Topic by Tilus

Posted: 12/22/2005 7:00 AM

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Tilus

Former player

Joined: 9/24/2004
Posts: 177

Nice job with the run, putting what's different between FF2 US and FF4 Advance to good use. And wow, only now do I see how much quicker the party moves in FF4 Advance, knocking out Mist Dragon before it has a chance to turn into mist XD There is one thing you did miss compared to my run in progress, and that's that on the second floor of Antlion Cave, there's a secret passage that runs beneath the exit to Antlion's lair which gets you there faster than the route you took. And yeah, you should've picked up the Emergency Exit item and if you don't use it there, you can hold onto it for later use.

Posted: 12/22/2005 7:01 AM

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nitsuja

Emulator Coder, Skilled player (1301)

Joined: 12/21/2004
Posts: 2687

I'm not very far into watching this yet, but I'm wondering about the Mist Dragon fight. You give 2 critical hits to Cecil's attack for 70+ damage, but Kain's jump can critical (although the screen doesn't flash) for 120+ damage. Would it have been too much waiting to get Kain to have those criticals instead of Cecil? Also, did you find a way to cause the 2-attack bug? I think it can be made to happen at will by causing one character's ATB bar to become full exactly when another character's does, and quickly attacking with the first character at that moment. In SNES FF4 it was very easy to make Tellah kill Octomammoth in 1 hit with Thundaga, but I guess it's not so easy to manipulate that with the changed randomness of the GBA version?

Posted: 12/22/2005 7:57 AM

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Kitsune

Joined: 4/29/2005
Posts: 1212

I love the WIP so far, hehe. I do suggest though, that you let get Cecil into a fight to gain some big experience before leaving the mountain. That's what I did, hehe. Gained Six or so levels from one fight. Might take a few minutes, but it will be worth it I think. I noticed that you let Rydia Level up quite a bit as well. I feel that is a good idea if you plan to have her in your party at the end of the game. Rydia is my favorite Black Mage/Summoner, hehe. Once Tellah is gone, she will likely be your Strongest Black Mage, except for the Mysidian kid and his Bluff ability.

Posted: 12/22/2005 4:02 PM

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ventuz

He/Him

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Joined: 10/4/2004
Posts: 940

nitsuja wrote:

In SNES FF4 it was very easy to make Tellah kill Octomammoth in 1 hit with Thundaga, but I guess it's not so easy to manipulate that with the changed randomness of the GBA version?

Tellah had *aga spells at beginning of game?.. wasn't it came from spot where Cecil becomes paladin?

Posted: 12/22/2005 4:44 PM

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Spoony_Bard

Former player

Joined: 8/17/2004
Posts: 377

In the JP SNES FF4 Tellah had the 'Recall' skill (like he does in the PSX and GBA remakes, but not the US FF2) which makes him randomly cast one of his 'forgotten' spells. With manipulation in the SNES FF4 you can make him use Thundaga on Octomammoth. So either Phil couldn't get him to use Thundaga, Thundaga's damage on Octomammoth was lowered to the point that Bio was more effective, or he didn't think to use Thundaga.

Posted: 12/22/2005 4:55 PM

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Phil

Active player (410)

Joined: 3/16/2004
Posts: 2623
Location: America, Québec

Mart wrote:

I watched your movie, and I love the menu scrolling speed you got there, since it is known among many FF4A cart owners that menu navigation is sloppy at times.

I didn't noticed any sloppyness. Sometimes, moving the cursor can take 1 frame slower to move but that's not much. I know sometimes the game is lagging for unknown reason. That may be what people had experienced.

Mart wrote:

I noticed that you missed an Emergency Exit item (which is basically the same as the Exit spell) in the Antlion cave. If I recall correctly, it is on the floor before the boss. That can be useful either to get out of that dungeon, or any other.

There's so many new items in that game. Anyway, I was sure I had checked all treasures in that cave. I probably missed that one. Anyway, now with more complete FAQ, it will be easier.

Mart wrote:

In the Fabul war, at the last battle before you face Kain, if you could let Cecil live under 50 hp, it might shorten the Cecil vs Kain encounter, if cecil's not fully restored as when he dies during the war. I'm not sure on that one, but if he keeps his sub-50 HP, that would save time. That would need to be tested, though...

I don't know, I am sure it stills replenish Cecil. But maybe you should test it yourself and report it here. ;)

Mart wrote:

Oh, and do you happen to know which memory areas manage item-dropping odds? Been trying to track this down, but to no avail...

It's 0200e098.

Tilus wrote:

Nice job with the run, putting what's different between FF2 US and FF4 Advance to good use. And wow, only now do I see how much quicker the party moves in FF4 Advance, knocking out Mist Dragon before it has a chance to turn into mist XD

I am not 100% sure but I think Mist Dragon transfom a little later than FF2.

Tilus wrote:

There is one thing you did miss compared to my run in progress, and that's that on the second floor of Antlion Cave, there's a secret passage that runs beneath the exit to Antlion's lair which gets you there faster than the route you took. And yeah, you should've picked up the Emergency Exit item and if you don't use it there, you can hold onto it for later use.

Unless you know a way to break the wall... Just kidding. Apparently that passage had been removed. Unless I am missing something. I think it's better to use the emergency exit there since later, I am supposed to have the spell.

nitsuja wrote:

I'm not very far into watching this yet, but I'm wondering about the Mist Dragon fight. You give 2 critical hits to Cecil's attack for 70+ damage, but Kain's jump can critical (although the screen doesn't flash) for 120+ damage. Would it have been too much waiting to get Kain to have those criticals instead of Cecil?

Well, yes it's true that I can do Kain made a critical hit with his jump ability but it requires Cecil to not attack. With Cecil I could do more attack while Kain is jumping. I probably need to do some extra testings on that fight but I don't think I can do so much faster.

nitsuja wrote:

Also, did you find a way to cause the 2-attack bug? I think it can be made to happen at will by causing one character's ATB bar to become full exactly when another character's does, and quickly attacking with the first character at that moment.

Well, I don't think that's what make that 2-attack bug. I am not sure if it's a bug or intentional.

Mart wrote:

Do you know if you could have got Thundaga instead? I'm not sure to what Recall is limited.

ventuz wrote:

nitsuja wrote:
In SNES FF4 it was very easy to make Tellah kill Octomammoth in 1 hit with Thundaga, but I guess it's not so easy to manipulate that with the changed randomness of the GBA version?
Tellah had *aga spells at beginning of game?.. wasn't it came from spot where Cecil becomes paladin?

Spoony_Bard wrote:

In the JP SNES FF4 Tellah had the 'Recall' skill (like he does in the PSX and GBA remakes, but not the US FF2) which makes him randomly cast one of his 'forgotten' spells. With manipulation in the SNES FF4 you can make him use Thundaga on Octomammoth. So either Phil couldn't get him to use Thundaga, Thundaga's damage on Octomammoth was lowered to the point that Bio was more effective, or he didn't think to use Thundaga.

I really don't understand why people think that Tellah can cast all such spells. It's written in some FAQs at GameFaqs.com that Tellah can cast Fire 3 on Snes with Recall. LIARS. I have also tried the japanese version. The only spells that Tellah can cast on Snes as well as the GBA version are: Fire, Ice(Blizzard), Lit(Thunder), Toad, Weak(Tornado), Doom(Death), Stone(Break) and Virus(Bio). There's no Fira or Firaga. Also, Tellah doesn't cast White spell as those FAQ suggested. Those FAQs are cheating you. :P And because of that Bio is the most powerful spell that Tellah can cast. [Edit]: Btw, I found a way to manipulate Battles. Either I could make sure that there's no battle at all on my way or having different enemies in those battles. The only way that I found to do that requires to use quicksave and return to Title screen and load the game. I don't know if you prefer that since I think it can be annoying or not to do that at all. I am waiting your opinions. And do you love to see the 2-attack bug or prefer that I don't use it at all?

Posted: 12/22/2005 5:21 PM

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Spoony_Bard

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Joined: 8/17/2004
Posts: 377

Hmmm, well it depends on how often you'll need to do it. You seem to have good luck with running so far, so I don't know if it would be worth quicksaving and resetting just to avoid an encounter. Maybe later in the game if you're trying to get specific encounters for leveling purposes... I don't know, it's really hard to say. In terms of aesthetics it does look really nasty, though.

Posted: 12/22/2005 5:28 PM

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Phil

Active player (410)

Joined: 3/16/2004
Posts: 2623
Location: America, Québec

I think I can avoid more than just 1 battle with that. Well, I haven't tested all possibilties but I noticed that using it can make sure you walk safely for long time without any encounters. Well, it happens once when I was doing a quick checking.

Posted: 12/22/2005 6:40 PM

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Genisto

Active player (266)

Joined: 4/11/2004
Posts: 86
Location: Quebec,Canada

It's possible to avoid every battle by doing quicksave, but it will make the movie, borring to watch. Think about seeing, returning to the main menu hundreds of time. What do you think about that?

Posted: 12/22/2005 6:43 PM

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Phil

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Joined: 3/16/2004
Posts: 2623
Location: America, Québec

I don't like that idea. It's just that I don't want to be beaten later by this trick that's why I ask this question. I agree with Spoony_Bard that it should only be used for making exp.

Posted: 12/22/2005 6:55 PM

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nitsuja

Emulator Coder, Skilled player (1301)

Joined: 12/21/2004
Posts: 2687

Phil wrote:

Well, I don't think that's what make that 2-attack bug.

I am pretty sure that is what makes it happen, or at least it's something very close to what I said. Look at the battle vs. Rydia - their ATB bars match up exactly and you can do the 2-attack bug against Rydia just by putting A on autofire. And I've been able to make the 2-attack happen against the Mist Dragon by waiting the right number of frames before attacking with Cecil so that Kain's next turn comes up exactly when Cecil's next turn does.

Phil wrote:

And do you love to see the 2-attack bug or prefer that I don't use it at all?

Use it when it's faster like anything else, it's part of the game. It's not an overpowering bug or anything. (It's probably not often that it will save much time, but it would be silly to purposely avoid it when it does.)

Phil wrote:

Well, yes it's true that I can do Kain made a critical hit with his jump ability but it requires Cecil to not attack.

Maybe you could do an attack at the end of the previous enemy battle you run from, to change the critical hit randomness for the battle so that Kain gets a critical hit on at least one jump without having to wait for him?

Phil wrote:

I really don't understand why people think that Tellah can cast all such spells. It's written in some FAQs at GameFaqs.com that Tellah can cast Fire 3 on Snes with Recall. LIARS. I have also tried the japanese version. The only spells that Tellah can cast on Snes as well as the GBA version are: Fire, Ice(Blizzard), Lit(Thunder), Toad, Weak(Tornado), Doom(Death), Stone(Break) and Virus(Bio).

I had Tellah cast Lit 2 or Lit 3 (can't remember which) on Octomammoth when I played FFIV hardtype (it was a fan translation, but I doubt the translation changed Tellah's spells). It did several thousand HP of damage, killing that boss in 1 hit. It's possible they took it out of Tellah's spell list in this remake, though.

Phil wrote:

Btw, I found a way to manipulate Battles. Either I could make sure that there's no battle at all on my way or having different enemies in those battles. The only way that I found to do that requires to use quicksave and return to Title screen and load the game. I don't know if you prefer that since I think it can be annoying or not to do that at all.

I think you should do this if it really saves time overall compared to anything else you could do. I don't see how going through a few menus would be uglier than running from a few battles anyway, we already see enough running as it is, and if it's really faster then it should be smoother. Whatever you want to do, though.

Posted: 12/22/2005 11:22 PM

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Phil

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Joined: 3/16/2004
Posts: 2623
Location: America, Québec

nitsuja wrote:

Phil wrote:
Well, yes it's true that I can do Kain made a critical hit with his jump ability but it requires Cecil to not attack.
Maybe you could do an attack at the end of the previous enemy battle you run from, to change the critical hit randomness for the battle so that Kain gets a critical hit on at least one jump without having to wait for him?

I don't want to be pessimist but I don't think it will work. Even if it works, does it worth to lose such time?

nitsuja wrote:

Phil wrote:
I really don't understand why people think that Tellah can cast all such spells. It's written in some FAQs at GameFaqs.com that Tellah can cast Fire 3 on Snes with Recall. LIARS. I have also tried the japanese version. The only spells that Tellah can cast on Snes as well as the GBA version are: Fire, Ice(Blizzard), Lit(Thunder), Toad, Weak(Tornado), Doom(Death), Stone(Break) and Virus(Bio).
I had Tellah cast Lit 2 or Lit 3 (can't remember which) on Octomammoth when I played FFIV hardtype (it was a fan translation, but I doubt the translation changed Tellah's spells). It did several thousand HP of damage, killing that boss in 1 hit. It's possible they took it out of Tellah's spell list in this remake, though.

You should send me a smv because I know it's not true since I have tested myself a couple monthes ago to see what kind of spell he can cast. And don't hack to make it cast the spell :P Btw, are you sure you didn't cast Lit 3 on Kainazzo instead?

Posted: 12/22/2005 11:28 PM

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Mart

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Joined: 10/12/2004
Posts: 19
Location: Montreal beach, baby!

Phil wrote:

Mart wrote:
Oh, and do you happen to know which memory areas manage item-dropping odds? Been trying to track this down, but to no avail...
It's 0200e098.

Thanks. That's the memory area that stores the first item type, along with 0200e099 being the area that stores the quantity. What I was actually looking for are the memory areas for each 8 monster slots that influence whether the monster should drop the item or not. And if possible the value range for the 1/2, 7/16, 3/64 and 1/64 odds of possible items. And where are you at, as of now? Just curious...

Karma can be vengeful, don't screw around wit it!

Posted: 12/22/2005 11:48 PM

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Phil

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Joined: 3/16/2004
Posts: 2623
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Ah, I forgot to give the adress of quantity ;P What you are asking is more complicated. What makes an enemy to drop items depends on many factor. It doesn't seem to be "1/2, 7/16, 3/64 and 1/64 " on GBA, I think it is 1/8, 1/32, 1/128 and 1/256 from what it looks on GBA. They are harder to obtain. Well, from what I have experienced. Note that I may be wrong. But why you want to know that? And I am where I am in my video. Though I may redo some part. Btw, do you think I should use quicksave to manipulate luck.

Posted: 12/22/2005 11:57 PM

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Mart

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Joined: 10/12/2004
Posts: 19
Location: Montreal beach, baby!

Well, that was mostly out of curiosity. I was wondering what exactly influenced the drop on each enemy slot. But it seems like not many people have figured it out (which isn't surprising, the game's been out for only 2 weeks). As for the quickstate trick, I'd have to see an example of it. But I'd think that 50 resets in a TAS would kinda look like someone who uses the cheap way out, aestetically-wise, while luck manips and runs don't look like that. But as I said, I'd have to see an example to compare how it looks. Maybe it won't look so bad, who knows...

Karma can be vengeful, don't screw around wit it!

Posted: 12/23/2005 12:02 AM

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Phil

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Joined: 3/16/2004
Posts: 2623
Location: America, Québec

I should probably do a demo from start to Mist Dragon to show people what it looks like. Who is also trying to find how to make items drops? Where? And why? Just modify the adress I gave you before plus quantity and you can obtain all items you desire.

Posted: 1/3/2006 4:21 PM

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DJ_FozzBozz

Former player

I found something on Octomammoth, I think it could be usefull. I found out that it isn't a fixed amount of damage that kills his tentacles. I had the Goblin summon, and it only does 1 dmg. Yet almost everytime I used it, it "killed" a tentacle. I figured out that the first part of Octomammoth (From all tentacles to 2 tentacles) remembers the number of succesful attacks you do, and not the amount of damage you do. So the question is, does Octomammoth's hps start to drop when there's only 1 tentacle left, or if it accumulates both dmg and number of hits you do? If its hp starts to drop when there's only one tentacle left, then you don't have to waste time with using strong attacks, or anything that takes more time than a regular attack, until Octomammoth's last "form".

Posted: 1/3/2006 5:42 PM

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Mart

Former player

Joined: 10/12/2004
Posts: 19
Location: Montreal beach, baby!

Actually, my good friend, Octo loses his tentacles every 2~3 hits. However, his HP drops normally on any attack. The tentacle image switch represents his frequency of attacks decreasing, as if you'd chop his tentacles off. So therefore, it won't really have that much of an impact. If you wish, I'll show ya next time I come over to your place.

Karma can be vengeful, don't screw around wit it!

Posted: 1/3/2006 11:08 PM

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Paulygon

Joined: 4/6/2004
Posts: 74
Location: California

Quick note about the item-dropping odds. The odds of getting anything at all per monster is 5/98 in this version (learned that from gfaqs board from knowledgeable hackers). Once past that, then the regular odds come into play. On the SNES, the treasure probabilities were reduced to fractions from smaller ranges completely covering the total space of 0 through 255, namely: 1/2 = 0..127 5/16 = 128..207 11/64 = 208..251 1/64 = 252..255 I'm pretty sure this has carried over, but haven't confirmed it personally.

Posted: 1/6/2006 7:16 PM

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Phil

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Posts: 2623
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Paulygon wrote:

(learned that from gfaqs board from knowledgeable hackers).

Link plz.

Posted: 1/7/2006 8:05 AM

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Paulygon

Joined: 4/6/2004
Posts: 74
Location: California

Hmm, I think it's gone by now (you know how topics get purged there after awhile). At least, I didn't see it in a casual perusal of the current topics. I have seen the 5/98 figure repeated without dispute many times recently, however. For example, here's a "Pink Tail" topic that mentions it. http://boards.gamefaqs.com/gfaqs/genmessage.php?board=929937&topic=25529548

Posted: 1/7/2006 9:33 PM

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nitsuja

Emulator Coder, Skilled player (1301)

Joined: 12/21/2004
Posts: 2687

But right before it says "There's the 5/98 Drop ANYTHING rate" it says "These stats are only for the group of 5 [Flan Princesses] you find in the Room." That's for the whole enemy group, so it must be less than that per enemy (at least it seems like it, or where else did they get that 5 from?), and I don't know whether it only applies to groups of that particular type of enemy.

Posted: 1/7/2006 11:51 PM

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Phil

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Joined: 3/16/2004
Posts: 2623
Location: America, Québec

I don't think it's totally true. As far as I know, it's easier to get items when you kill enemies separately than killing all of them in one shot. That's to be considerate in his basic equation. There's a lot more variables that makes the randomness than he thought. And from what I know, items are harder to get on GBA than on Snes and from what I have seen from some topics at Gamefaqs board.

Posted: 1/9/2006 10:14 PM

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Enhasa

Joined: 1/14/2005
Posts: 216

Apparently I missed the boat when everyone switched from FF2 US/FF4 SFC to FF4 GBA. I wanted to say, I might be able to help out a little with advice since I improved Peter's run of FF2 US at SDA by 20 minutes from 4:15 to 3:55. You can get the run here and the comments here for now if anyone's interested. It may not be very useful for a FF4 TAS, but at the very least, it has to be a better reference/source of ideas than Peter's old run. Disclaimer: I have not played FF4 GBA and do not intend on getting it or the ROM. This also means I haven't watched the WIP either. Anyway, I'm a little surprised that the opinions of the remake are so positive here, but at SDA the reaction is mixed, especially on battle speed 1. I'm completely surprised that there are people here who are against powersave abuse, and even sequence breaking and mass leveling. Has this site been invaded by TG? I thought the TAS crowd would be the most liberal on use of glitches, massive luck manipulation, and all that. To me, if you don't use everything you can, that's like those people who complain that the text is advancing too fast and could you please wait more. Now some general points I want to say about this TAS in progress. I hear all this talk about fighting regular enemies in a TAS and it seems really suboptimal to me. I tested multiple times in a real speedrun up to Paladin, and not leveling at all vs getting Rydia Lit1 is definitely faster. In fact, most of the time I save vs Peter is because I only fight 2 regular enemy fights in the entire game, both DMachin's. And in a TAS, not fighting regular fights has to be an even better decision than in a speedrun, because you can just manipulate better, and even better in hardtype because you can do all this stuff like Tellah's random spell. Also, are we completely sure that the Alerter guys in the Giant don't still summon Dragon Mechs, because it wouldn't make sense for them to take that out. Even in FF2 US, some Alerters summon Centaurs and others summon the Dragon Mechs. I needed to reload many times because I got Centaurs and there's no way to tell until they're summoned. It could still be like that in this version and Tilus just didn't test very well. I would have suggested Attacker/Defender because it should be better in a TAS (I used DMachin because it is too difficult to use Attacker/Defender in a speedrun). But if that no longer works, I suggest the same leveling spot as my run, only gaining minimal levels of course. (Rosa is the one who needs to be in highest level if that helps you.) I also thought duping Excalibur would be better in a TAS but apparently the item glitch has been fixed, so I think either Crystal sword or nothing would be the best. I can't give a solid suggestion because I do not remember exactly how much harder hardtype Zeromus is, but I think Crystal sword should be better because Cecil's attack goes way up and it doesn't take long to get. As for items to get, this is what I have settled on for FF2 US speedrun... you need to adapt this to FF4 GBA TAS (I removed some obvious things to remove), but whatever is still valid I believe is correct. At least it's some ideas. - Darkness sword - buy 4 Headbands after you get Yang in Baron - get the Tiara and Change rod from Rydia's house after getting airship (the Tiara goes on Rydia, then can go on Rosa in the end) - Fire sword - Earth hammer - Catclaw, potentially a previous claw if it increases attack multiplier - buy Blizzard spear in Cave Eblan - Dragoon EQ - Protect ring - White robe - Crystal sword Basically, you want something if it drastically increases your attack power, increases your attack or magic multiplier, or helps you need fewer levels to gain vs Zeromus. Except for Zeromus, I don't get a single item for defense in a speedrun, so it ought to be even less necessary in a TAS. Everyone seems to usually want to pick up too many items. It's usually not worth the time. If you think maybe it should be more manipulation and less items, I suggest items and more manipulation would be even better. I wanted to say, it seems very strange that a lot of the romhackers on gamefaqs will discover interesting things and then leave them on the gamefaqs board where nobody will see it and it gets erased, compared to an FAQ where people could see it, or posting here where people could really use the info. I know there was a guy who knew every little thing there is to know about Lufia 2 but went AWOL, and quietkane was busy killing himself trying to experiment everything. That's all I can think of right now.

"I think happiness is just being able to loaf without stress." http://speeddemosarchive.com/

Posted: 1/11/2006 8:33 AM

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Paulygon

Joined: 4/6/2004
Posts: 74
Location: California

There are 4 different drop-anything calculations in the original, which I assume were carried over, and each enemy was assigned one of them. 0 means the enemy would never drop an item (Domovoi, etc.), 1 means an infrequent drop (most enemies), 2 means a more frequent (though still not frequent) drop (the centaur-like enemies, iirc), and 3 means a guaranteed drop (Dr. Lugae, Brachioraidos, etc.) I'm sure the 5/98 (~5.10%) in this one corresponds to the "1" category, although in the original, the odds were slightly higher at 15/256 (~5.86%), as you said, Phil. The confusion on 5/98 arises from the fact that these odds seem to only ever be discussed in terms of the standard PinkPuff/Flan Princess battle, so I'm pretty sure the 5 does not relate to the number of them. Anyway, I know Terence studies disassembly of game code (I've seen some of his findings for Dawn of Souls). He discussed the derivation of the 5/98 ratio in a topic once, though not in technical detail (and of course I didn't save it v_v). Having done disassembly for some NES/SNES games (and little for GBA games), I'm keenly aware that even when the code for something is found, sometimes there's still the possibility of some unknown influence. That may indeed be the case here, but if he's found out more since then, it hasn't been discussed publicly to my knowledge. So until more info surfaces, I'd be inclined to take the existing figure at face value.