Note: When I post this, I’ve not noticed your edit. I’ve not seen your wip yet. I will watch your wip and feedback soon. And sorry for long writing.
Although I no longer continue my run with Riese, I found I could skip the first dialogue when Carlie talks to her Grampa. It’s a specific trick when Carlie is the first character.
I’m now rethinking overall strategy. It may be too determined while the run itself isn’t progressed but I think discussion will make better strategy. So I’ll post it.
-I think Bill & Ben (both places) and 1st Gorva battles will be difficult. I’ll use Heal Light if things go wrong. Gorva seems to be easy but I’ll reach with lvl10 or so. With such a low lvl it will be hard. And I’ll probably fight against Gorva in daytime.
-Desert may be gone through in daytime because Duck Soldiers appear. They are a little easier to be defeated.
-Although the shop is a little distant in Elrand, I may go snowfield first. With a little higher vitality will help at the battle against Bill & Ben. And I’ll probably buy armors for all members.
- At Diorre I’ll buy weapons for Kevin and Hawk, not for Carlie. Even with a new weapon Carlie gives only 1 damage against Gildervine. The merit of the Carlie’s new weapon is to defeat Needle Bird and Chibi Devil by one hit.
-I think I’ll make only Carlie change the class. Carlie will become Light class because of the higher max piety. Other class change plan is possible but I’m lazy to try other strategy.
Lvl up status: Well, my opinion is different. And I hear dex. is pointless.
Kevin and Hawk: str. – vit. – pie. – int.
Carlie (class 1): str. – vit. – pie.
Carlie (class 2): pie. – int. – vit. (no longer abused the glitch.)
-When I set up glitched Kevin, I’ll stop doing when Kevin’s str. atk. gets at 341. It’ll save time because almost all the battles from that time on are taken place at night.
-My new GB order -> Wind – Light – Moon – Fire – Ice – Earth – Wood (Just swapped Light and Moon from the last I posted)
Dreamsee herb isn’t necessary. I’ll fight against Mispolm in daytime but it’s not a problem.
-The room order in Mirage Palace will be determined by EXP at that time. I’m bothered how many dreamsee herbs I’ll use there. If I fight enough, one herb would be enough.
At the end, let me say that Death Jester will definitely be the hardest enemy.
stats:
all but str are mostly useless here:
dex, *supposedly* influences rate of getting hit when attacking and misses when being attacked, but partially bugged or something; also slows down the trap wheel (which we should never see anyway) and increases dmg of certain throw items (just don't, ok?)
plus point for being the highlighted stat when str is not possible
vit, multiplier for armor value, which is with the starting armors 2 or 3; even with max vit we'd end up at around 30-40ish def compared to the maximum of 300; 1.5 hp per vit are not worth mentioning either
only worth it if decent armor is bought, which i'd rather not
int/spr, increases spell damage given (which shouldn't be used in a tas, i think) and decreases spell damage taken for their respective elements (which for the most part can be skipped, or later just mind down'd); then again the difference between a few points there is so small (4 with starting armor or 8 with later armor, against 300+ damage by the time it might become threatening)... just no
luck, more oks on a trap wheel (again shouldn't appear) better chance to get a good item from a chest (hawk should have enough luck right from the start/after cc), more critical hits - oh, wait, the game reads from the wrong value which is (almost) always 0
so.... i'll just take whatever is highlighted or manipulate dex, not sure
more str seems impossible right now/so far; the game seems to check twice whether i can take a stat:
check 1:
stat was taken recently? -> disallow stat
check 2:
reached cap? -> disallow stat.
edit:
i'm now 99% sure the game works exactly that way, why? simple, i took a couple of situations of my wip where a lvl up happens that glitches str; now i made a savestate right before the lvl-up screen comes up and add a cheat that changes str of the lvling character; all values below their cap allowed the str glitch to happen, cap or higher -> denied
next i went back to the end where i was about to get the lvl-up with hawk, set his str to 8 (below cap) and made the str-glitch happen (surprisingly even on first try), reload w/out cheat (so str 9/cap) read-only and str gets denied again
since it happened in all cases equally, i'll take that as proof
next better kind of proof would be reading about 2 gb of a txt-file containing the code that runs through the game during a lvl-up; and yes, 2 gb is really about the size-dimension this would get, so i'll pass this "chance", thx
Thanks for analyzing the stat. cap. I think it’s impossible to get further max str., too. I also tried but in vain.
I watched. I no longer mind the shopping order because it’ll be a tiny problem and GB’s order will be variable.
Well, have you ever tried the battle against Bill & Ben? I think it may be difficult in both places. It is one of the reasons I’d like to cling to vit. Another reason I cling to vit. is Kevin boost.
If you are going to surprise me, I’ll wait for your beating them easily in the wip.
I found interesting information about luck.
Meeple Lard's technical guide on GameFAQs wrote:
Luck does stuff in battle. That's right, it does.
There are certain enemies (non bosses) that can use Magic and Level 2/3
techs. They'll either use them as Counter Attacks or just on a Whim.
Now, with the Single Target attacks, the Higher Luck the character has,
the less likely they are to be hit with a spell like that.
......
......
Finally, Luck determines one other extra not quite as known factor.
Sometimes, when your characters die, there's a small chance that your
characters can actually be alive after taking a beating with 1 HP. The
rate at which this happens is based off Luck. Its most noticed when
your team is spammed with several level 3 techs, but somehow, one
character survives w/ 1 HP (what's more, that character is someone like
Carlie who has Low HP while the others was someone like Duran who has
MUCH higher HP)
I don’t know whether it is right or wrong but in a TAS the character who takes damage can be manipulated.
(stuff about luck)
yes, i read that several months ago, that's why i wrote 2 posts ago that both stats tend to nudge the RNG a bit in my favor, maybe i should have explained that more...
the dieing part should be possible to avoid, the other is to a sufficient degree manipulatable
as said before vit is useless without up-to-date armor, then again all attacks i'd have to worry about that are actually influenced by p.def can be physically evaded (just go out of range, with good timing that could be even during the time weapons are down anyway, so no (big) timeloss) or turn out as a miss; given a lack of better armor (and a bit of vit) we might take maybe 20 dmg more per hit than normal (at bill/ben), but that should still be enough to take 2 hits if needed (i recall about 30-40 normally from them normally)
at the end we'd take (worst case) about 250 damage more, since kevin HAS to take a hit per boss, armor from moon forest should actually be considered
I have to say that the first Bill & Ben battle is supereasy with 3-player control.
-> http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1443886651/BillBen1%20test%203p%20imp.smv
Encoded -> http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm13554819
Of course, it’s improvable. It’s just a practice.
Unfortunately, the second Bill & Ben have high defences so I couldn’t defeat them like the first ones.
EDIT: This is a little time saver.
If you walk when you control plural players just before new BGM starts, you can reduce the stationary frames. This trick should be used when you go fighting or shopping.
Sorry, this is slower.
If you just move on to another screen when new BGM begins, you should control only one player or control plural players a little then control one player, which extends dash zone a little where enemies appear.
And don't worry. This is well-known for you already uses.
edit2: Don’t totally trust me. 2-player control in your case, it might be difficult to defeat the first Bill & Ben like mine.
*checks his notes*
one atk up claw was planned for/against them (actually for both fights), so this should be workable; not even for speed reason, but exactly for the problem you desribed for the 2nd fight; the longer it takes to kill them the harder will it be to enforce their non-activity
though judging from your time, i shouldn't use it on the first fight... and here i was afraid i bought one atk up to few (i *need* one against archdemon, as he has nothing to hit kevin with that is sufficiently workable; all freeze time and/or insta-kill)
neo_omegon wrote:
This is a little time saver.
If you walk when you control plural players just before new BGM starts, you can reduce the stationary frames. This trick should be used when you go fighting or shopping.
if i move only 1 player there is exactly 0 stationary frames, maybe the patch makes that a bit worse? at least it reads as if you still have a few frames then left to wait
neo_omegon wrote:
You can speak to this corobokkle from the bottom floor. Please don’t forget to use this trick.
if i go around the dialog is open at 223331, for that above to work he has to step down a bit, with which i got the earliest dialog open at 223334...
edit: nevermind, he just walked down before the screen was even close to finished with loading -> 223304
edit2: small progress
i had a few times the problem that if i kill the last enemy with riesz the game wouldn't let me leave the screen until the win-bar fades away, so i had to let hawk do that
might i steal another half a minute of your time?Link to video
this boss is sort of strange, has very little health (not even half of the previous boss) and gives tons of exp... which is quite bad for me, 2 exp more and all three would have lvl-up; to elaborate how low health she has: going with 2x double-tech from Kevin would have been slower since i'd have to wait for him to finish while she's already long dead
and yes i know Kevin doesn't get hit; whenever i got that tzenker would always fly away or trow a spell or be already very close to dead anyway
Hawk has already max str, and gets another dex, so he's ok
Riesz still needs 2 more after this, so i can still go for her last str there
Kevin... would have needed 8 exp more before tzenker to qualify for a lvl-up, all of which would so far out of the way that it wouldn't be worth it (like of of those high-def knights), next lvl-up will be soon enough, so i think dex is ok
btw, it seems like not only Duran has infinite-tech-spam
If you delay opening the ring menu, you can use the claw a little faster.
In this case, it might not be faster because Hawk may not be able to attack before her landing.
The battle looks awesome. It’s very fast and Speed Down was skipped. 99% of the audience won’t mind.
BTW, at Astoria in my wip, Carlie should first talk to the man near the lake, second the old lady, and then go to the exit when she goes out of the inn at the first time because she need not stop. It may be faster if I manipulate the old lady’s movement. Anyway, I have to restart with Hawk as the 3rd character.
ok, corrected some errors:
-menu delayed (thx neo_omegon)
-Kevin gets now hit, early even
-everyone else doesn't, except for tzenker, but she doesn't count
-Riesz doesn't even get to use a tech (whoops?)
-Kevin only gets to use one double tech
-Hawk only one single-tech (someone's already dead then)
-less misses (none displayed, but some attacks simply don't connect)
-> almost 300 frames, so much for the old was acceptable
Link to video
@Astoria
makes sense, with the game loading during the time you could talk with the lady if you go to her first
One boss further... or three, not sure if the second pair even counts as a boss.
Genova
Link to video
I don't want to have to do that again...
I can't get Kevin hit in a reasonable amount of time; Genova himself doesn't attack and those morphers would take too long (they already die while spawning.. no idea how much time i'd have to waste idle to let them through alive... not happening)
He doesn't seem to have a pre-defined 25% hp move (at least he always wants to use the atk up spell, no matter how much health left...), which is bad, since he then still wants to push his 50% move through; the problem with that? the longer he has to wait for his spell to come through the higher it's priority gets; if he'd have a 25% move too the priority would reset inbetween...
Bill&Ben
Link to video
The fight was quite short, so I took the two lvl-ups from before with me to make it last at least a little bit longer .... ok, i admit i wanted to confuse the AI a bit with that, satisfied?
While we're at lame excuses, I think a sort of running gag is developing: Kevin lvls up again after a boss and misses again the last missing point of strength.
Well-done boss battles as always. And it looks good to avoid displaying “miss!”es.
Meanwhile, I think we may need more feedbacks. Especially, other Japanese TASers might have good ideas.
I’ve not restarted my wip. I don’t have enough motivation these days. Well, don’t worry. I’ll be back in a few months for those who are looking forward to 3-players control run.
@Trangix:
Is there any progress or comment? Well, if my wip deprives your motivation, I feel sorry. I’ll accept any criticisms.
regarding the ghost ship... i am not 100% sure it's best to dump riesz there; fastest completion is Kevin+Hawk, no doubt there, but the exp is not without meaning...
Kevin doesn't need much more exp, 1 or 2 lvls for last str, and he's done, class change won't happen (unless i could magically get 1-2 more levels/str before glitching to cut down repetitions); so he doesn't count here (especially since he leads exp-wise anyway)
Hawk and Riesz both kind of need the class-change so i'm not sure if i shouldn't rather go with Hawk&Riesz to Gorva (~300 for boss + some hundred for normal enemies?);
currently Riesz needs about 14,5k exp to 18, Hawk a bit less, mana land isn't that far from here anymore...
but then again i could invest the time i gain with kevin+hawk to grind a bit in moon forest later (if necessary), about 100 exp per kill and relatively fast too, if i remember right
thoughts?
I guess the question is, if you take Hawk + Reisz here, will they class change sooner? If so, then they'll make some fights faster that they otherwise wouldn't be as good for. Otherwise, they should pick up the needed EXP incidentally along the way, won't they? Or if you do end up needing to grind later, it'll be faster because the enemies are worth more.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
I personally think that Kevin and Hawk should be taken.
You are going to do class change at Moonreading Tower, right? Well, lvls are probably not high than you thought so class change might be done at MHL.
Idea: To get more EXP, you can manipulate Poto to summon Mama Poto at snowfield.
BTW, these days, I’d be rather interested in making video like this.
-> http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm13685485
@Gorva
Kevin+Hawk seemed like the most obvious choice (given that wolf-Kevin is about twice as powerful as Riesz), but that thought crossed my mind, so i considered it (going with Riesz instead of Kevin would be a highly unexpected move ofc), though i too think it's not worth it
edit:
this is going to ... be bad; again a bit (much) too early to get wolf-form, so i'll basically have to do that with two Hawks (Kevin has 1 atk less than Hawk actually, but that doesn't matter); and Gorva can 2 shot Hawk with claw, yeah, fun
@class-change
i *try* to go for class change at moon tower, so i can then buy slightly stronger weapons for Hawk&Riesz (maybe Kevin too) at the elf village; if it actually comes to that, i will bother then to figur out if one more str for Kevin (1 lvl until the glitch-session should fit in, 2 is highly improbable) and the minor atk boost from the better dark elf-weapon would reduce glitch-repetitions enough to compensate the cc-animation
neo_omegon wrote:
way easier and faster than expected actually, and the game is so nice to even bug the exp to next lvl for me, so i can choose when/where i'll try to get Kevin's final str finally
Link to video
Gorva's Ai has three move-blocks:
first an opener consisting of:
claw/silencing cloud
curse/lv 1 dark spell
fade away
50% health:
fade away & appear upwards
random spells
ghost rush
move down again
25% health:
lv 1 dark spell on all
and he refuses to skip missing parts of a block once he has started, so take a wild guess what his downfall was...
The answer is a sort of yes, it's all about taking their time-freezing spells/techs and pushing them in front of me (they would usually happen about 3-5 frames after i screw up), normal "active" skills like his cloud wheel he uses at the start can not be used; from there it's mostly just keeping the game occupied with Hawk's and Kevin's attacks, though techs work far worse (therefor not used as much) than normal attacks, switching characters helped a bit too, but in the end it's mostly try-and-error.
I was totally surprised. Gorva was just floating. It was a big surprise since I saw FMH’s heal light was skipped. Though Gorva could be manipulated to appear on the rightest side, I’m very satisfied. If I try, I would fail.
At this rate, your run will be completed later this year.
Well, looking back on your run if I have a beef in your run, it is minor improvement such as pixels and movements of the camera. It was possible to reduce the movements of the camera in jail in Jad if you carefully watch my old wip. Your FMH fight might be improvable with start button. I failed to skip heal light in FMH battle in my old wip but my fight is not so slower even with Carlie, though I would probably fail to skip heal light with lower DPS if I restart.
I was going to take 500k re-records and over 2 or 3 years to make a TAS of this game. In my old wip, I redid for 3 frames improvement at the entrance of the WaterFallCave when I was blown away. About monster party, I would try both patterns on each screen when I’m not sure of the fastest pattern. And I tend to care minor improvement like this.
But it’s ridiculous to care these totally minor improvements in several hours run. While I care minor improvement, I want to watch completed run as soon as possible. I’ll vote yes if your run is kept in this quality.
And I accidentally hear nice music with cheat code.
-> http://www.mediafire.com/?62ermf8z9ereqoj
Gorva, left vs right side:
I wanted him on the left side for two simple reasons
1) I needed enough time to set everything up before he finishes his silencing cloud attack and moves on to his spell casting (which for the sake of a TAS means game-over)
Hawk has to wait a bit before he can use the atk up item
2) Kevin isn't a wolf, so taking this unnecessary hit would look bad
edit:
3)Shade appears on the left side, so i don't have to (slowly) walk there (automatically) when i beat gorva on the left, but can cut down time with kevin running there at the start of the fight
about possible improvements: there will still come enough more, including but not limited to the obvious:
-FMH&JE together could go at least 10 seconds faster in total (not each, that might be insane); it's quite interesting to see the FMH fight after what I did with Gorva; if this game could be hexedited I'd already have redone that; going back one game hour is too much atm, much new stuff will come up anyway
-party composition
is Riesz good or better Duran? or even Charlie? Hawk can be used to apply def down on last boss instead, Bigieu is still debateable if def-down is even needed there, 3rd character rarely attacks anyway, Charlie has afaik way more dialog when not in the group
-item planning
dream herbs, claws, atk up; plans are still only plans, if I find out that a second ice saber (for Hawk) in the Genova re-fight would be very helpful i can hardly go back then and buy one
-exp management/class change
I still have the option to "limit" damage by going light with Riesz (for +1 str cap over dark) if her spells prove useless
-tons of minor improvements listed elsewhere in this thread
-maybe even new glitches/tricks
I plan to continue the run as it is (ok, plus the new stuff that comes up), and do a v2 afterwards (but not directly) if (enough) people even want to watch this game tas'd
evil bug encounter:
when the game is lagging/slowed down with too many sprites, it can happen that successful hits with a tech get retro-actively changed to normal hits if the tech user doesn't wait until the numbers pop up....
Hi Bill, bye Ben.Link to video
Atk up wasn't necessary after all... so that's another one left over - great...
items left (unless noted otherwise for use on Kevin):
3x Fire - Land Umber, Fiegmund, Jagan
4x Ice - Xan Bie, Genova, Bigieu 2 (Kevin+Hawk)
2x Lightning - Golems, Mispolm
5x Earth - Dangaard x4, Tzenker
6x Atk - Lugar (Hawk), Gildervine (Hawk), Lightgazer*, FMH**, Archdemon 2 (Kevin+Hawk)
*unless I'm mistaken there is nothing to grant Kevin his atk-up by getting hit
**could go to Hawk if Kevin can still take a hit, to Kevin if not; wasn't in my list before thanks to Bill/Ben not needing one
items left to get:
1x Light will be obtained for Zable (it's basically one use for three boss-fights) and
1x Moon Coin for Archdemon since he's non-elemental for what I need to know; Bigieu will last long enough to justify using a coin, but not long enough to actually justify getting one (getting + using ~1k frames, damage dealt 8k; Hawk+Kevin both on ice sabers do better)
I'm quite aware that I could have made something "funny" with the booskaboo-ride; I tried using his trumpet or whatever it is to underline the music - I listened to the result, it was unbearable -> deleted.
neo_omegon (several pages ago) wrote:
In mandatory fights you should avoid three Pakkun Babies appearing.
I opted for the opposite; most other enemies at this point have so insane defenses that even (non-hit) Wolf-Kevin dealt 1(!) dmg (i'm behind by 2 weapon-grades, one from the ghost ship and the other from the natives village), therefore takes too long (and some don't come even half as willingly to me)
Since they couldn't split, half the fight didn't even take place, so yeah.
Ok, big problem (relatively far ahead, but still) - how can i get Kevin's atk glitch past Zable Fahr?
He gives afaik 9,3k exp, thats enough to get from lv 25 to 26 in one go; but by the time there i should hardly be 24....
Maybe heading out after Zable to re-glitch? I'd run into the same problem at Tzenker at the latest (10k exp).
5 bosses... (FMH, Genove, Tzenker, Bigieu, Archdemon)
Looks like i *have* to get Kevin a CC (for up to 6 str more, that'd be quite a lot), as well as a Pedan weapon; Pedan weapons will be equipped once he's back down to normal.
Not sure about re-glitching after Bigieu though, Archdemon can take quite a lot, and there is one forced fight as well.
In this case, it might not be faster because Hawk may not be able to attack before her landing.
The battle looks awesome. It’s very fast and Speed Down was skipped. 99% of the audience won’t mind.
BTW, at Astoria in my wip, Carlie should first talk to the man near the lake, second the old lady, and then go to the exit when she goes out of the inn at the first time because she need not stop. It may be faster if I manipulate the old lady’s movement. Anyway, I have to restart with Hawk as the 3rd character.
But it’s ridiculous to care these totally minor improvements in several hours run. While I care minor improvement, I want to watch completed run as soon as possible. I’ll vote yes if your run is kept in this quality.
And I accidentally hear nice music with cheat code.
-> http://www.mediafire.com/?62ermf8z9ereqoj
