Spring Death question

[dknetter]

Could someone take a look at this spring death and tell me what went wrong? I went for it on a long, and right leg gets caught on a short.

Did I not get a good enough head start, or is this a case where I'm supposed to retreat on a spring that's too short?

[Gettysburg1863]

It looks like you could have been over to the right a tad more before take off, which probably cost you the safe ascent up the ladder. Regardless, try this: Wait in the safe spot and when you see a long spring, walk over to Kong's ladder and use Jumpman's nose as guide. Touch his nose to the ladder, pause, let the spring hop over you and then climb up. Eventually you will get a feel when you need to retreat back or not and often you don't have to do a full retreat back and can go up after a brief walk back to the left after a double/triple long.

[dknetter]

Thanks for taking a look. I've been getting caught on some like this and didn't know if there was a long-short combo that could get you even if you had enough of a head start. I also still have a hard time telling the springs apart from where they enter the screen, so rely more on where they land at this point. So usually, I'm trying to start up the ladder before making the decision to back up on a second long one.

[xelnia]

Could someone take a look at this spring death and tell me what went wrong? I went for it on a long, and right leg gets caught on a short.

Did I not get a good enough head start, or is this a case where I'm supposed to retreat on a spring that's too short?

The long spring looks like a 14 or 15 and the short spring looks like a 0 or 1. Any combination of those is an automatic 0% chance of making the final climb:

Spring Theory

[dknetter]

Could someone take a look at this spring death and tell me what went wrong? I went for it on a long, and right leg gets caught on a short.

Did I not get a good enough head start, or is this a case where I'm supposed to retreat on a spring that's too short?

The long spring looks like a 14 or 15 and the short spring looks like a 0 or 1. Any combination of those is an automatic 0% chance of making the final climb:

Spring Theory

So I looked again at that spring theory thread...I may be misunderstanding it, but I think you're reading it wrong. I'm approaching from the 2nd safe spot, so looking at the grid for Level 4 Combos titled "L4 2nd Safe Spot wiggle room (in frames)" - if the first spring is a 15 and the second spring is a 0, that gives me 16 frames of "wiggle room." A 15 followed by a 1 gives 20 frames of wiggle room; and a 14 followed by a 0 or 1 gives 16 or 20 frames as well. The -3 and -2 red squares in the top left corner of the grid would refer to a 0 spring followed by a 0, or a 1 spring followed by a 0.

[xelnia]

Could someone take a look at this spring death and tell me what went wrong? I went for it on a long, and right leg gets caught on a short.

Did I not get a good enough head start, or is this a case where I'm supposed to retreat on a spring that's too short?

The long spring looks like a 14 or 15 and the short spring looks like a 0 or 1. Any combination of those is an automatic 0% chance of making the final climb:

Spring Theory

So I looked again at that spring theory thread...I may be misunderstanding it, but I think you're reading it wrong. I'm approaching from the 2nd safe spot, so looking at the grid for Level 4 Combos titled "L4 2nd Safe Spot wiggle room (in frames)" - if the first spring is a 15 and the second spring is a 0, that gives me 16 frames of "wiggle room." A 15 followed by a 1 gives 20 frames of wiggle room; and a 14 followed by a 0 or 1 gives 16 or 20 frames as well. The -3 and -2 red squares in the top left corner of the grid would refer to a 0 spring followed by a 0, or a 1 spring followed by a 0.

You're right. I misread my own chart lol.

[dknetter]

Oh man, I didn't even realize you were the one that wrote that thread! That is funny, but great work on all that! I also appreciate your replies here to confirm I was understanding it correctly.

[DonkeyShlong]

I actually have started going on medium springs as like said above, a super short will clip you.  It's just a case of practice for all scenarios this level.  Do you take the one movement approach, or do you park jumpman at the bottom of the ladder and just focus left on the springs?  I found the two step approach much safer, and you get a feel for moving him right without looking.  I think a member of this forum actually made a version of the ROM that only had level 5 springs!

[dknetter]

I actually have started going on medium springs as like said above, a super short will clip you.  It's just a case of practice for all scenarios this level.  Do you take the one movement approach, or do you park jumpman at the bottom of the ladder and just focus left on the springs?  I found the two step approach much safer, and you get a feel for moving him right without looking.  I think a member of this forum actually made a version of the ROM that only had level 5 springs!

So as per the exchange with Xelnia above, I don't believe a super short second spring will ever "clip you." I initially thought that might be the case given some comments in other threads, which is why I posted this thread and video clip to see if that was what was happening to me. But the excellent data and chart by Xelnia in the spring thread should not be interpreted to indicate that a second short spring would somehow clip you. I believe that is just a misunderstanding, and in the clip I posted it was actually just me being too slow that was causing me to get "clipped" by a spring I would have made it on if I had been faster.

For me, I think I got in a bad habit of trying a one movement approach from the 2nd/left safe spot, and backing off the ladder if a 2nd spring hit long. It took some adjustment, but now I think I'm much more consistent with a two step approach as you mention...watching the height of where the spring enters the screen vs waiting to see where it bounces. The key for me now is also making the initial read of going/retreating and sticking with it, and NOT trying to back out once I've made the second move and actually started to ascend the ladder when I second guess my read on the spring...I think it's a bad habit from my initial approach of trying to do it in one move and backing off the ladder.

[Animalchild]

I thought I'd contribute, I seem to make it on  long-super short on the proviso I do not pause near the ladder.
I have seen videos about pausing near the ladder and watching the second spring but for some reason it just doesn't work for me. (Could be 60_1 lag)
I run on the long when its above my head and on the second step of the ladder check what the next spring is and if its anything nut a short I retreat all the way back. This works for me on arcade and the 60-1