Hey folks, after some interest in the category and a buuuunch of discussion in the discord, we've reached a consensus on what a No Major Glitches category should look like. So now that we have a consistent ruleset, there's only one step to go for those interested: run it!

This thread shall be used as a collection-point for runs to gauge how many people are truly interested in running Egg Shuttle - No Major Glitches. So please post videos of your runs in the replies of this thread. If you continue running past the example run, please edit your original post to have only the video of your fastest time.

Q: How many runs are needed for the boards to become a thing? A: 5 runs! For completely new and clear categories we usually stick to 3, but since discussion has shown that this is a bit of a messy category definition and runs can currently already be submitted to the existing Egg Shuttle boards, we opted for a bit of a higher run count.

Q: Where on the boards will the category be added? A: It will be added as a subcategory of the Egg Shuttle boards, with normal Egg Shuttle being the default.

Q: What will the name be? A: No Major Glitches or NMG for short. We've found in discussion that no category name immediately jumps out as a perfect fit and ultimately the name matters little, so why not stick to the name that started the idea in the first place. If the community prefers a name change later down the line that is easily done.

Q: What are the rules? A:

1. No 3D in 2D
2. No clipping through solid walls/floors/objects
3. No section skips achieved through community-decided "major" glitches
4. No boss quick kills achieved through community-decided "major" glitches

Additional notes:

• When in doubt about whether a glitch is considered for this category, please consult the list in the master thread on the forum
• Accidental clips do not disqualify your run as long as you do not benefit from them, so either take a death or go back the way you came.

Q: What tricks are considered a major glitch? A: After lots of discussion, the community decided on the list below. Everything in red is banned. Some tricks are displayed in green for clarity's sake, since they were brought up during the discussion phase, but ultimately allowed. Anything not listed below is fair game as well. (thank you Nuh for making the initial version of this list for the discussion)

Hi everyone, welcome to the Category Request Master Thread! This will be the go-to place to request new categories or support other people's category requests. With enough community support they'll be added to the leaderboards as either a misc or main category.

==How to request a category==

Reply to this thread with the following things:

• Category name
• Timing method
• Rules
• Example run

The things listed here are proposals and could be changed after community discussion, but we'd like the requester to at least think about these things ahead of time and have an example run. Posts that are severely lacking in details will be deleted to keep the thread clean.

==When does my category get added?==

A leaderboard is for comparison, so we'd like to avoid having leaderboards with no times or only 1 time by having other people support the idea before adding to the leaderboards. How much support is needed depends entirely on what's being requested. An established Wii category like “All Chaos Emeralds” will need far less support than a category like “All Super Sonic Stages” which barely even has IL's on the board right now. The length of the category also plays a factor here, people are less likely to invest time in a 3 hour category than a 30 minute one so requirements should be adjusted for that reality.

==How do I support a category?==

Run it! And then post your run in this thread. If you are of the opinion that it should have a different ruleset than the proposed one, be sure to mention that alongside your run as well of course.

New categories are more likely to get added with more runs and Misc categories are more likely to move up to Main with more runs, so run!

==What's the difference between Main and Misc?==

Site functionality wise, the Misc categories are collected under a little drop down menu, while the Main categories get their own tabs on the main page. The main argument to use this is to prevent the page from becoming cluttered. This is especially important for the site's new layout, if the number of Main categories gets too high, the site will turn them into a drop down menu as well, hurting the visibility of all other main categories. Visibility is the other argument, we'd like the most competetive categories to be the most visible ones and we'd like categories that actually reach the credits to be more visible than ones that cut out a smaller set of stages.

Most if not all requested categories will start out as Misc and only move to Main after it receives enough support/competition. The amount it needs again depends on the kind of category it is. A well known category type like a 100% collect-a-thon would be put up as a Main category with less runs than a smaller subset of stages like Game Land, but with its short length Game Land could be the one to reach the required amount of competition sooner. We'll just take it as things go and adjust the boards accordingly.

Hi everyone, welcome to the Category Request Master Thread! This will be the go-to place to request new categories or support other people's category requests. With enough community support they'll be added to the leaderboards as either a misc or main category.

==How to request a category==

Reply to this thread with the following things:

• Category name
• Timing method
• Rules
• Example run

The things listed here are proposals and could be changed after community discussion, but we'd like the requester to at least think about these things ahead of time and have an example run. Posts that are severely lacking in details will be deleted to keep the thread clean.

==When does my category get added?==

A leaderboard is for comparison, so we'd like to avoid having leaderboards with no times or only 1 time by having other people support the idea before adding to the leaderboards. How much support is needed depends entirely on what's being requested. An established Wii category like “All Chaos Emeralds” will need far less support than a category like “All Super Sonic Stages” which barely even has IL's on the board right now. The length of the category also plays a factor here, people are less likely to invest time in a 3 hour category than a 30 minute one so requirements should be adjusted for that reality.

==How do I support a category?==

Run it! And then post your run in this thread. If you are of the opinion that it should have a different ruleset than the proposed one, be sure to mention that alongside your run as well of course.

New categories are more likely to get added with more runs and Misc categories are more likely to move up to Main with more runs, so run!

==What's the difference between Main and Misc?==

Site functionality wise, the Misc categories are collected under a little drop down menu, while the Main categories get their own tabs on the main page. The main argument to use this is to prevent the page from becoming cluttered. This is especially important for the site's new layout, if the number of Main categories gets too high, the site will turn them into a drop down menu as well, hurting the visibility of all other main categories. Visibility is the other argument, we'd like the most competetive categories to be the most visible ones and we'd like categories that actually reach the credits to be more visible than ones that cut out a smaller set of stages.

Most if not all requested categories will start out as Misc and only move to Main after it receives enough support/competition. The amount it needs again depends on the kind of category it is. A well known category type like a 100% collect-a-thon would be put up as a Main category with less runs than a smaller subset of stages like Game Land, but with its short length Game Land could be the one to reach the required amount of competition sooner. We'll just take it as things go and adjust the boards accordingly.

Hi everybody,

First off let me say that we're thrilled about the amount of activity and interest this game has already gathered in the early access days. Very exciting!

Now on to business: Now that the game is fully released, the leaderboards are officially open and we will start accepting submitted runs.

BIG GIANT DISCLAIMER While we'd like to promote competition by not keeping submissions closed any further, there are some ongoing things that are very important to keep in mind as they could change the rules and retro-actively invalidate your run:

1. • A patch is on the way, which could change how the game operates. Example: if you get a PB with rail flinging and it ends up getting patched, it could invalidate your run depending on rule changes
2. • There is still a lot of investigation and discussion being done regarding different framerates and the mechanical changes they bring. If these are still present after the patch, they are likely to impact the rules and your run could be invalidated

IMPORTANT: IF YOU RUN ON PC, FUTURE PROOF YOUR RUN! If the framerate differences are still there post patch (which is likely) then one of the options we're discussing is a framerate cap variable on submissions. Since PC is the only platform with multiple framerate caps, we would enforce this by having a framerate counter displayed on your video/stream. Please consider setting this up now to significantly reduce the chance of your submissions being invalid after future rule changes.

Apologies that this is the way it is, but as you all know, the current state of the game is a mess and we're trying to make the best of it in a way where we don't have to keep submissions closed until a patch hits.

Thanks to all involved in documenting glitches, framerate nonsense and version differences, you're the real troopers!

Hey folks,

This announcement thread is for those who only look at the site and aren't in the Sonic discord.

With the amount of game differences seen in trailers and showcases so far, it only feels right for Ultimate to have its own leaderboards, rather than trying to integrate it into these existing boards. This way the original version can be preserved and competetive for those still interested in running on Wii and Ultimate gets to have a fresh start as its own speedgame. The boards can be found here: https://www.speedrun.com/sonic_colors_ultimate

Hey folks,

The early release of Sonic Colours Ultimate is less than a week away, so I've prepared this page ahead of time for any early runners of the game. That said there's a couple of things to keep in mind for running at the game's initial release.

1. Even though submissions are open starting sept 3rd, none will be accepted until the game is fully released on sept 7th. If unexpected game differences are encountered upon launch that require rule discussion, this grace period might be extended until said discussion has reached a conclusion.

2. Full-game category-wise I've only added Egg Shuttle and Any% for now as they are safe bets for what people will run. I have however held off on making an All Chaos Emeralds board for now as I feel it's better to wait and see where the player interest lies when it comes to collect-a-thon categories. Other than that IL boards exist for both normal Sonic and Super Sonic just as in the original.

Happy gaming :)

Hello everyone! Recently, the discussion of emulators came up in another game I moderate, Sonic Heroes. We ended up allowing emulation there and since this game would be able to adhere to the exact same emulation rules, we decided to allow it here as well.

As such, emulation is now officially allowed for Egg Shuttle and Individual Levels with the ruleset below.

Emulator rules:

• Dolphin version 5.0 (or up) must be used.
• Please use a stable build of the emulator, no development or beta builds.
• "Speed up Disc Transfer Rate" must be disabled in the properties of the game iso.
• "CPU Clock Override" must be set to 100% or turned off completely.
• Under the graphics settings, in the hacks tab, please uncheck "Skip EFB Access from CPU". The rest of the defaults are fine.
• Emulator must run at full speed. An occasional lag spike is fine, but consistent slowdown is not.
• The window's title bar showing the emulator version, framerate, etc. must be visible in the video.
• Modifications, cheats, editing .ini files and emulator exclusive functions are not allowed.
• Emulator is only allowed for Egg Shuttle and Individual Levels.

Note: Any of the emulator rules shown above may be changed and retro-actively applied if new information about emulation is found that would require a rule change.

Why not Any% and All Chaos Emeralds?

• We've only confirmed Dolphin's accuracy in-game time wise thus far. For real time categories to be viable as well I would like a very detailed side-by-side showing that all aspects of the game are equal. This means load screens, lag (or lack thereof) and anything involving the overworld or cutscenes. The main point of emulation is accessibility, so having the game's main category and all of the IL's now open to you is a good first step.

What's the thought process behind some of these emulator restrictions?

• It's best to check out the thread in the Sonic Heroes for that. Any of the points involving emulator settings and functionality are explained more thoroughly there: https://www.speedrun.com/sonicheroes/thread/4m5el

Hey folks! I know there are a bunch of you that'd like emulator to be allowed for this game. The other mods and I are not not promising anything as of yet (I'll start the discussion with the other mods based on the results of this thread), but let's at least open up the discussion.

There are a few points that I think are important to consider before allowing emulation. Some of these require thorough testing and I'd like this thread to be the hub for posting said tests.

This will mostly be focussed on the Dolphin emulator, but if there are any other options that I'm unaware of, do bring them up if you think they're viable.

1. Does emulator load faster? And if yes, does this loading effect the loading speed of the score screens as well, which would effect IGT? The results of this test would show which timing methods emulator would be on equal footing for, if any at all.

2. To more easily detect pre-recording with save states or submitting TASes, I personally think it'd be wise to include the window bar of Dolphin in the game capture. The "Input frame/total" counter shows whether a recording is playing or not. Also makes it even easier to spot performance issues. Thoughts on this?

3. Are there performance differences between different builds of Dolphin? This is important to know in case we'd need to regulate specific builds that we know work well.

4. Any known differences in physics and if there are any, whether they impact the run at all. Obviously all mods/cheat codes will not be allowed, but it's important for the main game to run as correctly as possible.

I do not have the spare time (or tbh, motivation as I'd still like most people to run on actual hardware) to look into stuff like this, so I'd appreciate your help in this. If anyone else has any other points of discussion, please do post them.

With TSC submissions being down since March and the site's infrastructure growing more outdated by the second, it's finally time to put some IL leaderboards up here. The change won't happen untill after SGDQ as I simply won't have the time, but I wanted to get this thread up ahead of time to list how I intend to structure the boards, as well as gather some input from the community about several points.

Rules: Video is required Emulators are banned Runs must be done in Time Attack mode

There will not be a transfer of any existing statistics from TSC or other sites. The sheer workload would be huge as is, even more so if we contact every person to ask if they're ok with having their stats transferred to begin with. A lot of stats on TSC are without video to begin with, so even if we did a stat transfer, it would still result in an incomplete board. The intention is to give these boards a fresh start and let the people decide for themselves whether they want their stats here or not. This will make the boards start out empty of course, but if the community wills it, the boards can evolve into the primary IL boards on the internet.

The emulator rule might be a bit unnecessary since the game has a PC version, but I'd like to have it there for clarity as experimental WiiU emulators do exist.

If you have any thoughts about any of the above or something I didn't mention, post here. It'll be a while before the change is implemented, so you'll have plenty time to get your thoughts in.

Lastly, keep in mind that verification will take a while during the initial wave. Especially since this is not the only game that will be getting IL boards. Should the workload become too large for the existing mods, I'll be sure to recruit someone from the community to help verify.

With TSC submissions being down since March and the site's infrastructure growing more outdated by the second, it's finally time to put some IL leaderboards up here. The change won't happen untill after SGDQ as I simply won't have the time, but I wanted to get this thread up ahead of time to list how I intend to structure the boards, as well as gather some input from the community about several points.

Rules:

• Video is required
• Emulators are banned

There will not be a transfer of any existing statistics from TSC or other sites. The sheer workload would be huge as is, even more so if we contact every person to ask if they're ok with having their stats transferred to begin with. A lot of stats on TSC are without video to begin with, so even if we did a stat transfer, it would still result in an incomplete board. The intention is to give these boards a fresh start and let the people decide for themselves whether they want their stats here or not. This will make the boards start out empty of course, but if the community wills it, the boards can evolve into the primary IL boards on the internet.

For the boards there is 2 potential structures and I'd like your input on what you would prefer:

1. “Green Hill Classic” “Green Hill Modern” as the stage names and Skills / No Skills as subcategories
2. “Green Hill” as the stage name and Modern / Classic as the subcategories, but Skills / No Skills as a variable that people can filter for (both shown by default) Due to the structure of the site's IL boards these are the 2 most viable options. Unlike full game categories, having multiple tiers of subcategories doesn't really work for the IL boards.

The emulator rule might be a bit unnecessary since the game has a PC version, but I'd like to have it there for clarity.

If you have any thoughts about any of the above or something I didn't mention, post here. It'll be a while before the change is implemented, so you'll have plenty time to get your thoughts in.

Lastly, keep in mind that verification will take a while during the initial wave. Especially since this is not the only game that will be getting IL boards. Should the workload become too large for the existing mods, I'll be sure to recruit someone from the community to help verify.

With TSC submissions being down since March and the site's infrastructure growing more outdated by the second, it's finally time to put some IL leaderboards up here. The change won't happen untill after SGDQ as I simply won't have the time, but I wanted to get this thread up ahead of time to list how I intend to structure the boards, as well as gather some input from the community about several points.

Rules:

• Video is required
• Emulators are banned
• Pausing to help with QTE's, tricks or movement is allowed

There will not be a transfer of any existing statistics from TSC or other sites. The sheer workload would be huge as is, even more so if we contact every person to ask if they're ok with having their stats transferred to begin with. A lot of stats on TSC are without video to begin with, so even if we did a stat transfer, it would still result in an incomplete board. The intention is to give these boards a fresh start and let the people decide for themselves whether they want their stats here or not. This will make the boards start out empty of course, but if the community wills it, the boards can evolve into the primary IL boards on the internet.

The boards will be structured by stage, with a subcategory for Day and Night. DLC stages will be included in the main boards. Some stages will not have the same amount of Day and Night stages, but unfortunately the site does not allow me to pick and choose which stages get which subcategory, so a few will have to remain empty.

I intend to keep emulators banned for the forseeable future as emulators for this generation are still in its infant stage and lag plays a significant factor in Sonic Unleashed, giving emulator runners an advantage.

Since it was such a hot point of discussion in the past, if people want we can have a variable for whether a run uses pausing to gain an advantage or not. Both options will be shown by default as both are valid, but this way the people that want to see the best runs without pause usage can easily filter for it. Based on people's playstyles in the past, he ruling for this would most likely be that pausing for QTE's does not qualify a run for pause advantage, but any other scenarios do. Please let me know what you think on this topic as the result of this will be decided by what the majority of the community wants.

If you have any thoughts about any of the above or something I didn't mention, post here. It'll be a while before the change is implemented, so you'll have plenty time to get your thoughts in.

Lastly, keep in mind that verification will take a while during the initial wave. Especially since this is not the only game that will be getting IL boards. Should the workload become too large for the existing mods, I'll be sure to recruit someone from the community to help verify.

With TSC submissions being down since March and the site's infrastructure growing more outdated by the second, it's finally time to put some IL leaderboards up here. The change won't happen untill after SGDQ as I simply won't have the time, but I wanted to get this thread up ahead of time to list how I intend to structure the boards, as well as gather some input from the community about several points.

Rules:

• Video is required
• Emulators are banned (This might change in the future, but 1 change at a time)
• Times gotten during Egg Shuttle are not allowed with exception of Tropical Resort Act 1.

There will not be a transfer of any existing statistics from TSC or other sites. The sheer workload would be huge as is, even more so if we contact every person to ask if they're ok with having their stats transferred to begin with. A lot of stats on TSC are without video to begin with, so even if we did a stat transfer, it would still result in an incomplete board. The intention is to give these boards a fresh start and let the people decide for themselves whether they want their stats here or not. This will make the boards start out empty of course, but if the community wills it, the boards can evolve into the primary IL boards on the internet.

The boards will be structured by stage, with a subcategory for Super Sonic. Game Land will also be added of course. Some stages do not have Super Sonic available, but unfortunately the site does not allow me to pick and choose which stages get the subcategory, so they'll just remain empty. And no I do not intend to have a board for Terminal Velocity Act 2 lol.

To clarify extra on the Egg Shuttle rule: since boost and rings carry over, it allows for boost management, damage boost or Shuttle exclusive skips that can result in a faster time. I'd like to avoid having any IL turn into “Let's go all the way through Egg Shuttle to have 1 try at getting an IL PB”. Therefore IL PB's you happen to get during an Egg Shuttle speedrun cannot be submitted. It's significantly easier to have a global rule for this than to make a ton of exceptions and discussions about “but well actually, I didn't benefit from stuff carrying over”.

If you have any thoughts about any of the above or something I didn't mention, post here. It'll be a while before the change is implemented, so you'll have plenty time to get your thoughts in.

Lastly, keep in mind that verification will take a while during the initial wave. Especially since this is not the only game that will be getting IL boards. Should the workload become too large for the existing mods, I'll be sure to recruit someone from the community to help verify.

With TSC submissions being down since March and the site's infrastructure growing more outdated by the second, it's finally time to put some IL leaderboards up here. The change won't happen untill after SGDQ as I simply won't have the time, but I wanted to get this thread up ahead of time to list how I intend to structure the boards, as well as gather some input from the community about several points.

Rules:

• Video is required
• Team Blast Glitch is banned
• Segmenting through checkpoint usage is allowed

There will not be a transfer of any existing statistics from TSC or other sites. The sheer workload would be huge as is, even more so if we contact every person to ask if they're ok with having their stats transferred to begin with. A lot of stats on TSC are without video to begin with, so even if we did a stat transfer, it would still result in an incomplete board. The intention is to give these boards a fresh start and let the people decide for themselves whether they want their stats here or not. This will make the boards start out empty of course, but if the community wills it, the boards can evolve into the primary IL boards on the internet.

The boards will be structured by stage, with subcategories for each team. PC and Console will both have their own boards, unlike the shared board on TSC. The Metal Madness IL will be submitted under Team Sonic.

Perhaps a bit of an unnecesary rule for PC, but should some monster manage to get super consistent at PC's version of the glitch, I'd like to have this up for clarity. Team Blast Glitch is banned for 2 reasons: 1. To keep the robot wave bossfights interesting, instead of “Spam TBG to insta-kill every wave” and 2. To keep Team Dark interesting, considering their Team Blast effect stops the level timer. Accidental Team Blast Glitches will be judged by whether they had any effect on the outcome or not.

If people want, we can have a variable for checkpoint segmenting. Both options will be shown by default as they are both valid, but it gives people the option to filter if they want to see what the best unsegmented run is. I personally think it's a good idea, but I'd like to hear from you.

If you have any thoughts about any of the above or something I didn't mention, post here. It'll be a while before the change is implemented, so you'll have plenty time to get your thoughts in.

Lastly, keep in mind that verification will take a while during the initial wave. Especially since this is not the only game that will be getting IL boards. Should the workload become too large for the existing mods, I'll be sure to recruit someone from the community to help verify.

With TSC submissions being down since March and the site's infrastructure growing more outdated by the second, it's finally time to put some IL leaderboards up here. The change won't happen untill after SGDQ as I simply won't have the time, but I wanted to get this thread up ahead of time to list how I intend to structure the boards, as well as gather some input from the community about several points.

Rules:

• Video is required
• Emulators are banned (This might change in the future, but 1 change at a time)
• Team Blast Glitch is banned
• Segmenting through checkpoint usage is allowed

There will not be a transfer of any existing statistics from TSC or other sites. The sheer workload would be huge as is, even more so if we contact every person to ask if they're ok with having their stats transferred to begin with. A lot of stats on TSC are without video to begin with, so even if we did a stat transfer, it would still result in an incomplete board. The intention is to give these boards a fresh start and let the people decide for themselves whether they want their stats here or not. This will make the boards start out empty of course, but if the community wills it, the boards can evolve into the primary IL boards on the internet.

The boards will be structured by stage, with subcategories for each team. PC and Console will both have their own boards, unlike the shared board on TSC. The Metal Madness IL will be submitted under Team Sonic.

Team Blast Glitch is banned for 2 reasons: 1. To keep the robot wave bossfights interesting, instead of “Spam TBG to insta-kill every wave” and 2. To keep Team Dark interesting, considering their Team Blast effect stops the level timer. Accidental Team Blast Glitches will be judged by whether they had any effect on the outcome or not.

If people want, we can have a variable for checkpoint segmenting. Both options will be shown by default as they are both valid, but it gives people the option to filter if they want to see what the best unsegmented run is. I personally think it's a good idea, but I'd like to hear from you.

If you have any thoughts about any of the above or something I didn't mention, post here. It'll be a while before the change is implemented, so you'll have plenty time to get your thoughts in.

Lastly, keep in mind that verification will take a while during the initial wave. Especially since this is not the only game that will be getting IL boards. Should the workload become too large for the existing mods, I'll be sure to recruit someone from the community to help verify.

Heyo everyone. This is a thread following a recent discussion in the discord and the long existing desire for categories without big skips like bop boosts. We're finally looking to make leaderboards for this, but since digging through the entire conversation is not exactly the best use of your time, I'm compiling everything discussed here in this thread. I'll then leave this thread up for a certain number of days so people can voice their thoughts before making the actual category.

The idea: make a category definition that is more heavily focussed on movement rather than big skips and brings back some cool obsoleted strats. This for the sake of accessibility and fun.

The design philosophy (yes ima make this sounds fancy af):

• Ban glitches and skips with the focus on making the run as fun as possible and bringing back cool obsoleted tricks, rather than banning anything we consider major.
• Making sure not to ban anything that can easily be done on accident. Noone like accidental run invalidations.

The glitches/tricks we'll most likely be banning:

• Bop Boost
• Power Formation Flight
• Bingo Highway Skip
• Pinball Table Launching (side note: since bop boost state can sometimes be gotten on accident, this will be not invalidate runs. Only taking advantage of the state) (side note 2: doing a ground pound while having skewed gravity can easily be done on accident and will not invalidate runs. Chaining them is banned)

The name: In between all the silly unofficial names we thought up, we did eventually discuss an official name for the category. The initial one we went with was No Major Glitches, which just ended up causing the discussion of what is and is not a major glitch and would eventually lead to banning fun tricks that we really want to be in the run. As such we eventually settled on the following name that both accurately describes the design philosophy and with an acronym that rolls off the tongue nicely:

Limited Tech Selection (or LTS for short)

The categories we'll be making this split for (most likely through the use of subcategories): Every main category except Team Chaotix as the only difference for Team Chaotix would be the 3 relatively small bop boosts.

Other stuff we considered banning and why we didn't:

• Team Blast Glitch: A pretty significant glitch depending on the team, but very easy to do on accident and just general quality of life
• Final Bingo Table Skip: Pretty major considering you pass through killplanes, but when asked "what's more fun, this skip or the table" it was unanimous

What we're still unsure about:

• Mystic Mansion Cage Clip: It's merely a clip, which there are many of in the run, but a lot of people are leaning towards banning it for the simple reason that the section it skips has cool fun strats

That's the overview right now pretty much. Nothing is set in stone so if you have any thoughts about changing the name, any of the rules, wether we should allow MM Cage Clip, etc. I encourage you to voice them!

Hey guys, just an announcement post for anyone not in the Discord:

All Day Stages and All Night Stages have both been changed to Main Categories and are switching to Loadless time. Since this switch requires a lot of manual retiming (both of existing runs and future runs), the condition for this was that the 3 main people requesting the change will be responsible for this work. They have done exactly that, so Avikaielef, RazorX and xrrstyle have officially been added as mods.

Why the change? Well the amount of difference in loading times between Xbox 360 and PS3 has always been huge, but there's also been factors like console model, adding an SSD to your console and as of recently the addition of the Xbox One and One X. Loadless time will put all of these on equal ground. To fully embrace this, the menuing for the stages is also excluded from the timing to not punish people for unlocking missions or having DLC installed.

Why did this take so long? Well like I said it's a lot of work so it's more been a case of waiting for people to show up who were willing to put in said work. This goes for every future submission as well, so please be patient with the mods as it will take a while to retime and verify.

Why only these 2 categories? Well consider how much work it is to retime 1 run of a short category like that, where you only need 2 consistent cues for starting and stopping the timer for each stage and that's it. Now imagine doing that for a category which so many different elements and the length of Any% or even All Medals. Not very realistic for now unfortunately.

In addition to this change, All Medals has also been added as a misc category, because even though it's a bit of a funky run timing wise, it does have at least as many runs as All Night Stages, which is a fair enough argument.

Hey all, so as some of you are probably aware, there are some serious flaws with the rental system and as it stands the Any% route as we know it is becoming impossible to perform. The problem: the rental system pulls 9 choices from the top 32 runs on the in-game leaderboards. Currently the run relies on using this to get a Drill wispon way before you'd first be able to unlock it. Since Sega has pretty much stopped moderating these boards, we're getting to the point where all 32 are hacked times without Drill wispons, making it impossible to perform the strats currently used in the run. This is truly peak modern game speedrunning.

“Why were rentals allowed to begin with if this could end up happening?” The thought behind it was that we use every thing the game offers in order to get the time down as low as possible. No restrictions. If something like this would end up happening, we cross that bridge when we get to it.

Well we've reached the bridge folks, so what're we gonna do about it? Personally I'd like to see some changes that preserve the runs that have been done up till now, while implementing categories that'll promote activate competition. Here's my thoughts, none of this is set in stone, so please by all means discuss.

==Any%==

Any% should definitely be preserved as a main category, but with this change I feel like changes are in order.

• Add sub categories for Rental and No Rental.
• The default would be set to No Rental as that'd be the one people would actually be able to actively run.
• The Rental boards would be preserved to showcase the great runs done and so we'd be able to pick it right back up again should Sega fix the leaderboards.
• You could name the options for the Rental variable “Yes / No” too, but that looks hella weird on people's profiles and the front page, so I'd personally vote calling the options “Rental / No Rental”.
• Since the odds of Sega fixing the boards are rather small, I would personally be open to making an exception to the modding rule. If someone were to make a mod that makes the rental feature pick from a fake list of avatars full of Drills, then I would be willing to make that the one and only exception for the sake of preserving a category. If Sega won't fix their shit, we will.

==NG+ Any%==

While Any% No Rental is certainly an option I feel should be present at this point, I personally feel like the go-to category for a good run and competition would be NG+ Any%

• Cuts most of the downtime out of the run (unlocking avatar stuff, cutscene skipping, conversations).
• Since it's just stages, we'd be able to time by In-Game Time like we do for Episode Shadow, meaning the load time differences between platforms would cease to be a problem. Same goes for the known issues with locking FPS changing the speed the game runs at by tiny amounts, as thes in-game timer speed will always be on par with the game speed.
• To truly promote this as a category where all IL strats people feel crazy enoug to do are viable, I personally feel like we should allow people to either switch wispons for their avatar between stages or just prepare multiple avatars with the r ight wispons to switch between.
• As with any IGT timed category in the Sonic series, excessive pausing or breaks between runs would not be allowed.
• For now I would say Super Sonic DLC would not be allowed as it's not in the base game, but since it's free DLC I'm not very against it either, do voice your thoughts (though I'm pretty sure Super Sonic strats are slower in a lot of the stages anyway lol)

==Other thoughts==

• Normally I advocate for a category actually having people running it before making boards, but since we find ourselves in kind of a unique situation I'm willing to take a leap of faith that people will actually run these 2. Any% No Rental will be the only option for running from a new game and NG+ Any% is accessible to anyone who's finished the game.
• NG+ All Stages is also an option, but is gated by the fact that you need all red rings to unlock all extra stages and copying other people's save files sadly does not work. People would have to do it themselves, so I don't really think it's the go-to here. If people end up running it anyway we could always make a board for it some other time.

So yeah... discuss! I'd like to hear from runners especially of course as this is more of a “What would you like to run going forward” discussion rather than a “What would you like to see other people run”.

Alright since there seem to be more people claiming to run Episode Shadow now and are asking for leaderboards, let's get things a little more organized. Here's what I need from y'all:

• Ruleset suggestions. Can't have a category without rules and now is the time to discuss them. Think timing method (Real time, vs in-game time), New Game vs completed file, etc.
• Links to the runs that have been done to verify that people are seriously running this ~ Please make sure these are properly highlighted, if your run is somewhere in a several hour long streamvod or just has a significant amount of other content before the actual run it will be ignored since they would be rejected from the leaderboard anyway.

As for my personal suggestions for the ruleset:

• In-game time as the timing method (in other words, just adding up the times gotten on each stage + any stage restarts). Real time would once again make PC the fastest by loads alone and unlike Any% there's nothing else of value going on in between the stages. This would make the category equal across all platforms
• Both running from new game and running on a completed file allowed. Nothing in the stages actually changes when running on a completed file vs a new game and this would cut out some unnecessary downtime for those that want to.

Discuss away I'd say!

For future reference, if you want to request leaderboards it would significantly benefit your request if you had a lot of this stuff already organized and ready to show along with making the request.