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The only explanation I can think of is that for no reason at all, the programmers decided to put a second entrance to level 8 on the screen to the left of the normal entrance, but you can't normally access it because there's nothing bombable or burnable on that screen.
They DID put one on the screen to the left. The screen to the left has the level 7 quest 2 entrance (which is just level 8 of the 1st quest, changed). My guess is that to save space, that screen is programmed to go to the level, but They just didn't put an entrance to it.
Hope that makes sense
It also might make sense about the graveyard thing, since in quest 2, the graveyard contains level 6
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gemini man when he splits, doesnt shoot until you do.
when there is just one of him, he doesn't jump until you shoot
needle man will shoot and jump on his own, but he mainly reacts to your actions as well
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My laptop containing my DW4 run is in the shop. I was bored so I opened up my cobra triangle run and played level 1 for the hell of it. My goal was to see if I could shave off a frame or two. Well, I shaved off 221 of them! So my new level 1 is about 3.5 seconds faster than my submitted run and 8 seconds faster than walkerboh's published run!
My method also means that I will save significant time on the next two boss fights.
Anyone who is interested can dowload the WIP here:
http://www.adelikat.com/Temp
also my submitted run will be posted here since I've cancelled it from the submissions.
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wow, this should help you out alot
I assume you will test existing levels to see:
a) where you do manipulate a drop, If there is a more optimal way of getting it
b) if there are any "convenient" times to get a drop in other levels. That might allow you to do more zipping.
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I feel as if this could be completed faster. Try using other characters. At least half of the movie seems to be the character running around trying to make jason appear. Are there only certain screen that he will appear on? My expercience with the game is that he could appear anyware.
Anyway, I voted "meh", its clearly better than the original but I think that sub 3min to definately possible
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well, sort of. there are still some things that don't make sense.
what I have is a systematic method of button presses that gives me 14 chances to get desired action (critcal, dodge, etc) on the 1st possible frames, 28 for the 2nd, 42 for the 3rd, 56 for the 4th and so on.
Even very unlikely events are going to likely happen in the 1st 10 frames with this formula (thats 770 combinations!)
The standard seems to be 1/64. In the first 5 frames I have 210 combinations which is a 210/64 chance; which is pretty good odds.
Unfortunately this doesn't work for the 1st action in the round. This is because it would require manipulating during the frames that the attack order is determined. But still, depending on the complexity of the order I need I can usually find 2-3 button combinations that yield the desired result. That will cut the delay in half or a third for 1st actions. Of course I can further manipulate this by making sure a "more likely" event happens at the beginning (like alena's attacks)
If anybody is curious about my methods Ill try to post an explanation, but It will be difficult to describe.
Right now I'm at the chamelion fight in chp2. Here I have the biggest task ahead. I have to get 2 critcals out of a lv 1 alena (1/256 chance for each hit). My method is much more time consuming (but well worth it!), so it might be awhile before I get past this point.
So far, I found 2 unnecessary steps on my way to the fight! (thats about 40 frames saved).
I'll let you guys know when I post the new sub 10min - chp1 .fcm file.
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persistance & frustration paid off. I re-did chapter one and I gained another 10 seconds. all 10 seconds were saved with better optimizations getting critcals and dodging attacks faster. the longest I have to wait to get the action I want is 30 frames. On average they are under 10 frames! This makes the run ALOT more polished looking.
And I accomplished my goal of getting chapter 1 under 10 min with a final time of 9 min 54 sec.
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My new methods aren't working as expected. Until I figure out more about the affect of different button presses and how it relates to criticals, this run is on HOLD.
Heres what I know so far:
example scenario: Ragnar fighting a babble (1st encounter in my new run).
babble attacks for 3 damage.
when the cursor appears AFTER dealing the damage I savestate.
At that moment any 1 of the 8 buttons can be pushed to advance to the next action which will be ragnar attacking himself. All 8 buttons have a different affect on the amount of damage that ragnar will do. Also the value doesnt seem to be determined until the 6th frame after I push a button. That gives my 5 frames of button pushes to re-seed the random number generator. So any combination of these buttons in that time will alter the result.
Theoretically this gives me more than enough possiblities to get a critical on the 1st frame of the attack. In practice this may not be the casej. Its difficult to tell because there is only 3 different damage point he can do in this case: 5,6,7. So frequently a different button combination will have identical result. But sometimes is seems clear that the random number is not changing such as:
holding left 1 frame, 2 fr, 3 fr, 4 fr, 5 fr, might all yield the same number
left,right,left might be different though. but not other combinations of left right. So its all confusing and finding a systematic method of checking every possible outcome is difficult.
Also, the different damage values may not affect criticals at all. The number used for determining a critical is probably different from the one that determines damage and it might not be affected by button pushes.
In summary, manipulating normal damage and dodging attack can now be done on the 1st frame possible. But criticals might be another story.
Unfortunately this will only save a few seconds in the entire movie (as opposed to criticals which would potential save many minutes)
I will look into it further but I would appreciate any assistance in figuring out whats going on
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I think I might redo chp 1 again, since I have a new luck manipulation strategy.
As of right now I have a luck manipulation sytem, that gives me 128 possiblilites for the FIRST frame possible! then another 128 on the 2nd frame and so forth.
Due to this, there should be no problem getting a critical (1/64) on the 1st frame, and at most the 2nd or 3rd frame. This also includes doding enemy attacks, getting treasure drops, manipulating enemy actions, character actions, and taloons antics! This mean that all the wait time in the entire movie will be wiped clean!
[edit] unfortunately this method does not work for the 1st action in a battle round. I have only 8 options per frame. Put thats still 1/8 of the wait time for that action. Also I can make sure the 1st action is a "more likely" thing to happen. Easy enough in chp 5 since It will be easy to make alena go 1st (and its no problem getting her criticals)
In addition, I can manipulate enemy encounters to be every other square. So far I don't have a reliable way of getting them at every encounter (this is only relevant in chp 3)
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Ok my site has been updated and now has the verson 2 .fcm. It completes Chp1 and a little bit of chp 2
Ryan, I appreciate any comments you have, but I recommend that you watch the new version of chp 1.
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Yes to get the town to grow fully, all you have to collect the red, greed, blue, and purple orbs.
Perhaps a power cycle or reset could help in manipulating enemy encounters in the game as well?
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Bag of magic food is correct:
title screen = 20frame improvement
1st enemy=ANOTHER 20 frame improvement
2nd enemy= ANOTHER 29 frames
69 frames total
On each of the next 2 enemy groups I lost frames, by the time I enter the boss room I'm down 329 frames. Thats as far as I got.
Sorry for any confusion
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I wonder if the poison needle works against bosses in this game.
Maybe even baramos or zoma! Probably not, but you never know.
Soldiers way worse fighters since they are incredibly slow. Even with the best weapons their attacks aren't that much better.
There are two places to get premuim weapons though.
1)Boss Troll in Samonao leaves the thor's sword
2) Mimic leave the demon axe
Without good luck manipulation in fights though, its going to take a lot of patience and amazing planning. Particularaly the very unfair HP regeneration of Kandar II, orochi, baramos, and zoma.
kandar = 50 hp per turn
orochi = 75
barmos + zoma = 100
Plus the boss trolls and several random enemies have it as well.
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I've posted this topic due to the the game being brought up on the other dragon warrior topics.
DW3's random generator is very different from the other 3. You can't manipulate luck in battles. If you reload at the beginning of a battle and take the same actions, the same results happen regardless of your timing.
So far, I haven't found any method of manipulating criticals the way they are in the DW4 or DW1 runs. This would mean relying on a lot of leveling up and getting lucky.
Also, in caves it is not possible to avoid enemy encounters by delaying or pressing random buttons.
On the overworld it is very possible to avoid enemies but with noticable delays. The random number generator is re-seeded very slowly (seems it is once a second rather than once per frame).
If luck could be manipulated like in the other DW games then this would be an 1hr - 1 1/2 hr vid, but due to these problems I can't imagine this being under 3 1/2 hrs.
Of course if anyone wants to look into this, by all means do so. Maybe there are some unconventional ways of getting some good results.
As for the party selection, there is no question: Hero and 3 fighters. This is the most fierce party possible. the fighters will get many more criticals and will almost always attack first. Get the meteorite armband for the Hero and all 4 characters will be strong attackers who always act 1st. No need for heal spells because the enemies wont last long enough to do any damage!
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Spoony_Bard wrote:
(any chance of DW3 some time after this? :D)
Definately, but DW3 very problamatic for time-attacking. Its probably not possible to make a publishable movie out of it. Which sucks because it is my favorite of the series.
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I just downloaded the .fcm myself and played it with no problems. It is most likely that you have a different version of the rom despite the file size being the same. Try finding a different rom and see if that works
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are counting just the enemy group? because I also saved 20 frames (according to my notes) on just the titile screen.
Also 2nd enemy group I gained 29 frames
next 2 groups I lost frames but it was just a test run.
good luck
There should be significant improvement!
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Finished chapter 1 with a final time of 10 min 4 sec, 1 min 51 sec ahead of my 1st run. I haven't uploaded the .fcm yet. I will do that tomorrow.
Where I saved time:
1) Used death to quickly return from Izmut to Burland after meeting Alex, saved about 30 sec
2) Used death to exit the cave quicker (Note: in the run you see me walk for a long time before running into an enemy, this is because there are no enemy encounters along the "right" path. That is, the path that you are led along. I get into a fight on the 1st square that has enemies.
Saved about 20 sec (also saved time because I dont pick up the agility seed)
Both of these involve having ragnar critical hit himself. Personal I find this hilarious.
3) equipped sword of malice in battle (a few frames saved at most)
4) I've figured out a method to greatly reduce the wait time for getting criticals and dodging enemy attacks. you will notice that is about 20-50 frames instead of 100 or more. In future battles, I found a way to reduce this to 1-10 frames. this should save many minutes throughout the course of this run.
5) On every boss fight ragnar went last regardless, so in this run I made sure to not get any agility. Getting a stat bonus for one stat takes 56 frames. You will see that raganar never gets agility, luck, or int, since none of them are relevant. In doing so I had to sacrifice some strength and some HP (hp shouldn't matter though)
This saved about 10-20 seconds total
6) After exiting the the tower I used the flying shoes to transport me to the top of it so I could jump off. this allowed me to walk to izmut and use my wings to return to burland. This saved about another 15-20 sec.
