Edit: Apparently training disciplines are prerequisites for missions and I had forgotten. My mistake. See next post.

Hello! This is Lex, long-time WA player and holder of various unassisted and tool-assisted mission records ( https://worms2d.info/Mission_records ) throughout the years.

I noticed that in Pichi's "All Missions" speed run, he does the training disciplines. Those are meant as tutorial levels, not missions, and even the game itself doesn't call them missions, instead referring to them as "training disciplines".

Before the category is too competitive, it should be known to all runners that the training disciplines should not be done for the "All Missions" category.

I was corrected by goom in #worms. Here's our conversation.

[quote]03:34:58 <goom> Lex, completely agree about not doing training first. i understand where he's coming from, a lot of speedruns typically are started from a 'blank state' (clean install of worms), and missions aren't available until you unlock them. 03:41:11 <Lex> goom: ah, i tested it: 03:41:14 <Lex> yup 03:41:31 <Lex> i had completely forgotten about that, i guess because i did it once in 1999 and again in 2002 oslt 03:41:34 <goom> yup 03:41:38 <Lex> so it's been 15 years since then[/quote]

Thoughts: that does make sense to me if the goal is an any% run. But if someone were looking for a missions speed run, I think just the missions would come to mind. And thinking about entertainment value, I'd say we should go for that, since training stages in general are not particularly interesting, and I imagine people mostly want to see one team of worms vs another, duking it out. The missions have just gotten a lot more competitive focus over the years: http://worms2d.info/Mission_records. Whereas not many people have really cared about the training portion.

I agree with you, Mablak. I think doing the missions only would attract more players too, as the basic training disciplines are boring. I personally would be inclined to only do the missions.

On the other hand, I agree with goom and Pichi about being able to start the speed run from a clean slate. Doing the basic training disciplines seems like a formality though.

By the way, it looks like speedrun.com has included the "." in your link to https://worms2d.info/Mission_records .

Also, I am thinking of linking to these speedrun.com leaderboards from there and describing the rules, as a full run of the missions would count as a "mission record".

Speedrun is one word.

That's a discussion for another thread.

Fresh install?? You have to do the basic training before starting missions with every new team you make regardless of how many times you've done them before. Given that it's mandatory, it's effectively the first mission. RTA any% runs are always done with fresh files. That would be equivalent to a new team here rather than a fresh install. I labeled it "All Missions" just for clarity's sake since completion isn't as well-defined in this game.

Also, I find it a bit dubious to suggest that the training is horrendously boring compared to the missions, since they all primarily revolve around movement optimization and ability to quickly recreate specific shots. The deathmatch ones are more hectic and fun, but a lot of the missions aren't like that at all. Do the Locomotion is literally just walking from one side of the map to the other with one fire punch and using a couple tools. Same with Not Mushroom Out There and roping. Pumpkin Problems, too, although I guess the worms do stuff if you're really slow. Super Sheep to the Rescue, Chateau Assassin and Spectral Recovery are all pure movement optimization.

I see, yeah if your goal is an any% run, then you should include training. Although, the training has just never really been called missions in the WA community. Also, I would've brought this up ASAP but didn't know anyone was running!

I agree there are some less entertaining missions, but I'm one of those people that might minimize while someone's shooting targets, since it looks like practice. Another concern though: me and mpu are both practicing to get the big Mexi on mission 1, the 4-turn route on mission 2, and some of the slightly harder/less likely stuff. If mission 1 were the starting point, it would be a little less agonizing to start off with a bang. I'm game for a little suffering, but at the same time, I don't think anything is lost with the training left out; WA players have never really given it any attention.

Maybe separate categories are in order. Not doing basic training disciplines gives an advantage on the earlier missions.

"I want to make a new category so I can skip 2 and a half minutes of what the game makes me do just so I can reset over mission 1 instead" ok lol

I dunno, y'all. I first did these three years ago because the Worms community only did IL stuff and I went by the conventions used for nearly every game in the regular speedrunning community. It's not confusing to anybody in this community what All Missions likely entails, because any% is implied unless otherwise stated (though I guess I could add it to the category name if necessary). I'm not part of your community and did not set up my runs catering to your conventions. If you want to run a "new game+" category so you can save 2:30 on your resets, then go for it. All of you are way better than I am so I'm sure you'll naturally draw more runners from your community regardless.

yeah, i feel like basic training should be included as well.

The game doesn't make you do basic training unless you make a new team. If you want a fresh team for missions, you can just make a backup team file with basic training done, then restore your backup for each new attempt. You can even do it with a 2-line batch file that deletes the team file, WG.WGT, and copies the backup as WG.WGT. It's very quick and painless. Here's the code:

del WG.WGT cp WG.bak WG.WGT

Yeah, so when you start a new "file" playing the game normally, you have to do basic training. That's the entire point. It may not be labeled a mission, but the game clearly establishes it as a mission requirement. You guys never saw it as one, but you only do individual mission runs timing via turn count/turn time, anyway, so I wonder if the question even came up?

I've done the basic training a few times over the years for funzies, but I've only done the basic training to unlock missions twice: once when I got the game in 1999 and again in 2002 when I lost my 100% team file in a hard drive failure and had to start with a new team file. I had completely forgotten that they were required for a new team to do missions.

I'm surprised Mablak hadn't mentioned it when he set out to learn a speed run of all the missions a couple years ago. We discussed it in IRC and he showed me various strategies and whatnot. He even set some new individual mission records within our system, which was surprising considering he was going for real time and learning consistent methods rather than methods tuned for individual mission attempts.

Yeah, my first attempts at learning were in 2013, but I stopped for several years and never listed my runs anywhere (by the time SRC came into existence, I had already forgotten about it mostly). I've mostly just been trying for consistency and have only slightly updated my strats since then. I plan on doing so much more when my time isn't so vastly far behind my best segments. I've practiced a lot of difficult stuff offline that just hasn't made it into play yet.

So, mpu is more interested in the any% route (which is what I'd call it). I think that settles it! I don't want to drag us into an extra category that's almost identical, unless we had a lot of people playing. Korydex has created a Deathmatch category by the way: , brutal. Might attract some of us Inter players though.

Also Pichi, I'm going to be detailing all I know on the TUS site over the next few weeks, the creator MonkeyIsland was nice enough to give us a board: http://www.tus-wa.com/forums/missions-speed-run/. Just a place to discuss optimization; would be happy if you wanted to contribute any methods/improvements there.

Nice! I did it once but so much slower than this and laughably bad that I didn't even make a note of it haha.