Hey everyone! We made some discoveries recently about the games timer and I would like to get a friendly and open discussion going on how we should time this game, at least for PC. Note I'm not a moderator, just trying to kickstart the conversation so everyone can express their point of view in an equal way.
Recently it was discovered that the IGT is paused while in the inventory. At this point, I feel like this is a great chance to switch to RTA, at least for PC.
Edit: It's also important to note that cutscenes add to IGT. So this game appears to be the exact opposite of previous titles. Menus = pauses time (inventory, the duke etc) - cutscenes = IGT roll. WTF?
Its always made sense why the RE series has used IGT, but as time goes on it makes more sense to use RTA for quite a few reasons.
Just to quickly put out my thoughts:
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Time spent menuing in the inventory absolutely should be counted against the runner. It's a huge part of the skillset to be good at this series in terms of times. The fact it isn't in the IGT is pretty ridiculous, let's be real. You could stop reading my other points here, this is reason enough imho. But there's more :P
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Less drama and less rules. The moderator team will not have to keep tabs on how long someone is in their inventory, speeding up approval times. Runs won't be rejected because someone is arguably taking too long.
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The IGT can be easily manipulated and cheated, even when using a tool such as the SRT or autosplitter.
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RTA with load removal will make the game more of a leveled playing field and there won't be any slight discrepancies because of hardware differences.
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Doing it this way makes it cleaner to create sub-categories that might skip intros (I'm not intending to open that can of worms directly, but @uhTrance did bring this up)
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Capcom has been kinda dropping the ball with their timers the last few releases, starting with 7 (which doesn't even have a real IGT in memory, technically, and I wonder if VIL is the same). Speedrunning is about beating the game as fast as possible, and in 3R the game is literally played in a slower real time to exploit their silly built in timers.
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I'm sure we could still pause the timer with cutscenes if people needed that, and that is a concern.
So please put in your thoughts as well. Any points you would like to make to reinforce this, or be against this. I feel like we should get it addressed as a community together earlier rather than later.
I know change sucks and IGT has been a staple, but with the wonkiness Capcom has had with the last few releases, I feel like this is a solid time to transition, personally.
Looking forward to seeing everyone's thoughts. Please keep it as cordial as possible, even if you find disagreement with others.
I think my only worry here would be player accessibility. Such as having to drop money on an SSD for viable times.
I haven't finished Village yet, how often/bad are the load times? Either way, I'm down with writing load removal but that doesn't really help for console.
I'd support loadless RTA 100% in light of IGT freezing in menus. Loadless (or load remover, if that name is more familiar to you) removes the pay-to-win aspect of RTA (a lot of it, anyway). I'm indifferent on stopping time in cutscenes; hopefully this doesn't have the issues 3R had with time bleeding into them.
It's really a shame that Capcom can't manage to be consistent with their IGT workings.
For consoles, at least the variables are small: stock HDD vs SSD and base vs pro (using PS4 as example). TBH, I wouldn't do any more than a variable for SSD vs HDD because, as much as I hate going down this road of argument, SSDs aren't terribly expensive and are a worthwhile investment for speedrunners, and people can use the variable to sort times by storage type of desired. For base vs pro, I'm indifferent on the separation type (category or variable).
On the PC side, at some point you've just got to accept that running a modern game on a 10 year old PC won't be viable. Loadless does help with this, thankfully.
Just to chime in with my support of this idea, but (of course) contingent on timer still pausing for cutscenes, and definite load removal to make sure everyone's on an even playing field.
SH4 is my go-to example of a game where most cutscenes eat IGT, and you have to memorize how many times to skip cutscenes and exactly when to avoid losing any precious seconds because you didn't skip quick enough. It's hella annoying.
Edit: Would also still like the ability to pause the timer for the escape menu for the sake of bathroom breaks, although I don't know how possible that'll be in an Autosplitter given the coding of Village's IGT.
As far as I've gotten into the game the loading times really aren't bad. I do definitely understand that running a modern game on a "10 year old" PC won't be viable. I am just pro-accessibility for anyone interested in running a game, that said a $50 SSD isn't too bad.
As much as I love IGT i agree with changing to RTA just for the inventory. RE7 had a huge amount of inventory optimisation, and while Village doesn't have the same inventory system it still should be required to do fast menuing in a speedrun (as terrible as I am at it)
I agree with your whole post. Not the biggest fan of rta but in this scenario I think it's necassary to time in rta with load and cutscene removal to prevent it from being a bad run lol.
Update - @captain_ezekiel also pointed out that some cutscenes DO count for IGT, and others don't. I updated the original post to include this.
I'm glad people are receptive to this so far!
to chime in, and piggyback off of what @CursedToast mentioned.
i will correct what i've noticed, which is that some cutscenes apply to IGT. the correction is that ALL cutscenes apply to IGT.
in the same vein, being in the inventory, key item inventory and the Duke shop does NOT count towards IGT. basically, things are reversed from what they normally are.
i am in favor of RTA and load removals to address these issues, as the IGT is going to fluctuate wildly as it currently stands.
For me, the solution has to provide a balance of both consistency and accessibility. I hate the idea that menu mechanics are considered part of a speedrun so I wouldn't be too fussed if the IGT paused in the inventory, but that's just my personal bias. The larger issue for me is the inconsistency between in-game timers across the board, those wild differences just make for a poorly optimised run experience and that is inevitably going to lead to repetitive questions around the timer and whether it should be doing what it's doing.
I've no bad feeling towards RTA if that's our solution, as long as load removals are included as has already been stated numerous times then we'll keep our consistency in check and accessibility becomes a non-issue to people approaching the run with low-end or aging hardware.
Great post Toast, thanks for opening this dialogue.
I think this confirms it just uses 7's method for timing then, @hntd187 7 didn't have an actual IGT in memory, it just did some calculations to calculate IGT whenever you paused, died, or finished the game.
I theorized beforehand that they would build VIL off the RE7 "branch". Unfortunately that seems to be the case.
That would explain a lot, I never looked at the internals of re7. I wouldn't call it a branch, but likely created by the same team that made re7 thus the design choices.
RTA makes sense here and is just generally the better option.
Runners should be timed on all menuing, organising, key item using, everything. There is a lot of room for error and a lot of room for route customization like RE4 given the varying weapons to be picked up, items to be used and upgrades or items to be bought.
Its a shame about the way the timer works, but if we can bottom out a standard setup for it, so use RTA with load removers. Hopefully we can figure out how the timer actually works.
I think RTA would be fine with console also. Maybe have it start at the New game/difficulty screen and end at the start of the final cut scene after the last boss fight.
