Mini-Contest Idea

Before i even known that S/Znes have record function, i remember i had to use Znes for hack the intro of Super Mario World(the one in which Mario does a piece of a level without pressing commands), in order to swap it with a personal recorded intro... at least 5 years ago...

Alright, the time until the submission period ends is coming up fairly soon. Just a friendly reminder.

So it will end before August 26?

No. It's soon as in "a week" soon, not soon as in "an hour" soon.

While the contest is technically over, it will be a couple days yet before I have time to create a results video, so bear with me.

Despite this would be in any case the last time... did Edrin submitted the second task, at least?

Yeah, he submitted.

At least we'll have his last run... his previous submission shown clearly his skills. I guess we'll miss even that.

Alright, the results for Good Morning Sabin are up now:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwuLoF9EfCQ

Thanks to everybody who participated, and I hope that you'll all participate again in the future (although clearly Edrin won't). I'm thinking about posting this to a larger forum like GameFAQs to get more participants. Any thoughts on that?

As for the next challenge, it is all ready to go:

Offering

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Story:
After obtaining the Falcon, Celes, Edgar, and Setzer discovered Relm painting a picture for Owzer... a painting so beautiful it attracted the attention of a malicious spirit: Chadarnook. The battle was bravely fought, but before victory could be assured, there was a terrible twist of fate... as a last-ditch effort, Chadarnook sucked the souls from Relm's companions, leaving their bodies as empty shells. Relm escapes with her friends husks and must now seek out some form of worthy offering to convince the spirit to release the souls of her friends.

Task:
Relm must obtain an Offering! The only available offering in the game comes from the KatanaSoul in the Ancient Castle. Without the aid of Celes, Edgar, or Setzer; Relm is to gather any companions or provisions she needs to defeat the KatanaSoul and obtain an Offering.

Restrictions:
Celes, Edgar, and Setzer are not in the party and can never be added to the party. Also, instant-death attacks are prohibited. Sketch is allowed, but if it causes KatanaSoul to kill itself with his special, the run is invalid. Same goes for confusion. All normal glitches and exploits are also illegal.

Analysis of the save file:
The save includes Relm in a party alone, just outside of Jidoor. There is rudimentary gear for any character you might decide to pick up. All character stories are progressed to the point where you can approach the final stages of acquiring them as party members. The first encounter with Terra has already been finished, Rust-Rid has already been applied to Mt. Zozo, and Shadow is waiting in the Colosseum. There are also some basic supplies already given to the party including a handful of smoke bombs and warp stones. This save starts with natural magic only, but any magic you learn during the run is valid.

Goals of the challenge:
This challenge hopes to analyze the differences between characters and the order of acquisition in the World of Ruin, barring absolute necessity for gear. Things such as routes to obtaining characters, the advanced equipment scattered throughout the routes, and their effectiveness in battle all need to be placed under consideration.
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You may perhaps notice that the tone of this challenge is a little different. This challenge is a little longer, and there is a noticeable lack of Sabin in the backstory. That's because the challenge was made by Edrin rather than myself. Before he left, we were originally planning to go back and forth on these, allowing me to participate sometimes while he ran it. However, that can't be the case anymore. Since he isn't running it, I can't participate (even though it was him who made it). Somebody needs to validate runs and police the rules, and I can't do that if I'm participating. I decided not to tweak the challenge though, as I'm sure that Edrin put more thought into his decisions than I'd be able to with a quick glance.

Ok, it's time for the feedback:
This time i must split my judge in 2 parts...
- The idea, the variety of the requirements to accomplish the task and the strategy related are really good ;

- On the other hand it has a significant downside: the result of the task heavily revolves around the random factor of the whole run... too much.

It may be a nice idea to give a chance to less skilled player to score an higher result and be more near to the others, but there's a problem: i realized that random in FF6 doesn't exist... i explain myself better:

Due to many previous tests(not related to this task, much more weeks ago), i concluded that there are events that repeat themselves exactly in the same manner, no matter what... in the battle if you steal(for example) exactly at second 2 and istant 230 and steal the rare item, then you'll obtain the same result if you steal again at second 2 and istant 230... but that's so hard to repeat, without savestates, that it's not much a problem;

Random battles are completely different: after you load a file save and then do a savestate right after, it's proved at 100% that all the random battles you'll fight from that point, are already decided... kinda like it acts in the same way of the destiny

You can load and repeat that endlessly... it will never change.
When i realized that i could just "Search" for the perfect combination
(3 ing -> mecha/GP toss battle -> 1 monster to one shot with suplex) and win the task with 3 battles, then i decided to stop to improve my run: it wasn't a challenge anymore, just a cold algorythm to find the best combination.

That exploit creates an huge advantage for who knows that and makes rise the gap between the ones that ignore it's existance.
As you can notice, Edrin and Jackimus fought some useless random battles, while the mine were calculated, not much wonderful...


So i'll give you an advice: avoid, no matter what, to make the "random" factor one of the main parameters of a task(especially the Veldt!!), luck should be a little variable that may help to score a better result, not the main route, aren't you agree?


PS. about task #3, the task ends as soon as you receive the offering, right?