How Pausing Broke Sonic 2 Speedruns

Sonic 2 speed running has a big problem a timer problem in most speed games you can just start your own timer upon starting the game and stop the timer when you beat the game this is known as real time attack or RTA for short Sonic 2 speedruns on the other hand were different preferring to use the in-game timer where the sum of every level's clear time added up to your final time in-game time was the standard as it ended up being a much more accurate measurement for how fast your speedrun was compared to RTA the only downside in terms of accuracy was that if you pause the game so did the endgame time but this is a speed run of Sonic out of all games you got to go fast and there's just no need to pause okay maybe except for this one level WAP glitch but that's the exception not the rule right [Music] before I get into this whole pausing Fiasco we need to First bring up why Sonic 2 speedrunners used ingame time over RTA time bonuses the faster you beat a stage based on the in-game timer the greater the time bonus is the real kicker however is that when this along with the ring bonus scroll down to zero as it's added to your score this is done at a constant rate meaning if you get a higher time bonus you spend more time waiting for the next level than if you were to reach the goal just slow enough for a smaller time bonus this means that it's possible to save time in RTA by purposely slowing down not only that but if you earn a combined 10,000 points from time and ring bonuses you lose an additional two seconds from earning a continue since many of these levels are beaten within 44 in-game seconds this happens constantly this is pretty counterintuitive to the spirit of speedrunning so sticking to in-game time made the most logical sense that is of course until Runners began to abuse pause buffering now why is pausing advantageous for Sonic speedrunning well pause buffering is already a technique used in many speedruns to nail very precise tricks especially useful for frame perfect tricks when applicable Sonic 2 is one of those games and as far back as 2006 some of the first big skips in the run where pausing was somewhat useful were found namely two specific glitches the hilltop Act One lava zip found by roken in 2006 and the Metropolis Zone act two level WAP found by Joe stansky in 2009 both of these skips involve buffering directional presses in order to get the Zips where if you pause the game and then hold or let go of a direction and then unpause that direction directional change will be registered immediately as a result pause buffering helps immensely with executing Zips while jump inputs cannot be buffered pausing can still help time jumps if needed however since pausing stops the in-game time the moderators at speed Demo's archive which was the primary website for submitting Record Times back then ruled that any pause that exceeded 60 frames would be frame counted and an additional second would be added to the final time as a penalty for every 60 frames spent paused while some old school Runners like Sega junkie would use pause buffering to consistently nailed the Metropolis 2 zip he never paused long enough for the rule to ever be enforced many people didn't even know this rule on SDA even existed because of how it was never really enforced and not everyone pause buffered although many big skips like the previously mentioned Hilltop 1 in Metropolis 2 Zips could be slightly easier of pause buffering most people who performed these tricks didn't feel the need to pause for the most part but in 2011 this would suddenly change on October 26 2011 glitch man would post in the Sonic 2 forum on task videos that he had discovered a level WP in Metropolis Zone act three a zip that skipped straight from the start of the level straight to the boss and saved over 50 seconds the first time this trick would be implemented in a world record was Sega junky 16 13 set on March 28th 2012 however this trick was far more precise than any trick used in full game Run so far this was the first trick that basically required pause buffering if you wanted to nail it consistently for this trick to work you need to position Sonic so that he's teetering on the left edge of this platform which will fall once Sonic or tails jumps or walks off of it pause buffering helps position Sonic correctly so that when Tails walks off and the platform begins to fall Sonic will will be inside the wall while Sonic is falling with the platform you have a few frames to press right which most people pause buffer finally Runners will pause just as Sonic passes the top of the slope to buffer releasing right which when performed correctly will results in a complete stage wrap the implementation of the Metropolis 3 level wrap would be the first time pause buffering would become widely used in Sonic 2 speeduns but it would be the only trick to take advantage of pausing due to its difficulty at least for a while a long while during the time period from 2011 to 2020 there would be a decent amount of new time saves found some of which would be implemented into runs such as the wing Fortress boss quick kill found by aglar in 2012 and first implemented in temp Z's 16008 PB in October 2013 however many of the skips aglar found around this time were far too difficult to go for and runs these included a level rap in Casino Knight act one and Zips in aquatic ruin acts 1 and two Hilltop acts one and two and a wall zip in Metropolis act one for several years these tricks were considered Tas only as was the case with Zug rff's discovery of a level Wap in Casino Knight Act 2 both of the level wraps in both acts of cassino Knight are particularly precise similar to the Metropolis 3 repap both Casino Knight s involve clipping Sonic out of bounds by having him Teeter off the edge of a moving platform however these Zips relied on precise inputs during the zip as well as having Sonic be in the correct subpixel positions to work while the casino Knight one level WAP had been performed in some individual runs of the stage the casino Knight 2 rap and the Aquatic ruin 2 zip were thought to be straight up impossible for a human even a relatively easier looking trick like the chemical plant one level rap discovered by TNT in 2013 was not worth using for full game runs due to its ridiculous difficulty in Precision relative to how little in-game time it saves these tricks were not viable for full game runs this attitude persisted for a very long time of course a very long time is not forever and eventually all of these tricks that were thought to be Tas only would be used in World Record runs with the use of of you guessed it pausing it first started in 2020 when new tricks such as the extended lava zip in Hilltop Act One began to see use as well as pause buffered setups for the monitor zip in Hilltop 2 and Metropolis act one screen WP both found by summer Hayes and Joey baby 69 in addition Runners were now pausing much more frequently in order to consistently nail tight jumps from a spin dash as well as making already established tricks like the wing Fortress glitch boss kill much more consistent there was no penalty as these pauses were very brief a run however would be invalidated if a pause exceeded 20 seconds but this was just to make sure Runners would abuse pausing to take an unnecessary break midun thankfully this rule rarely needed to be enforced however the floodgates for pausing were now wide open and a Revolution was about to take place one that would change the game Forever on March 18th 2021 a segmented speedrun of Sonic 2 would be uploaded to YouTube splicing together the best segments performed by five Runners including Shore yandis Daniel Hall and egotistical this segmented run included all of the fastest tricks a human could possibly perform no matter if they were currently too difficult to include in full game runs the final in-game time was a stunning 1240 over for a minute faster than the current single segment record this would be a massive turning point in the community as this segmented run included a trick that was really thought to be task only in every sense of the word the task zip in hiltop act one this ZIP saves 5 Seconds over the extended zip Joey found the year earlier but is much harder requiring you to release a frame perfect spin dash for the zip then start holding left Within one of three frames and then you have to frame perfectly release left but that frame depends on which of the three frames you started holding left and depending on the situation you may have to time of jump to get over the ceiling within a two-frame window needless to say this was very impressive and absolutely required pause buffering if you wanted to perform the task zip somewhat consistently these Dynamic setups also apply to other Tason tricks that would soon find their way in the run this task Revolution was made possible thanks to speedrunner subber Hayes Hai Shore zon Daniel Hall Joey baby 69 yandis and of course pausing these Runners were able to come up with viable setups for tricks thanks to pause buffering what was previously reserved for only one trick in the Run was now about to become a staple for Sonic 2 speed running for the casino Knight one and two level wraps the chemical plant one level wrap as well as smaller Zips in aquatic ruin Act 2 and chemical plant Act 2 pause buffering and the task Revolution eventually led to yandis bringing the record below 13 minutes on November 11th 2022 the final ingame minute barrier that will ever be broken over the next year the pausing meta would continue to advance however a big discrepancy was becoming apparent in the past the in-game time and RTA would correlate pretty well the lower your in-game time the lower your RTA would be but as people continue to implement more pause buffers for these tricks that would no longer be the case while big level WS even when buffered save both ingame time and real time while on the other hand buffering smaller Zips primarily saved in-game time but not necessarily real time as such top times on the leaderboard which is primarily sort of by ingame time fluctuated wildly on the RTA side here on the leaderboard we can see that while IIs has world record he is 29 seconds slower RTA than Joey in second place in addition we see Mr esketit in third place with the slowest RTA within the top 13 it's actually quite silly looking at it and members of the classic Sonic speedrunning Community realized that ever since the task revolution in game time time was no longer the most accurate timing method for the leaderboard pausing was too strong there was basically no penalty for doing so and it was abused in nearly every zone of the run from the difficult screen wraps and Zips to just some really tight jumps something had to change on April 14th 2024 the Sonic 2 Community opened up a poll regarding the timing method there were two options keep in game time as the primary timing method or switch to using RTA minus TBC the latter option is Real Time attack but with the time bonus countdown and continues removed from the final time now RTA minus TBC was not a foreign concept to Classic Sonic speedrunning it has its roots in Sonic 3 and Knuckles as its primary timing method since 2016 as that game has much more issues with in-game time than Sonic 2 did such as the in-game time pausing after a boss is defeated and skipping cutscenes by resetting the game after the end of act two of a Zone this was also not the first time that discussions or votes for RTA minus TBC were held for Sonic 2 in early 2019 after a new level rap was discovered for Labyrinth Zone act 3 in Sonic 1 a very precise and difficult trick that required lots of pause buffering discussions were held on whether Sonic 1 and 2 should change timing methods when a vote was held a month later RTA minus time bonuses had more votes than the other two options but with less than 50% of the total vote moderators were unconvinced that timing needed to change and so the status quo persisted for another 5 years this time with strictly two options no indifferent option RTA minus TBC would require a super majority of at least 70% of the vote in in order for it to become the new standard the poll lasted 72 hours and in the end RTA minus tbc1 a huge Nerf to pausing as a result many positions on the leaderboard would shift around yandis was no longer the world record holder swapping places with Joey many Runners who abused pausing more for a lower in-game time fell a few positions while those that paused less rose up in the ranks even so it wouldn't take long for runners to adapt quickly as just 3 days after the timing change yandis would reclaim the record from Joey and both Runners are still trying to lower the record as everyone competes on a somewhat Clean Slate Mr esketit who fell from third place all the way down to 13th from the timing change quickly adjusted to the new meta bouncing back to Fourth Place the shift away from in-game time poses an interesting change in the Sonic 2 speedrunning meta and there is now an interesting risk reward scenario with pausing you obviously want to go for the biggest time saves of pausing if you want to top time but you also have to be mindful to minimize pauses either by pausing in shorter bursts or less often in general perhaps you don't go for that tight jump or that one ZIP that only saves a few seconds or you go for it because you're confident in pausing less or doing it unbuffered either way the world of Sonic 2 speedr running is looking more exciting than than ever and I hope you found this whole pausing dilemma as interesting as I did who knows maybe Sonic 1 will go through a similar timing change but no pressure no pressure thank you all so much for watching and remember to shoot for the Moon [Music]

Channel: LunaticJ

Views: 366,641

Keywords: speedrun, spedrun, speedrunner, speed run, speed running, speedrunning, speed runner, lunaticj, lunatic j, glitch, wr, world record, sonic, sonic2, sonic 2, snoic, sonic the hedgehog, sega, genesis, mega drive, megadrive

Id: wUmy6ABaS5g

Length: 15min 53sec (953 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 18 2024