Posts for ars4326

Post subject: v2 improvement run outta nowhere!
ars4326
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44,211 frames improved over Acmlm's current published run (and 158 battles fled from!). This one didn't take me very long to make, as the linear route was more or less optimized. The big improvement came from better strategy, in cutting out almost all of the level grinding (and extra shopping). I still had to get Rhys up to level 4 in order to do enough damage to Lyle, though. I also made use of a game bug called the 'Pron glitch' at the very end, in Skyhaven, in order to make three of my party members more or less invincible to physical attacks. Despite the improvements, this one's still got 'walk-a-thon' written all over it lol. But it's another oldie RPG from the 90's :) Once the Workbench queue is a little better caught up, I'll have this one submitted.
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
Post subject: Re: A Virus? Yes! We should try this.
ars4326
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dwangoAC wrote:
...Virus yes! :) While I originally envisioned this as one long chain of unbroken consoles I kind of like the idea of writing a virus that can take over the next console in the chain independently...
Dwango, when I read "virus" in your post, I immediately thought of Final Fantasy IV and someone casting the spell Virus in battle. So could this be an idea? Say, an event happens on one of the other consoles that has something to do with viruses in the game's story (whether a cut-scene, or someone casting a "spell virus", etc.). After the virus scene occurs, you'd then use that as a swerve to cause the actual virus payload.
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
ars4326
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Well, I just watched the console verification and updated encode in Amaraticando's post. I've gotta say that I did get a kick out of watching the "payload" input HUD, as well as seeing TASbot display and mess with the colors on the home page. I do think this is a publish-worthy run; both in technical achievement and historical significance. My question, though, lies in the category. Would this fall into the 'demo' category, or 'executes arbitrary code', or both? Other than that, I hope my feedback helps!
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
ars4326
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I couldn't quite figure out how to enable the no sound bug, so I created a test WIP with the BGM and sound FX left intact. As stated in the rejection message, I was able to beat the first race time by 179 frames due to purchasing a performance upgrade for the starter bike, in the very beginning. Taking into account the lag frames spent by entering the shop menu, around an additional 440+ frames can each be theoretically saved on the next three races (since Lars' run didn't purchase any upgrades until race 5). Along with RAM address 09C4, strict adherence to ensuring maximum speed is maintained could save even more time on each subsequent race in the game. edit: Also Lars, I wanted to add that you did have some entertaining moments in that run (crashing your bike and flying through the air across the finish got a laugh out of me!). I am imploring you though, to allow yourself significantly more time to polish and optimize these runs.
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
ars4326
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Lars, I'm probably going to claim this one for judging here shortly. I went ahead and did some testing on Road Rash 3 and uncovered a very important RAM address. Address 09C4 is your speed acceleration. That is, it shows your current speed in a value of about 100 times of what is shown on-screen. For example, 107 mph could read as a value of 10862 in the RAM (which increases as you continually accelerate). This is an important RAM address to have, in optimizing speed. Also, I intend to test your first race time here later on to see whether it is reasonably optimized. I'm going to use the same settings (no music, no upgrades on the bike). If it isn't, then I will have to reject your run due to it being sub-optimal. If you have any other questions, just let me or another staff member know.
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
ars4326
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As you stated in the submission comments, it was pretty crazy seeing Monster-Ock at the end seemingly keeping up with tool-assisted Spider Man, move for move. Mario Kart, indeed :P
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
ars4326
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McBobX wrote:
Demon's Crest Any%: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wc9nDhzSZTQ
Your Demon's Crest any% run looks good, McBobX! However, you may want to check with The Brookman (author of the 100% run) over in the SNES thread since he stated that he also had a finished any% WIP made, as well.
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
ars4326
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god of destruction wrote:
If you want, I'll be encoding and publishing all the WIPs.
I don't mind, at all :) It definitely allows people to view the WIPs without having to run BizHawk. I can already tell that these houses are going to take some serious routing. Working around that dog is going to be important, while the 'Super Scare' should be used on a key family member (probably Vito or Tony) in order to quickly scare them out. Mimi starts with Polterguy in the first room, and she can be herded out almost immediately into the adjacent hallway by using the rocking chair. From there, it looks like she could then be lured into Tony's bedroom. Hmm... Okay, here's a basic "battle plan" for House #2: 1) Herd Mimi into the south hallway. 2) Scare her into Tony's bedroom. Set up the 'Super Scare' in the hallway. 3) Hopefully, Mimi is scared out of the house in Tony's room, while Tony (or Vito) wanders into the hallway. From here, I detonate the 'Super Scare' and lure them into either the bedroom again or the foyer on the left side. 4) Tony (or Vito) should still be within the area the lure back into one of these exits, also. From here, Flo will be the remaining family member left in the home. 5) Make Flo head for the hills. Now to see if this theory works!
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
ars4326
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Did I say about 30 secs. could be saved on House #1? Shave another minute off of that! I optimized the 1st House in 13,905 frames. I used a much different strategy on the Dad that I saw being used on an RTA run on YouTube. In the beginning, if you head straight into the garage and wait for about 12 seconds Mr. Sardini will make his way in there. I use this extra time to set up a 'Super Scare' trap and detonate it as soon as I exit into the hallway. I also herded Mrs. Sardini into this same hallway, instead of the foyer on the other side of the house, saving more time. Also, I found out that you can leave a room as soon as one of the Sardini's are about to flee the home. That is, you don't have to wait around inside a room until they completely leave through the open doorway. This saves even more time, while causing a side-effect of disabling the BGM until you scare another family member out of a room. Minor bug, overall. This also works on scaring out the very last family member, as entering another room automatically clears the stage. Now time to route and optimize House #2!
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
ars4326
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Jiseed wrote:
Another small and easy improvement is to hit start during the space "docking" cutscenes in order to skip them entirely. This would save several hundred frames during the run.
More savings! So I went ahead and made an optimized "proof of concept" WIP that flees from Igglanova #1. And despite BizHawk having 82 more frames of lag (better emulation, I suppose?), 1,085 frames were saved. However, a BizHawk run would assuredly add around a minute's worth of extra lag. So it'd be a matter of personal preference whether to stick with Gens or go with BizHawk. Anyhow...I'd love to see a v4 version of PS4 made -- but I don't want to continue any further without hearing from Janus. If he'd be interested, I'd love to co-author with him and see whether this run could be pushed down past 1:25:00.
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
ars4326
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This was an amazing run! So many good things to say about this one: Programming in a new (brief) game; programming in new moves and debugging controls -- and to top that all off, it was played back on console. This TAS is an attraction, no doubt. I'm in agreement with feos that the newcomer tag would be appropriate to add to this one. (And as for future 2016 awards, it's definitely already in the front-running for me in a few categories. I'd personally though, restrict my nominations for it to three awards, to give other runs a chance to earn an award, too.)
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
ars4326
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boct1584 wrote:
His profile says he was last active here on October 14th. That's interesting, especially since there are two Igglanovas. I wonder if fleeing the 2nd one is faster than Gryz killing it with Crash, and I also wonder how fleeing from both would change the EXP route; right now, Chaz gets Tsu right at the point where it starts being useful in conjunction with the Shadwblade.
That's a good question. As for the 2nd Igglanova, it would take a round in order to set up using Earth with Chaz, so it would likely end up being the slower option as opposed to sticking with using Crash in the first. The EXP route, though, might need some adjustment. Is there an alternate battle order in Zio's fort which includes, say, 3 Shadow Sabers or 2 Shadow Sabers and another foe?
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
ars4326
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Well, last summer my mother was diagnosed with stage 3 cervical cancer. She had found out for sure one evening through a text message from her sister (who's an RN). Needless to say, that news hit her hard and, certainly, soberly affected me. Reading Hebrews chapter 11 brought great comfort and faith during this time. So from about the span of about May until August, my summer involved driving my mom and younger brother, back-and-forth, through town during the week and to Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis on Fridays so that she could receive treatment. The clinic in town involved a type of external radiation treatment, while the one in St. Louis involved an internal type of concentrated radiation to directly attack the cancerous cells. My Mom was more or less bed-ridden during this time, as that treatment left her in a near-constant state of nausea and overall weakness (loss of weight, appetite, and so forth). My brother and I took care of town errands, yard and housework while she rested and recovered. (to link this to TASing, I had also completed TASing Fester's Quest during my downtime. While my Mom would be in the clinic, I would sometimes be out in my truck in the parking lot routing the game or completing a section or two) ...so to fast-forward to now, I am very thankful to God in stating that the doctors have announced that the treatment was a success. My Mom has steadily recovered, and is now only taking daily hygienic treatments, with a few follow-up appointments scheduled every couple of months (she is certainly also thankful that the nausea is gone!). So AxeMan, include my prayers w/ crouching Ryu's to go out to TheHatchetBoy. May this cancer be conquered!
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
ars4326
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So while browsing over at sda, I came across the Phantasy Star IV RTA thread and read where, apparently, it's possible to flee from the Iglanova boss fight if he's paralyzed. Sounds like a good time-saver. Janus, you still around?
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
ars4326
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tormented wrote:
Oh dear. I completely forgot about this. Don't worry, I'll have an improvement by the weekend, just been crazy busy and I'm... not giving a crappy NES game that much priority.
Sounds good! I should be able to have it judged for you that same day. edit: Also, I've got a question regarding a possible routing improvement, toward the end. In the first stage you enter on level 23, there's two keys over the to left of the bomb that you collect. Wouldn't it be faster to collect these two keys here, so that you could use them to unlock the consecutive barriers in level 24? This would assuredly save time over having to enter and re-enter that stage again (on level 24). edit 2: My mistake! I just tested it and realized that the game resets your bomb & key count after using a warp (been too many years since I've played this).
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
ars4326
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Samsara wrote:
[3034] DS Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions "all items" by arandomgameTASer in 34:20.91 ...I'm definitely leaning toward "all items" as the one I'd back to get Starred, as it has a lot more neat tricks, optimization, and even a fairly large sequence break.
If there's another spot available for a DS Star, I'd give a vote to this one, as well. Just smooth and graceful tool-assisted execution, throughout.
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
ars4326
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TASing-wise, I've a got a few Genesis projects that I'd like to eventually finish -- all runs which have yet to have a published run made on the site (Haunting & Beyond Oasis). If I get those crossed off, then I might add one more solo project onto the 2016 agenda (or some group work!). Life wise, I'd like to research the Bible more, get some landscaping and construction projects done around the house, as well as maintain a good level of health and fitness (especially since I've hit 30). ...perhaps I should jot these goals down into my notebook, in order to record and progressively reach them? All in all, looking forward to 2016!
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
ars4326
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To also address mklip's question about the single-mission category, I went ahead and researched on YouTube and noticed that multiple runners have done the same. In particular, a Longplay, a "no deaths", and a TAP (tool-assisted perfect playthrough) are all runs which also exclusively play mission JUPITER (on the highest ranking). Just wanted to add this information to support my decision to approve this as an any% category. Also moricat, you may be interested in watching that TAP run that I've linked to. It's a tool-assisted type of run which doesn't skip cutscenes, and such; which also keeping alive all of the agents as they skillfully sneak past through and dodge those spotlights :)
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
ars4326
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Lookie here, I'm reviving another old game thread from back in '04 :p This is pretty much a "proof of concept" test-run WIP that completes the 1st home in a bit over 5 1/2 minutes. Provided there's no major strategy changes, an optimized effort could certainly get that time down to about 5. I've got some more detailed insights in the userfile link, but what's notable about this game is that each family member appears to require a minimum number of rooms to be scared out of, until the game lets them completely flee the property. So basically, spending time scaring the daylights out of them in a single room is a time waster. It's faster to just quickly herd them out of the minimum required rooms (green traps work best here) before chaining together enough traps to make them head for the hills in utter horror. I've been wanting to look into this one for a while. I think it will turn out to be pretty entertaining once all is said and done! edit: I appreciate the encode, god of destruction :)
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
ars4326
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Archanfel definitely "brought it" this year with multiple, quality runs on the Genesis platform (I also like how he includes graphics, and other details, in his thread posts and Workbench submissions). My nomination: Archanfel.
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
ars4326
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I've gotta say that the top 3, in my book, this year boils down to Alyosha, arandomgameTASer, and Samsara. All three certainly stayed busy throughout 2015 and produced multiple runs, on varying genres and platforms. • arandomgameTASer's output this year was outstanding, in producing almost 8 hours of TAS content, spanning 10 unique runs. • Alyosha (as I've mentioned in the NES TASer award thread) got more runs published this year since the site's inception, back in '04. It was almost a weekly ritual in seeing a new run from him posted onto the Workbench. Just excellent work ethic, all-around. • To talk about "stepping your game up", Samsara was just driven this year in completing different projects. His entertaining movement choreography, in particular, during moments of downtime, is among the best I've seen. My nominations: arandomgameTASer, Alyosha, & Samsara.
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
ars4326
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Spikestuff certainly stayed busy this year, with a number of updated runs for BizHawk/PSXHawk as well as some first edition works from the Bishi Bashi Special franchise. I've gotta also say that Flip got two impressive runs published, in the action game MDK & the real-time strategy run of Warcraft II. My nominations: Spikestuff and Flip.
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
ars4326
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In terms of sheer output, Alyosha knocked it out of the ballpark in optimizing and checking off well over a dozen runs from the 'First 500' project. Outstanding effort there, in my opinion. This level of output was also consistent throughout the year, which was also notable in my view. My nomination: Alyosha.
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
ars4326
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Hetfield90 burst onto the scene this year, in putting out all three of the Megaman X SNES TASes. arandomgameTASer had a very productive year overall, as well, in producing Super Star Wars: Return of the Jedi and two other quality platformers. My nominations: Hetfield90 & arandomgameTASer.
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
ars4326
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I have to say that arandomgameTASer really put in the work this year with 4 unique TASes (one w/ two categories), from different genres. All are very good quality runs, also. I was also impressed with how Kurabupengin stepped his game up and produced two quality runs, in Club Penguin and Johnny Test. Jlun2, also, had some quality work (especially the time he put into DS Dementium: The Ward). My nominations: arandomgameTASer, Kurabupengin, Jlun2.
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9