Secret of Evermore (SNES)

2014-07-27 01:58:34 pm

Evermore Extrodinare ᕦ(° Д°)ᕤ

I'm sure I could do the tutorials for a lot of the tricks. Shouldn't take me too long to do, and I could more than likely do it Monday (Tomorrow) and upload the YT files to my account shortly after doing it. I'll just post the playlist link in here once I get done. Is that cool with you Panda?

Panda

2014-07-28 02:41:59 pm

I don't really care where it's posted, who does it, or anything like that. What I do care about is that anything mentioned in the video is more or less factual and about the trick instead of "I think this is...." or "This is how I assume..." stuff, because that doesn't really help the viewer of the video. This does mean that certain tricks can't really be put up yet such as Verm Skip and depending on how literal we want to be, optimal sprinting/BBMSkip.

The person making the video also should do it at least 2-5 times (depending on the length of the trick/glitch/whatever) so there are good visual examples. The bad part about this is that you need to be explaining during the process, so some of the more bullshit stuff will be annoying to constantly re-record and/or talk over after it's recorded, whichever you guys find to be easier.

TheAngryPanda

Edit history:

TheAngryPanda: 2014-07-30 03:48:18 pm

TheAngryPanda: 2014-07-30 08:10:48 am

2014-07-29 07:22:12 pm

Speed > Safety

The guide for Any% (this includes Verm Skip) has been updated on the gdoc (http://bombch.us/mit). The FAQ was also finished up. Dark Forest was also shown some attention and has multiple ways people could use it based on preference.

I'll probably work on Any% No Verm Skip tomorrow as well as Monster stats and Calculators at some point. Since nobody seems interested in 100%, I've left it alone for now.

FAQ = done
Any% = done
Any% no VS = done
100% = not done
Dark Forest = done (unless there's another layout type you guys want, in which case, tell me and it'll probably happen)
Monster Stats = done
Calculators = (working on it today/tomorrow, let me know if there's anything you guys want in this section)

MetaSigma

2014-07-30 09:26:20 pm

Evermore Extrodinare ᕦ(° Д°)ᕤ

So...yeah...I dropped my time down to 1:18:41 and yeah...two PBs in one day...great.

Still I saw more than enough mistakes I could fix on that run and get a 1:18:3x or 2x. The rest was some very rough RNG at times but still. I can't argue how overall solid it was.

CrAwEk

2014-07-31 01:17:28 am

Congrats metasigma!
Really good act1, your act2 is much better but you can improve that.
If you practice more your act2, you can take the WR Smiley

DLDarklink

2014-07-31 05:28:08 pm

...

good to hear Meta Cheesy

TheAngryPanda

2014-08-04 10:45:56 am

Speed > Safety

Finished converting the excel doc to gdoc today. I'm happy with it right now how it is. Talked with Lamb about the Calculators tab being removed since rarely anyone used it at all, so that's gone. I added 100% Dark Forest Maps to the Dark Forest tab, finished all that up, checked all the numbers for the routes since some were off from the excel version. Everything is updated and hopefully won't require any major rework in the next 2 months like back in the day. Sad

That being said, the fact that more and more people are picking this game up has sort of revitalized my interest in finishing the TAS. So there may be more streams of that in the near future as well as other stuff.

If people use the guides, please let me know via PM or commenting here how it went, what could be improved, etc... The only thing I cannot do is another pathing-type guide like the REALLY old SoE guide initially was.

@Meta, grats on the PBs. I'll have to watch them sometime soon.

skraz

Edit history:

skraz: 2014-09-09 12:34:17 am

skraz: 2014-09-09 12:33:10 am

skraz: 2014-09-09 12:33:09 am

skraz: 2014-09-09 12:18:52 am

2014-09-09 12:16:25 am

Hey all, long time retro collecter (new here) been planning on running some older games, will obviously take me a while to get the practice etc in, but as a child loved both terranigma and secret of evermore and plan to run both, its amazing to see the amount of work done here on SoE and the optimizations allready in place.

A few quick questions and an observation.

Firstly, i have both games on PAL console and realise in evermores case this may be a bad thing cause of a patch that the PAL release got that NTSC didnt which might make some of the glitches not work. I was wondering if its worth buying a NTSC console and a version of this game for speedrunning or if PAL is ok? also what recording equipment do i need, my only recording equipment atm is my phone (sony zperia z).(edit : just realised i have a dvd recorder that i can plug rca into ^^")

I will ofc be rusty as ive never speedrun before (always been interested though and always watch AGDQ and SGDQ) but i do believe my skills on a controller and in both these games should mean i can at least be competative (having watched metasigma in AGDQ i know i have along way to go with muscle memory etc but thought on the whole i could get there, key word is practice...props btw dude that run was the main reason i decided to get involved, was awesome to watch how many new glitches had been found that i wasnt aware about)

anyway, before i start running big props to all the runners especially sigma and all the work done by panda that makes the proposition of a new player starting out that much easier Smiley

as for an observation - currently making what i consider a "perfect completionist save" in evermore and was levelling up some spells and a glitch happened in two seperate areas (checkerboard against bone buzzards and omnitopia against the eyes spinning things (forgot name)) where i was casting spells (8 chaining) and my dog levels up...twice in the 1 frame (im level 45 so it wasnt a case of getting the right amount of experience) and in fact overtook the level of my boy (which shouldnt be possible). Wondering if anyone knows what causes this and if it can be replicated in anyway

edit 2 : saw earlier int he thread people discussing the philosopher in the market giving you the armour piece, he actually gives oyu whatever upgrade you dont have (aka if you have bronze he gives you stone, if stone centurion etc) not sure if it helps (as wasting time in market counts as double time wasted cause of timer) but an interesting thing to ponder for 100% runs for sure (especially cause you can do that....AFTER the fight with igor, so means no trading away for cape)

Hey all, long time retro collecter (new here) been planning on running some older games, will obviously take me a while to get the practice etc in, but as a child loved both terranigma and secret of evermore and plan to run both, its amazing to see the amount of work done here on SoE and the optimizations allready in place.

A few quick questions and an observation.

Firstly, i have both games on PAL console and realise in evermores case this may be a bad thing cause of a patch that the PAL release got that NTSC didnt which might make some of the glitches not work. I was wondering if its worth buying a NTSC console and a version of this game for speedrunning or if PAL is ok? also what recording equipment do i need, my only recording equipment atm is my phone (sony zperia z).(edit : just realised i have a dvd recorder that i can plug rca into ^^")

I will ofc be rusty as ive never speedrun before (always been interested though and always watch AGDQ and SGDQ) but i do believe my skills on a controller and in both these games should mean i can at least be competative (having watched metasigma in AGDQ i know i have  along way to go with muscle memory etc but thought on the whole i could get there, key word is practice...props btw dude that run was the main reason i decided to get involved, was awesome to watch how many new glitches had been found that i wasnt aware about)

anyway, before i start running big props to all the runners especially sigma and all the work done by panda that makes the proposition of a new player starting out that much easier :)

as for an observation - currently making what i consider a "perfect completionist save" in evermore and was levelling up some spells and a glitch happened in two seperate areas (checkerboard against bone buzzards and omnitopia against the eyes spinning things (forgot name)) where i was casting spells (8 chaining) and my dog levels up...twice in the 1 frame (im level 45 so it wasnt a case of getting the right amount of experience) and in fact overtook the level of my boy (which shouldnt be possible). Wondering if anyone knows what causes this and if it can be replicated in anyway

edit 2 : saw earlier int he thread people discussing the philosopher in the market giving you the armour piece, he actually gives oyu whatever upgrade you dont have (aka if you have bronze he gives you stone, if stone centurion etc) not sure if it helps (as wasting time in market counts as double time wasted cause of timer) but an interesting thing to ponder for 100% runs for sure (especially cause you can do that....AFTER the fight with igor, so means no trading away for cape)

MetaSigma

2014-09-09 04:33:37 am

Evermore Extrodinare ᕦ(° Д°)ᕤ

PAL is fine tbh, however as you stated don't expect to get any runs near the NTSC times =P. Though I know Darklink won't mind the competition for the PAL record XD!

Don't worry about being rusty, as we all go through that period. The best thing to do is just stay positive and like you said practice, practice, practice. You are right without Panda we wouldn't be ANYWHERE near where we are now. If anything he deserves the biggest props of ANYONE in this thread flat out. His work on the game and behind the scenes honestly are hands down amazing.

I don't really know TOO much about 100% so I couldn't give you an exact answer on your observations but I do know what you're saying is true he does give you the upgrade of whatever gear you need next in a line of I believe it's 3 (Bronze, Stone, Cape). I think the reason we do that is because you get the Thugs Cloak in the one of the pots in the room right before you fight Vigor IF you already have all 3 Nobillian armors. It's basically faster to get it there doing it that way vs having to get the extra money buying extra stuff and having to get it in Act 3 (Panda did a bunch of routing on that so he could give you a direct answer to your question there :3)

Yeah bring it on man, we all love having new blood join us in the quest for how long you last before you pull your @#$@#$ hair out XD. This game is not gentle in the slightest when you get to the level that Crawek, and myself are at but there is ALWAYS room for improvement (And believe me Crawek and I both know it...No Defend, BBM Skip, Verm Skip *cough cough*)

PAL is fine tbh, however as you stated don't expect to get any runs near the NTSC times =P. Though I know Darklink won't mind the competition for the PAL record XD!

Don't worry about being rusty, as we all go through that period. The best thing to do is just stay positive and like you said practice, practice, practice. You are right without Panda we wouldn't be ANYWHERE near where we are now. If anything he deserves the biggest props of ANYONE in this thread flat out. His work on the game and behind the scenes honestly are hands down amazing.

I don't really know TOO much about 100% so I couldn't give you an exact answer on your observations but I do know what you're saying is true he does give you the upgrade of whatever gear you need next in a line of I believe it's 3 (Bronze, Stone, Cape). I think the reason we do that is because you get the Thugs Cloak in the one of the pots in the room right before you fight Vigor IF you already have all 3 Nobillian armors. It's basically faster to get it there doing it that way vs having to get the extra money buying extra stuff and having to get it in Act 3 (Panda did a bunch of routing on that so he could give you a direct answer to your question there :3)

Yeah bring it on man, we all love having new blood join us in the quest for how long you last before you pull your @#$@#$ hair out XD. This game is not gentle in the slightest when you get to the level that Crawek, and myself are at but there is ALWAYS room for improvement (And believe me Crawek and I both know it...No Defend, BBM Skip, Verm Skip *cough cough*)

assassin17

2014-09-09 07:26:35 am

I love YaBB 1G - SP1!

See a description of the Erratic Leveling bugs here:
http://www14.brinkster.com/assassin17/soe_patches.htm

I don't believe it causes two level-ups per frame, but aside from that, it sounds like the same thing you're describing.

skraz

2014-09-09 08:10:39 pm

RNG is never gentle :), the thing i especially love about the SoE speedrunners over some other games is there seems to be far more acceptance of RNG and far less bitching (its not fair etc) when running things os tight you need to really take into perspective all the tiny rng that can go wrong, thats the risk you take by running so tight, not the games fault but the communities strive for perfection in times and thats something i always thought you should laugh off but im sure i might have a different tune in 6 months time when my x number of runs gets stopped because of some maggot Tongue

MetaSigma

2014-09-29 06:28:32 am

Evermore Extrodinare ᕦ(° Д°)ᕤ

1:18:32 (and there are 2 VERY Ugly mistakes in that run :x)

TheAngryPanda

2014-10-06 09:25:35 pm

Speed > Safety

So, Verm Skip testing probably happens this week on the TAS. Hopefully I can get both results, fail and success. Preferably success first, then force a fail somehow...

GreenAmbler

2014-10-10 02:05:49 pm

Found a small time saver in Fire Eyes Village using the glitch with the guard on bottom right. It will likely be negligible for RTA runs due to requiring a frame perfect switch, but it's still doable and not really punishing to try for once. It require triggering the guard's dialogue with the dog on the same frame you switch to the boy, and with him you trigger a couple things before finishing the dialogue. I believe it can save up to 6-7 seconds.

http://www.twitch.tv/greenambler/c/5271238

CrAwEk

2014-10-11 01:03:58 am

Really nice work again greenambler Smiley

CrAwEk

Edit history:

CrAwEk: 2014-10-11 02:36:11 am

CrAwEk: 2014-10-11 02:22:00 am

2014-10-11 02:18:23 am

I found a setup!
http://www.twitch.tv/crawek/c/5274450
3 frames buffer with dog(running)!
Blimp skip just 2 frames buffer if boy run!

TheAngryPanda

Edit history:

TheAngryPanda: 2014-10-11 09:42:35 am

2014-10-11 09:33:20 am

Speed > Safety

Quote from GreenAmbler:

Found a small time saver in Fire Eyes Village using the glitch with the guard on bottom right. It will likely be negligible for RTA runs due to requiring a frame perfect switch, but it's still doable and not really punishing to try for once. It require triggering the guard's dialogue with the dog on the same frame you switch to the boy, and with him you trigger a couple things before finishing the dialogue. I believe it can save up to 6-7 seconds.

http://www.twitch.tv/greenambler/c/5271238

When I tested this in the TAS, it resulted in the same sort of infinitely loading "crash" that we see with Verm Skip. This is why I never put it in the TAS. If this doesn't yield the same result, I'm kind of annoyed/curious, lol. I wouldn't start the TAS over though, not worth it. I can see some potential for this if I can resolve the issue I just mentioned in the 100% TAS or for someone in the future that may try to improve on the TAS.

Some other points to look into with this are things like various event triggers in Acts 2 and 3, but I think we've exhausted many, if not all, of those in previous testing. Still, doesn't hurt to check again, right? Cheesy

Also, this is sort of like what Lemon and I were experimenting with long ago with Fire Eyes' cutscene skip, which ultimately became pointless since the method we chose to do so led to no call beads being gotten, this seems to alleviate that. That's pretty nice, especially if I can get away without the Call Beads in 100% TAS, which I think would end up being post-Terranigma TAS.

Awesome find. Smiley

edit: Questions....

1) Is going to that hut pre-Fire Eyes' Hut important to the success of the trick?
2) Have you tried experimenting with other aspects of this such as the various other huts around?
3) Is there ANY cutscene-related nonsense with any of the caves connected to River Cave in Act 1 we could abuse?
4) Have we checked things in Act 2? Act 3?

As for the setup, menu buffering can work with any trick in this game. This is sadly probably the only one it's actually worth doing with.

[quote="GreenAmbler"]Found a small time saver in Fire Eyes Village using the glitch with the guard on bottom right. It will likely be negligible for RTA runs due to requiring a frame perfect switch, but it's still doable and not really punishing to try for once. It require triggering the guard's dialogue with the dog on the same frame you switch to the boy, and with him you trigger a couple things before finishing the dialogue. I believe it can save up to 6-7 seconds.

http://www.twitch.tv/greenambler/c/5271238[/quote]

When I tested this in the TAS, it resulted in the same sort of infinitely loading "crash" that we see with Verm Skip. This is why I never put it in the TAS. If this doesn't yield the same result, I'm kind of annoyed/curious, lol. I wouldn't start the TAS over though, not worth it. I can see some potential for this if I can resolve the issue I just mentioned in the 100% TAS or for someone in the future that may try to improve on the TAS.

Some other points to look into with this are things like various event triggers in Acts 2 and 3, but I think we've exhausted many, if not all, of those in previous testing. Still, doesn't hurt to check again, right? :D

Also, this is sort of like what Lemon and I were experimenting with long ago with Fire Eyes' cutscene skip, which ultimately became pointless since the method we chose to do so led to no call beads being gotten, this seems to alleviate that. That's pretty nice, especially if I can get away without the Call Beads in 100% TAS, which I think would end up being post-Terranigma TAS.

Awesome find. :)

edit: Questions....

1) Is going to that hut pre-Fire Eyes' Hut important to the success of the trick?
2) Have you tried experimenting with other aspects of this such as the various other huts around?
3) Is there ANY cutscene-related nonsense with any of the caves connected to River Cave in Act 1 we could abuse?
4) Have we checked things in Act 2? Act 3?

As for the setup, menu buffering can work with any trick in this game. This is sadly probably the only one it's actually worth doing with.

GreenAmbler

Edit history:

GreenAmbler: 2014-10-15 07:20:23 pm

2014-10-12 11:06:08 am

I'm not certain but I believe this guard is pretty unique in how the triggering works. Most of the time you do a frame perfect switch while hitting a trigger it just carries out the action as if the second character hit the trigger, which is mostly useless since both characters have a response for hitting the trigger. I don't remember finding any more where a character can move freely after, but it's something I'll look into further.

Regardless of need for those call beads, I haven't found a way to completely skip the cutscene since I believe the trigger for the north village exit opening happens inside the hut during the FE cutscene.

Triggering different things in different orders produce varying effects. Hitting a trigger for a non-hut screen transition first just results in going into that screen and maybe walking in a different direction upon entering based on what else was triggered after. The huts all lie on the same map, so triggering multiple huts will just put you in the first hut you trigger while the screen shows the last one triggered. In this case you can still move around and even pickup gourds and exit the hut (but not talk to npcs I believe since they need to be loaded with the screen).

The FE cutscene trigger is a unique element, if it's not triggered last then I it is just ignored IIRC (still can't use north exit). Going from hut to FE cutscene trigger will produce the same result from the highlights, only you are spawned much further away before you walk to where the cutscene starts inside FE's hut, resulting in time loss. Not clue why Hut>Village exit>FE Cutscene causes you to spawn where he does. I could play around with those orders more but I don't see any other combination being any faster due to extra detouring.

I'm not 100% on these conclusions but fairly certain this is the only useful application of the glitch. I'll be checking more this week.

Edit: Found some ways to mess with the first part of the cutscene, using the guard trigger multiple times and then triggering the FE cutscene can allow you to walk around while the townspeople are assembling. You can menu and trigger screen transitions as well as the FE cutscene again, which humorously overlaps the cutscene and causes 2 sets of npcs/dialogue to consecutively perform. Also you can make another cutscene where it looks like they are talking to the dog. But of course none of this is useful for speedrunning purposes

I'm not certain but I believe this guard is pretty unique in how the triggering works. Most of the time you do a frame perfect switch while hitting a trigger it just carries out the action as if the second character hit the trigger, which is mostly useless since both characters have a response for hitting the trigger. I don't remember finding any more where a character can move freely after, but it's something I'll look into further.

Regardless of need for those call beads, I haven't found a way to completely skip the cutscene since I believe the trigger for the north village exit opening happens inside the hut during the FE cutscene.

Triggering different things in different orders produce varying effects. Hitting a trigger for a non-hut screen transition first just results in going into that screen and maybe walking in a different direction upon entering based on what else was triggered after. The huts all lie on the same map, so triggering multiple huts will just put you in the first hut you trigger while the screen shows the last one triggered. In this case you can still move around and even pickup gourds and exit the hut (but not talk to npcs I believe since they need to be loaded with the screen).

The FE cutscene trigger is a unique element, if it's not triggered last then I it is just ignored IIRC (still can't use north exit). Going from hut to FE cutscene trigger will produce the same result from the highlights, only you are spawned much further away before you walk to where the cutscene starts inside FE's hut, resulting in time loss. Not clue why Hut>Village exit>FE Cutscene causes you to spawn where he does. I could play around with those orders more but I don't see any other combination being any faster due to extra detouring.

I'm not 100% on these conclusions but fairly certain this is the only useful application of the glitch. I'll be checking more this week.

Edit: Found some ways to mess with the first part of the cutscene, using the guard trigger multiple times and then triggering the FE cutscene can allow you to walk around while the townspeople are assembling. You can menu and trigger screen transitions as well as the FE cutscene again, which humorously overlaps the cutscene and causes 2 sets of npcs/dialogue to consecutively perform. Also you can make another cutscene where it looks like they are talking to the dog. But of course none of this is useful for speedrunning purposes

CrAwEk

2014-10-19 07:17:09 am

I tested that with bizhawk and higan and no crash for me. during the loading, we must press b and a for continue the text and the fire eyes load Smiley

GreenAmbler

2014-10-19 06:02:42 pm

I realized a good visual cue for menu buffering frame perfect tricks. Using the character sprite doesn't really work because pixels will fall on different spots depending on what part of the animation you're on. However, menu icons will always be in the same position relative to the actual character position so you can compare them against the background. This lead me to find what I believe to be a consistent (but still pretty tricky) setup for Thraxx cutscene skip. Here it is in case anyone is wants to use it:

http://www.twitch.tv/greenambler/c/5329179
Dog runs up a little before Maggot
Attack and hit Select
Hold L/R so dog doesn't run back (not always necessary depending on positioning)
Run right with Boy and hit Select to leash the boy onto the right exit trigger (if done correct will always work I think)
Hit X and cast Petal unto Boy
Dog runs to top (hopefully you're past the maggot or it despawned, not positive yet if 100% consistent)
Menu buffer until you're on the north exit trigger, cancel menu and hold Select. Notice where I pause in the video for visual cue, the top line of the blue brackets around the menu icon is visible on top of dialogue box. Also observe the dog relative to the ground for a general idea of when to start menu buffering

Second part just involves switching to dog and jumping over the cutscene trigger (switching to boy and back during dog's jump).

Thraxx cutscene is 15 seconds. The second part of the skip is 2-3 seconds if done well (not very hard), so that's up to 12-13 seconds saved. First part will take a few extra seconds due to menuing, plus 2 seconds for getting petal/extra clay, so roughly 8-9 seconds can be saved if it goes smoothly.

Other considerations are that there will be no maggots spawned during Thraxx fight. Also there's the glitch where you will only gain 1 level immediately after fighting Thraxx, however your next 2 kills will each result in a level up to put you at the usual level. 2 mosquito kills will suffice, could kill one in volcano before Magmar to heal if needed, but otherwise this is only a nuisance.

So in summary, it's one more way to save a small amount of time but increase resets. Setup saves ~8 seconds max. Does require some moderately difficult execution comparative to Big Bug Maze 1 skip, only this troll maggot can be consistently managed (I believe) so the randomness factor is mitigated. After 15 minutes of practice, I save time about 1/3 of the time, but definitely could be more consistent if I had the muscle memory down. I think it's a little more worthwhile to try than BBM1 skip, and less punishing.

I realized a good visual cue for menu buffering frame perfect tricks. Using the character sprite doesn't really work because pixels will fall on different spots depending on what part of the animation you're on. However, menu icons will always be in the same position relative to the actual character position so you can compare them against the background. This lead me to find what I believe to be a consistent (but still pretty tricky) setup for Thraxx cutscene skip. Here it is in case anyone is wants to use it:

http://www.twitch.tv/greenambler/c/5329179
Dog runs up a little before Maggot
Attack and hit Select
Hold L/R so dog doesn't run back (not always necessary depending on positioning)
Run right with Boy and hit Select to leash the boy onto the right exit trigger (if done correct will always work I think)
Hit X and cast Petal unto Boy
Dog runs to top (hopefully you're past the maggot or it despawned, not positive yet if 100% consistent)
Menu buffer until you're on the north exit trigger, cancel menu and hold Select. Notice where I pause in the video for visual cue, the top line of the blue brackets around the menu icon is visible on top of dialogue box. Also observe the dog relative to the ground for a general idea of when to start menu buffering

Second part just involves switching to dog and jumping over the cutscene trigger (switching to boy and back during dog's jump).

Thraxx cutscene is 15 seconds. The second part of the skip is 2-3 seconds if done well (not very hard), so that's up to 12-13 seconds saved. First part will take a few extra seconds due to menuing, plus 2 seconds for getting petal/extra clay, so roughly 8-9 seconds can be saved if it goes smoothly.

Other considerations are that there will be no maggots spawned during Thraxx fight. Also there's the glitch where you will only gain 1 level immediately after fighting Thraxx, however your next 2 kills will each result in a level up to put you at the usual level. 2 mosquito kills will suffice, could kill one in volcano before Magmar to heal if needed, but otherwise this is only a nuisance.

So in summary, it's one more way to save a small amount of time but increase resets. Setup saves ~8 seconds max. Does require some moderately difficult execution comparative to Big Bug Maze 1 skip, only this troll maggot can be consistently managed (I believe) so the randomness factor is mitigated. After 15 minutes of practice, I save time about 1/3 of the time, but definitely could be more consistent if I had the muscle memory down. I think it's a little more worthwhile to try than BBM1 skip, and less punishing.

MetaSigma

2014-10-20 06:41:43 am

Evermore Extrodinare ᕦ(° Д°)ᕤ

I watched the video and it kinda skipped a lot so I wasn't able to really understand it :x. I see in theory what you're doing though and yeah if we can skip having to wait for the dog to SLOWLY walk up as well as the lag generated via sprites that'd be awesome :). Hey the game is all about execution ya know? ;P

I'll see if I can do it here off-stream over the next week because this is a very interesting find for sure. The lack of "leveling up" does make me a LITTLE queezy with just the boy side since Mosquitoes are jerks. Trying to think of anything else we can kill quickly (Like a flower right before the village I'd say?)

GreenAmbler

Edit history:

GreenAmbler: 2014-10-20 06:03:32 pm

GreenAmbler: 2014-10-20 05:59:02 pm

2014-10-20 05:48:28 pm

Well as for the leveling, there are 2 mosquitos right before Magmar, so if you can save 1 extra hardball, you can hit and kill both mosquitos and gain the 2 levels. Plus you ensure you have full health for the Magmar fight. And yeah sorry about the quality, I'll gladly answer any specific questions as far as the execution of the trick. It's a couple tricky back to back maneuvers to realistically save like 5-6 seconds overall.

You'll wanna attack with the dog pretty far up and try to hit the maggot before he can attack, hopefully you don't miss (Like most things in Bugmuck, the maggot is the biggest roadblock for this trick). But you don't want the boy to run too far upwards either. Pretty sure you can leash the boy to the right consistently, every time it doesn't work for me I felt like I just fumbled the execution. Just be running right while you switch back to the dog, can't stop before switching.

Menu buffering is just a matter of not wasting too much time, watch the blue brackets on the menu icon. First you can see the bottom bracket line on the inside of the dialogue box, then you're only a frame or two away from the full top line sitting on top of the dialogue box. (To menu buffer: Y to open menu, Y again, hold UP first and then hold Y again all while the menu is still fading out. Repeat Y UP Y part until you're on the trigger for the screen transition, at which point just hold SELECT and hit Y to close menu and immediately switch)

And on the next screen just look for the second horizontal line from the bottom, have the dog's front paws on the line and jump>switch>switch like with the BBM1 skip.

With menu visual cues there will probly be a few more frame perfect switches worth reevaluating. Could be used to hit the dogswitches in the pyramids to avoid the slow scrolling back and fourth, if done well should save time but it would be minimal.

Well as for the leveling, there are 2 mosquitos right before Magmar, so if you can save 1 extra hardball, you can hit and kill both mosquitos and gain the 2 levels. Plus you ensure you have full health for the Magmar fight. And yeah sorry about the quality, I'll gladly answer any specific questions as far as the execution of the trick. It's a couple tricky back to back maneuvers to realistically save like 5-6 seconds overall.

You'll wanna attack with the dog pretty far up and try to hit the maggot before he can attack, hopefully you don't miss (Like most things in Bugmuck, the maggot is the biggest roadblock for this trick). But you don't want the boy to run too far upwards either. Pretty sure you can leash the boy to the right consistently, every time it doesn't work for me I felt like I just fumbled the execution. Just be running right while you switch back to the dog, can't stop before switching.

Menu buffering is just a matter of not wasting too much time, watch the blue brackets on the menu icon. First you can see the bottom bracket line on the inside of the dialogue box, then you're only a frame or two away from the full top line sitting on top of the dialogue box. (To menu buffer: Y to open menu, Y again, [b]hold[/b] UP first and then [b]hold[/b] Y again all while the menu is still fading out. Repeat Y UP Y part until you're on the trigger for the screen transition, at which point just hold SELECT and hit Y to close menu and immediately switch)

And on the next screen just look for the second horizontal line from the bottom, have the dog's front paws on the line and jump>switch>switch like with the BBM1 skip.

With menu visual cues there will probly be a few more frame perfect switches worth reevaluating. Could be used to hit the dogswitches in the pyramids to avoid the slow scrolling back and fourth, if done well should save time but it would be minimal.

TheAngryPanda

2014-10-20 06:48:56 pm

Speed > Safety

So since I've already dealt with this. The mosquitos in the volcano pre-magmar aren't a good idea. There's too much stuff before then that will kill most runners. It makes it very frustrating, thus why so many people STILL grab the safety petal before Thraxx. The two mosquitos the TAS used are the ones on the cliffs of the quicksand area. This can be used for one at the very least and then saving the other for the pre-magmar, that might be better overall for RTA. I'm not quite sure of the reasoning for the TAS bopping the mosquito in the sewer area, I'm pretty sure it was because I lost 0 frames in the process of doing so due to how movement + attacking with the dog works there... Anyways. Don't save both for magmar, and don't save a hardball, that's too much time "lost." Either go all before Volcano, or save 1 for volcano. Just my thoughts on it since I already had to deal with that in the TAS.

BBMSkip, Early Dog, Horace Cutscene Skip (100% + specialized route + super experimental), Saturn Skip, and MAYBE the pyramid buttons/other fun tricks in Act 2 could all use menu buffering and still save time if done under optimal conditions. I would take any experimenting with a grain of salt initially because a lot of stuff can mess with quite a few of these situations and it'd be worth making sure we encompass those during testing. BBMSkip is definitely worth doing it with, as is Saturn Skip. The others are more on and off depending on the player.

So since I've already dealt with this. The mosquitos in the volcano pre-magmar aren't a good idea. There's too much stuff before then that will kill most runners. It makes it very frustrating, thus why so many people STILL grab the safety petal before Thraxx. The two mosquitos the TAS used are the ones on the cliffs of the quicksand area. This can be used for one at the very least and then saving the other for the pre-magmar, that might be better overall for RTA. I'm not quite sure of the reasoning for the TAS bopping the mosquito in the sewer area, I'm pretty sure it was because I lost 0 frames in the process of doing so due to how movement + attacking with the dog works there... Anyways. Don't save both for magmar, and don't save a hardball, that's too much time "lost." Either go all before Volcano, or save 1 for volcano. Just my thoughts on it since I already had to deal with that in the TAS.

BBMSkip, Early Dog, Horace Cutscene Skip (100% + specialized route + super experimental), Saturn Skip, and MAYBE the pyramid buttons/other fun tricks in Act 2 could all use menu buffering and still save time if done under optimal conditions. I would take any experimenting with a grain of salt initially because a lot of stuff can mess with quite a few of these situations and it'd be worth making sure we encompass those during testing. BBMSkip is definitely worth doing it with, as is Saturn Skip. The others are more on and off depending on the player.

GreenAmbler

2014-10-21 02:30:59 pm

Well if people are gonna use this trick then they probably should be at the point where they don't get hit more than once on their way from Thraxx to Magmar, and you will have 48 hp to cover any single attack. I figured a nice reliable hardball would be better since mosquitos' movements are so random. Not really sure what the current route is as far as money/hardball ingredients so I don't know how much time cost there is from getting 1 more. If it is too time consuming, your best bet with physical attacks would be finding ones that spawn in a good spot right near where you enter the screen. There is one good one right after shopping at the acid rain guy, not sure if there's another good one.

TheAngryPanda

2014-10-21 03:42:10 pm

Speed > Safety

Yeah, I completely agree with you on that first part GA. Wink

lol

Anyways, the hardball route is currently pretty air-tight in the sense that going out of your way to obtain more while also doing the BBMSkip + any menu buffering is likely going to cost time we really don't need. As for the mosquitos, swinging ~3-4 times (you've just gotta hit them once) is less time than menu >> select hardball >> target mosquito >> cast >> wait for casting animation before leaving area. That's what I was getting at regarding hardball usage. You can also kill anything, it doesn't have to be mosquitos, so flowers/skelesnails/etc... this isn't good for Any%, but might be beneficial in 100% depending on how that gets affected by things later on. Just something to keep in mind really, I don't think anyone is going to run 100% anytime soon.

I think this is the list of spawns for them post-Thraxx regarding Any% No Defend (I don't ever include Defend in stuff, sorry, lol):

- Cliffs in bugmuck area (difficult to get to/spawn)
- Cliffs in quicksand area x 3 (one near the bottom, one near the middle, one near the exit to eastern forest)
- Village (Defend area, apparently?)
- Northern Forest (one at entrance, maybe kill while cutting grass if available?)
- Volcano Sewers x 4 (two before magmar, two in the water ride; one of the water ride ones is difficult to spawn)

The TAS utilizes what was found to waste the least frames possible, but they were all within 12 frames of each other (usually due to movement manipulations or attack animations + stopping time).

I wonder if we could use some of what we've learned from the village in the desert with sting or the ruins since the dog has key conversation triggers (as does the boy) with some of those NPC's to maybe find something that way? There's also a few places in Act 3, but I'd be surprised if anything came out of that considering how Verm Skip acts if we skip stuff. Speaking of... 4 buttons down, getting there....

Yeah, I completely agree with you on that first part GA. ;) lol

Anyways, the hardball route is currently pretty air-tight in the sense that going out of your way to obtain more while also doing the BBMSkip + any menu buffering is likely going to cost time we really don't need. As for the mosquitos, swinging ~3-4 times (you've just gotta hit them once) is less time than menu >> select hardball >> target mosquito >> cast >> wait for casting animation before leaving area. That's what I was getting at regarding hardball usage. You can also kill anything, it doesn't have to be mosquitos, so flowers/skelesnails/etc... this isn't good for Any%, but might be beneficial in 100% depending on how that gets affected by things later on. Just something to keep in mind really, I don't think anyone is going to run 100% anytime soon.

I think this is the list of spawns for them post-Thraxx regarding Any% No Defend (I don't ever include Defend in stuff, sorry, lol):

- Cliffs in bugmuck area (difficult to get to/spawn)
- Cliffs in quicksand area x 3 (one near the bottom, one near the middle, one near the exit to eastern forest)
- Village (Defend area, apparently?)
- Northern Forest (one at entrance, maybe kill while cutting grass if available?)
- Volcano Sewers x 4 (two before magmar, two in the water ride; one of the water ride ones is difficult to spawn)

The TAS utilizes what was found to waste the least frames possible, but they were all within 12 frames of each other (usually due to movement manipulations or attack animations + stopping time).

I wonder if we could use some of what we've learned from the village in the desert with sting or the ruins since the dog has key conversation triggers (as does the boy) with some of those NPC's to maybe find something that way? There's also a few places in Act 3, but I'd be surprised if anything came out of that considering how Verm Skip acts if we skip stuff. Speaking of... 4 buttons down, getting there....