speed tips (tm)

One thing that isn't immediately obvious about speedrunning is that the process of improving at your speedgame is arguably just as important as actually playing the game fast. Our time is limited (unless you have 2000 hours of free time to grind 120 star for a 1:49) and being able to improve efficiently not only makes speedrunning more satisfying and less time consuming, but also makes keeping up with a popular game's constantly changing meta much easier. The point of this pastebin is to list a few things that I've noticed that have helped me improve more efficiently. Obviously, you should just find whatever works for you (if you'd rather just do hundreds of no reset runs instead of practicing, go for it.)


- Practice shorter segments to build speed and longer segments to build consistency -

Doing a short segment over and over lets you quickly retry hard strategies until you're proficient at them while building up muscle memory. A focus on difficult segments also makes practice much more time efficient.

In order to build consistency, however, you need to practice longer segments so that you can put it all together and see how well you do without having each part of the longer segment fresh in your memory. "I always get it in practice but never in runs" - don't be that person, build consistency!!!

Maintaining a good mix of shorter and longer segment practice will let you get faster at everything in the run over time while still keeping your consistency.


- Be aware of everything you do -

If you rely too much on improvisation during your runs, it is much more likely that you will get rusty quicker after not playing the game and be more inconsistent in general. By having every part of the run planned out in your head beforehand, including every little piece of movement, you can avoid trying to guess between several potential strategies.

When learning new strategies, it is especially important to make sure you're doing each part the same way each time and also to be aware of what these parts are. Be aware of all your inputs and when they are happening. It is usually not enough to just "get a feel for it". Eventually you'll forget what that "feel" was and you'll just have to figure it out all over again.


- Use visual and audio cues -

The best way to ensure consistent timing or angles for a strategy in the long term is to develop visual/audio cues. These most often involve matching a part of your character with the environment or waiting for a certain sound to play. It can often require a lot of creativity and be very difficult if not impossible to make good cues for a given situation. If you don't have to rely on muscle memory for a strategy, you will be much less likely to eventually forget the exact timing or angle.