What is the Best Way to Hide a Balloon in Super Mario Odyssey? 

I love how casually you go "oh I bought another switch"

Ceave, you are a genius, but I think that there's actually one more element to hiding the ultimate balloon. Confusion. If you can psyche out your opponent by using the direction against them, by running in one diresction for coins and then a different one for hiding, then that will make the coin path harder to discover. For instance, in your wooded kingdom one, the coin coffer is in the path of your balloon. This makes it easy to discover. However, your seaside kingdom one has a more branching and not obvious path, which is why that is a better hiding place.

3:45 he is a suporting and loving brother.

The time function is linear. Specifically, one possible function which matches it perfectly is y=floor((17/14)floor(x)+3), which is just y=(17/14)x+3 where everything after the decimal points is discarded.

‘This game mode released a couple days ago’ ‘This idea has been haunting me forever, can you hide a perfect balloon?’ Logic right there

The reason it's rigged in the finder's favor is that they have to find a specific spot. Of COURSE that takes longer than just finding *a* spot. Sure, there's retrying, but that costs coins and kills your streak.

I think that it’s good that the attacker gets more time. This way, it requires more skill to hide it, and it’s possible to pop the best of the best without being exact

The reason that the attacker gets extra time is so that insane players like helixsnake can’t hide extremely hard balloons that require reacreating the hiders movements frame by frame.

Huh. I DO feel especially ten seconds or fifteen seconds as long as we didn't pick up five coins because then there are actually nine seconds today. Guess I'd better subscribe...

I actually love the balloons where the username is Mario and the profile picture is Luigi, and the balloon is just like 8m away and you can casually walk there. Those really helped me when I was farming coins for all the outfits, there's something sympathetic about those :)

That Wooded Kingdom balloon is really clever.

4:40 The function is (not uniquely): ATTACK = 3 + floor(HIDE * 1.215)

y=1.2133x+2.5746 y is finding time x is hiding time Round up or down according to the nearest integer. (0.4 rounds down, 0.5 rounds up). Or more exactly: y=x+3 for 0

I feel especially 5 seconds is now 9 seconds but coin time prevents this so its 7 seconds today, thank you.

Hooray count: 0 Total so far: 142.5

Ceave's got dedication :)

4:28 Here’s a formula, where _t_ is the hiding time: *(17/14) · t + 3* Then round down to get the result. (The category 30+ is calculated as 31.) This is an approximation and highly likely not the way this has been implemented in the game. But it works!

But you only needed another account, not another switch

Took you rather long to notice that the attacker gets more time. I mean, how would you get 40 seconds otherwise? As for the advantage's existence: It's necessary for the whole mode to work. The hider already knows where to go, so if both had the same time, many players would just use speed run techniques to run away instead of really hiding the balloon. The finder are in a disadvantage by default, so they have to have some advantage.

Ceave: this makes placing really challenging balloons almost impossible! Nintendo: Our work is done!

3:48 I FIGURED THAT OUT TOO!!! XD

How did you manage to fill up 8 and a half minutes when it only took you 10 seconds to answer the question, AND STILL HAVE ME INTERESTED????

2:09 you know, this "swing pole thingy" is in the Capture List, which means it has an official name :P

I haven't played any recent 2d Marios including Maker, but REALLY enjoy this channel. I recently got and played Odyssey, so was very excited to see you had made a playlist for it. Thanks for sorting out some vids for me to binge today

"the route is really hart to figu ROUTE!!"

Someone else probably figured it out a long time ago, but the formula for the attack timer seems to be: t_a(t_h) =3+t_h+floor(t_h/4.65) where t_h is the time you spend hiding a balloon and t_a is the time the attacker gets. The value needs to be around 4.65 but it could change a bit in either direction without changing the result.

thank you so much for making that time table! I've been trying to figure this out for a few days but didn't really have an easy way to test it

thanks! this explains into what seemed like an impossible balloon in the sand kingdom, where I had to go to the posion with invisible platforms in 12 seconds.

I've been watching hundreds of Mario Odyssey videos for the past four months, only just remembered that I don't have a Switch

I like that when I was playing with my 8 year old niece she managed to figure out that seekers had more time than finders - "How come you get 40 seconds to find that balloon when the most you can use to hide it is 30 seconds?"

The formula is A=H+3+[H/5]+[H/14]-[H/15] Where A is attack time, H is hide time, and [x] is the greatest integer less than or equal to x. For example if H is 16 you have 16+3+3+1-1 so A is 22

your videos are literally the coolest i’ve seen in a looong time. keep up the amazing work!

You completely forgot to mention the amount of time it takes for the balloon arrow to disappear. The most ideal hiding spot is always going to be as far away as possible because then the pointer telling the player what direction the balloon is in will disappear before they're close enough to actually see it.

Time is money...

Oh wow! This is insane! Good job figuring all of this out!

Theres an even simpler formula to approximate the time. Its (the time taken to hide*1.2)+3 rounded (x*1.2)+3 (5*1.2)+3=9 (10*1.2)+3=15 (15*1.2)+3=21 (20*1.2)+3=27 (25*1.2)+3=33 (30*1.2)+3=39 There so rounding rules going on to make imperfect on numbers that aren't a multiple of 5 Likely the scaling factor is some %between 20%and 25%, but 20% is very very close.

you can use y = 3 + floor(1.215*x) here's a python code so that you can copy it and not have to calculate yourself: for a in range(31): print(str(a) + ' - ' + str(3+int(a*1.215)))

Dear Ceave, the formula is almost linear (up to rounding error), so the relationship between hide and seek time is S = 2.585 + 1.212*H (rounded to the nearest integer).

Before I watched this video I thought it was going to be another "just be creative in your hiding spots" videos. I WAS WRONG. Good stuff with the coin info!!!

The function appears to be very very strongly linear, just with a fractional slope and y intercept. It probably is perfectly linear but then the game rounds, making it seem not linear at first blush. It should be (Attack Time) = 1.2133(Hide Time) + 2.5746, where the values are rounded. Even with the rounded values, the function I showed has an r value of .9996 (r is how linear it is. 0 = not linear at all 1 = perfectly linear with positive relationship -1 = perfectly linear with negative relationship) and an r^2 value of .9993 (r^2 is what percent of the variation in y (change in attack time) can be explained by the variation of x (change in hide time). So, 99.93% of the linear change in attack time can be explained by the change in hide time.

I quickly copied your table into excel and it seems to me the mathematical Formula is: *AT(HT) = 1,22*HT+2,5* AT=Attack Time HT= Hide Time Due to the Timer only displaying whole Numbers we need to round off to the nearest integer (For Example: HT=0 1,22*0+2,5=2,5 rounded 3 HT=20 1,22*20+2,5=26,8 rounded 27.) It basically is just a standard linear progression.

Me before video: *reads title* Also me: “in the wall”

Way to go, Bro. You picked a really good hiding spot.

Since you get big coin bonuses for rallying, they clearly wanted attackers to be able to get balloons successfully on the regular. There really needed to be a decent chance at being able to reach balloons on the first attempt.

The formula i found is as following (x=hide time rounded to full seconds. Y =attack time) Y= x+3+0.215x ROUNDED DOWN. The rounded down is really important. 30+ is treated as 31 btw.

"you ready," "Leeets do it"

The best hiding spot is using a coin route to disguise it as a glitch balloon. If you can do this well not only would it be legit but it would literally drive people mad. Sounds like the perfect spot.

Roughly: HIDE TIME = [ (6/5) * ATTACK TIME + 3] Results are heavily rounded up or down at seemingly random, probably to achieve a 1 to 1 table relation between both variables.

002 CD8 9T4 , Bowser's Kingdom. Actually really far from the starting point, only had 1 second remaining, so it should be 30 seconds to get there.

Really usefull video, Ceave. Also, how did you the glitch at 0:47? I thought the Glydon glitch was patched.

I’ve been making a lot of paper lines. They help. You really are nice to listen too!

Good content man! Keep up the good work!

A good option for this game would be to set up your own time limit for other players. For example, choosing the shortest time limit before you place your balloon and being successful at it would give you more coins. Idk about this idea i just thought of it and thought it would be good.

We have a new Pannenkoek. And he's Austrian.

Why am i always watching ur vids? I mean i dont even own any of those mario games u r making videos about xD But it's still fun to watch ur videos xd

f(x) = 0.2x+3 (Domain is 0-30 and Range is all whole numbers) works as a function for this chart. Pretty much, from 0 to 4, the seeker time increases by 3 seconds, and then every multiple of 5 the increased amount of time increases by 5.

Ceave Gaming: *gets a second switch with mario odyssey to test this* me: *cant even afford one switch with the game* screw you XD haha

I trought the attacter time wad from the lvl from the hidders

Or you just find a really difficult jump that is nearly impossible to do first try, or 2nd etc. try for that matter. Like that one in lake kingdom. If getting to the balloon itself is so difficult, then it doesn't matter wether you know where it is or not. Or place a balloon where the only way to get to it is very far away from where the actual arrow points. Like the electric pylon one in bowser's kingdom, where the endpoint of the pylon is forward, but if you go forward you'll be met with a cage that won't let you in. In order to get in you have to actually go very far left, meaning players will struggle to realise that you have to go there to get in. Also, the timer is rigged so that the seekers get about 1/3 more time to find it, which is fair since they don't know exactly where it is, only the rough location. So scouting around for it is worth that time. What you said about small optimisations not working because of this is true, but if you get an optimised route that is so optimised that even with this extra time (and without coin seconds) the player has to take your optimised version to reach it in time, then they may really struggle to work out what the optimised version of it actually is, meaning they won't be able to find the balloon (if your optimisation is very obscure). That is how nintendo designed it, so there are many ways to hide the best balloon. The best balloons overall are the ones that take maximum advantage of all of these strategies and I think the way nintendo designed it was intelligent and insightful. I disagree with your stance on the extra seconds therefore.

I did the math. The true formula for the graph at 4:00 is y = 17/14x + 3 Where x is the time the hider takes to hide the balloon minus the coin time, and y is the time the seeker is given to find the balloon rounded down.

Hey ceave, you gotta try community posts! You can use them for tips and tricks screenshots, mario maker magic tricks, and everything you don’t need to make a full video for!

Hi! I really liked this video. I'm a game designer (not on Super Mario Odyssey obviously), and I think I can shed some light on some points, from a professional standpoint. First, for the "You picked a really good hiding spot", I didn't even notice it to be fair. To me this was a generic fake praise you get in pretty much all games that give you feedback on something subjective (at least from a computer's point of view). The same goes when a character asking for your name in an RPG replies "Hmm, that's a/n weird/good/interesting name." Because it is impossible to assess the quality of a name. And as you probably noticed, it is very hard to assess the objective quality of a hiding spot for a player, let alone for the game's code. • Time is a good indicator, but it doesn't really work in practice, because you can be slow or wait for 30 full seconds to hide a balloon, which may eventually be in plain sight at the end of a straight path. • Line of sight is not a good indicator either, because you can hide something easily from Luigi's position. Conversely, you can have direct line of sight to the balloon from the starting position, but have to do real tricky moves to access it. If the game were to assess the quality on that criterion alone, many tough balloons would be assessed as obvious, and vice versa. The number of obstacles between the balloon's final position and Luigi could be used to refine the assessment, but even then, it could be easily jammed by visible, but tricky balloons. • Distance is a bit similar to line of sight; a huge distance doesn't mean the balloon is actually well hidden. So yeah, the "Hey you picked a really good hiding spot" line basically means "Hey player I have no idea what you just did but I'll be polite and enthusiastic anyway". Now, for the extended time granted to the attacker... I can't even think how you can possibly be mad at this. The balloon's hider already has the upper hand: • They know where the balloon is or will be (duh). The attacker doesn't know exactly where the balloon will be, especially if it is hidden far from the starting spot. It is only fair that they get some extra seconds to adjust their path once in the vicinity. This is called "tolerance". • They get an unlimited number of FREE tries to hide the balloon, which means that, when they decide to place it, it is at the end of their (arguably) best run. The attacker can therefore try crazy moves and frame-perfect combinations, if they fail at any point in the sequence, they can simply try again. On the other hand, the attacker has to pay for every single try (although they do get a discount after the first try), and the slightest mistake in a series of tricky move amounts to failing the run entirely. So, to even the odds, some extra time is the bare minimum. I can't possibly imagine a world where sane developers would refrain from adding this kind of balancing mechanic :)

I can do those cool Cappy tricks now thanks to your great videos, I am no good at finding balloons though!

In short, the most likely equation nintendo used in their code for calculating the seek time is something like: s = min(max(0, 30 - h) * 17 / 14 + 3, 40) where 'h' is the lowest hide time that was left on the timer (as an stored int value) and 's' is the seek time. In length, plugging in the data from the table into a graph, the equation seems to be linear. Summing up comments below in addition with personal testing, for this set of data, the graph y = min(floor(x * 17 / 14) + 3, 40) is the most logical answer, where x is the hide time and y is the seek time. Integer values in code cannot hold decimal values, so since x is very likely an integer value in code, dividing it by any number does not include the decimal, and since x is never negative, the floor function is practically useless; this renders y = min(x * 17 / 14 + 3, 40) as the most logical answer. This is the answer in many comments. In UltraLuigi's comment, x+x/4.65+3 simplifies about to 1.215x+3, which is about 17/14x+3; however, 17/14x+3 is much easier to write than x+x/4.65+3. The max(0, 30 - h) is also used to calculate the hide time used based on the time in the timer with a minimum of 0. Combining this together we get the function above in short. I just realized this is a 6 month old video… lol

Or you could have just created an other account to your switch, and not buy an other switch

I'm kinda sad the only way to hide good balloons is through coins because there aren't that many coins to find in each area... I mean there are, but routing a paths so that you always run on coin time leaves little to no options.

Estoy comenzando a amar este canal...

your voice is so relaxing and i love how you say hoo-ray

"the only reasonable ways was to buy a second switch w/ mario odyssey" ;0; lol or just have a friend who has it and find how long it took 4 them 2 hide it

0:05 Wow! How did you find 184 balloons in a row?!

Thanks for the tips!

I had a feeling that the optimal balloon is like a speedrun type balloon. It would mean they have no time to look so they'd basically have to guess a direction and lose most of the time.

1:16 can someone tell me how you ride a jaxi when your hiding a balloon? when I tried it looks impossible cause it's buried in the sand so wtf?!

*Try my balloon in the **_Moon Kingdom!_* 001 D2P DFW

I think it gives the seeker's more time because not everyone can do complicated Cappy throws and jumps off walls and stuff like that. I just got the game and I'm not great with jumps and I might search up how to do cool complex jumps with cappy sometime. But you seem great at making Cappy jumps

Yay! Mario Odyssey videos :D

"...so I got myself another Switch..." ⊙︿⊙

Please don't tell me you actually bought a switch just for the sake of an experiment in this video. Your bank account must be crying! ... also if you don't need it I can take that extra Switch off our hands? ;)

Sweet. Thanks for the tips. : )

It seems like it starts with hiding time +3 and then adds an extra second every 5 hiding seconds. So... AT = (HT + 3) + (HT × 0.2). Then rounding down. AT being Attack Time and HT being Hiding Time.

Wait couldn't you have made another account on your 1st switch?

You were talking about conspiracy theories, and this video has 666 likes and 6 dislikes, anything you need to tell us Ceave?

your voice is relaxing and not ear killing :)

Love the channel art

Please tell us your friend code on your Switch!!

0:47 WHAT!

Your thumbnail art looks amazing.

Attack time = (Hide time) * 17/14 + 3, rounded down, but there are many solutions. Congrats to everyone who got it!

Ceave before he had sex for the first time: “Lettttsss do this”

Could you not gave just played a new file under a new user? It would take significantly longer to switch back and forth (no pun intended) but would save $360

Thats way more creative, than just glich out of bounds^^

Good video ceave, keep on making More video’s.

117th Wow I am early Pretty sure nobody cares Edit: I meant 117th view

My switch broke so I can’t do dis ☹️ wait I think I got 1st 🙃

Love your content!

0:57 I always used to think, when u put those clips of ur video I though that was the intro

Holy hell this is some useful info

This video is really great holy shit! I used to pretty much ignore coins but knowing that it's time to make some really crafty balloons!

Awesome video Ceave ;)