Is SPEEDRUNNING Dark Souls HARDER than NO HIT Runs?

[@SquillaKilla]

Livestreams at www.Twitch.tv/Squillakilla Lifestyle Content at instagram.com/OGSquilla Updates at twitter.com/OGsquilla Join our Discord: discord.gg/QmgJatzWJd

[@KidHellacious]

Just want to say, I think the most fun I ever had on Twitch was watching you do the SL1 DS3 speedrun. I remember being on the edge of my seat the whole time.

[@mayomonkee836]

Good times

[@MultiSneakerLover]

@@mayomonkee836 goat pfp

[@solosnek]

Same here, watching that live was amazing

[@soggyfroggy9556]

4:56 Gigachad Squilla found the only footage that exists of Nemz successfully doing fence skip

[@GalaxyTranslated]

I didn't look long when looking for footage. I searched "Hardest Skip in Dark Souls" and Nemz video popped up, I watched it, laughed my ass off, and took the one clip to put into the video 😂

[@eskea]

I've been so incredibly tempted to start speedrunning but it's so overwhelming, lol. But I will say speedrunners are some of the most helpful content creators so I've gotten so many tips already. This a was pretty interesting watch.

[@Sinhsseax]

4:58 Of all of the things you show Nemz getting over his most accursed jar.

[@GalaxyTranslated]

Okay, that was a creative choice by me, and I'm so happy someone noticed it! I thought it was such a funny clip, and if I didn't include it then I would have been sad! 😂

[@shugdude]

This seems spot on. In speedrunning, you compete against other people, while in hitless runs, you compete against the game. People will improve, but the game will stay the same. When thinking about it like that, it makes it hard to see hitless runs being more challenging, despite their intense barrier of entry.

[@jacksondolly3248]

Sure, but speedrunning is infinitely more forgiving than hitless. Even if one boss has bad RNG or you mess up a frame perfect glitch, you can still make up time with another boss that has amazing RNG and hit the glitch. But if you get hit even once, by any enemy, the run is dead and you have to start over. And the fact that those games are so based on RNG, if a boss is ornery and hits you in speedrunning, the run is still on, but not in hitless. One single bad roll, or mistimed R1 and the entire run is over. I'm watching someone do the God Run 3 SL1 and it'll probably never ever be done actually. Sure, he's individually no hit each game, but back to back to back to back to back to back to back hitless is insane. There's nothing even remotely close to that in speedrunning; just trying to shave a 1/10th of a second off of a 5-20 minute run, where there could be as many as 40-50 attempts in a single stream.

[@shugdude]

@@jacksondolly3248 I mean, sure. When comparing the SL1 God Run 3 to some hypothetical instance where someone is trying to shave off 1/10th of a second, no-hitting the games is more challenging. However, that's not a fair comparison, and it's also rather pedantic. It wouldn't make sense if I said speedrunning was harder because someone was trying to get the any% world record on every FromSoftware title in a row. That said, I agree that making no-hit runs harder is more straightforward than making a speedrun harder, and at the end of the day, they're so different it's pretty silly to compare them at all.

[@jacksondolly3248]

@@shugdude ok, then when not in fromsoftware categories, speedrunning is still easier. Take GDQ or SDGQ. If any of those games were hitless, or the runner messed up, (which happens a lot), they'd have to reset almost every time and it would be a super stupid event, taking twice or even three times as long. I did say the talent required to pull off consecutive frame perfect glitches is more than hitless, but speedrunning in itself is much more forgiving and not as daunting as playing a game with out taking any (unwanted) damage. Mostly because some hitless games allow you to harm yourself to get certain buffs at lower health. In either any % or glitchless any %, you can make mistakes and still be able to make up time elsewhere in the run. If you make a SINGLE mistake in hitless, you're done and back to the beginning.

[@3EyeWand3r3r]

You're an amazing content creator and you need to be putting out more content like this to capitalize on the vast amount of knowledge and experience that you have in these games. Take my like and keep doing amazing work.

[@GalaxyTranslated]

Hi! I'm Jos, Squilla's current editor- we have a LOT planned to continue forward after this!

[@wyrdplae8586]

Pretty cool to see you make content like this. Seems like a bit of a new thing for the channel? Excited to see more man. Big love.

[@MagnumMotions]

I really enjoy your comparison videos related to gameplay topics, plus your narration is the best there is, period.

[@ANJ_gaming]

Love watching these high effort videos on your souls experience and opinions. Keep up the cool content as always man

[@GalaxyTranslated]

I'm so happy to know yall are enjoying these videos after all the effort I do put into them! I know Squilla is too! Thank you for the kind words!

[@ANJ_gaming]

@@GalaxyTranslated great editing my man, you keep up the good work as well

[@moore1732]

your content is insane. like really, it's been a long time since I've enjoyed a youtube channel. Can't wait to see more

[@yaksher]

I feel like speed runs and hitless runs are not really comparable because speedruns are directly competitive. If you want world record time, how hard this is depends exclusively on how skilled and dedicated the other people are. Hitless runs are not directly competitive in this way. Sure, people do more and more extreme forms of hitless runs to one up each other or whatever, but any given run is either hitless or not. The difficulty depends exclusively on the game, and if anything, other people doing it being more dedicated makes it _easier_ because you can look at their strategies. As a result, _world record pace_ speedrunning in any popular game is probably much harder than a no hit run, but "speedrunning in general" doesn't have a quantifiable difficulty.

[@steliosp1770]

no damage seems most insane to me cause you have to commit to like 5h+ runs to actually get the full run.. its a marathon not a sprint in that case and ofc as you said it can take people months to get there the actual length of the run itself is exhausting and its a huge factor. i ll always say this, the most insane thing i ve ever seen was your SL1 0 dmg all bosses+ dlc in DS3. absolutely insane run, i caught it live as well.

[@mereen750]

Nah I did Ds2 no damage run in about 3 hours

[@glorytoukraine5524]

@@mereen750 bro really bragging about beating ds2

[@mereen750]

@@glorytoukraine5524 without taking damage and I didn't brag either. Nice try

[@glorytoukraine5524]

​@@mereen750 bro still bragging...

[@mereen750]

"glory to ukraine" you on some Hitler type shit@@glorytoukraine5524

[@prodbyANT]

One thing's for sure, both are incredibly impressive and cool to witness.

[@xXRunDeathXx]

i think it depends on your definition of the goal if you say "i want to get the world record" then speedrunning is harder and the goal is constantly changing as the bar rises. if your goal however is just being a "decent" speedrunner you set your bar yourself. for no hit the outcome is binary and objective: either you dont get hit and succeed or you get hit and fail

[@Xbigxhatxloganx]

I think no hits are more difficult but I see your valid points here. I could never on any of these but that’s not gonna stop me from trying to learn. This was super helpful my guy thx

[@SoulJudgment]

The age old question finally answered in great detail.

[@blizzart9191]

Great video, squilla, but I wouldn't say one is objectively harder than the other, just different. Because at the end it boils down to the strats you choose to practice and refining your muscle- memory towards the situations. Also nowadays in hitless runs you're somehow on a timer and want to achieve a somehow speedy run on the higher levels. With that said, still working on my hitless attempts with "fast" strats in ds2. Hope I can upload it one day to your community hp team hitless. Have a nice day.

[@vittocrazi]

i think hitless has a higher floor (mastering the game). speedrunning has a higher ceiling (competing against the best players)

[@mayomonkee836]

I remember when you first started attempting the “master” run, I asked Dist what he thought about it and he said he could do it easily if he didn’t have to go fast

[@ElvisMena-my1mk]

A casual no hit would be very easy to do for any speedruner who has broken world records like Distorion2 in this case. But I wouldn't say the same about a God Run 3.0 (they are simply they are different modalities)

[@mayomonkee836]

@@ElvisMena-my1mk at that time, when Squilla started attempting the master run, he was easily the best souls player. Dist was doing his thing in the speedrunning. I gotta remind you though, Squilla held the ds3 speedrun record for months, zero damaged the game while holding the speedrun record. My comment was about what Dist said in that time, and he was literally just hating on Squilla. Dist could not have done the master run, not even close. I respect your opinion though

[@TheHogfatherInvades]

Truly the comparison of all time

[@heideknight7782]

Hob's last game (Elden Ring) in the God Run 3 took over 6 hours (for comparison: Forsa's world record for the any% glichtless speedrun category is around 55 mins). Hob made a mistake in the Godskin Noble fight and had to change his strategy quite a bit (he even watched videos from other no-hit runs during the stream to find a safe new strategy that did not derive too much from what he learned for this fight). Also, he had to bone out 3 times in the Elden Beast fight. The last boss in the last game (of seven) all back to back hitless. While this might be an extreme case (God Run or mulltiple no hit runs back to back) it must have been an enourmous psychological stress lying on Hob in these situations and one could almost feel this when watching. I can hardly imagine that anything like this can be replicated in a speed run in which there usually is a kind of error tolerance. Even if you die in a speedrun it might not be over yet if your last checkpoint is not far away. Furthermore, to my knowledge it is allowed (correct me if I am wrong) to quit out in speedruns to avoid, e.g., dying of fall damage and to reset to the last safe location. This is another convenience in speedruns that does not exist in no hit runs. So I would say that in general a no hit run is harder than a speedrun. Yet, there may be games with difficult platforming sections that are fairly easy if you can take your time in no hit runs but which are very tricky if you have to have to do this very fast in a speedrun. Same applies to boss fights as well. In speedruns there is often not the time to constantly upgrade (or max out) a weapon and then you have to fight the boss with a weaker weapon than in a corresponding no hit run. So the convenience of having some error margin in a speedrun is maybe outweighed by not being able to do boss fights under the most optimal conditions like in no hit.

[@zuadeshues8938]

Another brilliant, banger of a video ❤

[@mikejohnsonsbrother]

So, I'm ok at DS3. I've put Several hundred hours in, and no longer struggle with any bosses. I've completed NG+7 etc.. so I recently thought I'd try an sl1 run. No time or death restrictions. Just basically, "can I get through this?" Let me tell you, I learned that you need to have a certain mental fortitude to be able to put yourself through this kind of punishment over and over again. Dancer and DSA almost broke me, and after a half dozen attempts on Princes, I decided to preserve my sanity and throw in the towel, rather than throw myself into the fire over and over again. Maybe I'll revisit at some point, because you start to understand that this kind of mental discipline training can serve you in other aspects of your life as well, but damn is it a slog. Congrats on your achievements!

[@dedosmagicosmetal504]

The answer is simply, speedrunning close to the world record, lets say about 5 minutes, i do believe it's harder than a hitless run in that case but only in that case, getting a sloppy speedrun isnt better than a hitless run, no matter what.

[@extremehu3_189]

great overall video, however I would like to disagree with you on the "Technique" category, altought speedruns do have much harder to execute techniques, they are much more forgiving to failure, they dont require nearly as much consistency as a no hit run since failure wont forfeit the run, unless of course you are talking about specificaly speedruns to compete the WR, in wich case speedruns would be the winner across the board

[@dubingis1221]

astonishing explanation

[@MatthewTheUntitled]

Yoooo the editing

[@GalaxyTranslated]

Thank you so much! I definitely gotta say it's my best work so far!

[@Rocky_HS]

You had good points. As some people saying: Speedrun (Against Time and real Players) No Hit Runs (Against the Game) You could jugde better than us, cause you do both. But i think it depends on the person whos playing. Some People are better at Speedrunning and dont have the Patience for No Hits. And some No Hit Runners dont have the Haste in there Blood for Speedrunning^^ And i think you are more the Calm Person, thats why Speedrunning is in your opinion way harder;) Just a Thougt. Both are mental hard Challenges. Sometimes i think when you are at the Top at Speedrunning, RNG will be your real enemy.. And you cant control it. No Hit Runners can deal better with RNG, cause time doesnt matter.

[@AkiltuK]

I just watch the hitless speedrun of Forsa on Elden Ring, I think that could be the hardest XD

[@v3-nnom-ousgamingentertain378]

An amazing share my friend ❤

[@jacksondolly3248]

Speedrunning is much more forgiving, as one boss could have horrible RNG and the next boss could have perfect RNG and you can make up the time. The rules aren't as harsh, only "finish the game as quickly as possible, within the rules of THIS category". So any% glitchless is just finishing the game as fast as you can in a regular playthrough. Hitless takes insanely more concentration, as literally any hit resets the game. From random mob enemies that path differently than normal, bosses that lag a little, the patience needed to make it through a section riddled with quick enemies, etc. Sure, I think learning the tricks and frame perfect glitches necessary for world record speedruns probably takes more talent, but if you mess up in a speedrun, the run isn't necessarily over. More often than not, you have the possibility to make up time on a glitch skip or good boss RNG. There are streamers doing the God Run, which is all 7 Soulsbournekiroring games in a row without getting hit once, and some make it three games in and lose the entire run cause a random mob enemy pathed differently and hit them out of nowhere. The randomness of the games makes hitless so much harder than speedrunning, and the patience and skill needed to not get hit ONE SINGLE TIME through 7 whole games is absolutely insane. Speedrunning is like a cool parlor trick, but hitless runs are what the real hardcore players strive for.

[@oksayer3100]

Squilla the GOAT

[@Sabbathfaax]

Hitless runs in souls games are something several people have beaten. Aiming for a new speedrun world record is something only one person will be able to do.

[@ElvisMena-my1mk]

We could say the same thing about aiming for first place in the 0 hit league (no hitters competition) or being the first to do a God Run. Both challenges have their things.

[@DoktorTaiko]

Speedrunning has a low level of entry and can be fun immediately. For no hit you need to be really good at the games already and then still put a lot of time into sure. Sure, having less than x hits is an achievement too, but hitless just has a set goal, speedrunning doesn't. Therefore hitless will always be much harder at the beginning but much easier towards the end. I speedran the games too for fun and was happy with my time, but I'll never try hitless, as I'm not dedicated enough to put the necessary time into that. I'll stick to watching squilla for that :)

[@leovernard]

Cool vid

[@mmxeuasome]

very cool

[@occultnightingale1106]

Speedrunning is harder than no-hit runs, because the most optimal no-hit run is not necessarily a speedrun, but the most optimal speedrun is also a no-hit run.

[@ded_griie]

no

[@Salacious_T]

I don't know, but after a year and a half of elden ring, dark souls 3 is whooping me bad lol.

[@laythahmadhussein]

When's the next stream I miss the content. Also no hit runs are easier IMO

[@mysticemily]

agreed i miss the streams so much

[@atrece175]

I'm only a no hitter, but it's obvious to me that Speedrunning is harder

[@AgentYellowWang]

Bruh getting hit in a speed run is a major delay why is speed run easier than no hit when it's the same but harder.

[@toe3267]

I don't agree, if we compare a no hit run to a speedrun world record, what's the world record of no hit run ? The hardest run ? If it's that god run 3 is harder than any speedrun imo.

[@eSKAone-]

No hit lvl 1 melee only

[@iaco2705]

Honestly what a stupid concept for a video. Not to flame or anything; its a good video and i really appreciated what you had to say. But the two are just categorically different, completing a fixed challenge is so different than the moving goalpost of competing with other people. If your able to beat the game, you can speedrun. A more reasonable comparison would have been comparing a no hit run, to getting a sub X time.

[@SirVyre]

I'd say hitless is harder. I'd say you don't view it that way, because that was your wheelhouse before speedrunning, no? But my view on this is this way, because hitless runs seek to engage with the game in its entirety, whereas Speedruns seek to engage with the game as little as possible. And by that, I mean, a lot of speedrunning exploits do things that interface more with the code so that you can circumvent the game, rather than play the game. And at that point, you're not speedrunning the game, you're speedrunning its code or breaking its code. And I see that as different(and disqualifying), even if it's hard to do. Like you brought up Ocarina of Time and then showed Arbitrary Code Execution runs. Those have nothing to do with playing the game, and everything to do with breaking the game. And that's why there's so many categories to speedrunning, because there are people who have ethics and people who don't. There's people who just want to see how fast the credits roll and people who want to see how fast intentional play actually can be.

[@joshuahendrickson8694]

Speedrunning isn't interesting to me if glitches are allowed. Removing 95% of a game's intended challenges is just playing an entirely different game. I want to see someone master the Margott fight, not find some lame way to bypass the challenge entirely. Not saying those runs don't take skill, just that it's not interesting to me as it's effectively not the same game I played.

[@jdccarl3321]

just wanna say this, DS3 best game in the world

[@slowestus2]

Speepd

[@Xbigxhatxloganx]

I’m not trying to meme here I’m being completely honest aren’t there people that do no hit speed runs?

[@laythahmadhussein]

No hit runs are speed runs they are just very slow and take a lot of hours and are hard so barely any ppl run hitless so there isn’t a lot of people fighting to get the fastest no hit run

[@999No0pinion]

Ideally you'd not get hit

[@wednesdayaddams8334]

Doodhand my Brother 🙋‍♀️ Best bloodborne Player of the world