Final Fantasy VIII

ButtersBB

2011-05-20 08:32:25 am

Quote from FF8Junkie:

.. finally found this thread in the huge internet ^^ when the run's gonna be finished?

Judging by the the fourth post above yours... Basically any day now.

DarkKobold

2011-05-24 01:11:59 pm

RPG TASer

To those who are interested, I've posted the first two discs of my TAS (note the first disc has been totally redone).

http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=273231#273231

Sush

2011-05-25 11:17:32 am

Glad you picked up Invincible Moon on Rinoa. I'm guessing your plan is to use it to skip the 2nd boss in Ultim's Castle? Would shave a few minutes for sure. I picked it up in Esther but sadly I was forgetful and forgot to make her learn it. The vids are very impressive and continue to make for some great watching.

p.s. http://imageshack.us/m/35/2916/ff8ending.png

Final time will be between 7:50 and 7:58 depending on how the final time is calculated and if the extra time for the card glitch is removed. Either way I'm just glad it's under 8 hours!
Now to start looking into sending it to people for checking.

DarkKobold

2011-05-25 01:37:06 pm

RPG TASer

Quote from Sush:

Glad you picked up Invincible Moon on Rinoa. I'm guessing your plan is to use it to skip the 2nd boss in Ultim's Castle? Would shave a few minutes for sure. I picked it up in Esther but sadly I was forgetful and forgot to make her learn it. The vids are very impressive and continue to make for some great watching.

Thanks - FYI, there is (probably) no way to learn it if you wait till Esthar to pick it up. It takes 140 step counters (like the encounter mechanism) (not 912, or whatever that FAQ says). It starts at 140 and counts down, only when Rinoa is actually in the Party. At the end of Disc 2, even with all the time spent running around the Missile Base, Balamb Town, and Galbadia Garden, The step counter is still at 48. Since Rinoa is out of commission for almost all of Disc 3, It is going to be close to get her to learn it before the final Battle. Also, I'm able to skip all the junctions other than HP and Str, since the only time I think I will be attacked is the 2nd form of Ultimecia.

[quote="Sush"]Glad you picked up Invincible Moon on Rinoa. I'm guessing your plan is to use it to skip the 2nd boss in Ultim's Castle? Would shave a few minutes for sure. I picked it up in Esther but sadly I was forgetful and forgot to make her learn it. The vids are very impressive and continue to make for some great watching.
[/quote]

Thanks - FYI, there is (probably) no way to learn it if you wait till Esthar to pick it up. It takes 140 step counters (like the encounter mechanism) (not 912, or whatever that FAQ says). It starts at 140 and counts down, only when Rinoa is actually in the Party. At the end of Disc 2, even with all the time spent running around the Missile Base, Balamb Town, and Galbadia Garden, The step counter is still at 48. Since Rinoa is out of commission for almost all of Disc 3, It is going to be close to get her to learn it before the final Battle. Also, I'm able to skip all the junctions other than HP and Str, since the only time I think I will be attacked is the 2nd form of Ultimecia.

Tigger77

2011-05-27 12:58:29 am

I survived MIKE-Fest 1

I can not believe my eyes is there really a run now up for verifications ...
after like 22332432423472346628376874 years???

- GOOD JOB

BaronHaynes

Edit history:

BaronHaynes: 2011-05-27 05:57:50 am

2011-05-27 01:56:19 am

Strange days, incredible days

The Macbeth of speedruns, finally submitted. Congrats, Sush Smiley

This came two days after I finished my first play-through of the game in about three years, btw, so perfect timing.

Trekhaak

2011-05-27 02:26:24 am

Everybody's favorite monster

FUCK YEAH

FF8Junkie

2011-05-27 04:39:26 am

I don't care about verification, trust is with me =) where is run? whereisitwhereisitwhereisitwhereisit Cheesy

Sush

2011-05-27 05:52:38 am

I still need to edit/produce 36gb+ of raw data. Patience Smiley

Scorpio

2011-05-27 08:04:28 am

Watcher

Ow ... it HAS happened O_______O

I thought I would faster see a evolution of man into flying form than FF8 speed run ... ... well, my mistake Cheesy

dballin

2011-05-27 04:04:21 pm

Balls jerky

Quote from Sush:

I still need to edit/produce 36gb+ of raw data. Patience Smiley

b-b-but we've been waiting years... YEARS I SAY!

Jamma

2011-05-29 08:14:19 am

Nuts! Gotta get to Narshe on the fly

Lol at these comments... seems like we're all FF addicts!

Massive congrats Sush, all your hard work is about to be rewarded with a mightily popular run. Good man Smiley

Scorpio

2011-05-29 10:25:51 am

Watcher

If all users finally see FF8 Speed Run on main page, YOU WILL BECAME A LEGEND my good man Smiley

gyth

2011-05-29 03:48:15 pm

Quote from Sush:

Final time will be between 7:50 and 7:58 depending on how the final time is calculated and if the extra time for the card glitch is removed.

I'm not sure how the timings are done, but the TAS segments add up to 8:34:09. Even with the 25 minutes of ending cutscene is Sush still winning???

Sush

2011-05-29 04:58:15 pm

Not at all. The PC version cuts quite a bit of time on loading screens so if I did the exact same run on the PSX version it would be quite a bit behind that TAS (which was amazing).

gyth

2011-05-29 07:35:40 pm

I figured something was off in my logic, or you had found some crazy shortcut.
^_^

Poxnor

2011-06-11 12:58:15 pm

Moo! Flap! Hug!

I had some new thoughts about the SS route. Because of the 1/10 odds of getting the Zell card, there's no getting Str+60%s by refining that card, realistically. So I was just using Str+20% and Str+40%, which was only an issue in a few places. The most significant place was during the final boss -- because of the longer time it takes to kill the various forms, they usually start blowing away junctioned magic, which can be a run-ender. To compensate, I was drawing junk magic throughout the run, to reduce the odds of something useful being blown away.

Yesterday, I played in a charity marathon, and someone donated for me to kill Bahamut. This got me thinking: you get two Str+60%s from killing Bahamut. I'm starting to think that you could remove all the magic drawing (and the huge amount of time that it takes to move the magic around to all three of your characters), and instead kill Bahamut. It doesn't take a huge amount of time, you save the time from drawing and distributing (especially distributing!) all those magics, and you can kill all the bosses after the Ragnarok faster with those two Str+60%s. Kill the two Red Dragons before Bahamut with Card (they give way too much experience), and you're set...

I had some new thoughts about the SS route.  Because of the 1/10 odds of getting the Zell card, there's no getting Str+60%s by refining that card, realistically.  So I was just using Str+20% and Str+40%, which was only an issue in a few places.  The most significant place was during the final boss -- because of the longer time it takes to kill the various forms, they usually start blowing away junctioned magic, which can be a run-ender.  To compensate, I was drawing junk magic throughout the run, to reduce the odds of something useful being blown away.

Yesterday, I played in a charity marathon, and someone donated for me to kill Bahamut.  This got me thinking: you get two Str+60%s from killing Bahamut.  I'm starting to think that you could remove all the magic drawing (and the huge amount of time that it takes to move the magic around to all three of your characters), and instead kill Bahamut.  It doesn't take a huge amount of time, you save the time from drawing and distributing (especially distributing!) all those magics, and you can kill all the bosses after the Ragnarok faster with those two Str+60%s.  Kill the two Red Dragons before Bahamut with Card (they give way too much experience), and you're set...

gyth

2011-06-11 02:49:48 pm

You have 2 stacks of triple. With 2 DD the odds of losing all your damage is pretty small.

You could steal from Adel and refine tri-point's drop, run with 3 tripled DD.
Faster and safer than bahamut?

I think you're being paranoid, but I run it with just meteor wing, so I'm probably crazy the other way.

Poxnor

2011-06-11 03:00:33 pm

Moo! Flap! Hug!

Sorry, DD?

Without the Str+60%s, some of your spells are getting blown away, almost 100% certainty. I don't think that's something that you can just dismiss... That said, a third character with Triples wouldn't be much use without the Str+% bonuses -- I don't think you'd gain any time from that (not to mention, having to learn Mug). My intuition is that you're further ahead not doing any of this, as opposed to trying to make a third Str-based hero.

I could look more into a Meteor Wing approach, for comparison.

gyth

2011-06-11 04:13:54 pm

Quote from Poxnor:

Sorry, DD?

Damage dealer.

Your odds of getting two things blown away and both of them being triple aren't high.

Meteor wing would be worse, since losing either meteor or triple would shut rinoa down. And it'd be harder filling her inventory with spells she wouldn't cast instead of meteor.

Does the pandora timer still countdown while in menu? You would have plenty of time to refine filled magic inventories then???

There is AP for mug, encounter.5/0 and refines only take 190.

Quote:

a third character with Triples wouldn't be much use without the Str+% bonuses

You seem to be planning for a situation where both your stacks of triple get blown away and you can't finish with base str stats.
I was suggesting a backup plan that doesn't take you totally off the reservation.

Even without a backup plan you can still deal damage without triple. Definitely slower, but you're looking into sidequesting a lot of time to prevent a situation that only has a couple percent chance of happening, and is possibly not autoloss even if it happens.

[quote="Poxnor"]Sorry, DD?[/quote]
Damage dealer.

Your odds of getting two things blown away and both of them being triple aren't high.

Meteor wing would be worse, since losing either meteor or triple would shut rinoa down. And it'd be harder filling her inventory with spells she wouldn't cast instead of meteor.

Does the pandora timer still countdown while in menu? You would have plenty of time to refine filled magic inventories then???

There is AP for mug, encounter.5/0 and refines only take 190.

[quote]a third character with Triples wouldn't be much use without the Str+% bonuses[/quote]
You seem to be planning for a situation where both your stacks of triple get blown away and you can't finish with base str stats.
I was suggesting a backup plan that doesn't take you totally off the reservation.

Even without a backup plan you can still deal damage without triple. Definitely slower, but you're looking into sidequesting a lot of time to prevent a situation that only has a couple percent chance of happening, and is possibly not autoloss even if it happens.

DarkKobold

2011-06-11 06:13:25 pm

RPG TASer

Quote from Poxnor:

I had some new thoughts about the SS route. Because of the 1/10 odds of getting the Zell card, there's no getting Str+60%s by refining that card, realistically. So I was just using Str+20% and Str+40%, which was only an issue in a few places. The most significant place was during the final boss -- because of the longer time it takes to kill the various forms, they usually start blowing away junctioned magic, which can be a run-ender. To compensate, I was drawing junk magic throughout the run, to reduce the odds of something useful being blown away.

I had a thought about this - there are only two forms that can blow away magic, iirc, 2 and 4. The RNG has 256 positions, and they have to 'roll' a blow away attack - in that case, the roll & blow away will be together, and therefore fixed.

It would be an interesting test, to see if you test all 256 RNG positions for phases 2 & 4, and figure out where the blow aways happen (is it based on page? Spell number?) if it is based on page, you could easily arrange your spells so triple can never be rolled to be blown away.

[quote="Poxnor"]I had some new thoughts about the SS route.  Because of the 1/10 odds of getting the Zell card, there's no getting Str+60%s by refining that card, realistically.  So I was just using Str+20% and Str+40%, which was only an issue in a few places.  The most significant place was during the final boss -- because of the longer time it takes to kill the various forms, they usually start blowing away junctioned magic, which can be a run-ender.  To compensate, I was drawing junk magic throughout the run, to reduce the odds of something useful being blown away.[/quote]

I had a thought about this - there are only two forms that can blow away magic, iirc, 2 and 4. The RNG has 256 positions, and they have to 'roll' a blow away attack - in that case, the roll & blow away will be together, and therefore fixed.

It would be an interesting test, to see if you test all 256 RNG positions for phases 2 & 4, and figure out where the blow aways happen (is it based on page? Spell number?) if it is based on page, you could easily arrange your spells so triple can never be rolled to be blown away.

Poxnor

2011-06-11 06:19:13 pm

Moo! Flap! Hug!

Quote from DarkKobold:

It would be an interesting test, to see if you test all 256 RNG positions for phases 2 & 4, and figure out where the blow aways happen (is it based on page? Spell number?) if it is based on page, you could easily arrange your spells so triple can never be rolled to be blown away.

Slick thought!

My intuition is that it isn't based on the page / absolute position in the spell list (because any given position could be empty). I know that the number of copies of the spell that you have doesn't play into it (I tried on console going into the battle with one spell with 100 copies and one spell with 1 copy, and either was as likely as the other to be blown away).

DarkKobold

2011-06-13 12:14:24 pm

RPG TASer

I could probably write you a lua script so you could change spell counts, numbers, and location on the fly, if you were interested in testing this.

Poxnor

2011-06-13 12:18:58 pm

Moo! Flap! Hug!

Quote from DarkKobold:

I could probably write you a lua script so you could change spell counts, numbers, and location on the fly, if you were interested in testing this.

I could program the script (unless you really want to do it, heh Wink

). What I'm lacking is (a) the memory addresses of the spells in the characters' inventories (I could figure these out; but, if you know them, that could save me some time); (b) the memory address of the battle PRNG; and (c) a save file at the end boss (this is the big one -- I normally play on console, and don't have an emulator save anywhere near the end of the game). Do you have such a save file?

Thanks for all your help, DarkKobold!

DarkKobold

2011-06-13 12:23:44 pm

RPG TASer

Quote from Poxnor:

I could program the script (unless you really want to do it, heh Wink

). What I'm lacking is (a) the memory addresses of the spells in the characters' inventories (I could figure these out; but, if you know them, that could save me some time); (b) the memory address of the battle PRNG; and (c) a save file at the end boss (this is the big one -- I normally play on console, and don't have an emulator save anywhere near the end of the game). Do you have such a save file?

Thanks for all your help, DarkKobold!

#1: I don't, but those are really easy to find (unless the ones used for battle are different than the ones for the stats page)

#2: I have that info (obviously!)

#3: Load up my TAS, put it in fast forward - wait ~2 hours (gotta deal with the swaps, they pop the menu for you)- create a save before the final boss - there you go Smiley

#4: I'm good at creating a lua gui, so I could, if nothing else, give you good sample code to work from.