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Hmm. Never thought of it that way. But I still think I don't want damage in my run. A TAS is meant to perfect, and what's more perfect than Mr. Perfect himself?
Also, great news. After only a few minutes of testing I found a way to the middle of the screen after Blade Man that kills him in the same time and takes NO DAMAGE! :)
Thanks for bringing it up ALAKTORN. I don't know why I let myself settle for the same route the time attacks use.
I'll still be backtracking my run though, Probably back to the backwards sandstorm. I'll skip the 1-up if I need to since I've been using luck manipulation on every enemy I kill to try to get large drops for entertainment.
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Grrr. Alright, after reflecting a little on my run and the comments its received I've decided to restarrt my run once again. This is because there are a few instances where I sacrifice time to improve entertainment such as the red Tsurare Stamp before Commando Man. I can easily pass under him without stopping but I chose to halt for 5 frames mid-air to kill him as fast as possible on my way through.
Since I feel "speed/entertainment trade-offs" directly contridicts my "fastest time" goal, I'm going to eliminate them. I will still provide ample entertainment, but only if doing so does not waste even a single frame.
I just don't want my submitted run to be obsoleted easily because of obvious improvements.
I'm still debating on whether or not to take the hit from Blade Man save time. I'd like to finish with Mr. Perfect and maximum lives so I really don't want to suffer damage or a death. Maybe I can find a find a faster way to the middle that doesn't take damage.
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ALAKTORN wrote:
didn't you lose time for not being at the center of the screen after the Blade Man fight?
overall nice run, but certainly improvable
I got as close as I could to the center of the screen while still defeating him optimally. His pattern is based off your movements so you can't end the fight on the left side of him because he will hit you on his way down. It's possible to get a few frames closer by turning right and taking a hit but that looks really sloppy and I'm trying to avoid taking damage to save miniscule frames.
I'll see what I can do to end a little closer to the middle but I'm not expecting much since you are planted to the ground after the boss is beaten (if you're in the air, movement stops once you touch thhe ground again)
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Thanks.
I'll offer any help if you have questions with the game or rerecording on the Dolphin.
After I finish Mega Man I'll run back through with Bass on Hard so we have all characters represented.
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So is the in-game time route actually different from the real time route or not?
After thinking more about this I don't think so. And I also believe real time should be used since that is how TASvideos was established. The in-game time is nice to know, but as far as TASvideos is concerned, power-on to final input is what counts.
Does the Rush Coil jump at 1:25 (the last one) actually get you high enough to benefit from going above the sandstorm?
Yes and no. I don't get the full benefit like I did with the first one, but the sandstorm is a diagonal line across the screen. So leaving the sandstorm at the top saves a split second as opposed to coming out of the middle.
As for an earlier first Rush coil, that wont help since I use the coil at the first possible frame to still reach the top platform. Any earlier, and you will miss. Technically, once on the top platform, I jumped a frame or a two later than optimal, in order to grab the 1-up on my way up. This was for entertainment value since I plan on obtaining maximum lives (already more than halfway there now). There might be another couple of frames to save during the sandstorms, but no tenths.
Also, I assume pausing can't be used to effect the randomness at all for the boss room?
Interesting theory. Haven't tried but I'll test this out. Although I'm doubtful, because I'm guessing it takes at least 2 seconds to fade in and out of the pause screen optimally. And I only had to wait less than 30 frames.
Overall good run though. Style is important; shooting things with various weapons can add a lot of entertainment.
Definitely. Quick switching is one of my favorite features of Mega Man 10. I'll be using more abilities as they become available.
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Looks like my Commando Man stage run garnered some popularity over at Nico Videos. Don't know who uploaded it, but thankfully he credited my name in it. I simply did a search for my name and it popped up.
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm13743170
It was uploaded about the same time I put it on Youtube and has over 7k views. Wish I could get that much traffic on my youtube channel -_- lol
I translated the comments and the first 20 seconds are just people commenting, "Wii TAS?" and "Finally WiiWare TAS".
Then there's random text throughout the level until I beat Commando Man. After the fight, a wave of www's (lol's) consume the screen and several people comment on the invincibility timer.
I've been trying to rerun the stage with the newest revision (r7302 at the moment) but I've been having some desync difficulties still. I'll post my WIP when I get through Blade Man.
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Thanks.
As for the jumping/running thing, I've tested this out myself. Rush Jet, running, and jumping all have exactly the same horizontal speed. Maybe the earlier 8-bit games were different (never played them as extensively) but Mega Man 9 and 10 have their own speed tables.
It does take a few frames to reach full speed while running, but he always has full speed in the air, which is why you must jump at the beginning of each level/boss fight and at the top of every ladder.
Also, vertical acceleration is naturally a factor, so edge jumps should be as close and high as possible.
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Anyone get a chance to try out my .dtm yet?
Here is the final updated one. I used the same settings as above, but this time I started from a clean ram.
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=U757QGY8
To clean the save files in your Dolphin, go its folder -> User -> Wii -> title
All the saved files are located there. I just deleted the whole file, since I only use Dolphin to play Mega Man 10. If you have other games saved, you might just want to move it temporarily.
This is the Commando Man start that will be in my submitted run. Any time losing tactics I do are there for a reason. The only thing I'm not happy with is the fact that I had to wait for .5 seconds before the boss door to get him to do his correct pattern. Technically its also possible to change the RNG values by killing more/less enemies, which I tried on the last few enemies. I just didn't want to run the whole stage again to try to save half a second. Instead I occupied my time by calling Rush. I'm going to be starting Blade Man's stage next.
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I haven't tried 9 but I have done a lot of work on Mega Man 10 and I don't see why the two would be that different.
Oh and I almost forgot, a TAS of this game would also have to abuse the weapon select screen since there is no way to switch weapons without it. You could sacrifice some in-game time to save real time and use the buster on some parts, but this fact, coupled with the C.Shot zips, means if you don't abuse both of them, your run will probably be slower than MegaDestructor9's 19:18... and that would just be embarrassing, and most likely get rejected.
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Posting this in another relevant thread.
I ran a test on the first stage in Mega Man 10 for the Wii to see the rerecording, playback, and dumping capabilities of the Dolphin. It took some wrestling with the Dolphin to get to work right, but overall I'm happy with the fantastic finished product.
Here is the .dtm if someone could try reproducing the same results I did in their Dolphin. Just to make sure I did everything right. I started recording from power on after choosing my name, so make sure to do that first (the final run wont have this discrepancy).
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=2CC7HOKA
I used revision 7251 with the following the settings:
http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/614/dolphin7251msettings.png
And here is the YouTube video to show how the final product should look.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-BwLsRVhSw
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Here is the .dtm if someone could try reproducing the same results I did in their Dolphin. Just to make sure I did everything right. I started recording from power on after choosing my name, so make sure to do that first.
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=2CC7HOKA
I used revision 7251 with the following the settings:
http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/614/dolphin7251msettings.png
And here is the YouTube video to show how the final product should look.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-BwLsRVhSw
The final run will exclude the save, and include the name select screen and a few improvements to the stage.
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How exactly are you guys tag teaming this game? Do you know each in real life or just communicate ideas and share .dtm's over the net? And have you already started?
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Copy that. I'll still upload the files for reference in case anyone is interested. I'd also like to see if anyone can play back my .dtm correctly synced as I can.
I also did some pondering over the real time vs in game time debate, I too now believe all the runs for this game should be timed in real time since real time is how TASvideos was established. And techincally, in-game time for Mega Man 10 can always be minimized further by using the weapon select screen anytime you need to change to a weapon more than 2 slots away, because the in-game frames would be less than weapon switching with the buttons. And no one wants to see a run abusing the menus.
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I changed my mind again. When I said Mega Man can't start with Commando Man, I completely forgot about the time saved by having the Thunder Wool on Pump AND an ice block breaking weapon in Chill Man's stage. Usually its one or the other. And it only takes 100-200 frames to purchase a beat call.
With this new knowledge, I went ahead and tested the full Commando Man starting stage with Mega Man on normal. Partly to test the route, but also to test the rerecording and playback capabilities of the Wii. Took some wrestling with the Dolphin to complete, but I finally finished the entire stage with a 1:21 save (obviously I won't save in the real run).
I'll post the .dtm and the .avi when I get home. But I have a quick question. This was recorded from starting the game without inputting your name, since I had already done this previously. Am I correct in assuming that for the run to be accepted here at TASvideos I'll have to start the game from complete scratch, as in with the name select screen included? If so, I will rerun my Commando Man stage (I know some improvments that can be made anyways).
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Sadly, after further testing, I've determined the Commando Man start to be a Proto Man/Bass route only. Mega Man just simply loses too much time with the Jet.
Having T. Blade saves about 5 seconds on Chill Man and about a second on Nitro Man. I know I lose 2-3 seconds on the buster only Commando Man & Tri-Castle fight... and then even though I didn't test them, I'm pretty sure I lose at least 10 seconds running through the backwards sandstorm and using beat call in the pit.
Too much sacrifice for a little gain.
Mega Man is stuck with either Chill Man or Pump Man as his starting point. I'll figure out which one soon.
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Alright, I've been doing some more route planning, and I can almost guarantee a Commando Man start is the fastest route for Proto Man, because his Rush Jet alleviates all the problems I'm having with Mega Man. I'm going to do some precise frame calculations over the weekend, but here's basically what I'm facing:
-It only takes 2 extra frames to grab the screws I need.
-Not having Rush Jet means I lose a lot of time during the backwards sandstorm.
-The last pit before Blade Man is too big to jump over, so I need to either purchase and use beat call, or use the see-saw (see-saw might be faster real time, but beat is definately faster with in-game time).
So I have to see how much time I'm losing at these parts, then see if the T. Blade saves me enough time on the Chill and Nitro Man fights to make up for it.
I'm still testing in Time Trial replays for now, because the Dolphin still has some sync issues that prevent a full game playback from being reliable. Once those issues are resolved, I'll start my full game run.
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The only reason why people suspected otherwise was because the saved games (for whatever reason) round the time to :x1. Not sure why they chose to make it do that since that makes it hard on the console to see if you've improved on a certain level until you cut enough time to reach the next :x1 bracket.
But the time attack has its own timing mechanism, which doesn't stop for anything except pause. The full game times like I mentioned, and this is why a good (by console standards) Chill Man run saves at 1:21 when not even a TAS can beat it that fast in time trial.
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Wow, once again thank you!
After that fix, and few more tinkerings, I am now able to re-record and playback on r7228.
I had to disable dual core and idle skipping, and use LLE audio with audio output disabled.
This obviously slows the game down, but it doesn't matter since I'm playing frame by frame.
But every now and then the playback STILL becomes desynced. I'm not quite sure what specific event is causing it. I know using Last State caused some of the desyncs, so I stop using that feature. But sometimes I can go for 1000+ frames without a desync, and sometimes it's less than 100.
Right now, just to be safe, I save the movie every so often and play it back, just to make sure it synced right. Usually its not synced somewhere down the line, so I save a state a little before the desync and continue recording. This is ok for now, while I'm still on the first level. But later on I'll have to sit through 20 minutes of video just to see if the last 20 seconds of input has synced properly.
And if it does that Wii controller disconnect thing where Mega Man ignores all commands and just keep running, I have to stop, playback, and start from a save state again.
Is this just where the Dolphin is at right now, or do you have another magical fix for me, sgrunt? :D
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Scepheo wrote:
diggidoyo wrote:
It only ticks when you have direct control over Mega Man. This excludes energy pick-ups, intros, menus, etc. which, if I'm not mistaken, is exactly what TASvideos aims for.
I think you're wrong. I've always understood that it's about minimizing the total time. "As fast as possible" does not mean "As fast as possible when factoring out the time spent in menus".
A valid argument. Which is why I believe real time should be minimized. But what about sacrificing real time to optimize the playable game time? I'd be saddened to have to scrap the Commando Man start because a trip to the store for a Beat Call takes too long.
How did the other in-game timed games become listed in that category?
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I've already pointed out where the timing discrepancy exists for Mega Man. I have to purchase a Beat Call after Commando Man. Adds nothing to the in-game timer, but the time it takes to go through the shop might be enough to make a Chill or Pump starting route faster.
That right there is drastically different. Then factor in tank usage and you have a definitive reason to use in-game time, with real time minimized (slow menu scrolling would be grounds for rejection).
Besides, the game includes a timer, so why would we not use it? It only ticks when you have direct control over Mega Man. This excludes energy pick-ups, intros, menus, etc. which, if I'm not mistaken, is exactly what TASvideos aims for.
