Amnesia: The Dark Descent

Edit history:

Arazath: 2015-03-14 05:39:41 pm

Arazath: 2015-03-14 05:38:03 pm

2015-03-12 03:53:12 am

Modified Sewer Route

The initial clip remains the same as the one describe by Nosferatu. After this clip, turn around and boost up using the corner. Jump onto the pipe and then the corner. Instead of boosting up, jump around and land on the slanted wall. Keep boosting up until you get to the top.

Update: If you can manage Nosfera_2's triple clip, then this strategy is not for you. I do find this to be a safer alternative though.

Arazath

Edit history:

Arazath: 2015-03-14 05:39:19 pm

Arazath: 2015-03-14 05:39:05 pm

Arazath: 2015-03-14 05:37:17 pm

Arazath: 2015-03-14 05:36:54 pm

Arazath: 2015-03-13 09:39:42 pm

2015-03-13 09:29:22 pm

Nave Redux Route

This is overall a pretty easy route. The first clip can be a little mischievous. You need to just crouch, and look slightly to the left as you're going up and jump. The second part involves boosting down, which is also seen in my first video posted on the last page. The reason why we don't use eu_raiders fall is because it puts you too far around the room. The last jump is really easy. Just jump into the pink wall slime and it should clip you in.

Some slight modifications to this: You may also want to crouch and go straight rather than go around one of the stair supports like it did. It's faster.

Update: This route is at best slightly faster than the current route that nosfera_2 uses. There is obvious risk involved with going OOB, and it looks like the only benefit this particular route has is avoiding the unavoidable (in-bounds) slime.

Nosferatu

2015-04-03 10:18:30 am

Fatalis recently updated his load removal plugin for Livesplit. I made this guide if you want to know how to enable it:

http://www.speedrun.com/tdd/thread/p7jn8

Reminder that time spent dead is no longer counted out and that loads start on the first frame of the load screen and end when the load screen text begins to move.

Nosferatu

2015-06-24 02:59:48 am

I found a new clip for Cistern Entrance 2 that has the potential to save about 6-7 seconds.

I don't have a good setup for the clip at the moment so this route will often lose time. But if I can find a setup that only takes like 5 seconds it should be worth it to go for.

Nosferatu

2015-08-21 04:48:05 pm

I finally got around to making an Entrance Hall tutorial to explain my setups.

Remember to have you graphics set to the lowest settings to ensure your textures are the same as the ones used in the video.

Nosferatu

2015-09-13 02:54:50 am

I came up with a slight improvement to Refinery at the very end for people that want to do the inbounds/glitchless route.

This strat should save ~2 seconds over the standard route, but it's still slower than the OoB at the end.

Rumbler

Edit history:

Rumbler: 2015-10-27 09:55:20 am

2015-10-17 05:11:00 pm

http://www.twitch.tv/adrumbler/v/21179446

Hey guys I don't know if this is a thread dedicated to only strats so feel free to remove this post

This is my latest run of Amnesia TDD done in 36"41 which I'm pretty happy with, do you guys have any tips that may further improve my time? Thanks guys! Keep up the great work Smiley

Rumbler

2015-10-27 09:54:33 am

[flash=425,350]

A Nave Redux strat I think may be pretty useful in future runs if you don't like the out of bounds route
Sorry for the quality!

Nosferatu

2015-10-29 04:17:11 am

Quote from Rumbler:

[flash=425,350]

A Nave Redux strat I think may be pretty useful in future runs if you don't like the out of bounds route
Sorry for the quality!

If you quick-load a quick-save the game bugs out and fall damage for that map gets disabled. I'm not sure if you've done this with a normal save but I'm 99% sure that fall damage was disabled after your quick load in that video.

Rumbler

2015-10-31 08:19:20 am

You gotta be kidding me!? I didn't know this Sad

Awww and there's me thinking that I found something! Oh well, best keep looking! Thanks for letting me know Smiley

Teravortryx

Edit history:

Teravortryx: 2015-12-29 01:21:02 pm

Teravortryx: 2015-11-02 08:25:01 pm

2015-11-02 08:23:12 pm

Nosferatu's right in that it's the bug preventing fall damage, and not what you do. ~~However, it's totally possible to do a leap of faith, and somehow not take fall damage. Haven't looked into what's resetting the fall damage, but I've done it before accidentally.~~

EDIT: Knowing more about the game now, I realize it's impossible to fall the whole distance without taking damage. To avoid the fall damage, you either need to take the fall in increments (either by falling in steps, or boosting along a wall as you fall) or using the edge of a floor to bisect on. This means I either have a false memory, or maybe I had debug mode on somehow and got tricked by the damage bug. Amazing.

Teravortryx

Edit history:

Teravortryx: 2015-11-02 09:34:24 pm

Teravortryx: 2015-11-02 09:33:48 pm

Teravortryx: 2015-11-02 09:33:38 pm

2015-11-02 09:33:30 pm

Cool new way to do the damage skip in Nave Redux. Saves 1 second at most, but it's pretty easy to do. Make sure you practice it and get the jump timings right. If you jump too late, you won't reset your momentum on the physics. Jump too early, and you'll reset your momentum too early and take damage anyways. Also, sorry about the lighting. I know it's hard to see. The Dark Descent is dark for whatever reason Huh?

Hope this helped.

Gantor

2015-11-10 04:48:42 pm

I've been running the glitchless ANY%. I made a video to explain my run. Any input or help would be much appreciated.

Nosferatu

2015-11-11 11:35:33 pm

Really great tutorial, it's nice to see glitchless finally getting some love. I did see some things that I feel I should point out though.

1. You're not actually killing the Kaernk in the Archives Cellar. When you throw the box at it, he gets clipped through the floor. Here's a video I did showing the trick off with entity info displayed (note the DistToPlayer value shoot up after I throw the box at him at 1:18)

I'm guessing you'd consider clipping monsters OoB to be a glitch.

2. The flashback skip I do in Prison South any% should be doable in glitchless. Here's a link to the latest version of that strat:
(The strat is at 12:49, for whatever reason I can't time stamp embedded videos on SDA)

3. You can skip the Control Room map:

Sorry if you knew about this stuff but chose not to do them, but I felt you should at least know about the Kaernk thing. Anyways, great job on the tutorial video.

Really great tutorial, it's nice to see glitchless finally getting some love. I did see some things that I feel I should point out though.

1. You're not actually killing the Kaernk in the Archives Cellar. When you throw the box at it, he gets clipped through the floor. Here's a video I did showing the trick off with entity info displayed (note the DistToPlayer value shoot up after I throw the box at him at 1:18)

[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AbdPuG0Bns[/url]

I'm guessing you'd consider clipping monsters OoB to be a glitch.

2. The flashback skip I do in Prison South any% should be doable in glitchless. Here's a link to the latest version of that strat:
(The strat is at 12:49, for whatever reason I can't time stamp embedded videos on SDA)

[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95nLz85bWTw#t=12m49s[/url]

3. You can skip the Control Room map:

[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7Fzx0uSBe4#t=38s[/url]

Sorry if you knew about this stuff but chose not to do them, but I felt you should at least know about the Kaernk thing. Anyways, great job on the tutorial video.

Gantor

Edit history:

Gantor: 2015-11-12 03:27:46 pm

2015-11-12 01:57:27 pm

Thank you very much for the response! I am quite disturbed by the news about the Kaernk. I thought that I had created a really great glitchless strat. Sad

Now I'm going to have to grind out a new run if I want to keep my time. Fortunately, the time that I save by skipping the cistern should balance out the few seconds required by distracting it with the meat.

I was aware of the prison skip. Picking up the chipper without triggering the flashback is easy enough with a little practice. I haven't found a way to do it consistently without getting cornered by the grunt. If you know of a good way to dodge him, please let me know.

I hadn't seen the cistern skip where you ride the platform, just the one that involves the wall-climbing but I thought it would be considered a glitch. There is also a skip that can be done in the choir in a similar manner.

Has the community officially decided on what exactly is acceptable in glitchless for this game?
I have drawn up a list of seemingly unintended mechanics and my current impression:
Clipping yourself or any objects into objects, through objects, or out of bounds: Unacceptable
Boosting off of slanted geometry: Acceptable (Try getting through a run without doing this at least once accidentally)
Wall-climbing: Acceptable?
Using jump on walls to descend without taking falling damage: Acceptable
Death warping: Acceptable
Save state skips: Unacceptable
Using the monster in the storage to break through the barrier for you: Unacceptable?
Bypassing flashback triggers and slowdown triggers: Acceptable
Speed rock: Acceptable

Everything taken together, should the glitchless run be redefined as a "No OOB" run?
Any clarification or input on these points would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you very much for the response!  I am quite disturbed by the news about the Kaernk.  I thought that I had created a really great glitchless strat.  :(  Now I'm going to have to grind out a new run if I want to keep my time.  Fortunately, the time that I save by skipping the cistern should balance out the few seconds required by distracting it with the meat.

I was aware of the prison skip.  Picking up the chipper without triggering the flashback is easy enough with a little practice.  I haven't found a way to do it consistently without getting cornered by the grunt.  If you know of a good way to dodge him, please let me know.

I hadn't seen the cistern skip where you ride the platform, just the one that involves the wall-climbing but I thought it would be considered a glitch.  There is also a skip that can be done in the choir in a similar manner.

Has the community officially decided on what exactly is acceptable in glitchless for this game?
I have drawn up a list of seemingly unintended mechanics and my current impression:
Clipping yourself or any objects into objects, through objects, or out of bounds: Unacceptable
Boosting off of slanted geometry: Acceptable (Try getting through a run without doing this at least once accidentally)
Wall-climbing: Acceptable?
Using jump on walls to descend without taking falling damage: Acceptable
Death warping: Acceptable
Save state skips: Unacceptable
Using the monster in the storage to break through the barrier for you: Unacceptable?
Bypassing flashback triggers and slowdown triggers: Acceptable
Speed rock: Acceptable

Everything taken together, should the glitchless run be redefined as a "No OOB" run?
Any clarification or input on these points would be greatly appreciated.

Nosferatu

2015-11-12 05:08:33 pm

Up until you started doing runs the rules for "Glitchless" were pretty much what you listed except boosting of all types were banned, vertical and horizontal. Which was annoying because you could just lose runs anywhere by accidentally hitting weird geometry on floors or stairs. Personally I think horizontal boosts should be fine since the only major use of that trick would be the Choir gap jump. Vertical boosts look more glitchy so I'd probably not use them for this category. Although from your tutorial, the only time I saw you do a vertical boost was at the fallen pillar in Choir, so that would probably be easy to cut out of the run.

Quote from SavageDreamLord:

If you know of a good way to dodge him, please let me know.

I don't have videos for a lot of my setups but I do Amnesia streams pretty often so if you can catch me on Twitch I'll go through the setups for whatever you had questions about.

Quote from SavageDreamLord:

I hadn't seen the cistern skip where you ride the platform...

You skip the Control Room, not the Cistern. Cistern drains the water and the Control Room fixes the lever.

Up until you started doing runs the rules for "Glitchless" were pretty much what you listed except boosting of all types were banned, vertical and horizontal. Which was annoying because you could just lose runs anywhere by accidentally hitting weird geometry on floors or stairs. Personally I think horizontal boosts should be fine since the only major use of that trick would be the Choir gap jump. Vertical boosts look more glitchy so I'd probably not use them for this category. Although from your tutorial, the only time I saw you do a vertical boost was at the fallen pillar in Choir, so that would probably be easy to cut out of the run.

[quote="SavageDreamLord"]If you know of a good way to dodge him, please let me know.[/quote]
I don't have videos for a lot of my setups but I do Amnesia streams pretty often so if you can catch me on Twitch I'll go through the setups for whatever you had questions about.

[quote="SavageDreamLord"]I hadn't seen the cistern skip where you ride the platform...[/quote]
You skip the Control Room, not the Cistern. Cistern drains the water and the Control Room fixes the lever.

Gantor

2015-11-12 05:41:14 pm

Quote from Nosferatu:

I think horizontal boosts should be fine since the only major use of that trick would be the Choir gap jump.

Agreed. It also seems simpler to just say "No Gap Jumping" than to review a 50 minute run for anywhere that the player had accidentally hit a stair weird and gone faster for a tenth of a second. It really seems that would outright kill the category.

Quote:

Vertical boosts look more glitchy so I'd probably not use them for this category. Although from your tutorial, the only time I saw you do a vertical boost was at the fallen pillar in Choir, so that would probably be easy to cut out of the run.

I never thought of climbing the fallen pillar as vertical boosting but I suppose it is. The first time I every played through the game, I thought that was how you were supposed to get across and have done it ever since. I think I already have a strat to quickly get around that but I'll have to test it. Again, I agree with your reasoning. Apart from that pillar, there isn't really a place where it would be intuitive and it is much more abusive and glitchy and, most importantly, wouldn't really happen on accident.

Quote:

I don't have videos for a lot of my setups but I do Amnesia streams pretty often so if you can catch me on Twitch I'll go through the setups for whatever you had questions about.

I would like that very much.

Quote:

You skip the Control Room, not the Cistern. Cistern drains the water and the Control Room fixes the lever.

Derp. That was what I meant. Thank you.

[quote="Nosferatu"]I think horizontal boosts should be fine since the only major use of that trick would be the Choir gap jump.[/quote]
Agreed.  It also seems simpler to just say "No Gap Jumping" than to review a 50 minute run for anywhere that the player had accidentally hit a stair weird and gone faster for a tenth of a second.  It really seems that would outright kill the category.

[quote]Vertical boosts look more glitchy so I'd probably not use them for this category. Although from your tutorial, the only time I saw you do a vertical boost was at the fallen pillar in Choir, so that would probably be easy to cut out of the run.[/quote]
I never thought of climbing the fallen pillar as vertical boosting but I suppose it is.  The first time I every played through the game, I thought that was how you were supposed to get across and have done it ever since.  I think I already have a strat to quickly get around that but I'll have to test it.  Again, I agree with your reasoning.  Apart from that pillar, there isn't really a place where it would be intuitive and it is much more abusive and glitchy and, most importantly, wouldn't really happen on accident.

[quote]I don't have videos for a lot of my setups but I do Amnesia streams pretty often so if you can catch me on Twitch I'll go through the setups for whatever you had questions about.[/quote]
I would like that very much.

[quote]You skip the Control Room, not the Cistern. Cistern drains the water and the Control Room fixes the lever.[/quote]
Derp.  That was what I meant.  Thank you.

Teravortryx

2015-11-28 11:11:56 pm

I'm done chapter 1 in my segmented run. I'm happy with how everything went. So far, I've split chapter 1 up into 39 segments, 25 of which were manual segments (Apjjm only used 15 in his WHOLE run Shocked

). The time including loads is 8:09 so far, excluding loads before segments.

My goal for this run is sub 20 minutes. I'm estimating that I still need to save about 45 seconds off of Apjjm's pace from after chapter 1 to meet that goal, but with the new routes and generous segmentation, I think this goal is pretty realistic.

I would appreciate comments and feedback. If there's anything I'm missing or that I should know, please tell me.

Here's what I have so far. Enjoy Smiley

ShadowDraft

2015-11-29 08:26:03 am

Get over here!

Man I thought I'd never see this day but here Teravortryx comes along and is updating the segmented run.

Looking great so far. I suppose you know about the routes going forward? If you don't I can fill you in either add me on steam or skype. Whichever you prefer.

Also if you plan on submitting to SDA I'm not 100% sure if you have to include some loadscreens (like Apjjm did).

Teravortryx

2015-11-29 11:10:54 am

Quote from ShadowDraft:

Man I thought I'd never see this day but here Teravortryx comes along and is updating the segmented run.

Looking great so far. I suppose you know about the routes going forward? If you don't I can fill you in either add me on steam or skype. Whichever you prefer.

Also if you plan on submitting to SDA I'm not 100% sure if you have to include some loadscreens (like Apjjm did).

Thanks for offering to help. I have a pretty good idea of what lies ahead.

I started the run for fun as a personal project, with no plans of submitting it as a WR, but I thought that I might as well show the few people still following the game, and everyone who contributed to routes giving me a great place to start and who deserve to see it.

Apjjm

2015-11-29 03:21:20 pm

What?

Commented on youtube but will comment here as well. Really nice run so far dude, and you should absolutely submit it if you want to. I included the loading screens out of personal preference rather than necessity, because I felt it communicated the reload warps better to somebody who was watching the run but not familiar with all the crazy segmented stuff. Very interested to see what you do with the rest of the game with the new stuff that has been found since I ran this. Do you have a spreadsheet with a map-by map breakdown? I would be interested to compare the times to my old run. I think I still have my exact segment & map times list on my external hdd i can send your way if you are interested.

Teravortryx

2015-11-29 03:37:56 pm

Quote from Apjjm:

Commented on youtube but will comment here as well. Really nice run so far dude, and you should absolutely submit it if you want to. I included the loading screens out of personal preference rather than necessity, because I felt it communicated the reload warps better to somebody who was watching the run but not familiar with all the crazy segmented stuff. Very interested to see what you do with the rest of the game with the new stuff that has been found since I ran this. Do you have a spreadsheet with a map-by map breakdown? I would be interested to compare the times to my old run. I think I still have my exact segment & map times list on my external hdd i can send your way if you are interested.

I also included the loading screens for the same reason. I don't have a timesheet, but I can definitely give you a list of the time I spent in each map. How should I time the segments? Specifically the level transitions. I'm not sure if I should count in whenever the level's visible, or when the text starts scrolling up, or the frame you click the door. Thanks.

[quote="Apjjm"]Commented on youtube but will comment here as well. Really nice run so far dude, and you should absolutely submit it if you want to. I included the loading screens out of personal preference rather than necessity, because I felt it communicated the reload warps better to somebody who was watching the run but not familiar with all the crazy segmented stuff. Very interested to see what you do with the rest of the game with the new stuff that has been found since I ran this. Do you have a spreadsheet with a map-by map breakdown? I would be interested to compare the times to my old run. I think I still have my exact segment & map times list on my external hdd i can send your way if you are interested.[/quote]
I also included the loading screens for the same reason. I don't have a timesheet, but I can definitely give you a list of the time I spent in each map. How should I time the segments? Specifically the level transitions. I'm not sure if I should count in whenever the level's visible, or when the text starts scrolling up, or the frame you click the door. Thanks.

Apjjm

2015-11-29 04:01:49 pm

What?

I counted from first frame of fade-in to last frame of fade-out and didn't include the text because it was easier to find the first frame of the fade in than it was to find the first frame the text became clickable because of the way my recording software handled the loading screens in amnesia.

Teravortryx

Edit history:

Teravortryx: 2015-11-29 10:11:58 pm

Teravortryx: 2015-11-29 07:26:17 pm

Teravortryx: 2015-11-29 07:23:51 pm

2015-11-29 07:03:20 pm

Here are the times I have for chapter 1:

Frame count after seconds/semicolon, out of 30fps, frames with loading text counted out

Rainy Hall - 1:49;25
Old Archives - 25;10
Refinery - 28;09
Cellar Archives - 39;19
Archive Tunnels - 17;29
Back Hall 1 - 07;25
Study - 15;14
Back Hall 2 - 04;12
Guest Room - 09;16
Back Hall 3 - 08;09
Storage - 46;14
Back Hall 4 - 23;02
Machine Room - 54;09
Elevator 1 - 09;02
Elevator 2 - 37;04

Total seconds - 430
Total frames - 200

I hope I didn't make a mistake calculating the times...

Total Time (should be) = 7 minutes 16 seconds 667 milliseconds

I estimated that I'm ~45 seconds ahead of your run so far. I'm looking forwards to you checking Smiley

Apjjm

Edit history:

Apjjm: 2015-12-01 03:13:15 pm

Apjjm: 2015-11-30 01:38:37 pm

Apjjm: 2015-11-30 01:36:26 pm

Apjjm: 2015-11-30 01:35:13 pm

Apjjm: 2015-11-30 01:32:46 pm

Apjjm: 2015-11-30 01:32:09 pm

Apjjm: 2015-11-30 01:31:10 pm

Apjjm: 2015-11-30 01:28:59 pm

2015-11-30 01:02:31 pm

What?

Times of my segmented run with how far your run is ahead in brackets by the side. These times are map times and do not include the SDA segmentation penalty.

Rainy Hall - 1:52.89 (-3.06)*
Old Archives - 27.83 (-2.5)
Refinery - 51.92 (-23.62)
Cellar Archives - 39.28 (+0.35) [Need to save 21 frames to be ahead]
Archive Tunnels - 19.15 (-1.19)
Back Hall 1 - 8.47 (-0.64)
Study - 19.6 (-4.14)
Back Hall 2 - 4.35 (+0.05) [Need to save 2 frames to be ahead]
Guest Room - 14.55 (-5.02)
Back Hall 3 - 10.02 (-1.72)
Storage - 49.38 (-2.92)
Back Hall 4 - 23.9 (-0.84)
Machine Room - 1:17.77 (-23.47)**
Elevator 1 - 9.1 (-0.04)

*This is the time for the rainy halls in the sda video, i'm not sure if my youtube video used an earlier segment because i'm pretty sure i went back and revisited the rainy halls as my last map after posting to youtube, but i dont recall if I got a better time or not. There is definately a segment somewhere which does this, as this would explain why my spreadsheet thinks the run time is about 2 seconds quicker than the youtube one.
**I noticed I mistimed this segment in my spreadsheet, I stupidly wrote the time down as 70 + 16.317 rather than 60 + 16.317... So there's a free 10 seconds off of how much time you needed to save to hit sub 20 :P. I don't think this was included in the actual SDA run time b/c i believe they timed the thing themselves as they added time for the last cutscene - but it means my youtube video title is wrong at least.

Conclusion: you are way further ahead than 45 seconds Smiley

- you save over that on Machine room & Refinery alone with the flashback skips. By using the times on my spreadsheet you are 68.94 seconds ahead (78 if you count the mistime).
~~There might be a little difference in timings though, as I timed elevator 2 as 37.166.~~ I was timing from the very first non-duplicated frame after the loading text disappeared I believe. I was able to accurately time the fade-outs as the loading screen frames didn't record for me until the level loaded so I just found the large sequence of duplicated frames and went back to the first frame before this. I also timed the fade on reload warps.

Full spreadsheet times:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18wY4LpOXcIYCSaSG42vZtvjQJSUnE4R9fwFKV-DLSiI

Edit: Updated deltas & total saved because the number after the semicolon was frames out of 30.

Times of my segmented run with how far your run is ahead in brackets by the side. These times are map times and do not include the SDA segmentation penalty.

Rainy Hall - 1:52.89 (-3.06)*
Old Archives - 27.83 (-2.5)
Refinery - 51.92 (-23.62)
Cellar Archives - 39.28 (+0.35) [Need to save 21 frames to be ahead]
Archive Tunnels - 19.15 (-1.19) 
Back Hall 1 - 8.47 (-0.64)
Study - 19.6 (-4.14)
Back Hall 2 - 4.35 (+0.05) [Need to save 2 frames to be ahead]
Guest Room - 14.55 (-5.02)
Back Hall 3 - 10.02 (-1.72)
Storage - 49.38 (-2.92)
Back Hall 4 - 23.9 (-0.84)
Machine Room - 1:17.77 (-23.47)**
Elevator 1 - 9.1 (-0.04)

*This is the time for the rainy halls in the sda video, i'm not sure if my youtube video used an earlier segment because i'm pretty sure i went back and revisited the rainy halls as my last map after posting to youtube, but i dont recall if I got a better time or not. There is definately a segment somewhere which does this, as this would explain why my spreadsheet thinks the run time is about 2 seconds quicker than the youtube one.
**I noticed I mistimed this segment in my spreadsheet, I stupidly wrote the time down as 70 + 16.317 rather than 60 + 16.317... So there's a free 10 seconds off of how much time you needed to save to hit sub 20 :P. I don't think this was included in the actual SDA run time b/c i believe they timed the thing themselves as they added time for the last cutscene - but it means my youtube video title is wrong at least.

Conclusion: you are way further ahead than 45 seconds :) - you save over that on Machine room & Refinery alone with the flashback skips. By using the times on my spreadsheet you are 68.94 seconds ahead (78 if you count the mistime).
[s]There might be a little difference in timings though, as I timed elevator 2 as 37.166.[/s] I was timing from the very first non-duplicated frame after the loading text disappeared I believe. I was able to accurately time the fade-outs as the loading screen frames didn't record for me until the level loaded so I just found the large sequence of duplicated frames and went back to the first frame before this. I also timed the fade on reload warps.

Full spreadsheet times:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18wY4LpOXcIYCSaSG42vZtvjQJSUnE4R9fwFKV-DLSiI

Edit: Updated deltas & total saved because the number after the semicolon was frames out of 30.