EarthBound

2008-12-19 12:05:15 pm

D:

I'm on the last segment now. If I included the run I recorded last night, the total time of all the segment videos would be around 4:45:30. I'm going to try to get a better run and shave off a minute or two, but I think I may take a break for now and work on deinterlacing/joining the previous segments instead. I'm guessing the final video will be under 4:40 after I cut out the title screens (which eat up about 10 seconds per segment).

Obviously, my estimate from a few months ago about how difficult it would be to get under 5 hours was completely wrong. This makes me nervous about how acceptable this run is, but I don't really feel like starting the run over at the moment, so I'm not going to worry about it.

Also, this.

Mickey_Mage

2008-12-19 05:20:06 pm

Glitching EB 1 flying man at a time

That's a very good time actually, and it'll cut down a lot taking out the opening screens. I think we knew under 5 would be possible, but this is way under. I'm sure it'll be accepted, but we'll see soon enough. Do all the times in each segment include the power on to selecting the file, or just the select file screen?

Also, to the picture, wtf? lol

__sdfg

2008-12-20 07:35:07 am

D:

The time is (sum of)(power on to power off for each segment). I have not yet tried to come up with more accurate times.

Floogal

2008-12-21 11:56:28 pm

I'm looking forward to this. Sorry I haven't been helping with your route-planning, but I've been busy doing other things.

As for the glitch picture, it probably has to do with the attack that finished off Giygas phase II. I remember once defeating that form with the first blast of PSI Thunder, and after Pokey's second speech, another blast from the same attack hit, causing the same weird-font text.

The game seems to have trouble dealing with death actions.
e.g. 1) Clumsy Robot
- give reflective shields to both Ness and Jeff
- inflict enough damage to Clumsy Robot so that reflected missile damage finishes it off
- When the Clumsy Robot fires its missile, the first person hit will defeat it with the reflection, causing the Runaway Five "text-scene" to occur, and then the other person will get hit and reflect back to Clumsy Robot, causing the Runaway Five "text-scene" to occur again.
- Oh, and you get double experience, too.
e.g. 2) Enemy with explosive death action
- You can both lose and win the fight at the same time.

I'm looking forward to this.  Sorry I haven't been helping with your route-planning, but I've been busy doing other things.

As for the glitch picture, it probably has to do with the attack that finished off Giygas phase II.  I remember once defeating that form with the first blast of PSI Thunder, and after Pokey's second speech, another blast from the same attack hit, causing the same weird-font text.

The game seems to have trouble dealing with death actions.
e.g. 1) Clumsy Robot
- give reflective shields to both Ness and Jeff
- inflict enough damage to Clumsy Robot so that reflected missile damage finishes it off
- When the Clumsy Robot fires its missile, the first person hit will defeat it with the reflection, causing the Runaway Five "text-scene" to occur, and then the other person will get hit and reflect back to Clumsy Robot, causing the Runaway Five "text-scene" to occur again.
- [url=http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=y9XlJ2rwbJY]Oh, and you get double experience, too.[/url]
e.g. 2) Enemy with explosive death action
- [url=http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=4yPVBE7BWNU]You can both lose and win the fight at the same time.[/url]

__sdfg

2008-12-31 07:23:24 pm

D:

Meh. Your contributions to the discussions from a couple years ago were helpful enough.

I have encoded video now. I'm going to see if I've got a good enough mic lying around to get a few other people to help with the audio commentary, and then hopefully submit it within the next few days. The video is 4:38:14 after joining the segments together... dunno what the official time will be yet (I'm not clear on exactly when the timing should end in each segment).

Fingers crossed.

Mickey_Mage

2008-12-31 10:27:27 pm

Glitching EB 1 flying man at a time

Not 100% sure on this, but I think time ends right after you hit the End option when on the phone (maybe you have to read the text, too, but you could probably just shut off the system after saying end?).

If it's 4:38 adding all the times together, it might be below 4:30, who knows. If not, I'm sure it's still an incredible run.

Thank you so very much for making this run. It's not one of those RPGs you take lightly, and think you can just zoom through easily. All the planning and discussion of this from me and several others (mostly floogal and Ampharos, since they know more technical stuff in the game than I do) has finally paid off in a run that has been needed for awhile now.

Oh, and Happy New Year to everyone on the East coast!!

Red_Shifter

2009-01-29 12:40:34 am

yes, an iron knuckle riding a mechanical horse

I read that the run got through verification. I look forward to seeing it.

jam287

Edit history:

jam287: 2009-01-29 02:27:14 am

2009-01-29 02:19:02 am

It's a good run. While verifying though I made some notes of things that I think could be used in future runs. This stuff might have been discussed already in this thread but I haven't looked at every page so I don't know.

-Using skip sandwiches and teleport to walk faster. These methods are only used a few times to skip enemies or move fast in areas where you walk slower than normal, however I don't see a problem with using them as much as possible. Teleport doesn't use much PP and I think the runner had enough PP to use it more than he did. Item space wasn't an issue either so holding multiple skip sandwiches would be easy. Money to buy skip sandwiches only seems to be a problem early on.
-Abuse of the teddy bear glitch or rock candy glitch or whatever. Even if it's just on that one boss where the runner used the bomb once but could have used it again, it would save time.
-Arranging items in such a way that new items that are picked up that will be given immediately to other party members goes their automatically because Ness's inventory is full. I know this won't save much time and probably would be very hard to try to work out, but in this run Ness's inventory is almost completely full the whole time.
-Having characters be dead while fighting fights where only one or two people are needed to fight like Paula and Jeff would save time instead of having them defend. Once again this is probably too hard to pull off but it could be useful in other places besides the ending.
-Change everybody's name to a single letter or symbol. Saves a small amount of time but is easy to do. (I'm sure this has been discussed, but I think it should be done to try to save as much time as possible on any future runs)
-Fight some enemies instead of spending a lot of time avoiding them (such as in water when your movement is slowed). A few places it looked like this might have been faster.

Some of these things might not be time savers at all, but the one about using skip sandwiches and teleport more often seems like common sense to me.

Also the commentary was good, but everything besides the banter between you and your friends was listed in your comments as well so it's redundant to read/listen to them both.

It's a good run.  While verifying though I made some notes of things that I think could be used in future runs.  This stuff might have been discussed already in this thread but I haven't looked at every page so I don't know.

-Using skip sandwiches and teleport to walk faster.  These methods are only used a few times to skip enemies or move fast in areas where you walk slower than normal, however I don't see a problem with using them as much as possible.  Teleport doesn't use much PP and I think the runner had enough PP to use it more than he did.  Item space wasn't an issue either so holding multiple skip sandwiches would be easy.  Money to buy skip sandwiches only seems to be a problem early on.
-Abuse of the teddy bear glitch or rock candy glitch or whatever.  Even if it's just on that one boss where the runner used the bomb once but could have used it again, it would save time.
-Arranging items in such a way that new items that are picked up that will be given immediately to other party members goes their automatically because Ness's inventory is full.  I know this won't save much time and probably would be very hard to try to work out, but in this run Ness's inventory is almost completely full the whole time.
-Having characters be dead while fighting fights where only one or two people are needed to fight like Paula and Jeff would save time instead of having them defend.  Once again this is probably too hard to pull off but it could be useful in other places besides the ending.
-Change everybody's name to a single letter or symbol.  Saves a small amount of time but is easy to do.  (I'm sure this has been discussed, but I think it should be done to try to save as much time as possible on any future runs)
-Fight some enemies instead of spending a lot of time avoiding them (such as in water when your movement is slowed).  A few places it looked like this might have been faster.

Some of these things might not be time savers at all, but the one about using skip sandwiches and teleport more often seems like common sense to me.

Also the commentary was good, but everything besides the banter between you and your friends was listed in your comments as well so it's redundant to read/listen to them both.

Red_Shifter

2009-01-29 09:35:07 pm

yes, an iron knuckle riding a mechanical horse

Quote from jam287:

-Using skip sandwiches and teleport to walk faster. These methods are only used a few times to skip enemies or move fast in areas where you walk slower than normal, however I don't see a problem with using them as much as possible. Teleport doesn't use much PP and I think the runner had enough PP to use it more than he did. Item space wasn't an issue either so holding multiple skip sandwiches would be easy. Money to buy skip sandwiches only seems to be a problem early on.

The TAS doesn't use either of those things (except in areas where you walk slower than normal). This makes me think that it doesn't save enough time to be worthwhile, but I haven't actually tested that out. It doesn't make sense that the TAS would skip out on teleporting where it was worth it, considering how much other work was done...

Quote from jam287:

-Having characters be dead while fighting fights where only one or two people are needed to fight like Paula and Jeff would save time instead of having them defend. Once again this is probably too hard to pull off but it could be useful in other places besides the ending.

This is probably more trouble than it's worth. Losing a character means you need to get some money, then go to the hospital and pay for treatment. You could also use revival items.

Quote from jam287:

-Change everybody's name to a single letter or symbol. Saves a small amount of time but is easy to do. (I'm sure this has been discussed, but I think it should be done to try to save as much time as possible on any future runs)

It could probably save some time, but it's not worth having another run with this change alone. Either way, the player name should be sacrificed since it takes too long to type in.

[quote="jam287"]-Using skip sandwiches and teleport to walk faster.  These methods are only used a few times to skip enemies or move fast in areas where you walk slower than normal, however I don't see a problem with using them as much as possible.  Teleport doesn't use much PP and I think the runner had enough PP to use it more than he did.  Item space wasn't an issue either so holding multiple skip sandwiches would be easy.  Money to buy skip sandwiches only seems to be a problem early on.[/quote]
The TAS doesn't use either of those things (except in areas where you walk slower than normal).  This makes me think that it doesn't save enough time to be worthwhile, but I haven't actually tested that out.  It doesn't make sense that the TAS would skip out on teleporting where it was worth it, considering how much other work was done...

[quote="jam287"]-Having characters be dead while fighting fights where only one or two people are needed to fight like Paula and Jeff would save time instead of having them defend.  Once again this is probably too hard to pull off but it could be useful in other places besides the ending.[/quote]
This is probably more trouble than it's worth.  Losing a character means you need to get some money, then go to the hospital and pay for treatment.  You could also use revival items.

[quote="jam287"]-Change everybody's name to a single letter or symbol.  Saves a small amount of time but is easy to do.  (I'm sure this has been discussed, but I think it should be done to try to save as much time as possible on any future runs)[/quote]
It could probably save some time, but it's not worth having another run with this change alone.  Either way, the player name should be sacrificed since it takes too long to type in.

Mickey_Mage

2009-01-30 01:35:50 pm

Glitching EB 1 flying man at a time

That's what I was thinking, too. The TAS didn't use a lot of those things mentioned, and that run has been improved a couple times already. So, you would think obvious stuff like this would be used, but like Shifter said, the time lost isn't worth it (especially the death thing, that's just pointless in a speedrun of this game, other than the end). Even if there is room to buy the extra skip sandwiches, some places are out of the way to buy them, and also the money issue in the beginning of the game, where you need them the most. There are also not THAT many places you would need them before acquiring teleport anyway (other than what was used).

Also, the teleport idea isn't that useful except in slower areas; because the time it takes to recover from the crash into a wall or building in cities or whatnot, doesn't make up for the time to use it really. At least, that's my take on it.

__sdfg

2009-01-30 02:12:13 pm

D:

I might as well weigh in on some of this stuff while I still remember what I'm doing. In no particular order...

When I was working on the Lost Underworld segment, I found that if I tried to teleport everywhere, rather than walking a little through the tight spots, I didn't go any faster than when I teleported only to avoid enemies. Between this and the beginning of the pyramid segment (teleporting to avoid enemies was slower than the attempts where I could just walk there), I came to the conclusion that you need to go through almost the full length of the teleport to make up for the crash recovery. I don't think it's worth it to use the teleport trick unless your normal walking speed has been significantly retarded or you're trying to dodge fights. At best, you'd save a second or two for every teleport, and I doubt you'd have enough opportunity to shave off as much as a minute off the full run.
I might've saved some time if I'd loaded up on Skip Sandwich DXs in Toto instead of just buying one. Since they make you walk twice as fast, I estimate that they cut about 20 seconds off of any continuous period of walking (or at least 15-ish). They wouldn't have done much in the pyramid, but they would've shortened Dungeon Man. A future run might want to look for other places where it'd be convenient to take a detour and pick up a whole lot of them at once. This has promise than the teleport trick, in my opinion.
Changing everyone's name to a single character would save at least a couple minutes. It saves about a 20th of a second every time someone's name is printed, which happens a lot. I didn't care for this idea much when I first heard of it, but honestly, it's the easiest way to save time and any future run should probably use it.
The problem with killing characters off intentionally isn't that it'd take too long to revive them, at least not at the end of the game when you're stopping by sanctuaries on a regular basis and you have high-level healing powers. The problem is that convincing an enemy to kill off the specific character you want would probably take more time than you'd gain from having them dead. I don't think this one's worth it. Could be wrong, though.
"Starbucks Cares" is a (very) inside joke from an (ostensibly) EarthBound-related forum I used to frequent several years ago. If you were in my position, you'd understand that I couldn't have possibly put anything else there. That said, future runs should name the player "A".
I really, truly wanted to set things up so that items would automatically go into the proper person's inventory as I got them, but it ended up being too much work. I think you'd end up moving the item reorganization from after you get the item(s) to before, netting a time savings of zero. It doesn't help that a lot of enemies at the beginning of the game drop Cookies and other garbage.
The Teddy bear/Bomb glitch I had might be reproducible, but it seems like it'd be tough to me. I guess it might be worth trying to get it to happen against the Mondo Mole again, especially if the Teddy bear is semi-guaranteed to die when the Mole attacks it (haven't checked this myself).

Also, lol, "retarded."

I might as well weigh in on some of this stuff while I still remember what I'm doing.  In no particular order...

[list]
[li]When I was working on the Lost Underworld segment, I found that if I tried to teleport everywhere, rather than walking a little through the tight spots, I didn't go any faster than when I teleported only to avoid enemies.  Between this and the beginning of the pyramid segment (teleporting to avoid enemies was slower than the attempts where I could just walk there), I came to the conclusion that you need to go through almost the full length of the teleport to make up for the crash recovery.  I don't think it's worth it to use the teleport trick unless your normal walking speed has been significantly retarded or you're trying to dodge fights.  At best, you'd save a second or two for every teleport, and I doubt you'd have enough opportunity to shave off as much as a minute off the full run.[/li]
[li]I might've saved some time if I'd loaded up on Skip Sandwich DXs in Toto instead of just buying one.  Since they make you walk twice as fast, I estimate that they cut about 20 seconds off of any continuous period of walking (or at least 15-ish).  They wouldn't have done much in the pyramid, but they would've shortened Dungeon Man.  A future run might want to look for other places where it'd be convenient to take a detour and pick up a whole lot of them at once.  This has promise than the teleport trick, in my opinion.[/li]
[li]Changing everyone's name to a single character would save at least a couple minutes.  It saves about a 20th of a second every time someone's name is printed, which happens [i]a lot[/i].  I didn't care for this idea much when I first heard of it, but honestly, it's the easiest way to save time and any future run should probably use it.[/li]
[li]The problem with killing characters off intentionally isn't that it'd take too long to revive them, at least not at the end of the game when you're stopping by sanctuaries on a regular basis and you have high-level healing powers.  The problem is that convincing an enemy to kill off the specific character you want would probably take more time than you'd gain from having them dead.  I don't think this one's worth it.  Could be wrong, though.[/li]
[li]"Starbucks Cares" is a (very) inside joke from an (ostensibly) EarthBound-related forum I used to frequent several years ago.  If you were in my position, you'd understand that I couldn't have possibly put anything else there.  That said, future runs should name the player "A".[/li]
[li]I really, truly wanted to set things up so that items would automatically go into the proper person's inventory as I got them, but it ended up being too much work.  I think you'd end up moving the item reorganization from after you get the item(s) to before, netting a time savings of zero.  It doesn't help that a lot of enemies at the beginning of the game drop Cookies and other garbage.[/li]
[li]The Teddy bear/Bomb glitch I had might be reproducible, but it seems like it'd be tough to me.  I guess it might be worth trying to get it to happen against the Mondo Mole again, especially if the Teddy bear is semi-guaranteed to die when the Mole attacks it (haven't checked this myself).[/li]
[/list]

Also, lol, "retarded."

Nitrodon

2009-01-30 03:06:25 pm

In an area with normal walking speed, teleport crashing will save less than 15 frames per teleport in a TAS under completely optimal conditions. There's no way it could possibly save any time on console.

jam287

2009-01-30 08:16:15 pm

Quote from Nitrodon:

In an area with normal walking speed, teleport crashing will save less than 15 frames per teleport in a TAS under completely optimal conditions. There's no way it could possibly save any time on console.

Ok but what about using skip sandwiches more often?

Nitrodon

2009-01-30 10:31:04 pm

Skip Sandwiches (normal and DX) double your walking speed for 5 and 10 seconds respectively. Normal Skip Sandwiches are barely not worth the time it takes to buy and use them (unless you use them to avoid enemies or glitch through a wall), but they are worth picking up from presents. Buying and using a Skip Sandwich DX will save a few seconds overall.

Rainman7

2009-01-31 02:43:57 am

Yea. Teleporting is a difficult thing to do. THere are lots of obstacles which may stop you one after another leading to large tracts of time lost. However, the benefit surely outweighs the risk. You can move around VERY fast in the underworld if you plot your movement points accordingly. I am watching the TAS now ..(fun one to watch) Anyways, if you watch the Halamantariel run, he shows the perfect routes to take to get to the fire cavern to face the Carbon/diamond dog. Unfortunately, it seems that dinosaurs have strange respawn points from game to game, rendering any routes potentially unsafe. Maybe you'll get lucky!

Rainman7

2009-01-31 02:47:53 am

Quote from Nitrodon:

In an area with normal walking speed, teleport crashing will save less than 15 frames per teleport in a TAS under completely optimal conditions. There's no way it could possibly save any time on console.

Oh it's Nitrodon. Nice work on your earthbound tas run, I watch it quite a bit. Smiley

DoubleThink

2009-01-31 03:17:37 am

There's a word for that

Doesn't/didn't excessive teleporting cause some kind of memory leak that can potentially muck the game up in nasty ways?

Mickey_Mage

2009-01-31 04:44:05 pm

Glitching EB 1 flying man at a time

With the suggestions mentioned that would be beneficial to use in future runs, cutting down only a couple of minutes from this run tops is not much. Considering the luck it takes to do a lot of places in this game, and considering how lucky _sdfg was in this run throughout (VERY lucky in some spots), even if you do some of these other tricks suggested in a new run, unless you can match, or even beat some of the segments' times, good luck improving this time by more than maybe 2 min. tops.

Basically what I'm saying here is, try weighing the effort it takes against the amount of time you'll save :p. If you're bold enough, go for it though, but good freakin' luck.

Mickey_Mage

2009-02-13 09:12:33 am

Glitching EB 1 flying man at a time

Wow, look at that time! That's much less than 4:30. Shocked

I still think it will take a huge breakthrough to be worth improving this; because once that happens, sub-4:00 could be pulled off. For right now, though, I'm so glad there is finally a run up of this wonderful game, and what a run it is, too.

Rainman7

2009-02-13 02:44:56 pm

HELL YES

__sdfg

2009-02-13 04:50:18 pm

D:

Mike said that the timing should stop when Paula prays for the last time against Giygas, which basically cuts off the entire ending. That accounts for 16 of the 25 minutes that are ignored by the official time. I think most of the rest is save dialogue.

4:00 is probably doable without any big breakthroughs, but it'd really suck getting there. :|

getter77

2009-02-14 07:11:02 am

100% runs=great to watch

Awesome run, made my afternoon yesterday. Thanks and congrats on this fine achievement! 8)

SkratMan

2009-02-14 12:10:43 pm

[+--oo] In control since '86

Well done, _sdfg. It was great to watch and for a 4:30 run there's very, very little to complain about. This is one of the runs I've been looking forward to since I discovered this site years ago, and it didn't fail to entertain and appease.

I AM gonna make fun of your regional accent, though. Show me on a can of Coca Cola where it says the word 'pop' and I'll give you five dollars. Grin

tycho102

2009-02-14 12:31:13 pm

Some people think they can outsmart me.

I never played this one, but it does look kind of interesting. There's a lot of character (atmosphere) to the "old" games. The ambient sound effects (telephone ringing, doors, sirens) are almost distracting. I can't imagine what the hell occured when if you were playing it in the living room with loud TV volume. I wouldn't be surprised if headphone sales jumped just after release.

Mickey_Mage

2009-02-14 04:45:45 pm

Glitching EB 1 flying man at a time

Well, if 4 hours is still possible, then that would take an insane amount of luck either way. Not every place can be improved by that much, from what I could see. In my verifier comments I don't think I mentioned much that would really improve too too much time, but I guess at least 6-7 min could be possible IF someone got extremely luck, and used some insane tactics perfectly, as well as got very little encounters.