Secret of Evermore (SNES)

TheAngryPanda

Edit history:

TheAngryPanda: 2014-01-17 11:23:32 am

2014-01-17 09:29:58 am

Speed > Safety

Is there a consistent strategy for getting to boy AI to go across the pit for Blimp Skip. I don't mean "just move up there and wait, it'll work eventually." I mean a solid, 100% strategy, that ALWAYS works. The reason I ask is because it seems as if the boy must attack before the AI will generate a path over the pit, and that makes no damn sense.

edit: Results so far...

So out of everything I've been trying, I think I've found the "fastest" route available with my current route's RNG. I couldn't find a quicker result within about 172 frames of this one so I guess that's pretty good considering it's almost instantaneous and only has a few frames of intervention on the AI. It's also a "bad" location for the auto-AI walk to get to, but considering moving to the right gives me no crossing auto-AI, I ended up just eating the frame loss on the bad section and making it work... 5 frame loss, RIP dear friends, you will be missed.

Anyways, the way I've found that seems to be most consistent out of all of them is simply running the dog to the pit, swapping to boy and attacking near an enemy, then swapping back to dog before the animation finishes. If there's an enemy on screen this seems to trigger to the AI that the boy has attacked that enemy (within a certain range, obviously) and thus enables the auto-walking AI to cross the pit. Doing this against the wall on the left increases the chances the AI will walk up because it knows it can't progress left, up+left. I think this is the best place to attempt crossing. A note though, if the boy walks straight upwards, you have to let the camera scroll up a slight bit (5 frames...) before you can diagonally run to the up+right and cross the pit w/o falling in it. This logic works anywhere else on the map.

Other strategies and what I learned from testing them:

-Just swapping back and forth near an enemy

This doesn't really work out too well unless you trigger an attack as mentioned above. The reason is that the boy's AI is still set to "aggressive" and that flag is telling the boy to proceed away from the pit and attack the next enemy. Once the attack is done, the boy's flag is set to "retreat" and as such, can walk across the pit afterwards.

-Just letting it happen eventually (luck based)

While this is somewhat true that it could just "happen" randomly, it still follows rules with AI flags under the aggression setting. If there's anything around you'll get one of two flags, the flag to attack the enemy nearest to you or the flag to stand still until another roll of the AI comes around. This method is vastly inferior to the above 2, and if you're using it, I highly recommend you chance to at least the 2nd one. It should be quite a fair amount quicker and possibly even less stressful.

So to recap:

Get early dog
move to pit with dog
control boy and sniff dog
go attack near an enemy to set the "retreat" flag for the AI
swap back to dog to set the "return to player" flag for the AI
now hope the boy walks in a promising direction

To my knowledge there's no real-time method to influence the direction the boy runs in. So this would imply the trick will never be 100% consistent in terms of a certain time frame, but that as time passes under the same circumstances, it will be. Which for us means it's a luck-based reset fest if it fails, awesome!

Is there a consistent strategy for getting to boy AI to go across the pit for Blimp Skip. I don't mean "just move up there and wait, it'll work eventually." I mean a solid, 100% strategy, that ALWAYS works. The reason I ask is because it seems as if the boy must attack before the AI will generate a path over the pit, and that makes no damn sense.

edit: Results so far...

So out of everything I've been trying, I think I've found the "fastest" route available with my current route's RNG. I couldn't find a quicker result within about 172 frames of this one so I guess that's pretty good considering it's almost instantaneous and only has a few frames of intervention on the AI. It's also a "bad" location for the auto-AI walk to get to, but considering moving to the right gives me no crossing auto-AI, I ended up just eating the frame loss on the bad section and making it work... 5 frame loss, RIP dear friends, you will be missed.

Anyways, the way I've found that seems to be most consistent out of all of them is simply running the dog to the pit, swapping to boy and attacking near an enemy, then swapping back to dog before the animation finishes. If there's an enemy on screen this seems to trigger to the AI that the boy has attacked that enemy (within a certain range, obviously) and thus enables the auto-walking AI to cross the pit. Doing this against the wall on the left increases the chances the AI will walk up because it knows it can't progress left, up+left. I think this is the best place to attempt crossing. A note though, if the boy walks straight upwards, you have to let the camera scroll up a slight bit (5 frames...) before you can diagonally run to the up+right and cross the pit w/o falling in it. This logic works anywhere else on the map.

Other strategies and what I learned from testing them:

-Just swapping back and forth near an enemy

This doesn't really work out too well unless you trigger an attack as mentioned above. The reason is that the boy's AI is still set to "aggressive" and that flag is telling the boy to proceed away from the pit and attack the next enemy. Once the attack is done, the boy's flag is set to "retreat" and as such, can walk across the pit afterwards.

-Just letting it happen eventually (luck based)

While this is somewhat true that it could just "happen" randomly, it still follows rules with AI flags under the aggression setting. If there's anything around you'll get one of two flags, the flag to attack the enemy nearest to you or the flag to stand still until another roll of the AI comes around. This method is vastly inferior to the above 2, and if you're using it, I highly recommend you chance to at least the 2nd one. It should be quite a fair amount quicker and possibly even less stressful.

So to recap:

Get early dog
move to pit with dog
control boy and sniff dog
go attack near an enemy to set the "retreat" flag for the AI
swap back to dog to set the "return to player" flag for the AI
now hope the boy walks in a promising direction

To my knowledge there's no real-time method to influence the direction the boy runs in. So this would imply the trick will never be 100% consistent in terms of a certain time frame, but that as time passes under the same circumstances, it will be. Which for us means it's a luck-based reset fest if it fails, awesome!

LovableLambchop

2014-01-17 12:01:57 pm

Would anyone know when spells are added to your inventory? I had an idea of using the transition to have the dog leave an area and have the boy talk to somebody such as a person who gives you a spell or just someone you are forced to talk to. This way I'm wondering if it is possible to get spells without going to the spell screen.

GreenAmbler

2014-01-17 01:27:18 pm

Most useful spells involve a cutscene beforehand which would likely prevent you from skipping any part of it. You can actually trigger the the Blimp cutscene and leave during the first part, but you don't get Crush (although it will create the bridge across the gap).

As for making the boy "retreat" across, I believe the only factor is the boy having less than 100% of his action bar. Even so, attacking is probably a faster/easier. And as far as which direction he runs, it seems like it's usually towards the dog, although the AI gets really confused around the gap area which is why this works in the first place. Also, the game sucks at pathing the characters to specific points/directions, which is what I believe is the cause of the Troll Dog/King/Boy in act 3.

Grumly

Edit history:

Grumly: 2014-01-17 01:59:40 pm

Grumly: 2014-01-17 01:58:37 pm

2014-01-17 01:38:41 pm

Spells are added to your inventory at the beginning of the speaking with the man who give it to you.

I tested with Acid Rain Man. Acid Rain is added when you enter in the area and the guy begin speaking with you. The following is useless and could be skipped.

Edit: I was wrong. It depends of the alchemy. Hard Ball is added in your inventory a few frame before the "spell activation" menu appears.
Ediat2 : If you want me to test when an alchemy is added, let me know.

TheAngryPanda

2014-01-17 02:07:00 pm

Speed > Safety

Quote from GreenAmbler:

Most useful spells involve a cutscene beforehand which would likely prevent you from skipping any part of it. You can actually trigger the the Blimp cutscene and leave during the first part, but you don't get Crush (although it will create the bridge across the gap).

This is when you actually have control of the dog right, not via Early Dog?

Quote from GreenAmbler:

As for making the boy "retreat" across, I believe the only factor is the boy having less than 100% of his action bar. Even so, attacking is probably a faster/easier. And as far as which direction he runs, it seems like it's usually towards the dog, although the AI gets really confused around the gap area which is why this works in the first place. Also, the game sucks at pathing the characters to specific points/directions, which is what I believe is the cause of the Troll Dog/King/Boy in act 3.

Yeah, when @ 100%, the AI will search for an enemy to use attack on because his charge limit is set to 0. The direction has nothing to do with the dog's location in relation to the AI unless it's far enough away to warrant rubber-banding back to the dog. I've been on the outer limits of the range for said rubber band and the boy has gone in completely random directions, or AI paths, depending on frame and/or manipulation on said frame. And yeah, the trolling AI later in Act 3 is definitely due to the absolutely awful paths the AI takes, or how it derives them.

Quote from Grumly:

Edit2 : If you want me to test when an alchemy is added, let me know.

All of them, honestly. Any information on any of the spells and how they react to this sort of thing will be incredibly useful for the 100% TAS I'm planning and possibly even other uses in 100% RTA.

[quote="GreenAmbler"]Most useful spells involve a cutscene beforehand which would likely prevent you from skipping any part of it. You can actually trigger the  the Blimp cutscene and leave during the first part, but you don't get Crush (although it will create the bridge across the gap).[/quote]

This is when you actually have control of the dog right, not via Early Dog?

[quote="GreenAmbler"]As for making the boy "retreat" across, I believe the only factor is the boy having less than 100% of his action bar. Even so, attacking is probably a faster/easier. And as far as which direction he runs, it seems like it's usually towards the dog, although the AI gets really confused around the gap area which is why this works in the first place. Also, the game sucks at pathing the characters to specific points/directions, which is what I believe is the cause of the Troll Dog/King/Boy in act 3.[/quote]

Yeah, when @ 100%, the AI will search for an enemy to use attack on because his charge limit is set to 0. The direction has nothing to do with the dog's location in relation to the AI unless it's far enough away to warrant rubber-banding back to the dog. I've been on the outer limits of the range for said rubber band and the boy has gone in completely random directions, or AI paths, depending on frame and/or manipulation on said frame. And yeah, the trolling AI later in Act 3 is definitely due to the absolutely awful paths the AI takes, or how it derives them.

[quote="Grumly"]Edit2 : If you want me to test when an alchemy is added, let me know.[/quote]

All of them, honestly. Any information on any of the spells and how they react to this sort of thing will be incredibly useful for the 100% TAS I'm planning and possibly even other uses in 100% RTA.

LovableLambchop

2014-01-17 02:21:08 pm

I was thinking using the method to attain spells in 100% since most of the spells are not used and as Panda said would be useful for the TAS and 100% RTAs

Grumly

Edit history:

Grumly: 2014-01-17 07:56:10 pm

2014-01-17 07:51:24 pm

Video is better than a lot of text. When you see a change in the number in the top left corner of the emulator, alchemy is added to your inventory.

- Video 1 : Acid Rain, Atlas, Barrier, Call Up, Corrosion, Crush, Cure, Defend :

Edit : it's a bit difficult to see for Defend. Further vids incoming later.

TheAngryPanda

2014-01-17 07:53:18 pm

Speed > Safety

Hrm... okay. Guess that shoots that idea out of the air for most things.

GreenAmbler

2014-01-18 07:13:24 am

Yes, the "Full Blimp Skip" must be done post Vigor so the dog is in the party, otherwise the game doesn't care if you initiate the cutscene as the dog, it will just play out with the boy only no matter what. I've debated whether it's faster to do this for the TAS, but since I believe you're getting invul it's not an option. Even if you didn't get invul, it's roughly the same because the screen transitions from blimp cutscene and the Full Blimp Skip both cost around 8 seconds (Full Blimp skip might be like a second shorter, haven't tested exactly)

TheAngryPanda

Edit history:

TheAngryPanda: 2014-01-18 08:44:34 am

TheAngryPanda: 2014-01-18 08:44:05 am

2014-01-18 07:43:19 am

Speed > Safety

I'm still debating if getting invincibility is worth it or not honestly. On one hand, it removes manipulation issues, on the other, it delays the timer by a slight bit. Considering going without invincibility I only menu once at Carl for wings... I dunno, the timings are close for the TAS. I'm leaning towards not getting it because that's more entertaining.

That being said, once I have the dog and am going towards Aquagoth... I could very easily get invincibility there IF it ends up being faster due to manipulation reasons against the 6 or 7 trouble spots in the game. Thoughts on this would be more than welcome. Smiley

We figured out last night on Meta's stream that doing blimp cutscene post-vigor but before aegis results in the boy being controlled but the dog hp bar being displayed. So that's weird, but it got me wondering if there's any way we could confuse the game like that, but with the Aegis cutscene, which unlocks Aquagoth. Haven't really gone much further with the thought other than it just being a thought.

edit:

specifics (TAS):

Invulnerability @ Eastern Beach:
+during 14minutes
+makes mids more tolerable
+no wings used at Carltron during final fight
+less enemies killed over course of the game
-menu delay from opening menu twice (pixie + Atlas)
-extra screen transition(s?)
-no Full Blimp Skip (probably .5-1.5s faster, unknown for certain)
-Invulnerability is boring as hell, seriously.

Invulnerability @ Horace's Camp:
+no wings used at Carltron during final fight
+less enemies killed over course of the game
+same amount of menu operations as No Invulnerability
+same amount of screen transitions as No Invulnerability
-not during 14 minutes, so high downtime for setup (hits + cast time + death + recovery)
-Invulnerability is boring as hell, seriously.

No Invulnerability:
+more entertaining to watch
+less screen transitions that getting Invulnerability @ Eastern Beach
+less downtime from setup than Invulnerability @ Horace's Camp
+Full Blimp Skip (probably .5-1.5s faster, unknown for certain)
+can use enemy knockback to damage boost during death scenes and be closer to end-goals compared to Invulnerability
-have to manipulate enemies/kill them
-menu operation @ Carltron for wings
-have to grind a bit in the desert for an hp buffer (during 14 minutes though, so not really a huge factor)

Personally I feel that No Invulnerability is both the faster option and the more entertaining one. So that's what my plan is at the moment unless someone can magically convince me that the other two are somehow a rather large amount faster. This was done so I could utilize the Full Blimp Skip post-Vigor and not have the screen transitions prior during the 14 minutes to save that precious second on top of the menu operation which would make up for the manipulations I'd have to do during mids and maze sections of the game, everything else you kill anyways with invulnerability because it's actually in the way, lol. So yeah, it's a bit tight, but I think Invulnerability is the slower option for the TAS.

The other problem is finding something to do during the 14 minutes...

I'm still debating if getting invincibility is worth it or not honestly. On one hand, it removes manipulation issues, on the other, it delays the timer by a slight bit. Considering going without invincibility I only menu once at Carl for wings... I dunno, the timings are close for the TAS. I'm leaning towards not getting it because that's more entertaining.

That being said, once I have the dog and am going towards Aquagoth...  I could very easily get invincibility there IF it ends up being faster due to manipulation reasons against the 6 or 7 trouble spots in the game. Thoughts on this would be more than welcome. :)

We figured out last night on Meta's stream that doing blimp cutscene post-vigor but before aegis results in the boy being controlled but the dog hp bar being displayed. So that's weird, but it got me wondering if there's any way we could confuse the game like that, but with the Aegis cutscene, which unlocks Aquagoth. Haven't really gone much further with the thought other than it just being a thought.

edit:

specifics (TAS):

Invulnerability @ Eastern Beach:
+during 14minutes
+makes mids more tolerable
+no wings used at Carltron during final fight
+less enemies killed over course of the game
-menu delay from opening menu twice (pixie + Atlas)
-extra screen transition(s?)
-no Full Blimp Skip (probably .5-1.5s faster, unknown for certain)
-Invulnerability is boring as hell, seriously.

Invulnerability @ Horace's Camp:
+no wings used at Carltron during final fight
+less enemies killed over course of the game
+same amount of menu operations as No Invulnerability
+same amount of screen transitions as No Invulnerability
-not during 14 minutes, so high downtime for setup (hits + cast time + death + recovery)
-Invulnerability is boring as hell, seriously.

No Invulnerability:
+more entertaining to watch
+less screen transitions that getting Invulnerability @ Eastern Beach
+less downtime from setup than Invulnerability @ Horace's Camp
+Full Blimp Skip (probably .5-1.5s faster, unknown for certain)
+can use enemy knockback to damage boost during death scenes and be closer to end-goals compared to Invulnerability
-have to manipulate enemies/kill them
-menu operation @ Carltron for wings
-have to grind a bit in the desert for an hp buffer (during 14 minutes though, so not really a huge factor)

Personally I feel that No Invulnerability is both the faster option and the more entertaining one. So that's what my plan is at the moment unless someone can magically convince me that the other two are somehow a rather large amount faster. This was done so I could utilize the Full Blimp Skip post-Vigor and not have the screen transitions prior during the 14 minutes to save that precious second on top of the menu operation which would make up for the manipulations I'd have to do during mids and maze sections of the game, everything else you kill anyways with invulnerability because it's actually in the way, lol. So yeah, it's a bit tight, but I think Invulnerability is the slower option for the TAS.

The other problem is finding something to do during the 14 minutes...

Grumly

2014-01-18 09:22:06 am

The best solution would be a Market Skip...

Any idea ?

GreenAmbler

2014-01-18 12:30:28 pm

Well I certainly tried everything I could think of to get a market skip. That is the last huge barrier that hasn't been broken yet. I messed around with the Blimp Skip Post Vigor quite a bit, largely it doesn't really affect anything, you can only have 1 truly active character at a time but you can do things to make both of the characters temporarily active for the screen (like talking to certain NPCS) and this way you can switch whichever character is active for the future screens. This is exactly the same as when we do the Banquet Skip later on, which I've also messed with quite a bit trying to find a better solution to the slow Dogwalk @chessboard. In this Post Vigor case, the party will always go back to normal once you reunite the characters in the Pyramids. The Pyramids screens (outer and inner) automatically puts both characters in your party but only while you are on those screens (until you reunite)

TheAngryPanda

Edit history:

TheAngryPanda: 2014-01-19 10:20:17 pm

2014-01-18 12:55:50 pm

Speed > Safety

I think a River Skip is more likely than a Market Skip honestly. But even then, I doubt we could immediately make use of it. Market Skip is basically a dream in the game's current state. If anything was ever to bypass the market timer, it's likely going to be some sort of corruption on the save or some other sort of "mess with the game" type of glitch as opposed to something like what we're normally finding. The only thing we've ever found that does anything weird like that is when AsFasAsIGet figured out you could multi-cast shield during mungola and end up at a save screen. Perhaps there's more things like this undiscovered, but I'm not overly hopeful.

Also, after thinking about it some more, I'm going with the No Invulnerability option in the TAS, because walking around with a giant crutch just doesn't really seem impressive to me. I'd rather pretend there's at least a small chance of me dieing at some point and all the manipulations/menus throughout the rest of the game are probably less than the extra screen transition and the delay on the 14 minute timer.

edit:

So after a certain comment in chat today about how the game isn't optimized, I thought I'd chime in with just how much work actually goes into figuring out the proper route for this game and why I'm unlikely to ever do something like this again.

First off, before my SNES flat out died, I literally tested every single thing I said to do in this game. That includes the routes, AI patterns, and multiple other things a lot of people don't even notice because they've been routed out of the game by manipulation which I don't even bother telling people they're doing since an easier explanation is "run with the dog in bugmuck because it's fast," as an example. This means that by optimizing the route, I'm optimizing the game mechanics involved with said route as well.

Secondly, and I regret this quite a bit, there were "tiers" of routes I made because some people flat out refused to run other routes that were much faster. I shouldn't have done this, it promotes complacency, but I wanted to get results so yeah... bad decision on my part. Anyways, the various routes were differentiated by layers of difficulties in between certain things. As things were found, I continually re-adjusted every route, eventually sitting down and basically destroying every "weak" route and only keeping the strongest one, which I should have done in the first place. The reason I'm mentioning this is that at the time people were happy with 1:19's, I KNEW 1:18's and possibly 1:17's were absolutely possible, just based on logic and common sense.

Finally, I find it inadequate if something isn't perfect. The route(s) in their current state, with current knowledge, are perfect. The players obviously aren't and never will be, but there is nothing we currently know of that can improve the routes. That INCLUDES movement mechanics, enemy manipulations, and other things. Most mechanics of the game are completely out of the player's control and are incapable of being optimized on a per run basis until we can determine a way to find our RNG and afterwards develop setups. Until then, they are optimized as much as they can be, and it took me a VERY long time to do so. I find it insulting that someone who doesn't even understand half the stuff in the game would suggest that something isn't optimized.

Anywho, was bugging me so I'm getting it off my chest. I don't think I'll ever put as much effort into another game like I have for this one. Here's hoping I see a 1:17:40 before I'm done with the Any% TAS!

I think a River Skip is more likely than a Market Skip honestly. But even then, I doubt we could immediately make use of it. Market Skip is basically a dream in the game's current state. If anything was ever to bypass the market timer, it's likely going to be some sort of corruption on the save or some other sort of "mess with the game" type of glitch as opposed to something like what we're normally finding. The only thing we've ever found that does anything weird like that is when AsFasAsIGet figured out you could multi-cast shield during mungola and end up at a save screen. Perhaps there's more things like this undiscovered, but I'm not overly hopeful.

Also, after thinking about it some more, I'm going with the No Invulnerability option in the TAS, because walking around with a giant crutch just doesn't really seem impressive to me. I'd rather pretend there's at least a small chance of me dieing at some point and all the manipulations/menus throughout the rest of the game are probably less than the extra screen transition and the delay on the 14 minute timer.

edit:

So after a certain comment in chat today about how the game isn't optimized, I thought I'd chime in with just how much work actually goes into figuring out the proper route for this game and why I'm unlikely to ever do something like this again.

First off, before my SNES flat out died, I literally tested every single thing I said to do in this game. That includes the routes, AI patterns, and multiple other things a lot of people don't even notice because they've been routed out of the game by manipulation which I don't even bother telling people they're doing since an easier explanation is "run with the dog in bugmuck because it's fast," as an example. This means that by optimizing the route, I'm optimizing the game mechanics involved with said route as well.

Secondly, and I regret this quite a bit, there were "tiers" of routes I made because some people flat out refused to run other routes that were much faster. I shouldn't have done this, it promotes complacency, but I wanted to get results so yeah... bad decision on my part. Anyways, the various routes were differentiated by layers of difficulties in between certain things. As things were found, I continually re-adjusted every route, eventually sitting down and basically destroying every "weak" route and only keeping the strongest one, which I should have done in the first place. The reason I'm mentioning this is that at the time people were happy with 1:19's, I KNEW 1:18's and possibly 1:17's were absolutely possible, just based on logic and common sense.

Finally, I find it inadequate if something isn't perfect. The route(s) in their current state, with current knowledge, are perfect. The players obviously aren't and never will be, but there is nothing we currently know of that can improve the routes. That INCLUDES movement mechanics, enemy manipulations, and other things. Most mechanics of the game are completely out of the player's control and are incapable of being optimized on a per run basis until we can determine a way to find our RNG and afterwards develop setups. Until then, they are optimized as much as they can be, and it took me a VERY long time to do so. I find it insulting that someone who doesn't even understand half the stuff in the game would suggest that something isn't optimized.

Anywho, was bugging me so I'm getting it off my chest. I don't think I'll ever put as much effort into another game like I have for this one. Here's hoping I see a 1:17:40 before I'm done with the Any% TAS!

MetaSigma

2014-01-20 05:56:45 am

Evermore Extrodinare ᕦ(° Д°)ᕤ

And because of that Panda we go through hell :P, nah but seriously man you have done so much for this game I can't even begin to thank you enough man. Seriously without you we wouldn't be where we are!

TheAngryPanda

Edit history:

TheAngryPanda: 2014-01-20 03:42:51 pm

TheAngryPanda: 2014-01-20 12:01:42 pm

2014-01-20 07:16:46 am

Speed > Safety

Anyways, I need a list of things people want tested in Act 2.... May as well make use of the time here on the TAS.

Edit:

List of things to test:

-Dog barking and trigger locations for Diamond Eyes Skip
-Test Early Mad Monk kill
--Test capability to scroll screen manually instead of via camera? Potential despawn/spawning abuse later? Could lead to some fun stuff maybe if it's possible.
-Test Full Blimp Skip timing to the frame

DLDarklink

2014-01-20 11:53:34 am

...

Quote from TheAngryPanda:

I don't think I'll ever put as much effort into another game like I have for this one. Here's hoping I see a 1:17:40 before I'm done with the Any% TAS!

That's why we love you man Wink

Your dedication inspires me over and over again Smiley

I hope I'm also speaking for the rest of the runners Wink

Test in Act 2: dog bark over the DE trigger

GreenAmbler

Edit history:

GreenAmbler: 2014-01-20 03:58:25 pm

2014-01-20 03:38:07 pm

Maybe could try and see if there's any way to get a consistent Early Mad Monk Kill. I couldn't find any consistent way of doing it, I'm guessing it's way too random to ever manipulate for an RTA but it would be quite nice since it can save a good chunk of time with ideal placement/movement. Also most likely impossibly random for RTA would be to see if there's any good way of getting the Chocobo Egg via ceramic pot purchases, since as far as I know there is no real knowledge about this, but could potential save something like 2 min on 100% if I remember correctly (or give you something slightly beneficial to do during 15 min for any%). Also, for the TAS, I'm not entirely sure whether full blimp skip is faster, without some really precise testing I can only guess. That's all I can think of for Act 2.

Pretty funny that anyone would claim this game is not optimized, they should read all 35 pages of this thread and see how far the game has come in just 1 year. Panda has put so much work into this game that he should probably be getting a paycheck for his service. All this routing stuff is quite complex and very tedious to figure out, I've tried to help with some but I really don't have the patience for it.

Edit: Here's the highlight of the Mad Monk kill. I've actually gotten one that was a decent bit faster. For RTA though, something like 80% of the time you will lose time due to randomness

http://www.twitch.tv/greenambler/c/3343257

Maybe could try and see if there's any way to get a consistent Early Mad Monk Kill. I couldn't find any consistent way of doing it, I'm guessing it's way too random to ever manipulate for an RTA but it would be quite nice since it can save a good chunk of time with ideal placement/movement. Also most likely impossibly random for RTA would be to see if there's any good way of getting the Chocobo Egg via ceramic pot purchases, since as far as I know there is no real knowledge about this, but could potential save something like 2 min on 100% if I remember correctly (or give you something slightly beneficial to do during 15 min for any%). Also, for the TAS, I'm not entirely sure whether full blimp skip is faster, without some really precise testing I can only guess. That's all I can think of for Act 2.

Pretty funny that anyone would claim this game is not optimized, they should read all 35 pages of this thread and see how far the game has come in just 1 year. Panda has put so much work into this game that he should probably be getting a paycheck for his service. All this routing stuff is quite complex and very tedious to figure out, I've tried to help with some but I really don't have the patience for it.

Edit: Here's the highlight of the Mad Monk kill. I've actually gotten one that was a decent bit faster. For RTA though, something like 80% of the time you will lose time due to randomness

http://www.twitch.tv/greenambler/c/3343257

AsFarAsIGet

2014-01-20 03:46:58 pm

www.youtube.com/user/HumanMYTH

Whats an early MadMonk Kill? Was this ever discussed here?

TheAngryPanda

2014-01-20 03:51:42 pm

Speed > Safety

Chocobo Egg can be gotten from the ceramic pots, yes. It is something that would be in the route if there were enough time/money to expend on attempting to get it. However, like you said, the TAS could easily chop some time off for this if I ever do start a 100% TAS. For RTA though, I dunno if it's worth going for. It certainly wouldn't hurt to try for it if you have spare time and money during 14 minutes.

My testing with Blimp Skip showed that by not delaying the timer and utilizing the Crush Skip from having the dog walk out early (which skips the other scene as well) gave me an extra .5-1s of savings earlier when tested via emulator and slowed down time. That being said, it's very possible that this is just simply a value given from player input vs player input, which in TAS terms, won't always be the same. A perfectly executed everything else could actually be faster than a perfectly executed Full Blimp Skip. I will do some testing on it some more and see if it's faster once and for all when I actually get to that point.

The early mad monk kill is something GA discovered by manipulating the Mad Monk in ruins to walk near the entrance then casting spells to kill him. This would likely save a little bit of time in RTA if you got lucky with the AI "RNG," but it has potential to save TONS of time in the TAS. It was discussed very briefly, I think. Mostly because the RNG on the AI is pretty strong and you need 1 of 10 possible outcomes for it to work.

10 outcomes:
Walk right - no
Walk up - no
Walk down - no
Walk left - yes
Walk right+up - no
Walk right+ down - no
Walk up+left - maybe (probably no)
Walk down+left - maybe (probably no)
idle - no
idle+then move - no

The reason the diagonals and idle+directional movement AI won't work is because it simply takes too long in RTA to know if you've gotten that AI manipulation or not, which by the time it would have shown up, you would have already re-spawned the Mad Monk and rolled another AI movement path. Very unexplored trick, to my knowledge, but I intend on playing around with it.

Chocobo Egg can be gotten from the ceramic pots, yes. It is something that would be in the route if there were enough time/money to expend on attempting to get it. However, like you said, the TAS could easily chop some time off for this if I ever do start a 100% TAS. For RTA though, I dunno if it's worth going for. It certainly wouldn't hurt to try for it if you have spare time and money during 14 minutes.

My testing with Blimp Skip showed that by not delaying the timer and utilizing the Crush Skip from having the dog walk out early (which skips the other scene as well) gave me an extra .5-1s of savings earlier when tested via emulator and slowed down time. That being said, it's very possible that this is just simply a value given from player input vs player input, which in TAS terms, won't always be the same. A perfectly executed everything else could actually be faster than a perfectly executed Full Blimp Skip. I will do some testing on it some more and see if it's faster once and for all when I actually get to that point.

The early mad monk kill is something GA discovered by manipulating the Mad Monk in ruins to walk near the entrance then casting spells to kill him. This would likely save a little bit of time in RTA if you got lucky with the AI "RNG," but it has potential to save TONS of time in the TAS. It was discussed very briefly, I think. Mostly because the RNG on the AI is pretty strong and you need 1 of 10 possible outcomes for it to work.

10 outcomes:
Walk right - no
Walk up - no
Walk down - no
Walk left - yes
Walk right+up - no
Walk right+ down - no
Walk up+left - maybe (probably no)
Walk down+left - maybe (probably no)
idle - no
idle+then move - no

The reason the diagonals and idle+directional movement AI won't work is because it simply takes too long in RTA to know if you've gotten that AI manipulation or not, which by the time it would have shown up, you would have already re-spawned the Mad Monk and rolled another AI movement path. Very unexplored trick, to my knowledge, but I intend on playing around with it.

Skarsnik

2014-01-21 06:10:58 am

I want to appologize to panda for saying the game isn't optimized, but I think there is still new stuff outside some new skip that can make time go lower Smiley

This mad monk early kill is intersting, is there a visual cue/something that can tell you : Go for it

AsFarAsIGet

2014-01-21 07:59:10 am

www.youtube.com/user/HumanMYTH

If we just could find a wrong warp, we could go straight from act1 (jaguar ring) into act2 bypassing the market timer... I could make a video if someone is interested, but yeah theres no way we could reach it yet... We need something like greenamblers input through walls movement...

DLDarklink

2014-01-21 08:34:04 am

...

I'm also interested in what happened during Meta's run. He was going back to Tinkers tower, attempting the Landing Scene Skip but he landed somewhere else (I believe it was at the land place next to Fire Eyes village, but it could also be Volcano Path). But he wasn't near the landing site Huh?

Maybe there is a way to land inside Act 4 this way ^^ Although I guess Panda or someone else has tried this before Wink

AsFarAsIGet

2014-01-21 08:44:13 am

www.youtube.com/user/HumanMYTH

He just failed the landing skip, after that he gets trapped in a1 cuz the airplane gets lost permanently.

DLDarklink

Edit history:

DLDarklink: 2014-01-21 09:34:56 am

2014-01-21 09:28:45 am

...

he didn't fail it, he landed (including landing scene and still in posession of the aircraft) next to FE village. His marker on the world map was somewhere around the northern part of the desert. ~~I'll try to find the video when I'm back home~~

edit: here it is: http://www.twitch.tv/metasigma/b/496579410?t=130m47s

AsFarAsIGet

Edit history:

AsFarAsIGet: 2014-01-21 09:55:55 am

2014-01-21 09:54:42 am

www.youtube.com/user/HumanMYTH

Ok, so heres the stuff im thinking of. The Act2 Doubledrain cave is on the same map as the Jaguar Ring Cave, Hardball Cave and 2 Vulcano Caves. If we could clip through some walls we would be able to enter act2 straight away with the dog. Thraxx needs to be killed since there are bushes across the bridge and we need a weapon to destroy them.

This might be the key to skip the market timer.

!!!ATTENTION, THIS IS NOT POSSIBLE WITHOUT THE USE OF ACTION-REPLAY CODES RIGHT NOW!!!

p.S.: The Salaborg hut is also connected to the huts in the FireEyes Village.