Joined: 2/28/2006
Posts: 2275
Location: Milky Way -> Earth -> Brazil
Yeah, Yrr... you're getting better and better. It really makes me want to resume my run...
"Genuine self-esteem, however, consists not of causeless feelings, but of certain knowledge about yourself.
It rests on the conviction that you — by your choices, effort and actions — have made yourself into the
kind of person able to deal with reality. It is the conviction — based on the evidence of your own volitional
functioning — that you are fundamentally able to succeed in life and, therefore, are deserving of that success."
- Onkar Ghate
Hey pirate, I got your message and dug out what I've still got: http://red-stars.net/content/Castlevania%20%20Aria%20of%20Sorrow%20-%20Red%20Stars.html
The real meat were my notes, which are long gone at this point. There was also a completed level editor (showed, but couldn't edit objects) written in C++/wxWindows and cross compiled for linux/win32, but that's long gone now too. Oh, and the 1:1 castle map was pretty cool, if not massive (for 2003 at least).
Some where on this thread or board is me doing some minor work on the PRNG, I can't remember how far I got. I probably can't anwser anything, but feel free to ask :)
I've casually started toying around with the warpless any% and I just finished Manticore. I'm roughly 160 frames ahead of Yrr, many of which come from not using a third pause-screen - there is no need to equip Combat Knife so early.
Here's the WIP:
Pie
I recorded it on VBA v22, but it seems to sync on other versions aswell.
This is more of a wake-up call, really. If Yrr is still working on this then I'm going to do a Dawn of Sorrow all-souls run instead.
<klmz> it reminds me of that people used to keep quoting adelikat's IRC statements in the old good days
<adelikat> no doubt
<adelikat> klmz, they still do
Well, almost good morning to you :3. Though I have to say it is a little peculiar that you typed this in your sleep.
The idea was to check if Yrr was still working on his warpless any%, he does not seem to be, but one can never be too sure.
At the moment I'm working on Great Armor, I enter his room 241 frames ahead of Yrr. Gonna WIP as soon as I get his soul with acceptable delay.
Also, I'm wondering if Kicker Skeleton is worth getting as early as I do in my 100%... I'm gonna check and see how much faster it is compared to the Catoblepas movement, it does allow for a different Guardian soul, which is always a huge bonus.
@Kriole:
Wow, I cancelled my "warpless any%" 2.5 years ago, and I then made a new "glitched any%" instead. However, your recent "100% souls" woke up the evil spirit of frame war within me, and this new WIP broke the seal on it. So watch out for a new AoS run anytime! Gwahahahah!
Joking aside, have you ever seen the mysterious "shortened invulnerability" glitch mentioned in my post? I can swear that I once recorded it occurring, replayed the movie to verify it, but then overwrote the only movie along with the relevant savestates by mistake.
<klmz> it reminds me of that people used to keep quoting adelikat's IRC statements in the old good days
<adelikat> no doubt
<adelikat> klmz, they still do
I have not. I once thought that wobbling removed single cooldown frames, but it turns out I was hitting a monster with 2 hitboxes and the weapon was just connecting on different parts.
Regardless, I redid the whole Study to get some extra experience to get level before Great Armor. It payed off nicely, I got his soul after very little delay. In the end my 241 frame gain turned into 227. :<
Well, the extra experience I got set me about 10 frames back. I got the soul from the 2nd Catoblepas instead of the first one, to avoid delaying for the soul-travel.
Battle Axe is not better on normal difficulty, it does 51 damage while Combat Knife does 31.
Pie
Pretty much. I believe entering the room ~70 frames later, due to the level up screen, made him very happy or something (entering rooms later can sometimes change the loottables). Great Armor has always been a major pain in the ass - he never really seems to make any sense. Sometimes when adding hits, the soul drops later, or even sometimes not at all. Here, by adding 1 hit and moving backwards very very little, I managed to save 3 frames. But when adding 2 hits, the soul doesn't drop at all. Makes perfect sense.
Hi guys.
I'm sorry to say that, but I decided to abandon my run. It is really sad for me, having spend so much time on this game. I contributed a lot, and I think it should be finished but...
1. This game is getting extremely annoying. I restarted it like 5 times already, and I don't feel like redoing everything again and again.
2. When I thought I could include every new trick and technique in my run, I am proven wrong. Kriole's trick to get Kicker Skeleton early basically obsoletes a good portion of my run. I spent hours on optimizing every room as much as possible, and then...
3. I won't have much time in the future, making it difficult to make further progress.
Besides, Kriole is working on an improved version anyway.
I'd love to finish this game, but appearently it's not meant ot be...
However, maybe, I'll find enough time and motivation to continue. I don't think so, but you never know.
PS. I am pretty sure, that Kicker is faster than the backdash run.
PPS. Kriole, please post a WIP of your run =)
It is unfortunate that you cannot finish your run. Luckily, I'm a very bored person, so I should finish pretty soon. Sadly.
Anyways, it seems that Kicker Skeleton is about 45% faster than the backdash cancel. It takes roughly 630 frames to get the Kicker Skeleton, so yeah, definitely worth it.
I'm also thinking of killing the Flame Demon twice, for a Laevatain. I doubt I'll ever be lucky to get it with awesome delay, it was extremely hard even with the Imp, but let's see what I can muster. Revisiting the room is faster than getting the one in the Arena, no doubt.
What?! How could you do that? My life in TASing has then been ruined... for years.
Never mind. I guess nearly every TASer has something that he/she/it (honoured bots!) can't fullfill by his/her/its quitting TAsing video games someday.
<klmz> it reminds me of that people used to keep quoting adelikat's IRC statements in the old good days
<adelikat> no doubt
<adelikat> klmz, they still do
Isn't the Imp right on-route to getting Kicker Skeleton? And in a section where you have to wait for a moving platform, so it shouldn't cost you any time to pick up, right? So it could possibly be used to improve manipulation for the Flame Demon drop.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Well, the soul-collect message is up for around 60 frames, and switching to imp takes 60 frames. Well, given that we are switching to the Imp, we have to switch back to whatever guardian soul, so yet another 60 frames. So unless it saves more than 180 frames, I believe we won't see this happening. Sadly, the drop rate for Laevatain seems to be roughly 0.2% or something like that, so saving 180 frames is not impossible. Still, there is really no excuse to get imp just because the manipulation is hard.
Anyways, I redid the Great Armor fight, and saved 15 frames, putting me 242 frames ahead again. That means I gained back all the frames all lost while gathering experience and a little more. Awesome.
There is little to no delay - I noticed that you can manipulate Great Armor decently with backdashes. He is still pretty damn random.
The inconsistent movement after his death is to avoid lag, which saved a lot of time, gonna toy around and see if I can't avoid more lagframes.
Pie
Nice Work!
Some (relatively insignificant) stuff I noticed:
-A very minor thing: You equip Baselard before backdash. Why? Going to menu stops your movement for like 1 frame (but it doesn't really matter anyway).
-Wouldn't it be faster to get Skeleton soul at first occasion possible? You could move through the room where you finally got it faster. I am not really sure about this one though.
-You don't seem to optimize the go-up-stairs-technique, like I did. However, since you are ahead of me, it doesn't look like it made a difference...
-Few places seemed a little unoptimized.
Also:
+You killed more enemies without wasting time.
+Better luck-manipulation.
+Other minor time-savers.
+You performed the minor "knife floating in the air"-bug =D
All in all, very good run so far!
Indeed equipping baselard outside of a backdash wastes 1 frames of movement, but it only sacrifices a small distance, not enough to warrant a full frame. I thought it would be fun to kill Zombies.
Skeleton soul? I assume you mean the Catoblepas, getting it on the second one is easier, since it leaves so much time for manipulation and getting the first one does really no difference - you still have to wait for the Minotaur soul so that you can enter the pause screen. The small distance traveled is not enough to warrant those frames back.
I'm not sure to what you are refering to regarding the stairs. The Merman Room might seem a little confusing, but I'm actually 1 frame faster there compared to my 100%, disregarding the first half of the room.
I use the same stairclimb as Klmz and it indeed is slightly faster than the 3 jump/3 wait climb.
Would you mind specifying the places which feel unoptimal? I would like to recheck to see if there are any loose frames. Although I have this awkward feeling any single frames will work against me on Great Armor.
Also, I redid the Great Armor death scene, and saved another 8 frames. Apparently, doing backdashes causes huge amount of lag, so I avoided that as much as possible.
I meant that yellow Str +4 soul (Skeleton knight). Sorry, didn't remember the exact name.
- The first place which seems a bit unoptimal is the room, where you fall down (before the first Graham encounter). I think the horizontal distance travelled could be higher, if you jump a bit later, so you could leave the room sooner. Not sure about this one, but it seemed faster for my run.
- The other room is the one with the first Catoblepas. Again, not sure, but you leave the room by falling, so if you jump higher, your vertical speed is greater, making you reach the ground of the next screen earlier. Did you test that?
I hope you understand what I am trying to tell :)
Wouldn't you want to spend as little time as possible in the air in AoS? Movement in-air is slower than movement on the ground. Jumping high to fall faster only works out in games where airspeed and groundspeed are equal.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Oh the Skeleton Knight. Completely forgot about that one. Funny thing actually, I toyed around with the first Skeleton Knight for about a week, but eventually gave up - I never had the soul drop once. Then on the second encounter it dropped on the first try. Oh, the irony. Pretty sure it is slightly slower to kill this Skeleton Knight, but you get the extra experience for the exchange of a big heart, and I really didn't need it at the time.
I rechecked the fall before Graham quickly, both methods are actually equally fast. Originally I thought mine was slightly faster, but apparently not.
I also checked the Catoblepas room, any additional airtime only causes you to land later.
EDIT: I just finished everything up to the warp room. I'm now 687 frames faster than Yrr, turns out taking a left turn is much faster than going right after leaving the Study.
Pie
About the Winged Skeleton. Assuming perfect conditions (as in, no Winged Skeleton), it is actually equally fast to throw a spear on it as opposed to hitting in the air twice. Landing after a spell allows for a hit on the first possible frame, meaning you can turn around and hit at the same frame and then cancel it with a glitched backdash which is roughly 8% faster.
I just reached Death, 640 frames ahead of Yrr. I lost about 830 frames on the Kicker Skeleton, I wasn't strong enough to kill the Skeleton in time for the elevator. I also stopped to kill 2 Bomber Armors, to get level before Death.
WIP - Die
Backdashing up stairs is slightly faster on longer stairs, but slower on the shorter ones.
Starting to think that my 100% really needs a remake, there are seriously a buttload of improvements. Probably gonna do that sometime after this run. Also, getting Battle Axe is not faster on hard, since you have to pause one more time. I completely forgot that...
Is there any soul on your way that could kill the Kicker Skeleton faster? There should be enough time to get any if that allows you to kill it in time.
I ran a quick test and it is possible to have Werewolf connect with the breakable wall - it requires some very risky jumping at the spikes, but that's just funsies. Gonna check how much time it saves with the Werewolf soul overall.
I also found a funny route-change in the Floating Gardens. It saves 5 whopping frames. The downside is that you can only kill 1 Imp, meaning you lose 60 experience for 5 frames. Definitely not worth it. This demo is only 4 frames faster since I was lazy on the 2nd transition. And you can't kill the Cockatrice before the 2nd elevator, I checked.
Edit: Going for Disc Armor instead of Werewolf. Disc Armor is ridiculously fast and hits 3 times for higher damage. It's way better for breaking the wall aswell. And the Disc Armors can be petrified, saving atleast 70~ frames. Definitely the better choice.