Memory
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Found by solidifiedgaming: Link to video
[16:36:31] <Mothrayas> I have to say this argument about robot drug usage is a lot more fun than whatever else we have been doing in the past two+ hours
[16:08:10] <BenLubar> a TAS is just the limit of a segmented speedrun as the segment length approaches zero
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Wow congrats on this discovery! Not sure how I didn't find this myself, because I'm pretty sure I had tested tunnel clipping horizontally a while back... This saves ~1 minute 05 sec. In RTA, you have about 1 minute time to try for it to save time. This find unfortunately kills at least 22 minutes worth of time in the WIP. Will also have to see if there's a fast place to get back that 1 syrup it skips. EDIT: New syrup plan: a) Get the syrup that's on the ledge like before, and leave the room where you came in. This is a 330 frame detour compared to if you had just gone to do the skip right away. b) Get the syrup in the first room in the top left. This is a 430 frame detour. c) Don't get any syrup in pre-Hohooros. Get an additional syrup in post-Hohooros, near the tornado. And: Change
	// vs Hohooros (45 HP)
	Dodge
	M:SplashBros empty rock 			(Mario has 8/11 BP)
	L:Jump on full rock
	Dodge
	M:SplashBros Hohooros, 17 dmg (28 left)	(Mario has 5/11 BP)
	L:Jump on empty rock
	Dodge
	M:SplashBros Hohooros, 17 dmg (11 left)	(Mario has 2/11 BP)
	L:refill BP Mario				(Mario has 11/11 BP)	
	Dodge
	M: SplashBros Hohooros, dead		

	// vs Dragohoho (80 HP)
	Dodge
	M: SplashBros, 17 dmg (63 left)	(Mario has 8/11 BP)
	L: BounceBros, 10 dmg (53 left)
	Dodge
	M: SplashBros, 17 dmg (36 left)	(Mario has 5/11 BP)
	L: BounceBros, 10 dmg (26 left)
	Dodge
	M: SplashBros, 17 dmg (9 left)	(Mario has 2/11 BP)
	L: BounceBros, 10 dmg (dead)
to
	// vs Hohooros (45 HP)
	Dodge
	M:SplashBros empty rock 			(Mario has 8/11 BP)
	L:Jump on full rock
	Dodge
	M:SplashBros Hohooros, 17 dmg (28 left)	(Mario has 5/11 BP)
	L:Jump on empty rock
	Dodge
	M:SplashBros Hohooros, 17 dmg (11 left)	(Mario has 2/11 BP)
	L:Jump on Hohooros, 2 dmg (9 left)
	Dodge
	M: Lucky Jump, 10 dmg (dead)	

	// vs Dragohoho (80 HP)
	Dodge
	M: SplashBros, 17 dmg (63 left)	(Mario has 8/11 BP)
	L: BounceBros, 10 dmg (53 left)
	Dodge
	M: SplashBros, 17 dmg (36 left)	(Mario has 5/11 BP)
	L: BounceBros, 10 dmg (26 left)
	Dodge
	M: SplashBros, 17 dmg (9 left)	(Mario has 2/11 BP)
	L: refill Mario BP
	Dodge
	M: SplashBros, 17 dmg (dead)	
--- b) loses to a) directly. I think the tornado syrup + Dodging Dragohoho + Splash Bros on Dragohoho amounts to more than 330 frames so we will go with option a). I'm sad that this is the best way to do it. I wish there had been a faster syrup on the way somewhere. Then again, if there had been, I'd have to redo even more progress so ...
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Wanted to clear something up I found today: In 2010, I stated that the Peach escorting bit is emulated wrong in older VBA versions (Peach gets caught immediately when offscreen as opposed to being able to go offscreen freely in Dragondarch's SDA run). I'm not completely sure but me stating VBA-M fixing the Peach escorting is probably misinformation too. The truth is, there is no Peach escorting emulation bug, it seems. The "bug" happens because TAS can clear Toadsworth's text fast enough to save Peach from getting caught the first time. If you do so, the game will continue to check if Peach is offscreen, even in the next few rooms. If she is caught in the first room, which she is in the SDA run, then she is allowed to walk offscreen from then on.
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Luascript 0.12.6 Important notes: - Now the script runs in Bizhawk 2.x - Fixed script crash on emulator reboot - You cannot use the script in Bizhawk 1.13.0 and 1.13.1 because of some bug. Use 1.12.x or 2.x instead. Known issues: - Actors: The list sometimes isn't up to date with the current room. Didn't find a way to reproduce this issue consistently yet...
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I was participating in a TwitchPlays of this game, and we encountered a weird bug that may or may not be known. https://clips.twitch.tv/TemperedFriendlyHippoKlappa Basically, we went mostly around Beanbean Outskirts from the southeast to the northwest, going in caves, obtaining items, and digging up beans, until we unlocked the North pipe and went to Castle Town. After leaving the Castle Town pipe house, the game booted back to the Title Screen for some reason. We're playing on BizHawk 2.2.1 (x64) and are using savestates pretty regularly. After that happened, we reloaded the previous savestate, which was before we went in the pipe, and left the pipe house again except it acted normal this time.
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Is it played on the VBA-Next or the mGBA core? A crash bug like this isn't known to me. If you see this again, please post more about it. :) Chances are something in the game's memory got messed up in the 60 hours of play over time.
Joined: 4/1/2010
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It's played on the mGBA core. I'll be sure to let you know if it or something related happens again.
Pixiuchu
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Decided to try and TAS this game, I know there's one already in the makings for Any%, currently I just want to do Glitchless and see how fast it can really be with a bit of the RTA route (mostly ignoring the mushrooms more than RTA does because it wastes too much time in TAS especially Glitchless, otherwise the same in terms of gear/what & when), I spent about 6-8 hours or so today to do the entire section up to the end of Koopa Cruiser. https://youtu.be/3TW3noDnptY Point of this video is to ask if there's anything I am doing wrong and to ask: is it good or at least decent up to this point? I know I could have included the ledge boosts at the end of the movie and not stop where I did, but I was tired and wasn't thinking ahead atm (it's 12:20am at the time of writing this x.x). I'm pretty sure I should be a couple frames faster than the old 2012 TAS, mostly because your lua script helps a lot (@Mugg) with movement. I know for sure I saved time with Toad movement and after Mario's photo but before Luigi's photo (with switching Brothers) BK2 file: http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/48605273643055680
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Hi @Fencypo It's nice to see someone new trying this game. I put some notes below. It looks like you did a really good job at optimizing, so kudos to you! Here is the 2017 WIP which I stopped working on after Ledge clip in Mountain was discovered. The bad Hohooros luck made me lose my motivation to keep going. Hopefully it will be useful to you. I can't remember which Bizhawk version I used, but it seems to sync fine at least as far as middle of Cruiser on v2.2.2.
Notes wrote:
- Title screen is equal to my 2017 WIP. - At the beginning cutscene, you didn't use the A mashing trick to clear text faster. You lost 506 frames (8.47 seconds). - At Toad, it looks like you saved 2 frames over my 2017 WIP :o - Somehow you lost 1 frame between after leaving Mario's house and starting Bowser battle. - You can press A on frame 8309 to save 1 frame. (At this point I stopped looking at minor text stuff) - At the beginning of Toad Town, you are 507 frames behind me. In the first room, I go left way and get a boost from the Toad. 508 frames behind. - Still 508 when entering third room of Toad Town (framecount 14100). - Jump towards the Koopa Cruiser could be better to optimize the camera. The point where the time loss becomes visible is when Mario jumps on the Cruiser. 519 behind. - When Luigi runs to the bottom, it's 561 frames behind. Not sure why. - At framecount ~18120, you again didn't mash the text but it looks like it doesn't lose time. - In the 2nd room of Koopa Cruiser I'm doing an NPC boost, which saves 1 frame. - After the photographer room, your movie is 636 frames behind. - (...)
EZGames69
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MUGG wrote:
I can't remember which Bizhawk version I used
opening that movie file in 7-zip says you used 1.12
[14:15] <feos> WinDOES what DOSn't 12:33:44 PM <Mothrayas> "I got an oof with my game!" Mothrayas Today at 12:22: <Colin> thank you for supporting noble causes such as my feet MemoryTAS Today at 11:55 AM: you wouldn't know beauty if it slapped you in the face with a giant fish [Today at 4:51 PM] Mothrayas: although if you like your own tweets that's the online equivalent of sniffing your own farts and probably tells a lot about you as a person MemoryTAS Today at 7:01 PM: But I exert big staff energy honestly lol Samsara Today at 1:20 PM: wouldn't ACE in a real life TAS just stand for Actually Cease Existing
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If anyone wants to help out... 1) Check if this file does the Ledge clip. (Bizhawk 1.12, Mario & Luigi US version, mgba core) 2) If yes, create a version of the movie file that starts from savestate from the point where Mario & Luigi first enter Hoohoo Village. 3) Check what versions of Bizhawk sync all the way until the end. 1.12 is supposed to sync. If a version of Bizhawk that implemented a newer mGBA core syncs, we should probably switch to it. Not that I'm "back" to working on it, but I think having these things out of the way would be a good help. Thanks in advance.
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Looked at NPC clipping a bit today.
MUGG wrote:
The different amounts of pushes you can get sidewards (with Oho Jee and the Mountain Village guy) seem to be dependent on your follow path. If the follow path and the back brother are aligned nicely, you can get up to a ~4300 push, at least with the Oho Jee. I have not gotten any push higher than 4096 with the villager yet, no matter what I try. It should be possible in theory though.
Doesn't seem like the follow-path is related at all. I tried with single brother and it turns out Oho Jee ejects up to about 4352. Since it's above 4096, it allows for wall clipping. The guy at the Mountain Village only ejects up to 4096, therefor wall clipping in that place is out of the question.
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Koopa in Koopa Cruiser (room 313) Here I will explain the NPC clip the best I can so others can understand it: NPC ejection Ejection to the right: Be inside the NPC, have the same X-pos or more, as the NPC, walk left Ejection to the left: Be inside the NPC, have less than the X-pos as the NPC, walk right Most standing NPC don't eject at all. Walking NPC will eject for 4096 usually (which equals 0x100 in hex). Very few NPC will eject for more. The Koopa in Koopa Cruiser will eject for up to 5120. How to get inside an NPC Jump into the NPC from above or keep switching places until the NPC has walked inside you. It's very tricky and not feasible to do on real-console. However, the Koopa in Koopa Cruiser will never change direction, so it is very easy to do the clip even on real-console. You just need to start switching places at the right time, and you need to be positioned from the wall perfectly (this will be explained below). Wall clipping To wall clip, you need to be ejected more than 4096 units. You can only clip rightwards or leftwards so far. You need to be positioned near the wall perfectly: Too close, and you will be ejected less than 4096 no matter what. Too far away, and you will be ejected for 5120(or whatever the maximum the NPC ejects for) and still not be in the wall. If you are between 4096 and 5120 from the wall, you can be ejected into the wall. If you are with 2 brothers, the back brother cannot enter the wall as far as I tested. If you are with 1 brother, you can clip through, however. For the GIF above: The 2 brothers are positioned exactly 4096 from each other, if you walk horizontally. So if you walk away from the wall so the 2 brothers are aligned horizontally, and then walk for 1 additional frame, you will be ~4600 units away from the wall. Since the Koopa ejects for ~4900, the clip happens. Other "more than 4096" NPCs There are only very few I found. These work but they never approach a wall... - The captain in the Teehee Valley ship - Walking Yoshi in the Yoshi theatre - Koopa in the end room of Koopa Cruiser These work and the wall clip can be done - Fat lady in the relaxation room - Oho Jee Luigi in the beginning of the game is special because he is a scripted NPC who does stuff based on your position and movement. As far as I've seen, he is the only NPC that can eject you vertically when walking into him (Luigi clip).
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I did a livestream today, first time after a long break. Nothing game-breaking or too interesting was found. - The spiky enemies in Chucklehuck Woods are actually scripted 5000 HP enemies, the "script" being that a Beanie will spawn from them upon death. If you kill the spiky enemy by over 5000 damage and it was the last enemy on the field, Mario & Luigi will start escaping automatically, for seemingly no reason. - NPC clip does work vertically but the conditions for it are precise and not fully understood. - I added NPC collision boxes to the lua, works only on the overworld though. I will release a new script on request. - I played around with "Wide coinblock bug" in the Fungitown hospital and saw some glitch effects I didn't see before. Such as one of the bros being gone (inactive) while still highjumping, spinjumping or using hands on each other.
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Additional dummy loading zones After figuring out (non-scripted) loading zones and adding functionality to my lua, I looked at all the rooms in the game. These are "dummy" loading zones that I have not known about before. The ones I knew about already are listed here. Room 4 (Underwater test room) - Has 4 loading zones - 1 for each side of the room. 0 at the top, leads to same room starting from the bottom 1 at the bottom, leads to same room starting from the top 2 at the right, leads to same room starting form the left 3 at the left, leads to same room starting from the right Room 282 (Peach's Voice cutscene) - Has two loading zones. Unreachable (the whole room is a cutscene). 0 leads to Room 112, Bean Bean Outskirts, watering room (North-East) 1 leads to Room 314, Koopa Cruiser Room 393 (Broken Koopa Cruiser, first room) - Has a loading zone to the left which leads back to the cutscene. Unreachable with known glitches. Room 394 (Broken Koopa Cruiser, cutscene room) - Has a loading zone to the left, which cannot be reached. Unable to test. Loading zone does not trigger for some reason. Additional notes - Due to how the game is programmed, each room has a minimum of 1 loading zone. Most rooms that act as debug rooms or shop/map screens have a dummy loading zone in {0,0} which leads to room 0. Scripted warp zones are treated differently. Maybe I will look into it, since there may be scripted "dummy" warp zones. Reaching room 0? I have not made elaborate efforts reaching a dummy loading zone that leads to room 0 yet, but it should be theoretically possible with glitches. On the Japanese version it leads to the opening cutscene, but it does not trigger the next room, instead leaving Mario and Luigi actionable. However, they are turned inactive and cannot really move anywhere. It may be interesting looking into what you can do when both bros are inactive like that. On the English versions, it leads to the debug room. There is no way out. There is a goomba battle which is scripted like one of the tutorials. It leads to the game crashing, so there is no way to gameover.
Pixiuchu
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Just burned myself reading through this entire thread for 5 hours. Nice progression.
MUGG wrote:
using the hammer spin bros attack (which as you might know can deal ~60 individual attacks).
Is this information correct? When I tried to use Chopper Bros. in a TAS setting to do a quick sketch-route for Cackletta's Soul, I was only able to do 26 individual attacks (which after a night worth of testing I found that Mush Badge with 21 would be enough for sure), but then I read this and I noticed no one corrected this at all. (This post was made on the 4th page of the thread) 2nd question. For manipulating Cackletta's attacks, is that determined before Bowletta or after Bowletta? And my 3rd question, at Koopa Cruiser in the first fight, I was not able to manipulate RNG to make the Goomba attack Luigi instead of Mario for some reason. Also noticed you didn't manipulate that in your WIP as well. Is there any reason why this doesn't work? ---------------------------------- I'm back to working on Glitchless, though. Using Bizhawk 2.3.2 (I will be reverting back to 2.3.1 thanks to some bug in TAStudios). I seem to be 13 / 14 frames ahead of the WIP you posted, likely due to better Fawful RNG (I haven't checked yet why). I'll post my WIP if you want to check it out (at the bottom of the post); it's currently in the beginning of Stardust Fields. I'll be routing Glitchless, and I do have a couple questions in regard what you think should or should not be done (Note that I'm not talking to anyone in specific, so all comments are going to be considered): - The biggest one, should I mash the A button fast enough in Teehee Valley to avoid getting Peach getting caught? The reason I'm thinking of letting Peach get caught is because when you revisit the room where she's supposed to get caught the first time later, the room is forever going to be in a glitchy state. However, since we don't ever revisit that room a second time, I hesitate a lot with this. - Granted it may not be useful in Glitchless, should we allow the 0 DEF Glitch and infinite red pepper? This is allowed in the RTA categories because a runner could accidentally pull of those glitches and it would be stupid to void a run just because they accidentally did those glitches. However since in TAS you can just go back to avoid those glitches, I'm thinking of banning the two glitches as well. Oh, I'll also (try to) """encode""" the rejected #5648: Lu64's GBA Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga "glitchless" in 3:15:53.55. It's not a great TAS but it is the fastest known Glitchless time (as far as I know) and I have gotten it to sync all the way through, so it'd be nice to have a video of it. [small][small][small]I don't earn money on my channel anyway[/small][/small][/small] With encode, I mean playing the run back on video during stream with Livesplit to compare to RTA run. (July third next week, in the evening London time (say around 6PM UCT) on Twitch if you want to see it, I guess. Not going to link my stream, you'll see it on the game page when it's live.) WIP file: User movie #56149381358162570 (Uses Bizhawk v2.3.2)
Post subject: final edit
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I'm really glad you still exist!
Fencypo wrote:
Chopper Bros.
26 hits is correct.
Manipulating Cackletta
It's like manipulating any other enemy or boss. Their action is determined by the RNG, and RNG can be changed before the battle starts. Additionally, it also depends on frame timing (might not be the case for all battles). So the same RNG will mean something different for when you enter a battle at a different time. Once in the battle, the RNG will stand still and change depending on your action. Some actions will advance it further than others, so you have some limited possibilities to manipulate the Cackletta fight while you're in it. Trial and error has helped me tons in this game. Your WIP is in Stardust? You will want to manipulate the best mushroom drops possible from the fights. I think for my WIP it's 2 fights with a "3 mush" drop each, and 1 fight with a "2 mush" drop, or something like that. Since you are doing a different category, your planning may differ. I strongly advise that you plan mushroom and mush power stuff out in advance, through the entire game, before going further, if you haven't already.
Manipulating Koopa Cruiser goomba
I'm not sure what exactly is the problem, but as said, enemy pattern depends on the RNG (and possibly on frame timing). You can manipulate RNG by changing camera movement, by taking different paths across the rooms and jumping, so NPCs - that cause RNG to roll - become active and inactive at different times. I guess goomba attacking Luigi should be faster? It should work if the RNG is good. But RNG manipulation possibilities are very limited until that point, I think.
Questions about stuff being allowed or banned in glitchless
If I were in your shoes, I'd just use the RTA rules. Those state, the following is banned:
  • Action Command Glitch
  • Barrel Storage
  • Fire Dash Ledge Glitch
  • Fountain Glitch
  • Jump Course Skips
  • Ledge Clipping
And so everything not on this list is automatically allowed. This makes everything easy to verify and justify.
The biggest one, should I mash the A button fast enough in Teehee Valley to avoid getting Peach getting caught? The reason I'm thinking of letting Peach get caught is because when you revisit the room where she's supposed to get caught the first time later, the room is forever going to be in a glitchy state. However, since we don't ever revisit that room a second time, I hesitate a lot with this.
It's hard to conclude with a ruling on this, since something like "Jump Course Skip" is banned as well, after all. You need to press A every 3rd frame while holding left, to do this on console. It is a very light bug. A bug on the basis that it was not intended by the developers, but I would classify it more as an "exploit" than a glitch, since you are using the game mechanics in your favor. For the same reason, I would even go for the common "collect mushrooms and abuse the heck out of Chopper Bros" approach. Are you going for a "human theory TAS" or are you going for a serious "stick to the rules and squeeze everything possible out of the game while following the rules" project? For the Peach thing, avoid restrictions like "you are not allowed to mash A more than x times in a second". It makes your run arbitrary and hard to justify. You could mash A as fast as possible but still let Peach go offscreen. I would personally allow the Peach capture skip, but would also respect it if it was banned on the basis that Jump Course skip - which is similar in terms of time save and leaving things in a glitchy state - is also banned.
0 DEF glitch, infinite red pepper
Do the glitchless RTAs not use those things? What do Murmilio and Sjorec have to say about this? It's easy to get these types of bugs. Reminds me of Pokemon "fast text speed" by talking to the bicycle shop owner or using pokedoll in the ghost tower, etc. These things have been allowed in the Pokemon community because they aren't "hard glitches" and they happen in common play easily. I'd lean towards allowing it. It's the really big glitches that allow sequence breaking, that you want to avoid. Good luck Let me know when you come up with conclusions on glitchless rulings. Maybe we are going to need to update the RTA rules to state whether Peach capture skip is allowed or banned.
Pixiuchu
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MUGG wrote:
I'm really glad you still exist!
Yeah I haven't really been motivated to continue lately until now. (I accidentally lost like a minute of progress last year and later on broke my laptop (oops), hence)
Fencypo wrote:
Manipulating Cackletta
What I meant with this is that you can manipulate boss fights by waiting before entering, like for Bowletta you'd wait to get preferred RNG. For Cackletta I was wondering if it looks back on the RNG you entered Bowletta, or if it calls new RNG after Bowletta.
MUGG wrote:
Are you going for a "human theory TAS" or are you going for a serious "stick to the rules and squeeze everything possible out of the game while following the rules" project?
Originally I was going to just do a fairly simple Human Theory TAS that doesn't push for absolute optimization, but then with me being a little bit of a perfectionist in TAS, I just couldn't stand using a slow route PLUS I also forgot to collect mushrooms in Toad Town which RTA route does do. Decided to go as optimal as possible. Since I knew there weren't a lot of mushrooms to consider in Koopa Cruiser I pushed through until beginning of Stardust Fields just to see how I would do compared to your WIP you posted (I did compare a lot to see where I lost time and trying to understand what I did wrong). Once I reached Stardust Fields, I went to sleep (relevant yes), and I had already decided to not continue and to actually route before I waste my time more. I'm not sure if this is the preferred way to route mushrooms but what I'm doing is, I try to optimize my movement on getting mushrooms and compare it to not getting any mushrooms, to see how much time I lose. I'm not sure yet how I'd optimize Stache/Hige stat and money and stuff. About manipulating RNG against the first set of Goombas, I just managed to get it and it turns out that it's actually slower. The time between jumping to hit the Goomba in the counter and being able to attack again; - 79 frames when Goomba attacks Mario (goes diagonally) - 82 frames when Goomba attacks Luigi (goes in a more straight line). So manipulating RNG is definitely not worth it. I asked about what people think of the skip in Teehee Valley in a TAS, so we'll see others think. The RTA route does not use any Red Peppers but does use Thunder Bros. in some fights, though both would be unnecessary anyway in a TAS so it doesn't really matter. Oh and thank you for the good luck
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About Cackletta, the old TAS waits for a split second before clearing the last Bowletta text. You can see it right here. So waiting should work.
I'm not sure if this is the preferred way to route mushrooms but what I'm doing is, I try to optimize my movement on getting mushrooms and compare it to not getting any mushrooms, to see how much time I lose. I'm not sure yet how I'd optimize Stache/Hige stat and money and stuff.
I call this a "detour". Let me tell you, the planning I did before I started my WIP was pretty damn laborious! Your best approach is to go through all the key points. Go through all enemy battles and boss battles and shopping instances in the correct order, test all possibilities for leveling up stats and see how it affects future key points (=battles and shopping). Just a rough example to visualize the idea (not accurate in practice at all!):
Stardust Goomba fight 1
Stardust Goomba fight 2
Stardust Goomba fight 3Level up: Possibility 1 -> Level up Pow
Level up: Possibility 2 -> Level up Stache
...
Queen BeanLevel up: Possibility 1 -> Level up Pow
Level up: Possibility 2 -> Level up Stache
Bean Town Item ShopPossibility 1 -> Buy Pea Badge and equip on Mario
Possibility 2 -> Buy Pea Badges for both brothers
Possibility 3 -> Don't visit shop
...
Generally you will want to aim for lowest amount of rounds in battles (especially in Popple&Rookie, where Rookie starts a dialogue with an extra attack if you don't kill him fast enough, and in Popple&Birdo where Popple will hide in eggs if you don't finish the fight fast enough). After you found the minimum Pow required to do your fights with the least amount of rounds, you use the extra level ups to boost Stache. You check how many mushrooms you can afford in Fungitown. Then you see how many more you need to get a good Popple&Birdo, Bowletta and Cackletta fight. Then you plan to get that amount of mushrooms throughout the game, starting with the ones that have the fastest detour time. This is just the general idea. There are a lot of aspects to consider. I have my Glitched% plan written down (trimmed version) but for Glitchless% you will need to come up with your own decisions, especially after the Popple&Birdo (Chucklehuck Woods) key point which is where the two runs seperate. I recommend you use my luascript for testing/planning, as it offers many useful capabilities such as being able to edit stats, to warp to rooms and to start boss battles instantly. You can quickly go through all the key points in the game, without having to play through. I will try to assist you as best as I can if you have any questions.
Pixiuchu
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Joined: 9/27/2015
Posts: 106
First, I found this neat little thing underwater that hasn't been documented anywhere. I checked and none of the Glitchless runs on speedrun.com/mlss uses this exploit. Link to video All runs on speedrun.com doesn't do the "fast swimming" method as solo. For some reason, if you swim as if you're with both Bros. (Press A & B at the same time), the Bros. in front gets a speed boost. I originally thought the reason the Bros. in front gets a speed boost is because of something finnicky with the Follow Path, but this video proves that theory wrong (that I never checked, for the record). Either way, it's a small timesave that saves a bit of time over the RTA runs. Very easy to do in real time. Second, I have two questions. First about the damage formula. Formulas by JDaster64 What do these terms mean? "Pow" and "Pow Mod", "Def" and "Def Mod", specifically. I understanw Pow and Def, but the "Mod" confuses me. And even then, I don't know if it's enemies' Defense or whatnot. I know Power can't be the enemy's power because their power differs from attack to attack and there's no constant power, but I still find this unnecessarily confusing. Second question: when levelling up, is it always possible to get +3 (or more)? Right now I have routed the bosses until Queen Bean (and I ended up with the same route as yours so I suppose that helps confirming that 1. I didn't do badly and 2. It might be the fastest route), but this something that I'm not sure about.
Editor, Expert player (2328)
Joined: 5/15/2007
Posts: 3930
Location: Germany
For the first two things, I have nothing really to say. Swimming has odd mechanics. And the attack damage formula I never really understood, that's something Jdaster64 will have to explain. In battle, enemy slots and Mario & Luigi slots are layed out the same. Every slot has "Pow" and "Pow Multiplier". I think Pow for enemies is not used, but I'm not sure. Most enemies seem to have 0 for Pow. It is used by Mario & Luigi though. You can check these things with my lua, under >Actors while in battle. Some info might be here but it's not particularly helpful I think. http://tasvideos.org/GameResources/GBx/MarioAndLuigiSuperstarSaga.html#AttackAlgorithm About the level-up bonus, it depends on the RNG. If you have bad RNG, +3 might not show up at all even if it is possible to show up. Each time you open (or re-open) the roulette, the RNG is rolled so you can check the possible values quickly. In the English versions, if you keep boosting a specific stat, then higher values will eventually stop showing (so for Pow you'd get only +2 at best). In the JP there are some differences and getting higher values later in the game seems more lenient. There was a stat progression table by JDaster64 but it seems it's no longer online.
Pixiuchu
She/Her
Player (146)
Joined: 9/27/2015
Posts: 106
I might just be doing something stupidly wrong and not even realizing it, but I'm a tad bit confused at the moment. So yesterday I started routing the mushrooms (On Google Sheets) (I also put the boss route on there so you can check that out too). Your two WIPs (before and after the skip in Hoohoo Mountain was discovered) also does not do the mushroom route that can be seen in your route notes you posted a while back, even though that was posted after the WIPs. When I reached sewers (ID 16 on the sheets to be specific), I remembered you had posted about a 50something frame detour in sewers. After doing my tests, I came up with a 41 detour, but you said 55 frame detour. I didn't understand why it was different, though I figured that I'm comparing to the wrong spot. I checked after the puzzle and I had come up with a 111 frame detour total, but you had a 130 frame detour. This time I'm sure that I'm comparing to the same mushrooms. I get a mushroom per 55.5 frames here, you get 65 frames. I did notice that your mushroom grabbing was more optimal than mine. I tried to copy your input (because I didn't understand why I wasn't able to do what you did, though I found where my fault was) and only saved a frame, so that becomes a 110 frame detour or 55f/mush for me. It is still 10 frames faster than your detour though. I don't understand whatsoever how you could be TWENTY whole frames faster than my attempt without grabbing the mushrooms. What I have been doing is this (though you should be able to tell from my sheets): FIRST, I TAS a room without collecting any mushrooms. I reach a specific point in which both collecting and not collecting would be the same (usually the first frame of fading out when I leave the room). I put in the details that I need to put in in the sheets (room group ID (for organization purposes), room ID, how many frames it takes to get there. THEN, if there is only one mushroom, I redo the room but I grab the mushroom. I reach that same point. Once I do, I put the necessary details (now also including the delta (no mushroom MINUS mushroom) and how many mushrooms I got, separating all 4 sorts. If there are multiple, unless there's no point to testing individually, I usually do both individually and together. The sheets then automatically does the necessary calculations so I can accurately check, keeping in mind ultra mushrooms & max mushrooms output a higher amount of damage than normal & super mushrooms, what is technically the best for each room if I were to grab at least one mushroom. My main question is: exactly how were you routing mushrooms? I can not grasp why your detours are so different than mine. I couldn't have been 20 frames faster, or even in Koopa Cruiser, 30 frames. For the record, my plan from here on out is to test the detours for the remaining mushrooms, then play through the entire game whilst not getting any blocks (and removing the mushrooms I get in my inventory from stardust fields fights), and reach Fungitown with the current TAS route. Check how many coins I have & what items I will automatically have, check for how much I can sell them, list down how many mushrooms I need to buy & the detour for those, then start the potentially necessary detours so that I can output a certain amount of mush damage (16 mush damage by the time I reach Hermie III and 20 mush damage for Popple (and 22 for Iggy)). The final step, how I would check which combination of mushrooms & items is the best to get, I have no idea. I'm not there yet, though. For reference, here is the .tasproj in which I was testing the mushrooms after the puzzle in sewers (excuse the lazy Discord post) https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/668480207958704158/671156543173033985/0015_sewers_after_puzzle_room.tasproj Sorry if this post is a little unorganized/all over the place ^^;
Potato
He/Him
Editor, Player (165)
Joined: 3/7/2020
Posts: 59
Location: Mars
Hello! I am Potato. I'm a new guy to TASing but I find it fun so I'm gonna continue doing it. I'm currently trying my best to make a new TAS for Any% for this game since the previous one from 2012 is very outdated. While I was TASing I decided to take a break and just have some fun messing around with various mechanics of the game. One thing I discovered is you can actually skip the Tolstar fight if you have Thunderhand flag enabled with help from Mugg. Now, I don't know if there is any way to enable flags early, but maybe we could go around this restriction somehow.[/video]
MLSS Any% TAS out! (link)MLSS All Bosses TAS out! (link)MLSS Glitchless TAS out! (link)
Editor, Expert player (2328)
Joined: 5/15/2007
Posts: 3930
Location: Germany
I will add the most important piece of information. Potato discovered that you become actionable too soon after walking into and away from the Tolstar trigger. This allows weird stuff to take place, if you use Highjump or Spinjump at the earliest possible moment. Useless, but very useful if Hands early is found. Could be interesting if there are more triggers in the game that make you walk a distance and make you actionable at the same time.
Editor, Expert player (2328)
Joined: 5/15/2007
Posts: 3930
Location: Germany
If I want to someday continue my WIP, here are some TODOs/notes to consider: - 2 Frames can be saved in Toad from better movement (Snodeca) - Some frames could be saved from better pattern in the Fawful fight (Potato) - 1 Frame can be saved by better movement on the stairs in the top right Stardust room (Potato) - 3 Frames can be saved in Splash Bros tutorial text boxes (Potato) - 4 Frames can be saved in Tolstar dialogue, when first speaking to him (Potato) - 60 Frames can be saved in Tolstar from having no textboxes (Potato) - I need to study this post by Snodeca - I need to test the planned route again to make sure it isn't off by any numbers Right now, I think the most probable and sane option is to redo Tolstar, splice in the previous input until Hohooros, get good Hohooros luck and then splice in previous input from the abandonded WIP that made it until Woods.

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