another thing…
when you fall into the pit, shouldn't you make the jump as big as possible? or is the flying thing's speed faster than Mega Man's?
at 4:05 on YT you also take an unnecessary refill, losing time I believe
edit: let me phrase that better: I think taking a refill because you wasted too much ammo for entertainment, ruins the entertainment even more than what that ammo has been wasted for
Ahh so much to answer and me with my little phone to type replies on. -_-
@DarkKobold
Wait for what exactly? I need the items to survive the long spikes and pit. Without those items I'd need a slower route starting with another boss to have Rush Jet at those places.
@Andypro
Yea, you're right. So far I've managed to keep the fastest route out of harms way. I would love to finish without damage and have Mr. Perfect pop up at the end. But I'll decide my priority and make the final decision when I come across a conflicting scenario.
@ALAKTORN
Thanks for your attention to detail. The refill was another instance I was planning on cutting out in the rerun. I'll see if I can use the buster at a certain part, otherwise I'll skip the 1-up.
And as for beat, no. Shorter the better. You want to fall into the pit as early as possible because of the time it takes for him to actually come down to reach you. When I made a big jump, I spent nearly the whole time hugging the wall on my way up and it was slower. Maybe a slightly larger jump would be optimal so I'm released a frame before I need to jump again.
Found another trick. Not sure if it can be classified as a glitch like the boss invincibility timers, but it's a neat trick that's useful in some circumstances.
If you cancel Rush Coil (by switching weapons) at the exact same frame you land on him, the very next frame (only) you can use his elevated height as a platform and perform a regular jump without the extra height from the coil. Useful if you need a slightly higher jump than a regular one, but not as high as the coil.
I used this trick during the backwards sandstorm and saved 11 frames. I might be able to use this during the Tri-castle fight as well.
Yes its possible, and with this trick can clear the spike gap, but I still need a beat call for the pit. Since I have to go to the store anyways for Beat, its then faster to just purchase a spike protector (since its right next to beat). It takes too long for rush to come down to save time over the spike protector.
such as the red Tsurare Stamp before Commando Man. I can easily pass under him without stopping but I chose to halt for 5 frames mid-air to kill him as fast as possible on my way through.
The choice you made in the posted run was not good in my opinion. It is a visible stop to kill an enemy for minimal entertainment gain. I had previously presumed it was necessary.
I also think grabbing the early extra life is unnecessary, because many can be manipulated from drops.
As for taking damage from Blade Man, I would try to think about how the whole run will look with or without Mr. Perfect. It really depends if this creates any visually suboptimal spots, like waiting for enemies to move. Make sure you can get it after beat call and spike protect though.
Also, I think if you had started with Pump Man you might've had to waste a bit of time taking damage to get by enemies. I'm not sure really.
I'm leaning towards agreeing that you should go for Mr. Perfect.
Shock guards and beat calls can still be used for Mr. Perfect because Mega Man doesn't actually suffer any damage by using them. And yes Pump's route isn't nearly as optimal so I'm glad I'm starting with Commando.
As for everything else you mentioned, I've now resolved all of of those problems.
I found a way to kill the red Tsurare Stamp without stopping at all. You can't fire every other frame because not all the shots damage him, but you can alternate a 3/4 frame wait between shots near the top of your jump. I'm guessing this has something to do with subpixels? My novice-ness is showing. :(
The first 1-up was solved with the Rush Coil cancel trick. It's now actually faster to grab it.
And as for Blade Man, I've found a faster strategy that ends in the middle and doesn't take any damage.
Right now, I'm trying to manipulate Commando Man's pattern by killing different combinations of enemies. That's the last thing I need to iron out.
Since this is essentially the Standard run, standard character on standard difficulty, I think it should aim for the Standard goal here, that is, fastest time. So I think Mr.Perfect would be more impressive on a hard mode run anyway, since it is less reasonable in real time to do so. By all means, I like the goal of getting as many lives as possible, as it showcases nicely what a TAS can do, but it shouldn't waste any time.
By all means, I'm looking forward to your next WIP
^Agree.
And unfortunately after several hours of testing, it seems Commando Man simply refuses to do his optimal pattern unless you wait for about half a second. :(
^Agree.
And unfortunately after several hours of testing, it seems Commando Man simply refuses to do his optimal pattern unless you wait for about half a second. :(
Try playing an earlier part of the stage in a slightly different way? Killing more or less enemies?
Build a man a fire, warm him for a day,
Set a man on fire, warm him for the rest of his life.
That's what I did. Tried a bunch of different combinations of enemy killing/evading and it did change his patterns, but it actually made the wait longer for his optimal pattern.
Proto Man and Bass might have better luck because they can get to him faster but Mega Man just has to wait for a split second.
I really want to improve that part though.
I have a theory that killing an enemy moves his pattern repertoire over one or a few frames. I'm not sure which way though (sooner or later). I'll try to test this out tomorrow. If it's true, then killing as many (or as few) enemies as possible might be enough to bring his optimal pattern into the correct frame for me to run straight through.
killing an enemy calls the RNG for the item drop, the boss's pattern is influenced by the RNG, you need to manipulate the correct RN for the start of the boss but that's gonna be hard without being able to watch the RNG address
So after some testing, it turns out my theory was correct.
Killing an enemy manipulates the RNG and makes the boss's patterns and all enemy drops appear one frame sooner. With this new insight, I ran through the level killing as few enemies as possible, pushing his optimal pattern back, hoping it would bring it into my window. Unfortunately, there are too many enemies that I am required to kill, because it would take more than a frame to evade them which would automatically cancel out the benefit.
So, I went the other, much more entertaining route, and destroyed all who dared to cross my path. Doing this summoned his optimal pattern 24 frames sooner than before. Still requires a slight wait, but only for 20 frames as opposed to the original 44.
Now that Commando Man has been optimized fully, I'm moving on to Blade Man again. I'll update the WIP once I finish the improvements to that level as well.
I'd wager that it is. Optimized within the scope of Mega Man. Proto Man and Bass will probably have better luck because their windows of opportunity will be different. Even killing as few enemies as possible wasn't enough to bring his optimal pattern into my window. He did a few patterns multiple times, but the optimal pattern doesn't repeat for at least 50 frames.
I'm just saying there could be a way to manipulate the RNG that we don't know yet, often when things are purposefully slowed down, new discoveries are made that make those slow downs go away
True. Can't rule out all possibilities. I've tried a few other ideas but so far only time and enemy killings have any effect on the RNG.
Also, the RNG is separate and refreshed for each level. Killing an enemy in one level has no effect on the next. Same goes for the time in which you complete the earlier level.
And one more thing, Strike Man's and Blade Man's optimal patterns are influenced by your movement during the fight.
On my WIP, I just finished Tri-Castle, and using the Rush Coil cancel trick I found earlier saved 18 additional frames. Brings the total to 42 frames saved so far. After cutting out the small energy refill later in the level and a few ideas I'll try with beat, it should bring the total improvements to over a second off the already fantastic run!
I'm hoping to get Blade Man finished and have the video uploaded tonight.
So in this case it basically means you can waste up to 20 frames in the level, minus one per killed enemy and still save time entering the boss room?
So if you had wasted 18 frames killing an extra enemy, you'd still end up one frame faster into the boss room? (Waiting for the optimal pattern.)
I'm curious.
How many distinct patterns does commando man have? If his optimal pattern doesn't appear for a 44 frame window, does this mean that the patterns stay constant for around a second or so?
If you were speedrunning the game on console, and you had a consistently near perfect run, could you feasibly successfully gauge the wait in order to produce the right pattern?
Good work so far.
@Graveworm
Yes, that's correct. In the new run I kill all the parachute enemies. Most of them I kill behind me which wastes a frame, but it's made up at the end. The only enemies I don't kill now are two mets that don't come out of their helmets, the two shield attackers, the first red Tsurare Stomp, and the burrowed Arigocks.
@Kirkq
Unfortunately not. At least not for Commando Man. The optimal pattern has a single frame window out of more than 50 frames. Even if you did know you needed to wait, it would be nearly impossible to hit the right frame on the console. Need to rely on luck.
Now when I say optimal pattern, I mean exactly the right move-set for me to kill him in the fastest time. During the 50 frame window I tested he performed several patterns that were similar to the optimal pattern, but slightly different.
For instance, he would:
->shoot
->small jump
->shoot
->small jump
instead of the optimal:
->shoot
->small jump
->small jump
This small discrepancy could be worked around on the console and still provide a fast time even without the optimal pattern. But it's still too random to be manipulated without frame advance.
Joined: 3/2/2007
Posts: 123
Location: Lake Havasu, Arizona
yes it is true, time and enemies are the only things that affect RNG, ex-cluding the types that depend soley on megaman.
nothing else should. enemies or bosses that have multiple patterns im pretty sure do not affect any other enemies "after" the current one if that makes any sense.
like all those blue little jumping guys in the last section of chill man
Also shooting little things that do not drop items, such as the missles those little gun things spit out...
the basketballs/footballs those big things with eyeballs from strike man..
and the little head sprite of the snowball creatures of chill man all DO change the RNG too from my personal testing .. (when savestating/reload savestates and going on to the next enemy...or check the start of a boss battle)
i did a wily 1 TAS in the past week, and got nearly 4 whole entire seconds MORE than rockmanda's potential 2:50:xx tas. Had to choose precisly exactly which enemies to kill to get all the right patterns and never lose a single frame of time the whole level.
