I like this game a lot and I am very interested in this TAS. I'll share what little I can (that you probably already know) in the hopes of helping.
1) In-battle manipulation seems to be based on Brian's position. I don't think time is a factor at all. Also, you only seem to get a certain number of "choices" e.g. Brian stands in one spot, avalanche hits once, Brian moves to a different spot, avalanche hits twice. I'm not sure how big these "spots" are but they seem to be about Brian's size.
2) Avalanche gives the most damage all at once but is it faster than power staff+melee in real time? That is, if you stick with melee you can attack very rapidly whereas avalanche has a long, laggy animation. Not to mention enemies close attack is usually faster than their ranged attack too. You might save some time using melee over avalanche (assuming you can manipulate misses or invincibility) at least in some battles. The benefits might not manifest at first, but if you use melee throughout the entire game it will be very powerful at the end. Just a thought.
Joined: 7/8/2007
Posts: 27
Location: North Carolina, USA
I found a way to improve your run by about 600-800 frames (didn't really try to optimize it to much). The way to do it is grab wings in the starting town and the second one. If you use the wing after you collect the spirit in the starting town, you can save like 500 frames or so. The second town only seems to save 100 or so. Not enough to start a run over for, but something to keep in mind for later towns.
Edit: I forgot that you have to backtrack to the castle, if you use the wing after getting the earth orb and exiting the castle, looks like you can save 1000 frames.
I like this game a lot and I am very interested in this TAS. I'll share what little I can (that you probably already know) in the hopes of helping.
1) In-battle manipulation seems to be based on Brian's position. I don't think time is a factor at all. Also, you only seem to get a certain number of "choices" e.g. Brian stands in one spot, avalanche hits once, Brian moves to a different spot, avalanche hits twice. I'm not sure how big these "spots" are but they seem to be about Brian's size.
2) Avalanche gives the most damage all at once but is it faster than power staff+melee in real time? That is, if you stick with melee you can attack very rapidly whereas avalanche has a long, laggy animation. Not to mention enemies close attack is usually faster than their ranged attack too. You might save some time using melee over avalanche (assuming you can manipulate misses or invincibility) at least in some battles. The benefits might not manifest at first, but if you use melee throughout the entire game it will be very powerful at the end. Just a thought.
1) It is somewhat, though it's not like I could take one step and get a difference. I'd have to take multiple steps, and sometimes it's not even within my agility circle to get a change...I've tested this a lot, especially trying to beat Sovering.
2) I know that this attack is very good, the only problem with using Melee to attack every turn is that I am completing this game at an EXTREMELY low level. getting hit by enemies is a 1 or 2 hit KO most of the time. I can't afford to get hit and it would therefor waste time to try and use Melee all the time. It's near impossible to manipulate this game. At first I thought I could get all misses, but it seems like most of the time you ARE going to get hit or you ARE going to miss...100%. I'm still trying my best to figure this out though.
Dromiceius wrote:
Same here. I got a new comp and managed to watch the WIP. Very impressive so far.
Thanks I appreciate the support. :)
CGoCPftF wrote:
How is progress going in this game? I have really enjoyed your run so far, keep up the good work.
Thanks. I've just passed the ship for the first time. I've been stuck for over a month now mostly due to having somewhat of a life...heh.
CGoCPftF wrote:
I found a way to improve your run by about 600-800 frames (didn't really try to optimize it to much). The way to do it is grab wings in the starting town and the second one. If you use the wing after you collect the spirit in the starting town, you can save like 500 frames or so. The second town only seems to save 100 or so. Not enough to start a run over for, but something to keep in mind for later towns.
Edit: I forgot that you have to backtrack to the castle, if you use the wing after getting the earth orb and exiting the castle, looks like you can save 1000 frames.
I see your logic..that seems pretty logical. I'll have to remember that if I do this run again and i will keep your advice for later towns if i can. the edit i don't really fallow...you cant warp right from inside the forest to the castle right? Didn't think you were allowed to do that.
I apologize for my delays, again I've actually been busy here with my real life. I guess some things just have to come before the videogames. I hope you guys understand.
Joined: 7/8/2007
Posts: 27
Location: North Carolina, USA
Oh sorry for the confusion. What I meant was I first tried sleeping in the inn, grabbing the wing, get the spirit in the sand and then use the wing. Then I realized that I would save a lot more time to save the wing for after your death warp and walk into the castle. Once you exit the castle use it then instead of spending about 1000 frames walking from the castle entrance to the town exit. From the little bit of testing I did you can't use the wings in any buildings, forests, or any other place like that including the room where the first boss is.
Edit: I found two more things that *might* be able to improve your run.
1. I am not sure if you tested it, but there is a way to attack twice if you cast a long range spell while being able to attack another enemy with your staff. The damage of the staff seems to nearly equal the damage of the spell. This might have been quicker on your walk to dondaran because it looks like you could end the battle in three attacks instead of four (1.cast fire on the first guy 2. get in close range to him and cast rock on the other 3. repeat for both kills) the time it takes to position brian might take longer though.
2. I was completely unaware that you could win items from battle in this game, but I got a honey bread from a test fight. I will try to figure out the extent of what can be dropped and how to trigger it, because if they can drop dew drops then that saves the time collecting them in the monastary.
I did some Google searching for item drops, though so far all I've found is an anonymous tip on a beat-up old personal site saying you can get Celine's Bells from Man Eaters, Hot Lips, Scare Crows and Pin Heads. Aside from that, I haven't played this in awhile but I'm pretty sure you can get Dew Drops and bread from quite a few monsters. I used to pick up lots of stuff and then forget to use any of it, heh. I'll shell out my game tomorrow (time for bed) and see what I can find.
Yeah, also the recent WIP isn't playing for me - it says a controller isn't plugged in (even though I can play the game normally and it instead says I don't have a memory card). I'll take another look after I get some sleep.
Joined: 7/8/2007
Posts: 27
Location: North Carolina, USA
I don't know why I didn't notice it before, but there is a big guide on GameFAQs that had an extensive list of item drops. From what I understand, there are a ton of monsters that drop dew drops on the way to conner forest, and a few that drop mint leaves later on in the game. Manipulating the drops seems like an easy task as well. An item drops or not depending on when the final blow in battle is dealt. I hate to say this, but in my mind that makes going to Dodoran castle a massive waste of time. Pros: Two spirits, a healing pot and a heroes drink. Cons: The fact that the heroes drink will not be any better than a mint leaf for a majority of the run and in my rough calculations a loss of well over 10,000 frames. To me that seems like such a large improvement this early on that you should start over (but i won't blame you if you don't).
Ah crap, figures it was the one FAQ I forgot to read X)
I got the movie working too, by using the right input plugin (rawr). I thought it was pretty entertaining so far, considering how easy it is to get lost in this game.
Also, said FAQ mentions that you can only get monster drops if you don't have that item. Tough break, eh?
Joined: 7/8/2007
Posts: 27
Location: North Carolina, USA
Oops, didn't read that part, but thought that might be the case anyways... That could still be a useful fact, but it lost most of its usefulness. Also, Celine's Bell doesnt work on bosses. This doesn't really change the fact that going to Dondoran seems unnecessary. I guess the main reason you would side track there is for the heroes potion which cant be gotten off of a random encounter until much later in the game. If there is ever a battle after Solvering where you need to refill mp more than twice, which I assume is going to be the case, then picking up items is still necessary. Otherwise, you could have a mint leaf and dewdrop in stock at all times for boss battles, later on a heroes potion as well.
Thanks for all the help so far. Sorry if my strategy is unclear. I think the biggest concern in the beginning of the game is the spirits. If I try to save time by avoiding them I lose that time 3 fold in battles where I could have used them...that pretty much explains about every second used that doesn't look useful.
As for my progress? Fortunately of unfortunately videogames aren't a huge part of my life. I work on TAS when I have nothing else I could possibly be doing. Lots going on in my life right now. I'll get back to it at some point...
I'm sciencing as fast as I can !
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<adelikat> once more balls enter the picture, everything gets a lot more entertraining
<adelikat> mmmmm yummy penises
Is mammon possible if you skip leveling up defense and agility and just keep magic barrier on while stacking dew drops and heroes drinks
I did Mammon on the console first try with 41 points in Earth, enough points in Water for the MP drain, and lots of recovery items. I also had fairly minimal stats, too. That ended up being the strategy I used for several bosses in a row, once I got the barrier.
Using tools, it should be easy to avoid certain attacks quite easily, allowing more rounds without a barrier up.
There are several places where you can load up on recovery items along the way, so it shouldn't really be a problem to get the items you need later on, should you use that strategy. It would be slower than using Avalanche repeatedly on him since he's so big, but it is a viable strategy.
One of Mammon's attacks is easy to dodge, even in realtime. Avalanche is probably random enough to allow you to manipulate Mammon to use that attack every turn. Hence, it would probably be easy to defeat him in a TAS.
Actually, both of his dodgeable attacks can be dodged easily, provided you're not standing right in front of him. Run to the side to dodge his flame pillars, and round around in circles to dodge the multi-arrows.
I've been thinking that maybe Water should be skippped in favour of Wind. Earth's confusion should be a good alternative to MP Drain, and Wind will defintely speed up the fight for the Earth Orb.
My first playthough of this game used Water & Wind (until they were maxed out, of course). I think Large Cutter would be an excellent attack for a speedrun -- it's executed extrememly fast (and it's not laggy), and it has decent power. Cutter 3 has unlimited range (you can even have your back to the only enemy), and fighting from afar could mean that you don't need to waste turns using Magic Barrier.
Just some food for thought. Perhaps Fire 3 would be a good, fast attack as well.
Hi guys, i'm new to tasing. I like speedruns very much, especially for the n64. But i'm not crazy starting with something like OoT or Mario 64. So i tried out an old game of my childhood, quest 64, even if most people say it's bad, i love it.
I tested battle-avoiding, and had some good results with pause/itemmenu-mashing. It was really useful in a situation like this: You run out of Melrode, and the game gives you a nice amount of time without a battle. After the first battle, it lets you again run a long time till the next battle. Now if you do the pause/itemmenu-mashing trick on the right frames, you can skip this battle completely. You dont just delay it, in my tests the next battle was always a completely different one. I such situations, with long "battleless" periods, this trick is perfect and looks faster than the crazy stoping/running-in-circles Donamer used. I still have not understand how this works exactly, and it seems to be less effective in situations, where the game decides to give you 2-3 battles in a short time period.
It would be nice if you could give me some tipps with this game (and tasing in general) I still don't know basic things such as the total number of spirits in the game (a guide at gamefaqs says 98, but wouldn't 100 make more sense?) I'm happy with every help i get :)
Btw, sorry if my english isn't perfect, i'm from switzerland ;)
Current project: Gex 3 any%
Paused: Gex 64 any%
There are no N64 emulators. Just SM64 emulators with hacky support for all the other games.
I watched DonamerDragon's run. It seems to me that the most sensible thing to do would be to run a test run from beginning to end and perform something similar to what he was doing.
1: Grab all spirits near path
2: At each boss, hack your elements to some combination of water/fire/earth/wind and test out various strategies with the amount of spirits you have.
We can look into how to hack elements because you probably don't know how. It isn't difficult at all compared to the time testing you save.
Anyway, essentially you want to see how to beat the 8 bosses optimally before executing the run. Also strategies for quick random battles are quite important.
I found a boss battle compilation, it includes a very cheap way of beating Fargo and Beigis. http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=3C478E73136A0372
Drain Magic and Confusion both seem quite useful for replenishing MP.
An interesting note: I believe Wind Cutter 3 will raise your MP twice as fast as Fire 3 because it is supposedly based off the number of hits. I always used Wind spells when I played this game, I think perhaps the usefulness has been underestimated in this thread.
According to a post on GameFAQs: - "Spirit Crystals will be gained while grinding MP, but I need to mention that only 98 can be gained through grinding, while the other 98 are floating on the world map for you to find."
4 starting + 98 overworld + 98 leveling = 200.
1: Grab all spirits near path
2: At each boss, hack your elements to some combination of water/fire/earth/wind and test out various strategies with the amount of spirits you have.
We can look into how to hack elements because you probably don't know how. It isn't difficult at all compared to the time testing you save.
1: I wonder if it wouldn't be easier, to just get every spirit and call it 100% How much longer would this probably take? I mean, there is a lot of walking around anyway.
2: As i mentioned before, i'm new to tasing, so i don't know how this works.
I watched the vids on youtube. The glitches in the Fargo and Beigis battles are nice, but they don't look very useful for a tas (except when they could be pulled of very fast).
I also thought about possible ways to skip some boss battles, similiar to the trick that lets you open the chests near Solvaring without starting the fight. The first 3 bosses are needed for the items, but Shilf and Fargo are just blocking your way. I don't even know if you really need the items of the elementar bosses at the end.
I will start a test run when i have some time...
Current project: Gex 3 any%
Paused: Gex 64 any%
There are no N64 emulators. Just SM64 emulators with hacky support for all the other games.
100% runs are a bit hard to define and the definition typically should be generally agreed upon beforehand.
It could include any or all of
1: All overworld spirits
2: All leveling spirits
3: All chests
4: Max Brian's stats
With even just max spirits (overworld and leveling), you're looking at a ton of grinding time. I think it makes more sense to do the any% first.
The most important thing in those two fights I mentioned is probably staying alive and not having to heal 3 out of 4 turns. If that is an issue, you probably need to trap them.
I'm not sure what the Solvering trick is, but you could try pause mashing or timed walking if the trigger for entering a boss battle is programmed in such a way to allow this.
Regarding testing, typically the best way to test TAS conditions is to hack stats or levels to what they would be in various circumstances instead of having to manually level various ways.
For this game, i would define 100% simple as "all overworld spirits" You probably could add chests. But leveling spirits and stats would take forever and just make it boring as hell. For example defense, as far as i know, the only way to max it out is by getting hit. And getting hit ins't something that i want to see that much in a speedrun.
About the Solvaring-Trick: just walk along the edge of the fighting area, and the battle won't start. It must be outside the triggered zone that starts the cutscene.
Testing this game isn't that easy for me, because i don't know good cheats, like "no random battles" or something. I read a lot of guides about tasing and this game, but many things, such as luck manipulation, are still very confusing. And i have still my problems with mupen, because normally i'm playing on P64. Let's say savestates, is it normal that they're gone after you turn mupen off?
But even if it should take some time for me to learn all this things, and recording just a testrun, i want at least try how far i can go. I really like this game and the fact, that there are still people interested at tasing it. Donamers work shouldn't be for nothing.
Current project: Gex 3 any%
Paused: Gex 64 any%
There are no N64 emulators. Just SM64 emulators with hacky support for all the other games.
Someone asked me to do this, so I posted the results here:
Relevant Addresses 00967XXX
HP Level: 504 (Short maybe?)
Curr HP: 506
MP Level: 508
Curr MP: 50A
Def Level: 50C
Agi Level: 50E
Wind Level: 524
Water Level: 525
Earth Level: 526
Fire Level: 527
MP Exp Counter: 528
HP Exp Counter: 52A
Def Exp Counter: 52C
Agi Exp Counter: 52E
Step Counter (Agi): 69C (Float)
Values tend to match the in-game values. For example: Fire Level 1 has a value of 1, not 0.
How to use this information
1: Download MHS here: http://memoryhacking.com/download.php
2: Open MHS. Go to File->Open Process. Choose Mupen
3: Go to File-> Open Save File. Choose this file I've uploaded: http://www.mediafire.com/?8tswxbucwvseecb
4: You can now observe memory while playing.
5: To overwrite a value for testing, right click on the value and choose to Modify Selected. Under Cur Value, type the value you want it to be set to. Click OK. This value is now written to the target value one time. The emulator will further modify the value as it normally would. In the case of element levels, if you hack to 20, it will increment to 21 when you level it again. Certain stats may have triggers stored elsewhere and could revert to an original value + 1. Just be aware.
I confirmed that one magic attack hitting two enemies gives 2 MP increments, and a wind cutter level 3 gives 1 MP increment for each successful hit. It seems to shoot 6 times. Also MP takes forever to level as it is.
I would generally recommend getting hit as often as is practical in order to gain HP and defense. Especially if it is only 1 damage.
