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Neat, nice to see some work done on the TAS. I was thinking about updating this with the time savings I found a few months ago, but didn't know if anyone would be interested in them.
I posted the ILs to speedrun.com, check out my runs there for 2-1 (41), 2-2 (197), 2-3 (98), 2-6 (105), 2-7 (237), and 2-9 (118). Those are all the ones with fewer steps than the currently posted TAS. I stopped checking at 3-4 and on since they were so long.
In case you missed these: https://www.speedrun.com/Kwirk/individual_levels
Looking forward to the improvements.
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Have you been able to make objects appear like the werewolf, behemoth, or hellhound appear as an inventory item? Behemoth would obviously be most beneficial, and make for the best ending. Have you been able to make the game think we've sounded the horn, given the gold coin to the ferryman, or used Illumina on the gargoyles without needing to?
The best gold coin is probably taking the sword without touching the torches in the book room, but a close second is taking the helmet without touching the torches in the sphere room.
Getting Illumina means we couldn't get the orb. I'm pretty sure the orb will save more time than using Illumina without learning it. Does anything odd happen to the memory addresses if you start doing weird actions (use self, use torch on self once, actions on blank spaces or odd items like the fin, dropping certain items to get rid of them, like in the fountain, lake, or oil)?
P.S. Even if there were a way to get the talisman to appear, we'd have the same problem as the blade. As a guarded item, we can't take it unless the flag that says the guard is dead.
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Probably not worthwhile because you need to close the arrow room secret door, but if you killed the werewolf and left the blade to appear in your inventory later, would that save time?
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Getting the orb this way might still save some time I'd think. There are a couple animations in the orb room and motari that are a pain to sit through.
You've already been look at having certain items at memory locations to trigger events. Is there no way you've found yet to trigger the death of the werewolf or hellhound? Can you post a sample of how that works?
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That's pretty awesome. Let me know what you find. How many torches would it take to do the glasses trick? We have those four before the gargoyles.
Does the Motari room not work for infinite actions? You'd think the lava would provide enough light, but maybe it has to be rooms with fire.
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Since you have to back track if you glitch to get the orb and blade, then you don't need to learn epor (unless that's another requirement), which will save some time. Having the blade or orb on the last page with the staff will allow us to save the page flipping when using those on the staff. Skipping Motari also means we can skip using the glasses on our selves.
Anyway you can work your magic one last time Randil and make the Talisman appear out of thin air? Maybe on the next page? That would allow us to skip the sphinx and wyvern.
I'd love to see a TAS where you make the staff, blade, orb, talisman and horn appear by just grabbing a bunch of torches (in case using the glasses in a endless light room isn't an option) and the necessary items (scepter, ring, illumina, etc.).
This is getting pretty crazy, but I think you'll definitely get under 8 minutes with these new finds.
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That's strange. I noticed you have iron bars now in place of the fin. I wish there was a way we could manipulate the orb as well as the staff because that would be a big time saver.
Does getting the water after the flute still cause bad lightning in the last room?
Also, saving nearly 20 seconds... sorry I didn't mention this sooner.
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If you go into the flame room you'll be automatically kicked out, but if you get killed right after that you'll restart in the flame room after you continue. Best way to do this is to use the hammer to break one of the other mirrors. Then you use the sphere and carry on.
I thought this was a fairly well known glitch and mentioned earlier in the thread. Not helpful normally because you need to get Humana, and the staff, but since we don't need those, this might actually save a bit of time.
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Would dying and continuing be considered a different category? Because I just realized with the latest route that skipping the cloak is probably faster. It would mess with the inventory a little in that it'd be best to get the arrow after key 2 or the sling. (Probably open the book, open the passage, take key 2, get the sling, and go get the arrow on the way back via the mini-map.)
I'm sticking with the current route because deaths usually push things into a different category, and continues are kind of a gray area at SDA. That's probably why I didn't think of it sooner. Sorry about that.
One other thing to note if you test this is that you don't need to grab the wraith torch.
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Randil wrote:
ZenicReverie wrote:
Quick thought though... using a stone on the sling just before we page flip to the scepter. This would put the orb on the second page after we use the blade. Not sure if it would save any significant time.
After having used the blade, we will still need to switch pages the same number of times until we reach the staff, so it won't save many frames (it will probably save a few due to shorter menu movement, but not a lot), and the extra dialogue will, as you said, negate this. My guess is that it will be slightly under a second slower, so it might be worth it in the speedrun if it's more convenient and less prone to mistakes.
Yeah, I might try it to see if it helps at all since in the console run menu navigation is much slower. Looking back at the run though, it's possible to do this as early as the cyclops, but also when using the red gem. Something else I just thought of though, which probably negates this whole idea, is having one less thing in my inventory means I have to take 1 more pair of glasses to offset it. Yeah, I'm pretty much out of ideas for improving the run.
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Yeah, they were long shots, as well as this one.
Quick thought though... using a stone on the sling just before we page flip to the scepter. This would put the orb on the second page after we use the blade. Not sure if it would save any significant time.
The extra dialogue probably makes it slower, but I just hate having to flip the page to get to the orb.
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Timed the route for my console run and I gained more time than I thought my just adding this in (about 20 seconds). This will definitely drive the console run below 14.
So, some things I've noticed that may save time in the TAS...
I've been opening the door in the Sphere room from the mini-map when I first enter instead of waiting until after I take the Sphere. Does this help any?
Key 4 is on page 3, does it make sense to use this key until after getting the talisman? I've been doing it to save a charge on the torch since it's such a tight point, and any actions I could potentially push off until later seem to be worth it.
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I see, so for a console run, I should swap the order since I can't really manipulate the RNG in the first place. Good to know. I'll be taking a final look tonight, but I think the video is mature enough to put; we'll see if I find anything else. Thanks for the acknowledgement, and congratulations on breaking the game so well. :D
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You mentioned before that taking the water after the flute and ring would help, but be bad for the RNG for the lightnings. Is this still the case? Will it always be the case?
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Hi Randil,
I haven't found much, hopefully some of this helps.
Should be 2 frames:
when hitting the stone, go down twice and on to the screen instead of going up three times and on to the screen
These are less likely, but some ideas...
after taking the last stone, going down to the menu and back on to the screen.
starting in the Epor room use cloak on self, use torch=1, use Epor, take torch=1, take broom, use hammer, use key 3... this puts the torch on page 2 for use right before the broom or arrow depending on how far using the torch early can carry you.
Side question:
why do you go right twice when you use the torch=2? is this to burn the RNG?
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None at this time.
Something about the glasses glitching: at some point while you're glitching, the blank spaces will actually map back to functions rather than items. Using different actions on these blank spaces may do something different. Same with the items, but less likely.
Some examples. torch = 1 appeared, I closed it, and the beginning of the game text triggered. Motari appeared and I used it, and it thought I dropped bag 3 into the oil room. I tried to open it and I appeared in the room with the globe, but it glitched out completely and everything slowed down to a crawl. Good luck with this.
I'm going to look at the new video later today.
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Okay, looking really good. I'm going to make you work a little more though, so I hope you don't mind. :D
Things that should definitely save some frames:
Flip pages first and then choose speak to use Humana. Don't use Use, it's a few frames slower to do that menu navigation.
In the room where you use Motari, once you get the cursor on the menu, go up and select Speak, then select Motari.
Things that might save time...
Using the red gem as soon as you enter the library.
Using the ladder instead of the minimap after using the water on the hellhound.
At the gargoyles, go right instead of down, go up the menu and select Speak Illumina.
This last one might seem a little weird, but instead of scrolling down from the top left torch, would it be faster to quickly go off the left side then back to the menu? It seems like it'd be really close, but it'd be cool if it saved even a frame. Could be many uses for it.
and questions...
Does having an action selected when switching pages make it take longer to regain control?
It looks like you need a zero input frame between pressing a direction in the menu, but is that true of zig-zagging as well?
I finally spent a lot of time looking at this frame by frame in some parts, and came up with the above. The emulator kept crashing about every 20 minutes too. :D Thank you very much for looking into these and posting these drafts. They've really helped.
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Randil wrote:
I have now looked through this route...
*You will need to change page when using the wand on the snake, and then switch again when you are to use the blade.
Pretty sure I avoided this part some how, but even so, sounds like it's more trouble than it's worth. Thanks for checking.
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That must have been one indecisive game developer. Either that or someone who really liked the random number generator he created for the sphinx and wanted to use it somewhere else.
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Nope, I think you covered it:
Randil wrote:
The only option now would be to use up this extra torch before this point, but using a torch is slower than one page change, making this overall slower.
This was the piece of the puzzle I was missing. I would have hoped using the torch wouldn't waste much time. Guess we just have to live with the page changes. I was thinking of using the torch at the same time we use the BigCoin.
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Randil wrote:
ZenicReverie wrote:
I've been opening map, then going up ladder, but I'm not sure it's probably slower.
I found this to mess up the inventory order (having to switch pages to use the arrow, and switching again to use the wand) so I think opening the star map after taking the blade is faster.
I meant opening the map, going up the ladder, using the arrow, taking the blade, then taking the star and rod. Might be slower, not sure...
Randil wrote:
ZenicReverie wrote:
Did taking an extra torch not help save time by keeping the scepter and staff on the last page? You didn't mention testing this. You could use the torch while paging to the spells.
Oh yeah, I tested this, and I found the best place to pick up an additional torch to be in the mirror room after taking the staff. This took an additional 88 frames, about 28 frames more than the page switching takes in the skeleton room, so this didn't save any time.
Right, but also remember that you'd be saving time when you use the orb on the staff (two page swaps), which should save time in the long run if that wasn't in your calculations.
Randil wrote:
And I will try to test the route you posted here to see if it can save time in your console speedrun (I haven't completely forgotten).