Pinball Arcade Speedruns

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I'll do a few on my stream today, have fun guys!

Created another thread with basically the same purpose without your added features.

Here are my current times:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TrjwnyyBfpDArtRYLL0tti5CLpF5KZ6x1ON1NzsTTQI/edit#gid=0

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Dr. Dude Super Dude I made while doing a game request on stream. Just getting the ball rolling for scores and times.

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Maximum bonus on centaur, does this mean 79,000, or 5x + 79,000?

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I hope I brought you a few new speed runners, btw can we modify the rules to have start time be at plunge and not at start? I feel perhaps there might be variation in time start that way due to processor speed/platform. Its ultimately up to you, but I feel its a decent proposal. Keep on flippin' guys!

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I'm unsure of this but I felt it probably could be an issue. For the most part I feel you are avoiding the skill shot but attempting a short plunge regardless. Even then you will just restart if you are looking for a certain plunge and it's a null point anyways.

Voof said:

I'm unsure of this but I felt it probably could be an issue. For the most part I feel you are avoiding the skill shot but attempting a short plunge regardless. Even then you will just restart if you are looking for a certain plunge and it's a null point anyways.

Click to expand...

YAY I CAN POST!

Also most people start timers from first interaction with a game. With this being a multi-game... game, the ideal solution would be to start timers from the moment you hit start. Having it be at plunge could be huge for a score goal run since I can knock out a couple seconds by lining up the perfect shot right at the beginning. The difference between start and ability to interact with the table on any system in minimal (sub 2 seconds for most)

I also feel that there should be some clarification in the rules for Season runs. Do you need to have proof that I hit the score goal by having it show on the screen? Do I need to drain the ball for that proof? Can we just assume that the instant I hit a jackpot for X points to put me over the score I can just exit and back out? Some tables have extremely long periods where the score flat out does not show on the display and therefore there would be no proof unless you watch a video that a score was hit. Something like Addams Family - Someone could theoretically back out if they did Cousin It and Mamushka, got say 10 mill each on those, and a few million plus + swamp bonuses. In 30 seconds they could easily hit that score theoretically but would need to drain the ball for the two modes points to actually go into the score. Xenon - Exit thing on the left that I don't know what it's called. I can see I'm at 220k, hit it for 50k, immediately exit since I know I hit the goal or do I have to wait for ball to fully exit? Any table getting a jackpot - If I know jackpot puts me over, do I need to wait for it to finish going through animation for awarding or is it safe to exit?

I ask this because as an SRL admin I ran into things I thought were trivial in 3 other games but found out it makes a huge difference

PS: HI VOOF

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Being completely unaware of that you can remove my times and I'll re-run it when I get home. It made sense but since I didn't see it (and with prior speed running experience) I assumed it was as soon as you hit the goal you quit out and moved on.

Edit: in Re: the start point should be either pressing the start button (so long as there isn't much of a difference between console and pc for load time) or the instant you can interact with the table. SRL uses pressing start, but with how this game runs it might be something to consider and possibly test. I know me and voof have all the tables on ps4 and the longest I think I've waited was on safecrackers which pushes 10 seconds, but I think that's mechanics.

[MENTION=5839]proco[/MENTION]

I'd also like to give my 2 cents for some of the rules since they seem very pointless or otherwise serve minimal purpose:

1) Don’t pause the run. This would make the time inaccurate.
This is incredibly pointless or vague. This should probably read "Do not pause the timer" since pausing in game would negatively impact a speed run as the timer isn't stopping. If I couldn't remember the amount of points needed for a run and I need to pause I'm just hurting my own time.

2) Start the timer when you have pressed the button and the screen changes to the first table.
Split when you have pressed the button and the screen changes from the point summary to the next table.
Stop the timer when you have pressed the button and the screen changes from the point summary to the main menu.

The first part of this seems redundant. You're asking people if they would want to restart a run to completely back out of a table and reload it, all the while the timer is already going? Why not make the start point pressing start (like every other table-specific goal is), then after that the timer's going while changing tables. It also has the word AND which can throw people off.
Second part (and 3rd part): Splitting should be once a table is completed, once the score shows up. That would also make the stop timer be once the final results are shown. It saves extra button presses to back out of a table for really no reason and for people that are playing on PS4, their hands aren't on their PC to split usually so asking them to mash a button and get ready to stop a timer vs waiting for the bonus/replay thing at the end of a table to run while their hand is on the split/stop would be easier and result in more accurate times. Typical speedrun timing has the end point where there is no further input required to reach a goal (in this case the game over screen but we can stretch that to the leaderboard screen).


3) You are not allowed to exit the table while playing. You can only retry after you have finished the game.

Are you playing this like real-world tables? They flip the power switch on real world tables to start over all the time. It's a built in game mechanic that should be used if you know a run on say table 9 of 10 is going to suck due to an early drained ball. Maybe you can salvage it with the remaining ones but that's up to you to decide.

4) Split time for Season challenges:

You have it set up as simply put "when you are back on the main menu." This would go back to my previous point of when to stop a run. I can have a free hand and have my attention ready to go for a split while I'm waiting for a game over screen to show up, but trying to navigate the many tables in the game and not overshoot while making sure I split properly seems harsh. Splits should be once the table is complete (aka leaderboard or game over score) so that it can be split WHILE the main menu is loading. Again, going back to many other games, splits are usually done when no further input is needed to achieve the end goal, game over, or credits screen.

Feel free to chime in, I'm using my experience in speedrunning to try and make this as simple as possible and also more enjoyable to do for those of us focusing on season goals vs individual tables

You don't even have to flip the power switch on a real table to restart, just press and hold the start button after ball 1 (otherwise it will just add another player).

Really? I didn't even know that. I LEARNED SOMETHING TODAY

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From a speedrunning standpoint if you're resetting you're not gonna break a record. In my run I reset 4 times on safecracker i think just because that score seemed sooooo high and out of place compared to the rest. I'd say let as many resets go simply with the exception of challenge one since that's a separate category with it already being an actual challenge. Again, by you pausing or resetting you're only hurting your own time, and in this case it's not like we're comparing season 1 challenge to the other ones.

Personally I'd keep it where built into the game challenges have their own setup for rules regarding resets since they do have limited chances (and it seems like the goals are significantly easier) and for these alphabetical ones where there is nothing in the game (why I don't know) leave it classic speedrun style. If I can get that time under 50 minutes you won't be resetting more than 3 times anyway, but if someone just wants to get a time for the run submitted for the sake of bettering themselves it's there.

EDIT: Something else I noticed. Most of the goals are 1/2 of the replay/extra ball goal, but Cyclone is less than that. My Extra Ball is always at 2 million points, but the goal is only 750k. Going to start running that as a goal instead of 750k. If you feel it should be 750k I'll revert back, but I guess any runs between now and a reply will be based on 1 million and might just hurt my self a bit

So I got a dumb question regarding my Season 1 challenge run. I was going onto Party Monsters I think (it was about 50 minutes into the run) and the PS4 decided to glitch out and crash forcing me to relaunch the game. I paused my timer after about 10 seconds, got to the same screen I was at, and continued the run. This basically cost me 10 seconds due to technical glitch but otherwise no progress was lost or earned from this. It will be on my stream and I'll highlight it once I'm able to just to show that even in real time this only cost me a minute or so, but should this null out my run?