Joined: 3/30/2004
Posts: 359
Location: Borlänge - Sweden
http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2081&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=wander
Here you can find mostly of the difference between the game versions.
I like the Genesis version most.
Hope you have more luck then I had.
I tried out the Genesis version and the first boss in the cave at the beginning had some wierd ramdomness attacks and it desynced out very each time I tried.
A few people have tried, but no one seem to finish TASing it. what's up with that? This game deserves better!
I haven't really worked out a path yet, since I don't know if the interest for the game is still alive here.
I was thinking about making it a no damage run thru the whole game, but some crazy (st)airwalk glitch kinda messed it up. Now I'm not sure if I should go for damageless or take a few hits just to get thru faster.
[/url]http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1572507/Ys%20III%20-%20Wanderers%20from%20Ys%20%28U%29%20%5B%21%5D.smv
A no damage run wouldn't really be that entertaining compared to a regular speedrun. In the case where it provides more of a challenge or more entertainment it is ok, but I don't think it is a good goal for this game.
Almost surely the NES version would want to be run because of the L+R glitch.
http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4763
This game is actually on my to do list in the future probably after I/we finish 7th Saga in a few months. I would be willing to collaborate though if you wanted.
Wondering if someone could help me to figure out how to manipulate Dulan (first boss). I'm trying to re-sync the progress I had made working on this game in Snes9x 1.52 (started grinding on the firebirds), but decided it'd be better to switch over to Bizhawk. It's kind of a pain, but re-syncing hasn't been too troublesome yet.
Re-doing some of the input has been necessary, so I went back for a couple small errors to save 10 frames up to that point, but his warping pattern is different / shorter, and I can't figure out why. I think it may have to do with the Chester scenes where you get the Warehouse Key, perhaps also with the amount of HP you have going into the fight, but I'm still at a loss. It seems like delays on the screen before have no effect - the warps happen at the same frame intervals once the fight starts.
If nothing else, I can take the frame loss and move on, but I suspect the fire dragon's movement may also be possible to manipulate, so I'd like to try and figure this out now. Especially since I plan to grind most of the needed EXP on the firebirds, and having to change things before that screen (if needed) will undoubtedly de-sync the movie. I'm pretty sure the grinding I already did will need re-doing, so it's not a big deal, and I think I can do what I already did a bit better.
That aside, here's my plans for the rest of the run:
- Kill the gargoyle with the levels from Dulan, then proceed to buy the Amulet before heading to the Ruins (not quite sure if this should be used for the lava area bosses or not - Galbalan, if nothing else). I'm skipping a ring recharge, as grinding in the lava area will fill that up. Related to this, I realized there's not a need to closely monitor the ring usage to have enough for the gargoyle, but not enough to avoid removing the ring between fights.
- Grind on the firebirds* (the room before the fire dragon, as the other rooms have falling debris to avoid / cause lag) for most of the necessary EXP, with the remainder coming from bosses / normal enemies in the way, provided they don't take more than 2-3 hits to kill. My notes say at least have 12,331 EXP entering the fire dragon fight, but this needs to be re-confirmed.
- Calculate how long it'd take to gather an additional 10,000 EXP from the firebirds, then do preliminary TASes for the remaining bosses to see if the additional level is worth it.
- Do my best to stretch out the ring usage in the Castle to avoid needing Brocia's Secret Medicine. Not 100% certain, but judging by Fladdermus' movie, I believe this is doable.
*The birds in the ruins are a possible alternative, but I fear it's beyond my ability to optimize decently well. As they'll take two hits to kill (even with the Power Ring, I think), you'd ideally want to do a jumping attack as high as possible to the group of 6 to get them to do their second swoop faster. The trouble is hitting more than 2-3 with one swing, as well as not taking damage yourself. The firebirds were chosen since it's sometimes possible to have an additional ground enemy respawn while killing firebirds; technically, this is also the case with the birds, but not in an area where you're close to the room "ceiling". I think the firebirds are slightly faster regardless, but I'm not 100% certain of this.
From my experience on the Genesis version, it was possible to completely manipulate the bosses while in the fight with very small movements. I'm not sure if the SNES version behaves the same way.
It'll be good to see a TAS without the EXP glitch too. Have you considered playing this on the Famicom version and using the L+R glitch? With that it's possible to do some warps back to the town and skip the first boss and the fire dragon boss (and maybe more).
I tried things like that, but it didn't seem to alter the pattern in any way. As far as the NES version, I've no plans to work on that, as this is the only version of Ys III I've played (well, discounting Oath in Felghana). Though I definitely wouldn't mind seeing a run of that version.
To be honest, I wouldn't mind some help with this version. The grinding in particular will likely take a while, and from the progress I did make before, that section in particular is a pain to optimize.
Anyway, I managed to save 102 frames over my previous attempts (which are removed):
http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/download/35818225111414378
Reviewing Fladdermus' movie again, I saw that I had overlooked a stairs glitch that saved some time, which also altered the boss pattern again, this time quite favorably. I also utilized some of the extra ring power to kill a few slugs. To be honest, I could've killed 2 more on the return trip and I think barely still have enough ring power for both bosses, but it unfavorably altered Dulan's pattern again. Getting the extra 2 kills would've made it so I hit 1,000 EXP exactly right before the firebirds (means 2 hits, instead of 3). However, an aspect of the firebird grinding is scrolling the screen far enough to get the next ones to appear ASAP, so I think that would be a superficial improvement (and besides, it's only 1 firebird killed in 3 hits).
Regarding the stairs glitch, it seems to invisibly extend the stairs in the same direction until you reach a solid obstacle. Unfortunately, I believe it works only when the screen is still scrolling upwards (which isn't very many screens at all, let alone ones with stairs on them). Someone please correct me if that's wrong. If the starting stairs in the top left of the waterfall area were just a tad lower, I think it'd be possible to use it on that staircase as well, and from there possibly reach the Power Ring a little quicker by jumping at the top of the screen, causing Adol to appear at the visible bottom (or something like that).
No worries about not posting it. I remember watching it on Nicovideo a while back and coming to the same conclusion as you that it wasn't particularly helpful due to covering a lot less of the game.
Unfortunately, not much new from me regarding the work I had done on this game. I had managed to resync the Snes9x progress into Bizhawk up through the first outdoor Ilvern Ruins area with enemies (so not much further than I had publically shown before). But at some point, I realized that I could tank a hit from the very first enemies in the mine without losing time (initially, I had subtly delayed 10 frames or so to avoid them), and still have enough HP to take a hit from the first boss. Sadly, getting a favorable RNG pattern with Dulan like I did before is proving tough to manipulate. Basically, I've found I can alter it when first equipping the Short Sword / Power Ring, but it's still a pain. Even without that, I think the firebird grinding would've done me in. If I can get my old PC to boot up, I can upload the outdated Snes9x 1.52 progress I made which had just started the firebird grinding, to give an idea how that'd go (it's a hassle, that's for sure).
Speaking of grinding, there's a possibility that the small fly enemies in the mountain caves could be a better grinding spot, but they seem to appear infrequently - I can't tell if it's RNG or not, but I believe they come from the bigger flies. Unless there's a way to manipulate the small flies to appear quickly, I still think the firebirds are the fastest way to grind.
Anyway, the short version is that I likely won't see a TAS of this game through to completion, though I'd very much like to. There's probably too much grinding and too much RNG for me to feel comfortable dealing with in an optimized manner.
You could try replacing parts like the memory and GPU until you've found what's faulty. Alternatively, you can remove the hard drive and plug it in to your current PC with a hard drive enclosure, or the cord that comes with an external HDD if you have one.
Korzic wrote:
Anyway, the short version is that I likely won't see a TAS of this game through to completion, though I'd very much like to. There's probably too much grinding and too much RNG for me to feel comfortable dealing with in an optimized manner.
What if I could help you with the hard parts? I won't have time anytime soon, but maybe late summer or fall of this year?
Also have you seen the Genesis version TAS by The8bitbeast? I don't know Ys III or if there are comparable strategies to this version, though I did some planning for a full-game run of Ys I for SMS.
You could try replacing parts like the memory and GPU until you've found what's faulty. Alternatively, you can remove the hard drive and plug it in to your current PC with a hard drive enclosure, or the cord that comes with an external HDD if you have one.
I'm not sure, but I think it has something to do with the power supply. It'll power on for a few seconds, shut off, then try again repeatedly. I'll try taking the PC to my dad's, see if it gives the same behavior there. Even if I can't retrieve the movie, I don't think it's especially important, as I think it'd mostly just serve as a point of reference (I know there's room for improvement).
CoolKirby wrote:
What if I could help you with the hard parts? I won't have time anytime soon, but maybe late summer or fall of this year?
Any help you or anyone else can provide would be much appreciated. I still have a few things I want to test before finalizing the route, but it's stuff that can be postponed until further progress is made (whether or not the Amulet is worth buying, whether or not grinding an additional level would be worth it).
CoolKirby wrote:
Also have you seen the Genesis version TAS by The8bitbeast? I don't know Ys III or if there are comparable strategies to this version, though I did some planning for a full-game run of Ys I for SMS.
I did watch it, but I don't think it'll be of too much help for this version. As I understand it, the Genesis version is basically an easier version compared to the SNES version - this version is kind of notorious for being pretty difficult, mostly due to some wonky hit detection. There's a reason that, even among speedrunners, you don't see this version completed below max level, even though you can do it a level or two lower, which I think is what a TAS should aim for. Anyway, I did try out the Amulet glitch performed in that TAS, but it doesn't seem to work in the SNES version. Too bad, that would've been quite helpful.
Here's the progress I had made in Snes9x 1.52, if anyone's interested:
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/228321657/Ys3FirebirdGrinding.smv
There's definite improvements here. Notably, (1) Dulan could be manipulated better (still not really clear how, but at least I think I've found a pattern I can work with for the Bizhawk improvement).
(2) The Amulet shouldn't have been bought yet, if at all. So far, it doesn't seem to be a timesave for the bosses I've tested (up through the ruins), and at this point my guess is that it'd only be useful for Galbalan, but we'll see. If bought, it should probably be done the same trip as the next ring refill, which isn't needed for the ruins (the firebird grind means plenty of enemy kills to refill it manually).
(3) Tighter ring usage in the mine will allow for a few extra enemy kills; the remaining ring power will be used to kill most of the enemies on the first 2 screens of the ruins, which will make it so we have 1,000 total EXP when traversing the following screens with the swooping birds. This will allow the swooping birds to be killed in 2 hits without the Power Ring (which should be depleted by then), rather than 3, which will allow more kills. In contrast, the above movie doesn't hit 1,000 EXP until the firebird grinding begins, but the resync I had worked on a few years ago improved quite a bit on this, managing to accumulate 1.000 EXP just after the first bird screen. Hitting that amount before then should provide a nice EXP boost when it's time to start the firebird grinding again.
IIRC, holding a direction key or maybe pressing it at a particular frame or frames between a screen transition pushes you one pixel. That is what I found when I made a run.
I'm too lazy to recheck it. Sorry, if I was wrong.
IIRC, holding a direction key or maybe pressing it at a particular frame or frames between a screen transition pushes you one pixel. That is what I found when I made a run.
I'm too lazy to recheck it. Sorry, if I was wrong.
As far as I can tell, looks like this happens just by holding the button, which is what I've been doing anyway. This did remind me that it's possible to carry upwards momentum from a jump over to the next screen if you keep the button held down (it doesn't seem to work if the jump's descent has already started). Same sort of thing seems to apply if you're in the middle of a sword swing while transitioning. Not sure how useful any of this will be, but I appreciate the info.
I guess I'll post some things I've discovered so far. First thing is it's faster to avoid jumping when possible, as it slows your movement by 2 frames. Typically, you want to jump from higher ground rather than just walk down from it, as it will otherwise slow you down by 2 frames (though there are exceptions that won't slow you down, such as the doorsteps in the town). Since jumping costs 2 frames, you want to clear as much bumps / ledges (anything that you can fall down from) as possible with a single jump.
In the event you need to fall downward (such as the pits in the mine), it is faster to jump off the ledge rather than glide off (gliding is basically a 1 frame jump at the edge of a ledge, but you don't descend as quickly). I think this only matters on screens that scroll downwards, and it also won't be helpful if you can just use stairs to reach lower ground without a need to jump, unless of course you need to head opposite where the stairs lead.
Next is attack cancelling, which can be done by pressing jump in the middle of a sword swing. Depending on the frame you start the swing, this can happen automatically without the need to jump. Anyway, even if an enemy takes 2 hits to kill, I've found that you'll need to swing your sword at least 3 times (possibly more), as the 2nd swing for some reason won't connect, even if you wait for the enemies' invulnerability frames to wear off from the first hit. Therefore, attack cancelling is useful to interrupt the useless swing and allow the next one to start earlier. For bosses, this ideally means you can land your hits every 20 frames (sometimes it's 22, though, and I'm not sure why - perhaps due to projectiles or other objects being present on-screen?) rather than every 30. As far as I've tested, cancelling the animation can only be done by pressing the jump button, which as I mentioned before, costs 2 frames. So, depending on the movement needed to get through a screen, and the size of an enemy's hitbox, it may be faster to swing the sword uninterrupted 3 times, rather than perform an attack cancel. Optimizing this can be rather finicky, particularly with normal enemies. It's one of the reasons I'm not very confident in my ability to do the firebird grind well.
The final thing off the top of my head deals with my feeble attempts at RNG manipulation. As near as I can tell, one of the ways to alter it might depend on how / when the screen scrolls. What led me to this conclusion is doing unoptimized tests through the slime screen after collecting the Warehouse Key, one of which seemed to produce a good pattern for Dulan, but cleaning up the movement led to a different pattern. Standing idle and killing frames didn't seem to alter Dulan's pattern whatsoever, but I found that getting hung up in the mine's "ceilings" for a couple frames did lead to the pattern I observed earlier. Screen transitions seem to alter things as well (though this doesn't seem to include going to the equipment subscreen), but obviously the fewer screen transitions the better.
Anyway, hopefully, I'll have something updated to show fairly soon. Currently in the Ilvern Ruins on the bird screens trying to get some extra EXP.
Well, the swooping birds are giving me a lot more trouble than anticipated, and I'm a bit burned out on the game at the moment, so here's what I've got so far:
https://tasvideos.org/UserFiles/Info/637903496149885188?handler=Download
After Dulan, I was only 4 frames ahead of my resync attempt; if not for some additional boss kill lag (presumably due to more objects being on-screen), it would've been 21 frames. There may still be room for improvement if an alternate pattern can be found that doesn't involve projectiles on-screen when he dies. Possibly more timesave if you can avoid taking damage at all from him (it's hard to evade him when he warps while still dealing damage, but I've been able to do so on very rare occasions). I will also say there was one instance where I entered the fight and he was already mid-warp, but the pattern seemed unfavorable, and it was only once I noticed something like that, so I'm not sure what happened there. Anyway, more than likely improvable, but I'm just grateful for any timesave at all given my ordeal trying to manipulate him.
I was able to get an additional hit on the gargoyle at the beginning of the fight, allowing me to end the fight earlier, and without taking damage. If another hit can be snuck in somewhere, it should skip the lightning animation appearing on-screen at all, which I suspect would eliminate some boss kill lag. As it is, the fight already seems pretty tight to me.
Regarding the swooping birds, I was able to manipulate their starting positions on the first screen by the way I jumped on my way to Elena and Dogi (near as I can tell, at least). On the bird screens themselves, enemy spawns were sometimes further manipulated by how long jumps lasted / when they started. Extremely finicky, but I'm quite pleased with the amount of EXP it yielded on the first screen. There was one bird near the end of the first screen I simply couldn't hit, which may or may not mean even more EXP can be obtained there. Not killing an enemy can also influence how the next ones appear, so I'm not 100% convinced EXP was lost.
Anyway, the problem now comes from the second bird screen. The initial position of the birds can't be changed, at least not without changing the pattern before entering the ruins (or so I assume). While I can somewhat manipulate the following birds via the way I jump, I'm currently having a hard time getting them in favorable positions while also killing the second whip enemy in an optimal manner. I'm confident there's a cleaner way to do so than what's currently shown, but it's eluding me.
