Of course, there's only 1 opal bracelet, so everyone else will get the hard and slippery, but the first fighter takes the brunt of the blows anyway... so, I beleive it's a fair tradeoff. Any thoughts?
sorry if i missed it or not, but is there no way of manipulating who gets hit by enemies? or is that fixed?
and i guess i'm wrong from thinking back in the day that luck had to do with chance of running from battle being upped
sorry if i missed it or not, but is there no way of manipulating who gets hit by enemies? or is that fixed?
You can manipulate who gets hit in any case except for if it's a 'monster strikes first' situation. However, since I'm often trying to manipulate so may things at once, (getting good attacks, taking little damage, wether on not the enemy strikes first next fight) it's not always best/possible to make every monster hit the man in the opal bracelet.
moltar wrote:
and i guess i'm wrong from thinking back in the day that luck had to do with chance of running from battle being upped
As far as I know, the Luck stat ups the chance of running. However, you can manipulate whether you successfully run or not and when in the battle you run. So, to put it one way, my chance of running is 100%—unless it's an enemy you can never run from—regardless of the Luck stat.
edit: though I wouldn't be surprised if someone said it was the AGI stat and luck was pointless. Or that it was all just random and no stat ever effected it. Another reason to break down and get hackster, I guess.
i'd just thought i remembered from back in the day that the thief had substantially higher luck and that's why he was able to run more successfully and black belt had higher agility and is why he got more hits.
can you control who gets up during the battle sequence, like your guys get up first then they do?
pardon, i'm just very curious with as such
I noticed a couple of things.. on the way to Astos, you took one step East, headed North, and then took one step West when near his castle. There wasn't anything in the way and avoiding the two extra steps didn't seem to change anything (immediately, at least). Was there a reason for it?
After you beat Kraken, you can avoid that fight with the fr.giant/fr.wolf by taking a few extra steps in his lair before warping out. For instance, after lighting the orb, I walked around to the right and stepped on the altar from there.. got back to the airship without a no-run fight.
I know two such fights could have been avoided after landing the airship and heading for the waterfall (by canoeing in the river), but the results would be worse, so taking the time for the battles was definitely the better move. If you're willing to take the extra steps before that to get into 2 fights (possibly more) elsewhere (say, around Gaia or before getting the airship), then you might be able to have different fights (runnable) instead. All enemy formations after that would be sooner than in the movie, of course. How that would affect later things is unknown, of course.
The Gas Dragon was a nice touch. :) I don't think I've ever run into one there.
I noticed a couple of things.. on the way to Astos, you took one step East, headed North, and then took one step West when near his castle. There wasn't anything in the way and avoiding the two extra steps didn't seem to change anything (immediately, at least). Was there a reason for it?
No. There are other places I take too many steps as well. Just errors on my part. I admit it ;D. I'll have to iron all that out in the next version...
Paulygon wrote:
After you beat Kraken, you can avoid that fight with the fr.giant/fr.wolf by taking a few extra steps in his lair before warping out. For instance, after lighting the orb, I walked around to the right and stepped on the altar from there.. got back to the airship without a no-run fight.
Awesome. I will definately do that. Those enemeis suck.
Paulygon wrote:
I know two such fights could have been avoided after landing the airship and heading for the waterfall (by canoeing in the river), but the results would be worse, so taking the time for the battles was definitely the better move. If you're willing to take the extra steps before that to get into 2 fights (possibly more) elsewhere (say, around Gaia or before getting the airship), then you might be able to have different fights (runnable) instead. All enemy formations after that would be sooner than in the movie, of course. How that would affect later things is unknown, of course.
If it's feasable, I may have the encounter list next to me as I play the next version, and avoid no-run fights alltogether. It'll probably end up taking longer, though.
And yeah, I didn't like the idea of getting poisoned, so I toughed out the Fr Giant.
Paulygon wrote:
The Gas Dragon was a nice touch. :) I don't think I've ever run into one there.
I assure you, it was pure chance that I ran into it. I can take no credit.
moltar wrote:
can you control who gets up during the battle sequence, like your guys get up first then they do?
Yeah. Often times, it doesn't really matter who attacks when in the round, though, unless the enemy only needs one or two more attacks to be killed. And sometimes, it takes longer to make the light warriors attack first than it does to take the hit(s) that the enemeis dish out.
Joined: 10/12/2004
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I am attempting a FF1 run as well, and found some useful info, mostly related to luck manipulation. Inzult probably knows about them, but I haven't seen those listed anywhere in this thread, so here goes:
- While in a battle, that battle's "scenario" is generated every 2 frames. I discovered that using FCEU's "Pause" and" Frame Advance" options while entering my 4th character's command. This can ultimately lead to perfect battles, with a lot of effort. However, I'm not going to wait 832762386 frames to get 4 hits and 5 misses in a 1st round from the pirates battle in Pravoka. :P
- It also seems like battle occurances can be either delayed or hasted, depending on the type of tile you walk on. Some tiles seem to take off more off the the number of steps required to get into a random encounter. I figured this out after defeating Garland, while attempting to get to the bridge. I used a straight-forward way, walking through lots of forest tiles, and ended up having a battle with 5 imps. I then tried walking around the whole forest, and got to the bridge without an encounter, albeit walking a bit more. I finally tried to walk by the town wall, going through some grass and forest tiles, and got to the bridge, using an equal number of steps as for my first in-forest attempt.
Now what I'll need to figure out is how to influence when ambushes and preemptive strikes. The main hypothesis would be that it depends on how the last battle went, but that will have to be either tested or confirmed by someone who did that test.
Anyone has any ideas regarding that?
Joined: 7/17/2004
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Inzult has found out that preemptive/ambush battles are decided at the end of the last battle, in addition to number of enemies. The type of enemies follows a hardcoded rotation. Don't know if he manipulates to get a large number of steps until the next battle though, but this would be good too.
Yeah, the preemptive/ambush battles are determined when you enter the last action by the last character, as axeman said. So very much is determined then. So very very much.
I never bothered to worry about the steps to encounter (I'm not sure how it's manipulated; seems to be changed by deifferent events), nor did I worry about walking on only grass to minimize random encounters. In some situations, I imagine you could run into fewer fights (like, going to the bridge in your example) but I wasn't worrying about it.
BSiron, from gamefaqs covers the steps to encounter and Patburns17 elaborates on it (and also gives the encounter list):
http://db.gamefaqs.com/console/nes/file/final_fantasy_char_list.txt
but the steps to encounter, as I've found, isn't well known. In any case, helpful stuff.
What party are you using, Mart? I'd like to know. And, best of luck to you. Your patience will be tried.
Does the steps to a random encounter reset when you access the menu, or am I thinking of a different game?
I'm sure a menu access takes less time than a battle if that's the case.
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Joined: 11/22/2004
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Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Boco wrote:
Does the steps to a random encounter reset when you access the menu, or am I thinking of a different game?
I'm sure a menu access takes less time than a battle if that's the case.
I'm not sure about this game, but in FF2 and FF3 you can reset the battle step counter by using an item such as a potion.
Joined: 10/12/2004
Posts: 19
Location: Montreal beach, baby!
As for the party I'm using, right now, I tried 2 Fighters, a BB and a BM. I went and gave my BM Lit-2 (or Thundara, for all those new-generation FF fans), so I can level/cash up a bit on Wizards. However, I don't know how time-consuming leveling up and raking up in cash on Wizzies will be compared to just going thru the run and solely relying on luck manip to win hard fights such as Astos and Lich. In any event, I thought the BB would be useful after gaining some levels on the Wizards, thus making Astos and Lich fights easier without losing *too much* time.
But then again, I might just have to rethink my strategy...
Monks and Mages are only useful after being leveled, which you don't have the luxury of doing.
If I were you I'd make a Fighter and some other people, then kill them off. Maybe 2 Fighters and some others that get killed of. Then subsist on weapons & armor from chests and the like, and manipulate luck to survive insta-kill stuff.
someone is out there who will like you. take off your mask so they can find you faster.
I support the new Nekketsu Kouha Kunio-kun.
I was actually wondering why the currently posted test run doesn't use Lit2; wouldn't it make some of the multi-enemy battles go a lot faster? My party of choice would've been 2 fighters and 2 black mages... why is it that relying only on attacks / critical hits and using no attack magic is faster?
Also, I can believe that using fewer than 4 party members would be fastest, but I'm not sure if 3 is the optimal number.
I must confess to having not watched the video, but don't forget that the magic system in FF is nothing like in subsequent games. Long story short is that, playing through it normally (And it doesn't change much in a time attack, thanks to the limited-to-nonexistant ability to manipulate enemies), you don't have the luxury of blasting through every battle with magic. Considering this is a time attack, with limited leveling, I wouldn't be that surprised if Bolt 2 wasn't an option at all through a large portion of it.
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I've beaten FF1 before, I realize there's a set number of times each spell level can be cast at a given level between rests at an inn, but even only 4 casts of Lit2 in the game would save time in the required battles that have multiple enemies, and 2 black mages would (potentially) mean twice as many magic casts. I haven't actually tried it to see how much it's worth it, but it seems like it should save more time than a dead character would.
(I didn't realize the game ignores the INT stat when determining magic damage though... I guess black mages do get the worst deal when it comes to level up bonuses)
Does the steps to a random encounter reset when you access the menu, or am I thinking of a different game?
I'm sure a menu access takes less time than a battle if that's the case.
I've beaten FF1 before, I realize there's a set number of times each spell level can be cast at a given level between rests at an inn, but even only 4 casts of Lit2 in the game would save time in the required battles that have multiple enemies, and 2 black mages would (potentially) mean twice as many magic casts. I haven't actually tried it to see how much it's worth it, but it seems like it should save more time than a dead character would.
(I didn't realize the game ignores the INT stat when determining magic damage though... I guess black mages do get the worst deal when it comes to level up bonuses)
I'm pretty sure he's killing off characters to level faster. after elfland, i think he only has 3 characters, and he'll probably end with 1 or 2.
I intend on getting lit2 in the next run... I didn't get it in this run, because I wanted to buy FAST, and I didn't want to make 2 trips. And like the stubborn fool I am, I will press ahead. So n'yeah!
And, yeah, 2 characters is probably optimal. 2 fighters with magic casting items would do the trick just nicely, until you get the bane sword, at which time, 1 character would be all you needed.
And yeah, having 4 or 8 casts of lit2 would save time on 4 or 8 battles. But having dead characters means less people you have to go to "run" for. Which saves time on more than 4 or 8 battles. The only way to really get it both ways is to have RMs in stead of Fighters... which is definately worth considering. It's a lot to check out, and the only way to know for sure is to have 3 or 4 full runs of the game.
As soon as I get the internet back on my computer, I'll post my new and improved bottle plan, Mart, you might find it useful. You know, for getting the bottle.
The only way to really get it both ways is to have RMs in stead of Fighters... which is definately worth considering.
Hadn't thought of this at all since Red Mages generally aren't that great, but with luck manipulation to give them optimal stat gains every level they might be almost as strong physically in addition to having decent attack magic.
What about: Fighter - Red Mage - Fighter(dead) - Fighter(dead) ?
Hadn't thought of this at all since Red Mages generally aren't that great, but with luck manipulation to give them optimal stat gains every level they might be almost as strong physically in addition to having decent attack magic.
What about: Fighter - Red Mage - Fighter(dead) - Fighter(dead) ?
That's not bad, but I think it might be better to turn it around a little; Kill off one fighter at or around the Wizards to get the crown, and kill off the Red Mage at or around the Zombie Dragons in the Castle of Ordeals, as at that time one will have the Zeus Gauntlet to replace the red mage...
Leaving 2 fighters, with the Gold Bracelet for the topmost one and lit2 for the other...
...of course, this means a bit of a side trip.
Edit: Or else you could replace the RM with the mage staff from the sea shrine
I'm still pretty up in the air about the usefulness of class upgrades (opal gear would be pretty swell). But you don't need to get the upgrade after you go into the castle of ordeals. You could just get the zeus gauntlet and get out...
I have argued against the class upgrade, and didn't use it in my current run, because the cons outweighed the pros. But the idea of unlimited lit2 casts is pretty tantilizing...
...and don't ask me why I didn't get the mage staff in my current run, because I don't know.
I was going to ask about red mages... I mean, they can cast both fast and lit2. And have more hitpoints and better armor so they don't die all the time. And can actually fight with decent weapons. (How is that for generally not that great, anyway?)
Their downside is mostly later in the game after the class upgrade. But you're not doing that anyway.
