Secret of Mana

StingerPA

Edit history:

StingerPA: 2014-10-06 06:34:48 pm

StingerPA: 2014-10-06 04:48:10 pm

StingerPA: 2014-10-06 04:41:50 pm

2014-10-06 04:39:33 pm

Some people have been talking about a casual glitchless run of the game, and I was wondering what that would eliminate. I put together a list of things that would be up for discussion, and I'd like a little input. http://pastebin.com/q8hdjqH7

2 controllers should probably be in the first list, but some people might argue for it. Guard skips are the only thing I'd probably want banned as well, even though they're not really glitches in my opinion.

I might end up trying to redo Seiken's route on it as well and run it myself. I've been rewatching his run recently for the first time in probably 5 or more years, and it's not very good, to say the least. I converted his proper time to NTSC as a 4:24:55, so sub 4 seems like a nice time to shoot for.

Edit: forgot to list Pure Lands Skip in the banned section.

Musashi

Edit history:

Musashi: 2014-10-06 05:55:15 pm

2014-10-06 05:55:05 pm

But time flows like a river...

Seiken made some mistakes, like not leaving the Witch's Castle by talking to Elena, some routing wasn't really optimized too, I don't really remember the rest, but I think he leveled too much than needed, since he made a segmented run, really a lot of parts could have been optimized (like the number of hits for the bosses and so), but he refused to do a ton of segments.

But I think doing a SS of a glitchless run is a pain, or you are planning to do a segmented?

StingerPA

2014-10-06 06:22:43 pm

I'd definitely do single segment. Segmented runs in general have fallen out of style with the current speedrunning climate.

I actually think it'd be less frustrating than 1 controller runs. There'd be a lot more grinding with magic and such, but I could see it being a decent 3rd category for the game (4th if you count co-op).

Musashi

2014-10-06 06:46:26 pm

But time flows like a river...

There is a lot of luck involved in a glitchless SS, I mean, just thinking about doing Spikey normally with items/leveling, I feel sad for you, hrhr. Cheesy

But it could be a fun run, and as you said, it's always nice to have different categories, now there is a lot of glitches in this game, hard to know what's *really* a glitch, and not, to make a clean run, I guess using nothing at all is okay.

Speaking about Crow's run, it wasn't faster at all to use the weapon glitch using "target" option than doing the action menu again? I remember some of you talked about it in the thread, but finally it wasn't used?

Crow!

Edit history:

Crow!: 2014-10-07 09:54:36 am

Crow!: 2014-10-07 09:50:21 am

2014-10-07 09:48:33 am

What's that gemma?

Some glitches are feasible or even prevalent to incur during a casual run - I've seen many posts / chat messages regarding people having accidentally discovered the Wall Glitch, for instance, and it is the result of an enemy's Wall doing what it is supposed to do. Damage canceling happens more often than not when you use curatives. Being unattentive while button mashing through text will often the remote talking glitch - usually in cases where it's hurtful. Natural play is likely to incur the Infinite Mana Sword glitch for anyone who realizes that elemental sabers boost damage output. There are many reasons preemptive MP usage may happen naturally. The equipment trashing glitch triggers every time you trash any piece of equipment. Charge buffering is extremely likely among disorganized coop players, and charge retention is a natural result of swapping to an AI that is charged.

I find it odd to explicitly ban actions that you have to play carefully in order to explicitly avoid. That's getting into the realm of a challenge run, rather than a speed run, at which point rules like "don't cast magic except vs orbs" are just as valid.

If I had to make a "glitchless" category, I would ban walking through walls, selling the blank item, the corrupted save file, and any method of weapon overcharging, but say everything else is fair game. More to the point, though, I would just consider SoM to be a game too fundamentally glitchy for "glitchless" to be a sensible category.

Some glitches are feasible or even prevalent to incur during a casual run - I've seen many posts / chat messages regarding people having accidentally discovered the Wall Glitch, for instance, and it is the result of an enemy's Wall doing what it is supposed to do. Damage canceling happens more often than not when you use curatives.  Being unattentive while button mashing through text will often the remote talking glitch - usually in cases where it's hurtful.  Natural play is likely to incur the Infinite Mana Sword glitch for anyone who realizes that elemental sabers boost damage output.  There are many reasons preemptive MP usage may happen naturally.  The equipment trashing glitch triggers every time you trash [i]any [/i]piece of equipment.  Charge buffering is extremely likely among disorganized coop players, and charge retention is a natural result of swapping to an AI that is charged.

I find it odd to explicitly ban actions that you have to play carefully in order to explicitly avoid.  That's getting into the realm of a challenge run, rather than a speed run, at which point rules like "don't cast magic except vs orbs" are just as valid.

If I had to make a "glitchless" category, I would ban walking through walls, selling the blank item, the corrupted save file, and any method of weapon overcharging, but say everything else is fair game.  More to the point, though, I would just consider SoM to be a game too fundamentally glitchy for "glitchless" to be a sensible category.

StingerPA

2014-10-07 10:19:48 am

I think you're exaggerating just a little bit on some of those, but yes, you can encounter glitches in regular gameplay, just like every other game out there. That line of arguing is just you disliking the premise itself rather than the merits (or lack thereof) of what I've presented. I definitely wouldn't say you have to play carefully to avoid them, though. The standard game is mostly solid with some cracks here and there just like every other game out there. If 95% of players won't come across a glitch, it probably should be banned.

Your version of the category is pretty absurd, really. You would allow the wall glitch and pure lands skip with that line of thinking, which makes the entire idea of a "glitchless" category null and void. You're literally saying that the wall GLITCH is glitchless.

Crow!

2014-10-07 10:48:42 am

What's that gemma?

Banning the Wall Glitch means, for example, that accidentally casting a high level spell vs Watermelon too late ends your run, not because you can't recover from having killed off one of your low-armor characters, but because killing off that character was a good thing. Same goes with Mech Rider 3 if it turns out that magic is better than non-overcharged physical attacks, and same goes with casting Acid Rain on the Mana Beast. Heck, Dark Knight enemies give a lot of experience and sometimes drop Gauntlets, which might be so important that a route hinges on getting one, but the fastest way to kill them is going to involve trying to sneak in a Freeze cast before it gets Wall off, and failure likely means triggering the Wall glitch.

Yes, those actions trigger a glitch, but they're not actions that are sensible to ban. If that means that the category itself is absurd, at least in a competitive sense, then so be it.

If it's supposed to be casual, then there's no need to agree on rules from one person to the next, and probably no reason to have a timer running.

While we're at it, I would have a hard time justifying a ban on walking through walls in a coop run, too. Have you ever tried to climb the Lofty Mountains in a coop run with someone unfamiliar with the game? I don't think I've ever had a coop playthrough that hasn't gotten a character stuck standing in the middle of the sky in that screen at least once, and getting stuck in random walls in other dungeons is super common, as well.

Banning the Wall Glitch means, for example, that accidentally casting a high level spell vs Watermelon too late ends your run, not because you can't recover from having killed off one of your low-armor characters, but because killing off that character was a good thing.  Same goes with Mech Rider 3 if it turns out that magic is better than non-overcharged physical attacks, and same goes with casting Acid Rain on the Mana Beast.  Heck, Dark Knight enemies give a lot of experience and sometimes drop Gauntlets, which might be so important that a route hinges on getting one, but the fastest way to kill them is going to involve trying to sneak in a Freeze cast before it gets Wall off, and failure likely means triggering the Wall glitch.

Yes, those actions trigger a glitch, but they're not actions that are sensible to ban.  If that means that the category itself is absurd, at least in a competitive sense, then so be it.

If it's supposed to be casual, then there's no need to agree on rules from one person to the next, and probably no reason to have a timer running.

While we're at it, I would have a hard time justifying a ban on walking through walls in a coop run, too.  Have you ever tried to climb the Lofty Mountains in a coop run with someone unfamiliar with the game?  I don't think I've ever had a coop playthrough that [i]hasn't[/i] gotten a character stuck standing in the middle of the sky in that screen at least once, and getting stuck in random walls in other dungeons is super common, as well.

StingerPA

Edit history:

StingerPA: 2014-10-08 08:17:01 am

StingerPA: 2014-10-08 07:32:26 am

2014-10-08 07:30:39 am

Not speedrun related, but someone had a fun glitch happen in casual play yesterday. I have no idea what the hell happened.

http://www.twitch.tv/bjw/c/5256665

Also, I've uploaded my tutorial to youtube and stitched the 2 parts together. It should be a decent resource for anyone learning the game, or just trying to get better.

Yagamoth

Edit history:

Yagamoth: 2014-10-08 07:57:13 am

Yagamoth: 2014-10-08 07:46:05 am

Yagamoth: 2014-10-08 07:45:36 am

2014-10-08 07:45:08 am

INTJ

Wow... That glitch... Is amazing... I.. Have to go home and explore that right now o_o

Edit: It obviously happened because the chest he opened got interferred with the chest that just spawned btw...

That opens a world of new possibilities..

Edit 2: What's normally in that chest?

Crow!

Edit history:

Crow!: 2014-10-08 08:52:46 am

Crow!: 2014-10-08 08:50:45 am

2014-10-08 08:49:57 am

What's that gemma?

I really wish he saved, though if he was playing on cartridge that might have been dangerous in case the Fire Palace doesn't actually have a description string and caused the game to crash upon entering the load menu.

That glitch reminded me of Earthbound's "Uber-large skips" category. If the menu selection sounds in effect correspond to selecting a different event + event variables to execute, you could do some very silly things with it. Running the "Enter Mana Fortress" event, for instance, seems pretty relevant, as does "Call Flammie" (or any of the events that lead to a forced Flammie call).

Anyway, asking Regrs about possible holes in the open chest code seems like a good idea.

Yagamoth

2014-10-08 09:11:32 am

INTJ

Tried for about 25 minutes now, got a chest to spawn, but couldn't replicate the behavior... Amazing.. That might be something insanely precise.

And yes, I thought the exact same thing Crow... This might lead to interesting things.

Musashi

Edit history:

Musashi: 2014-10-08 09:48:26 am

Musashi: 2014-10-08 09:48:11 am

Musashi: 2014-10-08 09:47:23 am

Musashi: 2014-10-08 09:40:58 am

2014-10-08 09:34:06 am

But time flows like a river...

Funny glitch... damn this game has so much to teach!

Have you tried to replicate it at the same spot? This chest contains money.

This is weird because we can see the enemy casting fire saber, then he gets a balloon lol, it's maybe the spawn chest + the magic effect on the enemy? Weapon effect?

Yagamoth

2014-10-08 09:57:23 am

INTJ

The balloon is most likely from the upgraded Spear

Musashi

2014-10-08 10:10:26 am

But time flows like a river...

Let's try to get a balloon and chest. Tongue

Musashi

Edit history:

Musashi: 2014-10-08 10:27:50 am

Musashi: 2014-10-08 10:27:34 am

2014-10-08 10:27:11 am

But time flows like a river...

Ok well, I tried to balloon the enemy casting firesaber, then opening the chest at the same time the enemy dies and drop a chest, but can't replicate it. Sad

Yagamoth

2014-10-08 11:48:47 am

INTJ

Do you happen to have a savestate of your approach? Would be nice to mess around with oô

Musashi

Edit history:

Musashi: 2014-10-08 12:00:25 pm

Musashi: 2014-10-08 12:00:03 pm

Musashi: 2014-10-08 11:59:44 am

2014-10-08 11:58:35 am

But time flows like a river...

Yeah sure, snes9x savestate.

There is a game genie code for 100% chest from enemies, but I think you have it. Tongue

C0428A80
C0428B03

Attachment:

Secret of Mana (U) [!].000

Yagamoth

2014-10-08 12:15:08 pm

INTJ

I didn't... Wow, that would've made testing easier... but at the same time, that might be an issue too to manipulate it ^^

Musashi

Edit history:

Musashi: 2014-10-08 12:22:53 pm

Musashi: 2014-10-08 12:21:48 pm

Musashi: 2014-10-08 12:20:48 pm

2014-10-08 12:19:49 pm

But time flows like a river...

Yeah, it can be good or bad thing. Tongue

Tbh I don't know if it's related about the dropping chest, it's more like Crow said, just a lot of things working as a trigger, well that's what I think, but I don't know. :/

I've noticed sometimes when I open the chest, there is weird colors coming for like 1 seconds, like in the video shows, seems magic related/enemy dead (opening at the same time). ;P
Edit: Nvm, seems random this shit. XD

bjw

2014-10-08 11:09:50 pm

Haha, I'm happy to see this glitch appears to be new. I'm hoping it leads to something really cool; it looks potentially really powerful.

Just for reference, this was done on virtual console. I didn't save or explore other menus because this was my first playthrough and I can't say I had tas/speedrun viability in mind at the time.

Yagamoth

2014-10-09 07:12:32 am

INTJ

So far I haven't managed to reproduce anything... I'll probably simply check for now, whether the 1000g was even added to the money. That might be a start.

Yagamoth

Edit history:

Yagamoth: 2014-10-09 08:41:06 am

Yagamoth: 2014-10-09 08:38:58 am

Yagamoth: 2014-10-09 08:19:52 am

2014-10-09 08:19:23 am

INTJ

ok, the 1000g did NOT get added to the money. I counted the gold from the enemies defeated, and it did add up from the town where BJW slept until the other 1000g chest he opened and we saw the thing again. I'm not quite sure whether I made a mistake somewhere, but I did somehow end up with 30 gold more in my calculations compared to how much BJW had in the end.

Start: 41990
Mad Mallard: 1 (1*174 = 174)
Bow Rat: 13 (13*240 = 3120)
Red Slime: 6 (6*216 = 1296)
2nd Chest: 1 (1*1000 = 1000)
----------------------------------------
= 47580

And BJW had 47550 in the end... Did I make a mistake somewhere?

Edit: BJW, could you please go back and check whether the chest is still there?

~~Edit 2: Well... I'm not sure anymore. Apparently I did make a mistake? Bow Rats are 213 and Red slimes 210? Still. The total then is only 47193, 357 less than the final amount..~~

Edit 3: Ignore Edit 2?... I don't know which sources I should trust? Tongue

Either way it seems to be less money than it should be at first glance. Maybe I did make a mistake somewhere. No idea.

ok, the 1000g did NOT get added to the money. I counted the gold from the enemies defeated, and it did add up from the town where BJW slept until the other 1000g chest he opened and we saw the thing again. I'm not quite sure whether I made a mistake somewhere, but I did somehow end up with 30 gold more in my calculations compared to how much BJW had in the end.

Start: 41990
Mad Mallard: 1 (1*174 = 174)
Bow Rat: 13 (13*240 = 3120)
Red Slime: 6 (6*216 = 1296)
2nd Chest: 1 (1*1000 = 1000)
----------------------------------------
= 47580

And BJW had 47550 in the end... Did I make a mistake somewhere?

Edit: BJW, could you please go back and check whether the chest is still there?

[s]Edit 2: Well... I'm not sure anymore. Apparently I did make a mistake? Bow Rats are 213 and Red slimes 210? Still. The total then is only 47193, 357 less than the final amount..[/s]

Edit 3: Ignore Edit 2?... I don't know which sources I should trust? :P

Either way it seems to be less money than it should be at first glance. Maybe I did make a mistake somewhere. No idea.

Musashi

Edit history:

Musashi: 2014-10-09 09:14:52 am

2014-10-09 09:14:11 am

But time flows like a river...

Maybe this glitch is VC game related? ;P

For unknown reason dolphin isn't running any VC games at 60 fps... I have 30-45 and it's most likely unplayable, so I can't test the game myself, I don't get why I can't have 60 fps, tried every settings. ;/

Crow!

Edit history:

Crow!: 2014-10-09 11:38:16 am

Crow!: 2014-10-09 11:37:24 am

2014-10-09 11:34:33 am

What's that gemma?

I'm poking around in SoMedit (thanks, Moppleton!). Here's some notes:

First of all, let's state a goal to work toward. Events that call Flammie:

4A4 (Continent sink)
4B6 (Continent rise)
532 (King Truffle rescue)
658 (Mana Fortress barrier)

There's a large number of other events which could catapult us forward in game progression, but these are the easiest to think of. Use Flammie via chest glitch, land in Northtown, get Flammie Drum. Events better than this would be screen transition events that take us closer to either the Flammie Drum itself or to somewhere in the Mana Fortress.

Chest events:

67E - 1000 GP chest
67F - 50 GP chest

Contents of event 67E:

Code:

Open dialogue box
Open GP view
Found 1000 GP!
Add gold: 1000.  Unknown param (always 5F): 0x5f
Halt dialogue until button pressed
Close dialogue box
Close GP view
Return to calling event
--End of Event--

Event 67F is identical, except with 50 instead of 1000. So, chances are good we can do the same shenanigans with a 50 gold chest, if we can find out what actually caused the trouble.

99 - Neko in his house (this was the event that was eventually run)

Somehow, BJW wound up in a situation where the gold view got closed first, before the main dialogue did. Here are events which close the gold view without simultaneously closing the dialogue:

4F - heads to "Save your game?" afterward.
FF - just closes GP view, fails to close dialogue at all. Candidate.
Various Watts events - Since the weapon upgrade menu doesn't open, I don't think this is what we're after.
485 - I think this is an Inn.

So, FF is an option for one event that BJW eventually executed, but it's clearly not the whole story. BJW opened the dialogue, and opened the gold window, but nothing displayed in those windows, and instead he was placed into some sort of option selection. Something had to have broken in the interim between opening the windows and executing the rest of 0x67E, and caused the game to start executing things that weren't actually part of any particular event as though it were event data, and somehow he eventually jumped to event 0x99.

I'm inclined to believe that something is wrong with the chest shaking event. So, let's hunt that down.

Event 0x67E is called as a subroutine to all events 68A to 68E. Those events all execute event 0x02 first, which SoM edit knows very little about, but logic suggests it is the chest shaking event.

Event 0x02:

Code:

Unknown 4B 0x00 0x91 0x12
Jump to event 0x00  (unknown 4B must be some sort of code flow control, as if 0x00 gets executed, the event should abort.)
Unknown 3E 0x00 0xe3 0xfb
Update Weapons (what?)
Unknown 3E 0x00 0xe3 0xfb
Heal unknown 0x40 (what?)
Then 11 lines of animation data
Return to calling event
--End of Event --

The 0x67E event broke before it reached the dialogue contents. What's supposed to happen when you open these chests is, both windows open, then your gold value is displayed in the gold window, then it shows how much gold will get with the dialogue message, then it increases your gold total. BJW's glitch never showed the gold value in the gold window, so it never even tried to add the 1000 GP.

More specifically: I used SoMedit to short circuit the 50 GP chest event to look like this:
Open dialogue box
Open GP view
--End of Event--

Even this aborted event displays your gold amount; therefore, I have to conclude that the game broke during the "Open GP view" action, rather than while trying to execute some overwritten version of the "show dialogue: Found 1000GP!" event, which had been my working theory for a while. Which unfortunately means that I would need a better understanding of SoM's coding to proceed.

I'm poking around in SoMedit (thanks, Moppleton!).  Here's some notes:

First of all, let's state a goal to work toward. Events that call Flammie:

4A4 (Continent sink)
4B6 (Continent rise)
532 (King Truffle rescue)
658 (Mana Fortress barrier)

There's a large number of other events which could catapult us forward in game progression, but these are the easiest to think of.  Use Flammie via chest glitch, land in Northtown, get Flammie Drum.  Events better than this would be screen transition events that take us closer to either the Flammie Drum itself or to somewhere in the Mana Fortress.

Chest events:

67E - 1000 GP chest
67F - 50 GP chest

Contents of event 67E:
[code]Open dialogue box
Open GP view
Found 1000 GP!
Add gold: 1000.  Unknown param (always 5F): 0x5f
Halt dialogue until button pressed
Close dialogue box
Close GP view
Return to calling event
--End of Event--[/code]

Event 67F is identical, except with 50 instead of 1000.  So, chances are good we can do the same shenanigans with a 50 gold chest, if we can find out what actually caused the trouble.

99 - Neko in his house  (this was the event that was eventually run)

Somehow, BJW wound up in a situation where the gold view got closed first, before the main dialogue did.  Here are events which close the gold view without simultaneously closing the dialogue:

4F - heads to "Save your game?" afterward.
FF - just closes GP view, fails to close dialogue at all.  Candidate.
Various Watts events - Since the weapon upgrade menu doesn't open, I don't think this is what we're after.
485 - I think this is an Inn.

So, FF is an option for one event that BJW eventually executed, but it's clearly not the whole story.  BJW opened the dialogue, and opened the gold window, but nothing displayed in those windows, and instead he was placed into some sort of option selection.  Something had to have broken in the interim between opening the windows and executing the rest of 0x67E, and caused the game to start executing things that weren't actually part of any particular event as though it were event data, and somehow he eventually jumped to event 0x99.

I'm inclined to believe that something is wrong with the chest shaking event.  So, let's hunt that down.

Event 0x67E is called as a subroutine to all events 68A to 68E.  Those events all execute event 0x02 first, which SoM edit knows very little about, but logic suggests it is the chest shaking event.

Event 0x02:
[code]Unknown 4B 0x00 0x91 0x12
Jump to event 0x00  (unknown 4B must be some sort of code flow control, as if 0x00 gets executed, the event should abort.)
Unknown 3E 0x00 0xe3 0xfb
Update Weapons (what?)
Unknown 3E 0x00 0xe3 0xfb
Heal unknown 0x40 (what?)
Then 11 lines of animation data
Return to calling event
--End of Event --[/code]

The 0x67E event broke before it reached the dialogue contents.  What's supposed to happen when you open these chests is, both windows open, then your gold value is displayed in the gold window, then it shows how much gold will get with the dialogue message, then it increases your gold total.  BJW's glitch never showed the gold value in the gold window, so it never even tried to add the 1000 GP.

More specifically: I used SoMedit to short circuit the 50 GP chest event to look like this:
Open dialogue box
Open GP view
--End of Event--

Even this aborted event displays your gold amount; therefore, I have to conclude that the game broke [i]during[/i] the "Open GP view" action, rather than while trying to execute some overwritten version of the "show dialogue: Found 1000GP!" event, which had been my working theory for a while.  Which unfortunately means that I would need a better understanding of SoM's coding to proceed.

Yagamoth

Edit history:

Yagamoth: 2014-10-09 11:50:56 am

2014-10-09 11:47:04 am

INTJ

Wow, that's some really neat information, thank you.. I have nothing to add yet, but it certainly shows me a different approach of what happened.

In the highlight, 3 things happen more or less at the same time:
- The random chest gets created/spawned
- The Bow Rat gets the damage applied and spawns
- The Bow Rat gets the balloon status effect

My theory for now would be, that one, or the combination of those other two events uses up some values the RAM which are used for the gold-chest-opening, and interfere somehow with that (SoM is notorious for overusing addresses)