BioShock 2

2013-08-15 03:35:35 pm

Quote from wfp:

i'm referring to after saving/harvesting a little sister and receiving adam, didn't test with the grenade.

I almost always skip the grenade one with a radio message, no Idea if it saves time. I'm not even sure if it's necessary to skip to be honest :/ but If the timing is as simple as waiting for the counter to disappear than I'll definitely be giving that skip a try.

wfp

2013-08-16 04:41:58 am

okay, done playing through. skips are possible on both outer and inner persephone.

outer persephone - the first skippable radio message is one from sophia that plays shortly after a transmission from eleanor. the trigger for sophia's message is the threshhold of the door to the area after eleanor talks to you (surprisingly it's not eleanor's message ending though the trigger's kinda designed to look this way, audio diaries can interupt eleanor and i believe sophia will supercede eleanor as well if eleanor's still talking when you cross the trigger). i'm not sure this saves much time though as the big sisters are NOT tied to a radio message from what i can tell and follow an unrelated timer so you're still stuck for what seems at least a minute with no audio cues waiting around for them to spawn Sad

inner persephone - unlike dionysus park where the audio diary is triggered by moving at the start, this one seems triggered specifically by moving forward (not that it makes any difference). when you first encounter sinclair he operates on a timer unrelated to radio messages but otherwise everything skips as it should.

hope this helps. the ease with which i got these skips as i've gotten way more comfortable with the timing makes me all the more convinced skips aren't possible on fontaine futuristics (i got it like five times in a row on inner persephone) but every other level (except pauper's drop where it doesn't matter) has been confirmed as allowing for audio diary skipping so now it's just a matter of practice. hopefully the notes so far are helpful. ideally it should be done on the first audio diary or at least by the first diary that wastes time. if you miss it on dionysus park you can try again every time you rescue a little sister until you get it, other retry attempt points may also be useful to find but at least that one's pretty obvious if you really want to use it in an ss run.

okay, done playing through.  skips are possible on both outer and inner persephone.

outer persephone - the first skippable radio message is one from sophia that plays shortly after a transmission from eleanor.  the trigger for sophia's message is the threshhold of the door to the area after eleanor talks to you (surprisingly it's not eleanor's message ending though the trigger's kinda designed to look this way, audio diaries can interupt eleanor and i believe sophia will supercede eleanor as well if eleanor's still talking when you cross the trigger).  i'm not sure this saves much time though as the big sisters are NOT tied to a radio message from what i can tell and follow an unrelated timer so you're still stuck for what seems at least a minute with no audio cues waiting around for them to spawn :(

inner persephone - unlike dionysus park where the audio diary is triggered by moving at the start, this one seems triggered specifically by moving forward (not that it makes any difference).  when you first encounter sinclair he operates on a timer unrelated to radio messages but otherwise everything skips as it should.

hope this helps.  the ease with which i got these skips as i've gotten way more comfortable with the timing makes me all the more convinced skips aren't possible on fontaine futuristics (i got it like five times in a row on inner persephone) but every other level (except pauper's drop where it doesn't matter) has been confirmed as allowing for audio diary skipping so now it's just a matter of practice.  hopefully the notes so far are helpful.  ideally it should be done on the first audio diary or at least by the first diary that wastes time.  if you miss it on dionysus park you can try again every time you rescue a little sister until you get it, other retry attempt points may also be useful to find but at least that one's pretty obvious if you really want to use it in an ss run.

Blood Thunder

2013-08-16 07:45:34 am

Thanks for all the Info, it's very much appreciated. I'm still working out some theoretical routes and looking more into the research so I probably won't get really serious about bringing down the time for my runs quite yet. However, I'll definitely practice getting the diary skips we know are possible and try to get the timings down. Shame about Fontaine Futuristics though, that area is just begging for a skip of some sort.

I think with my improved routes and the Diary Skips, sub 1:30 should be no problem. I think I might even try to aim for 1:20 with enough practice!

wfp

2013-08-16 07:53:35 pm

i'd be psyched if you can get it down to 1:20. i think it's kinda silly bs2 takes so much longer to run than bs1 considering bs1 is such a longer game when played normally.

Blood Thunder

2013-08-26 10:58:20 am

I'm still working on fully optimizing the route and trying to figure what the best method for some fights is, but that aside, I finally got sub 1:40!!!.

http://www.twitch.tv/bl00d_thunder/c/2820755

I somehow managed to get this run in a BioShock Trilogy run (a little category I made up running all games back to back). While the split at the end says 1:40:24(which would still be a better run), I had to manually subtract the time inbetween switching games and the intro so it was timed the same as any other run. After a rough timing, it's about a 1:38:50. If I thought this was a perfect run, I might time it more precisely but since it can still be easily beaten I won't really bother.

A few interesting notes from the run:
-Got the diary skip in antlantic express! (was quite surprised by this)
-I thought I got the diary skip in dionysus park but the message only got delayed? (still need to figure out the timing for this)
-Proxy mines can take out alpha daddies instantly in FF but it's better to save them for the big sister fight in Outer Persephone
-Can easily get the elemental storm plasmid, which might be helpful for the final fight?

I'm still working on fully optimizing the route and trying to figure what the best method for some fights is, but that aside, I finally got sub 1:40!!!.

http://www.twitch.tv/bl00d_thunder/c/2820755

I somehow managed to get this run in a BioShock Trilogy run (a little category I made up running all games back to back). While the split at the end says 1:40:24(which would still be a better run), I had to manually subtract the time inbetween switching games and the intro so it was timed the same as any other run. After a rough timing, it's about a 1:38:50. If I thought this was a perfect run, I might time it more precisely but since it can still be easily beaten I won't really bother.

A few interesting notes from the run:
-Got the diary skip in antlantic express! (was quite surprised by this)
-I thought I got the diary skip in dionysus park but the message only got delayed? (still need to figure out the timing for this)
-Proxy mines can take out alpha daddies instantly in FF but it's better to save them for the big sister fight in Outer Persephone
-Can easily get the elemental storm plasmid, which might be helpful for the final fight?

wfp

2013-08-26 03:59:22 pm

i wonder if it might make sense to reorganize your bioshock trilogy splits so it's easier to time this stuff. in general i love the concept though as i haven't played bioshock infinite and am generally trying to avoid spoilers til the price comes down i pick it up (which it probably is at this point so now it's just waiting until i get around to buying it) so i duck out 2/3rds the way through.

the atlantic express skip is imo the easiest (of things that aren't easy to do) and it's great you got it. once you get the siren's alley skip consistently then you'll be unstoppable as that's imo the hardest until we find a better timing cue. what happened in dionysus park was odd, i wonder if the transmission from sophia that was playing had an effect. ultimately this level has four obvious opportunities for the skip (though technically all radio transmissions can work), so if you can get comfortable with one of them (preferably one of the first two as i think you don't lose any time from them but will if you don't get it until the third) you can save time at the end where you normally hide from the big sister.

is there no vending machine that sells proxy mines between ff and op? or do you just not have the cash for it? didn't have time yet to watch the last three levels of the run, but i'm wondering if this is specific to this run or a general note as it strikes me that using proxy mines in both fights is the ideal strategy (potentially proxy mines can be bought earlier in anticipation or maybe there's some that can be grabbed).

i have no idea what strategies are good for the final fight or any fight so i leave that to you. though i liked the research farming on siren alley which both looked like an effective strategy for the rooms and overall probably beneficial to the run.

i wonder if it might make sense to reorganize your bioshock trilogy splits so it's easier to time this stuff.  in general i love the concept though as i haven't played bioshock infinite and am generally trying to avoid spoilers til the price comes down i pick it up (which it probably is at this point so now it's just waiting until i get around to buying it) so i duck out 2/3rds the way through.

the atlantic express skip is imo the easiest (of things that aren't easy to do) and it's great you got it.  once you get the siren's alley skip consistently then you'll be unstoppable as that's imo the hardest until we find a better timing cue.  what happened in dionysus park was odd, i wonder if the transmission from sophia that was playing had an effect.  ultimately this level has four obvious opportunities for the skip (though technically all radio transmissions can work), so if you can get comfortable with one of them (preferably one of the first two as i think you don't lose any time from them but will if you don't get it until the third) you can save time at the end where you normally hide from the big sister.

is there no vending machine that sells proxy mines between ff and op?  or do you just not have the cash for it?  didn't have time yet to watch the last three levels of the run, but i'm wondering if this is specific to this run or a general note as it strikes me that using proxy mines in both fights is the ideal strategy (potentially proxy mines can be bought earlier in anticipation or maybe there's some that can be grabbed).

i have no idea what strategies are good for the final fight or any fight so i leave that to you.  though i liked the research farming on siren alley which both looked like an effective strategy for the rooms and overall probably beneficial to the run.

Blood Thunder

2013-08-27 03:45:41 am

1) reogranizing splits - It's a possibility, but I might just include an intermission split in between games which should make it better. I'll have to look into it some more.

2) diary skips - I just need to actually sit down and practice the timings a bit, right now I'm just kind of hoping for the best :p. Getting any of them to a consistent level would be a huge time saver.

3) Proxy mines - There is a vending machine right before the big sister fight but it really just comes down to how much money I'm at when I get there. Using proxy mines for both fights would be the best way, although once you get half way through FF, incinerate 2 + machine gun is a very fast alternative. I think it really depends on how many proxy mines I have entering the 2nd half of FF, unless there are some I can pick up in that area.

wfp

2013-08-27 04:46:53 am

watched the rest of the run. i agree that if you redid your splits you should definitely include intermission splits for switching games.

in terms of getting the proxy mines i saw that yeah, there's totally a vending machine with proxy mines the issue in the run was not having the cash for it. i think if you can be mindful of how much cash you spend you should be able to afford the proxy mines at the cost of not quite maxing out your machine gun ammo (which you'll also need less of because you won't be killing big daddies with it, though as you said incinerate plus machine gun is pretty fast). you're never really hurting on machine gun ammo at any point during that section of the run so if you buy less of it, it should even out (the last time you use a vending machine you had close to 200 cash, making me confident your spending ultimately balances).

i also should comment that your drill dashing's pretty great. i think there was only one section at the end of the run where you ran out of fuel and i didn't see a convenient vending machine anywhere that you could have restocked. so like the camera research that's another area that looks very close to optimized.

watched the rest of the run.  i agree that if you redid your splits you should definitely include intermission splits for switching games.

in terms of getting the proxy mines i saw that yeah, there's totally a vending machine with proxy mines the issue in the run was not having the cash for it.  i think if you can be mindful of how much cash you spend you should be able to afford the proxy mines at the cost of not quite maxing out your machine gun ammo (which you'll also need less of because you won't be killing big daddies with it, though as you said incinerate plus machine gun is pretty fast).  you're never really hurting on machine gun ammo at any point during that section of the run so if you buy less of it, it should even out (the last time you use a vending machine you had close to 200 cash, making me confident your spending ultimately balances).

i also should comment that your drill dashing's pretty great.  i think there was only one section at the end of the run where you ran out of fuel and i didn't see a convenient vending machine anywhere that you could have restocked.  so like the camera research that's another area that looks very close to optimized.

Blood Thunder

Edit history:

Blood Thunder: 2013-08-28 04:49:33 pm

Blood Thunder: 2013-08-28 12:46:17 pm

2013-08-27 11:07:39 am

During my run today I did a test on the proxy mine situation and I think I've found a good method. Typically I can have some left over proxy mines for the OP fight by not using any in the 2nd half of FF, but if I have less than 5, I can just buy enough from that vending machine and use any money left over on ammo. 5 proxy mines is usually enough for an insta-kill on one of the big sisters (if not, then she's left with 10%-ish health), and from killing all the alpha daddies you are left with a ton of armor piercing rounds which is enough to finish off the fight.

I could buy a bit more drill fuel for that final area in inner persephone as I pass right by a vending machine but I think that final wing probably has a bit of a shortcut, maybe even looking into the telekinesis jumping to get to the fight a bit sooner so it wouldn't be needed anyways.

Blood Thunder

2013-08-28 05:02:30 pm

I finally got around to working on routing this game a bit more and have found what I think is probably a slightly better version of the current route. It might be slightly slower in the first half of the game (only slightly) but should make the 2nd half's fighting much easier and quicker to deal with. I'll start doing some actual runs with this updated route tomorrow and see what the time is. I expect the time to be slightly slower at 1st as I adjust to breaking old habits, but from my playthrough with the changes, it should definitely be a better overall time. I think that I'll start using quick saves/loads before diary skips portions to ensure that I get them throughout the run as needed, ultimately the time saved from the diary skips should out weigh the attempts (loading times). I also did a bit more testing on some potential skip theories I had but just like the past, BioShock 2 is unwilling to break :/

Wfp, can you explain anymore about the Dionysus Park diary skip? This is really the only diary skip that I've had problems with so far, I just can't seem to figure out when to play the diary. (I'm still looking for a consistent spot to diary skip in Siren's alley and, was the Inner persephone skip worthwhile? I would imagine a lot of the area is based on a timer but I haven't actually tested this)

Anyways, with the updated route that I have and getting more consistent with diary skips, I see a sub 1:30 run happening in the near future. Not sure if 1:20 is still a feasible goal without being able to diary skip in FF or unless a skip is found somewhere along the way.

I finally got around to working on routing this game a bit more and have found what I think is probably a slightly better version of the current route. It might be slightly slower in the first half of the game (only slightly) but should make the 2nd half's fighting much easier and quicker to deal with. I'll start doing some actual runs with this updated route tomorrow and see what the time is. I expect the time to be slightly slower at 1st as I adjust to breaking old habits, but from my playthrough with the changes, it should definitely be a better overall time. I think that I'll start using quick saves/loads before diary skips portions to ensure that I get them throughout the run as needed, ultimately the time saved from the diary skips should out weigh the attempts (loading times). I also did a bit more testing on some potential skip theories I had but just like the past, BioShock 2 is unwilling to break :/

Wfp, can you explain anymore about the Dionysus Park diary skip? This is really the only diary skip that I've had problems with so far, I just can't seem to figure out when to play the diary. (I'm still looking for a consistent spot to diary skip in Siren's alley and, was the Inner persephone skip worthwhile? I would imagine a lot of the area is based on a timer but I haven't actually tested this)

Anyways, with the updated route that I have and getting more consistent with diary skips, I see a sub 1:30 run happening in the near future. Not sure if 1:20 is still a feasible goal without being able to diary skip in FF or unless a skip is found somewhere along the way.

wfp

2013-08-28 11:58:10 pm

there are two different dionysus park skips. one you can get right at the start of the level with the first radio transmission and is fairly similar to other walk trigger skips. it's not the easiest skip in the world but is probably the more consistent one you want to go with because i'm now thinking a problem with the other skips is that a radio transmission must not already be playing (which it frequently is in your speedrun and obviously not when i'm more casually testing). the other skips are based on getting the message from eleanor after saving the little sister. the timing of eleanor's messages work out so that if you activate an audio diary when your adam counter stops increasing you should get a skip, but maybe this is one of the very few differences between xbox360 and pc. it definitely looked like you got it in that one run.

yeah, the triggers in siren's alley are really tricky to locate and time. there's a dialogue cue off the first spider splicer that might give you something (as i said i got it off a visual cue from him) but it's still pretty difficult. i leave the assessment of whether skips are worth it up to you. in inner persephone i believe it's still worth it as it causes some of those timers to start earlier (with the notable exception of sinclair). outer persephone is the one i question more as it doesn't seem to advance the timer on the big sisters but i guess there are other obstacles that are affected.

it sucks there's no way to do audio diary skips in ff far as i can tell. maybe some bizarre oob glitch will be found some day and you can beat the level without getting the key.

there are two different dionysus park skips.  one you can get right at the start of the level with the first radio transmission and is fairly similar to other walk trigger skips.  it's not the easiest skip in the world but is probably the more consistent one you want to go with because i'm now thinking a problem with the other skips is that a radio transmission must not already be playing (which it frequently is in your speedrun and obviously not when i'm more casually testing).  the other skips are based on getting the message from eleanor after saving the little sister.  the timing of eleanor's messages work out so that if you activate an audio diary when your adam counter stops increasing you should get a skip, but maybe this is one of the very few differences between xbox360 and pc.  it definitely looked like you got it in that one run.

yeah, the triggers in siren's alley are really tricky to locate and time.  there's a dialogue cue off the first spider splicer that might give you something (as i said i got it off a visual cue from him) but it's still pretty difficult.  i leave the assessment of whether skips are worth it up to you.  in inner persephone i believe it's still worth it as it causes some of those timers to start earlier (with the notable exception of sinclair).  outer persephone is the one i question more as it doesn't seem to advance the timer on the big sisters but i guess there are other obstacles that are affected.

it sucks there's no way to do audio diary skips in ff far as i can tell.  maybe some bizarre oob glitch will be found some day and you can beat the level without getting the key.

Blood Thunder

Edit history:

Blood Thunder: 2013-08-30 08:52:03 am

Blood Thunder: 2013-08-29 04:10:07 pm

2013-08-29 04:09:25 pm

I did a few attempts with my newer route (which still needs to be refined a bit), but managed to shave off another minute from the WR (1:37:41!!!!). The old run had a diary skip in atlantic express which saved a minute so in comparison, this new route should save well over 2 minutes. I'll definitely be working more on getting Diary skips down as they will save a tremendous amount of time.

New route (changes)
The main difference between route is I pick up armor piercing rounds in pauper's drop to kill a big daddy quickly and get a bit more adam. Getting this extra adam allows me to purchase incinerate 2 before siren's alley instead of waiting until the end of dionysus park. It also means I can then buy incinerate 3 at the start of inner persephone instead of before the final fight. This significantly speeds up some of the fighting along the way.

I'll post a link to the twitch highlight once I get done eating :3!
edit: http://www.twitch.tv/bl00d_thunder/c/2843256 (the 1st 2 areas are cut off because my internet/stream had gone down but it's the same route as before)

I did a few attempts with my newer route (which still needs to be refined a bit), but managed to shave off another minute from the WR (1:37:41!!!!). The old run had a diary skip in atlantic express which saved a minute so in comparison, this new route should save well over 2 minutes. I'll definitely be working more on getting Diary skips down as they will save a tremendous amount of time.

New route (changes)
The main difference between route is I pick up armor piercing rounds in pauper's drop to kill a big daddy quickly and get a bit more adam. Getting this extra adam allows me to purchase incinerate 2 before siren's alley instead of waiting until the end of dionysus park. It also means I can then buy incinerate 3 at the start of inner persephone instead of before the final fight. This significantly speeds up some of the fighting along the way.

I'll post a link to the twitch highlight once I get done eating :3!
edit: http://www.twitch.tv/bl00d_thunder/c/2843256 (the 1st 2 areas are cut off because my internet/stream had gone down but it's the same route as before)

Blood Thunder

Edit history:

Blood Thunder: 2013-09-02 08:38:38 pm

Blood Thunder: 2013-09-02 08:22:29 pm

2013-09-02 12:38:07 pm

I spent a few hours working on diary skips today and managed to find a much better system for diary skips! :D. It makes it much more similar to the style that we used for BioShock 1.

For any radio message you want to skip, quicksave and quickload immediately after it plays. After the quickload is finished, you can play a diary message and skip it. This means we can now get a very very consistent skip for individual messages instead of 1 somewhat consistent trick (with practice) for all of them.

I'm still working my way through the game but this already shows me that it'll help in siren's alley and dionysus park as well as atlantic express/ryan's amusement(where I already had full-diary skips figured out). I haven't gotten to FF yet but I'm really hoping this is what will finally break the area :3

Edit: This new setup works on FF!!!!!! :D. it also has the ability to skip the global messages as well. I'm still playing through the last 3 levels to see where it'll work(and where it would save time) but this really should save a ton of time.

Another thing I completely overlooked in my new route is that you can get Incinerate 3 in FF (which we now have enough ADAM to get at this point, I'll be adding this into the route as it should help out for the alpha daddy fights here :D.

I spent a few hours working on diary skips today and managed to find a much better system for diary skips! :D. It makes it much more similar to the style that we used for BioShock 1.

For any radio message you want to skip, quicksave and quickload immediately after it plays. After the quickload is finished, you can play a diary message and skip it. This means we can now get a very very consistent skip for individual messages instead of 1 somewhat consistent trick (with practice) for all of them.

I'm still working my way through the game but this already shows me that it'll help in siren's alley and dionysus park as well as atlantic express/ryan's amusement(where I already had full-diary skips figured out). I haven't gotten to FF yet but I'm really hoping this is what will finally break the area :3

Edit: This new setup works on FF!!!!!! :D. it also has the ability to skip the global messages as well. I'm still playing through the last 3 levels to see where it'll work(and where it would save time) but this really should save a ton of time.

Another thing I completely overlooked in my new route is that you can get Incinerate 3 in FF (which we now have enough ADAM to get at this point, I'll be adding this into the route as it should help out for the alpha daddy fights here :D.

wfp

2013-09-02 11:26:21 pm

sweet. way to find a more consistent method of doing it. i really thought diary skips would be difficult with the now "old" method.

Blood Thunder

Edit history:

Blood Thunder: 2013-09-03 04:58:14 pm

Blood Thunder: 2013-09-03 04:44:59 pm

Blood Thunder: 2013-09-03 04:39:55 pm

2013-09-03 11:25:40 am

New Pb/Wr (1:35:37), I'm not going to bother highlighting/linking this run because I can easily beat this time by several minutes.

It seems like either spamming the quickload or the play message afterwards was causing messages to glitch out and get stuck but just pressing each input once seems to fix the problem :v

Edit: FINALLY got a solid run that I'm happy with. (1:31:40), sub 1:30 is almost here!!!! :D. http://www.twitch.tv/bl00d_thunder/c/2867235

wfp

2013-09-04 07:37:41 am

watched the run. i'm surprised by how much time saving that extra little sister seemed to save, but judging from your splits it definitely looks like a route improvement (killing the big daddy right next to the vent was also pretty impressive, don't know how consistent that is) though maybe that's more due to the diary skipping. overall it seems like my method for diary skips is still faster than your new method though your method is probably a good backup and useful in areas like ff where mine doesn't work or on levels where there's only one or two messages to skip. in areas where there are multiple messages to skip (like inner persephone, i think your method might cost you as much as 30 seconds off your split there as there are at least four messages worth skipping (two before the barred iron gate opens, one getting into i think "therapy" and one at the very end after you blast the pipes (this last one is not worth skipping in your method, but it's worth about a second or two with the old way)) i think you should probably still attempt/practice the other method at least on certain levels. i also felt your drill dashing was weaker than your 1:40 run, but i think you're aware that drill dashing and fights are the main thing that can potentially get this run under 1:30. i really think that extra 100 seconds will be hard to shave off but a sub-1:30 sure would look neat. definitely a good run. good luck with future ones.

watched the run.  i'm surprised by how much time saving that extra little sister seemed to save, but judging from your splits it definitely looks like a route improvement (killing the big daddy right next to the vent was also pretty impressive, don't know how consistent that is)  though maybe that's more due to the diary skipping.  overall it seems like my method for diary skips is still faster than your new method though your method is probably a good backup and useful in areas like ff where mine doesn't work or on levels where there's only one or two messages to skip.  in areas where there are multiple messages to skip (like inner persephone, i think your method might cost you as much as 30 seconds off your split there as there are at least four messages worth skipping (two before the barred iron gate opens, one getting into i think "therapy" and one at the very end after you blast the pipes (this last one is not worth skipping in your method, but it's worth about a second or two with the old way)) i think you should probably still attempt/practice the other method at least on certain levels.  i also felt your drill dashing was weaker than your 1:40 run, but i think you're aware that drill dashing and fights are the main thing that can potentially get this run under 1:30.  i really think that extra 100 seconds will be hard to shave off but a sub-1:30 sure would look neat.  definitely a good run.  good luck with future ones.

Blood Thunder

2013-09-04 10:53:33 am

The new route (killing the extra big daddy) helped to save a few minutes but the majority of time saved was due to diary skipping. The old method for diary skips is still definitely faster (which is why I did it for atlantic express/ryan's amusement), if I can find a good message to use for the old method then I'll definitely incorporate it in the route but I've had a lot of trouble with anything after pauper's drop. It is actually possible to get the old method for FF, I managed to get it while testing out my new method but have yet to find out how I activated it. Every diary skip takes about 4-5 seconds to pull off with the new method (in real-time).

Recently I've been trying to find more places to drill dash so it is a bit sloppy at the moment, but like you said, the drill dashing and fighting can definitely still be improved.

Blood Thunder

2013-10-04 05:46:17 pm

For those unaware, the PC version of BioShock 2 got an update yesterday. It wasn't an update for the actual game, but they've finally gotten rid of GFWL and can now just go through steam. Like I said, there wasn't a patch for the game at all (would be interesting :p) so the route/tricks are still the same. They're also giving anyone with a PC copy of bioshock 2 (before the update) the DLC.

I've really been meaning to work on getting a sub 1:30 but I've not had time to really sit down and find consistent places to do diary skips (old method) for the latter half of the game, as this would surely be enough time saved to push it that low. Now that I have minerva's den DLC I may take a look into speedrunning it as well, after a casual playthrough of course.

Blood Thunder

2013-10-05 08:35:28 pm

After playing through Minerva's Den, I did a few runs through to get a decent route down but I can definitely see it coming down quite a bit more. 25:31 http://www.twitch.tv/bl00d_thunder/c/3038838

Diary skips do work for this DLC as well but I'm not sure how effective they'll be. There is a diary that can be picked up right before getting the hacking tool so there is some potential there. I'll mess around a bit tomorrow, but just playing through it a few times I don't see really see any ways to save massive amounts of time. Of course I might finally find a way to clip through walls or even oob Tongue

Blood Thunder

2013-10-09 09:24:02 pm

Just by getting a cleaner run, minerva's den is now down to 24:11 (http://www.twitch.tv/bl00d_thunder/c/3059815)!.

I've looked into skipping more items but I think without skips this will be the path. Unfortunately just getting the hack tool and skipping the office isn't possible as going to the office unlocks the door to the end. I'll need to test it but I think using the diary messing near the hack tool to do the old method of diary skipping for the 1st and 3rd level would save some time.

Blood Thunder

Edit history:

Blood Thunder: 2014-01-21 08:08:40 pm

2014-01-21 07:11:57 pm

So I'm back to working on BioShock 2 and I've been spending the past 2 days looking all around the web for bugs/glitches that people may have found and doing some testing myself. I actually found something pretty interesting!

I've spent hours upon hours trying to get the telekinesis jump thing to work but it's not easy to replicate at all(I might have gotten it 3 times in total with a few hours put into it) but there is hope!
(it seems like there might be some items just like the Magic Table in BioShock 1). I have yet to really test this out any but this could be quite helpful.

I also need to learn some all-in-1 diary skips for anything dionysus park and on (i never got around to it :p)

wfp

2014-01-21 09:20:51 pm

nice. i'm curious what the route will look like with telekinesis jumps.

as far as i remember any level that has an audio diary that plays near the start of the level (but is not triggered as soon as the level loads, so not the first radio transmission is siren's alley as near as i can tell) can be used to audio-diary skip. however i could never get this to work in fontaine futuristics, but i have gotten a skip in every other level except pauper's drop where it wouldn't save any time anyway and i don't have a good method for siren's alley, i just know it's possible. i believe there's a slight delay between when the game gives you control of your character and when it gives you the ability to play audio diaries (in other words you can move a split second before you seem capable of playing audio diaries, though maybe this is just cuz i suck). any level that has a radio message triggered by movement near the start of the level (this applies to most of the later levels) is skipable if you take about a second to wait out this delay (so wait until the level completely fades in before attempting) and then time moving forward and playing a diary correctly, though it'd be understandable to try to get this to work at later points in the level because of the delay.

hopefully the above makes sense and you you can try it out on inner persephone by waiting like five seconds at the start of the level, attempting until you're comfortable with the timing then gradually reducing that five seconds (as iirc this timing applies to dionysus park, and both inner and outer persephone and imo inner persephone is the easiest to practice). i have a crappy webcam now, finally, and can maybe attempt to post videos of various timings over the weekend if you think it would help but the quality will suck. also i'm using xbox360 so i'm not even sure the timing's the same as on xbox360 you hold the use button for a second or so to trigger audio diaries while i imagine on pc you can just bind that to a key of your choosing and there's no delay.

nice.  i'm curious what the route will look like with telekinesis jumps.

as far as i remember any level that has an audio diary that plays near the start of the level (but is not triggered as soon as the level loads, so not the first radio transmission is siren's alley as near as i can tell) can be used to audio-diary skip.  however i could never get this to work in fontaine futuristics, but i have gotten a skip in every other level except pauper's drop where it wouldn't save any time anyway and i don't have a good method for siren's alley, i just know it's possible.  i believe there's a slight delay between when the game gives you control of your character and when it gives you the ability to play audio diaries (in other words you can move a split second before you seem capable of playing audio diaries, though maybe this is just cuz i suck).  any level that has a radio message triggered by movement near the start of the level (this applies to most of the later levels) is skipable if you take about a second to wait out this delay (so wait until the level completely fades in before attempting) and then time moving forward and playing a diary correctly, though it'd be understandable to try to get this to work at later points in the level because of the delay.

hopefully the above makes sense and you you can try it out on inner persephone by waiting like five seconds at the start of the level, attempting until you're comfortable with the timing then gradually reducing that five seconds (as iirc this timing applies to dionysus park, and both inner and outer persephone and imo inner persephone is the easiest to practice).  i have a crappy webcam now, finally, and can maybe attempt to post videos of various timings over the weekend if you think it would help but the quality will suck.  also i'm using xbox360 so i'm not even sure the timing's the same as on xbox360 you hold the use button for a second or so to trigger audio diaries while i imagine on pc you can just bind that to a key of your choosing and there's no delay.

Blood Thunder

Edit history:

Blood Thunder: 2014-01-26 10:59:28 pm

2014-01-26 10:59:14 pm

I spent a few hours going through the game again tonight on stream looking for new things and testing out some stuff. Unfortunately I didn't come up with much to save time, but I did eliminate some ideas and found some potential skips.

Some of the more interesting notes:
- Harvesting the 1st little sister eliminates the need for killing the big daddy in pauper's drop.
- Still could not get diary skips in Siren's Alley, Dionysus Park, FF. I didn't try in Inner Persephone but I'll try it sometime soon.
- You can skip outer persephone if you can get past the door to the exit (you don't get the summon eleanor plasmid but you don't need it)
- You can skip the 2 big sister fight if you get into the chamber before Eleanor (where the cutscene starts)
- You can skip inner persephone if you can get past the door to the exit (the one with the elevator, after the water floods the area)
- Another upgrade can be obtained in FF, only losing 10-ish seconds (doesn't seem worth it but could be)

wfp

2014-01-27 09:10:45 pm

skipping both inner and outer persephone is awesome. is it feasible in a run or were you using some kind of debug mode?

i figured harvesting was faster, which is a bummer cuz that cutscene is super creepy, but it always looked like it saved time.

siren's alley is a tricky skip. i did it off the spider splicer who runs away and just watching him jump trying various frames. this would force you to stop and watch unless you can figure out to time it off how long to wait after his yelling at you, but it was the best i ever managed. iirc dionysus park is roughly the same as inner persephone (though for whatever reason i found inner persephone easier), just be careful about the fact you have to wait until the level completely fades in before moving until you're comfortable with the difference between when you can move and when you can play audio diaries. and i could never get the ff skip myself and until you managed it with your alternate method, i thought it was impossible.

Blood Thunder

2014-01-27 10:06:17 pm

New WR ~ 1:31:24 (http://www.twitch.tv/bl00d_thunder/c/3622869)

a nice 15 second improvement, but a pretty sloppy run overall. This can definitely be sub 1:30:00 :D.

Responding to your post
-I used the ghost console command to pass through doors to see if you could interact w/ doors or levers. So in theory they are "possible", it's just a matter of clipping through the doors.
-I'll try to work on the diary skips some more(i keep saying this :p) as it would be so helpful.