@Pallas-Athene

What do you think about broadening the classification from True / False over to True / False (Exploits) / False (Hacks)? Despite my original uncertainty, after reviewing the latest speed runs, I agree that the ones using no exploits should remain separate. But I think using minor bugs and exploits should also be separate from outright hacking. Character hacking will entail very different mechanisms to save time; plus this breakdown would give a nice 30min/20min/???min summary for the best times.

@453

As far as I can tell, Ake will talk to you as long as no other NPC is on the screen. I've had her tell me everything through the window if the other NPCs are out of sight, but it's definitely easier to go into the house.

You're right about Ayrit vs. simply using the tunnel. I'm afraid to wander around in the tunnels because of ooze and moss — both of which have caused me trouble in these speed runs. I like how Ayrit gets me away from danger, but it does waste precious time.

Crabs are glitchy. I believe its in the failed video that they started to take on human sound effects for being hit and killed, and yes, they started being treated as blood at one point!

Charax has given me a lot of grief. What I've learned from all this is to let sleeping mages lie...

@Buzzzzy said in Cythera Speedruns:

You might be able to talk to Stentor through the window and then head back into the sewers, though (eliminating the need to bash/bomb the door).

I was really amused by this mental image: Stentor and Bellerophon shouting at each other through the window from across the screen.

@Buzzzzy, I've accidentally triggered the engine's time counter a couple times, but I don't know what key it actually is. How do you get that prompt to appear? (The message with total time played, number of times launched, engine version, etc.)

I feel like we've really honed in some great speed running strategies in this thread. At this point, I'd say if you want to play the game as fully intended, you're looking at about a 30min run. If you don't mind using a few minor exploits here and there, you can trim it down to about 20min. So the main question left is an outright hacking speed run: ghosts, teleporters, starting with key items in your inventory, etc.

@Troyen said in Frozen Heart:

I wanted to tag it "The Retsy Chronicles" as that's the name of the series, but there's a 15-character limit.

There is a way to change it, so I put it up to 25 chars. I'm betting you can edit the tags in your post and have it update. Not sure though.

You're right, the underground path basically traces along the mountains. So it's probably nearer the headwater ruins area.

That's incredible, @Buzzzzy! 👏 It's become clear to me that you are the speed running master of Cythera! The ingenuity of these ideas and the execution of everything, it's truly excellent.

I wasn't sure if it could be cut to 20 without some other major change, but you've trimmed out just enough. I'm especially happy that you can catch Charax before he goes to bed. The puts the in-game record at something like 13 hrs.

@Pallas-Athene said in Cythera Speedruns:

I went looking in the code to see if I could find any shortcuts. For example, the Opheltius murder (state 3) progresses as follows:

1. Murdered; Halos thought guilty
2. Halos cleared (Charax can only proceed so far until this point; this must be the origin of the belief that he needs some time to study)
3. Pelagon implicated (goes to Grotto)

Really good to know that Charax ties into the murder. For me and Selax, it would definitely affect our order, but for other play styles, one may never notice.

(Also, there’s something about Eudoxus’s note in his code—can you progress with just that?)

Maybe that just enables an additional response. In my experience, if you don't pick up the note from Eudoxus' body, Halos won't respond to "Note". Good question though: if you only pick up the note and don't get Ariadne, is that a loophole?

The Ariadne kidnapping (state 1) progresses through:

1. Learned from Guard (at this point, you can get Ask Halos about Comana from Propontis)
2. Killed Eudoxus
3. Ariadne joined
4. Returned to Odemia (dead or alive). If you return with a corpse, though, that sets state flag 3, though, which I believe prevents you from getting the pipes.

I'm surprised to see killing Eudoxus as part of the progression, so I went back to see if Ariadne says something different while he's alive. She doesn't, and he doesn't seem to mind that we freed her:

I left him alive when taking her back to Odemia too, and no one seems to act differently.

@Buzzzzy said in Cythera Speedruns:

After some experimentation, the necessary prompt for Glaucus is, bizarrely, "name." With Jhiaxus, it's "honor" and "Bahoudin". Jinrai and son aren't needed.

Thanks for figuring that out! I'm glad I've been running through the whole dialog with Glaucus because "name" is the first thing I would have ignored. Now that we know, it can save a little time.

@453 said in Cythera Speedruns:

If you're going to cheat your character species, go with a ghost :P Can fly, and also invincible.

Now there's an idea! It'd be pretty fun to wander around finishing everything without needing to worry about enemies.

• I'm not a fan of asking followers to "attack target" because it seems to undue whatever other strategy you asked them to do.

It's definitely problematic in a speed run. I'm growing to like Attack Weakest, but it still seems like they don't automatically trigger until I start getting attacked. I'd like them to be more proactive.

• You took an extra step to get the seldane disks placed. I honestly always do it the same way and never considered other solutions to that simple little puzzle.

That's the order from the hint book (pg. 46), which I also put on Cythera Guides' key, but watching Buzzy's video, I realized it's definitely an unnecessary step. In my next speed run, I adopted the more compact method.

• When trying to find Alaric through the locked door later: You’re searching way too high ^_^ Seems faster to bash the door, if you’d grabbed Eudoxus’ mace..

Instead of the door bash, Buzzy demonstrated a great way to get bombs early, so I'm liking the idea of using one of those to blow the door. It saves the need to search blindly. In my original notes, I was going to the trouble of getting more bombs but never using them.

• Why (in the polyp cave) did you move light-staff from Timon to you? Is it because you knew he'd die?

Sadly, my followers aren't enjoying a high survival rate in these attempts. At least they're dying for a cause! (saving me time 😛)

• You skirted the coast to get to Charax’s house. This confused me, I actually thought you must be going to the scylla temple, but I couldn’t see how that would be worthwhile in a speedrun. Is the coastal route less likely to be ambushed by polyps?

No, I just hadn't worked out which distance was less until seeing it on Buzzy's and checking the map.

• The ending was sad. The first two times you used Awaken on him were fine, but when he tried to go to his distiller, he accidentally went outside and couldn’t figure out how to get back in… The moral of this story is, don’t wake up scientists from a dead sleep and ask them to perform huge world-changing experiments. (He was even labelled "person sleeping" while you talked to him, he was obviously not fully awake). I do wonder if you had locked the door shut (or blocked it), maybe it would have worked?

I may have to try this. I'm betting the problem lies with him being flagged as asleep but needing to initiate a dialog when up by the distiller. Maybe it will work if he's locked in or maybe attacking him is the only way?

That's an intriguing thought. Here's the layout on the main map:

I don't see much similarity with the brazier layout, although 1-6 kind of have the same general idea. They look more like a star pattern, or like the points of a stick figure person, with 7-10 off to the side. It almost reminds me of a constellation or something.

@Selax said in Cythera Speedruns:

Some very impressive times being posted here. I hadn't actually considered the idea of a speedrun, but it seems a lot of time-saving strategies are being found. I'm curious what the shortest in-game time has been.

Shortest in-game is almost exactly 1 day. So far, there's no easy way to get everything to Charax before nightfall, and trying to give it to him overnight has been... problematic.

@Pallas-Athene said in Cythera Speedruns:

I would say that Remote Manipulation is definitely not intended to work that way. Using it to pull a lever makes sense, but using it to activate a map transition is akin to teleporting. I’ve classified this as a “False” run above.

That's a reasonable argument. I'm still on the warpath for that perfect speed run: no sleeping, no saving, shortest in-game and real times. Regardless of the usage of remote manipulation, the biggest problem remaining is Charax! I wonder about BW's idea of using Awake with the door locked? 🤔

@Buzzzzy said in Cythera Speedruns:

Yeah, I was surprised at how little you really need to talk to Halos. Just telling him someone sent you is enough.

I've been too scared to cut the dialog down much, but when we're talking about making every second worthwhile, it'll be necessary. To that end:

• What exact prompt is needed from Glaucus for the wine question to work with Palaestra? Is it just "ruined"?
• What prompt is needed from Jhiaxus for the Honor Jinrai quest? Just Jinrai?

So far, it sounds like:

• Halos needs either Propontis or Ake.
• Itanos needs Stentor and Idomenus (at least to open the way).
• Pelagon needs Stentor or Dead.
• Lindus needs Crystal (for Timon).
• Palaestra needs wine, teach, and Charax (I found that Sabinate wouldn't give me the mushroom once without first going to Charax since I hadn't prompted Charax with Palaestra)
• For Magpie to respond to Bahoudin, Jhiaxus must be asked about both Son and Bahoudin I believe. Maybe Son isn't needed?

Following Buzzy's lead to get into the 4th Degree Hall, I decided to put Remote Manipulation to good use:

23 min. speedrun

I also adopted his excellent ideas of getting the bombs in LKH and doing the murder directly before going to Pnyx and Timon. I like this layout, although lost a few seconds throughout due to little errors on my part, like not using the spell hotkeys and letting the Ooze trap me for a moment.

I'm not entirely sure how to classify this run. On the one hand, Remote Manipulation is designed to work this way; one is even required to make use of it in game (e.g. Tyrant's Tomb). On the other hand, it does bypass an intended quest, although we've been bypassing huge portions of quests (like repeat visits to Charax) from the beginning of this endeavor.

I can see minor optimizations on this strategy trimming off maybe another minute at the most. Is there any possible way we can get down to under 20 minutes?

At any rate, I've been very amused by all this speed running, and I'm hoping to see more!!!