That is amazing! I love it! I never even thought to use zombie hover there, but it works absolutely brilliantly. Great idea.
The cliffs behave in really weird and annoying ways. Mr. K and I tried double dashing one player ahead while the other gets crushed, but the respawn was really tough to work around. Sometimes it waited like...a full extra crusher cycle to respawn us.
Looking forward to seeing what you can do with stage 4! Really curious to see if my dashes are still optimal. :P
Joined: 7/14/2014
Posts: 57
Location: Kansas City, MO
PJ wrote:
Looking forward to seeing what you can do with stage 4! Really curious to see if my dashes are still optimal. :P
I'd say you pretty well nailed it as my 1st and 4th double dashes wound up being similar.
Link to video
Double dashing past the lightning clouds still seems to be the way to go. They've got too much health and their unblockable projectiles can be awful/time-consuming to dodge on the narrow bridges.
Immediately double dashing after the first was a serendipitous find, though it's gains over single dashes are likely too small with too tight of tolerances for RTA use.
I somehow managed to avoid lag up through grabbing the bomb with minimal adjustments. For some reason the first vertical and horizontal sections just seem to run really light for the amount of action and types of enemies present.
The second set of bridges, on the other hand, is super laggy and there really isn't much that can be done about it. I tried getting through them with walking, single dashes and kills, but wound up seeing just about as much lag as double dashing. As such, I opted for the dashes.
The jester here unfortunately has more health than the ones in the shifting canyon, so killing him before his projectile wasn't possible. The last double dash may appear sub-optimal since Pocky bounces down and briefly stops the screen, but it doesn't stop Rocky from continuing to move upward. Oddly enough, it actually gets him further faster than all of the other double dashes I tried, including those that let Rocky cleanly bounce upward off of one of the bridge posts. I'm guessing this is because Pocky holding up the screen inadvertently diminished lag by delaying part of the massive tornado + fireball group from spawning.
I tried to make the last area as entertaining as possible, but there really isn't a whole lot to work with there. That, and the area likes to run extremely close to the lag threshold in spite of the relatively minimal amount of action going on. Must be all of those complex bat flight patterns weighing things down or something.
Current Project: Pocky & Rocky (SNES) improvements
Status: Stage 2 - fighting the octopus
Frames improved so far: 577
Very nice!
Mr. K and I actually toyed around with that second double dash. We found that angle, or one similar to it, but were struggling with setting it up quickly. Those bats and the tornado show up and really screw things up if you're not immediately prepared. It is fantastic to see in the TAS though! I especially like the 3rd dash! We tried a number of different setups, but it was way too inconsistent for us to handle.
The only suggestion I have is the tornado/bat fight at the end. Have you tested killing the bats offscreen with a wag/swipe? I know Mr. K and I tested the lag doing that vs killing them on screen, but I sadly do not remember the result of that test.
Joined: 7/14/2014
Posts: 57
Location: Kansas City, MO
PJ wrote:
Very nice!
Mr. K and I actually toyed around with that second double dash. We found that angle, or one similar to it, but were struggling with setting it up quickly. Those bats and the tornado show up and really screw things up if you're not immediately prepared. It is fantastic to see in the TAS though! I especially like the 3rd dash! We tried a number of different setups, but it was way too inconsistent for us to handle.
The only suggestion I have is the tornado/bat fight at the end. Have you tested killing the bats offscreen with a wag/swipe? I know Mr. K and I tested the lag doing that vs killing them on screen, but I sadly do not remember the result of that test.
I could definitely see the 2 extra dashes being immensely difficult in RTA. Synchronizing as I did on the first bridge before the bats and tornadoes would likely be out of the question as well on account of the game being somewhat inconsistent on how double dashing straight into a perpendicular surface is handled. One starting positions might bounce you one way while the next pixel up might go the other. Not a fun guessing game to play with cliff edges nearby. The 3rd would likely be just as rough since there doesn't appear to be any easy landmarks to work with and you'd mostly just have to hope for the best with the jester and the cliff edges between bridges. Damage boosting through the first cloud there in your run was a very reasonable way to approach it.
From general observations while messing around in the final bat + tornado gauntlet area, earlier kills like wagging at the edges or shooting ASAP would definitely reduce lag. I caused about 95 lag frames in this area, and I'm guessing at least 80% of those would be avoidable if I made kills at the edge instead. However, it would diminish the entertainment factor significantly for the ~40 sec segment so I opted to go for a few trick shots. Still, I took care in making sure no non-attack movements contributed towards the lag and in ending the sequence as fast as possible following the last wave of bats.
Suffice it to say, with the game's various auto-scrolling and scripted wait areas lending themselves to small compromises like these, I'm going to be making use of the "Contains Speed/Entertainment Tradeoffs" classification for this run.
Current Project: Pocky & Rocky (SNES) improvements
Status: Stage 2 - fighting the octopus
Frames improved so far: 577
From general observations while messing around in the final bat + tornado gauntlet area, earlier kills like wagging at the edges or shooting ASAP would definitely reduce lag. I caused about 95 lag frames in this area, and I'm guessing at least 80% of those would be avoidable if I made kills at the edge instead. However, it would diminish the entertainment factor significantly for the ~40 sec segment so I opted to go for a few trick shots. Still, I took care in making sure no non-attack movements contributed towards the lag and in ending the sequence as fast as possible following the last wave of bats.
Suffice it to say, with the game's various auto-scrolling and scripted wait areas lending themselves to small compromises like these, I'm going to be making use of the "Contains Speed/Entertainment Tradeoffs" classification for this run.
I absolutely agree with this decision. Standing at the edge of the screen and just wagging away kills a significant amount of the entertainment value. As long as that was an intentional decision (which I see now that it is!), then that's totally fine. IMO 95 frames isn't a terribly significant loss.
Joined: 7/14/2014
Posts: 57
Location: Kansas City, MO
ALAKTORN wrote:
Damn, the lag at 55 seconds is serious. Maybe killing more enemies to remove lag would be faster?
Yeah I know I’m late.
Just wait until you see the second set of bridges in Stage 4 :-)
I did test killing more skeletons while waiting for the sage to drop the bomb, but that actually resulted in more lag. Unfortunately, the game will spawn more skeletons in this area after killing some of them, and the spawning animations caused more lag than just letting most of the skeletons run around. There is still a chance that some other combination of positioning and kills could reduce lag a little more, but I couldn't find anything better at the time.
I'll probably go back and give areas like that a few more tries once I get through the rest of the stages, but some parts of this game are just stuck being really laggy no matter what you do.
Current Project: Pocky & Rocky (SNES) improvements
Status: Stage 2 - fighting the octopus
Frames improved so far: 577
t0ast could you explain to me how the sage cycling works a bit more where its cycling etc? i am running Solo RTA's of this and i got this time 21:20 now http://www.twitch.tv/se7endeadlysins/c/5420173
So basically for me to improve that time is obviously not dying stupidly in stage 5 but i also want to be able to bomb first boss and get a bombsage in stage 2(thats the sage i can _never_ get)
Joined: 7/14/2014
Posts: 57
Location: Kansas City, MO
Akisto wrote:
t0ast could you explain to me how the sage cycling works a bit more where its cycling etc? i am running Solo RTA's of this and i got this time 21:20 now http://www.twitch.tv/se7endeadlysins/c/5420173
So basically for me to improve that time is obviously not dying stupidly in stage 5 but i also want to be able to bomb first boss and get a bombsage in stage 2(thats the sage i can _never_ get)
Nice run!
The RNG is rolled during the story cutscenes before each level and is based upon the game's main frame-based counter (7E0002). It's initial value varies from stage to stage and it stops a few increments after you press start to skip. The final counter value modulo 8 gives you the value of the sage you will get. In other words, it's stepping through this list of possible values on every frame:
0 - Knight (powerup)
1 - Fisherman (powerup)
2 - Mandolin Lady (bomb + dog)
3 - Old Man with Fan (powerup)
4 - Old Man with Cane (bomb)
5 - Reclining Fat Man (bomb)
6 - Man in Purple (powerup)
7 - Mandolin Lady (bomb + dog)
As such, you'd normally you have a 50% chance of getting a bomb from each stage with a sage. However, Stage 2 is different ...
0 - Knight (powerup)
1 - Fisherman (powerup)
2 - Mandolin Lady (bomb + dog)
3 - Old Man with Fan (powerup)
4 - Man in Purple (powerup)
5 - Man in Purple (powerup)
6 - Man in Purple (powerup)
7 - Man in Purple (powerup)
... meaning the chance is now 1 in 8 because the Man in Purple decided to be a greedy jerk.
Even though the starting value of that counter is different from stage to stage, each individual stage seems to be consistent (for example, stage 2 looks like it always starts at 43). You could potentially improve your chances by firing up BizHawk (or similar) and seeing if you can find some audio or visual cues in the cutscenes (like the appearance of a specific letter or a note in the music) that syncs up with a favorable time to press start and then trying to hit that in real-time. This does come at the cost of risking a small amount of time (compared to just mashing start), but if you can reliably use it to get bombs, it would definitely be worth it.
Current Project: Pocky & Rocky (SNES) improvements
Status: Stage 2 - fighting the octopus
Frames improved so far: 577
that is what im doing for stage 1 and 4,
stage 4 when y in they <-- pops up.
stage 1 when the face in the picture pops up
stage 5 is still just randomly pressed because i can't figure out what to press
Joined: 7/14/2014
Posts: 57
Location: Kansas City, MO
Here's the rest of Stage 4. If you saw Part 1, skip to 1:10.
Link to videoBK2 File (Bizhawk 1.7.2)
Nothing terribly technical going on with the airship section of this stage. It runs pretty light on lag and there's no additional entertainment to be gained at that cost, so I went through this one avoiding all possible lag. It wasn't particularly difficult, as all I had to do was kill most enemies fairly quick (mostly before others appeared) and delay some actions in maybe 3 or 4 spots throughout.
The large flying pirate enemy can be temporarily KO'd, but will always reappear at scripted locations throughout the level. I only killed him when necessary to manage lag and spawn the boss ASAP, since his last appearance will run all the way to the end of the stage and potentially hold things up. Also, he has some really odd behavioral patterns at times. For example, manipulating him to throw the single bomb at me from the right side of the ship required a frame-perfect shot from Pocky.
The only other interesting point I can think of is that you can squeeze in between the gun pirates and where their bullets spawn if you're really careful. I do this a few times in the video.
The boss fight here turned out WAY better than expected. It was good to see the sprite delay glitch work again after the uncooperative lich (even if the result wasn't quite as silly as the others so far). That, and I honestly wasn't expecting to be able to get another 2000 damage bomb off on this boss. I lucked out and found a workable position/timing within the first minute or two of testing, so I can't say much about the boss's attack or flight pattern. It's definitely manipulable by the position of its target, but that's about all I know.
Obviously for RTA you'll want to burn a bomb on this boss if possible since it's so mobile, but it's difficult for me to estimate how hard it would be to find the ideal position/timing. Solo would need to test many, many starting positions and timing, while co-op could potentially mimic me, hit a ~5 frame window and hope the boss is targeting the correct player.
Current Project: Pocky & Rocky (SNES) improvements
Status: Stage 2 - fighting the octopus
Frames improved so far: 577
I have managed to 1shot the boss in RTA's a few times but most of the time i bomb and have to shoot a few shots at him already found a solid strat for it
Joined: 7/14/2014
Posts: 57
Location: Kansas City, MO
Akisto wrote:
I have managed to 1shot the boss in RTA's a few times but most of the time i bomb and have to shoot a few shots at him already found a solid strat for it
1shot as in totally dead with bomb alone, or did you still need those 3 extra shots to take out the remaining 48 HP like I did? I thought bombs topped out at 2000, but if they can go higher, I'll definitely need to go back and see if I can do that.
Current Project: Pocky & Rocky (SNES) improvements
Status: Stage 2 - fighting the octopus
Frames improved so far: 577
i'm not entirely sure but i've killed the bird before it got offscreen not entirely sure if it was killed entirely by the bomb but i'm also running Solo so the boss would move diffrently
Joined: 7/14/2014
Posts: 57
Location: Kansas City, MO
Akisto wrote:
i'm not entirely sure but i've killed the bird before it got offscreen not entirely sure if it was killed entirely by the bomb but i'm also running Solo so the boss would move diffrently
With a little further manipulation of the boss's flight pattern (moving Pocky to the right by ~10px) and a minor adjustment in bomb positioning (~1px), I was able to successfully one-shot the boss with bomb alone. This saves 16 frames. Thanks for the tip :-)
updated BK2 file
Current Project: Pocky & Rocky (SNES) improvements
Status: Stage 2 - fighting the octopus
Frames improved so far: 577
i'm not entirely sure but i've killed the bird before it got offscreen not entirely sure if it was killed entirely by the bomb but i'm also running Solo so the boss would move diffrently
With a little further manipulation of the boss's flight pattern (moving Pocky to the right by ~10px) and a minor adjustment in bomb positioning (~1px), I was able to successfully one-shot the boss with bomb alone. This saves 16 frames. Thanks for the tip :-)
updated BK2 file
Uhm there is a huge difference in that fight co-op vs solo though, i just stand in a fixed position and the boss will fly past me to the right when the text ends i need to be really quick at pressing the bomb to damage him as much as possible/oneshot him. most of the time i need to take 3-4 seconds hitting him after and in my PB it was a really bad bomb so it took way more:/
You're awesome, solarplex. Thanks for that updated bk2 encode!
Stage 4 is so good, once again, t0ast! Just as highly entertaining as the rest of the run. Good work!
Joined: 7/14/2014
Posts: 57
Location: Kansas City, MO
Thanks for the encode, solarplex.
CoolKirby wrote:
Stage 4 is so good, once again, t0ast! Just as highly entertaining as the rest of the run. Good work!
Thanks!
Akisto wrote:
T0ast are you doing this on the US version or J version?
US version.
And a quick update: Still working on Stage 5, but the holidays and Q4 deadline rush at work have been limiting my time. I made it to the first horizontal transition pretty easily, but the following section is pretty rough. I'm still trying to find a good way to super/double dash through the two sets of barrels to avoid damage boosting and/or wasting a bunch of time manually detonating them if possible.
Current Project: Pocky & Rocky (SNES) improvements
Status: Stage 2 - fighting the octopus
Frames improved so far: 577
OK so i made a playthrough of the game on J version
from what i could tell the differences are
Intro Natsume is diffrent.
Limit is 3 Bombs, US has a limit of 4
There spawns 1 ghost early on in stage 1(doesn't really do anything)
Soundeffects are way worse LOL.
THERE IS A HUGE DIFFERENCE IN LAG i'm not kidding.
_less lag_
The Stage 4 Boss has 2 sentences instead of 3(faster)
Stage 5 Boss has 4 Sentences(slower?)
Stage 5 has like waaaay less lag lol
Stage 6 noticed nothing.
Now this is just from my own experience i could be wrong but this is how i felt like it since i got a -4 second gold split on stage 2 boss with a pretty bad stage overall lol
Joined: 7/14/2014
Posts: 57
Location: Kansas City, MO
First part of Stage 5:
Link to video.BK2 file (Bizhawk 1.7.2)
As expected, this stage is shaping up to be quite difficult.
Explosive Barrels are the first major obstacle. Double dashing through them suffers a substantial amount of lag, but when the alternative involves triggering the barrel through 9 hits or proximity, waiting through the ~50 frame detonation sequence, and then staying clear of the large explosion area, it's the lesser of two evils. Interestingly enough, the barrels only pay attention to the proximity of only one of the characters at a time. They will occasionally switch which character is targeted, but I'm not sure what triggers the switch at this time. It's really difficult to see in practice here, but at 0:49, the barrels are targeting Pocky, so sending Rocky forward first leaves just enough time and space for Pocky to dash through safely.
As I mentioned earlier, the horizontal section was a bit tough due to the first double dash. It took a while to figure out how far forward to go (so to land between the sets of barrels) and then how to precisely launch the dash to make it through that very narrow walkway. I would definitely not recommend it for RTA, unlike the following double dash which was again inspired by the Mr_K+PJ run.
Double dashing through the barrel thrower at the next set of stairs is not an option. Even though the barrels may appear to bounce, it is merely a cruel trick to make you think that you can safely move beneath them, only to get crushed all the same. There's just enough time to kill the first thrower between barrels, but not the second. This is due to the difference in distance their barrels have to travel before re-cycling. As such, there wasn't much of a choice with the second thrower but to damage boost through him.
The final area of this section presents several possibilities since there are 5 moderately laggy enemies present and the door is the only thing keeping you from proceeding. I tried a few different combinations of killing and evading, but the best result by about 50 frames came from killing all of the enemies as early as possible before handling the door. The lag savings paid off and it left just enough time for Rocky to grab some health in anticipation of more double dashes and damage boosts in the next section. I plan on grabbing some health for Pocky from the next set of chests as well.
Akisto wrote:
OK so i made a playthrough of the game on J version
from what i could tell the differences are...
Very interesting, especially if there's less lag. Will definitely mess around with that version a bit once I'm done with this run.
Current Project: Pocky & Rocky (SNES) improvements
Status: Stage 2 - fighting the octopus
Frames improved so far: 577
Very nice screen! This is an incredibly tricky section, as you noted. It is SO hard to optimize lag. I think you did a great job with it, though. There's simply no fast way to get through the barrel throwers (the squash animation is a huge pain!), and some enemies have to be killed to cut down on lag. This is a really nice route I think. It is so nice to see the RTA double dashes still make it into the TAS! <3
The interior of the castle is incredibly fun because it is a lot more open. The trickiest part for us was finding the "screen scroll" triggers so our double dash wouldn't just bounce off the top of the screen.
I'm sure you already know this, but there are several ways to get through the spike ball section on the far right. If you damage boost off a skeleton guy, the balls will not crush you during your invincibility frames. The damage boost even refreshes your dash, so you can cover a lot of ground. You can also dash straight through the spike balls if you dash immediately before they crush you. I don't know what the frame window is, but it should be easy enough to test. I know it is consistent though, because I used to do it pretty frequently in our practice sessions.
Keep up the great work, t0ast! This is looking amazing!
