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thommy3 wrote:
As you don't kill much enemies and bossfights are pretty fast, would it be possible to complete the game with no bow upgrades?
Interesting question, I admit I hadn't considered it before.
It takes roughly 20 seconds to get the 2 bow upgrades. I did a back of the envelope calculation of how much longer the bosses would take with no upgrades, and it comes out to about 17 seconds longer. So it seems plausible on the surface.
There are two difficulties I could see right away, health management and normal enemies in your way.
It is important in later levels to be able to kill stronger enemies in 1 hit to not lose time. Not being able to do so will cost several seconds I would guess.
In order to beat bosses quickly you have to be able to take more damage from them, meaning farming enough hearts to buy the health drinks in the dungeons. This would cost several more seconds, especially in world 3.
So the short answer is no, you can't get by without arrow upgrades.
I would say there is a slim but unlikely chance that 1 arrow upgrade is possible. I won't be the one to find out though : )
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Radiant wrote:
Question. Is this the kind of game where shooting the enemies just slows the run down? Because I thought the movie would look cooler if you'd kill more of the common mooks.
Indeed it is. Each enemy you shoot costs you 1-5 frames (depending on enemy value) when the score counts down at the end of the level. So only 1-2 and 2-1 shoot a lot of enemies to farm skill points to gain arrow upgrades, the other levels avoid them as much as possible.
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Hmmm maybe I am not explaining clearly.
What I mean to say is that the effect of increased speed / jump is needed in 3 sections of the last level, scaling the mountain , the crystal cave, and the summit. Fleetfoot the spell only lasts in one section once you use it, you are right it carries over if you don't use it though. So I would need 3 instances of the spell.
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Tangent wrote:
Out of curiosity, what's the loss for picking up the Fleetfoot spell? I thought it did the same thing as the Seven League Boots (thus negating the need to get them since Fleetfoot's literally in your way) but could be misremembering. Seems like it could save time regardless unless another key's that hard to come by or the speed gain's that minimal.
The seven league boots are permanent. The spell is only active for one area. Since you need the speed for all 3 areas of the last level, its not enough to get the spell. It's unfortunate that spells are so useless in this game. For example the geyser would dramatically change things except it can only be used in that single area in level 2.
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http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/20405881590876303
Ok I got the complete game in a WIP now. I have most of the improvements implemented, but there is still some work to do in level 3.
I'm pretty confident in level 1. A lot of compromises had to be worked into level 2 in terms of damage, of course overall there is substantial savings.
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Maybe you already know this, but the locations of the four bosses starts at 0220 and their HP starts at 00C8. Each boss has 128 HP. Each frame the game considers magic to be in contact with the boss takes away 4 HP. This is why critical shots are so valuable. Shooting at the correct frame can significantly increase damage per shot.
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http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/20341827831679020
Current WIP continuing from Randil's last WIP up to the start of 1-4
It is 68 frames ahead of the published run to this point.
Aside from better platforming, an extra jump in the middle of 1-2 loaded a platform earlier saving 10 frames.
I got some bad luck towards the end of 1-3 where one enemy that should only give me 100 points gave me 400 instead, not sure what is going on there. In one other spot, taking a more optimal jump saves more frames then killing the 300 point enemy, so that also increases the score but with a net gain overall.
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Oh competition : ))
who will win that coveted(?) last co-author spot!
I'm not sure I can think of another game that has a boss quite like this one. If someone can think of another similar example I would be interested to take a look.
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So it seems to me that the best possible outcome is to salvage both pacifist and no sub-weapons, since I think most viewers were pretty impressed up to the point of that one enemy at the end getting shot.
To start with, are there any theories about how this might be possible at all? (personally I just like the challenge)
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XYZ wrote:
Alyosha wrote:
I am interested in the concept of this run.
You want to fix this movie or to start from the beginning and step by step to inspect possible new run?
Basically fix the movie.
I didn't follow the thread too closely,but it seems most of the run is pretty well optimized with a few noted improvements to be done. I am mainly interested in the last level where that one enemy is getting in the way. Presumably EgxHB tried many, many things to get by him, but its just too tempting to pass up...
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XYZ wrote:
Someone is working on improvement this movie?
I am interested in the concept of this run. Are people of the opinion that a true pacifist run is salvageable, with or without the arrow? I would be interested trying to make it happen, it sure is tempting trying to get by that last enemy...
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Well done!
I'm not at all surprised an improvement was found, since there are so many ways someone might approach this fight, and its right at the end of the run. I wouldn't even be surprised if yet another improvement is found.
Well as I mentioned earlier an improved fight certainly deserves co-authorship, I will add rchokler as coauthor and ask the file be replaced unless an even better fight is presented within the next day or so.
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electricslide wrote:
My only concern is in the final battle - that's a lot of hits. Is there a way to avoid the hits or does that make it much slower?
This is an interesting question. Unlike every other enemy in the game, it seems you can't manipulate the elementals to stop them from shooting you (they attack at regular intervals.) Simply dodging would have been far slower, as many of the critical hits were pixel perfect (look at 7:06-7:07 in the video for a good example.) Many of the hits come from Kuros' feet, which can't be blocked, unfortunately. One hit is intentional, at about frame 25445. You can't see it, but the fire elemental is behind the mountain and collides with Kuros knocking him into the air (this sets up the important critical hits later.)
This isn't to say that a radically different approach to the fight wouldn't have yielded less hits and a faster time, I just couldn't find one.
More generally, I would even bet that the number of plausibly optimal ways to approach this fight is greater then that for entire games (e.x. NES Shinobi.) There are many factors to consider and many paths to go down. I would gladly add as co-author anyone who could produce a faster fight.
Randil wrote:
Haha, looks like I'm still active on this forum without me knowing it. :) Great job on this, I know how hard this game is to optimize. Yes vote from me.
Do you have any other projects that I could take credit for help get finished? : )
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Oh you are right, I played back the fm2 and it desyns, hmmm strange since the fm3 works fine, let me try again.
Oh and apologies I didn't give you a chance to team up with this game, it was much further along then I thought once I first started.
Edit: Oh I found the problem, I think, I have a stray down press on player 2 at that point. I had no idea player 2 input would effect the RNG. I only exported 1 player inputs to the FM2. Interesting. I will upload a 2 player fm2 and work to patch the file to one player. Luckily RNG is easy on this game.
http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/20204478884032547
There this one works, while I remove that press. Shouldn't effect anything else really. Strange a player 2 input would effect RNG in a one player game.
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http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/20199162381324799
Alright made it to the end!
Looks like it might submittable in time for 10 years of the original after all.
at the moment its about 1:12 faster then original, and almost 10 seconds faster then aglar's original complete WIP. (Although admittedly most of that improvement is with Aglar's own work, maybe about 2 seconds is my inputs.)
I'll take a little longer to look at the last boss fight a few more times, but I got some pretty great luck already so not sure how much more improvement I can get.
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http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/20162877163042624
alright updated WIP to the last cave before the summit.
It mostly incorporates aglar's WIPs, since its just platforming it was already pretty optimal. But I saved a few frames here and there.
I also went back and realized I used the wrong level 1 WIP so resynced with the improved one and redid the boss fight to manipulate out enough mana.
I also redid the gysers and saved 10 extra frames, so that worked out well.
