New desert skip
6 years ago
France

Hi.

So, some members of the Ultime Décathlon community have done a race on Aladdin yesterday and two of them skipped the desert level.

We tried to look on the internet but found no mention of this skip so we guessed it was something new and unknown and after quite some time we (mainly Psychowse) have managed to find a way to do it consistently.

The steps required for this skip:

  1. You need to change the default binds to C/A/B instead of B/A/C
  2. Then you need to wait for the game to show the demo of Abu's minigame with the pots falling from the sky. The demo actually plays prerecorded inputs and since you've changed the binds, Abu will jump instead of slashing his sword and that will end this level, start the following cutscene and then loads the desert level.
  3. Once it's done, you quit the demo, start your run and play the game. At the end of level 1, the game will load the level 3, skipping the level 2 entirely.

You can watch it explained and shown here (in french).

Since the RTA timing starts after the main menu, I guess it should save time for all categories. :)

Edited by the author 6 years ago
just_tako likes this
European Union

This sounds interesting and terrible at the same time :( I don''t want to play games where skips require literally zero skill and and where manipulation is done before the game even starts and isn't included in your time.

The glitch didn't seem to work if you reset the game after watching Abu in Agrabah. I enjoy the glitch as a novelty but It'd rather require resetting the game before starting a run than wasting minutes just watching demos before every run.

One suggestion from a friend is to make All Stages the main category and accept this glitch in the current Any%, which I would never, ever play anymore. But I'm not a mod here or someone deciding this alone.

Edited by the author 6 years ago
France

[quote]One suggestion from a friend is to make All Stages the main category and accept this glitch in the current Any%, which I would never, ever play anymore.[/quote]

Yeah, I don't run the game so I have no say in the decision, but to me that seems to be a pretty natural decision. But that would mean the all levels run become the main category which is kinda sad as it adds an autoscroller. So yeah, interesting yet terrible discovery. :D

Pays de la Loire, France

You could also add a new catégorie, like Any% - no desert skip or Any% - no pre run manipulation... For those who don't want to spend time doing the same glitch at each try. And having this any% no desert skip main catégorie. this way actual leaderboard doesn't really change.

Maybe changing deathless name for All stages - Deathless, or specify it into the rules befor someone did a deathless run with the skip!

Anyway, it's up to you to decide what to do with that! I hope you will find the best solution for this game.

European Union

I'll just keep on playing with the current any% route and ignore the leaderboard if you're allowed to abuse the bug. For me the issue is this:

Q: Is it faster? A: Technically yes within the current rules and with the RTA/SDA timing. Not from power on or from a soft reset.

Q: Is it fun? A: No.

Q: Do runners want to do this? A: Not me. Don't know about everyone else.

Edited by the author 6 years ago
Pennsylvania, USA

First off, cool weird find and thank you for sharing it here. This kind of manipulation is always interesting.

That said, I'd like to get more opinions from people invested in the game before I verify/reject any runs that include this. I'll try to give a comprehensive rundown of the options this presents.

  1. Allow this exploit without changing the category rules or timing methods This would essentially keep everything the same (for any%, Deathless would be clarified to All Levels), but everyone could just skip level 2 and cut their time by ~70 seconds. The setup required for the exploit would not be considered "part of the run".

  2. Allow this exploit, but change the timing method to "power on" and TASers use. This would fall in line with the "anything goes" mentality of any%. You'd be allowed to set up the exploit, but that setup would count against your time. Problems with this: (a) I'm pretty sure the time it takes to set up the exploit is longer than the time it takes to beat level 2 and (b) all runs currently on the leaderboards would need to be re-timed, which would either be impossible (VOD doesn't begin with power on) or unfair (runner didn't mash through the menus because they weren't part of the timing). Save-states & fast-forwarding in an emulator would obviously not be allowed.

  3. Some form of new category This would allow people who want to use it to use it, but would keep it separate from other runs. I'm personally opposed to this, just because we would end up with three categories that are all very similar to each other. This would also just lead to another debate of which category is truly "any%".

  4. Disallow pre-run exploits like this Ban it, essentially.

I'm pretty strongly opposed to options 2 & 3 for the reasons I stated. I'm also opposed to option 1 because (a) it wastes the runners' time, (b) it doesn't really add anything cool/enjoyable/entertaining to the timed run itself for a viewer, and (c) the "time savings" would really only be an artificial product of the timing method.

So, I'd support banning this, but I'm open to counter-arguments. I just don't think the "just go fast" excuse applies here.

Edited by the author 6 years ago
European Union

The inputs you have to do in order to skip the level are meaningful in this case and should therefore be counted into your time. It would make sense to just mention this in the rules rather than starting the timing on power on. (The rules rules need to be updated anyway as they don't specify when the run ends plus hardly anyone likes or uses the SDA timing.).

Additional categories would just be almost the same run with a different name.

Edited by the author 6 years ago
United States

Silly meme run based on Desert skip:

This is a huge time save with "last input" timing that most TAS use, I believe you can also save time with RTA timing if you get Abu as the first attract mode cutscene 4 times in a row (to skip Desert, Rooftops, Dungeon, and Cave of Wonders). I believe the odds of getting Abu first 4 times in a row are 1 in 625. TAS would save about 2 seconds doing this, if your levels are slower than 60 seconds on average it could be optimal to skip more than 4

Edit: I don't think the order of attract mode scenes is random after all

Edited by the author 4 years ago
just_tako likes this
European Union

Lol cool game