Secret of Mana

Deuceler

2014-03-27 03:37:47 am

SPEEDruns not SAFEruns

Thanks so much Yagamoth! Lots of work ahead.........

Yagamoth

2014-03-27 04:20:20 am

INTJ

No problem - if you have any question about anything, even if it seems silly to you - feel free to ask. We are always happy to support Smiley

Good luck

Crow!

Edit history:

Crow!: 2014-03-27 08:30:31 am

Crow!: 2014-03-27 08:22:13 am

2014-03-27 08:21:50 am

What's that gemma?

@ Deuceler: You may find this video (also played at AGDQ but not during the official timeslot) to be helpful as well: http://www.twitch.tv/stingerpa/c/3633572

Keeping Pygmy in Purelands might be a liability. At a minimum, there's going to be a higher reward than usual for managing to get a Lucid Barrier cast on the whole party at the end of each boss fight.

Experience is still gained for fights where you cancel the whiteout.

Are Axe Beak and Doom's Wall actually profitable to avoid the whiteout on? Their exit tiles are quite far away from where you want to be when the battle ends. If you have enough time to get back to the north side of the room then I guess it would be fine. The penalty for missing the trick would be much higher than usual in those rooms, in any case.

StingerPA

Edit history:

StingerPA: 2014-03-27 09:21:16 am

2014-03-27 08:43:40 am

Quote from Yagamoth:

Skipping the whiteout might be interesting... But, does it also skip the experience-gain? The healing? Both could be quite an issue. Further, keeping pygmy between bosses in the pure lands seems like a neat idea at first, but keep in mind that you have only 1/3 of the armor while pygmied. But overall it seems quite interesting oô

It does skip the automatic healing from after boss battles, but you still get the experience and level up heal, and since you level up on nearly every boss in the game, that's pretty much irrelevant.

Quote from Crow!:

@ Deuceler: You may find this video (also played at AGDQ but not during the official timeslot) to be helpful as well: http://www.twitch.tv/stingerpa/c/3633572

Keeping Pygmy in Purelands might be a liability. At a minimum, there's going to be a higher reward than usual for managing to get a Lucid Barrier cast on the whole party at the end of each boss fight.

Experience is still gained for fights where you cancel the whiteout.

Are Axe Beak and Doom's Wall actually profitable to avoid the whiteout on? Their exit tiles are quite far away from where you want to be when the battle ends. If you have enough time to get back to the north side of the room then I guess it would be fine. The penalty for missing the trick would be much higher than usual in those rooms, in any case.

I don't think pygmy will be a liability since I aim to never get hit in the first place, and that's what practice is for. The sprite already gets hit by everything because of the lazuri ring being outdated. As far as the bosses which require the entrance tiles to be used, it's still a 2 second gain if you get it, but then again, you'd lose 2-3 seconds by missing it. I did experiment with timing the movement, but it was pretty difficult. I don't think Jabberwocky or Mech Rider III will actually be possible, but it's still useful info.

[quote="Yagamoth"]Skipping the whiteout might be interesting... But, does it also skip the experience-gain? The healing? Both could be quite an issue. Further, keeping pygmy between bosses in the pure lands seems like a neat idea at first, but keep in mind that you have only 1/3 of the armor while pygmied. But overall it seems quite interesting oô[/quote]
It does skip the automatic healing from after boss battles, but you still get the experience and level up heal, and since you level up on nearly every boss in the game, that's pretty much irrelevant.

[quote="Crow!"]@ Deuceler: You may find this video (also played at AGDQ but not during the official timeslot) to be helpful as well: http://www.twitch.tv/stingerpa/c/3633572

Keeping Pygmy in Purelands might be a liability.  At a minimum, there's going to be a higher reward than usual for managing to get a Lucid Barrier cast on the whole party at the end of each boss fight.

Experience is still gained for fights where you cancel the whiteout.

Are Axe Beak and Doom's Wall actually profitable to avoid the whiteout on?  Their exit tiles are quite far away from where you want to be when the battle ends.  If you have enough time to get back to the north side of the room then I guess it would be fine.  The penalty for missing the trick would be much higher than usual in those rooms, in any case.[/quote]
I don't think pygmy will be a liability since I aim to never get hit in the first place, and that's what practice is for.  The sprite already gets hit by everything because of the lazuri ring being outdated.  As far as the bosses which require the entrance tiles to be used, it's still a 2 second gain if you get it, but then again, you'd lose 2-3 seconds by missing it.  I did experiment with timing the movement, but it was pretty difficult.  I don't think Jabberwocky or Mech Rider III will actually be possible, but it's still useful info.

Crow!

2014-03-28 08:56:14 am

What's that gemma?

Is it faster to do the Rabiteman show when you're between 50-149 gold? The TAS seemed to think so, and I'm wondering if the only reason we're doing the shopping first is because we used to use the geometry of the Chief's room to set up an equipment trash.

Quote from StingerPA:

I don't think pygmy will be a liability since I aim to never get hit in the first place, and that's what practice is for.

Extending that logic a bit, a hitless path through both Pureland and the Mana Fortress would mean the only reason to bother shopping at the Neko at the Tree Palace would be to survive spell casts, which can also be accomplished via curatives. If you're that confident, there's time to be saved there, as the Neko shopping takes ~1:45, and each curative use isn't that much time. If you anticipate running out of Chocolates, you could either add Candies to your shopping list in the Haunted Forest, restock them via trashing, or use double Mallet instead.

Crow!

Edit history:

Crow!: 2014-03-31 06:49:40 pm

Crow!: 2014-03-31 09:38:33 am

Crow!: 2014-03-31 09:34:22 am

2014-03-31 08:12:11 am

What's that gemma?

Some more notes regarding the recent route changes:

If you get good luck vs the Mana Beast (not many attacks canceled by Lucent Beam, some crits scored), you can skip the second set of Dispels and the third set of Acid Rains.

Axe Beak's room is so small, and keeping track of his HP so you can get a Lucid Barrier onto the Sprite is so easy, that going for the whiteout skip is probably worth it. Just be sure to walk up first rather than up/left in case you ended on the right exit tile after failing the skip.

If you get the whiteout skip vs Buffy, you'll have to use the Mallet. With perfect menuing it's probably still worth it.

I think we need to move our split timings; neither my nor the standard post-boss splits have the chosen trigger available in the event that a whiteout skip is achieved. I suggest using the sound effect for obtaining the weapon orb, apart from the Slime fights and Thanatos, who do not award orbs.

---

Earlier today Stinger had a situation where he accidentally bought a Candy before buying the first Walnut. This could have been fixed by simply continuing with shopping as normal until reaching the Sell menu. At this point, highlighting the Walnut icon would select the Candy, which can be sold, then highlighting the Walnut again would select the Blat.

Some more notes regarding the recent route changes:

If you get good luck vs the Mana Beast (not many attacks canceled by Lucent Beam, some crits scored), you can skip the second set of Dispels and the third set of Acid Rains.

Axe Beak's room is so small, and keeping track of his HP so you can get a Lucid Barrier onto the Sprite is so easy, that going for the whiteout skip is probably worth it.  Just be sure to walk up first rather than up/left in case you ended on the right exit tile after failing the skip.

If you get the whiteout skip vs Buffy, you'll have to use the Mallet.  With perfect menuing it's probably still worth it.

I think we need to move our split timings; neither my nor the standard post-boss splits have the chosen trigger available in the event that a whiteout skip is achieved.  I suggest using the sound effect for obtaining the weapon orb, apart from the Slime fights and Thanatos, who do not award orbs.

---

Earlier today Stinger had a situation where he accidentally bought a Candy before buying the first Walnut.  This could have been fixed by simply continuing with shopping as normal until reaching the Sell menu.  At this point, highlighting the Walnut icon would select the Candy, which can be sold, then highlighting the Walnut again would select the Blat.

luigimeister

2014-04-02 02:40:20 am

Likes SoM far too much

The TAS is outdated on a lot of tech, so I wouldn't trust it on too much.

luigimeister

2014-04-02 02:41:31 am

Likes SoM far too much

Also is there anything I've missed regarding 1p2c tech, I'm going back to the game this weekend.

StingerPA

2014-04-02 11:15:56 am

There's not much new stuff with 1p2c since we've mostly focused on 1c since AGDQ. There's a new Hexas strat, but it wouldn't save time without practice, plus has a higher chance of going wrong. There's been some theorycrafting about using the 3rd player instead of 2nd player (have controllers plugged in the 1st and 3rd slots), but it hasn't been explored to its fullest, yet. The basic idea behind that is using the 3rd controller to talk to an NPC, and then turning off the multitap, allows you to move normally with the textbox up. The advantage to this lies in being able to pass by triggers with the text box up. I think Yaga posted a list of possible opportunities for this, but we haven't gone through it yet to see if it would actually save time.

luigimeister

2014-04-02 11:17:46 am

Likes SoM far too much

I don't actually know if I can test that on VC (don't have a multitap) or I would.

MLSTRM

2014-04-02 12:07:06 pm

You can never run enough games

For VC the same affect would probably be had by taking the controller out of the console? I'm not entirely sure but it seems like that would do the same thing.

Crow!

2014-04-02 12:38:05 pm

What's that gemma?

Also, 1 cycle Mana Beast. https://forum.speeddemosarchive.com/post/secret_of_mana_795.html

StingerPA

Edit history:

StingerPA: 2014-04-02 01:08:15 pm

StingerPA: 2014-04-02 01:08:07 pm

2014-04-02 01:00:15 pm

Oh, right, I forgot about the 1 cycle trick. It's relatively difficult, and the casting timings are pretty precise. The basic idea is to cast Acid Rain as quickly as possible, and it lasts just long enough to get normal slashes through.

Edit: Here's an updated .smv for the technique. Crow's used a modified 1c save state, I've got a proper 1p2c save state. I had to restore the Sprite's MP at the beginning of the fight for the Acid Rain casts as you need 15 MP for 5 casts. The timings are not affected.

http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/949894323/ManaBeast1cycle.smv

luigimeister

2014-04-08 09:12:12 pm

Likes SoM far too much

Which emulator am I supposed to use for the SMV? Snes9x 1.53 isn't working

StingerPA

2014-04-08 10:47:51 pm

The version you should be using is SNES9x 1.51rr v7, which is linked here. It's the TAS version of the SNES9x emulator, and the 1.53 version never received proper TAS tools, so this is the most commonly used version for sharing SMVs.

http://code.google.com/p/snes9x-rr/downloads/detail?name=snes9x-1.51-rerecording-v7-win32.zip&can=2&q=

luigimeister

2014-04-08 10:51:04 pm

Likes SoM far too much

thanks

Deuceler

2014-04-09 05:16:36 pm

SPEEDruns not SAFEruns

So as some of you know Crak_Atak and I have started working on a co-op run of this game, we really only got to practice for the one day (which was substantial, I think we put in around 6 hours) and we are planning on making this a full time run for the both of us. I'm slowly weeding through the entire thread (up to page 21 WHEW), and there is definetly some good stuff. I have yet to tackle the knowledge base, as I'm just wanting to get caught up on all the happening in the development of the run etc.

Yagamoth

2014-04-09 07:49:31 pm

INTJ

Yay, coop runners *_*

Crow!

2014-04-11 02:57:20 pm

What's that gemma?

Took me a while to figure out why Mantis Ant was being such a pain to me. Here's the result of my drilling:

When fighting the Mantis Ant from the front, if you get a stab animation on one attack, your stamina will not be ready in time to score the next attack before the Mantis Ant's own hitbox is out. Therefore, if you get a stab, you should walk to the Ant's side and revert to the old strategy until you get a slash animation.

Crow!

Edit history:

Crow!: 2014-04-14 02:24:14 pm

2014-04-13 08:23:56 pm

What's that gemma?

After many attempts, I obtained a 1 controller time of 3:05:06, beating the previous record by 1:22. I'll stream from the encoded video (read: with synched audio and deinterlaced) sometime tomorrow.

As promised, here's a link to the twitch highlight: http://www.twitch.tv/iicrowii/c/4066701

StingerPA

2014-04-13 09:54:06 pm

Sounds pretty decent. I'll look forward to seeing it.

StingerPA

2014-04-15 12:16:20 am

Here's a small 1p2c optimization that I've been lazy about posting. Since you need the Sword equipped for the Mana Beast in the first place, you should equip it during the Dark Lich fight instead. This gives you the advantage of not forgetting to do this after the Dark Lich cutscenes, and it also gives the boy +1 Agility because of the special properties of the level 2 Sword. This increases your hit%, and removes human error from the next segment.

Crow!

2014-04-18 03:08:38 pm

What's that gemma?

The same rules that govern the timing of the MP award during chaincasting also govern the timing of other effects, most relevantly the onset of the Pygmy status. Therefore, if you have forgotten to use the Midge Mallet during a boss fight, you can cast 2x "long animation" spells (or, in the case of Gnome, 1x Gem Missile followed by 1x Earth Slide) to switch to Pygmied casting with minimal delay. Alternatively, if the Sprite gets Pygmied by Laggy the Snake, you would have to wait a long time to let the Sprite switch sizes; you're better off just waiting for the next time you already have to wait for some MP.

Incidentally, casting spells in the order Lighting Bolt >> Freeze >> Lightning Bolt would make for a safer Laggy the Snake fight for many reasons. The Freeze cast itself would deal minimal damage and would require extra menuing time. Killing the Kimono Birds would also be rendered unnecessary.

Crow!

Edit history:

Crow!: 2014-04-25 10:10:56 am

Crow!: 2014-04-25 10:06:12 am

Crow!: 2014-04-25 09:56:21 am

Crow!: 2014-04-25 09:56:02 am

2014-04-25 09:50:11 am

What's that gemma?

I have found a new piece of tech for 1p1c runs. I think I'll call it "WCG swap retention."

The biggest reason that multiple controller runs blow the single controller runs out of the water, WCG-wise, is because they can "pause buffer" the release of the overcharged attack; releasing the B button as the game is paused, then holding it down again as the game is unpausing causes the game to release your charged attack without dropping the fact that you are charged. This allows another attack to be performed as soon as your stamina is back to 100%.

As it turns out, this same state can be achieved in a 1 controller run by pressing select to swap to a character that is overcharging, then with the correct timing holding B. If it works, then the AI will unleash its attack and leave you with an overcharge ready to be released as soon as stamina is back to 100%.

This trick can (and so far in my practice, usually does) fail in a variety of ways. Pressing B too early will result in your original character attacking and thereby preventing the character swap from occurring. Notice that this does not mean that you pressed B before pressing select, merely that you pressed B before the game bothered to swap your control to the next character. I suspect there is some set of frame rules governing character swapping which I do not know. Pressing B too late will release the attack as expected without retaining the charge.

A more interesting failure is when you swap to the character and take over its overcharge outright, without an attack being released immediately. This is tactically useful for making sure the WCG connects with its target but not helpful speed-wise.

Since you cannot repeat this process indefinitely, the advantage to be gained is in scoring a second hit faster than normal provided the first hit is scored. If landing the first hit via the select button is not feasible, then this trick doesn't really help any (I'm looking at you, Frost Gigas and Dragon Worm).

So, here's a list of the bosses I'm presently considering using this trick against:

Kilroy: this trick can give me a second shot quickly should the first attack get dodged. This is a little dangerous, though, as pressing B will probably result in the girl dropping her Barrel.

Jabberwocky: same reason as above. I would probably start casting Stone Saber facing away from the Boy, then try to land a hit as the bolts are flying in order to arrive at the Upper Lands with Stone Saber Active. Or maybe I should just cast the spell as I approach the button to begin the Jabberwocky fight, or even as I walk from the seed to Luka. Or I could skip Stone Saber here altogether, in favor of casting it during the Pebblers fight.

Boreal Face: this might be useful in the event that both the Boy and the Sprite miss. If one or the other hits, however, I don't think the retained charge attack would land in time.

Metal Mantis: I think the ideal strategy is going to be to cast a few Freezes then swap retain for two attacks from the Boy. Should the Boy fail both attempts, the Sprite should be ready for action again.

Mech Rider 2: It'll be a relief to stop using Land Slide here. Missing a cast by 1 animation frame meant letting Gestahl fire missiles or the Wave Cannon.

Blue Spike: Same deal as Metal Mantis, only with 2 WCG hits required in total rather than just 1. As a bonus, pressing B should automatically un-barrel the Girl, thus avoiding soft locks.

Mech Rider 3: obvious.

Mana Beast: I'll use it with the Boy during the Dispel phase of the battle, then with the Sprite for the more typical sections. I might have to abandon setting the Boy's action grid to aggressive, though, as he would waste an attack while I'm waiting to get control of the Sprite's menu rings. Still, if I succeed like 3 times and get some crits, we could be looking at a 2 cycle kill.

Groups to be considered:

Sylphid Series: Great Viper, Minotaur, Gorgon Bull, Dragon Worm
The Dragon Worm is not made any more feasible to fight magicless. However, as it turns out, leveling up Sylphid at the Great Viper is kind of awkward; you don't have the Midge Mallet which means you get the slow MP restore, the Viper can go off screen, and we have to go out of our way to level up the Sprite to 13. Improving the consistency of a WCG strategy against the Viper could enable a Gorgon Bull + Watermelon Sylphid leveling route. For this to be profitable, killing Minotaur and Great Viper via WCG has to be rather fast.

Salamando Series: Frost Gigas, Lime Slime, Snap Dragon, Snow Dragon
Frost Gigas is no more practical to hit with WCG this way than it was before. Past that fight, however, Lime Slime is up to 70 seconds faster when killed via WCG alone than with WCG + Salamando, and Snap Dragon is either faster or slower depending on RNG. The big question is Snow Dragon. This trick, if it succeeds, makes the Snow Dragon die fast enough that it will often not be able to leave the screen (particularly if locked down with the Sprite's magic). This results in a kill that is only ~20 seconds slower than the Salamando kill. If it fails, or if you get unlucky dodge rolls, the fight can take around 200 seconds longer than the Salamando version. So, it's anywhere from 1 minute saved to 2 minutes lost by abandoning Salamando.

Also, one fewer instance of the Wall Glitch could be used if having 32 MP is only necessary in time for Gorgon Bull instead of Lime Slime.

I have found a new piece of tech for 1p1c runs.  I think I'll call it "WCG swap retention."

The biggest reason that multiple controller runs blow the single controller runs out of the water, WCG-wise, is because they can "pause buffer" the release of the overcharged attack; releasing the B button as the game is paused, then holding it down again as the game is unpausing causes the game to release your charged attack without dropping the fact that you are charged. This allows another attack to be performed as soon as your stamina is back to 100%.

As it turns out, this same state can be achieved in a 1 controller run by pressing select to swap to a character that is overcharging, then with the correct timing holding B.  If it works, then the AI will unleash its attack and leave you with an overcharge ready to be released as soon as stamina is back to 100%.

This trick can (and so far in my practice, usually does) fail in a variety of ways.  Pressing B too early will result in your original character attacking and thereby preventing the character swap from occurring.  Notice that this does not mean that you pressed B before pressing select, merely that you pressed B before the game bothered to swap your control to the next character.  I suspect there is some set of frame rules governing character swapping which I do not know.  Pressing B too late will release the attack as expected without retaining the charge.

A more interesting failure is when you swap to the character and take over its overcharge outright, without an attack being released immediately.  This is tactically useful for making sure the WCG connects with its target but not helpful speed-wise.

Since you cannot repeat this process indefinitely, the advantage to be gained is in scoring a second hit faster than normal provided the first hit is scored.  If landing the first hit via the select button is not feasible, then this trick doesn't really help any (I'm looking at you, Frost Gigas and Dragon Worm).

So, here's a list of the bosses I'm presently considering using this trick against:

Kilroy: this trick can give me a second shot quickly should the first attack get dodged.  This is a little dangerous, though, as pressing B will probably result in the girl dropping her Barrel.

Jabberwocky: same reason as above.  I would probably start casting Stone Saber facing away from the Boy, then try to land a hit as the bolts are flying in order to arrive at the Upper Lands with Stone Saber Active.  Or maybe I should just cast the spell as I approach the button to begin the Jabberwocky fight, or even as I walk from the seed to Luka.  Or I could skip Stone Saber here altogether, in favor of casting it during the Pebblers fight.

Boreal Face: this might be useful in the event that both the Boy and the Sprite miss.  If one or the other hits, however, I don't think the retained charge attack would land in time.

Metal Mantis: I think the ideal strategy is going to be to cast a few Freezes then swap retain for two attacks from the Boy.  Should the Boy fail both attempts, the Sprite should be ready for action again.

Mech Rider 2: It'll be a relief to stop using Land Slide here.  Missing a cast by 1 animation frame meant letting Gestahl fire missiles or the Wave Cannon.

Blue Spike: Same deal as Metal Mantis, only with 2 WCG hits required in total rather than just 1.  As a bonus, pressing B should automatically un-barrel the Girl, thus avoiding soft locks.

Mech Rider 3: obvious.

Mana Beast: I'll use it with the Boy during the Dispel phase of the battle, then with the Sprite for the more typical sections.  I might have to abandon setting the Boy's action grid to aggressive, though, as he would waste an attack while I'm waiting to get control of the Sprite's menu rings.  Still, if I succeed like 3 times and get some crits, we could be looking at a 2 cycle kill.

Groups to be considered:

Sylphid Series: Great Viper, Minotaur, Gorgon Bull, Dragon Worm
The Dragon Worm is not made any more feasible to fight magicless.  However, as it turns out, leveling up Sylphid at the Great Viper is kind of awkward; you don't have the Midge Mallet which means you get the slow MP restore, the Viper can go off screen, and we have to go out of our way to level up the Sprite to 13.  Improving the consistency of a WCG strategy against the Viper could enable a Gorgon Bull + Watermelon Sylphid leveling route.  For this to be profitable, killing Minotaur and Great Viper via WCG has to be rather fast.

Salamando Series: Frost Gigas, Lime Slime, Snap Dragon, Snow Dragon
Frost Gigas is no more practical to hit with WCG this way than it was before.  Past that fight, however, Lime Slime is up to 70 seconds faster when killed via WCG alone than with WCG + Salamando, and Snap Dragon is either faster or slower depending on RNG.  The big question is Snow Dragon.  This trick, if it succeeds, makes the Snow Dragon die fast enough that it will often not be able to leave the screen (particularly if locked down with the Sprite's magic).  This results in a kill that is only ~20 seconds slower than the Salamando kill.  If it fails, or if you get unlucky dodge rolls, the fight can take around 200 seconds longer than the Salamando version.  So, it's anywhere from 1 minute saved to 2 minutes lost by abandoning Salamando.

Also, one fewer instance of the Wall Glitch could be used if having 32 MP is only necessary in time for Gorgon Bull instead of Lime Slime.

Crak Atak

2014-04-26 08:39:21 pm

Hax I used all of my strengthz

hey there SoM runners, ive been trying to get a 1P2C run as practice for co-op. My run pretty much keeps dying at around 2 hours at Hexas, have no clue how to do this boss properly. I think my positioning is off because Sprite dies quickly before he can get cast off or boss moves away and screws my world. Im able to get the correct charge for the boy and get maybe one or two hits in before I die. Any help would be greatly appreciated.