Wii and WiiU console runs are allowed. Emulator or USB loader runs share their own sub category due to having much faster loading-times than what's possible on console. But this doesn't concern time-attack mode.

Wii Mini would first require testing to see how it is like compared to its neighbors, then we can determine how it would be implemented it in the leaderboard.

This will naturally update as things evolve.

I just now added the category !

To test the water and see how these thing showed like, I have currently put it in the misc tab category, as well as created sub-categories for the stage variable to compare it to 100%NG+. It doesn't look very bad at all at all honestly, and both are very visible. I though that there would be an unfolding button for the player to select what they want to see from, like it happened with the extra's 4 possible run types. But that doesn't seem to be the case with only two possibilities (or short enough names ?).

Not only that, I have also done the same thing with the extra stage, both in any% and 100%. And have tweaked the rules accordingly.

Depending on reception, we may reverse these, or make similar tweaks to 100%NG+. But whichever way it is, all visions is now operational !

That, the fact that it's overall overall not super different or really urgently necessary unlike no skips was for any%, and that that it's expected to have too little activity in spite of the place it takes and effort it took to bring here.

I'm more confortable with them being separated. Not because one may be faster and overrun the other since they're different anyways, but simply because of that difference. That, and the fact that having them not separated would make it more annoying to rank them individually... which we could avoid by filtering runs... but if we do that, why not just split them then

Interesting. If I have to guess, 100%NG+ might not be very popular here solely because of the annoying and tiresome gem aspect. I usually hear from people that they're challenging yet don't grant much about the game. All visions does the opposite, and it makes me realize that it could very well surpass it in popularity. Enough perhaps to grant it main category status

I don't get your question, shouldn't it be the other way around ? If the main population of a game plays a certain way, shouldn't it be granted a important spot in the board (as long as it's still ever so slightly meaningful)? Apparently some players are attracted by empty boards, like it motivates them to run them, but it never ever seemed to be the case with the old all visions. Nor the 100% (allowing Popka) category of L'sV... so that's probably not a good reason to justify putting boards in main.

And again, something I had never considered that you brought up. Parts of me want to believe that using thoughtful argumentation (assuming that what we want to showcase is interesting enough, else it will be difficult to justify anything) would be enough to be given a chance. Another part of me thinks that for a winning submission to such events, the played category would statistically probably be large or have enough history to warrant some certaincy over the validity of the submission. Is that too optimistic, perhaps ? Either way, I don't feel too too concerned about these things

Perhaps 100% should have been called all dreamstones all along...

Right now I think I still wish that we split runs that use the stage variable and B'sT clock trick variable runs. And probably move 100%NG+ to misc on top of it.

To change the matter, if no one say anything about all visions, I'll probably add both it and the stage variable tomorrow. To misc too, although that could change in the future

Ok.

I sure don't mind the idea of doing all visions in a "no skip" way. But there's something that irks me about the idea of making a distinction for them in the board right now.

I've always encouraged players to run however the way they want, without having to abide by the official src game leaderboard rules, which limits the categories in which you can play. But why is so ? Why can't we just give a place, a chance to every single way of play possible ?

Technically, we could (although the site design would by no means make that easy, or pleasant to use). But what will we actually gain from this ? What, outside of dozens of empty categories ? This is my issue : I feel that this idea will very quickly belong to this spot. And if 100%NG+ is anything to go by, its future is foretold already.

Besides, how interesting would that really be to do ? What's the time difference with not using them ? Perhaps 4+ minutes, but nothing compared to the whopping 12 min difference of any%, which skips over entire levels and sections forever... when the most skipping we've ever done here is the dragging main hub movement of 6-1. And skip some portions of rooms, sure. But the run doesn't change that much overall. You can play without skips and reach perfectly good times that are still about close to WR. I'm perhaps reaching with this, but lots of games have such "hard tiresome tricks reserved for top level play only" like flagpole glitches in Super Mario Bros, and they have never opened any official "no skip" that removes them. If you're not good at them you can settle for slightly lower times, but still compare against other players. Why we made a distinction for no skips with DtP then, was because whenever a time was below 49, it had necessarily used at least one skip, which meant that any time, even 10 minutes below WR, would have required some to get anywhere. And obviously they were reported as tiresome for lots of players, on top of never getting to play certain sections, rooms and levels.

The only real utility that I would see in having both run types belong in the same leaderboard, is for comparison and statistics purposes, not any real ranking one (which it wouldn't do a great job at I recall). And since in reality it doesn't matter that an out-of-order run gets first place over every single in-order ones, as the gameplay, stress and optimisation factors of the run are nothing alike, I think putting them on the same board only hides their differences. And because of the current variable limitation, you would ultimately still be massively hindered in the long run by having to hover your mouse on every individual submissions all the time to show what the runs are made of anyways. Loss of quality of life.

For the downside of sub categories, I hear you, but it can't be helped. It would be the same if the runs were in the same board, the problem here is simply a lack of inhabitants and data to refer to. In case of the stage variable, the runs are expected to not have too much time differences, so both scale pretty well. If you got a 54 in-stage order time for instance, the skill equivalent for out-of-order would be either that or a little faster. For the skip variable, they would be about 3-4 min faster. But if you don't have this knowledge, if you don't know how these categories work, what can you do ?

And for your last point, a choice has to be made, thus one will always be "disadvantaged" by the other. My reasoning for why we would choose the in-order to be first is simply that showing a board that's completely empty and that will most definitely remain underpopulated is not a great choice, you'd rather want to prioritize popular boards more, show where main content of the board, game is first. As said, it will never be helped that one has the spotlight over the other. But our stance has obviously always been about both being valid. Something that I hope the wording on the stage variable rule line makes clear.

So in the end, I think I would still be in favor of splitting this board in two based around this variable, and the one in the extra stage too. It's pretty simple with the latter situation all things considered, as using the clock tricks save 3-5 in-game seconds compared to without it, giving a huge disadvantage over runs not using them, on top of being a little cheesy since it's a timer exploit. And we have clear player data of both ways of play having been pulled off, even at top level, unlike 100%NG+ and all visions. What's more, we could potentially reduce the number of sub-categories to only two : runs using them and not, which would be more appropriate. And in the stage variable case, although there might not seem to be much difference between one or the other time-wise, it's actually misleading as I demonstrated it. And it's still big enough that some people considered it as cheating, or more fairly put, awfully advantageous, which describes perfectly getting to the hard stages first.

And I don't feel much resistance anymore to the idea of moving both these categories to misc. 100%NG+ still hasn't had a single spontaneous run in years. Latest submission dates back to 2020 with elsiz, before that it was mine in 2018, then 2016 with chemigoku and Haru, then all the way down to prehistoric times, lies ferianjay's 2013 run. And all of these were top runners at some point, no random players. Even the move of putting it as a main category in the last couple years didn't seem to change that. Doesn't hurt to keep them as they are, sure. But when you consider spending lots of time and effort debating adding various ways of plays that are almost negligible to the point that it's clear that they'll never ever pick up in activity, you're starting to have enough at them, and instead prefer a nice, simple and relevant only game leaderboard. Unpopular stuff can remain unofficial until it grows big enough to justify it having a place. Once you've reached that point, moving stuff to misc isn't a very cost energetic move.

I am still okay with using our stage variable, but if we see that it doesn't live up to anything, it might give us reason enough to not repeat the idea.

Sorry for being perhaps a little forceful on these. it's pretty clear that I grew, at least for this post, impatient on the matter, and I might have missed your points.

Skip/No skip variables for any% ? It's probably not this that you're suggesting, but if so, I think this just couldn't be. Alongside the visibility issue the stage variable currently meets, these two ways of play are simply too different from one another for them to ever be put on the same board. Unlike 100%NG+ and all visions, no skips would clearly never be able to compete with its old brother.

There's technically ultimately nothing wrong against organizing runs like that. But then, ask yourself. Src allows creating categories to separate types of runs, and sub-categories for small variances in play, for the sake of clarity. Why not make use of them ? Why put everything in a single board ? Not only we wouldn't be able to see everyone's runs due to the "only show player's lowest time of the board they're in" toggled on (and if it's not it will be a huge mess), therefore requiring a distinction between these two way of play, and that it would force players to always have to filter runs to get to what they want to see, cumbersome, being able to see both runs at once would be pointless in this context, and finally, we'd need to use even more variables which will only add in board complexity.

Give your input if you think otherwise, but I do feel that variables are mostly for run/setup information, whereas slight gameplay changes would cater more to sub-categories, and very unique gameplay would require its category.

And actually, writing this now, I think I would argue to return to a state of board distinction in the 100%NG+ category surrounding the stage variable. But also, as you made me recall, the Balue's Tower clock trick variable. Not only it would fix the variable visual problem, it would make things simpler while requiring less clicks to access than by filtering runs. It's what sub categories are made for.

I would need to make some small tweaks at the rules of both categories if this were to be.

I think it is time that we rediscuss the case of the all visions category.

As the name implies, you would need to beat everything plus the extra vision, requires saving every phantomilians.

This category was actually a real one in the past, but it never received attention, so it eventually got removed. It's only in 2020 that a player (elsiz) finally got the ball rolling. His runs are still available in the video section of his Twitch. And then the last couple weeks happened, the reason why it is brought up again.

Because DtP doesn't provide us with a convenient way to achieve such a run, I do not think there's much we can do but to have it behave the same way as its counterpart category. And since it suffers from the same stage order dilemma, given its new game+ nature, it's only logical that we follow the work we've done with 100%NG+. Thus, same timing definition, stage variable, sharing the same board.

As it stands, its rules would be : " Beat the game alongside the extra stage. You must start on a completed save file with 0 Phantomilians saved and 3 lives.

Mark your run depending on whether you've played stages in order or not (outside of extra and Nahatomb).

See the main rules panel for additional info on runs and submissions.

Timing rules :

• Timing starts as the first played stage appears on screen.

• Timing ends upon the first frame of Nahatomb's last health bar breaking up into pieces, after decreasing to zero. "

Finally, there's the question we need to answer as to the validity of this category and its brother as being main categories. It can fairly be argued that they don't garner much activity for them to justify their position, and so perhaps that they should be moved to misc. At least all visions, which is a little specific of a playstyle... but on the other hand I'm not really convinced that it hurts the leaderboard to keep them as is. It's no Odyssey Nipple%. Plus we have the place for it.

I'm not expecting much disapproval on this addition, so we might have it instated in only a couple days time.

Changes done, runs retimed accordingly.

I've had to slightly tweak the rule set to accomodate for the fact that all runs are located on the same board, with the stage variable as distinction.

Speaking of a variable, I seem to have reached a src limit : https://imgur.com/gWnH9w2 Not enough space, it seems. Don't think we can do much about that unfortunately, without separating them via sub-categories. I don't know what you think of it. I find it a little annoying to read, as you can't be provided with the information without dropping your cursor on the dots. But ultimately, I don't feel that it's that much of a deal. Filtering runs still work anyways.

But if you guys are good with that (feel free to reply/add thumbups so your reaction is saved and apparent in the thread. Else I'd be lonely) then we can move on to talk about reviving the currently removed all visions category.

I made a mistake and reversed the function of the toggle. It's when it's off that multiple runs for one player may show. I also didn't receive a notification of your post for some reason. Also 20+ posts, dang

Fair enough. I don't have issues with this. Although it could look weird that an out of order run may faster than every single in order runs, it's only logical that it does so.

We just need to get over one last detail. There's a board making functionality that if toggled on, makes it so if a player submits runs on more than one setting of a given variable (for instance, two different game versions, like I've done with USA and Namcollection), their two run would independently appear on the board. Understandably, we could make it so every in-order and out-of-order runs are displayed, instead of some of them being obsolete and invisible in the board. Which might be the better thing to do, as we would be able to monitor both "boards" at once. There is a slight catch with this system though. Out of all the submissions someone has that, let's said are played on multiple versions of the game, only the fastest one of the bunch will be ranked. All the other runs will have their rank replaced with "---". Not great if we want to compare runs. But, this can be solved by filtering runs. There's not much way to have two rankings on the same page unless we separate boards, but doing that and filtering runs is kind of the same thing, so whatever.

Besides, disabling this option wouldn't make these obsoleted runs truly invisible. You'll still be able to filter runs and find them again. The matter here is if we want to display all runs of the stage order variable at once, or only show people's fastest time. This is how this variable when toggled up would look like, here applied to the version variable on the any% board : https://imgur.com/WFUB4tf Notice the duplicate names, and the holes in the rankings. I suspect that it could potentially become a little harder to read, as opposed to keeping only people's best times.

What do people prefer ?

Not really, more like separating them in their own boards. Take example on the 1P/2P sub-category selection of Super Mario Odyssey any% https://www.speedrun.com/smo#Any

Now, it would also be technically possible to make them show the same way the "version" and "disk speed" columns are displayed. And thus, keeping all the runs within a single board. But not only it would start to take its toll on the board readibility by adding yet one more column, there would be decisions the community would have to make to allow it to exist. It would take much more time, basically.

If people aren't happy that the two ways of play aren't both displayed on the same board and don't interact with one another though, we can discuss it to change it that way.

Well, if there is no more discussion about it, let's wrap this up.

In light of our discussion, it seems like we will intend on adding a variable that distinguish two types of runs for 100%NG+, hence creating two sub-categories (they will be accessible via an unfolding option button). The former and current way of play would be set as shown by default (1). It would go by the name of "stage" when submitting submissions, and we will need to think of names to call their two different states that dictate the two ways of play. Should we respectively call them "in order" and "out of order" ? Or only change the first one to "legacy", "classic" ? And the keep the out-of-order one as is, or change it too, to like "freedom", "freeplay" ? I think the former, more basic name types are clearer and more convenient to use.

We will need to have a new timing definition of the beginning of the run that works for both sub-categories, which, as I discussed above, would be from the first frame of the stage appearing on-screen. The retiming movement should happen very quickly.

If we were to modify the rules to accomodate for this, they may be :

" Beat the game by collecting at least 150 Dream Stones in every stage. You must start on a completed save file with 0 Phantomilians saved and 3 lives.

Depending on if you play the stages in order or not (outside Nahatomb), you can choose to submit your runs in either sub-categories.

See the main rules panel for additional info on runs and submissions.

Timing rules :

• Timing starts as the stage is loaded.

• Timing ends upon the first frame of Nahatomb's last health bar breaking up into pieces, after decreasing to zero. "

Note that you are allowed to play on save-files that have already achieved dreamstone records. They don't impact the run in any way, and you will be required to replay them again anyways. I consider it obvious enough to not mention it.

If everyone don't have anything to say about this, I'll go and make the changes.

(1) After more consideration, I think it would be better that the "legacy" way of play of 100%NG+ is selected first to be shown on the board. It's what we've ever been used to, it's meaningful, and most importantly, not completely empty.

Yea, I think that when writing this I was exclusively focused on the indicative 100% markers aspect of the game, that are the blue gems and enemy sprites in the stage select screen (Which as such, wouldn't include Nahatomb), and never about actually completing the game by beating all of its relevant content, which is one of 100%'s aspect.

This also breaks my "player won't beat Nahatomb again" argument, since even if that statement remains true, they still need to beat him once to access the stage.

So let's just turn the page on this now. I'm happy to have dared to talk about it regardless

Perhaps I'm biting more than I can chew. But I'll go ahead and say it.

I've just had a very cursed idea that might be very controversial. You might not like hearing it but what if...

...we simply just don't bother beating Nahatomb at all ? Cause upon light of this, what's the point ? You don't progress the 100% status of the game doing that errand.

A player who wants to get all dreamstones/enemy sprites after beating the game won't bother playing the final vision again. So, why do in a speedrun ?

This would imply that, an in-stage order play of 100% would fundamentally be different than an out of order. In the former sub-category, you'd want to simulate an accurate 100% speedrun of the game, as discussed many times before. Rule-wise, nothing changes for that way of play. All runs done to this point would belong to it. It would be illogical to exclude the Nahatomb part.

But for out-of-stage order... who's there to cares ? Is it really necessary to stop by Nahatomb ? If we're okay with that, then we'd need two different timing rules for each sub-categories. Rule panel wise it's not too great to set-up, but definitely still possible.

Now let's add another layer of complexity by talking about all visions. Regardless of what gets said, an in-order play of any of the two categories would have Nahatomb. But, would we consider the final vision as a stage ? If we do it would change whether we play it or not in the out of order sub-category. It would be more consistent to consider it not, since we would truly have the same two sub-categories types for both categories (100%NG+ and all visions).

By that point though, I think calling it "in-order" and "out of order" doesn't fit anymore. Something more like "legacy"/"adventure", and "sandbox"/"freemode" respectively, may fit them better. If we don't care about the Nahatomb bit though, no need for any of that.

Good night.

So about it. Reminder that this is all I've personally come up with. It's just one opinion.

In the case that we would allow these two ways of play to coexist, for relevancy, they should be timed the same way. It's the same gameplay, and we achieve the same goal, but the stage order is different, and so is the overall flow of the run. It would thus be entertaining to have the two face off, compare the height they could reach.

Problem is, the current timing definition, while perfectly and obviously fine for stage order runs, have issues when overlayed with this new way of play. How so ? Well, recall how the run is supposed to start upon the first movement of the player, specifically past the cutscenes of 1-1 ? If we do a run from another stage, this bits of cutscene skipping that is never cared about will suddenly take weight in the run, implying that playing on 1-1 first is the optimal pathing, and I think that speaks volumes for itself.

What could we replace it by ? Well for a while, I thought we had no choice but to push the beginning timing point all the way back, before we'd even get to play. Ideas sparked about timing it from the appearance of fade down from after selecting a vision, or the "now loading" test in the affiliated screen. The former was proven to not be very favorable because of a quirk in the fade-down behavior. If you access the stage select from a save and play from there, the fade-down will be slow. But coming there dirctly after beating a stage will have these fade-downs go like twice as fast. Therefore, one would have to beat a stage before beginning their run to have an optimal start. While it doesn't impact the level choice, and saves no time since you can only do it on the first vision you choose... the fact that it's still there, something anyone could use if they're willing to waste their time getting out of their way beating a stage, for nothing but a laughable gain, that doesn't constitute gameplay in the slightest is very infuriating to me, almost offending. Would much rather avoid something this dumb entirely.

The latter one might be able to do the job, but it's still far from being the best. Unlike any%, a player wouldn't be able to restart a run by simply resetting the stage they're on, because it started before even entering it. Very cumbersome, especially when out of order players are much more inclined to reset due to playing the hardest stage first. Well to be exact, they could restart the run by resetting during a boss fight. The game doesn't treat these instances the same as stages portions. Similarly to when we need to wait for the game to load the boss, resetting the stage from there will have the game load it back. And so, the now loading text making a return. There's still a potential issue, though. Is the duration of that load the same than when you first load the stage from the stage select screen ? Because if anything, we might accidentally enable the same irrelevant optimal start issue that the first idea met. Plus, it cannot be argued that it is generally just a terrible beginning point game-wise.

But there's one very simple idea I'm surprised to never have seen brought up before, that would still solve all of these. What if we just started on the frame that the stage loads ?

Personally, I had unconsciously never been enthusiast about it, cause I always thought it would end up being messy to use, look blurry. And it could look worse if we skip cutscenes as early as possible. But I had never tested it, until the time of making this post. And yea, it was unfounded. It's very easy to time, the HUD appears clearly even for the first frame, and isn't affected by cutscene skipping. It's so convenient that it could be used to create stage ILs in the future. I don't have much more to add on the subject. It's a simple idea that works, and still feel a little bit meaningful. It'll add one second to everyone's run, requiring a retime. But there are so few runs that it could happen in under thirty minutes.

So that's what we would probably do if we were to allow freedom of stages.

Yea, reading amoser's comment really brightened the picture for me.

Under normal, casual gameplay circumstances, what would stop players from choosing the stages they want to fully complete, after defeating Nahatomb ? What stops me from getting the Slazza enemy sprite first (6-2) ? Well, there are people who would prefer tackling the hardest stages first, the ones most difficult to them, so they can then be completely relaxed, in a peace of mine, and partially steamroll the rest of the game, pushover in comparison. There's people that see things like that like that, and, at least as far as video games go, I think I share such a mindset.

The common point between casual gaming and speedrunning is that you "play a game". The difference of the latter is simply that you try to do it as fast as you can, fairly and under the game's code. As such, this makes me realize that the in-order way of play we're currently used to actually is the odd one out here. There isn't anything more arbitrary than enforcing a fixed way of play to simulate a 100% playthrough of the game. To a game that again, couldn't care less about order. Not to say it doesn't have any right to exist, it has merit and it would be a waste to toss all those runs away (even mine, it's a bad time). But I'm seriously starting to wonder if, leaderboard wise, we shouldn't just move the out-of-order sub-category to be selected by default.

For the rest, amoser said it best.

Namcollection would be killed, I'm not sure how people would feel about that. And past runs wouldn't be compatible anymore. Which technically isn't an argument, but it would surely be a waste of top level gameplay...

Finally, I still think we should also enable a in/out stage order for all visions (if the category comes out), in tradition with 100%NG+ (if that change ever happens).

Ah, I understand now.

Technically, since you play the exact same stages, and spend a bit more time in the stage select screen, playing in order would be faster.

But I doubt this'll ever get to happen (if people were to play both playstyles equally), because of RNG. In out of order play, you will be able to play and optimise the really hard and RNG stages (mostly because of bosses)... quicker than anyone ever could do the normal way. I mean just look at how much time you have to wait to get to Pamela normally, the first truly RNG moment of the game. Do the same thing for Gelg Bolm (not RNG but still a tricky obstacle for a lot of top players). Keep the counter raising all the more for Joka, 6-2, Ghadius... Waiting time that you'd completely skip here, therefore having infinitely more chances at getting lower times. And should I say, without any comparable pressure of play. Even just in any% it would be huge. What about all visions or 100%NG+ ?

We still need to see how slow the additional menuing is, but I doubt it's that big of a deal compared to the time-save you'll get back. And if anything, if you play stages in reverse order (which I'd find a blast to watch personally), you'd virtually be just as fast as a in-order run and yet do more than 50% of the hard bits earlier. Let that sink in.

Pardon me, but I am slightly confused by your post. Are you expressing your approval of this part or expressing your thoughts ?

Either way, reading it again, I seemed to have overkilled it with the "complete the game" naming. It's too strong or important sounding compared to what we're talking about here, namely an category designed to simulate a 100% playthrough of the game, following one approach out of many, because the game itself doesn't give us a easy answer. It can only be that much meaningful.

One sure thing is that it's a sensitive subject. It's easy to be offput by this new way of play. Even I, in the past, would have reacted negatively to it. It's some simple out of the box thinking, and could lead to faster speedruns, but for some reason it doesn't feel like it belongs. Thing is, 100%NG+ runners have all been playing the category following stage order, so did players of the unofficial all visions category. We're also used to it in any%, though it can't be any other way there. So, naturally, playing without stage order looks really incorrect to our eyes. Why feel stepping out of the norm, not doing like all others ? Why would anyone not want to simulate a normal 100% playthrough of the game ?

The reason that category is set the way it is, from a beaten empty save-file, because doing otherwise would put disadvantages for all the Japanese versions due to unskippable ending cutscenes. But avoiding dealing with these cutscenes altogether to get to play the extra faster was also a huge benefit of this approach. In a parallel universe, we could totally have had the extra after the main game was cleared, with a big break in-between. We could've been forever forced to play the levels in order, and it would have been acceptable given the rules. In the end, the choice is a little arbitrary, but it's not like we can do better. DtP itself doesn't help an inch on the matter. Designing a 100% speedrun that feels both rewarding and accessible to play is impossible because of it's uncommon collectible system. In any cases, our approach that's currently used is more friendly to all versions, considerably faster than any other approach at achieving 100%, and has the small quality of play of the dreamstone counter being reset after each stage, to easily monitor our dreamstone progression (instead of exclusively serving as an extra life monitoring counter). This is all just to say that we could have had a completely different story if things went differently.

In any cases, the unintended consequence of this specific choice is that it suddenly puts us right inside the stage select screen. Do we disregard this fact and mindlessly run the only way we've known to do ? Can't we use this environment to potentially complete the game even faster than before ? Would that be cheating ? Or simply a different way to play the game ? Well, one thing is sure. One doesn't prevent the other. The game doesn't force any stage order onto us. Its purpose is for the player to replay stages, save some of the missed phantomilians, listen to the game's music, time trial on extra and finally, track dreamstone scores. that question, it won't answer for us, leaving it to ourself to decide. And what do you know, we've decided to beat extra before Nahatomb. For obvious reasons, but it breaks the order regardless. And because of that and everything else, I think not playing in order shouldn't be forbidden. It's a different and interesting way to get 100%, it would be a waste to not consider it.

There is one truth to be taken though. Although its times are most certainly comparable, its gameplay and run integrity simply isn't. Hence why it might be necessary to separate them. This is my ultimate-but-personal conclusion.

Leaderboard wise, I think this would easily be translated by tracking runs using a variable (whether a run goes through stages in order or not), and thus building two sub-categories based on it. Think this should settle this dilemma once and for all.

If we allow freedom of stage, however, we would need to change the timing definition of the run, the current one being problematic in that regard. Which I'll get to discuss in more detail in my next post.

[Edit 24 april 2022 : discussion about the revival of the all visions category is taking place in the second page on this thread]

In the light of the eventual resurrection of a previously removed category, all visions, some discussion has sparked surrounding the topic of stage order. As it is today, we don't seem to have any stance about it, and rules don't speak about it either... despite 100%NG+ category being open and hosting runs for years. There are few runners of that category, and although such a case hasn't happened yet, how would we respond to someone submitting a run with a completely different stage order outside of the final vision ? Such a technicality would also affect the all visions category, and more generally any category that involves the stage select screen.

What's more, if we were to effectively allow a freedom of choice with the stage selection (outside of extra and final), then we would most certainly have to change the beginning timing point of these categories to not be the one we have in 1-1 due to otherwise time discrepancies (for which there already are ideas). While such a discussion wasn't originally meant to take place here, points being raised on Discord and the realization of its significant impact both on the current runs and also the community now fully requires it to.

Being able to play stages out of order would almost always result in you losing some time navigating the stage select screen, compared to an in-line order. On the other hand, it would allow you to clear the harder stages first, without having to wait minutes for them to come up normally. It's more time effective and less annoying, and will thus allow to have better times overall.

So, once and for all, let's try to get to a consensus on the subject. Should we allow stages being played through whichever order people want, or should stage order be enforced to the runner ? Why, and possibly how so ? If we allow for it, should we make two sub-categories, or track runs using such freedom with a variable, similarly to what's done with the extra stage ? The response to this might be really simple and obvious to some of you, but you'd be surprised that opinions have been much more conflicting on the question (referring to Discord conversations). You'll have to discuss it out regardless.

Hope I didn't forget anything.

This current post is about adding a new category for the game : all stages. It has been requested by a couple players due to a general weariness of any%. As it implies, one would have to collect every sun stones in order to unlock the extra stages. Which means completely different routing than any%.

Here would be its rules :

" Beat all the stages the game has to offer.

Timing rules :

• Timing starts upon the first frame of the fade-down process that applies to the screen after creating a new game.

• Timing ends on the frame that the "vision clear" text of the last remaining extra has reached its final position on the screen. "

About this last line, we had made a poll about our stance on stage play order : https://strawpoll.com/polls/GJn4GRbpXyz Although our sample size is small (we should have opened this discussion earlier with the poll, mistakes were made), the results are unanimous : people favor freedom of choice over the played stages. This will allow custom order of the extra stages to be played (potentially begin with the hardest one first, Ex 4), but also strategies to save some time in the world map movement and level scrolling. Unfortunately, the time limit (which was up to wednesday 23th) apparently didn't apply or something, and anyone can still input results. So, here's a link of the results 90 minutes exactly after the due date for recording purpose : https://imgur.com/a/BLLT7se

I'll add the category as it is for now, and will update it later if I forgot some detail, or if there's something people want changed.