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Posted: 3/7/2010 6:37 AM
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TheAxeMan
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It looks like there were problems with desyncs and I wasn't sure if that was taken care of. Perhaps it would be a good idea to add some sort of note in the FCEUX configuration options that old PPU is recommended.
Posted: 3/7/2010 2:39 AM
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TheAxeMan
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Ok, I see. Thanks, sgrunt.
Posted: 3/6/2010 3:36 AM
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TheAxeMan
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What's the status on new PPU? Should I use it in my run? I noticed that Acmlm used it on Dragon Warrior.
Posted: 3/6/2010 2:08 AM
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TheAxeMan
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Thanks Hamm and others. Previous runs were mostly pretty good on bosses, but knowing more about the game engine and being able to see hitboxes let me improve some of them quite a bit. I also have better knowledge of how to manipulate luck but this is actually only important in a few cases. But I think it is ironic that people are going to mainly notice the boss fights are faster when the vast majority of the improvement comes from faster grinding and better experience management. The improved big dragon fight actually required several discoveries. First was that you can stab him. But pulling this off required another discovery. The problem is that the barrier spell flickers every eighth frame, but his lasers are firing constantly. So you have to keep moving because you can't stand directly in the laser path for long. Second was manipulating him to use his lasers immediately. The trick is to take damage on his human form before using the bow of truth. When you manipulate the lasers this way he doesn't stay vulnerable as long and it's just short of the time I need to kill him. But it's possible to manipulate two laser attacks in a row, easily long enough to finish him. In theory, if you could beat his human form you could skip the dragon form. You would also not need the bow of truth and could skip the first pyramid dungeon. But the code making him invincible is quite robust. Hits register, but his hp is regenerated to its max of 255 every frame. But in this game enemies die when their hp becomes less than 0 (technically, when hp-damage sets the carry/borrow bit). So even if you could do the max damage of 255 it wouldn't kill him in shot and his hp will recover the next frame. Both Mado fights make use of lots of knowledge about hit detection, hitboxes, movement and other aspects of the engine. In the second fight I could have beaten him about half a second faster, but letting the fight go slightly longer changed luck in the next section to help spawn more enemies. Since I don't need the blizzard bracelet I can fly to Amazones later, saving time vs building a bridge. The first fight against Draygon is actually slightly longer because I used the less powerful water sword. This saves time overall because it avoids an inventory trip. Draygon's human form has different hit detection than any other enemy; he can be hit every other frame instead of every eighth frame. So it only takes about 20 frames longer to beat him with water sword instead of thunder sword, less time than it would take to switch swords. At the very end I manipulate DYNA to use a much less laggy laser attack. The shots that come out of Crystalis in that fight are different from other sword attacks which allows me to get a shot off before the boss even appears. Just before this I also skip the last message. Strangely, level 1 charged shots from the thunder sword are actually less powerful than melee stabs. For all other swords, the shots are slightly more powerful. Also, the thunder sword's shots lag quite a bit, even on level 1. But the shots are so convenient that the lag is often worthwhile. It's pretty easy to get two hits with one shot. This is the key to grinding up the spiders much faster. For a TAS the level 2 water sword shot is very nice. It usually doesn't lag and it has a huge hitbox that can hit most enemies twice. edit: By the way, the immediate benefit of a damage boost is only about 10 frames. It's also hard to line up because the direction you are pushed is determined by what way the enemies are facing. Many enemies are programmed to meander towards you and so they aren't facing the right way. Some enemies move completely randomly though. I'm generally only interested in damage boosts when it has some other benefit like letting me keep up with a boss to kill him faster or reach a breakpoint in spawning something. It turned out that I only needed one damage boost on the first Mado fight but it looks like two might be better for most cases. There are other places I'd like to damage boost but I have bad luck. It seems like a huge portion of enemies can give you a status ailment and that needs to be manipulated. At the end I take damage right after sending the final shot to DYNA because it reduces lag.
Posted: 3/5/2010 8:42 PM
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TheAxeMan
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You need two characters to power-level, but the second char can be killed off afterward. However, I think it might be good to keep two chars alive. Two chars could use wall and then the murder spell to end boss fights in one turn. So the boss doesn't get a chance to attack. Also, battle skips require healing and two chars can get more hp to lose and more mp to use cure. Depending on how well luck can be manipulated, it may not be necessary to power up shields. It shouldn't be difficult to keep the wall level high enough. If you really have to you can also unlearn and relearn the murder spell to reset its level.
Posted: 3/5/2010 7:48 PM
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TheAxeMan
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Shoot, accidentally uploaded an incomplete version of that first part. This one should be the right one. And microstorage agrees. http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/563862445/Crystalis-test1.fm2 (I also edited the link in my earlier post) If you take the input section of part 2 and put it at the end of this you should be able to get the full run in one fm2. Should be 154564 frames, 42:56.
Posted: 3/5/2010 11:31 AM
(Edited: 3/5/2010 7:50 PM)
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TheAxeMan
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Ok, test run is completed. Got it under 43 minutes, beating the old WW run and beating the published run by over 9 minutes. http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/563862445/Crystalis-test1.fm2 http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1136653041/Crystalis-test2.fm2 My new special grinding technique is in the Styx cave on Mt Hydra. Otherwise I use the same locations to grind but do it much more efficiently. Look for the new glitch after grinding on the spiders in the fortress. Another point of interest are both fights with Mado. In a strange glitch, I'm able to skip some dialog after getting the thunder sword but end up having to see it later when I fight Mado in that room. I kept finding speedups through the end. The big dragon boss fight is 15 seconds faster by using a special technique to manipulate his laser attack. The tower area at the end seems pretty straightforward, but even there I found enough changes to speed it up by 15 sec. In the second half I did a lot more work on managing experience. This saves a ton of time and cuts down on grinding. In fact, a large portion of the time saved is cut directly from time spent grinding. Needed two files due to file size. But I can cut file size in half by disabling controller 2. For some reason it didn't work when I tried to hack this with a text editor. I'll remember this for the final run. You can combine these two files into one in a text editor. Go to frame 86511 in the first one and delete everything after that. Then paste the input from the second one. Make sure you have "old PPU" set, otherwise it will desync.
Posted: 2/27/2010 8:06 AM
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TheAxeMan
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Although the hitboxes themselves are only in temporary memory, at some point they must be derived from more persistent data. Figure out how the hitboxes are generated from this data. Then put that logic in your script. For Crystalis, I look at enemy location and type data in RAM and then pull the hitbox offsets from the ROM. This gives me the info I need to generate hitboxes. It's probably similar for other games.
Posted: 2/26/2010 3:53 AM
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TheAxeMan
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It's interesting enough to vote yes. A bit long and boring to actually watch though.
Posted: 2/24/2010 2:08 AM
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TheAxeMan
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I once did a little research on the original NES game and found two ways to skip battles: -Save, power cycle, reload -Heal someone These both reset a counter that determines when you enter battle. But I don't know if it works on DoS version.
Posted: 2/22/2010 1:58 AM
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TheAxeMan
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Yes, I am still working on this. Almost done with my test run and then I will post it. I discovered a new glitch that will save about 40 sec but doesn't affect the route. I've been doing lots of analysis on how to get the xp as fast as possible. Time spent grinding is going to be cut by about half, maybe more. In thanks for checking up on me, I'll give away a couple teasers. First, I will not be obtaining the blizzard or thunder bracelet as those bosses can be killed faster without them (less lag). Second, the skeletons that appear in Karmine's area near the end of the Goa fortress usually fall apart when you hit them, making it time-consuming to kill them. But paralysis prevents this and helps me get some more xp from them.
Posted: 12/21/2009 8:52 AM
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TheAxeMan
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I am making progress on this, just reached Swan. I'll hold off on WIPs for now. Tried quite a few different things but in the end my route is pretty much the same as in the published run in this stretch. But I was able to speed things up by about 83 seconds for a total of 5.5 minutes. Most of that is due to grinding much faster, but there's also improvements in management of items and experience. One thing I don't think has ever been mentioned is that there are other second-controller cheats. B button pauses and this could be used to get the same effect that let me glitch up the ice slope, but take less time than the regular select button pause. It only takes 5 frames instead of 45 so it could be used to manipulate enemies. But I am assuming that this goes in the same category as the better-known wild warp so I am ignoring it.
Posted: 12/21/2009 8:34 AM
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TheAxeMan
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This looks pretty solid, I'll give it a yes. Though simple I think it's entertaining enough for a 10-minute run.
Posted: 12/21/2009 8:32 AM
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TheAxeMan
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Glad you found my coordinate view script useful. It sounds like you have learned a lot of new things. Unfortunately I might not get a chance to watch this for a while. Did you ever get to try leveling all the way before entering Nockmaar so that you don't have leave for Fin Raziel and come back? Edit: Ah, just noticed that you answered this question in the Willow thread.
Posted: 12/3/2009 4:06 AM
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TheAxeMan
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Keep it up! This is extremely impressive given the limits on luck manipulation. Runs with optimized grinding are clearly not fan favorites on this site but I think that a lot of people are still interested in this.
Posted: 11/14/2009 9:13 PM
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TheAxeMan
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Very interesting. Did you look at the assembly code that calculates damage or just run lots of tests and put the data in a spreadsheet? You could probably figure out all the oddities if you look at the code. I highly recommend using lua to draw hitboxes. It will take some work but should be extremely valuable in this type of game.
Posted: 11/7/2009 6:07 AM
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TheAxeMan
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Thanks tmont. Before figuring out the full skip of Leaf I had also discovered that you don't need to actually blow away the wall by Zebu. There's a trigger spot just north of the wall. Pretty much every level 2 fire sword shot is done in a fire-and-forget style to get extra xp from the spiders. I did this when it worked out better than pushing them along my path. Depending on the circumstances it's sometimes only 5-10 frames of lag which works out better than going more than a few steps out of the way.
Posted: 11/6/2009 3:59 AM
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TheAxeMan
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Hmm, beating the WW run would be fun. But I don't think there's quite as much room for improvement from here on out. I do have a few tricks left though so we'll see what happens.
Posted: 11/5/2009 8:08 AM
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TheAxeMan
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http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/721022047/Crystalis-test1.fm2 Next WIP installment. This finishes the Mt Sabre areas and reaches Portoa. Thanks to several new glitches I save even more time and I'm now about 4 minutes ahead of the published run. If you watched the last one I posted, there are some changes starting at getting the fire sword. The new route on Mt Sabre N is completely different from any other run at this game. The method used to grind for experience there is almost as efficient as the two enemies used in the current run. With the new route, that spot is too far out of the way. Second change is sparing the people of Leaf from getting kidnapped. Usually you get stopped from climbing the mountain before triggering this. But it turns out there's a hole in the invisible barrier that stops you. If you watch closely just after I enter Mt. Sabre N you'll see me avoiding it. It's pretty easy to do if you can see it. This glitches things such that the jails at the top of mountain are empty! I have to unlock them anyway to get through. Finally, I reveal a better way to execute the sword-charge glitch. You don't have to die. It's quite a bit faster to simply reset. This is easy to miss because I hit reset before the savegame noise chimes.
Posted: 10/30/2009 6:27 AM
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TheAxeMan
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If you are asking about weapon level, it is displayed on the screen all the time. The gun powerups increase it and the inverse gun powerups decrease it.
Posted: 10/29/2009 6:51 AM
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TheAxeMan
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To use the batarang you would want to build up your weapon level so you could have multiple shots in the air at once. I think you can get at least 4 or so before the boss. Then you can set up your shots so that they hit on both passes over the boss. Even simple looking games have lots of things to think about in a TAS.
Posted: 10/27/2009 3:55 AM
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TheAxeMan
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This was a game I had. I think it's entertaining enough for a 10-minute TAS. Could you explain your weapon choices? You use mainly P and S. I forget but I think R might be stronger. Then there's T. On the platform bosses, your shots don't damage him when he's flashing. But you just keep firing anyway. That's why I say R and T might be better. You can also do more damage with head shots. With R you would want to make sure to build up your weapon level to have more shots around. On the shooter bosses, is it necessary to get hit? It might look classier if you don't get hit unnecessarily. But otherwise you kept me interested enough through the forced scroll levels.
Posted: 10/24/2009 4:24 PM
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TheAxeMan
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Cool, sounds like you have it figured out. Don't feel bad about taking your time. The goal is for the run to finish the game as fast as possible, not for you to finish the run as fast as possible. :)
Posted: 10/22/2009 4:43 AM
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TheAxeMan
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Oh man, in my excitement I totally forgot about something. I'm using the sword charge glitch at this point and pausing cancels it out! So I have to pick between these and either go through the mountain caves or grab the ball of fire. Looks like I'll have to figure out how much time each combination would save. I can work out a route on Mt Sabre N that climbs right up to the boss and grabs the fire bracelet before needing to blast a wall. But this loses time by having to go back after beating the boss to get the key. Maybe also from needing to grind in a less efficient area. So I've got a bit of analysis to do. By the way PoR, I'm only about 8 minutes into a 50-minute or so run. But some parts will go faster. If you go back to the WIP I posted, that's about how far I am.
Posted: 10/22/2009 3:41 AM
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TheAxeMan
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Awesome! Have you considered trying to levelup all the way before entering Nockmaar castle and then going straight to Bavmorda after beating Kael? If you can grind even more efficiently then it could be faster.
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