How long does it take to "learn"?

Hey all, I recently started trying to learn OoT for (casual) speed running purposes. I don't expect to ever be a competitive speed runner for this game as its unlikely I'll ever reach the level of skill and experience some of the veterans already have. I still had fun so far learning and trying to speed run the game casually though and pulling off the glitches is definitely entertaining.

I am however having a really bad time trying to learn some of these glitches though and its starting to discourage me from proceeding (seeing as how they are pretty much mandatory glitches). The main one I'm having difficulty with is the door of time skip, which is a pretty important skip for anyone wanting to speed run the game. Some of the glitches I started learning (like the deku mega side hop in deku tree) were pretty straight forward and I got it within about 10 minutes of trying. I still can't get it consistently but just getting results is a huge plus. The door of time skip though I have been trying for well over 2 hours now and I haven't even been able to clip through the door before I have to time the jump slash.

Possibly even worse for me is the epona skip as an adult by bomp jumping over the gate. I can't even manage to pull off the ISG with a bomb grab to start trying to flip. This one I'm a little more lenient on myself simply because I only have 20 bombs so I can only try 20 times before I have to reset/run back and whatnot. Its the same idea though, I have yet to even pull off the ISG. The idea that I will have attempt another new glitch (bomb jump/hover) AFTER pulling off a glitch I already can't do at all (let alone consistently) is quite discouraging.

I'm not really looking for any specific tips (as I've literally seen every tip/help video available), I just want some reassurance that it takes time. How long did it take you guys to get some of these glitches? Am I just expecting results without putting in enough work? I can live with not being very consistent after a solid 2 hours of work, but still having pulled off the glitch, but it is very frustrating to have tried for 2 hours and accomplished essentially nothing (since I have yet to even clip through the door, just rolling and jumping up against it).

Can anyone give some insight and advice for someone in my position? Perhaps with your own experience with such things? Sorry if this sounds a bit ranty. Just want to know if all speed runners start out with this much frustration or if it came easier to some or harder.

Getting ISG off of bombs should be incredibly easy to do, though getting the ISG to stick is a little bit tricky, since you have to dispose of the bomb before you get hit and kill the ISG.

DoT skip is pretty hard to figure out though. The key to it is to work on getting the clip down so that you can do it consistently, then add the Jump Attack in.

A real easy way to keep a bomb from taking away your ISG when it explodes is to: Get ISG, then hold Z and walk backward or forward until the bomb explodes. Once it blows up you'll take damage but you won't lose ISG.

The DoT Skip is hard for everyone trying to learn it the first time. I probably spent 3+ hours before I ever landed on the other side, but once you understand the trick it becomes pretty easy. Definitely get the clip consistant before even thinking about adding the jumpslash like MZX said.

Ocarina of Time is a very hard game to learn and get good at.  Don't get discouraged if you can't get a trick after a while.  It took me almost 5 hours to get DoT skip my first time, and I had been playing OoT for a while then.  Once you get DoT skip the first time, you'll know exactly how to do it and every time after that will be very easy.  Keep trying and learning more stuff, the more you learn, the easier it will be to learn more.

I found getting ISG off a bomb difficult at first but then i tried getting ISG off the 2nd slash rather than the first (when you have to take your sword out) this way you know the timing and so it becomes much easier

DoT skip learning time - to embarrassing to post... so dont worry :)

A lot of tricks do take time. My first DoT Skip took 4 hours and I also was quite familiar with a lot of other tricks in the game.

ISG is fairly simple though, even though it is 1 frame. I was able to explain ISG to someone who had never really glitched in the game and he hit it 3 times in a row after just a few attempts. Can you do ISG off a sign, and is it just the bomb timer that is messing you up?

Thanks for all of the replies so far, I will get back on the horse when I'm home from work today.

I have pulled off ISG on a sign when I first was told how to do it from a friend, and at that time I was able to pull it off within maybe 5 attempts. So its just the bomb that seems to be messing with me. My TV also has some "reaction time" (small, only about a quarter of a second) from when I put in a command to when I see it on screen, which doesn't help for very timing specific tricks. I will try and use some of the tips given in here though and hopefully will be able to pull these off, thanks again.

I remember that my first DoT skip took me days!
In fact, the thing which took me ages was to figure out what I was doing wrong.
Do exactly what you see in youtube tutos.

The detail I was missing (and maybe it's the one you are missing too) is to hold left and let go of Z when you clip through the wall. I think this detail isn't clear enough in many tutos.

For all other tricks, you can try pause buffering to see how it looks like.
I think that the most important thing is to find your timing, playing oot is like playing percussions, you have to play the good rythm.
For exemple, I feel my ISG like: "B, short breath, A"

Try, to write the glitches on tuxguitar! ^^

The quarter of a second input lag may have something to do with it. Some people can play with it just fine, but I know at least for me it would throw me way off and I would notice it immediately if I switched to a set up that had it.

I'm also a noob. I've been working on OoT (pretty casually, and alternating with MM) for a year or so, and my RTA time is still about 1:50. So, if I'm any indicator, it takes a long time! But it's a great feeling when you achieve a personal goal (sub 2 hours was for me).

I've been practicing for about 2 weeks now, and surprisingly I haven't had too much prolonged difficulty with any of the any% glitches. If I spent more than 30-ish minutes trying to learn a particular trick, I would look up more information, and different peoples guides on that trick. It's amazing how you can combine different peoples methods together and figure out what works for you. Also, pause buffering is your friend. That was what really made the difference for me when I was learning the DoT skip.

If you're that quick a learner we should race sometime! I would like to start racing, but I'm not nearly good enough to keep up with the pros yet.

Lompta wrote

If you're that quick a learner we should race sometime! I would like to start racing, but I'm not nearly good enough to keep up with the pros yet.

That is a genius idea. I would believe they're alot of peeps who want to race, but find it very difficult/or simply don't want to race with top tier players.

we need an amateur league.

BluRi wrote

That is a genius idea. I would believe they're alot of peeps who want to race, but find it very difficult/or simply don't want to race with top tier players.

we need an amateur league.

This is a great idea :)

I support this

i'd compete in an amateur league since i can't do the more complex tricks.

My first DoT skip took me at least a month of on and off OoT playing. Angle is everything, once you get the angle down, the jumpslash is soon to follow. Once you can clip through consistently, missing the jumpslash and dying is agrivating, as long as you don't get recoil off the door, I have found a rather consistent frame to jumpslash on to save yourself from dying. Ask me if you need a picture. First time ISG, don't try to get it with one crouch stab. Try multiple, and when you're confortable, then try moving on to a single crouch stab.  :)

lol, I remember my first sequence break, for some reason I went for the old school forest escape for my first glitch, and that resulted in 8 hours of frustration before I finally got it. DoT skip took me about 2 hours first time, now I can get it almost every attempt.

Just a bit of an update after I've tried a bit more. DoT skip has been going quite well compared to my last attempts. I can, for the most part, get through the door consistently. Its now the jump slash giving me difficulty, as the times I do time it where it will actually keep me at the right height (instead of falling), I will either land on the door platform and then fall, or hit the door with my sword and be bounced backwards (both of which make me fall to death). Just wondering what it means, whether I have the angle wrong, or am just timing the jump slash too soon or late, or something else completely. I'm sure the jump slash is the easier part of this skip anyways and I'm very happy that I can finally get the clip down consistently, once I got it the first time, its gotten a hundred times easier.

ISG glitch doesn't seem nearly as hard anymore. I haven't tried it on a bomb yet since before, but I have successfully done it on the cucco to enter the bottom of the well early so I doubt the bomb would be much more difficult than that.

Definitely feels good to get some results after all the frustration though. Practice does indeed make perfect.

Stanemac12 wrote

Just a bit of an update after I've tried a bit more. DoT skip has been going quite well compared to my last attempts. I can, for the most part, get through the door consistently. Its now the jump slash giving me difficulty, as the times I do time it where it will actually keep me at the right height (instead of falling), I will either land on the door platform and then fall, or hit the door with my sword and be bounced backwards (both of which make me fall to death). Just wondering what it means, whether I have the angle wrong, or am just timing the jump slash too soon or late, or something else completely. I'm sure the jump slash is the easier part of this skip anyways and I'm very happy that I can finally get the clip down consistently, once I got it the first time, its gotten a hundred times easier.

If you make it on the door platform and fall, it actually means you did it right, but after a jumpslash link will move backwards while getting up which is making you fall.  To avoid this, after doing the jumpslash, hold left, so as soon as you gain control after the jumpslash you'll move past the door.  I believe ricocheting off of the door either means you're too late or holding backwards after getting OoB, though I'm not certain.

Another update (sorry), but now something really really weird is happening. I was actually able to get the door of time skip consistently, to the point where I was clipping through the door successfully about 3/4 times. I finally landed the jump slash as well and made it through to the other side. Just to make absolute sure it wasn't a fluke, I reset and made my way back to try again, I got it again within about 3-5 tries. So I was quite please that I finally figured this trick out.

So now I wanted to try a fresh run and see if I could do everything I have learned so far so I started a new game. Got the sword + shield, learned and did the forest skip (which was surprisingly not as hard as I would have guessed). Went to the fishing pond, got the gold scale, got the bottle, and went to the temple of time. Here's where the weird stuff started happening. Despite previously being able to clip through the wall almost every time, I now have only been able to clip through the wall 3 times in the last 30 or so minutes. The trick I found before with the jump slash was that once I could clip through the wall consistently, it was a lot easier to try and jump slash because I was pretty much expecting to clip through, instead of being surprised that I actually clipped through, and not having enough time to react after doing so. Now though its like I've regressed even further back to before I even knew how to clip through. Absolutely NOTHING has changed though, I am doing the exact same method I did before, its just not clipping at all (well, 3 times but that might as well be nothing). So now I'm really confused, am I just overlooking something or does the game assign a random new angle for each new game (the new game is really the only new variable here compared to before). I really have no idea why its not working now after I had it down consistently just an hour ago.

The angle wouldn't change just because of a new game, as the DoT Actor position and the ToT Maps should remain constant. There are two possibilities, either you're missing your mark, or (crackpot theory not based on any facts) you equipped something which you didn't have equipped before that has changed Link's collision box slightly.

Believe it or not, this happens to me quite a bit, particularly with tougher, more precise tricks. I will go through phases where I don't know the trick at all, get it maybe a few times. Then I start to get it consistent, even to the point where I think I've got it all figured out. I'd be feeling really confident about how it was going. But then I'll come back the next day or something, and not be able to do it at all! Even though I feel I am doing the exact same thing, I am somehow not.

I think this is interesting:
motor memory is theorized to have two stages; a short term memory encoding stage that is fragile and susceptible to damage, as well as a long term memory consolidation stage which is more stable.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscle_memory

mzxrules wrote

or (crackpot theory not based on any facts) you equipped something which you didn't have equipped before that has changed Link's collision box slightly.

This is not the case

Yeah that's a muscle memory problem. The more you practice, the more consistant you'll be.

You're probably doing something fundamentally wrong with the control stick execution.

Getting ISG is quite tricky at first, try using NPC's to get the timing down, then try bombs. Whenever I use bombs if I fail at the second stab I try with a new bomb, Otherwise If I get ISG with the third stab the bomb will explode then I will usually lose ISG.

I'm not the best but that always works for me, Hope it helps.

Runnerguy2489 wrote

The quarter of a second input lag may have something to do with it. Some people can play with it just fine, but I know at least for me it would throw me way off and I would notice it immediately if I switched to a set up that had it.

I can't play for shit WITHOUT the lag, haha. I didn't even realize my TV had slight input lag until I tried to play on a CRT - every single one of my timings was off by like 1 frame. It was so irritating until I figured out what was going on.

Like runnerguy, this also happens to me too.  In fact, I had the exact same problem you're having with DoT skip just about a week ago where I couldn't do it at all even though I thought I was doing everything right.  It turns out that my angle had been slightly too far to the left, even though it seemed right too me.  Try changing your angle very slightly and see if that works.

I learned the DoT trick pretty quickly, about 30 minutes to about 25% consistency, which has gotten better from speed running. What I think the problem is for alot of people is consistently setting it up. The way I do this is I do a backflip and immediately hit C-up so that I'm always as close to the wall as I can to target, then I target the left horn of the hilt rather than the jewel which I saw alot of people doing on videos. After being setup this way I backflip to roll to sidehop, that way I always start off with a backflip to be as close to wall as you can be, because it pushes you away slightly which is enough to mess you up if you're setting yourself up in this way.

As for the epona steal, I suggest getting the scarecrow song and hookshot instead, it's what I started with since it helps to steal the rod, and the hookshot across gerudo bridge is very simple if you set it up properly which is shown in videos on youtube. I think most new people should start with this route, as it is pretty nooby friendly, after 2 days of practice at this game I was able to put up a 1:38 any% time, which isn't good but I htink is a good start. I haven't even attempted a hover yet, but out of all the tricks that's giving me trouble now, is chu megaflips of which you get 5 chus to pull off 2 megaflips in a child dungeon run. So I suggest workin on the any% before workin on child dungeons, as the trick difficulty is steeper IMO.

isg-wen u crouch stab right at the end of it while his sword is moving the a icon says grab. press a right then. this took about 45 mins 4 me

dot skip-took me about  *ACHOO* oops times up