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Samsara wrote:
Keylie and KadMony, I'll leave the run un-judged in case you two want to do more testing with the alternate strategies and see if you can shave off those 20-ish seconds needed to beat the other run.
Actually, it is possible to save about 45 seconds with an emulator that supports setting arbitrary values in the initial RAM state. It would save about 25 seconds by teleporting directly on the bridge to the Cave to the Sealed Gate instead of close to it (saving two save/reset), and 20 seconds by writing the code directly in RAM instead of using the window colors.
There was a topic some time ago about allowing such feature, and the feedback was mixed as far as I remember. Edit: Thread #14564: Site policy regarding Alternative RAM stats on Power-up
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Invariel wrote:
With all due respect to the both of you (and with the caveat that I am not a judge), in the 52GO run, you write instructions in RAM by setting things up in the inventory and game state such that when the 52nd game over is triggered, "The game loads those values as the current event pointer, and executes events starting this location."
You are executing arbitrary code that has been generated by your gamestate.
When we are talking about "code" in ACE, to me this is short for "assembly code", or a sequence of assembly instructions. If we use that definition, then the 52GO run does *not* allow to execute arbitrary assembly instructions, thus it is not ACE.
Edit: you may argue about the definition of "code" in ACE, but be aware that this is not the same type of code that is executed in either TAS.
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Invariel wrote:
Actually, there's the question of whether the stack corruption that happens due to dying 50+ times on the map is ACE, which would then continue to beat this run in specific category as well as in any%.
This is not the same level of code. In the 52GO run, we can execute any game script code we want. The game features scripting code to build cutscenes. To put it in another way, we can only write stuff that will be executed by the game own engine. You can have a look at the specifications here (search for General Actions).
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Samsara wrote:
or if there's enough strong evidence that this run is different enough to the Nico TAS/currently published GEG run to be considered a separate category.
I think that this run deserves its own category for one specific reason: it triggers the end using ACE and I believe such TAS should still be published in the case it failed to get the fastest possible time. Showing and documenting a glitch that gives access to total control is important for me, as it may be reused for other purposes. I'm thinking about GDQs for example, even if some people started to get bored of ACE-derived demonstrations.
Also, it features sub-frame reset which is largely neglected for now. I would like to see more people using this technique.
Samsara wrote:
Keylie and KadMony, I'll leave the run un-judged in case you two want to do more testing with the alternate strategies and see if you can shave off those 20-ish seconds needed to beat the other run. If it doesn't seem possible, or if an improvement would take a while to complete, I would recommend cancelling this run in the meantime while everything is worked out.
I currently don't have any idea for a better route. Because of all the freedom we have, we may have missed faster routes, but I'm not going to work on it again. Honestly, I'm quite tired of this game. I worked almost exclusively on this game during the last 2 years and this is the third TAS we submit.
I don't understand your last sentence though. Why do you recommend to cancel it? What do you expect to happen in the meantime? I understand if you take your time to take a decision about it, but why does it need to be cancelled?
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Patashu wrote:
Very excellently abused. The last fight is rather mind blowing. Did you use a bot to brute force random inputs until it worked?
Thanks! For the last fight, I look at the outcome of all 256 possible RNG values of the first enemy attack. Then I tried to shift the best outcomes in time so that Locke's attack happens at the right time. Sometimes it didn't work as the outcomes were highly instable. Usually, it depends on what was done before the enemy attack. Also, shifting by one frame at the beginning can shift Locke's attack by several frames, so you don't have a frame-precise control. After hours of not getting it, I shifted Locke's shield and weapon to get a new set of available frames, and I got it eventually.
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Fortranm wrote:
Are you interested in making a FF4 run that uses Mid-frame reset warp and credit warp?
Well, I'm not going to work on another TAS yet.
fsvgm777 wrote:
grassini wrote:
why the dirty sram alert?the tas is good and i hope this is ok
It's because the parser detected a file called moviesram.srm in the LSMV. However, since the file is 0 bytes, you can safely assume it was started on clean SRAM.
Thanks! Like in the last time, lsnes is creating a SRAM file when it shouldn't. Maybe it has to do with the "Random initial state" option?
Invariel wrote:
Given that you have mid-frame resetting going on, is there a combination of items that you could use from the start of the game to corrupt better items into your inventory? Specifically the four items that would let you end the game?
Well, I don't see a way to produce new items. You could swap item quantities for exemple, but I can't see anything else to do.
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I've located the exact bit that is needed to be set to get the full ending, it is bit 6 of address $1F4F. Unfortunately, it is only set at one place in the event script, which is at the end of WoB.
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Hey, nice job. Too bad both setups still trigger a long freeze as in the US version.
For the Kohlingen softlock, I really don't know. Maybe some setups of the glitch overwrite the events bits that can allow for the Kohlingen sequence to proceed, but this is unlikely, and such setup would likely produce very nasty changes.
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utf8 literals are messed up in lua on recent versions of Bizhawk.
I tested the following script in Bizhawk 1.7.2, 1.11.1, 1.11.4 and 1.11.6, written inside a utf8 encoded text file:
local ff = assert(io.open("test.txt", "wb"))
a = "び"
print(a)
ff:write(a, "\n")
ff:close()
In the three most recent versions, '?' is printed on the console and in the file. In version 1.7.2, 'ã³' is printed on the console and 'び' in the text file.
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Fortranm wrote:
Congrats! What's the earliest possible point in the game to use this setup?
Depending on the outcome you want, you can use pretty common magics, so I guess you can trigger this glitch as soon as Relm joins the party, if you learned the right spells. So this is still quite late in the game.
Fortranm wrote:
BTW, what's the reason that "no sketch glitch" runs choose to recruit Celes? Is it because not having her in the party will waste too much time in the end?
Well, yes, completely skipping her would be a bad choice, as Kutan is really bad. The worst thing about him is not being able to equip Relics, so no Sprint Shoes for the beginning of the World of Ruin. Also, no magics for the Kefka tower.
There is however a way to save time and still get Celes: go to the basement and trigger the first dialogue where you rename Celes, then leave South Figaro. At Narshe, Celes will come instead of Kutan. This was discovered by Kadmony in early 2014, although much later I've seen a post from 2006 in this topic where someone suggested this.
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Hey erokky
Well, I expected the sketch TAS to obsolete the non-sketch TAS, but it was judged otherwise. I'm not interested in improving the non-sketch TAS.
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Yes, you can ignore $3EBC and it will be populated correctly if $3A8A == $3A8D.
Except...
I searched a bit on the meaning of all bits of variable $3EBC:
- bit 0 set: Game Over, I think
- bit 1 set: Casting a magic triggers the Terra cutscene
- bit 2 set: Morph command available
- bit 3 set: At least one Esper was taken, enabling Magic Point display
- bit 4 set: Warped
- bit 5 set: Event timer elapsed
- bit 6 set: Display an event timer
- bit 7 set: Engulfed
Bits 0, 4 and 7 are cleared at the beginning of a battle. Bits 5 and 6 are also cleared I think.
Also, it looks like if bit 5 is set, then bit 7 is not set even if engulf conditions are met.
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Hey thesabin,
I wrote a little description on the first tab regarding these addresses.
You are right about the first two variables.
For $3EBC, it is an address indicating how the fight ended (win, escape, gameover, engulfed, etc.)
Bit 7 of $3EBC is set when the engulf conditions are met (all characters from the beginning of the battle engulfed, and at least one character engulfed). Then the game proceed based on this variable, meaning that if you set bit 7 of this variable, you will get engulfed even if you didn't meet the requirements.
However, I didn't check if there were high priorities regarding this variable. For example, if the variable says you got killed and engulfed, which one of the two is processed first.
If you need more details, I can do more investigation. This way of being engulfed was not retained in the TAS, so I didn't dig much.
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marzojr wrote:
keylie wrote:
Well, according to this site, based on their own log, still 44% browse the internet with a resolution strictly less than 1024 pixels wide.
That site does not say what you think it says:
As of today, about 97% of our visitors have a screen resolution of 1024x768 pixels or higher:
In the table that follows, it lists 800x600 with 0.3% and "lower" with 2% as the only options with width strictly less than 1024 for Jan 2015; the last time strictly less than 1024 was 44% or more was in Jan 2003 — at least according to this data.
My mistake, I mixed up the screen height and width.
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Lex wrote:
Can't you guys see that this all affects ONLY sexuality? Someone being male or female doesn't matter except in sex unless people are fucked up and treat males and females arbitrarily differently.
Maybe you don't care about people's gender, but it doesn't mean that it's the case for everyone. If someone tells you that he/she care that you consider him/her as a man/women/anything else, that it is very important to him/her, you should treat him/her as so, by respect. Sex has nothing to do with this.
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Actually, this TAS was posted in 2010: Post #241123
But it features some interesting glitches. I wonder if a reverse boss order is possible with all the range of glitches available, and if it would make an enjoyable TAS?
