PW Eliminate Third Tower Climb?

Ok, so this is another potentially huge change in PW that I can implement with a very small room edit, and I figured I'd once again elicit some feedback.  The second climb in the Icy World to collect the Kokiri Emerald is, well... it sucks.  And the worst part is how it feels so entirely unnecessary.  You're two rooms away from the big chest, but you can't reach it, so you have to re-do the entire thing.  I actually enjoy the difficulty of the tower in and of itself, and having to do one climb in each world actually seems reasonable.  I mean, it is called the Parallel Tower, after all.  But that third climb... I'm pretty sure that's universally despised.  Any objections to changing out that one-way door (probably for a floor-tile door so it opens once the tiles are done flying)?

I vote for Yes (do note I already "fixed" that door in the Remodel, so you can return for the Emerald). And don't forget: there is also the 4th climb for the optional hard puzzle, which should also have the "return" path. I decided to go for one climb only in the Remodel in which you traverse the entire tower.

Since you see from the HM's point of view this actually is one dungeon with the double first room (enter in light or dark world) and there is also one more extra room at the end.

It would be a different thing if this would indeed be two dungeons with two sets of rooms.

If you want to fix up the whole game then you have my approval.

Despite my negative criticisms I do still find myself wanting to play this game so any improvements you want to make will be a positive in my eyes. There is just too much cool stuff in this game for it to be dragged down by this problem and many others. I've liked all of your ideas so far.

I only played RM so I do not really cannot give an opinion, but since Puzz knows what you are talking about, and renounced already on this in RM, I say yes

I'd have to vote yes as well, I get climbing it twice for each world, I can also understand a third climb for the optional hard puzzle but FOUR times or more seems to be pushing it.

I only played RM so I do not really cannot give an opinion, but since Puzz knows what you are talking about, and renounced already on this in RM, I say yes

Yes, this really isn't a debate as such, since it is completely illogical for you to do the entire dungeon when you are right at the door and can not return, But the Kokiri Emerald and thus the Master sword (level-4 sword) is optional to get. So is the hard optional puzzle.

I voted for yes on both of your polls because, well it sucks that you have to get hurt by your own items, as well as having to beat the SAME LONG dungeon more than twice. I'm not saying I didn't enjoy climbing the towers, but it gets tedious having to beat a dungeon more times than any other dungeon in the whole game. Of course this is just my opinion, feel free to disagree!

Usually there's a bit set in the dungeon room sram, preventing bosses from respawning. Dunno however whether this is also valid for minibosses. In case it isn't, nothing can be done I think.

Conn wrote:Usually there's a bit set in the dungeon room sram, preventing bosses from respawning. Dunno however whether this is also valid for minibosses. In case it isn't, nothing can be done I think.

Yes, however I believe this one falls under typical sprites which always respawn, specially when you traverse the rooms by falling down the pit or on round staircase. Sometimes regular sprites/emenies respawn in a lesser number if you have defeated them previously, but I know of a certain fairy in GoW, which was placed close to a border of two HM rooms and it keeps respawning, if you went through the door and back (and I could not prevent this, since the player now can restock all bottles). Players were not complaining though.

In short, just open the door if it doesn't get bugged out when you change it - I did remember just changing the door object in 1.1 beta but it bugged out.

PW tower level 7 was suppose to be where the ruby went with a dual world pegswitch puzzle (which would've meant even more climbs if the player didn't know what they are doing)

The last sword was suppose to be optional, ice world climb #2 is there to ask the player whether they want an easier last boss or one more tedious climb - which for some reason everything thinks they don't care about the extra challenge of killing the last boss with sword 3, which is perfectly do-able with max hearts and max bottles. Second quest is debatable as you have less hearts + the final dungeon to deal with.

Second quest is debatable as you have less hearts + the final dungeon to deal with.

I just wanted to ask you Euclid, how can the second quest be turned off and how to manipulate the TotT code. Something I always wanted to know, but never found.

Well, that was surprisingly simple.  Tag 1 in the header was set to Nothing, so all I had to do was switch it to SW Kill enemy to open, and now the door opens once the flying tiles are finished, allowing you to backtrack.

Code:

origin $0277A5
    db $03

Also, I fixed the curtain not disappearing when you cut it.  The correct way to create a hidden door behind the curtain is with the curtain object 36 on BG1 and the curtain door 25 on BG3.  PW had an extra object 36 on BG2, which caused the curtain to always appear closed.  Maybe this was intentional to force you to use the lens of truth?  But in that case, it's silly, because you hear the "found a hidden passage" jingle when you cut it, so there's no reason to hide it.  So, to fix that, I just replaced that object with a pointless wall tile object 60, because that was simpler than removing the object, which would shrink the room data and require me to move a bunch of stuff.

Code:

origin $108F0F
    db $00, $01, $60

Puzzledude wrote:I just wanted to ask you Euclid, how can the second quest be turned off and how to manipulate the TotT code. Something I always wanted to know, but never found.

7ef35800 1st quest.
7ef35801 2nd quest.

the name insertion has a routine which checks for name and sets the 358 flag.
the ending credits has a routine which blanks certain rows of text if criteria is not met.
Ganon room has some funky hack to make 1st and 2nd quest work.
Of course there's also an entrance number hack for farore.

Need more details? I can dig up some notes.

Puzzledude wrote:

Second quest is debatable as you have less hearts + the final dungeon to deal with.

I just wanted to ask you Euclid, how can the second quest be turned off and how to manipulate the TotT code. Something I always wanted to know, but never found.

This thread is relevant to your question.

To disable it, simply restore

Code:

$1B/BD63 8D 0E 01 STA $010E

To modify it, the code is at $1B/D1D8 ($D1D7 is rts)

Code:

sta $010E     // Store entrance number (original instruction overwritten by jsr)
cmp #$33      // Favore's Isle entrance
bne $D1D7     // Anything else, return normally
lda $7EF358   // SRAM, unused normally, not sure what it's doing here, maybe confirmation of quest 1 completion?
beq $D1D7     // If the unknown SRAM value is 0, return normally
lda #$6A      // Quest 2 alternate to Favore's Isle entrance
sta $010E     // Overwrite entrance number
lda $7EF3C9   // Update progress indicator 3... not sure what $20 indicates
ora #$20
sta $7EF3C9
lda #$02
sta $7EF278   // Another unused byte in aLttP SRAM
lda $7EF3C6   // Clear bit $04 from progress indicator 1
and #$FB
sta $7EF3C6

So, basically the Quest 2 code is just overwriting that single entrance and then setting a bunch of flags when you go into that room.  You can change the behavior of the second quest with this subroutine, but if you want to change the trigger name, that's somewhere else.  My guess would be that it's related to SRAM address $7EF358, so do a trace for that to see where it gets set.