Ori developments

Two major new developments occurred in Ori on Saturday, September 16. This pastebin summarizes these developments and their impact on the all skills route(s). Other categories have not received as much attention yet and people are still determining whether there are changes to be made.

========= TL;DR =========

- We found a way to break the ceiling in Sorrow Pass without juggling a frog. This is slower than crazy juggle but faster than frog juggle.
- We came up with a new route applicable to all skills and other categories which does not finish the Ginso Tree.
- There are new XP routes related to both of these changes.

========= REFERENCES =========

Here are various videos and documents which elaborate upon the changes described below.

(VIDEO) Sigma's demo of the new swamp entry: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNr1K43m7ok
(TEXT) GreeZ and Dedew's route changes for glitchless any% (1:50 time save): https://pastebin.com/QvS5iHKu

========= TERRA BREAKING / FROGLESS SORROW =========

Terra discovered a method to break ceilings, such as those in Sorrow, by using save anywhere and dying during a charge jump. The steps to do this trick are as follows:

1) Begin a save anywhere.
2) Hover or otherwise position yourself just under the ceiling.
3) Learn an ability.
4) Find a convenient spot where you can charge jump into something that will kill you.
5) Charge jump into the thing and die. It's important to die while on the upward arc of the charge jump, so you still have the breaking effect.
6) While you respawn, hold a direction on the analog stick. If you saved on the right end of the barrier, hold left. If you saved on the left end, hold right.
7) The barrier will break.

This trick permits a "frogless Sorrow" route, where you entirely skip the frog juggle trick. Instead, when entering Sorrow, after breaking the first ceiling, stomp back down and rocket jump off the same frog a second time. This will bring you up to the "noob spikes" area. Go left and get charge jump first. On the way back, use your ghost door save to start save anywhere, then perform the Terra break on the ceiling. Float up to Sunstone.

Doing this route requires acquiring an additional ability point in some way (either through level up or an extra ability cell). However, in general we believe that the frogless Sorrow route saves around 8 seconds compared to doing frog juggle. Crazy juggle is still the fastest route for Sorrow.

========= WATERLESS ROUTE =========

Later the same day, Sigma proposed a brand new route for all skills made possible by a strat originally conceived for randomizers. The new route works as follows:

1) While returning from double jump to the Ginso Tree, activate the Moon Grotto spirit well.
2) Proceed as normal until the second Ginso miniboss.
3) After defeating the second Ginso miniboss, teleport to Moon Grotto.
4) Go up to Thornfelt Swamp, using a Rekindle skip to despawn the lasers at the Grotto entrance.
5) Go to the frog below the spitter puzzle room.
6) Bash the frog into the drainless area and use his projectiles to break both the stomp barrier and the charge jump barrier.
7) Enter inner Thornfelt Swamp and collect Stomp.
8) Somewhere during the run, collect at least 5 HP to survive the water in the final escape.

This route forces us to play with dirty water, but eliminates core skip and significantly alters our XP routes. A number of individuals spent the evening working on XP routes, and we now have three feasible ones for different combinations of strategies. Overall, the waterless route saves around 30 seconds, representing the largest single time save in all skills since crazy juggle. It also eliminates core skip and drainless, but introduces a new challenging trick (bashing the frog into the drainless area to break barriers).

========= NEW XP ROUTES =========

There are two new XP routes available, covering three different strategies for Sorrow Pass (in decreasing order of speed, according to our best current knowledge):

- Crazy juggle
- Frogless Sorrow
- Frog juggle

The same XP route applies to both crazy juggle and frog juggle runners. It goes like this (all XP numbers approximated, not exact):

* Level up at Wall Jump (0/50 XP, lv1, 1 AP)
* Learn Magnet or Quick Flame at BRB entrance cutscene skip (15/50 XP, lv1, 0 AP)
* Collect 100 XP after acquiring light orb in BRB (65/100 XP, lv2, 1 AP)
* Learn Rekindle at BRB darkness cutscene skip (90/100 XP, lv2, 0 AP)
* Collect 19 XP from fronkey walk and 25 XP from moat enemies (35/175 XP, lv3, 1 AP)
* Learn Regroup at Double Jump tree and do blind movement (35/175 XP, lv3, 0 AP)
* Collect 100 XP from top of rockfall (135/175 XP, lv3, 0 AP)
* Collect 100 XP and 30 XP from frog at iceless (90/275 XP, lv4, 1 AP)
* Collect 100 XP from first Ginso miniboss (195/275 XP, lv4, 1 AP)
* Collect 30 XP from second Ginso miniboss (225/275 XP, lv4, 1 AP)
* Collect 100 XP from Grotto above teleporter (50/400 XP, lv5, 2 AP)
* Collect drainless ability cell (50/400 XP, lv5, 3 AP)
* Collect ability cell at spitter puzzle using frog (50/400 XP, lv5, 4 AP)
* Learn Charge Flame Efficiency and Air Dash at Spirit Tree cutscene skip (50/400 XP, lv5, 1 AP)
* Collect Valley entrance ability cell (50/400 XP, lv5, 2 AP)
* Collect bird stomp ability cell (50/400 XP, lv5, 3 AP)
* Collect fast stompless ability cell (50/400 XP, lv5, 4 AP)
* Learn Ultra Soul Link and Charge Dash at Valley spirit well (50/400 XP, lv5, 0 AP)
* Collect Sorrow Pass entrance ability cell (50/400 XP, lv5, 1 AP)
* Collect 100 XP from Sorrow Pass "noob spikes" (150/400 XP, lv5, 1 AP)
* Learn Magnet or Quick Flame at Sunstone cutscene skip (150/400 XP, lv5, 0 AP)
* Collect 250 XP from Misty miniboss (0/500 XP, lv6, 1 AP)
* Learn Spark Flame at old-fashioned father cutscene skip (0/500 XP, lv6, 0 AP)

The frogless Sorrow route would do all of the same things, but collect one additional cell: the Kuro CS ability cell, which is now cut out of the crazy juggle route.

A number of XP pickups and ability cells are available which are not included in these routes. Sigma has provided the following timings for these pickups for use in figuring out alternate, backup, or possibly faster strats:

* 100 XP at Double Jump = 2.0 seconds
* 200 XP in Grotto near teleporter = 4.5 seconds
* 100 XP in lower Ginso secret = 4.0 seconds
* 100 XP at Bash = 2.0 seconds
* 100 XP at Bash redirect puzzle = 2.0 seconds
* 100 XP at Grotto entrance lasers = 4.3 seconds
* 100 XP at Stomp - 2.0 seconds
* 200 XP at underwater area near drainless = 3.5 seconds
* 100 XP at Charge Flame = 3.8 seconds
* 100 XP at underwater area in Valley = 2.5 seconds
* 150 XP at Sunstone plant = 2.0 seconds
* 200 XP at Kuro perch in Valley = 2.5 seconds
* Ability cell at 4-energy door in spider sac area = 14 seconds (per Meldon)

========= SIGMA'S XP TIMINGS =========

These are the timings which Sigma provided in raw text format which provided the basis for the new routes. I'm providing this raw version here as a future reference, although much of the information contained here is duplicated above.

GET
rockfall 100: 1.5s (get)
iceless 100 (get) (175 level)
miniboss 100 (get)
grotto 100: 1.3s (get) (275 level)
noob spikes 100: 1s (get)

SKIP
100 at dj: 2s
grotto 200: 4.5s
lower ginso 100: 4s
bash 100: 2s
redirect 100: 2s
grotto laser 100: 4.3s
stomp 100: 2s
triforce 200: 3.5s
pre-cflame 100: 3.8s
valley entry water 100: 2.5s
sorrow plant 150: 2s
kuro 200: 2.5s
mortar cell: 8-10s