New run 16m28s
4 years ago
United States

If it's the same glitch I know of, I don't know if the bag of holding is the trigger, or if you get some "bags" in your inventory which have strange properties. As a kid in Curse I remember getting a bag that did 254 damage and dropped my THAC0 by like 10. Could also do cool stuff by ejecting the disc in the middle of loading.

I also thought about trying the C64 version of Pool sometime again. I think my discs are still good, and I have a C64SX I could lug into my office (I work from home) and give it a shot. Recording would be tough, with no video out and all, but I wouldn't be setting any records anyways,

Australia

You’re quite right. I stand corrected.

I first played Pool back on my old C64. I recently played it on an emulator and even speeded up, the loading times were unbearable. Looking back, it’s a miracle I ever had the patience to finish the game to begin with.

Utah, USA

I have practiced an effective '100%' category--I would define it as all quests/main areas cleared--as some areas like Podal Plaza have multiple ways to clear. It's kind of a meme category overall, as there is no way to easily define in the game that all flags are cleared, no 'congrats, you've actually accomplished all quests' message to track, so it would have to be hard-defined and then tracked in game, but it's something I still keep telling myself I need to do 'officially'. Right now, my best test run clocked in at 3:57:20

Glitchless is something that would have a much bigger effect on the later games than PoR, especially with a sub-20min WR now. I cannot see that 'Force Reaction' [walk up, walk back] is a glitch; it's no more a glitch than, say, abusing an AI mechanic in a boss fight in a Final Fantasy game. In FF6, for instance, using Vanish/Doom is an obvious glitch; having a character come into battle against Dadaluma with a Reflect ring equipped so he wastes a turn casting a useless spell on that character is not, nor is constantly casting Float against Catastrophe in FF5 so that he wastes his turns removing it. Duping is the only usable mechanic I would define as a glitch ATM, unless some way of useful level underflow or exploiting a bag of holding arises.

Anyway, since a 'glitchless' run would only save a couple minutes at this point, I don't see much of a point myself, but if you want to define something like that and go for it, and even want to avoid using the Force Reaction technique, speedrunning is all about doing it the way you want, so feel free.

Edited by the author 4 years ago
United States

In later games, another glitch that's awesome is using disintegration on someone, all item effects become permeant. Besides letting you have more item space cause you no longer need all your rings equipped, it keeps vorpal status. So you get Fine Vorpal Long Bows + 2. I don't think mace is disruption works though.

Australia

"Force Reaction" is an awesome name and I'm going to use it in future. :)

I tend to see it as glitch on the grounds that it was clearly something the programmers did not intend, but you could also make the same argument about any number of mechanic exploits, so it's probably splitting hairs. I also agree that there's probably not much point in a glitchless category, at least not in this game. I was more interested in how you'd do it. There are a few easy sources of experience lying around Kuto's Well and the library, and you could kill the basilisk in the library by just equipping mirrors.

100% would be fun, but I think I'd struggle to find the time - it's one thing to zip through the game in 15 minutes when you get a moment, a several hour long grind is something else. I would like to give it a go at some point though, off the top of my head, I can think of a few good ways to really shave some time off it. Grabbing the necklace, wand and dust early and duplicating the hell out of them would make most of the paths pretty smooth.

In the meantime, I think I've optimised my route as far as I can. I've tweaked the 2F/2M route a few times since the video, including:

  1. Selling the wand of lightning instead of using it - it gives you 15,000 gold, which is more than enough to pay for everyone's training, and stops you having to go and appraise jewelry all the time.
  2. Not training after Sokal Keep, but going straight to the temple - the experience you get there gives you enough for 3rd level, and the reward for Sokal puts you over the line for 4th, which tightens up that path.
  3. Using the necklace more often against the orcs and hobgoblins, which reduces the time you wait for everyone to have their turn.

I'm going to have a few goes at it then upload my best one, rather than keep uploading every time I lower the time slightly, to save you having to verify each one, but my best so far is 12:34 and it's got some way to go yet.

Edited by the author 4 years ago
Australia

I know the disintegration glitch. It also works if you dual class your characters and any items get automatically unequipped because their new class can't use them. Vorpal long bows ahoy! I think it only works on status effects that appear under the "Display" menu, so maybe that's why it doesn't work on the mace.

Incidentally, Pools of Darkness lets you take vorpal long swords and any ring that has a status effect attached (not rings of protection) into the outer planes without destroying them - I wonder if avoiding that permanent effect was the reason.

Edited by the author 4 years ago
United States

I know the disintegration glitch. It also works if you dual class your characters and any items get automatically unequipped because their new class can't use them.

I actually came back to mention that, cause the dual class, as far as I know, works in curse on the PC. I know it worked on the C64, cause I found it when I changed class after having a potion of giant's strength.

In later games, the walking away from people to force their attacks have something else that's cheap, but feel would still be a legit tactic in an any% run: Fire shield. Every attack that lands, the foe takes 2x damage, and you can use ESC to reset your movement rate. It sounds way over-powered, and is strong, but it does in effect turn HP into damage, you lose 1 HP for every 2 HP you do to foes. In a speedrun we're most likely not going to have fighter\dual class magic users with huge amounts of HP, so I doubt this would be anything we even need to worry about. Even with large HP pools, it's not TOO overpowered.

...Unless a cleric uses a heal spell on you the next turn, and you do it again.

United States

Missed this:

I wonder if avoiding that permanent effect was the reason.

I'm going to guess no, I think Vorpal swords in 1st edition I think were immune to the effects of travel between planes. Generally how it worked, the farther you are from your home plane, weapons and armor lose 1 + value, but I could swear seeing somewhere that vorpals has an exception to it. I'll have to check my DMG and manual of the planes sometime, it may also have been in the Throne of Bloodstone adventure, the first D&D adventure I bought. It's also for characters levels 18-100, so the first actual D&D adventure I ever saw was the highest leveled adventure they ever created.

Australia

I'd agree if it was only vorpal blades that made it through - for a long time, I thought it was. Elminster said something like "only the most powerful magic items can pass", but when I found out that a bog standard ring of fire resistance gets through as well, I was like, hmmm.....

I got the sense that it was just a way of nerfing your ridiculously high levelled characters - and a relatively cheap one at that.

Edited by the author 4 years ago
Australia

Actually, re the 100% category, here’s a thought: since a true 100% category would be a nightmare both to do and to verify, (every random encounter that exhausts, every treasure, every planned encounter), what about an “all quest” category that requires you to receive every reward that begins with “the clerk speaks”? That way, you’d minimise the number of tedious grinds against repeated random encounters

So that would be:

  1. The slums
  2. Sokal Keep
  3. Kill Norris
  4. Get all five useful books from the library (extra books and clearing optional)
  5. See auction in Podol Plaza (clearing optional)
  6. Retrieve Cadorna’s treasure (clearing optional - getting threatened for stealing the treasure counts as completing)
  7. Clear mansion
  8. Clear wealthy area.
  9. Clear temple.
  10. Resolve nomad camp (foul means or fair)
  11. Kobold caves
  12. Clean river
  13. Lizardman keep
  14. Clear graveyard (individual rewards for clearing out particular undead optional)
  15. Rescue Bivant heir (failing mission also counts)
  16. Escape from Zhentil keep
  17. Clear gate
  18. Kill Tyranthraxus.

Thoughts?

United States

The rings I think are a bug, some magic rings get through, some don't. I'm not sure if they meant all rings to make it through (Since there's no plus to them) or remove them all, but yeah, they most definitely planned this as a nerf.

Most people don't know that drow and non-magical items also pass through, I know first few games I played, I went through there butt naked.

As for 100%, I keep flip-flopping on clearing of podol plaza, since it gives a reward. Along with the Cadorna Textile House and Wealthy Area. But clearing these three seems so pointless and there's no XP.

Not that it matters to much, I can't run it, the 1 hour was a killer for me. I have a (almost) 2 year old running around the house, And that dang work keeps getting in my way too. Don't they know I've got kobolds and dragons to slay?!

Utah, USA

That is pretty much how I defined 100%, Rich B. I think that rescuing the heir successfully would be required, although that would threaten to invalidate it deep into the run if you fail--although that's what safety saves are for, an easy thing to do in these old games. But it definitely ruins the spirit of 100% if you enter the base to trigger the event and then leave immediately to auto-fail if it's 'faster'--not something I've ever done, but considering how I've seen other RPG speedruns work (including a part of the Champions of Krynn run) that seems possible. Podal Plaza can be cleared by killing monsters if you mess up or skip doing the auction, but seeing the auction pretty much turns it into a safe zone, so either way should be viable (and the auction is quite a bit faster, so that. Wealthy Area is 'cleared' by killing the orcs in the first mansion along with the Temple of Bane/Tyr--so that's a 2-in-1 area. Cordona Textile house, the only real 'quest' concern there is the evil clerk's lootbox, so that would be the requirement--I always do it the 'intended' way when I practice 100% but opening it should also be viable, it triggers a completion flag and a cutscene. But completing each quest and/or counting each area as 'clear' is always what I envisioned as the most realistic (as opposed to killing every set encounter and looting every treasure, which would take far longer and be a lot harder to actually track anyway), and what I have practice-run doing, so that's how it would be counted. For best tracking, having the splits define those points would work best. I really need to get an actual run of this out sometime soon....

For the Vorpal Sword, I'm not sure about its status as a dimension-crossing weapon on its own, but it was integral to the Pool of Darkness plot and was thus the one obviously-intended exception to losing your gear. Ironically, as hyped as the Vorpal Sword always is because of the decap chance, it's only a +3 weapon. So why is it always considered so much more powerful than +5s? (Well, obviously, decap).

Australia

I’m fine with requiring success - it’s pretty difficult to fail that mission at all - IIRC, the only way to do it is to fight all the buccaneers and then surrender to the captain. What would your take be on refusing to help the nomads (which is very unheroic, but completes the mission in the council’s eyes as they obviously can’t join Tyranthraxus if they all get slaughtered), or opening Cadorna’s treasure, meaning you get a threat from him instead of a reward?

You can get rewards for clearing the library, Podol Plaza and the textile house, but they’re separate from the main quests in those areas and don’t come up on the roster. You also get rewards for killing the major monsters in the graveyard even if you don’t clear it. You’ll get token rewards for books from the library the council doesn’t find useful. Any minor reward is not preceded by the phrase “the clerk speaks”, which is why I suggested that could be a useful criteria to say what quests are compulsory. And I admit, that is entirely self interested as I don’t particularly want to grind my way through dozens of random encounters if I can avoid it!

Utah, USA

The mission to the nomads is to 'deal with' their threat, which means helping them against the kobolds or slaughtering them all gives the same reward from Phlan. It may not be 'as heroic' to attack them, but it's not much different than slaughtering all the kobolds or buccaneers or Zhentil soldiers. By the same token, dealing with the Lizardmen in either way is acceptable, but I'm sure it's much faster to duel their evil champion after freeing the prisoners of Yarash's Pyramid. Opening the treasure is a little trickier--part of me wants to insist you get the reward, by delivering it intact or getting the help of the thieves to loot it, but it does 'complete' the quest if you open it instead. I'm fine with either way, really. It's a weird arbitrary decision but I'm allowing myself to be talked into the simpler, faster option for that quest. Maybe it's just because Cadorna is evil, after all.

I very much feel you should only need to count the major rewards from each area that has multiple points to clear--the five important tomes of the Library, the auction of the Plaza, Cadorna's treasure, and the vampire of the graveyard. I agree that the minor rewards don't add much to the game and just increase the amount of tedious random battles and such you need to get through. After all, it has how I've been practicing them, anyway. In my experimental runs I did attack the nomads instead of helping them (although I think I should test that, maybe the kobold fights are actually faster, but it would be a route decision, not forced) and I've been skipping all those minor area clears.

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