based.
5. I was not aware their were any confirmed limitations or threats as far as online / competitive play goes when I wrote what I did. Of course it was a suspicion though.
6. I never Intended to place blame on either the developers, users, or the tool's existence itself for that matter. I agree with you on this though, just because something exists doesn't mean it's its fault that you used it. So no, no one can blame the gun, only the one firing it.
7. Finally, I say once more, I appreciate the tools existence and the brilliant minds that put it together. If I sounded salty, I am sorry and I am officially chalking that up to two reasons. Because I wished I knew earlier and not knowing for that SINGLE battle put me at a major disadvantage. (who cares at this point, I'm over it.) and reason 2 being there is nothing more frustrating than learning just how bad you are due to the fact that someone is beating you with your own exact pokemon. Haha but, I accept it. After all I only decided to try Pokemon sun about 5-6 days ago. Just finished the story and hit lvl 25 festival plaza forgive my neivety

 

[Detoxboss]

At this point I am kinda worn out on typing and I am pretty sure I have said all I can say really..

Ultimately, whether you believe me or not due to my limited amount of experience with pokemon specifically.. Not a single bit of this was ever new to me either as the concepts and knowledge applies and carries over to an endless amount of other games/consoles/computers/systems. I don't appreciate the implication that I DONT also know what I am doing, though I understand the reason why. I haven't given you much reason to think otherwise I suppose. Developing toolkits, trainers, aim bots, esp, and various other common hacks is something I have been both aware of and capable of doing for over 15 years now. I remember doing things thought to be rather advanced at the time in some of the early versions of cheatengine and similar memory scanning and manipulation software suites by the age of 12-14. I really enjoyed decompilng/analysing Program/game Assemblies to search for cracks/exploits, Attack vectors, endpoints, hooks, etc. I've been around the block thank you very much. Truthfully, I'm glad that I spent that time doing pc related stuff versus consoles and other closed books that are inevitably going to die out to make room for the next one. I'm not sure you could reasonably argue that I am wrong when I say that pc is an obviously more worthwhile investment that doesn't eventually become irrelevant.

With that said, I am having a blast pushing my little 3ds xl to its full potential. Same as when I previously did the same with a ds, Psp, psvita, PS1, ps2, Xbox, Xbox360, and many other devices.

 

[dAVID_]

Cheating is ok as long as it's not online.

 

[Izual Urashima]

Oh, a nice answer. Thanks for actually taking the time to write it.

That being said, I'll just point out a single thing - While it's true that one can basically copy anyone else's team, what matters in the end is, and always has been, player skill. Furthermore, one will always be better with one's own team than with another one's team, if only because they actually know what it's made of, what are its limitations and how you make it work. And while someone can copy the tools themselves, all it can do behind is using them with their own skills, not with yours.

I've seen it sometimes in competitive rings during 3rd gen - People lacking time to make a team for an unexpected tourmanent, asking for clones of competitives pokes (thanks to the Emerald cloning glitch) to make a team, and ending up completely failing way behind their usual level because it wasn't their team, but a patchwork of several other teams. And while some other players still think that, in the end, every poke is working the same, I'll direct them to Smogon and point out that, for a single poke, there's often several movesets and several moveset variations depending of the team. So while a special build of a poke might be brillant in a particular team (I'll always remember how my team was devoted to preparing the field for Starmie to come in and crush everything, and how brillantly it worked from 3rd to 5th gen), it may be lackluster at best and useless at worst in another team.

And if someone else uses your team better than you ? Learn through it. See what the other player did and what you didn't. See which were your mistakes and how you can compensate from them, and see which were simply the things you couldn't avoid (criticals, lack of information, things like that). That helps playing better.

 

[amoulton]

See what the other player did and what you didn't.

Namely cheat