Secret of Evermore (SNES)

2013-11-26 05:01:55 pm

Evermore Extrodinare ᕦ(° Д°)ᕤ

You don't Atlas Glitch off spiders is the thing. You take the poison and then die to Tumble weeds and the sniff NE of the oasis. Also the biggest reason you don't buy during the 15 mins is because you not only stop the timer from counting down you end up having to wait the time the menu was open. So it's like you get hit with a delay twice in a sense.

GreenAmbler

Edit history:

GreenAmbler: 2013-11-28 10:03:38 am

GreenAmbler: 2013-11-27 01:27:06 am

GreenAmbler: 2013-11-27 01:25:09 am

GreenAmbler: 2013-11-27 01:24:00 am

GreenAmbler: 2013-11-27 01:18:41 am

2013-11-26 06:29:30 pm

Ah yeah using the Sniff makes more sense Smiley

It is still faster to buy ingredients at first Blimp meeting by a couple seconds. Revisiting Blimp—going in and out of the cave and going through the Revive/You Found Your Dog! dialogue—is around 12-13 seconds, whereas buying ingredients is around 11 seconds (both with fairly good execution). So it does delay the 15 min by that 11 seconds, but it's another 12-13 you make up for later by not revisiting Blimp.

Edit: Actually I'm an idiot, it should be much faster now that I think about it. I was thinking the shopping upon revisiting would cancel out comparing to first-visit shopping, but that's not the case since there is only one 11 second delay to the 15 min, where as having to revisit him involves going through all the screen transitions, Revive dialogue, AND ingredient buying, which would be around 23 seconds total. So it's an 11 second delay to the 15 min, but 23 seconds you can avoid later, so you should save about 12 seconds!

Skarsnik

2013-11-28 06:14:03 am

Hum can you clarify? since if you do invul glitch you need to trigger the blimp cutscene, but if you don't you will trigger it after the market timer

With defend : you probably don't have the money to buy the ragent? so you probably need to revisit later?
Without defend : You probably don't need to trigger the cutscene before fighting vigor

MetaSigma

2013-11-28 07:36:20 am

Evermore Extrodinare ᕦ(° Д°)ᕤ

Basically Skars you do Atlas glitch, kill and fight, THEN trigger the Blimp Cutscene. Buy ingredients then and head back to town. It's just a reworking of when you do stuff.

Also really the only thing that needs to be thought of and now I fully see what you're saying about Ambler is how much time do we spend in the ring menu buying. It takes what...4 or 5 seconds to buy all the Crush ingredients? So yeah you're right you should save about 10 to 15 seconds if you're fast enough.

GreenAmbler

Edit history:

GreenAmbler: 2013-11-30 07:25:58 am

GreenAmbler: 2013-11-30 07:24:53 am

GreenAmbler: 2013-11-30 04:40:02 am

GreenAmbler: 2013-11-28 10:00:35 am

GreenAmbler: 2013-11-28 07:44:40 am

2013-11-28 07:41:43 am

Not sure exactly what you're asking Skars. You can't trigger Blimp Cutscene after Vigor or it confuses the game and costs too much time (unless you do full Blimp Skip (frame perfect trick with only 1 chance to get), but then you can't get Crush), plus the whole point of the Blimp Skip is to do it during the 15 min to save time spent in the cutscene. To save the ~2 seconds I mentioned in my last post, you must do Atlas Glitch in desert, and then do the grinding there like we used to do. Once you have enough money for all the ingredients you need, then you trigger the Blimp Cutscene and buy ingredients right after receiving Crush.

This method does not allow for Invul Glitch with or without Defend UNLESS you could still do Invul Glitch after already doing the Atlas Glitch (which I THINK you can), in which case you would need another Atlas Armlet/Pixie dust, costing some time from extra casting. Assuming you can do Invul after Atlas glitch without messing up underflow (although if you underflow twice that could potentially be helpful), you could either:

Defend/Invul route: Get Defend+extra Atlas Amulet and Pixie Dust>Atlas Glitch in desert>grind in desert>Blimp cutscene/Purchase necessary ingredients>Get poisoned and do Invul Glitch off Mad Monk like normal. Compared to the normal Defend route, I think this would still save some seconds, depending on how much longer the menu ring is open with extra Atlas/Pixie Dust cast.

No-Defend Invul route: Purchase extra Atlas Amulet and Pixie Dust>Atlas Glitch in desert>grind in desert>Blimp cutscene/Purchase necessary ingredients>Hope you get really lucky and can get the much harder No Defend Invul Glitch (Poison>Plague/Confound>Pixie Dust>Atlas>Plague/Confound(whichever one you didn't get the first time). This probably wouldn't really save much over a regular No-Defend route IF you were doing it the old way, although compared to my updated strategy, you would lose an additional 3-4 seconds to screen transitions trying for Invul from having to go to Desert and back after Blimp Cutscene. So actually it's pretty (Actually slower I believe)

Sorry, I realize this is very confusing even with a full comprehension of the English language Smiley

My brain hurts from trying to figure all this out, I'll try to double check my logic here later and see if I can make it more clear Smiley

Not sure exactly what you're asking Skars. You can't trigger Blimp Cutscene after Vigor or it confuses the game and costs too much time (unless you do full Blimp Skip (frame perfect trick with only 1 chance to get), but then you can't get Crush), plus the whole point of the Blimp Skip is to do it during the 15 min to save time spent in the cutscene. To save the ~2 seconds I mentioned in my last post, you must do Atlas Glitch in desert, and then do the grinding there like we used to do. Once you have enough money for all the ingredients you need, then you trigger the Blimp Cutscene and buy ingredients right after receiving Crush.

This method does not allow for Invul Glitch with or without Defend UNLESS you could still do Invul Glitch after already doing the Atlas Glitch (which I THINK you can), in which case you would need another Atlas Armlet/Pixie dust, costing some time from extra casting. Assuming you can do Invul after Atlas glitch without messing up underflow (although if you underflow twice that could potentially be helpful), you could either:

Defend/Invul route: Get Defend+extra Atlas Amulet and Pixie Dust>Atlas Glitch in desert>grind in desert>Blimp cutscene/Purchase necessary ingredients>Get poisoned and do Invul Glitch off Mad Monk like normal. Compared to the normal Defend route, I think this would still save some seconds, depending on how much longer the menu ring is open with extra Atlas/Pixie Dust cast.

[s]No-Defend Invul route: Purchase extra Atlas Amulet and Pixie Dust>Atlas Glitch in desert>grind in desert>Blimp cutscene/Purchase necessary ingredients>Hope you get really lucky and can get the much harder No Defend Invul Glitch (Poison>Plague/Confound>Pixie Dust>Atlas>Plague/Confound(whichever one you didn't get the first time). This probably wouldn't really save much over a regular No-Defend route IF you were doing it the old way, although compared to my updated strategy, you would lose an additional 3-4 seconds to screen transitions trying for Invul from having to go to Desert and back after Blimp Cutscene. So actually it's pretty[/s] (Actually slower I believe)

Sorry, I realize this is very confusing even with a full comprehension of the English language :)

My brain hurts from trying to figure all this out, I'll try to double check my logic here later and see if I can make it more clear :)

Skarsnik

2013-11-28 07:49:09 am

Hum that's interesting for the defend route if you can get the invul glitch after.

For casting since usually you enter a screen transition with the dog after casting all stuff, it's must be faster to do it during the market timer by few frames (the time between menu?)

CrAwEk

2013-11-28 08:43:02 am

Really nice job GreenAmbler!

MetaSigma

Edit history:

MetaSigma: 2013-11-28 09:23:08 am

MetaSigma: 2013-11-28 09:20:04 am

2013-11-28 09:12:34 am

Evermore Extrodinare ᕦ(° Д°)ᕤ

You can't Ambler. You'd need to grab speed to make it happen to do invul. Since you need Poison+4 (de)buffs to make that happen. Basically No defend is the way to go with this trick regardless, since you're basically atlas glitching and grinding PRIOR to activating the cutscene. You'd have to have speed+defend to make invul happen just on the oasis screen. Really you'd waste time setting up the trick as it is since if you fail it it's another 4 seconds lost.

It's NEVER faster to 8 cast during the 15 minute timer because each time you open the menu it STOPS the timer. Basically you have to take the amount of time in the menu and *2 it because you STOP the timer meaning it WASTED the time and then WASTES it again because of the delay.

GreenAmbler

Edit history:

GreenAmbler: 2013-11-28 09:56:53 am

GreenAmbler: 2013-11-28 09:56:21 am

GreenAmbler: 2013-11-28 09:55:58 am

GreenAmbler: 2013-11-28 09:54:24 am

GreenAmbler: 2013-11-28 09:43:37 am

GreenAmbler: 2013-11-28 09:41:06 am

2013-11-28 09:31:17 am

Skars: You're right, you might be able to save some frames casting during 15 mins since you don't have to worry about smoothly switching between characters or having to scroll the camera menuing with X button. This could save maybe a couple seconds at the very most, but would eliminate basically all free time during 15 mins, and even then would still probably need to level up more after Vigor (can't 8 cast unless you activate the Dog like with Blimp Skip, which you could only do on that screen once without adding screen transitions).

You could potentially do those two Invul strategies without getting extra Atlas Medallion/Pixie Dust and having to Atlas Glitch before going for Invul Glitch, saving you a coupe seconds. This would require buying/selling rice/pots to get the required amount of money for ingredients. I'm not sure exactly how much Jewels you need for ingredients, I think a little under 2000 if I remember correctly. I can get 1800 Jewels in under 10 minutes from buying 90 Rice, trading for 45 Ceramic Pots, Another 90 Rice for another 45 Pots, then selling the 90 pots for 180 profit. You also get 10j drops from pots (randomly?), and from the 2 times I tried this I got the Chocobo Egg around 6-7 mins in (both times off 10x Pots purchases, which I thought Chocobo Egg required 5x purchases), and after getting the Egg you get (random?) 50j drops (could also sell the Chocobo Egg for 80j).

Meta: I did not mean to imply you could do Invul Glitch in desert. You would still have to go back to Blimp's Cave area, costing you the 3-4 seconds of screen transitions, so it's not a "free" try at it (and due to the very low likelihood of getting a No Defend Invul Glitch, I would not really recommend the strat)

I know this timer stuff is super confusing, but hear me out. Casting during 15 minutes stops the Timer for when the ring is open, resulting in a delay of the Timer exactly the same as the duration of the menu being open. So say it takes 45 seconds of having the menu open to level up Crush, delaying the 15 min timer, and thus, your run by 45 seconds.

Edit: Alright yeah, Meta is absolutely right about the casting. I totally confused myself there, it's been awhile since I really considered all the timer stuff Smiley

[s]Skars: You're right, you might be able to save some frames casting during 15 mins since you don't have to worry about smoothly switching between characters or having to scroll the camera menuing with X button. This could save maybe a couple seconds at the very most, but would eliminate basically all free time during 15 mins, and even then would still probably need to level up more after Vigor (can't 8 cast unless you activate the Dog like with Blimp Skip, which you could only do on that screen once without adding screen transitions).[/s]

You could potentially do those two Invul strategies without getting extra Atlas Medallion/Pixie Dust and having to Atlas Glitch before going for Invul Glitch, saving you a coupe seconds. This would require buying/selling rice/pots to get the required amount of money for ingredients. I'm not sure exactly how much Jewels you need for ingredients, I think a little under 2000 if I remember correctly. I can get 1800 Jewels in under 10 minutes from buying 90 Rice, trading for 45 Ceramic Pots, Another 90 Rice for another 45 Pots, then selling the 90 pots for 180 profit. You also get 10j drops from pots (randomly?), and from the 2 times I tried this I got the Chocobo Egg around 6-7 mins in (both times off 10x Pots purchases, which I thought Chocobo Egg required 5x purchases), and after getting the Egg you get (random?) 50j drops (could also sell the Chocobo Egg for 80j).

Meta: I did not mean to imply you could do Invul Glitch in desert. You would still have to go back to Blimp's Cave area, costing you the 3-4 seconds of screen transitions, so it's not a "free" try at it (and due to the very low likelihood of getting a No Defend Invul Glitch, I would not really recommend the strat)

[s]I know this timer stuff is super confusing, but hear me out. Casting during 15 minutes stops the Timer for when the ring is open, resulting in a delay of the Timer exactly the same as the duration of the menu being open. So say it takes 45 seconds of having the menu open to level up Crush, delaying the 15 min timer, and thus, your run by 45 seconds.[/s]

Edit: Alright yeah, Meta is absolutely right about the casting. I totally confused myself there, it's been awhile since I really considered all the timer stuff :)

MetaSigma

Edit history:

MetaSigma: 2013-11-28 09:40:18 am

MetaSigma: 2013-11-28 09:38:21 am

2013-11-28 09:37:07 am

Evermore Extrodinare ᕦ(° Д°)ᕤ

You're still forgetting the part where when you OPEN the ring it STOPS the timer. Meaning in real-time 45 seconds of ring menu during the 15 minutes is actually a minute 30. I understand what you're saying and I made the same argument to Panda before and he showed me that it's SLOWER because you lose twice the time of normal. Besides you have to take into consideration lag from casting 8 crushes (It causes lag) and I don't know if that slows down the timer or not. Plus we're screen cancelling the lag out and switching characters takes almost no time.

I could have sworn somewhere earlier in this thread there was an argument made between me and panda that was similar. If I'm wrong then it must have been during one of the long Skype exchanges about what I can improve upon and whatnot.

TheAngryPanda

Edit history:

TheAngryPanda: 2013-11-28 10:33:54 am

TheAngryPanda: 2013-11-28 10:32:27 am

TheAngryPanda: 2013-11-28 09:43:51 am

2013-11-28 09:39:44 am

Speed > Safety

If you go no defend, you don't go for invulnerability glitch, only Atlas glitch.

You can't multi-cast properly during the 14 minutes so it's actually a loss in time overall compared to multi-casting just before a transition from map to map or at other key points. You are correct that the menu time WOULD be the same, IF the dog was present, but it isn't.

If you're feeling really ballsy and don't give a damn about resetting, you should try the No Defend Invul Glitch after the blimp scene(s). This is probably a bad idea at the moment but eventually it's something to be considered if the game is ever pushed that far.

As for switching characters, pressing X and knowing your menus pretty much removes any camera incidents, especially if you're doing your 8x's at the proper location(s) throughout the Act.

edit: In general, and I mean this in a very loose sense, Act 2 14 minutes is all about not opening the menu. That's the #1 rule.

edit2: In my testing, I found grinding to actually be a much more consistent/faster way of acquiring money. Regarding Atlas Glitch and it's relationship with the grind, I'll just quote Meta: "If you do it right, it's not a problem." So that being said, the pots is a good option for runners who think they may have gotten a bad underflow but I think grinding and getting the extra hp for those unlucky hits (I'm assuming we're talking about No Defend here, obviously Invul is different/doesn't matter) during the attempt.

Also, I found my numbers for you Meta regarding how many times you can get hit:

In the direction you'd like to go, each hit wastes ~1s.
In the perpendicular direction, it's roughly 1.5-2s (depends on various things).
In the opposite direction, it's around 2.5-3.5s.

So there's the constraints, and like I said, definitely not easy.

This takes into account the time it would take to adjust and bypass the enemy as well. If this doesn't make sense, I'll explain it to you on skype or something later, don't have time to type it all up now for numbers.

If you go no defend, you don't go for invulnerability glitch, only Atlas glitch.

You can't multi-cast properly during the 14 minutes so it's actually a loss in time overall compared to multi-casting just before a transition from map to map or at other key points. You are correct that the menu time WOULD be the same, IF the dog was present, but it isn't.

If you're feeling really ballsy and don't give a damn about resetting, you should try the No Defend Invul Glitch after the blimp scene(s). This is probably a bad idea at the moment but eventually it's something to be considered if the game is ever pushed that far.

As for switching characters, pressing X and knowing your menus pretty much removes any camera incidents, especially if you're doing your 8x's at the proper location(s) throughout the Act.

edit: In general, and I mean this in a very loose sense, Act 2 14 minutes is all about not opening the menu. That's the #1 rule.

edit2: In my testing, I found grinding to actually be a much more consistent/faster way of acquiring money. Regarding Atlas Glitch and it's relationship with the grind, I'll just quote Meta: "If you do it right, it's not a problem." So that being said, the pots is a good option for runners who think they may have gotten a bad underflow but I think grinding and getting the extra hp for those unlucky hits (I'm assuming we're talking about No Defend here, obviously Invul is different/doesn't matter) during the attempt.

Also, I found my numbers for you Meta regarding how many times you can get hit:

In the direction you'd like to go, each hit wastes ~1s.
In the perpendicular direction, it's roughly 1.5-2s (depends on various things).
In the opposite direction, it's around 2.5-3.5s.

So there's the constraints, and like I said, definitely not easy.

This takes into account the time it would take to adjust and bypass the enemy as well. If this doesn't make sense, I'll explain it to you on skype or something later, don't have time to type it all up now for numbers.

MetaSigma

2013-11-28 09:47:45 am

Evermore Extrodinare ᕦ(° Д°)ᕤ

Your Edit is exactly what I was trying to explain (And badly failed it Panda FailFish). Though I like the idea of pre-crush grinding to buy ingredients thus skipping having to talk to Blimp again for the entire game.

assassin17

2013-11-29 12:22:45 am

I love YaBB 1G - SP1!

Quote from GreenAmbler:

Hope you get really lucky and can get the much harder No Defend Invul Glitch (Poison>Plague/Confound>Pixie Dust>Atlas>Plague/Confound(whichever one you didn't get the first time).

how's this one work? i was aware of having Barrier first in the chain of five spells/items, but realize that's been ruled out for Any % speedruns. does the invulnerability require dying?

Quote from MetaSigma:

You'd need to grab speed to make it happen to do invul. Since you need Poison+4 (de)buffs to make that happen.

where would Speed be in the sequence of five alchemy castings/item usages?

TheAngryPanda

2013-11-29 12:37:01 am

Speed > Safety

Getting poisoned, then getting plagued AND confounded (likely have to be back to back), THEN casting Atlas and dieing on the next attack. That's how you do No Defend Invincibility, it's basically a lottery.

GreenAmbler

Edit history:

GreenAmbler: 2013-11-29 01:18:45 pm

2013-11-29 01:18:27 pm

I'm pretty sure it doesn't work if you get both Plague/Confound back to back before using Pixie Dust, or at least you won't be able to get the Attack underflow. Pixie dust>Atlas has to be cast after Poison or after Poison>Plague or Confound (but not both).

assassin17

2013-11-29 06:55:12 pm

I love YaBB 1G - SP1!

thanks for the info, both of you.. i wish i understood how this bug worked internally. is there a stat overflow happening? or is some $0014,Y flag getting corrupted? is Atlas needed for the invulnerability, or is that there purely for the Attack underflow?

GreenAmbler

2013-11-29 07:27:38 pm

Atlas is not necessary, it's just for underflow purposes.

GreenAmbler

Edit history:

GreenAmbler: 2013-12-05 02:22:02 am

GreenAmbler: 2013-12-04 03:12:25 pm

GreenAmbler: 2013-12-04 03:09:03 pm

GreenAmbler: 2013-11-30 05:34:25 pm

GreenAmbler: 2013-11-30 07:21:29 am

2013-11-30 07:20:31 am

Not sure if this is known or not, but you can use the Dog to activate triggers that normally requires the Boy. Have the dog facing the trigger, press B, and on the next frame switch to the Boy. This can be done in real time with Menu Buffering.

This works on Gourds/Chests, Ingredient pickups, Talking to NPCS, and destroying barricades. Does not work on grass. I can't think of any useful applications although it might be helpful for saving some fractions of a second in the TAS.

Also: Been testing some routing stuff since I'm messing around in Act 3. I was trying to see how much slower it is to completely avoid the jail/sewers/Verm in Ebon Keep by running through the woods twice. I'm getting it around 1:15+ slower, although I get raped going through the chessboard 2 extra times, would be less with Invul/Wings for sure. I'm assuming the preparation for Verm (stocking/leveling crush) costs less than a minute so this is probably not an improvement. Might make Sting more viable?

I was also checking if for 100% the forced character movement would be beneficial by going into an Maze entrance next to the key lady via forced movement, but no route I found is viable/faster, even for TAS.

Just about done trying every opportunity for frame perfect tricks I can think of. Found lots of silly but pointless glitches and over a hundred ways to get stuck in walls, but nothing useful other than stuff I highlighted/mentioned here.

Edit: Dog can also break the destructible walls in Pyramids, however it can't be done until you free the dog and he officially rejoins your party, so it's useless.

Not sure if this is known or not, but you can use the Dog to activate triggers that normally requires the Boy. Have the dog facing the trigger, press B, and on the next frame switch to the Boy. This can be done in real time with Menu Buffering.

This works on Gourds/Chests, Ingredient pickups, Talking to NPCS, and destroying barricades. Does not work on grass. I can't think of any useful applications although it might be helpful for saving some fractions of a second in the TAS.

Also: Been testing some routing stuff since I'm messing around in Act 3. I was trying to see how much slower it is to completely avoid the jail/sewers/Verm in Ebon Keep by running through the woods twice. I'm getting it around 1:15+ slower, although I get raped going through the chessboard 2 extra times, would be less with Invul/Wings for sure. I'm assuming the preparation for Verm (stocking/leveling crush) costs less than a minute so this is probably not an improvement. Might make Sting more viable?

I was also checking if for 100% the forced character movement would be beneficial by going into an Maze entrance next to the key lady via forced movement, but no route I found is viable/faster, even for TAS.

Just about done trying every opportunity for frame perfect tricks I can think of. Found lots of silly but pointless glitches and over a hundred ways to get stuck in walls, but nothing useful other than stuff I highlighted/mentioned here.

Edit: Dog can also break the destructible walls in Pyramids, however it can't be done until you free the dog and he officially rejoins your party, so it's useless.

TheAngryPanda

2013-12-01 02:33:16 pm

Speed > Safety

The dog triggering stuff is how Saturn Skip works. I haven't gotten it to work as you describe in the TAS but will definitely go back and attempt it some more, i may have started a frame early/late. Not too many places it's useful at though but maybe it will lead to some other fancy stuff stuff in the TAS.

DLDarklink

2013-12-05 03:50:40 pm

...

Got a 1:26:32 today Tongue

my second run after not playing for months... Didn't bother about losing time in act 1 (slow flowers, Thraxx didn't die after catching 13HB's and I got hit by magmar's fireballs once so i healed during the fight)
Act 2 was a major brainfart Sad

I did Blimp skip, but forgot how to utilize it... poor item management, fell in the pit inside the ruins, the dog closed the gate inside ruins 3 times Angry

and he died so I had to give him a biscuit. A pit happened on my way to DE skip and Aquagoth was slow (also hit a wrong teleporter).
Act 3 was descent (for me) but Sterling picked me up once.
Act 4 was good in the beginning, the end fight was slow.

Overall I'm still happy for completing a run once again Tongue

now I need to re-learn the strats real quick and i can push the time down Smiley

Also, this is WITH defend Wink

but that's for learning purposes Tongue

TheAngryPanda

2013-12-05 04:51:01 pm

Speed > Safety

nice, can't wait until everyone is in the 1:18 to 1:22 range. Smiley

MetaSigma

2013-12-06 09:25:11 pm

Evermore Extrodinare ᕦ(° Д°)ᕤ

Well I can say with 100% certainty that buying ingredients for Crush Pre-Vigor does save quite a bit of time.

14:36 was my time in my PB for starting and finishing the 15 minutes (Buying Crush Post Vigor)
14:40 was my time starting to finishing the 15 minutes AND buying ingredients Pre-Vigor.

Now here is the thing...that's only 4 additional seconds. Basically the same amount of time it would take to do 2 screen transitions (Such as entering Blimps cave and exiting) I don't know the exact amount of time it takes to talk to Blimp, have him tell you you've found your dog and give you revive and then buy the ingredients again. All I know is Pre-Vigor Crush buying is faster. The issue though is as was stated it's only for non-defend runs and You do have to keep a mental tally in your head for how many jewels you have. Basically here is what I do. I need 2560 jewels to get 80 casts of crush EXACTLY. You already have 10 wax from when you save Strong Heart. There is a gourd LITERALLY outside of the Acid Rain guy that you RUN BY that is 4 wax. So that's 14. The gourd in the volcano where the Raptor pops out and runs into the sewers is 1 wax so that's 15 wax. Meaning you only need to buy 65 wax. Well because you can still pick up the 5 limestone on the beach after you buy Crush you only need 75 Limestone. Thus 2560 jewels.

Here is how I end up getting my money within a reasonable time. I actually will start out with EXACTLY 0 jewels.

Go North from the oasis and kill the spiders and tumbleweeds as they spawn (Basically what I've been doing in my runs the whole time) until they no longer spawn (I usually get to like...level 9 or 10) Once that's done go from the oasis and head NE toward a sniff that spawns. Kill everything along the way (Should get a weed and a spider) and do this I believe the sniff will spawn 6 or 7 times. Once this is done what I end up doing is going UNDER the rock where the sniff spawns and go along the E part of the rock running north. This should spawn another spider and weed. Kill them and run back to the oasis. Do this another 5 or 6 times and you SHOULD have enough cash to buy the amount of Crush stuff needed.

If this is kinda confusing I'll be showing what I mean soon as I do have the desert somewhat re-memorized as well as it's all going to be in a VERY tight window since you ALSO have to snag the Jade Disk (THIS IS A MUST BELIEVE ME) and get the crazy man to give you the armour while not wasting a lot of time. If it was possible to RDS down instead of taking the boat, but consistently not force a screen transition I'd say do the RDS since that saves atleast 40+ seconds that can be used to farm money or make everything a little easier.

Again this is just from my own testing...and it's still very much a work in progress.

Well I can say with 100% certainty that buying ingredients for Crush Pre-Vigor does save quite a bit of time.

14:36 was my time in my PB for starting and finishing the 15 minutes (Buying Crush Post Vigor)
14:40 was my time starting to finishing the 15 minutes AND buying ingredients Pre-Vigor.

Now here is the thing...that's only 4 additional seconds. Basically the same amount of time it would take to do 2 screen transitions (Such as entering Blimps cave and exiting) I don't know the exact amount of time it takes to talk to Blimp, have him tell you you've found your dog and give you revive and then buy the ingredients again. All I know is Pre-Vigor Crush buying is faster. The issue though is as was stated it's only for non-defend runs and You do have to keep a mental tally in your head for how many jewels you have. Basically here is what I do. I need 2560 jewels to get 80 casts of crush EXACTLY. You already have 10 wax from when you save Strong Heart. There is a gourd LITERALLY outside of the Acid Rain guy that you RUN BY that is 4 wax. So that's 14. The gourd in the volcano where the Raptor pops out and runs into the sewers is 1 wax so that's 15 wax. Meaning you only need to buy 65 wax. Well because you can still pick up the 5 limestone on the beach after you buy Crush you only need 75 Limestone. Thus 2560 jewels.

Here is how I end up getting my money within a reasonable time. I actually will start out with EXACTLY 0 jewels.

Go North from the oasis and kill the spiders and tumbleweeds as they spawn (Basically what I've been doing in my runs the whole time) until they no longer spawn (I usually get to like...level 9 or 10) Once that's done go from the oasis and head NE toward a sniff that spawns. Kill everything along the way (Should get a weed and a spider) and do this I believe the sniff will spawn 6 or 7 times. Once this is done what I end up doing is going UNDER the rock where the sniff spawns and go along the E part of the rock running north. This should spawn another spider and weed. Kill them and run back to the oasis. Do this another 5 or 6 times and you SHOULD have enough cash to buy the amount of Crush stuff needed.

If this is kinda confusing I'll be showing what I mean soon as I do have the desert somewhat re-memorized as well as it's all going to be in a VERY tight window since you ALSO have to snag the Jade Disk (THIS IS A MUST BELIEVE ME) and get the crazy man to give you the armour while not wasting a lot of time. If it was possible to RDS down instead of taking the boat, but consistently not force a screen transition I'd say do the RDS since that saves atleast 40+ seconds that can be used to farm money or make everything a little easier.

Again this is just from my own testing...and it's still very much a work in progress.

GreenAmbler

2013-12-07 06:37:07 am

VERY small time saver: When first entering the Thraxx fight, hold down the attack button. Dog will jump forward, saving you ~.25 seconds Smiley

Also, this is just speculation, but it seems like the plants attack much more quickly/consistently if you are attacking.

TheAngryPanda

Edit history:

TheAngryPanda: 2013-12-08 12:15:51 am

2013-12-07 10:17:42 am

Speed > Safety

It's just speculation GA, I've tested the plant thing pretty thoroughly while TAS'ing. They're "random" in real-time based on frame by frame player input and RNG factors as well as the plants own attribute factors such as missing and damage range. In fact, holding B down for one frame and holding it down for 2 frames can have entirely different results. Attacking seems to work just based on placebo and desired results, the reason the TAS attacks during plants at intro is because it's faster to hit them while being hit and to make the item drop happen sooner.

I like the Thraxx thing.

@Meta, sounds awesome. One super small critique though, if you're running late for whatever reason on the way back to Nobilia and don't have time for Jade Disc, just forget it and move on. Common sense I know, but some people might see it as an absolute requirement.
edit: Apparently we're buying everything at the same time so this isn't important. Smiley

As for updating guides, I'm busy so if someone wants me to hand them the files so they can deal with updating it that would be awesome. If not, I'll update them when I remember. It's nice seeing this game get attention again finally. Cheesy

It's just speculation GA, I've tested the plant thing pretty thoroughly while TAS'ing. They're "random" in real-time based on frame by frame player input and RNG factors as well as the plants own attribute factors such as missing and damage range. In fact, holding B down for one frame and holding it down for 2 frames can have entirely different results. Attacking seems to work just based on placebo and desired results, the reason the TAS attacks during plants at intro is because it's faster to hit them while being hit and to make the item drop happen sooner.

I like the Thraxx thing.

[s]@Meta, sounds awesome. One super small critique though, if you're running late for whatever reason on the way back to Nobilia and don't have time for Jade Disc, just forget it and move on. Common sense I know, but some people might see it as an absolute requirement.[/s] 
edit: Apparently we're buying everything at the same time so this isn't important. :)

As for updating guides, I'm busy so if someone wants me to hand them the files so they can deal with updating it that would be awesome. If not, I'll update them when I remember. It's nice seeing this game get attention again finally. :D

LovableLambchop

2013-12-07 12:28:05 pm

Once I get a decent run in Sly I plan on grinding out Any% to get 1:23 and finally getting a 100% run in, now the thing is I gotta know where I lose most of my time to improve 2 minutes.