Well, I'll do this, then. I'll do three more runs of the first half of level 1:
1. Normal/Intermediate, with the basic weapon--no upgrades, aiming for highest score. Difficulty 3 may be possible with the default weapon, but Hard/Expert is not. Many enemies require 8-9 shots to kill on Expert, and their 4-8 frames of invincibility (standard on nearly every enemy, though there's a lot of variation--the freakin' carrots appear to have the longest) make it impossible to get that many shots in on everything before they begin scrolling off screen.
2. Hard/Expert, with #3. Cheap and ugly, but exceedingly effective. I'm sure that there's something that affects the movement of #3's projectiles, but I haven't looked into it because I have no interest in using #3: it amounts to "Hold B and move to win."
3. Hard/Expert, with my weapon of choice--#4. Actually, that's the one in the initial post, so I probably won't do that one again.
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I haven't yet done anything that should make its way into the final TAS. It's all been testing and exploring at this point: testing effectiveness, timing, how enemies spawn, etc.
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That's true that there's still stuff to do; it's just hard. That's fine. I like hard. I honestly do. And don't take this as whining, but I need a goal to actually work toward when working to improve, and taking on SMB or LOZ are very, very distant goals. It's clear that I need a massive array of knowledge and experience before I can take on any of those, and these other projects are how I'll acquire that. Also, I'm going to continue practicing and learning because I enjoy it, but it's very hard to find a medium-term goal to aim for. That's all that I meant.
Edit: The first part meant--after watching, if any of them seem worth continuing, I will gladly continue them. I just didn't see much value in it, since I could develop my skills/knowledge with other games that I was either already more experienced in or that I enjoyed more, and since it seems that there would be very little difference between the TAS and this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drz7YjYLkQU
In regard to BizHawk, I almost posted in its forum about it earlier, because I'm getting dll errors whenever I try to open a ROM, but decided against it for the time being.
I'm really sorry for the walls of text...
Abandoning this. The game is not well-suited for TASing, because the only power-up worth a damn is #3, which consists pretty much of "holding the B button while it kills everything." Although "next frame" playing allows the use of powered up weapons a second time before the cooldown, every enemy has invincibility frames--sometimes up to half a second--and the only benefit is rapidly killing one enemy behind another. Unfortunately, most powered-up weapons also continue going after they kill an enemy. So... there's no reason to TAS this. It would be too similar to the live score runs.
However, it was not a total waste. Assuming I'm not talking into an empty hallway (which itself is a strong indicator that there's no interest in the game), I did learn to use TASEditor to more easily segment the movies--previously, I was just Playing the Movie From Beginning and pausing on the last frame to resume, and that was kinda tedious. It also didn't allow me to go back and clean up sections. So that's nice. I wish I could get BizHawk to work, because the idea of having ONE emulator to play all the systems I play is tempting, even without the extra tools. Might consider looking into that Ultima: Exodus run again, considering there's still no word on the cancelled submission.
Seems I stumbled across TASing too late. There's not really much left to do...
I'm currently using a (USA) ROM, but I'm about to trash it and grab a [!], first of all. I think it's probably just a renamed one, but better safe than sorry.
I've decided to do Gun Nac, because there isn't currently one on the site, and it's a really solid NES game. Of course, it is a Rail Shooter, so there's little to be done about speeding it up, other than killing bosses. Because of that, I don't think "Aims for Speed" will be a worthy goal.
Instead, I want to aim for:
-- Highest Possible Score; leaving nothing alive
-- No Misses (Obviously)
-- Fastest time within those constraints
This video is not--I repeat: NOT--to be truly indicative of the final product. It's a test run, to gauge feedback and learn the game better. I found a quicker strategy for defeating the mid-level boss and am going to continue focusing my efforts in that this afternoon. This test run is sloppy and I do not deny that. The actual TAS will not be.
I also intend to have the ship "dance" to the music throughout, which limits all of my movements to the constraints of the percussion--7 short moves and one long move. I did this at one point in the video, just messing around, but I realized that it offered a lot more entertainment than I expected, so it's got to stay and be included more. Otherwise, those passages where there are no enemies on the screen will be unbearable.
I'm also considering not using any of the power-ups. I think that the opening, watching the shots be made with the single-fire standard weapon, will be more impressive than watching me just position myself correctly to kill everything with one shot. The power-ups also lead to a lot of what look like misses, because they get too powerful and too broad to take out single enemies, which made it look distinctly "un-TAS-like" to me.
For standard enemies, foregoing the power ups will make no difference, but they do make a huge difference with the bosses. The first mid-boss is about 5 seconds slower without the power-ups, but the end-stage boss takes a lot longer without them.
I started out thinking "Pacifist Run," but holy hell, was that boring to make and watch. There needs to be way more shit coming at the player to make that entertaining to view. Later stages have more shit coming at the player, but level one is boring as hell, and I doubt too many people would stick around to watch.
Anyway. Posting here for feedback, suggestions, ideas. Not so much "critique" in this case, because it really is just a test run, and I imagine it's sloppy enough to rile a few people--I apologize in advance. I just wanted to get feedback on the ideas and give a sample of their implementation before I spent a lot of time doing the TAS for a game that I do enjoy, but which lacks a lot of the depth that I've come to enjoy messing around with in TAS experiments.
I've done a great deal of experimenting with various games (Castlevania 2, Mega Man 3, Ultima: Exodus, even Casino Kid--the luck is too predetermined for that, and I didn't find any instances where I could get 100% wins) to improve and get a better feel of what's possible, what can be exploited, etc. It's interesting that, like every other new member to this site, my very first attempt was a SMB one (though, thankfully, not a non-noteworthy hack), though I've been stalking the site and forums long enough to know that HappyLee pretty much has SMB on lockdown (which isn't to say other people can't do it, obviously, but that he is the most knowledgeable when it comes to TASing the game, so there's no chance a noob is going to dethrone his movie).
I'm sorry for the Wall of Text. I do have that tendency.
Link to video[/video]
I guess I should actually prioritize things. The goals:
1. Leave nothing alive. Destroy everything. No misses. Probably only the default weapon.
2. Dance throughout, unless doing so would make it impossible to destroy something.
3. Forego the use of Bombs whenever possible. At times, they may be required; I can't say for certain yet.
Edit: I've changed the video; please disregard the original. I made the noob mistake of not setting the difficulty to its highest setting. It's now abundantly clear that the power-ups are necessary to kill all the enemies that appear.
I'm confused, though. The WIP linked earlier goes through the entire game--is there a reason it didn't obsolete the other video or isn't considered finished?
There's the barrier to entry thing, right there. Holy... Jesus Christ. That was flawless. I've found that turning costs 1 more frame, and there were frames lost putting in names obviously, but doing the game would result in such miniscule gains along an identical route. I'll probably still play it, but the perfection is discouraging. :/
"The RNG is at 00BA".
I've spent hours looking for it. Looks like the WIP got cancelled, judging by the time stamps, but the information in that thread is tremendously useful. Thanks for the link. It never even occurred to me to look somewhere other than the publication page and Game Resources.
Hi, everyone.
First, I want to say that I am floored by what you people do. I sat down a few days ago to mess around with Super Mario Bros. (I'm familiar enough with the site to know that there's ZERO chance that I'd come remotely close to any runs, but it was still a game I'm very familiar with) and Castlevania. I also knew that the actual playing of the game accounted for a small percentage of the time it takes to make a good TAS and that most of the time is spent preparing and planning. Again, I was just messing around, but it made a few things abundantly clear. What you guys/girls do is remarkable.
Anyway, like anyone who sees something remarkable, my thought has become, "I want to try that."
Ultima: Exodus is, believe it or not, one of my favorite games on NES; it was the first RPG I ever played and it really wasn't that bad for its time--especially since it's a port of a game made in 1983. Anyway, I've seen the TAS that is up here on the site, and the only conceivable improvement I can see is skipping the Time Lord conversation. I never knew the Time Lord stopped enemy movements in Exodus Castle, and I know I've gotten through it before by taking place in only one fight. The spell "Rot" reduces enemy HP to 1, allowing something as weak as a Missle to finish the enemy, so if the run through the castle can be reduced to just one fight, it's a question of whether 2000 gold to bring a Wizard up to 70 Int can be gained (Death Gulch + Heart Compass with Luck Manipulation?) and spent faster than visiting the Time Lord (which doesn't seem likely, though it could go either way and be hundreds of frames faster or thousands slower). I also wonder if using a Thief and Luck Manipulation would be faster than using a Cleric, but it seems like the Thief would be faster unless the Luck Manipulation is too limited or takes too long (something I'm going to look into).
So I guess my goal in the next few weeks is to:
1) Determine whether a Thief or Cleric amasses GP faster.
2) Determine whether a Thief is even necessary or whether something else can be used to quickly gain the levels to 4. It's almost like a puzzle, but I'm sure there is some way to quickly reach level 5 beyond Undead. Maybe there isn't. It just seems like the pieces are there and only need to put together in a specific way.
3) I know in the past, on normal speed plays, I've used save-scumming to clear the screen of enemies with Undead/Repel. So something affects that, but the current runner didn't identify it. I'd like to identify it.
4) Determine whether 2000g, 20 more Int, and one fight in Exodus castle is faster than visiting the Time Lord.
5) Determine if there is ANY way to skip all fights in Exodus' Castle, or whether the constant use of Status to regroup the characters is ultimately slower than just talking to the Time Lord
6) Walking over lava has weird effects with a full party, and the Pray Command can be acquired without the Mark, though only one character will survive, and then die, being returned to Lord British. Is it possible to skip the Mark of Fire altogether? Can this shortcut back to Lord British be used for anything?
7) Would it not be preferrable to kill all but one character, thereby making fights in Exodus' Castle easier to skip?
8) Do Horses make the enemies in Exodus' Castle slower, or is this restricted to Overworld enemies--assuming that's the effect Horses have anyway?
9) Get to working, exploiting, glitching, and playing!
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I learn best by figuring things out by messing with them, but I have checked out many of the guides on the site. If anyone has any suggestions, or interest in helping, with this run, let me know, please. If nothing else, it seems like a good way to step into the TAS world, especially since the barrier to entry has gotten extremely high; I *never* expected an Ultima: Exodus run to be completed so quickly. Newbs like me look at that and think "What's the point of even trying? I don't have 1% of that person's knowledge." Of course, I don't stop there--I then think, "Yeah, but I could *acquire* that knowledge myself." So I'm looking to do so. Any help not already found on the guides would be greatly appreciated.