My feelings on The Demon Rush
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Robbie 'lightningx' Shintaku's easy difficulty run
Verifier Responses
The last verifier had some questions.
Runner's response:
The verdict:
I told the verifier I was going to accept the run anyways because all of the other verifiers accepted. His response is below
Decision: Accept
Reason: It's a quick run of a game that normally takes forever to complete.
Robbie 'lightningx' Shintaku's easy difficulty run
Verifier Responses
Quote:
ok so i finished watching the dungeon siege run. i have a few complaints about choice of routes and whether it would be faster to just skip most of the fighting, buy a ton of heal pots and bypass everything up to the bosses you need to fight but eh, details. anyway it looks good, there are no obvious differences between segments and aside from the runner not knowing that right clicking an item would equip it, there were no obvious mistakes
Quote:
There were no problems with the video, audio, syncing, cheating, etc. that I noticed.
This is a good run. In the comments, the runner mentions mistakes and possible improvements, but none of them would be especially easy to do or likely to make an enormous impact on the final time. Well, the one exception is vendor trips. The last shopping spree was very well planned and fast while the rest almost seemed casual. Even this did not waste too much time, but to me it definitely seemed like the weak point of the run.
Movement mistakes in a game like this happen, and there were few here.
The boss fight does take a very long time, but that's only because SO much time was saved on leveling the characters. In the end, the time saved leveling is greater than the time saved from a shorter final boss fight.
In the end, although this run is somewhat flawed, I would say it meets SDA standards.
Decision: Approve
This is a good run. In the comments, the runner mentions mistakes and possible improvements, but none of them would be especially easy to do or likely to make an enormous impact on the final time. Well, the one exception is vendor trips. The last shopping spree was very well planned and fast while the rest almost seemed casual. Even this did not waste too much time, but to me it definitely seemed like the weak point of the run.
Movement mistakes in a game like this happen, and there were few here.
The boss fight does take a very long time, but that's only because SO much time was saved on leveling the characters. In the end, the time saved leveling is greater than the time saved from a shorter final boss fight.
In the end, although this run is somewhat flawed, I would say it meets SDA standards.
Decision: Approve
Quote:
Some basic things about the run:No cheating,quality is fine.About the items,I don't know the exact numbers of the items,but the clothes were changed in the videos,so that's okay too.
The run is awesome,using awesome tactics and good tricks.The party members were good choices(except Ulora),they're strong and some of them are healers.(What is important,really.)
Farmlands:Good one.Level up at the begining of the game is important,because here the easiest to do this.
Crypt:Ulora is weak a bit,but she's the first recruitable party member in the game,so that's understandable.
Stonebridge: -
Wesrin Cross:A little bit caught up on enemies here(you have written in the comments too),and probably would have been better if you do the potion trick more often.
Glitterdelve:It's an awesome part!Using exploding barrels to kill enemies and to level up.Amazing!
Glacern: -
Ice Caverns:Awesomely avoided the enemies,and freed Merik.He was a good choice because he has healing wind,what is a powerful healing spell.And after that at the next cave,collecting experience with Merik.With his spell,it isn't hard now.
Forest: -
Swamp:Disco fever!I wonder how the party remained in one piece after all.Hard fights there.Exciting to watch.
Goblin Factory:Rush through loads of enemies,like a god,and get Merik's staff.Impressive!
Forest: -
Fortress Kroth:(The music likes in Morrowind...it's beautiful.)
Hall of Skulls:RIP Merik,lol.
- From there,the run is fast like hell.
-
skip a lot places...Castle Ehb:Epic skills!!!And,at Chamber of Stars,why don't you picked up the items?Not enough experience to wear them?
Well,again,this run is very nice.Showing epic skills,great tactics.Hope I'm not the only who say this.
Accepted!!!
The run is awesome,using awesome tactics and good tricks.The party members were good choices(except Ulora),they're strong and some of them are healers.(What is important,really.)
Farmlands:Good one.Level up at the begining of the game is important,because here the easiest to do this.
Crypt:Ulora is weak a bit,but she's the first recruitable party member in the game,so that's understandable.
Stonebridge: -
Wesrin Cross:A little bit caught up on enemies here(you have written in the comments too),and probably would have been better if you do the potion trick more often.
Glitterdelve:It's an awesome part!Using exploding barrels to kill enemies and to level up.Amazing!
Glacern: -
Ice Caverns:Awesomely avoided the enemies,and freed Merik.He was a good choice because he has healing wind,what is a powerful healing spell.And after that at the next cave,collecting experience with Merik.With his spell,it isn't hard now.
Forest: -
Swamp:Disco fever!I wonder how the party remained in one piece after all.Hard fights there.Exciting to watch.
Goblin Factory:Rush through loads of enemies,like a god,and get Merik's staff.Impressive!
Forest: -
Fortress Kroth:(The music likes in Morrowind...it's beautiful.)
Hall of Skulls:RIP Merik,lol.
- From there,the run is fast like hell.
skip a lot places...Castle Ehb:Epic skills!!!And,at Chamber of Stars,why don't you picked up the items?Not enough experience to wear them?
Well,again,this run is very nice.Showing epic skills,great tactics.Hope I'm not the only who say this.
Accepted!!!
Quote:
Audio/Video quality:
Audio was fine, didn't notice any problems.
The video seems to be captured at Half-size (Due to the black borders) and 29.97 FPS (Which I believe are Fraps's default settings). It's not really a problem but Full-size and 30 FPS would've been nicer.
In this video there's a little encoding issue. Every 5 minutes (In the first 20 minutes of the video, and after the 20 minutes it happens basically every 10 minutes) a frame is shown which should be in a place 5 minutes (Or 10 later on) before.
A little list (First time is where the frame is shown which should be at the second time):
00:05:00.066 is a black frame.
00:10:00.033 -> 00:05:00.066.
00:15:00.066 -> 00:10:00.033.
00:20:00.033 -> 00:15:00.066.
00:30:00.033 -> 00:20:00.033.
00:50:00.033 a frame is shown from 00:40:00.066, but at 00:40:00.066 there's no different frame there.
01:00:00.033 -> 00:50:00.033.
01:10:00.033 -> 01:00:00.033.
01:20:00.033 -> 01:10:00.033.
01:30:00.033 -> 01:20:00.033.
01:40:00.033 -> 01:30:00.033.
01:50:00.033 -> 01:40:00.033.
02:00:00.033 -> 01:50:00.033.
02:20:00.033 a frame is shown from 02:10:00.033, but at 02:10:00.033 there's no different frame there.
Cheating/inconsistencies:
The runner mentioned in the comments that he needed to redo a segment inbetween which caused a bit of difference (Most notably party formation). It's not really much of a problem, the difference is very minor.
But there's another place where there's also a bit of a difference. It's after the cutscene of the Star Room at 02:10:51. The party formation is a little different (When he approached the cutscene it looked like "<", after the cutscene it looked like "|.") and most notably Sikra is unconscious all of a sudden. Yes she dies quite fast here as shown before the cutscene, lots of enemies are chasing/shooting at her, but how can she be unconscious in an instant? She was full health before the cutscene and after it she was half health unconscious.
No other problems found.
Oh also, the in-game timer isn't accurate. The runner already mentioned in the thread that the in-game timer counts the cutscenes (The duration of the whole cutscene) even when the cutscenes are skipped. I didn't notice this at a lot of spots though, actually only the beginning cutscenes of the game and a couple of cutscenes near the end of the game.
Gameplay:
Gameplay is pretty good. He seems to be leveling at good spots. There were some parts where he got into a bit of trouble and almost died which were nice to watch (One moment I remember very good is when Merik casted the healing and then he went unconscious right after it and thus healed himself, that was pretty awesome. Close call ;)).
A few extra points of improvements (The runner already mentioned stuff in his comments):
1. The runner didn't use right-click to equip items. Would've saved a bit of time.
2. The runner should've used the autosaves more to avoid save penalties. There are quite a lot of autosaves all over the place.
3. Why didn't the runner move the party to the exit point of elevators? He just kept standing in the middle of them every time.
As for getting Sikra and ditching Merik, yeah I think it should be possible to keep Merik and luck manipulate some more through the rest of the game. The detour to get Sikra costed him almost 2 minutes.
Conclusion:
I'm accepting the run, but I would like some clarity about the Star Room difference I talked about.
Audio was fine, didn't notice any problems.
The video seems to be captured at Half-size (Due to the black borders) and 29.97 FPS (Which I believe are Fraps's default settings). It's not really a problem but Full-size and 30 FPS would've been nicer.
In this video there's a little encoding issue. Every 5 minutes (In the first 20 minutes of the video, and after the 20 minutes it happens basically every 10 minutes) a frame is shown which should be in a place 5 minutes (Or 10 later on) before.
A little list (First time is where the frame is shown which should be at the second time):
00:05:00.066 is a black frame.
00:10:00.033 -> 00:05:00.066.
00:15:00.066 -> 00:10:00.033.
00:20:00.033 -> 00:15:00.066.
00:30:00.033 -> 00:20:00.033.
00:50:00.033 a frame is shown from 00:40:00.066, but at 00:40:00.066 there's no different frame there.
01:00:00.033 -> 00:50:00.033.
01:10:00.033 -> 01:00:00.033.
01:20:00.033 -> 01:10:00.033.
01:30:00.033 -> 01:20:00.033.
01:40:00.033 -> 01:30:00.033.
01:50:00.033 -> 01:40:00.033.
02:00:00.033 -> 01:50:00.033.
02:20:00.033 a frame is shown from 02:10:00.033, but at 02:10:00.033 there's no different frame there.
Cheating/inconsistencies:
The runner mentioned in the comments that he needed to redo a segment inbetween which caused a bit of difference (Most notably party formation). It's not really much of a problem, the difference is very minor.
But there's another place where there's also a bit of a difference. It's after the cutscene of the Star Room at 02:10:51. The party formation is a little different (When he approached the cutscene it looked like "<", after the cutscene it looked like "|.") and most notably Sikra is unconscious all of a sudden. Yes she dies quite fast here as shown before the cutscene, lots of enemies are chasing/shooting at her, but how can she be unconscious in an instant? She was full health before the cutscene and after it she was half health unconscious.
No other problems found.
Oh also, the in-game timer isn't accurate. The runner already mentioned in the thread that the in-game timer counts the cutscenes (The duration of the whole cutscene) even when the cutscenes are skipped. I didn't notice this at a lot of spots though, actually only the beginning cutscenes of the game and a couple of cutscenes near the end of the game.
Gameplay:
Gameplay is pretty good. He seems to be leveling at good spots. There were some parts where he got into a bit of trouble and almost died which were nice to watch (One moment I remember very good is when Merik casted the healing and then he went unconscious right after it and thus healed himself, that was pretty awesome. Close call ;)).
A few extra points of improvements (The runner already mentioned stuff in his comments):
1. The runner didn't use right-click to equip items. Would've saved a bit of time.
2. The runner should've used the autosaves more to avoid save penalties. There are quite a lot of autosaves all over the place.
3. Why didn't the runner move the party to the exit point of elevators? He just kept standing in the middle of them every time.
As for getting Sikra and ditching Merik, yeah I think it should be possible to keep Merik and luck manipulate some more through the rest of the game. The detour to get Sikra costed him almost 2 minutes.
Conclusion:
I'm accepting the run, but I would like some clarity about the Star Room difference I talked about.
The last verifier had some questions.
Quote:
I have two questions for the runner, just to get some clarification.
1. What is with the red text that appears periodically in the upper right corner? I don't remember that being associated with the auto-save, but maybe it's an option I've never had enabled. Please enlighten.
2. Is this why 30 seconds disappear like when you enter a town? I've noticed it twice within the first about half-hour of the run - it creates an inconsistancy in the timer that I'm not comfortable with. I noticed it at Glitterdelve Mines and at Glacern so far.
1. What is with the red text that appears periodically in the upper right corner? I don't remember that being associated with the auto-save, but maybe it's an option I've never had enabled. Please enlighten.
2.
Quote:
I edited out the saving and loading screens for pacing.
Runner's response:
Quote:
Easy enough, these two questions are not problems at all, Here we go:
1. The game has no demo record/playback system, so all segments were recorded using fraps. During the times when the game autosaves (you cannot disable it as far as I know) the fraps FPS display shows up in the upper right corner. I have no idea why this is, but anyone who uses fraps should recognize the font. It is only during autosaves, and it doesn't show up any other times.
2. The editing out of the saving / loading screens is not what he observed when I enter a town. This is only during segment breaks (the save/load is edited out) and makes the run more fluid.
What he noticed when I entered those two towns was a cutscene skip. If you pay close attention, the game starts showing the cutscene, and then I hit escape to cancel it and instantly go back to playing. The reason the in-game timer appears inconsistent is that it records the cutscene duration even if you do skip it. Thus, if you spend 1 second to skip a 1 minute cutscene, the game timer will be 59 seconds higher than expected. There is no work around for this, and this is also why the final in-game timer reads higher (about 12 minutes if I recall correctly) than the actual video time.
When you skip cutscenes, the characters are placed at pre-scripted locations, so sometimes they have shifted positions. The game places them where they end up if its a cutscene that involves movement of the party characters.
Due to how the timer works, I recommend timing the run using video control gained/control lost start and end points. Of course if it is more appropriate to use the in-game timer, that is fine, just know it will be longer than the video because I skipped every cutscene in the game in this manner.
Thanks to everyone involved in this process!
1. The game has no demo record/playback system, so all segments were recorded using fraps. During the times when the game autosaves (you cannot disable it as far as I know) the fraps FPS display shows up in the upper right corner. I have no idea why this is, but anyone who uses fraps should recognize the font. It is only during autosaves, and it doesn't show up any other times.
2. The editing out of the saving / loading screens is not what he observed when I enter a town. This is only during segment breaks (the save/load is edited out) and makes the run more fluid.
What he noticed when I entered those two towns was a cutscene skip. If you pay close attention, the game starts showing the cutscene, and then I hit escape to cancel it and instantly go back to playing. The reason the in-game timer appears inconsistent is that it records the cutscene duration even if you do skip it. Thus, if you spend 1 second to skip a 1 minute cutscene, the game timer will be 59 seconds higher than expected. There is no work around for this, and this is also why the final in-game timer reads higher (about 12 minutes if I recall correctly) than the actual video time.
When you skip cutscenes, the characters are placed at pre-scripted locations, so sometimes they have shifted positions. The game places them where they end up if its a cutscene that involves movement of the party characters.
Due to how the timer works, I recommend timing the run using video control gained/control lost start and end points. Of course if it is more appropriate to use the in-game timer, that is fine, just know it will be longer than the video because I skipped every cutscene in the game in this manner.
Thanks to everyone involved in this process!
The verdict:
Quote:
Video Quality: Good
Audio Quality: Good
Overall, the runner knew how to get through the game - fast routes to take, and so on. Boss fights were done well, but some of the fighting in between bothered me.
There were several areas where the runner had all (or most) of the characters fighting on one monster while right behind them, a large horde of mages/archers/etc would attack, doing more damage then the one would do. And since it's possible to split members off and control them separately, I don't completely get why it wasn't used more often then just the last half (controlling the mage separate from the 4 fighters).
I also strongly disagree with the runner's notion that pausing is "a cheat". It's built into the game, it stops the timer, it allows for more control. It could have really helped with the shopping sections.
Speaking of which, why was so much crap dropped that didn't need to be? It would be have just as fast to sell them at the shop and not have such a money worry for buying potions/magic potions, especially when a large host of them were bought at the midpoint. It also would have helped with buying armor and weapons.
Getting the run down to a time that they got to was impressive, but there were a lot of mistakes (at least IMO they were mistakes) that I think hindered the run and could have gotten it closer to 2.5 hours or possibly even under.
So I think I'll reject this submission for now, but hope that the runner does attempt it again, because I think they do have a good chance of getting a great time again.
Audio Quality: Good
Overall, the runner knew how to get through the game - fast routes to take, and so on. Boss fights were done well, but some of the fighting in between bothered me.
There were several areas where the runner had all (or most) of the characters fighting on one monster while right behind them, a large horde of mages/archers/etc would attack, doing more damage then the one would do. And since it's possible to split members off and control them separately, I don't completely get why it wasn't used more often then just the last half (controlling the mage separate from the 4 fighters).
I also strongly disagree with the runner's notion that pausing is "a cheat". It's built into the game, it stops the timer, it allows for more control. It could have really helped with the shopping sections.
Speaking of which, why was so much crap dropped that didn't need to be? It would be have just as fast to sell them at the shop and not have such a money worry for buying potions/magic potions, especially when a large host of them were bought at the midpoint. It also would have helped with buying armor and weapons.
Getting the run down to a time that they got to was impressive, but there were a lot of mistakes (at least IMO they were mistakes) that I think hindered the run and could have gotten it closer to 2.5 hours or possibly even under.
So I think I'll reject this submission for now, but hope that the runner does attempt it again, because I think they do have a good chance of getting a great time again.
I told the verifier I was going to accept the run anyways because all of the other verifiers accepted. His response is below
Quote:
Understandable. It's not absolutely horrible, but some of the stuff like the pause issue I think should be used. I mean, it's like playing Mega Man 1 and not using the pause trick at Yellow Devil. It's in there, so a perfectly legit maneuver, right?
But if everybody else is cool with it, then I won't be bothered by the outvote.
But if everybody else is cool with it, then I won't be bothered by the outvote.
Decision: Accept
Reason: It's a quick run of a game that normally takes forever to complete.
Thread title: