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Posted: 3/10/2005 6:29 AM
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TheAxeMan
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I'm working at manipulating spawns and tweaking the pattern. It seems that your general location when the monster spawns influences where it spawns and its movement pattern. So it's not always possible to manipulate them ideally, for best results the pattern needs some flexibility. Looks like my best bet is BC-B8-F6-F6-B8-BC-BA-BC-B8... This seems to make everything show up in the right place at the right time. Including the flowers in the mix helps as they are more reliable. I might be able to manage another few seconds better than the 20 sec improvement I have so far.
Posted: 3/9/2005 7:03 AM
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TheAxeMan
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This is impressive playing for not using rerecording. However as a timeattack it has a long long way to go. After the original Battletoads they really went downhill. I don't think the gameplay of this one can produce a very entertaining one-player timeattack. I don't think anyone cares how many points you can get in the bonus levels, you should kill yourself to end them as quickly as possible. If you can get through the first fighting level quickly the rest of the game will be almost trivial. Of course it would be great if you could find some sort of glitch or non-obvious route, something to show superhuman playing. The fighting level needs the most work. For starters, you should figure out an attack pattern that at least keeps the boss onscreen. I believe a running sweep attack kills a downed pig in one hit, you should use this to dispatch the porkers much more quickly.
Posted: 3/7/2005 4:38 AM
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TheAxeMan
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Interesting. I think both runs could be viable, but getting all items would require mucho backtracking and might not actually be as fun. You would get to use more abilities, however. The minimal one might be the best to do first. What does Zurreco have to say?
Posted: 3/6/2005 2:40 AM
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TheAxeMan
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This would be especially impossible for movies whose development is discussed on the forums. When you have been planning and working on a run for a long time, everyone will know who you are when you submit it. If this discouraged discussion at all I don't think it would be a good thing, and quality would definitely suffer.
Posted: 3/6/2005 12:03 AM
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TheAxeMan
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Ok, I think I figured out what my problem was: The big loop I used before is in green, and my idea was to use the red path, killing bugs BA and BC then turning around and killing them again as they respawn. This is what I did with the warthogs, but they were closer together. These two spawn points are too far apart, I can't kill bug BA then BC and clear out fast enough for BC to respawn. If possible, this would result in a kill rate of about 2.2 sec. However, I can still get 2.2-2.3 with a three-point pattern where I kill one enemy on each end and one in the middle as I move. This would suggest BA-BC-B8-BC-BA... If I could fit in F6 as well this would be even better. The bugs move a lot and sometimes it helps and sometimes it's a pain. I know I can get about 2.6 with BA-BC-B8-BC-BA-BA-BC-B8... Anyway, making some progress, once I figure out the pattern it will be pretty easy to carry it out. Here's my spreadsheet (openoffice.org) with levelup numbers from my tests in case I try to reference it again. http://home.comcast.net/~f_amoroso/leveling.sxc Oh yeah, I have thought about doing a non-warping run, it could be interesting. Of course I'd have to figure out the leveling all over again, but it could be an interesting look. UPDATE: I've prototyped a pattern up to the experience amount I need (232), and was about 20 sec faster than my last test. It looks like the best policy is to maintain some flexibility to deal with quirks in the spawning. I was doing BA-BC-F6-B8-BC-BA-BC... with some occasional changes. However, next I will try BC-F6-B8-BC-F6... which will probably not be a stable loop but perhaps close enough. Ok, have a general plan now, but there are still some unknowns. It's definitely possible to do BA-BC-B8-BC-BA-BC... but if I can cram in F6 then it's even better. However, this is a tight loop as it is, and there are some major problems when the three bugs spawn in unfavorable locations and or roll away quickly. It looks like I can vary their movement by changing when they come onscreen, but the location is trickier. I don't have a lot of room to manipulate things as I am constantly in a tight race with the spawn counter. The bugs seem to be able to spawn a over a pretty wide range, for example BA can be at the upper left or lower right of that T-junction. When he is at the lower right, I can get some extra time to stabilize the loop. Well, I'll see if I can manipulate the spawn location, otherwise I might end up doing something more free-form but the general idea will be the same.
Posted: 3/5/2005 7:20 PM
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TheAxeMan
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Great start, always good to see new people going for it. Mijae, in a run like this the planning is most of the work, and you've done a pretty good job so far. It doesn't look like you hit any extra monster lairs. However you'll eventually have to optimize movement and fighting since that's what really what makes it a timeattack. I've thought about several things to consider in this run, the power bracelet is a definite must. Also how about death as a shortcut? Sometimes there are those fairy gems, but they aren't always conveniently located. There is a lot of backtracking in this game, as you can see there was a ton just in the first level. Of course you lose all your gems, but you end up killing enough enemies that you'll get them back quickly enough. There will be the occasional "strange bottle" you can use for this. Medical herbs may occasionally be useful, most definitely on that boss. One thing to test sometime is when it's better to swing and when it's better to just stick that sword out. Starting out, sticking it out is better most of the time, but doing it well requires a lot of precision. Since you will probably skip the Psycho sword you may be doing a lot of this. As far as magic, my favorite spell is arrow of light, it's like a four-directional fireball and it's more powerful. It's in Greenwood and might not be too far out of the way if at all. I use it all the way to the end, though in a timeattack some other spells might become useful. Fully charged magic flairs that hit the enemies just as they become vulnerable might lead to faster kills than using the sword, but I think this might be out of the way. Magic might be important to speed up combat, especially if swords are skipped. It may be helpful to manipulate more gems? Some armor and weapons have nice bonuses. I don't think you'll want to get Psycho sword, so the first weapon upgrade would be critical sword on the volcano. Ice armor might be worth picking up in Greenwood, not only is the damage resist useful there but also in Leo's lab and maybe some other places. Bubble armor is mandatory. Magic armor might be worthwhile if magic becomes important, same with Lucky Blade, with the two of these you can use magic pretty much constantly. Zantetsu and Spirit swords will be necessary to hit special enemies. Soul armor and Soul blade are of course necessary for Phoenix and to survive in the last area. Also, just in case anyone doesn't know about this, you can see just fine in the dark and see invisible enemies, secret passages etc by disabling layer 2. You shouldn't ever need to get any more of the helper souls. One issue which will come into play at the end is the minimum level for swords. It may not be an issue, but each sword has a minimum level to swing it. You can always poke it out though, which will be fine in a pinch. However, in order to use Phoenix and beat the final boss you have to be able to swing the Soul Sword, placing a minimum level of 24 to finish this game. Unfortunately, it's hard to say whether or not this will be a problem. The enemies in the last area give tons of xp. If you are a little short it might be possible to poke some walls and get the rest. The boss fights will be fun in this game, especially on the airship... EDIT: Critical sword has a bonus that sometimes kills enemies instantly, so if you could manipulate this...
Posted: 3/5/2005 6:13 PM
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TheAxeMan
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Highness, I think he is still working on Tropicallo. I like how this is going so far. Hey, I never noticed before, but look at Elliot during the Mantis Ant battle...what the hell is he doing???
Posted: 3/5/2005 12:38 AM
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TheAxeMan
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Actually, I think I misquoted my figures before on that swamp kill rate, but everything else was right. My last test actually had a kill rate of about 2.7 sec in the swamp, which still beats the warthogs in xp/time. However, this was a mix of bugs and flowers (about 4:3). While the time/kill is the best comparison between different versions, I also calculate exp/time for each area. I've run the numbers and each hunting ground I use has a signficantly higher exp/time rate than the last. For example, even though I spend forever on the ice zombies, the exp/time rate is much higher than any other method. Anyway, I have some ideas which may allow me to spawn more bugs. If I can pull it off, I'll get a kill rate of about 2.3 sec fighting all bugs. Running the numbers, this would save about 20 sec over my last attempt. Thanks for catching this. The swamp will be one of the tougher areas to optimize spawning. Most of the other areas seem to be a bit more straightforward, so hopefully my work on this run will speed up after this.
Posted: 3/4/2005 11:52 PM
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TheAxeMan
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The boss at the end of level 4 would self destruct if you let him hit you while you had the armor upgrade.
Yup, I've seen this happen as well, but it doesn't seem to work on expert mode. In general it seems that the armor hit either kills an enemy completely or does nothing, depending on how strong the enemy is. So in expert mode, only a few enemies can be killed this way. For example, the laser cannons in level 5 aren't even phased by an armor hit. Strangely, it seems that sometimes on normal mode using a kamikaze armor hit on boss 4 results in one of the cannons blowing up instead of the main part of the boss. Screwy, huh? Anyway, glad you liked it.
Posted: 3/4/2005 4:48 PM
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TheAxeMan
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Very well done, that glitch is sweet. I also love the turning in midair trick, reminds me of Looney Toons. Unfortunately, this is half the game the PC version was. "With the flame the Prince was able to restore the Princess"??? Come on, any Persian tale has to end on a fight with Jaffar. Did you skip the last level with some trick or is it just not in this game? For those who haven't seen it, the last level (in the PC version) took place in a whacked-out dream world, who knows what Mechner was on. You had to fight a whole lot of guard-type dudes on a giant tarantula until you got enough life to use the flame (apparently not a problem in this version). Then you had to chase the fake prince (obviously Jaffar) until you got in a situation where you had enough time to pull off the slow-moving fireball. My fondest memories of this game are fighting the bird costume dudes until backing them into a scythe trap. Schoomp! Then every time the trap activates you can see the blade is all bloody.
Posted: 3/4/2005 7:30 AM
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TheAxeMan
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I love the description, great plug for this run.
Posted: 3/4/2005 7:22 AM
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TheAxeMan
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Ah, a stylish and speedy run through a classic game. Well, like foda says, there are very few people who have actually played this game through. I'll admit that I actually played this game enough to finish it on the console. So I can appreciate finishing each level with an almost empty food meter. Rolling through at full speed on the skateboard is also impressive considering how many enemies and pits there are. This game is very difficult, but mostly because you forfeit your weapon on dying. It's not a big deal in earlier levels, as you can usually get it back quickly and enemies are less numerous, but in later levels enemies come in hordes and you won't get your weapon back until you face the next boss. Foda's low kill rate shows that it's still possible to get through, but it's definitely not easy. The toughest part of this game is the end of 8-3, when you have to jump from falling platform to falling platform with no safe ground, while bats fly at you. Very tough, particularly if you don't have a weapon. Of course this run rolls through that section with the same ease as the first level. There do seem to be a few minor flaws here and there. Early on it looks like there were some flowers you could have picked up. You also miss the first couple eggplants. In 6-2 it looks like you definitely could have finished a little hungrier. On one of the later white cliff levels it looks like you slowed down quite a bit to avoid enemies. This game also has hidden bonus levels which can be entered and exited, dropping you further into the level. Unfortunately, entering takes time to wait for a platform to carry you into the sky. It's also not usually possible to enter a bonus level with the skateboard since you either need to open a hidden egg with a key or stand in place for a time. (a neat trick is involved to open the fireball upgrade egg while skateboarding) I know foda has tested the first few levels, but some later worlds don't give the skateboard until later and there might be a bonus level before. World 7 I think? Well, overall this is very well planned and executed. I think foda has done about the best he can making the most entertaining run possible through this tough classic.
Posted: 3/3/2005 4:57 PM
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TheAxeMan
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Still working on the swamp leveling. There's one place in the swamp where I can walk back and forth between two bug spawns and get a pretty good exp rate. However, one of the bugs doesn't seem to spawn sometimes. I'll need to check this a little more. If I can't get both bugs to spawn consistently, I may switch back to the big loop and just try to tweak the spawns a little better than before.
Posted: 3/2/2005 6:17 AM
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TheAxeMan
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Obviously the outcome was never in doubt but I had to vote just to up the count (currently 66). Great job viper, way to stick with this. Have any plans for a next project?
Posted: 2/26/2005 5:16 AM
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TheAxeMan
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Watched this all the way through. Yes, you should definitely take hits where it helps. Also, have you seen TSA's run? He uses the items really well, I'm sure some of his techniques will be useful in the tool-assisted realm. His route was also a little better, but this is partly because he doesn't need those magic bottles. Overall your run is interesting and reasonably well planned. If you go for a perfected run it would be interesting to see you have some sort of route difference from Omni, perhaps in getting the money. Good luck, and may the way of the hero lead to the triforce!
Posted: 2/26/2005 12:48 AM
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TheAxeMan
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Necro, you should post in the same LTTP thread. But hey, there's nothing wrong with multiple people going for a run, it can only be a good thing. I'll be watching this later for sure. Good luck on the optimization.
Posted: 2/26/2005 12:39 AM
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TheAxeMan
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From my earlier post:
TheAxeMan wrote:
I believe boss damage in this game only varies based on the character you use: 1 damage each hit from Will, 2 from Freedan and 3 from Shadow.
Posted: 2/26/2005 12:30 AM
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TheAxeMan
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Hehe, you're right Hamm, it seems logical that expanding to more spawn points would make things faster. But when you manipulate the mechanics to the level I did it becomes more important to get 2-3 spawn points which are close together. In each run I have been tabulating stats on my levelup sequences. The most interesting metric is average kill time, the average time between enemy kills (calculated as total time/total kills). My test runs got around 2.7s for the warthogs, but this new method is close to 2.0s, which shows how significant this manipulation is. By comparison, the slimes I kill for level 2 went from about 1.9s to 1.6s. My test runs only scored about 3.4 for the swamp, so there's hope to find a better way. The ice zombie loop which I follow for 5 minutes in the test runs scores under 2.0, which means it's likely the best way to handle that. The fastest killing happens in the sea cave (under 1.5s) and the slowest is the styx cave (about 4.2s). Starting to break down the swamp to prepare for my next powerup sequence. I've located the spawn points (5 bugs and 6 flowers) and determined the counter values for each. There isn't an obvious pattern like there was with the warthogs. I'm not even sure whether it will be a loop or back-and-forth trips. This will be much harder because the bugs can roll away quickly and the flowers can only be nailed with a level 2 shot. My last test did a decent job by taking a large loop which hits three flowers and all five bugs. Without actually trying different patterns it's impossible to say what will work or not. Watching my old run, I got an idea for one more tweak for the warp pattern near the end. Instead of going right to Mt Hydra after Goa to get the Bow of Sun, I'll do it after killing Draygon the first time. This saves the time taken walking from Azteca to the entrance of the pyramid, about 5 sec. I just hadn't thought about it before. I'll still have level 15 for Draygon and I don't need the Bow of Sun until the second pyramid so it's fine. This will make the last levelup almost completely earned from en-route encounters. I've considered many other changes but there always ends up being something in the way. In particular, it seems I could work something out to avoid waiting for the dolphin three times, but any method seems to mess up too many other parts of the warp pattern. As it is, everything flows pretty nicely. EDIT: Tweaked the last couple inventory sequences for a few frames improvement. Also found a method to speed up dialog by alternating between A and B when dismissing multiple pages. I might be able to hex this into the conversation with the elder of Leaf (so far I've only talked to him to get sword of wind and Akahana to get gas mask), getting a few more frames. Guessing this is hexable because it doesn't affect "the counter." Overall this could add up to about a second off the total run time. Immediate improvement is 5 frames+. ANOTHER EDIT: Unable to hex the speedup to the elder's conversation, it changed the lag and sword-charging pattern in the next area. Well, this was only 2 frames which might have been lost due to increased lag anyway. I'll do this on the rest of the game's dialogue, the Leaf Elder is the only talk that will miss this.
Posted: 2/25/2005 5:54 AM
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TheAxeMan
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Excellent. Everything seems to be optimized very well. However, is there anywhere you could go faster by taking a hit? Those invincible bugs in the first dungeon? Also, is the psycho dash really faster for the dart-spitting head on top of the block thing? Could you take a hit and place the block without killing it? I forget exactly when you get your damage restored, is it on entering the dark space or do you have to talk to the scary Gaia head? I'm sure that on beating a boss and some other times you get your hits back as well. Great job regardless, I'm definitely looking forward to seeing more... though the plot sequences coming up next are going be really really slow. Hopefully you'll find some entertaining way to pass the time, and the graphics and sound are great, it will help things out as well.
Posted: 2/23/2005 7:34 AM
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TheAxeMan
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Clearly, the force is strong with young Walker Boh. A very nice run. The gameplay is fast and interesting, but the Star Wars music didn't translate very well to the 8-bit sound. The SNES Super Star Wars series would be great to see, is anyone interested in them at all?
Posted: 2/22/2005 6:00 PM
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TheAxeMan
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This game is pretty fast and smooth, it makes for a nice timeattack. It's definitely played with style and skill here. However, if you know there are mistakes you should fix them. It's been my experience that every time I redo a run the improvement is much more than I expected. Make a spreadsheet with the framecount at the end of each level to compare to your old run and you'll know you're always improving. If you really don't want to redo everything, it may be possible to redo parts and hex in the changes, but for an 11 minute run it may be easier just to redo it.
Posted: 2/22/2005 8:46 AM
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TheAxeMan
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Ok, reached a good spot to give a preview. I'm up to about 3 and a half minutes, proceeding slowly but surely in making the master run. Compared to my last test I'm about 45 seconds faster at this point. I've also already done all my shopping for the game, so I won't have to hit any more stores. I hunt the warthogs much faster when building up to level 4 by abusing the spawning mechanics. Conveniently, it seems "the counter" is at memory location $0008. This counts down on each non-lag frame and controls when enemies spawn. By keeping my eye on this while playing, I figured out when each enemy spawns in relation to the others and planned the pattern I used. Basically, I need to make sure I'm off the screen when it comes time for the enemy to spawn, giving me about 4 sec to make a pass through. Because the left enemy (middle of the three) spawns first, it's close going left, but I have time left over going to the right. However, there are still some mysteries as far as exactly where you need to be to make some of the enemies spawn. It seems that if you are too close or too far the spawn won't happen. One of the warthogs (leftmost of the three I hunt) is a little shy, but he seems to come out when I go down to the bridge. This level of attention to the spawning really paid off, I do this area over 20 sec faster. In some hunting areas I'm sure there's even more to gain. If every levelup works out this well, it may be possible to break 40 minutes! Next up is the swamp where I'll definitely be getting a big improvement. http://home.comcast.net/~f_amoroso/Crystalis-TheAxeManv0.6.fcm
Posted: 2/19/2005 11:17 PM
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TheAxeMan
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I reworked which enemies I kill to get level 3 and got the ball of wind a second faster. However, on starting to fight the warthogs for level 4, I noticed that I had to wait an extra second to spawn the first enemy I wanted to kill, negating my work! Now, up to this point I have good spots to go in and out of rooms where monsters appear close by for me to kill. However, other hunting spots, including my next one, require respawning monsters without leaving the area. In my previous tests, I did some experimentation, but never fully nailed down the spawning mechanics. I've got this just about down now though. It seems that every enemy falls into one of two categories. Either they are immediately present when you enter an area (with a fade-in) or they spawn later. Only the latter will respawn unless you leave the area and come back. There seems to be a third category that flies in, but I don't hunt them as much. Sometimes it's necessary to wait a bit after entering an area to let enemies spawn, and this may look strange in the final product. Luckily, the hero of this game is an excellent dancer. :) So my testing revealed an 8-bit counter which controls spawning for an enemy. Every 256 frames (about 4 sec) this counter resets and the enemy respawns. That is, if the previous incarnation is dead and the spawning area is off-screen at the time. Otherwise nothing happens and you have to wait another 256 frames for the next opportunity. Furthermore, the counter doesn't change on lag frames, giving a lot of incentive to avoid lag. The conclusions are that avoiding lag is more important than killing an enemy quickly. In fact, it's only necessary to kill an enemy fast enough to distance yourself from the spawning area before the counter resets. This explains several things I've observed as I made my test runs. When killing one respawning enemy, the rate is about 4 secs. Furthermore, sometimes the same enemy can be killed twice pretty quickly, but after that a pattern starts where you kill the enemy, back off and wait, go in and kill, back off and... Now I need to extend this to multiple enemies. There might be more than one counter, perhaps one for each enemy. I'll need to figure out when each enemy spawns and use the information to plan out a route that puts me in the right place at the right time. In other places I can speed things up by avoiding lag--stabbing enemies instead of using some of the sword attacks. I'd say controlling this well could easily take off a minute, probably more as I depend on spawned enemies for most of my experience. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be anything here which impacts the march of 150 ice zombies (levels 6-7), so that will still take about 5 minutes.
Posted: 2/19/2005 10:06 PM
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TheAxeMan
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Yes, I think you should keep going on this run and make a second version when you're done. The end result will almost definitely be better. Perhaps the strength upgrades will come into play later, you can compare the effects. Then again, it probably won't be too tough to redo everything since you'll just be running by everything. I believe boss damage in this game only varies based on the character you use: 1 damage each hit from Will, 2 from Freedan and 3 from Shadow.
Posted: 2/19/2005 9:46 PM
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TheAxeMan
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The current Ninja Gaiden 2 run also uses left+right to go through walls.
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