The Hidden Blade Assassin's Creed in Depth

Sorry to keep spamming the AC1 forum like this, but I've updated the OP to include just route videos and a few comments. I've been adding route videos over the past couple days, and the only one that I don't have a full route video for is Talal (assassination route). I'd like to hear your comments about:

The Maria investigations route: I believe a DJ&B is not possible for the pickpocket (I have managed to bump both characters, but they have a pause before they start talking so it's too early), and haven't been able to find anything for the other pickpocket (the geometry is annoying). Would it then not be wiser to go for the other pickpocket, then the informer, and then the eavesdrop?
The Maria assassination route: in terms of getting to the burial, I believe this is the fastest route possible. However, what I'm worried about is the time it takes to set up the Superfast Blitz, crawling on the fence like that. I do believe going up the building and jumping down onto the fence is the fastest way to get to the assassination, but wouldn't a counter kill blitz take less time in total?
The Al Mualim Invisible Kill: I can't seem to get a guard to stay alive as Malik and his men throw their knives. Might just have to do my original idea.

I'd be glad to hear about any other comments you may have as well.

Also this happened yesterday... FML. Back to grinding segment 7.

Figured I'd make an update as it's been two months. I've been very productive and am now up to William's assassination in terms of segments. There might be some things I want to redo. There are three segments that I'm a bit concerned about.

Here's a playlist of some segments that I've uploaded: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktT9sLl_IHg&list=PL3Q-WBoyIr2GEt5N3DrI4X...

I'd love to hear your comments on them. Rest assured that they're all a good watch as I've excluded the more boring segments.

First and foremost the Talal investigations segment. There is one video entitled segment 10, where I didn't use the pickpocket skip at the end, but where the play is very good. But then there's another video that's called Can Save Another 5 Seconds, in which the play isn't great, particularly in the beginning, but where I do get the pickpocket skip. To compare, the pickpocket starts at 1:55 in the former video, whereas in the latter video the equivalent point is reached just over the 2 minute mark. So as I climb up the mosque, I'm 5-6 seconds behind. But then I get the scene skip and end up getting the package at 2:25, whereas in the first video I end up getting the package at 2:39. That's a 14 second difference!
Of course normally you'd just reset and grind until you got everything right, but this skip is so goddamned finnicky. It's the hardest trick in the game by far. I've tried making it consistent before, but it just won't happen. So I don't know what to do with this one. I'll probably go back to it and grind it some more.

Second is the Abu'l assassination segment, segment 17. When I got it, I was extremely happy because up until that point clipping out of the room after the invisible kill was kind of inconsistent (in practice I hit it everytime), and the actual setup for the invisible kill was very fast. However, now that I've rewatched the segment, there's a couple things. First off, I didn't get the quick bureau exit. I did however get the standing up animation skip, so that's at least acceptable. Then there's a small mistake near the beggar which costs a second, and then on the fight with the guard patrol, I make a throw that's unnecessary (though I was planning on using the guard I'd thrown to perform the invisible assassination, I just got lucky and reacted well). On the exit then, I throw out one of the guys, and kill the other. However, as I think about it, I think you can do it faster by high profile assassinating the far guy, which will push the other guy out at least somewhat, and then you can just gentle push him the rest of the way. That would save like 3 or 4 seconds, which is a relatively huge amount of time to save. So yeah, I'll probably be redoing this as well.

Third is the William investigations segment. I haven't uploaded the video for this yet, but it's segment 19. The problem here is the informer investigation. There are two guys to assassinate, and the second guy was in the back of his alley, which meant I had to go up there, kill him and then run back. I haven't watched the video more than once, but I'd estimate that costs over 5 seconds compared to the more favourable position in the beginning of the alley. However, I did get a very quick lineup on the DJ&B and everything else was really good. Now my theory on the informer targets is that they spawn at a fixed location and then patrol. So I might be going so fast as to always get that guy in that position.
I guess this is just something to test and decide whether or not to redo on basis of the outcome.

So that's my worries. By my count, I'm over halfway through the segments. I think I have 16-17 left, depending on how I segment in the last memory (probably just gonna go for one go but I'd need sick luck). Right now I'm working on the William assassination memory. This is by far the hardest yet from a freerunning standpoint. There are a lot of little things that can go wrong, and the quick bureau exit is one of the hardest to get for some reason. And I want the freerunning to be really good here. Also I keep trying to get a good freerunning bit, and then try to go fast on the invisible kill and end up triggering the cutscene accidentally and shit. I've only really had an hour or so of attempts, though.

Uhh, yeah, let me know what you think!

I'm afraid I don't have any constructive criticism but you are, in fact, awesome.

The fastest setup I've found for Abul Nuquod's Invisible Assassination: Enter from the side gate. First assassinate the guard standing nearby. Then throw one of the two posted guards at the gate (the higher level one) inside. Perform the ground assassination when the other guard has followed you inside. He should flee, and if he's between you and the building he should run inside. As for the group of patrolling guards they won't attack you at this point because you are anonymous. You just have to time it right so they aren't around when you throw the first guard inside.

Sorry to hear the setup for Al Mualim's Invisible Kill isn't working. I think it's more reliable on a reload. The way I reload it is go to the memory wall back by the market stalls. One of them has some boxes behind it. Jump along the memory wall at an angle and you will get stuck at the boxes and fall though the ground.

Re: the Abu'l Assassination: I think I get what you're saying. It sounds fast. I'll check it out.

As an update I got the William segment, as well as the Majd investigations segment. Now grinding out the assassination. The blitz isn't hard at all actually.

This is how the fastest Abul assassination should look if you haven't tried it already.

http://youtu.be/jwOVREtuHOI

That is awesome!

To the casual AC player, this doesn't even look like an Abu'l assassination. Fed, would something like this raise suspicion with reviewers at Speed Demos Archive?

It's nice to see we're still pre-assassinating the guard at "lucky pine", just like in the Stylish Assassination guide.

Well, I think it's ok but you would have to explain the trick in detail.

Blimey, that's fast! Thanks Aurel.

In regards to the trick, that kind of thing is certainly acceptable and even encouraged. I'll have to explain it of course, so they know what's going on. But once I do that it should be fine.

My mind needs to be refreshed. How does this work exactly?

Seconded

If you kill a character while it's despawning, the game will trigger a failsafe mechanism and act as if you killed the current target (in this case Abu'l). The guards outside of the palace despawn once you start the cutscene, so it's simply a matter of killing one of them while starting the cutscene.

I barely understand it myself, but there should be some more intelligent gamers out there who comprehend computer language and stuff better. My understanding is that normally a memory corridor is triggered when a character is recognized by the game as a target (sometimes before sometimes after the cutscene right before the assassination) and a high profile assassination is performed on them. When the game despawns characters for cutscenes or due to distance restrictions and they are part of the assassination mission the coding for the memory corridor is in there somewhere.

Also whether the guard flees straight into the palace or outside the gate depends on where he and Altair are standing.

Did I already say thank you, Aurel? If not, thanks!

Look at what MAGLX came up with! I've been stuck on this segment for a while now, this is fantastic!

Possibly the mother of all speedruns.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gECESOoU8Es

If you needed more motivation, PHI.

And here I was, thinking that this game was all about going left. Boy, was I wrong!

HEY EVERYONE! Ectortutu has made his AC1 single-segment run on PC with a time of 3:57:23. PHI, maybe this is your motivation. Beat his time. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVGvcb3bvqrtZ9dnpE5TrgkfGsFGtFvH_

Haha I was just about to go post that here. He got a 4:45 single segment yesterday too. Sadly he didn't know how to do the Robert blitz, so I'm going to link Stabguy's tutorial here: http://thehiddenblade.com/guide-robert-de-sable-blitz and hope he sees it.

We talked a bit about the differences between the PC and console versions of AC1, does anyone have a comprehensive list?

This is a really good effort. Ector Tutu is clearly familiar with the original research contributed by The Hidden Blade. On the multi-segment run he got invisible assassinations of Garnier, Abu'l, William and Robert at Arsuf. (I haven't seen the single-segment run, Phi, but the invisible assassination is preferable to my blitz.)

A couple of the assassinations didn't go as planned. He whiffed on the superfast blitz of Jubair because he had Throwing Knives equipped instead of the Hidden Blade. How embarrassing. Al Mualim disappeared once before Ector Tutu managed a "swing and miss" assassination.

There was one exploit I had never seen before. On the approach to Garnier, he was able to simply jump into the broken window on the east side of the Hospitalier Fortress. I'd like to know more about that exploit and whether it's PC-specific or possible on all platforms.

This information is to anyone who want to speedrunning AC1 on PC.

If you install this game on a SSD, it will make you can't use the Superfast Blitz to get Jubair after cutscene, because SSD was loading faster than HDD, even if only a difference of 0.2 or 0.3 second, but it's enough to destroy the chance to get him.

In fact, I think the best way to go into the hospital from the window, it's certainly the same as how I skipped the pickpocket mission(Refer to #105). Although I'm not sure that everyone was really understand how it works and how to make it work.

In cutscenes the Robert invisible assassination saves 30s... which is just about the time it takes to set it up in the first place, so I remain unconvinced. If someone finds a good setup, though, it could be faster.

The freerunning mechanics in this game are weird. You not only get an extended jump if you come from a climb up, but also when coming from another hobble or another jump. I suspect that was what was happening there. Hopefully it's consistent because that would be amazing.
While we're on the topic, I think Ector had excellent use of throwing knives, something I didn't think to use. Will keep that in mind for future routing purposes (though at this point the run is in limbo).
That and the hardest pickpocket in the game (Jerusalem Rich inside the castle-thing) is bumpable as discovered by Ector.

In other news, MAGLX uploaded this beauty today. Needs some more elaboration because I wasn't able to get it to work. However, it is extremely time and effort saving because it skips the pre-assassination cutscene and also having to do this in a run. (As a sidenote that might not be so hard with more practice, something for any%).

Exciting times!

Now now, Stabby. He must have somehow discovered the same exploits as us. It's not like he shamelessly ripped off the planned speedrun, otherwise PHI would be furious.

Not sure if anyone noticed, but the scene is shorter here than in my video. From what I can tell, at the end of the second scene the minimap appears with Robert showing up as a target. This is from the part of the first scene when Richard asks Altair who the traitor is. You are supposed to move closer to Robert for that scene to progress, but in that speedrun video he stays by Richard, which skips that part of the scene.

Holey *beep* I didn't expect that to happen. Sometime ago I tried to remain anonymous in that assassination by quickly leaving the area and sitting on a bench (which failed because you'll get detected anyway after getting off the bench). The guards were still there, but the game must respawn them, like with Abul's guards.

I'm thinking that can be done faster by leading a rooftop guard to that place and throwing him down to where the posted guards will investigate.

Speedrunning is a fundamentally open-source endeavour. It wouldn't be half as entertaining if it weren't.

EDIT:
For Robert's assassination: I just compared Ector's segmented video with a vanilla walkthrough video, and even cutting out the templar fight it's still at least a 90s timesave, way more than I thought initially. Guess it's totally worth it.

Very impressive MAGLX, that invisible assassination is a real beauty.

Don't know if you made the run public on SDA, but it makes sense that speedrunning is fair game. Ecto Tutu's segments also look helpful for future planning (like if the Jubair blitz gets botched in a single segment run, you can take the path he took). And no, I'm not being nice all of a sudden because he subscribed to my channel yesterday.

If anyone has been communicating with Ector Tutu, please invite him to join The Hidden Blade. I'm sure he would have many interesting comments about the making of his speedrun.

He did comment on MA GLX's Maria video.

I tried out the Robert invisible assassination like he did, and just like in the video the last part of the scene was skipped. But then during the loading screen it froze. Now I'm wondering if I had to move close to Robert at the end of the scene like Ecto did, or if there's a slight difference in consoles, or it could be that when playing AC1 on the Xbox 360 it sometimes freezes for no apparent reason.

Part of me believes you can get away with the Al Mualim invisible assassination without the help of the assassin guard. But since you'll need all the health you can get, it seems more feasible in a 100% run. Or you can keep trying and hope the Templars use the throw ability more often instead of flat out attacking.

Thank you for invite.

Yeah, i've tried invisible assassination as well without guard and it did start end cutscene sound but end cutscene is minute long - so yeah with a lot of luck if you survive templars assault for a minute it should work

We can put that in the "segments I'm not looking forward to record"-basket. Other items in that basket:
- Re-recording Talal's investigations (damn pickpocket)
- Recording Sibrand's investigations (not one, but two of these)
- Recording Maria's investigations (another one of those damn double jump and bumps, maybe even two)
- Recording Maria's assassination (damn invisible kill)
- Recording Al Mualim's kill. I'm stupid enough to try the invisible kill with the guard.

Also we're trying to figure out MAGLX's invisible kill on Maria. Any ideas and help would be much appreciated (the videos are over on the youtubes)

Oh damn... I just accidentally clipped out of the Abu'l invisible kill place using the universal wall breach technique. Simply climbed onto the closed door, did a back eject and grabbed ledge to the back. I will try to get it on video later.

Nice! That certainly saves time, look forward to your video!

BTW, how is your hand now? Any better?

I noticed that in both PHI's and Ecto's Abul video, they take out the guard group instead of using the posted guards for the invisible assassination. Is it simply easier or less riskier?

The posted guards? You mean the patrol guards?

In my experience, I didn't see any difference. Sometimes it was fails, but only occasionally. It seems wasn't affected by the type of guards, sometimes it just fails and I don't know why.

Wrong thread, MAGLX?

I tried recording the clip out just now, but it wouldn't budge. indeed.

Oops! Sorry, my bad.

I just saw your vidoe on Twitch, seems it doesn't work. Thank you for doing this anyway!

Well I know it's possible because I did it once, but it's pretty hard to get right, apparently.

Guess pressure was on so I did the Abu'l clipout anyway.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21lNwyaI178

(Twitch highlight if that's not available)

Easy everytime!

I've tried this way before I shows how to escape by air assassinate a guy, but it didn't work for me. Good to know this is possible.

Did it again today. The trick seems to be to get the correct climb-up, then do a back eject. You'll get a little boost from the pillar that allows you to clip out.

Got 52:42 in a memory block 4 speedrun (shitty mic%) today:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ey0ndltkBo
http://www.twitch.tv/161803398874989/v/26734194

I think the key point is that must back jump at the right moment to get the gap, because when Altair climb the door he will usually shift to the left at highest position, so we have to back jump a bit earlier.

Sometimes I get this at first try, but sometimes I will fail a couple of times because Altair does not always grab the door at the same position, so practice to remember the rhythm is not very helpful, it still needs some luck.

Thanks, Phi! Well done!

I'm like 99% sure rhythm has absolutely nothing to do with it. It's all in the position on the door. Then a straight back-eject and a grab to the back will do it.

I have finished first attempt at 100% segmented run of AC1 - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVGvcb3bvqrtvsO17U-enInnrTDgcpsT4 - it's 7:13:53.

Sub 7 should be possible with better execution, better RNG and maybe some changes in route.

Thank you again people on this site for all the information you found on this game.

Anyway i barely got fastest invisible assassination on Al Mualim - save icon appeared right after desync and loading screen after that went into final Outside The Animus stuff.

Also i got double jump & bump on Pickpocket Investigation in Maria segment.

I understand 100% as full DNA completion.

Hurray, you did it! Too unreliable in a regular speedrun where you're not at maximum health, but still nice to know it's possible.

Excellent work, as always, Ector.

This might save just a little bit of time:

https://youtu.be/wRhgy_NLvEs

I must be missing something here. Can't you just unlock (i.e. disengage from combat) to skip the tutorial and run down to the gate? That's what I did here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfD_ILLdOgk&t=28s

I'm assuming you can save a few seconds by avoiding the brief "cutscene" that requires you to lock on.

I get it now. The first 40 seconds of the video are just a demonstration of how the fight tutorial usually looks. Originally I thought the suicide was part of your process for skipping the tutorial.

The key to the technique is the jump and catch ledge at 1:05. I'm copy-pasting the description from YouTube here: