VARIA item and area randomizer and solver

[ouichegeante]

For some time now we released a new item randomizer for SM, the  Very Adaptive Randomizer of Items and Areas.

Before explaining what Area randomization is, let's go through the main item randomization and solver features.

The strong point is customization, that is you can create and save a preset of tricks you know and how difficult you find them from an extensive list (starting from an existing preset, that you can also use directly if you want), and from there you can :
- solve an existing randomized ROM from any item randomizer out there and it will tell you wether you can finish it, and if so, how hard it will be for you
- create a new randomized ROM that you will be able to finish

The only real prerequisites are being able to wall jump, shinespark and mid-air morph.

So, depending on your settings, the range of things you'd have to do to complete your ROM might go from just playing the game not even having to do a mockball to ultra-hardcore RBO strats. In order for you to learn new techniques, video explanations of them are listed on the website. Once you know how to do them, you can enable them in your preset, giving you a wider range of gameplay experience.

It has a crapton of features, such as :
- set the quantity/proportions of ammo and energy available
- adjust progression speed, difficulty and item spread
- for the most experienced players that like challenges, choose to randomly remove some major items
- add cool optional patches such as item fanfare removal, fast transitions, respin etc.

Now, we just released a major update. On top of item randomization, you can now enable area randomization.

So, what is area randomization? Well some doors are now portals that lead to other portal doors. Any kind of door can be linked with one another, meaning a left door can lead to an up door for example. Here is the layout of the different areas and portals :

https://imgur.com/a/dWzlTtB


An important point is that you can go through all portals and back, even those where you can't do that in vanilla, so:
- Some doors have been turned to blue
- Some gates have been removed, most notably the Maridia exit ones
- Crumble blocks preventing access to Lower Nofair through its exit have been removed

It is of course open source.

It is largely based on previously existing (and also open source!) item randomizers by Dessyreqt and Total, so huge thanks to them, otherwise this project would not even exist!

Try it out, and give us feedback on GitHub (for bug reports/feature requests), here or on SRL Discord #randomizer channel.

Enjoy !

[johnnyutah22]

I tried the randomizer under Simple Parameters because every time I tried Medium or advanced the randomizer timed out with error.  Under Simple I chose Casual for the randomize preset and Medium for progression speed. At this point I am equipped with Gravity, Springball, Plasma, Ice, and Varia.  I have obtained all majors possible without having to use extremely difficult techniques, so that leaves, gauntlet, waterway, Croc, grapple, and etank in Pink Brinstar left to collect.  I can't imagine a lava dive would be required in casual mode, nor the supermissile trick in Brinstar. While I'm fairly adept at wall jumping I also don't think that skill would be required to get to gauntlet in casual.  What am I missing?

[ouichegeante]

Hi! Sorry for the late reply...

Did you try to change max difficulty when in medium or advanced mode? Be aware that boss fights alone (esp. Ridley) end up being estimated to hard difficulty in noob or casual preset so you can't ask for a easy/medium seed in that case.

To check for the required tricks in each preset, you can visit the preset page and select the preset you want. Indeed in casual you cannot be asked to go to gauntlet or do the super missile trick in pink Brinstar. However, gate glitching can be required in casual, so you can still go to Croc that way.

If you're stuck in a seed you can always use the solver on it using either your custom preset or a stock one (in your case, casual). At first it will just show you a difficulty estimation for the seed, and you can display a spoiler path to follow if you want. In your case, since you have Gravity, assuming you already visited Mama Turtle, you can also go to the wrecked ship via Forgotten Highway or by doing a Gravity Jump (that can also be required in casual) at the moat.

[MetroidNerd#9001]

You might want to make a couple more edits to a few of the underwater rooms, namely the room outside to the right of the wrecked ship. The area randomizer can take you there, and it's possible to get stuck in the water without hi-jump or gravity to where even a crouch jump with a ledge grab is not high enough to get you out. It can be found here. There may be other areas like this, but I guess just be careful about where the area randomizer can take you.
[spoiler][/spoiler]
Later I also found one of the vertical door transitions broke. I think it was because I was pressing buttons during it and it messed up the animation so this happened and softlocked me.
[spoiler][/spoiler]

[ouichegeante]

Regarding the underwater section behind wrecked ship, yes don't go there without proper equipment :). It's the same in the vanilla game, if you exit wrecked ship that way, you can softlock. We added some softlock preventions but we cannot edit the map to the point of going anywhere without items. A few more edits have been added recently and not released yet though, to make the path to the "hidden" area transitions more obvious.

Regarding your second issue, thanks for reporting it, somebody posted something similar to our github yesterday : https://github.com/theonlydude/RandomMetroidSolver/issues/16

I found a fix for it, that is forcing "elevator pose" in a much cleaner way than before. It will be released to the web site in the next few days.

[johnnyutah22]

I've tried the randomizer several times and here are some things I've noticed:

1. If you choose noob or casual then under Randomizer Parameters you cannot select anything but Hard or higher under Max Diff For Picking Up Item or the randomizer will error out.  This leads to the problems below.

2. Under Noob and Casual you are required to do tricks not associated with what I would consider a beginner, one example would be gate glitching, more impossible examples are shinesparking across missile bay to get to wrecked ship in Noob, IBJ in Noob, Lava dive in Noob, Short spark in Noob.

3. Depending on what selections you make under Randomizer Parameters, if you try to patch the rom with Project Base Gameplay Only.ips, it freezes when you pick up the 1st item at morph ball. This doesn't happen if you only use the Simple Randomizer.

As an example, just put VARIA_Randomizer_FX4916188_noob_medium.sfc in the solver to see what I'm talking about.

I love randomizers and I wish this one success, but I hope some of these things will change. Thanks for your hard work.

[ouichegeante]

1. yes, because of bossses difficulty. that's why the setting is inaccessible in simple mode. I agree that in casual they should be considered a little easier.

2. noob preset has no tricks at all. casual has only a few, but not lava dive. Be sure to click on the "load" button after selecting a preset in the preset page. If you generate a ROM with the noob preset and solve it with the noob preset as well, you'll see that no tricks are required.

3. we supply a number of patches, that are supported. If you apply other patches, problems can arise that we will not provide support for.