Posts for Mart

Post subject: Windows 7 & Antialiasing
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
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Just wondering if anyone experienced the same issue... It seems that while running FCEUX (or even FCEU, for that matter) on Windows 7, you do not get the same "Antialiased" effect as when it's ran on Windows XP; it remains pixelated. Any known way of getting the image to look as smooth as it was in XP?
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As for a glitched run, the best method would be to do this glitch 5 times and get the silver orb, yellow orb, purple orb, black pepper, and the final key.
And don't forget about glitching the Rainbow Drop as well to save a lot of time in Alefgard! :) And once there, you may want to consider the Silver Harp & Arena glitch in order to fully equip your party members properly for the Zoma fight.
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dave_dfwm wrote:
I can defeat his henchmen pretty easily, but not him. HP regen sucks.
You may wanna consider a Battle Axe drop from Avengers for your Hero. This might help easing up battles until you get the Orochi Sword (or Thor's Sword, if you plan on fighting the Troll before the Orochi).
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It's been a while since this one has been submitted. Shouldn't it be time for it to be processed? Then again, I do not know about how priorities are established as far as runs go, so I'm just asking... :P
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Ad, you forgot getting the Wizard's Ring once you return to Isis. This will be much helpful for encounter manipulation. :P
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At this point, no strategy should be ruled out, since this game is as hard, if not harder to plan, than FF1, due to manip limitations. I don't think there's really a way to make this look like a "walk-in-the-park" run as DW4 looked, since: 1- There are like 9 bosses in the game, one of which is completely optional (and useless) (Kandar 1), 2 of which gives no experience (Baramos and Zoma), and 3 of which are in the last dungeon(King Hydra, Baramos Bomus, Baramos Gonus). That limits us to 3 bosses, which have nasty HP regen features, crownies to help out (Kandar 2), nasty breath attacks (Orochi), and high chances to land criticals (Boss Troll). So moderate-to-massive leveling is required. 2- Turns are somewhat pre-scripted. Therefore, there is little we can do to manipulate damage all-in-all. So protective equipment will have to be taken into consideration. Oh, and since everyone's gonna take hits, you may want to manipulate some drops here and there. Something good to manip would be with Hunter Flies near Baharata giving away Cloaks of Evasion (which is better than nothing at this point of the game). It might be a bit time-consuming, but since we cannot manipulate much in battles, we might as well go for damage-saving solutions. Good other drops to watch for would be: Boss Troll -> Thor's Sword (which is WAY better than the Thunder Sword) King Merzon -> Magic Bikini (so make sure your other members are females) Lethal Armor -> Full Plate Armor (if you don't have anything better already before getting to Samanao) Minidemon -> Unlucky Helmet (Best Helmet in the game, if you don't care about the Luck attribute) Another thing to consider would be this: After getting Healall at least, turn your Pilgrim and Wizards into Soldiers. Why? Better HP, better overall power, and better equipment possibilities (including Demon Axes from Mimics, and Dragon Mails, which will protect them from breath attacks). Plus, if one of them has Healall, he'll still be able to greatly damage Zoma (since "Weakened-Zoma" gets damaged by Healall by about the same as Blazemost). Also, best way to gain money would be near the end of the game, by hunting Thor Swords. One or two will most likely do the trick, though. The casino is out of the question, since fight results are just as scripted as pro-wrestling, and low levels = not much profit. That's about all I can come up as far as a strategy is concerned. We'd need to dig the game mechanics more to see if there's anything exploitable we could abuse.
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Finished watching it (with fastforwarding walking sequences)... and here are some random thoughts: - Smooth going with Ragnar, picking up Alex's wife just as she came in position. - How humiliating for Cameleon Humanoid to get finished with a 1 damage hit. - The final use of a Wing of Wyvern in chapter 2 made me go O_O... :P - Also liked how the prison part in chapter 3 was played... It was like "Im in ur prisn, helpin ur inmates evade!!!11" (4chan meme variation). - Another thing that made me chuckle is how Hector says he leaves to study businesses in Mintos... when you just returned to Endor! Good luck getting back there on your own, sucker! :D - Nice to see that Master Dragon supports jailbreaking: he was so nice as to go fetch the dead body of Cristo in Gardenbur! :D And by the way... is it mandatory to watch the fake princess kidnapping cutscene? I'm pretty sure I once went directly for the Golden Bracelet, andcame back at night with the kidnappers right there waiting for me... Or maybe it's just me... Anyhow, that was awesome, as I expected. So the moral yes stands!
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Being one who looked forward to this run being made, I must say that I'm am in awe with the final time mark. Knowing how awesome the test runs were at an even slower time, I know this is gonna be good. Currently watching, but from knowing what Ad can do, it gets an auto-yes, for sure! EDIT: Meh, can't vote, probably due to my low posts number... but hey, you get a moral yes from me, if that's worth anything! :D
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Not found much, but maybe someone more experimented with game behaviours can look after what I found out about the "encounter mechanics" of this game: 1- I don't remember this being mentionned in DW3's case, but on the field, you can reset the encounters by simply bringing out a menu (as seen in TheAxeMan's DW2 run). Doesn't work in caves and dungeons, though... however... 2- ...it seems like any sort of healing DOES reset encounters in any case, even in dungeons (as Adelikat mentionned). Tried it with healing spells, medical herbs, AND the Wizard's Ring, and it works. So now that we can do this with a reusable item which isn't THAT far in the game (Isis, Magic Key required), this game seems much more feasible. The only hard parts will be the cave to Romaly and the Pyramid, for which I suggest stocking up on Medical Herbs to reset the encountering order. Plus, when healing STILL gives you a battle, just heal again to reset the encounters again, you've just been unlucky. :) However, I wonder how equipping regenerative items (Ring of Life, Armor of Radiance, WFC, etc.) would affect manipulation... If anyone thinks up of more creative ways to use this information, please bring them up for the benefit of everyone. Would be nice to see the whole series TAS'd.
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TheAxeMan wrote:
Also, I will skip Erdrick's armor and use two trips for the Rhone cave.
Would getting the armor really be that much of a waste of time on your second trip in the cave, compared to the numerous times you'll need to heal when walking on damage tiles in Hargon's Castle? Keep in mind you'll have to heal two guys, if you don't go for the armor... I don't remember the maps by heart, so I can't really tell if it's worth it or not... Plus, when you'll be in Hargon's castle, you could do the following: let the princess die on the first floor's damage tiles, and revive her with a leaf as soon as you get in the tower. That's gonna save you the trouble of healing her for the time being. The only healing you'll have to do afterwards is when reaching Hargon. I could be wrong, but even with the detour, the armor would save quite some time...
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Excellent run, for a test run. Here are my few thoughts: - One way to get money would be to kill of the Evil Clown that is held captive in Mindenhall. Staves of Thunder sell for quite a lot. If you plan to use power cycles in your polished run, you may want to abuse it so you can get even more money from Staves. But that would require a detour to Mindenhall, which would waste time on the current route... - Golden Card is a MUST, since you can easily manipulate to get it. Its 25% discount is going to help a lot if you wish to go with your Light Sword strategy. - A good time-saver would be to get the princess to level 10 for her to learn Defence. It works wonders on Malroth, and it would definitely shorten that battle. I don't know if the time saved from the battle would be greater than the time it takes to take the princess to level 10, though...
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Actually, my good friend, Octo loses his tentacles every 2~3 hits. However, his HP drops normally on any attack. The tentacle image switch represents his frequency of attacks decreasing, as if you'd chop his tentacles off. So therefore, it won't really have that much of an impact. If you wish, I'll show ya next time I come over to your place.
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Well, that was mostly out of curiosity. I was wondering what exactly influenced the drop on each enemy slot. But it seems like not many people have figured it out (which isn't surprising, the game's been out for only 2 weeks). As for the quickstate trick, I'd have to see an example of it. But I'd think that 50 resets in a TAS would kinda look like someone who uses the cheap way out, aestetically-wise, while luck manips and runs don't look like that. But as I said, I'd have to see an example to compare how it looks. Maybe it won't look so bad, who knows...
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Phil wrote:
Mart wrote:
Oh, and do you happen to know which memory areas manage item-dropping odds? Been trying to track this down, but to no avail...
It's 0200e098.
Thanks. That's the memory area that stores the first item type, along with 0200e099 being the area that stores the quantity. What I was actually looking for are the memory areas for each 8 monster slots that influence whether the monster should drop the item or not. And if possible the value range for the 1/2, 7/16, 3/64 and 1/64 odds of possible items. And where are you at, as of now? Just curious...
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I watched your movie, and I love the menu scrolling speed you got there, since it is known among many FF4A cart owners that menu navigation is sloppy at times. I noticed that you missed an Emergency Exit item (which is basically the same as the Exit spell) in the Antlion cave. If I recall correctly, it is on the floor before the boss. That can be useful either to get out of that dungeon, or any other. Loved the manip with Tellah and Virus. And with the zombies and Break too. Good thinking there! Do you know if you could have got Thundaga instead? I'm not sure to what Recall is limited. In the Fabul war, at the last battle before you face Kain, if you could let Cecil live under 50 hp, it might shorten the Cecil vs Kain encounter, if cecil's not fully restored as when he dies during the war. I'm not sure on that one, but if he keeps his sub-50 HP, that would save time. That would need to be tested, though... Oh, and do you happen to know which memory areas manage item-dropping odds? Been trying to track this down, but to no avail... Great run so far, dude!
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Anything new on this one? I just can't wait to see how this one turns out! :D
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Something I noticed while using the "No Random Encounter" gameshark code. Whenever I got to fight the same formation of enemies several times, the "battle scenario" was the same (except for slight variations, depending on your characters' stats and EQ). But then again, maybe the gameshark code shuts down an internal timer used in the randomness formula of the game. But one thing's for sure, in my mind: this game's engines DON'T run like the NES version. So getting a clue from the NES run won't help.
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As for the party I'm using, right now, I tried 2 Fighters, a BB and a BM. I went and gave my BM Lit-2 (or Thundara, for all those new-generation FF fans), so I can level/cash up a bit on Wizards. However, I don't know how time-consuming leveling up and raking up in cash on Wizzies will be compared to just going thru the run and solely relying on luck manip to win hard fights such as Astos and Lich. In any event, I thought the BB would be useful after gaining some levels on the Wizards, thus making Astos and Lich fights easier without losing *too much* time. But then again, I might just have to rethink my strategy...
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I am attempting a FF1 run as well, and found some useful info, mostly related to luck manipulation. Inzult probably knows about them, but I haven't seen those listed anywhere in this thread, so here goes: - While in a battle, that battle's "scenario" is generated every 2 frames. I discovered that using FCEU's "Pause" and" Frame Advance" options while entering my 4th character's command. This can ultimately lead to perfect battles, with a lot of effort. However, I'm not going to wait 832762386 frames to get 4 hits and 5 misses in a 1st round from the pirates battle in Pravoka. :P - It also seems like battle occurances can be either delayed or hasted, depending on the type of tile you walk on. Some tiles seem to take off more off the the number of steps required to get into a random encounter. I figured this out after defeating Garland, while attempting to get to the bridge. I used a straight-forward way, walking through lots of forest tiles, and ended up having a battle with 5 imps. I then tried walking around the whole forest, and got to the bridge without an encounter, albeit walking a bit more. I finally tried to walk by the town wall, going through some grass and forest tiles, and got to the bridge, using an equal number of steps as for my first in-forest attempt. Now what I'll need to figure out is how to influence when ambushes and preemptive strikes. The main hypothesis would be that it depends on how the last battle went, but that will have to be either tested or confirmed by someone who did that test. Anyone has any ideas regarding that?
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