Posts for Toothache

Posted: 6/4/2009 10:07 AM

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Toothache

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Active player (276)

Joined: 4/30/2009
Posts: 791

Hmm, I never thought about the switching before cutscenes. The game seems to be able to switch familiars faster, but I reckon that would be a small timesaver. Thanks for catching that one, cant believe I missed it lol. I tested whether concentrating a forward-facing Rolling Thunder on the Stage 2 boss would be effective, and it turned out I wasnt able to kill it before it disappeared, even with some additional damage from Ball O Fire. I dont think I'm able to hit it on enough frames to do enough damage, because the mouth (the only vunerable part that Alisia can hit) is only open for a brief moment in between firing, and her normal attack is comparatively weak. EDIT: I'm also considering which pickups to get on what stages. If I remember rightly, and the Gamefaqs guide is anything to go by, the following are available to me on each stage: Stage 1-1: none Stage 1-2: 3 x Level Up, 1 x Thunder Level Up, 1 x HP Up Stage 1-3: 2 x Level Up, 1 x Thunder Level Up, 1 x HP Up Stage 2: 1 x Level Up, 1 x Thunder Level Up, 1 x HP Up Stage 3: 1 x Level Up, 1 x Thunder Level Up Stage 4: 2 x Level Up, 1 x Thunder Level Up Stage 5: 2 x Level Up, 3 x Thunder Level Up, 1 x HP Up Stage 6: 1 x Level Up Stage 7: 1 x Thunder Level Up Stage 8: none Correct me if I'm wrong with this list, but as you can see, they give a lot more powerups than you need. Alisia needs a total of 7 Thunder Level Ups for max power, 8 Level Ups for her monster allies, and only 3 HP Ups, and they give you 13, 8, and 4 respectively, meaning I can bypass a few powerups and still get a max level Alisia and max out her summons. My initial plan, assuming this list is true goes like this: Stage 1-2: get all powerups, level up Thunder Raven first, then start on Ball Of Fire Stage 1-3: get the Thunder Level Up, and second Level Up for Ball Of Fire Total: T-2/7, M-4/8, H-1/3 Stage 2: get Thunder Level Up, , Level Up for Boomerang Lizard Total: T-3/7, M- 5/8, H-1/3 Stage 3: get Thunder Level Up, Level Up for Boomerang Lizard Total: T-4/7, M-6/8, H-1/3 Stage 4: use both Level Ups on Dragon Frye (unless it is not needed for the boss) Total: T-4/7, M-8/8 (6/8), H-1/3 Stage 5: get 3 Thunder Level Ups, HP Up (both Level Ups near the first Thunder Level Up for Dragon Frye if I bypassed them in Stage 4) Total: T-7/7, M-8/8, H-2/3 I endeavour to level up the monsters as fast as possible because they can do significant damage much earlier than Alisia until she reaches close to max Thunder Level. The decision regarding whether I level up Dragon Frye in Stage 4 or Stage 5 depends on his usefulness against the Stage 4 boss. The two level ups in Stage 5 are conveniently placed near the HP Up and also on the way to getting the first Thunder Level Up, so they will take no time at all to get since I'm going there anyway. The two Level Ups in Stage 4 occur to the left and right of your starting position, and I may have to go here anyway in order to get the Infinite Rolling Thunder power to beat the boss, so it is not much of a time drain. It would be faster to get the Level Ups in Stage 5, but this would require me beating the Stage 4 boss without using a L3 Dragon Frye or the Infinite Rolling Thunder. It can be done without one I believe, but I am not sure if it can be done without both (unless I can also take advantage of BOF, I can test once I am done with Stage 3 boss) EDIT: I revised my monster order - I level up Thunder Raven first of all, using the first two Level Ups in 1-2. Then I use the third on Ball Of Fire, getting the other Level Up for it in 1-3 just before the boss. This is mainly due to Boomerang Lizard being helpful in Stage 2 for taking on the platform-riding enemies and has a fast attack recovery unlike Thunder Raven. Stage 1 is complete, and I have even fixed 8 frames of mistakes by dealing with enemies differently. This also includes not having to wait for a better boss pattern. Stage 2 shouldnt be too hard to complete now, but Stage 3 (especially the boss) will be a pain even with L3 Thunder Raven and Boomerang Lizard both at my disposal. I'll work on it when I get there.

Posted: 6/3/2009 3:26 PM

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Toothache

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Active player (276)

Joined: 4/30/2009
Posts: 791

Apologies for the double post, but I thought it was high time I released a WIP. I wont be using this route any more, but any suggestions about possible improvements by others will be greatly appreciated. For anyone who wants to watch, the GMV can be downloaded here: http://hosted.filefront.com/Toothache42 Alternatively you can watch it on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpRDBZlDQ00 I used Gens11a to make the movie, using the ROM Alisia Dragon (JU)[!] I'll sum up the stages and try and suggest improvements I have seen already. Stage 1-1: very little to improve here I think. I managed to reduce the lag caused by the bats at the end of the stage by jumping into them as they appear. Stage 1-2: using the Ball O Fire to attack the enemy that appeared on the staircase at around frame 4100 saved me 4 frames. I would have either had to wait while I attacked him or jump over him. Stage 1-3: first enemy I waited and attacked him, this could be improved by jumping over him at the right time. I paused for a single frame at 8433 so I could continue walking while attacking - it may have been faster just to immediately jump over the enemy at appears and attack with the Rolling Thunder. I take a hit just after, but by pressing jump for 9 frames, starting just before I get hit, I avoid the stun effect that normally comes with being hit and continue forward with momentum. I wait on the staircase for a frame to manipulate a better boss pattern. Boss wasnt hard to do once I got the right pattern. Stage 2 The background is the source of lag here, it has a moving effect that causes it to wave and swish slightly. This means any time I switch to a monster, it causes lag. The BOF also causes lag when it hits the miniboss. Speaking of the miniboss, I dont know if it is possible to improve this to a single phase. Maybe with the aid of a powered up Thunder Raven in addition to the BOF damage (there are two Level Ups I skipped in 1-2 that could be used for this purpose). Again, switching will cause a lot of lag. I also wasted a frame before entering the miniboss segment to manipulate a more friendly pattern. If I upgrade the Thunder Raven in 1-2, then I will be able to use the Level Up that appears on the way in Stage 2 for Boomerang Lizard, getting it to L2 here, and L3 in Stage 3. I can use the nearby Level Ups in Stage 4 for Dragon Frye. Boss itself is done mostly with the BOF doing the damage, I add some with a Rolling Thunder. Improvements to this stage will be minimizing the switching to reduce lag, and finding a way to damage the miniboss fast without generating lag. Any suggestions for improvements will be greatly appreciated. This is my first TAS so it will help me in the long run. Also if anyone with RAM knowledge is able to help me find the boss hp and other pertinent info (like Alisia's summoned monster data and damage per level) it would help a lot - it is far from immediately obvious where that info is.

Posted: 5/28/2009 5:37 PM

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Toothache

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Active player (276)

Joined: 4/30/2009
Posts: 791

There is also another possibility. There is a cheat built into the game that allows you to upgrade your Thunder Level Skill, Health and Monster Levels, meaning I can just max my abilities out then just plow through the game without having to go out of my way to get all the level up items. And with the exception of a few cases, pretty much all the level up items are out of the way. I dont know whether this cheat would be allowed or not, I am loathe to use it personally, but it would make getting through the game much faster.

Posted: 5/27/2009 9:13 PM

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Toothache

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Active player (276)

Joined: 4/30/2009
Posts: 791

Assuming ElectroSpecter's figures are correct, Ornah has 3 phases, each having 36864, 28672 and 28672 respectively. If ElectroSpecter is reading, would you be able to post the memory locations for the stuff you have found as well, would help me in tracking the boss HP and other stuff, of which I am admittedly still learning. I havent got as far as testing Ornah, I'm racking my brains at the Stage 3 boss for getting the optimal time, with its various parts it is not easy to plan for, especially the parts which appear then disappear during the fight. I've tried a few approaches, and I may require the use of an upgraded Boomerang Lizard to make things easy. Dragon Frye is dumb and ends up firing the wrong way too often, there are too many targets for it to go for so inevitably it goes for the side I dont want it to shoot at. Ball O Fire is very useful for taking the cannons out at the start (and protecting you from the red shots that follow you) but becomes less useful once they are gone. Maybe it would be worth using an upgraded Thunder Raven here, but I would have to switch it in, get its attack then immediately switch out to Boomerang Lizard for optimal monster use. So, inevitably, I may have to go back to 1-2 and get the two other Level Ups I bypassed. By the time I reach the Stage 3 boss I can have 3 of the four monsters at L3, and I can get L3 on the last one during Stage 4 (there are two Level Ups within easy reach below your start point, and the worm that gives you the infinite Rolling Thunder also appears in that area assuming I cannot beat the Stage 4 boss in one phase without it.

Posted: 5/25/2009 8:13 PM

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Toothache

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Active player (276)

Joined: 4/30/2009
Posts: 791

Truncated wrote:

Sounds good. I've been wanting to see a run for this game for a long time now. Too bad you won't release any more WIPs.

I've had a rethink about that. Since I'm still learning as I'm going, it will help me if I have some input about possible improvements. I will make a WIP for release soon, once I've made a run that completes the game, and then I can seek advice for possible improvements, of which I have seen several already. Unfortunately, this is the sort of game where you need to get most if not all of the Thunder Level Ups for Alisia if you want to do significant damage. With L3 Thunder and a L3 Ball-O-Fire I can beat the first boss, the mini-boss of Stage 2 and the Stage 2 boss in significant time (BOF is doing most of the damage for the Stage 2 bosses however). I'm currently working on optimising the Stage 3 boss at the minute, there are several small parts to hit, so finding the right places to stand and which parts to target is hard to plan. I'm also planning to replicate something I have been able to do once before on the PAL console version - beat the Stage 4 boss on the first phase WITHOUT getting the fairy that gives you infinite Rolling Thunder for 15 seconds. I need a L3 Dragon Frye to accomplish this, and the BOF will probably be used there too since that can do significant damage quickly. By this point I can have at most L5 Thunder, but if I am bypassing one Thunder Level Up I'm not sure if L4 Thunder can accomplish the same thing. If I do decide to bypass a Thunder Level Up it will likely be the one on Stage 1-3 (the same substage as the boss) since that takes the longest time to get. The one on 1-2 also gives me a Level Up for BOF which is necessary to beat the first three bosses quickly enough.

Posted: 5/25/2009 2:40 PM

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Toothache

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Active player (276)

Joined: 4/30/2009
Posts: 791

dirk456 wrote:

NGC: Pokemon Coloseum - All shadow pokemon caught Pokemon XD Gale of Darkness - All shadow pokemon caught

I see the love of Pokemon has extended to the GC versions. As some of you may be aware, I have been working for some time on a non-TAS speedrun of Colosseum where I get all snags. There is only so much luck manipulation I have the patience to do, but for getting all snags, I am currently working on an estimated time of around 9 hours (assuming timing stops when I snag the last available Pokemon, Togetic). Obviously, for a TAS manipulating crits should be easy, however I did have a notable incident while recording segment 2 of the run - Umbreon would not crit even after well over 100 attempts, and I got Espeon to crit around 5 times in that same period, which is just below average (average should be around 6-7 crits). I'm not sure how easy it would be to manipulate the RNG for crits and so on in Colosseum and XD, but if it is anything similar to the handheld games then it should be feasibly possible. I've tried a few techniques in order to manipulate the RNG myself, but no such luck so far, but I do have suspicions there are some ways of easily working the RNG in the runner's favour, it is probably something I havent tried or thought of yet. Finding some way to manipulate the IVs and nature will make things a lot easier as well. I found getting Croconaw early and using her (I reset for a female to have a much easier time with Venus) made the game manageable at a comparatively low level. Even with the disasterous mistake in the lab segment with Wobbuffet, I was still able to beat my estimated time of reaching the credits and my current save is just after the credits in a time of 4:53. For an all-snags run, a TAS should be able to manipulate even a Pokeball to snag something from full health, although getting the Master Ball and using the ball-duplication glitch would make that easier, even in a TAS. Coming from my test run of 10:34, and my estimate of my final time of around 9 hours, I reckon a TAS of an all-snags run of Colosseum should clock in at around just under 8 hours, perhaps even 7:30, unless there are any further time saving incidents that can be exploited. For a regular run that just goes straight to the credits, you are probably talking somewhere below 4:30, maybe as much as 4:00 at the utmost. If you want to watch the WIP of the Colosseum run so far, you can follow it here: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=D41067260A124859. Hopefully some of the tactics used for the battles can be applied for the TAS run itself, double battles have their own metagame which differ from single battles and require their own strategies.

Posted: 5/17/2009 5:30 AM

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Toothache

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Active player (276)

Joined: 4/30/2009
Posts: 791

Yeah this is the case. Doing the same jumping trick that I used in the part with two mushrooms next to each other would be slower, because at the end you are forced to walk forward at a certain point, just like at the start of the level. However, upon reaching this point, if you are not on the ground you just jump straight vertical with no further forward movement until you land. So, it turned out slower if I took the hit, and slower still if I jumped and took the hit. With the amount of enemies on the screen at that last point, I was able to minimise the lag to about 15 frames, which seems a lot but appears to be the fastest thing overall. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong here, but I am just getting started. Oh, and about the very short hop at the end of the level - the white flying enemy that goes for Alisia's legs would hit if I didnt jump, but coincidentally I am able to take it out on the frame just after the jump animation starts. Alisia's legs move back on the first few jumping frames, allowing the space to avoid being hit. I only need to hold C for three frames here to achieve this. EDIT: I completely redid the first section of Stage 1, and managed to reduce the lag down to 1 frame. With the amount of enemies on screen at the end part of that stage, I dont think its possible to reduce it further than that. I also managed to speed up the level itself by a few frames from my last attempt. I wont be publicly releasing any more videos until it is completed, but I am definitely going to continue working on this now. Stay tuned!

Posted: 5/16/2009 8:17 PM

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Toothache

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Active player (276)

Joined: 4/30/2009
Posts: 791

I have just started working on a TAS of Alisia Dragoon. I figured rather than starting a new topic about this game, I would revive this old topic. It seems that a lot of groundwork has been done already, which will help me in the long run. Anyway, since this is also my first TAS, any assistance will be greatly appreciated. I have only done the first stage for now, I'm planning which powerups to go for for the second part of level 1, since they are fairly out of the way. The first part is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DG5fniUu44 I recorded this using Gens11a, on the U version of the ROM.

Posted: 5/16/2009 2:35 PM

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Toothache

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Active player (276)

Joined: 4/30/2009
Posts: 791

Posting to add my support to this, and once this is useable I will consider working on a game I definitely want to see a TAS of - Story of Thor 2 (otherwise known as Beyond Oasis in US land).

Posted: 5/10/2009 11:00 AM

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Toothache

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Active player (276)

Joined: 4/30/2009
Posts: 791

I think it is possible to run from Dialga/Palkia, if you're not going to capture it or are unable to OHKO then it might be worth considering for time saving purposes (unless you badly need the exp or something). Bear in mind that the IVs/natures are generated with the same PID methods used in the GBA games, it is possible to get the IVs that you want on a specific frame each time. However there are more factors involved, mainly reliance on the DS's internal clock. It is much harder to pinpoint, since unlike Emerald where the games always give the same IV/nature at a specific frame every time after resetting, there is no such common reference point to rely on. However, if you're aiming to get high IVs for a starter, Machoke or Dialga/Palkia (depending on which you choose to use), it is somewhat easier than it might first appear. If you want more info this is a good resource to explain better what I'm referring to: http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=45097