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Posted: 5/19/2011 7:12 PM
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TheAxeMan
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All right, here is the WIP up to Swan. Now 79 seconds ahead of the test run and over 6 minutes ahead of published run. http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/806877994/Crystalis-Final-toSwan.fm2 Saved a lot of grinding in the waterfall cave with many tricks to get more xp faster. Earlier I talked about how random and laggy those enemies can be. Turn on the lag counter to see how I was able to do in the end and compare to other runs. This took a lot of planning and work. Compared to the earlier part of the run there is now much heavier luck manipulation. In the caves I messed around with a lot of different flows that would have different enemies spawning. In the end I settled on this flow that gets about the same xp as in the test run but a few seconds faster. I planned out when I needed to reach certain points or wait at certain points to make enemies spawn and used extra time to cut lag. On the Angry Sea I saved a lot of time by unequipping the flute. Using the level 2 and 3 fire attacks really capitalizes on this. The level 3 firestorm saves about half a second on each octopus and I skip one because it's faster to just take out an extra turtle. I have just enough MP in the budget to use this three times. Near the end you'll see a new trick I call "dolphin warp". You can see the dolphin disappear and reappear in tmont's run. With a few tweaks to your movement you can make him reappear just about anywhere. This saves time because the dolphin moves so much faster. It also stops the ghetto flight mp drain, allowing me to do one more firestorm attack.
Posted: 5/18/2011 9:50 PM
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TheAxeMan
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Great find. Happy scripting! Have you reexamined anything that you thought may have been too tough to manipulate before? It sounds like this just helps give you more ways to manipulate faster but is it possible that it could open any other options?
Posted: 4/30/2011 11:11 PM
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TheAxeMan
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In my movie I move north and west. The steps north move me where I want to go, making up for the steps out of the way.
Posted: 4/30/2011 4:24 PM
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TheAxeMan
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Very impressive. Extremely good luck manipulation, and that is the key. The whole reason for keeping the princess alive is because it is so difficult to make Malroth miss. A lot of the improvements come from not needing the princess alive at all. There are also a lot of general improvements from better luck manipulation in battles. The enemies all spawn with a random factor in their hp. He gets it low enough to kill the gremlins and ozwargs in one hit. One problem with going solo in the U version is that the slower text makes buying and using medical herbs much slower. The princess healing magic is faster. The swamp damage difference in the beginning got him down to 4 hp instead of 2, but that's enough to die one hit. He gets the mirror of Ra faster by taking less damage in the swamp and more damage in battle. Getting the moon crest after life is also affected by not having princess. That xp was necessary to get her on a high enough level to get surround. Without the princess leaching xp he is able to get to a higher level with less fighting. So really a lot of this hinges on being able to solo Malroth. He does this by dodging Malroth's attacks but another possibility is using light sword to get the same effect as surround. Problem is that it costs a lot of gold. Anyway, thanks for posting this.
Posted: 4/29/2011 2:42 PM
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TheAxeMan
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Wow, that's pretty fast. While it's clear that you aren't resetting immediately after saving, the delays don't feel long at all. It took me a second to think about it when you started walking backwards though. Very nice, I hope the rest of the game turns out this well. Does vbm support comments? It would be really nice to know what you are getting after each battle since there is no in-game feedback without going to the status screen.
Posted: 4/24/2011 4:34 PM
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TheAxeMan
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This does look a little better. I hope you can do much better on luck manipulation. Some of the fights are really long and it gets pretty slow at the end. The plot and world are more interesting to me than the fights just because they are so long and tedious. In the battle with three goblins that took the ship, it looks like you start off using a mid arrow on each of them. Why not concentrate and take down one of them at a time?
Posted: 4/21/2011 3:59 PM
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TheAxeMan
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Cool, I hope this gets finished. When I made the current published run I didn't have a lag counter. If you keep an eye on that you should be able to keep gaining time. I don't think it should be tough to match otherwise.
Posted: 4/20/2011 12:23 PM
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TheAxeMan
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I have everything planned out pretty closely up to Swan. I tried lots of different things through the caves and finally settled on something that gets the xp I need pretty fast, at least a few seconds faster than test run. After discovering the thing about unequipping the flute I had to try out a few more things. Also got some other interesting ideas and found a new trick I'll keep for a surprise. So it'll just take some time to tweak the lag as I play out the final cut through here. I'll post a WIP when I get to Swan.
Posted: 4/15/2011 4:48 AM
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TheAxeMan
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http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php Go there and upload your file. I am looking forward to seeing this!
Posted: 3/28/2011 4:50 PM
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TheAxeMan
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It was wrong of me to suggest that theAxeman is putting in more time in his run than tmont did, especially considering the tools that are/were available to them. For all I know, it's not true.
No, I am definitely putting in more time on this. The game mechanics are very complex and it is really heavy on planning and analysis so only a fraction of the time is actually spent playing the run. I have written a few hundred lines of lua, lots of notes and a few spreadsheets and optimization scripts. The point I was trying to make is that it would have been pointless to put this kind of time in before. This sort of analysis wouldn't have been possible. Without proper insight into the mechanics you could spend an eternity messing around and never come close to what I have now. So it's not a matter of time. It used to be that if a submission beat the current run it would be accepted without much question. Now if a run has as many known improvements as this one it would be rejected. That's how it should be. When you make a TAS you shouldn't just be aiming to beat the current record, you should be aiming for perfection.
Posted: 3/28/2011 11:25 AM
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TheAxeMan
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I missed it before because it seems that all the other items do a full "Nothing happens" message instead of a more subtle frame of lag. Anyway, it was really tmont who caught it and I am just picking it up from him. So thanks, tmont.
Posted: 3/28/2011 10:33 AM
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TheAxeMan
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I just figured out one optimization tmont did that I never noticed before. He unequips the shell flute in the sea to cut lag. I had noticed there was extra lag on sword swings on the dolphin but I didn't connect it to the flute. Good thing I checked back on tmont's run through this section. Even though I'll need to go to the menu just to do that it will still save a few seconds seconds overall. Tmont's run is pretty old now and the site standards were quite a bit more lax back then. The FCEU he did it on probably didn't even have a lag counter much less all the lua functions and debuggers that I am using heavily. While it's easy to notice that it's improvable it is much, much more difficult to make a run that can't be improved. It is very time-consuming too. So you can't blame him for doing it the way he did. Anyway, I have finished planning things up through the sea. I expect to pick up about 10 seconds more over my test run here. It's coming together quite nicely.
Posted: 3/27/2011 5:12 PM
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TheAxeMan
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For names I think either single letter or tribute names are fine. If you go with single letters make them different though. That will be enough to have some idea what is going on.
Posted: 3/26/2011 1:07 AM
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TheAxeMan
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Overall it looks like a well optimized run on a long and repetitive game. One thought on a possible improvement. It seems that you are able to take so much damage that there was no need to think about hp management. But the lag gets worse when you take damage. Did you consider that in some cases you could go a little out of your way to avoid damage and maybe come out ahead in overall time? Could you get less lag by killing more enemies? There might be some initial lag due to death animation but overall improvement. None of these probably make a big difference though.
Posted: 3/13/2011 4:52 AM
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TheAxeMan
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All right, I've finally got a good result up to entering the Kirisa Cave. I knew I was going to gain time here but I was surprised how well I was able to do. I'm now over a minute ahead of the test run. I'll post another WIP when I get a little further. It's going to be much easier going for a while so I should make progress faster.
Posted: 3/10/2011 1:19 AM
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TheAxeMan
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I think you are right. Now that I look at the actual game, it's clearly a flash game made to look like an NES game. Too bad. Edit: All right, here's a little more. Yahoo is a great place to get news headlines but their research isn't very deep. http://www.nesplayer.com/interviews/greatgatsby/index.htm So yes, it's just a flash game and the authors made up the yard sale story for some well-deserved publicity. A very interesting story but no NES rom is involved.
Posted: 3/9/2011 6:45 PM
Post subject: The Great Gatsby
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TheAxeMan
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/digitaltrends/20110216/tc_digitaltrends/thegreatgatsbygetsthenintendotreatment Has anyone ever heard of this? Looks like another unreleased game like Earthbound Zero. There is significant history here because The Great Gatsby was written by F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife's name was the source for the name for a famous video game heroine.
Posted: 2/27/2011 7:18 AM
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TheAxeMan
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Hmm, I can see how this might seem a little repetitive with mostly only two of four activities done. But I think there's enough content for a 20-minute run here. I don't think the light plane missions would add much to this run. The methodology is interesting and there are some interesting maneuvers. I think it's worth publishing.
Posted: 2/27/2011 5:39 AM
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TheAxeMan
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Incredibly awesome and unexpected run. The planning and execution is very good. Can't blame you for not being interested in a warpless run. I'm sure you can make some big improvements but it would still be long and borderline interesting to watch.
Posted: 2/23/2011 10:48 PM
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TheAxeMan
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Awesome! Thanks for posting your test run. If you are already working on the improvement then no need to submit this one. Edit: Ok, watched this. Spectacular, that new glitch is really powerful. Everything looks very well optimized too, with the enemies going right where you want them most of the time. Is it necessary to get 'The Man' to follow you in Marsh Cave? Do his shots help out that much or is there any other reason? Of course his presence in the final battle is quite entertaining for those of us who know the game. :)
Posted: 2/22/2011 9:32 PM
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TheAxeMan
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Yeah, the leveling makes this game much more complicated and interesting to TAS than your average platformer. I use lots of different methods to figure out how things work. I've known about that RNG for a while, it is used for many different purposes. I display the seed onscreen with lua so I know when it changes. There's also a table with all the enemy data including HP, location and more that includes the direction and count entries. Most enemies use those entries too, but they pick their direction based on the relative location of the player. Playing with the RAM hex editor can tell you a lot. What does it do when you tweak that value that seems to be involved? When I really want to know the details I run the tracelogger or debugger. Tracing assembly code can sometimes be challenging but nothing is more authoritative than the actual code.
Posted: 2/22/2011 6:31 PM
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TheAxeMan
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Thought I'd give an update and some interesting information. I'm currently putting together the final cut of the waterfall cave. I've got everything planned pretty closely up to entering the Kirisa cave since that's when I need to get my next levelup. Looks like I might gain 15 seconds over the test run in this span. The waterfall cave is probably going to be one of the toughest sections to optimize because the enemies there are really laggy and really random. In order to minimize lag and time I need to manipulate them pretty closely. It turns out that I can almost completely eliminate lag, saving several seconds, but it takes a lot of work. I've also worked out a few tricks that let me pick up xp in other areas so I don't need to spend as long grinding. Not really sure whether those enemies are supposed to be medusas or lamias. They sort of look halfway in between. Anyway, their AI is more random than most enemies. It uses the RNG counter located at $000E. They pick two random numbers. One determines the direction they move and the other is a counter that determines how far they move. When the counter runs out or they bump into a wall, they pick two more numbers and repeat. Unlike most enemies they are moving even when offscreen and continue to grab random numbers. This is significant because I have to worry about some of them running too far off. Now their shots are also controlled by the same RNG. Every so often, each onscreen enemy will grab a random number and may shoot depending on that number. If there are multiple enemies onscreen I really don't want them to shoot because it will lag badly. But in other cases it can be favorable. So there are several ways I can change my luck. When they are being knocked back from a hit they skip the check to shoot. Also, their movement counter keeps counting when they are in knockback. If it reaches 0 it will roll over to 255. They will keep going the same direction and not pick randomly. This works even if the hit doesn't damage them. This is really useful to make them keep moving in one direction for a while. Finally, I can tweak how I scroll the screen to affect whether or not they grab RNGs to shoot and I can hit them to change the timing of when they bump into a wall. I've got a lot of knobs to control things but there are also a lot of variables. Plus throughout the whole sequence all spawned enemies are constantly moving. So it is taking some time to optimize but the result is going to be worth it.
Posted: 2/17/2011 8:17 AM
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TheAxeMan
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In general everything here can be done on console! I doubt this is any different. You can figure out more by playing the run in the emulator. Display the controller input to see exactly what Scumtron is pressing here. This run was originally made on FCEU so the input is fcm format. The current version of FCEUX has an automatic converter and the result syncs for me. This is pretty easy to do but if you don't want to bother, here's my analysis: Scumtron has commented that moving to the right before this is necessary to get the screen to move to the left. Also, he is pressing left+up+down to move left faster in midair. So you couldn't do this with most normal NES controllers.
Posted: 2/15/2011 8:00 AM
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TheAxeMan
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Cool, one of my favorite games. Looks very good, the magic of the southern cross is clearly on your side.
Posted: 2/12/2011 6:04 AM
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TheAxeMan
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This is pretty badass. My game suggestions: Any of the Ninja Gaiden games - They have no lag Final Fantasy - But all of my runs use power cycle for luck manipulation so you'd have to segment.
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