So I see a Japanese guy beat my any% WR. That and I started to get a bit nostalgic for the game (it's been over a year since I've touched it), so I'm thinking of making a bit of a comeback.

Obviously, the first and biggest issue is the absence of glitches in the new version of the game. I think if this game has any chance of being speed ran in the future, then this needs to be overcome. The old records need to be beaten.

I spent quite a few hours trying to get my hands on an old version of the game. And unfortunately, there's no reliable way to do it without pirating it. And all of the pirate versions are riddled with problems and flaws that make them unusable for speed runs (crashes, swapping save files, etc.)

So I started doing some research into exactly HOW big of a disadvantage the new version is. And my conclusion is that while it's a disadvantage, it's not a crippling one, especially since runs on the old version of the game are still so un-optimized.

There are a few reasons for this:

1. The helicopter glitch isn't as advantageous as it first appears. Yes, you skip a 45-second helicopter intro. But, to skip it, you have to spend an extra 1-3 seconds menuing, reload a checkpoint (8-10 seconds), and run a slightly longer distance (5-8 seconds). So in reality, it's likely only a 25-30 second advantage per mission. Throw on top of that the fact that many missions can be reached quickly on ground (M4, M14, M15, M16, M18, M24, M27, etc.) and I think in the end, the helicopter glitch gives a 3-5 minute advantage over the course of a first ending run. In a 2.5 hour run, this is definitely possible to overcome.

2. A prominent change in 1.10 that has not been discussed here is that damage from assault rifles and explosives have been nerfed across the entire game. What that means is that it is noticeably harder to die in firefights. In fact, in just screwing around in 1.10, it's almost hilarious sometimes where I can run through 4-5 enemies getting shot the whole time and still survive. IMO, this will change some runs, as you can be more reckless going through levels now and worry less about being spotted.

3. Unfortunately, I have no way to verify this other than some really rudimentary comparisons between my video from 2015 and my new install, but it appears 1.10 significantly reduces checkpoint load times (basically loads where the dog emblem is in the background). My unscientific observation is that it may be as much as 1-2 seconds per load, which would add up to multiple minutes over the course of an entire run. Note: this may be PC-only, I'm not sure.

4. It may be my imagination but D-Horse and D-Walker don't feel like they're getting caught on stupid rocks and walls the way they used to.

5. The loss of the wall glitch really only hurts on M6, and even then you lose maybe 15 seconds.

6. Watching the two new Japanese runs next to their American counterparts, it is clear that language may give a slight advantage/disadvantage. This is something that needs to be tested, but Japanese seemed to be a few seconds shorter during some monologue scenes. If it does turn out that one language is shorter than other languages, again, this could add up to a couple minutes saved over the course of a run.

Returning to an any% first ending run, if all of the above is true, then the 1.10 disadvantage is likely only a couple minutes. That said, I already have some strats I was working on in 2015 that I never recorded that can likely beat this guy's time if I use a lot of his strats as well. So I'll be going for it.

Note: I also believe I've come up with some ideas for an NG all missions% route that could be done in 4-4.5 hours total. That'll likely be my next project.

So, I've been spending the past couple days researching any% second ending and I've unfortunately come to the conclusion that it doesn't make much sense to have one. Let me explain why.

Second ending occurs after you complete either Mission 45 or Mission 46. To get missions 45/46 to spawn, you must do the following:

• Complete all story missions up to Mission 43 (so this is Prologue, M1-32, M35, M38, M41, M43)
• Complete the following Side Ops: Extract the AI Unit, Eli's Challenge, Extract the Man on Fire's Body, Extract the 5 missing children
• Listen to all yellow cassette tapes
• Build your command platform up to level 3
• Reach bond level 100 with Quiet (if you want to unlock mission 45)

It's funny, any% first ending is very straightforward, but after the first ending, the game gets very complex. It's not clear when certain missions open up, you have to go back and complete some missions you skipped in the first ending run (5, 9 and 11 if you want Quiet) and beginning with Mission 35, you HAVE to have the Cargo fulton extraction device, which requires an R&D level of 19 and a Support level of 16. So you have to slow down and farm staff for a while to build your staff up.

All of this is fine though. It's all runnable. The Cargo Fulton can be gotten in time for Mission 35's spawn, you just have to extract some extra soldiers and be really clever with your staff management.

The problem is the base platforms. The problem is two-fold:

• When speedrunning, you don't have enough resources to start building platforms until after Mission 35 once you get the cargo fulton and can farm containers.
• Upgrading the command platform to 3/4 takes MORE THAN FOUR HOURS GAMETIME to complete. And that's assuming you have all of the resources and click to expand it immediately upon it completing.

To put this into context. For me to get from the end of Mission 31 to end of Mission 43 took about 3 hours each time. I was going very slow both times. I was stopping to extract soldiers and in one run I was spending time getting Quiet's bond level up (actually not hard, just boring). Even when I upgraded the command platform to 2/4 as SOON as it was available, I finished Mission 43 with more than 40 minutes left for it to hit 2/4. It takes over 2 hours for it to go from 2/4 to 3/4.

Even if you farm resources early and start building the platform early on, say around Mission 20, you're still looking at a minimum 6.5 hour run.

What I'm saying is: Second ending any% requires you to do one of two things:

• Slow way down and farm resources/soldiers throughout the entire game or
• Sit around and wait about 2.5 hours after finishing Mission 43 for the base platforms to finish.

This is why I think we should just get rid of the category and just have the All Missions S Rank category instead. Because in that extra 2.5 hours you need to finish the platform to spawn Missions 45/46, you can easily go through and complete the rest of the missions. So if the run is going to have to be 6-7 hours, might as well complete all the missions while you're there. As it stands, doing a second ending run is likely barely any faster than an all missions run.

So I propose the following full game categories:

Any% first ending First ending, Foxhound All Missions, S Rank NG+ All Missions NG+ Foxhound

As it stands, if you're going to run Second Ending, there's absolutely no reason not to run All Missions because they both require the exact same amount of time more or less. And in many ways, you NEED to run all of the missions to get 45/46 to unlock anyway.

Did we ever decide this? I'm doing first ending NG runs and I use the phantom cigar in some places to speed my real time up quite a bit (mostly waiting for choppers). But it screws up my IGT. I know IL runs are IGT, but wondering what the stance is on full game?

Getting really frustrated with the end of Mission 12. Seems completely random where he goes and whether he sees you or not. Anyone have a consistent strat for this?

EDIT: I think I figured one out. It's not super fast, but at least it's consistent. I may post it if nobody else has anything.

So I've started routing and practicing the vanilla any% run and the first major problem you come across is how to get Huey's mission to spawn to get the story to proceed. Pykn runs into this problem in his runs and tries a few things. I watched his videos and then spent most of tonight experimenting with different configurations. Here's what I've learned so far.

TL;DR = To get Huey to spawn you need to complete 3/4 of missions 7-10 AND deploy in free roam/motherbase at least twice. (My current theory, not confirmed).

1. Before I explain why I think the above is true, it's important to know that the way the missions become available isn't exactly linear. They spawn in the following order

Prologue Mission 1 Mission 2 Missions 3-5 Mission 6 Missions 7-10 Mission 11¤ Mission 12¤

The prologue and missions 1-2 are forced and cannot be avoided. After mission 2 you are given missions 3-5 all at once. Once you've completed two of those three missions, mission 6 opens up. Once you complete mission 6, missions 7-10 all open up.

To get Huey to spawn, you need to complete 3/4 of missions 7-10 and deploy in free roam at least twice (more on that below).

At first I thought you just had to complete 8 missions. But if you complete 1-8, Huey will not spawn. Whereas if you complete 1-4, 6-8, 10, he will.

It makes sense that the game calculates progress based on a percentage of the missions it opens up at once. When it opens up 3-5, it requires 2/3 to open up the honey bee mission for you to proceed. Similarly, it requires 3/4 of 7-10 to open up Huey.

2. Deploying at least twice. I'm still testing this but this is more or less what I've figured out:

• Dropping into Afghanistan and menu'ing out is NOT count as a deployment by the game.
• Stopping by Motherbase and interacting/cutscene IS considered a deployment.
• Going back and redoing a previous mission IS NOT counted as a deployment. [Still testing]
• Dropping into Afghanistan and triggering a side-op (entering the blue circle on the map) and then choppering out DOES count. [Still testing this but pretty sure about this.]

3. Getting Quiet to show up. Both Quiet and Huey are announced by Ocelot via radio. If you have completed Mission 6 but NOT completed 3/4 of 7-10 AND you deploy 2+ times, instead of radioing you to tell you that Huey is available, Ocelot will radio you and tell you about a Sniper. You can then go to the ruins and get Quiet.

It's still unclear if Quiet is even worth getting in any of these full game runs, but it's still useful to know.

THINGS TO STILL TEST:

• Does extracting animals still count as a deployment? My guess is yes. Anything the game considers save-worthy (checkpoint, animal, etc.) is a deployment.
• Does completing Quiet's mission + 3 deployments immediately grant access to Huey? [This is actually how I got notified of Huey in my first playthrough]. This could potentially be huge because you create a new route of:

Prologue Missions 1-4 Mission 6 3 Deployments Get Quiet Get Huey

Allowing you to skip missions 7-10 entirely. This would be a massive time save.

• And of course, I still need to test when exactly Quiet becomes available. Judging by Huey's mechanic, I'm guessing it's completion of Mission 6 plus 3 deployments. But I'm not sure yet. I have tested it with 1-4, 6, 8, and 10 completed and I got her announcement. Quiet's mission is pretty short and much safer than missions 7 and 8, so it may be worth replacing one of those missions with her if possible.

Please feel free to add anything you find. I'll keep updating as I learn more over the coming days.

I just reinstalled Quake 2 (it's been about 10 years) and want to learn to run it. I noticed on some of the top runs, guys are able to quick save and quick load instantly. I assume they bound this to their keyboard in their configs.

The problem is when I hit my quick load button, the game stops and displays a "loading..." image for a few seconds before taking me back to where I quick saved.

How do you guys make it so that quick loads are instant, with no image?

Is the 100% category for the full game all missions, all objectives? Or is it 100% game completion (all missions, all objectives, all side ops, All animals, key items, S rank, etc.)?