Pokémon GO speedruns
3 years ago
United States

@derric_young It’s already been decided that Pokémon Go will not be added to this site.

Edited by the author 2 years ago
San José, CA, USA

Why not? Although Pokémon Go probably doesn't deserve speed run records being archived on this website, I'd still like to see the webpost that said speedrun.com wouldn't do that and why. I say this because I can imagine a series of Pokémon Go speed run challenges with clear metrics of player completion in record time including:

Speed runs from level 1 to levels 10, 20, 30, 40, or 50 Speed runs to regional dex completion Speed runs for Special research task completion Speed runs for gold or platinum medals (unrelated to dex competion) Speed runs to first shiny Pokémon, first hundred percent Pokémon, or shiny hundred percent Pokémon

Some challenges can be started the moment an account is created while others can be completed by the same account. The challenge can be amplified based on RNG, player location, and timing of game-related events throughout the year. Some exclusive event-related world records might also be an option, with the added benefit of people being able to hold bragging rights to date restricted activities like certain records to spotlight hours, community days, the Safari Zone, or annual Go Fests.

Edit: typos

Edited by the author 2 years ago
CyanWes and YUMmy_Bacon5 like this
Canada

Literally imagine that a few years pass and it turns out that the fastest path to Level 10 or 20 or whatever involved being in Florida.

I would need to buy an airplane ticket to Florida just to compete against other times. Like you just can't, I swear.

Edit: Half-jokes aside, this isn't up to speedrun.com, but to the Pokémon Mobile Games & Minigames Series mods. https://i.imgur.com/Rpgllxp.png

Edited by the author 2 years ago
jackzfiml, CyanWes and 7 others like this
San José, CA, USA

Florida aside, I'd imagine there's also be an opportunity to form distinctions between glitched/GPS spoofing speed runs and vanilla speed runs in the same way there are distinctions between glitched and glitch free speed runs.

CyanWes and YUMmy_Bacon5 like this
United States

You can run the game without it being tracked on SRC. If you want any chance of the game to be added, create your own community and track runs through Google sheets or excel.

Edited by the author 2 years ago
CyanWes, YUMmy_Bacon5 and 3 others like this
Canada

“Florida aside”

God I wish

CyanWes, YUMmy_Bacon5 and 7 others like this
Venezuela

Pokemon Go Speedrun (Go Battle League 5 win set):

I have seen other speedrun ideas such as solo raids and multiplayer raids discussed before, but I believe that there is a better approach. As mentioned before by some players in the community, there is a potential for Pokemon Go PVP speedruns, and I am sure that top players and even retired ones would jump back to the game at full strength. I am not currently one of the best players in the world, but I do enjoy Silph Arena and Go Battle League a lot and would think this is a very interesting idea. There are two major obstacles now:

Lag. Which tbh has been reduced quite a bit in the last update. Verification of an official website to accept speedruns.

If both of these are cleared. I will try to make an attempt for this run. What is interesting is that unlike other games, you only have 5 attempts a day to complete it. Additionally, you cannot just tank by trying for insanely lucky runs with bad team comp. Meaning that a run with excellent RNG, good teams, and excellent gameplay could be a good barrier to break in the future. There are a couple of primitive ideas I have had like: Hitting CMP as much as possible to save some time. Use fast move pressure teams Take shields with Tank, sweep with 2 glass cannons. Others

There are still some in game mechanics that can be tricky. In terms of the MMR system, I believe that we should use the legend rank, or maybe top 500-1000 in leaderboards to accept. However, we know that queue times can affect the wait times between fights by quite a bit, so you would have to find a good spot lower in the leaderboards where you would not be affected by this. I am sure there are many things that I am overlooking. But it could be fun!

CyanWes and YUMmy_Bacon5 like this
United States

You could start an unofficial leaderboard and build a community here through the forums and discord, but it's unlikely that this game will end up on the site, and this is mainly due to the PVP aspect of the game. There are other factors as to why it won't be added officially, such as having microtransactions that affect gameplay, location leaking issues, etc.

The biggest part is that the additional of this game is up to series mods, not through site staff support hub submission, and they have already spoken upon not creating an official board for this game

If you do plan on starting an unofficial community, good luck, and maybe I'll give a run a shot.

CyanWes and YUMmy_Bacon5 like this
Venezuela

The in game currency is something I had not originally thought of really, and I somewhat agree with you. For new players, it is difficult to collect new pokemon and reach the under 40 level cap to gain XL, to then grind even more XL candy quickly. However, I theorize that for most of Ultra League records XL pokemon are not viable. This lowers the entry level to level 40, which can be achieved in around 2-3 months if done quickly. When I started in 2018 I grinded for about 3 months, but was not able to hit level 40, then started to play more casually, and then PVP.

Since then, I have not grinded and honestly, in comparison with some timed runs of my friend and mine non XL pokemon such as charizard, and fighters are very quick. When he used XL, it took from 30 seconds to 1 minute more to complete it. We haven't tried much, but if lag ever gets better I will prob grind some.

CyanWes and YUMmy_Bacon5 like this
Venezuela

New and Updated Ruleset For Pokemon Go Speedrunning PVP (All Leagues):

  • Timing: given the fact that there are queue times, I believe the best way to time the battles is by starting a timer when the battle starts or the countdown says Go!, and end it after the battle is over when the screen says You Win/Lose. - For 5 win sets, these times will be added up to create the final time that will be sent to the Speedrunning Leaderboard
  • Each League (Great, Ultra, and Master League) will have different leaderboards due to the difference in stat product of the Pokémon, leading to longer battles in some categories. - There will be Miscellaneous Categories, where you can also compete for a time such as Holiday Cup, Kanto Cup, Halloween Cup, etc.
  • Due to the rating system, runs will only be accepted when you reach rank 20 (get your rating) - Only runs within a certain range of the leaderboard will be accepted to discourage tanking for easier opponents. - Original Idea for the Range is 25 points below last spot of the Official Pokémon Go Ratings Leaderboard. And increase it with a multiplier for each week that passes in a new season. Ex: Week 2: 50 points, Week 3: 75 points.
  • A player is not allowed to play more than 5 sets a game or play in a different account.
  • All runs must be verified with video, and they need to include the phone timer in the top of the recording to avoid slicing battles together. - We will have a team of 3 judges/reviewers for every official submission to the speedrunning leaderboard.
  • Hoarding records is not allowed, and you must submit within 5 days of completing your run.
  • If in any of your battles your opponent brings non competitive Pokémon the run is disallowed. Ex: Three 10cp Pokémon while the other player is tanking.
  • There will be two main category splits as well. - No surrender: if an opponent surrenders a battle at any point the run is invalid - Surrender allowed: at least 4/6 Pokémon must be shown before your opponent surrenders to ensure it was a competitive battle that the player won.

As I said before, I am open to changing these rules and am actually hoping the community can come up with a better take of this preliminary version!

Of course, there are some obstacles that Pokémon Players must be thinking about, such as:

  • High barrier of entry to become one of the top players in the world. However, doing some test runs myself I have determined that XL Pokémon are not even viable in this format as they are too tanky to perform well in these Speed categories, specially in the Ultra League (which is considered the XL league).
  • Lag. All Pokemon Go players have dealt with it many times, and it can lose you a couple of seconds in case of extreme lag. However, I believe that this is getting better, and making the game more popular will only encourage Niantic to improve the servers. Normal lag such as fast move denial/sneaking, starting one turn behind or “The Pause” will be allowed in runs as it is impossible to control such things.
  • In Game Exploits: different from lag, these are considered cheats a player does to take an unfair advantage over others. If there is evidence of these exploits, not only will the run be invalid, the player will receive a temporary ban from submitting times to the leaderboard. Some of the known exploits are: - Pausing after a charge move to delay the switch timer. - Finding “paid actors” that intentionally throw a game to achieve a faster time.

I am sure there are many things that I am overlooking, and for that we need this community to grow! But it could be fun!

CyanWes and YUMmy_Bacon5 like this
North Holland, Netherlands

You could start an unofficial leaderboard and build a community here through the forums and discord

There have been multiple websites where people competed to complete raids the fastest with the least amount of people. And it has been proven that if you have the same stats and pokémon w the same movesets going against the same raid boss that the results will be the exact same, if the moveset of the raid boss is the same and the same weatherboost/no weatherboost applies.

It is perfectly doable to get a person or group you try these challenges with, or use alt accounts for that sake, this has both been done for years.

Saying that these raid challenges are not eligible because they are too much up to chance, would also exclude other games that require wifi because maybe not everyone has the same cell service.... it makes no sense imo.

Although I probably wouldn't submit any runs anymore today because I don't participate in raid challenges anymore, I would still see Pokémon GO being an amazing addition to speedrun.com.

CyanWes and YUMmy_Bacon5 like this
Pennsylvania, USA

Idea: submit a game request explaining all this

CyanWes likes this