vol 1 speed run

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Rattlingjoint
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vol 1 speed run

Post by Rattlingjoint »

So I'm conducting a low level speed run for a speed running site of .hack//G.U. vol 1 and its been alot of fun thus far.

Currently I'm up to the Alkaid arena match and the in game time is 2:53:xx. I'm shooting for under 4 hours atm; However I've hit a major snag.

Alkaids team is just a beast for the fact that I'm level 21 lol. At 21 its 2 hits and gone from her and her teamates(4 from Alkaid if im blocking 5 from her teamates) I've tried this an upwards of 40+ times its just not happening. Heres the problem, Alkaid by herself isnt bad shes easily predictable and actually has quite a few openings; the problem lays with her 2 teamates. They stick to you like glue and as twin blades have extremely fast attacks. When I come out of a skill trigger/hangeki if their too close im done no way to block or change equipment or run lol. Coming out of awakenings can be dangerous too if I didnt get all 3 with an attack. And when Alkaid reaches sub 600 HP her lackies like to spam repth, which isnt too big a deal but my dmg output between awakenings is far lower then 50. Really this shouldnt be a tough fight since I only have halve her hp but the unpredictability of the fight makes that easier said then done.
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TheSorrow
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Re: vol 1 speed run

Post by TheSorrow »

That's quite some awesome time you have o-o Struggling and trying to do everything as quick as possible, i'd be at around 5 hours by that point XD
I forgot if i managed to defeat her at such a low level or i had to level up more...but yeah, it's an INSANE BATTLE. They're very fast and they'll screw you up with or without your teammates...if they're still alive, they'll use attack combos of them which have a wide range and you can end up hit without noticing it, and if they're dead, then they simply won't leave you alone.
My strategy was to use a Hold+Release Broadsword, wait until my teammates died so i become the only target, gaining Morale from Hangekis while at it, wait until all 3 of them went close to me (but far enough for an attack), and do a full combo with H+R, juggling all 3 of them. Then i kept juggling them while hitting Alkaid, using Tiger Blitz every once, especially during a Rengeki. Eventually one of them will free from the juggling, though it's possible to juggle her again if she stays close enough to attack. If not, then the strategy would be to start Hangeking again, either Alkaid or someone close to Alkaid (close enough so she's hit too) to about being countered, and do an Awakening, letting out all your rage on her and hopefully having her on Rengeki status as the Awakening ends. If she's still alive by that point...then well, you better restart the fight unless you've been careful to maintain SP or have been using the Free Healing Bug XD

And right as i was done typing this....i remembered this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmu0Wd69DF4
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Rattlingjoint
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Re: vol 1 speed run

Post by Rattlingjoint »

well I'm getting closer; Tonights fail included dipping her under 500hp before I got too passive and was nailed. I used a different strategy after I gave up trying to position all 3 of them for a juggle lol sorry. Its pretty much switching Beast for Demon Awakening. Demon does good damage but more importantly it does it to all 3 of them. It only takes 2 awakenings before all 3 of them are sub 600 hp where the 2 go into heal mode. For some reason Alkaids teamates will heal themselves before her sometimes even if they are in better shape ;\. I plan to use this to my advantage next set of fails.

Forgot to mention in original post the entire run is being recorded for submition so if anyones interested or has any questions on how I did a few things such a low level or so fast I can show you
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Re: vol 1 speed run

Post by _Tri-edge_ »

At the rate your going, you might make it under five hours.=/ I would love to see a visual interpretation of this soon.
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TheSorrow
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Re: vol 1 speed run

Post by TheSorrow »

Forgot to mention in original post the entire run is being recorded for submition so if anyones interested or has any questions on how I did a few things such a low level or so fast I can show you
I would be interested in seeing some parts of it :P I'd probably watch it all if you upload it entirely, but i'm mostly interested in seeing how you do this battle against Alkaid, Kuhn, and Endrance. Especially Kuhn...he's WAY TOO FREAKING HARD and probably the hardest Arena battle in the entire GU series. Pi's faster than you think, Antares's skills have a wide range and he has an habit of popping right behind you, and Kuhn's Skill Trigger locks you in place almost automaticly, unlike Alkaid and others who have to dash to reach you, so if you try to Hangeki someone a little too far you could end up headshot'd. And they're lvl38 or so, so unless you level up yourself to 30 at least, a single sudden poke will OHKO you.
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Master ZED
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Re: vol 1 speed run

Post by Master ZED »

Rattlingjoint wrote:Forgot to mention in original post the entire run is being recorded for submition so if anyones interested or has any questions on how I did a few things such a low level or so fast I can show you
I'm surprised you're not doing this now (do it). And why haven't you mentioned it's for SDA yet? You're dancing around it like a mod's gonna come by and say "OMG SPAMMER SCUM!!1 *banninates*"
TheSorrow wrote:Especially Kuhn...he's WAY TOO FREAKING HARD and probably the hardest Arena battle in the entire GU series. Pi's faster than you think, Antares's skills have a wide range and he has an habit of popping right behind you, and Kuhn's Skill Trigger locks you in place almost automaticly, unlike Alkaid and others who have to dash to reach you, so if you try to Hangeki someone a little too far you could end up headshot'd. And they're lvl38 or so, so unless you level up yourself to 30 at least, a single sudden poke will OHKO you.
Kuhn's problem is generally that Pi and Antares do spam Arts and Repth way too much. Kuhn himself is hardly a problem. In fact, Steam Gunners and mages have to deal with an initial lag time in Rebirth before they can launch their cursors (you only get locked after their cursors begin looking for you, the same way other classes lock you in place only when they charge at you for the attack and not before), which gives you adequate time to react. There's also the fact that only one out of his three Arts attacks instantly once he's locked on. Plectra Bullet and Thunder Spark give you more time to attack or evade.

But yeah, the Kuhn fight is hell. Just get the leveling up part over with, 'cause if Alkaid is a problem, Kuhn will obliterate you.
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Rattlingjoint
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Re: vol 1 speed run

Post by Rattlingjoint »

lol I didnt know what the policy for linking to other sites here is, every site is different about that but ya its for SDA :P

I havent uploaded any segments to my Youtube because how long it'd take 3+ hours of video I'm thinking about it but I'd like to get good footing first. Anywho I just did a series of Alkaid tests and found my weakness; I'm overrusing the skill trigger therefore lengthening the gaps between Hangekis+Awakenings, I stopped I was getting farther and farther into the battle and doing more awakenings. I'll upload the last Alkaid fight I had once I'm finished with this post;

I uploaded a segment for viewing pleasure, It's the Matsu battle not the best fight but It was the best time I came up with out of 3 battles.

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RX62aU1CCdE

Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXMPYY75zQA

High quality looks pretty but its kinda choppy atm I'm hoping thats just Youtube processing it. If not Normal quality looks fine with less lag

EDIT: Link to my Alkaid fail tonight http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VooCnbjPCOs I'll explain my strategy a lil better tommorrow
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Re: vol 1 speed run

Post by Master ZED »

Well it's not like you're advertising or anything, just pointing out where the result of this run will be posted. If a site is so anal to nail you just for that, they're not worth posting on.

Some notes:

- Since you have to go to the menu to Log Out anyway, it would have been faster to use the Text of Power when you acquired it, but I'm just going to assume you slipped up on that at the end of a previous segment.

- Logging out and back in should be faster than walking to the warp point to return to the Chaos Gate. It definitely is from the Serpent of Lore, but you should probably time it to make sure.

- Why haven't you turned on cursor memory?

- You're not using free healing every time you go to the Equipment menu. With as many times as you do so and then sit there for a couple seconds before going back to the game, you may as well use it whether you need to or not. I can't imagine you losing time because of it.

- Speaking of which, your menu speed is rather casual. You could stand to speed it up, since this is a segmented run, which means your thinking should have been done with for almost all out-of-combat situations.

- Since you have to log out after this fight to continue the story anyway, are you planning on going somewhere with Silabus and Gaspard before logging out?
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Rattlingjoint
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Re: vol 1 speed run

Post by Rattlingjoint »

Master ZED wrote:Well it's not like you're advertising or anything, just pointing out where the result of this run will be posted. If a site is so anal to nail you just for that, they're not worth posting on.

Some notes:

- Since you have to go to the menu to Log Out anyway, it would have been faster to use the Text of Power when you acquired it, but I'm just going to assume you slipped up on that at the end of a previous segment.

- Logging out and back in should be faster than walking to the warp point to return to the Chaos Gate. It definitely is from the Serpent of Lore, but you should probably time it to make sure.

- Why haven't you turned on cursor memory?

- You're not using free healing every time you go to the Equipment menu. With as many times as you do so and then sit there for a couple seconds before going back to the game, you may as well use it whether you need to or not. I can't imagine you losing time because of it.

- Speaking of which, your menu speed is rather casual. You could stand to speed it up, since this is a segmented run, which means your thinking should have been done with for almost all out-of-combat situations.

- Since you have to log out after this fight to continue the story anyway, are you planning on going somewhere with Silabus and Gaspard before logging out?
-I believe I aquired the Text of Power from the early quest you do with Silabus and Gaspard/or Job Extension from those segments I logged out immediately. I also didnt know what I was gonna be doing with it yet since its almost an instant trade acceptance for most items. I was originally thinking it might of needed to be used for healing items/scrolls trade since my GP count wont be going too much higher and the items might be needed against Azure Kite. I decided to use it for Matsu & on for stretching dmg when I had more items then I originally planned in my inventory.

-taking a brief look at it I would of saved about 6 seconds; Its something I probably overlooked because its the only time I can properly use that in the run thus far, and it was a tack on part(meaning I didnt think ahead and when it came to the segment I wasnt originally gonna use another broadsword but at the last minute put it in there its my bad lol)

-Im a creature of habit I have a feel for where all cursors are when I need them pretty much and if I turned it on I'd have 50 trys of going into the wrong menu lol

-Being cautious of time is all, I felt if I had to change my weapons alot then eventually all those lil 1 second switches would of added up, so I went with a more "heal on command" method but I do use the bug a few times when I goto change swords.

-I'm not the fastest guy in when it comes to menus and when I go too fast I screw up lol its blatanly obvious with the Customize screen and Tournament participation screens. The Text of Power through me off I'll flat out admit that not practicing the tacked on part of the segment was a mistake.

-The original plan was to start the next segment getting Repth Attack and another Broadsword/a Seal attachment to go with it. Instead of warping the Mac Anu saving there and starting over and over to find someone near the chaos gate that fit these requirements I decided to use Lumina Cloth while I was there. When I tacked on the extra broadsword to begin the segment I was originally just going to find someone with Repth and Attack scroll to try to cut down on time. However I scrapped the scroll/Repth idea in favor for more items after I finished this segment. They were primarily going to be for Azure Kite. I could of redid the Matsu segment to favor this but I didnt think of it at the time.

The runs filled with little errors and mistakes from time to time; This is my first time ever "Speed-running" a full game, so I'm still learning a bit, There hasnt been a Sub-8hour low level run of vol 1 to my knowledge so I can atleast get sub 5 hours I'll be happy with it. I was moretheless going for the low level part of the run then the fastest time I can do it, which is why I'm adamant on beating Alkaid and Kuhn sub lvl 30 or atleast trying as the best I can. Almost forgot lol one of the reasons I'm also doing this is to promote .hack to get some of the RPG fans out there interested in playing.
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Master ZED
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Re: vol 1 speed run

Post by Master ZED »

Rattlingjoint wrote:-The original plan was to start the next segment getting Repth Attack and another Broadsword/a Seal attachment to go with it.
You do realize that since I never got a Seal Ji Yi out of the Azul Sachems in Rebirth, that it's probably not there, right? I mean, I can go check the data if this blows a hole in your plan and you really need that Astrid Specimen, but my luck isn't THAT terrible.

Otherwise, what did you actually mean?
Rattlingjoint wrote:The runs filled with little errors and mistakes from time to time; This is my first time ever "Speed-running" a full game, so I'm still learning a bit, There hasnt been a Sub-8hour low level run of vol 1 to my knowledge so I can atleast get sub 5 hours I'll be happy with it. I was moretheless going for the low level part of the run then the fastest time I can do it, which is why I'm adamant on beating Alkaid and Kuhn sub lvl 30 or atleast trying as the best I can.
I wouldn't be so gung ho about submitting this first run (if you've done some test runs prior, I apologize, but that's not the feeling I'm getting from this post). I'd run it at least once more after completing this one so you know what kind of time you should be shooting for after you've reviewed the footage. Your very first time on a game that hasn't been seriously run through before is not going to be the best you can do, simply because you don't know what the best you can do is yet. When I did my speed run of Mega Man 9, the fastest single segment time wasn't even leaderboard material on the Wii, and some thought it would be lucky if anyone hit 10th. It took several runs before I knew where to shoot for and by the time I finished, my run had scored 2nd on the board. .hack//Infection took at least a couple of runs to produce, and it could have been better, because while it had been seriously run through, the strategy employed in the run before mine was so full of holes that I tore it apart and ultimately beat that run by 47 minutes. It's weird how both of my posted runs have been a bit disappointing in some aspect, yet thoroughly crushed the previous run so badly that rejection simply wasn't an option, but I digress.... :P

At any rate, don't submit this run, whatever you do. Just use it as an example for the real thing. The time you'll get will be much better, and anything you can do to keep the verifiers from b***hing is worth the effort... unless you do something that they only think is slower because they don't know any better (it happens). You'll get a chance to retort one way or the other though.
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Rattlingjoint
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Re: vol 1 speed run

Post by Rattlingjoint »

The Seal was actually The Curse attachment was a mixup sorry lol.

But ya after looking it over I wont be submitting this run, I'll be using this as a base for a more optimized run. I'll still treat this as a real run though :D
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Re: vol 1 speed run

Post by Master ZED »

Rattlingjoint wrote:The Seal was actually The Curse attachment was a mixup sorry lol.
...you have a use for Curse in Rebirth? Intriguing....
Rattlingjoint wrote:But ya after looking it over I wont be submitting this run, I'll be using this as a base for a more optimized run. I'll still treat this as a real run though :D
I actually wouldn't mind seeing some parts early though. I don't think we need to see the entire thing yet of course, but I think you should at least upload the significant fights so we can give our input now instead of later. As far as I remember (not much, I don't care much for playing Rebirth), that would be the tournament fights and Azure Kite at least... maybe the Avatar battles too, but that's up to you, given how easy they are. Mimicking or maybe even beating my Avatar fights is nowhere near as hard as duping my battle with Alkaid, so that might be a little redundant, though I never uploaded a battle with Macha in the storyline and her pattern is a bit different from the simulator. I'd like to see that fight for sure when you get there.
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