Secret of Mana

Crow!

Edit history:

Crow!: 2014-09-12 10:37:36 am

2014-09-12 10:34:59 am

What's that gemma?

What constitutes a bad starting frame? The table you listed seems to suggest there's three sets of 5 frames which are acceptable, though the first one can potentially be lost due to frame rules. Are you saying that there's a frame where if you release the weapon attack on that frame, the first three sets of 5-frames of the attack are all lost, and the Girl crouches first, without performing the charge-forward animation at all? This is a phenomenon I have never observed.

I've been trying to reproduce a failure, and after ~50 successes I've given up. The odds of me failing to observe something that should happen 20% of the time after 50 tries is 1/35000. And this isn't the first time I've tried and failed to reproduce that problem, either. I have to conclude you're doing something wrong, rather than getting screwed by frame rules.

This trick is not hard. In that video, you're acting as though it is hard by putting the girl close to the spring. Place her a tile and a half lower than that and, according to your own table above and consistent with my experiments, you have a 10-15 frame window to press Y after releasing B.

What constitutes a bad starting frame?  The table you listed seems to suggest there's three sets of 5 frames which are acceptable, though the first one can potentially be lost due to frame rules.  Are you saying that there's a frame where if you release the weapon attack on that frame, the first [i]three [/i]sets of 5-frames of the attack are [i]all [/i]lost, and the Girl crouches first, without performing the charge-forward animation [i]at all[/i]?  This is a phenomenon I have never observed.

I've been trying to reproduce a failure, and after ~50 successes I've given up.  The odds of me failing to observe something that should happen 20% of the time after 50 tries is 1/35000.  And this isn't the first time I've tried and failed to reproduce that problem, either.  I have to conclude you're doing something wrong, rather than getting screwed by frame rules.

This trick is not hard.  In that video, you're acting as though it is hard by putting the girl close to the spring.  Place her a tile and a half lower than that and, according to your own table above and consistent with my experiments, you have a 10-15 frame window to press Y after releasing B.

Yagamoth

2014-09-12 10:43:46 am

INTJ

Proximity to the spring definitely can have an impact. Because if I go too close with a spear level 1, it will never move forwards in the first place - so it is taken into consideration for the charge attacks somehow

StingerPA

Edit history:

StingerPA: 2014-09-16 03:10:42 pm

2014-09-16 12:09:53 pm

One thing we've been noticing lately is that our manipulation for Buffy isn't working as we thought it would. Yaga previously noted that if we save warp, Buffy's default RNG should make him go: fly up, fly down, jump down, jump left, claw attack. Our experience in runs shows that he skipped the first 2 parts and went straight to jump down, jump left, claw attack. I've practiced this particular setup, and the best thing to do is wait until Buffy begins his jump to the left, and then you can open the girl's menu to start the overcharge process. After this, I swapped to the sprite and moved him in front of where Buffy would end up so that Buffy will grab the sprite. After the sprite gets grabbed, your charge attack should be ready, and you can proceed with releasing the charge, and having the sprite cast slowdown. From here, the fight isn't as manipulable, but this start should always work.

Edit: One other thing I tested: for the Mech Rider III save warp, you can reset as soon as you hit the button that warps you to Mech Rider III. It's a little sooner than what we had been doing.

One thing we've been noticing lately is that our manipulation for Buffy isn't working as we thought it would.  Yaga previously noted that if we save warp, Buffy's default RNG should make him go: fly up, fly down, jump down, jump left, claw attack.  Our experience in runs shows that he skipped the first 2 parts and went straight to jump down, jump left, claw attack.  I've practiced this particular setup, and the best thing to do is wait until Buffy begins his jump to the left, and then you can open the girl's menu to start the overcharge process.  After this, I swapped to the sprite and moved him in front of where Buffy would end up so that Buffy will grab the sprite.  After the sprite gets grabbed, your charge attack should be ready, and you can proceed with releasing the charge, and having the sprite cast slowdown. From here, the fight isn't as manipulable, but this start should always work.

Edit:  One other thing I tested:  for the Mech Rider III save warp, you can reset as soon as you hit the button that warps you to Mech Rider III.  It's a little sooner than what we had been doing.

StingerPA

Edit history:

StingerPA: 2014-09-28 09:25:16 pm

StingerPA: 2014-09-28 09:12:49 pm

2014-09-28 06:46:12 pm

Yaga and I were theorizing about the Girl Skip earlier today, and I've done some research on it. As we know, if the girl is skipped, her name defaults to "gogogogogogogogogogogogo" and that in turn wastes 24.5333 seconds over the course of the run on its own. This is calculated by the girl's name coming up 64 times in text, multiplied by the 23 extra characters that cost 1 frame each. With this included, the skip itself seems to save around 20-30 seconds.

Here's some times from testing. All times are from final explosion on Tropicallo to where the routes rejoin at the warp beyond the haunted forest rope poles. Some assumptions are included in parentheses.
GodTAS - 4:55
Best RTA attempt from Thursday - 5:24
RTA w/skip - 4:55 (24 seconds for girl name loss included)

Overall, I'm not convinced that this will prove to be faster. Yes, some area movement up until the Sandship will be easier, but some strats will need to be reworked, such as Spikey with 2 controllers (1 controller spikey is already known to lose 10 seconds to current 1p2c strats), and other bosses will be harder to recover from with only 2 characters instead of the normal 3.

Any extra thoughts would be appreciated.

Yaga and I were theorizing about the Girl Skip earlier today, and I've done some research on it.  As we know, if the girl is skipped, her name defaults to "gogogogogogogogogogogogo" and that in turn wastes 24.5333 seconds over the course of the run on its own.  This is calculated by the girl's name coming up 64 times in text, multiplied by the 23 extra characters that cost 1 frame each.  With this included, the skip itself seems to save around 20-30 seconds.

Here's some times from testing.  All times are from final explosion on Tropicallo to where the routes rejoin at the warp beyond the haunted forest rope poles. Some assumptions are included in parentheses.
GodTAS - 4:55
Best RTA attempt from Thursday - 5:24
RTA w/skip - 4:55 (24 seconds for girl name loss included)

Overall, I'm not convinced that this will prove to be faster.  Yes, some area movement up until the Sandship will be easier, but some strats will need to be reworked, such as Spikey with 2 controllers (1 controller spikey is already known to lose 10 seconds to current 1p2c strats), and other bosses will be harder to recover from with only 2 characters instead of the normal 3.

Any extra thoughts would be appreciated.

Crow!

2014-09-28 09:19:49 pm

What's that gemma?

The girl will join the party at level 1; making that fact not cost time probably requires strategies that would justify skipping Kakkara's equipment.

There will be additional time spent menuing, as the Sprite will have to flip between spells and the weapon menu a few times, and those are on opposite sides of the menu.

StingerPA

2014-09-28 09:29:10 pm

Yeah, menus had occurred to me. Currently, menus are optimized to keep the girl on the weapon ring for overcharges and swapping to the axe occasionally, while the sprite spends the entire run on the magic ring if possible. Menus would need to be redone to account for this.

As far as the Girl's level, she'd level up very quickly because she immediately gets exp from Mech Rider I, boosting her up to level 9 instantly. A boss battle or two later and she'd basically be caught up already.

Yagamoth

2014-09-28 10:04:43 pm

INTJ

Short version is - unless it turns out to be significantly faster to only have 2 characters during that portion of the game, it's not worth it oô... Maybe being able to fully control 2 characters at once? Tongue

StingerPA

2014-09-29 05:13:04 pm

I actually streamed a brief attempt of this today. We learned a lot of things, and it's starting to look like a thing. Yagamoth had an idea that made the setup for skipping the girl WAY easier, so this will save another 10 or more seconds than previously noted. The main roadblock right now is Spikey. I tried do 2 controller strats without a barrel (since you can't even swap weapons with a barrel on), but they were very inconsistent. Going with the 1c method might end up being the best way to deal with this, but we'll have to see. Maybe something like temporarily using a barrel would be the best idea, just to get spikey to eat it and then play out from there.

One other thing to note is that some bosses will be more punishing with this strat. Notably, Fire Gigas, Jabberwocky, and Spring Beak deal significantly more damage with their spells than before because their magic spells target all, and with only 2 characters, that results in a lot more damage. Fire Gigas killed the Sprite from full HP with Lava Wave, his weakest attack, and Spring Beak's Thunderbolt killed both the Boy and Sprite instantly. Jabberwocky didn't cast anything, but you can bet his attacks are boosted as well.

I actually streamed a brief attempt of this today.  We learned a lot of things, and it's starting to look like a thing.  Yagamoth had an idea that made the setup for skipping the girl WAY easier, so this will save another 10 or more seconds than previously noted.  The main roadblock right now is Spikey.  I tried do 2 controller strats without a barrel (since you can't even swap weapons with a barrel on), but they were very inconsistent.  Going with the 1c method might end up being the best way to deal with this, but we'll have to see.  Maybe something like temporarily using a barrel would be the best idea, just to get spikey to eat it and then play out from there.

One other thing to note is that some bosses will be more punishing with this strat.  Notably, Fire Gigas, Jabberwocky, and Spring Beak deal significantly more damage with their spells than before because their magic spells target all, and with only 2 characters, that results in a lot more damage.  Fire Gigas killed the Sprite from full HP with Lava Wave, his weakest attack, and Spring Beak's Thunderbolt killed both the Boy and Sprite instantly. Jabberwocky didn't cast anything, but you can bet his attacks are boosted as well.

Crow!

2014-09-29 07:31:42 pm

What's that gemma?

Wouldn't it be faster to shop from the Neko in the Witch's castle rather than walking up the Dwarf village back door exit stairs?

StingerPA

2014-09-29 08:26:42 pm

I hadn't considered Elinee's castle Neko. I'm not certain which way would be faster, but I have a feeling you're right. I'll probably test it sometime, but if I'm too lazy, I'll go with that one.

StingerPA

Edit history:

StingerPA: 2014-10-01 08:21:55 pm

2014-10-01 08:21:07 pm

It turns out there is an unexpected side effect of the girl skip. For whatever reason, the RNG is no longer the same at Buffy as before. If you take no actions, Buffy will fly up, fly around, then cast Leaden Glare on somebody. My best method to circumvent this is to immediately open the Girl's menu with X, and cast Stone Saber on the Sprite (the reason for stone saber is because this is the spell the girl defaults to after a reset). This will cause Buffy to fly up, then move down and eventually land to your left. After he lands and commits to jumping again, you can start the overcharge.

Yagamoth

2014-10-01 10:22:04 pm

INTJ

Well.... That might explain why Buffy did something different from our practice on emulators?... I'd be curious what affects the boss' RNG oô

Crow!

2014-10-02 07:44:15 am

What's that gemma?

How close to frame-perfect do you have to be with that stone saber cast to keep the boss RNG from progressing past that behavior? Or does the amount of time you spend not matter, but instead the menu choices you make? If the latter, some searching might find a better menu action to take; if the former, I think selecting the Sprite rather than the Girl is asking for trouble.

Yagamoth

2014-10-02 07:49:42 am

INTJ

I would think it doesn't matter. If you simply open the menu and wait a variable amount of time during the bossfight, the boss' actions change

StingerPA

2014-10-02 10:05:28 am

It was very lenient for me. I just did it several times, and the result was always the same. The only difference came when I started the overcharge too early after Buffy landed, and that caused him to fly back up.

StingerPA

2014-10-02 02:25:34 pm

I'm done (for now).

http://www.twitch.tv/stingerpa/c/5223548

Yagamoth

2014-10-02 03:03:22 pm

INTJ

You monster...

Congratulations ^^...

Random thought still: Why do we multiply after shopping at the witch Neko, and not simply while equipping in Kakkara?

StingerPA

Edit history:

StingerPA: 2014-10-02 04:03:38 pm

2014-10-02 03:08:49 pm

For one, we'd have to go the first hour without using any items. While that could happen, I'd rather take a second or two loss and trash in the castle. You'd also have trouble actually lining up the trashing in Kakkara, whereas we get an automatic lineup in the castle. It's entirely possible that you'd end up wasting more time than you'd save just by not getting the lineup very quickly.

Edit: I realized later that we'd at least have candies, medical herbs, and cups of wishes multiplied already from the dwarf village trashing. Still, the automatic setup we get at the castle makes it pretty quick, and you'd have to buy 4x of faerie walnuts and royal jams since you do equipping at Kakkara with the girl instead of the boy since she doesn't have anything equipped, plus she needs to cast ice saber.

Crow!

2014-10-02 05:18:21 pm

What's that gemma?

Awesome run. First time one-cycle Mana Beast in a real run, and it was "the" run, as a bonus.

For when/if you seek to improve further, your menuing with the second player seemed slow throughout the game; somehow mastering that could probably save around a minute over the course of the run.

StingerPA

2014-10-02 07:11:32 pm

Now that I've gotten 1P2C to a somewhat acceptable level, would there be any benefit to the girl skip in 1 controller? My initial reaction would be no because you'd lose even more time to her name (62 times called instead of 53 for 1p2c (I got that wrong earlier, it's 53 instead of 64 for 1p2c)), plus you'd lose out on casting stone saber after Jabberwocky. Kills might also not be as easy to reroute in 1c, but that can be worked around. It's something to consider, at least, and I could probably be talked into it without much difficulty.

Crow!

Edit history:

Crow!: 2014-10-02 09:48:30 pm

Crow!: 2014-10-02 09:47:50 pm

2014-10-02 09:46:09 pm

What's that gemma?

Here are some things I'd miss out on with the Girl skip:

First of all, as far as I know the Girl Skip itself is much more awkward in 1c. You have to get the Chobin Hood in a position to be targeted (a hard task on its own), and hope your AI cooperates with its kind of random walking. Work would need to be done to get a reliable setup, and I'm sure the setup will be slower than 2c regardless.

Keeping the Sprite's Axe leveling up would require some extra weapon swapping. Ideally, the Sprite would level up the Axe before leaving the forest, at which point he would hold the Whip until the Axe got upgraded, at which point he'd re-equip it until the Matango cave. There would then have to be some more swapping around, since the Sword, Whip, and Axe are all needed here.

Jabberwocky would require a new strategy, as I'd be unable to manage the WCG while the Sprite is casting magic. Perhaps something involving a Barrel would work? I would complain that it would be hard to fit a Faerie Walnut in (at present I use one during the Kilroy fight), except that we're already requiring a magic-less Jabberwocky fight. (This lessened magic experience might also have repercussions for the Springbeak fight.)

Without the Girl I would lose a lot of ways to give weapon experience to the Sprite (particularly with Lullabuds, also against Silktails, even ignoring the Stone Saber loss). Being unable to kill Silktails efficiently would at a minimum push me to killing Great Viper with the Boy rather than leveling up to 12 MP.

I'd also be hard pressed to get the Sprite his weapon level in time for Boreal Face. Stone Saber vs Howlers might be an option, but that relies on Howlers cooperating, which is rarely a good idea.

Here are some things I'd miss out on with the Girl skip:

First of all, as far as I know the Girl Skip itself is much more awkward in 1c.  You have to get the Chobin Hood in a position to be targeted (a hard task on its own), and hope your AI cooperates with its kind of random walking.  Work would need to be done to get a reliable setup, and I'm sure the setup will be slower than 2c regardless.

Keeping the Sprite's Axe leveling up would require some extra weapon swapping.  Ideally, the Sprite would level up the Axe before leaving the forest, at which point he would hold the Whip until the Axe got upgraded, at which point he'd re-equip it until the Matango cave.  There would then have to be some more swapping around, since the Sword, Whip, and Axe are all needed here.

Jabberwocky would require a new strategy, as I'd be unable to manage the WCG while the Sprite is casting magic.  Perhaps something involving a Barrel would work?  I would complain that it would be hard to fit a Faerie Walnut in (at present I use one during the Kilroy fight), except that we're already requiring a magic-less Jabberwocky fight.  (This lessened magic experience might also have repercussions for the Springbeak fight.)

Without the Girl I would lose a lot of ways to give weapon experience to the Sprite (particularly with Lullabuds, also against Silktails, even ignoring the Stone Saber loss).  Being unable to kill Silktails efficiently would at a minimum push me to killing Great Viper with the Boy rather than leveling up to 12 MP.

I'd also be hard pressed to get the Sprite his weapon level in time for Boreal Face.  Stone Saber vs Howlers might be an option, but that relies on Howlers cooperating, which is rarely a good idea.

StingerPA

2014-10-02 09:54:08 pm

I already have a setup, actually. I was going to use it for 1p2c runs until Yaga reminded me that there was a much simpler way of getting the boy across the gap with the 2nd controller. That said, your points are very valid, and I'd definitely advise against the skip.

Yagamoth

Edit history:

Yagamoth: 2014-10-02 11:17:41 pm

Yagamoth: 2014-10-02 10:59:38 pm

2014-10-02 10:58:30 pm

INTJ

After Spring Beak, if you do all the weapon and magic with the Sprite it looks like this:

0) Spring Beak kill -> Sprite = Weapon menu
1) 2 Ring swaps for Sprite for the orb
2) 2 Ring swaps for sprite for the Axe entrance to Matango
3) 0 Ring swaps for Sprite for the Whip
4) 2 Ring swaps for Sprite for Gnome Orb
5) 2 Ring swaps for Sprite for Great Viper

There is no way around the Sprite going over to Magic. But if we swap to the Axe and Whip with the Boy, it would avoid 4 Ring swaps for the Sprite -> Giving the Boy 2 ring swaps (1 in best case scenario, where the Boy never has to use an item)

Also... I really now need to implement more 2 controller strategies, your run is really strong, Stinger o_o

Edit: Why don't you simply keep using the Sprite for overcharge attacks? I have't thought it through yet, but I remember there being issues with the Sprite using the weapon.. Can't quite remember what it was though

StingerPA

2014-10-03 11:20:20 am

Most of the reason I equip the girl with the sword at Mech Rider I is because it was much, much easier than relearning menus for the entire game. However, I think it's faster anyways to revert it to the old menus because I don't think it loses any time. The menu setups I did allowed the sprite to eventually go back to the magic ring and stay there, and the girl is already on the weapon ring, and the sword to boot. This means it was only ~65 frames for the girl to equip the sword, while the sprite was able to equip the whip after Matango because that's needed for the Lofty Mountains climbing.

Also, my run really isn't that strong. I lost a good 2 minutes or more in the middle part of the run. Nearly everything from Mech Rider I to Watermelon was ass. You can definitely beat it in a couple tries.

StingerPA

2014-10-04 05:49:02 pm

I attempted to stream a tutorial for 1p2c today. Probably missed a lot of things, but I tried to go over a lot of strats and small optimizations that we do for runs. Went up to after Mech Rider, and will probably stream the 2nd half on Monday.

http://www.twitch.tv/stingerpa/c/5235999