Note - The original post was deleted, it said something along the lines of: "Unlike several other game types that relies mostly on mechanics, strategy and inputs (like platformers games, strategy games, etc). In RPG games on the other hand, the players are "meant" to take their time, explore the world and the lore, and do story and side quests. So does it make sense to run them?"
The are many many games around here that can arguably said that the developers "didn't mean" for the players to rush. So what? That doesn't stop the speedrunners, as we only care about one goal - be fast. Also - story, lore, characters and world building isn't exclusive to RPGs, and they are not really relevant when it comes to speedruns. We skip cutscenes whenever possible, change game language to make dialogues faster, and many other stuff. When it comes down to it, the "purpose" of RPG games is also reaching the final goal, or defeating the final boss. What's the difference between that and what you said about platformers, for example?
Technically there's story in Metal Gear, God of War, Devil May Cry, Silent Hill, Resident Evil... We're supposed to stop running those too? Come on ffs...
Edit: What about the Ninja Gaiden NES games, they have cutscenes you know........
The purpose of speedrunning is to complete a task (the whole game, part of the game, eating a sandwich, whatever) as quickly as possible.
The purpose of PLAYING an RPG may be the learn the story, lore and build a character, but the focus is on the word PLAYING not the word RPG.
The purpose of SPEEDRUNNING an RPG is to complete a task (main questline, death%, all achievements, getting your character to eat a sandwich, whatever) as quickly as possible. The focus is again on the word SPEEDRUNNING not the word RPG.
Hopefully this has helped you wrap your head around your ponderings. Now I'm off to go make a sandwich....
[quote=ckellyedits] The purpose of speedrunning is to complete a task (the whole game, part of the game, eating a sandwich, whatever) as quickly as possible.
The purpose of PLAYING an RPG may be the learn the story, lore and build a character, but the focus is on the word PLAYING not the word RPG.
The purpose of SPEEDRUNNING an RPG is to complete a task (main questline, death%, all achievements, getting your character to eat a sandwich, whatever) as quickly as possible. The focus is again on the word SPEEDRUNNING not the word RPG.[/quote] Trying to make a distinction between “playing” and “speedrunning” is terrible in my opinion. You’re still playing a game if you’re speedrunning it, you’re just playing it with a different goal in mind. When you play a game casually, you re playing it to gather the full story, to get a Platinum trophy (although this can also be a speedrunning goal, as an example of the overlap), etc. When you speedrun a game, you’re still playing the game and enjoying it, you’re just playing with a different goal of completing it faster than you did before.
Trying to push a distinction between the two only furthers the (incorrect) stereotype that speedrunning isn’t really playing a game and is rather cheating or unenjoyable.
OK everybody. Minecraft's out too because that has lore. Who wants to break the news to Dream and Illumina?
Who cares about what a game "was ment to be"? Care about what it is to you.
@Liv, about that "never grinding" part of your post, even that is not always true. There are specific RPGs which have routes that involve grinding. I run one of these: Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep has a grinding part for all three characters in order to get a level that speeds fights later and make the route more consistent.
Personally, I think OP is just new to the idea of speedrunning, and is just asking a question.
@Walgrey Their profile does include a link to an advertisement though….
@WanderAgro I guess we can rephrase/interpret what Liv said as "Grind efficiently, and only as much as you need to".
Like I've personally done speedruns of RPGs (Only ARPGs on this site but I had finished and WIP traditional ones as well on my twitch) but I think they are weird and have a lot of subtypes in terms of VIEWER experience (beyond the obvious Caterogy subteypes like Any% 100%, etc)
I think my biggest problem with RPG speedruns ... is that a lot of them seem fun to watch exactly once, and then never again, as while making the speedrun route had a lot of creativity, its execution very quickly has little to no deviation from the path allowed - As a viewer my favorite types are Rougelikes and glitchless runs of "primitive" rpgs because of this - because they feel like the most intense (yes reseting for RNG in (a pokemon speedrun) is frustring in its own right but its the excitement of DYING completely versus a series of 10~ second losses due to heal skip / crit-less battle ranges -- I feel like I've never really been interested in any of the "path to becoming overpowered > A battle rest of game or the "total control (manip or job class combo) type speedruns. - It's cool to see them once in like a marathon when it's a game I've played myself and remember taking forever - but trying to watch a 2nd speedrun of that same game just KILLs all the excitement while a 2nd speedrun of an action game,etc is still just as much fun every time.
A: - Underflow glitch or similiar available - these are Low Grind speedruns where the runner obtains almost ALL of the Killing/survival power for the rest of the game very early, even if there are hours of the run after the glitch, the fights are low variety push-overs B: - Job/Skill Tree combo Type - speedruns where the action battle decisions are VERY simple, but the "setup and party building / level progression" is really important - Some of these can be very crazy, but in others the combo comes too easily and turns the game almost into a Type A. C - Quick Grind speedrun - Grinding in a speedrun is pretty different from grinding casually, since it tends to be done "all at once" in a purpose-built part of the speedrun. using either special high XP enemies (metal slimes in dragon quest) or Retriggerable fights (reusuable chest traps / battle tiles, and sometimes mini bosses) or more rarely Low/no animation areas - Pirates in FFA --- These speedruns tend to have a mix of low-level "nail biting" areas and post grind "easy/reliable" areas, although sometimes if the grind is "just barely enough" then the lategame bosses and stuff can still be interesting. D : The Rougelike speedrun - Tend to optimize stair to stair movement and avoiding fights altogether - Rougelikes of the "classic" type are also low level speedruns because the scaling of Item/Scroll use is independent of charather stats and just uses the base spell damage/effect. - Tend to burn items for normal combat instead of the playstyle of Casual Rougelike players. E : The "Marathon safe Rougelike speedrun" - Tend to clear entire floors to hoard as many useful item as the inventory limit allows and only and use the ANY% stair rush strategy for brief periods (when inventory is temporarily full or on specifici floors with low XP enemies) F : The Manipulated speedrun - almost exlusive to NES RPGs and SRPGs (Strategy RPGs) (some SNES and PSP RPGs apply if their reset state or step count works (FF4 / Etrian Oddyssey) - These speedruns either feauture a total knowledlge of enemy counters when the player moves the same way every time - or the total knowledge of ALL RNG (Golden Sun / Etrian Oddyssey) - This allows for low-level speedruns that are absurdly improbbably by a casual level or even the standards of other human speedruns - critting every battle, getting low accuracy Petrify attacks to hit all the time, tricking bosses to use their status effect/taunt over and over instead of their real attacks, etc - SRPGs like Fire Emblem tend to fall into this category by default due to using Enemy "decision tags" instead of true AI - so players will always know that the enemy will react to their units being in range or 1 tile out of range the same way (compare with the slot machine AI that people speedrunning Real Time Strategy games have to put up with) G: The "primitive" low grind - Depending on the game can be super exciting (if it's an NES/Genesis game that REALLY was never developer intendedfor low level or boring (due to being possible due to low difficulty) - For me personally an extra requirement is that it has to be a game that has 0 to no job classing/skill system and just boil down to stats and spells (buffs no more than 1 level) and dungeon/boss design that feautures AI that just doesn't care - no responding to player action, just a straight up 25%spell25%basic attack25%skill25%status every turn for the entire battle.
Honestly, I’d like to know why it doesn’t make sense. What was the reasoning behind the original question?
Meta gaming is so common here that we forget it’s not necessarily as obvious outside this community. I’d like to hear op elaborate.. unless it was just a troll post.
Well, the OP either deleted himself or was deleted. Can't get any response now.