With TSC submissions being down since March and the site's infrastructure growing more outdated by the second, it's finally time to put some IL leaderboards up here. The change won't happen untill after SGDQ as I simply won't have the time, but I wanted to get this thread up ahead of time to list how I intend to structure the boards, as well as gather some input from the community about several points.

Rules:

• Video is required
• Emulators are banned (This might change in the future, but 1 change at a time)
• Times gotten during Egg Shuttle are not allowed with exception of Tropical Resort Act 1.

There will not be a transfer of any existing statistics from TSC or other sites. The sheer workload would be huge as is, even more so if we contact every person to ask if they're ok with having their stats transferred to begin with. A lot of stats on TSC are without video to begin with, so even if we did a stat transfer, it would still result in an incomplete board. The intention is to give these boards a fresh start and let the people decide for themselves whether they want their stats here or not. This will make the boards start out empty of course, but if the community wills it, the boards can evolve into the primary IL boards on the internet.

The boards will be structured by stage, with a subcategory for Super Sonic. Game Land will also be added of course. Some stages do not have Super Sonic available, but unfortunately the site does not allow me to pick and choose which stages get the subcategory, so they'll just remain empty. And no I do not intend to have a board for Terminal Velocity Act 2 lol.

To clarify extra on the Egg Shuttle rule: since boost and rings carry over, it allows for boost management, damage boost or Shuttle exclusive skips that can result in a faster time. I'd like to avoid having any IL turn into “Let's go all the way through Egg Shuttle to have 1 try at getting an IL PB”. Therefore IL PB's you happen to get during an Egg Shuttle speedrun cannot be submitted. It's significantly easier to have a global rule for this than to make a ton of exceptions and discussions about “but well actually, I didn't benefit from stuff carrying over”.

If you have any thoughts about any of the above or something I didn't mention, post here. It'll be a while before the change is implemented, so you'll have plenty time to get your thoughts in.

Lastly, keep in mind that verification will take a while during the initial wave. Especially since this is not the only game that will be getting IL boards. Should the workload become too large for the existing mods, I'll be sure to recruit someone from the community to help verify.

With TSC submissions being down since March and the site's infrastructure growing more outdated by the second, it's finally time to put some IL leaderboards up here. The change won't happen untill after SGDQ as I simply won't have the time, but I wanted to get this thread up ahead of time to list how I intend to structure the boards, as well as gather some input from the community about several points.

Rules:

• Video is required
• Team Blast Glitch is banned
• Segmenting through checkpoint usage is allowed

There will not be a transfer of any existing statistics from TSC or other sites. The sheer workload would be huge as is, even more so if we contact every person to ask if they're ok with having their stats transferred to begin with. A lot of stats on TSC are without video to begin with, so even if we did a stat transfer, it would still result in an incomplete board. The intention is to give these boards a fresh start and let the people decide for themselves whether they want their stats here or not. This will make the boards start out empty of course, but if the community wills it, the boards can evolve into the primary IL boards on the internet.

The boards will be structured by stage, with subcategories for each team. PC and Console will both have their own boards, unlike the shared board on TSC. The Metal Madness IL will be submitted under Team Sonic.

Perhaps a bit of an unnecesary rule for PC, but should some monster manage to get super consistent at PC's version of the glitch, I'd like to have this up for clarity. Team Blast Glitch is banned for 2 reasons: 1. To keep the robot wave bossfights interesting, instead of “Spam TBG to insta-kill every wave” and 2. To keep Team Dark interesting, considering their Team Blast effect stops the level timer. Accidental Team Blast Glitches will be judged by whether they had any effect on the outcome or not.

If people want, we can have a variable for checkpoint segmenting. Both options will be shown by default as they are both valid, but it gives people the option to filter if they want to see what the best unsegmented run is. I personally think it's a good idea, but I'd like to hear from you.

If you have any thoughts about any of the above or something I didn't mention, post here. It'll be a while before the change is implemented, so you'll have plenty time to get your thoughts in.

Lastly, keep in mind that verification will take a while during the initial wave. Especially since this is not the only game that will be getting IL boards. Should the workload become too large for the existing mods, I'll be sure to recruit someone from the community to help verify.

With TSC submissions being down since March and the site's infrastructure growing more outdated by the second, it's finally time to put some IL leaderboards up here. The change won't happen untill after SGDQ as I simply won't have the time, but I wanted to get this thread up ahead of time to list how I intend to structure the boards, as well as gather some input from the community about several points.

Rules:

• Video is required
• Emulators are banned (This might change in the future, but 1 change at a time)
• Team Blast Glitch is banned
• Segmenting through checkpoint usage is allowed

There will not be a transfer of any existing statistics from TSC or other sites. The sheer workload would be huge as is, even more so if we contact every person to ask if they're ok with having their stats transferred to begin with. A lot of stats on TSC are without video to begin with, so even if we did a stat transfer, it would still result in an incomplete board. The intention is to give these boards a fresh start and let the people decide for themselves whether they want their stats here or not. This will make the boards start out empty of course, but if the community wills it, the boards can evolve into the primary IL boards on the internet.

The boards will be structured by stage, with subcategories for each team. PC and Console will both have their own boards, unlike the shared board on TSC. The Metal Madness IL will be submitted under Team Sonic.

Team Blast Glitch is banned for 2 reasons: 1. To keep the robot wave bossfights interesting, instead of “Spam TBG to insta-kill every wave” and 2. To keep Team Dark interesting, considering their Team Blast effect stops the level timer. Accidental Team Blast Glitches will be judged by whether they had any effect on the outcome or not.

If people want, we can have a variable for checkpoint segmenting. Both options will be shown by default as they are both valid, but it gives people the option to filter if they want to see what the best unsegmented run is. I personally think it's a good idea, but I'd like to hear from you.

If you have any thoughts about any of the above or something I didn't mention, post here. It'll be a while before the change is implemented, so you'll have plenty time to get your thoughts in.

Lastly, keep in mind that verification will take a while during the initial wave. Especially since this is not the only game that will be getting IL boards. Should the workload become too large for the existing mods, I'll be sure to recruit someone from the community to help verify.

Good category ideas. Thanks for providing example runs! If any other runners show interest by doing a run I will add the boards.

(if anyone has already done a run like this that I'm not aware of, please post them here as well)

I've changed the console selection for the boards to just "Xbox One". Makes more sense to have both One X and One S just fall under that. Thanks for pointing out it was listed as X

Unfortunately we do not allow Nintendon't or other USB loading no. We'd like everyone to run using discs for an even playing field.

Adding Individual Level boards would require a decent amount of time and energy to transfer from the existing boards on The Sonic Center, not to mention the issue of differences in rulesets when it comes to proof. I currently have no extra time to transfer and maintain those boards, but if in the future someone steps up with a plan and willingness to do the work, I'd be fine adding Individual Level leaderboards.

For now I'd suggest making use of the existing boards on http://www.soniccenter.org/rankings/sonic_lost_world/times

No

I initially posted something pointlessly continuing the argument, but y'know what, if you can convince any of the other mods to add the charts and that there's trustworthy people out there willing to put in the work, then who am I to stop you.

Only reason I'm a mod here in the first place is to help verify runs on the already existing boards, so I'm gonna do just that.

Man storms into organization run completely by volunteers in their free time "Expand your services plz". Over the course of 5 months others join in "Yes do it" "Still waiting" "Ikr". Meanwhile no plans are suggested, no help is offered to take on these expanded services and no other activity or interaction is seen from any of these individuals except these demands. To their shock and surprise, this does not turn out to be an effective method in the slightest.

• "Which rule would be ignored if the game has the splash screen?" The one that specifically mentions the splash screen! The one I specifically posted in my first message when I said that.

• "Are you saying that if my emu displays the splash screen I'd be able to submit a record breaking time?" No! It's on emulator, following the splash screen rule doesn't mean you get to break the 'no WR on emulator' rule.

• "as of June 2+ years ago" when emulators for GBA were inferior and the software sucked... but this isn't the case today. As vlackSR said, the Bizhawk emu is incredibly accurate." Doesn't matter. It can be 100% accurate, but it's still a third party emulator. As I said in my first post, we want the WR to be on an official release of the game aka released by Nintendo aka not on a third party emulator.

• "Lets say I have a recording on my computer that's 3:18 for any%, would this be rejected or what?" Yes! Exactly that!

The only problem here is that I just don't understand which rule any of this information even applies to. It's irrelevant to the emulator rules in place. Chill.

Like I said, the rule only applies if your emulator setup of choice doesn't show the splash screen. If you have a super accurate emulator setup the rule doesn't exist for you. I literally do not understand what would need changing

I'm not sure what rule you'd want changed as neither of the 2 current emulator rules is set because we deem the gameplay itself inaccurate

"As of June 2017 emulator is no longer allowed for World Record submissions only." This rule is set, because we don't want the WR of a category to be set on an unofficial release of the game.

"Emulator runs that lack a Gameboy splash screen on Hard Resets will be adjusted with 6 seconds per Hard Reset." This rule only comes into play if your emulator of choice doesn't show the gameboy splash screen on a hard reset, in which case it doesn't matter how accurate the rest of the gameplay is, because you're missing 6s of splash screen that needs to be added.

Both of these questions are anwsered by reading the category rules and watching a run. I would highly recommend doing both when getting into a speedgame

Yo, since a few days have passed and noone has brought up any disagreements, let's make some decisions and I'll make the boards over the coming days

Name: Limited Tech Selection (LTS)

Split applicable to: Team Sonic, Team Dark, Team Rose, Super Hard Mode

Rules: The following tricks and glitches are prohibited:

• Bop Boost (accidental bop boost states are fine, taking advantage of them is not)
• Power Formation Flight (ground pounds with skewed gravity are allowed, chaining them is not)
• Bingo Highway Skip
• Pinball Table Launching
• Mystic Mansion Cage Clip

Heyo everyone. This is a thread following a recent discussion in the discord and the long existing desire for categories without big skips like bop boosts. We're finally looking to make leaderboards for this, but since digging through the entire conversation is not exactly the best use of your time, I'm compiling everything discussed here in this thread. I'll then leave this thread up for a certain number of days so people can voice their thoughts before making the actual category.

The idea: make a category definition that is more heavily focussed on movement rather than big skips and brings back some cool obsoleted strats. This for the sake of accessibility and fun.

The design philosophy (yes ima make this sounds fancy af):

• Ban glitches and skips with the focus on making the run as fun as possible and bringing back cool obsoleted tricks, rather than banning anything we consider major.
• Making sure not to ban anything that can easily be done on accident. Noone like accidental run invalidations.

The glitches/tricks we'll most likely be banning:

• Bop Boost
• Power Formation Flight
• Bingo Highway Skip
• Pinball Table Launching (side note: since bop boost state can sometimes be gotten on accident, this will be not invalidate runs. Only taking advantage of the state) (side note 2: doing a ground pound while having skewed gravity can easily be done on accident and will not invalidate runs. Chaining them is banned)

The name: In between all the silly unofficial names we thought up, we did eventually discuss an official name for the category. The initial one we went with was No Major Glitches, which just ended up causing the discussion of what is and is not a major glitch and would eventually lead to banning fun tricks that we really want to be in the run. As such we eventually settled on the following name that both accurately describes the design philosophy and with an acronym that rolls off the tongue nicely:

Limited Tech Selection (or LTS for short)

The categories we'll be making this split for (most likely through the use of subcategories): Every main category except Team Chaotix as the only difference for Team Chaotix would be the 3 relatively small bop boosts.

Other stuff we considered banning and why we didn't:

• Team Blast Glitch: A pretty significant glitch depending on the team, but very easy to do on accident and just general quality of life
• Final Bingo Table Skip: Pretty major considering you pass through killplanes, but when asked "what's more fun, this skip or the table" it was unanimous

What we're still unsure about:

• Mystic Mansion Cage Clip: It's merely a clip, which there are many of in the run, but a lot of people are leaning towards banning it for the simple reason that the section it skips has cool fun strats

That's the overview right now pretty much. Nothing is set in stone so if you have any thoughts about changing the name, any of the rules, wether we should allow MM Cage Clip, etc. I encourage you to voice them!

Ok then, Any% is now officially split between Rental and No Rental (with No Rental as the default). All current PBs on the board as well as the obsoleted runs have been assigned to the proper sub-category.

As for NG+ I'll make the category later this weekend with the following parameters based on the replies and polls:

Timing: IGT Rentals: Banned Extensive pausing: Banned Breaks in between stages: Banned Stage order: Story order Super Sonic: Allowed Shadow Reskin: Allowed Switching wispon/avatar: Allowed Name: NG+ Story Stages (poll tied, so I picked the one I didn't vote for as I feel active runners have priority)

Alrighty since this has been up for about a week now, I think it's time to make some decisions/further polls

==Any% Rental / No Rental== Seen no objection to this as expected since it's the easiest way to preserve the old times while still allowing active competition in the category. I'll be going over the existing runs to see if they use rentals and then splitting them accordingly

==NG+ Any%== People seem down with wanting to run this, so let's make some boards I'd say. There is a few things to decide still tho

• Timing method While time without loads has been brought up, most people seem to be cool with IGT which is definitely the easier option here. For PC runners Kwasior has already programmed an in-game timer tool as well. IGT it is.

• Allowing Rentals It's been brought up that some people like to use rentals in some scenarios (specifically void on infinite 3), but considering that small amount of uses and to avoid recreating the problem we have in Any% atm, most people seem down with not allowing rentals. No rentals it is.

• Stage Order Not something that's been brought up before, but something people just seemed to assume would happen in the normal story order. If people want this changed later it's possible, but for now let's just stay with "Play through every stage in story order"

• Switching Wispons/Avatars This seems to be pretty evenly split atm, where some would prefer switching to not be allowed as it's not tracked by IGT, whereas others wants to allow it despite not being tracked for the sake of accesibility and variation. This one requires a further poll, majority is what we go with. https://www.strawpoll.me/17809970

• Category Name NG+ Any% and NG+ Story Stages have been mentioned as potential names, so let's do a poll. https://www.strawpoll.me/17809911

The problem with creating a loadless timer, assuming the pointers in the game's code even allow for it, is that you would basically only be able to use it on PC. The other consoles you'd have to calculate manually. This is a lot of work, so I wouldn't be willing to implement that unless multiple people step up to calculate future console runs, which I feel is a bit of a waste if we have other options available that require far less work.

As for taking rentals into account, this was brought up in the discord and people there seemed to agree that for this new category it would be better to ban rentals, as even the void on infinite 3 will eventually become unavailable if people hack the boards enough. The point of the leaderboard changes is to avoid problems like this.

The endless pausing at the end of Final Judgement is not a problem as there would be a rule to ban excessive pausing, much like most IGT categories in the Sonic series