Speed Runs?

[dsweet87]

I see there used to be some sort of Speed running competition. I just thought I'd throw it out there, I'm going to be trying to beat 'Andrew Walker's game time achievements.

http://whitegiantrpg.com/games/speed-run/

Which as I can see, his 'Hard' mode speed run was much faster than his 'normal' mode speedrun, so he didn't try *too hard* lol. But I'll start on normal and see what I can do.

Been awhile since I've played this game, but now I have some more free time from work and thought this challenge would be fun. Yay!

Anyone care to try? The rules are 'No saving in dungeons', no changing difficulty, no reborn, and any encounter rate.

[dsweet87]

Website is down! I forgot what time I was aiming for. Something like 41 hours on legendary mode

[info]

Website is backup. Sorry for the inconvenience.

[dsweet87]

Well I did the speed run on normal. Final save time 5:15:55.

Party was Monk/Monk/White/Black, rare encounter rate, no saving in dungeons.

I felt this party was optimal because at level 24 the monk gets cleanse, which makes them immune to status effects. Then get 1 genji ring from the Cave of Mystics for your white mage. The black mage can make do with a couple other status effect protecting rings. I find status effects to be the bane of my existence so protecting from them is my #1 priority.

The black mage is your beginning of the game carrier. Once you get fire 3 you can destroy groups of mobs in the beginning much faster than if you would go through all the attacking animations over and over. Also, warp is very helpful in the beginning (before you can buy warp stones) and at the end game Well of Souls's bosses, he will be debilitating and weakning the bosses.

I grabbed the two relics instead of going through the forest, because the mobs are easier to beat and it's more of a smooth leveling progression. Then I head straight for the casino and get around 2 million gold. I buy full mythril gear, 20-30 of the ATK, DEF, ACC, CRT, MGD, and HP tonics. 30 of most kinds of bombs, with the exception of 60 dark bombs. The dark bombs are very good against the castle dungeon with the guards, because all the guards are weak versus the dark bombs. I kill most of the guards here becuase it's very quick leveling.

After this, it's simply a matter of collecting all the crystals. And when you get two crystals I head to Gaia and buy more powerful gear than the mythril. I like to stop by the Cave of Mystics at some point during this to increase my levels quickly ,and to obtain the Genji ring. The Seventh Circle Demon boss is easy if you can 'mana taint' him with your two monks, he will run out of MP very fast and become a simple tank and spank.

Once you get the airship, you can go straight to the well of Souls, but there are some things to do first. First of all, go get the class upgrade obviously. Then go to the MInes of Dvergar and kill Ba'al. He is easier than the mobs on the way to him. Buy full adamantium gear. Then I go ahead and do the 'Dark Lord assassination' mission, because it is the only place to buy the +30 stat rings, which I usually get ATK and MGD for my monks. The Dark Lord isn't really worth killing, but the Kraken is really good experience to kill as he is much easier.

Finally, the Well of Souls. Plan on making 3 trips into the dungeon. The first will be dodging the wraiths without the staff of sorry and folly, while hitting all 4 switches. Then kill the first boss and exit. Second run, continue all the way to Helios. Then either kill him if you are feeling confident, or exit again. Finally, fight the Dark Lord on your third run. He has some attacks that if he uses on the first round, he will wipe you out immediately, such as Atomic Flare. I was level 25/25/26/25 when I killed him.

That's all for my normal speed run, I hope somebody can beat my time so I can try again! I am currently ~75% through with my legendary speed run.

[dsweet87]

Tomorrow I'm going to attempt a speed run on Hard mode, I'm going to record the whole thing in 1 segment, making it both a 'game time' and a 'real time' try.

I think I'm going Knight/Monk/White/Black and the beginning of the game is very difficult to speed through, but once you get the ship and get to the casino it's a lot easier and less luck based. Been awhile since I've played this game and I keep coming back to it.

[sorlok_reaves]

@dsweet87 -- Looking forward to your recorded run! In my Legendary Ship Run attempt, I put points into agility and sprinted through the forest as a way to quickly get good gear from Doria:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMjoU7QnnNo

Also note that the Blaze Hat makes the Tower boss much easier.

[dsweet87]

Hey, nice job on the white mage legendary playthrough! I never did the ship challenge, I discovered this game too late unfortunately, but your single character running to Doria is something I've considered for a speed run, as the equipment there is quite good.

I just finished the hard playthrough, total real time 7 hours 12 minutes 50 seconds, game time around 10 hours. I'll post the videos tomorrow once they've uploaded.

I made several mistakes, including not getting adamantium armor right after the airship, not slotting my buff spells on my black mage, and taking 4 tries to defeat the final boss. Quite an adventure.

[dsweet87]

Here are my real time speed run videos. I did one right after the other, just stopping so I wouldn't have one huge 7 hour video. The total time of the videos is 7 hours 12 minutes 50 seconds, but the game time was around 10 hours. I made plenty of mistakes, as described in the video descriptions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xf4EEY7dqnY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdFn6yIms3w&feature=youtu.be

Now I'm working on a hard mode game-time record. I used Sorlok's strategy of rushing to Doria, using a hunter instead of a gray mage, to get the ship much earlier than normal. I tried to kill the treant but he was too powerful for my solo hunter, so I got the runes instead, leveling my white mage to level 3 to cast null fire and my level 1 engineers to throw a few tonics on my hunter against the tower guardian. Such brave sacrifice. I'm currently at the casino, with a hunter/white/eng/eng party.

I'm not recording this run, one, but I'll probably record the last boss fight.

[dsweet87]

Ignore the last attempt, I've done a much better one this time. 4h 59m 25s

Hello everyone! This is my Last Dream Real-Time Speed Run attempt, and I am proud that it game out under 5 hours (and only 1 video).This is a much better time than my last attempt, due to using my new strategy, using Hunter/White Mage/2x Engineer, named Nicci, Evelyn, Teolk, and Jerok.

I solo most of the first continent with Nicci, adding agi/pre so I can run away from enemies in the woods of despair and get good gear from Doria. Then I gather the two runes, grind ~3mil gold at the casino, and load up on bombs and equipment. You'll see I resurrected my party a few times when I didn't need to, as they kept dying. I also screwed up when I reset the game in Doria due to dying, I forgot to get the skeleton key, and TWICE went to the same door thinking I had it, once for the iron boots and once much later for the augury ring.

After completing the 4 crystal dungeons, I stop by Gaia for crystal equipment (I could get this after 2 dungeons or even not get it at all, not sure what the effect on the time would be). Then I get the airship and buy adamantium equipment, get class upgrade, and start fishing. I get around a 100 freshwater and 200 icewater fish.

I get the deserter's boots +150 agi so I can run from enemies in the well of souls. I get the genji ring from the mystic cave. I buy paralysis rings from the shop you can get when you do the Dark Lord mission. I make sure to know all the synthesis ingredients required for all but the last fishing rod, doing the arena up to tier 3 and the mystic caves takes care of many requirements, and the hunter 'native' item ability sometimes let's me get lucky and save a few minutes.

The well of souls is a piece of cake for the most part, although I still save before the final boss because he can pull some bad RNG out of his hat.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cP7-tc5n76w&feature=youtu.be

[sorlok_reaves]

Wow, what an improvement! That looks great. What are your plans for future improvements?

[dsweet87]

None really, unless someone beats my time. I'm going to work on my legendary speed run time, 19 hours is way too long.

[dsweet87]

Here's a very easy speed run, not optimized, so I can take 10-20 minutes off it, I wanted people to see it to help improve their times, and maybe they have more tricks up their sleeve to improve.

But if the developers want me to remove the video feel free if they don't want people going down the same path or discouraging people from trying!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b024i1ij0J0

[Kavaliro]

Wow, that was fast jaja. The solo monk with bombs seems the best way. My time of 2h was with knights and engi, but it lacked attack, so the final bosses were hard. You think that you can do it in less than one hour?

[dsweet87]

I don't think I'm going to try to beat 1h 10m unless someone else does, knocking another 10 minutes off that would be hard. I stole some items with my thiefs that helped out my monk that I didn't do in the video above.

Another idea I had besides solo monk was hunter, thief, eng, eng party, with the end-game damage being the two engineers throwing bombs, and running away from all battles past level 13 (advanced tunneling) to save time. But would all this running save 10 minutes worth of time?

If the hunter does well enough early game, picking her would allow for the critical scan skills against the bosses, causing an increase in engineer bomb damage, very helpful against the last boss at least.

This would mean grinding a bit more at the casino, since you have to buy more bombs and potentially more equipment for a full party rather than just the solo monk. Of course, the thief would be benched the whole time.