StarCraft 2 (WoL/HotS/LotV)

2011-05-14 02:00:36 pm

XXY

Thanks for linking me to the video, wfp! I did find it, but thank you anyway. I haven't watched the entire thing yet, but I'll get around to it. I'm also finding a lot of other videos as I go along that are faster (I know the route is a little outdated, so I mean no offense), so I have quite a bit to watch. My favorite level thus far has been Redstone III. First time I played through the game that level took me ages. It was really fun to see it being played that quickly. But anyway, I've been picking away at my own speedrun, casually, so to speak. I have a lot of other projects I want to finish, so I'm not taking it too seriously at the moment, but maybe in the future I'll put together a casual run, just for fun. In the meantime I could try and help out with a new route! I don't know if it's been found yet, but I have a better strategy for The Devil's Playground.

I have stimpacks from the armory at this point, so I take my two marines and send them straight for the reapers in the top left, and to the command center. You have enough time to get your repears back to your main base before the lava surge, which saves a bit of time. I dance around the brutalisk and get an SCV to get all the minerals around it. Then when Tosh sends in his reinforcements, I have that little squad collecting mineral caches, while the squad I was using around the brutalisk collects all the rest. Two quick questions about this level and about playing on Normal difficulty. First, do you get minerals for killing the brutalisk? I've done it several times now but haven't really been paying attention... Second, do your units and buildings move faster on normal?

Thanks for linking me to the video, wfp! I did find it, but thank you anyway. I haven't watched the entire thing yet, but I'll get around to it. I'm also finding a lot of other videos as I go along that are faster (I know the route is a little outdated, so I mean no offense), so I have quite a bit to watch. My favorite level thus far has been Redstone III. First time I played through the game that level took me ages. It was really fun to see it being played that quickly. But anyway, I've been picking away at my own speedrun, casually, so to speak. I have a lot of other projects I want to finish, so I'm not taking it too seriously at the moment, but maybe in the future I'll put together a casual run, just for fun. In the meantime I could try and help out with a new route! I don't know if it's been found yet, but I have a better strategy for The Devil's Playground.

I have stimpacks from the armory at this point, so I take my two marines and send them straight for the reapers in the top left, and to the command center. You have enough time to get your repears back to your main base before the lava surge, which saves a bit of time. I dance around the brutalisk and get an SCV to get all the minerals around it. Then when Tosh sends in his reinforcements, I have that little squad collecting mineral caches, while the squad I was using around the brutalisk collects all the rest. Two quick questions about this level and about playing on Normal difficulty. First, do you get minerals for killing the brutalisk? I've done it several times now but haven't really been paying attention... Second, do your units and buildings move faster on normal?

Fragmaster01

2011-05-14 02:21:12 pm

Wiggle wiggle

There's resource patches BY the brutalisk, but proper micro lets you grab them without killing it. Units move same speed on Normal as Brutal. Main difference is enemy AI and starting units(more units, and many starting units for the enemy are replaced with their Merc counterparts, as well as starting with upgrades).

FlamingMage

Edit history:

FlamingMage: 2011-05-14 03:04:23 pm

2011-05-14 03:03:44 pm

I got a 4:05 casual time on The Devil's Playground (with dead brutalisk), if that's close to or better than your time I'll post my strategy Tongue

Fragmaster01

Edit history:

Fragmaster01: 2011-05-14 05:32:56 pm

2011-05-14 03:06:29 pm

Wiggle wiggle

Casual, however, has a large difference: all enemies have half health. Hence why I used Normal to formulate strategies.

EDIT: Another I thought of, prompted by the HP talk. "Boss Enemies" have more HP on higher difficulties. This is things like the trains on Great Train Robbery or the Leviathan on the final missions.

slYnki

2011-05-14 03:53:41 pm

XXY

I'll have to start planning some strategies on normal then =)

And FlamingMage, my best time on Devil's Playground without killing the brutalisk is 3:27 on casual. With killing the brutalisk it's around 3:35 or something. I know I can bring 3:27 a lot lower. I can use one of my marines to get some reaper squads earlier while my first squad is running around the bottom of the map. I've been waiting around for Tosh's reinforcements up until now, but that last marine of mine could be useful in making it a touch faster.

FlamingMage

2011-05-14 06:49:30 pm

Go for it then, good luck Cheesy

slYnki

2011-05-14 11:13:00 pm

XXY

I could post a video if someone would direct me to where I can get the full version of FRAPs.

wfp

2011-05-14 11:15:51 pm

yeah, the brutalisk gets killed for its value as research and has no mineral value. in general splitting your troops on devil's playground is likely the fastest route though it can require quite a bit of micro. i think there's certainly room for improvement on current strategies though fragmaster sets a good benchmark.

whenever possible i'd test strategies on brutal as the enemy upgrades/health/numbers differences can make a large impact on particular strategies (this'll likely be most notable on the dig as on normal the level's pretty easy to beat without moving the drill, but the constant stream of immortals on higher difficulties make a pure tank wall impractical). also the enemy ai reacts very differently to nukes on brutal vs. any other difficulty.

Zealie

Edit history:

Zealie: 2011-05-15 01:20:58 am

2011-05-15 01:17:19 am

I am just wondering here, what difficulties would be allowed?
Because (if I remember correctly) most games that have a lot of difficulties usually only have the easiest and hardest difficulty that you can use. (maybe 3 sometimes, but that's usually when there are 5 or more I think.)
My memory is pretty vague so I can't really give a clear answer, I just thought I'd give a heads up. (also maybe I'm remembering it wrong... =x)

Did mike already say something about this or is it yet to be decided?

slYnki

2011-05-15 02:06:24 am

XXY

3:02 (:

epicfail

2011-05-15 03:43:50 am

hi i am new but i see this forum since a long time ^^

someone do speedrun of challenge ? or a speedrun with all acheivement in easy ? :p like at sux at sc2 i can't help for this Cheesy

Fragmaster01

2011-05-15 06:57:00 am

Wiggle wiggle

Quote from Zealie:

I am just wondering here, what difficulties would be allowed?
Because (if I remember correctly) most games that have a lot of difficulties usually only have the easiest and hardest difficulty that you can use. (maybe 3 sometimes, but that's usually when there are 5 or more I think.)
My memory is pretty vague so I can't really give a clear answer, I just thought I'd give a heads up. (also maybe I'm remembering it wrong... =x)

Did mike already say something about this or is it yet to be decided?

It depends on what you're talking about. IL runs are to be Brutal, as there's no reason not to. any%/low%, Brutal is recommended; Single-Segment is whatever you can run it with(I'd say Normal, Brutal is too easy to mess up on for some missions, like The Dig).

wfp

2011-05-15 09:57:07 pm

Quote from epicfail:

hi i am new but i see this forum since a long time ^^

someone do speedrun of challenge ? or a speedrun with all acheivement in easy ? :p like at sux at sc2 i can't help for this Cheesy

i feel speedrunning the challenge levels would probably be acceptable, though i think there's much more interest in the campaign missions. as for the achievements, a large number of them are difficulty dependent and a few are mutually exclusive (good luck on brutal killing every enemy structure in under 25 minutes on a sinister turn or getting both achievements on zero hour simultaneously not to mention the difficulty you'd have if you threw in the secret achievements on devil's playground, welcome to the jungle, and piercing the shroud while keeping your run speedy (which would also create some fun problems for in utter darkness as well)). in general i'd consider a 100% run to simply be all missions with all research collected and all optional objectives completed and there isn't a ton of interest in it, though i wouldn't turn down watching a run of some of the levels with those parameters.

[quote="epicfail"]hi i am new but i see this forum since a long time ^^

someone do speedrun of challenge ? or a speedrun with all acheivement in easy ? :p  like at sux at sc2 i can't help for this :D [/quote]
 i feel speedrunning the challenge levels would probably be acceptable, though i think there's much more interest in the campaign missions.  as for the achievements, a large number of them are difficulty dependent and a few are mutually exclusive (good luck on brutal killing every enemy structure in under 25 minutes on a sinister turn or getting both achievements on zero hour simultaneously not to mention the difficulty you'd have if you threw in the secret achievements on devil's playground, welcome to the jungle, and piercing the shroud while keeping your run speedy (which would also create some fun problems for in utter darkness as well)).  in general i'd consider a 100% run to simply be all missions with all research collected and all optional objectives completed and there isn't a ton of interest in it, though i wouldn't turn down watching a run of some of the levels with those parameters.

hobbes

2011-06-04 02:44:50 pm

is Deign still on his" break"? Cheesy

The first page still shows the Devil's Playground record to be 5:07 by i posted a 4:35

<iframe width="560" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/_bZL5CQu2lU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Just wondering.

And is there going to be in fact a normal mode listing? Cuz i have a 2:32 on (normal) Moebius, 2:53 on Outlaws and liberation day in 2:10 (don't know if it means anything).

hobbes

2011-06-04 03:19:44 pm

PoC

2011-06-08 03:12:02 am

Moebius Factor 3:57 (brutal)
New strategy for building 2.
For even faster runs:
1. Trigger brutalisk transmission with marine #3: This shouldnt be a problem - I actually lost marine#3 without any purpose...
2. Kill the last building faster - with the other transmission timings combined: ~3:35 (I think I wont be able to beat 3:50 with this strategy but others might :>)
3. Medivac pathing can be optimized ... Im quite that I lost a few seconds by moving too cowardly around the spore crawlers

PoC

2011-06-11 11:04:03 am

The Great Train Robbery 19:51 (brutal)
It's pretty much fixed time so I got all the research & achievements...
And by pretty much fixed I mean that I couldnt get a 19:50 with save&load even when launching all the nukes in the same frame by using walk-qued nukes. This can be a few frames faster(still 19:51) but it's less reliable (also bugs out the Boss Bar) so I decided against it for the recorded run.

wfp

2011-06-12 01:59:20 am

nice run on train robbery, PoC, despite it being probably the fourth closest to a fixed time mission after zero hour, all in, and the evacuation. we do still need it for the chart and i liked the final nuking (though elements of that strategy will certainly need to be changed for the campaign run as i don't think specialists are unlocked at that point).

PoC

2011-06-16 08:19:44 am

So lets see whats missing from the IL table ...
Engine of Destruction - any updates - maybe a first recording?
Outbreak -the linked video is down - has anyone saved it or made a new one?
Belly of the Beast, Piercing the Shroud, Haven x2, Evacuation & All in - nothing at all yet?

wfp

2011-06-16 12:13:38 pm

Quote from PoC:

So lets see whats missing from the IL table ...
Engine of Destruction - any updates - maybe a first recording?
Outbreak -the linked video is down - has anyone saved it or made a new one?
Belly of the Beast, Piercing the Shroud, Haven x2, Evacuation & All in - nothing at all yet?

no idea what the deal is with the outbreak video, and i feel like some one ran safe haven, but otherwise the list looks accurate (though there are several runs of all in online and considering the nature of the mission any one of them could be taken and claimed to be a speed run).

kinda surprised no one's tackled belly of the beast and piercing the shroud as hero missions tend to be the more popular missions to run.

meanwhile, there was some discussion of an EoD route, though i don't think a conclusion was reached. evacuation should be fairly standard, once it becomes clear when the ideal time to kill off the transport trucks is (which shouldn't be that hard to figure out). i lean towards killing the last four to allow you to build up more forces while the first one's in transit (this assumes the transports don't arrive at a fixed rate a la the trains in train robbery, if they do then the last truck would be the only one worth killing).

[quote="PoC"]So lets see whats missing from the IL table ...
Engine of Destruction - any updates - maybe a first recording?
Outbreak -the linked video is down - has anyone saved it or made a new one?
Belly of the Beast, Piercing the Shroud, Haven x2, Evacuation & All in - nothing at all yet?[/quote]

no idea what the deal is with the outbreak video, and i feel like some one ran safe haven, but otherwise the list looks accurate (though there are several runs of all in online and considering the nature of the mission any one of them could be taken and claimed to be a speed run).

kinda surprised no one's tackled belly of the beast and piercing the shroud as hero missions tend to be the more popular missions to run.

meanwhile, there was some discussion of an EoD route, though i don't think a conclusion was reached.  evacuation should be fairly standard, once it becomes clear when the ideal time to kill off the transport trucks is (which shouldn't be that hard to figure out).  i lean towards killing the last four to allow you to build up more forces while the first one's in transit (this assumes the transports don't arrive at a fixed rate a la the trains in train robbery, if they do then the last truck would be the only one worth killing).

slYnki

2011-06-16 04:59:59 pm

XXY

I don't get how you got 19:51 on brutal. My best time on casual was around 23 minutes or something because it's a fixed time mission.

wfp

2011-06-16 07:11:18 pm

Quote from slYnki:

I don't get how you got 19:51 on brutal. My best time on casual was around 23 minutes or something because it's a fixed time mission.

i'm guessing the trains come faster on brutal (which may also be the case with the transport trucks on evacuation and tychus' downtime on EoD).

PoC

2011-06-17 02:59:43 am

Quote:

I don't get how you got 19:51 on brutal. My best time on casual was around 23 minutes or something because it's a fixed time mission.

21 seconds intro + spawn delay + Train timers:
easy-hard: first 150s every other train 180s
brutal: first 120s every other train 150s
-> 19:51 for brutal and 23:51 for other difficulties.

slYnki

2011-06-18 12:16:07 am

XXY

Gotcha. Thanks for clearing that up, PoC! Should I ever attempt an any% run on Casual, I won't feel like a complete noob Cheesy

PoC

2011-06-19 02:22:16 pm

Safe Haven 5:55 (brutal)

Lost a few seconds with my Vikings & got a few units vortexed. ~5:40 could be possible with this strategy when performed flawless. Towers cant be placed any closer because they would just die to the purify area damage.

Evacuation comments:
Start: just run through to the base 17-18s
New Convoys start as soon as all units in the previous Convoy are either dead or rescued (includes those escort marine so kill them if they should lag behind)
There is a fixed wait after all civilians spawn so no use in destroying specific huts
Waves contain 10 10 10 12 12 16 civilians(including truck). To reach the next wave you have to either play brutal or rescue at least 8 from each convoy on average.
-> Anything other than brutal: kill 4/5 trucks close to the end to stop them from slowly unloading. (last 2 + 2 random)
-> Brutal: Kill convoy 1&2 and escort all units in 3,4,5,6 to actually skip 1 convoy. (map creator calls this "degenerate case" lol :D)
Problem is that you arent allowed to kill 20 civilians so you have to bug the counter somehow to use this strat. Havent figured that one out yet :/

Safe Haven 5:55 (brutal)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRO3iKazuNU
Lost a few seconds with my Vikings & got a few units vortexed. ~5:40 could be possible with this strategy when performed flawless. Towers cant be placed any closer because they would just die to the purify area damage.

Evacuation comments:
Start: just run through to the base 17-18s
New Convoys start as soon as all units in the previous Convoy are either dead or rescued (includes those escort marine so kill them if they should lag behind) 
There is a fixed wait after all civilians spawn so no use in destroying specific huts
Waves contain 10 10 10 12 12 16 civilians(including truck). To reach the next wave you have to either play brutal or rescue at least 8 from each convoy on average.
-> Anything other than brutal: kill 4/5 trucks close to the end to stop them from slowly unloading. (last 2 + 2 random)
-> Brutal: Kill convoy 1&2 and escort all units in 3,4,5,6 to actually skip 1 convoy. (map creator calls this "degenerate case" lol :D)
Problem is that you arent allowed to kill 20 civilians so you have to bug the counter somehow to use this strat. Havent figured that one out yet :/