Hey all! I and some of the other mods have been debating something pertaining to the use of dances in no skips/no major skips runs. Recently, a player has gotten a 21.6 in level 1 no skips. The problem is that this person used the "worm" dance, which allowed them to get into the portal faster. This got us thinking about dances to be used in no skips and no major skips. I then made a spreadsheet and updated the rules. The problem is, there are many runs from the past that have used dances that are marked as unstable and not allowed. Our idea was to just start stopping verifying runs with dances that aren't allowed, or moving them to the any% category. Does anyone have any suggestions or thoughts?

spreadsheet of dance things, kind of unrelated but i dunno https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1PEgIi9gUwjIpc95fcDMRYw-6rcRqsERcrPzvDKJwoKw/edit?usp=sharing

just move them to the any% category 4head

moving the runs to any% seems a bit unfair, considering dances like the worm do not give as significant of an advantage to the time in comparison to the current any% strat, it would just invalidate the use of dances as a whole. as well as this, since most runs that use the dance only use it for a second or two (with the exception of my 21.26) it wouldn't seem that fair to completely shift its category, especially since the rule was made after these runs were submitted.

i don't particularly think it should be allowed (trying not to be bias here, it does provide an advantage however significant it may be), however moving it to any% doesn't benefit anyone

"moving the runs that have an advantage that is against the rules seems a bit unfair"

they're only against the rules because the rules were changed after the runs were submitted and verified.

"ex post facto" law is the term for it, or retrospective punishment; fundamentally, people must know what the law is so they can abide by it. it is fundamentally unfair to hold a person to be in contravention of the law when that law did not exist when the alleged contravention occurred.

Personally, I think the dances should definitely not be allowed in No Skips. They should probably get their own category or something because, as said above, they would be super slow in Any%. I think a category thats just the same as No Skips but has dances allowed would be fine.

So @Mentos you're suggesting that they just be outright rejected if they have illegal dances. I think that's fair, as they are against the rules. I think, from now on, if a run with an illegal dance is submitted. It will be rejected and we'll notify the runner of such occurrence.

@Ivory yes. i would also say reject all the pending runs with the dances in them as well (as much as i would like my run to be accepted, it doesn't seem fair anymore). runs that have already been verified should stay.

ultimately it's up to you and the other moderators since you have the most power

I say no dances, not only would there be no point for any%, but at the same time I say yes, it lets in a small chance of the never beaten world record finally be beaten.