Florida, USAI wasn't expecting anyone to seriously run this category. But I'm glad the side silly stuff is also being ran.
And with the way the devs patch things, the moment that anyone finds a bug, it'll be patched before most of us are able to run with it. As for the smarter AI, it will just be more difficult to run the non custom routes, requiring more skill to defeat them. I was wanting to remove it all together but no other idea has really been proven to be good one way or another. Either just as hard or a complete time waste. The compromise though is to having a New Game+ sort of run where you can be leveled up with a proper set up including level, thralls, pets, mounts, armor, and weapons among other items crafted to run this game. Only way to really remove that barrier and still have an interesting, true to the game, experience.
I'm curious. Are there any games out there that has their any% not requiring the player to start at a new game but a game that has been played through? I'm not talking about new game plus categories where weapons and abilities from the previous game carries over. I would imagine it's rare that any game like this is ran in such a way.
I say this because I moderate a game where most of the required dungeons are late game and most guides require the player casually to get a follower to help out in most of these fights. My game's any% is one of those get extremely good with the game skills but can still screw up if you're not careful with the match.
I think we are so hung up on the idea of Any% needing to be started with a new game. Granted, that was how the original rules were set before I became moderator. I am leaning on eliminating that all together. I would much have the player get what they need for our runs rather than bust their butts to have a huge barrier at the beginning. Though, all due respect to those who have. This is just an idea though and only an idea.
Even though we got the default setting runs for this game, I still want to set up a custom server settings for us. Custom as in the custom server option underneath the difficulty settings. I set my settings for Custom to practically hit each boss a few times and get a quick kill but I also level up fast which might not be for speed for everyone. I think a quick kill approach would be viable as well as more gathering and quick crafting times. Leveling up fast only assures that we get our stats where we want them fast. If we want a fairer boss fight for each boss fight that can still defeat us if we're not careful but is still balanced, then I'm ok with that. I call it manipulating the settings to fit our needs. I like to hear your thoughts on this below.
Please disregard what I put there prior. There will not be use of the admin control. Instead, it will be New Game and Level 60. Level 60 will be more runner friendly since it gives people time to get use to the game, get what they need, and speed run the game. It will have to be properly fleshed out since it is an open world game. I'm thinking starting from the desert will work. Or the base if the community is more inclined. I'm already trying to reroute the New Game strats as it is. Hoping I can bring it down from the current world record of 1:14 down to a 1:10 or even a 1:08. It won't involve any world bosses but it does involve calculating your experience with everything you do. I can say that much.
I'm going to do an Any% Full Admin Control run. This will be only one of the changes to the categories for on here. I'll explain some of it on here below. I think this can be done in about five minutes or so. The other categories will be Partial Admin Control, the Any% split by difficulty, co-op categories, all dungeons, and custom percent.
Rules for Any% Full Admin Control: Runs can be ran on any difficulty Time starts as soon as you take control of your character Admin control is turned on Admin warping is allowed Admin item acquiring is allowed
So, the general route has a few difficult strats to it. One is the descent into the Sinkhole. I know that with Any% (Custom) that the runner can just get to the second portion, aggro the skeletons, and run down the stairs tanking their way to the boss. But, without those changes, the average runner will probably take damage. Even after I practiced the descent down myself, I've taken fall damage. It isn't easy but I know there aren't really a lot of other ways around it. I think the stair strat could work for Any% (Civilized) if the runner remembers to bring enough aloe with them.
As for the rest, I've considered these two possibilities: level up to level 20 and get the silverback gorilla at Hanuman's Grotto. 20 is a more ideal level as it opens the runner to more advanced weapons and better stats to even start the dungeons. As for the gorilla, I think an early pet that can both tank and take damage for us the runner will be very beneficial. Though, the down side is that there's a detour to the Unnamed City to fight a mini boss which can take a while and it will require daggers also. But, their health isn't so bad in my opinion compared to the world boss croc. All together, I think it can easily be fifteen minutes to complete with death warps and skilled killing of the mini boss in the Unnamed City. The good trade off is that we can deal out more damage to enemies with said pet at a better level of doing it.
Just some things to consider.
We really need to define our categories better and see if we can get a few moderators on board while we're at it. I know we are a small community but I feel like we need better definitions for things on here. What I'm thinking is renaming Legacy to Any% and remove the difficulty setting completely out. We can simply customize the game's server settings and run it using those settings. My goal is to make this as simple as we can but as quick as we can. Most of us will be using the current patch of the game anyhow for our runs and this isn't cheating or modding since the game gives us this option from the beginning. It only makes sense that we do this and add a few moderators to help things out on here.
Deciding to give you guys the server invite for anyone who wants to join. It is a small server with not much there. I'll add things as needs to be.
I decided to start playing with custom settings to get a quicker run in. I'm thinking it might be possible to add this as a different category for players. I'm thinking increasing experience, damage dealt to enemies, and crafting times while decreasing damage dealt to player and stamina. I'll start coming up with a route to this as well as a guide to get this custom game set up if there's enough interest.
I tried running my route today but stumbled quite a bit. Especially in the area of resource gathering. I probably should have crafted the pickaxe and the hatchet first then quickly gathered my resources. I do have to say that building a box to hold all your resources will be advised so you aren't encumbered. I have a lot more work and testing with this route to see if it is indeed feasible or not.
Morning update: Last night, around 10 to 12 my time, I decided that it might be good to find another world boss to kill. Namely, the giant spider not too far from Gallaman's Tomb and where the croc is. After getting defeated, and probably could have defeated it, though at that point in the game I wasn't actually speedrunning or learning the speedrunning but playing to find a different route, I decided to find a new angle. As I was doing my own research, I saw on YouTube videos how pets can play a big role in the game. I looked at that and realized that there were pets you can easily get. I decided to start rerouting the early part of the game to get that. More specifically, the Silveback Gorilla since that would be the easiest to get out of the lot of them. And that route is: going straight to the Unnamed City, getting stone, ironstone, wood, and other resources, then crafting the Set temple and the furnace, crafting the ritual knife, and defeating a miniboss. Then, going to the Hanuman's Grotto to get the Silverback Gorilla. I think it can be about 15 minutes to do all of that but I haven't properly timed it yet.
Update: I did more digging around to see if there might be a world boss that could be more easier and I think the Giant Spider in the desert could be an option. It's one square above Gallaman's Tomb and I think it could be easier to fight at lower levels depending on what level we get once we arrive there.
After trying to reroute it to this. I realize that making the required palisades will take too long cause wood is needed to make the shaped wood and you need fifty shaped wood to make one palisade and one would need eight max to do this strat right. At the end of the day, that's four thousand shaped wood and you get on average 45 wood per tree, that's about 88 trees that needs to be cut down and cutting down animation wastes a lot of time when I could be moving on. I'll either need to find a new way of defeating the croc or just get better at defeating the croc.
After dying to the croc world boss one too many times, I decided to change strategies. I saw on YouTube of people laying down palisades and luring the croc into a trap where it'll take damage while in it. Downside is that you have to be level 17. However, I find that leveling up is real easy in the early levels and it likely won't take too long to accomplish this.
This is perhaps the first big hurdle for any new runners for this game. Especially me. Not going lie, it's a tough one. Been trying to learn and read the moves the best I can. It does seem slow with the current method and takes time to nail down. I feel like there might be a better solution out there for defeating this boss. And then again, there might not be.
I'm going to start learning the route soon. Also, should we create some sort of Discord for us? I can gladly do that if there's enough interest.
I'm playing through the game casually first but I do plan on speedrunning it. Found a reaction video of one of Lobo's runs.
I have noticed that no new runs has been in since a few years ago. I thought about running this game and developing my own strats and what not for it on the current patch of the game. Just seeing if there's any other interest outside of me. By the way, I'll be running the PS4 version of the game.
