I will focus on the negative critique but first want to mention that this event was extremely fun, well organized, and many things have been improved from the last couple of years:) So here we go:

First and foremost: why are there 6-10 PC's for hundreds of people? This has been my (and many others') main complaint every single year since 2016 and while in 17 it was somewhat better, it just doesn't feel like it has been tackled enough. I also don't really want to draw a comparison to the CRTs in order to avoid a console vs PC argument, but still: there are a good 30 or so screens in the venue, why are there only a grand total of 10 PC's when the game distribution in the marathon is clearly different to that? Why were there no PC's in the main hall like last year, why no PCs in the quiet practice room, why did PC's keep disappearing so that at the end of the week there were only a solid 6 left? This creates a really bad atmosphere where people who need to practice have to ask other people to stop fooling around and those fooling around to feel bad about what they're doing. Especially since the event is focused on exactly that: socializing and having fun with friends. On top of that, being forced into that tiny room makes you feel so disconnected from the rest of the event (though that has been an even bigger issue in växjö tbh). Last year it seemed liked there were at least 4 in the quiet practice for free use and 4 or so in the main hall on top of the ones in the pc room.
One more thing about the pc room: it is already kind of small and described problems make it difficult to practice or play in there - why does there have to be an arcade rhythm game machine in it which makes really loud and obnoxious sounds? Perhaps that could be installed in a hall or in the arcade room?
Also people setting up emulators and consoles on those already limited PC's would not be frowned upon if there were simply more in general. On top of that, ocarina of Time practice with sound blasting through that room feels so much worse when everybody else can use ear plugs or play without sound. The room is just too small for that.
I realize how harsh all of this sounds and the only reason I'm voicing it like that is because it has been an ongoing issue over the years which doesn't seem to improve much.

Many people have said it but still: having both streams in the main hall set up the way they they were made it arguably a worse experience for everyone. Especially the speakers for both streams were so quiet (I assume to reduce feedback) that it was impossible at times to understand the runner even without the general background noise in the hall (looking at you, street boyz). I understand the idea of integrating it as much as possible and I really liked the view is the busy hall behind the stream last year but you either need some sort of noise cancelling walls (especially for stream 2 where the noise was actually so loud it would be impossible to even follow the runs) or improve the speaker volume. Additionally, I really liked stream 2 room last year, it was super comfy and fun to watch runs in there. At the same time I understand the argument to make stream 2 more of an actual offline stage experience so overall I'm pretty neutral when it comes to that.

The temperature in the venue, the PC room and the hall was really low in my opinion, it made me regret not bringing a shirt more than once. I don't know if that's a general complaint and I guess too cool is better than too warm.

Okay another point that may sound harsh when it's just my personal opinion of course so take for what it's worth: I don't like the seriousness of quiet practice room and even less I like the way it was conveyed, with a sheet of paper with millions of exclamation points on the door, an angry @everyone in the runner discord, the complete exclusion of non-runners from the room and someone from staff watching the room constantly. I don't know what has happened in there which made staff feel like this was necessary but I felt like I was treated like an idiot even though I had done nothing. I do believe people can talk to each and handle and resolve situations like this when most of them are adults. It seems like a generally solvable issue without having staff so heavily involved into it. Last year we live practiced the Jedi academy three way race with two way commentary in there and disturbed nobody but would have disturbed a lot of people anywhere else. At gdq, people practiced a 20 player mega Man relay in the quiet practice room and it was fine, so communication is the key here. I believe a serious practice atmosphere can be created without banning any sort of talking and third person in the room, it's not a library after all.

Another thing which I personally suffered from so I'm quite biased:
What made you prefer taking out runs from the schedule in order to fix it over moving runs from stream 2 to stream 1 when the schedule would be on time? This seems like a terrible idea when you consider that it completely changes time slots and might mess with runner availability and create viewer confusion when they suddenly have to be available at an entirely different day.
On top of that (and that's by far worse) why were the only 6 or 7 runners that had setup games not informed about what that would even mean? A copy pasted discord message about what a setup game is and that your run is a setup game would be enough for that. Maybe it was my own fault for not informing myself about it but I was practicing run and commentary a lot during the marathon and got informed by a friend 2 hours before the run that it would probably be moved while I didn't even consider that possibility beforehand. So when it was announced maybe a bit after that, I had to tell all of my friends and viewers at home they would now have to watch a different stream 5 days later. I have no issue with being on stream 2 but this seems like it's poorly handled I also don't understand the game selection for the setup games which seem to be like mostly well received and well known speedgames but that's a different story.

Stream 2 being ahead by 45 minutes is also a BIG no. It's fine when the schedule is a bit behind but being so far ahead that at the scheduled time, the actual run is already over is extremely unfair for the viewers who set an alarm or made an appointment only to find out they missed the run because it's already over. There's no shame in showing the audience for 5-10 minutes after a run if it finishes early. This goes additionally poorly with stream 1 being behind by hours and generally no way for the people at home to find out in the schedule by how far it is ahead/behind.

Some more minor complaints which are not very important
Coffee/tea would be important for some people to get at night or in the morning when you have to stay up or get up early for the crazy time slots and shifts.
I really disliked the badge this time.. anime... (sorry to the people who made them!) Also it would be nice to have them laminated again like in 17 because they're pretty destroyed by the end of the week.

Overall I really like the location, the vibes and everything, it's still my favorite week of the year and that's also the reason why I take so much time to formulate all my very personal complaints here. Because you're doing a fantastic job! Thanks

https:/​/​www.​twitch.​tv/​esamarathon/​clip/​VibrantSpineyTroutSmoocherZ

i dont really know what you mean with better luck with performance, but no thats not allowed.

Hey man. First of all, if you want to, I highly recommend that you join the community discord server. People will be able to help you much easier than in this subforum.
The "route" column in the leaderboards simply stands for which routing approach you have chosen to do. In case you are mostly going for elevation boosts (short EB, stands for the trick which lets you preserve your speed whenever you go down in elevation), choose EB. If you are going mostly for a crouch boosting approach (short CB, stands for the trick which lets you preserve speed by crouching and jumping out of it), choose CB. If you are not sure because my explanations werent sufficient, or you simply dont care and just want to play the game, feel free to leave it blank and let mods categorize it. If you arent happy with the decision the mods took (e.g. because you used a bunch of cboosts but you still feel like youre playing EB) then let the mods know so they can change it. Be aware that which route is displayed on the leaderboards is totally and 100% up to the runner and nobody else!

Here comes the more detailed explanation: Just like spin glitch (SG), crouch boosting (cboosting, CB) is a way to preserve your momentum between jumps without the necessity to jump from something that is higher onto something that is lower. As such, it drastically alters the approach you go for when you try to play the game as fast as possible. That is why in the case of SG, we have created a new category (any% no SG) in which SG is not allowed, in order to maintain the routing of approach people love about this game so much.. which is going down hill all the time. Additionally, SG is obviously an ultimately faster way of playing the game because you can theoretically maintain your speed EVERYWHERE. Thats why it simply does not make sense to compare runs which dont use SG to ones which do. In the case of SG, this was a rather easy decision because it is very clear to define what a SG is and thus figuring out which run uses SG and which one doesnt is also easy.
Now comes the problem with cboosting. THEORETICALLY, it can do the exact same thing as SG, which is preserve your momentum on every single jump. Think of it like this: a TAS would be able to play the game equally fast with cboosting as with SG. A normal human will not. But the problem is one is not able to define what a cboost even is - where it starts and what defines it, so to say - because in the end it is simply jumping directly after you crouch! You could argue cboosting was done by runners all the time even in very old runs, while the drastic effect on the game wasnt known and people didnt realize what they were doing. Hence, it is impossible to separate runs with and without CB other than by what intention the actual runner who completed the run had when he did it.
So the "route" column is a compromise: runners will still be able to play the game the way they want to and the leaderboards will somehow reflect the decision they took and how it affects the game. If done well, cboosting will save minutes over just eboosting and we felt like this should be reflected also in the leaderboards. It also allows runners to submit times in both EB and CB routes (even though vryndar is currently the only one who has done that), in case you want to compare the two. Basically, EB and CB are both categories within a category. The way speedrun.com is currently set up, this is certainly not the optimal solution but thats what it is and what we have to deal with for now.
I hope that helped! 🙂

saji

you should always use the vectors, no mounts memory value!