AGDQ 2019: I'm honestly just speechless about this interactive software

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > AGDQ 2019: I'm honestly just speechless about this interactive software

«‹›171 »

ullerrm: Dec 31, 2012; Oh, the network slogan is true -- "watch FOX and be damned for all eternity!"

Roluth posted:

A few questions:

What exactly does the "restrict access to Edge and Fusoya" flag do, and why?
The entry mentions that league rules are being used for the event. I see three sets of rules in the presets that mention a league: which is being used?
Any specifics on the glitches section? Where can I go to learn about them?
The item settings have "balanced", "unbalanced" and "wild" settings? I get the general gist, but can you elaborate on what it does?

Thank you, and the randomizer looks very interesting!

Edge and Fusoya can break the game if you get them early -- Edge has great physical damage and AOE moves, and Fusoya is a swiss army knife of spells with lots of HP. The Cx flag prevents them from being part of your starting team. On top of that, they'll almost certainly use the F flag, which nerfs Fusoya just in case he's your first non-freebie character. (When F is used, he starts with low HP and random crap spells, and learns new spells / gains HP every time a boss is killed.)
League in this case probably refers to 2018 League Matches, which means the following settings:
- (Ji) Include Japanese-only items, but not spells/abilities. (Go here and search "Ji Flag" to get a list.)
- (Kqm Pk) Randomize key items, allowing them to appear as the rewards of summon quests or in the drop pool of moon bosses. Pass (a special go-mode button that directly warps you to Zeromus) is considered a key item.
- (Cx F -nodupes) Restrict Edge and Fusoya, randomize all other characters, with no duplicate characters generated.
- (T3r S2 B) Randomize all chest contents, shop contents, and the boss order. Shops will frequently have cure/life pots.
- (Nck) Hard mode: No free character in Damcyan, and no free key item from Edward.
- (Etf) You're allowed to turn random encounters on/off.
- (Xsbk) All characters in your party get the full XP for an encounter, instead of dividing it amongst living members. (e.g. leveling is 3-4x faster than original FF4). XP gets doubled once you're close to go mode.
- (Gl) You're allowed to instakill enemies with the Life spell or item. Most other well-known FF4 glitches used in speedruns (MP underflows, Mist skip, etc) don't work.
Glitches named and described: here.
In rough order of how random poo poo can be, there's basically four settings:
- "Shuffle" (1): Chests/shops get moved around, but their contents don't change -- they just swap locations.
- "Balanced" (2): Chests/shops have randomly generated contents but can be expected to be fairly balanced based on the difficulty of getting to them.
- "Unbalanced" (3): Randomized with even more randomness; it does only basic checks to make sure nothing's OP (i.e. you're not getting Excalibur or other game-breakers early).
- "Wild" (4): Completely unbounded and unchecked randomness.

e: That said, I'd probably expect them to use a slightly nicer set of flags for marathon safety.

ullerrm fucked around with this message at 05:43 on Jan 7, 2019

# ? Jan 7, 2019 05:30

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Apr 28, 2024 21:25

AccountingNightmare: Oct 2, 2006; NOT ENOUGH RED ORBS ARGH

The Metal Gear Solid 2 run was excellent! Fun glitches and masterful manipulation of the AI.

# ? Jan 7, 2019 06:08

neongrey: Feb 28, 2007; Plaguing your posts with incidental music.

Roluth posted:

A few questions:

What exactly does the "restrict access to Edge and Fusoya" flag do, and why?
The entry mentions that league rules are being used for the event. I see three sets of rules in the presets that mention a league: which is being used?
Any specifics on the glitches section? Where can I go to learn about them?
The item settings have "balanced", "unbalanced" and "wild" settings? I get the general gist, but can you elaborate on what it does?

Thank you, and the randomizer looks very interesting!

Some additional clarifications beyond what other people have already said:

-What Cx does, specifically, is it prevents Edge and FuSoYa from being located anywhere without a key item investment. There's places you can access early on that will get you characters without needing to actually meet any prior qualifications. In addition to preventing them from joining at the start of the game or any "free lunch" spot, it will lock them out of appearing at: Mount Hobbs and the Baron Inn. So, in order to get one of those characters, you'll need a key item to unlock the pickup location, like the Package, or the Earth Crystal.

-This is the 2018 League Matches preset. It's an intermediate difficulty flagset with few curveballs that come from the flags alone (rando, of course, can always rando). It pretty consistently finishes between an hour and a half to two hours at the level of play on showcase here.

-The only glitch enabled is going to be the "life potion" or "vitality 0" glitch - if you use a life potion on a non-boss, non-undead enemy right as it dies, it'll silently "resurrect" and immediately die again, granting credit for another kill. It's, obviously, used in a lot of quick grind strats. For more info on the glitches in general, I actually strongly recommend the discord - it isn't poo poo. Tons of info there in general and people are actually cool and helpful. At least once a week I find myself baffled at somehow stumbling into a group of people on the internet that aren't all horrible.

-For items, both "balanced" and "unbalanced" shave off the absolute top tier of items (adamant armours, crystal swords, dragon spears, etc) and removes them from the pool. From there, for shops only, balanced further removes a few items that can be absolutely game breaking if obtainable in quantity (top tier Japanese consumable items, mostly). Once that filtration is done, the difference between balanced and unbalanced is that stuff underground/on the moon draws will be generally better quality than those aboveground for the balanced setting. Unbalanced, everything has the same pool everywhere. Discord has precise lists of what's in each pool.

# ? Jan 7, 2019 06:33

Roluth: Apr 22, 2014

neongrey posted:

Some additional clarifications beyond what other people have already said:

-What Cx does, specifically, is it prevents Edge and FuSoYa from being located anywhere without a key item investment. There's places you can access early on that will get you characters without needing to actually meet any prior qualifications. In addition to preventing them from joining at the start of the game or any "free lunch" spot, it will lock them out of appearing at: Mount Hobbs and the Baron Inn. So, in order to get one of those characters, you'll need a key item to unlock the pickup location, like the Package, or the Earth Crystal.

-This is the 2018 League Matches preset. It's an intermediate difficulty flagset with few curveballs that come from the flags alone (rando, of course, can always rando). It pretty consistently finishes between an hour and a half to two hours at the level of play on showcase here.

-The only glitch enabled is going to be the "life potion" or "vitality 0" glitch - if you use a life potion on a non-boss, non-undead enemy right as it dies, it'll silently "resurrect" and immediately die again, granting credit for another kill. It's, obviously, used in a lot of quick grind strats. For more info on the glitches in general, I actually strongly recommend the discord - it isn't poo poo. Tons of info there in general and people are actually cool and helpful. At least once a week I find myself baffled at somehow stumbling into a group of people on the internet that aren't all horrible.

-For items, both "balanced" and "unbalanced" shave off the absolute top tier of items (adamant armours, crystal swords, dragon spears, etc) and removes them from the pool. From there, for shops only, balanced further removes a few items that can be absolutely game breaking if obtainable in quantity (top tier Japanese consumable items, mostly). Once that filtration is done, the difference between balanced and unbalanced is that stuff underground/on the moon draws will be generally better quality than those aboveground for the balanced setting. Unbalanced, everything has the same pool everywhere. Discord has precise lists of what's in each pool.

I read something about trapped chests not being in the regular item pool. Is that where you can get the top-tier items you mention?

# ? Jan 7, 2019 07:11

neongrey: Feb 28, 2007; Plaguing your posts with incidental music.

Yes, it's possible to get items that only appear in the Wild pool from trapped chests (and also from key item locations that don't yield a key item-- the settings for the race, Kqm, have more possible locations for key items than actual key items). We're not terribly likely to see anyone go out of their way for them during the race, because by and large they're all nice-to-haves rather than necessities, and most trapped chest locations are either going to be out of the way or containing nasty fights that aren't worth the time loss. Possible exceptions might be a couple of the easy chests in the Tower of Zot, or if the game requires underground access by way of the Eblan route through Bab-il (as opposed to Magma Key), people will usually go for the two trapped chests along the way.

In more casual play they're great to seek out if you're playing at anything less than wild treasures.

# ? Jan 7, 2019 07:31

ThisIsACoolGuy: Nov 2, 2010; Shaped like a friend

My best buddy is helping with Katana Zero so whenever the logo popped up this morning he got really excited with "I designed that logo!! I helped!!" so now I have that in the back of my head whenever I see it :3:

Events worth it all for that to me.

# ? Jan 7, 2019 07:42

elentar: Aug 26, 2002; Every single year the Ivy League takes a break from fucking up the world through its various alumni to fuck up everyone's bracket instead.

Hi I�m processing donations again this time and it is dead, donate stuff with non-stupid non-meme comments and there�s a chance it gets through.

Doh typo

elentar fucked around with this message at 09:29 on Jan 7, 2019

# ? Jan 7, 2019 09:26

Ravus: Jan 15, 2009

elentar posted:

Hi Im processing donations again this time and it is dead, donate stuff with non-stupid non-mens comments and theres a chance it gets through.

What's a non-mens comment?

# ? Jan 7, 2019 09:27

elentar: Aug 26, 2002; Every single year the Ivy League takes a break from fucking up the world through its various alumni to fuck up everyone's bracket instead.

Ravus posted:

What's a non-mens comment?

Was a typo for meme

# ? Jan 7, 2019 09:30

Ravus: Jan 15, 2009

elentar posted:

Was a typo for meme

OH, poo poo I should have gotten that. :drat:

# ? Jan 7, 2019 09:35

algebra testes: Mar 5, 2011; Lipstick Apathy

drat I shoulda donated while Half was on the couch.

# ? Jan 7, 2019 10:06

Wrex Ruckus: Aug 24, 2015

Apparently krankdud's MMZ2 run was a world record, beating his old WR by a few seconds even with the late stop.

Day 1 and already a world record!

# ? Jan 7, 2019 11:42

BlankSystemDaemon: Mar 13, 2009

elentar posted:

Hi Im processing donations again this time and it is dead, donate stuff with non-stupid non-meme comments and theres a chance it gets through.

Doh typo

Is there a chance that if we make shoutouts to the threads here on SA, and donate while not being complete shitheels, that you can bump our comments to be read out?
Or actually, thinking about it, they probably specifically disallow you from doing this, don't they? Feel free to disregard if they do.

BlankSystemDaemon fucked around with this message at 13:46 on Jan 7, 2019

# ? Jan 7, 2019 13:32

DEEP STATE PLOT: Aug 13, 2008; Yes...Ha ha ha...YES!

D. Ebdrup posted:

Is there a chance that if we make shoutouts to the threads here on SA, and don't donate while being complete shitheels, that you can bump our comments to be read out?
Or actually, thinking about it, they probably specifically disallow you from doing this, don't they? Feel free to disregard if they do.

pretty sure shoutouts are fine unless they recently changed that, as there've been many read out shouting out sa and other forums in the past

# ? Jan 7, 2019 13:33

elentar: Aug 26, 2002; Every single year the Ivy League takes a break from fucking up the world through its various alumni to fuck up everyone's bracket instead.

D. Ebdrup posted:

Is there a chance that if we make shoutouts to the threads here on SA, and donate while not being complete shitheels, that you can bump our comments to be read out?
Or actually, thinking about it, they probably specifically disallow you from doing this, don't they? Feel free to disregard if they do.

You can shoutout the Something Awful games forum or GDQ chat thread, as long as it�s not cutesy or stupid it�ll probably get through the desk but the reader still might not choose it.

I�m off now though, will be back on Friday late night and then Saturday to close out the marathon.

# ? Jan 7, 2019 13:35

Goodguy3: Aug 11, 2016; "What?! I'm not tangled up like this for fun, you know!"

Pretty sure it was Law that every other sidscroller had to have an Aliens inspired level in it. I mean, loving Ecco the Dolphin had The Machine. .

# ? Jan 7, 2019 13:41

BlankSystemDaemon: Mar 13, 2009

DEEP STATE PLOT posted:

pretty sure shoutouts are fine unless they recently changed that, as there've been many read out shouting out sa and other forums in the past

Yeah, I think I was under the impression that it was the donation pickers who also picked what got read out, but it sounds like it's more like regular comment moderation from the comment below.

elentar posted:

You can shoutout the Something Awful games forum or GDQ chat thread, as long as its not cutesy or stupid itll probably get through the desk but the reader still might not choose it.

Im off now though, will be back on Friday late night and then Saturday to close out the marathon.

Fair enough, it makes more sense that it's the reader who gets to decide what they wanna read.
Thank you for your service, friend! :glomp:

Goodguy3 posted:

Pretty sure it was Law that every other sidscroller had to have an Aliens inspired level in it. I mean, loving Ecco the Dolphin had The Machine. .

Look, sometimes you just gotta follow the advice of Judas Priest.

# ? Jan 7, 2019 13:49

Noise Complaint: Sep 27, 2004; Who could be scared of a Jeffrey?

Thanks for the support last night, goons are great. Apologies that I brought drama into a fun thread.

I reached out to AGDQ but I'm not sure if we can do anything as he has a huge following he's convinced she's crazy and has been using AGDQ to go off and cheat for years.

She's terrified of him, especially w/r/t reprisal, and personally he just soured the event for me, I didn't see him on the schedule and now that he's been "promoted" to an interviewer it's kind of inescapable.

# ? Jan 7, 2019 16:02

ToxicFrog: Apr 26, 2008

Beasteh posted:

9.5 hour FFIX run, holy moley

I've been watching the FF7 run from a previous GDQ and have actually been enjoying the poo poo out of it, hopefully the FF9 run this year is of similar quality.

# ? Jan 7, 2019 16:54

the yeti: Mar 29, 2008; memento disco

Noise Complaint posted:

Hard stuff

You�re doing the right thing yo

# ? Jan 7, 2019 16:55

Evrart Claire: Jan 11, 2008

ToxicFrog posted:

I've been watching the FF7 run from a previous GDQ and have actually been enjoying the poo poo out of it, hopefully the FF9 run this year is of similar quality.

FF7 run was pretty perfect as a late night chill run.

# ? Jan 7, 2019 16:59

TeaJay: Oct 9, 2012

I don't mind long-rear end FF runs at all. But I am a bit bummed that tomorrow the whole afternoon will basically be a 4 and a half hour Nier:automata run which I don't have any interest in. Lots of shooting and fighting, yay.

# ? Jan 7, 2019 17:02

Ravus: Jan 15, 2009

ToxicFrog posted:

I've been watching the FF7 run from a previous GDQ and have actually been enjoying the poo poo out of it, hopefully the FF9 run this year is of similar quality.

That was a great run, FF9 has big boots to full but I'm excited for it.

Has there been any stand-out runs between CometStriker and Super Ghouls 'N Ghosts? Wretched sleep made me miss some speed games.

# ? Jan 7, 2019 17:52

DoctorWhat: Nov 18, 2011; A little privacy, please?

hmm... this final boss reminds me of malomyotismon with the weird abdomen-mouth. do they have a shared inspiration?

# ? Jan 7, 2019 18:05

Shadow225: Jan 2, 2007

Serious question: why is the event not streamed on YT as well? It would open up avenues through to watch that are otherwise inaccessible.

# ? Jan 7, 2019 18:10

DoctorWhat: Nov 18, 2011; A little privacy, please?

Twitch themselves are a direct sponsor is probably the main reason.

# ? Jan 7, 2019 18:16

SoftNum: Mar 31, 2011

AFAIK without using a service (which I think are usually paid for streams this "big") it takes twice the compute and twice the bandwidth to do it. I also heard that, at least in the past, youtube used to intentionally make it more difficult to do.

# ? Jan 7, 2019 18:19

the yeti: Mar 29, 2008; memento disco

YouTube streaming is perplexingly erratic compared to twitch it seems from my limited experience listening to multi channel streamers try to do both

# ? Jan 7, 2019 18:22

SuccinctAndPunchy: Mar 29, 2013; People are supposed to get hurt by things. It's fucked up to not. It's not good for you.

Noise Complaint posted:

Thanks for the support last night, goons are great. Apologies that I brought drama into a fun thread.

I reached out to AGDQ but I'm not sure if we can do anything as he has a huge following he's convinced she's crazy and has been using AGDQ to go off and cheat for years.

She's terrified of him, especially w/r/t reprisal

You're doing the right thing but I would not expect to see results this event.

That being said I am hanging around the event and he's obviously around and stuff and just casually talking to friends and god it's loving weird now. It was weird before but it's weirder now!

I think you can do something though, it's not hopeless. Your SO might need to be comfortable with the idea of this kicking up a shitstorm though, but it has proven effective in the past.

SuccinctAndPunchy fucked around with this message at 18:50 on Jan 7, 2019

# ? Jan 7, 2019 18:42

Ravus: Jan 15, 2009

Shadow225 posted:

Serious question: why is the event not streamed on YT as well? It would open up avenues through to watch that are otherwise inaccessible.

Twitch are fairly big sponsor so that's never happening

# ? Jan 7, 2019 18:50

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

https://clips.twitch.tv/BenevolentAbrasiveArugulaPlanking

Best part of the Majora's Mask run last night.

# ? Jan 7, 2019 18:58

1-800-DOCTORB: Nov 6, 2009

Any noteworthy runs since the Shadow of the Colossus run last night?

# ? Jan 7, 2019 18:59

TeaJay: Oct 9, 2012

I can't believe PJ hasn't broken Actraiser 2 yet. I was totally expecting the SNES to crap out at some point.

# ? Jan 7, 2019 19:12

Rirse: May 7, 2006; by R. Guyovich

TeaJay posted:

I can't believe PJ hasn't broken Actraiser 2 yet. I was totally expecting the SNES to crap out at some point.

No, but the final boss nearly game over him. Great run.

# ? Jan 7, 2019 19:13

TeaJay: Oct 9, 2012

Is this break programming going on now that Arby's sponsorship thing I was hearing about? Looks like they are doing cardboard cutouts or something.

We don't have Arby's in this country so the joke is kinda lost on me

# ? Jan 7, 2019 19:15

SoftNum: Mar 31, 2011

Oh hey the Arby's has started. This doesn't seem apparently horrible so far.

Arby's is roast beef sammiches. They're very greasy. Also their twitter has done the "best" weird-twitter corporate thing. In honor of this they(being the GDQ donation audience, see) named Lucca Arby's in Chrono Trigger once, and GDQ appeared in their analytics, so we get this. (At least I assume that's what happened.)

Like I said though, this seems low key and fine.

SoftNum fucked around with this message at 19:23 on Jan 7, 2019

# ? Jan 7, 2019 19:15

TeaJay: Oct 9, 2012

I'm also gonna echo that the intermission music choices have been superb this year.

e: Also, if you feel that the chat thread moves too fast for you to comment on the runs, feel free to post in here.

TeaJay fucked around with this message at 19:22 on Jan 7, 2019

# ? Jan 7, 2019 19:17

Rirse: May 7, 2006; by R. Guyovich

TeaJay posted:

Is this break programming going on now that Arby's sponsorship thing I was hearing about? Looks like they are doing cardboard cutouts or something.

We don't have Arby's in this country so the joke is kinda lost on me

Yeah their twitter feed likes to do papercraft of pop culture stuff.

# ? Jan 7, 2019 19:18

Drone: Aug 22, 2003; Incredible machine

TeaJay posted:

I'm also gonna echo that the intermission music choices have been superb this year.

Is there a Spotify/Youtube playlist that they've put together or something? Because I really want one.

# ? Jan 7, 2019 19:20

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Apr 28, 2024 21:25

KariOhki: Apr 22, 2008

I know it's an internet meme but the cam that just started up on the Arby's crafting is pretty cool.

# ? Jan 7, 2019 19:22

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > AGDQ 2019: I'm honestly just speechless about this interactive software

«‹›171 »