github.com/hzck/speedroute@v0.0.0-20201115191102-403b7d0e443f/old-public/about.html (about) 1 <!DOCTYPE html> 2 <html ng-app="speedrunRouting"> 3 <head> 4 <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="css/bootstrap.min.css" /> 5 <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="css/vis.min.css" /> 6 <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="css/speedroute.css" /> 7 <script type="text/javascript" src="js/vis.min.js"></script> 8 <script type="text/javascript" src="js/angular.min.js"></script> 9 <script type="text/javascript" src="js/angular-animate.min.js"></script> 10 <script type="text/javascript" src="js/angular-touch.min.js"></script> 11 <script type="text/javascript" src="js/angular-vis.js"></script> 12 <script type="text/javascript" src="js/ui-bootstrap-tpls-2.0.2.min.js"></script> 13 <script type="text/javascript" src="js/speedroute.js"></script> 14 </head> 15 <body> 16 <div ng-include="'header.html'"></div> 17 <div class="container"> 18 <div class="col-sm-8"> 19 <h2>Vision</h2> 20 <p><a href="/">Speedroute</a> should be the number one tool that speedrunners go to for collaborating and routing their games. It should provide an easy-to-use GUI to model the requirements and duration for different parts of the games, and then give fast and correct results when calculating the best possible routes. It should collect all relevant information in one place, replacing pastebins, excel sheets and long forum threads containing tricks which has been found, forgotten and rediscovered over time.</p> 21 <h2>Why?</h2> 22 <p>When following big speedrunning scenes it's amazing how much is discovered in the community. There are major glitches that are gamechanging that hardly anyone can miss, even if they just hang out on for instance <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/speedrun">/r/speedrun</a>. There are minor glitches that maybe can be used in some categories but not all, but might still have an impact. And there are things that might not be usable at all, just cool things that someone stumbles upon.</p> 23 <p>These discoveries end up in forum posts, discord channels, pastebins and twitter. Some are shared on facebook and reddit. Other end up on wiki pages or youtube or twitch highlights. And that's <em>good</em>! It's really, really good to spread everything to friends (and competitors) so everyone can pitch in and collaborate on how to best use the new discoveries. The problem is that you have to be there. It's hard to come in afterwards and to try and dig up all that information. Some of it will be outdated. And if you are in the loop and hear something that isn't useful for any of the current routes, it gets forgotten as quickly as it got found. What will happen if that trick is useful in a future route?</p> 24 <h2>How do I improve a speedrun route?</h2> 25 <p>With deep knowledge about the game, mechanics and glitches, and the current route. You analyze the weak parts to look for minor improvements. You test different execution orders. You might start from the beginning and re-do the whole run. Major or minor changes, it really doesn't matter. You still need to know a lot to make the changes.</p> 26 <p>Only a handful of people in each community (depending on size of course) can keep track of everything and has the knowledge needed to improve a route. This creates a barrier for new players that might want to try different things out but are unable to see what type of impact their changes will bring. They need to collect too much information before they can contribute. It's also the issue with rediscoveries, when players find a new glitch which was discovered years ago but was unusable back then so it got forgotten.</p> 27 <h2>Enter Speedroute</h2> 28 <p>What if we can store each different path of the game we have tried out? Even if it's good or bad, usable or not? With data on how long it takes and what items are required to do it? Over time we will create a (possibly) huge graph with many different paths the player can take. Most of them will be bad. But even a slow start might end up being the faster route because you prepare for later stages of the game.</p> 29 <p>The human mind is amazing, but we should focus on what we do best. Finding new strategies and trying out new things. Using game mechanics in interesting ways. But let the computer do what it does best. Storing information and calculating. Processing thousands of paths in milliseconds. The computer will have a hard time figuring out that certain parts of games are skippable. But as soon as it has that data it will be able to calculate which parts should be skipped much faster than any human would.</p> 30 <h2>It's cheating</h2> 31 <p>Speedroute is not doing anything you can't do yourself. <em>You</em> will have to come up with all the ideas. <em>You</em> will have to time them. <em>You</em> will have to model the graph to say which items are required when and where. It's no different from creating an excel sheet, only that when you are done you can press a button and the computer will do the tedious work of calculating the best possible route. The satisfaction of figuring something new out will still be yours.</p> 32 <p>There are some of you who really like to do the calculating work yourselves, and I understand that. Kudos to you. But for everyone else, Speedroute can be a great tool with both collaborating and finding the route so that players can get back into grinding for that WR.</p> 33 <h2>Contact</h2> 34 <p>If you have anything you want to ask, complain about or suggest, please contact me on <a href="mailto:admin@speedroute.xyz">admin@speedroute.xyz</a>. I also created a <a href="https://discord.gg/cDTkB7X">discord</a> server. If you want, you will also find me on <a href="https://twitter.com/hzck_">Twitter</a> and #speedroute.xyz on irc.speedrunslive.com. The code can be found on <a href="https://github.com/hzck/speedroute">GitHub</a>, if you're curious or want to collaborate.</p> 35 </div> 36 </div> 37 </body> 38 </html>