Bastion

Edit history:

Lawyer Dog: 2012-09-02 12:44:01 am

2012-09-02 12:43:47 am

Just got 53:40 in New Game with wasd movement but that time is going to be completely destroyed because it turns out using the mouse for movement makes your rolls go like 20-30% further in the same amount of time, making it objectively better by a huge margin. These better rolls also make almost every skip considerably easier in addition to letting you just get around everywhere faster.
Video: http://www.twitch.tv/lawyerdog/b/330784084
Splits: http://i.imgur.com/zNT0y.png

OBJ

2012-09-02 05:06:42 am

Lawyer Dog and I were both a little suspicious that the mouse-controlled movement might be slightly faster but we got around to testing it today and the results were pretty surprising. I did some testing and I believe I understand the difference between the movement systems. As a point of reference I used the stairs where you land when you return to the bastion and the skyway at the end of the bastion. For both the xbox controls and the WASD controls, it took 6.5 rolls and approximately 3.8 seconds to roll from stairs to skyway. For the mouse-driven controls it took exactly 5 rolls and 3.1 seconds for the same path. This comes out to about 1.7 rolls per second for all controls schemes however for the mouse-driven system, each roll covers almost exactly 30% more distance in the same amount of time. However, if, using the mouse control, you do not click ahead and instead press only the spacebar, you will cover the same distance as the rolls of the other controls. Therefore, I believe that, if you are clicking to go forward while rolling, the game combines the inputs and adds the distance you would have covered walking normally to the distance you roll, resulting in a significantly longer roll. The Hop Scotch remains unaffected for better or for worse.

Enough science for now. The longer (and faster) rolls make many skips faster and much easier and some new ones possible. For instance, the corrupted rocks in Zulten's Hollow are trivial to roll through and Lawyer Dog found a skip at the Hanging Gardens that I have yet to recreate, skipping from the landing area before the fountain before the first gate all the way to Zulf. There are some pretty nifty skips that are made significantly easier in the Quarry as well. Hopefully we'll start shaving off some time.

Lawyer Dog and I were both a little suspicious that the mouse-controlled movement might be slightly faster but we got around to testing it today and the results were pretty surprising.  I did some testing and I believe I understand the difference between the movement systems.  As a point of reference I used the stairs where you land when you return to the bastion and the skyway at the end of the bastion.  For both the xbox controls and the WASD controls, it took 6.5 rolls and approximately 3.8 seconds to roll from stairs to skyway.  For the mouse-driven controls it took exactly 5 rolls and 3.1 seconds for the same path.  This comes out to about 1.7 rolls per second for all controls schemes however for the mouse-driven system, each roll covers almost exactly 30% more distance in the same amount of time.  However, if, using the mouse control, you do not click ahead and instead press only the spacebar, you will cover the same distance as the rolls of the other controls.  Therefore, I believe that, if you are clicking to go forward while rolling, the game combines the inputs and adds the distance you would have covered walking normally to the distance you roll, resulting in a significantly longer roll.  The Hop Scotch remains unaffected for better or for worse.

Enough science for now.  The longer (and faster) rolls make many skips faster and much easier and some new ones possible.  For instance, the corrupted rocks in Zulten's Hollow are trivial to roll through and Lawyer Dog found a skip at the Hanging Gardens that I have yet to recreate, skipping from the landing area before the fountain before the first gate all the way to Zulf.  There are some pretty nifty skips that are made significantly easier in the Quarry as well. Hopefully we'll start shaving off some time.

Red_Buddha

Edit history:

Red_Buddha: 2012-09-03 12:23:59 pm

2012-09-03 12:22:51 pm

You do realize I told you this more than two months ago right? Also I think you might have found the same thing I did on Hanging Gardens.

edit: The second to last gate on Prosper Buff is by far the worst gate to skip with mouse movement. That thing is just awful.

OBJ

Edit history:

OBJ: 2012-09-04 02:59:58 am

2012-09-04 02:59:31 am

Just so everybody's clear on what skips we're talking about, I've decided to make videos of each level done as quickly as possible with all the skips that I know about. These runs aren't going to be perfect and I might miss a few skips, so I'd appreciate some feedback. I hope to come up with the optimal NG+ route. Feel free to comment on the videos themselves or here or send me a message on Steam. I've done the first few levels up to Cinderbrick Fort and I plan on finishing them over the next week or so. I'll almost certainly be rerecording them several times so don't be afraid to point out any flaws. Here's the first one, I'll upload the rest tomorrow.

OBJ

2012-09-04 04:44:31 am

I uploaded the first 6 levels. No major skips in 2, 3 or 6. I think we all know the skips for the beginning and Sundown Path. Workman's Warf and Pyth Orchard are pretty straightforward, not much can be skipped. The only major skip is video 5, Hanging Gardens. I did about 10 takes and this was the best I got, I'll try and come up with a more reliable set up for runs. It seems like the waiting section in Melting Pot cannot be skipped but can be sped up by killing enemies quickly.

Cinderbrick Fort is up next. I did 15-20 takes and I couldn't get the double vault skip after the core, before the final fight (skipping the long, winding cobblestone path) without dying numerous times. Once I get a decent video, I'll upload it and see if it's actually worthwhile and maybe find an easier way to set it up.

If anything's wrong, call me out on it, I'm still pretty new. And if it's all old news, go ahead and ignore it.

Red_Buddha

2012-09-04 07:21:54 pm

Only two things that I saw that could be improved route wise. On the first level when riding the raft you can pike vault onto the next area saving about 2-3 seconds(estimate). Also on sundown pike vaulting the sky bridges is faster but you must pick up the tonic at the fountain and right before the last gate to have enough for the whole level. I think it only saves a couple seconds though. Neither of these are big deals just small time savers that can help improve runs.

Also that was the same thing I just recently found on hanging gardens. As you upload more I'll add more little time savers and maybe upload some of the bigger stuff.

OBJ

2012-09-05 04:26:55 am

Alright, I uploaded the next 6 levels. I finally got the first Cinderbrick Fort skip. I just need to practice more and get the timing down for the rolling vault jumps. Mostly old news this time. Two major skips in cinderbrick, one in langston river. I pretty much used your route for prosper bluff, I think it's pretty much optimized, unless we find a gate that's easier and more reliable to roll past than the fourth one. One major skip in the wilds, not much room for improvement here. Jawson Bog is pretty much all about fighting quickly, though you can skip most of the bar fight by destroying Rondy's figure as soon as it spawns. I don't know if it's quicker but it's pretty easy and amusing to make the shadow kid fall off the world, you just need to roll through the barriers and walk towards the right. A couple major skips in Roathus Lagoon, I'm not really happy with the first stone barrier skip, I might redo it. For the second barrier, it's quick enough just to kill the three pincushions and the third barrier can be easily rolled around. Let me know what you think. Here's the playlist: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEA4F0E7BBAC8EFB1

Alright, I uploaded the next 6 levels.  I finally got the first Cinderbrick Fort skip.  I just need to practice more and get the timing down for the rolling vault jumps.  Mostly old news this time.  Two major skips in cinderbrick, one in langston river.  I pretty much used your route for prosper bluff, I think it's pretty much optimized, unless we find a gate that's easier and more reliable to roll past than the fourth one.  One major skip in the wilds, not much room for improvement here.  Jawson Bog is pretty much all about fighting quickly, though you can skip most of the bar fight by destroying Rondy's figure as soon as it spawns.  I don't know if it's quicker but it's pretty easy and amusing to make the shadow kid fall off the world, you just need to roll through the barriers and walk towards the right.  A couple major skips in Roathus Lagoon, I'm not really happy with the first stone barrier skip, I might redo it. For the second barrier, it's quick enough just to kill the three pincushions and the third barrier can be easily rolled around.  Let me know what you think.  Here's the playlist: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEA4F0E7BBAC8EFB1

Red_Buddha

Edit history:

Red_Buddha: 2012-09-05 09:49:48 pm

Red_Buddha: 2012-09-05 09:49:34 pm

Red_Buddha: 2012-09-05 04:54:43 pm

2012-09-05 04:49:14 pm

Currently uploading routes for cinderbrick and prosper. Cinderbrick isn't very different from yours just slight changes but prosper has changed a lot from the old route.

Also on roathus you can roll around the bottom of the first barrier instead of using queen anne. I'm still looking for a better way to get past the second barrier too.

edit: here's prosper

cinderbrick soon

Lawyer Dog

Edit history:

Lawyer Dog: 2012-09-06 12:22:59 am

2012-09-05 10:16:21 pm

There are two very different routes for Roathus Lagoon that I have tried but they are basically identical times when optimized. Using either three launches from Queen Anne or no launches results in about a 1:01 time from clicking to start the level to hitting the skyway out. Using the three launches looks cooler but unfortunately the third launch is completely inconsistent because Queen Anne starts glitching out like 80% of the time there. Cinderbrick I got 1:05 on a good run by pike jumping to the platform up and to the right at about 0:48 in your video.

Video of me testing out different routes for Roathus and then some Cinderbrick. The score attack profile I was using for this is only level 4, but this doesn't really change anything. http://www.twitch.tv/lawyerdog/b/331212723

I also got a new New Game record of 53:02 with a bad run due to time gained from the mouse movement. I'm not entirely sure how low it can go right now because I'm so unused to mouse movement.
Video (best run starts at 1:17:10): http://www.twitch.tv/lawyerdog/b/331179922

There are two very different routes for Roathus Lagoon that I have tried but they are basically identical times when optimized. Using either three launches from Queen Anne or no launches results in about a 1:01 time from clicking to start the level to hitting the skyway out. Using the three launches looks cooler but unfortunately the third launch is completely inconsistent because Queen Anne starts glitching out like 80% of the time there. Cinderbrick I got 1:05 on a good run by pike jumping to the platform up and to the right at about 0:48 in your video.

Video of me testing out different routes for Roathus and then some Cinderbrick. The score attack profile I was using for this is only level 4, but this doesn't really change anything. http://www.twitch.tv/lawyerdog/b/331212723

I also got a new New Game record of 53:02 with a bad run due to time gained from the mouse movement. I'm not entirely sure how low it can go right now because I'm so unused to mouse movement.
Video (best run starts at 1:17:10): http://www.twitch.tv/lawyerdog/b/331179922

Red_Buddha

Edit history:

Red_Buddha: 2012-09-05 10:54:26 pm

2012-09-05 10:28:02 pm

You used the same jump that I did in cinderbrick but jumped from it to a much better spot that I really don't see how I didn't think of before. I'm still going to upload the video though because there are two minor improvements on the level.

Here is cinderbrick

I started from right there because everything before that is the exact same.

OBJ

2012-09-06 01:57:26 am

Those are some good improvements. I think I'd go with the launch-less skips because the rolls are so much easier with mouse-control and more reliable, since they're about the same time. That cinderbrick skip looks a lot easier than the one I went with, I'll have to switch to that one. I'll upload some more videos tonight. I think optimizing the Quarry is going to be difficult because there are so many vault skips possible, but maybe not. They'll be on my playlist. I also got a new PB of 55:17 but I can definitely shave a few minutes off (I don't know about 5 though).

OBJ

2012-09-07 10:16:48 pm

Alright, I've got all the parts uploaded. I'm probably going to redo a few with your improvements. Also, I got a new PB of 52:29 and there's still a couple minutes I could save if I get the hanging gardens skip in a reasonable amount of time. I'm just gonna keep practicing skips and hopefully I'll get under 50 soon.

Lawyer Dog

2012-09-12 01:41:14 am

Improved the New Game record to 51:43. I think sub 51 is possible on a very good run. No high quality recording because I'm still improving my time too much to bother with it.
Splits: http://i.imgur.com/KKdKU.png
Recorded stream: http://www.twitch.tv/lawyerdog/b/331902831

OBJ

2012-09-23 02:45:48 am

Got a new PB of 50:49.53 but I'm going to start using the other timing method from first input rather than from hitting "New Game Plus", which would make my time 50:29.53 There's still about 40 seconds of mistakes that I can avoid, I don't how much I'll be able to imrpove on Buddha's WR, if at all, but I'll keep chipping away at it.

Splits: http://i.imgur.com/CdVao.png
Stream: http://www.twitch.tv/ohbeejay/b/333159421

It probably doesn't matter but I hit my splits after I beat each level. So every time I land in the Bastion, I hit a split, so the timing will be slightly different on the splits.

Lawyer Dog

Edit history:

Lawyer Dog: 2012-10-06 09:27:42 pm

Lawyer Dog: 2012-10-06 09:19:09 pm

Lawyer Dog: 2012-10-06 09:16:54 pm

Lawyer Dog: 2012-10-06 03:12:04 pm

Lawyer Dog: 2012-10-06 02:49:46 pm

Lawyer Dog: 2012-10-03 04:02:20 am

Lawyer Dog: 2012-10-03 03:43:34 am

Lawyer Dog: 2012-10-03 03:43:22 am

Lawyer Dog: 2012-10-03 03:42:46 am

Lawyer Dog: 2012-10-03 03:22:10 am

Lawyer Dog: 2012-10-03 03:21:56 am

2012-10-03 03:21:24 am

Improved the New Game Plus record to 0:48:47. No major mistakes, but a lot of small ones like getting ahead of the level or not getting a skip first try. Gonna attempt to get a good local recording sometime soon.
New route for Prosper Bluff that I mess up a bit. If you don't miss any pike vaults you can vault over instead of picking up the journal, which lets you roll on that island.
New route for Roathus Lagoon but I don't think I actually did it correctly on this run. If you kill one of the pincushions as they spawn by doing a Pike Vault at the end of the first Queen Anne launch you will open the barricade, when usually it takes 2-3 kills to do it. If done right this will also make it so Queen Anne won't glitch out if you want to do the third Queen Anne launch to get over the last barricade.

I think it's at the point that we need to find out where to cut the timing for loading screens to get accurate times. Either that or ask Supergiant Games to patch an in-game timer into the game.

Splits: http://i.imgur.com/KC7lW.png
Stream: http://www.twitch.tv/lawyerdog/b/334277642

EDIT: New NG+ record of 0:48:07. Going to see how many frames of loading there are. I am going by the first frame you can see the loading screen graphic to last frame you can see it. When not streaming and just recording it is seeming like I have a consistent 131-133 frame loading screen at 30fps.
EDIT2: At 30 fps: 86613 total frames, 5936 frames of loading, 80677 frames minus the load times. Time without loading screens: 44:49.23.
There are 45 load screens and each one took almost the same amount of time, so just timing a couple loading screens is probably enough to see roughly how much time your computer spends on loading screens.

Improved the New Game Plus record to 0:48:47. No major mistakes, but a lot of small ones like getting ahead of the level or not getting a skip first try. Gonna attempt to get a good local recording sometime soon.
New route for Prosper Bluff that I mess up a bit. If you don't miss any pike vaults you can vault over instead of picking up the journal, which lets you roll on that island.
New route for Roathus Lagoon but I don't think I actually did it correctly on this run. If you kill one of the pincushions as they spawn by doing a Pike Vault at the end of the first Queen Anne launch you will open the barricade, when usually it takes 2-3 kills to do it. If done right this will also make it so Queen Anne won't glitch out if you want to do the third Queen Anne launch to get over the last barricade.

I think it's at the point that we need to find out where to cut the timing for loading screens to get accurate times. Either that or ask Supergiant Games to patch an in-game timer into the game.

Splits: http://i.imgur.com/KC7lW.png
Stream: http://www.twitch.tv/lawyerdog/b/334277642

EDIT: New NG+ record of 0:48:07. Going to see how many frames of loading there are. I am going by the first frame you can see the loading screen graphic to last frame you can see it. When not streaming and just recording it is seeming like I have a consistent 131-133 frame loading screen at 30fps.
EDIT2: At 30 fps: 86613 total frames, 5936 frames of loading, 80677 frames minus the load times. Time without loading screens: 44:49.23.
There are 45 load screens and each one took almost the same amount of time, so just timing a couple loading screens is probably enough to see roughly how much time your computer spends on loading screens.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lh89bIiaJ4

Lawyer Dog

Edit history:

Lawyer Dog: 2012-10-25 02:47:27 am

2012-10-25 12:13:10 am

New Game Plus record improved to 0:47:57 real time, or roughly 0:44:39 with loading times removed.

Splits: http://i.imgur.com/QBaFz.png
Stream (probably strong language): http://www.twitch.tv/lawyerdog/c/1712132

Small improvements can still be made, but sub 48 real time is pretty solid for all the things that can easily go wrong. Note that the splits aren't entirely helpful for the middle section of levels, because the order in which you upgrade the buildings can make it seem like you gained or lost time when you really didn't. It turns out that loading times are probably not very variable after all, because apparently ClockworkSeal was using an SSD and getting the same load times as me when we raced. 4.4 seconds seems to be the load time for every load for everyone.

Lawyer Dog

Edit history:

Lawyer Dog: 2012-11-08 02:56:25 am

2012-11-08 02:42:46 am

New Game record improved to 0:51:32 real time.

HD youtube:
Stream w/ commentary: http://www.twitch.tv/lawyerdog/c/1727463

I hadn't done a New Game run in two months so I streamed an attempt to see if I still remembered the route differences from New Game Plus. I got a new record so I figured I would upload it even though I made a bunch of mistakes from not remembering the route. Probably not going to do many New Game runs until I start racing it with ClockworkSeal again, but finally having an HD recording of a recent New Game run is nice. If someone is going to try and run New Game Bastion based off of this you should probably listen to the commentary because I mostly explain the mistakes I made that you would want to avoid.

tamik

2012-11-12 11:06:25 pm

Gonna come back and start running this game again will let ya know how my times are doing once I get the route down again

ais523

2012-11-13 06:41:17 am

Quote from Lawyer Dog:

New route for Prosper Bluff that I mess up a bit. If you don't miss any pike vaults you can vault over instead of picking up the journal, which lets you roll on that island.

You just improved low% by one item, there. (Not to mention completely broke the plot of the game. Nice going!)

ClockworkSeal

2012-11-13 04:12:44 pm

It doesn't improve low% though, because it's a NG+ strat and requires you to pick up the Pike and get Pike Vault (2 items to skip one)

Also if you don't grab the journal you can't pick the evacuate ending. So apparently they actually considered the possibility of skipping it in at least some baffling regard.

ais523

2012-11-13 05:02:19 pm

Quote from ClockworkSeal:

It doesn't improve low% though, because it's a NG+ strat and requires you to pick up the Pike and get Pike Vault (2 items to skip one)

Bleh, wasn't thinking. You're right, obviously, and NG+ low% is a ridiculous category that doesn't exist.

Quote:

Also if you don't grab the journal you can't pick the evacuate ending. So apparently they actually considered the possibility of skipping it in at least some baffling regard.

OK, that is baffling, especially as most of the events of the second half of the game shouldn't happen if you don't have the journal and yet, presumably, they do. Also there's no obvious flavour reason why not having the journal would prevent evacuation… Perhaps it was meant to be an optional item originally, and they changed their mind when they realised how integral it was to the plot.

Lawyer Dog

2012-11-16 03:12:00 am

I was talking to ClockworkSeal and some other dudes on Skype when a Bastion race came up on SpeedRunsLive so we had to get in on that.

A major route change that's shown in it is only 3 distillery spirits are gotten.
Werewhiskey, because it's required for a consistent one-cycle on Queen Anne and it makes Jawson Bog faster.
Black Rye, because it's required for a fast Prosper Bluff.
Cham-Pain, because it makes all fighting faster, and it makes the Ura fight at the Bastion faster since you only need to die once. No other spirit saves time and skipping them saves about 15 seconds or so, from spending less time in the menu and dying faster in the Bastion fight.
Worthwhile spirits to get if you want to be safe but lose some time would be Lifewine and Hearty Punch.

Some smaller changes from previous runs I've done are using the mortar to kill the boxes at the end of Sundown Path, activating Werewhiskey at Jawson Bog, and one-shotting the Ura boss before the platforming segment. If you start charging a mortar shot immediately after entering the fight you will be able to power shot the boss right after he hits you once and activates Werewhiskey.

I was talking to ClockworkSeal and some other dudes on Skype when a Bastion race came up on SpeedRunsLive so we had to get in on that.

A major route change that's shown in it is only 3 distillery spirits are gotten.
Werewhiskey, because it's required for a consistent one-cycle on Queen Anne and it makes Jawson Bog faster.
Black Rye, because it's required for a fast Prosper Bluff.
Cham-Pain, because it makes all fighting faster, and it makes the Ura fight at the Bastion faster since you only need to die once. No other spirit saves time and skipping them saves about 15 seconds or so, from spending less time in the menu and dying faster in the Bastion fight.
Worthwhile spirits to get if you want to be safe but lose some time would be Lifewine and Hearty Punch.

Some smaller changes from previous runs I've done are using the mortar to kill the boxes at the end of Sundown Path, activating Werewhiskey at Jawson Bog, and one-shotting the Ura boss before the platforming segment. If you start charging a mortar shot immediately after entering the fight you will be able to power shot the boss right after he hits you once and activates Werewhiskey.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3VPALzDgTQ

Lawyer Dog

Edit history:

Lawyer Dog: 2012-11-30 04:14:14 pm

Lawyer Dog: 2012-11-30 03:27:29 pm

2012-11-30 03:27:05 pm

Bastion run with commentary from the Hurricane Sandython marathon's bonus stream. Actual run starts at 5 minutes in.

Lawyer Dog

Edit history:

Lawyer Dog: 2012-12-10 01:30:37 pm

Lawyer Dog: 2012-12-10 01:30:30 pm

Lawyer Dog: 2012-12-10 12:53:36 pm

Lawyer Dog: 2012-12-09 09:49:31 pm

Lawyer Dog: 2012-12-09 09:44:53 pm

Lawyer Dog: 2012-12-09 09:44:06 pm

Lawyer Dog: 2012-12-09 09:43:25 pm

2012-12-09 09:43:02 pm

Someone sent me a message on Youtube today saying that during a speedrun of New Game Plus they got a glitch where they got two shards from Jawson Bog and were able to use them both, and then skip a level. They have some issues with their upload rate, but they're going to try to upload the whole run. If this can be replicated I think it would change up the categories to have the old any% be "all story levels" or something, since it's skipping entire levels.

Edit: Video got uploaded. Going to have to do some testing and try and figure this out. 27:48 is where he puts in the double shards from Jawson Bog. When he grabs the shard he gets XP twice, meaning he grabs the shard twice at that point. The only potential thing I can think of right now is clicking on it to move to it and grab it, and then pressing E before the movement to go grab it finishes or something.
http://i.imgur.com/xESjD.jpg

OBJ

2012-12-10 05:39:30 pm

That's pretty crazy, I don't suppose it's related to him playing on the french version. I checked and it has the same build number (0.7393 12.16.2011) so most likely not. If we can figure out how to replicate this, we might be able to do it multiple times and skip like half the levels or something. It might be related to how you visit the place twice (before you pass out and after you wake up) so maybe the game glitched out and loaded the shard twice.

In any case, I'm planning on getting back into bastion during winter break. I'm still gonna be somewhat busy with TF2 for a few months but I'll hopefully get a few runs done. I was also thinking about doing some Individual Level runs, doing Score Attack mode and seeing the best time I could get for each world. I don't know if people would be interested in that but I'll set up a spreadsheet or something for times in case other people want to compete.