Skilled player (1637)
Joined: 11/15/2004
Posts: 2202
Location: Killjoy
exileut wrote:
FF8 is published! Someone told me that means FF7 WIP's are coming soon.
Not quite. I am currently working on finding relevant memory addresses, the next part is writing scripts. Actual TASing is a ways away.
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
Joined: 2/15/2009
Posts: 329
Will antd's wip be helpful in this process?
Working on: Legend of Legaia, Vagrant Story
Skilled player (1637)
Joined: 11/15/2004
Posts: 2202
Location: Killjoy
exileut wrote:
Will antd's wip be helpful in this process?
Not until I get to the actual route planning. Thus far, I have my dialog-skip script in place, and it seems to be catching all the boxes. I've got a starting level-up script - I managed to get 2 attack, 3 dex, and 3 luck for Cloud's first level up! I need to figure out all the enemy stats such as dex and luck, so I can get the battle script in place. Also, I've figured out that Limit Levels are all loaded at the start of the game, so no manipulation there.
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
Joined: 3/18/2006
Posts: 971
Location: Great Britain
let me know if you want to know about the alternative strategies i've been testing
Joined: 3/10/2010
Posts: 22
Keep up the fun.. looking forward to your work :}
Skilled player (1637)
Joined: 11/15/2004
Posts: 2202
Location: Killjoy
antd wrote:
let me know if you want to know about the alternative strategies i've been testing
Yes, yes, and very yes! Also, an explanation of how you use the menu glitch/battle avoidance would help - I noticed you don't always use the step-trick - likewise with the menu-trick. BrutalAI has supplied me with some memory addresses I was missing, I'm writing my walk script around those - It is much more annoying to use the step trick in FF7, since a step is about every 10 frames, unlike the every 30 frames in FF8.
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
Joined: 3/18/2006
Posts: 971
Location: Great Britain
no problem, what's the best way to contact you about these things? (perhaps some things shouldn't be said publicly as they may be deemed spoilers. unless you don't care, of course :P) i think the shared knowledge from brutalal and i will help you to make a very well done TAS of this game.
Skilled player (1637)
Joined: 11/15/2004
Posts: 2202
Location: Killjoy
antd wrote:
no problem, what's the best way to contact you about these things? (perhaps some things shouldn't be said publicly as they may be deemed spoilers. unless you don't care, of course :P) i think the shared knowledge from brutalal and i will help you to make a very well done TAS of this game.
I don't mind spoilers, additionally, if someone wants to improve the TAS, its better to have all info possible in this thread. So, please, post away!
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
Lex
Joined: 6/25/2007
Posts: 732
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
The act of TASing and TAS planning is the ultimate spoiler. The entire TAS community accepts that revealing secrets is an essential part of TASing. Without secrets (warps, glitches, sequence breaking, actually completing the game which shows the ending and the entire route to get there), a TAS couldn't exist. So, yes, please share your awesome strategies for FF7! I'm looking forward to reading them. :D
Joined: 3/18/2006
Posts: 971
Location: Great Britain
well, not really awesome at all :P just two words: Added Effect allows for the quick destruction of demons gate in under a minute: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fcn1GgcP6hc (added effect + time) allows for one-hit KO against some enemies: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3QYMI27hvA (added effect + contain) can be faster than using magic breath against a group of enemies can be coupled with counter attack although it's possible it may end up not being worth it (takes time to acquire the materia), i haven't finished testing against all bosses yet. so it remains to be seen if it is worth it or not. many things are used in that demons gate battle, including the wait-trick and other subtle forms of manipulation. i don't know if you already know about those. brutalal has the memory addresses needed for demons gate manipulation, but i guess that is quite far off :P i'll post other things at a later date
Skilled player (1637)
Joined: 11/15/2004
Posts: 2202
Location: Killjoy
This script does the Run/Walk step for me - I'm pretty sure it is always useful, given the menu trick. Download FF7RunWalk.lua
Language: lua

Danger = 0x0007173C; StepCounter = 0x0009D58E; StepID = 0x0009C540; CurDanger = memory.readword(Danger); State = savestate.create(); State2 = savestate.create(); joy = {}; joy2 = {}; flop = true; while true do if flop then savestate.save(State); else savestate.save(State2); end; flop = not flop; CurDanger = memory.readword(Danger); emu.frameadvance(); joy = joypad.get(1); if (memory.readword(Danger) > CurDanger) then prevDanger = memory.readword(Danger) - CurDanger; joy2 = {}; if (joy['up'] == true) then joy2['up'] = true; end; if (joy['down'] == true) then joy2['down'] = true; end; if (joy['left']== true) then joy2['left'] = true; end; if (joy['right']== true) then joy2['right'] = true; end; if not flop then savestate.load(State); else savestate.load(State2); end; joypad.set(1,joy2); emu.frameadvance(); joy2['x'] = true; joypad.set(1,joy2); emu.frameadvance(); newDanger = memory.readword(Danger) - CurDanger; if (prevDanger == newDanger) then joy2 = {}; if (joy['up'] == true) then joy2['up'] = true; end; if (joy['down'] == true) then joy2['down'] = true; end; if (joy['left']== true) then joy2['left'] = true; end; if (joy['right']== true) then joy2['right'] = true; end; if flop then savestate.load(State); else savestate.load(State2); end; joypad.set(1,joy2); emu.frameadvance(); joy2['x'] = true; joypad.set(1,joy2); emu.frameadvance(); newDanger = memory.readword(Danger) - CurDanger; end; CurDanger = memory.readword(Danger); print(string.format("+%d(%d)", newDanger, prevDanger)); elseif (memory.readword(Danger) < CurDanger) then CurDanger = memory.readword(Danger); end; end;
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
Post subject: repeating boss glitch + VIDEO
Joined: 3/18/2006
Posts: 971
Location: Great Britain
youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lo5XzmPBZik i also found a glitch that allows the party to fight a boss twice this is useful against gi nattak (who is killed by elixir/phoenix down) in order to gain extra EXP in a short amount of time. actually this EXP is needed because i didn't fight the spiders. the glitch works against any scripted battle method: use the menu glitch to remove a random encounter fight a boss/scripted battle (the battle will repeat) the downside is that you cannot menu glitch a battle away before fighting a boss (unless you want to fight it twice). so you have to get into a battle and run away before scripted battles. i think the game forgets about the menu glitch if you enter the world map though.
Post subject: Re: repeating boss glitch
Former player
Joined: 3/27/2010
Posts: 270
antd wrote:
i also found a glitch that allows the party to fight a boss twice this is useful against gi nattak (who is killed by elixir/phoenix down) in order to gain extra EXP in a short amount of time. actually this EXP is needed because i didn't fight the spiders. the glitch works against any scripted battle method: use the menu glitch to remove a random encounter fight a boss/scripted battle (the battle will repeat) the downside is that you cannot menu glitch a battle away before fighting a boss (unless you want to fight it twice). so you have to get into a battle and run away before scripted battles. i think the game forgets about the menu glitch if you enter the world map though.
Nice find :o
Post subject: reset to 0: savestate
Joined: 3/18/2006
Posts: 971
Location: Great Britain
i also found that a region of memory is reset to zeros if cloud runs in a certain pattern for ~500,000 frames on the world map. i only have the savestate though. you may wish to look into this, as i couldn't reproduce it due to losing the lua script. its the savestate that loads around frame 480k: http://hotfile.com/dl/123578094/da607e4/wmap.rar.html http://www.megaupload.com/?d=9NI8FALO http://www.fileserve.com/file/f78DDxE
Post subject: Re: reset to 0: savestate
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
antd wrote:
i also found that a region of memory is reset to zeros if cloud runs in a certain pattern for ~500,000 frames on the world map.
Isn't that more than 2 hours? I'm curious, how did you figure this out?
Joined: 3/18/2006
Posts: 971
Location: Great Britain
yep. i was testing a theory, regarding walking in different patterns on the world map for extended periods of time, and how this relates to random encounter rate. it was just by chance that my script kept failing due to certain ram addresses turning to zero. dunno if this could be of any use, doesn't warp to northern crater yet :p
Skilled player (1637)
Joined: 11/15/2004
Posts: 2202
Location: Killjoy
antd - When fighting guard scorpion - you don't use lightning, which deals 88-92 damage, and instead wait for criticals, which only deal 80~ damage. Was there a reason for that? It seems like it might be easier to use lightning, which then allows you to manipulate Guard Scorpion at the same time.
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
Joined: 7/9/2008
Posts: 15
Can't vouch for every one of antd's actions but: -Barret can of course not use bolt. -Guard Scorpion has got an attack pattern that is partly set in stone. Don't know what manipulation you have in mind, but you can not avoid the search scopes (who and with what attack GS attacks when he attacks is manipulatable though). -Clouds attack animations is vastly shorter than using bolt and bolt might not necessarily reduce the number of attacks required, because... -It could be that the fastest method antd found left GS with more than ~60hp pending the final attack (not being a limit in this example), meaning that GS would still have been standing at that point (just with less HP) even if antd had used only bolts instead of crits. All that aside, note that it is possible to attack two times during 1 "turn" (cloud action, barret action, scorpion action = 1 turn) by using a limit-wait-trick one time in battle. Only cloud can use the trick (if he gets a full limit-bar) and the 2nd attack of the two must be magic (because the regular attack is blocked by the limit). Do you use any instant messenger service?
Post subject: battle duration v2 + variable enemy attack length
Joined: 3/18/2006
Posts: 971
Location: Great Britain
yes, as brutalal says, basically cloud's attack takes 90~ frames while bolt takes 300~ frames and GS would have a bad amount of HP left for the final blow anyway oh and the strategies in that video are quite old and were done manually without scripts, so they can be improved. some mistakes in the route too. **there are non-obvious mistakes throughout my youtube video run, so you may wish to consult me or brutalal before progressing! :p** do you use msn messenger or something? i smell a 3-way chat :p this might be useful so you can easily compare battle times: start frame = first frame of battle scene is drawn (black screen with tiny box in center) last frame = screen goes completely black after battle (frame counter disappears in pcsx) Sample of Enemy attack length: enemy attack length can vary wildly in the case of Aps, sewer tsunami can vary up to 191 frames. it will make optimisation difficult. due to this, when manipulating an enemy attack, attacking can be faster than forcing a wait (stopping enemy atb, then pressing X).
Post subject: Final Fantasy VII (playaround)
Former player
Joined: 4/17/2009
Posts: 88
Here is my idea of a FFVII playaround: Load from pre-made save file with two characters dead at Gold Saucer on disk 3. Get maximum high scores on ALL Gold Saucer games (not including submarine unless it can be glitched as it's too slow) Can't do Chocobo racing unless there's a glitch. Do one round of battle square using as many glitches as possible. Leave Gold Saucer, overflow emerald weapon (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ovxL1wdjtI) then own ruby like this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thFsHr5v1yM) Then do a few more glitches and suicide in a funny way. The idea is just to cram as many super lucky moves and glitches in to one movie.
Post subject: Re: Final Fantasy VII (playaround)
Joined: 4/21/2011
Posts: 91
AndyD wrote:
Here is my idea of a FFVII playaround: Load from pre-made save file The idea is just to cram as many super lucky moves and glitches in to one movie.
With a few small exceptions, only TASs started from power-on are accepted on this site. Also, as there is no exact target for the TAS, I doubt it would be published here, but feel free to make it if you think it will be entertaining, and you don't mind it not being published once you've finished it.
Post subject: Re: Final Fantasy VII (playaround)
Player (70)
Joined: 8/24/2004
Posts: 2562
Location: Sweden
Hutch wrote:
AndyD wrote:
Here is my idea of a FFVII playaround: Load from pre-made save file The idea is just to cram as many super lucky moves and glitches in to one movie.
With a few small exceptions, only TASs started from power-on are accepted on this site.
I think we've accepted movies starting from save states before to be honest, even though it created a lot of discussions in the past. Here are some of them: http://tasvideos.org/1670M.html http://tasvideos.org/1419M.html http://tasvideos.org/1607M.html http://tasvideos.org/1617M.html And this idea could probably be submitted as concept demo or something like that. I would probably not watch this submission though. Sounds rather pointless to me somehow, but then again, I'm not overly fond of this game. :D Cheers.
Post subject: Re: Final Fantasy VII (playaround)
Joined: 5/22/2011
Posts: 22
Highness wrote:
Hutch wrote:
AndyD wrote:
Here is my idea of a FFVII playaround: Load from pre-made save file The idea is just to cram as many super lucky moves and glitches in to one movie.
With a few small exceptions, only TASs started from power-on are accepted on this site.
I think we've accepted movies starting from save states before to be honest, even though it created a lot of discussions in the past. Here are some of them: http://tasvideos.org/1670M.html http://tasvideos.org/1419M.html http://tasvideos.org/1607M.html http://tasvideos.org/1617M.html And this idea could probably be submitted as concept demo or something like that. I would probably not watch this submission though. Sounds rather pointless to me somehow, but then again, I'm not overly fond of this game. :D Cheers.
Those are all basically "new game +" runs though or with new modes, I don't think just starting from a save state for the hell of it would be accepted. That being said I would still like to see the run just because I think it would be cool to see.
Joined: 2/15/2009
Posts: 329
Time for the weekly update!
Working on: Legend of Legaia, Vagrant Story
Skilled player (1637)
Joined: 11/15/2004
Posts: 2202
Location: Killjoy
exileut wrote:
Time for the weekly update!
I haven't had time to work on this, I'm practicing for the SDA marathon, building the NESbot, and other life commitments. However, I should share my text-advance script. This guarantees (AFAIK) frame perfect text box closing.
Dialog= 0x000832A0;
while true do
	for i = 0,5,1 do 	
		X = memory.readbyte(Dialog+i*0x30);
		X = X % 8;		
		if (X == 6) or (X == 4) then
			joypad.set(1,{["circle"]=true})
		end;
	end;
	emu.frameadvance();
end;
Pretty simple, but saves a ton of time. Now you can fastforward through Dialog sequences.
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.