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How strange. Anyway, with only a few levels remaining and a lot more time on my hands today due to Thanksgiving, I figured I'd try out the rest of the apparently improvable levels. Check these out:
edit: Whoops! Looks like you already took care of 7-1 a long time ago.
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/336/Lala2-9-1.fcm. 59 frames saved off the one you recently posted. I tried a slightly different route and the full Don push. I didn't notice a difference in the lag, but if there is a lag increase then I guess this can be improved further.
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/337/Lala2-9-4.fcm. only 38 frames saved, because Rocky wouldn't cooperate.
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/338/Lala2-9-5.fcm. 37 frames saved.
These numbers are within a couple frames of error. ;) I took 3-4 off the list because I watched your 3-4 again and realized your new strategy doesn't need to backtrack for any emerald block at the end. This just about wraps it up!
edit: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/339/lala2-Castle-6.fcm. You might have something better since you mentioned you made a ~50 frame improvement on the boss while back, but anyway, 71 frames saved. ;)
-hanzou
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Wow I didn't think you'd gain a whole 11 seconds on 9-2.
On 9-1, I notice that Lolo has to walk around the emerald block to get to the doorway. Maybe I was wrong about the half-push thing, since the square of walking saved at first apparently gets lost at the end because of this. Did your 63 frames come from some other change? Now I'm thinking it might be better to push Don Medusa in all the way, since the time lost by the extra push will be absorbed at the point when you have to hesitate for Leeper.
-hanzou
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Eh. In the normal game you can't take Kuribo's shoe outside 5-3. If you're talking about making a cheat run using this game genie code that JXQ brought up (which allows Kuribo's shoe to be used on any level), then you don't need to get the warp whistles at all. With the code you can start immediately on World 8.
And you can't warp to World 1. If you use the warp whistle in World 2 you'll end up on the 5-6-7 path.
-hanzou
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KKKZSPIU? It's the select button though. The up+B thing is from Mario Adventure I think.
edit: All right! Thanks so much for pointing that out JXQ, because now I've got another idea. Instead of whining about what goals I'd like in a bunch of hour-long SMB3 runs that won't all get published because there's too many variations, let's make some good minute-long runs that accomplish that same goal and will never be published due to starting from a save-state.
I'd like you all to watch my movie (1 minute and 10 seconds) which features all the normal suits and a couple more. Below are some teaser screenshots of the the Batman suit (left) and the grey rabbit (right).
After watching, please try making your own short movie of the same type and post it here. Considering I don't manage to get a single one-up or even beat the level, I'm sure you can do better.
-hanzou
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That's why I was pushing for the "fastest in-level time" runs in the other thread. A whole new take on World 8 would be nice if Mario could handle at least one of the tank levels in a hammer bros suit bouncing around looking like a buzzy beetle and additionally using hammers to make sure not a single cannon ball gets away. After that he'd go on to finish Bowser in the hammer bros suit.
hanzou in the other thread wrote:
Here's how I predict the outcome depending on which options are picked.
- warpless fastest total time (JXQ?): switching between fire power/raccoon Mario done mostly in levels, (edit:) maybe no mushroom houses visited, frog suit used once (World 3-fortress #2 skipped), tanooki and hammer bros suits never used, Bowser and most other bosses killed with fire power.
- warpless fastest level time: switching between fire power/raccoon Mario and using starmen done mostly on map, several mushroom houses visited (for suits including plain fire flower and leaf), frog suit used once, tanooki suit worn whenever but no use for statue power, hammer bros suit used to kill Bowser and bosses in worlds 5 through 8.
- 100% fastest total time (Vatchern): switching between fire power/raccoon Mario done mostly in levels, probably only two mushroom houses visited, frog suit used twice, tanooki and hammer bros suits never used, Bowser and most other bosses killed with fire power.
- 100% fastest level time: switching between fire power/raccoon Mario and using starmen done mostly on map, many mushroom houses visited, frog suit used twice, tanooki suit worn occasionally, hammer bros suit used to kill Bowser and bosses in worlds 5 through 8.
For now these are all just predictions and it's only a guess that Vatchern's run will not find any opportunity for the tanooki or hammer bros suits. If some time-saving glitches requiring the special suits are later found we might see some more variety in that movie, but for now it's uncertain.
-hanzou
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Oh, blocking Don would be swell and save a ton of time. :o But I'm not sure if that can be done and even if it could it would require tricky maneuvering and impossibly perfect timing to get Leeper through that gap up at the top.
What I was referring to was the idea of blocking the center column Medusa with Leeper instead of an emerald block. In the current run, Lolo has to drag two emerald blocks up to that region and it takes up quite a bit of time to haul them from the bottom left of the room. If you can do it with Leeper instead this might not save time initially if you end up on the same Don Medusa cycle, but it would at least save time after grabbing the jewel box. Here are some screenshots I took a while back that ought to convey the idea. You can tell I took these some time ago because there isn't any Lala in them! =)
edit: Thought I had a second idea just now, but then I realized it wouldn't work.
-hanzou
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Yes the movie would be very long and I'm not too interested in watching it.
But how is this like Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts? You don't need to play the whole game twice to get to Red. You don't even need to fight the Elite Four more than once or repeat other parts of the game.
-hanzou
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You should still make sure to shoot both skulls! That will allow you to remove that split-second of hesitation near the end. I'll try this level now and see if I can get some better timing on Don Medusa w/ the Snakey strategy.
edit: It turns out even as something as simple as blocking Medusa with the Snakey still does about 40 frames worse, so let's stick with the current route. Just make sure to shoot both skulls to avoid any hesitation at the end. And with those extra two shots, for entertainment value I'd recommend shooting Don Medusa twice after you grab the last heart.
-hanzou
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Is that 120 frames faster than CAD's 160-frame improvement for a total of 280 frames? Or I'm wondering if it's just 120 frames faster than the original, because it doesn't look that fast.
In fact, walking the long way around from where Snakey sits would cause Lolo to backtrack a square only twice, while pushing the egg around apparently causes him to do it four times.
If you push the egg over the water on the right side of the arrow rather than the left you'll reduce that to only two, which would break even with walking the long way around. However, what I had in mind with Snakey was shooting him and pushing him left as soon as Lolo grabs the first heart. That would prevent him from needing to walk all the way back to the right side of the room later. Remember you have lots of extra shots on this level. In addition, you should use a shot to shoot the second skull as well. That way you can get rid of that slight hesitation waiting for the second skull to turn away.
-hanzou
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Hey man, sorry but I find it hard to believe that a level like that could have much mandatory wait period. Check this out: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/308/Lala2-5-2.fcm. I'm pretty sure that's a few steps faster than the run you posted. Of course, I wouldn't have been able to come up with this quickly if you hadn't done all that analysis. ^^
-hanzou
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Looks good! That brings the total improvements so far to approximately 2:30.
I'm guessing you already tried shooting the egg immediately, and that turned out to make it reappear too soon? So now you're shooting it after walking around the emerald block, which looks to be at least a couple seconds later than necessary. It would probably take many rerecords to find optimal timing for that part, so you can save this task for some other day. =)
-hanzou
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Yah, perhaps the real motive wasn't actually to make an obvious point, but just that he'd like to show us Toilet Mario and the run he made, which is understandable.
-hanzou
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Sup. Just now I watched Tokushin's movie up through World 7 at 900% speed. It looks to me that the only two levels which would benefit from the frog suit are:
- World 3-fortress #2
- World 6-5
Most of the other water levels are best done by staying on top to avoid the water. It turns out 4-4 might not need a P-wing for fastest time since Tokushin managed to get over the first hump as small Mario by stomping Lakitu. And World 7-4 is mostly underwater, but that one's an auto-scroller.
Here's how I predict the outcome depending on which options are picked.
- warpless fastest total time: switching between fire power/raccoon Mario done mostly in levels, several mushroom houses visited (for Jugem's cloud), frog suit used once (World 3-fortress #2 skipped), tanooki and hammer bros suits never used, Bowser and most other bosses killed with fire power.
- warpless fastest level time: switching between fire power/raccoon Mario and using starmen done mostly on map, several mushroom houses visited (for suits including plain fire flower and leaf), frog suit used once, tanooki suit worn whenever but no use for statue power, hammer bros suit used to kill Bowser and bosses in worlds 5 through 8.
- 100% fastest total time: switching between fire power/raccoon Mario done mostly in levels, probably only two mushroom houses visited, frog suit used twice, tanooki and hammer bros suits never used, Bowser and most other bosses killed with fire power.
- 100% fastest level time: switching between fire power/raccoon Mario and using starmen done mostly on map, many mushroom houses visited, frog suit used twice, tanooki suit worn occasionally, hammer bros suit used to kill Bowser and bosses in worlds 5 through 8.
The above predictions are regardless of whether you choose to do all hammer bros/piranha plants/hand-grabs. If hammer bros are not made a requirement, I suppose the warpless non-100% runs would involve a few more hammer bros fights to get hammers and clouds.
-hanzou
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JXQ wrote:
Did this demo for fun, it's about 2 seconds faster. Probably could hit 3 seconds if fully optimized.
Awesome! I'm glad you could pull that off and it's great to see that the Yoshi flight trick actually does have a use in one of these runs.
I also thought about WW4 with the message block a bit more, and I don't know if it would save time or not, because extra swimming backtracking is needed to place the block in the correct spot. There is less backtracking, but it is done without item in hand, so it may actually take longer. Didn't test though.
Well there is another option although it costs about half a second: Press R!
-hanzou
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adelikat wrote:
remember that the hammer bros and frog suits are accessible inside some levels.
Yeah, you typically need to go outside the normal path to find a special pipe, hit a giant question block, then watch as the item slowly rises out. In other words, it's even slower than getting these items from mushroom houses.
edit: Phil wrote:
I think a no-warp, no 100% level, using all items you want included cloud will make the video 100% better than Tokushin's video.
Totally. Another benefit of the (1), (3), (2) priority order, as I shall refer to it, is that you establish a clear record time for each level played. On the other hand the (1), (2), (3) order results in less meaningful times on many of the levels and shaves off maybe a only couple minutes in an hour-long run.
-hanzou
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Vatchern wrote:
100% fastest time.
Well then, Bag of Magic Food wrote:
But if you were going for fastest time, you would use the warp whistles!!!
On a slightly more serious note, in that case you should go edit your first post again and remove the Bowser blurb. And can anyone name some particular levels that would actually benefit from the frog suit despite the mushroom house delay? I don't doubt that such levels exist, but I bet they're fewer than you think.
-hanzou
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Basically, my proposal was that if you swap (2) and (3) you end up with a better and faster-looking run while retaining clear consistent goals. In the order you've listed, I think the hammer bros suit would not be used at all.
-hanzou
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Then why doesn't Genisto do this on 1-2 in his published movie? This would save time on 8-1, where he clearly had to stall slightly to avoid getting the star card.
edit: Nevermind. In Genisto's new movie he grabs the flower on 8-1, and flower comes before star in the sequence which he means in 8-1 he's using exactly the trick you're talking about.
-hanzou
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FODA, yes the P-wing will speed up vertical levels in Pipe Land, but I don't think it will help on airship levels because it'll take longer to kill the bosses without firepower/hammers.
And those levels where you grab a flower are basically just the ones where the pathway isn't long enough for Mario to gain full speed in time. They make up only a small portion.
Hey guys I figured something out this morning.
Kyrsimys wrote:
I think there should be definite, accurate goals.
Problem is, even "Get Hammer Bros. suit to kill bowser" is already a special qualifier. It takes more time to go through a mushroom house than it does to kill Bowser with fire power. You could aggregate up the time saved in killing Roy, Lemmy, Ludwig, Bowser and some Boom Booms with hammers instead of fire power and probably win out that way, but I don't think it would be good to stay in a hammers bros suit all the way through worlds 6 through 8 just to make up for the slowness of a mushroom house.
Same goes for the frog suit on a few levels. Some water levels are only slightly faster with the frog suit and don't necessarily beat out the delay from that 'Pick a box!' blurb. Gradually as you're making the run you'd see a need to add in more exceptions and you'd end up with a long list.
So here's the alternative: make the primary goal to finish the individual levels as fast as possible, and the secondary goal would be to take a map path that finishes the game as fast as possible while accomplishing the first goal. You could opt for this regardless of whether you choose to do the 100% run or the uses-no-whistles run. This way you can use hammers on Bowser, use the frog suit even when it saves only a couple seconds, use P-wings on some autoscrollers, and have opportunities to do other things that look cool. And despite all that you'll have definite, accurate goals without a long list of artificial qualifiers.
edit: Spoony_Bard wrote:
Mario Adventure is different in that regard, as it only takes 3 jumps in the original game.
I'm sure Kyrsimys is aware of that. I think it takes 12 fireballs to kill each airship boss, but even if it's more on the order of 22 that would almost certainly be faster than 3 stomps.
edit: daniayaw wrote:
FODA wrote:
- yes kill all the hammer bros, fire bros, and pirana plants.
- hammer bros aren't monkeys.
why?
I'm with daniayaw on this one. Half the hammer bros are duplicates, none are entertaining for a speedrun, and viewers aren't interested in seeing how to gather items like a leaf or a music box. You have plenty of opportunities to kill hammer bros in the regular levels and do it with more speed and style. I'd prefer seeing some of the map hammer bros bypassed using a music box. You can turn some of them into coin ships if you like, but just don't go on the coin ship.
Oh, and getting fireworks, playing any of the bonus games, going into extra mushroom houses are all even worse choices for this run. It's a huge game and there's no way to showcase every possible feature in a way appropriate for a TAS. Going out on that boat to the islands in World 3 is a secret more interesting than playing bonus games, but even a 100% completion TAS should not attempt to show 100% of the game's features.
As for the issue of an all-levels run vs a uses-no-whistles run, I'd definitely prefer the latter and like to see Jugem's cloud applied to get past the slowest levels (i.e. auto-scrollers!) Sure it's a challenge to make those interesting, but in the end product those stages are inevitably the ones for which fast-forwarding is most desired.
-hanzou
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Yeah the first screenshot doesn't demonstrate a Yoshi trick, since it works with Mario alone. I'm not sure exactly why it works but the method seems to be to swim at the message block, press down to crouch at the right time, then release down at the right time.
Here is an .smv for just the message block thing. As for tough maneuvers like flying in the narrow passageway of Pipe World 5, I'll have to leave those up to you experts. =)
-hanzou
After watching, please try making your own short movie of the same type and post it here. Considering I don't manage to get a single one-up or even beat the level, I'm sure you can do better.
-hanzou
edit: Thought I had a second idea just now, but then I realized it wouldn't work.
-hanzou