Swords & Serpents [Not your parents D&D]

2012-08-12 12:45:59 am

Learning to Stream

Well... I am officially throwing my hat into the Speedrunning World Ring. I am hoping that sometime in September, when this month of Hell comes to an end, I can find a nice weekend to go gung-ho on Speedrunning Swords and Serpents for the Nes.

Over the next few weeks, until run time, I am going to post my random thoughts, knowledge and potential route ideas into this thread. Partly so anyone else wanting to try to run this game will have information at their fingertips and in hopes it may intrigue others to give this gem a shot.

===

-Level ups do NOT cause experience to roll over.. so if need 1 exp to level up and get 40 exp, the game only gives you 1 exp then levels you up. Each level up means you start at 0 and go to the next plateau.

=The game CAN be beaten low level... but the Dragon at the end of Level 16... dear God, the HP really helps!!!!

-Using Last Resort will take you to the last temple you visited... but takes all your Gold. Your experience stays as it is, so this is a bonus!!

-Choose the pre-existing party.. way the hell better then the roulette creation, unless you have lots of time.. unless I roll a 14/14/14 off the hop... then dayum!

-Magician / Warrior / Thief / Magician - Most suitable combo and order... Magician in slot 1 means time saved having to slowly scroll... sucks for Slot 4.. but hopefully no need there to bother with much. Ideally an insane rolled M / M / W / T would be the best.. but that takes too much time if unlucky x.x;;

-End Game Config... well to the best of my abilities I hope to have it like this;

Magician 1: Mage Staff, Ruby Ring, Glow or Mage Cloak, Ruby Helm [or Any Helm]
Warrior: Ruby Sword [Plus 2 Sword or Glow Sword till then], Ruby Shield [Fire/Mirror Shield works], Any Scale or Plate, Ruby Crown
Thief: Plus 3 Sword, Mythril Shield, Any Scale or Plate, Ruby Glasses, Any Helm
Magician 2: Mage Staff, Mage Ring, Glow or Mage Cloak, Ruby Helm [Or Any Helm]

Spells Required: Heal, Passwall, Major Heal, Flight, Regenerate [Attack spells work so randomly and I never found the need for Shield]

-Plus 3 Sword does 3 hits and has great stats. Silver Sword is great in a pinch, but does just one hit. Glow Sword does an easy 2 hits and one of the better swords. Ruby Sword pwns everything with 4 hits.
-Daggers do 12-16 dmg consistently and better then a Silver Sword. Death Dagger allegedly can 1 hit kill, but that's unreliable.

-Need to test to see if the Plus 1 Sword is worth the quick grind detour on Level 2... of course if I find a Long Sword, that's moot as it's better. Passwall is in Level 5 though x.x;;

-I can use Passwall on Level 2 to easily get the sword, but by that time I hope to have better.. or enough for a Plus 2 Sword in the Level 5 shop

-There's a horseshoe on Level 3 which is worth the slight diversion as on Level 8 it can gain 5000 Experience Points. Easy level up.. unless you hit Experience Level 8 or more... then it will aid you in levelling up quicker.

-Zoom Tube on Level 5 takes you to the Temple on Level 1.

-Need to figure out if it's quicker to get the Ruby Glasses on Level 2 and then Last Resort to the temple on Level 5 or Passwall to the Stairs up, then Passwall on Level 1 to the teleporter to Level 6

-Must test to see if both Ruby items on Level 6 can be gotten and then to the Brass Key needed for later.

-Level 9 has an easy 1000 Experience points available

-On Level 11, Ruby Sword is easy to get with Passwall as long as you take the Left stairs on Level 10. Face East from Stairs, forward, Passwall, repeat at next wall. Tunr 7 times in 1 direction for sword.

-Level 13, go to section N9, Passwall Down 5 times then 1 Right.. this leads to 1 less forced encounter

--

Mr. Kelly R. Flewin

Thread title:

Well... I am officially throwing my hat into the Speedrunning World Ring. I am hoping that sometime in September, when this month of Hell comes to an end, I can find a nice weekend to go gung-ho on Speedrunning Swords and Serpents for the Nes.

Over the next few weeks, until run time, I am going to post my random thoughts, knowledge and potential route ideas into this thread. Partly so anyone else wanting to try to run this game will have information at their fingertips and in hopes it may intrigue others to give this gem a shot.

===

-Level ups do NOT cause experience to roll over.. so if need 1 exp to level up and get 40 exp, the game only gives you 1 exp then levels you up. Each level up means you start at 0 and go to the next plateau.

=The game CAN be beaten low level... but the Dragon at the end of Level 16... dear God, the HP really helps!!!!

-Using Last Resort will take you to the last temple you visited... but takes all your Gold. Your experience stays as it is, so this is a bonus!!

-Choose the pre-existing party.. way the hell better then the roulette creation, unless you have lots of time.. unless I roll a 14/14/14 off the hop... then dayum!

-Magician / Warrior / Thief / Magician - Most suitable combo and order... Magician in slot 1 means time saved having to slowly scroll... sucks for Slot 4.. but hopefully no need there to bother with much. Ideally an insane rolled M / M / W / T would be the best.. but that takes too much time if unlucky x.x;;

-End Game Config... well to the best of my abilities I hope to have it like this;

Magician 1: Mage Staff, Ruby Ring, Glow or Mage Cloak, Ruby Helm [or Any Helm]
Warrior: Ruby Sword [Plus 2 Sword or Glow Sword till then], Ruby Shield [Fire/Mirror Shield works], Any Scale or Plate, Ruby Crown
Thief: Plus 3 Sword, Mythril Shield, Any Scale or Plate, Ruby Glasses, Any Helm
Magician 2: Mage Staff, Mage Ring, Glow or Mage Cloak, Ruby Helm [Or Any Helm]

Spells Required: Heal, Passwall, Major Heal, Flight, Regenerate  [Attack spells work so randomly and I never found the need for Shield]

-Plus 3 Sword does 3 hits and has great stats. Silver Sword is great in a pinch, but does just one hit. Glow Sword does an easy 2 hits and one of the better swords. Ruby Sword pwns everything with 4 hits.
-Daggers do 12-16 dmg consistently and better then a Silver Sword. Death Dagger allegedly can 1 hit kill, but that's unreliable.

-Need to test to see if the Plus 1 Sword is worth the quick grind detour on Level 2... of course if I find a Long Sword, that's moot as it's better. Passwall is in Level 5 though x.x;;

-I can use Passwall on Level 2 to easily get the sword, but by that time I hope to have better.. or enough for a Plus 2 Sword in the Level 5 shop

-There's a horseshoe on Level 3 which is worth the slight diversion as on Level 8 it can gain 5000 Experience Points. Easy level up.. unless you hit Experience Level 8 or more... then it will aid you in levelling up quicker.

-Zoom Tube on Level 5 takes you to the Temple on Level 1.

-Need to figure out if it's quicker to get the Ruby Glasses on Level 2 and then Last Resort to the temple on Level 5 or Passwall to the Stairs up, then Passwall on Level 1 to the teleporter to Level 6

-Must test to see if both Ruby items on Level 6 can be gotten and then to the Brass Key needed for later.

-Level 9 has an easy 1000 Experience points available

-On Level 11, Ruby Sword is easy to get with Passwall as long as you take the Left stairs on Level 10. Face East from Stairs, forward, Passwall, repeat at next wall. Tunr 7 times in 1 direction for sword.

-Level 13, go to section N9, Passwall Down 5 times then 1 Right.. this leads to 1 less forced encounter

--

Mr. Kelly R. Flewin

feasel

Edit history:

feasel: 2012-08-12 12:14:29 pm

2012-08-12 12:14:08 pm

difficult and stupidly random

Oh wow the coincidences....
I just wrote up something last night to start a S&S thread, and suddenly BAM sniped. I'll post what i had written (mostly focused on figuring out the combat system). It sounds like you're ahead in terms of planning the logistics.
I'm only working on this game casually for now, so i wouldn't be doing serious attempts for a while. But I'm glad to help you with the run and planning, and pass on anything i manage to figure out. Good to see this game finally get some speedrun attention! And again, damn what a coincidence.

------------------------------- (written before i saw the above)

I'm considering a Swords and Serpents speed run. Right now i'm just playing through and trying to get a feel for the combat system and what levels you need to be at to get through the different floors.

There is one fairly complete FAQ on Gamefaqs, with maps and item/monster stats
http://www.gamefaqs.com/nes/587676-swords-and-serpents/faqs/21153

TASVideos has a thread with basically nothing in it, tho it seems someone had talked about doing a tas recently. So hopefully something will come of that. Strategywiki doesnt seem to have anything. If you know of other resources please tell me.

I can find no good information out there about how the combat system works, but just from experimentation it's clear that simply mashing through it is not the way to go. For example, if you just mash A the monsters will take many more swings at you than if you only press A while one of the character names is lit up. It seems to work best if you mash A in little bursts while the name is lit, since I think that you get multiple opportunities to attack during each cycle.

It would be really helpful to know what determines how many attacks the monsters get against you, since each attack (whether its a hit or miss) wastes 3-4 seconds. If you simply press nothing, the monsters will attack you at a slow rate; if you're fighting back (trying to only hit A while a name is lit) the monsters will attack you at a moderate rate; and if you just mash A constantly the monsters seem to attack at a fast rate. So i'm wondering if it's a matter of each button-press giving the monsters an additional chance to attack, or if it's simply the button-presses that happen while no name is lit that give the monsters additional attacks. Or something else that i'm missing entirely.

There's also the matter of holding up, down, left, right on the d-pad when you attack. Some questions i'll need to answer:
* What directions are strong, weak, or normal against which monsters (and by how much).
* Is Left any different from Right? Are either Left or Right any different from holding nothing at all?
* What do the diagonals (Up+Left, etc) do?
* Is there any penalty to holding directions on the dpad when you're not attacking? (for example, does it increase the likelihood you'll get hit).

There also seem to be "critical hits" which instant-kill monsters. Supposedly the thief has a higher percentage of critical hits than the warrior, so i'm wondering if there may be some reason to use thieves instead of warriors if the % is high enough (esp if you can find items that increase critical hit likelihood).

As far as party configuration goes, i'd say the default party is not bad, but I think there are better options. For one thing it MAY be faster to replace one of the mages with a warior/thief just to increase the damage dealt in combat (though it will obviously be hard to stretch that one mage's magic out to cover all the healing, etc). And of course there's the question of stats - whether you're likely to roll significantly better stats than the defaults, and how many times one is willing to re-roll. It would be helpful to know SDA's timing policy - whether timing begins after character generation is complete or whether the time spent making a party is counted against you.

This game also has co-op modes. I'll try a 2-controller run through the game at some point. But it's a little unclear whether having 2 or even 4 controllers would speed things up, so if anybody knows anything about how the co-op works, please share.

Assuming there is any advantage whatsoever to having multiple people, I think it would be cool to try and record a 4 player run of this game while at AGDQ. Only 1 person has to memorize the route, and the other 3 people are mostly there for combat. So there's not a big learning curve; i just need to find 3 people who like mashing buttons.

Oh wow the coincidences....
I just wrote up something last night to start a S&S thread, and suddenly BAM sniped.  I'll post what i had written (mostly focused on figuring out the combat system).  It sounds like you're ahead in terms of planning the logistics.
I'm only working on this game casually for now, so i wouldn't be doing serious attempts for a while.  But I'm glad to help you with the run and planning, and pass on anything i manage to figure out.  Good to see this game finally get some speedrun attention!  And again, damn what a coincidence.

------------------------------- (written before i saw the above)

I'm considering a Swords and Serpents speed run.  Right now i'm just playing through and trying to get a feel for the combat system and what levels you need to be at to get through the different floors.

There is one fairly complete FAQ on Gamefaqs, with maps and item/monster stats
http://www.gamefaqs.com/nes/587676-swords-and-serpents/faqs/21153

TASVideos has a thread with basically nothing in it, tho it seems someone had talked about doing a tas recently.  So hopefully something will come of that.  Strategywiki doesnt seem to have anything.  If you know of other resources please tell me.

I can find no good information out there about how the combat system works, but just from experimentation it's clear that simply mashing through it is not the way to go.  For example, if you just mash A the monsters will take many more swings at you than if you only press A while one of the character names is lit up.  It seems to work best if you mash A in little bursts while the name is lit, since I think that you get multiple opportunities to attack during each cycle.

It would be really helpful to know what determines how many attacks the monsters get against you, since each attack (whether its a hit or miss) wastes 3-4 seconds.  If you simply press nothing, the monsters will attack you at a slow rate; if you're fighting back (trying to only hit A while a name is lit) the monsters will attack you at a moderate rate; and if you just mash A constantly the monsters seem to attack at a fast rate.  So i'm wondering if it's a matter of each button-press giving the monsters an additional chance to attack, or if it's simply the button-presses that happen while no name is lit that give the monsters additional attacks.  Or something else that i'm missing entirely.

There's also the matter of holding up, down, left, right on the d-pad when you attack.  Some questions i'll need to answer:
* What directions are strong, weak, or normal against which monsters (and by how much).
* Is Left any different from Right?  Are either Left or Right any different from holding nothing at all?
* What do the diagonals (Up+Left, etc) do?
* Is there any penalty to holding directions on the dpad when you're not attacking?  (for example, does it increase the likelihood you'll get hit).

There also seem to be "critical hits" which instant-kill monsters.  Supposedly the thief has a higher percentage of critical hits than the warrior, so i'm wondering if there may be some reason to use thieves instead of warriors if the % is high enough (esp if you can find items that increase critical hit likelihood).

As far as party configuration goes, i'd say the default party is not bad, but I think there are better options.  For one thing it MAY be faster to replace one of the mages with a warior/thief just to increase the damage dealt in combat (though it will obviously be hard to stretch that one mage's magic out to cover all the healing, etc).   And of course there's the question of stats - whether you're likely to roll significantly better stats than the defaults, and how many times one is willing to re-roll.  It would be helpful to know SDA's timing policy - whether timing begins after character generation is complete or whether the time spent making a party is counted against you.

This game also has co-op modes.  I'll try a 2-controller run through the game at some point.  But it's a little unclear whether having 2 or even 4 controllers would speed things up, so if anybody knows anything about how the co-op works, please share.

Assuming there is any advantage whatsoever to having multiple people, I think it would be cool to try and record a 4 player run of this game while at AGDQ.  Only 1 person has to memorize the route, and the other 3 people are mostly there for combat.  So there's not a big learning curve; i just need to find 3 people who like mashing buttons.

Mr. Kelly R. Flewin

Edit history:

Mr. Kelly R. Flewin: 2012-08-12 01:00:57 pm

2012-08-12 12:53:32 pm

Learning to Stream

Well I learned the hard way I was slightly off about Last Resort... I went back to Level 1 then Teleported to 6 and toyed around there [Yay Alpha and Beta linking so nicely to everything else!] and then I did some testing on Level 8 with Passwalling. Anyway, I got to Level 10 and figured I'd Last Resort and see if it took me to Level 1. Nope. Took me to the damn Temple in Level 10!!! So now I have to go back to Level 9 to warp to Level 1 and then Warp to 6 and test it there to see if it takes me to Level 1 or Level 5 when I Last Resort it.

Now... holding the directional pad when attacking is a new one to me. I literally have left it neutral my whole testing time and seems to work fine. I've tested things with a turbo option for mashing... and sometimes it looks that if you mash the shit out of the button, you will actually do a LOT MORE attacks then the monsters do... well at later levels when accuracy increases of course. The earlier levels though, your small bursts method does seem to hold more promise.

If the Timing rules permit rolling [since the game does not start until you select your party or roll it], then yeah. It will beg the question of how long is permissable for rolling before the timer starts. I know this would be an issue with a game such as Wizardry as well.

While attacking power is great and swapping out a Magician may be a not bad idea, the big issue is with the Dragon in the end. He starts out with a serious party crushing attack that can make life painful. [This also made me beating the game at Experience Level 8 absolutely mindblowingly painful!!!] I found by using my 2 Magicians in tandem for Regemeration and Major Heal, I was able to get some solid attacks in and not lose any party members for most of the battle. When one Magician died and then my Thief... it got absolutely ugly... but I pulled it off.

The guide you mentioned from Gamefaqs is what I have used for additional information, but I also watched a Let's Play video on YT that I found a lot more interesting.

MeleeWizard does a good job of showing off the entire game, a lot of the map, and all the spells as well as providing great information on the items picked up. It was the inspiration for my final party equipment list. There are 13 parts... but definitely helpful.

I saw the thread on TASVideos and then looked for this Let'a Play and watched it all before replying on that thread there and then became intrigued enough to play through and then want to speedrun this title.

Awesome to know someone else is also wanting to go for a run of this gem. Makes me feel giddy!

EDIT: OHO! So THAT'S HOW IT WORKS! Last Resort will teleport you back to the last Level you passed by that HAS a temple. This means even if you Teleport from Level 1 to Level 6, Last Resort will take you to Level 5's temple! As well, if you Last Resort on Level 4 or lower, it will take you to the Temple on Level 1!!

This is DEFINITELY good to know as it will make shortcutting a lot easier if needed. Whether we will need to do so in a run is to be seen.

Mr. Kelly R. Flewin

Well I learned the hard way I was slightly off about Last Resort... I went back to Level 1 then Teleported to 6 and toyed around there [Yay Alpha and Beta linking so nicely to everything else!] and then I did some testing on Level 8 with Passwalling. Anyway, I got to Level 10 and figured I'd Last Resort and see if it took me to Level 1. Nope. Took me to the damn Temple in Level 10!!! So now I have to go back to Level 9 to warp to Level 1 and then Warp to 6 and test it there to see if it takes me to Level 1 or Level 5 when I Last Resort it.

Now... holding the directional pad when attacking is a new one to me. I literally have left it neutral my whole testing time and seems to work fine. I've tested things with a turbo option for mashing... and sometimes it looks that if you mash the shit out of the button, you will actually do a LOT MORE attacks then the monsters do... well at later levels when accuracy increases of course. The earlier levels though, your small bursts method does seem to hold more promise.

If the Timing rules permit rolling [since the game does not start until you select your party or roll it], then yeah. It will beg the question of how long is permissable for rolling before the timer starts. I know this would be an issue with a game such as Wizardry as well.

While attacking power is great and swapping out a Magician may be a not bad idea, the big issue is with the Dragon in the end. He starts out with a serious party crushing attack that can make life painful. [This also made me beating the game at Experience Level 8 absolutely mindblowingly painful!!!] I found by using my 2 Magicians in tandem for Regemeration and Major Heal, I was able to get some solid attacks in and not lose any party members for most of the battle. When one Magician died and then my Thief... it got absolutely ugly... but I pulled it off.

The guide you mentioned from Gamefaqs is what I have used for additional information, but I also watched a Let's Play video on YT that I found a lot more interesting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYURKIccm7s

MeleeWizard does a good job of showing off the entire game, a lot of the map, and all the spells as well as providing great information on the items picked up. It was the inspiration for my final party equipment list. There are 13 parts... but definitely helpful.

I saw the thread on TASVideos and then looked for this Let'a Play and watched it all before replying on that thread there and then became intrigued enough to play through and then want to speedrun this title.

Awesome to know someone else is also wanting to go for a run of this gem. Makes me feel giddy!

EDIT: OHO! So THAT'S HOW IT WORKS! Last Resort will teleport you back to the last Level you passed by that HAS a temple. This means even if you Teleport from Level 1 to Level 6, Last Resort will take you to Level 5's temple! As well, if you Last Resort on Level 4 or lower, it will take you to the Temple on Level 1!!

This is DEFINITELY good to know as it will make shortcutting a lot easier if needed. Whether we will need to do so in a run is to be seen.

Mr. Kelly R. Flewin

ZenicReverie

Edit history:

ZenicReverie: 2012-08-12 10:47:49 pm

2012-08-12 09:49:05 pm

Waiting hurts my soul...

The instructions say left and right do the same thing when attacking. In fact, left and right hits the body, which is the default attack when pressing no direction.

Link: http://mikesrpgcenter.com/manuals/nes/Swords_and_Serpents.pdf

Mr. Kelly R. Flewin

2012-08-13 10:03:12 pm

Learning to Stream

Quote from ZenicReverie:

The instructions say left and right do the same thing when attacking. In fact, left and right hits the body, which is the default attack when pressing no direction.

Link: http://mikesrpgcenter.com/manuals/nes/Swords_and_Serpents.pdf

WOW! I never have seen the instruction manual for this game before, so it definitely is an eye opener to read about using directional attacks for killing enemies. Now this is going to make exploration a lot more annoying as I will have to experiment with this too. x.x;;

Mr. Kelly R. Flewin

Mr. Kelly R. Flewin

Edit history:

Mr. Kelly R. Flewin: 2012-08-14 11:50:31 pm

2012-08-14 11:47:26 pm

Learning to Stream

Alright... barring figuring if the manual was full of crap and the direction pad hitting is a hoax... and the hits are pure chance... I just sat down and wrote something of a gameplan. Thanks to Derakon from #TASVideos giving me some assistance with movie making fine points in FCEUX, I think I am going to record a very rough plan of attack and post it here. There's a few things I want to clarify before posting to ensure this route planning is as accurate as I can make it.

I also am going to be running a hunch. Thanks to Zoom Tubes, I can get around easy, and can work with them to get to almost every level with a Ruby Item... especially Level 13. I am going to see if it's even possible to totally bypass the Black Crystal. The guy who asks for it.. way back on Level 1... he only teleports me to Level 12. A Zoom Tube can take me to Level 13 where the Amulet lay! I can easily get to Level 11 for the Sword.

The guy asking for all the Ruby Items is on Level 10... so a quick Last Resort after the amulet [or a few steps to the zoom tube which is closer to where I need to go... have to time this...] and I am back to 10 and can talk to him and he teleports me to Level 14.

Theoretically this means screw the crystal.... but I am not sure if the game has been programmed to prevent this scenario. Only time will tell.

Downside is if I skip 12, no Regenerate... so that's a gamble. It would only take 2 mins to go down to 12 from 11 and get Regenerate... unless I can passwall in the corner of Level 12... then hells yeah.

Mr. Kelly R. Flewin

Alright... barring figuring if the manual was full of crap and the direction pad hitting is a hoax... and the hits are pure chance... I just sat down and wrote something of a gameplan. Thanks to Derakon from #TASVideos giving me some assistance with movie making fine points in FCEUX, I think I am going to record a very rough plan of attack and post it here. There's a few things I want to clarify before posting to ensure this route planning is as accurate as I can make it.

I also am going to be running a hunch. Thanks to Zoom Tubes, I can get around easy, and can work with them to get to almost every level with a Ruby Item... especially Level 13. I am going to see if it's even possible to totally bypass the Black Crystal. The guy who asks for it.. way back on Level 1... he only teleports me to Level 12. A Zoom Tube can take me to Level 13 where the Amulet lay! I can easily get to Level 11 for the Sword.

The guy asking for all the Ruby Items is on Level 10... so a quick Last Resort after the amulet [or a few steps to the zoom tube which is closer to where I need to go... have to time this...] and I am back to 10 and can talk to him and he teleports me to Level 14.

Theoretically this means screw the crystal.... but I am not sure if the game has been programmed to prevent this scenario. Only time will tell.

Downside is if I skip 12, no Regenerate... so that's a gamble. It would only take 2 mins to go down to 12 from 11 and get Regenerate... unless I can passwall in the corner of Level 12... then hells yeah.

Mr. Kelly R. Flewin

feasel

Edit history:

feasel: 2012-08-15 07:32:57 am

2012-08-15 12:17:05 am

difficult and stupidly random

I could be wrong here, but i'm pretty sure the black-crystal-guy on level 1 teleports you to level 13 not level 12. And as for skipping the crystal, isn't the crystal necessary to warp you to the part of level 13 where the amulet is kept? Yes you can get to level 13 without the crystal (via zoom tube on level 9), but you'll be in the wrong part of the level, and if i'm not mistaken you won't be able to passwall into the area that contains the amulet. You're not supposed to be able to anyway. But by all means you should try casting passwall on every inch of the perimeter of the amulet area in case the devlopers missed a spot.

Mr. Kelly R. Flewin

Edit history:

Mr. Kelly R. Flewin: 2012-08-16 12:22:05 am

2012-08-16 12:20:04 am

Learning to Stream

Well... that sucks ass. You are right Feasel. I Passwalled the shiznit out of that area and it just won't do good. Sadly the Crystal is required, which sucks. Also sucking is Regenerate being so far out and shitty drop luck. x.x;;

I am off to bed, but tomorrow night I should have a ROUGH run through the game done via FCEUX 2.15 to post. Of course.. when I was playing around to beat the game the first time, drops were Golden. Guess this rough go will be rougher from those crap drops.

I will also post a generalized plan with the emu movie. I've made several changes already to my route and show the futility of other things.

I am yet again on Experience Level 8... but with these prerolled chars, it sucks. Sadly grinding to Level 10 also sucks... but I feel though it's doable at 8... it's also a mondo crap shoot... especially against the dragon. For a run this long to be killed at the end... that would suck hard.

Mr. Kelly R. Flewin

feasel

2012-08-16 05:35:30 pm

difficult and stupidly random

I planned out a route and tested it by running through the game 3 times. The first time i was barely able to beat the final boss at level 8. The 2nd time i was completely unable to beat him at level 8 (failed 7 times). The third time i destroyed him easily at level 8. I'm really not sure why the huge variation in success rate, but i do think that level 8 should be the target. Level 7 or lower probably wouldn't make much sense since there is enough experience available from fighting fixed encounters (and some of the easier random encounters), plus getting the 1000XP and 5000XP bonuses.

Here is a recording of my third attempt. It's around 2.5 hours, and i can see about 20-30 minutes of inefficiency (and bad luck) right off the bat. There are two parts:
http://www.twitch.tv/feasel/b/328868473
http://www.twitch.tv/feasel/b/328868521

Some notes on this run:

I rolled a party, using 2 mages and 2 thieves. I'm really liking thieves over warriors since i get an AMAZING amount of mileage out of those critical-hits. I rolled until the thieves had 13's or 14's on strength and agility. I rolled until the mages had 13's or 14's on intelligence and agility. Originally i had thought that high agility would allow the mages to take more turns in combat (which would be really helpful in the tough fights where you have to heal every turn), however i no longer think this is true, and for my next run i'm not going to go for high mage agility.

It would be really helpful if one of the rule-makers could tell me whether time spent rolling characters is counted against you in a speedrun or not. Character-control doesn't begin until after you're done creating a party, so i'd assume not, but just to be on the safe side i'd like to hear officially where the timing begins. If party-construction is counted in the speedrun time, i'd probably still go with rolling custom characters, but the standards for what stats to accept would be decreased (and the characters would all have 1 letter names). Plus lots of resetting, i'd imagine.

I screwed the route up by forgetting to do the detour back to floor 2 to get the ruby glasses (with the gold key). This is supposed to be done right before you give the crystal to the guy in floor 1 (from floor 10, you zoom-tube to floor 9, zoom-tube to floor 8, use the horseshoe, last-resort to floor 5, zoom-tube to floor 1, take the stairs to floor 2, get the ruby glasses, last-resort to floor 1, then use the crystal to reach floor 13).

I tried to kill some of the less-dangerous enemies as i went along so that i didn't need to stop and explicitly grind very much. Once you're past floor 3, you get a ton of magic fountains, so you can just fight everybody and not have to worry about your magic getting depleted. I think i only visited the temple once (after getting passwall in level 5), not counting the times i death-warped.

There were really only 2 places i stopped (briefly) to grind, and TBH i'm not sure those were even necessary. I stopped once on floor 9, because the guy there gives you 1000XP. Since XP doesn't carry over when you level-up, and you don't want to lose the surplus, you just need to grind a few fights to push you over the next level before getting the 1000XP. I killed a few more enemies after that because i was about to get my magic refilled at a fountain, but in retrospect i'd say it's best not to do this. Once you're at the point where you can take that 1000XP without losing any surplus, you should just move on. It's better to fight guys at a later floor anyhow.

The second place i stopped to grind was floor 12. Regenerate is way over in the far corner, but it's so useful that it would be hard to skip it (tho i guess not impossible). The nice thing is that you need to be killing enemies anyway, so you can look at the walk to Regenerate as just an excuse to kill some monsters and earn XP. In fact, the next thing i do after that is go back for the 5000XP bonus, and i need to be level 7 before doing this (at level 6 it only takes 3200XP to level-up, so a lot of the 5000XP would go to waste if i wasn't level 7). So floor 12 is not a bad spot to earn. Problem is, i did more grinding than necessary to reach level 7. I earned another 1400 beyond that before leaving floor 12 -- since the next levelup costs 6400, and i'm getting 5000 from the horseshoe, i figured let's earn the extra 1400 right here. Well i realized afterwards that that may not have been the best course of action, since you pick up a bunch of XP fighting the fixed encounters in floor 13. So that's probably a better place to earn the 1400 (after you've picked up the horseshoe bonus). It means you'd have to fight the floor-13 fixed encounters as level 7 instead of level 8, but i think they're pretty do-able even so.

On floor 11 after getting the ruby sword i collected some gold, teleported back to floor 10, and did my shopping at the armory before returning to floor 11 and then floor 12. In retrospect I'd say it might be better to do the shopping before getting the ruby sword. So you'd shop on floor 10, get the sword on floor 11 (skip the gold because you'll lose it when you deathwarp), then continue straight on to floor 12 without going back to 10 first. Problem is i'm not sure if you'd have enough money to do all the shopping before getting the ruby sword (i get most of my money from floor 11). And you can't do the shopping after you return from floor 12, because you use last-resort which loses all your money. It's something that bears testing.

Something interesting I noticed about this game is that there seem to be 4 kinds of fixed encounters. The first kind is the basic type, like the swordsmen guarding the stairway down to floor 2. Once you kill them they are gone for good, even if you die or leave the floor. The second kind will disappear after you kill it, but will come back if you die (the first 2 fixed encounters in floor 13 are like this: O9 and O10). The third kind will not disappear after you kill it - even if you don't die or leave the floor it will be there every time you walk onto the square (the 3rd and 4th encounters in floor 13 seem to be like this: O11 and O12). The fourth kind is the particularly interesting one. There are certain encounters that will actually disappear if you've died on the floor and revisited it. There are enemies like this in floor 3 (in the horseshoe room and guarding the door to the north-west quadrant) and there are enemies like this in floor 13 (at O11 and O12). There's probably more. I still haven't figured out exactly what you need to do to make them disappear. I know that if I die in the encounter at floor 13 O11, next time i come back the O11 and O12 encounters will be gone. However if i kill myself with Last Resort before fighting any of the fixed encounters, the ones at O11 and O12 will still be there. So there is something special you need to do to trigger it. This is potentially a big time saver once we can figure out how to use it, not to mention you can get through floors 3 and 13 with much less risk (as these are very hard floors given the levels you're at when you go through them).

(Note: It may be that the 3rd and 4th types that I described above are the same thing, because the encounters at floor 13 O11 and O12 seem to have both properties.)

@Kelly Flewin, I hope some of this information is useful to you, and I would really like to see the route you have come up with. It's interesting to see two people approach the same problem and come up with different solutions.

I planned out a route and tested it by running through the game 3 times.   The first time i was barely able to beat the final boss at level 8.  The 2nd time i was completely unable to beat him at level 8 (failed 7 times).  The third time i destroyed him easily at level 8.  I'm really not sure why the huge variation in success rate, but i do think that level 8 should be the target.  Level 7 or lower probably wouldn't make much sense since there is enough experience available from fighting fixed encounters (and some of the easier random encounters), plus getting the 1000XP and 5000XP bonuses.

Here is a recording of my third attempt.  It's around 2.5 hours, and i can see about 20-30 minutes of inefficiency (and bad luck) right off the bat.  There are two parts:
http://www.twitch.tv/feasel/b/328868473
http://www.twitch.tv/feasel/b/328868521

Some notes on this run:

I rolled a party, using 2 mages and 2 thieves.  I'm really liking thieves over warriors since i get an AMAZING amount of mileage out of those critical-hits.  I rolled until the thieves had 13's or 14's on strength and agility.  I rolled until the mages had 13's or 14's on intelligence and agility.  Originally i had thought that high agility would allow the mages to take more turns in combat (which would be really helpful in the tough fights where you have to heal every turn), however i no longer think this is true, and for my next run i'm not going to go for high mage agility.

It would be really helpful  if one of the rule-makers could tell me whether time spent rolling characters is counted against you in a speedrun or not.  Character-control doesn't begin until after you're done creating a party, so i'd assume not, but just to be on the safe side [b]i'd like to hear officially where the timing begins[/b].  If party-construction is counted in the speedrun time, i'd probably still go with rolling custom characters, but the standards for what stats to accept would be decreased (and the characters would all have 1 letter names).  Plus lots of resetting, i'd imagine.

I screwed the route up by forgetting to do the detour back to floor 2 to get the ruby glasses (with the gold key).  This is supposed to be done right before you give the crystal to the guy in floor 1 (from floor 10, you zoom-tube to floor 9, zoom-tube to floor 8, use the horseshoe, last-resort to floor 5, zoom-tube to floor 1, take the stairs to floor 2, get the ruby glasses, last-resort to floor 1, then use the crystal to reach floor 13).

I tried to kill some of the less-dangerous enemies as i went along so that i didn't need to stop and explicitly grind very much.  Once you're past floor 3, you get a ton of magic fountains, so you can just fight everybody and not have to worry about your magic getting depleted.  I think i only visited the temple once (after getting passwall in level 5), not counting the times i death-warped.

There were really only 2 places i stopped (briefly) to grind, and TBH i'm not sure those were even necessary.  I stopped once on floor 9, because the guy there gives you 1000XP.  Since XP doesn't carry over when you level-up, and you don't want to lose the surplus, you just need to grind a few fights to push you over the next level before getting the 1000XP.  I killed a few more enemies after that because i was about to get my magic refilled at a fountain, but in retrospect i'd say it's best not to do this.  Once you're at the point where you can take that 1000XP without losing any surplus, you should just move on.  It's better to fight guys at a later floor anyhow.

The second place i stopped to grind was floor 12.  Regenerate is way over in the far corner, but it's so useful that it would be hard to skip it (tho i guess not impossible).  The nice thing is that you need to be killing enemies anyway, so you can look at the walk to Regenerate as just an excuse to kill some monsters and earn XP.  In fact, the next thing i do after that is go back for the 5000XP bonus, and i need to be level 7 before doing this (at level 6 it only takes 3200XP to level-up, so a lot of the 5000XP would go to waste if i wasn't level 7).   So floor 12 is not a bad spot to earn.  Problem is, i did more grinding than necessary to reach level 7.  I earned another 1400 beyond that before leaving floor 12 -- since the next levelup costs 6400, and i'm getting 5000 from the horseshoe, i figured let's earn the extra 1400 right here.  Well i realized afterwards that that may not have been the best course of action, since you pick up a bunch of XP fighting the fixed encounters in floor 13.  So that's probably a better place to earn the 1400 (after you've picked up the horseshoe bonus).  It means you'd have to fight the floor-13 fixed encounters as level 7 instead of level 8, but i think they're pretty do-able even so.

On floor 11 after getting the ruby sword i collected some gold, teleported back to floor 10, and did my shopping at the armory before returning to floor 11 and then floor 12.  In retrospect I'd say it might be better to do the shopping before getting the ruby sword.  So you'd shop on floor 10, get the sword on floor 11 (skip the gold because you'll lose it when you deathwarp), then continue straight on to floor 12 without going back to 10 first.  Problem is i'm not sure if you'd have enough money to do all the shopping before getting the ruby sword (i get most of my money from floor 11).  And you can't do the shopping after you return from floor 12, because you use last-resort which loses all your money.  It's something that bears testing.
 
Something interesting I noticed about this game is that there seem to be 4 kinds of fixed encounters.  The first kind is the basic type, like the swordsmen guarding the stairway down to floor 2.  Once you kill them they are gone for good, even if you die or leave the floor.  The second kind will disappear after you kill it, but will come back if you die (the first 2 fixed encounters in floor 13 are like this: O9 and O10).   The third kind will not disappear after you kill it - even if you don't die or leave the floor it will be there every time you walk onto the square (the 3rd and 4th encounters in floor 13 seem to be like this: O11 and O12).  The fourth kind is the particularly interesting one.  There are certain encounters that will actually disappear if you've died on the floor and revisited it.  There are enemies like this in floor 3 (in the horseshoe room and guarding the door to the north-west quadrant) and there are enemies like this in floor 13 (at O11 and O12).  There's probably more.  I still haven't figured out exactly what you need to do to make them disappear.  I know that if I die in the encounter at floor 13 O11, next time i come back the O11 and O12 encounters will be gone. However if i kill myself with Last Resort before fighting any of the fixed encounters, the ones at O11 and O12 will still be there.  So there is something special you need to do to trigger it.  This is potentially a big time saver once we can figure out how to use it, not to mention you can get through floors 3 and 13 with much less risk (as these are very hard floors given the levels you're at when you go through them).

(Note:  It may be that the 3rd and 4th types that I described above are the same thing, because the encounters at floor 13 O11 and O12 seem to have both properties.)

@Kelly Flewin, I hope some of this information is useful to you, and I would really like to see the route you have come up with.  It's interesting to see two people approach the same problem and come up with different solutions.

Mr. Kelly R. Flewin

Edit history:

Mr. Kelly R. Flewin: 2012-08-17 08:03:42 am

Mr. Kelly R. Flewin: 2012-08-16 11:28:31 pm

Mr. Kelly R. Flewin: 2012-08-16 11:28:25 pm

Mr. Kelly R. Flewin: 2012-08-16 11:28:16 pm

2012-08-16 10:52:59 pm

Learning to Stream

Alrightee! Thanks to Flip's help on iRC, I am now connected with the fabulous DropBox... mainly because my movie was 13.2 megs and too big for the TASVideos storage.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/98572660/Swords%20and%20Serpents.zip

I used FCEUX version 2.15 which can be found here;

http://www.fceux.com/web/download.html

As I am waiting on the same ruling as Feasel, I stuck with the generic party... though I am loving the idea of 2 thieves and 2 magicians.

I made a lot of mistakes and did some random grinding and readjusted my own written plan 7 times in the course of this run... x.x;;

I noticeably totally screw up by forgetting to get Flight, and had to go back and get it. Also leveled up to Level 9 for the sake of curiousity. I got absolute CRAP for drops! I mean seriously, No Mage Staves?!

Totally forgot a helmet for one of my Magicians... that was stupid. Wasted time having to do that and sell crap in hopes I had a good drop... and it did not happen.

I learned exactly how little Gold I really need by the time I hit Level 5 and much the same for Level 10. As a matter of fact, the second I shop a bit at Level 5, the game suddenly becomes a LOT easier! Then getting Ruby items along the way made it even easier.

I also showed off a few of the finer points of stupidity [ie. showed common errors that can be made without good planning] by buying a +3 sword on Level 10 that was absolutely not needed after the next Level gives me a Ruby Sword.

In this run I never used Regenerate against the Dragon, but dear God, the Major Heals needed.... but they balanced things out with 2 Magicians and it made grinding Level 12 a lot easier with a fountain nearby.

I also figured on the fly what enemies to avoid due to crap experience and what others are easier. I swear that hitting Goblins in the feet area [down] was faster... but I so can't believe this is possible. I am hoping someone will hack into the game and prove whether this is a joke by the programmers or straight up legit tactic to attack with the dpad.

Level 8 experience and game win? I've done it with an emu and a lot of luck.... Level 9 was dicey as well... but this time it was pre-rolled and not my own, so that has a lot of merit in how it works out with stats. Level 7 Game End? That's a serious pair of mother$%^&^ balls to attempt as that requires disgusting TAS like luck... and yet STILL may be possible.

@Feasel - This is my bare bones, rusty as hell, practice run. A lot of the concepts will become a reality in a final run. I will probably skip Mirror Shield and go for Fire Shield. About the same kind of timing, but the Fire Shield is WAYYYYY better. Ruby Sword strategy is a total laugh with how easy it is to execute. Smiley

Interesting game plan for the Glasses.. I am trying to figure how to minimize backtracking, though your strategy sounds solid with the Crystal!

Edit: Thanks to mikwuyma, I can now confirm character creation is irrelevant. It all starts when you gain control of the character. Time to make Test Run 2 a lot better with this knowledge!

Edit 2: @Feasel - Holy crap! Your run so far was way more polished then mine. Definitely need maps in front of me as a lot of it was memory and it shows. I am definitely liking your setup better then mine by far!

Mr. Kelly R. Flewin

Alrightee! Thanks to Flip's help on iRC, I am now connected with the fabulous DropBox... mainly because my movie was 13.2 megs and too big for the TASVideos storage.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/98572660/Swords%20and%20Serpents.zip

I used FCEUX version 2.15 which can be found here;

http://www.fceux.com/web/download.html

As I am waiting on the same ruling as Feasel, I stuck with the generic party... though I am loving the idea of 2 thieves and 2 magicians.

I made a lot of mistakes and did some random grinding and readjusted my own written plan 7 times in the course of this run... x.x;;

I noticeably totally screw up by forgetting to get Flight, and had to go back and get it. Also leveled up to Level 9 for the sake of curiousity. I got absolute CRAP for drops! I mean seriously, No Mage Staves?!

Totally forgot a helmet for one of my Magicians... that was stupid. Wasted time having to do that and sell crap in hopes I had a good drop... and it did not happen.

I learned exactly how little Gold I really need by the time I hit Level 5 and much the same for Level 10. As a matter of fact, the second I shop a bit at Level 5, the game suddenly becomes a LOT easier! Then getting Ruby items along the way made it even easier.

I also showed off a few of the finer points of stupidity [ie. showed common errors that can be made without good planning] by buying a +3 sword on Level 10 that was absolutely not needed after the next Level gives me a Ruby Sword.

In this run I never used Regenerate against the Dragon, but dear God, the Major Heals needed.... but they balanced things out with 2 Magicians and it made grinding Level 12 a lot easier with a fountain nearby.

I also figured on the fly what enemies to avoid due to crap experience and what others are easier. I swear that hitting Goblins in the feet area [down] was faster... but I so can't believe this is possible. I am hoping someone will hack into the game and prove whether this is a joke by the programmers or straight up legit tactic to attack with the dpad.

Level 8 experience and game win? I've done it with an emu and a lot of luck.... Level 9 was dicey as well... but this time it was pre-rolled and not my own, so that has a lot of merit in how it works out with stats. Level 7 Game End? That's a serious pair of mother$%^&^ balls to attempt as that requires disgusting TAS like luck... and yet STILL may be possible.

@Feasel - This is my bare bones, rusty as hell, practice run. A lot of the concepts will become a reality in a final run. I will probably skip Mirror Shield and go for Fire Shield. About the same kind of timing, but the Fire Shield is WAYYYYY better. Ruby Sword strategy is a total laugh with how easy it is to execute. :)
Interesting game plan for the Glasses.. I am trying to figure how to minimize backtracking, though your strategy sounds solid with the Crystal!

Edit: Thanks to mikwuyma, I can now confirm character creation is irrelevant. It all starts when you gain control of the character. Time to make Test Run 2 a lot better with this knowledge!

Edit 2: @Feasel - Holy crap! Your run so far was way more polished then mine. Definitely need maps in front of me as a lot of it was memory and it shows. I am definitely liking your setup better then mine by far!

Mr. Kelly R. Flewin

feasel

Edit history:

feasel: 2012-08-17 09:44:26 am

2012-08-17 09:43:14 am

difficult and stupidly random

Darn I really wanted to see this run, but unfortunately the movie seems to reset at one point and is desynced after that. Did anyone else try to play the fm2? Happens with FCEUX 2.1.5, 2.1.4, and 2.0.3. So sad.

A few notes just from your comments:

Why get Flight? You only need to walk on 4 trap tiles in the whole run. Two on floor 6 and two on floor 16. The ones in floor 9 can't be avoided with Flight.

I agree with you that this whole "holding directions on the dpad" thing might just be a programmer joke. If only a TASer would work on this game - we'd have the answers to so many questions.

Agreed about skipping Mirror Shield. I'd just use Ruby Shield and buy one Mithril Shield. The Fire Shield is a real quick get (just passwall east from where you start on floor 10), but tbh i think it's not necessary.

Like you said, Regenerate isn't much use at the dragon. However I do find it really helpful in the encounters on floor 13. Whether it's skippable is kind of borderline, however if you're going to be grinding for XP in the late-game, you may as well do it in floor 12 while you walk over to Regenerate.

As far as Level 8 game-win, I have no idea what factors go into it. Like I said, I had one run where i barely made it, one run where i absolutely could not make it, and one run (the video above) where i succeeded easily. Basically the dragon hits all 4 party members every round, and afaik he never misses. So AC (and therefore your equipment set) has nothing to do with it. I'm also pretty sure that your equipment and stats will not affect the amount of damage he (or any enemy) does. Each round consists of the dragon hitting everyone, then all four characters get to go. If you simply have both mages cast Major Heal every time, you should be able to keep pace with him, so it's just a matter of having enough magic points to last through the fight. Occasionally the dragon will decline to attack, and your characters will get two rounds of attacks/heals, which is really helpful, but sadly i think it's random.

I tried casting Crystalize on the dragon, but this does nothing. Other possibilities for making the dragon fight easier at level 8: pick up Strength and/or Deadeye. (Shield only increases AC, which i think is irrelevant in this fight.) Basically it takes about 10-15 minutes for each level you earn past level 8, which is less time than it would take to pick up every optional spell and item in the whole game. So anything you can do to avoid going up to level 9 is probably worth it.

Darn I really wanted to see this run, but unfortunately the movie seems to reset at one point and is desynced after that.   Did anyone else try to play the fm2?   Happens with FCEUX 2.1.5, 2.1.4, and 2.0.3.  So sad.

A few notes just from your comments:

Why get Flight?  You only need to walk on 4 trap tiles in the whole run.  Two on floor 6 and two on floor 16.  The ones in floor 9 can't be avoided with Flight.

I agree with you that this whole "holding directions on the dpad" thing might just be a programmer joke.  If only a TASer would work on this game - we'd have the answers to so many questions.

Agreed about skipping Mirror Shield.  I'd just use Ruby Shield and buy one Mithril Shield.  The Fire Shield is a real quick get (just passwall east from where you start on floor 10), but tbh i think it's not necessary.

Like you said, Regenerate isn't much use at the dragon.  However I do find it really helpful in the encounters on floor 13.  Whether it's skippable is kind of borderline, however if you're going to be grinding for XP in the late-game, you may as well do it in floor 12 while you walk over to Regenerate.

As far as Level 8 game-win, I have no idea what factors go into it.  Like I said, I had one run where i barely made it, one run where i absolutely could not make it, and one run (the video above) where i succeeded easily.  Basically the dragon hits all 4 party members every round, and afaik he never misses.  So AC (and therefore your equipment set) has nothing to do with it.  I'm also pretty sure that your equipment and stats will not affect the amount of damage he (or any enemy) does.  Each round consists of the dragon hitting everyone, then all four characters get to go.  If you simply have both mages cast Major Heal every time, you should be able to keep pace with him, so it's just a matter of having enough magic points to last through the fight.  Occasionally the dragon will decline to attack, and your characters will get two rounds of attacks/heals, which is really helpful, but sadly i think it's random.

I tried casting Crystalize on the dragon, but this does nothing.   Other possibilities for making the dragon fight easier at level 8:  pick up Strength and/or Deadeye.  (Shield only increases AC, which i think is irrelevant in this fight.)  Basically it takes about 10-15 minutes for each level you earn past level 8, which is less time than it would take to pick up every optional spell and item in the whole game.  So anything you can do to avoid going up to level 9 is probably worth it.

Mr. Kelly R. Flewin

Edit history:

Mr. Kelly R. Flewin: 2012-08-17 07:32:17 pm

2012-08-17 07:29:21 pm

Learning to Stream

Quote from feasel:

Darn I really wanted to see this run, but unfortunately the movie seems to reset at one point and is desynced after that. Did anyone else try to play the fm2? Happens with FCEUX 2.1.5, 2.1.4, and 2.0.3. So sad.

o.o?? Desynced? Very odd.. it shouldn't have... so not good. I will look into that more then as this is a first.

Quote from feasel:

A few notes just from your comments:

Why get Flight? You only need to walk on 4 trap tiles in the whole run. Two on floor 6 and two on floor 16. The ones in floor 9 can't be avoided with Flight.

Yes they can. The ones outside the stairs in the hall leading up? Flight works just fine over them. And the other point is valid.. but on Level 16, I'd rather not chance something if I can help it.

Quote from feasel:

Agreed about skipping Mirror Shield. I'd just use Ruby Shield and buy one Mithril Shield. The Fire Shield is a real quick get (just passwall east from where you start on floor 10), but tbh i think it's not necessary.

I liked it for the extra touch of "class" it brought.. but knowing I can roll from the start, I agree it's not worth it.

Quote from feasel:

Like you said, Regenerate isn't much use at the dragon. However I do find it really helpful in the encounters on floor 13. Whether it's skippable is kind of borderline, however if you're going to be grinding for XP in the late-game, you may as well do it in floor 12 while you walk over to Regenerate.

Most definitely I agree with this. I mean I've gone through a scenario where a Magician and Thief died and it was a Magician and Warrior and Regenerate saved my ass big time. But I'd not skip it for sake of making grinding easier.

Quote from feasel:

As far as Level 8 game-win, I have no idea what factors go into it. Like I said, I had one run where i barely made it, one run where i absolutely could not make it, and one run (the video above) where i succeeded easily. Basically the dragon hits all 4 party members every round, and afaik he never misses. So AC (and therefore your equipment set) has nothing to do with it. I'm also pretty sure that your equipment and stats will not affect the amount of damage he (or any enemy) does. Each round consists of the dragon hitting everyone, then all four characters get to go. If you simply have both mages cast Major Heal every time, you should be able to keep pace with him, so it's just a matter of having enough magic points to last through the fight. Occasionally the dragon will decline to attack, and your characters will get two rounds of attacks/heals, which is really helpful, but sadly i think it's random.

In runs I have had the dragon miss once... very random... but it's possible. Damage is the same spread no matter what... A/C is merely extra evasiveness and softens the blow a bit. I am sure if you had 1 AC each, it might be an instant kill. I will check it out later on.

Quote from feasel:

I tried casting Crystalize on the dragon, but this does nothing. Other possibilities for making the dragon fight easier at level 8: pick up Strength and/or Deadeye. (Shield only increases AC, which i think is irrelevant in this fight.) Basically it takes about 10-15 minutes for each level you earn past level 8, which is less time than it would take to pick up every optional spell and item in the whole game. So anything you can do to avoid going up to level 9 is probably worth it.

An intriguing hypothesis to say the least. Dead Eye and Strength are barely off the beaten path, so that would be a worthwhile consideration. Would be funny if DeadEye caused a Thief to 1 hit kill the Dragon Smiley

Mr. Kelly R. Flewin

[quote="feasel"]Darn I really wanted to see this run, but unfortunately the movie seems to reset at one point and is desynced after that.   Did anyone else try to play the fm2?   Happens with FCEUX 2.1.5, 2.1.4, and 2.0.3.  So sad.[/quote]

o.o?? Desynced? Very odd.. it shouldn't have... so not good. I will look into that more then as this is a first.

[quote="feasel"]A few notes just from your comments:

Why get Flight?  You only need to walk on 4 trap tiles in the whole run.  Two on floor 6 and two on floor 16.  The ones in floor 9 can't be avoided with Flight.[/quote]

Yes they can. The ones outside the stairs in the hall leading up? Flight works just fine over them. And the other point is valid.. but on Level 16, I'd rather not chance something if I can help it.

[quote="feasel"]Agreed about skipping Mirror Shield.  I'd just use Ruby Shield and buy one Mithril Shield.  The Fire Shield is a real quick get (just passwall east from where you start on floor 10), but tbh i think it's not necessary.[/quote]

I liked it for the extra touch of "class" it brought.. but knowing I can roll from the start, I agree it's not worth it.

[quote="feasel"]Like you said, Regenerate isn't much use at the dragon.  However I do find it really helpful in the encounters on floor 13.  Whether it's skippable is kind of borderline, however if you're going to be grinding for XP in the late-game, you may as well do it in floor 12 while you walk over to Regenerate.[/quote]

Most definitely I agree with this. I mean I've gone through a scenario where a Magician and Thief died and it was a Magician and Warrior and Regenerate saved my ass big time. But I'd not skip it for sake of making grinding easier.

[quote="feasel"]As far as Level 8 game-win, I have no idea what factors go into it.  Like I said, I had one run where i barely made it, one run where i absolutely could not make it, and one run (the video above) where i succeeded easily.  Basically the dragon hits all 4 party members every round, and afaik he never misses.  So AC (and therefore your equipment set) has nothing to do with it.  I'm also pretty sure that your equipment and stats will not affect the amount of damage he (or any enemy) does.  Each round consists of the dragon hitting everyone, then all four characters get to go.  If you simply have both mages cast Major Heal every time, you should be able to keep pace with him, so it's just a matter of having enough magic points to last through the fight.  Occasionally the dragon will decline to attack, and your characters will get two rounds of attacks/heals, which is really helpful, but sadly i think it's random.[/quote]

In runs I have had the dragon miss once... very random... but it's possible. Damage is the same spread no matter what... A/C is merely extra evasiveness and softens the blow a bit. I am sure if you had 1 AC each, it might be an instant kill. I will check it out later on.

[quote="feasel"]I tried casting Crystalize on the dragon, but this does nothing.   Other possibilities for making the dragon fight easier at level 8:  pick up Strength and/or Deadeye.  (Shield only increases AC, which i think is irrelevant in this fight.)  Basically it takes about 10-15 minutes for each level you earn past level 8, which is less time than it would take to pick up every optional spell and item in the whole game.  So anything you can do to avoid going up to level 9 is probably worth it.
[/quote]

An intriguing hypothesis to say the least. Dead Eye and Strength are barely off the beaten path, so that would be a worthwhile consideration. Would be funny if DeadEye caused a Thief to 1 hit kill the Dragon :)

Mr. Kelly R. Flewin

2012-08-18 12:42:12 pm

Learning to Stream

@Feasel

I finally finished watching your run and... um damn... you planned it out way the hell better then I did. Mind you, you went with pre-roll and I relegated myself to Default until I could find out the ruling. You definitely had the advantage with pre-roll over me... and I am glad that we can pre-roll without penalty!

My run was just playing around and planning on the fly for some stuff, but yours was fantastically executed, so I commend you on that good sir.

My thoughts on your run and such are as follows;

-Definitely prefer your setup.. 2 Mage, 2 Thieves... especially with that final battle with Crit Hit Mania? Oh hell yeah!

-I wonder if its worth the time to get the Key on 3, Last Resort, then grab the Glasses in Level 2 right off as there's only single encounters in that room. It may take a bit of extra time, but it's a cheap way to grind for exp and Gold as well and on the Black Crystal run, you don't need to have to spend that time then and can just rock on. [I would need to time running from Level 2 to key earlier vs the running down, pass walling, last resorting, then moving back to that square. That's how I tried to do so in my run.

-Level 5 Shopping - Barring need for a Longsword or something like that [I pray for drops personally], I try to have 640 gold for shopping. Pardon me, 240 Gold and that easy 400 right beside Passwall. I use this for 2 x Wizard Wands [Yay double hits!], 1 Scale [Mithril Chain on 7 is close enough], 3 Helmets [Ruby Helmet on 7 for one Mage and a regular shield [Ruby Shield for the other on 6]. The Ring on 6 also balances things out nicely... but I forgot to equip it in my own crappy run as I forgot. So even minus the shield, 600 gold / 200 gold is enough and the extra AC doesn't hurt for the few seconds it takes. Unless you luck out with a Silver Helm drop. [I've gotten one outside the temple from Spiders by chance]

-Level 6? That was masterful. For some reason my mind never led me to that obvious path choice... I feel likea n00b there. And only 2 squares of pain. Not bad.

-Level 7 - Very nice tight pathway! Love it! Quicker then mine by a few seconds

-Level 8 - I prefer to walk to F12, Passwall North, walk North to the invisible wall then East to the other wall. Then I know straight up for horseshoe or 1 up for the door. It takes almost as much time as doing the roundabout [maybe a second less], but also has the potential for less encounters as it's less ground to make up. Not that it will stop the game from screwing us over hardcore and giving an encounter every damn square to ruin a run. x.x;; This is merely my preference though.

Level 9 - Flight does indeed work to save from those few tiles, saves a bit of healing for the 1MP required. 200 Gold may be a nice touch as well, depending on what you have.

Level 10 - Flight and a few seconds detour saves 300 gold at the shop and affords you the best shield in the game. If you spare a few seconds to nab the easy 200 gold from Level 9, you will only require 440 gold for 2 Plus 3 Swords [or less selling other junk found and items]. At this point, you're totally done shopping for the rest of the game. Finding another Mage or Glow cloak is a bonus and finding a Mage Ring would kick ass. Mage staff is too far out of the way to bother with. x.x;;

Now I take a different way out then you do for this level. I go heal at the temple, grind a little, then I take the Upper Left stairs [you took the Right]. The reason I suggest these, is I feel it's a bit faster. I also prefer to shop now and get it done with to make grinding and going for Regenerate a LOT easier.

Level 11 - If you take the Upper Left stairs, you now are at B2. Facing East, you literally need Passwall twice as the other route, but you just continue East in a solid straight line and don't have to worry about counting spaces before a teleporter and deviating slightly. Now you can go back West and take the same path you used to go to Level 12.

Level 12 - We take roughly the same route... take Crystal, Passwall North twice, go all the way East and North through door, wiggle around and passwall into the room with the hidden passage and spell ahoy with Passwall and fountain too! Your idea of grinding was a lot smarter then mine.. same thing with Last Resort.

Where you deviate in your route compared to mine, is you now go for the horseshoe via Last Resort and Zoom Tube mania and then go for Level 5 to Level 1 and Black Crystal. Here, yet again, is solely a timing issue with the Glasses. If done earlier, then you just go to 14. If not, you go to 2, Last Resort, then back to man and then Level 13.

Level 13 - Now what you did was... curious to say the least. It was interesting, but the Last Resorting to skip and then go all the way back takes a LOT of time. I suggest to you my pathway of destruction. You enter N9... but then you Passwall East! This pathway is slightly more direct, but it encompasses 5 forced encounters that can make your life hell. I would suggest the alternative of using Passwall... SOUTH! 3 forced encounters and Passwall and then you come to an outside square. You can go South once more a 4th Forced Encounter and then East for the Amulet, or East for a 4th Forced Encounter and then South for an Amulet.

Of course, the fountain at L12 also brings the temptation out to grind a bit more on Level 13 if you feel the urge.. but not necessary. Last Resort definitely works best. [I toyed around and Zoom Tubed back to 10 for the fun of it]

Level 14/15 - Your pathway is a lot more direct then mine and I prefer it. I went to M3 and dinked around there... yours is most effective.

Dragon - Hot Skippy! Now THAT was a fight!

That's about all I can really add... outside of questioning along with you if getting Strength and Dead Eye for that battle will be worth the 5-7 seconds out of the way to get it. The Dragon is an RNG nightmare. x.x;;

The only other HUGE improvements will simply come from really REALLY lucky drops. I mean this party is superior for Crit Hits, but the Warrior with a Ruby Sword and tank like HP is also hard to overlook. But seeing your final battle? Yeah.... Ruby Sword be damned.

---

Now... the OTHER thing of notation. I am seriously wondering if AC does dick all... contrary to what I once thought. I went and ran another saved game back to the Dragon. I literally discarded EVERYTHING but their weapons [Yay Thief for Crit Hitting the shit out of the Dragon I may add... almost like your run Feasel] and saved to another file and went in. Either the Dragon is coded to attack and IGNORE AC AND do a predetermined damage table for everytime it attacks, with the odd miss... and that's why we get nailed as we do.... or AC could very well do absolutely nothing! I'd have to do another emu test run to see how well I can traverse the dungeons with no armor equipped but the default and using proper weaponry and see if it makes a lick of difference.

I mean the manual says Intelligence and Agility are linked... it means you fight smarter and get more hits in before the enemy, so they're interlinked. I wonder if that's all we need.

Hell... if no armor is truly needed and it's all predetermined damage tables that ignore AC.... pfft. This game got a hell of a lot shorter and faster and will involve barebones shopping. Only time [Or someone hacking the shit out of the game via a TAS] will tell.

I hope these thoughts and ideas help out.

Mr. Kelly R. Flewin

@Feasel

I finally finished watching your run and... um damn... you planned it out way the hell better then I did. Mind you, you went with pre-roll and I relegated myself to Default until I could find out the ruling. You definitely had the advantage with pre-roll over me... and I am glad that we can pre-roll without penalty!

My run was just playing around and planning on the fly for some stuff, but yours was fantastically executed, so I commend you on that good sir.

My thoughts on your run and such are as follows;

-Definitely prefer your setup.. 2 Mage, 2 Thieves... especially with that final battle with Crit Hit Mania? Oh hell yeah!

-I wonder if its worth the time to get the Key on 3, Last Resort, then grab the Glasses in Level 2 right off as there's only single encounters in that room. It may take a bit of extra time, but it's a cheap way to grind for exp and Gold as well and on the Black Crystal run, you don't need to have to spend that time then and can just rock on. [I would need to time running from Level 2 to key earlier vs the running down, pass walling, last resorting, then moving back to that square. That's how I tried to do so in my run.

-Level 5 Shopping - Barring need for a Longsword or something like that [I pray for drops personally], I try to have 640 gold for shopping. Pardon me, 240 Gold and that easy 400 right beside Passwall. I use this for 2 x Wizard Wands [Yay double hits!], 1 Scale [Mithril Chain on 7 is close enough], 3 Helmets [Ruby Helmet on 7 for one Mage and a regular shield [Ruby Shield for the other on 6]. The Ring on 6 also balances things out nicely... but I forgot to equip it in my own crappy run as I forgot. So even minus the shield, 600 gold / 200 gold is enough and the extra AC doesn't hurt for the few seconds it takes. Unless you luck out with a Silver Helm drop. [I've gotten one outside the temple from Spiders by chance]

-Level 6? That was masterful. For some reason my mind never led me to that obvious path choice... I feel likea n00b there. And only 2 squares of pain. Not bad.

-Level 7 - Very nice tight pathway! Love it! Quicker then mine by a few seconds

-Level 8 - I prefer to walk to F12, Passwall North, walk North to the invisible wall then East to the other wall. Then I know straight up for horseshoe or 1 up for the door. It takes almost as much time as doing the roundabout [maybe a second less], but also has the potential for less encounters as it's less ground to make up. Not that it will stop the game from screwing us over hardcore and giving an encounter every damn square to ruin a run. x.x;; This is merely my preference though.

Level 9 - Flight does indeed work to save from those few tiles, saves a bit of healing for the 1MP required. 200 Gold may be a nice touch as well, depending on what you have.

Level 10 - Flight and a few seconds detour saves 300 gold at the shop and affords you the best shield in the game. If you spare a few seconds to nab the easy 200 gold from Level 9, you will only require 440 gold for 2 Plus 3 Swords [or less selling other junk found and items]. At this point, you're totally done shopping for the rest of the game. Finding another Mage or Glow cloak is a bonus and finding a Mage Ring would kick ass. Mage staff is too far out of the way to bother with. x.x;;

Now I take a different way out then you do for this level. I go heal at the temple, grind a little, then I take the Upper Left stairs [you took the Right]. The reason I suggest these, is I feel it's a bit faster. I also prefer to shop now and get it done with to make grinding and going for Regenerate a LOT easier.

Level 11 - If you take the Upper Left stairs, you now are at B2. Facing East, you literally need Passwall twice as the other route, but you just continue East in a solid straight line and don't have to worry about counting spaces before a teleporter and deviating slightly. Now you can go back West and take the same path you used to go to Level 12.

Level 12 - We take roughly the same route... take Crystal, Passwall North twice, go all the way East and North through door, wiggle around and passwall into the room with the hidden passage and spell ahoy with Passwall and fountain too! Your idea of grinding was a lot smarter then mine.. same thing with Last Resort.

Where you deviate in your route compared to mine, is you now go for the horseshoe via Last Resort and Zoom Tube mania and then go for Level 5 to Level 1 and Black Crystal. Here, yet again, is solely a timing issue with the Glasses. If done earlier, then you just go to 14. If not, you go to 2, Last Resort, then back to man and then Level 13.

Level 13 - Now what you did was... curious to say the least. It was interesting, but the Last Resorting to skip and then go all the way back takes a LOT of time. I suggest to you my pathway of destruction. You enter N9... but then you Passwall East! This pathway is slightly more direct, but it encompasses 5 forced encounters that can make your life hell. I would suggest the alternative of using Passwall... SOUTH! 3 forced encounters and Passwall and then you come to an outside square.  You can go South once more a 4th Forced Encounter and then East for the Amulet, or East for a 4th Forced Encounter and then South for an Amulet.

Of course, the fountain at L12 also brings the temptation out to grind a bit more on Level 13 if you feel the urge.. but not necessary. Last Resort definitely works best. [I toyed around and Zoom Tubed back to 10 for the fun of it]

Level 14/15 - Your pathway is a lot more direct then mine and I prefer it. I went to M3 and dinked around there... yours is most effective.

Dragon - Hot Skippy! Now THAT was a fight!

That's about all I can really add... outside of questioning along with you if getting Strength and Dead Eye for that battle will be worth the 5-7 seconds out of the way to get it. The Dragon is an RNG nightmare. x.x;;

The only other HUGE improvements will simply come from really REALLY lucky drops. I mean this party is superior for Crit Hits, but the Warrior with a Ruby Sword and tank like HP is also hard to overlook. But seeing your final battle? Yeah.... Ruby Sword be damned.

---

Now... the OTHER thing of notation. I am seriously wondering if AC does dick all... contrary to what I once thought. I went and ran another saved game back to the Dragon. I literally discarded EVERYTHING but their weapons [Yay Thief for Crit Hitting the shit out of the Dragon I may add... almost like your run Feasel] and saved to another file and went in. Either the Dragon is coded to attack and IGNORE AC AND do a predetermined damage table for everytime it attacks, with the odd miss... and that's why we get nailed as we do.... or AC could very well do absolutely nothing! I'd have to do another emu test run to see how well I can traverse the dungeons with no armor equipped but the default and using proper weaponry and see if it makes a lick of difference.

I mean the manual says Intelligence and Agility are linked... it means you fight smarter and get more hits in before the enemy, so they're interlinked. I wonder if that's all we need.

Hell... if no armor is truly needed and it's all predetermined damage tables that ignore AC.... pfft. This game got a hell of a lot shorter and faster and will involve barebones shopping. Only time [Or someone hacking the shit out of the game via a TAS] will tell.

I hope these thoughts and ideas help out.

Mr. Kelly R. Flewin

feasel

Edit history:

feasel: 2012-08-19 04:40:03 am

2012-08-19 03:30:46 am

difficult and stupidly random

Quote:

I wonder if its worth the time to get the Key on 3, Last Resort, then grab the Glasses in Level 2 right off as there's only single encounters in that room. It may take a bit of extra time, but it's a cheap way to grind for exp and Gold as well and on the Black Crystal run, you don't need to have to spend that time then and can just rock on. I would need to time running from Level 2 to key earlier vs the running down, pass walling, last resorting, then moving back to that square. That's how I tried to do so in my run.

I'm pretty sure that's not faster. You'd re-traverse most of floors 2 and 3. However if you're stopping on floors 2 and 3 to grind anyway (which i wouldn't in my route) then it shouldn't make a difference.

Quote:

2 x Wizard Wands [Yay double hits!], 1 Scale [Mithril Chain on 7 is close enough], 3 Helmets [Ruby Helmet on 7 for one Mage and a regular shield [Ruby Shield for the other on 6].

That sounds about right. I've been buying an extra helmet and shield even tho i'll be getting ruby items because i don't plan to go into the equipment menu in between the floor 5 and floor 10 shopping trips. It takes so long to go in the menu that i don't consider it worth the time if there are no major battles to be fought between floors 5 and 10. (The hard parts of this game are the fights on floor 3 and floor 13). Though now that i think about it, i may as well just leave one person without a shield and helmet between floors 5 and 10 because there's nothing serious to fight.

Quote:

-Level 8 - I prefer to walk to F12, Passwall North, walk North to the invisible wall then East to the other wall.

You're right, that's the way to go.

Quote:

Level 9 - Flight does indeed work to save from those few tiles, saves a bit of healing for the 1MP required. 200 Gold may be a nice touch as well, depending on what you have.

Ah I didn't know Flight worked for the "icy wind". Still not getting it.

Quote:

Now I take a different way out then you do for this level. I go heal at the temple, grind a little, then I take the Upper Left stairs [you took the Right]. The reason I suggest these, is I feel it's a bit faster. I also prefer to shop now and get it done with to make grinding and going for Regenerate a LOT easier.

You're probably right about upper-left stairs, especially now that i'm doing the shopping before doing floors 11 and 12.

Quote:

Level 13 - Now what you did was... curious to say the least. It was interesting, but the Last Resorting to skip and then go all the way back takes a LOT of time. I suggest to you my pathway of destruction. You enter N9... but then you Passwall East! This pathway is slightly more direct, but it encompasses 5 forced encounters that can make your life hell. I would suggest the alternative of using Passwall... SOUTH! 3 forced encounters and Passwall and then you come to an outside square. You can go South once more a 4th Forced Encounter and then East for the Amulet, or East for a 4th Forced Encounter and then South for an Amulet.

Yeah that was kind of an experiment. I think I agree that last-resorting to skip 2 of the fixed encounters is probably not worth it, assuming i can even get the skip to work. Normal route here is the first one you described (N9, passwall east, then passwall south 5 times) fighting 5 encounters.
But... I had no idea you could passwall through N12-13! I swear I tried all the walls at some point and found you couldn't do that, but I take your word for it. This changes everything. Definitely the fastest way to do this level is to passwall South from N9. Only 4 encounters, plus you get a fountain after the 3rd! Floor 13 is no longer the run-stopping beast it used to be.

Regarding AC:
For normal monsters AC determines how likely they are to hit you. I can confirm that high-AC characters will get hit less. However i dont think the damage dealt is dependent on AC. It can vary randomly; may or may not be dependent on your stats as well.

But for the final boss, none of that applies. He simply swings at all 4 people, hits basically every time regardless of your AC, and does a pre-determined range of damage. I too have tried unequipping all armor, and it seems to make no difference in the fight. All the armor in this game is essentially for getting past the 5 (now 4!) fixed encounters in floor 13, and for not having to heal constantly as you grind wandering monsters to earn level 8. It may be that if your AC is extremely high (say 18+) you might be able to dodge some of the dragon's shots, but i don't see that happening in a speedrun.

[quote]I wonder if its worth the time to get the Key on 3, Last Resort, then grab the Glasses in Level 2 right off as there's only single encounters in that room. It may take a bit of extra time, but it's a cheap way to grind for exp and Gold as well and on the Black Crystal run, you don't need to have to spend that time then and can just rock on.  I would need to time running from Level 2 to key earlier vs the running down, pass walling, last resorting, then moving back to that square. That's how I tried to do so in my run.
[/quote]
I'm pretty sure that's not faster.  You'd re-traverse most of floors 2 and 3.   However if you're stopping on floors 2 and 3 to grind anyway (which i wouldn't in my route) then it shouldn't make a difference.

[quote]2 x Wizard Wands [Yay double hits!], 1 Scale [Mithril Chain on 7 is close enough], 3 Helmets [Ruby Helmet on 7 for one Mage and a regular shield [Ruby Shield for the other on 6].[/quote]
That sounds about right.  I've been buying an extra helmet and shield even tho i'll be getting ruby items because i don't plan to go into the equipment menu in between the floor 5 and floor 10 shopping trips.  It takes so long to go in the menu that i don't consider it worth the time if there are no major battles to be fought between floors 5 and 10.  (The hard parts of this game are the fights on floor 3 and floor 13).  Though now that i think about it, i may as well just leave one person without a shield and helmet between floors 5 and 10 because there's nothing serious to fight.

[quote]-Level 8 - I prefer to walk to F12, Passwall North, walk North to the invisible wall then East to the other wall.[/quote]
You're right, that's the way to go.

[quote]Level 9 - Flight does indeed work to save from those few tiles, saves a bit of healing for the 1MP required. 200 Gold may be a nice touch as well, depending on what you have.[/quote]
Ah I didn't know Flight worked for the "icy wind".  Still not getting it.

[quote]Now I take a different way out then you do for this level. I go heal at the temple, grind a little, then I take the Upper Left stairs [you took the Right]. The reason I suggest these, is I feel it's a bit faster. I also prefer to shop now and get it done with to make grinding and going for Regenerate a LOT easier.[/quote]
You're probably right about upper-left stairs, especially now that i'm doing the shopping before doing floors 11 and 12.

[quote]Level 13 - Now what you did was... curious to say the least. It was interesting, but the Last Resorting to skip and then go all the way back takes a LOT of time. I suggest to you my pathway of destruction. You enter N9... but then you Passwall East! This pathway is slightly more direct, but it encompasses 5 forced encounters that can make your life hell. I would suggest the alternative of using Passwall... SOUTH! 3 forced encounters and Passwall and then you come to an outside square.  You can go South once more a 4th Forced Encounter and then East for the Amulet, or East for a 4th Forced Encounter and then South for an Amulet.[/quote]
Yeah that was kind of an experiment.  I think I agree that last-resorting to skip 2 of the fixed encounters is probably not worth it, assuming i can even get the skip to work.  Normal route here is the first one you described (N9, passwall east, then passwall south 5 times) fighting 5 encounters.
But...  I had no idea you could passwall through N12-13!  I swear I tried all the walls at some point and found you couldn't do that, but I take your word for it.  This changes everything.  Definitely the fastest way to do this level is to passwall South from N9.  Only 4 encounters, plus you get a fountain after the 3rd!  Floor 13 is no longer the run-stopping beast it used to be.

Regarding AC:
For normal monsters AC determines how likely they are to hit you.  I can confirm that high-AC characters will get hit less.  However i dont think the damage dealt is dependent on AC.  It can vary randomly;  may or may not be dependent on your stats as well.

But for the final boss, none of that applies.  He simply swings at all 4 people, hits basically every time regardless of your AC, and does a pre-determined range of damage.  I too have tried unequipping all armor, and it seems to make no difference in the fight.  All the armor in this game is essentially for getting past the 5 (now 4!) fixed encounters in floor 13, and for not having to heal constantly as you grind wandering monsters to earn level 8.  It may be that if your AC is extremely high (say 18+) you might be able to dodge some of the dragon's shots, but i don't see that happening in a speedrun.

feasel

2012-08-19 05:51:01 am

difficult and stupidly random

Cut the 2!

I wanted to try something crazy, so I started with an all-Mage party.

It was fun having all that magic to work with. The fights were completely safe because you can hold B at any time to bring up a magic menu. (Whereas if you have non-fighers in the mix you risk taking hits while waiting for whos-turn-it-is to change) With the all-Mage party you can plow straight through to floor 5 without stopping and not be at risk of losing a party member. In the later game though (floor 13 fights, grinding, dragon) you really end up missing the damage-dealers. The fights go on forever.

I really liked the idea of having more magic, which makes it easier to squeeze through the early-game and lets you complete the game at level 8 without much trouble.

So instead I tried 3 Mages and 1 Thief. Having to obtain items for only 1 thief instead of 2 saves time. The fights could be faster, but it's still easy enough to complete the game at level 8.

I got a 1:59:30 with the 3 Mages 1 Thief party. Not convinced it's the optimal party, but i think the route itself is getting pretty solid.
http://www.twitch.tv/feasel/b/329086858
http://www.twitch.tv/feasel/b/329086970

Next I'm going to try the same thing, 3 Mages and 1 Thief, but complete the game at level 7. If that's possible it would save quite a bit of time. I'd say that in my 1:59:30 i spent about 10 minutes grinding to reach level 8. Either way you'd do the Floor 13 encounters at level 7; it's really just the final boss where the lower level makes a difference.

Assuming that can be done, I may try 3 Mages and 1 Warrior just to make sure i'm not wrong about how useful critical hits are. Then i think it's worth checking if any 2-Mage party has a shot at beating the game at level 7.

Cut the 2!

I wanted to try something crazy, so I started with an all-Mage party.

It was fun having all that magic to work with.  The fights were completely safe because you can hold B at any time to bring up a magic menu.  (Whereas if you have non-fighers in the mix you risk taking hits while waiting for whos-turn-it-is to change)  With the all-Mage party you can plow straight through to floor 5 without stopping and not be at risk of losing a party member.  In the later game though (floor 13 fights, grinding, dragon) you really end up missing the damage-dealers.  The fights go on forever.

I really liked the idea of having more magic, which makes it easier to squeeze through the early-game and lets you complete the game at level 8 without much trouble.

So instead I tried 3 Mages and 1 Thief.  Having to obtain items for only 1 thief instead of 2 saves time.  The fights could be faster, but it's still easy enough to complete the game at level 8.

I got a 1:59:30 with the 3 Mages 1 Thief party.  Not convinced it's the optimal party, but i think the route itself is getting pretty solid.
http://www.twitch.tv/feasel/b/329086858
http://www.twitch.tv/feasel/b/329086970

Next I'm going to try the same thing, 3 Mages and 1 Thief, but complete the game at level 7.  If that's possible it would save quite a bit of time.  I'd say that in my 1:59:30 i spent about 10 minutes grinding to reach level 8.  Either way you'd do the Floor 13 encounters at level 7; it's really just the final boss where the lower level makes a difference.

Assuming that can be done, I may try 3 Mages and 1 Warrior just to make sure i'm not wrong about how useful critical hits are.  Then i think it's worth checking if any 2-Mage party has a shot at beating the game at level 7.

Mr. Kelly R. Flewin

2012-08-19 11:14:05 am

Learning to Stream

Quote from feasel:

So instead I tried 3 Mages and 1 Thief. Having to obtain items for only 1 thief instead of 2 saves time. The fights could be faster, but it's still easy enough to complete the game at level 8.

I got a 1:59:30 with the 3 Mages 1 Thief party. Not convinced it's the optimal party, but i think the route itself is getting pretty solid.
http://www.twitch.tv/feasel/b/329086858
http://www.twitch.tv/feasel/b/329086970

Next I'm going to try the same thing, 3 Mages and 1 Thief, but complete the game at level 7. If that's possible it would save quite a bit of time. I'd say that in my 1:59:30 i spent about 10 minutes grinding to reach level 8. Either way you'd do the Floor 13 encounters at level 7; it's really just the final boss where the lower level makes a difference.

Assuming that can be done, I may try 3 Mages and 1 Warrior just to make sure i'm not wrong about how useful critical hits are. Then i think it's worth checking if any 2-Mage party has a shot at beating the game at level 7.

I am stuck now going into work... which was NOT on the agenda for today, so only got to barely watch the first part of your run. I am liking this combo as well. It's an interesting balance and makes sense...the downer being lack of AC for one of the Mages... but I mean with luck, it's a non issue.

I am also curious how plausible it is for a Level 7 completion. I mean if so, no horseshoe alone saves several minutes which rocks... the only concern is MP at that point. But with 3 turns of healing, there is definitely hope.

Definitely interested in seeing how that will go for you. Unfortunately with having to go in today, it ruins my own attempts as by the time I am done, I will have other crap to deal with. x.x;;

Definitely looking forward to getting something run myself... that syncs.

Just need to figure what would be required to do it with my craptop so I can start doing proper streams someday.

Mr. Kelly R. Flewin

[quote="feasel"]So instead I tried 3 Mages and 1 Thief.  Having to obtain items for only 1 thief instead of 2 saves time.  The fights could be faster, but it's still easy enough to complete the game at level 8.

I got a 1:59:30 with the 3 Mages 1 Thief party.  Not convinced it's the optimal party, but i think the route itself is getting pretty solid.
http://www.twitch.tv/feasel/b/329086858
http://www.twitch.tv/feasel/b/329086970

Next I'm going to try the same thing, 3 Mages and 1 Thief, but complete the game at level 7.  If that's possible it would save quite a bit of time.  I'd say that in my 1:59:30 i spent about 10 minutes grinding to reach level 8.  Either way you'd do the Floor 13 encounters at level 7; it's really just the final boss where the lower level makes a difference.

Assuming that can be done, I may try 3 Mages and 1 Warrior just to make sure i'm not wrong about how useful critical hits are.  Then i think it's worth checking if any 2-Mage party has a shot at beating the game at level 7.[/quote]

I am stuck now going into work... which was NOT on the agenda for today, so only got to barely watch the first part of your run. I am liking this combo as well. It's an interesting balance and makes sense...the downer being lack of AC for one of the Mages... but I mean with luck, it's a non issue.

I am also curious how plausible it is for a Level 7 completion. I mean if so, no horseshoe alone saves several minutes which rocks... the only concern is MP at that point. But with 3 turns of healing, there is definitely hope.

Definitely interested in seeing how that will go for you. Unfortunately with having to go in today, it ruins my own attempts as by the time I am done, I will have other crap to deal with. x.x;;

Definitely looking forward to getting something run myself... that syncs.

Just need to figure what would be required to do it with my craptop so I can start doing proper streams someday.

Mr. Kelly R. Flewin

Solairflaire

2012-08-20 12:14:04 am

So, I finished this game in 1:47:38 at level 6. I died twice. Once on floor 3, and once to the Dragon (the dragon death was my fault mostly). I've attached the emulator movie (which is hopefully not against SDA policy). I used FCEUX 2.0.0 (unless the help/about thing lies).

I used a party of 2 mages, 1 warrior, 1 thief. I had decent drops in the beginning, but one of my mages died early on the revisit to 3. I pushed on and made it to the lvl 5 temple. After that it was pretty smooth sailing, till I screwed up the dragon fight and lost almost 5 min. There were also a few points I had to look things up that cost somewhere between 3-4 min.

My route was as follows:
- go straight to guards and kill them, use flash fire since it deals significant damage at this point in the game (should probably go back to temple and heal at this point)
- get the +1 sword and shield spell on level 2, kill goblins
- try to activate the 1st switch on level 3 and get horseshoes
- finish floor 3 and get gold key
- get strength (which I forgot), finish floor 4
- get flight, passwall, shop, and take zoom tube back to lvl 1 (use temple if necessary)
- get ruby glasses on floor 2, take zoom tube on lvl 1 to lvl 6
- get ruby ring and shield, get mass heal, go to lvl 7 (skip bronze key)
- get mythril chain, ruby crown and helmet, Last Resort back to lvl 5 (I forgot to Last Resort here)
- go to lvl 4 and take secret to level 9
- go to lvl 13 from level 9
- get money on lvl 13 for shopping on lvl 10, zoom to level 10
- get flame shield, shop, temple, go to lvl 11
- get ruby sword, go to lvl 12, get black crystal, Last Resort
- go to lvl 1, go to lvl 13, get ruby amulet, zoom back to lvl 10
- temple, go to dragon
- win

I did this route twice, both times I beat the dragon at level 6. Not sure if that was luck or not. I'm sure this isn't the best route either.

Some points I want to make:
- Deadeye is awesome, so is the Strength spell. They make the really tough fights a whole lot easier, especially the dragon. You can cast them on several characters, just one at a time.
- The Shield Spell saves SP in the long term, at least early before you have decent AC scores
- Mage offensive spells would be worthwhile if they didn't cost so much
- Strength (the stat) doesn't seem to do much, if anything, for thieves or mages
- AC of 16+ increases the odds the dragon will miss, but not a whole lot, so it's not really worth it. I think you'd need to get over 20 for it to matter at all.
- Through observation, holding a direction doesn't seem to give any benefit. If it does help, it's incredibly minor or it switches from battle to battle and not enemy to enemy.
- Ghosts eat your soul better than The Dragon eats your charred corpses

So, I finished this game in 1:47:38 at level 6. I died twice. Once on floor 3, and once to the Dragon (the dragon death was my fault mostly). I've attached the emulator movie (which is hopefully not against SDA policy). I used FCEUX 2.0.0 (unless the help/about thing lies).

I used a party of 2 mages, 1 warrior, 1 thief. I had decent drops in the beginning, but one of my mages died early on the revisit to 3. I pushed on and made it to the lvl 5 temple. After that it was pretty smooth sailing, till I screwed up the dragon fight and lost almost 5 min. There were also a few points I had to look things up that cost somewhere between 3-4 min.

My route was as follows:
- go straight to guards and kill them, use flash fire since it deals significant damage at this point in the game (should probably go back to temple and heal at this point)
- get the +1 sword and shield spell on level 2, kill goblins
- try to activate the 1st switch on level 3 and get horseshoes
- finish floor 3 and get gold key
- get strength (which I forgot), finish floor 4
- get flight, passwall, shop, and take zoom tube back to lvl 1 (use temple if necessary)
- get ruby glasses on floor 2, take zoom tube on lvl 1 to lvl 6
- get ruby ring and shield, get mass heal, go to lvl 7 (skip bronze key)
- get mythril chain, ruby crown and helmet, Last Resort back to lvl 5 (I forgot to Last Resort here)
- go to lvl 4 and take secret to level 9
- go to lvl 13 from level 9
- get money on lvl 13 for shopping on lvl 10, zoom to level 10
- get flame shield, shop, temple, go to  lvl 11
- get ruby sword, go to lvl 12, get black crystal, Last Resort
- go to lvl 1, go to lvl 13, get ruby amulet, zoom back to lvl 10
- temple, go to dragon
- win

I did this route twice, both times I beat the dragon at level 6. Not sure if that was luck or not. I'm sure this isn't the best route either.

Some points I want to make:
- Deadeye is awesome, so is the Strength spell. They make the really tough fights a whole lot easier, especially the dragon. You can cast them on several characters, just one at a time.
- The Shield Spell saves SP in the long term, at least early before you have decent AC scores
- Mage offensive spells would be worthwhile if they didn't cost so much
- Strength (the stat) doesn't seem to do much, if anything, for thieves or mages
- AC of 16+ increases the odds the dragon will miss, but not a whole lot, so it's not really worth it. I think you'd need to get over 20 for it to matter at all.
- Through observation, holding a direction doesn't seem to give any benefit. If it does help, it's incredibly minor or it switches from battle to battle and not enemy to enemy.
- Ghosts eat your soul better than The Dragon eats your charred corpses

Attachment:

Swords and Serpents.fm2

feasel

Edit history:

feasel: 2012-08-20 08:29:04 am

2012-08-20 08:20:05 am

difficult and stupidly random

1:25:40
http://www.twitch.tv/feasel/b/329295059

Got trolled super-hard on the last few floors, with some random deaths and a bossfight that opened with a double-round of dragon attacks which decimated the party. Could have gotten about 1:22-ish without that nonsense.

Used 3 Mages 1 Warrior. I think I like the warrior slightly better than the thief. May be worth trying 2 Mages 2 Warriors. The advantage to only 1 warrior however is that you dont need to buy the +3 sword, so you can do the floor-7 death-warp thing without having to earn more gold with an extra trip to the non-secret part of floor 13. If i were to do 2 Warriors (or Warrior/Thief) I'd have to leave the thief with a sub-par weapon (e.g. Broadsword), just so i could do that floor-7 deathwarp and skip the floor-10 Armory.

Ended the game comfortably at experience level 7. If i can pull off level 6, i could skip the horseshoe, the brass key, and the backtracking to use the horseshoe. Maybe 5-7 minutes for those things, though the floor 13 fights (and possibly the dragon fight) would be slower. Still a substantial time savings.

Solairflaire is ever astute. Nice route indeed. I borrowed the idea of doing the ruby glasses between floors 5 and 6. I also borrowed the floor-7 deathwarp.

Sub 1:20:00 should be more than do-able. I expect if I did another run or two with the current strats I'd get it. Switching to the level-6 game-end or the 2-mage party (or both) have the potential to make 1:15:00 or even 1:10:00 within reach, assuming some good RNG. Will the game ever cut the HOUR? God only knows.

1:25:40
http://www.twitch.tv/feasel/b/329295059

Got trolled super-hard on the last few floors, with some random deaths and a bossfight that opened with a double-round of dragon attacks which decimated the party.  Could have gotten about 1:22-ish without that nonsense.

Used 3 Mages 1 Warrior.  I think I like the warrior slightly better than the thief.  May be worth trying 2 Mages 2 Warriors.  The advantage to only 1 warrior however is that you dont need to buy the +3 sword, so you can do the floor-7 death-warp thing without having to earn more gold with an extra trip to the non-secret part of floor 13.  If i were to do 2 Warriors (or Warrior/Thief) I'd have to leave the thief with a sub-par weapon (e.g. Broadsword), just so i could do that floor-7 deathwarp and skip the floor-10 Armory.

Ended the game comfortably at experience level 7.  If i can pull off level 6, i could skip the horseshoe, the brass key, and the backtracking to use the horseshoe.   Maybe 5-7 minutes for those things, though the floor 13 fights (and possibly the dragon fight) would be slower.  Still a substantial time savings.

Solairflaire is ever astute.  Nice route indeed.  I borrowed the idea of doing the ruby glasses between floors 5 and 6.  I also borrowed the floor-7 deathwarp.

Sub 1:20:00 should be more than do-able.  I expect if I did another run or two with the current strats I'd get it.  Switching to the level-6 game-end or the 2-mage party (or both) have the potential to make 1:15:00 or even 1:10:00 within reach, assuming some good RNG.  Will the game ever cut the HOUR?  God only knows.

PJ

2012-08-20 09:32:10 am

Is PJ

:O

feasel

Edit history:

feasel: 2012-08-21 12:26:52 am

2012-08-21 12:24:25 am

difficult and stupidly random

Got 1:10:10
http://www.twitch.tv/feasel/b/329378225
http://www.twitch.tv/feasel/b/329378298

Used 3 Mages 1 Warrior again. I like that combo. Died on Floor 13. If not for that I could have saved another 5-6 minutes. So it's looking like 1:05 is doable. Will the hour get cut?? Only time will tell.

Basically no grinding in this. Besides the fixed encounters, I try to kill only the enemies that can be killed about as fast as running away. Doing this you can easily reach experience level 4 before the old man on Floor 9 who gives you the 1000XP (which you use to reach level 5). Then you fight the fixed encounters on Floor 13 as a level-5 party, and earn level 6 by the time you've reached the Ruby Amulet (the four fixed encounters give you more than 400XP each). My old route would try to fight more enemies along the way to reach level 5 before the old man on Floor 9, then earn another 600XP to reach level 6 before charging up to do the Floor 13 fights. But all this extra XP earning costs time, and the fact is with 3 Mages in your party you should be able to beat the Floor 13 encounters at level 5 without too much trouble. Now doing Floor 13 at level 5 with only 2 Mages, that seems tough.

Got 1:10:10
http://www.twitch.tv/feasel/b/329378225
http://www.twitch.tv/feasel/b/329378298

Used 3 Mages 1 Warrior again.  I like that combo.  Died on Floor 13.  If not for that I could have saved another 5-6 minutes.   So it's looking like 1:05 is doable.  Will the hour get cut??  Only time will tell.

Basically no grinding in this.  Besides the fixed encounters, I try to kill only the enemies that can be killed about as fast as running away.  Doing this you can easily reach experience level 4 before the old man on Floor 9 who gives you the 1000XP (which you use to reach level 5).  Then you fight the fixed encounters on Floor 13 as a level-5 party, and earn level 6 by the time you've reached the Ruby Amulet (the four fixed encounters give you more than 400XP each).  My old route would try to fight more enemies along the way to reach level 5 before the old man on Floor 9, then earn another 600XP to reach level 6 before charging up to do the Floor 13 fights.  But all this extra XP earning costs time, and the fact is with 3 Mages in your party you should be able to beat the Floor 13 encounters at level 5 without too much trouble.  Now doing Floor 13 at level 5 with only 2 Mages, that seems tough.

dram55

2012-08-21 10:38:12 am

Will this game cut the hour?

feasel

2012-08-21 11:06:53 am

difficult and stupidly random

Inquiring minds want to know

UraniumAnchor

2012-08-21 01:02:02 pm

Not a walrus

Sounds feaselable.

ZenicReverie

2012-08-21 11:10:25 pm

Waiting hurts my soul...

I'm sure you've thought about it, but does four mages not work? I don't see it mentioned.

feasel

2012-08-22 01:34:12 am

difficult and stupidly random

Tried 4 Mages. The battles take forever. Add one theif and you can equip him with a weapon that gives him 3 hits per round. Add one warrior and he's got a weapon that does 4 hits per round and their hits are about 3-4 times better than those of the mages. So that's a big gain in damage for sacrificing a little bit a of magic. Also beyond 3 Mages there doesn't seem to be the need for any additional magic. You get magic refilled so often.

It's a good idea tho, and it's what lead me to the 3 mage configuration