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Very nice! I hope to be able to use this to predict enemy spawns and movements, which has its greatest need for eel grinding. But this may also be useful to figure out starting RNG values, which is what I am currently working on. This beats reading out of my huge table of 65536 lines.
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Tub wrote:
Wow. That run was so fast, I had to watch it at half speed just to figure out what's going on. Unfortunately, that puts your time at 2:41:23.04, which is over an hour slower than Rikku's run. Sorry, guys!
Heh, I watched Rikku's run alongside this run (star by star) to compare how each star improved from way back, so I ended up with an even longer time ;) It took a long time to get through all that.
YES vote!
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I decided to vote meh. The reason is the standing around at the end caused by ending the input early. I understand the reason for ending input as soon as possible, but there needs to be a balance of entertainment from the end of TAS input to when SDA timing ends, which is when character control stops. This is not a 1 size fits all since each game is different in where timings end and the things that happen between.
For this game, ending the input early is boring and detracts from the entertainment. The rest of the game, however, is very entertaining. I am impressed how quickly it is done, having played this game quite a bit as a kid. I would prefer having E.T. run through all the screens in a silly manner while waiting for the countdown since you don't care about the "health" value at the end.
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Kapow wrote:
adelikat & Cardboard wrote:
The collapse of the video game industry was a fact, all thanks to this piece of junk.
Objection! The idea that one terrible game could single-handedly destroy the entire industry is absurd!
It was two terrible games.
It was more than that. There were way too many meh games for the Atari, which ended up hurting it. But yeah, the main offenders are the big names that should have had more development time.
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Grincevent wrote:
Arrg, hard choice...
I think I'll vote yes so that nobody has to TAS this game again.
Actually, it is sort of the other way around. If a run is published, someone will look for improvements for it. A 'no' vote tends to discourage people from TASing it, depending on the reason. :D
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3 months, are you kidding me? <sarcasm>Oh sure, I'll just quit work so I can finish my TAS that would normally take about a year given its history</sarcasm>
I can understand if it were 1 year and 3 months, and I would agree with that, but 3 months is way too soon.
Bizhawk won't work with WINE, and lsnes sucks. So at the moment, I have no other way to TAS.
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I did a TAS based on the best starting RNG that I have so far, and beat the game with a time of 3:59.27. The 48 seconds before the start is necessary for the infinite HP easter egg. This also means that the actual game play (and music) is less than three and a quarter minutes.
This is improvable by a second or perhaps 2 because I am still researching how to get a better fairy 1 from the start, and hopefully the real TAS will have better Varalys luck. I was correct about a sub 4 TAS!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2hgO71aCrs
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Underground Water Way(Watery Pass): This is the secret room that is under the waterfall in the first room of the dungeon. I used the stairs to B2 and back to increment the count, then go under the waterfall. This is confirmed.
Tororia Castle: This is confirmed. I went in and out the left door of the castle to increment the counter.
Tomra Village is the village in the underworld in the southwest corner, near the sealed cave. This is confirmed.
Edit (emulator time!):
Baron Castle: This is confirmed, and can be done during the intro. The count decreases exiting both the prison area, and the door to the outside. The counter starts at 10 due to the first part of the intro, so go through 54 doors before entering the prison from outside the castle, then immediately leave. ALSO!, the counter decreases when exiting the room that Cid goes out of during the intro(and also back from the dead end area from there). I have confirmed that it works there as well.
I also noticed that the counter also decreases going out of the rooms that explain magic, but the counter cannot easily be 64 when entering either of the rooms.
I have also confirmed that the counter does not reset when entering Baron from the Old Waterway. So the glitch can be done in Baron castle after going through the Old Waterway, and can also be done from the main entrance of Baron Castle.
The counter does decrease when exiting the save room in the Old Waterway, as well as reentering the Old Waterway from Baron Castle, but because of the way the rooms up, neither is useful because it is hard to get a 64 in the right spot, and also because either the prison or the room that Cid comes out of is right there.
Antlion Cave: The small room with the harp also decrements the counter when leaving, but there is no way to get the entry to be the 64th floor.
Fabul: The Inn and Weapon shop decrement, but those can't be used. The ENTIRE left tower decrements when going down the tower, so it makes obtaining the 64th floor very easy. Also the crystal room decrements the counter, but it is not useful.
Mysidia!!!: The House of Wishes only increments the counter, so the 64 room glitch can be done BEFORE Cecil becomes a Paladin.
Dwarf Castle: The towers also decrement the counter when going down.
Tower of Bab-il (Lower): All small rooms decrement the counter when leaving. Surprisingly the area with the archer bow, and all doors going up after the Super Cannon all decrement the counter when going back down. Only the archer bow, door going up after Super Cannon, Save #2 room, and the last door going up to Lugae are ones that be the 64th floor. This is verified.
Eblan Cave: all rooms in the "town" decrement the counter, but they can't be the 64th floor.
Tower of Bab-il (Upper): After the pitfall, going back in any door decrements the counter. I've verified that the glitch works here.
Nothing else after that has the 64 floor glitch.
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Inzult wrote:
My only question left is, who wants to make this run? I sure don't.
Well, apparently I do. I have been working with Feasel, who is speedrunning this game (sub 20 will happen!), and we have been coming up with new strategies that will vastly improve the run (no time estimate yet), including a level 7 (or possibly less) Varalys kill, which means way less grinding. I have been doing lots of memory watching, and have found many useful memory addresses that explain how things work, and I am creating a lua script.
We also noticed that there is an easter egg that causes temporary infinite magic. This means Wave can be used before level 5. It is unlikely that this will be useful for a normal run due to a lengthy "cutscene" that takes about 16.6 seconds, and also because a normal run will have to level anyways in order to beat Dragon and Varalys, which makes the easter egg a bit out of the way. There is another way to get the infinite magic easter egg by killing 3 Worms with one Wave magic, but since it requires Wave, that method is not useful for a run that rarely uses magic.
While searching for strategies, Feasel found a TAS on nicovideo that beats the game in a little over 5 minutes using an easter egg password that causes permanent infinite health, but this easter egg seems to work only on the J version, Hydlide Special. The easter egg requires a setup which takes about 50 seconds, and is somewhat similar to the published MMX walkathon. After that, the game is very fast because health is not a concern. That TAS levels to 5 to get wave. However, adding the infinite magic easter egg means that no leveling is required at all to beat the game, so I am guessing that a TAS that uses both easter eggs will be closer to 4 minutes, with about a third of it being setup/cutscene for the 2 easter eggs.
Because this makes the gameplay very different, and it also uses different versions, Feasel and I think there should be 2 branches for Hydlide to show off the game to its fullest. The faster branch using the J version is the "easter egg" branch, which would show off both easter eggs, making the game trivial and removes any leveling. The other branch using the U version is the one that would obsolete the current run; it plays the game without "cheating" (the infinite magic easter egg is skipped for the aforementioned reasons) so the game is played normally.
I know this game is hated, and some would say "Two categories is two too many", but that needs to be put aside. I would like a judge's ruling so this doesn't have to be debated when a run is submitted.
Edit: I did a quick and dirty test and came up with a time of around 4.25 minutes. With better play and luck manipulation, sub 4 could be possible for "easter egg"!
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Voting no because the maverick stages are skipped. I would prefer to have a normal walkathon where even though the boots are collected, the dash is not used. It would then be similar to how the run button is never pressed on the smb1 walkathon even though it is available. (However, if you can glitch past the boots capsule quick enough, even if it is slower than getting the boots, that would be fine.)
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Deign wrote:
That's cause I was manipulating her under the table.
*wink wink*
I could tell by her facial expressions when she lost the poker hand.
This was a boring TAS to watch because it took too long to deal the cards and place the bets, which sounds like the ringing of an old phone. Voting no despite the (.Y.)
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"Each man's life touches so many other lives. When he isn't around, he leaves an awful hole..."
-- "It's a Wonderful Life"
Even though I worked with zidanax on the ActRaiser TAS, I never did get to know him well. He was a great person to work with; he was always very friendly and easy going. He was always patient waiting for me to complete my part of the TAS, even though I took a long time. He was a great TASer; the ActRaiser TAS would not have been as great as it is without his route planning for the entire game. I hope I can fill his shoes when I improve the TAS. I was looking forward to working with him again, but now that I won't be able to, I am deeply saddened. His controller input will be used for the most part, so he will be coauthor in the new TAS. This screenshot comes to mind:
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It is finally complete. It is only 8 frames of improvement thanks to the many frame rules. I even had to lose a frame before the supercomputer so I didn't lose frames at Big Boss!
Here is the new file: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1681825440/Metal%20Gear%20%28U%29.fm2
Edit: I updated the submission with ThatGugaWhoPlay's encode.
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I just found a minor improvement switching cards (around 16 frames) which occurs in the last part of the game.
The decision should be delayed until I redo it.
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Lowering the rank to 2 is done because its deathwarp location is closer to building 3.
Rank 4 requires 2 extra truck rides: from the north entrance of building 1 to the jungle, and then to the south entrance of building 1.
Rank 2 starts inside building 1 at the south entrance.
