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Posted: 6/13/2005 12:04 AM
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agopo
Joined: 2/25/2005
Posts: 68
Location: Germany
This might be somewhat of a necropost, but oh well.. I also like what you've done so far, especially how quickly you solve all those small shove-the-pillar riddles and avoid nearly all monsters in a dungeon (except for the bosses). Every now and then though (sorry, can't tell you the exact spots) you seem to take one step too many, or unnecessarily open up the item menu twice in a row.. now I know that you want this to be a final run and not a test run, but.. are you going to fix those (small) errors? Apart from nagging, I hope you keep it up; it's a great game and will be a good run, too, I'm sure.
Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, eh?
I can't believe that saying exists in the english language, too. :D In Germany we say "Einem geschenkten Gaul schaut man nicht ins Maul" which really is the same thing. Coincidence, let off me!
Erklärung der Relativität: "Wenn du deine Nase in meinen Po steckst, haben wir beide eine Nase im Po. Nur ich bin relativ besser dran."
Posted: 6/13/2005 1:12 AM
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quietkane
Player (65)
Joined: 3/29/2005
Posts: 229
Location: The boonies.
agopo wrote:
Every now and then though (sorry, can't tell you the exact spots) you seem to take one step too many, or unnecessarily open up the item menu twice in a row.. now I know that you want this to be a final run and not a test run, but.. are you going to fix those (small) errors?
If you read through the rest of this topic you'll see I have a habit of doing little things that are quite unecessary and consume very small amounts of time. Extra steps is one of those, so if you point them out (even just which dungeon it happens in is helpful) I'll do my best to either correct them or explain why it's necessary. I have no clue what you mean with the opening the item menu twice in a row, though. If you're referring to doing so on the world map, that's to avoid random encounters. If you're referring to something else, please be a little more descriptive or give me a particular example.
agopo wrote:
Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, eh?
I can't believe that saying exists in the english language, too. :D In Germany we say "Einem geschenkten Gaul schaut man nicht ins Maul" which really is the same thing. Coincidence, let off me!
Wow. That's nifty. Now that I think about it, though, it probably came from German. After all, English is a Germanic language. (Just ignore the fact that we stole half our vocabulary from Latin.)
Spoony_Bard wrote:
Still, while I love this particular RPG, some of the plot points are so damn convoluted... "I will sink Seim Island with the device in a tower that is in NO WAY connected to the Island!" "I have your baby! Come to the NORTH LIGHTHOUSE!" And etc... still, that makes the game entertaining.
While we're on the subject of a storyline riddled with plot holes and bad translations, did anyone else get the impression that Hilda was raped by Camu and ended up pregnant? 'Cause I can't figure out any other reason they'd mention that she's "turning into a blimp."
Spoony_Bard wrote:
You're coming up on the Ancient Cave soon, any ideas what items you're going to try to get, if you attempt to manipulate it?
I have this suspicion that I'm sort of going to have to take what I can get, but if I can actually get anything I want in a timely manner, I'll grab the following: Fry Sword Sky Sword Dragon Spear Spark Staff* Ruse Armor* Dark Mirror Hairpin* Dia Ring* Gorgan Rock* Twist Jewel* Black Eye* Silver Eye Gold Eye Items with asterisks next to them are ones I would like, but don't believe I actually need. You'll notice I'm not planning on getting any items for Dekar or Lexis. This is only natural, considering that they're only in the party temporarily. But even furthermore, I'd rather have Dekar's Dekar Blade for its godly IP than any of the Blue Chest equipment with a better attack power. The Silver Eye is largely for its IP, by the way, and I'll be putting it on Selan.
If life were an RPG, I'd be an NPC.
Posted: 6/14/2005 2:54 AM
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quietkane
Player (65)
Joined: 3/29/2005
Posts: 229
Location: The boonies.
Yep. Another update. WIP (zip file, 17K) Save States from various landmarks in the run. (zip file, 1.9MB) Rom used: Lufia II - Rise of the Sinistrals (E) [!].smc I've cleared the Northern Lighthouse and Phantom Tree Mountain. The run ends in the mouth of the Ancient Cave. And I know you guys are eager to see the looting begin, but I'm going to have to do a lot of testing to get this part of the run optimized, so please be patient with me. The Lighthouse is fairly straightforward. I do the box-and-the-door puzzle because I need to get that Dragon Egg, but the Mystery Ring and the Big Shield are pretty much useless, so I skip them. I grab the Fire Ring because I needed some magic attack for Maxim for the fight with Idura. Yes, it's actually faster to cast Escape and then re-enter the tower than it is to take that little warp tile. Even with all the time I spend in the menu. The fight with Idura is one of the simplest in the game so far. He stays asleep the whole time. (Which is why I had to get the Fire Ring.) Phantom Tree Mountain is even more straightforward. There are a couple of places where I had to use rather odd techniques to avoid battles with enemies, but you won't notice one of them because it's only 2 frames long. (It's in the room where I Hookshot from platform to platform, if you're really curious.) Beyond that it's incredibly simple. The fight with the Lions didn't take nearly as long as I thought it would, largely because Maxim was doing way more damage than I expected. (I guess I'm even more glad that I got the Fire Ring.) Guy is the only character with a sub-optimal level. (Why does he gain Int at all? He doesn't need it.) In fact, Selan's levels are just spectacular. As always, comments or suggestions are appreciated, and I'm always happy to answer questions.
If life were an RPG, I'd be an NPC.
Posted: 6/14/2005 12:58 PM
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Spoony_Bard
Former player
Joined: 8/17/2004
Posts: 377
Good luck with the Ancient Cave, try not to get too frustrated with it if it doesn't cooperate. Even if you don't post any new updates to the movie for while, perhaps you could tell us how the Ancient Cave is progressing? It's funny that Selan was able to warp to Aleyn, when you didn't bother traveling there. Good thing for scripted game events, eh? I'm curious though, since you didn't actually enter the town from the world map, is Aleyn on her actual warp list? Is it the act of entering the town, or being IN the town that triggers the addition of the town to the warp list? Just curious... Not much in the way of constructive comments, the Northern Lighthouse (ideal hideout for baby kidnappers everywhere!) and the Phantom Tree Mountain (wouldn't people be worried that he cut down the only phantom tree in existance?) looked really good. Keep it up.
Posted: 6/16/2005 12:31 AM
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quietkane
Player (65)
Joined: 3/29/2005
Posts: 229
Location: The boonies.
Spoony_Bard wrote:
Good luck with the Ancient Cave, try not to get too frustrated with it if it doesn't cooperate. Even if you don't post any new updates to the movie for while, perhaps you could tell us how the Ancient Cave is progressing?
Well, so far I've done all my testing off the movie, so I don't have a WIP to link to. But I'm figuring stuff out pretty well. Unfortunately, there's at least 6 possible layouts per floor, (and at least 12 for the first floor, though that one may actually have indefinite possibilities) and each of those layouts has at least 6 more possible layouts for the next floor, and so on and so forth. So it's going to take a long time to find something that's really anywhere close to optimized. The best route I've found so far collects the Silver Eye and Gold Eye by B6 and then gets the Fry Sword on B12. Hopefully I'll find something better than that, though. As I suspected, the layout for the next floor changes based largely on the amount of time you've spent on your current floor. I know it cycles through the different layouts, but I haven't been able to nail down the pattern nor the ceiling of possible layouts for the next floor. (There are at least 6 per floor, but I know some floors have more than that.) I also have no clue what determines what chests/enemies appear on the next floor, nor whether there's a limit to how many blue chests appear on a given floor. (Or if certain blue chests have a minimum floor they appear on. So far I haven't been able to find anything better than the Gold Eye below floor 10, but that might just be chance.) If anyone has any other relevant data on the Ancient Cave, I'd be glad to hear it.
Spoony_Bard wrote:
It's funny that Selan was able to warp to Aleyn, when you didn't bother traveling there. Good thing for scripted game events, eh? I'm curious though, since you didn't actually enter the town from the world map, is Aleyn on her actual warp list? Is it the act of entering the town, or being IN the town that triggers the addition of the town to the warp list? Just curious...
Good question. To be honest, I hadn't thought about it, because it didn't even occur to me that we'd warp straight there from the mountain until it happened. After checking, yes, Aleyn is on Selan's Warp list. Not that it matters, since we'll never be back again, but there it is; being in the town is the trigger. (Although it's possible that the trigger is actually entering the town, the game just set that flag on her warp list when the plot event happened. But that seems unlikely and a little less plausible.)
If life were an RPG, I'd be an NPC.
Posted: 7/20/2005 11:44 PM
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quietkane
Player (65)
Joined: 3/29/2005
Posts: 229
Location: The boonies.
Argh! This is frustrating. Would any coders like to take a look at this game's function to determine the next floor of the Ancient Cave? 'Cause not only am I having a rough time with this, but I'm going to have to do it all over again when I take my second pass through the game. If you could even just give me the code straight out of the ROM that would be appreciated. (It'd take me a few weeks to figure out what it does/means, but that's better than working blind and trying to figure out which is the best route out of a possible 6^20.) If anyone's wondering if I've made any progress on this, the answer is no. In fact I had to scrap all the work I'd previously done since (for whatever reason) it wouldn't synch when I pasted it to the end of my WIP. (It can't reach the correct 1st floor, I guess because all the work I was doing was anchored on a save state off the movie, which must have done something to the RAM.) I'm currently stumbling through the staggering number of possible B4's, and the best I've been able to come up with is nabbing the Dark Mirror on B3. Anyway, if someone could get me the function from the game's code that would be awesome. (I'll give you a special thanks in the author's notes.) If someone can interpret that function and it turns out to be enough of a help, I'd even give them co-authorship.
If life were an RPG, I'd be an NPC.
Posted: 8/13/2005 1:32 AM
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qbproger
Joined: 12/7/2004
Posts: 69
any work being done on this one?
Posted: 8/15/2005 2:21 AM
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quietkane
Player (65)
Joined: 3/29/2005
Posts: 229
Location: The boonies.
No, for three reasons: 1) The computer I was doing this on is being very picky about when it decides to work. I could transfer all the work to this computer (the laptop), but I choose not to because it's just more hassle tacked onto these next two reasons. 2) The sheer amount of testing required for this means I need to get uber organized about it, and on top of that, I'm going to have to find a long stretch of time where I can (and am willing to) work on this with most/all of my spare time. So far I've been testing each potential "next floor" by going through it, and then all of the floors it can lead to, and then all of the floors those can lead to. That's between 25 and 36 floors per potential floor. But on the plus side, this means that when I find something I'm satisfied with, I have the next three floors done. In short, I have to do the work on this section in chunks, and I haven't had any time for a chunk in several weeks because of this third reason. 3) I'm moving next week. I'm transferring colleges, and I've been spending the past two-and-a-half weeks trying to get things set up and situated and whatnot. (Not just with the college, either. Housing and employment have been pissy about this, too.) Unfortunately, the various buerocracies have been very inefficient in terms of giving me answers and/or processing various these and those. Of course, that just makes life that much more difficult for me. But hopefully all of this is going to be sorted out very soon. At the very latest my life ought to be less hectic once classes start, which will be the 22nd. At that point I'll have more time to get organized and find out what's going on with my Desktop. (I suspect the memory's going bad, but the whole thing's about due for an upgrade, or maybe just an all-out replacement. But even if the desktop does need replacing, I can always transfer the work to this computer, which has no problems.) So, yeah. It's kind of a culmination of events conspiring against me. It'll pass and I'll be able to get some more work done. (Although it would still be really nice to be able to look at the code, if for no other reason than to see exactly what the limit on n+1 floors is.)
If life were an RPG, I'd be an NPC.
Posted: 8/28/2005 6:50 PM
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Enhasa
Joined: 1/14/2005
Posts: 216
Take your time, I just went through all this grad school late application and reapplication, overloading courses, committee forming, student services, securing an RA position, getting all my tuition waivers through, ETC... so I can empathize. ;) I'm sure the wait for a high quality run will be more than worth it. I have something I wrote a while back that I'll paste here first. At this point, you probably know more about TAS'ing the AC than I ever will, but maybe something will help. The AC is commonly referred to as randomly generated. A little thought shows this isn't true; for example, those rooms with tons and tons of enemies and chests would not happen "randomly." How it works is, each floor has a certain number of pregenerated maps (like 8 or something), and the game selects one based on the frame in which you hit the stairs. Meaning, you could work it so that you get a Blue Chest basically every floor. I could have sworn I once saw a site with all the possible maps, but since I can't find it, I may have just been imagining this. I don't remember how early I've ever gotten Providence, since that's not something I ever had to pay attention to. But since like I said the maps are not actually randomly generated, I think there might be an actual cap on how early you can get it. I would take anything people say in general about the AC with a grain of salt. People say things like MP recovery spots exist, that have finally been proven false by romhackers. There's a guy on the gamefaqs message boards, relinquishd or something like that, who'd be a lot of help. Currently though, gamefaqs seems to be down, so I can't tell you any more, but there have been somewhat relatively recent discoveries about the game's algorithms. relnqshd is apparently on permanent hiatus, unfortunately. As for Dark Mirror on B3, it's possible that the game designers didn't want blue chests on the first two floors, and that's really the first one you can get. My question to you is: you make it sound like the number of next floors at any point is exponential, or at least very large. I doubt the designers would make it so that you will need to check 6^20 routes. Are you sure it doesn't work closer to what I described above? It would be a big morale booster if it wasn't so daunting.
"I think happiness is just being able to loaf without stress." http://speeddemosarchive.com/
Posted: 9/22/2005 3:52 AM
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Lord_Bahamut
Joined: 9/7/2005
Posts: 143
Location: Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
Bumping for progress update after three weeks.
This guy are sick.
Posted: 9/25/2005 12:54 AM
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TheAxeMan
Ambassador, Experienced player (697)
Joined: 7/17/2004
Posts: 985
Location: The FLOATING CASTLE
Well I finally got around to watching the full WIP, and I'm quite impressed. You clearly know the game very well and have a pretty good array of tricks. The many puzzles are done well too. I hope to see this finished sometime, it would be a shame to give up after making it so far!
Posted: 10/3/2005 11:32 PM
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quietkane
Player (65)
Joined: 3/29/2005
Posts: 229
Location: The boonies.
*rubs eyes* Yeah, I'm not dead yet. Ok, it's good-news/bad-news time. The bad news is that my real life has been incredibly hectic ever since I moved. I had a hell of a time getting registered for classes, (I'll spare you the details there) and in fact I was only able to register for one class before registration "officially" ended. As such I've been playing catch-up for the past month or so, and I think I've finally managed to do so. Unfortunately midterms are coming up, so I'm not going to have much opportunity to do much of anything for another couple of weeks. The good news is that I have done a lot of work on this run. I have once again started working on the cave from scratch, but I think this time I'm attacking the problem correctly. It turns out that the number of possible floors varies from floor to floor. There are 7 possible B1's, but there are 11 possible B2's from B1-A, and then 13 possible B2's from B1-D. The function that generates floors (and I'm pretty sure it is pseudo-randomly generated, rather than selected from a pre-generated set; I've found several dozen distinct B2's so far.) is highly confusing, but I'm doing my best to work through this. I hope that I'll have something to show you guys by Oct 17. In fact, I'm going to go ahead and promise that I'll have something worth posting by then, even if it's only the first 6 floors of the cave.
If life were an RPG, I'd be an NPC.
Posted: 10/4/2005 11:41 AM
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Spoony_Bard
Former player
Joined: 8/17/2004
Posts: 377
Go for it. We're rootin' for ya.
Posted: 10/11/2005 8:22 PM
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quietkane
Player (65)
Joined: 3/29/2005
Posts: 229
Location: The boonies.
Another discovery that's going to set me back. New data: the layout of a given floor does not affect the contents of the chests therein. (Exception: chests containing spells have fixed contents. I'm not sure why, but I'm pretty confident about this.) Furthermore, there seems to be a literally infinite amount of possible drops for a given dungeon floor. (As opposed to simply inumerably indefinite, as was pre-supposed.) The good: This means I can force any drop on any floor if I have enough patience. Furthermore, this also probably means that I'll never have to use a floor with a very out-of-the-way stair. (I.e: one I can't reach without killing a monster.) The bad: This means I have to scrap all my work up to this point again. It also means I'm going to have to do a lot more work than I had previously believed in order to get a near-optimized run of the cave. The ugly: I'm almost certainly going to end up just standing in front of most of the stairs for a few seconds before entering. Lovely, eh? I still plan on giving you guys an update next Monday, but at this point that's only looking like it's going to be the first 3 floors, rather than the first 6.
If life were an RPG, I'd be an NPC.
Posted: 10/11/2005 9:14 PM
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Spoony_Bard
Former player
Joined: 8/17/2004
Posts: 377
If it means getting the best items for a faster game, then a few seconds wait is no big deal. Good luck with it.
Posted: 10/15/2005 1:06 AM
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StormEagle
Joined: 10/15/2005
Posts: 12
Yeah, the posted FF1 run has to wait almost a minute on the Bane Sword sometimes.
Posted: 11/25/2005 2:29 PM
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Meeloow
Joined: 7/12/2005
Posts: 4
Can anyone tell me where I can find the forum rules? I've tried several Lufia 2 ROM's with the exact description as quietkane gave, but they all seem to freeze after talking to the grandpa in the newbie dungeon. [Edited by Bisqwit]
Posted: 11/25/2005 4:18 PM
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daniayaw
Former player
Joined: 7/29/2005
Posts: 459
Location: Brazil
Meeloow wrote:
I've tried several Lufia 2 ROM's with the exact description as quietkane gave, but they all seem to freeze after talking to the grandpa in the newbie dungeon.
just check the CRC: FDB80165 version (e) [!]
<small>My big signature was cleared by admin; i should read <a href="http://tasvideos.org/ForumRules.html">forum rules</a>. But... who does?</small>
Posted: 11/25/2005 5:18 PM
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Meeloow
Joined: 7/12/2005
Posts: 4
daniayaw wrote:
Meeloow wrote:
I've tried several Lufia 2 ROM's with the exact description as quietkane gave, but they all seem to freeze after talking to the grandpa in the newbie dungeon.
just check the CRC: FDB80165 version (e) [!]
Sigh, that's the problem. I've tried about 5 different roms with the same [E] and [!] signs. That's why i'm asking for a properly working ROM.
Posted: 11/25/2005 5:23 PM
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Bisqwit
Editor, Active player (296)
Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth
Meeloow wrote:
Can anyone tell me where I can find the forum rules?
Certainly. How nice that you asked before breaking them. Here: http://tasvideos.org/forum/t/4
Posted: 11/25/2005 5:28 PM
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Meeloow
Joined: 7/12/2005
Posts: 4
Okay, thanks. How am I gonna watch the speedrun?
Posted: 11/25/2005 9:09 PM
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quietkane
Player (65)
Joined: 3/29/2005
Posts: 229
Location: The boonies.
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.
If life were an RPG, I'd be an NPC.
Posted: 11/26/2005 8:33 PM
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Meeloow
Joined: 7/12/2005
Posts: 4
Ah, thanks alot for your reply, quietkane. I'm sorry to hear your friend died. Take your time on the speedrun, we can wait. :) It works, I can watch it now! Thanks again!!
Posted: 5/8/2006 5:45 AM
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Enhasa
Joined: 1/14/2005
Posts: 216
I hope quietkane is doing ok, but it's time for me to give this a bump of love! Anyway, so while I was going back and watching all the TAS WIPs I hadn't before, I watched this one of course, since I probably care about this the most. Well, I'll write down what I thought of. - more boomerang... Actually on SDA, some guy was doing a Lufia 2 test run (and not doing a very good job at all). He got Tia and then went back to town and saved in 27 minutes. I thought this could be much improved, so I tried myself, legitimately on emu. I got 12 minutes, with the Insect Crush (since you'd want it if you were to keep on going), and basically I boomerang'd the crap outta everyone. With the WIP, I took control and walked to the save cleric, and got the very start of 17 minutes. This makes me rather sure that the beginning could be done better. I fought less fights, used more boomerangs, and didn't get Strong. However, I don't think it's even worth buying Strong, just waiting until you can get Stronger. Potions and Boomerangs are quite good enough I think, and faster. - avoid more enemies (i.e. by walking) instead of shooting? I don't know if this actually could have been done more, but given quietkane's optimization on the movement, puzzles, and everything else, maybe not. - less wasted action in battle (i.e. with Tia)... A lot of people forget about this. It's generally faster to defend with bad offensive characters than it is to attack with them for relatively small amounts of damage. Maybe Tia's attacks are needed? I don't remember. - Tanbel Southeast Tower twice? The first time is to get some overpowered equipment. I'm generally a big fan of RPG run minimalism, but possibly this was ok since you don't have regular encounters in Lufia 2 and you run like the wind. Still, a whole traversal of a tower is a lot. I shudder when I see non-obvious chests being picked up, sorry. =p - nice use of Drowsy vs Idura! I didn't know you could do that. That's the hardest battle in the entire game too, so I don't know if maybe it could be done elsewhere but it isn't worth it, or what. I went back and tried it myself, to see if it was a weakness, but you have to luck manipulate to get it of course. =p Well, it's no Dragon Warrior I suppose. Again, I hope you're doing well and everything is peachy keen as the ofay kids say. Even if you have lost interest, which would be sad but understandable, you should know that when Dragondarch does Lufia 2 for SDA (it's next in the queue), your work thus far will be very helpful to him. =) (And me too, since I'll be helping him.)
"I think happiness is just being able to loaf without stress." http://speeddemosarchive.com/
Posted: 5/8/2006 11:51 PM
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quietkane
Player (65)
Joined: 3/29/2005
Posts: 229
Location: The boonies.
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.)
If life were an RPG, I'd be an NPC.
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