where's the fun if you get rid of all the randomness ?
doing the same things and always getting the exact same outcome isn't always that fun, especially when it's really easy a bit of RNG is nice (sadly though some games relies on it way too much)
I can understand RNG being frustrating. I personally enjoy games which don't have RNG as a major component. Watching some heavy RNG runs can be quite exciting though and I can see the appeal for it as it does resemble gambling in a sense. Getting some major high rolls in a game could be compared to getting a lucky streak in a slot machine game. Except in speedrunning there's an actual end goal and depending on your preferred category, you may break the game inside out to reach the end as fast as possible.
I personally don't find it as enjoyable as I prefer to be the one at fault when something doesn't go according to plan, but I can definitely see the appeal to playing dice and trying to make the most of the given situation.
Some games actually do certain things to remove RNG in certain categories, or at least minimize it. If I recall, Dragon Warrior on NES is an example which has categories for both RNG manipulation and no RNG manipulation.
Personally, I think if there's any way to remove RNG entirely from a run (or drastically reduce its impact,) there should be separate cats.
That said, I personally like RNG - generally, I'd probably get bored playing the same thing over and over with no variation, but I understand why others might not feel the same way.
While we're at it, should we also cut out unskippable cutscenes and dialog, boring experience/resource grinding, and that one really annoying boss fight that keeps giving everybody trouble?
I really don't like this line of thinking. RNG is an aspect of the game you're running whether you like it or not. You shouldn't just cut something out because you don't like it. If it makes the game more fun for you go nuts, but for competition and leaderboards I can't be onboard with this.
Why not run a game with little/no rng? Most rpg's, roguelikes, etc. would be terrible without rng; and a lot of people in this community love randomizers as well, so not everyone agrees with your opinion. There are literal thousands of games that exist, and many of them have very little or no rng.
Indeed. RNG is a part of the game, sometimes an irreplaceable part of the game - and with that fully removed, are you really playing the same game as casual players?
Sport has RNG too, but I bet you watch it agog and never give a moment's thought to removing it there.
Absolutely no RNG can make speedruns boring but it always depends on the game itself, some games benefit from having (almost) no RNG, some don't. And then RNG can be so very different, there is fun RNG and there is really annoying and stupid RNG in games. For example if you enter a room and enemies have different patterns that you have to react to, that can be really fun and challenging even tho bad patterns can result in a timeloss. But if for example a Boss can do two different attacks and one of them is "I am invincible for 10 seconds", there is nothing you can do or react to and it's just frustrating. So yeah, some kinds of RNG can stay away from games but definitely not all of it.
Speedrun Wario Land 4, no RNG and high level of play makes it quite fun.
I think RNG can be quite useful. Like in FFIX if you save on the world map, you can walk farther without getting a random encounter as it manipulates the RNG. Not sure how much time it saves, if any.
99% of the games weren't designed to be speedran to begin with so people have agreed in their own game communities what the most fun categories are and what's the fairest way to play the game. It will never be 100% fair as every run will get a bit different rng. But who cares, people who speedrun find the hunting part exciting or simply enjoy playing the game over and over again. Getting a wr is a bonus.
[quote] Somebody said sports is RNG. I totally disagree with that. U gotta relay on ur skill. [/quote]
I mean, sport does have RNG, it could be rainy, it could be windy, you might do everything possible in preparation for a competition but it doesn't guarantee that you will be on your top form at the day of the match. Usain Bolt doesn't equal his wr run every time, he can easily be up to half a second slower the next race. It's the average that determines a persons skill. In video games the person with the highest average run capability will most often also have the wr. Given enough of a sample size, it will largely make the rng element irrelevant.
"That would mean that games that dont have RNG apparently do have RNG"
No, I assure you Wario Land 4 has no RNG. We aren't talking about real life here, we are talking about video games.
In that case, stuff like that is generally understood to be the runner's responsibility and not RNG since, well, it's not part of the game. Should all factors be controlled in theory? Perhaps. Is some RNG a pain to deal with? Yes. But it's part of the challenge of running a game one loves, or else it's not the whole package.
Games were not made with speedrunners in mind. Therefore, RNG is something we all just have to deal with.
Or perhaps WE should be the ones to adapt. Play the game how it was originally made, as opposed to modifying it to "suit our arbitrary whims".
That's what speedrunning is all about: finishing a game as fast as possible using what the game has to offer.
@BYK Can you please stop trying to change the definition of speedrunning.
Speedrunning isn't Smash. It's not a matter of "Fox only, no items, final destination".