Donkey Kong Forum
Donkey Kong Strategy => Basic Donkey Kong Strategy => Topic started by: mrvaya on August 15, 2014, 06:53:03 am
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Okay folks - I was wondering...
We speak a lot about strategy - how to avoid deaths and optimize our scores in the aim to set new personal bests/climb the rankings etc.
It is common knowledge, that to a large extent you can avoid most deaths. But then there are... the screwings!... the randomness of the game, that just claim a death once in a while... the ones that you cannot do anything about and have to accept to be a part of the game.
In order to get very good at the game, one need to know the difference between true screwings and avoidable deaths (by "perfect play") that one simply do not know how to avoid yet.
My question: How many (and which?) screwings (unavoidable deaths) can one be exposed to?
Example: level 3 barrel screen. You conservatively make your way to climb the small ladder from the 4th to the 5th girder (being aware of kings cycle), are grabbing the hammer - but are hit by one of those nasty wild barrels before you reach the safespot. Is that a screwing?... or an avoidable death if you use a certain technique?
Obviously there are a some possible screwings on the pie- and rivet screens. But are there really that many?
What do you guys think?
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I think there's so many variables involved in any single DK death event that it would be difficult for me to generalize situations. I'd probably need to see an example played out on a case by case basis.
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I think there's so many variables involved in any single DK death event that it would be difficult for me to generalize situations. I'd probably need to see an example played out on a case by case basis.
Surely a lot of people (including myself) will sometimes think they suffered a death because of a "screwing", which in reality are caused by putting themselves in a bad situation e.g. doing some unintended steering/grouping on barrels or letting yourself getting surrounded on the rivets/pie-screens.
But if the best players of the game quite commonly can reach the killscreen after some 116 screens - there can't really be that many true screwings?
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When I think of screwings I'm reminded of this thread:
https://donkeykongforum.net/index.php?topic=767.0 (https://donkeykongforum.net/index.php?topic=767.0)
As I've become a better player it's very seldom I get killed by these types of barrels now, as I've learned all the different safe spots you can stand during the transition.
It's very easy to ascribe a death to screwing because doing so removes the responsibility of the death from your own play. Until you're playing regularly around 1.1m pace (and I myself am not there yet), I think it's fair to say most, if not all, deaths are your fault. That reality is what makes this game so painful to play sometimes.
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I would tend to agree with Wes. Even crazy situations can be gotten out of...even if you have to jump fireballs, etc...there is almost always a way out.
The only real screwings I feel happen on rivets...if you don't have the foresight to abandon the star...or even try to abandon the star....and still get forced up to the top, and are forced to jump a firefox, and it runs back as you're jumping it...there's literally nothing you can do about those situations other than die.
I used to die a lot on pies...but the more you play, the more you realize that there is almost always a way to get yourself out of a situation...or do something differently to prevent yourself from getting into a situation where you have to jump a fireball to survive.
As for barrels L1-4...since I am going for 1.1+ pace, I don't even think about wild barrel deaths as screwings anymore...the game is either going to cooperate, give me the points and let me advance, or kill me. There's no careful play, dancing around to try to avoid stuff...I go for the max points, and if the game kills me, I start over or rage quit. Kappa
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As I've become a better player it's very seldom I get killed by these types of barrels now, as I've learned all the different safe spots you can stand during the transition.
Are there other safespots (in relation to wild barrels) besides under kongs left foot and to the right of the 5th girder (and of course on the 6th girder)?
If you're good at dodging level 3/4 wild barrels I guess you can avoid deaths even on the 4th girder... but what about when you are grabbing the hammer on the 5th girder and traversing back under kongs left food? Aren't you exposing yourself for an unavoidable screwing?
The only real screwings I feel happen on rivets...if you don't have the foresight to abandon the star...or even try to abandon the star....and still get forced up to the top, and are forced to jump a firefox, and it runs back as you're jumping it...there's literally nothing you can do about those situations other than die.
Sure - I know this situation all too well ;D So when ARE you to abandon the star..? ???
... and if the game kills me, I start over or rage quit. Kappa
Think I tried that as well <thefinger>
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This is rather basic but it should give you some ideas. Uphill of a ladder is always safer than downhill, and some of these spots are not safe from wild barrels just good spots to stand while deciding what to do next...
(http://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpa1/v/t34.0-12/986684_150656171791386_1597384461_n.jpg?oh=dca577254caec41b3bdd3c489227e0bb&oe=53F0171B&__gda__=1408251136_b652724d018dbd98392707d7f48f04cf)
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I don't feel i get screwed too much on the barrel boards. Deaths are usually a result of some stupid shit I do (rushing/not paying attention). Poorly timed wild barrels suck but that's the game more or less.
What pisses me off are the fireboxes on the rivet level. I love how they are mindless idiots until you grab a hammer then they suddenly know to run up a ladder for safety. Or you'll have 3 of them on the upper girders who refuse to move up/down...or keep going up and down the center ladder with long pauses at the top and bottom.
Firefoxes are assholes >:(
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I seem to recall reading (or hearing) an explanation of why bombs exist in DK, and how they are sometimes transformed into "normal" wild barrels. I've tried to locate the explanation on several forums, without success. Either my search skills have deteriorated, or such a post doesn't exist. It may have been a verbal description, possibly during one of Dean's online sessions.
This is my current understanding of wild barrel behavior (accurate or not):
In the program code, a memory location keeps track of the last girder struck by a wild barrel. If a wild barrel disappears from the screen before reaching the bottom, that final girder is remembered (let's call it "X"). When the next wild barrel is released, its first bounce will be on girder "Y", immediately below "X" (so, Y = X - 1).
Example #1: A wild barrel is released, bouncing from one girder to the next. After hitting the 2nd girder, it goes offscreen (X = 2). The next wild barrel will be a bomb, dropping straight down to the bottom girder (Y = 1) without touching any of the girders above it.
Example #2: A wild barrel disappears offscreen after striking the 5th girder (X = 5). The next wild barrel will start out as a bomb, but will bounce off the 4th girder (Y = 4) and become a standard type of wild barrel.
If I'm way off base, it certainly isn't the first time. Please correct me.
I've highlighted a recent Level 1-1 death, similar to Example #2. With 3700 on the bonus timer, a wild barrel is released. It hits the 4th girder and bounces offscreen. The next wild barrel is released when the bonus timer is at 1900. It appears to be a bomb, then strikes the 3rd girder, angles sharply to the right, and smacks me in the face as I'm jumping left (between an oncoming barrel and a descending fireball).
https://www.twitch.tv/stella_blue/v/42775868 (https://www.twitch.tv/stella_blue/v/42775868)
Technically, the death was avoidable. In a perfect world I would have observed that:
- The first wild barrel last touched the 4th girder before exiting the screen
- No other wild barrels had been released between 3700 and 1900 (bonus timer values)
- More than 66 real-time seconds had elapsed since the beginning of the stage
Armed with this information, I might have anticipated the "Bomb => Type 2" hybrid coming my way, and reacted accordingly.
Unfortunately, my "board awareness" hasn't quite reached that level of sophistication.
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As I've become a better player it's very seldom I get killed by these types of barrels now, as I've learned all the different safe spots you can stand during the transition.
Are there other safespots (in relation to wild barrels) besides under kongs left foot and to the right of the 5th girder (and of course on the 6th girder)?
If you're good at dodging level 3/4 wild barrels I guess you can avoid deaths even on the 4th girder... but what about when you are grabbing the hammer on the 5th girder and traversing back under kongs left food? Aren't you exposing yourself for an unavoidable screwing?
The only real screwings I feel happen on rivets...if you don't have the foresight to abandon the star...or even try to abandon the star....and still get forced up to the top, and are forced to jump a firefox, and it runs back as you're jumping it...there's literally nothing you can do about those situations other than die.
Sure - I know this situation all too well ;D So when ARE you to abandon the star..? ???
... and if the game kills me, I start over or rage quit. Kappa
Think I tried that as well <thefinger>
Abandoning the star is often a crap shoot. You generally think about doing it when you see a lot of fire foxes spawning towards the top, or on the level with the left hammer. Also if you see a lot of foxes running left, it might be a good idea to do the weave and abandon the star. Doing the weave and blocking off any chance of a fox to trap you on the left is always better then forcing the star and getting screwed...but the problem is, it's basically impossible to predict if those foxes running left will in fact trap you or not.
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This is rather basic but it should give you some ideas. Uphill of a ladder is always safer than downhill, and some of these spots are not safe from wild barrels just good spots to stand while deciding what to do next...
(http://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpa1/v/t34.0-12/986684_150656171791386_1597384461_n.jpg?oh=dca577254caec41b3bdd3c489227e0bb&oe=53F0171B&__gda__=1408251136_b652724d018dbd98392707d7f48f04cf)
Hey nice graphic man - thanks! :) I know about the uphill-thingy and agree with your spots - except I don't know why you dislike the middle of 4th and 5th girders which are my favorites? The middle of the 4th girder seems good for steering the barrels above you down the broken ladder and is close to the ladders to the 5th girder. Why run all the way to the broken ladder unless you are forced to because of some nasty double groups coming at you which needs more space? Of course the middle of the 5th girder is best when you have the hammer - and then run to the uphill spot afterwards.
But... can you with perfect play make sure not to die on the barrels/level 3/4?
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I don't feel i get screwed too much on the barrel boards. Deaths are usually a result of some stupid shit I do (rushing/not paying attention). Poorly timed wild barrels suck but that's the game more or less.
What pisses me off are the fireboxes on the rivet level. I love how they are mindless idiots until you grab a hammer then they suddenly know to run up a ladder for safety. Or you'll have 3 of them on the upper girders who refuse to move up/down...or keep going up and down the center ladder with long pauses at the top and bottom.
Firefoxes are assholes >:(
Same goes with me on the barrel boards :) About the fireboxes... they should be random, so remember to appreciate when you put yourself in stupid situation that good luck brings you out of. :D
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The middle of the 4th girder can be a problem during transitions after bottom hammer. If you jump left to go over approaching barrels and Kong simultaneously throws a wild barrel, you're dead before you touch the ground. This scenario will rarely occur in games where you are running boards though.
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I seem to recall reading (or hearing) an explanation of why bombs exist in DK, and how they are sometimes transformed into "normal" wild barrels. I've tried to locate the explanation on several forums, without success. Either my search skills have deteriorated, or such a post doesn't exist. It may have been a verbal description, possibly during one of Dean's online sessions.
This is my current understanding of wild barrel behavior (accurate or not):
In the program code, a memory location keeps track of the last girder struck by a wild barrel. If a wild barrel disappears from the screen before reaching the bottom, that final girder is remembered (let's call it "X"). When the next wild barrel is released, its first bounce will be on girder "Y", immediately below "X" (so, Y = X - 1).
Example #1: A wild barrel is released, bouncing from one girder to the next. After hitting the 2nd girder, it goes offscreen (X = 2). The next wild barrel will be a bomb, dropping straight down to the bottom girder (Y = 1) without touching any of the girders above it.
Example #2: A wild barrel disappears offscreen after striking the 5th girder (X = 5). The next wild barrel will start out as a bomb, but will bounce off the 4th girder (Y = 4) and become a standard type of wild barrel.
If I'm way off base, it certainly isn't the first time. Please correct me.
I've highlighted a recent Level 1-1 death, similar to Example #2. With 3700 on the bonus timer, a wild barrel is released. It hits the 4th girder and bounces offscreen. The next wild barrel is released when the bonus timer is at 1900. It appears to be a bomb, then strikes the 3rd girder, angles sharply to the right, and smacks me in the face as I'm jumping left (between an oncoming barrel and a descending fireball).
http://www.twitch.tv/stella_blue/c/4911620 (http://www.twitch.tv/stella_blue/c/4911620)
Technically, the death was avoidable. In a perfect world I would have observed that:
- The first wild barrel last touched the 4th girder before exiting the screen
- No other wild barrels had been released between 3700 and 1900 (bonus timer values)
- More than 66 real-time seconds had elapsed since the beginning of the stage
Armed with this information, I might have anticipated the "Bomb => Type 2" hybrid coming my way, and reacted accordingly.
Unfortunately, my "board awareness" hasn't quite reached that level of sophistication.
Wow - I have never taken notice of such barrel-behavior <gasp> <gasp>
When I said "perfect play" I did not mean THAT kind of "sophistication" - just perfect play out of whats the game put at you. That is being screwed ;D
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The red marks on the middle of the 4th and 5th are areas where wild barrels will get you if you spend too much time. As Wes mentioned above, on the fourth girder, a wild barrel can be released and hit you in less time than it takes to complete a single jump. the red spot on the 5th girder is bad because he can drill you in the back, as you head right with a hammer (before l=5 difficulty). Lastly, the spot by the broken ladder on the right of the 4th girder is only relevant if you ascended from the short ladder on the right of the 3rd (dont do it when running boards unless the fire ( jerks ( <Pigger> ) ) forces you over there), or as you already mentioned, when things get hairy and you need more time.
Edit: Scott, the wb talks were on a dean stream, your sleuth skills are not waivering ;) fear not
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The middle of the 4th girder can be a problem during transitions after bottom hammer. If you jump left to go over approaching barrels and Kong simultaneously throws a wild barrel, you're dead before you touch the ground. This scenario will rarely occur in games where you are running boards though.
Thanks for explaining Wes. I know that true screwings are rare - that is why I ask about how many there truly are. Can you safely dodge/avoid all wild barrels? on 5th girder? What about when you grab upper hammer?
As far as my knowledge goes, one can wait in the "safy spot" (only safe if you are capable of dodging the wild barrels) uphill of the long unbroken ladder between 4th an 5th girder. When the time is correct in kongs cycle, one can safely get to the hammer, but at that moment he is picking up a new (possible wild) barrel. Here you have to choose between waiting another kong-cycle to grab hammer (and perhaps dodge if a wild barrel comes at you - if that is possible?) or grabbing the hammer immediately. Now equipped with the hammer, you are more protected - but not completely if the timing is right (or wrong ;D) and a wild barrel (or bomb) hits you before you reach under kongs foot (safe spot).
Perhaps I overlook a technique... but aren't we all exposed to screwings at that short time from hammer to safespot?
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Thanks for explaining.
... the red spot on the 5th girder is bad because he can drill you in the back, as you head right with a hammer (before l=5 difficulty).
But not if you turn left or are to the right of paulines ladder - right?
Lastly, the spot by the broken ladder on the right of the 4th girder is only relevant if you ascended from the short ladder on the right of the 3rd (dont do it when running boards unless the fire ( jerks ( <Pigger> ) ) forces you over there), or as you already mentioned, when things get hairy and you need more time.
Ahh - ok. I almost never do that (probably because I still do not point press) - thats why have had to ask :)
You have a green spot under the hammer... can you safely avoid wild barrels there (se my other question in this thread).
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But not if you turn left or are to the right of paulines ladder - right?
Sorry that I quote myself - but I just tested this with the wild barrel hack and you are not safe just turning left - you need to be at or to the right side of paulines ladder to be safe but it seems you can reach this place between each kong-cycle (and barrel-smash). (EDIT: I really don't know about this ATM. I did not take into account the different timings there sometimes are).
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When it comes to early wild barrels the times you are gonna get screwed is if he throws one at you while you are mid jump or climbing a ladder because the timing is just bad and its impossible to avoid. Rivets have the true screwings when it comes to things like them swarming to the left right off the bat and not even letting you grab a hammer. It sometimes happens on pies as well if they feel like they all want to come down giving you no place to go. I am trying to go for max points so I tend to try to thread the needle to not lose points and it does cost me lives. But playing for survival you should be able to get out of it most of the time.
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When it comes to early wild barrels the times you are gonna get screwed is if he throws one at you while you are mid jump or climbing a ladder because the timing is just bad and its impossible to avoid. Rivets have the true screwings when it comes to things like them swarming to the left right off the bat and not even letting you grab a hammer. It sometimes happens on pies as well if they feel like they all want to come down giving you no place to go. I am trying to go for max points so I tend to try to thread the needle to not lose points and it does cost me lives. But playing for survival you should be able to get out of it most of the time.
Thanks for answering Robbie (I'm a fan of yours and your major achievements ;D). Did you say "early wild barrels" because I asked about level 3/4 barrels - or because L5+ wild barrels-deaths are all avoidable?
If you only get screwed (on barrels) by climbing or jumping when running boards - how do you avoid exposing yourself when grabbing upper hammer?
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You have a green spot under the hammer... can you safely avoid wild barrels there (se my other question in this thread).
If you are standing centered under the hammer, you can not be hit by a level 5+ wild barrel, standing here on levels 1-4 can be risky because his wild barrels can hit you. Because you are so close to kong, you will have little time to react with anything other than a walljump (which is not necessarily safe depending on WB trajectory or the positions of trailing barrels). Whenever you grab this top hammer, be sure to stand under it (do not try to cheat and grab it from the right side). <Pigger>
I would recommend that you watch the "donkeykonggenius" barrel training videos, with the premise that a lot of the material in those tutorials is way above and beyond what you need for "running the boards"
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If you are standing centered under the hammer, you can not be hit by a level 5+ wild barrel, standing here on levels 1-4 can be risky because his wild barrels can hit you. Because you are so close to kong, you will have little time to react with anything other than a walljump (which is not necessarily safe depending on WB trajectory or the positions of trailing barrels). Whenever you grab this top hammer, be sure to stand under it (do not try to cheat and grab it from the right side). <Pigger>
I would recommend that you watch the "donkeykonggenius" barrel training videos, with the premise that a lot of the material in those tutorials is way above and beyond what you need for "running the boards"
Thanks Ethan. I did not know that it will become a safespot under the hammer at L5+. Very valuable. Sorry if this is too basic stuff that I am asking about. I made a video of me getting "screwed" on level 3:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTJk1dVx2Ls (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTJk1dVx2Ls)
How do one avoid that?
Probably a good advise to take a look at Coreys videos again. I've seem them a long time ago but skipped a parts about grouping since I though I would be able to KS before grouping/pointpressing. Now is probably a good time see them again. Guess there could be a lot of important stuff that I missed the first time where I was even less knowledgable ;D
Thanks you all for being so helpful and patient with me. :D :D
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When it comes to early wild barrels the times you are gonna get screwed is if he throws one at you while you are mid jump or climbing a ladder because the timing is just bad and its impossible to avoid. Rivets have the true screwings when it comes to things like them swarming to the left right off the bat and not even letting you grab a hammer. It sometimes happens on pies as well if they feel like they all want to come down giving you no place to go. I am trying to go for max points so I tend to try to thread the needle to not lose points and it does cost me lives. But playing for survival you should be able to get out of it most of the time.
Thanks for answering Robbie (I'm a fan of yours and your major achievements ;D). Did you say "early wild barrels" because I asked about level 3/4 barrels - or because L5+ wild barrels-deaths are all avoidable?
If you only get screwed (on barrels) by climbing or jumping when running boards - how do you avoid exposing yourself when grabbing upper hammer?
Levels 1-4 have the more unpredictable wild barrels. Once you get to level 5 you can tell where they will end up and dying from those will be your fault 99% of the time. It takes some playing and experience to know where level 5 wild barrels will end up. The photo with the safe spots draws a good example of how to avoid them. The fourth girder can be difficult if you jump at the wrong time or walking under Kong that is why watching Kong is a very important part of the barrel board.
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Ok guys - so to sum it up:
Level 1-4 (primarily type 1 and 2 wild barrels): Few screwings are possible - especially on level 3-4 of the barrel board. However fireballs on rivets and conveyor are slow and screwings are very rare on these boards.
Level 5+ (type 3 wild barrels): The wild barrels are less aggressive and easy to avoid for the trained player which is why screwings should be very rare. However the fireballs become faster og there are a few screwings to be seen on the rivet board - and to a lesser extent on the conveyor boards.
Agree?
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My 2 cents...
Levels 1 through 4 are an annoyance: maximizing points is highly luck dependent (especially on the rivets), and sometimes you'll eat a murder barrel in the face and there just ain't squat you can do about it. Levels 1 through 4 are not the real game, they are akin to playing a slot machine.
Levels 5 plus are entirely skill based, and you should never die here, ever. There still exists an element of luck to the amount of points you can harvest on these levels, but no amount of bad randomness should ever lead to death.
EDIT: Actually, saying never is not accurate. Every once in a blue moon you'll encounter a pie factory that is literally not passable because fireballs will block both ladders until the timer expires. It's an extremely rare occurrence and no such obstacle exists on any of the other boards. The next closest thing is having to deal with a derpy freezer on the 6th girder of a barrel board, but that situation is passable and it's likely your fault when it happens anyway.
2nd EDIT: My belief that levels 5 plus are almost entirely skill-dependent is part of what drives me insane when players talk about their games that ended at 400K being on X.XX pace. Games that end at 400K are on 400K pace, and that's it - it's really that simple. You died, get over it. You didn't get screwed, and you weren't just a couple unlucky deaths away from actually achieving X.XX pace, you weren't even close. You died before even making it half-way through the game, so shut up about it, no one is impressed that you had a couple above average levels in your below average game.
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Ok guys - so to sum it up:
Level 1-4 (primarily type 1 and 2 wild barrels): Few screwings are possible - especially on level 3-4 of the barrel board. However fireballs on rivets and conveyor are slow and screwings are very rare on these boards.
Level 5+ (type 3 wild barrels): The wild barrels are less aggressive and easy to avoid for the trained player which is why screwings should be very rare. However the fireballs become faster og there are a few screwings to be seen on the rivet board - and to a lesser extent on the conveyor boards.
Agree?
Agreed! This is spot on! However, realize that "screwings" can come in the form of death-causing screwings (these are the one's people usually mean -especially when talking about just running boards) and pace-screwings (these become more prevalent the higher the pace you play at)... so, "screwings" are technically subjective to the pace being played at. For the purposes of death-causing screwings, your description is nearly 100% accurate. I'm convinced that a perfectly sound player should probably be able to KS nearly every time or every other time they run boards.
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And, I'll post this again for anyone who maybe hasn't seen this yet (I believe I've posted it in two other areas on DKF before), but this is a quick way to conceptualize the possible ways a Wild Barrel may bounce:
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Levels 5 plus are entirely skill based, and you should never die here, ever. There still exists an element of luck to the amount of points you can harvest on these levels, but no amount of bad randomness should ever lead to death.
EDIT: Actually, saying never is not accurate. Every once in a blue moon you'll encounter a pie factory that is literally not passable because fireballs will block both ladders until the timer expires. It's an extremely rare occurrence and no such obstacle exists on any of the other boards. The next closest thing is having to deal with a derpy freezer on the 6th girder of a barrel board, but that situation is passable and it's likely your fault when it happens anyway.
I agree that too many people blame luck for their deaths (way) too much of the time, and the "I got 'x' far at 'y' pace talk drives me crazy too.
However, I think your annoyance with this is blinding you a little and pushing you to an extreme position to the contrary that isn't reasonable.
"True screwings" are absolutely real. The fireballs (and even the barrels now and then) are capable of creating genuinely intractable situations that can't be traced back to player error or sub-optimal decision making.
I've just seen too much stuff like this:
http://www.twitch.tv/chrisp_kreme/c/2880632 (http://www.twitch.tv/chrisp_kreme/c/2880632)
to ever say that there are no screwings outside of the specific ones you mentioned.
And even for the ones you mentioned, I don't think it's fair to say that a fireball getting to the 6th girder is "likely your fault". All it takes is for a fireball to slip through and get one girder above you and he pretty much has his ticket punched for the 6th girder, if he decides that's where he wants to go. There are many, many ways for this slip-through to happen without the player doing anything wrong.
I'd say that the belief that "there are no screwings" is an illusion that stems from the fireballs rarely creating as many of the worst-case scenarios that they COULD create. But I think a couple hours on a hypothetical "maximum fireball nastiness" ROMset would dispel the illusion pretty quick. If the fireballs really want to hose you, they can, and they will, whether on barrels, conveyors, or rivets.
However, I'm in full agreement with you that the bigger illusion, and the far more pernicious one, is seeing "impossibly" bad luck where it doesn't exist, and I do think people need to take more responsibility.
But a polarized view, either way ("there is too much luck" or "there is no luck"), is unhealthy.
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Surely the more you play and gather knowledge of how to cope with certain situations, the more you will be ensured that there are very very few true screwings in this fine art of Donkey Kong-ing ;D. I guess this is why we all love this game so much and is why I so eagerly seek to separate my sometimes lacking know-how from the true screwings which surely feels happens once in a while and there have been some good examples of these in this thread.
I am now aware of the spot under the hammer being a safespot in relation to wild barrels on L5+ (thank you Ethan) which means there should not be any true screwing possibilities in the hammergrabbing process.
I have now re-watched Coreys barrel trainings videos. The are actually very very great and there should be enough training material for months and months. ;D <stirpot>
Here in the second barrel video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLcH-B5nn2M#)
he speak of the "pause and wait method" (at the time 5:20). I feel this is exactly the method I use to get to the hammer - but are rarely but now and then assassinated by a wild barrel on level 3/4 like in my youtube-video: here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTJk1dVx2Ls#)
Should I just file this death as a screwing - or are there a bulletproof method for avoiding such deaths on level 3/4?
PS. Cant help being a bit analytical about each of my deaths ;D
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"...you weren't just a couple unlucky deaths away from actually achieving X.XX pace, you weren't even close. You died before even making it half-way through the game, so shut up about it, no one is impressed that you had a couple above average levels in your below average game."
I <3 my rossy no homeo Kreygasm <Tim> <Allen>
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Should I just file this death as a screwing - or are there a bulletproof method for avoiding such deaths on level 3/4?
All wild barrels are released as soon as kong turns to position 2; your pause and wait timing was not flawed. What happened here is that you were pausing a bit too far right and were left with too much ground to cover after he passed position 2 (not to mention this was just an ugly level 3 barrel). if you look at corey's video again you will notice that he actually spends the most time between the "white bars" but moves over the the red zone (which is just left of center on the short ladder) right before the turn from position 1-2. waiting off-centered on the left of the ladder prevents a dropped bomb from splatting on your head. So lets say that he throws a wild barrel while you briefly wait under the red line, you probably will jump toward the wall to try to avoid it.
Ok, so assuming you had moved over to that "red line" and waited, you would've had time enough to get your feet on the 5th girder and react to that barrel, but the trajectory and type made anything but a wall jump a likely death. So this was a bit of bad luck in regards to the type and trajectory of the barrel, but you could have gotten to the 5th girder a bit sooner had you adjusted your "wait" position, possibly giving you a chance to jump out of harms way.
Finally, I would add that when you move over to the short ladder and "wait" that if he does drop a wild barrel you NEED to move back over to the "white bars" area and wait for the next time kong cycles (4-1) to head back over and take another chance; don't hang out under or near that short ladder.
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Thanks Ethan. I wil conduct some testing!
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With respect to bombs turning into wild barrels, there is another factor involved. Barrel objects released onto the screen are stored into one of ten possible memory locations, 1 - 10. Each of these objects stores the "last girder" information seperately. So, only if that particular memory location is being reused will we have this possibility of a bomb turning into a wild barrel. So, there can only be a bomb if that particular barrel object was already previously a wild barrel, and the bomb can only turn into a wild barrel if that previous wild barrel for this same barrel object went off the screen early, including being smasshed by a hammer. Example, barrel object 1 was a wild barrel that bounced off of the screens after bouncing off the fifth girder. Barrel object 2 was a wild barrel object that bounced all the way down. Later on, barrel object 2 is reused and is a wild barrel. This becomes a bomb but it does not turn into a wild barrel. Only if barrel object 1 happens to be reused as another wild barrel will it end up being a bomb that turns into a wild barrel. Phew! Confused yet!??
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Here's another example of a bomb turning into a wild barrel.
Bomb turns into wild barrel. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DGlszIw76w#)
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With respect to bombs turning into wild barrels, there is another factor involved. Barrel objects released onto the screen are stored into one of ten possible memory locations, 1 - 10. Each of these objects stores the "last girder" information seperately. So, only if that particular memory location is being reused will we have this possibility of a bomb turning into a wild barrel. So, there can only be a bomb if that particular barrel object was already previously a wild barrel, and the bomb can only turn into a wild barrel if that previous wild barrel for this same barrel object went off the screen early, including being smasshed by a hammer. Example, barrel object 1 was a wild barrel that bounced off of the screens after bouncing off the fifth girder. Barrel object 2 was a wild barrel object that bounced all the way down. Later on, barrel object 2 is reused and is a wild barrel. This becomes a bomb but it does not turn into a wild barrel. Only if barrel object 1 happens to be reused as another wild barrel will it end up being a bomb that turns into a wild barrel. Phew! Confused yet!??
ROFL
Hello Dean. Thanks for adding such specific details about the barrel behavior. Have you been reading through all of the code?
I guess this is an perfect "screwing-example", especially if the change to a wild barrel take place on the girder just above you.
With your great insight in the game and with that extremely impressive WR - what is your take on the screwing-talk? How many events in the game can create an "unavoidable death"?
One more thing - can anyone calculate the probability of the above mentioned event to happen on a single barrel screen? ;D