Newer games and speedrunning potential

2013-05-14 06:45:14 pm

I am a student, teach me

This is a question that popped into my head today, older games tend to be more popular and even more contested than newer games, it could just be personal opinion. But I was wondering what people thought about the running potential of newer games. It does all come down to running games you like but I think newer games are less likely to be able to find time-saving tricks and therefore less likely to a contested speedrunning game. I just finished watching Flicky's bayonetta run the other day and saw a couple things that save time that I would have never thought of, so now i'm a bit 50/50 on the matter, just wondering what other opinions are

Thread title:

DRsynj

2013-05-14 07:21:12 pm

Reverse Death Valley Bomb

I don't believe it's strictly time-saving tricks that are going to make a game more contested, while there are many newer games that are riddled with glitches (GoW3, Darksiders1/2, DmC) there are also some without any (useful?) glitches that are highly contested such as FFXIII and MGR:R. These games demand execution, route planning and decision making of the player making them highly compatible for speedrunning, and while the skill cap is different for each of them, no 2 runners are going to play the same.
I don't think there are particularly any less people running newer games than older ones, on SDA and SRL that may be the case but generally anyone who's familiar with speedrunning or challenge runs will want to take a gander at running their new game they just picked up, thus creating new speedrunning communities all the time. GameFAQs and some randoms on YouTube would contribute to that!

FFgamer86

2013-05-15 04:44:32 am

SDA Speedruns: 1

Also, I think that on average, newer games are much longer than older games, most nes games can be beat in under 1 hour, but you look at PS3/Xbox 360 games and you'll see that they end up being a lot longer. Another thing about older games are most in 2d and that optimization is easier than it is in 3d. Lastly, but probably not a big part of it, could be cost. You can find a handful of nes games for dollars or less each, where as just getting a ps3 and some games cost closer to 100-200 depending on the oldness of the system.

Onin

2013-05-15 07:52:56 am

Some of it is also just a random factor. There's a whole world of great old games that get barely any attention, and there are some new titles that get a huge following, like Amnesia or Portal. Sometimes it's as simple as a major streamer deciding to run it and making it catch on.

Ghostwheel

2013-05-15 02:56:52 pm

The artist formerly known as Qxy

I'll add that the longer a game is out, the video game community has more time with it and information about it. If a game already had a speedrunning legacy, it's easier to build off of it, optimize it, and get competitive about it, whereas routing an untouched game takes the dedicated effort of a few runners.

Hsanrb

2013-05-15 05:22:13 pm

You also forget that older games can be emulated so things like how RNG is handled, routing, AI manipluation, stat tests and theory crafting can be discovered for older consoles that newer ones need to be brute forced (until emulation catches up.)

Also older generations were still learning things like 3d models/physics so hard limits and things weren't set so infinite speed and such can occur. Newer generations usually require a decent PC, capture card, and internet to stream so the requirements are kinda high so if you don't have 1 of the 3 you might run something in the dark that when a streamer picks up you can just blast out the knowledge and shave minutes off a route you know before anyone else gets around to it.

Champloo

2013-05-15 06:34:59 pm

Newer games are harder to capture (especially for PC games that require higher end computers to capture and record at decent quality), longer, are less "glitchy", and have a large trend towards a lower skill cap. That isn't to say that newer games are less prone to being runnable, it just means that the times between runners will be tighter or subject to other factors such as more RNG. Older games are also easier to find info on, etc. I've made almost the entire route for Sleeping Dogs, researched all the skips, etc. It's taken me quite some time, and is still ongoing, but if I had chosen to run an older game, I could just copy someone else's route and go from there. Older games tend to be tried and tested, if there's few runners for a game, there's quite often a reason (ex. Digimon World because of stupid RNG).

You should just run games you think you can enjoy. I personally love routing over actually playing to a fair degree, however it requires much less energy to run an older game, in general.

Newer games are harder to capture (especially for PC games that require higher end computers to capture and record at decent quality), longer, are less "glitchy", and have a large trend towards a lower skill cap. That isn't to say that newer games are less prone to being runnable, it just means that the times between runners will be tighter or subject to other factors such as more RNG. Older games are also easier to find info on, etc. I've made almost the entire route for Sleeping Dogs, researched all the skips, etc. It's taken me quite some time, and is still ongoing, but if I had chosen to run an older game, I could just copy someone else's route and go from there. Older games tend to be tried and tested, if there's few runners for a game, there's quite often a reason (ex. Digimon World because of stupid RNG).

You should just run games you think you can enjoy. I personally love routing over actually playing to a fair degree, however it requires much less energy to run an older game, in general.

moooh

Edit history:

moooh: 2013-05-16 01:41:50 pm

2013-05-16 01:41:39 pm

Exoray

There's also the design difference of many older games compared to many newer games which this classic comparison still illustrates oh so well.

Manocheese

2013-05-17 01:09:52 am

Yes, a cucco riding the ground.

For me, the general sluggishness of many new games is a big factor. I made a gif to illustrate:

If you pay attention, you'll see that all kinds of common tasks tend to get slower and slower as more games in a series are released, reducing the time spent on meaningful gameplay. Let's not even talk about unskippable cutscenes...

Scepheo

2013-05-17 08:23:14 am

Quote from Manocheese:

For me, the general sluggishness of many new games [...] unskippable cutscenes...

This, mostly. It also feels like new games are stories with some gameplay plastered on, whereas old game were gameplay first, and the story was only there to justify your actions, if there was a story at all. If you didn't care for the story, there was nog reason to bother with it. And the fact that games apparently have to be big to be commercially viable doesn't help either. There's so much pointless walking around and working your way through unnecessary filler...

Nordtecx

2013-05-22 05:26:53 am

New Speedrunner 2013

I think the upcomming games like GTA5 or Lego The Avangers Smiley

I will test it and try it