I think the point is he didn't want to have to redo the entire TAS just to fix a minor error. Cash planning will inevitably be a factor in the next version of this, but for now I'd rather just stick with getting as much done as possible. You are quibbling over less than 30 seconds of a 7-hour movie, and it's not relevant to mull over it as much as you have been doing, just for some small ego-stroking or percieved chance to prove you are contributing, when in fact you are wasting everyone's time.
tl;dr, let's move on and focus on the rest of the game, that stuff can wait for another version.
If you feel he is wasting your time then don't read his posts. I for one like seeing him post because he is one of the few people still asking questions and questions are good. Some day he might be the guy making a new FF7 run because he asked so many questions and spent so much time in the topic he knows all the tricks.
Whatever your problem with him is, stop bringing it into the forum. Your attitude against him is disproportionately hostile.
Back on topic, here's hoping your free time comes back soon. ^_^b
<i>A little rudeness and disrespect can elevate a meaningless interaction to a battle of wills and add drama to an otherwise dull day.</i>
Did you do the Cosmo canyon skip, or find out that it won't work? Seems like a bot could get it work if that's the real issue here.
I was thinking that getting some luck items for tifa could really save a lot time depending on what level she is at when you fight the bosses and what level the bosses are at. Best case scenario one extra luck makes tifa go from having no chance at crit on all bosses to a chance at crit in every boss fight she is in. So the potential saving there must be fairly large, perhaps on the order of over a minute, where as can't some of the luck items be picked up at a cost of 5-10s?
Then I was thinking that if you can get a double bomb battle instead of a single at negligible extra time cost you could have 2 right arms instead of 1 at the cost of about 5s. I'm guessing the right arm is used on dyne but there's also some other places like the spiders or getting m-tent to use on spiders. Seems like it could save around 10s here.
Then I had another idea of saving and loading the game to avoid random battles instead of pausing 3/4 times. If I read correctly pausing only clears one the of factors for random battles but the other one stays maxed out so you still need to pause much more often than you do if the other factor isn't maxed out, and that upon loading, both factors are clear always. So thus in theory saving and loading could mean much less pausing and potentially be faster. This could be on the world map, or also places where you need to avoid random encounters and there's save stations near by, such as on the railroad tracks.
"Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence."
I was thinking that getting some luck items for tifa could really save a lot time depending on what level she is at when you fight the bosses and what level the bosses are at.
IIRC this was discussed earlier. I believe the conclusion was that deathblow is better than out-of-the-way luck boosts, but I don't remember for sure.
Then I had another idea of saving and loading the game to avoid random battles instead of pausing 3/4 times.
Even if it was faster to save/load the game, this would break up the run in a very bad way. Entertainment should be a factor here--the game's already long enough, and turning out a bunch of load screens would further hurt its watchability. My 2c.
Even if it was faster to save/load the game, this would break up the run in a very bad way. Entertainment should be a factor here--the game's already long enough, and turning out a bunch of load screens would further hurt its watchability. My 2c.
So you're saying because the game is long something that makes it faster would make the run less "watchable" and less entertaining? I'm sorry but I simply cannot understand this logic. How is pausing more "watchable" and more entertaining than loading, and since when does subjective entrainment value take priority over speed in a speed run?
Does anyone know where faringa got the elixir he uses on the undead boss? It wasn't in cosmo canyon like in garland's run.
"Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence."
Spider-Waffle, in nearly every run undertaken anymore.
Subjective entertainment value comes first, and pure speed comes second. It's a disappointment.
Limiting the run to not using the save feature may be valid. My subjective entertainment sense tells me that I would probably like watching the run more if it never saved.
I would be much more entertained if the run saved and loaded once instead of pausing 4 times. I would really appreciate that the author took the time to calculate that the clever save load trick would actually save time and would enjoy the greater variety of tactics and creativeness used. I would be throughly disappointed if a clever time saving technique wasn't used because some people subjectively thought more repetitious and less clever techniques were more entertaining.
"Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence."
I think saving/loading would not save time at all.
Also, you can use a Phoenix Down on Gi Nattak, so an Elixir is not necessary. Phoenix Down has a chance to fail though, although that won't be a problem in a TAS.
Ya phoenix down obviously for TAS, but I'm just curious where the elixir is that he got and how long it takes to get, I would guess it would take even longer to get than the one garland got in CC or else garland would have got the one farringa got.
Was it ever calculated how much time deathblow saves? It takes about 32s to get, I think it saves something on that order, but a crit hit alternative still seems plausible and worth investigating.
Also the magic plus materia I think needs an investigation. It takes 30s to get and I suspect it could save something on that order over the rest of the game. A TAS probably benefits less from it than a real speedrun.
I'm not sure how much time the force stealer really saves I'm guessing in a TAS it's very little if nothing, I wouldn't be surprised if the HP plus actually could save more time later on in the game, both seem barely influential in a TAS.
"Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence."
So you're saying because the game is long something that makes it faster would make the run less "watchable" and less entertaining? I'm sorry but I simply cannot understand this logic. How is pausing more "watchable" and more entertaining than loading, and since when does subjective entrainment value take priority over speed in a speed run?
If we were talking about a 10 minute game, sure, okay, every second counts. In this case, we're talking about a game that's already hours long... the time potentially saved by a save/load is inconsequential. When I weigh that against the impact saving/loading would have, it's pretty hard for me to think it'd be worth the loss in entertainment.
The "staring at a load screen" experience is much more distracting to me than a pause. If you disagree, that's fine, but it's a difference of opinion, not a failure of logic. I suspect most people would disagree and you are in the minority in preferring save/load, but I'm not worried about it either way.
Spider-Waffle wrote:
I would really appreciate that the author took the time to calculate that the clever save load trick would actually save time and would enjoy the greater variety of tactics and creativeness used. I would be throughly disappointed if a clever time saving technique wasn't used because some people subjectively thought more repetitious and less clever techniques were more entertaining.
If you were "thoroughly disappointed" by a high-quality run like this one of a very long game over such minutiae, I think you should run it yourself. There are some on this site who believe the only good way to approach a TAS is to make it as fast as possible, and fuck entertainment; I don't have a problem with this approach, but it's definitely less fun for me as a viewer, and I think it's a little dogmatic to be so devoted to a singular concept.
Some games make for good speed runs... some make for good entertainment runs. 4+ hour games to me fall into the latter, but I guess there will always be those who think cutting 8 frames off a 7-hour run is important. *shrug*
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Spider-Waffle wrote:
How is pausing more "watchable" and more entertaining than loading, and since when does subjective entrainment value take priority over speed in a speed run?
This, in itself, is subjective and up for debate. It's true that TAS movies are supposed to be as fast as possible in theory, as that's sort of the "mission statement" of this site, but you'd be incorrect to suggest that everybody agrees with that notion, or that every movie on this site follows it like a dogma.
Plenty of movies sacrifice speed for entertainment, and although I don't know the specifics, this might very well be yet another example.
When I was still planning on running FF3j I too was considering not using the encounter reset trick because it's much more tedious to watch than simply getting into a battle and running.
Joined: 3/18/2006
Posts: 971
Location: Great Britain
I've known about save/load from the beginning.
It hasn't saved any time yet, that's why it hasn't been used.
It would take a quite extraordinary random encounter pattern for it to be faster than the other methods.
I'm beginning to consider this run dead. Hopefully somebody else takes it up. I mean, it's only one of the most played games of all time so you'd think somebody here could whip this out in a few weeks/months.
<i>A little rudeness and disrespect can elevate a meaningless interaction to a battle of wills and add drama to an otherwise dull day.</i>
Joined: 11/4/2007
Posts: 1772
Location: Australia, Victoria
Wren, RPGs aren't the simplest games to make TAS's of in the world, you realise... they are very hard to make. They take a lot of time and effort.
This is part of the reason why people such as DarkKobold are so widely admired, it's due to the fact that they have spent a lot of time, with trial and error also, making highly optimized RPG related TAS's.
I know exactly how hard they are to make. I also know that when somebody says they wont make any progress for another nine MONTHS it's as good as dead. Who the hell even knows what they will be doing that far into the future? Unless you just got pregnant... then I guess you might have an idea of what you will be doing in 9 months.
I'm not saying he needs to hurry up or anything I'm just saying that I hope somebody else takes this up because I have no faith in him finishing this at all. I hope I'm wrong, of course. I want to see this run as much as anyone of this site but seriously... how many projects have you seen finished after a person took nearly a year off?
<i>A little rudeness and disrespect can elevate a meaningless interaction to a battle of wills and add drama to an otherwise dull day.</i>
Well, when someone knows clearly that they will have to take BIG ASS breaks, that someone shouldn't take on a long (and VERY awaited) game to TAS.
There are games which need people who are ready to TAS them (by "ready" i don't mean 24/7 but i guess u get the idea) and i think that FFVII is that kind of game.
Minor work is still being done, as I'm still getting requests for Lua scripts to be made. I just don't think there will be much progress for a while.
If anyone does decide to pick it up for whatever reason and needs the scripts, PM me. The code isn't exactly good quality, but it gets the job done. Also, if you do Lua and want the scripts because you can do a better job, also PM me. More efficient scripts should save time in making the TAS.
adelikat wrote:
It started off fairly tame, but as more balls entered the picture it sure got a lot more entertaining.
I agree with the above posters. I am entitled to a TAS that I put no work or contributions towards! How DARE someone have a personal life or real obligations that come before my selfish desires?!
Seriously, you guys sound like grade A jerks. I'm very happy with the progress and I can only hope the absolute rudeness displayed by our less mature forumgoers will not scare antd off from sharing future work with us.
The idea of "whipping a TAS out in a few weeks" is so insulting I'm just not sure how to take it seriously. If you have that kind of time, by all means, please make your own TAS and I will happily eat my words.
I agree with the above posters. I am entitled to a TAS that I put no work or contributions towards! How DARE someone have a personal life or real obligations that come before my selfish desires?!
Seriously, you guys sound like grade A jerks. I'm very happy with the progress and I can only hope the absolute rudeness displayed by our less mature forumgoers will not scare antd off from sharing future work with us.
The idea of "whipping a TAS out in a few weeks" is so insulting I'm just not sure how to take it seriously. If you have that kind of time, by all means, please make your own TAS and I will happily eat my words.
Heh, I like how you tried to put words into my mouth. I never said, nor did I even imply, that he needs to whip this out for my benefit. I simply said that I lack faith in him finishing this. Nine months is a long time and long breaks like that break peoples will to finish something. As with life so too with TASes.
How many projects have you finished after taking nearly a year off? I respect him for doing this, I'm also very thankful for what he has done and I want to see him produce a masterpiece but I'm also a realist and I know when something is more than likely dead. You can keep your hands clenched tightly in prayer that this project will get done sometime in the next two years and get all bent out of shape when somebody tries to get people to pick up this project but really what good does your post do?
antd I don't want to be misunderstood here, I honestly do appreciate what you have done and I hope your life gets a little less hectic. I know how rough it can be when life dumps a ton of stuff on your plate. If I came off as somebody who thinks you need to whip this out for my amusement I truly apologize, it was not my intention.
In the mean time I still hope that somebody else picks this up. Competition is no bad thing and this TAS is a project I know a lot of people, myself included, are looking forward to.
<i>A little rudeness and disrespect can elevate a meaningless interaction to a battle of wills and add drama to an otherwise dull day.</i>
I really don't see a benefit to a long, drawn-out argument here, so I'll just point this one thing out and let you conclude whatever you wish:
If I was working on a project, and I read the comments you made, I would think, "Man, I can't believe this guy. He says he has no faith in me. He wants someone else to take over my work. Where does he get off?"
Maybe it's just me, but any way you intended it, it came off like you felt antd owed you something, which is just not cool.
As far as the good of my post, yeah, it's probably not worth much, but I wanted to make sure antd knew at least one person was patiently supporting him in his absence. I know I'd like people to have my back in the same sense. If you intended well, that's fine, but it didn't seem that way, so I felt a need to chime in.
That said, I'd just as soon move on--it's unfair of me to clutter the board with individual disputes and you've made it clear you didn't intend to come off the way you did. I'm just going to continue waiting patiently for more work on this project.
