Hey everyone! I seem to have stumbled upon a possible Hollow King Skip setup. That is to say, that skip that we currently have labeled as an "Only lag% thing" may be possible without lag. I got it randomly without any background programs running. I then recreated it, studied it a bit, and found that it is extremely precise. However, I think I found a setup.

skip to 1:26 in the video for exact placement

On Covert Operators, jump up to the top stair. Face the pit, and align the back of your front foot with the back edge of the brick on the top stair. If you are not facing the pit when you align, then this shouldn't work. Move left towards the pit and jump at the last possible moment (3 frames after walking off the edge; this is based on my footage @~30fps, which may not be what the game runs at natively). Hold jump and left, and you will make it to the other side of the pit.

I jumped over the pit after doing this setup 25 times and made it 5 times (included jumps where I was obviously too early or late to be more accurate to actual attempts). If you are good at timing jumps, this should be considerably easier for you.

Let me know how it goes for you. If you can't figure it out, slow down the footage (thanks Youtube!) and see how the jump works.

Wow. Out of interest, how good is your computer?

Part of the reason why we deemed it impossible was because you can test it tons in slow down and still be unable to do it. I think it's because some computers allow the character to have extended walk-off frames. It may be some sort of pixel align thing, or something with the animation of the character that allows it to walk a little further. I'm interested to see if you're able to do it with v-sync off... I managed to do it with it on... a few times. I've noticed that having V-Sync off makes for varying in the distance that walk-off frames last. If this trick is only possible with V-Sync on, then I can see there being a lot of problems with optimization (see my V-Sync thread: http://www.speedrun.com/yhtwtgsteam/thread/ulvqo )

@Klashik - My computer has an i3-3220 core, 8Gb ram, and an additional GTX 960 graphics card.

@OrangeCrix - I did have V-Sync on, and I'm pretty sure it's a pixel align thing. Slowing down footage of failed attempts that were 1 pixel difference and still jumped on the last possible frame weren't getting enough distance. The alignment with the brick just happens to be in a sweet spot where the player moves just enough to fall off the platform later. Idk, the character movement is weird like it's set amount of spaces. Lining up with the brick makes it so the character is on the platform longer, getting farther out before falling starts, thus giving more space when jumping. So, pixel and frame perfect.

I could be just confused on exactly how the game works, but I'm pretty sure it's just pixel and frame perfect. I will do more tests and see if I can get it with V-Sync off. I don't have slow down tools while actually running (just slowmo playback) so it's a long process of testing for me.

You know about the slomo command in console, right? Slomo 1 will set the game to normal speed and Slomo .5 will set the game to half speed, etc.

I forgot the game had that. 😖 but yeah, I can't seem to get it with slomo on. Do you happen to know how it works?

EDIT: Still can't get it on lower speeds BUT I did manage to get it twice on x2 speed. Either I'm accustomed to the faster pace, or it is based on sprite movement not being calculated properly or something. Though still unsure how I managed 1 in 5 before.

EDIT 2: Also managed to get it on x3 speed.

So, are we allowing this on any% runs for the Steam version? I'm considering running this again and this trick is fairly easy to do. Currently I only get it about 50% of the time (with V-Sync on), but I can always tell when I jump too early, so I should be able to get it down to 75-80% at least.

(And OT: What's up with the password system at the end of the Steam version? Jeez, that's annoying.)

Edit: Trying it out a bit more, almost looks like it depends on where the characters feet are positioned as he goes off the edge. Might just be my eyes playing tricks on me though, I didn't watch it slowed down afterwards.

Probably, the only thing pretty awful about this being v-sync on (but not lagging + v-sync off) is the effect it has on jumps.. explained here: http://www.speedrun.com/yhtwtgsteam/thread/ulvqo

As to answer your question ibldedibble, it is still part of it's own category: Lag%. We never really voted on it so precedence takes effect. Also, I believe this trick is still regarded as unreliable by most runners since we don't fully understand it.