- RC Master
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- Exalted Mythic Member
Halo 3 (31st), ODST (14th) and Reach (4th) Mythic Conqueror. (Mythic is Solo, Legendary, All skulls on + scoring on and no deaths/saves).
Staff Writer and speedrun record holder at highspeedhalo.net
Ignorance is the true enemy of all things.
Rocking Bungie.net for over 8 years!
Posted by: Vincent K
Skips are fine, but I usually thinking of "skipping" as in running past/avoiding the enemies (risk is involved, is it not?). Clipping through a wall (or gate, in this case) so I don't have to play the most difficult part of the level isn't exactly what I think of as skipping.
As a speedrunner, I can say this issue has come up many times over the years. "But you're not even fighting the enemies! Why are you running past them? Thats not how you play!" etc. etc.
For standard runs, HSH's policy on the exploitation of any trick or glitch for the purpose of making a run safer/faster whatever has always been: "if its achieved entirely from within the game using an unmodified copy of the game on unmodified hardware; its fair game."
Its HSH against the game, and by extension, against the designers at Bungie. The more we can batter and beat it to a bloody pulp to extract extra seconds, the better. If we can't; well, either Bungie did a bloody good job, or are getting overly restrictive with the invisible barriers >:(
Notice that I said against the game. Not against the enemies. They are mere distractions and roadblocks along the path to the ultimate goal: reaching those end of level credits.
Of course for some, dropping from the bridge on AotCR, or clipping through the door on Silent Cartographer, or bumping into the ceiling of Keyes or PoA (halo 1), or skipping over the rooftops of Outskirts, or ghost riding in the hills around delta halo, felt a little bit too much like cheating.
For those situations, HSH created 'Full Path Halo', where massive level skips and deloads were no longer allowed.
However, there were still people that were of the opinion to effect of 'you're just running past them! You're -blam!-; you don't fight any of them!' etc etc.
But the objective of speedrunning was to get from A to B in as quickest time possible. Simply put: running past the enemies was quicker than fighting them in many cases.
Of course, with the arrival of campaign scoring in Halo 3, ODST and now Reach, there is the extra category of 'High Score' runs, which goes some way to satiate the desire for more 'kill all of them!' type runs.
With Mythic, the objective is even simpler: get from A to B. To do that, you choose the easiest way you can find, the path of least resistance. Especially when you're trying to create a guide (like tyrant) to help other people, or maybe you're not as good as some other people so you'll take any advantage over the game you can get, or maybe you have an ulterior motive (like me) to look for ways to do the levels quickly as well as just get through them. With these stances, especially when its your first time trying to do it (like Legendary, for the laymen among us) its nearly impossible to ignore these tricks/glitches that can make your goal significantly easier.
Sure, once this goal has been achieved (get from A to B), there are harder, even more insane challenges you can do it. e.g. do it in a faster time (speedrun), kill more enemies, don't use the major skips (full path), go for the highest score (High score!), complete all objectives (even more full path), do it without shooting (zero shot), do it without shooting or grenades (vidmaster: Classic), do it without killing (pacifist), do it with weapon X, vehicle Y, etc etc.
But not yet. Thats not our goal atm. Our goal is to simply get there first. If we can find ways to make that goal easier, we'll take them. And remember we can set the tougher challenge for ourself by not including it next time.
Even still, most levels still take a solid strategy, patience, and, crucially, the ability to execute the whole thing in one go.
Essentially the whole thing just was a giant dump on all the effort I had put in to my run.
Nothing is ever going to take away from your accomplishment. You've done Nightfall 'Full Path', I have not. In terms of killing enemies on nightfall: you're better, more hardcore, whatever term you want to use. In terms of doing the level quickly (i.e. not necessarily killing the enemies) I'm better (or, am currently deemed to be since I have a faster time :P)
I'd almost be for creating a secondary Reach Mythic list that has a few additions to the list of no-no's.
Sure, if you want start a 'full path mythic' completers list: I won't object. It might even be my next goal after Mythic. Your Nightfall run will already best mine several times over in 'High Score Mythic.'
HSH might even have a separate 'full path mythic' as well as 'full path' runs for the Normal and Legendary difficulties. There are a number of candidates to get 'Full Path' categories in Reach already...
Still though, there are gonna be people who say 'oh you're just being a -blam!- standing up there on top of the building shooting down at them' or 'you're just DMRing them like a wuss from WAAY far away' or 'If you were good you wouldn't need to use the allies as distractions, you'd do it all yourself' etc. etc etc.
Can't please everyone's definition of 'how the game is meant to be played.' Runs that kill everything, for example, are tedious to do, and unless they're really special; boring to watch. Gotta just pick what your target is, and do it.
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In other news: I did the package. That makes me 6/9 :)