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WhattayaPlayin'? Stream's over!

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WhattayaBrian
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Re: WhattayaPlayin'? Distorted Travesty 3 - FINALE

Post by WhattayaBrian »



55 - Distorted Travesty 3 - Highlights



56 - Distorted Travesty 3 - Saved Game

Thanks for watch.
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WhattayaBrian
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Re: WhattayaPlayin'? Distorted Travesty 3 - Extra Stuff!

Post by WhattayaBrian »



01 - DT3 Extra - Bad End

Let's take care of some odds and ends.
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NegativeZeroZ
The Living Travesty
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Re: WhattayaPlayin'? Distorted Travesty 3 - FINALE

Post by NegativeZeroZ »

You fulfilled all conditions for the true ending, which... has changed twice. Older public builds might even have the ending that was present when I played the release candidate, so you might try playing version 1.0 to satisfy your curiosity about true ending ver. 2.0, which I think was the best one.

And my final fun(?) fact of this playthrough is..!

All about the Warmaster!

The Warmaster's ice orbitals used to transfer over into other forms, just like the homing thunder does now. Don't let me upsell it too much, though; it wasn't actually THAT bad. At first, we tried simply forbidding the Warmaster from using dash attacks or fire spam while the orbitals were present, buuuuut the Warmaster was just kinda like, "so I can't dash, and that kinda sucks a bit, but having ice orbitals literally 100% of the time is still a better strategy," so... he just kept abusing them. :P So we had the ice orbitals fire off when he swaps forms instead, but THEN he started using the fact that they fire off one by one to create some really devious setups, so they now fire all at once when he swaps.

As you might have guessed, his behavior isn't completely random; it's based on what you're doing, and he does have specific tendencies. The most consistent example that I can think of is combining that fast-and-slow double fireball attack with the flame dash, usually using it twice in a row when you get his health down low enough. Zephyr thought about experimenting with learning AI, having the Warmaster adapt to your tactics, but this concept was cut, so instead he's got a pretty competent decision-making process that includes some painful setups and punishes until you learn to deal with them. A fight with him generally goes one of two ways; either you do really good, or really bad. He's meant to fight you in a human-like way, to make you feel outmatched on a "playing" level, rather than a matter of boss vs. player firepower, which runs with the theming of his character. When the Warmaster lands a hit, I generally don't get frustrated, because an irrational part of me attributes that to the Warmaster himself "outplaying me." I can laugh it off, give my GGs, and continue... unlike some other games, where the AI just reads your controller input directly, and decides,within a single-frame window, BY RNG, whether it'll allow your attack to land, or punish you. Smash 4...

Instead, your preferred attacks and DPS have influence over his form swapping for most of the fight. The Warmaster likes to swap forms to something immune to whatever you're spamming. The most glaring example of this is him swapping out of flame form faster when you're spamming Holy Water at close range; he'll often attempt to punish you by swapping to ice form, which is immune to elemental damage, and doing a slam attack. I'm very familiar with this one, because Zephyr added it to the fight specifically because he saw how scary good I am with Holy Water spam while livestreaming the boss fight. I'd often be zoning the boss perfectly so that the explosion hits rather than the vial, even baiting him to jump so that I can toss some underneath him from time to time.

The only exception is that last 30% of his health bar, which we've nicknamed "Turbo Mode." Here, his form swapping has nothing to do with your actions. Sometimes he'll swap rapidly to throw off your game and sometimes he'll camp a specific form so that you run out of ammo. I'm really surprised you managed to make use of Rail Gun in this fight, I usually abandon augmenting items for this one, except Energy Gem. I fight this boss almost exclusively with Claire, so Jerry gets plenty of time to regenerate that spent ammo.

None of his attacks were allowed to have startup animations shorter than the average human reaction time, though some are definitely more subtle than others. When standing close to flame form, he likes to spam that shorthop-fireball, which comes out almost instantly. It's hard to see coming, mostly because the shorthop IS the startup animation, but you can rack up damage quickly if you learn to read him in close quarters. Flame is the form to do this with; wind is hard to deal with at close range since he likes to spam dashes when you stand there, and he's also hard to keep up with when he does that, while ice form just flies away and melee form just spams the sword waves, which is great when you need to recover dash energy... not so much when you want him to die before you choke at 5% of his health bar. :P

He is overall my favorite boss, though I am most certainly biased since I'm the best at dealing with him. The Gold times in the Boss Gallery are based on a pretty even split between my times and Zephyr's, and the Warmaster's sub-2-minute par time was one of my hard-won contributions.


Thanks for Play!
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WhattayaBrian
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Re: WhattayaPlayin'? Distorted Travesty 3 - Extra Stuff!

Post by WhattayaBrian »

So, I don't want to get too in detail with stuff as I want to save that for the feedback video, but a few quick notes:

1. I don't care if the goomba stomp is intended. It's dumb. Especially since that part of the fight seems built around Claire being under Leviathan shooting up.
2. Reaction times are a really tricky subject. There is no "average human reaction time" that encompasses everything. The averages that are collected are based on the type of stimulus. For example, pressing a button as fast as you can after a lightbulb illuminates is on a whole different level than "if a, then x, if b, then y" like how Death's attacks work. The more stimuli you have, the further away you get from that single stimulus case, so if it was balanced around that, then it's not tuned correctly. I cannot dodge Harpuia's dash. I tried it for 4 hours and 20 minutes. My reaction times are not bad--I play fighting games and rhythm games.
3. Wind ball is unacceptable in its current form. My guess is that it's some sort of combination between CHAOS Healer's movement pattern, and closing the distance to you. But this means it very suddenly changes its speed since it's just continuously updating what angle it wants to be from you (instead of just orbiting you based on where it is).
4. It's a fantastic boss. It's like 98% great. It's just that 2%...



Anyway...

There was a scene in DT1 where some disembodied voice told Jeremy about his power of Undo, right? I'm not crazy? I thought it was Bob the Wise Whale, but I checked that and it wasn't. I just can't imagine where it would be, but I definitely have memories of that happening.

Edit: Tried the ending again on version 1.0. Didn't notice any changes.
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NegativeZeroZ
The Living Travesty
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Re: WhattayaPlayin'? Distorted Travesty 3 - Extra Stuff!

Post by NegativeZeroZ »

I won't linger too much on this (mostly because my own playthrough is way past overdue), but I'll address these last few points.

Being under Leviathan is a bad idea, partially because of the Goomba stomp, but it's mostly a silly thing that'll only happen a few times until you learn to, well, not do that. If it was a constant issue for you, it wasn't really reflected in the video, as I only saw it twice in over 4 hours of gameplay, but you're really not meant to loiter underneath that form for too long. Claire can take potshots while dashing from one side of Leviathan to the other, ideally a charged beam, but that's about it.

Avoiding the Warmaster isn't 100% about reaction times, it's also about learning his tendencies and adapting to them to some degree. He has a lot to throw at you, but if you know what he likes to do when you're in a certain position, you can narrow down what options he'll likely use. One thing he likes to do in Harpuia form is dash a lot when you're standing too close to him. You're meant to fight this form with regular missiles at long range, but you were standing closer, trying to ensure that Gravity Well will actually hit and your Diffusion Missiles won't be wasted. You were also using Power Glove on Claire, which is another risk-reward tool. It lends itself to a strategy that I find really doesn't work against this form of the boss. You're meant to use Shotgun Ice on Flame Instigator form, but I found a way to make Holy Water work better. I haven't really done that with Harpuia and Rail Gun, at least not yet, so I play that form defensively, and I've never had a problem avoiding his dash at long range, even though he likes to whip out that attack when you least expect it while you're standing far away from him.

I don't know how to really explain the wind ball properly, partially because I'm not well versed enough in anything useful for it, other than laymen's game lingo. I'm not even entirely sure that I understand how it works, either, so you probably don't need to know the particulars to dodge it effectively. What I do know is that it works kind of like Cosmic Mario, in that it's more of a device to keep you moving than anything else. For example, even though it may approach you at high speed at times, it won't just crash into you while you're streaming the fire spam; instead, it'll try to match your speed more or less. The best thing you can do while wind ball is around is stay calm, keep moving, and always have an escape route; don't let it corner you into a bad dash. Harpuia form likes to use his triple slash wave attack right after summoning this most of the time, so this is the most important combo to learn. If you can avoid that combo consistently, wind ball's timer is usually halfway over before you need to play it by ear. The most painful combo is probably wind ball and Leviathan's double staff spin. When things turn into a clusterfuck, double-dash is your friend. I have yet to see any bluntly unavoidable combos with this; I've even avoided some wind ball and ice orbital combos the original iteration had.

I'm glad you liked the boss anyway, but I'd hardly call these things "unacceptable." I find these are mostly instances of you trying to stick with strategies that the Warmaster is designed to counter, and using equipment that punishes you for... not being a speedrunner, I guess? The Power Glove and Plot Armor, though they were always planned to be in the game, their use was always nebulous. Their current effects were concepts that I pitched, and in the original pitch, they were meant to cancel each other out, more or less, so that putting both of these powerful items on one character was ultimately pointless, encouraging you to switch, as is the game's intent from the beginning, though whether it effectively encourages swapping enough is debateable. I feel that the Plot Armor ended up being stronger and the Power Glove being weaker than their original concepts, making the Power Glove almost exclusively an item for speedrunning. For anyone looking to simply complete the game, I'd recommend Plot Armor, Sword of Bravery, and Heart Bracelet on Claire, and Energy Gem, Golden Bow, and Dragon Feather Ring on Jerry, using Claire primarily, and swapping to Jerry for the occasional spamfest against Leviathan form and perfect dashing through all that ice spam. And if you're wondering what Golden Bow is for, you can use it early on to pierce through the rocks when he's doing the fire spam attack, until that form becomes immune to piercing damage near the end of the fight. I find that jumping and dunking him with Holy Water is more effective, but if you have trouble avoiding the fire spam later in the fight when he likes to immediately follow up with another attack, you can use Jerry to perfect dash to the other side of the boss when you run out of space.


As for the whole Power of Undo thing, I have no idea what you're talking about. It sounds like a joke scene, if it even existed at all in any build of the game. It definitely wouldn't exist as a serious plot device in a ZephyrBurst game because he hates time travel (I'm pretty sure).

Oh well. You'll get to see the beta ending when Hadriex finishes his run. I won't spoil what happens but I think that ending is better.
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WhattayaBrian
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Re: WhattayaPlayin'? Distorted Travesty 3 - Extra Stuff!

Post by WhattayaBrian »

Guiding Voice wrote:You hold 2 Muffins. The Darkness will stop at nothing to get those from you.
Be on your guard.
And Jeremy, you have the ability to change the worlds which are currently viewed.
Remember this fact, you can undo anything.
End of Distortion.

I guess my mind sort of latched onto that as an unresolved Chekhov's Gun. It's true that Jeremy undid a lot of stuff that Hex threw at you in DT1, but "undo anything" is a powerful statement that seemed to go beyond that.

Or it's simply that the Guiding Voice was the Artist and he was bullshitting you.

I dunno.
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WhattayaBrian
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Re: WhattayaPlayin'? Distorted Travesty 3 - Extra Stuff!

Post by WhattayaBrian »



02 - DT3 Extra - Achievements

Woah what there's more!?
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AuraLancer
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Re: WhattayaPlayin'? Distorted Travesty 3 - Extra Stuff!

Post by AuraLancer »

Whew, finally got through the videos. That ending, man. Blegh
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WhattayaBrian
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Re: WhattayaPlayin'? Advance Wars!

Post by WhattayaBrian »



01 - Advance Wars - It's War!

And now for something completely different.
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WhattayaBrian
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Re: WhattayaPlayin'? Advance Wars!

Post by WhattayaBrian »



02 - Advance Wars - Gunfighter!

grit put that pistol down what are you doing
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WhattayaBrian
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Re: WhattayaPlayin'? Advance Wars! AND A SPECIAL SURPRISE

Post by WhattayaBrian »



03 - Advance Wars - Air Ace!



04 - Advance Wars - Max Strikes!

THINGS ARE STILL EASY

BUT WAIT

WHAT'S THIS



Let's Play Pony Island

WHOA
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ZephyrBurst
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Re: WhattayaPlayin'? Advance Wars! AND A SPECIAL SURPRISE

Post by ZephyrBurst »

Yay Pony Island. A game not about ponies.
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WhattayaBrian
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Re: WhattayaPlayin'? Back to Undertale because I CAN'T MAKE UP MY MIND

Post by WhattayaBrian »



02 - Undertale - Spare...Spare...Spare...

:(
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WhattayaBrian
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Re: WhattayaPlayin'? Back to Undertale because I CAN'T MAKE UP MY MIND

Post by WhattayaBrian »

https://www.twitch.tv/whattayabrian

Streaming now! Stream's over!

I am playing in One Hit Kill Mode. I hope I don't need to explain what that means.

Note that I am slightly further than raocow is, so if you want to be as blind as he is, stay away! :D If that doesn't bother you, or you've already played, come check out my failure!
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