Donkey Kong Forum
Donkey Kong Strategy => Basic Donkey Kong Strategy => Topic started by: homerwannabee on February 27, 2013, 05:42:29 pm
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OK, after try after try after try after try....etc, you get the picture I STILL occasionally get nailed just from going from safe spot to safe spot on the elevator stage. No, I am not talking about getting from the yellow safe spot to the end of the board. I am talking about getting from the initial safe spot on the top girder to the yellow safe spot. So far I go by sense of feel. I think it has something to do with first short spring than long spring or something to that effect, but I am not 100 percent. So please go into as much detail as possible. Like when you start going from safe spot to safe spot, and what exactly should I be looking for?
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Hey George, another good topic.
The timing necessary to run from the right side to the left side is not nearly as precise as the final move up the ladder, but on Level 4+ you can STILL get whacked if you do it wrong and a bad combo of springs occurs.
The short answer is that you want to wait for a short or at least a medium / short spring to come your way before dashing to the left -- this gives you a chance to begin your move earlier and be positioned closer to Pauline's ladder as the spring passes over your head. One tip here is that the first safe spot is at the top of the ladder, but it ALSO includes about one step to the left. I used to notice that Dave probably takes the most advantage of this, taking a large step to the left and stopping before looking at the springs. This is another thing that you should use a save state for -- position yourself at different places one pixel at a time and truely learn where the safe spots are more precisely. But, I'll say that you can easily take a step left and stop in a position that puts the right edge of Jumpman's body tangent to the left edge of the ladder which you just climbed and you'll definitely still be safe.
From there, you can begin running about half way to Pauline's ladder before a short spring bounces over your head -- if you get this good of a Jump and you began on a short spring, you will ALWAYS make it to the 2nd safe spot, there will never be any need to retreat. However, if you get aggressive and try going on a long spring or if you feel like you got a terrible jump, you can technically "retreat" back to the first safe spot if you spot another short spring coming and you're afraid you won't make it -- you don't usually see players doing this because if you get even a reasonably decent jump you won't have to retreat, but it's always an option.
The key, just like with the final approach, is getting a good jump -- and many novice / intermediate level players actually play it a little too safe by avoiding contact with the spring in both cases. Remember that if the bottom of a spring bounces up and hits you in the face, you generally survive because of how the collision detection works so you need to learn to take advantage of this and get better jumps in both directions.
(Since this is the Basic Strategy, I'll leave it there for this topic, but in general I now firmly believe that "timing" a "jump" in either direction is the vastly inferior approach to the Elevator screens -- I personally use techniques that lean much more heavily on "positioning" rather than "timing". Perhaps I'll expand upon that in the Advanced Strategy section at some point.)
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Dean, thank you big time for this advice. I will start doing this. 25 percent of my Level 4+ Elevator deaths happen this way. I have a feeling in a short time this will now go from 25 percent to less than 5 percent of my deaths on the hard elevator stage. Also it should also help with the other safe spot because now I will have more men to practice with.
As for save states. At the moment I have wolfmame 106. That does not allow you to use save states. This is the exact reason why the elevator stage is still vexing me after all this time. Once I get the elevator stage though, I truly believe the sky is the limit for me. I am glad now that I did Donkey Kong last of the Donkey Kongs. My success in the other two has shown me that with enough grit, and determination almost all obstacles can be overcome.
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Just as info you can also use savestats with wolf106.
Saving/loading is just not possible during a input recording but other than that you can use savestats with wolf106 as well.
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This is some great info!
I also get smoked running left to get safe at times and although only in the 400k's this can become pretty infuriating!!
I need to conquer Jr 1st but i'm so looking forward to getting back up those ladders and jumping some barrels.
Maybe i'm saving the best until last?!
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Thanks Dean for that, it seems to work like a charm! I tried it at first, and it did not work, but then I realized I was not far left enough. I found that having Mario's body just to the left of the ladder is the perfect position for Mario. Given my progression, and now being able to do this in safety I have a higher chance of getting my high score. 8)
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As for save states. At the moment I have wolfmame 106. That does not allow you to use save states. This is the exact reason why the elevator stage is still vexing me after all this time. Once I get the elevator stage though, I truly believe the sky is the limit for me. I am glad now that I did Donkey Kong last of the Donkey Kongs. My success in the other two has shown me that with enough grit, and determination almost all obstacles can be overcome.
Just a note on Save States and someone can correct me if I'm wrong.
In preparation for the Wild Card tournament I thought I should get a bit of practice on the elevators so I used Save States to get to the final safe position so that I could practice the final run to the top over and over.
It is my understanding that if you use a Save State that the "randomness" of the springs be they short, medium or long is now gone from that game. i.e. if I'm at the safe spot with about 5500 left on the timer, I'm always getting the "good" spring to go on at the same time if I continue to reload this Save State.
My point being that practicing in this manner is not, for me anyway, all that helpful, because in a real game the randomness will be different from the "saved" randomness of my Save State game.
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As for save states. At the moment I have wolfmame 106. That does not allow you to use save states. This is the exact reason why the elevator stage is still vexing me after all this time. Once I get the elevator stage though, I truly believe the sky is the limit for me. I am glad now that I did Donkey Kong last of the Donkey Kongs. My success in the other two has shown me that with enough grit, and determination almost all obstacles can be overcome.
Just a note on Save States and someone can correct me if I'm wrong.
In preparation for the Wild Card tournament I thought I should get a bit of practice on the elevators so I used Save States to get to the final safe position so that I could practice the final run to the top over and over.
It is my understanding that if you use a Save State that the "randomness" of the springs be they short, medium or long is now gone from that game. i.e. if I'm at the safe spot with about 5500 left on the timer, I'm always getting the "good" spring to go on at the same time if I continue to reload this Save State.
My point being that practicing in this manner is not, for me anyway, all that helpful, because in a real game the randomness will be different from the "saved" randomness of my Save State game.
The random number generator takes into account input from the joystick and button, so until you move the joystick or hit the button the springs will be the same after you load the save state. After you move you should be fine unless your movements are exactly the same and at the same exact times.
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What Ben said. Just move, even one pixel, and that will branch the seed and create a totally different sequence of springs. But it won't branch UNTIL you move.
Also, I'm not positive of this, since I haven't tried it, but don't bother pressing the 1P or 2P buttons as a way of branching it. The game ignores any currently "disabled" inputs. You can test that by saving a state at the "stacked monkeys" screen and doing different stuff with your inputs. As long as you stop before Jumpman appears, the output will always be identical (meaning that the RNG was ignoring you during the stacked monkeys).
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As for save states. At the moment I have wolfmame 106. That does not allow you to use save states. This is the exact reason why the elevator stage is still vexing me after all this time. Once I get the elevator stage though, I truly believe the sky is the limit for me. I am glad now that I did Donkey Kong last of the Donkey Kongs. My success in the other two has shown me that with enough grit, and determination almost all obstacles can be overcome.
Just a note on Save States and someone can correct me if I'm wrong.
In preparation for the Wild Card tournament I thought I should get a bit of practice on the elevators so I used Save States to get to the final safe position so that I could practice the final run to the top over and over.
It is my understanding that if you use a Save State that the "randomness" of the springs be they short, medium or long is now gone from that game. i.e. if I'm at the safe spot with about 5500 left on the timer, I'm always getting the "good" spring to go on at the same time if I continue to reload this Save State.
My point being that practicing in this manner is not, for me anyway, all that helpful, because in a real game the randomness will be different from the "saved" randomness of my Save State game.
The random number generator takes into account input from the joystick and button, so until you move the joystick or hit the button the springs will be the same after you load the save state. After you move you should be fine unless your movements are exactly the same and at the same exact times.
Thanks for the explanation - wasn't sure if the random seed was just generated at level start or whether it was a constantly changing thing.
The other way to "practice" that I thought of was to simply just run the boards saving after ever successful level, gives you 18 of the harder elevator springs to negotiate.
Hope to get a little more practice at this before tomorrow night's start time here in Oz.
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Chris I have a question for you.
A couple of weeks ago we were talking about having two pacmans in separate cabs but all wired up to 1 cp to perfect pac both machines at the same time.
I was wondering if you had two dk machines on the same power supply so both power up together and both linked to 1 cp could you clear both games, basically would the rng be in sinc on both boards?
And if anyone else knows the answer feel free to chime in
Nick
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Chris I have a question for you.
A couple of weeks ago we were talking about having two pacmans in separate cabs but all wired up to 1 cp to perfect pac both machines at the same time.
I was wondering if you had two dk machines on the same power supply so both power up together and both linked to 1 cp could you clear both games, basically would the rng be in sinc on both boards?
And if anyone else knows the answer feel free to chime in
Nick
I'm no expert on how these games were originally coded or what chips are used.
From a basic programming point of view, if you want random (well pseudo random - I won't get into the if's and how's of Random number generation on most programming languages) numbers you give your program the "seed" and then a list of random numbers can be generated from this seed.
Most programmers, myself included, just use the quick & nasty "millisecs" as the seed - millisecs being the number of milliseconds since the system was started or similar. So to answer your question - if it's done in this fashion then I'd assume it is entirely possible you could do exactly what you've suggested.
The main problem I see is this, computers chips are pretty complex little things - I'd imagine one PCB is not 100% identical to the next, so chances of both machines starting up at exactly the same millisecond (if that's what they use as part of the random seed) then it would be unlikely.
I'm rather crap at Pac-Man, but my understanding is that it isn't (so) random in the sense that DK is, so this wouldn't be an issue.
That's my 2 cents anyway.
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Chris I have a question for you.
A couple of weeks ago we were talking about having two pacmans in separate cabs but all wired up to 1 cp to perfect pac both machines at the same time.
I was wondering if you had two dk machines on the same power supply so both power up together and both linked to 1 cp could you clear both games, basically would the rng be in sinc on both boards?
No. The reason is that the arcade machine never boots from the same initial state. I'm not sure how it works, but each boot is unique. The proof is the attract mode. You can turn it on and off all day and the first barrel demo will never be the same as any other.
MAME, on the other hand, always starts from the same state when you load the dkong ROM, and the cycle of attract modes on MAME is always the same (barrel screen demo #1, or #4, or #15, or #300, or whatever, will never vary from one boot to the next, and it only branches when you add a credit).
So you could sync two MAME setups, but not two original DK PCBs.
It might work for Pac Man though since, from what I understand, Pac Man has no randomness!
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I think Dean or someone analyzed this previously. My understanding of why this happens is the memory on a DK cab on boot up contains garbage and in MAME it's zeroed out. Somehow the RNG is influenced by what's in the memory.
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I also think it's interesting that MAME boots to a neatly-organized rug pattern, vs. a cab which is sloppy sprite/color chaos.
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Thanks for all the replies.
I was allways wondering how the inp replay worked on mame, so ive pretty much got the answer for that as well.
thank you very much everyone.
Nick
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When you climb up the ladder and stand to the left of it you wait for a short spring to come out then it's all timing.
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It must be just dumb luck with me, I never take any notice of the springs and just run for it, don't think I've ever died :o
EDIT: Just died making this run ;D
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I seem to keep getting whacked while running left from the 1st safe spot.
I've just been practising with a save state and when I see a short spring on the far left I take a quick step - pause - run for it!
It seems to work, but I'd like to do it PROPERLY, so at least I can then TRY and do the next bit better.
Is there a nice s - l - o - w -e - d down video of the theory behind never getting whacked while running from safe spot to safe spot?
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There are no "safe spots" on the Elevator stage. It's all about yelling "YOLO" as loud as possible to finish the level.
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I know others handle it differently.
What I do is as soon as I come up the ladder, I take a double-step to the left and wait. Look for the spring coming out to hit to the left side of the 1st yellow block (right on Kong's right foot), thats your spring, now you want to hit left as soon as that same spring makes contact in front of you, so as it is coming, get ready, and push left as soon as it hits the ground, you have to time it right. And just run to the safe spot.
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There are no "safe spots" on the Elevator stage. It's all about yelling "YOLO" as loud as possible to finish the level.
Little Johnny (8 years old)
"Our teacher taught us that before we cross the street, we should stop, look, and listen."
Vincent (surprisingly, not 8 years old)
"That's bad advice. Just close your eyes, count to 3, then run out into the street. Trust me, I'm an engineer."
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There are no "safe spots" on the Elevator stage. It's all about yelling "YOLO" as loud as possible to finish the level.
You know, when I first started this thread my method was basically YOLO! LOL
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But you can die 4 times so wouldn't yolo Really be you only live 4 times? Lol
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Anyone done any videos explaining this?
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I could stream and show you just let me know when you are online or something
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Thanks for that Shane, but me being in a different time zone might make that difficult.
A slowed down vid might be better, to get my slow brain to understand what is going on ;D
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hey Vic,
it sounds like you are doing it right...if your still getting whacked you are probably not running left early enough, its deceptive how soon you can run without going face first into the oncoming spring, you dont want to wait till its bouncing over you before running...
the normal method is to climb the ladder and take a step left, then take another step when you see a short spring (one that bounces nearer the LEFT) then make your dash as its bouncing in front of you, use save state to get a feel for how early you can run without risking face planting the oncoming spring...
you can download some marp high score inps to see how its done, F10 to fast forward and shift+P to advance one frame at a time, this is probably better than a slow video...
8)
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This part of the game nearly made me stop playing DK.
I use to do the two step left at top of ladder and wait for the far left spring, but started to find when playing longer games I was struggling to see it with tunnel vision setting in.
I now go up the top ladder and stay still, then when a spring lands fully to the left of the middle yellow piece (look at the black dot in the middle) I run left as the same spring reaches the zenith of its bounce. I find this means less wait time for that far left spring and easier to spot.
To get up the final ladder I watched this video and practiced 100's of times (and still muck it up):
Donkey Kong Arcade 3rd Elevator Stage Walkthrough (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKs8HSVkKGc#)
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As a DK n00b I pretty much always just ran for it from safe spot 1 to 2. This approach for getting to two is great and hasn't failed me yet. Thanks for the info everyone.
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Well, looks like we have a fault in MAME.
DK uses uninitialized ram to seed with. Therefore, mame should simulate this by randomly twiddling the bits stored in it before booting the machine, and storing these random bits in the playback file, so playback still works. Wonder why they didn't think of that?
This also suggests that until this is fixed, the MAME category and the real board category should remain separate.
Pacman indeed has zero randomness, and thus a playback to real hardware would sync.
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I've been having this same problem, came to the board for advice and here it is ;D I seem to be dying more on the 1>2 transition than the 2>end lately. I was more or less using the YOLO technique but always did the creep over to the left thing once I got up the ladder. I figured there must be an ideal spring to do the transition. Will try this later. Thanks!
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I've been having this same problem, came to the board for advice and here it is ;D I seem to be dying more on the 1>2 transition than the 2>end lately. I was more or less using the YOLO technique but always did the creep over to the left thing once I got up the ladder. I figured there must be an ideal string to do the transition. Will try this later. Thanks!
Update: Since using the "go on the short spring" technique, I haven't died on the 1>2 transition since. Works like a charm.
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I've been having this same problem, came to the board for advice and here it is ;D I seem to be dying more on the 1>2 transition than the 2>end lately. I was more or less using the YOLO technique but always did the creep over to the left thing once I got up the ladder. I figured there must be an ideal string to do the transition. Will try this later. Thanks!
Update: Since using the "go on the short spring" technique, I haven't died on the 1>2 transition since. Works like a charm.
Waiting to go on a short spring is the safest way to go. Also you can watch what the next spring will be and if its a long spring that's even safer.
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I've been having this same problem, came to the board for advice and here it is ;D I seem to be dying more on the 1>2 transition than the 2>end lately. I was more or less using the YOLO technique but always did the creep over to the left thing once I got up the ladder. I figured there must be an ideal string to do the transition. Will try this later. Thanks!
Update: Since using the "go on the short spring" technique, I haven't died on the 1>2 transition since. Works like a charm.
Waiting to go on a short spring is the safest way to go. Also you can watch what the next spring will be and if its a long spring that's even safer.
Awesome, thx