So I was just brainstorming today and was thinking...should it be legal to pause in the middle of a TT?

I know what some of you are initially thinking, you're probably wondering how pausing can possibly benefit you in any way. No it has nothing to do with nerves, no it has nothing to do with itching your butt, no it has nothing to do with deciding you need to use the bathroom on lap 3.

But pausing does not change the timer, and during that time you can do whatever adjustments you want, most notably to the control stick although there may be other uses to it. An example occurred to me on rPG with automatic drift mode. A lot of you may know that if you tilt the stick one direction so that you are drifting, then snap the control stick to the opposite direction immediately, that if you do it fast enough to get a miniature hop. It's not at all easy to do, I only manage it around 1/5 of the time, and I haven't tested it with pausing. But if you're drifting right, and pause, and move the control stick to the left and unpause, then in theory you moved the control stick from 100% right to 100% left and you have a very high chance of generating this miniature hop. This would be very useful on the turn before the hedge circle, a place where auto otherwise loses a lot of time to manual.

I have not tested this in person, so I am not sure of its practicality. In the event that pausing would not be allowed, I also have no idea how it could possibly be policed without a live stream. I don't have a strong stance either way on the issue but I am curious as to what the community will think, there could be other uses (maybe wheelie timing) that pausing could have a benefit for.

Thoughts?

DJT wrote on 04/30/16 at 19:28:38:


Agreed ^

I think it should be avoided as much as possible, if not banned. This rule includes for every Mario Kart.

In e-sports, when I see people breaking a sub minute barrier I would like to be sure they did it in 0'59"99 and not in 20 mins...
In sports, when I see Usain Bolt running the 100m I'm not expecting him to make a pause for fixing his shoes, calling a friend...

In SMK there is a strat named the Flat-Boost (pressing the L and R buttons at the same time to gain a little advantage), it's allowed! But the FB is also doable when pausing the game it's named the Pause-Trick and it's forbidden for the PP-- you have to do it the right way!
GP or TT, pausing is good during training but bad when you are doing a Personal/World Record that you'll send to the sites, well at least it makes sense because we are time trialling so be logical-- there is no way to stop the chrono before you cross the finish line.

It's obviously just my point of view

TASPlasma wrote on 04/30/16 at 22:27:42:


TASPlasma wrote on 04/30/16 at 22:27:42:


It clearly boils down to whether you think the goal should be getting the lowest number possible on the in-game timer, or if you think the in-game timer is there as a very useful tool to measure your real life time, one that we agree to use for this purpose.

I feel myself falling into the latter category. I care about how quickly you can race the course in real life; I think the in-game timer is just a good measure of this, and it's what we use to measure the actual time when submitting to the charts.

There's a technique in MKSC that also involves pausing to give yourself some valuable bonus frames to charge a ZZMT - it's banned. There's that technique also in SMK that's been brought up already that's also banned.

So yeah. Isn't it the case in the speedrunning community at large that the goal is to finish as quickly as possible in real-life time? Pausing may be allowed, but are there cases anywhere else where the timer stops when the speedrunner pauses? If not, I don't think pausing should be allowed here.

pausing mid run cuz why not =/= pausing to buffer an otherwise nearly impossible input lol

I'd steer away from it tbh. Such things are already disallowed in other kart games, and this would likely follow suit. Besides if it CAN be done humanly (which you say you get it here and there), wouldn't you want to take pride in being able to do so without having to manipulate/trick the game into thinking you did it?

I seriously don't see why we shouldn't be able to pause mid game. I mean yeah it could give you an advantage at times but how can you regulate a rule like that? And if it does becomes illegal to do so how strict will that rule have to be? Will we just base it of something as simple as trust or something a lot more stricter? Also will we seriously have to penalize a player for pausing especially if he paused the game (whether he is streaming or not) for something as important/ innocent as having to get up in the middle of the game to answer a phone call or and/ or take a quick dump? I personally think it's rules like these that are unnecessary. Sure it can improve your timing for certain things but if it doesn't effect more important aspects in game that we care more about such as a vehicle's speed, course's physics, and the speed of the timer. At least those things are easily noticeable if taken advantage of and can easily be spotted when done.

Pausing in speedruns has always been retarded. Game devs are too stupid to realize that pausing the game should not pause its timer.

Anyway, once you get into pause abusing, you’re creating a TAS-like environment with the game. It’s no different to using slowmotion cheatcodes for some games, and is just plain fucking stupid. That’s not how you speedrun. Don’t do it.

Some Sonic game speedruns actually do this. They pause every other frame or so to create a TAS with the game, and call them records. It’s pretty fucking stupid. Sure you’re not using external hardware for it– but the end result is exactly the same.

Robertvz wrote on 04/30/16 at 18:12:18:

I just tried this out and you are right. When I played normally I also got it around 1/5 of the time. But with pausing I got it 100% of the time. I only tried on the LC straightaways so it's probably a bit harder during a PG run where you actually have to time the pause correctly as well. Still, I can definitely see how pausing would give an advantage for this technique.

For buffering many inputs, the game forces around a .300 in-game time delay between pauses. So it is not that effective for that.

However, I also tried buffering with the HOME button and the delay was much lower, around .020 - .050 in-game time. Basically this allows you to adjust every 2 or 3 frames in slow motion. If someone were to master this I think it would be overpowered. It's pretty awkward to play like this since you use 2 controllers. For some reason HOME buffering only seemed to worked with GCN controller and not Wiichuck (the control stick inputs would mess up whenever I resumed the game).

Buffering D-Pad inputs is difficult though. If you press HOME/Pause then hold up on the D-Pad, when you resume the game the wheelie won't register. But for control stick and hopping the buffering works.

There's basically 4 categories of pausing mentioned in this thread so far:

#1. Using HOME Button/Pause to buffer inputs and pretty much play in slow motion.
#2. Using HOME Button/Pause to switch directions quickly (or some other technique where you just pause once).
#3. Using HOME Button/Pause during a glitch to better align yourself.
#4. Using HOME Button/Pause to calm nerves, rest hands, or other reasons.

#1 should definitely be banned imo. A more formal rule could be "you are not allowed to pause the game twice within 2 seconds of in-game time". The exact rule doesn't matter, as a community we just need to agree that buffering is banned.

#2 and #3 are basically the same. Both may give a very slight advantage, but it does not seem like they would be game-breaking. I know there are some glitchers who use pauses and it would be unfair to remove their times. So if we do ban this, there should be a grandfather clause where their times still count but pausing for glitches can't be used for future times.

The only reason to ban #4 is if we do a blanket ban on all pausing/HOME button usage. Again, previous times done with pauses should still count. But I don't think pausing should be completely banned.

Personally I'm fine with just banning #1 for now. But maybe people will want #2 and #3 banned as well.

Also, I think that anything that's possible with 1 pause can be done in real time. For example switching from left to right in 1 frame can be done in real time. Pausing just makes it more consistent.

However, I think HOME button buffering makes it possible to get inhuman inputs.

After reading all the points stated here, I retract my previous disagreement.

My opinion also changed while reading through this thread @Inspire.

I agree, pausing exploits should be banned.


Now how do we know people aren't using it though?  Are ghosts no longer proof enough?  They don't show if the player paused AFAIK.

I hope it doesn't break down to the point where every semi-competitive player needs to own expensive streaming equipment and hi speed internet connection just to time trial competitively for fun.  But idk how to prevent the pausing exploit either.  


For example if Brett were to set a 1:59:200 rPG WR today with 3/3 bounces it'd be slightly suspicious that he paused  Even though he's already trusted.  Wouldn't it?  However, if he were to later stream and show off he was able to pull off a few 1:59:45x runs or lower, I'd say he's trusted.

It may also be easier to get the bounces more consistently now that Brett has confirmation now how to get it more consistently (the one frame flick thing).  It' an iffy subject.

Btw, maddox does a good job of explaining (in about 50-62 seconds) why I wouldn't like fiddling with streaming shit, even if I had it.  

https://youtu.be/yRQ0VxMVnGU?t=3m28s
[Obv it's diff for MKW, you dont need 2 monitors and an audience to entertain, but you gotta deal with hooking up a CRT to HDMI essentially, which has it's own complications yada yada. -_-]


Edit:

Cole, you said home button buffering > pause buffering.  What about nunchuk-unplugging buffering?!

(Wasn't Luna's 2009 MT WR suspicious of using this?)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u10GIVqeicw



Edit 2: Scrolled through the YT comments on Luna's WR vid.  Maybe someone can find some forum posts from that time period too if they desired.



He didn't seem to have a very good player ethic either:



And he never got another WR after this, kinda just disappeared.  Maybe he knew people were getting suspicious and also Wiimote buffering is probably hard to even deal with (alone, secretly in 2009 mind you) so he just stopped there?

Everyone has access to the pause button. It doesn't matter how broken it can be, although clearly not to the same extent as other broken in-game techniques; it still exists in-game and was put there by Nintendo to pause the game.
Sometimes pausing is necessary; determining when it is or isn't necessary is almost impossible and there is no clear line.
I am sure a lot of world records have included pausing. Most of my times involve some sort of pausing because I genuinely have to.

Everyone can do it and it involves no modification. I can't believe this is actually a discussion.

Personal opinion on whether it is “good” or not is up to you, but to enforce this would be stupid and adding more unnecessary rules to the list. If this were enforced, no way would I follow it. Banning something that is totally allowed and has been since the game was released, put there for help, would be... Really stupid.

How much further will this go?

Okay, I'm just going to throw some thoughts out on this. I actually don't play MKW and I've never posted in this section. But I'm finding, for me, this discussion is so ridiculous; that's why I don't play MKW -- this community is horrid.

Let me make myself clear from the start, I don't think there should be a hard and fast rule for this. I think, should pausing ever be abused, it should be handled on a case by case basis. I already see enough rules on this site; I don't want to see any more. They just turn me off and that's the whole reason I never got into MKW time trials. The worse this gets, the more it's gonna turn people off from joining the MKW players page like it did for me.

Personally, I think Cole's first point out of his four (the one about pausing to buffer inputs to play in "slow motion") should be banned. But again, this should be handled on a case by case basis.

Correct me if I'm wrong (I don't play MKW), but it doesn't seem to me that pausing in any other case can provide a result that is not humanly possible without pausing. That's a big reason why I don't think pausing is much of an issue. #2 and #3 don't bother me and I also don't think they should be banned; then again, I don't really know MKW well. #4 is pathetic to ban in my opinion.

There are legitimate times when one has to pause; that's why Nintendo puts the button there in the first place. I remember as a kid my parents would interrupt me in the middle of a game and I would pause. There are many kids on this site that I'd imagine face that issue and I don't see a reason to ban pausing completely. Not to mention other legitimate reasons for pausing kids and adults alike face.

My opinion is we should prevent abuse but not use. Again, let me re-emphasize my point that I don't think this is a black and white issue and should be handled on a case by case basis. If someone is buffering inputs to play in slo-mo the run should not count. Other cases should be taken care of individually.

The other thing about this is whole issue it's very hard to prove. We already have enough pressure to force the top players to follow a hefty protocol. If we add yet another rule by banning pausing altogether, that's just more pressure to get more players to follow the protocol. I myself am completely unable to follow the protocol because I don't have a capture card, streaming equipment, or the grade of internet connection I need. Even for those who can stream, it's a big hassle -- and making players who aren't top-tier stream using the protocol just to continue competing will just cause more and more problems.

Also, if we ban pausing altogether, think of the precedent it will set. Will pausing then be banned on all MK games? The other games don't have the same technicalities as MKW and the first 3 of Cole's situations probably don't apply. I don't think we should be setting this precedent.

My final words will be to proceed with caution here. Adding another rule will most likely make this community even worse than it already is. If someone is clearly abusing things, then proceed accordingly. But to try to come up with a hard and fast rule isn't the best course of action, at least I don't think. And whatever we do, don't remove or ban any players that paused in previous runs just because they don't meet a rule that they wouldn't have any idea of then, let alone a controversial rule.