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I can only agree with that. How can this run be ever more entertaining without losing speed?
You can't just make ANY changes in the run except of jumping around on different frames while running into a direction, and that would by all means not increase any entertainment. In fact, it could even look silly, repetitive, and therefore annoying in the end.
And IMO this game is that short, that it absolutely should have speed at 1st priority. It just can't offer any reasonable entertainment-increment by slowing intentionally down. Only the fastest run is worth being published for DK, everything else (at least without a totally different concept) would be dumb and a waste of space.
And it should be obvious that as long as this run can't be beaten by a single frame, it should not be obsoleted in any way. The one who is the first to achieve the record is ALWAYS in higher claim for it than the one who duplicates it. That should always be obvious.
In this case, there is a problem though. Hero got the fastest possible time (and most likely not possible to improve anymore), but level 2 and 3 should be direct copies of Phils work, in case it was indeed frame-perfect that time already, so maybe giving Phil credit for level 2 and 3 examples would be ok.
I however am sure from the facts in the past, that hero is a good enough TASer to be able to get the last both levels frame perfect without any problems, even whithout having the possibility to compare to the previous run, because DK is a pretty easy game to TAS itself, and should be a piece of a cake to get it frame-perfect for any experienced and high-quality TASer as hero is.
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Sorry for being a bit late, I was pretty busy in the last days.
Finally watched all new WIPs:
KB1:
Very nice strategy to do the first lap skips until the CPU Karts are overrounding you to take a long boost of them. Didn't thought such a thing was possible at all from other Karts.
CI2:
One of the best tracks once again! Crazy shortcuts and jumps all the time made me really enjoy this track very much.
VL1:
Nice to see that it's even possible to skip a lap without needing to jump out of the track and make Lakitu bring you back on it. Definitely saves much more time that way. :-)
BC3:
Very entertaining track as expected. Crazy shortuts with feather, that are probably even possible to do on console. Was a new one to me.
Good luck for Special Cup, Huffers!
I think we can expect one of the most entertaining races in the last 3 tracks, with a great final at Rainbow Road.
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Incredible find hero!
Such a easy, yet completely unexpected glitch, just confirms your unlimited creativity. :-)
A bit late, but obvious YES vote of course.
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That statement is not completely true:
Yes, I have learned exactly 1 (for my run) useful trick in each of your TASes. In your's the by far most valuable Red Brinstar Shaft shortcut, which as you might notice, I named the "Hero Red Shaft" for some reason, and in JXQ's the catnap jump, which I could probably notice before by just looking more carefully on catnaps movies.
Except of that there was nothing else, from which I could benefit from your runs at all. It's still a very worthful information of course, and I really thank you guys for that, but it's just not the way you have said it before.
And didn't I get you very valuable information back as well? The Draygon quick kill without the need of ammo, which saved especially in your run many many seconds, the (admittedly not public, but I can show PMs to prove) many hints for JXQ to improve his 100% run, like trying to avoid using the shinespark except if it's unavoidably necessary because of it's slow crash cooldown etc.
You all had much more benefit from my tricks in your runs than I did from yours, this is just unarguable true, isn't it?
Only the fellow SM TASers maybe, but definitely not the other viewers.
I know it's not the finest way like I do it, and I'm sorry, but there is a reason for all this:
Working all day, I don't have much freetime to TAS, and I need very much motivation to continue this very difficult project in the quality I did so far. This motivation I only have by knowing I can show a new and unique run.
If I would share all of my work now, it would get copied in no time, and since you apparently have more time to TAS than me, you would finish your runs much faster than I would, and that way there wouldn't be any reason for me to continue my run at all. I want to save you all from me cancelling my run and thus miss a epic on this site (has nothing to do with being selfish or anything, just a fact) so I just have to do it like that in order to keep my motivation alive. I hope you can understand.
If you have no problem that your tricks get copied and you still can keep your motivation to TAS no matter what, thats of course good for you. Sadly I can't do it that way.
To sum everything up, there is nothing unfair I did to anybody. I shared countless of useful tricks over the years with you guys and got only a few back, so I don't think there is anything wrong with that.
You are ok hero, I know. And I never treated you as a enemy. I'm sorry if it seemed so to you.
And regarding JXQ and his dictionary/submission obsoletion fund jokes, indeed a kindergarten. Didn't expect that from a 25 year old guy. I would like to hear how you would speak for example german instead.
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I will post the WIP which will confirm ALL values I mentioned before once the full run is done. Keep distrusting until then, JXQ and moozooh. :-)
Also moozooh, you didn't answer my question why you are afraid to work on Ceres having just the best opportunity in the test run. What is the reason to not analyze it for improvements like you do in Zebes? If you decided to ignore me all of a sudden, oh well. I'm just curious, you know.
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Moozooh:
It's still weird why you take so much effort optimizing Zebes, but skipping Ceres completely. You probably realized that you wouldn't be able to match me there without being able to copy my values, so to hush up the truth you just skip it. I don't know when you will start your final run, (2009, 2010 maybe?) but until then you will have to face Ceres, no matter what, and then we will see how well you can truly do there. :-)
My goal is also easy: To make a unique run for you all to enjoy later.
JXQ:
I'm amazed you don't get it. Are you serious at all? Or do you want to say the values I posted there aren't true?
The difference is just that moozooh calculated his best values by just assuming they are reachable (you will see how reachable they truly are when moozooh shows you his WIP - provided that he can accept that he can't reach them but still shares the WIP of course), where I did it by watching my run and seeing the values in the emulator. This are facts, but of course it's up to you to believe it or not. I could show you the Torizo fight right now so you can see, but as said, I don't have to prove anything.
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I can also list some theoretical fantasy values. Only the real achievements count.
Thats just done because I want moozooh to avoid aming to copy my frame numbers. He would be blocked in his own incredible search possibilities by just comparing to me, which could make him miss another possible frame-saver in that escape, even though it's highly unlikely. Unfortunately moozooh didn't take that chance by intentionally skipping to optimize Ceres in his test run (which would be the optimal place to do so, instead of taking a risk doing it in the final run) and only starting so in Zebes, so no results of that so far.
Hero:
Even though I thought my WIP was perfect, it was wrong as you see. Knowledge increases the more you work on such a run, and 1 year is a pretty long time span already.
I don't have to prove anything to anybody yet. You will see it when the full run is done by yourself. And it was obvious that I compared between our Super Metroid runs only, not us TASers in general, so don't blame me for things I have never said.
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...which is almost 1 year old by now, and according to my calculations you saved only 2-4 frames (not counting Ceres, moozooh- and catnap-jump). Still very solid of course, as I highly doubt anybody else except of you could even match that WIP run.
No problem. It's usual that people sometimes have a hard time to accept the facts until they can see them.
Just a reminder for you that I didn't hide my work like you said I do.
To me, because I already knew it that time. Is there anything wrong about it?
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No, thats not the reason at all.
Did you forgot I revealed the shortest charge trick even catnap didn't know about (ashibumi is longer and won't allow you Big Metroid skip or a major shortcut to shinespark to Wrecked Ship) and later the Spore Super Missile without CF? Without them you wouldn't even be able to get a sub 39 100% run most likely, so think about it.
The reason I'm not posting WIPs is to keep the surprise for the first time watcher alive. My run will be different in many ways, and I really don't want to spoil anything until the full run is done and submitted. You will thank me for that when you see that run later and in it's full length.
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No of course not. My statement was only the case about my own submissions regarding Super Metroid. I know I could do a quick and still over average, high quality TAS of that game and just submit it, but it would be spam because I know I can do a much better run by taking more time to optimize it. So I better avoid unnecessary submissions knowing that a improvement of myself will come anyway.
I very much agree that speed is not the only goal on this site, and that it's in some cases better to aim for entertainment instead, especially in fighting games, which I also did like that, but the great thing in Super Metroid is that it allows both goals to be included without any compromises. Because of that, my absolutely top priority in that game is speed, which should definitely be everyone else goal as well when TASing this game, because it's a very speed-orientated game by itself and the faster it is, the more entertaining it automatically gets in 99% of cases.
Everyone has dreams, but this one won't last that long, so enjoy it as long as you can. I just hope you won't get disappoinrted when you will have to face the truth someday.
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That is the reason why we never submit something yet.
I don't know how moozoohs plan is, but I don't intend to spam this site with "relatively" unoptimized runs. I will submit only one run for which I let me time as much as I need, and this run will make everything clear once and for all.
Though I agree, it will end all competition that is running so well today, which is of course sad, but everything has to come to an end once. It was always like that.
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You are often right hero, but not this time. It's definitely possible to get a perfect and unimproveable run. Not on complicated games with alot of lag and luck of course, but at least in simple and short ones like NES' Donkey Kong for example.
You are top moozooh, but the day will come that will prove your above statement (1/3 part of it at least) wrong, my friend. Trust me. :-)
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Yes, I tried everything with Shiva Edge. It actually does ~2800 HP damage and would save around 120-150 frames because of Marles shot skip.
But no matter which lines (that are worth to use at least) I did in all Lavos fights before, I just couldn't get a critical hit of it at the needed time, because for the costs of being 4x damage at critical, the rate is pretty low (I guess like 10%). I probably even spent more time on the other smv which had Shive Edge instead of Rainbow, and still couldn't do it, at least without sacrifices that would be bigger than the time gained from the faster left bit kill. So Rainbow is just the only way to go, sadly.
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Maybe you did notice that equipping Rainbow is much more impoitant for something else then only Ice Sword 2, as I equipped it in all previous versions which didn't use Ice Sword 2 yet.
To answer Brocs question, it's unavoidable to kill Lavos Cores left bit in 2 hits, because Rainbow gives 70% critical hit rate, which is the only way to go there. Using any kind of other techs on that bit would be much slower in the end, because of a far too long animation of them (like on Confuse).
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JXQ:
Renaming the main Character in RPGs is a exception for me. I always did it in any of them. The good thing is if you playback the smv only, you can still know who did play the game. It avoids confusion and is worth to do IMO.
Anybody saying this movie isn't frame-perfect just because of this would be the lamest thing ever. Compare the actual playthrough, and not this small confusion solver.
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Thanks everybody!
Maybe I should note, everybody who still trys to find some improvements to make me redo this TAS again, will fail badly this time. Simply because, and I can only repeat, there is nothing else left to improve.
Here a example:
Although you wish it would be that easy, I must disappoint you, hero.
3 Reasons:
1. Ice Sword 1 is out of question because it deals far too small amount of damage to make it worth.
2. In order to use any kind of Ice Sword techs, you have to wait for Marle to recharge as well, which without Haste on her will cost double waiting time.
3. Because of the additional casts and the waiting time for them, Lavos will be able to mix in his own attacks (which I could skip by using Luminaire only), and those definitely delaying the total progress far more, and probably even killing Marle, since equipping her with the Prism Dress after inichi found Lavos' hand sickles skip, got pointless.
To make it short, Ice Sword 2 is a big exception and only worth to use on the shell, because:
1. Marle doesn't have to recharge for further attacks in that fight,
2. The Shell has 10000 HP, 1st Luminaire does 6000+ HP, so it doesn't matter if you use another Luminaire or Ice Sword 2 which only deals 4000+ HP, because it would still be enough to kill it. If using Ice Sword 2 will cause a additional cast in any battle, then using Luminaire is much faster.
Hope this clears everything up. :-)
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Hmmm, I thought we once discussed a way to keep enough health for the Ridley shinespark? Probably confused it with the Draygon Shinespark and Draygon refill pickups then...
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Ahh..
I doubt it would save anything in the rising lava Norfair room right before the green bubble one. Between jumps you always land on longer platforms, so there is no reason to use CWJ in that room if going purely for speed without caring about refills. In the pre Ridley room however, it could save a good amount of time. But since it's always faster to shinespark through that room in all kind of runs (also in improved any% hero-route) except RBO, it's not required anyway.
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You mean enemy knockback?
Except that the knockback will move very fast being suitless there, the damage for it also takes only 2 small energy tanks immediately, and those ensures you to reach the top left exit of that Lava room death-safely! ;-)
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It's not broken. He just recorded it on a newer Snes9x 1.5x (which however is not the standard version to use on this site yet, since most snes9x movies there won't be playable in this version because of different movie-recording timer).
And about why the submission says rerecord count "unknown", I know it just too well after submitting my first submission ever here. It's because the count is "0" which is probably a problem for the system to recognize, since all movies are expected to have 1+ of them in order to reach TAS standard.
I also have to vote no, in 1st place because it's not a TAS. The play-level is not bad for realtime conditions, but this site is for TAS movies only.
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Fixed.
Once again, thank you Bisqwit.
But it gets a bit annoying now... Please, everybody, if you have any other moozooh-suggestions, post them NOW. >:-/
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Although I don't really get why it's so important for some people to hide themself and their votes, I think moozooh has a great idea. It doesn't reveal any of the voters names but gives very useful statistics without any drawbacks to anybody (although there aren't any anyway).
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Sorry for the double post, but I had to note that inichis suggestion worked brilliant!
I redid the movie and updated the smv to v3 now. Check it out.
Turning Battle Speed down from 1 to 2 allowed me to skip Lavos' both hand sickles, which saved unbelieveable 314 more frames in the end, even though all fights were slightly slower (much less than I expected).
Thank you for this fine trick, inichi!