If you don't want to verify IL runs, why not make one of the IL runners a mod?

Hi,

I'm curious as to what the rationale is for not accepting ANY short/"trivial" games any more.

Games like Solitaire etc are on the boards and have a decent level of competition.

Games like SMB can now be completed very quickly.

I don't understand the reasoning behind having an artificial limit on game submissions, and why this thought process changed from the days when games like Minesweeper etc were (imo rightly) accepted as speedruns.

Maybe it's just me, but I feel like any game with competition should be accepted? It's not like we host the videos on-site.

My reasoning and how I weighted the scores.

First of all, I am happy to discuss these and take on board any feedback, but overall I wanted to try and ensure I rewarded those runners who strived to optomise each category above all else.

Essentially, I wanted to make sure that only the best runs are considered. Last iteration, multiple categories had only one run and most of these were not really optimal. As such, for a run to be considered on the board it has to meet the following criteria:

There must be at least five runs total for that category; or, It must be below 1 hour (Easy-Normal-Hard) or 1:10 (Hardest-Mania)

You will notice I am not including Boss Rush - it is too different to include in an exercise like this.

Now, if your run meets the above criteria you will receive base points as follows:

1st place - 10 2nd place - 8 3rd place - 5 4th place - 3 5th place - 2 6th place - 1

I want to encourage/reward optomising the runs so you will also receive bonus based points as follows:

For 1st place - An extra point per full minute faster than 2nd For 2nd place - An extra .75 points per full minute faster than 3rd For 3rd place - An extra half point per full minute faster than 4th

So it's not just about getting a run on the board - this will reward the top three, and reward you destroying the records below you.

Now, this base point will be multiplied as follows based on what I consider the worth of each difficulty/competition of the difficulties to be:

Easy - x2 Normal - x1 Hard - x1 Hardest - x3 Mania - x4

I believe Easy deserves rewarding as it should realistically be the speediest run of them all; Hardest and Mania deserve rewarding for how difficult it is to complete a run compared to Normal/Hard.

Finally, perhaps the hardest part of all, I have then given each character a multiplier as follows. This is pretty basic and the area I am most happy to accept debate/discussion on. This is based on the difficulty of completing the game quickly with these characters either due to their moveset, movement speed or damage dealt.

I have played every character at multiple difficulties on V04 but haven't yet for V05 so if you think the new nerf/buffs mean a character should move up or down, please tell me:

Fast: x1 multiplier Adam, Blaze, Cherry, Axel2, Max, Shiva, Skate3, Zan

Medium: x2 multiplier Axel, Floyd, Axel1, Skate2, Axel3

Slow: x3 multiplier Adam1, Blaze1, Blaze2, Blaze3

So there you have it. I hope this will encourage some people to explore other categories and to continue improving on runs that are even already a World Record, in order to move up and down the combined pound-for-pound leaderboard. This is just for fun, a friendly competition. Let me know if you enjoy this idea :D

Hi all,

An idea I had floated pre-V05 was to have a weighted leaderboard adding up each runner's total contributions to give them an overall score.

My thinking was that it would a] allow us to compete across the whole spectrum of characters and difficulties, b] encourage people to try out different characters and difficulties and c] reward optimisation of the top run in each category.

I have now created this leaderboard and will periodically update it:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Q2uWj_vtYMpLo89NuT4QZZLcbIJLzvtRWbeoxJ6VO74/edit?usp=sharing

I will periodically update this post with a Top Three once there have been a few more runs.

At present it is very weighted towards one or two Mania runs, but feel free to have a look and see how your runs have weighted at present.

(In particular, Paul-Knives has leapt right up due to decimating my Blaze1 Mania by over 11 minutes - trust me, I mean to rectify that soon ;) )

Hopefully this will be taken as intended - an extra bit of good, fun competition :D my intention is absolutely not to demean anyone or categorically say any one person is "better" than another - we all have our areas of expertise, but I wanted a fun thought exercise to see who could be considered the pound-for-pound champion across the board.

Explanations in the next comment:

Hey all,

Love this game, love the speedruns. I was thinking of one day (no time soon - like, 2021) of speedrunning it but on the PS version.

Is there a particular reason that all the runs seem to be N64? Is it not viable to compete with PS version?

Precisely - if you can conceive a way to speedrun a game, even if it won't get accepted here you will likely find at least ONE other person in the world willing to compete with you for a time.

Anything can be spedrun (speedran?).

Only four chapters left of the last Game Of Thrones book. Gonna be so sad when I have to wait 5,600 years for the next one.

If you aren't watching Better Call Saul yet, you owe it to yourself to watch it. Best show by a long mile.

Also if you're interested in Studio Ghibli movies but don't know where to start (or don't know which ones are worth watching or avoiding), I made this little playlist of reviews specifically for peeps on lockdown to see if any of the movies suit you :) hope you find it helpful!

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcX_jQ-IBb8NaXuIwZ8x9DJGFqGSW2sVn

Yup really depends on the specific game's rules/mods/community.

For instance, I stream on PS4 but I don't want my chatroom's text to be on my videos forever. So I edit in a black bar to censor it. Never been an issue submitting to SOR4 but I could imagine other game's communities having a problem with ANY post-stream editing (especially the types of games where runs are separated by frames not seconds).

Thanks, looks good

Anyone else notice the door often doesn't break on the way to the Diva fight?

I never noticed this pre-patch. When it doesn't break in the cut scene you can actually break it during the fight.

Does nothing really, just an observation.

You essentially have five options:

1. As EmeraldAly says, you need to either stream to Twitch and HIGHLIGHT the run to get a Twitch link to submit

2. Or what I do is stream to Twitch then download the run, crop it in editing software, then upload it to Youtube to get a Youtube link to submit.

3. What you can ALSO do with a PS4 is use RemotePlay where you can play your PS4 on your PC.

You can then either Screen Record with OBS Studio or else 4) you can stream your PC to Twitch and follow the steps above, except now you can add overlays etc instead of the default chatbox the PS4 stream shows.

5. You can use something like an Elgato but I've never used them

Hope that helps.

Streets Of Rage 4 has co-op categories :)

May I suggest Streets Or Rage 4?

Runs are roughly 50-60 minutes, although your first few will probably be closer to 1:05-1:15, and optomised is closer to 40.

There is only one known place to lock the game and it is within the first few screens, so you're not going to get an hour into it and crash/freeze your game.

The patterns are roughly the same every run - there are tiny instances of RNG with the spawns but they can largely be manipulated to ensure a consistent route. Then it's just all about grinding out runs to get better.

Also there are 17 characters to choose from and five difficulties (plus a Boss Rush mode for each character) so you will absolutely be able to find at least one category that suits you. Prior to the patch, we had almost 800 runs so despite all of the categories, there is competition here as well.

Now is the best time to join in as a new balance patch dropped on Monday and the boards reset, so interest is high. It suits what you want:

• roughly sub hour
• no run killer glitches
• you could be "speedrunner ready" after a few playthroughs
• major tech is memorising patterns (and which combos kill)

Hi all,

Just wanted to extend an invitation to anyone who had given up on Streets Of Rage 4 or haven't checked it out yet.

A balance patch was released on Monday addressing the main concerns with the game ie that it was too difficult for most players to get into.

The AI has been nerfed to a large degree, a lot of characters have had changes to their attacks (either patterns, damage or both) and some of the more 'glitchy' attack combos have been removed.

The response from the casual gamers has been incredible, so I would urge you even on that basis to give it a go again. It is a great game once you complete it once and learn the patterns etc.

In terms of the speedruns, the boards have been essentially soft-reset. The old runs are still there, but the filter shows V05 only as default and getting a run on V05 will class you as 1st place regardless of how it compares to previous versions. However, the old runs are all there to study if you change the filter to "All".

I have tested the new patch with Adam on Easy and beat my pre-patch time by almost a minute. Some of the runs that relied on those "glitchy" combos will be significantly slower, but overall I would say the game is faster.

Also the final stage is much better balanced. It felt half-finished beforehand.

So, if you haven't already, take up the game, try to speedrun it, contact any of us in the forum for advice or tips :)

Nice, thanks. SOR1 Blaze's weird "double hit" jump kick is pretty useful at the start of Stage 2 because it takes 5 hits iirc to break that door. So jump, get the "double hit" from the kick, land, 3 hit combo, advance without waiting on the 4 hit combo animation. I've always wondered if I could use it in other places, but if it only does 1 damage then there is no real point other than there.

More Shadow knowledge:

When you kill Ms Y, if there is a Shadow still alive he dies too

Some more things I noticed after my first Mania run (Blaze1)

• Barrels seem to either have smaller hitboxes or have been placed slightly lower down on the screen ie:

Stage 3 - At the very beginning, I usually throw a Kevin into the left hand side barrel. He now flies right past it and doesn't hit it. Sad times.

Stage 10 - Between the Condors and Z there are two barrels, you can now easily walk above these.

• The second chandelier "trap"/Baabo fight in Stage 12

Now that Baabo can only lift one or two items with his telekinesis at a time, it is much less scary in Mania and I think we should all adopt leaving the trap for Baabo. I had been doing it anyway on Easy-Normal-Hard, however with the less aggressive Zs and the fact Baabo can't lift up all the knives/swords/maces, it seems to be less risky leaving the trap for when he appears imo and just fighting the Donavans/Zs/Signals.

Unsure about Hardest if there are two Baabos (four items).

• Shadows in Stage 12:

Pre-Ms Y: The trigger point seems to be the very edge of the carpet, ie the black line. I touched this with Blaze's toe then immediately turned round and could start hitting Shadow as he landed (before he even had time to get a hit in).

Post-Ms Y: If you defeat Ms Y but feel you need/want the health, you can still break a statue and grab it. The Shadow appears and tries to attack you, but you can just walk away and leave the room so long as Ms Y has been defeated.

• Robot Leg strats for SOR1 characters

Well... this is even MORE free than it was before. Basically, during the Mr & Ms Y fight section you definitely want to focus on ONE twin and ignore the other. (For other characters/difficulties it will probably be the same but there may be instances you want to combo/weaken both).

Anyway, once one of them gets into the Robot Legs and gets their full health back, just move to the very bottom of the screen in the middle and use your star. My star hit and insta-killed (it managed to catch both legs on the ground - unsure yet if it is insta-kill with only one leg but I suspect so). Second twin was at around 75% health and got into robot, I used my second star and insa-killed hitting only ONE leg.

So I think the strat is probably to use your first star vs Candy group if you can spawn them all in, take a mace into Big Ben room for safety (Shadow room on Easy because it's one-hit kills) and focus on one Twin during the twin fight, then just wreck the Robot Legs with two stars. Simples.

My Blaze1 Mania run will be published soon. It was only a 1:25:00 so easily beatable, feel free to review and beat it everyone (except Paul Knives :P). It's an interesting category and honestly, a lot easier than I thought it would be (I finished with 3 extra lives and I wasn't being super-safe).

What I find hilarious is that Priest right now not only has the #1 Floyd Mania run, he also has both #5 and #7 lol

(Shows as #1 on the boards due to the filter, then when you go into his profile he is #7 and #5 as both the versions are showing)

Similarly I am at the same time 1st, 4th and 5th on Adam Easy haha. This amuses me.

Also noticed Rhio's armour is so weak you can break her while in flamethrower mode