Thanks, we've been making steady progress over the past couple of weeks in practice. Our best possible according to splits went under 1:04 today, so we just need to get a nice run in eventually. We've already done a duo 1:08 but it was with bot kicks, we're working on voting difficulty and killing them to get a submittable run now. It is very likely we will turn in a 2-man first as the other members in our group need more practicing time first before a nice 4-man will be possible.

Wow, I didn't know that the older version could save so much time... I'll have to check some runs on that version and see what is different.

We have indeed tried the pipes/molotovs upwards of 200 or more times in total now between the four of us, probably, and don't feel any closer to getting it consistently. I was hoping we were missing some sure-fire setup... hmm. At least biles are workable for now.

Hah, wow, there is some very interesting stuff in that video... the amount of common jumps seems to be pretty crazy. Thanks for the resource, I'll look around the channel.

I've also been streaming our sessions although the stream looks to be up very inconsistently and I am not sure why, OBS Studio seems to be failing me... nothing particularly impressive being shown yet, we are making plenty of mistakes still while working on the run but are improving in consistency as we go along.

Also, Rawrica, I noticed you said something in my chat earlier today but I didn't catch it until a bit later. Thank you for wishing us luck.

Wanted to drop in and say hi. My friends and I are very familiar with L4D2 already but had never tried to speedrun it. We attended AGDQ 2016 and ran Alien Swarm as well as watched the L4D2 run there which inspired us to run it ourselves and we plan to submit for AGDQ 2017 assuming it is in a good location for us to attend again.

In the meantime, we have been brushing up on the tricks and working on placing in the leaderboard, aiming for the top.

First, how much time would you all estimate the older version of the game really saves over the newest? We have not reverted and are still very competitive, and have noticed the current top time is on the newest version, so for right now it doesn't seem likely we will go through the trouble of reverting but I am curious as to how much faster it can potentially be.

Second, does anybody have tips on getting the molotov/pipe bomb throwable boost? We have biles down very consistently since they are easy, but molotovs/pipes are giving us a lot of trouble and we just can't seem to get them working consistently.

Besides that, are there any tricks, even if they are difficult, that aren't showcased in the current co-op WR shown that we should take a look at? So far that has mostly been my reference but I would like to look at any other good sources for more if they exist.

Thanks for reading and answering! We'll see you guys at the top.

I leave tomorrow to meet up with friends and then we are three short days away from our run. Where does the time go! They have posted the official schedule at this new link, and we are now at 9:05pm EST. Follow the link to see times in your local timezone,

https://gamesdonequick.com/schedule

Oh, blah, I forgot about that. I think you've mentioned it before too. Oh well... maybe there's something else I've forgotten about.

Hmm, interesting. I'm not sure I would advise finding a way to remove the CHEATS USED text since that would open an entire can of worms to confirming the validity of runs. I doubt it's possible anyway, and the frames can be timed so it isn't really a big deal.

I'm not sure if I'll submit any actual runs for this, but I may check a few tricks if I get the chance. Definitely not until after we finish up with AGDQ, though. There is an insane OOB at the start of Landing Bay I found a while ago that we don't dare try in real-time because it's basically impossible, but it should save quite a bit of time in a solo run (might not save any in co-op). That is the first thing that comes to mind.

Good luck!

Submitted a few new things while practicing for AGDQ starting soon.

So, how goes those runs Tenkei, anything to report? It's been pretty lonely over here for a while.

The schedule is mostly settled now, still changing slightly as people drop, but we are slotted at the moment for the 5th at 9:25pm EST.

Here is the work in progress schedule, they will probably have an official one soon:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_gibuPSqCLOY8HruYJ15OYGGkFfth0IevIi7fE9Xp2E/pubhtml

I keep forgetting to get this on here but long ago Deagle had created a simulator that approximates the wire hacks in-game as closely as he could for practice when we used to run. I've used it lately to warm up before running Deima to help me not throw away good RNG. It features presets for the various grid layouts in-game as well as custom settings able to create gigantic boards for fun. It also tracks your fastest hack for that session and average time.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/22735865/scripts/asw_wire_hack/index.html

I just did 20 tries each of these two presets, try to beat them!

Rydberg Reactor - 4.622 best, 7.518 average

Deima 1 - 2.625 best, 4.159 average

Alright, cool, and thanks. I didn't spend too much time on the solo RTA's yet, really... I took about 2 1/2 hours yesterday on the Landing, Deima and Rydberg ones, and tried SynTek several times but that was at the end of my session and it's a bit of a nightmare... I'll do it at a later time.

Deagle and I will get to the co-op at some point, just working on our GDQ run first. We will probably do some of the RTA in between full-game runs with our GDQ path.

If you have any questions about the game or how certain tricks/strategies work you can let me know, I can probably answer mostly anything now that I've been at it for a while.

Everything is up for RTA now except for... ¤shudders¤... SynTek...

I have to say, it feels good running without Adrenaline. Much faster on the resets, it really keeps the pace up.

Landing Bay is probably the most easily improvable since the hack was not too great, Sewer might be in second place. The hardest is probably Cargo.

Alright, got them submitted. I also realized the Sewer run was Adrenalineless and comparable so I took a look at that as well. The starting frame isn't as clear as usual since I wasn't making an effort towards that back when I got the run, but it was enough to go on. I compensated by taking time from a frame before the in-game cursor seems to fill in (the secondary telling of the map starting), so it is only off by a max of a frame or two and, if it is, a longer time than it should be. Good baseline to get the level jumpstarted without needing to get a new run first.

It can definitely be improved greatly in RTA since those mistakes matter much more now.

Hmm, yeah, we'll see how it looks once it gets populated. I was just about to submit the Cargo and Timor times but the dropdowns are still only hh:mm:ss, hopefully you can adjust that without needing to mess with the other categories as well.

Everything is said and done and now... we are running ASW in AGDQ 2016! I am ready to return immediately to playing this. Tenkei, if you are still around we can compete in RTA as soon as a category is put up. The practice will be useful for me as well.

It's done guys, deagle and I are running Alien Swarm at AGDQ 2016!! Needless to say we are returning to this game now posthaste to practice our deathless path, finding what interesting and safe things we can improve on before the event, and will very likely improve at least the current co-op full game WR.

The schedule isn't up yet, I'll post again once I know our time slot. Fingers crossed it isn't early in the morning...

If there are separated categories that are clearly labeled as such then that is fine. As it is, having the main category showcasing this much splicing is really painful to watch. I would be happy to submit to an RTA category if we can get that to happen. No harm in having the (massively) segmented runs in their own place for the sake of seeing what a "perfect" run for that person could be.

Hey guys, I will be hopefully submitting to this game soonish.

I noticed in the current 1h24m run that it is badly abusing quickloading, and the loading screens from those loads are removed. Should that really be allowed? It isn't real time anymore, anybody could get an amazing run eventually if they are allowed to essentially splice the best parts of each level together. I really, really don't like that and I am not running with quickload abuse.

It is acceptable, I think, if you have to absorb the full loading time, but cutting it like that seems a bit ridiculous. Honestly I would prefer if the category didn't allow quicksaving at all, but at the least if you do allow it keep it to real-time instead of splicing.

I ran a few levels today for IGT and two of them have no Adrenaline so I can also use them for RTA! After doing some actual runs I personally like using the name changing version of the start over the oval cursor. All I have to do is brush over my portrait before starting the run.

My Cargo is going to be 1:00.999 (hah...)

My Timor will be 2:26.135 (so close to 1:25!)

For now you could potentially compete with those if you'd like to start practicing. I'll have to get a hold of Onin to get the category up soon and work out the final draft of the rules.

I have checked the load on each level and it is indeed very consistent. I am not sure if you noticed but the two bolded sentences in my post above are links to example videos that you could pull and check the frames of personally if you wanted to get an idea of what I'm looking at. I am 100% confident that, at least on my system, this is a good way to get the exact frame. If anybody has a much slower computer (maybe also running on an HDD?) feel free to test it yourself to ensure it works on low-end systems as well. It should. I don't have the means to try it myself.

I did also just notice that the character name in the upper-right changed from, for example, "Vegas" to your own name on the same frame the game starts, so that's another way you can find the starting frame. Either that or the oval cursor filling in works fine. The name thing is only effective if your character portrait is the last element you've moused over before starting, though, but turns out it does enable you to tell when the map has started even when the fade in takes forever. Something to keep in mind.

Still not entirely sure how to work the rules since, although this is completely consistent, it's a bit weird to try and explain. Is it possible to link to an image within the rules? If I could make an image with the empty cursor and the filled in cursor side-by-side and say "here, the cursor should look like this" that would probably be best. At least for now I think we both know what to do, though, but if anybody else new comes along they will need some guidance. Do make sure you check those two links up there to make sure you know what I mean by the oval cursor getting "filled in"

I'll be getting on these new RTA runs after we get our GDQ submission in and in the meantime I might try to take a moment to take back some IGT records and especially practice the new strategies. I'm probably going to start being careful that I start the level properly so future solo runs from now on that don't use Adrenaline can be submitted to RTA as well. I'll probably have a Cargo run to submit first.

I had a thought and checked the cursor on start again, so I have a little bit of an update to report.

I remembered that I was sometimes clicking start game so quickly after the map loads that I was already moving long before the menu actually faded out. It turns out this hides the in-game cursor and makes it impossible to tell when it actually started. Very easy fix, though... we would just have to wait an extra second or two for it to catch up before starting. I have no idea why it does that and it is hard to explain how that works. Examining the frames more I can clearly see I start moving when the oval cursor "fills in", as in has its dot in the center and all, so it's definitely a good indication, just need to wait out that weird fading bug. Let me upload two short examples since it's hard to explain.

Example of how it should be. Working as intended. You can see that, after hitting start game, the oval cursor appears. Neither the map nor movement has started yet. You can then, slightly after, see the oval cursor get filled in with a few extra bits including the dot. You can barely see through the fading out that I initiate moving just as that happens. This works well.

Unusable, impossible to tell when it started. In this one you can see that I start game quickly after reloading the map and by the time the menu finally starts fading out the cursor has filled in and I've long been moving upwards. If I had waited a second or two the fading out wouldn't take nearly this long.

It's unfortunate the game needs to make this a bit complicated but it's an easy enough workaround to just wait a little bit. Hopefully older computers don't do something weird where the fading out takes longer, but at least on my system which is all I'm able to test it is working well. I tried to find a console command to in some way disable this menu fading to make things easier but had no luck finding anything. Oh well.

After some experimenting I have a new proposal for the start/stop times.

Not all levels show a box being ticked for the final objective once you reach the exit. It seems only Landing Bay and Timor Station does this for some reason. I see another nice and clear indication, though. I do not want to go by your character stopping because there seems to be a slight deceleration when you lose control where you do continue moving slightly before it actually comes to a stop.

Looking at the Timor ending, the same frame where the objective ticks is the same frame where a few other things happen graphically. Your little white menu cursor reappears on your mouse position and the radar effects on the map disappear. These all happen in the single frame. This seems to clearly be when it is actually stopping control and transitioning to the mission complete menu and should be our stopping point.

Additionally, this helps to know when to start as well. There is a frame where the in-game oval cursor suddenly pops in (slightly after hitting start game), so I am assuming that, like the end when the small white menu cursor reappears when control is lost, control is probably gained when the in-game oval cursor is popping up. This actually means my full-game times have been counted with slightly more time than they should... oh well, not important there.

Anyway, short draft version for how the rules would be stated,

"Time starts on the first frame the in-game oval cursor appears. Time ends on the first frame the small white menu cursor reappears."

My final thought now before we're ready to run this officially is what framerate these frames should be counted in, although this is minor to the time in the end. I don't know SDA rules but since I record at 60FPS, that could potentially give me a single frame advantage ending the run sooner than 30FPS? I am not sure if the beginning will also be offset a frame later and it won't matter. Maybe this is just complicating things... if you don't care about framerate then I'm fine with not worrying about what the recording is either considering each frame at 60FPS is worth a paltry 16ms anyway. Just trying to be thorough.