I really like the nuance put in this video, as well as the call for decision on a community by community basis. However there are a couple of things that are still put weirdly to me and I have some questions about: 1) In the section about mashing as a competitive aspect you bring up the argument of games that rely heavily on text mashing which could give the runner an advantage, as well as a turbo controller being able to be considered a tool that assists the speedrun (aka tas). You then flip the argument and compare this to Portal 2. A game where you rebind your controls in order to be able to "mash" optimally. I don't really understand how this specific example would undo the argument of a turbo controller being a TAS thing as in Portal 2 it's just a game setting you change and you're not really using any additional tools (unless this change is not normally able to be made in-game which I don't know and if it isn't a normal thing then that somewhat invalidates the point I'm trying to make obviously) that aren't already in the game. 2) Near the end of the video you mention you're disappointed in the people arguing against the allowance of turbo in speedrunning as you say they're not open to even listen to the arguments of the other side. I found this quite funny because the way I first found out about this whole discussion in the first place was through a twitter user with a large audience posting a thread about why they think turbo should be allowed, in which they call everyone who would be against this idea for any reason whatsoever ableist (quote from the thread itself). I don't think it's quite fair to fully put the blame on the opposing side for this in that way because to me it seems very reasonable to get this type of reaction when you are meant with a thread that basically calls you a moron for even having your opinion, let alone speaking out for it. I don't want to say "but they did it first", but you can't deny that fully putting the blame on the other side is far from fair as well. Aside from this I definitely agree with every argument made tough, and especially the stress you put on not throwing your opinion out there if you don't really know what you're talking about.
to add onto this as much as it's true that there are a lot of dumb arguments coming from the contra side, I'm also so sick of seeing arguments like "oh imagine using a controller to save your hands how could we ever let someone do it" as they're at least equally annoying, uninformed and disrespectful towards the other side as the quotes you named in the video
While I am on the opposing side of all of this and have already stated my opinion on Twitter about it, this is well-made :) I can't say it changed my opinion but it was very clear and to the point!
At first I was trying to compare Turbo to the types of controllers used in competitive FPS gaming, but now I can't figure out whether it would be more atone to back buttons on a controller or a modded controller with macros. Either way, in speedrunning I do think it's more of a tool that makes the hobby more accessible to new players rather than a "cheat", and doesn't take away from the most skillful parts of the speedrun (game dependent or course, I don't know every speedrun). This video broke down the topic perfectly, really enjoyed your perspective.
I'm all for accessibility. The Melee/Smash community allows arcade-style box controllers, despite them possibly providing an advantage, because too many Fox mains are getting hand and wrist problems from the GameCube controllers. I don't see why speedrunning can't allow similar accomodations. Hell, I would love to see a segmented run leaderboard for longer categories like AM. I would love to run AM, but I literally cannot set aside 8-12 hours to do a run. The category is just inaccessible to me. Or rather, the LEADERBOARD is inaccessible, because as everyone will point out, I could always just do a segmented run and not submit it. Also, yeah, does anyone really care about mashing? Yes, it requires skill, but it's not a deep or interesting skill.
The game community knows their game better than everyone else.They have To take decisions by themselves. Personally, I think it depend on the speedgame. From an outside perspective, its nice to have more leniants rules so more people can try the categories.
I quite like this video, and I would like to talk about my own arguments but at the end of the day everyone is entitled to their own opinions: I think that accessibility usually works against Turbos, whilst it does help people health wise 99% of new speed runners won’t have hacked joycons and I would say that increases the barrier of entry if anything. That’s why for example version 1.3 was such a huge help for odyssey When you talk about health I understand this is iffy due to the personal nature but I think that is the point. If someone speed runs to the point where health issues may form usually turbo ing won’t fix them. Things like loss of sleep and eye degradation, obviously you can’t control those things I do understand some of the benefits but I think it hurts a community more in the long run especially if/when more cheating software is used in disguise as turboingw
I fell that an example of this that is already used is oot with tape on their controllers to get the exact inputs so turbo isn't to far off of that it is essentially modifying a controller.
I feel like turbo makes sense in a lot of scenarios where the playing field is equal for all and it's just an annoying task that everyone has to do. (Like jump cap farming) however, I do believe certain techniques ad to a higher skillceiling and that in those games it would be fair to separate the turbo runs from the no turbo runs. Like in the example of metroid dread, the technique shown in this video looks painful as all hell, but I also cant deny that someone who takes the time and risk to do that will have a faster time then someone who doesn't. Is it then fair for a person exposing their hands and health to danger to be put in the same category as those who get the same results without a fraction of the work? I'd rather see turbo be accepted as a separate run but have that become the main category tbh! Then we could truly see the human limit as well!
This is a "crab in the bucket mentality" - if I had to go through it, so do you; or alternatively, if I can't have my health back, no one can. But in actuality, the sooner something like this is implemented, the sooner even the veteran runners who did risk their health can continue to run without causing further injury (or if they did injure themselves to the point where they can't input spam like this, they may be able to participate again)
@@LC-hd5dc thanks for the reply and I agree, but does that mean we shouldn't let anyone do the original run and upload it to the leaderboard? While I personally would use turbo I can't stop to think that there are people out there who would rather do the run without it, but as you say if turbo gets implemented sooner rather than later maybe everyone will change their minds!
Tom makes a lot of really great points in this video. personally, i’m of the opinion that people shouldn’t have to consider their health when deciding to pick up a hobby-or having to worry about being ridiculed for prioritizing that health when they want to share their progress with the community. and the thing is, having those options of a break or turbo available doesn’t mean that people have to use it-if they’re set in their ways, nobody’s forcing them. but if having those options might help prevent a long-term injury, then who in the audience has the right to judge?
It's sad to see a lot of elitists hell bent on keeping speedrunning the most degenerate act man has come up with instead of making it more accessible and less damaging to their physical and mental health.
I agree completely that it should be a community basis, which is something I found annoying about the Twitter discussion because everyone was referring to different games with different experiences so at the end of the day it was a shouting match. An objective look should be given for the discussion and should be looked at individually for each game. I'm glad someone else picked up on the similarly between this discussion and the SMO AM break discussion, they both had striking similarities. And, like the AM break discussion, I'm painfully neutral in this debate. The comparison to Portal 2 is weak. Firstly, everything should be game-specific, and p2 allows scroll hopping because that's basically the only way to bunnyhop. Hell, scroll hopping has been a tradition for god knows how many years, it isn't "progressive" despite how it may look to an outsider. Portal 2 scroll hopping also has nothing to do with mashing a button, it's about timing an input as you hit the ground. Timing that input is simply easier because you can fire off 5 jumps in a single second with the scroll wheel. Banning scroll hopping would screw over **everyone**, not just people with hand issues because bhopping is dumb as hell without using the scroll wheel.
It is interesting as well how you didn't talk about Prop Flings where the core strat in that chamber is to scroll a lot to get like 50 jumps in the span of half a second. That's closer to the comparison you were trying to make from what I can tell. But even then its not like that exists for accessibility reasons, you just cannot do that with a regular keypress. I don't want to make it seem like I'm holding onto a small part of the video, its minor I just wanted to clear up some potential confusion. Creepygar's second point is really good so I won't repeat it. I think there are a lot of vocal people on both extremes of the argument at hand and that definitely makes this debate seem more aggressive than it has to be. All in all the video makes decent points. I think the debate is a lot more convoluted than it would appear on the surface, meaning discussion occurring on a surface level for all speedgames will not work. It has to be decided by individual communities. Speaking of that, you know where to go if you want to blow up the SMO community...
Hey Tom, I'm a former runner of Super Mario Odyssey and have been active in BTT ("spliced", if you will) and TAS communities for the game. I also interact daily with runners of multiple games you mentioned. I completely disagree with most your points and would like to see a response. Don't take this as a personal attack, just a critique (albeit a very harsh critique) on this video. 0:19 - I don't see any cons presented fairly in this video. Every "con" is refuted (and I'll refute them back; see below) and hardly even mentioned. 1:09 - Wrist and hand injury is a real concern, notably repetitive strain injury. However, with this argument you are ignoring the fact that other injury not caused by button mashing is much more common, including (but not limited to) the previously mentioned repetitive strain injury, chronic tendinopathy, myofascial pain, and compressive neuropathy (see Geoghegan and Wormald's letter to the editor from October 2018 - it should be noted that gaming-caused myofascial pain syndrome is disputed). If potential injury is the breaking point here, why do you speedrun at all? Why do you even play video games to begin with? Furthermore, this argument depends on the ignorance of runners. It's valid, but throughout the video you use this argument more generally, as if it applies to everyone. 1:33 & 1:52 - Alleviating the concern would be great! And thankfully, 2 out of 4 of the above injuries I mentioned are preventable - see Agrawal and Rajajeyakumar's review from March 2018 on preventing repetitive strain injury and Salillas and others' review from January 2014 on preventing repetition-caused tendinopathy. The ones that aren't preventable - myofascial pain syndrome (MFS) and compressive neuropathy - are irrelevant. Myofascial pain syndrome's correlation is disputed by Zapata and others in 2006, finding "[no] statistical correlation [between video game use] the presence of MFS". Furthermore, in studies that conclude that there is a correlation, MFS is connected to use of a mouse (not clicking the mouse - see Oh and others in 2013) and general video game controller use (see Sharan and others in 2014). Compressive neuropathy has only been found in radial, axillary, ulnar, and suprascapular nerves (see Thatte and Mansukhani's review from 2011) and has not been found in areas affected by button mashing. 2:10 to 3:28 - I won't address the toilet section because it's mostly irrelevant to the argument, is a whole other topic, and the thing it is meant to support was refusted in my 1:09 point. 3:44 - Really? I get this is a persuasive video, but telling people who disagree with you that their argument lacks any form of human empathy is extremely hypocritical, especially when you criticize other runners for doing the same thing at 8:12. 5:39 - What you're missing in this comparison is the fact that one is built into the game and one is using an external resource to benefit you. 7:27 - I'll respond to this claim with another claim in the same fashion: "Ostracizing over external controllers that break often and cost a lot of money isn't being inclusive - it's creating a clear divide in your community." As an ending statement, I'll say this. Tom, many points in your video go back to some nonexistent health problem. I haven't addressed most of them, just the ones that differ from the bunch. If you don't believe me, write down all the points in your video and your evidence. Every time it's backed up with protecting runners from health problems in the future, cross it off. See how many points you have left? Not many. Now, cross off all of the points that are refuted by my other counter-arguments. If there are any arguments left, put it in your response. Thank you. - Rhinozz
Honestly a really interesting and comprehensive look at the discussion
I really like the nuance put in this video, as well as the call for decision on a community by community basis. However there are a couple of things that are still put weirdly to me and I have some questions about:
1) In the section about mashing as a competitive aspect you bring up the argument of games that rely heavily on text mashing which could give the runner an advantage, as well as a turbo controller being able to be considered a tool that assists the speedrun (aka tas). You then flip the argument and compare this to Portal 2. A game where you rebind your controls in order to be able to "mash" optimally. I don't really understand how this specific example would undo the argument of a turbo controller being a TAS thing as in Portal 2 it's just a game setting you change and you're not really using any additional tools (unless this change is not normally able to be made in-game which I don't know and if it isn't a normal thing then that somewhat invalidates the point I'm trying to make obviously) that aren't already in the game.
2) Near the end of the video you mention you're disappointed in the people arguing against the allowance of turbo in speedrunning as you say they're not open to even listen to the arguments of the other side. I found this quite funny because the way I first found out about this whole discussion in the first place was through a twitter user with a large audience posting a thread about why they think turbo should be allowed, in which they call everyone who would be against this idea for any reason whatsoever ableist (quote from the thread itself). I don't think it's quite fair to fully put the blame on the opposing side for this in that way because to me it seems very reasonable to get this type of reaction when you are meant with a thread that basically calls you a moron for even having your opinion, let alone speaking out for it. I don't want to say "but they did it first", but you can't deny that fully putting the blame on the other side is far from fair as well.
Aside from this I definitely agree with every argument made tough, and especially the stress you put on not throwing your opinion out there if you don't really know what you're talking about.
to add onto this as much as it's true that there are a lot of dumb arguments coming from the contra side, I'm also so sick of seeing arguments like "oh imagine using a controller to save your hands how could we ever let someone do it" as they're at least equally annoying, uninformed and disrespectful towards the other side as the quotes you named in the video
Imagine using a fancy controller! Only nerds would dare do such a thing :P
Thanks for highlighting this topic.
While I am on the opposing side of all of this and have already stated my opinion on Twitter about it, this is well-made :) I can't say it changed my opinion but it was very clear and to the point!
7:20 i think a filter would be fine so you can look up the different ones if you want but you dont need a brand new one
At first I was trying to compare Turbo to the types of controllers used in competitive FPS gaming, but now I can't figure out whether it would be more atone to back buttons on a controller or a modded controller with macros. Either way, in speedrunning I do think it's more of a tool that makes the hobby more accessible to new players rather than a "cheat", and doesn't take away from the most skillful parts of the speedrun (game dependent or course, I don't know every speedrun). This video broke down the topic perfectly, really enjoyed your perspective.
I'm all for accessibility. The Melee/Smash community allows arcade-style box controllers, despite them possibly providing an advantage, because too many Fox mains are getting hand and wrist problems from the GameCube controllers. I don't see why speedrunning can't allow similar accomodations.
Hell, I would love to see a segmented run leaderboard for longer categories like AM. I would love to run AM, but I literally cannot set aside 8-12 hours to do a run. The category is just inaccessible to me. Or rather, the LEADERBOARD is inaccessible, because as everyone will point out, I could always just do a segmented run and not submit it.
Also, yeah, does anyone really care about mashing? Yes, it requires skill, but it's not a deep or interesting skill.
The game community knows their game better than everyone else.They have To take decisions by themselves. Personally, I think it depend on the speedgame. From an outside perspective, its nice to have more leniants rules so more people can try the categories.
This was a really great and informative video :) thanks for making it
I quite like this video, and I would like to talk about my own arguments but at the end of the day everyone is entitled to their own opinions:
I think that accessibility usually works against Turbos, whilst it does help people health wise 99% of new speed runners won’t have hacked joycons and I would say that increases the barrier of entry if anything. That’s why for example version 1.3 was such a huge help for odyssey
When you talk about health I understand this is iffy due to the personal nature but I think that is the point. If someone speed runs to the point where health issues may form usually turbo ing won’t fix them. Things like loss of sleep and eye degradation, obviously you can’t control those things
I do understand some of the benefits but I think it hurts a community more in the long run especially if/when more cheating software is used in disguise as turboingw
I fell that an example of this that is already used is oot with tape on their controllers to get the exact inputs so turbo isn't to far off of that it is essentially modifying a controller.
If scrollwheel is alowed on pc games, turbo should be also available I don't see why not
Maybe just havin one turbo button at the time
why did i think that the title said tubbo
They should just make a separate category thats like tas where they use them controlers.
I feel like turbo makes sense in a lot of scenarios where the playing field is equal for all and it's just an annoying task that everyone has to do. (Like jump cap farming) however, I do believe certain techniques ad to a higher skillceiling and that in those games it would be fair to separate the turbo runs from the no turbo runs. Like in the example of metroid dread, the technique shown in this video looks painful as all hell, but I also cant deny that someone who takes the time and risk to do that will have a faster time then someone who doesn't. Is it then fair for a person exposing their hands and health to danger to be put in the same category as those who get the same results without a fraction of the work? I'd rather see turbo be accepted as a separate run but have that become the main category tbh! Then we could truly see the human limit as well!
This is a "crab in the bucket mentality" - if I had to go through it, so do you; or alternatively, if I can't have my health back, no one can. But in actuality, the sooner something like this is implemented, the sooner even the veteran runners who did risk their health can continue to run without causing further injury (or if they did injure themselves to the point where they can't input spam like this, they may be able to participate again)
@@LC-hd5dc thanks for the reply and I agree, but does that mean we shouldn't let anyone do the original run and upload it to the leaderboard? While I personally would use turbo I can't stop to think that there are people out there who would rather do the run without it, but as you say if turbo gets implemented sooner rather than later maybe everyone will change their minds!
i agree and i think its a cool concversat
Tom makes a lot of really great points in this video. personally, i’m of the opinion that people shouldn’t have to consider their health when deciding to pick up a hobby-or having to worry about being ridiculed for prioritizing that health when they want to share their progress with the community. and the thing is, having those options of a break or turbo available doesn’t mean that people have to use it-if they’re set in their ways, nobody’s forcing them. but if having those options might help prevent a long-term injury, then who in the audience has the right to judge?
I really need one of those split pad pros because then I can shiny hunt alolan pokemon in lets go by doing nothing!!!
It's sad to see a lot of elitists hell bent on keeping speedrunning the most degenerate act man has come up with instead of making it more accessible and less damaging to their physical and mental health.
I agree completely that it should be a community basis, which is something I found annoying about the Twitter discussion because everyone was referring to different games with different experiences so at the end of the day it was a shouting match. An objective look should be given for the discussion and should be looked at individually for each game.
I'm glad someone else picked up on the similarly between this discussion and the SMO AM break discussion, they both had striking similarities. And, like the AM break discussion, I'm painfully neutral in this debate.
The comparison to Portal 2 is weak. Firstly, everything should be game-specific, and p2 allows scroll hopping because that's basically the only way to bunnyhop. Hell, scroll hopping has been a tradition for god knows how many years, it isn't "progressive" despite how it may look to an outsider. Portal 2 scroll hopping also has nothing to do with mashing a button, it's about timing an input as you hit the ground. Timing that input is simply easier because you can fire off 5 jumps in a single second with the scroll wheel. Banning scroll hopping would screw over **everyone**, not just people with hand issues because bhopping is dumb as hell without using the scroll wheel.
It is interesting as well how you didn't talk about Prop Flings where the core strat in that chamber is to scroll a lot to get like 50 jumps in the span of half a second. That's closer to the comparison you were trying to make from what I can tell. But even then its not like that exists for accessibility reasons, you just cannot do that with a regular keypress.
I don't want to make it seem like I'm holding onto a small part of the video, its minor I just wanted to clear up some potential confusion.
Creepygar's second point is really good so I won't repeat it. I think there are a lot of vocal people on both extremes of the argument at hand and that definitely makes this debate seem more aggressive than it has to be.
All in all the video makes decent points. I think the debate is a lot more convoluted than it would appear on the surface, meaning discussion occurring on a surface level for all speedgames will not work. It has to be decided by individual communities.
Speaking of that, you know where to go if you want to blow up the SMO community...
Hey Tom, I'm a former runner of Super Mario Odyssey and have been active in BTT ("spliced", if you will) and TAS communities for the game. I also interact daily with runners of multiple games you mentioned. I completely disagree with most your points and would like to see a response. Don't take this as a personal attack, just a critique (albeit a very harsh critique) on this video.
0:19 - I don't see any cons presented fairly in this video. Every "con" is refuted (and I'll refute them back; see below) and hardly even mentioned.
1:09 - Wrist and hand injury is a real concern, notably repetitive strain injury. However, with this argument you are ignoring the fact that other injury not caused by button mashing is much more common, including (but not limited to) the previously mentioned repetitive strain injury, chronic tendinopathy, myofascial pain, and compressive neuropathy (see Geoghegan and Wormald's letter to the editor from October 2018 - it should be noted that gaming-caused myofascial pain syndrome is disputed). If potential injury is the breaking point here, why do you speedrun at all? Why do you even play video games to begin with?
Furthermore, this argument depends on the ignorance of runners. It's valid, but throughout the video you use this argument more generally, as if it applies to everyone.
1:33 & 1:52 - Alleviating the concern would be great! And thankfully, 2 out of 4 of the above injuries I mentioned are preventable - see Agrawal and Rajajeyakumar's review from March 2018 on preventing repetitive strain injury and Salillas and others' review from January 2014 on preventing repetition-caused tendinopathy. The ones that aren't preventable - myofascial pain syndrome (MFS) and compressive neuropathy - are irrelevant.
Myofascial pain syndrome's correlation is disputed by Zapata and others in 2006, finding "[no] statistical correlation [between video game use] the presence of MFS". Furthermore, in studies that conclude that there is a correlation, MFS is connected to use of a mouse (not clicking the mouse - see Oh and others in 2013) and general video game controller use (see Sharan and others in 2014).
Compressive neuropathy has only been found in radial, axillary, ulnar, and suprascapular nerves (see Thatte and Mansukhani's review from 2011) and has not been found in areas affected by button mashing.
2:10 to 3:28 - I won't address the toilet section because it's mostly irrelevant to the argument, is a whole other topic, and the thing it is meant to support was refusted in my 1:09 point.
3:44 - Really? I get this is a persuasive video, but telling people who disagree with you that their argument lacks any form of human empathy is extremely hypocritical, especially when you criticize other runners for doing the same thing at 8:12.
5:39 - What you're missing in this comparison is the fact that one is built into the game and one is using an external resource to benefit you.
7:27 - I'll respond to this claim with another claim in the same fashion: "Ostracizing over external controllers that break often and cost a lot of money isn't being inclusive - it's creating a clear divide in your community."
As an ending statement, I'll say this.
Tom, many points in your video go back to some nonexistent health problem. I haven't addressed most of them, just the ones that differ from the bunch.
If you don't believe me, write down all the points in your video and your evidence. Every time it's backed up with protecting runners from health problems in the future, cross it off. See how many points you have left? Not many. Now, cross off all of the points that are refuted by my other counter-arguments. If there are any arguments left, put it in your response.
Thank you.
- Rhinozz