ZSR Forums

First of all, I'm going to say now I'm not posting this to gain video popularity :P you don't even have to watch the videos linked below as I will just make a description of what I found (for myself, this probably does not apply to other more experienced speedrunners). So the three tricks I have done so far (With different setups) are:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ihvWW-0A7M (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ihvWW-0A7M) WESS vs non. WESS (saves 10 seconds, measured from leaving Zora's River to the time Link fully fades into Kak)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PL33P5F6FS0 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PL33P5F6FS0) any% WW vs. MST WW (saves about 5 seconds using any% setup, measured from entering Gohma's room to the time Link first steps into Ganon's Tower)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0H_ELg1mrU (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0H_ELg1mrU) Two Different B1 Skips (Saves ~1 second using a different setup, measured from when you first start moving away from where you land to when you hit the basement floor)

So what I've come up with so far (obviously I'm going to do a few more before I make any decisive conclusion) is that using a bunch of different major trick strategies will only save you about 35ish seconds. The conclusion that I came up with is that you want to spend as much time learning correct movement pathing and more mechanical things, rather than learning a brand new way to do a trick that only saves five seconds.

This is not my way of saying: "Oh it only saves four seconds, don't bother". This is a sub 25 minute run. That means AT MOST there are only 1500 seconds in the entire run (if you can pull off sub 25, don't feel bad if you can't b/c my PB says 25:01 and not 21:07 :P). But a ten second saving trick is a .6% increase in speed. It's pretty significant. What I'm seeing though is: If I were to use these three new things that I have learned in my PB... I would only get down to 24:45. No where close to an 'amazing run'. So that tells me that the tricks are not the largest part of the actual run.

My point is, for newer speed runners *cough*me*cough*, once you feel comfortable with the tricks a bit, you should really start working on movement. I would like to see some comments from other more experienced people to see if anyone agrees with me, or am I just an idiot?

Thanks for taking the time to read this post :) it's a fun project to work on.

EDIT: Fixed a few dumb grammar issues

EDIT2: Obviously the tricks are the most important run, otherwise you would not be able to do them. But when trying to significantly improve your time, I think movement and a couple of other things are FAR more beneficial to look at than multiple 'four second' time savers when there are a limited amount.

EDIT3: Red rupee saves 5-8 seconds (depends 100% on your movement, I will have the video uploaded soon)

thanks for the tips! always glad to learn from the pros

Haha, I am NO WHERE near a pro. I was just confused for a long time why the time saves I was doing didn't add up to two or more minutes. I realized my movement and a few other mechanics were bad and I fixed them. Now I'm just waiting on tehurn :(

ZSR is a site where newcomers can come to try to get into speedrunning Zelda games, learn new tricks, share tips and advice, and get along as a community.

LOL JK it's just where people go to make fun of noobs who just started speedrunning because they know nothing about the game.

Where did that come from? o_O. In general I've found this community to be incredibly nice and relaxed... not what you have just described.

You are pretty much dead on, PriestRSC. Yeah those strats save time, but new players focus WAY too much on them. If you can pull of Ganondoor in a run and you aren't cutting 25 minutes or so, you have a LOT to improve and adding ZR red rupee is not really going to help. As a new player it's easy to compare your run to faster runs and notice "Oh, he does a different Ganondoor setup. I'll switch to that," because those are the most noticeably different things. It's much harder to see that the other player gets to the Lost Woods 5 seconds sooner, collects the cuccos 12 seconds faster, gets from Link's house to the Deku Tree 8 seconds earlier, etc.

Basically once you're doing B1 skip (any method) and Ganondoor in runs, the most important thing is practice. Play a lot and you will get faster.

25:01 - 35ish seconds =/= 24:45 :P

Regardless, I think you are completely right that movement saves way more time than faster, trickier setups.
Also looking forward to the other comparisons  ;D

10+5+1=/= 35 :P I know I said 35ish seconds, but that was including some tricks that I won't include. But I'm pretty sure 25:01 - 16ish seconds = 24:45 ^.^

But yeah, nice to know that I was right about any%. I figured it out running MST and doing dungeon splits. Runs would differ in multiples on 10 seconds up to a couple minutes based on how much I improved my movement and execution of everything. Very little to do with the major tricks.

I was referring to Kaztalek's post, who was mocking you. It's just frustrating when people try to make ZSR helpful and welcoming and others just make people feel like shit for trying to understand something. It's a only a few people, but whatever, I'm just venting now.

Good work, useful for begginers like me, i thought that no wess to skip the owl was a big waste of time.