Regarding the earlier topic of BGs and ITT and potential for just having ITEM to save time picking up items - I found out that the ITEM ability is apparently impossible to unlock at level 3 BodyGuard. It apparently only has a chance of unlocking at higher levels. sadge.

So what i did is reset the internal clock to the same time before I loaded each attempt. So my thought is it is probably based on ITT at time of pickup, but either the window you have to pick it up are shorter (the window being two seconds or less) or there are other calls to RNG that are made in that time frame that are a little different each time. Like I could see there being calls to RNG during loading to determine the exact placement of troops loaded in or to determine ai behavior.

We'd need to have frame perfect control over loading times and and input timings to fully know which of the two it is. But I can say for sure that the ITT trick does not have the same consistency on field item pickups as it does with the BG trick.

So I don't think the time it takes to complete a stage has any impact on the weapons or items you picked up in the field like it does for the BG ITT trick. I tested this on Battle of Liang Province which has two items and a weapon. I Interimed after picking up the first solo item crate and weapon and pre-broke the second item crate to give me as much consistency on pickup after loading the interim as possible before picking up the second item. The item and weapon I picked up before Interim saving never changed once but the second item after did.

I suppose it's possible that for some reason the game's interim save process itself generates the item rolls and saves the results. It'd be difficult for a human to test that on console directly. I can say Interiming multiple times does not change items and weapons that were already picked up. But I think it's more likely that the item is just generated when you pickup the item in field. There might be some variation with when I picked it up, which is the hard thing to actually control for given the time it takes to load the game, get into the continue menu and collect the item.

We could test this on emulator though very easily. We would just need to pickup and item and then save state instead of interim saving. Then if we beat the level multiple times without the item changing, it's safe to say it is definitely rolled for on pickup, whereas if it does change it is safe to say it is rolled for while Interim saving. That actually would be useful information to know for sure.

I did some testing on the RNG manip. I was able to verify that items and weapons are determined at time of pickup. So if you interim before picking up, they are re-rolled each scum and if you interim after pickup it stays the same. I also verified it does not matter when the crate is open, so you can pre-open crates. The place where save scumming weapons/items would probably be the most viable would definitely be Battle of Liang. I could see a strat where you wait to open the crates until after you almost defeat Dong Zhuo, then Interim before picking up the weapon. But honestly with the load times of resetting it might just be better to just reset the whole run if you're fishing for 5:25.

I tried to see if I could abuse ITT to get the same item over and over if I Interim before picking up the item over and over again (with the hope it was the same item, which would suggest maniping would be at least possible). I think there might be something to this, as I got the same 3 items with the same stats multiple times, but it might be too sensitive for human players to hit consistently or there might be some factor effecting it that I haven't been able to account for. Or my luck might have just been insane getting the same 3 items. It's hard to tell. We'll probably need to TAS to see if this is even theoretically possible.

Also the juggling amounts seem to be correct.

Nvm, I found it in a forum somewhere. I'll have to verify it later if no one else has.

• normally +1 killed with an 8-hit combo drops +2
• normally +2 killed with an 16-hit combo drops +4
• normally +4 killed with an 24-hit combo drops +8
• normally +8 killed with an 32-hit combo drops +8

I think sometimes buffs are dropped in pre-determined locations (I noticed I consistently get a mosou full for 10 seconds on Battle of Jie Ting near Sima Yi and Xu Huang so you can use it to also kill the optional Xu Huang while also killing the required Sima Yi you can get an extra +8 w/o much time-loss). I'm gonna have to do a slow playthrough to check if there are any more of these predetermined Mousu Full for 10 seconds near +4 generals, especially early in the run.

Wait, they can drop +16?!

Do we know how much juggling is required for each?

oooof that's super unfortunate. If you make it to redhare w/o tiger amulet, you should just cut your losses on tiger amulet. Honestly, I wanna say at least a third of the time saved from Tiger amulet occurs during Ma Chao's Mosou Mode. After Ling Tong, 20 attack is really only the difference of one extra attack here or there. This is really useful info though, I am going to update my notes to remind me to keep an eye out for whether the BG gets that 1/8 chance of getting an ability during Battle of Yi Ling. Because it would definitely be worth not dropping him until after Ling Tong (rn i drop him after Ma Chao). I was actually planning on just skipping all but the extremely easy item boxes all together after Ling Tong or Xiahou Dun, tiger amulet or not. I haven't pinpointed exactly when it makes sense to stop trying, but it seems to be pretty early in the run.

I do kinda wanna investigate what it would take to RNG manip picked up weapons, just because a good weapon is maybe a 2-3 minute difference on Battle of Tong Gate (and given how easy tong gate can just fall, would really help runs actually finish), but it sounds like it'll take a lot of research. We might need to TAS Battle of Liang to get more insight to what factors we need to control for. I hope it's separate seed from animations or ai behavior, but it's possible it is if it is different than the ITT trick. Friday I plan on running a couple tests to at least try and find out when the item is determined. Like if it's determined at item pickup or at the end of a fight, maybe we can interim out and reset the clock and get a consistent outcome.

Also, in DW5, are stat drops sometimes doubled? Or is it fixed? I seem to remember if you killed an officer during an 8x juggle, they drop double stats (max 8) but i can't remember if that was this game or an earlier DW game. I want to mark out all the stat drops we get so I can route out which ones not to wait on. RN I just have it marked whether they drop +attacks period.

Ooooo so there are manips in this game.... I see some issues with this in a new save playthough though. The first is that the procedure says we need a character with at least 40,000 experience? Is that just to improve consistency in how fast it takes to defeat a level? It also says we already need a bodyguard with Hire, Item or Find. If these are requirements I don't think this particular table would be relevant to speedrunning Any%.

However, I wonder if we can manip items picked up in a map but just have to spend some time mapping which items correlate with which times? Do we know if the RNG is only advancing at the end of levels? If so, this could lead to time saves on both Hard and Easy.

If we can somehow manip Battle of Liang to always give us a 3rd stage, light weapon, we might be able to skip getting the fourth weapon and save a few minutes on Easy mode, or make getting a 4th stage weapon easier on hard mode. And then maybe we can manip Battle of Tong Gate to always give us a decent (even if not level 20) tiger amulet. Assuming this manip could consistently work for in game pickups (and we just have to map out the times). Idr if the last level of Ma Chao's mosou mode is 5star difficulty, but I don't know if it would be worth waiting to get tiger amulet even if that was the case. I think it'd be better just to have tiger amulet ASAP, even a level 10 tiger amulet I think would be enough to be a huge improvement.

Do we know if this only works for Item/Find/Hire (the method, not the table)? Do we know what advances RNG for items picked up in battle? And do we know if experience of the character has any impact at all on the pickups? The thing I am confused about - is the guide says luck gives better items - but if this method is maniped by time alone, maybe Item/Find/Hire is treated completely differently than items picked up in the stage. I'm also curious if the length of time it takes to start a level or finish a level impacts this at all. Even on the second playthough, Tong Gate is not the most consistent level to finish at a specific time due to depth of field issues, but I'd obviously rather pick up an item then instead of waiting for Yi Ling (which is more consistent, but is one stage later). I think in theory it would make sense to try and manip both - one for Tiger Amulet, one for Horned Helm.

Ya no worries, mate - I hope you feel better. My condolences Shred.

I think in regards to last option: My vote would be to make the category rule "You must play every stage on at least X difficulty", but I wouldn't argue against a different ruling. You're essentially balancing the Any% mentality inherent in the overall category against the desire for the challenge inherent in restricting the game to Hard/Chaos. Not a super clearcut decision, although I think I'd lean toward the restriction.

As someone who is looking at the Hard Mode route, thankfully, I don't think we're in danger of an easy mode freemode being worth it it in terms of being optimal anyways (at least on Hard, can't say for Chaos). Since the three unique items are all picked up on mosou modes that are required to unlock characters anyways, it would be unlikely, especially for Green Scroll and Red Hare to be faster to unlock on easy and then replay on hard, than just playing through on Hard.

There's potential that doing a easy freemode HuangZhong's first level on easy mode could be ever so slightly faster than doing it on Hard Huang Zhong, saving and quitting like the current route. Mostly because Ma Chao starts in a slightly better location and would have 4th weapon and would already have red hare, so I could see a possibility for it to be faster doing it twice, but I think it's unlikely and I wouldn't try to route it myself even w/o the restriction. It just seems too slow to me.

Then there's the potential of doing a quick freemode for stats gains that is always bumping around in my mind. There are certain levels where we could potentially grab a lot of items and stats quite quickly (Guan Yu's escape comes to mind). No idea if the additional stats and items would be worth the timeloss though, I kind of doubt it though. Even the importance of tiger amulet seems to fall off, so spending time grabbing ~ +30 attack at the the cost of a whole level just seems slow.

I also went through all the items to look to see if there were potentials for any other unique items when I was routing, but the only useful ones seemed to be Demon Band and Way of Mosou. Way of Mosou I actually tried routing it in, just doing it on Huang Zhong's mosou mode but ended up dropping it out of the route for not really being worth it by the time you can actually grab it. And then Demon Band just comes way too late since CaoCao, SunJian and LiuBei all have to be completed it looks like. And then the orbs are all on Hard anyways.

In regards to any% no unlockables - I think the optimal character would be Huang Zhong. It's the only mosou mode where you unlock a horse in their first stage.

I actually think easy mode sub 4:30 is possible which would actually be hype if we can get. I free moded to get an early 4th weapon on ma chao which added like 6 mins or something but it ends up recovering half of it on ma chao alone over having heavy 3rd weapon. But a light 3rd weapon pickup on battle liang could be close enough - id be interested in grinding for it just to see if free mode could be skipped if your rng is just insane enough

I really wanna see what veteran runners think about the run, cause i probably am missing rages and spending too much time item searching or am not using p1 efficiently.

The potential for the route to be optimized feels endless

Hi shredmachine, congrats on the lu xun pb.

waiting on moderators to approve the pending runs before i continue my unlock all grinds. I got a sub 4:56 on easy and a 5:43 on hard. I think both can drop ~10 mins with a little more grinding. But i wanna make sure the methods i used to drop times are officially good before i continue grinding.

congratulations!

I just got a 5:43:58 on Hard mode for Unlock all Characters (pending review)

2 player mode on easy seems like it would also be the strat.

Can we clarify in the category rules if easy mode means "at least" easy mode or if it means "only" easy mode? 4th Weapons can only be unlocked on hard mode. I could actually see it making a difference to play Ma Chao on Hard mode exclusively to get his 4th weapon, or even ducking out after stage 1 just to pick it up in free mode before replaying the stage in his mosou mode. I also compared the Battle of Liang Province between my run and Bibi's easy mode run, Hard Mode gives more experience. So there's potential to get all characters as fast as possible in an Any% fashion could actually mean swapping between difficulties.

Oh ya, i didn't mention it but i was using the wrong livesplit layout. Liu Bei was routed to not occur until after Sun Jian. So if you are following my splits, Liu Bei's "split" was actually when we finished Lu Xun, and Lu Xun's was Sun Quan's etc until we did Liu Bei's split after Sun Jian's split. This was supposed to give me an extra bathroom break, but due to some issues with Battle of Chang Ban, it did not.

hmmm i can try to beeline to the exit with liu bei on the run. It's strange that wasn't part of the easy unlock all % run. When i did my practice run i only ran past the southern base. I didn't go all the way up the last little exit nub. I'll try that with Liu Bei next time.

I think you might be onto something with the peasants. Maybe it's peasant units that trigger it?

hmmm i found a list of some of the conditional events. I wonder if this is somehow related. Like if the level logic is scripted to intentionally give players a chance to activate certain events, even though events are turned off. It could be worth testing if getting the conditions of these events on purpose makes the level happen faster...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ps2/925558-dynasty-warriors-5/faqs/36652

Specific to the discussion might be the fire attack, Zhuge Liang and Liu Bei's conversation near Guan Yu after he arrives, Guan Ping also appears to have an optional event that can trigger with Liu Bei.

The guide doesn't say what exactly is trigger Cao Cao's arrival. It could be anything. But it's definitely not immediately after Liu Bei reaches a certain point. I had assumed it was a timer after killing Liu Qi or a timer after Liu Bei reaches a certain spot on the map, but I'm not certain what it is yet.

I see, so in my case - it's Zhuge Liang (w/ Ma Chao) and then again with Liu Bei (w/ Ma Chao). I guess it would be good to know w/ Huang Zhong as well as that's the next viable 2p to main.

So I guess I meant more like, if I just leave Liu Bei where he is, will Cao Cao never show up? Or does Liu Bei have to get to a certain point on the map to set a flag? In the easy version of the category, bibi use LiuBei to just go around the map killing people and its not clear what's being triggered. Like I'm wondering if Liu Bei is the trigger for Guan Yu arrival and that starts the countdown to Cao Cao? Or is it Zhao Yun talking to Liu Bei? Or maybe it's just timers based on killing a specific officer?

Oh ya, I realized Battle of Chang Ban (Shu) has some time built in for bathroom breaks. Enough so, I am considering doing Liu Bei after Sun Jian just to spread out the time.

Is there any specific reason we do Liu Bei right after Zhuge Liang?

Also on the topic of Chang Ban, is liu bei themselves required to get to certain areas to trigger events? Is it trigger off of Zhao Yun making it to certain areas? Or is just total rng? like how does that battle work, exactly?

Oh and on the topic of 2p and NG+, I was looking and while as a rule, it would be faster to play 1p mode as the intended character, there may still be some individual levels faster on 2p mode if you got really really really good at controlling two controllers. Specifically when you're doing levels where the commander has to trigger events or when there are two objectives on opposite sides of the map.

Another thing NG+ routers might want to look at is starting positions of p2. In NG+ easy, the inactive player will never really be in danger, so there might be some instances where a 2p is in such a significantly better position than p1 that it is worth the extra menus. I imagine this is extremely rare though, it takes a while to add and remove 2p, so you'd need a pretty massive benefit.

For NG anthology, I can see 2p actually being more viable, even on easy, but especially on hard. But I think on NG+ it will only ever be specific levels 2p mode is actually good on.

oh, you can guard to set it up easier? That would be really nice. I was just continuing to run into the post from the side parallel to the wall and then turning into it. If I am facing the barrier and the no horse icon didn't appear yet, I assumed I got it. But I don't know what mechanism is at play at all, so I could be totally wrong on how it works. A video explaining it would be really nice.