Post by FractalFusion

Posted: 1/24/2010 1:48 AM

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Graveworm

Former player

Joined: 9/29/2005
Posts: 460

As I've finally gotten settled down again from the turmoil last year I've gotten some time to TAS again. Not feeling quite ready to tackle my main project I decided that Mega Man X2 has not gotten enough attention recently. Now this might not be enough to warrant any discussion of sorts, but I decided on making a TAS collecting only the arm cannon since I believe it has not been confirmed whether it's actually faster than obtaining the Shoryuken or not. Movie time So I've continued today on a file I started last year, where I actually couldn't bother to finish half the intro stage actually, up until the arm cannon capsule. Now I've noticed that the capsule will not open until the screen stops shaking, so I have to reach the capsule between two screen shakes. In my movie I believe it takes 657 frames from I start to move until the capsule opens, and in the older run FractalFusion did it takes 30 frames less. Delaying the entry to the stage seems not change when the screen shakes, and seeing as it does not seem static I began wondering what could possibly cause this. Is it on a global timer that only runs during the stages? Is it RNG that can be manipulated sliding down a wall? I don't know yet, but I guess someone might be able to tell me more. I'm of course gonna poke around a bit in trying to manipulate the screen shakes, but doing almost 2 stages in one night is a bit much for me right now and I've got other things to attend to. If someone knows more about this I guess you could just post, otherwise I'll see what I can do about it and post if I find anything of interest. I hope there's still interest for one more Mega Man X2 run, there's been quite a few so far floating around.

Posted: 1/25/2010 5:38 AM

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Bablo

Player (224)

Joined: 10/17/2005
Posts: 399

I'm definetely interested in a new MMX2 TAS. I watched your wip and it looked great so far. It's about time to confirm whether or not 100% is the fastest way to beat this game. Gogogo!

<adelikat> I've been quoted with worse

Posted: 6/10/2010 5:16 AM

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sameasusual

Joined: 5/19/2010
Posts: 259
Location: California

If an "arm cannon upgrade" only run is indeed faster than the 100% run, which of the following would be most likely to occur? A highly optimized submission accepted for publication would: A. Obsolete the 100% run (not likely) B. Obsolete the "no items, best ending" run C. New category (fastest time) Obviously this is only in the event it is faster, so as not to cause controversy over the arbitrary item collection in case it ends up slower than the 100%.

#3201

Posted: 6/10/2010 7:01 PM

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Noxxa

They/Them

Moderator, Expert player (4107)

Joined: 8/14/2009
Posts: 4089
Location: The Netherlands

Pretty sure it'd be a new category. Or rather, 100% becomes its own category while the any% run technically obsoletes the 100% as 'fastest any%'.

http://www.youtube.com/Noxxa <dwangoAC> This is a TAS (...). Not suitable for all audiences. May cause undesirable side-effects. May contain emulator abuse. Emulator may be abusive. This product contains glitches known to the state of California to cause egg defects. <Masterjun> I'm just a guy arranging bits in a sequence which could potentially amuse other people looking at these bits <adelikat> In Oregon Trail, I sacrificed my own family to save time. In Star trek, I killed helpless comrades in escape pods to save time. Here, I kill my allies to save time. I think I need help.

Posted: 11/27/2010 5:11 PM

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Rolanmen1

He/Him

Experienced player (763)

Joined: 2/20/2009
Posts: 569
Location: Dominican Republic

Invincibility Glitch on a boss whose i forgot the name: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/11113623

Posted: 11/27/2010 10:34 PM

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Noxxa

They/Them

Moderator, Expert player (4107)

Joined: 8/14/2009
Posts: 4089
Location: The Netherlands

Can you elaborate? I don't see anything I think isn't already known. And, uh, the boss's name is in the title: Overdrive Ostrich.

http://www.youtube.com/Noxxa <dwangoAC> This is a TAS (...). Not suitable for all audiences. May cause undesirable side-effects. May contain emulator abuse. Emulator may be abusive. This product contains glitches known to the state of California to cause egg defects. <Masterjun> I'm just a guy arranging bits in a sequence which could potentially amuse other people looking at these bits <adelikat> In Oregon Trail, I sacrificed my own family to save time. In Star trek, I killed helpless comrades in escape pods to save time. Here, I kill my allies to save time. I think I need help.

Posted: 11/27/2010 11:29 PM

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Rolanmen1

He/Him

Experienced player (763)

Joined: 2/20/2009
Posts: 569
Location: Dominican Republic

Ok, i was dumb enough to not check the TAS just because someone thought this was new. Sorry for this -_-

Posted: 11/30/2010 10:12 PM

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RaijinXBlade

Joined: 1/19/2010
Posts: 146

Heh Sorry, that is actually my fault. I thought it was unknown because I didn't recall seeing it used in either a speed run or TAS. But then I rewatched the TAS and sure enough, it was there =\

Posted: 1/16/2011 10:19 AM

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Atma

Former player

Joined: 9/1/2005
Posts: 803

So it turns out that the crystal snail miniboss skip is actually possible in snes9x 1.52, but the likelyhood of it being worthwhile is, well, low. Not only would you have to change the stage order to accomodate its use, you would, in exchange, have to work out an a lternate method that's less than 500 frames slower than the current method used to get the heart tank in morph moth's stage. You'd also gain all the additional lag that isn't presesnt in 1.43/1.51, so the overall tradeoff is that it probably isn't worth the time to do.

Posted: 1/17/2011 7:55 PM

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FractalFusion

Editor, Expert player (2071)

Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 3282

Even though the miniboss skip does not help in a 100% run because Crystal Hunter is required for Morph Moth's stage (assuming there are no new efficient methods), it is much more useful in a run that only obtains the X-Buster upgrade, since the Heart Tank is not needed. Also, before switching to 1.51 or 1.52, an examination of lag should be in order. I believe that lag will be compensated for in final consideration.

Posted: 5/11/2011 11:43 PM

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odin

Joined: 12/22/2007
Posts: 5

There are a couple of recent(?) discoveries that should be known to anyone planning (or already secretly working) to improve either Mega Man X2 run. I wasn't sure if these were commonly known but I asked a couple of people on IRC and it sounds like most people don't know about them yet, so I'm posting here to make sure nobody misses them: Crystal Snail miniboss skip using S. Burner and arm parts only -- see edit below for low% (snes9x 1.51 smv, I typo'd on the microstorage comment) On the walkway leading up to the miniboss, simply do a dash into a charged s. burner. There's a fairly large window of opportunity to execute it. This does NOT work on 1.43 but it works on 1.5x and (importantly) it works on console. Double jump with arm and leg parts (snes9x 1.51 smv) When you've obtained arm and leg parts, you can perform a double jump like this: fully charge your buster (release fire at some point before or during the trick, you need the stored charge for this), then do a non-dash jump, followed by an air-dash, then press fire and jump at the same time and you'll jump again from mid-air. This can also be performed off of a (non-dash) wall jump. This works on all snes9x versions and on console. (smv's using Mega Man X 2 (U) [!].smc) Major edit: It's also possible to skip the crystal snail miniboss in a low% run with s.burner by firing an s. burner along the ground while dashing.

Posted: 3/4/2012 1:07 AM

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amaurea

Former player

Joined: 2/19/2007
Posts: 424
Location: UK

I made a video comparing the 4 published mega man x2 any% runs: Link to video To my surprise, there are several instances where the newest run is actually worse than the one before it. These include the Zero battle (about 200 frames lost) and the armor upgrade dialogue (about 40 frames). I have checked the Zero battle case to verify that this is not due to some bug in my comparison script, or due to timing differences between actual frames and in-level frames. The loss is due to not employing the regain-freedom-by-getting-hit-during-cutscene glitch. So obsoleting the current run would be pretty straightforward - one wouldn't even need any new techniques, just consistently using the old ones. Edit: FractalFusion has informed me that the previous TAS was done on the Japanese version, which has faster dialogue. That fits pretty well as an explanation for both the delays I noticed. My initial explanation was flawed because the glitch I was thinking about only works in the battle with fake zero, not the real one. So it turns out that the published TAS is pretty well optimized after all. Sorry about that FractalFusion and Graveworm!

Posted: 7/19/2012 8:48 AM

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FractalFusion

Editor, Expert player (2071)

Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 3282

About a week ago, I heard from sparky that he wants to do a TAS of Mega Man X2 on the Japanese version, using Snes9x v1.51. So I quickly hacked the existing MMX Lua script into a MMX2 Lua script. I did it back then but I should post it now: http://tasvideos-moviefiles.googlecode.com/files/megamanx2.zip There are still some bugs in it, but the essential stuff works. Also, since X3 has very similar memory structure to X2, the script might work on X3 as well.

Posted: 7/19/2012 4:04 PM

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biggyboy

Player (51)

Joined: 2/7/2012
Posts: 70

I'd absolutely love to see a new TAS of this, best of luck to sparky.

Posted: 7/27/2012 7:12 PM

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PJ

He/Him

Joined: 2/1/2011
Posts: 181
Location: Western NY

<3 sparky

Posted: 1/11/2013 5:20 AM

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Myria

Joined: 8/28/2006
Posts: 50

I think it would be silly in videos if after beating the last X-Hunter level that you chose Magna Centipede instead of the usual Sigma one. My memory from playing this game 20 years ago is that you still end up in the final level if you choose Magna Centipede at that point. I would upload my avatar on this site, but it looks like Atma above beat me to it >.<

Posted: 1/11/2013 4:16 PM

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BigBoct

He/Him

Editor, Former player

Joined: 8/9/2007
Posts: 1692
Location: Tiffin/Republic, OH

Indeed that does happen. Might save a second or two of scrolling up to the X-Hunter base.

Previous Name: boct1584

Posted: 1/16/2013 12:56 PM

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biggyboy

Player (51)

Joined: 2/7/2012
Posts: 70

It takes longer to switch Centipede's stage on the screen because the scroll is instantaneous if you press start, B or Y (and the cursor is already on the X-stage)

Posted: 2/3/2013 9:17 AM

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Myria

Joined: 8/28/2006
Posts: 50

How much longer would it take to select Magna Centipede as the last level instead of Sigma? If it's only a small loss, then I think TASers should add that for the silliness factor. It's certainly not something most players of the game would expect.

Posted: 2/3/2013 12:06 PM

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ALAKTORN

He/Him

Former player

Joined: 10/19/2009
Posts: 2527
Location: Italy

so, what happened to Sparky’s run?

Posted: 2/3/2013 3:30 PM

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KusogeMan

Experienced player (674)

Joined: 2/5/2012
Posts: 1777
Location: Brasil

Myria wrote:

How much longer would it take to select Magna Centipede as the last level instead of Sigma? If it's only a small loss, then I think TASers should add that for the silliness factor. It's certainly not something most players of the game would expect.

this.

TAS i'm interested: Megaman series, specially the RPGs! Where is the mmbn1 all chips TAS we deserve? Where is the Command Mission TAS? i'm slowly moving away from TASing fighting games for speed, maybe it's time to start finding some entertainment value in TASing.

Posted: 2/4/2013 12:50 PM

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