Topic by p0rtal_0f_rain

Posted: 1/7/2012 4:51 AM

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TheHepper

Player (85)

Joined: 7/25/2011
Posts: 58

Hey goofydylan8, I just watched the run and I think its pretty entertaining. For the most part it looks well optimized, but I did have some nit-picky questions that might save you a few frames here and there. 1) At the 45 and 56 second mark, can you take more advantage of the magnets pulling you along by maximizing your time on those platforms? I.e., by jumping earlier to land on them sooner? 2) At around the 2:33 mark, it looks like you hit the wall because it takes a while to sink down. If you jumped immediately after landing, so you hit the water slightly earlier, would that save you from stopping there? 3) At around 2:55, would it be faster to not swim against the wall, but sink down a little away from it, so you have time to gain top swimming speed as you clear the corner? 4) I watched the trial by terror level a few times. Would it be possible to jump earlier or do a shorter jump, so you land on one of the longer sections of the skull pile so you don't have to pause at the top? Also, is there no way to manipulate the game into not throwing that skull in your path? That turn around takes away from the run's momentum. 5) At the 4:00 mark, could you not avoid the delay on the stairs by landing just at the right-most edge of the step? Then, right after that, is it just me or does hitting the ceiling stop you briefly? 6) At 4:53, would it be faster to jump a little away from the ledge, so you don't run into it? This way you don't have to regain top-speed. 7) At 6:25, would it be faster to jump a little further out from those ledges, so by the time you can go under them you're at top speed going the other direction? Jumping before the ledges may also reduce the time you spend falling since you can pass the ledge at your top falling speed. 8) At 6:39, would it be faster to jump back some, so as you go over the top of the orange block you already have top speed? This might also apply at the high pillars around 7:21 and 7:30. 9) At 6:55, is there no way to not pause at that bottom rock? Maybe by jumping differently? 10) At 6:59, with the platform that halfway accelerates you to the left, is there no way to stay on it longer to increase your speed? For instance, landing at the exact spot it would begin accelerating you, and then jumping at the last frame possible so you land at the farthest corner of that pillar? Anyway, I like the run and look forward to seeing the final version!

Posted: 1/7/2012 9:46 PM

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goofydylan8

Experienced player (521)

Joined: 11/2/2010
Posts: 359

Thanks for the help TheHepper. Just started testing these and some are helping. I will try to answer all those questions for you. I only adjusted frames and then reverted so I could test later parts quickly so these savings are estimates and slightly different health management options may occur when I actually correct things so some of these may be moot points. 1) You are correct. The direct consequences of those two are that I would be a combined 19 pixels further to the right, but indirectly it also appears to help avoid the enemy at the second location, saving 3 health so I might be able to avoid jumping over an enemy, or at least jumping slightly less high so it is looking like ~25 pixels, which is like 12 or 13 frames can be saved ideally. 2) Another correct one. If you land on the platform running off the edge is the fastest way so you can't jump earlier and hit the water but it made me think to just skip the platform and jump further over it. Doing that made me 5 pixels further along than I would have been, and since swimming speed is a constant 1 in the x-direction it places me another 5 frames ahead. 3) This one does not save time. As I said above while swimming your x speed is either 0 when you are not holding right, or if you are shoved up against a wall, or your x-speed is 1 if you are holding right. Because of this there isn't a top speed to hit so it doesn't actually save any time over. As I said to feos though this is probably another case of your suggestion would look more "TAS'ed" so I might change it anyways, I am not sure which would look better. 4) Trial by Terror was by far the level where I had to be concerned with making sure Wolverine did not die so that is why some of the jumps do not look ideal. Jumping on the skull pile has to happen as it does so that I can just barely get above the green thing that pops out and avoid losing health because I need every bit I can save. The skull throwing guy was the only one I could not figure out another way to avoid. He only throws it when he is within a certain x distance of you but no combination of jumping and running could get me around him. I thought it looked sort of interesting looking but to each his own. (Also I have to avoid him because it takes away 8 health if you get hit which would force me to avoid 3 other things) 5) I am not 100% sure what you are saying here, there are a few different ways of landing and jumping on the platforms and stair to avoid hitting any of the enemies here (only 2 life left and everything does at least 3 damage so can't get hit) and it just happened this was the quickest way this time that I went through. I will try messing with it when I re-record as the jumping speeds will be screwed up anyways and a different order might be best. Hitting the roof doesn't stop you momentarily. I do stop going left but it is because if I kept holding left any longer I would miss the platform and fall on the 3rd green thing as there is not a way to jump over all three in one jump and not get hurt. 6) Finally a question I already know the answer to! The way in the video is in fact the quickest way of doing it. Running further to the left and then jumping or jumping and going left and then right for a different amount of time is slower than as shown in the video. 7) As I said before there isn't a difference in "top speed" so that part doesn't change anything. The jumping so you are moving faster in the y-direction did save a single frame though so that is good. 8) The main thing is to try to clear the corner in the shortest amount of time, with pillars this high where it is impossible to pass without stopping your x-direction that means jumping earliest. The current run has the earliest combination of jumping so that you get over the corners. 9) The height of the tunnel means that you can't jump when you are on top of the rock or jump far enough to make it over the rock in one jump so you have to fall off of the biggest rock. The current jumping pattern on the rocks and stairs, while choppy looking, is the fastest way. 10) Good idea. I hadn't fully taken advantage of the magnet and moving platforms. This one saves about 4 frames. Overall your ideas should save about 25 to 30 frames so about a half second and I came up with a slight different strategy on the first level to save about a fourth of a second so about 3/4 a second should be cut if I redo this and it would give me a chance to make the swimming levels look better.

Posted: 1/7/2012 10:25 PM

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TheHepper

Player (85)

Joined: 7/25/2011
Posts: 58

Thanks for looking into those and explaining to me. I know half a second is not a big improvement, but I saw those with my naked eye so others would too and may conclude it's not fully optimized. Let me try to explain what I meant on a couple of those. 1) I'm glad this one could save some health too. I would avoid jumping over the second to last guy before the stage ended. That one stood out to me as obvious (but only if its not faster than avoiding other damage). Also some of the earlier hits synched with the music, which was cool. 4) You might have the most optimal approach already, since there are a lot of skull throwing guys. One thing I noticed on my Rocketeer run, was if I attacked or jumped at the right frame before a level ended, the enemies would change their patterns in the next level. Maybe something like pulling out your claws before you walk through the previous stage door could change enemy patterns and let you take that skull hit by moving other enemies in the level optimally out of your way? 5) What I meant here, is that on the 2nd step, you seemed to run into the 3rd step and pause before jumping over it. I was just thinking you could land on the far right of the 2nd step, so you had time to jump over the 3rd step without hitting it? Although after reading your comments, the Wolverine appears to defy the laws of physics by not accelerating, so maybe this doesn't matter. I really think you're close to a fully optimized run. I bet this one was easier than Kickle Cubicle huh? EDIT: I watched again, and had 2 more questions :) 11) I'm guessing vertical swim speed is different than horizontal speed, because at 1:55, it looked like you were able to swim down faster by going down for long enough, but then this didn't happen at 2:03. Is there any way to make it so you swim down that fast there too? I.e, by trying different combination of button taps? 12) At 2:47, why do you jump over the guy since you still take damage? Does that change other enemy patterns?

Posted: 1/8/2012 12:20 AM

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goofydylan8

Experienced player (521)

Joined: 11/2/2010
Posts: 359

1) Yeah that would probably be my choice as well. We will see which one makes for least damage though I bet it is him as I had avoided him at one point. 11) Vertical swim speed is similar to vertical jumping speed. When you are falling you alternate between falling 1 or 2 pixels per frame at random. After falling for an amount of time you begin falling 2 or 3 pixels per frame also at random, then it is 3 or 4 for the rest of the fall. In the 1:55 video he falls for about 120 frames before beginning to swim up and in the 2:03 he only falls for roughly 98 frames so the only difference is that he just didn't have time to transition into the higher velocity range before I had to stop him. I have to stop him earlier because of that moving enemy at the bottom would damage damage Wolverine twice instead of the once that occurs in the video. 12) This actually happens a few different times in the video. While the damage animation plays during that part Wolverine does not actually lose any life. It seems that there is is a problem with the damage calculation that when you barely graze an enemy you can appear to be injured without losing health. I'm probably going to start my final run-through tonight or tomorrow and am sure I will finish within the week (damn University starting back up again tomorrow so I will actually have commitments to tend to). And yeah, I specifically looked for a run that would be under 10 minutes. Was not ready to do another run that not only meant doing a full hour but also mean that if you fixed a level 5 minutes in had another 55 minutes of slight desyncs you had to correct.

Posted: 1/11/2012 2:31 AM

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goofydylan8

Experienced player (521)

Joined: 11/2/2010
Posts: 359

Finished correcting errors and trying a new strategy and have submitted. Overall I saved 3.6833 seconds or 221 frames from the previous WIP through optimizations and slightly different paths on some levels. I do not know how it happened because all I tried to do was maintain the same path but I actually managed to save time on each level with 7 and 4 having the largest savings. Hope you like it.

Posted: 1/13/2012 10:55 AM

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Spider-Waffle

Banned User

Joined: 5/11/2004
Posts: 1049

If you're still on horrible x-men games and gen supports resets, the genesis x-men game would be great, it's packed full of glitches and shoddy programming.

"Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence."

Posted: 5/19/2016 12:32 AM

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Jules

Any

Skilled player (1172)

Joined: 7/13/2015
Posts: 102
Location: California

The post made by feos seems to have been buried unnoticed in the published movies section, but it turns out this game has warps that aren't used in the current run. Link to video I've been dabbling with this game a bit, and I figure I might as well try tasing it. So far, I have an fm2 of the first level warp that's 926 frames faster than completing the level normally, it could probably go lower though. I figure this game merits a warpless branch however, even if it would be vaulted, so I might as well tackle both of them at once, I have a few ideas to improve the current run. So... stay tuned...

Posted: 5/19/2016 1:29 AM

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KusogeMan

Experienced player (705)

Joined: 2/5/2012
Posts: 1802
Location: Brasil

if the game is shitty or if the run isn't way much different/faster,there's great chance people will simply prefer the slightly faster version and ignore the warpless completely

I want all good TAS inside TASvideos, it's my motto. TAS i'm interested: Megaman series, specially the RPGs! Where is the mmbn1 all chips TAS we deserve? Where is the Command Mission TAS? i'm slowly moving away from TASing fighting games for speed, maybe it's time to start finding some entertainment value in TASing.

Posted: 5/19/2016 2:07 AM

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Jules

Any

Skilled player (1172)

Joined: 7/13/2015
Posts: 102
Location: California

The Vault accepts warpless runs, so if I do the warped movie it would be published as a second branch, afaik? "Goal choice is limited to fastest completion time (any%), or full-completion (such as 100% or best ending)."

Posted: 5/29/2016 10:25 PM

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Jules

Any

Skilled player (1172)

Joined: 7/13/2015
Posts: 102
Location: California

So I found out that there are two Pac Land runs in the vault, fastest time and warpless. This seems like a good enough precedent for me, so I've started a warpless movie too. Anyway, I did level 1 and I saved ~10 frames... most notable thing I discovered is that when Wolverine lands during a punch, he can jump again one frame earlier. Looking forward to this trick saving time throughout! Here's the link: http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/31240997626626707

Posted: 7/9/2018 12:31 AM

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SubStylee

Joined: 2/26/2017
Posts: 5

Hey guys, It was discovered today you can jump the fire wall in Stage 6 and saw the TAS did not have this trick in it. I figured I would share if someone wanted to update it. https://youtu.be/3ScUnB4e9JM

Posted: 7/30/2018 8:23 PM

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Jules

Any

Skilled player (1172)

Joined: 7/13/2015
Posts: 102
Location: California

That's pretty cool, thanks for posting. There were a handful of other minor optimizations pointed out in the original submission threads, so it might be worth taking a look at those runs again in the near future...

Posted: 4/22/2020 4:15 PM

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