Posts for groobo

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Posted: 11/14/2010 5:43 PM
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groobo
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 5/19/2009
Posts: 47
No, there's solid ground underneath and the death trigger goes pretty deep, so even if you reach the bottom you'll die the moment you close the inventory window. Inventory glitch, in short: normally you can't enter the inventory while moving, but if you stand still, go to the inventory, and press select twice, the inventory screen will close and reappear a full second later - even if you're running or in mid air. Dan still moves when set in motion before the inventory pops back up, while everything else stops and triggers won't go off if you pass them in this state. The most common use for this is to, before the inventory reapperas, move above a death trigger (lava/water pits, void) - this way you can get past the trigger and are free to "loop" the level (in case the pit has no solid ground underneath it) in order to fall to any location in it, including straight to exit/level-end triggers.
Posted: 11/14/2010 9:28 AM
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groobo
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Joined: 5/19/2009
Posts: 47
ad 1) One point where you could go behind the fence is at the very start of the level, where the tree is. The invisible wall above the fence is pretty small behind the tree, so IF you'd find a way of getting onto it, you could drop on the other side. From there I could run straight to the corn field, but couldn't make it any further. ad 3) Here I've tested every glitch I know. Couldn't get anywhere. ad 4) Going onto the walls would be our best bet to shorten this level. The only place I was able to do so is right at the chess puzzle, which was useless (I still got to explore, lol). ad 5) IIRC, the dragon's pattern is always the same. ad 7) We should get the bottle right AFTER we complete return to the graveyard - this saves map time. I got the knockback jump to work with the small sword (the one without dash). This could be potentially useful for the return to the graveyard shortcut, since while standing on the tiny tombstone we can hit the "invisible wall" at completely different angles, compared to the club. You could check if you can "double hit" with the club using the inventory glitch, FOR the knockback jump. Turn the inventory, double press select, a frame before the inventory pops back up you press and hold square, and at the next frame you press X to equip the club (again). This does actually double hit the wall, but my timing and hand coordination aren't good enough to check in realtime if this, followed by the knockback jump really works. I'll go through the list on page 1 later. EDIT: Addressing the list on page 1: ad 2) I was wrong about Dan's speed being close to 0 after entering the void with the inventory glitch. Well, maybe not wrong about the speed itself, but whether we can clear the required distance for each trick in a single loop. YES, we can do that. I can do the enchanted earth straight-to-exit loop pretty consistently in realtime. ad 1) I was able to land straight on the exit trigger in a single loop, in realtime. You should record and compare both strats and see which one is faster. ad 12) Just like the enchanted earth loop, it's pretty easy even in real time. Enter the void with the inventory glitch while facing the bridge dead on. Turn the inventory window off right after passing the kill trigger while holding UP. Keep holding UP for the most of the loop and start fixing your trajectory when the sky texture appears and starts swirling (I do it with the right length-wise combination of holding either left, or up and left). The furthest I got was the bridge in front of the throne room's entrance, but I'm sure you can drop into the entrance when TASing. ad 13) The furthest I got here is the exact same spot where I end up during the previous loop. That's because like 5 seconds into the fall the camera spasms out and you're going in circles around the same spot for the remainder. You could work around that with frame advance (because the camera changes its angle too fast to even keep track of it) and ram watch (so you actually know in what direction you're going and make sure it's the right one). ad 15+) Here the loop is similar to the second one in the haunted ruins, though the spasm starts way later. Late enough that I could almost reach the exit trigger. I didn't test looping in the time device with the inventory glitch, but I figure it shouldn't be any different from the rest. ad 19) What skychase said. Either that or try to double hit either with dash only or sword/club swing+dash. ad 24) The wolf on the right disappears later than the one on the left. Run up to him after you gain control and jump-attack with the club, then just follow him while hitting. After he disappears the second wolf comes in. The boss meter should be somewhere under 100, so you can instantly switch to the next beast and take it down with a single club swing. In case the meter is above 100 you have to land two hits and you can do it before he even lands on the ground after pouncing for the first time. It's very easy in realtime. ad 27) AFAIK every arena in this level is based on a timer, instead of body count. So only killing the very last enemy in each arena ASAP matters. A stronger weapon won't really save you any time here if I'm right, so there's no need to delay the level. I hope this helps. EDIT2: In cemetery hill you can instantly get up the hill after getting the club by locking yourself above the ground in this spot and doing and jumping from there. (assuming you choose to get the club here instead of the mausoleum, I'd go for this one even if it's slower because it demonstrates a cool clipping glitch) Whether this or the regular way of getting out through the boulders is faster is up to debate, so recording and comparing the two is probably necessary. In pumpkin gorge after getting up the wall and passing the invisible barrier(s) go here. The blue line is where the trigger which warps you back to the normal playing area is. Basically you want to dash jump right when you hit that trigger and move in the pointed direction. If done correctly, you should end up half way into the fence - just jump through and you can continue from there. This skips the green rune. EDIT3: We can try and clip through the you-know-which block in the gauntlet from both sides now. I thought that we can (IF we can) only clip through the left corner in order to get any further, but it appears it was a mistake on my part back when I first tested this. I hope we nail it someday.
Posted: 11/13/2010 3:14 PM
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groobo
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Joined: 5/19/2009
Posts: 47
So (assuming we're talking about jumps): 28 is a running jump, 52 is a dash jump, and 56 is a knockback running jump (without dash). If my logic isn't flawed a knockback dash jump should be AROUND 100 at its peak (you can tell that there's a huge difference between this and a normal dash jump, speed-wise, just by seeing it in action). I assume you did the knockback trick the right way. You can either kinda do it (when the hit registers after the jump) so it enables you to cover a little bit more distance with a jump, or do it the right way (not really sure without testing with frame-advance, though I always attack before jumping) - then it gives you that little bit of distance at the start AND doubles your speed as it seems. Yes a knockback dash jump is possible. That's how I covered the gap in the crystal caves and I can do it pretty consistently. Here's a dummy-proof tutorial: Step 1) Let's assume that you're running straight against a wall in front of you (hold UP). Step 2) When you're ready, tap SQUARE (club equipped) for a single frame while still holding UP (maybe you have to release it here, I dunno). Step 3) Now you release UP and hold the opposite direction. Step 4) In the next frame you push and hold BOTH - TRIANGLE (shield/dash) and CIRCLE (jump). Step 5) Celebrate. That's how I do it in real-time anyway. I can be massively off with the timings (what input goes to what frame), but I'm positive that the button sequence is right. So it's attack -> change direction -> dash jump. As for using this to maybe clip through something: maybe at a higher speed the game would basically brute-force Dan to go through. Nobody expected Dan to move this fast and I guess we can gain even more speed with a push from an enemy (a knockback dash jump with a push from the snake guy from a chest would go to at least 150) so we can at least give it a shot. This wouldn't be the first game where high-speed, brute-force clipping works, you know. Just change and freeze the ram value for speed at a different level each time (start at, say, 100 and work your way up from there) and try jumping through different spots. Two good spots for this test would be the fence clip in cemetery hill (the one that you go through after getting the talisman), and the cage wth a health vial near the yellow rune holder gate in the gauntlet (there's no sign that you can clip through it, but I did it once before and could never replicate it). EDIT: It appears that you don't have to nail the real knockback dash jump in order to cover the gap in the caves. I was able to just barely make it with a pseudo knockback dash jump where after hitting the wall I merely got some extra distance instead of the full speed bonus after dash jumping. I guess this proves that you can approach the wall at various angles to prepare for this (and probably only this one) trick, instead of locking yourself in place between stuff. I played some more around return to the graveyard and I found that you can hit some non-solid invisible wall or something while standing on this tombstone. I couldn't get a full knockback jump to work, but (very rarely, but still) I pulled off a pseudo one. It appears that the few extra pixels is enough to get up the cliff if you'd move in a straight line. I tried doing it in a couple of angles, but because of the crappy camera I basically always moved in zigzags. Here's a shot from above the area in case you want to know what's approximately the best angle. I measured the distance for each angle, starting at an optimal position on the tombstone for each one and ending where the trajectory meets the cliff. The dots above the numbers represent the cliff's altitude at each angle's end (blue is the lowest, yellow the opposite, green is somewhere in between). So the distance you'd have to cover for each of those is as follows: 1 - 111pix, 2 - 114.5pix, 3 - 106pix, 4 - 106.9pix, 5 - 133.5pix. No. 4 appears to be the best one since it's less than a pixel longer than the shortest one and it ends at the lowest altitude. Of course unless you somehow manage to pull off a full knockback jump, then you could even move alongside the cliff for the most of the jump and still get onto it.
Posted: 11/13/2010 1:31 PM
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groobo
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Joined: 5/19/2009
Posts: 47
Ok, at the crystal caves I locked myself between (still not sure if this is necessary) a goblin and a wall near the gap, did the knockback dash jump (let's call it that) from there, and it was more than enough to cover the gap and finish the level without going oob. Oh and the most important thing on the to-test-list right now is to check if speed does matter when trying to clip through something.
Posted: 11/13/2010 12:24 PM
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groobo
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Joined: 5/19/2009
Posts: 47
I discovered two new tricks. The first is pretty minor and I dunno if it'll be useful for the any%, but the second is possibly HUGE. You can replenish any weapon with a percentage/quantity to the point as if you just picked it up for the first time (100% club, 100x daggers, 150x xbow, etc.) with this little trick. Remember those pesky goblins that steal your weapons? Go into the inventory at the exact frame when the "something stolen" message appears - the game will register the weapon you were carrying as stolen, but you will still have it in your inventory. Now (still in the inventory screen) choose the weapon that just got "stolen" for it to stay in your inventory for good (only exceptions are the club and the hammer - the former will be destroyed since the percentage/quantity of a weapon drops to 0 after performing this glitch, while the latter will still be equipped but will disappear from your inventory for some reason). Now simply kill the goblin and pick up the goods. This might be useful at the entrance hall or the crystal caves if we need more durability on our club for zarok's lair (assuming that there's no chest with a new club somewhere on our way - couldn't remember any). I tried overflowing the memory or forcing the goblin to drop something else by retrieving like three small swords in a go, rebuying the "stolen" weapon from the shop, overkilling the quantity of daggers/bolts, or forcing the goblin to steal your arm - but there was no apparent result, except the replenish trick. Now for the big news: I found a way to jump with speed similar to a dash jump, but without it. And after you get the dash ability, you can basically dash jump with insance speed, covering pretty big distances. You'll have a better chance of learning the restrictions of this technique with frame advance, because the timing is really strict. Basically what you'll need is a club (the only weapon with which I got this trick to work so far, because of its square button instant-hit, but I guess you could do it with the small sword and such) and something you can hit that will put you into motion, like a wall (if the timing allows it I guess you could also get it to work with a push from a monster instead). You basically have to be running towards the wall/whatever you want to hit (also, I only managed to do it while locking myself against points where two walls meet so I could run in place, using frame-advance you should check if this is in fact necessary), push the attack button, and at the right moment hold the right combination of directional keys as if you wanted to go the opposite way (Dan does his sliding animation) and jump/dash jump. You should gain a shit load of speed, when done correctly. The first thing you should test is if we can use this technique while running alongside a wall, instead of straight against it - this would allow us to cover the gap in the crystal caves without going oob. I found a spot where you could lock yourself against a wall at the right angle and just barely miss the ledge on the other side with this trick, but that spot was between two diamonds close to where you even enter the cave, so if we could do this just a tad bit closer to where the yellow rune holder is. Oh, and you could go straight for the exit trigger in the pools of the ancient dead, without luring the fat guy. And probably enter loop mode in the ghost ship with enough speed to get to the exit trigger in a single loop a bit earlier (assuming I'm right, thinking that you move at less than walking speed after entering the void with the inventory glitch). Another thing you should test, as I already mentioned, is if we can do this trick with a push from an enemy instead of hitting a wall with a weapon. This would easily get you onto the cliff from a tombstone in return to the graveyard. Unfortunately the tombstones are the lowest point from which you gain enough height with a jump - and I wasn't able to hit anything while standing on top of them. This opens up new possibilities for skipping the gauntlet: now we can also consider getting onto the blocks way infront of the yellow rune holder gate or any blocks that are close by as a valid option. Speaking of the gauntlet: try changing Dan's horizontal speed values and check if clipping through shit that you know is already possible is a result of only the right angle, high enough speed, or a combination of both - maybe with higher speed we can clip through more stuff, so in case it's true you should test what's the breakpoint and if we can reach it with this new technique. Later I'll play around with this a little more. I'll keep you posted if I actually get somewhere with it.
Posted: 11/12/2010 8:23 PM
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groobo
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Joined: 5/19/2009
Posts: 47
Wouldn't low% be essentially the same as any%? Given that you have to pick up the club anyway, the only difference would be killing the mausoleum boss with your arm instead of the daggers. Unless tasvideos accepts runs with obscure goals like using only one weapon for all of the game, even though you have to pick up a way stronger one and use it at some point anyway. I'm not really sure about the rules around here. I'm not even mentioning (look what I did there) that an arm-only run would be a real pain to watch - think zarok. There are shortcuts which are probably only useful in a 100% run, so I'm looking forward to helping you with that. New ideas... Need to... Test... (not related to the gauntlet... ok, maybe)
Posted: 11/12/2010 6:20 PM
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groobo
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Joined: 5/19/2009
Posts: 47
Had some new ideas. Unlike the catapult in the haunted ruins, the boat in the pools of the ancient dead is NOT the exit trigger, so to speak. After you give the boat guy all the helmets, a cutscene starts where Dan rides the boat and after he goes off-screen the level ends. It appears that the exit trigger is somewhere along the boat's path all the time, even if you don't pick up a single helmet, or never speak to the boat guy. The problem is was that even with a dash jump at a perfect angle, you miss the trigger by an inch or so. You can go around it by luring/pushing the closest fat-armored-undead-thing as close to the platform next to the boat as you can, then dashing into the bastard in order to get him onto that platform without killing him. When you dash into him at the right angle the game sometimes registers two hits instead of one, which enabled me to do this trick in real time (dunno if you really have to double hit, that's the only way I managed to force enough momentum on him to cover the gap, though). From there you just place him as close to the boat as possible, while avoiding the conversation trigger. And finally you dash jump with a boost from his belly-attack like this (the blue line is where the exit trigger is, the arrow is basically the general direction you want to go in). I also played around zarok's lair. If you enter the first cutscene on the arena with the inventory glitch and turn it off a couple of frames before the last piece of dialog ("for gallow-something!"), for some reason, only half of the enemy skeletons will spawn. Just don't go to close to where the gates and zarok are because that will spawn the remaining enemies. Your soldiers basically gang up on the helpless enemy skeletons and you can complete the fight without even picking up the good lightning while loosing maybe 1, 2 at worst, of your guys. This will probably force you to reconsider the amount of health bottles you'll want to get for the TAS - I'm guessing none. You can also make the game finish the battle before it even starts by NOT going out of the inventory glitch and keeping it all the way through the cutscene, but it'll always consider you as the loser. Tried to make the game declare me the winner by entering the cutscene at different angles, starting the inventory glitch sooner/later, dropping the inventory glitch at different times, watching/skipping each dialog - but every time zarok was all about "harhar told you", so I guess we HAVE to kill at least half of the enemies, unless we find a way to spawn at least one of our skeletons and none of zarok's. The latter only happens when you don't go out of the inventory, and even though your guys spawn a couple of frames after the cutscene, you're still declared the loser, because the game first checks if there aren't any of your guys left and you lose if that's true (which it is because they spawn AFTER the initial check) and THEN it does the same check for zarok's army. This basically explains why you'll always lose if no skeletons exist during the check. You can also delay the next boss' entrance. If you go out of the inventory after you gain back control over Dan, the boss will just then start walking out of the cage and do his intro. He's vulnerable to your attacks during that time. I could nearly waste him with the club before he even got a chance to fight back (got him to like 200hp, maybe less), but I guess that won't be a problem in a TAS. I couldn't delay zarok's intro. It's controller strictly by timing, instead of waypoints like the previous boss. Speaking of the bosses - I finally had a while to check how many chalices it would be worth getting. I'm 99% sure that getting ANY chalice is a waste of time - doesn't matter if we manage to skip the gauntlet or not. First I checked if at least getting the xbow would be worth it. After giving it some though it turns out that it's only useful for the boss at the mausoleum and that's because, at this point, we can only reach him with projectiles. We can 2-round him with the xbow, or make it almost as fast with a 3-round fight using the daggers. Just to be sure I did two runs up until after the mausoleum, one getting the chalice in the graveyard, the other without it. For measurement I used the in-game save function, which doesn't give you seconds so I'm not sure how much faster the no-chalice route is, but it at least proves that it is in fact faster. The time after the mausoleum using the route with the chalice was 0:07, and 0:06 without it. Just for some trivia I continued with both runs through the next level and the gap between the two was still a minute, so even if it's not really a FULL minute I'm guessing the difference isn't small. That closes the xbow book. As for getting any higher weapon, like the hammer or broad sword - this would be an even bigger waste of time. The club is all you need for insane damage output. It's only slightly worse than the enchanced broad sword. We can kill the boss(es) in return to the graveyard in 3-4 seconds using the club, before they even finish their first attack. The one pirate officer we have to kill in the ghost ship goes down in like 3 hits. And assuming that we skip the gauntlet, we add zarok and the boss before him to the enemies we have to defeat in the entire game list. The first goes down either during his intro or the first chance we get to harm him after that - no matter if you're using the club or the broad sword. For the latter I checked the exact damage output and assuming we manipulate him into only doing the move during which he's vulnerable to our attacks for the entire fight, the club vs anything else dispute ends right here: you deal about 400 damage/round (let's say that zarok's vulnerable state is a round, each lasts for about 3 seconds) with the club, 600 for the first and 500/round for the remainder with the enchanted broad sword. Even without testing you can tell that zarok's lair, among all the levels in the game, is where a higher weapon saves the most time - which in this case is only a handful of seconds. Sorry for the huge blocks of text.
Posted: 11/11/2010 7:21 AM
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groobo
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Joined: 5/19/2009
Posts: 47
Well, we already know how to get ONTO the pillar. We just have to figure out a way to clip behind it first, which I think is just rare, but possible. Also, once you get onto the first piece of wood, you can jump onto that square thingie connected to the wall and dash jump above the gate from there, so there's no need to jump to the second piece of wood.
Posted: 11/10/2010 11:48 AM
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groobo
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Joined: 5/19/2009
Posts: 47
Clipping through all the cages is possible in theory. The way I managed to get through most of them (even the ones where there's no appearent sign that it is possible, like stutter-walking, Dan's shadow appearing on the wall or even behind the gate, or being able to lock in place where the gate meets a wall) is by going ape shit at any spot where a gate meets any wall by clipping slightly into the wall, and slipping right between it and the gate to the other side. Sometimes it looked like Dan just zipped through the gate, but I guess my theory applies even to these gates since it works like this with the rest. Anyway, unless we can soft-restart the level without the extended cheat code restart function (I assume it isn't allowed, even if you'd use only that single thing) there's no point in trying to clip the cage with the yellow rune. I've put myself in the gate and even from the furthest point into the cage where you wouldn't get stuck I couldn't grab the rune by any means. The inventory glitch does work on exit triggers. It's just that this particular one is the length of like a full dash jump. Even if we could travel this far during the glitch, the tunnel ends with an invisible wall. Yeah, we can loop here, but as far as I know we can do it only if we could get right under the map. There's a single spot where you can clip through the floor in the entire game that I know of and it's in the haunted ruins, so just MAYBE going oob in the gauntlet is still a valid option.
- MANY, if not all, of the oob spots I've found, are indeed out of bounds, but... The level pushes you back into it.
That's because the game warps you back as soon as you leave the levels horizontal boundaries - no matter if you're just a step outside or a mile away. That's why going oob without a spot where we could clip through the ground or a proxy jump of some sorts (like you mentioned before), will never happen. Since I managed to clip through most of the stone blocks scattered around the level, I checked if doing so would be even worth it at the block somewhere in front of the gate requiring the yellow rune (an idea I mentioned some posts before, where in theory if we could get up on that block, we could do a series of precise jumps from there and get over the wall next to the gate, which would enable us to finally finish the level early, not to mention that, in theory, this would be the fastest method to do so, compared to all the other ideas we had so far). It turns out that if we are able to clip inbetween the block and the wall from the left side we could lock ourselves there like a feet above the ground which is enough for us to be able to get up on the block. In case you want to test it yourself, here's a screenshot of the area with the block taken straight from above. The blue shapes are invisible walls which reach pretty high, so clipping from the right is out of the question. Also, as you can see, there's an invisible wall going alongside the block's upper edge, but it's just enough away from the wall so that we can get stuck between the two without being pushed out. So (again) in theory, if we clip through, we can lock ourselves above the ground with a jump slash at the right angle. Then we can reach the block with a jump, curving around (the arrow on the screenshot) the invisible wall. I teleported myself to nearly inbetween the block and the wall, ground level, and could do all of that in real time, so the only thing to figure out is if we can clip through. I have a good hunch that it is doable since, like I mentioned before, I managed to clip through shit that didn't look even close to being possible to clip through on this level if I tried long enough (mostly a handful of hours worth of trying each, unfortunately), without ever being able to replicate it (and this doesn't matter in a TAS setting). My point being: I can't see why this wouldn't work.
Posted: 11/9/2010 11:32 PM
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groobo
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Joined: 5/19/2009
Posts: 47
Nope I don't care to mention at all, but actually instead of typing I story I'll make a compilation video of all the spots I've found (aside from The Gallows Gauntlet).. And then hopefully you can figure out whats what from the video.
Aww :(. I'll wait for that video then (and the one about the spots in the gauntlet you promised too).
Okay, your point about that is, it'll save time, and it will, but... Everytime I try to do it from the 2nd lift (the second you get to it), I end up dying when I to even get into the void.. Care to explain lol, how to do it? o_o
After you close the inventory window after doing the glitch, you HAVE TO be moving horizontally. You really just have to get past the kill trigger which is like right below you, then close the window while holding a directional button (sometimes you can move only in one direction without dying after doing the inventory glitch and on some levels I found it to be pretty precise, you're good to do whatever you want after you move in the right direction for a frame or two) and start moving towards the exit.
We know that the level loops vertically, but I wonder if we could loop it horizontally too, for example, what I mean is... Think of a piece of paper, say you're at the center of it, move your finger to the right, and eventually you're at the end, we'll instead of "falling off" you start back at the main beginning of the paper on the far left. In my experiences with making (not professionally, just a hobby :P), I know that the level is a predetermined huge grid that you've got to work with, however, I figured that about the layers too... Until we figured out the loop trick, now I'm skeptical if the level designers actually didn't start with a predetermined grid, due to the fact that we can "loop the level", so thats why I'm wondering about the horizontal looping.
I don't see why not. I can't think of a spot where this could be useful though, since even the largest levels aren't even a 1/5 in length compared to the grid's total in any direction (tested this with the free-look camera cheat). Anyway, did some more resarch today: Remember the idea I had about jumping up to the cliff from one of the tombstones in return to the graveyard? Try doing it with a boost from a wolf or zombie. Couldn't get it to work in real time, but I won't be surprised if it is doable. I finally managed to enter the void at the beginning of the crystal caverns. Here's the position and direction you have to jump when doing the inventory glitch. Sometime before the inventory pops back on, you have to slash your sword so that you get pushed back and end up somewhere under the little piece of ground that's sticking out (I'm standing on it on the screenshot). The timing and angles are really precise, I was only able to replicate it once in god knows how many attempts. I sure hope that we can skip the gauntlet, so that this actually becomes useful. While fooling around with the above trick, I got my proof that going oob with the inventory glitch ends up with Dan moving horizontally through the void at less than walking speed. Because of this some routes for levels like the ghost ship or the haunted ruins won't work out quite as I was hoping for. You'll have some testing to do :p. I also had an idea for skipping at least one branch of the map (either one through which you've got to progress in order to get a dragon gem), by (hopefully) double picking the dragon gem, or somehow fooling the game into thinking we didn't pick it up the first time around, and a bunch of other stuff - unfortunately all without success. I'm just covering everything in case we aren't able to skip the gauntlet. I'm all out of ideas for now.
Posted: 11/9/2010 8:51 AM
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groobo
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Joined: 5/19/2009
Posts: 47
In case the cemetery hill fall turns out to be about as fast as doing the level normally, consider this: you don't have to enter the secret room in order to light the club on fire - you can do it at the campfire just outside of the in-doors area.
With your new select thing I've figured out several several (yes 2 times) spots that you can use that, to where you'd normally die, but now "Loop" the level.
Care to mention any? As for the hilltop mausoleum: I did a lot of testing if we could clip through the main gate before, without result. Tried clipping through it, tried luring the goblins and making them push me through, tried to get up on everywhere possible and jump above the gate - nothing worked. It's funny since we'd only have to clip a few pixels into the gate to grab the trigger which opens it (tested this with the teleportation cheat). The enchanted earth: but in the old method you had to ride the second lift all the way up before going into loop, which takes what, 10 seconds? Now you can start falling after getting off of the first lift. You only need to loop once anyway, no matter where you start the loop. Oh, and the fall would take less time since our starting position is way lower than the old one (I assume that Dan loops after hitting the lowest vertical position possible, which cannot happen any sooner, unless we find a way to fall faster - one way or another, AFAIK, your horizontal speed has nothing to do with how soon Dan loops). I actually got into loop mode on my first try in the lake, but went in the wrong direction and ended up somewhere on the opposite part of the level to where the exit trigger is, without encountering any solid kill triggers. That's as far as my research went for this level. Yeah, for the pools of the ancient dead you really just want to go as far as possible in a single loop. I'm not really sure what's Dan's horizontal speed after you do the inventory trick, so I can't tell how far we can go, but I'm sure this saves time one way or another since we can at least skip that annoying battle. You can start looping in the room where you get the dragon armor, so it's a bit sooner than what you said, but I still doubt that it'd be faster than just running for the exit, unless the room is located horizontally-wise near the exit trigger. Also, I never said that I got into loop mode in return to the graveyard - all the pits I've tried have solid ground underneath them (all the ones before grabbing the yellow rune, even if we could do it after that it would end up being slower than just proceeding normally). I'm eagerly awaiting the video showcasing all the spots you found in the gauntlet, maybe we'll figure something out. Oh, and here's the sweetspot for the dragon gate clip (it's behind that stone thing, right between it and the fire). The only way I ever managed to do it was with the large, mummy-like zombie attacking me while I jumped my ass off towards the sweetspot - maybe you could test if this is really necessary (I've tried, but without luck). edit: I've just read some of your notes in the second post and you're wrong about one part of the pools of the ancient dead - you can jump down to NEAR the boat from the higher level, on your way back. You won't be stopped by an invisible wall nor any conversation with death will trigger if done correctly. Also, I haven't seen this mentioned (it's pretty obvious, but I'm just making sure) but in return to the graveyard after going through the tunnel and getting up to the cliff on the LEFT side, you can drop down to the other side of the bridge without pushing any blocks.
Posted: 11/8/2010 11:17 PM
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groobo
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Found some new tricks. In pumpkin gorge we can grab the white rune without fighting off the tentacles. When you get to the area, avoid the trigger that makes all that crap rise out of the ground and jump onto a pumpkin on any side. Dash jump towards the rune from there and you should just barely make it. Also I found a pretty simple way to avoid a bunch of triggers. It turns out that a) nothing will trigger while the inventory window is on, and b) Dan still moves when set in motion before the window appears. Normally you can't turn on the inventory while Dan's speed is anything but 0, but pressing the select button twice while the inventory is displayed will close it and turn it back on after a second or so. During that second we're able to move and even then the inventory window will appear. I went through all the levels and found some use for this - mostly making the levels with known shortcuts even shorter by preparing the glitch, dropping down a ledge, and eventually avoiding a kill trigger where it wasn't possible before. I also found a spot where you can avoid a door-transition trigger by hitting a nearby wall with your sword and being pushed past the trigger, but it turned out to be a dead end. Ok, here's a list of places where this trick works: Cemetery hill: You can get up the hill and drop down avoiding the kill trigger. You could drop to the middle of the gate with the witch talisman, so that you grab it and you're still able to get out. I doubt it would be faster than grabbing the club, then the talisman like you normally would, though. The enchanted earth: You can do start falling way sooner - as soon as you hit the second lift. Pools of the ancient dead: You can enter the void right after grabbing the last helmet. In real time I was able to at least skip the annoying battle that happens right after, but I'm sure you'll be able to fall straight on the boat when TASing. The lake: You can start falling right after you gain control over Dan - go straight for the exit. The crystal caves: I wasn't able to fall through the pit where the yellow rune is required, because of the platform at the bottom. There are a couple of small spots where you could fall through it, but the time window between closing and reopening the inventory screen was too small for me to be quick enough to reach them in real time - maybe you'll have better luck with frame advance in which case the whole level could be skipped. If not, we call start falling in the room where you summon the dragon, and go straight for the exit. I dunno if the latter would be faster than just rushing towards the exit normally, though. The haunted ruins: So now the route looks like this: 1) skip the damn chicken herding and immediately start falling towards the room with the the king's crown, 2) return the crown to the king, 3) skip the fight with the statues (finally), don't even flip the switch, and most certainly don't grab the green rune - fall through here (the position is very precise, you have to just barely miss the ground, otherwise you'll end up on a solid kill trigger a couple of feet below) down to the catapult (you still have to flip the switch near it and board it, since it's the only way to trigger the exit). The ghost ship: You can start falling a bit earlier, near the red rune where the cannons are. The time device: You can start falling immediately after gaining control over Dan. That's basically it. I was hoping for something... You know... New. I tried avoiding the water in return to the graveyard, alongside other levels, and falling straight to the boss fight, but it appears that the liquid pits in this game are only a couple feet deep, with solid ground underneath. I was also pretty certain that avoiding transition triggers which appear as holes/trap doors/whatever like the first one in the hilltop mausoleum, most of the inside the asylum ones, and the two in the asylum grounds, would allow us to enter the void in those levels, but all of those are, just like the liquid pits, just a few feet deep with solid ground underneath. I'll see if I can find anything else.
Posted: 11/8/2010 8:26 AM
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groobo
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My cpu overheats in like two minutes when running pcsx, even if I'm not recording. And when I try to record in epsxe with fraps/hypercam/camtasia/whatever the framerate drops to like 5-10/s. So basically my pc is too old to handle that crap - screenshots will have to do. You'll really need some way of monitoring dan's coordinates while navigating through the void in the haunted ruins and the time device. The enchanted earth and ghost ship skips are pretty simple, compared to those two. It would be worth checking if the pools of the ancient dead trick and the first trick in the lake are really faster then just grabbing the red rune or going through the building, respectively. Yes, we can skip the boss in the ghost ship. And yes, we don't have to be on the train to trigger the exit in the time device. For the gauntlet you'll have to try and get back from the dragon gate with frame advance and all that stuff. I've spent countless hours trying to make it work without those things and I never got even close. I was eager to try it out myself, but you know, an overheating cpu and having to reboot every two minutes isn't a good thing. My best bet will be to try and have the game misfire and somehow put me on one of the mentioned spots. IIRC the game does that from time to time. edit: Revisited the rest of the levels. Pumpkin gorge: Go here (it's behind the hut on the right in the first area with buildings) and do a running jump towards the wall from the marked spot and drop in the exact same place (Dan should kinda slide up the wall during the jump). If done correctly, Dan should do his about-to-fall animation every full second. Now between those animations start running and make this jump so that you end up here and can jump in the arrow's direction. In a couple of steps you should encounter an invisible wall. It's not really a single wall, this screenshot should explain it. You have to clip between the walls towards the arrow's point (this is pretty random for me), otherwise you won't be able to go any further. If done correctly you should be able to run for a fair distance before getting to this spot. You have to jump above the blue line and after passing the house continue alongside the very edge of the wall you're on - if you fail to do any of that you will be warped back to the normal playing area. This basically allows you to run straight for the green rune. You complete the rest of the level as you normally would. The sleeping village: Although we can get up of the roofs and drop right by the gate with the exit trigger, I haven't found a way to clip through it and the last pack of soldiers that you have to kill to open it doesn't spawn until you do two things, though - so we can't complete the level early. The two things you have to do are: pick up the golden head item in one of the houses and flip the switch in the house with the safe which holds the shadow artifact. You can do those tasks in any order, but both have to be fulfilled for the last pack of soldiers to spawn. There's no trick to getting the golden head statue, but just today I found a way to get to the house with the switch early. Here's the sweetspot where you can clip into the tree (it's located on the road on your right when facing the fountain from where you start the level). Just make sure you don't overshoot it and clip through the tree entirely, so you don't get stuck. Just clip as far as you need to trigger the gate to open and simply run back. Remember: you only need to get the golden head statue and flip the switch in the house with the safe - from there you run straight for the last fight and exit. Those are the last shortcuts I know of for this game, so unless you find out how clipping exactly works and we can implement it in more areas, if the gauntlet can be skipped is the last thing left to figure out as far as I'm concerned.
Posted: 11/7/2010 9:53 PM
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groobo
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These were the settings I was using, so I just gave up on pcsx. Epsxe works great for me, but my pc still nukes whenever I try to record something so screenshots will have to do. I would advise monitoring Dan's coordinates while oob with RAM watch or whatever. Without that you really won't know what is going on in the void. Enchanted earth: Go here and do a dash jump at the last frame possible in the pointed direction. Once you pass the kill trigger you're on your own. Two things, though: While oob you have to be moving horizontally at all times (your hspeed has to be anything other than 0, to be more precise, otherwise Dan will die for some reason) - if you want to fall straight down, move in small circles. If your destination is too far away to reach in a single jump, make sure you don't land on anything and let the level "loop". Pools of the ancient dead: You can skip the red rune here. Do a dash jump and curve around the gate, like this. You do it exactly the same on your way back. The lake: Go to the general area where the exit is. You can skip going through the building with this jump - same method as the previous shortcut. For reaching the exit trigger early, jump between the crystals and the fissure on the left side of the door, then jump towards the fissure, then onto the roof. You should hit the exit trigger in two or three steps. The haunted ruins: You can't fall straight to the exit trigger in this level because it isn't loaded until you return the crown to the king's ghost. After the chicken herding, go up the wall, and do a jump like this - you won't fall but you will still trigger the demons to run for the switch which opens the gates (it's important to do this, otherwise you'll be stuck later on). Now go back to the bridge and curve around the side of the entrance with a dush jump to avoid the kill trigger, like this. You want to drop to the room with the crown and complete the rest of the level as you normally would. The ghost ship: Get to this spot, dash jump avoiding the kill trigger, fall straight to the exit. The time device: You can drop down avoiding the kill trigger right where you start the level. The lower part of the left-side wall isn't solid - you're safe to fall straight to the exit trigger once you go through it. That's all for the levels we have to go through one way or another. I'll try to remember the shortcuts for the rest of the levels probably tomorrow. I played around with the in-game cheat codes and found out that you can teleport anywhere with one of these babies, so I can do even more crude researching! Theory time: There are no invisible walls above the walls around the last gate in the gauntlet - this means we have to get to one of those spots. I already tested it and we can get to the exit from there. Also, going out of bounds is out of the question: this is one of the levels where the game warps you right back into the level's boundaries the moment you get out, even if you teleport 10k units away from the playing area. I also had an idea for a small shortcut in the return to the graveyard level which would skip the yellow rune and all that stuff. Maybe it's possible to jump from one of the tombstone's on the lower level up to the cliff. With a dash jump I can easily do it - it's a whole different deal without it, though.
Posted: 11/6/2010 10:37 PM
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groobo
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Turning on that cpu something option makes the game work, but basically kills my pc. Pcsx runs at 40fps top and that's with massive frame skipping and the no sound plugin, so any advice for getting better performance on this piece of crap would really help. For now I figured out the boulder clip, here's a screenshot. Just make a running jump towards the marked spot - works every time. I'll try to get some videos up tomorrow.
Posted: 11/6/2010 9:44 PM
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groobo
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All of the time machine is skippable, so hold on a sec :p.
Posted: 11/6/2010 9:32 PM
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groobo
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Hold your horses, both these levels can be partially skipped :). One question: how the hell did you get this game running in pcsx? For me it crashes right after loading dan's crypt with the default settings/plugins.
Posted: 11/6/2010 8:45 PM
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groobo
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I think I'll simply record all the tricks that I know of.
Posted: 11/6/2010 9:03 AM
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groobo
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Just make sure that the time required to acquire new weapons is smaller than the timer these weapons will save. I remember doing my own research on this and came to the conclusion that getting anything beyond the crossbow wasted time - that's all. Then again, maybe in a TAS setting this knowledge is obsolete, so let's hope for that. Clipping the fence was pretty random for me too, but then again I didn't have any TAS thingies to do proper research with. The boulders I remember working every time, though I don't remember the sweetspot (there IS one, so look for that - maybe it's between a boulder and the wall). The way I tried to do every clipping trick in this game was to get to a spot, start running (in place), and start jumping/dash jumping towards the sweetspot (not sure if this is required) at different angles, while holding different directional keys each time. Once you know where the sweetspot is, you only have to find the right camera angle and the direction you have to "push" - it often has to be pretty precise, like with the fence clip. As for "the uber skip": The enchanted earth can be skipped. My method was a bit slower than the guy's who pointed this trick out earlier because I made the jump from the top of the tower. You HAVE to land in the exit triggger, otherwise you will be stuck. So the only thing left for this beast to work is to skip the gauntlet. In theory there are a couple ways to achieve this: 1) Get out of bounds and land in the exit trigger 2) Clip through, or somehow get above, the gate that requires the yellow rune 3) Clip through the gate that holds the yellow rune 4) Clip through the gate with the button that opens the gate which holds the yellow rune 5) Clip through the dragon gate AND then clip back Ad. 1) No luck. Although I managed to climb one of the walls nearly to the spot where it isn't even textured, it seemed to reach even higher than that. I also managed to partially glitch into a couple of walls where Dan would do that I'm-about-to-fall animation and you could rotate the camera so you could see the void, but I never got fully through. Now why do I think this would work? Because of how the void works in this game. When you reach the bottom of the level, the game sets your z-position to the highest point possible, while the x/y position stays as is. This basically means that once you get outside of any level's boundaries you "loop" through the level and can land wherever you want. Ad. 2) The wall seems too thick and there seems to be an extra invisible wall above it, so no luck here either. Ad. 3 & 4) Here's the funny part - I managed to clip through nearly every small gate on this level, except these two. Ad. 5) You can clip through the dragon gate from one side, by luring a big zombie and letting it attack you while you're dash jumping into the spot where the fire meets the left-hand stone serpent head/tail/whatever-it-is. If now you could just get back - this whole thing would work. Maybe play around with the dragon in the trap chest (it's in that area) and maybe he'll push you through. With the right timing it can give you a monstrous boost. Unless you manage to overflow the memory or leave any level with a yellow rune in your inventory, without the game dropping it, or even grabbing the rune through the gate without clipping - I can't see any other way for this to work.
Posted: 11/5/2010 7:52 AM
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groobo
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Not a skip, but would still save time (maybe even in more places than this): after grabbing the yellow rune in dan's crypt you can turn around without the sliding animation by jumping and turning in mid air. I'm not really sure about this, but after grabbing the chalice at the graveyard maybe you can get up that hill on the left and somehow get over the fence. I remember being able to get on the hill and TRYING to get over the fence but can't recall if it worked. At cemetery hill, on your way to get the club you can clip through the boulders blocking your way. After grabbing the talisman and going all the way outside, at about 5:44 in the video: turn right and go to the spot where the fence meets the stone wall - you can clip through the fence there. The boss: wouldn't it be faster to charge up the throwing daggers while waiting for him to become vulnerable, then releasing them and switch to the crossbow? Also, do we really need to get anything beyond the crossbow? The only place we really need a better weapon is zarok - everything before that is manageable without one, iirc. Right now I'll only mention the stuff that I'm sure that/have no idea if it works. The shortcuts that end up being dead ends I'll mention later.
Posted: 11/4/2010 6:11 AM
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groobo
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Some time ago I did some research on this game for a speedrun I was planning to do and I remember it being full of various shortcuts and skips. There's a possibility that a skip I was working on, before I gave up, will work with TAS means, which would cut the whole game by (I'm just guessing here) 25% or so. I would appreciate those youtube WIPs - my memory of the game is a bit murky, but seeing actual footage brings it right back. Oh, beside the lake and the grounds skips, you can also entirely skip the time machine, plus huge chunks of other levels. For the lake skip, it's easier to jump between the crystals on the left side of the door and the fissure (between the two buildings) - that will leave Dan slightly in the wall. From there you just need to jump (or dash jump) towards the building which for some reason will place you on top of it. Just run towards where the doorway would lead and you'll finish the level. Works every time, even without TASing. There's a couple more shortcuts on your way to the exit in this level too, but I'm guessing you already figured them out.
Posted: 5/19/2009 8:05 PM
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groobo
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Atma wrote:
Equipment wise, I'd try glitching a muramasa or valmanway and a chaos ring. I'm fairly sure I've once glitched a chaos ring into my inventory, but I can't remember if I actually managed to make it back to the game. The best I've managed to glitch equipment wise though yet is the katana 2 ranks below muramasa, so eh. If you combine these with a good bullet soul and a chaos ring, the overall damage output would be satisfyingly high.
AFAIK the only way to get glitched "high" equipment during a SG is slide once in a while while waiting a ridiculous amount of time before you can get back in bounds. After a couple of slides (about the time your equipment starts changing) you can't get back if you suspend the game. Also the earliest point where you can get those really good items with the SG is the first save room in the abyss. The same goes for incorrect amounts of souls. I remember testing devil + golem x8 + SOME weapon, I dunno, against erinys + stolas x8, at the last boss. The latter was better by far (tested in real time so probably doesn't matter). I'll leave which weapon I used under a question mark because I really don't remember. Of course if you could manipulate a good one, plus some mind ups, it would save you a trip to the village. Also, this.
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