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Derakon wrote:
The password here is basically a stand-in for a save. We've had similar arguments before; generally people have said that once you've "unlocked" a password (i.e. seen it in-game from a clean start), you're free to reset the game and use that password. What you shouldn't do is use passwords that you haven't seen yet.
You are right (just like ais523). I won't abuse it in my TAS.
Btw this is what happens after you kill Kraid (distributed through 2 frames):
#1 Kraid died flag
#1 24 second timer added
#2 75 missiles added
However I wonder if your (Derakon's) "idea" is also valid if the password would be shown in the memory. In Metroid's case, it's only calculated when the game returns to "MainRoutine" (when the password shown).
And what about further exploiting the "TAS universe" analogy somewhere from the "initial state ram" thread?. Obviously I know that after kraid dies, I will get a password using in-game reset. Let's say I made the TAS, the next time I rerecord it (same input), I will know what will be the password (since I experienced in that universe). So I could (hardware) reset the game and insert that password I will get. It will be obviously a "not right" password (checksum, in-game time differences compared to what I should get with calling the MainRoutine at that time), but this also could be fixed since password generation is disassembled and known.
About my TASing progress: more than 50% done (start ~ after ice beam got), currently revisiting the whole TAS. Currently 231 frames faster.
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jlun2 wrote:
What does the current run do?
Kills kraid, music starts, 24 seconds wait, uses in-game reset, password shown and started. (kraid killed, 75 missiles, etc)
Using in-game reset earlier (before music starts) doesn't gives you the "kraid died, 75 missiles" thing.
So killing Kraid, "reset" button and writing in the password would be faster, but technically it could be considered as cheating.
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Currently the published and my WIP uses the P1 "T", P2 "A U" combo to show the password and "initiate" it (start it).
To get the "kraid died, have missile" password, I need to wait ~1 (kraid dies) + 24 (in-game delay timer) seconds.
So... would it be eligible to...
1 - Save the password from the aforementioned place (frame ~6986)
2 - Remove these frames (~25*60) and reset the game (using reset) (frame ~5488)
3 - Input password (few frames)
Obviously this saves time, however it would look so fake... while Kraid object really dies once his health drops to 0, the flag "Kraid's dead" activates after the 24 second delay (music thingy).
I'm not sure is it "pathetic" to reset the game once Kraid object is dead (but not flag) and reset the game to input a password that will actually give me the Kraid flag activated which would also happen if I would just wait 24 seconds.
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I've started to examine LordTom's last published any% TAS and already tested a few things.
I believe the GameResource page is pretty outdated and I didn't found any mentions about movement speed trick/glitch.
There's a weird movement system in this game that allows you to change direction on specific frames without losing speed with decreasing the sub x speeds (exponential/linear). This is good since,
1. You can get a different luck (at least I got magical lag frame reduction while all enemy spawns were the same)
2. You can exit doors faster (but your pos can be worse if you press at wrong time)
This isn't abused in any of the Metroid TASes, am I right?
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mklip2001 wrote:
I was also a little disappointed to see effectively no change in the route, but that's the way it has to be.
Maximus' route is effectively skips everything that's unneccessary (domes, side quests for popularity, mystic objects, Staff of Ra). Domes needs much more time and no benefits (other than completion %), popularity is not required, Staff of Ra needs full popularity and takes more time than it helps.
mklip2001 wrote:
The fights look especially quick this time. However, I have one question: why isn't it faster to have Goliath keep charging the same side of the stage each time? You make him change sides each time, and it seems he travels a long distance to do that.
And goliath also gets bigger speed and won't make other action if I avoid him. First hit is 80 frames faster than going to right to make only "one side" battle. Second hit is 126 frames faster than going back to same "one side". It's faster to do like this (I also manipulated him to come to me as soon as possible)
mklip2001 wrote:
However, my brain has not exploded with amusement, like if I'd been strapped to a chair watching game shows. It's a fairly good run, but I'm going to have to go with Meh for entertainment. If there were any other category of a Nightshade run that led to more humor while still having good pacing, I'd be interested to hear about it.
The ninja girls are cocky, well yes, you need very good reaction and reading speed to read them since I close them as soon as possible (except maybe 2 ones to save 1-3 frames).
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mklip2001 wrote:
I was quite surprised by how smooth this looked, and then I realized there were way fewer enemies than normal. You did a great job with spawn abuse. The hobo boss fight and the final boss were also quite noticeably different.
Good job!
Thanks! I've also tried to make it entertaining (cat killing, ladder drops, level 2, random fists), but I didn't had much place for it.
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Please replace the movie file with http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/10271330243602333. Only the ROM name changed (and possibly the GUID, checksum)
As adelikat says, the ROM I used have a wrong header, so FCEUX 2.2.2 can't play it back properly while BizHawk 1.5.1 uses bootgod db to decide which header to use.
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zeromus wrote:
Regarding meshuggah's suggestion to somehow study the NES ram startup state... first of all, thats been done by someone sometime I'm sure, and second of all, its meaningless. It's known to be bizarre, variable, and unpredictable, IIRC, and there is no correct answer. We select a pattern, deterministically, which is most advantageous for our purposes--which results in the fewest possible glitching games. This situation is already well-decided.
Any links? references? All I found were only Action 53 mapper tests and other memory tests.
"Goofy" values and "bizarre" words means (for me) that nobody knows exactly which but "some possibilities should work".
So, does all combinations could be possible for initial RAM state or there are values that doesn't ever happen to be?
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AnS wrote:
Also, wait, didn't the guy actually beat the last boss on this video?
He did (edit: and used original version), and the comments also mentions it's possible to start the level 6 (glitched too) with resetting, not sure it was mentioned already.
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What about the "each copy works differently" (Post #357537)?
"As stated by Zeromus, it is known that registers can start up in goofy values." -> All values are possible? Any way to check that? Yes, I read "Because it is the only combination that yields a playable game starting at level 5." but that doesn't proves it would work on all copies (if they are really different).
And how do you know that only these addresses are required to pull this off? Is it possible to rebuild a cart using this ROM and mapper while somehow (still have 0 experience on cartridges/mappers) force the same values you used everytime it powers up to bring the same state this TAS does?
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Finally the submission arrived =)
Let me summarize some things we already know/discussed:
About the NES Cheetahmen II cart:
- Because of the mapper, you can abuse the same thing adelikat did with simply pressing the power on button, references: FAQ (End of V section) and Youtube video (no initial footage). It worths mentions that changing the ROM is unnecessary.
- (from BootlegGames wiki:) "Due to how messed up the game is, each copy works differently. This being probably because of how each copy is made differently with the soldering, etc. After all, it most likely isn't made with a machine, instead most likely by hand."
About the NES:
- RAM initialization is different than the original NES and the emulators we have
- Probably the PPU/CPU cycle difference also could change this behaviour
- As far as I know, the different revisions of NES' also could have different effect
So there's a lot of things that would be required to verifiy this phenomen. It's already known that you can go to level 5 with resetting the game. If the two sources I added are "reliable", it would mean you can do it with only power on.
Since I have no idea how mappers works nor the differences between each NES, I just approve the aforementioned idea of making a CART (no powerpak) to dump out memory (checksum / only part of it) on various NES and emulators to see the difference of RAM initialization. Ah, and check what values the mapper really loads in / changes / uses.
Once we know the RAM initialization of the real NES (systems) and what values the game uses (that manipulatable by powering on / reset), I (will) totally see this TAS legit. Until then, it's just a possibility surrounded with mist.
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Ferret Warlord wrote:
I need to ask, what is it about the movement tracking object in level three that requires you to pause and backtrack some? Without that knowledge, those movements are really baffling.
Third level's "dimension change" is timed, so whenever I can't pick more collectables, I move variously so I can dance with it. Whenever it looks like I miss a collectable it's because I can get it in the next dimension change. I'm 100% sure that it's unimprovable.
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Looks like you really did a lot of hard work already Svimmer, I wish you success to pull this thing out.
I know it's a so late now, and I don't know if it's already mentioned, but I still think it would be better to make a compilation of the previous yearly Wiki: Awards first, or at least just one try so you will get more ideas and will be more sure you don't forget anything you need for this tremendous project.
These awards has something around 14~21 movies per years, so it wouldn't take away too much time.
edit: whoops, submit instead preview
edit2: and some random ideas: a full TAS during the credits (we have a lot of sub 30 sec TASes) and subtitles encoded for various TASes
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I don't remember what I wrote about the toads obsoletions, but I think that [1920] NES Battletoads "warps, 2 players" by feos & MESHUGGAH in 11:04.72 should be removed from obsoletion chain. What is the boundary when a movie is considered as "glitched" while it just uses it's own "warp" to go further more in the game? It's one of my favourite NES TASes I ever worked on (not so much since feos did 90% of the work), and it definitely has its own merit that absolutely missing from any other Battletoads TASEs.
Now if I compare it with the warpless ones...........
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Here's the lengths of picking a letter from a previous letter:
(yellow notes starting position)
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AqMjARkWFsmedGNUVExYaEdJLTFCSzJtTGE5VktYbFE&usp=sharing
It's basically 8 + distance between the letters and + 44 when going through Z. However I didn't proof checked it, but it's correct enough.
I've also uploaded the WIP (unfortunately, I couldn't manipulate the 3 frames save on the spin wheel, maybe because it's time is puzzle related?)
http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/9624287711530343
If we would make a lua script that solves all the puzzles and use it as a savestate, I think all the puzzles (except WheelOfFortune for sure and maybe some of from the last ones) could be manipulated and would save much more time than my WIP.
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I've actually didn't debugged anything just used http://bmf.rustedlogic.net/oldboard/thread.php?id=88 to dump the word list. Later I found that Round 1, Round 2 and final round shares the same set of puzzles (around ~100 unique) while Round 3 uses 50~70 other ones too.
Currently I'm using the fastest available puzzles (dumped the list, calculated the frames spent to select letters, however I think I miscalculated some), in order of rounds:
- Round 1 - Monocle (1544)
- Round 2 - Chestnut (1589)
- Round 3 - Aaron Burr (1686 but I select a letter)
- Round 4 - Barnyard (1589 but I select a letter)
I need to remanipulate a 3 frame save on the wheel spin and I will upload it. Probably ends in 7875.
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This movie finishes the first level probably 48 frames faster than published [2272] NES Sword Master by ventuz in 05:14.70
I won't continue this on my own (boring jump optimizations), but it's easy with the lua script to see when you lose speed. I'm looking for someone to continue it (co-authors).
Jumping is 1.5px/f while walking is 1.0px/f
When you attack, you will have 0 speed for 1 frame. Attack when you get 1px/f (so you sacrifice the lowest ammount of position)
You can jump 3 times in a row
Fights are optimized for sure
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You are using "suboptimal" words. Also you start the game much later. My WIP ends first round in 2354 versus your 2840 using the MONOCLE word.
It's probably the 3rd "fastest" puzzle (in terms of frames spent on selecting the proper letters and the time spent on showing the tiles) of all but I think not all of them are manipulatable to this "no computer, single player" mode.
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TASeditor wrote:
This is some interesting gameplay. Only if there would be more levels... so no vote.
Thanks for commenting. The main purpose of submitting this was to get feedback about the game, since I actually don't find it exciting/entertaining.
The main game has 6 (or 7?) worlds, each world has 5 levels. This extra world has 6 levels and the 4th level unassisted would be really challenging (and probably much slower because of lava), while the 5th and 6th level is only hard because of the game breaking glitches I wrote in the submission text. You need to be very careful to avoid those idiot glitches (jumping into to the wall with the duo partner dies is the most unexpected thing that happens very easily on last level).
I hope the main run won't have the same problem's other side (too much levels)
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Lidnariq (who ported the [2340] NES Driar by MESHUGGAH in 05:14.45 to NROM) was kind enough to verify my L+R glitch that makes a "fixed left step" which saves 1 frame when picking up stars on the left side and also explained it to me.
NES MC Kids has a detailed source code if I'm right and the developers also made tutorials on different approaches of implementing physics in to platformer games and how the achieved it and what they had to look after.
Regarding asking the developer to check a video where they game is being destroyed by someone (I mean heavy glitches), I'm not sure that everyone will react with "Wow, very nice job" but "this isn't the way it's meant to be played".
For example, Valve/Gearbox/Turtle Rock Studios and mostly those companies that used to buy other game engine sources and modify it to their tastes are not that happy when there's a game breaking glitch. There are many 0 day exploits that I've already explained to them and even wrote solutions but the answer is either "Soon™" or a generic "Yes we know about that" and end of story. One of my 0 day exploit is 9 (!) years old and it's still working (a simple DoS to crash Half-Life TV).
However most of the times the developers are kind enough and actually gives out unreleased informations if you tell them why do you ask it and how will you use it. And if they still have that information of course.
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