Secret of Evermore (SNES)

2013-03-10 05:08:19 pm

Speed > Safety

Well I got this today:

http://i.imgur.com/UAMquYL.jpg

There's very easily over a minute worth of mistakes in there. It would have been a 1:21 but I got hit twice by turrets and knocked around pre-act 4 skip.

And with this time, I'm done messing with this game until more people are sub 1:25 for races and whatnot or until we find new skips/glitches.

PJ

2013-03-10 08:06:18 pm

Is PJ

Wow

garik16

2013-03-11 08:55:53 am

Cmon Panda, get some recording equipment.

doicm

2013-03-11 09:43:34 am

Quote from garik16:

Cmon Panda, get some recording equipment.

TheAngryPanda

2013-03-11 09:45:38 am

Speed > Safety

I wouldn't submit that run anyways. There's so much time to be gained from such simple things it's ridiculous.

Also, when I do get my recording stuff, you won't see a run anytime soon. I want to make sure the route is solid, the methods on bosses are solid, the tricks are all performed perfectly and that my execution is the literal best it can be. What this would lead to is a time that is only beatable by <5s, which is something I'd see worth submitting here, otherwise it's just a trash run that can be beaten and doesn't deserve the attention a real run would get.

BUT! I can also record the tutorial I wanna do about the more unique portions of the game too, so there's that. Cheesy

Sonikkustar

2013-03-11 04:13:36 pm

The Great Farming Empire

So wait...You can now skip nearly the entirety of Act 4? :O

I wouldn't be surprised if you guys manage to get sub-1:00 by the end of the year. I mean, This is just awesome.

TheAngryPanda

Edit history:

TheAngryPanda: 2013-03-11 08:56:58 pm

TheAngryPanda: 2013-03-11 07:04:57 pm

2013-03-11 06:41:12 pm

Speed > Safety

Well sonikkustar, AFAIG found a dog soft lock in the blimp's cave area recently. If we can somehow prevent the lock up and do pyramids/ruins DURING the 15 mins but BEFORE the 15 mins runs out, we will be able to fight aegis, then skip vigor and go to oglin tunnel, this would save an absolutely ridiculous amount of time. The problem is getting everything to consistently work, I've been testing this theoretically with a noclip cheat and found plenty of ways to mess it up and insta-crash the game (such as 2 cutscenes triggering in market square at the same time). This skip, or something like it, will be what pushes the 1 hour mark.

May as well just add my strategy for Act 1 to this:

intro - grab petal, 2 hits from flowers (18+ damage or reset), grab 2 clay (also get bit by mosquito if possible)
raptors - get hit by first jump out of bush or reset
village - nectar, ash from fire pit, 30 talons, oil pickup, dog skip (block by NPC anywhere = reset)
eastern forest - grab clay after flower despawn
quicksand - buy petal, sell 2 petal/nectar*, grab 4 crystals from container
bugmuck - clay by cave, equip hardball, buy 10 crystal*, clay in grass on way to big bug
bb1 - 4 clay along the way
bb2L - clay at entrance, get maggot skip (otherwise reset)
bb2M - clay
bb2U - clay, 2x HB maggot + melee to kill**
thraxx - blow him up and hopefully you get lucky on damage (reset city)
bugmuck cliffs - 2 crystal container
quicksand cliffs - 4 wax, 2 clay, buy 45 clay/40 crystal***
eastern 2 - run through it all
village 2 - fire eyes never shuts up****, leave village
northern - grab clay pre-rock skip
volcano - callbead, kill 1st viper, dog skip x 3, sewers entered sub 9 or reset
Vsewers - optimized sprint management here, i gain around 3 seconds on people here occasionally
magmar - 8x (melee), 8x (melee), 8x (melee), 8x7x (melee) [melee'ing when possible, you need at a minimum 1, 2 is "best"]

*If Jaguar Ring guy is up in the top part of his cave, grab the clay from the rightmost container, if he's not there and to the left or bottom of the cave grab the clay from the lower-right container in hardball cave

**killing the maggots pre-thraxx is my 10 hb strat, another variant is the 12 hb strat, which involves just unloading everything on thraxx. I kill the maggot for monetary reasons if I want to try something different in act 2 that i'm still in the process of testing. If you're planning to try and use this, go with the 12 hb strat.

***If you're planning to run defend, only buy 40/40 and pick up the 4 clay/1 callbead containers when you get defend

****Also involving the defend route, pick up your 2nd ash from the fire pit after talking to fire eyes (1 for atlas, 1 for defend)

I don't expect people to use this right off the bat but rather learn their way into it from other generally safer routes. I reset 386 times to get my 1:22 run, this is what you should expect if going for near perfection in act 1. Good luck.

Well sonikkustar, AFAIG found a dog soft lock in the blimp's cave area recently. If we can somehow prevent the lock up and do pyramids/ruins DURING the 15 mins but BEFORE the 15 mins runs out, we will be able to fight aegis, then skip vigor and go to oglin tunnel, this would save an absolutely ridiculous amount of time. The problem is getting everything to consistently work, I've been testing this theoretically with a noclip cheat and found plenty of ways to mess it up and insta-crash the game (such as 2 cutscenes triggering in market square at the same time). This skip, or something like it, will be what pushes the 1 hour mark.

May as well just add my strategy for Act 1 to this:

intro - grab petal, 2 hits from flowers (18+ damage or reset), grab 2 clay (also get bit by mosquito if possible)
raptors - get hit by first jump out of bush or reset
village - nectar, ash from fire pit, 30 talons, oil pickup, dog skip (block by NPC anywhere = reset)
eastern forest - grab clay after flower despawn
quicksand - buy petal, sell 2 petal/nectar*, grab 4 crystals from container
bugmuck - clay by cave, equip hardball, buy 10 crystal*, clay in grass on way to big bug
bb1 - 4 clay along the way
bb2L - clay at entrance, get maggot skip (otherwise reset)
bb2M - clay
bb2U - clay, 2x HB maggot + melee to kill**
thraxx - blow him up and hopefully you get lucky on damage (reset city)
bugmuck cliffs - 2 crystal container
quicksand cliffs - 4 wax, 2 clay, buy 45 clay/40 crystal***
eastern 2 - run through it all
village 2 - fire eyes never shuts up****, leave village
northern - grab clay pre-rock skip
volcano - callbead, kill 1st viper, dog skip x 3, sewers entered sub 9 or reset
Vsewers - optimized sprint management here, i gain around 3 seconds on people here occasionally
magmar - 8x (melee), 8x (melee), 8x (melee), 8x7x (melee) [melee'ing when possible, you need at a minimum 1, 2 is "best"]

*If Jaguar Ring guy is up in the top part of his cave, grab the clay from the rightmost container, if he's not there and to the left or bottom of the cave grab the clay from the lower-right container in hardball cave

**killing the maggots pre-thraxx is my 10 hb strat, another variant is the 12 hb strat, which involves just unloading everything on thraxx. I kill the maggot for monetary reasons if I want to try something different in act 2 that i'm still in the process of testing. If you're planning to try and use this, go with the 12 hb strat.

***If you're planning to run defend, only buy 40/40 and pick up the 4 clay/1 callbead containers when you get defend

****Also involving the defend route, pick up your 2nd ash from the fire pit after talking to fire eyes (1 for atlas, 1 for defend)

I don't expect people to use this right off the bat but rather learn their way into it from other generally safer routes. I reset 386 times to get my 1:22 run, this is what you should expect if going for near perfection in act 1. Good luck.

AsFarAsIGet

2013-03-12 05:41:41 am

www.youtube.com/user/HumanMYTH

I found out some other stuff relating to the dog softlocking. When u stand close the abyss as the dog, the boy will run over the cliff towards the desert. You can go to nobilia without triggering the dog cutscene. When u defeat veigar and go back u have to fall down and go to the cutscene, which ends in some kind of chaos (you'll spawn as the boy in front of the arena showing the dog icon in your interface. o.0)

Don't think that thats useful but ye, mb I just miss some important stuff. :/

Greetings AsFar

TheAngryPanda

2013-03-12 10:00:50 am

Speed > Safety

so wait, did you find a way to prevent dog from softlocking after he walks to the tunnel exit?

AsFarAsIGet

2013-03-12 11:34:09 am

www.youtube.com/user/HumanMYTH

Unfortunately not, its only a getting the boy over the cliff to desrt way without entering blimp first. Smiley

TheAngryPanda

2013-03-13 08:32:47 am

Speed > Safety

Ok, so now that any% is basically torn into little shreds... Anyone have a very rough route for 100% and have we decided it's definition?

Personally I feel this should be the definition:

All charms/trinkets/market place stuff
All alchemy spells
All armors/collars
All weapons

It does NOT include:
All Bosses (including optional)

The reason I've decided on this is 2 part, a) it doesn't track the bosses in any way and b) some bosses give you basically nothing.

I know Vultuz has a run but it's very rough and can be optimized/improved massively and Saturn's 100% TAS is basically outdated even though it's still a great watch. Are these routes still being considered the method to use? It seems like there should be some sort of potential improvement made to them by now. Thoughts?

Vultuz

Edit history:

Vultuz: 2013-03-13 08:55:28 am

Vultuz: 2013-03-13 08:53:59 am

2013-03-13 08:53:40 am

my 100% is totally outdated

things that became new since my 100% run:
Defense instead of Speed
Act 4 Skip (So you just can do this on different Gates)
Perm aura (dont know, maybe you dont need to do it)
Wings invulnerability
A lot of small improvements

The biggest problem is the Formula from Naris, cause its totally random to get

Btw. to all Alchemy spells you should add the both Horace Call-Bead spells imo
All Charms for 100% are these: http://shrines.rpgclassics.com/snes/soe/charms.shtml + Magic Gourd (dont know why it isnt on the list)

Btw. i will do some 100% at the Weekend+next week on my holidays, so i hope to improve my current time

TheAngryPanda

2013-03-13 08:58:21 am

Speed > Safety

Awesome Vult, glad you're looking to improve the run. Cheesy

I'm 100% sure there's a method to determine what Naris' number is, we just haven't found it yet. Seems odd to leave something like that to complete chance in this game when nothing else is really like that normally.

And yeah, the extra call bead spells are included because they're tracked in the menu ring. What about bazooka ammo? Guess if we're going off tracking the menu items we should obtain and least 1 of all 3 types right?

AsFarAsIGet

Edit history:

AsFarAsIGet: 2013-03-13 11:55:21 am

AsFarAsIGet: 2013-03-13 11:53:22 am

2013-03-13 11:51:55 am

www.youtube.com/user/HumanMYTH

I'd say usable items don't count, otherwise we would have to get 1 item from item menue also at least.

I'd say all alchemy, all armors/collars, all charms (no market resources / ingredients).
And alchemy stands above charms. (since u have to give the key away for a certain spell)

Next question is, what about the wheel and the energy core? Do we have to get them since they are removed as u progress? Shocked

Greetings
AsFar

TheAngryPanda

Edit history:

TheAngryPanda: 2013-03-13 03:02:03 pm

2013-03-13 12:05:03 pm

Speed > Safety

Energy Core is a yes because that's where you have to go to get Force Field (i think it's force field, might be something else)
As for the wheel, only if there's an alchemy/weapon/armor you get from killing the 2nd Thraxx. If there isn't one of those things then it's probably not going to be required.

Generally speaking, if something is removed from your inventory as a form of progression you don't really count it towards 100% unless it can be re-obtained. I'd imagine the Wheel being required for 100% as somewhat of a ridiculous thing since it serves no purpose other than to waste time and isn't actually required for anything (or tracked if you were progressing normally).

As for ammo types, you're right, they probably shouldn't be included. However, in regards to the alchemy taking precedence over the charm, that's debatable. If we're going for the logical 100% category (having done everything) then it's correct, but if we're just wanted a theoretical 100% (capable of having everything) then it wouldn't matter which one we had. I'd lean towards the alchemy spell personally but if we're going for pure speed here we'd need more opinions/confirmation on that kind of stuff.

Energy Core is a yes because that's where you have to go to get Force Field (i think it's force field, might be something else)
As for the wheel, only if there's an alchemy/weapon/armor you get from killing the 2nd Thraxx. If there isn't one of those things then it's probably not going to be required.

Generally speaking, if something is removed from your inventory as a form of progression you don't really count it towards 100% unless it can be re-obtained. I'd imagine the Wheel being required for 100% as somewhat of a ridiculous thing since it serves no purpose other than to waste time and isn't actually required for anything (or tracked if you were progressing normally).

As for ammo types, you're right, they probably shouldn't be included. However, in regards to the alchemy taking precedence over the charm, that's debatable. If we're going for the logical 100% category (having done everything) then it's correct, but if we're just wanted a theoretical 100% (capable of having everything) then it wouldn't matter which one we had. I'd lean towards the alchemy spell personally but if we're going for pure speed here we'd need more opinions/confirmation on that kind of stuff.

Vultuz

Edit history:

Vultuz: 2013-03-13 04:03:03 pm

Vultuz: 2013-03-13 04:02:15 pm

Vultuz: 2013-03-13 03:56:35 pm

Vultuz: 2013-03-13 03:55:23 pm

Vultuz: 2013-03-13 03:54:43 pm

2013-03-13 03:54:29 pm

Thats Charms you can get more, give away again, have no use or whatever

Diamond Eyes (Normaly give to Fake-Horace first, then for the Rocket, with glitches maybe you can obtain them after Omnitopia again from Tiny, but they have no use)
Wheel (Second Thraxx fight, required for the Rocket normally, you give it to Tinker and its out of charm menue, maybe you can get Wheel too after Omnitopia but have no use then)
Gauge (Second Gauge stay in your inventory anyway if u use this "glitch", otherwise its gone after entering Omnitopia)
Castle Key (Cant hold it, otherwise you cant get the Spell)
Energy Core (Entering Caltron on the normal way, no other function, but you have to go there anyways for Force Field and Stop)

And the one thing nobody know about what it does, but i think its required for 100%

Magic Gourd (Buy Spice for Jewels in Nobilia, after this you can trade a Chocobo Egg for the Magic Gourd, i have no idea for what that item is actually. it just fill one Slot in the Charm Menue)

So in a Glitchless run, only the Energy Core will stay in your inventory at the end, the other stuff you have to gave away somewhere in the game

EDIT: Thats what i had at the End from my 100% run

Missing: Castle Key, Diamond Eyes, Wheel - But there are only 2 slots left anyways

Thats Charms you can get more, give away again, have no use or whatever

[b]Diamond Eyes[/b] (Normaly give to Fake-Horace first, then for the Rocket, with glitches maybe you can obtain them after Omnitopia again from Tiny, but they have no use)
[b]Wheel [/b](Second Thraxx fight, required for the Rocket normally, you give it to Tinker and its out of charm menue, maybe you can get Wheel too after Omnitopia but have no use then)
[b]Gauge [/b](Second Gauge stay in your inventory anyway if u use this "glitch", otherwise its gone after entering Omnitopia)
[b]Castle Key [/b](Cant hold it, otherwise you cant get the Spell)
[b]Energy Core [/b](Entering Caltron on the normal way, no other function, but you have to go there anyways for Force Field and Stop)

And the one thing nobody know about what it does, but i think its required for 100%

[b]Magic Gourd[/b] (Buy Spice for Jewels in Nobilia, after this you can trade a Chocobo Egg for the Magic Gourd, i have no idea for what that item is actually. it just fill one Slot in the Charm Menue)

So in a Glitchless run, only the Energy Core will stay in your inventory at the end, the other stuff you have to gave away somewhere in the game

EDIT: Thats what i had at the End from my 100% run

Missing: Castle Key, Diamond Eyes, Wheel - But there are only 2 slots left anyways
[img]http://s23.postimage.org/vnfj9wx5n/Charms.jpg[/img]

Vultuz

Edit history:

Vultuz: 2013-03-18 03:26:15 pm

Vultuz: 2013-03-18 03:23:16 pm

2013-03-18 03:12:46 pm

Yea after Thyias beat my 100% today with 2:50, i did another run cause i want the time back Wink

So the new WR for 100% is 2:32:17 now Wink

I gonna highlight this video now on my twitchpage, then i can link it later
Allright, here is the Video http://de.twitch.tv/vultuz/c/2042476

So, there is still about 10 minutes (minimum) that you can save

MetaSigma

2013-03-19 08:03:32 am

Evermore Extrodinare ᕦ(° Д°)ᕤ

Awesome job Vult...awesome job Wink

Vultuz

Edit history:

Vultuz: 2013-03-19 10:59:58 am

2013-03-19 10:58:29 am

I think for the next run i finally will make/need a route, i got lost so hard in the dogmaze... everyone would cry Tongue

Even 100% need a lot of optimization, then its possible to get about 2 hours or something like that.

Vultuz

2013-03-20 04:51:47 pm

Yea as i thought.
With a bit routing and Stuff: 2:11:50 for 100%
http://de.twitch.tv/vultuz/c/2049998

Still some mistakes (Think i lost about 3-4 Minutes) and maybe more optimization possible, need to test it first

TheAngryPanda

2013-03-21 05:34:07 pm

Speed > Safety

I plan to research the route soon to see if i can come up with any sort of optimizations/time saves/route changes somewhere. Let's get both categories sub 2 hour. I'm 100% confident a very good run can push sub 2 hour.

Vultuz

Edit history:

Vultuz: 2013-03-25 11:10:36 am

2013-03-25 11:09:22 am

So, there is a lot of stuff to improve in 100% so i post my next time here if i finally get a decent run
Then i finally can say: THATS A WR!
So hang on, i hope its the time in the next few days for it Wink

Oh yeah by the way, i added the 100% Runs to the leaderboard: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AtGw58Z1iXE3dGxNS1N3VWQ3RGZyWWdPTFlJMjNKbFE#gid=0

MetaSigma

2013-03-25 06:58:19 pm

Evermore Extrodinare ᕦ(° Д°)ᕤ

1:24:04 - 1 second faster than Lemon and holy crap there is a lot of time to save!!!

Lemon...bring it, we got a game to break Wink

TheAngryPanda

Edit history:

TheAngryPanda: 2013-03-26 11:02:14 am

TheAngryPanda: 2013-03-25 11:37:02 pm

TheAngryPanda: 2013-03-25 10:25:36 pm

2013-03-25 10:23:50 pm

Speed > Safety

So this has been bugging me a lot lately and I'm just gonna go ahead and throw it out there. Hopefully it doesn't rain on anyone's parade but... well whatever, here:

1) Start utilizing diagonal sprinting more on the Act 1 and 4 dog whenever possible. Every single runner right now is immediately behind my 1:22 because of this.. It's a very easy thing to practice, it doesn't involve RNG at all, and there's absolutely no reason not to learn it and abuse it. As of me posting this, Lemon is the only other runner that I'm aware of that can get a sub 11 run in Act 1 . PLEASE change this, I would literally love to see more people crushing that Act's times.

2) I'm sick to death of seeing people fall in pits or running over the hidden paths slowly. I have pictures with visual references for EACH location that are directly in the middle of the path. Why haven't we learned these? I don't mean to brag here but I can sprint across those paths right now without any real effort. It's a pain in the ass to learn but you know what, it saves a boatload of time. I've seen Meta lose ~6 seconds here, Lemon's lost up to 4 seconds, and don't even get me started on falling into a pit, that's basically an instant reset. That's free time that we're throwing away, at the very least we can cut those in half and I'll admit that sometimes the ruins hidden pathway is a complete troll. This isn't an excuse to not learn the pathways better, get on an emulator and save state it if you have to. Save at horace's torture chamber... err... camp and try from there.

3) Practice more. Seriously, just do it and stop pretending you don't need to. This isn't really directed at anyone specific but if you want a good example of what practice can do in a day. I'm in the process of learning AR2 right now (ActRaiser2) and my first real attempt was a 57:53, i talked to PJ a bit and he gave me some tips and after a day of practice I have my time down to 54:41 and feel infinitely more confident in my capabilities. That game is a million times more execution heavy that this one so there is absolutely no excuse to make silly mistakes like the ones mentioned in #2.

Anyways, you're more than welcome to view me as an asshole or whatever for this post but it's something that needs to be said if anyone wants to have something worth calling a real WR, in regards to both 100% and any%. Sorry if it makes anyone super angry, feel free to yell at me in chat next time you see me. All I ask is that you take what I've said to heart and get better so we can bring the times down to saving seconds instead of minutes.

edit: I know this sounds like I'm trying to say "if I can do it, so can you" but I know each of the people running these "WR" runs are fully capable of whatever I do.
edit 2: This isn't directed at people that are learning the game, just casually playing it quickly, or anything like that. It's for the top tier runners currently that are pouring time into this game.

So this has been bugging me a lot lately and I'm just gonna go ahead and throw it out there. Hopefully it doesn't rain on anyone's parade but... well whatever, here:

1) Start utilizing diagonal sprinting more on the Act 1 and 4 dog whenever possible. Every single runner right now is immediately behind my 1:22 because of this.. It's a very easy thing to practice, it doesn't involve RNG at all, and there's absolutely no reason not to learn it and abuse it. As of me posting this, Lemon is the only other runner that I'm aware of that can get a sub 11 run in Act 1 . PLEASE change this, I would literally love to see more people crushing that Act's times.

2) I'm sick to death of seeing people fall in pits or running over the hidden paths slowly. I have pictures with visual references for EACH location that are directly in the middle of the path. Why haven't we learned these? I don't mean to brag here but I can sprint across those paths right now without any real effort. It's a pain in the ass to learn but you know what, it saves a boatload of time. I've seen Meta lose ~6 seconds here, Lemon's lost up to 4 seconds, and don't even get me started on falling into a pit, that's basically an instant reset. That's free time that we're throwing away, at the very least we can cut those in half and I'll admit that sometimes the ruins hidden pathway is a complete troll. This isn't an excuse to not learn the pathways better, get on an emulator and save state it if you have to. Save at horace's torture chamber... err... camp and try from there.

3) Practice more. Seriously, just do it and stop pretending you don't need to. This isn't really directed at anyone specific but if you want a good example of what practice can do in a day. I'm in the process of learning AR2 right now (ActRaiser2) and my first real attempt was a 57:53, i talked to PJ a bit and he gave me some tips and after a day of practice I have my time down to 54:41 and feel infinitely more confident in my capabilities. That game is a million times more execution heavy that this one so there is absolutely no excuse to make silly mistakes like the ones mentioned in #2.

Anyways, you're more than welcome to view me as an asshole or whatever for this post but it's something that needs to be said if anyone wants to have something worth calling a real WR, in regards to both 100% and any%. Sorry if it makes anyone super angry, feel free to yell at me in chat next time you see me. All I ask is that you take what I've said to heart and get better so we can bring the times down to saving seconds instead of minutes.

edit: I know this sounds like I'm trying to say "if I can do it, so can you" but I know each of the people running these "WR" runs are fully capable of whatever I do. 
edit 2: This isn't directed at people that are learning the game, just casually playing it quickly, or anything like that. It's for the top tier runners currently that are pouring time into this game.

MetaSigma

2013-03-26 04:49:55 am

Evermore Extrodinare ᕦ(° Д°)ᕤ

I can see you're absolutely right on each point Panda, no arguing from me there. Still the only real thing I could think of is, we all learn in our own way. Notice how long it took me to get past "MY" own Defend roadblock. It's true though, the ones who are seriously committed to this game CAN do it, myself included.