Hello, OTS runners! This post will be long. (Busker? Wordy? Never!) I will put a TL;DR at the end with the questions I'd like to discuss!

The new warp glitch and game editing are much more exciting, but there is another big discussion we have wanted to open up to the community for a while now: what to do with our 107% IGT category, and whether there could be any other interesting categories beyond our "Core Three."

Out There Somewhere does not acknowledge 100% completion, and so the community presently uses Collectibles% as its most thorough speedrun category. However, there are still two (and with my route, three) whole sectors of the game that go unexplored in Collectibles%. It seems the community sensed, long before I got here, that there should be a more "completionist" category as well. Perhaps Prettzl can fill in the story, because even from reading the forums I am lacking in knowledge.

Enter 107%. There IS a Steam achievement called "107%," which is strictly related to the number of screens Yuri travels in a single play-through. 107% then became the category name for a speedrun that would incorporate all of the elements of "beating a game into the ground." You explore everything, collect everything, kill everything, cue credits. Great, right?

There's one thing missing, though.

Along with "107%," there are two other Steam achievements that could be regarded as "completionist" achievements that add substance to a play-through. (Contrast this with the achievement for getting 30 teleshots on-screen at once.) "Have a Plan to Kill Everyone You Meet" is for killing all enemies at least once in a play-through, and "Diplomat" is for talking to all Aliens in a play-through. For some reason, the "Diplomat" achievement got dropped at some point, and runs were completed, submitted, and approved without it.

To me, it seems strange to name a category 107% and require anything more than the 107% achievement - unless you go all the way with it, which would surely require "Diplomat" as well. I brought this up before and the consensus was, "That makes sense, but why change a dead category? If we added the Diplomat achievement to the ruleset, none of the runs on the leaderboard would be valid. Then, we would just be wiping a leaderboard that is important to the community history, including the legacy of a retired OTS runner."

I agreed on this point, and I proposed a plan: not one, but FOUR Misc categories. One called "Diplomat," one called "HAPTKEYM," one called "107%," and one called "Completionist%," to include all three of those achievements as well as all collectibles. The response was "...Okay, but if nobody is even running these, why bother?"

Then TIHMMW churned out an amazing run of the current 107%, and suddenly the category wasn't dead.

I still think this community could benefit from runners branching out to other categories, and I think they would be especially useful for future races. I guess the bottom line is that I am not satisfied personally with 107% the way it stands, and I see an easy way to create a unified, stable ruleset incorporating the Steam achievements. However, it would have been senseless to wipe the category while it was dead, and now it would be kind of unsportsmanlike to change it so soon after TIHMMW mastered it. So, without further ado...

TL;DR

There is one achievement that is left out, seemingly by mistake, from our 107% category, as well as a few other holes in the ruleset. There are many changes that could be made for the sake of unity, but they might be more trouble than they're worth considering how lonely the category is.

1. Are you interested enough in this category, or any other, that we should change or add anything?
2. Do you think the "Diplomat" achievement for talking to all Aliens in one run-through should be included in our most "completionist" category?
3. Why is 107% an IGT category? Should it stay that way? I'm actually mostly asking Prettz, Rezoons, Timbouton, and the people who were here before me. I have no clue whatsoever.
4. Would you have an interest in categories that isolate individual achievements from the three that reward "completionist" tasks? (Kill all enemies, visit all screens, talk to all friendly NPCs.)
5. Would you consider running 107% as it stands now? Would you prefer the current 107% to one that requires the "Diplomat" achievement?

Maybe my opinion on the matter is a bit biased, or maybe it's more informed, I don't know.

1. I did enjoy running 107%, and I have done a handful of runs in the category at this point. I like the idea of more categories, and I will probably do a run in each, but I doubt I'd start running it as much as the main categories. (but I suppose that is the point of misc categories)

I think we do have to come to an agreement about the rule for 107% first though. As it currently stands our definition of it doesn't match with the achievement's. It doesn't really matter for the current 107% category, you have to visit treeman's domain anyway, but it's fully possible to get 107% (achievement) without going down there if that is the only goal. (Just in case anyone isn't aware, our current rule states that you need to visit every named room in the game, while the achievement is only concerned with the number of unique rooms visited, i.e. "OOB"-rooms count towards it)

The proposed change would still wipe the current 107% category (unless too many people complain about adding "diplomat") and in case it was a concern, I have no problem with that whatsoever. I mean, you'd really just make my run eligible for two new categories, even though the time would be abysmal. So there is no need to worry about a wipe of the current 107%, not for my sake at least.

2. Shot answer, yes. Slightly longer answer, it doesn't really make much sense to leave it out.

3. I don't know why it is an IGT category, but I like that is. It's the same thing I mentioned in the Editing thread, being able to just hit record and play through the game is quite nice. That being said, for "107%" or "HAPTKEYM", it probably wouldn't matter either way.

For "Diplomat" I would really prefer IGT, mostly because if not it would eventually become a question of who can mash the fastest through dialogues. Plus the added benefit of being able to take a short breather is nice. Especially in categories like this where you might want to stop to consider if you've gotten everything up to that point.

4. I already said this, but yeah, I'd probably end up doing at least a couple of runs in each category if they ever were introduced.

5. In all honesty, the current 107% is less hassle than the proposed "completionist", and so it is more fun to run. From a speedrunning point of view though, I would much more prefer a category that makes sense, and as I said, excluding "Diplomat" doesn't.

I'll be brief:

The reason for 107% being an IGT run was the same reason any% IGT is an IGT run, to remove savewarping from the pool of available strats but also to promote runners to focus on the games movement mechanics (thus discovering new routes and improving upon existing timings/routes/strats etc.).

You've already gone over this Busker, but I thought I'd at least share this because my concerns mirror your own to a significant degree.

When I first formed the 107% category, somewhat on a whim as you can tell, it was to be about showcasing more expansive knowledge of the game. As it stands now Collectibles% covers that in the sense that you do everything that has a direct impact on gameplay up to the end of the game.

As time went on I thought extensively about "what makes 107% a worthwhile category?" If we were to expand upon 107% to be similar to how other games do "100%" but tack on "all achievements" the runs would be long enough to potentially be a GDQ run length. There are problems though, as some of the achievements are quite tedious, as you outlined above, [Permission denied], [Beam me up, Scotty], [Light Bridges], [Mirror mirror], and some are potentially impossible to do in one play-through [This is pointless], [Never give up], [Just chillin] due to another achievement [Swiftest success].

The more I thought about it the more I came to understand that a "100% achievements" category would either have to consist of 2 runs back to back or that some achievements would need to be deferred entirely thus it would be a misnomer to call it "100% achievements".

As it stands now my submission to 107% was invalid due to additions to the rules after the point in time when I submitted it. (I didn't kill all enemies~ Though I DID try, Oops) Also the video was taken down from youtube due to a music copyright claim so there's no video for the run anyway- that is a different topic entirely though.

I'll be even more brief.

1. To be frank, i'm not really interested in this category. I already have my hand full with the 3 main ones. I'm even sure that collectibles% is far from being optimized. So, whatever you choose i'll be ok with it.

2. Not really an opinion but i just wanted to add that you can configure the autotimer so that it triggers after reaching the "diplomat" achievement which you can use to help you if you decide to keep it. As to whether you want to keep it in your run or not i'll let the ones who want to run it choose it for them.

3. I actually have no clue either but i think Prettz's answer tells everything.

4,5) Nope. :p

Hey! I had the record for this run for some time, so it's nice to see somebody else finally running it (new computer so I can finally play the game again is nice too).

1st. If somebody could prove that you could indeed get all achievements in a single run (12 minutes to get basically everything else could be possible?), and two other people dare to try it and can, then I don't see a reason why it couldn't be another misc. run. I pushed to keep 107% a year ago when we were figuring out what runs to keep and not, and the main argument against it (as I recall) was that so few people ran it. Support from the runners for more categories should be the most important argument made by them.

2. I agree with thisishowmymindworks in that if you include Diplomat in a run then it probably should be IGT since the button mashing doesn't strike me as something that needs to be added into a run that I remember not having that much if any in.

3. Looking back at my video, I say that 107% is an IGT run because you collect all the collectibles, and the pauses for their pop-up aren't recorded by IGT. Granted, the collectibles% category is RTA, which IDK why its RTA and 107% is RTA. It's fine staying IGT, but if we had a majority of the runners wanting to switch it to RTA, it's not exactly a popular run so the rules could change, although I like that its IGT since less windows on the screen to worry about.

4. Eh, seems like you're just making runs for runs sake. We have a category that caters to those achievements (minus Diplomat), so no need to clutter up the runs.

5. Again, if we have a majority of the runners wanting to change it, we could change it. Heck, if we can prove you CAN get every single achievement in one run through, I would not be against having the category become that (in which case, it won't matter since if we are competing for the best score you'll have to do it anyways).

So for now, let's leave it be. If it all of a sudden gets more runners (plz join ppl), then we can take a serious look at the rules. For now, it should stay.

Great points, Taiyo, especially as it pertains to the three single-achievement categories. I was just feeling around for interest in more sub-categories, since that could add some variety to races for example.

Regarding 107%, I'm glad that you came back to the board, because your insight is extremely valuable, having actual run the category. These are great pragmatic points, and since I'm still a "new guy" here I had no intentions of upsetting the apple cart just for the sake of doing so. But if I can get more pointed on ¤principle¤ questions, strictly speaking, do you think that a 107% IGT run that includes Diplomat would be more true to the intentions of the category? That question, to me, seems like it would be the impetus for any change.

One other thing you brought up, that I often forget, is that "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." And so it is a great point that we shouldn't be constantly overhauling categories that just stay empty anyway. The reason I made this an essay-length affair was that, while I would love 107% to be a thriving category, I'd rather have the changes in place ¤before¤ people come back to it. If we get five submissions, and then all agree that Diplomat really should be in there, I don't want to move the ground underneath the runners!

Thank you, everyone, for chiming in so far! Maybe my next contribution to the discussion should be to actually record runs, both with and without Diplomat, and maybe "pilot runs" of my proposed single-achievement categories, to know firsthand whether they'd actually be good runs.

Regarding "pilot" runs that is an excellent and creative idea, I will be making a new sticky regarding this for ongoing new category discussions.

I'll be running through 107% with both getting and not getting Diplomat tonight. When I was running 107% back then, the main difference between it and collectibles% was hitting enough void rooms to get that achievement, that we also decided to kill all enemies and get all collectibles with the upgraded ship was included to make it not be just a fast run through of the game. The basis for this category was to go above and beyond just beating the game, hence 107%. Talking to NPCs doesn't really affect the end game, in fact killing all the enemies does not either. The only things that remotely affect the end game are all power cells + heart containers collected w/ upgraded ship and having the better gun to quicker kill the boss. Killing all the enemies and talking to NPCs don't affect progress in the game, only get achievements, and since achievements don't give any in game bonuses either, they don't seem necessary for the run. 107%, in my mind, should really only include getting all collectibles, exploring enough rooms for the 107% ach. to be unlocked, and upgrading your ship for the final encounter. If we changed the category to not include killing all enemies, it wouldn't invalidate any of the runs, however this would make the only difference between this and collectibles% be the exploration aspect and being IGT instead of RTA. Since we now know that there are way more than just the needed rooms for 107%, this could go a few different ways. There could be a personal preference aspect for how you want to route your run based on when you want to get void rooms, or it could just be absorbed into collectibles% since there is very little difference.

I want to keep this category, since we don't really have a 100% run available, and this is the closest we have to one. The definition of 100% is up for debate here, since it is not proven yet whether or not you can get every achievement in a single run, or whether or not it would be feasible due to the incredible amount of difficulty it would pose. However, what is to stop us from having an achievement%? It could easily be split up between two runs, and if you got to the point where you could do them all in one run, the two runs would still be valid, but those skilled enough to do it in one would be the holders of the top records. That might be the natural progression for 107%; it's too similar to collectibles%, and it is missing components that make sense to add. Disregard my Diplomat runs, I'm going to do a pilot for achievement%, we could keep 107% for archival purposes, but if all the runners of 107% agree that this should be the direction we go, then this would solve the issue of what to do with 107%.

PS: Sorry for the flow, I definitely dumped my brain working through this, but

TL;DR: There are missing achievements, so I'm going to do a test run of a theoretical Achievement%, which at my current level of playing will take two runthroughs, one being any% and the other collectibles%, with the rest of the achievements not included put in .

It's late so this will be a short response.

There is a slight problem with doing just collectibles% plus the 107% achievement though, at least if you use the steam achievement rule for 107%. If I counted correctly, the current route for colectibles% is one or two rooms shy of getting the achievement. So if you exclude killing everything you end up with collectibles% plus visit two more rooms, which might add a couple of seconds. So really it would turn into collectibles% IGT.

So this happened: https://secure.twitch.tv/taiyogamer/v/78301044

Basically, you can get every single achievement in the game. I posted a longer response in the recent sticky, but to sum it up here:

Achievement% is the closest we can get to a true 100%. I think it should become a main category, and we should leave 107% as a misc. category. My route has a lot of work that could be done to it, but if I can do it most of the community can do it too. Let's get some runners to try it out!

Here are my proposed rules for the category:

-Get every single achievement.

That's it. Doesn't matter how you get it (although whether or not it has to be in a single run is up for debate, since you could split it up into say one any% run and a collectibles% run as it is RTA), you just need to get every single achievement.

You don't really need to keep the upgraded gun in this run either I don't think, it just makes it easier. Perhaps a route could be made that doesn't keep the upgraded gun, that's entirely possible. Nor do you technically need the upgraded ship, but as I have it you get it anyways from Diplomat, although I think technically it can be skipped.

Excellent pilot run! Seeing it laid out like this, I am a lot happier with the idea of incorporating EVERY achievement in a category. Now I see the reasoning behind your philosophy - let's see what the runs actually ¤look¤ like, THEN get into the theory!

The reason that I was only concerned with "Diplomat" in my post is that I was worried that things like "...Thanks?" and "But How?" would seem more like meaningless diversions than serious augmentations to the category. Think of Paper Mario's "Chalkboard" category, compared with "All Cards." I had figured that "Diplomat" merited inclusion into "107%" because it at least bore resemblance to "107%" and "Have a Plan." It still required you do do ALL of something in-game, while the rest were conditions of varying significance. Boy, though, if you work everything in, it sure puts a whole new premium on routing! Walking into this category is going to be a breath of fresh air for OTS! I think, next week, I will do a run or two.

When it comes to the name, can I make a humble request? And, for that matter, can we apply this to Collectibles% as well - can we name this category "All Achievements" and rename "Collectibles%" to "All Collectibles?" It's only cosmetic, but I think it's more didactically and aesthetically pleasing to not append the % to every category. The ubiquity of the phrase "Any%" makes that fine, but I don't think "Collectibles%" is more clear to understand than "All Collectibles," for example.

I 100% agree with you about making this a main category, by the way. In fact, now that I've thought of it, an All Achievements run that also included All Collectibles may as well be called "100%," because there's no other metric to juice out of the game. Regarding splitting "All Achievements" into two categories, with and without All Collectibles, is that a significant enough difference in the run? It would probably affect which room you choose to sit in for 8 minutes, and it would change some savewarp/deathwarp options, but I have a hard time imagining a time difference of greater than 90 seconds in an optimal run of each category.

Furthermore, because this run is so successful, I think I'm going to relent on my push to have separate "Diplomat," "107%," and "HAPTKEYM" categories. If we were only counting those three in a "107%" category, it would make sense, but it certainly wouldn't make sense to follow suit and have achievement-specific categories for all the others, like "But How?"

TL;DR awesome work, Taiyo. I was skeptical about this run, but you've shown me the light. I think it deserves existence, as well as Main status. I think, given this run's quality, my proposed Misc categories are unnecessary. My opinion is that it should just be one category, that includes All Collectibles, and that it makes perfect sense to name it "100%." If we wanted one that was just the achievements, I think that should probably be a Misc category.

Double posting to raise a separate question. Please view my post above, about Taiyo's AMAZING Achievement% run!

This regards True Any%, or I guess Any% RTA to be clear. Even though it represents the "purest" vision of an Any% speedrun - take the game, out of the box, hose it down as fast as possible - I think it's clear that most folks don't enjoy running or watching it, and it serves more as a demo of one glitch than a summation of OTS speedrunning tech.

There is a precedent for games that have Any% as a misc. category. Could/should we do the same? This isn't just an academic exercise - I think it would center attention more on the categories we want people to run, by having one less tab in the way. What are our thoughts?

First off, All Achievements is more than a fine name for the category and having that difference in the usage of % will make it stand out as well.

Secondly, let's apply the same argument to Any% RTA as we do Any% IGT. What's the difference, timing? That's it? That difference is basically null IMO, and since it isn't very popular and apparently people don't like running it, putting it into the Misc. category will apply the same logic that went behind putting 107% into Misc.

Third, the prospect of deciding whether or not to have both categories or have All Collectibles be absorbed into All Achievements is interesting. The main difference between the two is that there are multiple achievements that are not purposefully collected during All Collectibles (Kill 150 Enemies, Visit 500 Screens, Talk to all NPCs, et al.) making the runs both unique in their own ways. All Collectibles is not subject to the same time constrictions as All Achievements, making it much more palatable as an introductory category into this game, while All Achievements requires good working knowledge of the various jump-tricks, OOBs areas and locations of all collectibles, NPCs and Enemies. I say we gauge other's opinions on this as well, especially those still active in the community.

And on the subject of the name, if we decide to go with two categories (which I currently am in favor of), I don't think we should name one of them 100% since it could be misinterpreted with ease on what it is attempting to accomplish, although something along the lines of All Achievements (100%) might work.

Ninja Edit: If we had three main categories as well (Any% IGT, All Collectibles & All Achievements), that could be seen as the three difficulty levels of completion of said category, Any% IGT being the easiest category IMO, All Collectibles being the middle category, not too hard but not too easy, and All Achievements being the most technical and indepth category.

To clarify, the IGT rule ¤does¤ create implicit rule barriers that substantially alter the run. I forget if you were still here when the major skip that makes them distinct got found - I think for a while it was called "Any% Broken." But if you sit in Crash Site for just under three minutes, you trigger a graphical overflow that breaks the game, allowing you to leave a screen without loading the next one. If you have the Gauss Gun, you can shoot the grey blocks, leave the screen to the left, climb up what is basically the geometry of A New Hope, and trigger the final boss fight. In other words, a 5-minute run that is 3 minutes of just chilling. Going off-screen stops the IGT from increasing, and savewarping takes the IGT off-screen. So, in terms of run impact, you could also call Any% IGT "Any% No Savewarp/Smoke Overflow Glitch."

On your third point, I hadn't meant for All Achievements to replace All Collectibles - I had thought you were talking about two versions of All Achievements, one with every collectible and one without. The latter version really only saves the Weapon Upgrade, and so I was simply posing the question of whether it merited a separate category. All Collectibles is a distinctly different level of completion from both Any% IGT and All Achievements. All categories have their own unique challenges - Any% IGT just requires laser-precision, and involves a late-game where Yuri is underpowered; All Collectibles has an utterly brutal opening until you exit the Alien City; and All Achievements seems to have a steady slew of challenges cerebral and technical.

Oh yeah I remember that glitch being found, in fact I think I have a run on the Any% board of me doing that glitch.

I haven't thought about the idea of All Achievements having a version without getting all collectibles. I am a bit confused about the idea, since the only reason I collect the collectibles during my run is there are achievements that correspond to them being gotten. The only thing I can think of that could affect speed with collectibles would be that you could potentially skip getting the upgraded ship in this category, however I don't know if it would be faster, nor do I know if it is possible for Diplomat & HAPTKEYM to carry over between resets (talk to the dude that gives the upgraded ship and kill the lone enemy near him). If they did carry over, that would take probably a minute off the run and warrant some slight rerouting.

Anyways, could you please elaborate on how we could go about having two versions of All Achievements, one with and one w/o collectibles?