Only one Phantasmal Killer is sold in the store; it's not an infinite store item like most of them are. So grinding money won't be helpful in that respect. Being able to duplicate non-plot items would be really neat, but the only way I know to do that is by using "Export Character" and multiplayer mode, which is both dubious rules-wise and really slow. (Basically, you export your character holding the item inside a multiplayer game, drop the item, save the game, then re-join the multiplayer game using your exported character rather than the character that's already there. This causes the game to reset all plot flags on the character for the chapter, but the way most chapters are structured, it's not the plot flags on the character you care about; it's the inventory and the plot flags on the module.)
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Right, that's the other one I found, and was discussing earlier. Eltoora's special store is actually coding-wise identical to Twenty in a Quiver (leading me to think that Twenty in a Quiver is just a coding mistake where they picked the wrong type of store).
For what it's worth, I actually thought up a viable 100% definition: "maximum non-alignment-adjusted experience gained from Journal advancement". This fixes all problems with identifying which Journal states count as completed quests (whichever ones give you the most experience), and also gives a clear rule for what to do when two quests contradict. Of course, it'd take a bunch of looking through the game files to work out what that is.
I'm not promising to route 100% as that would be a huge time sink, especially if nobody runs it. However I might be able to come up with a list of exactly what you have to do in it, at some point.
(EDIT: A fun side goal: can you 100% the rest of Chapter 2 within half an hour, which is the frame rule for getting Vardoc's journal? My instincts say no but I'd love to be proved wrong.)
For what it's worth, I actually thought up a viable 100% definition: "maximum non-alignment-adjusted experience gained from Journal advancement". This fixes all problems with identifying which Journal states count as completed quests (whichever ones give you the most experience), and also gives a clear rule for what to do when two quests contradict. Of course, it'd take a bunch of looking through the game files to work out what that is.
I'm not promising to route 100% as that would be a huge time sink, especially if nobody runs it. However I might be able to come up with a list of exactly what you have to do in it, at some point.
(EDIT: A fun side goal: can you 100% the rest of Chapter 2 within half an hour, which is the frame rule for getting Vardoc's journal? My instincts say no but I'd love to be proved wrong.)
I think it's actually quite possible to run it under half an hour, the monk speed + door walking strats are so powerful now. However I've no intention of really running 100% either, it wastes enough time trying to get the best Any% run possible. Was it so really that he spawns only after half an hour has passed? It's like 12 years since I've played the campaign through normally 
Well, one more idea. Are there any XP glitches in Chapter 1 or before? Is the XP Demon the only glitch remaining in the Diamond version of the game? I guess a level 7 Wizard could cast Phantasmal Killer by herself.
Well, one more idea. Are there any XP glitches in Chapter 1 or before? Is the XP Demon the only glitch remaining in the Diamond version of the game? I guess a level 7 Wizard could cast Phantasmal Killer by herself.
Chapter 2 has a bunch of timers for various NPCs showing up. If you hit every plot trigger on the first frame possible, they add up to a total of half an hour for spawning Vardoc. I don't know whether this is real time or in-game time (or if there's even a difference; the game has an in-game timer that's millisecond-accurate but AFAIK, it's only visible through scripting). The combination of triggers and timers makes it so that the NPCs in question are almost guaranteed to turn up "between" sidequests, giving you something new to do when you've just completed a previous section.
I seriously doubt there are XP glitches in the Prelude. The thing is that the conversation at the end unconditionally sets you to the start of XL 3 (I actually skip the XL 2 trigger via an unpatched-only clip), meaning that the rest of the Prelude basically doesn't care about giving you XP at all because it doesn't matter.
There are XP glitches in chapter 1. However, they are very slow. I've been working out how the 100% definition applies in Chapter 1, which means looking at a bunch of conversation scripts to see how they work.
Not infinite, but nifty: the imprisoned guard in the Warehouse in chapter 1 (Walters) will give you 50 experience each time through his conversation (the fastest route is IIRC either 13131 or 14141, I forget which but it's nice and easy to type). Like the demon, though, he will be attempting to despawn throughout the conversation, and because the experience isn't granted on the first node or on conversation abort (like it is for the demon) you can't just do it all with the game paused. In other words, it's basically like glitching items off the demon. The difference is that if you simply close the cell door before talking to him (so that he can't leave), the despawn timer is very long, probably either 30 seconds or a minute. So that comes to well over 1000 XP, if you're willing to spend the time grinding. This particular XP grind seems highly likely to be on the 100% route, because a) you have to go to that exact spot anyway in 100%, b) it may well be the fastest in Chapter 1.
Infinite but really slow: the animals in the Blacklake zoo give you XP each time during their conversation so long as they haven't left the zoo itself, on the second node and with no time limit. It's not very much XP, though, so grinding this is really slow. It's probably also further out of the way than Walters is for any% (and either is too far out of the way for an XP grind to save time in any%).
Currently unsure: are there any quests which let you turn in a plot item for XP, in which the plot item can be duplicated? One that I checked is in giving the artifacts to Oleff, but the game checks for duplicates there. The "Hints of…" quest chain seems like a plausible candidate; I haven't checked it yet, but not that far off the path (maybe three detours that add up to a minute or so).
Also, something that's worth checking in Diamond is that I found another infinite gold source in a conversation chain (similar to the Stone of Recall conversation glitch, but in a different conversation, so it might not have been fixed). Do the Blacklake zoo quest to completion (the normal way), then when you're talking to Nyatar for your reward, restart the conversation on the node where he gives you the gold, and go back to the start. IIRC, it's 1111*click*1111*click*1111*click* and so on, getting 400gp each time. I doubt this is useful in any%, but it's a ton of use both casually and for testing, and would make up for any gold shortfall in 100% (admittedly, it's hard to run out of gold in 100%).
I also remember a rumour about a glitch involving casting fire-elemental spells at Plague Victim Pyres. Assuming it's not just a playground rumour and is an actual glitch, it might be what we're looking for, but I suspect it's really slow due to casting speed limitations.
However, getting XP quickly is something I'm interested in anyway, because a) I used to do it on a very old version of the route (before most sequence breaks were discovered), and b) you absolutely need to hit XL 6 during Chapter 1 to do the "Tale" series of quests, so it's required in 100%.
Some things to know about XP: the amount of XP you get is heavily influenced by the size of your party, especially if the other members are higher-level than you. At the start of Chapter 1, you're level 3, and your henchman is IIRC level 4 (might be level 3). Summons, animal companions, etc., all count, and will be a big XP sink; you might only be getting 1/4 or 1/5 as much XP from a typical fight. On the other hand, the number of enemies that generate also scales on the same factor (but less so). This means that if you want to grind XP against "regular" enemies, the best method is to summon a monster, run across as many encounter triggers as you can with your summon alive to get more enemies on the map, then dismiss the summon and kill them yourself (without a henchman in the party). By far the fastest way to grind to XL 4 I know of is to play a Cleric and use Turn Undead + Extra Turning; you can use this method to get a bunch of Weak Zombies in the Beggar's Nest (IIRC worth 75 XP under perfect conditions; it might be 50), and kill enough of them with Turn Undead (outside, and in Great Graveyard) that you hit XL 4 before even reaching Gulnan. Unfortunately, this won't help you get lots of wizard levels, and doesn't really scale well beyond XL 4.
On the subject of 100%, I've now gone through the Prelude and Chapter 1, looking for awkward-to-define things and traps that can cause you to miss a full completion:
- The Prelude has something like 7 quests defined, but most are unused. The main quest is impossible not to complete. There are two "regular" missable "sidequests": the tutorial on how the Journal works gives you and completes a "sidequest" as part of that just to let you know how the system works; and Combat Training is optional for non-fighty classes. (There are quests defined for the other class tutorials, too, but unused ones; the game won't display them under any circumstances I'm aware of.) Additionally, there's a weird hiccup where they reused Chapter 1 logic for henchmen; this means that hiring a henchman (i.e. Pavel) won't have any journal effect, but unhiring a henchman, or allowing him to die, will, and these count as completed quests for some reason (or arguably aborted in the case of Pavel dead; the game doesn't distinguish). You can thus get an extra quest's worth of completion via hiring and immediately unhiring Pavel (and it won't get dislodged if you rehire him again). This is probably faster than arranging for him to die, and also less controversially percentage-bearing.
- Although Chapter 1 has a ton of quests, there are only two mutually exclusive quest chains:
- The Tyrran Artifacts can be turned in to more than one person (something it's very easy to miss in casual play); either Oleff or Gilles will accept them. It's also possible to persuade Gilles to return a quill that can be turned in to Oleff; this aborts the Gilles quest line. The maximum GP reward is from giving Gilles everything (which also gives you evil alignment points); the maximum XP reward is from giving everything to Oleff. I think the "perfect completion" of this quest set is the good path, in which you give everything to Oleff. (It's worth mentioning that in my test game, I started as true neutral, and ended Chapter 1 as Neutral (50) Good (100). Of course, there's no way (I know of?) to change alignment on the Lawful/Chaotic axis in NWN1 OC, but Good and Evil actions are all over the place.)
- Formosa and Meldanen can hire you to kill each other, and each of these has a separate Journal entry. (Again, most casual players will probably miss the existence of the evil path here.) Additionally, Formosa's quest has a partial completion (where you give her the key but not the tooth; marked as "complete" in the journal), and a full completion (where you give her both), together with an aborted state (in which she dies). The perhaps crazy thing here is that it's possible to fully complete Meldanen's quest, and partially complete Formosa's; first get Meldanen to surrender, then ask him to make an offer for killing Formosa, and accept the offer of "500gp + dryad now, 500gp later". The "+ dryad" gives you a key to the dryad's cage, which also happens to be the key that Formosa is looking for. You can turn that key in to Formosa, but then when she offers you a reward (which, critically, happens after the journal entry is marked complete), you can pick an option to make Formosa hostile (e.g. saying you'll take the reward off her corpse). Then, you have to kill her without being responsible for the kill. This is far from trivial; the easiest way I know is to dismiss a henchman who's in the middle of a lethal attack on her (so that the henchman isn't in your party at the moment he or she delivers the kill). You can then rehire the henchman if you want and go back to Meldanen, who checks to see if Formosa is alive, sees that she isn't, and gives you your reward, completing the other quest. Bingo, both quests complete and neither quest in an aborted state (although the Formosa half of the quest hasn't reached its "most complete ending").
- There are also some quests you can miss or just screw up via doing them in the wrong order (the biggest one I know is that you have to enter the Peninsula prison via the front door first or else The Prison Key will either be aborted or uncompletable).
- There are also some quests where it's debatable which endings should count as completed versus aborted (the one that confused me most, although luckily is irrelevant because it's almost impossible to arrange, is allowing for hostile monsters to kill Aldo and Mattily, and then completing "Aldo and Hector" by letting Hector know that they're dead.)
In general, though, I think 100% is just far too subjective to be definable. What the game marks as "completed" can cover a number of states. Here are some examples:
- Turning in some of Marcus's items, but not all, to Bertrand (it is still possible to make progress in the quest, and get further states, but it's marked as "completed" at this point);
- Turning in the Yuan-Ti Heart to Aribeth or Harben, but not both (both will give you a further "completed" state);
- Hearing about the Prison Key from Sedos will give you a quest that can be marked as "completed" in two ways; entering the prison via the main entrance, or entering it via the Tanglebrook Tunnels;
- Gilles' quest can be marked as "completed" via turning in all the Tyrran artifacts to Oleff, or alternatively via extorting the quill from him;
- Formosa's quest can be marked as "completed" via killing her (including very early and unprovoked, which is almost certainly fastest and skips the entire content of the quest chain)
Not to mention that a ton of quests don't give XP at all, or can give it multiple times, or give the same XP for each ending, etc..
In other words, I think 100% in Neverwinter Nights is basically just what people call a "bad 100% definition"; SDA's example for something that doesn't work as a 100% definition is "all items" in an RPG, which gives very similar problems to "all Journalled sidequests" in NWN. (Not to mention that there are some very sidequest-like things in NWN that don't have corresponding Journal entries, such as that whole business with Tamora and Hoff, a quest which is also incredibly easy to miss playing casually and can probably only be done if male.) At this point, I'd err on the side of saying that the only requirement should be to maximize the number of Journal entries in the "completed" column, even if the way you get them there is via blatantly ignoring the details of the quest and just making it uncompletable as soon as possible (you could call this the "Portal approach to 100%"; IIRC Portal speedruns "complete" some rooms via intentionally making them unwinnable). It wouldn't really be a true 100% because there's much more you can do in the game, but it would at least be a consistently definable high-completion category (although one that involves enough arbitrary murder that I'd be uncomfortable playing or routing it).
One thing I do like about 100%, though, is that you can skip the whole Seedy Tavern stuff in the Docks via any definition. You have to go along the Silver Sails route rather than the any% route (to get a Tyrran Artifact along the way), but you can do that by clipping through the door that you normally need Dara'nei's locket to get through, and it conveniently happens to advance every Journal entry that you'd normally get in the Seedy Tavern to the same spot it'd be in otherwise.
100% routing is nice for learning more about the game, but I think I'll go back to any% for actual playing. It's so much more reasonable, both in terms of defining it, and in terms of your actions through the game.
I seriously doubt there are XP glitches in the Prelude. The thing is that the conversation at the end unconditionally sets you to the start of XL 3 (I actually skip the XL 2 trigger via an unpatched-only clip), meaning that the rest of the Prelude basically doesn't care about giving you XP at all because it doesn't matter.
There are XP glitches in chapter 1. However, they are very slow. I've been working out how the 100% definition applies in Chapter 1, which means looking at a bunch of conversation scripts to see how they work.
Not infinite, but nifty: the imprisoned guard in the Warehouse in chapter 1 (Walters) will give you 50 experience each time through his conversation (the fastest route is IIRC either 13131 or 14141, I forget which but it's nice and easy to type). Like the demon, though, he will be attempting to despawn throughout the conversation, and because the experience isn't granted on the first node or on conversation abort (like it is for the demon) you can't just do it all with the game paused. In other words, it's basically like glitching items off the demon. The difference is that if you simply close the cell door before talking to him (so that he can't leave), the despawn timer is very long, probably either 30 seconds or a minute. So that comes to well over 1000 XP, if you're willing to spend the time grinding. This particular XP grind seems highly likely to be on the 100% route, because a) you have to go to that exact spot anyway in 100%, b) it may well be the fastest in Chapter 1.
Infinite but really slow: the animals in the Blacklake zoo give you XP each time during their conversation so long as they haven't left the zoo itself, on the second node and with no time limit. It's not very much XP, though, so grinding this is really slow. It's probably also further out of the way than Walters is for any% (and either is too far out of the way for an XP grind to save time in any%).
Currently unsure: are there any quests which let you turn in a plot item for XP, in which the plot item can be duplicated? One that I checked is in giving the artifacts to Oleff, but the game checks for duplicates there. The "Hints of…" quest chain seems like a plausible candidate; I haven't checked it yet, but not that far off the path (maybe three detours that add up to a minute or so).
Also, something that's worth checking in Diamond is that I found another infinite gold source in a conversation chain (similar to the Stone of Recall conversation glitch, but in a different conversation, so it might not have been fixed). Do the Blacklake zoo quest to completion (the normal way), then when you're talking to Nyatar for your reward, restart the conversation on the node where he gives you the gold, and go back to the start. IIRC, it's 1111*click*1111*click*1111*click* and so on, getting 400gp each time. I doubt this is useful in any%, but it's a ton of use both casually and for testing, and would make up for any gold shortfall in 100% (admittedly, it's hard to run out of gold in 100%).
I also remember a rumour about a glitch involving casting fire-elemental spells at Plague Victim Pyres. Assuming it's not just a playground rumour and is an actual glitch, it might be what we're looking for, but I suspect it's really slow due to casting speed limitations.
However, getting XP quickly is something I'm interested in anyway, because a) I used to do it on a very old version of the route (before most sequence breaks were discovered), and b) you absolutely need to hit XL 6 during Chapter 1 to do the "Tale" series of quests, so it's required in 100%.
Some things to know about XP: the amount of XP you get is heavily influenced by the size of your party, especially if the other members are higher-level than you. At the start of Chapter 1, you're level 3, and your henchman is IIRC level 4 (might be level 3). Summons, animal companions, etc., all count, and will be a big XP sink; you might only be getting 1/4 or 1/5 as much XP from a typical fight. On the other hand, the number of enemies that generate also scales on the same factor (but less so). This means that if you want to grind XP against "regular" enemies, the best method is to summon a monster, run across as many encounter triggers as you can with your summon alive to get more enemies on the map, then dismiss the summon and kill them yourself (without a henchman in the party). By far the fastest way to grind to XL 4 I know of is to play a Cleric and use Turn Undead + Extra Turning; you can use this method to get a bunch of Weak Zombies in the Beggar's Nest (IIRC worth 75 XP under perfect conditions; it might be 50), and kill enough of them with Turn Undead (outside, and in Great Graveyard) that you hit XL 4 before even reaching Gulnan. Unfortunately, this won't help you get lots of wizard levels, and doesn't really scale well beyond XL 4.
On the subject of 100%, I've now gone through the Prelude and Chapter 1, looking for awkward-to-define things and traps that can cause you to miss a full completion:
- The Prelude has something like 7 quests defined, but most are unused. The main quest is impossible not to complete. There are two "regular" missable "sidequests": the tutorial on how the Journal works gives you and completes a "sidequest" as part of that just to let you know how the system works; and Combat Training is optional for non-fighty classes. (There are quests defined for the other class tutorials, too, but unused ones; the game won't display them under any circumstances I'm aware of.) Additionally, there's a weird hiccup where they reused Chapter 1 logic for henchmen; this means that hiring a henchman (i.e. Pavel) won't have any journal effect, but unhiring a henchman, or allowing him to die, will, and these count as completed quests for some reason (or arguably aborted in the case of Pavel dead; the game doesn't distinguish). You can thus get an extra quest's worth of completion via hiring and immediately unhiring Pavel (and it won't get dislodged if you rehire him again). This is probably faster than arranging for him to die, and also less controversially percentage-bearing.
- Although Chapter 1 has a ton of quests, there are only two mutually exclusive quest chains:
- The Tyrran Artifacts can be turned in to more than one person (something it's very easy to miss in casual play); either Oleff or Gilles will accept them. It's also possible to persuade Gilles to return a quill that can be turned in to Oleff; this aborts the Gilles quest line. The maximum GP reward is from giving Gilles everything (which also gives you evil alignment points); the maximum XP reward is from giving everything to Oleff. I think the "perfect completion" of this quest set is the good path, in which you give everything to Oleff. (It's worth mentioning that in my test game, I started as true neutral, and ended Chapter 1 as Neutral (50) Good (100). Of course, there's no way (I know of?) to change alignment on the Lawful/Chaotic axis in NWN1 OC, but Good and Evil actions are all over the place.)
- Formosa and Meldanen can hire you to kill each other, and each of these has a separate Journal entry. (Again, most casual players will probably miss the existence of the evil path here.) Additionally, Formosa's quest has a partial completion (where you give her the key but not the tooth; marked as "complete" in the journal), and a full completion (where you give her both), together with an aborted state (in which she dies). The perhaps crazy thing here is that it's possible to fully complete Meldanen's quest, and partially complete Formosa's; first get Meldanen to surrender, then ask him to make an offer for killing Formosa, and accept the offer of "500gp + dryad now, 500gp later". The "+ dryad" gives you a key to the dryad's cage, which also happens to be the key that Formosa is looking for. You can turn that key in to Formosa, but then when she offers you a reward (which, critically, happens after the journal entry is marked complete), you can pick an option to make Formosa hostile (e.g. saying you'll take the reward off her corpse). Then, you have to kill her without being responsible for the kill. This is far from trivial; the easiest way I know is to dismiss a henchman who's in the middle of a lethal attack on her (so that the henchman isn't in your party at the moment he or she delivers the kill). You can then rehire the henchman if you want and go back to Meldanen, who checks to see if Formosa is alive, sees that she isn't, and gives you your reward, completing the other quest. Bingo, both quests complete and neither quest in an aborted state (although the Formosa half of the quest hasn't reached its "most complete ending").
- There are also some quests you can miss or just screw up via doing them in the wrong order (the biggest one I know is that you have to enter the Peninsula prison via the front door first or else The Prison Key will either be aborted or uncompletable).
- There are also some quests where it's debatable which endings should count as completed versus aborted (the one that confused me most, although luckily is irrelevant because it's almost impossible to arrange, is allowing for hostile monsters to kill Aldo and Mattily, and then completing "Aldo and Hector" by letting Hector know that they're dead.)
In general, though, I think 100% is just far too subjective to be definable. What the game marks as "completed" can cover a number of states. Here are some examples:
- Turning in some of Marcus's items, but not all, to Bertrand (it is still possible to make progress in the quest, and get further states, but it's marked as "completed" at this point);
- Turning in the Yuan-Ti Heart to Aribeth or Harben, but not both (both will give you a further "completed" state);
- Hearing about the Prison Key from Sedos will give you a quest that can be marked as "completed" in two ways; entering the prison via the main entrance, or entering it via the Tanglebrook Tunnels;
- Gilles' quest can be marked as "completed" via turning in all the Tyrran artifacts to Oleff, or alternatively via extorting the quill from him;
- Formosa's quest can be marked as "completed" via killing her (including very early and unprovoked, which is almost certainly fastest and skips the entire content of the quest chain)
Not to mention that a ton of quests don't give XP at all, or can give it multiple times, or give the same XP for each ending, etc..
In other words, I think 100% in Neverwinter Nights is basically just what people call a "bad 100% definition"; SDA's example for something that doesn't work as a 100% definition is "all items" in an RPG, which gives very similar problems to "all Journalled sidequests" in NWN. (Not to mention that there are some very sidequest-like things in NWN that don't have corresponding Journal entries, such as that whole business with Tamora and Hoff, a quest which is also incredibly easy to miss playing casually and can probably only be done if male.) At this point, I'd err on the side of saying that the only requirement should be to maximize the number of Journal entries in the "completed" column, even if the way you get them there is via blatantly ignoring the details of the quest and just making it uncompletable as soon as possible (you could call this the "Portal approach to 100%"; IIRC Portal speedruns "complete" some rooms via intentionally making them unwinnable). It wouldn't really be a true 100% because there's much more you can do in the game, but it would at least be a consistently definable high-completion category (although one that involves enough arbitrary murder that I'd be uncomfortable playing or routing it).
One thing I do like about 100%, though, is that you can skip the whole Seedy Tavern stuff in the Docks via any definition. You have to go along the Silver Sails route rather than the any% route (to get a Tyrran Artifact along the way), but you can do that by clipping through the door that you normally need Dara'nei's locket to get through, and it conveniently happens to advance every Journal entry that you'd normally get in the Seedy Tavern to the same spot it'd be in otherwise.
100% routing is nice for learning more about the game, but I think I'll go back to any% for actual playing. It's so much more reasonable, both in terms of defining it, and in terms of your actions through the game.
New breakthrough in HotU. I was playing around the game when I suddenly got control of my character in a cutscene. The cutscenes seem to be quite broken in the game and judging by Google they've caused lots of problems in casual play too. Anyway I figured out a way to at least use Relic of the Reaper to set a teleporter to a cutscene, and the Valsharess appearing in the cutscene is the same character as in the final fight in Chapter 2. Thus, we need to do only one quest instead of four in order to get the cutscene rolling, kill Valsharess and hop straight into Chapter 3.
Here's the glitch (mmhhhhh Youtube ambient music <3):
and here's a new PB of 55:21:
Sub 50 is definitely possible with good RNG with the Appraise glitches. I haven't gone through the cutscenes in the game systematically yet to see if there are even more glitches to be exploited.
(Pastebin route here: http://pastebin.com/6tUf5QPA)
Here's the glitch (mmhhhhh Youtube ambient music <3):
and here's a new PB of 55:21:
Sub 50 is definitely possible with good RNG with the Appraise glitches. I haven't gone through the cutscenes in the game systematically yet to see if there are even more glitches to be exploited.
(Pastebin route here: http://pastebin.com/6tUf5QPA)
Edit history:
Mejcel: 2015-11-30 05:31:07 pm
Mejcel: 2015-11-30 05:30:40 pm
Mejcel: 2015-11-30 05:29:06 pm
Mejcel: 2015-11-30 05:28:08 pm
Mejcel: 2015-11-30 05:27:36 pm
Mejcel: 2015-11-30 05:27:25 pm
Mejcel: 2015-11-30 04:56:15 pm
Mejcel: 2015-11-30 04:56:01 pm
Mejcel: 2015-11-30 04:55:21 pm
Mejcel: 2015-11-30 04:54:24 pm
For the HotU route: have you happened to play the game, ais523? I just realised what timesinks the Appraise glitches are. I therefore need to find every possible way to maximise my Appraise skill.
SoU has Gloves that give Appraise, but I don't think they exist in HotU. If anyone knows any +Intelligence items, those would help too.
What about feats? Skill Focus: Appraise gives +3 which is really good for instance.
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EDIT: I did the math. 19 skill rank + 3 (Skill Focus:Appraise) + 3 (Intelligence Modifier) + 2 (Fox's Cunning) = 27 Appraise, which should give me a 21% chance every time I open a store for the first time to get the maximum profit possible (+30%). This should be enough. I found a store in the start of HotU which sells +2 and +3 Intelligence rings, but it would cost 35 seconds to shop there.
This means in the upcoming runs I will try the following starting stats: 18 STR, 8 DEX, 12 CON, 16 INT, 8 WIS, 8 CHA. The swap between Constitution and Intelligence should be worth it (-30 to -40HP, +11% chance to get the maximum profit possible) and not cause too much problems during the run, hopefully. Also, I'll need to pick Fox's Cunning as a spell, obviously (or buy potions, but spells are most probably a little bit quicker and cost nothing).
(I expect saving ~3min from the first Appraise glitch and ~2m45 from the second.)
SoU has Gloves that give Appraise, but I don't think they exist in HotU. If anyone knows any +Intelligence items, those would help too.
What about feats? Skill Focus: Appraise gives +3 which is really good for instance.
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EDIT: I did the math. 19 skill rank + 3 (Skill Focus:Appraise) + 3 (Intelligence Modifier) + 2 (Fox's Cunning) = 27 Appraise, which should give me a 21% chance every time I open a store for the first time to get the maximum profit possible (+30%). This should be enough. I found a store in the start of HotU which sells +2 and +3 Intelligence rings, but it would cost 35 seconds to shop there.
This means in the upcoming runs I will try the following starting stats: 18 STR, 8 DEX, 12 CON, 16 INT, 8 WIS, 8 CHA. The swap between Constitution and Intelligence should be worth it (-30 to -40HP, +11% chance to get the maximum profit possible) and not cause too much problems during the run, hopefully. Also, I'll need to pick Fox's Cunning as a spell, obviously (or buy potions, but spells are most probably a little bit quicker and cost nothing).
(I expect saving ~3min from the first Appraise glitch and ~2m45 from the second.)
Quote from Mejcel:
For the HotU route: have you happened to play the game, ais523?
I haven't, but I've seen someone else play it (and have read spoilers). So I'm vaguely familiar with what goes on, but don't know nearly as much about it as I do about OC. (And I know what Appraise does, although I don't know just how powerful the effect is; I'm guessing it's pretty broken.)
Quote from ais523:
I haven't, but I've seen someone else play it (and have read spoilers). So I'm vaguely familiar with what goes on, but don't know nearly as much about it as I do about OC. (And I know what Appraise does, although I don't know just how powerful the effect is; I'm guessing it's pretty broken.)
It is. It doesn't seem exploitable in OC/SoU though, since the merchants' sell mark up/buy mark down need to be within <60 percentage points to each other. Every store in OC/SoU is 150/35(%), bar the lost plot items pool, which is 100/15(%). HotU has some 100/65(%) and 100/50(%) merchants for example.
(Appraise rolls are (d10 + Merchant's Appraise) minus (d10 + PC Appraise). It has a maximum value of -30 though, meaning -30% off bought items and +30% more value from sold items. Most merchants don't even have an Appraise skill whatsoever, this is treated as having 1 point in Appraise.)
You play on Easy? I've been playing on Normal. (Would be nice if I could explain away all the time difference as that, but I doubt it makes much of a difference. It probably explains why your Graduation Chamber fights go so fast, though.)
You probably want to mention that the default keybindings for strafing are Q and E. (I use the default bindings for basically everything; the only ones I customized were IIRC unbinding a few keys I don't use and kept hitting by mistake.) You might also want to mention that quicksave is G, because it's far from obvious.
The guard outside Aribeth's room in the Prelude, you need to start the conversation, but you don't need to do anything else in the conversation; you can just continue pressing no keys at all once it's started.
You don't ever need to equip your crossbow bolts; the game will autoequip them if you have an empty crossbow bolt slot and try to fire your crossbow. (In my runs, this often means they end up sitting there in their starting locations all game until the Morag fight, when they finally get used to break her AI.) I guess it makes sense to equip them anyway though just to get them out of the way. Sometimes if I want to get an item out of the way I'll put it on a different inventory page (you can drag the item onto the page tab to do this).
You might want to explain that Expeditious Retreat lasts longer at level 2, so you get more benefit from it.
Your dryad conversation is suboptimal. 23 is the fastest path through the conversation.
My normal technique for dealing with Bethany is to trigger her conversation intentionally and then spam through it on the way to the Docks. This prevents her bothering me later. I'm not sure whether it's faster.
For the Docks clip, I tend to summon my familiar only marginally before doing the clip. This makes it much easier to keep alive. For the alternative method using Charon, you can actually do it without entering the combat trigger (or summoning the familiar) at all, which makes it much safer (although even slower). That said, I do the entire clip without Invisibility (I don't have it at that point in my route), which makes it really nervewracking.
That Callik clip setup is one I was completely unaware of, although it does make some sort of sense. (I know clipping mechanics are different in Diamond, though. Glad you found something that works!)
At the start of Peninsula, you might want to explain that the reason you cast regular Expeditious Retreat when visible and Extended Expeditious Retreat when invisible is so that you don't waste invisibility time with casting animations.
The words you were looking for with respect to the two-bladed sword are "to line up".
By the time you dememorized True Strike for the first time in Peninsula, you had never cast it. There's got to be an improvement there.
Door clipping that trapped door outside Kurdan's is a genius idea. (It's also possible to door clip the door that Grommin unlocks, which is faster than waiting on my route, but I'm nowhere near consistent with it. The specific setup you're using only helps on a minority of doors, and I suspect it hurts on that one; as a general rule, if your character model is clear of the door, just pressing W by itself is enough, and the fancier setups only help in cases when you can't easily get clear. (Fancier setups hurt in general because there's more to mess up.) I agree that the difficulty varies from door to door, and suspect it's to do with where the door is relative to the edge of the tile in the room's tileset.
A nice tip for the Intellect Devourer fight is to zoom in. It makes it easier to click on among the spam of other characters.
It's worth mentioning that if Gulnan does use Flame Strike, you can dodge it in at least two ways: outrunning the AoE (requires good reactions but is totally possible); or quicksaving and reloading towards the end of the cast animation, before the animation of the flames themselves come up. I use the latter method in my runs (it's a time loss but not as bad as getting hit).
Don't feel too bad about the Aribeth component turn-in conversation. I tend to go really slowly there to not accidentally donate my reward to charity or something stupid like that (not game-ruining if you only do it once, but you're meant to be Evil, and it's not impossible to end up very tight on gold in my route).
I finally understand how you can do the demon conversation without pause-buffering. For me playing a Chaotic Evil character, the inputs are more complex because the dialog is different. (That said, you're still much better at menuing than I am.)
I think Expeditious Retreat stacks with Haste in Diamond, doesn't it? On the other hand, I'm not convinced it saves time. Might be worth testing.
Restarting Aarin's conversation at the start of Chapter 3 is someting I hadn't seen before and hadn't thought of. I need to start doing that myself.
Some advice for the Door of Three clip: it has two parts (getting inside and getting through), and the first part is easiest to do via a door clip and the second part is easiest to do via a familiar clip. Of course door clipping both in one go is fastest, but at unpatched speeds I normally fail that (the timing is tighter), so I tend to summon my familiar inside the door (which takes careful placement) and use it to clip me through.
WRT what happened with the gate clip at the start of Chapter 4, you clipped through the door then did a failed clip backwards through the door (the backwards clip failed because you didn't press W at the right moment, not that you wanted it to succeed). A clip that's otherwise correct but missing the W will teleport you to the point at which the clip started.
Sorry for not giving you competition. I've considered buying Diamond, but think I prefer the route on unpatched (you can get away with more crazy stuff through chapter 1, and from chapter 2 onwards there's at least some semblance of gameplay left because you can't just warp your way into the epic levels, also Monk is no longer obviously best which makes routing more interesting). Not that I've had much time for speedrunning at all recently…
You probably want to mention that the default keybindings for strafing are Q and E. (I use the default bindings for basically everything; the only ones I customized were IIRC unbinding a few keys I don't use and kept hitting by mistake.) You might also want to mention that quicksave is G, because it's far from obvious.
The guard outside Aribeth's room in the Prelude, you need to start the conversation, but you don't need to do anything else in the conversation; you can just continue pressing no keys at all once it's started.
You don't ever need to equip your crossbow bolts; the game will autoequip them if you have an empty crossbow bolt slot and try to fire your crossbow. (In my runs, this often means they end up sitting there in their starting locations all game until the Morag fight, when they finally get used to break her AI.) I guess it makes sense to equip them anyway though just to get them out of the way. Sometimes if I want to get an item out of the way I'll put it on a different inventory page (you can drag the item onto the page tab to do this).
You might want to explain that Expeditious Retreat lasts longer at level 2, so you get more benefit from it.
Your dryad conversation is suboptimal. 23 is the fastest path through the conversation.
My normal technique for dealing with Bethany is to trigger her conversation intentionally and then spam through it on the way to the Docks. This prevents her bothering me later. I'm not sure whether it's faster.
For the Docks clip, I tend to summon my familiar only marginally before doing the clip. This makes it much easier to keep alive. For the alternative method using Charon, you can actually do it without entering the combat trigger (or summoning the familiar) at all, which makes it much safer (although even slower). That said, I do the entire clip without Invisibility (I don't have it at that point in my route), which makes it really nervewracking.
That Callik clip setup is one I was completely unaware of, although it does make some sort of sense. (I know clipping mechanics are different in Diamond, though. Glad you found something that works!)
At the start of Peninsula, you might want to explain that the reason you cast regular Expeditious Retreat when visible and Extended Expeditious Retreat when invisible is so that you don't waste invisibility time with casting animations.
The words you were looking for with respect to the two-bladed sword are "to line up".
By the time you dememorized True Strike for the first time in Peninsula, you had never cast it. There's got to be an improvement there.
Door clipping that trapped door outside Kurdan's is a genius idea. (It's also possible to door clip the door that Grommin unlocks, which is faster than waiting on my route, but I'm nowhere near consistent with it. The specific setup you're using only helps on a minority of doors, and I suspect it hurts on that one; as a general rule, if your character model is clear of the door, just pressing W by itself is enough, and the fancier setups only help in cases when you can't easily get clear. (Fancier setups hurt in general because there's more to mess up.) I agree that the difficulty varies from door to door, and suspect it's to do with where the door is relative to the edge of the tile in the room's tileset.
A nice tip for the Intellect Devourer fight is to zoom in. It makes it easier to click on among the spam of other characters.
It's worth mentioning that if Gulnan does use Flame Strike, you can dodge it in at least two ways: outrunning the AoE (requires good reactions but is totally possible); or quicksaving and reloading towards the end of the cast animation, before the animation of the flames themselves come up. I use the latter method in my runs (it's a time loss but not as bad as getting hit).
Don't feel too bad about the Aribeth component turn-in conversation. I tend to go really slowly there to not accidentally donate my reward to charity or something stupid like that (not game-ruining if you only do it once, but you're meant to be Evil, and it's not impossible to end up very tight on gold in my route).
I finally understand how you can do the demon conversation without pause-buffering. For me playing a Chaotic Evil character, the inputs are more complex because the dialog is different. (That said, you're still much better at menuing than I am.)
I think Expeditious Retreat stacks with Haste in Diamond, doesn't it? On the other hand, I'm not convinced it saves time. Might be worth testing.
Restarting Aarin's conversation at the start of Chapter 3 is someting I hadn't seen before and hadn't thought of. I need to start doing that myself.
Some advice for the Door of Three clip: it has two parts (getting inside and getting through), and the first part is easiest to do via a door clip and the second part is easiest to do via a familiar clip. Of course door clipping both in one go is fastest, but at unpatched speeds I normally fail that (the timing is tighter), so I tend to summon my familiar inside the door (which takes careful placement) and use it to clip me through.
WRT what happened with the gate clip at the start of Chapter 4, you clipped through the door then did a failed clip backwards through the door (the backwards clip failed because you didn't press W at the right moment, not that you wanted it to succeed). A clip that's otherwise correct but missing the W will teleport you to the point at which the clip started.
Sorry for not giving you competition. I've considered buying Diamond, but think I prefer the route on unpatched (you can get away with more crazy stuff through chapter 1, and from chapter 2 onwards there's at least some semblance of gameplay left because you can't just warp your way into the epic levels, also Monk is no longer obviously best which makes routing more interesting). Not that I've had much time for speedrunning at all recently…
Edit history:
Mejcel: 2016-02-09 10:43:24 am
Mejcel: 2016-02-09 10:42:54 am
Mejcel: 2016-02-09 10:42:25 am
Mejcel: 2016-02-09 10:42:04 am
Mejcel: 2016-02-09 10:41:04 am
Mejcel: 2016-02-09 10:40:43 am
Mejcel: 2016-02-09 10:39:49 am
Mejcel: 2016-02-09 10:39:01 am
Mejcel: 2016-02-09 10:38:32 am
Mejcel: 2016-02-09 10:38:19 am
Mejcel: 2016-02-09 10:37:34 am
As always, good points ais523 I'll go through some of them:
Fixed, thanks.
You don't - but I need to order my inventory somehow to be able to fit all four cloaks from the demon on the first page in order to save time. Equipping them while waiting for the loot to appear is something you have plenty of time to do, and it's already a good habit of mine.
I thought I already did in the video - I'll have to re-check it.
Thanks, fixed.
I think not dealing with her at all is actually faster. Not 100% sure though. At least its way less annoying...
Yeah, here I just prefer the more risky strats even though it sometimes means a reset. Before the detour for Phantasmal Killer I used to cast Invisibility right beside the Lieteunant, which meant that most of the time he would attack me first and either Familiar or Daelan second once he lost track of me. Now it's a lot more riskier...
Yeah, I think I've tried to make it better but as far as I know I'm hasted all the time and there are no better places to rest than the ones I'm using right now. Using more haste spells before resting would just mean I would have to wait somewhere to rest as naturally you're not able to rest when there's enemies nearby. On top of that the spellcast animation canceling glitch - which saves a whopping 1 second each time it is performed - requires me to not have any extra memorizations at all. Then there's areas such as Meldanen's which is no-rest plus it requires Invisibility, which creates some complexity. Of course I hope I'm proven wrong - maybe you or someone else is able to optimise it even further.
From the limited testing I've done - it seems that most important in walking through doors is having enough speed - which in most cases translates to enough distance between the door and you - so that your character has maximum speed and isn't accelerating (or turning). Also clicking far enough behind the door is required so that your character doesn't decelerate in the end instead. I suspect this is the case why the Crypts door is so hard to walk through - there's no space behind it to set your character to move far away enough. Although I don't think I have tested it that extensively. With this method of stopping a reasonable distance behind the door and clicking far enough behind it, every door clip seems consistent though.
Again, I just "yolo" it. The times I've been killed by Gulnan is probably under five or so.
Nope. However, I stumbled upon some very interesting facts from NWN wiki:
These obviously need testing. Any good mass haste scrolls in the later chapters? Although it could just be slower ultimately. Also, how good is stacking in practise? Link: http://nwn.wikia.com/wiki/Expeditious_retreat
Obviously I'm aware of this, and I should've included a guide for if you get stuck. However the way I set it up it's going to clip both parts basically every time. If you do get stuck inside though, you don't need the familiar, at least with patched speeds you can just walk through the remaining part as well.
Hahah, okay.
It sounds interesting, you should try to capture your unpatched attempts - and MAYBE I'll try to improve on it with the old disc version I'm supposed to have somewhere lying around.....
Quote from ais523:
The guard outside Aribeth's room in the Prelude, you need to start the conversation, but you don't need to do anything else in the conversation; you can just continue pressing no keys at all once it's started.
Fixed, thanks.
Quote from ais523:
You don't ever need to equip your crossbow bolts; the game will autoequip them if you have an empty crossbow bolt slot and try to fire your crossbow. (In my runs, this often means they end up sitting there in their starting locations all game until the Morag fight, when they finally get used to break her AI.) I guess it makes sense to equip them anyway though just to get them out of the way. Sometimes if I want to get an item out of the way I'll put it on a different inventory page (you can drag the item onto the page tab to do this).
You don't - but I need to order my inventory somehow to be able to fit all four cloaks from the demon on the first page in order to save time. Equipping them while waiting for the loot to appear is something you have plenty of time to do, and it's already a good habit of mine.
Quote from ais523:
You might want to explain that Expeditious Retreat lasts longer at level 2, so you get more benefit from it.
I thought I already did in the video - I'll have to re-check it.
Quote from ais523:
Your dryad conversation is suboptimal. 23 is the fastest path through the conversation.
Thanks, fixed.
Quote from ais523:
My normal technique for dealing with Bethany is to trigger her conversation intentionally and then spam through it on the way to the Docks. This prevents her bothering me later. I'm not sure whether it's faster.
I think not dealing with her at all is actually faster. Not 100% sure though. At least its way less annoying...
Quote from ais523:
For the Docks clip, I tend to summon my familiar only marginally before doing the clip. This makes it much easier to keep alive. For the alternative method using Charon, you can actually do it without entering the combat trigger (or summoning the familiar) at all, which makes it much safer (although even slower). That said, I do the entire clip without Invisibility (I don't have it at that point in my route), which makes it really nervewracking.
Yeah, here I just prefer the more risky strats even though it sometimes means a reset. Before the detour for Phantasmal Killer I used to cast Invisibility right beside the Lieteunant, which meant that most of the time he would attack me first and either Familiar or Daelan second once he lost track of me. Now it's a lot more riskier...
Quote from ais523:
By the time you dememorized True Strike for the first time in Peninsula, you had never cast it. There's got to be an improvement there.
Yeah, I think I've tried to make it better but as far as I know I'm hasted all the time and there are no better places to rest than the ones I'm using right now. Using more haste spells before resting would just mean I would have to wait somewhere to rest as naturally you're not able to rest when there's enemies nearby. On top of that the spellcast animation canceling glitch - which saves a whopping 1 second each time it is performed - requires me to not have any extra memorizations at all. Then there's areas such as Meldanen's which is no-rest plus it requires Invisibility, which creates some complexity. Of course I hope I'm proven wrong - maybe you or someone else is able to optimise it even further.
Quote from ais523:
Door clipping that trapped door outside Kurdan's is a genius idea. (It's also possible to door clip the door that Grommin unlocks, which is faster than waiting on my route, but I'm nowhere near consistent with it. The specific setup you're using only helps on a minority of doors, and I suspect it hurts on that one; as a general rule, if your character model is clear of the door, just pressing W by itself is enough, and the fancier setups only help in cases when you can't easily get clear. (Fancier setups hurt in general because there's more to mess up.) I agree that the difficulty varies from door to door, and suspect it's to do with where the door is relative to the edge of the tile in the room's tileset.
From the limited testing I've done - it seems that most important in walking through doors is having enough speed - which in most cases translates to enough distance between the door and you - so that your character has maximum speed and isn't accelerating (or turning). Also clicking far enough behind the door is required so that your character doesn't decelerate in the end instead. I suspect this is the case why the Crypts door is so hard to walk through - there's no space behind it to set your character to move far away enough. Although I don't think I have tested it that extensively. With this method of stopping a reasonable distance behind the door and clicking far enough behind it, every door clip seems consistent though.
Quote from ais523:
It's worth mentioning that if Gulnan does use Flame Strike, you can dodge it in at least two ways: outrunning the AoE (requires good reactions but is totally possible); or quicksaving and reloading towards the end of the cast animation, before the animation of the flames themselves come up. I use the latter method in my runs (it's a time loss but not as bad as getting hit).
Again, I just "yolo" it. The times I've been killed by Gulnan is probably under five or so.
Quote from ais523:
I think Expeditious Retreat stacks with Haste in Diamond, doesn't it? On the other hand, I'm not convinced it saves time. Might be worth testing.
Nope. However, I stumbled upon some very interesting facts from NWN wiki:
Quote from NWN Wiki: Expeditious Retreat:
- The "if the caster is already hasted" clause refers specifically to the spell haste; other sources of haste (including mass haste) do not block this spell (but the movement rate cap is often relevant).
- This spell stacks with itself (up to the movement rate cap).
- This spell stacks with itself (up to the movement rate cap).
These obviously need testing. Any good mass haste scrolls in the later chapters? Although it could just be slower ultimately. Also, how good is stacking in practise? Link: http://nwn.wikia.com/wiki/Expeditious_retreat
Quote from ais523:
Some advice for the Door of Three clip: it has two parts (getting inside and getting through), and the first part is easiest to do via a door clip and the second part is easiest to do via a familiar clip. Of course door clipping both in one go is fastest, but at unpatched speeds I normally fail that (the timing is tighter), so I tend to summon my familiar inside the door (which takes careful placement) and use it to clip me through.
Obviously I'm aware of this, and I should've included a guide for if you get stuck. However the way I set it up it's going to clip both parts basically every time. If you do get stuck inside though, you don't need the familiar, at least with patched speeds you can just walk through the remaining part as well.
Quote from ais523:
WRT what happened with the gate clip at the start of Chapter 4, you clipped through the door then did a failed clip backwards through the door (the backwards clip failed because you didn't press W at the right moment, not that you wanted it to succeed). A clip that's otherwise correct but missing the W will teleport you to the point at which the clip started.
Hahah, okay.
Quote from ais523:
Sorry for not giving you competition. I've considered buying Diamond, but think I prefer the route on unpatched (you can get away with more crazy stuff through chapter 1, and from chapter 2 onwards there's at least some semblance of gameplay left because you can't just warp your way into the epic levels, also Monk is no longer obviously best which makes routing more interesting). Not that I've had much time for speedrunning at all recently…
It sounds interesting, you should try to capture your unpatched attempts - and MAYBE I'll try to improve on it with the old disc version I'm supposed to have somewhere lying around.....
Meldanen's isn't technically no-rest (at least in unpatched), it's just that it has a very high enemy density, so it's hard to find a point that's sufficiently far from any enemy to make resting legal. The location just after you go down the stairs works in unpatched, at least (probably based on the general principle that when entering a map area for the first time, most enemies don't actually spawn until you move).
Edit history:
Mejcel: 2016-06-22 05:50:49 pm
Mejcel: 2016-06-22 05:50:07 pm
Mejcel: 2016-06-22 05:49:50 pm
Mejcel: 2016-06-22 05:49:45 pm
Mejcel: 2016-06-22 05:49:35 pm
Mejcel: 2016-06-22 05:49:17 pm
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Mejcel: 2016-06-22 05:48:39 pm
Mejcel: 2016-06-22 05:47:33 pm
Mejcel: 2016-06-22 05:47:14 pm
Quote from ais523:
Meldanen's isn't technically no-rest (at least in unpatched), it's just that it has a very high enemy density, so it's hard to find a point that's sufficiently far from any enemy to make resting legal. The location just after you go down the stairs works in unpatched, at least (probably based on the general principle that when entering a map area for the first time, most enemies don't actually spawn until you move).
At least the floor right after the entrance with the Orc you have to persuade is a no-rest in patched.
However, there's still the thing with it being faster to quick-rest in order to regain Extended Expeditious Retreat than trying to cast too many Expeditious Retreats (casting time is so damn slow). In fact it would be better to use the Extended version at all times, but the places that you're able to rest are just too few inbetween for that to be possible. I still think I have the most optimal route concerning the haste spell usage, I remember testing it thoroughly all the way back in 2015. However, there are many variables involved in optimal resting (even the fact of sometimes needing Invisibility, taking up an Extended version spell slot!) and it's been a long time: the route has changed a lot. Of course I hope to be proven wrong, better strats are always better!
In other news
Final time 33:43. Sub 34 is what I ultimately ended up aiming for, so I'm done with running OC any%. I did some math:
Quote:
"major" mistakes: 6s (re-entering docks gate) 5s (familiar clip crypts) 6s (extra sure on XP Demon) 20s (kurth's door) 7s (warzone gate) 5s (aribeth door) 6s (morag doors)
= 55s
rng: 7s (graduation chamber) 2s (grommin persuade) 13s (prisoners) 6s (intellect devourer/phantasmal killer) 10s (gulnan fight)
= 38s
= 55s
rng: 7s (graduation chamber) 2s (grommin persuade) 13s (prisoners) 6s (intellect devourer/phantasmal killer) 10s (gulnan fight)
= 38s
Curious that there were so many walking through doors mistakes. It may have something to do with me having a new SSD in which I ran the game, thus making all the timings be way different.
With all the mistakes (most obvious one being Kurth's door +20s) totaling at 55s, and "perfect RNG" giving around 38s more I think sub 33 is definitely possible but really hard, and theoretically a low 33 is obtainable, but that requires some dedication.
With the RNG based nature of the game I'm not up to this task, and I'll leave it at that. Official number of attempts for me finalized at #880 (there's probably many more).
I'll make a final version with audio commentary hopefully this week, but if I don't have the time during this week, it'll take a while. During this summer I will most definitely also finish my HotU speedrunning with a really good run, there's some 6-10 minutes to be shaven off with the new strats.
Cheers!
I haven't been speedrunning anything for ages, unfortunately (unless you count a small amount of TASing in other games), too much going on elsewhere. You're definitely much better at menuing than I am, so it's unlikely I'd ever be able to catch up even if I were playing on the same version.
In some sense I'm relieved that your Graduation Chamber went so badly. That's basically how it always goes for me, so in a sense it's nice to see something in a WR run that I can actually replicate. For what it's worth, my PB time for the Prelude is 3:35, and that's using an unpatched-only route that allows extra skips and has faster movement. That includes about 8 seconds of loading time, so it's slower even allowing for the fact that your computer loads faster than mine does. I actually strongly suspect that the main reason for the time loss is Stables (which your WR and my PB reach at almost exactly the same time); you clear it out with a couple of fireballs then can run off the convideo, versation during combat, whereas it takes me about 45 seconds even if everything goes well, partly because I need to use slower spells, partly because I have to wait for ages for Desther and Fenthick to leave combat (unpatched places a much longer wait after combat before conversation becomes possible). Another major reason, of course, is that I'm buying two levels in Stables, rather than one in Stables and one earlier, thus making me look like I'm less far behind than I actually am. At some point when I have time, I'll have to do a bunch of Prelude runs compared to your video, and figure out exactly what's making me slower, because I really should be faster (given that I get to skip half of Academy).
An idea: is it possible to clip the gate next to Orrean? Probably wouldn't save more than a second, though.
I see you have just as much trouble with enemies chasing you in the Docks overworld as I do. I'm not sure of any good solutions, although spamming the "follow" command while I'm running from the store to the locked door seems to help a bit.
That familiar clip to skip Callik was incredibly smooth! I rarely have much trouble with that clip (normally I get it within two tries), but I also spend much longer setting up for it (maybe 2-3 seconds rather than "practically instantaneous").
Serious ouch at what happened in Containment Area. I mean, it's normally bad, but often not quite that bad. (I tend to throw on a copy of Summon Monster I and summon it behind me if I get stuck like that. I don't think it actually helps, but it makes me feel more in control of the situation. Actually, in casual runs, it's now reached the point where I run round and pick the lock, rather than through, to save myself the aggravation.)
Second try Phantasmal Killer isn't bad. Also: you can save in the middle of casting the spell? That'd save me a lot of trouble. (Or did I just misinterpret what I saw?) I know that saving during a spell animation cancels the spell, which is something I often use against Gulnan, but I hadn't thought of saving earlier in the animation to save myself needing to find and click on the Intellect Devourer (it's a pretty small target).
Also, I'm kind-of astonished that that Peninsula was a gold split, given how much room there is for getting better RNG there. Was the run you were comparing to made using an outdated strategy?
I normally cast Invisibility immediately outside the Cultists' Hideout, rather than inside; it seems a lot safer. OTOH, it worked out for you here, and maybe drawing enemies away from the next door was useful.
The Gulnan fight looks like it could have gone a lot better; there were a bunch of misses. Is this a situation where True Strike would help? (Note that one thing I've realised is that overbuffing for the Gulnan fight is often a bad idea, as the time spent casting the buff isn't repaid during the fight. So perhaps it wouldn't.)
In case you're confused as to what was going on with Aribeth after the fight at the start of Chapter 1e (you looked a bit disoriented), you need to start and end the conversation with her, and only then enter the portal's trigger (if you're inside you have to leave and come back). The easiest way to end the conversation is with Escape, it doesn't have to end naturally. This took me a while to figure out.
Wow at what happened in Kurth's. My normal strategy there is to pick the lock on the door, invisibly. It's considerably slower than the one you were trying to use, but it's also a lot safer. (I should probably try to get good at that door clip. Possibly also look into doing Kurth's base visibly, but I move so much slower than you do that that may not be possible.)
I hadn't thought of getting the Familiar portal stone by doing the level backwards. (Part of the reason is that the trap just there is often fatal or nearly so at the lower levels I have in unpatched – Epic hadn't been invented yet – and so I have to take care to dodge it, which is hard when going backwards.) That said, I doubt it's all that much faster. Meanwhile, the level 9 door clip is almost disappointing in retrospect, as that battle is a pretty fun/challenging one to route and skipping it kind-of removed the fun from it. Perhaps I should try to work out a "no clipping" route just to have fun with the routing challenge (kind-of an oldschool playthrough through the game), although "complete the game at the minimum possible level" is another challenge run I've considered and is possibly even harder from a routing point of view.
Finally, that Morag fight strategy looks oddly close to the intended one (OK, you tanked the barrier rather than destroying Statue), but apart from that it went pretty much as intended. I guess epic levels have a tendency to break a campaign not designed for them…
Anyway, good run, and OC Diamond any% is looking pretty much solved now. I can't think of a place in the route that could be improved more than marginally by better routing, now, so it's all going to come down to luck and execution.
In some sense I'm relieved that your Graduation Chamber went so badly. That's basically how it always goes for me, so in a sense it's nice to see something in a WR run that I can actually replicate. For what it's worth, my PB time for the Prelude is 3:35, and that's using an unpatched-only route that allows extra skips and has faster movement. That includes about 8 seconds of loading time, so it's slower even allowing for the fact that your computer loads faster than mine does. I actually strongly suspect that the main reason for the time loss is Stables (which your WR and my PB reach at almost exactly the same time); you clear it out with a couple of fireballs then can run off the convideo, versation during combat, whereas it takes me about 45 seconds even if everything goes well, partly because I need to use slower spells, partly because I have to wait for ages for Desther and Fenthick to leave combat (unpatched places a much longer wait after combat before conversation becomes possible). Another major reason, of course, is that I'm buying two levels in Stables, rather than one in Stables and one earlier, thus making me look like I'm less far behind than I actually am. At some point when I have time, I'll have to do a bunch of Prelude runs compared to your video, and figure out exactly what's making me slower, because I really should be faster (given that I get to skip half of Academy).
An idea: is it possible to clip the gate next to Orrean? Probably wouldn't save more than a second, though.
I see you have just as much trouble with enemies chasing you in the Docks overworld as I do. I'm not sure of any good solutions, although spamming the "follow" command while I'm running from the store to the locked door seems to help a bit.
That familiar clip to skip Callik was incredibly smooth! I rarely have much trouble with that clip (normally I get it within two tries), but I also spend much longer setting up for it (maybe 2-3 seconds rather than "practically instantaneous").
Serious ouch at what happened in Containment Area. I mean, it's normally bad, but often not quite that bad. (I tend to throw on a copy of Summon Monster I and summon it behind me if I get stuck like that. I don't think it actually helps, but it makes me feel more in control of the situation. Actually, in casual runs, it's now reached the point where I run round and pick the lock, rather than through, to save myself the aggravation.)
Second try Phantasmal Killer isn't bad. Also: you can save in the middle of casting the spell? That'd save me a lot of trouble. (Or did I just misinterpret what I saw?) I know that saving during a spell animation cancels the spell, which is something I often use against Gulnan, but I hadn't thought of saving earlier in the animation to save myself needing to find and click on the Intellect Devourer (it's a pretty small target).
Also, I'm kind-of astonished that that Peninsula was a gold split, given how much room there is for getting better RNG there. Was the run you were comparing to made using an outdated strategy?
I normally cast Invisibility immediately outside the Cultists' Hideout, rather than inside; it seems a lot safer. OTOH, it worked out for you here, and maybe drawing enemies away from the next door was useful.
The Gulnan fight looks like it could have gone a lot better; there were a bunch of misses. Is this a situation where True Strike would help? (Note that one thing I've realised is that overbuffing for the Gulnan fight is often a bad idea, as the time spent casting the buff isn't repaid during the fight. So perhaps it wouldn't.)
In case you're confused as to what was going on with Aribeth after the fight at the start of Chapter 1e (you looked a bit disoriented), you need to start and end the conversation with her, and only then enter the portal's trigger (if you're inside you have to leave and come back). The easiest way to end the conversation is with Escape, it doesn't have to end naturally. This took me a while to figure out.
Wow at what happened in Kurth's. My normal strategy there is to pick the lock on the door, invisibly. It's considerably slower than the one you were trying to use, but it's also a lot safer. (I should probably try to get good at that door clip. Possibly also look into doing Kurth's base visibly, but I move so much slower than you do that that may not be possible.)
I hadn't thought of getting the Familiar portal stone by doing the level backwards. (Part of the reason is that the trap just there is often fatal or nearly so at the lower levels I have in unpatched – Epic hadn't been invented yet – and so I have to take care to dodge it, which is hard when going backwards.) That said, I doubt it's all that much faster. Meanwhile, the level 9 door clip is almost disappointing in retrospect, as that battle is a pretty fun/challenging one to route and skipping it kind-of removed the fun from it. Perhaps I should try to work out a "no clipping" route just to have fun with the routing challenge (kind-of an oldschool playthrough through the game), although "complete the game at the minimum possible level" is another challenge run I've considered and is possibly even harder from a routing point of view.
Finally, that Morag fight strategy looks oddly close to the intended one (OK, you tanked the barrier rather than destroying Statue), but apart from that it went pretty much as intended. I guess epic levels have a tendency to break a campaign not designed for them…
Anyway, good run, and OC Diamond any% is looking pretty much solved now. I can't think of a place in the route that could be improved more than marginally by better routing, now, so it's all going to come down to luck and execution.
Quote from ais523:
In some sense I'm relieved that your Graduation Chamber went so badly. That's basically how it always goes for me, so in a sense it's nice to see something in a WR run that I can actually replicate. For what it's worth, my PB time for the Prelude is 3:35, and that's using an unpatched-only route that allows extra skips and has faster movement. That includes about 8 seconds of loading time, so it's slower even allowing for the fact that your computer loads faster than mine does. I actually strongly suspect that the main reason for the time loss is Stables (which your WR and my PB reach at almost exactly the same time); you clear it out with a couple of fireballs then can run off the convideo, versation during combat, whereas it takes me about 45 seconds even if everything goes well, partly because I need to use slower spells, partly because I have to wait for ages for Desther and Fenthick to leave combat (unpatched places a much longer wait after combat before conversation becomes possible). Another major reason, of course, is that I'm buying two levels in Stables, rather than one in Stables and one earlier, thus making me look like I'm less far behind than I actually am. At some point when I have time, I'll have to do a bunch of Prelude runs compared to your video, and figure out exactly what's making me slower, because I really should be faster (given that I get to skip half of Academy).
Well, it was only about Aribeth missing once and I lost 6 seconds. I was about to have 1:11 leaving the Chamber and I got 1:17 instead. It's still good I think, my Stables is so damn fast nowadays. You save at least 12 seconds from doing the Stables fight properly with Wand of Fire so I think you should look into it.
Quote from ais523:
An idea: is it possible to clip the gate next to Orrean? Probably wouldn't save more than a second, though.
Wouldn't save time (well maybe max second as you said) & if you would fail it it would probably be run over.
Quote from ais523:
That familiar clip to skip Callik was incredibly smooth! I rarely have much trouble with that clip (normally I get it within two tries), but I also spend much longer setting up for it (maybe 2-3 seconds rather than "practically instantaneous").
There's a small adjustment if you look carefully: before I used to summon my Familiar instantly, now I walk a bit to the left so that she spawns behind me. This is now basically the way to perform it. Almost 100% risk free.
Quote from ais523:
Serious ouch at what happened in Containment Area. I mean, it's normally bad, but often not quite that bad. (I tend to throw on a copy of Summon Monster I and summon it behind me if I get stuck like that. I don't think it actually helps, but it makes me feel more in control of the situation. Actually, in casual runs, it's now reached the point where I run round and pick the lock, rather than through, to save myself the aggravation.)
Hahah.. Yeah, well, it's a 13 seconds loss. Can't have both perfect RNG and good execution.
Quote from ais523:
Second try Phantasmal Killer isn't bad. Also: you can save in the middle of casting the spell? That'd save me a lot of trouble. (Or did I just misinterpret what I saw?) I know that saving during a spell animation cancels the spell, which is something I often use against Gulnan, but I hadn't thought of saving earlier in the animation to save myself needing to find and click on the Intellect Devourer (it's a pretty small target).
At least when you cast from a scroll, otherwise I'm not sure.
Quote from ais523:
Also, I'm kind-of astonished that that Peninsula was a gold split, given how much room there is for getting better RNG there. Was the run you were comparing to made using an outdated strategy?
First of all, there's an added Expeditious Retreat since of course you don't have any need for True Strike in that particular fight. However that has also been in the previous splits, but check out how smoothly both walking through the door go (first try) AND most importantly the setup for Intellect Devourer. I persuade the guards really fast and the Head Gaoler dies as soon as I have line of sight and free actions for casting the spell. Plus the guard that has been persuaded hasn't yet exited the area so I can start spamming the spell+quickload. As far as I can see, there's only those 13 seconds in the split to be realistically saved.
Quote from ais523:
I normally cast Invisibility immediately outside the Cultists' Hideout, rather than inside; it seems a lot safer. OTOH, it worked out for you here, and maybe drawing enemies away from the next door was useful.
I always do it this way, why = precisely what you mentioned. I've never died here.
Quote from ais523:
The Gulnan fight looks like it could have gone a lot better; there were a bunch of misses. Is this a situation where True Strike would help? (Note that one thing I've realised is that overbuffing for the Gulnan fight is often a bad idea, as the time spent casting the buff isn't repaid during the fight. So perhaps it wouldn't.)
This is true, I kind of estimated that I lost around 10 seconds here, hard to say. Pre-buffing with True Strike is good IMO but you need to trust the RNG afterwards, it's stupid to cast in the middle of the fight when you just could hit again during the round spent spellcasting.
Quote from ais523:
In case you're confused as to what was going on with Aribeth after the fight at the start of Chapter 1e (you looked a bit disoriented), you need to start and end the conversation with her, and only then enter the portal's trigger (if you're inside you have to leave and come back). The easiest way to end the conversation is with Escape, it doesn't have to end naturally. This took me a while to figure out.
But this is exactly what I did, talked with her, pressed Escape and tried to walk through the Portal. This fight was so fast that Fenthick didn't make it through the portal and started his pre-ritual conversation with me???? It somehow bugged the portal and I had to do it again.
Quote from ais523:
Wow at what happened in Kurth's. My normal strategy there is to pick the lock on the door, invisibly. It's considerably slower than the one you were trying to use, but it's also a lot safer. (I should probably try to get good at that door clip. Possibly also look into doing Kurth's base visibly, but I move so much slower than you do that that may not be possible.)
This was a disaster. But I've never had this happen to me so it was kind of confusing. I *should* still just practise walking through doors but seriously I'm done with this run. I can't be arsed.
Quote from ais523:
I hadn't thought of getting the Familiar portal stone by doing the level backwards. (Part of the reason is that the trap just there is often fatal or nearly so at the lower levels I have in unpatched – Epic hadn't been invented yet – and so I have to take care to dodge it, which is hard when going backwards.) That said, I doubt it's all that much faster. Meanwhile, the level 9 door clip is almost disappointing in retrospect, as that battle is a pretty fun/challenging one to route and skipping it kind-of removed the fun from it. Perhaps I should try to work out a "no clipping" route just to have fun with the routing challenge (kind-of an oldschool playthrough through the game), although "complete the game at the minimum possible level" is another challenge run I've considered and is possibly even harder from a routing point of view.
It is significantly faster. I think I failed the door clip there too once, though. Pre-clip routing sounds like fun.
Quote from ais523:
Finally, that Morag fight strategy looks oddly close to the intended one (OK, you tanked the barrier rather than destroying Statue), but apart from that it went pretty much as intended. I guess epic levels have a tendency to break a campaign not designed for them…
Well, it's still the same strategy where she is not allowed to cast any Time Stops. Whether or not the blade barrier appears is completely down to luck, it's about where ever the ingame timer happens to be running at the time.
Quote from ais523:
Anyway, good run, and OC Diamond any% is looking pretty much solved now. I can't think of a place in the route that could be improved more than marginally by better routing, now, so it's all going to come down to luck and execution.
I think it's done. I hope someone someday beats this record as I think sub-33 is possible, but he/she must be prepared to grind a lot. However - for example with the new setup for Aqueducts gate skip - more and more run-killers have been weeded out from this category. It's only down to patience and the number of attempts.
New HotU record from 55:21 down to 29:53. FAQ: http://pastebin.com/mkCCFdn6
New strats! First of all, I found a very similar XP glitch to the original campaign's that I don't think has been mentioned anywhere. Halaster gives you infinite XP in chunks of 7500xp.
Also while running I just stumbled randomly upon a weird glitch where I didn't have to fight the third Guardian in Puzzlers' Sepulcher. Instead the portal that should spawn after her death popped up out of nowhere. I had to dig deep into the scripting mechanics with the toolset to find the cause: there's a small helper dialogue pop-up in The Mimic's Nest that hints you about equipping and de-equipping the Puzzle Ring if you don't for 180 seconds hit another trigger that's a bit further along the way. After these 180 seconds, the game triggers user defined event #4444 in the area you are in. If you just avoid the second trigger that CANCELS this timer, you are able to trigger user defined event #4444 in other areas, such as Puzzlers' Sepulcher. This happens to be *the* trigger number for a lot of important plot characters' deaths too, such as the third Guardian of the Path. So in the end I never have to fight her if I just enter Puzzlers' during this 180 second time.
Some mistakes with Flesh Golems (13s), should've bashed the doors on the way out. The reason you don't do it the way in is that you need to have a conversation and don't want to wait the 6s timer. 20s at Mimic, I'm *just* a bit too late, should've never risked it the way I did. Also I think I can do the merchant part in Chapter 3 a lot faster still. Final Guardian RNG was really bad, the fight can be a lot easier than that.
Other than that I'm still thinking whether or not I should leave the +6 AC ring and/or one of the +5 saves amulets on me when I'm shopping. I'll have to actually test if healing in combat is slower than having more money which I can just as easily generate. (+6 AC helps with the Skeletal Minions) Also not having +5 saves is risky with the Walking Bone Mass, they have a 25% chance to land a Stunning Fist on me.
Quote from Mejcel:
After these 180 seconds, the game triggers user defined event #4444 in the area you are in. If you just avoid the second trigger that CANCELS this timer, you are able to trigger user defined event #4444 in other areas, such as Puzzlers' Sepulcher.
That's both brilliant and ridiculous. It's great when people come up with something like that.
After re-watching the original campaign's run I'm still here wondering if it could be any faster. Notably by getting extra monk levels from Chaohinon (again, every 3rd level of Monk gives you +10% speed).
This table is generated using the average speed of me mashing Mouse1 from the current WR, which was 8.25 clicks per second. Right now I go for level 24 which is around 87 seconds of mashing, the next 3 levels (=27) is an extra ~24 seconds, level 30 extra 52 seconds and so on up to level 40 (extra 163 seconds). When I was watching the run I noticed there is still so much running during the rest of the game that the extra +10% for example might just be worth it. After running HotU with the XP trick the level 21 Monk speed just looks so slow. It's pretty hard to test all of these and prove it one way or another convincingly, but it's got to be done some day.
This table is generated using the average speed of me mashing Mouse1 from the current WR, which was 8.25 clicks per second. Right now I go for level 24 which is around 87 seconds of mashing, the next 3 levels (=27) is an extra ~24 seconds, level 30 extra 52 seconds and so on up to level 40 (extra 163 seconds). When I was watching the run I noticed there is still so much running during the rest of the game that the extra +10% for example might just be worth it. After running HotU with the XP trick the level 21 Monk speed just looks so slow. It's pretty hard to test all of these and prove it one way or another convincingly, but it's got to be done some day.
I've now ran the whole "trilogy".
I think I've got the basics of the route down, but it's probably going to change a lot. First of all, I thought using Barbarian in this run since you only get to about level 7. However, it seems that actually Barbarian Fast Movement (+10% speed) does not stack with Haste/(Expeditious Retreat), so it seems useless anyway. It would only slow me down getting the actual Wizard level 2 where I get to use those haste spells. In the end I decided to take 3 Wizard/3 Monk/1 Fighter, the last Fighter level giving me one extra feat, Weapon Focus that is. Monk is handy also in that it gives you free Evasion, which makes the traps in Kel-Garas' tomb a little safer. I also take Lightning Reflexes for +2 saves, however in this run I actually leveled up after the tomb due to not killing some Stingers... We'll see, this will probably change a bit.
The basic strategy at the start is this: I try to level up as fast as possible to level 3 which is enough for me to fight the different Elementals at J'Nah's. The Chapter 1 end trigger is only getting the Tower Statue from Deekin, so you actually don't have to get all four artifacts. To get the Statue from Deekin, Tymofarrar either needs to be killed or you need to have killed J'Nah for Tymofarrar to agree letting Deekin go. Now, in the run I kill Tymofarrar (after I've already killed J'Nah) which is debatable if it's faster, you do get some extra money (7700ish) and experience (577Xp) plus Lesser Gauntlets of Ogre Power & Ring of Resistance +1 but it might not be enough. That's something I need to investigate.
Also, I haven't found a way to insta-kill Tymofarrar which would of course be the fastest. You get an item from J'Nah that helps with the fight, polymorphing you to a Frost Giant - to my current knowledge this fight would be impossible without it, so AFAIK there's no way to skip J'Nah at the moment.
Now why do I go get the Mummified Hand if it's not needed to finish Chapter 1? I need to generate money for certain equipment. You can duplicate the plot items, which are the Mask, the Mummified Hand and the Dragon's Tooth and then sell them to either the Hermit or Szaren. From these two, Szaren is closer and gives you more money. Now, you can duplicate the Mask but re-buying it from the lost plot items fountain costs a ton of money (~7000 GP), so it's not an option. Out of the Dragon's tooth and the Mummified Hand you get more money from the Mummified Hand (1000 compared to 500 OR 700 if you succeed a Persuade Check, which has around ~25% chance to fail). If I were to duplicate the Dragon Tooth, to get the exact same money I would have to do it for ~182 seconds longer, which is basically the same time I use to get the Mummified Hand (180 seconds, +bonus 750XP).
Now - about the money - the items I absolutely need are Belt of Inertial Barrier (~11000 GP) and Greater Adventurer's Robe (~26000 GP) plus potions (at the moment 27 haste potions ~12500 GP & 6-7 Heal potions ~12600-14700 GP). Total around 65000 GP. Very nice bonuses are Scabbard of Blessing (Aid & Bless == +2 to hit, 1d8 bonus hitpoints), ~12000 GP and Cloak of Movement ~25000 GP. From these, potions of Aid & Bless are probably cheaper than the item, however slower to buy. Freedom of Movement is for all the paralysis & slow traps that the Tomb for example has, but maybe the time to get that amount of money is actually better spent quicksaving/loading and/or avoiding the traps if possible. I'll check these. Other than that, there's some really good loot in the Tomb, so I think I'll buy only half of the haste potions in Chapter 1 and buy the rest in Interlude from Musharak. This way I need to generate ~8000 less money in Chapter 1 which should save around 35-40 seconds.
Then I need to also check if there are more ways to get good XP without a lot of time loss, since I get the 3rd level of Monk kinda late, and it gives you a nice speed boost (from 50% faster to 75% faster). There's a lot of variables included with the XP side of things and I'm really unsure about them in general.
Due to the low-level setting this is a RNG heavy run - for example the three fights in the beginning with the Guard, the Herbalist & his wolf and the Ranger later on are really killing a lot of runs in the first few minutes. This time I got next to godly RNG in the beginning. The latter half of the run was riddled with mistakes though.
I expect at least sub 1 hour to be very possible, but there's a lot of testing to be still done. Anyway this was a blast to route, hope to make a better run in the future!
So, someone gifted me a copy of Diamond. I've been playing it casually, but I've also been comparing glitches (and I did a semi-speedrun, or routerun, of the OC in order to have everything there unlocked).
The first thing that became obvious is that the familiar clipping mechanics are completely different; they don't seem to have anything remotely in common with unpatched's. In unpatched, the hitbox for pushing another character is very small, and clips tend to move the pushed character backwards with respect to the pushing character. In Diamond, you can push an allied character from quite a distance, and you push them away from yourself. Additionally, in unpatched, the distance that you push a character is variable but typically very small (although a good setup can make it much larger, even crossing large portions of a level); in Diamond, the distance is fixed, and although it's fairly large, it's too short to clip through any opaque wall I'm aware of (but it's large enough to clip a door or gate).
There is, of course, the mystery of the Docks clip. However, I may have found some clues in that respect. As far as I can tell, the collision matrix for that room is broken; I'm not entirely sure how, but it's possible to save and reload in that room and end up somewhere completely different from where you started (typically behind the entrance). So I guess you're clipping to somewhere the game thinks is very near, but is actually somewhat different. An interesting experiment you can do in the game is to cast Invisibility Sphere. In many places in the game, it's possible to run out of your own sphere, despite it being centered on you (!). In other places, it's completely solid and stable. (There are other weirdnesses, too, like the invisible wall towards the south end of Port Llast that keeps tripping me up because it's on the most direct path to the south gate.) So my guess is that there are simply lots of mistakes in the game's collision matrix, that aren't necessarily obvious in casual or even speedrunning play. I don't know how many there are or whether any (other than the Docks clip) are exploitable.
On a side note, I found something that makes the Docks clip much safer: you can run round the trigger to start the fight by hugging the left wall of the bridge. This removes all the time pressure from the clip, and generally turns one of the run's most nervewracking moments (as I do it without invisibility in unpatched!) into something fairly trivial.
I also discovered that a lot of glitches I was used to have been fixed. Here are some examples of things I can remember that you can do in unpatched, but not Diamond:
* Clip through thick walls, obviously
* Save and reload in the middle of an enemy spell to cancel it
* Unequip a +Charisma item as a sorcerer to get infinite (well, 255) spell charges (note: this implies that Sorcerer is almost certainly useless for speedrunning on Diamond, and Wizard should always be used instead)
* Kill all the Protectors at once by using Weird
* Silence Maugrim to screw up his AI (he seems to be able to cast spells through Silence now)
There are also some glitches that I managed to reproduce in Diamond, sometimes using different methods:
* You can no longer DCR Morag via attacking the door in front of her. Presumably a casual player discovered this by accident. However (based on in-game experiments, not on toolset inspection), they seem to have fixed this via adding a specific check to start the Morag fight sequence if the door is destroyed. You can DCR her via alternative means: open the door normally, hit the trigger to make her run up to you, then run backwards to the barrel in the corridor and attack it. Morag won't be able to start conversation with you because you're in combat, giving you all the time you like to kill the Statue and the Protectors. DCRing Morag generally seems very useful, not only because it prevents Morag attacking until you're ready, but because it seems to break the Hands of Morag's AI (they tend to act in a DCR-like state themselves). Note that as usual, after DCRing her, the best way to start the fight is with a physical ranged weapon attack on her directly.
* The Chapter 2 alternative plot item cloning method still works. Talk to Aribeth while holding the Charwood Journal. On the screen where you a green dialogue option to give her the journal, drop the journal, then select the option once it's on the ground. She'll accept the journal, but the journal on the ground will be intact. You can then pick it back up and continue the conversation, offering it to her again. I think this is marginally faster than the divining pool method. (I haven't tested it on Chapter 3.)
* Although Weird doesn't work, the Protectors still seem to all be affected by Horrid Wilting (although its AoE is quite small, so you'll have to cast it on one side or the other, and not in the centre). It doesn't normally do enough damage to one-shot them, unfortunately, but two or three casts should be enough.
* Silence isn't enough to break the Maugrim fight. However, you can DCR him by using the Stone of Recall as he's running towards you to start conversation. I managed to find a way to break the fight (preventing him resurrecting the Servants of Flesh) after DCRing him, but unfortunately I'm not entirely sure what it was (and couldn't figure it out even at the time).
* Aribeth can still be DCRed (allowing you to clip out of the room in peace). The easiest method seems to be to open the door, run into the room, close the door behind you and attack it; unlike some areas where the same trick works but is very narrow because you have to do it so quickly, you have a fairly wide time window in this one.
In general, the changes to the glitches mean that I prefer the unpatched speedrun to the Diamond one (MonkSpeed™ is really the only saving grace of Diamond, but that makes routing rather less interesting as it decides your character build for you). That said, HotU looks a lot like it would be interesting to speedrun, so I may try to learn the route there. (Playing casually, like I am at the moment, it's generally very good, but with several "what on earth were you thinking?" moments; at times, I've been frustrated enough to consider running right through a door. That's the sort of game that typically makes for an excellent speedrun. It also looks like an interesting puzzle from the routing point of view, especially Chapter 1; I'm going to have to look at your route and see what I think of it.) EDIT: OK, having watched the run, I guess there isn't much left of chapter 1 :-D
The first thing that became obvious is that the familiar clipping mechanics are completely different; they don't seem to have anything remotely in common with unpatched's. In unpatched, the hitbox for pushing another character is very small, and clips tend to move the pushed character backwards with respect to the pushing character. In Diamond, you can push an allied character from quite a distance, and you push them away from yourself. Additionally, in unpatched, the distance that you push a character is variable but typically very small (although a good setup can make it much larger, even crossing large portions of a level); in Diamond, the distance is fixed, and although it's fairly large, it's too short to clip through any opaque wall I'm aware of (but it's large enough to clip a door or gate).
There is, of course, the mystery of the Docks clip. However, I may have found some clues in that respect. As far as I can tell, the collision matrix for that room is broken; I'm not entirely sure how, but it's possible to save and reload in that room and end up somewhere completely different from where you started (typically behind the entrance). So I guess you're clipping to somewhere the game thinks is very near, but is actually somewhat different. An interesting experiment you can do in the game is to cast Invisibility Sphere. In many places in the game, it's possible to run out of your own sphere, despite it being centered on you (!). In other places, it's completely solid and stable. (There are other weirdnesses, too, like the invisible wall towards the south end of Port Llast that keeps tripping me up because it's on the most direct path to the south gate.) So my guess is that there are simply lots of mistakes in the game's collision matrix, that aren't necessarily obvious in casual or even speedrunning play. I don't know how many there are or whether any (other than the Docks clip) are exploitable.
On a side note, I found something that makes the Docks clip much safer: you can run round the trigger to start the fight by hugging the left wall of the bridge. This removes all the time pressure from the clip, and generally turns one of the run's most nervewracking moments (as I do it without invisibility in unpatched!) into something fairly trivial.
I also discovered that a lot of glitches I was used to have been fixed. Here are some examples of things I can remember that you can do in unpatched, but not Diamond:
* Clip through thick walls, obviously
* Save and reload in the middle of an enemy spell to cancel it
* Unequip a +Charisma item as a sorcerer to get infinite (well, 255) spell charges (note: this implies that Sorcerer is almost certainly useless for speedrunning on Diamond, and Wizard should always be used instead)
* Kill all the Protectors at once by using Weird
* Silence Maugrim to screw up his AI (he seems to be able to cast spells through Silence now)
There are also some glitches that I managed to reproduce in Diamond, sometimes using different methods:
* You can no longer DCR Morag via attacking the door in front of her. Presumably a casual player discovered this by accident. However (based on in-game experiments, not on toolset inspection), they seem to have fixed this via adding a specific check to start the Morag fight sequence if the door is destroyed. You can DCR her via alternative means: open the door normally, hit the trigger to make her run up to you, then run backwards to the barrel in the corridor and attack it. Morag won't be able to start conversation with you because you're in combat, giving you all the time you like to kill the Statue and the Protectors. DCRing Morag generally seems very useful, not only because it prevents Morag attacking until you're ready, but because it seems to break the Hands of Morag's AI (they tend to act in a DCR-like state themselves). Note that as usual, after DCRing her, the best way to start the fight is with a physical ranged weapon attack on her directly.
* The Chapter 2 alternative plot item cloning method still works. Talk to Aribeth while holding the Charwood Journal. On the screen where you a green dialogue option to give her the journal, drop the journal, then select the option once it's on the ground. She'll accept the journal, but the journal on the ground will be intact. You can then pick it back up and continue the conversation, offering it to her again. I think this is marginally faster than the divining pool method. (I haven't tested it on Chapter 3.)
* Although Weird doesn't work, the Protectors still seem to all be affected by Horrid Wilting (although its AoE is quite small, so you'll have to cast it on one side or the other, and not in the centre). It doesn't normally do enough damage to one-shot them, unfortunately, but two or three casts should be enough.
* Silence isn't enough to break the Maugrim fight. However, you can DCR him by using the Stone of Recall as he's running towards you to start conversation. I managed to find a way to break the fight (preventing him resurrecting the Servants of Flesh) after DCRing him, but unfortunately I'm not entirely sure what it was (and couldn't figure it out even at the time).
* Aribeth can still be DCRed (allowing you to clip out of the room in peace). The easiest method seems to be to open the door, run into the room, close the door behind you and attack it; unlike some areas where the same trick works but is very narrow because you have to do it so quickly, you have a fairly wide time window in this one.
In general, the changes to the glitches mean that I prefer the unpatched speedrun to the Diamond one (MonkSpeed™ is really the only saving grace of Diamond, but that makes routing rather less interesting as it decides your character build for you). That said, HotU looks a lot like it would be interesting to speedrun, so I may try to learn the route there. (Playing casually, like I am at the moment, it's generally very good, but with several "what on earth were you thinking?" moments; at times, I've been frustrated enough to consider running right through a door. That's the sort of game that typically makes for an excellent speedrun. It also looks like an interesting puzzle from the routing point of view, especially Chapter 1; I'm going to have to look at your route and see what I think of it.) EDIT: OK, having watched the run, I guess there isn't much left of chapter 1 :-D