Is it somehow possible to "split up" your splits during a run? What I mean is: I want to run a game where two of the endings are 99% the same gameplay-wise. You even have to perform the same action to trigger the different endings. But which ending you will get - either the good ending or the bad ending - is pretty much RNG (at least to my current knowledge) and you only get to know which ending you'll get shortly before ending the run. So my question is: can I set up LiveSplit in such a way that I can "switch" to Good/Bad ending splits depending on which ending I get without losing the split times up to that point? Thanks in advance.
I don't think there is a way to do that, based on my experience with Livesplit.
That being said, you just described a really weird scenario - does the two endings have different speedrun categories? If the majority of the gameplay of the game is the exact same for both categories, and the ending you get is random (so the runners can't influence what ending they get), it doesn't make sense to me to even split the categories in the first place.
Yeah that game seems really odd to truly provide a random outcome. I have even more questions on top of what Oreo said like: is one ending longer/shorter than the other? If one ending takes more time than the other, I can see why splits for that would be inconvenient, but idk how an LB would even handle that scenario then unless they have different categories and you don't know which category your run is appropriate for until the very end. If they are identical in length, then the splits don't matter, you still end up with the same end time regardless of what "ending" you got.
I'd be really curious to see the LB for this game, or just to know the game, because multiple, random endings is a really strange (but neat?) concept to me.
To clarify: towards the end of the run you have to wait for an NPC to appear. If you interact with NPC 1 you get the Good Ending, if you interact with NPC 2 you get the Bad Ending. Let's say you want to get the Good Ending (which requires NPC 1 to appear) but NPC 2 appears. You have two options then: interact with NPC 2 and get the Bad Ending or wait for NPC 1 to appear at a later time. To my current knowledge it is random which NPC appears first, but they will both appear at some point, just never at the same time. So far there is no leaderboard for this game yet, I want to submit it sometime.
Edit: I forgot to mention that the Good Ending takes at least one minute longer than the Bad Ending.
In that case, I can think of two relevant questions, following what Timmiluvs said:
- Is one ending longer or shorter than the other?
- How much game-play is left in the game after talking to this random NPC?
If talking to the NPC triggers whichever ending cutscene immediately, then "talking to the NPC" can probably be defined as the end goal of the speedrun. (Kinda similar to speedrun of Mr. Krabz overdose on Ketamine - there are two "endings" which are completely random; but the speedrun ends the same, no matter what ending you got)
Is there some reason you're not simply saying what game it is? 🤔
Cause the scenario being described is kooky enough that it draws my interest a little :D
Sounds a bit like the ending of Deus Ex to me (not spoiling anything here).
@ckellyedits [quote=Laika_the_Spacedog]So far there is no leaderboard for this game yet, I want to submit it sometime.[/quote]
Ah I missed that
In that case, why not just set up Livesplit to have the splits up to that point then call the last split "Good/Bad Ending"?
(someone tell me how to quote reply) "The Good ending takes at least 1 minute longer than the bad ending" If it's a 1-3 minute difference what would be the point of even having a split switch? Just reset the run or do the run for that category because how you described it, the game still plays exactly the same up until the end.
[quote=michaelatheswag](someone tell me how to quote reply)[/quote] [ quote=username ]Text[ / quote ] Remove spaces from this to quote something. As an aside, this doesn't trigger a notification or anything, it's just for show to be explicit with who/what you're replying to.
Back to the topic at hand, I wouldn't even have separate categories for this game if I was setting up the LB, it doesn't make any sense if the runs are 99% identical. It would essentially be RNG-hell because you would need to get the random bad ending for the fastest Any% time, but having separate categories when you have no way of knowing what category you're even running until the very end just doesn't make sense to me (my 2 cents anyway).
As I said earlier, if the act of talking to the good or bad NPC immediately triggers the end sequence of the game; then it can make sense to have the final split of the speedrun to be that act. Then it doesn't matter if the ending is longer or shorter. Still need more information from Laika.
The game is called "The Longing". To explain what happens in the Good and Bad ending I will obviously need to use spoilers. (There are 3 other endings by the way, one of them is faster than the 2 endings I am talking about here.)
SPOILERS AHEAD
You're trapped in a huge cave. After doing some shenanigans you can reach the exit but it's blocked. You can however enter a well. Every day either an old man or a young troll child will come to get water from the well. You can wait at the exit to see who is coming which to my current knowledge is random. If the child comes and you jump into the bucket, they pull you up, get scared, let go of the bucket, you fall and die. Bad ending. If the man comes and you jump into the bucket, he pulls you up, and you can escape to the surface. The man leaves, you have to follow him and enter his house. Good ending.
I used to split my runs in a way similar to what you described.
In my case, any% and 100% are the same for the first 6 mins. Then the routes diverge, and any% ends after another 6mins, 100% takes another 14mins.
I ran any% competitively, so if I had a great start for the first 6 mins, I would continue with any% route and try to pb.
For me, 100% was less competitive, but I still wanted to improve. So if the first 6 mins of the run were going okay but not perfect, I would continue the run as a 100% run.
I very much second the desire to have a branching function in livesplit, but I never found a way. I ended up just making segments for the first part of the run, then after the paths diverge I just had one split that said "end". I had to mentally keep track of my times, it was not ideal.
Another method I tried was running two instances of LiveSplit. It was messy for me, but you could probably manage something like that with an OBS scene switching hotkey?
@6oliath Thanks for your insight. Switching scenes in OBS sounds like a pretty good solution, I think I'll try that once I'm actually able to do the runs. (I'm currently on speedrunning hiatus due to an injury.)