Batman: Arkham City

2013-04-17 01:49:52 pm

watched the first two hours. i imagine most of the improvements to this run will boil down to better optimization and good luck with rng, but i wondered why you meet bane at the beginning of the game. i believe the titan canisters can be destroyed without meeting him with only the encounter with him at the end necessary for the completion of his sidequest so it seems to me this is a slight error in your current route as it does something completely unnecessary.

i'd also advise against some minor things you do that obviously add time like the debate over how to handle penguin at the beginning of the game and opting to listen to his speech, but i suppose that only matters if you were to submit this to sda and sda is already pretty resistant to runs that last roughly six plus hours, especially when they're single segment.

also, i realize this would be hard to manage but does it make sense to try and save riddler thugs to the end of encounters (even though you obviously know the location of any information they reveal)? the "interrogate" range is extremely generous and if you can skip through the dialogue may actually be faster as you can pounce on them so easily.

just minor nitpicks, i'm really impressed with your time and routing to perform a 100% run on this game at all.

watched the first two hours.  i imagine most of the improvements to this run will boil down to better optimization and good luck with rng, but i wondered why you meet bane at the beginning of the game.  i believe the titan canisters can be destroyed without meeting him with only the encounter with him at the end necessary for the completion of his sidequest so it seems to me this is a slight error in your current route as it does something completely unnecessary.

i'd also advise against some minor things you do that obviously add time like the debate over how to handle penguin at the beginning of the game and opting to listen to his speech, but i suppose that only matters if you were to submit this to sda and sda is already pretty resistant to runs that last roughly six plus hours, especially when they're single segment.

also, i realize this would be hard to manage but does it make sense to try and save riddler thugs to the end of encounters (even though you obviously know the location of any information they reveal)?  the "interrogate" range is extremely generous and if you can skip through the dialogue may actually be faster as you can pounce on them so easily.

just minor nitpicks, i'm really impressed with your time and routing to perform a 100% run on this game at all.

Paused

2013-04-17 01:58:06 pm

One of the Titan containers doesn't spawn without chatting with Bane first iirc.

And yes obviously he won't show off unnecessary time wasting glitches/scenes if he was going for a submission worthy run. He probably wouldn't ask for votes on costume changes in the middle of a run either.

Impressive run considering the nature of the sidequests RoboSparkle. Nice work.

RoboSparkle

2013-04-17 02:17:57 pm

Magical. Flying. Bathtub

This was more of an exhibition run than a submission attempt so there are a few things that would differ in a 'proper' run. Yeah so one of the containers doesn't spawn until you talk to Bane (specifically, the one outside the steel mill) so I have to start his quest. I took out the Riddler informants because I didn't know where one of the remaining trophies was (it was the Blunder Tower one)

Also in the Bane fight, I'm not certain but I think it would follow the same pattern as other fights where the gel disappears after you start fighting. Also if you detonate multiple gels then you lose your combo so it wouldn't help anyway. Finally gel isn't useful in a fight if I can't get a Freeflow Focus gel as the time to lay one coupled with the luck in getting 3 or more inmates to stand on it isn't worth it.

Riddler Thugs: It is never faster to save them to the end because it's quicker to punch them if it came down to it. The only way it could be quicker is if he was by coincidence the last thug I was going to get, and there's a bit of distance between us and he's armed. Also if I grab them near an edge or a wall it takes even more time.

Thanks for the support guys, always open to seeing more suggestions though Smiley

This was more of an exhibition run than a submission attempt so there are a few things that would differ in a 'proper' run.  Yeah so one of the containers doesn't spawn until you talk to Bane (specifically, the one outside the steel mill) so I have to start his quest.  I took out the Riddler informants because I didn't know where one of the remaining trophies was (it was the Blunder Tower one)

Also in the Bane fight, I'm not certain but I think it would follow the same pattern as other fights where the gel disappears after you start fighting.  Also if you detonate multiple gels then you lose your combo so it wouldn't help anyway.  Finally gel isn't useful in a fight if I can't get a Freeflow Focus gel as the time to lay one coupled with the luck in getting 3 or more inmates to stand on it isn't worth it.

Riddler Thugs: It is never faster to save them to the end because it's quicker to punch them if it came down to it.  The only way it could be quicker is if he was by coincidence the last thug I was going to get, and there's a bit of distance between us and he's armed.  Also if I grab them near an edge or a wall it takes even more time.

Thanks for the support guys, always open to seeing more suggestions though :)

RoboSparkle

Edit history:

RoboSparkle: 2013-08-18 12:54:22 am

2013-08-18 12:52:20 am

Magical. Flying. Bathtub

Bumping this thread to put current records on here:

Firstly, the 100% 6:02:24 in youtube and twitch versions

http://www.twitch.tv/robo_sparkle/b/420030369 (Part 1)
http://www.twitch.tv/robo_sparkle/b/420130472 (Part 2)

Next the 1:58:12 run

http://www.twitch.tv/robo_sparkle/c/2321766

Both of these still have significant improvements to be made and I really want to get at least the any% finished by October so that I can get on Origins when it comes out, current target is 1:55. No idea how low 100% will go though as it's still tough to find time to even do attempts. With perfect play and reasonable luck I'm now thinking 5:30 is a good target time.

Also this happened when hunting for glitches. Still not sure if it can be used in a run yet, although judging from previous Museum shenanigans, if it can it's probably NG+ only...

http://www.twitch.tv/robo_sparkle/c/2460135

RoboSparkle

Edit history:

RoboSparkle: 2013-10-02 12:40:21 am

RoboSparkle: 2013-10-02 12:12:50 am

RoboSparkle: 2013-09-26 12:38:12 am

RoboSparkle: 2013-09-26 12:37:31 am

2013-09-24 03:44:14 pm

Magical. Flying. Bathtub

So I broke the 1:55. and the 1:54 Smiley

Had a couple of sloppy fights so not ready to submit (and even if they were, my Xbox died while chasing the Assassin TWICE so I had to pause the timer) but I'm now looking for a low 1:53:xx to submit.

http://www.twitch.tv/robo_sparkle/c/2985485 for Arkham City with Catwoman in Hard Mode in 1:53:57

EDIT: Also the run that's in verification, does anybody know what the run is? The category said DLC so I'm presuming that Darthknight (or someone) submitted Harley Quinn's Revenge? Hard to tell because nobody's posted here since April apart from me.

EDIT 2: There's now a Robin Skip which saves another minute and a half. Going for 1:51:xx to submit. Basically instead of following the Assassin's blood trail after leaving the Museum, you can go straight to collapsed streets (it gives you the Line Launcher upon entering) and all you have to do is Checkpoint Restart when the game autosaves after you scan the Wonder City guardians and open the secret entrance, otherwise you get trapped in Wonder City and none of the doors will open. I had found this aaaages ago but never used it because I couldn't find a way to get through the gate and to Bruce's vision of his parents until yesterday. It's pretty significant since it marks the first and only cut-scene that I've managed to sequence-break out of the game (the one where Robin appears and gives you the Line Launcher) as it was previously thought that story triggers are only loaded by reaching the relevant cut-scene.

Also I've found out how to consistently corrupt my save and allow me to start from a new save file with (almost) all my gadgets (NOT New Game+). We've dubbed this "New Game Minus" and it's a lot of fun! How it works is there's a few places where you can go out of bounds, load a new area while out of bounds (and have the game autosave), then quit to title and the game will force you to erase your game save and start again, albeit with all the gadgets and upgrades you already acquired (except the Bolas, Caltrops, Disruptor, and Cryptographic Sequencer upgrades/codes).

It's different to NG+ because the enemy formations and behaviours are the same as in normal story mode and areas that are locked off to you in NG+ by having Batman go "I don't have time for this" like GCPD early, are free to explore, meaning you can go to the GCPD before rescuing Catwoman from Two-Face. It doesn't help because there's nobody inside but it's pretty cool nonetheless. I've yet to find any major game-breaks that would make it worth having this as a separate speedrunning category, but it's early days yet. I have managed to get myself trapped forever in the Steel Mill though, so that's something I guess...

So I broke the 1:55. and the 1:54 :)

Had a couple of sloppy fights so not ready to submit (and even if they were, my Xbox died while chasing the Assassin TWICE so I had to pause the timer) but I'm now looking for a low 1:53:xx to submit.

http://www.twitch.tv/robo_sparkle/c/2985485 for Arkham City with Catwoman in Hard Mode in 1:53:57

EDIT: Also the run that's in verification, does anybody know what the run is?  The category said DLC so I'm presuming that Darthknight (or someone) submitted Harley Quinn's Revenge?  Hard to tell because nobody's posted here since April apart from me.

EDIT 2: There's now a Robin Skip which saves another minute and a half.  Going for 1:51:xx to submit.  Basically instead of following the Assassin's blood trail after leaving the Museum, you can go straight to collapsed streets (it gives you the Line Launcher upon entering) and all you have to do is Checkpoint Restart when the game autosaves after you scan the Wonder City guardians and open the secret entrance, otherwise you get trapped in Wonder City and none of the doors will open.  I had found this aaaages ago but never used it because I couldn't find a way to get through the gate and to Bruce's vision of his parents until yesterday.  It's pretty significant since it marks the first and only cut-scene that I've managed to sequence-break out of the game (the one where Robin appears and gives you the Line Launcher) as it was previously thought that story triggers are only loaded by reaching the relevant cut-scene.

Also I've found out how to consistently corrupt my save and allow me to start from a new save file with (almost) all my gadgets (NOT New Game+).  We've dubbed this "New Game Minus" and it's a lot of fun! How it works is there's a few places where you can go out of bounds, load a new area while out of bounds (and have the game autosave), then quit to title and the game will force you to erase your game save and start again, albeit with all the gadgets and upgrades you already acquired (except the Bolas, Caltrops, Disruptor, and Cryptographic Sequencer upgrades/codes).

It's different to NG+ because the enemy formations and behaviours are the same as in normal story mode and areas that are locked off to you in NG+ by having Batman go "I don't have time for this" like GCPD early, are free to explore, meaning you can go to the GCPD before rescuing Catwoman from Two-Face.  It doesn't help because there's nobody inside but it's pretty cool nonetheless.  I've yet to find any major game-breaks that would make it worth having this as a separate speedrunning category, but it's early days yet.  I have managed to get myself trapped forever in the Steel Mill though, so that's something I guess...

RoboSparkle

Edit history:

RoboSparkle: 2013-11-20 05:33:23 pm

2013-11-20 05:06:40 pm

Magical. Flying. Bathtub

Quick update for Robo, Robo, Robo, Paused and wfp

QUAD POST HYPE! Also there's still a minute to be saved, but I'm submitting the hell out of this!

http://www.twitch.tv/robo_sparkle/c/3274929

Alko

2013-11-21 05:50:27 am

Caution: This user contains Kana ^_^

Sorry to kill your combo, but
AWESOME WR sub-1:50 H y P e !

ozzy88

2013-11-21 10:03:23 am

Nicely done!

sshplur

2013-11-21 09:44:21 pm

Niiiiiiiiiiice <3

RoboSparkle

2013-11-23 06:07:26 am

Magical. Flying. Bathtub

Made a highlight video showcasing the new strat at Wonder Tower and the best bits of the run in general. Audio sounded weird jumping from one scene to another so I (badly) edited some music on there. Video Editing is haaaaard (and/or I'm crap at it)

ozzy88

2013-11-25 02:29:43 am

That one was hilarious! 10/10 will watch again and again!

RoboSparkle

Edit history:

RoboSparkle: 2013-11-28 06:57:25 pm

RoboSparkle: 2013-11-28 06:56:51 pm

2013-11-28 06:56:17 pm

Magical. Flying. Bathtub

New Harley Quinn's Revenge PB/WR - 22:50 (slightly less by SDA timing, but w/e)

http://www.twitch.tv/robo_sparkle/c/3314313

Can still take out another 30 seconds with the same strats, there's far less spare time here because of all the unskippable cutscenes! Going to try for 21:xx but not sure if that's doable yet.

RoboSparkle

2013-12-11 07:46:05 am

Magical. Flying. Bathtub

New Glitch Discovered: The Bat Snorkel. Like all the other glitches I've discovered there is yet to be a major timesaver as a result of this (you can save a few seconds in Zsasz's hideout with this by going underwater to get the trophy, but you can't activate the glitch until you defeat Zsasz, so no help there). This works anytime you get a mini-cutscene playing after activating a switch but you need to chuck Batman in the water while it's playing.

RoboSparkle

Edit history:

RoboSparkle: 2014-02-03 07:11:01 pm

RoboSparkle: 2014-02-03 07:09:15 pm

2014-02-03 07:08:42 pm

Magical. Flying. Bathtub

New Glitch Time, boys and girls!

There is a Corner Cover Glitch I saw Absolemic playing with and trying to skip the Penguin's Jammers (similar to what I attempted with the Line Launcher Tightrope in NG+) but basically the glitch can be done anywhere where you can corner cover (so almost anywhere with armed thugs at some point in the story, but most corners will not allow this)

How it works is you go into Corner Cover Mode and throw and catch a remote rang without leaving. Then throw something (rang, remote, REC, Freeze Grenade/Cluster are all confirmed to work, as is switching walls if you are covering on a thin wall) and you'll warp... somewhere. You can chain warps and zip to all sorts of random places, but it's fixed for each corner where you actually go.

Apparently this was discovered at least four months ago, anyone who speaks Japanese would be very useful to figure out what the guy is saying...

Here's my playaround with it yesterday, or at least one of the vids (internet kept cutting out) - http://www.twitch.tv/robo_sparkle/b/500381699

New Glitch Time, boys and girls!

There is a Corner Cover Glitch I saw Absolemic playing with and trying to skip the Penguin's Jammers (similar to what I attempted with the Line Launcher Tightrope in NG+) but basically the glitch can be done anywhere where you can corner cover (so almost anywhere with armed thugs at some point in the story, but most corners will not allow this)

How it works is you go into Corner Cover Mode and throw and catch a remote rang without leaving.  Then throw something (rang, remote, REC, Freeze Grenade/Cluster are all confirmed to work, as is switching walls if you are covering on a thin wall) and you'll warp... somewhere.  You can chain warps and zip to all sorts of random places, but it's fixed for each corner where you actually go.

Apparently this was discovered at least four months ago, anyone who speaks Japanese would be very useful to figure out what the guy is saying...
http://youtu.be/D81rQQr5W6M

Here's my playaround with it yesterday, or at least one of the vids (internet kept cutting out) - http://www.twitch.tv/robo_sparkle/b/500381699

honorableJay

2014-02-17 10:35:37 pm

The Dork Knight himself.

Shots are being fired: Robo, I'm currently playing through City, and when I'm done, I'm gonna take you down Wink

Unalive

Edit history:

Unalive: 2014-02-26 10:27:53 am

Unalive: 2014-02-26 10:22:37 am

2014-02-26 10:22:10 am

Surprise! I'm over here now!

So I don't know if anyone's found this glitch yet, or even if it's relevant, but I figured I'd document it and share. Basically I was screwing around 100%ing Arkham City when I accidentally forced myself out of bounds with the Grapnel Boost. It's easy and replicable, but it only lets you fly below the ground and warp to water.
If there was some way to use it to get into the Restricted Zone early that would be amazing so feel free to play around with it if you care.

PS sorry for the low quality.

RoboSparkle

Edit history:

RoboSparkle: 2014-02-26 02:32:25 pm

RoboSparkle: 2014-02-26 02:32:01 pm

2014-02-26 02:29:35 pm

Magical. Flying. Bathtub

Trippy. Also that is very much used in the run and you can use it to get into the restricted area before you even go to the courthouse, although you can't actually do anything from there as far as we know. You can skip Robin and speed up a few other areas as well using this. Here's a tutorial I made of how to get that consistently, basically if you stand on the left side of the roof or on the ground immediately by that building and target the left-hand vent then you'll get it every time, although it is quicker to just glide in.

Unalive

2014-02-26 02:55:44 pm

Surprise! I'm over here now!

Ah I see. You can thank Youtube's adjustment feature for that trippiness. I just thought it might clean up the sloppy video but it put its own shaky cam in. I have a bad habit of glitching games I play by accident, and I always get excited when a new one happens. It's always a let down when someone found it first. Maybe I should find a game I like that doesn't already have an extensive community. (If there even is one)

RoboSparkle

2014-02-26 08:10:02 pm

Magical. Flying. Bathtub

Well this one doesn't have an extensive community at all, in fact none of the Arkham games have many people running them and new stuff is always being discovered so don't be put off at all by it! If you see anything else or if you would be interested in running the game then we'd love to hear more, sounds like you have a bit of a knack for discovering things Smiley

Unalive

2014-02-26 10:50:50 pm

Surprise! I'm over here now!

Alright! Thanks, man.

honorableJay

2014-03-01 01:57:51 pm

The Dork Knight himself.

Sorry, but this community is only accepting KB/M players at this time. Please re-apply again later.

cojosao

Edit history:

cojosao: 2014-03-09 08:53:41 pm

2014-03-09 08:40:35 pm

Arkham speedrunner

Quick question about 100%: How do you determine where the Zsasz phone destinations will be? Is it based on where you answer the first phone? Obviously it's important to know where Zsasz will drop you off, since it doesn't seem completely random

Also, how do you account for that randomness in your route? The best way I can think to do it is to do each section of the map differently, since you really can't have one route that works all the time with different phones ringing

RoboSparkle

2014-03-10 06:51:51 am

Magical. Flying. Bathtub

Quote from cojosao:

Quick question about 100%: How do you determine where the Zsasz phone destinations will be? Is it based on where you answer the first phone? Obviously it's important to know where Zsasz will drop you off, since it doesn't seem completely random

You've hit the nail on the head here. The short answer is you can't.

As far as I can tell, Zsasz will not reuse a phone until you have used all of them twice (once as a start point, once as an end point). There's probably some sort of complex formula that increases the chance that the nearest phone will receive a call or the specific pattern of start/finish points being predetermined once you start the game. Either that or each phone "rings" for a set period of in-game time and you hear it if you get close enough. Exiting a building or reloading a checkpoint seems to increase the odds that a nearby phone will ring. As I've got no way to test any of these I haven't bothered, and just assume it's completely random. I've noticed that more often than not that if Zsasz hasn't attempted to call by the time I reach the TITAN container outside the museum then he usually calls me there and sends me to a phone before the Church (so far it's either been the flower shop or the destroyed highway).

As for where it sends you, it is and it isn't random. I have never been sent to a phone that is < 150m or > 450m away (i.e. if I pick up the phone outside the Museum then I won't be sent to Industrial District and ID will likewise never send me to the Museum). Because the same phone can't be your destination twice until all other phones are used there are a few patterns that arise, especially as there are three phones very near the museum that obviously are limited in where they can send you. As such you can sometimes predict the direction, but not the exact location.

Quote from cojosao:

Also, how do you account for that randomness in your route? The best way I can think to do it is to do each section of the map differently, since you really can't have one route that works all the time with different phones ringing

The way I account for it is I link sets of trophies to different phone destinations and there are a few trophies that I know can be picked up en route between two different phones. In addition, there are trophies that I leave alone until the nearby Random Act of Violence is activated. As these are in fixed spots and you have to do all of them, those are far easier to incorporate into the route. Other than that it's just good, ol' fashioned hope Cheesy

[quote="cojosao"]Quick question about 100%: How do you determine where the Zsasz phone destinations will be? Is it based on where you answer the first phone? Obviously it's important to know where Zsasz will drop you off, since it doesn't seem completely random [/quote]
You've hit the nail on the head here.  The short answer is you can't.

As far as I can tell, Zsasz will not reuse a phone until you have used all of them twice (once as a start point, once as an end point).  There's probably some sort of complex formula that increases the chance that the nearest phone will receive a call or the specific pattern of start/finish points being predetermined once you start the game.  Either that or each phone "rings" for a set period of in-game time and you hear it if you get close enough.  Exiting a building or reloading a checkpoint seems to increase the odds that a nearby phone will ring.  As I've got no way to test any of these I haven't bothered, and just assume it's completely random.  I've noticed that more often than not that if Zsasz hasn't attempted to call by the time I reach the TITAN container outside the museum then he usually calls me there and sends me to a phone before the Church (so far it's either been the flower shop or the destroyed highway).

As for where it sends you, it is and it isn't random.  I have never been sent to a phone that is < 150m or > 450m away (i.e. if I pick up the phone outside the Museum then I won't be sent to Industrial District and ID will likewise never send me to the Museum).  Because the same phone can't be your destination twice until all other phones are used there are a few patterns that arise, especially as there are three phones very near the museum that obviously are limited in where they can send you.  As such you can sometimes predict the direction, but not the exact location.

[quote="cojosao"]Also, how do you account for that randomness in your route? The best way I can think to do it is to do each section of the map differently, since you really can't have one route that works all the time with different phones ringing[/quote]

The way I account for it is I link sets of trophies to different phone destinations and there are a few trophies that I know can be picked up en route between two different phones.  In addition, there are trophies that I leave alone until the nearby Random Act of Violence is activated.  As these are in fixed spots and you have to do all of them, those are far easier to incorporate into the route.  Other than that it's just good, ol' fashioned hope :D

wfp

2014-03-20 02:17:08 am

think i found a maybe 5 second timesaver. my brother was playing through the game casually and while climbing wonder tower he jumped off the narrow beam robosparkle grabs at 2:17:16 in his agdq run (2:18:50 in the youtube video here: ), like just jump straight once pulling oneself onto the beam instead of turning right, and from there he was able to grapple up to one of the beams supporting the cable near the end of the climbing section. seems like a small time saver but certainly a worthwhile one. let me know if this is useful and replicable as i always thought jumping off meant starting over climbing the tower, but instead it looks like it's faster. Smiley

wfp

2014-03-20 02:20:09 am

actually i think it maybe saves 20 seconds. so even better.