Post by nathanj on Aug 1, 2021 19:13:51 GMT
Hello my fellow Fancy Flying companions, I hope you like reading!
Recently Paleologos helped me find a way to show in real time my boost power while playing journey, with Cheat Engine opened and using his table.
I used it while playing, tested lots of stuff and found many unexpected results, which led me to totally rethink my understanding of how Fancy Flying works in general!
I had many misbeliefs regarding FF, and today I want to share with you my findings. I know they will make me a better Fancy Flyer (and speedrunner) and I hope they can help you too!
-When performing any Fancy Flying technique you fill an invisible Boosting Power gauge (let's call it "BP"). This "Boosting Power" expresses itself in seconds, and tells you how long it will take for the wayfarer to return to a state where they can't boost anymore. Meaning that if you reach a BP value of 20 seconds with let's say a "Super Boost" and suddently stand still, or walk around, 20 seconds later this value will return to zero.
However if you boost instead or simply are in the air, this value will shrink faster and it will only take about 14.5 sec to use all of your boost ! The same way, it takes around 7.3 sec to use a 10 sec BP in the air.
So, this value doesn't exactly tell you for how long you can boost, but it's the same idea ^^ You will just only be able to boost a bit less longer than what the boost power value is :)
However the more horizontal the camera is during the dive, the faster you will reach a max cap for boost power. A camera fully to the ground under normal circumstances can give a max BP of 14.14 sec, reached by diving 19 seconds with any FF techniques (CB, dive boost, slow boost, dropshoot, slow DS, dry boost. Caveboosting and flap boosting are the exceptions, more about that later)
And the boost power doesn't even increase any faster either, when charging this way. The only thing they do help with is falling more slowly when in the air (slow boost) and therefore giving a higher boost starting point than the one from a regular dive boost = more altitude in the end ! But the boost will last just as long, for the same duration spent on diving.
I couldn't figure out if the Slow DS could be more powerful than a regular DS, and never managed to do so. Now I know why, it's not. It only helps with making sharper turns on the ground (and having lots of fun).
You could consider all reverse FF techniques as slightly behaving like a super boost camera angle type (a little more vertical than normally possible), except inverted. I got no proof for this fact, I can't see the camera angle values in degrees yet but I think I am right, it looks like it in-game.
This came to me as a big surprise, I really thought jumping helped increasing the boost faster, like slow boosting techniques were supposed to !
-When you are frozen in Snow level, the boost power reduces a lot faster than usual, as soon as you stop charging. You also boost more slowly.
Here are a few tips and thoughts for many FF techniques, based on my experience and what I just recently learned, that may interrest you too:
Keeping the same camera angle for the whole duration of a level boost, like I always used to do is fine, but only if this camera angle aims enough down.
The way I tend to angle the camera most of the time for level boosting, I can reach a boost power between 7 or 8 seconds max, and I must pay attention to not dive for too long because of it! You can see it in all my white robe speedruns in Snow level: I always finish with the same kind of level boost here, and boost the moment I am about to reach this max value actually ^^
Experience made me used to choosing about the same camera angle everytime for max horizontal speed during the dive without loosing much altitude, and still building enough boost by aiming it enough to the ground.
Maybe I could actually start with an even more horizontal camera angle though, and then angle it more down to the angle I am used to mid-dive, for even more height in the end.
Even if not speedrunning, sometimes it can be a good idea to aim the camera slightly more down by the end of your levels boost dives, if they last rather long.
The flatter your camera angle is when starting the dive, the more you should think about slowly aiming the camera more down as the dive goes.
The flatter your camera angle is when starting the dive, the more you should think about slowly aiming the camera more down as the dive goes.
The sole and only reason why a flap boost gives slightly better height than a slow boost is because you don't loose any altitude during the dive!
Yet applying this little forward pressure on the left stick seems to prevent you from getting a BP value above 7 sec (my best one was 6.80 sec of BP, and it corresponds to jumping 5 times about every second after walking off a ledge, with as much left stick pressure as possible, while still not pushing it enough to get a slow boost jumping animation instead).
I don't know why that is, but the left stick pressure from a slow boost is enough to reach 14.14 sec of BP without a problem. This seems to be shown by the wayfarer animation itself when jumping: flapping vs twirling for slow boost. It's why finishing a few flap boost jumps with slow boost gives an optimal height! And why diving with a flap boost and finishing with ainshent boost (= a perfect slow boost done with an infinite boost approach) works so great as well: no loss of altitude during the start of the dive.
Flap boosting is relevant to use only when starting a dive, and performing 5 jumps max with it, and then finish off emptying your scarf with another FF technique.
For any FF combination make sure you end with a FF technique that won't reduce your boost instead, but you should be able to combine them all otherwise!
For this, a leveled camera can help during the start of the dive (the more horizontal the camera is, the less height you loose after the same time spent on diving), and as you reach the maximum boost power value this camera angle allows, starting to dive more and more with the camera to avoid reaching this max value ever!
Diving for too long with a too much leveled camera angle is one of the worst mistakes to make because of that.
The goal is also to apply the least amount of left stick pressure required for a slow boost at all times to fall more slowly in the vertical axis.
Also, if the camera aims fully down the moment you start boosting, your boost will start as vertically as it can and you won't waste any of it by boosting a bit horizontally for a short moment.
It's also about how quick you can make the transition between diving and boosting ^^
The max boosting value is 14.14 sec like for many other FF techniques, but it's usually not worth reaching it at all. This is because you would have to aim the camera fully down by the end of the dive for a few seconds to be able to reach it, and you would loose too much height at that moment (even with the low left stick pressure), without being able to regain it all after boosting.
The maximum boost value of a CB point is 14.14 sec (= charging 19 sec / 18 robe flaps), but not all CB points can allow you to reach it! It depends on how vertically you manage to place the camera in the CB point.
The well known one of BB above the glyph cave near the symbol can give these 14 seconds for example, but the two on each side of UG entrance will often only give about 4 to 8 sec of BP, depending on how well you perform.
Dry boost points are often not giving a perfect boost either. The famous one from the first rest stop of SC gives about 12.4 sec of BP, and the one at the top of the entrance gate from Snow level seems to give a maximum of 6 sec of BP only.When a camera is fully vertical or almost, such as in the Super Boost Ravine of CS or BB, it is possible to reach a boosting value of 28 seconds, after charging for 37.33 sec (if we do the maths).
On top of being the most powerful boost, when boosting with a camera aiming this much down, the wayfarer will boost almost fully vertically and reach more height because of it.
You can reach a max boost value of 14.14 sec with dropshoot or slow DS by flicking the right stick, but it's super hard to manage perfectly, as the camera will often level out a little bit.
If you want to gain over 14 sec of boost power with a dropshoot anywhere, you can trick the camera into aiming more to the ground than normally possible, like Apno loves to do for example when performing Slow Circle Dropshoot on tiny platforms.
I am not a pro at this but here is how I do it: I initiate the dive by falling vertically while maintaining the camera to the ground and applying very little pressure on the left stick (you already start charging in the air at this moment since it's a flap boost position: the tiniest amount of left stick pressure is enough to start building up momentum with a camera down, but the maximum boost power limit gets low like this). Falling like this allows to have a slight "super" camera angle and it is the reason why the charge will be better if you manage to keep the camera down later. Upon touching the ground, immediately apply more forward pressure to the left stick the moment you jump, and start flicking the right stick, possibly chirping to slow you down if needed. Or go for a slow circle DS if you can (I can't yet ^^)
Otherwise, whenever the wayfarer makes a barel roll in the sand during a DS, you do loose a little bit of boost during it (I wasn't entirely sure of it). Barel rolling usually happens when you badly time the moment you hold the jump button down upon landing and how the topography looks like under your feet I guess, but they can also happen randomly it seems, and maybe are even dependant on fps or something?When you trigger a caveboost or cutscene boost, the game responds very slowly to your camera inputs: if you charged for a while and suddenly aim the camera at the sky for example, it can take more than 5 sec for the wayfarer to finally start on boosting up (half the boost can get wasted like this).
On top of this weird feature, when you dive with a camera fully to the ground upon caveboosting, you will see the wayfarer is angled way more vertically than they should! I think the reason behind this is at this moment the game considers the wayfarer is diving more than the camera angle lets us believe visually. It's like having a permanent "super" camera effect. This means if you dropshoot like this with a camera fully to the ground, you can get a boost power value over 20 seconds (14.14sec should be the max without caveboosting).
Note that because of the body position of the wayfarer in the air when boosting, much like when super boosting actually, it is possible to boost higher than with a RDS with a similar boost power (boosting direction fully vertical, or almost).
If you dropshoot or CB in a super boost point while caveboosting, your boost power can't get any higher than 28 seconds, since it already seems to be the maximum for a regular super boost point without caveboosting (a camera already fully vertical can't get more vertical than it is ^^). Dropshooting with a more leveled camera angle can give a boost value closer to what you would reach with a camera fully to the ground when not caveboosting.
This is my theory on how these very fun boosts behave. For those who wonder, I tested this in the super boost trench from BB OOB in the blackness, with my tron shader on to see something, while caveboosting.
In paradise you build the Boost Power with the same ratio as usual (1sec of dive for 0.75 sec of BP), and you empty it like usual when walking or standing still (20sec of BP empties in 20sec). It empties as fast in the goo too (10sec of BP emptied in about 14sec).
However, upon boosting or being in the air in general, 10 sec of BP will empty in only 9 sec instead of 7.3 sec. And 20 sec BP will empty in 18 sec. This means slightly longer boosts in Paradise with the same amount of charge! (+faster movements or boosts in general)
On top of that, the boost power cap isn't the same as usual, and it's possible reach a BP value of 19.37 with a camera aiming fully down, and a BP value of 23.56 second in reverse!
Maybe it's even possible to get more than 28 sec of BP with a random super boost point in OOB but I didn't manage to find a good one.
With a leveled camera angle you can also dive longer than usual and still build quite a lot of boost power.
It seems you can't charge a higher BP value with Flap Boost in Paradise than usual though.
Conclusion,
I never suspected I was wrong about Slow FF techniques and jumping during a dive not helping with getting a better boost. I even contributed to sharing incorrect knowledge with my own youtube tutorials and wiki editing over the last year, because I really thought it was true. It's details but they matter to understand the big picture behind Fancy Flying ^^ I'm just glad I got a chance to see it now and also discover more!
I will try to correct these wrong assumptions little by little in the wiki at least in the future, and add some of these ideas to help with a better understanding of FF for everyone :) I'm sure knowing about all this sooner would have helped me a lot.
Thanks Paleologos
To summarise it all:
FF boosts are all about how long you dive, and if your camera angle is making you dive enough to build more boost power than the one you already have.