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FatRatKnight wrote:
I spawn a fairy.
Considering what I've seen, RNG and timer-wise, the run might still sync following the reset after P4. I'm guessing you want to see if I can spawn fairies at will when the lava entry for fairy spawn is FF, giving a theoretical 1/256 chance.
The work you're doing here is super impressive. I see your edit about a maximum of 2/4 fairies. Can you continue and verify that you can get a good second fairy on the way out of Darunia?
A fairy at a Valley of Death trap would be a marvel. It sounds like getting two in a row is likely impossible, but the third Valley of Death trap is separated from the first two by the caves. So perhaps there is a minuscule possibility of getting fairies at either the first or second Valley of Death trap and then also at the third trap.
solairflaire wrote:
Doesn't the sword beam have a higher hitbox than the sword? Could you miss the octorok below it and hit it with the sword beam?
What happens if you do the encounter glitch in glitch town since it has exits on both sides?
I can't get underneath the octorok. Trying to go low stabs it with the sword. And it doesn't jump high enough to swordbeam high. So the only option is the frontal attack, but there's not enough space to get in an attack without slowdown.
The encounter glitch works only on an exit of a two-sided encounter tile. It doesn't do anything at towns, dungeons, or caves.
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There is a lot of overworld manipulation in the warpless run, and that's the primary reason that it was so time-consuming and technically challenging. What was particularly challenging was the Reflect Trek, because it has around 15 consecutive screens that change based on the timing of the preceding screens. And at the same time, I had a central goal of trying to spawn fairies at the traps. So if you could predict 'if your timing is X on this screen and Y on this screen and so on, you will get perfect fairy spawns at 3 of the 4 traps,' then you would be a demigod.
http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/34043331593918099
Here is the first WIP of the warps movie. Compared to the warpless movie, even though they are not competing, this run gets to the hammer about 3:04 earlier. And I will save an additional 0:48 since I'm skipping the Death Mountain magic container.
I believe that I have found the optimal way to perform the encounter glitch. If you're wondering why I did it only on the first bridge screen, the reason is that it's not possible to do it on the second bridge. The right exit of the second bridge doesn't lead to an overworld exit; the bridge is two connected sidescrolling screens. The glitch works only on a side with an overworld exit. Also, I needed the experience from the small enemy on the bridge anyway.
Edit: I forgot to mention that there's a fairly easy way for real-time speedrunners to do the encounter glitch. Not the way I do it here, but by switching from holding right to holding left on the correct frame.
Is it possible to kill the second octorok without slowing down? I didn't find a way.
I improved the daira fights by a few frames. In the warpless movie, it didn't matter though, because the death cycle would negate those gains. So I didn't lose any frames in warpless. But in this movie, it needs to be perfect.
I realized that I had a choice between leveling to 2-2-1 or 1-3-1, because I can get to 2-3-1 in the Water of Life cave and then go to P2 instead of P1. The routes seem to yield almost identical timing over the long-term. I'm going to go with the 2-2-1 method. I suspect it may be slightly faster. It also creates more differences between the warpless and warps movies. It gives me the freedom to delay P1 until any time before the last restart, and we may find a use for that option later. And it is easier for me to do, because I will go through P1 at 3-5-1 instead of 1-3-1.
Edit: Disregard. 1-3-1 is faster.
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Kung Knut wrote:
I just want to question this in order to see good motivation for keeping them, precisely because they may be considered to be "WARP glitches" in a "NO WARPS" run.
A "warp" or "wrong warp" in Zelda II is when an exit takes Link somewhere other than where that exit is supposed exit into. The three warp glitches in the new run all follow the same rule.
-With the healer glitch, Link is supposed to exit outside the healer's house, but instead he exits into Glitch Town.
-With the encounter glitch, Link is supposed to exit to the tile from which he entered, but instead he exits on the opposite side.
-With the fairy glitch, Link is supposed to exit to the room above, but instead he exits to the room below or to the right (or elsewhere).
The four things you mentioned are not warps.
-When we walk on the ceiling, we exit to the right like normal, just from a higher Y-axis position. The game correctly exits into the screen that is to the right.
-The random battle occurs before reaching the encounter tile. After reaching the exit of the random battle, the game correctly exits into the next tile onto which Link was stepping. There's no warp; we just don't trigger the encounter tile entry.
-Fairying through a door is a basic feature of the game and doesn't warp anywhere.
-Up+A restarts the game and zeroes the counts. It has nothing to do with unintended exits.
The new movie will be plenty different.
Inzult wrote:
From below, you can beak a block above/in front of you with a jumping standing stab since the sword's hitbox is slightly too high.
Downstabless is an interesting challenge, like the Zelda swordless challenge. I am fairly sure it's not faster, though. You start off about 1450 frames ahead, but after fighting 36 large enemies and 6 bosses without downstab, you're probably way behind.
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Inzult wrote:
notes: jump saves time for getting downstab. it is, of course, possible to beat the game without downstab. i've never timed it because i'm not a Crazy Person, but yeah. jump after hammer. based on quickmath, level 3 sword should save ~70 frames over level 4 sword.
Ohhhhh, right, forgot about the backtracking.
How do you get through the end of P3 without downstab?
My quickmath also came up with about 70 frames.
Kung Knut wrote:
improvement is slower.
Sorry, no. Why would you want to arbitrarily take out the interesting time-saving tricks that require strategic planning in favor of more walking? Less entertaining, less technical skill. It goes against the nature of TASing. If you want a longer movie, a 100% run is the proper way to accomplish it (as a 4th branch).
I support the Samsara classification system.
-Warpless = 45 min
-Any% = 35? min
-Warp glitch = 5 min
But ultimately I don't care what you call them, as long as there are 3 branches.
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FatRatKnight wrote:
EDIT2: I shall leave you with this. Assuming it's possible to abuse new exits, this should give you the information very quickly if the room, or even the area, is worth glitching. There's still some more things to dig up, but any progress might help, I should hope.
I checked it out, it's pretty cool. I tried out a few more exit ideas, but I didn't find anything new. I'll continue to look.
I've been planning the experience route, and here's the outline of what I've come up with:
-I'm doing it with only 5 Magic Containers (picking up the one on Maze Island).
-I looked into going extremely Magic heavy when leveling, but there's no need. We already get Magic-5 before P4. All we need is Magic-5 before P4 and Magic-6 before the end.
-I can still get Attack-2 and Magic-2 in DM.
-P1 & P2 don't change.
-Edit: Actually I'm going to have to change things here. Come out of DM with 1-3-1 and then get the Attack-2 in P1. Then P2 is the same; come out with Attack-3 and Magic-4.
-P3 is the area that took all of the studying because of the elevator skip possibilities. Unfortunately, the math works out that no elevator skip method is worthwhile in the long run. We know that the red ironknuckle in P4 is a huge bottleneck point in the current run; it's essential to get a red jar drop there. Well, the red ironknuckle in P3 is also a huge bottleneck point. He has to drop a p-bag so that we have enough XP to get to Magic-5. If I used an elevator skip, I would need him to drop a red jar instead, and we'd be stuck on Magic-4. So we end P3 with Attack-3 and Magic-5 again.
-However, the second half changes. The absence of some enemies and Thunderbird means that Attack barely matters now. The only fights of significance are Gooma, Rebonack II, and Volvagia (and possibly two red ironknuckles). Therefore, I have the radical idea of finishing with Attack-3 and Magic-6. The initial math looks better than either Attack-4 or Attack-5, unless Gooma and/or Volvagia take much longer than expected. If so, I can go back and get Attack-4. But the new leveling plan should be:
P4 Crystal - Attack 4 Cancel (1000)
Restart (0)
P5 Crystal - Attack 4 Cancel (1000)
(XP will be at 850 after killing Gooma.)
P6 Crystal - Magic 6 (2200)
Killing Reb & Volv will take me to 2001 XP, but I don't need to kill any other enemies, except the skeleton for a jar drop. So there shouldn't be an extra Attack Cancel (29 frames).
-I'll skip either one or two screens in P6 with the fairy glitch. I'll figure that out when I get there. Edit: Skipping both screens looks better right now.
-I think I'll wait to get Jump until the last restart since the only use for it is at the very end.
-Edit: The only places in the run where I need to kill small enemies are Death Mountain (experience), Island Palace (experience), and the Great Palace (jar drop).
I'm ready to start playing. This run should take much less time to finish than the warpless one.
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Inzult wrote:
I'm pretty sure all towns in east hyrule lead to the ocean. It's been a long, long time since I looked at the East, though.
I checked to be sure, and I got the same result. So the warps that work are:
-Rauru warps to King's Tomb.
-Mido warps to Bagu.
-Saria warps to South Saria.
So, nothing useful except Rauru.
Inzult wrote:
P4 looks interesting. It looks like you can get on some ceiling and take some non-exits where I can't guess where they might go.
solairflaire wrote:
Something to consider in P4 as a possible alternate route. ... Walking off the screen there dumps you back on the world map on the palace like you left it normally.
The P4 exit is a clever idea, but it would take about 4000 frames. I think that the only benefit would be no wait at the crystal, and we might need the experience from the crystal anyway. I tried the same idea in the identical type of room above the crystal, hoping it would drop me right on the crystal so we could skip Carock/Reflect. But that screen also takes you out of the palace. So, P4 disappointed. Whatever you do in P4, the game is just like, "heheh, nice try but nope."
solairflaire wrote:
I doubt it would save time, but you could possibly backtrack to here [P5 blocks] and go to P1 after beating the boss and getting the whistle.
Warping from P2 to P1 looks like it would take too long, and P5 to P1 wouldn't be beneficial. Unfortunate, because it would be cool to show that warp off.
Inzult wrote:
P3 has the block room, which should take you back to the entrance, and the elevator room, with the stalfos knight, which should basically just be able to skip the elevator.
The P3 elevator skip should be useful. It changes the keys, but it still works out. However, I would have to get a magic jar instead of a p-bag at the red ironknuckle. Unless we somehow have Magic-5 already at this point, which would change things. But we need Magic-5 in P4 for sure, and losing out on that p-bag could be a problem for that objective.
Inzult wrote:
P6 Maybe you can skip a couple of rooms, but certainly the ra/block room, after the fall if your magic is high enough
This one looks pretty sweet, but I'm not sure which way is better.
I could fairy through the first door, die, skip both rooms, and die again.
Or I could fairy through the first door, skip the block room, and die. (Edited)
Inzult wrote:
I was referring to the T-Bird skip, you need to cast Jump, then fairy twice with perhaps only an opportunity for a blue jar. I tend to look at the end state and work backwards. A good finish needs ?-6-1.
You're right, we need to end with Magic-6. I still think 5 magic containers can work. A hidden benefit is that we would have faster crystal refills. I think that I'm ready to create a screen-by-screen travel plan, and then I can try to figure out how to make the experience math add up.
FatRatKnight wrote:
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I'm forming initial ideas for the new branch, which we will call plain old "any%" here at TASVideos, in contrast to the current "warpless" and "warp glitch" branches. (Speedrun.com calls this branch "any% no scroll-lock.")
It seems fairly uncontroversial to start with Trophy, Jump, Up+A. Jump seems necessary for Thunderbird skip. I tried to damage boost off a bubble but it doesn't get high enough.
Is there already a complete list of the Glitch Town right exits? Because there are many Glitch Towns. The ones I know so far:
-Healer glitch in Rauru warps to King's Tomb, allowing backdoor Hammer.
-Healer/magic glitch in Mido warps to Bagu.
-Fairy glitch in Darunia takes you into the ocean, useless.
-Healer/magic glitch in Ruto takes you into the mountains, useless.
The area that especially needs research is fairy glitching in palaces. We need to figure out the travel route before getting into experience plans.
Inzult wrote:
As a side effect of fairy fall, another minute is cut if you can efficiently get to level 6 magic. This allows you to skip an extra magic container, probably the one in death mountain. Also, it means a fundamentally different leveling strategy.
Does this comment refer to going through Maze Palace with 6 magic containers at Magic-6? I think that using death could possibly cut it down to 5 containers. How much time is lost getting each container:
6000 frames for Kasuto container (approximate)
2880 frames for Death Mountain container
1561 frames for Cave container
850 frames for Maze container (approximate)
If we can get to Magic-3 (400 XP total) before Parapa, I think it's possible to get through the first 3 palaces with only 4 magic containers (64 MP while Fairy costs 60). Perhaps then we could pick up only the Maze container. That would give 80 MP, which, at Magic-5, would allow casting either 2x Fairy or Fairy & Reflect in the Maze. I think that 3 or 4 deaths would still be faster than getting the Cave container. I'm not sure whether it's actually possible to make the route work though. In this run, we might need to go straight for Magic levels, like 1-5-1, and then start boosting Attack at the Maze crystal.
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Alyosha wrote:
Another great TAS Arc! You sure are on a roll breathing new life into some of these popular NES games.
Thank you. I'll keep rollin'.
c-square wrote:
Excellent run! Well done! I do have one question: Why do you keep skipping the 50 experience upgrade? It seems it takes a few frames each time to show the upgrade menu and for you to select to skip it.
There are 11 Life-2 Cancels in the run, and it takes 29 frames each time, for a total of 319 frames. I assume that you are asking why not accept it the first time, since accepting a level-up takes only 184 frames. The answer is that thereafter you would still have to do Life-3 Cancels every time you got to 150 experience.
Awesome. I couldn't find a combination that worked there.
It saves 11 frames. 407 frames saved now. I'll edit the submission text to reflect the changes.
Judge, please replace the submission file with this update:
http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/33722164845442931
(It took almost 3 hours to redo the Dark Link fight until I came up with that downstab move to avoid losing a frame.)
Glad y'all enjoyed it.
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Inzult outlined the idea very well.
For easy reference:
-L+R = superspeed.
-Scroll lock = both a way to wrong warp to the Great Palace and a way to bypass the entrance barrier, so none of the dungeons/crystals are necessary. (5 minute movie.)
-Encounter skip = a wrong warp to skip all forced encounter tiles.
-Healer glitch/Glitch Town = a wrong warp to King's Tomb so you can take the backdoor route to the hammer.
-Out-of-bounds/Fairy glitch = wrong warping out the top of the screen, which is most useful to skip Thunderbird. No Thunderbird also means you can skip Thunder and some magic containers.
So the fairy glitch is the root of the problem? That would be the most creatively rich part and would create the most differences. Without it, I think you have a much less interesting movie. I don't see a reason against using it. As Inzult noted, without it, you have a movie that's maybe 39 minutes and more similar to the 45-minute warpless run. With the fairy glitch, it's more like 36 minutes and changes more things, requiring new research and creativity. Maybe we'd discover something new and get it down to the low-30s.
I'm in the Great Palace in the warpless movie. I will finish and submit it soon.
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Samsara wrote:
...I really think that's the best possible solution to showcase everything possible in an entertaining way. There's no worrying about categories or routes with that. It's pretty much pre-accepted. There'd be tons of variety in each run that would make watching all 3 completely worth your time.
Why is this apparently such a bad solution?
Because the whole time you've been pushing your personal desire to see a 100% run, now to the point of coercively and unilaterally using your judging power to reject a valid category to make a 100% run happen. I have no problem with a 100% movie as a 4th branch.
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Samsara wrote:
No, this is the "warp glitch" and "no warp glitch" scenario we're dealing with.
Exactly what we're dealing with here.
Samsara wrote:
"warps" and "warpless" are entirely different goals. I don't get what's so hard to understand about that.
Nothing. It's what I'm arguing for. You don't seem to understand that.
Samsara wrote:
What you're arguing for is "any% no wrong warps" and "any% no wrong warps but slower and less glitchy".
Nope. Arguing for Warpless vs. Warps vs. Warps & Barrier Skip.
Samsara wrote:
What is the goal of the 45 minute run?
Warpless.
Samsara wrote:
What is the goal of the new glitched run?
Warps.
Samsara wrote:
Are they actually different enough to warrant separate publications?
I already stated that they are vastly different.
Samsara wrote:
Both of those runs are perfectly acceptable, because one skips damn near the entire game with a severe glitch and the other just plays the game "normally" using minor glitches.
Yep, that's why there's the Warps & Barrier Skip branch in addition to Warpless and Warps.
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Samsara wrote:
Routes are not categories. If two runs achieve the same goal with different routes/glitches, then they're competing, not cooperating.
The goal is not to complete the game with a different route. The different route is a consequence of having a different goal. The current branch, with a 12-year lineage, has always had the goal of completing the game without using out-of-bounds/warping. Glitch Town and the fairy glitch have been known for a long time, yet no one ever said that this branch was suboptimal for not using them. Nothing has changed; they aren't suddenly a part of this branch.
A Link to the Past has two separate movies, and they are the exact same scenario that we are dealing with here. One has an out-of-bounds/warp glitch that completes the game in 2 minutes, and the other movie has the goal of not using out-of-bounds (and takes 76 minutes). It is not a mere "route difference." The 76-minute movie is not competing with the 2-minute movie.
And how is the new Zelda II branch metaphysically different than the difference between the already existing and accepted no-OOB branch (45 min) and extremely broken scroll-lock branch (5 min)? Why doesn't the extremely broken version obsolete the long one? It shouldn't, and neither should the middle-ground branch.
I think we've just been overlooking the "OOB but no scroll lock" branch all this time, and the discovery of the encounter glitch sparked the realization of what a potentially awesome movie it would be. I'm excited about it.
Also, the way "routes are not categories" is phrased has some dire consequences. Doesn't that mean a "warps" run of Super Mario 1/2/3 obsoletes a warpless version? And I really need the existence of Super Metroid "reverse boss order" justified, then.
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Samsara wrote:
I would prefer a more robust category than just "glitchless" as the third category though, something like "glitchless 100%" or whatever the equivalent would be for this game, so it would actually have some significant difference.
Wha? The least-broken category follows the same rules as the currently published movie, which has a 9.1 overall rating. And I'm going to submit it in about a week. Then the new, third-category movie that uses all of the minor gamebreaking glitches is going to be significantly different from this movie. Way shorter than the 43 minutes we were talking about earlier. The route will be totally different.
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They are "very much the same" because neither one completes the forced encounter. But they do so in ways that are metaphysically different in principle. With the encounter warp, you end up somewhere that you're not supposed to be. With the random battle fight, you end up exactly where you're supposed to when overworld enemies touch you—a random battle. It happens before reaching the encounter tile. And after a random battle, you're supposed to start on the tile that you were stepping toward.
It's more consistent to say that the encounter warp is "very much the same" as the Glitch Town right exit and the fairy glitch. They are all minor gamebreakers that cause you to end up somewhere you're not supposed to be. We'll utilize them in a TAS, just in the proper category—minor gamebreakers (a.k.a. all crystals). It'll be a beautiful, creatively rich TAS. Perhaps more people will prefer the minor gamebreakers category to the no gamebreakers category, but they're not in direct competition with each other because they have different limitations. No harm in having both.
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I am for "all crystals," which I think equates to the "no superspeed or scroll lock" suggestion by PresJPolk for the new branch.
So the third branch allows
-Encounter tile warp
-Glitch Town right exit
-Fairy out-of-bounds
Right? We good?
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It's not just the 2 minutes. The parts that are going to get cut are the most challenging aspects of the TAS. Optimizing those parts takes real skill. While I said the 43-minute version would probably get a higher entertainment rating for demonstrating the encounter warp and cutting time, I would be sure to give it a significantly lower technical score. Personally I would be among those who watch the 43-minute version and say it's a pussified version of Zelda II and less impressive than the 45-minute version. I don't see why either version has to win out over the other; just let them both exist and individuals can decide for themselves which one they prefer.
In The Legend of Zelda categories, you have the regular run and the swordless run with only a 2-minute timing difference. There are 5 separate Super Metroid runs that fall within the 38-46 minute range. I don't think that the similarity of movie length matters.
I am more open to allowing some other gamebreakers into the proposed third "middle ground" category in addition to the encounter glitch. I am more concerned with defending the "no gamebreakers" category from being wrongly obsoleted by gamebreakers.
Basically,
-Keep the current "clean" branch
-Keep the current "true any%" branch
-Create a third branch with the encounter warp and perhaps some other gamebreakers as well
I would like to see 100% categories as well, but that is not the most pressing concern at the moment.
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I think that it makes the most sense to publish both versions as separate branches.
I'd call the version that I'm working on now "any% no gamebreakers." It appeals to the purists who don't want to see sections of the game get cut out when they weren't meant to be cut out. This is "real" Zelda II.
After that, I also want to make "any% encounter warps." This version somewhat breaks the second half of the game. I estimate that it would cut out approximately 2 minutes 15 seconds of gameplay. I think that it would get a higher entertainment rating, as well.
But I don't think that it should obsolete "no gamebreakers." I admit that personally I love Zelda II and wouldn't mind seeing many different categories for it. (And I don't think the FDS version should be obsoleted by NES, either.) But, objectively, Zelda II is a beloved classic—it gets ratings in the high 8 to low 9 range. Beloved classics get multiple branches published. Super Metroid has 7 published movies. The Legend of Zelda has 5.
"Encounter warp" would serve as a middle ground between strict "no gamebreakers" and the true "any%" which fully breaks the entire game in 5 minutes.
Basically, I would put all of the gamebreakers like superspeed, warping, and fairy falls in a #BasketOfDeplorables that should stay out of a "clean" Zelda II run. But the encounter warp is in a lower tier of deplorable gamebreakers and deserves its own branch.
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Inzult is right; you can do the glitch without fairy:
So you can skip over every forced encounter tile in the game.
Although I think I would need one at Darunia for the drop count.
But there are ~18 skippable encounter tiles with the glitch.
It would break the path through Maze Island.
I'm with everyone in the camp of 'this is cool but we need to think about it more.'
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link_7777 wrote:
I have sort of a good news/bad news for this movie (which I'm very excited about by the way, good work). Saver (aka CrystalSaver) recently found a fairy glitch to skip force encounter tiles. PresJPolk explains it here https://www.twitch.tv/presjpolk/v/88313660
This glitch is a great discovery. But is it acceptable to use it in this category? (Where my judges at?) PresJPolk calls it a wrong-warp glitch. And he specifically says near the end that he thinks it should be banned in most categories. I thought we were keeping speed/fairy exploits in the other Zelda II category.
Pokota wrote:
If this does work both ways, does the current mp at trap 18 have enough to take an extra casting of Fairy?
If I were to use this glitch, I would use it on the 3 bridge crossings (Traps 16 and 15), and then I would pick up that red jar at Secret 20 and use the glitch on all 3 Traps in The Valley of Death.
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Let's talk about The Valley of Death
Trap 18 is the most dreaded part of the game, because it depends on luck that is mostly unmanipulable. Like any trap square, you need overworld enemies to run into Link as he is walking onto the trap square in order to overwrite the forced encounter with a shorter random encounter.
You need the same thing at Trap 17, but that one is easier to manipulate. You can keep creating extra delay frames during the walk from Trap 16 to Trap 15 in order to change the random enemies that appear in the graveyard between Trap 15 and Trap 17. Eventually, you get a result that works. The result that I got lost 2 frames compared to the current movie.
However, here's why the Valley of Death between Trap 17 and Trap 18 is so notorious. You have to deal with 3 sets in a row of 3 enemies that you cannot change with overworld movement delays. And you get only one step down to avoid an enemy that appears in front of Link.
Look at the TAS history (6 movies) of this part:
-The first movie completely gave up and accepted the forced encounter
-The next two movies entered and exited the forced square and then waited for enemies to spawn again.
-The fourth movie was the first to actually get the random encounter, after taking a bit of a winding path.
-The fifth movie looks like a downgrade, walking backward at one point.
-The current movie is super lucky, basically.
But I found that you don't have to completely accept the 3 sets of 3 enemies that you're handed. You can create delays at Trap 15 and Trap 17 to change the timing. But, it's limited. In my case, I was limited to only 6 possible combinations:
-Straight through
-Delay Trap 15
-2x Delay Trap 15
-Delay Trap 17
-Delay Trap 15 & Delay Trap 17
-2x Delay Trap 15 & Delay Trap 17
Any additional delay at Trap 15 changed the enemies in the graveyard to an unusable grouping. So I was limited to testing these 6 options. If you get a set of enemies that surround Link, you can pretty much forget about using that option at all. So I narrowed it down to 2 options that actually had a chance of working.
The first option decided to throw in yet another degree of difficulty by not letting enemies rise up from below Link. And nothing is coming from the left, leaving the top as the only possibility. Nothing worked.
Fortunately, after many hours, I found that there was one way to make the second option work without an ugly winding path. It still lost 27 frames. But, if that last option hadn't worked, I would have been faced with much greater losses, probably in the 60-90 frame range. So, despite losing frames here, it's the best possibility of a bad situation. It won't look bad to the casual viewer. I topped out at 396 frames ahead; down to 367 now.
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Pokota wrote:
Arc wrote:
In the Rebonack II fight, however, I saved 25 frames. It wasn't really because of the higher attack level. I somehow discovered a method that killed him crazy quick..
Can this method be applied to Rebonack I in future runs?
I don't think so. Link has to attack Reb I 12 times after Reb I dismounts, whereas it takes only 4 attacks after dismount for Reb II. Reb I would survive the attack and fall backward.
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Inzult wrote:
I know there are lost frames on the Barba fight. Realized I made a mistake when I changed where I took the sword level in the currently published TAS and didn't start attacking soon enough.
Are you sure? I've improved Volvagia by only 1 frame. When I try to attack any earlier, I don't have enough Y-axis height to maintain the jackhammer attack, so Link falls. There was one instance in which I could attack slightly earlier, but it lead to a longer wait in the middle of the fight while waiting for enough height to resume attacking. It was a few frames slower in the end.
Nevermind, I figured it out. Went over your notes and the old TASes.
In the Rebonack II fight, I saved 25 frames. It wasn't really because of the higher attack level. I somehow discovered a method that killed him crazy quick.
I'm 391 395 frames ahead after The Rock. The endgame is here.
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Thank you. The endgame is near.
Timing updates:
I knew that the river devil trap manipulation would be a pain. I spent a long time on it. In the end, my options were to take the high route and lose 18 frames or take the low route and lose 14 frames. The published movie got basically a perfect enemy spawn. Like the Darunia overworld part, it's beyond the limits of human patience to test every possible combination.
I lost 1 frame at the first rock gerus, and then I gained 1 frame back at the other rock gerus. Everything that happened after this part is good news, though.
I got a perfect overworld walk (no frame delays) to Kasuto, which saved 6 frames.
The dreaded third geru screen lost only 5 frames (plus 1 for manipulation later).
I also got a perfect overworld walk to the Rock Palace, saving another 16 frames.
So, even though I lost the 14 frames earlier, it's theoretically possible that this interconnected route chain is optimal, since I gained more frames back later.
The other good news is that I realized that the extra enemies that I killed will give me exactly 3000 XP, and so I will level up to Attack 6 before the Rebonack II fight instead of after. That should save an extra 5-10 frames.
352 frames ahead right now.
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Update on the timing of the new micro-route:
I forgot that the death cycle would reset any frame differences before that point, so I didn't lose the 4 frames at the red ironknuckles (nor gain the 2 frames getting the jar). Both movies were on the good side of the death cycle. I'd have to improve 16 frames to save another 21.
So the actual differences in timing:
-1 frame manipulating magos at the elev since I can't take damage
-1 frame of lag at the hidden jar because I have swordbeam
-16 frames getting the jar from the orange ironknuckle
+80 frames from no refill at crystal
---
+62 frames gained so far
The only thing left is the third geru, which should lose no more than 20 frames, making it still a net gain.
Total frames saved at the moment is 350, not counting potential geru losses.
My initial attempt at Gooma saved 3 frames; I'll spend a little more time on him.
So you can skip over every forced encounter tile in the game.
Although I think I would need one at Darunia for the drop count.
But there are ~18 skippable encounter tiles with the glitch.
It would break the path through Maze Island.
I'm with everyone in the camp of 'this is cool but we need to think about it more.'
Trap 18 is the most dreaded part of the game, because it depends on luck that is mostly unmanipulable. Like any trap square, you need overworld enemies to run into Link as he is walking onto the trap square in order to overwrite the forced encounter with a shorter random encounter.
You need the same thing at Trap 17, but that one is easier to manipulate. You can keep creating extra delay frames during the walk from Trap 16 to Trap 15 in order to change the random enemies that appear in the graveyard between Trap 15 and Trap 17. Eventually, you get a result that works. The result that I got lost 2 frames compared to the current movie.
However, here's why the Valley of Death between Trap 17 and Trap 18 is so notorious. You have to deal with 3 sets in a row of 3 enemies that you cannot change with overworld movement delays. And you get only one step down to avoid an enemy that appears in front of Link.
Look at the TAS history (6 movies) of this part:
-The first movie completely gave up and accepted the forced encounter
-The next two movies entered and exited the forced square and then waited for enemies to spawn again.
-The fourth movie was the first to actually get the random encounter, after taking a bit of a winding path.
-The fifth movie looks like a downgrade, walking backward at one point.
-The current movie is super lucky, basically.
But I found that you don't have to completely accept the 3 sets of 3 enemies that you're handed. You can create delays at Trap 15 and Trap 17 to change the timing. But, it's limited. In my case, I was limited to only 6 possible combinations:
-Straight through
-Delay Trap 15
-2x Delay Trap 15
-Delay Trap 17
-Delay Trap 15 & Delay Trap 17
-2x Delay Trap 15 & Delay Trap 17
Any additional delay at Trap 15 changed the enemies in the graveyard to an unusable grouping. So I was limited to testing these 6 options. If you get a set of enemies that surround Link, you can pretty much forget about using that option at all. So I narrowed it down to 2 options that actually had a chance of working.
The first option decided to throw in yet another degree of difficulty by not letting enemies rise up from below Link. And nothing is coming from the left, leaving the top as the only possibility. Nothing worked.
Fortunately, after many hours, I found that there was one way to make the second option work without an ugly winding path. It still lost 27 frames. But, if that last option hadn't worked, I would have been faced with much greater losses, probably in the 60-90 frame range. So, despite losing frames here, it's the best possibility of a bad situation. It won't look bad to the casual viewer. I topped out at 396 frames ahead; down to 367 now.