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rhebus wrote:
what if you eat the potion when you equip the combat knife? You gain 24 HP, which means you should finish legion on 10 HP (though I'm not 100% sure about this). Is that low enough to avoid needing rotten meat? (is it possible/necessary to avoid the +5HP from succubus?).
10 hp adds just as many stats as 1 hp (on that particular level, I do not know if there are any differences on any higher levels). However, the stats start to decrease slightly when getting the 5 hp from Succubus.
Using the Rotten Meat takes about 15-20 frames, and a weapon swing is usually around 14 frames. I believe there is no way around it.
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rhebus wrote:
In theory you should be able to save 3 frames by consuming the potion when you equip mystletain. Because your cursor is already at the equip menu, it's one less step downwards to get to item use. I tried hexing it in, and it keeps sync after the modified mystletain pause menu, but desyncs after the pause menu in the man-eater room. I have no idea why :(
Lag (there is quite alot of lag during the first 2 eyes) + the weird cooldowns I talked about earlier. I have to mention that the cooldowns I mentioned earlier were a bit off, the cooldowns can range from 16 to 24 frames. Getting the soul optimally is nigh impossible :'< (RNG changes the pattern of the Man-Eater, which changes the loottables, and at the same time it changes the cooldown constantly :D)
rhebus wrote:
EDIT: looking at the RNG value at 0x2000008, the first discrepancy seems to happen at frame 36699 (corresponding to 36702 in the original), and by frame 36708 the two have diverged completely. This is during the man-eater fight, well beyond the pause screen i hexed. I'm not a TASer by any means and I've never done hexing before, but this is really confusing. Surely if it was going to break, it would have broken before this point?
Pause-screens have a bad habit of causing a lot of randomness in lag. Since Man-Eater is a lagfest, there are some lagframes garbled up, which makes it behave slightly differently.
rhebus wrote:
(Also, by consuming the potion earlier, you hit your HP cap and only gain 84 HP instead of the full 100 HP. I assume this isn't a big deal.)
This changes nothing, I would still have about 70 hp after Legion, which means I still have to consume the Rotten Meat.
I'm gonna check this one out when I have the time, Man-Eater should end up identical and the rest should be hex-editable. If not, I could always hope for a slightly better Mandragora. God I loath that room, getting the Mandragora soul is so damn hard; while the Slime soul travels, the Mandragora changes RNG 5 times/frame (1 for slime soul, 1 for death animation, 1 for mandragora, 1 for Imp and 1 for the second slime). Good luck finding the right random number.
rhebus wrote:
I'm not making any friends here, am I?
No worries. I've worked with Taco. He's a bastard when it comes finding improvements. Not even funny.
But hey. If I don't finish this year atleast I have someone to blame :D.
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I have actually been working a few hours today, so I thought I'd just show my progress, even though there are next to no differences.
Pie
The hiatus is not over, I expect atleast another week of no work at all. But I'll still try my best to maybe work some more this weekend.
111 frames ahead of my earlier WIP.
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eternaljwh wrote:
Frames could be gained by paging through lists of souls/items(hold shoulder button while pressing up/down), occasionally-but only on two or so occasions, thanks to the scarcity of items in the run and the '5-recently-used' way the list sorts.
Rhebus told me about this trick after I finished the any%. It does save time more than twice though, pretty much every pause screen after the Clocktower is slightly faster.
And incidentally, I am working on a new run (even though I'm taking a short break at the moment), and I'm hoping to finish before the end of this year. The improvements are somewhat surprising, so be sure to check it out :3 (currently about 2700 frames ahead of this run).
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rhebus wrote:
Or you could eat the potion or tasty meat you're carrying? You still have both at the end of the Legion fight.
Curse you! I was expecting some minor framegain, but it turns out it was nearly 100 frames faster (I also noticed a minor mistake later on in the same room). So I'm gonna redo from there, which will take about 2-3 days of solid work. Really, the only hard place to manipulate are the Medusa Heads before the teleport room.
Anyways, I'm forced to put the run on temporary hiatus since I got stuff to do in real life, which leaves me in no mood for TASing. I'm going to try to find as much time as possible to TAS and I will most likely finish before 2011; submitting on Christmas would be fun, but only if the run is finished close to that date.
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rhebus wrote:
Just before Man-Eater, is it worth taking a hit from a Needles to fall faster? Like this. It looks like 82 damage or so, and I'm not sure how much time it saves.
I actually already knew of the possibility of this trick, but the damage the Needles do + 2 hits from Legion would put me on -14 hp, which obviously is unfavourable. Unless it saves 100+ frames (time it takes to kill a Bomber Armor, and time it takes to switch to Steel Plate), I doubt there is any possibility to see it implemented, unfortunately.
Anyways, since I like to keep most of the later parts of the game secret until submission, when should I stop WIPing? Balore has been my favorite place to stop WIPing, but iirc I WIPed up until Graham in my any%. I'm still gonna post progress and improvements, however.
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moozooh wrote:
Question: does it make sense to jump so high at 45230? You're moving against the wall for quite some time.
Actually yes. The door is still not quite open (even though it looks that way), so I'm given some extra time to get higher up. The higher up I am, the longer I'm going to spend in the kick. After landing, Soma retains the speed from the kick, but it will slowly dissipate, so logic dictates, that if given the time, kicks should be started from highest possible position. I have applied this in all possible places in the run, especially when waiting for souls (Clocktower).
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Que?
Apparently, if you collect a soul during the red door, you are allowed 1 frame of free movement. While somewhat useless, I will use it to jump, which allows me to enter kickspeed 2 frames earlier.
Since the Lubicants are making me somewhat worried (the Soul is nearly 100 random numbers away, and I've yet to even find the sword), I'm just gonna go ahead and WIP.
Pie
2676 frames ahead of myself.
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moozooh wrote:
I'm willing to bet that you'll end up comfortably below 27 minutes at the pace you're going. The improvements have so far been genuinely surprising, and it's nice to see rare stuff like a combined level-up/soul collect screen. Excellent job!
That is indeed the goal. I'm hoping to get atleast a time of 25:xx if not even 24:xx. While the 24 minute goal sounds somewhat farfetched, I expected very little improvements this far into the run. There are still heaps of small improvements everywhere, so I'm really looking forward to seeing how much time I can save just due to better familiarity with the game.
rhebus wrote:
You used Medusa Head in the Legion fight last time; how much harder was the Legion fight without the manoeuvrability it provided? Was using Great Armor instead the big win which improved the fight so much or were there other aspects too?
Actually, there are next to no differences between using Medusa Head and not using it. Medusa Head does not allow you to land any extra hits; the swingtimer in the air remains the same (22 frames, I believe), so at best you might save a single frame due to not having to use double-jump. Great Armor on the other hand saves a weapon swing on all shell parts.
While Great Armor costs alot of mana, it can be used on the Valkyrie hits to add roughly 20 damage to the shell. With 3 Valkyrie's per manapool, an additional 5 mana to spare, and some regeneration at that, using Great Armor on the Valkyrie hits actually works out quite nicely.
Anyways, I'm still working on Legion, and I'm struggling with randomness. You really don't want unfortunate corpses spawning, so that you lose time while hitting Legion. Also, I'm pretty sure RNG decides if Legion starts crawling up one of the walls during a turn (might also be position related, or maybe even both). This is what I'm having trouble with at the moment, in my first attempt I got a perfect turn. In this attempt, he keeps heading up the wall.
EDIT: Just finished Legion, saved 7 frames over my first attempt, putting me 2228 frames ahead of my first run. The fight is pretty much the same, except I save frames at the door, so I'm not gonna WIP just yet.
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klmz wrote:
That's the bug I kept talking about. Great that you recorded it!
Man-Eater and Death's first phase seem to be unique in that aspect. I have yet to find another enemy with garbled cooldowns. Though I thought you mentioned that you reduced the cooldown, not made it longer.
Anyways, I just finished Legion, and I have to redo the entire fight. T_T.
It turns out I improved the fight so much, that I have to do the entire fight on the right side, instead of the left, since I'm too far away from the door when it is opening after the fight.
Pie
Managed to do a glitched level-up/soul-screen on the Flame Demon, saving a buttload of frames. The Legion fight was improved by about 240 frames, putting me 2201 frames ahead of myself (was actually expecting no improvements on Legion...)
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Progress!
Originally I wanted to WIP just before Legion, but I completely brickwalled on the Gargoyle (been trying for about 6 hours and I've yet to find the soul). I really want to get it in this shaft. I do encounter more Gargoyles ahead, but I don't want to redo massive chunks of my run due to bad luck.
Pie
I skipped 2 pause screens in the Clocktower by using the Imp to damage the Valkyrie (changing to Minotaur was used in the old run to oneshot it). Slightly different approach on the Man-Eater, I end up on the right side of him, and I manage to have 1 of the eyes take 3 hits from Lightning Doll, something I have never managed to do before (the Man-Eater triggers some extremely weird cooldowns, the 11 frame Mystelain can go from everything from 11 to 16 frames, don't ask me why).
The Mandragora encounter is about a million times better.
I also kill the Arc Demon on the way to the Warp Room, instead of when going to the Skyfish corridor, since I'm waiting for the elevators anyways. Also skipping the pausescreen to switch to Triton before Legion - it's not worth it.
1938 frames ahead of my first run.
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I FINALLY cracked the enigma that is Death's first phase. I never managed to find a consistent approach, and his actions seemed to be nigh impossible to determine, or affect, for that matter.
It turns out that I was kinda lucky in my first run, and decided to jump up and hit him very early without having him stay up in the ceiling. I tried to replicate this both in this run and in my any%, but failed to do so. But it turns out, you have to have the attack him as soon as possible, then wait 'X' amount of frames, then continue to attack. Then he will swoop down extremely low, which allows for a very long time to attack him without delay. I'm not sure what the difference between this run and my first is, but somehow I manage to save nearly 160 frames in this fight, which I find really amazing (my first take on Death, before I pegged this trick, only ended up 30 frames faster and considering I entered the pausescreen in my first run, the actual fight ended up slower).
Pie
Nothing special during phase 2.
1133 frames ahead of my first run.
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I thought I'd WIP before I start working on Death.
Pie
I managed to get the Medusa Head soul while waiting for the Gremlin soul to travel, which was awesome. Now I have 3 souls which I did not have at this stage in my previous run; Ghost Dancer, Killer Fish and Medusa Head.
935 frames ahead of myself at the moment.
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I reached the Clocktower, 862 frames ahead of my old run.
Pie
I've come to appreciate how impossible it is to manipulate the Ghost soul to collect souls. During the entire time that the projectile is up, it changes loottables (not RNG) depending on position. You can make a soul completely disappear by just pressing a direction for one frame, making it extremely frustrating to work towards a soul. This coupled with the fact that Ghost has a somewhat retarded AI, and changes random number to boot, getting souls with it sucks. Sadly, it is unrivaled due to its versatility.
I collect the Ghost Dancer soul after exiting the Study, since it is slightly faster here. Ghost soul was used just before to get to the right random number faster.
I was somewhat worried about Altair+Ripper, but it turned out way better than I had anticipated. The Altair that spawns on the way out of the room spawns due to the Altair soul changing random number, so I can't really kill that one instead.
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FreezerBurns wrote:
Also, you get a cookie* for making such improvements on an already awesome run. Keep it up!(*Cookie must be purchased by the runner. You are, however, entitled to eat it guilt free, and brag about it to all your overweight friends)
Score.
Anyways, the Great Armor fight is done. I'm actually extremely surprised. Took me one try... was prepared to spend about a week on him. Lucky.
Pie
I also found a new method of manipulating RNG once every 2 frames with light weapons. I'm not gonna use it in my run, since I won't be needing it (maybe on elevators), but the glitched low% should be redone using this trick. So I'm actually gonna try doing that, as some sort of side-project.
Manipulation
And massive thanks to Gocha for encoding my stuff. Big heart <3
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I thought I'd make WIP quickly before I start working on Great Armor, since he is probably the biggest brickwall this early.
Pie
Yet again, I'm forced to skip Tiny Devil, since he doesn't even drop his soul in about 100 random numbers... not really sure why I'm so unlucky, but there is still one opportunity to get it, and the room to manipulate is massive, so I should be fine.
Great Armor will be fought the same way as in my any%, except with Rock Armor soul.
I'm 622 frames ahead of myself thus far.
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scrimpeh wrote:
Again, I'd like to see an encode. Sounds great so far.
Sorry for not being able to provide encodes - my encoding skills are worse than useless.
moozooh wrote:
Incredible savings so far. Never expected this much to be squeezed out of an already excellent run!
Me neither, but turns out my old run was much worse than I first had anticipated; I just reached Manticore and I'm 463 frames ahead of myself.
Pie
Really like this update, the new broken backdash trick proved very useful in the Giant Ghost room (it's also a million times easier to optimize).
Sorry about the delay, I brickwalled on the Une.
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Everything up to the Chapel is finished, and I'm currently 153 frames ahead of my first run. The last Zombie soldier had a Rotten Meat about 20 random numbers away, which sadly could not be achieved in the short period of time. I was left to choose between Combat Knife and a small heart, so I took the small heart (while the Combat Knife might be fun, the mana is no doubt better). I also skipped the Tiny Devil soul since I couldn't find a drop anywhere near favorable. Although Rock armor was picked up early, so the comparison is still valid.
Pie
Creaking Skull is superior to Buer all the way until Catoblepas/Bone Pillar, so should it be used until then? I have heard people complaining about it being somewhat repetitive.
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Tub wrote:
I love pie.
Who doesn't :3.
I forgot to mention, I DID redo the Creaking Skull fight, but I did not manage to change his pattern without changing his loottables. Saved 1 frame due to having the first hit connect earlier.
And I finally got my hands on the Peeping Eye soul without having to switch to Buer. It's not optimal, so I'm gonna try and redo that later.
Pie
About the stairs in the Skeleton Knight room, I utilized a broken backdash which I originally only thought to be useless. You can actually see me spamming it during the waiting scene for Death in my first 100%. The idea is to backdash on the first possible frame after a backdash, which triggers another backdash, but you are not locked in the backdash animation. During this broken backdash, you can backdash again. Iirc it saved 2 frames/application. Only useful when going down longer stairs.
The ending made me facepalm.
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klmz wrote:
Still, I would like to see a glitched "100% souls" run better. But this is good enough to me.
Weren't you and Pirate_Sephiroth working on one? Your post in the allsouls submission suggested that.
And I'm pretty sure that I lack the experience to pull off a glitched run. I have little to no knowledge about glitch-teleports. I'll maybe take my time to learn more about this after this run.
I finished everything up and including the Skeleton Knight. I skipped the Skeleton Archer soul because I brickwalled (couldn't even get the soul to appear). There are several opportunities to get this soul, and it has pretty high droprate so it should be fine to skip it.
Pie
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First take on Creaking Skull
Pie
The fight will most likely be redone, gonna check if I can't have him move backwards instead of just stopping dead in his tracks. 26 frames ahead of my old run thus far.
Also, getting Axe Armor this early made me happy. In my first run, the first 2 weeks out of the 2 months of work were spent on him alone.
I'm going to WIP fairly often, due to the massive amount of brickwalls early on.
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moozooh wrote:
Glad you went with hard — lack of cutscenes makes the run a lot more enjoyable than otherwise.
You actually only need SRAM to skip cutscenes, you can skip them on normal too.
moozooh wrote:
Kriole wrote:
Irregardless, I'm hoping to save atleast 2 minutes of time, if not more.
But how? Anyway, hoping style won't suffer.
Around 3000 for skipping Claimh Solais (no, it does NOT save time in Chaos. I'm a moron.), about 800 for Graham, 300-400 for Balore, around a 1000 for better pausescreens (less frequency and utilizing the L and R trick rhebus pointed out) and much for optimization and a better understanding of the RNG.
moozooh wrote:
(There's no such word as "irregardless".)
Ah. I actually ment regardless, using irregardless is apparently a bad habit of mine. But the word does exist... somewhat, even if the word itself makes no sense.
