record etiquette?

[rehelekretep]

what is your personal perspective on attempting to beat records (no matter the category)?

for example, BF_THUD! only has Revved's UV-Max runs, which can be beaten, but i almost feel bad if i start 'taking' his records when theyre the only ones on the board. feels like i should do some table-fills first.

what does everyone else think about all this? i know there's no absolute right/wrong just interested in others opinions.

[vdgg]

Your example seems OK. My personal dislikes are perhaps only beating a non-optimal record by .001% like my Requiem MAP27 Max run, when some more effort could have been put.

Also, according to the table, some of Revved's runs use default complevel which you could 'fix' by recording vanilla compatible demos.

[rehelekretep]

vdgg said:

My personal dislikes are perhaps only beating a non-optimal record by .001% like my Requiem MAP27 Max run, when some more effort could have been put.

Also, according to the table, some of Revved's runs use default complevel which you could 'fix' by recording vanilla compatible demos.

both good points. i have heard another argument (recently, cant remember who) that by beating times by small margins, you can create a good competition, and that beating a time by a massive margin extinguishes that competitiveness.

im sure theres a happy medium. theres a counter to everything :D

[baja blast rd.]

Something I've wondered about is what sort of improvement margins are acceptable for runs of a given length. Clearly if exits are in like 0:06, for example with those AVJ pacifists in Swift Death, then clearly improvement by tics makes a lot of sense.

But at what point do tics represent too small of an improvement? A half minute? A full minute? And maybe it's not always so logical. I mean, beating a 1:06.91 with a 1:06.12 is a bigger improvement than beating a 1:06.12 with a 1:05.97, but in the latter case, the seconds displayed at intermission are different! :)

Another part of the equation seems to be how close records are to being optimal. For example if there's a (human) -nomo run in 5:06.42, and a built TAS gets 5:05.xx, then, yeah, allowing improvement by even a small number of tics makes sense. (Ignore whether those example numbers suggest that either the human -nomo is inconceivably good or the built TAS is kind of poor. Maybe it's one of those shitty runs with a 3-minute descending elevator. :D) And like vdgg suggests, yeah, you probably shouldn't improve first or early exits by a tiny amount.

Other maps are special because making it to the exit at all is an accomplishment. Would anyone begrudge someone for improving Ancalagon's 39:59 nochance UV-Max by a second? A half-second? Probably not. If Doom2 map02 pacifist were somehow done five years from now, would anyone consider it unsporting if ten years after that, it was improved by a single tic?

[vdgg]

rdwpa said:

Other maps are special because making it to the exit at all is an accomplishment. Would anyone begrudge someone for improving Ancalagon's 39:59 nochance UV-Max by a second? A half-second? Probably not. If Doom2 map02 pacifist were somehow done five years from now, would anyone consider it unsporting if ten years after that, it was improved by a single tic?

Yeah, I try to ask myself "would I watch it?". If yes, then go ahead and upload. I'm also guilty of tiny improvements, 1monster MAP19 - I apologized, didn't notice the record, I didn't see sense of someone spending 2 x half an hour watching 2 different players slaying cacodemons, 1994tu MAP09 - justified, another route + it was a contest, pe4_dt3 E4M1 - I put lots of effort into it, but still feel like maybe I shouldn't have uploaded that...

[Ribbiks]

rdwpa said:

Other maps are special because making it to the exit at all is an accomplishment.

these are usually my favorite kinds of demos :). I enjoy watching demos on balls-hard maps that are slower than current records even, just to see what strats the player came up with.

[Rayziik]

Ribbiks said:

these are usually my favorite kinds of demos :). I enjoy watching demos on balls-hard maps that are slower than current records even, just to see what strats the player came up with.

Ironic that you have a decent repertoire of maps that fit this description. :P

In regards to small margin improvement making good competition, me and Ancalagon had a good back and forth on a Swift Death map UV-Max. 12 I think it was? I eventually had to stop trying cause I was leaving town the next day, but I it was a good bit of fun for sure.

[Ashstrodamus]

Rayzik said:

Ironic that you have a decent repertoire of maps that fit this description. :P

In regards to small margin improvement making good competition, me and Ancalagon had a good back and forth on a Swift Death map UV-Max. 12 I think it was? I eventually had to stop trying cause I was leaving town the next day, but I it was a good bit of fun for sure.

Yes, I witnessed this first hand as it happened. It was quite a battle. Ya'll smoked my original time.

[Andrea Rovenski]

vdgg said:

My personal dislikes are perhaps only beating a non-optimal record by .001% like my Requiem MAP27 Max run, when some more effort could have been put.

Still waiting, buddy ;P

IMO if it's a record, post it. The end.

[PjSpartacus]

Records are meant to be broken. I enjoy when someone breaks one of my records. It means they took the time to watch my demo and I get to view the cool new tactics they use. There is no prize for holding a record so no hard feeling for losing that record. Even if it is a slight improvement that encourages competition which in turn makes us better and feeds more activity in speed running.

[GoneAway]

I tend to lean towards prioritizing filling a table before beating existing runs, with the exception being runs that I think are inexcusably bad, runs where I feel like I can make a significant route improvement, and runs that just look fun. I'd rather have 32 max demos filling a table than 32 demos competing on map 1 for sure.

[4shockblast]

To me, all that matters when posting a demo is if it's good or not. Obviously, I'll only post records, but that alone isn't enough for me to post something so I sometimes have records I'm not happy with that I do not release (and may never release). It's not really relevant to me by how much I beat the previous time as a result, since ultimately I only care about the general quality of a demo and not with respect to previous times if there are any. If I really don't like a run, I might end up being satisfied with a worse run anyway, though.