Ohio, USA@Bokoblins In reference to yours and CardsOfTheHearts posts, I'm also one of the Super Mods for the Puzzle League series. I can backup up Cards notion to remove Darko as a series moderator. I don't think he has much interest in that series anymore.
http://puzzlegeneral.challonge.com/PPL
2 Stage Tournament featuring Round Robin to Double Elimination. Categories consist of Hard, Very Hard, and Super Hard. Check out the tournament page for full rules!
Sorry if I'm super late on posting. But there are quite a few to choose from depending on price or internal/external. A popular one in the community I've seen is the GV USB2. Good for retro gaming, think it is a bit of a pain to setup, but I think they're resources out there. Elgato HD original is one i've used for a while that's not too pricey, and supports signals from 240p to 1080p. Has a bit of a delay that you'll need to compensate with if streaming. I'd say do a couple google searches, search speedrun reddit a little, you'll find one that works well with your pc.
If you enjoy V-Hard in this game, we are hosting a PPL tournament that will start on Hard mode for Round Robin, and increase to higher difficulties as the tournament progresses. Check here for more information and ask me if you have any questions: http://puzzlegeneral.challonge.com/PPL
Hi everyone, I talked to Token recently about fixing up the leaderboards. Different versions of the games have sparked myself, bluebomber285, and others to state a more solid ruleset for the purpose of making rules clearer for our upcoming tournament, and just a well organized board for future times. Bluebomber and myself went through a bunch of the games testing out AI, different modes, and comparing settings and I think we came up with a good list that would fit. I had a conversation with Token that I was going to get back to him, but seems his Twitter is either deactivated or switched to a different tag. In any case, I thought I would show everyone/mods what we think would be a great fit for this game.
I'm glad there's been a good amount of talk put in this thread. My apologies for not replying earlier as I had other things to attend to.
Let me just express what my views were in the first place that sparked having this conversation. As the current culture of speedrunning has developed, one of the first popular races to do on SRL was 100k. A lot of the old boys who would try to race the game preferred doing this, probably a lot influenced by RNG of other modes and was a common competition back in the day. As time has progressed, these points based competitions have kinda taken the backseat as Story Mode speedruns have emerged. As you can tell by the current times that have been displayed, lots of interest has been dealt to those over 100k or any kind of points racing. That has led to 100k being shifted back and forth a couple times from main and miscellaneous.
Old puzzle games have seemed to have many options ranging from completing a number of levels, versus AI modes, score attacks, thinking puzzles, or even other modes. When combining that into speedrunning, that can give people lots of possibilities on what they can do. For the puzzle league series, it seems the 3 big ones are versus, line clear, and points score. Now I do believe it's possible to intergrate a combination of the three is possible to do. I'll express my thoughts in different sections below.
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General Speedrunning Communities I think speedrun.com has proven to be a solid ground to expose people to lots of different games and get involved in a game that you might be interested in. That's why I think a well organized game with categories laid out properly is important. Most popular games you've seen are pretty concise, with a few categories that show you exactly what's to offer. Avoiding categories that not be popular, user-made, or just memes. I feel like a solid list contributes to how others view the game and take it seriously or not which can influence one's decision to pick up the game. Doesn't provide a lot of confusion one may have at a first glance. With that said though, I believe there is exceptions with games that can have plenty of options what you can do on the game, one being Puzzle League. I think it's great because of all these runs, I believe you have to think differently to excel in all of them. So I do think it can work, it just needs to be properly fit to not distract, intimidate, or confuse someone when looking at the game.
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The Modes of The Puzzle League Series I've spent a fair amount of time playing each one of the modes and think there are good things that come out of each. I'll talk about pros and cons of them in a speedrunning aspect.
Story Mode (Vs Com, 1p Stadium)- What's been the center of attention for the most part of speedruns, and for good reason I'd agree. When people who used to play these games casually, this is what they remember most of the game. The developers would point this out as the main part of the game and include story mode and opponents to make it interesting. When people look up gameplay or speedruns to fill nostalgia, I think this is what was intended for them to find. This mode might be one of the best watches for a casual audience because it's easy to follow along, story explanations, and playing against an AI keeps someone on edge always wondering who's going to win. As a person who's grinded this mode more than the other modes, these categories aren't as RNG as they might be portrayed as. Super Hard is definitely the most RNG-based of all things, but there's so many things involved that make it a legitimate run. Whether it's abusing AI with the double 4 combo for consistent skills, watching AI play to determine dropping of garbage, Consistently keeping chains and combos up to par, still utilizes fast play and quick thinking, and many other options, I think this is why I think and people see this as the mainstay to the series. The skills transfer over to other games in the series too, just maybe in different forms (like Pokemon Puzzle Challenge's Health). While lower difficulties shouldn't be praised as much, I think they deserve just as much recognition because they require just as much execution as the higher ones. I'll compare this to 100k when I get there, but I do not think becoming top level at VS is too much easier than marathon. Both require a lot of dedication and talent. I totally disagree with a thought of someone mastering marathon mode and jumping right into Versus. And not because of the RNG, but because it's literally a whole different thought process.
Line Clear (Stage Clear, Spa Service)- Not a lot to say about this, but it's a mode I've enjoyed thoroughly. The cool thing about this mode when speedrunning is it forgets all your aspects on chaining and mostly focusses on fast clearing. I think this one might be the most demanding on your brain because it forces you to think so quickly and make clears efficiently. If you get locked up for just a second, you can easily waste seconds that are so hard to make up time if you're at that top level. I usually only play this one for fun because my cursor speed isn't the greatest, but I can definitely say FFRPro delivers a great watch and has changed my eyes on the mode over the years. An underated mode that a lot of people should run if they want to expand on the game.
Marathon (High Scores, Time Attack, 100k, Max)- This mode is basically the sandbox of the game. What in concept is probably the coolest mode because it has several purposes. Go for high scores, resource for newbies to get better, chain the hell out of blocks for the fun of it, practice specific tricks, and plenty other things that your mind can think of. Like pointed out by many others, this used to be the main stay when thinking of competitive puzzle league. When translating these to speedrunning, I find it a bit awkward to incorporate. Like I compared to the sandbox feel, There are no guidelines to the mode. You do what you want, basically stop whenever you want to. Now as I person who has dabbled into 100k speedruns a bit, I can definitely agree there a huge skillset to becoming good at it. And with different levels of difficulty, you can push yourself even more and get better times. Why I was initially opposed was just as Cards mentioned above as the arbitrary score. Sure it was the max out point of Tetris Attack, but has no specific meaning to PPL. There is a smaller score to trigger credits and the max is 10x higher. But as Blinzer mentioned several times, The 100k seems to showcase the perfect time for the mode. It's not long enough to stale out the run, and not too short to make it something pretty pathetic. Has enough room for error that can distinguish one players skill from the other. I've always liked the category, but never thought of it as a main due to my thoughts of a speedrun in general. But as I've thought about this and since PPL has several different modes at its disposal, I've changed my mind and think it works out for a game like this. It has all the tools of being difficult to master, can be entertaining just by the sheer amount of skill, and overall just a very fun experience.
- My thoughts after reading other opinions and combining my own opinions
I've always thought the community should make decisions together to make changes that will benefit the community and make it a better and more fun environment. I believe that a structure still should be set in place so not everything should just fly around every where. With how much high scores have influenced the community before, I think it deserves the right to hang with the current modes on top. I still believe Story Mode Hardest difficulty is the main stay of the series due to reasons I stated before, but I think modes like spa service and 100k (if that's decided as the best category for marathon) should get just as much recognition as some lower difficulties. With how customizable speedrun.com is with variables and sub-categories, I don't think it would be the bad route to organize each mode with different sub categories on what people may be interested in running. As of now, here is what I think should be main categories:
Main Category: 1p Stadium
- Sub: Super Hard
- Sub: Very Hard
- Sub: Hard
- Sub: Normal
- Sub: Easy Main Category: Spa Service Main Category: Marathon
- Sub: 100k (3d as well if enough interest. Might be better utilized for a higher score)
- Sub: 999999 (maybe?)
The sub categories wouldn't not be miscellaneous, there just extra tabs to organize the mode's categories together. For marathon, it might be better off to just keep it to 100k, but if enough people like the idea of racing to credits or max score, I would not be opposed. Difficulty will be a variable like it is now because it's easily adjustable to filter out if you want to see a specific speed. 3D like I mentioned could be included, but I don't think I've ever seen interest for it recently, so I'm leaving it out for now.
So I guess that's about it, I rambled quite a bit with a little bit of backstory and explanations, but I feel it's important. I think what I've listed is a good fit and can apply to the other games in the series as well. As far as actually making a decision, I'll try to get more attention on the thread and get more input. Then maybe we'll come to some consensus on what we should have and have an official vote with the community members. Let me know any additional opinions. I'm glad to see how much the community has grown and I only want to see it get bigger.
Going to add my own personal thoughts later, but we had some disagreements in the community what should be considered main categories and categories at all. Mostly with 100k marathon becoming a main category. Use this thread as a discussion for any of your personal opinions regarding what you want to see considered a category.
Differs from game to game. Video proof seems to be a standard for a majority of games though. And with how accessible capture cards or emulators are nowadays, I don't see problem with making it mandatory. Though I'm not a mod here but they may relay the same information.
NASA question I should've mentioned before. PPL scheduled around 1 am friday morning. Probably won't be able to make it until later that day, I'm gonna assume around 12pm. There's a small chance I could, but I'd have to work around something. Any way, could it possibly get pushed later or switched with a run, anytime between 12pm friday and 8pm sunday (i sent availability on discord but this is updated again). also bringing a puzzle leaguer with great skill that will be there same times as me (Montucky, 4th fastest S-Hard time). Possible for a 4 way race perhaps? if its too much of a hassle now, completely understand. Let me know
EDIT: checked with FFR and ilikebeingsmart: if it could get rescheduled sometime between friday noon to sunday noon, that would be wonderful. can't do after noon on sunday because smart has work. again if it doesn't work out, originally timeslot is okay
Figure I'd reply to this as well. I actually like this idea because then it's just easier to to navigate through everything. You can just have the three categories and the variables to scroll through to view different versions of the game and different difficulties.
Read the Twitter conversation. In terms of everything that has been stated, I see no big harm in having ILs. Good way to practice before running the game it doesn't take too much away from full game. Each level displays your IGT afterward so it makes for consistent timing. I do agree that each IL should begin from password select screen to make it consistent and not starting from a file that farmed for lives.
In terms of main categories, NTSC-U and PAL are the same in terms of how the puzzles are organized and only contain one difficulty. Those are both the main and can be separated when you submit your time. The reason Japanese is separated is because of the different difficulties that change up the way the puzzles are organized. None of the three separate levels on the Japanese version match other versions, thus why it is separate. I recently got rid of the 1 and 2 difficulties due to no times submitted, but I will just add a variable for it since it is reasonable and won't clutter.
In short, I'll look at all the ILs and make sure they follow those rules. But me personally and I know Blechy mentioned as well, I don't see a problem with ILs. If there was something I missed from the conversation or anything else you wanted to bring up, let me know. Always up for suggestions!
I've thought about this for a bit and to clean up the categories a bit, I'm just going to exclude J-1 and J-2 and move J-3 to misc. 1 and 2 have not seen any action before and I doubt they will. A filter could be possible for the future but I'm not too worried about it. For now we'll have our main entries which will consistent of PAL and NTSC-U and the misc which will be ntsc-j. I'm one for not having a cluttered board so I think that's the best for now.
Here is an invite code open to anyone if you want in on the discord server:
https://discord.gg/0ZHoUXwTddfKwz1t
This is now our main way of communication. We hold races, discuss strategies, play other puzzle games, and just have fun. Join in and take a look at what we do!
Here is an invite code open to anyone if you want in on the discord server:
https://discord.gg/0ZHoUXwTddfKwz1t
This is now our main way of communication. We hold races, discuss strategies, play other puzzle games, and just have fun. Join in and take a look at what we do!
I know this is a very late reply, but yes we're going to keep the video requirement mandatory, will specify better in the rules. The reasons there are times on the leaderboards without videos is because they were times taken from past races on SRL that were live streamed but not saved. Most of these people we have raced with so we knew they were legit times.
I appreciate you if you did stumble upon this and are interested in running this game. The page is currently just been started and I've been tweaking some categories. Main categories are all the USA versions, where as the Japanese version is the misc categories with all the different difficulties. Let know if you have any questions or suggestions. Thanks!
