United StatesDid a playthrough without using non-mandatory badges and power-ups besides the normal mushroom. I couldn't find a way to get these collectables:
- W1 - Pipe-Rock Plateau Palace, 2nd 10-flower coin: Requires Elephant to break the blocks around the coin. There aren't any Koopa shells area to break them. [1]
- W2 - Cruising with Linking Lifts, 2nd 10-flower coin: Requires Elephant to break the blocks containing the lift blocks. [1]
- W3 - The Anglefish Trial: Ready, Aim, Fly!, 3rd 10-flower coin: Requires Elephant to grab the large shell and break otherwise unbreakable blocks to access a pipe. [1]
- W4 - Sunbaked Desert Palace, 3rd 10-flower coin: Requires Drill to reach the coin. Possible to reach in theory, but the sand lowers your jump height. [1]
- W4 - Break Time! Treasure Vault, Wonder Seed: Requires Drill to access the level. [1]
- W6 - Where the Rrrumbas Rule, 2nd 10-flower coin: Requires Drill to access an offscreen area. [1] [2]
- W6 - Where the Rrrumbas Rule, Wonder Seed and secret exit: Requires Drill to access. [1]
- W6 - Raarghs in the Ruins, 3rd 10-flower coin: Requires Drill to reach. Might be possible to reach the area without Drill, but you still require it to reach the coin. [1] [2]
- W6 - Badge Challenge Boosting Spin Jump II, all collectables: Inaccessible because of the above.
- W6 - Expert Badge Challenge Jet Run II, all collectables: Inaccessible from the lack of Wonder Seeds needed to break the gate.
- W6 - Expert Badge Challenge Invisibility II, all collectables: Inaccessible because of the above.
- W6 - Expert Badge Challenge Spring Feet II, all collectables: Inaccessible because of the above.
- W6 - Search Party Item Park, Wonder Seed: Requires the use of power-ups. [1]
- W6 - Break Time! Hot-Hot Rocks, Wonder Seed: Requires Elephant to break the entrance blocks. [1]
- Petal Isles - Blewbird Roost, 3rd 10-flower coin: Requires Bubble to touch a flower that contains the coin. [1]
- Special World - Deep Magma Bog Special Solar Roller, all collectables: Inaccessible because of the above.
- Special World - The Final Test Wonder Gauntlet, all collectables: Inaccessible because of the above.
- Special World - The Final-Final Test Badge Marathon, all collectables: Inaccessible because of the above.
Made this list if anyone wants to speedrun without badges or power-ups. It's worth noting no collectable requires a badge that isn't forced to be used.
Similar to Gyoo, I've also had a number of things I've been wanting to work on for some time. I really need to take some things off my plate so I can focus on them as well as handle something things irl. I'm working on some things I think y'all will like but won't mention anything until I've got something to show for it.
It was fun cleaning up the site and adding parts to it. Making sure the twitch game names were right, updating some series, all those slick cover arts. I'll still help out in the back every so often and still happy to help out anyone with questions about the site.
Cheers
Condensing several things into one thread:
A few days ago I routed out what 117 Exit would probably look like: Spoiler Warning
I've also LOTAD'd what some restriction categories could be: • No Sonic Shortcuts - It's worth noting this category also does All Castles since the branch paths are fastest going through each one. • Low - More accurately "(Almost) Low%", Pac has broken links across the site...
Other possibilities, regardless if they're realistic to actually speedrun: • Lunar Dragon - Although there's only 6 moons in total, using the same name as SMW's category makes more sense than "All Dragon Coins", and the rules transfer over, too. I've found some levels that have Dragon Coins but not 5 in total, which is weird. The sad part about this category is, while it makes the route follow the 'intended' path more, some levels are still skipped in nearly their entirety. • (Almost) No Cape - Along with (Almost) Low% above, the "Almost" part comes from the fact the very last level absolutely requires cape, so all other levels would forgo it, assuming it's possible. • (Almost) No Cape, No Sonic Shortcuts - I guess as a copy of "No Cape, No Starworld", but I don't see it being ran for longer than the others beside all exit ones.
And of course there's plenty of meme category possibilities which aren't worth bothering to mention until someone actually runs one.
Edit: Eh, I'll mention some anyway for my own entertainment. • Beat Thirdspace - This one isn't terribly unlikely for someone to run. • **(Almost) Small Mario, No Sonic Shortcuts ** - Low% should be possible if Yoshi is allowed, so the name is distinguished. • All Switches - Very possible, along with optional restrictions. • All Forts / Ghost Houses • Min Cape Max% - Now THIS is a good meme.
I'll get to approving the runs around Tuesday as that'll be when I finally have some real spare time. Sorry for the wait.
Verifying-only mods (Verifiers) have been added today. Detailing them in the changelog would be too large so they get their own thread:
• Can only be added by super moderators. • Can approve and reject runs for a game. • Can submit runs on behalf of others. • Can add/remove tags. Those are neglected and letting verifiers add them will help. • Cannot approve their own submissions; requires another mod to verify. • Cannot edit game or leaderboard settings. • Cannot edit runs. This will likely change. • Has their own icon (a wooden sword). • Doesn't do anything for series. Teams and Marathons are untested and aren't recommended for now. If you wish to test it, only add people you'd be willing to trust as a regular mod.
Questions, comments, or complaints can go in this or the feedback thread.
End of discussion
And reminder that it's illegal to speedrun a game within a week of its release.
Kappa
Since Freezard is the only one (thus far) to have mission runs before 1.16 with strats exclusive to them, while everyone else is running 1.16+, having two separate categories for "pre 1.16" and "1.16+" may be a viable option. This would let the best records as of somewhat recent be visible on the main IL board and not be permanently hidden. Any thoughts?
I've been thinking for a while how long an "All Achievements" tool-assisted speedrun would take and how it'd be calculated.
There's several complexities to account for: • RNG (Golden/Wrath Cookies, Wrinklers and their Halloween drops, etc). Effective rates can be used to estimate when to purchase their upgrades. Beyond their achievements they mainly serve to accelerate CpS and shouldn't be relied on too heavily. • Finding the best times to ascend. To optimally find the best time you'd have to crunch at what point does ascending bring in more CpS than staying course. There's also some important heavenly upgrades. • Timing achievements for milk. Sometimes it may be worth the brief penalty to get an achievement and increase the milk multiplier. • When to use what Dragon bonuses and knowing when switching is worth the penalty.
Beyond those it's fairly straight-forward. It'd probably be best to get Neverclick and Hardcore immediately; after that see which (future) upgrades bring in the fastest return on investment. Setting the clock to the Christmas season will help since those upgrades are really useful in the long run. Have the auto-clicker at a reasonable clamp. The world record speed for clicking is a little over 40 so it shouldn't be higher than that.
It's best to exclude shadow achievements or else we'd be stuck waiting for a shiny wrinkler and ascending a stupid amount.
Prior to June 2017, the timing method for individual missions, as well as the start and stop of the first and last missions for the campaigns, were the following: • Timing starts on the frame the cursor is visible (battle control online). • For Undead 4 and Night Elf 2, timing stop on the frame the character portraits on the bottom disappear at the end of the mission. • For Undead 8, timing stops on the frame when the timer in the top right corner hits "00:00:00". • For all other missions, timing stop on the frame the last "MAIN QUEST COMPLETE" appears on screen.
While this worked alright, the missions could be slightly manipulated based on when the intro cutscene was skipped, some missions didn't have a final "MAIN QUEST COMPLETE" appear on screen at the end, and the in-game timer was found to be tied to the entire mission up to the "Victory!" window which, on modern computers, is tied one-to-one with real time.
The new timing scheme reflects how in-game time works: • Starts on the frame the loading screen disappears and the game is in view. • For Prologue 2, Human 9, Undead 7, Undead 8, Orc 8, and Night Elf 7, stops on the first fully black frame after the mission is clearly completed (i.e. when the "Victory!" window should appear). • For all other missions, stops on the frame the "Victory!" window appears on screen.
The timing was changed to reflect how the in-game timer worked, but since many runs didn't quickly skip the intro/outro or didn't record them at all, offsets were used to keep them on the leaderboards. These are offsets for each mission/campaign. The numbers are, across all runs, the lesser of the median intro/outro time and fastest intro/outro time plus one second. This gives a fair offset to run that didn't skip the intro/outro, and gives a very slight advantage (no more than 2 seconds) to runs that did. The exception to this are missions done during campaign runs: Offsets were only enabled for the intro of the first mission and outro of the last mission, as all other times the runner should have been skipping the intro/outro as they were going for real time.
If you want specifics on each run: https://pastebin.com/Nq6X2Exr
There are some videos I've found that run specific missions. If the IL leaderboards were setup they could be added.
MrLlamaSC has suggested Mission 3 be skippable during a campaign run and 20:11 be added to the time of each run doing so. Those for or against please kindly post your opinion.
I should have kept the first post separate but you CAN vote on more than one post.
Those in favor of maintaining the current moderator list, like this post. • ryedawg as Super Mod • ToriksLV as Super Mod
If interest is picked up on this game again, I'll write an auto-splitter. It'd be able to record individual levels too.
DonTheDime's Conquer The World and Venusian Conquest Map by totally not me can work as something to run, if you're disinterested in the vanilla campaigns.
No I'm not using this for advertisement, I'm just benefiting from it ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
There's a discord channel for RTS speedrunning: https://discord.gg/dy3GRjw
Includes auto-start, split, and reset. Splits on all 75 levels. Game time is kind of included as well.
In order for it to work properly, start LiveSplit after the game is open.
Can be enabled under Edit Splits and clicking Activate:
I haven't tested it after level 75 but I'm fairly certain it'll work.
Edit: Okay so it's still being a jerk. The sure-fire way to get it to work is to kill the "INK.exe" that is NOT the game, meaning the one that uses no CPU.
