Fall 2014 SNES Final Fantasy Relay Race (September 13th, 2014)

2014-07-02 02:43:18 pm

Hey guys!

Since the topic came up in my stream yesterday, I wanted to ask if there are certain plans for the banner.

We still have 2 months to go and I understand that puwexil was busy with SGDQ until now, but it's never to early to start raising awareness and hype for the relay.

You guys already had an amazing banner for the last one, so I guess we can just use that again and just change the date?

@Neerm As long as all runners get screwed equally the race will still be close. Tongue

JK, just gotta safety save it up whenever possible and hope for the best.

puwexil

Edit history:

puwexil: 2014-07-03 12:13:40 am

2014-07-03 12:08:32 am

Professional Second Banana

Yeah, just got back yesterday and playing catch-up - if anyone has ideas for new banner themes let me know - I'll hit up my artist friends in the next week or two.

Also, with how much HappySquid has been tearing up FF5 lately, I'm going to switch Essentia and LCC to try to keep the teams balanced (and encourage FeralPigMan and Essentia to put their differences aside and work together after FPM's support of Demon Chocobo at SGDQ Wink

).

Dream Team: Neerrm, Deln, Dreamboum
Team 2 (needs a name!): crumps2, Incalex, LCC
Team Ultros Boogie: FeralPigMan, HappySquid, Essentia
Team Y Burn: Khobahi, Jenja, eLmaGus

Deuceler

2014-07-03 07:42:35 am

SPEEDruns not SAFEruns

Team 2 should be called Team NoCash

but really Team Hydra is a given

eLmaGus-

2014-07-05 07:02:05 am

I must simply laugh.

About the team switching:

all FF5 runners are on equal footing imo, no need to switch teams. All 4 runners are capable of the time HappySquid got, and im pretty sure all 4 runners are gonna practice enough to manipulate as far as Happy did in his PB.

Also Team Hydra(Game Over) sounds good to me (HI ALEX)!

HappySquid

2014-07-05 08:07:38 am

I have to agree with magus on that. The big time difference comes from executing step-manipulation long enough to get no Karnak-Escape-Fights and not a single Ramuh fight.
For the race it shouldn't be that big of a deal, because one little mistake and the manipulation is gone, therefore the time advantage null and void.

Also, when the other runners begin their serious practice, they should be able to pick up the manipulation no problem.

That's the charm of this relay, since we have really good runners all around, PB differences should be a minor issue. Wink

Don't want to be nitpicking, but LCC took part at starting the Ultros Boogie Hype, so he should be able to see it through. ^_^

Team Demon Chocobo is quite a tempting name, but the fact that alex is in there defaults the name to Team Hydra, pretty much. <3

Also regarding the banner. I thought about having the banner feature the villains instead of the heroes this time.

Neerrm

2014-07-05 10:35:45 am

A banner of Golbez, exdeath, and kefka would be pretty awesome.

puwexil

2014-07-05 01:45:52 pm

Professional Second Banana

I'd like to see some progress on encounter manipulation by some of the other FF5 or FF6 runners before I undo the switch. Right now I'm concerned that having both HappySquid and LCC on the same team will make that team a shoe-in like Team EGG! ended up being last time, especially since I'm not aware of any other 6 runners doing the seed manipulation yet.

Liking the villains banner idea - I'll hit up KeeFry and see what ideas she has.

Also, I just got an offer from Edenal (one of the ESA organizers) to use his RTMP server for our relay. This would allow us to have a low-delay stream (as low as 2 seconds from what I'm told) for me to use for the restream and for the commentators to watch the race live, but would mean the runners would need to tweak their setup a bit (basically just stream to an RTMP server in XSplit/OBS instead of directly to Twitch).

What do people think? I like the idea of cutting down the stream delay so it's more like we're all together in 1 place, and it doesn't sound like it would impose too many complications on the runners (though I'm not sure yet how exactly cropping game captures and switching runners works), so I'd be down to at least test this setup and see if it's stable/compatible with our runners' setups.

I'd like to see some progress on encounter manipulation by some of the other FF5 or FF6 runners before I undo the switch.  Right now I'm concerned that having both HappySquid and LCC on the same team will make that team a shoe-in like Team EGG! ended up being last time, especially since I'm not aware of any other 6 runners doing the seed manipulation yet.

Liking the villains banner idea - I'll hit up KeeFry and see what ideas she has.

Also, I just got an offer from Edenal (one of the ESA organizers) to use his RTMP server for our relay.  This would allow us to have a low-delay stream (as low as 2 seconds from what I'm told) for me to use for the restream and for the commentators to watch the race live, but would mean the runners would need to tweak their setup a bit (basically just stream to an RTMP server in XSplit/OBS instead of directly to Twitch).

What do people think?  I like the idea of cutting down the stream delay so it's more like we're all together in 1 place, and it doesn't sound like it would impose too many complications on the runners (though I'm not sure yet how exactly cropping game captures and switching runners works), so I'd be down to at least test this setup and see if it's stable/compatible with our runners' setups.

[img]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BrzSurpCQAIsD_s.png[/img]

eLmaGus-

2014-07-05 02:15:04 pm

I must simply laugh.

i used seed manipulation in my PB in FF6, i just dont probassfish because ideally its faster not to. also i say bring it on, happysquid + LCC only gives other runners motivation to practice harder. team EGG only ran away with it because other teams had way worse RNG (and ultimatley RNG will decide the relay this time aswell i think).

anyways i like the idea using the RTMP server, defenitley need to check that out at the very least. should probably do some testing with 3-4 people to see how it is and post testings here once they are done.

Dragondarch

2014-07-05 04:47:37 pm

Pudding%

If you're using OBS, your setup should look like this:

Attachment:

OBS RTMP.png

puwexil

2014-07-05 06:38:49 pm

Professional Second Banana

Anyone else have feedback on the 2 proposed team layouts? I'd like a bit more input before switching them back or not.

Deln

2014-07-05 07:31:30 pm

i think having LCC switched bring a better balance to the teams, i vote for balance over team names.

Neerrm

2014-07-05 07:38:18 pm

I think we should give people in general more time to practice and hone in their times before doing any team shuffling. I'm not saying that team shuffling shouldn't necessarily occur, just that people are (hopefully) going to be improving at a rapid rate so it might not make sense to shuffle right now. Maybe come August?

puwexil

2014-07-06 12:11:19 am

Professional Second Banana

That's actually an excellent idea - let's put this on hold until August and see where everyone's at then. It was probably a mistake on my part to try to form balanced teams this far out.

crumps2

2014-07-08 04:40:04 am

HEADS UP -

I'm moving on Sept 1-3rd? from Chicago to Seattle - so I SHOULD be fine from the 13th - but be prepared just in case - and if you'd prefer to change me out, I will take no offense at all.

puwexil

2014-07-08 10:23:25 am

Professional Second Banana

Thanks for the heads-up. Do you think you'll still have time to get in enough practice on FF4 before/after your move? That would be my main concern.

crumps2

2014-07-14 07:11:10 am

Ok, I'm STUPID. I move in October - we're golden. MY BAD!

Also - Team Name ideas -

G.O.A.T (as is Goata$$ strats) - terrible pun, I know

puwexil

2014-07-15 03:31:41 pm

Professional Second Banana

Awesome - looking forward to you getting back into FF4. Smiley

Also, thanks to Kari Fry we now have banners! Golbez and Gilgamesh ended up being a problem to hand-draw because of their horned helmets making them look too much alike; but you can never go wrong with Theatrhythm.

DL Link: http://imgur.com/a/OQqbb

puwexil

2014-07-17 11:48:40 am

Professional Second Banana

Here's my first draft of the FAQ for the Japanese restream (intended audience is fans of FF4-6 that are already familiar with the speedrun routes for the games on the Japanese versions). 0xwas has kindly offered to translate it into Japanese, so I'll send it off to him in a few days - let me know if you think anything should be changed or added.

Note that names of items/characters/etc are literal J>E in order to make the E>J translation easier.

Fall 2014 Final Fantasy IV-V-VI Relay FAQ
Start time: September 14, 2014 12AM JST
Main stream (English): http://www.twitch.tv/puwexil
Japanese mirror: http://com.nicovideo.jp/community/co1286632
FAQ written by puwexil
Thanks to cookie for hosting the Japanese mirror and to 0xwas for translating this FAQ into Japanese

Relay Players
FF4:
Neerrm from USA - twitch.tv/neerrm
crumps2 from USA - twitch.tv/crumps2
FeralPigMan from USA - twitch.tv/feralpigman
Khobahi from Canada - twitch.tv/khobahi

FF5:
Deln from Canada - twitch.tv/deln
Incalex from France - twitch.tv/inkalex
HappySquid from Germany - twitch.tv/happysquid89
Jenja from Germany - twitch.tv/jenja23

FF6:
Dreamboum from France - twitch.tv/dreamboum
Essentia from USA - twitch.tv/essentiafour
LCC from Canada - twitch.tv/thelcc
eLmaGus from Germany - twitch.tv/elmagus

Commentary
FF4:
obdajr from Canada - twitch.tv/obdajr
nocashnocash from USA - twitch.tv/nocashnocash
Deuceler from USA - twitch.tv/deuceler

FF5:
puwexil from USA - twitch.tv/puwexil
Dragondarch from USA - twitch.tv/dragondarchsda

FF6:
mistermv from France - twitch.tv/mistermv
Danshow from Canada - twitch.tv/danshow1

Relay Planner/Host
puwexil from USA - twitch.tv/puwexil

Games/Rules
For FF4 and FF6, the players will use the American SNES versions (released as Final Fantasy II and III, since they were the 2nd and 3rd Final Fantasy games translated into English - game numbering started matching the Japanese versions starting with FF7).
For FF5, the players will use the Japanese SFC version with an English translation patch (SFC version has much faster loading times than the English PSX version).
For all games, any Battle Speed and Active/Wait settings can be used.
Turbo/Autofire controllers are not allowed.

FF4
64-hierarchy bug not allowed (can be used to skip from the Dwarf Castle to the end of the game)
All other glitches/bugs allowed - the following will be used in the relay:
Pass Through Mist Village (get Dancing Daggers, Change Rod, and Gold Hairpin early)
Item Duplication (unlimited Gil for shopping, unlimited Blood Lances for Edge to throw, and unlimited Cat Claws for increased speed)
Unlimited MP (Tellah can cast Meteor spell)
Get Dwarf Castle Dark Crystal again with Dejon spell (skip Sealed Cave)
Use Phoenix Down on dead enemy for increased EXP (speed up Level Up Battle in Giant of Babel)
Reflect + Flare spells on player (skip Cagnazzo and Barbariccia during 4 Kings battle in Giant of Babel)
Cast spell on Zeromus (lower damage of next Big Bang attack)

FF5
All glitches/bugs allowed - the following will be used in the relay:
Item Duplication (get 255 Coral Swords from Cray Claw battle, to sell for extra Gil)
Kiss of Blessing (use on Exdeath to give Berserk status and skip NeoExdeath battle)

FF6
Relm Sketch bug not allowed (can be used to gain extra equipment like Flame Shields/Lightbringers/Souls of Thamasa, or skip the World Collapse)
All other glitches/bugs allowed - the following will be used in the relay:
Pass through solider in South Figaro (skip most of Locke's Scenario)
Joker Death (Echo Screen is used, which allows Setzer to use 7-7-7/Joker Death in most battles)
Reverse Joker Death (Setzer uses 7-7-BAR, then Confu and Esuna are cast on him - this allows Joker Death to be used on 4th Orthros battle and during final battle)
Cast Vanish on enemy (allows Death to be cast on any enemy that is not immune to Vanish status)

Timing
Timer is started when 'New Game' is selected and stopped at last hit on final boss.
Actions taken before selecting 'New Game' are not included in timing, such as pausing on the FF4 title screen to manipulate the random battle pattern, or watching FF6's introduction cutscene (so it is skipped after starting a new game).
Game ending/credits are not included in timing

Japanese/English Version Differences
For all games, text boxes are slower in English than in Japanese, due to the English language needing more letters to form words than Japanese does.

FF4:
Active battle mode does not exist in the English version, only Wait can be used
Most items that cast spells when used (such as Hourglass, Bacchus Wine, Arctic Wind) do not exist in the English version
Many battle abilities (such Cecil's Dark Sword, Yang's Shape, Palom's Bluff) do not exist in the English version
Enemies have lower HP in the English version (for example, Control System has 20,000 HP instead of 30,000 HP in the Japanese version)

FF5:
Game freezes during ending if Chemist was in final battle party, due to bug in English translation patch

FF6:
Players have lower MP in the English version (Tina at level 19 has 242 MP in the Japanese version and 159 MP in the English version)
Item menu only has 1 column in the English version, instead of 2
Equip Anything Bug (using 256th Item Slot + Optimize command to equip items like AutoBowGuns or Shurikens as weapons or armor) does not work in the English version

Here's my first draft of the FAQ for the Japanese restream (intended audience is fans of FF4-6 that are already familiar with the speedrun routes for the games on the Japanese versions).  0xwas has kindly offered to translate it into Japanese, so I'll send it off to him in a few days - let me know if you think anything should be changed or added.

Note that names of items/characters/etc are literal J>E in order to make the E>J translation easier.

[spoiler]
Fall 2014 Final Fantasy IV-V-VI Relay FAQ 
Start time: September 14, 2014 12AM JST 
Main stream (English): http://www.twitch.tv/puwexil 
Japanese mirror: http://com.nicovideo.jp/community/co1286632 
FAQ written by puwexil 
Thanks to cookie for hosting the Japanese mirror and to 0xwas for translating this FAQ into Japanese 
 
Relay Players 
FF4: 
Neerrm from USA - twitch.tv/neerrm 
crumps2 from USA - twitch.tv/crumps2 
FeralPigMan from USA - twitch.tv/feralpigman 
Khobahi from Canada - twitch.tv/khobahi 
 
FF5: 
Deln from Canada - twitch.tv/deln 
Incalex from France - twitch.tv/inkalex 
HappySquid from Germany - twitch.tv/happysquid89 
Jenja from Germany - twitch.tv/jenja23 
 
FF6: 
Dreamboum from France - twitch.tv/dreamboum 
Essentia from USA - twitch.tv/essentiafour 
LCC from Canada - twitch.tv/thelcc 
eLmaGus from Germany - twitch.tv/elmagus 
 
Commentary 
FF4: 
obdajr from Canada - twitch.tv/obdajr 
nocashnocash from USA - twitch.tv/nocashnocash 
Deuceler from USA - twitch.tv/deuceler

FF5: 
puwexil from USA - twitch.tv/puwexil 
Dragondarch from USA - twitch.tv/dragondarchsda

FF6: 
mistermv from France - twitch.tv/mistermv 
Danshow from Canada - twitch.tv/danshow1 
 
Relay Planner/Host 
puwexil from USA - twitch.tv/puwexil 
 
 
Games/Rules 
For FF4 and FF6, the players will use the American SNES versions (released as Final Fantasy II and III, since they were the 2nd and 3rd Final Fantasy games translated into English - game numbering started matching the Japanese versions starting with FF7). 
For FF5, the players will use the Japanese SFC version with an English translation patch (SFC version has much faster loading times than the English PSX version). 
For all games, any Battle Speed and Active/Wait settings can be used. 
Turbo/Autofire controllers are not allowed.

FF4 
64-hierarchy bug not allowed (can be used to skip from the Dwarf Castle to the end of the game) 
All other glitches/bugs allowed - the following will be used in the relay: 
Pass Through Mist Village (get Dancing Daggers, Change Rod, and Gold Hairpin early) 
Item Duplication (unlimited Gil for shopping, unlimited Blood Lances for Edge to throw, and unlimited Cat Claws for increased speed) 
Unlimited MP (Tellah can cast Meteor spell) 
Get Dwarf Castle Dark Crystal again with Dejon spell (skip Sealed Cave) 
Use Phoenix Down on dead enemy for increased EXP (speed up Level Up Battle in Giant of Babel) 
Reflect + Flare spells on player (skip Cagnazzo and Barbariccia during 4 Kings battle in Giant of Babel) 
Cast spell on Zeromus (lower damage of next Big Bang attack) 
 
FF5 
All glitches/bugs allowed - the following will be used in the relay: 
Item Duplication (get 255 Coral Swords from Cray Claw battle, to sell for extra Gil) 
Kiss of Blessing (use on Exdeath to give Berserk status and skip NeoExdeath battle)

FF6 
Relm Sketch bug not allowed (can be used to gain extra equipment like Flame Shields/Lightbringers/Souls of Thamasa, or skip the World Collapse) 
All other glitches/bugs allowed - the following will be used in the relay: 
Pass through solider in South Figaro (skip most of Locke's Scenario) 
Joker Death (Echo Screen is used, which allows Setzer to use 7-7-7/Joker Death in most battles) 
Reverse Joker Death (Setzer uses 7-7-BAR, then Confu and Esuna are cast on him - this allows Joker Death to be used on 4th Orthros battle and during final battle) 
Cast Vanish on enemy (allows Death to be cast on any enemy that is not immune to Vanish status) 
 
Timing 
Timer is started when 'New Game' is selected and stopped at last hit on final boss. 
Actions taken before selecting 'New Game' are not included in timing, such as pausing on the FF4 title screen to manipulate the random battle pattern, or watching FF6's introduction cutscene (so it is skipped after starting a new game). 
Game ending/credits are not included in timing 
 
Japanese/English Version Differences 
For all games, text boxes are slower in English than in Japanese, due to the English language needing more letters to form words than Japanese does.

FF4: 
Active battle mode does not exist in the English version, only Wait can be used 
Most items that cast spells when used (such as Hourglass, Bacchus Wine, Arctic Wind) do not exist in the English version 
Many battle abilities (such Cecil's Dark Sword, Yang's Shape, Palom's Bluff) do not exist in the English version 
Enemies have lower HP in the English version (for example, Control System has 20,000 HP instead of 30,000 HP in the Japanese version)

FF5: 
Game freezes during ending if Chemist was in final battle party, due to bug in English translation patch

FF6: 
Players have lower MP in the English version (Tina at level 19 has 242 MP in the Japanese version and 159 MP in the English version) 
Item menu only has 1 column in the English version, instead of 2
Equip Anything Bug (using 256th Item Slot + Optimize command to equip items like AutoBowGuns or Shurikens as weapons or armor) does not work in the English version 
[/spoiler]

eLmaGus-

2014-07-17 06:16:44 pm

I must simply laugh.

looks good to me, the only thing i might add somewhere is when the players are gonna pass the torch. also curious how we would handle this :>

Jenja

2014-07-18 05:44:30 am

Well, I guess we already talked about this, but I would suggest that we take a fixed event during the outro cutscene, where the next player starts his game. That ensures that on the one hand the hype from the finish of the last game does not get killed immediately and on the other hand we do not have to watch the full outro 4 times.

I would suggest something between 3 and 5 minutes of waiting time after a boss has been killed. Just my opinion, I don't know if that's a convenient approach

HappySquid

2014-07-18 07:07:30 am

Banner and FAQ both look pretty solid. Good Job!

I agree with Jenja on the switching. I'd rather pick a specific spot, than a set time though.
I don't think it's really a problem if the wait time between the games differ.

With FFV crashing at Lenna's stat screen, we should probably cut before that. Tongue

puwexil

2014-07-18 03:58:06 pm

Professional Second Banana

Yeah, showing a couple minutes of the 4/5 endings should make for better switch points for both the runners and commentators (I'd like to try to avoid having the commentaries for 2 games running into each other), without extending the relay with 40 minutes of non-gameplay (the European FF6 runners are having to stay up late enough as-is).

Also, thanks to Chris Hanel (who does graphic design/animation work for crumps' Binding of Isaac racing league), we're going to have some very nice looking stream layouts for the relay!

Main race layout: http://puu.sh/agqx5/0f38162075.png (final version will not have the SDA logo at the bottom, since the relay isn't an official SDA-organized event)
Progress tracker layout: http://puu.sh/agtLj/9b9ef56dbe.png

The idea will be to have the main layout with timers up most of the time, and switch to the progress tracker whenever one of the teams hits a checkpoint, so we can move their avatar down a row (I'm liking the idea of each runner having their own avatar for extra flavor, like Piggy Cecil for FeralPigMan, Ultros for HappySquid, ~~Draco~~ Maria for Essentia, etc).

As usual, let me know if you have any feedback.

Yeah, showing a couple minutes of the 4/5 endings should make for better switch points for both the runners and commentators (I'd like to try to avoid having the commentaries for 2 games running into each other), without extending the relay with 40 minutes of non-gameplay (the European FF6 runners are having to stay up late enough as-is).

Also, thanks to [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q03WDz-6hAY]Chris Hanel[/url] (who does graphic design/animation work for crumps' Binding of Isaac racing league), we're going to have some very nice looking stream layouts for the relay!

Main race layout: http://puu.sh/agqx5/0f38162075.png (final version will not have the SDA logo at the bottom, since the relay isn't an official SDA-organized event)
Progress tracker layout: http://puu.sh/agtLj/9b9ef56dbe.png

The idea will be to have the main layout with timers up most of the time, and switch to the progress tracker whenever one of the teams hits a checkpoint, so we can move their avatar down a row (I'm liking the idea of each runner having their own avatar for extra flavor, like Piggy Cecil for FeralPigMan, Ultros for HappySquid, [s]Draco[/s] Maria for Essentia, etc).

As usual, let me know if you have any feedback.

Vulajin

2014-07-18 04:08:57 pm

As a note on the progress layout, the text may become unreadable at lower qualities. If possible, a font size increase could help (understanding that there's limited space there for some fairly lengthy names).

Neerrm

2014-07-21 09:19:33 am

So each individual runner will get their own sprite representation? That's pretty hype. Wonder what I can dredge up.

LCC

2014-07-21 03:21:05 pm

A friend of mine made an FF6 style sprite to look like me IRL, which could be a neat idea for the relay.