FE8 Efficiency Redux Redux

[PKL]

Nominating Gilliam for MVP

[Espinosa]

I think I got the taste of what the level-ups would be like on this run :o

[General Horace]

I think I got the taste of what the level-ups would be like on this run :o

nowai garcia gets res only in chapter 9

but yeah its almost required for chapter 4 and chapter 6 for Franz and Nessie's levels to be good. And Nessie needs quite a lot of strenth to help Seth bust down the wall in chapter 8. I'd by lying if I said that these levels came down to chance.

oh also chapter 2

http://youtu.be/kQli_dwUVUs

and 3

http://youtu.be/nJeuw6n6img

and 4

http://youtu.be/6sB6GGGbVew

Edited October 25, 2013 by General Horace

[General Horace]

http://youtu.be/6sB6GGGbVew

Chapter 4 is up, maybe the last one of the day?

I forgot to turn down the BGM in Chapter 4, so it might be hard to hear me, I don't say anything very important anyway, other than I had to make sure the north zombiedude reinforcements have really wacky stat distrubutions, streching from 26-30hp and 0-3 defence. At the most they had to have 28hp/0def for Eirika to kill them.

Will Chapter 5 be more interesting? Probably not.

Edited October 25, 2013 by General Horace

[Vykan_12]

I think it's about time I contributed to one of these.

First off, are you playing on emulator? Since you seem to be going for the threshold of absolute lowest turn count possible, I can show you a way to rig perfect level-ups. It's actually pretty simple, you go to tools -> debug -> memory viewer -> 0x03000000 and replace the first 3 values with 0000. This makes all the RNs equal to 0, which will ensure you hit, crit and get a perfect level-up on player phase. Unfortunately, this will also ensure enemies hit you (and crit if they have a crit rate), so use it carefully. After that, replace those 3 aforementioned values with whatever you want, I usually just put 1234 5678 1234, doesn't really matter as long as the values are non-zero.

Also, are you using the torch glitch? I haven't had a chance to read through the previous posts carefully yet.

Oh, and I recommend you turn up your mic or put it closer to you since it's a little hard to hear you in your videos.

Edited October 25, 2013 by Vykan_12

[dondon151]

i'd think that it's usually considered outright cheating to edit the RNG state but acceptable otherwise to look at the RNG and path trace to get the outcomes that you want.

[Refa]

I guess if it's valid for a normal speedrun, it should be valid for an efficiency playthrough!

[Espinosa]

It's a TAS thing though, not a "normal speedrun" thing, isn't it?

[Vykan_12]

From what I've seen in Horace's current videos, the level-ups are already rigged to the point of being unrealistic for "casual" play, so he's at the very least savestating and burning RNs until he gets the desired outcome. Why not cut out all that brute force nonsense and skip to the desired outcome, a perfect or near-perfect level-up?

I don't really think there's anything wrong with editing the memory directly to RNG manipulate since you could just do the same thing with path tracing. The latter just takes a rather long time, I think a few thousand RNs on average for a perfect level-up (really depends on growths). But regardless, either approach can get you perfect level-ups for any character you want, at least on player phase. Enemy phase manipulation is a nightmare and basically brute force but also possible.

This is very different from say, hex editing brave weapons into everyone's inventory or giving Seth higher bases stats before stat boosters become available. Those are not technically possible outcomes and I'd consider that true cheating.

Again, it all depends on what your goals are. You could probably save a turn in chapter 2 by having Vanessa crit the bandits in the mountains. But that would also require RNG manipulation that is far beyond anything achievable in normal play, even though it's very possible and doable with the help of emulator tools like RNG scripts.

Edited October 26, 2013 by Vykan_12

[dondon151]

From what I've seen in Horace's current videos, the level-ups are already rigged to the point of being unrealistic for "casual" play, so he's at the very least savestating and burning RNs until he gets the desired outcome. Why not cut out all that brute force nonsense and skip to the desired outcome, a perfect or near-perfect level-up?

when you submit a TAS to TASvideos, are you allowed to directly edit the RNG state?

[Refa]

It's a TAS thing though, not a "normal speedrun" thing, isn't it?

Nah, I meant the latter part of dondon's sentence, about rng abusing via move paths.

[Vykan_12]

when you submit a TAS to TASvideos, are you allowed to directly edit the RNG state?

When you play on console, can you watch a list of upcoming RN values update in real-time on the right side of your screen?

There's a difference between making an LTC run that uses strats that are consistent enough to be reproducible on console (ie hardly any RNG manipulation outside of the odd crit and certain stat benchmarks) or go for an LTC run that goes for the lowest theoretical turn count, where you assume you can manipulate any desired RNG outcome, no matter how improbable, and then see what turn count can be achieved. I want to know which one Horace is going for.

Edited October 26, 2013 by Vykan_12

[dondon151]

When you play on console, can you watch a list of upcoming RN values update in real-time on the right side of your screen?

i will actually respond to this question with a "yes" and a caveat: the console seeds the RNG the same way that the emulator does. i could replicate my FE6 NM speedrun exactly on a console (and you know i had ridiculous RNG abuse going on with roy and shanna), so of course there is a huge difference between RNG abusing via path retracing and directly editing the RNG state. path retracing at least operates within the confines of the game mechanics.

Edited October 26, 2013 by dondon151

[Hawk King]

Nice videos Horace. Your strats are pretty different from some I did.

Are you going to be able to reach your warp benchmarks with that 3 turn of Chp 11? Thats like 25-30 Wexp that Artur had to pass up.

As far as the RNG editing goes. There is a difference between Theoretical LTC and theoretical LTC on a console. Everything Horace is doing with the emulator, I can and have recreated on a GBA. It just takes 100x more time with hundreds of resets.

Based on Horace's efforts on Chp 11, he isn't using glitches.

[General Horace]

sorry for the late responses, I seperated my shoulder on the weekend, and thus haven't had a whole lot of free time

as far as the run goes, certain stat benchmarks are needed (moreso for the earlygame than the lategame), so i'm forced to force good levelups (this much seems obvious)

i'm not totally sure what you're trying to say dondon, wrt to editing the rng state. isn't path tracing doing the same?

and as far as what I'm willing to do, i'm going to try to rig as few nonkiller crits as possible, and all at a decent hitrate. I don't think Vanessa even OHKO's the mountain bandits with a crit in chapter 2, so she'd have to get two crit on two bandits at like 30 hit which is past what i'd want to do

oh also expect this to be delayed by quite a bit, its hard to play fire emblem with one hand, a test run of chapter 12 took 25 minutes, and I don't really want my videos to be that long :(

[PKL]

Get better, shoulder :(

[Espinosa]

Where's your other hand? I had no idea you were a war veteran.

[General Horace]

its honestly probably my control config, since the ablr buttons are on the opposite side of the keyboard from the arrow keys, i might be able to rig up an easier control config, but I don't think i'll really want to anytime soon

also im not left handed unfourtunately

ill still be able to upload 5-11 videos though, probably this coming weekend

[dondon151]

i'm not totally sure what you're trying to say dondon, wrt to editing the rng state. isn't path tracing doing the same?

no, it is not. path tracing is merely advancing the RNG state. it's no different than changing the order of unit actions to get different outcomes on any given turn.

when the RNG is seeded in a certain way, the subsequent entries in the RN sequence are predictable. there is only one possible outcome in the RNG. by directly editing the RNG state, you are necessarily forcing an impossible outcome. that's the clear difference.

hawk king put it nicely in his earlier post: if you path retrace, this run is reproducible on console. if you edit the RNG state, this run is no longer reproducible.

[Espinosa]

I thought the RNs were unpredictable in their progression when doing the same exact path traces?

Anyway, looking forward to the other vids you've got Horace.

[General Horace]

everything i've done thus far is reproducible on console, it would just take a while, if that is what you're wondering

i've just taken the luxury of editing it out, because i'm very poor at path tracing on a keyboard.

also from what I understand, by suspending and restarting chapter in fe8, you get a different rn string and enemy stats every time, and i've had to do this in a few chapters (namely chapter 9) to get enemy stats I require

[dondon151]

I thought the RNs were unpredictable in their progression when doing the same exact path traces?

what do you mean by that?

also from what I understand, by suspending and restarting chapter in fe8, you get a different rn string and enemy stats every time, and i've had to do this in a few chapters (namely chapter 9) to get enemy stats I require

this, too, i suspect, is predictable. the game has to use a certain number of RNs at the beginning of every map to generate enemy stats and sometimes move units across the map.

[shadykid]

Woah 71 turns is like FE13 level. That's pretty sweet.

I know this was way back, but 71 turns is some slow FE13 playing (unless it's Lunatic+ single-segment)

Edited October 28, 2013 by shadykid

[PKL]

I know this was way back, but 71 turns is some slow FE13 playing (unless it's Lunatic+ single-segment)

Wut. Lunatic + can be done fast?

[Vykan_12]

its honestly probably my control config, since the ablr buttons are on the opposite side of the keyboard from the arrow keys, i might be able to rig up an easier control config, but I don't think i'll really want to anytime soon

Get yourself a gamepad, makes playing via keyboard feel archaic by comparison and only costs 20-30ish$.