Guild Wars 2

Hi I want to get my guild into doing some record speed runs for fun(Not speed farming). Needless to say I ran into some trouble(mainly to do with a player’s attitude). First I managed to get some one who was not willing to try new strategies that may not work and rage quitted in the middle of practice. So I kicked the guy from my group and got some one else. Because this player that I kicked managed to tell everyone else how painful it was, the remaining players’ morales are pretty bad right now. I want to ask for those that actually have participated in record runs a couple of questions.

1: How do you come up with these strategies?(noteable ones being AC p1 hodgins split, and the new IV se p3 portal strats)

2: How long does it take minimum to maximum to actually get a record run?

3: If a strategy does not work because of players executing them incorrectly, do you stick with it if in theory, they should speed up the run?

4: How often do you expect fail runs and resets?

1: How do you come up with these strategies?(noteable ones being AC p1 hodgins split, and the new IV se p3 portal strats)

you think “how can I do this quicker” and you try to come up with solutions. funny thing actually, it reminds me of doing an arah record months and months and months ago (pre-ele stacking meta) and we goofed around with using a load of ice bows on the first phase of lupicus to try and burst him down to phase two for the reflect kill. the damage was really good obviously but for some reason we didn’t latch on to it and just stuck with 2x warrior, 1x ele and “normal” strats for some reason.

2: How long does it take minimum to maximum to actually get a record run?

depends how quickly you can nail down the actual strategies. actual execution probably only takes between a few hours and a day.

3: If a strategy does not work because of players executing them incorrectly, do you stick with it if in theory, they should speed up the run?

you get better players

4: How often do you expect fail runs and resets?

all the time

if you’re trying to do a precise run, sometimes with RNG factors involved, everyone needs to be 100% on point, and sometimes people mess up, it just happens. this is why you’ll have fail/out-take videos of speed runs because you will goof up a run all the time for hours until you get it right unless you get lucky. think of something like the orbs in arah p3, having to do those quickly without anyone slipping up is probably annoying.

If you are trying to do records with players that do not have an interest and are not experienced then you probably wont ever get a record you are happy with. If they dont have the drive to try things and improve then you are better of finding others who are. Which sounds like it might be a big issue in your guild.

For coming up with strategies you need players that know the path and classes inside out and can think outside the box. They need to understand all aspects of a speedrun and consider even the smallest details to save seconds such as how many and what blasts to use at certain points. They need to be experienced. And there needs to be discussion of ideas and willingness to try things out which might not work. Having one player direct a bunch of unmotivated newbies for a record sounds like a major headache and an impossible task.

For records you can expect to reset the dungeon more times than you can count. And often spend multiple evenings trying to get a time you are happy with. When I did TA up records we repeated the start up to malrona countless times because of RNG on malronas start attack and the last group of spiders not always pulling properly. The amount of times we repeated the first part of the dungeon far outweighed the times we did a full run (we always completed to the end if malrona went well). We probably did about 10 complete runs until we had one we were happy with. I couldnt possibly count how many fail resets we did.

There is a reason why the top guilds have harsh requirements when recruiting.

Know the dungeon.
Know your classes.
Understand that the videos you see of record runs aren’t just a group of 5 people messing around. They were all a result of repeat runs that were reset over and over again whenever a mistake was made.
It takes a lot of ingenuity, time, patience, and work to actually get a record. They’re going to be painful especially if you don’t have 5 people who aren’t on top of everything. If your team can’t do normal speed clears without issues, they’re definitely going to have issues attempting records where you mistakes are unforgiving and every second counts.

If a strategy in theory should work but players are screwing it up, you’ll never know how well it fits in until you can dependably repeat it.

BTW, not all guilds that have records have hard entry requirements. Just most of them.

Just to clarify I am not getting unmotivated newbies to do this event. I feel I am getting players who are motivated, are skilled enough, and and have time to invest to this activity. I only remove players who have toxic attitudes and ones that can’t commit to schedules.

Motivation and drive is more important than schedules. Even if you can only devote a couple of hours a night. Its better to do that with a stable 5 players who will keep trying. Even if it takes a number of days or weeks to get the record.

The most important part is having either a nomad charr warrior or a dancing purple male mesmer.

Dub.1273:

The most important part is having either a nomad charr warrior or a dancing purple male mesmer.

He means you need to have someone to motivate and lead the group >_>

like fps montage’s you only see the good side. one doesnt see the hundreds of hours of “fail”

i personally have been working on a p3 solo and doing badly for months.

1: How do you come up with these strategies?(noteable ones being AC p1 hodgins split, and the new IV se p3 portal strats)

We don’t come up with these strategies over night. About SE p3 specificly: We did our first record of that path back in December. We got 3:47 in our fastest run but didn’t manage to kill the NPC even after some testing so we uploaded that run.
In the upcoming daily runs we always looked for the NPC if it died kept testing and refining our strategies. When we got it to work consistently we started going for the record ~2 months ago but people got busy with university/real life before we got a time we were happy with.
Yesterday we still changed a lot, but core strategy was killing the NPC which we found out back then. Before we start a record we always have one (or more) things that we want to do and change other stuff while attempting for the record. We do those smaller changes based on experience and obviously testing.
Just never expect stuff to work after one just one try.

2: How long does it take minimum to maximum to actually get a record run?

Our 18:25 arah p4 was done in ~2 hours but it was a pretty bad run. For the SE p3 run we took ~5 hours (2 hours on the first day until my internet died, 3 hours on Friday). For our SE p1 we grinded 7 hours on one day which was a pretty bad experience imo. These times are without testing stuff.

3: If a strategy does not work because of players executing them incorrectly, do you stick with it if in theory, they should speed up the run?

We always try to make our strategies less risky. But generally we try to stick with what is (in our opinion) the fastest. You should put things into perspective, if you can safe 2 seconds but will have to do 10 more runs, is it worth it? What if you could safe 20 seconds with it? Can’t give you an example in our runs, the one that I thought of is still in progress

4: How often do you expect fail runs and resets?

Well, you will never get a record on the first try (unless the current record is really bad). We always do a couple of practice runs before recording to make sure everyone knows what he has to do, then we start recording.
Fennec, Yui, D\erpy and me have been doing records together for quite a while now and I really enjoy playing with them, even if stuff goes wrong we are usually joking on TS. So moral is never a problem for us.

Sanderinoa.8065:

Dub.1273:

The most important part is having either a nomad charr warrior or a dancing purple male mesmer.

He means you need to have someone to motivate and lead the group >_>

Lead? How would a colorful charr warr or even a purple male mesmer lead something other than gay parade?

We need to spread the love, motivate and unite… well no, we just need to entertain.