Hello ! just a quick update about the starting point of manual runs.

During "So Long Adele" we stumbled across the issue of stages lagging at the beginning due to a lot of entities spawning at the same time which made the starting frame visually random. The solution of starting later and adding time was adopted but could only work for PRTS as manual includes setting the stage at 2x the speed manually or placing ops (slowing down the game) before the first DP is generated. With ZT-10 the problem needed to be addressed again but made us look out for a solution for manual runs as well, but instead of looking to add time, exploring the idea of a earlier starting point and removing time to account for actions taken by the runner playing right away. Luckily we found a reference point consistent across devices and stages.

The red and blue boxes have a spawning animation which is consistent and we can use to find the real starting point of a stage :

The new starting point was chosen because it's a round number as well as an easy frame to find.

We are going to keep PRTS the way it is as it's clearer and consistent but we will change for manual to match the same starting point. You can use this new technique for PRTS as well but the reverse is impossible so keep that in mind.

And like always, if you have any doubt about how to do it, don't worry we will take care of it.

Changes in the rules

old

• Timer Start: First frame when DP bar BEGINS to fill.

new

• Timer Start: 1 frame before the blue/red boxes are overlapping - 1.6 seconds.
  • starting frame:
  • 
  • Reference of overlapping boxes happening 1 frame afterward :
  •