Posts for Xujhan

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I think this got lost in the submission queue, so I hope it's not rude to bump the thread. I showcased this video on my twitch stream earlier today; in case anyone would like to watch with some commentary of TAS mechanics and other casual chitchat, here's the link: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2184459484 . (fixed link, sorry about that!)
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Thanks juef! If anyone wants to watch the first few minutes they're identical to the previous video; the first changes aren't until after the prologue.
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Dunno if anyone's watching this thread (it's been a minute) but I've just submitted an update to the TAS with a bunch of little optimizations. Total time save was around 2m45s.
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Short answer: yes, that's specific to glitchless. Long answer: Bleu is useful for three spells: Exit, Warp, and Atk-Up. Exit is learned by Nina, Warp is learned by Jean, and Atk-Up can be replicated with the MedusaSH. The Atk-Up spell is extremely powerful, but only once you have a strong weapon to buff. Any% has the glitched weapons from very early on, but glitchless has to wait until much later to fish up the EmpireSD. The MedusaSH becomes available at the same time as the EmpireSD anyway and is faster to acquire than Bleu, so there's no real benefit to getting Bleu. Another slightly less obvious consideration: by spreading Warp and Exit across two different characters, your party choices are more restricted. The most obvious example is in Memory, where you must take exactly Spar, Jean, Nina if you don't have Bleu. That's not a problem in glitchless where Ryu is your only good source of damage anyway, but in any% we want to bring someone with a glitched weapon. You can see that it makes the Aruhamel fight much faster than in glitchless, and that's only possible with Bleu.
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Just a heads-up for anyone who's been following along, the any% video is done and submitted now. It ended up being just shy of ten minutes faster than this one. Link for the lazy: http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=22138.
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While I'm thinking of it: once the any% video is done, should I update this submission or make a new one? I'd guess the latter, but I figured I should double check.
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Hey everyone, just swinging by with an update. At the rate it's been going I should have an any% video to submit in about two weeks. Of course I'd be delighted to see my glitchless video get its own category, but I'll fully admit that the differences are mostly only of interest to people who actually run the game (different boss strats, skipping one dungeon, etc). For the casual viewer, the two are mostly interchangeable.
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We're not really working together, no. I started working on this as something fun to do with the BoF2 speedrunning community, which janus isn't part of. I've offered him a few tips for improving his video, but I don't expect we'll collaborate much beyond that. I'm estimating that it'll take me a month or so to finish the improved glitchless TAS. I can take this one down if that's the consensus, but the improvements are all just minor optimizations so they shouldn't affect the entertainment quality much one way or the other.
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To clarify, since I assume that most people here aren't super familiar with the game: Janus' 2010 video uses exactly one instance of a minor movement glitch that lets him walk through an object and saves only a few seconds. As far as entertainment considerations go, it might as well be considered a glitchless run. It's also safe to assume that this run will be outdated soon. I'm already partway through a second pass of the glitchless TAS that's going to save a couple minutes, and both janus and I are actively working on any% videos. I've no idea if either of those things have any bearing on the decision - I know next to nothing about the TAS community - but I figured I'd provide as much information as I can.
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No, I get the scanlines as well. Ryu still moves at 16 frames per step though so I think it's purely a visual thing; it doesn't produce any lag frames. It's also only that one screen (which we only enter a few times) so hopefully it's not a serious issue for viewing quality. More weirdly, Bizhawk also doubles the size of window while on that screen. It's only a minor annoyance for fitting to my stream layout, but if someone knows how to get rid of that it'd be nice. Do you have the subtraction backward? My understanding is that the older emulator that janus used in 2010 produced fewer lag frames than a real SNES. So his movie on a modern emulator would be an additional ~5k frames slower. I could well be mistaken though.
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It's 11345 frames faster than your old 2010 video, but that's not accounting for the lag difference. I don't know off the top of my head how big the emulation difference is, but my video has 57348 lag frames. If you know how many lag frames yours had, we could probably use the difference as a rough estimate.
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Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (50)
Joined: 7/20/2020
Posts: 18
Okay, thanks very much! Will do that now. Edit: Done. I think everything is as it should be now, but it wouldn't be the first time I missed something that should have been obvious. Thanks again for the help.
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I've found the MeowST, so I should have a finished video for you to look at this weekend. Interestingly our Barubary 1 fights look very different (comparing to your old route) but take almost identical amounts of time.
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Conveniently it works out that Jean has enough AP to cast all the Warps you need; his AP gets restored automatically in FarmTown, and again when you talk to Patty in Township. You'd definitely want Bleu for Atk-Up in any%, but in glitchless it's not much use until you have the EmpireSD. I get the MedusaSH along with the EmpireSD, which is a little slower on account of not having G.Drgn but nowhere near as much as the ~90 seconds it takes to recruit Bleu. Getting Eichichi after ThvsTomd requires to you make an extra trip to Township to look in the well, that's the part that isn't optimal. The sequence I do is: - Rescue Ganer and get warped to Township - Look in the well - Talk to Eichichi in Guntz - Blow up the dragon in Gate - Talk to the guard in CotLnd - Talk to Patty in Township - Activate the flying town That way both the starting and ending points have me in Township when I need to be there anyway. Regarding Timewarp vs Barkeep, I just tested it again and the Timewarp takes ~8 seconds to the barkeep's ~10 seconds.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (50)
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Yeah, I figured we'd have it divided into glitchless TAS and any% TAS, the same as we do for regular speedruns. Strictly speaking I think the walk-through-boulders thing you did in the SkyCave counts as a glitch, but I'm not that fussed about it. I didn't use it in my glitchless TAS, just to be safe. Medicate is a one-use cast of Atk-Up; I think you were thinking of Cond.Up. With the IronKN from SimaFort and Atk-Up, Rand kills the Paladin in Some of the more minor things that I did that may or may not be useful for any%: - Skip Bleu entirely. I use Jean for Warp, the MedusaSH for Atk-Up, and Nina for other sundry spellcasting. I think this comes out slightly faster, although I won't absolutely swear by it. - Skip the 1000Z in Mt.Rocko. I had enough for 11 WFruits and 8 HelpBL in Capitan, which is everything I needed to get through SimaFort. - Delay the well and Eichichi until after the Grand Church; the pre-Infinity stuff forces you into Township twice anyway, so we can do all the good ending setup then. - Use Timewarp before entering TagWoods, which is faster than talking to the barkeep afterward to get back to night. Another thing that you may not be aware of for any%: you can pay the 900,000 coins to M.C.Tusk and completely skip going to the UpaCave. That'll save a whack of time.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (50)
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A lot of it won't be applicable to you any more, since so many combat strats changed with the addition of the weapon glitches. By far the biggest timesave is skipping the Patty-hunting quest near the end of the game. As soon as you talk to the guard in CotLnd she becomes available in Township. Another potentially useful thing is using the mandatory fights in Nimufu's tower to get Medicate drops from Monopeds. I used one on Rand in the Paladin fight and it saves ~20 seconds over using ShaveIce, but with the glitched weapon that's probably not needed. I haven't routed anything out using the glitches, but maybe it'd save you getting the MedusaSH. Not sure. I've never used TASvideos before so I'm still learning my way around the site. When I have more time I'll see about uploading a WIP. Or possibly just finish the thing, since I'm so close to being done. I just need to find the MeowST and than it's clear sailing to the end.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (50)
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Hi janus, I'm an active speedrunner for BoF2, and back in December I started working on a glitchless TAS to improve your old video from 2012. I'm just wrapping up now, but I was looking at doing an any% TAS next. Since you seem to be actively working on that yourself, would you be interested in collaborating?