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I just beat balzack without using ragnar and it only took 2 1/2 rounds! With ragnar it could've been done in 2 but I think it would have been slower. With balzack, one of his attacks is always a breath attack or snowstorm, which would take longer with 4 characters. Also his delay for the critical would have to be factored in. Now that Alena is getting higher levels she getting criticals very easily with little delay (2 were on the 1st frame possible)
I will bring him in for the bakor fight (the guy has a 1000 hps, I'm going to need a little extra)
Also, Just before the balzack fight I fought a rhinothrope (or something like that) and manipulatede a battle axe drop which helped a lot.
This is faster (and better weapons) than getting taloon to aquire them in chapter 3.
I was thinking about the beat spell today, since cristo is leveling up with everybody. He might get hight enough to use it. Could it really be successfully used against bosses? (alla Final Fantasy Bane sword)
That would be awsome.
Haven't considered the poison needle. I might try that too. Maybe it can affect bosses. The venemous dagger doesn't kill the boss though does it? I think it just freezes them. (which would still save time)
How about a low-level mara solo going up against Necrossaro alone and killing him on the 1st try. That would be beautiful!
As for Taloon waving his finger - that hasn't worked on keelon or balzack (I tried a lot)
Aha, nice work.
As for spells like beat and defeat, I think in this game they really don't work at all where they're not supposed to (i.e. on monsters that are said to be immune), although I haven't actually looked.
I've made some Poison needle codes before, so I can comment on that with more authority. It definitely does not work on bosses, ever.. I had to make a special code to allow for that. :-} We're definitely out of luck on this.
As for the Venomous Dagger, the game does the same check as the Poison Needle, so it won't work against bosses either.
I remember in my Balzack-II recovery testing that once he was shaking with laughter, so I guess Taloon's "Awful Pun" move works against bosses, but is obviously not nearly as useful as the waving-finger. =\
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the awful puns to work. For balzack, I plan to use that next time. Taloons attack isn't as necessary so I could use that to prevent balzack from attacking and saving some time. Its worth it because it prevents both of his attacks that turn and one of them is always breath or snowstorm which take a long time.
Dissappointing that beat, defeat, poison needle, and venemous dagger do not work on bosses. Seems as though the game programmers where just too thorough.
Also, with the treasure map glitch. Using the treasure map causes doors that are normally always open to become closed. Such as the ones in Stancia. I don't see how this is useful, but I just thought I share.
Ah well, better late than never. I'm not sure which poison needle code you mean (I have several), so I'll paste these from my FAQ (available on GameFAQs also):
AEUXLVGP : The Poison Needle always hits a normal enemy's vital spot for an instant defeat.
AEKZATYP : The Poison Needle can work even on bosses.
AEXXGTGL +
SXSXZVVE +
SXSXTVVE : All weapons have the property of the poison needle. The weapons will do normal damage (including the poison needle), while still having a chance to defeat the enemy instantly.
On that last set, normal damage means that damage will not be reduced to 1 automatically, but will be calculated in the same manner as ordinary weapons. Each of these three code sets can be combined selectively with any of the other two to produce the desired effect.
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thanks for the codes, I just wanted to see if it worked on any lesser "bosses" (like the ones guarding esturk)
I haven't updated the WIP yet, but I just defeated Esturk, got the balloon and aquired the zenthian hemlet. I am currently right at 2 hours.
Now all that remains is getting the shield, sword, enter the zenthian tower, and head for necrossaro. I estimate that the movie will end up around 2hrs 40 min.
If I remember correctly I won't have another required battle until the 4 guardians in the underworld. My plan is to take out the one that leaves the sword of lethargy. that should be really helpful for taloon since he still has no weapons or armor!
I'm impressed with how fast you're moving on this project. I started following it when you first started, and it's been looking good so far, especially with how potentially complicated this game could be. I'm lokoing forward to the end of the trial one, and the final version, which should be great.
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Just thought I'd post an update. I just got to necrosaro!
Now that I have a sword of miracles for taloon, I should rip him a new one with no problem. I'll post the finished run as soon as it is completed!
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http://www.adelikat.com/Temp
It done!
Final Time 2:26:07
Check it out.
I'll be taking some time off from this game before doing my final version. In the mean time feel free to post any improvements you might notice. Don't hold back!
I'm thinking of submitting this run since I will probably be a long time before the final version is completed.
Of course if someone comes up with a program that will predict criticals then I will completed MUCH sooner ;)
Anyway, If enough people say to submit it, then I will.
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Ok, watched through this to the end. You've got some great ideas, but I don't think it's ready to submit yet. There's a ton of known improvements, probably enough in the first 4 chapters alone to get this under 2 hours. There are also a few obvious mistakes, like picking up the feather hat and throwing it away later. Getting a wizard ring would save the time devoted to visiting inns. You get the treasure map and never use it. As another bonus, you could use expel more in the early part of chapter 5. Overall, I like your route in chapter 5, I think you did pretty well in where to sail, walk and warp. Stuff I noticed:
You should kill off Cristo, and maybe Brey after he outlives his usefulness. It's very painful to watch them levelup.
You end up staying at the inn in Monbaraba to talk to Panon. However, would it be faster to use the lamp of darkness, letting dawn come as you travel?
To avoid cluttering your hero's item list, you could rotate the front character. You end up switching characters a few times anyway.
It would be faster to just put the hero and Panon in the party for Stancia. Then before entering Zenithian Castle, set up your final party so you don't have to hear Lucia whine about being glad to be home. By the way, I thought it was neat that you could just jump in the cloud hole, I thought you would have to talk to Master Dragon for some reason.
In the Radimvice battle, could you expel the demighouls?
I know you said that Balzack was faster with three people because of his breath attack, but what if Taloon incapacitated him every turn? You'd probably have more turns because Taloon won't be fighting, but it will probably be faster overall.
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TheAxeMan wrote:
Ok, watched through this to the end. You've got some great ideas, but I don't think it's ready to submit yet. There's a ton of known improvements, probably enough in the first 4 chapters alone to get this under 2 hours.
agreed
You should kill off Cristo, and maybe Brey after he outlives his usefulness. It's very painful to watch them levelup.
agreed, I have it my notes. Leveling a character even 1 level takes a while. Once My hero has enough MP, brey will be gone. I will have to transfer him into the party to take him out, but It should be faster anyway. I didn't anticipate them leveling up during boss fights in dungeons. Since I didn't have the wagon I assumed they would be XP's.
You end up staying at the inn in Monbaraba to talk to Panon. However, would it be faster to use the lamp of darkness, letting dawn come as you travel?
actually I should have walked to monbaraba after beating keelon. Had I done that I would have been day when I need to talk to panon, I wont need the lamp at all! Also It would have saved time later (though at the moment I'm forgetting why, but Its buried in my notes somewhere).
To avoid cluttering your hero's item list, you could rotate the front character.
Possibly, but not getting the feather hat and treasure map will also help alot. If I do it properly it may not be necessary. If I do rotate, I will have to make sure to change the party order inside a cave or town since the list will be shorter.
It would be faster to just put the hero and Panon in the party for Stancia. Then before entering Zenithian Castle, set up your final party so you don't have to hear Lucia whine about being glad to be home.
yep, already in my notes.
By the way, I thought it was neat that you could just jump in the cloud hole, I thought you would have to talk to Master Dragon for some reason.
my 2nd favorite part of the movie! Talking to the dragon blesses your sword so that it is more powerful (and also he gives you some XP's)
My favorite is leaving cristo in jail in gardenbur. Unfortunately he shows back up in the party after I leave the city, but it still makes me laugh anyway.
In the Radimvice battle, could you expel the demighouls?
didn't even consider that! Hopefully expel will work on them.
Damn that would have made that fight easier! I guess I got locked into the habit of just hacking everything to bits every turn.
I know you said that Balzack was faster with three people because of his breath attack, but what if Taloon incapacitated him every turn? You'd probably have more turns because Taloon won't be fighting, but it will probably be faster overall.
Thats one of a couple battle optimizations im considering. The only problem is that the bosses have HP regeneration. Each one regenerates at least 50hps at the end of every round. Because of this, it is important to do as much damage as possible. Otherwise the best method would probably do all the bosses with Alena only. Like in your FF run, One on one battles are generally faster and easier to manipulate.
Also, the merchant army is a slow process, takes several seconds for them to enter and dissappear. And early on taloon has no weapon so their attacks aren't very powerful anway. So taloon role might be to just sweep legs every turn.
the other thing that I noticed later on is that getting my charatcters to "dodge nimbly" is often faster despite have to wait so many frames for it to happen since the taking damage animation is so slow.
also, brute forcing taloon to get a critical will probably always be faster than having him "trip". Since that requires more text and some long delays.
My estimate for the new run are:
chp 1-4: 11 minutes improved
chp 5: 16-20 minutes improved
this should put me well under the 2 hr mark.
I just finished watching it. It looks good, but as TheAxeMan pointed out it could be better. I'm certainly looking forward to the final version, this first version really impressed me as you were working on it.
I DO have one question, though, maybe you addressed it already. Would it be possible to move Brey's position up in the wagon? Up to the slot just under the four party members? There's certainly a lot of frames spent scrolling down to him, and it might be negated by the frames spent moving him up. Of course, if you're killing him off earlier in the final version it may not matter.
Other than that... what was up with Alena's strange movements in the Final Cave?
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Spoony_Bard wrote:
I DO have one question, though, maybe you addressed it already. Would it be possible to move Brey's position up in the wagon? Up to the slot just under the four party members? There's certainly a lot of frames spent scrolling down to him, and it might be negated by the frames spent moving him up. Of course, if you're killing him off earlier in the final version it may not matter.
Other than that... what was up with Alena's strange movements in the Final Cave?
I probably will move him up, If I keep him for any length of time. As for alena's movements thats just the way the game handles the party as you move in against walls. I put some effort to show off the weird things that can result, whenever possible. I'm glad someone noticed!
Anyway, I thought I was going to take a break but I can't seem to get away from this game! I played for a few hrs today and I already at the boss of chapter 1.
At that point I am up 3777 frames. Which I guess is about 1 min 3 seconds? I anticipated about another minute of improvements before the end of the chapter.
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Finished chapter 1 with a final time of 10 min 4 sec, 1 min 51 sec ahead of my 1st run. I haven't uploaded the .fcm yet. I will do that tomorrow.
Where I saved time:
1) Used death to quickly return from Izmut to Burland after meeting Alex, saved about 30 sec
2) Used death to exit the cave quicker (Note: in the run you see me walk for a long time before running into an enemy, this is because there are no enemy encounters along the "right" path. That is, the path that you are led along. I get into a fight on the 1st square that has enemies.
Saved about 20 sec (also saved time because I dont pick up the agility seed)
Both of these involve having ragnar critical hit himself. Personal I find this hilarious.
3) equipped sword of malice in battle (a few frames saved at most)
4) I've figured out a method to greatly reduce the wait time for getting criticals and dodging enemy attacks. you will notice that is about 20-50 frames instead of 100 or more. In future battles, I found a way to reduce this to 1-10 frames. this should save many minutes throughout the course of this run.
5) On every boss fight ragnar went last regardless, so in this run I made sure to not get any agility. Getting a stat bonus for one stat takes 56 frames. You will see that raganar never gets agility, luck, or int, since none of them are relevant. In doing so I had to sacrifice some strength and some HP (hp shouldn't matter though)
This saved about 10-20 seconds total
6) After exiting the the tower I used the flying shoes to transport me to the top of it so I could jump off. this allowed me to walk to izmut and use my wings to return to burland. This saved about another 15-20 sec.
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I totally understand not being able to wait on making a next version. After making my FF test run I thought I would wait longer, but ended up spending a whole night timeattacking after getting an urge to start.
Anyway, this final version sounds sweet. You've certainly found quite a more spots for improvement than I thought there would be. Even 20 frames of manipulation time is hardly noticeable, 10 or less will make the battles in this run look absolutely effortless. Nice going, keep it up! Any little trick like getting rid of some levelup stats or reducing wait frames helps, and when it gets repeated a lot, then it will help a lot. In Final Fantasy, one character runs from battle about 150 frames faster than four. Over the whole run, I saved about 8 minutes just because of this.
I also like how you demonstrate the oddities in the party member movement with the wagon. It would be nice if you could somehow avoid letting the side members walk on damage squares. You might be able to factor this in when deciding who is in the party when.
This all sounds excellent. But now I'm troubled, do I want to download and watch the tests of your final version, or should I wait until you're finished and watch it all at once? :) I much prefer single-sittings, but I'd like to give feedback too...
Still, everything you're doing sounds awesome. This'll be a great run once it's done. (any chance of DW3 some time after this? :D)
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Spoony_Bard wrote:
(any chance of DW3 some time after this? :D)
Definately, but DW3 very problamatic for time-attacking. Its probably not possible to make a publishable movie out of it. Which sucks because it is my favorite of the series.
Oh? What makes it not possible to make a publishable movie? I'd guess that party-selection would become trickey, and there'd probably be more level-building than DW4. But where there's a will there's a way.
Your run looks pretty sweet. I have a small list of thoughts and questions that I jotted down, but I need to rewatch the video and make sense of it before I lay 'em on you. Chances are they won't be of any help (one was about the wing of wyvern to Burland though, so you never know).
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Ok my site has been updated and now has the verson 2 .fcm. It completes Chp1 and a little bit of chp 2
Ryan, I appreciate any comments you have, but I recommend that you watch the new version of chp 1.
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I think I might redo chp 1 again, since I have a new luck manipulation strategy.
As of right now I have a luck manipulation sytem, that gives me 128 possiblilites for the FIRST frame possible! then another 128 on the 2nd frame and so forth.
Due to this, there should be no problem getting a critical (1/64) on the 1st frame, and at most the 2nd or 3rd frame. This also includes doding enemy attacks, getting treasure drops, manipulating enemy actions, character actions, and taloons antics! This mean that all the wait time in the entire movie will be wiped clean!
[edit] unfortunately this method does not work for the 1st action in a battle round. I have only 8 options per frame. Put thats still 1/8 of the wait time for that action. Also I can make sure the 1st action is a "more likely" thing to happen. Easy enough in chp 5 since It will be easy to make alena go 1st (and its no problem getting her criticals)
In addition, I can manipulate enemy encounters to be every other square. So far I don't have a reliable way of getting them at every encounter (this is only relevant in chp 3)
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My new methods aren't working as expected. Until I figure out more about the affect of different button presses and how it relates to criticals, this run is on HOLD.
Heres what I know so far:
example scenario: Ragnar fighting a babble (1st encounter in my new run).
babble attacks for 3 damage.
when the cursor appears AFTER dealing the damage I savestate.
At that moment any 1 of the 8 buttons can be pushed to advance to the next action which will be ragnar attacking himself. All 8 buttons have a different affect on the amount of damage that ragnar will do. Also the value doesnt seem to be determined until the 6th frame after I push a button. That gives my 5 frames of button pushes to re-seed the random number generator. So any combination of these buttons in that time will alter the result.
Theoretically this gives me more than enough possiblities to get a critical on the 1st frame of the attack. In practice this may not be the casej. Its difficult to tell because there is only 3 different damage point he can do in this case: 5,6,7. So frequently a different button combination will have identical result. But sometimes is seems clear that the random number is not changing such as:
holding left 1 frame, 2 fr, 3 fr, 4 fr, 5 fr, might all yield the same number
left,right,left might be different though. but not other combinations of left right. So its all confusing and finding a systematic method of checking every possible outcome is difficult.
Also, the different damage values may not affect criticals at all. The number used for determining a critical is probably different from the one that determines damage and it might not be affected by button pushes.
In summary, manipulating normal damage and dodging attack can now be done on the 1st frame possible. But criticals might be another story.
Unfortunately this will only save a few seconds in the entire movie (as opposed to criticals which would potential save many minutes)
I will look into it further but I would appreciate any assistance in figuring out whats going on
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persistance & frustration paid off. I re-did chapter one and I gained another 10 seconds. all 10 seconds were saved with better optimizations getting critcals and dodging attacks faster. the longest I have to wait to get the action I want is 30 frames. On average they are under 10 frames! This makes the run ALOT more polished looking.
And I accomplished my goal of getting chapter 1 under 10 min with a final time of 9 min 54 sec.
