So I believe as the game is actively updated, runs we have listed should be removed. I am not suggesting that we remove all runs whenever there is an update; however, I feel they are no longer valid as the game is changed to a certain extent. For example, the current World Record placed 4 months ago was ran on Update #77. At the time of writing this, the game is currently on Update #93.

Since Update #77, these changes have been made that could affect current runs compared to then:

• Turrets have increased HP and a higher chance to spawn (79)

• Boss Intros were added (83)

• Certain enemies such as grunts were made more aggressive (84)

• Snow Tanks are more aggressive and react faster (83 + 91)

• Three new rare enemies (78 + 93)

• Increased damage from IDPD explosions (93)

• Lil' Hunter only spawns Grunts pre-loop (81) (I am not sure if this means Grunts were never spawned by Lil' Hunter previously, but the current WR had no spawned grunts so it's a possibility)

• Fixed rate of fire for Steroid's second weapon (86) (Not sure if for better or worse)

Now of course with this, there were many parts of these updates that changed the game and made certain aspects less troubling and easier. But this only goes to show how much the game has changed and how runs on past updates could potentially no longer be valid. I personally don't believe that these runs should be valid after a certain number of game-changing updates, but I wanted to know what vPixl and others thought.

Ideas?

All information gathered in this post was taken from the Update History Wiki - http://nuclear-throne.wikia.com/wiki/Update_History

I'd say for now, leave up every speedrun until the final version of the game is released, then once it is, remove the previous speedruns. The game isn't finished yet, so it is kinda weird to speedrun it. Maybe in the case of the update #77 run, there is enough different with the game to justify it being taken down, but I'm not qualified enough to determine that. Not trying to derail this topic, but I think a more important topic that really needs to be decided on is when a run officially ends and how it is timed. A few days ago, someone submitted a run with their ingame time. I'd personally prefer not to use this, as it doesn't take into account things like choosing mutations or more importantly pausing. Something like this could allow people to essentially play the game a few frames at a time, making the run nonsense. One thing I do like about the ingame timer is that it doesn't count the unusual variance with loading levels, but that seems pretty minimal overall. Also I've seen people count both the end of the end cutscene and when you sit down on the throne as the final split, so that still needs to be discussed more as well.

Also, I just found out the ingame timer does keep going when you pick a mutation, so scratch that. But I still think ingame timer should not be used.

Yeah, if it doesn't count paused time then it definitely shouldn't be used. It can be abused too easily.

i think that we should allow in game timer but it should be optional/not really count towards anything. right now, i'm sure it's either a bug or not implemented yet that you can't get the "sit on the throne" ending as steroids yet, so for the time being i'd say just use real-time.

i'm not sure on updates for the time being, i'd say we just set a marker and any runs below that are deleted/not viable.

and like cranberry was saying, most runs that are before the release of the game (isn't that supposed to be pretty soon?) are probably not going to be viable due to the alpha stage. however, we can discuss deleting runs etc. whenever that time comes.

i made a thread (stickied) for any ideas that you guys have, take a peek at it so that we can have a megathread where we can change things.