Isnt it a new challenge to speedrun updated versions? A bit stale if it’s always the same routes.
I think it depends. Look at the Mario speed runs. Those are mostly about optimizing by milliseconds.
They can easily use old HL2 versions thanks to Steam, so I dont see why the latest version needs to be “unfixed” for it.
Excellent point!
Unless you’re Suigi massacring every category in 64 by minutes!
I find it bothersome that this niche group can prevent legitimate bugs from being fixed.
Barely a bug IMO - Valve wanted an invisible wall to block players from being able to skip a small environmental puzzle, but invisible walls are a lazy solution. If the player can find an alternate route to climb up into the pipe, more power to them I say.
That’s not really the case, though. Blocking that pipe off doesn’t fix any bug, it’s just a design choice to tell inventive players that they must solve the puzzle before continuing. Removing that and allowing players to progress without having solved the puzzle in its intended way is just a different design choice. Both are equally valid, in my opinion.
There actually have been quite a lot of bugfixes in the 20th anniversary update, which have an impact on current speedrunning tactics, as can be seen here within the section 20th Anniversary update of Half-Life 2. In the end, it’s pretty meaningless anyway, as most speedrunning of Half-Life 2 is done with a pretty ancient version of the game.