What is Right / Left / Straight
When Diablo speedrunners talk says something like this: "This map i have to go left". Sometimes people get confused.
In this case left does not mean "to the left of the screen" but a direction that is determened from where they come.
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Putting this in words is a little difficult, so this is my try to explain how it works:
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Each map can be viewed as a large "puzzle". In this guide we call these "tiles". Each area has an "entrance" and an "exit"-tile.
Each area has a limited pool of entrance- and exit-tiles.
Each "entrance tile" is linked with a number of "exit tiles" that point in a specific direction relative to the "entrance tile".
That relative direction is what we refere to as "left / right / straight".
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Most "entrance tiles" have only 1 way to leave them which will always be "straight".
Here are pictures how it looks when you enter from different locations:
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Red marked is the determening tile for the directions and in which direction your exit is from that tile.
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Green = This is what we call "right".
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Blue = This is what we call "straight".
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Yellow = This is what we call "left".
Entrance at the top left:
Entrance at the top right:
Entrance at the bottom right:
Entrance at the bottom left:
To make this more clear here a practical example:
In this I marked the "entrance tile" for you on the top right.
Comparing that to the pictures on top that is #3.
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When we lay over the arrow colours on the map we can conclude:
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Towards left bottom right -> Left (in this case the goal)
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Towards the bottom left -> Straight
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Towards the top left -> Right
This doesnt mean that the goal is always gonna be clean around a corner. Sometimes they are in a place that looks weird but still points in the direction that you need.
In most cases we refere to "tripple right makes a left" or "reverse map".
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Here an example of such a map for the forgotten tower:
Again we compare the starting block to the top pictures and see it is the illustration #4.
Means that "Left" (our goal direction) points towards the top left corner of the screen.
There is no way for us to "directly" go left - we are forced into going "right" instead. That tells us that we will have to take 2 more "rights" to get towards the top left of the screen. (marked red here)
At this point we should know in which direction our goal is.
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As you can see on the second example the "exit tile" can still be anywhere on the map.
It will just tell you in which direction that "exit tile" will point towards.
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In the case of the Forgotten Tower we can tell the following things:
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To the "right" is a "dead end direction" -> This doesnt rule out that at some points you have to go right for a while!!
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To the "left" is our "exit direction" -> Somewhere in this direction you will find the "exit tile".
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"Straight" is a "dead end direction" -> In many cases you will have to go into that direction for a while!!
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As mentioned before there will be a limited amount of "exit tiles" that are linked to the "entrance tile". In case of the Forgotten Tower there is only one "exit tile" for one of the 4 "entrance tiles".
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1 more example because it is special how to determine which direction is "left / right / straight".
In act 2 there are 4 maps that use an "entrance tile" that has 3 direction in which we can get out of the tile:
In the case where you have 3 directions you can go towards the following rule applies:
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Straight -> the middle of the 3 paths.
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Left -> 90° counter clockwhise from the "straight" direction.
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Right -> 90° clockwhise from the "straight" direction.
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Check out more detailed information in the act 2 orientations!