The glitched soul/level up screen on Arc Demon might (probably not) be hexable if the Medusa Head remains untouched. Probably worth checking out.
Huh? I don't quite understand you. Do you mean trying to maintain the same medusa head pattern as the current submission? Not attacking the medusa head that I do? Not killing it as in the second version? I didn't try jumping up to the platform without medusa head but I don't think it's possible unless you can kill the arc demon faster. The problem is you can only just barely get to the second platform in time.
You want opinions, here's mine:
I only enjoyed this tas because I had recently seen the AVGN review (caution, gratuitous swearing). It's a terrible game, and the TAS is only noteworthy because it makes an incredibly difficult game look relatively average. The collision detection is awful, the boss fights are luck-based missions (and there are no continues).
Overall, meh vote. Technical quality seems fine, but the game is really terrible and it's not clear what interesting challenges the game offers to a TASer. Some of the wall glitches are pretty cool, but for the most part, it's just walking along a long corridor.
Then (if i could work out how to do ratings) a 9.5/8.5 rating because there are one or two possible improvements.
Two?
You got me. I only know of one (arc demon, posted to the aos thread), but I suspect more through creating more glitched level up screens. I think the most likely location for another one is the room after manticore; but I don't know that it's necessarily possible.
obvious yes vote.
This is a fantastic run with every bit of entertainment as the previous. The improvements over the previous run are everywhere and range from the massive scale to the tiny detail. It's unbelievable that you've beaten it by over 2 minutes.
Particular highlights:
* waving the final sword as if it were a razor-sharp feather
* being chased out of the tower by a disc
* soul-hunting with the ghost soul
* grabbing the valkyrie soul by stabbing it with the imp
* all the combined level-up/soul grab screens (flame demon, legion, lubicant, alastor)
And of course, the expert HP management ;)
Then a 9.5/8.5 rating because there are one or two possible improvements.
It seems I'm determined to ensure you don't publish this year...
Macaroni pie
(sorry, a) I would have worked on this sooner, but I didn't have time, and b) I didn't expect you to progress so quickly...)
Edit: now with more dead medusa head.
You need to be in contact with the soul the same frame as it drops. Most enemies do not allow this, since their hitbox is so big.
Ah, that makes sense. Is it possible to get the glitch with a soul from another monster? ie kill skull archer, release soul, kill peeping eye to level up on the same frame as grabbing skull archer's soul? That would allow the glitch for monsters whose hitbox is too large -- though obviously it's still very situation dependent, particularly because most souls take ages to reach you.
Another glitched level/soul screen! You seem to be developing a strategy for producing them regularly. Do you think you'll be able to get many more in this run?
I'm pretty sure this is the last one. Might be lucky to get one in the clean-up, but I doubt it (best guess is Flesh Golem).
What makes them so tricky to get? Is it just difficult to be in the exact spot when you land the killing blow? Do some monsters make it impossible (other than death/balore, who give up their exp and soul at different times)?
Kriole wrote:
I just finished Balore, the fight is very identical to the any% one.
Pie
3508 frames ahead of my first run.
Progress is skyrocketing - hopefully I can reach Graham even today.
The Lubicants were somewhat annoying, the Imp kept charging them (the Imp does not change RNG when it is charging enemies). I did however solve the problem nicely.
You certainly did. Another glitched level/soul screen! You seem to be developing a strategy for producing them regularly. Do you think you'll be able to get many more in this run?
3248 frames ahead of my first run.
O_O am I reading this wrong, or does that mean ~750 frames saved between legion and balore? I can see some savings (no laevatain, no rotten meat, fewer pause screens, glitched level up) and some quasi-savings (delayed killer mantle, weretiger, which will cost min. 120 frames later) but damn, that's a lot of frames shaved for such a short section.
So all in all, I'm 248 frames ahead of my old WIP. Sweet :D.
Which makes a total gain of ~2500 over the current published movie. Or about 40 seconds. Wow. I'm willing to second moozooh's sub-27 minute prediction.
Very nice work in this WIP. I particularly like that you've left a bit more time between the legion pause screens to show what's going on. (In the current publish, you hear the hurt sound, but don't get to see the damage.)
As a side note, I have quite alot of free time on my hands this week. Hopefully I'll be able to do some solid progress; my goal is to reach Graham by sunday. Let's see how it goes.
what if you eat the potion when you equip the combat knife? You gain 24 HP, which means you should finish legion on 10 HP (though I'm not 100% sure about this). Is that low enough to avoid needing rotten meat? (is it possible/necessary to avoid the +5HP from succubus?).
10 hp adds just as many stats as 1 hp (on that particular level, I do not know if there are any differences on any higher levels). However, the stats start to decrease slightly when getting the 5 hp from Succubus.
Yrr managed to avoid the HP gain from succubus, but I don't know the details. Does this make it viable to avoid rotten meat?
EDIT: I think this might be the run he's referring to in that post, but sadly microstorage seems to be down. No, it's not, but you worked it out anyway.
(Also, by consuming the potion earlier, you hit your HP cap and only gain 84 HP instead of the full 100 HP. I assume this isn't a big deal.)
This changes nothing, I would still have about 70 hp after Legion, which means I still have to consume the Rotten Meat.
what if you eat the potion when you equip the combat knife? You gain 24 HP, which means you should finish legion on 10 HP (though I'm not 100% sure about this). Is that low enough to avoid needing rotten meat? (is it possible/necessary to avoid the +5HP from succubus?).
But hey. If I don't finish this year atleast I have someone to blame :D.
In theory you should be able to save 3 frames by consuming the potion when you equip mystletain. Because your cursor is already at the equip menu, it's one less step downwards to get to item use. I tried hexing it in, and it keeps sync after the modified mystletain pause menu, but desyncs after the pause menu in the man-eater room. I have no idea why :(
Scotch Pie
EDIT: looking at the RNG value at 0x2000008, the first discrepancy seems to happen at frame 36699 (corresponding to 36702 in the original), and by frame 36708 the two have diverged completely. This is during the man-eater fight, well beyond the pause screen i hexed. I'm not a TASer by any means and I've never done hexing before, but this is really confusing. Surely if it was going to break, it would have broken before this point?
(Also, by consuming the potion earlier, you hit your HP cap and only gain 84 HP instead of the full 100 HP. I assume this isn't a big deal.)
I'm not making any friends here am I?
Something came up in the SM64 thread which is confusing me:
The rules state that a movie must break all existing records. However, it doesn't say exactly which records must be broken. Derakon said:
Derakon wrote:
The "breaks existing records" rule is for non-assisted play. If your run isn't faster than someone sitting in front of a TV without access to slowdown and rerecords, then it's not going to be accepted (unless it's a playaround, in which case we'll bicker about it for weeks before coming to a decision).
But in the relevant section in the rules, it says "Check places such as YouTube or nicovideo for TAS movies (or speedruns)", suggesting that TAS records must be broken. Can somebody clarify?
Furthermore, would a SM64 120-star run have to at least match all single-star records? Would a full-game run in general have to match all single-level records?
Oh god, not one of these. It's the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, it was never based on sound science but instead on Jung's ramblings, and the results are suceptible to the Forer effect. It's better than a horoscope, but not much.
My type is OMFG, by the way.
Thanks for the encode, OmnipotentEntity!
Great run so far. Star World 4 #1 -- You think he's going to the secret exit and... he grabs the yoshi wings! Nice to see the dragon coin glitch exploited in such creative ways, and the new sprite glitch is fantastic too. :D
At least for me, many runs are only fun to watch if I've played the game and have a fond remembrance of it, if it's from a series I've played that I have a fond remembrance of, or if the game is glitched to hell. (Is this feeling somewhat universal?)
No. There are definitely non-glitched TASes of games I never played which I very much enjoyed: Castlevania Aria of Sorrow 100% (this actually made me go and play AoS), SMB3 (any version; yes really I never played it), Biker mice from mars, Arkanoid. In fact I often prefer non-glitched TASes of games I haven't played, because it's easier to follow; and the wtf-ness of a game-breaking glitch is all the more powerful when you know how the game is supposed to work. eg although the Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance 30-second glitchfest is entertaining, I feel I'd enjoy it so much more by knowing exactly how much of the game he just skipped. Notable exception: Pokémon Yellow.
One thing that can massively help bring a TAS to viewers who never played the game is a good commentary (audio or subtitle).
I'm aware of the rule that a submitted run must have no known improvements at time of submission
No such rule exists. If it did, a large number of the runs on this site would not have been published. Submission texts often include a section for improvements (known or possible).
Huh, it seems you're right; the rule doesn't say "no known improvements" but rather "breaks all existing records".
One interpretation of that rule, however, is that a 120-star run must beat all applicable single-star records. That would kill the chances of any intermediate 120-star publish until new discoveries slow to a trickle. (Should I seek a clarification on that interpretation?)
TASing is an iterative process, it is understood that a run can probably be improved. Throughout any one TAS a runner will typically learn new tricks and become better acquainted with the game engine. This is why runners so often obsolete their own submissions.
I'm not necessarily saying that someone should work on a 120 star TAS, in light of the rate of discovery. However, I don't think the rate of discovery should preclude someone from making said TAS. A solid effort, with the currently known strats, would easily obsolete the current 120 star TAS and be entertaining and it would be faster than a real time speedrunner could achieve.
I fully agree with this view, and further, I think that ideally it's better to have a relatively large number of incremental submissions than one big improvement every 2-3 years. (Of course, the game length and ease of hexing will affect how feasible this is; I'm not a TASer so I don't know how much effort is necessarily involved.)
I didn't enjoy this run much. I've never played the game, I couldn't follow what was going on, and I didn't feel the wow factor much at all, except with some of the 3-ball multiball stuff. And then it abruptly ends, with no warning. No vote.
Seems I'm in the minority though...
Thanks for the kind and quick reply.
Yeah it does sound redundant to have two different 120-stars runs, but it's all good. We can never know if someone is going to come up with a new route, and playing the stars over and over again might help.
Not just that, but SM64 is still developing for single stars.
Will SM64 ever stop developing for single stars? Do we have to wait for that to see a new 120-star run?
I'm aware of the rule that a submitted run must have no known improvements at time of submission, but this rule, combined with the time it takes to make a long run, combined with even a slow trickle of new improvements found, necessarily implies that we won't see a 120-star run for a very long time. That makes me sad.