I WANT YOU! To enlist in the MGTT strat-finding tech-dissecting squadron!

In short, there are many things we still don't know about this game.

• It would be fantastic to have empirical data on how the game runs fastest. It could be pre-2004 GameCube, newer GameCube, white Wii console or other Wii console (not Mini since that has no GameCube support), but it's hard to know for sure.

• It would be excellent to figure out if using top-ball Impact Points is really faster than normal shots and what empirical effects Spin has on time.

• I would appreciate any support in searching for Ace strategies on the Par 3s. I define this as any repeatable strategy involving no change of aiming (though if you have a strategy involving a simple reference such as the gridlines, that will work but it'll cost some time), no wind (rain and no rain separately) and precise marks hit with 0% RNG that yields a Hole-in-One. We have these largely down for Mario at Lakitu Valley, and that's about it. Any other combination of character (un-Star for any% and Star Boo for Peach's Castle and Bowser Badlands) and hole is up in the air. Of course, there is no guarantee past Lakitu Valley that you'd be able to carry these strategies out because of Wind and other RNG, but it's always worth keeping an extra strat in your pocket. There is always the possibility of finding the exact correct club/power/impact combination to dunk the ball directly, but unless you know that strat exactly and there's no wind, it would not be worth the time investment.

If you have any questions or helpful information that enhances our understanding of the game, please leave a Reply! A sub-Hour run is potentially achievable if we can break this game down to its most nuanced elements, and that would be a huge milestone.

I am grinding my way through Ace strats with Bowser. The thought has occurred to me. What if Lefty Bowser is actually even better, still? I say this because Lefty Bowser has a natural fade that can be turned into a draw that's stronger than normal Bowser's. This would likely make the Par 5 5th hole even easier to Eagle, and some Ace strats (such as on the dreaded Hole 12) would be easier with a Fade (while others may be harder such as Hole 3).

On another note, Lefty-DK might have merits as well, but he just comes off as a slightly weaker and lower-hitting Bowser, which might not be a bad thing. Let me know if you find anything useful with them.

Thanks for all of your support!

Update: I now have strats for every combination with Bowser, as detailed in this Guide: http://www.speedrun.com/mgtt/guide/gf7mt

Some of these are tricky, almost to the point of contrivance, unfortunately. If you happen to agree with these sentiments, I invite you to discover simpler methods for achieving the same Aces. In particular, I would be most grateful for alternatives to my strats for Lakitu 3 139y Clear, both Pin locations (157y and 166y) in Clear weather for Lakitu 12, and maybe the 112y Pin strats on Lakitu 16 to see if there is a way to do those without the need to adjust aim (particular the Clear weather strat).

BUMP!

Here's another idea that's been percolating in my brain. I am interested in figuring out ball velocity and how we can research this to discover cup/pin tolerances, the effects of Spin, and ultimately optimize shots to save time.

It has occurred to me that we can obtain a much stronger quantitative understanding of this game if we are able to decipher some numbers regarding ball movement. Short of creating a script in Dolphin that would be able to overlay useful data, which would be a great technical challenge, the only way to go about this would be to brute-force it with a local video recorder capable of 60fps (most HD recorders such as Hauppauge HD PVR 2, BlackMagic, Avermedia, ElGato, etc. should be able to do it. Don't know yet if "drop-frame" rendering matters. Let me know if it does). By going through the distances displayed frame-by-frame in a video editor, it should be possible to come up with a yd (or feet) per frame (which could be extrapolated to yd/ft per second for convenience). This information may help us derive "thresholds" for maximum putting distance without overshooting, or the tolerance of the flagstick for off-Green putting or Chip-Ins. Better still, it can help us understand what type of shots are the fastest for myriad situations, and what effects Spin (especially Backspin) has on ball velocity and time savings.

Please feel free to investigate with any tools at your disposal. I would appreciate any facilitation with metagame research.