ExistentialSolid's "Please Destroy Me" Detour

[ExistentialSolid]

On 1/15/2021 at 7:30 PM, Danny_Johansen said:

Nice work on Ikaruga and congrats on the plat!

Thank you!  Your chapter 3 and chapter 4 S++ videos really helped me out on my way towards the plat! 

Edited January 17, 2021 by ExistentialSolid

[Mohemn_Ammar]

You can change your forum profile's location information now? Congrats man:)

[freeman4200]

Amazing job! Can't wait for the next poll! 

[AJ_Radio]

Yep, definitely not touching Ikaruga. Unless I have no backlog left.

 

I find it amusing that you got some piss easy games like Assassin's Creed II and Until Dawn that aren't even finished. But you have hard as nails games that less than 99.5 percent of players will go for, so for that, you get my respect.

[Xenoblast91]

Congratulations buddy! You moved one step close to the plasma state of existence so I guess you're Liquid right now! 

 

I can't imagine feeling all that pain just for spending hours and hours in something so demanding as this. That's why I believe I wouldn't never try to achieve something like speed running, LOL. Glad you have the time to put it into full throttle in this hobby and makes you passionate enough to even try things like Ikaruga! Can't wait to see your next challenge!

 

 

Edited January 16, 2021 by Xenoblast91

[ExistentialSolid]

11 hours ago, Mohemn_Ammar said:

You can change your forum profile's location information now? Congrats man:)

Haha, whoops, you're right! Just changed it. ? Thank you!
 

10 hours ago, freeman4200 said:

Amazing job! Can't wait for the next poll! 

Thank you! ? I'm excited too! I have an idea for the next poll that may make things more interesting but I need to do some testing first.
 

10 hours ago, Spaz said:

Yep, definitely not touching Ikaruga. Unless I have no backlog left.

 

I find it amusing that you got some piss easy games like Assassin's Creed II and Until Dawn that aren't even finished. But you have hard as nails games that less than 99.5 percent of players will go for, so for that, you get my respect.

Thanks! ? Completion will probably always be a bit too draining for me to put any serious effort into trying to maintain. Finishing up some difficult games here and there is one thing but trying to finish nearly every game that winds up on my profile demands a type of dedication that is alien to me. ?
 

9 hours ago, Xenoblast91 said:

Congratulations buddy! You moved one step close to the plasma state of existence so I guess you're Liquid right now! 

 

I can't imagine feeling all that pain just for spending hours and hours in something so demanding as this. That's why I believe I wouldn't never try to achieve something like speed running, LOL. Glad you have the time to put it into full throttle in this hobby and makes you passionate enough to even try things like Ikaruga! Can't wait to see your next challenge!

 

 

Haha, I think ExistentialLiquid sounds even more pretentious than ExistentialSolid so it's probably a fitting promotion 

Thank you! This has been a lot of fun and you're right that I'm very fortunate that I'm able to dedicate so much of my time to trophy hunting. Challenging games have always been exciting to overcome so I'm looking forward to whatever's up next! 

Edited January 16, 2021 by ExistentialSolid

[Eqill5]

I knew this moment was coming soon, that is one well deserved platinum! Congrats on finishing Ikaruga!

[me_is_caveman]

Want a hard game? Then try for all Gold medals on Need for Speed prestige DLC. Guarantee you'll be suffering for that 100%.

Edited January 16, 2021 by me_is_caveman

[det_gittes]

2 hours ago, Xenoblast91 said:

Can't wait to see your next challenge!

Me too  I stopped caring about trophies myself, yet for some reason I really enjoy following other people's journeys. Now in this one there is not only talent and dedication, but also good narrative around the struggle, and I enjoy it even more  

[CrimsonMercury]

Congrats man! Definitely one to be proud of.

[JohnlMatrix]

Congrats on getting the Ikaruga plat. Very interested to see the next poll. :-)

[You]

Congratulations on your Ikaruga platinum! YOU MAD MAN! lol

[ExistentialSolid]

10 hours ago, Eqill5 said:

I knew this moment was coming soon, that is one well deserved platinum! Congrats on finishing Ikaruga!

 

8 hours ago, det_gittes said:

Me too  I stopped caring about trophies myself, yet for some reason I really enjoy following other people's journeys. Now in this one there is not only talent and dedication, but also good narrative around the struggle, and I enjoy it even more  

 

7 hours ago, CrimsonMercury said:

Congrats man! Definitely one to be proud of.

 

3 hours ago, JohnlMatrix said:

Congrats on getting the Ikaruga plat. Very interested to see the next poll. :-)

 

2 hours ago, enaysoft said:

Congratulations on your Ikaruga platinum! YOU MAD MAN! lol

Thank you all so much! (including those of you that are not quoted in this post!)  
Over this past month, I've been overwhelmed by how kind and supportive you all have been of me and this goofy challenge idea.
It really means the world to me and I'll try my best to keep things entertaining!

Edited January 16, 2021 by ExistentialSolid

[Trumpet_Boi_208]

...and just like that, you’re one step closer to achieving platinum godliness, next to Floriiss. Great job on getting the platinum!

[ExistentialSolid]

On 1/16/2021 at 3:24 AM, me_is_caveman said:

Want a hard game? Then try for all Gold medals on Need for Speed prestige DLC. Guarantee you'll be suffering for that 100%.

I remember trying one of the very first prestige events back when I first played NFS awhile back, getting absolutely destroyed, and thinking "nope!"
So I have no doubts that it will present a serious challenge! Would you like me to add it to the nomination list?

Edit: I have added NFS [100%] to the the nomination list just in case you intended to nominate the game as the poll starts tomorrow!

 

On 1/16/2021 at 1:02 PM, Trumpet_Boi_208 said:

...and just like that, you’re one step closer to achieving platinum godliness, next to Floriiss. Great job on getting the platinum!

Haha, thank you! ? I'm several leagues below players like Floriiss but as long as I enjoy a challenge, I'll keep pushing myself!

Edited January 18, 2021 by ExistentialSolid

[HusKy]

23 minutes ago, ExistentialSolid said:

I remember trying one of the very first prestige events back when I first played NFS awhile back, getting absolutely destroyed, and thinking "nope!"
So I have no doubts that it will present a serious challenge! Would you like me to add it to the nomination list?

 

If you are still accepting nominations, and you also accept driving games then here we go: Dirt 2.0 100% -> Flatout trophy. Good luck.

[ExistentialSolid]

5 minutes ago, HusKy said:

If you are still accepting nominations, and you also accept driving games then here we go: Dirt 2.0 100% -> Flatout trophy. Good luck.

Absolutely! And driving games are perfect as long as players that play on a pad are not at any serious disadvantage (like in Assetto Corsa).
Dirt Rally 2.0 looks to be A-OK in that regard and, based on the notoriety of the Flatout trophy, looks like an incredibly daunting challenge!
I have added it to the nomination list! Thanks! 

[Xenoblast91]

7 hours ago, ExistentialSolid said:

Absolutely! And driving games are perfect as long as players that play on a pad are not at any serious disadvantage (like in Assetto Corsa).
Dirt Rally 2.0 looks to be A-OK in that regard and, based on the notoriety of the Flatout trophy, looks like an incredibly daunting challenge!
I have added it to the nomination list! Thanks! 

 

This a personal one. I want to try it too, so I nominate Gran Turismo Sport. The guide states 10/10. Probably because is purely skill based as you need to win 91 races and is completely online. So, would be great if we coincide in that one in this year LOL. 

[ExistentialSolid]

On 1/17/2021 at 1:34 AM, Xenoblast91 said:

This a personal one. I want to try it too, so I nominate Gran Turismo Sport. The guide states 10/10. Probably because is purely skill based as you need to win 91 races and is completely online. So, would be great if we coincide in that one in this year LOL. 

Gran Turismo Sport's online grind does look intimidating!  I worry a bit about the time estimate though. Do you happen to know how accurate the 250+ hour estimate is? 

Since each player is limited to one nomination, GT Sport will replace Dragon Age: Inquisition as your nominated game. Assuming that is alright with you, I have removed DA:I and substituted GT Sport on the nominee list (let me know if you change your mind)! 

Edited January 23, 2021 by ExistentialSolid

[salty_kambi]

.

Edited January 17, 2021 by salty_kambi

[salty_kambi]

i love your idea with this challenge with the poll system and the update,

i see isaac has been nominated and thats one of my favorite game, when i started playing (5 year ago) it i really liked but i had no hope of getting the platinum and stopped playing after like 50h of playtime. In 2020 i started to watch a lot of isaac stream and ultimaly gathering a lot of knowledge, so i choose to restart the game and after more than 1 month i got the 100%!

i think you are way enough skilled for the plat but i warn you the game is way more harder if you dont spend your life on the wiki until you know almost everything by heart (really satisfying to play when you reach that knowledge).

If you only go for the platinum, it maybe will be harder because of the godhead item, for unlocking that item you will need to beat everything as "the lost", a character with only 1 pv, but if you buy the first dlc you, the lost will be able to start each run with "holy mantle", a god tier item that negate the firsr hit of the room you just enter, that item transform "the lost" from the worst character to one of the most interesting to play (for some other reason too), but if you have the dlc you will need to do more thing to get the platinum sadly.

 

(sorry for my bad english, i hope everything is understanble)

Edited January 17, 2021 by salty_kambi

[ExistentialSolid]

Ikaruga Progress Update #6 + New Poll Details

Which trophies have you earned?
Platinum:  (awarded for obtaining all other trophies)
Grade-Specific Trophies: (awarded for earning an S and S++ grade on chapter 3)

Tell me about them!
It's finally finished. After around 25 hours of practice, I survived Chapter 3 with what is easily my proudest S++ run to date! If you'd like to see the video of the final run, it will be linked below:
 

[Special thanks to Danny Johansen and NotEntirelySure for their chapter 3 S++ runs that I used as reference for my own run!]

In the previous progress update, I tried to sound confident in my ability to earn the S++ grade in chapter 3. However, behind the scenes, Chapter 3 was putting every last ounce of resolve I had to the test. I was playing feverishly in the days leading up to the platinum. My playtime was skyrocketing but my progress was stagnating. Sections that initially presented little trouble would suddenly start to overwhelm me; strategies that seemed to work initially would begin to crumble in practice. My impatience would send me into chapter 3 over and over expecting different results when the rational move would be to stop and reassess my approach. 

There were two sections in particular that were tearing me to shreds, so, to wrap up my time with Ikaruga, let's take one last walk through chapter 3 to discuss them. I'll start with a very specific section I discussed in the last update that appears during one of the randomized portions of the chapter:


(https://imgur.com/Zf4q8iz - in case the gif doesn't load!) 

These two sets of planes are a mystery to me. For reasons I still struggle to understand, I can only chain them correctly about 20% of the time. I mentioned in the last update that, to chain these planes, you simply needed to "aim right down the middle" but this is not entirely true. There are two guns on your ship that are spaced apart and fire simultaneously, so, while you can position your ship in the middle of the formation, firing down the middle with both guns is not possible. At one point, I wondered if I needed to position one of my guns down the middle of the formation before firing but this was not very effective.  

After watching a few other S++ runs, I started to notice that proximity mattered. Something every run appeared to have in common was that the player had pushed their ship up directly in front of the formation before firing. Intuitively, this does seem like it would help ensure the planes get destroyed in order as you are minimizing the time/distance each bullet needs to travel to reach the appropriate target so I changed tactics and gave it a try. Unfortunately, the results were never very clear and I am still uncertain on where to position my ship before firing at the formation. In the gif, I am slightly off-center and pushed up against the formation. This seems to cleanly chain them but whether this position is optimal I will leave to Ikaruga experts to decide. Regardless, all I could do was keep pushing onwards.

This next section was a messy grab bag of sorts that dared the player to gamble with their chain:


(https://imgur.com/POf01EY?nc=1 - in case the gif doesn't load!)

More talented players can string together far more enemies together than I've managed here. Matching the polarity of each plane you fire upon would fill up your energy gauge much faster and would allow you to get at least two clean uses of your meter. This is a bit riskier as the revenge bullets complicate the timing of polarity switches so, in practice, I was only able to consistently manage one use of my meter but I tried to make up some of the difference by firing on as many extra ships after the fact as possible. Consistency was painfully difficult to manage here as my greed would always push me to change tactics or push for just a few more sets of enemies.  

Despite all of my struggling and all the feverish grinding, I'm proud that I was able to push through in the end. My journey with Ikaruga came to a close with the run featured in the video above and I couldn't be happier with the result! A final thanks to every player I've used as references for my S++ runs throughout this process including: DPatriot, Danny Johansen, Floriiss, and NotEntirelySure. Additional thanks to lilpain97 for the helpful trophy guide!  

Finally, I wanted to thank you all for showing up for these updates, participating in this thread, and supporting me throughout the first game of this journey.  I had a ton of fun playing Ikaruga and am looking forward to whichever game you all would like to see next!


Poll #2 Details:

With Ikaruga finished, we're going to begin our 2nd poll to decide what to play next starting tomorrow! There's a wide selection of nominees to choose from thanks to so many of you having participated in this thread so I have been reconsidering my initial rule set to accommodate the full set of nominees.  

In my original rule set, I said that each poll would contain "a maximum of 10 nominees" and that any additional nominees would "cycle into rotation" in future polls. There are some issues with this approach: Even with a 10 nominee cap, there is going to be a lot of indecision among voters and pockets of votes may lead to results that fewer players are satisfied with. So, to remedy the problem I think it may be best to: give the player the ability to vote for more than one game and conduct polling in phases.

Here's what I'm imagining: 

In phase 1 of the poll, every nominee will be thrown together in one large list that players can vote on. Giving the player the ability to vote for as many of these games as they want will help give me a better picture of what you all would like to see played. If, for example, a player enjoys games X, Y, and Z, they can simply cast their votes for all three and not think twice about their decision. Similarly, if a player really doesn't like games X and Y, but is fine with every other game on the list, they could simply vote for every game on the list except for games X and Y. Allowing the player to vote for multiple games allows for a wider range of such preferences to be expressed and accounted for.  

In phase 2 of the poll, the three nominees that received the most votes in phase 1 will go head-to-head much like what we've already seen with poll #1. Each player will only be able to cast a single vote this time around. The game that receives the most votes during phase 2 will be the ultimate winner of the poll and, like Ikaruga, will receive regular progress updates until the game is either completed or manages to destroy me.

Phase 1 of the poll will last 5 days and phase 2 of the poll will last 3 days. If there are any objections to this modified polling rule set, please let me know! I will not change the rules if most players would prefer the original rule set. 

Thanks for sticking with me and see you all tomorrow! ?

Edited January 18, 2021 by ExistentialSolid

[Danny_Johansen]

The way to accurately chain those planes isn't by shooting normally. It is by mashing so your shots are on top of each other in the centre. Now they can't be destroyed out of order. I didn't know this until I was done either but that is the way to do it consistently.

 

If you still take requests, what about Tetris Effect.

[HcG Clawz]

If you still take nominees i'll nominate Verlet Swing

 

Its a game still nobody on psn have been able to complete, but then again its not a very known game. Its not glitched since people have completed the game on steam and xbox already. The one thing that makes this plat very hard is the last level is very hard and then there is a mission where you need to complete a set amount of levels after each other without failing once and that last hard level is also the last level in that mission. So yeah a very hard plat.

[ExistentialSolid]

On 1/17/2021 at 7:07 AM, salty_kambi said:

i love your idea with this challenge with the poll system and the update,

i see isaac has been nominated and thats one of my favorite game, when i started playing (5 year ago) it i really liked but i had no hope of getting the platinum and stopped playing after like 50h of playtime. In 2020 i started to watch a lot of isaac stream and ultimaly gathering a lot of knowledge, so i choose to restart the game and after more than 1 month i got the 100%!

i think you are way enough skilled for the plat but i warn you the game is way more harder if you dont spend your life on the wiki until you know almost everything by heart (really satisfying to play when you reach that knowledge).

If you only go for the platinum, it maybe will be harder because of the godhead item, for unlocking that item you will need to beat everything as "the lost", a character with only 1 pv, but if you buy the first dlc you, the lost will be able to start each run with "holy mantle", a god tier item that negate the firsr hit of the room you just enter, that item transform "the lost" from the worst character to one of the most interesting to play (for some other reason too), but if you have the dlc you will need to do more thing to get the platinum sadly.

 

(sorry for my bad english, i hope everything is understanble)

Your English was great, don't worry! ? I'm really happy you're liking this challenge so far and thanks for sharing your experience with Binding of Isaac! For the sake of time, my plan was to only buy the base game and focus on earning the platinum because there's a good chance that trying to both platinum and complete the DLC would push my play time well over the 300 hour mark which would be a bit much for the sake of this challenge. Depending on how much I enjoyed the game, I would likely return at a later date to buy and play through the DLC on my own time if I had fun and wanted to keep playing.

If the game manages to win a future poll, I will absolutely make sure to study the wiki along the way so that I have a better understanding of what's going on!
 

On 1/17/2021 at 8:02 AM, Danny_Johansen said:

The way to accurately chain those planes isn't by shooting normally. It is by mashing so your shots are on top of each other in the centre. Now they can't be destroyed out of order. I didn't know this until I was done either but that is the way to do it consistently.

 

If you still take requests, what about Tetris Effect.

I never even thought about mashing to fire individual shots in that section but that does make sense. If only I had known sooner. ? Thanks for letting me know!

Yeah, requests are always open! ? With Tetris Effect, a lot of the estimates I've seen for the game tend to push past the 300 hour limit I've set for the challenge and, considering that I haven't even learned how to play Tetris at a basic level, I suspect I would have to grind for 300-400+ hours to reach the skill required to platinum Tetris Effect. It's a great choice though so apologies that I'm not able to take it on just yet. If there are any other games you'd like to nominate in its place, please let me know!

 

On 1/17/2021 at 8:57 AM, HcG Clawz said:

If you still take nominees i'll nominate Verlet Swing

 

Its a game still nobody on psn have been able to complete, but then again its not a very known game. Its not glitched since people have completed the game on steam and xbox already. The one thing that makes this plat very hard is the last level is very hard and then there is a mission where you need to complete a set amount of levels after each other without failing once and that last hard level is also the last level in that mission. So yeah a very hard plat.

Definitely, I'm always up for more nominations!
I played a bit of Verlet Swing awhile back! Even the early levels present a pretty steep challenge so I'm not surprised to hear that it gets ridiculous towards the end. Sounds like a great pick! I've added it to the nomination list!

Edited January 22, 2021 by ExistentialSolid