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Leepers and skulls will react to Lolo only when their direction stack is empty (don't worry about this) and one of two conditions hold.
1) They are not facing toward Lolo. (That is, Lolo is on or behind an imaginary line drawn perpendicular to the direction the enemy is facing.)
2) They hit a wall and can turn either both directions or neither direction.
Here is what happens to the leeper in 1-3:
1) He moves 3 steps up, 2 right, 5 down, then turns toward the right. His direction stack is empty at this point.
2) He moves 4 steps right and runs into the heart.
3a) Lolo was at or behind the leeper's X coordinate (and above him) while the leeper was moving right in step 1 or 2. The leeper moves 6 steps left, then turns and starts moving up.
4aa) Lolo was at or behind the leeper's Y coordinate while the leeper was moving up, before he reached the first fork. Go back to the middle of step 1.
4ab) Lolo was at or behind the leeper's Y coordinate while the leeper was moving up, before he reached the point 1 step below the top of the room. The leeper moves up to that point, right 1 step, up 1 step, then starts moving right along the top of the room.
4ac) Lolo was at or behind the leeper's Y coordinate while the leeper was moving up, before he reached the point 1/2 step below the top of the room. The leeper moves up to that point, then right one step.
4ad) The leeper moves up to the top left corner, then moves right along the top of the room.
5aca) If Lolo is at or above the leeper's Y coordinate, the leeper will move up 1/2 step and then move right along the top of the room.
5acb) If Lolo is below the leeper's Y coordinate, the leeper will move down 1/2 step, move left 1 step, then move down.
3b) Lolo was ahead of the leeper's X coordinate whenever the leeper was moving right in steps 1 in 2. The leeper moves all the way left, then all the way up, then moves right along the top of the room.
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Kirkq wrote:
If what Nitrodon says is true about the apprentice level, we can walk into Patrof, leave, level up on S Brains, return with the wind rune, and probably one shot the apprentice later.
If I remember correctly, S.Brains are found near Luze. It's impossible to reach any towns past Bone (along any of the three possible routes) unless you have both the Water Rune and the Star Rune.
New point: I recall there is a point later in the game where having Olvan creates a slightly different scenario. Can anyone elaborate on this point? Does he have to be your main character for this to occur, or can he be your apprentice? Is the Olvan path faster (less walking), or is the Normal Route faster?
He needs to be the main character. If you talk to a certain person in Bone, he will give you the key to Grime Tower, and you can use that to warp to somewhere near Telaine. Note that he can still take the same "normal route" that anyone other than Esuna or Lux will take. In fact, without savestates, the enemies in the tower to the north are likely too difficult at that point in the game, so you'll want to take the normal route on console.
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Healblade wrote:
Nitrodon wrote:
The Patrof apprentice's level is actually set as soon as the sage in Eygus moves out of the way
Are we absolutely certain about this? I don't think this is true, but I would be glad to be wrong.
I am completely sure of this. His level will be 5 greater than yours at that point, and will never increase afterward.
Animand wrote:
I'd love to do work on this movie, but I'm holding back because I'm unsure on what sort of power we'll have to manipulate critical boss battles. R.Pison is critical, but I'd contend that the needed S.Brain levelling for the final boss (or the previous boss series) would eliminate the worrying about levels for ALL* the other ones save Dragon.
In my experience, enemy actions are completely impossible to manipulate (except for healing magic, since that's only used at low HP). In caves, castles, and similar, manipulating the RNG (for dodges, criticals, etc.) in the middle of battle is only possible by changing the actions done by each character. On the overworld, the RNG will advance in time due to waves crashing against the shore.
Naturally, I concur that the best levelling method is a single*, condensed block of killing S.Brains for two reasons: while levelling later (in the past) can be faster, having the levels earlier can likely save more time, and the one levelling block avoids multiple spots of viewer boredom.
Actually, S.Brains give more experience than any other non-boss enemy in the game, so I don't see how leveling later would be faster anyway.
Points of interest (*):
---I never fought any battles between R.Pison and the Patrof apprentice. I avoided them all, and always managed to win that fight *on console* with Lux and minimal trouble. I'm not at all worried about that fight.
Noted. In a TAS, it might be useful to manipulate Lejes there due to his low defense.
---There are things that may detract from the "single" part of this. For example, I suggest killing some Brains around Guntz in order to manipulate some Rcvry drops.
The experience may also make it easier to start killing S.Brains.
---I've had the Sky Rune apprentice want to join my party. Having Olvan hold the Sky Rune and getting him to join you would be insanely useful. This, of course, would require not having him before (should be discussed with Lux solo or with another partner) and knowing how to manipulate/check it. *raises an eyebrow at Nitrodon*
Olvan's response to you = 7E5022. This number ranges from 0 to 99, and changes randomly whenever 7E5120 reaches 0. If his response value is 40 or greater, Olvan will offer to join Lux if he has the Sky Rune. (If he doen't have the Sky Rune, the number needs to be 60 or greater instead.)
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My responses are based on memory from a long time ago too, but I hope they help.
Kirkq wrote:
If someone could decode a way for me to set my stats to values I choose, it would make finding levels I could feasibly beat bosses at much easier. It would help me to move on a bit more. I assume there would be memory addresses I can set to set these stats for testing purposes?
Good thing I made some notes.
Current HP: 7E1DC4 / 7E1E24 (2 bytes)
Maximum HP: 7E1DC6 / 7E1E26 (2 bytes)
Current MP: 7E1DC8 / 7E1E28 (2 bytes)
Maximum MP: 7E1DCA / 7E1E2A (2 bytes)
Power: 7E1DCC / 7E1E2C (2 bytes)
Magic: 7E1DCE / 7E1E2E
Speed: 7E1DCF / 7E1E2F
Defense: 7E1DDC / 7E1E3C (2 bytes)
I don't know if this next point ever got answered previously. This point is very important to implement the run appropriately, and I don't know the answer. If we recruit a new character and kill off Lux, does the new character gain full experience and function like a single character switch? What if we wanted to recruit a new character after that while Lux is still dead? Would that character's level be based on Lux's, the previous recruits, or a combination thereof? The most efficient way to level would be with a single character so experience doesn't get split in half.
If only one character is alive, that character will receive full experience. Both characters need to be alive to recruit a new character. The new character will replace the old partner, and his/her/its level will be based solely on the main character's level.
Is there a character we could recruit that is good for killing Red Pison at a low level? We could actually kill off this character right before Red Pison is dead so that Lux gets full experience and we can get a new recruit later at a higher level. We would need to gain a substantial amount of experience before this recruit would consider joining us.
The amount of experience you have does not affect whether a recruit will consider joining you. Winning some number of battles will simply re-randomize everyone's reaction to you.
What character can beat S Brains at the lowest level? This will almost surely be our method of grinding levels for most of the run.
I'm not sure who would be best at that, but that would probably be the only method of grinding levels after defeating the Patrof apprentice. At that point, you'd just grind until your level is high enough to defeat every remaining boss in the entire game.
Can we get to S Brains and start killing them without having to level up at all after Red Pison? The castle boss for the Third Rune is actually supposed to be easier if you are at a low level.
It may be difficult to defeat S.Brains at a low level, but otherwise I don't see why not. The Patrof apprentice's level is actually set as soon as the sage in Eygus moves out of the way, so any levels gained after that would not be wasted.
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Zugzwang wrote:
Very cool!
I found that the top heart had to be taken before he would go back down. If you get to bottom right heart then the top heart (without pause) he has passed the upper left corner (too late). If you go out of order then you use too many steps.
I'm not entirely sure what you're suggesting here. It doesn't seem to fit with what I know, so maybe we're talking about completely different things.
So your saying its possible, by some movement you make, that the leeper will go back down. So what is the "condition" that makes him do so?
His movement stack must be empty, and you must stay above him until 1/2 step below the top of the map.
Is it possible to delay the movement of the leeper by pausing frames at the start of the level? That would attain you 1 frame ahead.
Perhaps that last question is stupid. Remember I know knothing about TASing :)
That won't really do anything. The leeper will never stop moving until it falls asleep. If you mean pausing before anything moves, the leeper will start moving as soon as you do.
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Zugzwang wrote:
1-3: I looked for a long time for a way to get the skeleton to go back down once he reached the top left corner to no avail. There is a vid on you tube where a guy made it go back down. Unfortunatelyit looks like it requires the upper heart to be taken first. This is a bummer because I believe there is about 14 steps of waiting in this level.
I just looked into this by completely deciphering the Leeper's AI. It is possible to make him go back down after reaching the top left corner, and if there were a way to make Lolo move 7 steps even one frame faster than usual, you could do it without too much waiting.
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The area where you hear a "falling" sound between the Lumine Hall hole and the Lost Underworld is at (3200, 1152). This is higher than where the glitch was used (Y=2888), so the game warps you there and resets the glitch. You are then warped to the Lost Underworld, because that's what always happens in that event. Hence you aren't stuck no matter where you go after that.
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nfq wrote:
it would be impossible to defeat some of the bosses without levelling up a little.
tujudi737 disagrees with you on that point. But I agree that defeating enemies may be faster than running away, especially considering how long it would take to manipulate the RNG.
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DaTeL237 wrote:
if (cappedRN <= 31) then rigIndex = 1
elseif (cappedRN <= 39) then rigIndex = 2
elseif (cappedRN <= 71) then rigIndex = 3
elseif (cappedRN <= 103) then rigIndex = 4
elseif (cappedRN <= 135) then rigIndex = 5
elseif (cappedRN <= 167) then rigIndex = 6
elseif (cappedRN <= 199) then rigIndex = 7
elseif (cappedRN <223>0) then
return assignReel(), assignReel(), assignReel()
end
Looks like you deleted something and ended up deleting too much. If this part of the post was pasted directly from your script without modification, I think that's your problem right there.
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Floogal wrote:
The trigger point for losing & regaining the ability to teleport is from adding & dropping Dungeon Man from your party, respectively. Poo's presense has no effect on this. I'm not sure what other teleporting-loss event you're referring to.
When you exit the pyramid, you are unable to teleport, most likely to prevent you from avoiding the "Poo leaves" hotspot via teleport crashing.
ElectroSpecter wrote:
Floogal wrote:
Perhaps we could skip the whole meteorite mess at the start & just go south to Onett? But that's not a hotspot according to PK Hack, so it probably won't work.
It's really not a hotspot? How does the game trigger the text that appears? Is it an invisible wall or something? It's too bad, because it would be awesome to walk around Onett at night so early in the game.
It's a series of doors for some reason.
Nitrodon wrote:
The main reason you're having trouble is probably the fact that the enemy needs to target you. This significantly reduces the number of states that the RNG can be in when the game decides whether the attack is a SMAAAASH or not. If you fight an enemy such as Frankystein Mark II, you can see a clear difference in how easy it is for Ness to manipulate a SMAAAASH (on odd-numbered turns in this case).
So basically, is my best bet just to change up the RNG like I have been doing (i.e. by moving around the battle command menu) until I get SMAAAASHed?
I generally used a spreadsheet to find out exactly which RNG states will cause a SMAAAASH.
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ElectroSpecter wrote:
Nitrodon wrote:
The minimum SMAAAASH probability is 1/20.
Hm, so I guess my next question would be whether it would be possible to have a Crow Smash Ness twice in a row before Buzz Buzz does his shield thing. In this case, there would be no need to get into a battle beforehand to lower Ness' HP. It may still be faster to sit through Buzz's shield anyway, if it's not possible for the Crow to kill Ness before he puts it up. It would also be nice if the Crows can be lured with the trick showcased in gocha's WIP recently posted.
Theoretically, it's possible. I've manipulated action orders with more extreme speed ratios in the current TAS. The manipulation to get everything at once might be longer than it takes for Buzz Buzz to put up a shield, depending on how cooperative the RNG is.
Back to my other question: Any chance you'd be willing to explain to me how to manipulate a Smash? =]
The main reason you're having trouble is probably the fact that the enemy needs to target you. This significantly reduces the number of states that the RNG can be in when the game decides whether the attack is a SMAAAASH or not. If you fight an enemy such as Frankystein Mark II, you can see a clear difference in how easy it is for Ness to manipulate a SMAAAASH (on odd-numbered turns in this case).
gocha wrote:
I'd like to show another applications of stutter walk:
Can this be used to avoid the photographer in Grapefruit Falls and Dusty Dunes Desert? Also, if you skip the spot after the pyramid, what happens at the end of the Master Barf battle, and can you still teleport later in the game?
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The other Giant Step hotspot isn't even loaded when entering that area, so I am sure that it doesn't do anything (at least at that point). I know practically nothing about hotspots in general, so I can't say anything else on the subject (except the obvious) with any certainty.
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ElectroSpecter wrote:
Anyway (I forgot to mention this earlier), I assumed since all the beginning enemies have a Guts stat of 0, they couldn't Smash you. Is this correct? Or does it mean that there's still a base chance (like 1/256) of them Smashing you?
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For positive y, the Taylor series of e^y has only positive terms. Hence e^y is greater than any individual term in the series. In particular, e^y > y^2/2. Thus y*e^-y < y/(y^2/2) = 2/y. Since y*e^-y > 0, this proves that y*e^-y -> 0 as y -> +infinity.
Let x = e^-y. Then y*e^-y = -x*ln(x). This transformation is continuous, and we know the limit of y*e^-y, so therefore we can see that x*ln(x) -> 0 as x -> 0.
x^x = e^(x*ln(x)), and thus we have x^x -> e^0 = 1 as x -> 0.
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3) pi is transcendental, and so is 4-pi. pi + (4-pi) = 4 is algebraic. (Basically the same as the answer to 4 given above.)
5) I'm not sure what you mean by "involving any transcendental numbers". That said, (2+abs(x))^sqrt(2) should probably work regardless of your definition (if you consider it as a limit where the exponent is approached by rational numbers, thus avoiding any possible mention of transcendental numbers in the definition of exponentiation).
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Floogal wrote:
2) Revive Paula & Jeff with Ness's Mom in Magicant, and use Paula's prayer to confuse Ness's Nightmare. It can blast itself with rockin' omega, while Paula helps out with some light-chasing prayers. Jeff can drop, but Ness must stay conscious so that he doesn't disappear into the ether after Magicant (stranding Paula in Saturn Valley after beating Giygas).
I'm not sure why I didn't think of confusion on Ness's Nightmare, but now that the possibility is out there, I'll improve it:
3) Revive Paula & Jeff with Ness's Mom in Magicant, and use Paula's prayer to confuse Ness's Nightmare on turn 1 after it uses Shield beta. It can blast itself with a glorious light (i.e., Flash gamma) for an instant kill.
As for Giygas, strategy 1 is out of the question. It's just too much manipulation, even for a TAS. Strategy 2 is intriguing, and strategy 3 might require too much luck. I'm not sure what causes characters to wake up or return to normal.
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It was just a cool fact. I doubt there would be any situation where it would be worth it. A more useful fact is that you can also reset the RNG by looking at a unit's stats.
Off the top of my head, the following things advance the RNG:
1) The path-drawing algorithm.
2) The combat data screen (it completely simulates a battle)
3) The battles themselves.
4) Determining whether to re-move (if the character has any re-move stars and hasn't re-moved this turn).
Memory addresses 7E046B-7E04A1 consist of a set of 55 RNs. The current RN is indexed by the value at 7E04A2. When 7E04A2 rolls over to 0, a new set of 55 RNs is generated.
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FE5's RNG is very similar to FE4's, except that that are more (and faster) ways to manipulate it during the player phase. If you have animations on, you can even manipulate the RNG during the enemy phase. I could probably make a spreadsheet, but you would need to input 55 numbers (046B-04A1) instead of 3. This might be easier if I learn Lua scripting.
This discussion should probably be moved to a new topic, since it has nothing to do with FE8.
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Falling down the hole in Lumine Hall is not a "death-respawn-reset" event. Perhaps it should be, but it isn't. I checked by stopping the TAS in the underworld and killing off everyone, and the party respawned in Winters (where Tessie dropped everyone off on the way to Stonehenge).
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Floogal wrote:
- There's no point in checking why the game freezes when you try to death warp in the Lost Underworld. Dropping down the hole into the area is a "death-respawn-reset" event -- dying in the Lost Underworld before saving would put you at the entrance to the Lost Underworld if you continued (while playing normally). Other such death respawn resets include entering Deep Darkness for the first time, arriving in the Cave of the Past, and Jeff joining Ness & Paula in Threed.
Indeed, I hadn't thought of this. Of course, I may try to find out anyway to satisfy my own curiosity.
- Since we NEED PSI Teleport to get out of the Lost Underworld, I can only think of one other alternative to the route I posted earlier: fill up Ness's inventory at the start of the game so that Buzz Buzz sends the Sound Stone to Tracy, then either have Paula grab it (probably via death warping) or teleport back to Onett after beating Magicant. This method seems much slower.
Another method is to recruit Poo by fighting Master Barf. This would require sitting through two phone conversations and wading slowly through Deep Darkness (from Tenda Village) without Teleport.
- I seem to recall whether or not you could teleport changed dynamically as you glitch walked between different segments -- so you shouldn't need to head all the way up to the Stonehenge Base to use the Exit Mouse. Just walk to the nearest sector where you're allowed to use the Exit Mouse, and use it to warp (hopefully properly & solidly) to the entrance of Lumine Hole.
You can legitimately use Exit Mice to warp from one tileset to another in some Your Sanctuary locations (the current TAS does this in Lilliput Steps), so this shouldn't be a problem.
- This suggestion could work for a regular run, too: before Ness heads to Peaceful Rest Valley, save at the bus station in Twoson. Then, grab the Cup of Lifenoodles in Peaceful Rest Valley, and death-warp back to Twoson after getting Paula. Revive Paula with the Cup of Lifenoodles, and continue like normal. The lack of PP for Ness won't be a problem -- he gets fully healed after being ambushed by the Zombie Lady.
I am aware of this, though I hadn't thought much about the details.
- Another theoretic improvement: is it possible to lure an enemy all the way to the meteor area at the start of the game? Then, after getting Buzz Buzz & Picky, you could engage it in battle, let Ness die, and deathwarp back to Ness's House? It would save a miniboss battle & some backtracking, at the cost of possibly another battle to lower Ness's HP (probably not necessary if Buzz Buzz is manipulated to miss the enemy & the enemy SMAAAASH!es Ness) & fighting Frank at a lower level.
It's possible for Buzz Buzz to miss a Spiteful Crow, so that should work. The extra stats at level 4 are useful against Frank, but it may be possible to work around it. PP wouldn't be a problem, since there's no reason to use PSI before defeating Titanic Ant.