Mark of the Ninja (PC/XBLA)

2016-01-10 11:56:57 am

Yaaaah! A week of cramming finally paid off, I managed a sub-42 NG No-OoB Obake run! I would therefore like to submit the following run as a new world record in the NG No-OoB Obake and NG No-OoB categories, at 41:42 inc. loading. I timed the loading screens with a stopwatch to 46.5 seconds, so ex. loading should be around 40:56.

http://www.twitch.tv/emilun/v/34697251

Vyreck

Edit history:

Vyreck: 2016-01-10 10:33:48 pm

2016-01-10 10:33:01 pm

Quote from emlun:

I spent some time today timing Path of the Ninja vs. Silence on level 9 (A Blade at His Neck) NoOoBake with the "new" Karajan skip. It actually turned out that, at least for me, starting with Silence and then switching to the bugs just before the castle is a couple of seconds faster and, more importantly, much more consistent.

my experience as well.

Also, GJ on the record. On my list of things to do after finishing job hunting.

Akitaka1

2016-01-11 04:07:35 am

Quote from emlun:

Yaaaah! A week of cramming finally paid off, I managed a sub-42 NG No-OoB Obake run! I would therefore like to submit the following run as a new world record in the NG No-OoB Obake and NG No-OoB categories, at 41:42 inc. loading. I timed the loading screens with a stopwatch to 46.5 seconds, so ex. loading should be around 40:56.

http://www.twitch.tv/emilun/v/34697251

Nice work! Congrats on the record. Also, from my experience, with the reduced noise upgrade detection usually isn't a problem on level 9, but since I don't run No-Oob any more I'll take your word on the path switching thing. Besides, getting the upgrade would probably take more time than switching on controller.

emlun

2016-01-11 11:19:55 am

Quote from Akitaka1:

Also, from my experience, with the reduced noise upgrade detection usually isn't a problem on level 9, but since I don't run No-Oob any more I'll take your word on the path switching thing. Besides, getting the upgrade would probably take more time than switching on controller.

Neat, I hadn't even considered getting that upgrade. I had expected going with Ninja from the start would be faster, but I think the critical factor is that the noise slows you down a second or two meaning you reach the laser corridor a second too late to catch the brownout. With a little practice, I could catch that opening one cycle earlier with Silence, which I guess makes up for the time lost to switching. The noise upgrade might even that out, though. Guess I'll have to try. Smiley

Akitaka1

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Akitaka1: 2016-01-12 01:00:12 am

Akitaka1: 2016-01-11 10:44:24 pm

Akitaka1: 2016-01-11 10:03:18 pm

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Akitaka1: 2016-01-11 07:41:26 pm

Akitaka1: 2016-01-11 07:35:47 pm

2016-01-11 07:34:33 pm

Today, I did an Obake run that is faster than the any% WR. I am never running this category again Tongue

. Excluding loading times, I timed the run to be 27 minutes and 27 seconds long.

Splits:

Video:

emlun

2016-01-12 03:36:27 pm

Wahahaha, nice work! I love the new double focus jump skips, kudos for teching that out!

You sure you won't run it again? I could give you some competition... Wink

Akitaka1

Edit history:

Akitaka1: 2016-01-12 05:06:30 pm

Akitaka1: 2016-01-12 05:06:29 pm

2016-01-12 05:04:41 pm

Quote from emlun:

Wahahaha, nice work! I love the new double focus jump skips, kudos for teching that out!

You sure you won't run it again? I could give you some competition... Wink

I'll probably continue running it in the future. There's still about 1 min of time loss in the run (according to my sum of best), so there's definitely room for improvement. I'd like to make helipad skip more consistent first, though.

emlun

2016-01-12 06:31:56 pm

Quote from Akitaka1:

I'll probably continue running it in the future. There's still about 1 min of time loss in the run (according to my sum of best), so there's definitely room for improvement. I'd like to make helipad skip more consistent first, though.

Gotcha!

I'll probably take a break for now, but I'm coming for the any% categories sometime soon. Wink

According to my sum of best (just under 40 minutes real time) there should be almost 2 minutes of time loss on my NGoOoOBake run (the jailor and some screw-ups on lv4 and lv5, mostly), but I don't really feel like grinding that category much more until there's some active competition. I'll be waiting for you when you get back, Vyreck! Grin

Akitaka1

Edit history:

Akitaka1: 2016-01-19 02:10:22 pm

Akitaka1: 2016-01-13 02:54:55 am

Akitaka1: 2016-01-13 02:54:04 am

2016-01-13 02:53:55 am

Quote from emlun:

I don't really feel like grinding that category much more until there's some active competition.

I was actually planning on running NoOobake again after I'm content with NG Obake (Which I am)
EDIT: Now that NoOobake has sufficiently broken my spirit, I'll be taking a break from MotN for a while.

emlun

2016-01-18 04:14:51 pm

Just so you know, ChazneySR recently passed maintenance of the thread on to me since he isn't very active in MotN right now. I've updated the current WR runs on the front page, just post in the thread when you break them and I'll time and post the new ones. Smiley

Vyreck

2016-01-22 03:06:38 am

On a related note, something that I've meant to do for months now was get speedrun.com updated since it's hilariously out of the loop. I've officially requested moderator status for Mark in hopes of making it happen.

emlun

2016-01-22 04:30:52 am

Cool! I've been thinking the same thing, but haven't bothered trying to do something about it.

Vyreck

Edit history:

Vyreck: 2016-01-22 10:38:10 pm

2016-01-22 03:26:56 pm

Accepted as a mod on SR. Feel free to post updated runs and I can get them verified. Tonight I'm going to fix the categories.

EDIT: Updated categories, fixed some wording choices. Em, your run is no longer there for me to verify as I deleted the "ninja" category so you need to repose.

Vyreck

Edit history:

Vyreck: 2016-01-25 02:53:35 am

2016-01-25 02:52:22 am

I've been trying to decide how to best represent the with/without load times on Speedrun.com

It has an option to have distinct columns, but do we want to let whoever submits the record to define the difference or keep having 1 person (i'm assuming Emlun currently) tally them?

EDIT: I think I can manually modify submissions if necessary.

emlun

2016-01-25 05:25:07 am

It probably won't matter much for some categories until we've pushed the time differences between runs down to single digit seconds, but I suppose for consistency it might be best to have a single person do the tally. I can commit to guaranteeing a processing time of 48 hours maximum.

Akitaka1

Edit history:

Akitaka1: 2016-01-25 11:49:18 am

Akitaka1: 2016-01-25 11:37:48 am

Akitaka1: 2016-01-25 11:37:28 am

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Akitaka1: 2016-01-25 11:11:33 am

2016-01-25 11:10:08 am

I've been working on making an autosplitter for MotN that automatically pauses livesplits when the game is loading. However, I've been encountering some problems. Tbh, I'm not entirely sure that it's worth the effort, since running the game in steam with -enablelog in the preferences will automatically record loading times in a log file. Loading times are included in the timing, but if we skip them before the level finishes loading it probably won't be a problem.

emlun

2016-01-25 03:29:26 pm

Wow, an autosplitter would be cool indeed! However, I'm against relying on any specific tool for timing - particularly if the tool doesn't run in all operating systems the game does. I would probably use an autosplitter if you were to make one, but I won't vouch for it as "the official way to run MotN".

Akitaka1

2016-01-25 03:34:05 pm

Quote from emlun:

Wow, an autosplitter would be cool indeed! However, I'm against relying on any specific tool for timing - particularly if the tool doesn't run in all operating systems the game does. I would probably use an autosplitter if you were to make one, but I won't vouch for it as "the official way to run MotN".

I completely agree. The autosplitter is just a "just for fun" project, really.

Vyreck

Edit history:

Vyreck: 2016-01-28 12:51:37 am

2016-01-28 12:48:07 am

I exahustingly edited every run on Speedrun.com to reflect the changes to loading times. It default sorts by fastest without loads and all listings were changed to "includes load times" except for the "4" runs you both sent me, which have both.

Also, while Chaz's run is pretty locked in, anyone have an updated NG+ No-OoB or Seals and Scrolls?

Edit: SR also has a great set of things available to help anyone who doesn't find this thread. We could fill it in a bit, at least with guides. Maybe expand a lot on the specifics of tricks (which is now pretty dated), explain timing interval, etc.

emlun

Edit history:

emlun: 2016-01-28 01:36:21 am

emlun: 2016-01-28 01:34:13 am

2016-01-28 01:30:00 am

Great! Yeah, I've also been thinking we could expand on and add some guides to the tricks indices. I'll probably get started on that if I don't have anything better to do this weekend; I'm thinking about looking through the tricks in this thread's first post and updating as necessary, and also making a few new demos (bugwarp/double focus bounce, helipad skip). Anyone want to share the work? We could so like a workshop-over-VoIP or something Smiley

I'm thinking we could take some inspiration from how metroid2002.com has done their trick demos.

I've also started practicing NG No-OoB a little bit, might have a proper run of that done sometime soon. Or (this thought came to me while writing) should we rather strike a few categories off the list? Perhaps it's a bit redundant to maintain categories for each of the in-between combinations between the least and most restrictive categories, though I guess at least NG any% should probably stay since its the least restrictive NG category. But what about NG Obake and NG No-OoB? I personally wouldn't be against striking either off the list, just to reduce the number of categories.

Edit: I guess what I'm getting at is: should we merge the No-OoB and Obake qualifiers into a single both-or-none No-OoB Obake qualifier (which we could then rebrand as plain "Obake" or "Ninja" or something)? I currently don't think the orthogonality of the terms is really that useful in practice.

Great! Yeah, I've also been thinking we could expand on and add some guides to the tricks indices. I'll probably get started on that if I don't have anything better to do this weekend; I'm thinking about looking through the tricks in this thread's first post and updating as necessary, and also making a few new demos (bugwarp/double focus bounce, helipad skip). Anyone want to share the work? We could so like a workshop-over-VoIP or something :) I'm thinking we could take some inspiration from how metroid2002.com has done their trick demos.

I've also started practicing NG No-OoB a little bit, might have a proper run of that done sometime soon. Or (this thought came to me while writing) should we rather strike a few categories off the list? Perhaps it's a bit redundant to maintain categories for each of the in-between combinations between the least and most restrictive categories, though I guess at least NG any% should probably stay since its the least restrictive NG category. But what about NG Obake and NG No-OoB? I personally wouldn't be against striking either off the list, just to reduce the number of categories.

Edit: I guess what I'm getting at is: should we merge the No-OoB and Obake qualifiers into a single both-or-none No-OoB Obake qualifier (which we could then rebrand as plain "Obake" or "Ninja" or something)? I currently don't think the orthogonality of the terms is really that useful in practice.

Vyreck

Edit history:

Vyreck: 2016-01-28 02:25:56 am

Vyreck: 2016-01-28 02:25:34 am

2016-01-28 02:23:28 am

I'd say no. It's bad enough we can technically split every category twice with NG+ and we just crossed those off (except for any% and No-OoB any%, which should represent the truly faste4st way to beat mark), and as for Obake, technically obake is a more strict category and therefore, should always be slower than a run that ignores those limiters. S&S, and the 4 I mentioned before should be there no mater what, and having Obake split just seemed like something people wanted done for a long time before we finally got the routing down. Though you'd be hard pressed to convince me to add another category at this point... My vote is let it be.

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Also, i give you Jump Warping!!! No idea if it's practical anywhere, but a glitch is a glitch and should be explored as such. http://www.twitch.tv/vyreck/v/38142101
lvl 3, so no conventional warp techniques. Only really tested it on this slanted wall, so might be limited. Not sure if focus is required or not, but it's what I got it working with. And it seems to be tied to looking away from the wall.

I'd say no.  It's bad enough we can technically split every category twice with NG+ and we just crossed those off (except for any% and No-OoB any%, which should represent the truly faste4st way to beat mark), and as for Obake, technically obake is a more strict category and therefore, should always be slower than a run that ignores those limiters.  S&S, and the 4 I mentioned before should be there no mater what, and having Obake split just seemed like something people wanted done for a long time before we finally got the routing down.  Though you'd be hard pressed to convince me to add another category at this point...  My vote is let it be.

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Also, i give you Jump Warping!!!  No idea if it's practical anywhere, but  a glitch is a glitch and should be explored as such.  http://www.twitch.tv/vyreck/v/38142101   
lvl 3, so no conventional warp techniques.  Only really tested it on this slanted wall, so might be limited.  Not sure if focus is required or not, but it's what I got it working with.  And it seems to be tied to looking away from the wall.

Akitaka1

Edit history:

Akitaka1: 2016-01-28 07:28:46 pm

Akitaka1: 2016-01-28 03:25:14 am

Akitaka1: 2016-01-28 03:24:49 am

2016-01-28 03:24:35 am

I've been working on a couple of guides, including tutorials for the newest wallkick method and the helipad skip. The helipad skip is sort of difficult to explain in a video, but I'm getting there. As for seals and scrolls, I have a route planned, but have never really gotten around to running it. I could probably have a run to present in under three days.

Edit: I've decided that making a wallkick tutorial isn't really necessary, as there are existing videos for both vent wallkicks and normal walkicks.

emlun

2016-01-31 01:12:53 pm

I've made some updates to the index post! I added demo videos for the Bug Warp and NG Helipad skip, and replaced the Focus Flying demo with a shorter, more focused (har har) video that also features an input viewer. I also updated the terminology section with a bunch of new terms: Obake, OoB, Bug Warp, Focus Chain/Double Focus Jump, and Focus Jump/Focus Bounce. Let me know if I forgot something or if you have better demos!

Vyreck

2016-01-31 04:43:44 pm

Quote from emlun:

I've made some updates to the index post! I added demo videos for the Bug Warp and NG Helipad skip, and replaced the Focus Flying demo with a shorter, more focused (har har) video that also features an input viewer. I also updated the terminology section with a bunch of new terms: Obake, OoB, Bug Warp, Focus Chain/Double Focus Jump, and Focus Jump/Focus Bounce. Let me know if I forgot something or if you have better demos!

Looks good! When I get more time this week I might update Speedrun.com with the same.

Akitaka1

Edit history:

Akitaka1: 2016-02-19 11:26:03 pm

Akitaka1: 2016-02-19 11:24:35 pm

2016-02-19 10:57:00 pm

So I'm trying to get a good S&S run to put on Speedrun.com, but it's kind of kicking my ass at the moment. Now I know why perfectionism and speedrunning do not mix Tongue

I should have a run to present sometime soon though. Anyways, there are a couple of glitches and exploits that I've found while routing S&S, but I'm not sure if they're worth posting yet because I can't seem to find any applications for them outside of Seals and Scrolls.