Nox?

2013-03-05 02:47:22 am

Might be magic...

Quote from shyo:

It might save time in the Temple of Ix, but I cant remember if theres an enemy you can lure to the door to use.

Haven't played Nox for a while, but is it possible at that point to summon a monster or bomber, instead of luring something?

shyo

2013-03-05 02:50:45 pm

uhh

Thats actually a great idea. I just tested and it doesnt work that well there. BUT you can skip going to Aldwyn before the Temple if you have Fireball Charges left, else just go to him, it would save about 10 seconds. I'm now thinking where else you could substitute a Bomber + Fireball combo instead of dropping Apples/Booze/Meat..

gammadragon

2013-03-08 12:35:11 am

Might be magic...

Watching all the videos on Youtube makes me want to fire up the game and start helping find new skips, if I wasn't so busy with UW2.

gammadragon

2013-03-09 06:42:30 pm

Might be magic...

On the wizard run at the start of chapter 2, there's an opportunity in town to stock up on apples from a smuggler down the first road on the right (4 gold each). There's also 50 gold behind a house on the left road which you could use to pay for them. Might be useful if they can be used to apple-bump later.

gammadragon

Edit history:

gammadragon: 2013-03-09 09:23:16 pm

2013-03-09 08:44:24 pm

Might be magic...

Looks like you can also skipped locked doors by dropping some useless stuff on the ground and using the Pull spell.

Edit: Realised that I had gotten Pull level 3 when using god mode - tried again with Pull level 1 and can't repeat it unfortunately

gammadragon

Edit history:

gammadragon: 2013-03-10 01:57:30 am

2013-03-09 11:03:43 pm

Might be magic...

Managed to do a skip with the Wall spell and Fireball (even though it's impossible to have Wall at the point in the game where I did it)

Edit: Another locked door skip using Telekinesis spell:

shyo

Edit history:

shyo: 2013-03-11 09:03:56 am

shyo: 2013-03-10 08:34:01 am

2013-03-10 08:33:38 am

uhh

Conjurer: 54:02.64. This was pretty much the god run for Chapter 1-7. I died a couple of times and didnt get the quickest kills possible, but got the laser skip super early and had a very good Hecubah fight. Some parts are sloppy and I do apologize for it, but I was kind of rusty since I didnt play at all for the last 1 1/2 weeks.

Unfortunately FRAPS is a POS and stopped recording at some point and I didnt notice. And twitch.tv, where I streamed it, has about 8 minutes of it missing. Which I dont understand at all and it pisses me off so much. I guess I have to re-do it at some point and make sure FRAPS works.

Anyway, heres the run, or whatever twitch decided to record of it:

Part 1 http://www.twitch.tv/shyo_123/c/2009599
Part 2 http://www.twitch.tv/shyo_123/c/2009604
Part 3 http://www.twitch.tv/shyo_123/c/2009607

Onin

Edit history:

Onin: 2013-03-11 10:35:53 am

2013-03-11 09:30:35 am

Sorry Pjoxt!

I suggested selling the sulfurous staff of recharging to buy a book of haste early would save more time than hanging on to it, so now he'll have to redo the whole run.

Pjoxt

Edit history:

Pjoxt: 2013-03-11 01:57:07 pm

Pjoxt: 2013-03-11 01:06:45 pm

2013-03-11 12:40:51 pm

Yes, I'm a wizard.

Watching your conjurer run now shyo.

Chapter 1-2: great apple bump with only 2 apples.

Chapter 4: I recommend doing an apple bump after getting the burn spellbook, skips getting the 2 keys, saves quite a bit of time. Clever use of "lava walking" to get the fireball staff without falling to the lower floor, I like it.
Lightning wizard fight needs practice. Ideally you want to place the burns and use maybe pixie swarm to trigger the first teleport. If you placed the burns correctly, he should be trapped in the loop, at that point you have time to loot the middle + right sarcophagus for money and a potion. Placing more burns close to the sarcophagi will increase the chances of him dying closer to you.

chapter 5: nice to see that you can use fireball staff to go through both gates as conjurer.

chapter 6: I would still get meteor 2 instead of counterspell + lesser heal 2 + haste boots. In that run you were like 5 gold away from it, you can afford it by buying less arrows.
Also, did you test which is faster: getting the 2 keys to horrendous' chamber or skipping both keys by taking the secret doors at the right side? If you need mana potions, you can get 4 of them in the secret passage, but it's a slight detour.

chapter 7: dunno how you used your money from chapter 6 since video cut off, but I'm guessing arrows and fire resist armor. Dunno why you skip the crossbow here, you save 1500 gold by picking it up, since i saw you buy one in chapter 8. Great use of stun + bow, though. End of chapter looked a bit rough since you had run out of potions, this is why it's sometimes faster to spend a second or two to recharge your mana at mana pylons / crystals.

chapter 8: Not high enough level to use crossbow - this is why I would kill the hordes of skeletons with meteor spam in chapter 6. It's fast exp that doesn't waste that much time to get, but can make things a lot easier here. Getting meteor 2 instead of counterspell + boots + heal will allow you to instakill the beholders with a bolt + meteor combo.
If you still decide to get counterspell, you should at least use it in this chapter to run straight through force of nature traps.

chapter 9: I see you're playing with 1.0 version now, since you're canceling crossbow reload, takes a while getting used to. Instead going down the elevator shaft to the room with 3 mimics, you can jump through a hole before the elevator, saves a few seconds. Also, instead of pushing the elevator button manually, you can snipe it with any projectile; crossbow bolt might pierce through the scorpion that's standing in the way. Necromancer fight was good enough on the 2nd try, since you killed them all before the lich spawned, but you stood a little bit too close to the lich since it moved away from you after spawning.

chapter 10: Might be safer to just jump down in the first hole, 'lava walk' over all the spikes and go up the elevator, skips fighting the first gargoyles. I would also switch away crossbow vs gargoyles, bow / halberd / meteors is better there.
Burn spam with the occasional crossbow bolt would be faster than vampirism + halberd spam against the 2 liches. Feels like meteor 2 would have helped against gargoyles in this chapter.

Overall, the start went well, potion management & choosing the right weapon / spell for each encounter needs a little work, but you're getting there °-°

I'll try to record a conjurer run myself and see how it goes.

Watching your conjurer run now shyo.

Chapter 1-2: great apple bump with only 2 apples.

Chapter 4: I recommend doing an apple bump after getting the burn spellbook, skips getting the 2 keys, saves quite a bit of time. Clever use of "lava walking" to get the fireball staff without falling to the lower floor, I like it. 
Lightning wizard fight needs practice. Ideally you want to place the burns and use maybe pixie swarm to trigger the first teleport. If you placed the burns correctly, he should be trapped in the loop, at that point you have time to loot the middle + right sarcophagus for money and a potion. Placing more burns close to the sarcophagi will increase the chances of him dying closer to you.

chapter 5: nice to see that you can use fireball staff to go through both gates as conjurer.

chapter 6: I would still get meteor 2 instead of counterspell + lesser heal 2 + haste boots. In that run you were like 5 gold away from it, you can afford it by buying less arrows.
Also, did you test which is faster: getting the 2 keys to horrendous' chamber or skipping both keys by taking the secret doors at the right side? If you need mana potions, you can get 4 of them in the secret passage, but it's a slight detour.

chapter 7: dunno how you used your money from chapter 6 since video cut off, but I'm guessing arrows and fire resist armor. Dunno why you skip the crossbow here, you save 1500 gold by picking it up, since i saw you buy one in chapter 8. Great use of stun + bow, though. End of chapter looked a bit rough since you had run out of potions, this is why it's sometimes faster to spend a second or two to recharge your mana at mana pylons / crystals.

chapter 8: Not high enough level to use crossbow - this is why I would kill the hordes of skeletons with meteor spam in chapter 6. It's fast exp that doesn't waste that much time to get, but can make things a lot easier here. Getting meteor 2 instead of counterspell + boots + heal will allow you to instakill the beholders with a bolt + meteor combo. 
If you still decide to get counterspell, you should at least use it in this chapter to run straight through force of nature traps.

chapter 9: I see you're playing with 1.0 version now, since you're canceling crossbow reload, takes a while getting used to. Instead going down the elevator shaft to the room with 3 mimics, you can jump through a hole before the elevator, saves a few seconds. Also, instead of pushing the elevator button manually, you can snipe it with any projectile; crossbow bolt might pierce through the scorpion that's standing in the way. Necromancer fight was good enough on the 2nd try, since you killed them all before the lich spawned, but you stood a little bit too close to the lich since it moved away from you after spawning.

chapter 10: Might be safer to just jump down in the first hole, 'lava walk' over all the spikes and go up the elevator, skips fighting the first gargoyles. I would also switch away crossbow vs gargoyles, bow / halberd / meteors is better there.
Burn spam with the occasional crossbow bolt would be faster than vampirism + halberd spam against the 2 liches. Feels like meteor 2 would have helped against gargoyles in this chapter.

Overall, the start went well, potion management & choosing the right weapon / spell for each encounter needs a little work, but you're getting there °-°

I'll try to record a conjurer run myself and see how it goes.

shyo

2013-03-11 03:16:19 pm

uhh

Thanks for taking the time to analyze it. I'll see if I can do another run soon and get a FRAPs recording this time. Hm, I never tried to skip the Gate with the 2 keys in Chapter 3. I might not have enough items, I'll see if I can incorporate it.
To be honest, I tried to kill as few enemies as possible. Only those that were really annoying, so I'd essentially skip every single beholder besides the last one, since you probably take too much damage and it doesnt take too long. I actually didnt know you need level requirements for Crossbows, hence I tried it a few times and got confused, but I got the level up soon enough. The only place where the Crossbow has really helped out so far was Chapter 9, as it makes the Fairy Fights trivial, and Chapter 10. Where is there a Crossbow in Chapter 7?

Quickkill for Sorcerer I have to practice. He always teleports off to the side for some reason.I didnt know about the secret doors before horrendous, will test it soon. Also I somehow fucked up while looting the items after horrendous dies - I only had 7000 instead of the usual 9-10k gold.

Yeah, theres a couple seconds here and there to be saved. I'll add this all to my notes. Also thanks for telling me you can use Counterspell on Force of Nature traps - I'd have never thought of that.
Good luck with your run! Maybe you can figure out some more improvements

Thanks for taking the time to analyze it. I'll see if I can do another run soon and get a FRAPs recording this time. Hm, I never tried to skip the Gate with the 2 keys in Chapter 3. I might not have enough items, I'll see if I can incorporate it.
To be honest, I tried to kill as few enemies as possible. Only those that were really annoying, so I'd essentially skip every single beholder besides the last one, since you probably take too much damage and it doesnt take too long. I actually didnt know you need level requirements for Crossbows, hence I tried it a few times and got confused, but I got the level up soon enough. The only place where the Crossbow has really helped out so far was Chapter 9, as it makes the Fairy Fights trivial, and Chapter 10. Where is there a Crossbow in Chapter 7?

Quickkill for Sorcerer I have to practice. He always teleports off to the side for some reason.I didnt know about the secret doors before horrendous, will test it soon. Also I somehow fucked up while looting the items after horrendous dies - I only had 7000 instead of the usual 9-10k gold.

Yeah, theres a couple seconds here and there to be saved. I'll add this all to my notes. Also thanks for telling me you can use Counterspell on Force of Nature traps - I'd have never thought of that. 
Good luck with your run! Maybe you can figure out some more improvements

Pjoxt

Edit history:

Pjoxt: 2013-03-11 08:02:55 pm

Pjoxt: 2013-03-11 04:05:00 pm

Pjoxt: 2013-03-11 03:55:40 pm

Pjoxt: 2013-03-11 03:52:20 pm

Pjoxt: 2013-03-11 03:48:36 pm

Pjoxt: 2013-03-11 03:43:36 pm

Pjoxt: 2013-03-11 03:42:48 pm

2013-03-11 03:40:07 pm

Yes, I'm a wizard.

Ok, I reset until I got a decent start, then went with it. Got a 53:42 with a few random deaths, and it took me very long to get past double laser with apple bump. I guess I'll upload it to youtube:

(uploading, will be finished in around 200 minutes)

Btw if fraps is giving you shit, you could try the offline recording feature of FFSplit. It's not lossless but damn near close to it when you crank the quality, I think it uses x264. The downside would be that if you're using FFSplit to record source video, you can't really stream it with ffsplit at the same time, because it'll be too high quality.

-----

I gather 3 apples in chapter 1, then in chapter 2 I sell my shirt, pants and shoes and buy all the apples. That leaves me with 8 apples. I use 2 of them to apple bump into chapter 3, and then break the barrel that contains 3 apples, so I have 9. That way you spend a few extra seconds shopping in chapter 2, but you save a lot of time by skipping the 2 keys in chapter 4. You can watch that part and maybe compare with your video to see how much it saves and if you think it's worth it.

I had some problems getting the fireball ogre bumps to work so as a backup plan I stocked up on meat, cider and apples before that point, I ended up not needing them though.

After selling the warrior loot from chapter 6 I had around 6300 gold. That ended up being around 1500 more than I needed for the rest of the game. I rely a lot more on meteor, so I just stocked up on potions instead of arrows.
You can find the crossbow in the wizard tower, 3rd floor, "Museum of Mystical Wonder", in the same room you can find a fire resist tunic.

edit: I just checked, I lost around 3½ minutes on the double death ray apple bump. If you'd get that in the first 3 tries on an otherwise deathless run, it would easily go under 50 minutes total.

Also, during a conjurer playthrough I found a cool weapon; staff of collision and bewilderment. It's in chapter 9 in a crate right after the first ogress when you go down the elevator and the area changes. Might be useful.

Ok, I reset until I got a decent start, then went with it. Got a 53:42 with a few random deaths, and it took me very long to get past double laser with apple bump. I guess I'll upload it to youtube: 
http://youtu.be/fHnLK9S87Qk
(uploading, will be finished in around 200 minutes)

Btw if fraps is giving you shit, you could try the offline recording feature of FFSplit. It's not lossless but damn near close to it when you crank the quality, I think it uses x264. The downside would be that if you're using FFSplit to record source video, you can't really stream it with ffsplit at the same time, because it'll be too high quality.

-----

I gather 3 apples in chapter 1, then in chapter 2 I sell my shirt, pants and shoes and buy all the apples. That leaves me with 8 apples. I use 2 of them to apple bump into chapter 3, and then break the barrel that contains 3 apples, so I have 9. That way you spend a few extra seconds shopping in chapter 2, but you save a lot of time by skipping the 2 keys in chapter 4. You can watch that part and maybe compare with your video to see how much it saves and if you think it's worth it.

I had some problems getting the fireball ogre bumps to work so as a backup plan I stocked up on meat, cider and apples before that point, I ended up not needing them though.

After selling the warrior loot from chapter 6 I had around 6300 gold. That ended up being around 1500 more than I needed for the rest of the game. I rely a lot more on meteor, so I just stocked up on potions instead of arrows.
You can find the crossbow in the wizard tower, 3rd floor, "Museum of Mystical Wonder", in the same room you can find a fire resist tunic.

edit: I just checked, I lost around 3½ minutes on the double death ray apple bump. If you'd get that in the first 3 tries on an otherwise deathless run, it would easily go under 50 minutes total.

Also, during a conjurer playthrough I found a cool weapon; staff of collision and bewilderment. It's in chapter 9 in a crate right after the first ogress when you go down the elevator and the area changes. Might be useful.

shyo

2013-03-11 03:58:45 pm

uhh

Nice! I'll probably won't have time to go back to it until in 2 weeks though. A few more optimization here and there and sub 50 could easily be gotten.

Pjoxt

2013-03-11 10:38:07 pm

Yes, I'm a wizard.

So, thanks to Onin for ruining the segmented wizard run that was 2 chapters from finished. >:E
Uploading new run here:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhlFHhHlXbcF87IrAkHIl-UeweKNXxXEJ

gammadragon

2013-03-16 04:37:55 am

Might be magic...

Just watched the two latest conjurers runs - really nice. While I was watching I thought of another conjurer-specific locked door skip Smiley

Pjoxt

2013-03-19 01:39:55 am

Yes, I'm a wizard.

That's pretty neat, but not sure how useful that would be in a run since iirc you get summon monster quite late, and apple bumping seems a bit faster. Maybe a backup strat if you're out of apples etc.

gammadragon

2013-03-19 02:13:03 am

Might be magic...

Yeah, not hugely useful - also requires that you obtain certain beast scrolls, which is usually not a priority in a speedrun. Doesn't seem to work for all summons either, but Troll was a pretty basic one that fit the bill.

shyo

2013-03-21 10:19:12 am

uhh

you might be able to combine 2 bumps in one with summoning, like .. drop the item on yourself just as the summon materializes for a bigger push. theres still some locked doors that we are unable to skip since you get stuck in them! also i hope i do some more practice/runs this weekend Smiley

gammadragon

2013-03-22 12:48:09 am

Might be magic...

So far Trolls and Ogres (all types) are the only medium-sized summons that I've been able to bump through a door with. Golems work as well but they are large, and haven't been able to use any small-sized summons.

Are any of those beast scrolls easy to get in a single-player conjurer game?

shyo

2013-03-22 08:40:46 am

uhh

Ogres can be easily picked up, yeah

Onin

2013-03-29 09:54:52 am

So I've been looking at the Warrior campaign in the mean time and found a neat little sequence break that makes the run even more difficult as crap than before. Especially going through the Tombs requires a stupid amount of luck. I'll let the video speak for itself.

Urchin mage takes on average 10 tries to even kill. With perfect rng you can corner him and kill him twice as fast, but that takes significant grinding to achieve.
Necromancer fight is pretty easy, don't need more than 5 attempts on average for a decent fight.
The second apple bump took me over 30 tries this run. Usually I get it a bit earlier but it's very inconsistent.
Warrior boss can be oneshot easily. For some reason I always miss the second Charge but it makes little difference.
Mage boss takes a good 20 tries too. Requires luck with lightning damage, luck with positioning for Charges, luck with managing to interrupt him with shuriken...

And I'm not even at Galava yet.

Pjoxt

2013-03-29 10:40:37 am

Yes, I'm a wizard.

So comparing to Darkmane's old time up to that point, you have already over 3 minutes improvement with a practice run. Sub 45 would be my estimate for a decent segmented warrior run.
Keep up the good work thumbsup

Onin

Edit history:

Onin: 2013-04-11 08:13:01 am

2013-04-11 08:08:01 am

I found a new trick that'll be pretty helpful for your Conjurer runs.

Reloading autosave via F4 doesn't reset momentum. What this means is that you can quicksave in front of a door/fence, move away from it, launch yourself with apples, then reload the save and (hopefully) get an applebump - without losing any apples. You'll never have to buy any new apples along the run!

The downside is that, at least in my experience, it makes easy 2-apple bumps a bit harder. But since you can just use 9 apples every time without losing them, it should be a time saver anyway.

(Note that for segmented runs, SDA rules that you have to show the preparation for the bump as well.)

Onin

Edit history:

Onin: 2013-04-11 03:23:49 pm

Onin: 2013-04-11 03:23:30 pm

2013-04-11 10:09:14 am

Double posts are for cool people. Route up to That Room in Galava:

Missing the Charge on that one Ogre made me sad :(. Segment was still decent enough.
The amount of Ogres you have to kill relies heavily on how their AI decides to act. The lowest I've ever gotten is only 3 at the first gate, and the 3 mandatory ones at the cage. That's gonna be a bitch to manipulate in a final run.
Like the Wizard escort part, whether the maidens live or die is extremely random, and thus extremely rare to get a successful segment. And then I got this idea: Use apple bumps to keep them locked in their cage, so they'll never run into any ogres to die.

I put so much effort in the Ogre segment that I forgot to path perfect Charges in the Horrendous segment. But it's so straight-forward that there's only a few seconds to win there.

I'm gonna need 4 segments for Galava Tower. One for the first two floors, one to manipulate that Blink (he can blink to anywhere on the map, so I want him as close to the stairs as possible), one for That Room, and one for the two mandatory arch mages - I'm a level below expected, so I can only kill them effectively by spamming those shuriken I bought.

Note to self: Open inventory before quicksaving at applebumps. It both makes the bump a bit faster and it makes segmenting much smoother.
Edit: I made a huge mistake, Michael... I overestimated the mages, Stun shuriken is actually a slower kill method than straight bullrushing. I should probably have bought the warhammer instead.

Double posts are for cool people. Route up to That Room in Galava:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_5jW24bVOo

Missing the Charge on that one Ogre made me sad :(. Segment was still decent enough.
The amount of Ogres you have to kill relies heavily on how their AI decides to act. The lowest I've ever gotten is only 3 at the first gate, and the 3 mandatory ones at the cage. That's gonna be a bitch to manipulate in a final run.
Like the Wizard escort part, whether the maidens live or die is extremely random, and thus extremely rare to get a successful segment. And then I got this idea: Use apple bumps to keep them locked in their cage, so they'll never run into any ogres to die.

I put so much effort in the Ogre segment that I forgot to path perfect Charges in the Horrendous segment. But it's so straight-forward that there's only a few seconds to win there.

I'm gonna need 4 segments for Galava Tower. One for the first two floors, one to manipulate that Blink (he can blink to anywhere on the map, so I want him as close to the stairs as possible), one for That Room, and one for the two mandatory arch mages - I'm a level below expected, so I can only kill them effectively by spamming those shuriken I bought.

Note to self: Open inventory before quicksaving at applebumps. It both makes the bump a bit faster and it makes segmenting much smoother.
Edit: I made a huge mistake, Michael... I overestimated the mages, Stun shuriken is actually a slower kill method than straight bullrushing. I should probably have bought the warhammer instead.

Onin

Edit history:

Onin: 2013-05-04 08:55:50 am

Onin: 2013-05-03 04:45:21 pm

2013-05-03 07:41:56 am

Enough practice running, I've started the real deal, recorded at better quality. I'll be uploading individual segments to a Youtube playlist just like Pjoxt, feel free to point out reasons for me to trash everything and start over better.

Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOjj6J-b5LkTvBdcwH6ivYzeqh3jYvPvQ

Edit: Updated the playlist with proper quality videos, no desync, with the intro and character creation cut out (it's what causes audio desync so I'll just keep it as seperate, non-gameplay segment).

gammadragon

2013-05-04 06:35:46 pm

Might be magic...

Just having fun with the console (F1). Trying to come up with something that would help recording and came across something interesting:

show perfmon
unset frameratelimiter

Speeds the game up quite a bit, but I assume it wouldn't be valid for recording a speedrun.