Secret of Mana

2014-10-28 06:09:58 am

never a frown

Well, it wasn't much more than simply spending a few hours analyzing tons of frames, and I wish it resulted in something more useful, but I appreciate the thanks. As an aside, it will be interesting to see what the new TAS has changed.

LeonPowPow

2014-10-28 11:53:03 pm

Just got my cart (finally) and making a post in this topic to sub to it as I plan on learning this and have wanted to for over a year

Yagamoth

2014-10-29 12:29:48 am

INTJ

Quote from Overfiendvip:

Well, it wasn't much more than simply spending a few hours analyzing tons of frames, and I wish it resulted in something more useful, but I appreciate the thanks. As an aside, it will be interesting to see what the new TAS has changed.

It seems to work quite ok for me. I'm trying to see whether I can also get some movement alongside it to give me a better indicator when I need to hit the the talk. Thank you Smiley

Quote from LeonPowPow:

Just got my cart (finally) and making a post in this topic to sub to it as I plan on learning this and have wanted to for over a year

That's awesome Cheesy

Overfiendvip

Edit history:

Overfiendvip: 2014-10-29 03:18:15 am

Overfiendvip: 2014-10-29 02:51:57 am

Overfiendvip: 2014-10-29 02:49:55 am

2014-10-29 02:48:03 am

never a frown

Funny story - earlier I was talking to Stinger about how I don't understand why sometimes I'm given "Get out of here fast!" when I've done all the proper steps for the glitched menu, but didn't really bother to figure it out, and how it would be amusing if my first attempt that I hit the glitch, it happens and ruins the run. Well, I was given a free sub 10 run on my first attempt ever, managing to hit the input (and I messed up everything before that except for Neko), and was told to get out of here fast, so I did and ended up getting a 13 minute time instead, which I guess is okay considering what this category involves and it being my first run, but still pretty humorous that it happened like I figured it would. I guess pressing right before doing the left->B presses solves this issue, like Yaga mentioned before? Although it's possible it fixed itself after I reset since I saved during the run, since I just wanted to complete a run. Also higan seems to lag incredibly badly through these menus and I'm not sure why - perhaps an emulation issue considering lsnes emulated it perfectly, which is what I practiced on? (That being said, I have no idea how I hit glitch first try and then hit it again three tries later with basically no setup and after swapping emulators, perhaps a positive sign)

If the emulation issue persists then I will probably take the time to put the game on my Wii since I don't think I should be doing attempts on lsnes of all things. I guess I should have at least played the game through on higan before trying to do attempts on it; still surprisingly odd to see it lag like that though.

Funny story - earlier I was talking to Stinger about how I don't understand why sometimes I'm given "Get out of here fast!" when I've done all the proper steps for the glitched menu, but didn't really bother to figure it out, and how it would be amusing if my first attempt that I hit the glitch, it happens and ruins the run. Well, I was given a free sub 10 run on my first attempt ever, managing to hit the input (and I messed up everything before that except for Neko), and was told to get out of here fast, so I did and ended up getting a 13 minute time instead, which I guess is okay considering what this category involves and it being my first run, but still pretty humorous that it happened like I figured it would. I guess pressing right before doing the left->B presses solves this issue, like Yaga mentioned before? Although it's possible it fixed itself after I reset since I saved during the run, since I just wanted to complete a run. Also higan seems to lag incredibly badly through these menus and I'm not sure why - perhaps an emulation issue considering lsnes emulated it perfectly, which is what I practiced on? (That being said, I have no idea how I hit glitch first try and then hit it again three tries later with basically no setup and after swapping emulators, perhaps a positive sign)

If the emulation issue persists then I will probably take the time to put the game on my Wii since I don't think I should be doing attempts on lsnes of all things. I guess I should have at least played the game through on higan before trying to do attempts on it; still surprisingly odd to see it lag like that though.

Yagamoth

Edit history:

Yagamoth: 2014-10-29 03:49:52 am

Yagamoth: 2014-10-29 03:39:49 am

Yagamoth: 2014-10-29 03:39:30 am

2014-10-29 03:38:49 am

INTJ

Wow.. Funny is one way to describe that o.0;

If you have a RAM watch tool you can watch the address 7EA200. This is the "Currently selected option". Watching that address would help you understand when input actually gets accepted and when not, and then learn how the audio corresponds to that. Sometimes it can be kind of confusing

One rule of thumb: If you press "Left" the first time from 0, the option-jump happens instantly (or almost, maybe 1 frame delay). But:
- You then have to wait pretty much exactly 50 frames (almost a second) before the buttonpress B gets registered
-- A visual indicator for the very first option-select is that small black bar disappearing from the window-border
-- Even though there is no visual indicator for all the subsequent "< + B" presses, the same rule applies

Here's a simple method what you can do for the first option, without having to press "Right":
- You can simply start holding "Left" as soon as you initiate the glitched dialog. This will select the 255th option as soon as possible and that weird "black bar" on the window-border will appear. As soon as that black bar disappears, you can press "B" and hold for the 20 audio cues and then continue with the rest

Wow.. Funny is one way to describe that o.0;

If you have a RAM watch tool you can watch the address 7EA200. This is the "Currently selected option". Watching that address would help you understand when input actually gets accepted and when not, and then learn how the audio corresponds to that. Sometimes it can be kind of confusing

One rule of thumb: [b]If you press "Left" the first time[/b] from 0, the option-jump happens instantly (or almost, maybe 1 frame delay). But:
- You then have to wait pretty much exactly 50 frames (almost a second) before the buttonpress B gets registered
-- A visual indicator for the very first option-select is that small black bar disappearing from the window-border
-- Even though there is no visual indicator for all the subsequent "< + B" presses, the same rule applies

Here's a simple method what you can do for the first option, without having to press "Right":
- You can simply start holding "Left" as soon as you initiate the glitched dialog. This will select the 255th option as soon as possible and that weird "black bar" on the window-border will appear. As soon as that black bar disappears, you can press "B" and hold for the 20 audio cues and then continue with the rest

Overfiendvip

Edit history:

Overfiendvip: 2014-10-29 04:07:59 am

Overfiendvip: 2014-10-29 04:03:12 am

Overfiendvip: 2014-10-29 03:59:58 am

Overfiendvip: 2014-10-29 03:59:20 am

Overfiendvip: 2014-10-29 03:57:38 am

2014-10-29 03:54:17 am

never a frown

Unless the amount of resets compounds the amount of lag I'll receive in the glitched menu once I reach it again, I don't know why higan-performance is lagging 2-3x more than console/lsnes is through these menus. I made sure it wasn't some sort of bottleneck from recording the emulator. I'm also not sure why, even on lsnes, I'm receiving "get out of here fast" - I've tried multiple times making sure every action from being banished from Potos onward matches what I should be doing, but every time on the second B input after hitting left, it happens. Hitting right before hitting left then the B inputs doesn't seem to change anything. I understand how to delay my inputs according to the game's delay and everything, so I don't believe that's the issue either. I simply don't think the proper glitched menu is there when I do this and here's why:

If I don't press left then press B twice - Cannon Travel dialogue (basically, I've exited the glitched menu)
If I press left then press B twice - Luka dialogue
If I press left more than once then press B multiple times - Luka dialogue after a longer amount of B presses depending on how many times I hit left

...so there's basically nowhere in that menu anymore that allows me to reach The End screen.

Edit (responding to the post below): That might have been it, actually. I honestly don't remember ever seeing that post from him (if there was one) but oh well, I think that's what the issue was, lesson learned... and thank you for that piece of information.

Unless the amount of resets compounds the amount of lag I'll receive in the glitched menu once I reach it again, I don't know why higan-performance is lagging 2-3x more than console/lsnes is through these menus. I made sure it wasn't some sort of bottleneck from recording the emulator. I'm also not sure why, even on lsnes, I'm receiving "get out of here fast" - I've tried multiple times making sure every action from being banished from Potos onward matches what I should be doing, but every time on the second B input after hitting left, it happens. Hitting right before hitting left then the B inputs doesn't seem to change anything. I understand how to delay my inputs according to the game's delay and everything, so I don't believe that's the issue either. I simply don't think the proper glitched menu is there when I do this and here's why:

If I don't press left then press B twice - Cannon Travel dialogue (basically, I've exited the glitched menu)
If I press left then press B twice - Luka dialogue
If I press left more than once then press B multiple times - Luka dialogue after a longer amount of B presses depending on how many times I hit left

...so there's basically nowhere in that menu anymore that allows me to reach The End screen.

Edit (responding to the post below): That might have been it, actually. I honestly don't remember ever seeing that post from him (if there was one) but oh well, I think that's what the issue was, lesson learned... and thank you for that piece of information.

Yagamoth

Edit history:

Yagamoth: 2014-10-29 04:04:16 am

Yagamoth: 2014-10-29 04:01:09 am

2014-10-29 03:57:12 am

INTJ

Hm... HHS mentioned that it's required for you to wait until the "Barrel x1" text appears in the items-menu before applying the Barrel. Maybe that's the issue?

Edit: Just tested it, that seems to be the case actually. You need to wait until the "Barrel x1" text appears before applying the barrel.. Sorry, I think I forgot to mention that :/

Overfiendvip

Edit history:

Overfiendvip: 2015-05-06 07:43:31 am

Overfiendvip: 2014-11-01 10:58:53 am

Overfiendvip: 2014-11-01 10:58:33 am

Overfiendvip: 2014-11-01 10:57:33 am

Overfiendvip: 2014-10-29 08:08:21 am

Overfiendvip: 2014-10-29 04:51:13 am

2014-10-29 04:10:00 am

never a frown

It's fine, sub 10 is basically free to anyone who understands the movement at all and hits the input first try, so I'm not that bothered by it, it was just funny that things panned out that way.

Edit: Apparently, the lag which I thought was simply an emulation issue seems to occur on every platform I test where I reset the game after having saved at Neko (for example, if I fail the frame-perfect input on the first attempt). I guess it simply makes attempting to do "no reset" runs of this, or trying to continue after failing the first input, even more punishing, since it's nearly three times as much delay as normal between inputs. This issue means that basically, if your personal best is under 10 minutes and you're trying to improve it, then there's no point in continuing an attempt if you fail the input off the Cannon Traveler since it's virtually impossible to still achieve a personal best with this much delay added in, assuming you nailed the input on the second try. I would be interested to know what specifically causes this to happen, although it wouldn't really change anything to know...

Edit 2 (Nov 1 2014): Managed to obtain a 8:52 after only a dozen attempts. I'm pretty happy to have went from 10:09 to this time quite effortlessly, since all I really wanted was sub 10, so I'm not sure if I will grind for anything better, even though the run showed that even I could potentially obtain a low 8:4X, and I haven't even played the game for more than a cumulative day span. (Hopefully this gives anyone out there confidence to attempt the category!)

It's fine, sub 10 is basically free to anyone who understands the movement at all and hits the input first try, so I'm not that bothered by it, it was just funny that things panned out that way.

Edit: Apparently, the lag which I thought was simply an emulation issue seems to occur on every platform I test where I reset the game after having saved at Neko (for example, if I fail the frame-perfect input on the first attempt). I guess it simply makes attempting to do "no reset" runs of this, or trying to continue after failing the first input, even more punishing, since it's nearly three times as much delay as normal between inputs. This issue means that basically, if your personal best is under 10 minutes and you're trying to improve it, then there's no point in continuing an attempt if you fail the input off the Cannon Traveler since it's virtually impossible to still achieve a personal best with this much delay added in, assuming you nailed the input on the second try. I would be interested to know what specifically causes this to happen, although it wouldn't really change anything to know...

Edit 2 (Nov 1 2014): Managed to obtain a 8:52 after only a dozen attempts. I'm pretty happy to have went from 10:09 to this time quite effortlessly, since all I really wanted was sub 10, so I'm not sure if I will grind for anything better, even though the run showed that even I could potentially obtain a low 8:4X, and I haven't even played the game for more than a cumulative day span. (Hopefully this gives anyone out there confidence to attempt the category!)

Yagamoth

2014-11-03 08:23:12 am

INTJ

Quote from Overfiendvip:

Edit 2 (Nov 1 2014): Managed to obtain a 8:52 after only a dozen attempts. I'm pretty happy to have went from 10:09 to this time quite effortlessly, since all I really wanted was sub 10, so I'm not sure if I will grind for anything better, even though the run showed that even I could potentially obtain a low 8:4X, and I haven't even played the game for more than a cumulative day span. (Hopefully this gives anyone out there confidence to attempt the category!)

Congratulations Cheesy

Overfiendvip

2014-11-03 08:32:10 am

never a frown

It's actually 8:42 now, but thanks. ^_^

I have this urge to keep going, but not sure if I will. Part of me is happy having obtained it with only a few days of play, and although I know it could be quite a bit lower, I should be getting back to other games. That being said, it is short enough that I could basically run it whenever I want and always have a chance to improve my time, but I'm hoping someone else manages to accomplish 8:3X or potentially 8:2X (which would seem to be the end goal) since it's apparent that these times are possible.

PJ

2014-11-03 03:51:14 pm

Is PJ

Awesome work, Overfiendvip!

Overfiendvip

2014-11-03 04:00:45 pm

never a frown

Thank you!

Deuceler

2014-11-04 02:28:20 pm

SPEEDruns not SAFEruns

Figured I'd throw it out here, although I mentioned it to some of you. I finished my first timed run last night (was offline) of 1p2c last night and got a 2:26:13 - so wasn't too terrible. I have lots of stuff to improve on obviously, and will be streaming runs later in the week!

seka

Edit history:

seka: 2014-11-10 05:01:54 pm

2014-11-10 05:01:22 pm

Some weird little glitch happened to me during a casual playthrough : http://www.twitch.tv/sekafirst/c/5472642

I don't know what caused it, and I'm not sure it could be usefull, but I decided to late you guys know anyway. Maybe You're already aware of this ?

StingerPA

2014-11-10 05:10:02 pm

Quote from seka:

Some weird little glitch happened to me during a casual playthrough : http://www.twitch.tv/sekafirst/c/5472642

I don't know what caused it, and I'm not sure it could be usefull, but I decided to late you guys know anyway. Maybe You're already aware of this ?

Secret of Mana, the game that keeps on giving. Tongue

I think we kinda knew this one already, but I might be thinking of another chest glitch that happened in the 2nd ruins (not the remote chest activation after phanna cutscene)

Crow!

2014-11-10 10:46:28 pm

What's that gemma?

If you press B right as you gain control in an area, you'll sometimes interact with an entity in that area. We (sometimes) use this to talk to the Mana Seed in the Fire Palace slightly faster. In some screens, it can lead to talking with something you don't want to if you're mashing B too long after certain cutscenes (such as the Elder talking after Tropicallo and the Northtown Ruins Phanna cutscene).

Yagamoth

2014-11-11 01:16:36 am

INTJ

Wow, that's a new one, awesome Cheesy

If I read that correctly, that means "Sword Orb" ^^.. I didn't realize there were orbs in that area

StingerPA

2014-11-13 08:21:58 pm

http://www.speedrun.com/som

I've setup new leaderboards here. We've never really consolidated our times, so this would be a good opportunity to do that. 1P2C, 1 Controller, Magic% and Co-op categories are supported.

Overfiendvip

2014-11-13 08:34:37 pm

never a frown

I meant to ask about keeping PBTracker times up to date since some of those are quite out of date, but if this is what people want to use, then I'll keep my time(s) up there as well. I will hopefully get back to the glitch grind soon since I've only done a handful of attempts this week.

Yagamoth

2014-11-16 12:49:55 pm

INTJ

Stinger and me decided to have a nice little glitchless race next Saturday. If anyone would like to participate you are welcome. It's going to be mostly a casual race, we decide on a definition what "glitchless" means and simply go with it

Crow!

2014-11-16 05:13:10 pm

What's that gemma?

Saturday is no good for me; I'll be hosting a Super Smash Brothers release party. If it were on Sunday, I'd participate.

seka

2014-11-16 05:52:07 pm

Too bad I probably wont be able to watch live, because I'm wondering how a glitchless run would turn out seeing how I had some problems with money and bosses strong against magic in my recent casual run. Well, it was indeed a very casual playthrough, but I'm interested nonetheless.

You guys have any idea of the estimated time it would take to complete this ?

Yagamoth

2014-11-16 08:38:16 pm

INTJ

Here's my answer to Stingers current definition of "glitchless"

http://pastebin.com/szp5RJg8

Crow!

2014-11-17 09:11:30 am

What's that gemma?

Executing the Mana Sword cutscene skip is pointless in this category, because you'll have to refresh the mana sword at some point during the fight; until the cutscene has played out once, each time you invoke the mana sword the cutscene will try to play out.

To be clear, if an enemy that we're killing with magic gets Wall up in time to reflect at a time when we cannot, or fail to, bring up an item ring to cancel the resulting damage, we will most likely have to reset and reload from our most recent save.

"Guard skips" should be more clearly defined.

Magic Roping before a cutscene definitely invokes glitches, and is never going to happen accidentally. Ban that.

The small benefit of using MP preemptively probably does not warrant trying to enforce a disqualification if a player does it accidentally.

Similarly, the benefit for remote talking is small, and there are cases where remote talking is likely due to absentmindedly continuing to mash buttons - for me, the most common ones are either to the Dwarf Village elder when he's getting the Sprite to join and Watts after he shows me the secret exit.

It might be necessary to educate players on what charge retention actually is so that they can deliberately avoid it, because setting they Boy's AI to charge level 2 seems ideal for a few of the fights around the 1 hour mark.

Executing the Mana Sword cutscene skip is pointless in this category, because you'll have to refresh the mana sword at some point during the fight; until the cutscene has played out once, each time you invoke the mana sword the cutscene will try to play out.

To be clear, if an enemy that we're killing with magic gets Wall up in time to reflect at a time when we cannot, or fail to, bring up an item ring to cancel the resulting damage, we will most likely have to reset and reload from our most recent save.

"Guard skips" should be more clearly defined.

Magic Roping before a cutscene definitely invokes glitches, and is never going to happen accidentally.  Ban that.

The small benefit of using MP preemptively probably does not warrant trying to enforce a disqualification if a player does it accidentally.

Similarly, the benefit for remote talking is small, and there are cases where remote talking is likely due to absentmindedly continuing to mash buttons - for me, the most common ones are either to the Dwarf Village elder when he's getting the Sprite to join and Watts after he shows me the secret exit.

It might be necessary to educate players on what charge retention actually is so that they can deliberately avoid it, because setting they Boy's AI to charge level 2 seems ideal for a few of the fights around the 1 hour mark.

Yagamoth

2014-11-17 09:17:31 am

INTJ

Quote:

To be clear, if an enemy that we're killing with magic gets Wall up in time to reflect at a time when we cannot, or fail to, bring up an item ring to cancel the resulting damage, we will most likely have to reset and reload from our most recent save.

One quick note to that - I'm reasonably certain you can't gain experience during a boss fight. So unless we plan on killing Knights or other stuff with magic this shouldn't be an issue ^^