Why restricting strategies harms GTAO Speedrunning

1. It Suppresses The Innovation and Natural Progression of Speedrunning

• Speedrunning thrives on discoveries. Every new strategy normally propels the community forward and constantly shaves off time of current runs. An active community is both the catalyst for this, and its most telling measure. If this doesn't happen, either community is dead, or something is deeply wrong with the way moderation is handled. Glad to see that GTAO community is still very active.

2. It Saps Runner Motivation and Community Growth

Because many skilled players know that they will be rejected on SRC, they will upload their runs on YouTube or Bilibili. Some end up in private, some are just scattered across the Internet. But countless others never even bother, because why would they? It's known from the get-go that the effort is very unlikely to be ever recognized. Restricting strategies that community accepts, also discourages creativity in runners — why would you test and find a new glitch, if it will inevitably be banned? Most likely because Witt suddenly changes his mind about it 8 month later, like with deathwarps (A.K.A 0;0 warps). Or because he realizes that mods & verifies have been verifying all the runs using a glitch he doesn't like, for at least 10,5 month(!!!), like with the black screen skip. It is total chaos, and as a result, the thrill of discovering strategies and running is non-existent, and finding actually good runs is next to impossible, because instead of evolving, SRC plateau in the most devastating way possible.

3. Consistency Doesn’t Require Oppression

The argument that restricting warp tricks preserves consistency falls flat:

• You can write clear, detailed rules that define valid glitches. Well-crafted guidelines will ensure transparency about what is allowed, and what's not, as well as secure a fair process in how a newly discovered glitch has to be handled.

• As countless other games do, Leaderboards could also just be split by glitching category, if that's what community, not madebyWITT, may want.

About just the current situation:

“Warp accounts were created just to allow for job warping, nothing.” That’s true, they were created for this purpose — but why cling to it? Actually, why would you not WANT for them to be used to save time in lots of other different ways, especially when the community is already doing it broadly?! EVEN "CONSOLES CAN'T DO THIS" ARGUMENT IS COMPLETELY INVALID HERE!

I haven't covered some other topics, like not adding new categories and having the "up to date rules" (more like the illusion of them) in Witt's Discord DM's instead of ruleset on this site, etc., because other members already did it in this same thread.

After such a long time of Witt's almost complete non-involvement while so many runs were being done (multiple WR's included!), seeing this spit in the face of the community happen... I'm struggling to find a plausible reason why madebyWITT would enforce restrictions like this, other than to try and keep his very old world records intact, while continuing to comfortably idle in his Super moderator chair and not care about runners.

I'm confident in saying I speak for the entire community: WE NEED A NEW SUPER MODERATOR!

All the timestamps are relative to my current 29m32s PB. I will only comment on the parts I have personally tested. I also don't have, nor remember exact numbers since I've never saved this data. All of the timings I can bring up might not be accurate at all.

2:23 This route was certainly faster (by 3 seconds iirc) than the most commonly used one. I didn't test every possible variation, so it might not actually be the fastest.

4:29 Going into the right arch instead (like ZephyrPlaysPC did in his 30m44s run) was significantly slower in my testing (iirc, by some 2-digit number in seconds).

13:24 From my testing, previous commonly used route (e.g. in IslaMorag's 31m31s run) was timed similarly (down to 0,5s) compared to the route that I've used. I preferred it because it requires less camera movement.

Accidentally found this. Works for most of the closed pipes. Double tapping Esc will result in you being able to move while cinematic is still not over. If you do this too early, it won't work in some of the available scenes. Seems like it has a distance limit, so no need to rush it anyway. Usually, successful glitch will be indicated by sounds of character moving or by a little jump while still inside the pipe.

thank you so much man

Asking because I've heard by a chance Viper talking about this soflock now being resolved, do you know anything about it? Extremely annoying, killed 2 decent runs in a row

Extremely annoying, killed 2 decent runs in a row. Asking because I've heard by a chance Viper talking about this soflock being resolved, do you know anything about it?

Why can't I quickly trigger alternate cutscene after jumping out of seashark without waiting for Jimmy to walk?

How to make it so it doesn't require you to sit on the seashark to progress, if you fly to the island in helicopter?