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One boss further... or three, not sure if the second pair even counts as a boss.
Genova
Link to video
I don't want to have to do that again...
I can't get Kevin hit in a reasonable amount of time; Genova himself doesn't attack and those morphers would take too long (they already die while spawning.. no idea how much time i'd have to waste idle to let them through alive... not happening)
He doesn't seem to have a pre-defined 25% hp move (at least he always wants to use the atk up spell, no matter how much health left...), which is bad, since he then still wants to push his 50% move through; the problem with that? the longer he has to wait for his spell to come through the higher it's priority gets; if he'd have a 25% move too the priority would reset inbetween...
Bill&Ben
Link to video
The fight was quite short, so I took the two lvl-ups from before with me to make it last at least a little bit longer .... ok, i admit i wanted to confuse the AI a bit with that, satisfied?
While we're at lame excuses, I think a sort of running gag is developing: Kevin lvls up again after a boss and misses again the last missing point of strength.
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ok, corrected some errors:
-menu delayed (thx neo_omegon)
-Kevin gets now hit, early even
-everyone else doesn't, except for tzenker, but she doesn't count
-Riesz doesn't even get to use a tech (whoops?)
-Kevin only gets to use one double tech
-Hawk only one single-tech (someone's already dead then)
-less misses (none displayed, but some attacks simply don't connect)
-> almost 300 frames, so much for the old was acceptable
Link to video
@Astoria
makes sense, with the game loading during the time you could talk with the lady if you go to her first
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might i steal another half a minute of your time?Link to video
this boss is sort of strange, has very little health (not even half of the previous boss) and gives tons of exp... which is quite bad for me, 2 exp more and all three would have lvl-up; to elaborate how low health she has: going with 2x double-tech from Kevin would have been slower since i'd have to wait for him to finish while she's already long dead
and yes i know Kevin doesn't get hit; whenever i got that tzenker would always fly away or trow a spell or be already very close to dead anyway
Hawk has already max str, and gets another dex, so he's ok
Riesz still needs 2 more after this, so i can still go for her last str there
Kevin... would have needed 8 exp more before tzenker to qualify for a lvl-up, all of which would so far out of the way that it wouldn't be worth it (like of of those high-def knights), next lvl-up will be soon enough, so i think dex is ok
btw, it seems like not only Duran has infinite-tech-spam
*checks his notes*
one atk up claw was planned for/against them (actually for both fights), so this should be workable; not even for speed reason, but exactly for the problem you desribed for the 2nd fight; the longer it takes to kill them the harder will it be to enforce their non-activity
though judging from your time, i shouldn't use it on the first fight... and here i was afraid i bought one atk up to few (i *need* one against archdemon, as he has nothing to hit kevin with that is sufficiently workable; all freeze time and/or insta-kill)
neo_omegon wrote:
This is a little time saver.
If you walk when you control plural players just before new BGM starts, you can reduce the stationary frames. This trick should be used when you go fighting or shopping.
if i move only 1 player there is exactly 0 stationary frames, maybe the patch makes that a bit worse? at least it reads as if you still have a few frames then left to wait
neo_omegon wrote:
You can speak to this corobokkle from the bottom floor. Please don’t forget to use this trick.
if i go around the dialog is open at 223331, for that above to work he has to step down a bit, with which i got the earliest dialog open at 223334...
edit: nevermind, he just walked down before the screen was even close to finished with loading -> 223304
edit2: small progress
i had a few times the problem that if i kill the last enemy with riesz the game wouldn't let me leave the screen until the win-bar fades away, so i had to let hawk do that
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(stuff about luck)
yes, i read that several months ago, that's why i wrote 2 posts ago that both stats tend to nudge the RNG a bit in my favor, maybe i should have explained that more...
the dieing part should be possible to avoid, the other is to a sufficient degree manipulatable
as said before vit is useless without up-to-date armor, then again all attacks i'd have to worry about that are actually influenced by p.def can be physically evaded (just go out of range, with good timing that could be even during the time weapons are down anyway, so no (big) timeloss) or turn out as a miss; given a lack of better armor (and a bit of vit) we might take maybe 20 dmg more per hit than normal (at bill/ben), but that should still be enough to take 2 hits if needed (i recall about 30-40 normally from them normally)
at the end we'd take (worst case) about 250 damage more, since kevin HAS to take a hit per boss, armor from moon forest should actually be considered
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stats:
all but str are mostly useless here:
dex, *supposedly* influences rate of getting hit when attacking and misses when being attacked, but partially bugged or something; also slows down the trap wheel (which we should never see anyway) and increases dmg of certain throw items (just don't, ok?)
plus point for being the highlighted stat when str is not possible
vit, multiplier for armor value, which is with the starting armors 2 or 3; even with max vit we'd end up at around 30-40ish def compared to the maximum of 300; 1.5 hp per vit are not worth mentioning either
only worth it if decent armor is bought, which i'd rather not
int/spr, increases spell damage given (which shouldn't be used in a tas, i think) and decreases spell damage taken for their respective elements (which for the most part can be skipped, or later just mind down'd); then again the difference between a few points there is so small (4 with starting armor or 8 with later armor, against 300+ damage by the time it might become threatening)... just no
luck, more oks on a trap wheel (again shouldn't appear) better chance to get a good item from a chest (hawk should have enough luck right from the start/after cc), more critical hits - oh, wait, the game reads from the wrong value which is (almost) always 0
so.... i'll just take whatever is highlighted or manipulate dex, not sure
more str seems impossible right now/so far; the game seems to check twice whether i can take a stat:
check 1:
stat was taken recently? -> disallow stat
check 2:
reached cap? -> disallow stat.
edit:
i'm now 99% sure the game works exactly that way, why? simple, i took a couple of situations of my wip where a lvl up happens that glitches str; now i made a savestate right before the lvl-up screen comes up and add a cheat that changes str of the lvling character; all values below their cap allowed the str glitch to happen, cap or higher -> denied
next i went back to the end where i was about to get the lvl-up with hawk, set his str to 8 (below cap) and made the str-glitch happen (surprisingly even on first try), reload w/out cheat (so str 9/cap) read-only and str gets denied again
since it happened in all cases equally, i'll take that as proof
next better kind of proof would be reading about 2 gb of a txt-file containing the code that runs through the game during a lvl-up; and yes, 2 gb is really about the size-dimension this would get, so i'll pass this "chance", thx
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neo_omegon wrote:
Ah, Kevin’s text message is shorter when you talk to Bon Voyage after you get Gunpowder. Considering the length of the weapon drawing animation, it saves 18 frames.
...at least it's less than a half second, so it should be ok if I don't redo that; if i did, i'd have to redo from about jad
it would be one of... quite a few notes for improveable parts, though they don't add up to 1% yet (right now I estimate an "easy" 500 frames improvement over the 200k frames I uploaded so far); give one or two new discoveries and it could jump up to even 5% or more (or utopical 90%+ with an "instant win "-type glitch/corruption), or better practical knowledge for planning: like right now I'm not sure I'll even need all 3 dream herbs, Riesz vs Duran, exp planning (is lv18/class-change needed? can we go past str-cap? - haven't gotten around to check the later yet) etc.
edit:
Ok, exactly 1exp for lvl-up, three enemies on screen time to find out whether we'll have to follow the rules to the end or if we can break them decently. I honestly have doubts about chance of success, but I'll try anyway; in case it is not possible, which stat should I get instead:
dex? luck? both could/should ease the RNG a bit in my favor
vit - no armor, no point
int/spr - m.def is as useless as possible, especially with tas, so no
currently i favor dex as it's already on the cursor
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Well, I actually had them shoot only one missile, but two was needed to get Hawk into position. And I meant miss as in them shooting down or up, which can be achieved by having their target move quite close to them, but... actually not sure if that's possible on the opener... maybe blocking Ai... whatever, it's nothing I'd redo the run over but it's something I wanted to throw out in case someone wants to use it.
On second thought... daytime has "worse" enemy selection imo, whatever, moving on...
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something more to think about:
in jail use the golden statue and do NOT stay at the Inn; that way the day/night cycle would fit way better:
you arrive in Forcena at night, so can use the shortcut via the pub girl w/out wasting a dream herb, and arrive at the black market at night
possible time saved
800 ish frames from not needing to get another dream herb (including usage)
800+ frames from not using the Inn
-something for two slower boss fights
normal fights might even be faster, because Kevin's transformation makes him "useless", but maybe less exp for different enemy types
if you want to really push it don't use the statue either, manipulate the golems to only shoot one MISSile and make that one true to it's name
just something that crossed my mind when seeing Kevin being mostly useless during the re-done part; I think it's just too early in the game for him
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@1:
I guess I have to redo from Forcena then and use the herb there; I'd have about one "in-game hour" (going by the units in trangix's lua script) of night left when I reach the black market. Since it's a "minor" time saver anyway, why not.
@2:
Wasting time by fighting some more enemies isn't possible - there is almost nothing left to fight, and those wouldn't add up to a minute, unless done very sloppy; and the exp wouldn't even be noteable in the long run, currently they top out at 8 exp/victim and for the most part I already have enough exp for the whole game (unless I can break the str cap, but that's still a theorie/hope):
Kevin is missing one str, which can easily be gotten with boss exp even if I don't get str-up glitch to work
Hawk is at max, though agl/luck might make luck/hit manipulation a bit easier
Riesz... doesn't matter too much, for her it's either 18 at manaland (for stat-down at last two bosses) or "eye-candy" for the entire run.
@3:
no comment
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Whoops... too fast... really didn't expect that...
by about 3700 frames* I missed night time after the canon travel back to the black market...
the first time around I landed during night time...
any possibility to manipulate that? or just take a herb and get it done?
* frames I'd have to stand around somewhere where time passes
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w/a seed:
depository wouldn't be the problem since you can plant any seed, no matter where it's stored, and by that time we don't get any more new item types.
i guess we can forget about it; the seed weapon requires a class change to wear afaik, and if we go that route for Hawk we should rather get two "bad" weapons from pedan or something
magic seed/demon claw:
i have my doubts about that... the first place i can get them (that i know of) is from enemies in the ice fields; any planting options after that are quite a bit out of the way:
-killing one screen full of enemies which I could possibly just skip?
-waiting for the chest to appear, ~400ish frames
-minimum 2 additional screen transitions (entering and leaving inn), 2x 200 frames?
-planting the seed, ??? frames
-finally using the claw, ~300 frames?
in total... way too much
i'd say at best it would cut even, at worst it's a huge waste of time
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That's (currently) a very valid interpretation of the 2nd game-half, yes. Although it might not be literal 1-damage pokes at the enemies, but critical ones at the RNG and AI.
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Kevin's glitch increases his base atk, not his str; the cap for this was 370 or so, can't go higher there no matter what; add wolf form and his built-in atk up buff, for maximum real atk; less than 30 seconds against earth gb w/out the other two helping should speak for itself here
Duran as a duelist has highest normal atk with (22 str x 15 weapon power + minor constant number) = 350 something, quite a bit lower and way later available then Kevin with his pre-gb glitch
normal characters (as in everyone that is not a atk-glitched Kevin) need quite a lot extra lvls and additional trips to buy new weapons, extra lvls that *have* to be before mana land to class change in time (else another extra trip there)
in exchange we get *slightly* faster boss fights (all but the last two bosses + dangaard should take less than 60 seconds with Kevin alone, probably even less); the difference for normal forced fights wouldn't be noteable
=> doesn't seem worth it
the glitch I think you mean only allows everyone to get at a lvl-up the stat I want (str); currently it's only up to the respective cap, but that might change soon
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W/A-Seed - sounds good.
Weapon for Hawk should be very useful, Riesz - debateable.
Those addresses seem about right (going by a short trip with ram watch + cheated seeds), so I added a display for those two addresses into the Lua script:
first value is 7E5F91, the other 7E5F94
initialized at 0,0
only change so far at Jewel Eater's explosion to: 91, 249
Neither of which would result into what I'd want so thats ok to lose.
Though... I'd still need something to work with, just hoping that it will simply land on the right number in time is not very TAS-able.
Note: if you don't need to class change you even gain time by not needing to lvl up after somewhere between Tzenker-Gorva, as your main attackers str should be at max there; or maybe not, depending on whether I can make Hawk have 10 str next lvl.
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It's a valid method for 6/7 gbs, I think; for all except moon we can fly away after killing the boss. Though the big problem will be sort-of a mass lvling in the final dungeon; by then we'd have stored enough exp for 2-3 lvls each? Kevin has to stay in wolf form for all of them, so that'll waste quite a lot of time I guess.
To explain what I mean:
normally we'd kill 1-2 enemies but have one more on screen, "wait" for Kevin's lvl up screen, take any stat* and kill the last enemy while the game "reloads".
With total enemy avoidance we'd have to wait through quite a lot lvl-ups probably at the same time; possibly a lot of time we can hardly use.
For the final visit to the mana land it's the obvious thing to do, with the last boss approaching and all.
Though... it looks kind of boring to me...
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here, more or less same I did in the WiP
but...
I couldn't get it to work where I thought it would have saved some time... it seems to work only for left and up directions; and it only goes up to a certain range towards the enemies, but a few frames at least more running.
More explanation:
in the situation above only running upward with both resulted in weapon drawing about where i take a normal step; running with Hawk alone let me go the same distance as with the trick, so it's really only about going to the limit, not beyond it sadly.
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If you can't max str, you better stick with Riesz, because Hawk suffers double for every str not gotten. At best he'd be as strong as my "low str glitched" Kevin (needs twice as many attacks on a molebear than Hawk)
Anyway, what I thought of as "new" last time:
when I run and am about to enter battle mode, I can delay this entering by walking a step where I would draw weapon otherwise, then run again; maybe repeat, but I didn't have such a long runnable path yet, or rather I did have such a one, but that was right at the beginning of the game after Hawk leaves Jad where the 2 wolves wait (when someone makes another SD3 Tas get your free 50+ frames there)
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A bit further
some notes:
-Kevin disappoints right now, especially w/out night; need the new weapons asap to unglitch his atk; timing of buying those is a no-concern as his next lvl up would be during the day anyway
- ~170700; I've got no idea why I can't walk with Kevin to the next room; though it doesn't matter (much) as i have to wait for the exp a bit anyway
-in the room before that i once had Kevin frozen in his transformation animation; totally useless (information) but who knows
-something "new": on the top of this very page i mentioned something that occured while glitching hawk last time; i managed a first step (bad pun!) towards that; seen towards the end of the wip above (room after golden statue in forcena, 176k frame)
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Hawk vs Riesz:
i'll admit, so far i'm biased towards Hawk:
stat-downs are only really useful for the last two bosses of any storyline, everthing before that dies too fast against Kevin, by that time Hawk should have his stat-downs ready
in my wip he comes off like a 2nd Kevin so far (at least until Bill/Ben), and who could have enough Kevins around?
though i have to say that his double-attacks back-fire in the 2x golem fight; the game is for what ever reasons close to it's limit there (double boss, many npcs, event...), so the double hits disable switching character there (though that happens always when i'm skipping ai anyway)
though there's still much unclear:
if we can go beyond the str-cap -> Hawk all the way
if not: desert up to pre-gb will be debateable
gb-time doesn't matter since that is Kevin's prime (max atk, but enemy def will rise still)
in my case it's better to have both around, i can't def-down bigieu with hawk, and bigieu isn't exactly a light-weight on def and hp
though if you only need a single hit riesz is obviously better (like when starting auto-atk running), therefore a good "walker"-character (but you have charlie for that i guess)
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Well, before someone points out that this is remarkably similar to the traveling salesman problem, as in exactly that but with non-constant "distances" (actual flight distance + fight time for bosses, the later increases at different rates for each boss) and therefore even worse, how about more present problems?
fire or ice first?
after getting the flute visiting fire and ice then going to the moon forest looks like a full circle to me, so i think fire; weapon shop is there right on the way, for ice i don't actually "enter" the village
is it possible to replicate the kevin glitch with a rope about 10 minutes ago? (for the curious my answer is no; optional ropes are ironically better programmed than the mandatory drum)
can/will we break the stat cap? if no, do we still need lvls?
or even before that: in which order to visit the houses in the corobokkle village?
c - b - a - d -e?
having the gb order ready is all nice and good, but thats realistically half a year away or more; i'd rather spent investigation time on something thats more tangible
note: if i buy the weapon with hawk and do not open the dialog for buying a kevin weapon it should be ok
edit. need to write faster sometimes
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Mastania wrote:
Honestly, with the type of damage output you'll be getting, you might save more frames by minimizing overworld flight time instead.
that's definitly possible, that's why i said fire first, it's simply a walk of a couple screens down from where we start then (that there are already the most forced fights of any gb is a welcome addition for that decision)
from there wind is afaik closest (what a nice coincidence), then light (ummm hello, wth?), moon is quite close too from there, so far it fits?
then earth - ice - wood instead of wood ice earth
fire - wind - light - moon - earth - ice - wood
map
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earth has a bug where some enemies remain at 28, which i'd find rather useful there (can finish them faster/at all in time).Nice discovery!
i thought that was one of the most known bugs here...
at least it always annoyed me when playing this game to find low lvl enemies after a screen with 40s or so
weapons :
-dwarf: (obvious since i have them) - else i couldn't kill many enemies and lose tons of exp
-wind kingdom: 4 bosses + dungeons, not more to say
-fire/ice region: "only" 3 bosses/regions (3x golems, bill/ben 2nd, lugar)
-Dior (elf village): definitly must, cuts down repetitions of glitching Kevin's atk by 2 or 3; if not for time measures, DEFINITLY for entertainment (seeing the same thing repeated exactly the same for ten repetitions is boring, going for 12 is even worse)
-last might be in the illusion town Pedan, at least for Hawk/Riesz; still undecided on that one, but definitly no weapons in between gbs
armor... last chance for kevin would be fire/ice town?, i think i'll not buy them
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first value would be per scene, second total hp
armor might be useful to have kevin survive; he needs to get hit for his +25% atk buff; with just base armor this will get ugly especially for many forced fights until boss (fire gb)
since i can't read that, i tried a translator...
did i decipher that right? (first column p.def the other two def against int/spr?)
land umber
136 160 160 167 180 180 180
dangaard
123 145 145 151 163 163 164
figmund
129 151 151 158 170 170 170
xan bie
134 157 157 164 176 176 177
Lightgazer
101 118 118 124 133 133 134
Dolan
131 154 154 161 173 173 174
Mispolm
113 133 133 139 150 150 150
just a little math:
hp growth in % is for all the same:
twice 7%, 3x 6% and last 3%
def growth is similar
17-18% after first, 4% after third, 8% next and the odd +1 def for only some bosses as last
order highest to lowest
hp: thunder wood light ice moon fire earth
def: earth fire moon ice thunder wood light
if light and thunder would be switched around on one chart these orders would be perfectly reverse; and given a non-broken Kevin that would make them all roughly equally though
as a first thought, order should be close to the hp order i wrote (since with broken kevin we can ignore def and go for highest hp first)
fire thunder* moon/light wood ice earth?
fire, because i'm basically already there + most mandatory fights
moon as 3rd to get night again, or if still sufficient time light then moon
*i'd rather do light or moon here, cause i have no weakness to work with there, but moon is needed to reset night, and light for the claw as 3rd
edit again...
earth has a bug where some enemies remain at 28, which i'd find rather useful there (can finish them faster/at all in time)
and i'll still have to think of flight distances between them...
