Warcraft 3

2005-06-30 03:43:22 am

Thinking of doing campaign on hard mode with fastest speed.

Will record it one level at a time, ending at 'stats' screen.

Can you save/load mid-game since it wastes no time?

Thread title:

spineshark

2005-06-30 06:49:42 am

新世紀進歩的羽扇子音楽

Halt!

Okay, maybe not...but we need to stop for a second and go over a couple rules.

For those who don't know, War3 is like StarCraft, with Mission or "Quest" based single player campaigns. And yes, with "Quest," you may have guessed, there's an RPG element. You have heroes who get stronger. Thus, the entire campaign is, in theory, linked. The game uses a "cache" to store your hero's EXP, items, and skills, which move onto the next mission. Also, most missions have a level cap past which your hero gains no experience.

The runs can either be structured this way, which is, imo, more fair (because you could trade time finding an item on one mission for time saved later in the campaign) but substantially more inconvenient. Or each level can be selected from the level select screen, which will have the hero begin the mission with a predetermined set of items and experience. This would also change a couple of the final missions where your resource also carries over.

Lastly, a few of these are kind of lame for speed runs. There are three (four inc. bonus) fixed time "defense" missions. Three of these absolutely cannot be "cheated" on time by attacking instead and razing the enemy base. There are also a few missions which must be completed in a short time frame. Once again a little iffy for the speed runs.

Anyway, this idea's been kicked around a lot so the runs will probably be accepted by popularity. If you go for it have fun!

Halt!

Okay, maybe not...but we need to stop for a second and go over a couple rules.

For those who don't know, War3 is like StarCraft, with Mission or "Quest" based single player campaigns.  And yes, with "Quest," you may have guessed, there's an RPG element.  You have heroes who get stronger.  Thus, the entire campaign is, in theory, linked.  The game uses a "cache" to store your hero's EXP, items, and skills, which move onto the next mission.  Also, most missions have a level cap past which your hero gains no experience.

The runs can either be structured this way, which is, imo, more fair (because you could trade time finding an item on one mission for time saved later in the campaign) but substantially more inconvenient.  Or each level can be selected from the level select screen, which will have the hero begin the mission with a predetermined set of items and experience.  This would also change a couple of the final missions where your resource also carries over.

Lastly, a few of these are kind of lame for speed runs.  There are three (four inc. bonus) fixed time "defense" missions.  Three of these absolutely cannot be "cheated" on time by attacking instead and razing the enemy base.  There are also a few missions which must be completed in a short time frame.  Once again a little iffy for the speed runs.

Anyway, this idea's been kicked around a lot so the runs will probably be accepted by popularity.  If you go for it have fun!

Gorash

Edit history:

Gorash: 2005-06-30 08:32:59 am

2005-06-30 08:32:14 am

${$uid.$user}{' usertext'}

There is in fact somewhere on the web a Warcraft done Quick. It finishes all individual missions on easy as fast as the players could manage, but they are replays for the extracted mission maps from the mpq-files.

I've not watched those, butanyone attempting a run on WC3 should at least have a look at them. And I personally would rather see the game finished on hard, since easy is most of the time plain ridiculous.

kineox

2005-06-30 04:31:58 pm

Here it is

soteos

2005-06-30 10:36:59 pm

Well, by looking at that topic you’d have to video record to enable anyone to watch it.

For the heroes- lets have them start out at whatever level and whatever items the player wants. Because 1) hard difficulty can be hard 2) it will make the run faster 3) it’s a solution to this problem. The player can say which items they started out with in the run description.

When you say save/load mid-game, do you mean during a level? Because that would make it a segmented level run, which I’ve never seen.

AquaTiger

2005-10-16 07:17:50 pm

Never give up!

I'm loathing the idea of reviving a topic that's three and a half months old, but I thought it was a better idea to do that than start a new topic altogether.

First off, before I start, is Akumadevil still doing his runs? If he is I'll let him have that and work on individual level strategies - if not I'll consider taking up the mantle of campaign runs (on hard, of course, once I get the practice).

Second, I should inform people that I wouldn't be working on actually doing individual level or campaign runs right away. My personal limit is two games at once, and I already have those lined up, so this would have to be tossed onto the queue. Plus, I still need to refine strategies for each level and work on micromanagement skills.

Third, I agree with soteos on individual level runs to an extent, although I believe whoever verifies the runs should make sure the items could have appeared earlier in the campaign (but I think that falls under the anti-cheating rules already established on SDA).

Fourth, is it just me, or do smaller, mixed armies really work better in this game than masses of the same unit (the latter strategy being the popular Starcraft one)?

Lastly, what other generic advice could people give me?

I'm loathing the idea of reviving a topic that's three and a half months old, but I thought it was a better idea to do that than start a new topic altogether.

First off, before I start, is Akumadevil still doing his runs?  If he is I'll let him have that and work on individual level strategies - if not I'll consider taking up the mantle of campaign runs (on hard, of course, once I get the practice).

Second, I should inform people that I wouldn't be working on actually doing individual level or campaign runs right away.  My personal limit is two games at once, and I already have those lined up, so this would have to be tossed onto the queue.  Plus, I still need to refine strategies for each level and work on micromanagement skills.

Third, I agree with soteos on individual level runs to an extent, although I believe whoever verifies the runs should make sure the items could have appeared earlier in the campaign (but I think that falls under the anti-cheating rules already established on SDA).

Fourth, is it just me, or do smaller, mixed armies really work better in this game than masses of the same unit (the latter strategy being the popular Starcraft one)?

Lastly, what other generic advice could people give me?

Gorash

2005-10-16 10:01:57 pm

${$uid.$user}{' usertext'}

Disagree on the items.

Level of the heroes is more or less fixed in WC3, since you beat up enough stuff in each level to get you hero to level 5 at least, and thus they implemented a level cap on it for each mission which you easily reach. So hero level is fixed and it makes no sense at all to start with a lesser hero.

On items:
I agree that some items might be beneficial, but there is the question of continuity. If you need 3 townportals for the record in mission n and can only get them by playing mission n-1 2 minutes longer to get enough gold to buy them, then I don't like the idea. This should be regarded like the QdQ series, where each level has to be started with a fixed amount of ammo and health to ensure that the final product could in theory have been played in a single session.

I'd like the players to first agree on a set of super items that only a fool would not collect (like a claws of attack +9 or +12 early in the missions) and that those items have to be collected in the records as well. I've only played through them once (and only half of it on hard... it really can be hard), but there will be enough to comment on it.

Disagree on the items.

Level of the heroes is more or less fixed in WC3, since you beat up enough stuff in each level to get you hero to level 5 at least, and thus they implemented a level cap on it for each mission which you easily reach. So hero level is fixed and it makes no sense at all to start with a lesser hero.

On items:
I agree that some items might be beneficial, but there is the question of continuity. If you need 3 townportals for the record in mission n and can only get them by playing mission n-1 2 minutes longer to get enough gold to buy them, then I don't like the idea. This should be regarded like the QdQ series, where each level has to be started with a fixed amount of ammo and health to ensure that the final product could in theory have been played in a single session.

I'd like the players to first agree on a set of super items that only a fool would not collect (like a claws of attack +9 or +12 early in the missions) and that those items have to be collected in the records as well. I've only played through them once (and only half of it on hard... it really can be hard), but there will be enough to comment on it.

AquaTiger

2005-10-16 11:14:16 pm

Never give up!

Quote:

I agree that some items might be beneficial, but there is the question of continuity. If you need 3 townportals for the record in mission n and can only get them by playing mission n-1 2 minutes longer to get enough gold to buy them, then I don't like the idea. This should be regarded like the QdQ series, where each level has to be started with a fixed amount of ammo and health to ensure that the final product could in theory have been played in a single session.

I'd like the players to first agree on a set of super items that only a fool would not collect (like a claws of attack +9 or +12 early in the missions) and that those items have to be collected in the records as well. I've only played through them once (and only half of it on hard... it really can be hard), but there will be enough to comment on it.

I can agree on the first half for campaign runs... but it took me a reread to make sure I understood your notes for individual level runs.

I'd do a couple of dry runs to get a list of what items are possible and feasible, in order to begin work on the set you speak of, but I'm still busy working on two games, so I'm going to hold off on that.

By the way, what are people's opinions on the optional quests in the game? I myself imagine them only being integrated in a run if it's timely (one defense-based level in the standard Human campaign, for instance, has such an optional quest), but other people might think it's only good to skip them all.

[quote]I agree that some items might be beneficial, but there is the question of continuity. If you need 3 townportals for the record in mission n and can only get them by playing mission n-1 2 minutes longer to get enough gold to buy them, then I don't like the idea. This should be regarded like the QdQ series, where each level has to be started with a fixed amount of ammo and health to ensure that the final product could in theory have been played in a single session.

I'd like the players to first agree on a set of super items that only a fool would not collect (like a claws of attack +9 or +12 early in the missions) and that those items have to be collected in the records as well. I've only played through them once (and only half of it on hard... it really can be hard), but there will be enough to comment on it.[/quote]

I can agree on the first half for campaign runs... but it took me a reread to make sure I understood your notes for individual level runs.

I'd do a couple of dry runs to get a list of what items are possible and feasible, in order to begin work on the set you speak of, but I'm still busy working on two games, so I'm going to hold off on that.

By the way, what are people's opinions on the optional quests in the game?  I myself imagine them only being integrated in a run if it's timely (one defense-based level in the standard Human campaign, for instance, has such an optional quest), but other people might think it's only good to skip them all.

soteos

2005-10-17 12:41:40 am

Have player get sidequests only if they want. Some of them just shouldn't be done. (e.g. the orc level where the sidequest is to defeat 6 human bases, or the undead one where you defeat orc heroes)
And Gorash, I don't like the QDQ style. It means we would have to do levels in order, find almost all possible improvements along the way, and that would just take too long. No one could improve past levels later on either.
If you still don't like using whatever items the player wants from previous levels, we could have players do an entire campaign instead of individual levels.
Or we could just allow any combination of whatever level format we've been talking about.

Gorash

2005-10-17 02:20:56 am

${$uid.$user}{' usertext'}

The whole point of it is that you don't have to do them in order.

Let me clearify:
- You agree what item the hero must have at the end of mission 3.
- Mission 4 starts with those items (they are the only difference you can take over to the next level)
- Someone does mission 3 faster but still gets those items.

So you can do them out of order, but still the whole thing ha the feeling of continuity.

This has also the added benefit that the runner could set up a profile for running in which they play all the missions and get the desired items, and them have the safe ready for each mission. The other way, if a runner decides that a certain item from mission 2 is better for mission 10, he has to replay (or recheat) all the missions in between.

soteos

2005-10-17 03:32:21 am

Ok, but what if level improvements involve skipping an item to make the time faster? Or getting an extra item to make the time faster? Maybe a better way to do this is to not start with any items besides those that are given from the start. And what about a hero's level, should a player who's improving levels have to go through tedious work to make sure he kills the exact number of enemies to reach the number of experience the hero has in the next level?
"but still the whole thing ha the feeling of continuity. "
Individual levels don't really have anything to do with continuity in the first place.
"get the desired items, and them have the safe ready for each mission. "
I'm confused here. But it sounds like it excludes other runners because they don't have the same profile.
"The other way, if a runner decides that a certain item from mission 2 is better for mission 10, he has to replay (or recheat) all the missions in between. "
Sounds as difficult a task as going through and getting all the same items the first runner got. Would take like 10 minutes at most to do.
So I still feel my method works- letting them have whatever items and experience they want. If that's not acceptable, starting with no items other than what's given at the level start is the next viable option. Continuity is best left for campaign runs by one player, not individual levels.

Ok, but what if level improvements involve skipping an item to make the time faster? Or getting an extra item to make the time faster? Maybe a better way to do this is to not start with any items besides those that are given from the start. And what about a hero's level, should a player who's improving levels have to go through tedious work to make sure he kills the exact number of enemies to reach the number of experience the hero has in the next level?
"but still the whole thing ha the feeling of continuity.  "
Individual levels don't really have anything to do with continuity in the first place.
"get the desired items, and them have the safe ready for each mission. "
I'm confused here. But it sounds like it excludes other runners because they don't have the same profile.
"The other way, if a runner decides that a certain item from mission 2 is better for mission 10, he has to replay (or recheat) all the missions in between. "
Sounds as difficult a task as going through and getting all the same items the first runner got. Would take like 10 minutes at most to do.
So I still feel my method works- letting them have whatever items and experience they want. If that's not acceptable, starting with no items other than what's given at the level start is the next viable option. Continuity is best left for campaign runs by one player, not individual levels.

Gorash

Edit history:

Gorash: 2005-10-17 12:00:20 pm

2005-10-17 11:59:57 am

${$uid.$user}{' usertext'}

Gaah, do you do this on purpose?

Experience is capped, so the hero will stop at a certain level anyway. Not reaching the cap-level in a mission is neither fast nor do I think it's possible on most hard missions. (This is also the reason why Arthas levels _down_ in TFT missions).

Starting every mission without any items at all is not fast since you'd miss really good stuff.

Whatever, the first player who dows this will set the rules anyway...

Pweisger

2005-10-17 02:30:50 pm

PwNzRd!

What about good ol' Warcraft 2 and its expansion. Has anyone ever done those?

soteos

2005-10-18 09:01:42 am

Warcraft 2 would be cool to see.

Anyways, Gorash it seems I'm a little confused. I know the hero levels are capped. So you want the player to sacrifice time leveling up if they would otherwise finish the level without reaching the cap? And you want future runners to use the items the first runner uses, regardless of whether they think they are a good choice? To me, this doesn't sound like individual level runs, this sounds like one run done by one or more runners.

Gorash

2005-10-18 10:54:57 am

${$uid.$user}{' usertext'}

Well, I said I do not believe it is possible to reach the end of any of the maps without killing enough stuff to reach the capped level, but I may be proven wrong.

As for the items, that is why I initially said it would be nice if the runners would agree on the items before the running even started, so that the first runner does not imprint a bad choice of items.

For me there is no point in running a level with benefits gained from playing other levels. It just sn't right, it's like Diablo2 act runs, where you can choose items and level of the character to start the act with. The act may be faster but at the expense of time to build the character. Warcraft is in a way the same, because the campain levels are not standalone. The only way to circumvent this is to agree on a common base, which can be either nothing (not fast) or something arbitrary which the runners think is fast.

Spine Shark

2005-10-18 05:46:54 pm

If you load a level from the campaign menu, the game gives you a predetermined amount of experience and predetermined items. It took me a while to figure out why every time I was playing that level where you stop the naga summoners Maiev had a bunch of weird, crappy items that I had never put on her. I think I said this before...

I'd love Warcraft 2 runs. One of my favorite games, especially the single player. Missions seem to take a long time though.

Gorash

2005-10-18 06:58:43 pm

${$uid.$user}{' usertext'}

Quote:

Thus, the entire campaign is, in theory, linked. The game uses a "cache" to store your hero's EXP, items, and skills, which move onto the next mission.

Well, I missed it then. If that is true (too lazy to check right now) then the whole argument is void, I take everything back and state the converse.

Pweisger

2005-10-18 09:34:24 pm

PwNzRd!

I would speedrun Warcraft 2 in a heartbeat, but I am just not good enough. :-[

soteos

Edit history:

soteos: 2005-10-19 12:10:56 am

2005-10-19 12:06:48 am

Did we just get heated up over nothing? Goddamn. Well, at least that's solved. (I can't check it out right now, I'm on fall break)
How's it going AquaTiger?

AquaTiger

2005-10-19 12:53:01 am

Never give up!

Well, the thing is I still have to take care of one of my two current games first. As soon as I finish one of them I can start work on this game.

Once I'm ready to record one of the two games on my list (probably Shaolin Monks), I'll get some level strategy going. (Ideally that'll be within a week.) Until then, if you guys have strategy ideas I'm all ears.

Besides, I couldn't record these until I can fix some video card issues, and that might take a while.

AquaTiger

Edit history:

AquaTiger: 2005-10-21 08:31:21 pm

2005-10-21 08:24:39 pm

Never give up!

Sorry for the double post here, but I did a little testing to get the level routes underway.

I decided I'd start by speeding through the two tutorial missions - I did these two on Normal, just for time purposes, but I thought I'd pass along my times and comments. I'll do these on Hard later - if I decide to bring this PC home, this weekend might be the time I do my first viable attempts.

Tutorial Mission 1 time: 2:43

Notes and Inquiries:
-Are killing the two groups of Gnolls and the first group of Murlocs absolutely necessary?
-Picking up the dropped potion, on the other hand, is something I know is NOT necessary.

Tutorial Mission 2 time: 10:25

Notes and Inquiries:
-The harvesting system in Warcraft 3 is going to drag out a lot of missions, because having more than five peons (or peasants in a Human campaign) harvesting gold from a mine is simply a waste of money, and only a maximum of five in either of the other two races can harvest gold from a single mine. Contrast this with those Starcraft runs on the site - I'm not even going to count how many they use to harvest minerals.
-I need to master the building hotkeys.
-I did both War Mill upgrades and trained a couple more Grunts than they asked me to train, but I used only one barracks because I think the time required to get that much more gold is not worth the extra training speed in this mission. (I hope it is in other missions.)
-I had the barracks rally point set to those towers the Humans attack. Makes things go a bit faster later on.
-Are freeing any of the imprisoned troops on the path to Grom worth the time?

Sorry for the double post here, but I did a little testing to get the level routes underway.

I decided I'd start by speeding through the two tutorial missions - I did these two on Normal, just for time purposes, but I thought I'd pass along my times and comments.  I'll do these on Hard later - if I decide to bring this PC home, this weekend might be the time I do my first viable attempts.

Tutorial Mission 1 time: [b]2:43[/b]

Notes and Inquiries:
-Are killing the two groups of Gnolls and the first group of Murlocs absolutely necessary?
-Picking up the dropped potion, on the other hand, is something I know is NOT necessary.

Tutorial Mission 2 time: [b]10:25[/b]

Notes and Inquiries:
-The harvesting system in Warcraft 3 is going to drag out a lot of missions, because having more than five peons (or peasants in a Human campaign) harvesting gold from a mine is simply a waste of money, and only a maximum of five in either of the other two races can harvest gold from a single mine.  Contrast this with those Starcraft runs on the site - I'm not even going to count how many they use to harvest minerals.
-I need to master the building hotkeys.
-I did both War Mill upgrades and trained a couple more Grunts than they asked me to train, but I used only one barracks because I think the time required to get that much more gold is not worth the extra training speed in this mission.  (I hope it is in other missions.)
-I had the barracks rally point set to those towers the Humans attack.  Makes things go a bit faster later on.
-Are freeing any of the imprisoned troops on the path to Grom worth the time?

soteos

2005-10-21 08:50:07 pm

I'd have to say that time can be shaved.

Quote:

Chapter One Chasing Visions
Book_of_Stuff Time: 00:01:38
Chapter Two Departures
Chib Time: 00:08:06

Make sure you're running this on the fastest speed.
In the first one you might be able to run directly to Medivh. I can't remember if fighting the enemies is necessary, but if it is just have the grunts fight whatever while Thrall runs to the end.
In the second, try out 6 peons to the gold mine (it might be far enough away to where it make a slight difference). If you can make more than one barracks, even to train just one more troop quicker, it'll be worth it. I wouldn't suggest getting more than the necessary 5 (it'll take long enough for the fifth guy to reach Thrall), and getting the troops from the cages could be helpful to make later battles (towers) quicker.

AquaTiger

2005-10-21 10:59:11 pm

Never give up!

Quote:

Make sure you're running this on the fastest speed.

I was gonna check that when I did it again to see what it was. Thanks for reminding me, though - I'll update people once I find out what setting it was on.

Quote:

If you can make more than one barracks, even to train just one more troop quicker, it'll be worth it.

Interesting nitpickiness here (but helpful nitpickiness is the whole reason why I showed the time and comments, isn't it?). I admit it took me a while to understand exactly where you were coming from on this subject, but I think I get it now - alternate which barracks they're trained from, right?

Quote:

I wouldn't suggest getting more than the necessary 5

I'll try this with and without training extra and see what comes up - any after that fifth one are just gonna have to rush to meet up with the group. Plus, to my knowledge, I don't need the gold anywhere else in that mission.

Quote:

and getting the troops from the cages could be helpful to make later battles (towers) quicker.

So it might be worth it? Okay, I'll check it out.

I'll have to test this later - I have to pack up and head home for the weekend.

[quote]Make sure you're running this on the fastest speed.[/quote]

I was gonna check that when I did it again to see what it was.  Thanks for reminding me, though - I'll update people once I find out what setting it was on.

[quote]If you can make more than one barracks, even to train just one more troop quicker, it'll be worth it.[/quote]

Interesting nitpickiness here (but helpful nitpickiness is the whole reason why I showed the time and comments, isn't it?).  I admit it took me a while to understand exactly where you were coming from on this subject, but I think I get it now - alternate which barracks they're trained from, right?

[quote]I wouldn't suggest getting more than the necessary 5[/quote]

I'll try this with and without training extra and see what comes up - any after that fifth one are just gonna have to rush to meet up with the group.  Plus, to my knowledge, I don't need the gold anywhere else in that mission.

[quote]and getting the troops from the cages could be helpful to make later battles (towers) quicker.[/quote]

So it might be worth it?  Okay, I'll check it out.

I'll have to test this later - I have to pack up and head home for the weekend.

soteos

Edit history:

soteos: 2005-10-22 05:20:08 am

2005-10-22 05:11:27 am

I don't know if getting the cages to beat the towers would be faster. Hell, getting some of the cages might be the fastest method. And go with whatever works the best for the barracks.;)

I came up with a great idea (more of a realization) that you could watch the replays of the levels from here
http://www.infoceptor.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9513
http://www.infoceptor.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12867
I forgot they were linked to the topic with the best times. But to watch them you have to reinstall Warcraft 3, and download the appropriate patch.
And now I'm thinking: could we get someone to run the replays and use a recording method to turn them into actual runs? The replays are done using the level-continuity we agreed on. So do we potentially have all the runs done for this already?

StrangenessDSS

2005-10-22 07:48:12 am

Sleeping Terror

Those replays are all done on Easy... which is really easy. I watched them a while ago and wasn't very impressed.