TotK All Materials FAQ

All Materials FAQ

This is a category where you need to have at least 1 of all 251 materials (only things in the materials tab, no meals/weapons/etc).  No one else has run this category yet, this is just something I made up, but would like to see more people try out.


Q: Why this category?
A: Most of the main categories for this game don't really do anything with a lot of different aspects of this game aside from main story related stuff (aside from 100%, which is 30 hours).  I wanted to try a category that has more variety, but most other alternate category ideas are just "All X" which most of the time is just doing one thing a lot rather than having variety.  This category actually does have a lot of variety despite being an "All X" category, because there are a lot of different ways of obtaining materials.  This category involves stuff like EXP routing, finding and killing a lot of specific enemies for their exclusive materials, sidequests, dragon routing, visiting rarely seen areas in speedruns, and a lot of interesting routing potential because of how many different places you can get a lot of materials.


Q: Is there a lot of RNG in this run?
A: Yes and no.  There are a lot of instances where RNG can make a difference, but its usually something you can route around and adjust to.  I try to route in as much consistent stuff as possible, and if it can't be guaranteed, then I route in something that gives me a reasonably good chance.  It can't be done with everything though so there are a few instances of RNG being not great.  Here are some of the notable RNG things

Guts - enemy guts are always a 100% drop rate from the highest tier of an enemy so they aren't an issue (except for gibdos, which moth gibdos have a 20% drop rate, but i come across a handful of them so I have a good chance at them)

Lizalfos Tails - I need a tail from each lizalfos type (green, blue, black, silver, ice, fire, electric) and they're a 25% chance drop from each.  Green tails can be bought from Karakara bazaar, I come across a good number of blue ones, and I kill 9-10 fire and ice ones so those are all not an issue.  I only come across 4 black/electric Lizalfos, which is still a pretty good chance for a tail (~69%).  I only come across 2 silvers though, so I may have to save and reload in front of one.

Raw whole bird - The birds that drop this are Eldin Ostrich, and White pigeon.  White pigeons are almost exclusively found in Hebra, but don't spawn until after beating Wind Temple, which I don't want to do, so I go for Eldin Ostrich.  Ostriches might seem fairly common in eldin while playing casually, but there's actually only 1 consistent spawn in the game, and random spawns are currently not understood well so its hard to route in random ones.  They also have a 20% drop rate for whole bird, but can drop 2 items, so its a bit higher realistically.

Voltfin trout - This has a guaranteed spawn in Hebra, but only after beating wind temple.  So I have to rely on a random drop from octoroks at Thundra Plateau.  Its about a 10% drop, but theres 11 around one area.

Bananas/Wildberries - My route never passes by a consistent place either of these spawn, but they have a high chance of appearing from fruit boxes at hyrule castle or a hinox

Sticky Lizard - Despite seeming very common casually, they have very few consistent spawn locations, and they're mostly out of the way.  They can randomly spawn in a bunch of caves/wells, but the only one I already go to that can spawn them is Hateno well.  Sometimes it can spawn pretty quickly and sometimes it takes a while.

Tabantha Wheat - Rito village only sells this after Wind Temple, so I have to cut some grass in Tabantha until it spawns.  Thankfully its not too rare.

There are also some times you can get lucky with a random spawn earlier than planned which can let you skip something later on, like with darners/butterflies and some other insects.  I think these things actually make the run dynamic and interesting since there's a lot of potential adjustments.


Q: What is the hardest/most annoying/longest material to get?
A: Its hard to give an answer on the specifically longest material to get, but here's some of them

Sun Pumpkin - This requires the entire Hateno mayor quest

Captain Construct IV Horn - Nearly all enemies in the game have some highest level version of that enemy somewhere in the world without needing to scale it up from EXP, but there are 2 exceptions, Soldier and Captain Construct IV horns.  Captain IV normally requires 4800 EXP to spawn, but horns pre-attached to weapons can also level up, and they level up at a lower EXP threshold.  In this case, Captain IV Horn levels up at 4267 EXP, so thats my EXP target, get a sword from a chest with that attached, take it to terry town and break it to get the horn.  Soldier IV upgrades at 3300 EXP so I don't have to worry about it much.

Silver Boss Bokoblin Horn - there is only a single silver boss bokoblin in the entire game that doesn't need EXP to level up, in Gerudo Highlands Depths.  Though there's a lot of other high level enemies around it that I also need to collect horns from, so its not too far out of the way.

Dragon Parts - There is normally a 10 minute cooldown between getting dragon parts, but there is a way around this with a glitch known as Zuggle Load Object Transfer (zlot).  By fuse entangling an item, it prevents that item from despawning.  And by Zuggling that shield after fuse entangling it, that shield will transfer between files.  So what you can do is save before shooting a dragon, get a part, fuse entangle it and zuggle the shield, then reload the file from before shooting the dragon, and the fuse entangled part will still be on the ground without the dragons cooldown being activated, then just repeat.  Because you can;t save on a dragon, I try to route the dragons as they're going in or out of a chasm to make it easiest, though it also makes some time management sections a bit tricky (except for light dragon, which I try to route around Starview island which has low gravity)


Q: EXP?
A: Yes, the game has a hidden EXP system where you get EXP from killing enemies and that will scale up some enemies as you get more.  There are also EXP bonuses you can get if you kill an enemy damageless (+50%), get a headshot (+50%), do a parry (+100%), or do a flurry rush (+100%).  Though there is a cap of +100% of the enemies original EXP value, so spamming all of them wont help.  Because of the Captain IV horn requiring so much EXP, I have to carefully route how much EXP I get from what enemies I kill, make sure to get as many bonuses as I can and sometimes go out of my way to kill some enemies just for EXP.  I kill an extra fire gleeok, will occasionally shoot some topaz at an enemy camp from free EXP if its not too far away, and kill some extra enemies even after I've already gotten their important materials.

More info on EXP here https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VyzoV6YrTkJHUjqBcgaflPLRDNPvFEhaStJMuOahfAY/edit#gid=1025598246


Q: How do you even route something like this?
A: The most important tool for routing this is the object map https://objmap-totk.zeldamods.org/#/map/z3,0,0,Surface
This is a map that has every object in the game, you can just type in whatever you're looking for and find every location of it on the map which is extremely helpful with figuring out where I can get something and what the best locations for it are.
There's also a tool for estimating dragons path and positions over time which helped a lot with that https://restite.org/dragons/
And I also use this TotK Data sheet for tons of information on materials/enemies/creatures https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fBvQ17WHP3ASgtO8ode_rf1g4DfEHErMrHwwLppNTJM/edit#gid=1158062068

As for the general routing process, first I looked at all the items that I could only get in 1 specific place (Kings scales, Sun Pumpkin, Sanke Carp, etc), and looked at what other materials were easily available in those areas.  Then I looked for materials that are only in a small number of locations (king gleeok, some silver/high tier enemies enemies, creatures like eldin ostrich, porgys, and a lot of insects) and see if there are any close by to those required areas, or if they have extra materials too.  Then repeat again for more common materials until I feel like I have minimized running around to out of the way places and get as much stuff in concentrated areas as possible.