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FE12 Speedrunning


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I'm working on a speedrun of FE12, normal mode classic difficulty. Technically casual would be faster but it just feels sloppy letting units die knowing fully well you'll get them back the very next chapter, and cheapens a lot of the strategy in the game. I'm also going for the good ending since beating the game in C20 after fighting Harden is really lame. Getting all the star shards is very time consuming, but very much worth it.

I haven't been playing this game that long, in fact I've only completed the game twice, so I have a lot of questions, some based on gameplay and others based on stylistic choices.

-Would you guys be opposed to using DLC to get a faster time? Maturity drop on Marth or MU and rainbow potions would make the run a lot easier, especially in the earlygame. Personally, I'm all for anything that reduces the amount of RNG I have to deal with in a single segment run.

-Since customizing MU counts against your in-game time, I just go with the defaults. Anyone particularly opposed to this? Having an MU named Chris is kind of lame but a necessary evil I guess.

-How would you feel about making enemy phase skips and just enemy movement skips separate categories? Being able to skip enemy phase has an enormous effect on speedrun strategy, such as avoiding player phase attacks to minimize the number of level-up screens ever seen. At the moment I am using enemy phase skip but am interested in both approaches.

-What's the best way to go about reclassing MU, and various other key units? Generally I have MU as a cavalier, then switch to a DracoKnight upon promotion, and only switch back to Paladin in bow-heavy maps. I noticed MagicBarrier reclassing his MU to berzerker in his reverse lunatic playthrough, any particular reason he does that? He also mentioned swordmaster being better than hero in one of his video descriptions, why is that?

-Since you can get a lot of arms scrolls throughout the run, and since DracoKnights can use axes, is it worth getting MU from E axes to B or A rank?

-My strategy for dealing with Gharnef is to recruit Katarina, then give her 3 spirit dusts & 2 speedwings, some of which is bought in the C21 secret shop. This allows her to ORKO with starlight, and thus 1 turn the map with 2 warps. Is there perhaps a better way of handling Gharnef I'm not aware of? Speaking of warps:

-Almost every map I warpskip requires 2 warps because Marth doesn't have enough def to survive an enemy phase, especially when Glower sorcerors are in range. Is there some clever way around this? I can load 3 dracoshields & seraph robes onto Marth after visiting the C21 secret shop, but that's already very late into the game. There are also some maps that require 3 warps to 1 turn because the throne is hidden until I open a door.

-How would you allocate funds for weapons & forges? Currently I'm planning the following (roughly):

+2 mt rapier (Chapter 1)

+4 mt steel sword (Chapter 2, for Marth)

Buy a couple steel lances & javelins (Chapter 3)

Buy 3 dragonpikes & wyrmslayers in the secret shop, some of which will get +2 Mt forged (Chapter 11)

Buy a bunch of stat boosters in the secred shop (Chapter 21)

I don't really need to buy silver lances since so many are dropped throughout the game, same goes for pure water and door keys. On my last test run funds were really tight, so I plan to thief staff for a couple Bullion (L)s.

-How does the DS touchscreen compare to using the regular controls? Since I am playing on emulator I am using a USB gamepad to control everything.

-How much is known about the game's RNG? I know it's based on the clock in some way.

That's all I can think of for now. I have a set of notes I update frequently here. The beginning part in normal font are what I've planned out move by move up until chapter 6. The remaining text in green are more general observations from two test runs, stuff like what each village contains and when reinforcements show up.

I'll try and get some videos up soon so you can give me some more meaningful feedback. So far I've managed to beat all 8 prologue chapters in ~5:30 and estimate a full run would take about an hour.

Edited by Vykan_12
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-How would you feel about making enemy phase skips and just enemy movement skips separate categories? Being able to skip enemy phase has an enormous effect on speedrun strategy, such as avoiding player phase attacks to minimize the number of level-up screens ever seen. At the moment I am using enemy phase skip but am interested in both approaches.

I don't think you should separate them into different categories. In the end, regardless of which parts of EP you skip, it's still the exact same game (even if the strategies would change a bit), just run it as Any% (Good Ending) or something and pick the fastest options available.

Never played FE 12, so can't give input on the other stuff. Good luck with the runs though.

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-Since you can get a lot of arms scrolls throughout the run, and since DracoKnights can use axes, is it worth getting MU from E axes to B or A rank?

Yes, if you want to use Hauteclare. It has the highest might in the game. Otherwise no!

-My strategy for dealing with Gharnef is to recruit Katarina, then give her 3 spirit dusts & 2 speedwings, some of which is bought in the C21 secret shop. This allows her to ORKO with starlight, and thus 1 turn the map with 2 warps. Is there perhaps a better way of handling Gharnef I'm not aware of? Speaking of warps:

I recommend to give Katharina magic shield and / or using pure water or talisman, because her resistance is not that good.

-How would you allocate funds for weapons & forges? Currently I'm planning the following (roughly):

+2 mt rapier (Chapter 1)

+4 mt steel sword (Chapter 2, for Marth)

Buy a couple steel lances & javelins (Chapter 3)

Buy 3 dragonpikes & wyrmslayers in the secret shop, some of which will get +2 Mt forged (Chapter 11)

Buy a bunch of stat boosters in the secred shop (Chapter 21)

To buy range weapons always is a good idea. I do not forge that much in the beginning, if I play on normal mode. I recommend to forge a Levin Sword (if you get) for Marth to counter attacks by mages.

I don't really need to buy silver lances since so many are dropped throughout the game, same goes for pure water and door keys. On my last test run funds were really tight, so I plan to thief staff for a couple Bullion (L)s.

Good idea.

-How much is known about the game's RNG? I know it's based on the clock in some way.

The RNG is pretty standard compared to other FE parts I have played.

I have only played the JP version of FE12 (I do not get an emulator) twice and have not done a speed run yet, so I could answer only a few of your questions. Hope that helps a little bit.

Edited by MisterIceTeaPeach
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Chapter        Turns    Rescue    Warp    Again    Hammerne    Thief    why

1        6    -    -    -    -    -

2        6    -    -    -    -    -

3        14    -    -    -    -    -

3x        6    -    -    -    -    -

4        3    1    -    -    -    -    Standard

5        9    1    -    -    -    -    Hammerne

6        6    -    -    -    -    -

6x        2    -    -    -    -    -

7        5    -    -    -    -    -

8        3    -    -    -    -    -

9        5    1    -    -    -    -    Standard

10        2    -    -    -    -    2    Silence & bullion

10x        1    -    -    -    -    -

11        6    1    -    -    -    -     Desert

12        5    -    -    -    1    -    On Rescue

13        4    -    -    -    -    -

13x        1?    -    -    -    -    -    

14        4    1    -    -    -    1    Standard and again staff

15        1    2    1    -    -    -    Rescue Chain

16        2    -    1    -    -    1    Chests and julian warp chests

16x 1 -    -    -    -

17        4    -    -    -    -    -

18        2    1    -    -    -    -    Standard

19        1    2    1    -    1    -    1 turn Rescuechain, Hammerne Rescue

20        1    2    2    -    -    1    Rescuechain + hardinkill    again

20x        4    -    -    -    -    -

21        1    4 3 1    1    1    - 1 Turn of the michalis map, Hammerne warp

22        4    -    1    2    1    -    4 Turn strat    

23        2    1    1    2    -    -    2 Turn strat

24        2    -    -    -    -    -

UL:        113 1 4 1    0    0

This was for a draft, Of course, you cannot warpskip in a draft, so the uses will be very different, however, it does give a nice indication of what to do where. Also, the thief staff use here is the most optimal.

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-Would you guys be opposed to using DLC to get a faster time? Maturity drop on Marth or MU and rainbow potions would make the run a lot easier, especially in the earlygame. Personally, I'm all for anything that reduces the amount of RNG I have to deal with in a single segment run.

I agree, although I could see two categories counting, one being a psuedo-NG+ which has all rewards from beating Lunatic unlocked (extended battle preparations shop, reclass limit removed) and the DLC bonus data available (bond/maturity/rainbow potions), and another which is a fresh file run, with nothing unlocked.

-Since customizing MU counts against your in-game time, I just go with the defaults. Anyone particularly opposed to this? Having an MU named Chris is kind of lame but a necessary evil I guess.

Indykenobi, the WR holder for FE13, starts his timer right after the character selection, not before (or he makes the character and saves before prologue, and resets, something like that). So there's something of a precedent for doing that. The only thing that really should be noted, I guess, is that your choice of past/present/future actually matter since they affect stats (I assume you knew that, but if not, the main site has the details).

-How would you feel about making enemy phase skips and just enemy movement skips separate categories? Being able to skip enemy phase has an enormous effect on speedrun strategy, such as avoiding player phase attacks to minimize the number of level-up screens ever seen. At the moment I am using enemy phase skip but am interested in both approaches.

While there would be differences, I don't think they'd be significant enough to warrant being different categories. Sadly, if this game is speedrun, enemy phase skip pretty much has to be turned on unless a community decision is made to not use it.

-My strategy for dealing with Gharnef is to recruit Katarina, then give her 3 spirit dusts & 2 speedwings, some of which is bought in the C21 secret shop. This allows her to ORKO with starlight, and thus 1 turn the map with 2 warps. Is there perhaps a better way of handling Gharnef I'm not aware of?

A possibility I mentioned before is warping someone up to lure him away. Gharnef moves from his throne, so he can be avoided if you don't want to fight him. This has a few obvious implications though - you don't get Falchion (I don't know how much that matters, since you are on Normal), you don't need to get Starlight, and you have to wait through an enemy phase and possibly lose a unit. It might well be a worse option, but it's a possibility, maybe.

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Your google doc doesn't mention the trick to finding the real Roro in chapter 10x, so I am not sure if you're aware of it.
Umm... I think you put the cursor on one of the regular Roro's and hit L until the cursor moves to one of the top three Roro's. The real Roro is in the first position of the enemy list and you use L to cycle through the list until it returns to the top. So this might help save some time... err, maybe?

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he'll have to do that if he's planning an SS, but if he's doing segmented, he can just keep going after one of the corner legions until it happens to be the right one.

it would be terrible in an SS if the real one happens to be in the center, though.

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I recommend going through the pain of watching my H2 warpskip LTC playthrough. I got 107 turns, which is the minimum barring massive RNG abuse in Prologue 8. I bet some of those warpskip strats will be the same for normal mode and it should help because i used every staff and 1 turned every lategame map barring 20x (which should be easier and probably 2 turnable in normal mode). Good luck with the run. Looking forward to it!

Edited by PKL
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I recorded Prologue to Chapter 8 with a time of 18:58 so far. Each chapter averages 1-2 minutes and I'm surprised the run can manage to be this fast-paced before warp even shows up. Links are below and I included the playlist link in the original post of the thread.

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 3x

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 6x

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

It looks like I'm going to have to devote one hammerne use to the rescue staff, although I should manage enough warps off the remaining 2 hammerne charges. Depending on how chapters 11-14 go, I'm not even sure I have to invest that much in Palla since MU is managing fine on his own so far.

For chapter 9, I haven't looked into it in great detail but I'm undecided as to whether I want to recruit Etzel or not. He could be really useful in C11 if the mag user who rescues Marth ever gets attacked along the way.

I recommend going through the pain of watching my H2 warpskip LTC playthrough.

I watched through them all and it gave me some great ideas, particularly that it was viable to skip Julian. I have a set of notes regarding that below in the spoiler tag.

========

Chapter 1

========

Cecille reclassed to a Peg is kind of interesting

Actually killed Lorenz for exp. Could do the same with Marth since I forge rapier in prep.

========

Chapter 3

========

He skipped Julian!?!

========

Chapter 5

========

Dracoknight Sirius can out-range the ballista boss

Buys a lot of door keys to make up for no thieves

========

Chapter 6

========

Marth gets Libra (and possibly barrier) then gets rescue staffed. Bullion (L) is definitely getting skipped.

Arran reclassed to sage/wtv will have 1 more move than your other healers.

LTC recruits Samto with Ogma

With 2 PP kills you can rescue staff Marth and avoid the onslaught of armors!

========

Chapter 7

========

Dracoknights just wreck this map

The heroes were not attacked

========

Chapter 8

========

He got Palla to ORKO Astram!

Rescue staff WAS NOT used on Marth

========

Chapter 9

========

Thief staff used on boots, allows Marth to use it on turn 1!

Also thief staffed Capricorn

If Feena follows Marth to the Minerva village, can move Marth, dance, then rescue staff him for a same-turn seize

========

Chapter 9

========

Map is actually trivial to 2 turn, no need to use rescue staff

LTC didn’t thief staff anything

=========

Chapter 11

=========

Recruits Jake then has him visit the secret shop after a trade (2nd time I’ve seen this)

Etzel works towards the throne. On the last turn, moves twice thanks to again staff, rescues Marth, same-turn seize. Perhaps it’s worth recruiting Etzel after all? Could use Arran instead if he never gets attacked.

=========

Chapter 12

=========

Tricked Darros into attacking Palla at 1-range (can this be done consistently?)

==========

Chapter 13x

==========

Marth can acquire Iote’s Shield in 2 turns, save a thief staff use. Actually, do you even need the Iote’s Shield when warpskipping? Map can also be 2 turned overall.

=========

Chapter 14

=========

Fights to get the Bullion (L) from the thief before warpskipping

=========

Chapter 15

=========

A dracoknight can reach the boss in 1 turn, no need to warp!

Can also recruit Abel & seize in the same action, although this seems pointless (free silver lance?)

=========

Chapter 16

=========

A dracoknight can open the throne room door in 1 turn, the rest is straightforward

=========

Chapter 17

=========

Can acquire the Nosferatu in 1 turn

Again staff is seeing a lot of use

=========

Chapter 18

=========

N/A

=========

Chapter 19

=========

Dance a dracoknight and you can reach the boss without warp

=========

Chapter 20

=========

Boss was killed with a Parthia crit, guess I have options outside of Marth using the Master Sword

Can acquire the master key in 1 turn

==========

Chapter 20x

==========

I can cut turns here easily

========

Endgame

========

Best strat I’ve seen so far. Minerva and Sirius each recruit a healer while killing another.

===========

Overall notes

===========

Surprised how much the again staff is used considering the warp has more uses and should therefore get all the hammerne charges (6 + 6 + 6 + 7 = 25 warps in total)

The main difference between speedrunning and LTC is that I won't have time to get anyone from C to B rank staves, which means no again staff. All that changes is having to use the warp staff more often.

Edited by Vykan_12
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Out of curiosity, Why are you doing this on the English version? Doesn't using a translation hack invalidate it from being published on the TASvideos website? Or do you not plan to do that? (this is a TAS as opposed to a normal speedrun that happens to be on an emulator, Right?)

Edited by sirmola
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Out of curiosity, Why are you doing this on the English version? Doesn't using a translation hack invalidate it from being published on the TASvideos website? Or do you not plan to do that? (this is a TAS as opposed to a normal speedrun that happens to be on an emulator, Right?)

Vykan human TAS confirmed.

This isn't a TAS, English is being used I assume because it's more comfortable. AFAIK it doesn't change anything except text. If Vykan wants the run published anywhere (likely SDA), he'll need a Japanese physical copy anyway, but for just trying to get a good run, English translation should be fine.

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Vykan human TAS confirmed.

This isn't a TAS, English is being used I assume because it's more comfortable. AFAIK it doesn't change anything except text. If Vykan wants the run published anywhere (likely SDA), he'll need a Japanese physical copy anyway, but for just trying to get a good run, English translation should be fine.

Got it. The only difference that i know of would be RNG manipulation differences due to different text length and RNG being based on the clock, but this obviously only applies in a TAS context.(also actual length of text adding a few minutes in the English version, but people account for that)

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Got it. The only difference that i know of would be RNG manipulation differences due to different text length and RNG being based on the clock, but this obviously only applies in a TAS context.(also actual length of text adding a few minutes in the English version, but people account for that)

Yeah, that's possible, but I dunno how the FE12 RNG works. It might actually not be any different on the translation patch. As for extra time, I don't think there's much (if any) text that won't be skipped, so that shouldn't matter for time difference. It's probably seconds different at most.

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The main difference between speedrunning and LTC is that I won't have time to get anyone from C to B rank staves, which means no again staff. All that changes is having to use the warp staff more often.

If you plan on using Hammerne, you'll use Malliesia/Malicia/Chapter 1 staff chick. She starts with C staves (that's 75 WEXP to her name). If she promotes to Bishop, she should have base 105 staff WEXP. To reach B, she'll need to reach 135 WEXP, or 15 staff uses. I think it's doable, seeing that rescue/warp are pretty important.

(someone correct me if I screwed up my math)

EDIT: If level is a huge issue, Yumina comes in at level 4 in Chapter 4/5 (don't remember which) with the same amount of WEXP, but exchanges Hammerne usage.

Edited by eclipse
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I suppose I should clarify a few things. The final run shall be a single segment real-time run of normal mode, no DLC or lunatic clear bonuses (like full male reclassing). It's done on an english patch on emulator using a USB gamepad for controls so it wouldn't set any "official" records. For that I'd have to buy a DS and a Japanese cartridge, which would be a huge pain and barely worth it. I might have a crack at TASing the game too if I can fully figure out how the RNG works.

If you plan on using Hammerne, you'll use Malliesia/Malicia/Chapter 1 staff chick. She starts with C staves (that's 75 WEXP to her name). If she promotes to Bishop, she should have base 105 staff WEXP. To reach B, she'll need to reach 135 WEXP, or 15 staff uses. I think it's doable, seeing that rescue/warp are pretty important.

(someone correct me if I screwed up my math)

EDIT: If level is a huge issue, Yumina comes in at level 4 in Chapter 4/5 (don't remember which) with the same amount of WEXP, but exchanges Hammerne usage.

Hmm, that's more plausible than I thought, didn't take into consideration the staff rank boos from promotion. The combination of warp, rescue, thief and barrier should easily amount to over 15 uses, although sometimes I need multiple staff users in the same map playing different roles. I'd actually be more worried about getting Yumina 6 level-ups in order to promote her in time. It seems warp, rescue and thief each give 50 exp, minus a small deduction as levels increase, up to 5 once level 18 is reached. 13 staff users would give 6.5 levels, more than enough to cover the gradual exp degradation factor.

Yeah, guess it's feasible after all. Way to complicate my life with more planning decisions.

Also, does anyone know if it's possible to 2 turn C10 without using rescue? I could only manage a 3 turn since Feena has trouble crossing water.

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2439b3c40fac8dffa24d839833d5dcd6.png

don't you just put marth on the water tile on turn 1, and dance him across the river?

This is assuming you gave him the boots, which i'm sure is required.

Edited by General Horace
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It's worth noting in that chapter, I suppose, that Elleren moves on classic and not on casual, and that means you should be able to lure him out of the way on Classic. So Classic might even be the faster difficulty, maybe.

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Couple new videos.

Prologue-VIII New Strat

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 10x

Chapter 11

I also made a lot of minor adjustments to my previous strats such as selling Arran's Bullion in C2 in order to be able to afford door keys in C5. I also devised an alternate strat in C6 using Yumina instead of Bishop!Sirius which costs a turn but makes the base much simpler. I'll be sure to record that next time.

I must say, this game is ridiculously fast paced, which makes it very stressful to speedrun. There are no breaks whatsoever to have time to think or relax other than acquiring a star shard. Item management is also a nightmare since you only have 5 slots instead of Radiant Dawn's 7, enemies are constantly dropping items and a couple slots are lost for things like vulneraries, star shards, pure water, silver/vip card, etc.

I'm glad I've almost reached the warpskip portion of the game because this game is very challenging to rout. It's almost as though the enemies are spaced out in such a way as to prevent you from using cheap strats, and it exponentially increases the number of possibilities to consider just in how you space your own units.

I'm a bit stuck on chapter 12 since Marth gets ambushed by 3 wyverns and Darros' posse of enemies. The strat I've worked out so far is to give MU 2 turns to clear the top-middle of the map before moving Marth, and have Palla take out the Pisces dragon so MU can take on the top-left portion of the map with Marth. But it's easier said than done when both Marth and Palla are 3HKOed by pretty much everything on the map. I actually have to give Marth, MU AND Palla a specific star shard (+2 spd, str and def, respectively) to make the strat work.

It's worth noting in that chapter, I suppose, that Elleren moves on classic and not on casual, and that means you should be able to lure him out of the way on Classic. So Classic might even be the faster difficulty, maybe.

It turns out that it's faster to kill Elrean than to recruit him since you don't have to bother with the base at all to prepare Wendell.

Edited by Vykan_12
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It turns out that it's faster to kill Elrean than to recruit him since you don't have to bother with the base at all to prepare Wendell.

Well, I never said recruit him. Just move Merric one space and let Elleran move off the throne. But yeah if killing him is quicker, no point even doing that.

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The test run is finished, check the OP for the playlist link. The sum of the video times comes out to roughly 39 minutes, so I'd expect an optimized run to achieve a time a little under 45 minutes since I used savestates to iron out mistakes in the test videos.

Here are some notes I made about resource allocation:

============

Stat Milestones

============

Prologue-VIII: MU 12 def (lv ?) [could possibly manage with 11 def]

Chapter 3: MU 13 str (lv 14.78)

Chapter 5: MU 14 str (lv ?)

Chapter 6: MU 15 str before promoting (lv 18.34)

Chapter 8: MU 20 str, 19 def (lv --/4.33)

Chapter 12: MU 21 def (lv --/11.73)

Note: A lot of stat milestones missing

==============================

Supplies needed/ Resource Allocation

==============================

2 door keys (C17 and C22)

Thief staff usage: Boots & Star Shard (C9), Again staff (C14), Bullion (L) (C16), Again Staff (C20)

Hammerne usage: 1 rescue, 2 warp

Rescue usage: C4, C5, C6, C7 (optional), C9, C11, C14, Endgame x2 [9 uses total]

Warp & again staff usage should be fine

Funds

Revenue:

Initial funds: 10000g

C1 Bullion (S): 5000g

C4 Bullion (S): 5000g

C7 Bullion (S): 5000g

C14 Bullion (L): 10000g

C16 Bullion (L): 10000g

Total: 45000g

Expenses:

+2 Mt rapier: 2240g

+4 Mt steel sword: 4812g

1 steel lance & 2 javelins: 2480g

Door keys: 600g

+3 Mt & + 10 hit wyrmslayer: 6000g

+3 Mt & + 10 hit javelin x 2: 3750g

+2 Mt silver lance: 4400g

+4 Mt silver sword: 11000g

Total: 39032g

My main concern for single segment runs is that MU can't even be slightly below average on str or def at many key points in the game. My other concern is hitrates, as there are a lot of crucial attacks from my units that only yield an 85ish display hit. The str & hit issue I could actually get around by making more forges in earlygame. Since I managed the rout with only 1 again staff, that frees up a thief staff to acquire a bullion (L) in chapter 10. There are a couple other minor planning mistakes to iron out such as giving Palla a silver lance, only to have her give it back to convoy, unused, but I'll be sure to correct those.

I'll probably need a solid week of practice before attempting full-game runs since the game's memorization burden is insane.

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