I have two submissions in the queue from dekuking which use the Phantom Cigar to pass time. Apparently, using the Cigar causes IGT to speed up in proportion to the game's day/night cycle.

Do you think we should ban the use of Phantom Cigars in IL tables, or allow them with the understanding that users are still supposed to submit based on their IGT?

I don't think there's a reason to ban cigars. I say if anyone can get a good IGT with cigars, good on them.

The fact that it's bad for speedruns isn't a very good reason to ban it.

If it screws up IGT then no reason to ban it, people will stop using it anyway.

another possibility would be to make a livesplit IGT auto-splitter, so we wouldnt have to rely on the in-game's IGT timer at all

Seeing as how I appear to be the deciding vote on this one, I'm going to take my time thinking about this. I don't want to fuck it up.

Alright, I've given this a lot of thought, so here's my decision and explanation:

The Phantom Cigar is a high-risk, high-reward item as the in-game timer speeds up in proportion to the amount of time passing in the game world. As such, it should not be banned.

If they wish, runners who use the Cigar can submit an RTA time (I'd suggest first frame HUD appears to the first frame HUD disappears, which is how I manually timed Mission 2 when I speedran it) but the tables will be based on IN-GAME time only, not real-time.

I think this is a compromise that will satisfy both parties. Hopefully.

if the tables are based on the IGT no problem for me

Really, if GZ is anything to go by, the actual thing for real time versus in game time is reflex mode. Not sure whether that's changed here.

Since we already resolved this issue I am unstickying this thread, if that's okay with everyone.

i strongly disagree with this decision... if the best/fastest strat is using the phantom cigar it should be reflected in the leaderboard. who cares whe the ingame timer says, its wrong.

making the tables based on in-game time effectivly bans the phantomcigar.

in cases where the in-game timer is wrong RTA should be used... having a 11 minute run above a 3 minute run (with 18 minutes in-game time) is not good since the 3 minute run is literally 8 minutes faster.

if the game cant keep time properly we have to do it ourselfs.

the compromise i suggest is that RTA timing starts the frame you press X at the beginning of the mission and only ends once the grade Letter apears... this would allow in-game time to be faster should there ever be a case where the difference is only seconds (i think in-game time stops once you leave the hot zone)

dekuking does have a point for the phantom cigar and real time. it really doesn't make sense to have IGT when real time is that huge gap in time using phantom cigar depending on the mission. it would reasonable for mission 9 that real time be used because of the timer limit can be skipped with phantom cigar.

oh, it definitly screws up the igt. you spend 3 minutes doing a mission
but igt says 18? its wrong. its not correct. period. speedrunning is about finish as fast as possible... if the game has a built in timer that nice and all, you can use that... BUT if that in-game timer isnt correct for whatever reason you can NOT use the igt, since y'know... its not correct... usually you would be talking about difference of seconds here... but this game decides to massively fuck with the igt causing the igt to be almost 6 times as long (18 instead of 3 minutes)

so using igt basically removes a whole game mechanic from speedrunning cause that mecahinc causes the igt to be wrong... thats dumb. if the IGT is obviously not correct it should not be used.

the rank calculation uses the igt so getting S-rank using the phantom cigar will already be harder since the rank will be calculated off the "wrong" igt, so i think this will mostly affect any%

if we use igt cigar strats will NEVER be the fastest since spending even just the minimum amount of time in "cigar mode" can add 5+mintues to the igt.

also if IGT are beat by RTA times they arent invalidated... theyre just beat by a better faster strat. also i dont think there will be a lot of missions where the cigar will be used, the only ones i can think of right now are 7&9

also why would RTA be screwed up by reflex? does IGT not factor in reflex? if yes that would mean that RTA is actually more exact since it tell you the REAL time rewarding players that dont use reflex (since its faster)... that actually seems like an additional argument for using RTA... players using the slow reflex mode should be punished for it by reflex costing time... if IGT doesnt do that RTA is way more exact

Just chiming in here as somebody picking up TPP. Effectively banning an item that's available from -the very start of the game- or assigning a penalty to it through only tracking IGT when a faster alternative is available, to me, is a little bit goofy. It might not be as apparent in IL but in any% or any other full game run, it dramatically changes the entire run for no other reason but to be arbitrary. I'm positive there's some IL runs that would be made a lot faster through the use of the phantom cigar. If people are using the cigar to skip the massive wait time in any single mission, that doesn't need a penalty. That is a skip. We, as speedrunners, use those religiously. As we should.

Hell, even if the Phantom Cigar not only didn't effect IGT, but it also refilled your health and gave you ghost ammo that shot through walls for a time, I would still argue for it's allowability. It's one of the first items you receive. It is a mechanic that is immediately apparent and quickly established as part of the game. And if it later allows for a much faster run, that should be reflected in the boards.

MGSV is not the first game with a completely unreliable IGT. When we have those we tend to ignore the IGT in lieu of manual timing because of how inaccurate IGT is because our goal is accuracy. And MGSV has, bar none, one of the most inaccurate in game timers I have seen in some time.

I know the norm has been using IGT since Ground Zeroes. I didn't particularly agree with it there either. So I can understand why there'd be disagreeance here too.

No disrespect meant to anybody here or their opinions. This is just mine.

Saying that IGT is unreliable in mgsV is not right AT ALL. Period. as Dekuking would say.

Phantom cigar work as intended, and got his mechanic. Deal with it, or do not use it.

The ladderboard use IGT. Why you ask ? Because "Cross-platform" you cannot compete in Full-game run if you use RTA.

I'm running MGSV on pc on an SSD, do you think that any ps3 could compete against my time ? No. Because my loading are up to 10 times faster. I'm not even talking about possible lag, clipping, framrate dropping, that slow down the timer as they happen. I won't even talk about the mission where you need to skip cutscene, PC usualy allow you to skip earlier in all of them.

For IL's it's another story. BUT, should we change the entire system just because of 2 missions ? And on top of that, mission that have been already routed by other people to not use Phantom Cig ? I don't think so.

TL,DR Cigar phantom work as it should. End of the story.

Oh and before some say that i don't care, look at my SS full-game Peacenik run. I use Phantom Cig, and i need to learn the normal route. And belive it or not. That piss me of.
I'm defending this idea, because to me it the way we should do it.

reflex shouldn't tamper with real time. plus reflex can be turned off and its not really that important in speedruns when there are multiple alternate strats that could be way more faster to use.

I can understand the load time differences being an issue, but it's not strictly a new one. Dozens of other games have had the same problem. There's generally a definitive (fastest) version that people end up running on or load times are removed from timing. I mean even in the same series, look at Metal Gear Rising. That's across PS3, X360, and PC on a much shorter run than MGSV any%.

The timer in MGSV is provably unreliable by nature of the fact that it accounts for reflex mode, phantom cigar, and literally any other time altering effect. That's not even something that can be disputed, as it's by the game's design. A real-world 5 minute run without any time altering effect and the same 5 minute run with a time altering effect will give you different results.

So yes, as you said the Phantom Cigar works as it should. It advances the provably unreliable IGT by a huge margin for using it. But I think the argument for some people here has been for a RTA vs IGT standard on the grounds that if you want to use a viable skip that utilizes this item, you consign yourself to adding 5 nonexistent minutes to your time for no reason other than your timer is operating on a different spectrum than actual time. Which is something that can be solved by timing your run like other cross-platform games have. RTA and removing load times, or something similar.

So to answer that question, should a system of timing be changed because of two missions? I think no. But I think a system of timing should be changed if it is proven to be unreliable. And IGT is provably unreliable. Routes are going to change regardless of timing method, so I don't see that as a huge reason to stick with something that can be fixed, and has been fixed by different game communities with similar issues.

Just my 0.02.

Again, no offense meant if that's how it's being taken. It's ultimately a community decision how they want to run a game. Talking about it on either side of the fence is healthy discussion.

"Which is something that can be solved by timing your run like other cross-platform games have. RTA and removing load times, or something similar. "
do you realise how much work this is ?, and i'm not even talking about the runner doing it, i'm also talking about the verifying of those numbers (In full game runs.. oh god.(1loading to the ACC, 1 post mission, 1 after completing it, one before some cutscenes, one when you leave mother base...) .

Sure, i'm a verifyer, and this is my job, but still i don't get what you add from your last post. It's still the same for me.

And really we should stop the non sense about the IGT being Unreliable. It work has it should. It time how long your in a mission and you take to complete it that why it's called <<<<IN GAME>> time.

I don't take you opinion and voice as a offence far from it. I like talking about it and your mostly consctructive about it, but repeating yourself wont really change anything to the matter.

But from my perspective there is only 2 possibles option at the end of the day: We arbitrary ban the phantom Cig wich is bad, or we still allow it with the current rules.

And let's put aside the Phantom cig for a seconde. If we start to RTA Everywhere i still feel THIS will be unreable. As stated previously, any frame rate dropping, slowing down of the game, wouldn't be timed rightly. When your game framerate drop, so does the ingame timer. It's the fairest option. And also is the easier for verification for moderator, and users. When you got a time that is WR, you got the WR. Period.

Making it too difficult to do would also lower the amount of runners, and runs summited wich is bad. The bigger the community the better the competition.
And i'm saying that from my POV, that on top of that think this is the better choice overall.

It's not like load times have a huge impact in ILs and for full game runs, an automatic load remover should be simple enough to make. The only problem here are consoles, once again my eternal nemesis.

quoting bre3zeR
"do you realise how much work this is ?, and i'm not even talking about the runner doing it, i'm also talking about the verifying of those numbers (In full game runs.. oh god.(1loading to the ACC, 1 post mission, 1 after completing it, one before some cutscenes, one when you leave mother base...) ."

sorry to intrude in this argument but that is silly excuse, easily can resolved by adding more moderators.

"And really we should stop the non sense about the IGT being Unreliable. It work has it should. It time how long your in a mission and you take to complete it that why it's called <<<<IN GAME>> time."

it works in the way it was meant for and speedrunning isn't what its meant for. its not reliable because speedrunning should be about how fast you can play rather than be what it shows in the result screen despite being slower compared to RTA.

"And let's put aside the Phantom cig for a seconde. If we start to RTA Everywhere i still feel THIS will be unreable. As stated previously, any frame rate dropping, slowing down of the game, wouldn't be timed rightly. When your game framerate drop, so does the ingame timer. It's the fairest option. And also is the easier for verification for moderator, and users. When you got a time that is WR, you got the WR. Period."

frame drops happen in most games anyway and they get categorized as console thing or have PC system be shown. that doesn't stop speedrunners from using real time. speedrunning shouldn't about fair options thats really pointless in competitive sense. who cares if its easier for verification, no offense but come on verification isn't meant to be easy in the first place.

"Making it too difficult to do would also lower the amount of runners, and runs summited wich is bad. The bigger the community the better the competition.
And i'm saying that from my POV, that on top of that think this is the better choice overall."

that is for casual speedrunners who don't want to push the limit or excel at resolving obstacles that would slow them down. bigger competition would be useless if the rules are pampering runners who wouldn't use exploits in the game for faster runs. plus it wouldn't be that difficult that it would turn off would be new to speedrunning this game. speedrunning for improvised runs isn't easy.

if the phantom cigar gets banned then that put the glitch exploits (custom weapons glitch) seem not fair for glitchless runs that use phantom cigar. if the phantom cigar stays with the rule of IGT over RTA then that just makes the whole runs that uses phantom cigars for faster RTA to waste. another solution that might be the least favorable would be having phantom cigar/RTA and IGT its own category. that way using phantom cigar for RTA against IGT would be fair for both sides.

- phantom cigar RTA IL/full game categories
- no phantom cigar IGT IL/full game categoroes.