New video showing the latest progress I made in the TAS:
Link to video
Most of the things are explained in the video though if you have any questions don't mind asking me.
A little note regarding loading times for this game on Bizhawk compared to PSXJin and PS2 with FDS enabled: From the end of Coal Mine starting with the loading screen after leaving them until the video is done I lose about 6-7 seconds just in loading times compared to the existing TAS and all console RTA runs. If you do an only room by room comparison with no loading times involved I probably save somewhere about 30 seconds compared to the old TAS just in Coal Mine. Though if you consider the longer loading times it ends up being "only" 13 seconds at the end of the Video roughly.Link to video
A new sequence break was found yesterday saving roughly 4 minutes:
Link to video
As the video description already says this allows you to keep a key for a later part in this dungeon and also skips a part of this dungeon. You would keep the key throughout most of the game until Torla Mountain to skip a part that is roughly 3 minutes long. Also having a key affects Elene's Nightmare where Meia shows up in certain rooms earlier due to having a key on your inventory. You can also do stuff out of order like killing the bosses prematurely and cut some backtracking through the dungeon because of that. The time save for Elene's Nightmare so far is unknown as it first needs some proper re-routing.
I already tried implementing this new strat into the TAS but Bizhawk keeps freezing on me every couple minutes and has in general tons of issues with my .tasproj file so I don't really feel like working on this at all. If and when I will continue working on this might rely on Bizhawk finally working properly.
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11489
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
Vaan666 wrote:
If and when I will continue working on this might rely on Bizhawk finally working properly.
Which version are you using?
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Currently I am using 1.11.8.1. I upgraded from 1.11.7 not too long ago when I first encountered issues with the .tasproj file where it got corrupted multiple times and after updating it didn't corrupt any more but the first time you replay something after starting the movie it would just freeze for about 10 seconds after roughly 1950~ frames. But now both the TAStudios and the Bizhawk window would not respond any more after a couple minutes then work again after like 20ish seconds then freeze again after a couple minutes. Switching to a completely new file and just copying the Input log worked previously to restore the corrupted files but it doesn't prevent the issues I have now.
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11489
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
2 minutes is exactly the default autosave period. Can you try setting it to 0?
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Thank you so much! This got rid of the freezes completely, apparently I wasn't aware of that autosave function. Guess my motivation is back and there should be soon a video of the previous dungeon with the new sequence break!
Link to video
Just a short video showing the differences in the TAS including the new skip. I simply deleted all Frames that weren't necessary any longer due to a much shorter Lars' Crypt and edited the part of the room that changed. Then deleted the leftover frames from that room too and it synced up again until the boss which I simply just redid then. I lost a 10 gilder drop due to some RNG changes and 2 frames too after leaving the room with the conveyor belts. All in all this new sequence break saved 3097 frames until the end of the dungeon.
For people who haven't played the game or forgot what conveyor belts are supposed to do:
If you touch them you lose control over Alundra and they move you into the direction the little arrows point to. Recently Spiriax found out the invisible wall that blocks you from jumping on the edge of them only extends so far as you can't make the jump without the "Item Carry Jump". Knowing that we simply jump around that invisible wall and land on a part where they aren't "active" and walk down to the 2nd half of the room.
Additionally to skipping a part of this dungeon you don't need to use the key we grab in that room which makes us save time later in Elene's Nightmare and Torla Mountain.[/movie]
Edit:
I managed to find a 4 frame improvement over what I posted in the video above. Unfortunately those 4 frames lead into some very weird outcome. The text that appears before the boss fight starts has lag frames all over the place depending on the inputs you do and because of that I couldn't make use of all 4 frames I saved but only 3 otherwise it would lose more than those 4 frames just because of different lag frames during the text. Redoing the boss fight yet again I saved 2 frames on the fight and another frame walking to Lars after the door would open. Even though I stood on the same coordinates after the fight ended and I used the same inputs I could not open the chests because it would require an additional frame to reach them. Saved another frame on the 2nd chest just to lose it on the 3rd chest again and another frame on the 4th + another frame on the way to the teleporter.
So overall I ended up saving 2 frames.
Now what is with all that nonsense in saving frames just to lose them again for no apparent reason? Well we always more or less speculated that this game works heavily with Subpixels. We first confirmed it when TheSicks found a jump over a 3-Tile-Horizontal gap that would either 100% work or not by using a savestate but could be changed with some Subpixel manipulation (which we don't really know how to do).
Being able to consistently manipulate our Subpixel value we could make use of it for the TAS in at least one area to save some minor time that comes into my mind from the top of my head.
Link to video
Motivated to work on this again I finished up another dungeon which was rather a short task to do. Next steps will take quite some time. Unless I feel like showing progress videos partially through parts there is probably nothing to come from me within the near future.
Just a quick little update to the progress of this TAS:
Since the last video I posted I haven't been working at all on this. I don't really feel like working on this right now as it is quite time consuming and the fun I had when TASing this is gone as well. Hopefully in the near future I will pick this up again and start with improving the last bit of my most recent WIP namely the Boss fight as I think there is some room for improvement left (mostly due to me just wanting to show the progress done in the dungeon and not so much the boss). Other than that there are a couple new strats that have been found in coal mine that would roughly save <3 seconds in total that I decided to not go back for as it would mean that I had to redo 2 1/2 dungeons.
Link to video
Due to various reasons I decided to redo the entire TAS from scratch and ended up saving 2330 frames (39.296~ seconds) up to this point thanks to mostly new strats and understanding the games mechanics better.
Here is a little table showing off the improvements I made in detail: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1iF9eoYztRpMLObvPfw01CQmHlZYQPZ9uwT5FvaVUoiQ/edit#gid=0
It's been over a year but I hope I can finally continue with some new progress.
Link to video
Finally some new progress! Got this dungeon down at last.
There are a couple things I need to point out about this WIP though.
I discovered 3 new things regarding loading in this game. The first would be that certain sound effects can lead to longer loading times between rooms when they play right as you enter a loading zone leading up to almost a full second of time loss each time depending on when the sound effect plays. This can lead to some weird looking movement towards the end of a room since for example turning while dashing also counts towards that and thus I may want to trigger that sound earlier by interrupting the dash and then continuing in either the same direction or a different direction towards the loading zone. It can also be abused though to manipulate RNG without losing any time if after going through a room optimally a forced sound effect plays by lets say enemies for example to do some suboptimal movement to change RNG. This works since spending 1 additional frame inside the room cuts the loading by 1 frame until it's at the base length. The second thing is that having spells equipped while going through a loading zone also leads to a longer loading by 21 frames on the couple I tested this at so it may be worth in the future to unequip spells earlier than necessary to shorten loading. The last thing would be that doing any kind of menuing within a room also increases the loading to the next room.
So considering these freshly found things there are a couple spots where I could apply them in previous areas to save a couple frames here and there. This also explains the inconsistent loading times I got when comparing my first attempt at TAS'ing this to my second attempt.
With this also being the first major dungeon where RNG with enemy movement comes into place and being generally much bigger and longer than anything prior it took me quite longer to get this done but I'm hopefully going to keep on working on this now and finish more dungeons.
Another thing I was worried about which paid off quite big though in the end was skipping buying the magic potion and using bombs for the "mummy squad" at the end of this dungeon. I didn't quite time it but if I were to guess it saved roughly 10~ seconds.
Last thing I want to point out is that ruadath pointed out that I am apparently using a suboptimal bios and have 2 controllers as well as 2 memory cards plugged in which all lead to a 400~ frames longer loading when the game starts. Since this is the only loading that got affected by it though I decided against redoing everything again since it was right after I redid everything from scratch already. Also something found by ruadath was that there is a single frame where I could have skipped the intro cutscene earlier by roughly another 30~ frames. The latter although doesn't bother me too much since it essentially is pre starting the "run". Still this needs to be pointed out and taken into account of potential improvement that could be done.
Another thing I found which was known before but unknown why it occurred is that apparently if you equip a spell and immediately go through a loading zone the loading becomes much longer:
Link to video
Link to video
There is honestly not a lot to talk about in this WIP. Maybe to note is that swimming is a pain and slow so trying to maximize the amount of walking before jumping into water is ideal. Also the boss of this dungeon acts very weird in that once you hit him its predetermined how many times he raises his "fake" hand before he becomes vulnerable again. This means that I was very limited with how much I could manipulate his next phase since the earth book animation is quite long. I still was able to manipulate perfect RNG but had to sacrifice roughly 40 frames compared to a perfect outcome by default. Those 40 frames were saved easily though as each extra attack he does is between 100 and possibly up to 1000+ frames long if he decides to skip a cycle and start over again.
Thanks for the kind words but I think I have to put this on hold for a while. Not really feeling like working on this on top of probably not having the time in the near future but I definitely don't drop this.
As for the progress for this from now on: I will copy my entire folder for this project and once I pick this up again TAS 2 different routes side by side since I'm not sure which one is faster and the difference will probably be <20 seconds. The 2 different routes will be getting Fire Wand right after Coastal Cave and the other route will get it at the point you're supposed to get it. Since getting it earlier wastes a bit of time due to an inferior overworld route but gains time back in Magyscar and Meia's Dream the routes will be pretty much the same except for a handful of rooms and 2 overworld sections. So instead of having double the work I can simply copy paste inputs for the most part and see where I need to adjust things for RNG. The routes will merge together at the screen before entering Murgg Woods which takes ~1:50h in the speedrun.
Link to video
It's a really short clip only, maybe I should have done a proper video for it at some point but essentially what's happening there is the bomb gives you a boost for only a couple pixels which is enough to get up there. To note is the boost is horizontally in that case, you don't gain any extra height from it. Standing on one of several pixels on that bridge provides your jump the extra height needed to get up there but without the bomb it's just barely not possible to make this jump. I'm not 100% sure on the numbers anymore but I think the bomb gives like 4~ pixels of extra distance if done correctly.
Link to videoLink to video
New progress has been made and this time its two videos showing off two different routes side by side as I already mentioned in my previous post. There is nothing really to say about this WIP other than it was rather laid back to make except for the rooms with ice physics.
The difference so far between both routes is 7016 due to the detour for getting Firewand in one of them and hasn't changed throughout this dungeon at all. It may change due to different RNG seeds in upcoming dungeons though.
Link to videoLink to video
Being able to dedicate a lot of time into this again I was able to get another dungeon done. This time there is a difference of 22 frames between both routes for this dungeon. The early Firewand route was able to save 21 frames in the 2nd room of Reptile Lair by simply getting better RNG with the reptiles movement and saved another frame on the boss also due to better RNG. Other than that there is nothing really worth mentioning again. Last two dungeons have been rather straight forward.
Not sure yet if I will continue at this rate with the next dungeon but who knows maybe I will keep pushing for as long as I can now.
Link to video
After pretty much 2 years I finally made some progress!
I decided to start the TAS over again for various reasons. In the end I ended up saving about 26 seconds over my previous WIP even though I had to do 2 reroutes that each wasted about 500 and 700 frames. Most of the timesave comes from applying newly found strats, techniques and skips to this WIP. One specifically that saved about 15 seconds alone!
I also managed to get another dungeon done that hasn't been seen before. That dungeon was part of the reason why it took me so long to get this done. I am still not satisfied with the outcome but I can't justify working on it more than I did. Comparing what I got to theoretical perfect RNG for that dungeon I probably lost about 5 seconds total. Saying that I don't even know if it is possible to get that theoretical perfect outcome. I did the best I could and want to move on now to eventually finish this TAS.
Link to video
Another dungeon down!
I think I talked about most of the important things in the video even though there was barely enough time to give justice to everything that happened in it.
For now I will try to improve the boss until I am satisfied with it and then move on to the next dungeon.
It has been a while since I last posted here. I am not dead and I still want to finish this project one day but real life keeps me busy.
Anyway, the reason I post here today is that a user by the name of Cadit found a brand new trick in the game yesterday that breaks the 2nd half of the game wide open.
Link to video
What happened in the video is simply that the magic bean you get around the halfway point of a speedrun has collision and exist for exactly 2 frames on the ground which means you can stand on it and jump off of it. This completely breaks the game and so far cuts off over 40 minutes from the run after just several hours of research with more potential skips to come.
What does this mean for the TAS I work on? Actually not much at all. The TAS is at the boss of Nirudes Lair which is the dungeon you go to after getting the magic bean. Since you want to postpone doing that dungeon in an optimal route including the double jump though I only "lost" a couple minutes worth of the TAS. At the very least I can keep the inputs for the rooms that have no RNG to them and just paste those into the TAS once it reaches those rooms.
Edit: It was confirmed that we can skip Coal Mine now too with an old skip I found that was previously not usable in the game but due to the double jump now works. This means that essentially if I want to include this into the TAS I would need to redo pretty much all of it as Coal Mine is the 2nd dungeon in the game. As this skip saves roughly 10 minutes I will have to do it though. So saying that, rip me.
