My feelings on The Demon Rush
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James 'Kubelwagon' Gray's Greenhorn difficulty run
Verifier Responses
Decision: Accept
Reason: Because there just can't be enough World War 2 speedruns.
James 'Kubelwagon' Gray's Greenhorn difficulty run
Verifier Responses
Quote:
Its been a very long time since I've seen pre-1.4 patch of this game, and I had completely forgotten how annoying the bunnyhopping on this game looks.
Worth noting that this run is done with the 1.3 patch. Later releases of the game came with 1.4/1.5, and bunny hopping doesn't work in those.
Training – Good
Pathfinder – Good
Burnville – Overall impressive.
Dawnville – Panzer from the window is a nice touch.
Car Ride – Good.
Brecourt – Pistol antics are amusing, and they don't lose any time.
Chateau – The one BAR shot at the start is pretty badass.
POW Camp - Good
Now onto the awful British accents... “Oh for god's sake Jack”
Pegasus Night - “Ham and Jam!”
Pegasus Day – Good
Dam – Extremely bhop friendly map, still good though.
Truck Ride - Good
Airfield - Good
Ship – I love the straight face conversation needed to board the ship, and then how the player hops away down the ship. Great comedy, and completion of an awkward level.
Stalingrad – Good
Red Square - Nice sniping work.
Train Station – Good
Sewer - Good
Pavlov – Good (Yeah, not much to say about these)
Tank Factory - Good
Railyard – One way wall; Germans were up to no good.
Tank Drive Country – Quite a few misses, but as the runner points out, the controls for this are dire. And it doesn't cost much time.
Tank Drive Town - Good
Hurtgen - Good
Rocket - Good
Berlin – Some nice low health moments. Window dive is a nice touch.
Accept.
Overall a great run, where little time is lost. I guess the only things that would save time would be extreme optimisation of bhopping (which isn't worth the work) and not clipping some door frames. 'Grats to the runner!
Worth noting that this run is done with the 1.3 patch. Later releases of the game came with 1.4/1.5, and bunny hopping doesn't work in those.
Training – Good
Pathfinder – Good
Burnville – Overall impressive.
Dawnville – Panzer from the window is a nice touch.
Car Ride – Good.
Brecourt – Pistol antics are amusing, and they don't lose any time.
Chateau – The one BAR shot at the start is pretty badass.
POW Camp - Good
Now onto the awful British accents... “Oh for god's sake Jack”
Pegasus Night - “Ham and Jam!”
Pegasus Day – Good
Dam – Extremely bhop friendly map, still good though.
Truck Ride - Good
Airfield - Good
Ship – I love the straight face conversation needed to board the ship, and then how the player hops away down the ship. Great comedy, and completion of an awkward level.
Stalingrad – Good
Red Square - Nice sniping work.
Train Station – Good
Sewer - Good
Pavlov – Good (Yeah, not much to say about these)
Tank Factory - Good
Railyard – One way wall; Germans were up to no good.
Tank Drive Country – Quite a few misses, but as the runner points out, the controls for this are dire. And it doesn't cost much time.
Tank Drive Town - Good
Hurtgen - Good
Rocket - Good
Berlin – Some nice low health moments. Window dive is a nice touch.
Accept.
Overall a great run, where little time is lost. I guess the only things that would save time would be extreme optimisation of bhopping (which isn't worth the work) and not clipping some door frames. 'Grats to the runner!
Quote:
Training
1 shot missed with m1 carbine, rest optimal
Pathfinder
Meleeing the first guy might be faster, why does he pick up the kar98, if he doesn't use it? The hit by the MG42 from the house could be avoided.
Burnville
1/2 sec ist lost from butting the Fallschirmjäger near the second gun; near optimal
Dawnville
flawless
Car Ride
The guy around the corner of the church before the hot-wiring sequence, whom he missed slows elder and moody down a little.
Brecourt
Maybe he could take a more direct route to the fourth gun
Chateau
flawless
PoW Camp
On the way back he takes the path behind some houses to avoid some enemies (?), taking the direct route seems to be faster
Pegasus night
Why didn't he bunnyhop over the bridge to the Flak88 and instead takes the walkway?
Pegasus day
flawless
Dam
He stopped on the dam before fourth gun probably costs 1 sec. Later he gets stuck on some barrels, costs about 2 seconds.
Truck Ride
flawless
Airfield
flawless
Ship
He took a wrong turn on the way to the armoury, but Price has to follow, so I don't think there's any time lost .
Stalingrad
flawless
Red Square
Going down the hallway in the first building might be faster though I am not sure about that because of the enemies.
Train Station
flawless
Sewer
Taking cover to reload near the first overhead opening slows him down, considering the ammo in the clip and his health it doesn't seem very useful.
Pavlov
flawless
Tank Factory
Again taking cover to reload.
Railyard
flawless
Tank drive country
At one point there are to tanks, he crashes into the first and then goes between the two, the crash costs some time. I believe the of tanks weak spot is between turret and chassis.
Tank drive town
flawless
Hürtgenwald
flawless
Rocket
flawless
Berlin
flawless
VERDICT:
Right now I would reject it. Don't get me wrong, it's a good run, but some of the flaws are just to obvious. I'd like to see what the runner says about the flaws before giving a final verdict.
1 shot missed with m1 carbine, rest optimal
Pathfinder
Meleeing the first guy might be faster, why does he pick up the kar98, if he doesn't use it? The hit by the MG42 from the house could be avoided.
Burnville
1/2 sec ist lost from butting the Fallschirmjäger near the second gun; near optimal
Dawnville
flawless
Car Ride
The guy around the corner of the church before the hot-wiring sequence, whom he missed slows elder and moody down a little.
Brecourt
Maybe he could take a more direct route to the fourth gun
Chateau
flawless
PoW Camp
On the way back he takes the path behind some houses to avoid some enemies (?), taking the direct route seems to be faster
Pegasus night
Why didn't he bunnyhop over the bridge to the Flak88 and instead takes the walkway?
Pegasus day
flawless
Dam
He stopped on the dam before fourth gun probably costs 1 sec. Later he gets stuck on some barrels, costs about 2 seconds.
Truck Ride
flawless
Airfield
flawless
Ship
He took a wrong turn on the way to the armoury, but Price has to follow, so I don't think there's any time lost .
Stalingrad
flawless
Red Square
Going down the hallway in the first building might be faster though I am not sure about that because of the enemies.
Train Station
flawless
Sewer
Taking cover to reload near the first overhead opening slows him down, considering the ammo in the clip and his health it doesn't seem very useful.
Pavlov
flawless
Tank Factory
Again taking cover to reload.
Railyard
flawless
Tank drive country
At one point there are to tanks, he crashes into the first and then goes between the two, the crash costs some time. I believe the of tanks weak spot is between turret and chassis.
Tank drive town
flawless
Hürtgenwald
flawless
Rocket
flawless
Berlin
flawless
VERDICT:
Right now I would reject it. Don't get me wrong, it's a good run, but some of the flaws are just to obvious. I'd like to see what the runner says about the flaws before giving a final verdict.
Quote:
Okay, got round to having a look at CoD at last. Haven't had a chance to test everything I wanted to so apologies if this response is a bit sketchier than normal. I'll go through level by level and post observations / questions for the runner on stuff I didn't get round to testing.
Training: Which sign you have to approach at the beginning is chosen at random when you start the game; the runner probably should've luck manipulated it to be the sign nearest to the gate to save what looks to be just under a second.
Also, you can use the Carbine to shoot the target in the Springfield section, and so should since it shoots faster.
Pathfinder: Looks fine to me.
Burnville: The runner spends about 10 seconds blowing up the second target. This is a mistake; if you just run past the first two targets, they magically explode on their own. This probably costs the full 10 seconds, but may have cost less or nothing if Foley happened to be moving during the last 10 seconds before the final target blows up, since the time for this level depends upon when Foley reaches the end point rather than when you blow the final target.
On that note: Kubelwagon, did you test out killing the enemies along the way to make Foley advance sooner? My gut feeling is that using nades to clear the house with the MG42 at the start, taking a second to shoot the halftrack gunner, and clearing out as many enemies thereafter as you can while moving using nades and Thompson spray, would delay your progress to the final target very little while significantly speeding up Foley's progress, and so save time overall.
Dawnville: Looks fine. Possibly would've helped to grab the FG-42 at the end of the last mission to use here? Oh yeah, also, I think it's slightly faster at 10:00 to squeeze by the tank on the left while it's still moving instead of waiting to by on the right.
Car Ride: It looks like the brief fight Moody and Elder get into at the corner on the way to the second car costs time? Apologies if I'm wrong and it doesn't, I didn't get round to testing this. If it does, that's kind of sloppy given that those few seconds are the only part of the level that actually affect the time.
Brecourt: Looks solid to me. Just FYI though, the trick with the spawn trigger doesn't work as described in your comments. You still activate the trigger even if you jump; however, the scripts that spawn enemies in will cancel themselves if the spawn point is in your line of sight (you don't have to actually be looking at it, there just has to be a clear path between you and the spawn point). Jumping at the point you do elevates you enough that most of the enemies who would be spawned in are thus in your line of sight, so their spawns get cancelled. You can observe the trigger firing and the spawns cancelling yourself if you play in devmode.
Chateau: No planning mistakes I could find.
POW Camp: No planning mistakes I could find.
Pegasus Night: Is it possible to keep Mills on the starting side of the bridge by blocking, shooting or grenading him (or some mixture of the three) to reduce the time spent grabbing him and escorting him over? By the way, a mistake in your comments: you say this is the first mission where you have to kill all enemies to end the level, but actually the first such mission is, of course, Brecourt.
Pegasus Day: What triggers the order to retreat back across the bridge? Is it on a fixed timer?
Dam: There's a route mistake here that costs 5 or 6 seconds by my reckoning. Instead of taking the door out to the right from the control room at 47:20 and riding the elevator down from the very top, it's quicker to jump out of the window straight ahead, hop over the rail, go left and ride the elevator down from the middle stop.
Truck Ride: Fixed time level, nothing to say.
Airfield: Also basically a fixed time level, I think? Besides being in position to get back on the truck ASAP, does anything else you do in this level (e.g. shooting the Stukas) affect the time?
Ship: A couple of obvious route mistakes here. When you leave the hangar, it's faster to go round to the west and enter the door on that side, since that's where the staircase that goes all the way up is. Your way you have to run an extra corridor to cross from the east stairs to the west ones when the east stairs end. Also, on your way back down, it'd be faster to leave through the west door (you can get over the railing there too) rather than crossing over to the east door only to have to cross back to the west to get to your escape boat. I didn't time these but I'd guess we're talking about a little over 5 seconds lost?
Stalingrad: Looks fine. I tried to find a way to avoid the kill trigger and get up to the exit without waiting for the artillery, but without success. By the way, the evil, glitched and rather loud bullet spray of death from nowhere that chases you down if you try to scale the hill to the machine gunners on the main beach is absolutely terrifying.
Red Square: Looks solid. Again, I tried to find a way to beat the kill trigger but without success.
Train Station: You can crawl out of the window with the MG-42 in at 1:16:00. Missing this was probably the biggest single mistake in the run, although it's still only about 10 seconds. I bet you're going to massively kick yourself when you read this though since you said in your comments you spent hours trying to get over the broken catwalk yet missed this about a metre away.
Pavlov's House: I have absolutely no idea what the best approach to clearing the house at the start is. So many possible routes, so much potential for grenade usage, and so much extra confusion added by the presence of teammates. I didn't do any testing here, so all I can say is that your apparoch at least appears to be alright. Exactly the same applies to handling the cleanup at the end; I dunno if there's any tricks you could use here to try and manipulate the enemy spawns to your favour.
Tank Factory: Looks fine.
Railyard: Rather than going left around the carriage at the start, jump onto the crates straight ahead of you, then onto and over the carriage, and shoot the mp44er who comes out in front of you and run straight for the steps. It's a faster, more direct route, and the expected damage is the same or better. Maybe a more aggressive approach at the end (i.e. charging forward with your SMG into the arriving Germans rather than hanging back) would have finished off the enemies there faster?
Tank Drive Country: This is massively pedantic, but I think it's slightly faster (half a second to a second) to cut a straight path through the water instead of going over the bridge. I'm guessing you just saw the bridge and it didn't occur to you to go around it?
Tank Drive Town, Rocket, Hurtgen, Berlin: All look fine to me, I didn't pick up on any planning mistakes.
General comments on the run: Execution was improvable but decent throughout, with a fair number of catches on doorways and such but no big howlers. As you'll already know if you've read the stuff above, I only found about 30 seconds of planning mistakes in total which is acceptable for a run of this length. If you'll permit me a moment of whinging, I didn't really like the way this run was segmented - basically with a 'segment whenever I feel like it' approach. I don't mind people not using SDA's 'optimise for the half-second penalty' system and instead choosing to use, for instance, all autosaves or do 1 segment per level, but I think it's kind of inelegant to not have a system at all, not least because it's not clear what segmentation scheme you'd expect a competitor to keep to. Also, the runner's comments could maybe have used some more detail.
Verdict: Accept. The run is basically okay, although I'd encourage the runner to redo all or some of Training, Burnville, Dam, Ship, Train Station and Railyard to fix the small planning mistakes I found there.
Training: Which sign you have to approach at the beginning is chosen at random when you start the game; the runner probably should've luck manipulated it to be the sign nearest to the gate to save what looks to be just under a second.
Also, you can use the Carbine to shoot the target in the Springfield section, and so should since it shoots faster.
Pathfinder: Looks fine to me.
Burnville: The runner spends about 10 seconds blowing up the second target. This is a mistake; if you just run past the first two targets, they magically explode on their own. This probably costs the full 10 seconds, but may have cost less or nothing if Foley happened to be moving during the last 10 seconds before the final target blows up, since the time for this level depends upon when Foley reaches the end point rather than when you blow the final target.
On that note: Kubelwagon, did you test out killing the enemies along the way to make Foley advance sooner? My gut feeling is that using nades to clear the house with the MG42 at the start, taking a second to shoot the halftrack gunner, and clearing out as many enemies thereafter as you can while moving using nades and Thompson spray, would delay your progress to the final target very little while significantly speeding up Foley's progress, and so save time overall.
Dawnville: Looks fine. Possibly would've helped to grab the FG-42 at the end of the last mission to use here? Oh yeah, also, I think it's slightly faster at 10:00 to squeeze by the tank on the left while it's still moving instead of waiting to by on the right.
Car Ride: It looks like the brief fight Moody and Elder get into at the corner on the way to the second car costs time? Apologies if I'm wrong and it doesn't, I didn't get round to testing this. If it does, that's kind of sloppy given that those few seconds are the only part of the level that actually affect the time.
Brecourt: Looks solid to me. Just FYI though, the trick with the spawn trigger doesn't work as described in your comments. You still activate the trigger even if you jump; however, the scripts that spawn enemies in will cancel themselves if the spawn point is in your line of sight (you don't have to actually be looking at it, there just has to be a clear path between you and the spawn point). Jumping at the point you do elevates you enough that most of the enemies who would be spawned in are thus in your line of sight, so their spawns get cancelled. You can observe the trigger firing and the spawns cancelling yourself if you play in devmode.
Chateau: No planning mistakes I could find.
POW Camp: No planning mistakes I could find.
Pegasus Night: Is it possible to keep Mills on the starting side of the bridge by blocking, shooting or grenading him (or some mixture of the three) to reduce the time spent grabbing him and escorting him over? By the way, a mistake in your comments: you say this is the first mission where you have to kill all enemies to end the level, but actually the first such mission is, of course, Brecourt.
Pegasus Day: What triggers the order to retreat back across the bridge? Is it on a fixed timer?
Dam: There's a route mistake here that costs 5 or 6 seconds by my reckoning. Instead of taking the door out to the right from the control room at 47:20 and riding the elevator down from the very top, it's quicker to jump out of the window straight ahead, hop over the rail, go left and ride the elevator down from the middle stop.
Truck Ride: Fixed time level, nothing to say.
Airfield: Also basically a fixed time level, I think? Besides being in position to get back on the truck ASAP, does anything else you do in this level (e.g. shooting the Stukas) affect the time?
Ship: A couple of obvious route mistakes here. When you leave the hangar, it's faster to go round to the west and enter the door on that side, since that's where the staircase that goes all the way up is. Your way you have to run an extra corridor to cross from the east stairs to the west ones when the east stairs end. Also, on your way back down, it'd be faster to leave through the west door (you can get over the railing there too) rather than crossing over to the east door only to have to cross back to the west to get to your escape boat. I didn't time these but I'd guess we're talking about a little over 5 seconds lost?
Stalingrad: Looks fine. I tried to find a way to avoid the kill trigger and get up to the exit without waiting for the artillery, but without success. By the way, the evil, glitched and rather loud bullet spray of death from nowhere that chases you down if you try to scale the hill to the machine gunners on the main beach is absolutely terrifying.
Red Square: Looks solid. Again, I tried to find a way to beat the kill trigger but without success.
Train Station: You can crawl out of the window with the MG-42 in at 1:16:00. Missing this was probably the biggest single mistake in the run, although it's still only about 10 seconds. I bet you're going to massively kick yourself when you read this though since you said in your comments you spent hours trying to get over the broken catwalk yet missed this about a metre away.
Pavlov's House: I have absolutely no idea what the best approach to clearing the house at the start is. So many possible routes, so much potential for grenade usage, and so much extra confusion added by the presence of teammates. I didn't do any testing here, so all I can say is that your apparoch at least appears to be alright. Exactly the same applies to handling the cleanup at the end; I dunno if there's any tricks you could use here to try and manipulate the enemy spawns to your favour.
Tank Factory: Looks fine.
Railyard: Rather than going left around the carriage at the start, jump onto the crates straight ahead of you, then onto and over the carriage, and shoot the mp44er who comes out in front of you and run straight for the steps. It's a faster, more direct route, and the expected damage is the same or better. Maybe a more aggressive approach at the end (i.e. charging forward with your SMG into the arriving Germans rather than hanging back) would have finished off the enemies there faster?
Tank Drive Country: This is massively pedantic, but I think it's slightly faster (half a second to a second) to cut a straight path through the water instead of going over the bridge. I'm guessing you just saw the bridge and it didn't occur to you to go around it?
Tank Drive Town, Rocket, Hurtgen, Berlin: All look fine to me, I didn't pick up on any planning mistakes.
General comments on the run: Execution was improvable but decent throughout, with a fair number of catches on doorways and such but no big howlers. As you'll already know if you've read the stuff above, I only found about 30 seconds of planning mistakes in total which is acceptable for a run of this length. If you'll permit me a moment of whinging, I didn't really like the way this run was segmented - basically with a 'segment whenever I feel like it' approach. I don't mind people not using SDA's 'optimise for the half-second penalty' system and instead choosing to use, for instance, all autosaves or do 1 segment per level, but I think it's kind of inelegant to not have a system at all, not least because it's not clear what segmentation scheme you'd expect a competitor to keep to. Also, the runner's comments could maybe have used some more detail.
Verdict: Accept. The run is basically okay, although I'd encourage the runner to redo all or some of Training, Burnville, Dam, Ship, Train Station and Railyard to fix the small planning mistakes I found there.
Quote:
Verifier: So, Call of duty.
Verifier: Greenhorn is the difficulty, which is the translation of Easy or beginner.
Verifier: Nothing wrong with that, save the fact that it adds hilarity when the guy gets hit with 9000 bullets and doesnt die.
Verifier: Anyways, i was expecting to submit a mile long list of tiny nitpicks. But i'm not. Because i can't find a mile long list worth of nitpicks.
Verifier: The run is amazing. Half the time, the runner doesn't really need to do anything, because he's waiting for <Insert Commander's Name Here> to finish the instructions.
Verifier: This is a well deserved accept from me.
Verifier: Greenhorn is the difficulty, which is the translation of Easy or beginner.
Verifier: Nothing wrong with that, save the fact that it adds hilarity when the guy gets hit with 9000 bullets and doesnt die.
Verifier: Anyways, i was expecting to submit a mile long list of tiny nitpicks. But i'm not. Because i can't find a mile long list worth of nitpicks.
Verifier: The run is amazing. Half the time, the runner doesn't really need to do anything, because he's waiting for <Insert Commander's Name Here> to finish the instructions.
Verifier: This is a well deserved accept from me.
Decision: Accept
Reason: Because there just can't be enough World War 2 speedruns.
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