Mario Kart Speedrunners Break Their Controllers To Set Faster Records

[@Abyssoft]

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[@MsMnstryMntr]

Is the shorts channel up yet? I can't seem to find it

[@Abyssoft]

@@MsMnstryMntr Sorry, the tinyurl didn't work, I've put the full link in the description now, you should be able to access it!

[@Abyssoft]

@Malakai Blue text is the one thing I should proof read more, thanks for pointing this out

[@cam32189]

I hope they pay you well, considering 1/15th of the video is their ad...

[@kainoa82858]

I usually never buy things from KZbin promos, but I've been meaning to get Bokksu, so I caved and got 3 months with your code lol

[@heheheiamasuperstarwarrior9281]

"FUCK!" (throws controller) "OH SHIT MY CONTROLLER" "Oh hey a new pb"

[@lynxfirenze4994]

In fairness: How would you even police "That controller was filed" vs "wear and tear from prolonged use"

[@SumnerTube21]

Exactly, it seems a lot of people a missing the point that i can happen naturally with a worn pad, even harder to judge is the fact that many 3rd party pads support it straight out the box. I have done many of these pads and honestly if you get really really really lucky you could just hit the dpad down while its all still screwed together and with extreme luck it would make the pad NBT by denting the circuit board just right anyway. Secondly its funny how people think this is an easy technique to use, for the first month of practice this technique will make you slower. And every other mario kart supports a similar type system by default anyway where you can prep the slide early and put it into the turn ready to boost straight away.

[@maridiancrest243]

Easy just use something that can read inputs to see if both are pressed at the same time

[@lynxfirenze4994]

@@maridiancrest243 OK, now how do you accomplish that without hardware modification or input lag? And how do you square that idea with 3rd party controllers able to do it out of the box being allowed? Then how do you police intentionally doing so vs just having an old controller that makes erroneous inputs sometimes. You pretty quickly wind up with a bunch of problems trying to police this for very little gain imo.

[@joebone3151]

Wear and tear looks different from something filed down

[@joebone3151]

@@SumnerTube21 or stop cheating all speedruns or victories you got with a modded controller does not count. Sorry. You lose credibility if you can't win with standard equipment

[@SpookySkeletonGang]

I think the difference between melee and mario kart for controllers is that melee has almost looped back around from evening the playing field, to giving more dedicated players huge advantages. There's just SO many things wrong with the gamecube controller and SO many mods to fix it, most of the top players are using controllers that cost several hundreds of dollars and have tons of mods that let them do things you simply can't do on a normal controller. With the mario kart thing, anyone with a screwdriver and a nailfile can do the mod and it's the ONLY mod required, and it works on any controller.

[@volkswagenginetta]

or even if you dont want to do the mod, an aftermarket controller is 13 bucks which is a pretty low barrier to entry

[@Choochinc]

Melee is a special case where the game is too precise for it's own controllers. There are too many advanced techs that need frame perfect inputs and/or extremely specific analog positions that will never be fully consistent due to the nature of analog sticks and potentiometers. This is why digital box controllers are now gaining popularity, since those completely avoid all the analog stick issues that plague the GC controllers. But now the community is wrapped up in the debate of how to level the playing field between GC and box controllers, since box controllers without any nerfs are at a clear and significant advantage.

[@zuthalsoraniz6764]

For the melee issue, I feel like the obvious solution would be for tournament organisers to standardise on one specific model of controller that everyone has to use, to make the playing field perfectly level hardware-wise.

[@Choochinc]

@@zuthalsoraniz6764 That doesn't level the field at all. Melee's controller problems comes from the inherent inconsistencies in analog stick potentiometers. No two controllers play exactly the same, and even individual controllers change over time with use. Many techs require extremely specific analog values that some controllers just can't hit consistently or even at all. On top of that, a controller that once could hit those specific values consistently, will become less consistent over time. It's got nothing to do with the model of controller.

[@Zadck1]

@@zuthalsoraniz6764 That doesn't exist, that's the entire problem. GameCube controllers, out of the box, are not equal. Potentiometers are allowed because it makes any controller good so you don't need to spend literally thousands to find a good controller. There's also a software mod that has been made that does the same thing and makes every controller good, but is largely shutdown thanks to Nintendo.

[@gustavonomegrande]

Brazilians: "What? Y'all can't do the zig zag boost? What do you mean modding the controller? I've never repaired my controller since 30 years ago"

[@Kiloku2]

At the time, Nintendo partnered with a Brazilian company named Gradiente, allowing them to manufacture and sell Nintendo hardware here. It's likely that the materials used by Gradiente wore off slightly faster. The partnership ended some time after the GameCube's release. I still have my old NGC with the menu in Brazilian Portuguese

[@F-00]

i think there's a small clarification to make: in SSBM's case, controller mods were allowed because some controllers would be better than others, some people even went as far as buying multiple controllers just to get a good one ("good one" meaning it's easier to perform advanced mechanics) it was basically like a lottery, controller mods were the fix to the problem, because even if you had a bad controller you could always mod it to be like the better ones.

[@Abyssoft]

The same thing happens in Mario Kart 64 at the high level, the top runners have different preferences for how much wear they like to play with on their joy sticks, some like them really loose, others like them taught.

[@KalebSDay]

Fortunately we got UCF so we don't have to shy drop if one side would force a spot doge by going down the notch. Meaning most controllers can actually buffer shield drop normally for general movement.

[@OldManJ3nkins]

​@@Abyssoft Taught is the past tense of teach, as in "I taught them math in school." You're looking for "taut" but that's usually used for fabric or rope, I'd go with "stiff" or "tight".

[@jacobe9131]

​@@OldManJ3nkinsstiff? I prefer "erect"

[@Manabender]

Honestly...Regardless of my opinion on whether this should be allowed or not, I think it demonstrates at least one major thing: *It's vital for a good speedrunning community to agree on rules specific to their game, or vote civilly when they do not.* There's sort of an unspoken "general" ruleset for speedrunning any game; glitches are allowed, cheating isn't, etc. But we see exceptions to those rules all the time for specific games. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. I think that's the *specific* community trying to be the best damn *specific* community they can. Games come in all sorts of shapes and sizes; the communities around them should too.

[@etherraichu]

To me, using glitches is the same as cheating

[@Manabender]

@@etherraichu That's how most people used to think when competitive gaming (both for fastest speeds and highest scores) was in its infancy. It's an understandable rule to desire. But, as with many things, the devil is in the details. You have to define what exactly a "glitch" even is. To me, a "glitch" is any game behavior not intended by the developers. Seems reasonable enough. But we very quickly run into a problem. How do we know what the developers intended? In many cases, we can be pretty sure; for example, just about any wall clip is almost definitely not intentional. But there are a bunch of much more subtle glitches too. Say, for example, where game physics -- which are working intentionally -- accidentally allow you to get somewhere you're not supposed to go yet. We can't know what the devs intended without asking them, which is easier said than done. Time and time and time again, we kept finding cases where the answer to "Is this a glitch?" and "Should we ban it?" ended up being "Who the hell knows?". Eventually, we all just threw up our arms and said we'd had enough. Glitches are allowed, in general. If you can do it with an unmodified console, controller, and copy of the game, it's allowed. *That* general rule has been controversial a lot less often. If you want to dive deeper down this rabbit hole, here's a video that does just that: kzbin.info/www/bejne/Z4rLmmiuaamtobs

[@donaldbaird7849]

@@etherraichu I disagree, hence why categories exist

[@SonicBoone56]

Agreed

[@SonicBoone56]

@@donaldbaird7849 yep

[@Drazil100]

As someone who is involved in running the Star Fox 64 score running community we make our rule decisions on what makes the game more or less fun/interesting. For instance during the boss of solar, during the first phase of bolse, and during wolf on venom 2 it is technically possible to get 999 points on each level however both solar and bolse's infinite point exploits are banned while wolf's is allowed. Ultimately both solar and bolse the exploits traded time for points, eliminating any skill variance and making the run take hours longer for no good reason. The wolf exploit however takes an incredible amount of skill to not die while doing it and while 999 is technically possible even our best runners have yet to achieve it. While venom also takes significantly longer with exploits the alternative is essentially a fixed score for the level. In addition to these exploits we actually allow cheating devices for IL records since retrying a level resets your bombs to 3 and lasers to single. There are at least a couple stages where you actually need more than 3 bombs most notably bolse which has a different exploit where you can bomb the enemy spawn point to rack up hundreds of hits in a since spawn cycle. Running ILs for this stage without a gameshark would require runners to play through almost the entire game to get to one of the second to last levels of the game just to get a single attempt for a nearly frame perfect trick. Pretty much every decision we have made comes down to whether this improves the experience of running the game or if it actually makes it less fun to run. There have been a few purists who disagree here and there but at the end of the day the entire point of any of this is to have fun and if we have a reasonably easy to moderate way of making the game more fun for everyone we are going to take it.

[@KnakuanaRka]

Amen; they key should be if it makes things more fun and interesting. That!s why we play games, after all.

[@MarioMastar]

@@KnakuanaRkaSend the Amen! Techniques/exploits shouldn't take away from a casual's ability to enjoy the game by mastering frame perfect glitches, looking for perfect RNG or requiring hours of dedication for something monontous (who can waste the most IRL time). I feel if that's what the run devolves into where it physically gates IRL players from playing the game or doing the run because the "leaders" want to keep thier position or the idea makes the game more "boring to play" where it's only about the stupid number (like soft resetting to keep no deaths on file) then yeah it should be banned. Course it doesn't affect how we personally choose to play, but a large part of what keeps games fun to watch to this day is seeing integrity respected. As I said in another comment, I'm not watching a terrible american player who's only faster because he's playing the Japanese version of a game he imported to gain advantage over an american player playing the US version we recognize very skillfully, only losing time to text. The US player is reflecting the experience I had as a kid. the "Japanese is faster" player is only thinking of himself and having the best time "at all costs" and that's the fastest way to make a video unwatchable in my opinion.

[@iwersonsch5131]

Slight detail about Siglemic's framewalk at Pace: That was before the rule was implemented, and it led to the rule being implemented. It's also not impossible to framewalk on a joystick, just a lot harder and less consistent. Unless if you pause buffer the framewalk, in which case it is still pretty doable

[@WaluTime]

Thank you for mentioning its not impossible otherwise, exactly what I scrolled down to say. I've seen simpleflips do it enough times to know its not tas only lmao.

[@ZeldagigafanMatthew]

And with the Shindou version being more widely available to those who have access to Mario 3D All-Stars, it's possible thanks to D-pad input, though other speedrunning tricks aren't possible.

[@Ten_Thousand_Locusts]

@@WaluTime shout out

[@angelcaru]

8:28 Small correction: Frame walking is possible on an unmodified controller, it's just much more difficult.

[@fgfhjfhjfbhfghf5771]

Something interesting about frame walking in SM64 is that it can be done on an official release with official controllers thanks to 3D All Stars letting you use the c buttons/d pad to walk

[@diegomedina9637]

Yeah that should be 100% allowed since it is an intended feature.

[@donshingondonvergonio2247]

@@diegomedina9637 it is allowed in the 3DS category but the 3DS is dogshit, the only speedrun that matters is N64

[@surfacner5989]

Doesn't it let you use dpad already on N64?

[@dinospumoni5611]

@@donshingondonvergonio2247 3D all Stars is a switch game

[@donshingondonvergonio2247]

@@dinospumoni5611 whats the difference? Theyre both horrible consoles am I right or am I rite?

[@keksidy]

I didn't throw my controller in a fit of rage, I was tactically breaking it to perform better

[@jkid1134]

Back when my buds took CoD real seriously, everybody put trigger stops in their controllers so you could fire a split-second faster

[@martymcfly88mph35]

Hell yeah baby, anything to drop that nuke on lobbies of bad kids.

[@MoneyManHolmes]

Camper!

[@prawngravy18]

@@martymcfly88mph35 by the time MW2 came out the trigger finger was patched.

[@stompingpeak2043]

I drilled a hole and wired two buttons. One was a turbo trigger and one was a lag switch. It was fun being in middle school doing that in 2008

[@mysticlamp8310]

ahhhh, the days of running around with the five-seven and barret. dumping 20 rounds in one second

[@JB-fh1bb]

Both directions at once: There was actually a NES game with a powerglove tie-in where the glove gesture sent DPAD L+R at the same time and triggered the super power. Because the NES controller had the bump as well, this meant that you could only do the super power when you owned a power glove.

[@MarioMastar]

Lucas: "I love the power glove...it's so bad."

[@ScudX]

Nice output lately man. I really enjoy your investigation of esoteric topics while simultaneously explaining the nuts & bolts to curious observers.

[@TheAMadMan]

I've wondered how an "accidental" controller mod through wear and tear would be taken by the speed running community on more than one occasion. Thank you for stealing my thoughts and answering my questions!

[@FortWhenTeaThyme]

This was part of mod legalization in Melee. Certain prominent tournament organizers were veeeery against mods, but it became apparent that certain mods could be "accidentally" done such as calibrating diagonals for shield drops or having your spring break in a shoulder button allowing for less travel.

[@calvinthedestroyer]

Growing up I think we went through ten nes controllers and the same with snes controllers, they were not the best quality.

[@Praxus42]

@@calvinthedestroyer How long did it take for that little lid thing on the cover of the NES break off? Took me a week to snap it off.

[@calvinthedestroyer]

@@Praxus42 that was fine, we still have our nes and it's still working. The controllers got the most abuse

[@LepidoliteMica]

There was that case of Battle for Bikini Bottom, where one runner's disk was so filthy it caused a load error on a specific model of Xbox disk reader that led to a much more consistent OOB clip.

[@felonyx5123]

Something about "this will allow the record to be pushed further" as an argument for rule changes rubs me the wrong way. If a category hits its human limit, that's a fine outcome for a game. The speedrunners won, they exposed every secret, and now anyone who wants to master it for themselves has no barrier of hidden knowledge and no uncertainty as to what the absolute best score they can strive to reach is. Everest has been climbed, we didn't build a skyscraper on top of it because that's the only way to make an even higher climb. The challenge is left there as it was for any newcomer who wants to take their own crack at achieving that same level of mastery.

[@Kakerate2]

Its less of a skyscraper & moreso another peak of everest that is higher than the old peak people went to. your analogy is pretty dogshit, but hey! atleast ya tried

[@vigilantbruiser1119]

👆 "He's right you know."

[@elliotbennett3917]

Something I kept thinking too while watching this is along this lines of “why not allow mods to the game to make it faster”. I think “solved” speed runs are fine and probably healthy. I watch SMB3 runs and the amount of random stuff in that game is tremendous to the point it probably won’t ever be fully “solved”. I just think it’s a bit of a slippery slope of allowing one small bypass of the rules, which becomes another then another. I’m not a “purist” or hater by any means but when is enough, enough? these kinds of rule changes make me never want to touch speedrunning, and also respect those that do.

[@Kakerate2]

@@elliotbennett3917 Enough is enough when the people that are running the game decide? If a runner wants to invent a new category, they're absolutely free to do so. If nobody else is interested, then it doesn't become an 'official' category.

[@nyandoesthings]

@@Kakerate2 Stardew Valley just added a bunch of extensions. Stuff like putting a pair of underwear in soup. Why? Because the community wanted it. Kinda like all of this stuff is to have fun, or something.

[@KarelvanD]

Superb video, thank you so much for telling the narrative of the SMK community from back when this decision was made (which we still stand by for the full 100%). Thanks to Joe Bernier as well for helping him with great, on point and accurate story telling. I think I can say on behalf of all of us in SMK: many, many thanks! KVD

[@IONATVS]

Two categories is the way to go IMO. It’s not a glitch but it is what I’d consider a “controls exploit” or “unintended behavior”, and it’s okay that different people have different tolerances for it depending on whether they want to see the fastest humanly possible on a controller functioning as the devs intended or the fastest humanly possible exploiting every advantage they can find. And the fact that older controllers naturally wear down to the point that the exploit, while unintended, can occur on unmodified hardware is enough for me personally to not feel like it’s asking the player to “deface” their own controller just to be competitive.

[@seimeianri]

At first I was leaning towards being against modding hardware because it's another competitive barrier, but in SMK's case it's fair, easy to do and it would have happened naturally from constant use. I really like the 'shoutout' to brazilian players, we are like some animal grinding the controller down. As for SM64 wouldn't it be easier to use an arcade controller? There's also some controversy for using hitbox in some fighting games as it permits pressing opposed directions at the same time too. Great video.

[@DELTARYZ]

Brazilians seem to have this magical ability to break new ground in gaming and highlight new strats, concerns, exploits, and circumstances that nobody else noticed before. The fuck are you guys smoking? Can I have some?

[@Robert_McGarry_Poems]

@@DELTARYZ Amazonian sativa... That shit is uncontacted rare... 😂 JJ

[@tammid8423]

@@DELTARYZ Tbh, I have no idea lmao

[@Ara_Arasaka]

I have a feeling this is gonna come up in the SMB scene soon too. There’s a major movement thing you can do that they can’t capitalize on because you aren’t allowed to play on a controller that lets you press left and right at the same time. But. It’d be interesting to see what happens now that the time is so close to the “human limit”

[@KiingKai91]

I've read that counter argument about Daigo`s Guile I think, thing I've read and have agreed with is technically, everyone on pad can hold 2 directions too, using the analog stick AND they dpad

[@Kosmicd12]

I've always thought the justification for L+R in SMK is pretty bad. Whether it can happen from natural play or not doesn't really matter. Just decide if it's good for the game or not, or if you want to have it be part of the game. I have no problem with them wanting to play with L+R, if it makes it more interesting or fun or if they prefer it that way for any reason at all. But if L+R was very bad for the game, I don't think "it can happen naturally" would be a good reason to continue to use it.

[@gasasmk]

Hey Kosmic, big fan here. The argument that L+R can happen from natural play is more of a counter argument to people who claim it shouldn't be used because it's not natural. Bottom line is, the game has become way more interesting to a lot more players with the addition of NBT. We lost some players because of it, but gained longevity and competitivity. The game would probably be dead 10-15 years ago if we didn't have new strats being invented/discovered to this day.

[@Kosmicd12]

@@gasasmk yeah I just feel like it's not really relevant in general lol. Like if L+R turned out to be horrible for the game and was killing the scene, then someone saying "but it can happen naturally" doesn't mean you should still use it. Does that make sense? Lol

[@gasasmk]

@@Kosmicd12 I 100% see your point yeah. It being natural doesn't mean it's good for the game, nor that it should justify it being used (specially if it wasn't good for the game). I'm glad in this specific case we made the right decision. I also suspect that if it were to be banned, that we'd change our minds a few years later because of the times getting maxed and the competition dying down. Also I want to note that I'm not advocating for similar decisions to be taken in other games, each community knows what is better for their scene.

[@Kosmicd12]

@@gasasmk agree completely! Thanks for your responses

[@stompingpeak2043]

@@Kosmicd12 see I'm on the train of everyone needs to use regular controllers. It honestly isn't fair to any runner of the past to use different/modded equipment for runs. Where everyone has always had regular controllers. It's standardized. People wanting modded controllers legalized aren't even deserving of a record. Since they never really beat the record of old

[@FerrybigGaming]

I would say that because the dpad can wear down naturally, it shows this zigzag method can be done with a official controller that did not require modification. Creating separate categories for runs that use and do not use this technique was the right choose

[@DanielGarcia-uq7vu]

I always believe categories for physical modification should be separate from standard speedruns as it is by default not standard setting, however it's still fun to see how people can really boost their records. Similar to if we allowed a certain division of baseball to allow the use of steroids. Records could be shattered albeit a new category

[@Mindflayer_Inc]

They already do this for TAS, so "Hardware Modification" should be its own thing.

[@DanielGarcia-uq7vu]

Yeah I know for tas they do it, but I mean similar to how people use hotplates or even straight up boot in different games by swapping in carts to modify ram, that should all be it's own category, a physical mod category.

[@michael_betts]

Then you start running into melee's controller problem. Official Controllers come off of the assembly line with differences in their characteristics, and some time it turns out that 1 in 10 times (for example) a controller has a slight difference from manufacturing that makes it better at a specific task in a Speedrun. Do you force people to analyze their controller and ban any controller with any advantage, or do you make high level speedrunners test tons of controllers to find the "best" controller. You can often replicate these features with hardware mods, and it can be hard to detect hardware mods unless they allow blatantly impossible things, or you require people to disassemble their controller live after every record. It's often better to allow some modifications, and drawing the line on specific identifiable mods.

[@DanielGarcia-uq7vu]

It doesn't have to be universal for EVERY single game, just in these cases. For the majority of games they all have separate categories for this reason. If they do benefit from swapping out carts or adding extra components via soldering I think they should have their own category in their respective game. Smash is one case where they went over it and decided it was fair for that reason, but games like OOT have several categories that don't share the same styles like SRM which modifies the code and normal 100%

[@ADreamingTraveler]

Yeah they should be their own separate category

[@bes03c]

For popular speed games, I favor creating new categories when situations like these arise.

[@SilverDashie]

It's the best option.

[@ZawaOnYoutube]

Thanks for time-stamping the ad so it's easier to skip, bless your soul

[@greenhunter473]

10:06 I'm currently re-playing Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker on my PS3 as I'm listening to this and I noticed that Snake keeps turning to the opposite direction whenever I release my joystick fast enough. Kinda figured it was something like that, what a coincidence. Also on the subject of controller modification in SMK, I had already gone into this video having watch SummoningSalt's video on the history of Rainbow Road where he explains it pretty well in there. It's basically to standardized play as the stub can be worn off naturally over time so imo it's not even an argument as you would basically be putting players with less used controllers at a disadvantage. With this modification allowed everyone is on an fair playing field.

[@Dalibre1]

same, My friend gave me his old PS4 controller because he was switching to the ps5, I even tested it using joystick mosue emulation and flicking it against the edge of my screen

[@MaximusMuleti]

For super Mario, having a separate category, one natural, and one modded makes perfect sense

[@BshotPhotos]

Im really enjoying this new genre of videos that break down speed running between different games, the history, and the different aspects that make up parts of the speed running community. Amazing work dude!

[@SatoshiMatrix1]

As for Super Mario Bros. 1 disallowing Left + Right, I think that should be forever the rule in place for honest speedruns, but I don't see any reason why a special, separate category for modified controllers shouldn't exist. Just as long as then there's two world record leaderboards, for those who do it legitimately and for those who do not.

[@Splitcyclewastaken]

The thing about claiming one is "honest" and another "illegitimate" is that it's kinda disingenuous. You can't really call one of them "cheating" just because it uses tech or a glitch that the other doesn't. if there's only one category and the trick is banned then yes, it's illegitimate but the existence of a category that allows it means that the community as a whole has agreed it's not dishonest. It's just not allowed for _that category_.

[@Heckleb0t]

I've never tried a speedrun and this is of no significance to me but by god did I click on it and am going to watch the entire thing.

[@tafazzi-on-discord]

Q: Is it fun to watch and perform? Yes -> allow it Not always -> disallow it People are too elitist, and the "intent" behind a game is basically never to speedrun, the intent isn't meaningful when speedruns are concerned.

[@Naroyto]

That's the thing about record keeping, it will reach an end. That being said, much like other games a simple addition of another category that stipulates how the run was performed would suffice.

[@ADreamingTraveler]

It's odd how he justifies this by saying it created a new era of records being broken because of this modification. But fails to realize that eventually this stagnation will come back like it did before lol

[@talullah1065]

@@ADreamingTraveler of course stagnation will always eventually happen, but that's just how life is. if no new tech is found then of course runs can only get so optimized. what you're saying isn't even an issue, why is it a bad thing that they got a few more years of life in the community?

[@wxbrainiac]

@@ADreamingTraveler when a record reaches an unbeatable peak someone will find a way to beat it thats just how games go

[@papagarv]

Wanted to clarify something said at 11:04 - "If you time your dodge correctly, the vertical movement of the character will transfer into horizontal movement that causes you to slide along the floor." It's actually the horizontal momentum of your air dodge that causes the slide. That's why steep air dodges give less horizontal movement. In fact, any interaction with the ground can see your character sliding along it (getting knocked down, jumping while running, etc) provided you have horizontal momentum upon contact. A character's friction value also determines how long the slide is, which is why Luigi has a long wavedash and Zelda has a short one (and like real physics, we know that the force from friction causes you to decelerate). Melee is very different from later Smash games because of its use of momentum, with the wavedash being one of the most recognizable visualizations of this mechanic.

[@KarelvanD]

And I can also say with certainty that allowing boosting to happen has greatly expanded the skill ceiling and thereby the longevity of the competitive community. Without it this community would not have thrived and perhaps it would barely have existed at all anymore. Non-boost times were approaching their max potential in the early 2000s already; meanwhile with boosting we are still not done at all 20 years later....

[@roastytoasty8559]

it may have died but with new rules comes new leniency's and well an edge on breaking a previous record that was harder to earn by the original means/rules... so in my mind it does not count if it has a handicap to break a record that did not have said handicap...we should probably start categorizing handicaps into what record they actually hold. for everything/ glitch run, glitch less run, modified hardware run and so on. (i know a few have categories already but we need more haha :)

[@noahblevins9569]

@@roastytoasty8559 I fully agree with you. Times that were incredibly skillful in the past get beaten by less skilled players with strategies unavailable previously all the time. At some point, it does need to be divided.

[@DonkoXI]

@@noahblevins9569 This is the case almost universally in any competitive activity. Advances into the science of nutrition and exercise have given modern athletes an advantage without having to work any harder for it. Even just advancements in clothing give modern athletes an advantage, not to mention the technical improvements in sports like bicycling or race car driving. Modern board game players (like go/chess) have a big advantage now since they can study and practice with superhuman AI. The progression of world records in any activity isn't just a catalog of individual performance. It also represents the advancements of the community. Being at the top of a community like athletes, speed runners, a chess players, etc., is just as much about personal performance as it is pushing the boundaries of the field. It's worthwhile to remember the accomplishments of those who came before us, but that doesn't necessarily mean that their accomplishments need to be categorized separately to protect them.

[@noahblevins9569]

@@DonkoXI While you are telling the truth, there are also examples of restrictions being placed due to advancement. Javelins were changed in both balancing and weight in competition, and there are running shoes that are banned due to performance increase. Golf balls that correct their flight path from a slice are banned. So, in some cases there are lines drawn.

[@noahblevins9569]

@@DonkoXI I should have worded my reply better. I lumped in modifications with strats. It isnt fair to do that. Optimization of pathing, battling, menus, are natural and skillful. Breaking out a soldering iron for a modification is not natural. There should be a category for modified equipment. At that point, I know the honor system plays a big role....but it is better than nothing.

[@IanF-FPV]

Brilliant. If only the internet and tournament level play was around back in 1995. I probably played Super Mario Kart at least 3-4 hour every day to the point my controller started doing the zig zag boost. Also had one of the aftermarket controllers because the shoulder pads on the stock controller broke so easily.

[@MrCheeze]

I feel like the case studies here were somewhat unrepresentative, the overwhelming majority of games where left+right is possible have it banned. (Which is famously why SMB1's best possible human time is slower than the TAS time.) Although I guess there is the subtle difference that this game doesn't actually need left+right, just the ability to transfer from left to right with no neutral frames in between?

[@Breeze926]

I always find the people that are against things like wavedashing or glitches in speedrunning are usually spectators rather than players.

[@YOSSARIAN313]

Melee is too hard to play optimally. Wavedashing well is hard and so are other mechanics. Makes it hard to play as many people literally can't do some mechanics. Ultimate is superior as it is a well balanced and accessible game with a great competitive scene.

[@Breeze926]

@@YOSSARIAN313 It is superior if that is what you're looking for in a game. Some people look for games with a higher skill ceiling.

[@YOSSARIAN313]

@@Breeze926 ultimate also has a high skill ceiling while being a far more accessible and balanced game

[@Breeze926]

@@YOSSARIAN313 Melee's skill ceiling is definitely higher than Ultimate's though. Ultimate will be the more played game because of said accessibility, but for players that are looking for a more demanding game they may prefer Melee.

[@FoxerTails]

I feel the best solutions for these kinds if things is just to split and open more categories.

[@LucianDevine]

I generally just say to make a new category for it, like they did. If people are only interested in one category or the other, then at least they are still helping the community forward. If you hard ban or hard allow it, you push the other people away, which only serves to hurt the community. Anything that can help a community grow should at the very least be considered.

[@testerwulf3357]

It's hard to seperate the categories as in one you require a modified controller whilst in the other if you have anything but a newer controller you'll probably get your runs constantly rejected for accidentally doing the slide boosts from natural wear on your older controller. Separating them just causes a shit ton of issues..if you wanna use the boost you have to modify stuff, if you aren't good at it but have an older controller you're kinda forced to be in that category as your control has natural wear making it unfair for the other category. No matter what they do they loose people.

[@flyingace1234]

My Two Cents: The modification of the SNES controller for Mario Kart is alright by me since, as the Brazilians showed, it can also be replicated by just normal wear and tear. It's unreasonable to force people to use a shrinking supply of good quality official controllers. Similar for the capacitors and spring modification for the gamecube. They are both repairs for issues with the original hardware. One could go through dozens of controllers that dont have the issue... or just accept the mods.

[@SARankdirectorMinecraft]

I think that it’s worth remembering that high-level play exists mostly for and because of the high-level players. It shouldn’t be about what we think it should be about what they want. What makes games better, more fun or more entertaining to watch and run.

[@FrazierHarcrow]

"The community was torn" The Community: yeah us 6 guys disagree with those 20 other guys so we quit the game. A side note. Can it even be considered a community vote with less than 30 people taking part?

[@wxbrainiac]

yes it can

[@buriedpet]

Love your channel Aby. It’s astonishing that you haven’t broken 100k subs yet. I’m just waiting for the day you blow up, because it WILL happen with quality content like this. Keep up the grind man, can’t wait to see you at the top!

[@Abyssoft]

It'll happen this year most likely, the first piece of my infinity gauntlet

[@kirbythingys]

“Warning controllers WERE hurt in the making of this video”

[@Julian_Pepper]

Originally, I was fiercely against this being allowed even in a glitch category (like my stance of hardware manipulation), but once I heard this can occur naturally over time, I did a 180 on it. I think the modification is fine in this case, since it's just simulating normal controller wear. It's also not mistreating the controller in a way that normal usage would not also achieve eventually. If people were oh I don't know, kicking it, putting it on a hot plate, messing with the connection to the console in a way that can be harmful, or other things like that my response would be very different.

[@roastytoasty8559]

im really not sure on how true it is that the nub wore of naturally because from my experience every single super nintendo controller i ever had had the rubber buttons underneath decay and stop working well before the nub shows any signs of waring down to the point it would allow both inputs to be pressed at the same time ... : /

[@noahblevins9569]

@@roastytoasty8559 I have never had that occur naturally either. I think it is more likely that people took their time to wear them down in a specific manner.

[@cloud8521]

@@roastytoasty8559 I doubt it happens naturally, the coefficient of solder mask and plastic is pretty low, and this acts more like a leverage point and does not really rub that much in the first place. Millions of back and forth rocks should hardy dent it let alone wear off enough to allow 2 opposing inputs to be pressed simultaneously. Is it possible, sure, but up to this point it seems like the closest we have to it happening naturally is in statement form without clear cut evidence to show it. Even with deliberate hard rubbing of hard plastics against a PCB would take a very very long time to make much progress, mainly because PCB solder masking is just kind of slick and hard enough not to get any kind of defect easily for the nub to catch to wear over. I kind of doubt that even with the hardest play would you typically have caused this kind of wear even if done straight for 10+ years. And before then, it would create a flat which would make it much more of a pain in the ass to play with since would have to overcome said flat. I also would like to mention, I honestly never even seen even a hint of wear to that nub in my lifetime.

[@roastytoasty8559]

@@cloud8521 thank you. more people need to use their brains like you instead of taking videos and hearsay as fact ... thankyou for being a rational human being with a logical thought process no joke. thank you. i appreciate it :)

[@dizzyybun]

I personally think external/hardware modifications should always be made into a new category, because forcing others to perform these mods to compete is unfair to those who are unable to, and even to those who just choose not to modify their personal hardware. It also allows the achievements of those without these modifications to live on without being buried by those who have chose to mod their hardware.

[@gyroninjamodder]

Why not create a new category for every technique then? Forcing people to use techniques to compete wouldn't be fair to those unable to do those techniques.

[@rykoy]

Whenever I think of Melee and wavedashing, my mind always goes straight to basketball and how dribbling started off as an unintended exploit in the rules of basketball.

[@Abyssoft]

I've never heard this before and I'm excited to look it up

[@sSynclare]

really interesting video and i love the depth u go in because i am aware of most smash rulesets in controllers but not sm64. as for sakurai and wavedashing, there actually is earlier proof that shows sakurai on a forum giving people tips and he basically teaches you wavedashing so it was probably very much intended in melee

[@denizo9263]

That's an exotic sponsor. Not skipping that.

[@baggelissonic]

Actually, with the switch port of super mario kart it's possible to do the trick with unmodified hardware (as long as there isn't a patch to prevent that)

[@lilycreeper5246]

Why would there be a patch, the code is identical to the original

[@TLuigi003]

@@lilycreeper5246 NSO games have several patches applied

[@MeesterTweester]

I like the coverage of the Melee segment, you did a good job explaining it.

[@ozzyp97]

I don't know of any other high level SM64 runners who do it, but Cheese does actually use the Hori pad for the entire game. Even if it has a slightly over-sensitive stick, his track record would suggest you can definitely get used to it.

[@BrunodeSouzaLino]

Ironically, the biggest complaint about the N64 controller was the ginormous dead zone it has...Which Hori fixes on its Minipad. You can also find GameCube style analog pads that are made to fit the N64 controller.

[@ozzyp97]

@@BrunodeSouzaLino In good condition the N64 controller has almost no dead zone at all, that's one of the things setting it apart from modern controllers. Hori has slightly more if anything, though not by much. Those GC sticks on the other hand are pretty bad. The sensitivity is usually all over the place, and the gate is invariably shaped wrong, much like essentially every third party controller except the Hori. It might be okay in some games casually, but that's about it.

[@BrunodeSouzaLino]

@@ozzyp97 The output of the default N64 analog is done so you have your defined 8 steps of travel, since Nintendo didn't want to shell for a more expensive analog like Sony did with the Dual Shock. they do have a deadzone. You get no input for about 1/3 of the stick travel.

[@ozzyp97]

@@BrunodeSouzaLino You're just wrong, it's 120 steps on each axis, and they start counting instantly as soon as the slitted gear inside moves just slightly. The only deadzone there even could be is from the tiny amount of wiggle room in the assembly, which on my particular stick is probably 2-3mm of movement before Mario starts walking in place. If you actually have a stick with a 1/3 dead zone, that just means it's severely worn down. There's also no real element of saving money involved, because the whole opto-mechanical sensing array was almost certainly more expensive than using simple potentiometers like Sony did. Keep in mind that Nintendo was first, there was no established way to design a thumb stick.

[@BrunodeSouzaLino]

@@ozzyp97 Even if it's 120, SM64 only uses 8, each increasing the step count by 15. And that's not accounting for variances in potentiometer resistance.

[@SumnerTube21]

Just a question for some people, Where in the SNES user manual did it say you are NOT ALLOWED to press left and right at the same time? The system allows all 4 D-Pad inputs to be pressed at the same time and processes all 4 of them too, they are simply 4 buttons

[@werdsup]

Allowing controller mods sets a bad precedence IMO. There's likely a notching pattern for every analog stick utilizing game that provides advantage so do we need custom controllers for each title we run now? Screw that!

[@ADreamingTraveler]

Exactly. Imagine if this happened to so many more games. Everytime you wanted to speedrun your favorite game you'd have to physically open and change your hardware which not everybody has the expertise to do. And nor should they be expected to do it. It's already hard enough to find certain types of controllers as it is

[@talullah1065]

game cube controllers aren't precise enough for melee, this is specifically a problem with melee because of how the game is, not every game needs things like this

[@wxbrainiac]

you clearly dont speedrun games or understand why people speedrun they do it to beat the game in the fastest time possible without changing the game in anyway controllers vary and as it was mentioned they ware down over time so is it cheating then if you have an old controller and cant buy a new one

[@werdsup]

@@wxbrainiac "without changing the game in anyway" you say? The game excludes the controller now? Controller "ware"?

[@marcar9marcar972]

@@wxbrainiac they vary but don’t magically grow precise helpful notches. It really raises the barrier of entry which can hurt the community in the long run

[@notestarlord]

A modern day example of controller dispute in a speed game would be Metroid Dread As the game allows for fire rate as fast as you can press the Y button, which allows for significantly reduced times in boss fights It came to the discussion of whether or not turbo controllers be allowed or not, eventually they were allowed in runs (capped at 20hz / 20 shots/second)

[@hirumaryuei]

The problem with melee and comparing it to speedrunning/RTA etc. is that competitive fighting games and speedrunning have widely different standards of play. Fighting game tournaments, not just Melee, generally allow users to bring basically any controller as long as it does not do a few things the FGC generally considers cheating. Notched GCN controllers are allowed in Melee for the same reason that hitboxes or octo gate sticks are allowed in SF. In general, most speed game communities won't let you use a custom-built controller that is ideally built to speedrun your game the way that fighting games do.

[@Rumboats]

I don't think the decision was as uncontroversial as you make it seem in regards to melee. Also the problem was with official controllers, not ones "built specifically" for melee (the difference you pointed out might be true for other fighting games idk). Like, the fact that you had to win the snapback lottery and just buy controllers until you get a good one is similar to the SMK scenario where certain official controllers had the possibility of performing something exclusive to them, while still nontheless being official controllers. They both decided to make their rules more lax in order to not create a game where a huge part of it is finding a "mithical correct controller".

[@NaughtyPrincessfkhandles]

"This wasnt how the game was intended to be played" is one of the most ironic point from speedrunners to say lol

[@thenewbgamer6416]

I'd say any kind of modification is cheating. If code modifying is cheating, then I'd say it makes sense to consider physical modification cheating. Glitches are not code modification, but manipulation of code faults.

[@thenewbgamer6416]

@eric Spencer worn down counts physical modification, or physical change, as the bump exists for a reason, so pretty much, yeah, it is still cheating.

[@Splitcyclewastaken]

@@thenewbgamer6416It's not cheating if the community allows the modification for everyone in the spirit of fair competition, which the super mario kart community _has_ allowed, per community vote. If everyone is allowed to do it according to the rules that everyone has agreed to and that the community has laid out and agreed to uphold in the spirit of fair competition then it's categorically not cheating, no matter what non-runners say.

[@Petrolhead99999]

I'm a sophomore computer engineer, and the fact that graphics and a primitive game engine were possible at all on assembly language amazes me. What a difficult language to learn... I mostly use C# and C++, and Verilog for digital programming. I know some bitwise operations... But I always have to look up a hex code or something similar. Imagine knowing the numbers for specific flags and controls, in binary, and using them to build a game... The genesis of game building was amazing.

[@bltvd]

I hope when Niftski clicks the box in his emulator that prevent both L and R he does so with his middle finger!

[@beardalaxy]

Funny enough, Masahiro Sakurai gave advice to a Japanese blogger/player in the early 2000s on how to use wavedashing more effectively. I didn't know this until watching AsumSaus's video on it recently. I would say it isn't exactly a glitch, it's more of an exploit but it was left in and then purposefully taken out not because it was a glitch, but because they thought it was too hard for players to do consistently.

[@nintendoswitchbrit4201]

I think creating a new category is probably best because for example the L+R in SMB that would save a lot of time and how would you feel if you had dedicated you'r life to achieving a high lvl run for SMB and then they un ban a technique that makes essentially all of you'r hard work null and void also even if L+R is un banned their are still going to be people who prefer the old style runs but if you just un ban L+R instead of giving it it's own category then the people who enjoyed the old rules will not have anywhere to go

[@lexikiq]

ehh? i think you're assuming that the L+R time saves are just free/easy when they really aren't. it's not like people doing runs five years ago or even a year ago would have been thinking to themselves "okay, now if i need WR i need to implement L+R time saves." there were so many more relatively low-hanging fruit (compared to L+R and modern strats) that it doesn't make sense to assume that people would've implemented the time save into runs already if it weren't banned.

[@nintendoswitchbrit4201]

@@lexikiq IDK why you assume that I think L+R is easy I only really said that it would be a big time save I never commented on how difficult it is to pull off because I don't have the knowledge to really say ether way on it. I don't quite get what you are trying to say here are you basically just saying that if L+R wasn't banned people would be using it because yer that is obvious and has no bearing on anything that I have said

[@micahheller6212]

I think the new category was the right decision, I feel the difference is big because it is a technique that is impossible without the modification, even if that modification can be achieved with normal wear and tear it's still modified

[@orangesouls7112]

If they want to allow it, then go ahead. My opinion? I prefer rules in the other direction, like on PC having timers that remove load times and rules to lock FPS at 60 to prevent physics from going haywire so the focus is on the game rather than the hardware. You walk a fine line when you start letting people mess with the hardware like this.

[@anattackgoldfish]

I know this is 2 years late, but I'd also like to add a point of clarification to the case of ssbm. Notches don't make wavedashing easier, they make specifically maximum length and minimum non zero length wavedashes easier because the notches are the perfect values for those two distances (the notches just below the left and right gates and just to either side of the bottom gate) and the rest of the inputs are exactly the same regardless of what angle your wavedash is. The other primary inputs of a wave dash are jump and shield, attempting to press shield on the first airborne frame after the jump squat animation ends. As long as the control stick isn't pointing completely horizontal or higher this will result in a wavedash.

[@J3tAlone]

Supposedly wavedashing was not a true exploit as Sakurai was on the nintendo forums explaining how it worked. He was aware that air dodging into the ground would cancel landing lag but how it is used nowadays was unintended. There was a video somewhere about it but I have to go dig for it. I also recognize that you may have had to cut that explanation due to it not being directly involved with the video. Edit: it was in the video and I missed it because I am a very smart and self aware youtube commenter. Fantastic breakdown though, been binging your stuff and I'm hooked.

[@Abyssoft]

You are correct on both accounts, I new about the forum post from Sakurai, but I didn't want to get into the weeds of the details of how much they knew / did they intend for it. My take, which I did mention in the video, is that they became aware of it during development and left it in. To me that doesn't imply intention to create the mechanic, as it was a product of how the physics engine handled angular momentum and a surface. Once they were aware of it and left it in you could say that "it was intended" as they intentionally made the decision to leave it in the final product, but I think that's a stretch of what the word intention means, as it's more likely a case of "this is a feature not a bug."

[@jimmyfrigginpage]

@@Abyssoft wavedashing is pretty widely used in fighting games, so I don’t know that it’s necessarily correct to assume it’s a happy accident. As always, though, great video!

[@jimmyfrigginpage]

@@Abyssoft also, if you’re not aware of the current set of controller controversies with digital box-style controllers in Melee, it’s an interesting debate to look at because it looks at completely different factors - accessibility and ergonomics.

[@ekkencoron8925]

@@Abyssoft As you said, intention seems to be the major deciding factor. Sakurai didn't do anything to prevent the accidental mechanics once he learned about them. SMK had code intentionally written to prevent drifting in a straight line.

[@Abyssoft]

@@jimmyfrigginpage I watched a video about this, I think it was from Asumsaus

[@SumnerTube21]

Big thing that was not covered is the fact that you never actually have to push Left and Right at the same time, but you simply can't have a frame where you are not pushing one or the other

[@EndiXIV]

Imo, the diff between the zigzag drift and wavedashing is that wavedashing is still possible without the mod, the mod just makes it more consistent. Zigzag straight up isn't possible without the mod

[@SumnerTube21]

totally incorrect and mentioned in this very video

[@marcar9marcar972]

@@SumnerTube21 the video says it’s not possible on a standard controller. A controller that had the back worn down after probably hundreds of hours of play is not standard. Also before you say it yes, you could do it with a standard controller if you can press both left and right within one frame of each other but that’s next to impossible

[@SumnerTube21]

@@marcar9marcar972 "The video says" LOL I actually play the game, at CDM with ScouB and KVD and Neo etc, it can be done with a brand new controller straight from the box (and yes I do have one) Secondarily this video is made by a person not in with super intimate knowledge of SMK also My BC2 nNBT time does it (once per lap every lap without fail), technically making it invalid (but no one really cares about nNBT times now anyway) Also as they dive a bit deeper into the code I think they will find some anomilies to this becasuse the technique that is used to do standard nNBT boost breaks the rules anyway. You slide across the dpad before you release R anyway which means you will have broken the constant direction before you release R, and this is how we all do it.

[@UncleLayne]

I'm of the mindset that all glitches and exploits and modifications should be allowed in their own categories, and can be changed later on if the circumstances defining those categories end up changing

[@veikkaheikkila7568]

I think glitches and new techniques are essential to keeping a speedrunning community alive. For example, in BOTW, when the New Plateau route was found, the unbeatable world records were broken again and we got a new wave of innovation happening.

[@MirinkaiserVODs]

I was on board with the whole NBT thing back when I was active in 2005 or 2006 or so. But when the modded controller thing happened, I didn't stick around much longer. It just feels unethical to me. I don't have a deep reasoning, as I can be rather simplistic at times; it's just how I feel. It's a shame I left the community shortly after this, as it turns out that I miss the days chatting with some of the active players on MSN back then.

[@roastytoasty8559]

if you rocked up to the Olympics with performance enhancing equipment no one else uses ie special shoes with springs to make longer strides or something they would not allow it. i don't see why competitive gaming should be any different. also isn't physically modifying your controller kind of ethically the same as taking roids for a sport? your physically altering something in order to gain an edge. im with you it feels morale wrong and should not happen or at the very least have a category labeled for people who cant hack real skills and want a leg up.

[@talullah1065]

@@roastytoasty8559 okay but that's not a fair comparison at all, it's not like wearing special shoes at all because that ability comes with use of the control or even just out of the box. how would you moderate what was "wear from use" and what was "filed down"

[@roastytoasty8559]

​@@talullah1065 cheap controllers allow this malfunction to happen and be discovered there is a reason the nub is in the d pad to begin with. it's on i'm sure of pretty much all official hardware sony playstation dpad snes, nes, sega xbox ps2 360 one ps 4 and 5 n64 and more all had nubs under the d pad.. otherwise they would have a system to stop all the other buttons being pressed at the same time. pressing 2 directions on the d pad causes unintended glitches that are not capable of being done on original hardware. i thrashed a super Nintendo for over 15 years while every one else had n64 playstation ps2 and so on and the d pad nub never wore down to the point were i could press 2 buttons at the same time. the rubber buttons under the d pads degraded and stopped working multiple times after replacements and the d pad nub still was not worn down. glitch was found buy people using cheap third party controllers and then people started destroying original hardware probably because they don't like 3rd party controllers. i do understand what your saying about ability that comes with use/experience but with that it is still a leg up because it allows you to do specifically something others cannot without the same hardware. i'm ok with it as long as there are unassisted world record categories .

[@cartersmith9842]

@@roastytoasty8559 it literally happens on official hardware

[@roastytoasty8559]

@@cartersmith9842 going to say ive had over a decade on these controllers thrashing only 2 original ones and replacing the rubber buttons underneath the d-pad multiple times and the nub underneath never wore down like these people shave them off. people used to say to me is the life support machine functioning good today? that's how much i used it if i wasn't eating sleeping or being forced to do something else i was on the snes. explain to me if its wearing down naturally on the snes controller then why the hell has the circuit bored underneath not worn through and or broken? they found the glitch through a third party controller and who made the controller was not aware that the nub underneath the d-pad was there to stop malfunctions or they did not even know the nub was there. official hardware since nes and possibly earlier have the nubs under the d-pad i can almost guarantee with 99.9% certainty they did not wear down naturally someone was like err i hate the way third party controllers feel in my hands... i know im going to murder an almost antique super Nintendo controller so i can bltch run. (glitch). in the mean time thinking there smart or savvy or something because they modified there controller.

[@birdtoast9811]

this is the only ever video on youtube that i didnt skip the sponser on

[@SpectreXS]

When it comes to the plastic shell parts of controllers, meh, anything is fair game IMO. I often stick pieces of paper inside the D-pad of my controllers in order to increase the sensitivity, and the prong in the middle of the d-pad is really silly too (would that be cheating?). Not allowing these modificiations gives an edge to whoever hits the lottery of natural wear of the controller. Someone could force d-pad wear without opening the controller too, which makes things even more obnoxious. Modifying the circuits, however, might cross the line. Macros and turbos clearly provide inputs without the player actually doing them, and in the case of melee's snapback capacitor, I don't know, it comes down to the TO's, and the reasons for allowing it seem good.

[@talullah1065]

the reason the capacitor is allowed because not all melee controllers perform the same out of the box, you could not moderate for that, it would be a nightmare to try and buy a controller that actually performed correctly

[@thomsvoid5737]

just put it in its own separate category, similar to any% glitches. similar to how you have to go out of your way to execute glitches while still using official hardware, you have to go out of your way to wear out and break your controller a specific way to execute these inputs

[@SumnerTube21]

this is totally done already, because of this I am a little confused at people wanting it banned etc even tho they are 100% not even involved in the game. There is a category for anything you can think of, just use the ones you like and don't play the others As a community we have handled this situation for 20 years prior to this video but now I guess we should change for the good of KZbin commenters

[@SumnerTube21]

As you say any% is equivilent to our "Open" category, people are crying about NBT but what about the total rng of the items within a race... We have open, boosts but no items, no boost and no items, specific characters, 1 player/2 player and prob some more still. These are just the GP categories too, obviously we have TT where again there is nNBT and NBT boards

[@vivecanada1]

I disagree with your comparison of wavedashing vs smk. Wavedashing can be done without any modification while the smk exploit requires either third party or modified controllers. SMK, by doing this, made it harder for a casual gamer to join.

[@Abyssoft]

This is a valid point of contention, thanks for bringing it up.

[@Dat___Cat]

Reminds me of a somewhat similar case in Goldeneye 007. It was something like if you had a controller plugged into port 2 and took its faceplate off and physically put your hand on circuit board and press it down during a specific level it would glitch out a timer and let you complete the level 4 seconds faster. The community struck it down pretty fast if I remember correctly. In this case for SMK I think its fine to have 2 leaderboards, especially since it can happen naturally due to the hardware.

[@gblargg]

The worn controller seals it. The only reason this technique wasn't used was it being unknown and not working on all controllers. It's basically historical that the older runs didn't use it much. Why would anyone want to continue not using it? As mentioned, it breathed new life into the scene. And what would they do, ban even official controllers that had been used a lot?

[@Vespyr_]

Yes, you establish a regulation controller. ANY SELF RESPECTING SPORT or competitive body HAS REGULATION balls, regulation shoes, pucks, sticks, baskets, what have you. YOU DONT JUST deflate a ball, to get a better throw. You don't just let runners get lighter shoes, to increase their times. Do you people any, sense of integrity, at all? Do you guys know what integrity means? Where IS the principle here?

[@harpot678]

I agreed with them with adding it into a different category.

[@gblargg]

@@harpot678 I like the approach taken of having categories for variations and letting the competitors decide which ones they want to use. Over time one might become the most-used and people will gather in that one.

[@JInuOneSix]

@@Vespyr_ Hockey sticks are curved and taped to the player's specifications, Ballet dancers each modify their pointe shoes differently... Actually. A lot of sports allow for a little wiggle room on customization. But that customization in competitive sports is regulated. I think it's more about deciding what is a fair level of modification, and what is taking things too far.

[@professoryorick5676]

framewalking is LITERALLY just holding the controller in one hand, having ur thumb next to the joystick, and moving the free hand in such a way so youre inputting up on and off rather than consistently. (a setup similar to lblj/sblj/lbj can be used aka "vibrating" a hand/arm)

[@olioelnacho8935]

Great video as always keep it up! Its fun how controllers can be a VERY interesting subjects in many types of speedruns or anything competitive!

[@star_seraph]

This actually happened in fighting games recently! The community took the opposite opinion, now requiring software to restrict (clean) Simultaneous Opposite Cardinal Directions according to Evo Regulations.

[@TheGuilliaume]

The problem I see with melee in general is that many of these modified controllers are prohibitively expensive to acquire if you aren't able to do it yourself. So performance in the game comes down to having either A) money, or B) skills that are not at all related to gameplay itself. Maybe one might argue there's already an entry cost to the game by requiring the software/console/basic equipment in the first place, but those costs are incurred by anybody who wants to play the game, even casually. Further, if Gamecube controllers have variance, set standards for what is a good controller within those variances and allow controllers to be modified/crafted that fit that standard. But regular controllers don't have EZ-notches carved into them, no matter the variance. If it exists just to make something easier to do, that's cheating. As wise men once said, git gud.

[@timothypickarski5234]

I think the reason I’m generally cool with the price of controller mods in melee is because if you’re good enough at melee to need a controller mod, you’re good enough to beat 95% of people with a regular controller anyways.

[@BrunodeSouzaLino]

The variance is down to the electronic characteristics of potentiometers. High precision analog sticks don't exist and you're talking about a variance in resistance of up to +/- 20%. This is no different than entering the silicon lottery.

[@FortWhenTeaThyme]

The only mod that is expensive is firefox/wavedash notches. Notches are nice, but not even close to the most important mod. And actually yes, those notches can theoretically come about naturally.

[@marcar9marcar972]

@@FortWhenTeaThyme theoretically mean it can’t actually happen

[@FortWhenTeaThyme]

@@marcar9marcar972 That is not what theoretically means. Please use a dictionary.

[@drowsemary]

melee wavedash notches are a relatively new thing and are not necessary to wavedash on an oem controller like zigzag boosts in smk. you can wavedash right out the box, wavedash notches are specifically for max length wavedashes. just wanted to clear this up cuz i felt it wasnt expressed properly in the video

[@beanlegion8529]

Great video. To me it doesn’t matter wether it’s called an exploit/hack. What matters is that the community agrees on it and everyone is allowed to use it. And if an exploit seems to mess up the speed running landscape for a certain game, just ban it then.

[@backhdlp]

If the controller essentially modifies itself over time, then it is no kind of glitch, but more of a hardware weakness.

[@evilskunk1]

In my opinion, I feel that unless all players are playing the game as intended for standard competition, then it is cheating, simple at that. In a standard competition, all controllers should be standard and stock, in the same condition and be provided by the venue and inspected by the the judges to prevent discrepancies. All players should rely on skill alone not mechanical advantage of any kind. If a player happens to pull off one of those tricks with the approved and inspected controller then before any judging happens the controller in question should be inspected again to make sure it has not been switched out. If all is well, then the final score or time is valid, otherwise disqualified. If a player can pull off tricks without modification, then it's perfectly fair and reasonable. To practice for a competition, the participants should receive an inspected and approved controller from the venue. If players want to play with modified equipment then that should be a category of its own on who can build the best mods, not so much skill, being the player in question is using tools to do what is normally not possible. Mind you like I said, this is all just an opinion.

[@killaken2000]

i'd say it's cheating per the spirit of speedrunning IMO being based on mastering the game and it's mechanics in a pure unaltered manner. But i'd also say that it's not a knock against people that want to explore exploits or cheats. they should just have a separate leaderboard for players that want to do that. If the non-cheat/exploit leaderboard dries up because people aren't enjoying it or are getting bored then so be it. If it's cheating then it's cheating. Trying to dance around that fact is a waste of time.

[@wxbrainiac]

you dont speedrun the game who are you to talk dont tell them what they can and cant do with their speedrunning if you dont like it make your own website and leaderboards it isnt cheating in any sense because it happens naturally over time and some controllers dont even come with it

[@shapeshifterk]

the mario kart thing I see as basically a non-issue, all it does is equalize the playing field, that's it, any speedrunner who put in enough hours would eventually reach a point where they could perform the technique without ever opening a controller. it creates unnecessary advantage if banned and you have to get a new controller just to maintain consistency with everyone else which gets weird the longer you continue this path. the equalizer we have functions just fine.

[@user-rn7wf7ry4s]

the section on wavedashing is actually misleading. wavedashing is extremely easy to perform, its literally any diagonal angle into the ground. the problem is the wavedash length varies based on that angle, so the longest wasdash has a specific perfect angle that is almost parallel to a perfectly horizontal line, which is difficult to do intentionally.

[@Stimpys_Daddy]

What I'm taking from this is that I wasn't being irrational when I was blaming the games or controllers for doing things in the games that I didn't tell them to do. My anger was totally justified!

[@SHADOMEGA7569]

I feel anohter category should be made for those that want to explore and go further beyond without disturbing the natural balance of the other categories. while yes as you shown the Pro-NBT is more popular than Non-NBT which still gives the players that dont want to do it an advantage to still take records. The whole outright banning someone for a thing that happens by accident? that can easily be remedied with a controller cam and input display to avoid splicing. Overall the fact there are more ways to speedrun legit without it being TAS or Autofire stuff (im aware Autofire is irrelevant given we can tap nearly as fast as it can output... sometimes) is amazing which as mentioned allows players to go further beyond, the modding of a Gamecube controller as you listed are more for preservation or outright fixing issues like the snapback which has happened to me so many times on various controllers that I would definitely utilize a modification to fix it. Do i think modded controllers are cheating? well yes and no, if modded to preserve the controllers life and function then no, if modded to enable macros to auto input multiple inputs like a TAS bot would do then yes as it allows a non skilled action to surpass someone who otherwise would have the skill to pull it off (or close to it)

[@talullah1065]

i don't think there is a single speed game that allows macros, why even bring up macros? most speedrun categories don't even allow for turbo to be used.

[@SHADOMEGA7569]

@@talullah1065 if the modded controller enables the use of macros then yes it would be considered cheating. That was the reason I brought it up

[@lipsontajgordongrunk4328]

There’s a category for this it’s called TAS. Tool Assisted Speedrun. If you can’t recreate the run without needing external assistance whether it’s software or hardware that’s a TAS.

[@nathan-tx9nx]

hey abyssoft! nice video, just one clarification, wavedashing more than a glitch should be considered emergent gameplay (Emergent gameplay refers to complex situations that emerge from the interaction of relatively simple game mechanics.) because the movement requiered to perform a wavedash isnt cause of a glitch, rather the use of intended mechanics to give a unintended result...

[@Abyssoft]

I never thought to classify wave dashing in melee as emergent gameplay, that's an interesting idea.

[@N12015]

If it causes an unintended result then it's a glitch... that being said it improves gameplay, at least according to melee players, and it's still a very strict excecution just like that frame perfect turn around.

[@leihau]

@@N12015 really it's not

[@saltyralts]

@@N12015 No, that's an exploit.

[@Celia_Dawn]

@@N12015 There's no unintended behavior, though. Air dodges giving you momentum is intended, aerial momentum being preserved as you land is intended, and becoming actionable after landing with an air dodge is intentional.

[@scottnrick]

I don't really feel like these are glitches. As long as everyone has knowledge about it. If you are able to break the game, break it. People work hard to try and move the game as fast as possible.

[@DMC-octu]

Good and balanced video! I'm definitely in favour of new categories in these situations. Beyond the money aspect I'd consider even a mod to make a technique more consistent equivalent to a glitch, as it's not intended (ease of) behaviour. Equally in a world with glitch runs and TAS it'd be weird to exclude hardware mods altogether. Different categories mean everyone has something. As for having to chuck out old records or perform disqualifications for mistakes - that's just life. Happens all the time for sports, ever seen the Tour de France or an average Olympics? Difference is that there'd be ethical considerations for sports that allowed doping in a way that doesn't apply to speedrunning with glitches/mods.

[@sabre0smile]

The fact that controllers wore into that state on their own is what clinched it for me personally. Up to that point I'd have personally considered it a glitch, but at that point it's just up in the air as to whether your controller is banjaxed in the right way or not...

[@DavidWonn]

The allowance of modified controllers within the community is just one of the reasons why I gave up on SMK. Once you open Pandora's box, you can't close it.

[@Abyssoft]

I see both sides having valid points, although I do think allowing modifications can lead to more suspect or dubious decisions down the road, I think it was the right decision in this case.

[@Lord_Dranek]

In SF combos were considered a glitch because that is not what the Dev's intended to happen. Now days we have things like Kara canceling, Plinking, wave dashing in Marvel vs games and all MvC 2 glitches Etc. It's funny you would compare wave dashing to controller modification, one wasn't intended to be part of the game while the other is modifying the hardware for the game or using non official hardware. I wouldn't consider wave dashing to be in the same category when you can do this without modifying your controller, but the other things like you pointed out I would. Great Vid!.

[@x9x9x9x9x9]

As a melee player I love controller modding Hell its something I do for fun and my controllers are modded with snap back mods and trigger plugs. But I honestly think we have gone to far in allowing boxes, notches, custom springs, etc. I think snap back mods are fine or just update UCF to work better. But notches and boxes I personally believe are a step too far. A box is basically a macro pad once you consider what the modifier buttons do. So why is that fine but if I program a button to do shine+short hop different? I will say I am not super anti-box or anything and I am welcome to debate on this but from my limited knowledge on the subject I think we should just go back to controllers and UCF. Yeah I know I could watch Hax's videos on the subject but his voice puts me to sleep. Plus he doesn;t even try to break things down for simple understanding.

[@GetNinged]

i love the random things the gaming community can figure out in every single game

[@morganlak4337]

"Wavedashing has revolutionized competitive play allowing for greater depth in movement" >shows a sheik chaingrab clip thats 80% walking, 20% ledge camping lmao good video tho

[@CaptainCiph3r]

I view it much the same way as USPSA Handgun competition, once it reaches a certain tier of competency with the competitors, the only way upwards is equipment. The competition becomes less about improving skills and more about finding the right combination of mods to push your speed up just enough to win.