Will This Exploit Destroy Minecraft Speedrunning?

[Music] hello you absolute legends time it's a speedrunner's mortal enemy you can manipulate and glitch a game as much as you want in order to reach your goal but the constant and inevitable passage of time is an incorruptible adversary though this isn't always the case while almost every game in speedrunning relies on an external timer for record keeping in rare cases players will use a timer built into the game itself otherwise known as using in-game time unlike real time which uses a completely unattached timer in-game time is subject to the same influence as any other piece of software contained within a game it can be manipulated and it can be exploited obviously given the fact that every game is different the degree to which an in-game timer can be impacted will vary greatly sometimes it is minimal leading to no real concern for its use other times it can be detrimental leading to necessary rules against it in order to preserve the game's integrity the ability of a player to control the very nature of time itself raises important questions about the essence of speedrunning and what it really means to beat a game quickly currently there is no better example of this philosophical debate than with minecraft it's currently the most popular speedrunning game in the world by far and it just so happens to be one of the rare examples of a community that exclusively times their speed runs using an in-game timer this never used to be that much of an issue and the reason for this atypical timing method is fairly logical minecraft java speedrunning is performed on pcs and not every pc is the same leading two discrepancies in how long it takes various parts of the game to load if this wasn't addressed more powerful computers would have a massive advantage in real time speed running communities that exist on computers have faced this since day one and generally they will still use real time but subtract loading times minecraft on the other hand solves this problem by using the in-game timer which automatically removes loading times however this leads to a massive drawback the in-game timer can be stopped at any time by simply pausing the game you can pause for as long as you like as often as you like and as far as the timer is concerned there are zero consequences in fact as we will soon learn pausing even comes with massive advantages as these strategies in minecraft have become more complex requiring a lot more thought and decision making the amount of pausing has increased dramatically as players have begun abusing the stopped timer in order to think about their next move the community is seemingly split on what should be done with many players speaking out against the use of pausing saying it goes against the spirit of speedrunning while others say that pausing is fair game as the goal is simply to beat the game with the lowest number on the in-game timer in this video i'm going to tackle this debate and give you my unfiltered thoughts i hope 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who clicked the link in the description timing speed runs using built-in timers isn't exactly an outlandish proposition in the 90s it was essentially standard practice in fact it was generally only games with an in-game timer that were even run in the first place the games that started it all like doom quake metroid goldeneye and mario kart all used the in-game timer this makes sense as it's by far the easiest way to keep track of time you really don't need to do anything just do runs and see what the numbers say at the end with short runs like those for individual levels or individual tracks in racing games it's also the only practical way of keeping score the amount of time it would take to individually time thousands of one-minute speed runs in real time to work out which is the fastest is far too great in each of these early games pausing stops the timer as well and it's interesting to examine how different communities deal with this issue the doom rules make it pretty clear pausing is not to be abused and it's certainly disallowed to pause in order to analyze the situation this highlights one of the key advantages that pausing can produce the ability to think and make decisions while the timer is stopped the mario kart 64 community also holds this sentiment any pausing that allows a player to prepare for a precise trick or shortcut is strictly forbidden in practice pausing at all will generally disqualify the run one of the most egregious examples of paul's abuse was when a new shortcut was discovered on toad's turnpike allowing players to complete a single lap in less than a second a complex setup involving several minutes of pausing was discovered and while the ingenuity of the strategy itself is pretty cool the community felt that it was against the spirit of the game and banned pausing completely both of these communities feel the same way pauses should never be exploited and used as a way to improve the speed run a community that has no restrictions on pausing is the golden eye and perfect dark community but this plays out in very different ways for a very specific reason despite there being no rules against pausing players will only ever pause in goldeneye when it is absolutely required which it is as you can only equip certain key items from the pause menu but it's never used in any circumstance unless necessary while pausing does stop the timer the act of pausing itself comes with a 4 second penalty as it takes 2 seconds to go in and out of bonds watch so it would be to the detriment of the speed run for players to pause when they don't need to perfect dark is a different story pausing is essentially immediate just like doom or mario kart but with no restrictions the amount of pausing and speed runs has steadily increased over the years entire strategies have been built around pausing if you pause on the correct frame you can force certain lines of dialogue to play during the pause it doesn't save anything in real time but given that the timer stops it saves a ton of in-game time pausing is abused for the sake of accuracy to better time certain tricks and it even messes with npc pathfinding ultimately this has led to some levels being all but unwatchable a one minute speed run is now one minute of movement with several minutes of spamming pause it's probably too late to change the rules at this point but as someone who has watched speed runs of perfect dark for over 20 years i feel that there is one important lesson that can be gleaned by its progression if pausing has no consequences and is left unchecked it will inevitably be abused more and more as time goes on and these two factors are exactly where minecraft stands today and the exact same problem is manifesting when it comes to speedrunning minecraft is not your typical game while the movement aspect is very deep and requires a ton of skill most time loss speedrunners experience is generally due to decision making given that every seed is different simply practicing mechanics won't make you the fastest speed runner more important than anything else is the accumulation of knowledge and experience to know how to navigate the unique challenges presented on each attempt in the context of randomly generating worlds pausing becomes even more powerful at any point you can simply stop the timer gather your thoughts and plan your next move which is precisely what players have started to do while there are some purists like illumina that won't pause or even use f3 many players will take any advantage they can get and honestly who can blame them if they didn't use the same exploits as the person next to them they are put at an immediate disadvantage i've talked about the use of the debug screen that players use in previous videos pressing f3 brings up a ton of information about your surroundings that helps you decide what to do next i don't consider this to be a huge problem in of itself but the issue arises when the information is still visible when the game is paused you can press f3 pause the game and then spend as much time as you like studying the information provided with no penalty whatsoever it's a huge advantage and of course again it is exactly what speedrunners are beginning to do more and more players are starting to pause everywhere that would give them an edge it has gotten to the point where some players are starting to be quite vocal about their distaste of the practice objections to this exploit are understandable if you can pause the timer at any point is that really speed running every single game that uses real time to track speed runs never allows a player to pause the timer for any reason there is simply no excuse good enough that would justify this action the only reason minecraft uses an in-game timer to begin with is because of the discrepancy and computing power but do you then need to leave behind every other standard practice just because you can now i'm about to give you my thoughts on this issue and i just want to preface this by saying that it's okay for people to disagree if you don't agree with my opinion that's fine not everyone is going to think the same way this isn't an attack on people who think differently to me so don't get too upset if you don't like what you're about to hear i believe that if you stop the timer for any reason other than to eliminate loading discrepancies you are no longer speed running stopping the timer to take actions that directly benefit the speed run is especially egregious including making decisions checking information or calming nerves pausing the timer essentially detaches the in-game timer from reality and it becomes meaningless the numbers on the screen have no true relationship to time and instead of trying to legitimately beat a game quickly you are then simply chasing arbitrary numbers on a screen that being said this is still a legitimate form of competition people do this all the time when they are going for a high score high score competition is the act of chasing numbers on a screen it's not concerned with time or anything else external to the game itself it's not more or less valuable as a competition than speedrunning but it's not speedrunning there has been an ongoing debate about what speedrunning really is and it's true that the word is used as an umbrella term to describe a lot of different things but what it is or isn't called isn't really the point the point is that if the timing method you are using tells you nothing about how much time is actually passed it's a useless method and such methods should be avoided if reasonably possible if you do want to use an in-game timer it needs to reflect reality in the case of minecraft i'm unsure about which specific solution to this conundrum would be best but i will make a prediction if no rules are put in place at all this problem will get worse and it will continue to get worse forever until it is stopped kicking the can down the road will simply lead to a much bigger issue in the future the ability to think quickly the ability to remain calm under stress the ability to retain and access a large amount of information about the game on command are all skills that can and should differentiate players in a speed running competition removing these factors makes competition less interesting and will ultimately result in speed runs that are less respected by the viewing audience which should never be discounted the minecraft community is currently running a poll to decide which timing method should be used i know there are proponents to either side so let me know what you think in the comments it would be interesting to see if there is a large majority in one direction as always thank you so much for watching you legends i hope you are having a fantastic day and i will see you in the next video you

Channel: Karl Jobst

Views: 595,747

Rating: 4.9245014 out of 5

Keywords: minecraft speedrun, minecraft, minecraft world record, karl jobst, speedrunning, speedrun, illumina, illuminaHD, world record

Id: M8npL0C6XTU

Length: 13min 8sec (788 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 19 2021