Over the last week I’ve had several discussions regarding the current state of the leaderboard and there seems to be pretty unanimous support to bring the old 1.0 runs back to the board as well as running that version again.

Of course before making any actual changes, I would like to present the idea that I have as well as the reasoning(s) behind it, and give the community a chance to voice their approval, disapproval, comments, concerns, and/or questions on the matter.

I have read through the speedrunning channel of the Atomic Elbow Discord Server, the forum posts here on srdc, as well as the patch notes for every update this game has received since release and over the last several days I’ve been brainstorming the best way to achieve this goal. My goal here is to preserve runs that have already been done on previous versions, as well as give runners the opportunity to choose which version they would like to run, while also avoiding another potential board reset in the event of another major update.

While the 1.0 version of Sir Whoopass offers the fastest overall speedrun, I feel like it would be a disservice to the developers, who work really hard to deliver quality updates for this game, to not have a spot on this board for the current version as well. However, it is also unrealistic to have a category for every single update, so some grouping needs to be done. Obviously, certain versions will benefit and other versions will likely get overlooked and ignored. But, I feel like it should be up to runner preference to run the version that they choose and have a place for it.

With that being said, I feel like it would be best at the current time to have 2 main leaderboard categories. Version 2.0 and earlier, and Version 2.1 and newer for the following reasons:

1. While Version 2.0 brought major changes to the speedrun across the board, it still does not include the end Boss Fight against Ms. Wyvern. Grouping Version 2.0 in with the older 1.0 Versions will give all versions in the “Version 2.0 and Earlier” category the same exact end point to stop the time.

2. With Version 2.0 not containing the Ms. Wyvern Boss Fight, it would likely be a faster speedrun than the current version of the game, which would over shadow the more current versions and forcing players to Down Patch to be on a level playing field.

3. Version 2.0 was out for less than 2 months before the 2.1 update which added the Ms. Wyvern Boss Fight. Version 2.0 is vastly different from the 1.0 speedruns, but also missing a key element in Version 2.1 and later speedruns. Having a separate category for this one single Version just doesn’t make much sense.

Going forward, in addition to Runner Name, Time, and Date

I would also like to add the following information to all submissions: Difficulty (informational purposes only) and Version Number (for grouping purposes and informational purposes)

If the community is on board with this, I will do my best to bring any Archived Runs back to the board in the appropriate categories, and invite anyone with a run from a previous version to resubmit those runs (submitted with the original run date if available, for informational purposes)

In addition to the main categories In the Newer Versions, each dungeon has a score screen upon completion, giving the player information on enemy encounters, wheels of cheese, chests found, and TIME

I think it could also be beneficial (and really fun) to have an Individual Level Board, to see who can be the fastest runner for their favorite dungeons.

For the proposed new main category changes I’ve put together a new list of proposed rules to handle this change Changes from the current game rules are in bold

“Absolutely no use of the developer console.

All runs must start on either the main menu or pause menu to verify game version (as of June 2024)

Time starts after the main cutscene when the player takes control of the MC - Runners can create a savegame here.

Version 2.0 and earlier

Time stops when entering the room to obtain the Legendary Villain Beating Artifact

Version 2.1 and later

Time stops when interacting with the portal after defeating Ms. Wyvern

A timer on screen is highly recommended, as this will make verification easier, but not required (general site rules state "Do not require a timer on a video unless there is a good reason to do so. A good reason might be a game that uses an auto-splitter to track time without loads.")

Any pauses during the run must be clearly noticeable in the recording.

Submission Time is RTA, and milliseconds will only be used in the event of a tie breaker”

In the event of another major update, we can evaluate the state of the board and the categories as needed

Lastly, if this goes forward I will be creating a guide on how to downpatch Sir Whoopass to run the old versions for anyone who might need it

I just learned this run and I'm currently running on version 2.3.5

I'm not gonna need to downpatch am i?

Today I completed an All Ghost Photos VE run after seeing that it was a category extension for the original and thought it would be a fun run to do

Considering this category doesn't exist, and being that I highly doubt anyone else is interested in doing it

I ran this on Dolphin 5.0-20240 instead of 5.0 so I could disable "Store XFB Copies to Texture Only" in the graphics hacks settings (this also fixes the blue codec screen in newer versions). I understand that this change to the settings falls outside of the Leaderboard rules. At the end of the run, I explained and showed an example of why I did this, as in 5.0 the photos are solid green, although the ghost is still visible. While I could have done this run on 5.0, I chose to do it on a newer version with this setting changed out of pure preference, as anyone else interested would be able to see the photos as they "should" look in game.

Here is the link to the run:

The main reason for this thread would be the discussion of the settings change

The run is possible (as shown at the end of the video) in 5.0 with default settings, and while 5.0-20240 is much slower, the settings change as I understand it is against the rules. So if it's decided not to allow this run I can understand that. At the same time, it's just a silly category extension run so I honestly don't see any harm in it.

My intention was to do this run on console to avoid this issue entirely, but I think my Gamecube is dying and while practicing, wasn't able to finish a run. This was the next best option for me personally, as this was just a one off run for fun. I just thought it might be nice to add to the CE's

Thank you, Suave Beardson

This has been talked about quite a bit over on the Unravel Speedrunning Discord but it should be posted here as well

There is a technique some of us PC runners use we've called "Uprunning"

On a keyboard (as seen is DonDoli's WR Run) Yarny will gain extra speed by holding the Up Arrow Key in addition to the Right or Left Arrow Keys

This makes a lot of more difficult jumps easier, as well as other jumps and various things possible that aren't possible otherwise

I also run on PC using a PS5 controller, this is also possible by mapping the Up Arrow Key of the Keyboard to the R1 Button (any button you choose will work, I just chose R1)

Here is how to set this up for a controller on PC

Open Controller Layout

Click Edit Layout

Click whatever button you wish to use as the Up Arrow of a keyboard, in my Case R1 (or RB for Xbox)

Lastly Click Keyboard and Select the Up Arrow Key

The R1/RB button is now mapped to the Up Arrow key of the Keyboard

This will allow you to use the analog stick for normal movement and use the R1/RB (Up Arrow) as a type of speed boost

As for Console Runners

I'm not sure if there is a way to remap buttons on an Xbox but I did some testing of my own on my PS4 and while there is button remapping options, there isn't a way to map the up movement like this.

It seems holding the analog stick at an upward angle may give Yarny a speed boost sometimes but it's a very precise angle, I could not get it consistent, and I personally wouldn't depend on it

This does give PC runners a very distinct and large advantage imo

So as a result of doing this the playing field is fairly lopsided

I am still looking for ways to do this or something similar on Console but haven't found a way to do it yet

I know the rules don't say one way or the other on turbo function(s) and correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure most MGS games allow it in some form

I'm just getting kinda tired of mashing through the cutscenes and was thinking about assigning a turbo button for cutscene skipping

I'm not sure if there would be any actual gameplay advantages for turbo but before using it in a run I figured an actual discussion of the topic should be had

I see in the rules you have to use the 1964 emulator are runs with project64 allowed? I've been having issues with 1946 crashing and project64 runs better for me