Batman: Arkham Asylum

2013-12-15 10:02:34 pm

The Dork Knight himself.

http://www.twitch.tv/honorablejay/c/3401030

We gotta figure out if that quick drop is something that can be done consistently because if so that's at least another 2 seconds that can easily be saved.

Diablohead

2013-12-16 05:56:06 am

Arkham speed runner.

http://www.twitch.tv/diabuk/b/487875649

Here is a quick video showing off how to get up there and what you can do currently, interestingly if you line launch aiming at the bottom door of the lift the rope goes through it, but batman himself will not, only thing stopping us getting to the pumps early.

DarthKnight

Edit history:

DarthKnight: 2013-12-16 02:19:28 pm

2013-12-16 02:19:09 pm

You'd sure think you could break the walls early in the game and then grapple up to them to skip the sewers titan fight. But it might be tricky to get to a wall without dropping the lift? Also like you said it probably would only save time on hard, since the time it would take to get to that area might not be quicker than the fight itself on easy.

Quote:

We gotta figure out if that quick drop is something that can be done consistently because if so that's at least another 2 seconds that can easily be saved.

Yeah that can be done consistently, and I'm pretty sure anywhere. Master Zed did it in his original run. You just need to glide and then let go just before falling. That was perfect timing in your video.

honorableJay

2013-12-16 08:36:57 pm

The Dork Knight himself.

Darth you gotta join up in the Sunday races for this game, it would be awesome to see how I stack against you time-wise Smiley

wfp

2013-12-17 02:04:05 pm

hey jay, took a look at the 1:49 run because i was curious about seeing a run with the bell skip. i also hadn't seen the titan fight strat of pulling the goons into the electric fences which was awesome.

anyway it strikes me that you lose time going for the clayface and mad hatter riddles as you have to stop to get them, while it's always been curious to me why no one seems to get mr. freeze's cell as they walk into the harley fight. if you adjust your camera as you walk into the room, you can get it just before the cutscene with no time lost.

OllieJS100

Edit history:

OllieJS100: 2013-12-17 02:50:41 pm

2013-12-17 02:41:00 pm

Arkham Speedrunner

I think the main reason is because once you have both cryptographic sequence upgrade you don't need any more upgrades so even though you dont lose any time you also dont really need it.

I personally don't bother getting the clayface riddle because of having to stop to get them. I imagine jay gets them so he can get both cryptographic sequence upgrades as soon as he gets the cryptographic sequencer but i dunno, if you don't get those riddles then you have to get the last cryptographic upgrade after the harley fight

This is for easy mode anyway

honorableJay

2013-12-17 09:53:30 pm

The Dork Knight himself.

Yeah I picked up the Clayface riddle because I was behind on experience and wanted the power booster upgrade ASAP. As for the Mr. Freeze one, that might be a better one to go for in emergencies since I don't necessarily need the power booster until after the Harley fight, BUT I haven't tested how easy it is to get. If it is as easy as you put it then yeah I'll definitely consider getting it. As for the Mad Hatter one, I have no idea which one it is so you'll have to refresh my memory.

honorableJay

Edit history:

honorableJay: 2013-12-17 10:56:29 pm

honorableJay: 2013-12-17 10:46:43 pm

2013-12-17 10:39:28 pm

The Dork Knight himself.

Just to make sure it's documented somewhere, I wanted to go over a little known "feature" of Arkham Asylum that we figured out tonight.

First, some history (and a graphic to help demonstrate). Green is the center (0,0), the blue dots represent 100% +-x/+-y at the corners for the classic analog design. The red dots show the maximum range of current analog sticks.

In the early years of analog joystick gaming, developers and hardware manufacturers utilized a square design for the analog stick's movement. This meant that game developers could directly read the x/y coordinates that the hardware was reporting and immediately use that data in a game to determine turning/walking/etc speeds. No matter what direction the stick was moved in, the developers could depend on the stick always being able to use 100% of the x/y axis's independently.

Enter the PSX Dual Analog/Shock controller. Aside from being a fairly comfortable controller, it helped usher in a newer design to the analog stick: a circular movement zone. This made movements easier for the player, but added a headache to devs: while the x/y axis could be fully used at up, down, left, or right, the corners were cut short and only able to use about 80-85% of the total x/y movement. No longer able to simply rely on the x/y coordinates, smarter devs started using math to figure out the angle the stick was rotated at AND the total percentage the stick was pushed in that direction. This way every angle could use 100% of the stick's movement and the game didn't know any better.

Now enter the Unreal engine. Whether by Epic programmers' divine trolling foresight OR by licensing dev stupidity, by default it appears the engine raw reads the x/y axis data from an analog stick. This means that even console games are affected UNLESS the game dev knows to reprogram how the analog stick's data is interpreted.

So how does this affect Arkham Asylum? Well, here are a few things that we can understand:
1. The standard 360/PS3 gamepads use circular motion analog sticks
2. The Unreal engine appears to read the raw x/y data from the analog sticks
3. The raw x/y coordinates on a circular analog stick only report about 85% of the full x/y motion

So for Arkham Asylum this means that using the Left stick to run will only get you full running motion at the + corners of the circle and shortchange you on the X corners of the circle. In terms of the Remote Batarang, this also means that you will not get full steering control at the X corners if you use only one stick. The workaround for this is, since both sticks can be used to control the batarang, to use one stick to control left/right and the other to control up/down. Not all games are affected by this however since most devs have switched to using the newer calculation methods, but it does crop up from time to time. Also, game/console version differences can act differently depending on how the hardware interacts with the controller and how the game accesses the controller data.

Just to note, I also plugged in a 3rd party wired 360 remote (which is reported as some weird name but is recognized by games as a 360 controller on my Win7 x64 PC) and tested out the angles on the analog sticks. Sure enough, while it does get to about 95% full range at the X corners, some of the movement is indeed lost since even the driver doesn't calculate the sticks extension/angle correctly. Using an older PS2 USB controller adapter and a PSX Dual Shock controller reports only 85% movement at the corners, while a really old Logitech wireless controller (Logitech Wingman Cordless), that does indeed have a square analog movement zone, reports full 100% movement at the corners.

Just to make sure it's documented somewhere, I wanted to go over a little known "feature" of Arkham Asylum that we figured out tonight.

First, some history (and a graphic to help demonstrate). Green is the center (0,0), the blue dots represent 100% +-x/+-y at the corners for the classic analog design. The red dots show the maximum range of current analog sticks.

In the early years of analog joystick gaming, developers and hardware manufacturers utilized a square design for the analog stick's movement. This meant that game developers could directly read the x/y coordinates that the hardware was reporting and immediately use that data in a game to determine turning/walking/etc speeds. No matter what direction the stick was moved in, the developers could depend on the stick always being able to use 100% of the x/y axis's independently.

Enter the PSX Dual Analog/Shock controller. Aside from being a fairly comfortable controller, it helped usher in a newer design to the analog stick: a circular movement zone. This made movements easier for the player, but added a headache to devs: while the x/y axis could be fully used at up, down, left, or right, the corners were cut short and only able to use about 80-85% of the total x/y movement. No longer able to simply rely on the x/y coordinates, smarter devs started using math to figure out the angle the stick was rotated at AND the total percentage the stick was pushed in that direction. This way every angle could use 100% of the stick's movement and the game didn't know any better.

Now enter the Unreal engine. Whether by Epic programmers' divine trolling foresight OR by licensing dev stupidity, by default it appears the engine raw reads the x/y axis data from an analog stick. This means that even console games are affected UNLESS the game dev knows to reprogram how the analog stick's data is interpreted.

So how does this affect Arkham Asylum? Well, here are a few things that we can understand:
1. The standard 360/PS3 gamepads use circular motion analog sticks
2. The Unreal engine appears to read the raw x/y data from the analog sticks
3. The raw x/y coordinates on a circular analog stick only report about 85% of the full x/y motion

So for Arkham Asylum this means that using the Left stick to run will only get you full running motion at the + corners of the circle and shortchange you on the X corners of the circle. In terms of the Remote Batarang, this also means that you will not get full steering control at the X corners if you use only one stick. The workaround for this is, since both sticks can be used to control the batarang, to use one stick to control left/right and the other to control up/down. Not all games are affected by this however since most devs have switched to using the newer calculation methods, but it does crop up from time to time. Also, game/console version differences can act differently depending on how the hardware interacts with the controller and how the game accesses the controller data.

Just to note, I also plugged in a 3rd party wired 360 remote (which is reported as some weird name but is recognized by games as a 360 controller on my Win7 x64 PC) and tested out the angles on the analog sticks. Sure enough, while it does get to about 95% full range at the X corners, some of the movement is indeed lost since even the driver doesn't calculate the sticks extension/angle correctly. Using an older PS2 USB controller adapter and a PSX Dual Shock controller reports only 85% movement at the corners, while a really old Logitech wireless controller ([url=http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-WingMan-Cordless-Rumblepad-2-4/dp/B00005USQA]Logitech Wingman Cordless[/url]), that does indeed have a square analog movement zone, reports full 100% movement at the corners.

Attachment:

analog.jpg

wfp

2013-12-18 12:04:43 am

as i now think about it i may be wrong about it being the mad hatter riddle but there was a riddle on a bench in botanical gardens that you stopped to get which is what i was referring to. maybe maddog? it definitely wasn't humpty dumpty, you seemed to get that one with no time loss.

RoboSparkle

Edit history:

RoboSparkle: 2013-12-18 06:28:47 am

2013-12-18 06:27:15 am

Magical. Flying. Bathtub

This is a long one because it's really several posts... Tongue

Quote from honorableJay:

Stuff

Thanks so much for this last night, the tl;dr version is you get better steering control of remote batarangs if you use one stick for one cardinal direction (u/d or l/r) and the other stick for another direction. This means I FINALLY have a consistent method for getting that damned Bell Skip Cheesy

(the method is good anyway, we'll see how good I am at it next time I run...).

Going to do a proper tutorial vid today because I know that there are others still struggling with this (i.e. probably everyone except diabuk, jay and ollie), it's easy to explain empirically and it will work on all versions (PS3 should be same) regardless of whether you are using kb or controller.

Riddle scans: You can get Freeze riddle before the Harley fight starts, you have to be standing quite close to it and the timing is tight if you also want to get a gel down in time but it's doable. The Mad Hatter scan is free since you get it in Sharp's office while waiting for Batman to report Young's death to Oracle (Spoilers Tongue

). wfp's last post was either referring to the Guard at the entrance on the left (which is free as you can scan while running) or Humpty Dumpty (on a bench on your way to Titan Ivy, also free). Neither are really needed in Easy Mode as you have all the upgrades you need by then (except emergency BatSnacks, but you should have 1-2 reserves anyway). The Mad Dog / Wayne family riddles are plaques that you need to zoom in on to scan and in Easy aren't worth the 2-3 seconds you need to pause for them.

Quote from Diablohead:

[01:02] <Diablohead> i noticed that I hit ivy when she was bragging right at the start of her fight because she opens up as her vines grab you
[01:02] <Diablohead> if there was a way to get that all the time it would speed up that fight a lot
[01:03] <Diablohead> need to throw the batarang just before her vines hit you

(BTW that was from #Batman on SRL IRC, you should join that if you haven't already Smiley

)

It looks like you're saying that Ivy opens up to taunt you when you get hit by her vines, is that what you mean and if so has anyone else seen this? It might not be that hard to time since you can dive into her vines just after they come up, although you'll need to BatSnack once or twice to compensate, should definitely speed up the fight though Smiley

This is a long one because it's really several posts... :P
[quote="honorableJay"]Stuff[/quote]
Thanks so much for this last night, the tl;dr version is you get better steering control of remote batarangs if you use one stick for one cardinal direction (u/d or l/r) and the other stick for another direction.  This means I FINALLY have a consistent method for getting that damned Bell Skip :D (the method is good anyway, we'll see how good I am at it next time I run...).

Going to do a proper tutorial vid today because I know that there are others still struggling with this (i.e. probably everyone except diabuk, jay and ollie), it's easy to explain empirically and it will work on all versions (PS3 should be same) regardless of whether you are using kb or controller.

[b]Riddle scans:[/b]  You can get Freeze riddle before the Harley fight starts, you have to be standing quite close to it and the timing is tight if you also want to get a gel down in time but it's doable.  The Mad Hatter scan is free since you get it in Sharp's office while waiting for Batman to report Young's death to Oracle (Spoilers :P ).  wfp's last post was either referring to the Guard at the entrance on the left (which is free as you can scan while running) or Humpty Dumpty (on a bench on your way to Titan Ivy, also free).  Neither are really needed in Easy Mode as you have all the upgrades you need by then (except emergency BatSnacks, but you should have 1-2 reserves anyway).  The Mad Dog / Wayne family riddles are plaques that you need to zoom in on to scan and in Easy aren't worth the 2-3 seconds you need to pause for them.

[quote="Diablohead"][01:02] <Diablohead> i noticed that I hit ivy when she was bragging right at the start of her fight because she opens up as her vines grab you
[01:02] <Diablohead> if there was a way to get that all the time it would speed up that fight a lot
[01:03] <Diablohead> need to throw the batarang just before her vines hit you[/quote]
(BTW that was from #Batman on SRL IRC, you should join that if you haven't already :) )

It looks like you're saying that Ivy opens up to taunt you when you get hit by her vines, is that what you mean and if so has anyone else seen this?  It might not be that hard to time since you can dive into her vines just after they come up, although you'll need to BatSnack once or twice to compensate, should definitely speed up the fight though :)

OllieJS100

2013-12-18 08:28:51 am

Arkham Speedrunner

So i made a poison ivy save for anyone who wants to practise what Diab said or if they want to practise jumping over the vines as you enter the gardens.

Its PC only

Attachment:

save3(poison ivy).sgd

OllieJS100

Edit history:

OllieJS100: 2013-12-18 09:39:19 am

2013-12-18 09:37:31 am

Arkham Speedrunner

Ok another post Smiley

Diab i was messing around with your strat and managed to make a highlight of the first phase of ivy using this strat. The timing on it is quite difficult and im not sure how much faster it is. Tbh seems like it might be a segmented thing

http://www.twitch.tv/olliejs100/c/3413116

RoboSparkle

Edit history:

RoboSparkle: 2013-12-18 12:38:59 pm

RoboSparkle: 2013-12-18 12:38:29 pm

RoboSparkle: 2013-12-18 10:00:17 am

2013-12-18 09:59:00 am

Magical. Flying. Bathtub

Quote from OllieJS100:

Its PC only

RAGE

Quote from OllieJS100:

Ok another post Smiley

Diab i was messing around with your strat and managed to make a highlight of the first phase of ivy using this strat. The timing on it is quite difficult and im not sure how much faster it is. Tbh seems like it might be a segmented thing
http://www.twitch.tv/olliejs100/c/3413116

This saves about 5-7 seconds per phase over darthknight's run (although neither Ollie or darth used multi-rangs to speed up the fight) so it is quicker and considering the optimisations going into the route (ignoring more riddles, cancelling the landing animation) probably worth trying to get consistent at. However, miss it once, and it will be slower than doing the fight "normally".

You recover all your health on easy between phases, but you'd need to BatSnack on Hard so you'll automatically lose the time you would have saved. So yeah, a strat for the confident or segmenters only Smiley

EDIT: This may be good on PC for kb users since escaping Ivy's vines is a mashing mechanic, but I'll leave it to Jay or someone to test that Tongue

ADDENDUM: Tutorial for Early Bell here:

[quote="OllieJS100"]Its PC only [/quote]
RAGE >:(

[quote="OllieJS100"]Ok another post :) Diab i was messing around with your strat and managed to make a highlight of the first phase of ivy using this strat. The timing on it is quite difficult and im not sure how much faster it is. Tbh seems like it might be a segmented thing
http://www.twitch.tv/olliejs100/c/3413116[/quote]

This saves about 5-7 seconds per phase over darthknight's run (although neither Ollie or darth used multi-rangs to speed up the fight) so it is quicker and considering the optimisations going into the route (ignoring more riddles, cancelling the landing animation) probably worth trying to get consistent at.  However, miss it once, and it will be slower than doing the fight "normally".

You recover all your health on easy between phases, but you'd need to BatSnack on Hard so you'll automatically lose the time you would have saved.  So yeah, a strat for the confident or segmenters only :)

EDIT: This may be good on PC for kb users since escaping Ivy's vines is a mashing mechanic, but I'll leave it to Jay or someone to test that :P

ADDENDUM: Tutorial for Early Bell here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-smVVwW-pM&feature=youtu.be

Diablohead

2013-12-19 03:01:47 pm

Arkham speed runner.

I never really looked into that second gap near the bell but it looks a lot better, will have to try it out.

Hitting Ivy while she taunts looks to be faster so that is good, hopefully I can gold split next run because of that.

Also about getting to the pump lift shaft early, if you break a wall down early but leave the lift and play on as normal, after the lobby fight you are stuck because the game only unlocks ledge grappling there after you ultraclaw a wall down.

honorableJay

2013-12-19 09:57:57 pm

The Dork Knight himself.

So what you're saying is you're breaking the game in a bad way right? Smiley

OllieJS100

2013-12-20 03:27:31 am

Arkham Speedrunner

Quote from Diablohead:

I never really looked into that second gap near the bell but it looks a lot better, will have to try it out.

Dont betray me Diab, its only me and you left using the original gap Wink

we gotta stick together

RoboSparkle

2013-12-20 05:39:03 am

Magical. Flying. Bathtub

Do it Diab, you know it's the faster gap, that's how I took your console record by a matter of seconds Wink

Speaking of records, yesterday I got 100% Hard Mode in 3:24:59. Still had 5 deaths and a few sloppy areas but it's a good benchmark for how low the time can get on this one. http://www.twitch.tv/robo_sparkle/c/3420180

Diablohead

Edit history:

Diablohead: 2013-12-20 02:40:26 pm

2013-12-20 02:39:13 pm

Arkham speed runner.

In that race I tried the new approach to the bell but while I could get through the crack I was always missing the rope or turning too much, went back to the old approach and got it first time, so I may just stick with my methods for now.

When finding riddles that I missed it was nice to use the new 'route' back into the pump room from the top, saved me a little running around heh.

Robo do you think it's possible to use stuff like that to speed up your 100% or do you get all the pump room stuff on first and only pass thru?

RoboSparkle

2013-12-20 06:11:25 pm

Magical. Flying. Bathtub

You only need one pass through the pump room so unfortunately that isn't useful in 100%. I used your route back into intensive treatment to collect the remaining trophies there as I timed it being 10s quicker but I cocked up the Line Launcher and cost the time I would have saved. I still prefer it as it puts me in the right position after clearing out Botanical Gardens and the Mansion I can do intensive and it's easy to get to the last two trophies and teeth in the transition between arkham North and West (assuming I don't forget the teeth like I did last time).

honorableJay

Edit history:

honorableJay: 2013-12-25 10:17:43 pm

2013-12-24 09:05:34 pm

The Dork Knight himself.

Since I noticed Burntpork was having problems in the sewers climb, here's how I do it.

For Robo, here's how I handle Ivy.
To avoid getting the quick rang glitch, just get in a rhythm of throwing the rangs manually. Once you know how quickly you can throw them it'll make dealing with the enemies and throwing much easier. As for the Ivy glitch, I'm thinking the best way to make sure you can get it is to stay as close to the bottom of the arena as possible to give the rang more flight time.

OllieJS100

2013-12-25 04:55:21 am

Arkham Speedrunner

Quote from honorableJay:

As for the Ivy glitch, I'm thinking the best way to make sure you can get it is to stay as close to the bottom of the arena as possible to give the rang more flight time.

Yup this is what me and Robo discussed. It is however difficult to get the timing down. Still needs some more investigation Smiley

honorableJay

2013-12-25 10:51:41 pm

The Dork Knight himself.

Ok, so after checking out Robo's footage from Sunday, I'm definitely using his Joker strats from now on. Taking the 2 hits from Joker is way faster than tanking him around the ring, especially since there's no delay for his jump. The batclaw + ground pound strat is nice too, seems to be way more effective.

So my plan is to implement that strat and get the Ivy strat to work for SS in the next few days. Any other ideas to improve other areas?

OllieJS100

Edit history:

OllieJS100: 2013-12-26 11:50:54 am

2013-12-26 04:42:38 am

Arkham Speedrunner

I was planning to mess around with an explosive gel strat for titan joker

It is just a thought but I was thinking that while you are taunting joker around the ring you can lay 2 explosive gels (one on the right and one on the left) so that when the thugs jump down you can blow the gel and then it explodes them into the electric fence. Again, just a thought

honorableJay

2013-12-26 04:12:48 pm

The Dork Knight himself.

You'd have to plant them right as Joker jumps out of the ring, otherwise he'll hit you out of planting it. If you can get at least one down on the right side and get a decent grapple that's at least 2-4 enemies out of the fight immediately.

Diablohead

2013-12-28 03:48:39 pm

Arkham speed runner.

Spent this evening playing around with some pc debug options for asylum, such as starting the game (from the beta titan battle onwards) with anything I want, so I have been line launching and hacking everywhere out of order to see what happens, if areas can be visited earlier and what breaks. Some interesting stuff.

First of all the game is really hard to do anything with out of order.

Straight after collecting the gel if you go into the ruins instead of onwards towards the doctors (using debug to get ultra claw) get past the wall at the top of the catacombs and then down you can actually get to croc and do his segment super early, normally in the game after batcave 1 croc's door is a fake and you can't pass it, but get down into the catacombs any other way and it's fine. However after beating croc and getting a mission update you are still in phase 1 of the game, no ivy, no titan ultra batclaw cut scene, so forth.

(using debug to get the batclaw early) before saving the 3 doctors if you gain access to the scarecrow 1 elevator shaft you can drop to the bottom normally but you will still trigger the scarecrow 1 fmv, seems that we have to do this scarecrow no matter what to progress the game, fight bain and get to an updated overworld.

Heading into intensive treatment super early either takes you to the phase 1 treatment which is when you first start there and leave after the riddle, or like in the youtube video posted a while back it's an unfurnashed map with invisible walls and missing objets everywhere, glitchy and broken.

On that note if you debug for the sequencer early and try to open croc's hatch or disable the energy doors just before scarecrow 3, they are dud boxes, it seems the game needs to spawn the joker trapped units to hack before those triggers will trip when hacked.

I also tested out hacking the pumps early, it all goes like normal apart from no thugs in the pred or combat rooms, the titan battle happens and after that the overworld is still as you left it, so I think that battle does not trigger any events to progress and it's most likely caused by the ultraclaw cut scene.

I managed to soft lock myself by escaping harley quinn's gas puzzle via ultraclaw escaping the room and auto saved via loading a door before the bombs went off, so I can't give any more information for now until I test it more.

This is good information though as now I feel like our speed runs are going as fast as possible, there is no major corner cuts or skips for getting back into IT early it seems.

Spent this evening playing around with some pc debug options for asylum, such as starting the game (from the beta titan battle onwards) with anything I want, so I have been line launching and hacking everywhere out of order to see what happens, if areas can be visited earlier and what breaks. Some interesting stuff.

First of all the game is really hard to do anything with out of order.

Straight after collecting the gel if you go into the ruins instead of onwards towards the doctors (using debug to get ultra claw) get past the wall at the top of the catacombs and then down you can actually get to croc and do his segment super early, normally in the game after batcave 1 croc's door is a fake and you can't pass it, but get down into the catacombs any other way and it's fine. However after beating croc and getting a mission update you are still in phase 1 of the game, no ivy, no titan ultra batclaw cut scene, so forth.

(using debug to get the batclaw early) before saving the 3 doctors if you gain access to the scarecrow 1 elevator shaft you can drop to the bottom normally but you will still trigger the scarecrow 1 fmv, seems that we have to do this scarecrow no matter what to progress the game, fight bain and get to an updated overworld.

Heading into intensive treatment super early either takes you to the phase 1 treatment which is when you first start there and leave after the riddle, or like in the youtube video posted a while back it's an unfurnashed map with invisible walls and missing objets everywhere, glitchy and broken.

On that note if you debug for the sequencer early and try to open croc's hatch or disable the energy doors just before scarecrow 3, they are dud boxes, it seems the game needs to spawn the joker trapped units to hack before those triggers will trip when hacked.

I also tested out hacking the pumps early, it all goes like normal apart from no thugs in the pred or combat rooms, the titan battle happens and after that the overworld is still as you left it, so I think that battle does not trigger any events to progress and it's most likely caused by the ultraclaw cut scene.

I managed to soft lock myself by escaping harley quinn's gas puzzle via ultraclaw escaping the room and auto saved via loading a door before the bombs went off, so I can't give any more information for now until I test it more.

This is good information though as now I feel like our speed runs are going as fast as possible, there is no major corner cuts or skips for getting back into IT early it seems.