1P and 2P split?
8 years ago
Washington, USA

I feel that I, as a mere viewer of SMG speedruns, but an avid speedrunner in other games, has the credibility to judge how a game splits categories. You don't necessarily need to be a runner in SMG to provide an opinion on how the categories are split, since this debate has almost nothing to do with the game itself.

Laxxius, frogyfro, and Fish like this
South Holland, Netherlands

''others chose to run 1P and don't even wish to compare themselves to 2P, not as an excuse to be lazy and do slow strats, but because they wish to run a separate category.''

https://gyazo.com/af653aff9f5cef912695edef91d5cf92

Also note that Neg's 1P run is in there. So running both and comparing to only the applicable ''category'' is totally doable, it just takes 2 mouse clicks. Its just your fastest overall time that stays on the combined leaderboards, as it should be

1UpsForLife, Laxxius and 2 others like this
England

I really don't understand this argument in the slightest. All I see it as is a desire for personal recognition by being able to say 'I have a wr'. Whilst 2p and 1p remain the same categories, no 1p runner can claim a 'record' unless they sub neg. I find this discussion borderline illogical and the only reason it's even under question is because neg isn't in the community anymore and people want a 'change' for the wr holder.

Let's all take a moment to remember that 1p and 2p are the exact same speedrun. Let's use any% for example, in which the player attempts to beat the game in as little time as possible. The objective is the exact same for 1p and 2p; to collect any 61 stars possible to get to the credits. This is why the two can't, and shouldn't, be separated. You can use the same route for 1p and 2p runs (albeit marginally slower to use a 2p route with 1p), and the vast majority of strategies are the exact same - to have 2 categories should mean that the whole speedrun is different, infact, I would go as far as to say that you could strongly argue that Luigi any%/120 should be considered NG+ and misc.

Also, let's not forget that we're not doing anything illegitimate to use 2p - Nintendo put this in their game, and the fact that it can be exploited for faster movement and to make new strategies should be encouraged, not separated on the sheer arbitrary basis that the current runners don't want to take the time to learn these strategies and go fast. For example, we don't see 'SMS Any% No Rocket Nozzle Skip', because this would be stupid and not needed. It's the same argument with 2p. Neg's time is beatable. If you want a wr, spend time practising and learning strats as opposed to trying to arbitrarily change how the leaderboard works to work around the fact that you 'can't be arsed' to learn 2p strats. I'm adamant the only reason people don't use 2p is because it's considered difficult; if it was as easy as 1p there would be no argument.

Laxxius, frogyfro, and Fish like this
England

But they're both the same version, that's the thing. If you'd rather your times be comparable than fast, then that's on you.

Laxxius and frogyfro like this
South Holland, Netherlands

''The whole point of a category is to compare your times to people who are doing the same thing as you. If this were not the case, categories like Any% no OoB would be completely useless.''

Agreed. In most games though OoB changes the run in a significant way and save a large portion of time over their no OoB counterparts. I wouldn't call 3 minutes in a 2:30 run a significant amount of time.

Look for example at http://www.speedrun.com/som , the first speedgame that came to my mind that also uses 2 controllers vs 1 controller. See how the categories are split. It's because 2C there changes the whole run, saving 1/3rd of its 1C counterpart. Now that would be enough reason to split 1P and 2P yes. The argument as it stands, is not.

''It's also like the way that top SM64 runners use N64 even though VC is faster.''

No it's not. You're comparing apples to oranges. VC is faster because of lag reduction (by the system itself). 2P is faster because of execution (by the player).

Laxxius, frogyfro and 2 others like this
England

This isn't a category that can be compared to things such as 'any% no oob' because no oob changes the run in its absolute entirety. 1p vs 2p is a completely different kettle of fish because people who use 1p aren't choosing to do a different run - they're choosing to go slow.

Think of it this way. Everyone but a few people wanted SMG2 cometless off the leaderboard right away, and rightly so, because it's an arbitrary category with no purpose. I'd like to ask, and I'm being deadly serious - what is the difference between the 1p and 2p discussion and the cometless discussion?

In the cometless run, you complete the exact same category as you would in any%, but you give yourself an arbitrary restriction in that you cannot collect comet medals. Similarly, with 1p, you give yourself an arbitrary restriction to use 1 controller, as Nintendo published the game with clear advantages for 2 controllers, and we're speedrunners, so of course we abuse that. The only reason we laugh at cometless and take 1p v 2p seriously is because there are 'top' runners who use 1p who choose to not use 2p.

Laxxius, frogyfro and 2 others like this
Washington, USA

Alright, let's say you join a community, that for whatever reason, the overwhelming majority of high level players run Any% leaving out a movement option, or a trick/glitch, even though it would be faster to incorporate the strat. Let's be clear, the trick/glitch does not change the route or overall speedrun significantly.

If you join this new community, and your goal was getting a fast time, I would hope that instead of purposely running the game with slower strats than you could be, simply because everyone else does it, you would run the game with the faster strats that the category allows.

Let me emphasize this point: There is NOT a big enough difference between 1p and 2p to warrant different categories, therefore running SMG with 1p is not some sort of different run than 2p, instead it is running the Any% category, but with slower strats.

Of course, running the game with slower strats is fine, but the completely illogical part is when you start disregarding times faster than yours because they do faster strats that you don't do.

I think that instead of comparing yourself against people who do the strats that you do, you should learn to do the faster strategies as you get faster at the game, and compare yourself against everyone.

Laxxius, frogyfro and 2 others like this
South Holland, Netherlands

Our point exactly.

Awesomecuber likes this
England

And that restriction is arbitrary

Laxxius and Awesomecuber like this
South Holland, Netherlands

''In my opinion, for a high level runner who is looking for every opportunity to shave a few seconds off of their run and will put in hours of work to do that, three minutes is definitely significant.''

Yes. But you need to look at the differences between the runs, not only the time it saves. 3 minutes in a 2:30 run is 2% of the run. For a top runner this will be a lot, yes. But on the run ITSELF it isn't.

This is however, for me, not even the main reason for opposing a split. It's the extent to which a runs changes by looks/route/tricks etc. which should decide if said split would be appropriate. since 2P barely changes the run, it should not be a separate category.

Laxxius and Awesomecuber like this
Finland

Those 3 minutes become a lot more significant and more important than 2% if you take away the downtime SMG has compared to other speedgames.

Laxxius likes this
South Holland, Netherlands

Valid point, and I'm of course not stating that those 3 minutes aren't a significant timesave, especially for a top time (or even a mediocre time for that matter). It's how that timesave is realized that should decide whether it should be a speratae category or not.

Laxxius, Awesomecuber, and frogyfro like this
Minnesota, USA

I find this to be completely silly. I don't think this should warrant a split because you're using another controller for the speedrun.

Laxxius, Awesomecuber and 2 others like this
South Holland, Netherlands

mfw I didn't know I could c/p images

Laxxius and Awesomecuber like this
Tennessee, USA

Unless Demolition's solution also allows someone to submit a 1P run and 2P run time without removing the other, then this remains a problem. It would be nice if this was an ultimate solution, but I don't believe that it is.

Anyhow, I think that too many people have gotten themselves stuck into the paradigm that the only legitimate reason to split categories is due to different victory conditions. Now, while I admit that this is the majority of the cases in which you would want to split categories, we shouldn't confuse something being the majority reason for a split and effectively make it the ONLY reason for a split.

While 1P and 2P may have the same victory conditions, the fact that one has already been noted to be significantly faster than the other makes it useful for the purpose of comparison to permit having two separate boards for them, so that people can run both without an issue, and so that the 1P WR will always be listed and, hopefully, accurately listed.

If you have a problem with people enjoying a "free WR", then I think you need to step back for a second and realize that you care ¤way¤ too much about the fact that other people care way too much about WR. This strong complaining about people "just wanting free WR" from splitting categories is more annoying than the actual people that just play for free WR.

Laxxius and Vallu like this
United States

How about we all just shut up and end this stupid conversation

Laxxius likes this
Tennessee, USA

Yes, I agree that Demo's solution works now that I've been informed of how I'm wrong. [I didn't realize this application, and it will certainly be useful to me in the future]

I also agree that I wasn't making any strong points with the "you care too much thing", because I wasn't talking to you, Shadow. I was talking about the people whose only horse in this race is how freaking salty they are about category splits because they it bothers them that someone is going to feel like they're getting a "free WR". If this doesn't apply to you, then I wasn't talking to you. It only really applies to you if your hate for people getting "free WRs" becomes so strong that you become closed-minded in the conversation, and I certainly hope that you're not like that.

As for the last point, it does need to be said that people like to compete, and if you have a situation where people have to choose between (1) running the fastest category and (2) running the most popular category, then they'll often choose the latter. Fact is, category splits can obviously be BENEFICIAL to the faster categories because people can freely run both categories without one run messing with their other run. [see the several people who'd say they'd run both--did you not look at that and wonder why it made a difference to them?]

Also, again, the point I'm making is that the decision of whether or not we decide to split a category should be part due to time difference in comparison and part due to community popularity in which category to run. I believe the reason to do so is obvious: it's conducive to people speedrunning the game more, and that should be the number one objective of a leaderboard; it should be trying to serve the community rather than doing the equivalent of holding power over the community and dictating how they SHOULD be playing the game. That's my opinion, anyway. Do whatever you wish, I just would like to say that I hope that you are actually doing what you believe to be healthiest for the community, even if I disagree with you on that.

Laxxius and ShadowLugia like this
New York, USA

So before reading all of these posts I started out as someone who really didn't care if the split happened or not. This is even with me most likely not wanting to run 2p mostly because I find it silly.

After I reading everything I was initially pro no split and while trying to logic everything for that argument I'm split. So what follows is probably an argument for both sides...

Currently we have Mario and Luigi as subcategories for Any% and 120 stars. Now what are the differences between the two that constituted that split that no one argues about. First is the obvious lack of cut scenes in the first approximately 10 mins of the game. However, for the sake of this argument lets say we could easily consider the start of the game being on finishing talking to the bunny in gateway and starting with 0 starbits. So what are the differences after that? Luigi has stats that allow him to do a couple of tricks that Mario can't do and be faster. Luigi also has some negatives but we're also going to ignore that. So if you were to race people of similar skill levels Luigi most if not all of the time would win. There are no other differences. However, what is clearly the case is that you're essentially doing the same thing in each run. The differences warrant a split which no one complains about. So using the argument of lumping 1p and 2p together because the objective is to complete the game the fastest I could also argue that we should get rid of the Mario category because Mario will always be slower than Luigi. Almost every argument for lumping 1p and 2p can be applied to the Mario and Luigi logic. I mostly say this because I don't want to go through every one.

There is another argument were there are tricks that a lot of players don't do because they are harder that is similar but I don't really feel like going through that..

Now basically that was reasoning for splitting 1p and 2p however, despite all that I think the leaderboard should remain the same. Basically because of what Demolition14 and frogyfro said also I have no idea why splitting them would make you want to run both. If anything you would want to be running 2p now because its faster. However, I'm also totally up for getting rid of the Mario category and it be all Luigi!

Laxxius likes this
Game stats
Followers
2,880
Runs
7,553
Players
1,067
Latest news
No Co-Star (1P) and Co-Star (2P) Runs Have Been Split!

First of all, thank you to everyone who voted. This was the biggest turnout we've ever had, reaching 112 votes! Here is the final verdict: Co-Star (2P) runs will be split from No Co-Star (1P) runs for ALL categories, but Co-Star runs will appear first by default. We will not be implementing th

7 months ago
Latest threads
Posted 4 months ago
13 replies
Posted 1 year ago
0 replies
Posted 5 years ago
0 replies
Posted 27 days ago
63 replies