Do you want ban glitch? ok make glitchless category, no coop baby. no save and quit with greed. no black market clip.

but co op baby is not even a glitch though

No Dea1h. Everyone can s&q green and bm clip but i can't use co-op baby glitch because I DO NOT OWN A CONTROLLER.

I just can't play against you on equality of conditions...

tl;dr thread, but here's my two cents anyway

1. Co-op baby strats are just abusing two game mechanics of being about to spawn a second player in the middle of a single player run and abusing devil deal mechanics. You aren't doing anything that the game doesn't allow you to do already so I would say that this is completely legal for speedrunning.
2. It's already too late anyway people are doing it anyway and we can't just make a new category for everyone who gets butt hurt because of a stupid game mechanic. For those of you who don't know about other speedrunned games (probably everyone if you still speedrun this game) glitches are apart of a speedrunners route of completing the game if it makes the game go faster which co-op baby does. So make a glitchless category that no one will run since everyone loves black market clip too much along with all our missing huds and item trackers. Or we can just shut up and speedrun a RNG based game like the morons we are.

@karolmo zamiel do coop baby without game pad. you can do too if you want and spend 5 min for setup programm.

Using external programs? I'm not a fan of that but seems like i will have to..

Some of the posts in this thread are absolutely disgusting and they make me wish Trump will become president sooner and sooner. Coop baby is a disgusting cheat that provides certain players with an unfair pay to win advantage, and therefore should be banned from the ends of this earth with every user that uses it. #MAKEISAACGREATAGAIN

@Warshoty, Is it really necessary to make assumptions of other people and to call others morons for no apparent reason? Self-deprecate all you want but insulting others and throwing out accusations out of nowhere is uncalled for.

The argument that "it's too late, people already do it" doesn't hold any weight I feel. It doesn't give any reason for or against the validity of using co-op babies nor any reason for or against having separate categories.

For those of us that don't have much experience with other speedruns, does it really matter? We speedrun this game, we should be able to voice our opinions on the game we run and have a discussion about it.

In addition, if you want to "shut up and speedrun an RNG based game" then why do you even care about something that's sole purpose is to reduce the RNG to an extent. It's RNG anyways, right?

The point is that there are people who don't want to do a run using co-op babies and there are people who do, I don't see what the problem is with just making separate categories so that people can do the run they want. Pretty sure that's exactly how every other category we run gets made. Having both categories doesn't stop you from doing one or the other. You just have more options now.

Also, Anti, I respect your right to free speech but I'd appreciate it if you kept what I see as distasteful jokes to yourself in a public forum like this.

@BrainTM, the last sentence I said was for comedic affect I'm not making assumptions or accusations. I was just trying to make the point that we're having a discussion about one small aspect of the game that isn't game braking. The point I was trying to make was that we can't change the current categories to not have co-op baby strats when half of the runs us it. We also can't just make miscellaneous categories for every little thing that someone doesn't like. We can discuss it all we want but in the end not everyone is going to be happy with the end decision. That's why I threw my two cents in. Your last two points have no context and make little sense as to what you mean. But, no we don't make separate categories so that people can do the run they want and that's not how new categories are made. We have a bunch of categories that are all the same with the same rules, but one's longer then the others with different characters and they were all made because we didn't know what else to do.

@Warshoty, To me the tone from your previous post felt fairly confrontational all the way through. If that's not the case, then I'm sorry for misreading it.

Changing the current categories would only happen if we decided to ban co-op babies altogether. That would in fact invalidate some runs. Which I don't think is something that's never happened before with speedruns. I still however think the better option is having multiple categories, in which case I'd think we would leave the current categories as they are and then add a no co-op baby or glitchless category for people to submit runs to.

And I mean, we have categories because people wanted to run them, no? We have 7 because that's what's been around from basically the beginning if I'm not mistaken and it's a fun run that people like to do. 11 was made because Rebirth added those characters and is what it is now because people requested it. All the miscellaneous categories are there because people wanted to run them and started doing so (Dark room, jud9s now, etc.)

We've made a bunch of different categories changing mostly number of characters and endings run to and have had them all be under a sort of Any% blanket. Why not have different categories that aren't just Any% with different endings and lengths if people want to run non-Any% categories?

Not streamer, just memer, but I wanted to talk about a particular point.

The argument that "it's too late, people already do it" doesn't hold any weight I feel. It doesn't give any reason for or against the validity of using co-op babies nor any reason for or against having separate categories.

The "it's too late" argument is based off effect on the community, which is the right metric to use. It's pointless to argue why it's better or worse to use co-op baby or other glitches, because most of the criteria is either arbitrary (based off other games or just based off nothing at all) or subjective (what people personally prefer). How changing the rules will affect the community is really the only thing you should be looking at. A bunch of people want it changed, which is totally fine if most people agree. But with a 50/50 split, you should look at how it'll affect the community.

1. You can't just up and change something people have invested 100s of hours in. At some point someone started using it, then more people did and no one spoke up. Erasing the leaderboards is a giant fuck you to everyone who's been speedruning the last few months and has good times. Erasing only the people who used the glitch is a bigger fuck you.

2. So don't erase it, archive it and start a fresh board. This also doesn't work, because it's a giant fuck you to the guys that have been trying every day to hit that number 1 spot and haven't done it yet. This could have been the day they hit #1 and realized their dream. Instead, they get a very good time on a new board and it's not nearly as special because the board is so much less established.

3. Ok then, lets just split this shit up into categories. This solution makes the most sense, but we all know how this will end up. Remember rebirth dark room runs? Hard mode runs? You don't?! Because no one cared. Even Dea1h only did it because he was bored of beating his own WRs (I'm assuming). Most people will likely pick the more populated categories and run them for the WR, so there will just be no point having additional categories. Those who switch will be king of nothing.

3a) But lets say we split it up and half the people keep at it and the other half use glitch-less. First off, glitch-less has to have some strong rules. Secondly, this gets to the heart of the problem. You want WRs to mean something. The community is really small, so if there are only 3-4 people in a category even trying, the WR is a lot less rewarding because there is a lot less competition. Having everyone play by the same rules and be in the same few categories makes it a lot harder to get the WR, and therefore more rewarding. Do you really want to fragment an already tiny community?

So I think there are 2 good solutions. (1) Agree on and document the current glitches and freeze the rules. No new glitches come in. (2) Add more categories

Ya'll should vote. Now, who gets to be in the vote and who doesn't is a different post for a different day.

Okay, the effect on the community is a valid discussion point.

But I don't think it'd be fair to say "it's too late, it already happened". Some people started using it yes, other people decided to continue not using it and voiced their opinions on the matter. No proper discussion was ever had within the community. So wouldn't it then be unfair to those of us that opposed the use of co-op babies from the beginning?

And no I don't want people's efforts so far to just be completely abolished, which is why I'm in favor of just creating separate categories. While I don't want to be like no, sorry your run is invalid because we as a community never had a proper discussion about a controversial ruling, I also don't want to have to run a category using all the co-op gimmicks that have been brought up in this thread because the run would no longer feel like playing Isaac to me. And I don't think I'm the only one that feels that way.

If other people want to run a category that takes advantage of all the co-op baby exploits/gimmicks then they should be able to. I don't want to run that category personally and I feel that there are other people who don't want to either. That's why my recommendation is to just have separate categories. Something as simple as Co-op% and No Co-op% would be fine.

And on your point of there being less competition and records feeling less rewarding, having only the one category that some people don't want to run discourages people from running because they either have to do something they don't want to, or accept the fact that they need to do even more work in order to get those records. Both of which could be deterrents to people. So wouldn't having more categories encourage community growth as a whole where there are more options and people are more likely to find a category they want to run?

1. You can't just up and change something people have invested 100s of hours in. At some point someone started using it, then more people did and no one spoke up.

Absolute, sorry, bullshit. We spoke up again and again about this, but all efforts were either ignored or fruitless. Saying no one spoke up is just factually wrong and honestly insulting.

And you argue about how a change will affect the community? How about reverse that point of view and look at how it already affected the community, sapping the enjoyment of running this game out of the runners and viewers that are opposed to this being allowed in runs? Why is that never looked at, the only people that seem to matter are the poor runners that are using this trick and would lose their countless hours in running this game while ignoring what many of other runners want.

My main concern about a "glitchless" category is that we have no concept of what is and isn't intended by the developers, as they prefer to keep things vague. How will the lines be drawn?

or maybe that question is best for a different discussion.

My thoughts on coop babies is that it adds an extra layer of what is and isn't worth it. I could go down to one heart for this knife on womb 2 if I really wanted, or even a lesser example of just a dmg up. And, is it worth it to have coop baby out, and synced with yourself to increase your dmg output? Am I skilled enough to dodge for both myself and the coop baby, to manage the health of both (You can have over the standard health), when is it best to despawn the coop baby. For these reason I feel coop babies make it more skill based and not less just because you can get a single devil deal more consistently.

I understand where everyone is coming from and it's apparent I'm the only one that doesn't want this game to be more of a meme than it already is. But, my concern is that if we add miscellaneous categories that only change one thing you open a door for a lot of dumb categories all with one rule change. All of the miscellaneous categories right now with the exception of Jud9s (which is enough of a meme already) only have around 3 to 5 runs submitted and no one is running them right now to change that. And I'm sorry Pibonacci, but complaining in your stream and other peoples streams isn't speaking up against the issue. Someone should of made a forum about it if they felt so strongly about it. Also taking away co-op baby is way different then allowing it. You can run the game without co-op baby with it still being a rule (just like at the current 7 char WR) but taking it away is taking it away for a lot of runners and is making their current runs invalid. If we must do something and if co-op baby is that big of an issue than I have an idea. Add a column in all the multi-character category that asks if you used co-op baby or not. Like asking what character you used in 1 char but a yes or no if you used co-op baby instead. But, like I said before you just open a door for more things like this that could just get out of hand.

Well, in my humble opinion, are we talking about speedrunning? If yes, then speedrunning is about using every glitch and exploits in order to make your time faster. This is regardless on whether you like the strat, find it elegant, or not. With that in mind, I do agree with Dea1h to make a glitchless categories for those who don't want to use it.

Co-op babies is not even a glitch, it is an exploit on the game mechanics. If we are gonna base the validity of glitches and exploits on our likes and dislikes we might as well start a thread for every one of them.

For those who use keyboards, you can use the glitch. Yes, it requires a little effort, but as Zamiel demonstrated it is possible. So the argument of unfair advantage is not true.

So no, co-op babies does not bother me, it adds to the complexity of speedrunning Isaac. It has in absolutely no way changed my enjoyment of playing the game. And while in races we might need to validate certain exploits and glitches, I don't think this discussion really has a place as far as speedruns are concerned.

From my perspective, the use of co-op babies creates enough of a distinction between runs to warrant a separate category. That distinction being that it changes the run from a single player run to a multi-player run.

The game recognizes a second player and therefore the run becomes a multi-player run according to the game. To me that seems like reason enough to separate the two categories.

I fail to see how wanting to make this distinction clear has anything to do with making Isaac more of a meme. I also don't really understand what you mean by Isaac being a meme in this instance.

Well, there's enough split opinions about this that the idea I like the most so far is adding a variable to the leaderboard called something like "Uses co-op"

This has most of the advantages of splitting into separate categories, without what I see as the disadvantages. Is there anyone who wouldn't feel well-served by this solution?

lol at karo not reading my post FailFish

Anyways, here's an example of what Hyphen is referring to (the "Tingle Tuner" column): http://www.speedrun.com/tww

The game itself doesn't separate the difference between a single and two player run. You get the same plus one in the win streak column whether or not it's a single or two player run. Regardless it doesn't matter what the game thinks is going on I'm the only one doing anything therefor it's a single player run. And it's a meme because it's a joke that people are taking this so seriously. That they want a whole separate category for this one small game mechanic that if they don't like they could just ignore it and do their own strats.

Thank you Hyphen-ated I knew someone would like that