New Deload Glitch Discovered! Discussion and description in here!

[tHeObLiViNaToR]

A pretty major glitch has been discovered recently. Anyone who visits the IRC channel should know about them, but there might be a few people who don't and might not know about this yet. Plus I just feel like documenting some stuff here for future reference, particularly when we add these glitches to the game knowledge pages.

New Glitch: Deloading

This glitch works in both LA and LADX, but they have different methods of achieving it. In both games, the game engine can only handle 16 sprites on a screen at a time (Link's character doesn't add towards this 16). When doing a screen transition (moving from one screen to the next), if there is going to be more than 16 sprites between the two screens, sprites that are to be loaded into the new screen will not load. Essentially there can only be 16 sprites between two screens when doing a screen transition, The sprites on the screen you are transitioning from are counted first, while the sprites that are going to be on the screen you are transitioning too are counted after. Any sprites after the first 16 will not load. This glitch of causing certain sprites to not load on a screen you are transition too has useful applications for a speed-run, such as preventing certain barriers to not load.

I would like to add a more technical description of what is actually happening, but I don't want to add speculation. If someone can provide more technical information please share!

Applications:

Bow-wow Skip / Early Bottle Grotto: Finally it has been found. There is now a way to skip fetching Bow-Wow! Remember there are five Goponga Flowers on the entrance screen, so we just need to load twelve sprites in the screen below to deload one of the blocking Goponga Flowers. In the screen below the entrance to Bottle Grotto, you need to use your shovel to dig up nine items (rupees or hearts), one use of magic powder, and drop on bomb. The shark on the screen also counts, so that brings the total to 12 sprites. Then transition up to the screen with the entrance to Bottle Grotto and one of the Goponga Flowers that blocks the entrance will be deloaded (12+5=17, the game can only have 16 between the two screens, it deloads the 17th sprite, which is one of the flowers). This isn't useful in it's current form for a RTA speedrun of LADX since digging up nine items will take some crazy good luck (and I mean crazy).

Here is a video that Tompa made showing it off: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfTZaWDoiwI

Walrus Skip: This is a difficult deload. You should have Bow-Wow for this and he'll count as a sprite. First dig up three objects with your shovel, drop a bomb so that when it explodes it destroys six bushes (bushes that are being destroyed count as sprites for the deload). Jump to the edge of the screen, and fire an arrow. Pause buffer until the bomb explodes and destroys the bushes. When this happens pause buffer using a bomb and magic powder at the same time. Pause buffer again until you reach the frame where you can use magic powder again. When you reach that frame, use magic powder and fire an arrow, then transition to the next screen to deload the walrus.

This video tutorial explains it a lot better than I can type it out: http://www.twitch.tv/drenn_thew/b/622835087

This has a lot of other skips wrapped up in it too. You wont need to grab Marin and have her follow you to kill the walrus anymore. Which then means you won't have to trade the honeycomb to the crocodile to make her appear at the beach. And by that application you don't need to give Tarin the stick and watch the cutscene were he gets chased by bees. Even if you fail the deload a few times, it should still make up some time than if you did everything else normally.

Also remember since the walrus was just deloaded to enter the desert, he'll be loaded when you need to exit. You'll have to have a PoP spawn sometime after you deload the walrus, but before you need to exit the desert. When you exit, having a PoP active while holding left as you jump of the ledge above the walrus will push you out of his sprite, instead of getting stuck on it.

Magic Rod (LA only). In LA if you use the Magic Rod to fire a projectile, then pause before the projectile hits something, when you unpause the game will continuously load projectiles, reaching the max limit of 16 sprites very very quickly. This can be used to deload several enemies and even bosses in screen ahead of you! It can also be used multiple times very easily since there isn't any RNG involved with this trick.

Here is the video that showcased the deload glitch for the first time (using the Magic Rod in LA) and brought it to the attention of the community: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDq820afIAM

All credit for discovering this glitch goes to him.

I'm planning on adding more to this description when I understand more and when more information is brought up. Feel free to correct me on any mistakes I made, I know there are probably a few in here. Also there is some discussion going on in the IRC about the legality of the walrus deload, as well as the RNG dependency of the deloads. Feel free to join us in there and voice your opinions, concerns, and questions. Thanks for reading!

[Jbop]

Amazing

[Drenn]

I'll just elaborate a bit on deloading the walrus.

When placing powder+bombs and pausing again, you can't do the easy buffer by holding start, you need to time the start press. Which isn't a problem because you need to wait several frames anyway.

When I was complaining about how I sometimes couldn't place powder and bombs at the same time, the reason is because link was still in his throwing animation from firing the first arrow. If you fire the arrow a tiny bit earlier, you can place powder and bombs at the same time, which will make it all a bit easier. If you fire it way too early though the first arrow could disappear. But there's a fairly large window for it.

If you're late on some of the buffers, your first bomb might finish exploding and disappear, which you don't want. There seems to be a wide margin for error though.

[Rapid_]

I recommend this glitch be called the "Plowing-Porous-Dirt-for-16-Sprites-and-Up Glitch"

[tHeObLiViNaToR]

Adding a few more places where deload maybe useful to this topic. Currently we have:

1.) Bow-Wow skip (not going to be used in RTA attempts unless some sort of RNG manipulation for your shovel to dig up items is figured out).
2.) Walrus skip (still requires good RNG and skill to pull off, debate on whether exiting the desert by using the PoP to clip out of the Walrus is legal is still ongoing).
3.) Turtle Rock Deload / Frog Song of Souls skip (I want to try and make this work but haven't yet, maybe others will find a set-up. You'll deload Turtle Rock so you don't have to play the Frog Song of Souls to enter level .
4.) Tarin/Racoon Deload (Tompa just mentioned this, not sure how it works yet, you'd just deload the Racoon and get the Tail Key that way instead of the current Moblin Boost method).

There's still probably some other small deloads in dungeons that might be possible to either skip a bunch of enemies or bosses even, though I can't think of any off hand that would be easy and save time.

And I agree with Rapid. We should figure out a better name for this other than Deload.

[Daemonax3]

Ok i think we sould more focus on " is this glitch allowed in any% NO S+Q, OoB, WW or not"(walrus skip) and not discuss about a name for it.
the problem with the trick is not to deload the walrus the problem is the getting out of the dessert again.
We all know that we can only exit the dessert after walrus skip with a PoP becouse without you would getting stucked in the walrus.
So the question is, is the getting out where you tap on the walrus an OoB or not?
If it is an OoB, is then after D8 where you getting stucked in the turtlerock an OoB too?
Or is it just a wallclip?
My problem with this trick is, its rly high rng based.
A lot of people would maybe quit this category. (see Zorlax)
The best way would probably discuss the problem together. (all LADX runners)
(sry for bad english)

[mabdulra]

I think we're discussing the trick's viability in No S+Q in another thread: http://forums.zeldaspeedruns.com/index.php?topic=1804.0

Whether it's RNG-heavy or not shouldn't really be a factor for whether or not it's allowed, I feel.