I've gone part-way through Diablo a couple of times, and stopped after maybe 20-30 minutes of attempting one particular obstacle. First it was the vertical wall with the two fences after it, then it was the boulders. So I thought I'd give it another go tonight. With copious use of Lestropie and QcChopper's youtube videos I eventually made it past those damn rocks and started on the rest. Fault after fault after fault, but making slow but steady progress through each part, I had one eye on the clock. It was past 56 minutes and I was starting to get worried wasn't looking ahead in the videos so didn't know how how much of the track was left). I drop down, hop over a little barrel ("this must be a trick...") and smack my head on the plank ("ahh, that's the trick"). Drop down again, over the barrel, full speed ahead up the ramp, and I jump...

...never to land. There was a pause, and for an instant I thought "oh wow, it's loading some kind of cutscene to tell me how awesome I am". Instead just a mid-air freeze frame of my long-suffering rider, battered and bruised, leaping eternally into the unknown. Slowly, with heavy heart, realisation dawned; for the first time ever, Trials had crashed on me. Deflated, I check the videos and realise that it was the last bit of the track.

380-ish faults and 58 minutes, I finally had a place on the Diablo leaderboard. No more. Trials is a cruel mistress.

Oh Man! Finishing Diablo is such an achievement I can't believe it crashed at that point
Here's a positive word of advice though: Next time you try it I bet you'll do it with 100-200 less faults. A few times I've spent a couple of hours working on one jump then as soon as I've made it I hit R by mistake... but I found it only takes a few minutes to do it again. Trials is nice like that

Don't give up, you'll shoot up the leaderboard when you finish that track.

<_< Oooh, I see you're from the UK... ok, definitely don't give up... we need more good players to boost us up the leaderboards

BTW, here are a few more videos of Diablo on youtube:






If you watch that last one you'll see there is still a trick to the final jump... what you need to do is be going full speed in the leaning back position then hold forward as soon as you are on the first part of the ramp. (feels weird to do but it works)

Don't worry, I'll be back.

I know you're right about the faults diminishing, but I'm still not confident about the boulders. Despite taking maybe 60 attempts, it still felt like a fluke when I finally made it. Lestropie's video was useful here; he basically does the top section using only the rear wheel and forward lean. QcChopper leans right back at one point, which I tried to reproduce and never even came close.

Thanks for the videos, I'll use them in preparation for another attempt later. I mentioned in the thread in the videos forum that I'd finally completed Inferno, and since then I've done it with 3 faults (the progression was something like 300-80-40-3). Great, the problem is that this was a fluke; I still take 20-30 attempts with the 3 planks and just got lucky, then got lucky again and no-faulted the rest IRC). I know for a fact that I will be hours on that track before I even come close to improving on that, so I have zero motivation to go back! Maybe once I've completed YSNP... I'm going to get that "Been there" achievement if it kills me.

And isn't it only the top 10 riders in a country that contribute to the rankings? Unless I move to Burundi or something I don't think I'll be involved in that anytime soon.

BTW: if there's a "trick" to the last jump in Diablo then it's quite possible I may not have made it across the line in the time limit. That makes me feel slightly better...

lol now that was some nice story..

_________________

Yeah it's only the top 10 that contribute to the rank, but you can get in the top 10 if you stick with it Since you've nofaulted all but the ultra hard tracks, you're definitely good enough Wait until you complete those last two tracks and your rank will shoot up.

I've been playing Diablo nonstop for the last 3-4 weeks, if it helps I could talk you through my way of doing the boulders (and you're right they are really hard until you get a nice technique down):
I pause with my back wheel on the 2nd boulder and my front wheel on the 3rd boulder... there are points sticking out of each of the boulders, I try to tap accelerate so that I have almost no speed in any direction while my tires are just above the points, then I let the bike fall so that my tires are directly ontop of the points, then I hold accelerate -- as I shoot up I tap forward just as my back tire touches the 3rd boulder... the aim is to land almost steady on the last two boulders with my back tire near the back of the 2nd last one. as I'm about to land I may tap forward so that my back tire doesn't go too far forward, then I'll let the bike roll just a touch so that my back tire is has a bit of space (but not too far or you'll fall down again) then I just hold accelerate and as my back tire hits the top boulder I lean back to get more grip. Works almost every time.

If you start falling down the boulders you can usually just hold foward and not touch anything else and you can coast down to the bottom without a fault.
Good luck.

EDIT: YAY! Just noticed you've done it! Well done. And see how your rank jumped up like a 100 places Finish YSNP and you'll probably go up another hundred.

Filled with confidence I immediately restarted to do a better run... and got stuck on the boulders! I was trying to use the "rest point" between boulders 2 and 3, except tight against them rather than on the edges the way you describe. Then just nudge back and quickly accelerate upwards using the back wheel like Lestropie. Didn't work obviously, but sometimes you need to take a step back to take two forward.

Great description thanks, that's next on my to-do list. Hopefully it's as helpful as your Inferno technique was.

My first (successful) run on Diablo was 56 minutes, 480 faults, and I was stuck on every obstacle for at least 5 minutes. So don't worry, you'll get there. I've done about 10 runs since then, and I'm down to 14 minutes and 36 faults. Every time I do it, it gets easier.

Godmil's right about the rocks. You can watch my replay in the weeklies (23rd, currently), and if you can stand to wait 5 minutes until I get to the rocks, you will see how they can be done the slow way. And I do them quite, quite slow. Heck, I even do them more than once. On second thought, watch someone else's replay because, frankly, I don't want anyone to see how slowly I do this

I find watching the non-leaders run a very difficult track to be more informative than watching the best guys do them. You're never going to do what the leaders do if you haven't run the track 100 times or more, so watch the lower ranked players stumble through them for some realistic expectations and techniques that are more reliable and less risky.

I bet your first successful run will be less than 40 minutes, and 100 faults less. So try, try again, and good luck.

[Edit: nevermind, you already beat it, 107 faults, 28 minutes, nice work]
[Edit: Okay 70 faults, 16 minutes, slow down or you're going to beat my run]

I don't have the patience to watch my own replays for 5 minutes to see how I did it, never mind someone elses! Actually I may just watch it out of spite.


Totally agree with this, I tend to look at the weekly scores and find someone a few seconds ahead of me to see where I can improve. I did do a good run of Maze (by my standards - 120th) having learnt a lot from Thukanani's run (15th) though. I was 500-ish before that.


You can relax for a while, I've now forgotten how to do the wall and fences jump near the start! I hate it when that happens, it's like the Simpsons: "every time I learn something new, it pushes some old stuff out of my brain". Pffft.

_________________
Speed limits don't apply to Jorma

So YSNP is officially the product of a level designer in a very bad mood. That figures!

Looks like FaceStab is upping his game, great work on Diablo and YSNP this week.

Thanks! Every time I think I've done something I can't beat, I come along and improve it. Although that Diablo run was faultless until the three steps after the rocks, which I doubt I'll repeat any time soon. (The second half of that run was my own personal tale of woe.)

I'm feeling the motivation to improve since I've started looking around at the other active players.
Seeing others like yourself and Luuki kicking my scores to the curb on the medium and hard tracks has made me decide to try and refine the 'very hard' tracks to buy some time until you take on d19.

I'll be going home and working on them nightly, so watch out

Well I started YSNP, actually got past the first slope (eventually, thanks to Godmil's slo-mo Lestropie video) and the bounce, but had no joy with the tyres at all. Godmil's fault-free video makes it look reasonably simple but as soon as I put one wheel wrong I'm bouncing all the way down to oblivion. Lot of work to do there.

Got it! Check your rear view, stabby old chap.

Woo Hoo! Well done Glas, that's you on page 2 of the UK leaderboards, stick with it and we'll see the UK back on top

You're grossly overestimating my abilities, Godmil! There are a few tracks left where I should be able to pick up some points fairly comfortably, but after that it's going to be a matter of grinding out a tenth here and there. If I make it into the top 200 overall I'd be more than happy.

I leave town for one weekend and this happens? Down to 20 faults already? Congrats. I'm gonna be all over it tonight, but I don't know if I can make up 20 places in less than a week. I've got a few improvements left to work on. But my plan of working on YSNP seems to be futile. I'll see you in 5 months

Alright, I managed to no-fault inferno and get the inferno achievement as well as the superhuman achievement. I realize I'm still well behind you, but I consider my new superhuman status to be a good omen. Top 200, here I come. Just gotta go back to the medium and hard tracks. I'm gonna do this.

YAY! Nice one FaceStab. I put the Superhuman achievement as one of the hardest achievements in gaming. If you and GlasWolf can keep up this progress you'll both be in the top 100 in notime.

Kudos FaceStab, I noticed you had Inferno down to 1 fault - bet that was a tale of woe! I haven't touched that track since I did my 3 fault run a week ago. I think I can knock another few faults from YSNP and I need to improve the easy/medium tracks where I'm in the 700-900 range. Even bumping yourself up a few hundred places on those busy tracks still gives minimal return, though.

Race you to 200...

Tale of woe indeed! I got past the first flag, onto the platform, and as I dropped down to trigger the second checkpoint, I braked too hard and rolled forward into a fault. I was practicing, so I figured I'd just keep going and, surprise, I no-faulted the rest of the track.

I fell at the *only* easy part of the map. It took me 3 days to finally fix that. I seriously considered posting a video of it since it was so tragic. Nothing like a dumb mistake between you and the superhuman achievement (as well as about 5 points)...

But I practiced a lot, and in the process, became comfortable enough on inferno to try the 6-6-6 achievement, which kinda made it worthwhile. And looking at my stats, I've done some things that I had decided were forever outside of my abilities, and that's pretty awesome. It's wild to go from crashing on t1, to feeling such a sense of control even on the hard tracks. What a crazy game! It's the same 4 buttons and the same tracks, but it no longer bears any resemblance to the game I bought 4 months ago.

Glas: First to get 200, post here!

[Edit: 210? Nice YSNP run. Looks like I'm falling behind ]

Thanks, but things are getting awkward now. I only need a few more points, but unless I get a really good Diablo run then I'll need to improve several tracks to pick them up. I've just spent most of a morning getting something (barely) respectable on Dizzy and Where's the Ground, for a grand total of about 1 point! I can't get the shortcuts on either track, which doesn't help.

I need to go back to Inferno too, I'm jealous of your superhuman achievement. Your tale of woe is a real facepalm, but at least you didn't totally Godmil it and fail on the last jump.

197. Today I have learned that I hate Speedway and love Lollerskates.

Wow, I got skunked by 40 ranks. Nice work! You take a break now, and I'll set my sites for 196

Better late than never! #193 5-faulting d19 didn't hurt.

Nice work you two
Next stop is 150.

Great job, that's 10 points over me right there. I did finally no-fault Inferno a couple of days ago, so got the Superhuman achievement. I've scrabbled together 3 points off the lesser tracks over the last few days, which raised my rank a grand total of one place. Woohoo!

Nice work on YSNP, Glas! 4 Faults! I've got some work to do.

[Edit: I just watched the run. Nice work on the last half of the track. I did the same thing. All of my faults were at the beginning.]

Cheers, but you always seem to be one little jump ahead of me at the moment!

I was struggling with the tyres for a while and worked out a system; straddle the second last tyre while leaning forward, then use little bursts of throttle to roll slowly to this position:



When the front wheel lines up with the little blob of tread on the tyre as arrowed, hold accelerate. Then, when the back wheel hits the second tyre, very quickly flick and release forward. With a bit of luck you'll wheelie up all the tyres and people watching your replay will think you actually know what you're doing.

Agh, my personal tale of woe -- I got all the way past the squirrel drop, into the second set of concrete tubes, without a fault. I then managed to 5 fault that stretch, only to get my 6th fault on the tires. Looks like I'm stuck behind you for a while.