Post by Kirkq

Posted: 2/20/2010 5:34 PM

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kolechovski

Joined: 1/13/2006
Posts: 109

Now why would there be any problems with using controller 2? TASes are made to (ab)use game mechanics in every way possible, and even the original TAS of this game abuses fast-warping. Why wouldn't you make use of controller 2? Maybe another property gets added in the video description thingy. Whoop de doo. Go for it!

Life is like a box of chocolates-when you want peanut butter, all you get is coconut.

Posted: 2/20/2010 6:11 PM

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Derakon

Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960

As a general rule, TASes don't use cheat codes, regardless of how they're input. The wild warp is almost certainly a debugger cheat code that the developers left in the game; presumably the pause is as well.

Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.

Posted: 2/20/2010 8:07 PM

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kolechovski

Joined: 1/13/2006
Posts: 109

Well, that depends on what you'd consider a cheat code. I'd always assume that meant stuff like Game Genie, not resources developers put in the game to help with testing, etc. It all comes down to exactly what cheating is, but with glitches being allowed to be abused, I don't see why features put in game would be any different. It's not the same thing as inputing some password to start out at the very end. For example, in this game, consider that warping ability part of the hero's magical stash. It's a part of the game, so it should eb allowed to be used, right?

Life is like a box of chocolates-when you want peanut butter, all you get is coconut.

Posted: 2/21/2010 9:19 PM

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Hamm

Joined: 7/29/2004
Posts: 136
Location: Temple City, CA

It's one of those things that has become a rule on this site. Developer Debug functions, unless specified in the instruction booklet, are not allowed. Just as you can't use player 2 to save your character from dying in a pit in MM3.

"How can you prove you exist? Maybe we don't exist..." -Vivi Ornitier (Final Fantasy IX)

Posted: 2/22/2010 1:58 AM

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TheAxeMan

Ambassador, Experienced player (697)

Joined: 7/17/2004
Posts: 985
Location: The FLOATING CASTLE

Yes, I am still working on this. Almost done with my test run and then I will post it. I discovered a new glitch that will save about 40 sec but doesn't affect the route. I've been doing lots of analysis on how to get the xp as fast as possible. Time spent grinding is going to be cut by about half, maybe more. In thanks for checking up on me, I'll give away a couple teasers. First, I will not be obtaining the blizzard or thunder bracelet as those bosses can be killed faster without them (less lag). Second, the skeletons that appear in Karmine's area near the end of the Goa fortress usually fall apart when you hit them, making it time-consuming to kill them. But paralysis prevents this and helps me get some more xp from them.

Posted: 2/24/2010 9:15 AM

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Hamm

Joined: 7/29/2004
Posts: 136
Location: Temple City, CA

I look forward to seeing the test run in full. Would never have guessed that you could save time without the thunder bracelet. Paralysis on the skeletons for quicker kills and more exp is brilliant. I never even thought of that.

"How can you prove you exist? Maybe we don't exist..." -Vivi Ornitier (Final Fantasy IX)

Posted: 3/5/2010 11:31 AM
(Edited: 3/5/2010 7:50 PM)

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TheAxeMan

Ambassador, Experienced player (697)

Joined: 7/17/2004
Posts: 985
Location: The FLOATING CASTLE

Ok, test run is completed. Got it under 43 minutes, beating the old WW run and beating the published run by over 9 minutes. http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/563862445/Crystalis-test1.fm2 http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1136653041/Crystalis-test2.fm2 My new special grinding technique is in the Styx cave on Mt Hydra. Otherwise I use the same locations to grind but do it much more efficiently. Look for the new glitch after grinding on the spiders in the fortress. Another point of interest are both fights with Mado. In a strange glitch, I'm able to skip some dialog after getting the thunder sword but end up having to see it later when I fight Mado in that room. I kept finding speedups through the end. The big dragon boss fight is 15 seconds faster by using a special technique to manipulate his laser attack. The tower area at the end seems pretty straightforward, but even there I found enough changes to speed it up by 15 sec. In the second half I did a lot more work on managing experience. This saves a ton of time and cuts down on grinding. In fact, a large portion of the time saved is cut directly from time spent grinding. Needed two files due to file size. But I can cut file size in half by disabling controller 2. For some reason it didn't work when I tried to hack this with a text editor. I'll remember this for the final run. You can combine these two files into one in a text editor. Go to frame 86511 in the first one and delete everything after that. Then paste the input from the second one. Make sure you have "old PPU" set, otherwise it will desync.

Posted: 3/5/2010 2:49 PM

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OmnipotentEntity

He/Him

Player (36)

Joined: 9/11/2004
Posts: 2624

I opened the files in my text editor, and unfortunately the first file only seems to be 50k or so frames. Microstorage seems to agree. :(

Build a man a fire, warm him for a day, Set a man on fire, warm him for the rest of his life.

Posted: 3/5/2010 7:48 PM

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TheAxeMan

Ambassador, Experienced player (697)

Joined: 7/17/2004
Posts: 985
Location: The FLOATING CASTLE

Shoot, accidentally uploaded an incomplete version of that first part. This one should be the right one. And microstorage agrees. http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/563862445/Crystalis-test1.fm2 (I also edited the link in my earlier post) If you take the input section of part 2 and put it at the end of this you should be able to get the full run in one fm2. Should be 154564 frames, 42:56.

Posted: 3/5/2010 10:52 PM

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Hamm

Joined: 7/29/2004
Posts: 136
Location: Temple City, CA

That was quite the run. Amazingly quick work on some of the bosses. Draygon without the thunder bracelet was something to see. Can't wait to see the full run.

"How can you prove you exist? Maybe we don't exist..." -Vivi Ornitier (Final Fantasy IX)

Posted: 3/6/2010 2:07 AM

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OmnipotentEntity

He/Him

Player (36)

Joined: 9/11/2004
Posts: 2624

"This run is so great it's like sunshine on my raisin bran."

Build a man a fire, warm him for a day, Set a man on fire, warm him for the rest of his life.

Posted: 3/6/2010 2:08 AM

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TheAxeMan

Ambassador, Experienced player (697)

Joined: 7/17/2004
Posts: 985
Location: The FLOATING CASTLE

Thanks Hamm and others. Previous runs were mostly pretty good on bosses, but knowing more about the game engine and being able to see hitboxes let me improve some of them quite a bit. I also have better knowledge of how to manipulate luck but this is actually only important in a few cases. But I think it is ironic that people are going to mainly notice the boss fights are faster when the vast majority of the improvement comes from faster grinding and better experience management. The improved big dragon fight actually required several discoveries. First was that you can stab him. But pulling this off required another discovery. The problem is that the barrier spell flickers every eighth frame, but his lasers are firing constantly. So you have to keep moving because you can't stand directly in the laser path for long. Second was manipulating him to use his lasers immediately. The trick is to take damage on his human form before using the bow of truth. When you manipulate the lasers this way he doesn't stay vulnerable as long and it's just short of the time I need to kill him. But it's possible to manipulate two laser attacks in a row, easily long enough to finish him. In theory, if you could beat his human form you could skip the dragon form. You would also not need the bow of truth and could skip the first pyramid dungeon. But the code making him invincible is quite robust. Hits register, but his hp is regenerated to its max of 255 every frame. But in this game enemies die when their hp becomes less than 0 (technically, when hp-damage sets the carry/borrow bit). So even if you could do the max damage of 255 it wouldn't kill him in shot and his hp will recover the next frame. Both Mado fights make use of lots of knowledge about hit detection, hitboxes, movement and other aspects of the engine. In the second fight I could have beaten him about half a second faster, but letting the fight go slightly longer changed luck in the next section to help spawn more enemies. Since I don't need the blizzard bracelet I can fly to Amazones later, saving time vs building a bridge. The first fight against Draygon is actually slightly longer because I used the less powerful water sword. This saves time overall because it avoids an inventory trip. Draygon's human form has different hit detection than any other enemy; he can be hit every other frame instead of every eighth frame. So it only takes about 20 frames longer to beat him with water sword instead of thunder sword, less time than it would take to switch swords. At the very end I manipulate DYNA to use a much less laggy laser attack. The shots that come out of Crystalis in that fight are different from other sword attacks which allows me to get a shot off before the boss even appears. Just before this I also skip the last message. Strangely, level 1 charged shots from the thunder sword are actually less powerful than melee stabs. For all other swords, the shots are slightly more powerful. Also, the thunder sword's shots lag quite a bit, even on level 1. But the shots are so convenient that the lag is often worthwhile. It's pretty easy to get two hits with one shot. This is the key to grinding up the spiders much faster. For a TAS the level 2 water sword shot is very nice. It usually doesn't lag and it has a huge hitbox that can hit most enemies twice. edit: By the way, the immediate benefit of a damage boost is only about 10 frames. It's also hard to line up because the direction you are pushed is determined by what way the enemies are facing. Many enemies are programmed to meander towards you and so they aren't facing the right way. Some enemies move completely randomly though. I'm generally only interested in damage boosts when it has some other benefit like letting me keep up with a boss to kill him faster or reach a breakpoint in spawning something. It turned out that I only needed one damage boost on the first Mado fight but it looks like two might be better for most cases. There are other places I'd like to damage boost but I have bad luck. It seems like a huge portion of enemies can give you a status ailment and that needs to be manipulated. At the end I take damage right after sending the final shot to DYNA because it reduces lag.

Posted: 3/18/2010 3:59 AM

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tmont

Player (51)

Joined: 10/6/2005
Posts: 138
Location: Oregon

That was all kinds of awesome. Particularly the use of paralysis, the use of the rabbit boots and the "moon jump". Some really cool new strategies as well as being played better than my run in pretty much every way (which, in my defense, is four years old). The grinding strategies and execution was really the best part, in my opinion. It really made this run much more bearable to watch, since there were very few parts that were worth fast-forwarding through. Seriously rad. Thanks for making it.

Posted: 4/16/2010 6:12 AM

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OmnipotentEntity

He/Him

Player (36)

Joined: 9/11/2004
Posts: 2624

Any update on the non "test" version of this run? And if there is interest, I can make an encoded version of this.

Build a man a fire, warm him for a day, Set a man on fire, warm him for the rest of his life.

Posted: 4/17/2010 5:22 AM

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TheAxeMan

Ambassador, Experienced player (697)

Joined: 7/17/2004
Posts: 985
Location: The FLOATING CASTLE

I've started but not gotten too far yet. A little bit faster with some ideas that could save more time later. But it should continue smoothly as I get into things. Thanks for checking up.

Posted: 4/18/2010 12:10 AM

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OmnipotentEntity

He/Him

Player (36)

Joined: 9/11/2004
Posts: 2624

BUNP http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykKUjZzqTHo&feature=PlayList&p=735B28765E1A39E2&playnext_from=PL&index=0 Here is some youtube love for your test run.

Build a man a fire, warm him for a day, Set a man on fire, warm him for the rest of his life.

Posted: 5/20/2010 5:38 AM

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TheAxeMan

Ambassador, Experienced player (697)

Joined: 7/17/2004
Posts: 985
Location: The FLOATING CASTLE

Ok, as I said I have been making slow but steady progress on the final version. Here's how it goes up through the sealed cave. http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/75625300/Crystalis-Final-toBrynmaer.fm2 A big reason why it is taking me some time is because I found some new strategies in this beginning area. This puts me 17 sec faster than the test run which was already 17 sec ahead of the published run. About half the improvement is in getting the xp for level 1 and half is in getting the xp for level 2. I am more confident in the test run flow later on so it should be faster and more straightforward. But I'll continue to look for new strategies and tweaks. At the very least I am saving frames everywhere due to less lag.

Posted: 5/20/2010 1:05 PM

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Cardboard

Skilled player (1671)

Joined: 6/11/2006
Posts: 818
Location: Arboga, Sweden

That WIP was a pleasure to watch :) Keep it up.

Warp wrote:

omg lol this is so fake!!!1 the nes cant produce music like this!

Posted: 6/1/2010 3:33 AM

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mklip2001

He/Him

Editor

Joined: 6/23/2009
Posts: 2226
Location: Georgia, USA

Sorry about the late response, but I only just discovered this thread and saw this run in the works. Very nice! I never would've expected to see the flying bats used for experience :-) Good luck, TheAxeMan! I'm also looking forward to this. I'm not sure how I can help, but I'd love to review WIPs.

Used to be a frequent submissions commenter. My new computer has had some issues running emulators, so I've been here more sporadically. Still haven't gotten around to actually TASing yet... I was going to improve Kid Dracula for GB. It seems I was beaten to it, though, with a recent awesome run by Hetfield90 and StarvinStruthers. (http://tasvideos.org/2928M.html.) Thanks to goofydylan8 for running Gargoyle's Quest 2 because I mentioned the game! (http://tasvideos.org/2001M.html) Thanks to feos and MESHUGGAH for taking up runs of Duck Tales 2 because of my old signature! Thanks also to Samsara for finishing a Treasure Master run. From the submission comments:

Shoutouts and thanks to mklip2001 for arguably being the nicest and most supportive person on the forums.

Posted: 6/3/2010 8:58 PM

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Hamm

Joined: 7/29/2004
Posts: 136
Location: Temple City, CA

Just got to watch the new WIP. That was quite the improvement over the test run in terms of leveling. Really impressive Axe. Can't wait to see more.

"How can you prove you exist? Maybe we don't exist..." -Vivi Ornitier (Final Fantasy IX)

Posted: 6/29/2010 8:42 PM

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TheAxeMan

Ambassador, Experienced player (697)

Joined: 7/17/2004
Posts: 985
Location: The FLOATING CASTLE

I have been making steady progress and reached the first mountain area. Biggest change is that instead of visiting Brynmaer right after the sealed cave I go straight to the statue and walk back to Brynmaer. Also found ways to take out those enemies faster and have much less lag. Gained about 5 sec in this area vs test run for a total gain of 1400 fr over test run.

Posted: 11/15/2010 10:54 AM

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Hamm

Joined: 7/29/2004
Posts: 136
Location: Temple City, CA

Just thought I'd check in and see how progress is going Axe. Sometimes I think I might be the only person truly interested in this run, but I'm extremely anxious to see how you surprise me next.

"How can you prove you exist? Maybe we don't exist..." -Vivi Ornitier (Final Fantasy IX)

Posted: 11/15/2010 4:20 PM

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TheAxeMan

Ambassador, Experienced player (697)

Joined: 7/17/2004
Posts: 985
Location: The FLOATING CASTLE

I'm still working on this and I'm up in Mt Sabre North. Over 30 seconds ahead of test run now. I was planning on posting a WIP when I get to the next area. I've just finished the analysis of the best way to get the next lvlup. After that everything is pretty straightforward for a bit.

Posted: 11/15/2010 5:02 PM

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Derakon

Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960

Glad to hear progress is being made. Keep it up!

Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.