Joined: 7/17/2004
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Looks great, I hadn't thought of how to equip Alena for the tournament. I have a couple things for you though, one small and one kinda big. First, did you see any of the previous runs that used the item->equip command in battle? It equips a weapon and attacks with it, might be slightly faster than doing it in inventory. Ok, now the big timesaver you missed is using the wings from the top of the birdsong tower instead of going all the way back down. Besides that everything is awesome, my favorite chapter is coming up next!
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TheAxeMan wrote:
Ok, now the big timesaver you missed is using the wings from the top of the birdsong tower instead of going all the way back down. Besides that everything is awesome, my favorite chapter is coming up next!
Wow, didnt know about that one, that will save about 25 seconds! I guess I'm redoing chapter 2, I will change that, use the door command and equip in battle
I will keep the extra wing since wings do not reset the day/night to daytime. That may be useful in chapter 5 since there will be many situations where I night to go somewhere at night
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I just discovered a way to significantly improve chapter 1. By getting into a fight right outside Izmit, I can warp back to the castle. I just tried this on my 1st trip back and I saved 400 frames from a completely unoptimized battle. With an optimized strategy it could save about 1000 frames! And since I have to make the trip twice that would be a saving of about 2000 frames (about 30 seconds).
I'm kind of torn about what to do. I want to redo this but maybe its better to keep going and get a good version 1 with plans on optimizing? I also worry that I'll be burned out by the time I finsish it and won't want to do another version.
I assume you mean that you get into a battle and die, thus sending you back to the castle. Well it's up to you which method to take, but keep in mind that doing that will add a 'Uses death as a shortcut' flag.
It's your choice whether or not you actually WANT that flag on your run.
Joined: 7/17/2004
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What's wrong with "Death as a shortcut"? Usually it makes runs look much better instead of backtracking. As far as redoing everything, do whatever you want. It didn't seem to take you long to do everything so far, but since you haven't made it through the entire game yet, it's likely that you will keep finding points of improvement. Just keep track of them all, and you can do an improved run later. Attempting to make a run perfect in one pass is doomed to fail.
By the way, there are definitely other areas to use this technique. How about after picking up the golden bracelet in the cave south of Frenor? Get in a fight and get your ass kicked to get out of the cave real quick. You can optimize this by letting the Tempe fight leave you close to death. I guess in chapter 1 you don't have to worry about other party members, in chapter 3 you'll only get one character revived when you die. But you'll be at a house of healing so you can revive right away, and if you're only level 1 it's cheap too.
As far as the comments of using death as a shortcut, I would say that if you don't do it someone else will and they'll probably obsolete you.
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TheAxeMan wrote:
death stuff
I was under the impression that one needs to talk to a cleric in a town or a king in order for the "shortcut using death" method to work. It'll have to be tested to see if that whole saving procedure will be faster than just flat out leaving the cave and then using a wing (in chapter 2 at least).
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I did more testing. It turns out that you can get a critical hit when you attack yourself which aside from being histerical also saves alot of time. In chapter 1 using the death shortcut will save well over 1 minute.
So after leaving izmut I immediately get into a fight with a tree stump (or whaterver its called) critical hit myself and then get attacked by the enemy causing me to die. The second time I leave izmut I will have the sword of malice and very few hp's so killing myself will be quicker.
[edit] also dying resets it to day which means the woman you need to talk to is outside saving even more time.
I hadn't thought of using it to escape caves in ch 2 - 5. The problem with the golden bracelet is that you have to wait until nighttime to deliver it anyway and dying resets it to the beginning of the day.
I was under the impression that one needs to talk to a cleric in a town or a king in order for the "shortcut using death" method to work
partially correct. if you don't see a cleric it defaults you to the 1st one in the chapter. Later you just need to save your game at one in a different town which is usually going to be way faster than backtracking through a cave.
in chapter 3 you'll only get one character revived when you die. But you'll be at a house of healing so you can revive right away
I assume you mean chp 2. I kill off cristo anyway and I want to kill off brey since he is not necessary. I'm just afraid that when I get to chp 5 I will wish I had leveled him up for the outside & return spells.
As far as "death as a shortcut". Why wouldn't I want to do that. Its not like there would be two separate runs published (could any run of this game get published anyway?)
I have decided that I will continue on to chapter 3 since I will most likely find several more time savers that will require me to redo it.
I have decided that I will continue on to chapter 3 since I will most likely find several more time savers that will require me to redo it.
I say go on as it is without using death as a shortcut and then when you've gone through and made notes on how you can improve, you can set out and improve it big time. I'm sure there's many a purist who'd love a clean run and many others who'd look forward to a faster death run.
Mr. Kelly R. Flewin
[Who's in the former]
Mr. Kelly R. Flewin
Just another random gamer
----
<OmnipotentEntity> How do you people get bored in the span of 10 seconds? Worst ADD ever.
Sorry, I wasn't saying that as if it was a BAD thing. But I guess in the past some people have chosen not to do that on their movies, for whatever reasons they had. Sometimes a no-death run looks good (ie: Metroid). But in the case of an RPG, especially one as long as this one, then using death as a shortcut is probably the best course of action.
I used death 3 times in my Dragon Warrior run to prevent a few minutes of backtracking (each), it wouldn't be any more interesting without that ... not to mention I died in different ways, and luck manipulated a battle to kill me as fast as possible. So yes, use it whenever it saves time.
And about manipulating fights, how will Chapter 5 go, since you can only control the hero?
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Acmlm wrote:
And about manipulating fights, how will Chapter 5 go, since you can only control the hero?
It going to be a total pain in the ass!
It means I'm going to have to mainulate both the enemy action and my own party.
The frame of the last input command (attack, parry etc) is when the order of attacks and enemy actions are determined. the actual damage of the attack will do is determined on the command just before.
What is going be a headache is that my party's actions are determined the moment before their own turn.
The only thing that I can think of that would make it easier to make sure that my party attacks 1st, my hero 2nd, and the enemies last whenever possible. That way the luck manipulation I do doesn't interfere with the others actions.
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Update: (same place)
http://www.adelikat.com/Temp
I at the point where I made peace with Endor and Bonlamo. Also inlcuded is a savestate so that you can watch only chapter 3 and not have to sit through the other two. Just make sure you play the .fcm file and read-only before loading the savestate.
I'm glad I didn't redo the other chapters because I found several more time savers! In chapter 3 you will notice a much more effecient use of the Wings. I can apply this to chapter 2 as well. All in all, I'd say version 2 will save 5 minutes in chp 2 and 3 minutes in chp 1.
In chp3, I lose time when I 1st walk into Endor, I accidentally walked one step too far. I don't plan on fixing it in this version.
Right now I am having problems with getting the store. I need 35,000 gold. My calculation put me at about 34,000 after cleaning out the cave and even selling the armor in bonmalo for max gold. I'm torn about how best to come up with the extra cash. As is I have to fight a metal slime to level up. But I can't get a good drop from that fight because you can't get half plate and broad swords until at least lv 3. So that would mean one more fight to get to 35,000. Or I could wing to Endor and purchase armor and wing back to bonmalo. I'm not sure which would be better.
Perhaps buying and selling armor would be better anyway so that I can keep the broad sword and half plate from the cave to fill the kings order. That would mean 2 less fights to have to deal with. 14 fights will be pretty boring.
Not to rain on your parade so far, but wouldn't it be faster in Chapter 3 to buy Wings of Wyvern from one of those "random battle shops" you come across in the field every so often? I'm sure it'd be quite a bit less walking than going off to the right in Brynmaer (whatever that town's called) and buying the Wings there.
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Tilus wrote:
Not to rain on your parade so far, but wouldn't it be faster in Chapter 3 to buy Wings of Wyvern from one of those "random battle shops" you come across in the field every so often? I'm sure it'd be quite a bit less walking than going off to the right in Brynmaer (whatever that town's called) and buying the Wings there.
Don't worry about raining on my parade. This is a test run. I'm excited to hear about anything that might save time. I tested your theory and it's slightly faster. By my count it is only 35 frames faster to buy anything from the random merchants than at the Bonmalmo (or whatever) Item shop. But since I have to do that twice, that is saving one full second. I'll make that change on my version 2 run. thanks
[edit] I forgot that the 1st time I buy wings I cant buy them from a random merchant because I have no money until I enter the castle and sell the leather armor. I must sell it in the castle because they pay way more for it. A normal item shop wouldn't give me enough money to buy 8 wings.
So I would only save time when I buy wings the second time, but thats still 35 frames of improvement.
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updated the wip. I just bought the shop. I have no equipment and 1359 gold. I have no idea the fastest way fill the kings order (7 broad sword and 7 half plates). I have 3 options:
1) get into 14 battles and manipulate luck to get a h.p. or broad sword drop everytime.
2) get some items and have the wife sell them (manipulate luck so she sells them all quickly for max value)
3) bounce back and forth between endor and bonmalmo (buying armor in endor, selling in bonmalmo) manipulate luck to get max value for the armor.
for options 2 and 3, after raising the money I would then need to purchase the weapons and armor and take them to the king.
Of course I could do a combo of all 3, for more variety (option 1 is going to be especially boring)
Any thoughts?
BTW, In version 2 I plan to pick up the gold in the treasure chest in the cave, after losing half from dying I'll still have enough to not have to sell the broad sword to raise the 35k (I was only like 100 gold away!). If I do options 2 or 3, that will save me 500 gold. If I do option 1, that will be 13 fights instead 14.
Giving things to your wife and having her sell them in your shop is much much faster than hopping between towns selling armor. Despite saying she'll sell your stuff for 1.5x, you should be able to manipulate it up such that you get 2x the value for it back! (By comparison, you'll probably only get about 1.2x to 1.3x selling armor back to Bonmalmo). Not to mention that the weapon shop is only a short distance from your own shop, so it's not a long walk between places.
Whether it's faster than manipulating 13 Slime battles (you have enough cash to buy one half plate armor) to drop broad swords/half plate armors is another story, though..
(Edit: Better yet: Wing to the first town. Fight slimes (or any other battle you can end in one turn) and manipulate 6 broad swords off them. Wing back to Endor and sell them at your shop. Maybe even try 5 if you can somehow manipulate more cash out of the shop. This SHOULD give you enough money to buy back 7 more broad swords and all 7 half plates.)
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the armor shop in bonmalo buys armor at a random value up to about 2x the buy value. Notice I get 2118 gold for a half plate.
As for the broad sword Idea:
2000 (buy value) x 2 (wife sell) x 6 = 24,000
when I need 21,041. So won't have to manuplate to get max value.
(After redoing the cave it will only be 5 which will have to be for version 2)
This should work, but It would take time because after the fights I would have to wing back to endor, give them to her one at a time, rest, then take the gold.
It may take longer than the battles but at least it would be more entertaining.
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well chapter 3 is finished (check my page)
the total time is 53 minutes. my original estimate (about a year ago) was that the 1st 4 chapter could be done in under an hour. In my notes I have about 10 minutes worth of improvment for the 1st 3 chapters. That gives me 17 minutes for chapter 4 to still be on pace.
its a little ruff, but done in only 23 minutes!
Note, I went ahead and just fought 13 battles, I tried doing the 6 broad sword Idea noted above but it was way slower. It turned out not to be as boring as I thought.
here are the optimizations for chp 3 that I have noted already:
1) 1st time in Endor walk out immediately (I waste 2 steps)
2) 2nd time I buy wings I should buy them from a random merchant (35 frames saved)
3) Die 1 step after getting statue (instead of 2) (16 frames saved?)
4) Get the 660 gold in cave (so I don’t have to sell broad sword, allowing one less fight later)
5) Talk to king (to get permission for shop) after dying after selling everyting. That way I can wing out and not have to backtrack
6) On way back to buy shop stop and buy wings (instead of after get shop) (a few steps saved)
7) Wing to lakanaba 1st round of fights (better chance of lone slimes and slime couples)
8) Maniuplate encounters better (every step if possible)
9) Manipulate drops to be 1st frame (how long you hit button and in what combinations affect outcome so this should be possible) [potentially several seconds saved]
10) Get 7 of one item each round of fights instead of mixed. This means the guy not listing both categories of remaining items [about 25 frames saved] (only of course if this can be done without costing any frames!)
11) Buy the one wing before delivering final goods instead of after (saving a lot of backtracking).
All in all Id say about 2-3 minutes worth of improvements
Id love to hear any more suggestions
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I like how the run is turning out thus far : )
Quick question: Does talon do his "special attacks" only during Chapter 5? If not, you could possibly use those to end battles faster. If I recall correctly, there is one where he trips and causes some large amount of damage to an enemy.
His special attacks definitely only work in Chapter 5. As for his tripping, it results in a guaranteed critical hit, which would undoubtedly be useful. :) Another of those attacks is the ability to steal a treasure chest from an enemy, which may prove to be quite useful on the right enemies.
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Fro Jackson wrote:
I like how the run is turning out thus far : )
Quick question: Does talon do his "special attacks" only during Chapter 5? If not, you could possibly use those to end battles faster. If I recall correctly, there is one where he trips and causes some large amount of damage to an enemy.
He only does his special attacks in chp 5. But I most definately will be exploiting those when the time comes!
Looking ahead, my part will always have the following:
Hero - duh, but mainly because I can control him
Alena - the only one that has a greater than 1/64 chance of delivering a critical. Hers is lv/256. at lv 99 for instance she has roughly a 1 in 3 chance of getting a critical. combine that with stilletto earings. . .
Taloom - getting criticals is nothing compared to his other attacks. He can bring in an army of merchants to woop some serious ass. also, He can make enemies go to sleep (might be very useful since I will be seriously underleveled).
Ragnar - The way this is going I should NOT need heal spells, so no cristo or nara. Brey and Mara probably won't be leveled high enough to have useful attack spells. so by default he will be my 4th character if I use one. The way its going I may not.
