Joined: 5/2/2006
Posts: 1020
Location: Boulder, CO
I think the biggest issue will be leveling from ~40-~60. This will take a lot of time to do regardless of class, but I really don't see how a sorc could do it faster then high speed trap abuse.
After seeing the run, I do agree that sorceress will *probably* be faster, but testing how fast she can level in the mid-late nightmare will be a serious consideration. It would warrant testing if someone were to try such a run.
Also: I love the way he handles Items in this run. the published one was so slow about it, but this new run was way better.
Joined: 5/2/2006
Posts: 1020
Location: Boulder, CO
That video makes sorc look good (and the other makes zon look bad) but I don't know how fast assassin would be.
As good as it sounds on paper, using firewall and blizzard as "fire and forget" is really not as productive at it might seem. When you arn't in line of sight with enemies, their movement becomes unpredictable to an extent, and getting them to stand in a firewall long enough to die might be hard/impossible to manipulate.
You mentioned that damage>plant speed, but there are 2 things wrong with that statement. First of all, damage is a prefix and speed is a suffix, so there is no reason you couldn't get both. The second issue is that damage is of little importance through most of normal, because only a few traps are needed to kill whole groups, so more damage would only really matter for bosses. If only a few traps are needed in a given room, the only thing affecting your clear speed is how fast you can throw 3 traps and move on.
There is one huge issue yet to be addressed-- immunities. In hell nearly every monster is immune to something, including many unskipable bosses. I suspect this is another area the assassin will have a large advantage, because specing traps can easily get you lightning traps as well as fire spells, and little has to be sacrificed to do it. The sorceress will have problems of not doing enough damage if her points are divided too much, because her spells tend to be weak without the buildup of synergies. (frozen orb excluded *somewhat* =P)
Joined: 5/2/2006
Posts: 1020
Location: Boulder, CO
Thanks for the heads up, this actually doesn't surprise me at all.
The only reason I was interested to try in the first place was that the published run looked like it could be improved by a wide margin. I guess this proves me right, but it makes the idea of improving 1:20 seem like a tall order. That time seems closer to what a record for this game should be.
Joined: 5/2/2006
Posts: 1020
Location: Boulder, CO
The way, way more important reason assassin is useful for speed is that her traps can be dropped in a room, and she can continue without need stop for more then the fraction of a second it takes to cast the traps. This way she gets rooms full of experience, and hardly even needs to slow down to do it.
Also, cast speed does nothing for assassin (for traps at least) so the key for her will be getting high IAS weapons, as this affects the rate you drop traps. The unique flail comes to mind as a good choice because its 20% ias on an already vfast weapon (a total of -30 attack speed). Even better would be a katar of speed at low level, and then a blade talon with 30%-40% once higher level is reached (this would be -60 attack rate, should be the most possible). if perfect item manipulation can be achieved, one with +3 to traps and 40% ias on the base -20 weapon (blade talon or exceptional versions) is the ultimate weapon for a speed run.
Beyond this, all that would be needed to be manipulated to dop is run speed boots (fetlock, the set light plate boots is a good example) and +skills with low level requirements.
The biggest thing that would affect char choice that I really dont know for sure is if a staff/wand can be dropped the has charges of static field on it. If it can be, then finding one of these would take away the main reason to play sorc (staticing bosses down to 5% in a few casts, in normal difficulty). The other reason sorc is good is because of teleport, but enigma armor might be able to solve that problem, because it provides teleport to any class.
In a Tas setting, I would bet that assassin is the right call.
Funny that this comes up now, I was alt tabbed from playing diablo 2 when I read this, I was thinking about having a go at the SDA record for this game. The existing run is sloppy as hell, the maker of the run manages potions very badly.
Joined: 5/2/2006
Posts: 1020
Location: Boulder, CO
Wow. Your friend is a dick.
Love The way he denounces "judging people by how they look" then explains he ripped someone's ear off for doing things he judged to be wrong.
What a piece of shit.
Joined: 5/2/2006
Posts: 1020
Location: Boulder, CO
The problem with the world champion cartridge is that the dib switches arnt emulated properly, so the time limit does not funtion as it should on an emulator.
simply stating as a goal "beat 3 games" from one of the multi-game carts might lead to some interesting vids, but publishability might be a problem.
Joined: 5/2/2006
Posts: 1020
Location: Boulder, CO
Cpadolf wrote:
Why do people always speak about Europe as if it is a country...
Because of the Euro, and lax restrictions on moving between the countries. It surprised me how the boarders in Europe were almost totally unregulated. Even the US Canada boarder has more security and regulation then any of the ones I crossed. Traveling through countries in Europe feels more like moving between states in the US at least in terms of the difficulty in doing so.
Which countries did you visit?
I spent time in Frankfurt Germany, Paris France, and Rome, Italy. Took the chunnel to spend 1 day in London as well.
I was also surprised what was actually on the 10 available channels on TV. It seems that several channels in Germany in particular had nothing on but dubbed versions of "According to Jim" and other generic sitcoms. One would hope that if you are bothering to dub American TV you could at least pick some of the shows that don't suck.
Joined: 5/2/2006
Posts: 1020
Location: Boulder, CO
Just got back from my first ever trip to europe, and I was interested to notice the other side of a few things you mentioned.
Soda really is cheap in the states, as most of the places I went to eat it cost as much as beer.
Also, it seems that hotels in europe dont have the same fixation of TV that american ones do, only 1 out of 5 different hotels had more then 10 channels, one had no TV at all.
Also, what does that continent have against ice? We take it as a given in the states that if you order a coke, it comes cold and on ice. Not so lucky overseas.
Joined: 5/2/2006
Posts: 1020
Location: Boulder, CO
Sakurai has made several explicit statements about "both players should feel like the winner" and that "everyone should be able to play and win", so, yeah, he has actually gone out of his way to make downright SURE that everyone can win by sheer luck.
I didn't realize they had stated it explicitly, but it comes as no surprise.
I tend to be competitive, and as much fun as brawl was for a few weeks there, its just not what i want in a game.
Joined: 5/2/2006
Posts: 1020
Location: Boulder, CO
Broken characters aside, they introduced too many "random" occurrences that impact the game. tripping, and most of the new maps are unpredictable, and diminishes the skill element. (as luck has a bigger factor)
It seems like they wanted this game to fall in line with the mario party games, by adding enough random shit so that anyone can win, even people who suck.
Joined: 5/2/2006
Posts: 1020
Location: Boulder, CO
No x-ray glitch is probably better for the run, but make sure that you state the rules you are using clearly to avoid confusion.
(if you also mean to avoid the corrupted save file glitch, mention that)
Just list what glitches are not allowed well before submission.
Joined: 5/2/2006
Posts: 1020
Location: Boulder, CO
Enhasa wrote:
As a tangent, I think there's an inherent, fundamental difference in philosophy. TAS's are more engineered, and (unassisted) speedruns are more performed, so you can go by objectives/goals for TAS's, whereas the only reasonable thing to do with speedruns is to go by the results.
this is the whole point. This accounts for the difference between SDA and what needs to happen here. In a tas, low% category should only exist if its not the same as any%.
Joined: 5/2/2006
Posts: 1020
Location: Boulder, CO
Brute forcing a whole game is neat in concept, but even with a quantum computer, it would still take a small eternity to do a whole game.
It would be able to do ever longer segments compared to what bisqbot can do now, but a whole game just has too many iterations.
Joined: 5/2/2006
Posts: 1020
Location: Boulder, CO
There is better strategy to win orgeon trail quickly too.
Dont buy any spare wagon parts (50% shot your run will be ruined by this, but a few trials should lead to a good run), buy maximum oxen (only if you play as one of the higher income jobs, otherwise you have to economize), and buy food rather then hunting. Avoid hunting as much as possible as it costs you 1 day of time whenever you do it.
Also, if you aim to minimize time, bring fewer people and set food to minimum. A few dead kids are almost guaranteed, but at least you can make it to oregon.