Posts for leracos

Posted: 2/18/2018 4:45 AM
Post subject: Gauntlet IV
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leracos
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 2/8/2018
Posts: 3
You can go ahead and mark Gauntlet IV as WIP - Numbers and I are doing the TAS now and already have quite a bit of progress. We've set up shop in the thread that already existed for it. No current ETA on completion, unfortunately; Numbers keeps finding more optimizations, and I have been heavily researching the route for optimacy as well. http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=465631
Posted: 2/14/2018 12:58 AM
Post subject: RE: 4 player TAS
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leracos
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 2/8/2018
Posts: 3
This would greatly resolve issues with the elf being significantly faster than the other characters for sure - especially Warrior and his stunningly spectacular base speed of one. Camera manipulation gets really interesting with just two characters, and with three it gets even sillier; the camera at all times attempts to center itself relative to all characters' positions, so there are likely a lot of fun things you could do with all four of them. The game was very clearly designed to be a co-op game, and built as such. Interestingly, outside of camera manipulation there are a lot of other considerations to take into effect in co-op as well. The first is exits. Each player can enter a separate exit, and the game will recognize the one that was entered last as the 'official' exit and place the characters there for the purposes of gameplay. This is inconsequential for the purposes of XP and Gold received from traps - as long as the character entered the floor alive and exited alive, regardless of when that exit was, they receive credit for all traps hit on that floor. They do not get bonus XP or Gold from enemies killed or chests picked up, which for the RTA and TAS runs is largely inconsequential. The second thing is the dragon. Numbers and I have been playing around in a casual co-op game and the dragon seems to want to always target the nearest character to himself, but this doesn't always prove true. I'm unsure exactly what this targeting is or how it operates, but after I play around with the RTA run some more I will probably spend some time figuring it out. Since all of the current manipulations are camera dependant as well, it requires the characters to move in sync in order to position themselves correct for the first two dragon clips and even moreso for the further ones later on. If a character opts to leave the dragon fight via one of the staircases, they receive the XP and Gold earned for the tower completion (after the dragon's death and exiting the tower) but they do not receive the bonus totals, as before on any other floor, for killing the dragon or picking up any chests. The bonus XP for killing the dragon is actually a pretty significant total as well. Neither the RTA or TAS routes grab chests. The final thing is, as mentioned, speed. On top of the float ring glitch demoed up there, there is a second speed tech also - Fight Ring. If a character uses Fight Ring to punch another character, it gives them a significant amount of forward momentum. In a 4-player TAS, the viable option may be to get Fight Ring and employ that strategy, having the two faster characters (Elf and Valk) punch the two slower characters (Wiz and Warrior) while they float ring around the place as well. The problem with figuring that out is it requires a bit of an extra trip to get Fight Ring earlier, and then a lot of menuing to equip and requip those rings back and forth. I'm still completely interested in doing the 2-player co-op TAS with Numbers, but there are other things on my plate at the moment. I can't give a reasonable estimate for that. I want to get a solid time for RTA first and that's hard for me to do when Numbers and I both keep finding new things. :P
Posted: 2/9/2018 12:29 AM
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leracos
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 2/8/2018
Posts: 3
Hello everyone! As Numbers said, we've been working on the TAS for this for some couple of months now; Numbers has been really doing the actual TAS itself, and I'm more the routing/logistics person. I just wanted to chime in here and give my thoughts as well and any additional information. The current run is certainly a great baseline - the earlier version of the dragon fights were a lot sillier but nowhere near as quick so we opted to go with this setup instead, being the more optimal. While finalizing the run shown I discovered a route difference that does actually save time in Castle, as well as another alternate route in Water tower that we are experimenting with right now. Merchants have been discovered to work differently than originally thought as well, so gold routing is being reworked to use the time saved to obtain equipment at the secret merchant to possibly improve things. Virtually 90% of the current TAS route is of my own research, and during the course of this entire adventure new strats were discovered involving dragons, Fight Ring (sadly, not TAS viable for time), teleporters (credits to a runner named Ratfunk for that one, and also Guggensulli for displaying that it's viable in locations other than we originally realized; we've found other places to apply it since), float ring, magic potions, using the heal drink during dragons (credit to Numbers for that one) and in general a further knowledge on how enemy spawns function. Numbers is more credible for finding a lot of the RAM values and a bunch of frame perfect stuff that the TAS performs, as he is doing all the grunt-work of the run itself. :P I will save all the specifics for the actual run notes when submitted, but a lot of this is relevant to the RTA run as well so this was well worth the effort and has been a lot of fun. We are interested in doing a co-op TAS after fully optimizing this run, as the game is a very different beast with two players. If anyone is interested in the materials for running this for personal use I have maps, notes, and a degree of RAM research available I am happy to share for anyone to use. Just shoot me a PM.