Submission #4606: TheAxeMan's NES Ultima: Quest of the Avatar in 58:23.98

Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar TAS by TheAxeMan

• As fast as possible
• Major luck manipulation
• Death as a shortcut

lua script - Encoders please read

--This script will light up the dungeons in TheAxeMan's Ultima 4 run
while true do
    if emu.framecount() == 42560 or 
       emu.framecount() == 79730 or
       emu.framecount() == 95500 or
       emu.framecount() == 105070 or
       emu.framecount() == 123900 or
       emu.framecount() == 165200 then
        memory.writebyte(0x68e7, 255)
    end;
    emu.frameadvance()
end;

Introduction

Making the TAS

To win the game:

• Prove yourself in 8 virtues to earn the title of Avatar.
  • There are a number of deeds and misdeeds that affect your virtue. Do enough virtuous deeds and you become worthy of Avatarhood.
  • Each virtue has a shrine and a rune you need in order to enter the shrine. The runes are hidden in the town corresponding to that virtue with a couple exceptions.
  • Once you are worthy, meditate in the shrine for partial Avatarhood.
  • Do this for all virtues to become the Avatar. As the Avatar you get 99 max MP. You also get access to some powerful equipment that isn't helpful in this TAS. Most importantly Avatarhood is required to access the final dungeon.
• Obtain three items necessary to unlock the final dungeon: Book of Truth, Candle of Love and Bell of Courage.
• Obtain the eight stones. Six of them are hidden in dungeons.
• Obtain the three keys. Once you have the stones these are picked up easily in the altar rooms.
• Reach the bottom of the Abyss, the long and brutal final dungeon. It takes about 12 minutes of this TAS.

Some indirect requirements:

• A skeleton key that costs 2000 gold is the only way to open some locked doors and get some the items.
• Commandeer a pirate ship to reach some places by sea. Many places, including the Abyss, are only accessible by sea.
  • The pirate ships don't show up until you reach experience level 4. So you need to reach at least that level, speaking to Lord British to level up.
• The only way to reach Serpent's Spine for the white stone is to find the balloon and float across the world in it.
• The horn found on a small island clears the way to the shrine of Humility.
• Fight 49 random battles and win them all by defeating all the enemies. Pirate ships and daemons near the shrine of Humility also count but dungeon rooms do not. This is the only way to gain Valor.

Tasks that aren't strictly necessary but very helpful:

• Arm your character with a decent ranged weapon. We can get away without a melee weapon by making sure no enemy gets close enough. Armor doesn't make much difference and we won't be taking much damage anyway. Being able to fight physically pays off when MP gets tight.
• Improve our magical abilities. Magic is extremely useful but requires some setup to realize its potential.
  • Buy some herbs. Each magic spell uses up herbs. You start out with a few but it's necessary to hit a shop to really use much magic.
  • Raise our max MP. For various reasons we will use a character that begins with fairly low MP but has good potential. Leveling up adds some and the rest come from stat-raising orbs in the dungeons. We need 40 MP to cast the most powerful spell.
  • Learn some new magic. You start out with a pretty decent selection of spells. There are others that can be learned by talking with certain NPCs around the world and then visiting Spells Unlimited in Moonglow. Two of these extra spells are extremely useful: Tremor and Gate.

Raising Virtue

Battles

• The main thing is getting each battle down to a single enemy.
• Second is winning each battle in one round. I have a number of methods at my disposal:
  • Weaker enemies will go down to a single shot from my bow.
  • Energy is great for certain stronger enemies - daemons, ettins, skulls. The initial hit delivers some damage. Then they get finished off when they step on the lava field created around them. Energy does take 22 MP so I can't do it until reaching level 4.
  • Other enemies go down to the Ice spell. Even if fire works, Ice saves a few frames in the menu and the five extra MP never makes a difference. Ice also doesn't use ash, reducing pressure on my herb supply. Ice takes 17 MP and requires manroot, so I can't use it until I visit the herb shop in Buccaneer's Den.
• The placement of heroes and enemies on the battlefield has two possibilities. One is across and the other is scattered. The scattered formation puts the enemy much closer to me, saving about 25 frames because my shot does not need to travel so far to hit it.
• The bow is preferred to magic. Using magic takes about 25 more frames of menuing to select the spell and some extra text on use. Energy is preferred to Ice because the lava death saves time on text display.
• I want to manipulate the random battles to come faster. It is worth using magic or getting the further enemy placement if I can get the battle a few steps earlier.
  • One consequence of this is doing things like waiting for good RNG and recovering MP in places where I can run up the counter that triggers random battles.
• Sometimes I need to save MP and so I need to force an enemy that I can use the bow on. Either I just used a spell and my MP is still recovering or I am about to use a spell and don't want to blow the MP I am saving up.
• Once I have maxed out Valor it is fastest to use Blink and magically escape.

• Even if you can walk by them turn by turn but it's way too slow. Much faster to kill them all.
• Energy is often very useful. Many of the rooms allow for strategic placement of the lava field to be very effective.
  • When enemies die on the lava field there is a lot less text. No damage is listed and you get no experience. They just disappear, saving about a second.
  • The damage from the lava field is random.
• Tremor can be manipulated to kill all the enemies, but it takes 40 MP. There is also some text and a screen shake sequence that takes time, plus the animation and text for each enemy's death.
  • So even if tremor finishes the fight faster, other methods are often faster when I consider how long it takes to recover the MP.
  • Tremor is most advantageous against stronger enemies, even if they come in a smaller group. Otherwise each enemy would take multiple attacks.
  • The chance that tremor works on a max size group of 8 enemies is very low, less that 1%. It is likely that I either need to wait a bit for luck to line up or allow an enemy to survive the tremor to be finished off by my bow.
• If I am using my bow on multiple enemies, the order can make a small difference. I want to target enemies that are moving sideways first, letting the others move closer so my shots have less distance to travel.
  • Enemies stuck in a corner and not moving should be saved until after finishing off enemies that are still moving.
• Naturally I don't want the enemies to fight back. So I manipulate them to just move towards me.

Ranged attack accuracy

Luck Manipulation

• Extra movement or waiting. Movement gets a 16-frame rule meaning that if you stop moving you need to wait 16 frames to move again. Still, sometimes I stop for a step or take extra steps to manipulate luck. Taking extra steps different places might call the RNG different numbers of times.
  • Luckily this quantization does not apply in the first-person dungeon view, greatly increasing the ability to manipulate luck in dungeons.
• Stepping on swamp or lava. Doing this calls the RNG to decide how much damage you take or whether you get poisoned. Stepping on swamps runs the check and advances the RNG even if you are already poisoned.
• The RNG advances every frame when you are free to walk in the overhead view. Not so in the first-person dungeon view. Moving at top speed advances only one RNG per step.
  • So when I need to pace for MP I can choose between pacing in a cleared dungeon room or in the hallway depending on how much I want to advance the RNG.
  • Movement in the first-person view is only 15 frames a step vs 16 in overhead view so I can get MP back faster in first-person. Overhead walking is still a pretty cheap way to manipulate luck. Plus, I can only get even amounts of additional MP in first-person.
• Taking a different path through town can call the RNG different more or fewer times due to how NPC movement works.
• Using auto calls the RNG to decide what to do in most cases. So I can pick between attack and auto manipulate luck when it happens that auto will do what I want.
• Pirate ships call the RNG to decide how fast they get to move. So while sailing across the ocean I can tweak things by either outrunning them or turning so that they stay on screen longer.

Character Selection

• Most valuable initial equipment. That means I can sell off the armor and melee weapon that I don't need and spend less time picking up gold.
• Highest starting experience at 325. It takes just 75 more to reach level 4.
• Great selection of equippable weapons. Actually, all that matters is that he can equip the bow. But yeah, you couldn't ask for a better selection unless you really want to grind for the wand.
• Decent potential for magic. On top of all this, the pally is in the middle of the pack as far as magic potential. The starting max of 10 MP is a little low but this goes up to 23 with a levelup that needs to happen early for a number of other reasons. That is enough for Energy, Ice and other mid-level magic. Good enough that the pally can stay solo until feeling up four orbs in Deceit. That ups the limit to 43, enough to cast the uber-powerful Tremor spell.
• Convenient starting location. Trinsic is a great place to start things off. It has a weapon shop with the bow we need. The rune is sitting in a field so we do not need the key or a return visit.

Going Solo

The route

• Getting the key early allows for not needing to visit anywhere twice.
• I want to reach level 4 early on so I can get the ship. A lot of places can only be reached on ship. While Buccaneer's Den can also be reached by balloon, I would prefer to go there by ship so I can get the key there and avoid dungeon crawling until I am stronger.
• The encounter rate on the ship is low. Quite a bit of sailing is still necessary but many trips can be handled by warping with the Gate spell and hiking from the moongate.
• There is a 60 step cooldown between shrine meditations that only counts down while walking on the overworld. This is not a big deal for the more remote shrines but it is an issue for several of them.
• Fighting the large groups of enemies in the dungeon rooms takes a lot of time. I want to avoid those fights as much as possible. This means tweaking the route to enter some dungeons from the overworld entrance rather than using the altar rooms connected on the bottom floor. It also means exiting after getting the stone rather than working my way back to the altar room sometimes.
• Tremor is the key to getting through the tougher fights faster. So I want to get it in my spellbook and up my MP to use it before doing other dungeons.
• Moongates are nice but Gate travel magic is much nicer. The only downside to Gate is that it clears all of your captured pirate ships.
• There are a few points where I need the moons to be at a certain phase. Either I want to travel through the gate or reach the shrine of Spirituality. I can't completely forget about the moons after getting Gate magic because if I warp to where a moongate is open I immediately enter it. It is not a coincidence that the moons are at the right phase exactly when I want; subtle tricks are being used to alter the moons' progression. See the game resources page for details.
• The pirate fights take a long time. I want to minimize how many times I need to fight for a ship, especially before gaining magic power.
• Deathwarps can be useful, but the death sequence is long. It is really only useful if you have business in Castle Britannia.
• I want to finish the 49th fight just before entering the shrine of Valor. That should be the last thing I do before sailing to the abyss. Otherwise I'd waste time on fights that I could be using towards Valor.
• In the abyss I need to gain most of my MP walking in rooms in order to advance the RNG and line up really good luck for the last few rooms.

The start

Trinsic

The grind

Minoc

Castle Britannia

Buccaneer's Den

• 90 Ash
• 9 Garlic
• 90 Silkweb
• 90 Moss
• 90 Pearl
• 90 Manroot

Paws

Britain

Serpent's Hold

Cove

Serpent's Spine

Yew

Voyage to Moonglow

Deceit

Shame

Despise

Shrines of Spirituality and Sacrifice

Jhelom

The rest of the dungeons

The rest of the shrines

The Abyss

Thanks