No problem ^^ i'll edit the run ;)

Well I can definitely create a category that would requires the runners to kill any enemies in sight. But if we want more fair contest to be sure as many monsters as possible are killed, it will require some documentations from the community to know in which enemies are mandatory to kill in each context.

Would you be in favor of a first mode where you kill all the enemies in sight, and which could then evolve with input from the community?

Just a quick question, why did you submit your run in custom start as you were clearly not using any item from the hub? Your run would be valid with a normal start, do you want me to modify it ?

Love the commentary ^^

• Difficulty as sub-category:

This is certainly something we can do. I had chosen not to create too many categories from the start to try to focus the few people who wanted to run the game on a few identical categories to create competition. But it might make more sense to create the different categories that players might want to participate in, in order to determine which ones are the most popular.

• Version as sub-category:

I'm taking this opportunity to talk about this subject and ask for your opinion.

You already know that a new version of the game was released over a month ago. It has brought new weapons, boss updates in the third biome, new chunks in the second and fourth biomes, as well as a whole series of weapon/trinket balancing and other new features.

This has a direct impact on speedrunning and, in my opinion, requires the creation of a new sub-category for all runs.

The game is still in early access, and it is to be hoped that there will be many more developments before its final release. This means that with each update, the rankings of previous versions will be frozen and no one will be able to submit a run on the previous versions. This basically means that all active rankings will start from scratch with each major update.

What are your thoughts on this? At what point can we determine that an update requires the creation of a new sub-category, and can we ignore small changes such as balancing to focus solely on major updates? Perhaps this will have to be done on a case-by-case basis, and we can discuss it on the forum with each major or minor update.

And o you think this could create an incentive at every major update to make some new runs?

Thank you all for being here, and sorry again for the weeks of silence on my side.

See you soon in the game,

Mars.

First of all, I would like to thank all of you for submitting so many great ideas and thoughts, and I wish you all a happy new year.

I'd like to apologize for not having replied earlier to the thread. I haven't been able to invest as much time as I would have liked on this speedrun page. I should have a bit more time now. And in any case, if anyone wants to get more involved and be part of the moderation team for example, feel free to contact me and I'll be very happy to discuss with you about it.

Concerning adding new category, I'd be very much in favor of adding a more combat-oriented category to better highlight the core of the game.

From my first attempts at speedrunning, it was very clear to me that any% runs would be more of a boss rush than a full combat run. So you soon find yourself dashing through the entire level, stopping only momentarily to clear the obligatory encounters.

This can quickly lead to the feeling that runs are heavily impacted by the RNG of the level generation, and this can surely become frustrating for some runners and not very attractive for the public.

New run category suggestion

• All Encounter / Clear Main path / 100% run :

The problem with such runs is, as you've already mentioned on the thread, the possibility of verifying them.

As far as I'm concerned, the question of clearing optional paths isn't even a possibility. I see absolutely no way for moderators to verify that all hidden paths have been taken during a run. (except using a seeding tool which we don't have for now)

So about main path run, how can we as moderator, verify that a run is indeed valid and that all the enemy on the main path are cleared.

First and as you said, there would be a need for us as a community to define for each possible section of a level to define what is considered as optional or not.

Quick screenshot of an example of main path / optional path where you have to choose whether the red path is optional or not :

Here, for example, we clearly know that the path on the left leads to a chest in a cul de sac, so for me it is not part of the main path. The circular stone arrow behind the player clearly indicates the direction of the main path, so in this situation the choice is pretty obvious to me. But there might be some other chunks where the choice would require us to agree on what we want.

So there would definitely be a need for a specific thread/page to use as a guide on how to run this category listing all the possible path, or defining clear ruling that would define the path to follow. This would require some work, but it's perfectly feasible.

Second point, I think there are certain chunks or combination of chunks that could induce some visibility issue when it comes to verifying runs. For example there is this pattern of chunks where you can clearly pass the enemies without them being displayed on the screen :

Here, it's clear that the two enemies are not visible on the first pass, and yet, from my point of view, they're clearly part of the main path. So, in this case, a run would be instantly invalidated as soon as it was seen not to be killed.

For me, one of the best tools we could have for moderating these runs would be to be able to select the seed during a game, so that moderators could, in case of doubt, generate the same game as the runner and check any points that might be ambiguous. This would certainly be a lot of work for the moderators, but without it I can't see any real way of checking the validity of a run.

We could always agree that runs should only be validated on the basis of the video extract, and that as long as an enemy visible on the screen is not left alive, the run is considered valid. This may indeed lead players to develop strategies to minimize the number of on-screen enemies, but I think it's a good solution until we find something better.

In any case, I'd be very much in favor of adding such a category.

Yep it can definitely be a sub category of the Any% category ! I'll create it today and update the rules. We could do a Normal start / Custom start, to avoid possible confusion with the Fresh file category. Does it makes sense ?

Also i'll ask the CM from Motion Twin to know if it's possible to have a dedicated speedrun channel on the official discord, it will be easier for us to discuss there and it could also motivate people to speedrun the game.

Hey, congrats for the run !

That's some very good observation. Indeed when creating the Any% category, I thought about having the possibility of having specific save file with only few items unlock to manipulate the RNG. And in fact, there is not a lot of possibility for us to control whether or not a run is made on a fully unlocked file, apart from having the player showing the unlocked tab of FR3ND 4EV3R at the end of the run.

So for me a run on a specific game file should be considered as Any%, even if it is made on a fresh file.

But you raise a very good point about starting runs with specific equipment. I hadn't thought at all about starting the run with a specific build and indeed this should be specified in the rule that the Any% must be started with the basic equipment.

So we could create a new custom run where players can start with the equipment of their choice.

From my point of view, I'd keep the seed/unseed option separate, in case in the future we have the choice (either through a new feature or through community tools) to select the seed of a run (the one you can see in the bottom left of your screen) which would fix the whole RNG of a run.

Do you agree with the new rule for Any% that would prevent the use of a specific starting build, and with the creation of a new "Custom" category for these runs?

I've checked the real time with the video but try to get a live split that displays real time, it'll be easier for the next runs.

There is a weird artifact at 0:29 in the middle of the screen. Can this be a bug or is it in your video editing ?

Maybe you can use this video to report a bug to the dev it you think this might be one.