Speed running Tales of the Abyss

[Eternalspirit]

I don't expect a huge response to this, but I'm doing a speed run of Tales of the Abyss. Problem is, I'm having a hard time figuring out the fastest way to deal damage physically. I've come to the conclusion that simply using a 3-hit physical combo without any artes is the fastest way to go about it, as well as not using any Mystic Artes at all. I'm also using R3 to command 3 spell casters rather than having a secondary melee character because I find that the melee AI in the game is crap. Any input for this would be greatly appreciated, I've tested several things and so far the 3-hit combo has given me the best results.

I'm using Guy btw. He seems to pull attacks off faster than Luke.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Are you allowing yourself to use glitches? If so, I suggest glitching the game as early as possible and making a run for that really powerful sword you can get in the Ice region (forgotten all names of things/places at this point). That'll speed up the game quite nicely for minimal effort.

-Djinn

[Grefter]

Vorpal Sword I think it was?

Good luck ES.

[Eternalspirit]

Shit. I totally forgot about that glitch. Sadly, it won't help me since it's a new game + run, I'll be buying uber weapons @ Chesedonia. Also, the site I'm submitting the run to, Speed Demos Archive, probably won't allow this glitch. Or maybe they will.. who knows.. thanks for the input, but that doesn't really answer my question, haha.

Currently I'm going with Guy, Tear, Anise and Jade.

3 hit -> Crescent Strike -> Moonlight Demon -> Crescent Strike
Holy Lance
Bloody Howling
Thunder Blade

If anyone can think of a more efficient battle plan than that, LMK.

[Tide]

Yay, speedrun talk~

Mmmm...I don't know TotA like I do know about WA4, but some tentative thoughts regarding some choices. Note that I may be wrong because again, I don't know everything about TotA.

1) Mm...why Thunder Blade? From the stat topic here, Infernal Prison is stronger and IIRC, it has a better rate of flinching the enemy. Is it because its earlier? Probably need a secondary magic attack since the God generals do resist it (Sync for one). Water good? Don't recall many bosses stopping that

2) The choice of Crescent Strike is also weird. Void Tempest/Tiger Blade seems to be the most damaging base arts. I'm guessing because CS has a faster rate of animation and deals more damage per second over the other two. Also, Beast supposedly has a stronger mult if you're using FOF artes?

3) If you're using NG+ and carrying over items, can you carry over stat up items? If so, that + Tutti core should be a huge help. Of course, faster OL build up helps too. You shouldn't need to fight randoms though since they are avoidable and I can't recall a time when fighting them is actually beneficial. Of course, Tear's pendent I'm guessing is worth the time to get it as supposedly the damage boost is really good.

4) I get the feeling some of the bosses will be a bit "touch and feel". For most of God Generals, you probably want to keep juggling them as long as possible. Avoids them from pulling out MAs and wasting animation time. If for some reason they pull them off, Power/Magic Charge may actually have use! Bosses such as Legretta and Van perform a recovery if they get knocked down early, which removes that threshold limit and lets them become stunned again quicker. A great way to keep them stun locked. Some of the group battles is really going to depend on if you can gather them together to get hit by a big spell.

5) Another question arises. If you're in NG plus, shouldn't Guy have Combo Plus x4, giving him a 7 hit base combo? That should certainly help out some. If not...is it possible to Tutti/Regular C core it?

That's what comes to mind off the top of my head. If you have some set ups/plans, we can probably look over them and see if there's a more efficient way of working at them.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Tide seems like he's covered most anything I could think of to help out TotA, but I would add something.

Speed Demos Archive pretty regularly includes Tool-assisted Speedruns of many sidescrollers/platformers, and just as regularly includes glitched speedruns of the same genre. I don't see why they wouldn't allow an RPG speedrun to include a glitch.

Though if you're using new game+, that's hardly an issue either way. Also, things like which C.Cores to focus on early and such become not a problem, so I really don't know what kind of advice I can give you here.

-Djinn

[TranceHime]

When you're able to  (I think you could do this? You're on a NG+ game, so)

Initial hit combo --> Crescent Demon --> Nihil Blade Tempest (--> Tiger Blade)

It is one of Guy's semi-infinites that I learned back in the day in the Japanese version, Nihil Blade Tempest should give enough stagger to forego having to use Tiger Blade, but if so, you should do that because I recall Tiger Blade giving decent stagger too. For additional damage, if there happens to be field of fonons scattered around, use them to your advantage.

Since you're also using Thunder Blade as a spell of choice, you may as well incorporate Dragon Tempest into your battle plan as most likely you will be forming a lot of Wind FoFs, and Dragon Tempest is great in terms of DPS, though you may not want to use it due to the longer-than-desirable attack animation.

Another thing, Spark Web, the FoF change of Limited, is also insanely awesome for things like this - does sick DPS, and is also very very fast.

@Tide -
Crescent Strike is one of Guy's most useful base artes mainly because it's extremely quick and has an insanely fast recovery, so it's great for starting combos. While it does not give as much stagger as Tiger Blade, CS also barely has any forced movement/placement unlike Tiger Blade to a small degree and Void Tempest to an insane degree.

Thunder Blade's Wind FoF effect also synergizes well with the team so I'm /guessing/ that's why he's using it, but it could also be because of the wider AoE than Infernal Prison. I don't know.

[Eternalspirit]

The idea behind a speed run, obviously, is speed. 3-hit combo, then CS -> MD -> CS, from my calculations, does more DPS than any other combo of Guy's. Every hit in his physical reduces damage by ~10% per hit, so after the third hit, the DPS starts going down the drain. Beyond that, Crescent Strike allows for the best DPS of any of his base Artes (Tiger Blade has positioning and animation time problems, Demon Fang does similar DPS to CS but it's less reliable), and Moonlight Demon is the only one of his Arcane Artes that I can get to consistently get every hit in. The rest either take too long (Final Cross, pretty much all the Tiger Blade ones), create positioning issues (any Arcane Arte with Void Tempest), or knock the enemy down, causing DPS to plummet (Beast, and its associated Arcane Artes). As much as I appreciate the input, I've tested this fairly thoroughly in my game, so unless someone can come up with something better, it's probably what I'm gonna go with.

Thunder Blade is used for a simple reason - reliability and speed. Infernal Prison does indeed do comparable, if not more damage, but causes lifting, which totally screws over Guy's DPS, and if it fails to lift the target, the final hit may miss sometimes. Some of Jade's other spells, like Blessed Drops and Ground Dasher, are unreliable for damage because some of the potential hits could miss. Prism Sword takes too long, as does Meteor Storm (never mind the reliability issues). And others, like Absolute, flat out suck. The weaknesses/resistances thing is a fair point though, and I'll have to take that into account as I play the game.

As for FoFs.. just no, at least not for Guy. Bloody Howling for Anise works well enough (8 hits, lots of chances to crit, rarely misses), and Limited w/o FoF sucks. Just so I know, though, can someone figure out how much Limited's FoF change does?

Juggling - waste of Guy's time. His DPS w/o juggling will more than compensate for time lost due to enemy MAs. Besides, I expect most fights to end in under a minute with 10x experience (God General battle on Mt. Roneal lasted like 20 seconds, as a reference).

Also, Tear's Pendant is also a waste of time. There are some scenes involved which waste time, and I have to go out of my way to get it. By the time I do get it, there's not enough game left to justify it.

Just so people know, I'm not planning on picking up ANY chests, other than a few weapon upgrades for Jade (because he doesn't get a broken Chesedonia weapon). If it's not directly in my way, I'm not getting it.

As for the world map glitch - SDA says it's a form of hardware modification, so it's not allowed.

I hope I covered most peoples' concerns, and hopefully this leads to some good dialogue. Thanks everyone.

[Dark Holy Elf]

10x experience? Is that a NG+ thing?

Personally I find the idea of NG+ being legal for speedruns just bizarre (lol CT speedrun with that) since you're really tacking on more time to work you already did in whatever the first playthrough was, but I guess I'm not the one that makes the rules. I've always been a stickler for stricter challenges than most, anyway.

Good luck.

[Eternalspirit]

10x experience? Is that a NG+ thing?

Personally I find the idea of NG+ being legal for speedruns just bizarre (lol CT speedrun with that) since you're really tacking on more time to work you already did in whatever the first playthrough was, but I guess I'm not the one that makes the rules. I've always been a stickler for stricter challenges than most, anyway.

Good luck.

Yep, it's a NG+ thing. Also, there are separate categories for games that have NG+. There is the new game mode, and NG+ mode. I fully intend to at least attempt a new game mode for ToA some time in the future, since it just wouldn't be right to have a NG+ mode and not a new game mode. The problem is, I don't know 1-3 people who would be committed enough to it to actually do it. It would simply not be possible to get a good time without 4 people.

[Tide]

Crescent Strike allows for the best DPS of any of his base Artes (Tiger Blade has positioning and animation time problems, Demon Fang does similar DPS to CS but it's less reliable), and Moonlight Demon is the only one of his Arcane Artes that I can get to consistently get every hit in.

That's fair. I figured it was likely due to damage per second/frames that made the difference. Moonlight Demon is listed as the strongest arcane from our stat topics; just someone in the topic later hyped Beast's multiplier.

As for Thunder Blade/Infernal Prison, I guess that works. I've had more problems with Thunder Blade being reliable, and you can certainly try catching enemies as they are launched upwards by jumping and attacking. Although I do agree that there are probably some positioning concerns in there. As for boss resistances, Legretta resists Light, so does Sync (he resists Wind too!). Largo resists Fire/Earth (which we don't care about). Arietta's too damn frail to have to worry. It might help if you can FOF chain there? Part of it is also probably going to be related to how much damage you're already dealing and if the FOF change is even needed. Hmm...is it possible to completely blast past their MA ranges? This probably sounds silly, but it definitely seems like you have the power to get that going. I don't know, the prospect of sitting there for 6-8 seconds while not doing anything is irritating.

Fair point on Tear's pendant. I was thinking it could help again due to the damage boost. But yeah, if its not going to save enough time in battle, it would be pointless. On that note, what about FSCs? Have you experimented with those? I'm guessing the gimme ones are used on the spellcasters.

Don't have anything additional to add, but certainly best of luck to you. TotA isn't really a game I know too well, so I'm not sure if there's anything else I can add without updates/details.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Ah, separate categories? That makes sense.

If getting friends for the 4-player is your only concern, why not just aim for the fastest possible single-player speedrun? I'd think that is a pretty impressive accomplishment (honestly I'd say multiplayer deserves its own category), and due to the issues of finding three friends to help as you noted, it may well stand as the record even including multiplayer if you're good enough.

[Eternalspirit]

Crescent Strike allows for the best DPS of any of his base Artes (Tiger Blade has positioning and animation time problems, Demon Fang does similar DPS to CS but it's less reliable), and Moonlight Demon is the only one of his Arcane Artes that I can get to consistently get every hit in.

That's fair. I figured it was likely due to damage per second/frames that made the difference. Moonlight Demon is listed as the strongest arcane from our stat topics; just someone in the topic later hyped Beast's multiplier.

As for Thunder Blade/Infernal Prison, I guess that works. I've had more problems with Thunder Blade being reliable, and you can certainly try catching enemies as they are launched upwards by jumping and attacking. Although I do agree that there are probably some positioning concerns in there. As for boss resistances, Legretta resists Light, so does Sync. It might help if you can FOF chain there? Part of it is also probably going to be related to how much damage you're already dealing and if the FOF change is even needed. Hmm...is it possible to completely blast past their MA ranges? This probably sounds silly, but it definitely seems like you have the power to get that going. I don't know, the prospect of sitting there for 6-8 seconds while not doing anything is irritating.

Fair point on Tear's pendant. I was thinking it could help again due to the damage boost. But yeah, if its not going to save enough time in battle, it would be pointless. On that note, what about FSCs? Have you experimented with those? I'm guessing the gimme ones are used on the spellcasters.

Don't have anything additional to add, but certainly best of luck to you. TotA isn't really a game I know too well, so I'm not sure if there's anything else I can add without updates/details.

You make some good points. Jumping to catch a lifted enemy will take away Guy's DPS potential, so I'm not really interested in that. Also, what do you mean by FoF chaining on Sync and Legretta? Tear will be near useless in those fights, but I can always switch the spell Jade uses. And yes, it is possible to blast through MA ranges. I got Van 1 down before he used his second MA.

Btw, I sent you a PM and added you to MSN. Hoping to talk with ya regarding a potential WA4 speed run.

[Eternalspirit]

Ah, separate categories? That makes sense.

If getting friends for the 4-player is your only concern, why not just aim for the fastest possible single-player speedrun? I'd think that is a pretty impressive accomplishment (honestly I'd say multiplayer deserves its own category), and due to the issues of finding three friends to help as you noted, it may well stand as the record even including multiplayer if you're good enough.

The soft limit on a speed run is 7 hours. I can probably push a run to 10 hours or so if I really had to. My thinking is, if I can get a single player NG+ run <7 hours or so, then I can easily go <10 hours on a new game run. Anything longer than that would give me a resounding rejection from SDA, and I imagine lots of boss fights will last a very loooonggg time at low levels. I can foresee a decent amount of leveling up in a new game run.

Also, I have full red FSC on all my relevant artes, that was taken care of in my unknown mode game.

[Tide]

Also, what do you mean by FoF chaining on Sync and Legretta? Tear will be near useless in those fights

I should probably have clarified. Sorry. Basically, all I meant was just using a FOF'd version of Tear's spell to remove the Light attribute; this way at least she can do something. I'm not sure if that's applicable though since a) I don't know what Eclaire D'larmes/Holy Lance's FOF'd spell becomes and what they require (banking them as Flamme Rouge and Cluster Raid, which requires Infernal Prison/Ground Dasher) and b) If Jade will need to switch elements to compensate for that and they result in far worse DPS/positioning), then its probably not worth it.

I'll take a look through the PM. I'm doing a restesting of WA4 since there's something Snow brought to my attention. I just need to get enough luck to keep it trucking along.

[Eternalspirit]

Also, what do you mean by FoF chaining on Sync and Legretta? Tear will be near useless in those fights

I should probably have clarified. Sorry. Basically, all I meant was just using a FOF'd version of Tear's spell to remove the Light attribute; this way at least she can do something. I'm not sure if that's applicable though since a) I don't know what Eclaire D'larmes/Holy Lance's FOF'd spell becomes and what they require (banking them as Flamme Rouge and Cluster Raid, which requires Infernal Prison/Ground Dasher) and b) If Jade will need to switch elements to compensate for that and they result in far worse DPS/positioning), then its probably not worth it.

I'll take a look through the PM. I'm doing a restesting of WA4 since there's something Snow brought to my attention. I just need to get enough luck to keep it trucking along.

I will look into it for sure.

And can I at least speak with you on MSN? I am actually looking forward to a WA4 speed run, and have some ideas for it.

[Tide]

Sure. That little messenger icon has my hotmail on it. I sent you a PM with some of the referencing sources/work Talaysen and I have already crunched out. Check those out if you've never seen them yet! We spent quite a while making the run 24 minutes faster than the original time.

[Grefter]

Can't really get down to the nitty gritty technical stuff of the run, but Glitched runs are pretty common on SDA as was stated.  No reason they won't host it.

[Eternalspirit]

Can't really get down to the nitty gritty technical stuff of the run, but Glitched runs are pretty common on SDA as was stated.  No reason they won't host it.

As I stated, they don't allow glitches that require console modification. That includes opening the tray.

[Grefter]

That ... is kind of weird.  Check out the Chrono Cross speed run.  That thing is save state abused to an obscene level.  I think the policy is fairly flexible anyway.

I suppose it would be like doing an FF7 speed run using the open the tray keep hitting the enemy till its dead thing or something... but blah.  Oh well.  There is a site that specialises in tool assisted runs, could always do one there if you wanted.

[Eternalspirit]

That ... is kind of weird.  Check out the Chrono Cross speed run.  That thing is save state abused to an obscene level.  I think the policy is fairly flexible anyway.

I suppose it would be like doing an FF7 speed run using the open the tray keep hitting the enemy till its dead thing or something... but blah.  Oh well.  There is a site that specialises in tool assisted runs, could always do one there if you wanted.

No to both.

I am currently watching the Chrono Cross speed run, and there is no save state abuse, just lots of resetting to get desired results.

And I am not really interested in a TAS.

[Lady Ashe]

Speed Demos Archive pretty regularly includes Tool-assisted Speedruns of many sidescrollers/platformers

Wait, what? Do you have a link of a specific example? I'm pretty sure everything has to be played normally on whatever console the game is for. No emulators or anything are allowed.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Speed Demos Archive pretty regularly includes Tool-assisted Speedruns of many sidescrollers/platformers

Wait, what? Do you have a link of a specific example? I'm pretty sure everything has to be played normally on whatever console the game is for. No emulators or anything are allowed.

Ah, you're right of course! My mistake - they only allow glitched playthroughs nowadays.

Still, when TAS playthroughs first started cropping up on the net, I remember the SDA forums overflowing with glitched- and tool-assisted- runs. It's been a long time since I've watched a speedrun, my apologies for that. SDA is now, by definition, the opposite of a TAS.

On the other hand... TotA's map exploit still seems like a 'glitch' to me, but apparently (re-read the rules) any kind of physical manipulation of the console disqualifies a glitch for being included in a SDA speed run. The logic behind this sounds reasonable on paper, but in practice you end up with runs like the Mario 64 one where the game is being exploited in an unintended way (using broken physics to phase through walls and reach the top of what should be a never-ending staircase) similar to the TotA map exploit.

But whatever, Eternalspirit did his homework and I look forward to what he comes up with for his final run/time.

-Djinn