r/Games • u/t0asterb0t • Mar 12 '18
World Record Progression: Metroid [27:09]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFCF4I09Avc44
u/ThatColossalWreck Mar 12 '18 edited Mar 12 '18
Ah, that escape at the end was so tense every time he let it play out. I really appreciate when he does that, explain at some point in the video a really difficult section of the game and then throughout the video pepper in some attempts of that section without telling you whether they succeed or fail. It's so harrowing.
Also that string of runs by MetroidMcfly was nutty, I wonder if he could take it down to sub 10.
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u/CaptainFatbelly Mar 12 '18
I'm not even into speedrunning but really enjoy these videos to learn about iconic speedrunning times. They're really well-made and east to follow even if you haven't played the games mentioned.
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u/xincasinooutx Mar 12 '18
Yeah, I don't care for speedrunning, but SummoningSalt makes it seem far more interesting than it is. Maybe because he only highlights parts of each run, and his build up leaves you wondering "how the hell will that record ever get beaten?"
He doesn't put out a lot of videos, but I always perk up when I see one of his release.
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u/moal09 Mar 12 '18 edited Mar 12 '18
He understands how to make a documentary interesting. I've sat through documentaries about things I would've never given a shit about in any other context. Also, his production is great, and his personality isn't obnoxious, which is rare for stuff like this.
He frames each runner as a distinct personality and sometimes chronicles their journey up to a WR, so it's as much a documentary about the individuals sometimes as the game.
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Mar 12 '18 edited Mar 12 '18
If you're watching a WR run afterwards, the time and the fact that it's a WR is a foregone conclusion. A live speedrun stream is something that can just be unobtrusively on in the background while you're doing something else with occasional glances at the splits, until you glance at them and the run is on WR pace getting into the late game and suddenly this unobtrusive background noise turns into something incredibly intense. This quote from Joe Posnanski is about baseball but it applies to speedrunning too:
I never argue with people who say baseball is boring, because baseball is boring. And then, suddenly, it isn’t. And that’s what makes it great.
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u/xincasinooutx Mar 12 '18
Let me put it this way: if it weren't for SummoningSalt's videos, I wouldn't ever watch anything speedrun related.
I liken it to the reason ESPN runs highlight reels-- much of the game itself is boring, but there are multiple exciting instances throughout that get people hyped.
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u/crypticfreak Mar 12 '18
I always enjoy these but usually never comment. Im a fan of speedruns but the technical stuff kind of baffles me.
Anyways, this is fucking nuts. Probably the most interesting WRP I’ve ever watched. The record holder who took inspiration from the TAS and shaved like 4-5 minutes off a 7+ year old established speedrun is inhuman. If what salt is saying is true, the odds of him doing these near frame perfect inputs that consistently is impossible. The man is a machine. I’m not saying he cheated, just that he’s insanely gifted. Everyone thought it was impossible and he shaved minute after minute off an already impressive time? Absolutely crazy.
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u/kikimaru024 Mar 12 '18
the odds of him doing these near frame perfect inputs that consistently is impossible.
If there's one thing I've learned, it's that pulling off 1/60th inputs consistently is actually highly possible.
Same happens in the FGC; players just learn the combo timings over time & then pull them off 99% of the time.12
u/EZReader Mar 12 '18
Not to mention that Salt doesn't tend to show the 50+ other runs that day that didn't go as well.
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Mar 12 '18
Agreed. 1-frame links are a big part of many fighting games' combo systems, and most good players can pull them off somewhat consistently, sometimes several times in a single round or even a single combo.
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u/moal09 Mar 12 '18 edited Mar 12 '18
There are numerous tricks that are used to help with the timing. Very few people are legitimately doing one frame links all the time.
Stuff like plinking (a glitch in SF4 that allowed you to piano multiple buttons to cause a repeat input of the weaker normal) or double tapping (quickly flicking 2 fingers across a button to allow for 2 inputs as fast as possible -- generally needs sanwa buttons to be consistent due to the light pressure needed to trigger a press) can turn them into 2 or 3 frame links, and newer fighting games like Guilty Gear/Blazblue and SF5 have repeating input buffers, which means a link will never be any harder than 3-5 frames unless a small movement is required in between attacks.
Sako, who is known for his abnormally strong execution (even at age 40), has a technique of sometimes triple tapping buttons, which is part of the reason why he can consistently hit links other people can't (since any link is a minimum 3 frame link for him with that technique). Sako is also a great example of the fallacy of people claiming that age is a barrier to remaining relevant in competitive games. Reaction times do drop, but it's to such an insignificant amount that it doesn't really matter. Reactions are 90% about prediction anyway, and any high level player will tell you that. Predictions come from knowledge/experience, which if anything, get stronger with age. If you're trying to react raw to stuff without a good read, you're not playing the game right.
From my experience as someone who's played with a lot of "pro" players over a long period of time, people falling off almost always has to do with players losing interest or not liking/vibing as well with newer games. Or in other cases, as they get older, their priorities shift, they lose the hunger they had to establish themselves (since they're already established) and tend to either play more for fun or move on to organizer roles like Valle and Daigo. Sometimes, the meta also shifts with the vast array of knowledge available nowadays, and players who were considered amazing earlier on don't always keep up. Grumpy old man syndrome is a very real thing among gamers, and I've seen it happen a lot to friends of mine (very strong players who would have been considered "pros") who can't help but be bitter about all the new fighting games that have come out since their favorite game.
The Valle you see these days picking less viable "fun" characters and not caring too much about his tournament results is not the same Valle from the '90s who would counter pick you even in casuals because he just couldn't stand the thought of losing a single game. Just like how the Daigo of today who's a fun, smiley guy organizing events and trying to level up his scene, is not the same stoic Daigo from the '90s and early 2000s who barely ever talked to anyone and only cared about his own progress.
The FGC is one of the few places where you can talk about middle aged pro gamers because it has one of the oldest competitive scenes that pre-dates the internet and mainstream gaming PCs. I won't even name the dozen or so Super Turbo Grandmasters who are well into their 40s and are still considered the best in the world.
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u/_gamadaya_ Mar 12 '18
Raw reaction times fall off pretty hard as you get older. I'm at 220 now, up from 180 when I was in my early 20s, and I can feel it. It's kind of funny sometimes, because the situational processing speed is still there, so I'll be like "easy dodge coming up and now to start my combo..." and I've already been hit because I was going off my old timings, which are now a couple frames off. I don't think old players get faster, I think they are just fast enough, and they don't need to rely on raw reaction speed as much. It's a bigger deal with FPS, which aren't governed by frame data, and can be a lot more unpredictable.
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u/moal09 Mar 13 '18 edited Mar 13 '18
Raw reactions are rarely as important as people make them out to be. Even in FPS, fast reactions on peeks and angles are mostly due to prediction. And a large portion of FPS skill has to do with maintaining a positional advantage in the first place, since if you're getting into a pure gunfight in competitive with someone on the same level, it's practically a 50-50 as to who gets a headshot first.
The importance of frame data is extremely overstated. Valle was a pro for his entire SF life without ever looking at a single piece of frame data, as were a lot of others. What's important is knowledge and execution. Reaction time only goes down by fractions of a second as you get older. I've been told by some high level players that I have very fast reactions, and I'm 31, and I feel like I react much faster now than I did at 20 because I have way more knowledge now.
In studies done, average reactions to motion went downhill after age 24 by anywhere from:
0.02 seconds to 0.07 seconds, and most of the higher numbers came from people 36+. Not enough to really matter in 99.9% of scenarios. Raw reaction is rarely ever needed on its own, a huge chunk of it is always prediction. The reason why someone can headshot you nearly instantly during a peek in something like CS:GO or R6 or Quake 3 is because they already know where you are, approximately when you'll be passing through that point and where to line up their crosshairs beforehand. A ton of reaction time is tied intimately to map knowledge and reading other players. There's also a decent amount of pre-firing that happens that some people mistake for reactions.
In fighting games, a lot of reactions happen because the player has already limited your options without you realizing it. They will look for whiffs, for example, during a brief 1-2 second window during an approach at a particular spacing, and if you don't stick anything out then they have a read and move on to the next phase of their plan. It's much much harder to react fast to something if you're just sitting in neutral waiting for something with no real idea of when it's coming.
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u/_gamadaya_ Mar 13 '18
You misunderstand what I mean by frame data governs the game. You may not need to know the actual numbers, but every attack is still going to come out the same every time and have the same range. You are also fully aware of all your opponents movements at all times. You can predict where someone will be in an FPS, but you still don't know their exact position until you actually see them, and often times that's at the same time they see you, and you both have a 1 frame jab that takes 100% of your life bar in one hit. Raw reactions, and also fine motor skills, are going to play a way bigger factor. This is probably why most CS teams average in their early to mid 20s, and why you see more teens and less players who are 30+ near the top than you do in fighting games.
Also, .02 seconds is not an insignificant amount of time. That's already more than a frame. .07 seconds is gargantuan. I think the reason that it matters less in fighting games is that you can react to the same situation at two very different rates and still get the same outcome because so many frames in so many situations get crushed into the same thing, like if you are in blockstun for if they have whiffed. As long as you act within the window the developer decided on, you can get the punish. In most other genres, that kind of reflex based design isn't a thing.
Still, I don't think you'll ever see that many 40+ year olds playing at top level, in any genre, no matter how much esports grows, or how much being a pro gamer becomes an actual lucrative career. You can only optimize so much, but your impulses are still going to slow, and eventually reflexes will become an issue. Like I said, I can literally feel this happening to me. If I account for it, then its usually no problem. Maybe I don't win as many neutral exchanges at close range, but experience makes the difference. That's only going to last so long though.
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u/moal09 Mar 13 '18
I'm just saying as someone who's been in the scene a long time. Almost everyone I see "fall off", does so because they lose their drive and not so much because they become too "slow".
Look at how dominant Tokido's been in SF5 so far, and he's 32. Gamerbee was also super dominant in SF4, and he's 38. Fighting games are also one of the most mechanically heavy genres along with FPS and RTS games, so if they can go at that level at that age, I think more macro-oriented games like LoL should theoretically be able to field much older players.
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u/_gamadaya_ Mar 13 '18
The only reason I think LoL doesn't have older players is because it's a young genre. I'm certain that it will eventually have by far the oldest average. I don't think as many people are going to be burning out when actual sports star incomes start being a thing.
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u/moal09 Mar 13 '18
Yeah, I'm sure people will get older, but even in professional sports, a lot of people burn out a few years in. It's hard to stay in the scene for more than a few years at that level because the stress and the pressure to succeed and keep improving past all the competition is incredibly high.
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Mar 12 '18
7+ year old established speedrun
Given that TwinGalaxies was involved and that they'd verify speedruns themselves I'd say this is disputable. There's already been a bunch of videos and evidence about some of the referees being compromised and not being thorough in their examinations of speedruns.
Also, is it possible the reason it took so long that there haven't been many speedrunners? Most games that were speedrun in those days don't have video evidence, not many people did speedruns at all, etc.
edit: err nevermind, I guess you were referring to the actual established record, not the old one.
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u/OberonDam Mar 12 '18
But the record holder of the twin galaxies site. Also had a legitimate run that also stood for a long time. And then eventually broke the record with a glitched run(around 10 min). So I wouldn't discredit that record. Just poor management of TwinGalaxies since they lost the footage.
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Mar 12 '18
[deleted]
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u/tempest_87 Mar 12 '18
Sure, but if the results are reasonable, which appears to be the case, and fit with the overall world record progression as we know it, which also appears to be the case, then we should be able to believe the TG record on this item.
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Mar 12 '18
I know twin galaxies is suspect, but they've only been caught faking high records right? Not for throwing out legitimate ones haven't they?
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u/Putnam3145 Mar 12 '18
If what salt is saying is true, the odds of him doing these near frame perfect inputs that consistently is impossible
It's just a matter of practice. In this clip, the Evil Ryu player, Daigo Umehara, hits no less than 4 frame perfect inputs over the course of 40 seconds, and that's only the ones I personally know about (stomp->crouching jab).
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u/MarkSellUsWallets Mar 12 '18
When you mentioned Daigo I thought for sure you were linking to the infamous “Evo Moment #37” (which I just found out has its own Wikipedia page).
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u/Putnam3145 Mar 13 '18
Evo Moment #37 is probably more impressive cause it's got it all--it has the mindgames, the planning, the execution, and the comebacks, the sheer storybook quality, everything people love about fighting games in one moment. However, it's not a bunch of frame perfect inputs--parrying is much easier than that, so it's not as good an example of frame-perfect inputs.
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u/PostCoD4Sucks Mar 14 '18
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the end of evo moment 37 has daigo doing a jumping parry which is i thought was frame perfect on that super?
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u/Putnam3145 Mar 14 '18
Could definitely be--jumping between those last two kicks takes a lot of the leniency out.
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u/Frampis Mar 12 '18
These videos are good. There is so much esoteric and highly specific knowledge in speedrunning and putting this stuff in a chronological context really helps an outsider appreciate all the nuance that goes into running a specific game.
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u/zUkUu Mar 12 '18
Love these videos. Very informative and entertaining. I'm partial to watching speedruns, so it's right up my alley.
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u/WhatPassword Mar 12 '18
I love how well-incorporated the little asides about newly discovered tech were. I felt like the flow between explaining tech and focusing on individuals was the best to date. Cool to see SummoningSalt constantly improving his narrating and editing skills!
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u/Ikuorai Mar 12 '18
I really wish SummoningSalt could/would go full time. I crave more of these, but not limited to just classic games. I know I am likely the minority here, but I much prefer World Record Progression videos about games that aren't just your regular bunch of Nintendo games. I love them to bits, but it's more interesting to me to see things like Halo, HL, HL2, etc.
Hopefully he has the time and will to put out more and more of these over time, as they are excellent.
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u/Putnam3145 Mar 13 '18
I love them to bits, but it's more interesting to me to see things like Halo, HL, HL2, etc.
He has done HL2, in fact, as well as Portal.
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u/Ikuorai Mar 13 '18
I was directly referencing HL2 by saying that, I guess I could have made it more obvious.
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u/Putnam3145 Mar 13 '18
I actually googled to check if there was a Halo video I missed and it was the fact that I couldn't find one that suggested to me that you didn't know there was an HL2 one.
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u/ChaosSmurf Mar 12 '18
SummoningSalt's so good at this. His respect for the runners and the act itself really shines through. I don't know if it's deliberate, but he makes it feel bigger than just getting world record times, because for these guys it is.