Assassin's Creed II

2011-01-16 04:24:53 pm

I think the time spent is almost the same between the two methods. But, I prefer the throwing knives, for several reasons : it's less random, it can be faster (esdpecially for the last 2 archers), and I don't need any knife after those archers, until I get ammo at the blacksmith in Seq8 Part2.

Don't worry, I only wish (!) that several people involved {is it the right word?} in this thread will watch entirely and give some comments within a reasonable time Smiley

Fed981

Edit history:

Fed981: 2011-01-18 01:42:58 pm

2011-01-18 01:42:26 pm

Quote from Incoherence:

Part 13 - Novella's Secret. The guard that runs from you can be caught and killed. If you are close enough to him at the start the first gate will not come down and you can catch him on the wooden bridge. You can also catch him further on where he runs on the low path, you can run on the ledge on the side and air assinate him.

When I tried the first times, it appeared for me as a random trick. But, I just checked, it happens everytime under two conditions : to be close enough from the guard, and to try the "race" for the first time. Because I tried many times, and I was sooo close from the guy, but the grid got down each time after the first one.

Fed981

2011-01-20 02:44:41 pm

All right, I finished the game again, and after at least 30 times (with many retries) in 2 months, I think I'm almost ready to record the run.

So, please, let me know when some of you are done with watching the planning run.

I found some new things, especially in sequence 13. Now my last "big" problem is the beginning of sequence 12 with the different fights.

Incoherence

Edit history:

Incoherence: 2011-01-22 12:27:59 pm

2011-01-22 12:07:04 pm

I love YaBB 1G - SP1!

Seq 10 Part 4 - Two Birds, One Blade. At the start where you climb the tower you can jump grab past the cross on the side of the tower. Nice double kill here Cheesy

Sorry for the lack of posts. I should finish watching the videos today.

Also, how carefully do you plan using knives and smoke bombs? Obviously planning it so you don't stop to buy them more often than you need to is ideal.

Also with all the knife kills, would you save time if you learnt the knife throwing special attack to kill multiple enemies at once?

Fed981

2011-01-22 02:49:55 pm

I really don't like this cross. It's kinda random to climb on it. Last time I finished the game, Ezio has climbed as normally as possible, but as you saw in the video, some other times it's worse. I know I can jump grab on it, I'll try to do it everytime.

For the blacksmith moments, I also plan them, and in my final plan (at least the version of today) they're as efficient as possible. For instance I don't buy knives if I have more than about 5.

The special attack with throwing knives is, according to me, random. I really don't know how much time you have to press the button to trigger it, and also ennemies have time to attack during this time (and this happens twice for strong ennemies!). So I prefer not use it.

I thank you for watching up to there, and in advance for watching up to the end.

Incoherence

Edit history:

Incoherence: 2011-01-23 04:04:45 am

2011-01-23 04:01:32 am

I love YaBB 1G - SP1!

See here for IanXO4 thehiddenblade strats for fast kills at the Bonfires. http://www.thehiddenblade.com/bonfire-blitz

Seq 13 Part 1 - Still Life. Both strats are about the same speed. But i don't know if using a smoke bomb keeps you anonymous afterwards. But then again while the guards are on alert you and going to the next mission so no time may be saved at all.

Seq 13 Part 2 - Hitting the Hay. IanXO4 strat is faster. But I don't know if this technique is consistant or not.

Seq 13 Part 3 - Upward Mobility. IanXO4 strat is again faster, but only by 2-3 seconds. The target in his video doesn't seem to be as fast as the one in yours :D.

Seq 13 Part 3 - Last Rites. IanXO4 is alot faster. He saves alot of time not killing guards and his climb route is pretty good.

Seq 13 Part 4 - Climbing the Ranks. IanXO4 saves a smoke bomb here and a little time. I believe he does a hidden blade counter kill?

Seq 13 Part 4 - Surgical Strike. His route is alot faster. Is this route blocked on the PC version?

Seq 13 Part 4 - Codex Pages. You pass thieves on the way, maybe you can use them to distract the guards since there are many guards in the areas here.

See here for IanXO4 thehiddenblade strats for fast kills at the Bonfires. [url]http://www.thehiddenblade.com/bonfire-blitz[/url]

Seq 13 Part 1 - Still Life. Both strats are about the same speed. But i don't know if using a smoke bomb keeps you anonymous afterwards. But then again while the guards are on alert you and going to the next mission so no time may be saved at all.

Seq 13 Part 2 - Hitting the Hay. IanXO4 strat is faster. But I don't know if this technique is consistant or not.

Seq 13 Part 3 - Upward Mobility. IanXO4 strat is again faster, but only by 2-3 seconds. The target in his video doesn't seem to be as fast as the one in yours :D.

Seq 13 Part 3 - Last Rites. IanXO4 is alot faster. He saves alot of time not killing guards and his climb route is pretty good.

Seq 13 Part 4 - Climbing the Ranks. IanXO4 saves a smoke bomb here and a little time. I believe he does a hidden blade counter kill?

Seq 13 Part 4 - Surgical Strike. His route is alot faster. Is this route blocked on the PC version?

Seq 13 Part 4 - Codex Pages. You pass thieves on the way, maybe you can use them to distract the guards since there are many guards in the areas here.

Incoherence

2011-01-23 04:49:11 am

I love YaBB 1G - SP1!

Seq 14 Part 4. Fist Fight With Borgia. Is it possible to throw him to the ground and do the quick kill attack from behind?

Apart from that overall your plan is good. If you pull off the run with few mistakes I don't think the run would be beaten without new tricks/sequence breaks.

Fed981

2011-01-23 07:23:36 am

Still Life : I don't use a bomb for because I normally have only 1 at this point, and also it's useless, since the guards don't attack before you kill the man. Also, I don't care about being anonymous because I become anyway anonymous by climbing on the rooftops after the assassination.

Hitting the hay : this one is kinda difficult. In my new plan, I use almost the same strategy, killing the first archer, then jumping into the hay pile, and then directly into the man.

Upward Mobility : in my next walkthrough I'll try to use throwing knives, when he's on the first "floor". But, as you say, it's a few seconds of difference, and there's a random part in this mission.

Last Rites : I'm going to use IanXO4's method for this mission. The only problem (and a little random thing) is the jump right after the hay pile. But even with two miss of this one, it's still faster.

Climbing the ranks : he doesn't do a counterkill. This kind of attack happens sometimes when you're spotted, but when the ennemy hasn't his weapon in his hand. I prefer use a smoke bomb there because after the assassination you have to flee, and you don't see this in IanXO4's video.

Surgical Strike : the route you're speaking of isn't blocked, but is very, very random. I prefer going straight, make a break at the four priests, and then wait for the "traqueur" (guard behind the doctor) to go and the assassinate the man.

For the codex pages, as said in a previous post, I have planned to use more thieves, mercenaries and courtesans.

Before the fist fight with Borgia, Ezio drops all his weapons, so there's no way to think to a quick kill attack. But in my new plan this fight is faster because I don't wait for him to stand again. I hit him 6 times, then grab him (3 hits then and 3 when he's on the ground), and then grab him again, etc. It's faster.

Anyway, thanks for having watched ; in the run I would submit, there will be as few mistakes as possible, and also some more improvements comparing to what you've seen.

Still Life : I don't use a bomb for because I normally have only 1 at this point, and also it's useless, since the guards don't attack before you kill the man. Also, I don't care about being anonymous because I become anyway anonymous by climbing on the rooftops after the assassination.

Hitting the hay : this one is kinda difficult. In my new plan, I use almost the same strategy, killing the first archer, then jumping into the hay pile, and then directly into the man.

Upward Mobility : in my next walkthrough I'll try to use throwing knives, when he's on the first "floor". But, as you say, it's a few seconds of difference, and there's a random part in this mission.

Last Rites : I'm going to use IanXO4's method for this mission. The only problem (and a little random thing) is the jump right after the hay pile. But even with two miss of this one, it's still faster.

Climbing the ranks : he doesn't do a counterkill. This kind of attack happens sometimes when you're spotted, but when the ennemy hasn't his weapon in his hand. I prefer use a smoke bomb there because after the assassination you have to flee, and you don't see this in IanXO4's video.

Surgical Strike : the route you're speaking of isn't blocked, but is very, very random. I prefer going straight, make a break at the four priests, and then wait for the "traqueur" (guard behind the doctor) to go and the assassinate the man.

For the codex pages, as said in a previous post, I have planned to use more thieves, mercenaries and courtesans.

Before the fist fight with Borgia, Ezio drops all his weapons, so there's no way to think to a quick kill attack. But in my new plan this fight is faster because I don't wait for him to stand again. I hit him 6 times, then grab him (3 hits then and 3 when he's on the ground), and then grab him again, etc. It's faster.

Anyway, thanks for having watched ; in the run I would submit, there will be as few mistakes as possible, and also some more improvements comparing to what you've seen.

AKheon

2011-01-23 10:10:50 am

Glitch advocate

I have no advanced strategies for the later levels... just wishing good luck with this run.

Fed981

Edit history:

Fed981: 2011-01-23 11:58:49 am

Fed981: 2011-01-23 11:58:34 am

2011-01-23 11:10:55 am

Thank you! I think it'll be done in a few weeks.

Incoherence

2011-01-23 02:52:19 pm

I love YaBB 1G - SP1!

Quote:

Before the fist fight with Borgia, Ezio drops all his weapons, so there's no way to think to a quick kill attack. But in my new plan this fight is faster because I don't wait for him to stand again. I hit him 6 times, then grab him (3 hits then and 3 when he's on the ground), and then grab him again, etc. It's faster.

Every weapon including fists have a quick kill from behind. I don't have a save near Borgia to test out strats though Sad

Fed981

Edit history:

Fed981: 2011-01-23 04:52:41 pm

2011-01-23 04:46:30 pm

What a shame... I just finished the game 3 minutes ago! I'll try this another time.

But... the kill from behind can work also if the alert is on? Anyway, what you think is : grab Rodrigo, drop him on the ground, run behind him and hit him when he tries to stand up ; is that right?

Edit : finally, I can try, but I don't think this will work. Because it's a special fight, and I think the conditions to kill Borgia (trigger the cut-scene of strangulation) are : his health points at the bottom of the last square AND all sentences said (it finishes at "religious texts written during the last 10000 years" or something like that). Each time Borgia is dropped on the ground, his sentence is cut, this makes the fight already faster.

Fed981

2011-01-25 12:58:23 pm

Ok, I made the test : there's no way to do this quick kill from behind with Rodrigo. Anyway my new method is a good and fast one.

Now I hope my next post would be to say "I did it" Smiley

qubit

2011-01-25 06:40:48 pm

aka theenglishman

Quote from Fed981:

Ok, I made the test : there's no way to do this quick kill from behind with Rodrigo. Anyway my new method is a good and fast one.

Now I hope my next post would be to say "I did it" Smiley

I haven't been able to test this properly (how I miss the replay-memory ability from Brotherhood!) but I think that "killing" Rodrigo with a pistol the first time (when he's still conducting mass) is faster than a high-profile hidden blade.

Fed981

2011-01-25 11:51:58 pm

You're talking about the moment where he does his speech to dozens of priests, right? I was speaking about the last fight (fist fight).

But from where can you do it? From the second wood platform, at 3:11 in my Seq14 Part2 video? I don't see otherwise.

qubit

2011-01-26 08:27:45 am

aka theenglishman

Quote from Fed981:

You're talking about the moment where he does his speech to dozens of priests, right? I was speaking about the last fight (fist fight).

But from where can you do it? From the second wood platform, at 3:11 in my Seq14 Part2 video? I don't see otherwise.

On my first-ever playthrough I was able to pistol-assassinate Rodrigo at the very end of the platforming section, where you would normally leap off to do a high-profile assassination.

Fed981

2011-01-26 08:40:41 am

All right, but I prefer the assassination (low profile or high profile). The only thing is that I have to look downwards before doing this ; otherwise Rodrigo disappear just as Ezio lands. {Or is it because I do it in low profile each time?}

I tried to run and capture today, and failed 4 times at Nightcap. My strategy is too random. At least it's very difficult to run fast enough so that the alert stays yellow after the first rooftop. I think I'll wait a little at the beginning, in order that the guards are more away when I begin to climb.

I don't try more today, I would finish too late. I'll try next week but I continue to train myself.

Fed981

Edit history:

Fed981: 2011-02-01 10:46:10 am

2011-02-01 10:45:42 am

I wanted to try the run today, but the server did not work.

So I had a look at a few sites and discovered a speed climbing glitch (see videos below). Non-standing surfaces, like for the hyperblending, are so weird! Apparently, this can be triggered by the following method (I haven't tested yet) :

- poison 2 guards
- wait for them to become crazy
- go to a non-standing surface
- perform a double air assassination on the 2 previous guards

Do you think I can use it in the run? In my opinion I can not, because it would be too long to trigger, and also it would disappear at the first cut-scene.

Fed981

2011-02-26 02:32:38 pm

I wonder if I will finally segment the run or not. Because 6 or 7 hours in a row is very hard.

The thing is : each loading costs at maximum 10 seconds, so 6 segments or so would not be so bad for the time. Or I can simply consider that the game would be manually timed.

I can also start recording, pause the game, and continue later ; because I haven't the time for a single segment except some week-ends.

Another thing is : because of the autosave, if I loose in the middle of a segment, I will have to begin all the game again, and that's a problem. But each game is the same, except for 1 or 2 knives and a few hundreds florins. So I wonder if this would be accepted (the game would be manually timed of course) ; and I still can play so that the configuration of the beginning of a segment corresponds exactly to the end of another.

What do you think about all that?

Snuvs

2011-02-26 08:35:58 pm

I am pretty that your playing it on PC, and I know there is an option to turn off Ubisioft save upload. So you could just make a copy of your save and replace it if you mess up a segment. Or if you have it upload your saves, you can just make sure to delete your most recent save before the you launch the game cause it only uploads your saves once you try to start the game.

That might work.

Fed981

2011-02-27 05:51:43 am

Yeah, this works great! It's simply wonderful.

Now for ACII specialists :

My segmenting plan is the following

- 01 : beginning -> enter the animus [~12 min.]
- 02 : 'boys will be boys' -> 'last man standing' (end of sequence 1) [~33 min.]
- 03 : whole sequence 2 [~22 min.]
- 04 : 'roadside assistance' -> 'what goes around' [~18 min.]
- 05 : 'a change of plans' & Claudia/architect/Mario stuff [~10 min.]
- 06 : 'practice what you preach' -> 'farewell Francesco' (end of sequence 4) [~29 min.]
- 07 : whole sequence 5 [~26 min.]
- 08 : 'road trip' -> 'tutti a bordo' [~12 min.]
- 09 : intermission [~9 min.]
- 10 : whole sequence 7 [~43 min.]
- 11 : whole sequence 8 [~29 min.]
- 12 : whole sequence 9 [~26 min.]
- 13 : whole sequence 10 [~20 min.]
- 14 : whole sequence 11 [~23 min.]
- 15 : whole sequence 12 [~27 min.]
- 16 : whole sequence 13 [~30 min.]
- 17 : 'X marks the spot' [~5 min.]
- 18 : 'in bocca al lupo' & ending [~27 min.]

This will make loose, at maximum, 2 minutes on the in-game timer. What do you guys think?

Yeah, this works great! It's simply wonderful.

Now for ACII specialists :

My segmenting plan is the following

- 01 : beginning -> enter the animus [~12 min.]
- 02 : 'boys will be boys' -> 'last man standing' (end of sequence 1) [~33 min.]
- 03 : whole sequence 2 [~22 min.]
- 04 : 'roadside assistance' -> 'what goes around' [~18 min.]
- 05 : 'a change of plans' & Claudia/architect/Mario stuff [~10 min.]
- 06 : 'practice what you preach' -> 'farewell Francesco' (end of sequence 4) [~29 min.]
- 07 : whole sequence 5 [~26 min.]
- 08 : 'road trip' -> 'tutti a bordo' [~12 min.]
- 09 : intermission [~9 min.]
- 10 : whole sequence 7 [~43 min.]
- 11 : whole sequence 8 [~29 min.]
- 12 : whole sequence 9 [~26 min.]
- 13 : whole sequence 10 [~20 min.]
- 14 : whole sequence 11 [~23 min.]
- 15 : whole sequence 12 [~27 min.]
- 16 : whole sequence 13 [~30 min.]
- 17 : 'X marks the spot' [~5 min.]
- 18 : 'in bocca al lupo' & ending [~27 min.]

This will make loose, at maximum, 2 minutes on the in-game timer. What do you guys think?

Fed981

Edit history:

Fed981: 2011-03-07 03:32:10 pm

Fed981: 2011-03-07 03:31:42 pm

Fed981: 2011-03-07 03:31:07 pm

Fed981: 2011-03-07 03:30:36 pm

2011-03-07 03:23:47 pm

Segments 01 to 06 done. I finally redid the last one (contrary to what's written in the technical forum) because the end did not respect the plan.

The time is now 01:47:30 (compared to my old reference 01:52:XX which gives 06:08:XX for the entire game). So I think the aim could be less than 05:50:XX.

Segment 07 in progress.

If the 10th is too difficult, I'll split it in two, but I don't know exactly where for the moment.

Fed981

2011-03-26 09:34:37 am

Finished. I reached 05:42:16, which is better than anything I could expect.

Once encoded, I will submit the run and you'll be able to verify it Smiley

Jamma

2011-03-26 03:10:30 pm

Nuts! Gotta get to Narshe on the fly

Excellent work Fed. Did you manage it in 18 segments, like you said? I just watched the youtube vids of the super speed glitch... wow is all I can say. Had no idea it was possible. Were you able to use it in the run?

Fed981

Edit history:

Fed981: 2011-03-26 04:20:29 pm

2011-03-26 04:18:31 pm

I finally did it in 18 segments, exactly like I planned, yes. If you want to know, segments 10 and 15 were really, really hard to finish.

Also I had in mind to split the last segment in two (in bocca al lupo // end credits) but the end credits are longer if you load the game right at their beginning, so I decided to respect what I said.

For the super speed glitch, it's very hard to know what triggers it, and if the trigg method is the one I exposed, it's too long. In fact, the climbing moments were so short that it would have been a shame to use this glitch (with it's trigger). I did not even try once to activate it.

Finally, I can't wait to submit the run, because I use a quite unknown glitch in sequence 13 (segment 16) ; you'll be surprised ^^. It will take a few more days to encode the "submit" version of the videos.