Final Fantasy X

2009-10-13 08:10:57 am

Waiting hurts my soul...

Quote from Essentia:

For those who are interested, some of the people from the Speed Gamers community are doing a 72-hour Final Fantasy marathon in November (more info here). They're going to attempt to beat FF I-XII (excluding XI), with two games being played at a time.

Anyway, I'm going to be playing FFX in this marathon (and probably FFVI as well), and so I've been working on a single-segment route for this game. I think I've got it all worked out now; I didn't have to change too much from my segmented run. Here are the major changes:

Sphere grid changes: First, I found that if I don't increase anyone's agility, the Yu Pagodas will never start moving again before I kill BFA (weird, but true). Then I'll give Yuna one MP node to make sure Shiva has enough MP to cast blizzara 4 times in the Isaaru battles. Last, I'll give Kimahri 3 more HP nodes, to make it more likely that I'll survive the Sin's Fins battles.
Spherimorph: I have Kimahri attack to discover its weakness. I make sure to steal a fish scale and arctic wind beforehand so that I can do a mix with any element (will already have bomb cores and lightning marbles).
Seymour (first): The strategy is almost the same, except that I haste Tidus and Kimahri instead of Seymour. Then I just try to survive for three rounds before doing self-destruct.
I still need a chocobo wing for BFA, but it's very unlikely I'll steal one on the first trip through Bikanel. So at the Calm Lands, I'll train a chocobo and go to Remiem Temple, then I'll win the race with 4 chests to win 30 pendulums. I can use those to customize Master Thief on Rikku, and then I'll go back to Bikanel once I have the airship and find a cactuar.
It's also very unlikely that I'll be able to steal any petrify grenades, so I'll use Kimahri's stone breath in place of those (on Wendigo and in the third Home battle).
I'll steal 2 more smoke bombs in Bikanel, to be used on Evrae and Defender X (eliminates some randomness in those battles).
I won't be getting the No Encounter ability, not even from Geosgaeno (I don't think it's worth the time to fight him). Because of this, I'll just steal all of the needed fire gems while climbing Gagazet, instead of bribing a Flan later.
I'll have Tidus learn Slice & Dice right before Seymour Flux. This will give me one more hit on Flux, slightly increasing my chances of defeating him.
Spectral Keeper: Trio and Slice & Dice will kill it.
Yunalesca: Tidus uses a chocobo feather (stolen in Bikanel) on himself first turn; this eliminates the one turn that Yunalesca got in my segmented run for some reason.

I've done a few test runs using these strategies, and the chances of getting game over are pretty low. In fact, it's more likely that I'll die by getting ambushed in a random encounter than against any of the bosses (which I really hope doesn't happen). A couple days ago I did a run through in about 3 or 4 sittings, and my final time was 11:33, only a little more than an hour longer than my segmented run. I'm pretty excited to do this, and it will be interesting to see how it goes during the marathon.

I think it'd be cool to see a single-segment run of this. Like most final fantasy games (actually most RPGs,) no one would really ever think it possible to do in a timely manner.

[quote="Essentia"]
For those who are interested, some of the people from the Speed Gamers community are doing a 72-hour Final Fantasy marathon in November (more info [url=http://community.thespeedgamers.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5093]here[/url]).  They're going to attempt to beat FF I-XII (excluding XI), with two games being played at a time.

Anyway, I'm going to be playing FFX in this marathon (and probably FFVI as well), and so I've been working on a single-segment route for this game.  I think I've got it all worked out now; I didn't have to change too much from my segmented run.  Here are the major changes:

[list]
[li]Sphere grid changes: First, I found that if I don't increase anyone's agility, the Yu Pagodas will never start moving again before I kill BFA (weird, but true).  Then I'll give Yuna one MP node to make sure Shiva has enough MP to cast blizzara 4 times in the Isaaru battles.  Last, I'll give Kimahri 3 more HP nodes, to make it more likely that I'll survive the Sin's Fins battles.[/li]
[li]Spherimorph: I have Kimahri attack to discover its weakness.  I make sure to steal a fish scale and arctic wind beforehand so that I can do a mix with any element (will already have bomb cores and lightning marbles).[/li]
[li]Seymour (first): The strategy is almost the same, except that I haste Tidus and Kimahri instead of Seymour.  Then I just try to survive for three rounds before doing self-destruct.[/li]
[li]I still need a chocobo wing for BFA, but it's very unlikely I'll steal one on the first trip through Bikanel.  So at the Calm Lands, I'll train a chocobo and go to Remiem Temple, then I'll win the race with 4 chests to win 30 pendulums.  I can use those to customize Master Thief on Rikku, and then I'll go back to Bikanel once I have the airship and find a cactuar.[/li]
[li]It's also very unlikely that I'll be able to steal any petrify grenades, so I'll use Kimahri's stone breath in place of those (on Wendigo and in the third Home battle).[/li]
[li]I'll steal 2 more smoke bombs in Bikanel, to be used on Evrae and Defender X (eliminates some randomness in those battles).[/li]
[li]I won't be getting the No Encounter ability, not even from Geosgaeno (I don't think it's worth the time to fight him).  Because of this, I'll just steal all of the needed fire gems while climbing Gagazet, instead of bribing a Flan later.[/li]
[li]I'll have Tidus learn Slice & Dice right before Seymour Flux.  This will give me one more hit on Flux, slightly increasing my chances of defeating him.[/li]
[li]Spectral Keeper: Trio and Slice & Dice will kill it.[/li]
[li]Yunalesca: Tidus uses a chocobo feather (stolen in Bikanel) on himself first turn; this eliminates the one turn that Yunalesca got in my segmented run for some reason.[/li]
[/list]

I've done a few test runs using these strategies, and the chances of getting game over are pretty low.  In fact, it's more likely that I'll die by getting ambushed in a random encounter than against any of the bosses (which I really hope doesn't happen).  A couple days ago I did a run through in about 3 or 4 sittings, and my final time was 11:33, only a little more than an hour longer than my segmented run.  I'm pretty excited to do this, and it will be interesting to see how it goes during the marathon.
[/quote]
I think it'd be cool to see a single-segment run of this. Like most final fantasy games (actually most RPGs,) no one would really ever think it possible to do in a timely manner.

Rake

2009-10-13 08:44:31 am

Really looking forward to watching the marathon Essentia. Sounds like its a lot more speed and a lot less marathon as compared to the last one which sounds awesome.

Scorpio

2009-10-13 10:19:46 am

Watcher

I am also interested in this marathon. Good luck Essentia!

yoshmaster5

2009-10-13 10:21:46 pm

Also tenkiforecast

Nice.

And I'm impressed that they are going to try again. The previous marathon, well... they hit a number of obstacles. FFIII... yeah, no. Nintendo should have had a thing to turn off animations. X_x;

Good luck, and I'll definately be watching if I can!

Essentia

2009-10-14 11:51:25 am

Everything's better with Magitek

I should point out that this isn't an official Speed Gamers event. It's just a group of people from their forums who decided to do this. But the people doing this marathon will have more time to practice for it, so hopefully it goes pretty well.

Essentia

2009-10-17 12:48:31 pm

Everything's better with Magitek

If anyone's interested, I'm currently doing a live stream of my practice for the FF marathon. You can watch it here: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/essentia-playing-ffx

I'm using a webcam because my computer can't handle a capture card, so I apologize in advance for the poor quality.

Sorcerer88

2009-10-21 06:46:00 am

I have no solution, but i admire the problem.

will you record the run so we get to see it? Smiley

Essentia

2009-10-21 10:07:59 am

Everything's better with Magitek

Yes, I'll record it with my DVD recorder. If it turns out well, I might even try to submit it to SDA. Either way, I'll definitely put it on Youtube.

Essentia

2009-11-03 10:18:42 am

Everything's better with Magitek

Just another reminder about the FF marathon beginning on November 19. I'll most likely be one of the two people starting off the marathon, which means I'll start playing at 7pm EST/6pm CST. I'm predicting it will take me less than 12 hours to complete the game.

Since I've gotten all the boss strategies figured out, I've been working on ways to not get game over in random encounter ambushes. I found that I was taking too many risks, such as having weak characters in the starting formation in order to fill their overdrives, or using Tidus's Spiral Cut in dangerous encounters. So instead, I've found the safest places to fill overdrives and use Spiral Cut. For example, Rikku needs to get an overdrive before the end of Macalania Woods. I usually got it in the Thunder Plains, but now I've found that it's safer to do it in Macalania; for some reason, the ambush rate seems to be higher in the Thunder Plains, which makes it the most dangerous area in the run (since I get First Strike at the end of Macalania).

Here are the places where I'm planning to use Spiral Cut (it had to be changed a bit from my segmented run because I need to learn Slice & Dice before Flux):
1. Sinspawn Ammes - It's really a waste here, since this boss dies after a certain number of hits, but I found that if I wait to use this on Klikk, it's likely that Tidus won't have his next overdrive in time for Euchilles, which makes that battle a lot more dangerous.

2. Sinspawn Euchilles - Saves a bunch of time on this boss, which lowers my chance of dying here.

3. Mi'ihen Fang on Mi'ihen Highroad - Yuna needs a little extra AP to get to the next magic node on the sphere grid for Chocobo Eater, and Tidus usually has or gets an overdrive in Mi'ihen anyway.

4. Extractor - Saves a bunch of time on this boss.

5. Forced machina encounter right after getting Rikku in Bikanel - This is where I had to start finding safe places to use his overdrive. In this battle, Tidus can always use Spiral Cut and still get a turn to flee before the enemies get a turn.

6. Defender X - Tidus has an extra turn in this battle anyway; I just have to hope that he actually has an overdrive at this point.

7-10. While climbing Mt. Gagazet (before Flux) - The enemies do enough damage here that his overdrive will fill in 1-2 battles every time. Also, all three characters will have first strike, which makes it safe to use Spiral Cut here.

I also changed the way that I get the chocobo feather and chocobo wing. Many times I've gone all the way through Bikanel without encountering a single Cactuar, and I'd really hate to lose a lot of time trying to encounter one. So now, I'll get the chocobo feather in Thunder Plains by praying to a Cactuar stone; this makes Qactuars appear, and pretty often at that. Then if I haven't gotten a chocobo wing by the end of my second trip through Bikanel, I'll start the Cactuar minigame, which will make one appear at the oasis. Since Rikku will have Master Thief by that point, I'll be able to get the chocobo wing for sure. I have to give credit to KADFC for these strategies - he used them in his run, and it was only recently that I remembered about them.

Just another reminder about the FF marathon beginning on November 19.  I'll most likely be one of the two people starting off the marathon, which means I'll start playing at 7pm EST/6pm CST.  I'm predicting it will take me less than 12 hours to complete the game.

Since I've gotten all the boss strategies figured out, I've been working on ways to not get game over in random encounter ambushes.  I found that I was taking too many risks, such as having weak characters in the starting formation in order to fill their overdrives, or using Tidus's Spiral Cut in dangerous encounters.  So instead, I've found the safest places to fill overdrives and use Spiral Cut.  For example, Rikku needs to get an overdrive before the end of Macalania Woods.  I usually got it in the Thunder Plains, but now I've found that it's safer to do it in Macalania; for some reason, the ambush rate seems to be higher in the Thunder Plains, which makes it the most dangerous area in the run (since I get First Strike at the end of Macalania).

Here are the places where I'm planning to use Spiral Cut (it had to be changed a bit from my segmented run because I need to learn Slice & Dice before Flux):
1. Sinspawn Ammes - It's really a waste here, since this boss dies after a certain number of hits, but I found that if I wait to use this on Klikk, it's likely that Tidus won't have his next overdrive in time for Euchilles, which makes that battle a lot more dangerous.

2. Sinspawn Euchilles - Saves a bunch of time on this boss, which lowers my chance of dying here.

3. Mi'ihen Fang on Mi'ihen Highroad - Yuna needs a little extra AP to get to the next magic node on the sphere grid for Chocobo Eater, and Tidus usually has or gets an overdrive in Mi'ihen anyway.

4. Extractor - Saves a bunch of time on this boss.

5. Forced machina encounter right after getting Rikku in Bikanel - This is where I had to start finding safe places to use his overdrive.  In this battle, Tidus can always use Spiral Cut and still get a turn to flee before the enemies get a turn.

6. Defender X - Tidus has an extra turn in this battle anyway; I just have to hope that he actually has an overdrive at this point.

7-10. While climbing Mt. Gagazet (before Flux) - The enemies do enough damage here that his overdrive will fill in 1-2 battles every time.  Also, all three characters will have first strike, which makes it safe to use Spiral Cut here.

I also changed the way that I get the chocobo feather and chocobo wing.  Many times I've gone all the way through Bikanel without encountering a single Cactuar, and I'd really hate to lose a lot of time trying to encounter one.  So now, I'll get the chocobo feather in Thunder Plains by praying to a Cactuar stone; this makes Qactuars appear, and pretty often at that.  Then if I haven't gotten a chocobo wing by the end of my second trip through Bikanel, I'll start the Cactuar minigame, which will make one appear at the oasis.  Since Rikku will have Master Thief by that point, I'll be able to get the chocobo wing for sure.  I have to give credit to KADFC for these strategies - he used them in his run, and it was only recently that I remembered about them.

ShinerCCC

2009-11-03 12:11:54 pm

Yes, a worthless avatar riding my posts.

Is someone doing Final Fantasy 1 for said marathon?

Well, I don't know if I have to way to broadcast a run of the game if I did it, but I'm just asking.

Essentia

2009-11-05 11:57:54 am

Everything's better with Magitek

Yes, I believe they have players for all the games now.

Essentia

2009-11-19 09:56:30 am

Everything's better with Magitek

Here's one last reminder about the FF marathon, which starts tonight (Nov. 19) at 7pm EST/6pm CST! I'll start playing FFX at that time, and I'm hoping to beat it single-segment in less than 12 hours. You can watch the live stream here:
http://finalfantasymarathon.webs.com/

bmn

2009-11-20 05:17:15 am

Much luv2u, Essentia. I only saw a few hours of it, but did you make it all the way through without a single death?

Essentia

2009-11-20 11:58:43 am

Everything's better with Magitek

Thanks bmn! Unfortunately, I had 4 deaths in the run. They were on the first Home battle, Evrae, Seymour Flux, and Sanctuary Keeper. The first three resulted from really bad luck, but the last was completely my fault. (I forgot to charge Tidus's overdrive before that battle...) I also reset once, after Biran and Yenke, because one of them gave a rare drop (friend sphere, completely useless) instead of his regular drop (return sphere, used to customize first strike). I could have gone one without resetting, but it would have been much harder, and I'd already died twice by that point so it was no longer SS anyway.

Besides that stuff, though, it still went pretty well. The entire run took about 11 hours 35 minutes real time, which beat my goal of 12 hours. I'd also been hoping it would be SS, but oh well. I recorded the run on my DVD recorder (except for the first 10 minutes - I felt really stupid when I realized I'd forgotten to start recording), so I might upload it to Youtube, not sure.

Thanks bmn!  Unfortunately, I had 4 deaths in the run.  They were on the first Home battle, Evrae, Seymour Flux, and Sanctuary Keeper.  The first three resulted from really bad luck, but the last was completely my fault.  (I forgot to charge Tidus's overdrive before that battle...)  I also reset once, after Biran and Yenke, because one of them gave a rare drop (friend sphere, completely useless) instead of his regular drop (return sphere, used to customize first strike).  I could have gone one without resetting, but it would have been much harder, and I'd already died twice by that point so it was no longer SS anyway.

Besides that stuff, though, it still went pretty well.  The entire run took about 11 hours 35 minutes real time, which beat my goal of 12 hours.  I'd also been hoping it would be SS, but oh well.  I recorded the run on my DVD recorder (except for the first 10 minutes - I felt really stupid when I realized I'd forgotten to start recording), so I [i]might[/i] upload it to Youtube, not sure.

Gaverion

2009-11-23 01:25:01 am

Yes upload to youtube! I am considering running this SS at some point and a place to start is always nice. Of course when said run will happen, who knows >_>

Essentia

2009-12-02 01:02:37 am

Everything's better with Magitek

Well, I've decided not to upload my run from the marathon - sorry Gaverion. However, maybe I'll upload some of the exciting parts, like boss fights, if a lot of people ask nicely. Wink

It would just be a ton of work to upload the entire thing, and a lot of it wouldn't be any different from my segmented run.

Gaverion, if you still want to do a SS run, I could post all my notes and strategies that I used. Almost everything worked really well; there were just 3 times where I got really bad luck:

1. First forced encounter in Al Bhed Home - I got ambushed, but I still would have survived except Rikku's Potato Masher OD just fell short of killing the Guado guy. It's pretty unlikely that you'd get the combination of those two things.

2. Evrae - I couldn't steal a second water gem (to be used on Natus). I was able to survive one Poison Breath, but not two. It never took me that long to steal the second one on any of my practice runs.

3. Seymour Flux - It takes 8 hits of 9999 to kill him (7 if Mortiorchis drains life from him). Tidus's Slice & Dice and Lulu's Fury do a total of 14 hits spread between Flux and Mortiorchis, and I fell one short of killing him. What I don't quite get, though, is that when this has happened in practice runs I've still managed to get another turn before he would have wiped me out. I'm not quite sure what went wrong this time.

Well, I've decided not to upload my run from the marathon - sorry Gaverion.  However, maybe I'll upload some of the exciting parts, like boss fights, if a lot of people ask nicely. ;)  It would just be a ton of work to upload the entire thing, and a lot of it wouldn't be any different from my segmented run.

Gaverion, if you still want to do a SS run, I could post all my notes and strategies that I used.  Almost everything worked really well; there were just 3 times where I got really bad luck:

1. First forced encounter in Al Bhed Home - I got ambushed, but I still would have survived except Rikku's Potato Masher OD just fell short of killing the Guado guy.  It's pretty unlikely that you'd get the combination of those two things.

2. Evrae - I couldn't steal a second water gem (to be used on Natus).  I was able to survive one Poison Breath, but not two.  It never took me that long to steal the second one on any of my practice runs.

3. Seymour Flux - It takes 8 hits of 9999 to kill him (7 if Mortiorchis drains life from him).  Tidus's Slice & Dice and Lulu's Fury do a total of 14 hits spread between Flux and Mortiorchis, and I fell one short of killing him.  What I don't quite get, though, is that when this has happened in practice runs I've still managed to get another turn before he would have wiped me out.  I'm not quite sure what went wrong this time.

Axel Ryman

2009-12-02 02:16:04 am

We all scream for Eyes Cream

Maybe a minor change in your Agility stat compared to your practice runs? Seems like a SS run would be 60% luck and 40% strategy(Then again this is off the top of my head at the moment, barely thinking).

Please upload the exciting parts of it to Youtube? Pretty please with sugar, chocolate syrup, whipped cream, and a cherry on top?

Ok now I'm sounding desperate. @_@

Essentia

Edit history:

Essentia: 2009-12-04 05:42:13 pm

2009-12-04 04:50:50 pm

Everything's better with Magitek

Quote from Axel Ryman:

Maybe a minor change in your Agility stat compared to your practice runs? Seems like a SS run would be 60% luck and 40% strategy(Then again this is off the top of my head at the moment, barely thinking).

It couldn't have been because of a change in agility, because I didn't change anyone's agility at all in this run. My guess is just that the turn order got switched around a bit - I've noticed this can happen when people have the same agility. For example, Tidus and Yuna both start out with the same agility; if I have them both in the main party at the start of a battle, it's random which of them will get the first turn (although it seems to be Tidus more often).

Anyway, since Axel asked reaaaal nice, I'm uploading parts of this run. Smiley

The first two videos are up, and I'll be adding more. If there are any other parts I don't upload that you'd like to see, let me know and I'll put them up as well.

part 1:
part 2:

Edit:
part 3:

[quote="Axel Ryman"]
Maybe a minor change in your Agility stat compared to your practice runs? Seems like a SS run would be 60% luck and 40% strategy(Then again this is off the top of my head at the moment, barely thinking).
[/quote]
It couldn't have been because of a change in agility, because I didn't change anyone's agility at all in this run.  My guess is just that the turn order got switched around a bit - I've noticed this can happen when people have the same agility.  For example, Tidus and Yuna both start out with the same agility; if I have them both in the main party at the start of a battle, it's random which of them will get the first turn (although it seems to be Tidus more often).

Anyway, since Axel asked reaaaal nice, I'm uploading parts of this run. :)  The first two videos are up, and I'll be adding more.  If there are any other parts I don't upload that you'd like to see, let me know and I'll put them up as well.

part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUJcmxaXnQc
part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oVfVqjptFg

Edit:
part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvUfdw1SpMk

Essentia

Edit history:

Essentia: 2009-12-06 01:03:30 pm

2009-12-06 09:53:21 am

Everything's better with Magitek

Here are the next two parts (there will be 10 parts total).

part 4:
part 5:

The first video contains the first death in Home, and the second video has the second death at Evrae.

Edit: And here are the next two parts.
part 6:
part 7:

Essentia

2009-12-08 10:12:03 am

Everything's better with Magitek

And here are the last 3 parts:

part 8:
part 9:
part 10:

Part 8 contains the last two game overs. I figured out what happened with Flux; Tidus normally would have gotten another turn before he used Total Annihilation, but Seymour killed him right before that. If he'd cast Flare on either Lulu or Rikku, I would have won.

I hope these videos were at least a little bit helpful or entertaining. If there are any other sections of the run you'd like to see, let me know and I'll upload them.

Gaverion

2009-12-08 03:17:00 pm

Now I need to come up with a more reliable flux strat >_>

I'll put that off until I actually am able to record my run properly though.

It was fun watching!

ZenicReverie

2009-12-08 06:59:42 pm

Waiting hurts my soul...

Quote from Gaverion:

Now I need to come up with a more reliable flux strat >_>

I'll put that off until I actually am able to record my run properly though.

It was fun watching!

You could always just go for this strat and hope for the best Wink

Essentia

2009-12-09 12:28:51 am

Everything's better with Magitek

Yes, Flux is probably the boss that requires the most luck in a SS run. However, my strategy actually has a pretty good chance of succeeding; the live run was the first time that I actually died using that strategy. Of course, if there's a safer strategy that doesn't sacrifice much time, it would be better to go with that. To be completely safe, you'd need to get a second turn with someone (probably Tidus) before Flux gets his first turn, but I don't know if that's possible. Maybe if you used a Chocobo Feather on him and had him use a gem instead of his OD (which should give him his next turn more quickly)? Or maybe use Kimahri instead of Lulu (you'd have to give him First Strike instead of Lulu as well), and have him use a gem? I'm really just thinking out loud, but maybe something here will help.

Essentia

2010-06-20 12:40:02 pm

Everything's better with Magitek

Well, the TSG community will be streaming another unofficial Final Fantasy marathon, August 2-9 (details here). Once again I'll be playing FFX, but this time I'll be going for an actual SS attempt - meaning I won't be saving at all. (The marathon organizers said they don't mind if I don't complete the entire game, which is a real possibility.) My current SS route includes a lot of saving, since I created it specifically for last year's marathon. Although I won't be saving this time, I'll still need to periodically touch save points in order to get healed. So right now I'm doing a runthrough to figure out which save points I actually need to touch. I'm planning to stream some of my practice, and I'll post here when I do.

bmn

2010-06-20 01:25:54 pm

Oh god yes.

I'll very much be rooting for you on the marathon, Kari. If you can pull it off it'll surely be the most brilliant thing to hit SDA - you would submit it here, yeah? - in a very long time.