Sup fam! I've been testing framerate swapping extensively over the past several days and have decided to:
- Publish my findings for everyone's general knowledge
- Bring to light that framerate swapping goes against what RTA should account for.
- Propose a better solution that keeps things interesting, and most importantly, FAIR!
With that being said, here are my findings.
Looks like right now there's at least 14 instances where framerate swapping either gives you some degree of timesave (anywhere from 0.1 - 2.0 seconds in most cases), or makes running by an enemy slightly more consistent. I still have some more testing to do as I think there may even be 1 or 2 other spots where it works. The last one in Factory can be done multiple times, hence where I came up with 14 instances. Here's the ones I have confirmed so far:
- Lycan Siege (where you fight Urias)
- Castle Main Hall (after getting Courtyard key and Cassandra appears)
- Distillery (aka Blood Basement)
- Dungeon (after Ethan's right hand comes off)
- Castle Upstairs Main Hall (after killing Cassandra)
- Castle Side Hall (after rooftops)
- Village Trail (after Beneviento Manor)
- Stronghold (before going down the long staircase to Urias)
- Factory (after escaping The Sturm the first time)
- Factory (2nd heavily armored soldat after crafting Heisenberg's key)
- Factory (pretty much any time enemies are on the other side of a door (I found at least 4 times in a single run where this can work)
In each instance, it takes roughly 10-12 seconds to swap fps from 120 > 30, and then back to 120 after the manip is done. However, that time is not counted with the current timing method. I have heard that many people are indifferent because RE7 contained a few instances of framerate swapping, but I would like to present some counter-arguments to this logic.
-RE7 does not use RTA for PC speedruns. Village does. -RE7 only has a few instances. Village contains AT LEAST 14 as of now. -Many of us already agree that menuing is a skill and 100% affects the route as a whole. Changing the framerate this excessively without penalty completely removes a menuing component from the game, and is frankly an abuse of CursedToast's timing method, which is intended to be RTA.
I am proposing a slightly revised timing method that simply includes menuing in the settings as part of the RTA Loadless method to deter framerate swapping from being abused. CursedToast has already informed me that excessive framerate swapping is NOT the way he intended the timer to be used.
A couple of important key facts:
-This proposed new timing method DOES NOT affect any other strats in a significant way. For example, Restart Checkpoint skips still work under this method, as restarting the area will prompt a load, which stops the timer as it normally would under RTA Loadless.
-There are 2 potential ways the timing method can be improved.
- The 1st is by simply removing the pause timer, which has already been tested and works 100%. Cutscenes still stop the timer, as does a pause during a cutscene, so there are still plenty of opportunities to take a break during the run.
- The 2nd way would be to see about finding a pointer specifically for the Options menu. CursedToast has committed to spending some time searching for it if the community would like to use the proposed new timing method. If a pointer was found, then simply pausing would stop the timer as normal, but going into Options and changing the framerate would cause the timer to resume. Worst case scenario, the 1st way is 100% functional and can be deployed almost immediately.
-My goal of this proposition is not to restrict the run by preventing a strat from being used... in fact I would like to think that by limiting the use of this strat, the door to many other strats would open instead of just pausing the game and timer to change settings. The reality is that if our timing method was truly RTA Loadless, then the time spent menuing to change settings would be included on the timer as well. As mentioned earlier, it takes 10-12 seconds RTA on average to perform a framerate swap from 120 to 30, then back to 120, and in most cases the area being manipulated isn't anywhere near 10-12 seconds of gameplay.
-It has been really awesome seeing how many people support RTA for Village. This proposition would bring TRUE RTA Loadless to Village, and prevent CursedToast's timer from being abused.
Would love to see what the community thinks, and I am happy to answer any questions to bring clarity to the community if it was necessary to vote on it before the boards go live on Friday.
Just to note, I'm personally neutral on this. Probably leaning more towards leaving it be, honestly.
Could I adjust the timer to roll during settings but not on pause? Probably. Do I want to? No. Do I have some bias because I'm used to RE7? Yup.
I have no horse in this race personally though.
Honestly, just be the better runner and don't do it. There's no other game (that I know of) that doesn't incorporate menuing in their runs to some degree. Cheesing the system that Toast made to shave a few seconds off your time isn't the best way to go about it, just take corners sharper, find a new route, or tighten up puzzle sections. Don't abuse a system that isn't even in the game, guy works hard enough.
Big ups to CursedToast, this guy is a hero.
so, i'll throw my hat in here because I have some extensive experience with FPS swapping in both 7 and 8.
to touch on the comparison to 7, off hand I can count we FPS swap about 5-6 times in NG+ for reasons similar to why we do them in 8, with a few exceptions (jack 3 quick kill, bugs on marguerite door, etc). we are able to do this because of the lack of IGT counting while in the pause menu. (also, fun fact - there is a 30 FPS swap we do in the revelations speedrun as well which operates in the same time-pausing manner.)
we are not abusing the timer provided by toast in RE7, and I'm confident we are not abusing the timer built by toast in 8.
The difference is that, Capcom gave us a very VERY poorly built timer in 8, and toast had to build something that made sense to get around it. even if he had not, we would be using IGT which STILL would not count towards us if we used the pause menu for FPS swapping. And in 7, this timer was built entirely differently, but it still paused while in the pause menu.
in regards to the time it takes to swap FPS, it may vary on confidence in the menu, but i time myself at about 4-6 seconds for each pause interaction, similar to the time i do it in RE7. i dont think it's adding as much time as we think, especially because as it currently stands, we swap FPS in juts a handful of places.
on that note, there are places where yes, you can swap to 30 FPS and get around something and save what may seem like .5 seconds, but it doesn't work that way. similar to 7, RE8 runs DRAMATICALLY slower when you operate on a lower FPS, and it taxes very fast. so, swapping 30 fps to walk around Lady D, as opposed to a side step bait, does not likely equate (this is purely juts an example).
i think this is a non issue, and counting time while people are in pause is only going to punish more people who are utilize and finding new pause buffer strats or retries.
TLDR; capcom gave us games that behave very awkwardly with FPS and more often than not, to the opposition of the player. FPS strats are what we use to combat that, and don't, in my opinion, water down the run in any way or negate the skill of the runner. RE7 uses it and the run remained healthy and competitive to this day. I do not think that 8 will be any different. I do not support unpausing the timer in the pause menu, it is unnecessary.
When a IGT work perfectly fine, its sure a different story you can tell, its a shame that the game himself at the moment is having so much fun of a nice experience in speedrun, but IGT lacking makes things a bit more P2W environment for hardware issues. i'm truly disappointed on the IGT as a speedrunner who use often IGT for other games.
I don't really see a reason to unpause the timer during FPS menus. I don't feel it's necessary to time it because it's not the same as if you were doing a menu in game to equip something or like when you have to examine items, like the animal skull. I don't think it was an issue in RE7 and I don't really see it being one here either.
it was either the RE2R rules or the 7 rules...this game has a lot more in common with 7 however so that just kind of happened. I dont think its a huge deal as long as the rules are fair. I personally would rather just play the game but i have kind of adapted
It was ok to use fps settings not in a game (120 in RE3/RE2), but swapping settings that actually exist in the game not good? Console pleb now so neutral :) IGT should be on console or accept time stamps in vidclip from twitch etc.
@Cure I mean, it's not like this is some PURE REAL TIME ATTACK ELITE SPEEDRUN COMMUNITY, or anything like that. We just want to eliminate the whole "pay to win" aspect of these modern titles, if possible. It's not like we don't care about Haze's points or anything like that, we just simply agree to disagree. Kinda weird that you would assume that we "don't care", or that this run isn't skillful or fun. Clearly you don't know a whole lot about it. You also don't plan on running it anyways soooo... I gotta admit, Chambers over here kinda hits the nail on the head as a response to your post here. Thought I'd just expand upon it further I guess lol
I think it's difficult to compare the FPS menu versus the other menus in the game.
Pauses on the item menus allow you to rearrange your items freely (for optimal swapping, attaching parts, etc) and it's the same with Duke's menu since as money routing becomes more tight and you're finding RNG items from crates you could sit there and work out your money/ammo in Duke's shop with all the time in the world if it paused there.
Both of these allow for some serious, free downtime in the run for the player, whereas the FPS menu that isn't really the case. It's easier to spot if someone's camping the FPS menu, whereas more difficult when it comes to the item menu and/or Duke's shop.
i may be confused... but the top runners right now, i checked a few in NG+ and glitchless, and their livesplit pauses when they pause to switch to 30fps, then back to 120fps. meaning apart from fractions of fractions of a second (talking like the total ms of latency between the difference in fps back and fourth + any slowdown in AI action, like getting by enemies easier. that being said, not only is it not a substantial amount of time, but being able to consistently do that and get by the enemy is a time save, but its skill based because if you get stuck by enemy or grabbed before switching back to 120fps, you will then lose extra time due to the settings change...
To me i think the current system is one to stick with, as even Toast said above. Not to mention the precedent for switching framerate during a run, regardless of timer, has been set with RE2 remake. people would up their FPS and even lower render quality to max 120 solid during birkin fights. it is not something that the running community had control over then, and nor do we now. the devs made the game that way, and our precedence for what rules and regulations to set based on that should stay the same, if not be tweaked, possibly.
again, im new to speedrunning and re3R was my first ever game to run, and since ive only ran OG RE games. so I could be very wrong, and if i am let me know please. although, that is how i see the current situation.
No need yet to change the system as drasically as OP suggest. sry for any spelling errors, keyboard keys are super sensitive and doing double inputs
The main issue is that nearly all of the FPS changing skips aren't actually any faster, but they result in shorter times because the timer doesn't take into account how long it takes to change the FPS, which in many cases is more than the actual real time they're saving.
It takes less real time to get through or past those enemies without pausing by using weapons or baiting attacks or whatever than it does to pause, change fps, move past the obstacle, pause, go through the menus, change fps, but because the timer doesn't take that into account, they're basically free seconds off the time that are pretty much unearned.
Even with the baby skip, the time it takes to menu through the fps changes to do the "fast" skip is comparable to the skip where you go in the kitchen and bait out the lunge, but that's only because you're not timed on the menu, and in real time there's not really much of a time difference between the two.
So they aren't even "timesaves", they're just times where stopping the clock and going through the menu will save you the amount of time it would take were you to do something while the clock is running and it doesn't matter how long it takes you to menu, and depending on how you look at it, we're either being rewarded with faster times by pausing the clock and playing it safe or we're being punished for saving real time because we're not using pause.
