Posts for TheAngryPanda


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@1) Not possible, well... it is possible, but would waste upwards of 1200 frames, so unfortunately not worth it. This would likely "solve" the problem though, simply based on the fact that I'd have more damage initially going into the fight as opposed to not having such. The trick itself saves nowhere near 1200 frames though. :( (I'm referring to Flash if you're familiar with it's requirements/ingredients) @2) This was my first theory, and I've tested multiple variations of it. It's actually a fantastic way to alter RNG on Magmar if needed. Sadly, no results here either. This actually is what has me scratching my head constantly about this. @3) Yes, I've delayed all the way until the very last frame possible and worked backwards from there. Also from the very first frame possible and worked forwards from there. Middle-ground held no real promising results either. @4) I can't heal the boy because he's in zombie mode. Healing the dog would essentially be the same as #3. I considered maybe not zombie'ing the boy, but that wasted much more than the trick will ever save, so it got shut down more or less immediately. Now what I COULD do is level the boy up somewhere, but unfortunately, anything on the way would require multiple kills and that would again, simply take longer than the amount of frames the trick would save. @5) Have not tried this, I could maybe change the behavior of the boy early to aggressive for later in Act 2 and menu cancel the 2 cast of HB at the beginning of the fight. We don't cancel the 7x because bad things happen, but I'll test that as well. This is now my priority tomorrow morning. Unfortunately, I don't believe we'll achieve anything out of it though, because in other testing locations, this hasn't affected anything... but Thraxx is quite a unique and complicated fight, at least in TAS terms. So here's hoping? Maybe? lol. Yeah, I REALLY want these extra frames. It's just constantly throwing negative results no matter what. And yeah, tons of time investment down the drain if this doesn't work really makes me annoyed, but that's the life of TAS'ing I suppose. edit: 5) Didn't lead to anything, I'm not done going through the various sequences, but numbers are the same as in the other scenarios. Damn. :(
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Yeah, I've tried backing up quite a bit actually, so much so that I've ended up reworking the entire fight from the point that the skip leading to it ends. Unfortunately, while I did have a slight increased damage amount (probably due to a new/better method of damage dealing) it still left me with the exact same results as before. :( I also tested the theory that maybe I should attack post-7x casting, which also lead to nothing different from before. I've tried waiting until the frame just before my "last" chance to actually save time as well, that yielded nothing either... even with a 4-6 input sequence variance before it, which would alter basically anything else in the game. I got variance in numbers, but still nothing near what I need. I'd like to say I've covered just about everything I can think of... which I believe is about all there is to do without major disadvantages being thrown in. Altering the HB casts means I lose upwards of 200-900 frames depending on the amount, so this isn't an option for me either. The main problem is that if the dog is launched far back towards the entrance (which happens regardless of what I do) it will trigger the cut scene that I skipped, which not only wastes all the time I'd save, but possibly resets the hp of the boss... So I've got this massive issue of trying to somehow salvage this huge frame saving cutscene skip, or just scrapping it and continuing along with my previous version which was at the point where you get Atlas Glitch going in the Desert of Doom. I think if I can't find anything that works with this scene skip with Thraxx in a few days I'll probably move forward and just ignore it completely. Makes me quite sad that I even have to consider that, but having already worked on it for 3 days is really pushing me... and I don't mean lightly either, I mean literally about 60 hours of work just on this trick, and gotten nowhere. :( :(
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Okay... So I have a fairly major problem with Thraxx now. GreenAmbler discovered that we could skip the Thraxx intro cutscene, which saves quite a significant amount of time and honestly needs to happen. So I tested it, got it optimized, got into the actual fight after jumping the trigger for the scene itself, and all that fun stuff. Now comes the problem. In every other situation/version of this TAS I've done up to this point, I've never had issues with 9 HB, in fact, I could have done 8 HB instead of 9 but there's problems with that at Magmar so 9 is the optimal strategy under current knowledge. That in mind, most of the time it just takes around 400-500 combinations of inputs being tested to hit that magical frame where the stars align and everything works out great. The problem I'm having is that those frames seem to no longer exist. I've gone through around 13,800+ input sequences to accomplish my goal and not a single one is even within 60 damage of where it needs to be at. That's FOUR HB casts off of the target. Initially I thought maybe it was just a timing thing and tried altering that a bit through various means, results were still lacking. Maggots came to mind as well since they do cause lag within the game due to a ton of things going on during the fight which may or may not contribute to my problem, but this wouldn't seem to affect how damage is calculated unless the game "lags" over a "final" calculation during damage sequences to achieve the 500+ range. If this is the case, it will likely be faster to just let the dog tank some hits to deal an extra 80-120 damage (not entirely sure of the range yet) then go for a 400+ range on the 7x + dog attack sequence. Information that may be useful for coming up with theories or ideas to test: -RNG is affected continuously by R/L, B, or no input during each frame it's held. -While there are patterns over certain sequences, they don't seem to really lead anywhere and are very sporadic. -I used a binary setup to test each input sequence that didn't involve movement, all sequences HAVE to end with a B input (attacking the heart) -The heart cage trick (hitting it 3 times without any attack animation) does NOT work on the heart itself. -Grabbing more HB to cast shouldn't be needed and would definitely be slower (extra cast time + picking up ingredients) -It isn't a logical or faster thing to do to wait for maggots, if they ever even come down. -If either character gets shot all the way back from Thraxx's scream, they will trigger the cutscene (this may cause the entire trick to be disgarded) I'm at a fairly shit point with this to say the least. It's very possible I just haven't hit the right frame via input sequences, but I find that very unlikely due to how often they occurred previously. So if anyone has any ideas or theories about why this might be happening, I'd love to hear them. Maybe it's something I'm just glancing over for whatever reason.
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Got around to at least getting the newest version started today, just to keep my mind on it so I don't forget I'm working on it. Picking up the 4 crystal container in Quicksand Area nets us 145 saved frames. Now is where everything in the route changes because the way ingredient pickups were "balanced" on the old route was based upon the boy's ability to reach them. The dog is much faster, isn't zombie'd, and "picks things up" faster. So now I'm going through and re-balancing everything on my excel doc/notebook and figuring out what's going to be best. The awkward side to this is that for each thing the dog picks up, it is then out of position compared to before, which alters even more things on top of the ingredient pickups... so much so that certain pickups are now faster than some of the fastest previous ones. This is just in Bugmuck, by the way, I still need to figure out how else I can abuse this to maybe cut back on things and perhaps even bypass getting Sting ingredients the hard way. It also may allow for us to acquire items from gourds much quicker IF the IFG works as well, which would be fantastic for amassing Call Beads to bypass needing Sting. (see edit2 below) Regardless, pretty large rework, but we'll get there soon. Making it past Thraxx again is going to take a while since it's a fun bag of hell to deal with on it's own. I plan to stream more things again soon-ish, it will be sporadic until post-AGDQ more than likely. Also, if anyone is interested in helping out with this TAS, I'd happily accept the help. Especially now that we're more or less starting for scratch. As a side note, I do hope this isn't coming off as whining or anything like that, I'm actually really excited that this was found and I'm having to restart. We're already 2+s ahead and it's only going to get bigger from there! :D edit: Scratch some of the hard work for rerouting off the board, IFG and CES can't be used in tandem because of limitations with inputs per frame. Unfortunate, but it at least means that we can stick to our old route roughly through the area and optimize from there. It is fun getting the boy stuck in odd scenarios by picking things up while he's being knocked back and stuff like that. edit2: Okay, so as it turns out, due to how much less time we spent in Quicksand Area we won't have enough energy to use to bypass the maggot leading to HB cave as the dog and set up the IFG for the 3 crystals. So that part needs to be reverted back to how it was previously. Unfortunately, this means we're losing those 145 frames we originally had gained. It ends up costing us around 320 frames compared to the old route, which is quite unfortunate because it's a neat and very clean looking glitch to use. That being said, probably going to try and use the glitch on the 2 crystal container while moving the boy to the IFG location if possible, this would save us a fair amount of time later post-HB Cave shenanigans, but we'll see. More updates to this post will be coming tonight as I test things, it's possible we may just have to start at Thraxx due to things not working out energy wise with the dog. Everything was routed to get the dog @ 100% energy before long sprints as much as possible, seems this glitch is really turning out to be more hurt than help at the moment. Here's hoping we can find a way to use it w/o too horrible of a result at some point (probably Act 2 or 3). edit3: May as well confirm that nothing I've tested tonight seems to make the new glitch worth it in bugmuck or big bug areas. Going to move on for now and work on getting the Thraxx intro cutscene skip to work. :( edit4: I'm back to working on this and currently working on the Thraxx cutscene skip. I know it works and that it DOES save some significant time during the fight, so that's the first really good news in a long time. The next big step will be completing Act 1 again (which always takes a while) and then progressing towards Act 2's nonsense. Currently I'm torn between the following two options and would love feedback on them: Option 1: -Continue as planned with Sting lvl 3. Option 2: -Go with a theoretical Call Bead strategy which saves me 2-3 8x casts (quite a significant amount of frames) -Downside is that it's possible this will not work out at Verminator... That's a lot of progress to be lost. *Option 3?: -Do both?
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It's Secret of Evermore. Haven't experienced any issues at all in previous versions. And yeah, I'm happy to see the emergency save works. :D edit: If I can provide any other info you might need, please let me know and I'll try to get what I can for you. In the mean time, I guess I'll just work from the previous version.
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andypanther wrote:
I just installed 1.5.3 and wanted to record a movie from a state, but I got an error message because it couldn't find the path. It only worked after I made a 1-frame movie from power on to produce the required "Movies" folder. I guess manually writing the folder would also have worked. Shouldn't the "Movies" folder also be written by Bizhawk if the first recorded movie happens to be made from a state? Btw, I'm using Win 7 64 and the system I wanted to make a movie for was the N64.
I'm having this issue as well with a SNES game, manually adding the folder did nothing for me. Letting it generate itself by using the quick movie creation still didn't solve the problem: http://i.imgur.com/ZNjIHD5.jpg http://i.imgur.com/t3S3OnN.jpg There's what EmuHawk's throwing as errors. If it matters, nothing is saved post-crash in settings, but the movie is saved at the frame is was crashed from. If it matters, Vista 64, unfortunately.
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Hey guys, just a quick update on stuff: I've been super busy IRL with things and will continue to be until post-AGDQ probably. This has put the TAS on hold indefintely until then. In brighter news, GreenAmbler, a well-known glitch/bug/trick hunter in the SoE community has figured out that by using the same method as we do with Saturn Skip and IFG, we can pick things up with the dog. This significantly cuts out some of the waiting around in Act 1 and potentially other areas. This also means that we're back to the cave where we get sprint, as anything before then is quite optimal and the dog is slow as hell during this time. How it works: Frame 00: Reference/starting point Frame 01: "activate" button is pressed while controlling dog Frame 02: "select" change control to boy Frame 03: event is triggered as if the boy were the one who activated it Frame 04: animations are played, resulting events triggered, etc... IFG does this twice to abuse the increment value from certain pickups. Saturn Skip does this to enter the final boss as the dog. Blimp Skip utilizes this to trigger a scene as the dog instead of the boy. The dog can activate triggers for events, destroy barriers (not grass though), grab things from ground/containers, and other things like talking to people. This allows to boy to be positioned elsewhere. This pretty much destroyed my old route, 90% of it has to be completely re-tested and reworked to make sure it's optimal. On top of this, GreenAmbler ALSO found a Thraxx intro cutscene skip, which enables us to save some time there at the cost of the setup required to do so. I need to figure out the fastest way for this with the TAS, so it will be a while before we're past Thraxx again. I also plan to organize my progression tracker a little better and provide better descriptions of each thing within it for important locations. It will be much longer and more in-depth so that anyone in the future that wants to improve my eventual TAS can use it as a reference.
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Out of Act 1 again, progress should be fairly rapid from here on out. Maybe in 2 weeks i should have act 2 at least presentable... Anyways, here's the movie thus far. Almost all maps are "perfect." Youtube: http://youtu.be/oEerU-Imt7M .bkm: https://www.dropbox.com/s/nu3qq79v5wvrn8j/SOE-TAS-V1.7.bkm Progress Tracker: http://bombch.us/MB0 I think to this day, I've put about 4-5 months worth of work into this TAS. It's a brutal 1st TAS but thanks to everyone here and a few other places I think I can provide a pretty damn good TAS once it's done. Probably going to throw something fun into the movie during the 14 minutes to show some appreciation for all the help. :)
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So it seems after all the torture the game put me through with figuring out Thraxx, it decided to be a little benevolent for once and gave me an astoundingly good pattern and damage amp. So now I'm 1228 frames ahead of the version 1.6 TAS that's on youtube, and 176 frames ahead of my previous re-work of the TAS. Now to get to Magmar and put Act 1 behind me for quite a while. Probably won't be an update for a while though, I'm pretty sick and have been in bed most of yesterday evening and pretty much all of today aside from just doing the Thraxx fight.
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Yeah, that's the plan if I can't figure it out after the next round of testing. I'm taking like 1 day off from working on it then going to hit it hard again tomorrow. I'd really like to figure it out because it could provide some use for other bosses in AB100%, which I plan to do after Any%. There's also the matter of me knowing it can be "faster" and when it isn't, I get annoyed with stuff. Has anyone else experienced something like this in a game? If so, how did you go about solving the issue? Maybe something can translate to this game...
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the lag frames i'm referring to are between when the "final" hit is dealt to the boss and when his explosion is loaded. It's not a screen transition or anything of that nature, it's actually within the fight. So I can't ignore it. That being said, I have a new route and theory to test I thought of this morning, so I'm working towards that currently and hoping that it solves the problem. If not, I'll probably give it another 4-5k tests and after that take the best of the whole lot and move on. edit: i think i misunderstood what you were saying, it isn't ACTUALLY lag frames in terms of what the emulator calls lag frames, poor choice of wording on my part... sorry about that everyone. There is in-game lag when the above occurs sometimes, and sometimes there's less, and sometimes none at all.
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Major route change: 2x7x on Thraxx instead of 2x8x. This will save me quite a large amount of frames (136 for sure, probably more from optimized movement in those new route areas though. That being said, Thraxx is REALLY getting to me on this TAS. It's one of the only things in this game I'm unsure of how it works and it is slowly becoming very frustrating. I've done a ridiculous amount of testing on this boss across multiple TAS versions, real-time runs, and general practices. If there is anything that's going to make me stop working on this TAS, it is this boss, and only this boss. Here's what I know for sure about Thraxx: -2xYx (Y being 7 or 8) is the best method for casting Hard Ball -Maggot spawns are based upon both players positioning as well as some randomizing component for the last 2 which dictate whether they will be spawned together or separate. -The amplification % on the heart is affected by normal RNG manipulation and positioning of the boy (since you'll be controlling the dog...) Things I wish I knew: -What the cause of the "Random" lag when loading the explosion on death animation is. This is where I lose/gain frames now, not the actual fight. I have tested so many things now I'd probably hit the character limit on a post explaining them all. I still have no clear indication of what the lag is introduced/removed by during the fight. My best GUESS is that the maggots being bunched up and on the lower portion of the screen is the ideal situation to be in. This is nothing more than a theory/guess though. Anyways, I'll be stuck here for a while unless something extraordinary happens. The current version saves 1052 frames at Thraxx, so anything less than 1186 under the new route is obviously not going to work. However, I would love to hit 1200 and I think if I can manage that I'll continue regardless of my understanding of this boss. Basically Thraxx is going to leave a bad taste in my mouth since I'm somewhat of a perfectionist and it's really killing my motivation.
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Yeah, Ans pretty much wrote out a perfect explanation of that method for TAS'ing. It's great for games with a ton of sub-segments within a larger segment that require multiple layers of manipulation that all influence the one that follows.
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AnS wrote:
Piano Roll is a GUI that facilitates random access to the input. And to the game output too. Traditional rerecording emulators only provide sequential access. http://tasvideos.org/EmulatorResources/TASEditor.html
Will definitely check it out, thanks for the help.
thelegendarymudkip wrote:
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Give me another decimal single figure number. I'm waiting... Ok, you get my point.
Posts like this are why I appreciate posts like the one Ans made previously so much. Great example, thank you.
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edit: Forgot to say thanks for the response(s). :) That is essentially how I do things... I think? haha. Here's my "thought flow" so to say when TAS'ing this game. I'll use the the 1st enemy damage > dead > talon drop > progress path as an example. State 1 = start of map (I've changed to using this recently because as you mentioned, it would include all previous data as well that was deemed acceptable to me. This is my start point in case all hell breaks loose during manipulations or if I simply want to re-watch and analyze for a more optimal approach, although most of this has already been done in my route test tas. State 2 = Actual manipulation start point, where it all begins State 3 = for mistake corrections (as mentioned) State 4 = for manipulation polishing leading into the next segment of manipulations. This is a reference point I can fall back to "re-roll" the RNG for the next segment of manipulations. It's rarely used outside of heavy manipulation scenarios such as lengthy boss fights and item drop situations, such as my example below. States 5-6 are my #2 segment, mistake corrections/polishing States 7-9 are my finalizing segment, there is an extra state here as a reference point for further into the map that I can use to re-roll the RNG again if needed and still obtain the same result as before. The state I generally use for this is 8, it gets overwritten when I progress through an entire "big" segment or progress to the next sub-segment of said big segment. State 0 = common use for various things/backup use/etc... this is essentially my "free" state. As for the example, this is what I did this morning re-do'ing my previously acceptable starting area: State 1 = start of segment 1 State 2 = approaching enemy (begin segment 1A) State 3 = movement/dog manipulation to get perfect enemy attack pattern State 4 = reference point of State 3's result as well as polishing/testing up to that point. Technically start of segment 1B, 1C, etc... general reference point overall. State 5 = Same as State 2, separate for now but becomes State 2 if enemy drop is manipulated correctly State 6 = Same as State 4, but for this segment. Becomes State 2 if talons are dropped within reasonable frames (0-2 frames is my limit). End segment 1B. States 7-9 = the rest of the sub segment. In this case, segment 1C. The reason it's so obnoxious to deal with is the RNG in the game: here's an example... Let's say you want to deal 12 damage and are 4 frames away, here's the options: RRRR RRR RR R R RR RR R RRR R R R R etc... Things that affect the resulting damage: -Directional input -Non-Player controlled character location -Non-Player controlled character "state" (sniffing, not sniffing, attacking, walking) -Attacking -Any combination of the above -Previous segment inputs (usually include the above unless it's nothing but movement) It's not incredibly awful because the damage ranges are quite comfortable for the places it matters the most such that there are really only 2 outcomes that are not favorable. The problem, as always, lies solely with obtaining the proper sequence of sub-segments/segments to obtain the most direct and non-deviating approach possible. Luckily, I have a slight edge in that I've routed the game for real-time, been involved with multiple theory TAS related things, as well as made the route test TAS. This kind of forces the fact upon me that I know what the best outcome is, I know how to get it, I just need to do it without straying from the straight-line path through each area. Regarding it being exhaustive, absolutely. Like you said though, I already know what does and doesn't work in terms of movement, which narrows my options down drastically. All that nonsense aside, what exactly do you mean by a Piano Roll? Is it more or less just having a set of options/inputs and altering them until the output is acceptable? Like I said, still new at this so some stuff people say I'm not familiar with. I'll do a search once I'm done typing this though.
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Being new to all this sort of stuff, I actually don't know how to do either of those options. :( That being said, it isn't as bad as it seems on paper really, there are direct paths to where you need to go and I don't stray from them (even for manipulations) unless it's 100% required. So far in my latest version of this particular TAS I've gotten every manipulation within 2 frames of ideal, the one exception was required for even better manipulations later on the same map to hit a certain frame which I knew the enemy would give me 10 damage on a particular position. If you know anywhere I can read up and learn via tutorials or something the stuff you're referring to, I'd happily go check it out considering how useful I'm sure it is; lol. I'm pretty lacking in terms of the coding area though, so it would literally be a brand new thing to me, which is fine. edit: Regarding Secret of Evermore, after the first Act (or 2nd boss in the TAS) you gain a 999 damage glitch which basically removes enemy issues. It's all about movement and enemy manipulations at that point, which I've already mostly (there's 7 maps I'm not "okay" with) figured out from actually routing the game for real-time any% and 100% runs. That being said, I'm still looking through the lua guidebook from the newbie corner forum someone Ans made as well as the site and various tutorials to try and learn it.
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Appreciate all the answers. I kind of figured it was mostly due to the 10 numerical keys and whatnot. Makes the most sense. I actually didn't know about the "Save State As" command, I'll have to play around with that. Regarding the "only test 3-4 strategies" thing, for the game I'm working on (Secret of Evermore). The RNG is determined on a per frame AND player input basis, so there are tons of combinations to test repeatedly for the desirable outcome. This alone uses up around 3-4 states normally just due to various reasons that differ from manipulation to manipulation. That being said, I've minimized it down to 2-3 recently after just understanding how things work better regarding the player input aspect. So in any fight that requires me to attack a large amount of times while manipulating drops and maximizing damage output with favorable positioning tends to utilize around 5-6 states at any given time. Knowing that, I've began breaking each fight into something like this: state 5 = start of area (clean slate basically) state 6 = player input location (where the dog is at in my case as well as if he's sniffing) state 7 = start of combat + initial manipulations (first point of backup for fight) state 8 = secondary manipulations during previously manipulated events (boy starts attack, damage isn't calculated until X frames later, between start and X frames i can manipulate things) state 9 = 2nd basic reference point for various things (common-use state) state 0 = 1st basic reference point for various things (common-use state) states 1-4 are various points throughout the game, 1 being the very beginning for reference against older versions of the TAS. 3 and 4 are occasionally used during heavily manipulated things that the above "setup" can't handle. Is there a better/easier way to do this? I imagine the save state as feature could be used fairly well here? edit: I would like to point out that I am in no way saying not having more states slows me down, I progress through these states rapidly and am very organized about it as well as efficient in practice. I'm simply trying to improve said efficiency. :)
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Post subject: How come most emulators only have 10 save states?
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This isn't a complaint, request, or anything of that nature, I'm just curious. Is it something that's just been commonly accepted? Something that's limited somehow to only 10? Or....?
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All Bosses + 100% TAS will happen after Any%, I'm actually really happy to try it out and see how I can abuse some of the glitches I know of that aren't represented very well in Any% or normal play. IE; more drop manipulations and super optimized money management. It also gives me an excuse to try out the multiple weapon pickup glitch I've been meaning to test. Can't wait... but first Any% needs to get done. Routing the AB100% TAS will probably take a week or so to do it properly. ----------------------- Progression: http://bombch.us/MB0 Made the new progression tracker last night, this one has notes you can read as well as a better layout/breakdown of each area. ---------------------- New Stuff: I'm just going to put new stuff here instead of making new posts because I don't like clutter and I don't think the mods do either. :) -Act 1 dog vertical movement is better straight-lined only move diagonal where needed/beneficial. -ANY character switch trigger bypass that is not a leash or camera clip is frame perfect. Saturn Skip, Horace Skip, Blimp Skip, Screen Character Switch, as well as most buttons in various areas can have a character switch as they're activated. -The 1 crystal > 3 clay route is inferior to the newest route I made for the TAS, possibly better for real-time as well. -The non-player controlled character can cause significant delays if not manipulated correctly when they auto-walk. In Quicksand Area you can lose up to 240 frames here just based off the boy does as you close the text screen. The only way to fix this is the hit select as the text ends to delay the auto-walk, swap back and manipulate a better AI set. You do this by reloading a state that is in the Jaguar Tooth Ring Cave and exiting. If this fails, do the same thing but when you enter the whirlpool as the dog, hit R to sniff before getting sucked in. -Seems to optimal path for ingredient pickups to have 10 Hardball at Thraxx is:
    7 clay from eastern forest 1st wimpy flower (ingredient glitch) 4 crystals from quicksand area container (too good to pass up) 3 crystals from dead-end path left of Hardball Cave (93 frames, duplication glitch) 1 clay from hardball cave container (17 frames) 2 crystals from container near hardball cave (required) 1 crystal from small inlet before Big Bug (~100 frames) 2 clay from big bug 2 middle (15 frames, duplication glitch)
Route is outdated and some parts didn't work. Newest route is faster as well.
    7 clay from eastern forest 1st wimpy flower (item drop glitch) 1 clay from easter forest exit flower (perfect pick up here) 4 crystal container in quicksand area (new method of pickup is super fast) 3 crystal from dead-end path in bugmuck (ingredient flag glitch) 1 clay from HB cave container (-16 frames, perfect pick up + dog control) 2 crystal container near HB cave (better dog control saved quite a bit here) 1 crystal from small inlet before Big Bug (found a way to drop 2 frames here) 1 clay in Big Bug 2 Middle (probably one of the fastest pick ups in the game)
-Ingredient Flag Glitch --Basically it's simply pressing B to activate the ingredient flag, select to switch to dog, (1 "Free" frame here to do whatever with), select to switch to boy, B to pick up ingredient again. This isn't that impressive until you factor in the ingredient manipulations to increase the amount you get. The 3 crystals in the revised route above stem from a 1 crystal pick up that makes the next item you pick up have +2 of whatever it is, resulting in 3 crystals with the ingredient duplication glitch. Doing this has removed the raptor attack area and 2 screen transitions from the route, which is OVER 200 frames!! On top of this, it's also removed another couple of things that will save even more. So I massively underestimated how big of a skip this is, we're 700+ frames up now on the previous version of the TAS. This is a massive find and will probably see more use as the TAS progresses. It will likely be used extensively in the upcoming AB100% TAS as well. -revised sprint sequence for the dog --Sprint until at 0%, then ()aaa()aaa()aaa()aaa(), the ()'s are free frames, usually they'll just be directional input while on rare occasion select or attack can be used to save some frames/perform glitches. -How Thraxx lag works: --Seems that if you do everything how you'd normally wish to in real-time (bunched together for faster damage output) you get tons of lag when the heart dies. I've been toying with this a while now from the previous version of the TAS and on this one and finally figured it out (mostly). Basically you want to get shot out of the cage to the bottom of the map and have 2 maggots visible on your screen which means the other 2 are up near the heart. In doing this, even briefly, the heart will despawn and "skip" it's death animation, which leaves only the explosion lag to deal with since there's no cut scene trigger issues or anything of that nature. The comparison for the best results I've gotten for either method: ---29054, maybe 3 frames of improvement possible here, was a very optimized and polished fight. ---29017, probably 1-2 frames of improvement had the maggots cooperated a little better, but other than that, this is what this fight should look like in a TAS. Apparently this is wrong after the most recent kill on Thraxx. I have no idea how this fight works after exhaustively testing every possible options I come up with. Very bad for my motivation to finish this TAS because I'm not sure whether I can be happy with the thraxx kill time or not without fully understanding how it works. Granted, the most recent kill is 50+ frames ahead of the previous re-work of the TAS, or 1052 frames ahead of the route test TAS. Sort of in a shitty position at the moment... The process below is still the proper/fastest way to do the fight. --Process for setting up this optimal method is to run around with the dog as maggots are being dropped from the ceiling after the 2x cast to get optimal pattern(s). Next run top-right for shorter distance to cage. Manipulate high damage (Anything 65+ will work). Use the spamming attack glitch on the cage as dog and then immediately 8x cast to get the sprites in the air. Time the next attack on the heart with the dog to have the damage show up just after the hardball casts hit the heart, this stacks the damage and the amplifier to give you the 500+ damage you need. --Apparently switching characters changes the RNG rolls, this is very useful since it gives me more to work with. ---------------------- That's all for now, I'm sure there will be more to come.
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Yeah, I can probably stream something later tonight and highlight it. I assume you mean both things in the post, the skip and the glitch. To include all bosses would drastically increase the time on a 100% category. This isn't really too huge of a deal but will probably take quite a bit more time to route since the two routes are very different. Here's the category description if we use real-time definitions: -All weapons -All armor -All alchemy spells -All market items/collectables (Diamond Eyes/Gauge/Wheel excluded) -All bosses -The cutscene where Horace takes the Diamond Eyes is required (forces Tiny "fight" later) This actually makes me really happy to try it, so I think I definitely want to do this now instead of just the basic 100%... Thanks for the suggestion. And since you asked, here are the bosses skipped in 100%: -Raptors (considered a boss because the last one has altered HP and different attack pattern) -Salabog (boss of the swamp area) -The two Rogues from the Horace Takes Diamond Eyes cut scene (skipped because we have the Diamond Eyes Skip) -Tiny (skipped because we kept the Diamond Eyes from earlier) -Coleoptera (skipped because of the double Gauge glitch) -The two Faces (skipped because bosses aren't tracked by the game in 100%) ------------------------------------------------------------- edit: I won't be able to get the glitch recorded as early as I planned, but here's a very brief example that hopefully helps: Map 1 = Aquagoth's map Map 2 = Area before Aquagoth (The player is on this map) Map 3 = Area with teleporter that brough you here If one of the characters, we'll say the boy, enters Map 1 while the other character, the dog, enters Map 3 at the same time, then we end up with Map 1's map data and Map 3's directional data you would get when the characters "auto-walk" at the beginning of each map. The result of this is going out of bounds, usually placing you into a softlock/stuck state. I have yet to test all possible configurations though so perhaps something can come from it. I DID test, however, the aforementioned cutscene skip(s) on various boss triggers to attempt to despawn them. None have worked so far, which means it's usefulness is relatively limited regarding TAS'ing currently but in real-time it saves quite a nice chunk of time. I did a quick improvement test of the TAS earlier and was 2 seconds ahead already (as mentioned above). Shortly after I discovered a way to improve my frame savings even more and started the TAS over from the beginning of Southern Forest again (the actual intro itself is pretty much as good as it gets to my knowledge) so I'll re-update at a later time once I'm past a few maps and make some significant progress. The updates will be on a new post and will stay there until I'm done with the TAS (hopefully?).
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Here's the Act 3 and Act 4 of the route test TAS I've been uploading. There are very obvious improvements near the end but that's because I wanted a rough idea of what kind of time to expect overall. Comparing to the way real-time runners time the game, I got a 1:14:07, roughly... it could be vary by +1-2s probably. Adding 4:30 for the intro gives me a time of 1:18:37. I think this time is bad, it can be improved by quite a bit and I'm updating the improvements list almost daily now that I actually have something to re-watch and tweak continuously for testing. I would guess that possibly up to 2 minutes or more can be saved over the video below. A real-time runner (lovablelambchop on twitch) decided to help me test a theory about same frame exits for cutscene skipping, and guess what... it worked! So with this being said, we now have access to this glitch and another one I've been working on called the Wrong Exit Glitch. Basically you load a map but load the other characters movement from a separate exit. This lets you go out of bounds in various maps. Unfortunately, I haven't found a use for this yet but also haven't tested very many maps either. If someone has some ideas on where we could use this, I'd be up for looking into it asap. So, without more yapping from me, here's the "TAS" in it's complete form: YT: http://youtu.be/v522jNrk8ag .bkm: https://www.dropbox.com/s/k2y6jghmf9qumuu/SOE-TAS-V1.6.bkm Improvements List: http://pastebin.com/vBQ20dHu *Keep in mind I'm in the process of updating the improvements list so some areas aren't there yet. So the sad part of this post is that it means there will be very few updates since I'm not back in Act 1 and it requires the most manipulations out of the entire game. If someone would like to help me come up with a 100% TAS route, I'd happily accept the help there as I think updating the current 100% TAS with newer glitches and tricks would be quite nice. Regarding 100% conditions, this is how the real-time runners define it: -All armor -All weapons -All alchemy spells (includes beads) -All market items/collectables *some are not possible to obtain, ie; Gauge/Diamond Eyes/Wheel are used for getting to space, thus they're not considering as a factor in 100% since they'd normally be gone. Note that bosses are not included in this 100%. Should we use this definition for the 100% TAS category? I'd really like to make sure before I start routing. edit:
ars4326 wrote:
Loving the quick K.O.'s! How in the world were you able to switch control with the Dog in the beginning when he wasn't even in your party?
It's a bug that Asfarasiget found that for whatever reason the game just happens to have the dog up in the top-left corner of that map and if you enter a trigger while switching to the dog the game will force the dog either out of that trigger or to the trigger to initiate the resulting effect, in this case, walking up through the tunnel. Generally speaking it's worthless to do, but due to the Blimp Skip we can bypass the cutscene for Blimp and the Dog scene in nobilia's palace. In the TAS we'll be completely bypassing them and in real-time you would just activate the scenes during the 14 minute timer since the timer runs during them.[/quote]
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"So fast it's almost boring." lol :D I definitely have not lost interest in this. That being said, it is very far from being submitted. Loving the support though.
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Act 2. Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnsNyfvN2YM .bkm: https://www.dropbox.com/s/k2y6jghmf9qumuu/SOE-TAS-V1.6.bkm Improvements: http://pastebin.com/vBQ20dHu Note: The videos I upload from this point out are more or less route testing, which is why there's so many improvements. This is especially true in Act 2, which I can already save over a minute. Acts 3 and 4 will likely be more representative of the final version, but Act 2 is definitely NOT capable of accurately depicting the final version of the TAS. Question. If I update Bizhawk to the latest version, will it have any horrible effects on my TAS. I would doubt it, but figured I'd ask to make sure.
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Act 1. Youtube: http://youtu.be/FgNqJDYxfgU .bkm: https://www.dropbox.com/s/k2y6jghmf9qumuu/SOE-TAS-V1.6.bkm -------- General Improvements: --Each map has a variable amount of perfect sprinting, diagonal sprinting, and character swap sprinting that will give it a slower/faster performance. Figuring all of the maps ideal movement speed will likely save quite a bit of time. --Movement in general could be improved, specifically cutting corners and hugging walls more frequently in various areas --Enemy movement manipulation to get them out of the way Act 1 Improvements 1st Flower - Better RNG on the 5 talon drop 2nd Flower - Better RNG/positioning on the damage and 5 talon drop 3rd Flower - Can save exactly 2 frames here (max) 4th Flower - Better damage from Dog/Better RNG on the 7 clay drop bugmuck - potential new pickup order that could save quite a bit of time (requires lots of testing) big bug maze - Better timed skip, possible save 2-5 frames here, maybe more Thraxx - Actually went really well, but I could get better positioning and possible better timing for a small amount of frame savings Village - Going to test each possible outcome for the cutscene to see what's the fastest Volcano - Going to do camera clip instead of menu clip (or try to), this WILL save lots of time if it cooperates Volcano Sewers - Optimize movement, possible save 7-8 frames here Magmar - try different approaches to the cutscene in order to advance it sooner (requires testing) Magmar (Fight) - Better movement to keep the boy at magmar, maybe I could manipulate better damage and cut out the call bead from volcano entrance, this would save lots of time but I don't know if it's possible. Act 2 Improvements Blimp Skip - Optimize it for as little downtime as possible Desert Skip - Figure out absolutely fastest route to the trigger zone Nobilia#1 - Cut more corners, couple frames to gain here Invincibility Glitch - Get a REALLY low underflow (<250) 14 Minute timer - Do something that isn't standing around (1.6 stands around because it's a test TAS) Act 3 Improvements Act 4 Improvements If anyone has any critique/suggestions to add to these, I'd be more than happy to hear it/test it for the next version of the TAS. ---- The plan from here: Advance the v1.6 TAS, rapidly, using it as a testing ground for things in each of the Acts. While this proceeds through the later Acts, I'll work on the v1.7 TAS to get it progressing through Act 1 at a pace that absolutely shatters the v1.6. The only problem I might run into is if we find something new for the game and it happens early in Act 1, that could really muck up the situation if I'm already past that part since manipulating Thraxx isn't exactly a fun experience. I also plan to continue updating my TAS route guide to include where both, the v1.6 and v1.7 TAS, are at progress-wise. I'll also continually update the route with more detailed data as the TAS itself progresses. You can find that here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ch89z457wlc8qb9/Secret-of-Evermore-TAS-route.pdf Probably won't be an update for a while after this since Act 2 is VERY long (but relatively simple).
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New Stuff! :D https://www.dropbox.com/s/k2y6jghmf9qumuu/SOE-TAS-V1.6.bkm So in this there's some pretty heavy manipulation required and unfortunately that means I'll lose some frames to obtain optimal results. The movie above has the first section of the game (literally) where I need to manipulate flowers to drop 5 talons... the first manipulation being the actual chance for a drop itself, the second being the 5 talons, and the third being not past the amount of frames that would make me lose too much time. That being said, I'm not 100% sure if someone couldn't just reset the RNG by starting completely over (new file, so to say). So far, this is the best I've gotten for the arguably worst part of this entire TAS. In brighter news though, I got the confirmation I needed on the ingredient glitch working pretty much as soon as it's possible to pick something up again... which is amazing because now I can manipulate things in Act 2 and obtain Sting which will speed things up quite a bit since we won't be multi-casting as much and it can be menu cancelled. Another good thing is that with this knowledge, it's likely that a 100% TAS (by SDA definition) will be coming out in the future as well assuming the any% doesn't kill me. Anyways, that movie stops just before getting the Jaguar Tooth Ring guy to talk to me but it shows the RNG manipulation and how ugly it looks. Things are gotten on the first frame that result is possible. Most obvious suggestions lead to the dog not being in the right place, the boy AI spazzing when the dog attacks, and other mishaps that have plagued my previous attempts thus far. That being said, I wouldn't go as far as saying they can't be improved, just that my patience is growing thin with this specific issue since I've been stuck on it for ~2 weeks now... edit: Figures that as soon as I think it's all good to go something changes, one of the southern forest flowers can actually be removed (the third) so that speeds things up a bit, but now I'm back to pre-inn skip. edit2: Loooooots of new stuff now: 1) I think I've figured out a solid strat for Thraxx for future versions of the TAS (ie; more optimized versions) 2) Thanks to Hughmanphist of the SoE community, quite a few things were tossed into the mix that I wouldn't have thought of which ended up saving over 200 frames compared to previous versions! :D 3) An easier version of the Big Bug 1 Maze Skip was found, which saves us a fairly significant amount of time. 4) I've optimized just about every movement sequence between RNG manipulations up to the entrance to the volcano. 5) Slightly bad news is that since I'm seemingly the only person working on anything SoE related in the TAS area, I'm starting to very slowly lose interest in the TAS itself. Having another person to bounce ideas off of and try multiple things with would be extremely beneficial to this TAS so if anyone is looking for a new game to pick up... Edit3: Thraxx Strategy for 10 HB, possibly even as low as 8, how crazy would that be! :D http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7t72uyfyJ8
My Stream: http://www.twitch.tv/theangrypanda1 Mostly SoE TAS and casual playthroughs.