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.

Лично я пока готов "ответить" лишь за пароли и загрузку состояний.

1. Общая логика должна быть, наверное, "Путь спидрана" (одни победы, без фарма, с оптимальной тратой средств и на одной "временной линии" – гипотетически безупречная игра), и в какой-то степени я старался ей следовать, допустив некоторую вариативность.

• Уровень 2. На первом уровне возможно выиграть пять раз на дефолтном байке.
• Уровень 3. Предыдущий этап проходим на первые места и с Banzai 450, но Ratzo 500 открывает маршрут через DMG 1000.
• Уровень 4. Пять побед на Stiletto 600 и апгрейдом двигателя – вроде как минимально возможный сетап – получаем $24 650.
• Уровень 5. Должны, по идее, иметь $30 920, при Kamakazi 750 N + движке, но последнему уровню полагается быть самым безумным, самым быстрым. Десять баксов оставлены для субъективной красоты; да, можно было накинуть ещё средств, чтобы оплачивать ремонт и штрафы, но $920 "сдачи" на уровне 4 тоже не оставляют шанса на провал первого заезда.

2. Аргументы в пользу быстрой загрузки на эмуляторе. Сугубо личные наблюдения, основанные на опыте тысяч попыток.

• Хаотическое выделение пунктов главного меню (до старта забега) перетасовывает RNG, что исключает совпадение исходных условий заезда. И это не беря во внимание прогулки по магазину и перечню трасс.
• Даже если допустить умышленную генерацию начала гонки, дальнейшие события всё равно будут складываться в случайном ключе – прежде всего это касается произвольных объектов. Игра хранит в памяти лишь пару сотен метров, в равной степени поделённые на обзор перед и позади игрока; на всё, что ожидает нас далее, может повлиять любой условный чих.
• Гринд становится проще. Лично для меня он, пожалуй, вообще возможен. В игре не предусмотрен выход из гонки на главный экран (чаще всего приходится сбрасывать на первой же трассе); режима свободных заездов с настраиваемыми параметрами тоже нет, как и простой системы сохранений – всё ставшее стандартом в наше время. Грубо говоря, слёзы наворачиваются, от вида того, как ранеры Half-Life или StarCraft сохраняются по ходу дела... Полагаю, часть текущих рекордов и активность на прочих уровнях стала возможной лишь с такой поблажкой, хотя она и ставит в неравные условия с владельцами оригинального картриджа (которых, пока что, в таблице подавляющее меньшинство).

Alright, thanks for the explanation on the passwords and savestates topic. With the former i definitely had an easy hunch that it should be the way you described, but getting to learn a bit more about this is even better.

With the savestates it was pretty much a miscellaneous addition at the end, which is probably pointless anyway, once i (likely) get a confirmation that they wouldn't be working in the netplay sessions. I don't intend to dig harder at that, with you essentially being the main moderator here for a long i feel like i can safely trust that you know all the DOs and DONTs well enough. Anyway, coming from a different game with a stricter outlook on the usage of savestates, as well as seeing how these are treated in other retro games, it helps shape the skeptical opinion on the matter. Although, as long as savestates aren't used anywhere during the run itself and don't affect the RNG patterns to make them fixed or anything like that, then there's little to no reason to complain though about it. Perhaps things like that should still be reflected in the rules as well, similarly to the obvious common sense of "usage of cheats isn't allowed" being pasted in most game rules.

Also i completely understand the argument of making the grinding easier with faster starts and whatnot, however if it would also mean skipping the key setup details like purchasing a different bike or different upgrades before starting the level, for example, then i would be more opposed to it, seeing as the important information like that shouldn't be withheld. This point can lose its importance if there're established route standards set in stone and people know where to find info about them, but if that's not the case then it's definitely a bit of an icky case.

And since you've mentioned emu vs console partially, i do wonder once we may adopt RTA for co-op runs, if we'd need to look into making way for emu/console separation, especially counting full runs, where the time disparity between the two might be pretty significant. Unless of course there're accurate enough emulators to not make that big of a talking point. Although the boards already occupy the variable with "standard/wild thing" split, so the space for any further separation is currently already taken per the srcom standards, making this additionally difficult to consider.

Moving on, i'll try to go over the main points i've made in the OP again, recapping what i've said and maybe elaborating further on the options/issues, as well as trying to personally take a stance where it's easy enough to do so:

1 & 3) General timing and full game co-op issues.

It's not exactly clear whose time to take when putting in the hypothetical combined IGT in the submission field. You can take either of the players combined time, or you can take the fastest times both put throughout, or you can take the slowest times that both put on the board, or whatever other mixes of slowest and fastest and player dependent stuff one can think of.

This uncertainty alone makes me think that there is a good argument in making RTA main timing for co-op runs, both level and full game. Unless someone presents a good IGT solution, RTA very likely remains the most fool-proof and logical timing method, even if it may render certain things and strats slower, compared to solo runs with IGT. It would likely look pretty weird to house both IGT and RTA runs next to one another on the same boards, but it seems like a necessary momentary sacrifice, at least until a day of full RTA overtake may come in a distant future that would put an end to the potential division.

As for the actual timing, starting the timer at "start race" and finishing when crossing the line of the final race makes sense in either timing method, so that should be easy to copy over to the co-op categories.

The biggest issue at this point comes from the full game co-op, where the bugged level 2 poses an issue of having to either adopt level specific passwords for level 3, or finishing the final race of level 2 solo for each player. There's a lot of little things to consider in this and generally each solution will be more or less ridden with some flaws, usually the logical ones.

Taking the issue of the bug into consideration ahead of time might be a better option for both players, disconnecting after finishing 4th race of level 2 and then finishing the last race on their own instead of doing so together first and then doing the same race solo (rather than what i outlied in the OP). Doing that would mean that both players can get 1st place rewards, which would be illogical, as well as put a small dent into the premise of co-op, but of all the options to take, this one should safely be the least worst one in that aspect, in my opinion.

Doing the race twice, if all goes well, should allow for a way to gather more money, which should be beneficial for the run as a whole, but it would obviously come at a cost of a time penalty. If we force people to go through with the "proper" co-op way of things and make them do the races until they encounter the metaphorical bugged "wall" fully, then maybe we can take pity on them and don't count doing the last race of level 2 solo towards the final time, but of course that would be a pretty arbitrary thing to do, not to mention hard from the moderation point of view. Regardless of the approach chosen for this issue, i would probably want to not have the remaking session to be counted towards the final time, but even that smaller bit would be similarly arbitrary and go against the core point of pure RTA runs. Still, no matter how arbitrary i at least have to lay out the available options.

My personal stance on the full co-op runs issue would be disconnecting after 4th race of level 2, both players doing final race solo and then reconnecting again, entering the newly acquired passwords. This poses very little logical problems and more importantly, time related ones. There's of course the issue of speedrun.com being a rather weak site as far as customisation of the boards go, but i would hope that just leaving IGT field empty and only filling out RTA one can still work without technical issues from the site. Alternatively we could probably just put in RTA in the IGT field and additionally clarify these state of affairs in the rules and/or forum post too, if we decide on that. I don't mind either option in this case, but using RTA field only would maybe look better or something.

2. Getting busted/trashing bikes in co-op.

If any of these two things happen to either player during a run, i would imagine it would put any an earlier suggested option of combining IGT in any possible way in great jeopardy, but once again it should be fine enough under RTA.

Although there's probably no reason to make that argument at all, because experiencing either of the two misfortunes would be more than just financial inconvenience. It would also put in jeopardy the whole idea of doing a co-op run, potentially turning the run into something akin to a different Top Gear 2 players experience - https://www.speedrun.com/top_gear/runs/y6g164jm . While i might be misunderstanding something when looking at the run i linked, and there also being money at stake in Road Rash, making this a more nuanced issue, i think it's not unreasonable to assume that there is a risk of similar things happening, at least in the level co-op runs. While defeating the purpose of the co-op as a whole, it would also mess around with each timing method too, making this a fairly significant problem. So while it may be inconvenient to put some rules in place to prevent this, with some forced resets over failures (can we even be bothered to determine which fails are deliberate and which aren't though), for example, i think it would be a lesser of two evils. I can't say that i'm fully decided on this, but the potential abuse shouldn't be underestimated, and because of that i'm leaning closer to having to regulate co-op runs harder than solo ones, even if it may mean less submitted runs (but realistically how popular will co-op categories be anyway).

3.5) Separate passwords for co-op?

This is a more of a brainstorm for people that are knowledgeable about this game, or feel like trying to calculate something out of curiousity. Dictated purely by some logic, which is not always the solid grounds for some change, but it should be interesting to think how it would work and whether the scenarios where player 1 and 2 constantly switching back and forth with one another with achieving 1 and 2 positions on the podium of each race, or player 1 always being presumed to be the winner, with player 2 constantly assumed to be the runner-up, can even work at all from the financial standpoint in the long run. Of course it would ideally have to work close to either of the scenarios in a full game run, so making the ideal variant in form of a password for each player can be a nice bonus, but as the levels go i wonder how fast it may reach a breaking point where even with the win swapping one of the players will have to lag behind more and more on the upgrades, or even the bike purchases. If no one will ever bother trying to figure this out, or it'll be seen as a impossible/disparity between the players will be too big type of case and deemed impossible to get close to any kind of "ideal", then with some logical concessions staying with the current solo passwords for co-op level runs should be acceptable enough, i suppose.

4. Second player POV.

While it's not really necessary to provide one, since you can see the setups like name change, password inputs, upgrade/bike purchases from first players recording, i think having second player record and upload their POV should be required as a more of a general standard. Reasoning for that is it'd have to be a necessity with full game co-op runs anyway, with its forced netplay disconnect to do last race of level 2 solo, which moderators would then need to verify personally. And so because the full game would most likely have second player POV required i think we should subject level co-op runs to do the same as well, just so we can have consistency within the rules.

As for the 5th point, i went over it at the very beginning, with the main takeaway being not omitting important portion of the setup before start of the run, if it's something players might need to know to be able to replicate and probably few words about limits of savestates in the rules in the future for better clarity.

All in all, these are my thoughts so far and unless/until something can be done with 2nd level bug in co-op (like adapting a fix from the romhack), or something else entirely comes up during a potential discussion, i don't expect my stance on things to change drastically. If once again i missed out on something important when writing all this then feel free to interject in that regard, or with any other sort of relevant suggestion. With that said, hopefully we can reach the consensus on the co-op topic in the near future, at least within the RR3 community.

Hi there! As a person who has played RR3 co-op in the past, I would like to share my thoughts on the topic.

1. Timings: while RTA sounds like an obvious choice, we need to understand that in a full game run menuing will take quite a significant amount of time. So will the reconnection after level 2. It's up to mods to decide, if these bits should count towards the final time logically. Personally, I don't think so, because it's a racing game first and foremost. At the same time I have no idea how other, similar games handle these cases. Maybe there's an "industry standard" everyone should follow. But I imagine if there was one, it'd be mentioned by now. I would personally prefer IGT, where you take the time of the slowest player in every race. Although, I'm not completely against RTA, either.

2. Getting busted/trashing bikes: I don't like the Top Gear example that was linked, because in my opinion it ruins the whole purpose of co-op. At the same time, forcing a full reset doesn't sound right to me, either. From my RRII experience, the latter levels become quite difficult and accidentally trashing your bike on level 5 isn't an uncommon occurrence. I imagine it's the same here. But the runners might still want to finish their run, even if that happens. Especially, during their first attempts. That's why I believe if someone gets busted/trashes the bike, instead of a full reset the runners should be required to redo the race even if the other player qualified. You would still count the IGT of the slower person in the unsuccessful race towards the final time. But there's a problem: it can happen on the final race of a level. In that case replaying the race will be imposible, I believe. And right now I don't have a solution for this other than adding a time penalty, which I don't particularly like.

3. Full co-op run: I agree with the idea of both racers doing the final race of level 2 separately. I don't think the potential overlapping in the final position is a big issue. Using the fixed version of the ROM sounds good, but what about those who play on real hardware? Would they be able to acquire the same fixed version?

As a player I don't have anything to say about the other 2 points. I'll leave them to mods.

Thank you for sharing the opinion on this matter, i appreciate it. I'll reply to some things that i felt conflicted about or wanted to elaborate more on:

1. The "racing game" argument confuses me, since from my point of view i'm not really aware of menuing ever being excluded from timing within the racing games just because they do not involve racing itself. I don't think this sort of thing is anywhere near being an "industry standard", and if that was the case then menuing would have to be excluded from most games in various other genres, since it wouldn't revolve around the core gameplay features either, which to me sounds rather absurd. Menuing is something that people do have to master under the RTA timing, racing games or not. It's understandable when the games can remove the load times with autosplitters, but you'd likely be hard pressed to find speedgames that would omit menuing on supposedly similar merits. While Road Rash trilogy did land on the IGT as a main timing method in its early days, i'd say it shouldn't be the cornerstone that has to be actively preserved just so the boards can look prettier or something based on consistency, especially when it becomes more apparent that it doesn't fair well in comparison to RTA in this particular instance.

Netplay session reconnection taking some time away is unfortunate, but pretty much a necessity because of a bug, so we can only blame the devs for that. The rules will be the same for everyone in this regard, so a minor time penalty while you set things going again on paper shouldn't be a disaster or anything. If we decide on reconnecting before doing the final race of level 2 then that should be comforting enough, knowing that you don't have to waste minutes doing the same race twice, adding to the final time. Maybe there is a case to be made to try and exclude the time spent making the new netplay session (from the moment both players get back to the menu after finishing last race of 2nd level till they join together again), but i'm not sure how easy it'll be to accurately time that kind of segment, which may end up making this yet another arbitrary bandaid solution.

Also i understand where the slowest IGT in each race angle comes from, even if i would appreciate catering more to the speedrun aspect with taking the fastest times, rather than embracing the fact of having to calculate the result based on who's the biggest dead weight out of the two players at each separate race. Out of the two options it is the most logical one and makes the most sense from the co-op standpoint though, so i can't really argue against that. However, without taking menuing into account, i think you'd be achieving similar result going off of RTA as well, so it's not an IGT exclusive timing perspective either, which is important to note before we get to the next point of the discussion.

2. Top Gear example is more of a cautionary tale than anything else, but i'd like to think that we'd know better even without looking at an extreme case like that. And even if we don't then the game itself won't let us because of the money existing in the game, which is also relevant for the other game in Top Gear series, making this first one an outlier, better fit for comparisons like i did.

I'll say again that i'm not fully decided on what to do in this case and i definitely don't find the idea of a forced reset all too appealing, given that it forces you to keep playing for the elusive outcome of achieving a "perfect run". This other option, however, doesn't really look much better either, forcing even more arbitrary solutions of playing longer, juggling time with some penalties or more weird time omissions on moderation side, which requires more and more effort to make IGT work at all. I'm still not sure how the finances for both players can look under a full run setting anyway, so one of the two doesn't inevitably fall back on their ability to purchase things. Maybe there's ought to be a segmented or a full co-op game run done in the first place to make it easier to think of how to shape the rules for the full category.

Unfortunately that would still leave the similar problem with the level co-op categories as well. While, arguably, not as bad as the full game run on paper, it still leaves the potential room for the busted/wrecking abuse, maybe even making it seem lighter since it totally "shouldn't matter" in a more concised setting. I'm personally at a loss even with already existing runs that may have failed races in them. There would already be issues with rounding times in those runs, like if you try and add the time penalty towards the final result, based on what you see on the video footage before the game switches to the fail cutscene, which only offers you a full second accurate times. Unless i'm missing something then the IGT already takes a hit in these failure cases even in solo runs. RTA wouldn't fare that much better here, but it would definitely still make more sense, if we go back to this topic.

Password for level 5 forces you to win at least once no matter what (applicable to level 4 too, seeing what was said earlier in the thread) to be able to afford to keep going and i think that partially helps reinforce the idea of achieving a clean run rather than look at the option of being forced to redo the race where one player got trashed (at that point why not break the "one win is enough to qualify" technicality further and require both players to place top 3 in each race?). Anything can happen in the remaining races after the first one, but i think that in this instance even this one race does enough to help bring the reality of just biting the bullet and being forced to do a clean run being a clearer idea than any of the arbitrary retimes/redos and whatnot, at least as far as the levels rules go. As annoying as it may be and harder to achieve for two players, it's the end goal anyway, so i'd say forcing resets for co-op level runs shouldn't be seen as a crazy idea. After starting the levels from the same passwords, already bending the logic backwards, it's the least you can do, i think. Either that, or adapt the passwords for co-ops and keep bumping into forced punishments and penalties as a reality of a run that you'll have to complete, tanking minutes of extra time, instead of not accepting said penalty and going again with another run earlier, as tiresome and painful as it may end up being with streak of fruitless resets (do you usually expect much different from speedrunning games though?). With all that said, i can't apply this logic fully to full game co-op runs, since those may need some test runs done first to see what's what.

3. Fixed version of the ROM is also only an idea on my part, since the romhack that i linked encorporates a whole lot more than just this one fix and i wouldn't know how to apply only this one fix that we need to the normal ROM. The real hardware concern is perfectly valid too, but that might not be that big of an issue for people who use everdrive or something similar afaik.

Somewhat belated correction to the 2nd point from my last post, but soon after posting it i've realised that i've had slight misunderstanding when it came to arguing the whole "both players redo the race if one of them trashed their bike/got busted, even if another qualified". I've pointed hard away from that and instead towards resetting being the more logical solution, and while it may still be exactly that in my opinion, it makes just as much sense to leave that up to those running to make that choice, with the proposed redoing of the race at the cost of extra time being the alternative to outright restarting the run.

And now i'll kinda hijack this topic (since it's currently the most active one, even if mostly one-sided so far) to talk more in detail about the whole IGT/RTA issue that was made more apparent to me once i've had to check the full game runs timings (both former and now current 1st place runs).

Without dragging this much longer with some filler text, the issue with the IGT for me begins with the fact that we willfully accept the wrecked/busted/repo man/snitch times as a .0 simply because the game doesn't display the tenths of a second in any of those scenarios. While the treatment is seemingly equal that way on paper for everyone, once you give it a thought, i don't think there's a way to argue against someone potentially benefitting more from having their time rounded to .0 from, let's say .8, compared to someone with a .2. For a more practical example we can take the two full game runs and see how much time this lost time adds up to in those cases. In case of the former WR the times rounding saved somewhere between 6.9 to 7.5 seconds and the most recent run amounts to something between 4.4 to 4.7 seconds. In my opinion those are quite considerable discrepancies that are allowed to slide like it's nothing. One can of course assume that the end result for each runner will have to be an eventual clean run that will have none of the hard fails present, regardless whether it's a level or a full game run, but that's more of a wishful thinking scenario and not something to be argued in favour of, in my opinion, because any run with any fail, big or small, will be messing up the final result to some degree, which should become even clearer with my next point.

Moving on, the next issue is a joint one, continuing on the times precision topic, but this time touching upon the general "clean timing". Currently we're sitting at something like ".9 = 900", which is thankfully not as egregious as the rounding stuff above, but still leaves the wiggle room for speculation of how much time gets lost on those invisible hundreds and thousands of a second. Does the game keep track of the time in further detail than it shows? It might, and there similarly might be a scenario in which we get an autosplitter that gives us those precise times, but that is all hypothetical since neither do we have the knowledge and resources, and i'd imagine neither would we want to leave the consoles out of the equation with a possible "solution" like that. The current timing method with these small hundreds and thousands of a second discrepancies is unreliable enough to be unfit as a timing method even for a singular IL races, in my opinion.

Even bigger issue with this arises once you start adding up together times from multiple races, taking the slightly inaccurate single race times and increasing the inaccuracy more and more with each time added. In the end it might be unlikely to surpass those times that i provided as an example for the rounding issue, even across the full game run with all the 25 courses, but at the same time even a .1 discrepancy should already be fairly significant for the leaderboards which support the milliseconds, and we more than likely are shooting for more than just .1 even across the level runs, let alone full game ones.

So in total, because of the IGT we're supposed to not pause at the start and during the race, because of the time inaccuracies it brings along, which is a weird and arbitrary concession to make for the sake of a timing rule. It would probably be fine if it was the only concession needed, but then we also have no meaningful way to tell even the somewhat precise times of any hard fails so we're also throwing that point away entirely for the sake of preserving the IGT that's already pretty inaccurate in itself, rounding to tenth of a second only, which is also pretty arbitrary and only gets worse because you have to sum these arbitrary times up. Worst of all, all of these issues that you have to gloss over are applicable to current singleplayer runs already and with the potential addition of co-op runs on the horizon it would likely make these timing issues even more apparent, prevalent and offending.

In my opinion the IGT was an understandable starting choice for the leaderboards, especially when it was basically level 1 runs only, but the glaring issues should've been addressed at some point, at the very least after the pausing point was brought to everyone's attention. RTA may have its imperfections too, but it seems simpler and more sensible for everyone involved than this IGT fiasco that requires a lot of turning blind eye to, just so one can instead leisurely and happily disregard caring about their menuining and decision making outside of the races, as well as being able to make alternative track order routes, simply because it comes at the cost of a severe RTA abuse which is being seemingly normalized through this rather ignorant propping up of IGT as the main timing method. To sum this up further, i think IGT positions are flimsy and it's finally time to make a change to the status quo.

Здесь оба метода имеют право на жизнь: IGT основывается на показаниях игры и открывает простор для тактик, RTA же выглядит надёжным, простым и объективным. Но если сейчас отсортировать таблицу по RTA, то будет каша – ведь подавляющее большинство людей отталкивались от другого метода и не сильно торопились вне заездов. И получится, что на первое место вообще всплывёт моя древняя, одна из первых записей на 14:08.77, для этого не предназначенная и обесценивающая последующие труды.

Поскольку игра скорее мертва, чем жива, напоминая архив, предлагаю оставить всё как есть. Тем более мы не одни такие и во всех Road Rash уровни замеряют по внутриигровому. А как быть с кооперативным прохождением - определиться, когда оно будет готово; и ромхак здесь выглядит вполне уместным. Мне кажется, при наглядном образце решение найти проще.

Касательно фуллгейм спидрана на 100%. Там любая авария или задержание – уже наказание, вызывающее желание начать сначала, тем более когда проехал не минуту, а три-пять. Поэтому эти "незримые" сотые доли пускай такими и остаются. Всё равно игрок может/будет стремиться к чистому забегу без переигровок, особенно если внезапно наметятся актив и борьба. Оставим тысячные фреймпёрфектным играм, где контролю и манипу поддаётся практически любой аспект; в этой лотерее на рандоме и физике теряется куда больше.

В любом случае не помешало бы мнение большего числа заинтересованных лиц.

Hopefully i won't be seeing as getting personal accidentally with my reply, but i felt the need to give one of some sort anyway, given that i didn't like the counter arguments that i saw

First of all, i agree about with timing methods having their right to exist, but then again when you really think about this statement, can you really say that the RTA was given any chance to shine compared to IGT? I honestly don't fully remember the very early days of this leaderboard, but i'm pretty sure that we went with IGT soon after the leaderboards were created if not right away and the existence of RTA always felt like more of an afterthought/"oh it's just there" kind of thing. Rest of the Genesis/Megadrive trilogy games happened to pretty much mirror one another as far as running the leaderboards go, and with this mindless unanimous consensus it's no wonder that later on we reached the point of blatant RTA abuse becoming a thing under the guise of IGT friendly strats. Oh and of course one can't forget the case of RTA being thrown away entirely by the RR2 boards, out of convenience for those who may be confused by that option when submitting runs, which is pretty weird to say the least (if we're looking at the other games as an example i might as well mention stuff like this). With all due respect to the other boards (at least the original trilogy ones), they are also severely lacking as far as putting the basic categories onto the leaderboards goes (lack of activity is hardly an excuse, imo), which doesn't seem all that exemplary to me. Also let's be honest, this supposed unity of ours only means that we happen to share the same error in our ways and that we need to do something about it, rather than drag each other back into the mud as long as we all remain there all the same.

I'll say it again, but the IGT was an understandable choice early on, fairly simple and seemingly reliable at the time, i won't be denying any of that. Just because i push for RTA now doesn't mean i want to wipe the IGT away as some sort of a massive mistake that should be forgotten completely. However at this point in time, after some clear thinking, it should become apparent that it is a mistake to continue with IGT as a primary timing method going forward and that should be addressed properly.

IGT being based on the game readings doesn't really mean much, the timing accuracy is dubious at best for the reasons mentione in the last post, and only passable enough if used to time a single race. Contrary to what i said earlier, one thing i'd be fine with conceding on, would be leaving IGT as a timing method for IL races (whether it would look good in contrast with a RTA majority leaderboard is a whole different can of worms). I maintain my opinion that it's not useful for anything else though, because once again, the moment you start summing up those singular race times you go from the seemingly insignificant thousandths of a second that you gloss over, and end up with hundredths, and then tenths, which may also go into full blown seconds, depending on categories and other circumstances. That would be multiple layers of being impossible to ignore already, and all of that starts at the bottom, at the thousandth of a second that we currently fill in with zeroes. Add in throwing away the tenths with major failure scenarios and i don't think you can honestly claim your time as an accurate with a straight face at all.

IGT allowing for different routes seems like a bad faith argument to me, seeing as it comes at the cost of RTA first and foremost. Having said that, i checked my fastest RTA run (it would be 2nd out of 5 level 1 runs) vs my current pb and it's only ~.700 difference, with some shopping involved after race 3 being the difference. Seeing that deficit being near fully covered by the end of the run, and all of that being the default track rotation too is pretty amusing. You can nearly save back all the time you spend menuing in the shops over the course of two races, and it'll arguably be even easier with longer races on later levels too, so while not as apparent as IGT progress, RTA definitely has plenty of food for thought to offer.

Then there's your own example, Anko, where you have a faster RTA time with the different route, which in my opinion should be seen as a positive, since it means that there's no having to go back to the old routes/strats in case of a timing change, which also means that the overall brainstorming and grinding efforts won't be going to waste either. If the progress isn't as noticeable with one timing method compared to the other it doesn't mean there's suddenly less effort involved, or the progress isn't as impressive and we should instead just strive to maintain something flashier, no matter how flimsy/dubious the grounds for that may be.

In my opinion, when you sort by RTA you should actually become more motivated to fix the existing situation, because in all honesty, seeing runs with similar routes and IGT times having RTA differences ranging from 30s up to multiple minutes, is alarming to say the least. This is the said disregard/negligence, as well as a complete waste of time for all involved parties on full display as a consequence of not establishing any kind of boundaries or addressing the timing rules ever since 2016-17.

At the start i addressed the comparison to other RR games and how i don't think it holds any value, but since an attempt was made to present that as an argument, then in turn i have my own comparison to make. Let's take classic 2d sonic trilogy and their sub-communities gradual adoption of the switch from IGT timing to RTA-TB over the excessive pausing concerns involved with performing various glitches, which isn't penalised in any fashion by the IGT. The reasoning is obviously not quite comparable to ours, but i've already listed the reasons as to why RTA is better for us as well, and better yet, we're seemingly on the same page so far that the RTA is looking like a reliable, simple (for both players and moderators) and more objective timing method, which should warrant the similar change to the one that the sonic community made. They've had s3k adopt that standard way ahead of the curve, with s2 following multiple years later and then some time later s1, which while still usually far more active than any of the Road Rash games, should at least be closer to us in comparison, especially with making the change later than the other titles. No matter the activity, no matter the amount runs, if the change is warranted then the change should be made, there's no artificial warranty period after which it's suddenly no longer feasible to make the change. We of course don't possess any kind of active community (which only makes me wonder why should there be any appeal over the timing switch affecting ton of ancient and often one-off throwaway runs, when you'll likely be hard pressed to find anyone who really cares) to be making a community vote like the ones that sonic folks held, but i'm sure we can decide among ourselves to vote for this change, instead of dragging this out any longer, increasing the X years old counter of the leaderboards themselves, trying to pass that as a point for things to remain in place. It is important to note that both s2 and s1 boards host far more runs than our boards do and yet despite the timing switch affecting a good chunk of runs that were overly reliant on pauses, the vote passed pretty much unanimously in both cases. So if the bigger boards that have more to lose aren't afraid to make the change, then we shouldn't be either, i think.

All of this also means that no, i don't agree with the archive analogy. If anything, we're the small sub section of the archive with some different documents that are entrusted to us, and if we see a mistake in those documents, we should do what's expected of us and correct the mistake instead of shrugging it away.

Regarding the co-op runs - me and Zaza have videos of a few completed level 1 and 2 attempts that we did 4 years ago, but all the issues that prevent those from being submitted were discussed by us around the time those runs were being made, which is why there was no immediate rush to submit whatever we produced. Regrettably i also sat on those runs and avoided making topic for a long time, and while i doubt that i would've been able to lay things out back then on the same level as i did now, it's still unfortunate that it took this long to get things moving. Thankfully it doesn't have to mean that i should not try at all and just let things stay the way they are since there's no immediate demand for co-op boards from anybody else.

Anyway, all of these "make the change!" similarities and analogies aside, i've laid out these issues in the first post, and then with some additions took my stance on most of those in second post, which is what i'd like to have more feedback on, even if the currently more pressing issue before we proceed with that may be the RTA/IGT debacle.

Once again, unless someone can tweak the romhack only to leave the level 2 to 3 transition fix, it's guaranteed to be illegal since it alters the game significantly enough from what i could see.

Lastly, i disagree with the final passage about 100% and hundredths being unimportant. The way i see it, you have a far higher chance of having messy one-off runs for 100%, where unless you get a game over you are more inclined to finish an attempt that goes deep into the run. And even if it's going to be more than a single run from a hypotehetical runner by some miracle, then going off of the current WR example it's still likely to take a while before there may be a run that eliminates any major fails. Ignoring the milliseconds from those major fails altogether as if they don't matter because of an overly optimistic outlook of an idealistic speedrunning endgoal is pretty silly. Let's say, however that we did that, then we still have a sizeable time discrepancy from normal dubiously detailed race times that add up together to a decently big one over the course of 25 races. Sure, this is a far less noticeable issue when it comes to level runs, but that doesn't cancel out the precedent that's already there and needs to be regulated instead of ignored. And once again i have to say that these issues are going to be even more apparent with the addition of co-op runs, so the change seems like a reasonable solution, rather than intentional ignorance.

In total all we need for a change is a quick switch from IGT to RTA, followed up by either a forum or news post, explaining the reasoning behind the change and then slight explansion of the rules to reflect the changes and bring that section up to a higher standard in general. Doesn't seem like a series of hard tasks or anything to me.

And if we go back and think about the runners who would be affected by the change, then i advise you think of it this way: there's a non zero chance that any of the runners who did a one-off finished attempt, spot the change and come back, and depending on how underperforming they were with their RTA previously, there's a certain likelihood of an easy-ish pb happening to them. I wouldn't hold high hopes for that happening obviously, but it's still the better outlook to have on this, rather than assume the opposite scenario, where the usual lack of activity on the leaderboards would be attributed to some people refusing to play RR3 ever again after the timing change (and/or new players having a sudden disdain for RTA and passing over RR3 as a speedgame) that would largely affect only the first level of the game that only lasts for 14 minutes btw.

Часть I.

Плохо, что нельзя вести два независимых зачёта по обоим методам: RTA был бы по дефолтному маршруту, иной раз без покупки байка/апгрейда, а IGT – скрупулёзная версия, включающая менеджмент трасс и ресурсов. Так и напрашивается такое разделение... Но увы.

1. "Гоночная игра". Мне серия RR представляется как реальный чемпионат по гонкам, где важно лишь время в заезде, а перерывы между гонками не учитываются. Только если в жизни это недели, необходимые на перелёт и подготовку, то здесь – секунды, уходящие на сцены и меню. Это есть IGT – совокупность залпом пройденных "Уровней". Плюс это моё видение подкрепляют: акцент игрой на время в гонке и свобода выбора трассы. Не так, например, как Rock n' Roll Racing, где игрок ограничен последовательным набором лимитированного числа заездов. И в лидерборде которой, к слову, отключены миллисекунды, потому что сложно представить два одинаковых результата.

Выскажу субъективную мысль, что спидран серии RR (как и небезразличный мне Cannon Fodder) отличается от части игр тем, что борьба здесь идёт не столько за время, сколько за сам факт выполнения задачи. То есть неважно какое окажется время по итогу, главное – добраться до конца с удовлетворяющим тебя результатом (без аварий, падений или заносов вовсе); с меньшим количеством невезения, чем у конкурентов. Поэтому в "километрах" это будет измерено или в "милях" – не принципиально.

2. "Принцип целостности". RTA же олицетворяет собой скорейшее преодоление номерного (сюжетного) уровня или всей игры, замер отрезка от A до B как есть – что тоже логично и имеет право на жизнь. И, честно говоря, где-то в глубине меня чаша весов порой склоняется в сторону RTA; ведь не просто так я изначально не пренебрегал темпом переключения меню. Но потом вспоминаю, что кроме RTA есть так же IGT и LRT, и каждый отвечает своим требованиям.

Есть зерно истины в том, чтобы побудить часть игроков обновить PB в новых реалиях, но так же это не справедливо к тем, кто усердствовал в достижении наилучшего результата; а та "часть" может улучшить своё время хоть сейчас, просто перестроив маршрут на актуальный. Хотите потягаться с WR первого уровня? Научитесь пресекать взлёты на кочках и продлевать действие буста – и тогда, если в придачу вам несколько раз повезёт пересечься с парой автомобилей, подвинуть вас с пьедестала будет невероятно сложно. А не так: "Мы перевернём доску – easy WR, забирайте". К сожалению, участь непопулярных игр такова, что многим эта рулетка наскучивает довольно быстро.

Часть II.

К RTA, при желании, можно придраться сильнее.

• Откуда начинать отсчёт. Первый уровень нарождается когда нажимаем Start Race или когда впервые появляется главное меню? Если поход по магазину в процессе должен учитываться, то как быть с закупкой до начала первой гонки? Которую, к слову, можно выбрать до старта, но "нельзя" по ходу дела. Может, это всё тоже должно быть включено в RTA? А второй уровень и последующие – засекать с подтверждения пароля? Тогда вся таблица нелегитимна. Но если сравнить это с предварительной настройкой опций в каком-нибудь платформере – тогда вопросы можно снять.

• Как быть с IL. RTA добавит несколько лишних необъективных секунд, занятых загрузкой гонки. Стартёрщица тоже скриптована. И всё. Однозначно – IGT, если не разглядывать покадрово. Что лишнее, поскольку идентичность результатов здесь маловероятна. Да даже если – уйма примеров, когда несколько человек на одной ступени пьедестала. При необходимости или запросу, можно посчитать кадры одинаковых мест, отредактировав IGT до тысячных.

• Точность и скорость эмуляции. Это к вопросу тем – здесь и в RR2, – затронутых семь лет назад. По итогам которых RTA, собственно, и был отметён как ненадёжный, ввиду разной скорости загрузки экранов. Не говоря уже о скорости эмуляции всей игры в целом – по причине этого даже Fusion кое-где является нежелательным. Но что интересно: если включить 10x перемотку, то за 15 секунд "полёта" по трассе внутренние часы покажут 2:30. Это, в том числе, свидетельствует в пользу большей точности IGT. То есть возможное преимущество от скорости эмуляции нивелируется пропорциональным "ускорением" IGT. При этом сохраняется разница регионов: забег на европейской MD всегда будет на 16% медленнее.

Часть III.

Поэтому, что для нас первостепенно: графа 1 или 2 из первой части? Оптимизировано завершить пять "объединённых" гонок или следование линейности (задумке авторов) и удобство в подсчёте? Унификация; по примеру похожих игр... которые все можно счесть некорректными, ибо мы сами должны определять правила нашего "дома"; можем принимать к сведению, но не слепо копировать. Да оба варианта имеют право на жизнь. Оба уместны – как с плюсами, так и с минусами.

• IGT злоупотребляет RTA и идёт в ущерб ему? Ничуть. Ведь RTA здесь, грубо говоря, не существует. Однажды сообщества согласились с переходом на IGT, и считаю, поступили правильно. RTA не панацея или общий стандарт, и поэтому в целом имеется три метода разделения. Много где RTA заменяет LRT. То, что в RR2 реальное время вовсе стёрто, – так я тогда аналогично хотел сделать, но от чего-то не стал. Наверное, это мой перфекционизм и "ведение прекрасного"... или банальные лень и стеснение обнулять чужие непринципиальные данные (сейчас я вовсе перестал редактировать RTA). Хотя в Cannon Fodder на Amiga всё же убрал сведения о реальном времени, да; более того – привёл все значения к стандарту 50Hz. А здесь какой будет, если игра идёт в 12 кадров? В коопе – и того меньше...

• Тогда и RTA "ущемляет" IGT, сводя к минимуму оптимизацию ресурсов, ограничивая его потенциал и в какой-то степени противореча сумме IL. Ни один не может заменить другой, оба злоупотребляют и "конфликтуют" друг с другом, и при этом каждый может отвечать своим требованиям. Оба могут сосуществовать рядом, и прежде всего в гоночной игре.

• Пауза в Сонике приостанавливала IGT и растягивала RTA. Справедливо. Но в нашем случает пауза "уменьшает" конечный IGT и способствует уклонению от вовремя замеченных препятствий. Зачем её нажимать? Она в любом случае должна быть под запретом. У нас всё же валидольное выживание с перманентным тестом на реакцию, а не какой-то там "казуальный раннер". Лотерея – не скрипты.

• Super Monaco GP – пример серии, где короткий режим измеряется в IGT, но полная игра – в RTA. Правда, я увидел лишь одно объяснение, и то не совсем мне понятное. Тем не менее решение работает.

Согласен, что на модерах лежит ответственность. Не сломать – в том числе. И необязательно, что в нашем архиве закралась многолетняя ошибка, но расширить возможности и взгляды вполне можно. Модераторы приходят и уходят, а люди в таблице остаются. Тем более, что любой может стать им – достаточно чтобы твоя заявка пролежала дольше трёх недель. Поэтому перед внесением кардинальных изменений важно услышать мнение большего числа участников. И, желательно, узнать позицию RomZdark, вклад которого в развитие сложно переоценить.

Часть IV.

И под конец – мысли по видению кооператива. Поправьте, если что-то противоречит свойствам игры, или забыл.

• Добавить три вышестоящие подкатегории: Solo, Split Screen, Take turns;

• В режиме Split Screen учитывается IGT медленного игрока (последнего финишировавшего); и о балласте здесь речи нет, потому что гонка в любом случае заканчивается с финишем отставшего;

• Split Screen – авария одного вынуждает второго остановиться, чтобы дождаться патрульного (либо наткнуться на полицию), затем гонка переигрывается; IGT (если не игнорируется) засекается на последнем затухании экрана;

• В режиме Take turns складываются IGT обоих игроков;

• Take turns – если аварии одного игрока приводят к тому, что другой завершает свои трассы раньше, то он начинает пропускать ходы через сдачу полиции и его IGT/RTA не учитывается; если это выйдет сложно и долго – рассмотреть вариант "записывания" пароля, по которому отставший игрок завершит свою часть в одиночку;

• Пароли уровней берутся текущие, либо можно обсудить составление новых – например, под конкретный байк, при этом стоит принять во внимание чередование первых и вторых мест с возможным округлением до приемлемого байка; так же в режиме "All Levels" может пригодиться вышеупомянутая практика записи промежуточных паролей;

• RTA ставится на паузу пока идёт переподключение или возобновление сеанса с пароля после глитча перехода;

• Точка зрения второго игрока не обязательна;

• Ромхак, затрагивающий аспекты кроме бага смены уровня, недопустим;

• Измерять забег можно по RTA. Тут без разницы. Но если есть повод сомневаться в IGT именно в кооперативе – не возражаю, пускай будет реальное время. Поле IGT можно оставить пустым, и сайт отсортирует по "Time". Два метода могут сосуществовать независимо: Road Rash на PC и серия Super Monaco GP тому примеры.

Часть последняя.

• IGT округлён только до десятых долей секунды. А такт RTA колеблется между 0.083 и 0.100 – что тоже не показатель точности, ведь минимальный "шаг" на Genesis равняется 0.016. RR3 выдаёт в гонках от 10 до 12 fps; в меню будет побольше, правда – 30. При вычислении реального времени ориентируемся не на показания таймера на экране, нет. И я даже не про устав сайта, который не обязывает игрока иметь счётчик на видео; модератор замеряет отрезок и конвертирует общее количество кадров в реальное время согласно герцовке игры. Тогда с какой частой "заставим" игрока записывать свой забег? 24, 30, 60, 144, или достаточно дюжины?

• Для сравнения возьмём Бразилию на первом уровне и стандартными апгрейдами: IGT – 2:42.4, RTA – 2:42.433 при частоте 60 Hz. И... ещё девять аналогичных экспериментов. В итоге на финише имеем: +0.033, +0.116, +0.016, +0.033, +0.116, +0.100, +0.033, +0.066, +0.083, -0.017. Сильный разброс. Который можно было бы списать на лаги, индивидуальную погрешность записи и дублирование кадров, если бы минимальные расхождения не проявляли себя ещё на стартовой линии. Они становятся заметны, потому что во всех случаях игровой счётчик запускался на 2.233 RTA раньше, чем байк трогался с места (почему этот "фальстарт" вообще существует и какой триггер включает IGT раньше движения пелотона – вопрос к хакерам и тема для отдельного обсуждения). При этом "шатало" именно секундомер на приборной панели. Более того... вы замечали когда-нибудь, что в редких случаях время на экране награждения на 0.1 меньше, чем когда оно замерло на пересечении финишной черты? Ну к примеру, было 2:42.0, а на пьедестале стало 2:41.9. Понимаю, что сейчас "даю показания" против IGT, но не всё так однозначно. Напомню, что из-за медленной скорости игры, частота отображения составляет порядка 11 кадров; то есть отрисовываются по 5-6 одинаковых кадров подряд. Это значит, что совокупный RTA состоит из сумм всего двух значений: 0.083 и 0.100. Чувствуете подвох? Те десять перечисленных данных говорят не о том, что мы получили от -1 до +7 тактов разброса, которые возникают когда частота "скачет" равномерно по 0.016/0.017, как при реальных 60 fps, – они получены резким прибавлением по 0.083/0.100 к предыдущему "кадру". Словно выкладывание прямой линии из кубиков LEGO блоками не 1x1, а 6x1. И в действительности финиш должен находиться где-то на отрезке, в одном из шести сечений, но всегда округляется, располагаясь на стыке двух блоков.

• Частота кадров в кооперативе равняется 5-6. И это удручает. Да, там заметно "шевеление" пикселей на траве каждые 6-8 тактов, но реальное обновление изображения – смещение дорожной разметки – происходит каждые 10-12 кадров. Это показатель того, что в мультиплеере RTA "шагает" более широкой поступью: от 0.167 до 0.200 миллисекунд. Но так или иначе, я не против применения этого метода в коопе.

Вывод. Вид всего лидерборда остаётся в силе, кооперативные забеги верифицируются в RTA. Сейвстейт на экране пароля разрешён; он может нести в себе данные об имени и режиме звука, но вся настройка первой гонки должна проводиться после загрузки.

Conclusion. The appearance of the entire leaderboard remains valid, and cooperative runs are verified by the RTA. A savestate on the password screen is allowed; it can carry information about the name and sound mode, but the entire setup of the first race must be carried out after downloading.

In the game "The Lost Vikings" there is a category of "1 player, 2 controllers". And in our case, such a gameplay option also suggests itself. It's quite simple with the "Take Turns" mode - it will be the same "Level X", but twice; and in the "Split Screen" you can also play alone, although it feels easier on the keyboard.

Would adding the fun-categories "Split Screen 1P" and "Take Turns 1P" be appropriate and is there a need for them?