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wfp: 2015-05-01 12:42:03 pm
wfp: 2015-05-01 12:41:11 pm
wfp: 2015-05-01 12:32:20 pm
the three-peaters are more about space management.  a column of three-peaters does 3 damage per row (2 at top and bottom) which doubles to 6 (4) with another column and 12 (8) with torchwoods vs. way less damage per column for every other plant type save gatling peas and watermelons (the latter of which i consider less reliable, they do 3 damage plus 1 splash to anything in a cherry bomb radius, but that splash is really hard to account for, as a mortar it takes a long time for the watermelons to travel, and torchwoods don't double their damage).  on world 5 the only enemies that ever made it past column 9 were imps and bungies with even gargantuans dying to this plus a squash (and timed correctly thy shouldn't throw their imps).  like i said i imagine this is not cost effective on one flag levels where you're not reaching the 16+ sunflowers which i agree seem to be the optimal amount for longer levels, but otherwise i find this the only way to deal with losing so much space to sun, especially on roof levels where you can't plant anything that isn't a mortar further back than column 5.
Hey man, sorry for responding so late, I want to address everything you said here:

1) When I make use of the lawnmowers, it is actaully faster in the situation then planting something. Most of the time it will be towards the end of the level and even on the finale wave, and planting things that will only pro long there walk to the end is much slower then just letting them get to the mower. however the first mistake is having a row that weak Wink

2)Finale waves aren’t that simple in the early game, when you only have cherry bombs and mines, however in a crazy dave round 2 run it is a different story.

3) in terms of sun, other then world 3 I have tested how much sun is needed for each level and how many sunflowers will be required. I think a lack of sun comes up like twice in this particular run and it is because i mess up. World 3 got re routed and you will see that in my next run, there was too much sun during it. And I don’t know if you caught why I don’t plant sunflowers in columns 1-5, I plant them all on one side using the chopper strat because the xbox auto picks up sun for me, making it faster to put it all in one area

4) 3 seater strat got changed, you’ll see that in my next run

5) the problem on world 4 with diggers is the sun production not the plant used. And the backwards pea shooter and star fruit cost the same, so I don’t see how it really helps, and planting more sun producing plants over the mushroom strat is slower. but i will test star fruit.

6) Getting the 9th slot is incredibly RNG based, you’d have to not only get 2 diamond drops, but also dig up every grave. The end of the game does not have a seed slot issue in my eyes so there is no need to go for it. Plus the rake is being added into my route making use of the extra cash. And I was doing a marathon safe run so roof cleaners are not necessary I just wanted to purchase them because a pogo zombie can catch you off guard. Sunflowers are slower in terms of being able to kill zombies fast, and in world 2 you don’t have enough firepower that costs a ton of sun to justify the early speed trade off. I do try to eat graves when its convientent but eating every one would waste some time.

7) Scardey shroooms are actually very useful. You said it, it is a peashooter at 1/4 the cost, they are never placed instead of a sun plant and you can plant them early killing zombies faster, early. And fumes shrooms are generally worked in after some scardy shrooms, they are faster then waiting for a fume on every row, and if you have any kind of skill there drawback (hiding within 1 square of a zombie) should never be seen.

8) yea the tech on the vase breaker level is not very refined to say the least haha, I’ve now figured ou that you should just smash them all at once, there is nothing in that level that could really do harm. and it is haha awesome when you hypno a dancing zombie haha

9) I agee that sun planting was not perfectly planned in this run, I appreciate that comment because you were right, and it is planned better now, especially on world 3 sun managent was a major flaw in the route.

10) Actually the first zombie and the second zombie are correlated, and it is a set amount of time before the second one comes out. but that timer starts after the death of the first zombie so it is faster to kill faster even in the beginning. it deeply matters how fast you kill each zombie, its the whole premise

11) i do believe that using 3 peters on the roof is incredibly slow compared to setting up polts early on, and spaming instant kills at the top of the level.

12) 3 peaters have been fazed out thanks to that last comment so thank you haha

I just want to say Im sorry for not responding quicker and at the time I first read this, I was offended, but I had no reason to be, you guys are discussing my run and the game I love so much and thats awesome, especially when I want to get it recognized and get more runners so I thank you. It my latest run I had just read the part that said “my run sucks” without reading anything else and that was bad of me, and I was offended and I said I was in that video, but it was unwarranted obviously, and you guys have been very helpful in improving the route, So I’m sorry and thank you.
Willing to teach you the impossible
Quote from MrSplaashMan:
3) in terms of sun, other then world 3 I have tested how much sun is needed for each level and how many sunflowers will be required. I think a lack of sun comes up like twice in this particular run and it is because i mess up. World 3 got re routed and you will see that in my next run, there was too much sun during it. And I don’t know if you caught why I don’t plant sunflowers in columns 1-5, I plant them all on one side using the chopper strat because the xbox auto picks up sun for me, making it faster to put it all in one area

Question about sun producing plants in general as well as natural sun from day levels. The things i know about sun right now is that it produces and then each sun piece has a timer on it before it despawns... and that is about it. The question is does picking up the sun pieces makes the sun production faster or is it on a set amount of time before the next one is produced? Reason I am asking is if the sun production is on a global timer, then the only 2 things that need to be worried about is picking up the sun before it despawns and how many sun production plants you have. Placement wont be a factor. As for pick up the sun, pick it up when the plant you need is on cooldown so no time is lost anywhere. This can help plant locations be much more flexible. So again, how does the sun production timer really function?

Quote from MrSplaashMan:
I just want to say Im sorry for not responding quicker and at the time I first read this, I was offended, but I had no reason to be, you guys are discussing my run and the game I love so much and thats awesome, especially when I want to get it recognized and get more runners so I thank you. It my latest run I had just read the part that said “my run sucks” without reading anything else and that was bad of me, and I was offended and I said I was in that video, but it was unwarranted obviously, and you guys have been very helpful in improving the route, So I’m sorry and thank you.

It is why were are here in the first place, we all love this game. We are all here to make sure it gets the attention and representation it deserves. Thank you for coming back.
Sun is on a set timer, When you pick it up does not affect when the next one will be produced, so in terms of time, no nothing is affected by the placement. However on the Xbox, you dont click the sun, it gets magnatized to ur cursor at a certain distance, which is why placement matters, becuase I dont have to move it around constantly, I can hover it over where the flowers are and it collects all the sun in the area for me, gives me more time to focus on planting, and the faster you get the sun the faster you can spend it. In terms of the PC, I don't see how it helps, perhaps planting them closer to the seed packets at the top saves frames, but I've voiced my prefrecnce for the console version. Anyway, that is the reason for some of the placements.Anyway, to get specific with your question, sun is produced every 24 seconds by a producing plant. And Im all in on the representaion train haha
Edit history:
wfp: 2015-06-03 11:20:25 am
yeah, sorry about initially dissing your run.  i sometimes struggle being tactful, and when i could beat your run by two minutes on my first try with pretty significant mistakes i was concerned.

yeah, i'm totally off saying the second zombie isn't tied to the first, however, the third zombie seemingly is likewise tied to the death of the first zombie with the death of the second completely irrelevant.  there are many situations like this that seemingly indicate that only specific zombies advance the level while others (while they can still kill you) don't.  to this end, these level advancing zombies must be killed as quickly as possible while the others can be left to wander, maybe even triggering lawnmowers.  i've even gotten "huge waves" to appear when a zombie was still on screen, indicating that certain zombies matter and others, well, don't.

i'll have to see the new strats to comment on them.  i'd still argue for the three-peater but i'd have to see, while i think the advantages of the starfruit over the split-pea are pretty obvious (starfruit shoot 2 forward-ish plus 2 vertical even when there isn't a zombie behind while split-pea only act like a normal pea-shooter until there is a zombie behind them).

i believe the pc version is faster as you can generally move a cursor faster than the setup they have on an xbox controller, and while this arguably saves frames this is such a long game those frames are gonna add up.  there also may be some version differences.  the version i have being near the launch date back when the dancing zombie looked like a certain king of pop as he hadn't passed away yet, since his death the model has been changed and i don't know if other changes of a non-cosmetic nature were made as well.
I misread  your comments anyway, u were being very helpful, anyway, on that initial run that is still the WR I made some pretty apperant user errors in world 1, which i belive is where the time is coming from, specificly from some javelin zombies, i misplayed them badly. And I do notice on  some paticulray slow levels such as 2-6,3-6, or the first level of a world, some zombies tend to advance the meeter farther than others, not sure what goes into this, and not sure if killing that paticular one willl actually make it faster or does some in game circumstance simply cause that, like that zombie being the last of the wave. And I question weather there is a way to tell which zombie would do this, or is just  complete RNG, def going to test this. the thing with 3 peaters is, they take a long period of time to set up, and so the question is, are the levels long enough to justify that long setup time over a quicker strategy in the begining, Im starting to use reapeaters apposed to them, mainly becuase of that and the numbers, which someone went over already on the thread. And I dont believe that one is that much faster than the other if at all, I would say its prefrence, you can make a case for both sides, I could say that ur argument that the cursor movement saves frames is irrelevetn becuase you dont have to move the cursur nearly as much on the xbox, such as sun collection, and not going up to drag plants from the seed packets to the lawn. And I think there liscence with his estate ran out as well, not really sure tho haha, most version diffrences are cosmetic, but I would really like a full PC run by someone to really compare and tell weather its truly the console or the player
my guess is you kill a particular zombie it releases x more zombies (though these zombies are released at a staggered rate).  i.e. killing the first zombie releases two more zombies, killing the one of those zombies releases three more zombies, and so on and so forth.  it's possible some of these next zombies to be released require killing more than just one, but it looks as if the zombies are most likely kinda tiered so that you're releasing a pyramid of zombies that builds up over time.  though every once in a while a zombie shows up that killing doesn't advance anything (possibly if you get to the end of a chain?), but as you say, it's unclear if you can actually recognize these zombies while playing (though the different types of zombies may make this easier as it looks like among these tiers are things like cone-heads and less common zombies).  it's funny, the more i look at this game the more complex it becomes.

my guess is that your strategy for different levels will vary depending on the length.  one flag levels likely won't use three-peaters, potentially three flag levels will.  i think your one flag level strategies are usually pretty good, it's just figuring out the strategies for longer levels that look like they could be improved.
It really does doesnt it? haha, without a way to tell if there are marker zombies, and if so, which ones they are, I would figure that you just kill every zombie as fast as possible. And im not sure how to go about testing it. Its all about testing I think, I dont beilive any level to be long enough to justify the 3 peater torch wood, over reapeater torchwood, other than some of the survival levels. Im about to do another run, with some new strats so we shall see how it goes.

Also does anyone know how to go about getting this game some sort of offiocial recognition?
Willing to teach you the impossible
It is available to purchase on 5 different platforms and sold really well on all 5. I think is has a lot of official recognition.
I am aware of that lol, I was refering too its lack of recognition in the speedrunning world, this website in paticular does not even list the game.
Willing to teach you the impossible
It just comes down to the genera of the game. Defense games are just not seen as speedrunable. Kinda like how fighting games used to be until DK28 started doing them, now they are around but not exactly sought after. The only thing that can be done is continue what we are doing and see where it leads. I know nearly every TD game can be made faster with proper builds and planning, so I know it can be done and can be accepted on to SDA. One TD game on SC2 I played a bunch ended up with me trying to kill everything faster than the other players. I was so good at it I ended up getting the game patched due to it being "too easy".
Edit history:
MrSplaashMan: 2015-06-09 01:19:55 pm
ok cool, I just wanted to see if there were any other steps that needed to be taken, we are gaining some traction, as speedrun.com recognizes my run and the game and lists both

Oh and just so you guys know, starfruit, in theory, is a good idea, in the game? It is really impractical
Edit history:
wfp: 2015-06-11 10:50:52 pm
wfp: 2015-06-11 10:49:35 pm
Quote from MrSplaashMan:
Oh and just so you guys know, starfruit, in theory, is a good idea, in the game? It is really impractical


yeah, my argument is that it's likely slightly better than the split-pea in dealing with digger zombies, but the difference is extremely marginal (and unfortunately you really have to include one of the two on digger levels unless you're gonna use a jalapeno or something which seems like overkill) in all other scenarios there are probably better options.  this said there are so few digger zombies maybe jalapenos and the like are all you need in those levels.
It kinda isnt in a way, they shoot straight back 1 at a time as apposed to the 2 back of the split pea, and I guess the argument is that if you have a shit ton of them, it will catch them diagonaly as well, which just isnt as effecient, I believe there is 1 or 2 levels that have diggers pop up before the finale wave, so it is pretty insignfigant
that's assuming diggers are such a big threat that they really need to be killed super quickly, which they well, aren't. so a starfruit (or more accurately multiple starfruits) are perfectly adequate and where they make their impact is in being slightly better at fending off zombies in front of them (because even in levels where diggers appear, which is like 2 or 3 at most iirc, there usually aren't all that many diggers anyway).
well the thing is, the levels in which diggers appear are 4-6-8, two of those levels are incredibly short, making it pretty difficult to set up a propper starfruit tactic to take out the front zombies in time to be relevent,
hmm, yeah, it probably comes down to if you can set up the defense pre-emptively starfruits are better if you're being reactionary then you're better off with split-peas.  i would think that even on 2 flag levels you can get the starfruits up, but i'm willing to admit i may be wrong on this and have no testing to back me up.
I tried it once on the fly and It didnt really work out, so I dont really have that much proof either, Im sure if done right, those levels are so short in paticular that the diffrence is probably minimal
Any other Ideas/Theroies to make the run faster?
Edit history:
wfp: 2015-06-17 07:52:55 pm
well, i'm wondering if you'll earn enough money for the gatling pea and if it would make an impact on world five (don't think you'd have the money for earlier), or any of the other top tier plants (doubtful double sunflower is useful, cattail and spikeweed and golden magnet obviously aren't (no idea if you can even plant cob canon either), despite having what i believe to be the highest dps fume-shroom requires coffee bean which you don't really get access to until too late, freeze melon is as useful as snow-pea for speedrunning which is to say not at all).

most of it comes down to testing if the zombie spawns can be mapped and predicted, which would take an insane amount of work.
Not sure if you have enough money, and yea gatling would be the only one that could even have the potential to make an impact, at this point I think its just a matter of how well you play.
Edit history:
MrSplaashMan: 2015-06-18 12:38:12 pm
Question, What is defined as 100% for this game? Cuz I figured it would just be collect the gold trophy, however recently a subscriber brought up you can get the gold trophy without ever seeing the yetti zombie.
the yeti doesn't show up until your second playthrough (and he's still randomized to the point of potentially not even appearing then).  my thought would be gold trophy/all mini-games/all non-endless survivals/everything bought from shop (or at least all unique items) which would take probably close to 12 hours at minimum, so... it's not a category that's really run-able.  i think i'd rather see a run of beghouled or other mini-games before considering 100%.
For anyone who sees this, here's what the current any% world record in PvZ looks like

This specific runner uses a lot of advanced tactics to save time that no other runners know a lot of yet, but most people go with the same seed selection and basic execution in this video and it's definitely possible to beat the game in under 3:30 on PC with enough experience

100% has been defined as getting the gold trophy (no NG+ or tree of wisdom), has a little routing to it and takes around 8 hours with experience but the category isn't ran very frequently since not many people have the time, the idea of a two-segment 100% has been suggested by some people but currently isn't allowed for leaderboard times

There are also 3 other main categories, All Minigames, All Puzzles, and All Survivals which take about 2 hours, 15 minutes and 2.5 hours respectively which are great for people who typically don't have as much time to do runs of the game
Quote from AINNY:
This specific runner uses a lot of advanced tactics to save time that no other runners know a lot of yet

the idea of a two-segment 100% has been suggested by some people but currently isn't allowed for leaderboard times


Perhaps there's some kind of language barrier, but that kind of situation (effectively hidden information) is what wikis are there to prevent. In my book, if it's not in the wiki, I really don't care. I'll find all the same strategies myself anyway. Starting one isn't that difficult.

Why just two segments for the 100%? SDA has always accepted segmented runs with any (reasonably high) segment count. SRC emphasizes competition beyond anything else. Not a fan myself.