That's a very deep analysis from your side, I'm impressed by the amount of information you managed to dig up.

I too think that the 1 cycle is good enough, because 1. the game is basically a meme, it's not meant to be taken seriously, and 2. as you said, the game seems endless, and it can go on basically forever.

By assist I meant Quality of Life Improvements, like the timer you mentioned.

As for the new categories - I can surely add new ones based on your script, just let me know which ones, like the Vanilla set you mentioned. Of course I can't guarantee that they'll be popular, but it won't hurt having something new on the leaderboard, potentially bringing new runners.

The reason it wasn't created earlier is because this game is basically dead. Last run was verified months ago.

About the script - are you suggesting it would assist speedrunners during runs? If yes, then I would need to review the code to make sure it doesn't give and unfair advantage to anyone using it. It's not like it's a big problem, but it might take some time.

Threecreepio the MVP.

@Nashvon Yep, it works just fine.

Yes, it's allowed, and it'll be classified as an emulator.

To better categorize the route of Basic Training with scripts, the former "Basic Training" category was separated to "Basic Training (Scripted)" and "Basic Training (Any%)". Please familiarize yourself with the rules if you want to run them.

What was changed?

Basic Training (Scripted) is now category based only on scripts that doesn't extend past Class and Engineer binds. Everything that modifies the server/training settings is NOT allowed anymore.

Basic Training (Any%) now allows runners to use variety of commands that can flip out the default training route, like kicking bots, skipping the setup time etc., that is (mainly) "mp_" and "tf_". One limitation to that are commands that require "sv_cheats 1" to work, those are NOT allowed in this category.

From now on we will look carefully at every command used in future runs to provide fair and ordered categorization. The rules in the future MAY but DON'T HAVE TO change if needed, after new strats are discovered.

It's strongly just "trial and error", so it might be best for you to just experiment, see what works and get a feel for it.

Did you watch the WR? You can see that I placed my crosshair in two specific places where (when I was testing it) the stickies had the highest chance of destroying all the targets. Note that at that time I was using 4:3, so it might not work for you. Basically stand in one EXACT place (in the WR done by hugging the corner) and just move your crosshair between two places - this way stickies should almost always land in the same place.

We're not currently adding new categories.

@Panchito 1. Download the video using YouTube/Twitch converter (depends where this run was uploaded) and make sure that it has .mp4 or any other commonly used video format. 2. Download VirtualDub (it's the most popular software, the other one is Avidemux I believe) and make sure that it has plugins for opening the type of video format your run has. 3. Select the starting and ending point, write down or memorize the amount of frames you got, and then fill the information on somewes.com, like framerate and amount of load frames.

Of course that's one of many ways to do that, because if the console and game framerate are the same, you can just count frames and get an accurate time.

In Super Mario World speedrunning it's called "0 Exit".

Mods are currently not accepting new categories for various reasons, and it'll stay that way for a while.

We've added a new rule to the ruleset of every category:

"All runs must have the "/cips" command turned on and in visible place."

It's basically another step of the verification process. If your run doesn't have this command turned on and in visible place - it'll be rejected. All runs verified before 05.02.2021 will stay on the leaderboard untouched.

We can't provide you with the ROM of any licensed game, but all valid emulators listed in the rules can be easily found on the internet. Most popular ones are: BizHawk, FCEUX and Nestopia.

@Conjo434 So your opinion is that TF2 is not a serious game (which again, is a subjective opinion), and because of that we should fill the leaderboard with meme categories? It doesn't work that way sadly. Also, what makes you think that CS:GO or BF3 are serious games? Because they have a bigger competitive scene? BF3 a literal war simulator? Where you put the C4 on a Jeep and destroy tanks with it almost making it a suicide mission? Only because TF2 is (in your opinion) not serious, we should make it even more so? About the weapon banning - yes, it's true that the weapon meta is very linear, but it's an effect of Valve "abandoning" TF2, which means that the weapon balancing is almost inexistent, and because of that we need to make whitelists ourselves. Does that change anything? Are the size of competitive scene, or in-game mechanics balancing defining factor of when the game is serious or not? I definitely don't appreciate this way of thinking.

"Why not instead of repetitive runs where the same thing happens every time people had runs where something different happened every time they ran a category?" - Because that's rejecting the whole sense of speedrunning? If something different happens everytime you speedrun a category, then comparing one run to another doesn't make any sense.

"Why are you so against having a category that tests each individual runner's raw skill at the game?" - It doesn't. If you want to test someone's individual skill, put them in a competitive match, or fight him 1v1 for pure aiming skills test. A meme category is not a defining factor of someone's skill.

"How do you know the TF2 community so well that you know exactly what kinds of speedrun categories would be popular or not?" - Because if there would be more interest, we would see tons of 2Fort speedruns, not only single runs on random channels. Some of them aren't even TF2 speedruns themselves, but "Meet the X class" speedruns.

"You then go on to say "We had a lot of suggestions for new categories, where every one of them was just a copy of one of yours."" - And every one of them wasn't even a serious suggestion, just like yours. Actually, when I recall, we had like 2 other category suggestions, not a lot like I said earlier. Yours will be 3rd. The first one was CTF speedrun without bots (pointless), the second one was not even a suggestion, because the person asked if something COULD BE CONSIDERED as a 2Fort speedrun (again without bots, again pointless). To this day, nobody suggested a new category, and we won't make a leaderboard for 2 players. Earlier you said that "[...] this game needs more interesting categories. Just having basic training and MvM is booooring.". Who said that except you? You don't even have a single run in any of the categories, so how can you know that Basic Training/MvM is boring? Only because YOU THINK that something is boring, that doesn't mean that it is in reality.

The problem is, that ALL of these categories are just memes that someone could "invent" on the toilet. And no, I don't think someone would enjoy getting killed/votekicked from a server, are you serious? Sorry, but if you really want more categories, you should create your own leaderboard for them (which is very easy to do, we have a TF2 Speedrunning Discord server, and you can announce it there), or make better suggestions. It's not that we don't trust the community, or don't listen to it. It's just our decision, as a mod team, to keep the leaderboards clean and transparent, without any strange or unconsidered categories without a clear goal or speedrun value.

@Klagarn That's true, but again, offline bots categories don't have the speedrunning value that would help them get to the leaderboard.

That of course doesn't mean that we ban running these categories - it's the opposite really, we encourage you to run them, we just don't have a reason to create a leaderboard for them, that's all. Not having a leaderboard to submit your runs =/= not having the right to run the categories. You can create your own leaderboard and announce it on our Discord server, we could create a new channel and link runner's leaderboards there. It's up to you.

As a word of ending - there is no reason/need for us to add these categories.

There is a lot to cover in this post, so I'll just explain things in flight, paragraph after paragraph.

TL;DR: We won't add these categories, if you want to run them, do so.

Starting off: why do you think that TF2 is not a serious speedrunning game? If it is, then why do we have over 70 runs on both leaderboards, not counting MvM? If it's not serious, then why TOP 3 times are so close to each other? Again, if it wasn't serious, then why did I spend over a month to get the first sub 10? It's your subjective opinion, not objective. Why would we add multiplayer speedrun content, where nobody does that? Do CS:GO, BF3, or any other straight multiplayer FPS speedrunners have multiplayer categories? No, because they'd be heavily RNG dependent and too easy to cheat in some way. And no, category extensions are not an option, because it doesn't solve the problem.

Going to the categories:

• Spree%, etc. - RNG dependent, and if you're not a decent player, you're not getting 20 kills in a row, unless you camp in one spot as a Sniper and bodyshot everyone.

• Capture% - RNG dependent, you could just join a server and rush to the last point with your team, stomping the match, or you could wait half an hour to end the round, switch the teams and even have a chance to get out of the spawn.

• Tauntkill% - RNG dependent. it's not like you can speedrun these kind of things, you know? I mean, sure, you can sit in one server and try to tauntkill someone for an hour, but who would do that?

• Snipeskii% - No comments on this one.

• Spycheck% - RNG dependent, how can you know for sure that the enemy team will have a spy? Again, someone could join the server and kill that one spy camping around the corner of the spawn, or wait for one to kill for half an hour.

• Spychecked% - See above. Also, doesn't that count as feeding? It's not like it'd matter in a TF2 match, but still.

• Crit% - RNG dependent. Do I need to say more?

• Killbind% - This I don't even understand. Do only I have to use killbind, or both of us?

• Votekick% - Being useless to your team, very funny and amusing.

• 2fort% - Not even a speedrun, are you even serious about this?

If Basic Training and MvM missions are boring for you, go ahead, you can run your categories and submit them to YouTube, nobody will punish you for this. You can even make a leaderboard yourself, I've seen people doing that.

I know what are you thinking right now - there are games on speedrun.com that are RNG dependent, and people still run them. That's true, but these are not MULTI, but SINGLEplayer games, where sometimes you can control random factors to a certain extent, or it's not as significant. It's not the only problem with your categories, the discrepancy between times would be so big, that nobody would run them and moderators would have to sit and watch 30 minute gameplayes of TF2, then retime them. Another thing, some of those categories are just meme categories that have no real value, they're just to fill the hole that doesn't exist. We had a lot of suggestions for new categories, where every one of them was just a copy of one of yours. People think that you need a leaderboard to run a category, but you don't. This concept just doesn't make much sense to us.

As long as you hold the "B" button all the time, all the paths are the same regarding the speed.

In my PB (4:57.627) I used a 374 method that often (95%) gives you 375, and it's really easy to execute and practice, check it out.

If you want to play the oldest versions (98, 95, XP) then there is basically no other way, so yes, it is allowed. Although for the newer versions (7, 8, 10) we recommend using the already installed Solitaire, or download one.