To my knowing darkwasabi had an entire sheet where he had worked out when and how many steps to walk all the way up to when enc-none is received (none of this is demonstrated in his demo run though seeing how I told how about all this after it was produced) and he had started applying it in his new run (which unfortunately never saw the light of day) with great success. But if that's what you call "not being any useful" then I guess I can only agree.
If you are referring to his huge Excel table which I recently found, he has his first (and only, so far) battle skip after Dollet, at step 74, which I couldn't reproduce in my run without doing several walking steps, and I've been told he was able to do it only because he used a save a few steps before.
Also, this is where your "only walk in the first frame of a step" trick could make this whole walking thing useful.
I had a quick glance at the first 256 steps
The following StepID ranges will remove one battle each (if walked that is):
66-67
98
121-126
131-133
145-146
162-171
191-195
208-210*
That's 32 frames in total and 8 battles removed (X means walk during the frame the StepID goes from X-1 to X).
*I have no idea if you will get all the way to stepID 210 before you get enc-none though.
EDIT:
Sloppy me.
Walking 1-22 will remove the very first battle (along with some new that spawns in it's absences), and walking 226-240 will remove one too.
Er... How? By step 65 my DangerValue is 50, and its DangerLimit is 13. I think you're mistaking this TAS with a segmented speedrun, which I'm not making one at the moment.
Well, my TAS so far ends at step 84, so I hope you don't mind if I say again "So... All in all, darkwasabi and I were right about it not being any useful so far."
I also hope this made you get how that fact changed my mind on the subject:
If you still think that walking all the frames for ~25 steps is faster than escaping a single battle, maybe we're just playing different games.
Walking 66-67 is to remove the battle at stepID 74, not the battle that occurs before you even start to do the walk. That is "Er... How" sir.
Are you telling me you get enc-none at step 84, or what?
"still"? If you still think I ever did maybe we're just reading different posts?
PS. Do I sense an attitude?
I'm telling you my current test TAS finishes at step 84. If you didn't even know that, then that explains why it seemed like you ignored all of my posts and were just focused on explaining once and again how the random encounter system worked.
Are you implying I should have known you were at step 84 prior to you telling me?
If you're trying to aid me in an estimation of how many steps you'll take in total I thank you but I'm afraid you'll have to do that entire estimation for me seeing how I honestly wouldn't have a clue.
My knowledge of this game is rather limited to things identical or similar to those in FF7, I've played through FF8 only once. I do however vaguely remember darkwasabi estimating something in the lines of not even get close to (or at least not get to) step 256.
Ok, sorry then. I though that you had at least watched my movie so far before claiming things like "If you think my method is wrong, you need to think again." or just doubting about everything I said to you. Also, your condescending tone led me to think that your knowledge of this game was rather vast.
The truth is: I'm not very far on the run yet, and that's why this walking trick hasn't been very useful yet; although you showed to me one place where I could have already used it and I'm very thankful for that (as I also am for the "walk only for one frame" thing, which will be very useful in a TAS).
I don't have an estimation of how many steps I'll take in total, but I don't think that's really important at the moment; that's what this test run is for, anyway.
Yeah. Knowing how many steps you'll take in total is basically only for telling if the battle that requires the most steps to be dodged (out of all those that will be dodged) is worth to dodge or not, seeing how it could spawn an extra (undodgable) encounter at the very end of all the steps you’ll be taking.
If the very last battle is undodgable though (for whatever reason) then this is where FF8’s menu-glitch could come in handy.
On Another Note
FF7s wait-trick seems to be somewhat applicable in FF8.
The wait-trick allows one (or two) character to get two moves in between an enemy's two turns where that (those) character normally only would have gotten one turn. FF8's ATB-Wait is far more restrictive than FF7's though so it wouldn't surprise me if it turns out there's no use for it in this run.
Regardless, here is how it works (could work)
Normal (no Trick)
- Enemy does attack; All ATBs are on wait.
- Squall has queued up his move (before or during enemy attack animation).
- Enemy attack ends; All (including enemy's) ATBs start to move (but Squall's ATB is already at max, so his wont).
- Squall begins his attack, All ATBs are put on wait.
So, in this scenario when Squall's ATB start to move (once his attack is over) the Enemy's ATB will be ahead of Squalls by a tiny bit, and this tiny bit could be the reason why the Enemy will get his next turn before Squall.
Wait-Trick
- Enemy does attack; All ATBs are on wait.
- Squall has queued up his move (before or during enemy attack animation).
- Have a 2nd character enter a sub menu (e.g. Item), this will force a wait.
- Enemy attack ends; But you are forcing a wait, so the Enemy's ATB won’t start to refill.
- Squall begins his attack (a wait wont stop queued commands from executing).
Now, in this scenario when Squall's ATB start to move (once his attack is over, and once you have exited the Item menu) the Enemy's ATB will not be ahead of Squall's by a tiny bit, and the lack of that tiny bit could be the reason why Squall will get his next turn before the Enemy.
Note: I haven’t RAM-read the Enemies ATBs while playing so I’m only assuming this is how their ATBs behave.
Joined: 10/11/2008
Posts: 64
Location: Kajaani, Finland
I *might* have an idea, though have no idea if this will help the run but i'll say it anyway.
If you have problem with dealing enough damage, you could always go and win Quistis' card and get 3 samantha souls from it which refine to 60 triples each which DOES help doing enough damage even without renzokuken ;) But the minus here is that if you use this strategy, you do have to get Diablos and Time-mag RF. But the Wizard Stones from Granaldo will help you :p
If you make some progress, i'll definatetly watch this run. I recently bought a PS1 so I can play this game again lol.
Alright, so I started looking into my own personal test run of FF8. I do plan on running this game, and have already started looking into how the RNG and etc. work.
Unlike what mz thought, the Stutter-run trick helps a ton for this game. While darkwasabi is able to reset the "Danger Value" by saving, there won't be any save/load in my run, so if a battle can be skipped by stutter walking, it will save time, even given the increased step count. I've already written a script that tells me when to stutter-run and when to normal run.
Anyway, I'm going to post a pjm at some point soon, but that will be useless to everyone as PSXjin hasn't been released yet. It will be here soon, though.
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
Here is my first WIP:
http://sites.google.com/site/darkkobold/FF8diskStandard.pjm?attredirects=0&d=1
I could really use some help from people, testing this. Unfortunately, when I play it back, it desyncs very inconsistently. Some times when Quitus tells Squall he forgot his GF, some times when Squall tries to execute a Gunblade maneuver, and finally, the 3rd is when I walk to the Fausticon-Fs, there is an unintended battle.
I get one less encounter in the Fire Cave than mz and darkwasabi, due to frame precision of the walking trick. I've got a script that aids me in holding "walk" (triangle) for one frame. This only costs me approximately 1.5 steps.
Anyway, please let me know if you can get it to sync or not. I'd also appreciate an encode from anyone able to get to sync, as I'm pretty happy/amazed at how well the Ifrit battle turned out.
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
Well, since no one could get the Ifrit battle to sync, here it is. I still have to redo it, because it doesn't sync unless I use a savestate.
Link to video
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
Here is my run, from about the point you gain 'real' control. I saved about ~20 seconds in the new Ifrit battle. If you are an FF8 aficionado, you might notice something missing from the Ifrit battle.
Link to video
I skip getting the deck of cards. I hope to minimize the amount of card playing I have to do, and I hope I can get a decent hand just from random/forced drops.
I use both the stutter walk trick and the menu trick to reduce the number of random encounters by 1, and I exit the fire cave at step ID 63.08. Also, the next encounter is based on when you leave a message box or menu. So, I delay a menu to get the fastest run-away that I can.
It is possible to prevent Ifrit from his "I underestimated you humans" speech, by dropping him to above half-health, and then finishing him off between his turns. Also, before the final Renzokuken, you will see me wait while manipulating - this was to manipulate Ifrit to do nothing for 1 turn, so I could do both attacks between. Also, Rough Divide can critical!
Also, the Run-trick (discovered by Carcinogen) helps save time - You attempt to run right before starting a limit break, or recovering from an attack. This prevents preparation animations.
Good point. I cleaned this up by using the run trick.
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
I noticed you continue hitting ifrit after "Hm! Not bad" message. I think ifrit doesn't attack after that, you wait more and then the battle ends. I could be wrong, it been a long time since I last played FF8.
He says that message once he falls below half-health. In my newer version, I prevent him from saying it by talking him from greater than half-health to zero in one round.
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
So, I realize that this will most likely not be possible to do, but what is the possibility of abusing the "Chocobo's World" mini game? For those who don't know what the mini game is:
It's a little game where this chocobo walks around on a little map gets into fights, finds random treasures, finds a girlfriend, falls in love, and finally powers up the chocobo summon all in a 16 by 16 screen! For the PS2 version it was an actual little Tamogatchi like gadget. On the PC version it was just a little program included with the game. I played the PC version a while back and after a little poking around I found the save file for the chocobo game and managed to edit it to give me...well everything. In about 15 minutes I had all of the Blue magic, all the materials for all the weapons, and the summons you build (the train...and wasn't there another one?).
So I wonder if a similar thing could be accomplished with the PS2 version. Is there some way to make the game give you a ton of stuff via chocobo data manipulation/corruption.
I am just a silhouette, a silhouette of a memory of a solitary night .. nothing more.