would've preferred better servers so the site isn't inaccessible 20 times a day

Since I'm all finished with moving and getting settled I'm gonna do and submit a run using the aforementioned skips being disallowed (after I do a 101% in a few runs). Polarbear and I agreed that those three things being banned for glitchless make sense.

@Daravae I've not asked him, no, but he's not chimed in in any of the discussion about it on the forums here so I presumed he's not really paying attention to anything there (and he also isn't in the discord)

Hi there, I'd like to request being added as a moderator to Steven Universe: Save the Light https://www.speedrun.com/sustl

The Super Mod FLUB hasn't logged on in six months and the only way it seems possible to contact them is through twitch which I don't believe they've logged on to in a long time either. Sora is active and approves runs as they come in but doesn't run the game, and while Frog is both a mod and a runner he's been fairly busy for a few months now. The issue right now for the game isn't so much runs not being approved (Sora or Frog usually get to them within 3 days) but as of now Frog is the only mod who runs the game and we've been left for over a month with changes that we want to make to the leaderboard and category rules due to new things being discovered, and I and the other runners have come to an agreement for these things but can't make changes without a moderator to do it.

So, I don't really want to do Glitchless runs until I know what we currently allow in Glitchless since things have been discovered since we split the categories. Frog's the only mod who's active and also runs the game so I feel it kinda comes down to you making a final call. Unless you have any disagreements, I believe polar and I both agree that Glitchless should disallow Depths Skip, Forge Skip, and Familiar Grounds key skip, with everything else being allowed. With the way every trick thus far in the game works, we seem to more or less be disallowing things that skip a "major" portion of an area. I think this helps rule in Pearl Skip's favor. To juxtapose it with Familiar Grounds - doing that fight doesn't actually give you an item, it's just a fight that's sort of intended to be done because if you tried to open the gate, you'd get hit and initiate the fight. But if you do the Pearl Skip, you still accomplish the obstacle in that room - opening the gate .

In Familiar Grounds, the key skip thing that we do makes it so we skip a fight that drops a key item required in a vanilla playthrough to progress. Which is why I would argue that Pearl Skip is acceptable in Glitchless but the dew skip thing is not. The difference is in what the fight results in you obtaining.

And as I argued for the Peridot/Connie portals, I think it works similarly to Pearl Skip in the sense that it's a thing that works just due to very large hitboxes put in by the programmers. Holding up for two portals and then left isn't really a glitch. And the menu thing is fairly minor.

I'd like to propose changing the rules to the following:

Complete the game as fast as possible without the use of major glitches, skips, or out of bounds tricks. Currently, Glitchless bans the following techniques from runs:

-Dew Skip (getting the green key early in Familiar Grounds) -Depths Skip (skipping The Depths by warping to The Descent and running to the end of The Depths in order to trigger Light Warrior spawning) -Forge Skip (skipping Bismuth's Forge to gain early access to Hessonite's Warship)

Start: When you select New Game. End: When the screen flashes white after the final hit on Hessonite.

Oh another thing I completely forgot about... the dew skip thingie in Familiar Grounds that lets us grab the key.

I kinda feel like that should be disallowed. If not for just giving Glitchless more things to do... it's sorta maybe teetering the line of going out of bounds and in a way kinda constitutes a decent bit of a skip since it makes a forced vanilla fight get skipped.

I've been pondering what might be a good category to add to the game and I thought of one. I'd also propose if we end up having two, we should put CBF under a "misc" category along with this one and future ones we come up with that we don't feel fit the main category criteria (which as of now I feel I'd define as defeating Hessonite in the speedrun)

Could be called something like Complete Map, Warp Map, Fog of War, Map Completion, etc. But the goal of the run is to unlock every location so that it's available to warp to via the warp pad.

Areas simply need to be unlocked, so you don't need to fight Light Warrior or Dave. You'd also need to unlock and enter all of the secret areas in the game too so they'd have to get routed in. Time would end once you have completed the map (which, routing wise, I imagine the fastest way would be to save Hessonite's Warship for the end)

All glitches and skips would be fair game.

Hmm okay. I can see that perspective as well. I suppose if one of the definitions of Glitchless is something like "no major skips", then Depths Skip can be banned from usage. Including "major" in that and how technically yeah the fight isn't necessary to unlock the gate, Pearl Skip could be allowed in the category as well. I feel like the added "major" should carry the weight of like... if it would cause an entire room to be skipped (in that, a room that is selected on the warp pad) then it constitutes a major skip. Per that, Forge Skip and Depths Skip are disallowed due to their usage resulting in you skipping at least one entire warpable room.

So yeah I'm in agreement with you then. Forge Skip and Depths Skip banned, everything else fair game. (Also it's probably nice having The Depths in the run just cause it adds a split where time save and time loss is dependent on how well you're playing and not RNG, which I'd appreciate)

Figured I'd come back to this with the ghost enemy stuff that's been discovered.

So I think avoiding the enemy's first strike isn't a glitch, I doubt anyone would contest to that.

Now, Pearl Skip. The way it works, if we strip it down, is putting a character into a part of the room that does not generate aggro, solving a "puzzle" (for lack of a better word), and while doing it, switching back to the aforementioned character in order to avoid engaging in a battle in the room that would be unavoidable without this trick.

This could be kinda debatable. We don't go out of bounds to get behind the rubble, switching characters while Pearl's spear is active is just a thing that you can do. I feel like you can argue either way in this one, but I kinda lean towards considering this one a glitch, honestly. In the same way I argued for why Forge Skip counts as a glitch (due to having to set things up, certain timing to perform it ,etc.), I would say the way this is performed has enough complexity and in a way abuses how the enemy's aggro is generated and can be avoided and thus I would be okay with categorizing it as a glitch for the sake of our Glitchless category.

So as of now, my stance is that with everything that we know in the game currently, Forge Skip and Pearl Skip should be considered glitches, but the other things I've mentioned should be allowed.

(More opinions on this would be appreciated soonish since I'd like to do Glitchless attempts sometime soon, after getting a better All Bosses run and giving CBF% a few shots)

Yeah. Like when the shield is floating above the forge, and Steven's eyes are shimmering, the cutscene doesn't continue. But saving and quitting will get you out of it with the shield still upgraded. I had wondered if this might cause problems in 101% since I haven't tried upgrading things on fast graphics. Hopefully it's just a thing that happens with your first upgrade, otherwise I figure this could cause problems in 101% if you want to upgrade multiple weapons at once. (Though, the time save overall from fast graphics would probably negate this if it's a problem)

And now that I can kinda see the differences in SOB between myself and polarbear, I'm still highly in favor of separating the leaderboard into Console and PC. (I don't think each individual console is needed). Polar has a 1:27:28 SOB, and I have a 1:22:11. And I feel fairly confident with a few places I still have a big gold on (like Team Leftovers should still be like another minute, Familiar Grounds I should have like another 15-30 seconds). No clue where Polar still has significant gold potentials, but it looks like my estimate was right and that fast graphics PC vs. Console probably comes down to like an innate five minute difference for All Bosses.

An update on this: I've not had any issues with the All Bosses route with the graphics on fast. The only thing I've noticed is when upgrading Steven's shield, it sometimes softlocks the game. Though, saving and quitting still gives you the upgrade and unlocks The Great North, so it's not really an issue.

Still don't know if anything inside Bismuth's Forge will be affected, nor how it will affect 101%.

More updates.

So it seems, not only is it just moving at a diagonal... literally just moving at a diagonal is enough. You can run against a wall and it still works. Just taking a little bit of time and not being greedy for a few seconds, avoiding them before the key is like 100% a consistent thing now.

Update on Pearl Skip:

This was the skip prior to me trying the diagonal thing. So, you can see I don't hit the block for about a whole second until switching over. I noticed that the thing that seems constant whenever I get the skip to work is that Pearl is hugging the wall or otherwise really close to it. I've seen Polarbear get it a few times and it's the same story, it works when Pearl is up near the wall.

So I believe that this skip succeeding has less to do with the cycle on the enemy's attack and more about Pearl's position prior to switching back to Greg. Thanks to finding out that Pearl can avoid the attack by simply moving at a diagonal, she can run up against the wall and, well, you can just wait until you get an opportunity to throw the spear. I think you'll still want to be careful on switching, because if you do while it's about to attack I think it'll just go hit Greg anyway. But yeah, between seeing you have at least a full second and Pearl can simply run against the wall, it should be a lot easier to get done in runs.

So update on the other fight in Team Pearl. The route Polarbear has been doing, Greg gets his final level up via a charm. The other fight is consistent to skip, and he along with Pearl and Amethyst don't need any experience. So the other fight isn't necessary but seemed unavoidable as the ghost enemy still aggros all along the ledge with the block.

I had a run die here just now, which is unfortunate, but I figured I'd take the time to mess around, see if I couldn't find some clip or OOB shenanigans. Instead I found this.

I think it's pretty precise when you change party members. But I think we have about half a second of opportunity. In the area behind the rubble, the enemy doesn't aggro. I also figured out that like Pearl, if Greg moves at a diagonal he doesn't get stabbed. I managed to get this to work once and clipped it (more glitch music lol). So I get Greg behind it, have Pearl toss her spear, and you can switch characters while the spear is in motion. Do it fast enough and I suppose the game reads you as being controlled by Greg and won't attack you. Switch back to Pearl so you can keep avoiding it and viola. Both fights are now potentially skippable.

And also since I discovered it I'd like to dub it the Pearl skip, thank you.

So after watching polarbear's run I was curious if there was anything precise to this trick. As in, any sort of small timeframe you had to perform the maneuver.

And, well...

Not at all. It seems so long as you're moving diagonally up, you'll always avoid their attack. At least as Pearl, I didn't try any other character since we're always controlling Pearl at this point.

Down diagonals don't work -- they hit you.

But yeah. With this I'm confident everyone can consistently skip these fights. When I got hit at the end, it was because I wasn't at a diagonal and was only moving to the right.

Ended up with a battle music glitch occuring but I figure that kinda makes the video more intense so I kept it.

I wanted to come back to this now that I've learned All Bosses and done a couple attempts of it.

I'm not really sure if I would consider the portal hopping thing in the Peridot and Connie room, and the puzzle skip before Light Warrior to be glitches.

Both cases seem to be an example of the game's coding just being done in a way that unintentional ways of doing things, which are faster, are possible without intentionally performing a gltich-breaking maneuver.

For the portals -- it just so happens that the portals were given a large enough hitbox that moving the block is unnecessary.

For The Depths skip, that's actually what ended up happening on my casual playthrough. At that point in the game, yeah, you're intended to beat the puzzle and continue on. But all the game seems to read is "go through the door and the story continues". I think this is similar to how the Forge Skip works -- by entering and exiting, the game believes you to have gone through The Forge and so continues the game as such, even though you didn't go to the rest of the world and clear the bosses there.

So for that, I don't think we're performing a glitch. A skip, and doing it in the way that likely was not intended? Yes. A glitch? I'd argue no.

Essentially, then, I think the only thing I'd consider a true glitch at this point is Forge Skip, due to it involving clipping out of bounds.

I know what defines a glitch can be kind of arbitrary, and so each community has to decide on the definitions themselves. As before, I'm fine with any decision, but I would argue that those two things shouldn't count as glitches.

I could perhaps see The Depths skip as being fairly debatable as it does end up skipping an entire room from being completed as intended. But the Connie/Peridot portals I'm a lot more strongly opposed to labeling that a glitch.

A continuation of stuff I talked about on my stream and also the discord. But basically, on the PC if you lower your graphic settings, you end up saving a decent bit of time through faster loading and other things (for example, seems like tutorial text boxes go by quicker, as do cutscenes).

Unfortunately, at least in Any%, this causes you to softlock a lot in South Trial when you roll through the log. Like 9/10 times probably. Realizing this I figured it wouldn't be viable to do this for runs, at least not until the WR became more optimal.

That said, I was fiddling around and discovered that a simple bit of pause buffering, and rolling a good distance from the log eliminates this issue. So that's no longer an issue. I don't know what other low graphic problems arise in other categories (yet) but I can at least say this eliminates the issue with Any%

Related, given that this can give PC users an even larger advantage over console users than previously, I'm personally a bit of a stronger advocate for us separating console and PC on the leaderboards. The loading differences are just pretty big at this point so I'd be for it if everyone else feels the same.

I know the discord is kinda dead, but I think it would be nice to try and utilize it a bit more, coordinate for routing, glitch/exploit hunting etc. I know for one thing for example, at some point during the forge skip the other characters teleport up to the top. It's kinda inconsistent in when it happens, and also there's a bit of an invisible wall that seems to exist, but otherwise it seems to be able to save a few seconds as opposed to having the character jump off and run up the ramp to the loading zone.

To take inspiration from other games, Ocarina of Time uses the philosophy of "if the means are not a glitch, neither are the ends" to try to help define things. Granted, OoT has a lot more things known than this game does. In that case I would say, all we're doing is being Steven, opening the menu, and then using his out of combat character ability. I kinda feel like we're not "actively" doing something in the sense that say, Forge Skip is a technique that requires a set of inputs and conscious effort on your end. I'd say it's a small and simple enough to allow in Glitchless, but frankly I'm alright with it either way.

well with that it's been 10 days and I think the three of us are the only ones actively running the game at the moment.

Specifically with how NMG/All Bosses is currently it's own category. Right now, merging the two of these seems to be done with the purpose of eliminating the use of Forge Skip in the run. But by having one of the criteria be no major glitches, the forge still needs to be done for the sake of completing it. But the forge doesn't have any bosses (if we were to say, use the criteria of an enemy using the boss theme).

I would propose that an All Bosses category exist with the parameter that every boss need to be defeated. Everything else goes. Currently, that would mean All Bosses would allow the forge skip.

Should anything else be discovered in the future that could be considered a major glitch, this would also cover how to address it in the future. Say, theoretically, if something were discovered to clip through walls and make the sunken pyramid extremely fast. A NMG category could arguably ban that from being used.

In addition, I'd propose a category called "Glitchless" which would take inspiration from other games like Paper Mario and Ocarina of Time. Essentially, something that would allow limited use of glitches/techniques but nothing too major (e.g. using the menu glitch to get into the Dave room a little quicker is fine, Forge Skip would not be). I feel like this would better define what NMG/All Bosses currently looks like.

I know as of now there may not be a lot of glitches that we're aware of, but I figured I'd toss it out there since I'd like to start running other categories and maybe try to look for glitches myself.