About time for a new comprehensive point pressing guide?

[dnickolas]

It seems to me that it’s time for someone better than me to break things down as of 2017 and create a guide for maxing out scoring per board. Even including newfangled strats like the Willms leech that I have yet to see people use regularly.

You may remember me from being befuddled by the elevator stage some months ago, and since then I feel like I have an optimal strat for it that I’m working to perfect. Parts of it (like top shelf) I’ve heard people talking about on twitch and we’re in fairly good agreement as to how much it’s worth (I say about 180 per board, others have said 3500 over a game - pretty close). There was that enormous thread about the spring strats, but I don’t see a lot written about quick grab, which is worth even more than top shelf.

So for quick grab, basically always jump to the elevator immediately. If they don’t descend early enough to retreat there, then jump just past the elevator wire so you land halfway on the bottom. This allows a retreat with a leech if he descends left right after you committed. It’s tricky to jump right, but is repeatable.

Depending what the fireball does, you may be forced to retreat up the right ladder (not a disaster), or even go the long way around (still can get 7400 or so if you leech some of the springs on the long route. Obviously grabbing the prize and jumping back is the best, especially if you get a leech in on the way out.

And everybody knows about the leech while ascending if he goes down while you’re climbing.

And everyone knows now about quickly ascending the final ladder.

Anyhow, this isn’t about me sharing any wisdom since I’m probably the worst player that knows as much as I do, but about fleshing out what really is the best move.

Dean started along these lines with his quizzes some years back. It seems that it’s time that we all got on the same page as to what strats are superior when. “Is this the kind of rng (based on what’s happening now) that makes it optimal to get up top asap on a barrel board, or is it a time to max out the transition and even go for some rejumps in transition?” Should I hang out waiting for this freezer to freeze on girder 6, or just finish the board? Should I let the blue pass me and wait for the next blue before grabbing bottom hammer?

Clearly some of this stuff is player dependent, like I sometimes just eschew g6 backjumping when I feel like I’ll probably just die trying it even though I’m leaving points on the table. Sometimes I get out of a mess and am shaky for a few minutes so I just need to finish the board and take a deep breath to avoid an unforced error. But the actual best play is still something that we can define, even if it’s hard. The game is hard as hell anyway, so hard shouldn’t be a factor.

Wes has hus rules for a million, there are rules for 1.1 kinda. I think it’s time for “what to do to get as much as you can.”

I do feel like a lot of this is written off as style or personal preference. I think that’s because there’s just enough rng to make people think it doesn’t matter as much as it does.

Anyhow, is anyone bored enough with enough free time to take a level and describe what to do when X happens as a starting point? Maybe we start a wiki per board or something. Like, skip the prize on L1 rivet, but I’m not sure if taking out the lower right rivet on the next spawn makes up for it or not. Let’s just put that one to bed. Grab the prize on L2 and L3, since they’re more points and a net positive. I’m not sure on 4 since it does get tricky if usain bolt shows up in a fireball.

Thanks again to this forum, twitch streamers, and youtube for letting me get to the point I’m at relatively quickly. Let’s get this knowledge codified so the next generation knows which strats to work on and which to avoid. And if my quick grab strats are actually wrong, please let me know. I’d love to be proven wrong. It’s like science.

[WCopeland]

Your quick grab strat is mostly correct, and is something I experimented with a lot but never implemented in a real game. The only adjustment I would make is land as far to the left as you can on that first elevator, that way when you hit the platform you'll land far left as well. This increases your survival rate during a retreat scenario.

[up2ng]

I think this is a great idea for a thread and I hope that it picks up steam.

I think that the most meaningful debate and/or discussion for maximum point pressing is the comparison between the "panic grab" and the delayed grab for the bottom hammer on barrel boards.  With vague hand waving I maintain that delayed grabbing is superior in terms of point scoring potential while conceding that playing through a full game with zero deaths while using this strategy will happen less often.  I don't want to get into truly breaking down how many points this decision is worth (yet) since I think that doing so accurately is a pretty complex undertaking, but at the very least I think that it's worth some serious discussion and vigorous debate within the community.

[dnickolas]

So as a starting point with the panic grab, you’re likely giving up 2-4 barrel smashes and 1 blue smash. So I’d say a delayed grab nets out at about 1125-1725 minus the normal jump amounts for those same barrels, putting it in the 725-1325 category. Take the difference and I say waiting earns 1k per board, with maybe a 10% increase in chance of death based on the fireball running up top or wreaking havoc with your transition.

If we just look at wes’ barrel averages and compare to you or robbie, I think that the “wreaking havoc” might end up costing you the same 1k you gained.

[UKP]

I've been looking for a thread that lists the point pressing techniques from easiest to hardest. Maybe that could be included in this thread. It would be useful for new players like me to know where to start. After mastering each method move on to the next. I would think leeching kong on the rivet board would be first. Then maybe leeching springs and the Firefox on the elevator board. Then top hammer on the barrel board.

[twinxen]

There is a lot of useful information on this forum scattered in different threads, but I like the idea of a centralized community driven knowledge base - like a wiki.

[dnickolas]

Ok - let’s talk about what I call 1-2-O blazit (in honor of the 4-2 smb1 strat inventor).

Description - On 1-2 and potentially 2-3, just run right, grab prize, go up the far ladder, and run all the way back on the second level taking out both rivets. You WILL get a guy that spawns on the left. If he’s in your way, just jump him.

From this point, climb the next left ladder and do whatever you want.

Pros:

Takes out both girders without a pause to wait for a right spawn.
You get a couple hundred in EV from the additional prize grab.
Gets low spawners to climb faster without as much room to go back and forth (like the standard method of removing the right girder sans prize).
Saves you 2 ladder climbs worth of time if you’re prevented from removing that girder the normal way.

Cons:
You get 1 or 2 left spawners.
You might die jumping a fireball.

Why I like it:

Improves your chances of a big rivet.
If you get screwed it’ll happen early in the level, not after 30 seconds of leeching.

Like, this isn’t a strat for safety, and it’s really for people who either reset or go full billy to get back on pace on 2-1 and 3-1 if they’re not at 20k and 50k respectively. I’ve had good results with it.

This is from the “fail fast” mentality, but I think it has something going for it. By 3-4 I recommend against it since you’re already more committed to the run and death is more likely due to faster spawns and firefoxes.

Discussion?