DescentBB

Marvin wrote: ↑Thu Feb 27, 2020 10:10 pm There are more players who can play the game on insane, but they are not recording it and not interested to make posts about it.
You can try some other and easier levels and then come back to level 9. For example 10, 12, 15, 21, 22, 25, 27...

Actually i play level 10 quite a bit mostly to practice dodging homers. The 3 super hulks close to the blue key are quite fun and the beginning super hulk has you dodging homers while dog fighting class 1 drones / spiders... decent level!

I've tried level 11 out too recently as I see it to be the successor to level 9 once im finally done with it

Level 11 is really hard.
I know what you are talking about in L10, because I remember I learned how to dodge homing missiles on that red hulk at start. I was always cloaked for those 3 red hulks close to blue key.

It is about a year ago since I played last time, but last few days I was messing with one level - L11. Obviously it is very hard level, but I realised it can be done so much faster than my already solid 4:16. I improved my execution so much. Did it in 3:57 and then 3:56, still with room for some improvement. Then I got an "impossible" try, where I lost 80 shields at beginning and went full crazy with different, totaly luck based route and somehow finish it roughly in 3:38!!! (I say roughly because I didn't check it properly, maybe it was even 3:37). Unfortunately I missed one robot, so it is actually a fail. I think I will give it some more tries,whenI have a time.

I definitely want to see your new L-11. Hurry!

Improved to 3:47. Managed to do it with that new route for the first time. Still not satisfied, I lost like 10 second in last part. But I'm getting more consistent with it (anyway a lot of luck is still needed because of very random behavior by nearly all robots in the level). I died a few times in reactor room, also I ran out of energy during fighting reactor like 3 or 4 times. You have to care about energy much more with this route. Also you have to be as fast as possible after taking cloak close to yellow key to stay invisible while rushing for red key.

Edit: 3:51 with a death. I definitely should be able to do it under 3:40 if I keep trying.

I see. That's the same route I take every time, but at a much, much slower pace, haha. I like how all those drones in the reactor room kinda lined up for you (except that last one). That's some effective cloak usage I'll have to remember. Thanks for posting!

I ofc knew about this route all the time, but wasn't good (or trained) enough to speedrun it with this way. It felt way too random and lucky. Time 3:47 (and even slightly better) is actually reachable even with that slower route. With this faster route something like 3:30 is possible.

Those drones lined up in a group, but overaly, it was very average, that reactor room can be done much better. But yeah, cloack is a big help.

Done in 3:38. I will post the run and description soon.

That's an impressive run. I played this level tonight for the first time in years and died a lot.

I don't feel like rereading this whole thread right now, but if you don't bother killing all the robots and go for any % completion, I assume level 11 can be beaten quite a bit faster, right?

It depends on difficulty. I speedruned it in any % category only on trainee and did it in 1minute and 17secs. But I also used intentional deaths to make it faster.

I finaly uploaded that run:


It is interesting how some really good runs end up as a total fail due to bad RNG or unexpected mistake and some runs that should end up as a clear fail are somehow succesfull runs.

This run is the second case. First lucky situation is facing first invisible hulk. He avoided my missile and that means trouble. He usually fires another wave of missiles and that is game over. This time he didn't, good for me:). Complete mess is yellow key room. Both invisible hulks were extremely dodgy this time and I spent much more time to kill them than I should. Fortunately they killed one spider and 4 baby spiders, so I at least saved some time there. Still, it was like 3 seconds slower than what I need to stay invisible long enough. Due to that I didn't care about splash damage of mega missile, I had to hurry. I lost my cloak way too early anyway, but fortunately while shooting smart missiles there was just a lifter and not spider or drone behind me. But because of that I had to face red mech. This time he didn't shoot me, he was probably confused by some blobs from smart missile:D. Spider and drone came at perfect time, they can be so dangerous while poping up behind corner. Room before reactor room is totaly random, you just have to be lucky. It went well, but I didn't got the cloak from any cloaked lifter. At this point I was sure it is just game over. But! For some reason red mech turned back just behind the corner, haha. So lucky. But even after that I was nearly sure it is still game over. Cloak is very important for bomb drones, they move so quickly. Somehow I managed kill 8 of them during going down to reactor, so only one was missing. That was so lucky. You can see how hard it is to chase just one when I was going up. Uf:). Under 3:30 is possible with perfect run, but I'm for sure fine with 3:38.

Also, I improved level 25...

Oh yeah, from the yellow key room on it's a total mess, haha. Great job though!

Thank you. Yeah, haha, really messy and lucky. But on the other hand if you saw how unlucky ended some other tries at the very end with same/very similar estimated time.. Jesus, some felt really unbeliavable in a bad way, so I guess this run was deserved:).

About L25: I will post run soon. I improved my 4:45 run a few times during last days and actually ended beyond my expectations. After some trying I realised I can go for 4:30, 4:25 felt like practical maximum. Somehow I got a run without mistake + great RNG = 4:22. Ofc, teoreticaly it can be done better for sure, but I don't think I can achieve it at all unless by spending huge amount of time playing it.

L25:


Everything went well, I can't complain. Most important part of this level for a good time is area with supervisors. Usually one of them follows you, but for a good time you need them all to stay together. In this case it worked great. Theoreticaly they can be all in one line and be killed even faster, but that never happened to me. Anyway I somehow managed to kill a supervisor and green hulks spawned from him by just one fusion shot. Haha, I don't know how did that happened, I have never experienced such a thing before. In red key area I failed my first fusion shot, but green platform robot helped me and killed all 3 robots infront of him just in time, so I didn't loose any time there. In the big area before reactor, one of heavy drillers likes to roam, fortunately for me he was at best place possible. Also position of heavy drillers behind secret doors in reactor room is very random when secret doors are opened. It wasn't perfect this time, but that is the only small thing.

L1:


1 second improvement:). I can imagine doing 1:25 if everything goes perfectly, but nothing better. So I'm fine with 1:26 for sure:).

Marvin wrote: ↑Mon Mar 29, 2021 8:37 amIt wasn't perfect this time, but that is the only small thing.

It might as well be perfect, you're really just fighting against RNG at this point. This run was extremely satisfying to watch.

It is mostly about RNG now, but there is "always" possibility of improving execution and strategy. This run was 23seconds improvement which is something I would doubt before. I will not go any further here:).

But I improved one more run. 13 seconds on level 8! Feels good!

Also, I played L22. I remember, when I did it in 2:53 2 years ago or so I thought I will never ever do it better. Took me some time to repractice it, but then I managed to do 6 faster runs just in one day. Best one is 2:49 (maybe 48). Anyway, I'm not satisfied at all yet..

After 3 more 2:49 runs, I did 2:44. Once I could do even 2:41, but I stupidly died in reactor room although I had 50 shields when entering. Very unnecessary. But I take it, I'm fine with 2:44. 2:40 feels as a realistic max for me. Under 40 is technicaly possible for sure, but crazy to achieve.

L8:
This one is one of the harder levels for speedrunning.
At start you can see I shoot way too many lasers to drillers protecting blue key. That is because there is also lifter exactly behind them. Blue doors area is sometimes totaly random because of roaming, but that doesn't happen that much often, when you are fast enough. Everything went smoothly, also I was doing really great with shields. The rest of the level is very problematic due to its randomness. There is like infinite possibilities what can happen in that opened area around red doors. So many robots and basicly everyone is roaming. Practicaly it can't go much better than in this run. I could skip killing that driller protecting exit and go immediately other way, tho, but that is not a big deal. Part close to yellow doors is also random. Spider and both drones like to roam and they are very often lost somewhere. For a good run you need them to stay on your way to yellow doors and that fortunately happened here. Matcen area before red key is also random. Best strategy I have found is killing brown hulk in the middle by homers. You have to wait for a second, otherwise other hulks start moving like crazy. Then quickly kill these hulks and silently enter doors to red key. If spider notice you, you are in deep trouble. Once you enter key room, both drones are roaming. In this case they both followed me, which is great. At that point I knew there is a big chance of a good result. And it was actually even better than I thought. I take 5:03 for sure.


L:22
This one is much easier to finish than L8. So it means it should be more optimised and I went for it. The very beginning of this run wasn't good - I didn't get any homer's after killing first red mech. That means I lost a second during fighting heavy driller. Killing all the light drillers + one blue drone went nicely, also killing red mechs protecting blue key was nice. During trying I developed strategy how to have bigger probability of not being smashed by their missiles like crazy. Small details that can't be noticed at all play a big role. I lost anothet second in yellow key area, but I was actually lucky the run was not completely over here. Three of PTMC robots here are moving randomly here, three others are always at the same place. The shot I made while picking up a cloak killed 2 robots. You can't see it at all, the second robot came into the projectile way in the last possible moment:). I would reset it otherwise. Very random part is in that opened space. 4 spiders and 2 drones can be at very different places, and also baby spiders can make big difference. In this case it was overaly really nice. Tricky part here is the room with heavy drillers and green hulks. You don't want open the doors earlier, which is actually not easy when they are spiders infront of that door. When you open the door while fighting spiders, you have very hard time, heavy drillers easily smash you hard. Scary part is charged fusion shot to red mech from distance. It can be missed easilly, I lost a lot of tries because of that. First shot in reactor room is to kill platform robot. Man, I missed this shot so many times for some reason.. In this case there was also a heavy driller on the way as a bonus. If you don't fail first shot and don't die while entering that room then you should be fine. While killing last heavy driller I took pack of missiles for faster reactor kill. Final time 2:44.

You should put this link to speedrun.com in your signature:

https://www.speedrun.com/descent1/individual_levels

Once again I proved myself I'm still improving when I recently tried L7. That level feels so easy now. I improved my time really quickly 4 or 5 times. Best run was 16 seconds faster than old one. I take it. Going faster is hard, mainly because of boss fight. Vid soon..

Kinda surprised this thread is still going.

Avder wrote: ↑Sat May 22, 2021 1:55 am Kinda surprised this thread is still going.

Hey, Avder. This thread was "dead" many times during last years, but I always came back after some time and pushed it closer to limits. All levels were improved multiple times. I still have two more runs I didn't post here yet (L4 and L7), so I will do so. I don't plan push it more, but I already told that a few times in past, so there is a chance I will change my mind again. For example I'm not very happy with secret level 3..

L4:
Improved a few times during a session. Best run was 6 seconds faster than old rec. After that I stopped, I'm fine with the run. Easy level, but one green hulk is annoying, he is "always" at different place. This time in energy center which is best option in my eyes. Also you have to be carefull about energy. I usually run out of it in reactor room. It happened also in the run. Fortunately not during a fight, but just after it.


L7:
I improved this one a few times aswell. Final run 16 secs faster. First a bit tricky place is area with blue doors. You have to carefully get rid of 2 green hulks and spider, then
kill red mech. Each homer push him deeper, so you have to be slowly changing your position. If you don't move down enough, you will miss him, if you move way too much, he will got you. Yellow key area was a bit messy. If you are fast enough, like in this run, both cloaked lifters often don't rush at you in corridor and rather stay close to red mech guarding yellow key. It is annoying. They ate some homers, so I didn't have enough for red mech. The way I killed him was totaly random. I didn't want lose more time and I was just hoping he won't shoot me. After taking invuln and going to secret area with energy center, you are hoping for no cloak drop by cloaked lifter, because then you have to wait for the next one, which is really needed to take. In this run, it went the right way. Before taking that needed cloak in blue doors, I took a few missiles, which was totally unnecessary, cost me 2 seconds. I was used to take them from my previous runs and didn't realize I don't really need it. Following part can't be done faster, because if you are fast enough, you have to wait for 2 more cloaks. Be on time at first one is easy, the next one is harder to reach, but it went well and I was there. Close to end part I'm always a bit scared of that bomb trap for drones, but I think it always worked for me. What is much worse is matcen before reaching boss arena. Here bombs don't work that well. That spawning works very differently in each try. This time it didn't go well, but it could be much worse, you can be stuck there for more time, if the first robot is not killed by bombs. I lost about 2 seconds. Final arena went great. Everyone was killed quickly + boss cooperated very well.

It has been a few months ago, but I didn't postit here, so... I improved L7 again. Someone gave me a tip on youtube, how to improve my route. So obvious! You can pretty much skip the cloack in blue doors. It saves over 10 seconds. Maybe even 15. There was no serious trouble to learn it without the cloack. Then I realised one more optimalisation is possible, but it requires lucky RNG. I spent many hours on it, but at the end I gave up. You can skip destroying brown hulk through the window when you are going for yellow key and hope both of them will togehter roam up to the corridor so you can kill them very quickly in blue doors. But it happens so rarely and it saves just 2 seconds or so. I have never combine it with lucky boss fight. I remember I did over 10 runs in 5:18 - 5:21. Some of them with that rare strat, most without. But then I somehow managed to jump to 5:14 (old rec before new route was 5:40), after that I stopped, I'm fine with it for sure. Most parts went really well, just one spider (unlucky spread of baby spiders) was bad. And I lost 2 seconds in end. For some reason I "misread" my position and went to the exit from bad side. I should turn around instead. But in the other hand I could easily die, Boss is shooting even after death and there were many projectiles. It happened multipletimes to me that I died just a fraction of a second before reaching the exit. And even with that wasted 2 seconds it was still my second best boss arena EVER. It went incredibly well. I'm not going to improve this level anymore.

Ah yes, probably was the better move to go counter-clockwise at the end toward the exit even though it was slower. You're just fighting RNG at this point anyway. After watching so many of your videos I've determined the real challenge isn't the flying and shooting, it's the route optimization.

It is still much harder to execute the plan than find it:). I found many strats later, because years ago I was not skilled enough and I simply thought I can't use some faster solutions. But yeah, once you stick with some route for serious time, then you can be easily blind to different and better way. That is why I checked my runs from time to time after innactivity just to think about some fresh ideas.

When we speak about skipping cloacks, it is pretty much possible to skip cloak in level 18. But it saves just a few seconds and it makes things much harder. At the end I refused to use that skip. In level 16 even 2 of my cloaks can be skipped. It would save about 9 seconds in total. But this level is extremely hard to speedrun due to heavy RNG. The chance of better run is really low anyway.

New route for secret level 3! Not sure how much is it faster, but it has to save 10 seconds at minimum, 15 maximum I guess. Anyway final improvement from old run (my oldest run of all levels) is by 28 secs. This map would be really fun to speedrun if there was not that much roaming. In the run you can see I failed smart missile shots. You can kill all 3 of PTMC robots, but you have to be very precise. The shape of tunnels where are these robots is very unnatural, and you very easily hit the wall because of it. I lost 3-4 secs because of that. The mega shot in reactor room was meant for red hulk, but roaming spider ate it. Not an end of the world, since you can kill that red mech with invulnerability while going back. I knew I was missing both of roaming heavy drillers and was hoping they will be in that large open space. Good for me, they were! Supervisors at the very end cooperated perfectly. It was best end I could ask for. Final time 3:25. It should be possible to do 3:20 for me, but I wasn't able to combine great RNG with no mistake run.

Your Fusion control and timing is incredible. I was never able to get good with Fusion. I can clear levels with it, but I always pump it and never charge it.

Charging the fusion is very useful. What exactly is the problem for you? You have trouble with ship shaking? Or is it for some reason against the intuition for you? You can believe me, once you learn it, you will have a lot of fun with it:).

I tried that level one more time today evening and improved by 3 secs. Then I realised I didn't take the extra life from supervisor, it was just barely in the exit tunnel. So annoying.

Marvin wrote: ↑Tue Jan 11, 2022 5:56 pmYou have trouble with ship shaking?

That's exactly it. Fusion blobs are big and single cube tunnels are small. It's easy to misfire and waste energy with the fusion. the charging takes even more energy and the shaking reduces accuracy, so it just seems like a bad trade off when pumping still gets good results. I think I would feel differently about fusion if I were part of the multi-player days, but as a single player guy I mostly just use Q4 lasers and concussion missiles.

The trick to aiming charged fusion accurately in D1 is to only actually aim for your target right about when you are done charging, modest control inputs cancel out the shake. So you deliberately point a little away from the target, say slightly above and to the left, then right as you have reached the desired charge level start turning towards the target and fire as the reticle passes over it. Tightening up your aim with slides will also help (especially if you use them to fine tune the firing position more towards the middle of the cube so it is less likely to hit the walls as it is traveling). You can actually see Marvin doing this while charging in that video.

Krom wrote: ↑Wed Jan 12, 2022 4:16 pm...then right as you have reached the desired charge level start turning towards the target and fire as the reticle passes over it.

My mind is blown by this tip, wish I would have know 25 years ago, haha. Better late than never I guess.

That is indeed good advice. In open space the best aiming technique is by sliding. At least for me. Basicly you are evading shots by robots and aiming at the same time.

Since I was not satisfied enough and had the momentum on this level, I thought I should try it again. I did so, and improved from 3:25 to 3:18. Nice RNG and no major mistake this time. I thought 3:20 would be nice, so it is actually beyond expectations:). Btw if you are asking why I do kind of wierd movement when entering that large area (from doors where are hostages), it is because otherwise it activates both matcens (drilers and brown hulks).

Watching all these speedruns makes me wonder, would a 60 power Fusion have played a big role in D2 100% speedruns? Fusion is not only weak in D2, but also given to the player rather rarely, but making it 60 power again would still have made a world of difference in continuous playthroughs I think.

Maybe, but not only was fusion less powerful, but most of the d2 robots had more hp too, so even 60 power fusion isn't as dominating as it was in d1.

It has been over 2 years since I played. I'm back with one more improvement. I rewatched my runs and realised I'm really not satisfied with Level 3 run. Old run was 3:09. After multiple improvements I got 2:49. Still not perfect, but I don't think I can go under 2:45 in any case, so I take it.