I started running realtime right around King Shield. I left virtually all mistakes in there, as I don't intend to keep this run anyway. Any strange pauses, mysteriously misplaced menu stuff, or extra walking can be filed under "didn't bother being TAS-precise". This is not a real TAS run, simply another test. ... As for why I chose to be TAS-like earlier in the movie... Yeah, good question. My habits, I guess, but said habits did show me how to use TELEPOR two frames faster.
I simply wanted to try out an RNG path with TAS-like precision minus the TAS-like speed in luck manipulation. At some point, once we finalize the RNG route, we'll just avoid those long thousand frame pauses I do. Besides, one more test gives me an excuse to give descriptive names to our characters so we can identify who's doing what.
Again, I'm simply trying out this RNG route. And it seems to be a pretty good one. I just need to walk through the remaining battles with non-existent stats and narrow scrapes to see if they're still all possible to beat.
As for the author field, I hope the description that comes right along with the movie tells you that I'm seeing if our full identifications fit. They do.
The GAZE manipulation looks like the way to start. Just find some way to trim off the long pause, and then just fight the two battles, first for the GAZE, the second for the Mana+5. The alternate enemy group we could fight is a ZOMBIE in the forest to start. ... I'm thinking what I got in my run is the best choice...
I was worrying about the HP gains for a bit (means I pay more at the only inn I stay at), but at the end of the movie, I still have enough money for a BATTLE sword.
Between these two, I picked the second one. This allows me to put TELEPOR into Pow without any party switching. In addition, Gaz picks up Mana+2, but that should have happened either way I go. ARMOR is pretty unavoidable here anyway. Star is probably the best one to get ARMOR.
Star> --
Pow > Def.+2
Fodd> 1]ESP
Gaz > 2]POWER
Star> Def.+3
Pow > 2]POWER
Fodd> 2]BARRIER
Gaz > --
When giving my mutants POWER, I looked for any way to get a one-battle POWER that didn't include putting it in slot 2. This was a failure. Regardless, there's still a way to equip my long-term mutants with POWER still without making any switches. These are the two I picked, though there is a minor variant in what slot ESP or BARRIER can be put in, but it's late here and I don't feel like checking too deeply.
I start with the first one, as it allows me to fight an ALBATROS while still milling about in the forest. Star can one-shot the ALBATROS with the SABER, so I took that.
Based on when the first and second encounters would take place, I decided POWER would be best obtained from the random encounters. You fight one early, then get a long streak of no battles following. I feel this is as good a reason as any to obtain POWER from a random encounter instead of swapping a Mana+5 we'll get from later required fights.
To the KINGSWRD, apparently, by running away from one battle, I can get Gaz to go first. There is one particular RNG value I found that lets me crash into one battle with a high step count after that, while still handing over Mana+4 to Gaz. The Mana+2 earlier boosted Gaz up just enough that a +4 boost later won't force me to fight an extra battle for the needed BYAK-KO killing 46.
As for King Shield, that's where I stopped bothering to TAS with any accuracy and started realtime running, forget fixing any mistakes. I recall finding only two RNG values that gives Mana+5 and a one SKELETON battle. Beyond that, I probably should have simply added a reset on the way to STEWARD to get a Mana+5 inline for Gaz rather than switching the party around. There's a lot of no-encounter steps between the two, meaning save at any other point in between if saving at one location didn't give a speedy RNG manipulation.
Overall, I think this might be the sort of RNG path to go for. Shorter manipulation pauses, further analysis when I'm less tired, and cleaning up the disaster known as "not a TAS" around King Shield castle. The pauses in that battle have no meaning whatsoever -- I got lazy. The same damage would be done if I had attacked as quick as possible. Victory would still take place after those three hits just fine.
But as few battles that I get into here, it's all for nothing if it means I can't win every battle later on. No need to bother with keeping optimal if all I want is a set of characters to beat later foes with. Why did I bother early in, anyway?
SEI-RYU is beatable with the party I ended with, and miraculously enough, ESP is proving its worth in defense for Fodd. She can still die at round 2, lived up to the fodder I'm naming her after. ARMOR is also a viable defense, but only if Star sits in the first spot in order to shoot it off early enough.
The MOSQUITO battle is more trouble than I expected, but oddly enough, manipulating three of them lets me get through them without a scratch, while having two or only one results in a death that I'd rather not have happen here.
I've still got numerous other battles to check, though. I'll record each of them as I climb through the tower, don't worry. I'm using a script to get rid of random encounters to make the trip easier.
Okay, I feel more awake than I was an hour ago. Time for useful replies.
Bobo the King wrote:
Sweet! Shared credit for a movie I contributed nothing to! I'll be sure to return the favor when I start my own run about a week from now. Even though I feel ready to run it now, I want to get a few obligations out of the way first so the run has my undivided attention. [...]
Shared credit stuff was a test to see if the names can fit. Again, they do. Besides, we're practically co-authors at this point. The amount of testing both of us went into making this run means both of us put a lot of effort into it, and both should take credit.
Bobo the King wrote:
[...] I'll try to make it complement your run in whatever ways possible (in particular, I'd like to see what extent of luck manipulation we can expect to achieve).
Personally, I'd rather see us go in a competition of who can manipulate the luck fastest at each moment where we need serious luck. The final movie gets the fastest roll between us.
Bobo the King wrote:
It's looking good so far, but I don't think I'll ever get used to those long resets.
And you shouldn't. Long resets = bad. We'll need to trim them down where possible.
Bobo the King wrote:
You said you'd explain things later, but I still feel compelled to ask about some slightly strange movement in the second half of the video. [...]
Laziness.
I may keep tight execution throughout earlier parts of the movie, but if all it amounts to is a test, I may end up just going realtime at the tail end and handing the resulting movie over.
Bobo the King wrote:
So can we manipulate enemy targeting but basically nothing else? If so, that's not so bad, since we might pick up ARMOR and make sure our invulnerable party member always takes the hit (assuming the monster/fiend doesn't get the first hit, in which case we're screwed).
We unavoidably pick up ARMOR on the way to TELEPOR. Besides that, we can also snatch up ESP while messing with POWER, which does take place before the character normally acts.
We also have another way to manipulate forced enemy encounters. At least, those that have varying numbers of enemies. ... Yeah, not a real good point.
Bobo the King wrote:
Lastly, how much of your time do you think the Dream Team Contest is going to take? [...]
A fair chunk. But I have enough spare time that I may be able to divert some attention here anyway.
This would be a fine time to determine the names of our characters for the real run (0 character names?), then manipulate the stuffing out of the first reset.
TheAxeMan wrote:
Have you considered equipping King Sword to help with Steward and his skeleton?
I haven't considered that. But now that I am, here's the tradeoffs:
The equipment screen and ability screen are separate submenus. It will eat up several more frames like that. Also, when it finally comes time to insert sword into statue, sword is in inconvenient place, requiring me to exit the item submenu to get the sword in another submenu.
Regardless, it's worth checking to see if changing equipment beats the animation of two RAPIERs.
Now I'm taking a close look at my RNG plans...
First reset, we need these:
C30B:51 (GAZE)
C36F:5F (Ability in slot 3)
60 outcomes. Not real hard.
Here's what we'll encounter:
C343:58 (FG; 8 outcomes; Open land first gets us GOBLIN. Good. Must follow with forest encounter for another GOBLIN)
C343:59 (GE; 52 outcomes; Open land first gets us LIZARD. Bad. Forest gives GOBLIN then ALBATROS.)
If we walk exactly 6 steps, we can pick from either one. But I like the ALBATROS encounter because Star can one-shot the bird with SABER. Besides, we generally need less luck-related effort to get these encounters.
Recall, the purpose of these battles is to give Gaz GAZE and then Mana+5.
Second reset is for TELEPOR. Details:
C343:F2 (GGF. All others that can give TELEPOR in 4 battles nails us with an F encounter in the forest, giving ZOMBIE)
64 possibilites.
Well, that's easy. We have 64 possibilities. Except the details are a bit messy...
C30B:EB C36F:F9 (Slot 1 TELEPOR to second member. 8 possibilities)
C30B:EA C36F:F9 (Slot 1 TELEPOR to third member. 4 possibilities)
C30B:EA C36F:F8 (Slot 3 TELEPOR to third member. 52 possibilities)
I particularly like the elegance of the first option, as it means no form of party switching is needed. Pow isn't expendable until after BYAK-KO this way, but his fighting usefulness ends two battles earlier, after Monster Trio. TELEPOR is slightly better on Gaz for this reason, but it doesn't seem critical at a glance. Keeping with the first option really does seem best, but I need to get on those tests.
However, it's a pretty narrow range. The manipulation required will be tough. Thankfully, the range of spare steps is pretty generous -- feel free to save a few steps early if TELEPOR is that painful.
Then POWER:
C30B:95 (POWER, BARRIER, nil, HP+)
C30B:96 (Def+3, POWER, BARRIER, nil)
C30B:97 (nil, Def+2, ESP, POWER)
Second and third possibilities are good for POWER, as it means no switching again. It also means the third character, Fodd in this case, eats up both BARRIER and ESP.
POWER is stuck in slot 2, no matter which of the three your pick.
BARRIER can be in 1 or 2 if you pick the first possibility, but only 2 if you take the second.
ESP can be put in slot 1 or 2.
I'll hide the major analysis here, but there are 52 possibilities for a slot 1 ESP with E encounter, giving ALBATROS in forest goodness. There are 8 for the same ALBATROS encounter with C30B:96.
Battle of KINGSWRD
I have chosen C30B:14 here. This gets us Mana+4 while we beat the stuffing out of stare at KINGSWRD until he drops dead. Unfortunately, this leaves a chance where running away fails. C323:18 is what we'll need, and that leaves 24 possibilities. Not as rough as TELEPOR to second member by any means, but still not easy.
I haven't searched for equivalent values that still let me run from the first battle to give KINGSWRD a good look. If we don't run, KINGSWRD smacks someone around first, hopefully Star, but while it is true that I had a little cash to spare for the inn and BATTLE sword, it's only 33 GP in my test. 34+ damage forces me to sell something to make up for the loss in the future inn trip.
Then it's time to slay STEWARD:
C353:94 and C30B:89 shows one way to get a solo SKELETON with a Mana+5 thrown in. Problems: The Mana+5 is given to the first mutant, requiring a switch, and there's only 8 possibilities to even get it.
C353:FC and C30B:F1 is another thing we can do. Also gives solo SKELETON with a Mana+5 given to the fourth mutant, right where Gaz is. Again, only 8 possibilites. If the luck is still too horrendous, we have another 120 possibilities around here with C30B:F2 or C30B:F3 and C353:FD, but this requires reordering the party.
So, effectively, we have a wide 128 possibilities that require moving the party around, and 8 that has everything fall neatly in place. Take the 8 if possible within the timespan it takes to switch party members, but the 128 seems to give a nice cushion in case the RNG hates us.
Either way we go, however, the number of steps to next encounter is few. Very few. We almost certainly want to reset after the battle against SKELETON and manipulate a Mana+5 in whatever slot Gaz happens to be in, and a better "steps to next encounter" RNG.
Still not sure how KING sword does, here. We might want to TAS the two ways to see which one's faster, but this has a problem that we need to manipulate luck in between equipping it and actually trying it out.
These are the ideas and details I have from the RNG test through World I. ... Soon, someday, I'll get a set of tests up for the required battles stuff later.
I have crashed into a problem. I am convinced that Star should take Gaz's place now, or else fight exactly one more battle to get the appropriate stats. Namely, Agility.
The game uses Agility to determine turn order. It's not the value itself, but the game sorts everyone in order of agility and picks randomly who goes next. Should the enemy have 90 agility, it doesn't matter whether our fighter has 8 or 80, it's treated exactly the same. Or so it seems.
I've been having problems killing the SABERCAT(s) before they kill someone. Who cares, I'll hack TELEPOR into Gaz to get out of jail free, and trudge on to BYAK-KO anyway. Alas, no matter what I do, BYAK-KO stabs Gaz dead before I can act.
A bit more hacking, and Gaz has some small bit of extra agility. Gaz goes first and creates art out of BYAK-KO. This "small bit of extra" happens to be exactly 1 point, from 7 to 8, and I go first.
I glanced at my dead allies' stats and noted that Gaz's Agility is right around where her fallen companions happen to hover around. Rather than hack Gaz's agility up, I decide to reduce the dead ones agility below that of Gaz.
Gaz went first. Because my dead allies lost some agility with my hacking.
For extra absurdity, I reduced Gaz's Agility to 3 and dead allies to 1. Gaz still went first.
I've got plans to rethink now... Either Star becomes the new Gaz, or the old Gaz fights an extra battle for agility. Any amount of agility would help.
Actually, I tried further tests, and I can't really make out any sensible logic in its inner workings.
Apparently, the only requirement for the first party member to go first is if the fourth member has a lower Agility. It doesn't seem to matter what sort of Agility the middle two have.
Also, setting Agility higher than BYAK-KO seems to guarantee going first. For some reason, I doubt this would happen in our TAS.
I'm going to stare at the World I RNG plans and make sure the first one that dies has a lower Agility than the one I want to win with.
So I see three possibilites:
- Kill the slow MUTANT M first, hence making him the fourth member after death.
- Reorder party so Star picks up GAZE instead, and don't give Agl+ to the first dead mutant.
- Fight an extra battle so Gaz gets fast enough to outspeed Fodd or Star, whoever dies first.
Joined: 7/17/2004
Posts: 985
Location: The FLOATING CASTLE
That is pretty strange. Turn order is very important so it's definitely worthwhile to figure this out. Good luck.
By the way, in Final Fantasy 1 the battle order is completely random. It starts out with a list of the nine enemy slots followed by the four heroes. Then it picks two slots at random and swaps them. After 13 swaps you have your turn order (empty slots are just skipped). This is why the enemies get to go before you more often than not, even with a very powerful party.
Hey, quick update to say I'm still here. No meaningful comments on your latest discoveries or my own insights. The big news is that I'm no longer busy for the most part. I've got a relatively small project to work on tonight, but after that, I should be free to start running this game. Expect a new run started in a day or two.
Hope Alien Hominid is going well!
Currently, the contest has absorbed all my TASing time. Seems I didn't quite have as much spare time as I thought. However, I'm still pretty optimistic about the results.
When you find time, look over my plans, and see if there's any way to fit the new discovery into it. I've already listed three ways that we can solve the newly discovered flaw in my old plan, just a matter of comparing which one is the best choice.
Would switching Star to spot 4 save us any inconvenience at the cost of only one swap?
What's the cost of an extra random encounter for the sole purpose of + Agl?
Does starting MUTANT M in slot 3 and later giving that HAMMER to someone else work?
They all seem good, don't they? I'm not sure what to pick, but when this contest is over, I'll join in again to try out a few things once more.
And names. We're still undecided on them. 0-character names, or something so that the audience can actually identify who's doing what? Fastest possible says empty names, for obvious reasons. Do we go the fastest possible names? Now, I'm leaning yes, but I'll let you decide.
Okay, now that my activity with the contest is starting to die out, what with its closure coming shortly, I will have time to finally finish this TAS once and for all.
... But I need to refresh myself on a few things, first. And especially work on the recent discovery on the fact the fourth character needs to be slower than the first, regardless of being alive, to work around the crazy turn order stuff.
As for naming, so far the votes are pretty unanimous towards having some form of recognition rather than a nameless crew.
Did I say a day or two? I meant a week or... three.
In case you hadn't noticed, I'm a tad bit unmotivated, especially when it comes to doing test runs of this game on my own. Nevertheless, I've finally gotten around to starting a run:
Just a short one
So what's the big news here? Not a whole lot, except that I no longer have the anxiety that comes with starting a new run. I was bitten by the desync bug, which forced me to rerecord a short bit, so it's a little shorter than I had hoped.
First of all, I managed to manipulate C30B to 0x51 just 178 frames after power on. I don't know what you think, but I think that's at least decent. We'll want to test that against the time it takes to manipulate the same result in the first steps of the game-- just remember that it costs something like 30 frames to save it (just a guess off the top of my head), so we'll have to get it down to 148 frames following the save. This will require some thorough testing, but I think there's at least a decent chance that restarting right off the bat is the best way to go.
Second, I switched the first and fourth characters immediately, as you had suggested at one point. While I don't think that will solve our problems, it will at least distinguish our two runs. You'll also notice I named my characters A, B, C, and D. I'm rather uncreative that way. We'll want to figure out who's going where and when before assigning more clever names.
Third, my movie ends rather abruptly after the battle with the ALBATROS. That's because my script didn't detect any good frames for resetting to manipulate TELEPOR. I'm kind of puzzled because it ran for a few thousand frames and nothing turned up. Either something is wrong with my script, or I'm just extremely unlucky. Assuming my script is in working order, I should still be able to get the result I want by doing pairs of resets. The drawback is that it'll take longer and is a more intensive search, so I'm calling it quits for the night.
Any advice would be appreciated, but I think my next course of action is pretty straightforward. Looks like we just need to figure out how to defeat BYAK-KO, then we're done. I think our lack of understanding of the battle mechanics is coming back to bite us in the ass one last time.
"FreshFeeling wrote:
I would greatly prefer being able to at least somewhat identify what's happening. Short names, please.
Hey, FreshFeeling! I was wondering if you were still around! You've got to be the same FreshFeeling from GameFAQs' Final Fantasy message board, right? I haven't been there in... four or five years. Anyway, for what its worth, your "Tuckles be husip, my friend" quote is still my GameFAQs signature. Glad to see you!
I'm just doing this step by step.
Through Bandit Cave.
I discovered that I had foolishly over-abbreviated one of the variables in my Lua script, so it was always coming up nil. I fixed the variable and was able to quickly get the luck manipulation I sought. In fact, I think I reset on the exact frame that my game saved! Syncing went fine this time.
Before fighting the P-FROG, I put A back in the lead. This was for a few reasons. First, if D remains in the lead, she will be killed. Second, if anyone else is in the lead, turns are wasted not GAZing P-FROG (I tested it-- it's about 200 frames faster to have A in the lead). Third, there's a +2 Mana stat boost too juicy to pass up. Unfortunately, +2 is small game and might not make a difference.
In fact, it's quite likely it won't. Here are my relevant stats so far:
A: 8 Agl., 15 Mana
B: 7 Str., 3 Agl., 5 Mana (B is our HAMMER-wielding POWER user)
C: 8 Str., 7 Agl., 6 Mana (C holds TELEPOR and is otherwise useless)
D: 6 Str., 7 Agl., 5 Mana (D is useless at this point)
As you can see, A has 15 Mana, which is one less than 16 Mana, which is 30 less than 46 Mana, 30 being a multiple of 5 and 46 being the amount of Mana needed to OHKO BYAK-KO. In other words, even if I get +5 Mana boosts for A from the next six battles, she still won't get the coveted 46 Mana. She'll need one more. We could, however, manipulate some +4 Mana bonuses instead, easing up our luck manipulation a tad. I don't know why we would, though. Mana is by far the easiest stat to get +5 boosts for. The other possibility is that there's a +anything Mana boost while I go to pick up POWER. If that's the case, I think it will be well worthwhile to reorganize the team so that A snatches it up. Ironically (or perhaps superstitiously), I feel as if the smaller the Mana gain, the more productive the switch will be, even though that's technically not true. In any case, I'd hate to reach BYAK-KO with 45 Mana, so I'll keep my eyes peeled.
Please tell me if there's anything I should be concerned about. I'm counting on you being correct that BYAK-KO will go down provided the character with GAZE has just one extra unit of Agl. I'm not sure I'll even finish the run, provided I can take out BYAK-KO.
Also, in case you didn't notice, I posted to ShinerCCC's GameFAQs topic. His practice run is pretty good and I learned some new tricks from it. Most notably, he gets the BATTLE sword from the second World 2 town and he shows that you can use spheres anytime, anywhere to open the next door. I'm not sure about where we should pick up the BATTLE sword, but the sphere trick should save a second or so since we can navigate the equipment menu before we use TELEPOR, saving... I dunno, ten frames of menu navigation.
This has gotten me thinking about open questions that still need answering. Add to this list as you see fit:
•How can we manipulate attack order so that we strike before BYAK-KO does? (This is a priority, of course.)
•From which town in World 2 should we pick up the BATTLE sword? If we get it from the second town, is there anything else we can do there?
•Is it faster to walk or bike from Southwest Town to the Skyscraper?
•Is it faster to guild a Human or a Mutant to wield the SAW? (I think we both suspect a Human would be faster, but as I recall, this remains unconfirmed.)
•Is it faster to manipulate luck to get GAZE from power on or by saving? (I'm content to put this off until we're ready to do our final run.)
•Not so much a question, but we should refine my Lua script that restarts to manipulate luck so that it can restart twice or possibly three times. I've hit no snags with the current version, but a refined version can probably save ten frames here and there. It will also take significantly longer to execute.
Add whatever you can to that list. My current run is the best opportunity to test it all.
Edit: Silly me. I forgot to include a link to my run.
Edit 2: Seems there's a +1 Mana boost for the third party member before the ALBATROS battle in Bandit Cave. I may want to shuffle the party to pick that up, bringing A's Mana to 16. Hmmm...
The bulk of my plans are here.More RNG details.
Although, these were before the discovery of the agility oddity.
The mana bonuses in the TELEPOR route are almost immaterial. At this point in planning, they give practically zero benefit to A. The only real benefit is that we can get away with is smaller Mana gains later.
Also, you messed up starting from the very first battle. You don't fight a LIZARD -- They have 40 HP. A GOBLIN has 20 HP, and is oh, so much more capable of dieing in the first round. If C343 was 0x58 from your title screen reset, possible but difficult, a GOBLIN would have showed up both in the plains and the forest. Again, I'm thinking we walk a few steps first, then reset. We have a few spare steps we can pick to try to mess with the RNG here.
It's a pretty tight set of rules that needs to be followed. I'll be looking at a few things myself and see what I can come up with. At least remember stuff and get back into it.
First and foremost, congratulations on the Dream Team Contest! Am I correct in inferring that your team won? (I haven't gotten around to downloading the encode. I'm waiting for it to be uploaded to YouTube...) That's really awesome!
FatRatKnight wrote:
The bulk of my plans are here.
More RNG details.
Although, these were before the discovery of the agility oddity.
Yeah, I've been trying to use those posts only as a basic guideline. I'd like to figure out what I can on my own, but now that I'm feeling a little more comfortable with this run, I'm using them a bit more.
FatRatKnight wrote:
The mana bonuses in the TELEPOR route are almost immaterial. At this point in planning, they give practically zero benefit to A. The only real benefit is that we can get away with is smaller Mana gains later.
You're probably right, but you've got to acknowledge the appeal of having 16 Mana as opposed to 15. Sure, luck manipulation is a little bit harder, but it might mean one less battle.
FatRatKnight wrote:
Also, you messed up starting from the very first battle. You don't fight a LIZARD -- They have 40 HP. A GOBLIN has 20 HP, and is oh, so much more capable of dieing in the first round. If C343 was 0x58 from your title screen reset, possible but difficult, a GOBLIN would have showed up both in the plains and the forest. Again, I'm thinking we walk a few steps first, then reset. We have a few spare steps we can pick to try to mess with the RNG here.
Hrmph, you're right. I noticed it too, but I thought I was okay because I fought an ALBATROS for the second battle. Fortunately, this affects, oh, absolutely nothing in the long term. We can always change it to the preferred strategy in the finalized run. The only thing it has even the slightest effect on is D's hit points, but I'm not the least bit concerned about that (she can be pretty easily OHKO'd anyway).
Moving on, here's my latest update:
Through KINGSWD.
First of all, you'll notice I went back and picked up that +1 Mana boost for A. If I can secure +5 Mana boosts from this point forward, I'll get 46 by BYAK-KO...
...Oh. I just checked it. I'll have 56 Mana by the time I reach BYAK-KO. Uh... perhaps that's what you meant when you said boosting Mana is pointless?
So refresh my memory: What are we manipulating luck for in the forced encounters before BYAK-KO? The only things that come to mind are +4 Mana boosts (freeing up luck manipulation somewhat) and not dropping meat. We want as many battles as possible to be lackin' any meat. Ooh! We could also get a second POWER user! I have a feeling we've talked about this before, but what are your thoughts?
In any case, I've played up to this point under the assumption that I need as much Mana as possible. So far, it's been pretty easy to secure +5 bonuses. The only trouble I ran into was before KINGSWD. I had to back it wayyyyy up before resetting to get the boost in that instance. All other possibilities for securing the boost either required fighting an extra battle (out of the question) or waiting about 150 frames in front of KINGSWD to reset. As you can see, it worked out okay, but the minor drawback is that I've taken a lot of steps off of C33B, forcing me to manipulate luck a little bit sooner in the next leg. Considering that, perhaps it would be better to stand in front of KINGSWD for 150 frames? This is all just random musing and mostly inconsequential, but they're still the kinds of questions we'll need to answer in the real run. Oh yeah, and you'll notice that KINGSWD goes down without the need to fight a battle beforehand. I hope that's consistent with your prediction.
The other thing that I want to bring up is the luck manipulation to avoid battles. For the most part, it's been straightforward: shoot for the biggest gap between encounters-- try to get the earliest RNG in that gap and try to get it by walking as many steps as possible before manipulating the result. I don't know if that makes any sense to you, but that's how I've been doing things.
Things got much trickier, however, in the plains before KINGSWD's castle. I found myself a few dozen steps outside the "swamp" (I know it's unclear from the graphics, but I call the terrain outside KINGSWD's castle swamp). If I shot for the biggest encounter gap in plains, I might reach the swamp too soon and fight an unnecessary battle, so that was out of the question. If I shot for the biggest encounter gap in swamp, I would skip over steps in plains that were never going to be battles anyway. What I ended up having to do was find an encounter gap that opens up just as I step onto the swamp. This involved analyzing the RNG table for the largest gap for swamp terrain (starting at C33B = 0xB9), then extrapolating backward to the earliest I could go without fighting a battle on plains (C33B = 0xA0, 25 rolls earlier). I then walked 25 steps from the bridge to determine the earliest I could possibly reset. Finally, I wrote up a few little formulas in Lua to give me an idea of when to best restart:
local stepstoreset = math.floor((frame-startframe-20)/16)
local stepsafterreset = 185-stepstobattle
local totalsteps = stepstoreset + stepsafterreset
local wastedframes = frame-startframe-20 - 16*stepstoreset
where startframe is the frame at which I run my program, frame is the candidate frame for restarting, and stepstobattle is the value of C33B after resetting at frame. If you're wondering about the other constants that show up, I determined it takes about 20 frames to pause the game and save, it takes 16 frames to take a single step, and 185 is of course the last encounter in plains before a large gap. (As it turns out, wastedframes isn't used at all. I just kept it in because it might be useful to know in some instances. It's the number of frames you have to wait after saving but before resetting.)
So that's all really confusing, but what the hell does it mean for practical purposes? The deal is that normally, I'm looking for something simple like C33B = 185, 186, or 187. This time, I was looking for totalsteps to be as close to 25 as possible without going over. If it were 25, I would reach the bridge exactly one step before the large gap in the swamp battles. I wasn't able to find one that worked for exactly 25, but I did find one for 24, placing me a few steps in front of the bridge before hitting the swamp gap. You'll see the results are quite good. I just wanted to give you an impression of how hard it is to do these searches thoroughly and what we're in store for in the real run (in case you didn't know already).
What's the take-home message? When the terrain doesn't change, manipulating luck is fairly straightforward. All it requires is finding the biggest gap and shooting for it. When the encounter rate changes, you have to turn to my little algorithm above (or something like it) to find the optimal restart points. I hope that all makes at least some sense.
Edit: I mentioned that we can use the forced encounters to manipulate +4 Mana boosts. I'd just like to quickly point out that doing so seems inefficient to me. All of the forced encounters take place "indoors" (that is, C33B doesn't increment), so we'll have long stretches of walking with which to manipulate whatever results we want, including +5 Mana boosts.
It's no big deal if you don't get around to it, but give me an idea of what to manipulate luck for as soon as you can. I've got to manipulate luck for the STEWARD's cronies tomorrow and you've already pointed out that there's only a 1 in 2048 chance of getting a +5 Mana boost on any given reset for that battle. If I have an alternate option, that will make long-term planning much easier.
At your Mana level, it shouldn't matter how much Mana you gain from STEWARD's cronies, even zero is fine as long as you guarantee +5s from later battles.
I'm curious what your plan for SEI-RYU is. Tell me what it is, since I don't see a case here that matches well with my plans.
[...] We could also get a second POWER user! I have a feeling we've talked about this before, but what are your thoughts?
Oh, wait. You don't seem to recall this is a requirement in my plans. It won't work without a second POWER user, so yes, we absolutely need one!
Since the GAZE user has more Agility than the fellow members, I should expect said member to go first without an intervening battle before KINGSWRD. No problems here.
All that's happening with the swamps is the fact the encounter rate changed. There's 14 steps of swamp to go through. Just set the RNG so you have a 14-step gap timed for this encounter rate 13 zone.
The numbers for encounter rate 13, by the way (hex values):
00 13 2B 2D 38 55 7C 96 A1 B2 BA F9 FF
Bold: What we'd find in encounter rate 5 anyway.
Remember, resets take a very small amount of time. If you're manipulating a hundred frames for what amounts to roughly a few steps, forget it and eat the extra reset. The leftover steps are still likely useful after the boss battle.
I'm finding it difficult to get myself back into gear for this run. Sorry if my posts aren't so full of content like usual. Keep talking, hopefully it'll help me get myself fully aligned again.
Finally, thanks for the congratulations. And yes, the team I was in won.
That's a quote from your post on specific RNG plans. It's also incorrect. Set C30B to 96 and your first mutant will pick up THUNDER. I observed this with your Lua script and then confirmed it with your tables all the way back on page 2 (your first post). Also note that 96 is the middle value you suggested, so it can't be explained as another "offset by one" discrepancy between us (and I think we've ironed that out anyway). Those numbers need updating. Getting C30B = 0x95 worked fine, though.
FatRatKnight wrote:
At your Mana level, it shouldn't matter how much Mana you gain from STEWARD's cronies, even zero is fine as long as you guarantee +5s from later battles.
I tried for the +5 Mana boost anyway but it came up dry. I'm currently trying to secure a second POWER user, but I'm not yet sure I can force an encounter with one SKELETON. It's slow-going.
FatRatKnight wrote:
Oh, wait. You don't seem to recall this is a requirement in my plans. It won't work without a second POWER user, so yes, we absolutely need one!
You have a much better memory and perception of the grand strategy than I do. Yep, I'm working on getting that second POWER user. It sure as hell beats trying to get a +5 Mana boost from the STEWARD's cronies.
I have some new thoughts on the SEI-RYU battle, however. First of all, what if we get two BATTLE swords? We only have a Mutant M because he comes with a strength-based HAMMER. If we get two BATTLE swords, we can equip it to a Mutant F, who would have slightly more Agl. I've thought of the following advantages and disadvantages:
Advantages:
•BATTLE sword does significantly more damage against SEI-RYU. Based on your demonstration battle against him, using two BATTLE swords will save half a turn (BATTLE swords do 200+ damage to him, killing him in three blows, while the HAMMER does about 140, killing him in four between the two fighters).
•Having two BATTLE swords might take out the Monster Trio sooner for the same reason. I expect it will help, saving at least half a turn.
•The additional Agl. from a Mutant F might give that mutant a better chance of striking earlier in a battle (although I think that's still an open question) and improves her chance of connecting. The benefit (or drawback?) of this would be hard to measure.
Disadvantages:
•The SABER from our party leader must be sold or we won't have the money to pick up a second BATTLE sword. I won't miss the SABER, but it will take a few dozen frames to sell it.
•A second BATTLE sword must be equipped, also costing a few dozen frames.
•A Mutant F takes three additional frames to guild since they appear below the Mutant M. I see this as inconsequential.
If you're looking for something to do, take thirty minutes to an hour to peg some numbers on those advantages and disadvantages. How much faster can we take out the Monster Trio with two BATTLE swords? How many frames can we expect to save against SEI-RYU? How long will it take to sell the SABER? How long will it take to equip the second BATTLE sword?
But that's not all! Since I squeezed in that additional Mana boost and I now expect two free battles before reaching BYAK-KO, I thought, What if we get a third POWER user? The only cost would be the 100 or so frames it takes to reset (plus the time it takes to equip a third BATTLE sword). As long as we're selling the SABER, we'll have enough
*Sigh*. It turns out Karl Marx hates our guts. You can disregard all of that because I neglected to check how much the SABER sells for. Apparently even a gently used SABER (44 uses left!) sells for an extreme discount of just 101 GP. I hate this game. That's not enough for a second BATTLE sword and only enough for a first BATTLE sword should we come up a little short on cash.
Even so, we might have barely enough money to pick up a LONG sword (attack power 3) or maybe even an AXE (attack power 4, but getting it would be a real stretch). Please look into whether using either of those will finish off SEI-RYU any earlier. I suspect the answer is "no".
Would it be worthwhile to pick up a second Mutant M and give him POWER as well? That's something you can work on while you're working yourself back into shape.
FatRatKnight wrote:
All that's happening with the swamps is the fact the encounter rate changed. There's 14 steps of swamp to go through. Just set the RNG so you have a 14-step gap timed for this encounter rate 13 zone.
That would be fine if it were only 14 steps of high encounter rate. Unfortunately, the castle has the same encounter rate, so it remains nontrivial. If you don't believe me, fast-forward my movie to frame 13800 and try to do better. Perhaps what I've left unclear is that I was on track to fight a battle before reaching the swamp. That means I couldn't just walk up to the swamp and manipulate luck.
FatRatKnight wrote:
I'm finding it difficult to get myself back into gear for this run. Sorry if my posts aren't so full of content like usual. Keep talking, hopefully it'll help me get myself fully aligned again.
Don't sweat it. I took the last three weeks off and you were hard at work on another run. It's my turn to work hard while you offer encouragement and advice whenever possible.
I'm going back to work. I expect to finish World 1 by the end of the night. Thankfully, luck manipulation should be much easier after that.
We use a starter HAMMER from a MUTANT M to get the extra damage we need. No need to buy any weapons beyond the needed BATTLE sword. Or, for that matter, sell anything. I thought I uploaded this, but I couldn't seem to find any links in my previous posts. Well, here's a new upload.
... Clearly, I screwed up the numbers for the RNG... New numbers:
C30B:93 (nil, Def+2, ESP, POWER)
C30B:94 (Def+3, POWER, BARRIER, nil)
C30B:95 (POWER, BARRIER, nil, HP+)
Again, to force a single enemy against STEWARD's cronies, C353 must be one of these: 1B 2A 2B 2C 35 4E 52 64 6D 7A 8D 94 97 99 9F A1 A2 A3 A6 A7 AF C4 C5 C8 CA E0 FC FD FE
If you're looking for POWER, that 9F is your only choice. Best make sure the mutant you want to give POWER to is in the first slot. The probability ain't bad at 56 possible outcomes.
When you have a nice party with the necessities, cheat the random battles away. Unless you really want to experiment with avoiding battles, the point of the test run is to see how we can deal with the battles we must fight. Naturally, you won't be able to record the cheating all that well in a movie, but being able to stroll straight to bosses without intervening battles speed things up greatly.
Or perhaps just copy the party straight into the movie I presented up there. Skip the travel time! The state in the linked movie has the BATTLE sword in inventory, so you don't need to hack it into one of your members.
Theoretically, this script might work the copying for you:
Language: lua
local T= {}
--*****************************************************************************
local function GetStats()
--*****************************************************************************
for i= 0, (4 * 0x1F)-1 do T[i]= memory.readbyte(0xCC00+i) end
end
GetStats()
--*****************************************************************************
local function SetStats()
--*****************************************************************************
for i= 0, (4 * 0x1F)-1 do memory.writebyte(0xCC00+i,T[i]) end
end
while true do
local k= input.get()
if k.numpad7 then GetStats() end
if k.numpad1 then SetStats() end
emu.frameadvance()
end
I forgot to shuffle the party so I ended up picking up POWER for A while displacing it for B. Go me!
I'll go back and fix it tomorrow. The video desyncs at the very end (when I try to pick D to TELEPOR), but you can see that's of no concern.
Another minor issue is that I seem to be low on cash. For some reason, the fourth character has soaked up HP gains like a sponge and now has 82 HP. Needless to say, I'm not worried about HP, but the World 1 inn is by far the most convenient place to restore the charges on our abilities. At the moment, I'm inclined to skip the inn, but as usual, I'd like your input.
FatRatKnight wrote:
We use a starter HAMMER from a MUTANT M to get the extra damage we need. No need to buy any weapons beyond the needed BATTLE sword. Or, for that matter, sell anything. I thought I uploaded this, but I couldn't seem to find any links in my previous posts. Well, here's a new upload.
Yeah, I've got a similar movie on my computer, so it's out there somewhere. In the old movie, the battle takes two full turns, in the new one, it just takes one-and-a-half. That's why I thought a different weapon might save half a turn. I'm still very interested in whether we can save any time with a third POWER user. After all, I still have one more free battle to use before BYAK-KO. If I can save about 80 frames in the long run with that battle, it will be worth it to make that discretionary switch with A (that reshuffling in the Bandit Cave). The only battle an extra POWER user could help us with is the Monster Trio, but given our attack plan, I'm doubtful he'd save time.
Hmmm... maybe I won't redo all of that last part of my current run. I'll use the STEWARD battle to get POWER for B again. What are your thoughts? It strikes me as a pretty loopy strategy. Is there anything, anything at all we can use an extra battle for? If not, I'll just "waste" it getting POWER back. Seems a shame, too, since B never got a chance to use it in the first place. We'll want to plan that more carefully in the final run. I fight an optional battle to pick up POWER in the first place, so we can nix that.
FatRatKnight wrote:
Again, to force a single enemy against STEWARD's cronies, C353 must be one of these: 1B 2A 2B 2C 35 4E 52 64 6D 7A 8D 94 97 99 9F A1 A2 A3 A6 A7 AF C4 C5 C8 CA E0 FC FD FE
Once again you come through with the technical info I need. Thanks again!
FatRatKnight wrote:
When you have a nice party with the necessities, cheat the random battles away. Unless you really want to experiment with avoiding battles, the point of the test run is to see how we can deal with the battles we must fight. Naturally, you won't be able to record the cheating all that well in a movie, but being able to stroll straight to bosses without intervening battles speed things up greatly.
That's probably a good idea, but I'll still do my best to justify the effort I'm putting into this run. First of all, it gives us a goal to strive toward. Yeah, it's got a handful of mistakes, but I think we can easily estimate the number of frames wasted. Second, I need the practice. Badly. I'm still sketchy on the strategy and ask you for clarification a little too often. My hope is that by the time I'm finished with this run (whether that takes it through BYAK-KO or all the way to the CREATOR), both of us will be comfortable running this game individually. Third, I'm throwing out a blanket warning against unforeseen pitfalls. Suppose, for example, it works out such that I don't have to reset between the MOSQUITO battle and the Monster Trio. Without a reset, the battle RNG won't reset and I might get different results that we'll want to know about. Granted, the chances of a situation like that are extraordinarily small, but the safest route is running the game for real. Unless you specifically want to move on, I'll be working on this run until I'm sick of it.
Lastly, is it just me, or does VBA23 run faster than version 22? I'm regularly getting 2000% speed with the right settings. It almost makes desyncing bearable!
Could you guys tell me if this:
==> http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm7552129
is the same game? It seem to have the same music, the same (glitchy) engine... !
I hope it isn't, I somewhat prefer unglitched speedrun, when there so much strategie to plan out.
Could you guys tell me if this:
==> http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm7552129
is the same game? It seem to have the same music, the same (glitchy) engine... !
I don't know how to view it, but this site has a published JPN version. Since the USA version doesn't allow such memory corruption, and even with it, forgoing use of such a glitch shows so much more of the game, enough to hopefully justify publication alongside.
I just looked at how much mana your character currently has. Here's the projected values at the start of each battle:
26 - SEI-RYU
31 - 1-3 MOSQUITO
36 - GARLIC + SABERCAT + P-WORM
41 - 1-3 SABERCAT
46 - BYAK-KO
You already must get +5 mana at each battle to get enough in time for BYAK-KO. No third POWER available without an extra fight.
As for the excess amounts of HP you've been getting... Yeah... Not sure how you got that much, but we might actually need to sell something with that much HP eating up our money just to get the BATTLE sword. Plus the extra damage you did take isn't helping matters.
I'll look into the encounter rates for a bit. At least have some numbers we can use to plan out where we want the RNG.
Since the USA version doesn't allow such memory corruption, and even with it, forgoing use of such a glitch shows so much more of the game, enough to hopefully justify publication alongside.
TASvideos does not have a good record for keeping speedruns when they're obsoletedbylargeglitches. I've seen exceptions too (e.g., LoZ: ALttP), but those are almost exclusively because of different emulator settings such as "allows left+right/up+down" and not because of play style. Luckily for us, that doesn't really apply because the Japanese version is sufficiently different, but if we were in a position where our run could be 90% shorter, I'd be having a long discussion with the judges about whether to continue.
FatRatKnight wrote:
I just looked at how much mana your character currently has. Here's the projected values at the start of each battle:
To my surprise, I've miscalculated something along the way. I'm now one battle short for reaching BYAK-KO with 46 Mana. I'm going to have to fight one more extra battle. That's weird because I could have sworn I had more battles than I knew what to do with. That's still the case, however, for the second half of the game. Also be aware that this additional battle applies not just to my current run, but our final run as well. I suggest we use that battle to get +5 Mana and we use the STEWARD's cronies to get POWER on the first user, then the STEWARD to get POWER on the second user. You may wish to double-check this.
I'll fight the extra battle somewhere in the Tower and we'll subtract out the number of frames it takes.
FatRatKnight wrote:
I'll look into the encounter rates for a bit. At least have some numbers we can use to plan out where we want the RNG.
That would be great! I was surprised to find the Tower has an encounter rate of 9 (I figured it was 13), so we should probably collect that information for all relevant areas.
Anyway, I'm at the base of the Tower now. I should cruise through the next part. I'll check which town is fastest for buying the BATTLE sword. Also, unequipping the SABER was not too much of an issue. If we fight one extra battle, we might not need to, though. Silly me. I already did fight an extra battle to pick up POWER in the first place. Looks like we'll be selling the SABER after all (unless we can cut back on damage and HP bonuses).
Edit: Fixed a link.
Edit 2: Almost forgot to mention: the STEWARD "warped" one tile to the left of his hiding place before I restarted. That doesn't help us at all because he's more out of the way/in the way, but what if we could nudge him or other static NPCs to the right? I don't know if it's a reproducible glitch, but it's worth having in the backs of our minds.
Edit 3: Interesting results coming down the pipeline. Stay tuned...
At SEI-RYU.
Up to this point, we have believed that soft resetting resets the battle RNGs to a fixed state and the outcome of a battle cannot be changed by exploring other RNG seeds. I can tell you now that is false.
I reached SEI-RYU with the party in the order A-B-D-C. I reset to gain a +5 Mana bonus for A. When I did so, SEI-RYU attacked A, so I decided to switch her to the third slot, requiring a new RNG seed. After finding new candidate RNG seeds, I took on SEI-RYU again. This time, he struck at A first again, in the third slot. Puzzled by this, I researched every RNG seed that would give a +5 Mana bonus to any party member, then reorganized the party accordingly. I found that sometimes I could beat SEI-RYU, other times, it was impossible to distract him from A. Although the party member he attacked was inconsistent, his attacks and the damage they did never changed from trial to trial.
Furthermore, I was not able to defeat him without sacrificing D. That is a huge stumbling block because D has TELEPOR. The only way I can continue without going too far out of my way is by stopping at the East Island Village house of life (if it has one...) on the way to the Old Man. I could progress if I were able to convince SEI-RYU to attack C twice.
While it's nice to know we have a little leeway for planning boss fights and such, the more pressing concern is how to keep a member with TELEPOR after the SEI-RYU battle. One way to do so would be to give her ARMOR. Way back in World 1 on the way to picking up TELEPOR, ARMOR showed up in the second character's first ability slot. B has been holding onto it for no reason-- in fact, I'm a little annoyed he has it because I have to scroll down to use POWER. If we guild D second and B last, D will end up with it. We would then have to reorganize the party exactly as it is in my test run; doing so should bring us to the same state with the SEI-RYU battle, except D isn't doomed to die. One handy side-effect is that it should keep our two fodder characters alive through the SEI-RYU battle, allowing us to sacrifice them later on. Another option would be putting TELEPOR on A or B. That could work if we give it to B, since he doesn't have an ability in his third slot. We would then need to keep him alive through the end of the game, unless he dies somewhere in World 4 and we have two slots open so we can guild a Mutant F in Northeast Town. We could also give TELEPOR to C, but I'd rather not if we can help it, since I've learned my lesson regarding giving TELEPOR to cannon fodder. It's sticky, to say the least.
I accumulated a few more notes along the way.
Here are the coordinates of important locations in World 2:
Airseed - x:53, y:52
Old Man's hut - x:55, y:29
East Island Village - x:55, y:13
Whirlpool - x:12, y:14
In case you weren't aware, the x and y coordinates are stored in CCC9 and CCC8 respectively. I think it's handy to have these coordinates because I find it's easy to get lost in World 2.
I discovered it takes 1544 frames to buy the sword from Port Town but just 1121 frames to get it from East Island Village, saving 423 frames. That includes the time it takes to leave and return to the main path. Much thanks to Shiner for pointing that out!
Here is a list of all the C30B values that yield +5 Mana bonuses and the character they go to:
Char 1: 23, 137, 203
Char 2: 161, 230, 243
Char 3: 4, 136, 242
Char 4: 3, 135, 173, 229, 241
And here are the C30B values and party orders with which I was able to successfully defeat SEI-RYU:
137: A-D-B-C
243: C-A-D-B
I was also able to defeat him with other values such as 4 and 242, but those involved putting D ahead of A, so A lost her place in the party order and failed to pick up the Mana bonus. Come to think of it, I could just put her in slot 4 while the Mana bonus goes to slot 3; then if D (or preferably C!) dies, A will still get the bonus. I'll look into it eventually, but I think we can agree the preferred methods would be getting TELEPOR off of D or ARMOR onto her.
Finally, I compiled a very short list of target values for C33B if we wish to go as far as possible without fighting a battle on different terrains. The results are surprisingly varied:
Plains and forest: A1
Swamp: BA
Tower: 2D
Glider: FF
You can add to that as you find more encounter rates. I've mostly been winging it up to this point (I just shoot for A1 and hope it works).
Back on page 8, you shared a short Lua script that allows the user to change all the RNGs on the fly. I just wanted to thank you for that. I was easily able to splice it together with your growth script, making finding the Mana bonuses and testing the SEI-RYU battle a lot easier. I encourage you to replicate some of my results, then help come up with a strategy for getting past SEI-RYU with TELEPOR in the final run. For this run, I'm currently inclined to revive D and just subtract out the frames spent doing so.
Up to this point, we have believed that soft resetting resets the battle RNGs to a fixed state and the outcome of a battle cannot be changed by exploring other RNG seeds. I can tell you now that is false.
You mean this, at the bottom of the post with an edit as an afterthought? As far as I know, the only thing that can be manipulated by reset is enemy targeting, at C35A. The chosen action might change depending on earlier stuff throughout the battle, but I haven't been able to reset to change that.
I would recommend putting TELEPOR on the GAZE user. Failing that, the secondary POWER user is the next best one to have it on. Speaking of, why did you set things such that you have three different characters that each must survive at SEI-RYU? One with GAZE and POWER, another with POWER, and the last with TELEPOR. It's quite possible to fit TELEPOR in one of the other two instead, letting you scoot by with two valid targets that can just drop dead instead of only one, therefore making it easier to handle.
Bobo the King wrote:
[...] We could also give TELEPOR to C, but I'd rather not if we can help it, since I've learned my lesson regarding giving TELEPOR to cannon fodder. It's sticky, to say the least.
Although, it seems you already thought of this. An optimal case, as I like to see it, is that we lose a "useless" party member at SEI-RYU and just move on without a second thought to our lost friend. Less menu time in future battles thanks to only 3 members instead of 4.
Also, if you're going to have a dead character after the battle (which will happen. Why did I use an if?), remember that this mutant will no longer be counted as a roll for the RNG. So if the Mana+5 is going to be given to the third mutant, put the one that will get the Mana boost in slot 4. Once someone dies, that mutant will slide into slot 3, and get the boost as though the mutant was in slot 3 to begin with.
Incidentally, the boost that goes to character 4 is useless in such a case, as the RNG simply won't roll enough times to hand it to any mutant.
Somehow, ESP blocks the physical attack of SEI-RYU on the first turn. I've had success with that in my tests against SEI-RYU, if you want to keep that in mind.
Bobo the King wrote:
I discovered it takes 1544 frames to buy the sword from Port Town but just 1121 frames to get it from East Island Village, saving 423 frames. That includes the time it takes to leave and return to the main path. Much thanks to Shiner for pointing that out!
That is certainly of good help. Faster BATTLE sword is always nice to have.
... I'll get onto that encounter data soon... Haven't checked yet.
You mean this, at the bottom of the post with an edit as an afterthought?
Yes, that's the one! Sorry I missed that...
FatRatKnight wrote:
The chosen action might change depending on earlier stuff throughout the battle, but I haven't been able to reset to change that.
I'm almost certain enemy actions can be changed by your own actions. I distinctly remember getting BYAK-KO to use SPHERE by whipping him in my solo mutant run. Whipping him caused him to use different actions, not just put the same ones off until later or skip a turn. I'm a little too lazy to check it, but my movie is still on page 2 or 3 if you want to see how it works. (You could also hack in a WHIP or TELEPOR back to World 1 or something.)
Regardless, I don't seem to have the means to change SEI-RYU's actions. I even tried using BARRIER to no effect.
FatRatKnight wrote:
Speaking of, why did you set things such that you have three different characters that each must survive at SEI-RYU? One with GAZE and POWER, another with POWER, and the last with TELEPOR.
Good question. I didn't read your plans carefully enough, but now I see that you had specified that TELEPOR should go to A or B. I recall I couldn't get your other two options to work (C36F = F9), so I went with the third. I failed to notice you specified some party shuffling before picking it up. Oops. I still doubt it will affect things all that much in the long run.
With a substantial mistake like that, however, I'm leaning towards not finishing this test run. Through BYAK-KO should be more than enough.
FatRatKnight wrote:
Somehow, ESP blocks the physical attack of SEI-RYU on the first turn. I've had success with that in my tests against SEI-RYU, if you want to keep that in mind.
From a quick glance at your notes, it looks like the only way we can get ESP is on the way to learning POWER, and that's if the character in the fourth slot gets POWER. I think ESP or ARMOR should do the trick (any reason not to get ARMOR?). Also, Alex Jackson already pointed out how ESP works:
Alex Jackson wrote:
As far as I can tell, ESP is not "bugged" after all... it works exactly like a shield. The "effect bytes" used by shields and ESP do nothing except print a message--the defensive functionality comes from the flags byte, not the effect byte. ESP has a different effect byte from shields because it prints a different message.
Lastly, I think there's a good route-planning project for us to work on. I think it would be invaluable to know the number of steps and kind of terrain between forced battles. We would then want to know how this compares with the maximum number of steps we can take without an encounter. For example, we can take at most 93 steps on plains or in forest before the next random encounter. Suppose it takes, oh... 180 steps to walk from the Bandit's cave to the Castle Shield (I know we would never do this, but it's just for the sake of example) so we know that just two resets are needed to walk that distance. Then we would know we have six "extra" steps that we can use to manipulate luck. If we can't reset to get all 93 steps but instead get an average of 90 from each one, we'll still know we can make it in two. Does that make sense?
This actually came up in practice when I was on the first floor of the Underwater Castle. I was trying to manipulate the enemy octopus thing to walk left and up to get out of my way. I found I could do it efficiently if I reset much earlier (near the castle's entrance) or possibly if I waited over 100 frames at the end of the path (the next step would trigger an encounter). I decided to reset near the entrance, but I'm still unsure if that forced me to reset an additional time later on.
If we know the distance between two objectives and how many resets to expect, I think it can save about a dozen frames now and then. For example, it may be that we can walk all 93 steps before resetting to gain another 93 steps, but we have to reset 15 frames after saving. If the objective is, say, 150 steps away, it would then be more prudent to reset at maybe 75 steps to get 80 more steps if we can do it on the exact frame the game saves. What's key is that we have to manipulate luck anyway before the forced encounter (presumably to get a Mana bonus or POWER). Tell me if that makes sense. I think I've done a bad job explaining it.
Anyway, if you want to, you can work on that, but I realize it's a somewhat large task, so I'd be willing to take over or pitch in when I'm done with this run. I think you have enough to work on at the moment.
World 3 is pretty boring and straightforward, so I hope to be done in a day or two.
EDIT2: Filling out the rest of the stuff. I hope it helps out in planning when to reset for encounters.
_9 Tower encounter rate
_5 Tower2 encounter rate
21 Tower side room (when we get the SAW, those non-stair tiles have this rate)
64 Particular steps in the near-final climb has this increased encounter rate
_5 W1 Open land
_6 W1 Forest
13 W1 Swamp
_5 W1 Bandit cave
_5 W1 Castle Sword 1F
_6 W1 Castle Sword 2F
13 W1 Castle Sword 3F
_5 W2 Land
_5 W2 Network of caves
_6 W2 Sailing Island
_5 W2 Underwater
_5 W2 Underwater caves
_5 W2 Castle 1F
21 W2 BLUEKEY hall
_5 W2 Castle 2F
_5 W2 Castle 3F
13 W2 Castle 4F
_5 W3 Cloudy terrain
_6 W3 Forest
_3 W3 Glider
64 W4: "Invincible" SU-ZAKU (no bike)
_5 W4: Subways (no bike)
13 W4: "Invincible" SU-ZAKU (have bike)
_6 W4: Hidden town (have bike)
_6 W4: Subway to ERASE99 (have bike)
_6 W4: ERASE99 place
_5 W4: ERASE99 place, top floor
_5 W4: Aftermath, open land (no bike)
_9 W4: Aftermath, craters
_5 W4: SU-ZAKU tower
_9 W4: Elevator 5, the last elevator
_5 W4: Train station & trains
_3: 7C 96 FF
_4: 7C 96 A1 FF
_5: 2D 7C 96 A1 FF
_6: 00 2D 7C 96 A1 FF
_9: 00 13 2B 2D 7C 96 A1 B2 FF
13: 00 13 2B 2D 38 55 7C 96 A1 B2 BA F9 FF
21: 00 05 0E 13 1E 2B 2D 34 38 49 55 67 7C 96 97 A1 B2 BA C4 F9 FF
64 ("invincible" SU-ZAKU): 00 01 05 0C 0E 13 1E 2B 2D 2E 2F 34 37 38 43 49 51 54 55 58 5B 67 70 73 76 7C 7D 86 90 96 97 99 9A 9C 9F A1 A2 A4 A5 A6 A8 A9 AA B2 B5 BA C2 C4 C7 C8 CA CB CD CF D2 DD E0 E3 EC F1 F9 FB FE FF
Step counts. Counting only the ones that increment the appropriate RNG.
172: 5,6 Tower to P-FROG Bandit
_77: 5,6 Tower to Castle Armor
114: 5,6 Tower to bridge prior to swamp
_14: 13 Steps into the swamp
_80: 5,6 Forest, 1F, 2F of Castle Sword (w/ perfect NPC manipulation)
__8: 13 3F of Castle Sword
_48: 5,6 Tower to Castle Armor
__5: 5,6 Castle Armor to Town of Hero
150: 9 Through the Tower to World 2
431: 5,6 World 2 errands to BLUEKEY hall
_23: 21 BLUEKEY hall
120: 5 BLUEKEY hall to Underwater Castle 4F
_30: 13 Through 4F to SEI-RYU
_58: 6 SEI-RYU to Old Man Ryu-O
234: 9 Through the Tower to World 3
_14: 5,6 Tower to town
_51: 3 Solve Jeanne's problem and return to floaty fort
_48: 9 Tower TELEPOR!
_15: 5,6 Tower to town and get Glider
104: 3 Glider to STONE Book and then BYAK-KO
118: 9 Through Tower to SAW room
_11: 21 Get SAW through high encounter rate
118: 9 From SAW room to World 4
__4: 64 SU-ZAKU zone
_65: 5 Subway
__3: 64 SU-ZAKU zone
_31: 13 To hidden town
_45: 6 ROM get
__9: 13 To northeast town
__2: 64 SU-ZAKU zone
_33: 13 Back from northeast town
148: 5,6 To EVIL EYE (using no-encounter zones)
_57: 5,6 To Plutonium/ERASE99
_43: 5 Stroll to tower
__6: 9 The craters need to be traversed
309: 5 Through most of the tower
_21: 9 Final elevator
214: 5 Through the trains to SU-ZAKU
279: 9 Oh no, ASHURA battle! SAW, your might, SAW, go!
__4: 9 Steps after battle
__7: 5 To GEN-BU2!
110: 5 To SEI-RYU2!
185: 5 To BYAK-KO2!
220: 5 To SU-ZAKU2!
174: 5 To near-final zone.
__3: 64 High encounter zone.
_49: 5 Last elevator
Also, suppose some path takes 210 steps to finally get through and meet the boss. Is it wiser to manipulate closer to the 93 step RNG per reset, or don't bother and go for approximately 70 each time?
The 93 steps is still the way to go. Just because you finish some leg of the journey doesn't mean that, suddenly, the remaining 69 steps are completely worthless.
You were at C33B:5E when you made the P-FROG bandit drop dead. The next encounter was at 7C. The difference between the two numbers, 0x5E and 0x7C is 30 steps. By resetting when you did, you effectively wasted 29 steps. Ouch.
Keep that in mind. Just because you beat a boss doesn't mean the leftover RNG is suddenly bad.
