FE TASes again

[Toothache]

So, we have a few published Tool Assisted Speedruns, where a combination of RNG abuse and glitches allows for the fastest time possible in terms of real time. But these aren't the only things possible - a lot of areas are unexplored when it comes to TASing FE games. Quite a few games haven't even been touched yet, or explored only at a surface level. People know I'm a big fan of the TASes (hey, I did one of my own, and helped advise the other GBA runs), but I think there's a lot more that can be done beyond fastest time runs.

I'm thinking of starting a new TAS run, but I'm interested in ideas of what people might want to see. I have a few options I've thought of so far:

0% growths - not looking to compete with dondon, but maybe to complement his runs

LTC - would look very different to the fastest time TASes and require a lot more units, making it look better imo

games that haven't been done yet - there are runs on nicovideo of pretty much every game so far, but many of those are bad and suboptimal in terms of strategy. TASvideos has just the GBA runs and there's a lot of scope to expand to the other games.

other game modes - HHM in FE7 hasn't been touched, for example, or Ephraim route in FE8. FE6 has alternate routes that can be explored too, but they may need to be shown in runs that also have other objectives like 0% or LTC.

There's probably stuff I haven't thought of, and this isn't considering some of the hacks that are out there. If you do have other ideas what might be fun to watch from a strategic standpoint, throw them out there, I may just take you up on it. But yeah, I want to do something people want to see, and something a bit different if possible.

[Refa]

I think an LTC TAS would be really fun to watch.

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

While I'm interested in FE7 HHM LTC under TAS, isn't the strats used in the LTC strats of most games already comes extremely close to the ideal TC?

I recalled that PKL's H2 LTC of FE12 is 1 turn off the absolute minimum

[Toothache]

The thing about TASes is the usual minimum's don't always apply. You can deal with unreasonable hit rates, character stats abused higher than usual, and perhaps other fun things like glitches and exploits that haven't been discovered yet. Besides, how often do you see the minimum TCs - it makes a good target for comparison to a realtime run if you have a 'perfect' run to compare it to, and so far that hasn't been made - yet.

[dondon151]

FE6 HM plz, either normal or 0%

i'm not sure what restrictions, if any, do you want to impose on RNG shifting for initial enemy stats.

[PKL]

While I'm interested in FE7 HHM LTC under TAS, isn't the strats used in the LTC strats of most games already comes extremely close to the ideal TC?

I recalled that PKL's H2 LTC of FE12 is 1 turn off the absolute minimum

I said it in the thread. If you can have Sheeda dodge an 90% hit (IIRC) and crit with like 3~ crit, it was possible. But recording so many attempts got very tiring and taxing. And crits are something I refuse to rely on :P

EDIT: Oh, Sheeda also needed to crit again with 3% crit....Yeah

Edited October 17, 2013 by PKL

[Espinosa]

FE6 HM plz, either normal or 0%

i'm not sure what restrictions, if any, do you want to impose on RNG shifting for initial enemy stats.

I second this notion and request that it be done with growths and suicides. With moderate/non-omniscient semi-manipulation there's just no way to get the minimum turn counts there (you need blessed Thany, Roy, which is already hard enough, bosskilling w/o Rutger, blessed Saul who gets dropped to ORKO things and grow more magic for monster warps etc.). A good question is whether Thany wielding a Silver Lance will be able to ORKO bosses, but I guess you have more than one round and more than just Thany - depends on the chapter.

[PKL]

Silver Lance crit everything profit

[Toothache]

I second this notion and request that it be done with growths and suicides. With moderate/non-omniscient semi-manipulation there's just no way to get the minimum turn counts there (you need blessed Thany, Roy, which is already hard enough, bosskilling w/o Rutger, blessed Saul who gets dropped to ORKO things and grow more magic for monster warps etc.). A good question is whether Thany wielding a Silver Lance will be able to ORKO bosses, but I guess you have more than one round and more than just Thany - depends on the chapter.

In NM, Thany needed the Silver Lance for quite a few bosses, around the midgame when her Str wasn't quite maxed out, and finally on Zephiel with a double crit. In HM I doubt if she'd have much of a crit rate outside of Killer or Slim, and I didn't get Roy support until Ch18 (for +5 crt). Thany will not be the most practical to use in HM anyway for boss killing, especially if we're going LTC rather than fastest time.

As for sacrificing units, how far do you want to take that? I mean, I could 3 turn chapter 1 if I lose one of the cavs, but that will hurt in the long term, messing up both start locations and having one less mounted unit to allow for fast clears. Beamcrash did take this approach to the ultimate extreme, abusing warp/rescue and the sacrifice/move again glitch to get 1 turn clears on several chapters. Warp only has 17 total uses (4 x 3 hammerne, +5 base) if completely used to its fullest, which does limit it for this sort of thing.

Edited October 17, 2013 by Toothache

[Espinosa]

I guess the difference between TAS LTC (can we omit the 'speedrun' part entirely and make it TALTC so that we're concerned solely about turn counts and not the frames? It seems there would be more versatile things going on that way, but idk) and TAS that gets whatever turn counts it needs in the shortest time is that you're likely to have more participants ready to assist with the bosskilling.

For sacrifices, I suppose it's either go all the way or don't do it at all. If you take lowest turn count as the governing aim, then everything that helps achieve it should be done while everything that has detrimental effects on it (like one of the cavs being absent, but I'm not too sure about that considering I never had the tools to conduct a run like that) should be avoided.

Looking at BC's run, he has an advantage in essentially hacking the game (at least, dondon says such RNs cannot appear in the sequences we see behind those animations) as well as playing Normal Mode with weaker enemy stats, but you have your notorious tricks as well such as positioning two units on the same tile.

[Toothache]

Personally, I think I shouldn't use the sacrifice glitch at all. The average player resets if they lose a single unit, so keeping them all alive is important and makes the game more 'perfect' as it were. The NM TAS did use a few sacrifices but only to avoid gaidens, and avoided recruiting a lot of characters.

Which brings us on to recruitment. Now, I could obviously save a lot of time by not recruiting every character, but it does miss out on stuff like Rutger, Sue, Cath, Garret etc. LTC with every character recruited is very different to LTC at all costs.

[Snowy_One]

Thought this was 'Fire Emblem: The Abridged Series'. I was disappointed.

[ZemZem]

Thought this was 'Fire Emblem: The Abridged Series'. I was disappointed.

Wow, how rude.

Anyway, I'd love to see how a FE7 HHM TAS run and/or a FE8 Ephraim's Route HM run would go.

[Toothache]

From what feedback I've had so far, looks like I'll be doing FE6 again:

Hard Mode

LTC focus

No sacrificing units

All gaidens/B route/Sacae to be completely different to NM

Recruit all characters

It'll be good to do the vanilla version of this run, and then follow it with the 0% growths to show how different that is.

FE7 and 8 runs add something new now that the Torch staff can activate enemy control, on top of doing HHM and Ephraim (AFAIK enemy control is still impossible in FE6, but I'd like to be proven wrong)

[PKL]

Speaking of the Torch staff glitch, I know what it does, but why does it happen? I'd like details to see if i can fix the glitch someday for my hack.

[ZemZem]

From what I've heard, the spot that was torched more or less is a mine that doesn't hurt the enemy when the spot is stepped on.

If a player-controlled mount were to step on the spot, the mount would then activate canto after doing an action that isn't ending their turn (using an item, attacking an enemy, trading, etc.).

[Aircalipoor]

Will the TAS include the use of glitches e.g. having two units on the same spot?

[General Banzai]

isnt a TAS going to be going much faster than a normal LTC run

[dondon151]

it depends on the game. some of them are easy enough or lack the mechanics to allow for the TAS to be much faster than non-TAS. for example, for games without rescuing, we've either hit or gotten very close to theoretical minima for those, whereas games with rescuing have a bit more potential.

for example, if toothache were to try to TAS tearring saga, i would be fairly impressed if he managed to shave off more than one turn from my run.

EDIT: wait, nevermind that tearring saga example. i forgot that lyria's song has a miniscule chance of giving units back their action. if you could rig that, then you could faceroll over most of the game.

Edited October 18, 2013 by dondon151

[Irysa]

I would love to see some siege tome abuse with TAS on bosses. It's so utterly unfeasible in any other context but a TAS as well.

[General Banzai]

lets get some TAS of Berwick Saga

the fastest known record for that game is like

not even casual-level speed

[YayMarsha]

lets get some TAS of Berwick Saga

the fastest known record for that game is like

not even casual-level speed

Are you sure about that? I know Ultima Garden has a segmented 4:28:57, and if that's the same run I've seen videos from, it looks pretty good.

(Slightly more on-topic: Why don't you be my Rekka marathon route helper instead, Toothache? You know you want to!)

[Edit]: Didn't see the 3:58 listed on the RTA wiki. That one is recent too (7/11/2013).

Edited October 18, 2013 by YayMarsha

[Toothache]

Been having another think about this, and I think I want to try and include multiple sorts of playthroughs into one combined badass effort. So, what if the next TAS project in FE6 was 0% growths and ranked, and aiming for overall LTC while recruiting all characters? It would show a lot of strategy, many units would get used, and would be pretty badass to watch overall with the general improbableness of it all. Of course, raising some characters in 0% are a challenge, but that's part of the appeal of this. Plus removing the 'fastest time' approach means I can take the time to get all the rank requirements, and set it apart from the 0% runs done so far.

[PKL]

That'd be cool, go for it.