Batman: Arkham City

Piston

2014-03-20 06:44:52 am

Heh, amateurs...

Yeah, that's a decent time-saver. I've seen the runners do it during runs.

zero shift

2014-03-21 03:09:51 pm

I'm thinking of getting into this soon.

I downloaded the demo last night and saw it's Unreal Engine. That would explain why all the OOBs found don't lead to anything.
Other games on this engine do something similar like Killer is Dead and Lollipop Chainsaw. I broke Lollipop Chainsaw to pieces but the exact same thing happens where next area doesn't load.

It's either bottomless pits under the map or unloaded textures. Even things like skipping over fights or locked gates that don't require you to OOB still result in the rest of the stage not loading.

It may be that whatever we find in terms of OOB will never work because that's just how the game engine works. Still, there could be something huge or another way to go about it to make the game load those areas.

Piston

2014-03-23 07:12:20 pm

Heh, amateurs...

Not all OOBs are useless. If you want "useless" OOBs, you should see Arkham Origins! Tongue

And welcome to the BatMen! We look forward to your content soon.

cojosao

2014-04-01 06:45:11 am

Arkham speedrunner

I guess it's about time I post these here (I meant to a while ago and then forgot)

Hard Any% 1:45:46 - just last night lol, but my goal is sub-1:43
or http://www.twitch.tv/cojosao/c/3989933

Hard 100% 5:17:07 - I don't know how I saved 35+ minutes this one time, might be because I don't really have a route after the Steel Mill (also I call Deadshot by the wrong name repeatedly)
http://www.twitch.tv/cojosao/c/3902618

HQR% 20:32 - this was pretty damn good and I don't know how much better it can be with current strats
or http://www.twitch.tv/cojosao/c/3844977

I apologize for quality in advance, I'm working out ways to stream at a higher quality and/or record the game separately in a higher quality for YouTube

Piston

2014-04-02 07:45:09 am

Heh, amateurs...

For HQR:
-Mashing A after using Robin hook to cross will advance your position rather than rebound. If you target the left-most thug you should land right under the vent.
-Your 'Save-The-Cop' pred room strat is superior. Best to leave Detective Mode on to keep an eye on the crazy path issues when the thug is below the ladder. If he climbs the ladder, we can just give him the Asylum treatment for a fast kill, if not, well its unfortunate.
-Can't ask much out of the Titan pit because of all the randomness. Luckily, you had a pretty well-behaved Titan.

I guess if someone was really insane, could maybe see a low 19 out of HQR. But other than that, I feel like we're ready for someone to put in a submission to SDA. I believe they allow DLC activities, especially since this is structured like a game with a beginning and ending.

cojosao

2014-04-03 10:24:26 am

Arkham speedrunner

Quote from Piston:

-Your 'Save-The-Cop' pred room strat is superior. Best to leave Detective Mode on to keep an eye on the crazy path issues when the thug is below the ladder. If he climbs the ladder, we can just give him the Asylum treatment for a fast kill, if not, well its unfortunate.

It's pretty reliable to get the guy to come up the ladder as long as you aren't seen by the sniper across the room on the staircase and you're fast enough, but I understand that it would be better. On the off chance it doesn't happen, I just end up punching them both (Normal difficulty ftw)

honorableJay

2014-08-21 09:14:46 pm

The Dork Knight himself.

Still learning the game, but I've found a more reliable way to knock the goons over the edge in Catwoman 2 Ivy fight. Rather than doing the 3-whip stun, just dive roll over their heads and hit em in the back.

Attachment:

city-ivy_HQ.mp4

honorableJay

Edit history:

honorableJay: 2014-09-09 10:26:05 pm

2014-09-07 09:45:16 pm

The Dork Knight himself.

I found a slightly easier way to take on the goons in the jammer 3 fight. I did mess the fight up a bit, but here's the breakdown:

1. Glide in from OOB and take out the thug on the upper left catwalk (silent takedown + knockout smash confirmed better than glide kick)
2. Grapple the thug on the bridge
3. Grapple the 2 thugs off of the subway car
4. Flip over the railing and take out the last thug

If I get a chance I'll test to see if it's faster than the normal way.

**Edit**
Comparing my sloppy with time Cojo's WR run, my strat was at 26 seconds and his was 36 seconds. Granted each of us had issues, but going for the upper catwalk thug first makes the fight more predictable and almost eliminates the chances of a thug going somewhere you don't want him to (exception being the last one who stays by the jammer).

honorableJay

2014-09-13 02:53:23 pm

The Dork Knight himself.

For those that missed it, check out Feanorus's latest easy mode run. There are a lot of area optimizations and just really cool strategies throughout that can apply to the hard runs.

honorableJay

Edit history:

honorableJay: 2014-09-13 11:10:14 pm

2014-09-13 10:23:23 pm

The Dork Knight himself.

Does anybody know if using a dive bomb glide to cross the Museum's frozen waters the second time (when going for Freeze's suit) saves time over the normal way?

**Edit**
Interesting, so I timed all 3 methods of getting across the frozen water, and all methods are the same. I got 34.26 (normal), 34.49 (my glide), and 34.40 (feano's glide). Scratch that idea for a few seconds of time savings rofl.

I also timed feano's glide when going to Joker's office in the Steel Mill the first time around (after tagging the thug with the remote through the vent).
10.20 (normal route)
12.75 (feano's glide)
So while feano's glide is super slick to watch, it actually wastes 2+ seconds with the setup.

Another spot I thought saved time doesn't save as much as I thought: AR training 1. Feano does a zip after the first ring to get a speed boost for the rest, and while it sure sounds faster going by the dings, timewise he's only saving about 3/10ths of a second (normal: 12.91 feano: 12.68). Granted I was doing manual timing and not frame timing, but still that's not much saved time.

And during AR training 3, instead of doing a second quick dive bomb, he does another zip to build up speed for the last two rings.
12.57 normal
12.71 feano
Looks like the dive bomb gives just a hair more speed than non-boosted grappling.

Does anybody know if using a dive bomb glide to cross the Museum's frozen waters the second time (when going for Freeze's suit) saves time over the normal way?

**Edit**
Interesting, so I timed all 3 methods of getting across the frozen water, and all methods are the same. I got 34.26 (normal), 34.49 (my glide), and 34.40 (feano's glide). Scratch that idea for a few seconds of time savings rofl.

I also timed feano's glide when going to Joker's office in the Steel Mill the first time around (after tagging the thug with the remote through the vent).
10.20 (normal route)
12.75 (feano's glide)
So while feano's glide is super slick to watch, it actually wastes 2+ seconds with the setup.

Another spot I thought saved time doesn't save as much as I thought: AR training 1. Feano does a zip after the first ring to get a speed boost for the rest, and while it sure sounds faster going by the dings, timewise he's only saving about 3/10ths of a second (normal: 12.91  feano: 12.68). Granted I was doing manual timing and not frame timing, but still that's not much saved time.

And during AR training 3, instead of doing a second quick dive bomb, he does another zip to build up speed for the last two rings.
12.57 normal
12.71 feano
Looks like the dive bomb gives just a hair more speed than non-boosted grappling.

Feanorus

Edit history:

Feanorus: 2014-09-14 09:09:42 am

Feanorus: 2014-09-14 09:09:01 am

Feanorus: 2014-09-14 09:08:56 am

Feanorus: 2014-09-14 09:08:55 am

2014-09-14 09:07:37 am

The run in 720p on youtube:

This thread has been dead for months so there's a ton of new stuff. I will link interesting stuff and hopefully won't receive a ban for link-spamming.

9:00 – skipping the fight in front of church. Not easy to do and doesn't actually saves much because you will need to gather the missing experience from this fight for the multiground takedown upgrade.

at 15:58 in another run because i failed it in this one – lava skip in Steel Mill. Not hard at all to do but requires some practice and non-shaky hands.

Separate video – skipping mr.Hammer fight. Not really worthwhile because doing a good fight would be faster, also the fight gives you a huge chunk of experience which is impossible to compensate in time for upgrading the combo boost later.

27:29 – GCPD predator room. You see that one guy usually refuses to cooperate and doesn't fall over the railing like others. It's okay, take your time and knock him normally because in this time the last guy in the room will make his way up the ladder and it is more convenient spot to interrogate him.

Separate video – using corner zip to get back to museum after destroying third jammer saves up to 10 seconds. You need to have your game run at 60 fps to get this exact zip to work. If your game runs at 120 fps or can't handle stable 60 (like mine most of the time), try using other corners and other gadgets to see what can give you similar result.

39:07 – shark skip

Separate video – another corner zip that sends you from a rooftop near museum to the Proceccing center. Again, it's correlated with your PC's performance so you will have to try it for yourself to see how it works for you. Other corners on this rooftop might work too.

52:15 – i can't really explain entirely what is going on in Wonder City until i figure it out myself. It's magic. Just accept it for now.

1:02:42 – more magic.

1:10:23 – entering Steel Mill for the second time. I know, it looks like i'm actually leaving Steel Mill but believe me i know what i'm doing. Crouch when you're approaching the door, because Batman has to be all sneaky to get past those thugs, get it? He-he.
In next area you will have to reload the checkpoint otherwise the next door on your way will be locked. At the beginning of the level look for save indicator – if it appears right away, restart now, if don't – glide to a waterwarp further on the level and restart after exiting the vent.

1:21:00 – Protocol 10 strats. Using the same missing ceiling in Steel Mill building we can get to wonder tower basement in a matter of seconds.

1:25:55 – climbing wonder tower. Note that you have to land on the corner at 1:26:15 or glide very close to it to trigger "missile launch detected" message. Without it, the next grapnel point won't be active and the guards at the top of the tower won't appear.

The run in 720p on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kipATyC2ao

This thread has been dead for months so there's a ton of new stuff. I will link interesting stuff and hopefully won't receive a ban for link-spamming.

[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kipATyC2ao#t=540]9:00[/url] – skipping the fight in front of church. Not easy to do and doesn't actually saves much because you will need to gather the missing experience from this fight for the multiground takedown upgrade.

[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQXL9a8msDM#t=958]at 15:58[/url] in another run because i failed it in this one – lava skip in Steel Mill. Not hard at all to do but requires some practice and non-shaky hands.

[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5hx0v93Hrc]Separate video[/url] – skipping mr.Hammer fight. Not really worthwhile because doing a good fight would be faster, also the fight gives you a huge chunk of experience which is impossible to compensate in time for upgrading the combo boost later.

[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kipATyC2ao#t=1649]27:29[/url] – GCPD predator room. You see that one guy usually refuses to cooperate and doesn't fall over the railing like others. It's okay, take your time and knock him normally because in this time the last guy in the room will make his way up the ladder and it is more convenient spot to interrogate him.

[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqlJ28KAIbk]Separate video[/url] – using corner zip to get back to museum after destroying third jammer saves up to 10 seconds. You need to have your game run at 60 fps to get this exact zip to work. If your game runs at 120 fps or can't handle stable 60 (like mine most of the time), try using other corners and other gadgets to see what can give you similar result.

[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kipATyC2ao#t=2347]39:07[/url] – shark skip

[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kh57Oh5_K40]Separate video[/url] – another corner zip that sends you from a rooftop near museum to the Proceccing center. Again, it's correlated with your PC's performance so you will have to try it for yourself to see how it works for you. Other corners on this rooftop might work too.

[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kipATyC2ao#t=3135]52:15[/url] – i can't really explain entirely what is going on in Wonder City until i figure it out myself. It's magic. Just accept it for now.

[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kipATyC2ao#t=3762]1:02:42[/url] – more magic.

[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kipATyC2ao#t=4223]1:10:23[/url] – entering Steel Mill for the second time. I know, it looks like i'm actually [i]leaving[/i] Steel Mill but believe me i know what i'm doing. Crouch when you're approaching the door, because Batman has to be all [i]sneaky[/i] to get past those thugs, get it? He-he.
In next area you will have to reload the checkpoint otherwise the next door on your way will be locked. At the beginning of the level look for save indicator – if it appears right away, restart now, if don't – glide to a waterwarp further on the level and restart after exiting the vent.

[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kipATyC2ao#t=4860]1:21:00[/url] – Protocol 10 strats. Using the same missing ceiling in Steel Mill building we can get to wonder tower basement in a matter of seconds.

[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kipATyC2ao#t=5155]1:25:55[/url] – climbing wonder tower. Note that you have to land on the corner at 1:26:15 or glide very close to it to trigger "missile launch detected" message. Without it, the next grapnel point won't be active and the guards at the top of the tower won't appear.

honorableJay

2014-09-14 05:40:39 pm

The Dork Knight himself.

Tweaked Feano's Steel Mill lava skip to work better with controllers. Here's the setup:

1. Hang from the ledge, drop down to the railing. Make sure you tap Left to shift Batman to land in the right spot.
2. Turn slightly left and aim at the pillar
3. Walk off the railing
4. Wait for Batman's body to sink a bit, then hold run
5. Kick glide off the pillar, Batman will shoot himself right at the railing you were just standing on
6. Kick glide again and you're across the lava

Don't mind the camera swings in the video. Unlike controllers, doing a kick glide off of a wall doesn't spin the camera for mouse controls. The best part is once you get the first kick glide setup you don't have to touch the camera at all.

Attachment:

steelmill_HQ.mp4

honorableJay

2014-09-19 11:46:59 pm

The Dork Knight himself.

http://www.twitch.tv/honorablejay/c/5152320

Got a new PB: 1:48:13.93
The run was pretty clean except for a few bad areas (the usual suspects of course). A few things that did go right:
1. Got the improved lava skip to work first try
2. Perfect Jammer 1 fight
3. Nearly perfect Jammer 3 fight (last guard moved a hair)
4. Got DPS on the first try
5. Finally got a no-death Ra's fight (still a bit sloppy though)

One trick I found that helps with the lieutenant fights: if you can't get all of the hits in before they strike, just do a multi-ground takedown. With no valid targets, Batman just does a quick flip and completely dodges the attack without breaking the combo. Be careful with it though, according to Charli you can get hit outta the air when doing it (hasn't happened to me yet).

Hopefully I'll break 1:45 soon.

honorableJay

2014-09-20 11:03:58 pm

The Dork Knight himself.

So after grinding the Harvey strat for 25 mins, the game decided to let me end on a really interesting note. I run into this stuff constantly during this fight, but.........really??

Attachment:

harv.mp4

Feanorus

Edit history:

Feanorus: 2014-10-05 08:08:41 am

Feanorus: 2014-10-05 07:27:00 am

2014-10-05 07:26:40 am

Finally, hard mode world record by me (until cojosao wakes up from hibernation and gets it back):

And the easy one from the day before:

cojosao

Edit history:

cojosao: 2014-11-09 08:16:57 pm

cojosao: 2014-11-09 08:16:42 pm

2014-10-17 09:42:37 pm

Arkham speedrunner

I'll just leave this here: We've made such ground in the last few months it's really unbelievable
[redacted]

EDIT: even faster now

zero shift

2014-10-26 04:18:04 pm

I just bought GOTY version with all DLCs. Should arrive next week sometime.

I'm not watching any of the runs posted here until I've played through myself then I'll learn all the tricks.

Feanorus

Edit history:

Feanorus: 2015-01-18 07:23:01 am

2015-01-18 07:22:06 am

I'm almost sure that this is the fastest way to fight large groups of normal enemies, at least on hard mode. There is 20 of them in this fight, and we're taking them down in chunks by 5 at the time, with 4 multiground takedowns (each multiground requires x5 combo and counts as 6th, which brings us to x24 overall).
Maybe it's possible to do this fight with 3 multigrounds, if we find a consistent way to get 7-8 thugs on the ground at the same time; also i haven't tried using explosive gel or pushing them to the electric fence. But with this strat each of them gets hit exactly one time before he is taken down, so any additional hit would be a waste of time.
Also note that i intentionally fail ctitical strike at x4 to avoid unnecessary slowdown (crit is slow by itself, and every hit that enables special combo will also be in slowmotion) , and after first multiground i build next by doing critical-critical-batarangs. Whenever possible, make sure that you get your "x5" hit with batarangs, not the strikes.
Other obvious rule would be to attack closest enemy to avoid longer animations (you can see that x19 strike was longer, with that unnecessary Roy Harper backflip).
All of these are not strict rules but rather recommendations how to fight large groups of enemies. In an actual speedrun, in this exact fight 9 times out of 10 you will get punched in the face after first strike, and at the 10th time it will be by chair. So, watch who is about to hit you, don't be afraid to use counters and "slow" strikes as long as they get the job done.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hi1trITz-2E
I'm almost sure that this is the fastest way to fight large groups of normal enemies, at least on hard mode. There is 20 of them in this fight, and we're taking them down in chunks by 5 at the time, with 4 multiground takedowns (each multiground requires x5 combo and counts as 6th, which brings us to x24 overall).
Maybe it's possible to do this fight with 3 multigrounds, if we find a consistent way to get 7-8 thugs on the ground at the same time; also i haven't tried using explosive gel or pushing them to the electric fence. But with this strat each of them gets hit exactly one time before he is taken down, so any additional hit would be a waste of time.
Also note that i intentionally fail ctitical strike at x4 to avoid unnecessary slowdown (crit is slow by itself, and every hit that enables special combo will also be in slowmotion) , and after first multiground i build next by doing critical-critical-batarangs. Whenever possible, make sure that you get your "x5" hit with batarangs, not the strikes.
Other obvious rule would be to attack closest enemy to avoid longer animations (you can see that x19 strike was longer, with that unnecessary Roy Harper backflip).
All of these are not strict rules but rather recommendations how to fight large groups of enemies. In an actual speedrun, in this exact fight 9 times out of 10 you will get punched in the face after first strike, and at the 10th time it will be by chair. So, watch who is about to hit you, don't be afraid to use counters and "slow" strikes as long as they get the job done.

Feanorus

2015-01-24 04:46:44 am

Since a few people asked about it, here is how to do DPS in case you died in predator before that:

snowysnowwolf

2015-01-27 12:17:58 pm

Hey everyone,

I've been learning Arkham city and I've had fun so far. The only thing is that I can't do the corner clip after the penguin fight, I sometimes get out of bounds but thats maybe 2 out of 10 times. Are there any other corners that could work? Because I have tried the other corners on that building and none seem to work. I have checked with FRAPS and my game seems to be running at 60 fps, sometimes fluctuating but not while I am clipping.

Feanorus

2015-01-27 11:49:00 pm

Many other corners on the same roof can bring you close to the same place. Actually, this is how i've been doing it at first.
Game should run at 62 fps, which is default for it – make sure it's not locked at 60 by fraps, and that v-sync is disabled. Also, problem here is not even getting stable fps – my game constantly drops to 50 and less, especially in openworld: problem is that fps drops during the zip itself, when you get launched in the air. My tip is to look directly up at the sky when shooting batarang/electroshock, to have less objects on the screen at the time.

Feanorus

Edit history:

Feanorus: 2015-02-06 02:48:00 pm

Feanorus: 2015-02-06 02:47:34 pm

Feanorus: 2015-02-06 02:47:04 pm

2015-02-05 01:42:07 pm

Apparently when you place down ~~two~~ explosive gel charges, each of them will have power gadget effect (or freeflow focus effect, whatever it's called). Big fight in museum can be done in just two, theoretically even one multiground.
EDIT: you don't need to lay two gels, just one but placed manually.

RoboSparkle

Edit history:

RoboSparkle: 2015-02-08 07:40:01 am

2015-02-08 07:34:21 am

Magical. Flying. Bathtub

Nice find, I think we already knew about the higher explosive force of manually placed gels because it retains the same properties from Asylum (I used to use it in the fight after Strange's Protocol 10 speech before we started skipping it). Evidently we forgot it after we stopped using it lol! I tried using it in the Steel Mill 2 fight after you beat up the Joker but I couldn't get it out before you lose control. Maybe it's a timing thing or maybe it's worth doing before you beat the Joker down?

P.S. Actually it's possible that the gel loses its power once you enter into freeflow combat mode - have you experimented with what happens if you det the manual gel after starting combat?

Feanorus

Edit history:

Feanorus: 2015-06-07 10:36:30 am

Feanorus: 2015-05-09 03:31:36 am

Feanorus: 2015-02-21 05:16:36 am

Feanorus: 2015-02-08 02:33:39 pm

2015-02-08 02:27:51 pm

It works in funhouse, to a lesser extent: enemies spawn in small groups, it looks like first three waves (including Hammer) spawn on timer no matter what you do, but the last wave and titan won't appear until you knocked out most of the existing enemies, so it doesn't make much sense to "collect" them for a single big multiground. The way i used it in the video is not quite doing the work, as you can see. It may speed fight up just a bit because you can place explosive in spare time after first wave (or you can use smoke bomb – but knife guys tend to ignore it and attack you anyway).

Quick detonating gel during combo works for me differently from fight to fight – in this fight it works just fine but in the museum detonation sometimes cancels combo for no reason, so i prefer to do it at the beginning.
Some other fights where i have tried it:
- first fight in steel mill, with 10 thugs – detonating gel almost always cancels combo for me, so i'll stick to normal way; but if it worked, it might be possible to do the fight in a single multitakedown.
- titan phase of the museum fight – i tried a few times to place gel manually right after first phase, but the cutscene triggers too quickly and instantly teleports me, cancelling the gel. Somewhat better thing to do is stun the titan with quickgel, manually plant another, and detonate it after titan dropped you, to involve a few additional thugs into multitakedown. But planting the gel takes basically the same time as building additional multitakedown so it doesn't seem very useful to me.;
- you can use gel to knock sand people off the pillars during Ra's challenge. With manually planted gel i could only get one at the time, so might as well just use quickgel to knock one and do the rest of the fight normally;
- doesn't work in Ra's fight at all.

It works in funhouse, to a lesser extent: enemies spawn in small groups, it looks like first three waves (including Hammer) spawn on timer no matter what you do, but the last wave and titan won't appear until you knocked out most of the existing enemies, so it doesn't make much sense to "collect" them for a single big multiground. The way i used it in the video is not quite doing the work, as you can see. It may speed fight up just a bit because you can place explosive in spare time after first wave (or you can use smoke bomb – but knife guys tend to ignore it and attack you anyway).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33QZltIH58U
Quick detonating gel during combo works for me differently from fight to fight – in this fight it works just fine but in the museum detonation sometimes cancels combo for no reason, so i prefer to do it at the beginning.
Some other fights where i have tried it:
- first fight in steel mill, with 10 thugs – detonating gel almost always cancels combo for me, so i'll stick to normal way; but if it worked, it might be possible to do the fight in a single multitakedown.
- titan phase of the museum fight – i tried a few times to place gel manually right after first phase, but the cutscene triggers too quickly and instantly teleports me, cancelling the gel. Somewhat better thing to do is stun the titan with quickgel, manually plant another, and detonate it after titan dropped you, to involve a few additional thugs into multitakedown. But planting the gel takes basically the same time as building additional multitakedown so it doesn't seem very useful to me.;
- you can use gel to knock sand people off the pillars during Ra's challenge. With manually planted gel i could only get one at the time, so might as well just use quickgel to knock one and do the rest of the fight normally;
- doesn't work in Ra's fight at all.

Pewable

2015-02-23 10:48:04 am

Can someone tell me if they can do it? I tried on 360, PS3, unpatched, patch, GOTY, the 2 demos... And I can't get it. But I can have the one on AA EVERYTIME. I am missing something but I don't understand what. If you do, please write how you did! Thanks, driving me crazy since two days now.