Possible risk of damage when copying save files - possible variation in PC types?
2 years ago
United States
Super moderatorFlyoutfate
He/Him, They/Them
2 years ago

Fifth place speedrunner Bro_Nid had copied a save file which led to seemingly irreversible problems within their game. The Hydra fight seemed to have lost a flag that allows it to die in the first phase, the only fix being a usage of the Maker's Finger arrow which causes major time problems later on. Currently, it seems that copying save data can lead to permanent code corruption of some kind, as they had tried every fix imaginable and nothing had repaired this issue. If you're going to copy save data, you have to be extremely careful or don't do it at all - however, this also raises some questions about how useful it might be to do so if we figure out how to manipulate it to, say, stop the oxcart from ending its sprint.

Russia

I'm not sure if manipulating save data to make the ox sprint endless or something like that is legal in terms of speedrunning. How do they know that copying the save data led to those events? It could have been something else. I've been copying and renaming the 367500 folder (DDDA save folder) since the game released on PC (400 hours played) to play multiple characters and it never caused any issues. But if you want to copy the folder, don't name it starting with 367500 because that might cause your game to load a save you don't want.

Flyoutfate likes this
United States
Super moderatorFlyoutfate
He/Him, They/Them
2 years ago

First thing: the speedrun already uses glitches. As a moderator, I'm gonna say that we already use at least 2 major glitches in the NG+ Run: Timer stalling and Duke Skip both are technically glitches. So, Infinite Oxcart would also be a major glitch and allowed in the run. Also, the events only started right after he copied the save data - he believes he did the process wrong and it seems to have bugged his game out beyond belief. More details are in the discord server

South Carolina, USA

I also have copied my saves a couple of times and didn't encounter an issue. That isn't to say it's entirely safe to do, since the game doesn't seem to want you to do this normally.

The Duke Skip is pretty different than manipulating a save file as it is performed in game. Now if there's a way to manipulate the save in-game prior to starting a NG+ run, then that makes it much easier to accept save manipulation. I'd say that if any benefits are found from external save manipulation that can't be achieved in game, a ruling would have to me made with the input from the runners. Since it's different enough from normal play and might involve the use of external tools, it wouldn't necessarily be accepted if save manipulation was found.

And as an aside, what glitch are you referring to as Timer Stalling?

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United States
Super moderatorFlyoutfate
He/Him, They/Them
2 years ago

The spot, more specifically where we talk to the guard while we shoot at the cockatrice to prevent the timer from continuing - saves us like 4 or 5 seconds if I remember. Also, of course external tools would be a major difference, I suppose you're right about save game glitches being problematic to be honest. Hm. You're right, save editing would be too much of a branch off from the miniscule way we glitch the game. We'll figure out something else to make the ox more consistent

United States
Super moderatorFlyoutfate
He/Him, They/Them
2 years ago

Continued - I sent it early. Oops. But, the more I'm looking at bro_nids problem the more I see a different issue cropping up - the PC. Maybe it's his specific computer that caused it?

Edited by the author 2 years ago
France

As we talked on discord with Flyoutfate, I tested it on another computer with a save that was created on the faulty PC and got the same bug. I tried with a virtual machine but can't launch the game in good condition due to lack of ressource on my computer (I got 1 image per 4-5 secondes with graphism and resolution at the minimum). Edit : Oh and I tried to uninstall/reinstall, begin a new save from scratch, etc...

To explain what I did to copy my save, it was simple, I only copied the DDDA.sav to have a speedrun save and on normal. After that, I couldn't kill the hydra in first hit like I did before. I don't know if the file 0 to 7 in the save folder have an impact. And finally, it was 2 years ago so I don't remember well, I maybe forgot to deactivate the steam cloud save so it could have broke my save, I dunno.

Edited by the author 2 years ago
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