I don't see there being much benefit to that tbh. With enough FHR or FBR (the breakpoints of which are class dependant) you will take less time than with a knockback recovery. There's plenty of viable gear that can cover this (Stealth armour, for example)
Joined: 8/14/2009
Posts: 4090
Location: The Netherlands
Recently, a very interesting video was unveiled:
Link to video
Basically, it's a segmented speedrun with modded RNG for high quality action and optimized drops. In essence, it's like a TAS, with savestates, but with luck manipulation replaced by modding work (and with not quite perfect reflexes/action, as it features no slowdown).
The RNG/drops are modded to the point of sheer implausibility (for instance, Radament drops four rare Jared's Stones, each with +1 light skills, +3 Nova, +3 Warmth, +3 Static Field, 40% fire resistance, and teleport charges), map seeds are also manipulated/preset, chance to cast % is manipulated, /players X settings are also used, and in the end, Normal mode is beaten in less than 25 minutes (by comparison, the fastest RTA at this point is 1h12m). MrLlamaSC did note a few potential improvements (mostly with the beetles in Act 2), so the route is not quite optimal yet.
It's probably the closest thing to a real Diablo II TAS the world may see for a long time.
(Note, the author is not MrLlamaSC, although he revealed/uploaded the video. The author is igloosPat)
EDIT: Live reveal stream (with commentary by MrLlamaSC and igloosPat) on Twitch is here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/284031523
http://www.youtube.com/Noxxa
<dwangoAC> This is a TAS (...). Not suitable for all audiences. May cause undesirable side-effects. May contain emulator abuse. Emulator may be abusive. This product contains glitches known to the state of California to cause egg defects.
<Masterjun> I'm just a guy arranging bits in a sequence which could potentially amuse other people looking at these bits
<adelikat> In Oregon Trail, I sacrificed my own family to save time. In Star trek, I killed helpless comrades in escape pods to save time. Here, I kill my allies to save time. I think I need help.
Ohhhh, this is some good shit. It wasn't that long ago (less than two years I believe) that I was thinking what would a theoretical TAS look like. I did not envision javelins, however! That was truly refreshing to see.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Creator of the run here. :)
I see Mothrayas came jsut ahead of me here, but I'll copy-paste my text in here anyway. :) Hope you enjoy the run! Might be something that can be submitted to TASvideos too? I'll ask anyway.
I am considering doing a in-depth commented run as I have gotten tons of questions, we'll see.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi,
I have made a Diablo 2 Lord of Destruction (1.13d) speed run where I have tried to find the most optimal way of beating it, using all means possible in the game.
This is a segmented run, meaning the run is done in segments and put together later. Unlike RTA's, each segment is ran and recorded many times, sometimes over 100's to get the desired result.
This is a heavily (ASTRONOMICALLY) luck manipulated run, meaning the run takes full advantage of the game's theoretical limits and parameters.
This is a human played run, meaning no tools were used to execute the speed run.
This means; no 3rd party tools are used during this run, no hacks, no cheats, no impossible drops or items. In other words, everything you see here is 100% authentic and legitimate, and you could in theory boot up your game and do this run on your own installation right now and emulate this run precisely.
This is only created to serve as entertainment and a proof of concept for a theoretical optimized Diablo 2 LOD run. This is in no way created to disrespect the great Diablo 2 LOD segmented speed runners or RTA speed runners or anyone else for that matter.
There are however some obvious time saves. I am not going to mention all, but I know that sub-20 minutes is easily possible. This comes down to:
- Better maps
- Execution
- EXP routing
- Item routing
- Put 10% FCR instead of 10% FHR on Circlet.... (this mistake lost 500 frames = 20 seconds)
The final times are as follow (in-game game play):
Act 1: 9941 frames / 06:37.640
Act 2: 11100 frames / 07:24.000
Act 3: 3981 frames / 02:39.240
Act 4: 2507 frames / 01:40.280
Act 5: 5699 frames / 03:47.960
Full run: : 33228 frames / 22:09.120
Non-commented run: https://youtu.be/4nEBKLKrUYs
Commented run together with MrLlamaSC: https://youtu.be/Mia7tKcQcrg
I hope you enjoy it! :)
- igloosPat
Well, it's not something you'd be able to submit to TASVideos, because 1) there are no means of reliably reproducing the run on another person's hardware by means of a player input file; 2) you have tampered with the game's RNG by means other than providing it input as part of the run. These two disqualify it right away.
But it is something we at TASVideos are thematically interested in and want to see more of.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11478
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
This game can't be tased for real yet, but if it works on PCem, it has all the chances to become available for bizhawk in the near future. IIRC, it does work there.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
This game can't be tased for real yet, but if it works on PCem, it has all the chances to become available for bizhawk in the near future. IIRC, it does work there.
I personally tested it before and I can confirm it will run.
Joined: 12/28/2013
Posts: 396
Location: Rio de Janeiro, Brasil
You are saying Diablo 2 might be actually TASable in the future? That's amazing!
I'm so hyped about it now. I'll absolutely work on a Diablo 2 TAS as soon as it's available.
This is a heavily (ASTRONOMICALLY) luck manipulated run, meaning the run takes full advantage of the game's theoretical limits and parameters.
I doubt in legitimacy in this spot.
There is a lot of human factor here, unless you have made a lot of work to actually manipulate RNG.
I know d2 internals a lot, belive me or not :)
I think "manipulated" is just a misnomer in this case. It looked like the drops were punched-in based on the monsters' loot table. So if a monster could drop something, igloosPat would simply choose what exactly the monster would drop, and disable all else. Or at least that's the impression.
Note that it probably won't affect the legitimacy of this particular run because its legitimacy claims extend over the possibility of an item being able to drop with particular affixes from a particular enemy (which it adheres to as far as I can tell), but not that it would actually drop in a reasonable amount of time if you tried replicating it. There's probably no way to replicate all of these drops in an actual TAS in a way that would make it faster. Unique/set items and runes would be by far the easiest ones to procure.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Joined: 8/14/2009
Posts: 4090
Location: The Netherlands
In terms of legitimacy, what I'm more interested about is the sheer improbability of some drops to the point of literally being impossible. Like, I'm not sure if there is even a possible RNG state that could be manipulated to get Radament to drop 4 rare Jared's Stones, let alone 4 with completely identical mods, and perfect mods for the speedrun at that. It looks like less a matter of "would this take time to luck manipulate" but more if it's even possible at all within hardware/software RNG constraints.
http://www.youtube.com/Noxxa
<dwangoAC> This is a TAS (...). Not suitable for all audiences. May cause undesirable side-effects. May contain emulator abuse. Emulator may be abusive. This product contains glitches known to the state of California to cause egg defects.
<Masterjun> I'm just a guy arranging bits in a sequence which could potentially amuse other people looking at these bits
<adelikat> In Oregon Trail, I sacrificed my own family to save time. In Star trek, I killed helpless comrades in escape pods to save time. Here, I kill my allies to save time. I think I need help.
There is no "monsters' loot table" in simple understanding.
There are hell of a lot of rules where you can easily be buried.
That's why I'm saying that there is a lot of human factor.
Because human may make plenty of mistakes in those rules evaluation,
to figure out which item may or may not drop here and there.
And yes Mothrayas nice catch.
Variety of RNG is not so large.
AFAIR RNG seed of drop is only 64 bits comparing to variety of potential drops.
