Crystals For Life 2014 - Practice Thread

2014-03-24 05:09:45 am

Fucking Weeaboo

Did some practice runs the other day of FF III super glitched. A few times I managed a game over (which is even more bizarre than the glitch itself), but I not only got a run successfully, but made a safety save file in the process I could use if the run happens.

The Crystal Bearers I need to practice yet if that run happens as well.

LOM is still solid. Faerie was a golden 2:07 new WR. Still figuring out notes though for commentators.

rinimt

Edit history:

rinimt: 2014-03-24 06:51:47 am

2014-03-24 06:50:55 am

Kupo!

I recently did a run through of Star Ocean 4 with PotatoHandle and Karmagith commentating with me and got a 3:19, though we only did names the initial time and didn't change them. I also went and forgot an item that ended up losing me about 5 minutes. I'll be doing a run with KeyPaladin in a couple weekends for practice commentary.

As for the games I offered as fillers, Dragon Fantasy Book (Intermission M) is currently sitting at 3 minutes for a run (5 minutes if I don't use the speedup button) and I did a Crisis Core run that finished 1 minute over my current PB after having not finished a full run on the NA version in about 10 months.

Gaël

2014-03-24 07:16:16 am

Quote from Sir VG:

Did some practice runs the other day of FF III super glitched. A few times I managed a game over (which is even more bizarre than the glitch itself), but I not only got a run successfully, but made a safety save file in the process I could use if the run happens.

How did you die ? on land turtle I suppose, didn't you use the southwinds ? did they do extremely low damage ?
Maybe you had encounters on the second room, but you shouldn't have any if you're doing encounters manipulation before "new game"
you could watch the run I did last summer ( http://www.twitch.tv/gaeldemarseille/c/2891975 ) this run is horrible, because of my sloppy menuing but I believbe it's the fastest way to beat the game (using SDA-timing), it requires to set the step counter before new game then reset (not power off), you can do this on Wii with the reset option on the home menu

Sir VG

2014-03-24 08:00:30 am

Fucking Weeaboo

For some reason, the glitch sometimes triggers the ending, and sometimes it triggers a game over. It's completely bizarre.

Poxnor

2014-03-30 04:19:44 pm

Moo! Flap! Hug!

Yikes, only a month to go! I've been a negligent dictator in not practicing enough myself.

FFA: I've come up with a better general scheme for the final boss' movement pattern. I just have to transform the general approach into a solid, reproducible result. With only a month to go, I know what I'm streaming tonight!

Tide

2014-03-30 07:57:45 pm

Insanity Prelude

I've started practice some time back in December of 2013 and basically chopped my time down from 6 hours then to a consistent 5:30-ish. Got some new movement strats and hit 5:15 last week which is my current PB.

Trying not to burn myself out though. Will probably still do some weekly practice, but might start to scale things back a little.

Raelcun

2014-03-30 08:07:47 pm

We require more minerals

I found a new skip in Toal's route while practicing Ys Origin.

I"ve found new and more interesting ways for Chrono Cross to troll me... I'm looking forward to the betting pool on how many times I have to run away from boss fights during the marathon.

Sir VG

2014-03-30 10:19:53 pm

Fucking Weeaboo

Faerie runs trolled me today. Horrible RNG on an equipment drop 20 minutes in. And since a 12.5% chance of a drop occurs regardless of the storyline, please have some duct tape on hand. Tongue

Vulajin

Edit history:

Vulajin: 2014-04-01 09:35:57 pm

2014-03-31 11:10:42 pm

Okay, so, Pokemon White 2 RNG on console turns out to be stupidly awful. So here's my backup plan: I'm going to give myself five attempts to generate a perfect starter using RNG manipulation. If I fail the manipulation 5 times, I'll have a backup cart with a preconfigured file. Each attempt takes around 2 minutes, so that's 10 minutes of attempting a trick to start the run. This is the only sensitive spot in the run, so even if I take all five attempts I should still be fine to come in under estimate. I'll be practicing the manipulation literally every day until the marathon to try to avoid using the backup.

(edit) The backup file is going to need to be set up with the correct trainer gender, trainer name, rival name, and starter name, so those four donation incentives will need to be closed well in advance of my run (by 2-3 hours or so). I've made a note to that effect in the donation incentives thread.

Sir VG

2014-04-05 04:55:33 am

Fucking Weeaboo

Did practice on both The Crystal Bearers and FF III yesterday.

FFIII: Glitch lead to a game over again (stupid game), but the backup save worked like a charm. So I'm covered just in case the game trolls.

TCB: Given I haven't played in months, I did my best SS attempt yet, finishing with 4:11:19 (10 minutes behind my segmented run and about 6 minutes behind the current best SS time by zewing). This is even despite one reset. Though depending on how long the other three minigames take, I may need to bump up my estimate a bit, since real time was about 4:18. I'll work on figuring that out later today. (I did lose about 5 minutes real time due to that reset.)

Vulajin

2014-04-06 02:18:07 pm

So I've been spending huge amounts of time working on Pokémon White 2 RNG. I've picked up an extra cart, so I am prepared to set up the backup file. I've also finally found a setup where it looks like I will be able to more consistently get the starter I need. I'll continue trying this setup out and make sure everything is okay. I'll also be doing some real console practice now that I actually feel confident in the manipulation.

Caracarn

2014-04-07 01:17:07 am

7:49:14 FF7 with probably 10+ minutes of mistakes. I'll be grinding out FF7 runs this whole month so I should be good to go by marathon time.

Tide

2014-04-07 06:25:58 am

Insanity Prelude

Spent like 40 minutes yesterday practicing a Kaizo-esque jump. It's particularly nasty because it appears I have less than a second to verify whether or not I can make that jump in one shot. Also, found out I need some extra files that I no longer have when I was doing segmented to practice action bits.

rinimt

2014-04-07 06:42:25 am

Kupo!

Went through Dragon Fantasy Book real quick last night to verify my marathon route. Worked out well once I remembered I couldn't capture two of the same thing for my party (regularly I only grab one creature and go, but it increases the death chance on the last boss a fair bit depending on luck of who he hits). Tongue

Will be doing some offstream SO4 within the next couple weeks to practice the marathon route (the newest SS route has some extremely not marathon safe sections).

FFgamer86

2014-04-07 03:45:42 pm

SDA Speedruns: 1

Mystic Quest Practice all done. Going to do a couple of Suikoden runs this week to get that route all caught up and finalized and then switch over to FFX-2. Already got the save file for that so all that is needed is to optimize the items I have to make the run a slight bit quicker.

Tide

2014-04-10 07:03:39 pm

Insanity Prelude

WELP disc failed on me tonight. Going to try and get another before the event, but this means I won'e get to practice for at least a week and a half

Vulajin

2014-04-12 08:33:04 pm

Final update about Pokémon White 2 RNG: I have legitimately learned how to do this. I have accomplished the manipulation on the first or second attempt every day since Tuesday. Today I got on the first attempt in a practice run. I feel fully confident that I can perform this live during the marathon, but for my own safety I'm going to recommend we still cut off the name/gender bid wars early so I can set up a backup file.

So yeah, my practice run today. Over the course of the week I have practiced the first three gyms several times, and those all went great during my run. I haven't gotten around to focused practice on the remaining gyms...so those all went spectacularly, amazingly wrong. I lost 10 minutes getting killed repeatedly by one of the hardest fights in the game (I would lose less time in the marathon due to having a safety save before him). There were also huge gobs of time lost to other things that would easily have been remedied by having practiced recently. Since I have nothing but time to practice this game at the moment, I'm confident that I will get to where I want to be.

Final update about Pokémon White 2 RNG: I have legitimately learned how to do this. I have accomplished the manipulation on the first or second attempt every day since Tuesday. Today I got on the first attempt in a practice run. I feel fully confident that I can perform this live during the marathon, but for my own safety I'm going to recommend we still cut off the name/gender bid wars early so I can set up a backup file.

So yeah, my practice run today. Over the course of the week I have practiced the first three gyms several times, and those all went great during my run. I haven't gotten around to focused practice on the remaining gyms...so those all went spectacularly, amazingly wrong. I lost 10 minutes getting killed repeatedly by one of the hardest fights in the game (I would lose less time in the marathon due to having a safety save before him). There were also huge gobs of time lost to other things that would easily have been remedied by having practiced recently. Since I have nothing but time to practice this game at the moment, I'm confident that I will get to where I want to be.

FFgamer86

2014-04-13 12:06:20 am

SDA Speedruns: 1

Pokemon runs are always fun to watch since they are so impressive when things go right and understandable how easy it is to lose time on a run.

Practice Update for FFX-2: Got a 2:57:51. First Sub 3 so I am happy about that. Still had some mistakes I could work out, and then I want to check some alternate ideas to save a little time here and there. Overall, I think the run is going really well.

Sir VG

Edit history:

Sir VG: 2014-04-13 09:13:23 am

2014-04-13 03:39:12 am

Fucking Weeaboo

Practiced FF3 yesterday on an emulator. I think I figured out why I was messing up to cause me to always game over. I used a translation patch to get items so I can better explain my actions during the run. Can't wait to run this game. It'll blow people's minds.

Edit: Tested my notes on console. Worked fine. I think I should be fine now I'm pretty sure I figured out what was casing things to go serious wrong at the end.

rinimt

Edit history:

rinimt: 2014-04-15 10:36:35 am

2014-04-13 01:04:25 pm

Kupo!

Did a run through of the first half of SO4 (well, roughly the first half) and got a 1:27ish which was about +5 on my current PB. A lot of this was mainly due in part to the fact my PB has an absolutely amazing Cardianon and I just kept running into enemies or getting bad luck on where they spawned. Didn't help that a boss trolled me. Tongue

I also went about +1:30ish on the first split, but there's new strats (which are marathon strats anyways) that aren't accounted for there plus hitting two encounters.

The run also pulled off a gold split despite forgetting to go make something that is part of new strats/marathon safety from old (pb) route on that split (which wasted a good minute or two). The split was also gold by about 51 seconds too so... yeah.

Will be doing more runs over the next couple weeks (including one with Spud commentary while he's here) to get this all nailed down and so I don't start making dumb mistakes. Hey, on the bright side though, least I didn't forget to grab Mindflare this time!

Edit 4/15/2014: Did a few runs of Dragon Fantasy Book testing a crazy idea I had and finished 3/3 runs with it. PB for the game is now under 3 minutes. Will be doing more testing to see if the route is indeed marathon safe.

Did a run through of the first half of SO4 (well, roughly the first half) and got a 1:27ish which was about +5 on my current PB. A lot of this was mainly due in part to the fact my PB has an absolutely amazing Cardianon and I just kept running into enemies or getting bad luck on where they spawned. Didn't help that a boss trolled me. :P I also went about +1:30ish on the first split, but there's new strats (which are marathon strats anyways) that aren't accounted for there plus hitting two encounters.

The run also pulled off a gold split [i]despite[/i] forgetting to go make something that is part of new strats/marathon safety from old (pb) route on that split (which wasted a good minute or two). The split was also gold by about 51 seconds too so... yeah.

Will be doing more runs over the next couple weeks (including one with Spud commentary while he's here) to get this all nailed down and so I don't start making dumb mistakes. Hey, on the bright side though, least I didn't forget to grab Mindflare this time!

Edit 4/15/2014: Did a few runs of Dragon Fantasy Book testing a crazy idea I had and finished 3/3 runs with it. PB for the game is now under 3 minutes. Will be doing more testing to see if the route is indeed marathon safe.

Vulajin

2014-04-20 04:33:58 pm

Another update! Yesterday I did an all-day stream, during which I played Pokémon White 2 in the middle of the day (in other words, after 5 hours of other speedruns). I managed RNG manipulation quickly and came in way under estimate at 3:41:18. I still made some dumb mistakes, one of which required a reset and re-fighting a gym leader, but these will be resolved with further practice. I still have plenty of time to practice, so I'm very confident that this run will go well.

puwexil

2014-04-21 12:42:25 pm

Professional Second Banana

Improved my FF6 Glitchless 100% PB to 6:52:07 yesterday (new PB by 19 minutes), so I'm definitely ready to go with that; and got a 2:22:14 IoG 100% on Saturday (2 unintentional deaths on the 1st boss, but otherwise decent for a no-reset run - about 5 minutes behind my PB).

Have not yet completed a full KH2 run with the latest strats, though I hope to in the next few days.

UraniumAnchor

2014-04-26 08:31:11 pm

Not a walrus

Well I haven't been able to put in as much Crystalis practice as I'd like but I managed to get a few runs done last night, and the worst of which, where I died five times in spectacularly stupid fashions, it was still 1:20, so I think I'm good. Right now my best is 1:11:47, which I got on Monday. I can't remember if I mentioned it but I think I'd rather just do 100% rather than make it a bid war, but I suppose we can make it a challenge instead. Friday night gives it plenty of time to reach the goal.

I'll put in some more practice tonight if I can wake myself up.

AlecK47

2014-04-26 09:20:35 pm

I'm basically good to go. Still not completely happy with my Therum consistency, but that's kinda like Metropolis in Sonic 2 where perfection is unlikely even if you know what you're doing. Otherwise the only inconsistencies are with the game, and Mass Effect, like any BioWare game, has a reputation for glitchiness. All in all I'm pretty confident. In hindsight I wish I would have practiced with a more aggressive build, but it's a bit late for that and I am pretty much guaranteed to be 20 minutes under the current estimate anyway, so the potential for another thirty seconds isn't the most important thing in the world.

Sir VG

2014-04-26 11:38:42 pm

Fucking Weeaboo

Practiced the last route for Legend of Mana. Jumi Storyline in 2:37. Yeah, I'm fine.

See you in a couple of days.