Potential mini-boss skip - Factory
2 years ago
São Paulo, Brazil

So, doing my run in the factory, I entered the room right before the Strum fight (The dude with the motor for a chest/head) after the Heisenberg talk and immediately back out to go find other stuff before progressing the story. Came back and Strum never popped out of the wall and the fight never happened, I just proceeded normally. Will try and re-do it from a save point later to try and get a video of it

Keitaro_Tv likes this
Bedfordshire, England

Speak of factory miniboss, mines work well against the stronger soldats, for really quick kills

New York, USA

Tried everything I could to reproduce this and I wasn't able to, I really hope you can figure out how to do it again it'd be so pog.

Orlando, FL, USA

If this can be reproduced this would be a major skip for the speedrunning community, I'll look into it as much as possible to try and replicate it.

It might be a time based thing or picking up a certain collectible/treasure. I would assume time based because a a collectible/treasure doesn't make much sense, but if it can be replicated in an efficient and consistent way that would be amazing, however it could be a bug that could get patched out

What version and difficulty were you on?

United Kingdom

I'll be testing this too, because it'll be huge depending on how long it takes to perform, for runs on casual/standard especially with enough explosives and high powered shots it could be faster to fight him (with 2 grenade rounds, 1 magnum shot 1 shotgun shot and a mine I was able to kill propeller man in about 30 seconds) however for runs on VoS or Hardcore it could be more beneficial to do the skip.

I haven't routed actual items/upgrades yet since I've just been fiddling but my weapons were standard, so if 30 seconds for him is repeatable and fits into a standard run then this skip needs to be quick to be viable.

Orlando, FL, USA

Very true, however I don't use the magnum in my route for casual speedruns, is it more beneficial to take the time and get it? Because even in my standard playthrough it really didn't do much for me.

New York, USA

I posted about this earlier today, someone in another thread encountered a similar situation, The Stronghold Urias (and many Lycans) vanished when they backtracked closer to the village, but unlike Strum they weren't able to progress without the boss present. It could be related, what do you guys think?

Edited by the author 2 years ago
Orlando, FL, USA

I think it could be, honestly it might be linked to the distance you get away from an enemy, I feel like the enemy (like sturm) are in the map when you enter the trigger, and when you leave to back track the game might despawn them to save on entities, because there are limits to how much a game engine can process, so it will probably have something to how far and how many other enemies are being spawned. For example, let's say a games limit to enemies spawned is 10, so you spawn in sturm because you entered his room trigger, or the dialogue triggers him spawning, and then you leave the area and spawn 9 more enemies, we'll when another one goes to spawn it will have to despawn an enemy, most likely the furthest one away (in this case sturm) well when you go back to fight him the dialogue won't trigger again and he won't respond back into the game? It makes sense but it's a very niche scenario that isn't really replicatable or practical. That's even if this is the case

São Paulo, Brazil

Hey! I've been busy with work so I couldn't try and get this video, but tomorrow/this week I'll try to mess with this again with some saves.

What i remember of this is: I triggered the Heisenberg audio and then backtracked all the way back to his radio and played that too (backtracked to get collectibles and stuff), and then walked up again to this and that was my thing. Don't know if I triggered another encounter in the way that skipped that or if the log was the one that did it, or if its just distance based, but again, I'll be messing some more with it again! You can also kinda hear Strum behind the wall still, not doing a thing and just waiting forever lol

(oh, and I did this in the normal difficulty, regular new game)

Edited by the author 2 years ago
New York, USA

I actually tried to backtrack to the radio in his office and see if his new dialogue was the trigger, but it didn't work for me.

United States

i have a feeling it was just a bug, there seems to be a lot of bugs with enemies despawning.

São Paulo, Brazil

Still haven't been able to replicate it tho, probably was a bug of sorts, but I have no idea how it got triggered. What I did was getting the key, going through the motions of progressing but then getting all the way back to the other Heisenberg door and picking up stuff along the way, killing whatever popped on the way down there/up back So, if its based on a trigger, it can be killing an specific enemy on that way down/up or triggering the audio log on the operation room Regardless, if thats the case, I don't know how faster it would be to backtrack and kill/trigger something instead of just fighting Strum tho

Hong Kong

So I just had the same thing happen. On my second playthrough I entered the room and Heisenberg started talking (sturm trigger) but realized I forgot some treasures and an enemy so went straight back out and down to level 1.

I went into the room where you originally get a magnum extra part and there is a soldat which breaks through the door. I killed the soldat and went back to fight sturm but he never showed up. I was taken straight to Heisenberg fight.

A theory above may be right in that I triggered sturm with Heidenberg talking and then backtracked and killed an enemy. The game may have thought the enemy was sturm and thus allowing me to skip straight to heisenberg fight.

Nickmurfacat likes this
København, Denmark

iirc it was discovered that it had something to do with taking the elevator down again all the way and then all the way up again after revisiting the furnace room. It's not gonna be a timesave regardless.

Buffalo, NY, USA

It could be used in Knife only to save time though

Oskar_Ank likes this