Difference between revisions of "ADnD: Dragons of Flame/Any%"

Latest revision as of 04:13, 11 November 2020

Overworld

The overworld sections of the game are so random that it doesn't make much sense to make videos for them. It's best to just study the maps on https://nobusuma256.com/html/kouryaku/adddof/adddof.html. Any enemy encounter can be expected to take around 10-12 seconds and lead to potential damage. It's therefore most of the time worth to make a detour to try and avoid the encounter. A few remarks can still be made:

• Learn the basics of the game's RNG.
• Right at the start of the first overworld section, immediately going down will very often result in an early encounter since all three enemies will spawn below you. There are two ways to mitigate this risk. The first is to immediately start pressing up (you will only push against the tree and not actually move up). This will ensure the first enemies to all spawn above you. You can then slowly walk down, while trying to keep them on screen. This is a bit slow and chances are one or more of the enemies will soon wander off-screen. The other method to consider is to not move at all when the game begins. The three enemies will now rapidly spawn in random positions around the screen edges. This will likely allow you to move down faster than if the enemies spawned above you. But it's of course also riskier since enemies can spawn below you.
• In the upper part of the map, where it's mostly open, try to walk past enemies above or below (and not on the left or right side of them). See the RNG-section for why.
• Once you're below the river, try to continue moving down (at least in small steps). Saving all the vertical movement for when you need to enter the correct path through the forest will likely result in enemies spawning in your way.
• Once inside the forest, it can be worth considering manipulating some enemy spawns. The best way to do this is to push against a tree in the direction you'd like to spawn enemies in.
• There are a few alternative paths through the forest. Learn them. Taking a detour is a cheap price compared to getting an encounter (and avoiding enemies in the path you're taking is not very likely due to the space constraints).
• In the second overworld section, it's probably best to not move when the gameplay begins. This will hopefully spawn enemies in favorable locations, allowing you to start moving down.
• There are several alternative paths in the second overworld section worth learning.

Dungeons

As opposed to the overworld, there is no RNG whatsoever in the dungeons. The enemy movements and actions only depend on the player's actions (and possibly local timer(s)). The route through the dungeons therefore consists in one part of finding the shortest path and in one part where to take damage in the most advantageous ways, while avoiding time-consuming menu trips as much as possible. In the videos demonstrating the recommended route, the value of two RAM-addresses are shown, the room number and front character's HP. The former is also shown in maps below, while the latter is provided in a spreadsheet.

Health management

Since there is no RNG in the dungeons and the execution is mostly easy to perform, a detailed route can be created with the places to take damage. The general ideas with the route presented here (and reflected in the videos below) are:

• Avoid menu trips for refilling health or swapping the front character with healthy characters in the back. A menu trip will always cost several seconds. Tanking damage everywhere saves a little time, but nowhere near enough to compensate for additional menu trips.
• Avoid additional menu navigation. There are some alternatives that have been considered, but the ones tested have cost more time than what would be gained by being allowed to take more damage:

- Combine the forced menu trip when Raistlin is moved from the front position to also cast some magic. E.g. a sleep spell against a troll to avoid taking damage.

- Combine the forced menu trips against Ember with casting some health restoring spell.

• Plan for characters to have very low HP when being killed by strong enemies, while trying to avoid the next character to take big damage.
• Come in to the fight with Verminaard with high HP to allow for a few unintentional hits without having to cast any healing spells.
• Raistlin isn't allowed to die, since his magic is required for the fight against the dragon Ember.
• Sturm deals the most damage of all characters and needs to be in front when going into the fight against Verminaard.

Is this the fastest possible route? No. You can construct a route that tanks more damage and gets to Verminaard with the bare minimum of HP. The execution of such a route requires tighter execution in a few spots, but is still doable. The Verminaard fight will also have to be performed flawlessly. The time save by pushing it to the limit this way would be around one second. For a demonstration of such a route, see the TAS.

First dungeon (Secret Path)

The following map was created with the help of https://nobusuma256.com/html/kouryaku/adddof/adddof.html. It shows the possible routes in the first dungeon to reach Pax Tharkas and the room numbers ($6485) along the red route.

The violet route is essentially equal to the yellow route (the violet is 2 frames faster). The red route is however the fastest of the three (216 frames faster in TAS conditions, although with slightly worse enemies along the way). The following video demonstrates the red route:
https://vimeo.com/473925067
Note that since Raistlin needs to be alive when facing Ember, a menu trip is required when his health gets low.

Second dungeon (Pax Tharkas)

The following map was created with the help of https://nobusuma256.com/html/kouryaku/adddof/adddof.html. It shows the possible routes in the second dungeon to reach the end bosses and the room numbers ($6485) along the red route.

The blue route is inferior to the red route because it has much tougher enemies along the way and just doesn't work with the tight health management required to avoid additional menu trips. The following video demonstrates the red route:
https://vimeo.com/477962252

Bosses

https://vimeo.com/455393933

Some notes:

• After the dialogue with Ember, buffer press the start button. This will prevent the dragon from breathing fire before your first hit connects.
• Ember can be damaged by physical attacks and a few of the magical attacks other than the magic missiles. However, the magic missiles deal by far the most damage and are an absolute must in a real-time speedrun (TAS is a slightly different story).
• Verminaard's first attack is always a high one that can be ducked under. If you do that, he becomes very aggressive when you get close though, which doesn't leave much room for connecting with your own attack.
• Subsequent attacks can be either high or low.
• Unless it wasn't already obvious, Verminaard can be manipulated to always spawn on the right side, by moving back and forth. There is a 6-frame window for manipulating him on the right side and still be able to hit him before taking any damage yourself. With a bit of practice, this can be done fairly consistently. Both audio and visual queues are helpful for this. Still, there is not a lot of room for error, so getting to Verminaard with some extra HP to allow for unintentional hits will increase the success rate to fight him without having to rely on any menu trips.
• Sturm deals by far the most damage against Verminaard, 20 damage per hit (Tanis and Riverwind do 15 damage per hit, the others even less). Since it's a fairly long fight, you therefore absolutely want Sturm as the first character.
• No magic attacks work against Verminaard, although the "dispel magic" spell blocks his magic for a few rounds, which can be helpful in a casual or marathon setting.
• While Flint and Tasslehoff are so small that they can always avoid Verminaard's magic attacks, they don't deal enough damage to make up for it (especially Tasslehoff must be avoided at all cost, since he only deals one damage per round...).