twitch.tv/essentiafour FF6 (4:58:xx, but that's with an outdated route) I should be available any of those dates, but early August would be easier since I won't yet be dealing with the beginning of the school year.
Also, if we do bonus games, I could definitely do Chrono Trigger or FF4 diehard%.
Final Fantasy 4 commentary - My time is not very good, but I know the game very well and helped with the development of the Edge route. I could give time save comparisons for all the new strats and know the runners and their runs well.
Dates - My work schedule is a weird one so I will be available August 16th and 23rd, as well as September 13th and 20th.
Incentives
All for FF4 - It would be a crime if you didn't make Bacon% an incentive - The Mac Giant grinding fight would be a cool one - If you wanted a random incentive, defeating Golbez prior to Rydia casting heal would work (dependent on damage rolls) - Another could be no change rod/tiara which saves a little bit of time but has some risk - Keep Porom/Palom alive during Cagnazzo fight
FF4 -Bacon% on Zeromus is iffy since Piggy has a chance to miss, so its basically RNG(still would be fun to go for it i guess) -Mac Giant grinding sounds like a good idea to me, problem: its a little more inconvenient since the save point is very far away. can get lucky though so idk about this one -no change rod/tiara is something people should do anyways -Palom/Porom alive during Cagnazzo is not really a challenge imo, all it does is prolong the fight
-we could be greedy and say: do the Sealed Cave and defeat Demon Wall! but the reward would have to be great -Fight Ogopogo and obtain the Masamune -Big Doll(duh) -obtain Ashura/Leviathan BEFORE Sealed Cave(again reward would have to be great) -defeat a Behemoth on the descend
FF5(since i dont know the game too well im just gonna throw out random thoughts) -have a Berserker in some bossfights(i dont exactly know how that would pend out in the speedrun route but its an idea i had) -No Kiss of Blessing(duh) -Fight a Hydra(hi Alex :P) -unlock 3 legendary weapons(i think thats how it works right? you unlock 3 at a time? also not sure how long that would take) -Gilgamesh all fights(duh) -i do not know if that is possible, but not hide during TwinTania? again something that just crossed my mind i dont know if that could be a thing
FF6 -RJD bufferless on Ultros(duh) -Fight Doom Gaze(manipulation should be accessible to everybody) -bring Shadow to the Dadaluma fight instead of Sabin -pick up Shadow on the floating continent and fight atma weapon without joker doom(thats kind of a bad idea since probably nobody really knows about the glitchless route) -suplex a crane(yes that is dangerous) -fight number 128 without Shoat and Phantom(that is kind of suicidal but could work)
and thats about it with ideas. thats all short brainstorming and most of it is probably not really good but hopefully it helps people to throw out ideas
-it would be way too easy to use a Berserker for any boss fight, can think of 3 right away -hydra? chance to fight one is low, to kill one, even lower -depending on how much time you gain if you go for the weapons+gilgamesh fight, it could be worth it -i wouldnt risk not hiding vs twintania, the risk is way too high
A thought I just had: given that there's been more people interested in running FF4 for the relay than the other 2 games combined, I'm wondering if some kind of FF4 tournament this summer or fall would be in order, like the Kingdom Hearts speedrun community recently did with KH 1.5 (maybe with separate brackets for FF4 full game and 64-door glitch runs if there's enough signups for each, and maybe restream the semi-finals/finals on my Twitch channel for extra hype).
What do people think? If there's interest I'll make a separate topic for planning a tournament.
Games: FF5 (4:51:12) < I know it's a pretty bad time and I don't have a highlight of it saved right now. That was my 3rd run I think and it has at least 2 dumb deaths.
BUT, I will invest a lot of time into the game, in addition to F4J. I promise that I will be able to show you a vastly improved PB, at least by the end of the month, hopefully earlier.
I'd be also up for commentating FF5, if I don't make it in, but I guess we have enough well informed people for that.
From my point of view right now, I should be available on all of the dates. Since I don't know the dates of my exams yet, that may change, but I'll make sure to inform you guys right away.
It feels kind of wrong to sign up with this PB, but I'll make sure to shape up, to be a worthy addition to the relay!
A thought I just had: given that there's been more people interested in running FF4 for the relay than the other 2 games combined, I'm wondering if some kind of FF4 tournament this summer or fall would be in order, like the Kingdom Hearts speedrun community recently did with KH 1.5 (maybe with separate brackets for FF4 full game and 64-door glitch runs if there's enough signups for each, and maybe restream the semi-finals/finals on my Twitch channel for extra hype).
What do people think? If there's interest I'll make a separate topic for planning a tournament.
i would rather see a relay race with 4-5-6, more variety and i think that a tournament of the same game would get boring really fast
Fall FF4-5-6 relay is happening no matter what - the FF4 tournament was just another idea I had for a community event that more people would be able to participate in. I haven't heard much feedback/interest though, so it's probably not happening.
Last day for signups - I'll try to get a date and relay teams picked out this weekend (after I recover from the Four Job Fiesta ).
Also note that for this relay the category for FF6 will be Any%-No Sketch Glitch. I've heard of some exciting route developments using the Sketch Glitch (either with or without the Zone Eater wrong warp); but I'd prefer to wait until the Winter 2015 relay (assuming we keep doing this) before including it. By that time I'm sure we'll have a stable Sketch Glitch route that multiple runners feel comfortable with.
Barring any concerns about the team memberships, I'll leave it to the teams to pick names (preferably something short enough to easily fit into the stream layout, with bonus points if it lends to some kind of sprite avatar if we use a relay progress bar like in Neerrm's above layouts).
First date that works for everyone and doesn't have a major conflict is 9/13 (8/16 already has a Mega Man relay scheduled), so let's go with that unless peoples' availability changes.
Now that we have a date set, it's time to start working on the bonus games. The idea I have for that is to pick 4 or so other RPGs that have both overlapping fanbases/speedrun communities with FF4-6 (so we can have a hype follow-up race that the relay viewers will want to come back for) and enough active runners that a 3-4 person race of pretty evenly-matched runners could be easily organized (ideally either the next day or weekend after the relay - trying to do it same-day would make scheduling impossible).
Ideas I have for games that meet those 2 criteria are: Chrono Trigger - Any% Final Fantasy Mystic Quest - Any category is fine, though if 100% has less RNG trolling and/or Pazuzu luck is less of a factor, that might make for a better race. Lufia II - Preferably the full game. I know there's a larger scene for Ancient Cave, but full game seems like a much more stable category for a race that would capture more viewers' interest. Terranigma - Preferably the English PAL version with NTSC patch so viewers can read the text. Japanese would probably be a turnoff to people that haven't played the game (ie Americans). Secret of Mana/Evermore
As far as determining the bonus game, I was thinking of some kind of mix between winner's choice for each FF game race in the relay, bonus incentives (though I'm not sensing a lot of interest in this and would be fine just ditching it if the runners aren't really interested), and public voting by the stream viewers.
Bonus game sounds the best to me. I like the idea of not having random incentives that could put a run at risk (i know i've never practiced the big doll or some odd things) And as i have the slowest time (currently) of the ff4 runners i want to concentrate on improving it without having to worry about random incentives to practice =).
if you want to do a "Winners choice" for bonus game, maybe something like a weighted voting system. Everyone gives you their pick for the bonus (all 12 runners) either privately or just plain out in here and based on finishing time their vote counts for 4-3-2-1 points towards bonus game.
I think a bonus game could be cool. Secret of Mana, while one of my favorite games of all time, is unfortunately a pretty stale run. There is some really cool tech invovled, but to most watching it will be "charge weapon, one shot boss - repeat". Mystic Quest is much the same. Lufia II is a really good watch, but loses out on nostalgia and people's love. I don't even want to talk about Terranigma because speed runs of that game put me to sleep. As much as the other games are great and have cool runners, Chrono Trigger is the obvious choice - not only in terms of gameplay but keeping viewers and possibly even gaining some.
Secret of Mana could be an issue as there's very few of us capable of doing a marathon type run reliably. I'm not even sure if we could get 4 people for it, and even 3 might be trouble. I could talk to the others and see what they think about it, and we'll get back to you on it if you're interested in putting SoM on there.