Just thought I'd check in and see how progress is going Axe. Sometimes I think I might be the only person truly interested in this run, but I'm extremely anxious to see how you surprise me next.
Joined: 6/23/2009
Posts: 2227
Location: Georgia, USA
Yeah, my apologies for not chipping in sooner, but I'm also excited for this run. tmont's run on this essentially made me register an account just to chime in for it a year and change ago. This run consistently surprises me in terms of its leveling strategies and all, so great work so far!
Used to be a frequent submissions commenter. My new computer has had some issues running emulators, so I've been here more sporadically.
Still haven't gotten around to actually TASing yet... I was going to improve Kid Dracula for GB. It seems I was beaten to it, though, with a recent awesome run by Hetfield90 and StarvinStruthers. (http://tasvideos.org/2928M.html.)
Thanks to goofydylan8 for running Gargoyle's Quest 2 because I mentioned the game! (http://tasvideos.org/2001M.html)
Thanks to feos and MESHUGGAH for taking up runs of Duck Tales 2 because of my old signature!
Thanks also to Samsara for finishing a Treasure Master run. From the submission comments:
Shoutouts and thanks to mklip2001 for arguably being the nicest and most supportive person on the forums.
Joined: 7/17/2004
Posts: 985
Location: The FLOATING CASTLE
Merry Christmas! Here's the WIP as promised, up to Portoa.
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1096047483/Crystalis-Final-Portoa.fm2
At this point I am 43 seconds ahead of the test run and 4:48 ahead of the current published run.
It's great to hear about so many people interested in this. That got me quite a bit more motivated.
I saw a couple of the timesavers, but some of them are definitely more subtle. 43 second saved already? Now that's just ridiculous.
Incoming sub 40:00? It could happen.
1 frame was saved out of roughly every 20.7 frames in the test run. At that rate you should save about 7471 frames over the course of the run, getting the run down to about 147093 frames or 40.8 minutes. Good luck with the rest of the run.
Joined: 6/23/2009
Posts: 2227
Location: Georgia, USA
Wow. The use of the tornado bracelet to get your 6th levelup was awesome, and I loved the soldier fighting for your 7th level. When you are forced to level up, it's great that the fighting is that daring and classy. Keep it up!
Used to be a frequent submissions commenter. My new computer has had some issues running emulators, so I've been here more sporadically.
Still haven't gotten around to actually TASing yet... I was going to improve Kid Dracula for GB. It seems I was beaten to it, though, with a recent awesome run by Hetfield90 and StarvinStruthers. (http://tasvideos.org/2928M.html.)
Thanks to goofydylan8 for running Gargoyle's Quest 2 because I mentioned the game! (http://tasvideos.org/2001M.html)
Thanks to feos and MESHUGGAH for taking up runs of Duck Tales 2 because of my old signature!
Thanks also to Samsara for finishing a Treasure Master run. From the submission comments:
Shoutouts and thanks to mklip2001 for arguably being the nicest and most supportive person on the forums.
There goes the "cannot defeat Stom the first try" theory. And it was as simple as 'move back and forth'??
What's with the Save+reset immediately after the Fire Sword? It doesn't have a clear benefit...though my memory suggests that it's so you can skip the Flame Ball yet (glitch) to have L2 shots with which to blow down icewalls. This in turn tells me why you wait until after Kelbesque to grab the prison key- the Flame Bracelet means you don't need to reglitch your sword to knock down the ice walls. Am I right here?
The rabbit boots were meant to be abused this way (Mt. Sabre West, among others). Those of us who played before just wish we could do it TAS-well.
Put me on the list of people looking forward to this run.
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
What's with the Save+reset immediately after the Fire Sword? It doesn't have a clear benefit...though my memory suggests that it's so you can skip the Flame Ball yet (glitch) to have L2 shots with which to blow down icewalls. This in turn tells me why you wait until after Kelbesque to grab the prison key- the Flame Bracelet means you don't need to reglitch your sword to knock down the ice walls. Am I right here?
I believe you are. Every time you want to use the "level-2 charge without elemental ball" trick you have to do a save/reset; the most recent published TAS did this several times but it looks like only once is needed.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Joined: 7/17/2004
Posts: 985
Location: The FLOATING CASTLE
The test run had the same plan with skipping the ball of fire. I discovered that dying was unnecessary to activate the glitch. When making a TAS it pays not to forget about the Power and Reset buttons!
The reason the trick is only used once is because the slope climbing glitch requires going to the menu. This cancels out the effects of the sword charge glitch. Climbing right up the mountain saves more time, even with the backtracking. So I use the slope glitch instead of the sword charge glitch.
As for Stom, here is what the hitboxes look like. The hitbox for his attack is the same as the guards that I fight at Mt Sabre North. In either case, there is a 2-pixel margin on either side where you can hit him but not get hit back. I bet a skilled player could do it in real time.
This also shows a bit of what I am doing with lua scripting.
Joined: 7/29/2004
Posts: 136
Location: Temple City, CA
I think with enough practice a skilled player could do it, but the problem is how rapidly he can attack at times. Moving in front of him can be extremely difficult to do and I think that, more than anything, is what could ruin it. That is really interesting to see the hitboxes though. I bet that is extremely helpful when planning things out.
"How can you prove you exist? Maybe we don't exist..."
-Vivi Ornitier (Final Fantasy IX)
Lurker turned Member thanks to this run. :)
I had considered doing Crystalis as my first TAS, but after watching your recent WIPs I think I'll leave the TASing to the professionals. :)
Anyway, really excited about this run, and the prospect of a 40 min or less run blows my mind!
Joined: 7/17/2004
Posts: 985
Location: The FLOATING CASTLE
Awesome, that's always cool to hear. But probably a good choice to get into TASing with a different game because this one is tough. Still, even simple games can be complicated to TAS so you should pick one you like.
By the way, I took a break from this game to do an improvement to Final Fantasy that I had been thinking about for a while. Now that that's published I will get back in to this shortly. I've found that taking breaks like this forces me slow down and gives me time to think up new ideas.
Joined: 7/29/2004
Posts: 136
Location: Temple City, CA
Yeah, saw your FF run. That was impressive too. I know that it can be helpful to take breaks from things to get a better perspective on them when you return.
"How can you prove you exist? Maybe we don't exist..."
-Vivi Ornitier (Final Fantasy IX)
Joined: 7/17/2004
Posts: 985
Location: The FLOATING CASTLE
Thought I'd give an update and some interesting information. I'm currently putting together the final cut of the waterfall cave. I've got everything planned pretty closely up to entering the Kirisa cave since that's when I need to get my next levelup. Looks like I might gain 15 seconds over the test run in this span.
The waterfall cave is probably going to be one of the toughest sections to optimize because the enemies there are really laggy and really random. In order to minimize lag and time I need to manipulate them pretty closely. It turns out that I can almost completely eliminate lag, saving several seconds, but it takes a lot of work. I've also worked out a few tricks that let me pick up xp in other areas so I don't need to spend as long grinding.
Not really sure whether those enemies are supposed to be medusas or lamias. They sort of look halfway in between. Anyway, their AI is more random than most enemies. It uses the RNG counter located at $000E. They pick two random numbers. One determines the direction they move and the other is a counter that determines how far they move. When the counter runs out or they bump into a wall, they pick two more numbers and repeat. Unlike most enemies they are moving even when offscreen and continue to grab random numbers. This is significant because I have to worry about some of them running too far off.
Now their shots are also controlled by the same RNG. Every so often, each onscreen enemy will grab a random number and may shoot depending on that number. If there are multiple enemies onscreen I really don't want them to shoot because it will lag badly. But in other cases it can be favorable.
So there are several ways I can change my luck. When they are being knocked back from a hit they skip the check to shoot. Also, their movement counter keeps counting when they are in knockback. If it reaches 0 it will roll over to 255. They will keep going the same direction and not pick randomly. This works even if the hit doesn't damage them. This is really useful to make them keep moving in one direction for a while. Finally, I can tweak how I scroll the screen to affect whether or not they grab RNGs to shoot and I can hit them to change the timing of when they bump into a wall.
I've got a lot of knobs to control things but there are also a lot of variables. Plus throughout the whole sequence all spawned enemies are constantly moving. So it is taking some time to optimize but the result is going to be worth it.
Joined: 6/23/2009
Posts: 2227
Location: Georgia, USA
Nice, I had no idea the leveling process could be that complicated. I guess that's why I'm not TASing. Thanks for the update, and I'm looking forward to the results!
Used to be a frequent submissions commenter. My new computer has had some issues running emulators, so I've been here more sporadically.
Still haven't gotten around to actually TASing yet... I was going to improve Kid Dracula for GB. It seems I was beaten to it, though, with a recent awesome run by Hetfield90 and StarvinStruthers. (http://tasvideos.org/2928M.html.)
Thanks to goofydylan8 for running Gargoyle's Quest 2 because I mentioned the game! (http://tasvideos.org/2001M.html)
Thanks to feos and MESHUGGAH for taking up runs of Duck Tales 2 because of my old signature!
Thanks also to Samsara for finishing a Treasure Master run. From the submission comments:
Shoutouts and thanks to mklip2001 for arguably being the nicest and most supportive person on the forums.
Joined: 7/17/2004
Posts: 985
Location: The FLOATING CASTLE
Yeah, the leveling makes this game much more complicated and interesting to TAS than your average platformer.
I use lots of different methods to figure out how things work. I've known about that RNG for a while, it is used for many different purposes. I display the seed onscreen with lua so I know when it changes. There's also a table with all the enemy data including HP, location and more that includes the direction and count entries. Most enemies use those entries too, but they pick their direction based on the relative location of the player.
Playing with the RAM hex editor can tell you a lot. What does it do when you tweak that value that seems to be involved? When I really want to know the details I run the tracelogger or debugger. Tracing assembly code can sometimes be challenging but nothing is more authoritative than the actual code.
Joined: 7/29/2004
Posts: 136
Location: Temple City, CA
Very impressive. I always wondered why those enemies seemed far more random than others. I never thought that they, unlike most enemies, are not programmed based on the player's location. Good luck keeping the lag in check.
"How can you prove you exist? Maybe we don't exist..."
-Vivi Ornitier (Final Fantasy IX)
I'm looking forward to this run too.
If it wasn't for having a mac, I would've tried this game for my first tas because I knew I could at least do it better than the currently published run.
I'm glad you're taking more time to optimize it.
This also shows a bit of what I am doing with lua scripting.
