Thanks Val. Leaving it at -2.73s for both soft resets and emulator hard resets will keep the rule set simpler.

For console players, maybe we can suggest an occasional hard reset if they rely on music cues. Though, maybe it needs to be a hard reset every time to avoid sound glitches?

Let's see if anyone else comes through with their opinion. If not, I think we can just keep it as is.

Hey Val, my thought is that we could stick with requiring one visible reset. I hope we can state our expectation in the rule set and trust that runners will respect it. If we find that someone is using a character-select hack or similar, we can ask that they switch to an accepted rom/emulator to have their runs included on the board.

It sounds like we may have a new batch of runners getting started with the game. I would like to get something in the rules to note that it is expected that any rom/platform the run is played on provides a random character on startup/reset.

This wouldn't close the door on discussion about this point going forward, but will clarify the current rules. I don't want someone to grind runs on an emulator or flash cart that provides their target character and we end up in a weird spot during verification.

Thoughts or objections?

Hey folks, did we arrive at a conclusion for hard/soft reset timing? Do we want to update the rules to note that a hard reset on emulator will take 3 additional frames?

We'll also want to note how long a hard reset takes on console. It appears to be about 3 seconds longer than a soft reset, but in my tests there were small variations. While recording using OBS, I performed three soft resets and three hard resets. For each clip, timing started the frame I could see the effect of a reset - either a black screen or screen tearing. Timing ended the first frame I could see the projectile from the tank.

The minimum difference was 179 frames - longest soft reset vs shortest hard reset. The maximum difference was 187 frames - shortest soft reset vs longest hard reset.

Not a very sophisticated method, but I'm not sure what else to try. Can anyone else time out a hard reset and report what they find?

Great, thanks for verifying the 3-frame difference between hard/soft resets Arkan.

I contacted the person that originally reported the 164 frames and he doesn't remember the specifics on it since it was a few years ago.

My thought is that, for now, we can probably leave the soft reset start time as is at -2.73 (to account for 164 frames) for now. A few frames isn't a big deal since:

• Runs are often tens of minutes long
• Our degree of precision is seconds
• We allow several different platforms to run the game, with minor performance differences
• Our end time is when "the screen is completely black", which is a bit loose

Plus, all recent runs have started with -2.73.

All that said, if anyone wants to tackle researching cleaner start/end timing and propose a rule change, I'm open to it if other community members are on-board.

Hopefully others will pop in to express agreement or objection. Otherwise, I think you are good to go with 167 frames (2.78 seconds) of startup time for hard resets, Arkan.

Hrm, I just had another thought. Perhaps horizontal position isn't the correct value to watch on start up. Maybe there is some value related to acceleration that can be influenced before the character's position changes.

One last hiccup we'll want to discuss. We've been operating on the fact that, after a soft reset, there are 164 frames before you can take action. In my tests last night, my count showed 169. My hope is that someone can double check this as well.

The original frame count came from someone that worked on the TAS, so I don't doubt their number - I just think we were measuring two different things. When initiating a soft reset, it looks like there are five frames before several memory addresses are populated with what I assume are startup values. From the TAS perspective, perhaps that is when time starts - once the reset has completed. But for speedrunning, we probably want to account for those 5 frames in our reset countdown.

All that said, I have very little experience examining memory addresses - so I may be totally off. Let me know what y'all find if you take a look.

A hard reset on console is considerably longer, since the console itself displays a message on startup.

It adds about 3.5 seconds, but that was measured by me manually splitting in livesplit. We can measure it more accurately when needed - I suppose by getting a recording and manually counting frames?

Hey Arkan, I can't think of any gameplay changes that a hard reset would introduce, so my thought is that it would be fine to use for runs.

We'll need to work out when to start the timer for a hard reset. I did a bit of testing in Bizhawk last night, and a hard reset appears to add 3 frames to startup when compared to a soft reset. I'm hoping someone can verify this.

My method was to load the X-Men 2 rom, display frame count, pause emulation, choose soft or hard reset from the menu, then frame advance until the characters horizontal position in ram could be influenced. I ran a similar test, but instead of watching ram for position, I counted frames until Nightcrawler was hit by the shot from the tank enemy.

I'll add a follow up post soon with a few additional considerations.

Hey Lynn, I'm glad to hear you are going to give the run a go and thanks for posting the results of your emulator testing.

I agree that multiple resets to get your target character is annoying, but I don't think we should address it with a hack. There are emulator options that appear to work as expected and, with the possible exception of older models, flash carts seem to work fine as well.

As Val mentioned, the TAS has a way to influence the character given at the start of the run. If a way is found for humans to do the same thing (with valid controller/console inputs), I would be all for it. Here is a thread on the topic if you are interested:

https://tasvideos.org/Forum/Topics/11094?CurrentPage=2&PageSize=25&Sort=CreateTimestamp

I look forward to watching your runs. Shoot me a message if you want to go over anything. I love talking about the game/run.

Hey folks, we made a slight update to the rules to clarify when a run starts. The rules used to say:

"Run begins when you gain control of your character."

but now says:

"Run begins after selecting your character. (The frame the character-selection portrait disappears.)"

This change was made to ensure we have a consistent comparison between runs. Especially for Any% Amateur where it may come down to milliseconds.

Open to feedback if you think this change needs more discussion.

Thanks.

And good luck Omegacoma - looking forward to seeing some runs.

All right, I've added the new categories. Can you guys check out the rules to make sure they look good?

I also goofed around with the Juggernaut fight. If you dodge his attacks enough, eventually he just leaves. Maybe there is a way to trigger it quickly - but it is also quite fast to just defeat him with Archangel:

Great, thanks all - I think we're getting close.

Booster, you mentioned that Juggernaut in the Savage Lands can be glitched out - can you elaborate on that?

Doesn't he show up, do a few attacks, and then sometimes just leave? If so, for our rule set, is it only required to spawn him?

Nice, I like All Bosses. It implies no Gambit Skip and that Mojo needs to be fought.

Thoughts on mini bosses? Here are the ones I remember:

• Juggernaut (Savage Lands)
• Sabretooth (Outside Lighthouse)
• Juggernaut (Inside Lighthouse, but optional?)

I like the idea of requiring the mini bosses to show as much of the game as reasonable. A nice complement to Any%. That said, I can go either way on the second Juggernaut fight - we've seen him already and I bet he is often skipped/missed even in casual runs.

Do we want to categorize the spaceship ride in Shi'ar as a mini boss? The only reason I bring it up is because Smelly McTroll was working on a way to skip that. As I recall, he was able to teleport past it, but wasn't able to trigger the rest of the level afterward - so, maybe a non-issue for now.

Hey folks, I was contacted by Omegacoma about adding a new category for X-Men. Wanted to get opinions on a few questions:

1. How will the rules differ from Any%? Are we only ruling out Gambit Skip? Can you still skip Juggernaut, Sabretooth, Mojo, etc? How about going out of bounds or clipping using teleport or Iceman?

2. What should we call the category? Glitchless? 100%? All Levels? No-Gambit-Skip? I guess this depends on what is allowed/disallowed.

What else do we need to consider?

Thanks for your input.

Hey all, I went ahead and updated the rules to read: "Run ends when the screen is completely black at the end of the final level."

It appears that most runners have been timing this way already. I also think it allows for more accurate splitting - as once you see the screen start to fade, you can prepare to split.

I have also added a Magneto category under the Single-Character category with the rule: "For Magneto, any character may be used until he is unlocked."

Hey all, a question has come up recently regarding exactly when the timing for the game ends. The rules currently say:

"Run ends when you lose control of your character as the screen fades out on the final level."

Until now, I have been stopping my timer when the screen is completely black, but you actually lose control of your character at the start of the fade out. It isn't much, but it is enough to swing a time above/below a second threshold.

Anyone have a strong opinion on how we handle this? Or precedent from other games we can look to?

Thanks all for your input.

I've updated the rules to note that timing starts at 2.73 seconds after reset. Also set up the single-character boards.

In the near future, I'll plan to take a tour of emulators I haven't tried yet. Just to verify a run can be completed normally. I suspect I won't notice any difference in performance (not that it isn't there - just that I probably won't be able to detect it).

Regarding the bounty, I think we can plan to stick to the Any% rule list. If new discoveries are made that prompt us to split the boards, I would only want to move away from the Any% rule set if that has very strong support from the runners. I don't want the ground shifting too much near the end of the bounty.

Until now, the Magneto Clone fight alone wasn't enough to warrant a 100% category. Not right now, necessarily, but what would you guys think of a category that Includes that optional fight and also doesn't permit major skips? So, no new Fortress 2 and Phalanx 4 skips - and also no floor clip after Sentinel Core boss? To show as much of the game as possible, but still move through quickly. This definition is somewhat tricky, since thin floor skips can happen on accident. For example, early Sentinel 2 exit and falling through floors in Savage 1 - so, what do we do with those?

Hey, jquestionmark, I'm glad you decided to pick up the game! Let us know if you have any questions as you get going. And thanks for jumping into the discussion here.

So, the question around splitting the boards comes from two new skips that were discovered this past week. They aren't super difficult to execute, but are certainly different than normal gameplay. We may find new places/ways to make use of the new glitch in the coming weeks as well.

Ah - to build on your comment, wouldn't it be a fun category if we had to complete at least 3 levels with each character? There are 22 levels, I believe, so one character would have to complete 4. Some interesting routing choices to make.