Turns out I need to avoid Thany gaining any more Defence, as it really messes up getting her to low HP for Ch19, so I've had to redo ch16 again to avoid that. Won't take me long to catch up again, but it'll be a bit of a while before I can find my way through again (as not only do I need to lower Thany's Def, I also need to play with some enemy stat manipulation to give the pegs she faces high enough Str to push her low enough.). I'm still good for finishing before Christmas I think, but I've got a lot more work ahead of myself.
After much frustration, and having to redo everything from Ch16-19 4 times in order to get the right stats on Thany, I finally completed chapter 19. All that's left to do is complete chapter 20, rehex ch21 and ch22 (I reset the RNG for a much earlier Zephiel ORKO, so I can directly hex this part in), and alter things ever so slightly so that Fa isn't killed (actually an easy feat in hindsight, just need to persuade the General to move one step south so he can only attack her at range on turn 3 EP).
This should be the final update before submission. Expect it any day now :-)
A couple of years ago I made a series of what I like to call “warpskip” videos- videos where I have maxed out mag units use the warp staff repeatedly in a chapter to achieve unbelievably low turn counts. In fact, with the exception of C21 (2 turns) and C24 (5 turns), I’ve managed to 1 turn every single chapter in the game where you have access to the warp staff. I’ve gone to painstaking efforts to not only restore all the missing warpskip videos, but also make them slightly better in various ways, such as acquiring treasures in C20 and better optimizing my trades.
I’ve split the videos into 3 parts: One for Ilia route, Sacae Route, and the final chapters.
Link to videoLink to videoLink to videoVbm links
To play the vbms (in fact any FE vbm I’ve ever made), you must use VBA Re-Recording V23.5.
Ilia Route Chapters (+C16 & 16x)
Chapter 16Chapter 16xChapter 17Chapter 18Chapter 19Chapter 20Chapter 20x
Sacae Route Chapters
Chapter 17 SacaeChapter 18 SacaeChapter 19 SacaeChapter 20 SacaeChapter 20x Sacae
Final Chapters (21-24)
Chapter 21Chapter 21xChapter 22Chapter 23Chapter 24
General Notes
The purpose of these videos is to show the absolute minimum turn count that can be achieved without regards to run continuity. That means I could spend 1000 turns arena abusing my units in previous chapters if I were so inclined, so long as it helps achieve my goals for the chapter in question. Instead of spending hours arena abusing, I use codebreaker codes to give my units realistic stats (usually average stats in everything except str, skl and spd, which get maxed out). I am very vigilant about ensuring that my hacks don’t go beyond what’s actually possible in normal play. That means not using items I shouldn’t have been able to acquire yet, not using characters I shouldn’t have been able to recruit yet, not giving units stats that are impossible for their level, and so on.
A major obstacle in this challenge is a matter of spacing. Often I have to warp a unit onto an exact tile to make a strategy work; if any given map were one row or column bigger, some of these strategies would probably be 2 turns. Another spacing issue involves trades. One of the most important actions performed in these challenges is to have a magic user trade for the warp staff and warp another unit who hasn’t yet moved, all in the same action. Not only that, I need to chain together multiple trade-warp actions in a row, which creates a sequence of trades that is hell to optimize. Another exploit I use is to force a rescue staff user to place a unit on a certain tile by blocking other tiles adjacent to the rescue user with other units.
Warp staff range is (mag / 2) + 5. Up until C21x, Lilina is my best warper with a 30 mag cap (20 range), followed by Sophia, Ray, Lugh and Hugh (28-29 cap, 19 range), Clarine, Cecilia and Ellen (26-27 cap, 18 range), and finally Saul, Yodel and Niime (17 range or less). Based on this difference in warp range, I usually assign Lilina the most important warp tasks (the ones that require at least 20 range) whereas units like Saul get relegated to less important tasks, such as using the hammerne to repair the warp staff. After C21x, I get the Apocalypse tome, a dark tome that gives a +5 mag boost. This makes Sofiya my best warper with 34 mag (22 range), although the added range is only helpful on Roy’s warp in C23.
Speaking of chapters 22 to 24, you’ll notice all my units have 15 movement. This is due to the fact that in C21, there is a secret shop with buyable stat boosters, boots, purge and boltings. In theory I have access to an unlimited money supply through arena abuse, which means I should be able to buy as many stat boosters as I desire. This is also why Lalum barely gets hurt from a mamkute attack in C24; I maxed out her hp and def on the basis that I could give her as many seraph robes and dracoshields as I want.
An unfortunate aspect about TASing this is that the trades are so fast you can barely notice what’s going on. For that reason I will do my best to explain everything that’s going on in each chapter below:
Chapter 16
• Lilina warps Percival within striking range of the boss
• Dieck trades for the warp
• Clarine takes the warp, does an intermediate warp for Roy
• Lalum dances Clarine
• Clarine warps Ray beneath Roy
• Thany trades for the warp, re-moves besides Ray
• Ray trades for the warp, warps Roy to within seizing distance
• Percival critkills the boss
• Roy seizes
Chapter 16x
• Lilina warps Thany to the boss
• Sophia rescue staffs Roy
• Lalum dances Lilina
• Lilina warps Roy
• Thany critkills the boss
• Roy seizes
Chapter 17
• Lilina warps Clarine to within bolting range of the boss
• Clarine kills the boss (she doesn’t have a critrate)
• Saul trades for the warp, warps Roy a very short distance
• Lance trades for warp, re-moves adjacent to Dieck
• Sophia trades for warp, warps Cecilia (who has the rescue staff)
• Dieck trades for warp
• Lugh trades for warp, warps Roy (still an intermediate warp)
• Ray uses the hammerne to repair the warp
• Lalum dances Lugh (he currently holds the warp staff)
• Cecilia rescue staffs Lugh. Note that the cavalier left of Cecilia forces her to rescue Lugh to her right, which is crucial in terms of spacing.
• Lugh warps Roy to the throne
• Roy seizes
Chapter 18
• Sophia intermediate warps Lugh (who’s carrying bolting and will kill the boss)
• Tate trades for the warp, re-moves down-left of Lugh
• Ray trades for the warp, warps Lugh to within the boss’ range
• Miledy trades for the warp, re-moves 2 spaces above Saul
• Saul trades for the warp, warps Hugh (who has the rescue staff)
• Lance trades for the warp, re-moves adjacent to Lilina
• Lilina trades for the warp, intermediate warps Roy
• Ellen hammernes the warp staff
• Lalum dances Lilina (also uses the double occupancy glitch)
• Hugh rescues Lilina (who’s currently holding the warp staff)
• Lilina warps Roy to within seizing distance
• Lugh kills the boss
• Roy seizes
I won’t continue with these move-by-move chapter descriptions since they’re exhausting, but they should give you a pretty good idea how the strats generally work. For instance, when I have to warp someone so far they need 2 warps to reach their destination, what I usually do is the following: Use an intermediate warp on the desired unit, warp someone with the rescue staff, dance the warper, rescue staff the warper, then have the warper warp the desired unit again.
Also, bolting kills on bosses are very common since chapter spacing really is that strict. It’s fairly common that I use every single unit slot I possibly can as well. In fog of war maps, you have to actually see the boss to reveal him (or her), and you can only warp as far as you can see. For this reason, I actually have to warp thieves in C17S and C19I. In fact, the strategy for C17S is so farfetched I have to use a unit sacrifice at the end just to make it work.
Well, that just about covers everything. If you still find the video too fast to follow, I recommend playing through the vbm on frame advance, particularly in trade heavy sequences. Oh, I forgot to mention, a lot of the characters I use are interchangeable, especially people who are just trade bots like Dieck. Anyway, hope you enjoy :)
So, I'm thinking about revisiting this game with a new approach. There is a patch which I linked to earlier in the thread, which reduces all the growth rates to 0%. Stats can grow in other ways, for example from promoting or using stat boost items, but not via levelling, which means a complete change to strategy and makes a run far more interesting as you are not relying on one single unit to plough through everything. There are a couple of existing 0% runs done in realtime by dondon151, but they are purely 0% with no other restrictions.
However, this is TASvideos, where we can strive to be much better than realtime runs. With 0% growths, in many ways you are going to be similar to a TAS as you manipulate the RNG further than almost any other sort of realtime run. So, in order to make things more unique and impressive, I aim to make a run with the following restrictions:
0% growths
Hard Mode
SS Rank achieved
Hard Mode improves the stats of all enemies, with a few changes to recruitable allies, mostly coming from them gaining HM bonuses. As for a Ranked playthrough, you have to meet certain restrictions for each map, based on turns taken, enemies killed, Exp gained, levels gained, allies recruited and not killed, and total funds of items and cash.
The toughest SS rank requirements are as follows:
Complete the run in under 650 turns
Gain 1001 total combined levels across all characters
Gain 50,100 exp across all characters
Recruit all possible allies for the routes taken and make sure they all survive
Finish with 138,000 g worth of total funds (item value + gold) - must have Roy and Lilina with A Support (36 adjacent turns)
Have a ratio of battles to wins of 40% or more
Since gold can also be put to the use of buying boots with improve unit move ranges by 2 per set of boots, it will be hard to get a lot of boots and still maintain the Funds rank. I will have to choose carefully where the boots go for the last few chapters (they are bought in Ch21 secret shop - I didn't do it in the normal run as it would have wasted time to visit, distribute and use them, but with more chapters to play with in a best ending run, it will be worth it to use some boots).
I think for variety, it will also be worth visiting the other routes not shown in the normal run, which will give me Elphin/Bartre, as well as the Sacae maps. All the other maps are more or less identical, with the addition of more enemies in HM, and I will do the best ending so you see all the gaiden chapters I skipped last time too. It is going to be a very different sort of beast, and one that will be extremely different than the NM run.
For TAS requirements, this is where things become a little more tricky. Fastest time is still a given, but it does not mean I will necessarily be finishing each chapter in the fastest time. I will aim to complete the chapter-by-chapter rank requirements before moving on: for example, Chapter 1 requires 300 exp gained, so I will gain that before progressing. Turn count will also come before purely fastest time too: completing the chapter with the lowest number of possible turns means a better strategic approach and therefore a more intriguing run, imo. I will still perform actions as fast as practically possible though, but with more emphasis on turn count and meeting rank requirements over pure speed. I think for this sort of playthrough, which is more like a superplay of ranked mode with the added complication of 0% growths, this is the best approach.
I'm already looking at Chapter 1 to see the best approach there. It is possible in terms of move count for one of the cavs to kill the boss, with Marcus' assistance, and complete it in 4 turns. I aim to give as much exp as practical to Wolt and Bors as they quickly become obsolete in terms of 0% growths, means I have less work to do later on to meet the Power and Exp requirements.
Speaking of farming experience, this will often mean I won't be critting and one-shotting every enemy, so the entertainment comes from the strategies used to overcome the more difficult enemies.
Joined: 12/8/2012
Posts: 706
Location: Missouri, USA
As someone who has spent hours going through hard mode and getting the highest rank, this would be an awesome run to watch.
Looking forward to it!
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
I'll admit feeling a touch guilty to singling out just two points of such a cool post; but I'll watch the hell out of that run.
I'll defer to you, who knows more about the game, on if a hack is more entertaining than the standard game. Though I guess using (minor) hacks means we can have a thread title and rom I can read.
The main thing that makes normal Hard Mode easy in a TAS, compared to 0% growths is that almost any unit, after a few levels will be able to crit and OHKO units with ease. In 0% growths you have to be more creative and actually have a strategy in order to deal with the enemies, so that's the main reason for preferring 0% growths for this. If you watch the NM run, you can see how boring it gets as just a single unit ploughs through everything, for the most part.
If you're going to go for such an ambitious goal, you're definitely not going to be able to optimize this to the same extent as your any% run, otherwise it might take several years to complete, and that type of dedication just isn't worth it for a game as obscure as this.
I'm definitely interested in how you will deal with the funds and exp restriction since your only major advantage over dondon's runs are freely rigging crits. Might be a good idea to do a somewhat sloppy test run just to lay the groundwork for knowing what your requirements are since purchases and trades will be exponentially more complicated this time around. There's simply no way to anticipate these things under S-rank settings, let alone 0%.
I'll try to help out however I can, although I'm not around much anymore.
P.S. One thing that would be cool is if you could program in to the 0% patch some kind of condition that caps a unit's tier 1 level once they hit lv 10 (earliest time to user a promo item), and of course cap their tier 2 level instantly. This would avoid level-ups that serve no strategic purpose.
So, I held off discussing this project or working on it, as I was aware of dondon151 doing his own 0% run (not ranked), which was just completed recently. The reason I wanted to wait for that was so I could use it as a basis to plan out what sort of requirements I would have to make effort for in the rankings.
Main differences would be units would be exposed to a lot more combat, to fulfil the 40% win ratio, and I would not be able to buy as many boots in the Ch21 Secret Shop to meet the funds rank. Having units face a lot more combat would help with the Power rank too, although it's hard to judge how much levelling I would have to do to make this quickly enough.
Another difference would be the strategies required to clear the map. The real time run just focused on clearing enough of a safe path for Roy to seize the throne, while I'll have to be doing that while doing other things. I expect because of the requirements I may end up losing a few turns because of this, especially since I won't be able to boost as many units' Move range. I don't see that hurting the entertainment value much, but I'll still be aiming for as low of a turn count as I can. Honestly, I'll be having a hard time just matching dondon's turn counts with the rank requirements, but I don't think it will be impossible in the majority of cases, especially if I end up feeding experience to units that will be obsolete for later chapters, makes it easier to push the exp/power ranks up that way, overall.
And a correction: the paired Lilina ending is not considered the best ending, so I can change the funds requirement to a mere 84,000 g. Makes things a little easier on my boots spending, at least.
So, a lot to think about, but I've no reason not to start work on this now.
I kept meaning to get around to posting in here to see how you were doing on this. Ha; I guess, 'I can start' was not quite what I was hoping for, but it is great to hear this is getting off the ground. Especially with the extra info you have as a result. Best of luck with it.
Kinda disappointed you dropped the extra goal of paired Lilina ending though.
I was aware of dondon151 doing his own 0% run (not ranked), which was just completed recently.
Thanks for posting this. Made me look it up, and it was a really entertaining run. But good grief does it make me (as a very casual FE player) wonder how you are gonna pull off the exp rank requirements when you have everything else to consider.
I recently replayed this game on hard mode and, after watching dondon's superb 0% growths playthrough, came across toothache's intention to make a ranked TAS.
I assume this isn't being worked on actively due to the lack of updates, but is this still in your TASing plans toothache?
