Rumors of a Parkour Reset

Discussion in 'Server Discussion' started by Muffin_Mobber, Jun 15, 2020.

  1. Muffin_Mobber

    Muffin_Mobber Reality Surfer Donator

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    Hello I am muffin_mobber, something of a parkour veteran on itsjerryandharry and I would like to share some of my opinions about the potential parkour reset.


    I’ve played parkour on many different servers and even though the parkour on itsjerryandharry is great I think there are ways it may be improved.


    Checkpoints:

    I don’t hold a very strong opinion about checkpoints, but if any improvements may be made, some players could benefit from 1-3 (depending on difficulty) manually applicable checkpoints. These could be held in your inventory and placed before an especially difficult portion, after a difficult portion has been completed, or could be used to test speedrunning tactics at any point during the map. This would likely be in addition to permanent checkpoints, and would probably not replace them altogether, were they to be added. This type of checkpoint is used by many Polish speedrunning servers, like ToxicProject and MyOtherWorld, and has proven successful (though permanent checkpoints do not exist on said servers).


    Speaking from experience, I would also appreciate if the checkpoint on nethertemple could be moved to one of the pedestals before or after it, as it is inconveniently placed from the perspective of a speedrunner (in this case the checkpoint forces a slower route in order to complete the map).


    Personally, I would like permanent checkpoints to be removed altogether but I can understand why that isn’t viable, and I find the permanent checkpoints to be good visual representations of where one would need to be to save/relax.


    Something of a luxurious addition, if there is a way to add segment specific timers, such as from the start to checkpoint 1, then players would have a better idea of their route’s efficiency. This idea was demonstrated in Jerome’s post:

    https://itsjerryandharry.com/threads/parkour-small-improvements-to-the-checkpoint-system.109031/

    This type of timer is common in racing games, like Trials HD, and there is a version of this currently used by Hypixel (though it is buggy as hell).


    Speaking of racing…


    Racing: I’ve only seen this on one other server, Manacube, but I love it. It appeals to the competitive nature of the population and doesn’t seem to have many downsides. I imagine that if some kind of racing feature were to be added, that racing specific maps would be added as well, so that there can be a guaranteed fairness in the race. In Manacube’s case, many of the racing maps are perfectly symmetrical with two separate starting points controlled by a timer counting down from 5. While there is a bet on the line in Manacube, I don’t see why currency needs to be necessary in order to enjoy a competitive event.


    I don't have any opinion on ranks, from what I've seen they usually never correlate to true skill anyway, at least from what I've experienced on Minecraft.

    New Anticheat:

    This is where I provide the least expertise, but from my experience as a staff member on the server the most frequent hacks that make it through the current AntiCheat are Spider and Speed Hack, (usually set to a discrete number like 1.02x the standard player velocity), but the most successful type of cheating is definitely “Blink”.

    “Blink” is a cheat performed by stunting one’s internet connection prior to stepping foot on the starting checkpoint and only after moving while disconnected for, let’s say 3 seconds, would connection be reenabled and all the packets in between connection are sent to the server at once, resulting in a timer score of 0 seconds when the player has already ran the map for 3 seconds.



    As you can see, right before the hacker steps foot on the pressure plate he disconnects, and moments later he reconnects, but because he was offline during that period it appears he has teleported.

    In the new AntiCheat that is being considered, if there was some way for the server to test player location and ensure that they aren’t moving too far in between packets, maybe that could help. Again, I have no idea how AntiCheat is implemented and maybe it isn’t feasible.


    Resetting the Leaderboards...

    I have heard that when the time comes for parkour to reset there will likely also be a reset of the leaderboards, and this, I find… REVOLTING

    Just kidding lmao

    It is possible that I have the most to “lose” from the leaderboards resetting as over the past few years I’ve spent probably several hundred hours trying to get on the majority of them, but all minigames must be reset eventually and I cannot honestly say that I would be in the position I am now (as a proficient speedrunner) if the leaderboards had not been reset prior to my rejoining the server in 2017.

    As much as I would like to gatekeep fricking NEWBS from ever attaining my degree of speedrunning expertise, resetting parkour not only offers a revival of the parkour minigame but also a chance for newer players to be motivated to get to a higher level of skill in parkour. Frankly, the current parkour leaderboards aren’t even comparable to those I encountered back in 2017, where the World Record back then has been beaten probably by 5 to 20 players today, and I was already doing everything in my power to get on the top 10 in 2017. I just can’t see how a new player can legitimately feel like they can get onto the leaderboards today, which is definitely the most significant milestone I have had in my experience and the most compelling emotion I had that drove me to be more competitive.


    Besides, we already have some semblance of a permanent leaderboard in the online itsjandh speedrun server, https://www.speedrun.com/jh, and all runs seen are certifiably legitimate.


    I will say though that I do feel a resonating sadness at the thought of the leaderboards getting reset, and not because of any rightful WR time getting removed, but because every name on the leaderboard is a representation of actual people that have put many hours into the time they have, and this idea was the same one that distressed me back in 2017, when I wanted to see some of my old friends’ times that were no longer visible (People you won’t know: Eteto, Squatman99, and ItsLogan). These names hold real value to me, if no one else, and so before the parkour is reset this next time, I will screenshot and upload every leaderboard on parkour and leave it as a thread in case anyone in the future would like to remember the times of the past, just like I wished for in 2017.


    The last thing I would hope for is a central lobby parkour. I know that we have a central lobby now, and there is parkour, but I think it would still be nice to have an easily accessible lobby parkour.


    Btw, part of the reason there has been an influx of lagged times is due to the coincidence of starting a run as a game of spleef is ending, as it lags the server and creates a time where the checkpoint is slow to react, or something like that. If you could somehow disable the starting plates during that time this could solve the problem.

    I know I must have forgotten something but this isn't a bad start, hope you enjoyed my essay lmao


     
  2. pvpcatsbestfaction

    pvpcatsbestfaction Donator

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    I would love a race. I would also love if they added a separate type where pvp was enabled and the players get snowballs since the chaos that creates is very fun to play with friends
     
  3. saadfinalforever

    saadfinalforever

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    Actually I'm pretty sure one purpose of checkpoints is to make it so that hackers cannot illegally get to the finish without passing the checkpoint first. I say this because I was actually vclipping on parkour the other day and I pretty much flew straight to finish without passing the checkpoint but it told me that I needed to pass checkpoint first.
     
  4. Muffin_Mobber

    Muffin_Mobber Reality Surfer Donator

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    This is true, but since the mods have become more reasonable it's easier to remove clearly cheated times defeating the purpose of having checkpoints as a defensive system.
     
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  5. saadfinalforever

    saadfinalforever

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    Or someone can just fly straight to the end and intentionally wait out the timer and beat the record by just a fraction of a second to make it seem legit?
     
  6. Muffin_Mobber

    Muffin_Mobber Reality Surfer Donator

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    They can do that with checkpoints anyway lol, best to just check anticheat logs.
     
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  7. samloop123

    samloop123 . Donator

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    I can say *in theory* this would work almost perfectly
     
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  8. Darkstorm77

    Darkstorm77 Former M.od+ Donator

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    I believe I agree with you on everything you said, except that I'm slightly leaning towards no instead of yes for a reset of all parkour times.

    (I made a long explanation of why I feel this way, but I think it's a bit repetitive and the central idea doesn't need to be proved anyway, so here it is just in case you wanted to read it.)
    Let's start out by looking at this image here:
    [​IMG]

    Well, what is interesting about it?
    I got this time of 24.4 back when the world record was 23.6. My time was about 6th place then (this was around 2017) and it obviously had some flaws in it. However, now the world record has shifted to 23.2 and in order to get top 10, I would have to be sub 24.

    So what, my mediocre time on Mine 2 hasn't stood for 3 years, why does that matter? Well, it helps illustrate the change in leaderboard times over time. I was able to maintain a leaderboard spot for awhile when the world record was close to my time, but as the world record got shorter, other times took its place. But the information on how to get a shorter time didn't spread to every player in the world, so how did the spots get so closely filled? For the most part, hacked times.

    Parkour times have always been decreasing, but we have started to get to a point where they actually cannot go farther down anymore. This means that after a parkour reset, we would essentially be battling to do exactly what we were doing before. We already have the best routes set up, and it's no longer a competition to see who can beat other players. It's a competition to see who can perfect the best route.

    After these top times are reestablished, hacked times will fill the leaderboards below first. People like muff and bartek will probably get the same times they had before, and new hacked times will replace the others. So now we've just gone in a complete circle and achieved nothing. New players can't look forward to beating these times, since they have to match times of those by speedrunners and hackers alike.

    The only way I think a reset of parkour times would be viable is if there was the implementation of a perfect anticheat method, however possible.
    If this happened, then new players could actually compete to lower their time starting from the beginning. Before, the leaderboards would have been filled with speedrunners using their perfect route, and then hackers off by fractions of milliseconds. Now, the leaderboards would be filled with speedrunners, and then legitimate players.

    This is slightly different for the VIP and some Mega maps.
    The VIP maps are largely devoid of suspected hacked times.. Due to a lack of competition, some maps have very large differences between 1st and 10th place. A reset actually would refresh competition for these maps. Since there is such a large difference in times, it's already not too difficult to get top 10 on many of these maps. However, a reset would still encourage people to go for top 10 anyway, so this would be successful. But, since most of the parkour traffic is on the maps available to everyone, where hacked times are much more common, I think it's more important to focus on those. As for Mega maps, the top times on most of the maps are held by unknowns so those are mysteries to me, at least.

    Because I wrote so much down here and it's hard for me to review it all, there's probably a million counter points to everything I said. In the end, what I think matters is my TL;DR (at the bottom)

    TL;DR
    The reset of parkour times is pointless unless we get a perfect anti-cheat method set up.
    Or else, everything will revert back to the way it was.