Hey. I've been recently playing a lot of Book of Hours. While casually glitching around, I discovered a mechanics loophole that lets you operate workstations with one mandatory slot empty. There's more information on that here:

https://www.speedrun.com/Book_of_Hours/forums/tji1l

Just out of curiosity, I tried this out in Cultist Simulator, and it works there too. Now, it's been years since I last played Cultist Simulator and I'm nowhere near as familiar with its mechanics, but you could probably do some pretty interesting stuff with this in speedruns. One early game example as Aspirant is that you can use Menial Employment over and over again without losing the card, gaining 2 Cash and 1 Health every 10 seconds or so. (Pretty awesome job!)

You can also read a single book repeatedly to gain more and more lore scrap from it. I'm sure there are many other strange interactions too, but testing is still under way.

To do it, click and hold onto a card with left mouse-button, then send the card to nearest verb with right mouse-button, then quickly manually place the card on the verb yourself by moving the mouse and letting go of left mouse-button. This causes the card to first fly into the verb and then return back to its spot (or somewhere nearby) in a boomerang-like fashion. While the card is inside the verb for just a brief moment, the verb can be activated even as the card is already leaving it.

Feel free to give this a try!

EDIT:

Observations on some basic interactions:

• You can use many actions that would normally expend health/reason/passion without expending it.

• you can read books repeatedly to gain their rewards repeatedly.

• you can auction nothing at Oriflamme's and get money for it.

• you can do at least some ritual-type things without expending one of the resources. For instance, in my tests I could reach Grail 7 to promote a follower multiple times in a row with just a basic 2 Grail lore and Silver Spintria.

• you can repeatedly read Bright Young Thing's "Ciphered Diary" to gain 1 Reason and 1 A Red Secret each time.

• buying from Morlands' without cash isn't possible. (You lose 1 cash anyway.)

• recruiting a new person to your cult with no one in the person slot doesn't do anything. (No one gets recruited.)

Still a lot to test.

I've recently been on a Book of Hours binge. After finding a strange softlock during the ending sequence, I started to wonder if the game could have other glitches... and indeed, it didn't take long for me to find something that could probably help in speedruns.

Working title for this glitch is "itemless activation". With precise timing, it's possible to activate many actions which require an item in only 1 slot with the slot empty. So, for instance, you could choose to go swimming without having to fatigue one health.

To do this glitch, open up a window that takes slots. Move an item (object, soul, etc.) inside one of the slots. Click on the item and then hold down the mouse button. Now, when you close the window with 'esc', this will automatically move all items in all slots back to their previous locations. However, your cursor does not get updated until the item's moving animation has finished, so you have a short time when the game thinks you are still grabbing the item, even though it's already on its way somewhere else. Quickly move your mouse just a little bit (it seems that this glitch won't work if you don't move your mouse at all?) and release the mouse button in front of the workstation which can be activated with only 1 slot, then press 'S' to activate the window before the item positions get updated. This starts the workstation without the item.

For an easy way to practice this, you could try dividing change at the Postmistress since it's a short action and you don't lose any items if you mess up the timing. In other words: move a large bill into a slot in the Postmistress window. Click on the bill and hold down left mouse button. Press 'esc' to close the window and immediately afterwards move your mouse a little bit and release left mouse button to re-open the Postmistress window with your glitchy non-existent item. Press 'S' to activate window. The timing is fairly tight.

This doesn't work with every single 1-slot action. For instance, although you can do this trick while renouncing an item, this doesn't save the item from getting slotted in and destroyed.

However, here are the things that you CAN do with the glitch which I've noticed so far:

• You can exchange cash or sell spintria to Postmistress without giving up anything to gain infinite money.

• You can work at Sweet Bones without expending soul or risking maladies during Numa. Or you can hire cheaper workers at Sweet Bone for free.

• You can talk to friendly NPCs while their card stays available for other things. (Maybe helpful for multi-tasking somewhere...?)

• You can learn lv. 1 of any skill without expending a lesson.

• You can examine Inklings without expending them.

• You can swim without expending health or risk maladies during Numa.

• You can get water from the well without expending health.

Other observations:

• I haven't gotten this to work with room unlocking; there's a chance that, much like renouncing, this action immediately just "vanishes" the item in question and thus prevents multiple uses.

• Opening a package with the slot empty results you in getting nothing. The package still exists and can be opened normally.

• Resting a fatigued element of soul at the inn with the slot empty results in a failed outcome even if you insert a tuppence.

• Going to your friend's house with the slot empty results in them giving you the response a non-friend NPC gives at their house if you talk to them without hiring them.

• Some strange interactions regarding Visitors or specific quest items might also be possible (haven't tested those much yet).

EDIT:

Just a few hours later, there's been a breakthrough in the forbidden knowledge of Book of Hours speedrunning! There definitely should be a separate category for this glitch, if anyone is interested enough to use it and if it won't get patched.

I figured out a way to do this glitch (let's just call it "empty slot glitch") at any workstation, allowing you to keep one slot empty when doing any recipe where the number of slots doesn't change drastically. (I.e. where removing an ingredient doesn't delete slots which are necessary for the recipe you are interested in to work.)

The new version of the glitch became possible once I realized this game actually allows you to grab / quick send things with multiple mouse buttons. This means you can do one version of the aforementioned cursor trick by first grabbing an item with LMB, then shift or ctrl + RMB to send it to nearest verb/workstation, then quickly tossing the item to the same workstation... or possibly ambiguously in the range of any magnetic target (it's a bit screen-specific)... to force it to get re-positioned. This makes the item first get sent to the workstation followed by it moving back to its original place automatically, and there's a short time you can press 'S' to operate the workstation while the current recipe is activated but with the item still buffered to move elsewhere.

Maybe it's a bit hard to grasp from a text description alone... I can make a video about it later, if needed.

Observations on "empty slot glitch v2":

• It's possible to do recipes without using memory/soul/skill (pick one). Very useful for saving at least some expensive resources. For example, in my test I could do a Moon recipe with Wormwood Dream without actually spending that memory. However, it seems any physical things like inks and books seem to get "locked" by the workstation in a way that prevents them from getting saved by empty slot.

• It's possible to endlessly re-use lessons.

• During the tutorial, you can use A Drowned Book with Memory: Storm an indefinite number of times to amass a large number of Memory: Chor?, Memory: Shapt? and Memory: Fet? and other elements of the soul. Once game begins proper, at the end of the first day all of these tentative elements of soul turn into actual elements of soul allowing you to start the game with multiples of all the different elements of soul (except Health and Trist).

• As another funny tutorial effect, you can skip giving your friend Health (Half-Drowned). This results in an unused dialogue box from your friend, skips the wait as your health recovers and lets you keep this unique malady soul for the rest of the game.

EDIT:

Still some more observations:

• It's possible to host a Salon with only 1 participant. It always seems to be a quiet one.

• Unfortunately, it seems this tech doesn't help much with exalting friendly NPCs. Offering a beverage with empty slot glitch doesn't work (the beverage vanishes anyway). Exalting with memory with empty slot glitch works, but the ally doesn't actually gain any stats if you don't use a memory. So the biggest gate to completing the game quickly is mostly still there even if you use this tech, although infinite cash and a larger array of available soul elements should streamline the process.

• Reading your diary during the tutorial is like reading any other book: it gets "locked" and its transformation can't be avoided.

• If you keep a Health (Half-Drowned), it will transform into Health (Freezing) once a day has passed. Since this malady soul has the unique "soaked" property, any conjunction where you can put something readable and this health together, the game will assume you're trying to read the soaked diary at the beginning of the game. This action takes 5 seconds and results in nothing.

• You can work at Sweet Bones with Health (Half-Drowned) without gaining fatigue, but the same does not work with Health (Freezing) any longer. (Putting this item in Sweet Bones slots has no response whatsoever.)

EDIT 2:

Small text adjustments. Also... at least some version of this loophole also works in Cultist Simulator.

I recently returned to playing this game. While updating my guide for it, I hit the character limit for Speedrun.com guides... so I thought, that's a bother since I still have so much stuff to add. Therefore, I mostly rewrote the whole thing and moved it on Github.

https://github.com/Nelitarnia/WO3U-speedrun-guide

My current goal is to keep filling the individual character notes in the upcoming weeks. Feel free to give feedback and suggestions.

Just wondering if there was interest in a Dungeons & Diagrams category where you'd complete f.e. 10 randomized The Shadow Caverns dungeons as fast as possible. I was considering of maybe trying this out, just for fun.

You can clip into George's house as early as chapter 2. All the cutscenes, etc. already exist inside the house, and going to the basement ends the chapter and takes you right to chapter 25.

Unfortunately, in our tests when doing this huge skip during chapter 4, we always got an unavoidable softlock after defeating the final boss. Some story flag is still missing? At any rate, it's worth trying this skip in some later part in the game just to see if it ever becomes viable or if it always causes that softlock.

Some days I wish one existed. I'm personally not a heavy Discord-user and don't know about the specifics of making a server. But I'd join if there was some Discord for Warriors/Musou-games -runs.

The full game leaderboards has way too many categories. Could we make NG / NG+ and "all objectives" as sub-categories to make it a bit cleaner?

Also, no one ever asked if I wanted to be a DW6 moderator, but I guess I'll resign to this fate... >_>

Promotions exploit:

In short, once you get one character to lv. 100, you can start freely promoting any characters in the game. I think in a longer speedrun category it would be worth it to even go slightly out of your way to get a lv. 100 character as fast as possible. After all, promotion means upgrade stones, and the related upgrade stone exploit lets you give max stats to characters pretty easily.

"Wallzipping":

This is a glitch that could come in handy situationally. Doing it is pretty inconsistent (except with Zhang He), but it should still help in replacing some infinite jumps in a glitched run for optimization purposes.

While playing yesterday on the unpatched PS3 version I found a kind of break-out from riding a horse. This allows you to fly through entire maps at horse riding speed while ignoring walls (among some other things).

Here's an example skip that can be done with the glitch:

I searched a bit on Youtube but didn't see anything like it, so I presume this is a new glitch? I'll make a more thorough video & explanation about it later. (Have to research it some more first.)

EDIT: a video that explains what the glitch is in more detail. The video description also includes how it's started.

I see the full-game leaderboards feature a category called "any% chapter 8". Rules haven't been defined, but I assume this means you beat the game and then you also complete the additional campaign that starts from Chapter 5?

How about a regular any% category that only requires reaching the first possible ending in Chapter 4? If I ever speedran this game, this is the category I'd start with.

Hey, I was casually glitching this game and found a way to jump infinitely high. I did a quick search on Youtube, but didn't see any videos of something like this. Could this be a whole new discovery?

Here's an example of skipping most of Battle of Odawara Castle using infinite jump:

From what I tested around a little bit in Chapter 1, you can also do skips in Battle of Yiling and Battle of Tetorigawa.

I stumbled upon a fairly universal trick to do 1.5 to 3 times higher jumps than normal. I'm wondering whether this was known already?

(To note, I'm playing on unpatched PS4-version.)

I found a trick that lets the player glitch up the current checkpoint. This usually results in the checkpoint starting without any enemies, and sometimes parts of the level may be missing too, allowing going out of bounds. Or you just get softlocked. It all depends on which checkpoint you are when you do the trick.

The bad part is that setup for this trick takes 25+ seconds, so it's not worth it in a speedrun all that often. However, there's at least one pretty decent fight skip in Chapter 1 that is possible now with this new find.

The time save is at 2:43 of this video (also contains instructions on how to do the trick):

There are at least two potential time saves using checkpoint abuse in Siren any%, but neither is used in runs. Just curious if there is some reason for this?

I asked about it from Shiro earlier. He was uncertain, and suggested that checkpoint abuse might warrant a separate category altogether...

Personally, I'm for using checkpoint abuse in runs (because it's faster and not a major glitch) and don't think a separate category would really be necessary. But it would be interesting to get more opinions on this.

I went to town on Siren using save states and cheats, just to discover some potential new ideas for improvement and to answer some previously unanswered questions I had. Here are some results of these tests...

If you keep shouting frame precisely while strafing or walking backwards, you keep accumulating glitchy speed like with regular Gliding. But this style of movement has some differences too.

As you may know, regular Gliding eventually hits a point after which your glitchy speed is reset. Shout Gliding will work even beyond this point, allowing you to stress walls with even more speed than a normal Glide.

Doing Shout Gliding for long enough against a wall will accumulate a strong negative force, enough to push your character a few meters to the opposite direction in some cases. I don't think something like this happens with regular Gliding against walls. But, while unique, it still hasn't helped breach any walls yet (even after over a hundred frame precise inputs with this movement tactic).

Unlike normal Gliding, Shout Gliding can be done while crouched too because shouting interrupts crouch-movement. You won't get much speed increase while crouched, though.

As another oddity I noticed, doing Shout Gliding while in a freefall makes your character fall down slower than usual, allowing you to move further through air.

Performing Shout Gliding is slower & harder than regular Gliding and makes the character speed increase slower too, so its use (even in a TAS) will probably be somewhat specialized, if any.

Out of curiosity I messed with character coordinates with cheats to access normally inaccessible parts of levels. It took a while, but all levels are now listed and (mostly) verified.

To note, if your character ends up fully out of bounds at any time, they suddenly start falling upwards. The fall can still be interrupted if you move back in-bounds... In other words, in TAS conditions this mechanism could probably be used like a controlled tool for gaining height and moving around the levels freely. The biggest problem so far is getting fully out of bounds without cheats, though - no known way to do it.

• Early Mission 2 ! If it was possible to get past the wooden barrier during Mission 1, you could reach the letter and pick it up. Doing this sends the player to Risa's Day 1 - 04:00 earlier than intended and the Link Navigator scenes are graphically glitched too. To note, completing Mission 2 before even completing Mission 1 leaves the original level as fully "unattempted" in Link Navigator, and you can't directly access it.

• All indoors areas lack collision at the moment and can't be explored. That's a general rule with this game: if something is permanently boarded off in some level, it just doesn't exist.

• No early Mission 2: Getting to the graves during Mission 1 just gives you the generic "mana cross" message and nothing else happens.

• Tried using the Church exit, but there's nothing there but an invisible wall.

• Early Mission 2 ! You can watch the cutscene of the scythe being found even during Mission 1, if you could get inside the Cottage somehow. This sends you to Harumi's Day 1 - 15:00 with glitched Link Navigator graphics.

• No early Mission 2: The prompt to pick up the electric cabinet key doesn't exist during Mission 1.

• Early Mission 2 ! If you could get the Sewer Opening Tool during Mission 1, it would be possible to enter sewers with Yoriko even during Mission 1, completing Mission 2.

• I also tested teleporting both Kyoya and Yoriko into the sewer, but the level doesn't end this way. The Sewer Opening Tool is necessary in any case.

• No early Mission 2?: I recall that you can't defeat Datatsushi with the Homunaragi during Mission 1. But I didn't test it on this playthrough.

• No early Mission 2?: I recall that even if you quickly climb the Fire Tower during Mission 1, you don't get Mission 2 for some reason. But I didn't test it on this playthrough.

• No early Mission 2?: I recall there was something preventing you from completing Mission 2 during Mission 1, but I didn't look into it during this playthrough.

• No early Mission 2: To win Mission 2, you need the faded photograph of Akira Shimura. But Yoriko is unable to find this item in Akira Day 1 - 16:00 until you have beaten this level's Mission 1 already.

• Early Mission 2 ! The album already exists during Mission 1 and can be examined, if you can just reach it. This sends you to Kyoya Day 2 - 07:00 early.

• No early Mission 2: There's nothing really preventing you from going to the Generator with Tamon during Mission 1 already, but there is no cutscene or anything else of importance happening there.

• As another note, if you teleport into the large room with snipers with Kyoya and try to run to the exit, this does nothing either during Mission 1. It does work during Mission 2, though.

• No early Mission 2: going to Takeuchi residence during Mission 1 doesn't do anything.

• No early Mission 2: I could get on top of the shed during Mission 1, but nothing happens there (beyond the automatic camera angle change). I guess using the can is necessary to start the full sequence which completes Mission 2.

• No early Mission 2: If you go to the back room of the Shrine early, it's possible to pick up Tomoko's item even during Mission 1. However, possessing it while finishing the level doesn't seem to give you early Mission 2.

• Early Mission 2 ! If you can somehow enter the well early, the explosives there can be examined even during Mission 1. This sends you to Tamon Day 3 - 22:00 early.

• No early Mission 2: just like in Naoko's Day 1 - 19:00, even if you finish the level with all the Shibito dead during Mission 1, you still won't get Mission 2.

• No early Mission 2: Entering cafeteria early and examining the table during Mission 1 just gives you a generic message about the table being messy.

• Early Mission 2 ! If you could get to the courtyard early, it's possible to push the statue and go to the Hospital basement even during Mission 1. This takes you to Kei Day 3 - 12:00 early.

• I entered the Hospital basement without opening the door with cheats just to look around. The objects in the room have collision, but nothing gives a message when examined. The tied up character (old Miyako?) is already there, but her graphics are a bit glitchy and her hands are empty. Trying to hit her with a weapon is the same as trying to hit a wall - the hit is simply deflected.

• Early Mission 2 ! if you could clip past the locked gate, the alternative exit from the level works even during Mission 1. This sends you to Naoko's Day 1 - 19:00 early.

• The pickaxe can be found inside the shed even during Mission 1, but can't be reached because the shed's door is locked.

• No early Mission 2? I think that you can't get Mission 2 on your first play of this level even if you complete it under the required time limit.

• No early Mission 2: you need Trowel to complete Mission 2, and it doesn't exist during Mission 1.

• Just out of curiosity I went inside the abandoned house. To my disappointment, most of the insides of the house don't even exist at the moment. There's only two small pieces of corridor where the Shibito are banging on the wall. The enemies aren't programmed to notice Risa either.

• No early Mission 2: there's nothing to examine under the sheets during Mission 1.

• Most of the other side of the hospital doesn't exist during this level. Just a part of the corridor with the emergency alarm as well as the room where Shiro & Kei are hanging out.

• The room with Shiro & Kei has a floor, but none of the furniture has collision to it. If you go close to either Shiro or Kei, they swivel around to turn towards Risa, but otherwise do not react to her in any way. Killing either with the Umbrella results in a game over.

• Early Mission 2 ! If you could somehow pick up the Beaded Doll during Mission 1, you get a Mission 2 completion upon finishing the level. This doesn't send you to a new level directly, though - it just completes a loop.

• No early Mission 2: I went to Central Crossroads early during Mission 1, but there was no trigger that would end the mission there.

• No early Mission 2: unlocking the gymnasium door can be done during Mission 1, but it won't give you Mission 2.

• I tried what would happen if you left the gymnasium without watching the cutscenes where Eiji Nakoshi appears:

• If you skip both of the cutscenes, nothing in the level has changed after picking up the Crowbar. Harumi is still in the Faculty Room and cannot be given commands to. You can't finish the level like this - the game just gives you the message "Harumi's in danger!" as if you never found her.

• If you skip only the second of the two cutscenes, in that case you avoid spawning Eiji. Harumi has teleported somewhere, but you can't take her with you because she still can't be given commands to. So in both of these cases the level becomes unwinnable.

• I tried what would happen if you activated the gymnasium cutscenes without having seen the cutscene at the Faculty Room:

• when you activate the first gymnasium cutscene, the game hides Harumi to one of two locations like always. However, giving commands to her isn't disabled and if you ask her to "Come Here" she'll come running to you. There is no cutscene trigger at the Faculty Room any longer, so it cannot be activated out of order.

• You can't escape the school because you just get a message that says "Harumi's in danger!" even if she's right next to you and enemies are not alarmed, so the level is unwinnable.

• Trying to activate the gymnasium cutscenes in wrong order is not possible. The trigger for the second cutscene doesn't exist until you've seen the first one.

• No early Mission 2: even if you have the candles with you, it's impossible to light all lanterns on your first play of this level. One of the lanterns (C) just says that it cannot be lit.

• I tried visiting both unused exits with cheats, but they only contain a dead end.

• The trigger that starts level finale at the north-west corner of the map already exists behind the invisible wall that blocks you if you don't have Harumi with you. If it could be reached early, it would be a sequence break because then you wouldn't have to take Harumi with you during the level. But for now, doing this is impossible, even with gliding.

• No early Mission 2: even if you complete Mission 1 very quickly, you won't get a Mission 2 completion.

• No early Mission 2: even if you complete Mission 1 without being seen, you won't get a Mission 2 completion.

• No early Mission 2: even if you knock out all Shibito before leaving the level, it doesn't seem possible to complete Mission 2 early.

• I tried the inaccessible alternative exits out of curiosity, but they both yield nothing but a dead end.

• No early Mission 2: if you picked up the library card from the Mines and if it was somehow possible to get inside the Library during Mission 1, the folklore book there can be examined early. But completing the level afterwards still won't give you Mission 2.

That's it for now...

I still have some runs I'd submit if there were leaderboards for individual level runs in these games. Please? >_>

Hey, just for fun I made a run of the "Training" level on PS3. If you'd add it to the individual level list (or as a Misc. Category), I'll submit it. >_>

I made a run of Blood Ties on PS4. Could it be added as a category so I can submit it?

While browsing Youtube for RotTR glitches, I stumbled upon this. Seems some ledges are able to teleport Lara long distances...

Tried it myself in this location, and it works. This particular ledge tends to take Lara from NW side of Geothermal Valley to the NE side pretty consistently. However, Lara's height varies in the process, sometimes causing her to end up under ground and fall to her death.

Was this known? I guess something like this could have speedrun potential?

Hey, I found this earlier today while playing Battlefield 3 on PS3. I think this is new, and might even be useful in a speedrun? I mean, new OoB spots never hurt. Don't know how well it works on PC, though...