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Buddy System Achievement Guide


Ruq
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I had posted this in the achievement guide, but I've still been receiving PMs about this so I decided to make a guide for just this one achievement. I will first describe unkowns and facts, then I will provide mathematical formulas which you can follow, then I will provide the method itself, and then (for those who are interested) I will provide an example/proof based on some of the PMs I received.

 

Achievement: Buddy System

Description: Complete the game at least 90% of the time in 2 Players mode

 

First of all, this achievement seems to confuse a lot of people. Even though it says 90% of the time, that's actually a very confusing concept.

 

Maybe we can wrap our heads around the idea by looking at a similar and simpler scenario: you and another driver are racing. You have to have raced at least three-fourths of the total laps together in order for a winner to be determined. Let's say you start first, and on your third lap the other racer starts. In order to have met the three-fourths requirement, the total number of laps needs to be at least 12, since 8/12 = 3/4 (where 8 is the number of laps you both participate in, and 12 is the extra three laps you raced plus your coop laps).

 

What we're going to do is take a look at the time you've spent playing in single player (the laps you spent racing by yourself) and projecting a number that will make that time 1/10 of the total time (total number of laps) you have played, with the remaining 9/10 being in coop.

 

Bear in mind that this achievement can be obtained REGARDLESS of how much time you spent in single player, it's just matter of time (literally). But so that you don't waste yours, I'll provide a very in-depth guide just on this achievement, with mathematical proofing and an example. But first,

 

Unknowns:

1) I don't know if this will unlock for player 2 if player 2 is a profile attempting the achievement. It has been reported [/url] () that it does not.

2) I don't know/remember if you can do this via chapter select

 

Facts:

1) The achievement does not require player 2 to be a profile (i.e. you do not need to make a dummy profile, sign in, etc; you can just hop).

 

2) If you are using a wireless controller, you must make sure it is active. I would either have the adapter to plug the wireless controller in, or use a guitar.

 

-If the controller gets turned off (which could happen during the method if you're using it, say, overnight) then play will jump back to one-player mode. This means that you will only need to wait LONGER for your achievement. Use a wire!

 

3) You do not need to play the entire time in coop mode; you can feasibly do this by playing in single-player, and then waiting until the save-point in Floating Islands OUTSIDE of the gates with the 8 torches (some have said to use the one before this? I can't really remember; multiple saves is safest.) HOWEVER I recommend you do what I will refer to as "coop-hopping"; that is, playing in coop as much as you can, but switching to single player when you need to so you can progress quickly. You will see why this is better in the example, particularly in [Part 3].

 

4) I recommend doing this achievement as a separate playthrough so you don't have to worry about collecting things. This does not need to be the last achievement you do, but collecting things and playing in coop (especially alone) is going to be agitating and end up wasting a lot of time in the end.

 

5) Use cheats if you wish.

I recommend these cheats:

a) Unlimited Life: Pause the game, hold the Left Bumper down and move the Left Stick in the following directions: Right, Right, Down, Down, Left

b) Unlimited Mana: Pause the game, hold the Right Bumper down and move the Left Stick in the following directions: Up, Right, Up, Left, Down

c) Fury Armor and Fully Upgraded Spells: Pause the game, hold the Left Bumper down and move the Left Stick in the following directions: Left, Up, Down, Up, Right

 

6) You do not need to do this with another person. You can do it on your own (I did it on my own).

 

7)

 

 

Just so we're clear:

 

If you can't control Spyro and Cynder on separate controllers, you're not in 2-player mode. You can drop in and out of coop by pausing the game and selecting the 2-players/1-player option (it will be the vise-versa of what the current mode is).

 

The magical save point is the save point on the Floating Islands by the large gate with 8 torches on it. Ideally, you will have ignited all 8 torches and be able to pass through the gate.

 

I recommend doing this by "Coop-hopping"; that is, play as much as you can in coop but switch to single-player when the platforming is tough (such as during the Golem boss fight).

 

The mathematical formula that will help you:

 

Total_Time_Needed = [(Time_Spent_In_Single_Player_Mode_In_Minutes * 10)/60] + Error_Control

 

Where:

Total_Time_Needed is the number of hours that you need to see on the timestamp by the time you go to fight Malefor.

Time_Spent_In_Single_Player_Mode_In_Minutes is...well, just that. [Part 1] of the example will demonstrate how to convert this time into minutes, and what to do with it.

Error_Control is a natural number {1,2,3,4,5...} which will add that many hours onto the number we calculate; this will make certain that you have spent at least 90% of the time in coop.

Edited by Ruq
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The Method:

 

1) Play through the game (ideally Coop-Swapping, refer to the "Just so we're clear" section for what that means)

 

2) When you get to Floating Islands, after you ignite all 8 torches, save the game but do not progress

 

3) From here, get out a calculator and figure out Total_Time_Needed. If you need help, the example I provide will walk you through step-by-step how to find this number (TIP: while you're calculating, have the game running in coop mode! xD)

 

4) If you don't have it running yet, have the game run in coop mode, and save at regular increments. Or, you could leave it on overnight, but whatever you do, if you find you messed up and didn't do it in coop mode DON'T SAVE as that will mean recalculating and adding more time

 

4.5) If you messed up and you suddenly find it'll take a really longer time than you expect to get the achievement, just replay the game. It's a lot quicker replaying the game and waiting 12 hours rather than waiting 12 MORE hours on top of the 12 hours you've already wasted.

5) When you've hit the Total_Time_Needed, save, and go kick Malefor's butt! If you added on some Error_Control, you can probably do this as single player and it'll still work.

6) If the achievement does not pop, don't panic. It's just a matter of time and patience, post here with your problem and I'll be happy to help. If I don't respond in time send me a PM.

7) If you got the achievement, congratulations! (And you're welcome ;) )

The Example

I am going to break this down into its basic elements, as I do not know your skill level in math. I don't think you're stupid, I just don't want to assume you know something that you don't, because then you will get frustrated and I don't want you to be frustrated. I also believe that more information is better, so if you start getting overwhelmed don't worry about the details; I'm not trying to give you a math lesson, I promise.

 

For this example, we will assume that we are at the Save Point. I will go through the example using both the constraints of playing single-player exclusively, as well as using coop-hopping.

The game times are as follows:

 

Time spent as Spyro = 2 h 42 m 36 s

Time spent as Cynder = 1 h 36 m 59 s

Total Game Time = 4 h 19 m 35 s

Total Game Time = 3 h 19 m 35 s

The Total Game Time in Red is the Total Game Time as a result of playing exclusively in single-player up until the save point. The Total Game Time in Blue is the Total Game Time as a result of playing some time in coop, and some time out of coop. Your times will probably vary, in fact I guarentee they will. Just use this example as a guide and plug in your own numbers.

Before I get into the really gritty stuff, a simple explanation of the steps:

1) Convert the time of our Dragons into minutes.

2) Estimate the time we spent playing in Single-Player mode.

3) Project the time we need to sit and twiddle our thumbs until we are pretty sure we can get the achievement.

[Part 1 -- Converting Time]

First of all, it's best that we convert our dragons' times into minutes. This will make it easier to manipulate our data. To do this:

1) Take the number of hours and multiply by 60, since there are 60 minutes in an hour

2) Add the minutes that already exist

3) Don't worry about seconds too much

For Spyro: 2 * 60 + 42 = 162 m 36 s

For Cynder: 1 * 60 + 36 = 96 m 59 s

Notice that, if you add the seconds together, they form another minute with some trailing time. I don't want you to worry about this; we're always going to overshoot it by a little bit to make sure we cover any discrepency; that's what the Error_Control elements are for!

[Part 2 -- Getting an Accurate Estimate of Time_Spent_In_Single_Player_In_Minutes]

This depends on two factors: (a) whether you played exclusively in single player, or (b) whether you dropped in and out of coop. I HIGHLY recommend Coop-Hopping; you will see why in [Part 3]. Section © will talk about some Error_Control at this level.

(a)

If you played exclusively in single player: There are no further calculations to make here. The time spent on your dragons equals the Total Game Time.

Proof in this example:

162 + 96 = 258

258 / 60 = 4.3 Hours

0.3 * 60 = 18 Minutes

Therefore, you've spent about 4 h 18 m playing the game in single player (close to the actual game time as above, only off by a few seconds because we're being rough).

(b)

If you did coop-swapping:

By adding your dragons' times, they will exceed the Total Game Time. This is important: if you do not isolate the time you spent in single-player mode, you are essentially pretending you didn't play in coop at all, and thus you will wait the same amount of time that you would if you had not--but you played in coop to avoid that longer wait time. Don't double-count coop time! (Unless you really want to).

 

You will NOT be able to get an exact time you spent in coop, but chances are when not in coop you dominated your time as one dragon or the other. Therefore the closest estimate of time can be found like this (assuming you already converted the dragons' times to minutes from [Part 1]):

Single_Player_Time = Total Time - (Dominant_Dragon_Time - Other_Dragon_Time)

Therefore it is in our best interest to convert the total time into minutes as well:

Total Game Time = 3 h 19 m

3 * 60 + 19 = 199 m

(remember, it's the blue time from the beginning, not the red one)

Therefore;

Single_Player_Time = 199 - (162 - 96)

= 199 - 66 (order of operations!)

= 133

Or, in other words, we have played about 2 h 12 m in single player mode

133 / 60 = 2.2166667 hours

0.21 * 60 = 12.6 minutes

(0.6 is seconds, but we'll drop that)

All this means, is that we can bet we played 2 hours in single-player mode, or roughly the amount of time as Spyro's timestamp, and another hour in coop, or roughly Cynder's timestamp. This makes sense since in the example we were dominantly Spyro.

©

Now that we have a reasonable estimate for our single-player time, we have to do a bit of error-margining. It's pretty simple: you don't want to get caught being a few minutes under par, and considering you're estimating that's likely the case. So, simply add 5-10 minutes and then round up to a happy number to make things nice:

For single player only example, we'll use 265 minutes as our time.

For the coop-hopping example, we'll use 140 minutes as our time.

Edited by Ruq
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[Part 3 -- Getting The Real Total Time We Want]

 

First, an explanation: the achievement requires you to have played 90% of time in coop. That means, of the Total Time in the game, 90% or 0.9 of that time has to be spent in coop. Conversely, 10% or 0.1 of that time has to have been spent in Single-Player (this is the minimum separation; coop > 0.9 is possible, but 0.9 is the mininum).

 

Therefore, the times we have for our single-player mode (265 and 140) ARE the 0.1 of this equation, but currently it is not yet. In order for this time to equal 0.1, we have to start sitting around in coop mode until will hit a certain time in which we've spent 90% of the time in coop mode. Well, we can actually figure out what that time is going to be by multiplying the time we spent in Single_Player_Mode by 10:

 

Single player mode: 265 * 10 = 2650

(265/2650 = 0.1)

Coop-Hop: 140 * 10 = 1400

(140/1400 = 0.1)

 

Does this make sense? Remember the car scenario!

 

Hopefully that example explains things in a better light. This means that, no matter how much time you spent in or out of coop, so long as you wait long enough you're guarenteed the achievement! You just have to be patient. Like I said before though, you may not like the time that you see, especially if you played in single-player. Just read on and you'll see why.

 

So let's apply our formula:

 

Total_Time_Needed = [(Time_Spent_In_Single_Player_Mode_In_Minutes * 10)/60] + Error_Control

 

Single-Player only: (265 * 10) / 60 = 44 hours

Coop-Hop: (140 * 10) / 60 = 24 hours

 

Those numbers, 44 h and 24 h, are the numbers that you need to see on the final timestamp provided you have left the controllers on in 2-player mode. In other words, we have already played 3-4 hours of the game, and we must wait 22-40 more hours on top of the time we've already spent to get up to the 24 and 44 hour marks.

 

Notice that coop-hopping reduces the time significantly. In this example, the single-player only final time makes us wait almost TWICE as long!

 

The Error_Control is a variable I put in; you don't have to use it if you don't want to, but essentially it's a whole number. I recommend adding at least 1, since we're not counting minutes at all. This means that you're waiting the time it should take, plus an extra hour for every number added (+2 = 2 extra hours, +3 = 3 extra hours). This might bump you up to 0.91 or 0.92. This can also cover the little bit of time you spend fighting Malefor if you wanna do it single player.

 

Just to prove that this is accurate, let's assume we waited the required time. When we subtract the time spent in COOP mode (the time we used waiting for the total time) then we'll see it's 90% or 0.9:

 

2650 - 265 = 2385, (2385 / 60 = about 40 hours of coop time) 2385/2650 = 0.9 (Single Player Only)

1400 - 140 = 1260, (1260 / 60 = about 21 hours of coop time) 1260/1400 = 0.9 (Coop-Hopping)

 

Way much? Probably! If there are any questions please ask in the thread.

Edited by Ruq
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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 5 months later...
So to clarify, lets say I play this game as much as possible in co-op, drop out the second controller during the tough platforming segments, and then leave it in co-op with two wired controllers overnight, then this achievement should pop, correct? Thanks for the tips.

 

In its simplest terms, yes, but may require more or less time than just "overnight".

 

can u just play through the whole game co-op and get it? do you have to collect crystals?

 

No collectibles, in fact I don't even recommend it. Unless you're doing it without cheats, that is, but no collectibles are necessary to get this achievement, only time.

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  • 3 months later...

To clear this up a bit.

 

I did the following:

 

2 controllers the whole time including collects. It really isnt that bad at all you get used to the 2 controllers and it becomes natural. You cant die with the cheats so nothing is holding you back.

 

If i had to pause the game i didnt i left it running with them standing there. Only time i paused was to enter the cheats on each level and maybe a 3 second pause to see how many collects i had. Never pause the game otherwise.

 

By doing this non pausing stuff (no idea how long i actually "played" since they sat there sometime)

 

Only time i switched to single player was the very beginning when ur first learning the vines for 4 minutes. However now that i know how to do it prob dont need to switch there either.

 

12:05:15 Cynder for a total of 725 minutes

12:09:41 Spyro for a total of 729 minutes

13:30:00 Game time for a total of 805 minutes

 

So the cynder time is the coop time 725/805= 90.1% roughly

 

Achievement unlocked correctly when i beat the game after the quick time event against the wall. I did save like this guide said at the torches just to be safe, but i believe no matter what if your cynder time and ur game time come out to 90% u will get it.

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2 controllers the whole time including collects. It really isnt that bad at all you get used to the 2 controllers and it becomes natural. You cant die with the cheats so nothing is holding you back.

 

I agree, it wasn't difficult for me either, but that's subjective :) I just wanted to let the people that were really worried know that you don't need to do this in any hard way.

 

If i had to pause the game i didnt i left it running with them standing there. Only time i paused was to enter the cheats on each level and maybe a 3 second pause to see how many collects i had. Never pause the game otherwise.

 

Just be sure that if you leave the game, your controllers are wired and plugged in; otherwise the controller(s) will turn off and you will be wasting a lot of time.

 

By doing this non pausing stuff (no idea how long i actually "played" since they sat there sometime)

 

12:05:15 Cynder for a total of 725 minutes

12:09:41 Spyro for a total of 729 minutes

13:30:00 Game time for a total of 805 minutes

 

So the cynder time is the coop time 725/805= 90.1% roughly

 

Achievement unlocked correctly when i beat the game after the quick time event against the wall. I did save like this guide said at the torches just to be safe, but i believe no matter what if your cynder time and ur game time come out to 90% u will get it.

 

Well there ya go, it can be done :) I'm glad someone actually managed to get this system to work, and hopefully when people read this it will help them out as well.

 

I got your message and I would like to respond to it. You are correct that game time does increase during the pause menu and that the dragons' times do not increase. This is unfortunate in terms of accuracy, so I will say this to anyone who has a problem:

 

If you find yourself in a position where you may want to pause your game for a very long time, consider doing as anthonyd46 did and leave the game running unpaused, or simply turn the game off and resume it later. Otherwise, I don't believe you have to be so stringent with the pause menu time, since (unless you're doing collectibles) you probably won't be in it for very long anyway.

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  • 2 months later...

Theoretically. . . Yes. But it's just easier to make a new game and have a separate run for this. Your times will be easier to manage that way. Also I don't know if when you beat Malefor for the first time, and you don't qualify for the achievement, that ruins the qualification.

 

Your best bet is to make a new campaign rather than going off of an old one.

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  • 2 weeks later...
To clear this up a bit.

 

I did the following:

 

2 controllers the whole time including collects. It really isnt that bad at all you get used to the 2 controllers and it becomes natural. You cant die with the cheats so nothing is holding you back.

 

If i had to pause the game i didnt i left it running with them standing there. Only time i paused was to enter the cheats on each level and maybe a 3 second pause to see how many collects i had. Never pause the game otherwise.

 

By doing this non pausing stuff (no idea how long i actually "played" since they sat there sometime)

 

Only time i switched to single player was the very beginning when ur first learning the vines for 4 minutes. However now that i know how to do it prob dont need to switch there either.

 

12:05:15 Cynder for a total of 725 minutes

12:09:41 Spyro for a total of 729 minutes

13:30:00 Game time for a total of 805 minutes

 

So the cynder time is the coop time 725/805= 90.1% roughly

 

Achievement unlocked correctly when i beat the game after the quick time event against the wall. I did save like this guide said at the torches just to be safe, but i believe no matter what if your cynder time and ur game time come out to 90% u will get it.

 

Sounds cool :) !

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  • 1 year later...

I realise this is very late-coming, but as someone currently playing the game I think this is helpful -

 

An easier way to get around the maths is that your total time has to have ten times the amount you spent on your own, which means it has to be nine times more co-op than what you did in solo. I.e. if you spent exactly an hour playing on your own, you would need to have been playing a minimum of nine hours in co-op to accommodate that. Therefore, if you've done the whole thing solo, just multiply your time by ten (in minutes) and you'll have what you need to get this achievement, although obviously air on the side of caution by spending an extra half-hour (at LEAST) in co-op before progressing to the final portion.

 

This is a really good game but it's a shame they had to include such an annoying achievement as this.

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