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Posted: 12/18/2005 8:26 PM
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Highness
Player (71)
Joined: 8/24/2004
Posts: 2562
Location: Sweden
Well.. Since this is not the final run, but mere a test run, I already knew it wasn't optimal by watching how the character walks into stuff for example. But I generally picked on the more time saving stuff that will be necessary later. Of course movement is one big issue as well. Getting that perfect should be an easier task however. Boss killing is another thing as well.. But from using magic to hit random enemies will probably make you able to hold the better swords earlier which will bring big advantages later on!
Posted: 12/19/2005 7:23 AM
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Kaz
Former player
Joined: 12/2/2005
Posts: 149
The test run was exactly that, a test run. It was played at 50% speed throughout, 25% in boss fights, with frame advance used for dialogues/menus and here and there for experimentation (never made a TAS). It was primarily made to determine the necessary monster lairs to seal. It was also made as a tool for review to help observe when damage should taken to save time, when to die to save time, and manipulate level ups/herb usage in consequence. It's also to determine when magic should be best used, specifically the spots I should make SURE I have a minimum of X gems before getting there. You can't really combine magic and sword attacks. I discovered this when I tried to kill a monster with magic while crabwalking toward it. It only took very little damage, the light arrows seemingly not doing any damage at all. I loaded a state I saved about 2 seconds earlier, did everything the same way, but this time without holding L, and the light arrows obliterated the monster. It seems like the sword poke was overriding the magic damage, possibly because the poke deals damage very quickly and consequently triggers the (very short, in this game) invulnerability time frequently while magic does damage much more slowly (about twice per second).
After getting the mushroom shoes you head down the basement at the top of the mountain. Right where that slippry ice sort of thing is (the one that forces you back down). I think it's better to move straight up on it if you just walk a bit further to the right first. I think this is where you kill your first set of enemies after getting the shoes. If you don't know what place I mean that is. :)
I know the place you speak of. I did what I did because I wanted the lair to be in sight as soon as possible so it could start spawning monsters. It is a VERY slow multi-spawn (as opposed to one-by-one) monster lair, so the earlier it started spawning, the better. Finally, hitting random monster with magic should be done for level up manipulation (for a full heal) or reducing lag. Trying to do it only for extra EXP for the swords won't really do anything at all because there's no way I'll be level 16 by the time I get the metal sword. The only place where being able to swing the metal sword would actually save time as opposed to the critical sword would be in the first and second basements of the laboratory because I have to kill metal monsters. As soon as I reach the the model towns, being able to swing that sword no longer presents an advantage since there are no more metal monsters to kill from then on. Same is true for the spirit sword. I only need to clear 3 spirit monster lairs, and I won't be getting level 19 before that happens. Why is there no way I would build enough EXP? Because the EXP the monsters give ramp up dramatically in each world, anywhere between 3 and 5 times more (and sometimes more) and they aren't noticeably more difficult to kill. That's why that I'm only 2-3 levels behind a 100% playthrough throughout the game despite the fact that I clear only about 1/3 of the monster lairs. I'm pretty sure that doing a minimal run of world 1-4 and doing a full run of world 5-6 would put me only 1 level behind of someone that does a full run of all the worlds. Remember that EXP required for next level also increase dramatically and the entire EXP gain from the extra lairs in world 1-4 is probably just barely enough to give an extra level when you're level 20+. --- Later I'll detail my plans and my ideas for the real TAS and I'd appreciate some help on it because all the variables I have to keep track of are overwhelming me.
Posted: 2/7/2006 6:26 AM
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Kaz
Former player
Joined: 12/2/2005
Posts: 149
After a hiatus, I watched my test run about a dozen times while taking notes. I also did some testing and I think I have the optimal route down. I have started what I hope will be a submittable run. Here it is so far, at the beginning of greenwood: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/788/ Grass valley was completed about 2 minute faster than in the test run. Reasons: - Frame advance used throughout for increased precision - Better fighting techniques and better handling of monster spawning - Used death as a shortcut 4 times instead of 0 (probably the biggest time saver) - Significantly faster boss fight (it's not really much of a fight anymore) All damage taken is on purpose, either because it's faster or because I plan on dying later (or both). I tried to keep it interesting but it was a fairly secondary goal compared to speed. Here's some answers to questions I forsee: Q: Poking versus swinging? A: If both the swing and the poke do 1 bar of damage, poking kills faster by a couple of frames, even if the player is positioned properly so the swing will hit enemies twice. At level 2, the swing does 2 damage (4 with a double hit) so I start using it then. Q: But you swing at a monster before level 2! A: He's vulnerable but out of poke range. Q: Taking the long way around on the conveyor belts instead of the shortcut? A: The long way is 5-6 frames faster than the shortcut since the shortcut belt rolls in the wrong direction. Feedback would be much appreciated.
Posted: 2/7/2006 7:32 AM
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Highness
Player (71)
Joined: 8/24/2004
Posts: 2562
Location: Sweden
Oh yeah!! I'm glad to see this is alive again. Will check it to night perhaps, after I get back from work.
Posted: 2/7/2006 11:38 PM
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MattyXB
Player (25)
Joined: 4/23/2005
Posts: 435
Location: Germany
Well done. Looks perfect. This is my favourite SNES game, so I am happy, that finally someone do a run from it. The movie look at this point great and puplishable for me. I like it how you use the magic to defeat more enemies with one use. And the death as shortcuts is too good. I would like it more to see a no damage run. But this would cost to much time at many points. Too by the Boss Fights. So its maybe better to do it with damage and with death as shortcuts. Good work at the first Stage. Congratulation from me.
Last TAS finished: Final Fantasy Adventure (4.0 Warp Glitch Run) WIP in the moment: Tail Gator (GB) Matty
Posted: 2/12/2006 10:52 PM
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TheAxeMan
Ambassador, Experienced player (709)
Joined: 7/17/2004
Posts: 985
Location: The FLOATING CASTLE
Sweet, this looks great Kaz. Seems to me that you've closed up all the obvious holes and found some new tricks. Keep going, I hope you can finish this!
Posted: 2/19/2006 5:17 PM
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Kaz
Former player
Joined: 12/2/2005
Posts: 149
World 1 redone for a ~500 frame improvement. World 2 done. Four time as many rerecords used compared to world 1, mostly for extremely difficult/annoying monster/luck manipulation. 12849 frames ahead of my test run (10% faster) so far. Deathtoll might not fall before the 1:30 mark, but nothing's decided yet. World 3 is the most improvable world.
Posted: 2/19/2006 9:07 PM
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Highness
Player (71)
Joined: 8/24/2004
Posts: 2562
Location: Sweden
Woha! Awesome to see that you keep this alive Kaz! Highly appreciated. Looking forward to the complete movie! I thought you threw in the towel.
Posted: 2/20/2006 8:54 PM
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Hamm
Joined: 7/29/2004
Posts: 136
Location: Temple City, CA
I'm anxiously awaiting the results of this, keep up the awesome work!
"How can you prove you exist? Maybe we don't exist..." -Vivi Ornitier (Final Fantasy IX)
Posted: 2/24/2006 4:29 AM
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Kaz
Former player
Joined: 12/2/2005
Posts: 149
The world 3 boss is driving me insane. He pulls out just before the final hit, forcing another waiting period of 10+ seconds. WIP so far: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/847/ Addresses to watch for boss HP: 7E0EE5,1u 7E0336,1u EDIT: Forgot to mention I would appreciate anyone trying the boss fight out and figuring how to kill him before he pulls back a second time.
Posted: 2/24/2006 3:42 PM
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Highness
Player (71)
Joined: 8/24/2004
Posts: 2562
Location: Sweden
Does the boss dive after a certein ammount of HP taken from him or is it based on time or movement? Those are some of the factors one can look for and try to manipulate...
Posted: 2/24/2006 4:03 PM
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Kaz
Former player
Joined: 12/2/2005
Posts: 149
I don't see how any of these possibilities would change the battle tactic from "hurt him as early and as often as possible" to something else. Enemies can take damage every 8 frame and the follower is able to dish it out at such a rate. As far as I can tell his entire pattern is time based. The only part of it that depends on the player is whether he moves left or right after spitting the fire birds. I tried different things to stall him (like slashing, which works on some enemies like the hermit crabs) but nothing worked. Feel free to try it out.
Posted: 3/10/2006 8:29 AM
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Kaz
Former player
Joined: 12/2/2005
Posts: 149
In case some people following this thread don't check the workbench, the run has been submitted. http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3482
Posted: 3/10/2006 10:43 PM
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TheAxeMan
Ambassador, Experienced player (709)
Joined: 7/17/2004
Posts: 985
Location: The FLOATING CASTLE
Hey, it's a little too late, but I think I know how you can beat that skull thing in two passes. You don't need to change anything in the fight, just kill more enemies in stages 2 and 3 so you reach him on a higher level. At that point you aren't too far from a levelup and there are at least a couple times when you die with gems in hand. It might be possible to add more kills to later levels and reduce the buildup time at the end. But the walls give so much xp, it would be tough to make too big of a dent.
Posted: 3/10/2006 10:59 PM
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Kaz
Former player
Joined: 12/2/2005
Posts: 149
It's true I'm close to level 9 when I reach the boss but being level 9 wouldn't change anything. The follower only gains extra attack power on even levels so I would need to be at least level 10 and there's no way I would reach the boss at that level without wasting more time than it takes for him to do a 3rd pass. I'm not even sure if level 10 would be enough. It might require the critical sword to do more than the minimum damage with a swing. You're supposed to reach that boss at level 13.
Posted: 3/11/2006 9:06 AM
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KDR_11k
Joined: 1/23/2006
Posts: 352
Location: Germany
I don't think you do more than minimum damage even at level 13.
Posted: 12/18/2013 7:48 AM
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FatRatKnight
Editor, Skilled player (1198)
Joined: 9/27/2008
Posts: 1085
http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/11397947979589904 Running through the game using lsnes. I think I'm beating the published run. Except I forgot to pack a few extra GEMs. I need to go back and pick up some more. http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/11398015642958275 Such as, say... In this run. Except do something like this in the second world. Then again, there is a need to do a bunch of this in the first world to speed things up. I need more GEMs. I might also get two extra EXP to level up earlier, as I go out of my way for extra damage at one point. The RNG is interesting. It uses 16 bytes, starting from address 7E0302. Whenever the game needs a new RNG, * Add byte 16 to byte 15. Add byte 15 to byte 14. Add byte 14 to byte 13. And so on. Include the carry of the last addition to the next. * Add the number 1 to byte 16 * The RNG value used is in byte 1 But that's not the only way the game modifies the RNG. Whenever there is a screen transition, it also copies a two-byte value in address 7E0312 into 7E0302. Address 7E0312 is a frame-based timer that resets to -1 after this transfer. The old value in bytes 1 and 2 are thrown away for this transfer. Effectively, this means that, when entering a screen, bytes 1 and 2 only care how long it took for you to get there since the last transition, and bytes 3 to 16 are only affected by how many RNG rolls have been made. I can tweak bytes 1 and 2 by throwing away a few frames, and I can tweak the rest by interacting with enemies, either by (not) killing them, or dancing around the ones that use the RNG. Oh, and stepping on a cleared lair that releases something back at the town takes two screen transitions. Meaning it doesn't matter how long it took you to clear it, as far as the RNG is concerned, just how long it takes for you to clear the texts. As for GEMs dropping, the game takes the RNG (byte 1) and modulo 100 for a range of 0 to 99. It is looking for low numbers to determine how big your GEM is. With the way modulo works, this does give a slight edge in getting larger GEMs, exactly 1.171875% for every intended 1%. The thresholds depend on what world you're in. The first world has a pittance for a drop rate, and the last one doesn't drop small ones. Grabbing my GameFAQs post: 
Lrge: Mid :Smll - (avg.) Place
 1% :  3% : 96% - (1.21) Grass Valley
 3% :  5% : 92% - (1.47) GreenWood
 5% :  7% : 88% - (1.73) St. Elles
 7% :  9% : 84% - (1.99) The Mountain of Souls
 9% : 11% : 80% - (2.25) Dr. Leo's Laboratory
11% : 13% : 76% - (2.51) Magridd Castle
51% : 49% :  0% - (7.55) World of Evil
Wielding the Lucky Blade doubles these thresholds, regardless of whether you actually kill them with the sword itself. By some amusing... Luck... I was able to spot and collect two large GEMs in the first room. I may redo large parts of this TAS in order to optimize the value of this gain, and to see if I can't pull out even more GEMs. I'll share more thoughts later.
Posted: 12/18/2013 10:41 AM
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Warepire
He/Him
Editor
Joined: 3/2/2010
Posts: 2178
Location: A little to the left of nowhere (Sweden)
Now I need to figure out how to run lsnes so I can watch this. (unless someone makes an encode). The Japanese version has some differences compared to the US/European, one being that there is no conveyor belt in the middle section fighting the monster in Leo's painting. Everhate is speedrunning this game, he speaks about the JP vs US differences during this attempt: http://www.twitch.tv/everhate/c/3333865 Here's hes current PB: http://www.twitch.tv/everhate/c/3342748 Something I was thinking about is in a TAS if it could be worth switching back to the Psycho Blade for the Poseidon fight. Manipulating critical hits on him should make him go down faster than with the Lucky Blade, despite the Psycho Blade being weaker. What I am not sure of is if the extra weapon switches save time, or if through luck manipulation with both gems and crits it doesn't need to be equipped at all. I want to remember beating the game without even collecting the Lucky Blade once, but there seems to be a flag that gets set when you have that Blade, and if you don't have that Blade you cannot talk to a certain NPC (forgot which) needed to advance the story.
Posted: 12/18/2013 11:30 AM
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FatRatKnight
Editor, Skilled player (1198)
Joined: 9/27/2008
Posts: 1085
I need to analyze the Critical Sword. While watching the RNG I know, I don't see any changes to it while running the published run. Whatever mechanic it's using isn't shared by the main RNG. I also seem to recall it getting a critical by pokes as well as swings, but that's some ancient memory telling me that. Also, again judging from the published run, I can skip one Medical Herb if I also skip the Critical Sword. When grabbing the Critical Sword, I'm grabbing two items in the process, not one. Though, I do need to avoid a bit of lava, I don't see any other use for the herb. Geez, JPN Soul Blader has really fast text. I'll have to analyze the other changes, but I'll be looking at the possibility of a version change. The first boss is actually easier, weaker attacks allow me to rush down the middle right away, if I'm seeing this correctly. USA texts take way too long, so I'm considering a version change for sake of entertainment, as we get back into action sooner (I can always subtitle quick summaries of the official translation for Soul Blazer).
Posted: 12/18/2013 4:43 PM
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Warepire
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Joined: 3/2/2010
Posts: 2178
Location: A little to the left of nowhere (Sweden)
I would say that the text speed is one of the biggest hits on entertainment value in the published run, so I am all for a version change to JP in that regard. The easier fights on the other hand will make it less impressive. Tough choice. I did mean the Critical Sword, good that you realized that. The crits do work when just holding the sword, there's at least one instance of that happening in the published TAS. If the crits of the Critical Sword can be manipulated, it might still be worth collecting if it isn't too off route. It all depends on how difficult it is to manipulate Gems as the Critical Sword is the most useful after getting the Lucky Blade if I recall correctly. (Meaning that Lucky Blade will never be equipped).
Posted: 12/20/2013 1:14 PM
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Kaz
Former player
Joined: 12/2/2005
Posts: 149
It's about time! The critical sword is skippable but I grabbed it figuring I could manipulate it later. Didn't really work since I couldn't make sense of the RNG for the life of me. It and the medical herb are still very minor detours for something with such potential, but I guess if you can easily manipulate bigger gem drops you won't need it. You need the lucky blade. If you don't have it, the grandpa next to the passage to the underground lake will block your way and tell you to go get it. I'm not sure I'd support a version switch of such a text heavy game.
Posted: 12/20/2013 3:30 PM
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FatRatKnight
Editor, Skilled player (1198)
Joined: 9/27/2008
Posts: 1085
The version differences aren't just text. There are minor gameplay tweaks as well. Also, the text itself would cause a change in one part of world 2: How I return home for the first time. The Strange Bottle and death texts mean that in the USA version, it's actually faster to just walk home, whereas JPN texts would probably make the death warp faster. The difference in the route really is that close. Although the text speeds would cause a change in luck manipulation, it still has a very real change in one particular path. And if whether the run is readable comes into question, subtitles is a quick small fix. With my lack of Japanese language, I won't be translating Soul Blader, and would just subtitle in a quick summary of my impression with Soul Blazer. I'm still making the switch, unless I get an overwhelming impression of the audience disliking this change soon. I still need to poke about with the Critical Sword to see what I can do with it. I probably should make that a priority and see what changes when using it. There is one type of enemy that comes to mind. Its defense means it takes only 1 damage from our swings, and they have a lot of HP to cut through. Those hidey shelled hermit crabs or whatever in the ocean in particular. 15 HP. 1 HP at a time takes a while. Magic ignores defense, so at 10 damage per "hit" and two hits from the same spell, that's 104 frames saved. Strange Bottle might help here. But what about the Critical Sword? That I need to answer somehow. I'm curious if anyone here actually watched my WIP, or whether they're still trying to get lsnes to work. I find BizHawk harder to use with my preferences. I'd sure love to hear thoughts! I'd also love an encode. (I have no experience making them, and you'll get a quick thanks. That should be plenty of motivation!)
Posted: 12/20/2013 5:33 PM
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Warepire
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Editor
Joined: 3/2/2010
Posts: 2178
Location: A little to the left of nowhere (Sweden)
I haven't even downloaded lsnes yet, been busy working on some programming projects. I have never in my life dumped an AVI before from an emulator, never needed to, so I think you have the upper hand when it comes to knowing how to encode.
Posted: 12/20/2013 5:55 PM
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FatRatKnight
Editor, Skilled player (1198)
Joined: 9/27/2008
Posts: 1085
I never uploaded a single video, ever. Or produced any of reasonable quality, for that matter. I don't believe I am in a better position, other than having lsnes up and running. I've looked into the Critical Sword for a quick moment. I'm currently asking myself "is it really nothing more than just every 16 frames?" A quick check, and it appears the game uses address 7E0312 and looks if the lower nybble is 0. It's a frame counter used for the RNG during screen transitions. It can't be that simple, can it? New plan: Get sword. Poke things dead every 16th frame on the dot. I'm going to produce a quick and dirty script for Snes9x and only allow L held on the magic frame and see what the extents are. EDIT: Well, snap. Critical Sword seems to kill everything not invincible or in a boss room in a single hit, forget about being a high enough level to swing it. Obviously the metal and spirit enemies are unaffected, but yeesh. This makes anything that allows us to walk close disappear in record time. Every 16th frame. I need to investigate bosses, though, but I don't think I'll one-hit them, because well... Boss.
Posted: 12/21/2013 3:34 AM
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The_Wanderer
Joined: 10/9/2011
Posts: 12
I was planning to translate Soul Blader at one point, and I've got a partially-complete translation sitting around somewhere (though not remotely close to being playable). There's a lot more detail and nuance in the Japanese version, but the overall gist seems to be more or less accurate in all the places I remember checking on. There's no chance of me completing a translation far enough to be useful in time for anything to do with this run, but if there's anything in particular where you'd like to check if it's different, please feel free to point me to the appropriate Japanese text and I can see if I can find anything out.
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