Bards Tale 1 - Speed Running

Discussions and help for Bard's Tale I: Tales of the Unknown
coldfoxred
Posts: 11
Joined: Wed Jan 29, 2020 5:20 am

Re: Bards Tale 1 - Speed Running

Post by coldfoxred »

The video for the 54 minute speedrun is now up on Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxStw6GKAtg

Also, I found this guy's valiant efforts, which were better than mine for some time it appears. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-DDz_CV1ds&t=2082s

He uses a gold-doubling bug to get _a_lot_ of early game gold. I was unaware of this bug until now and I assume it is what the prior poster referred to. I knew that infinite character creation was possible and to thereby slowly earn a pile of gold. But it's nowhere near efficient enough for any type of speed run.

In light of this (new to me) gold bug, I'm confident that a sub 40-minute run is attainable. I'm eyeing the 35 minute mark... but the last 9 minutes of the game are difficult to shave time from.

I happily use any "glitches" (e.g., "magician casts", Ogre Lord harvesting, Special Slot - One Hero interactions, gold-doubling, etc.), but glitches that require an executable restart or memory editing tools/interactions are generally off limits. After all, some magicians surely have failed to properly cast their spells, particularly where the local academy in the area had excessive fees. Magic is, after all, somewhat unpredictable.
Weber G
Posts: 125
Joined: Tue Dec 15, 2020 9:58 am

Re: Bards Tale 1 - Speed Running

Post by Weber G »

54 min is very impressive. This is probably only possible with the DOS version. No chance with the C64 version....
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Darendor
Posts: 1502
Joined: Wed Jan 14, 2009 1:53 am
Location: Red Deer, Alberta, Canada

Re: Bards Tale 1 - Speed Running

Post by Darendor »

Weber G wrote: Fri Sep 10, 2021 9:09 am 54 min is very impressive. This is probably only possible with the DOS version. No chance with the C64 version....
Depends on if you use memory editing to manipulate the party's N and E co-ordinate or not.

I, er, know of no such thing, of course...

:?
Maven
Posts: 138
Joined: Sat Apr 16, 2011 9:39 pm

Re: Bards Tale 1 - Speed Running

Post by Maven »

Excellent. You continue to just get better and better.

I have a couple of suggestions.

If you lug around 5 dead party members, you don't have to worry about dopplegangers or mimics.

You don't have to animate the Bard in order to get him to sing at the red dragons. Just hit the F2 key, and the dead bard can sing away. If he has a Bardsword or a Lak's Lyre, it's infinite free light.

If you do actually use the gold doubling exploit, it makes dying very cheap. In fact, maybe faster than running back through the maze sometimes. It might make it worth it to use the 4 golems in the first level of the castle for 3K experience apiece instead of the ogre lords. The special targeting affinity gives you an excellent chance of getting past the stone golem/grey dragon guard (for 6K exp) and if you want to trap zap the treasures you might get some decent items. You do have to summon specials in between, but at least while you're getting your Wizard up to level 2, the Summon Dead spell works well.

The Spectre Snare can actually be quite useful, but you should give it to one of the front line melee characters. If they happen to survive the first onslaught, they will critically hit whomever they attack. Even a level 1 Bard can be a formidable ally with such a weapon.

It's a bummer that Demon Lords in the special slot don't do their breath attack. And 1/3 of the time they cast a useless spell. I much prefer to keep the Thor. It's for this reason that I like to use Stone Touch instead of Spell Bind, unless the my Thor gets killed. I'm not sure about Spell Bind, but Stone Touch has a much higher chance of landing than the damage spells, and it's pretty much guaranteed to put one enemy out of commission. Yeah, you would need to level your Magician spells up one more level, but I think it's worth it.
Maven
Posts: 138
Joined: Sat Apr 16, 2011 9:39 pm

Re: Bards Tale 1 - Speed Running

Post by Maven »

Maven wrote: Sat Sep 18, 2021 9:17 am The Spectre Snare can actually be quite useful, but you should give it to one of the front line melee characters. If they happen to survive the first onslaught, they will critically hit whomever they attack. Even a level 1 Bard can be a formidable ally with such a weapon.
I should note that if you do this, make sure the guy with the Spectre Snare is not possessed. You want to be able to tell him to attack the Demon Lords or Vampire Lords. Also, Wraiths would be high priority targets. You don't want a guy with a Spectre Snare equipped to go nuts. That will not end well.
coldfoxred
Posts: 11
Joined: Wed Jan 29, 2020 5:20 am

Re: Bards Tale 1 - Speed Running

Post by coldfoxred »

So, I just completed a 43 minute speedrun.
See this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncfe8AuUzTs

And some written commentary:
https://bardstalespeedrun.com/2022/03/0 ... 2-seconds/

Having done less than 45, I think that going under 40 is possible with some hard work. But gains into the sub-40 minutes are hard won. Further (sub-39) gains would either consist of a series of RNG miracles or new (to me) bugs to exploit (e.g., get a random object or to teleport, randomly or otherwise).

At the end of the day, the party's ability to flee from encounters is critical to the Mangar levels. 99% of fights in Mangar are game ending either because you (usually) die the first round, or you consume too many resources recovering from the fight(s) to win in a single trip. This means that you really need a level 28+ party leader to have any rational hope of success.

It takes time and resources to level someone that high. The fastest known way to level heroes 13+ is by abusing a level 11+ wizard's SPSP to drain a level and heal 2 in return (yields 2-3 levels / min). But it takes a significant amount of time and gold to get a hero to Wizard 11.

In my view, my speedrun strategy is basically "frozen" at 23 minutes when the hero hits Wiz 9 and has 300k+ gold. The optimal approach thereafter (the last 20 minutes) seems fairly clear and very rigid. Specters are the fastest xp in the game thereafter, either in the catacombs or by summoning them. The optimal pathing and object gathering order in the Harkyn, Kylearan, and Mangar mazes are easily found. (If you've yet to notice, my pathing in many places isn't "optimal," but it's what's burned into my brain...)

That leaves the first 23 minutes of the game to optimize. Which I discuss at length in the post video above.

BTW, thanks for the input in the thread. I'll reply to some of those posts here soon.
coldfoxred
Posts: 11
Joined: Wed Jan 29, 2020 5:20 am

Re: Bards Tale 1 - Speed Running

Post by coldfoxred »

Some comments to Maven's tips from above:

1. Animating Bard - I didn't know that dead bards can sing, I'll experiment with that. Might be nice to have a bard song active for some early farming gains.

2. Dying with infinite gold - the time spent killing your hero, getting a live helper hero, resurrecting the dead hero, and then either killing or returning the helper hero is usually slower than just walking back.

3. Farming in/around Harkyn - I'm giving some consideration to the ogre lords + stone golems + grey dragon as a single xp loop for the early magician/conjurer levels. The stone golems in Harkyn's castle are not an option. The random and forced encounters with other Harkyn-level critters means that by the time you can flee/survive Harkyn, there's better and safer xp elsewhere.

3. Spectre Snare - I give it to the wizard because he needs the AC boost. The meat shields invariably die in the first or second round and rarely get any attacks off. Having them go nuts or possessed would also be really bad. In the final rounds of the Mangar fight it's going to almost always be a vampire lord(s) + wraith + ghoul that you're fighting as level 28-30 wizard plus a special slot. The AC is important to avoid getting withered/nuts.

5. Spellbind vs Stone Touch - the probability of success for STTO, SPBI, and DEST are all identical. But in the final Mangar fight, all the biggies (demon lord, vampire lord, and Mangar) will always get their attack off before your wizard can cast a spell. As such, I always use Thor as the special slot for the Mangar encounter because he has a very high probability for a first strike kill on a demon lord. Casting spellbind on the demon lords as the Wizard's action for the first round ensures both that you clear the demon lords on the first round (thor + spbi), but it also ensures that you have a big mean critter in the special slot at the END of the first round and the START of the second. Thor has less than a 50% chance to survive the first round, and keeping the special slot filled is of the highest importance. Continuously targeting the meanest critter (Demon Lords then Mangar then Vampire Lords then demons then wraiths then ghouls) with spellbind means that your special slot will always be full at the start of a round and the other side will always lose their strongest monster.
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