Factions Campaign Full game Speedrun Discussion

Just a first post, this is where I intend to discuss any of my Factions speedrunning related questions/strats/builds.
For some backdrop on what speedrunning this entails:

GOAL
To complete the game as fast as possible. Technically, that only involves beating the ‘Imperial Sanctum’ mission as fast as possible.

GENERAL SPEEDRUN RULES
-Essentially the game is to be played as if it was the first character created on your account. This is the fundamental rule that must be adhered to. Major game rules include (but are likely not limited to):

-Skills may only be purchased from the skill trainers they are originally purchased from.
-Access to storage is prohibited.
-Runs must be completed in a single-segment.
-Runs must be completed without any help from other players (using inactive districts is strongly recommended).
-Hard mode must be disabled.
-Use of tomes is prohibited
-Access to other campaigns is prohibited.
-Any special event items/interactions are also prohibited (this includes things like bonus exp/faction weekends).
-Any glitches/exploits/bugs/skips/clips are allowed
-No third party programs allowed, ie. programmable macros, etc.

FACTIONS SPECIFIC:
-Kurzick/Luxon faction must be zero at the beginning of the run (doesn't really matter now as you skip 'Befriending the Luxons' in an any% run anyway)
-No use of /bonus item other than 'Igneous Summoning Stone'.

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Well since discovering the gate glitches my route is now going to be a lot shorter. The gate skip into Gyala allows me to skip the 'Befriending the Luxons Quest and Sunjiang District + other quests. Then the other gates known to be useful for clipping are the one into Boreas Seabed which lets you skip a bunch of quests and the very hard Tahnnakai Temple mission and the gate(s?) into Xaquang Skyway (skips Vizunah Square and Nahpui Corner + quests).

I've confirmed I'm able to do the one into Gyala by aggroing the Reef Lurker spawn nearby (if it's in range). I still need to test if my self sac necro build will work for this gate as assurance (if the reef lurker spawns too far from the gate and I would have to re-run from Cavalon).

The glitches into Boreas and Xaquang are both done in the same fashion, but using masterless minions and other enemies instead. Typically these are done with skills from outside the Factions campaign (Aura of the Lich + sac hero to make it masterless or something along those lines, there are few variants but they use the same principles) and using heroes which I wont have access to either. I don't have time to test Xaquang yet (really busy atm) but I have some theory in place that should hopefully see me able to clip the gate without heroes or skills outside of factions attainable at that point. This would however require me to go A/N and also means I'd skip out on shadow form.

For Boreas I had a character who was nearby and I was able to confirm that I had three different ways of successfully clipping. One way is that sometimes a tiger will spawn near the gate. This is the easiest method, and is just like the reef lurker. However, it's rare that it spawns in range of the gate, but not impossible. The second is aggroing the nearby wallows to kill all the Luxon at the gate and then using shadow form to not die and aggro them to the gate. This is tricky because of the level gap, their constant melee knock downs and lack of survivabilty, but thankfully the resurrection shrine is right next to the gate so you can keep trying. If I get the Xaquang gate skip to work, it's likely this method will be impossible (without shadow form you die in seconds). Either way, it's the hardest of the three but like the tiger can be done as A/Any and will be my method should Xaquang be unskippable.

The third way of skipping the gate is a homebrew self-sac build which will be identical to the method I intend to try at the Xaquang gate later. It involves selecting A/N and using this build or something similar:
[build=OwRSU2fNTwGIuDBeANE4hSG]
You kill something and summon a melee minion (highest level lets it live longer), move it to the gate and then sac yourself to death to make it masterless. You then respawn right nearby and can shadowstep to it and use it to clip.

The Xaquang gate is substantially harder and you need to bring along Su [Henchman]. You then sac yourself and she will resurrect you using her signet. The second time you sac yourself, she will use animate flesh golem. You can then rez at the closest shrine and run back to the gate where Su is flagged. When you get there, sac yourself to low but not dead to give you more time, and wait for the golem to die and leave a corpse. You can then flag Su away to interrupt her from resummoning a golem and allowing you to make your own minion. Once you do so, sac yourself immediately and get ready to run back to the gate from the shrine. It's a lot futher than the Boreas shrine so you really have to run as fast as possible to give yourself enough time. I think that gives you a 10-ish second window to try and get the clip. I will have to test it with a new character seeing all of mine had already gotten past that point and had no actual gate there, but I assume it will work!.

Anyway, after that long detour of background, if all the gates work, I'll likely be level 12 or so in Gyala as opposed to the usual level 20, and without shadow form. Survivablity will be much more of an issue I imagine. Not sure what to do about skill builds, but I'd imagine I might skill cap [Spoil Victor=] on the way through Silent Surf, so that I can kill Kuunavang really fast (and other bosses I guess). It might not be faster than just running, but I'll have a play around when I get time. I don't expect to be doing much running without Shadow form, I'll likely just have to fight a lot of stuff with henchmen, which leads me to wonder if skipping the gate in Xaquang is even going to be any faster (my guess is it should be, but I no longer have sprint as a third IMS skill and the necro quests on Shing Jea take longer than the warrior counterparts, lower overall level, less running/more fighting, etc). Time will tell I guess, I won't be able to test these builds/ideas til later this month. Feel free to brainstorm anything that might be useful in the meantime. It seems that Factions will no longer be a campaign speedrun that just holds your hand

Quote from Nico

Hey!

This looks fun! Keep us updated

Will do Nico I've been pretty busy as of late so I'm not yet able to sit down and really polish/optimize my factions route yet. Still just coming up with little ideas and writing them down, but I have a lot of testing to do when I find the proper time. Glad to have your interest on board!

Side note 1: Before I found all these skips which has completely changed the route of this as a speedgame, I had already done a run that wasn't very good but involved all the missions in a bit over 6 hours. With a good run of that route, close to or just under 5 hours would have been a good run. It's here if you are keen, but I've listed it as private because the run is actually terrible and I'd prefer to only publish a good run The new route should be fun though. When I get a good run, I'll make sure to do some good post-commentary too

Side note 2: I'm actually working on a Prophecies run as well and have a fairly concrete route set for the most part of the game so far. I have yet to create a thread for it because most of my focus in the short term will be on getting a good factions run (hopefully sub 3 hours based of purely estimation). It's my intention to do a good run of all the campaigns individually, including EotN and perhaps even a super run of 'all campaigns' in a single segment!

So I have been keeping track of the Kurzick-Luxon territory line for 3 weeks now with out change. That is until today when Breaker Hollow switched over to the Luxon side. This unfortunately means that the death warp from outside this outpost will no longer work and I will have to run to Cavalon through all the mobs. My warp in Silent Surf also depends on the control of Leviathan Pits.

How often do these zones change? I read about the momentum swing from taking outposts, does this means it's likely I will lose the warp from Leviathan too?

What's the best way of contributing to their re-capture by the Kurzick? It would save me a lot of stress

In regards to the zone swinging, as far as I can tell Breaker Hollow was only under control of Luxon for a 3 hour window before it got recaptured. It's back under Kurzick control and has been that way since it happened.

Regarding the warp in Silent Surf, it's actually no longer relevant. I got around to finishing Gyala Hatchery on one of my spare characters, and as it turns out the gate into Unwaking Waters isn't actually skippable. Came as a surprise seeing as it's the same design as the other skippable ones. I tried with both a reef lurker and unmastered minions. I tried for about an hour and no cigar. It isn't in the list of know skippable gates anyway so I guess that makes sense.

In a way I'm sad because it was a cute little deathwarp and gate clip to save a few minutes, but that kind of time save wouldn't have been ground breaking anyway. On the plus side I'm not sad that I'm forced to escort Togo because it means that I'm not going to have as much of a dependence on war front being advantageous. It also gives me an excuse to skill cap Spoiled Victor, which is cute for demolishing Kunnavang and Shiro. So it's not all bad I guess. It might have ended up being slower than grabbing Spoiled Victor anyway.

Quote from Misty

I did say you'd have a surprise =P if the list you're referring to is the one on the "Minion Trick" page on the wiki, that list isn't even remotely close to being complete. Maybe I'll update it a bit if I get some time.

Yes, that's the list I was referring to. Updating it with your knowledge would be awesome. To have a comprehensive list might really help with what's possible in runs, for both factions and the other campaigns. Is it known why it's not possible to get into Unwaking Waters?

Quote from Misty

couple of questions for you:
1. When you've finished your run, will you measure the total time in seconds with a video (well, several videos edited together since presumably you won't do it all in one sitting), or in minutes with /age?
2. Are you planning to fight the Luxons in Boreas Seabed, or have you thought of a way to solo the kraken spawns as a necro?

1. I don't use /age, it's completely inaccurate- I tested it previously and it's not even a good rough indicator. If you zone into an area after spending 59 seconds in that area, it won't add a single second to your overall age. The time system is all rounded down to the nearest minute so it's not very precise. I use a program called LiveSplit which I fit into my recording layout so it's present throughout the run. The only issue with using purely real time is variations in loading times. I know that the GW running community uses some kind of add on timer that starts when you move and finishes when you zone. Something like this would be awesome if you could make it cumulative and make it run in outpost areas as well and only omitted loading screens. Unfortunately, I don't have nearly close to the know how to make something like that. I'm pretty sure LiveSplit has something you can fiddle with to set it up but it's too complicated for me

2. I previously just fought the luxons. I've got boreas to around 5:30 with a new gate clip method though. It involves using the reef lurkers to clip through in the first wave and flagging henchmen away. After clipping through and flagging them around a bit, they teleport onto the other side of the gate, in roughly the same amount of time as it takes to clear the first Luxon wave. From there I finish the mission as per usual. I think a solo build is impossible. I haven't routed that far, but I am guessing you'll only be around level 12 at the time and with subpar items, armor and a very limited skillpool, I don't THINK it's possible? It's probably still faster to wait for the henchmen. I haven't timed it but it probably only takes about 30 seconds or so to wait for them to clip through. Sometimes the teleport isn't clean and not all henchies get through and the others die to the remaining luxons in the arena area. If it happens to be the monk henchmen it's a bit of an issue.

As other question, if you know more of the gates, the only two ones I have in mind are the gate into Raisu Palace (pretty sure this gate is way too thick) and the gate into Xaquang Skyway from Wajjun Bazaar (rather than the one from Bukdek Byway). The one from Bukdek is really hard to run to Senji's corner solo, I haven't found a way as of yet. The other exit however just involves kiting around melee vermin.

Quote from Misty

I can't promise a comprehensive list - there are hundreds of gates throughout the game, and most of them I have no idea about. I've only really tested a handful that can be exploited for mission records and stuff. I never tried Unwaking Waters, and I can't say for certain what the problem is, but I think it's something to do with the portal being right on the edge of the map.

That's fair enough. And yes, the portal is right on the other side of the gate so you're probably right about that one.

Quote from Misty

Interesting! I didn't think that would be possible... I'm familiar with the gate glitch of course, but getting the henchies through too... I'd love to see a video of it if you have one.

I don't currently have a video of it, but rest assured that I'll be using this technique when I get my full speedruns in and I'll make sure I post my run somewhere on the legacy forums

Quote from Misty

Yeah you can forget about Raisu Palace. As for Wajjun-Xaquang, that doesn't look glitchable either, and even if it was, you would get completely destroyed by all the Am Fah. What's the problem with coming from Bukdek, anyway? You can just flag henchies into the groups, can't you?

Is Wajjun-Xaquang not the same gate style as Bukdek-Xaquang? The Am Fah aren't too bad. I actually have several work arounds. Firstly, I can run past them all and get to the shrine. I've done and tested this and it's not an issue. The issue with this method is it's slow to walk all the way around. It got me thinking about a possible deathwarp skip and so I managed to make one. It involves using [Recall@10]. I cast it on Su [Henchman] when I enter the area and then flag her towards the area under the bridge to Xaquang. Henchmen can't activate resurrection shrines so when she runs past it, it won't activate. In the mean time, I just get my health low using my health sacrificial skills and then when she gets to the area just before the first Am Fah, I stop maintaining the enchantment and warp past the shrine, not activating it in the process. At that point, I am low on health and just die from self bleeding. Then Su will resurrect me, and we both run through the Am Fah mobs a little way before dying. This will spawn you at the shrine above, near the Xaquang exit and means you don't have to run all the way around and go past the other mobs. It also gets rid of Su's rez signet. The only issue is sometimes the Am Fah under the bridge can get in the way and aggro your masterless minions when you're setting up the minion trick.

The warp is just for funsies really, I don't know about the viability of it. Either way, the Am Fah in Wajjun Bazaar can be turned friendly by having the quest 'The Search for a Cure' active which you can can from Kaineng. That's what I did to save myself a lot of trouble when I was doing runs before and it's probably what I'd do in this case as well. All in all, the Am Fah aren't a problem for me- plenty of work arounds. It's more the Jade Brotherhood in Xaquang that completely wall me. I can't use the Recall trick to get past any other shrines that might be useful, other than the one in Wajjun Bazaar outside of the Marketplace.

As for flagging henchmen to draw aggro, I only use Su to set up the minion trick. Otherwise I will have to burn through 7 other rez signets which is just painful. I guess worst case if I have no other way to do it, I can use more henchies (just not any healing henchmen). Otherwise I think I just prefer the Bukdek entry if it's possible. I still have yet to test both gates anyway.

Wait, so you're telling me that the minion trick works with both of the gates into Xaquang? That's awesome news if it's true! It gives me additional flexibility in planning. The other plus is I believe there is less distance between the shrine to the gate, which will give me additional time to get the minion trick if that's the case!

Awesome! Appreciate it! Yeah those vermin are much easier to navigate past as long as you don't let them hit you more than once, otherwise you'll get knocked down and that'll be the end of that. The Jade Brotherhood have 3 mobs lined up in short succession coming from Bukdek and it's fine getting past the first but then the second mob will cut you down. With vermin, if you time your two IMS skills and shadow steps correctly, they shouldn't land a hit on you- much more consistent for runs!

Looks like the switch from A/W to A/N will be a permanent one then. A/N will be slower and trickier through Shing Jea island. Notably, the secondary profession quests for warrior are likely the shortest ones in Factions from all the professions. That and running to the end of Minister Cho's estate to trigger the cutscene will be even harder without a second IAS skill at that point. Oh, and Maoshang Trail will be hard to run through as well. Other than those and just general areas where moving slightly faster saves some time it should be awesome. Overall, this skip should save me something like an hour I'd guess, so it's all for good reason!

Update! I now have enough time to start routing and optimizing properly. Hopefully I will have that completed within the next week, and then on to actual attempts! I'll let you all know if I run into any issues that might need ironing out or anything like that

Well not really. As it turns out some skills are useful in certain places and can save time, but you can't buy runes galore and then all the skills you could possibly ever want as well. I just have to be selective about how useful some skills areAdding 1k just means you can be less fussy about what you have to buy. It also just allows for a more consistent rule set.

Update on progress.

My route is now optimized and complete, just need to really practice some of the trickier areas, mainly Marketplace -> Boreas, the Boreas Mission, Zos Shivros Channel -> Gyala Hatchery, the Gyala Mission and the Raisu Palace mission. I'll hopefully be able to beat the game in around 2:50, 2:30 is probably possible if everything went absolutely perfect with good RNG. I'll see how things are going with practice progress, ideally I will be able to start doing full run attempts sometime in the next couple of days. Thank you to everyone who contributed to the route! I greatly appreciate you all helping in breaking Factions with me!

Another update, unfortunately real life stuff came up and the runs will have to wait a month or two. It's a shame but at least now I have the route down, so next time there'll be a lot less planning involved!

Quote from K A O S Theory

Heyo, this sounds really interesting!

I've always wondered how quick this would be from scratch. I would love to help with this if I can Hope this is still planned to start, or maybe you can post up your current route?

I helped develop this years ago, and I would love to help make a livesplit addon to do something similar, however keep in mind that it would have to read (or even modify memory to make something really accurate, im not talking about hacking or exploits, just function hooking that any api (texmod, steam overlay) does) to do which may or may not break your no third party programs clause. (Warning that making an exception can cause a grey area down the line, such as what the SC community is facing with GW Toolbox).

In terms of running ability without inter-campaign travel being allowed, I would say factions would be the only campaign worth it ;/ prophecies is too slow at leveling and nightfall is very restrictive in terms of skips

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Sorry for the late reply, life has been extremely busy of late! That would be awesome! I think it would be fine, provided it's the only add-on being used. Other speedrunning communities have auto splitters to get exact timing correct. For something like guild wars where there are so many loading screens that can vary, I think it's warranted. I think that livesplit has some kind of built in functionality with this stuff, but this area isn't my forte!

Work has cleared up significantly, I've already started practicing again and I intend to start runs in about a week's time.