Joined: 8/6/2006
Posts: 784
Location: Connecticut, USA
I'm pretty sure the RNG for this game has already been thoroughly researched. I know there's a specific document on GameFAQs about it, though it may only pertain to getting rare drops. Still, it's something to think about.
Oh, and while you're at GameFAQs, check out the Golden Sun guide by yours truly. ;)
I'm pretty sure the RNG for this game has already been thoroughly researched. I know there's a specific document on GameFAQs about it, though it may only pertain to getting rare drops. Still, it's something to think about.
Oh, and while you're at GameFAQs, check out the Golden Sun guide by yours truly. ;)
The RNG guide at gamefaqs almost only covers item drops (I used it when I played the game :P). It covers the in-battle RNG functions fairly extensively (and those are fairly manipulatable), but IIRC, the RNG function that determines random battles is set the moment you enter a room or move to the world map, and can only be reset (as far as I know) by entering a battle. Considering that nine times out of ten it's faster to just run from battles than to fight them, this makes for a fairly dull TAS.
I did some preliminary investigation into doing a TAS for this game, and I fully support anyone who wants to give it a shot.
I'm pretty sure that that interest would only extend to those who actually played the Golden Sun games.
I don't find any RPG on the site enjobaly to watch which I'm unfamilar with.
Most RPG TAS's aren't enjoyable to watch because relativistic gameplay RPG's have. I mean: If someone had played Golden Sun, they would be able to appreciate how much a TAS could 'break' the game. A platformer or FPS, on the other hand, requires no such insight in order to appreciate this.
DonamerDragon's Dragon Warrior Monster TAS is a masterpiece, but few people can appreciate that because it wasn't ever a widely played game.
An hour? o.o;
You'd have to do some sort of Lttp-style exploration glitch to get it that low, considering all the required dialog takes at least that long. (I'd check how long the beginning was again, but I just remembered that my emulated copy isn't battery-saving, probably because the save type is mysteriously set to Flash 64k).
I would like to see this if the boss fights were entertaining, though frankly I don't have the patience to do this myself.
Joined: 2/28/2006
Posts: 2275
Location: Milky Way -> Earth -> Brazil
This one is not that great, but the second part (The Lost Age) has some nice puzzles and amazing summon things, and it'll surely make a good run, even if it's 1 hour+. Chrono Trigger has those stupid graphics and slow battle system and still most people accepted a 4 hours-long run. Even FF6 is there, and it's THE HORROR!...
In other words, you should try something yourself, then upload a WIP and show it to us.
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Bisqwit wrote:
Pros and cons for golden sun the lost age
Pros:
Nicer graphics (no effect to speed run)
Cooler harder battles (entertainment value 1+)
Hard mode with stronger monsters (Challenge 1+)
Lots of skipable caves and dungeons (length 1+)
Cons:
Waaaaaay longer than the first golden sun (length 1-)
Extra length of game results in more time wasting cut scenes (length 1-)
Puzzles way easier than the first golden sun (challenge 1-)
Longer attack sequences (length 1-)
If either of the games would be done (which it looks unlikely) I think the first one would be a better choice
Pros and cons for golden sun the lost age
Pros:
Nicer graphics (no effect to speed run)
Cooler harder battles (entertainment value 1+)
Hard mode with stronger monsters (Challenge 1+)
Lots of skipable caves and dungeons (length 1+)
Cons:
Waaaaaay longer than the first golden sun (length 1-)
Extra length of game results in more time wasting cut scenes (length 1-)
Puzzles way easier than the first golden sun (challenge 1-)
Longer attack sequences (length 1-)
If either of the games would be done (which it looks unlikely) I think the first one would be a better choice
after about halfway through the game you'd get access to your old characters, which with a tas could be perfect. The game would pretty much be over by then.
I'd say you'd have to acquire the old characters at their default levels and with default equipment... otherwise it would be considered using a password.
While that's true, and would probably make the rest of the run rather boring (max levels/stats etc. on the password), it'd certainly look cool to see someone entering a working 253? digit password awesomely fast.
Also, from what I vaguely remember, someone mentioned a couple of years ago that forcing the rng to move is rather difficult, and would look bad (iirc, it involved walking in/out of an area to move it like one or two forward).
I'm should give a little test soon, but I mainly just looking around,
The both game are cool... and lost age have probably the most longuer password ever!!
The game seem to don't have any glitch or anything to skip major plot, so getting all the Djiin, should be an interresthing purpose for the run.. I think.
These two game seem to have a similar playing time, so I think that a dualrun would be possible.
Anyone would like to see a run of this?
i'd watch it. i made a TAS of golden sun 2 earlier and it was like 6h. i don't have that TAS anymore though. but it sucked anyway, so it doesn't matter. sol blade is insane because it does more damage than summons.
you seem to have a habit of doing TASes of insanely long games, like suikoden (all reqruits) eternal blue and golden sun (all djinns).
In a world where people TAS games, Zero100 rises to the challenge. I'm currently starting this run. I plan to playtest a bit (because this is also my first TAS,) plan routes, and crack the RNG. I'll be habitually updating, and any advice/input/help you can give would be helpful.
Thanks in advance, and do I have to okay to do this run? :D
PS: Would anyone actually watch this? :(
DOUBLE EDIT: I'll post a WIP of what I have to showcase for people to decide if they want me to continue.
I used to be pretty into golden sun, from what I can remember people had figured out how to manipulate the RNG (it wasn't true RNG if I recall correctly), it should be easy to find information on this by now.
I plan to playtest a bit plan routes, and crack the RNG. I'll be habitually updating, and any advice/input/help you can give would be helpful.
Thanks in advance, and do I have to okay to do this run? :D
PS: Would anyone actually watch this? :(
DOUBLE EDIT: I'll post a WIP of what I have to showcase for people to decide if they want me to continue.
No one is going to stop you from doing the run, depending on the quality after 10 or so minutes of play, we may recommend you to go back and fix things. Given the nature of RPGs, a lot of the game is simple walking and text skipping, so to get a run like this published, everything else needs to be well executed. We should see optimal outcomes coming out of the RNG manipulation.
I'd watch it. The game is text heavy, but we could probably write a lua script to fast forward through any text on viewing.
There SHOULD be information on the RNG on the internet. Look on GameFAQs and elsewhere. You may also ask for some of this information on the Golden Sun board there. As far as I know it increments due to set actions. Attack by some character adds something, defend by some character adds something, etc. You will also need to figure out the battle formulas (predicting what damage will occur), and how the steps till the next encounter are set based on the end of the previous battle.
Seemingly the TAS plan would be something like this:
1: Fight as few battles as possible
2: Collect the number of Djinn necessary to beat the final boss assuming point 1.
3: Use Psynergy Stones as Inns
4: Collect only the items you will need (Very few.)
I highly recommend viewing the Real Time run that BadPotato posted just above. The low level battle strategies and the quality of the route have been great.
If this all seems a bit beyond you, this TAS may not be for you. I wouldn't recommend playing more than 10-15 minutes without showing us the .vbm which you can upload here: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php
You need to plan your route by the time you get out of Vale presumably. You want to minimize all time expenses and get through the game with the most time-minimal boosting (gear, djinn, items.) possible.
I may attempt to help you with some memory analysis, but only on my own time if I feel like getting around to it.
What appears to be the battle random number bytes:
Two byte value: 0x020023a8, 0x020023a9
Two byte value: 0x020023aa, 0x020023ab
How the encounters get set:
0x02000478 Word value: A step counter of sorts.
add X*64 every to 0x02000478 every one frame of walking. When the value crosses 65536, add 1 to Byte 0x0200047a. The run value of X is 1.5 times the walking value.
0x0200047a Byte value: When 16 = battle
Copy and paste this into Notepad and put .lua at the end of the filename to observe these via Run Lua Script in the most updated version of the emulator.
while true do
gui.text(0,0,"RNG1: " .. memory.readbyte(0x020023a8))
gui.text(0,10,"RNG2: " .. memory.readbyte(0x020023a9))
gui.text(0,20,"RNG3: " .. memory.readbyte(0x020023aa))
gui.text(0,30,"RNG4: " .. memory.readbyte(0x020023ab))
gui.text(0,40,"StepCount1: " .. memory.readword(0x02000478))
gui.text(0,50,"StepCount2: " .. memory.readbyte(0x0200047a))
vba.frameadvance();
end
X appears to be set after the previous battle, but I cannot find how it is set or where it is stored. I have gotten various values from about 18 to about 110. Lower values make the step increment at a lower rate and therefore make the battle further away. On average they are 20-50 or so, but there are some extremes. When using these values you can clearly observe the edges of encounter zones, you should probably always walk in non-encounter zones as much as you can.
If anyone could find out how the value "X" gets set, it would be very helpful.
Note: I'd much prefer you keep the characters names intact for this run. If anyone cares to read the text, it's worth the maybe 1 minute sacrificed over the run for having long names. We can probably just write a fast forwarding script for anyone who doesn't want to read the text.
Always choose the fastest text option of 'yes' or 'no'. No can probably get hit by just pressing B.
I may attempt to begin working on a battle mechanic disassembly. For now I'm just going to update my random findings here.
02000250 Party Gold
0200050f Isaac Level (1 byte)
02000534 Isaac Max HP (2 bytes)
02000536 Isaac Max PP
02000538 Isaac Cur HP
0200053a Isaac Cur PP
0200053c Isaac Attack Stat (With gear.)
0200053e Isaac Defense Stat (With gear.)
02000540 Isaac Agility Stat
020005d8 Isaac First Item ID (1 byte)
020005d9 Item Status
020005da Isaac Second Item ID
020005db Item Status
020005dc Isaac Third Item
020005dd Item Status
Status:
Quantity 1 = 0
Item Equipped = 2
Quantity 2 = 8
Quantity 3 = 16
Quantity 30 = 232
02000624 Isaac Experience Points (32 bits presumably)
0200065b Garet Level
........
02000770 Garet Experience Points
020007a7 Should be Ivan's Level (haven't checked)
........
020008bc Should be Ivan's Experience Points
020008f3 Should be Mia's Level
........
02000a08 Should be Mia's Experience Points
02000b8b Jenna Level
........
02000ca0 Jenna Experience Points
Okay, I have some questions:
1.) How can you view re-record count?
2.) When playing a movie, is there a way to just change the button input of just one frame or so, without changing the rest?
EDIT: Wouldn't this be possible if one were to open up the movie file, and change the button input on the frame that you wanted?
Thanks in advance.
I was going to upload my vba file to: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php, but Web of Trust rated it badly. Is there any other way to upload what I have? The vid's only ~2 minutes, but I want to see what people think, and get some help on walking optimization; and unfortunately, I waste a few frames here and there... :(
Then the Web of Trust is literally worse than useless. :(
This community has been privileged to use microstorage for years without incident. I don't know why it would be generating a false positive, but seeing as it doesn't use JavaScript or require cookies, there's really nothing "malicious" it can do, even in theory.
Then the Web of Trust is literally worse than useless. :(
This community has been privileged to use microstorage for years without incident. I don't know why it would be generating a false positive, but seeing as it doesn't use JavaScript or require cookies, there's really nothing "malicious" it can do, even in theory.
Oh wow, sorry then. I wonder then, if it doesn't use javascript, then why did they rate it badly? I should rate it well then to try to balance it out.
EDIT: Okay, so the file that I'm using is called upload, with no extension. It plays with the emulator just fine. But now, if I make the extension .vbm, it doesn't play. I'll upload it anyway, maybe IM DOIN IT RONG
The file is located here: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1064777233/upload1.vbm.
Sorry guys for all of the trouble.
