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Well, I can see a few little things here and there that could be improved (e.g: healing the party while the menu's brought up to avoid overworld battles only to use a healing tile before the next combat is entered anyway) but overall I doubt it totals more than a second on the final time so it's no biggie. It's a good run; much cleaner than the one I left behind so long ago, and probably more thoroughly planned.
I'm impressed with how quickly the first "real" Gades and Idura battles went. I realized belatedly that the Undead Ring would've helped my run, but I didn't realize it would've made that much of a difference. And Idura... well, that was just sweet. (Though I have no clue why you grabbed the Fire Ring if all it was for was the ATK increase. Did it really make the battle go faster?)
Yes vote. I think it can still be improved, but the run itself is clean so it should be published.
Edit: After looking over your list of future improvements I notice you mention buying fewer Ice/Fire Balls. Did you simply not use every one you purchased? If so, you can HexEdit that out; the only desync issues it causes are the order of items in the menu, which can be edited to whatever needs to be correct. As far as I was able to tell the number of items in your inventory had no effect on luck manipulation at all.
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Heh. Think nothing of it. I enjoyed working on it; I only regret that I got so caught up with trying to figure out the damn Cave. It's at least nice to see that some of the techniques I developed survived into subsequent work. And it's cool that someone's finally finished a run of the game; it's long overdue, and unfortunately I'm at least partially to blame for that.
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Gunty wrote:
If I recall correctly there were about 6 different floors depending on the frame you entered the stairs, right? If that's the case there should be another memory address containing a counter between 0 and 5, which increments every frame.
Oh, if only life were so simple. =P
I think all the info is still buried somewhere in this topic, but here's a quick recap:
The floor layout and to a lesser extent the treasures contained within the chests on the next floor are determined by what floor layout you are currently on and how long (in frames) you have spent in the dungeon total when you enter the stairway. Moost floor layouts only have one set of treasures contained within their chests, but for reasons I cannot fathom it is possible to get the same layout to produce a blue chest on one particular frame of entry and on no others, so that's not a guaranteed thing. (Spells are another exception to this rule, for what that's worth. A chest containing a spell has its contents randomized upon entry, such that different frames of entry will always yield a different spell.)
The number of subsequent floor layouts is not static. Some layouts have a potential of 30 different subsequent layouts, some only have 4. To make matters more difficult, some layouts have a window of entry several frames long, while others can only be accessed on a single frame. Generally speaking, if you've tested 40 frames in a row (in terms of entry point), you've probably exhausted the potential layouts and dropsets (and combinations thereof) of the floor you're testing.
As a general rule of thumb, for any floor N, there exists an N' with the stairwell very close to the entry point, and there exists an N'' with a blue chest drop. Though testing every possible N'' for a given N takes a very long time. (There exist at least 280 N'' for every N; usually considerably more.)
At least, that's how I remember it. I have some notes, but they're not very complete, and it's been over a year since I've really done anything with this for more than a few minutes.
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K, well, I asked this on the submission topic too, but I just have to know: has anyone figured out what the hell goes on in the Ancient Cave? It's not humanly possible to actually optimize that unless it's possible to tell what the game does there.
Haven't watched the whole thing of Gunty's run, but I like what I've seen so far. Looks a lot cleaner in the early parts of the game, if nothing else. ;)
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Holy hell, you managed to imrpove that movie by seconds? That's amazing. An obvious Yes vote.
The weird thing is that this movie is shorter than my Claymates run, and yet it has more opportunity to show off what you can do with the game. Oh, irony, why do you smite me so?
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Short answer: Yes, but not enough to merit an update.
Long answer: Sorry you guys haven't seen hide nor hair of me for so long. I ended up working this summer, which left me with no liesure time, and now that classes have started back up and I have spare moments here and there I'd forgotten where I was. I have picked up where I left off, and I've got the first two floors recorded, but floor three is going to be determined by what kind of floor four it can give me so it's going to take a little while to test. I was planning to spend this weekend on the run, but then one of my proffessors handed us a paper which basically has to get written over the weekend 'cause I'm not going to have time to work on it Monday or Tuesday. =\ As of right now, I'm hoping to have something worth posting by the second week of October, but something else may come up, so don't hold me to that.
Also, @Enhasa: No, you don't have to go to Gruberik to advance the plot. So there is an extra boat ride involved in going to the Ancient Cave, but the boat ride is paltry compared to the time I end up spending in the Cave itself. (The difference between sailing to Gruberik and then on to Narcysus and just sailing straight to Narcysus is ~20 seconds. It's the whole "getting off the boat to go spelunking" thing that adds significant time to the run.)
Just taking a quick look ahead, the next three dungeons are mostly a walk at my current level anyway. (Well... at least they are given that I can manipulate them.) After that predications get a little more difficult because I can't gauge how many battles I'm going to end up forced into. (And therefore can't predict what my levels are going to be after three more dungeons.)
(Odd fact which I'm sure some of you remember: you can actually buy equipment from Karlloon before you go to the Narcyssus Tower of Sacrifice, and Karlloon sells Multiswords which are (in my esteem) among the best weapons in the game. So even without the Cave, I get a good equipment boost at this point in the story anyway.)
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Nach wrote:
Glitchy in what way?
You need an up to date H.264 decoder to play it. And the H.264 decode from ffmpeg (ffdshow) ~4 months back makes the video look like someone used a paintbrush and moved wet paint around, which may be what you're experiencing.
Glitchy like that, yeah.
Updating the codec as we speak. Thanks.
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Yeah... been following the WIP of this run. It's awesome. Of course, it's an awesome game for TAS-ing, since you've got dozens of things to manipulate, not the least of which is the Slots. Oh, so pretty...
But then again, as with most RPGs, you're not really sure what's going on if you haven't played the game so if you haven't played it... go play it!
Also, the movie has a tendency to desynch for me if I'm not using the Fake Mute Desynch option. Not sure if anyone else is getting that. *shrug*
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*joins the chorus of spezzafer worship*
It's like this game was made to TAS for entertainment. I almost can't keep track of what's going on sometimes.
Sweet job, man. Keep up the good work!
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Short answer? Because doing so leaves me at the mercy of the RNG, or at least moreso than the method I'm currently using is. Yes, that method would get me out of the AC faster, but it probably wouldn't give me much useful equipment. (Maybe two weapons and a jewel. Sure, there'd probably be some armor, too, but the AC's armor isn't all that useful to this run.)
That does raise the question as to whether the AC is actually going to save me any time.
Ah. We'll see, I guess.
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I thought you actually needed the Spin Dash to do it. Like, Will actually has to be spinning to get the "catch the door while in passing" glitch to work. Or I could be wrong.
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Enhasa wrote:
No, trust me, it's going to be a total pain, and it'll take a lot more than 6 or 7 tries (probably 100-200 at least), although most of the tries are going to be on the shorter side since after getting suboptimal luck early, it's time to reset. Oh, and since it's from start of gift mode in the title screen (i.e. without carrying anything in), I would do this in one pass. Any more would waste time of course. Maybe you were thinking it would be easier if I would be carrying equipment in.
I was thinking the best way to do it would be to make one shallow pass to pick up something (any weapon) worth carrying into for the second, full run. Each run probably wouldn't need more than 6 or 7 passes to find something acceptable, although I agree that if you want something that's "ideal" you'd need upwards of 100 runs.
If you want to try it all in one run, it'll take more than that.
Enhasa wrote:
Wow, a retake would be completely demoralizing. I have a long story from last week that I can sum up as: I misremembered my final exam time (!) and ended up going over to the professor's house to take it later that day. Of course I would have been extremely upset if I weren't allowed to take it at all, but even if I were allowed to take it say the following week, I would have still been pissed off since it would still be just hanging there.
Actually, your story isn't too far off from mine. I'm not really sure I did any better the second time, but that's more because of the way that professor gives tests than anything else. Anyway, it's in the past, now.
So there are two different ways to get the Sizzle Sword on B2, but neither of those leads to a B3 with a blue chest. This means there are some... 1000 or so possible B4's I need to check. Of course, that's just a ballpark figure. It may be as few as 300 or as many as 1800. Given the nature of the Ancient Cave and how much work it represents, I'm going to stop the instant I find a B4 with a blue chest which is useful to me. Yes, it may not be optimal, but it's not feasible to find something that is.
Since I don't know when this magic blue chest is going to turn up, I can't really give you any estimates as to when I'll have a (very short) update to post. But when it happens, I'll be sure to post something.
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Enhasa wrote:
First off, when I got 12 minutes, that was without save states, so it was supposed to be like a console concept demo. I didn't fight any unnecessary fights except for the frog right in front of the Big Catfish, to get to level 5. I got the Insect Crush because conventional wisdom is that you would. I didn't get the Catfish Jewel, although even in a console run, you would want to redo that segment until you got it. I used Boomerangs on basically everyone: 2 to kill the Lizard Man, 4 to kill Big Catfish, and 1 for each fight with multiple regular guys.
For a TAS, I'm don't think you'd want the Insect Crush either, but I'm not 100% sure. Also, I agree you would skip Stronger, unlike what a console run would have to do I imagine. Even if you engage minimal battles, Boomerangs are useful to kill all the multiple regular enemy fights quickly, and you'll need them at lower levels vs the early bosses.
Yeah, extra boomerangs for the fights leading to the Insect Crush would be good. Like I said, I'll have to wait and see how that's going to work out.
As for picking up the Insect Crush, its IP helps manipulate things until I pick up a better weapon for Maxim, and it's the weapon of choice for the Ruby Cave's Tarantula. As such, it may actually save time with the run I've currently got. (unlikely, but possible.) But like I said, we'll just have to wait and see.
Enhasa wrote:
Ah, of course Tia attacking was manipulation. The switching positions is better, yes.
quietkane wrote:
Dragondarch is going to have his work cut out for him trying to run this game. The controls are very imprecise, and the fact that he can't efficiently avoid battles is going to hurt a lot. I have sincere doubts that this game is doable within 10 hours without tool-assistance. Good luck to him, though.
(and I've forgotten whether SDA goes by in-game clock or not. If they do, then he needs to spend time in the Ancient Cave. Time spent in the AC doesn't count for the main game's clock.)
Actually, getting under the 7 hour SDA soft limit won't pose any difficulty, but Maxim's fast movement and trying to optimize the paths/puzzles will.
The guy who I said wasn't doing a very good job (27 mins compared to my 12 mins to get Tia and save), completed his test run with 6:37 at the post game timer. I forgot what you estimated earlier for a TAS, but my (I think it's conservative enough) guess for a console run of Lufia 2 would be between 4 and 5 hours. I've been working with DTK on his 4 Lufia 1 test runs and he has that down to 5:21. I think the real version will be close to 5 hours, and I'm pretty sure that Lufia 1 would take longer than 2, so there goes. ;)
Hrmmm. If he got it in less than 7 hours, then he's a much more patient man than I am. I can't count the number of times I've run into a wall because the timing on the controls has such a small frame of opportunity to stop running. Not to mention running into enemies.
My current estimate for finishing this run is 5 hours, give or take 10 minutes. The revised run is probably going to be more like 4.5 hours.
Enhasa wrote:
SDA uses real time from gaining control after starting a new game, to final hit against the last boss. AC is a definite "no" for a console run. Ah, this might make you jealous. =p
Yeah, definite jealousy, there. It is beyond the realm of human possibility to truly optimize the AC. I'm just hoping that the final run will have a good enough run of it. (My current goal is to get 3 weapons and a Silver Eye and Gold Eye and then providence out in less than 10 minutes. Actual time is probably going to be 4-5 minutes, and the chests I pick up are unlikely to include both jewels, but I can probably get 3 weapons and one of the Eyes.)
Enhasa wrote:
Oh yes, maybe I haven't told you, but after Dragondarch does his Lufia 2 run, I am going to do a Gift mode console run of the AC from scratch. =) Actually, that smile might disappear after I try it and pull all my hair out from the randomness.
A console run probably won't be that bad, since you aren't going to have the pressure to make it perfect. I'd say it wouldn't take more than 6 or 7 tries overall to get a good random placement for the cave, and you probably won't need more than one equipment-collecting run before you can take the whole thing. The aggravating part about a console run is that, like I said, it's hard to efficiently avoid enemies, and the Dragons on the lower levels are going to seriously scare you.
Erim wrote:
This game looks very difficult to run, but I gotta ask: what the hell was that at the tower east of Tanbel, before getting Guy? I also notice you get too many unnecessary chests. I'm sure there are strategies to get around not using their IP attacks.
I've already explained why I did the Tanbel Tower twice. As I said then, my initial estimate of how long the second run would take was much lower than the actual time was. In all likelihood, the revised run won't do that.
Some of the "unecessary chests" you're complaining about save a lot more time than they take; it's just unclear how they save time if you haven't tried manipulating this game. (The Fire Ring is a good example of this. As I said, Maxim needed an alternate attack for that battle.) The only chests I can think of off-hand which don't save time are the Tanbel Tower chests, the Horse Rock in the Alunze West Cave, and the chests across the lava in the Ruby Apple Cave. (And actually, those chests across the lava don't waste nearly as much time as they seem to, since the Aqua Whip plays an important role in a later battle.)
Also, interestingly enough, I missed an uncessary chest which would have saved a lot of time: the Undead Ring. I hadn't realized that Gades was weak to Light attacks, so I didn't pick it up. (The Undead Ring makes your attacks do Light damage.) The revised run will be picking that up, and as such the Gades battle will take much less time.
Sorry I don't have a WIP for you. I'm having to re-take one my finals on Tuesday, and I really need to study for it. (So why am I posting here instead of studying? Well, I needed to get on the internet to look something up anyway, and I figured I'd take a study break while I was here.)
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Actually, I picked this run up again last week, but I had to start over with the Ancient Cave since I'd lost my place. I haven't gotten enough done to post another WIP yet, so no luck there, but maybe by next week. (Finals are this week, but I'll want to be taking a break this weekend, and this is a good way to do that.)
Yeah, the Catfish Cave sucks. I know. Levelling isn't necessary at all, and I'm not even sure I'll need the Insect Crush. (Though it definitely helps.) It's just that until level 6, Maxim is slower than the Catfish, which makes manipulating that battle a living Hell, and by that point in the run I hadn't figured out enough about the game to really do it. Strong was necessary to help manipulation, since Potions and Strong actually manipulate different behaviors from the Catfish. I'm not sure whether I'll need it for the revised run or not. (And there's no point in buying Stronger; IP is better than spells for almost everything.)
Oh, and with that 12 minute time, did you manage to manipulate the Catfish Jewel to drop? 'Cause the Catfish Jewel is important enough that it's worth wasting at least one round of battle to force it.
Boomerangs aren't going to be as much of a factor in the revised run since I'm not going to engage in as many battles, and what's more I'm going to be using more Boomerangs on the Catfish in the revised run (since I won't have enough levels to beat it with just the Insect Crush) which means I'll have to be even more frugal with my use of them before that battle. But I'll definitely use as many as I can afford.
I generally treat Arrows as a last resort. If I use one, then it's faster than all the alternatives I found. Of course, if you can find a way to avoid something that's faster than what I do, I will gladly admit my mistake.
I can only think of two battles where Tia attacked at all, and in one of those battles her attack actually kills an enemy. (The Camu fight; she gets a critical on one of the minions to kill it.) The other one is the regal goblin, where at least half of Tia's actions are specifically to manipulate something. (Although, I learned after that battle that I could switch characters' positions in battle to manipulate an enemy into hitting whichever character I want, so some of those are probably unecessary.) If there are any others, she might be wasting time, I dunno. It's been a while since I looked at the early parts of this movie.
Tanbel Tower is something I'll have to research for the next run. I know the Fire Dagger cuts a lot of time off the fight against the giant tarantula, but when I initially decided to run Tanbel Tower twice, I had thought that having the key for the second run of the tower would cut more time than it actually did. It may turn out to be a bad call on my part, but it's kind of a moot point for this particular run.
Keeping Idura drowsied was the only reason I picked up the Fire Ring. Maxim needs an alternative attack besides just his sword; otherwise Idura wakes up and the fight becomes a lot harder and a good bit longer. I realized that Tia starts with Drowsy only after Selan joins the party, and the only two fights that might have made a difference in are against the Regal Goblin and Camu. Again, possible mistake, but I'll just have to save it for the revision at this point. Once Selan joins, there aren't any enemies until Idura where Drowsy is worth manipulating. (Though that might change with the revision; you never know what happens when you edit the early parts of the run.)
Dragondarch is going to have his work cut out for him trying to run this game. The controls are very imprecise, and the fact that he can't efficiently avoid battles is going to hurt a lot. I have sincere doubts that this game is doable within 10 hours without tool-assistance. Good luck to him, though.
(and I've forgotten whether SDA goes by in-game clock or not. If they do, then he needs to spend time in the Ancient Cave. Time spent in the AC doesn't count for the main game's clock.)
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*eyes bug*
DW4 in less than 4 hours? I can vote yes for that without watching the damn thing! (Though I will be watching it, you have my assurance.)
adelikat has my enduring praise.
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I agree with Boco in that there's room for improvement, but I don't really think it'd add up to a minute. (but then again, we've been surprised by such things before.) Watching this run makes me want to take a swing at this game, try a few different techniques, maybe play with the death shortcut thing.
That being said, the run's still entertaining, and as such I still voted "Yes."
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4:15 isn't much longer than some of the SNES RPGs are. I'd say Secret of Mana, Lufia, and Chronotrigger are all gonna end up about that long. (If not longer.)
I dunno. I'm mildly interested in seeing a run of this, but I wouldn't really be disappointed if it never happened.
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well, you've gotta grab the gold armor eventually anyway. I was saying there might be an advantage to grabbing it early as opposed to waiting until the last second. But, hey, it's your run. You can do it however you want.
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I'd think that there's probably an advantage to obtaining the gold armor just for the shield, so that you don't have to wait for/manipulate shots that are inconveniently placed. Then again, I don't know anything about how to manipulate things for this game, so I guess that's a question to be answered by testing.
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I didn't know Stone Golem was vulnerable to Exit. Goodness... all these years I've been whaling on him unecessarily.
So, I'm willing to overlook the obvious error of backtracking for the Cure spell because I'd like a movie of this game up for other people to compete with. But I'd like to do so requesting that other people maintain a similar attitude about future runs of RPGs and the like, because some of these games are reaching the point where they're never gonna get a run up. The first run keeps getting revised before it reaches a publishable state. (Of course, I'm guilty of that myself, what with my Lufia run in its 4th month of limbo, now.)
Edit: sorry, forgot to mention... Yes vote.
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Vote NO.
Before I start bitching, I'd like to say that I'm a Smash Bros. fan. I loved the original, I love Melee even more, and the fact that the Revolution's Smash Bros. is going to include wi-fi play makes me absolutely drool. Nevertheless, I don't think this is a good game to speedrun.
Let me clarify that: I don't think this is a good game to TAS when aiming for fastest time. It's not entertaining. Sure, seeing exactly how fast Very Hard can be cleared is a bit intriguing, but after watching this run, I can honestly say I don't really care what the fastest time is, if that sort of technique is how it's acheived. I'd love to watch a run that aims for a fast time while remaining entertaining. Clearing Very Hard in 8 minutes with a lot more variety of moves would be far more entertaining than this thing, especially the Metal Mario fight. (I don't care if that's the fastest way; we're supposed to make wait times interesting, remember?) I think, anyway.
I suggest we take a page from SDA's book and limit the TAS's of Smash Bros. to the bonus rounds. It would take a lot more skill in terms of command of the different characters and planning routes to clear each character's target tests than it takes to, well... do what this run does.
*shrug* I just don't think that "perfection" is what we should be shooting for if "perfection" is nothing but spamming the same series of button presses over and over until the game is defeated. It doesn't show an effort to understand the game's mechanics, and it doesn't show any sort of skill or effort in finding new techniques. (Two of the things that made the best runs on this site as good as they are, particularly the Mario Bros. movies.)
(By the way, if there are any Smash Bros. fans here who haven't watches SDA's videos for SSBM, you're really missing out. My jaw dropped after watching Samus' and Link's Target Tests.)
*shrug* [/2 cents]
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Make sure you're using the latest version of Nitsuja's TAS-enhanced snes9x when you view it. (Latest version found here.)
Also, make sure that WIP Timing is on when you watch the movie, otherwise the input ends up out-of-synch with the actual game eventually.
If neither of those work, then there are still a few things you can try:
a) Fiddle with the "Fake Mute" playback option. I don't actually record with the sound muted, but I do have the "mute on frame advance" option turned on, and I do have to record a lot of this frame-by-frame. (Battles in particular.)
b) Make sure you have the sound turned on and not muted. Having the sound turned off on playback has only given me an issue once, but I have no way of knowing whether it becomes an issue on other people's comps.
c) Let the rom run for about 10 seconds before you load the movie. Generally speaking, this movie shouldn't require the "warm-up," but I do know it's occassionally necessary with some roms, so you should go ahead and try it anyway.
Also, for the benefit of the patient souls still waiting for an update: all that stuff I was saying about forcing any drop I wanted on a given floor? Not actually true. There seems to be an upper-limit on the number of drop sets it's possible to earn on a given floor. (About 40.) The drop set you get upon entering a floor is determined by how long you've spent in the cave, total. Which floor layout you get is also determined in this manner, but the two do not change at the same pace. (Drop sets change every frame, floor layout changes once every other frame, or on certain floors every third frame.)
Furthermore, the possible drop sets for the next derivative floor seem dependant on which floor layout you're currently on. This is actually important to know, but I'm not sure I've the patience to actually exploit this. (I won't bore you with a detailed explanation unless someone asks for it.)
Anyway, I haven't gotten much work done on this for two reasons:
1) Class loads haven't lightened up in the slightest.
2) An old friend of mine died in early October. It's kinda made me lose interest in most of my hobbies for now.
anyway... I don't know when I'll be getting back to work on this, but I do still plan to finish it. (Plus the revised run that doesn't grab the Dragon Eggs.) Though if anyone wants to try their hand at this game, they're welcome to try.
