Final Fantasy VIII

2011-07-05 06:34:43 pm

Don't think so, i'll just write really really long comments. You should wait for the SDA version anyway because youtube really butchered the hell out of the video quality and the high quality versions will look and sound a hell of alot nicer.

Now I'll go back to waiting on the verification.

DarkKobold

2011-07-17 05:22:35 pm

RPG TASer

FYI, camera set at 0% is a few frames faster than 100%.

Poxnor

2011-07-18 11:14:17 am

Moo! Flap! Hug!

A few frames per battle, I assume? How does camera at 0% compare to camera at its default setting of 50%? If there's still some per-battle saving, it could be worth the time required on a console to change the setting (since you fight, never mind run from, over 60 battles).

Thanks, DarkKobold!

DarkKobold

2011-07-18 03:01:57 pm

RPG TASer

For running, the camera angle won't change, and therefore won't have any affect. I only tested this on my Ifrit battle, to see how it would sync. Between 0% (TAS setting) and 100%, the 100% loses 10-20 frames (estimated) when Squall casts fire on Quistis, then, desync.

I tried again on 50%, and it sync'd through the entire Ifrit battle, and then desync'd (somehow) going into the next battle. I'm assuming it lost frames at the more complex intro to that fight.

Eladar

2011-08-09 11:58:30 am

i've got a question, in the dollet exam, can i get a limit break to override elvoret blowing away biggs and wedge or do i have to kill them both with a multi-target spell/summon?

Carcinogen

2011-08-09 12:04:30 pm

You cannot. The whole fight is scripted. Even if you used The End on them, Elvoret would appear.

Poxnor

2011-08-10 07:14:40 am

Moo! Flap! Hug!

Quote from Eladar:

i've got a question, in the dollet exam, can i get a limit break to override elvoret blowing away biggs and wedge or do i have to kill them both with a multi-target spell/summon?

Carcinogen is right -- Elvoret cannot be skipped. And I can't imagine wanting to skip Elvoret either (Siren: L Mag-RF).

But, if you're planning a new route, you should note that Biggs and Wedge can be killed in two different ways in that fight. Call Biggs' HP BHP, and call Wedge's HP WHP. Doing BHP+WHP damage in total (regardless of which of Biggs or Wedge you hit) will trigger the Elvoret scene. But, unless you do BHP damage to Biggs and WHP damage to Wedge, you'll get fewer AP. You can get either 14 AP or 18 AP in that battle, so that's something of which to be aware as you're planning.

Carcinogen

Edit history:

Carcinogen: 2011-08-11 02:53:04 am

2011-08-11 02:52:20 am

Whoa, WHAT? I never knew that.

Learn something new e'rry day. So basically, when Wedge appears, Renzo him, and you get 18AP?

Poxnor

2011-08-11 08:00:46 am

Moo! Flap! Hug!

Quote from Carcinogen:

So basically, when Wedge appears, Renzo him, and you get 18AP?

Yup, absolutely. There are two scripted fights in the game where the AP received is "weird." The first is the Elvoret fight, in which you can get either 14 AP or 18 AP.

The second weird fight is the first battle against the Ironclad (during the Galbadian Missle Base scenario). This battle will yield 24 AP if done correctly, but only 4 AP if done incorrectly. The Ironclad has its max HP value, IHP, and also a "disabled" HP level, DHP, where 0 < DHP < IHP. In order to get the 20 AP from the Ironclad, you cannot after any command leave its HP at a value v where 1 <= v <= DHP. In other words, you have to get the Ironclad's HP from above DHP down to 0 in a single command (Zell's limit break or Irvine's limit break works well here, because you can mash out a tonne of damage in a single command). Otherwise, you "disable" the Ironclad without killing it -- the script that makes the three soldiers run out from the Ironclad will still be triggered (same dialogue and all), but you won't get the 20 AP from the Ironclad (yielding 4 AP in the fight instead of 24 AP).

That said, disabling instead of killing the Ironclad isn't an issue in a segmented run, where Str+60% ups your damage massively. It's a serious concern in an SS run though, and 20 AP is a whole bundle of AP going towards Enc-None.

(Speaking of SS runs: I promised mjk47 that I'd post my revised -- dare I say, finalized? -- SS route. I haven't forgotten about you mjk47! I just haven't found the time to type up the last of the changes. I'll post the route soon, though Smiley

)

[quote="Carcinogen"]So basically, when Wedge appears, Renzo him, and you get 18AP?[/quote]
Yup, absolutely.  There are two scripted fights in the game where the AP received is "weird."  The first is the Elvoret fight, in which you can get either 14 AP or 18 AP.

The second weird fight is the first battle against the Ironclad (during the Galbadian Missle Base scenario).  This battle will yield 24 AP if done correctly, but only 4 AP if done incorrectly.  The Ironclad has its max HP value, [i]IHP[/i], and also a "disabled" HP level, [i]DHP[/i], where [i]0 < DHP < IHP[/i].  In order to get the 20 AP from the Ironclad, you cannot after any command leave its HP at a value [i]v[/i] where [i]1 <= v <= DHP[/i].  In other words, you have to get the Ironclad's HP from above [i]DHP[/i] down to [i]0[/i] in a single command (Zell's limit break or Irvine's limit break works well here, because you can mash out a tonne of damage in a single command).  Otherwise, you "disable" the Ironclad without killing it -- the script that makes the three soldiers run out from the Ironclad will still be triggered (same dialogue and all), but you won't get the 20 AP from the Ironclad (yielding 4 AP in the fight instead of 24 AP).

That said, disabling instead of killing the Ironclad isn't an issue in a segmented run, where Str+60% ups your damage massively.  It's a serious concern in an SS run though, and 20 AP is a whole bundle of AP going towards Enc-None.

(Speaking of SS runs: I promised mjk47 that I'd post my revised -- dare I say, finalized? -- SS route.  I haven't forgotten about you mjk47!  I just haven't found the time to type up the last of the changes.  I'll post the route soon, though :) )

DarkKobold

2011-08-12 11:48:49 am

RPG TASer

Quote from Poxnor:

But, if you're planning a new route, you should note that Biggs and Wedge can be killed in two different ways in that fight. Call Biggs' HP BHP, and call Wedge's HP WHP. Doing BHP+WHP damage in total (regardless of which of Biggs or Wedge you hit) will trigger the Elvoret scene. But, unless you do BHP damage to Biggs and WHP damage to Wedge, you'll get fewer AP. You can get either 14 AP or 18 AP in that battle, so that's something of which to be aware as you're planning.

Not that it matters, but might be relevant - you may be able to get only 10 AP from that battle - after about 3 rounds, Biggs will call Wedge, whether or not you've reduced his HP to 0, and he'll respawn HP. So, yeah, totally useless.

Also, it is about reducing both of their HPs to zero, at least once. You get the AP once the HP hits zero, FYI.

gyth

2011-08-20 05:03:17 am

In the first Sacred fight, you don't always get 20 AP.
Killing right after a regen tick seems to give the AP.

Poxnor

2011-08-20 10:49:28 am

Moo! Flap! Hug!

As promised, mjk47, here is the latest version of my SS route.

There are a few things to note about it:

- Having played the game for several marathons without getting Bahamut, and having played for several getting Bahamut, I can now stand with absolute confidence behind my decision to get Bahamut. Despite it seeming slower at first glance, I'm don't think it's any slower at all: you do a bundle more damage to all the remaining bosses, and you don't have to unlock nearly as many things in the final castle in order to have a successful strategy against the end boss. Not to mention, I actually have a strategy for the end boss now that isn't just "wing it and pray."

- There may be a few artifacts of this being a marathon route, as opposed to an SDA route. One that comes to mind is that I equip GF on Quistis before going into the Ifrit battle (in case things seriously go south with Squall getting killed and me running out of Phoenix Downs -- for an SDA run, you'd just reset; but, for a marathon, I needed a backup plan). There wouldn't be any serious differences between a marathon route and an SDA SS route (the GF command before Ifrit is the only thing I can call to mind off the top of my head, but there may be one or two other tiny things like that scattered through the route that I've forgotten about).

- The route I use for clearing the Ragnarok is not the fastest route possible (in other words, don't use the route in these notes in a segmented run). However, the fastest route through the Ragnarok has an issue: one of the Propagators that you have to avoid in the fastest route is placed in a random location on the screen; and if you get bad luck with that placement, it's impossible to avoid. Getting into a fight with it yields two additional Propagator battles (the one you can't avoid, and one that comes back to life) -- totally not worth the risk to save a few seconds in a single-segment run. The Ragnarok route in my SS notes is almost as fast, and avoids that potential pitfall. (But for segmented runs, you can save right at the entrance to the Ragnarok, so you should take the riskier route.)

- Cid dialogue skip at the start of Disc 3: I've done it twice now during marathons, but I still don't know the trick to it. I'm not holding down the walk button, or mashing any sort of crazy inputs. I guess I was just running at the correct angle *shrug*. I wish I knew how to replicate it reliably.

As promised, mjk47, here is the latest version of my SS route.

There are a few things to note about it:

- Having played the game for several marathons without getting Bahamut, and having played for several getting Bahamut, I can now stand with absolute confidence behind my decision to get Bahamut.  Despite it seeming slower at first glance, I'm don't think it's any slower at all: you do a bundle more damage to all the remaining bosses, and you don't have to unlock nearly as many things in the final castle in order to have a successful strategy against the end boss.  Not to mention, I actually have a strategy for the end boss now that isn't just "wing it and pray."

- There may be a few artifacts of this being a marathon route, as opposed to an SDA route.  One that comes to mind is that I equip GF on Quistis before going into the Ifrit battle (in case things seriously go south with Squall getting killed and me running out of Phoenix Downs -- for an SDA run, you'd just reset; but, for a marathon, I needed a backup plan).  There wouldn't be any serious differences between a marathon route and an SDA SS route (the GF command before Ifrit is the only thing I can call to mind off the top of my head, but there may be one or two other tiny things like that scattered through the route that I've forgotten about).

- The route I use for clearing the Ragnarok is not the fastest route possible (in other words, don't use the route in these notes in a segmented run).  However, the fastest route through the Ragnarok has an issue: one of the Propagators that you have to avoid in the fastest route is placed in a random location on the screen; and if you get bad luck with that placement, it's impossible to avoid.  Getting into a fight with it yields two additional Propagator battles (the one you can't avoid, and one that comes back to life) -- totally not worth the risk to save a few seconds in a single-segment run.  The Ragnarok route in my SS notes is almost as fast, and avoids that potential pitfall.  (But for segmented runs, you can save right at the entrance to the Ragnarok, so you should take the riskier route.)

- Cid dialogue skip at the start of Disc 3: I've done it twice now during marathons, but I still don't know the trick to it.  I'm not holding down the walk button, or mashing any sort of crazy inputs.  I guess I was just running at the correct angle *shrug*.  I wish I knew how to replicate it reliably.

Attachments:

2011-08-20 12:59:56 pm

Quote from Poxnor:

I equip GF on Quistis before going into the Ifrit battle (in case things seriously go south with Squall getting killed and me running out of Phoenix Downs -- for an SDA run, you'd just reset; but, for a marathon, I needed a backup plan).

You'd have GF equipped for the granaldo fight in an SDA as well.

Poxnor

2011-08-20 01:03:53 pm

Moo! Flap! Hug!

Quote from gyth:

Quote from Poxnor:

I equip GF on Quistis before going into the Ifrit battle (in case things seriously go south with Squall getting killed and me running out of Phoenix Downs -- for an SDA run, you'd just reset; but, for a marathon, I needed a backup plan).

You'd have GF equipped for the granaldo fight in an SDA as well.

Yup, but in my route I first equip GF against Ifrit, then switch GF to Card in Dollet, then switch Card back to GF in the waiting area after the Dollet Exam before Granaldo. What I meant is that I could save a fraction of a second by not equipping GF against Ifrit, and just equipping Card in Dollet.

(Like I said, it's literally a difference of a fraction of a second, so meh.)

gyth

2011-08-21 01:06:12 am

why card? Are you worried about xp??

Poxnor

Edit history:

Poxnor: 2011-08-21 08:53:07 am

2011-08-21 07:51:25 am

Moo! Flap! Hug!

Quote from gyth:

why card? Are you worried about xp??

I'm using Card because I want the Anaconduar card (or, if I'm super lucky, a Mobile Type 8 card). Having both the Anaconduar card and the Diablos card, I've never played to worse than 5-5 against the Trepie in the cafeteria. Additionally, I have better odds of being able to win the Quistis card if the Trepie plays it in the first hand. (My alpha-beta player with Balamb rules is attached somewhere earlier in this thread.)

Carding the Anaconduar is probably the right strategy for a segmented run, too, since I bet it would be faster than using Renzo. Squall hits it once, Zell uses Card (technically, you can Card it without hitting it first, but that's 1/256, and that's not realistic outside a TAS).

Edit: On second thought, you wouldn't have Card yet at the Anaconduar fight in a segmented run (unless you fought extra battles like the TAS did to get cards, as opposed to talking to the guy on 2F Balamb Garden). You'd be 2 AP short for getting Card, assuming you fought two fishy battles. My SS route assumed three fishy battles will be required to get the requisite number of fins.

[quote="gyth"]why card? Are you worried about xp??[/quote]
I'm using Card because I want the Anaconduar card (or, if I'm super lucky, a Mobile Type 8 card).  Having both the Anaconduar card and the Diablos card, I've never played to worse than 5-5 against the Trepie in the cafeteria.  Additionally, I have better odds of being able to win the Quistis card if the Trepie plays it in the first hand.  (My alpha-beta player with Balamb rules is attached somewhere earlier in this thread.)

[s]Carding the Anaconduar is probably the right strategy for a segmented run, too, since I bet it would be faster than using Renzo.  Squall hits it once, Zell uses Card (technically, you can Card it without hitting it first, but that's 1/256, and that's not realistic outside a TAS).[/s]

[i]Edit[/i]: On second thought, you wouldn't have Card yet at the Anaconduar fight in a segmented run (unless you fought extra battles like the TAS did to get cards, as opposed to talking to the guy on 2F Balamb Garden).  You'd be 2 AP short for getting Card, assuming you fought two fishy battles.  My SS route assumed three fishy battles will be required to get the requisite number of fins.

gyth

2011-12-18 02:26:38 pm

Is anyone working on encoding Sush's run? It has been 2 months since it was accepted.
I could put it together if the raw is available somewhere.

dballin

2011-12-18 02:35:06 pm

Balls jerky

There's a large number of runs ahead of it to be posted. Encoding is not the problem.

gyth

2011-12-28 01:16:28 pm

I mashed together all the fights from Sush's run, if anyone is interested.

The2012Robot

2012-01-01 01:22:25 pm

I run for fun :)

Still waiting for this to get posted on SDA before I watch it- FF8 is my favorite game, but if I'm gonna sink that many hours into watching a run, it might as well be in the highest quality. Can't wait Cheesy

Sush

2012-01-23 10:16:51 am

Hey guys, sorry I've taken such a huge amount of time getting round to encoding this lot for SDA. Sunk a few hours last night into learning to encode while still sorting out some audio/resolution issues and just here to let you know I'll hopefully get this all done and dusted by the end of this week.

Hold onto your butts.

Sush

2012-01-25 08:51:44 am

Got all the .avi's ready to get run through Anri, just waiting on word back from Flip regarding the overall timing of the run. It's probably going to have to be manually timed and according to the rules I can't time it myself.

rayvex

2012-01-25 09:58:11 am

hi

wow FF8 is my favourite game of all-time, i should be ashamed I havent followed this project.

Whats the final time?

gyth

2012-01-28 08:37:58 pm

7:58
http://speeddemosarchive.com/FinalFantasy8.html

Melodia

2012-01-28 11:29:16 pm

Reading through some of the comments my head goes o.O. I mean, especially that final part -- it sounds like the number of replays of that was completely insane.
I apologize that I probably won't watch much of this as I tried watching the TAS and it was /really boring/ because there's so fricken much unskipable cutscenes. Perfectly fine when playing a 50 hour game, but not 7.
I did check out that final part though, pretty amusing to see those bosses torn down like that. Why is the ending missing though? (Actually, I wonder at the lack of 'general' comments, especially since this was played on the PC version)