Secret of Evermore (SNES)

2015-12-04 07:16:08 pm

Speed > Safety

ZB has been tested a long time ago, it doesn't make up the time you lose from being so slow. Which is really unfortunate because the trick itself really isn't that difficult.

Your route is more or less exactly what was tested, in fact I think it may have been either myself or you that suggested it forever ago in the first place, lol. Smiley

Either way, yeah... it doesn't work out. Theory states you can save something like 4-5s total if everything goes perfectly, but it won't/doesn't, and that also implies AI is polite to you as well. Then there's also the fact you lose Thraxx cutscene skip, which pushes it past the time gained and into time lost compared to the current method. Sad

in other news, however, here's the start of the 100% TAS (route-wise) if anyone's interested: http://pastebin.com/EnN3uu7Y

TheAngryPanda

2016-01-12 09:54:45 pm

Speed > Safety

So in case it's not common knowledge by now...

Was working on the 100% TAS, testing the cutscene skip a bit more than I probably should have. I also happened to have Crawek's WR pulled up so I could see it in action for RTA comparison and a few other things.

Here's what I learned:

- You can trigger it off the guard prior to Thraxx, which I'm 100% sure was already known.
- Any of the houses work, from any direction, but the N hut is easily the quickest. Using the Eastern/Southern Forest exits instead of a hut doesn't work and occasionally softlocks due to to conflicting map ID's.
- You only need to trigger the N hut (Hut NORTH of the guard) and then go straight to Fire Eyes' Hut. The 3rd exit some people do isn't needed and wastes time.

*Regarding 100%, post-cutscene skip/getting flash is the best time to pick up the Ash by the fire pit just outside Fire Eyes' hut. Not that anyone runs 100%, but there ya go. About to put a damn bounty on this category... It's certainly challenging enough to merit it at this point.

Anywho, haven't really figured out much else because I'm getting caught up on flower drop RNG. Not really any surprises there. Still would love to have someone to work on this TAS with me, if anyone is interested.

Once the 100% TAS is done, I'm probably done with Secret of Evermore stuff for quite some time, unless someone discovers a new glitch/skip or something that causes a major reroute to happen.

So in case it's not common knowledge by now...

Was working on the 100% TAS, testing the cutscene skip a bit more than I probably should have. I also happened to have Crawek's WR pulled up so I could see it in action for RTA comparison and a few other things.

Here's what I learned:

- You can trigger it off the guard prior to Thraxx, which I'm 100% sure was already known.
- Any of the houses work, from any direction, but the N hut is easily the quickest. Using the Eastern/Southern Forest exits instead of a hut doesn't work and occasionally softlocks due to to conflicting map ID's.
- You only need to trigger the N hut (Hut NORTH of the guard) and then go straight to Fire Eyes' Hut. The 3rd exit some people do isn't needed and wastes time.

*Regarding 100%, post-cutscene skip/getting flash is the best time to pick up the Ash by the fire pit just outside Fire Eyes' hut. Not that anyone runs 100%, but there ya go. About to put a damn bounty on this category... It's certainly challenging enough to merit it at this point.

Anywho, haven't really figured out much else because I'm getting caught up on flower drop RNG. Not really any surprises there. Still would love to have someone to work on this TAS with me, if anyone is interested.

Once the 100% TAS is done, I'm probably done with Secret of Evermore stuff for quite some time, unless someone discovers a new glitch/skip or something that causes a major reroute to happen.

TheAngryPanda

Edit history:

TheAngryPanda: 2016-02-07 01:03:20 pm

2016-02-07 01:01:04 pm

Speed > Safety

So I've been heavily thinking about how we could get some better community interactivity going with our attempts or whatever. Currently we've just been doing attempts, we can't really race because of how volatile everything is. So here's some nonsense I was thinking about throwing "routes" together for that we COULD race together sometime:

Note: These are NOT "serious" categories, this is being done because there is currently no REAL/RELIABLE method of racing Secret of Evermore, it is too volatile of a game and there is no way to backup save past a certain point. This hurts our community slightly, and racing is fun, so this is an attempt to figure out what might be interesting and what sort of time we should estimate for said races if they ever happen.

------- Magmar%

-- Basically the same as the current Any% route, however, we could adjust things to make it safer or go full out crazy and just see who is luckier that day
-- Time would start upon gaining control of the boy in Southern Forest
-- Time would end when the text for leveling up at Magmar is displayed (or any other text displayed upon his death, should Hard Ball level up at that point as well)

+ Concept of this one is to let beginners and veterans of the game to learn/improve game mechanics such as sprinting, timings, BBMSkip, Hard Ball count differences, etc...
+ Can be made entirely safe with 16 Hard Ball route for short races that can be done in succession.
+ Could have a leaderboard attached to it for various routes in the gdoc, I'd prefer to keep it off any actual leaderboard though, as that would imply this is a serious category and not a for-fun thing.

------- Level 3 Crush Race

-- Nothing special, just the 1st person to get level 3 Crush would win. Can employ any and all exploits/tricks/etc...
-- Timing starts at player control in Southern Forest
-- Timing ends when the player brings up the menu showing Crush is level 3 in their alchemy tab.

+ Again, this would immensely help incorporate the Act 1 details into new runners memorization, while also introducing them to Act 2's more infamous nonsense.
+ This route is slightly different in that the optimal Crush leveling isn't actually known when there's no amount of progress post-Lvl 3, so some routing/innovation could be done here, which involves our community again.

------- Walk%

-- Basically anything goes EXCEPT for getting the Jaguar Ring.
-- Timing starts at player control in Southern Forest.
-- Timing ends when the player triggers the bridge collapsing in Ruins (which you can technically get across w/o running, but good luck with making that reliable)
*If we CAN make a method reliable to get across without it being too ridiculous, I would be okay with routing this out completely and making it the 'official' racing category, but I don't see this happening soon.

+ This basically would familiarize people with how enemies function pretty well past certain areas, whether they want to learn that or not.
+ This will also incorporate numerous adaptation "features" into the route since the RNG is so varied with most things, which is a good thing, because it'll teach people how to react properly to bad situations in the game.
+ The entire route would be more or less "new" outside of the skeletal structure of how it progresses normally in the game. Rock Skips will be interesting, as one example.

That's all I've got for now. I also thought about routing a segmented route and maybe seeing if people wanted to work on that together via emulator sometime (would probably use SNES9x since it's easier for people). But this is far from happening currently. Updating a segmented route in this game with it's current glitches is quite a task, and there's no way it will be faster than Any% is due to us having to drop atlas glitch at saves. But it's something I've been looking at for sure.

Please lemme know what you think, either on here, via skype (if you have it), my discord channel ( https://discord.gg/0g3X85UIR35VGK1L ), or via PM/chat on twitch.

Again, these are not "serious categories" by any means, I just wanted to try and create some "fun," but useful routes for everyone. <3

So I've been heavily thinking about how we could get some better community interactivity going with our attempts or whatever. Currently we've just been doing attempts, we can't really race because of how volatile everything is. So here's some nonsense I was thinking about throwing "routes" together for that we COULD race together sometime:

Note: These are NOT "serious" categories, this is being done because there is currently no REAL/RELIABLE method of racing Secret of Evermore, it is too volatile of a game and there is no way to backup save past a certain point. This hurts our community slightly, and racing is fun, so this is an attempt to figure out what might be interesting and what sort of time we should estimate for said races if they ever happen.

------- Magmar%

-- Basically the same as the current Any% route, however, we could adjust things to make it safer or go full out crazy and just see who is luckier that day
-- Time would start upon gaining control of the boy in Southern Forest
-- Time would end when the text for leveling up at Magmar is displayed (or any other text displayed upon his death, should Hard Ball level up at that point as well)

+ Concept of this one is to let beginners and veterans of the game to learn/improve game mechanics such as sprinting, timings, BBMSkip, Hard Ball count differences, etc...
+ Can be made entirely safe with 16 Hard Ball route for short races that can be done in succession.
+ Could have a leaderboard attached to it for various routes in the gdoc, I'd prefer to keep it off any actual leaderboard though, as that would imply this is a serious category and not a for-fun thing.

------- Level 3 Crush Race

-- Nothing special, just the 1st person to get level 3 Crush would win. Can employ any and all exploits/tricks/etc... 
-- Timing starts at player control in Southern Forest
-- Timing ends when the player brings up the menu showing Crush is level 3 in their alchemy tab.

+ Again, this would immensely help incorporate the Act 1 details into new runners memorization, while also introducing them to Act 2's more infamous nonsense.
+ This route is slightly different in that the optimal Crush leveling isn't actually known when there's no amount of progress post-Lvl 3, so some routing/innovation could be done here, which involves our community again.

------- Walk%

-- Basically anything goes EXCEPT for getting the Jaguar Ring.
-- Timing starts at player control in Southern Forest.
-- Timing ends when the player triggers the bridge collapsing in Ruins (which you can technically get across w/o running, but good luck with making that reliable)
*If we CAN make a method reliable to get across without it being too ridiculous, I would be okay with routing this out completely and making it the 'official' racing category, but I don't see this happening soon.

+ This basically would familiarize people with how enemies function pretty well past certain areas, whether they want to learn that or not.
+ This will also incorporate numerous adaptation "features" into the route since the RNG is so varied with most things, which is a good thing, because it'll teach people how to react properly to bad situations in the game.
+ The entire route would be more or less "new" outside of the skeletal structure of how it progresses normally in the game. Rock Skips will be interesting, as one example.

That's all I've got for now. I also thought about routing a segmented route and maybe seeing if people wanted to work on that together via emulator sometime (would probably use SNES9x since it's easier for people). But this is far from happening currently. Updating a segmented route in this game with it's current glitches is quite a task, and there's no way it will be faster than Any% is due to us having to drop atlas glitch at saves. But it's something I've been looking at for sure.

Please lemme know what you think, either on here, via skype (if you have it), my discord channel ( https://discord.gg/0g3X85UIR35VGK1L ), or via PM/chat on twitch.

Again, these are not "serious categories" by any means, I just wanted to try and create some "fun," but useful routes for everyone. <3

TheAngryPanda

2016-03-10 02:20:10 pm

Speed > Safety

So this is a thing now:

I'm currently spending most of my free time trying to figure out the rest of the route, but it's basically a nightmare.

Either way, more to come eventually. Thraxx being down is a massive motivation boost.

CrAwEk

2016-03-17 04:34:59 am

Really good job panda Smiley

TheAngryPanda

2016-03-17 08:16:57 am

Speed > Safety

Thanks Crawek! I'm up to the Viper Commander fight now, but I ran into a few problems... Maybe you guys can help me out here since seemingly I'm doing the exact same thing as the RTA route.

Basically RTA does 8x3x (Hard Ball 8, Heat Wave 3) on VC + 4 Vipers, correct? All in one sequence.

The TAS is forced to use 5x3x (Hard Ball 5, Heat Wave 3) on VC + 4 Vipers. It still kills them all mathematically and I've tested to make sure it has the damage to actually kill them in game.

My problem comes with missing 3 Hard Balls, so basically the damage is triggered from the hard balls, then because of the i-frames afterwards, Heat Wave damage isn't applied at all on Viper Commander only. The other 4 Vipers die instantly every time.

Any suggestions? I've been at this for about a day and a half now. Adding more Hard Ball isn't an option. Sad

MetaSigma

Edit history:

MetaSigma: 2016-03-20 06:32:54 am

2016-03-20 06:32:28 am

Evermore Extrodinare ᕦ(° Д°)ᕤ

We do 6HB+3HW and I've never known dmg to be applied to Viper Commander (From HW) . I thought it was the HB straight up that killed him. (Sometimes he dies DURING the Heat Wave animation from 6HB)

TheAngryPanda

2016-03-20 08:48:04 am

Speed > Safety

Yeah, the problem is that I have to cut 1 HB from the 6/3 due to routing reasons, and to a lesser extent, manipulation reasons. That being said... I think that single HB cast worth of "delay" is what's causing the sequence to fail outright. It seems to be applying HB damage just before Heat Wave and due to how damage works in the game, it's not registering the Heat Wave damage. So I'm going to try just swapping the sequence order and hoping that works out (it probably won't, cuz F Heat Wave logic) or just find the magical delay amount and see what I can do in the mean time.

On that note! Super happy to destroy volcano path afterwards because that area is just the worst, ever.

GreenAmbler

2016-03-20 08:37:07 pm

https://www.twitch.tv/greenambler/v/55698659

Here's a small use for the old trick I found where you explode the bridges from the Aegis battle right before you get warped for the victory jingle. If you timed it right, you can move the character around until Horace comes. By placing the dog at the top, you avoid having to wait for him to walk up at the end of the cutscene, which takes just over one second. Not much of a savings but also no risk involved, so no reason not to go for it Smiley

GreenAmbler

2016-04-02 12:25:44 pm

I think I found a faster route for acts 2 and 3 any%. It involves the safe Verm Skip , which does not cause audio glitches/softlocks because you do the Ebon Keep jail properly.

-Enter Market first time
-Grind money (exchange talons, buy rice 4x80, buy ceramic pots 4x10, rice x80 and pots x40 again, sell 80 pots and repeat) until 1305j if you want 6 wings. Could get jade disc/amulets now or after desert grind
-Get Atlas/medalion, buy pixie dust and wings (x6?)
-Blimp cutscene, buy wax x15 and limestone x25.
-Atlas glitch. Pick up ingredients (ethanol, 2 wax, vinegar, 3 limestone, 3 limestone). If no defend, pick them up right after Blimp cutscene
-Vigor/ruins/mids like normal (pickup 2 wax pre-Vigor fight and 2 wax after root near DE skip)
-No need to revisit blimp or grind crush, Aegis and underground normal except no call bead pot
-Aqua; Here's the worst part of the route change. I'd recommend a wings. The strat I found most effective was: 8xCrush, 8xCrush, 7xCrush, 7xCrush6xFlare. Killed him 8 times in a row for me. The game seems to crash here if >8 spells of the same class are active, so I think an ill-timed lightning storm could crash the game. Menu cancel the crush animations to reduce the chance of crash, and possibly avoid 8 casts altogether (maybe 6x 6x 6x 6x 6x+6xCB to be safe. You have 1 extra crush, so could do one 7x and maybe skip a CB?)

Act 3:
-Everything normal until Ebon Keep Dungeon. Immediately hold sniff for dog, skip the top(or topleft?) cell, open/kill the rest, switch to dog and reenter sewers. Backtrack through sewers, 2 wings for forest and go across the chessboard bridge to EK like regular Verm Skip route. Rest of the game like normal.

Haven't done much full testing yet, but it seems like this route should save somewhere around 10 seconds. Act 3 should be ~25 seconds slower, but Act 2 roughly 35 seconds faster, the exact amount is hard to determine. The wings routing is flexible and would mostly come down to preference/category, no defend would basically require more wings and might not be vialbe. This will add confusion regarding the existing sketchy/faster Verm Skip category, could call categories Quick Verm Skip vs No QVS? I'll try to do some run with this route later this week

I think I found a faster route for acts 2 and 3 any%. It involves the safe Verm Skip , which does not cause audio glitches/softlocks because you do the Ebon Keep jail properly.

-Enter Market first time
-Grind money (exchange talons, buy rice 4x80, buy ceramic pots 4x10, rice x80 and pots x40 again, sell 80 pots and repeat) until 1305j if you want 6 wings. Could get jade disc/amulets now or after desert grind
-Get Atlas/medalion, buy pixie dust and wings (x6?)
-Blimp cutscene, buy wax x15 and limestone x25. 
-Atlas glitch. Pick up ingredients (ethanol, 2 wax, vinegar, 3 limestone, 3 limestone). If no defend, pick them up right after Blimp cutscene
-Vigor/ruins/mids like normal (pickup 2 wax pre-Vigor fight and 2 wax after root near DE skip)
-No need to revisit blimp or grind crush, Aegis and underground normal except no call bead pot
-Aqua; Here's the worst part of the route change. I'd recommend a wings. The strat I found most effective was: 8xCrush, 8xCrush, 7xCrush, 7xCrush6xFlare. Killed him 8 times in a row for me. The game seems to crash here if >8 spells of the same class are active, so I think an ill-timed lightning storm could crash the game. Menu cancel the crush animations to reduce the chance of crash, and possibly avoid 8 casts altogether (maybe 6x 6x 6x 6x 6x+6xCB to be safe. You have 1 extra crush, so could do one 7x and maybe skip a CB?)

Act 3:
-Everything normal until Ebon Keep Dungeon. Immediately hold sniff for dog, skip the top(or topleft?) cell, open/kill the rest, switch to dog and reenter sewers. Backtrack through sewers, 2 wings for forest and go across the chessboard bridge to EK like regular Verm Skip route. Rest of the game like normal.

Haven't done much full testing yet, but it seems like this route should save somewhere around 10 seconds. Act 3 should be ~25 seconds slower, but Act 2 roughly 35 seconds faster, the exact amount is hard to determine. The wings routing is flexible and would mostly come down to preference/category, no defend would basically require more wings and might not be vialbe. This will add confusion regarding the existing sketchy/faster Verm Skip category, could call categories Quick Verm Skip vs No QVS? I'll try to do some run with this route later this week

TheAngryPanda

2016-04-02 09:33:17 pm

Speed > Safety

I think the route's super cool. Smiley

I don't think we need another category though, this could easily compete with VS Any% as it is right now given other route changes that have happened. It's just a safer version of it, so yeah, no big deal.

Also, is it confirmed that this version of the VS doesn't cause the softlock at all? IF so, I was never made aware of it and it would explain some conflicting testing reports I've gotten recently from some people. Which I need to add to the guide and make sure the two methods are clearly depicted and laid out for new runners of that category. For reference, my own testing on the original VS (the one in the Any% TAS I did) has a 50/50 chance that alternates frame by frame [tested up to 1.2k frames, both with and without other inputs being done]. So if it's the same as that, there's no safe version.

GreenAmbler

2016-04-03 06:31:01 am

I've done several runs using this Safe Verm Skip and never heard any sound glitches, whereas even with the successful Quick Verm Skips, I ALWAYS hear sound glitches upon entering dungeon. I've hypothesized that it was due to entering the dungeon the wrong way upon first visit; the game normally has a set group of actions on first visit (including music changes) but it doesn't get triggered correctly if not using the sewer entrance. I've mentioned this Safe Verm Skip a few times but was unsure if it'd really save time, but now that I've come up with additional optimizations it should definitely be worthwhile. It still is significantly slower than QVS, by the amount of time it takes to backtrack through sewers and some more seconds for passing through dungeon an extra time. But the regular category name of No Verm Skip Any% is technically obsolete, which is why I proposed calling it No QVS instead Smiley

TheAngryPanda

2016-04-03 07:46:06 am

Speed > Safety

(preface: this is from my own testing notes, mostly regarding stuff for the TAS)

Verm Skip:

- Musical issue is caused by loading the exact same map ID under two different instances with all triggers for multiple sound effects in place as well. This happens with numerous other locations such as going too fast during Early Mad Monk and the newer Fire Eyes' Villager Chanting Skip.

- The game, as best as I can tell, tried to insert the player location ID into a map ID that the player couldn't possibly be located at, thus the black screen + continuous music (as in, it's not a hardlock, but a softlock instead).

- [assumption/theory] This might be caused by the game prioritizing a map over another map in terms of where the player entered from, which upon trying to leave (because two maps are loaded), it tries to read positions from a separate map, which causes the player to get stuck like they would in a botched CET (Character Event Transfer) glitch such as Thraxx Cutscene Skip where you swap to boy and the dog pathing is loaded, walking you up into the area above the bugmuck exit. This would explain the camera staying still, the player having some relative control over things (you can attack and swap characters), and the music progressing if it isn't completely removed from the glitch/trick in the first place.

^ That is the VS i'm used to, I had no idea there was a safe(r?) version of it, which is awesome. I completely agree we can probably obsolete Any% NOVS now and you have no idea how happy I am about that; haha.

Now to have some serious testing done (hopefully by Crawek/Meta since they're kind of the only people pushing for WR right now) to see just how much it actually saves and if we can push it even further. I'll rework the guide and make note of it once I see some solidified data coming through. Awesome job as always GA. <3

(preface: this is from my own testing notes, mostly regarding stuff for the TAS)

Verm Skip:

- Musical issue is caused by loading the exact same map ID under two different instances with all triggers for multiple sound effects in place as well. This happens with numerous other locations such as going too fast during Early Mad Monk and the newer Fire Eyes' Villager Chanting Skip.

- The game, as best as I can tell, tried to insert the player location ID into a map ID that the player couldn't possibly be located at, thus the black screen + continuous music (as in, it's not a hardlock, but a softlock instead).

- [assumption/theory] This might be caused by the game prioritizing a map over another map in terms of where the player entered from, which upon trying to leave (because two maps are loaded), it tries to read positions from a separate map, which causes the player to get stuck like they would in a botched CET (Character Event Transfer) glitch such as Thraxx Cutscene Skip where you swap to boy and the dog pathing is loaded, walking you up into the area above the bugmuck exit. This would explain the camera staying still, the player having some relative control over things (you can attack and swap characters), and the music progressing if it isn't completely removed from the glitch/trick in the first place.

^ That is the VS i'm used to, I had no idea there was a safe(r?) version of it, which is awesome. I completely agree we can probably obsolete Any% NOVS now and you have no idea how happy I am about that; haha.

Now to have some serious testing done (hopefully by Crawek/Meta since they're kind of the only people pushing for WR right now) to see just how much it actually saves and if we can push it even further. I'll rework the guide and make note of it once I see some solidified data coming through. Awesome job as always GA. <3

MetaSigma

2016-04-03 08:22:26 am

Evermore Extrodinare ᕦ(° Д°)ᕤ

WOW

Nice job GA!!! I'll def do a few runs of it. Though 1 question and this might have been answered and I don't exactly see it. If we use a wings on Aquagoth will that short us 1 or is that factored into buying 6 wings as well?

GreenAmbler

2016-04-04 05:29:13 am

I wasn't really sure how many Wings we really need, we use 2 in ruins, need 2 extra for forest backtracking, other instances come down to preference I suppose. So 6 wings is probably more than we need, but buying extra only costs us the small amount of extra time it takes to keep the shopping ring open during pixie dust purchasing. For No Defend you'd likely want all 6 and maybe more from Mids since you have to go through chessboard areas an extra time. So it's up to the runners how many they want and which to get, but there should be plenty of options with minimal time loss either way.

TheAngryPanda

2016-04-04 06:05:00 am

Speed > Safety

Regarding Wings and No Defend runs, you drop Volcano Path Wings and use them elsewhere if needed. This is actually a backup built into the route in case you forget some later on since you'll need one for the boss fight.

The required amount:

2 Ruins
2 Backtrack
1 Boss

The reason we don't buy more Wings in No Defend is simply because of the menu time it would take to fully utilize them. Those 1-2s in the menu, that eats through your "I didn't pick Defend up" time. Honestly, No Defend is more of a challenge/preference at this point under the new route because you're already adding 2 extra long menu operations to the equation, which cuts the savings down to around 8-10s max (again, depending on what route you're going). The only route that I personally think should be running No Defend right now is the 90 CB route, which I doubt is going to happen any time soon.

CrAwEk

2016-04-07 04:33:54 am

I did a run with verminator skip with greenambler route on snes9x 1.53 cause I can't do verminator skip on bizhawk. I have a problem cause snes9x 1.53 don't like 8 crush cast. Menu cancel doesn't help
https://www.twitch.tv/crawek/v/59104637
It's really annoying cause i have not this problem on bizhawk.

TheAngryPanda

2016-04-07 05:59:50 am

Speed > Safety

This is why we need to get you a SNES! <3 lol

On a more serious note, just change down to a 7x Crush and you should be okay Crawek. It'll reduce overall damage, but I think you should be fine regardless. If not, add a CB cast at the end if there's one to spare or use an 8x at the end instead of the beginning. Aqua's fight is super bad in regards to spell classes being stacked up without much warning.

Also, have you tried updating to the latest Bizhawk releases? If so, I'm really curious to see why you can't do verm skip on Bizhawk, but you can on the other emulators. You're the only one I've heard of having this problem and we know it technically works on Bizhawk because the Any% TAS I made uses it. So that's definitely a weird issue.

Could you maybe make a TTAS up to verm skip (either method should be fine to test) and save a state before leaving prison after all the weird sound effects or killing all the monsters? Then leave the prison on one frame, see if it fails. IF it does, reload the save state, advance one frame, and then leave the prison again to see if it fails more. If it fails multiple frames in a row with no lag/delay frames from various events in the game happening, we've got a problem. Just remember you're going to have to make sure you're triggering the "leave area" event the frame immediately after the failed one (if it fails) to optimally test it. Maybe try a few times over 10-20 frames as well? I'd really like to figure out why it won't work for you.

This is why we need to get you a SNES! <3 lol

On a more serious note, just change down to a 7x Crush and you should be okay Crawek. It'll reduce overall damage, but I think you should be fine regardless. If not, add a CB cast at the end if there's one to spare or use an 8x at the end instead of the beginning. Aqua's fight is super bad in regards to spell classes being stacked up without much warning.

Also, have you tried updating to the latest Bizhawk releases? If so, I'm really curious to see why you can't do verm skip on Bizhawk, but you can on the other emulators. You're the only one I've heard of having this problem and we know it technically works on Bizhawk because the Any% TAS I made uses it. So that's definitely a weird issue.

Could you maybe make a TTAS up to verm skip (either method should be fine to test) and save a state before leaving prison after all the weird sound effects or killing all the monsters? Then leave the prison on one frame, see if it fails. IF it does, reload the save state, advance one frame, and then leave the prison again to see if it fails more. If it fails multiple frames in a row with no lag/delay frames from various events in the game happening, we've got a problem. Just remember you're going to have to make sure you're triggering the "leave area" event the frame immediately after the failed one (if it fails) to optimally test it. Maybe try a few times over 10-20 frames as well? I'd really like to figure out why it won't work for you.

DLDarklink

2016-04-07 06:33:44 am

...

I tried it on Bizhawk last monday (after some discussion with Crawek wether it would work or not) and i failed the skip a lot. as soon as the game loses its sound it will start lagging a lot and you can be sure it'll crash upon leaving the area Sad

out of my head it was done on biz 1.11.3

If needed and if Crawek wants to, we can do some more testing tonight.

Is that discord server of yours still active Panda? maybe we can spam results there instead of cluttering this thread Tongue

TheAngryPanda

Edit history:

TheAngryPanda: 2016-04-07 06:55:08 am

2016-04-07 06:47:59 am

Speed > Safety

Sure, you guys are more than welcome to do that. https://discord.gg/0g3X85UIR32vcCwO if anyone else wants to join it as well.

I'm super curious about it and may have to make my own TTAS to help test things.

Skarsnik

2016-04-07 11:38:53 am

Emulator are probably not accurate concerning the APU emulation. it's probably why it's not really reliable to test with them. The best thing will be to do a trace of a working and no working vermskip and look at the asm snes code executed

GreenAmbler

2016-04-07 03:25:46 pm

The Safe Verm Skip from my route should work fine on any system/emu Crawek since dungeon is completed as intended before revisiting, have you tried that version on bizhawk? As for Aqua, you could do 5 casts of 6xCrush instead, you'd lose about 2-3 seconds from having to wait for another Crush animation but should be reliable and faster than old any% route. You'll wanna wait to cast call beads until after selecting the 30th Crush cast so you increase the call bead damage.

MetaSigma

2016-04-07 06:05:36 pm

Evermore Extrodinare ᕦ(° Д°)ᕤ

I'll be doing some testing when I get a chance...I've had 3 straight days of 11/12 hours shifts and I still have stuff to do after that. And by testing I mean I'll be doing all my testing on Console and seeing if I have any issues with it.

TheAngryPanda

2016-04-08 11:04:25 am

Speed > Safety

Posting this for Crawek since he was worried about his english being good enough to get it across clearly.

reference: https://www.twitch.tv/crawek/v/59306636

here's the original text:

I noticed that the Verminator crash during a run but it works after registering to tinker and reset on meta, skars and vaan666 snes. This shows us that there are probably values in the memory causing the crash. vaan666 told me about a setup. We must ensure that the console supports the least possible element when returning to the forest. For this, after using the first wing, go directly to the next screen and then use the second wing on the black screen. Same for the next screen. It is very important to do this as quickly as possible. I did a LOT of testing on snes9x 1.53 the result is there. 100% work with this setup vs 30%. I'm pretty sure I watched lemonsx use the same setup and I remember meta wait a little after use first wings cause we fear black screen.

Seems fine to me personally, but just in case:

I noticed that the Verm Skip crashes during most runs, but if we saved at Tinker and reset, it worked for Meta, Skara, and Vaan666 on console. This shows us that there are probably memory issues causing the crash. Vaan666 told me about a setup:
- After using the 1st Wings, go directly to the next screen and use the 2nd Wings on the black screen.
- Do the same for the next screen.
- It is important to do these things quickly.

I did a lot of testing on Snes9x 1.53 and got a 100% consistency with this method, instead of the 30% with previous testing. I'm pretty sure LemonsX used this setup as well and remember Meta waiting after 1st Wings due to the black screen being a possible problem.

~~~~~~~~
My own thoughts:

I still don't see specifically what's being done differently personally, as that looks pretty much like the TAS version of the VS, which results in 50/50's on the frame. But I'm also not entirely familiar with everything everyone has tested outside of GA's method (which unfortunately isn't as quick, still good though).

The video of the setup is literally exactly how the TAS does it. Which is why I'm questioning the 100% success rate, since my own results on Bizhawk with the TAS show that it's a 50/50 regardless on the frame. Hopefully it does work on console though, which would be awesome aside from the audio garbage.

~~~~~~~~

Will update with edits here if needed.

Posting this for Crawek since he was worried about his english being good enough to get it across clearly.

reference: https://www.twitch.tv/crawek/v/59306636

here's the original text:

I noticed that the Verminator crash during a run but it works after registering to tinker and reset on meta, skars and vaan666 snes. This shows us that there are probably values in the memory causing the crash. vaan666 told me about a setup. We must ensure that the console supports the least possible element when returning to the forest. For this, after using the first wing, go directly to the next screen and then use the second wing on the black screen. Same for the next screen. It is very important to do this as quickly as possible. I did a LOT of testing on snes9x 1.53 the result is there. 100% work with this setup vs 30%.  I'm pretty sure I watched lemonsx use the same setup and I remember meta wait a little after use first wings cause we fear black screen.

Seems fine to me personally, but just in case:

I noticed that the Verm Skip crashes during most runs, but if we saved at Tinker and reset, it worked for Meta, Skara, and Vaan666 on console. This shows us that there are probably memory issues causing the crash. Vaan666 told me about a setup:
- After using the 1st Wings, go directly to the next screen and use the 2nd Wings on the black screen.
- Do the same for the next screen.
- It is important to do these things quickly.

I did a lot of testing on Snes9x 1.53 and got a 100% consistency with this method, instead of the 30% with previous testing. I'm pretty sure LemonsX used this setup as well and remember Meta waiting after 1st Wings due to the black screen being a possible problem.

~~~~~~~~
My own thoughts:

I still don't see specifically what's being done differently personally, as that looks pretty much like the TAS version of the VS, which results in 50/50's on the frame. But I'm also not entirely familiar with everything everyone has tested outside of GA's method (which unfortunately isn't as quick, still good though).

The video of the setup is literally exactly how the TAS does it. Which is why I'm questioning the 100% success rate, since my own results on Bizhawk with the TAS show that it's a 50/50 regardless on the frame. Hopefully it does work on console though, which would be awesome aside from the audio garbage.

~~~~~~~~

Will update with edits here if needed.

GreenAmbler

2016-04-09 05:25:46 am

It seems the setup is not our 100% solution, since Meta and DL both had softlocks. So we still don't really know exactly what's causing it. Different people seem to have different results, so it could very well be hardware/emulator dependent. I for one could never reproduce the "insta-crash" which Meta is prone to on my snes9x (in fact, I usually have to TRY to make the game crash at all). But who knows, maybe there's something small Meta tends to do in runs that others don't, and I didn't do in my savestates. I've tried a LOT of different orders and doing various things but no matter what happens, I always get sound glitches from entering the dungeon the first time from the castle, but never from sewers (fyi, if you use walk through walls and enter first time through the town entrance, the game instantly softlocks).

Based on my testing, it is seeming to me like the crashing is dependent on where you are in the music when entering the dungeon. While I don't get the "insta-crash", entering during certain parts in the song (moreso with the "chorus-y" parts) tend to result in half the music being muted, which may or may not crash the game from there upon additional sounds. It seems like the problem stems from trying to resolve the initial sound effect of the gate closing, but the castle music (which isn't supposed to be playing upon first entry) interrupts it, and only allows pieces of the sound to play out at a time in a chaotic fashion. Maybe the overlap of specific sounds it what causes the audio crash?

It seems the setup is not our 100% solution, since Meta and DL both had softlocks. So we still don't really know exactly what's causing it. Different people seem to have different results, so it could very well be hardware/emulator dependent. I for one could never reproduce the "insta-crash" which Meta is prone to on my snes9x (in fact, I usually have to TRY to make the game crash at all). But who knows, maybe there's something small Meta tends to do in runs that others don't, and I didn't do in my savestates. I've tried a LOT of different orders and doing various things but no matter what happens, I always get sound glitches from entering the dungeon the first time from the castle, but never from sewers (fyi, if you use walk through walls and enter first time through the town entrance, the game instantly softlocks).

Based on my testing, it is seeming to me like the crashing is dependent on where you are in the music when entering the dungeon. While I don't get the "insta-crash", entering during certain parts in the song (moreso with the "chorus-y" parts) tend to result in half the music being muted, which may or may not crash the game from there upon additional sounds. It seems like the problem stems from trying to resolve the initial sound effect of the gate closing, but the castle music (which isn't supposed to be playing upon first entry) interrupts it, and only allows pieces of the sound to play out at a time in a chaotic fashion. Maybe the overlap of specific sounds it what causes the audio crash?