how do you get good at speedrunning
1 year ago
Dominican Republic

another user already asked a question like this a few days ago, but, for the sake of making a youtube video about this

how do you go about learning a speedrun at a top level from scratch, learning the mechanics and the movement, as well as the cues, setups and tricks? (including specific practicing methods and learning techniques)

how do you properly optimize your movement? what do you do when you're finding it difficult to replicate what other top runners do? what are your prefered (detailed) practicing methods for improving at a game? what do you do when you're struggling with a trick or technique but don't wanna resort to not using it?

Edited by the author 1 year ago
M_CBL_ likes this
Australia

Like with anything - do it a lot, because it won't come naturally. Make your practice purposeful - practice specific tricks, get feedback often, be critical of yourself. Make sure you know what you're lacking on and that you actively work to fix it / adjust for it.

It's a looot of practice. And often I find that labbing out new tricks myself help me understand the game more.

Compare your splits to others in your range or at the top level. Where do you lose the most time? Why? Practice those the most.

Where do you reset a lot? Consider taking a safer but slower route for now so you can complete more runs, then slowly work your way towards the hard stuff. Doing something like a setupless cannonless in M64 will be really fast once in a while, but you will get nowhere a) in other areas of the run, which also need your attention or b ) completing runs in general.

Constructive criticism, taking feedback to heart, and consistent, intentional practice makes perfect.

There's no easy way to get better, and it varies with every game.

Edited by the author 1 year ago
ShroomyRalsei and Urinstein like this
Greece

well for me in was playing a lot the game crash nitro kart gba from my childhood, i played this game in Pc using Visual Boy advance emulator i was pretty good at it but at 2018 i buyed my Tablet and with the help of Myboy emulator i started playing on that and when i got used to the controls i started to think about speedrun it. Of course that will require a lot of grinding and practice shortcuts and tricks. My first full run was done 2 years ago using my phone for timer, it was less an hour i was pretty disappointed but i had hope, then 3 years ago i decided to speedrun it for good! on every level it was necessary to grind as hard as possible also another thing is to NOT getting angry..... now this is the very hard. Now i'm using Mobizen for record videos also Floating Speedrun Timer for full runs and the myboy emulator for the game.

Practice makes perfect keep pushing and you will see results, of course you must believe that you have the skill to do it. the golden trick here is to stay calm and NOT getting angry, if get angry you should stop and try again later when you are calm.

Edited by the author 1 year ago
ShroomyRalsei likes this
Valhalla

This is going to sound crazy, but you might want to consider practising

M_CBL_ and ShroomyRalsei like this
Somalia

[quote=Wrap]This is going to sound crazy, but you might want to consider practising[/quote] A bit unfair to bring that amount of sarcasm to this, when OP asked rather precise questions on what that practice is supposed to look like taking into account different aspects of the game and in particular pertaining to a new runner, who may not be able to just follow along the WR route.

However those question are actually too precise to answer them independently of a specified game. For example in Hotline Miami 1, you would start by learning a few of the main mechanics and some bread & butter routes for every level. Aim, movement, and muscle memory you build passively by grinding out levels, as familiarising yourself with the many RNG patterns and edge case mechanics takes just as long to develop as mechanical prowess (it's not particularly mechanically challenging). Meanwhile I have heard, that for Halflife 1 you pretty much gotta practice air strafe bunny hopping for a good hundred hours before you can attempt a run. So the process there is clearly very different. I'm gonna make a guess here and say that HL1 probably has mods that let you practice that stuff much more efficiently than you could in the game proper.

So yeah, I think OP understand that it takes a lot of practice to become proficient in any skill, however that practice should be done in an efficient manner, and as such will look very different from game to game for a plethora of reasons. Even the question whether difficult starts from top runs should be practiced and replicated as early as possible, or circumvented until one has largely closed the skill gap to those runners, is dependant on the game, I would say.

I'm gonna hazard one generalisation and say that a strat/tech that comes with transferable skills makes a lot more sense to front-load in your speedrun journey, than one that doesn't. That is to say, if you fail a WR strat because your movement is imprecise and your ability to adapt to RNG is lacking, then practicing the strat will improve those skills of yours and make you overall better in the entire game. If however, to beat a boss faster, you need to connect your Donkey Kong Bongos and play Symphony No. 2 in D major, that is a formidable speed tech, but will not benefit you in any other part of the run, and you can probably off-load it to your future self, when it is absolutely necessary to improve your times.

ShroomyRalsei and james like this
United Kingdom

I agree with the points made above. Overall...practice and attempting to improve existing strategies

M_CBL_ and ShroomyRalsei like this
Dominican Republic

thx

Merl_ likes this
Singapore

I have to say, just to input some of my thoughts here...

with the power of the internet, a lot of things can be found out there, but every once in a while, it's nice to have someone guide your path...

that said... I can't really give a detailed guide, as I am also a noob, so I'll just leave this thing that I found somewhere on the internet.

The grind... is real. 💪 https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ci9iQtfXAAAduYo.jpg

also, have some XKCD https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/second.png

Edited by the author 1 year ago