Soooo, I owe you an anaysis about weapon leveling.
Here is what I think I found:
- Basically the exp you get is limited to 9 - current_level.
So if your weapon is at lv0, you can get at most 9 points per kill.
- Next, you'll get less exp if you have friends in your party. If they are dead, you'll get the full exp.
- Next, the exp you get is somehow related to the finishing blow. I think if you send the monster flying with the last blow, you'll get more exp than normally.
- Lastly, over time, the exp you get from a monster gets less. I don't know how the calculation is done, but for example, a full party kill of a fish before undine gives my lv1 sword the full 8 points, where a chobin hood gives only 4.
The best spots to get the eapon from 1 to 2 seems to be either the stools in Elinees castle, there you'll have to let the other two die and charge kill them, otherwise you won't get the full exp, or kill the fishes before undine, those give full 8 points even with living party.
Yes you're right about exp weapon, and at 8+ it bugs sometimes ( it's sometimes anormally slow to up ).
The best spots to get the eapon from 1 to 2 seems to be either the stools in Elinees castle, there you'll have to let the other two die and charge kill them, otherwise you won't get the full exp, or kill the fishes before undine, those give full 8 points even with living party.[/quote]
Well i'll see that. Actually in your smv, have you already used a ( big ) bug ?
In your fight against the second boss, i remenber i saw you to go to the left for to wait the frame for critical hit, but did you, for each frame, tested all the directions ?
I mean, for one frame : up, test, rerecord, down, test, rerecord, etc...
Or did you : left, save, test, rerecord, left, save, test, rerecord, etc...
In this second case it's slower.
-) TorZelan : ok ;)
What is this bug? I't won't affect a 3-player run, because select is never pressed more than once, but I can't think of what you mean right now.
Remenber : 3-player is slower than 1-player in lots of room.
Because in 3-player mode, each time you run, the two others run but use the barre, that's not the case for 1-player mode, except with this crap bug.
For weapon training, i'll test differents places.
The spear is the strongest weapon ( except at the end with mana sword ), perharps you need to time the differents animations of these weapons.
- The 2-orbed whip is listed to increase speed. Never noticed it though...
About whip, it hasn't crap deg...
Boomerang, javelin, arc : these are the 3 crap weapons, even if we can appreciate them for personnal reason.
Of course it would make the tiger battle a lot faster.
Why ?
You mean the battle come sooner ? Or you mean you hit the tigger with the 3 char in same time ?
- leveling in the woods fails, because at three players the chobin hoods only give 4 weapon exp.
What ? You mean for the 2 others who not give the last hit to the ennemy ?
Stools and werewolf are too strong for weapon leveling, don't you ?
They give more weapon exp for the 2 no-final killers of the team ?
I didn't care because i've never plain weapon training in speed run/TAS.
Yes you're right about exp weapon, and at 8+ it bugs sometimes ( it's sometimes anormally slow to up ).
The best spots to get the eapon from 1 to 2 seems to be either the stools in Elinees castle, there you'll have to let the other two die and charge kill them, otherwise you won't get the full exp, or kill the fishes before undine, those give full 8 points even with living party.
Tested the stools. They give 4 exp, unless Randi is the only survivor _and_ the last hit is a charged one or crit. Still interesting...
Well i'll see that. Actually in your smv, have you already used a ( big ) bug ?
Nope. I think I abused stored running one time, but that's no major glitch.
In your fight against the second boss, i remenber i saw you to go to the left for to wait the frame for critical hit, but did you, for each frame, tested all the directions ?
I mean, for one frame : up, test, rerecord, down, test, rerecord, etc...
Or did you : left, save, test, rerecord, left, save, test, rerecord, etc...
In this second case it's slower.
I tried testing frame perfect, but that's impossible without a bot. The values you get for hitting change every 4-5 frames or so, but the frame that counts is the frame the attack connects, which is almost impossible to predict. Against the Mantis Ant the added difficulty was that I have to avoid his attacks at almost all costs, preferably resetting my hitbar. Against Tropicallo the diving has to be avoided, or crits have to be gotten, while also avoiding fatal blows from the bombs. I did it by manually playing the scene a few dozen times (a matter of minutes), then saving the ones where I got crits, and then optimizing them. Since the frame where the attack connects has to be in the same window there's not much to be gained. The results of hits can only be altered if the amount of random decisions by the AI is altered in the meantime, which is only possible by standing completely different, or taking a hit.
Remenber : 3-player is slower than 1-player in lots of room.
Because in 3-player mode, each time you run, the two others run but use the barre, that's not the case for 1-player mode, except with this crap bug.
Pay attention to the video. :)
I constantly swap players in and out to preserve running condition.
The reason why Select isn't pressed more than once is that I just plug out the controller not needed rather than changing the active controller to a different player.
The spear is the strongest weapon ( except at the end with mana sword ), perharps you need to time the differents animations of these weapons.
As I said, the weapon glitch scales insanely in terms of power, much faster than it should be. It's more like you have 16 charges. So weapon power is only of interest for leveling.
Why ?
You mean the battle come sooner ? Or you mean you hit the tigger with the 3 char in same time ?
No, I'd just charge 3-4 charges and oneshot the bugger.
EDIT: Made a crappy demo vid: link
This one is 2 player only, so no multitap.
- leveling in the woods fails, because at three players the chobin hoods only give 4 weapon exp.
What ? You mean for the 2 others who not give the last hit to the ennemy ?
Yep, all three gain 4 exp. I could let them die, but then Randi would have to kill them solo (slow).
Stools and werewolf are too strong for weapon leveling, don't you ?
They give more weapon exp for the 2 no-final killers of the team ?
I didn't care because i've never plain weapon training in speed run/TAS.
As I said, stools seem to be an option, but werewolfs are too random and too strong, and there's only 2 at a time and those are too far into a room.
I don't think you should just let any of the characters die. That really bugged me in the SDA run the way he was always letting the girl die.
Just my input. ;3
*watches the latest (I think) WIP*
You do know, that the cannon outside Potos can take you to Gaia's Navel after the Water Palace event. Yeah the animation takes some time, but walking through Pandora, the area outside Pandora and most of Gaia's Navel seems to take a fair bit longer. The funds needed for the flight could come from the Chest in the Elder of Potos's house.
Is levelling the weapons really worth it in this run? As soon as you get offensive magic, that's probably the fastest way to kill bosses until Moon Energy (and maybe beyond considering your low level or unforged weapons). Yeah, it probably saves a bit of time against Tropicallo, Spiky Tiger and that miniboss you fight to get the magic... and it didn't lose you too much time to level the sword to 1 in the Dwarf Cave.
Also, while the Tropicallo fight was pretty fast, I think it could be faster still with some really sneaky manipulation. There is a small window where you can hit him and he wont dive under. Of course, it's unlikely to manipulate critical damage on such frames without ridiculous study of what affects the game's RNG.
Hmm,,, how well does that charge up glitch work? I haven't seen it done myself so I don't know how fast it charges to Lv. 8 or what the damage is like with weaker weapons. Does it have to be switching from an at least level 2 weapon to a weaker one? Couldn't switching a level 1 weapon for a level 0 weapon work as well?
Also, if the charge glitch does work well,,, it could be a good idea to charge one such attack up during a chain of spells and unleash it once the spell chain's damage is resolved, that way you basically get two extreme hits in the time of one,,,
I'm still interested in messing around with this game, but I'm supposed to be doing Goldeneye. Oops!
You do know, that the cannon outside Potos can take you to Gaia's Navel after the Water Palace event. Yeah the animation takes some time, but walking through Pandora, the area outside Pandora and most of Gaia's Navel seems to take a fair bit longer.
Actually no, I didn't know. But nevertheless I do need the weaopn exp, so I'd have to kill something in gaia's navel instead. Worth testing...
Also, while the Tropicallo fight was pretty fast, I think it could be faster still with some really sneaky manipulation. There is a small window where you can hit him and he wont dive under. Of course, it's unlikely to manipulate critical damage on such frames without ridiculous study of what affects the game's RNG.
Exactly what you said. :)
Hmm,,, how well does that charge up glitch work? I haven't seen it done myself so I don't know how fast it charges to Lv. 8 or what the damage is like with weaker weapons. Does it have to be switching from an at least level 2 weapon to a weaker one? Couldn't switching a level 1 weapon for a level 0 weapon work as well?
There's a link hidden in my last post before this one. And it has to be lv2+ -> lv1+. And it has to be done with 2 players plugged in.
Also, if the charge glitch does work well,,, it could be a good idea to charge one such attack up during a chain of spells and unleash it once the spell chain's damage is resolved, that way you basically get two extreme hits in the time of one
I'd look into that once there actually are spells.
I have completed a Secret of Mana run using the weapon glitch. The link below should take you right to the download part of my file front page.
http://files.filefront.com/SoM+Glitch+Runsmv/;7959957;;/fileinfo.html
I used Snes9X v1.43+ v10 and the Secret of Mana (U)[!].smc ROM to make the movie. I was able to watch the whole movie with no problems or desyncs.
My run clocks in at 2 hours and 45 minutes. I will be the first to say that I know this run is not optimized at all. However, this being my first complete TAS of any game, and a long RPG at that, I think it turned out quite well. You may notice the relatively low rerecord count. The truth is, I was more concerned with actually getting through the game rather than shaving off frames for the fastest possible time. Each room or area becomes a maze of its own when it comes to navigating around walls and obstacles and I did not want to spend hours just figuring out the fastest way from one door to another, merely getting there and continuing on. That being said, I did try to be as speedy as possible.
I'll point out a few things about the run as well as some other things I noticed while making it.
The weapon glitch worked very well with killing bosses quickly. There is only 1 boss that I was not able to kill with the weapon glitch. I became fed up trying to find a way to hit Spring Beak, the boss before you get Sylphid's magic, with the spear. No matter where I tried, I could never land a hit on it. Yet, the AI controlled girl managed to get a weapon strike in while I was spamming it with Gnome magic. I am positive that it can be hit by the spear. I just got too annoyed while trying and decided to redo the section after killing the 3 blue hedgehogs. I bought 4 Faerie Walnuts, hoping it would be enough to kill the thing with 0 magic at that point. Luckily it was. Every boss afterwards gets hit with at least 1 the super spear of death!
I spent the majority of the rerecord count on the boss fights. Learning how to manipulate each one to my favor was quite fun. I eventually figured out a nice tactic against bosses that liked to cast magic on the guy and ruin my weapon charge, more than likely killing him. Since using the glitch requires 2 players, I would often place either the sprite or girl near the boss so that when it picked a target for the spell I knew was coming, it would target one of them, not the guy charging for the weapon strike. It worked rather well.
As the run progressed, I noticed that the maximum damage done by the glitch was slowly dropping. I guess this has to do with the boss's armor rating or something, I don't know. Regardless, it was doing less damage and that meant I would need to land more hits in order to kill the boss. Only too late did I realize a nice trick. If you cast moon energy on the guy while the he is holding the spear and the weapon glitch is charging, the next hit will ALWAYS result in a 999 critical hit. This is most evident fighting the Mana Beast, when I first realized what was happening. You need to cast it before each hit though. This may be due to my extremely low magic level though. It may last longer with a higher magic level.
I think the amount of time that could be saved in my run is enormous. 30 minutes, probably more. Probably a lot more. I hope it can serve as a guide for someone who is much better at TAS'ing than I.
Any feedback would be awesome. I hope you enjoy it!
Would it be possible to double the use of the weapon glitch if you control two characters at the same time?
I actually didn't mind seeing the weapon glitch used at every boss battle. It is either magic spamming or this.
Very nice Red Hazard ! Always nice to see SOM work !
Gorash will be happy, he needed a full movie for to test many things !
But it isn't a TAS, it's a fast walkthrough ^^
Someone is planing a TAS no glitch ? And without the hit Level1 without 100% bar loading ?
I think it must be a grouped work, if not, i don't think it will be finished :(
I can help for that.
I am indeed happy, but I don't think I'll have time to implement all the things I wanted to.
I'm in the middle of my exams right now, and it doesn't get less work.
At least the topic isn't dead.
Good luck for your exam ! ;) I know what's that, to work at the end, even in high studies :D To wish luck is inory, so i will tell you to work good ;)
Secret of Mana will never die, but the matter is we can't count the new young people which don't know Secret of Mana and will probably not do TAS, so if we don't make a TAS today, we'll never forget this game but a TAS will probably not done. But the matter is this game MUST BE TASED :(
Nobody want ( just think, not engagement ) to do a TAS no glitch with team work ?
Thanks guys. Yes, I agree that it is more of a walkthrough, (tool assisted walkthrough? hehe =)
2 characters performing the weapon glitch. I did have this in mind when making my run. In fact, if you see me killing monsters for no reason, I had it in my head that I would try the weapon glitch with 2 characters at once. I eventually gave up on that idea though. I'm sure that it is possible though, even with only 2 controllers active. Should be easy enough to test.
I would be interested in helping with future runs, glitched or not. Obvious from the movie, I'm not that great at it, but would be willing to help test stuff if needed.
Even though this is not an optimized run it is still faster than the one over at SDA, which lands at 5:15:xx. This is most likely due to the weapon charge glitch.
I noticed a big miss though. In the underground palace (near frame 430000) you didn't take the shortcut. If you charge a weapon a slight bit you will make a jump move. When doing this jump move you can jump up ledges. So instead of walking around a long detour you can jump the ledge, push the button, and then walk towards the exit much sooner. ;)
I really hope that you will continue to improve this run, even though it's tedious. Cheers!
I did try that. The buttons would not light up if I went the short way for some reason. If it did work, you bet I would have included it. Maybe if you were to leave and immediately re-enter that same room with the lights it would work, I didn't test that.
Ok, I've watched the first half hour of your run Rad, and it's itching to take up the game again. What gave me headaches at the end of my short WIP was the growing amount of luck manipulation needed, which your run doesn't seem to need.
All that's left is optimized movement, and a good strategy to level the weapons. Very very tempting...
You do know, that the cannon outside Potos can take you to Gaia's Navel after the Water Palace event. Yeah the animation takes some time, but walking through Pandora, the area outside Pandora and most of Gaia's Navel seems to take a fair bit longer.
Btw. I tested this.
It's about half a minute (!) faster to get shot there, but at a cost.
2 kills are missing, and the missing 50 gold hurt.
OTOH if one would level another weapon to level 1 like in Rad's smv, the extra kills and gold would be easy to get...
triple post.
Messed with my old wip and the new ideas, and this is the result.
It's about 45s slower than the old version, but still 10s faster than Rad's.
It also gains a level and 60 gold more. Both weapons at lv1 this time.
Unfortunately Randi is missing a mere 2 exp to level 5, but I don't think that will get Tropicallo much faster...
It's also multitapped. ;)
So... anybody want to do the dwarf village and Tropicallo after that?
Make sure to enable the multitap before loading the movie. It played fine for me.
I can give it a go Gorash. I'm not sure how many critical hits I'll be able to get, if any, but I'll play around with it. The video so far looks great. I really like the moving off the side of the stairs to run earlier move.
I should've deleted my post. Nitrodon helped me with that problem. Thanks Nitrodon, and thank you too.
For me, that whole slime-slaying part was long and really boring but I don't know the game enough to judge whether what you did was good or bad (if there are other/better methods/options). I hope it picks up after you get the girl and the brat.
laughing_gas:
There's no multicontrol until after Tropicallo... ;)
erokky:
Yes, the slimes are boring, but it's by far the fastest method of leveling weapons to lv1 early. It also gives a ton of cash and exp, which will hopefully speed up things later.
Rad:
The walking off of stairs was in my first version too.
Edit:
What needs to be done is:
A - walk to the blacksmith and go through the tempering cutscene.
B - walk into the freak show, watch the whole thing, donate gold, go into the backstage area, get your gold back.
A and B can be completed in any order, my testings showed that both are in potential about the same length, but in practice due to the dwarf running in your way A first tends to be a few frames faster.
