Highscoring = insanity?

[golf]

Albert Einstein is said to have coined the quote "Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result". I have thought at various times that this seems to be what I do when I highscore (or speedrun) a map, especially when it comes to tracker drones or rockets. I'll do pretty much the same route many many times, and every time be expecting that this time I'll make it through, most of the time because I've seen somebody else go the same way and do the same thing.

So, according to this definition, would highscoring be considered insanity? What do you think?

[TheRealOne]

Well if you look at it from the outside; when we play a short map especially speedrunning where you have to be frame perfect we repetitively press k over and over again in the same rhythm. This could be quite insane especially in the pursuit of such perfection. But hey it's what we do, that is why were are good at it.

[Izzy]

I hope we don't get locked up in some sort of max-security asylum ASDFIJAIUFABNIUFNDFA

[glib_jase]

Well if you look at it from the outside; when we play a short map especially speedrunning where you have to be frame perfect we repetitively press k over and over again in the same rhythm.

haha this is so true! When I find myself repeatedly missing certain jumps, I tend to go through phases where I kill myself by running into enemies rather than pressing k, just to try and break that rhythm.

[Izzy]

Well if you look at it from the outside; when we play a short map especially speedrunning where you have to be frame perfect we repetitively press k over and over again in the same rhythm.

haha this is so true! When I find myself repeatedly missing certain jumps, I tend to go through phases where I kill myself by running into enemies rather than pressing k, just to try and break that rhythm.

Sometimes I kill myself on good runs because I'm so sure I missed a jump, even though I didn't.

[TheRealOne]

Well if you look at it from the outside; when we play a short map especially speedrunning where you have to be frame perfect we repetitively press k over and over again in the same rhythm.

haha this is so true! When I find myself repeatedly missing certain jumps, I tend to go through phases where I kill myself by running into enemies rather than pressing k, just to try and break that rhythm.

Sometimes I kill myself on good runs because I'm so sure I missed a jump, even though I didn't.

I just finally beat Meta's CWJ challenge, not because it's really that hard, but because if I don't get the jump I press k so fast that I get in a rhythm playing the map that I kill my self immediately after I pull the trick off. Simply because I am so used to pressing k then. I find this observation in to, at least my psychology quite interesting Kind of strange to think that we can program ourselves like that.

[Tunco]

I've thought about this many many times. I was playing N at school today, and a bunch of people was watching me, I think they thought that I was crazy rather than being insane. I feel like time is slowing down when I'm doing a very good run, with the same route, dying at the same place. It feels real weird when I do that, I feel like a computer/robot doing the exactl movements each time, which feels pretty odd.

[
I just finally beat Meta's CWJ challenge, not because it's really that hard, but because if I don't get the jump I press k so fast that I get in a rhythm playing the map that I kill my self immediately after I pull the trick off.

The strange thing is sometimes I do that (on any map) and even I pulled of an frame perfect run, I press k, because I do it hundreds of times, after a moment, you start to do it automatically neither looking at the run. But that's just me.

[otters~1]

Currently I am sitting in a computer room at school speedrunning the Blur map (Yay 184!!!). Sitting next to me is a boy named Louis who thinks I am insane. My repetitive running of the map and pressing K irratates him. Yeah, Highscoring/Speedrunning = Insanity.

Haha. I've gotten some weird looks for "getting all the gold" at school. Back before it was all banned, anyway. Also, glib_jase, I used to do that occasionally playing the original game if I was short on time and needed a good run.

Oh, and I have killed myself on reflex before as well.

[999_Springs]

By that definition of insanity, playing the lottery would be considered completely insane since every week you watch the wrong numbers come up and you still continue to play it in the hope that one day something different will happen.

When I play the same route lots of times over, it's usually a probability-type thing in my mind, like I estimate that I have (say) a 3/4 probability of getting that seeker drone to do this, and a 1/8 chance of getting this corner jump, and things like that, and eventually I'll get lucky enough and pull off a great metanet top10 or something. A brilliant example of this is 39-4 highscore - if you haven't tried it before then try playing the map for top20 and you'll see what I mean. Getting to the top is easy peasy but the fall to the bottom is HORRIBLE. You basically don't have any control over the fall when you're going so fast. For each of the six sections of gold you just drop through and hope that you get all three pieces. That's basically almost like hoping that each of your six numbers come up in the lottery. If you play the lottery enough times, you'll win it at some point. If you play 39-4 enough times, you'll get a highscore at some point... My own highscore on that level took me over 2 hours to do and SIXTEEN AGD-1 demos - the highest was 137.675. (It scraped into top10 by a single frame and got bumped out of top10 LESS THAN 24 HOURS LATER BY GLIB_JASE. GRRRRRR.)

That is basically my opinion on playing the same route loads of times - if you're doing the same thing over and over again you're basically hoping that you'll get what you want and that only happens if you get lucky. Obviously skill plays a major part in highscoring - xaelar's 250+ metanet 0ths aren't all complete flukes - but what is skill? Having skill is basically being able to pull stuff off with a higher probability. So if you play some level for some period of time you are going to get a higher number of good demos than someone who doesn't have skill. But even if you have skill you still need luck to some extent, otherwise that would mean that you could play every level and highscore it without dying once and even xaelar can't do that, I'm sure...

[Edit: Why the heck are my posts now getting longer and longer!!?]

[im_bad_at_n]

Whenever I do get into the speedrunning mode, be it a speedrun or agd, I'm usually racing someone on a NUMA map. I guess this could be called insane, but my family thinks Im insane anyways with the amount of computer time spent on Ngame. xD

[Izzy]

Whenever I do get into the speedrunning mode, be it a speedrun or agd, I'm usually racing someone on a NUMA map. I guess this could be called insane, but my family thinks Im insane anyways with the amount of computer time spent on Ngame. xD

Hay wats ngame?

[im_bad_at_n]

Err... the ninja game we all play? what do you call it?

[TheRealOne]

Err... the ninja game we all play? what do you call it?

I believe you mean N.

[im_bad_at_n]

N, thats it? wow, originally i played a computer flash demo version and they called it Ngame. Thanks TRO. ;D

[Jawbit]

The instinctive K button is so true. More times than once have I been so ready to hit that one mine or that stupid drone for the millionth time, that I hit the K button before it happens only to find that I would've made it by, and just killed myself for no reason. I'd call that insanity.