Secret of Mana

Crow!

Edit history:

Crow!: 2014-12-17 03:57:06 pm

Crow!: 2014-12-17 03:43:09 pm

Crow!: 2014-12-17 03:42:35 pm

2014-12-17 08:36:17 am

What's that gemma?

After thinking some more, I think the Sprite delay and the out-of-order Pandora Ruins are incompatible with each other. The issue is the ~20 second trip the button the Eye Spy guards in the Haunted Forest - if I'm doing the out-of-order Pandora Ruins, I need to press that button in order to get to the Underground Palace in a reasonable period of time (since the Potos cannon no longer goes to Gaia's Navel at that point).

The Sprite delay's reward, after spending the time doing the tricks necessary to make it happen, is 40 seconds for WCG-ing Tropicallo. An additional 20 second trip to the button surely wipes out any hope of this paying off.

For now, I think I'm going to try the out-of-order route rather than the sprite delay.

------

I can avoid the Goblin cutscene by talking to Jema outside of the Water Palace rather than talking to a trooper. The game decides whether you qualified for the Goblin cutscene at this point, and talking to Jema is also enough to get the Potos cannon to let you go to Gaia's Navel. Walking up the Water Palace stairs then back down is surely faster than going through the Goblin cutscene.

After thinking some more, I think the Sprite delay and the out-of-order Pandora Ruins are incompatible with each other.  The issue is the ~20 second trip the button the Eye Spy guards in the Haunted Forest - if I'm doing the out-of-order Pandora Ruins, I need to press that button in order to get to the Underground Palace in a reasonable period of time (since the Potos cannon no longer goes to Gaia's Navel at that point).

The Sprite delay's reward, after spending the time doing the tricks necessary to make it happen, is 40 seconds for WCG-ing Tropicallo.  An additional 20 second trip to the button surely wipes out any hope of this paying off.

For now, I think I'm going to try the out-of-order route rather than the sprite delay.

------

I can avoid the Goblin cutscene by talking to Jema outside of the Water Palace rather than talking to a trooper.  The game decides whether you qualified for the Goblin cutscene at this point, and talking to Jema is also enough to get the Potos cannon to let you go to Gaia's Navel.  Walking up the Water Palace stairs then back down is surely faster than going through the Goblin cutscene.

Yagamoth

Edit history:

Yagamoth: 2014-12-18 05:44:44 am

2014-12-18 04:42:43 am

INTJ

Wait.. I think I missed something - why does the potos canon no longer go to Gaias Navel?

Edit On a different note: I remotely remember, that I managed to "free" the Girl twice from the Werewolves at some point. I think I goofed around like this:
- Not getting the Water Palace cutscene
- Going to Pandora, getting slapped in face by the Girl
- Freeing her from the Wolves in Elinees Forest, she joins
- Going to cave entrance where she did her standard dialog that they need to go to the witches forest
- Got her again from the witches forest from two new Werewolves
- Then she stayed

I think I did not interact with the statues the first time around, but did the 2nd time around. A bit of an odd trigger.

On that note - Do you think that activating some events in Pandora might have helpful story trigger/advancements which might help skipping other parts?

Crow!

Edit history:

Crow!: 2014-12-18 11:02:48 am

2014-12-18 10:50:29 am

What's that gemma?

The Potos Cannon goes to the Upper Lands because I already defeated Jabberwocky. If I went back to Gaia's Navel without killing Jabberwocky, then I wouldn't have access to the Midge Mallet, and the primary point of this sequence break would be lost.

I did a test run yesterday. I found that missing out on Gnome experience (because I WCG-ed Wall Face) meant I had to do 6 more casts vs Springbeak, which cost some time, and I lost a lot of time to being inefficient at getting the Sprite's Axe level to 2. The Axe level is a problem because I don't complete the Underground Palace until I'm basically done with the easy portions of the game - I arrived at the Upper Lands with very little progress past level 1.

I could probably come up with ways to smooth out those difficulties. The weapon experience, for example, could have been repaired by having the Sprite use ~~the Spear (whose level 2 upgrade is available as soon as I leave the Dwarf Village, conveniently)~~. I'm not convinced that the route would actually be faster even if I did get that straightened out, though. I arrived at the upper lands 4.5 minutes behind schedule, which is a lot of time to explain away.

Edit: The spear isn't actually available there, since I haven't done the Water Palace cutscene. I'd probably have to give him the unequipped sword, since the other weapons I have there are ranged, which don't work well with the WCG.

The Potos Cannon goes to the Upper Lands because I already defeated Jabberwocky.  If I went back to Gaia's Navel without killing Jabberwocky, then I wouldn't have access to the Midge Mallet, and the primary point of this sequence break would be lost.

I did a test run yesterday.  I found that missing out on Gnome experience (because I WCG-ed Wall Face) meant I had to do 6 more casts vs Springbeak, which cost some time, and I lost a lot of time to being inefficient at getting the Sprite's Axe level to 2.  The Axe level is a problem because I don't complete the Underground Palace until I'm basically done with the easy portions of the game - I arrived at the Upper Lands with very little progress past level 1.

I could probably come up with ways to smooth out those difficulties.  The weapon experience, for example, could have been repaired by having the Sprite use [s]the Spear (whose level 2 upgrade is available as soon as I leave the Dwarf Village, conveniently)[/s].  I'm not convinced that the route would actually be faster even if I did get that straightened out, though.  I arrived at the upper lands 4.5 minutes behind schedule, which is a lot of time to explain away.

Edit: The spear isn't actually available there, since I haven't done the Water Palace cutscene.  I'd probably have to give him the unequipped sword, since the other weapons I have there are ranged, which don't work well with the WCG.

Crow!

2014-12-22 12:13:54 pm

What's that gemma?

I hear there's going to be a SoM race to defeating Santa on the 28th of December. Can someone post the time? I'm presently visiting family, so I may or may not be able to participate, but the odds of fitting it into my schedule are much better if I know when it is.

StingerPA

Edit history:

StingerPA: 2014-12-22 12:36:09 pm

2014-12-22 12:28:55 pm

It should be around 2 PM EST that day.

Edit: I should also note that this race is free for anyone to join, and I've written up some notes for unfamiliar players. It should be at most 3-4 hours for semi-blind players, so come and join us on the 28th.

http://bombch.us/t4r

Crow!

Edit history:

Crow!: 2014-12-28 04:14:32 pm

Crow!: 2014-12-28 04:14:18 pm

2014-12-28 04:13:17 pm

What's that gemma?

Well, that race was a disaster. I decided to try out the Sprite delay (I worked out a way to do it that should have been no more than a minute slower than the girl skip, then made a hasty re-route at last second which didn't work at all). But then I made myself unable to progress after adding the Sprite.

I had rescued Undine first, and then added the Sprite to the party. But, for some reason, the Sprite couldn't go to his magic ring.

This caught me by surprise. After all, the 1p2c Girl skip does have Ice Saber available for the Frosty Forest. My guess is that the character initialization (where you set the character's name, and the game awards you their initial equipment) must also initialize that character's learned magic (setting all the elements to "doesn't have it"). I suppose I could test that by using arbitrary event execution, but I'm really bad at setting that up.

Yagamoth

2015-02-06 08:09:36 pm

INTJ

I just had an interesting thought. Pointless for 1p2c, but maybe for 1c:

- Would it be useful for you guys to easily define which item slot you want to have the blat items in?
-> If you think about how the money for the any% (magic%) is being created, you can simply put the blat into any item slot you want with that methos. I don't know enough about 1c to know whether that's useful. Just figured I should mention that

Yagamoth

Edit history:

Yagamoth: 2015-02-13 03:16:30 pm

2015-02-13 05:36:40 am

INTJ

So, new post to bump and explain something we haven't mentioned yet:

There's a slight route change. Initially our items route looked like this:

1) Get Magic Rope
2) Dwarf Village shop: Execute BLAT glitch on item slot 2
3) Dwarf Village shop: Sell 8 BLATs to remove them from our inventory again
4) Dwarf Village shop: Buy consumables and equipment
5) Dwarf Village: Item trashing session #1, multiply Candy, Medical Herb and Cups of Wishes
6) Elinees Castle Neko: Buy the rest of the consumables
7) Elinees Castle: Item trashing sessions #2, multiply Royal Jam, Faerie Walnuts and Barrels

The main reason why we sell 8 BLATs despite only needing to sell 1 for the money, is inventory management. If we don't get rid of all the BLATs, all icons will be shifted to the left by 1 -> The icon for Medical Herbs is now to use Candy, the icon for Cups of Wishes is now to use Medical Herbs etc. This would be really tough to handle in the heat of the battle and so we opted to accept the time loss of 7 more selling operations than technically necessary, to make that a lot easier (and a lot less dangerous. If you'd use the BLAT item itself, the game would crash). In a sense, a lot more hassle than worth it for less than 10 seconds.

Now we are going for it like this:
1) Visit Gaias Navel, right entrance Neko
2) Neko: Execute BLAT glitch on item slot 9 via the method of using the buy-ring to select the 9th item slot
3) Sell only 1 BLAT
4) Buy all consumables (All of them are available we need throughout the run)
5) Dwarf Village shop: Buy the equipment
6) Dwarf village [new spot]: Equipment trash all the consumables in a single session
-> No need to visit the Elinee castle Neko.

So, to break it down with the differences:

Code:

Short: New route...
- Loses time
+ gains time
~ Not sure


- 2 Screen transitions
- 2 longer text
- 2 Music change lag
- 1 Longer way in item menu
- 1 two moves in sell menu
- 1 Slightly worse setup for trashing (improvable?)

~ Distance to Neko in either Gaias Navel or Elinees forest

+ 7 Less times selling BLAT
+ 1 Less text on in Elinee castle Neko
+ 1 No gathering on Neko
+ 1 Only one trashing session

Still not sure how much faster this is (.. if at all)

Aside from that, I decided to not buy Candy anymore, since I rarely ever used up all of the other consumables. It's never really for healing, and more for cancelling damage, which can also be achieved by using Barrels, Fearie Walnuts and Royal Jams. We only really need 2 Barrels and 2 Fearie Walnuts, leaving us a total of 20 items to cancel damage with. Which is plenty.

======================================

Edit: Trying to time this stuff. I'm using savestates to get reasonably optimized menues and buying stuff. For reference, I bought Candy while testing + 1 more armor since I took the timing for the old strat from our various attempts. just to keep it consistent.

New strat:
- Buying at Neko in Gaias Navel: 69.8 seconds until back on track like the standard strategy (Middle of the water -> middle of the water)
- Buying at the Dwarf village -> Entering the theater: 47.21 seconds
- Buying at the castle Neko -> 0 seconds
- 2nd item trashing -> 0 seconds
=> 117 seconds

Old strat: (Fairly inaccurate since I pulled this from vods and gave it the benefit of the doubt)
- No visiting Neko in Gaias navel: 0 seconds
- Buying at the Dwarf village -> Entering the theater: 90 seconds
- Buying at the Castle Neko -> 22 seconds
- 2nd item trashing -> 7 seconds
=> 119 Seconds

So... According to my calculations the new route is going to be 2 seconds faster. Maybe 3-4 since I was rather generous towards the old strat :P.

So, new post to bump and explain something we haven't mentioned yet:

There's a slight route change. Initially our items route looked like this:

1) Get Magic Rope
2) Dwarf Village shop: Execute BLAT glitch on item slot 2
3) Dwarf Village shop: Sell 8 BLATs to remove them from our inventory again
4) Dwarf Village shop: Buy consumables and equipment
5) Dwarf Village: Item trashing session #1, multiply Candy, Medical Herb and Cups of Wishes
6) Elinees Castle Neko: Buy the rest of the consumables
7) Elinees Castle: Item trashing sessions #2, multiply Royal Jam, Faerie Walnuts and Barrels

The main reason why we sell 8 BLATs despite only needing to sell 1 for the money, is inventory management. If we don't get rid of all the BLATs, all icons will be shifted to the left by 1 -> The icon for Medical Herbs is now to use Candy, the icon for Cups of Wishes is now to use Medical Herbs etc. This would be really tough to handle in the heat of the battle and so we opted to accept the time loss of 7 more selling operations than technically necessary, to make that a lot easier (and a lot less dangerous. If you'd use the BLAT item itself, the game would crash). In a sense, a lot more hassle than worth it for less than 10 seconds.

Now we are going for it like this:
1) Visit Gaias Navel, right entrance Neko
2) Neko: Execute BLAT glitch on item slot 9 via the method of using the buy-ring to select the 9th item slot
3) Sell only 1 BLAT
4) Buy all consumables (All of them are available we need throughout the run)
5) Dwarf Village shop: Buy the equipment
6) Dwarf village [new spot]: Equipment trash all the consumables in a single session
-> No need to visit the Elinee castle Neko.

So, to break it down with the differences:

[code]
Short: New route...
- Loses time
+ gains time
~ Not sure

- 2 Screen transitions
- 2 longer text
- 2 Music change lag
- 1 Longer way in item menu
- 1 two moves in sell menu
- 1 Slightly worse setup for trashing (improvable?)

~ Distance to Neko in either Gaias Navel or Elinees forest

+ 7 Less times selling BLAT
+ 1 Less text on in Elinee castle Neko
+ 1 No gathering on Neko
+ 1 Only one trashing session
[/code]

Still not sure how much faster this is (.. if at all)

Aside from that, I decided to not buy Candy anymore, since I rarely ever used up all of the other consumables. It's never really for healing, and more for cancelling damage, which can also be achieved by using Barrels, Fearie Walnuts and Royal Jams. We only really need 2 Barrels and 2 Fearie Walnuts, leaving us a total of 20 items to cancel damage with. Which is plenty.

======================================

Edit: Trying to time this stuff. I'm using savestates to get reasonably optimized menues and buying stuff. For reference, I bought Candy while testing + 1 more armor since I took the timing for the old strat from our various attempts. just to keep it consistent.

New strat:
- Buying at Neko in Gaias Navel: 69.8 seconds until back on track like the standard strategy (Middle of the water -> middle of the water)
- Buying at the Dwarf village -> Entering the theater: 47.21 seconds
- Buying at the castle Neko -> 0 seconds
- 2nd item trashing -> 0 seconds
=> 117 seconds

Old strat: (Fairly inaccurate since I pulled this from vods and gave it the benefit of the doubt)
- No visiting Neko in Gaias navel: 0 seconds
- Buying at the Dwarf village -> Entering the theater: 90 seconds
- Buying at the Castle Neko -> 22 seconds
- 2nd item trashing -> 7 seconds
=> 119 Seconds

So... According to my calculations the new route is going to be 2 seconds faster. Maybe 3-4 since I was rather generous towards the old strat :P.

StingerPA

2015-02-26 05:56:42 pm

Regrs strikes again, this time with a chest drop rate spreadsheet. Not too much to note here other than Rabites have double the chance of dropping a chest, and rare drops are about a .68% chance, which is even lower than I expected. This is probably useless for anything other than glitchless, but I've always been curious about drop rates in the past.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VEiY5BPEMVpiJl-Q2dSGRy0SQ89sAgoezuOKJtybQCE/edit#gid=0

Crow!

2015-02-27 07:53:07 am

What's that gemma?

So they coded each enemy's drop rate individually, even though only one enemy is ever different? How oddly space inefficient.

Yagamoth

2015-03-02 04:13:52 am

INTJ

So, currently I'm on a mission to increase the amount of overcharge attacks in the 1p1c category. Yesterday I intended to simply learn the current route that is used in Crows run, but I kept trying to use WCG in places where you used spells.

One question in advance: Why do we use the Axe as a 2nd WCG weapon instead of using a 2nd sword?

Two of the techniques that we already knew exists, but never used:
1) Swapping weapons after initiating the overcharge, to keep the exact same overcharge level for AI controlled characters.
2) Using a regenerative item (or Barrel) to 'stun' an AI character, swap to him and the basically be in control of the WCG

Those two can be used in conjunction with each other. However, they exclude the third technique: Retaining WCG for one more charge, by hitting select + B to release and hold the WCG. This is fairly tricky to use, and has a 1 or 2 in 5 chance to straight up not work. But the benefit of pulling it off anyways is obviously quite significant.

Swapping a weapon with a character has a fairly big downside obviously - you'll need to swap back and re-set their AI to use WCG again. But on the upside, doing this at the end of a bossfight makes your AI partners not swing at sight of every enemy anymore while running through the fields, since they are not set to charge up their weapons.

In any case, ignoring any magic leveling we would need later, here's what I've got so far, boss by boss:

Fire Gigas:
- While it's doable to WCG him, I'd need to confirm that there is a 100% setup for this first. Before I find that, using Freeze on him is a lot more reliable.

Face Wall:
- Relatively easy to WCG, but with the risk of killing both eyes if you are not careful (which, with a bit of practice should be a non-issue)

Killroy, Jabberwocky:
- Very simple to WCG, and ise used as such already

Spring Beak:
- Too risky to WCG. It's doable, especially using the weapon swap with a Whip (he is really easy to hit with a Whip), but the random dodges might be too strong

Giant Viper:
- Definitely want to use one WCG and finish it off with lightning casts. It's relatively tricky to hit, but not terribly so. Also lightning is just flat out too slow imo

Mech Rider #1:
- Very easy to WCG, minimal risk of him dodging too often and dashing past. But even then it's still faster than trying to use multiple Freeze casts

Boreal Face:
- Uses WCG either way

Frost Gigas:
- I haven't tried the same strategy as with the Great Viper, where I go for 1 WCG hit and finish him off with magic yet. But either way, using WCG on him is surprisingly reasonable. If I can get a reliable way to beat Snow Dragon without Salamando, this would cut out leveling Salamando from the run.

====================================

That's as far as I got in the run.

Overall my thoughts so far:
-> With clever setups to minimize the risk when using the WCG, I think we can cut out at least one, maybe even two magic types we'd need to level up.

So, currently I'm on a mission to increase the amount of overcharge attacks in the 1p1c category. Yesterday I intended to simply learn the current route that is used in Crows run, but I kept trying to use WCG in places where you used spells.

One question in advance: Why do we use the Axe as a 2nd WCG weapon instead of using a 2nd sword?

Two of the techniques that we already knew exists, but never used: 
1) Swapping weapons after initiating the overcharge, to keep the exact same overcharge level for AI controlled characters.
2) Using a regenerative item (or Barrel) to 'stun' an AI character, swap to him and the basically be in control of the WCG

Those two can be used in conjunction with each other. However, they exclude the third technique: Retaining WCG for one more charge, by hitting select + B to release and hold the WCG. This is fairly tricky to use, and has a 1 or 2 in 5 chance to straight up not work. But the benefit of pulling it off anyways is obviously quite significant.

Swapping a weapon with a character has a fairly big downside obviously - you'll need to swap back and re-set their AI to use WCG again. But on the upside, doing this at the end of a bossfight makes your AI partners not swing at sight of every enemy anymore while running through the fields, since they are not set to charge up their weapons.

In any case, ignoring any magic leveling we would need later, here's what I've got so far, boss by boss:

Fire Gigas:
- While it's doable to WCG him, I'd need to confirm that there is a 100% setup for this first. Before I find that, using Freeze on him is a lot more reliable.

Face Wall:
- Relatively easy to WCG, but with the risk of killing both eyes if you are not careful (which, with a bit of practice should be a non-issue)

Killroy, Jabberwocky:
- Very simple to WCG, and ise used as such already

Spring Beak:
- Too risky to WCG. It's doable, especially using the weapon swap with a Whip (he is really easy to hit with a Whip), but the random dodges might be too strong

Giant Viper:
- Definitely want to use one WCG and finish it off with lightning casts. It's relatively tricky to hit, but not terribly so. Also lightning is just flat out too slow imo

Mech Rider #1:
- Very easy to WCG, minimal risk of him dodging too often and dashing past. But even then it's still faster than trying to use multiple Freeze casts

Boreal Face:
- Uses WCG either way

Frost Gigas:
- I haven't tried the same strategy as with the Great Viper, where I go for 1 WCG hit and finish him off with magic yet. But either way, using WCG on him is surprisingly reasonable. If I can get a reliable way to beat Snow Dragon without Salamando, this would cut out leveling Salamando from the run.

====================================

That's as far as I got in the run.

Overall my thoughts so far:
-> With clever setups to minimize the risk when using the WCG, I think we can cut out at least one, maybe even two magic types we'd need to level up.

Crow!

2015-03-02 08:48:28 am

What's that gemma?

Using physical attacks to kill an enemy is in most cases only helpful if there are NO remaining bosses in the game which require that type of magic to be leveled up from where it is now. For the 4 "main" elements, the only one I've come up with any plausible strats to kill the Pureland boss for is Salamando, but even there the risk/reward ratio is beyond what I'm willing to do yet.

Skipping Gnome vs Wall Face and Springbeak is only helpful if WCG strats are found for both Blue Dragon (risky but doable) and Thunder Gigas (almost assuredly impossible).

Delaying Sylphid levels until Gorgon Bull might be a thing (as Stinger theorized) since Thunderbolt sucks so bad without the midge mallet, and since I presently spend some time getting to level 13 before the Great Viper just so I can cast magic there. The risk level for WCG-ing both Viper and Minotaur were a lot higher than I was comfortable with, however. As for skipping Sylphid altogether, Dragon Worm is nearly impossible to kill without it. Do a forum search for my posts with "dragon worm" for my previous analysis on that fight.

Freeze is really good in general, and I need at least level 3 for Axe Beak and the Red Dragon. I could in theory swap out some Freeze for some Earth Slide early on in the game, but in most cases this would mean losing extra time to refilling MP. (I used to cast Earth Slide on Mech Rider II, but that spell is unforgiving to chaincast so I switched back to Freeze).

Using a second sword on the Sprite would mean having to swap weapons with the Boy, equipment trash as the sprite, reequip the Boy, and swap the girl's weapon a few times. I'm pretty sure that costs more time than talking to Watts once.

Using physical attacks to kill an enemy is in most cases only helpful if there are NO remaining bosses in the game which require that type of magic to be leveled up from where it is now.  For the 4 "main" elements, the only one I've come up with any plausible strats to kill the Pureland boss for is Salamando, but even there the risk/reward ratio is beyond what I'm willing to do yet.

Skipping Gnome vs Wall Face and Springbeak is only helpful if WCG strats are found for both Blue Dragon (risky but doable) and Thunder Gigas (almost assuredly impossible).

Delaying Sylphid levels until Gorgon Bull might be a thing (as Stinger theorized) since Thunderbolt sucks so bad without the midge mallet, and since I presently spend some time getting to level 13 before the Great Viper just so I can cast magic there.  The risk level for WCG-ing both Viper and Minotaur were a lot higher than I was comfortable with, however.  As for skipping Sylphid altogether, Dragon Worm is nearly impossible to kill without it.  Do a forum search for my posts with "dragon worm" for my previous analysis on that fight.

Freeze is really good in general, and I need at least level 3 for Axe Beak and the Red Dragon.  I could in theory swap out some Freeze for some Earth Slide early on in the game, but in most cases this would mean losing extra time to refilling MP.  (I used to cast Earth Slide on Mech Rider II, but that spell is unforgiving to chaincast so I switched back to Freeze).

Using a second sword on the Sprite would mean having to swap weapons with the Boy, equipment trash as the sprite, reequip the Boy, and swap the girl's weapon a few times.  I'm pretty sure that costs more time than talking to Watts once.

Yagamoth

Edit history:

Yagamoth: 2015-03-02 09:07:16 am

2015-03-02 09:05:39 am

INTJ

Most of what I'm writing up is theory as of now, since I haven't really done a run yet and not really tried any of the later game bosses.

What would you say about trying to defeat the Dragon Worm with Freeze instead? Sure, it would take ~2.5 times as many casts, but how long is that actually?

I agree, that it would cost more time than talking to Watts once, using the Sword on the Sprite. Makes sense.
-> What about using WCG with the Girl instead of the Sprite? Aside from the awkward thing on how to level up the girls weapon, could this be of any use?

===========================

Oh, also - Using WCG more, you might be levelling Gnome via Slowdown to keep enemies in place if necessary (think Frost Gigas)

Crow!

2015-03-02 09:33:46 am

What's that gemma?

Dragon Worm has 474 Magic Defense. This is a very high number (51 higher than Dark Lich, 26 lower than Dread Slime).

Level 2 Sylphid deals minimal damage to Dragon Worm. Level 3 is required for the fight to end in a reasonable period of time, and the fight ends with level 4 Sylphid.

Level 3 spells have a damage multiplier of 5 = (1+3*0.5)*2 against targets that are weak against that element.
Level 7 spells have a damage multiplier of 4.5 = (1+7*0.5) against "normal" targets.

So, you'd have to level Freeze from 4 to 7 while not dealing worthwhile damage, then you'd still be dealing less damage than Thunderbolt. It's the same reason leveling up Lumina is worth the extra effort just for 2 fights.

Yagamoth

Edit history:

Yagamoth: 2015-03-18 12:38:23 pm

2015-03-18 07:17:07 am

INTJ

So, I just found a small improvement for the Backwards Grand Palace 1p2c and a weird glitch

Small improvement:
Currently we do:
1) Invisibility -> Go into the room before the Dragon Lizard
2) Move to the top, to hit the top switch twice
3) Move back to the main room via use of rope poles, whip jumps etc.

What we can do instead:
1) Invisiblity -> Go into the room before the Dragon Lizard
2) Move to the top, to hit the top switch twice
3) Go to a rope pole -> Use the Magic Rope -> Hit the rope pole (Probably with Sprite, since he is visible and can move)
4) You are now at the entrance, but the Lizard already hatched, and you can attack him over the gap.
Edit: Small correction: You HAVE to hit the top switch twice, and the other switch once. Else the lizard won't spawn. Hitting the other switch 3 times will activate everything in this room, but not the lizard!

Weird glitch
Here's a snes9x movie file (requires version 1.51, get it at tasvideos.org)
http://www.filedropper.com/weirdsomglitchmovie

So... I am absolutely not sure what's happening. But a short description for people being unable to watch the movie:

- The location is the Grand Palace, just before the Dragon Lizard, on the right side after activating the switches in the top right of the room, on the platform ready to Whipjump down to the podium where the sword enemy is usually located
- The Sprite is selected and a gray wolf + 2 red wolves are in attack range of the Sprite
- The Sprite would only have to hit "B" to whip jump. The "gathering" already happened a moment ago

The weirdness: When using the Barrel on Sprite now, without pressing any further buttons - the character executes a weird looking move (presumably the whip animation with the barrel on top of it) and the party jumps across

=> Now... If we can figure out what exactly that is, we might be able to whipjump without the 2nd rope pole being present. It could be easier than what 1p1c currently is doing... Maybe someone with a hitbox viewer could see, whether the sprite actually "slashes" with the whip?...
Edit before post: It seems that the Sprite actually has a weird kind of slash in his state at that point... If I walk a bit to the left, then barrel, it damages the wolves.. If you swap out the weapon before Barrel, it seems that the Sprite is in a perpetual state of hitting the rope pole? and is almost locked?

So, I just found a small improvement for the Backwards Grand Palace 1p2c and a weird glitch

[b]Small improvement:[/b]
Currently we do:
1) Invisibility -> Go into the room before the Dragon Lizard
2) Move to the top, to hit the top switch twice
3) Move back to the main room via use of rope poles, whip jumps etc.

What we can do instead:
1) Invisiblity -> Go into the room before the Dragon Lizard
2) Move to the top, to hit the top switch twice
3) Go to a rope pole -> Use the Magic Rope -> Hit the rope pole (Probably with Sprite, since he is visible and can move)
4) You are now at the entrance, but the Lizard already hatched, and you can attack him over the gap.
Edit: Small correction: You HAVE to hit the top switch twice, and the other switch once. Else the lizard won't spawn. Hitting the other switch 3 times will activate everything in this room, but not the lizard!

[b]Weird glitch[/b]
Here's a snes9x movie file (requires version 1.51, get it at tasvideos.org)
http://www.filedropper.com/weirdsomglitchmovie

So... I am absolutely not sure what's happening. But a short description for people being unable to watch the movie:

- The location is the Grand Palace, just before the Dragon Lizard, on the right side after activating the switches in the top right of the room, on the platform ready to Whipjump down to the podium where the sword enemy is usually located
- The Sprite is selected and a gray wolf + 2 red wolves are in attack range of the Sprite
- The Sprite would only have to hit "B" to whip jump. The "gathering" already happened a moment ago

The weirdness: When using the Barrel on Sprite now, without pressing any further buttons - the character executes a weird looking move (presumably the whip animation with the barrel on top of it) and the party jumps across

=> Now... If we can figure out what exactly that is, we might be able to whipjump without the 2nd rope pole being present. It could be easier than what 1p1c currently is doing... Maybe someone with a hitbox viewer could see, whether the sprite actually "slashes" with the whip?...
Edit before post: It seems that the Sprite actually has a weird kind of slash in his state at that point... If I walk a bit to the left, then barrel, it damages the wolves.. If you swap out the weapon before Barrel, it seems that the Sprite is in a perpetual state of hitting the rope pole? and is almost locked?

Yagamoth

2015-03-20 03:25:28 am

INTJ

So, I just randomly came up with the idea to use the Axe for 1p2c instead of the spear. Here's a breakdown of what that would mean. Nothing has been timed or tried yet:

Upsides:
1) Leveling the Sword to level 1 would be more lenient, cherrypicking the quickest enemies to kill (minor time gain - you deal 20 damage after Waterpalace)
2) Never switching to the Spear after Waterpalace and no mini-farming
3) Not killing any goblins
4) Killing more enemies while 2 characters are present AND the strength armband is equipped (=almost always 'twoshot' by the Boy, with assistance of the Sprite)
5) Being able to cut flowers with both characters
6) Not having to equip the Axe in Matango and Trials cave (1 menu)
7) In the Mana Fortress we can use the Axe for removing the... thingies as well. (2 controller swing swing :D)

Downsides:
1) There are likely not enough enemies before the Spiky Tiger, so we'd need to farm 'somewhere'
2) Unusual weapon (more of a 'getting used to' thing)
3) Might have a slower swing? (Don't know about that)
4) Less range and less ideal attacks (?)

So overall... I have no clue how time would turn out to be.

Rough killrouting:

Sword to level 1 (11 kills)
- 6 or 7, Rabites after picking up the sword
- 1 Mantis Ant
- 0 or 1, Despawn both flowers always (kill the first Rabite only when having 6 in the first portion)
- 2 Rabites after Waterpalace (optimally 3, but one is not a reliable spawn)

Sword to level 2 (12.5 kills)
- 1 Tropicallo [1]
- 2 Blats [3]
- 3 entrance bees (you can make all of them spawn... probably..) [6]
- 2 flowers + 2 more bees [9]
- 1 flower (This is the one before the canon travel) [9.5]
- 1 Bee + 1 Chobin (Can't you make 3 Chobins spawn here?) [11.5]
- 1 Blat (after teleport) [12.5]

Axe to level 1 (11 kills)
- 1 Chobin before the flowers that need to be cut down [1]
- 1 Chobin + 1 Eye Spy [3]
- 2 Chobin + 1 Eye Spy (after the gate) [6]
- 2 Chobin + 1 Eye Spy (before he chairs) [9]
- 2 Chairs [11]

Since it's highly unlikely, that we will be able to consistently get the amount of enemies listed for Sword level 2, we will probably want to figure out how to quickly make the Eye Spies spawn Chobins and dispose of them... Plus, thinking about it, it might be faster if we can make the Eye Spy spawn Chobins quickly anyways. So I'll need to compare spawning vs getting optimal kills.

-> And then compare the whole thing against using the Spear instead ^^

So, I just randomly came up with the idea to use the Axe for 1p2c instead of the spear. Here's a breakdown of what that would mean. Nothing has been timed or tried yet:

[b]Upsides:[/b]
1) Leveling the Sword to level 1 would be more lenient, cherrypicking the quickest enemies to kill (minor time gain - you deal 20 damage after Waterpalace)
2) Never switching to the Spear after Waterpalace and no mini-farming
3) Not killing any goblins
4) Killing more enemies while 2 characters are present AND the strength armband is equipped (=almost always 'twoshot' by the Boy, with assistance of the Sprite)
5) Being able to cut flowers with both characters
6) Not having to equip the Axe in Matango and Trials cave (1 menu)
7) In the Mana Fortress we can use the Axe for removing the... thingies as well. (2 controller swing swing :D)

[b]Downsides:[/b]
1) There are likely not enough enemies before the Spiky Tiger, so we'd need to farm 'somewhere'
2) Unusual weapon (more of a 'getting used to' thing)
3) Might have a slower swing? (Don't know about that)
4) Less range and less ideal attacks (?)

So overall... I have no clue how time would turn out to be.

[b]Rough killrouting:[/b]

[b]Sword to level 1 (11 kills)[/b]
- 6 or 7, Rabites after picking up the sword
- 1 Mantis Ant
- 0 or 1, Despawn both flowers always (kill the first Rabite only when having 6 in the first portion)
- 2 Rabites after Waterpalace (optimally 3, but one is not a reliable spawn)

[b]Sword to level 2 (12.5 kills)[/b]
- 1 Tropicallo [1]
- 2 Blats [3]
- 3 entrance bees (you can make all of them spawn... probably..) [6]
- 2 flowers + 2 more bees [9]
- 1 flower (This is the one before the canon travel) [9.5]
- 1 Bee + 1 Chobin (Can't you make 3 Chobins spawn here?) [11.5]
- 1 Blat (after teleport) [12.5]

[b]Axe to level 1 (11 kills) [/b]
- 1 Chobin before the flowers that need to be cut down [1]
- 1 Chobin + 1 Eye Spy [3]
- 2 Chobin + 1 Eye Spy (after the gate) [6]
- 2 Chobin + 1 Eye Spy (before he chairs) [9]
- 2 Chairs [11]

Since it's highly unlikely, that we will be able to consistently get the amount of enemies listed for Sword level 2, we will probably want to figure out how to quickly make the Eye Spies spawn Chobins and dispose of them... Plus, thinking about it, it might be faster if we can make the Eye Spy spawn Chobins quickly anyways. So I'll need to compare spawning vs getting optimal kills.

-> And then compare the whole thing against using the Spear instead ^^

Crow!

2015-03-20 08:58:42 am

What's that gemma?

The fastest way to get Chobin Hoods to spawn is to let the Eye Spy start taking his spawning action and then hit it immediately after that. The Chobin Hood will pop out as soon as the hurt animation ends. If you attack the Eye Spy too quickly between hits, it will not have time to start the second spawning animation.

The primary frustration with the axe is its asymmetric hitbox on stabs. Stabs frequently fail to clear obstacles that are directly in front of you, instead clearing a square that is diagonal from you.

Crow!

2015-04-09 09:19:38 am

What's that gemma?

I have created a video tutorial for doing the 1 controller category. I'll link to part 1 and part 2 of the whole tutorial here, but there are also shorter highlights of some of the most important tricks. Check out my highlights page to see those.

Part 1, Part 2.

Alex has been working on "Glitchless", and has recently achieved a time of 5:20:23.

One piece of tech he uses is, to avoid needing to level up Luna very far, he will first cast Change Form on a hard-to-drain target, then cast MP absorb before it transforms back. Also interesting is that Watermelon is weak against Luna.

Yagamoth currently holds the 1p2c record at 1:58:22.

Yagamoth

Edit history:

Yagamoth: 2015-04-10 12:51:07 am

2015-04-10 12:50:01 am

INTJ

Hey Crow, thank you, that's really awesome ^^

I'm slowly watching through the tutorials, and already discovered 1-2 things I didn't know. Like the reason why the Chobin Hoods / Chests are not pushable because they are spawned by an immovable entity. Other than that - I'm still strongly considering picking up this category ^^

Edit: Wait, Watermelon is weak against Luna? Isn't Watermelon "Mana" element which isn't weak against anything? o_O

StingerPA

2015-04-10 07:03:55 am

Quote from Yagamoth:

Like the reason why the Chobin Hoods / Chests are not pushable because they are spawned by an immovable entity.

I'm relatively certain this is incorrect. The chobin hood in question cannot be pushed past the eye spy because you're trying to push him past an event tile, and enemies cannot traverse event tiles. The same goes for the eye spy in the castle entrance. Even after the gate is opened, those tiles remain as event tiles, and the chobin hoods cannot move past them, even if they're trying to walk down to you.

Yagamoth

2015-04-10 07:24:57 am

INTJ

In my Girl only playthrough I tried to push around the spawned Black-Blue Eye thingies from the Orange eye guys. I was surprised that you couldn't push them around, they are immovable

Crow!

Edit history:

Crow!: 2015-04-10 09:47:18 am

Crow!: 2015-04-10 09:42:46 am

2015-04-10 09:41:53 am

What's that gemma?

There is a difference between being unable to move an object (because it's not allowed to go to the place you're trying to put it) and being unable to push the object at all. If you try to push a Mushboom onto a teleporter, your character will do the "I'm pushing something!" animation, but fail to actually move it. However, if you try to walk into an immobile enemy, or an enemy created by an immobile entity, your character won't go into the pushing animation at all.

The reason Eye Spy spawns are not pushable is that enemy / NPC types don't keep track of whether they are pushable or not. The game has no idea whether Rabites or Crystal Orbs should be pushable in the abstract. Instead, every spawn point in the game has a flag marking whether that entity can be pushed. When one enemy creates another, the game uses the map spawn point variables of the entity that created it, since it doesn't have a spawn point of its own.

When you defeat an enemy, it runs an event associated with it (usually a treasure chest routine), and this event is specified by the map's spawning point. If a boss were to itself spawn an enemy in Secret of Mana, I'm reasonably certain that killing it would trigger the boss victory event, since that event should also be inherited from the spawning entity. This is how the Tonpole fight works, I think.

There is a difference between being unable to move an object (because it's not allowed to go to the place you're trying to put it) and being unable to push the object at all.  If you try to push a Mushboom onto a teleporter, your character will do the "I'm pushing something!" animation, but fail to actually move it.  However, if you try to walk into an immobile enemy, or an enemy created by an immobile entity, your character won't go into the pushing animation at all.

The reason Eye Spy spawns are not pushable is that enemy / NPC [i]types [/i]don't keep track of whether they are pushable or not.  The game has no idea whether Rabites or Crystal Orbs should be pushable in the abstract.  Instead, every spawn point in the game has a flag marking whether that entity can be pushed.  When one enemy creates another, the game uses the map spawn point variables of the entity that created it, since it doesn't have a spawn point of its own.

When you defeat an enemy, it runs an event associated with it (usually a treasure chest routine), and this event is specified by the map's spawning point.  If a boss were to itself spawn an enemy in Secret of Mana, I'm reasonably certain that killing it would trigger the boss victory event, since that event should also be inherited from the spawning entity.  This is how the Tonpole fight works, I think.

StingerPA

2015-04-26 05:52:03 pm

Here's a new skip Yaga discovered this morning. The gist of it is get Salamando, then head back to Kakkara and the Fire Palace, and the skip is done in the first room of the Fire Palace. This involves using overcharge and the gloves (which we skipped earlier) to climb the slope in the opening room of the Fire Palace. Here's the steps:

1. Enter the Fire Palace, have the 2nd controller on the girl the entire time
2. Cast Balloon on the Robin Feet (these guys are horribly annoying otherwise)
3. Dash up with the boy to get the sprite away from the enemies
4. Start the overcharge, and get a level 7 or 8 charge, doesn't matter how high it is
5. Release the overcharge going up the slope, and the sprite will follow magically up the slope a bit
6. Use the same overcharge twice more, and the sprite gets a bit more up the slope each time
7. Once you've used the overcharge a total of 3 times, start holding Up with the Boy, and spam B with the girl so her gloves carry her a bit up the slope each time.

I should note that instead of using the girl to equip the sword for a couple of fights, she needs to have the gloves (aka nothing) equipped at least until the skip is done.

Here's a new skip Yaga discovered this morning. The gist of it is get Salamando, then head back to Kakkara and the Fire Palace, and the skip is done in the first room of the Fire Palace.  This involves using overcharge and the gloves (which we skipped earlier) to climb the slope in the opening room of the Fire Palace.  Here's the steps:

1. Enter the Fire Palace, have the 2nd controller on the girl the entire time
2. Cast Balloon on the Robin Feet (these guys are horribly annoying otherwise)
3. Dash up with the boy to get the sprite away from the enemies
4. Start the overcharge, and get a level 7 or 8 charge, doesn't matter how high it is
5. Release the overcharge going up the slope, and the sprite will follow magically up the slope a bit
6. Use the same overcharge twice more, and the sprite gets a bit more up the slope each time
7. Once you've used the overcharge a total of 3 times, start holding Up with the Boy, and spam B with the girl so her gloves carry her a bit up the slope each time.

I should note that instead of using the girl to equip the sword for a couple of fights, she needs to have the gloves (aka nothing) equipped at least until the skip is done.

Crow!

2015-04-27 12:13:56 am

What's that gemma?

Once you've got the Sprite up the slope, couldn't you switch player 2 to the Sprite and then pull the Girl up the same way you pulled the Sprite along? Or is punching just faster than that?

Yagamoth

2015-04-27 12:42:26 am

INTJ

You could, yes. But you'd have to execute 3 more overcharge attacks, whereas simply punching a few times seems a lot faster oô