United StatesYeah, well you can add layers upon layers in obs using the 'sources' list. Your game feed is a source, but you can then add another source for the timer, which gets put into the scene with your game feed. You can then move them around, crop them, resize them, etc.
To add a timer to a pre-existing video like your raw PB, I played the video in a media player and had that media players as the source. The timer itself is a free program you can download. 'Wsplit' and 'Livesplit' are 2 popular ones.
I totally get you on the splits being distracting. A lot of speedrunners I know swear they perform better when not under the psychological pressure a timer adds.
Uploaded an unlisted video with a timer and added the run. It appears under the raw video when you click on his lb link. Viewers will see the video from Joe's youtube first. Thanks for submitting. P.S. Joe if you read this, let me know if you want to timer splits I made and the software I used so you can see how your pace compares on future runs.
I am probably going to still approve this tonight and I'll make a 2nd video with timer on it and put the link in the comments (as I want the main video to still link to Joe's YT). What I would do is just play the video in obs (open broadcaster software) with the timer added, local record, and put as unlisted on YT. If Joe decides to edit the video himself then he can upload it and we can swap out the primary video. Looking forward to that sub 1:40 igt you're going for! That'd be nuts.
Ah yeah I see what you mean. So seems like we're actually on the same page really. I just didn't see it as a hard 'you must have a timer in your vod or it doesn't count' and instead see it as 'real time will be used to determine your pace, on screen or off'. There are definitely raw video submission out there for other games. I think it's up to mods to check the vod for the actual start and end time of the run to verify the run length even if a timer is present. The runner is still responsible for submitting what he/she claims their time to be on the submission form. Anyway, cheers dude, I'm learning a lot from your pb. I especially like your smaugon and spirit doku strats.
I did some testing and it looks like it might not even be worth 12 seconds to get. The attack bonus is pathetically small (like under 5%), and so far I haven't found any fights with a significant enough reduction in hits required to save more than 12 seconds. The only noteworthy changes I could find are:
- The helicopter in ch8 sometimes flies away after 3 arrows instead of 4
- Turret gunners and the rocket launcher guy in the window of ch8 seem to require less arrows to kill on average, but there isn't enough testing to show it is statistically significant.
- The electric worms in ch10 die in 4 gleaming blades, whereas before they still needed like a single swipe of the DS (or 1-2 explosive arrows) to finish off after 4.
- The hydracubus tentacles in ch 5 and 7 seem to more reliably get knocked off after 2 flying swallow (this could actually be a big deal if true)
Everything else I haven't been able to kill in less hits. The problem is fights like pazz zuu, regular doku, and smaugan are too difficult to test, as they take so many combos to kill and tend to guard attacks.
Would love to hear from someone who actually understands the effect of the armlet to some degree. I can't find any reliable sources on google. Does it apply different to weapons, projectiles, and ninpo?
Right, right, that's what I'm saying, except I'm saying I'm strongly in favor of not having the timer rule. Reasons being: no other speedrunning community I know of requires this, and if the intent was to detect splicing then there are better ways to do that. I also don't get the 'show the main menu' rule either.
If people really care about the timer thing, then I'll just add it in OBS myself. I kinda want to see what his splits are anyway to see where I'm losing the most time.
He says his video editor can't do that. As the person who would likely be approving the run, I have no problem just watching the run with a timer on locally (or, y'know, looking at the YT video timestamps which takes even less than a few minutes of work).
To the other mods of this leaderboard, I think JTB is willing to have his time put up here, which is something I assume we all want for the sake of showing what the real wr is. He was just having reservations because of the rule that says there has to be a timer on the vod. To me that rule doesn't serve any purpose, as we can check the RTA time ourselves. I don't see that rule as a way to deter splicing, if that's what you were worried about. So how about we remove that rule please?
I found a simple way to get the money to afford armlet of the sun at the cost of either ~17 seconds in chapter 4, or 12 seconds in chapter 7. That's really not a whole lot of time spent. But is it worth it? So far I can't find any fights that seem noticeably faster because of it but I haven't tested everything.
If you guys want to just discuss here, I'd like to try and settle once and for all what the optimal scarab route is. Has anyone actually timed anything?
The 25 JTB got in his pb seems like overkill, and I'm quite skeptical that we need dabilahro. I noticed Unwary doesn't pick it up and neither does Caleb anymore. While I'm just about 100% certain that it would save time vs pill bugs in ch 13, and floors 1 & 2 of chapter 15's castle, you have to factor in:
- time spent collecting scarabs
- time spent upgrading the sword
- time spent equipping and equipping the sword in ch 15 (cause you would just use DS otherwise)
- time making sure you get enough $ to upgrade it, and more importantly opportunity cost of potentially buying more supplies from muramasa in ch 14 like a talisman
The potential time save on fights from dabilahro almost seems worth it, but what do you think? Is there anything else the sword would save time on?
That brings us to the 15 scarab reward: a spirit of the devils. It is pretty easy to get 15 scarabs directly in your path by ~ ch 10, but again this costs time to pick up. Good time to also bring up the prospect of skipping the spirit of devil in ch 4. Is the time save from ninpo really worth getting these items? I am thinking it is probably worth getting at least 1 of these, but maybe not on a truly optimal route. Extra ninpo would help mainly with:
- spamming inferno on alma 1
- emergency I-frames
- pyramid bugs
- fire wheels vs paz zuu and doku (both forms) for added dps
- the encounter at the start of ch 14 where you first see Marbus
- literally everything in chapter 15, especially the 4 tower rooms and the 2 forms of the emperor
- demon murai (I like to use chain inferno to stun him so I can roll in and gleaming blade)
That seems like a lot of potential benefit for getting as many spirit of devils as conveniently possible, and yet all of those things could technically be replaced by just getting really optimal fights and carefully rationing ninpo potions. Bear in mind that skipping dabilahro to get an extra talisman would also allow you to replenish your ninpo by dying.
No reward under 15 scarabs seems worth it to me. So one could maybe even argue that we should not pick up any scarabs at all (that does seem a bit more speedrun-ish to me). Thoughts on that?
Are there any other items that people tend to collect that we can just skip altogether?
Finally I was wondering if anyone could explain the Marbus quick kill please.
Do we have a discord server? If not I can make one and post it here under resources. I want a place to discuss routing.
Thanks for the info man, sounds like you're about to get a sick run with that kind of effort.
Personally my vote is highly in favor of real time. SDA's rules are very outdated and idk anybody who still uses SDA. I also think idling during a longer category like master ninja 100% should be counted against you, as there are plenty of 6+ hour speedruns out there with that rule.
As for difficulty I'd defer to others. Normal and Master Ninja are the only ones I'd be interested in running, but I know Kris has spent a good deal of time working on Hard. I've also heard that in some ways Very Hard is harder than Master Ninja (particularly for 100%).
Anyway, I'm a scrub whose opinion should be taken with a grain of salt. If any of these rule changes would convince JTB and/or Caleb to actually submit their times to the leaderboards so they'd be accurate I'm in favor of that.
Older ninja gaiden communities used IGT to time speedruns but that was before speedrunning became mainstream. Some runners like JTB will still always refer to their IGT only. But for the sake of staying consistent with modern speedrun norms, I suggest keeping real time.
Personally I think all fiend challenges should be completed, even if they just give a talisman. But I don't think time limit should be part of it, we have the speedrun timer for that.
"The main reason I haven't completed a timed run of DKC is because I can't submit it to this site. I hope the leaderboards here open up soon."
Welp, looks like you aren't going to be doing timed runs of DKC then. If posting to this site is a requirement for doing DKC speedruns, then you aren't legitimately interested in DKC speedruns.
