Just did 2,711,200. The screenshot is right before i died (going with my last life), and this is early level 43. + Show Spoiler +
What is world record for this (highest score ever made) - and is there one, at all?
I've searched the forum, there ain't anything close i was able to find. I've searched the internets, best i found was someone's short video where they barely get above 2 million points, and some rumor in reddit that someone did 2.5 million. But are those really the best ever done, after all the years of Starcraft 2?
This is the most hated achievement in the meta achievement because of how tedious and long it is, especially since you have to spam spacebar (rather than hold) for the ship to fire at the correct rate.
Since Lost Viking is open source within the StarCraft editor you could script all the inputs. Thereby all scores are suspect and there is no record holder until some runs are filmed live with that old man referee from Twin Galaxies present.
On May 06 2024 13:05 MegaBuster wrote: Since Lost Viking is open source within the StarCraft editor you could script all the inputs. Thereby all scores are suspect and there is no record holder until some runs are filmed live with that old man referee from Twin Galaxies present.
I'm sure the greatest gamer of all time has already achieved the record.
On May 06 2024 13:05 MegaBuster wrote: Since Lost Viking is open source within the StarCraft editor you could script all the inputs. Thereby all scores are suspect and there is no record holder until some runs are filmed live with that old man referee from Twin Galaxies present.
Nope, impossible to script it. Open source code does not make code's RNG calls any less random - and there are plenty clearly random events in the game. Ones which happen differently every time you go through 'em. Like, very 1st level's boss already makes it clear with random-direction shots and chaotic movement of its interceptors, many scourges send their dying shots in random directions, batllecruisers randomly switch between lasers and mines, platforms teleport to random locations and shoot large spreads of projectiles from a random angle, etc. No script would survive it.
BTW, i've recorded my run in its entirety, but seeing it ain't WR, i guess i'll save me some ~50 Gb of uploading and sharing - no point to, right?
On May 06 2024 11:04 Waxangel wrote: Just searched for a couple of minutes and found 2.8m on YouTube ... If anyone is part of a secret Lost Vikings community that keeps world record scores, feel free to chime in
Your googl-fu is better than mine, master. %) And thanks! I knew my 5-hour run was way too short for a WR, yeah. :D
P.S. That guy beaten level 50 though - while i only managed to complete level 42. He was getting way less points per level 'cause he's using the plasma gun, while i used side missiles almost all my run - they score way more smaller enemies. Thing is, getting past level 40 is already proper hard already, but 50 - is just mad respect to the guy.
With respect to scripting you can set the random seed for the game so the same set of inputs produce the same results, its the same way the random behaviors in baseline SC2 can be recreated deterministically in replays.
ie: SCVs picking another mineral crystal to mine after arriving to one that's already being mined uses a random check but is recreated the same way each time you watch the replay.
You could also script the game heuristically like the way League of Legends scripting bots work, they have an extremely fast loop of judgement and action that's running as you play the game live, this is what lets you get insta-shot by Xerath again and again until people make Riot install nightmarish anti-cheat software on everyone's PCs.
I didn't mention these things to undermine any scoring, the score is great! I was just trying to poke at the exciting fact that this is a game you can not only access the code of, but can access it in the accessible-ish sc2 visual code format.
Which means in an alternate universe where Lost Viking is/was highly played you could do interesting things like:
• embed your high score in the map, and pass the map around to your friends with information about your run playing alongside the new run.
• you mentioned how you have a 50gb replay file of your run, well if you broke out the Lost Viking map into its own map you could be saving the runs as a 2 mb replay file instead.
• you could set the random seed so you could all play the same run like the daily runs you see in roguelikes. I'm not sure how much randomness there is beyond firing missiles but if its down to the level of enemy spawning or power up order then it could be good.
• these are just small things, but people could have iteratively developed Lost Viking if it was already fun enough to do high score runs with. That's part of why it was put in there. Looking at the space of open source Shmup games, there's probably nothing out there that is both so accessible and full of ready-to-go effects and units to add to the thing. The whole premise makes you reflect on the SC2 custom map fumble in a big way.
Most interesting. Thanks for elaborating, MegaBuster!
Yet now with all the details you provided, i start to doubt that guy's 2.8M run - based on how quite clumsy he is about dodging certain stuff and picking up power-ups. Especially in 2nd stage's boss fight. Doesn't look like it's a player who managed to beat 50 levels - i was dodging stuff way better. It sure could be that he got tired / sleepy / etc, of course, but still, the doubt lingers. I wonder how probable you would think that guy's 2.8M video could actually be a script in action?