Hello, everyone!
After a few months in the making, we're FINALLY ready to rewrite the rules for Any%, 2-Star and 100%. Here they are (Although the wording will change between categories):
Time starts on pressing "New Game", and ends on 6AM on the last night. Time is ONLY counted on the Main Menu, the newspaper, the office, check screens, the warning screen, and the Custom Night screen. ANY other screen is not counted towards final time.
- Note, your time will be re-timed by staff if you claim it to be 5th Place or above.
It is recommended that you use the CURRENT PATCH* of the game, although earlier versions are allowed on all platforms EXCEPT for mobile.
You MUST start from a fresh save file.
Developer hotkeys (CD+, CD1, CD2, etc) are not allowed on PC.
Cheats are not allowed on Mobile & Console, and the Door Pause exploit on console is not allowed.
If you are playing on Mobile, you MUST show the main menu before the run.
*CURRENT PATCH VERSION NUMBERS:
- PC: v1.132
- Mobile: v2.0.2
- XBOX: v1.2.4
- PlayStation: v1.0
- Switch: v1.0
Lets go over these changes one by one.
1.) We removed a few screens from what we consider "gameplay". Notably, 12:00 AM screens, 6 AM screens, and loading screens (Alongside a few others). Once the changes are in place, the time of a run will NO LONGER be determined by the quality of the runner's computer.
2.) Legacy and Current Patch will be merged into one category, and Mobile Legacy will be completely banned from the leaderboards. After searching far and wide for reliable patch notes, we've come to the conclusion that legacy versions for PC don't really give runners any significant advantage. If anything, it can actually make the run even longer. The only exception to that is on Mobile, where the nights are significantly shorter than they are on Current Patch. However, considering that it's no longer possible to obtain these legacy patches (Without some illegitimate methods), we've decided that the best decision is to ban them completely. This is also why we require that mobile users show the main menu before they start a run (Which you SHOULD be doing anyways, by the way.), to ensure they're running the correct version.
3.) From here on out, you MUST play on a fresh save file. This is basically just to ensure that you do check skip correctly. This change will NOT affect any runs posted before today, so don't worry about your run being deleted from the boards.
4.) We made it more clear that you can't use ANY developer hotkeys, as the only one listed beforehand was CD+ (Although they have ALWAYS been banned, its never been an issue.).
5.) Not listed in the above rules, we are going to be combining PC, Mobile and Console all into ONE category. After removing the screens listed in point #1, Console and Mobile don't really become all that different from PC. There are a few skips that Console & Mobile players can't do that PC players can, but we don't think that's a big enough difference to make subcategories for. We might fiddle with the rules in the future, though.
We're planning on going through every category and retiming runs to fit in with these rules, so that we can gradually integrate the new system. Any% will most likely change today, followed by 2-Star and 100%.
The rules may change further as time goes on, but this should be ABOUT what you should expect. We hope you enjoy!
~FSS
EDIT: I forgot to say two other things.
1.) Given this new ruleset, a lot of Any% runs are going to have the exact same time. It's not ideal, but its kind of a necessary evil.
2.) Now that we've removed load times, our mod team has a general idea for how short a run can theoretically be, and that knowledge heavily affected the ruleset. If we see a run that claims to be SHORTER than those theoretical times, AND if that run is also legit, then we'll tinker with the rules a little.
