Hello everyone, we have a big update regarding breaks in Slyfectas. Following a community survey released in November, our intentions were announced in the Sly Cooper Speedruns Discord on 1 January with the goal of inviting community feedback before they went live. This decision was reached after a tremendous amount of deliberation within the mod room – with consideration of the community survey and discussions in the Discord. 

All Slyfecta categories will now feature a break system with breaks that will be excluded from the final time of the run. Every 16 hours, a runner may elect to take a single break, which may last up to 12 hours.

Breaks must be initiated from the in-game pause menu or after closing/resetting the game. For the latter option, different consoles have different exact pausing/resuming points and requirements. Video evidence of a break is not required, but the submission video(s) of a run with breaks must display the live date & time (links to tools are provided in an SR.c guide and the rules) for verification purposes. 

The full details can be found in the rules on the Slyfecta page. We urge you to examine them thoroughly if you plan to do a Slyfecta. 

The rules are the same for all Slyfecta categories, but their respective lengths will determine what placements on the leaderboard are impacted. In practice, high-level times for Trifecta Any% + 100% + Quadfecta Any% will remain purely RTA. For Quadfecta 100% and both Pentafecta categories, at least one break is available for every run.

We wished to protect the integrity of Slyfecta runs in its most popular categories and preserve what has made these runs special, which is why this system is less generous than similar systems in other communities. A break system only received serious consideration due to lengthier Slyfectas, and runners have not generally supported a system where extensive breaks are available for all runs. This system only targets aggressively-long runs and seeks to achieve the best balance between community interest, safety concerns, and board integrity. 

Adjusted times will appear in the normal “Time” column in the same manner as RTA times. Break details will likely be noted in run descriptions, but there will not be anything directly on the leaderboard table which denotes that a run used a break. We believe that any identifier would only contribute to those runs being discredited in comparison to fully-RTA runs. 

There are not currently any long multi-game Category Extensions, but this change also applies there when relevant, including any new category submissions or runs of pending categories. 

As always, please feel free to let us know if you have any questions or concerns. 

-Sly Cooper Speedruns Mod Team