The Basic Protocol of Routing a Speedrun (Speedrunning Essay)

2014-04-12 01:18:17 pm

I love YaBB 1G - SP1!

I'm also with Timpz on this one. I don't think you should really call this basic protocol for routing, when there isn't anything in there about routing. It's more of a guide to starting out speedrunning.

Also to note, I don't even bother looking up other people's guides/videos until I've done my own route enough times to be familiar with spotting the differences between what I'm doing and what someone else is doing, as well as being able to identify why they are probably doing their own method the way that they do it. I don't think that someone should really start out learning a game by just copying someone else's strats. I feel like you learn more in the long run by figuring out something yourself, and then later adapting to what might be more commonplace in a run. This also is how many better strategies are found in games.

ZenicReverie

2014-04-12 08:22:47 pm

Waiting hurts my soul...

Speaking from experience doing both, I agree. Make your own route before looking at others. My first speedrun I took the route of someone else and improved it, but there were artifacts left over that were slower. I only ended up doing them because I was so used to doing it that way since the original run did it the same. Had I started from scratch I would have timed and weighed all paths against each other.

GoldfishX

2014-06-30 01:38:13 pm

Great read! Thank you for emphasizing that people need to enjoy and know the game before speedrunning it. In the fighting game community, you have a lot of people playing games they don't actually enjoy and they end up dropping them sooner than later, when they don't get the desired results. I can't imagine learning to speedrun a game I don't enjoy. I tend to enjoy running a lot of 8-bit games, so there is both nostalgia and a "vengeance" of sorts, because the games used to beat my ass when I was younger.

GiraffeeDreams

2014-06-30 02:41:03 pm

Transatlantic Gamer

Good read, should help me get back into running games again, thank you for writing this up and sharing it.

Alko

2014-07-01 04:56:38 pm

Caution: This user contains Kana ^_^

Quote from GoldfishX:

Great read! Thank you for emphasizing that people need to enjoy and know the game before speedrunning it. In the fighting game community, you have a lot of people playing games they don't actually enjoy and they end up dropping them sooner than later, when they don't get the desired results. I can't imagine learning to speedrun a game I don't enjoy. I tend to enjoy running a lot of 8-bit games, so there is both nostalgia and a "vengeance" of sorts, because the games used to beat my ass when I was younger.

I think that happens often enough with newbies to the speedrun community, too. Picking up (say) OoT, then finding out that they don't like it enough, finally dropping out of speedrunning; although they possibly would have gotten really good with (say) SMW.

Deuceler

2014-07-04 07:14:16 am

SPEEDruns not SAFEruns

Quote:

I think that happens often enough with newbies to the speedrun community, too. Picking up (say) OoT, then finding out that they don't like it enough, finally dropping out of speedrunning; although they possibly would have gotten really good with (say) SMW.

This. Also coupled with that, I think people don't realize what an under taking speed running actually is. There will be times where you aren't having fun with a game, and if it is not something you really like doing it will make people quit. I don't know how many people in my chat have wanted to pick up a game (most of the time something obscure or that a lot of people don't run so they can "get a WR" ) and than vanish a few months later. If you can't even find time to play games casually every day there is no way in hell you will thrive in a speed run setting.

Worn_Traveler

2014-07-04 07:24:44 am

Formerly known as Skullboy

I think one of the greatest mistakes many new speedrunners make is trying to incorporate every known glitch and skip as soon as they start instead of slowly adding things in. For some games the amounts of glitches and tricks can be overwhelming when trying to do it all at once at the start.

Alko

2014-07-04 07:55:30 am

Caution: This user contains Kana ^_^

Quote from Deuceler:

If you can't even find time to play games casually every day there is no way in hell you will thrive in a speed run setting.

Actually, I don't find nearly enough time to play games casually every day (unless you count opening a game of backgammon against gnubg or solitaire in the background). I just find it takes me longer to learn games because of that, and it's really hard to keep up routing/running long games (damn, why do I love JRPGs? >__<). BUT I also have little time for my many other hobbies, so it's okay for me to advance slowly. And I chose my fate when I started studying chemistry xD

So it's not so much about finding time next to every day or several times a week, but more of a wanting to play vidya gamez every day and not getting tired of them if you accidentally have a holiday/sick leave. (Both of which is definitely true for me.)

Slaughterhouserock

2014-07-04 08:27:37 am

Quote from Deuceler:

This. Also coupled with that, I think people don't realize what an under taking speed running actually is. There will be times where you aren't having fun with a game, and if it is not something you really like doing it will make people quit. I don't know how many people in my chat have wanted to pick up a game (most of the time something obscure or that a lot of people don't run so they can "get a WR" ) and than vanish a few months later.

I can attest to the "not having fun" bit. There have been times where I wanted to rage quit after having things go wrong repeatedly. I may take a short break, but I'll always come back. Perseverance is definitely a good quality to have when attempting to run any game.

GoldfishX

2014-07-04 10:40:36 pm

Quote from Deuceler:

This. Also coupled with that, I think people don't realize what an under taking speed running actually is. There will be times where you aren't having fun with a game, and if it is not something you really like doing it will make people quit. I don't know how many people in my chat have wanted to pick up a game (most of the time something obscure or that a lot of people don't run so they can "get a WR" ) and than vanish a few months later. If you can't even find time to play games casually every day there is no way in hell you will thrive in a speed run setting.

This is true, to an extent. I think when randomness really comes into play, it basically means part of trying to get a great run is based on luck. Is why I'm more interested in watching the one-shot marathon runs than a run that might be a world record by like 5 seconds, just because someone got a good pattern. Also, I tend to find abusing glitches and stuff like Joker Doom to be squarely on the "not fun" side of things, so that aspect of speedrunning, I'm still a bit iffy on.

As for obscurity, I see that as a strength of the speed running scene. I want to see different games played and played well, although I admit to having a special interest in classic gaming as a whole. In the fighting game scene, you really need a large volume of people playing a game at a reasonable level for an extended period of time and it can get frustrating when games mysteriously just die out or the ones people are ga-ga over are ones you can't stand (as is the case for me now, as I feel the FGC is running on a lot of empty hype). In speedrunning, you really only need 1 or 2 people pushing the game to the maximum and the game really isn't going to just die off. But then again, that may just be the advantage of a quality one player experience over games designed for one on one competition.

[quote="Deuceler"]
This. Also coupled with that, I think people don't realize what an under taking speed running actually is. There will be times where you aren't having fun with a game, and if it is not something you really like doing it will make people quit. I don't know how many people in my chat have wanted to pick up a game (most of the time something obscure or that a lot of people don't run so they can "get a WR" ) and than vanish a few months later. If you can't even find time to play games casually every day there is no way in hell you will thrive in a speed run setting.[/quote]

This is true, to an extent. I think when randomness really comes into play, it basically means part of trying to get a great run is based on luck. Is why I'm more interested in watching the one-shot marathon runs than a run that might be a world record by like 5 seconds, just because someone got a good pattern. Also, I tend to find abusing glitches and stuff like Joker Doom to be squarely on the "not fun" side of things, so that aspect of speedrunning, I'm still a bit iffy on.

As for obscurity, I see that as a strength of the speed running scene. I want to see different games played and played well, although I admit to having a special interest in classic gaming as a whole. In the fighting game scene, you really need a large volume of people playing a game at a reasonable level for an extended period of time and it can get frustrating when games mysteriously just die out or the ones people are ga-ga over are ones you can't stand (as is the case for me now, as I feel the FGC is running on a lot of empty hype). In speedrunning, you really only need 1 or 2 people pushing the game to the maximum and the game really isn't going to just die off. But then again, that may just be the advantage of a quality one player experience over games designed for one on one competition.

TheBarrel

2014-07-05 04:48:44 pm

It's weather time!

Quote from GoldfishX:

Also, I tend to find abusing glitches and stuff like Joker Doom to be squarely on the "not fun" side of things, so that aspect of speedrunning, I'm still a bit iffy on.

Hehe, "Squarely".

From what I've seen, the biggest source of frustration for new runners is the lack of instant gratification one will see when they first start running a game. I've seen new runners mention it in various threads here. You either start off running a game that's super popular and has about 50 runners, most who've been running the game for years - and therefore it'll obviously take a lot of practice to reach that level of play, understandably. Or, as Deuceler mentioned, you end up running something relatively unknown that often times doesn't have many runners or people watching runs of said game. (Discounting possible "WR GLOD HPYE!!" intentions some may have.) I tend to see a lot of "I saw Cosmo get WR and now I wanna try" going on, which in and of itself isn't bad, but a lot get quickly frustrated that the run may not be as rewarding off-the-bat as it looks (no spluh, it takes practice!) or, on occasion, that they haven't got teh Twitch moneez yet.

One difference that I think it's important to understand is the difference between "I love this game" and "I love to speedrun this game". Sometimes that overlaps and sometimes it just doesn't. To use the FFVI example quoted; I love the game but know I wouldn't enjoy running it personally. One good thing to do might be to taste test different games that you enjoy rather than devoting all of your attention to one game starting off - at least to see which ones stick if the first game(s) doesn't.

[quote="GoldfishX"]Also, I tend to find abusing glitches and stuff like Joker Doom to be squarely on the "not fun" side of things, so that aspect of speedrunning, I'm still a bit iffy on.[/quote] Hehe, "Squarely".

From what I've seen, the biggest source of frustration for new runners is the lack of instant gratification one will see when they first start running a game. I've seen new runners mention it in various threads here. You either start off running a game that's super popular and has about 50 runners, most who've been running the game for years - and therefore it'll obviously take a lot of practice to reach that level of play, understandably. Or, as Deuceler mentioned, you end up running something relatively unknown that often times doesn't have many runners or people watching runs of said game. (Discounting possible "WR GLOD HPYE!!" intentions some may have.) I tend to see a lot of "I saw Cosmo get WR and now I wanna try" going on, which in and of itself isn't bad, but a lot get quickly frustrated that the run may not be as rewarding off-the-bat as it looks (no spluh, it takes practice!) or, on occasion, that they haven't got teh Twitch moneez yet.

One difference that I think it's important to understand is the difference between "I love this game" and "I love to [i]speedrun[/i] this game". Sometimes that overlaps and sometimes it just doesn't. To use the FFVI example quoted; I love the game but know I wouldn't enjoy running it personally. One good thing to do might be to taste test [b]different[/b] games that you enjoy rather than devoting all of your attention to one game starting off - at least to see which ones stick if the first game(s) doesn't.

GoldfishX

2014-07-05 08:20:24 pm

Totally unintentional pun. Smiley

But yeah, "WR or bust" or getting rich on twitch are entirely the wrong attitudes to have.

I had only mentioned FFVI because it's one of the only RPG's I would ever consider speedrunning. Due to my predisposition to some of the common speedrunning aspects of the game (Joker Doom, Vanish Doom, etc), I would probably try to specialize in runs that clearly state they don't use them. I might not end up with the world record or anything, but it would be more satisfying on a personal level and to anyone that feels similar about those mechanics. Thankfully, a lot of games have that flexibility (glitchless, pacifist, etc)

TheBarrel

Edit history:

TheBarrel: 2014-07-06 12:38:05 am

2014-07-05 10:13:26 pm

It's weather time!

Quote from GoldfishX:

Totally unintentional pun. Smiley

Sure, unintentional... right. Wink

By the way, just to be clear, when I said "to use the FFVI quote..." I wasn't trying to put words in your mouth, I was speaking from a personal perspective. Wasn't sure how well I worded it looking back.

GoldfishX

2014-07-06 12:22:16 pm

It's all good. FFVI just happens to be one of the more versatile games for a speedrunning candidate. And quite popular at that. Wink

HDL

2014-07-20 03:36:38 pm

If you don't mind all the corrections (they're for improvement!), I got one.

Those acronyms at the end of the OP aren't acronyms at all (except TAS). Those are called initialisms. Tongue

KoeBigS8

2014-07-22 06:28:27 pm

This post was actually pretty inspiring, after over a year of wanting to do speedruns im finally gonna pick up a pokemon game (my favourite series) and try to speedrun it.

kakka_rot

2014-07-27 07:46:33 pm

Remember your mantra.

Wow! Many new posts. Thanks everyone for commenting. I have had a difficult quarter here at APU, so I haven't streamed in nearly two months. However, my last final is tomorrow, and once that is completed, I plan to start up again, and wright my next essay.

I am either going to do something like "The Do's and Dont's of Speedrunning"
Or I kind of want to write "An Ode to WRfags" which is one of my recent pet peeves. I can see that upsetting even more people than this one did, but, oh well. I've noticed a huge emphases lately on "Getting a WR" and it is starting to really bother me.

If anyone has any other ideas, feel free to share!

Rotorstorm331

2014-11-02 06:43:35 pm

I know that when my Final Fight 2 Haggar expert mode got rejected, the sense of failure ate me up for awhile and it wasn't until after I got back to rerunning the game on easy that I found some things that I didn't know that could have help me on my previous run. So in a sense, I'm starting to learn more from my failings and to be patient and not rushing to finish.

Thanks for the essay man. Smiley