This topic is for the purpose of discussing #6659: Arc's NES Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes of the Lance in 05:52.75

Great routing but the main issue is that there just is not a lot going on visually so that hurts entertainment. From your notes it looks like a lot of effort was put in though. Going to give this a Meh. I have a rpg in mind that will probably go to vault like this one too...

This is a really impressive TAS, congratulations! As for entertainment, I agree that it's one of those runs that is more impressive technically than it is to watch, as the game does not clearly convey that there's more going on than just going through enemies. As such, I must also vote Meh regardless of how much I appreciated it alongside the submission message.

The visual on this makes it look like the game is super easy; however, that is far from the truth. Its too bad the game lacks the ability to demonstrate that. The work done on this is amazing! Yes vote for the continued improvements!

Nice work, I wouldn't have thought this game was so complicated. Yes vote. I also edited the opening post of the first 500 thread so that these movies that were initially rejected but published much later are represented there for quick reference. (There are 7 left after this one.) v Added, thanks.

Nice work, I wouldn't have thought this game was so complicated. Yes vote.

Thank you. The biggest decision in the run is deciding how to handle the Hell Gauntlet (flame room), since Goldmoon can't run through it all unprotected. The options are to switch to another character or cast protection on Goldmoon. My early idea was to switch to another character to absorb damage through the rest of the run like Randil did, but instead of switching back to Goldmoon at the end, I would let the other character(s) die and force Goldmoon back into the front position (to avoid menus). But I realized this idea was flawed because there's no way to slip through the last 2 black dragons. And so I looked at protecting Goldmoon throughout the run. Once I realized what I could do with the Hold Person spell, it was clearly the best option. Then, knowing that I was sticking with Goldmoon throughout the run, I had to plan how to utilize her 19 HP. I could attack every enemy and take no damage, but attacking takes 36 frames. Slipping through enemies is usually faster, but it costs HP. By my count, there are 23 actual enemy 'encounters' in the whole run. And so I had to pre-plan which ones to slip through with minor HP loss and which ones to attack to avoid HP loss (because I needed at least 1 HP left at the end). The rerecord count is relatively low because the movie is just the execution of what I had already planned in advance. I had never played this game before, but I spent a lot of time studying it before I did any recording. Randil's movie didn't look like it had 25 seconds worth of flaws. His gameplay was pretty good, especially by 2005 standards. But he didn't study the game enough. It may look like a bad action-adventure game, but I consider it an excellent strategic/tactical challenge.

This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [4147] NES Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes of the Lance by Arc in 05:52.75

Apologies for the untimely reply. I just started looking at some of the details today. Very nice job coming up with the new strats! I've done RTA speedruns of this game and I could have sworn I tested going left in 1-2. However, since it's clearly faster, I guess it's just something I kept telling myself and never bothered double-checking. The "hold person" strat is a very good find. I remember trying out all the spells to see what could be useful, but didn't think of combining them in this way. I estimate this could save around 10 seconds. My pb is 5:11 (SDA-timing), so I'm pretty sure sub-5 is possible (although I'm guessing not by much). With the current public knowledge about this game, it's difficult to evaluate how optimized most parts of the run are. As far as I know, the outcome of most enemy encounters are random (whether to get hit or not, HP loss, knockback and which different action(s) that are best suited in each situation to get past an enemy). The room-by-room comments make it sound like each room (or couple of rooms) was optimized in an ad hoc approach. Arc, if you have additional insight in how to manipulate the enemies other than through "running up to an enemy and just try everything", then at least I would be most interested to learn about it. I still have a few comments about the run itself: 1. Your final menuing is unoptimized. You: 17972 R 17973 [nothing] 17974 D 17975 [nothing] 17976 D 17977 A this can be done 2 frames faster: 17972 D 17973 R 17974 D 17975 A In the same final menu, you can input the final select one frame earlier. The earlier select doesn't trigger the ending earlier, but my understanding of tasvideos timing is until last input that triggers the ending. That means the movie file should end after the last select has been input. By the way, you might want to consider editing your comment about Randil's final menuing being sloppy. ;-) 2. You pressed down at 8949. You could have pressed down 4 frames earlier (it would only result in 3 frames faster menuing though). Was that to manipulate something or just a mistake? 3. This is an open point. I don't have a definitive improvement to suggest, jut a question about the optimization. Going into the menu can make it easier to get through enemies. In 2-7, you could have gone into the menu right before the last enemy instead of doing the menu trip in 2-8. This would save you quite a bit of time in 2-7 (at least 16 frames). I understand that the RNG in 2-8 would be different and you wouldn't have "Protection against Evil" in 2-9, but there are lots of possibilities so maybe one of them would still end up faster than what you did. 4. Just a minor correction. The spider in 3-11 is just a normal enemy, so it can be attacked (obviously by a low attack). It's equally fast to using the "hold person" spell, so it doesn't change anything for the run. It's just in case you want to edit the comments for this room.

Very nice job coming up with the new strats!

Thank you.

if you have additional insight in how to manipulate the enemies other than through "running up to an enemy and just try everything", then at least I would be most interested to learn about it.

There's no universal solution. But it seems that each particular enemy has a predetermined difficulty level. For example, the troll in 2-1 seems to always be easy, or at least it has the potential to be easy. And the spider at 3-11 is always annoying. Enemies should be less of a concern in speedruns now since you can use Hold Person on any enemy on the 3rd Floor.

this can be done 2 frames faster: 17972 D 17973 R 17974 D 17975 A

Yes, you are right. The movie can be improved by 2 frames with this technique.

In the same final menu, you can input the final select one frame earlier.

I'm not sure how you're getting this result. Maybe you converted it to BizHawk? It doesn't work for me when I input a frame earlier.

You pressed down at 8949. You could have pressed down 4 frames earlier (it would only result in 3 frames faster menuing though). Was that to manipulate something or just a mistake?

Yes this menu can be done 3 frames faster, but, after checking again, I don't think it was an error. Despite having Protection from Evil (PFE), Goldmoon can still take damage from the flames or arrows. I was creating delays to avoid damage/stoppage. In the notes I wrote that I could have done the room 8 frames faster, but I would have lost 2 HP.

In 2-7, you could have gone into the menu right before the last enemy instead of doing the menu trip in 2-8. This would save you quite a bit of time in 2-7 (at least 16 frames). I understand that the RNG in 2-8 would be different and you wouldn't have "Protection against Evil" in 2-9

I definitely want PFE in 2-9. Getting 16 frames of stoppage with 0 knockback and 0 HP loss against the wraith in 2-7 is a very good result. I did a serious TAS attempt of 2-9 without PFE when I was trying a different idea. The baaz is very annoying and I had to do an attack (36 frames stopped) to get through. And then at the baby dragon, aside from the time lost getting through, I lost 6 HP.

The spider in 3-11 is just a normal enemy, so it can be attacked (obviously by a low attack). It's equally fast to using the "hold person" spell, so it doesn't change anything for the run.

A normal attack is 3 frames faster than Hold Person. I've confirmed that I can do the spider room 3 frames faster with the low attack. But it changes the RNG of the remaining enemies, and so I'm not sure of its overall outcome on the run yet. And so, it looks like there are 2-5 frames I can improve—maybe a few more (or less) depending on enemy RNG. I'll get it fixed and submit after the flood of submissions on 1 April. Edit: Although enemy RNG changed in 3-14, I equaled the previous time in the room. And so it looks like it'll be 5 frames improved.

Yeah, forget my comment about the last select input. I tried it out properly now and it's clearly not possible to enter it one frame earlier. True, attacking is pretty slow, so it might be difficult to end up with an overall improvement by doing the menuing in 2-7 instead of in 2-8. I haven't thought more about it, because I tried something else and managed to improve 2-8 and 2-9 by 27 frames (http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/62315251918382424). With that improvement, I don't really see how entering the menu in 2-7 could save time. Whenever you get out of the menu, the window position ($6E) is readjusted on a per modulo 16 basis. The character position on the screen ($59) is fixed here, which means you can teleport a few pixels by entering the menu on the right frame. The rest was just getting through as quickly as possible without losing any health. I got this result with barely any testing, but since it felt pretty good, I didn't pursue. There are quite a few possibilities left to explore based on the "menu teleporation" trick, so it's possible a few more frames could be saved. Nice that the attack turned out to be slightly faster in 3-11!

Wow, getting a 14-pixel position boost and a perfectly clean run through the gauntlet is exceptional. I can see how it's theoretically possible to save a few more frames, but it seems very difficult to find the perfect timing. I tried some combos and improved on what I originally had, but nothing was close to this 38-frame improvement in 2-8 so far. The baby dragon in 2-9 has worse RNG. I noticed that in both my original movie and yours, the exit is at position 062. But when I tried to improve your 2-9, I got an exit much further left at 046. It took an extra 21 frames to run that far. This 'exit skimming' seems like it could potentially matter in a lot of rooms.

I haven't spent a lot of time speedrunning this game, but I remember noticing very early on that the position of the exit in 2-9 varied from time to time. That was the only room I noticed this in. Now, when I've picked up the game again, I quickly noticed that the same thing happens in 1-3. My feeling is therefore that this is not something that goes on in every room. But if you decide to look at it more closely and find out more about it, I'd be interested to hear.

I'm still experimenting with exit skimming and window manipulation. I have theories but not conclusions. But while working on that, I managed to improve 1-2 by 8 frames and lost 0 HP (previously -3 HP). Because of that change, I then managed to improve 1-4 by 8 frames. And then because of that change, I got better RNG on 1-5 and improved that screen by another 8 frames. And so after 1-5, I've saved 24 frames and have 5 more HP. I'm replaying the whole game, so it will take a while to finish.

I've also been playing (RTA) this game fairly actively the last couple of days. I've had to modify the strats a bit in order to avoid relying too heaivly on RNG. With the modified strats, sub-5 (SDA-timing) isn't going to be feasible, but it has still allowed the time to drop by several seconds compared to the old strats. A few observations that I've made during my attempts and some light looking at the code: * It's possible to jump through the enemy in 1-2 without getting touched (I assume that's the same improvement you have found) * The enemy in 1-5 will sometimes not shoot and allow you to run straight through it (maybe the same that you already found?). This happens much less frequently than getting through 1-2 without getting hit though. * It's possible to run straight through the troll in 2-1. I think you already knew this, but the RNG just wasn't favorable in this TAS. The probability of this working appears to be roughly the same as what I described above for 1-2. * The enemy in 2-6 will sometimes not shoot and allow you to run straight through it. The probability of this working appears to be roughly the same as what I described above for 1-5. * I've now noticed that many more of the door locations change than I had previously observed. I haven't been able to find the door locations in the RAM, but it seems to have something to do with the screen position ($6E) and the character's position on screen ($59). Once a door has been loaded, it's locked to the screen position. Change the screen position's value and the door will move along with it. My best guess is that the different door locations occur when the character gets hit and bounces around on the screen. * As far as I can tell, the governing RNG-value for enemy fights is whether the global timer in $383 is even or uneven. I'm sure there is a lot more to say on this topic, but at least I haven't seen any indication of the character stats playing a role in getting hit or not. * Depending on the enemy and whether you get "body" or "weapon" damage, the game attributes a pre-defined number of hits ($64) and looks up the damage of each hit in a table (either 1 or 2). Body damage generally only incur 1 attack per frame, meaning a damage of 1 or 2. Getting hit by a warrior sword incurs 2 attacks (total damage of 2 or 4) etc. The fires in the gauntlet are the hardest hitters and can deal up to the maximum 5 attacks. So there is a potential loss of 10 health within a single frame. * I haven't tried to go into detail of when the game decides there is a body hit or not. However, I've noticed that both the warrior in 1-2 and the troll in 2-1 are passed through when your speed is doubled due to both the screen scrolling and the character position on screen moving. Since the timer in $383 isn't rolling every movement frame, I guess it's possible to skip over the hitboxes if everything is aligned and you're moving at double speed. In the TAS, you also manage to pass through other enemies without getting hit, but always by introducing pauses or quickly turning around first. Not sure how that fits in. It's not something that makes it more reliable in RTA though, so I'm not planning to look at it further. But I can say that the other warriors and trolls have never allowed me to pass through them without getting hit by just running or jumping into them. * Maybe it's just my imagination, but I have the impression that jumping through enemies makes it slightly easier to get through. Jumping loses a movement frame when landing, so should normally be avoided. But since it feels more reliable than just running into an enemy, it's still how I deal with most enemies. I've only been able to get through the warrior in 1-2 without getting hit by jumping. Never running. So there must be something in the hit detection that changes between running and jumping. I wish I could have been more conclusive in some of my points above, but at least you know what I know now.

Thank you, that's very good info. Going through the warrior at 1-2 seems to be based on timing. I was able to do it either by going back right for a few frames or just standing still for a while, as long as the timing ends up the same when I get to him. But it did matter whether I jumped or not. Running straight through doesn't work because it seems that Goldmoon collides with the warrior's body without the jump. It's worth noting that in 1-4, hits from the dwarf are not solely based on timing. I got different results when using the same delay timing with different movements. There is a way to do this screen another 3 frames faster (11 faster than published), but then the bozak always shoots me on 1-5. The bozak's shot in 1-5 (and perhaps 2-6) seems somewhat timing based but also somewhat not. With the new timing, it doesn't shoot if I run right away. But if I created a delay at the start of the room, it would hit me with a shot. However, if I do the previous room in a different way with the same timing (or faster), the bozak does end up shooting me. So far I had worse luck with the arrows at 2-3, and the bozak still took his shot in 2-6. Changing the timing in the earlier Floor 2 rooms might change those things for the better. 'Exit skimming' seems somewhat related to the menu teleportation trick because it can somehow cause a shift to the next 16-pixel mark. It also seems to be more likely on screens that go right-to-left. It could be related to the fact that it's possible to slip through the baby dragon without using magic on the right-to-left screen (2-9), whereas it's seemingly impossible to do so on the left-to-right screens on Floor 3. The 'double speed' theory is interesting. Usually while moving, either the character's screen X-position is changing (0059) or the window position (006E) is changing. But indeed while going through the enemies in 1-2 and 2-1, both are changing simultaneously. However, they are not both changing when I slip through the bozak in 1-5. With a minor delay (2 pixels behind full speed), I got a clean slip through it.