Joined: 7/29/2004
Posts: 136
Location: Temple City, CA
You could probably count on one hand the number of times the high powered attacks are used outside of boss battles. They just take way too long to charge compared to repeatedly stabbing enemies. While it can be a helpful glitch, it isn't probably of any use in the run itself.
"How can you prove you exist? Maybe we don't exist..."
-Vivi Ornitier (Final Fantasy IX)
That's not a glitch: sometimes the wisemen just help you out when times are rough. And you only net like 12 MP, since using Telepathy costs 8, and they only give you 20 or something. Also, I'm not sure if they'll hook you up the first time you use the spell, either; you might have to use it a couple of times before they realize your dire need, which, if true, would probably not be faster than going to an inn or using a magic ring. But it is something to consider...
Joined: 7/17/2004
Posts: 985
Location: The FLOATING CASTLE
Interesting tip, I never noticed this. But pretty useless if it's very little MP. MP is indeed not particularly useful in a wild warp run. I only acquire level 3 attacks for water and thunder, late in the game, and both cause a lot of lag. A full run would definitely have much more MP used for teleport, so we'll see. But for the top sword attacks, only wind doesn't lag severely, and it's not that useful either. It's just much faster to run up to an enemy and stick your sword in him. Another nail in this coffin is the fact that there are several spots where it is very easy to acquire a magic ring.
Oh, and I keep thinking about picking up this run again and then get into something else. If I do get something interesting to show, I certainly will.
So, I thought I'd try my incredibly small hand at a non-wild-warp-ish Crystalis run. I'm kind of a complete bonehead when it comes to emulators, and it took me several read-throughs of the FAQ to figure out how to resume recording.
Anyhoo, here it is, up to the second area (Cordel Plains, if I remember correctly), about 4 minutes in:
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1690/crystalis.fcm
I'm not sure I actually have the patience to finish this, but it is kind of mesmerizing. Everything looks fine to me, but I think it looks kind of sloppy aesthetically. I spent the most time trying to defeat the wicked witch of the cave, and after many rerecords, she went down like a chump, I'm happy to say. Any comments are welcome (particularly if I recorded it correctly and that kind of stuff).
Joined: 7/17/2004
Posts: 985
Location: The FLOATING CASTLE
Sweet, someone else is actually attempting this game! Your wizard battle is indeed very good. The rest is pretty decent, your movements are not always optimal, but I don't blame you. This game isn't too bad to TAS until you start worrying about all the details. When I started to do that it became more and more annoying.
Don't worry about getting everything perfect. If you can finish with this level of quality it will be nice, especially since everyone seems to want a non-warping run. Good luck!
Joined: 7/1/2005
Posts: 56
Location: Central Pennsylvania, USA
Hamm wrote:
No rush, you got the first run published already. I'm a patient person. ^_^
Well, its been about 9 months, and you haven't egged anyone on, so you really must be patient!
A warpless run would be appreciated. The "warp" might be considered a debug code, thus voiding it from use (I remember discussion on whether the "mega-jump" could be used in Megaman 3). Not to say warping doesn't take careful planning, but it might be (and could have been) outlawed. Then again, other games use warps... 2 published runs of Crystalis, warpfull and warpless?
Anyway, about the new run so far:
No comment until you get into the windmill-cave (Good job so far!). Kinda don't like the wall-hugging, but that's fine.
Not sure, but could you run past some of the green slimes at the beginning, and use the snakes later for exp? (greenslimes are worth 2 xp, snakes are worth 3)
At about frame 13000 (the first wall you blow up with the ball of wind), you use the shot to kill some redslimes, then have to wait to recharge. I'm wondering if you could have killed the slimes faster and charged quicker, or blown up the wall and then killed the slimes.
Could the wizard be luck-manipulated any better? When he poofs to the bottom-right corner, it looks like he sits awhile before poofing again, like you weren't hitting him enough.
Joined: 7/29/2004
Posts: 136
Location: Temple City, CA
captainobvious wrote:
Hamm wrote:
No rush, you got the first run published already. I'm a patient person. ^_^
Well, its been about 9 months, and you haven't egged anyone on, so you really must be patient!
Extremely. I realize the amount of time and patience a TAS of a game like this can take and would never dream of trying to put pressure on someone who's doing the rest of us a favor by giving us something entertaining to watch. As for this new run, I will take a look at it on Thursday and let you know what I think.
"How can you prove you exist? Maybe we don't exist..."
-Vivi Ornitier (Final Fantasy IX)
So, I wrote up some answers to your questions, but I erased them all because I'm an idiot. Here's an abbreviated version:
captainobvious wrote:
Not sure, but could you run past some of the green slimes at the beginning, and use the snakes later for exp? (greenslimes are worth 2 xp, snakes are worth 3)
I don't think there's a substantial enough time waste to constitute not killing them. Also, killing everything along the way prevents me from having to manipulate multiple spawns by re-entering doors and stuff (which I think is kind of lame, like the level-up sequence from 1-2).
At about frame 13000 (the first wall you blow up with the ball of wind), you use the shot to kill some redslimes, then have to wait to recharge. I'm wondering if you could have killed the slimes faster and charged quicker, or blown up the wall and then killed the slimes.
I tinkered with this a little bit, but this seemed to be the most efficient way. I need to kill those slimes for the experience, and there's not really a graceful way to do that without sitting like a lump and recharging.
Could the wizard be luck-manipulated any better? When he poofs to the bottom-right corner, it looks like he sits awhile before poofing again, like you weren't hitting him enough.
Yes, it could be manipulated better (since, theoretically, anything could be better), but not by me. I don't think it could be all that much better, because I spent quite a bit of time on that battle. I thought it went pretty well. Also, the wizard only poofs if you're attacking him. So if you sit in the middle of the room like a lump without moving, the wizard takes like 10 seconds to poof. But once you start to attack, you can only get three hits in before poofage occurs.
Thanks for the comments.
Here's a little more, up through the first cave of Mt. Sabre south. I need to do a little research and figure out exactly how many ice zombies I need to annihilate. Yes, the save and death are intentional. I hope you appreciate the result. :)
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1701/crystalis-tmont.fcm
Well, it's finished:
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1789/crystalis-testrun-tmont.fcm
Hope you enjoy. I'm not submitting this, as there are several strategic mistakes I made, like leveling up too high in the Fog Lamp cave. And some other stuff I won't go into (unless someone really wants me to), but mostly because this is my first time using an emulator like this, and I was kind of learning as I went.
The final time was 55:27, 199643 frames, 2683 rerecords. I'll probably do another, submittable one, but this should satisfy those of you who wanted to see a non-wild-warp run (myself included).
Joined: 7/1/2005
Posts: 56
Location: Central Pennsylvania, USA
It looks pretty good, and the whole thing was made in a week. Too bad it desynced for me around frame 170,000 (After you kill the 4 Draygon's Elite, warp to Shyron, and go into the cave). I have the same checksum, so that's not the problem.
(Later: I was able to keep the movie going by turning on a cheat (infinite magic, address $0708 value 255) but it desynced again around frame 184,000 (you get poisoned by a redpuddleslime). I couldn't get past that second desync)
---------------
Killing the Draynor Soldiers on the ice mountain is far more interesting than running in circles killing Ice Zombies, and it's faster. I did the math, it took TheAxeMan about 11000 frames to get 1200 xp for lvl 7, but tmont only took 9500 frames.
---------------
Around frame 79000, you normally encounter 3 medusas at the top of the bend and one on the right, but once you only encounter 2 at the top. On page 4 of this thread...
TheAxeMan wrote:
So my testing revealed an 8-bit counter which controls spawning for an enemy. Every 256 frames (about 4 sec) this counter resets and the enemy respawns. That is, if the previous incarnation is dead and the spawning area is off-screen at the time. Otherwise nothing happens and you have to wait another 256 frames for the next opportunity. Furthermore, the counter doesn't change on lag frames, giving a lot of incentive to avoid lag....
...it seems "the counter" is at memory location $0008. This counts down on each non-lag frame and controls when enemies spawn.
...so I think you turned around too quickly to fight more. There were a few other times I noticed enemies not appearing (training session around frame 130,000 with the Green soldiers, around 150,000 with the purple spiders, 175,000 with the scorpions). This is something to be sure to cover on the second run.
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The thunder sword shots cause a bit of lag. The level 1 shot is ok if there's only you and one enemy, but if there are several enemies or you use a level 2 shot the lag is noticeable. Maybe you should use a different sword for the training session at frame 130,000. And I was wondering if using the units inside the castle to train would be faster, anyway? They're worth more experience, and there's a good place by going -->(right) inside the castle.
Outside: Green Soldier = 256xp, Purple demon = 288
Inside: Red Soldier = 560, Red demon = 672
But there are more Green soldiers outside than Red soldiers inside, and they are faster to kill...
---------------
And it would be really fun to watch you beat the ninja-boss with one level 3 water blast (like in TheAxeMan's movie).
Thanks for the comments.
The desync is weird; I must've loaded a savestate out of order or something. I was going to upload a savestate so that you could watch the rest, but Microstorage doesn't seem to like it, and I'm too lazy to find another place to upload. It sounds like the only things you missed were the Emperor's true form and the Tower, and there's not much to see there anyway. If you really want, I'll upload it somewhere.
As far as leveling up, I kind of half-assed the spawning in all cases. I knew I wasn't going to submit this from the beginning, so I didn't spend a whole lot of time figuring out how to make them respawn. However, thanks for the quote, I will definitely read this thread (which I haven't done yet). Also, I'm about 99% sure that leveling up on the soldiers is slower than leveling up on the blue spiney things earlier in Mt. Sabre. There's two of them in a row, right by a door, so you get 30 every time. That was where I initially was going to do it, but then I thought the soldiers might be faster. I'm pretty sure they aren't, though.
We both did the same math on the green archer vs. red soldier thing. I figured that since I was killing them more often, it made up for the lower experience. And killing green archers is far more interesting to watch than killing red soldiers, in my opinion, and not just because of their color.
As far as Mado (ninja-boss) goes, I also half-assed both of those battles. In fact, most of the boss battles I didn't spend a lot of time manipulating to perfection, but I will definitely take the time to do so on the next movie.
Here's a short list of what I will be improving:
-Don't power up unless it's necessary.
-Eliminate jerky walking movements as much as possible.
-Level up in a better place for level 7-8.
-Work on manipulating respawns.
-Kill Insect instead of dying twice to avoid getting the Ball of Fire (maybe, haven't actually seen which is faster, and I just think that glitch is cool).
-Figure out exactly how many Warp Boots to buy, and when to use them.
-Don't level up so much in the Fog Lamp cave (idiot!).
-Don't miss sword shots (particularly first Emperor, Tower robots).
-Better menu efficiency (i.e. thinking ahead).
-Actually try to manipulate boss fights, particularly Mado and the Emperor's true form.
-Plan ahead for enemies, so that I don't completely raise my level in one place and walk by enemies I could've killed for experience. Mainly later in the game when it's hard to count. Big numbers suck.
-Don't stand in front of walls powering up my sword like a lump. Unless it can't be helped.
And anything else you guys can think of that I sucked at.
Joined: 7/17/2004
Posts: 985
Location: The FLOATING CASTLE
Watched this movie and was very impressed. You've clearly put some thought into everything and have some great new ideas. I love how you were still able to skip the evil island dungeon! Optimizing the spawning is very difficult. The explanation I gave before is really just a simplified version. There are some other factors which sometimes prevent monsters from respawning even when it seems that they should.
If you really want to hone things up you need to calculate levelup building rates for different strategies. Figure out how long it takes to do the loop, how many enemies you kill and from that you can get an exp/sec rating. I ended up with a pretty big spreadsheet on all this info.
I'm interested to know more about the death glitch. How does it work and where else could it be used?
Watched this movie and was very impressed. You've clearly put some thought into everything and have some great new ideas. I love how you were still able to skip the evil island dungeon!
If you really want to hone things up you need to calculate levelup building rates for different strategies. Figure out how long it takes to do the loop, how many enemies you kill and from that you can get an exp/sec rating. I ended up with a pretty big spreadsheet on all this info.
Much of the planning and preparation for this run was done nearly a year ago when I did a few console speed runs of this game. Pertinent information, especially regarding what Dragondarch seems to have dubbed the "Ghetto Flight Bug," can be found here
I'm interested to know more about the death glitch. How does it work and where else could it be used?
Well, I haven't really done a lot of in-depth research on how it works. Here's how you do it:
-Power up a sword to level 2 (in my case wind)
-Go the menu screen
-Choose a different sword (in my case Fire)
-Save
-Die
-Continue
-When you return, the new sword will be able to power up to level 2, despite the fact that the ball is not equipped (or even in your inventory)
-If you access the menu screen (i.e. press Select), your power 2 ability will disappear
Basically, you trick the game into thinking that you have the sword at level 2, when you really don't. I didn't really experiment on whether you really have to save or not, as I just read about the glitch, and generalized it so that I could use it in certain places. The glitch description, which I have no memory of what site I found it at, described it as a way to use the level 2 fire power-ups to defeat the Insect in the Poison Forest. In that case, you'd have to select the Insect Flute before you saved, and thus wouldn't be able to use your sword.
As far as exploiting it in other places, it's certainly possible, but not really time-saving. Skipping the ball of water isn't possible in a non-wild-warp run, as that event triggers Asina and the sick dolphin behind the throne room in Portoa. Skipping the ball of wind isn't possible either, because you have to start somewhere. Skipping the ball of thunder is possible, and means you could skip Mado the first time, but getting the power ring would be a huge pain, since you'd have to go through and make all the bridges, exit, save, die, and then go back in with your cheated powered up sword of thunder to break the wall. Also, there's a wall you have to break with the sword of thunder in Goa Fortress, and that would require the same amount of backtracking. I'm not even sure not killing the Insect to get the ball of fire isn't faster than saving and dying twice. I think it's a pretty cool glitch, though, as it allows you to do stuff far, far before you should, and way out of order. For example, using wild warp, I think it's possible to get the Sword of Thunder on level one, if you could survive those shooting gargoyles in Styx without Barrier.
So, I finally got around to reading this thread, and was amused that you guys had the same annoying frustrations with Stom that I'm having right now. Did anyone ever figure out how if he is actually manipulable (manipulatable?)? In my previous run, I beat him in approximately 380 frames, and now I can't seem to beat him in under 500, and frankly, it's pissing me off quite a bit. Moving left or right doesn't seem to help, and I even mimicked my input from the previous movie exactly, but it didn't do any good. Anyone have any ideas?
By the way, up to Stom, I'm about 450 frames ahead of my previous run. Well, technically I'm only about 200 frames ahead, as this time I'm starting from Power On, which apparently the FAQ claims you're supposed to do, and you have to wait 212 frames while the SNK logo pops up.
So, I started making a wild-warp run, just for fun, but I hit a snag. Apparently, many places where I thought I was being faster, I wasn't (like, leveling up in the angry sea, leveling up on the archers (negligible), and a few other places). So, I kind of got depressed and don't really want to finish it. I almost cancelled the no-warps submission, but I have no plans to improve that one, so I guess I'll leave it up. With these changes (and a few other ones), it might be improvable by about a minute or so (maybe).
Up to the big waterbug (or whatever the hell they are) whacking sequence, I was approximately 5200 frames ahead of TheAxeMan's published run. But, I got bored, so here's the movie file, if anyone cares:
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/2458/crystalis-ww-tmont.fcm
Joined: 7/17/2004
Posts: 985
Location: The FLOATING CASTLE
Ah, finally saw this. Have you seen my WIP which hasn't been updated for like a year? I made it up to the end of the swamp and saved a huge amount of time over the published run. At the end of the swamp (a very good comparison point) it's about 2200 frames ahead of the run you just posted. I'm pretty sure you lose some time by making two trips to Brynmaer. Also, your leveling with the blue blobs and pig men is fast once you start, but it forces you to do a lot of extra walking and doesn't allow you to kill the swamp enemies as you walk through.
Anyway, I don't blame you for getting bored, that's about why I gave up. The overall route planning for a TAS at this game is very deep and quite an interesting problem. It's just that the leveling is a killer. Even if the route and glitches used are ingenious, this doesn't come out in the movie for the same reason. Instead, the story is simply that this is a boring run with lots of leveling. It's really discouraging when your game gets no love.
Joined: 7/17/2004
Posts: 985
Location: The FLOATING CASTLE
Resurrecting this thread on account of the publication of tmont's run. I've been inspired to at least do a little planning and research. So I'm posting to see if anyone else had the same idea.
Ok, I'm willing to accept the site ruling against wild warp. A normal run should still be pretty interesting.
Anyway, as tmont admitted earlier, a lot of his choices are suboptimal. In many cases he could pick some better spots to grind and grind more optimally. Because of lag and the richness of this game's control, there's always room for tweaks. So I've gone through and made some notes and some plans. For one thing, I suspect that using death glitch to skip the fire orb is more bother than it's worth. My guess is that a couple minutes could be shaved easily with even more possible after some work.
I tried to look for more memory addresses. I couldn't find absolute x and y coordinates for your current position. But I could find screen-relative coords and coords for the screen. This revealed an interesting possibility for movement tweaking. Non-diagonal movement is at 2 pixels/frame. Diagonal movement alternates between 1 frames and 2 frames in both directions. So you can alternate between manhattan and diagonal to move faster with an overall angle of 26.5 degrees.
That's pretty interesting.
When watching the run I noted that he froze some bridges what seemed like a bit to early. It seemed like if he had walked a little closer before freezing he could have walked a bit more towards his destination while the camera was locked.
I might watch the run again later to speculate.
Joined: 7/17/2004
Posts: 985
Location: The FLOATING CASTLE
This is proceeding well. I am writing a lot of lua code for myself that is really going to help on the details. So I'm doing a test run to hammer out and test my script as well as try some things with the route. So far I'm just up to the windmill. I've gained about 250 fr on the recently published run just by tweaking movement and reducing lag-there aren't really any options in the route yet. There's certainly more improvement possible with aggressive optimization.
My scripts already have several powers:
-displaying player and enemy coords and hp
-display some useful counters and indicators
-movement macros for fast diagonals and charging the sword
-player and enemy hitboxes
-rewind. So I can run a macro and rewind part of it
I plan on adding some more features:
-smarter movement that avoids lag
-grind-bots for repetitive tasks
-lag-reducing bot
Lag is a big deal in really tweaking a run at this game. I have a pretty good idea of what causes it (multiple enemies, sword shots, scrolling the screen both directions) and some ways to reduce it (manhattan movement). But building it into a program is tricky. If I can pull it off though, it's going to be sweet.
Joined: 7/17/2004
Posts: 985
Location: The FLOATING CASTLE
Short answer is that there will be as much grinding as necessary, but no more. Of course the ultimate goal is to finish as fast as possible. In general, less grinding will accomplish that better. Right now I can't say how much grinding time I can save over the current run, but it's going to be quite a bit. I've discovered some new spots that will be much faster.
A non-ww run has a lower percentage of grinding to advancement, so just because of that the amount of grinding at least seems less.
