I've been putting off bringing this up for several years now due to laziness and negligence, but figured it'd have to be done eventually, since at the very least i owe it to a person i did few co-op attempts with said years ago.

As the title suggests, i have a few questions regarding the timing/rules of co-op (sub-)categories that would need clarification before those categories may be properly established:

1. General run timing. Granted that there's no sudden grounds to doubt IGT as the main timing method (when it comes to co-op runs at least) then i assume the final submitted time will be from whoever of the two players has the fastest total IGT time, rather than something like taking slowest time per race into account, right (unless we do the same but with taking the fastest RTA instead maybe)? Or do we mix the fastest finishing times (whoever finishes first between the two on each race) for the combined IGT result between the two? Or do we just take the IGT of the person who finished first on the final race of the level/game? Would srcom even allow something like time input from both players perhaps, or could there be a shoddy workaround like putting 2nd players time in RTA field, if there're any grounds to go for this approach? As a last note for this point, how would the timing sum get affected by any of the players failing to finish any of the races throughout level only/full game runs?

Personally, trying out co-op runs of this game made me have slight doubts towards IGT as a main timing method for this game, especially keeping in mind that you need to forbid pausing to prop up the legitimacy of the final result, but i doubt we're ready to seriously discuss, let alone make a full switch to RTA for eery category. However i feel like with as many options as there are regarding the co-op timings, it's likely better to make RTA a main timing method for them as it makes the most since, where you'd end the overall timing as soon as whoever's last of the two in the final race crosses the finish line (exactly how it's done in - https://www.speedrun.com/top_gear_2/runs/y45r5kkm). In comparison, so far i can't find any sensible solution/combination with IGT as a main timing method for co-op runs as well, (even if a more versatile autosplitter turn up i doubt it'd help solve this case) and the only problem i see with RTA co-existing with IGT is whether speedrun.com would even allow a timing method to be applied to a singular subcategory, or at least would track the runs properly if you leave IGT field empty and only fill out RTA field as a bandaid solution.

2. Either of the players getting busted/trashing their bikes during the run.

Since afaik the game allows you to progress further as long as either of the runners qualifies in top 3, it begs the question of what to do with the timing in case of getting busted/trashed. Of course it's unlikely that anyone will want to be set back on money/progress like that (especially in a full game run), but if someone decides to keep on going with their run in a scenario like this, then it effectively skips having to wait for 2nd player to finish, which is where things can get weird and potentially lead to some abuse when opportunities present themselves (would probably be at the odds with the idea of doing a co-op run at all if done intentionally imo).

Would something have to be done about this potentially, like enforced resets, for example, or maybe an addition of some arbitrary amount of time to the run's total IGT as a form of penalty for situations like this? Or maybe there's something else to be done altogether?

3. Full co-op run on emulator/original ROM.

When playing co-op there has been a problem when trying to switch from level 2 to 3, where both players fail to advance further, requiring the co-op session to be remade (seems like it's the only problematic level too, based on this - https://www.romhacking.net/reviews/10086/). The only idea at the time was a seriously inconvenient scenario of one or both players finishing the last race on their own, advancing to the next level, and then rejoining with a password on a new co-op session, but besides that taking more time it would probably put in question how the finances work for players, especially if both would finish first in their solo races, which would simply make no sense. It can possibly be considered a potential and likely the most legitimate solution out of all, but if it were to be picked i think it would have to not count towards either the submitted IGT or RTA, whichever the timing method ends up being.

Either way, i have no idea if it's also similarly busted on an actual console or not and if there's any solution to this problem at all without resorting to romhacks (somehow leaving only the level bug, leaving everything else out if possible), but something would need to be ironed out regarding the full co-op category. If there's no reasonable solution to this, then would it be better to just create another session after level 2 with the usual provided password for level 3 and keep going, or do you try and take the password of the first player from the current session instead if you can (not sure if there were any issues with that)? Also since we already disregard our progress once this way, why not just make the run a combination of all level runs in a row, starting from corresponding level passwords?

Speaking of passwords, just as a reminder, can i get a rundown on what's the logic behind the current ones - is it taking into account all wins and most optimal purchases on each level? I should probably also wonder if we'd need different ones for co-op, at least for this one level switch, since logically one player has to be on the lower end of things in terms of money, but i'd imagine trying to account for second player finishing second in every race is also quite illogical/overly optimistic.

4. Second player's POV.

Would second player even have to record their gameplay, since you basically see everything through the eyes of the first player anyway? Or does it need to be treated as more than just a nice bonus in case of second player providing a video on their own volition. If there're ever full co-op runs, for example, given the currently forced reconnection issue at hand, would that make a second player POV a requirement, as opposed to level only runs possibly not needing one?

5. Savestates before the run start.

Lastly, since savestates appear to be normalised (even for main categories, for better or worse), it should be fine to also use them for co-op runs to optimise resets (even if i'm not exactly certain it would work with the whole netplay thing), right?

Not sure how many replies i can realistically get these days, but rest assured that any voiced input towards shaping these frankly, long overdue (sub-)categories, would be greatly appreciated, especially keeping in mind that it should be just as relevant for Road Rash II, minus maybe the bugged level 2 bit (since i'm unaware of any similar issues in that game). If i may've been incorrect about some of my statements/assessments and/or missed some other important things that should be discussed then by all means feel free to bring it up.

As of 14.09.21 the timing rules have been changed and properly clarified, with RTA now becoming a primary timing method. IGT was always fairly inconvenient to use, with it requiring constant full game restarts for accuracy purposes, so it was a pending change for a while now. IGT will still keep its presence on the boards, but will be completely optional when it comes to putting anything in its field.

Followup change to that is a separation of Consoles and Emulator(s) for a more fair environment when it comes to adjusting to new timing, since the latter tend to have up to few seconds of advantage per loading screen.

Other changes include removing the 100% category due to lack of demand for one atm, and some minor cosmetical changes to the look of the boards in general.

Good day to any DS speedrun enthusiasts that stumbled upon this very post, where i'll finally try to do something that should've been done ages almost a year ago at this point.

To anyone who is unaware what the main issue at hand is when it comes to speedrunning this game, here is the link - https://www.speedrun.com/dont_starve/thread/spnpi To sum it up shortly, PC version of the game introduces an opportunity to anyone to edit their world seed and there's seemingly no good method to prove legitimacy of just about any submission at this point in time. This thing was known and even discussed a bit way back in the day, which led to the same thing i've done few months ago now which is splitting categories to seeded and seedless. But at the same time ages ago it wasn't quite a known feature and/or maybe implemented properly so eventually boards removed the said categories split since there were little to no runs at the time and none of them seemingly messed around with any of that. After some time i was abruptly left moderating this game on my own to my surprise, but there weren't that many runs throughout the years so it didn't look like there were gonna be that many issues when it comes to keeping these boards together, although even few years back i would definitely prefer to have more knowledgeable people as co-mods by my side seeing as i never quite intended for this to be my main game by any chance. Normally one wouldn't be exactly cheerful when saying that the amount of submitted runs throughout the years is low, but at times this felt like such a burden that i definitely felt this way more often than i did the other way around. That, obviously enough to some people, left to my piss poor rate of approving/rejecting the few present submissions, which i can't really be excused for no matter how much i apologise, but trust me, i'm really sorry, especially if that upset some people. As for the end of this wall of text called backstory, all i can say is that i tried to reflect upon my lack of activity that i mentioned and improve in that matter around april 2019 when i finally got rid of some of my irl issues which coincided at the time with the re-introduction of the issue that i mentioned in the beginning and was hoping would be long forgotten, but wasn't unfortunately. This was a huge mood killer, to say the least, and while i slowly got through whatever was submitted at the time later on, after i got a warning from one of the site mods, i obviously couldn't be sure myself whether any of the submission were legitimate or not, with the exception of at least one person that being @BorisTheCheese . Now i'm extremely unsure on what is the future of these leaderboards may be, or what is there to do to resolve this issue, other than trying to contact game devs and hoping they'll miraculously be willing to do something about this, which is while pretty much the only logical thing to go with right now, i haven't done because of apathy when it comes to simply looking down on these boards. The other obvious thing though which i should've done ages ago as well is try and ask for help from the very few people who were more or less active in the last couple of years and are far more knowledgeable people when it comes to this game and its DLCs. Coming up with better rules/categories and all that would be much easier if there would actually be proper speedrunning community present even if it would consist of 2-3 people. So this is what i'm gonna try to do right this moment: @MisutoM @BorisTheCheese And @Anyone else interested in speedrunning this game and who has a decent experience with it I need some serious help with moderation on these boards, i'm really hoping that it's not too late to ask for that and there'll be someone willing to step up and provide the help needed to brainstorm the way out of this unfortunate predicament. I would be willing to give the two people that i mentioned a moderator position in advance, but speedrun.com doesn't allow that unless they have enabled "Require e-mail authentication" in the settings, so i'll just post this trainwreck of thoughts for now and see if there's gonna be any feedback in the coming few days, if not i'll be attempting to make a contact myself, no matter how awkward that may be, it's the least i can do at this point. As the final note if anyone wants to contact me after reading through all of this you can do so by either DMs on srcom (now that those are a thing), adding me on discord, or DMs on twitch. I promise to reply to any on topic messages asap, which is something i need to mention since that usually isn't my strongest suit either, so to say.

Just discuss whatever is relevant here. I'll start.

I think it's time to all the few people who are interested in this game to actually decide on when RTA timing it supposed to start:

1. As it's being stated in the rules currently, when i'm making this post, which is on player pressing start on the title screen and getting in the main menu OR
2. As it's being actually used by everyone in their submissions which is when player chooses "start race" option in the menu

And although i've already made a switch to In-game time as a main timing method (since it seems to be pretty reliable not abusable and actually accurate way to compare people's times) that doesn't get rid of the question what should be done with the RTA timing which is why i'm brinding it up. If 1st option will be agreed upon then quickest upgrade purchase should be timed and added to all the runs to make things fair. If 2nd option gets chosen then rules should simply be changed plus that would make a "beat level 1 low%" category idea to become way too silly, unless there're people out there who are willing to go slow on purpose.

So yeah, Jaggerfroid and anyone else are free to voice their opinions on the matter.

Getting a pretty decent pb recently left me wondering how i could still be pretty far behind current best time on the leaderboards, so i did some comparison:

In-game time of all 5 races of 1st level me vs sk1pbase -

I could clearly see that i was faster, so next thing i did was checking how long it takes 2 most accurate and known emulators (among the speedrunning community) to get through the first frame of finishing the race till the first frame of the next race compared to the emulator that Sk1pBaSe is using:

Kega Fusion - BizHawk - vs. Gens32Surreal -

Frame by frame results of these videos from vdub -

Based on this comparison i'd like to ask you, Jaggerfroid, to list first 2 emulators as the only ones allowed for running this game in the rules, ban gens surreal emu and invalidate Sk1pbase's current pb run or make it a 14:16 as it's what it would most likely have been if played on a normal emu. Thank you in advance.

Creating this thread mainly because of the Genesis version having cutscene-ish thing between the moment you hit "proceed" and the moment first mission actually starts. Having that happen 9 times in a full game run can definitely make quite a difference. (i'm also not sure, but overall menuing on MS-DOS version seems faster to me as well) As a solution to this i suggest creating subcategories for those two versions of the game. (idk anything about Amiga version, so can't comment on that)

ILs, on the other hand, can stay the way i suggested in my current Harkonnen mission 1 IL submission comment, because that timing way is probably how in-game time actually works as well.

Also whatever the outcome of this is gonna be, it should actually be presented in the game rules, imo.