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pirate_sephiroth wrote:
The main problem here is that dumb twitch thing... who the hell can sit and watch hours of nothing going on? Couldn't he write a simple guide? (I'm sure he has notes he follows during his recordings)
That was definitely a big problem I had working with him. He has highlight videos that are just concise, to the point flythroughs of specific swap sequences and such but it's still a pain. In the end I just had to ask him for the exact swaps for the TAS for me to optimize.
He also gave me a script that points out relevant instructions and lists item ID beside all weapon slots, including blank ones:
http://pastebin.com/jPQTxAQk
If you or anyone else wants to try improving the TAS already, I'd personally at least wait a while. Apparently, a way to do credits call without the 23 second timer during the last menu access seems possible, and that would be a large improvement as it is.
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Derakon wrote:
SotN switches resolutions all over the place, as I recall. Like, I think the pause screen has a different resolution from the main game.
The resolution changes for the inventory screen, FMVs, the text scroll after the prologue, the startup sequence, and the file select screen. yeah, it changes resolution a lot
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUMfyWhu2RM
here's an encode without cutscenes. time in the title comes from RTA timing, as members of the community asked me to time it out assuming power-on and cutscenes aren't included.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8DsHZMbavo
Test run for the save corruption route. Very sloppy once it hits library, not sure if an extra big toss is worth it or not. Sub 10 minutes is almost certainly possible.
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tried making a test run for credits warp TAS to see what sort of time a finished product might get, but even just doing everything as close to exactly similar to sock's finished real-time test of the route still results in crashes no matter what i do. just optimizing everything from the save corruption onwards is probably going to be at least as obnoxious for me as making the entirety of the normal TAS, considering I didn't come into TASing this game expecting to have to understand ASM to have a grasp of how some speed trick works.
I'll keep at it for now, but this is seriously a pain.
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noticed that the prologue fight in the previous TAS was faster than I had remembered in comparison to mine, so played around for a few hours. found different RNG that ended the fight over 20 frames faster. would gladly hex it in and submit the improvement if that was even remotely feasible. too bad that fake lag and RNG make this completely impossible, seeing as even if I spent weeks practically remaking this from scratch I'd still lose more time than I'd gain from having to do an extra jump slash for RNG or some shit.
i suppose we'll have to accept a sub-optimal TAS for this sub-optimal game.
Nicos wrote:
yes,
but a question,
is it possible to get thrown away thru the maria room?
no, you cannot big toss through there because it's loaded as a totally new area for some reason.
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I just submitted it as Replay Mode because that's what arukAdo's and me's previous submissions had had their branch changed to, whatever everyone else wants to call it is fine with me.
I personally preferred Replay Mode. Newgame+ is a little misleading, in that the term generally implies that things such as stats and weapons are carried over, when all it does is allow fire boomerangs to be purchased and cutscenes to be skipped. Also, Replay Mode is what the game actually calls it itself when you play after making a clear game file, so I don't think it would be misleading.
mklip2001 wrote:
Some of the delays still seem pretty odd (like the delays in the enemy room before Shaft), but I trust you did your best with them.
You mean the times when I use big toss level up? It's always a frame/pixel precise trick, so I have to wait for enemies to hit me at exact times for it to work. The only way to optimize them is to be as close as possible to them when doing the killing blow, which I did. The slower Guardian room outside Shaft doesn't matter anyways since I'm waiting on another enemy to run to the left side of the room. Or, are you talking about something else?
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feos wrote:
So was the run this one obsoletes called newgame+ properly or not?
Before work was started on this run arukAdo's submission obseleted the 19 min and was just referred to as "any%" like the runs before it. Some time after work started this was changed so that it did not obsolete the 19 min, but was still not its own category. After I made my own submission, both mine and it were changed to "newgame+", then later to "Replay Mode" in the actual publication page, but it is still referred to as "any%" in the submission text and elsewhere and such, while mine is still "newgame+" in said areas.
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I see the branch name has been changed to "Replay Mode" instead of "newgame+". Putting the issue of making it a different branch in the first place aside, I think this is a better term for it and appreciate that the change was made. I did think after a while that viewers unfamiliar with the game might get the wrong idea from the term "newgame+", so this is probably the best name for it. I apologize to the site staff for SotN being so stupid about clear file nonsense
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Samthe3rd wrote:
The encode I saw had all the cut scenes intact. Maybe it was a different submission.
It was definitely one of the older submissions to the site then. The only encode up when you asked that question was mine, which skipped cutscenes. Skipping cutscenes changes the RNG, so the movie itself would be drastically different even besides that if it did.
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I noticed that the actual publication lists the movie as having speed/entertainment tradeoffs. Is this referring to the use of SRAM period? Using fire boomerangs is no longer slower than wolfrising, so I'm curious.
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Patashu wrote:
I just noticed the branch was changed from any% to newgame+. Was this done by Mothrayas?
I'd assume so. There's been confusion as to the branches for this game for a while, seeing as how arukAdo's TAS no longer obsoletes the 19 min, and is also called "newgame+" in the publication. I'm guessing newgame+ is going to be its own separate branch now from any%. I have no objections, though one could argue that there isn't enough difference between the two (access to boomerangs is literally the only major difference - SotN isn't like an RPG or anything, newgame+ benefits are always exactly the same no matter what is on the clear file itself).
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Samthe3rd wrote:
If he uses a clear file to get the fire boomerang, why doesn't he skip the cut scenes?
Cutscene skip in SotN only allows you to skip the actual textboxes themselves. Any actual action that occurs during a cutscene must still occur even if you skip it (Alucard running to the inverted castle teleport, Drac throwing his wine glass in the prologue, etc.).
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Derakon wrote:
I don't think you have to worry about "losing" the current TASes. Symphony of the Night is one of those games that really lends itself to TASing. I mean, for Super Metroid we have 100%, any%, and any% without using the X-Ray scope glitch, and we used to have realtime and in-game-time runs separately published. I can absolutely believe that any corruption/total-control run would be published alongside the existing TASes instead of obsoleting them.
You see, this is what I initially thought. I guess I've already gotten into enough arguments against people who seem to think differently that I've lost heart, or something. Like, SMW has the exact same situation going on too, but even when I try to use examples like that nobody seems to really care.
I guess the disconnect I have is that the save corruption route is so ridiculously boring. It's literally just the same boring beginning parts of the game, followed by a couple minutes of menus and then you're done. At least SMW has action going on onscreen during the nonsense. That's obviously just my own personal opinion, as the fastest TAS of course deserves some sort of place here on the site, but I still feel it a point worth bringing up. I'm not saying this is why nobody should TAS this route, I'm saying this is why I do not want to TAS it myself. Of course, spending half a year on a TAS and having people almost immediately ask why I didn't use a trick that wasn't discovered until I was close to done is a good way to turn me off from said trick, but again, it's just a personal thing I have.
And it's funny that you mention that SotN lends itself to TASing like that. I would agree, and I used to wonder why absolutely nobody had any interest in doing so unlike all the Metroid TASes and such. After finishing SotN, I came to the conclusion that there are probably a number of people that have tried to privately, but soon gave up when they realized that it was just going to be 13 and a half minutes of RNG, route planning, and subpixel hell, compounded by constant issues brought on by having to deal with a crap emulator. I really don't blame arukAdo for going AFK from this game so long.
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I tried making a movie that at least got to where the corruption starts, but I just couldn't bring myself to finish it. Any% really burned me out as it is, so I was kinda hoping that the clamoring for a glitched TAS could wait for a while but I suppose I was proven wrong. I just have so little interest in both this category and probably just continuing to TAS SotN as a whole at the moment that even if I did finish it it probably wouldn't be nearly as good as it could be.
Basically, it would pretty much be a miracle if I got this done any time soon, and I really don't care anymore if someone else did the inputs for this. I don't think that this should obsolete either the clear file TAS or the 19 minute TAS, but in the end it really isn't my decision I guess. I could make my whole argument about how swap overflow completely ruins TASing this game by cutting out literally all of the interesting parts of the run and replacing it with menus to the point that it doesn't even play the game anymore, but I know that absolutely nobody would care to agree. Also, if anyone else feels like arguing against my views on the save corruption matter, don't.
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Patashu wrote:
Btw, is 'Fire Alucard' a graphical glitch or what?
Btw 2, was RSLing to the elevator to skip slogra and gaibon slower in the end?
Btw 3, Isn't this the same principle that RSL works on?
Btw 4, what did spinning the fairy around do?
1. Meatucard is a glitch that happens when you boomerang trick using soul of wolf. Not entirely sure why. The palette is sometimes used when Alucard dies.
2. Yes
3. Yes. It happens because the rooms aren't spaced together properly like the other rooms, as in they aren't directly touching each other like they are supposed to.
4. Fairy can only have one action in her queue at once. If I just went on ahead she'd try to heal my poison still even though I'm about to die and then do nothing else until I get hit again. You can see the 19 min TAS does this when leaving the faerie card room, but it's not as noticeable.
I'm glad to see that I've already gotten such a positive response! Although it was definitely quite a mistake to make this game my first TAS, I'm overall happy with how it turned out aside from a couple of glaring annoyances that I don't think were really within my control. I'm happy others agree.
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Brian_pso wrote:
Shit just got real, I really want to see where this'll lead the TASes of this game =D
as of the moment of this typing, not very far probably. we arent really greatly hindered by not having any one of the movement relics or anything, so the time it takes to save the game and reset and load the file back up again is just not worth it. if someone were to find a warp with it or something, shit would really get real
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I meant to ask this a while ago, but to anyone who cares, what's your opinion on us using a save state to start with muramasa carryover active? This is something that's already been OK'd for use, I'm just wondering what the viewers would think.
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Patashu wrote:
Romscout (in cosmo's chat) posted the idea of getting reverse shiftlines whenever you'd level up anyway in the route (during a boss battle for example) and using it to skip a roomlength of walking in the next room.
We only kill Medusa in the current route, who has a separate loading zone for her room (as most bosses do).
Pretty much anywhere else, we already use every level up I can think of for something else already. Getting more levels just to skip parts of rooms like that wouldn't be worth it since the screen pause pretty much eats up any time you would have saved unless you have to wait for some reason, and I can't think of any time where that happens.
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Me and arukAdo have experimented with it somewhat, and this is a summary of what we've found so far:
1. it can be done starting in any room with horizontal camera scrolling
2. it sends you the same distance (the length of about one room with no horizontal scrolling), even in longer rooms, so no warping across huge hallways
3. more screen pauses does not have any affect; in fact, the trick fails if you do more than one
4. ending up anywhere near a door causes alucard to go through it automatically, regardless of if this should even be possible
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0KI992_xm0
will play around with it more later.
Kainblox, the HR is already used to get the Library Card from the Marble Gallery for Outer Wall skip. There's nothing really big I can think of in the first castle done with reverse shift that could make up for the time lost from not doing that.
