The thing to note is that I managed to dig up a Cachusha (odds are 1 in 10240) that allows Ability Up for the girls quite early.
Did you intend and thus manipulate for that item or is it just a 'lucky' find?
Also, that Nero Family side quest is a new one to me. That is a pretty obscure treasure/quest, but, more relevant to this topic, seems time consuming as hell to do it and get to the ExII on time. I know little about FF9 running other than a casual attempt at 'perfect game' I did, (that I learned later was more or less doomed from the start being a PAL player...) but I assume the main reason you have so much time to spare is, under TAS conditions you seem to basically have a manual Enc-non and random battles cost so much time?
I don't know how you will be able to go for all FMVs, excalibur II and the "Lost Nero Family Quest" chest, but I guess you can do it, so good luck with this run.
The thing to note is that I managed to dig up a Cachusha (odds are 1 in 10240) that allows Ability Up for the girls quite early.
Did you intend and thus manipulate for that item or is it just a 'lucky' find?
Also, that Nero Family side quest is a new one to me. That is a pretty obscure treasure/quest, but, more relevant to this topic, seems time consuming as hell to do it and get to the ExII on time. I know little about FF9 running other than a casual attempt at 'perfect game' I did, (that I learned later was more or less doomed from the start being a PAL player...) but I assume the main reason you have so much time to spare is, under TAS conditions you seem to basically have a manual Enc-non and random battles cost so much time?
I manipulated it. Anklet, Extension, Barette and Rising Sun are also 1/10240 odds. But in Chocobo's Forest the RNG is rolling pretty fast thus giving me a lot of choice in the Random Numbers to use.
Yeah basically no unwanted Random Encounter, faster battles (faster ATB, Critical Hits,...), no need to backtrack to save after a hard part. Phoenix Pinion in Chocobo H&C are worth 1000 gils to sell, so by picking a lot of it I have enough gils to skip a trip in Dali saving around 4 minutes. Faster Auctions as I know exactly what amount to bid. Another big time save is the Hippaul Racing. I can level up 5 by 5 up to level 80 where a great player would need to save and finish 1 by 1 level. This saves around 11 minutes.
About the Nero Side Quest, there's no need to finish it before Excalibur II as 3 trips can be done after picking it up, leaving only 6 trips to do (up until the flashback of Dagger on the boat.)
As for the run, I fixed my mistake and picked up the missing Phoenix Down. As planned I had to redo the Plant Spider fight and the Ice Cavern, but I was able to hex-edit the rest, so I'm back at the start of Disc 2.
Nice to see that you have now switched to a more followable update schedule. Coincidentally earlier today I was wondering if it be another 6 months till we saw your next wip at the end of disc two, rather than hour chunks, so cheers for that. (Haha, unless you just give us a wip every time Beatrix kicks your ass!)
Anyway, great work so far, yet again.
How tight are you on Gil at this point, specifically all the gil needed for the Treno Auction house items? I'm aware of the cotton robe trick course, but that had to be tight? It made me wonder if Zidane winning the great hunt was for the gil it gave rather than part of the 100% definition.
Curious how many of Quinas Blue magics will get a use. Limit Glove is obvious. Auto life maybe if it can revive at 1hp, I forget? I guess the rest you have picked up so far are just as they are on the way?
Dali trip is needed as this is the only point to get that chest in the farm right and Cotton Robe ingredients right? Or can you get that chest later, and you are only really there for the Wrists?
Any reason for the, seemingly brute forced, Ragtime Mouse encounter? Seemed to waste some time in getting that encounter. Or is that related to my first, how tight are you on gil, question?
How tight are you on Gil at this point, specifically all the gil needed for the Treno Auction house items? I'm aware of the cotton robe trick course, but that had to be tight? It made me wonder if Zidane winning the great hunt was for the gil it gave rather than part of the 100% definition.
For now I have way more gils than necessary. But later on I'll need it to make more gils by buying Cotton Robe and the less known Desert Boots trick and reach 300K gils. All of that to have enough money for the Auction House items indeed. But no I'm not tight on gils at least not right now.
Letting Zidane wins the festival of the hunt is for my definition of Perfect game.
The maximum score you can get is what I have got ie 303 points and that is obtained by getting the (5/256 odds) 99 points of killing Zaghnol with Zidane.
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Curious how many of Quinas Blue magics will get a use. Limit Glove is obvious. Auto life maybe if it can revive at 1hp, I forget? I guess the rest you have picked up so far are just as they are on the way?
Limit Glove yeah, but also Night and on Disc 4, Level 5 death to slay Grand Dragons and Frog Drop when I'll have caught 101 frogs at level 99 to do 9999 damage. Auto-life is useless :)
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Dali trip is needed as this is the only point to get that chest in the farm right and Cotton Robe ingredients right? Or can you get that chest later, and you are only really there for the Wrists?
Both. I needed to go there for the chest so why not buying Wrists at the same time. I'll have to go back one more time on Disc 3 for the Mayor house and Windmill and I'll take Wrists one last time.
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Any reason for the, seemingly brute forced, Ragtime Mouse encounter? Seemed to waste some time in getting that encounter. Or is that related to my first, how tight are you on gil, question?
I have to encounter Ragtime Mouse 17 times throughout the game. Which means I try every forest and run my script to see what is the earliest RM I can get. Believe it or not 9 seconds wait is faster than the average time, that's why I settled for it.
Huh, I would have thought Night would have been one of the useless Blue Magics for sure. I'd forgotten about the Lvl 5 Death Grand Dragons exploit, but I can't believe I overlooked frog drop considering the goals.
Yeah I couldn't recall if you could get the Dali Farm chest during the visit whilst the card tournament is going. It does seem to have a lot going on for such a tiny town.
Interesting stats with Ragtime Mouse encounters.
Cheers for the info! Good with Alexandria. I seem to recall it being a nightmare in real time, so looking forward to seeing it demolished.
Ha, thanks! Man, I forgot how brutal that would be without tools.
Nice Zorn/Thorn fight, cut that one real close. I assume Vivi was fine from being hit by that Bandersnatch, whilst it was a 1HKO on everyone else was due to him being the only one having defense equips on?
Zidane needs the Silk Shirt to survive Thundara from the Black Mage. Therefore his defense against physical attacks is indeed pretty low and he would die in one hit from Bandersnatch.
Steiner needs to die in one hit during the fight with Beatrix so his defense is low on purpose.
Dagger would survive if she was at full health as I boost her defense to survive the hit from the Black Mage and she is in back row.
All in all Vivi is the only one able to absorb the hit without costing time.
Zorn and Thorn always both start the fight with full ATB so they act first but.... do nothing. Except you can't act right away when it's their turn. Hence the delay before Steiner attacks. I am actually only 8 frames shy of the perfect fight.
Yeah, I recalled that Freya and Steiner needed to get KO'd to avoid the exp. Just after those two bulky characters got one-shot'ed, I'd assumed squishy little Vivi would have been too. I underestimated the effects of equipment I guess. Which was silly of me in retrospect.
Well, I may need help.
I'm in the forest outside Conde Petie and I can't get a Ragtime Mouse in less than 10 seconds wait.
If somebody good with disassembly can tell me what the requirements for a Ragtimer encounter are, I may be able to get one faster than now.
Here is a savestate in the forest of Disc 2 :
http://www.mediafire.com/download/mf98qv5kz688v32/SLUS01295+.001
Thanks to anyone willing to help :)
Sorry for double post.
I have found how the Ragtime Mouse encounter works.
There is actually a timer starting as soon as you enter the World Map. It increases by 1 every 3 frames. To get a RM encounter, this timer must be higher than 400.
This means that you need to be on the World Map for at least 20 seconds.
I could do all of the encounters after getting Excalibur II but I would have to wait 20 seconds between each one which is a waste of time.
I had to draw a line as how many seconds of waiting in the forest was acceptable compared to how many forests I'm gonna cross. I settled for less than 10 seconds wait (or in other words, if the timer is above 200).
Other news, I'm fighting Amarant atm. Close to 6 hours in. Half way to Excalibur II :)
How many forests do you end up passing through/only have to make minor detours for, whilst doing the other things on your 'to-do' list? I imagine chocographs and the Choco beach healing quest must add quite a few.
Nice to hear your rapid progress, and getting around your Ragtime snag. Sounds like you are about level with that GameFAQs guide despite all the extras you've done so far?
From the top of my head I'd say 4/5 chocographs would require getting through a forest without detour and being over the 20 seconds mark.
Didn't think of the choco beach healing quest though. I have to check that.
Problem is getting on and off Choco already takes 5 seconds. Add to that the time to actually get the encounter and it might not be worth it compared to forests where the wait would be, say, 7 seconds.
Gamefaqs guide gets Excalibur II a little bit before 11h15min. So we have a buffer of 45 minutes comparing the time. They suggest finishing Disc 2 at 06:17:31.
I finished Disc 2 at 6:18:42. And we start Disc 3 with Hippaul racing where I'm gonna save 12-15 minutes by leveling up 5 levels at the time and not saving in between. So I'm pretty comfortable on the schedule despite all of the side quests and FMVs.
yeah but it's very close though.
I beat him by 64 frames exactly. :)
And with that done, I'm 9 minutes ahead of the guide.
I'll try to get an encode of Disc 2 for this week-end.
Huh, I have no idea how many frames Hippaul shaves off every Level, but that looks almost intentional.
Great news on the time. Looking forward to that wip.
Huh, I have no idea how many frames Hippaul shaves off every Level, but that looks almost intentional.
It varies.
It takes :
806 frames to Hippaul to finish at level 1.
702 frames at level 5.
624 frames at level 10.
...
450 frames at level 65.
446 frames at level 70.
440 frames at level 75 finally.
If Vivi does a "perfect" race, he finishes in 370 frames. However, if the game recognizes a pattern (like autofiring) it will consider that Vivi looses and won't increase Hippaul level, that's why I had to insert blank frames. (Which doesn't matter since we have to wait for Hippaul still). So the best time you can get without the game considering you cheating is 372 frames.
At level 85 it takes 430 frames to Hippaul to finish, which gives Vivi a lead of 58 frames only.
Conclusion level 85 is the maximum you can get 5 levels at the time. After that it's one by one.
Link to video
Disc 2.
Well the guy was right in the way so no detour and out of his 5 cards there was 4 that I needed.
And since he had a Mandragora and a Crawler that's 2 cards I won't have to win in the Card Tournament, leaving places for other cards
