I thought to share a few new minor (but significant once compounded) strats:

1. After first bridge, after first patch of forest, go +above+ the two bushes, not below – that makes it less likely for RNG spawns to occur.

2. Uklangor: why do we turn left to kill him? After the cut scene, just ignore it and go straight ahead, and on the way back go towards it – they'll approach you without attacking and you can kill it easily. This saves a solid second and is 100% consistent. *Note: to make this work, don't hold up (forward) while the cut scenes is playing. Press forward only once the cut scene ended. Otherwise Uklangor will stay put in his alcove.

3. Tuataras before Phobosucus: approach the first one without step backward-step forward, spam melee weapon only (sword), just before it dies spam arrows: the second Tuatara will die before they can flee. This saves quite a few tenths of a second.

4. Movement from beastmen caves to jungle cave (top-right of map): this segment kept killing my runs, so I found a new itinerary that seems much safer. See my new WR video for more info.

There are 3-4 other minor strats that are just a bit too subtle to explain in words, but that I'd be happy to share if you catch me on stream.

September Update:

1. The Uklangor strat in the post above works only 50% of the times.

2. New trogs strat: this is now my go-to strat, much more reliable than anything else. If you go fast in the beastmen caves, you will be able to quickly shoot two sets of three arrows separated by a very short pause, and that should – most of the times – let you through the pack unscathed. This should really be shown on screen to be clear.

3. I have taken down my tutorial video, it contains too many obsolete strats. I will make a new one if I find the time.

4. Sub-23 is definitely in the cards now. My biggest enemy at the moment are nerves!

5. Most consistent fire ring strat so far: approach until tile before on-screen animation, shoot 4 arrows, pause, shoot 5 arrows, just before the first arrow hits, move forward. Animation will trigger, keep pressing forward – in many cases, if timed correctly, you won't be hit.

6. Work in progress, but if true a big breakthrough: inserting quick kills to boost hp and ThAC0. I now kill the giant in the dragon cave, and a saber tooth on my way back from the pyramid. With more HP, you can save 8 seconds in the temple, by damage-boosting on four traps, each saving 2 seconds. And – this is totally to test – out of two runs where I did this, I had free slots in the inventory to pick up the ring without menu-ing (most likely just a coincidence – or maybe higher level equals less drops?)

7. I mentioned to Rujasu to possibility of submitting WotES to the next GDQ. I don't have original hardware though, and don't plan to buy it (maybe I could rent it), and I understand that's the only medium accepted. But Rujasu or Lance or someone else may do it, it would be great to feature this game on a big platform.

Very interesting strats, I'll have to work on these!

I did go ahead and submit Any% to AGDQ, and I'm submitting the game to a few smaller marathons as well. I already have the No-Hide% run accepted in RPG Limit Break (October 22nd this year) which is one of the bigger non-GDQ marathons, so that will be the biggest platform the game has been featured on thus far.

That's great Rujasu, I really hope the game makes it through, it would be grand.

In other news, I just got the elusive 23:0X! A 23:07 to be precise. This is in part thanks to two new strats I discovered. One is way too early to explain, but it's got to do with how it seems that hit rolls are determined by a fixed table, and by knowing where you are in that sequence of fixed rolls, you can approach scary enemies already knowing if you are going to hit or not, and hence killing them before they are able to react (case in subject: since I added the fire giant kill, I can now always kill the group of four trogs in the beastmen caves without them reacting). The second strat, which I have already started using a lot, is about outdoor encounters. Again, it would take me too long to explain here, but the short of it is that by zig-zagging in a certain way rather than going straight ahead in the direction you are walking to, you can greatly decrease the chances of enemies spawning. It's got to do with a 'enemy spawn' target that is in front of you. If you move that target onto obstacles by zig-zagging, there will be no spawns.

Better times can be achieved. 22:5X in the cards.

For quick kills, might be worth to look into the flapsails in the end of the underground passageway. We have to wait for them anyway, might be worth to kill them if it can squeeze out a level

That's an excellent idea x_i13, it could be a run-saver when you have low HP late in the game.

Got 23:03 today – getting closer and closer. The 'fixed table of hits' strat I mentioned previously doesn't seem to be easy to implement (although there are certain fixed patterns that will clearly dictate whether you will hit or not in a particular section of the game). As for the zig-zagging strat I previously mentioned – that's a game changer for me. Implemented correctly (and it isn't difficult!) it reduces chances of outdoor encounters dramatically and in key location (e.g. at the first bridge, where this strat basically removes the possibility of any encounters). Basically where before I wasted four runs out of five due to RNG encounters, I now waste perhaps one in five. On top of that, yesterday I discovered a consistent strat to save between 5 and 8 seconds in the last two levels of the last cave. It involves stepping backward and forward to lure enemies that are then cheesed in melee, as opposed to losing at least a second per enemy when using arrows. You can see my most recent WR on Twitch (not on YT yet) to see it in action.

It finally happened:

22:53.983.

I am done! : )

So, I found out today that the beastman cave trigger is actually the cutscene at Uklangor, OR the vine wall. Marmillion will give you the withered vine if you kill Uklangor. I haven't tested this with NOT killing Uklangor but only triggering the scene, although I don't know why you would leave him to have a 2nd cutscene. Its something that can save upwards of 12 steps in the caves, and could require further investigating on what actually triggers what. I tested this with 3 separate game files, 2 with Solo Elf and 1 with Solo Thief. All 3 worked before touching the vines

Note - I did test this on the Bone Flutes in Cave 1 (the passage cave), the Pottery at Cave 7 (Shaman guy), and just entering the main Beastman Cave without fighting anything.

Wow, what a find!

I did some testing and I think I have the exact triggers down.

First, off, importantly, the vine wall does nothing. If you take the north path, avoiding Uklangor, and simply touch the vine door, it will say "maybe Marmillian can help us" but Marmillian will NOT give you the vine. It simply displays a message, there's no trigger.

The trigger for getting the vine is simply to view the Uklangor cutscene. If you walk in, see Ukly, and run out, Marmillian will give you the vine. HOWEVER, as you point out, by not killing him the first time, he will still be there the next time you go in, his lieutenants will respawn and you'll have to view his cutscene again. This would be pretty terrible, so we wouldn't want to do this.

So the short answer is, as you seem to have noticed, the way to go is to kill Uklangor and immediately leave, saving yourself a few steps by not touching the vine door. This also eliminates the question of whether it's better to touch the door first or kill Ukly first, since you only have to kill Ukly. Should shave a few seconds off the run, regardless of category. Just when we thought it was optimized!

This is outstanding stuff. Thank you venominon. According to some initial tests, this saves just under 3 seconds, which honestly is pretty huge given how optimised the run is.