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Like moozooh I find the X-ray/spark usage troublesome for the overall entertainment value of the run, both in terms of garbled graphics and reducing variety, even though some individual uses are great. Although I get that they are functionally glitches of very different orders of magnitude, as far as perception goes the run might almost as well have used space/time beam to warp through rooms given how some rooms end up looking (unless this would actually be slower because of pauses/lag/routing).
Beyond that though, the run is extremely impressive in every regard. The routing is a marvel (single trip Norfair!). Optimization and ingenuity is incredible. Building uncapped fall speed between two frozen enemies! Whatever the hell happened in the old tourian escape shaft during the escape sequence! The work that went into it is apparent in every moment. Although I think a 100% run with speed/entertainment tradeoffs in restricting some glitches would be more aesthetically pleasing (something always worth considering for non-any% categories in my opinion), I'm still happy to see my last remaining proper Super Metroid run finally go. Voting yes.
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As someone who's been out of the loop for quite a while I found the sheer amount of new improvements and tricks to be pretty staggering. Even knowing about the superjumps, moonfall, shinespark storage, etc, the ways in which everything is implemented goes far beyond what I would have imagined. And the care with which everything has been planned and optimized is also fantastic. moozooh already mentioned the Inverse CWJ into morphball at the LN break-in which was probably my favorite "small" thing that i noted in the run, and I've always gotten a kick out of perfect health management which happens a lot here.
I'm kind of with moozooh on categorisation though. Just as a general rule I'd say anything that leaves permanent, distracting graphical glitches is troublesome for a "no major glitches" run, and while the superjumps and x-ray abuses are intriguing a lot is sacrificed in favor of those. Both in terms of comprehensibility (also something that I find at least somewhat important for a no major glitches run) and diversity of play. Zipping through a room get old after a while, and the beauty I find in Super Metroid is that almost every room otherwise contains unique platforming challenges. Likewise, while I'm looking forward to someone hopefully tackling the 100% run with all new tricks and the far greater level of knowledge that the community has, I think some of the more severe tricks would take away a lot of what makes that category interesting.
So, massively happy and impressed with the run. Somewhat ambivalent about obsoletion.
I have a question about the run though. It might be my faulty memory but I seem to remember testing the x-ray trick with plasma on Phantoon and it not working, basically even if you paused with x-ray he'd go invisible before taking the second hit. Is something special done to get around that or am I just remembering incorrectly? Maybe it's just that you have to hit him with a missile first before hitting him with plasma.
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Sniq wrote:
Cpadolf: Sure, if you team up with me to do it. My knowledge of 100% routing and stuff is limited.
Sounds tempting but I honestly don't think I'd be able to find the time nowadays, much as I would like to. And besides routing was never my strong suit, I only really worked of the earlier runs by JXQ and research from hero, Reeve and others. If the route would be heavily worked over in a new run (which it might be depending on the tricks used) my knowledge would be limited. Maybe the community could come together to work that out someday.
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Incredibly elegant run, so many wonderful little details of optimization and strategy throughout. Potential future problems of "accepting" the missile glitch aside (I can't say I have much of a stake in that discussion either way) I think there's no doubt that it added significant entertainment value to this specific run, besides making it faster.
Plans on taking on 100% next? That's an interesting/tricky category with what you allow and what you don't. Space/Time Beam would probably wreck a large part of the run if you allowed it (even besides skipping the entirety of Tourian), and might either be awesome or repetitive and boring. But even if foregoing it there seems to be a ton of new stuff to implement.
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Saw the rest of it. Highly entertaining run for the majority of the running time, looks very well researched and optimized, and displays a lot of new techniques and unique challenges that make the run seem fresh even as the game has to be one of the most submitted on the whole site. Underwater walljumping does get old, and Motherbrain and Ridley run long, but those are fairly minor parts of an otherwise excellent run, and it does a far better job at making those two boss battles entertaining and interesting than previous runs with similar equipment restraints.
So a clear yes from an entertainment standpoint, and obsoleting two outdated runs from a retired category is a major bonus.
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I haven't watched the whole thing yet but the Maridia segment is preposterous and wonderful.
Kung Knut wrote:
In case the submission text is still being updated, I'd be happy to see a section explaining what makes each of the 13 collected items mandatory, and why an alternative to any item would require more items or take longer time.
As for these 13 being mandatory for this route:
3 Energy Tanks (here 2 E-Tanks plus a Reserve Tank) + Varia is required to survive Motherbrain's rainbowbeam. Varia halves the damage of the attack and is therefore necessary unless you collect 3 more E-tanks.
4 Missile tanks (here 2 Missiles + 2 Supers) + Charge is the minimum to be able to kill all bosses and destroy Motherbrains glass cage.
Morhpball + Bombs + 1 Powerbomb is necessary for general movement/opening doors through the game while still staying in bound (a restriction on the category).
Speedbooster is required for several different techniques to get through maridia without Gravity suit as well as skipping the Zebetites before MB (required without having a lot more ammunition). It can't be swapped for Ice beam (the other item to get through Zebetites) because Ice beam alone can't get you through Maridia (stuck in the room after draygon)
If allowing the trick on draygon to get a glitched missile count this changes a bit, but the percentage stays at 13.
Charge can be skipped but then needs to be replaced with a PB to trigger the glitch on Draygon with a Crystal Flash (also required 10/10 missiles and supers). With that glitch speed can also be swapped with another PB, Ice or X-ray using various other glitches (detailed in the post Aran Jaeger linked), but still keeps the percentage at 13. Using the underflow glitch would afaik be faster but is in a bit of a glitch/category gray area. Basically someone would have to make it for a decision to be made on which should be kept.
If allowing out of bounds travel but restrict skipping bosses you should be able to get down to 12%, skipping bombs by collecting a PB early through out of bounds travel, but that's a much more arbitrary and therefore weaker category as it's less distinguishable from a more glitched category that lets you skip basically everything.
I'm a bit out of the loop nowadays but I think this is basically right.
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Liked the run a lot, really loved the Draygon kill and some of the more bizarre shinespark/flashsuit setups. Nothing that immediately jumped out to me on first watch far as improvements goes, other than general movement optimization and some potential improvements in ammo management. Maybe entering the 3rd metroid room already morphed, placing the first PB immediately and then using the metroids invulnerability frames to run straight through the first metroid instead of rolling under?
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Sounds interesting seeing as the RBO fight against Draygon is already one of my favorite moments ever in a Super Metroid run. The whole underwater segment seems like it'll be pretty spectacular.
Also very impressive on the E-Tank note.
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Taco wrote:
To me, the fun of low% has always been about watching an extremely underequipped Samus struggle her way through the game in situations that should barely even be possible. That results in creative, unique strategies being used all throughout the run to overcome the challenges that that presents. Given that description, it's easy to think that the challenge of fighting the bosses with virtually no equipment is part of the fun of the category as well, but frankly, Ridley and MB are just boring. There is absolutely nothing good about them in a low% run.
For that reason, I'm not opposed to ammo under/overflow being the sole published version of 13%. It would make the relatively minor sacrifice of less intense energy/ammo management to remove what have always been the two largest detriments to the category's entertainment.
Do you know if it'll end up being useful for the any% run? I know it has significantly less use since it'd be after Ridley and you're more well equipped for MB, but it'd still end up saving considerable time on MB or allow you to skip Plasma beam.
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Samsara wrote:
5. "RBO" as the other of these two runs, though Total proposed a new heavily glitched route that I'd be quite fond of seeing. This could serve as the sort of glitch exhibition run where ridiculous, unexpected things are done in order to heavily break the game, as it stands now it kinda feels similar (but not TOO similar) to the low% run in terms of it being based on tight routing and interesting strategies and the site could really benefit from a heavily glitched run that doesn't just skip straight to the ending.
I agree with this. Unless a glitched RBO would turn out to be unspeakable boring (doubt it), I think it could be a suitable replacement for the current RBO, especially as the new any% run will share a lot more similarities with the RBO than the current ones do, making it a lot less unique.
Invariel wrote:
It's a difference of opinion, absolutely, but I am interested in what the underlying cause of dissention is, beyond the ammo management argument.
Well I think for me the point is that we already have to accept that you put some limits on low%, because accepting glitches of various degrees would get the percentage down to 6, then 4 then 2. So the limitation of avoiding the overflow glitch as well makes sense because I think the main reason the category should exists at all is to have a run that properly faces the challenges inherent to a low% run, part of which is limited ammo. To take it to an extreme, if a glitch was found that somehow gave you all equipment without raising the item percentage at the end, would it be accepted as a low% run because the game says you finished with 0% item collection without any ACE/OoB? Obviously the overflow glitch is not nearly that extreme and therefore I don't think it's that black and white, but it does give you extra equipment without raising the item percentage which to me goes against the idea of the run.
Now as for preference of gameplay it does basically come down to me finding part of the appeal of a low% being how you best handle limitations of health and ammo (health management would also be affected by this since you could completely focus on getting health from every enemy instead of ammo). Although as for a negative, I won't disagree that Ridley and especially MB are needlessly drawn out in a low% run and would be improved with some missile spam rather than hundreds of charged shots from the peashooter.
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Invariel wrote:
The two sides of this war are the people I most associate with the Super Metroid community shouting, "OMG it breakz teh gaem in teh worst way possible!!! Resource management is the most important part of Super Metroid speedruns!!! Nobody will want to watch this!!!"
Well, that aside you certainly have a point. The overflow glitch is not nearly as severe as ACE, it wouldn't completely ruin the run and it would offer something new we haven't seen in other runs. To most it would probably also seem like a fine glitch to use, although I'm sure some would feel like it's a bit of a cheat for a run that labels itself low%. And I wouldn't be inherently opposed to such a run if it was made and submitted, even though I'd prefer the alternative.
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Yeah I'd think that even a "no holds barred" 100% TAS would actually have to collect every separate item (and no item twice, not that you would anyway) to be considered legitimate for publication. Though again, I'd prefer one to not use Space/Time (or GT code of course) at all.
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Hetfield90 wrote:
lxx4xNx6xxl wrote:
how does everyone feel about 100% Glitched as a category?
I've been curious about this for a while myself. What are all of the major glitches which are forgone in the non-"game end glitch" categories, and how could they be used to save time in a 100% run?
I think that primarily the Space/Time beam could be used, once obtained, to very quickly traverse most rooms (like this), and trigger the escape sequence without entering Tourian after collecting the last item. There's probably some other stuff too but that seems like the major one.
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I agree that 13% (with whatever item combination gives the best route) and no overflow makes most sense for a low% category. Any other variation could be interesting to see but has no business being published here. Also if Taco finishes his any% run and someone makes a 13% run we'll get to obsolete 4 old TASes with 2 new ones, which would be good.
lxx4xNx6xxl wrote:
Now I don't mean to stir the pot again how does everyone feel about 100% Glitched as a category?
Should probably obsolete the current 100% run, but I don't think I'd like it since Space/Time beam would make it pretty ugly. I'd prefer a new one to incorporate all of the new glitches but without Space/Time beam, OoB travel, overflow and whatever else is gamebreaking. But as always it's up to whoever makes it.
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Definitely a big improvement on the last run, both in technique and style. The general level of optimization seems pretty good, though with questionable spots.
I primarily wonder about some potential route changes though, like doing Kraid early and picking up Varia, which would make Kraids area slower and waste some time on the Varia animation, but speed up norfair due to lower energy requirements, and allow you to skip the old tourian E-tank you pick up early (as well as only visiting that room once). Would probably speed up some other stuff on route to Gravity suit as you'd have more energy for damageboosts. And picking up either Spazer or picking Wave earlier would speed up some stuff as well, and possibly let you skip a couple more missile packs and the missile station refill in Maridia. I also wonder why you de-equip Ice Beam before LN. There may have been some place where that gained you time but it also wastes some time on GT and Ridley, as well as in the room with the super to the right of the old tourian escape shaft.
Anyway, I thought this was an entertaining run, and I do think the category has some merit in that it creates conditions in many rooms that require creative and interesting movement to clear properly, as well as showing of a couple of areas you never see otherwise (with the drawback of entering all the useless rooms where you immediately have to exit again). In the end I don't think it's enough to warrant a publication here, but that shouldn't really matter much anyway.
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Really great so far, as expected, and most of the best stuff is still to come! Fantastic that you could manage your health through LN without any noticeable sacrifices and ending up at exactly 31 before the pirate drops, though I imagine the way back might be tough as well unless you're forced to take Ridleys E-Tank.
I noticed in a few spots (Kraids E-Tank and the entry to gold pirates, maybe more) where you used the down+back walljump check at a door transition, which I've found usually adds several frames of lag during the fadeout. Did it save enough to make up for that/was used for luck manipulation? Also I know that it's possible to remove the last bit of scrolling on the transition at ~9:16, although maybe that was slower/equally fast to what you did.
I also know that some realtime speedrunners have used a strategy in the red Ki-Hunter room where they use a shinespark to kill two of them with speedechoes, which supposedly removes enough lag to be faster in realtime, but I don't know how that translates in TAS-conditions.
EDIT: Turning on moonwalk already makes this the greatest SM run ever only 10 seconds into it.
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Some kind of glitched "all bosses/all main bosses" run could probably be interesting but I think it would be much more dominated by space/time beam to traverse rooms quickly rather than any of the new shinespark glitches, although the hyperspeed spark would help to collect plasma early at the very least. Same goes for glitched 100% but to an even greater extent.
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That's pretty wild! Do you know if it also helps Samus stick to the ground better when armpumping down a slope? Although that's probably not terribly important as some of the rooms where this could save the most time weren't really affected much by that (like the purple diagonal room or pre-speedbooster room).
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Best I got was another 0.75 pixels or something, and that's with abusing the potential of the airwalk, otherwise I think it's 1/16th of a pixel. I don't think that's enough for anything significant still, but it might be possible to improve it more.
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I was able to get it another 24576 subpixels shorter (so 1.5 pixels in total), but I haven't been able to do a moonwalk on a platform that close to the edge. I've only been able to do it when I'm 53248 subpixels away from it or more. Could you provide an smv of that?
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I'll see if I get some time to do it, but otherwise it's not really that hard to find good pattern, it just takes a bit of work. First you need to see what the shortest running animation is (with speedbooster you do that by walking, without it you do it by running), and make sure that whatever pattern you use maintains that fast animation. Then you need to make sure that any dash frames that are necessary to add are added as late as possible while still maintaining the fastest running animation, and that your momentum always lands on either 0.32768 or 1.0 when you release forward (or slightly above if not possible). This is because momentum ticks down in increments of 32768 subpixels every frame after releasing forward, and start ticking up again after it's "below" zero. So your momentum would go the following way given different initial values:
28672 > 0 > 12288
32768 > 0 > 0 > 12288
36864 > 4096 > 0 > 12288
As for the running pattern you just test it in iterations and try to find something that's the right number of frames so that your booster level increases to 1 the frame after you release forward the last time. Generally you should end on a longer cycle (that gets your momentum to 1.0) and start on a shorter one, and in the middle you keep to 3-4 frames of holding forward. And you try to keep the number of cycles down as you move forward a full frame every time you start to hold forward.
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Gaining any use for moonwalk is amazing, if it has any good spots for application this trick could potentially save quite a bit of time. It's just too bad that some of the cooler trick in the game seem to be limited to spots where you can bounce and take damage on spikes or other stuff with spike type damage (speedkeep, the new flashsuit, this hyperwalk).
