Braid

2013-07-18 05:28:30 am

Don't forget tonight's Kanban's run at ESA ! Supposed to be @9pm (GMT+1) but it might be a bit before or after !
Anyway, to watch it, go to http://www.twitch.tv/ludendi (EN) or http://www.twitch.tv/djkanjo (FR)
I'll be commenting with Keylie and another caster on the french restream, and Kanban should comment his own run on english stream !

Enjoy and see you soon guys Smiley

KanBan85

2013-07-19 03:52:17 pm

We both like money! Friends?

Thanks for all help and support during the ESA run! If you missed it you can see it here: http://www.twitch.tv/ludendi/b/431708274

It starts ca 34:33 into the VOD.

KanBan85

2013-07-22 12:49:01 am

We both like money! Friends?

"Discovered" a new strat. I did not really discover it, but just copied the TAS, but it was a lot easier than I thought.

At the second "lair" you can fall down right after the second chandelier. Just make sure to fall slightly to the right of the "boss" and move left right after. Also make sure to tap rewind once before the chandelier hits ofc. Saves a tiny bit of time, but makes a nice, fast, consistent way of falling right and fast.

Patashu

2013-07-22 02:48:32 am

I've already been doing this, it just seemed intuitive to me (but maybe I unconsciously copied the TAS too Smiley

)

keylie

2013-07-22 05:11:32 am

Congratulations KanBan !
That was a really nice run, for a marathon. The last stage was particularly awesome !

P-why

2013-07-23 02:47:33 am

Kanban > I think we all naturally do that ^_^ it's just that when you fail it more than once, you tend not to die hard trying Tongue

But yes it saves some time and it's not too complicated!

Thanks for sharing anyway!

And oh I watched the replay and listened to your commentary while playing, thank you for all the shoutouts and GG again for the run you had Smiley

it was great!

xfullmetal17

Edit history:

xfullmetal17: 2013-07-23 09:00:25 pm

xfullmetal17: 2013-07-23 08:59:42 pm

2013-07-23 08:59:13 pm

wibbly wobbly timey wimey

Just got a 37:52.85, but that's without the pro strats on Elevator Action, plus stupid mistakes through the run. By time my SGDQ run comes around on Monday I'm hoping to have it sub-35.
Even though I mainly lurked here, shoutouts to everyone in the thread here, you've all been a great help with learning some of the levels. (Don't know if I can pull off 1-1's pro route though D: Too inconsistent on that chandelier, and don't want to embarass myself if I can't finish the run.)

Patashu

Edit history:

Patashu: 2013-07-23 09:58:01 pm

Patashu: 2013-07-23 09:40:34 pm

2013-07-23 09:29:13 pm

Quote from xfullmetal17:

Just got a 37:52.85, but that's without the pro strats on Elevator Action, plus stupid mistakes through the run. By time my SGDQ run comes around on Monday I'm hoping to have it sub-35.
Even though I mainly lurked here, shoutouts to everyone in the thread here, you've all been a great help with learning some of the levels. (Don't know if I can pull off 1-1's pro route though D: Too inconsistent on that chandelier, and don't want to embarass myself if I can't finish the run.)

Where are you losing the most time? I'd like to see sub-30 in-game time at SGDQ if possible. (Sorry, I haven't been able to help you practice since I've been at work, but maybe p_why or KanBan can help)

For 1-1, take screenshots of where/how you jump for both corner boosts and study them for cues. Then just make sure you pull the fireball stopping lever optimally and your movement on the bendy grill part is good (study WR of course) and you should have a good plan for getting it. (Obviously you can never be 100% consistent at corner boosts, but if you know what to aim for you will be able to compensate every time you get it wrong and eventually get it Smiley

e.g. knowing 100% what needs to happen can be better than having better accuracy but not knowing what is wrong if you aren't getting it)

[quote="xfullmetal17"]Just got a 37:52.85, but that's without the pro strats on Elevator Action, plus stupid mistakes through the run.  By time my SGDQ run comes around on Monday I'm hoping to have it sub-35.
Even though I mainly lurked here, shoutouts to everyone in the thread here, you've all been a great help with learning some of the levels.  (Don't know if I can pull off 1-1's pro route though D: Too inconsistent on that chandelier, and don't want to embarass myself if I can't finish the run.)[/quote]
Where are you losing the most time? I'd like to see sub-30 in-game time at SGDQ if possible. (Sorry, I haven't been able to help you practice since I've been at work, but maybe p_why or KanBan can help)

For 1-1, take screenshots of where/how you jump for both corner boosts and study them for cues. Then just make sure you pull the fireball stopping lever optimally and your movement on the bendy grill part is good (study WR of course) and you should have a good plan for getting it. (Obviously you can never be 100% consistent at corner boosts, but if you know what to aim for you will be able to compensate every time you get it wrong and eventually get it :) e.g. knowing 100% what needs to happen can be better than having better accuracy but not knowing what is wrong if you aren't getting it)

xfullmetal17

2013-07-23 10:24:57 pm

wibbly wobbly timey wimey

Elevator Action and 3-8 are where I'm losing the most time. Apart from that I think it's just the bunny hops and corner boosts.

Patashu

2013-07-23 10:47:46 pm

Quote from xfullmetal17:

Elevator Action and 3-8 are where I'm losing the most time. Apart from that I think it's just the bunny hops and corner boosts.

Bunnyhops and corner boosts do not lose you minutes (plus, it's very quick and consistent to learn where bunnyhops are done by mimicing TAS/WR, and only slightly harder to make a screenshot of and thus learn a cue for every corner boost in the route. Getting them is another matter, but no one gets all of them anyway)..
Elevator Action, maybe you can talk to p_why or KanBan about it, they both know it well.
3-8 you should be able to get 100% of the time. The reason why is the afterimage trail of Tim shows you if you're at the peak of your jump or not. If you're at the peak, you will always make it on. So the only things left to make sure are
1) you always jump from the highest point (this is about where Tim's feet are on the twin peaks with a gap between them, jump should start here)
2) you rewind at 8x hard, but drop to 4x and then 2x in anticipation of being about to rewind to where the jump is. If you are focused on making this consistent, it may take a day or so of practice, but the next day you'll always have many seconds to make sure you've paused on the right spot before releasing. You have so much time to line it up once your strategy for this is good.
3) Your strategy post making it onto the platform is good (this is easy, just make sure not to rewind TOO far to the right, but as long as you rewind to a time when Tim is facing left you can accelerate forward full speed in mid air and make an air jump and make it even if it looks like you wouldn't have, still not from incredibly far away.)
(Also, if you make it to the key and the goomba turns before you can grab it, you did not do the jump from the twin peaks early enough, turn around tighter.)
Again - this can be 100% consistent once you are comfortable with what needs to be done. There's no twitch reflexes or special timings or hard windows to hit.

You shouldn't be losing 8-10 minutes still, I'm curious as to what else there is to do.

[quote="xfullmetal17"]Elevator Action and 3-8 are where I'm losing the most time.  Apart from that I think it's just the bunny hops and corner boosts.[/quote]
Bunnyhops and corner boosts do not lose you minutes (plus, it's very quick and consistent to learn where bunnyhops are done by mimicing TAS/WR, and only slightly harder to make a screenshot of and thus learn a cue for every corner boost in the route. Getting them is another matter, but no one gets all of them anyway)..
Elevator Action, maybe you can talk to p_why or KanBan about it, they both know it well.
3-8 you should be able to get 100% of the time. The reason why is the afterimage trail of Tim shows you if you're at the peak of your jump or not. If you're at the peak, you will always make it on. So the only things left to make sure are
1) you always jump from the highest point (this is about where Tim's feet are on the twin peaks with a gap between them, jump should start here)
2) you rewind at 8x hard, but drop to 4x and then 2x in anticipation of being about to rewind to where the jump is. If you are focused on making this consistent, it may take a day or so of practice, but the next day you'll always have many seconds to make sure you've paused on the right spot before releasing. You have so much time to line it up once your strategy for this is good.
3) Your strategy post making it onto the platform is good (this is easy, just make sure not to rewind TOO far to the right, but as long as you rewind to a time when Tim is facing left you can accelerate forward full speed in mid air and make an air jump and make it even if it looks like you wouldn't have, still not from incredibly far away.)
(Also, if you make it to the key and the goomba turns before you can grab it, you did not do the jump from the twin peaks early enough, turn around tighter.)
Again - this can be 100% consistent once you are comfortable with what needs to be done. There's no twitch reflexes or special timings or hard windows to hit.

You shouldn't be losing 8-10 minutes still, I'm curious as to what else there is to do.

xfullmetal17

Edit history:

xfullmetal17: 2013-07-23 11:43:57 pm

xfullmetal17: 2013-07-23 11:07:06 pm

2013-07-23 11:05:01 pm

wibbly wobbly timey wimey

I'm gonna take a look at KanBan's ESA run and figure out where I'm losing the most time. My guess is Worlds 5 and 6.

edit: Biggest things are those two levels, plus somehow three minutes in world 4. I'll see what I can do to shave that time off.

Patashu

Edit history:

Patashu: 2013-07-24 12:42:25 am

Patashu: 2013-07-24 12:36:22 am

Patashu: 2013-07-24 12:34:25 am

2013-07-24 12:13:45 am

Do you know on which levels in world 4 you are losing time?
Ideas:
4-1 to 4-4 are trivial, just follow WR very closely (with one note: in 4-3, don't go for the 'SMW jump' where you unset the lever without bouncing on the goomba, just learn a cue for when to jump and bounce on the goomba (and also learn a cue for jumping up to the top of the wall without losing speed, it's the dark left side of the pillar iirc), because it only saves 0.5 seconds and is rather difficult)

4-5 If you are doing the pro 'rabbit jump' strategy, remember that you can rewind and fix your jump if you know what went wrong, so even if you fail it you can actually make it succeed without having to try again:
-First make sure you are using the same cues as WR, jump before the dying guy, turn around on top of the smaller child, jump half way to the bigger child, turn around while sailing above the rabbit (use a screenshot and check over your attempts by rewinding to see how close you were to the screenshot, and correct until your muscle memory is nailing the right part), turn right a few frames before (not a LOT before but barely before) or exactly when you hit the rabbit's right side. This is what WR uses and p_why says he has it consistent so there must be merit in these specific cues Smiley

-Then using these cues...
1) If the rabbit does not die but only makes one hop, rewind to before you turned right and turn right 1-2 frames early. This is the easiest mistake to fix.
2) If the rabbit dies, rewind to before you turned right, release rewind while holding left, rewind to just before/just after hitting rabbit and try holding right then.
3) If you double bounce on the rabbit (make the double bounce SFX), try turning to the right slightly later (similar to 1)). Or you may have to change where above the rabbit you turned to the left
Then after the rabbit jump is done you do the following jumps aiming for certain things relative to the level so you always get on top of the rabbit and start bouncing on its nose travelling very slightly to the left.
Again, just copy and aim for what's done in the WR and if you mess up frame-advance-rewind to see what your mistakes are, you can analytically perfect your strategy by making muscle memory match the ideal jump, and coming back to it every day for a few days to solidify your muscle memory a little further.
Nothing else hard in this level if you copy WR or kanban.

4-6 I gave/received tips for this on the previous one (two?) pages:
-Slow down to 1x as you are approaching the green key during the big rewind, since the green key attempts to latch onto you at normal speed if you are racing at 8x you can go so fast it does not get a chance to latch on.
-Try to go for the early cycle as in because if you miss it you do the same waiting you'd have done anyway
-When taking the big cloud to the right, have some rightward momentum during the bounce so that your brain is aware of the fact that it's moving suuuper fast relative to you, and so you don't speed up way too fast trying to catch the right side at the last moment and miss it. Also, since you have full rightward velocity when you jump off of the cloud, you can actually leave the cloud from quite far from the right side of it, so you don't have to be super precise here.

4-7 If you're doing the pro strat here, what are you failing?
-If it's getting the goomba onto the lever when you rewind, you want to incorporate a slight, but consistent wait before you start the rewind. Now I only fail this step when I'm tired/hungry/distracted
-If it's transferring the key to the goomba, you want to pause to do it. That way you are not losing time you will rewind over later, and when he grabs it you let go of pause and immediately are moving left at full velocity so he doesn't catch you.
-If it's making the shoryuken onto the higher ledge, make sure you're quite far back (I like to be easily left of the ladder), get a bit of a running start and after you attempt this jump enough you get a feel for how far from the goomba you have to be. This is hard to practice analytically due to lack of rewind analysis so just assign blame to what you did wrong every time you failed it, e.g. 'I jumped too early' 'I jumped too late' 'I did not start far enough to the left' 'I did not get the right amount of running start' so your brain is honing in on the correct interval.
-If it's rewinding in a timely fashion after getting the puzzle piece - since you're moving soooo fast at 8x, don't try to keep track of Tim with your eyes, get a feel for how eaaarllyy you need to let go of rewind. You need to at least be somewhere above the platform leading up to the door when the goomba is released to be able to get it through the door in pro way with a good amount of success, otherwise you let go of rewind way too far to the right. If you rewind so much that Tim is moving to the left in the rewind, then either you stopped the rewind back in step 1 WAY too far to the left (you should cut it as close to the lever as possible) or you are not anticipating that you need to stop rewinding before you visually get there, due to lag and inability for the brain to keep up with it in real time.
-One other thing about the rewind - if the FIRST rewind you do puts you RIGHT of where you pulled the lever, then the lever can be re-activated if during the SECOND rewind you rewind to RIGHT of when you pulled the lever (think about why this is). This is ONLY a danger if after doing the first rewind you hear the distinct unclick of its activation being rewound while not using Tim's watch. Other than that, this is only something you can work on by practicing a lot, becoming more accurate and being aware of where your first rewind ends (because that is also a component of when you need to stop the second rewind - after all, you can't end rewind 2 further right than rewind 1 ended). If your first rewind always aims for the lever and your second rewind always aims for just left of the lever (e.g. you are consciously aiming, timing, etc to land on these spots and not just winging it, assessing if you were early or late every time you practice the level etc) then as you get more precise at the route this becomes less and less of an issue, so don't despair.
-Finally, getting the goomba through the door pro style - you want to move into the door and turn around such that it is animated to fully open. Then run at the goomba and die. Then (with a slight, consistent pause so that you don't grab the key before the goomba does) you hold shift and hit down once, then up twice in a staggered way. The goal here is that the goomba gets the key first, you accelerate past it at exactly 2x (4x is too fast) to open the door before it gets there and you pause while in the door. Then you can do a very tiny rewind to revive yourself and get the puzzle piece.
--If the goomba bounces on your head, where were you when the goomba shot out? If you were not even on the platform yet, you did not rewind to a good place after getting puzzle piece 1. If you were on the platform but it still happened, you pushed Tim way too far into the door, and you should turn around sooner. (Also, it's STILL possible to get the goomba through if he bounces - but the timing is tight and I only get it by accident because I do not know the cues)
--If the goomba bounces off the door, you started your rewind too late.
--If you grab the key back/the key gets used on the door, you started your rewind too early.
--If you open and close the door during the rewind, you did not move your rewind to a pause early enough. Note that if the goomba got through and you haven't stopped rewinding yet, you can solve this problem by doing a fast forward.
-If you are having more trouble with phase 2 (assuming you are getting good rewind movement after phase 1) than phase 1, you can practice phase 2 only by standing in front of the ladder, watching the cannon and when it shoots execute what you would do for phase 2. Great practice.
-FINALLY - If you epically fail at the pro strat but you have puzzle piece 1, you don't have to start over. Just do the old strat for phase 2 (where you unlock the door, walk over to the lower path, let the goomba kill you and steal your key then rewind to a point when the door is unlocked) and you lose less time than trying the pro strat again. So if you are going for pro strat (and you don't have to if you can't get it confidently in time) don't forget to have this in muscle memory too.

The kanban strat for 4-7 is trivial, ez every time.

Also, it should go without saying, but - eat well and sleep well, both during practice and right before your run. I epicly fail anything hard when I am sleepy or stressed or hungry, it's not pleasant at all to be unable to do things you know you can just because of bad decisions.

Do you know on which levels in world 4 you are losing time?
Ideas:
4-1 to 4-4 are trivial, just follow WR very closely (with one note: in 4-3, don't go for the 'SMW jump' where you unset the lever without bouncing on the goomba, just learn a cue for when to jump and bounce on the goomba (and also learn a cue for jumping up to the top of the wall without losing speed, it's the dark left side of the pillar iirc), because it only saves 0.5 seconds and is rather difficult)

4-5 If you are doing the pro 'rabbit jump' strategy, remember that you can rewind and fix your jump if you know what went wrong, so even if you fail it you can actually make it succeed without having to try again:
-First make sure you are using the same cues as WR, jump before the dying guy, turn around on top of the smaller child, jump half way to the bigger child, turn around while sailing above the rabbit (use a screenshot and check over your attempts by rewinding to see how close you were to the screenshot, and correct until your muscle memory is nailing the right part), turn right a few frames before (not a LOT before but barely before) or exactly when you hit the rabbit's right side. This is what WR uses and p_why says he has it consistent so there must be merit in these specific cues :)
-Then using these cues...
1) If the rabbit does not die but only makes one hop, rewind to before you turned right and turn right 1-2 frames early. This is the easiest mistake to fix.
2) If the rabbit dies, rewind to before you turned right, release rewind while holding left, rewind to just before/just after hitting rabbit and try holding right then.
3) If you double bounce on the rabbit (make the double bounce SFX), try turning to the right slightly later (similar to 1)). Or you may have to change where above the rabbit you turned to the left
Then after the rabbit jump is done you do the following jumps aiming for certain things relative to the level so you always get on top of the rabbit and start bouncing on its nose travelling very slightly to the left.
Again, just copy and aim for what's done in the WR and if you mess up frame-advance-rewind to see what your mistakes are, you can analytically perfect your strategy by making muscle memory match the ideal jump, and coming back to it every day for a few days to solidify your muscle memory a little further.
Nothing else hard in this level if you copy WR or kanban.

4-6 I gave/received tips for this on the previous one (two?) pages:
-Slow down to 1x as you are approaching the green key during the big rewind, since the green key attempts to latch onto you at normal speed if you are racing at 8x you can go so fast it does not get a chance to latch on.
-Try to go for the early cycle as in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tbu7XcN-Dqo because if you miss it you do the same waiting you'd have done anyway
-When taking the big cloud to the right, have some rightward momentum during the bounce so that your brain is aware of the fact that it's moving suuuper fast relative to you, and so you don't speed up way too fast trying to catch the right side at the last moment and miss it. Also, since you have full rightward velocity when you jump off of the cloud, you can actually leave the cloud from quite far from the right side of it, so you don't have to be super precise here.

4-7 If you're doing the pro strat here, what are you failing?
-If it's getting the goomba onto the lever when you rewind, you want to incorporate a slight, but consistent wait before you start the rewind. Now I only fail this step when I'm tired/hungry/distracted
-If it's transferring the key to the goomba, you want to pause to do it. That way you are not losing time you will rewind over later, and when he grabs it you let go of pause and immediately are moving left at full velocity so he doesn't catch you.
-If it's making the shoryuken onto the higher ledge, make sure you're quite far back (I like to be easily left of the ladder), get a bit of a running start and after you attempt this jump enough you get a feel for how far from the goomba you have to be. This is hard to practice analytically due to lack of rewind analysis so just assign blame to what you did wrong every time you failed it, e.g. 'I jumped too early' 'I jumped too late' 'I did not start far enough to the left' 'I did not get the right amount of running start' so your brain is honing in on the correct interval.
-If it's rewinding in a timely fashion after getting the puzzle piece - since you're moving soooo fast at 8x, don't try to keep track of Tim with your eyes, get a feel for how eaaarllyy you need to let go of rewind. You need to at least be somewhere above the platform leading up to the door when the goomba is released to be able to get it through the door in pro way with a good amount of success, otherwise you let go of rewind way too far to the right. If you rewind so much that Tim is moving to the left in the rewind, then either you stopped the rewind back in step 1 WAY too far to the left (you should cut it as close to the lever as possible) or you are not anticipating that you need to stop rewinding before you visually get there, due to lag and inability for the brain to keep up with it in real time.
-One other thing about the rewind - if the FIRST rewind you do puts you RIGHT of where you pulled the lever, then the lever can be re-activated if during the SECOND rewind you rewind to RIGHT of when you pulled the lever (think about why this is). This is ONLY a danger if after doing the first rewind you hear the distinct unclick of its activation being rewound while not using Tim's watch. Other than that, this is only something you can work on by practicing a lot, becoming more accurate and being aware of where your first rewind ends (because that is also a component of when you need to stop the second rewind - after all, you can't end rewind 2 further right than rewind 1 ended). If your first rewind always aims for the lever and your second rewind always aims for just left of the lever (e.g. you are consciously aiming, timing, etc to land on these spots and not just winging it, assessing if you were early or late every time you practice the level etc) then as you get more precise at the route this becomes less and less of an issue, so don't despair.
-Finally, getting the goomba through the door pro style - you want to move into the door and turn around such that it is animated to fully open. Then run at the goomba and die. Then (with a slight, consistent pause so that you don't grab the key before the goomba does) you hold shift and hit down once, then up twice in a staggered way. The goal here is that the goomba gets the key first, you accelerate past it at exactly 2x (4x is too fast) to open the door before it gets there and you pause while in the door. Then you can do a very tiny rewind to revive yourself and get the puzzle piece.
--If the goomba bounces on your head, where were you when the goomba shot out? If you were not even on the platform yet, you did not rewind to a good place after getting puzzle piece 1.  If you were on the platform but it still happened, you pushed Tim way too far into the door, and you should turn around sooner. (Also, it's STILL possible to get the goomba through if he bounces - but the timing is tight and I only get it by accident because I do not know the cues)
--If the goomba bounces off the door, you started your rewind too late.
--If you grab the key back/the key gets used on the door, you started your rewind too early.
--If you open and close the door during the rewind, you did not move your rewind to a pause early enough. Note that if the goomba got through and you haven't stopped rewinding yet, you can solve this problem by doing a fast forward.
-If you are having more trouble with phase 2 (assuming you are getting good rewind movement after phase 1) than phase 1, you can practice phase 2 only by standing in front of the ladder, watching the cannon and when it shoots execute what you would do for phase 2. Great practice.
-FINALLY - If you epically fail at the pro strat but you have puzzle piece 1, you don't have to start over. Just do the old strat for phase 2 (where you unlock the door, walk over to the lower path, let the goomba kill you and steal your key then rewind to a point when the door is unlocked) and you lose less time than trying the pro strat again. So if you are going for pro strat (and you don't have to if you can't get it confidently in time) don't forget to have this in muscle memory too.

The kanban strat for 4-7 is trivial, ez every time.

Also, it should go without saying, but - eat well and sleep well, both during practice and right before your run. I epicly fail anything hard when I am sleepy or stressed or hungry, it's not pleasant at all to be unable to do things you know you can just because of bad decisions.

xfullmetal17

2013-07-24 12:33:51 am

wibbly wobbly timey wimey

No, that's the thing. I'll take a look in the morning before heading down to Denver.

Patashu

2013-07-24 12:38:54 am

Quote from xfullmetal17:

No, that's the thing. I'll take a look in the morning before heading down to Denver.

Ok, I wrote a whole bunch of stuff for ya in the previous post Cheesy

Help it focuses your practice. I want to see sub 30 ingame time at SGDQ, because I know there's nothing stopping you if you practice the right things and are being analytical Smiley

P-why

Edit history:

P-why: 2013-07-24 04:27:12 am

2013-07-24 04:26:17 am

I just wanted to say 2 thing:

@Patashu > I like the way you think, but you're trying too much to get every hard strat and imo it's not the way you should work on it. Knowing the perfect route is good, but trying hard to get it on 1st tries is not. If you can work on the game that way, you're a lucky guy ^_^ because it's really hard to do so (again, it's just my opinion).

@xfullmetal17 > But for you, since your PB is not very good, just DO NOT work on rabbit skip or 4-5 fastest strat... it's absolutely not relevant. Work on the game itself, learn basic route and try making it as consistent as possible BEFORE actually learning hard strats. You don't have much time from now, so don't worry about doing the rabbit skip or not... See, Kanban didn't do it and still got a reaaaaally good time on his run.
About 1-1 it's the same > you'd better do a perfect 1-1 with normal ending than losing 10 minutes trying to do the alternative ending. Work on doing it safely and you might save a few minutes compared to a bad alternate ending.
The things you must work on are :
- Make sure you're as close to 3 minutes as possible at the end of World 2 (if you're getting more than 3:10, there's a problem > find it, fix it)
- If you're very uncomfy with some "pro strats", just work on safest strats, since you'll only lose 3 minutes compared to WR if you do safe strats well. I think the easiest and the most relevant strat to work on is 3-8 > it's not THAT hard once you get the cues (like Patashu said), it's very fun to see, and it saves ~40 seconds. For Elevator action, maybe you should copy Kanban's route > the 1st piece he takes is very safe, easy to do. Then for the two others, it's a matter of timing and understanding how the strat works. PLEASE if you don't understand it, ask someone, I can Skype with you anytime I'm online.
- Ladder jumps > Work hard on the 2 you have to make in World 3. For the one in World 5, if you don't make it, use Kanban's strat > it's perfect and you lose 3 seconds only.
- Lair(s) > If you can't beat Lair 1 in 1 cycle (ie. 2 chandeliers), make it over and over again until you find the timings. It's very important. For Lair 2, make sure you understand how it works (beating the boss with 2 chandeliers). If you don't, you'll never get it. If that's a problem, just do the old strat with 3 chandeliers, which is exactely the same time (since the boss moves as fast as Tim, and if you kill the boss on the right, you'll have to walk back all the way left).

I think that's what's important for you to work on. If you're very confident with safest strats, you'll easilly get sub 31, and if you play well, you'll get sub 30 in no time. Trust me. When I started running the game with old strats, I got sub 30 in 5 days (doin 1 to 2 runs a day). If you practice and if you can perform 3 runs a day, be sure you'll make it Wink

Finally:

Quote from Patashu:

Also, it should go without saying, but - eat well and sleep well, both during practice and right before your run. I epicly fail anything hard when I am sleepy or stressed or hungry, it's not pleasant at all to be unable to do things you know you can just because of bad decisions.

That may sound silly but indeed that's a very good advice. Also, if you're working on the game and get angry too much, just stop. Go watch a live speedrun, get a drink or a snack, but just do something else. When you don't think about the game anymore, try training again. Because working on it when you're angry is not productive AT ALL, you might even lose some reflexes or such.

I hope that was not too much to read/take, if anyone has any suggestion or critics, please let me know! I'm just like Patashu > I'd like to see a sub 30 run, and we all know that's not too hard.
@xfullmetal17 > If we have a bit of time on Skype, I can give you ALL my visual cues for trivial stages, that helps A LOT if you don't have any Wink

Just to let you know, I almost have a visual cue for... basically every jump I perform in the game (except for bunny hopes and 1st frame jumps of course).

I just wanted to say 2 thing:

@Patashu > I like the way you think, but you're trying too much to get every hard strat and imo it's not the way you should work on it. Knowing the perfect route is good, but trying hard to get it on 1st tries is not. If you can work on the game that way, you're a lucky guy ^_^ because it's really hard to do so (again, it's just my opinion).

@xfullmetal17 > But for you, since your PB is not very good, just DO NOT work on rabbit skip or 4-5 fastest strat... it's absolutely not relevant. Work on the game itself, learn basic route and try making it as consistent as possible BEFORE actually learning hard strats. You don't have much time from now, so don't worry about doing the rabbit skip or not... See, Kanban didn't do it and still got a reaaaaally good time on his run.
About 1-1 it's the same > you'd better do a perfect 1-1 with normal ending than losing 10 minutes trying to do the alternative ending. Work on doing it safely and you might save a few minutes compared to a bad alternate ending.
The things you must work on are :
- Make sure you're as close to 3 minutes as possible at the end of World 2 (if you're getting more than 3:10, there's a problem > find it, fix it)
- If you're very uncomfy with some "pro strats", just work on safest strats, since you'll only lose 3 minutes compared to WR if you do safe strats well. I think the easiest and the most relevant strat to work on is 3-8 > it's not THAT hard once you get the cues (like Patashu said), it's very fun to see, and it saves ~40 seconds. For Elevator action, maybe you should copy Kanban's route > the 1st piece he takes is very safe, easy to do. Then for the two others, it's a matter of timing and understanding how the strat works. PLEASE if you don't understand it, ask someone, I can Skype with you anytime I'm online.
- Ladder jumps > Work hard on the 2 you have to make in World 3. For the one in World 5, if you don't make it, use Kanban's strat > it's perfect and you lose 3 seconds only.
- Lair(s) > If you can't beat Lair 1 in 1 cycle (ie. 2 chandeliers), make it over and over again until you find the timings. It's very important. For Lair 2, make sure you understand how it works (beating the boss with 2 chandeliers). If you don't, you'll never get it. If that's a problem, just do the old strat with 3 chandeliers, which is exactely the same time (since the boss moves as fast as Tim, and if you kill the boss on the right, you'll have to walk back all the way left).

I think that's what's important for you to work on. If you're very confident with safest strats, you'll easilly get sub 31, and if you play well, you'll get sub 30 in no time. Trust me. When I started running the game with old strats, I got sub 30 in 5 days (doin 1 to 2 runs a day). If you practice and if you can perform 3 runs a day, be sure you'll make it ;)

Finally:
[quote="Patashu"]Also, it should go without saying, but - eat well and sleep well, both during practice and right before your run. I epicly fail anything hard when I am sleepy or stressed or hungry, it's not pleasant at all to be unable to do things you know you can just because of bad decisions.[/quote]

That may sound silly but indeed that's a very good advice. Also, if you're working on the game and get angry too much, just stop. Go watch a live speedrun, get a drink or a snack, but just do something else. When you don't think about the game anymore, try training again. Because working on it when you're angry is not productive AT ALL, you might even lose some reflexes or such.

I hope that was not too much to read/take, if anyone has any suggestion or critics, please let me know! I'm just like Patashu > I'd like to see a sub 30 run, and we all know that's not too hard.
@xfullmetal17 > If we have a bit of time on Skype, I can give you ALL my visual cues for trivial stages, that helps A LOT if you don't have any ;) Just to let you know, I almost have a visual cue for... basically every jump I perform in the game (except for bunny hopes and 1st frame jumps of course).

xfullmetal17

Edit history:

xfullmetal17: 2013-07-24 12:05:52 pm

xfullmetal17: 2013-07-24 11:17:02 am

2013-07-24 11:16:43 am

wibbly wobbly timey wimey

Progress update: I have Cascade's strat figured out, I can save a bit of time there now. (using KanBan's marathon route)
Elevator Action I think I have, the issue is that it's tough to tell on the first piece because of the game's autosave.
Second lair I get, you have to let the first "ghost" chandelier hit, then your two, then the two on the right.

Could you give the visual cue for lining up the "peak" of the jump in 3-8? ~~I always seem to be off a bit on that.~~ I think I figured it out, I was misinterpreting where the "peak" is.

Patashu

Edit history:

Patashu: 2013-07-24 03:11:59 pm

2013-07-24 03:11:25 pm

Quote from xfullmetal17:

Could you give the visual cue for lining up the "peak" of the jump in 3-8? ~~I always seem to be off a bit on that.~~ I think I figured it out, I was misinterpreting where the "peak" is.

Just to make sure you have it 100%, it's right here:

This is the highest local point, by starting your jump here you make clipping up onto the platform the easiest. + don't have a huge turnaround before doing the jump, the later in the timeline the jump is the more likely it is you can't steal the key from the goomba in the cycle.

P-why

2013-07-25 05:14:08 am

Yeah there are different cues for this jump. Kanban likes to place himself on the left of the yellow tree (plank?) in the back. My personal cue is the little "hole" on the ground. Whatever your cue is, you have to jump toward left. You can know if your jump is ok: if, at the climax of your jump, Tim is just under the right bar of the ladder (or a bit on the right of it), you should be good. That's an interresting thing to notice when you jump (the exact position of the climax of the jump) because it will help you placing Tim during your rewind. Also, note that Tim has a specific sprite for all the different steps of a jump. You'll learn to see how he looks like at the very peak of the jump, and you'll try to stop time at that very moment, or a few frames earlier, but DON'T try to stop time after that.
Here are some cues:

Here you see the different sprites close to the peak of a jump. Try to get the 2nd (the 1st one is BAD, Tim's already going down // 3rd one can be ok but it's still not the peak). The one on the right is the jump position according to the platform. I pointed out some cues, find the one you like the most (Tim's tie, feet, eyes, hair...) and be sure to be high enough (see the feet compared to the platform). As you can tell, The pictures 2 and 4 are taken at different moments, but I managed to find THAT same frame. It's an habbit I see it on 1st glance, try to recognize that very sprite of the jump while you're trying to stop time (use "frame advance" to adjust. You'll get more time once you're eased with x8 rewind)

This one points out the horizontal position, according to the ladder. It gives you an idea of the ideal jump. If Tim is a bit further to the right, it's still okay. But he cannot be more to the left (if so, it means your jump was too much to the left, and you won't be high enough).

I hope that helped. FYI, I jumped at the spot Patashu pointed out on the previous post.

And I realised it when I was preparing those screenshots, but Tim's tie is a very good cue. I usually look at Tim's legs and hair, but the tie really follows the jump. As soon as it reaches horizontal position, you're at the climax of the jump. When it starts pointing upwards, you're already falling Wink

Yeah there are different cues for this jump. Kanban likes to place himself on the left of the yellow tree (plank?) in the back. My personal cue is the little "hole" on the ground. Whatever your cue is, you have to jump toward left. You can know if your jump is ok: if, at the climax of your jump, Tim is just under the right bar of the ladder (or a bit on the right of it), you should be good. That's an interresting thing to notice when you jump (the exact position of the climax of the jump) because it will help you placing Tim during your rewind. Also, note that Tim has a specific sprite for all the different steps of a jump. You'll learn to see how he looks like at the very peak of the jump, and you'll try to stop time at that very moment, or a few frames earlier, but DON'T try to stop time after that.
Here are some cues:
[hidden][img]http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/4374/ww53.jpg[/img][/hidden]
Here you see the different sprites close to the peak of a jump. Try to get the 2nd (the 1st one is BAD, Tim's already going down // 3rd one can be ok but it's still not the peak). The one on the right is the jump position according to the platform. I pointed out some cues, find the one you like the most (Tim's tie, feet, eyes, hair...) and be sure to be high enough (see the feet compared to the platform). As you can tell, The pictures 2 and 4 are taken at different moments, but I managed to find THAT same frame. It's an habbit I see it on 1st glance, try to recognize that very sprite of the jump while you're trying to stop time (use "frame advance" to adjust. You'll get more time once you're eased with x8 rewind)
[hidden][img]http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/4431/dmhv.jpg[/img][/hidden]
This one points out the horizontal position, according to the ladder. It gives you an idea of the ideal jump. If Tim is a bit further to the right, it's still okay. But he cannot be more to the left (if so, it means your jump was too much to the left, and you won't be high enough).

I hope that helped. FYI, I jumped at the spot Patashu pointed out on the previous post.

And I realised it when I was preparing those screenshots, but Tim's tie is a very good cue. I usually look at Tim's legs and hair, but the tie really follows the jump. As soon as it reaches horizontal position, you're at the climax of the jump. When it starts pointing upwards, you're already falling ;)

Patashu

2013-07-25 07:09:54 am

I never thought of using the tie as a cue, creative!

xfullmetal17

Edit history:

xfullmetal17: 2013-07-28 09:51:39 am

xfullmetal17: 2013-07-26 10:57:55 pm

xfullmetal17: 2013-07-26 10:57:24 pm

2013-07-26 07:16:10 am

wibbly wobbly timey wimey

I'd tried to use the tie in world 6 for that Goomba jump but couldn't get it consistent. Didn't think to use it here, thanks!

edit: I'm getting that cue on 3-8 in my practice now, helps if I rewind to before the first jump and then advance it to the peak.

last edit: I've been looking back at the thread but can't seem to find what the current WR is, so I can plug it during the commentary.