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you need to work on your final battle, by killing literally everything you spawn a lot of spiders. Try looking at Meta's PB or Crawek's and look at how optimized it can get Smiley could save you a lot of time Wink
Edit history:
TheAngryPanda: 2015-11-09 12:23:58 pm
Speed > Safety
DL, do you happen to have a youtube recording of your PAL run from forever ago. Was thinking of adding the route to the guide, just for completion's sake.

If not, do you remember what did or didn't work in the PAL version?

I believe someone on twitch (EvilBloodyEyes) was looking into running it on console, but only had the PAL copy, so yeah... I don't like not having documentation on things. Cheesy

Any help you can give is awesome!


edit: Also, if anyone is interested in helping with the SoE 100% TAS, please message me on twitch or on here. I started routing the money/exp route for Act 1 the other night, it's pretty mind-wrecking.
Edit history:
DLDarklink: 2015-11-09 01:04:22 pm
...
i have one, which is the 1:57:05 run... really really old Tongue



i could do another one, maybe later this week Wink

the first things that are coming to my mind that won't work:

5 status stacking - "no god mode" - but you can underflow both defense and attack
blimp skip - you cant cross the pit
reverse desert skip with dog sniff - the dog always follows you in that screen. RDS does work with the harder method
Thraxx 2.0 is in the route because the gourd stays empty
no verm skip

i'll update the list when something else crosses my mind
Speed > Safety
Thanks, next time I have a day to myself, I'll probably add that to guide as a base route and work on things from there.
Quote from DLDarklink:
you need to work on your final battle, by killing literally everything you spawn a lot of spiders. Try looking at Meta's PB or Crawek's and look at how optimized it can get Smiley could save you a lot of time Wink


Okay, thanks! I watched their runs multiple times but never noticed this. There are probably more things like this that I don't know about lol.
One of my biggest problems is losing my focus in act3. Really need to work on that too Smiley
Speed > Safety
Yeah, the only thing that can get away with killing everything at the end is the TAS, and that's only by I think 80 or so frames. So throughout that entire fight, you'd have to be frame perfect with input for everything except 80 frames of input to actually make that kind of strategy work.

The other things to note for the final fight:

- Raptor spawns are fixed, always be waiting for them to spawn in the appropriate area and try to knock them either to the bottom of the screen or the middle-left/right of the arena, always avoiding the top of the arena

- When waiting between waves, do not run around the arena. TAS comparison: Standing still vs Running around yielded a savings of ~2-3s alone. Doesn't seem like much, but it's pretty huge. (120-180 frames).

- Try to kill Metal Magmar towards the bottom or middle of the arena, this will reduce the explosion lag. This is a minimal time-saver.

- Rimsalas have a set direction they move depending on how the others started to move initially, setting up a save state and learning this is a huge advantage because you can adapt to the fight better in the future.

- When Carltron jump, you can try swinging to the left/right (depends on which one is further AWAY from you), then immediately swing back in the opposite direction. This has a higher yield for frames you can make contact with Carlton than attacking up/down. The TAS uses some fancy timing to never miss here, don't plan on replicating it in RTA.

- Once you're more flexible/confident with your control over the dog in fights, you can try doing what the TAS does and setting the dog up to block AI pathing that is unfavorable and/or knock enemies into the dog to lock them into place. This is something both Meta and Crawek still have yet to fully implement, it is very difficult, but definitely worth mentioning. Watch the TAS to see examples.


As for general ways to improve:


- Practice character swaps on screen transitions. These are frame perfect and let you get a feel for how to time the game's frame perfect nonsense, especially if you're trying to learn menu-buffering on those screens. Very useful for Thraxx Cutscene Skip and minor optimizations in various places. This is an underrated way of improving your input efficiency, something I'd really like to see the other RTA runners start doing.

- Practice sprinting. Sounds simple, but movement is actually very complex in this game during various parts of it. Many areas in Act 1 are much better for the dog to run around in, which you can watch the TAS to get an idea of what I mean by that. In Act 2, the boy gets the spear, which means you want to maximize control on him from there to the rest of the game. Sprinting works when at 0% by having a 3 frame "allowance" which basically means that when you go from 1% ---> 0% (frame 1 of the sequence), you're allowed 2 more frames of sprint status (frames 2 and 3 of the sequence) before losing that speed. By reducing the time between each of these instances via basically spamming sprint, you save that amount of frames over your previously more inefficient sprinting in prior attempts. This is actually where Meta and Crawek both lose a lot of time in the later parts of their respective runs simply because it's a very draining mechanic. It's also where they, and you, can gain a rather significant amount of time.

- Basic manipulations of enemies is key. If you have trouble on various screens/maps/hallways/etc... load up a save state on an emulator or gamesaver state and start trying to read enemies movements. Not all of them can be manipulated, but the majority of them (all of them in pyramids/ruins, by the way) will react to whatever you're doing on your character, and in many cases, what the dog is doing (useful in Act 3). It won't always work out, but it's something that is worth looking into.

- You can also attempt to reduce the amount of Hardballs you use on Thraxx, but that comes with the caveat of knowing your spell level requirements, because you can easily ruin the current magmar setup by adjusting these. It is possible though. And before anyone says otherwise, you can kill Magmar with the current setup + 6 call beads, you DO NOT NEED 7. The 7th Call Bead spell increases your chances of a kill by around 60% or so compared to 6. This is why it's done, because it becomes "consistent" at that point, but it is absolutely NOT a requirement.

- Practice your menu'ing. Silly as it sounds, going left as opposed to right on the ring menu can slow you down significantly and mess with your mind a bit for various reasons. Same for going up vs going down in the menus, that's almost a 0.5 second loss alone. Do it twice and you just lost a second. It's always the small things in this game, and many others, that end up costing you big time.



That's all for now. As always, if you see me around in chat or catch my stream, I'm always up for answering questions for people learning/interested in this game.
Wow, big thanks for your help!
I guess I really still have to learn a lot more things about this game.

Some of your points explain why I lose so much time in act3/act4 compared to other runners.

I got a question about Magmar:
I get a lot more kills if I go for the 8 hardball cast on the mosquito right before the magmar room. But I get the feeling that I need all 8 beads to kill him with that strat.
What's the best way to go for here?

Again, big thanks for your post, this is really helping me improve Smiley
Speed > Safety
I'm actually not sure exactly what you mean.

The hardball route you should be using is what Crawek uses in his WR run. Or what Meta uses in his current WR attempts. They're optimized with risk/reward in mind. So just replicate what they do post-Thraxx and you should be fine.

The current formula:

12 Hardball for Thraxx
40 Hardball for Magmar

that's ripped straight out of the Any% guide here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1e-G2YKefBxLH5TSkcUezpcM69LJqi1qnTgzDxod4igY/edit#gid=2018429292

The reason for this is because of how spells accumulate experience to level themselves up. You want to hit a certain spell level before and during Magmar's fight. The RTA guys routed out a more efficient way of doing it than the beginner's guide I wrote up (linked above). So if you're doing anything differently from either of those, you should just swap to one of those options depending on your comfort with Act 1.


As always, the best way to go from anywhere is cutting back on anything you think is safe. Speed > safety, for all things speedrunning.


You could also attempt to go with what the TAS does, but considering there's a 6% chance to kill Magmar and a 1.3% chance to kill Thraxx with it's current setup, that's probably not a good idea. But it is a good idea to know the amounts of hardball it uses so you can find a happy medium, like the RTA runners did. Smiley

Another option you could do is post a video of your PB or at least your Act 1 attempts. This would enable all of us to point out things you could change/improve upon with timestamps and everything along that line. The game is deceptively complex, so having multiple people looking at something is always better than just myself or another individual runner. It also can serve as a direct comparison for your future attempts if you run them side by side, which will literally give you a visual depiction of where you're gaining/losing time, as opposed to splits, which force you to guess about minor issues.
Edit history:
Evohwoo: 2015-11-12 02:13:05 am
Evohwoo: 2015-11-12 02:11:09 am
I'm currently on mobile, so I can't post the link to my PB (copy and paste bug on windows 10 mobile preview...). My twitch is www.twitch.tv/Evohwoo. I highlighted my PB.

About the Magmar thing: I'm using the strat I saw Crawek using in his PB. I have mats for 40 hardballs before I enter the Magmar fight. I then cast 8 hardballs at the mosquito right before the Magmar room. So I have 32 hardballs and 8 beads left for Magmar.
Using this method, I get much more Magmar kills than the 40 cast strat. I tried this with 7 beads and I didn't have that much success with it, so I continued using 8.

Thanks for helping me improving my time Smiley I really hope I will get sub 1:21 in the next one or two months. Still 1 minutes 30 seconds to go, but in my PB I lost about 1 minute to BS cause I got distracted by my chat. And about 1 minute more because I used stupid strats (like the boss fight)
Evermore Extrodinare ᕦ(° Д°)ᕤ
Basically Crawek's strat in his WR run has nothing to do with the mosquito other than the fact he HAS to cast those 8 HBs to level up alchemy and call bead dmg. What I do is actually the same thing as Crawek it's just I cast my HBs at a different time.

40/7 will ALWAYS give you a Heat Wave you're going to eat sadly. The reason we do 32/8 is because if we're fast enough and if we're lucky (you do have to get a little lucky) you'll end up killing him BEFORE he gets a heat wave off (Thus wasting about 7s) 8 casting costs about 2s if you're fast. Thus you have a net gain of 5s~ but that's IF you kill him before he gets off his first heat wave.
Yeah, I use it on the mosquito because I want the level up just before the Magmar room, so I won't hurt me too much if I get hit on the way to Magmar (that one stupid lizard in the main room likes to randomly hit me).
I tried killing the mosquito with my normal attacks but that damn thing dodged like 3-4 hits and flew over the wall, so I don't like to go for that again.

I rarely get the no heat wave fight, but I still get the feeling that I get more kills using 32/8 than 40/7. I kinda mess up the later hardball casts, so sometimes I'm too slow with the 40/7 and Magmar heals himself lol.
Hey everyone.  Ran into something interesting last week after i accidently bought some wax from the Acid Rain Alchemist.  http://www.twitch.tv/thejoeymittens/v/27309789 i was able to take down Magmar with 27 hardball and 8 storm.  At this point im fairly sure that the damage rolls were just stupid high and I got lucky but thought id leave this here to see if any one thinks its worth looking into for a time save on WR runs
Speed > Safety
99, 156, 150, 627. That was your damage count throughout the fight. You ended up with 1032 damage. Magmar has 1000 HP on the dot.

Operating under some assumptions here, we can say that:
- you're using the Any% route in the gdoc for No Verm Skip, so you've casted 12 (or 14) Hard Ball at Thraxx
- You've not casted any extra Hard Balls post-Thraxx. If you have, we'd need to know how many prior to magmar for a more accurate measurement of the following analysis.
- You're on a brand new file, which includes resetting the console or loading from a state on emulator that does NOT include any prior hard ball casts prior to the state's creation.

So, that being said, let's do this! Cheesy  [This is all taken from the Alchemy Calculator I added today, still a WIP]

Thraxx Heart - 4x cast -  42 -  80 Damage (4 level 0)
Thraxx Heart - 8x cast - 105 - 202 Damage (6 level 0 + 2 level 1)
Magmar        - 8x cast -  60 - 118 Damage (8 level 1)
Magmar        - 8x cast -  60 - 118 Damage (8 level 1)
Magmar        - 8x cast -  94 - 186 Damage (2 level 1 + 6 level 2)
Magmar        - 3x cast -  39 -  78 Damage (3 level 2)
---------------7x Storm - 283 - 564 Damage

So, let's see if the numbers check out:

1st 8x cast has 99 damage, with possibly some being cancelled in the beginning. So that's cool.
2nd 8x cast ends up with 150 damage. But WAIT! That's outside the boundaries in the calculator, right? No, not really, because multi-casting acts funky with menu cancelling and sometimes we see a massive variance in actual practice, both in a positive and negative manner. Let's continue.
3rd 8x cast ends up with 156 damage. So you've gotten lucky twice now, which is awesome.
4th cast is the 3x + 7x storm. So generally speaking, if you've done at least 300 damage to magmar with the hardball stuff, you're probably getting a kill. Honestly, this will happen most of the time. I had one case out of ~70 or so attempts at Magmar in the TAS (which is optimized at a much, much, more difficult damage range to match) where I didn't obtain the minimum I needed. It actually came down to de-leveling hardball throughout the route in order to save time, which would ultimately lose time, so that's why the TAS can't be pushed further down with current knowledge for Magmar's fight. Anyways, you ended up with 627 damage, which is definitely on the high end.

So to recap:

mid-high range 1st cast
overkill range on 2nd cast
overkill range on 3rd cast
high - max range on final cast

So yes,  you absolutely could continue doing this and cut out the amount you buy at the vendor, but you're gambling on getting those high rolls again.


This is something I've personally discussed/told many of the runners going for sub 1:19's in the past. If you drop the amount of Hard Ball in various places, you save time, but it costs safety big time. I personally feel that if you're comfortable with the route in Act 1, there's no reason not to drop the safety off and focus on later parts of the route from that point forward. But this isn't something many people enjoy doing because it forces lots of resets.

TL;DR version:

You got high range damage on all but one cast sequence, the non-high sequence was the least damaging and was in the middle-ish range as well.
Edit history:
MetaSigma: 2015-11-28 05:43:10 am
Evermore Extrodinare ᕦ(° Д°)ᕤ
So I just broke the sub 1:18 mark today 1:17:55.24 ᕦ(° Д°)ᕤ!! I'll have a video up soon as I can but I can't believe it FINALLY!!!!

Best I could manage since Twitch kinda...did bad things Sad (Here ya go!!!) http://www.twitch.tv/metasigma/v/27874953 Note at the time Twitch was messing with someone on their end and yes it does have about 7 minutes of the game cut out Sad There is nothing I can do about it sadly.
Speed > Safety
NICE! congrats! Can't wait to watch it.
YES!!  Congrats Meta!  ᕦ(° Д°)ᕤ
Congrats Meta!
You really had some great runs yesterday.

Your boss fight the attempt before your PB was sick as well. -15.someting? That was so great to watch.
Edit history:
CrAwEk: 2015-11-27 02:01:33 am
Congrats meta ᕦ(° Д°)ᕤ. You play much better now.
1:17:55 wr and 3 time 1:18 yesterday. it's impressive.
But I want to say you a big Gg cause you get the wr with skill and no with RNG.
Dont forget to submit your run on http://www.speedrun.com/Secret_of_Evermore
Is PJ
Awesome, congrats Meta!  Really sad I missed it live.
Professional Second Banana
Congrats Meta!  Glad to see all those hours of resetting in Prehistoria finally pay off!
Edit history:
CrAwEk: 2015-11-28 11:53:07 am
CrAwEk: 2015-11-28 10:53:44 am
Secret of Evermore any% WR 1:17:31
http://www.twitch.tv/crawek/c/7034811
It's really hard to beat this time now, time to improve any% Verminator skip
Edit history:
TheAngryPanda: 2015-11-30 09:40:25 am
Speed > Safety
Just going to leave some information here for you guys, but before doing so, please keep in mind that these are extreme routes (1.26% chance of success in multiple places, at the most optimal) and more or less follow the same general route as the TAS Any% does (excluding Verm Skip, of course).

Route 1 (easiest):

- Generally the same up until Eastern Forest
- Eastern Forest:
--> Kill Wimpy Flower near the entrance OR exit for a 7 Talon Drop (drop chance = 8/128, 7 Talon chance = 2/13)
----> Grab 7 Talon drop from ground, then Clay pickup below the flower for 7 Clay pickup.
- Drop 7 clay pickups from the route, any of them would work, the Southern Forest and Big Bug pickups are probably the best candidates.
- Might have to run 12 HB, might not, probably player-preference.
- Rest of the route is the same, more or less.
---- This is the easiest of the bullshit routes because you can recover from it if you don't get the drop.

Route 2 (the double chance):
- Same as Route 1
- Eastern Forest:
--> Kill Wimpy Flower near entrance AND exit for 2 chances at a 7 Talon drop (drop chance = 8/128, 7 Talon chance = 2/13; two chances at the drop)
----> The exit flower clay pickup is a much tighter window than the entrance drop is. It is possible in real-time.
- This is where things get weird because if you're going for either drop, you just do what Route 1 suggests, however, if you're just wanted to go for a double drop run, you don't have to pick up clay at all outside of these two drops. So this is obviously player-preference, and I do not recommend going for a double drop on a single map for a specific loot roll from said drops, the chances at literally < 0.01%. This wasn't done in the TAS because of other reasons (zombie boy and the frame loss incurred from doing so).

Route 3 (90 CB Route, aka, the game-ender):
- So this is a funky route, because you're going to end up doing No Defend and just totally forget about Crush. So what does that mean for the route, well here ya go:
--> Get Atlas Glitch off poison spiders + tumbleweed in desert.
----> This means that you do NOT have to deal with extra screen transitions for the dog cutscene or for Defend's version of Atlas glitch.
--> Remember to swap back to the dog as you fall into the pit for Blimp, this will let you leave early. It is also frame perfect, so menu buffer the drop like the thraxx cutscene skip.
--> Pretty normal up until pyramids, where you normally just grab the Wings out of a container along the left wall after opening one of the gates.
----> Grab the Wings first, or kill them enemies and THEN grab the Wings before looting the enemies drops, if they happen.
----> Two enemies can spawn here, ideally, so the map drop chance is 8/128, 90 Jewel drop chance is 3/14 (map ID is 56h if anyone cares)
------> Assuming that drop happens, you'll end up at Aquagoth eventually and probably want to run up his left side and start casting 7x Flare, 3x Storm at him until he's dead.
------> This holds true for Verminator as well, but you may end up using one extra bear as a cure ability to bypass the damage if he has a fast cast RNG roll for his AI, this is unlikely though.
--------> Optionally, since you have a ton of CB's to play with, you can Heat Wave things to prevent them from moving, or all cast any ability to achieve the same effect as well. Just keep one for Hypnotize on Sterling.
- Generally speaking, this route has the potential to save upwards of 1 min. 15s, but that's assuming perfection, a realistic goal would be something like 45s to 1 min.
- I think that the first person to actually get this kind of run finished, regardless of it's outcome, will probably be the WR holder for a rather significant amount of time. OR at least until something new is discovered, which would be preferred.


So there's some fun stuff to play with if anyone's feeling masochistic.

IF anyone wants to discuss these with me sometime, feel free to, but please keep in mind these are designed for someone who doesn't care about resetting constantly to get the best possible results. So if you're interested at all in any form of safety with your run, avoid them entirely. The sole exception is probably Route 1, and only barely.
To add to potential/unlikely time savers, there is also the early Mad Monk kill in the Hall of Collosia, which can save over 30 seconds (though more likely less), but is only possible something like 25% of the time. The rest of the time you will lose a good 25-40 seconds waiting, essentially killing the run. This would probably be reserved as a last ditch effort if your run is a bit behind WR/PB pace.

Another thing which might save time would be an inn skip/zombie boy route to Thraxx. Not really sure how it'd time out without doing a theory TAS. It would lend itself well to Panda's 7 clay manipulation routes. I can outline the route if anyone is interested, but keep in mind it would be harder.

Also there is the frame perfect character switch in Pyramids when hitting the first dogswitch, time saving of potentially 3 seconds if you only use 1 menu buffer, subtracting another second for every additional menu buffer. If you don't menu in time then there is virtually no punishment. I could make a better highlight with the setup if anyone is interested.
Speed > Safety
The zombie boy route (inn skip route) isn't viable in RTA because nobody will ever be able to mash that quickly for the perfect sprinting required.

Early mad monk I intentionally left out because it's just ridiculously luck-based, even compared to my other options. That particular AI can change pathing every 3 frames, and it takes him a while to get to where you're at. That being said, as a last ditch effort, I agree it's the option to go with. But man, that'd be brutal to go for 90 CB and EMM in the same run. You're basically operating on a <0.001% chance there, if its even that close. Sad

The frame perfect character switching in mids has been mentioned quite a few times, no idea why nobody isn't using it. Basically a free 3s with the single menu buffer, as you've mentioned.

Good calls GA. Smiley
Well the ZB route doesn't really need the boy to run at all, just a couple short walks for ingredient pickups. You basically trade the inn cutscene and most of the shopping (~25 seconds) for grabbing extra crystal and slower clay pickups. The Thraxx Intro Skip is not really viable though, but the Raptor Skip should be menu buffered to save some seconds with a character switch. Route would be something like:

-2 clay pickup
-3 Crystal pickups on Raptor screen
-Raptor Skip/Inn Skip (use a menu buffered character switch to save the 2 screen transitions (about 2-4 seconds depending on menus))
-3 Clay/18 talons from hut
-kill a flower, buy a petal (no selling)
-4 crystal gourd
-Crystal Pickup west of HB cave entrance; Dog clicks on Crystal Pickup, boy picks up 3 Crystals then 3 Clay by cave
-2 Crystal Gourd
-Get HB, no ingredient purchases, get Clay.
-maze skip
-Could try for Thraxx skip but likely not feasible
-Thraxx, make sure boy doesn't get hit by counter-yell or he dies

Basically requires 12 HB. Only 9 clay are mentioned here, but there are plenty of not-very-slow options left, and if you get the 7 clay drop you're in really good shape. Still, without a Theory TAS, not too sure how much savings are possible for an overall trickier route.