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Edit history:
Emily: 2014-04-08 03:14:05 pm
Emily: 2014-04-08 03:08:20 pm
Emily: 2014-04-08 03:07:58 pm
No, SwordDanc does nothing on metals.  It's basically a critical attack, or nothing.  (EDIT: And, there are basically no skills that can crit, *except* for EvilSlash.)


EDIT 2: On the plus side, MetalKings are vulnerable to turn-loss abilities, so the other 3 members can all focus on keeping the MetalKing from running.  Bark/BoxerDanc/SpiderWeb, specifically.

You can also use Time Sand to reset a battle if the target flees, but other enemies remain.
Well, Massacre. And it's more accurate (if hilariously unreliable in other ways). But that's either midway through Dragoon or requires mastery of Berserker (135 fights + the heart), so EvilSlash is the better (if less entertaining) way.
Well, yeah, I forgot Massacre.  But doesn't that just target completely at random, like FF's Roulette?  It would be 1/5 chance of hitting a single target, in that case.

Besides, I have almost no revival skills... certainly no reliable ones, at least.  So I don't exactly want to go and slaughter my own party.  (The monsters do that just fine on their own, lol.)

Anyway, Metal hunting can take a while but *usually* doesn't.  The biggest problem is typically just finding one, and hoping that it doesn't just run on the very first turn.  But, I can usually kill them once they're in my sights.  Learning extra skills is kind of a waste, as long as I have some means of killing one.

For the record, there are some weapons that critical or miss (just like EvilSlash), and other weapons that can kill enemies instantly.  Those can also kill Metals, but the critical weapons are rare, and the instant death weapons rarely work.
I don't suppose you do any streaming for this game?
No.  I've tried streaming games in the past, but I don't have a computer or internet strong enough to handle it.
Ciento Dos Huevos
I am filled with deep sorrow...

I love this game and never see anyone run it.
Quote from ConHuevos:
I am filled with deep sorrow...

I love this game and never see anyone run it.

I'll find a way to record it, somehow.  If I can't record a single-segment, then I'll segment it, if I must.  I also really want to stream speedruns, and not only of this game.  I might even buy a new computer, if I have to.  I can't really afford much, but I think it might be worth it.

One way or another, I will find a way for people to see these runs.  I've put far too much work into it to give up.
So, I finally have a good recording setup, and took my first shot at a full single-segment.  The good news is that I recorded over 5 hours of video without a single audio desync or any major recording problems.  I had been rather concerned about that.

The bad news is... Absolutely terrible RNG.  2 full-party deaths and a few other setbacks made me lose over 30 minutes in the first 5 hours alone.  I don't exactly expect perfect RNG for 16 hours; that's basically impossible.  But I at least want a decent start.

It might be awhile before I have a good single-segment, because I have to set aside an entire day just to attempt it.  But I'll keep trying.
At sixteen hours, you would beat the longest run on the site (Grandia) by a fair margin.  Keep working on it, as I'm really interested in seeing the final result!
I finally finished a single-segment!!!  A fairly good one, too.  Final time is 16:27:57.

I had extremely good RNG for about 90% of the game.  But in the end, I died 3 times.  Once to Orgodemir at the end of Disc 1, and twice to him again at the end of the game.  That's really unfortunate, because dying against Orgodemir costs quite a lot of time.  I also messed up the Probina Skip glitch, but that skip is ridiculously hard to trigger, anyway.  And, there were a few basic menu errors and dumb mistakes here and there.  Altogether, I think I lost... maybe 45 minutes, total?  I'm not sure exactly.

On the other hand, I got perfect Metabble/MetalKing RNG, and the rest of the game was quite good.  And my initial goal was 16:30:00, anyway.  So I'm still pleased with the run, overall.

There might be a bigger problem, though...  The recording has some issues.  My computer overheated or something halfway through, and I lost about a minute of recording in the Hamelia area.  (Only about 1 minute out of roughly 1,000.  Figures.)  There also seems to be some sort of audio oversampling during certain sound effects.  ...Most of the game looks pretty good, though.

I still want to try submitting it.  Although, the source file is 424 GB, so it will take a while just to encode.
Edit history:
Emily: 2014-08-07 05:49:35 pm
Emily: 2014-08-07 05:48:20 pm
An update...  I know it's been a while.  It took me a full month to encode the old run, btw.  But honestly, I'm not happy with 16:27, and tried several more times for a better time.  I had an absolutely magnificent run of under 15:50 - I got the Probina Skip right, and the entire run was absolutely deathless, until the final form of the final boss.  I finally died there, and because I had used up all of my items fighting the previous forms, the entire run was over on the spot.  ...Extremely disappointing, to say the least.

I just don't think I can handle running a full single-segment like that again, physically or mentally.  It seems to be destroying my hardware, as well, because everything's overheating.  My computer even blue-screened, once.  But I don't want to give up on this altogether...  And I also don't want to just submit my old run, which clearly has so many flaws.

So, I was thinking of segmenting it, and submitting it in segments.  Just using my single-segment strats, and saving every couple hours, using a few save points that were practically on the route to begin with.  ...Well, I'm not sure if submitting it in segments really a good idea, but I want to show the strategies I've developed.  Otherwise, I'm just about ready to give up on this.



...Regardless, a simple question.  What's the correct timing for Dragon Quest segments?  Is it when you speak to the priest, or when you select the Save option?  Or when it starts physically saving, or when it's finished?  And the same kind of question for loading, too.  (I imagine that it's the same across the entire series.)


EDIT: I'm leaning towards just doing this in 3 segments.  I'm thinking: Start ~ Dharma (about 7 hours, if I include the skill grinding), Dune ~ Orgodemir (about 6 hours), and all of Disc 2 (about 3 hours).  That puts the hardest bosses at the end of each segment, and the easiest stuff at the start of each one.  That would force single-segment strats, while also maintaining my sanity.  I know that's still a segmented run and would be treated as such, but I think it's the most interesting option.
Man, so close on the 15:50...

I think a 3 segment run would be more than acceptable for a game this long.  I remember playing this one back in the day; as I recall, took me well over 30 hours to beat.

No need for a single segment if it starts to affect your physical/mental well being.  Stay healthy Wink
That's rough, losing the sub-16... but with a speedrun this taxing, you should do what gives you the motivation to keep going, even if it means segmenting.  Good luck!
Quote from ars4326:
No need for a single segment if it starts to affect your physical/mental well being.  Stay healthy Wink

Quote from Lhexa:
That's rough, losing the sub-16... but with a speedrun this taxing, you should do what gives you the motivation to keep going, even if it means segmenting.  Good luck!

Thanks, both of you!  I'll be sure not to kill myself doing this run anymore. Wink


Anyway, I've started my 3-segment run, and just got a great first segment!!!  As I had planned, I played through all of Dharma, including skill grinding, and basically ended just after defeating the bandits.  Saved in the village of Dune.

Time for segment #1... 6:36:00!!!  Deathless, with no major problems.  And, that's probably the hardest segment.  I'm quite happy with that time. Smiley

The RNG was, for lack of a better word... absolutely bonkers.  Well-timed critical hits and horribly-timed brutal hits, sleep spells connecting in both directions, all kinds of weird stuff.  I used all 3 WorldLeaves just to get through Dharma, even.  (That's not really a concern, though!  It's just unusual.  Because I'm totally out, I can actually get an extra WorldLeaf in the Krage area.)

I'm not sure how much time I lost (or gained?) on the weird RNG, but I know I lost about 30 seconds reviving Kiefer in the Engow area.  I also lost maybe... a minute on simple bad inputs.  (It's easy to make little mistakes when walking, talking, and menuing.  Mainly because of all the button-mashing, not to mention the game's weird movement system.  There's nothing too bad in that aspect; it just looks a little sloppier than I would have liked.)

But, a minute or two lost over the course of 6 and a half hours is minor, I would think.  The segment's deathless, and that's the most important part.  (And, the recorded video itself looks quite clean, as well!)  I'm quite pleased with it, thus far.
Edit history:
Emily: 2014-09-08 10:34:48 pm
Segment 2 complete!!!  Time: 6:00:45!  Deathless, of course.  This was also the segment with the Probina Skip glitch (about 2 hours in), and I got that, too.  (FYI, this segment runs from Dune to the disc change, at the end of Disc 1.  Quite a lot of content, there.)

The RNG was quite good overall.  HellVine gave me some trouble (full-party sleep breath, ick), but most of the other fights were extremely quick and clean.  (Actually got perfect RNG, against a few bosses!)  And I finished this segment with 3 WorldLeaves and 2 WorldDews, so I'm quite set for the final boss.

I also lost about 2 minutes on imperfect (but still fairly good) Metabble luck.  That could have been a LOT worse, but Aira saved my run with an extremely well-timed natural critical.  Not an EvilSlash critical, just a good old-fashioned lucky one!  Quite possibly the best timing for a critical hit, ever.  Cheesy

On the downside, there were a few more bad inputs.  There's a ton to keep track of, so I find that it's disturbingly easy to make little mistakes walking about.  (Nothing too severe, though.  Maybe about a minute, total.)


...One shockingly awesome detail, though.  My last single-segment (the almost 15:50 one) looked quite good, and yet, I've shaved a whopping 24 minutes off of my time.  7 minutes in the first segment, and 17 minutes off the second segment!  I truly don't know how.  Maybe's it's faster menuing, or good RNG, or the simple fact that I'm not totally burned out by the end.  But somehow, it's happening.

Even using single-segment strats, I could potentially finish the run in under 15:30, which I had previously thought to be impossible.  Even better than that, it *may* be possible to use suicidal strats against the final boss, and shave even more time off.  (That's seriously a long shot, though; the final boss is already quite insane, even as-is.)

I'll finish the run (and encode it) with normal strats first, before I try experimenting.  But either way, I'm extremely happy with this run!



EDIT: I think I figured out the reason for the large time discrepancy in Segment #2.  My 15:50-ish run was deathless, but the fights weren't very clean at all.  Quicker fights and generally faster menuing could account for that much time.

As for the last segment, I have a few ideas.  One, I may be able to skip re-running the final dungeon for the Gaiala Armor.  (I normally go through it twice, getting both the Fuego Helm and Gaiala Armor.  If I skip that, I would instead hold onto an extra Water Robe, which in this run, I have just barely enough money to do.)  And, I might be able to cut down on some of the MetalKing level grinding.  (Probably just some, not all.)  Both are effectively safe-strats for the final boss, and rather time-consuming ones at that.  But, the final boss is brutal, so I'm not sure exactly how much I can cut out.

I'll have to experiment with it, a bit.  I suspect that a sub-15 hour run may be possible, but frankly seems a little far-fetched.
Edit history:
Lhexa: 2014-09-11 12:15:45 pm
Very good progress!  As for your contemplated route changes at the very end, there's no shame in making one more segment split for the final bit.  In my Dragon Warrior run, the segments ranged from three minutes to two hours, as necessity or convenience dictated.

Good luck, and try not to burn out. ^_^
I hope you are still working on this, very excited to see this run!!  I would too like to someday rta this game as well!
Well I decided to pick up this game as a project, have been working on it lately.  It started as a follower special, but I'm thinking I may put some serious time in this eventually, maybe after the new year when work calms down.

I have been following the Japanese route for now, I want to see how he does everything before I decide what changes I want to put in.  So far I've taken notes through Probina, hope to have notes finished by end of next week.  The biggest change I've seen so far echoes something Emily said, the Japanese runner uses Spider Webs in Dharma, and wastes a lot of time using them when they aren't very reliable.  Sleep seems to work almost every time, and a more offensive approach seems to be the way.  Also gives me more gold to play with in case I need to use some revives.

I'll keep things updated if I find any other changes I really want to exploit, not going to really focus on them until I finish seeing entire route. 
Uh oh, it looks like I have a bit of a rival now.  Cheesy  Good luck!

And don't worry, I'm still working on this.  I've just been a bit busy this past month.  (I hope to have the last part done this week, actually.)
My rival! Go pikachu!  Erm, ok

So there are definitely some minor boss improvements later on, like around Loomin area where Gabo isn't really utilized in the boss fights.  I can beat some bosses faster just with using howl or parry.  On my way to Mardra now, been busy with school past week but I have a lull coming up this weekend/next week.  So I'll finish this up and see where to go from here.

Good to see you still working on this too Emily.  I'll be streaming my first attempt within the month, after that it will probably be after the new year when I can dive full tilt into this.
Edit history:
Emily: 2014-11-14 12:52:25 pm
I think I'm going to split Disc 2 into two segments.  One segment for rescuing the spirits, and then the final dungeon by itself.  I originally wanted to do this disc in one shot, but I really hate the start of Disc 2.  It's basically 2 hours straight of pointless dialogue and nasty random encounters.

Besides, the final dungeon is a nightmare of RNG.  In a single-segment, I basically just hang around the dungeon for a bit until I'm totally prepared for the final boss, killing MetalKings and collecting treasure.  But given that this is a segmented run, that's not exactly appropriate.  With a save to fall back on, I can probably shave off a good 10 minutes just on the prep time alone.

By the way, I've already run the first part of this.
My time: 2:01:18.  That puts the running total at 14:38:03, with only the final dungeon to go.

I'm not sure I'm entirely happy with that segment time.  It's certainly not bad, but it could be about 3 minutes faster.  I lost a little time on basic errors and poor random encounters, but the biggest problem was Nengal.  I had to Time Sand him twice.  But, um... Honestly, I just really don't want to do that part again.  It's a ton of mindless button-mashing, and getting a good time is completely reliant on the RNG.

But, I'm still quite happy with the overall time.  My goal is sub-15 hours, and 22 minutes to beat Orgodemir almost seems possible...

If I can get under 15 hours, I'll gladly keep the run as-is.  If not, I'll think I might redo the 3rd part.


EDIT: I went ahead and pummeled Orgodemir, to make sure that my current equipment strategy would work.  But, I do need to kill 1 MetalKing to have a fighting chance.  (No MetalKings, for the record, is outright suicide.)

But, even with good RNG on the MetalKing, defeating Orgodemir at such a low level would likely put me around 23-25 minutes.  So, I think I'll have to re-do the previous part to get sub-15.
...Oh, you have GOT to be kidding me.  My PS2 controller's broken.

While I was running the game, I felt a big electrical shock from the wire at the top of the controller.  And all of the buttons on the controller immediately stopped responding.  I tried unplugging the controller and even the system, but nope, nothing.  Until I can fix the controller or replace it, I can't possibly finish this run.
Sorry to hear Emily, this game is rough on a controller.  I did finish routing it last week and have been playing through again, trying to find minor changes to make to route.  Would love sometime to know if you made any major changes to the DQ runners route? 
I can't tell if the controller shorted out because I was hitting the buttons too quickly, or if it was just static electricity and bad luck.  Either way, it's seriously annoying.

Compared to the DQ run, I made a lot of little changes in the item pickups, equipment purchases, and battle strategies.  Like buying more armor right before Dharma.  I also focused on elemental defense (Dragon Robes) over status defense in the endgame.  Picked up some extra seeds, getting or skipping different equipment, etc.  A lot of little things.  (I have a HUGE text file filled with that kind of stuff, so I can follow it while I'm playing.)

Also, I already had good battle strategies for most of the game, so a lot of the boss strats (like the Dharma arena, Antoria, and Nengal) are actually quite a bit different than his.  (Though I did learn a few really useful things, like using the Flame Claw as an item.  I liked most of his strats in the middle third of the game, actually.)

There were a lot of little things, really, and I think my strategy's really quite solid.  But, it would take forever to write out all of the decisions that I made...  That's why I wanted to finish this and show the video, so people could see my strats for themselves.

I *did*, however, use the Japanese runner's skill grinding pattern exactly as-is.  Before I watched that run, I had tried for weeks to find a good set of skills, but nothing as clean as the skillset he used.  SwordDanc, Stampede, Tiptoe, and HealUs are just too useful, and his grinding pattern seems really efficient.  (There is one odd exception I had found in my experiments: Once you know Orgodemir's attack patterns, you can use Ironize to utterly humiliate him.  But, Ironize requires either a random monster heart, or a full collection of TinyMedals.  It might be a plausible strat, but it doesn't really work in a single-segment.)

I also largely used his order for completing events (with a few notable exceptions, like present-era Mardra).  But, aside from the Probina/Loomin/Mardra section, there really isn't much you CAN change in the story route.

By the way, there are a few tiny differences in decisions due to the language change; I timed a lot of the dialogue to see which options were better.  And the Japanese runner also does not use the Probina Skip glitch at all, which saves roughly 7 minutes.



I wanted to finish my run first, but I might start encoding the first 2 video parts in the meantime.  That takes a long time, though.  (By the way, where can I share the video when it's ready?  I've never done it before...  Youtube, I guess?  I plan on submitting it to SDA, too, but the submission process can take a long time.)

PS: I would really prefer to beat the last segment in one shot, instead of splitting it like I had mentioned.  So, I do want to try that again.  ...Although, I'm worried that all that dialogue in Disc 2 might break another controller.
Yeah most of the changes I've come up with so far involve little bit of gear and boss strategies.  Japanese runner likes spiderwebs and defending with Gabo, I noticed a lot of potential for howl.  He also double saps a lot of fights that don't need it, can't remember the specific ones off top of my head.  I also haven't looked too deeply into getting more seeds yet, I haven't come across too many problems with getting the ones the Japanese runner gets.

Skill grind is solid, he does get the perfect skills needed for the amount of time needed to get them.  I haven't had a chance to practice Probina skip yet, will get to that soon.

Yeah my notes is 47 pages long right now, need to clean them up, with the mass amount of things to do in the game, you would be crazy to memorize them all. 

I never export my VODs to anything other than twitch, so unless you are submitting to SDA, its really based on your preference for site.  Youtube is always a good spot if you don't stream on twitch or hitbox.

Thanks for the response, hopefully in a few weeks you can see my run and yell at me for how bad it is.