Is it possible to return to starting point after destroying portal in the Maw?

Galaer on 17/11/2019 at 15:55

Cigam: I understand your point of view. Garrett even if he doesn't always need to go back to starting point, he ends in the outside area. But in last mission of Thief 1 he ends in the inner core of Maw. And yes he managed to escape this place. My question is how?

Unna Oertdottir: I know about bodies acting as a cushion. But I can't use it to fall on egg spheres simply because after Garrett will destroy the portal and kill Constantine (it's these few minutes of waiting I mentioned before), egg spheres are nowhere nearby.

And yes I know, for most of the players the answer will be - no, it's impossible to return to the starting point in this situation. It was done to be impossible by Looking Glass. But still I watched speedruns done in Olddark and they are doing all this crazy stuff. They break the game in order to get best times. That's why I wonder is it really impossible for them?

the taffer on 17/11/2019 at 22:03

I would say you would have to go through the egg area to get back up IF it was possible. You can blackjack (use your blackjack to slow fall) your way to the hole from the particle bridge that Unna was talking about. You would have to hop on an egg (like Unna stated)or fling off the blackjack hitbox (this trick is difficult to control especially trying to get more height than distance) upward but I'm unsure if flinging off the hitbox would get you that much height. IDK if there is an object you could take to fling off of as well. You can basically fling off any object. Flinging is going up to an object, setting up left/middle/right of the object, being a certain proximity, then leaning left or right, and then moving the mouse to the left or right at X speed. It would need testing to know for sure to see if you could get back to the beginning.

Unna Oertdottir on 18/11/2019 at 18:59

Here's a savegame (quicksave)
In the Maw, Portal has been destroyed, The Eye removed. Back to the particle bridge, jumped on a sphere and riding it over the lava.
Load it it and see how far you can get

(http://www.mediafire.com/file/kjj4pftwgpj1h2g/Savegame_Maw_Riding_on_Sphere.zip)

(It's made in ND 1.26)

Galaer on 20/11/2019 at 21:17

Challenge completed. Thanks, Unna, for your persistence. My mistake was assuming that I must destroy the portal, then exchange the Eye and stay in this area to the end of ritual. I thought that leaving ritual area fails watching ritual objective. That's not true. In fact ritual stops when I'm leaving to portal and continue when I return there.

So I ignored the portal and went to exchange the Eye. I waited until Trickster will walk towards Eye and quickly ran to portal. If you are fast enough, you will avoid objective completed. Then I destroyed the portal in the way that I waited for egg sphere with Bugbeast. Then I ran to vines. Watching objective completed. I returned to portal. This run after portal destruction to vines (to complete objective) and back took me 20 seconds.

I reloaded save from before dealing with portal and Constantine. I destroyed the portal in the same way like before (Bugbeast sphere left the portal), waited 20 seconds and ran to particle bridge where I left Ratman body. I managed to get to even previous egg sphere. I dropped on it using Ratman body as a cushion.

Riding on egg sphere is tricky. Just before speed up you need to drop down. Otherwise you get propelled away or killed by body movement. Mantle few cave chambers forward. Somewhere in the half is place that you can jump on lying positioned body. In my case Bugbeasts body.

The biggest problem with riding on egg sphere is when body change position. It's very easy to fall through body. Try to stay behind the head and try to mantle on it. For some reason staying on a bit diagonal position is the hardest. Again target head nad mantle or jump. It's very tricky. Sometimes you can ride while you are kinda inside the body and you can't jump. In that case go to the side of egg sphere, try jumping, then return on body and jump again.

Ride ends by jumping to the ledge. It took me 100 or more reloads. Also for some reason it was easier to stay on egg sphere in your save, Unna. Climbing to the start of the mission is easy. I must say I'm surprised that I succeeded. I thought that it could be possible only by using crazy exploits. But it was really interesting challenge. Thanks for help, Unna Oertdottir.

Unna Oertdottir on 21/11/2019 at 07:04

Well done :D That old game is still fun.