Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen

Edit history:

mkob: 2013-05-09 04:28:26 am

mkob: 2013-05-09 01:11:55 am

2013-05-08 12:58:58 pm

I've only seen one thread about speedrunning Dragon's Dogma and was wondering why it got no love.

The "Dark Arisen" DLC got released not so long ago, it features the main game, a new area and a ton of new gear as well as a Speedrun mode. In this Speedrun Mode, you basically start a New Game but here's the thing:

You keep all your including items, money, ferrystones, portcrystals, etc. from your main save file (you only get one save slot, by the way) and you and your AI pawn retain all of the stats you have in the main game.

That being said, you can totally cheese through the game in under 25 minutes. How do I put this.
This mode is kinda... cheating, since you're not starting a New Game from scratch and can already have all the end-game gear maxed out (that is the case for me.)

Moreso, if you make good use of the fast travel system and by planning in advance the items you need to fulfill a quest, Speedrun Mode becomes a total cake walk.

For example: An NPC asks you to bring him a ring. You need to go to an area to kill another dude and get said ring. However, if you already have the ring in your Main Game, you can directly give it to the quest giver, thus finishing the quest in 10 seconds instead of 10 minutes.

My record is 23:13 (picture taken after beating Speedrun Mode to prove it), I used the strategy from this video, a NG+ Any% run, done without exploit or glitch (he beat vanilla Dragon's Dogma in 25:10, this is not Dark Arisen, though). I believe this run might be the most efficient route to beat the game and is applicable in Dark Arisen. OP's speedrun strategy roughly explained here. (credits to Falcen7)

I do not know if there's a fastest Dragon's Dogma speedrun yet, so please correct me if you know a sub 20 min run.

As for my 23:13 run, I made a ton of mistakes, but for my defense I was only experimenting. However, if one improves Falcen7's strategy, I'm sure you can beat Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen in under 20 minutes.

I hope to find some other runners for this game.

Edit: my new record is 20:55 now. I've recorded my run and will upload it on youtube in a bit, I need to edit the loading times because the video is 50m long (20 min of gameplay, literally 30min of loading times, urgh.)

Thread title:

I've only seen one thread about speedrunning Dragon's Dogma and was wondering why it got no love.

The "Dark Arisen" DLC got released not so long ago, it features the main game, a new area and a ton of new gear as well as a Speedrun mode. In this Speedrun Mode, you basically start a New Game but here's the thing:

You keep all your including items, money, ferrystones, portcrystals, etc. from your main save file (you only get one save slot, by the way) and you and your AI pawn retain all of the stats you have in the main game.

That being said, you can totally cheese through the game in under 25 minutes. How do I put this. 
This mode is kinda... cheating, since you're not starting a New Game from scratch and can already have all the end-game gear maxed out (that is the case for me.)

Moreso, if you make good use of the fast travel system and by planning in advance the items you need to fulfill a quest, Speedrun Mode becomes a total cake walk.

For example: An NPC asks you to bring him a ring. You need to go to an area to kill another dude and get said ring. However, if you already have the ring in your Main Game, you can directly give it to the quest giver, thus finishing the quest in 10 seconds instead of 10 minutes.

My record is [URL=http://imgur.com/STrwAqt]23:13[/URL] (picture taken after beating Speedrun Mode to prove it), I used the strategy from [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYd28XoUGY0]this video[/url], a NG+ Any% run, done without exploit or glitch (he beat vanilla Dragon's Dogma in 25:10, this is not Dark Arisen, though). I believe this run might be the most efficient route to beat the game and is applicable in Dark Arisen. [url=http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/626515-dragons-dogma/65780342]OP's speedrun strategy roughly explained here[/url]. (credits to Falcen7)

I do not know if there's a fastest Dragon's Dogma speedrun yet, so please correct me if you know a sub 20 min run.

As for my 23:13 run, I made a ton of mistakes, but for my defense I was only experimenting. However, if one improves Falcen7's strategy, I'm sure you can beat Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen in under 20 minutes.

I hope to find some other runners for this game.

Edit: my new record is 20:55 now. I've recorded my run and will upload it on youtube in a bit, I need to edit the loading times because the video is 50m long (20 min of gameplay, literally 30min of loading times, urgh.)

mkob

Edit history:

mkob: 2013-05-10 02:16:37 am

mkob: 2013-05-09 07:03:03 pm

2013-05-09 07:02:33 pm

Alrighty, for those interested, here's my 20 minutes 57 seconds Dark Arisen NG+ Any% run. I've added subtitle commentary and edited the loading time.
I'll do more speedrun attempts, this one is just version 1.0.

mkob

2013-05-10 02:16:13 am

I was right. I just beat DA in 19:17

It's just the credits showing my timer, not the entire run.

mkob

Edit history:

mkob: 2013-05-18 11:27:25 am

mkob: 2013-05-18 11:27:10 am

mkob: 2013-05-13 01:49:53 pm

mkob: 2013-05-12 02:17:25 am

mkob: 2013-05-12 02:16:55 am

2013-05-12 02:16:41 am

Speedrun 2.0

This is sorta obsolete as of now (nothing big, just minor stuff since I'm still experimenting), I'll update it in the near future.

1. Turn back and run
2. Pick Strider
3. Run to encampment
4. Talk to Riftstone
5. Equip gear and items, make sure to take a Shield
Main Character: Ferrystone x22, Skeleton Key x3, Blast Arrows x10
Liquid Vim x10, Wirmking's Ring, Wakestone x2, Maker's Finger x1
Pawn: Spring Water x100

6. Headshot the Ogre
7. Talk to Riftstone, get main pawn, vocation doesn't matter
8. Ignore tutorial
9. Talk to Mercedes
10. Equip Blast Arrows, shoot Hydra
11. Head to Waycastle

12. Kick Oax 2 times, use 2 / 3 Spring water
Ignore enemies unless they're annoying
Activate boulders trap earlier by running ahead

13. Time should either be 8:00 or ~7:30 if perfect run
Gran Soren reached. Switch to Assassin. Equip Gale Harness skill.
Give Wakestone x20, Blast Arrows x100, 22 Conqueror's Periapts, 5 Water God quest item x5 to main pawn
Give Blast Arrow x200 to 2nd pawn
Give better gear to both pawns? This could avoid their eventual death in Tainted Mountain.

14. Jump directly in Everfall, examine the thing, use Wakestone, Ferrystone to Gran Soren
15. Get "Aid Research Team" and "Decipher Text" quests
16. Talk to quest giver in church, ferrystone to waterfall area
17. Talk to the dude, use Gale Harness, enter waterfall, finish quest, Ferrystone back to waterfall
18. Give Quest item x5 to dude, Ferrystone to Dragonforged
19. Talk to dude, Ferrystone to Gran soren to turn back quests
20. Get "Hear the Duke's request", get quests from Aldous
21. Ferrystone outside of Gran Soren, get "Kill Griffin" quest, Ferrystone near the Goblins
22. Grab goblin, attract Griffin, use 4 Conqueror's Periapts and Blast Arrow x20, shoot Griffin before he lands
23. Ferrystone to Gran Soren, sleep for 7 days
24. After Fournival's trial cutscene, attack nearest NPC to get thrown into Dungeon
25. Talk to Aldous, give Wirmking's Ring, talk to Mercedes
26. Ferrystone to Mercedes' quest, kill the dude, roll to the right after cutscene, Ferrystone to Gran Soren
27. Talk to Aldous, go meet the Duke
28. Grab duke, jump on the first floor, get thrown into dungeon, use skeleton key to escape, Duke should already be in Treasure room
29. Go to Tainted Mountain, use Liquid Vim, activate Gale Harness, Cutting Wind to move faster?
30. Use 4 Conqueror's Periapts and Blast Arrow x20, kill Chimerae (note: why am I always misspelling Chimera to Chimerae?)
31. Gale Harness, Cutting Wind, reach the 2 Wights
32. Use 4 Conqueror's Periapts and Blast Arrow x20, kill 2 Wights
33. Ignore Dragonforged, use Liquid Vim, Gale Harness to Tainted Mountain
34. Cutting Wind through the area,
36. Mental note to use Liquid Vim, keep an eye on stamina bar
37. Pray so that the Chimerae AI is cooperative and step on pressure plates, use Shield skill to get aggro from it
38. Timer should be ~16 minutes if perfect run
39. use Maker's Finger, kill The Dragon, skip cutscenes
40. Ferrystone to Gran Soren, Gale Harness, run into the Pawn Guild, talk to the Lady, give Wakestone, take 3 Liquid Vim
41. Jump in Everfall, shoot arrow at dude, Use Liquid Vim, run away using Cutting Wind, do the same thing for the 2 scripted fights
42. Use Liquid Vim, use Cutting Wind to go faster? It's hard to avoid the NPCs with the Cutting Wind's auto-target.
Must experiment if rolling is faster.
43. Shoot arrow at dude, wait until Pawn grabs him, shoot arrow, skip cutscene, directly shoot arrow
44. Use Godsbane

Speedrun 2.0

This is sorta obsolete as of now (nothing big, just minor stuff since I'm still experimenting), I'll update it in the near future.

1. Turn back and run
2. Pick Strider 
3. Run to encampment
4. Talk to Riftstone
5. Equip gear and items, make sure to take a Shield
Main Character: Ferrystone x22, Skeleton Key x3, Blast Arrows x10
Liquid Vim x10, Wirmking's Ring, Wakestone x2, Maker's Finger x1
Pawn: Spring Water x100 
 
6. Headshot the Ogre
7. Talk to Riftstone, get main pawn, vocation doesn't matter
8. Ignore tutorial
9. Talk to Mercedes
10. Equip Blast Arrows, shoot Hydra
11. Head to Waycastle

12. Kick Oax 2 times, use 2 / 3 Spring water
Ignore enemies unless they're annoying
Activate boulders trap earlier by running ahead

13. Time should either be 8:00 or ~7:30 if perfect run
Gran Soren reached. Switch to Assassin. Equip Gale Harness skill.
Give Wakestone x20, Blast Arrows x100, 22 Conqueror's Periapts, 5 Water God quest item x5 to main pawn
Give Blast Arrow x200 to 2nd pawn
Give better gear to both pawns? This could avoid their eventual death in Tainted Mountain.

14. Jump directly in Everfall, examine the thing, use Wakestone, Ferrystone to Gran Soren
15. Get "Aid Research Team" and "Decipher Text" quests
16. Talk to quest giver in church, ferrystone to waterfall area
17. Talk to the dude, use Gale Harness, enter waterfall, finish quest, Ferrystone back to waterfall
18. Give Quest item x5 to dude, Ferrystone to Dragonforged
19. Talk to dude, Ferrystone to Gran soren to turn back quests
20. Get "Hear the Duke's request", get quests from Aldous
21. Ferrystone outside of Gran Soren, get "Kill Griffin" quest, Ferrystone near the Goblins
22. Grab goblin, attract Griffin, use 4 Conqueror's Periapts and Blast Arrow x20, shoot Griffin before he lands
23. Ferrystone to Gran Soren, sleep for 7 days
24. After Fournival's trial cutscene, attack nearest NPC to get thrown into Dungeon
25. Talk to Aldous, give Wirmking's Ring, talk to Mercedes
26. Ferrystone to Mercedes' quest, kill the dude, roll to the right after cutscene, Ferrystone to Gran Soren
27. Talk to Aldous, go meet the Duke
28. Grab duke, jump on the first floor, get thrown into dungeon, use skeleton key to escape, Duke should already be in Treasure room
29. Go to Tainted Mountain, use Liquid Vim, activate Gale Harness, Cutting Wind to move faster?
30. Use 4 Conqueror's Periapts and Blast Arrow x20, kill Chimerae (note: why am I always misspelling Chimera to Chimerae?)
31. Gale Harness, Cutting Wind, reach the 2 Wights
32. Use 4 Conqueror's Periapts and Blast Arrow x20, kill 2 Wights
33. Ignore Dragonforged, use Liquid Vim, Gale Harness to Tainted Mountain
34. Cutting Wind through the area, 
36. Mental note to use Liquid Vim, keep an eye on stamina bar
37. Pray so that the Chimerae AI is cooperative and step on pressure plates, use Shield skill to get aggro from it
38. Timer should be ~16 minutes if perfect run
39. use Maker's Finger, kill The Dragon, skip cutscenes
40. Ferrystone to Gran Soren, Gale Harness, run into the Pawn Guild, talk to the Lady, give Wakestone, take 3 Liquid Vim
41. Jump in Everfall, shoot arrow at dude, Use Liquid Vim, run away using Cutting Wind, do the same thing for the 2 scripted fights
42. Use Liquid Vim, use Cutting Wind to go faster? It's hard to avoid the NPCs with the Cutting Wind's auto-target. 
Must experiment if rolling is faster.
43. Shoot arrow at dude, wait until Pawn grabs him, shoot arrow, skip cutscene, directly shoot arrow
44. Use Godsbane

mkob

Edit history:

mkob: 2013-05-13 11:30:49 am

2013-05-13 11:23:48 am

A friend of mine managed to beat the game in 18 minutes 35 seconds, here's his run if you're interested:

He said he will add annotations to the video and explain what he did, so I guess you should wait a couple days before watching the video if you really want to read the annotations. This is pretty much the same route I wrote in my last post, except he improved on various things.

So I copied his route (we discussed about how to improve our run and he came up with very interesting strategies, such as killing the Cockatrice from afar and use the Chimerae in Tainted Mountain to activate the pressure plates etc.) however, I managed to one-up him and am proud to announce that I beat Speedrun Mode in 17 minutes 55 seconds:

A sub 18 minutes run is thus possible.

mkob

Edit history:

mkob: 2013-05-18 11:29:02 am

mkob: 2013-05-18 11:28:46 am

2013-05-17 03:16:28 pm

I have awesome news. I beat Dragon's Dogma in 17 minutes 32 seconds.

I've streamed the run on my twitch account, I'll upload it on my Youtube in the near future.

EDIT:

mkob

Edit history:

mkob: 2013-05-17 10:07:35 pm

mkob: 2013-05-17 10:03:37 pm

mkob: 2013-05-17 10:03:26 pm

2013-05-17 10:02:59 pm

Welp.

I didn't think it was possible, but I did it. I beat Dragon's Dogma in 16 minutes 50 seconds.
Messed up a few times, lost about 20 seconds total, so I guess a 16:30 run is possible?

I didn't use Gale Harness at all, just Cutting Wind like crazy. Turns out it's faster than running or using Gale Harness (next time I should try Gale Harness + Cutting Wind).

Proof:

mkob

2013-05-18 11:23:11 am

Here's two speed test videos I've recorded, showing my character running from a point A to a point B.

Sheering Wind (the Cutting Wind skill upgrade you can get from the DLC area) appears to be the fastest way to travel.

Though like I said in the second video, using Gale Harness + Cutting Wind seems to be faster or equivalent to just using Sheering Wind. However I don't think it's worth it in the long run, the timing is more strict and I doubt it's useful to do GH + CW to cover short distances.

mkob

Edit history:

mkob: 2013-05-20 05:23:39 am

mkob: 2013-05-20 05:22:46 am

2013-05-20 05:21:27 am

More fantastic news:

I've improved my score to 16:04 and recorded the run.

This is my last attempt at speedrunning (and recording) this game, though. A sub 16 minutes is doable but it requires perfect timing, oh sorry I mean, it requires a PERFECT everything. I'm not that good at the game to attempt a perfect run, so I'll have to pass the torch to anyone who's willing to do it (if they're crazy enough that is.)

More info in the video description.

EXLemmy

2013-11-13 07:44:22 pm

Im rather new to the speedrunning game, but i decided to start with Dragon's Dogma Dark Arisen, seeing as it's one my favorite games ever. I studied the routes, videos, and toyed around with my own strategies, and my first time was a 23:09 in game time, 47:14 RTA: http://i.imgur.com/9SryGmV.png

I lost about 2 minutes and 30 seconds on the "Kill Grigori" split, specifically in the room with the Gorechimera right before Grigori, because Hellhounds and Succubi followed me in and proceeded to push my poop in. Had to use my spare wakestone, I was glad i brought one for safety or else i would have been toast X_X

EXLemmy

2013-11-15 01:59:00 am

I PB'd tonight, by almost 5 minutes. In-game time of 20:09, RTA 42:34 http://i.imgur.com/5FickoV.png

The Gorechimera section went a lot better. I was better overall at my moving and my menu navigating. The only bad spots were the Caravan Escort (goblins almost killed it at the 2nd waycastle) I kept accidentally talking to my pawn, I kept messing up running up the stair set to the noble quarter, and my menu navigating at the Inn was pretty bad. With all that being said, I am really happy about my PB! I'm gonna be focusing on improving RTA, but ive yet to find the best RTA time out there to try and set my sights on.

Dak_Rey

2014-02-06 12:40:30 pm

Is anyone interested in New Game rather than New Game + runs? I've made a character to run with up until you get your pawn (the minimum distance to unlock speedrun) doing nothing but mandatory content. Spent all my money and dropped all items so the only real difference from a completely new game is 1349 exp and 200dcp.

I recorded a time of 1:57:18 at the end of the game (2:36:14 RTA) http://www.twitch.tv/dak_rey/b/501212123

It was far from a perfect run so even using my current strategies I can improve by a fair few minutes. However, I'm sure there would be many changes to my route that could also save time that I haven't thought of and would like to be able to discuss different opportunities in the game.
In particular I have a 15-20 minute section of ranking up Mage vocation to get the improved buffs and Focus Bolt that I would really like to cut out somehow.

zastbat

Edit history:

zastbat: 2014-02-06 02:26:30 pm

zastbat: 2014-02-06 02:24:09 pm

2014-02-06 02:21:10 pm

Lord Of The Beards

I played around with newgame for a bit the first thing that stands out if the griffon if you were able to kill it on the first encounter you would save like 8 minutes instead of having to do the tower sequence for the griffon (I timed it from entrance to you placing the stone). I have only tried it with throwblasts and I think you could get some from madeleine maybe but i'm not sure if that would be enough or if getting them at all would help.

Another question are you sure mage is the go to class for this one? I would imagine you picked it for the escort mission speedup and focus bolts but getting focus bolts takes you 15-20 minutes. Like if you took a ranger you would be able to maker arrow the dragon immediately and skip his entire fight sequence saving 9 minutes while also skipping the farming the only problems would be the rest of the combat in the game and the Ur-Dragon which you can stunlock with holy element dragon daggers when buffed (could possibly be done in 1 encounter?) but you would need a ton of money which I am not sure you would have if you killed the dragon immediately skipping the items you could pick up.

I do not really have time to watch the whole run right now but I will get around to it eventually to see if anything pops into my head.

I would like to pick up newgame eventually so if you dont mind is there an easier way to contact you? I am really bad at checking SDA forums lol.

I played around with newgame for a bit the first thing that stands out if the griffon if you were able to kill it on the first encounter you would save like 8 minutes instead of having to do the tower sequence for the griffon (I timed it from entrance to you placing the stone).  I have only tried it with throwblasts and I think you could get some from madeleine maybe but i'm not sure if that would be enough or if getting them at all would help.

Another question are you sure mage is the go to class for this one?  I would imagine you picked it for the escort mission speedup and focus bolts but getting focus bolts takes you 15-20 minutes.  Like if you took a ranger you would be able to maker arrow the dragon immediately and skip his entire fight sequence saving 9 minutes while also skipping the farming the only problems would be the rest of the combat in the game and the Ur-Dragon which you can stunlock with holy element dragon daggers when buffed (could possibly be done in 1 encounter?) but you would need a ton of money which I am not sure you would have if you killed the dragon immediately skipping the items you could pick up.

I do not really have time to watch the whole run right now but I will get around to it eventually to see if anything pops into my head.

I would like to pick up newgame eventually so if you dont mind is there an easier way to contact you?  I am really bad at checking SDA forums lol.

mkob

Edit history:

mkob: 2014-02-06 02:38:18 pm

mkob: 2014-02-06 02:31:57 pm

2014-02-06 02:30:11 pm

Quote from Dak_Rey:

Is anyone interested in New Game rather than New Game + runs?

Yes! Woah, 2h30 sounds like a really good time for a NG run. Last time I checked, I think ~5 or 6h was the best people could do. I haven't watched your run yet, I'm downloading the twitch archive as I'm speaking, but I do have a bunch of questions and random suggestions:

Why start a game on Speed Run mode, exactly? Do you think you really need the ingame-timer? It pauses every time you go in the inventory menu, and if you go by SDA's RTA timer standard then yeah, the ingame-timer is pretty useless and inaccurate. On the other hand, the loading times are faster in Speed Run mode since the game doesn't auto-save every two goddamn seconds, which is better for RTA.

Which leads me to my next question, have you considered doing a New Game on Hard difficulty instead of Normal? Speed Run mode is locked on Normal, hear me out, on Hard, enemies are harder to kill but on the plus side, they drop a huge amount of money (you get more XP also?), so you could grind / get better gear and items way faster.

I agree with what zastbat says about the Grifori fight, you can skip this long-ass battle by using a Maker's Finger (sold by Fournival in Gran Soren). It costs 300.000G, though... so maybe if you're playing on Hard mode, you can get this item fairly early in the game and skip the 10ish minutes fight with the Dragon?

EDIT: according to the DD wiki:
Hard mode pros:
-Enemies drop ton of gold (goblins will randomly drop 10k gold pouch)
-EXP rate and Vocation leveling is increased by 2x
(-Enemy Health remains unchanged.)

Cons:
-Enemy stagger and knockdown resistance is dramatically increased.
-The amount of stamina draining and damage increase seems to be roughly two times that of normal mode. Stamina drain is not increased when running.

[quote="Dak_Rey"]Is anyone interested in New Game rather than New Game + runs? [/quote]

Yes! Woah, 2h30 sounds like a really good time for a NG run. Last time I checked, I think ~5 or 6h was the best people could do. I haven't watched your run yet, I'm downloading the twitch archive as I'm speaking, but I do have a bunch of questions and random suggestions:

Why start a game on Speed Run mode, exactly? Do you think you really need the ingame-timer? It pauses every time you go in the inventory menu, and if you go by SDA's RTA timer standard then yeah, the ingame-timer is pretty useless and inaccurate. On the other hand, the loading times are faster in Speed Run mode since the game doesn't auto-save every two goddamn seconds, which is better for RTA.

Which leads me to my next question, have you considered doing a New Game on Hard difficulty instead of Normal? Speed Run mode is locked on Normal, hear me out, on Hard, enemies are harder to kill but on the plus side, they drop a huge amount of money (you get more XP also?), so you could grind / get better gear and items way faster.

I agree with what zastbat says about the Grifori fight, you can skip this long-ass battle by using a Maker's Finger (sold by Fournival in Gran Soren). It costs 300.000G, though... so maybe if you're playing on Hard mode, you can get this item fairly early in the game and skip the 10ish minutes fight with the Dragon?

EDIT: according to the DD wiki:
Hard mode pros:
-Enemies drop ton of gold (goblins will randomly drop 10k gold pouch)
-EXP rate and Vocation leveling is increased by 2x
(-Enemy Health remains unchanged.)

Cons:
-Enemy stagger and knockdown resistance is dramatically increased.  
-The amount of stamina draining and damage increase seems to be roughly two times that of normal mode. Stamina drain is not increased when running.

zastbat

Edit history:

zastbat: 2014-02-06 02:43:34 pm

zastbat: 2014-02-06 02:37:19 pm

zastbat: 2014-02-06 02:36:54 pm

zastbat: 2014-02-06 02:36:50 pm

zastbat: 2014-02-06 02:36:48 pm

2014-02-06 02:35:56 pm

Lord Of The Beards

Quote from mkob:

I agree with what zastbat says about the Grifori fight, you can skip this whole part of the game by using a Maker's Finger (sold by Fournival in Gran Soren). It costs 300.000G, though... so maybe if you're playing on Hard mode, you can get this item fairly early in the game and skip the 10ish minutes fight with the Dragon?

You can get the 300k required (and much more) by only doing main quests also yea I did a run for fun and got like a high 5 hour time using only throwblasts and the maker arrow strat then using the dragon blades you get from grigori to beat ur-dragon (clearly I didnt care about how optimized I was). This game throws a really dumb amount of money at you so I imagine it would be fairly possible to do. The problem really comes in with every other fight in the game though since you would be playing ranger I suppose for the arrow. Also doesnt hard mode raise stamina use? that would slow down the beginning of the game until you get large mushrooms I would imagine but yea give you access to mad money. (edit: just read the edit to mkobs post that should be no problem as long as you can survive lol)

[quote="mkob"]I agree with what zastbat says about the Grifori fight, you can skip this whole part of the game by using a Maker's Finger (sold by Fournival in Gran Soren). It costs 300.000G, though... so maybe if you're playing on Hard mode, you can get this item fairly early in the game and skip the 10ish minutes fight with the Dragon?[/quote]

You can get the 300k required (and much more) by only doing main quests also yea I did a run for fun and got like a high 5 hour time using only throwblasts and the maker arrow strat then using the dragon blades you get from grigori to beat ur-dragon (clearly I didnt care about how optimized I was).  This game throws a really dumb amount of money at you so I imagine it would be fairly possible to do.  The problem really comes in with every other fight in the game though since you would be playing ranger I suppose for the arrow.  Also doesnt hard mode raise stamina use?  that would slow down the beginning of the game until you get large mushrooms I would imagine but yea give you access to mad money. (edit: just read the edit to mkobs post that should be no problem as long as you can survive lol)

Dak_Rey

2014-02-07 06:31:20 pm

Quote:

I played around with newgame for a bit the first thing that stands out if the griffon if you were able to kill it on the first encounter you would save like 8 minutes instead of having to do the tower sequence for the griffon (I timed it from entrance to you placing the stone). I have only tried it with throwblasts and I think you could get some from madeleine maybe but i'm not sure if that would be enough or if getting them at all would help.

I've not experimented with throwblasts at all, but I did try getting Comestion for the first Griffin fight and still couldn't kill it quickly enough.

Quote:

Another question are you sure mage is the go to class for this one? I would imagine you picked it for the escort mission speedup and focus bolts but getting focus bolts takes you 15-20 minutes. Like if you took a ranger you would be able to maker arrow the dragon immediately and skip his entire fight sequence saving 9 minutes while also skipping the farming the only problems would be the rest of the combat in the game and the Ur-Dragon which you can stunlock with holy element dragon daggers when buffed (could possibly be done in 1 encounter?) but you would need a ton of money which I am not sure you would have if you killed the dragon immediately skipping the items you could pick up.

I'm pretty sure Mage is best early on due to both the escort and an easy Seeking Salvation quest, but maybe switching to Ranger after that may help? I'm not sure about the whole Maker's Finger, 270k is really quite expensive and I'm not sure if that much money could be spared, and then Ur Dragon afterwards would be a nightmare (not sure if you realised, but the only holy element daggers are a reward for defeating Ur Dragon anyway!)
Throughout the run, using Sixfold arrow + Blast arrows and stacking Conqueror's Periapts may be effective but then carry weight comes in to play. Hiring pawns to carry extra arrows is always an option but I need to keep them alive or I lose access to their inventories which is in itself a huge pain. Even if you could carry enough arrows by yourself you need also consider that significant change to run-speed. At average weight you are already down to 85% max run speed, heavy you move at 76% and at very heavy 68%. It would certainly need planning for a balance of how many arrows you carry at times. Perhaps using Assassin + Threefold Arrow and using a Force Hatchet would work (Force Hatchet also doubles the damage from bow attacks) but then I'm looking at another 300k gold from somewhere.

Quote:

Why start a game on Speed Run mode, exactly? Do you think you really need the ingame-timer? It pauses every time you go in the inventory menu, and if you go by SDA's RTA timer standard then yeah, the ingame-timer is pretty useless and inaccurate. On the other hand, the loading times are faster in Speed Run mode since the game doesn't auto-save every two goddamn seconds, which is better for RTA.

I like having the in-game timer because it times only when you are in control of your character so doesn't include loading times. I'm not sure if there is a difference in load times between the digital and disc versions, but using the game timer makes it easier to compare runs between people if there is a difference.

Quote:

Which leads me to my next question, have you considered doing a New Game on Hard difficulty instead of Normal? Speed Run mode is locked on Normal, hear me out, on Hard, enemies are harder to kill but on the plus side, they drop a huge amount of money (you get more XP also?), so you could grind / get better gear and items way faster.

Hard mode is actually 450% damaged received; for a speedrun we're talking every single enemy in the game would one-shot you. Also, while EXP gain is doubled, DCP is still calculated in the same way, simply based on the new value of experience gained. DCP gain is inversely exponential (is that a term?) to experience. The higher the experience you gain the less proportion of the experience is gained as DCP. So you would still get increased DCP from hard mode, but it wouldn't quite be doubled.
In terms of gold it would help a lot. Especially early in the run I have massive problems with having enough gold available and getting bad loot from chests can exacerbate the issue.

Quote:

You can get the 300k required (and much more) by only doing main quests also yea I did a run for fun and got like a high 5 hour time using only throwblasts and the maker arrow strat then using the dragon blades you get from grigori to beat ur-dragon (clearly I didnt care about how optimized I was). This game throws a really dumb amount of money at you so I imagine it would be fairly possible to do. The problem really comes in with every other fight in the game though since you would be playing ranger I suppose for the arrow. Also doesnt hard mode raise stamina use? that would slow down the beginning of the game until you get large mushrooms I would imagine but yea give you access to mad money. (edit: just read the edit to mkobs post that should be no problem as long as you can survive lol)

At the moment I am spending time to do the Gold Idol quest chain to buy strong weapons from Caxton. That sets me back ~180k.

I think I'll experiment with Ranger a while to see if I can make use of the Maker's Finger. My main worry is being able to kill everything else!

[quote]I played around with newgame for a bit the first thing that stands out if the griffon if you were able to kill it on the first encounter you would save like 8 minutes instead of having to do the tower sequence for the griffon (I timed it from entrance to you placing the stone).  I have only tried it with throwblasts and I think you could get some from madeleine maybe but i'm not sure if that would be enough or if getting them at all would help.  [/quote]
I've not experimented with throwblasts at all, but I did try getting Comestion for the first Griffin fight and still couldn't kill it quickly enough.

[quote]Another question are you sure mage is the go to class for this one?  I would imagine you picked it for the escort mission speedup and focus bolts but getting focus bolts takes you 15-20 minutes.  Like if you took a ranger you would be able to maker arrow the dragon immediately and skip his entire fight sequence saving 9 minutes while also skipping the farming the only problems would be the rest of the combat in the game and the Ur-Dragon which you can stunlock with holy element dragon daggers when buffed (could possibly be done in 1 encounter?) but you would need a ton of money which I am not sure you would have if you killed the dragon immediately skipping the items you could pick up.[/quote]
I'm pretty sure Mage is best early on due to both the escort and an easy Seeking Salvation quest, but maybe switching to Ranger after that may help? I'm not sure about the whole Maker's Finger, 270k is really quite expensive and I'm not sure if that much money could be spared, and then Ur Dragon afterwards would be a nightmare (not sure if you realised, but the only holy element daggers are a reward for defeating Ur Dragon anyway!) 
Throughout the run, using Sixfold arrow + Blast arrows and stacking Conqueror's Periapts may be effective but then carry weight comes in to play. Hiring pawns to carry extra arrows is always an option but I need to keep them alive or I lose access to their inventories which is in itself a huge pain. Even if you could carry enough arrows by yourself you need also consider that significant change to run-speed. At average weight you are already down to 85% max run speed, heavy you move at 76% and at very heavy 68%. It would certainly need planning for a balance of how many arrows you carry at times. Perhaps using Assassin + Threefold Arrow and using a Force Hatchet would work (Force Hatchet also doubles the damage from bow attacks) but then I'm looking at another 300k gold from somewhere.

[quote]Why start a game on Speed Run mode, exactly? Do you think you really need the ingame-timer? It pauses every time you go in the inventory menu, and if you go by SDA's RTA timer standard then yeah, the ingame-timer is pretty useless and inaccurate. On the other hand, the loading times are faster in Speed Run mode since the game doesn't auto-save every two goddamn seconds, which is better for RTA. [/quote]
I like having the in-game timer because it times only when you are in control of your character so doesn't include loading times. I'm not sure if there is a difference in load times between the digital and disc versions, but using the game timer makes it easier to compare runs between people if there is a difference.

[quote]Which leads me to my next question, have you considered doing a New Game on Hard difficulty instead of Normal? Speed Run mode is locked on Normal, hear me out, on Hard, enemies are harder to kill but on the plus side, they drop a huge amount of money (you get more XP also?), so you could grind / get better gear and items way faster.[/quote]
Hard mode is actually 450% damaged received; for a speedrun we're talking every single enemy in the game would one-shot you. Also, while EXP gain is doubled, DCP is still calculated in the same way, simply based on the new value of experience gained. DCP gain is inversely exponential (is that a term?) to experience. The higher the experience you gain the less proportion of the experience is gained as DCP. So you would still get increased DCP from hard mode, but it wouldn't quite be doubled.
In terms of gold it would help a lot. Especially early in the run I have massive problems with having enough gold available and getting bad loot from chests can exacerbate the issue.

[quote]You can get the 300k required (and much more) by only doing main quests also yea I did a run for fun and got like a high 5 hour time using only throwblasts and the maker arrow strat then using the dragon blades you get from grigori to beat ur-dragon (clearly I didnt care about how optimized I was).  This game throws a really dumb amount of money at you so I imagine it would be fairly possible to do.  The problem really comes in with every other fight in the game though since you would be playing ranger I suppose for the arrow.  Also doesnt hard mode raise stamina use?  that would slow down the beginning of the game until you get large mushrooms I would imagine but yea give you access to mad money. (edit: just read the edit to mkobs post that should be no problem as long as you can survive lol)[/quote]
At the moment I am spending time to do the Gold Idol quest chain to buy strong weapons from Caxton. That sets me back ~180k.

I think I'll experiment with Ranger a while to see if I can make use of the Maker's Finger. My main worry is being able to kill everything else!

zastbat

Edit history:

zastbat: 2014-02-07 11:33:38 pm

zastbat: 2014-02-07 11:13:31 pm

zastbat: 2014-02-07 11:02:25 pm

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

zastbat: 2014-02-07 10:55:46 pm

zastbat: 2014-02-07 10:47:05 pm

zastbat: 2014-02-07 10:24:43 pm

zastbat: 2014-02-07 10:19:33 pm

zastbat: 2014-02-07 09:33:55 pm

zastbat: 2014-02-07 09:07:20 pm

zastbat: 2014-02-07 08:06:23 pm

zastbat: 2014-02-07 07:36:43 pm

zastbat: 2014-02-07 07:36:42 pm

zastbat: 2014-02-07 07:28:09 pm

zastbat: 2014-02-07 07:16:47 pm

zastbat: 2014-02-07 07:06:51 pm

zastbat: 2014-02-07 07:06:05 pm

2014-02-07 07:00:14 pm

Lord Of The Beards

Quote:

(not sure if you realised, but the only holy element daggers are a reward for defeating Ur Dragon anyway!)

sorry I should have specified that you use holy buff to get the element using random premade pawns usually at least one will show up and it makes the fight much easier with the melee buff item that I forgot the name of that you can get from fournival. Also blast arrow strat is super expensive you most likely would not have enough money but it would be worth testing anyway.

But yea i'm honestly not sure how to fight everything else. I mean you could get enough throwblasts to last you the game and they are mad powerful but would that waste too much time to be faster than cutting the grindingout + makers arrow on dragon then the problem would be how much money do you have for stuff for the ur dragon fight.

Also do you have a rough estimate of how much money you get over the entire run? I would like to write up a theory route which would be the same quest stuff to test where you start as mage switch to strider at gran soren and see what I can do from there but I need to know how much money is gotten on your route so I can figure out how much stuff I would be able to buy. If you don't know ill just watch the entire run whenever I have the time and add up all the money you get.

Edit: If you let julien win you can get the silver rapier from mercedes sells for 110k I believe. Also you could drop all the caxton stuff by quick killing the griffon with throw blasts then on the trip to blue moon tower for the ring you could go out of your way to get the anchor to heaven staff. I think if you upgraded it twice which is easy since you can buy the material to upgrade it it would have 245 magick power it would be a power tradeoff for the sake of not doing the caxton quests idk how much time it would save if it would save any at all but it is worth a try if you really want to stay mage. A chest that drops Divine Axis is also in bluemoon tower on the main path but it is 15% drop chance however it is holy enchanted so if you did decide to go for one of the staffs in the tower and you dont get divine axis you could go for the other one.

Found a jap RTA done on the original game (should have same items and stuff) im watching it and taking notes ill put some of the stuff about the route in here as soon as im done it is a 1:53:21 RTA and it does the tutorial. http://www.nicovideo.jp/mylist/33948327

basic route
does tutorial
Starts mage
switches to ranger after lure of the abyss
picks up dagger near the dragonforged
picks up salvation robes i'm assuming for defense
hands in a bunch of side quests? I was confused as to what quests he handed in.
buys a longbow pretty sure it is the rusted longbow
proceeds to blast arrow everything in game
skips first blue moon tower visit by killing griffon early with item buff and blast arrows
maker fingers grigori
maker finger beholder or whatever it is called
does not do Ur Dragon does a bunch of other chambers intead.

So basically he just blast arrows his way through the game and gains a ton of money early by handing in a bunch of sidequests very early in the game. This was also on vanilla so he barely teleports around at all I would imagine you could save time by doing that. Also that idea of getting the force hatchet that could be a thing if you skip the second maker finger I wonder how fast the Ur Dragon could be done then.

[quote](not sure if you realised, but the only holy element daggers are a reward for defeating Ur Dragon anyway!) [/quote]
sorry I should have specified that you use holy buff to get the element using random premade pawns usually at least one will show up and it makes the fight much easier with the melee buff item that I forgot the name of that you can get from fournival.  Also blast arrow strat is super expensive you most likely would not have enough money but it would be worth testing anyway.

But yea i'm honestly not sure how to fight everything else.  I mean you could get enough throwblasts to last you the game and they are mad powerful but would that waste too much time to be faster than cutting the grindingout + makers arrow on dragon then the problem would be how much money do you have for stuff for the ur dragon fight.

Also do you have a rough estimate of how much money you get over the entire run?  I would like to write up a theory route which would be the same quest stuff to test where you start as mage switch to strider at gran soren and see what I can do from there but I need to know how much money is gotten on your route so I can figure out how much stuff I would be able to buy.  If you don't know ill just watch the entire run whenever I have the time and add up all the money you get.

Edit: If you let julien win you can get the silver rapier from mercedes sells for 110k I believe.  Also you could drop all the caxton stuff by quick killing the griffon with throw blasts then on the trip to blue moon tower for the ring you could go out of your way to get the anchor to heaven staff.  I think if you upgraded it twice which is easy since you can buy the material to upgrade it it would have 245 magick power it would be a power tradeoff for the sake of not doing the caxton quests idk how much time it would save if it would save any at all but it is worth a try if you really want to stay mage.  A chest that drops Divine Axis is also in bluemoon tower on the main path but it is 15% drop chance however it is holy enchanted so if you did decide to go for one of the staffs in the tower and you dont get divine axis you could go for the other one.

Found a jap RTA done on the original game (should have same items and stuff) im watching it and taking notes ill put some of the stuff about the route in here as soon as im done it is a 1:53:21 RTA and it does the tutorial. http://www.nicovideo.jp/mylist/33948327

basic route
does tutorial
Starts mage
switches to ranger after lure of the abyss
picks up dagger near the dragonforged
picks up salvation robes i'm assuming for defense
hands in a bunch of side quests?  I was confused as to what quests he handed in.
buys a longbow pretty sure it is the rusted longbow
proceeds to blast arrow everything in game
skips first blue moon tower visit by killing griffon early with item buff and blast arrows
maker fingers grigori
maker finger beholder or whatever it is called
does not do Ur Dragon does a bunch of other chambers intead.

So basically he just blast arrows his way through the game and gains a ton of money early by handing in a bunch of sidequests very early in the game.  This was also on vanilla so he barely teleports around at all I would imagine you could save time by doing that.  Also that idea of getting the force hatchet that could be a thing if you skip the second maker finger I wonder how fast the Ur Dragon could be done then.

Dak_Rey

2014-02-08 12:59:49 am

I just did some testing and found that yeah, you don't need to do the Gold Idol quest line and Blast Arrow abuse can do an awful lot. Ur Dragon took a long time to beat too and Blast Arrows didn't really work well against it, I had to dagger kill it. Took two full rounds. I can see clearing normal chambers at the end being a lot quicker that way.

I'll take a look at the video you linked and see how he does things, but at the moment I feel that you shouldn't need to do early quests for money.

zastbat

2014-02-08 01:19:21 am

Lord Of The Beards

Quote from Dak_Rey:

I feel that you shouldn't need to do early quests for money.

he does side quests that are on the way somehow I wasnt paying enough attention to what he did in the first part of the video he used a ton of money I suppose if you cut out the 2nd makers finger you could skip them but if they are on the way and dont waste time you might as well do them.

Dak_Rey

2014-02-08 02:27:06 am

He hands in the Gift Ledger and Chamberlain's Affidavit quests. The problem with handing in the Affidavit is that he then has to get the witness to find Fournival innocent instead, and in the old version he doesn't even have the option of placing a Port Crystal there. Not to mention that in the old version Ferrystones cost 10k each instead of 1k like they do now.

It is probably worth doing the Gift Ledger quest, it gives money and saves time. But I would rather save the Affidavit to find Fournival innocent than a trip out to the castle.

I don't believe there is a reason to pick up the Salvation Robes, maybe he just likes how they look.

He also picks the smallest pre-set character, not sure exactly why - they do give the impression they sprint faster because their little legs move faster but they actually go at the same speed as a tall character. He can also carry less than half the items of a max size character which is a real set back. When he loads himself up for the trip to Bluemoon Tower he probably slows himself down by 2-3 minutes becuase his character is burdened to "Heavy" where the exact same stuff on a tall, heavy character would have given him "light" burden (93% move speed vs. 76% movement speed).

Still the second half of the video to finish watching.

He hands in the Gift Ledger and Chamberlain's Affidavit quests. The problem with handing in the Affidavit is that he then has to get the witness to find Fournival innocent instead, and in the old version he doesn't even have the option of placing a Port Crystal there. Not to mention that in the old version Ferrystones cost 10k each instead of 1k like they do now.

It is probably worth doing the Gift Ledger quest, it gives money and saves time. But I would rather save the Affidavit to find Fournival innocent than a trip out to the castle.

I don't believe there is a reason to pick up the Salvation Robes, maybe he just likes how they look.

He also picks the smallest pre-set character, not sure exactly why - they do give the impression they sprint faster because their little legs move faster but they actually go at the same speed as a tall character. He can also carry less than half the items of a max size character which is a real set back. When he loads himself up for the trip to Bluemoon Tower he probably slows himself down by 2-3 minutes becuase his character is burdened to "Heavy" where the exact same stuff on a tall, heavy character would have given him "light" burden (93% move speed vs. 76% movement speed).

Still the second half of the video to finish watching.

Dak_Rey

2014-02-08 07:32:16 am

After trying some of these changes out, I've realised that the quests aren't just for money but also so he can rank up to Ranger 3* in time for the Griffin. Without doing those quests I also had to run back and forward finishing Trials and Tribulations to hit rank 3. Another point to note is that since this route doesn't do Symone's escort, she does not have enough affinity with you to write a petition and you are forced to go to the northern castle anyway. Thankfully I already place a Portcrystal there.

Dak_Rey

2014-02-15 05:03:29 pm

I just set 1:52:07 - http://www.twitch.tv/dak_rey/b/503654051 (I also time a little differently to the JP run, add ~20 seconds to my time to compare).
It does beat the JP time but considering the time saved purely through the port crystal it isn't a better run.
Two biggest areas for improvement at the moment are I need to choose exactly what I want to buy when shopping and a smooth Everfall. The JP Everfall is completed in almost half the time of mine.

Dak_Rey

2014-02-19 12:04:04 pm

Scored a smooth run of 1:41:16 RTA, 1:31:xx in game time. Apologies for my incessant jabbering over the video.
http://www.twitch.tv/dak_rey/c/3752259

I do feel that I need to do a definitive test on perma-sprinting with pausing to use consumables vs. sprint/run without consumables. It really does feel like not using consumables is faster though which may seem counter intuitive to most.

Dak_Rey

2014-03-02 08:41:04 am

http://www.twitch.tv/dak_rey/c/3813867

1:36:38 RTA, 1:27:xx IGT

I'll probably give it a break for a while now and learn a new game. I'm pretty happy with that time and there is very little room for improvement. Still maybe a minute, perhaps two overall that could be saved, but to get such good Wakestones in the Everfall again would be somewhat rare. Running the game enough times with good enough execution to get those two minutes and get good Wakestones would probably make me hate the game.

YandrosTheMad

2014-06-12 06:04:06 am

Hello all,

Sorry to up an 3 month old thread.

Is anyone interested in doing a Bitterblack speedrun only ? Where the aim is not to complete the game but Bitterblack Isle ?

You start a fresh game of course.