GW2 - Roller Beetle Time Trial: Lakeside Loop [

[@xeiixeii4238]

Dafuq, took my my time in my map, gratz❤ Meme inc: oh shit, here we go again... Hahahahahaha

[@RACEReaperOfficial]

I tried out some new approaches but your pattern was always the most optimal one XD Though it makes the track a really sick ride too, i could barely keep my beetle under control

[@xeiixeii4238]

@@RACEReaperOfficial yea, it becomes crazy run tbh, but i saw a couple of things wich can make u faster u u approach to control the beetle👀

[@mbase6469]

Seeing as the final technique of roller beetle mastery involves convincing the game friction isn't real, I think this has officially tilted the scales from racing into speedrunning. Incredible work as always, man.

[@Reirakiyo]

You know it makes sense that your beetle is burning lol, Gendarran's still my worst enemy, but I guess I gotta catch up soon as well 👀

[@MrBrizzled]

How the shit does anet see those times with under 5 seconds and not immediately ban them. Also your control is insane I love this

[@RACEReaperOfficial]

Kinda how they don't ban the other farm bots in PvE or PvP, but yeah their detection system is scuffed to say the least if they even have one

[@ZeMaddog1]

I have to ask: Why let go of A after the hyperboost at 0:35? I can't quite wrap my head around it. I've never done a drifthold without holding A or D.

[@RACEReaperOfficial]

Because while i did keep the A key pressed, i turned my camera with the hyperboost which i only realized after the fact. The purpose of the sidekeys in the hyperboost is to avoid needing to twist the camera to the side, which should only be necessary if you're not pressing the sidekeys at all, and i believe straightening the camera afterwards might've messed with the angle after the hyperboost. So i kept the camera facing to the side, released the A key and transitioned to a "mouse-only" hyperboost/slide that i got used to doing a lot in brisban. In essence i accidentally mixed two sets of controls with each other and corrected it by committing to keeping my camera steady, and letting go of the A key in order to maintain the same "beetle angle" and avoid losing my speed in the following drifthold slide.

[@RACEReaperOfficial]

That specific hyperboost i'd usually do without the sidekeys anyway, in this run i think i wanted to try doing it with them which would mean not turning the camera, but my muscle memory had other plans.

[@RACEReaperOfficial]

Looking at my run in the monthly tourney it seems that this is something i do a lot subconsciously. The upside of having flexible controls (as in multiple ways to achieve the same result) is that you can switch between them on whim and it's easier to recover from mistakes, the downside is that it's easy to mix them up by accident.

[@ZeMaddog1]

@@RACEReaperOfficial Interesting! I'd never even thought about doing a hyperboost without pressing A or D. It feels like a lot of work to try and learn a mouse only hyperboost though so I probably won't bother. Flexible controls may work for you, but I think I'd prefer consistent controls XD

[@S.F.S.]

You are great my dude. You have the best score in reality. Those people with better times than you are just cheaters who use some kind of tool to teleport around the map. I've had the "pleasure" of encountering them in WvW as well. They aren't fooling anyone. Not me at least. Anyway, GG!

[@RACEReaperOfficial]

Thanks dude. We've also in recent months joined the club of waiting for Anet to stop people from instant-teleporting around so freely, it's a plague across gamemodes. Seeing the same 15 accounts complete all the trials in just a few seconds on a daily basis just makes it kind of obvious.

[@RACEReaperOfficial]

The time trials in particular also all share a fun flaw where with enough lag/connection issues to the server, the timer has a chance to glitch out and start stalling so that the countdown will either slow down or completely stop/reset. So there are a lot of unlucky players also thrown into the mix, if the leaderboards weren't already enough of a mess to begin with.

[@S.F.S.]

@@RACEReaperOfficial Hmm I see o.o

[@S.F.S.]

@@RACEReaperOfficial So it's only gotten worse over time. This teleport hack has been around for many years now. I guess Anet doesn't really mind it, or they can't do anything to stop it from happening.

[@RACEReaperOfficial]

It would seem to me that those who use the teleport hacks more regularly do so on free to play alt accounts to avoid any bans on their main accounts, and because those are easier to replace. So they seem to still be cautious when using it, even though you often hear the stories about the same cheating accounts still being active despite having been constantly reported since years ago. And yeah, there's no way the devs aren't aware of it happening by now. Though I wouldn't be surprised if it's tied to something that would brick the whole game if they changed it, but i do hope they can do something about it.

[@slashersoul2380]

Holy fuck. This shit just blew my mind. I guess this is another case of, lets Limit forward moevement speed and forget about how the Rest of the game interacts with it

[@RACEReaperOfficial]

Good observation, the forward movement speed is usually locked but it does not seen to completely apply for drifting, which happens to be the beetle's unique mechanic. Though it's very difficult to make use of it, tilting the beetle off to the side from where you're sliding does seem to temporarily shift the limit higher, and as such it happens all the time when you're drifting. But any speed you'd normally gain over that limit would be barely noticeable and it will quickly start falling back to normal, so maintaining it for longer periods is a serious struggle with the way drifting control works. We've tailored a couple of techniques that when combined with the above will push your speed all the way to the true peak, and hold it there for a while.

[@PicchiMark]

How do you keep the speed even after the landing and making big turns??? I'm speechless.

[@RACEReaperOfficial]

By doing something many of us have learned to find unnatural, holding the drift key down without immediately releasing it. Holding the drift while you're already grounded locks you into an inescapable one-directional slide until you release it, that is why tapping the drift key over and over instead is usually always better. But if you start holding it just before going airborne all the way until you land, you'll redirect that slide to follow where your beetle is facing, meaning that even after landing you will be able to keep turning in a curve without releasing the drift key. There is a beautiful synergy between the layered controls of the beetle, the direction where your beetle faces and the direction where your camera faces (you can see the two on your minimap, the compass needle in the middle visualizes where your character/beetle is facing while the cone of light visualizes where your camera is facing). These two can be moved separately, but they're both linked to each other. If you turn your camera while drifting, your beetle will follow with a slight delay. If you hold your turn keys while drifting, and without any mouse inputs, your beetle will turn and your camera will follow. In this case your keyboard inputs control where your beetle faces, while your camera is linked to your mouse movements. I tilt my beetle to the side by holding either turn left(A) or right(D) and drift(C), and you'll notice that if i then turn my mouse to the same direction while pressing jump, i'll effectively slingshot my beetle into a drift. It follows the same rule as airdrifting, where you begin holding your drift key just before you slide off a ramp or a platform, and continue turning your camera to maintain the drift even in air. Only in this case there is no ramp, you utilize the weak, "useless" jump of your beetle to break traction with the ground on command which is more than enough, and makes it one the beetles strongest abilities in the form of jump drifting.

[@RACEReaperOfficial]

As for why it speeds you up, the beetle's maximum speed is dependent on where the beetle itself is facing, so if you're boosting straight forward you will run into a cap (99 on the speedometer we use) even if you're already at full speed. When you hold the turn keys as you're drifting, the beetle isn't facing straight forward anymore, so for a passing moment your speed can surpass that limit all the way to the actual maximum speed (137 on the speedometer) before it'll start falling back down to normal. This happens all the time when you're drifting, but the speed up is usually so minimal that you'll barely notice it before it's gone. It requires delicate, intricate control, but with enough practice it can be mastered.

[@RACEReaperOfficial]

A guildie made a short video on the techniques if you want to check it out: kzbin.info/www/bejne/m4qUgHl9iteHoqs If you do, don't get confused when he calls jump drifting airdrifting, they're practically the same, only difference is the jump key but it's not that serious.

[@PicchiMark]

@@RACEReaperOfficial Wow, thank you so much for the explanation!! I still a little confused by the way you use the keyboard, but I believe I'll get the idea eventually... question, do you use R for auto move?

[@RACEReaperOfficial]

A pattern i often see with the keyboards is that people will use their ring finger to press A, middle finger to press W and index finger to press D, and then thumb for space/boost. When you're using the default keybinds, this setup doesn't really leave room to press the drift key unless you bind it to left shift for your pinkie finger or an extra mouse button, but some people end up not pressing anything with their pinkie at all. I use the default keybinds as well (excluding the bond of vigor switched from 7 to a mouse side button) but instead of changing the binds, i've altered the placement of my fingers to compensate. I press A(turn left) with my pinkie finger, W(forward) with my ring finger, D(turn right) with my middle finger, C(drift) and V(boost) with my index finger, and Space(jump) with my thumb. Occasionally when i'm doing a hyperboost where i have to press the boost key while already holding the drift key with my index finger, i'll use my thumb to press V. How easy this is to do can depend on the type of keyboard you use, but i've gotten used to it. And yes, I have autorun on R but i mainly use it if i'm typing in the chat while moving or need to lift my hand from the keyboard momentarily.

[@MendingInc]

Awesome ^^

[@lucasrousseau2827]

How did you manage to get the names of those cheaters ? maybe with multiple reports from many players Anet would do something about em

[@RACEReaperOfficial]

Those are all free to play farming accounts that seem to run with the same script as all the other bots in the game, the one where they somehow abuse the games code to instantly teleport between the set points. I'm afraid reporting them will not even dent the person behind this, they'd just keep creating new accounts but this time ones that we won't even see, courtesy of Anet's design to keep the boards anonymous by default. As for how, i and some others just sat on the time trials and watched these guys appear out of thin air, stand around for a few seconds to interact with the trial NPC to activate the trial and then started warping from checkpoint to checkpoint one by one. They didn't all go at once, but one at a time with a few minutes in between each one appearing probably to avoid attracting attention. They're very quick, easy to miss, but not fast enough that we couldn't add them to our contacts to be able to see their times. These accounts in particular have been doing this daily with all the core-game beetle trials for the past few months already, which leads me to believe they're farming racing medallions to be either used or sold for track parts. With Anet's track record of dealing with bots i don't have much expectations they'd do anything that would actually change anything in the long term. I wish they'd fix the teleporting in general, it's become an issue encountered across every game mode at this point.

[@RACEReaperOfficial]

I have a feeling there's even more of them on practically all of the time trial boards in the game that we just have no way of seeing. The owner of these particular accounts just didn't bother trying to hide what they're doing.

[@RACEReaperOfficial]

These kinds of scripts together with the ingame timer glitch, where enough lag stops your timer from counting your time correctly have all ruined the whole point of these leaderboards. No one will ever reach the rank 1 if you don't resort to cheating as well. This is why one of our members went ahead and created their own leaderboards, separated from this mess.

[@lucasrousseau2827]

@@RACEReaperOfficial I see, ty for the explanations

[@RACEReaperOfficial]

I'm not against reporting them of course but it makes me sad to think of how little that will achieve, that even if they do something the devs response would be limited to just dealing with the individual aftermath rather than the root cause, because this will just keep happening again and again for as long as they're able