@trogdor The Wiz8 speedrun used a clipping exploit to get access to a teleporter!

Nice

12 minutes, 10 seconds in: hey, there's Crock!

Kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill

No time now, move move move.

kill

Just there for the Rapax Perfume, apparently.

Honestly I feel like killing him immediately is also a probably decent speedrun strat

I'm curious to see what they do about that.

Same

I mean heck

They could just leave thier party member there

Or kill him when he does it to get them back

Or skip the kidnapping happening

Lots of options

I mean... they do seem to be just using the dracon fighter as a constitution battery for running.

(Not leveling the fighter up means lower levels of Con spells top him off again, since running drains Con by percentages but spells restore Con numerically)

But he takes someone random right?

Save-scumming?

I suppose

But that slows you down too

Especially if you have to do it a couple of times

Or more

But like, maybe they are counting on the kidnapping happening

16m34s: T'Rang teleporter operational.

Cause it does transport you pretty fast

Lol

(Characters were max level 4.)

Handy hint: you can use the "running while in combat" trick to check around corners, then run back, without enemies "seeing" you.

I just don't think I have the energy to use all those exploits so much

19m56s: fake orb stolen from Mook, Mook NPC recruited, no battles fought since the road away from the monastery.

Third battle: to rescue Vi.

Wait really?

Is she critical to progress?

They haven't recruited her yet, but I suspect they will. The best ending has her in your party.

But also I think you need to rescue her to trigger some other stuff.

I assumed they would pick the ending where you get the easiest fight

Which I think would be better if she wasn't in the party

It's still easy but it would be even faster

Which is the name of the speedrun game

Faerie Mage got kidnapped! They aren't doing anything about it yet.

Huh

Did they just leave?

Wait, no, what? [confused]

[backs up]

Okay I'm very confused.

I was wrong about who got abducted, but somebody did and then they.... savescummed and still had the idol but nobody got abducted?

[watches again]

What!?!?!?

Sneaky little hobbitses

Also, apparently people are doing solo runs with NPCs.

Like, grab your chosen recruit and kill the rest of your party, and they even stop complaining about being in areas they don't like?

Huh

But why?

So, I can't find confirmation, but I think that if you save fast enough, between "You pick up the idol" and "Picking up the idol triggers the kidnapping sequence," you can reload to a point where you have the idol in your hand but the kidnapping sequence didn't get triggered?

I watched it again, that's what they did. Pick up the idol, quick-save, wait through the kidnapping fade-to-black, then quickload.

Ok that's pretty cool

But guess what?

Any future playtroughs croc dies

Immediately

XD

I dunno if or when I'll ever play it again

But when and if I do he's an exp value

It's the only value he deserves

Okay, that's just mean. They've got a portal set next to Saxx, because he always respawns at the same recruitment spot. And when they're about to get into a fight they can't just run through... they set a portal, pop over to Saxx, recruit him, portal back and immediately dismiss him from the party so he fights all the enemies while the multibear runs away.

Ouch

And they do that cause he is important so he can't die right?

And he's always in the same place too

Yeah.

Hacks! You can portal out of combat if you start casting the portal spell before the enemy triggers combat.

And you can loot in safety by clicking to loot as you portal away, if your destination is in the same zone.

(They combine those to loot quest items when the loot triggers a boss battle.)

Set portal elsewhere in zone, go to loot spot, cast portal and then really fast click to loot; the loot box interface will still be there when you arrive at your same-zone portal destination, and the boss monster will be left very confused and lonely.

Cheap portal cheating: use a portal to get around a patrol by setting it at the middle of their path when they're at the far end, then back away and portal to that point when the patrol is at the near end.

Also: you can avoid a lot of the nasty effects of picking up too many orbs by just setting portals next to where you're going to pick them up, then go as far as the game will let you before portalling back to grab them.

What game is this conversation about?

ah, Googling says the game is Wizardry 8

good lord

the exploits

@V2Blast Yeah, it's a game that Troggy, @Miniman, and I greatly enjoy.

And so far as I can tell there's only, like, one person who does speedruns of it on YouTube.

There's a few things they do that must be some kind of exploit but I can't figure out the purpose.

yeah

I think they're using a portal-combat-teleporter exploit to skip cutscenes.

Skipped the Rapax levels entirely.

Didn't bring Vi to the endgame.

Had probably less than ten fights overall, at least half of them were unavoidable random encounters in the Trynnie zones.

@BESW That's mostly no surprise - even we know how to do that. One thing I don't remember (I haven't watched one in a long time now) - do they do the Savant Tower?

still eagerly waiting for @trogdor "Defeat the End of the Cycle" speedrun attempt video

@Derpy what cycle?

@Miniman Nope! No Savant Tower.

@BESW Huh, must have a way to skip the planet-destroying bomb trigger.

Yeah, I'm not sure how they did that.

I think they used a cutscene-skip cheat.

@trogdor ^ Weren't you the Stellaris fan? :P

@BESW That makes sense.

@Derpy oh oh what

I have not seen this event

@Miniman Right about where I remember the bomb getting triggered, they do this weird dance of portalling to the T'Rang teleporter, summoning an elemental, attacking it, then running through the teleporter, porting back to the summit, porting back to the teleporter, engaging the elemental, running through the teleporter, porting back to the summit...

The Dark Savant gets about two words in edgewise and then you can just run past him to the endgame zone.

That's cool. I guess it makes sense that you can't be in a cutscene and in combat at the same time.

@BESW @Miniman that's one thing I don't always like about speedruns though,.... skipping stuff you literally have to do

like just not doing the Savant Tower at all

XD

Yeah, it's an "any %" run.

@trogdor They get all 3 orbs, and going into Rapaxia would suuuuck.

I'd argue it's a good balance of "doing stuff" and "not doing stuff".

and I have won once so far

@Miniman yeah it would

With those exploits, and a bit more luck in the random encounters, I think you could get a Wiz8 run down to an hour.

Also he's not using his keyboard as efficiently as he could, and I think he could've cut a minute or two at least with stam pots.

@BESW I suspect you're right. If there were more people working on it, it'd probably have happened.

(You can pot while running, which makes it a far superior option to casting OR camping.)

Still, 70.5 minutes isn't bad!

@BESW I mean, given that that's the average length of an endgame random encounter, it's really pretty amazing.

Yeah, the biggest "exploit" is just not fighting.

@Derpy (also I am just not sure how or why one would speedrun Stellaris)

@BESW this I approve of

XD

@trogdor Combat running to avoid trigger battles, lots of camouflage, and using Saxx as a tethered goat over. and over. and over.

poor Saxx

@BESW I reckon there's probably more to find - knowing the engine, there's gotta be some clipping stuff you can do.

Also some judicious "camp, x-ray, check map, camp" until the random patrols lined up in Trynnie a few times.

@Miniman Yeah, they clipped once, to get to the Rhino's teleporter that comes out near Marten's Bluff.

He leaves Trynton by surviving the fall to the bottom, right?

@Miniman Hahahah, no. Drops a portal at the Don, then portals back to the teleporter and runs around doing other stuff. Finally returns to the Don in the temple where you need the orb, buys the orb from the Don, peaces out again.

I think he could've shaved a lot of time off by avoiding the Helm of Serenity run, too.

@BESW Oh, wow. I think that's a change from the run I watched.

Shouldn't be too hard to either use portals to minimize time with the crazy-making orb, or just kill the bearer for the duration.

@trogdor I think that you might need to take the Transcendence tree for it to be an option.

hmm

Anyway, the "don't do this" label is there for a reason

I've taken two of those

@Derpy oh I'm aware

I've run into some annomalies and stuff that screwed me over when I had a choice not to do them

and none of them said "don't do this"

plus something apperntly literally tells you it's the end

so like

I get it

it has huge warning labels all over it XD

@trogdor just wondering... I assume you don't know what actually happens if you take that covenant?

I've read a little,... it sounds like an extremely harsh event

like,.... just barely short of completely irrevocably ending your run?

but I don't know exactly what happens other than that you apparently get a huge bonus, then eventually most of your colonies get destroyed

and then,... something starts attacking empires

that's about all

I can provide some more details if you wish, or you can just wait and see if it will ever pop up in your game.

I am not sure but I think that technically you can be so unlucky that an AI controlled player actually takes the option.

well as I understand it the biggest penalties are for the person,.. who takes it?

not that I want something to attack me after that but it sounds a lot easier if I haven't been crushed by a penalty already

not... quite? I mean, it is a lose/lose thing I guess.

I mean

Anyway, I checked - seems it is both disabled in multyplayer and not available to the AI players

the game is already a little harsh sometimes regarding choices you make in that particular decision screen

and I've never seen a warning "hey by the way don't do this"

so this one must be pretty bad

anyway I do intend to do all asencion paths at some point

and like I said I have done two of them already

so I think at some point I will certainly be tempted to check what that is

..... please, remember to record your reaction when you realize.

It is for documentation purposes.

lol

I was kinda tempted to post another image of what happens afterward, but I think it is probably funnier if I leave you the pleasure to discover that

just remember that you should totally keep attempting contacts with the Shroud because they are nice and friendly.

lol

so I assume it's the Transcendance one and not the Synthetic one

I've done the gene mod one and,... a robomodification one?

thou areth correct

anyway, for some odd reasons, the thing with the End of the Cycle does kinda remind me of the Spell of Mastery from that old dos game, Master Of Magic

@Derpy I'm definitely interested in trying them both out

both?

not in the same playthrough

I just mean eventually doing both

Synthetic and Trancendance

because I already know you can't do more than one

and honestly those two are the ones that make the most sense to not be able to do both of

Ah, now I get what you were talking about. For a second I though you wanted to try the Spell of Mastery thing.

well plus Synthetic with Genemodding because that's also silly

@Derpy oh XD

I probably still have that game somewhere. But it is on 10 floppy disks, and I don't think i have any way to read those now :P

wow

it's that old huh?

not only in floppy disks but it takes 10 of them

1994

oh

that's not incredibly old at all

or else I am incredibly old XD

Anyway, the biggest problem is I've got too many ideas for empire types

And I'm excited to try both those paths out but I also already have two more games going one of which is definitely primed for a genetic path

The other isn't really open for any of them

I think

Cause robots

@trogdor I don't know it it was also available on CD - I may have skipped that because at the time I didn't had a CD reader?

I don't really remember

Anyway, the Spell of Mastery thing was pretty weird.

yeah I mean

I think CD's were relatively common by then

First, you had to research the spell, and that already took a long time. As soon as you started, you would get an automatic "reputation/influence" debuff with all the other mages just because you attempted to KNOW the spell.

cause I barely remember Floppy Discs being dominant quite that long

@Derpy ouch

If you then tried to cast it.... every single other mage would drop any alliance or pact with you and declare war on you

appropriate, since casting it would basically start a countdown to automatically win the game

(a pretty long countdown, I would add)

is that also the only way to win?

@trogdor nope, you could actually try and take down the other wizard one at time by attacking their main city/tower.

But yep, the game purpose was to be the last standing wizard

Hence the name of the game "Master of Magic"

be the Master by being the only one ^_^

Ah

Sort of like Highlander

basically.

there was no "pacific" conclusion to the game

Fair enough

@trogdor It had a weird twist in how it handled defeat too.

When you lose your tower, it is not an instant gameover

You get in "banished" status

you have still one last come-back opportunity if you manage to cast a spell called "spell of Return"

it required you to have a lot of mana and at least one other city to be resurrected to, but you could attempt that option if you managed to stay alive for the time required to cast the spell.

Only the Spell Of Mastery bypassed the "banished" thing

so you could either return or win