Ireland
SupporterSo we've changed the rules for standard categories to start on Tabby/Melody exiting the bed rather than first input and made it so time stops on the fade to black/white when an ending is triggered as discussed in the original post.
We discussed using the alternative timing style for a miscellaneous category where any ending could be chosen, in order to having something like an Any-est% category, but it's been decided to have such subcategories for every individual ending.
We've also added a longer category called Chapter 1 (Classic) for completing all five endings that were in the game at launch. We're waiting until some new content that was teased is added before we commit to a full All Endings category, so people's runs aren't quickly invalidated by the addition of new endings.
I think we'll leave that submission waiting, like one of my own (which I used to highlight the issues with the old rules), until a decision is made on timing and more people weigh in. But, honestly, you're convincing me to just go for a standard start time with when the protag steps off the bed. But this is why discussing ideas as a community is so good, you can work through dozens of different solutions for any problems.
And thanks lol.
Regarding skill expression, I mean that a more skilled player would be able to delay their start / first input longer because they would be more able to deal with tighter game cycles and whatnot. People who are still learning would likely start a bit sooner so they were less in danger of missing a window of opportunity, while very experienced players could start so late that they only have a fraction of a second to do some necessary part of the run before an in-game clock-based event triggers and makes something impossible. That kind of thing.
Either way, regardless of when we choose to start the timer, things will be fairer moving forward at least so I'm just happy we're making any change at all as a community. If you vote for time starting on bed exiting, that's fine with me. I've been added to the moderation team now and let me tell everyone that I want to have a real community consensus here. What the majority (or at least, the majority of recent players) wants is what we'll end up going with.
If we choose bed exit starts, I feel like top times for most categories could all be super close or even tied, say, if everyone gets the perfect timing for shooting Father memorised. That kind of thing isn't inherently good or bad, but that's something else to keep in mind. I do sort of like when I find a leaderboard where a ridiculous number of players are tied for first (usually because the game isn't timed to the millisecond) but I know some people prefer a more serious competition. I think having people tied to the millisecond is a very real possibilty in this case.
Edit: I think a "perfect" run is much more achievable in a game so centred on the in-game clock, while that sort of thing is a pipe dream in most speed games.
Hey everyone, Jamie and I talking last night was sort of what kickstarted all this so I'll drop some of my thoughts on the matter of timing down below.
A level playing field is the most important thing in speedrunning, and the previous timing rules didn't quite fit that mould since the in-game clock would progress while people who hestitated to start their run would unknowingly save time over others who started moving sooner. I believe we need timing to either start on Melody/Tabby touching the floor after getting off the bed, so RTA starts as soon as the clock starts ticking, or first input but with players being able to choose to delay their first input to save time at the cost of a more difficult run with tighter game cycles.
I am leaning towards first input timing with delay strats being a thing. If everyone can choose how much to delay, how much risk to take, everyone is on a level playing field compared to the previous system of unwitting timesave or timeloss. Choosing to delay that first input as much as you possibly can is also the only real chance for skill expression among top runners in a game where generally, a final boss will spawn at the same time for everybody and take the same number of hits from everybody. With a consistent start time in place (Tab/Mel first exiting the bed) there will be very little difference in times for most categories among runners as long as players start moving immediately. I think delay strats will make running the game more exciting in general.
But I will be happy no matter what we choose, as long as the game has fair timing. I actually stopped running this game a few months ago because I realised that one of the most competent runs I did wasn't actually a good run timing-wise because of the issues with the old systems; I started moving immediately meaning I had more in-game time to sit through. The first input / delay stategy option would admittedly make things complicated regarding longer categories added like All Endings if we make those official, but that's a bridge we can cross as a community when that happens.
Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.
I've just verified this run by RTA for now but when we do get the autosplitter working properly I'll come back and add in the time without loads based on when the splitter calls the final time. If it does just call it on the final load once it's working, this would be a 1m 35s 670ms run I believe.
Well the website guidelines give mods up to three weeks to verify, since life can get in the way. But I've always found these mods to be pretty quick, usually a couple of days I think.
I can see you're new to speedrunning so just a heads up, if you run super niche games you might have to ask the site admins to make you the moderator for a leaderboard because sometimes mods can go AWOL.
I'm inclined to allow the full edited text document to be copied ahead of time now I think. It is just a silly little extra category on PC so I do think it would be cool to see just how fast someone can do it while pulling out all the stops. But I still think that opening the document should be done during the run because it just feels odd for that to be open ahead of time unless someone wants to argue in favour of that.
Yeah it's probably about time for this split. I'll sort things out soon and go through older runs to make sure every obsoleted run is in the right place. Or H1atus might want to give the leaderboard editing a go to learn how that stuff is done, though the site's moderation tools can be super finnicky sometimes haha.
Side note, I'm going to be making a discord server for us so it'll be easier to make suggestions :)
I think removing some RNG sounds good for the health of the game. We'll wait for a few more yes votes before officially making a mod a part of runs, since it's a pretty big decision for the community.
Also good luck with the autosplitter, it would be amazing having one!
I can't remember the game but I have seen people discuss work-arounds to this very issue, on this site. You might find something if you search the forums. There are ways to record the audio for submissions while being unable to hear stuff yourself as a player so you'll be able to enjoy speedrunning without suffering.
Just letting you all know that I've made the leaderboard more accessible for our console players. Console runs will now show on the main page alongside PC runs, instead of being hidden away in a sub-category. Hopefully this encourages more console players to join us!
Please let me know if there are any issues with existing runs, since I had to mess around with variables and whatnot to tidy things up this way.
Just bought the game on sale and I was wondering if the fan patch to fix the widescreen is allowed for PC runs? I can see myself really getting into this game so I might end up doing a run.
I was thinking of switching over to milliseconds for all my old moderated games so expect big changes soon. I'll make a news post when I start the whole process which will involve re-timing everything and making the rules even clearer (stating the exact start and end framing for each category). Nice to see this game active again, really helps motivate me to improve things around here.
Nearly doxxed myself lmao. To hide the username part of the file path, get your file explorer window to whatever size your prefer then click and drag the search bar towards the address bar to expand the search bar. You can make it so there's no space for the username part of the path.
Hey all, just quickly letting you all know that I've added the Secret Ending to our ILs. The run will be very different based on platform, as PC players can only get the ending through save file editing. Console players get to use the hidden developer room for the ending. I've tried to make the rules as clear as possible but if you have any questions don't hesitate to ask. Please be very, very careful that you don't accidentally reveal personal information through File Explorer if you do the PC run.
Oh this is a great find! I know of a few games where saving and loading isn't allowed in ILs but my personal preference would be to allow it. I think we allow it for now but if people come forward wanting IL boards to be split between No SLA and SLA then we can do that then.
I did some testing after a run just now and the in-game clock seems to progress regardless of whether you've done your first input or not. So I think we need to come up with a new timing method for consistency. On restarting the game, you automatically exit the bed and the IGT progresses and speedrunning means a lot of hitting restart in the menu.
