Just to spell out what's happening here. At 0:28, the cap blocking the entrance to the vent shaft tunnel blows up, opening the doorway to the next room. This is a unique occurrence in this game because it's the only instance in the game where the next room opens at a fixed point in time rather than once it's finished loading. This normally isn't a problem because the tunnel loads fully before you can get to it. However, itsPersonnal went fast enough that he beat the load and got into the tunnel before the next room was finished loading, which allowed him to go out of bounds. This trick wasn't even known to be possible before (although it was theorized). As a result he was able to skip most of the escape and save nearly a minute.
If the loads were too fast then this trick would not have been possible. So far it's looking like having accurate, slow loads is -faster- than having the inaccurate, faster ones.
Since you guys were talking about skipping Thermal Visor, something to bear in mind is this post T3 made recently about the Metroid Prime fight.
some of the phazon beam shots will miss if you're not locked-on even if you're aiming directly at prime (which means you do significantly less damage).
So since not having Thermal Visor doesn't let you lock on it actually does affect gameplay beyond just not being able to see him. I would verify that a 2-pool fight is actually possible without Thermal before deciding to skip it for the run.
especially space jump (which costs like 3 seconds to get in-game time and will probably save minutes in the long run).
That's an understatement, lol. Skipping the Missile Launcher alone probably saves a good minute or two and that's just in the first few minutes of the run. Having to wallcrawl to Geo Core would waste a crapton of time as well. That's not even getting into the ridiculous number of places where you'd have to waste time doing bomb jumps without SJ, where you would be able to just simply jump with it. Skipping SJ in a 21% TAS would make for an amazing watch, but skipping it in any% is a terrible terrible idea. :P
Go for the Thermal skip if you want to, just letting you know what you're getting into.
I'm mostly talking about things related to general movement. The things I can think of off the top of my head are:
- L-jumping - press L as you jump to jump further. No real timing, should be done basically every single time you jump.
- Turning as you jump gives you a little more distance.
- Rodeo jumping - press L + R together as you space jump for a small speed boost. Another thing you should be doing very frequently. Also extends to rodeo dashes, which is the same thing except done during a dash jump.
- "Bunny hopping" - jump the frame you touch the ground in a dash jump to maintain your speed. More lenient version can be done by pressing R as you land. Can probably combine with rodeo jumping (even without a dash or SJ) to build your speed up to higher than normal.
- Boost Ball shenanigans - like I mentioned, boost as you roll into a wall to boost straight up into the air. This can be used for minor time savings like skipping needing to lay a bomb. There's also room for abuse to get some serious height with slanted walls if you can build up some speed, especially through the stuck-in-the-ground glitch that randomly happens sometimes.
Now questions regarding the actual run, I have always wondered a few things. First of all, is it possible to beat the game without obtaining Spacejump? Even if it would be, would it be faster skipping it? I know sparky (I think it was him) who for instance showed how you could get the Plasma Beam via outrageously crazy bomb jumping all the way to the top.
Do you need all visors? Can you beat the final boss with 3 visors? Even if you would manage, again, would it save time? If you could, it should a lot of time because logically, when you kill it in 2-pools, you need only two visors.
Is skipping Boost Ball completely out of the question? After you obtain artifact of warrior, you obviously need it to activate the fire cannon to blast the wall on top and probably other areas I am forgetting. Reason why I ask is in a tas, you will scan dash the shit of a lot of things. Which could mean you won't need Boost Ball and you would save time route-wise by simply not getting it.
Ok, no offense or anything, but pleeeease do a lot of research before starting on this TAS, otherwise it's going to turn out really slow. There's a lot of subtle tricks and other maneuvers that a TAS really needs to be utilizing constantly, and these questions show you aren't even familiar with the bare basics of Metroid Prime speedrunning/sequence breaking.
To answer your questions:
1. Yes, Space Jump is skippable, but it's also a 20-second detour at the absolute most and saves way, way, WAY more time than that. Skipping it would be ridiculously slower.
2. Thermal Visor is skippable, but it's generally not skipped in runs because you have to pass right by it anyway so it takes next to no time to pick up, and it makes the Metroid Prime fight far easier. You might be able to manage a 2-pool Metroid Prime fight without it, but it'll be rather difficult, and frankly save very little time. X-Ray Visor is not skippable because it's required to damage Omega Pirate.
3. Boost Ball is skippable, yes, but it saves a ton of time and the savings outweigh the cost of getting it. It saves a lot of time in general navigation when going through the hallway rooms where there's nothing to lock onto, it prevents you from having to do Geo Core really slowly, it saves time route-wise since it gives you faster access to the Artifact of Warrior, and it saves a shitload of time on the Ridley fight, among other things I'm probably forgetting. There are also a lot of little ways to abuse the Boost Ball that aren't feasible on console that I'd expect to see in a TAS. For instance, you can often skip doing a bomb jump by rolling up into a wall and then boosting to shoot up a little bit. There's also occasions where you can get stuck in the floor and charge a boost for a little while, then release it to go flying off at a ridiculously high speed, which has some potential if you can figure out how to do it consistently.
Like I said, you really need to take some time to familiarize yourself with the game and its route/tricks/physics/controls/etc before starting this TAS if you want it to be any good.
Most of it is loading differences.
You really can't compare TASes to a realtime run. TASes have a ridiculously unfair advantage that has nothing to do with optimization.
Also
If you listened to the audio commentary on his live stream, you could hear Miles was crying like a sweet little baby and shivering :)
Has anybody tried to access a SW inside the Frigate ventilation shafts? During the escape bit, there's plenty of vents (EG where parasite swarms come out of), which you should be able to get into. It's certainly possible in the Crashed Frigate, which is basically the same structure. The only difference would be that you don't have the charge boost yet. Hopefully though the advanced bomb jump techniques can compensate, which if successful would certainly be interesting.
As far as I know the max spin attacks you can get in at that point is 6 before he disappears, and he needs 7 hits at that point, so yeah. Maybe there's some weird timing that lets you get 7 hits without the heart.
Though getting the heart is probably faster than doing another spin attack anyway. It'd be neat to see a TAS get all four hearts and hit him four times at once, heh. Not sure you can get all four without losing time though.
There's a trick on Zant that saves one second and isn't really worth it outside TAS. I mentioned it in my segmented run's comments on SDA but in case you didn't read it:
Link to video
Normally on hyrule Zant he walks at you while swinging three times, then he'll spin at you; the max hits you can get after the spin is 6, then you have to do one more to kill him. But for some reason if one of your spin attacks picks up a heart then it will hit him twice, which lets you do 7 after the spin, skipping the last one. You can get a heart next to Zant without losing any time with the boomerang. Shouldn't be any issues with equipping it because you'll be needing the boomerang immediately after PoT anyway.
When you get to the last Skull Kid room, the way he works with the puppets is there is a timer that determines when he blows the horn again. The timer start once you kill one of the puppets. So the optimal way to do that room is to kill one puppet as fast as possible and then avoid all the other ones so you don't end up with any extra hit stops.
It's what you did at the first jump at 10:10. You get one frame where you can jump earlier than usual on jumps where Midna has dialogue before the jump. The reason they're not in my run is because they're frame-specific tricks that don't save much time so I never forced myself to get them, and just ended up with terrible luck and missed every one of them. :P TpFox got a couple more of them in his run. See
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sK82t46v7vE#t=3m22s (there's also the other one at the top of the tower in this segment that he didn't get)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWVUIxUwRhI#t=2m10shttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59nM1M0uGMU#t=0m18s
mkay... a couple things in general first. You might already know some of this but just in case you don't.
I don't think it's best to roll on the first frame possible. In my run I always run for a couple steps before I start rolling. I admit I haven't actually done any testing with this, but it feels to me like if you accelerate first the rolls are much faster. And since this game is based on Wind Waker's engine, and the exact same effect is very very noticeable in Wind Waker, it would make sense if it was true. (It also feels to me like if you roll on the first frame possible then you'll maintain your speed, but again, haven't done any extensive testing; just going off feel.) Your rolling doesn't look too bad for the most part, just something to keep in mind (and maybe do some more definite testing on?).
Also, wolf dashing. You might've noticed sometimes when you dash and jump off a ledge, sometimes you can dash again immediately when you land, and sometimes you have to wait for it to "recharge". This has to do with how close you are to the ledge when you dash. If you jump immediately after doing the dash, then you'll be able to dash again immediately when you land. If you take more than... maybe half a second after dashing, you'll have to wait. So sometimes (like at 11:08) you'll want to avoid dashing until you get closer to a ledge so you don't get stuck at walking speed for a couple seconds. Like with the rolling, you don't seem to be bad about this overall, just something to keep in mind.
I'm also gonna echo what a few other people have already said and say the running parts don't look too optimal. It mostly looks that way because you keep making little adjustments to your angle instead of going in a straight line. I won't dwell on that too much because I know you've already heard it from several others tho.
6:13: The sumoing didn't look optimal to me. Is it impossible to just immediately grab him without any extra animations all four times? I'd guess you've already done some testing on this, but eh.
7:36: The dialogue with Colin teleports you in front of him, so you'll want to get to the dialogue trigger ASAP rather than head towards Ordon Spring.
8:33: After you dig out of the cell you get one frame of movement so you can jump into a wall or something. Makes no difference time-wise, but it would be entertaining :P
8:52: I'd just drop off that ledge instead of jumping (let go of the control stick just before you walk off the ledge). You'll touch the ground quicker and be closer to where you're going next.
9:24: I'm confused why you went all the way around to the ledge on the right side instead of getting out of the water on the left side and running the rest of the way to the switch. Swimming is not very fast.
10:38: You can do a fast Midna jump here. Generally speaking, you can do one on every jump where Midna talks before the jump.
10:46: You can skip this dialogue if you hold L and jump on the first frame possible.
11:08: Already pointed out earlier, but you should wait to dash til you get closer to the ledge so you can run up the sloped thing.
11:13: Again, you can do a fast Midna jump here.
11:42: er, what was with that little jump? :P
12:06: This might already be completely optimal, but the Bulblin can end up in different spots by the time you get here - not sure whether he spawns in different places or if he walks there after spawning - but in any case, you'll want him to be closest to you.
12:41: This part didn't look optimal :x Did you try locking onto him and pushing him in a straight line to where you want? Similar to how I did it in my run. Judging by the timestamps it doesn't seem there's much difference between them, but...
13:31: The game does this little freeze every time you hit an enemy. It might be faster to wait til they get closer so you can use just one spin attack to hit all three of them at once, which would mean you only get one little freeze instead of two or three.
14:17: It's much faster to exit out of the map screen by hitting D-left/right.
14:45: Is that faster than running straight toward the end of the ledge and climbing up? Doesn't look like it...
14:49: You can do a fast Midna jump here
15:20: Video seems to be removed <_< but apparently you can clip through this gate by locking onto a bug on the other side and jumping at it to go through.
15:30: Did you make sure you actually killed both bugs? Only heard one die :x
15:56: Again, fast Midna jump here.
Rest looks good. You did EMS very well, I like these Midna jump skips and the TAS'd text is amazing :P
Must get Skull Hammer in FF2 for switches in Earth Temple (and other reasons).
The Skull Hammer is skippable. That was one of the things I was looking into a couple years ago; was hoping it would lead to skipping half of ToG which didn't work out because Hyrule 3 glitched out. That said, there are no Skull Hammer requirements:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxZFDb2ODp8http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFyMnmp3v2chttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAJbZkq3N38http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBT7cxV0SK4
Now, I couldn't tell you if it was actually faster :x Probably isn't. Just thought I'd point out that it is skippable.
edit: Oh and for barrier skip, there is one other approach. You can get on the bridge railing and clip inside the damage barrier, then do a wind waker dive underneath the barrier and deku leaf to fly past it. So technically you can get past the barrier that way, but you're far too low to actually do anything, so it's equally useless. :/
The only way I can really see to get past the barrier is to use some kind of ledge clip trick with the railing to clip through it. Klyde found this weird ledge grab on the railing but it didn't seem to lead to anything. ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxA9pRUmLUI ) I always wanted to mess around with it but couldn't get it to work D:
at 0:55 in the video, it seems that throwing the rock, then rolling towards the gate would be faster than carrying it the whole way, since obviously link can move faster without a giant rock above his head. :P
Throwing the rock makes it break into rupees so that wouldn't help.
I don't think it does. This isn't OoT. In TP the rupee actually pops out from under the rock after you pick it up, not after you break it.
Anyway, I watched it. Pretty awesome start :o But nowhere near optimal yet, I noticed quite a few improvements. Do you want me to point all of them out or is this not intended to be totally optimal?
And by the way, there actually is some luck manipulation involved in goat herding before it starts. The goats will start facing different directions which changes which way they go when you start to herd them.
edit: Oh and those midna jump skips were amazing. I can't wait to see if there's any other tricks similar to that.
Yea it's been looked into to death already and no one's found a way to do it. It would be sweet if it were possible though. (should've been found about a year and a half ago though, if it is possible <_<)
BiT can use either a hard or soft reset I'm pretty sure. I used a soft reset in my run. Even if you can't use it though, BiT only saves a couple minutes. The main advantages are having the sword early for the cage opening and not having to backtrack to Ordon for the Iron Boots (which doesn't save much time when you can warp). The first two days of Ordon can still be skipped without using it.
1. 1/4 of the run is just collecting tears. What are the barriers for Faron and Eldin Twilight skips?
Eldin twilight skip isn't going to happen, Faron may be feasible though. You can't skip the Faron twilight because Midna won't let you leave Faron until you've both cleared the twilight and beaten the forest temple (which I think is weird since I'd think it would only check if you beat the forest temple, but it doesn't). If you can find a way past that Midna trigger then you can skip both clearing the twilight and beating the Forest Temple (though you would still have to go in to get the boomerang). The Eldin twilight can't be skipped because you need to warp the rock from Death Mountain to Zora's Domain, and the rock won't fall until the Eldin twilight is cleared.
Btw. could lja-ing all over the place be faster than rolling for a tas?
Nope. It takes a while to LJA since you have to aim, throw the boomerang and wait a second before you can jump. It'd be way faster to just roll, or at worst, go wolf. Any huge stretches of land where it might be good if you can do double LJAs while going downhill would still not work because you wouldn't be able to do it in the first place.
Another thought I had watching Parax's run: Could you kill the monsters you use to EMS while you are doing EMS somehow? That might shave off a few seconds, since then you could warp back there...
Not possible. Even if you manage to pull it off the death cutscene warps you back down.
could this be used to leave Outset without getting on the pirate ship at the very beginning of the game? Or perhaps skip the sail in windfall island? Or, in general, could this be used to get past those annoying moments when the KoRL tells you not to go this way and turn back?
I messed around with AR to figure out what sort of things might be possible. Yes, this lets you navigate the entire ocean without the boat, including areas that are normally supposed to be blocked off. The beginning is retarded though so you still have to do all the stuff at the beginning to progress through the game. Basically, my idea was from the beginning of the game, you could superswim to Greatfish Isle to trigger the endless night, then superswim to Windfall, eavesdrop on the pirates, go on the pirate ship, do Niko's challenge and then exit at FF1, where you get the sword, then get dropped off at Windfall, where you can pick up the sail and bombs before proceeding with the rest of the game.
For the most part all of this works (except possibly whether you'd be able to get the sail)... except after you do Niko's challenge, the spoils bag isn't there for some reason. Seriously, the treasure chest is just plain not there. Meaning you can't go to FF1 and progress through the game. Meanwhile, at Outset (you can savewarp back since the flag that makes you always reload on Outset never gets unset), the pirate ship is gone, for some reason the bridge leading to the forest is gone and the game freezes if you zombie hover in, meaning your file is effectively screwed if you trigger endless night too early. So I'm pretty sure the start of the game is necessary for the sword and FF1 is necessary to get KoRL since he is required later in the game... which is dumb but meh, what're you gonna do. :/
Oh and sail skip is possible and has been done on console I think, but since KoRL is necessary in a couple places it requires cruising everywhere so you're prolly better off just getting the sail.
i believe the king of red lions is required to knock down the stone slab at outset blocking jabun's pearl and to pull up triforce charts, and possibly in a few other places to avoid crashing the game; other than that, the vast majority of the sailing should be skippable in a TAS.