Speedy Achievement

[Amy]

I don't care if it's POSSIBLE to get this achievement, trying to grind for it is infuriating. I don't think there's a good way to put into words just how quickly trying to get this achievement ruined my good time. The time threshhold is just TOO LOW. Two minutes flat is pushing it into World Record levels of play optimization; this needs to be more forgiving!

Considering Speedy is the ONLY "Atrus early" achievement, I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for a time to beat of 2:30 or 3:00. With only two minutes, you can have a run ruined by misclicking a single button, or lose enough time to VR hardware problems that the run's over no matter what.

This is to say nothing about players who might be playing using a gamepad, or on a display setup that introduces extra input latency; an achievement like this becomes LITERALLY impossible for those players if the margins are that slim.

[KarlMarxBrother]

Speedy achievement

So far on Steam I'm seeing that 0% of people have it. It's my only achievement left and I've gone for it several times now to no avail. I haven't timed myself, so I don't know if it's bugged or not, but has anybody else had any luck getting it? I swear I've optimized as much as I can, but I just can't seem to get it to work.

Edit: Hooray, it's finally fixed!

[Hannah]

It's a really tough one! You have to be pretty fast to get it. Keep trying!

[LucidEpyon]

I have tried a few times as well (even a ~10 min run on randomize, did not have a timer going so don't know the exact time) but no luck so far.

[LucidEpyon]

I just timed a classic run at ~3:10 from dock to inserting the white page (just over 5 mins to get back to the Myst library). Looks like this achievement needs an extremely fast time...

I feel like I would find this less annoying to do if I could just skip the opening cut scene.

[Hannah]

The timer begins when you are able to move on Myst Island after beginning a new game; it does not start when you open the game.

[KarlMarxBrother]

Originally posted by Hannah:

The timer begins when you are able to move on Myst Island after beginning a new game; it does not start when you open the game.

Does the timer run when you have the menu open with the Esc key? If you save and load does it invalidate the run?

Thanks for your replies!

[Hannah]

No problem at all! The timer does not pause when the menu is up. Makes for an extra challenge :D And yes, if you save and load it invalidates it. You must start a new game, get to Myst Island (timer starts immediately upon being able to move), then attempt to (spoilers......) get the good ending.

[LucidEpyon]

I was about to ask the same questions, would be nice if I can make a save just after the opening speech but before entering the Myst book, that way I can start a bit faster.

Also I am finding an odd bug where if I do the good ending run than click "new game" from the pause menu the white page does not show up in the new game. The marker switch opens but there is no page inside. I have to fully quit the game for the white page to actually spawn again in a new game.

[Hannah]

Originally posted by LucidEpyon:

I was about to ask the same questions, would be nice if I can make a save just after the opening speech but before entering the Myst book, that way I can start a bit faster.

Also I am finding an odd bug where if I do the good ending run than click "new game" from the pause menu the white page does not show up in the new game. The marker switch opens but there is no page inside. I have to fully quit the game for the white page to actually spawn again in a new game.

Thanks for the information! We'll investigate this on our end.

[FragMac_forever]

I also experienced the bug that the white page wouldn't appear when starting a New Game after having just completed a playthrough (when the auto save file has a star in front of it).

[Hannah]

Thanks, all. We'll look into this.

[KarlMarxBrother]

The way I've gotten around the bug is I made a new game and saved immediately upon loading into the island. Then, every time I want to start a new run, I load into that save FIRST, and THEN click new game. As long as the game state you are starting a new game from has the page still in the marker, then the page will load in the new game.

It is really loading that does it as well. When I made the clean save, I didn't load back in before starting a new game (so I essentially clicked "New Game" twice in a row without loading at all). The page was still missing even after two "New Game" clicks. You HAVE to load a save that has the page intact first.

Additionally, if you are in a game that has the bug, then immediately saving and reloading will fix it. Obviously that invalidates the speedrun, but in any other playthrough it'll work.

The other thing I'd like to know is when the timer stops. Is it when you click the book to D'Ni? Or does the timer stop when you click the page to put it into Atrus's book? If that's the case, does the loading time for D'Ni factor in? If so, I would need to get a pixel perfect run. The hit boxes on the marker switches are really tiny and a little wonky. But even with that I only have about 5 possible seconds I could shave off my run times and 5 seconds between my timer expiring and the page becoming clickable in D'Ni. The loading screen from Myst island to D'Ni is another 5-7 seconds. I have a feeling it's what is killing my runs.

[LucidEpyon]

I just did a run where dock to green book was 2:02 and back to library at 4:35 (although 6 of those seconds of the last time are loading screens). The run was a bit messy so I might be able to shave off a second or two and get to the green book in under 2 mins, but I would likely need to hit every marker switch first click...

I have found turning the cursor size up to is max setting in the menu helps some with getting the marker switch hit boxes, but I still take 2-3 clicks to get some of them.

[KarlMarxBrother]

In all my recent runs I have got it down to dialog start at Atrus's desk in D'Ni right as my 2 minute timer goes off. As I said, there's about 5 more seconds of him talking before I can click the page. I'll try the cursor thing. That's a great tip, thanks!

[KarlMarxBrother]

Originally posted by LucidEpyon:

I just did a run where dock to green book was 2:02 and back to library at 4:35 (although 6 of those seconds of the last time are loading screens). The run was a bit messy so I might be able to shave off a second or two and get to the green book in under 2 mins, but I would likely need to hit every marker switch first click...

I have found turning the cursor size up to is max setting in the menu helps some with getting the marker switch hit boxes, but I still take 2-3 clicks to get some of them.

Welp, I tried the cursor thing you suggested and just got what I consider a perfect run. I only had to click twice on ONE marker, I did my time saving strategy of doing the cabin marker while waiting for the gears to emerge at the clock tower, and I did the fireplace in about 5 seconds. I still didn't get the achievement to pop.

I think this might be VR only, since in VR you'd have the teleporting feature. On mouse and keyboard I just don't think you run fast enough to make it to whatever landmark they've set as "The End" in time.

I think that is my last attempt for the time being. Ah well.