ZSR Forums

Some points to get the debate started I guess


For:
1) It's an officially approved function on official hardware/software-
     therefore different than a PJ64 savestate which is entirely unofficial and could be tampered with

2) It would cost time to create and restore a savepoint-therefore it would be faster to not create one
 
Against:
1) Precedence: other gaming communities who've faced this dilemma agreed to not use savepoints.
    This is somewhat arbitrary as each community has different rulesets anyways, such as when to start/end timer and whether to use IGT or RTA

2) Savepoints are unfair to those on official consoles which don't have that function
  Each official console has its own unique 'advantage'


3) Savepoints go against the principle of a speedrun/ it's practically a TAS
     Probably the strongest argument, however you won't get a good run creating savepoints at every obstacle and restoring when you mess up and  again it does waste precious time to create and restore one.



Please keep this as an open minded debate and not a flamefest, a community is only as civilized as its members

I am against the usage of Wii U savestates in runs simply because it's an external (out of game) feature that cannot be done on the original console.

I don't think the "official" argument would work for most cases. If Nintendo officially released cheat codes for the game, would you allow them for speedruns? The line has to be drawn somewhere. Imo, the "official" argument only works for allowing a specific version of the game for speedruns (though it  still shouldn't excuse it for being an inaccurate emulator)

Purely because argument Against 3) "It's practically a TAS", I feel savepoints shouldn't be allowed.

Despite other consoles having their own advantages, the ability to stop and save the game at any point/location including those you'd normally be unable to such as cutscenes, is an external function as Apasher pointed out above, and not one inherent to Ocarina of Time. I feel they shouldn't be allowed and would only lead to more chaos/drama or a special savestate category which is just silly.

So I'm against

Good point Apashi, I agree.
Your external function argument is strong.

Adding to what Apache said, it's an external function, whether on the original console or not should not be used, same case for why crooked cart is banned

Savestates are lamestates
(https://static-cdn.jtvnw.net/emoticons/v1/28087/3.0)

The thing is, resetting is technically an external function, but that function is part of the console itself. Crooked cart isn't a function of the console. It's straight up hardware manipulation.

I said "original console" because the only two external functions of the N64 are: booting the game, and resetting the game.

I agree with Apasher, and am against the usage of the savepoints.
It could be useful for practice, like the savestates on emulator, but I wouldn't wanna see it used in runs.

Nice for practice, never to be used in a run. Period.

If you need savestates during an actual run, can you even call yourself an actual speedrunner?

well if you're so good sniping, i'd like to see you do crazy% no savestates.







Kappa

I banned it because I dislike pause buffering.

I can't think of any place where a competent player would be able to use it to save time outside of rng manipulation, and even then you'd still have to grind out the result you wanted.

I don't know how Dampe's RNG works, but if you can manipulate it by saving right before talking to him or before selecting "Yes", then a runner would probably save before him if Wii U were otherwise faster for 100%.  Creating and loading a restore point would be faster than jumping in the grave and pulling both tombstones.

I don't think the save state feature would be considered when deciding which console to run on, but if you're already on Wii U, I think you'd use it for RNG situations like that.  Not that OoT really has any more sections like that.

making an educated guess here, the game probably determines what item to give just a little before it has to actually materialize on screen, well after you lose control of Link. Furthermore, you have no guarantee that any set of actions will 100% award you the heart piece because you'd have to know the state of the rng seed, which is constantly changing due to various factors. How fast is reloading the save state vs resetting dampe?

So creating a restore point is about 8.10 seconds from pressing the menu button to return to gameplay. Loading a state is about 5.6 seconds from menu to gameplay. From the dig spot to the grave and back to the dig spot is about 11 Seconds.