I see a lot of places where pausing is not allowed, and funnily, in long speedruns for examples runners have to run to the bathroom in a cutscene. I also remember seeing a Super Mario 64 or Luigis Mansion highlight where the dude was on a good time, and he had to open a door for his roommate, or something similiar.
I would say pausing should be more allowed, what do you guys think?
No, that's not a good idea. Pausing a game and timer to take a break might be nice, but you never know when the game is still doing things in the background (loading future content, calculating AI, continuing to roll the RNG or ticking down a timer). Interruptions are unfortunate, but a part of pulling off a speedrun is the ability to maintain focus from beginning to end of a game. That's what the time of a speedrun is capturing.
Pausing the timer isn’t allowed because then it turns the run into a Time Attack instead of a Real Time Attack. The latter is the commonly accepted timing format for doing runs, I don’t know of many communities that allow TA, RTA has been prominent for a while now.
Even for long runs, you just get used to it and find time to stretch, eat, etc. For extremely long runs, most people might step away for a while, but they still keep the timer running.
I guess we should also change it so that all participants need to stop if someone wants to take a break during a race, huh?
RTA means start to finish. Communities can do whatever they want if something is obnoxiously long but unless you reclassify the timing to TA (time attack, meaning only unpaused game time progresses the counter) then you're not timing correctly.
For marathon-esque categories, I like the idea of having two instances of livesplit open, one with your splits and a pause hotkey, another one with the same start/hotkey and a layout without splits, so you can have both times, Real Time Attack and Real Time Attack - pauses with spits that are easier to compare with runners who took breaks at different times. For games that are up to 6 hours, you shouldn't need breaks, other than the ones the game provides in form of cutscenes. If the game doesn't have cutscenes or similar break points, then having the self-control over your body and having planned ahead, so you actually don't get distracted during your run, is part of the skills required for that run, like mentioned by @ZenicReverie above. For example I'm currently sitting here, having had most of my daily required hydration in a short time, waiting for the eventual restroom breaks to happen, so I can spend the rest of the day focusing on Pokemon Emerald.
TA != segmented, don’t get them confused.
Segmented runs involve splitting the run into segments, usually based around save points and doing each segment a lot until you get a time you’re happy with for that segment. Then you repeat for each segment.
In a TA you can’t pause the timer and retry a portion of the run, if you stop the timer you stop playing and when you resume it’s from that same point.
There's one instance where it's 100% okay -- console games with a reliable in-game timer. If you have an unexpected load screen (say, a death), you pause the timer during that load screen so it doesn't count in your splits (which are unofficial anyway if the game has a reliable in-game timer).
Sadly, a lot of pc games pause the timer for loads, I disagree with this, because this is not an RTA, the argument that people do this for fairness is not an argument to say it's still an RTA, the real time may still be calculated, but if you're not counting the real time it takes the player from start to finish, then that timing is incorrect, and no longer RTA. Loads should be included, it doesn't matter if they vary, it's part of the game.
^ Loads are removed so everyone's on a level playing field. Why should people with top-end machines be given an automatic advantage?
No? Load times are just unfair advantages, even when using the same consoles sometimes since some consoles are just inconsistent. You literally can't do anything about it which basically creates a huge additional luck factor. When load times are removed, it also removes that luck factor, your basically still doing RTA since your still not allowed to manually pause the timer and just do whatever you want while its paused (which would be TA)
Correct @zefferss, that would not be RTA. That would be IGT (In Game Time). If a game has reliable IGT, I don't know why you would want the board to be RTA.
Loads exist even in console games. If it were easy we would time all runs without loads. RTA is just a convenient timing method but IGT tracked by community agreed upon rules is fine. You just have to test the timer for accuracy since a lot of them don't track menu time or slow down the time to "IG-IGT" i.e. Sleeping Dogs slows down the in-game timer when you go into slow mode and doesn't increment when in menu.
If you think RTA should be the primary timing method in PC runs where loads can be timed out...hahaha
There's a game I run called Escape Room, in roblox, and between each room you have to pause the timer, since there's a massive loading screen as you go back to the lobby and pick the next room, etc, etc, and it's not a test of how fast you can walk to an area and click something, especially as load times may vary on worse computers.
I think IGT is generally the best timing method but there can be games where RTA would be a better timing method such as you mentioned for RE0. IGT I think becomes more appropriate with large load variance (I'm inclined to believe that a lot of Wiis have at least a fair amount of load variance).
If RTA can accurately reflect the skill of the players nearly the same as IGT I think it's fine to use. I'm inclined to IGT as a PC speedrunner because it tends to create a more level playing field. There's definitely a time for RTA but in general I think IGT will usually be a fairer timing method.
Reminder you can always retime after a run. That, or if you submit a run, it's on the mods to make sure the time is accurate
Pausing a timer is fine as long as you add on the paused time to your run time.
But at that point you might as well just let the timer run instead of pausing.
I'd pause the game if I had to, but not the timer. This is why it's recommended to use unskippable cutscenes for toilet breaks or rustling up a snack.