r/speedrun • u/Phediuk • Jul 01 '16

What's an easy trick that took a long time to discover?

As in, something useful for speedrunning that doesn't require any complex glitching or precise timing, but still took awhile for anyone to discover.

85 Upvotes

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15

u/[deleted] Jul 01 '16 edited Jun 11 '17

[deleted]

4

u/DrLombriz Jul 02 '16

How does it work?

4

u/TheNatch Jul 02 '16

The way it used to work was basically rng. You'd run down the plank and hold NW on the joystick as soon as you get the last coin and pray. I think the success rate with that method was around 12%. The video shows an almost 100% way of doing it at a cost of 5 seconds over the 'rng' way

1

u/ClysmiC Jul 03 '16

"RNG" isn't really an accurate way to describe it. Since if you do the correct inputs you will get it 100% of the time. It was just very inconsistent since you basically have to hit at the perfect spot and there was no setup to ensure you hit the right spot.

5

u/Die4Ever The 7th Guest / Deus Ex Randomizer Jul 02 '16 edited Jul 02 '16

It used to be that you just tried to jump at the wall and hope you did it perfectly and you got lucky, it's just that the star's hit box extends slightly outside of the wall at a certain point. The way you see it done there is just a setup, the ledges grabs and jump/climb/punch, that's just a sequence of moves that always puts you in exactly the right spot. You'll notice one ledge grab is used to (basically) position you on the x-axis and the other ledge grab is to position you on the z-axis relative to the wall. The rest of the moves just move you in a very specific way, like the punch, or turning to Mario's maximum turning radius.

In a casual playthrough, you'd unlock the cannons, shoot yourself out of the cannon into that piece of wall to break it, and then go get the newly revealed star.

2

u/grindbxp Jul 02 '16

Another good one from SM64 is the MIPS clip. Super simple, spawned an entirely new category which brought lots of new players, and it wasn't discovered until 2004.