LOL at Halamantariel's post. It did make me laugh out loud.
Thanks Dromiceius, for your comments. I knew I wasn't a GREAT speaker, (I'm taking no offense to what you said, but I'd like to readily acknowledge it) but I just wanted to be good enough to get the job done, and as long as I get at least that, then I'm happy.
Just for the record, there are several spots in my own commentary where I didn't say quite what I was thinking and it kind of came out wrong, just really little things. So, there were times where it sounded like I didn't know what I was talking about but I had so much going on in my head I couldn't put it into the best words.
Heh, about the Stoic club, I totally get it now and thinks it's funny, I meant that when I was younger (like 10-11 years old) I was kind of like, "huh?"
Good observation about the dad/phone being a satire on the Western's lack of good-dad parenting... or something like that. It's probably accurate.
Um, did anybody like my 'treat' at the falls? I figured that may have been something new for most of you but no one has said anything about it. I mean, you don't need to spoil it or anything, but I thought it was a good idea for the mostly silent break.
Ugh, 11 hour day at work today. I'm taking a shower and relaxing!
Yaaay ^^;;
It was well done, and although there were some silent moments, it was usually at good points (like the ending of the boss battle) so it was all fine.
Unfortunately, I must admit that I was getting a bit sleepy/tired from watching, but that was because I worked too hard xD
YES VOTE <3 Commentary was great. =] Nice job.
Fuzzy pickles!
Edit: Best 3 hour and a half movie I saw was Grindhouse :D sorry earthbound :(
Let's revive another dead thread! This revival is about 1 year. But trust me, I have a good reason.
Recently, on Starmen.Net, some people discussed a "go through walls" bug that they had found. Naturally, it got my interest, and I proceeded in recreating this bug, and finding a new place to use it.
Here are 3 short videos showing the glitch in action:
Peaceful Rest Valley (Perfectly TASed)
Lilliput Steps (Played in realtime, using rerecords)
Saturn Valley (Perfectly TASed, but totally useless)
The Peaceful Rest Valley and Saturn Valley glitches were already discovered by other people, I just replicated it, TAS-style. The one in Lilliput Steps, though, I found myself. However, I was not able to do it TAS-style. I could do it, but I wasn't patient enough.
These 3 glitches are the only ones I could find when doing a quick sweep of the game. I watched the TAS, and when I thought I saw a glitchable wall, I tried to glitch through it. I only found these 3. There might be more, though.
So there you go. New glitch, new time savers. Hint: the Peaceful Rest Valley one saves about 35 seconds.
EDIT: I edited the submission text to take into account this new glitch. I added it in the "tips and tricks" section, as well as in the "possible improvements" section. This way, all the improvements are at the same place, and not scattered all over the Internet.
the lilliput steps would save about half a minute of walking or so, but how many minutes would the saturn valley one save?
The Lilliput Steps one saves about 15 seconds (I estimated by measuring while watching the TAS).
As for the Saturn Valley one, I will assume that you were joking. I hope you were. In case you weren't, this one is totally useless.
lsdfhsklfhlkjhs I was typoing a storm is what I was doing. I meant the shortcut in the OTHER valley, peaceful rest, not saturn, sorry (I know the game pretty well and I watched the tas a few months ago, so I know the saturn valley one is useless).
edit: so it was in the post all along. my bad.
lsdfhsklfhlkjhs I was typoing a storm is what I was doing. I meant the shortcut in the OTHER valley, peaceful rest, not saturn, sorry (I know the game pretty well and I watched the tas a few months ago, so I know the saturn valley one is useless).
In that case, you really didn't read my post completely. I clearly said that the Peaceful Rest Valley shortcut saves about 35 seconds.
Make all names 1 character long; by doing this you reduce the number of frames to create the letters of your name (Ness, Paula, whatever) in speech, battles, end-battle, presents, anything that has the text of your name.
Each letter in text takes 1 frame to parse, so instead of using 70 frames to write "Ness opened the present. There is a Cracked bat inside! Ness takes it." you use only 64 in just the beginning present opening. "A opened the present. There is a Cracked bat inside! A takes it." saves 6 frames.
I did a really quick check of the pre-game you do before the sun comes up, and you get approx 8 instances of your name in text. Savings of almost a second just from naming yourself A.
Make all names 1 character long; by doing this you reduce the number of frames to create the letters of your name (Ness, Paula, whatever) in speech, battles, end-battle, presents, anything that has the text of your name.
Each letter in text takes 1 frame to parse, so instead of using 70 frames to write "Ness opened the present. There is a Cracked bat inside! Ness takes it." you use only 64 in just the beginning present opening. "A opened the present. There is a Cracked bat inside! A takes it." saves 6 frames.
I did a really quick check of the pre-game you do before the sun comes up, and you get approx 8 instances of your name in text. Savings of almost a second just from naming yourself A.
That was a known fact. I had decided to keep the original names to increase the entertainment value of the movie. I thought that people would like to see the real names used instead of something that doesn't make sense.
Still, it is true that it would save a whole lot of time for the whole run. I might consider it if and when I re-do it.
I was just wondering, can the walk through walls trick (mentioned by Hala) be used in the Dungeon Man to access the exit holes quicker? Would this skip any of the plot, and can it even be done at all in him?
Also, I watched the video again and it really sucks how many fights are more-or-less forced upon you in the pyramid and those take a bit of effot to kill (timewise). Can you run away from those? Because if you run away successfully, the battle ends in 1 round and they dissapear off the map AND you have a couple seconds of invulnerability (maybe avoid a 2nd fight?). Or, do you need the exp they give?
Samus taught us that a girl doesn't need brains to be successful. Brains are giant, evil, and vulnerable to missiles.
I was just wondering, can the walk through walls trick (mentioned by Hala) be used in the Dungeon Man to access the exit holes quicker?
So far, from what I've tried, it's not possible to use that glitch anywhere else but those 3 places. I haven't tested every single wall though, so there may be some places where it's possible to glitch through a wall. I'll have to test all the walls if and when I re-do the TAS.
Callmewoof wrote:
Would this skip any of the plot, and can it even be done at all in him?
The events in dungeon man are triggered by talking to him. If you don't talk to him, you don't activate the story. I remember this clearly because I once climbed up dungeon man, didn't talk to him, went down the exit hole and wondered for days why nothing happened.
Callmewoof wrote:
Also, I watched the video again and it really sucks how many fights are more-or-less forced upon you in the pyramid and those take a bit of effot to kill (timewise). Can you run away from those? Because if you run away successfully, the battle ends in 1 round and they dissapear off the map AND you have a couple seconds of invulnerability (maybe avoid a 2nd fight?). Or, do you need the exp they give?
I could run away from those, but the running away process is kind of complicated. To quote Nitrodon, "The probability of successfully running away from a fight is (highest speed among PCs - highest speed among enemies + 10*turn number)%. Some enemies prevent you from running away regardless of your speed.". I'd have to see if I can run away from these guys in the pyramid, but I do remember needing the exp. I need that exp to get Ness his Flash Beta, so he can 1-hit-kill the boss in Deep Darkness (and nearly all the bosses after that).
About that invulnerability after the fight, I would guess that it's just as long when running away and when winning the fight. So there's no change there.
onionmon wrote:
Can either of you explain how the walk through walls glitch worked for those three places but not other locations? What is the technique?
To be honest, I don't quite understand it either. What I think is happening is that there's a weak spot in some walls. Visually, you can find those weak spots by watching your character's vertical position. When you find the weak spot, you'll see that your character is approximately 1 pixel higher than usual. Once you've entered the weak spot, you need to find the direction to go to NOT bump out of the weak spot. Once you've found the direction that will NOT bump you out of there, you then advance further into the glitched wall. You then proceed to find (once again) the direction that will NOT bump you out, advance further, repeat until you've glitched through.
It's quite complicated to explain it. I suggest you try it yourself (it is possible and not that hard to do it on console). Once you've done it, do it again, and again, until you understand how you think it works.
I can do this glitch semi-reliably now.
This was my current theory to walk past wall:
If you face a direction and move in that direction (call X), you move 1 pixel in direction X for each frame of the held direction. Now if you face a direction (X again) and move in a different direction (direction Y), you actually move 2 pixels in the direction Y: 1 pixel is with your body turned towards direction X, and 1 pixel is with you body towards direction Y.
Example.
I face N and walk N, i move 1 pixel N.
I face N and walk W, i move 1 pixel W while turned N, and 1 pixel W while turned W. Therefore I moved 2 pixels in the direction of W.
Therefore, if there was scenario like this:
O-open space
X-wall
N-ness
OOO
OOO
XXX
OOO
ONO
and Ness was looking in any direction except NW,N,NE, and he walked North, he would move 2 space, and the final space going onto the wall, of which he can walk down onto the other side.
------
This was my current theory to step past wall...l, but it doesn't make sense when I encountered this. http://www.megaupload.com/?d=UMHDEA97.
This is a zip file with 2 save states i them, both are in the exact same position in the valley, but state 2 moves west when L is depressed, and state 3 moves SW when L is depressed. I don't understand how a tile would be destroyed... unless your standing ontop of the tile...???
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cMOKzXKGPg -- Refer to this for the videos, the 1st movement is from the 1st save state, the 2nd time is the loaded 2nd save state.
Woohoo I discovered what I believe to be a good improvement to the current run! In Hala's current run, the Winters SHROOOOM is killed in 2 rounds, using 2 rockets, 2 PSI Freeze, and PSI Rockin Beta/Alpha. I made this faster, 1-round version, created from Hala's run (I used it all the way up to the shroom fight, the only difference is I memory coded in a bag of dragonite, but easy to obtain see below). Check it out:
SHROOOOOM in ONE ROUND:
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1745646862/callmewoof%20shroooom.smv
The dragonite is extremely easy to obtain. In the Monkey Cave (in the desert), right before the pencil statue is the room you use the King Banana. In that same room is a monkey that wants a hamburger (drops from Cop in Onett and Pogo Punk). The hamburger monkey's room is a tiny room with a Dragonite box in it, so it only takes mere moments to grab it.
Why I think this is faster and/or cooler:
Shrooom in 1 round instead of 2
The attacks used are faster than the animations of PSI attacks
Needs 1 less bottle rocket (one less to buy?)
Hamburger already drops from monsters you fight
This beats him with 17 HP to spare, and the dragonite ony does 943 but I've had it as high as the 980's, so there's even a little wiggle-room :-)
Samus taught us that a girl doesn't need brains to be successful. Brains are giant, evil, and vulnerable to missiles.
Another potential improvement: Kraken in One round! Even though it uses a Psi Rockin beta and 2x Psi Freeze, it's still faster than the 2-round version.
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/141716266/callmewoof%20kraken.smv
I didn't optimize it this time because I just wanted to see if it could be done at all, and it could still be vastly improved if Paula's PSI Freeze causes Solidify (shorter kraken turn).
Kraken has 1097 HP, and in Theory could be beaten without poo's turn... if the RNG was nice:
160~ PSI Freeze Beta with Solidify (Had some of these)
700~ dmg Rocket (I've had as high as 707 before)
240~ PSI Rockin (Had a few of those)
That would be what I would call a PERFECT battle, although the RNG would have to be very merciful to grant this outcome. If this can be done with potentially only 3 attacks, Poo's 4th attack is just icing on the cake to give more room for 160~damage variation. The current run's lightning reflect is pretty cool, but its slower and 2x rockets is just so much HP over kill.
The 1-round battle I made is just to show where there is still some potential for the movie. I'm not trying to upstage Hala, or say "I did it better". I'm just trying to contribute in the spirit of the possible-improvements list that Hala's submission has. If this TAS is ever re-done, I think there is room for quicker, "luckier" battles to help speed it up, and IMO 1-round battles look cooler, but that's just me. :-)
Samus taught us that a girl doesn't need brains to be successful. Brains are giant, evil, and vulnerable to missiles.
In case anyone cares, another bug was found. Nitrodon pointed it out, but a certain "The Kirby" originally reported it on the Starmen.net forums.
Here's a link to a video demonstration of it (that I recorded): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoPT5a4jkeQ
It's a bug that occurs when you die and win at the same time. How can that be done? By fighting an enemy that has a "terminal attack". For example, the territorial oak bursts into flames when it dies, damaging everyone in the group. Now, if that territorial oak is the last enemy to die, you win the fight once it's done bursting into flames. However, if all your characters die from that bursting into flames, you die. You then get both a death and a win at the same time.
The result is a messed up game over screen. Go see for yourself, the video explains it better than anything I can write right now.
No, it's completely useless. There's nobody alive to receive the experience.
I wouldn't rule out anything right now ... the bug is too new to say anything definitive about it. I'd look into the mechanics of this a little more first.
Oh wait ... what is THAT? OMG! It's an Earthbound TAS redo! WOW!
The first part is up on my youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M29bJnBoT5g .. It goes from the start (duh!) to leaving Pokey's house. I'll try to make it to Giant Step within 10 minutes, so the 2nd part should end after Titanic Ant.
Right before Starman Junior, this new run was 205 frames faster than the old run (and that's even before fighting a single fight!).
Since I'm TASing both Earthbound and Uniracers at the moment, don't expect regular updates for any of the 2 games. I tend to work on one game until I get tired of it, and then work on the other game. Still, progress will be made constantly; I just don't know for what game that progress is going to be.
Enjoy!
Looks great, although I can't really see where you saved the frames at.
The frames were mostly saved from being closer to someone or something that joins your party.
For example, I talk to Pokey when I'm right next to him so that he has to walk the shortest distance possible to join my party. Also, Picky joins the party by moving up to Pokey, and then walking back to Ness. I made it so that Pokey and Ness are nearly at the same place, so Picky walks for a very short time. The same applies to Buzz-Buzz (goes up to Pokey, moves back towards Ness).
Have you considered shortening the player names? Not necessarily to A, B, C, D or anything like that, but even saving 1 or 2 letters like Jo, Bob, Jan, etc, would have huge savings over the life of the run, given the 1-frame-per-letter rule (I think that's correct?). I respect if you don't based on not wanting to gain your frames simply from shorter names, but don't most RPG TAS's like dragon warriors have names like 'A' for their characters?
Side note, can't wait to see the walk-through-cliff glitch in the run! :)
Samus taught us that a girl doesn't need brains to be successful. Brains are giant, evil, and vulnerable to missiles.
