Need help speedrunning

[toph704]

Recently I've wanted to start speedrunning doom, but I can't find many resources out there giving good tips apart from the movement bible. If anyone can provide tips or links to helpful articles etc. I would greatly appreciate it :D

Also let me know if I posted this in the wrong place :o

[GoneAway]

If you need help understanding something, or have any questions, asking in #doom on the srl irc (irc.speedrunslive.com) is a good place. As far as helpful general things I'm not really sure. When I started I just played the game :P

[Ancalagon]

To do a good speedrun, exit the map as fast as possible.

[toph704]

Ancalagon said:

To do a good speedrun, exit the map as fast as possible.

Thanks, this helped heaps :D

[Li'l devil]

A word of advice:

Spoiler

git gud m8

[Grazza]

There have been some discussion threads in this forum that might be helpful:

https://www.doomworld.com/vb/doom-speed-demos/30335-learning-to-speedrun/ (general, but with a focus on speed-type categories)

https://www.doomworld.com/vb/doom-speed-demos/18995-what-makes-a-good-max/ (about Max categories)

[kuchitsu]

One interesting advice I got from Hitherto when I was just starting was to set mouse sensitivity to a relatively low value. This will help you to get rid of lighting fast turns that are common among novice speedrunners and often make demos ugly and uncomfortable to watch.

I think nowadays people care less about aesthetics and even some of the best speedrunners play with very high sensitivity and do crazy turns all the time... But that's not a good example for children.

[Dragonfly]

To better yourself as a speedrunner, watch many speedruns to pick up all the techniques they're using and already discovered optimal routes through a level. In addition to this, put in many hours of practice. Per level.

[Azuruish]

Heh... I remember when i just started that speedrun marathon, I cared about smooth movement in demos more than about time.
Nowadays i don't care neither smoothness, nor time. Just investigating a map, looking for some advantages, best infighting section if it UV-MAX and just do it.
After watching my demo i see where I've wasted some time. If it easy to rerecord then i rerecord it (for example Chillax map 22 on first attempt took 12:43, i found that if i rush then i could save some time). Nothing more.
Spending hours, weeks just to save 1-2 minutes is insane idea for me.

[MD922]

One of the main things to practice first is movement. If you really want to make some good demos, you're going to need to practice constantly using S40/50.

[baja blast rd.]

kuchitsu said:

One interesting advice I got from Hitherto when I was just starting was to set mouse sensitivity to a relatively low value. This will help you to get rid of lighting fast turns that are common among novice speedrunners and often make demos ugly and uncomfortable to watch.

I think nowadays people care less about aesthetics and even some of the best speedrunners play with very high sensitivity and do crazy turns all the time... But that's not a good example for children.

I am a "new speedrunner" too and I feel as if my demos are occasionally hideous, but my survival rate in tough maps and skill overall is just so much higher with high sensitivity. I have been running some of the smaller Ribbiks maps, however, which are quite difficult to move fluidly in.

There's certainly a lot of variation in aesthetics, I think. Ancalagon for example has "two modes": in short maxes his demos are often as pretty as anyone's, including 4shockblast's, with very fluid platforming and even those cool "backwards" movements where you have the route so well memorized you don't have to turn around to see where you are going. But in longer maxes his demos are often much cruder-looking, and since they so frequently involve BFG sweeping in maps with lots of health, they will often tank damage in certain places just because it doesn't even matter. We can contrast that to someone like Okupluk, who will go a lot slower and more fluidly but hardly take damage. TimeofDeath is sort of like a mix of both styles. :D

[ZeroMaster010]

Well there are a lot of different categories and WADs, so it could be helpful to know what you plan to do.

Also make sure to get your settings right, you don't want to start of with some bad habits. For example binding the turn left\right keys to somewhere close to your move forward\backward\ and strafe keys for SR50 could be useful. I was so used to holding shift for run\sprint from other games when I started so I never used the run always on option, I think it would be a small advantage to have run on (more comfortable in longer sessions), but at this point I just can't get used to not holding shift.

[j4rio]

kuchitsu said:

I think nowadays people care less about aesthetics and even some of the best speedrunners play with very high sensitivity and do crazy turns all the time... But that's not a good example for children.

Don't listen to this guy, sensitivity to the max all day long baby. Those turns are too precious to give up on them.

Why do I still not have "not smooth enough" title?

[PjSpartacus]

ZeroMaster010 said:

Well there are a lot of different categories and WADs, so it could be helpful to know what you plan to do.

Also make sure to get your settings right, you don't want to start of with some bad habits. For example binding the turn left\right keys to somewhere close to your move forward\backward\ and strafe keys for SR50 could be useful. I was so used to holding shift for run\sprint from other games when I started so I never used the run always on option, I think it would be a small advantage to have run on (more comfortable in longer sessions), but at this point I just can't get used to not holding shift.

I remember reading a text file where Qaatar revealed his key bindings and settings and just copied some of them. Do people actually use turn left\right on the keyboard? Isn't that what the mouse is for?
Sadly I never really did any research on settings but I watched hundreds of demos for years before attempting speedruns and I think that has helped me the most, other than practice.
I personally keep my mouse sensitivity very low for more control and accuracy, always keep run on, and use right click on my mouse for strafing (sr 50). I did see a significant improvement when I started copying others weapon keybindings. I use WASD for movement. Alt:SSG Q:Chaingun E:Rocket F:Plasma C:BFG. I'd love to hear others' settings. Has anyone ever created a post where speed runners share their settings?

[Ancalagon]

PjSpartacus said:

Do people actually use turn left\right on the keyboard? Isn't that what the mouse is for?

When you want to sr50, you want those keys close to your normal movement buttons. Unless you have one of those mice with a hundred buttons maybe?

[kuchitsu]

Hmm. I've always just dragged the mouse slowly. I admit it's not very comfortable though.

[PjSpartacus]

Ancalagon said:

When you want to sr50, you want those keys close to your normal movement buttons. Unless you have one of those mice with a hundred buttons maybe?

Hmm, when I sr50 and strafe running I hold W:move forward, A:strafe left, and strafe: right click on mouse. Are you saying you use the turn right/left buttons for sr50? Maybe, I'm just doing it completely wrong but I have no clue when someone would use turn right/left if they have a mouse.

[baja blast rd.]

Cool, that actually works. I thought I had to toggle strafe and hold down W+(A/D)+(turn key) all at the same time.

[GoneAway]

The newer prboom+ versions let you sr50 without using turn keys/mouse

[baja blast rd.]

Is taking advantage of that considered unsporting, or is it just something you acknowledge explicitly in the text, like using a HUD?

[Rayziik]

kraflab said:

The newer prboom+ versions let you sr50 without using turn keys/mouse

Are you talking about the "SR50 always on" option? AFAIK, that would make a demo TAS.

[GoneAway]

Rayzik said:

Are you talking about the "SR50 always on" option? AFAIK, that would make a demo TAS.

Not that one.
There is just an option where you can use forward/strafe/strafe on instead of the usual 4 key combo.

[GoneAway]

rdwpa said:

Is taking advantage of that considered unsporting, or is it just something you acknowledge explicitly in the text, like using a HUD?

There's a ton of stuff like that, and I don't think there's a consensus on anything. Other examples include the use of a mouse spinner/180 key (allowed by compet-n), exiting to the menu to change settings mid-run (e.g. for gliding), use of iddt. SR50 always on is definitely tas, as mentioned by Rayzik, because then the port is doing something instead of you. Using less keys can't really be considered tas, because you could just modify your inputs so that you had a key that was strafe on AND turn right, etc.

[Rayziik]

Ohhh that option. Forgot about that.

Also the 180* turn key is present in PrBoom+ too if you want to bind it to a different key to take advantage of it. I don't use it personally because I can't for the life of me orient myself properly after using it. Ends up costing me time because I have to sit there for a second to re-align my memorized layout to what I am seeing.

[ZeroMaster010]

PjSpartacus said:

I remember reading a text file where Qaatar revealed his key bindings and settings and just copied some of them. Do people actually use turn left\right on the keyboard? Isn't that what the mouse is for?
Sadly I never really did any research on settings but I watched hundreds of demos for years before attempting speedruns and I think that has helped me the most, other than practice.
I personally keep my mouse sensitivity very low for more control and accuracy, always keep run on, and use right click on my mouse for strafing (sr 50). I did see a significant improvement when I started copying others weapon keybindings. I use WASD for movement. Alt:SSG Q:Chaingun E:Rocket F:Plasma C:BFG. I'd love to hear others' settings. Has anyone ever created a post where speed runners share their settings?

Of course standard mouse turning can be used for SR50 as well, that was how I mostly did SR50 when I started out, but now I only use turn left\right keys which I have placed to make it as comftorable as possible to do. It is also pretty much required for certain tricks, like dead simple rocket jump or yellow key grab on map 14 of plutonia etc. A combination of keys for longer distances and mouse for shorter distances would probably be ideal, but for the longer runs that I do I am not sure if I would ever save time if I use SR50 for short distances because of increased chances of colliding with something.

Also regarding sensitivity, to me it feels like a higher sensitivity helps with movement, while a lower sensitivity will make sure I hit monsters more often. And there is no way I am stretching my finger to reach the BFG, so RL, plasma and BFG are also located closer to WASD.

[4shockblast]

I use standard strafe50, so I press forward, strafe, strafe on, and turn keys. Binding both a turn and strafe on to the same key is something that would be fine under Compet-N rules as far as I know, but I'm not sure that PrBoom+ has the limitation or if the three-button strafe50 works in any direction. If it does, then I wouldn't use it and I'd say it's coming a bit too close to TAS, but as Kraflab said, the rules for this aren't standardized. TBH, you do not need to press four buttons at the same time anyway as you can pre-hold strafe on before the other keys, so the advantages from this are quite limited.

[ZeroMaster010]

edit: I'll just remove what I said here and say I don't like the extra features prboom+ has for speedrunning.

[TimeOfDeath]

In doom.exe you can sr50 with one key if you set everything to the same key in default.cfg. 1-2 years ago I set 'turn right' and 'strafe on' to the same key and have been using that ever since. You can still sr50 left if you also drag the mouse.

[Andrea Rovenski]

ZeroMaster010 said:

edit: I'll just remove what I said here and say I don't like the extra features prboom+ has for speedrunning.

darn, i missed this juicy bit :(

[ZeroMaster010]

I learned that you can SR50 without needing to turn (feature in prboom+ as I understand it), just hold strafe on and strafe keys. I would say that is not ok for speedrunning, as you can go much further with the same idea (you need to draw a line somewhere), that was all.