Insane Difficulty: FF6 Tenkarider's contest (accessible even to casuals) - Insane Difficulty

I have the submissions...
here's the features which won't appear in the submissions:



And now, the results...
Before that i must apologize with Lockirby2, because i gave a weird name to a key item of the task and so, when he sorted the inventory, that item disappeared due to a stupid bug of the game and so he lost some time... said that i'll consider his score like if he got the extra 10000 GP.

First - Cecil188


Second - Lockirby2



The next task will have to wait some extra time: i can't really help with that...

(PS. the score of the 2 players is in the video description of youtube)

Nice work Cecil! I didn't really have the time to optimize everything, but you did pretty much everything right from what I can tell.

I figured out that Stealing from the end bosses nets you pretty good stuff, but Locke pretty much can't be in the party for the fight if you want to defeat the encounters ASAP. Otherwise you either will have trouble healing, or Stann? encounters become somewhat longer. And removing Edgar from the main team is simply out of the question. Similar story for Gau (although I certainly didn't notice that Stone thing without the ability to see the Ice Dragon's level). The encounter fighting team can't be the one that fights Tenka Rider because it is ill-equipped to fight the enemies, and he won't be level 10 otherwise.

Overall, this challenge is probably my favorite one. I think that the Gil-score system meshes better with the puzzles than the speedruns do, IMO.

Sorry for the delay, luckily i found a bit of time for creating the new task...
This is potentially the most enigmatic task of my whole contest: prepare to pick up a piece of paper and a pen(or a text file and a keyboard XD) to figure out the task solution.
Probably this task is the one who represents most the puzzle nature of the contest, the one nearest to what i wanted to do with my tasks...

Here's the new task:

Task #7: Lost Number

Here's the link:
http://www.mediafire...ask+7+patch.rar

Place: Narshe's school for adventurers

Area of the task: From Narshe to Zozo(or maybe WoB?) ;

Enemies: A bunch of Liars (lol, the same of previous task XD) ;

Task goal: Talk to all Liars in Zozo and then try to figure out the right clock combination... the task ends when you input the hh/mm/ss combination that you think is the right one;

Rom version: 1.0(headered)
What's hacked: battle dialogues, map dialogues, some item, some chest, "something" that appears in many places;

The party takes a little rest, after the previous great battle, but now it's time to search for Terra! Locke was in search of informations among people in Narshe, until he meets Lone Wolf... a famous(?) thief.
In exchange of letting him go away, Locke gets from him some nice information:

a) First of all, there's a clock in Zozo that needs to be resetted... fixing it is a thing, but there's actually another super secret combination!!! Who manages to guess that combination will win a marvelous treasure;
b) An esper like girl felt in the top of the highest building of Zozo;

For a coincidence, both the clues takes to Zozo(Luckily for Terra), so Locke, due to his nature of thie... err... adventurer, Immediately prepares to leave Narshe, so fast that he forgets to form a party.

Now, he might have a change of heart and spend 2 minutes calling them, or maybe not... he must really desire that treasure!
There's a long way before reaching Zozo... or maybe not? After the first info he barely listened about Terra's clue, still he vaguely remembers that he mentioned a third info... something about an amazing shortcut somewhere? "whatever, sooner or later i'll get that treasure!" must have thought...
I don't know if that treasure exists for real or not, but guessing that secret combination is your goal.
So... here's some rule:


1) The task finishes when you input what you think is the secret combination, a message will say to stop recording the video, do it as soon as that message is displayed;

2) All people of Zozo, EXCEPT the merchant in the street are liars: they know the secret code, so you need talking to them... also the merchant have some useful info to share;

3) Dadaluma is a member of Zozo, so also him knows the combination: he might tell you something, but he will that ONLY during the battle, and will speak very fast too! make sure to hear that clue;

4) You HAVE to speak to all liars of the town, which means:
- Not the merchant;
- Not the guys that will be in the beginning of the city, after you find Terra;
- The guy inside the first building;
- The guy in the room with a clock... and examine the clock too;
- The guy inside the entrance of the greatest building;
- The queue of guys and the reception guy;
- Other 2 guys in the buildings which take to Dadaluma;
- Dadaluma.
15 liars in total. You don't know the code and Locke won't guess it randomly, so you are forced to talk to all the liars, Beat Dadaluma and then input the combination, if you don't talk to all of them, the task will be failed, so don't miss Dadaluma's clue, or it will be a failure;

5) No one forces you to find Terra or talk the merchant... as you wish;

6) You can't input the code before you have talked to all the liars, even because the task ends right there! if you do that, it's like you broke rule #4, even if you talk to the others later(what happens after the message tells you to stop recording must be cut out from the video) ;

7) I won't care at all if you look inside the ROM: the secret code doesn't exist in the game, and it won't trigger any event, it's written only in one text file of my computer and inside my head

8) The timer stops as soon as you examine the clock to reset: so input the combination SLOWLY, take a pause, do that in 5 minutes, 10? whatever... since the timer is stopped you don't have any need of rushing while inputing the combination, the only thing important is that, in the video, it's totally clear what combination you've chosen, nothing else.
Just to be sure, PM me the combination you chose, with the video submission;

9) The combination is REALLY hard(i think) to guess, there's also the chance that no one will guess it... it's ok that too: the submission will still be valid and the winner will be the one who stopped the timer for first; but remember: say Lockirby2 stops the timer in 3 minutes, but fails with the combination... if any other guy will guess the combination, then that guy will beat all the others, even if he took 3 hours to finish the task XD
On a side note, if more than 1 player will guess it, then it will be the time to decide who won among them;

10) Travel with anyone you want, hire Shadow if you want... but remember that Locke MUST be in the party, since he wants that treasure, do the opposite and it will be a failure;

11) Psycho Cyan bug is forbidden and, while it's allowed to die and then load the save, it's better you know that the counter of liars you've spoken to will be resetted: after you beat Dadaluma you're gonna exit the building on feet, not with a cheap warp, dying on purpose, after he speaks and so reaching in no time the clock.

PS: If you're not sure about what the merchant said, please PM me for questions, rather than skrewing the combination.


Time start: Beginning of February 21;

Time end: The end of March 21;


When you record the task, task's timer starts as soon as you load the save.
Enjoy the task!!

Tenkarider, on 20 February 2015 - 06:11 PM, said:

Now that you've said it, that's totally going to happen. >.>

One week is left, friendly reminder...

Due to some doubt, it's better to do some clarification:
___________________________________________
Example -> random guy speaks: "<statement A> (AND/OR/...) <statement B>" the liar is not lying about statements(that doesn't mean they're true for sure, it means that they are not altered from his liar nature) it means that the logic operation's result, between 2 statements, is a lie(it returns false as value)
So: (example) <statement A> (XOR) <statement B> = FALSE.
XOR is false when both the statements are true or false... which one of the 2? who knows... some logic scheme is required.
___________________________________________

Oh, lucky day: i had the time of submitting the results!

Before showing the videos, i'm gonna explain how to solve the logic puzzle and discover the secret code... here's the description of all relevant sentences:
____________________________________________________
The merchant - "Yeah, i know... it's crazy to deal with statements logic, but those liars are used to be hackers. when they use logic operators, the result of expression is ALWAYS false. except that, what they say is not a lie, you follow me?"

What it means - when you talk to a liar and he use a logic operator, like (AND), most of the times there will be 2 statements, one at the left and one at the right of the operator... when that happens they won't directly lie on the sentence: the result of all logic operations will ALWAYS be false instead.
Since you already know that it's false the value, then you'll have to do reverse engineering on the 2 statements, like in this way:
You have (XOR) as operator -> XOR is false in 2 cases:
- Both the statements are true;
- Both the statements are false.
then you have to test if other infos match with the first case or the second one of the XOR sentence, and so on...
___________________________________________________

Liars:
- "You have to calculate logic operators between " ", the ones between < > are just a part of the text"

meaning -> no logic operators? then it's just a lie to reverse: logic operators with
" " are just part of the text, the ones with <> have to be calculated;

- Dadaluma whistles! "not" logic operator is counted like the others, so the
statements with "not" aren't lies

meaning -> no operators, so just to reverse -> NOT operator is different from the others, so the statements with NOT are lies that will be reversed both from the NOT and both from the fact is a standard lie;

- "0:50 statements are redundant"

meaning -> it's possible to find redundant infos, as you collect all sentences and match the clues, but since this is a lie, then that won't happen for 0:50 statements... in other words if you'll find two 0:50 statements, then one will talk about seconds and the other about minutes;

Hours related clues:
- "It's a 2 digits number hour."

meaning -> just a lie: hours won't be 10:00 and 12:00 for sure;

- "It isn't 2:00_ <NAND> i'm talking about hour"

meaning -> NAND is false when both the statements are true, so that's an hour clue and it's not 2:00;

- "It's 4:00_ <OR> i'm talking about minutes"

meaning -> or is false when both the statements are false, so they're not minutes(quite obvious, 4:00 could be only an hour) and it's not 4:00;

- "About "binary" guy_ hour is based on the number of 1 of the actual number"

meaning -> there's a guy that express the number he's talking about in binary digits, using 8 digits, since it's a lie, it won't be the actual number the one to consider(the actual number is affected from NOT operator, so you're gonna consider it unmodified... 11110101 to be precise), then you'll have to count all "1" digits, which will be 6, like the hour of this statement... anyway it's a lie, so it's not 6:00

-> only 8:00 is still valid among hours, and that the correct one.
_______________

Minutes related clues:

- "It's 0:20_ <XOR> i'm talking about seconds"

meaning -> XOR is false when both the statements are true or false, so it might mean one of those 2 possibilities:
- seconds are 0:20;
- minutes are not 0:20.
not enough clues at the moment, let's skip if for the moment...

- <NOT> minutes aren't 0:30

meaning -> NOT isn't like the others operators, so the sentence is a lie that will be reversed once more from the NOT -> in other words it means that minutes aren't 0:30 (PS. i believe Cecil188 stumbled here... tricked from Dadaluma?)

- "It isn't 0:50_ <NOR> i'm talking about minutes"

meaning -> NOR is false in all cases, except when both the sentences are false... to we might have 3 possibilities here.
Not enough clues... even this one will have to be skipped, for now.

- Minutes? <NOT> 11110101

meaning -> it's a lie, besides the NOT will reverse the binary number:
11110101 -> 00001010 -- binary number 1010 is 10 in decimal, so minutes are not 0:10

_______________
Seconds related clues:

- "Seconds are 0:10 <OR> Seconds are 0:50"

meaning -> OR is false when both the statements are false, so... seconds are not 0:10 or 0:50, besides this is for sure a 0:50 statements, NOR cannot have the first statement true and the second one false, or we'll have a 0:50 redundant statement

- Seconds? It's 0:40

meaning -> easy... it's a lie, so it's not 0:40

- It's 0:20_ <AND> i'm talking about seconds

meaning -> AND is false in 3 cases:
- both statements are false;
- one is true and the other is false;
- like the one above, but the opposite.
This one is tricky, so i'll explain the others before;

- "one of "and" guy statements is true, the other is false_ <NOT XOR> both "xor" guy statements are true"

meaning -> Even if there's a NOT, the operation is NOT XOR, so it's like the other operators... and it's false only when one statement is true and the other is false... or the opposite.
there's only one guy who uses AND, the same for XOR...
________________________

Ok, now we have need of doing some attempt in guessing which is the right choice for all the sentences with more that one possibility... let's collect what's left to discover:
Still valid numbers:
- Minutes -> 0:20, 0:40, 0:50;
- Seconds -> 0:20, 0:30
XOR:
- Both true -> seconds are 0:20
- Both false -> minutes are not 0:20
NOR:
- first false, second true -> minutes are 0:50
- both true -> minutes are not 0:50
AND:
- both false -> minutes are not 0:20
- first true, second false -> minutes are 0:20
- first false, second true -> seconds are not 0:20
NOT XOR:
- first true, second false -> and guy statements are not both false
xor guy statements are both false;
- first false, second true -> and guy statements are both false
xor guy statements are both true.
__________________________
Let's start from XOR... say the statements are both true:
- seconds will be 0:20
in this case NOT XOR must have the first false and the second true:
-> that means AND statements are both false, which means minutes are not 0:20.

In the case XOR statements are both false:
- minutes are not 0:20 (Lockirby2 stumbled here: in all the cases it's always said that minutes are not 0:20, no matter what.)
in this case NOT XOR must have the first statement true and the second false:
-> that means AND statements can be one true and one false, or the opposite...
- if AND first statement is true and the other false, then minutes are 0:20, but that
cannot be, we already declared minutes are not 0:20, so we have to choose the other case
(PS. if you start from AND to guess the others, when you'll consider this option, there won't be any way to choose another route, behause NOT XOR statements will have to be both false, so AND statements will NEVER be the first true and the second false)
- then AND first statement will be false and the second true, which means seconds are not 0:20 -> so seconds are 0:30(because it's the only one still valid).
__________________________

Maybe i missed some detail... anyway, now few options are left:
1) seconds are 0:20, minutes can be 0:40 or 0:50;
2) seconds are not 0:20 -> seconds are 0:30, minutes are 0:40 or 0:50.

So... which is the right choice among minutes and seconds? NOR condition doesn't have many bounds, and the choice among seconds looks quite arbitrary...
The answer is... the most accurate one:
- If you decide 0:20 seconds is the correct one, then you'll leave an hole... no one talks about 0:30 seconds, you cannot demonstrate in both directions that seconds are correct;
- If you choose seconds are not 0:20, then all seconds options will be eliminated, and seconds will be 0:30 without any doubt, like we did with the hours.

Let's solve finally the NOR sentence, if you decide minutes are 0:50 you'll leave an hole for 0:40 minutes choice, if minutes aren't 0:50, then the only option will be 0:40.

The answer is... 8:40:30

_____________________________________

In my video i'll show the correct input and some feature of the task:

On a side note i tried some combination, like quitting from Zozo by story event... definitively not better than doing that on your own.


Now the players:

First position -> Lockirby2(wrong combination)


Second position -> Cecil188(wrong combination)




Btw i won't have the same luck for the next task release: it will take some time before i'll have some time to even start it

This time i exaggerated a bit... but it was worth of it

Here's the new task:

Task #8: The best show ever!!!

Here's the link:
http://www.mediafire...patch+FIXED.rar


Place: WoB, next to Opera House;

Area of the task: Jidoor-Opera House area;

Enemies: Rats and Ultros;

Task goal: Doing a performance on the stage with Locke, Edgar and Gau... good enough to allow you at least to stop the public from asking back the money they paid for the ticket (get at least rank D)

Rom version: 1.0(headered)
What's hacked: battle dialogues, map dialogues, some item, some treasure, monster AI, events, background, spells, music, custom event command;


A disaster happened: Celes started to sing!!! what's the matter? well, she's a general... not some opera's floozy. Besides looks like she's the only one "with trousers" there... you'll understand what i mean when you'll play it.
To make a long story short, the Impresario gave you just one last chance to play the scene as Maria... Celes will try her best to not being definitively kicked out from Opera House, at least.
It's up to Locke to save the day... for real: he also bought in Jidoor some "firework" at a cheap price... he thought they might be handy.
Sabin really doesn't care at all about opera; Cyan like much more to read poems, rather that watching opera, just don't count on them: they won't come(so it's forbidden to swap them in Narshe)
On the other side Edgar loves opera and Gau likes songs, so it's a deal.

Guess what? yup, Ultros will try to ruin an opera, or maybe not? he actually wanna toss the weight on Celes, so that she'll finally stop her voice, but his goal is actually another one: he's just pretending of doing that, he just want show his inner talent as actor... as bad guy role.
Despite that he actually hides a real talent and he's only waiting you to drag you in the stage and fight.

The funny thing is that you share the same goal(save the day), but you don't even know that...
So you have to reach Ultros, fall and fight him on the stage: adding the lame performance to the whole mess done from Locke and Ultros, the result is that the public is heavily disappointed and ready to go away, unless the fight turns into some unexpected masterpiece... now i'll explain details about the task:

1) WoB area monsters are cleaned out from the hack: don't search for a fight, while that won't gonna happen, if you go in some cave or other enemy areas, the task won't be valid;
2) If you don't enter immediately inside Opera House, then the only thing that you're allowed to do is doing shopping in Jidoor(if you enter in any other town, the task won't be valid)
3) Take your time, buy what you have to and prepare your build: the timer will start only when you enter inside Opera House(still you have to record also what you do before you enter)
4) Rats are good for some quick grind: remember that;
5) In any case the real thing is the battle on the stage: You have to impress the public and perform some special stunt and/or special effect.
Stuff like this might be good for entertain the public:
- Endure the fight against Ultros, he has 10 forms + ???, the stage master will do the rest with lights and music choices, don't worry about that(each time a new form will spawn, the score will raise) ;
- Your fireworks works perfecty here... while they are just beautiful to watch, they're not designed to harm the target. The public will love them, but don't use them too much often, or they might get sick of them... (max once of each firework item, until the next form won't show) ;
- Everybody love fiction... just kicking the ass of the enemy might result less enjoyable than winning, after risking of being defeated from the bad guy, you know what i mean, right? still Locke is considered the hero: it's not great to see the hero lying on the ground... maybe that fits better for comrades(have one ally wounded; have 2 allies wounded, except Locke)
PS. that won't work more that once;
- Marvelous attacks like Espers or Desperations, you'll get score from any of them;
- And obviously The finishing strike: according on how you beat Ultros, you'll get an essential piece of score here... both the situation and the attack are factors:
_________________________
- is the attacker in near death status?
- is Locke the last one still able to fight?
- Did you use a Desperation as last strike?
- Have you mixed the ones above?
_________________________

- ???

PS. if public starts to getting bored, you're gonna lose some point, so try to not make pass too much time since the last time you got some extra point.


6) According to your performances, you'll get score and finally a rank, from D to S:

- less than 15 points: Public goes away -> task failed;
- 15-29 points: rank D ;
- 30-44 points: rank C ;
- 45-59 points: rank B ;
- 60-74 points: rank A ;
- 75-78 points: rank S.

It's not just an immaginary counter to keep in mind: this battle, due to the custom event command i created, leads to 7 different reactions from the event(one is gameover, one is task fail and the last 5 ones are the ranks related to your score)

7) You're allowed to escape, against Ultros: not really much epic but still better than fail the task... you'll save your current score and be ranked according to it.


PS. Task Manager is VERY hard to find this time.


Time start: Beginning of April 10;

Time end: The end of May 10;


When you record the task, task's timer starts as soon as you enter inside Opera House.
Enjoy the task!!

Fixed an exploit in Ultros AI script...
Download this one: (btw old links will be replaced)
http://www.mediafire...patch+FIXED.rar

Sorry for the problem.

No, it's not dead the contest XD now it can continue again, sorry for the trouble... 2 more weeks before the timer stops.

Here's the result: (just one player)

First position -> Cecil188 (score = 35)


Note: actually some sharp watcher might notice that after each form he gets some score appearently for no reason(even just attack) : that's due to a really hateful couple of bugs, which are related to monster AI command FC 03 and FC 02, counters used for specific spells and items, after you meet their conditions, that counter will be triggered in the same way of FC 05(counter all) unless i hit with another spell item... hopefully i'll manage to solve that bug on my own one day.

PS. those are all ranks available for the task:


You can also notice in this video that the battle against Ultros starts in a different way: Cecil188 turned off the lights in the Opera stage, so the background is dark, if you don't do that, the light will stay turned on and you'll lose score due to the mess that happened when the party and Ultros fell from above, this thing is handled from a battle variable.

Another thing to mention is that in this task you can witness how my custom event command A3 works: since i can use it for calculate ranges of battle variable values, in that way i can use just 5-6 checks for handle all outcomes of the battle due to gathered score, instead of 256 checks with all 8 bit combinations of a byte.
Using a battle variable in this way it's possible to have 6 different outcomes from a battle, instead of 1 or 2 like in vanilla(win or lose in general)