I played around with the final boss health drops and there's at least some fixed logic. When you start the fight, the drone on the right will always drop health. You can play around that to create a backup health pool really quickly. After the start it gets really chaotic but I found one pretty good sweet spot. If you enter the second phase having killed 5 drones, 2 out of the next 3 drones will drop health. If you manage to distribute these 3 drops evenly, the fight is pretty much won. I'll continue to figure this out. It's somehow connected to both killing all drones and also advancing in the fight. Killing only one specific drone yields inconsistent results.
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Quote from Synophis:
I played around with the final boss health drops and there's at least some fixed logic. When you start the fight, the drone on the right will always drop health. You can play around that to create a backup health pool really quickly. After the start it gets really chaotic but I found one pretty good sweet spot. If you enter the second phase having killed 5 drones, 2 out of the next 3 drones will drop health. If you manage to distribute these 3 drops evenly, the fight is pretty much won. I'll continue to figure this out. It's somehow connected to both killing all drones and also advancing in the fight. Killing only one specific drone yields inconsistent results.
I haven't really done much testing on the final boss, but I tend to have good results if I can keep my upwards teleporting consistent. Most of the drones tend to get in my path on their own, and killing the leftover ones between phases seems to work out fairly well.
The biggest problem I've seen for the final boss, in my experience, is getting trigger happy with jumping to teleport when the drones have most of the room covered due to poor positioning. A simple bit of patience before jumping alleviates this to some degree, but it would be nice to see some consistency in the final fight, even if I do find it strangely fun, exciting, and challenging all at once.
So I don't know what category, if any, this would be useful for, but there's kind of a "dead-zone" on the final boss that I noticed when wrapping up my 13% playthrough (strat requires grapple). Basically, you can stand on this line right here:
http://i.imgur.com/ARARAmE.jpg
and when you grapple straight up from there (jump -> upwards teleport -> grapple), you end up in here:
http://i.imgur.com/9mVCcQy.jpg
From this point, you can chain upwards teleport into grapple to keep dealing damage to the core. When the eyeballs start moving, do upwards teleport (yes, upwards), and just drop straight down afterwards, you'll have enough i-frames to drop through the eyeballs. When you're on the floor, you can do a few straight up teleports to deal some damage, and when the eyeballs start moving down, you just grapple the roof again. Address Bomb makes the loop a lot easier to time, but isn't a necessity.
Basically you're staying on the exact same X-position the entire fight, just moving up and down in-sync with the eyeballs. Sadly I can't make a video of this.
Also, since I didn't notice it having been discussed before, there's a glitch you can activate by canceling the Lab Coat walk-thru-walls animation with a properly timed Drone launch (launch drone when Trace is about as far inside the wall as possible). This basically miss-aligns the whole screen noticeably, and you'll be unable to use the Lab Coat again, until you get damaged, which negates the glitch. This glitch doesn't appear to be useful, tho, since it's entirely visual, but I figured it's worth a mention anyway. The most interesting thing I've found by doing this, is picking up the Trench Coat with the glitch activated, which seemingly perma-glitches Trace's sprite until game is reloaded.
http://i.imgur.com/ARARAmE.jpg
and when you grapple straight up from there (jump -> upwards teleport -> grapple), you end up in here:
http://i.imgur.com/9mVCcQy.jpg
From this point, you can chain upwards teleport into grapple to keep dealing damage to the core. When the eyeballs start moving, do upwards teleport (yes, upwards), and just drop straight down afterwards, you'll have enough i-frames to drop through the eyeballs. When you're on the floor, you can do a few straight up teleports to deal some damage, and when the eyeballs start moving down, you just grapple the roof again. Address Bomb makes the loop a lot easier to time, but isn't a necessity.
Basically you're staying on the exact same X-position the entire fight, just moving up and down in-sync with the eyeballs. Sadly I can't make a video of this.
Also, since I didn't notice it having been discussed before, there's a glitch you can activate by canceling the Lab Coat walk-thru-walls animation with a properly timed Drone launch (launch drone when Trace is about as far inside the wall as possible). This basically miss-aligns the whole screen noticeably, and you'll be unable to use the Lab Coat again, until you get damaged, which negates the glitch. This glitch doesn't appear to be useful, tho, since it's entirely visual, but I figured it's worth a mention anyway. The most interesting thing I've found by doing this, is picking up the Trench Coat with the glitch activated, which seemingly perma-glitches Trace's sprite until game is reloaded.
Been messing around with death warping a bit (dying on a mobile platform), and I noticed the quick transport Rusalka in Indi works pretty nicely for it. You need to lure the bug swarm from one of the slugs on the ground level after you, then just die while riding the Rusalka to either direction.
This works in a fairly unique way after you respawn. Firstly, the Y-value of the Rusalka is extremely high, which means you'll be spawning near the top of whatever area you last saved at. Secondly, and more interestingly, the momentum from the Rusalka keeps carrying you during your respawn animation, which means your actual spawn point will not be directly on top of any save room, but either to the left, or to the right of one, if the Rusalka was indeed moving when you died on it.
It's a pretty versatile death warp. Haven't come across any big skips, but you can scale certain areas pretty fast with it. And you can get stuck waaaaaaaay out of bounds in Eribu, by dying on the Rusalka when it's going left... No Idea why the game drops you there, normally it's smart enough to at least sort of put you in-bounds.
This works in a fairly unique way after you respawn. Firstly, the Y-value of the Rusalka is extremely high, which means you'll be spawning near the top of whatever area you last saved at. Secondly, and more interestingly, the momentum from the Rusalka keeps carrying you during your respawn animation, which means your actual spawn point will not be directly on top of any save room, but either to the left, or to the right of one, if the Rusalka was indeed moving when you died on it.
It's a pretty versatile death warp. Haven't come across any big skips, but you can scale certain areas pretty fast with it. And you can get stuck waaaaaaaay out of bounds in Eribu, by dying on the Rusalka when it's going left... No Idea why the game drops you there, normally it's smart enough to at least sort of put you in-bounds.
Ok, so, some interesting news perhaps. Firstly, I just noticed certain collection rates actually share a percentage (there's over a hundred items in the game, apparently), due to it getting rounded up to a whole percent. This is somewhat interesting when it comes to low%, cause it turns out, there's two possible 10% runs: one with 11 items collected, another one with 12 items collected (I believe Address Disruptor 2 simply replaces Address Disruptor 1, instead of adding percentage, which is why amounts are not 10 and 11).
Beyond this, I located a death warp to skip the E-Kur-Mah key, which you normally need for the Red Coat. You need to save in the key area (with tons of drillable blocks and the key hidden inside of them), and then backtrack all the way to the room outside of Gir-Tab (scorpion boss). The objective here is to hack one of the flying enemies into a platform, and then die while you're flying around on that platform. The platform needs to be fairly high up in the room, it's best to use the second highest flying enemy as the platform, and hope the highest one falls on top of you. After dying and respawning, you just need to go right a tiny bit to reach a new saveroom (hold right, jump and teleport upwards until you find it).
Now, by skipping the key, you actually hit the lower 10%, which means you get 1 item worth of wiggle room for a low% run. This makes it possible to pick up an extra item for the final boss (grapple, some weapon, bombs ie.) and still end with the current minimum (I'm almost certain skipping Kilver was patched out, making 9% impossible to obtain in the current version, based on what we (I) know).
EDIT:
http://i.imgur.com/ccaWDTN.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/TtQKB9G.jpg
Managed to finish 10% with Grapple. The final boss is still a huge pain in the butt, but the method I described in an earlier post worked... eventually. There were a few attempts early on that could've gone the distance, but since they didn't, I ended up grinding for almost 5 hours until it happened
Beyond this, I located a death warp to skip the E-Kur-Mah key, which you normally need for the Red Coat. You need to save in the key area (with tons of drillable blocks and the key hidden inside of them), and then backtrack all the way to the room outside of Gir-Tab (scorpion boss). The objective here is to hack one of the flying enemies into a platform, and then die while you're flying around on that platform. The platform needs to be fairly high up in the room, it's best to use the second highest flying enemy as the platform, and hope the highest one falls on top of you. After dying and respawning, you just need to go right a tiny bit to reach a new saveroom (hold right, jump and teleport upwards until you find it).
Now, by skipping the key, you actually hit the lower 10%, which means you get 1 item worth of wiggle room for a low% run. This makes it possible to pick up an extra item for the final boss (grapple, some weapon, bombs ie.) and still end with the current minimum (I'm almost certain skipping Kilver was patched out, making 9% impossible to obtain in the current version, based on what we (I) know).
EDIT:
http://i.imgur.com/ccaWDTN.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/TtQKB9G.jpg
Managed to finish 10% with Grapple. The final boss is still a huge pain in the butt, but the method I described in an earlier post worked... eventually. There were a few attempts early on that could've gone the distance, but since they didn't, I ended up grinding for almost 5 hours until it happened
Here's a short list of things that work / don't work in current version (1.08). Just compiling stuff in one place to make things easier for new players.
Steam v1.08
-------
+ Clipping through 2 / 3 block thick ceilings using the Grappling Hook + Trenchcoat / Red Coat.
+ Clipping through 1-block thick walls using Grapple.
+ Drone zipping (sending the drone through a door and blowing it up to respawn blocks / lasers / whatever on top of you).
+ Death warping (dying on top of a mobile platform of any kind).
+ Canceling Modified Lab Coat walk-thru-walls animation with a drone launch to cause glitchiness.
+ Skipping the Address Bomb by dashing through the AB-wall leading to Ukhu (bee boss in Edin).
+ Skipping Grapple by abusing save warping, or by damage boosting up a ledge using a snail.
+ Chaining drone launches together for infinite height by canceling launch cooldown with Address Disruptor / Laser Drill.
+ Sentinel skip / getting on top of the final boss room.
+ Bypassing cutscene / boss fight -triggers when entering the final boss room. The core cannot be damaged if the boss fight trigger is skipped in the current version.
+ Wrong warping by swinging into a Secret World entrance.
+ Carrying the zoomed out camera out of the final boss room.
- Shooting the drone through a one block thick wall / ceiling.
- Skipping Kilver (shooting through the laser beam in Absu).
- Standing on top of an invisible barrier on the final boss.
- Dying to the Vision boss fight.
- Shooting through walls using Nova.
Feel free to let me know if there's something that needs to be added / removed / changed.
Steam v1.08
-------
+ Clipping through 2 / 3 block thick ceilings using the Grappling Hook + Trenchcoat / Red Coat.
+ Clipping through 1-block thick walls using Grapple.
+ Drone zipping (sending the drone through a door and blowing it up to respawn blocks / lasers / whatever on top of you).
+ Death warping (dying on top of a mobile platform of any kind).
+ Canceling Modified Lab Coat walk-thru-walls animation with a drone launch to cause glitchiness.
+ Skipping the Address Bomb by dashing through the AB-wall leading to Ukhu (bee boss in Edin).
+ Skipping Grapple by abusing save warping, or by damage boosting up a ledge using a snail.
+ Chaining drone launches together for infinite height by canceling launch cooldown with Address Disruptor / Laser Drill.
+ Sentinel skip / getting on top of the final boss room.
+ Bypassing cutscene / boss fight -triggers when entering the final boss room. The core cannot be damaged if the boss fight trigger is skipped in the current version.
+ Wrong warping by swinging into a Secret World entrance.
+ Carrying the zoomed out camera out of the final boss room.
- Shooting the drone through a one block thick wall / ceiling.
- Skipping Kilver (shooting through the laser beam in Absu).
- Standing on top of an invisible barrier on the final boss.
- Dying to the Vision boss fight.
- Shooting through walls using Nova.
Feel free to let me know if there's something that needs to be added / removed / changed.
Great to see someone else taking an interest in low% in this game! Out of curiosity, what platform did you warp off of to skip the sudran key? I haven't tested all of them, but the only one I know of that works is the one in ukkin-na and it's a real pain in the ass to use.
Also, as far as I know, the platforms you can warp off of in this game are:
The mushroom spores in absu (glitched)
The flying purple things in kur (glitched)
The platform robot in ukkin-na
The platforms on the steam vents in edin
The head platform in indi
The way this glitch appears to work is that the game fails to reset your y-coordinate and x-speed while you're respawning. The only platforms you can't get x-speed off of are the ones in edin.
Note that it's also possible in some cases to zip while standing on the glitched flying purple things, by crouching and then standing up when there's a ceiling right above you.
Also, I think it may be possible to skip the high jump. You would have to get a breach pocket in an area of kur that's accessible before getting the high jump, and it would have to have the flying purple things somewhere in it. You might then be able to get the drone without getting the high jump, and since you'd then have access to a platform warp near the top of a zone you might never need the high jump again.
You could also do this if you could make it back past the point of no return without high jump (and without save warping), but I don't think that's possible.
On a side note, I've also found that it's possible to backtrack past the point of no return in zi after getting the high jump by damage boosting off the snail thing guarding that ledge. This means you have access to the absu mushroom spores for using the platform warp immediately after getting the high jump. This may allow you to skip the labcoat and glitch gun 2, but at the cost of getting the passcode tool and grapple. I'm not sure what % that leaves you at, but it requires using "AXIO?? ??????" passcodes. I haven't tested it yet though.
It really is a shame that the game's loading triggers for changing zones and the way it loads breakable tiles are the way they are. Otherwise, you could skip a whole lot more items with the platform glitch.
Also, as far as I know, the platforms you can warp off of in this game are:
The mushroom spores in absu (glitched)
The flying purple things in kur (glitched)
The platform robot in ukkin-na
The platforms on the steam vents in edin
The head platform in indi
The way this glitch appears to work is that the game fails to reset your y-coordinate and x-speed while you're respawning. The only platforms you can't get x-speed off of are the ones in edin.
Note that it's also possible in some cases to zip while standing on the glitched flying purple things, by crouching and then standing up when there's a ceiling right above you.
Also, I think it may be possible to skip the high jump. You would have to get a breach pocket in an area of kur that's accessible before getting the high jump, and it would have to have the flying purple things somewhere in it. You might then be able to get the drone without getting the high jump, and since you'd then have access to a platform warp near the top of a zone you might never need the high jump again.
You could also do this if you could make it back past the point of no return without high jump (and without save warping), but I don't think that's possible.
On a side note, I've also found that it's possible to backtrack past the point of no return in zi after getting the high jump by damage boosting off the snail thing guarding that ledge. This means you have access to the absu mushroom spores for using the platform warp immediately after getting the high jump. This may allow you to skip the labcoat and glitch gun 2, but at the cost of getting the passcode tool and grapple. I'm not sure what % that leaves you at, but it requires using "AXIO?? ??????" passcodes. I haven't tested it yet though.
It really is a shame that the game's loading triggers for changing zones and the way it loads breakable tiles are the way they are. Otherwise, you could skip a whole lot more items with the platform glitch.
I used "The flying purple things in kur (glitched)" to skip the Sudran Key, there's a breakdown of that deathwarp on an earlier post. How do you die on the Ukkin-Na platform robot? There's only the robot armadillo snail guy there, and he's not gonna roll on you
Also, utilizing Secret Worlds for deathwarping sounds amazing! It is one of those things that is likely to remain on concept stages for quite a while, tho, considering how difficult that stuff is to actually test due to randomness. But yeah, it definitely might open some neat possibilities. Speaking of Secret Worlds, low% can also be made easier to finish by picking up the stuff from Secret Worlds... you'd have to finish all 5 to get a health boost, and the only thing useful thing beyond that would be a new weapon, and as far as I know, those can only be obtained from E-Kur-Mah or Mar-Uru.
Damage boosting off the snail to skip getting Grapple might be great for any%. Sure, save warping back to the start of the game would give you a faster return after Address Disruptor 2, but if you'd walk back there, you could do save warping while collecting stuff from Kur and Zi... which is a pretty big immediate time gain. Definitely worth looking into. If you'd be doing a run using the AXIO-codes, you'd wanna start the game with the passcode tool (Push "up up down down left right left right" on title screen to start New Game with the tool).
Also, I tested the Address Disruptor 1 / 2 thing just now. Apparently they are in-fact classified as different items, each adding %, instead of Address Disruptor 2 simply replacing the weaker version.
Also, utilizing Secret Worlds for deathwarping sounds amazing! It is one of those things that is likely to remain on concept stages for quite a while, tho, considering how difficult that stuff is to actually test due to randomness. But yeah, it definitely might open some neat possibilities. Speaking of Secret Worlds, low% can also be made easier to finish by picking up the stuff from Secret Worlds... you'd have to finish all 5 to get a health boost, and the only thing useful thing beyond that would be a new weapon, and as far as I know, those can only be obtained from E-Kur-Mah or Mar-Uru.
Damage boosting off the snail to skip getting Grapple might be great for any%. Sure, save warping back to the start of the game would give you a faster return after Address Disruptor 2, but if you'd walk back there, you could do save warping while collecting stuff from Kur and Zi... which is a pretty big immediate time gain. Definitely worth looking into. If you'd be doing a run using the AXIO-codes, you'd wanna start the game with the passcode tool (Push "up up down down left right left right" on title screen to start New Game with the tool).
Also, I tested the Address Disruptor 1 / 2 thing just now. Apparently they are in-fact classified as different items, each adding %, instead of Address Disruptor 2 simply replacing the weaker version.
Thanks for the tip on starting the game with passcodes. I had no idea you could do that. That should allow for a much lower %, but of course it won't appear on the in-game leaderboards. I really think that should be a separate category.
You can warp off the ukkin-na robot by getting killed by the pillbug above it and landing on the robot during your death animation. The timing is really annoying though. Also, do you know of any way to kill yourself in a room with no enemies or damaging tiles? That would make it possible to warp off the mushroom in the room where you first get the glitch gun. I doubt that'd be helpful, but since there are so few rooms with moving platforms I'd like to be able to use as many as possible.
Sadly, at least for no-passcode low%, I don't think there's any chance of skipping any items with breach pocket platform warping other than the hi-jump. The items you'd get in that route would be (in order):
axiom disruptor
nova
drill
kilver
glitch gun
labcoat or drone
drone or labcoat
glitch gun 2
trenchcoat
drone teleport
red coat
Of course, you can't warp past anything up to the glitch gun. After you gain access to ukkin-na you need the labcoat & glitch gun 2 (or grapple & passcodes) to make it to a save point, so you can't platform warp in ukkin-na before then. You can't access any save rooms in edin or e-kur-mah without the trenchcoat, so it does have to be the next item. Next, the drone, trenchcoat, and drone teleport are all required to acces e-kur-mah, and since it's in a room where you need to touch a zone loading trigger you can't warp past that barrier. Similarly, you can't bypass the red coat barrier blocking access to mar-uru.
Starting with the passcode tool would of course change this route though. So far the two sequence-breaking properties I've found for it are that you can reduce gravity to allow you to make jumps that shouldn't be possible, and you can increase your jump power to pass through ceilings. Trace can pass through most 1-tile ceilings at max jump power, and the drone can pass through 2-tile ceilings. Caution is of course advised, as you can easily softlock yourself by jumping through a ceiling before you have the appropriate coat required to go back through.
In response to getting items from breach pockets, I think that should be a separate category from true low%. The in-game leaderboards won't care of course, but grabbing items in a low% run because you know the game won't notice just feels off. I won't be doing it in my runs, but if you're just going by the in-game leaderboard then feel free I guess.
Also a note for making low% easier is that warping of the indi platform in mar-uru can take you straight to athetos' save point. I wish I'd known this when I did my first run. I think you can actually wind up in athetos' room as well, but I haven't really tested it since everything I know about out-of-bounds this game suggests the trigger to start the fight won't load. Or will crash.
Another useful tip for areas with really tough enemies (mar-uru, e-kur-mah, etc.) is that any enemies within a certain distance of Trace will despawn if the room loads with him already in it. So, all you have to do to get rid of a pesky enemy is stand near its starting point in the room, drone, have your drone leave the room, and then detonate it. This also means that if you drone while standing on an enemy and detonate your drone in another room, you'll wake up standing on nothing. I don't think that's helpful though.
Another useless note is that using passcodes allows you to access several rooms in ukkin-na during the hallucination that you shouldn't be able to access, including the trenchcoat room. Similarly to Super Metroid's wrecked ship however, these rooms do have special "hallucination" instances with enemies in them and no items. Rooms without "hallucination" instances, such as the mar-uru access room, will crash if you attempt to load them before having completed the vision fight. Sadly, ophelia doesn't comment if you find her before she finds you.
You can warp off the ukkin-na robot by getting killed by the pillbug above it and landing on the robot during your death animation. The timing is really annoying though. Also, do you know of any way to kill yourself in a room with no enemies or damaging tiles? That would make it possible to warp off the mushroom in the room where you first get the glitch gun. I doubt that'd be helpful, but since there are so few rooms with moving platforms I'd like to be able to use as many as possible.
Sadly, at least for no-passcode low%, I don't think there's any chance of skipping any items with breach pocket platform warping other than the hi-jump. The items you'd get in that route would be (in order):
axiom disruptor
nova
drill
kilver
glitch gun
labcoat or drone
drone or labcoat
glitch gun 2
trenchcoat
drone teleport
red coat
Of course, you can't warp past anything up to the glitch gun. After you gain access to ukkin-na you need the labcoat & glitch gun 2 (or grapple & passcodes) to make it to a save point, so you can't platform warp in ukkin-na before then. You can't access any save rooms in edin or e-kur-mah without the trenchcoat, so it does have to be the next item. Next, the drone, trenchcoat, and drone teleport are all required to acces e-kur-mah, and since it's in a room where you need to touch a zone loading trigger you can't warp past that barrier. Similarly, you can't bypass the red coat barrier blocking access to mar-uru.
Starting with the passcode tool would of course change this route though. So far the two sequence-breaking properties I've found for it are that you can reduce gravity to allow you to make jumps that shouldn't be possible, and you can increase your jump power to pass through ceilings. Trace can pass through most 1-tile ceilings at max jump power, and the drone can pass through 2-tile ceilings. Caution is of course advised, as you can easily softlock yourself by jumping through a ceiling before you have the appropriate coat required to go back through.
In response to getting items from breach pockets, I think that should be a separate category from true low%. The in-game leaderboards won't care of course, but grabbing items in a low% run because you know the game won't notice just feels off. I won't be doing it in my runs, but if you're just going by the in-game leaderboard then feel free I guess.
Also a note for making low% easier is that warping of the indi platform in mar-uru can take you straight to athetos' save point. I wish I'd known this when I did my first run. I think you can actually wind up in athetos' room as well, but I haven't really tested it since everything I know about out-of-bounds this game suggests the trigger to start the fight won't load. Or will crash.
Another useful tip for areas with really tough enemies (mar-uru, e-kur-mah, etc.) is that any enemies within a certain distance of Trace will despawn if the room loads with him already in it. So, all you have to do to get rid of a pesky enemy is stand near its starting point in the room, drone, have your drone leave the room, and then detonate it. This also means that if you drone while standing on an enemy and detonate your drone in another room, you'll wake up standing on nothing. I don't think that's helpful though.
Another useless note is that using passcodes allows you to access several rooms in ukkin-na during the hallucination that you shouldn't be able to access, including the trenchcoat room. Similarly to Super Metroid's wrecked ship however, these rooms do have special "hallucination" instances with enemies in them and no items. Rooms without "hallucination" instances, such as the mar-uru access room, will crash if you attempt to load them before having completed the vision fight. Sadly, ophelia doesn't comment if you find her before she finds you.
I haven't had any particular problems locating breach pockets, but I haven't really tried either. I've yet to actually find the other 2 special guns from them too.
I've heard about clipping through stuff using the beefed up jump, but haven't done any testing of that. Nulunas, the eternal lurker of the topic, mentioned that to me a while back. He was also the one who tipped me off about the Konami-code for passcode tool.
My take on pretty much everything about metroidvanias and percentage is this: if the in-game percentage counter doesn't care about it, neither do I. Keeps things simple. Regarding low%, this'd mean yes, you could utilize them to lower your %, and to get extra items too. On the other hand, since they don't exist on Speedrun-mode, it's a pretty gray area. Low% isn't exactly a serious speedrun category, though, it's more about just cracking a puzzle of sorts and figuring out just how low can we go... so I don't think anyone particularly cares about the means.
This said, I guess if Hi-Jump skip is possible using them, 9% is technically possible. I don't know if Athetos is actually humanly beatable like that, at this point in time. Using a former version you could go as low as 8% by skipping Kilver on top of that stuff, and then cheesing the final boss with the invisible ledge.
I've heard about clipping through stuff using the beefed up jump, but haven't done any testing of that. Nulunas, the eternal lurker of the topic, mentioned that to me a while back. He was also the one who tipped me off about the Konami-code for passcode tool.
My take on pretty much everything about metroidvanias and percentage is this: if the in-game percentage counter doesn't care about it, neither do I. Keeps things simple. Regarding low%, this'd mean yes, you could utilize them to lower your %, and to get extra items too. On the other hand, since they don't exist on Speedrun-mode, it's a pretty gray area. Low% isn't exactly a serious speedrun category, though, it's more about just cracking a puzzle of sorts and figuring out just how low can we go... so I don't think anyone particularly cares about the means.
This said, I guess if Hi-Jump skip is possible using them, 9% is technically possible. I don't know if Athetos is actually humanly beatable like that, at this point in time. Using a former version you could go as low as 8% by skipping Kilver on top of that stuff, and then cheesing the final boss with the invisible ledge.
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Also, good call on climbing Mar-Uru using the Indi-platform. I had tried that before, and it didn't work, cause that death warp actually puts you inside the boss room (or rather outside the boss chamber), but it just so turns out the saveroom ceiling there is NOT THICK ENOUGH. So, you can simply go to the left-side of the boss chamber, and teleport downwards to get inside the save room. The magic spot, from the far-left of the boss chamber, is one teleport right, then straight down. Neat stuff!
Another useful deathwarp, that I actually did use for low%, was climbing Kur for the E-Kur-Mah entrance. After the death warp, you need to enter the saveroom at the top-left and that's it. It skips a fairly risky segment.
EDIT:
So here's something pretty cool.
- Start the final boss.
- Clip outside the room (grapple + upwards tele).
- Destroy the core.
- While the camera is zoomed out, get inside the save room, and exit through the saveroom door.
Now you get to play the rest of the game, with the camera still zoomed all the way back! Since most areas aren't designed with scaling in mind, tho, they look extremely pixel-y. Also, there's some weird boss-type room to the right of the final saveroom? There's a laser-blocked door in there and all... I assume some unused assets! The glitch is negated if you do something that changes camera zoom, ie. your drone blows up (you can still tele to drone location and keep the glitch), or hop on top of the quick transport dude in Indi.
Here's some souvenir pictures.
Numbers:
http://i.imgur.com/8psNPup.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/ETWfzZN.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/zCKhlrq.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/K8iQVWF.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/GHN92Qc.jpg
Other:
http://i.imgur.com/miQR0Kq.jpg (might be a passcode tool room?)
http://i.imgur.com/qzw9hWz.jpg (wish I could read what this sign says -_-)
http://i.imgur.com/b8DXNmk.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/sRIeDjs.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/HP4GHl9.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/iehFaQ6.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/i8LlIGB.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/rwiAdFu.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/MfkG4dp.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/zXMXx0h.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/euulEa4.jpg
EDIT2:
Could the big room to the right of the final save actually be a passcode tool room? Just like the Ikkibu-Labiru door, it has a wall blocking it, with a laser-guarded entrance on the other side. The piping lines up, location of the room would sort of "make sense" as far as the symmetry of Mar-Uru is considered, and the room looks polished enough to be accessible. As far as I know, only the AXIO-codes were decrypted, so there'd be a possibility of a preset code doing something there. Kind of a long-shot theory, I admit, but maybe there is some big secret still left uncovered.
Better picture of the thing inside. Might be a Rusalka?
http://i.imgur.com/bb1iwyQ.jpg
Another useful deathwarp, that I actually did use for low%, was climbing Kur for the E-Kur-Mah entrance. After the death warp, you need to enter the saveroom at the top-left and that's it. It skips a fairly risky segment.
EDIT:
So here's something pretty cool.
- Start the final boss.
- Clip outside the room (grapple + upwards tele).
- Destroy the core.
- While the camera is zoomed out, get inside the save room, and exit through the saveroom door.
Now you get to play the rest of the game, with the camera still zoomed all the way back! Since most areas aren't designed with scaling in mind, tho, they look extremely pixel-y. Also, there's some weird boss-type room to the right of the final saveroom? There's a laser-blocked door in there and all... I assume some unused assets! The glitch is negated if you do something that changes camera zoom, ie. your drone blows up (you can still tele to drone location and keep the glitch), or hop on top of the quick transport dude in Indi.
Here's some souvenir pictures.
Numbers:
http://i.imgur.com/8psNPup.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/ETWfzZN.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/zCKhlrq.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/K8iQVWF.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/GHN92Qc.jpg
Other:
http://i.imgur.com/miQR0Kq.jpg (might be a passcode tool room?)
http://i.imgur.com/qzw9hWz.jpg (wish I could read what this sign says -_-)
http://i.imgur.com/b8DXNmk.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/sRIeDjs.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/HP4GHl9.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/iehFaQ6.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/i8LlIGB.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/rwiAdFu.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/MfkG4dp.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/zXMXx0h.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/euulEa4.jpg
EDIT2:
Could the big room to the right of the final save actually be a passcode tool room? Just like the Ikkibu-Labiru door, it has a wall blocking it, with a laser-guarded entrance on the other side. The piping lines up, location of the room would sort of "make sense" as far as the symmetry of Mar-Uru is considered, and the room looks polished enough to be accessible. As far as I know, only the AXIO-codes were decrypted, so there'd be a possibility of a preset code doing something there. Kind of a long-shot theory, I admit, but maybe there is some big secret still left uncovered.
Better picture of the thing inside. Might be a Rusalka?
http://i.imgur.com/bb1iwyQ.jpg
Did some CSI-style image enhancing (actually I just blew up the drone in that area, which caused the camera to start further right than usual when it zoomed in) to produce this image:
http://i.imgur.com/FyhbAh5.jpg
Couldn't quite get the whole thing in there. If somebody can capture video properly (at like, 60fps or whatever), it would be nice to check if more of the sign is exposed on the first frame after the camera zooms in. I was just trying to frame-perfect taking a screenshot, so can't quite guarantee this is the best we got.
http://i.imgur.com/FyhbAh5.jpg
Couldn't quite get the whole thing in there. If somebody can capture video properly (at like, 60fps or whatever), it would be nice to check if more of the sign is exposed on the first frame after the camera zooms in. I was just trying to frame-perfect taking a screenshot, so can't quite guarantee this is the best we got.
Great find on that camera glitch! I'm going to have to spend some time today playing around with this. I think that out-of-bounds text says "none shall <something>." None shall pass, maybe? I'll take a look at it later.
I guess grabbing items from secret worlds could make life interesting from a speed optimization perspective. Most of them probably wouldn't be worth collecting, but trying to get a route that gave you heatseeker or the yellow beam could be interesting if it ultimately saved time on athetos. That fight is really, truly horrible without grapple. It took me about 17 in-game hours. Some of that time was spent finding a strat, but still. I've never actually gotten any of the secret weapons, so I don't know if they're worth trying to route or not.
I guess grabbing items from secret worlds could make life interesting from a speed optimization perspective. Most of them probably wouldn't be worth collecting, but trying to get a route that gave you heatseeker or the yellow beam could be interesting if it ultimately saved time on athetos. That fight is really, truly horrible without grapple. It took me about 17 in-game hours. Some of that time was spent finding a strat, but still. I've never actually gotten any of the secret weapons, so I don't know if they're worth trying to route or not.
I think that room at the top of mar-uru is probably an unused version of the athetos fight. I doubt it has any collision, but if it does we might be able to platform warp in there. Off the top of my head I don't think we have any platforms at the right height right now, but we might be able to get one in a breach pocket.
Edit history:
ZX497: 2015-07-24 12:28:17 am
ZX497: 2015-07-24 12:27:41 am
ZX497: 2015-07-24 12:24:19 am
ZX497: 2015-07-24 12:20:44 am
ZX497: 2015-07-24 12:17:29 am
ZX497: 2015-07-24 12:10:20 am
ZX497: 2015-07-24 12:08:40 am
ZX497: 2015-07-24 12:00:40 am
ZX497: 2015-07-23 11:45:49 pm
ZX497: 2015-07-23 11:44:54 pm
"None shall pass" is the natural guess, heh, but you never know! I dunno, I just wanna look at the bugger at this point
And yeah, the Mar-Uru extra room might very well be something cut from the final fight. If you clip out of the final boss room (or rather, clip inside the final boss room using the saveroom in order to keep the map visible), you can also somewhat teleport downwards from the right side, which puts your map position inside that room (you can even go two blocks deep). It has very mushy feel to the "collision" there.
EDIT:
Ok, hang on. The room does have proper collision inside for sure. Managed to locate myself in there, the little ledge above the laser door, and the slope from that thing on the ground are definitely there. The camera dropped to floor level as I landed inside, so I could use it to see how Trace moves by just watching the camera.
The unseen parts of the room seem to follow the pattern shown in the picture I posted earlier: the slopes continue their incline until they almost converge in the middle. It's a 2-block wide-room.
And yeah, the Mar-Uru extra room might very well be something cut from the final fight. If you clip out of the final boss room (or rather, clip inside the final boss room using the saveroom in order to keep the map visible), you can also somewhat teleport downwards from the right side, which puts your map position inside that room (you can even go two blocks deep). It has very mushy feel to the "collision" there.
EDIT:
Ok, hang on. The room does have proper collision inside for sure. Managed to locate myself in there, the little ledge above the laser door, and the slope from that thing on the ground are definitely there. The camera dropped to floor level as I landed inside, so I could use it to see how Trace moves by just watching the camera.
The unseen parts of the room seem to follow the pattern shown in the picture I posted earlier: the slopes continue their incline until they almost converge in the middle. It's a 2-block wide-room.
I think there's certain rules to the pockets. Like, I think in Absu they're guaranteed to be behind either a drillable or a disruptable wall, while in Ukkin-Na they're behind a Trenchcoat teleport wall. I might be wrong, but it definitely seems the further along the game you are, area-wise, the better tools you need to access them. As for locating them, I think just looking out for scanlines and trying to disrupt / drill / teleport into everything is the best bet.
I didn't comment on this earlier, but wow dude, you actually beat Athetos on low% without grapple? That's very impressive. I was under the impression you did your 10% before the invisible ledge was patched out, but guess not! Hat's off to you, sir.
I didn't comment on this earlier, but wow dude, you actually beat Athetos on low% without grapple? That's very impressive. I was under the impression you did your 10% before the invisible ledge was patched out, but guess not! Hat's off to you, sir.
So, I figured out why I was having trouble finding breach pockets. I downloaded a tool called "cheat engine," which is a tool designed to analyze and modify PC games. A handful of people have already looked into applying it to axiom verge and have figured out how to get it to supply some basic information, including which zones include breach pockets for a given save file and what items those breach pockets contain. Prior to starting a run to look for breach pockets, I would always quit without saving after the opening cutscene in order to copy that save file with 0 frames on the in-game timer, so that if I did find a useful breach pocket I'd have a clean save to do attempts with that started at 0 frames and which would be guaranteed to get that good breach pocket. However, watching the game's memory while doing so reveals that when you quit a game without ever having saved it, it does...something...to the data associated with breach pocket generation. It looks like it just completely corrupts it, which the game probably is smart enough to recognize and so it just doesn't generate breach pockets for that save file. Weird.
No word yet on whether hi-jump skip is possible. It may not be possible to get a breach pocket with flying purple things, and it may not be possible to get one in a spot we can reach without hi-jump. If anyone finds that either of these things is possible (or impossible), I'd appreciate it if you'd post that.
On another note, cheat engine could be really useful for people trying to put together speed routes for this game. Anyone who's tried to route damage boosts and health refills in this game will have noticed that one pixel's worth of health is not the smallest unit of health the game can keep track of. In fact, every block of 8 pixels is 100 hp. Having a tool that tells you exactly how much health you have should make it easier to route damage boosts and health refills. You can also use this tool to manually modify those values pretty easily.
By the way, I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere else before so I'll point it out here: according to some testing I've done in speedrun mode, each enemy in the game has a set health threshold for which they'll drop health refills. If you have more than that value they won't drop anything, but if you have less they'll always drop health (the amount of health the drop depends on the enemy type). This threshold is for each individual enemy, not each enemy type. I don't know if this is affected by that save file's rng seed, since I've only tested this on speedrun mode. I also didn't do any testing with ammo refills. As far as I can tell though, these threshold values are not affected by your coat. This suggests that coats modify incoming damage, not your maximum health.
I also think it's possible to use cheat engine to manually control Trace's position, the camera, and maybe even actor loading, making exploring the mystery room in mar-uru much easier and more thorough.
No word yet on whether hi-jump skip is possible. It may not be possible to get a breach pocket with flying purple things, and it may not be possible to get one in a spot we can reach without hi-jump. If anyone finds that either of these things is possible (or impossible), I'd appreciate it if you'd post that.
On another note, cheat engine could be really useful for people trying to put together speed routes for this game. Anyone who's tried to route damage boosts and health refills in this game will have noticed that one pixel's worth of health is not the smallest unit of health the game can keep track of. In fact, every block of 8 pixels is 100 hp. Having a tool that tells you exactly how much health you have should make it easier to route damage boosts and health refills. You can also use this tool to manually modify those values pretty easily.
By the way, I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere else before so I'll point it out here: according to some testing I've done in speedrun mode, each enemy in the game has a set health threshold for which they'll drop health refills. If you have more than that value they won't drop anything, but if you have less they'll always drop health (the amount of health the drop depends on the enemy type). This threshold is for each individual enemy, not each enemy type. I don't know if this is affected by that save file's rng seed, since I've only tested this on speedrun mode. I also didn't do any testing with ammo refills. As far as I can tell though, these threshold values are not affected by your coat. This suggests that coats modify incoming damage, not your maximum health.
I also think it's possible to use cheat engine to manually control Trace's position, the camera, and maybe even actor loading, making exploring the mystery room in mar-uru much easier and more thorough.