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Flip: 2012-10-07 12:04:01 pm
1-Up!
Game Page: Doesn't exist yet

SS any% casual difficulty run

Verifier Responses

Quote:
Hey there folks, name's TorpedoBench. I've never really participated in the community, but I've frequented the site for years now. This is my first attempt at verifying a run.

A/V quality is fine, if a little grainy; sync is also fine, so far. It's a shame that the game was played in low quality settings, as it is such a good looking game Sad Doesn't harm the quality of the run, though.

I started timing when first control of Shepard is gained, not at the start of customization. I don't know if that's correct or not.

Very clever use of cut scene triggers to get rid of enemies.

Sound skill choices, especially with barrier. Goodness knows the runner spent a lot of time with stupid low health, and scaring me in the process  ;-;

I have to admit that I laughed at Tali in all her low-res glory.

Gee, the galaxy is sure obsessed with skintight apparel, aren't they?

I like the runner's elevator dance. Very... oh man, get your mind out of the gutter!

Am I the only one reminded of Spore when I hear the galaxy map's music?

Feros first, I see. A sound choice, with plenty of Geth to ignore.

Oh lawdy, Mako time. Got stuck a few times, but it's forgivable.

Very good use of explosives in the environment.

Ach, missed that grenade boost. Bad luck.

Way to defuse the situation with Lisbeth's mom. Shepard must talk at light speed.

Very clever to use the Mako to take care of the Thorian creepers. Definitely saves some time.

Fighting the Thorian is going well. Oh, look! Shepard got tired and needed a nap :p

Alright, it's official: this runner is getting the title of “The close call”. Seriously.

And there goes the last node! Bye bye, Thorian!

Aaaaand que Shepard's second acid trip.

Noveria Next. Shame Liara won't be seeing her mom.

Stopped to take care of Opold. A good choice. Nice and quick to get quite a lot of benefits.

And Mako time again. May god have mercy on your soul!

Oh man, I hated this puzzle. And, of course, our dear runner chews through it like it's part of their morning breakfast.

The reactor goes up without a hitch. Nicely done.

Hey, look! A horizontal elevator!

YEAH KAIDAN, WE GET IT. IT'S COLD.

And time for the Benezia fight. Goes down like it had a spoonful of sugar. Looks like Ash had to take a nap part way through.

Yay, the queen lives! Getting close to the paragon requirement for Saren now, I think.

Virmire without Liara or Wrex? Interesting.

Nice Mako parking job! Got you out of there quick.

Wait, Kirrahe can die?!

Wow, Shepard's really letting his renegade out here.

And acid trip 3!

Don't blow up the Normandy! D:

I can't even tell who's being saved, such is the runner's prowess with dialogue skipping!

Oh wait, it's Kaidan. Poor Ash Sad I disagree, but maybe it's just because I have a soft spot for her.

On to get Liara now, I think.

Ooh, missed that gate skip. Bad luck. A few seconds lost, but not too bad.

WHAT. What have you done?! The Mako's not supposed to go there! I call wizardry on this madness!

I have to admit, I think these grenade boosts are of dubious value. But that might just be me.

That mining laser took a few tries to get, but not too much of an issue.

Nothing quite as humbling as seeing sections I struggled so much with being beaten in the blink of an eye.

Noo! You skipped punching out the reporter!

Yeah, that's right. Screw you, Udina.

And onwards to Ilos!

Making quick work of things, as usual.

And here we are on the Citadel. Things quickly go to hell. In the game, I mean. The run is fine.

Here is an excellent example of Shepard Honey Badgering things up.

Haha, suddenly, Kaidan, Garrus! I choose you!

And Saren shoots himself! We win! Game over! Woohoo! ...Wait

Oh man, bad luck on the pistol overheat.

And he's dead! I've stopped timing here, after the screen goes dark after the final hit on Saren. I get around 2:14. Time to groove to the credits!

Overall, a good run. Plenty of clever tricks, and lots of running. No cheating detected, either, unless you consider criminally good luck cheating. There were a couple mistakes, but considering this is a single segment, and how much luck is needed with those low health escapes, they can be easily excused. I vote an accept for this fine run! Congrats!


Quote:
Video and audio quality was fine, although the graphics settings are pretty low. I didn't see any cheating.

Dialog skipping with the mousewheel was very speedy. Manual choices were made quickly, with only one minor flub that I noticed (Saren on Virmire).

Stamina management was excellent. The runner consistently was low on stamina or had just run out when reaching cutscenes, elevators, or the end of combat. The times the runner became fatigued did not seem to cost time because the stamina bar fully recharged and was used up again later. Some enemies were left alive and grenades were used in well-chosen places in order to sprint as much as possible. Firing guns to initiate combat in unexpected places was nice also.

Mako driving was generally good enough to conceal how weird and awkward it's physics really are. There were a few unfortunate flips and bumps though, so it might have been worth driving around some obstacles and not cutting corners so closely, but not much time was lost. Jumping the gate on Therum would have been cool, but failing it cost some time and the intended route isn't that far out of the way. The Mako was parked in good spots. Getting back in from the bridges on Virmire was great.

Combat was very impressive for a single segment run. Powers were used to devastating effect and at good times. Teammates were left behind in a few places to finish off the last few enemies and they generally came through in a reasonable amount of time. The Thorian seemed well-planned and quicker than I expected for such a long and tedious fight, despite getting hit by some biotic attacks. Saren on Virmire was amazing. Benezia and Saren's second form seemed like they could have gone better, but there are a lot of random factors in those fights.

Possible improvements:
- Given the length of the Thorian fight, would it be better to switch Feros and Noveria to be higher level for it? Does it matter due to difficulty scaling?
- Saving the teammate guarding the bomb skips the cutscene of them defending it, right? Is there a downside, like the fuel tanks being in the wrong place for Saren?
- Getting luckier with better guns from random drops would be helpful, but you can't expect perfect luck in single segment.
- I'm not sure what the most effective teammate powers are against Saren's second form, but if biotics are best for immobilizing him, maybe Liara would be better than Garrus?
- The Mako is glitchy enough that it's theoretically possible to fly over all kinds of obstacles. The places it would really help are probably way too unlikely for single segment though.

Verdict: Accept

I'm not sure when we should start timing. The boundary between conversations (which are gameplay) and cutscenes is blurry. The length of the opening cutscene depends on choices made during character creation, so if that means it should be included, it starts at 0:00:47. Control over the conversation starts at 0:03:26 and the rest is skipped so fast that character control starts one second later. Given that there are choices to make in the final conversation, I would stop the timer at 2:21:36. There are probably 2 or 3 minutes of load screens, so the time should be around 2:15 or 2:18 depending on the intro.


Quote:
Audio/Video: Quality is good. No hiccups or desync.
Cheating: None detected.

Comments:
-It is criminally difficult to tell what selections were made during dialogue sections because of how fast the runner is capable of skipping them. During these skips, it is likely that a number of misclicks were made but I doubt they would cost any actual time.

+Management of the stamina resource is incredibly well done, and likely the only deciding factor between getting a better time at this point would be improving the Mako segments and luckier grenade drops earlier in the run.

+Squad management is great as well. For how stupid the squad AI usually is, I'm surprised that the few portions of the run that rely on them to save time work so well.

-The Mako...Feros was atrocious, and is made moreso by how difficult it is to actually get the vehicle to flip (which occurs by accident during the run). On the other planets, the quality of driving is at least decent, and effort is made to cut corners.
I believe that some speed can be gained by manipulating the jumpjets on the Mako to bring the rear of the vehicle up and then mashing the jumpjet button, propelling the vehicle forward at a slightly higher speed. This is only really viable for long straightaways, though; the only real places that could benefit from this are likely Feros, Ilos, and some portions of Virmire (although there are some portions during Noveria which could probably take advantage of this, they are few and far between).

I think those are the only things worth mentioning that weren't otherwise handled.

Decision: Accept.

Reason: The runner manages his stamina expertly throughout the entire two hour run, which is likely the only thing to separate a good run from a great one.

Room for improvement: The Mako (as temperamental as it is), and luckier grenade drops (more than enough late game, so by this I mean a few more early game). Maybe a little bit from faster menu interaction, but that's nitpicking moreso than anything else.

Timing: The runner first gains control at approximately 00:03:26 (dialogue wheel) and the last input is at the dialogue wheel at approximately 02:21:36. The run clocks in at 02h 18m 10s.
Since timing begins at character control the only real changes that character customization effect are starting Paragon/Renegade points (since character control comes after the story bit where it might be made shorter or longer).

Regarding Verifier #2's possible improvements:
1) Feros is usually picked first because of the grenade refills it offers. Going to Noveria first would require three or four 'nade drops on Eden Prime, or using fewer grenades on the Citadel (and thus spending more time there).
2) I believe you're right that saving the bomb teammate shortens the cutscene length; however, it would require making it back through all the Krogans and Geth waiting at the elevator door. Plausible for a segmented run, but it's likely too dangerous for a SS.
3) Agreed.
4) The runner has more than enough biotic powers to keep them held down (although Kaidan being smarter about his would be too good to ask for), so it's more important to have two teammates with Overload. Saren's shields take forever to whittle down.
5) Remember also that the Mako is glitchy enough to flip on almost nothing, as displayed in the run, so you're right that a segmented run would probably be a better outlet for those tricks. I'm a little surprised that the runner would attempt the gate skip so late into a SS, but it only cost a few seconds in a 2 hour run.


Decision: Accept

Congratulations to 'your name here!'
Thread title:  
thethrillness.blogspot.com
Quote from Flip:
Congratulations to your name here!


.... Wink
Edit history:
Flip: 2012-10-07 12:03:52 pm
1-Up!
Yes quite the sneaky name.
edit: suppose I could throw some quotes in there.
SDA Apprentice -- (3-1)
Hard to congratulate a man who is 'Your name here' but who cares, Mass Effect!

One down, two to go!
Thanks to everyone who verified.

Quote:
A/V quality is fine, if a little grainy; sync is also fine, so far. It's a shame that the game was played in low quality settings, as it is such a good looking game Sad Doesn't harm the quality of the run, though.


Settings are crap because the game is terribly optimized, and I need it to run at 60fps, or else I lose time on dialogue. Sucks that the game looks like crap, though.


Quote:
YEAH KAIDAN, WE GET IT. IT'S COLD.

I feel very proud about the fact that I got both "I think I've got snow in my boots" and "Mom was right, I should have brought a sweater" lines out of Kaiden.

Quote:
Possible improvements:
- Given the length of the Thorian fight, would it be better to switch Feros and Noveria to be higher level for it? Does it matter due to difficulty scaling?
- Saving the teammate guarding the bomb skips the cutscene of them defending it, right? Is there a downside, like the fuel tanks being in the wrong place for Saren?
- Getting luckier with better guns from random drops would be helpful, but you can't expect perfect luck in single segment.
- I'm not sure what the most effective teammate powers are against Saren's second form, but if biotics are best for immobilizing him, maybe Liara would be better than Garrus?
- The Mako is glitchy enough that it's theoretically possible to fly over all kinds of obstacles. The places it would really help are probably way too unlikely for single segment though.


-This is something I've been thinking about alot recently. Switching Feros and Noveria makes it so that I am without grenades for port hanshan. Feros would scale up, and I already have all of the skills I'd need for that fight.  Although, in future runs, port hanshan will only need one grenade because of a skip. Also, I wouldn't get the grenade crate in feros because I would skip that entire level except for the boss. Basically, what I'm saying is that there's a lot of improvement to be done.
-Going to kirahee saves time because the enemies in that area die a lot faster. The cutscene is about 15 seconds longer, but I think that is made up in the faster battle. Plus, you'd have to add a couple seconds to the dialogue, so that I can still save kaiden. There is another new skip that makes going back a lot faster.
-Yes, I could always get luckier, but it's kinda hard to get any sort of deviation in the level of drops
-What verifier 3 said. Also, in future runs, garrus would be skipped. But, I guess that just makes the discussion about tali vs liara
-My Mako-ing was pretty bad. Missing that gate jump is a big mistake. No excuses here.  I'd love to see some new mako movement strats, as the mako has the potential to really be improved because of its physics based nature. Though, most of the obvious obstacles have invisible walls around them.

Quote:
-It is criminally difficult to tell what selections were made during dialogue sections because of how fast the runner is capable of skipping them. During these skips, it is likely that a number of misclicks were made but I doubt they would cost any actual time.


The PC version defaults options to the rightmost selection. When I use the mousewheel to skip dialogue, there is no opportunity to select anything else. This is generally also the fastest dialogue option, with a few exceptions. There is one place where I do it despite it not being the "fastest" option. After Virmire, joker asks you if you want to talk to the council. It's way easier to simply skip through the convo than it is to stop skipping at the right time, and say no. I guess about half a second could be saved by someone really keen, but in my opinion, it's way too much risk for the time savings.

---

I have my timing notes for this run if you need them.
I'd also like to know one way or the other whether the dialogue scenes are counted towards the time. It may help with planning future runs.
http://speeddemosarchive.com/MassEffect.html

Game page should mention that it was done on casual difficulty.
Exoray
Seems to have been missed. Fixed that typo.