You know how guards will always be hit if you block their attack, then strike immediately after waiting just a fraction of a second?
Or, similarly, how guards will never defend themselves if you keep hitting them in quick succession?
It looks like this is because of this code in parry():
If this code is removed, guards suddenly become a lot more challenging!
Essentially, guards can only execute the parry maneuver while the kid's animation is on one specific frame (152); however, under some circumstances the animation will already be at frame 153, so the parry gets canceled and the guard never stands a chance...
All of this is independent of the "guard skill" (all guards are tragically handicapped like this...)
I tried to create an assembly hack using CusAsm, however I don't really understand Turbo Assembler yet...
Re: About the parrying skills of guards
Posted: October 6th, 2016, 10:24 am
by Norbert
I'm guessing this requires a guard with a "Re-striking After Block Prob." and/or "Blocking Strike Prob." that's higher than 0?
Because I quickly tried this with the first guard in level 2, and there's no noticeable difference. [Edit: Changed him to 9, but still no noticeable difference. I can push him into a wall and even if I give him 20+ hitpoints I can just "keep hitting them in quick succession".]
Re: About the parrying skills of guards
Posted: October 6th, 2016, 8:53 pm
by Falcury
Norbert wrote:I'm guessing this requires a guard with a "Re-striking After Block Prob." and/or "Blocking Strike Prob." that's higher than 0?
Because I quickly tried this with the first guard in level 2, and there's no noticeable difference. [Edit: Changed him to 9, but still no noticeable difference. I can push him into a wall and even if I give him 20+ hitpoints I can just "keep hitting them in quick succession".]
Sorry, I should have tested the assembly hack... I'll see if I can get it to work. The procedure needs to be prevented from returning immediately if [bp+opp_frame] does not equal 152. Perhaps changing that "jump if not zero" instruction to an unconditional jump (jmp) will do the trick.
Turbo Debugger Log
CPU 80486
0E57:0E9D 837EF600 cmp word ptr [bp-0A],0000
0E57:0EA1 75C4 jne 0E67
0E57:0EA3 EB15 jmp 0EBA
0E57:0EA5 817EFE9800 cmp word ptr [bp-02],0098
0E57:0EAA EB0C jmp 0EBA ; <--- modified instruction
0E57:0EAC EB0C jmp 0EBA
0E57:0EAE 817EFCA700 cmp word ptr [bp-04],00A7
0E57:0EB3 751C jne 0ED1
0E57:0EB5 C746F83D00 mov word ptr [bp-08],003D
0E57:0EBA C606224301 mov byte ptr [4322],01
0E57:0EBF FF76F8 push word ptr [bp-08]
0E57:0EC2 0E push cs
0E57:0EC3 E844F1 call 000A
0E57:0EC6 837EFA00 cmp word ptr [bp-06],0000
For testing, the fat guard and Jaffar are good opponents The guard in level 8 should be tougher as well. Yeah, the change is most noticeable for guards that already have a high probability of blocking.
Re: About the parrying skills of guards
Posted: October 8th, 2016, 1:12 am
by Norbert
Falcury wrote:Sorry, I should have tested the assembly hack...
Err, you wrote about the C code that if it's removed the guards behave differently.
That's what I tested and commented on.
Re: About the parrying skills of guards
Posted: January 30th, 2017, 10:48 pm
by _Zaphod_
I'm beginning to suspect this is intentional.
Main reason is Jafar battle in SNES version (a highly accurate port except for the extensions).
Jafar has 100% strike after parry and parries 100% if you restrike after parry. You cannot EVER counterstrike him. every other enemy in the game will eventually mess up an let your hit get through. Once i got into a counterstrike fight with him for an entire minute! you will not get through his guard that way.
the ONLY way to ever land a hit on him is to delayed strike or anticipate his strike and swing just before he does and hit first.
Re: About the parrying skills of guards
Posted: January 31st, 2017, 1:12 pm
by Norbert
_Zaphod_ wrote:the ONLY way to ever land a hit on him is to delayed strike or anticipate his strike and swing just before he does and hit first.
Yes, the way I always defeat him is by constantly pressing up to parry (block) and every now and then in between all these parries I attack once.
This way Jaffar can never get a hit in and the attacks are random enough that they occasionally get through to him.
JMP-s are relative, so your EB 0C at 0EAA can't be correct... It should be EB 0E.
Or just use 90 90 (2×NOP).
As for the differences: guard fights always seem random to me, so I can't really see any difference...
Re: About the parrying skills of guards
Posted: May 6th, 2018, 10:38 pm
by Coco
I'm just gonna post here, since it is somewhat similar question. Is there any way to know how many times (maximum) can a guard parry? It would be cool to have an editor that could determine whether the guard will move in a fight, or stand still, parry better (like modification above) or not, and how many times. Heck, maybe even to reprogram it to move backwards under certain conditions, to lure you into counterattack.
Re: About the parrying skills of guards
Posted: May 6th, 2018, 11:42 pm
by Norbert
Coco wrote: ↑May 6th, 2018, 10:38 pmIs there any way to know how many times (maximum) can a guard parry?
If you use a recent apoplexy, you can press F2 to check/modify guard details via the "Edit guard details" link.
For DOS, guard "a" (10) has both re-strike and block probability 255 (out of 255), so if it blocks this one parries forever.
The same goes for SNES' female, fat, red/blue knight, and Jaffar.
(Also F2 with apoplexy. For Pr1SnesLevEd, use menu Guards -> Settings...)
Coco wrote: ↑May 6th, 2018, 10:38 pmIt would be cool to have an editor that could determine whether the guard will move in a fight, or stand still, [...]
The advance probability for DOS guards 7 (e.g. first guard in level 8) and 8 is 0, so they wait for your attack.
The same goes for SNES' shadow and Kali.
Several others have their advance set to 255 (max).
For settings between min and max it's (also) a probability.
This means that, while there is randomness, the likelihood of occurrence, with enough tests, will eventually be the probability.
(The law of large numbers, or, perhaps more accurately, the central limit theorem.)
Therefore, unless you start combining values, I don't think there's much else to calculate...
Re: About the parrying skills of guards
Posted: September 10th, 2021, 7:34 am
by dmitry_s
This is an old thread and but I found it useful for the skill 10 guard (Jaffar). One you get into a striking battle with him, it is impossible to strike him. However, he is still susceptible to 2 types of attacks.
1. Just standing still and striking him when he starts to advance
2. Trapping him next to a wall or a gate and striking continuously
When those attacks are applied, skill level 10 suddenly becomes easy.
Randomly parrying all 3 frames (151-153) instead of just 152 makes fighting more challenging and really shows the guard's skill level.
Re: About the parrying skills of guards
Posted: September 10th, 2021, 10:24 am
by Norbert
Also, the guard skills are customizable.
At least through apoplexy ("Edit guard details." after F2) and CusPop (all the "Set up guards" sections).
And SDLPoP picks up on those customizations since version 1.22; also has them in SDLPoP.ini.
I don't think many modders have experimented with this.
Even though it's probably possible to create very distinct guards.
Maybe even one that is immortal because of his epic skills? (I haven't tested...)
Re: About the parrying skills of guards
Posted: September 10th, 2021, 5:09 pm
by dmitry_s
From my limited experimentation, there are some placed in the code that can still allow you to hit a guard while moving back and forth, or switching places even with the skills maxed out.
And as Falcury mentions probabilities will not change the fact that guards can only block 1 out 3 frames which makes them vulnerable to standing still attacks unless you prevent them from attacking like the level 8 guard.
Re: About the parrying skills of guards
Posted: September 15th, 2021, 1:01 pm
by VelCheran
dmitry_s wrote: ↑September 10th, 2021, 7:34 am
This is an old thread and but I found it useful for the skill 10 guard (Jaffar). One you get into a striking battle with him, it is impossible to strike him. However, he is still susceptible to 2 types of attacks.
1. Just standing still and striking him when he starts to advance
2. Trapping him next to a wall or a gate and striking continuously
When those attacks are applied, skill level 10 suddenly becomes easy.
Randomly parrying all 3 frames (151-153) instead of just 152 makes fighting more challenging and really shows the guard's skill level.
Jaffar has skill 9, not 10 (but I guess it depends if you start by 0 or 1 so we're probably talking about the same thing), and I'm able to hit him during a parry/riposte fight. Maybe I misunderstood what you meant?
By the way, there is another trick which works all the time with any kind of guard: parry his strike, wait a little bit and strike back. The time between parry and strike is always the same, after training a bit you'll get it all the time.
Re: About the parrying skills of guards
Posted: September 15th, 2021, 6:48 pm
by dmitry_s
I meant to say Jaffar's (or a guard's) skill needs to be changed from 9 to 10 which is defined with 100% parrying defense for the changes to be effective. Guards with a lesser skill will not benefit too much from this change as they intentionally do not defend a certain percentage of strikes.
Striking after parrying seems to be prevented by the changes. You can notice that Jaffar's blocking motion at the elbow looks slightly different since he is blocking a different strike frame.
This change alone will not make the guard 100% strike proof because there are places in the code where a guard tries to strike and does not call the parry logic. But it covers the obvious weaknesses.
Re: About the parrying skills of guards
Posted: September 15th, 2021, 11:49 pm
by VelCheran
My bad, I replied to your message without reading the thread from the start
I'll see if I can get it to work. The procedure needs to be prevented from returning immediately if [bp+opp_frame] does not equal 152. Perhaps changing that "jump if not zero" instruction to an unconditional jump (jmp) will do the trick.
The guard in level 8 should be tougher as well. Yeah, the change is most noticeable for guards that already have a high probability of blocking.