So in the last few days I've got some remarks about the glitchless ruleset so I'd like to discuss it, and change it a bit. I would propose the following ruleset to start:
The following tricks are not allowed in glitchless:
- Clipping through collision: by for example, using the stealth glitch, crouchsaving, pickup glitches, floorclips, or by using the slope in Aquatic Research Area to get Lara into a glitchy state
- Activating triggers away from their actual positions (referred to as trigger bugs)
- Pressing alt and F4 to cancel triggers
- Speeding up dialogue sequences by manipulating your computer's playback devices
- Cancelling fall damage by rapidly quicksaving and quickloading
- Picking up items away from their pickup radius
- Swimming in the air
- Going out of bounds
Problematic tricks:
- Slope bug: exists in v49, patched in v52. However, you can walk on slopes where the floor and the slope meets even in v52, so I'm not sure about if this should be allowed or not.
- Moon jump: This trick is basically unavoidable, since it happens any time you do a quicksave during a jump, and then you load the save file. Even though, flying high up to the sky to reach platforms and activate triggers is not something I'd consider glitchless. I'm really clueless on how should we handle this.
- Clipping through collision: the Strahov railing clip. This wasn't communicated well. This should not be allowed in glitchless imho. Although there are multiple runs on the board currently applying this trick, so I'm proposing the following. Runners who used this will get a penalty time in their submissions, and if they submit an improved PB, these runs will be removed from the leaderboard.
Miscellaneous:
- Cancelling Karel's projectiles by quicksaving and quickloading: imho, this is fine for glitchless, since accidental projectile cancels could be only avoided by disallowing saving in the boss room, which would be quite stupid.
- If you accidentally do one of the glitches above, that is fine, as long as you made a save before, and you load that.
With the glitchless rules as of right now, I wouldn't say I disagree with them but I wouldn't entirely agree with two of them. These two are:
- Pressing alt and F4 to cancel trigger
- Moon jump
Alt + F4: Alt + F4 on the black fade outs of cutscenes for example;
- Carvier's Apartment (getting the notebook / lara jumping out of the window)
- Von Croy's Apartment (Skipping the intro cutscene for monstrum crimescene)
- Strahov (Just like the Any% route) Things like that and there are probably more that I haven't mentioned I wouldn't mind if it was allowed to be skipped with the alt + F4 because we will just skip them anyway so why not skip them a little bit faster as they are only cutscenes and we don't really need to do anything besides waiting for the level to load.
However I am unsure if it should be allowed completely because if alt + F4 was allowed, this would allow us to skip long coversations with Bouchard and Muller. With Bouchard we have to select the correct dialogue options (otherwise Lara will be killed) so there is some user interaction however with Muller, we do not have to select dialogue options so it is just a long cutscene basically. Also about the Bouchard conversation you have to select dialogue options, if you select the wrong option (that would usually kill Lara) you can alt + F4 and select 'No' option to return to game and Lara will still be alive as if nothing happened and you can still advance which would be quicker. My current standing on this is that I think we should be allowed to alt + F4 the cutscenes that have no user interaction and conversations like Bouchard should not be allowed to alt + F4.
Moon jump: For me it's more about how the moon jump is used. If the moon jump is used for triggers for example:
- The monstrum crimescene (Same as Any% route)
- Eckhardt's lab (Same as Any% route) I don't agree that it should be used for the triggers in glitchless as it does skip parts of the game.
However there are moon jumps that I think can be acceptable for example:
- Strahov (As seen in Cadarev's WR run after Lara has shut the power off jumping over the lasers)
- The Lost Domain (Same as Any% route) Moon jumps that allow you to go a little bit more further forward like in the examples listed above I don't see a problem with but that is just my opinion.
Other: I will admit I do the cliiping through collisions on the strahov level and I understand if this was to be banned. I would agree that this wasn't communicated well and personally do not have a problem if this trick is banned. I think a minor penalty time would be the best action to the runners who used this before this discussion.
Other than that I do not have a problem nor disagree with the other rules put in place.
Regarding moon jumps: I always make sure to quicksave while grounded. It takes a bit of getting used to it, but it's the save approach. Technically it would be better to quicksave mid jump because you don't lose any momentum when quickloading this way, while Lara usually comes to a halt when quickloading while being grounded.
Completely banning loading midair saves would be the cleanest and safest approach as mentioned, but requires heightened focus for the verifying team, and let's be honest, in most cases it doesn't really result in true moon jumps. So the alternative would be to only ban loading midair saves if a true advantage is gained over jumping normally, that is to say, extending your jump length horizontally or vertically to a point where you can cross gaps, reach ledges or triggers etc. which you would not be able to with the normal jump you have at your disposal. I think this is a good alternative, though it may lead to some sketchy scenarios, where you could also reach a platform by jumpüing normally, but only with a very precise jump. Moonjumping would make crossing the gap a lot easier and consistent. So another way to rule this would be to not allow quicksaving mid jump if you cross a significant gap or something? To prevent extended moonjumping, I guess you could ban repeated saves during the same jump or similar.
Regarding the Strahov railing clip, I honestly don't think a penalty should be issued for existing runs using this. The category is still rather "young", at least with the current route and runners, and the runs are far from optimized. The trick saves maybe 5s max - so this is not something which really impacts the lay of the land right now. People who want to improve their time can still do so rather easily, so as long as it's made clear that this is not allowed, the problem should probably solve itself.
Another thing I'd like to mention is the possibility to reset timed events by quicksaving (first gate in Lost Domain). I know the gate closes and reopens every time you load after activating it. Is this only a visual thing or does the timer actually reset?
Strahov Railing Clip : I share same opinion with Cadarev on this one. This is not a major trick that saves a lot of time, and we all know that current glitchless category is far from optimized. So I think the penalty is unnecessary and makes thing way too complicated imo.
Last shortcut at the Parisian Backstreet : This is the thing that had been bothering me and thought need to be addressed. It's really cool strat but is it really "Glitchless"? Exploiting the extended trigger radius in crouch animation should be considered glitch? or exploit?
Reset Timed Events by QS : They only reset the animation but the timer still remains still. You can easily check this in the police car animation at the Carvier's Apartment. Anyway that's not big of a deal.
Moon Jumps : Yes. This is definitely the biggest problem in a glitchless category. I had been judging the usage of moon jump glitch by looking at whether the runner gained advantage from it or not. Since the running moon jump requires pretty immediate QS to gain advantage from it, I thought whether the mid air QS was accidental or intentional can be easily distinguished. However, I can see that this can make a huge problem in the future and need to find a way to resolve this issue completely. One way could be making a community patch that removes the danger of accidental moon jump glitch, but of course this won't be an easy task.
Saving mid-jump to avoid losing momentum when loading while grounded I think could be fine in case where you don't want to rule out saving and loading mid-jump in general. Saving mid-jump to clear gaps or making clearing them or obstacles (both horizontally or vertically) more consistent (or even possible in the first place) I think is not fine because the game mechanics are actively altered to gain an advantage. The best way would be for the runners themselves to make sure to not save (and especially load the save) during any kind of jump which could lead to an advantage from the distance gained (or simply don't save at all during jumps). Further than that it might only be possible to judge the significance on a case by case basis.
I also think the Parisian Backstreets level end trigger strat should be ruled on definitively. For me, there is no game mechanic altering, and we don't physically go through collision, so personally I would rather say it's an exploit of the game mechanics. But I can also see it being banned due to the unintended large range for reaching triggers of the crouch.
Canceling alt+f4 to cancel triggers should stay banned in general, just because the cutscenes are a nuisance, I don't think we should allow it. Also, these are our only breaks, please don't remove them! :^)
Saving mid-jump to keep the momentum of running forward instead of loading while stationary I would also agree that it could be fine. One thing I'm unsure about with this is whether the saving mid-jump is the problem or is it loading that save in the jump because the advantage of gaining distance in the jump only happens when you load that save. However if you haven't saved in a while and you just happen to save mid-jump, providing it doesn't clear a gap / obstacle and it just maintains Lara's current momentum then there's no major advantage gained from it so I think it could be fine.
With the Parisian Backstreets trigger, we don't really do anything game-breaking to activate the trigger, all we do is swan dive into the correct place and crouch which will activate the trigger. Since that the trigger has an unintended large radius, should we consider this being a trigger bug. My reason for saying "trigger bug" is because the large range is unintended so that would be the bug and it involves the end of the level trigger and of course, the trigger bug is banned. I don't really know what to make of this one. It's one of those things that I can see both either being allowed or banned. I'm not leaning towards one side over the other as of right now.
I do think it is fair to keep Alt + F4 banned since we just skip the cutscenes regardless so I suppose it is less trouble for the runners. The cutscenes being our chance of a break is a good point since for out of game reasons for example the Muller conversation is a good point in the run to have a bathroom break or to stand up and walk around a little bit etc. I don't think there is another cutscene long enough for a bathroom break besides the Luddick one which could always softlock the game so if Alt + F4 remained banned it is also beneficial for our well being too.
On Alt+F4: I'd still disallow doing them, since some people use these cutscenes to go to the toilet, or get food, or whatever else. I usually drink while they last.
PBS end trick: You can argue both ways here. This is either a fault coming from poorly written code, or this is an issue in the level design, since this trick could've been eliminated by placing the trigger further from the door. Even though, there is a similar technique which allows grabbing stuff through walls, I am fine with grabbing triggers through walls, because you neither continue running on the other side after you're done with the trick, nor you grab any actual items. However, this is definitely not a trigger bug. The trigger bug comes from the broken coordinate calculation in the P3 executable, which causes Lara's meshes to stretch across triggers on the map. You can see the stretching when Lara disappears for a frame or two.
About runs on the board having tricks we don't consider fine for glitchless, I would leave a note on the runs' submission page which would be something like this: "This run was made before the glitchless ruleset update. The trick at x:xx:xx is not accepted anymore in this category." No penalty would be added.
On moon jump, I'd include it in the rules as such: "Boosting Lara's jumps by reloading a save made mid-jump to reach normally unreachable ledges, triggers, or to clear gaps." The "normally unreachable" still feels vague, though. So as Cadarev said, a case by case examination will be required. But what Plastic said is also right - I'd say, if half a second elapsed since pressing jump, you can safely save and load that file back later, since the distance boost you get is almost negligible at that point. I can imagine situations in which that small boost would allow you to cross a gap, but I think that would be rare in general.
Some time has passed, and Techqua has discovered new things. So I'd add the following things to the rules:
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Interacting with objects by wall-hugging while Lara and the object is separated by collision (pre-v52 only).
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If the game skips a dialog line during a conversation, you need to reload a savefile made during the run. You are allowed to restart the process if this happens, but the time is running in the meanwhile.
Please discuss.
I think the "Interacting with objects by wall-hugging" should be banned and I would personally do the jumps off to the side the same as the normal route however it kind of reminds me of the Parisian Backstreets trigger in the sense of that trigger being allowed, then this should also be allowed since it's similar principles except we're wall-hugging instead of crouching for the outcome. But I still stick by "Interacting with objects by wall-hugging" should be banned.
Even I still do not know why the line skip works but I will share the information I have from testing this. I have only ever gotten the line skip to work when I activated the conversation when clicking my left mouse button (mouse action key by default) multiple times as I approach Muller. I have never had it happen where I press my action key on keyboard multiple times. Also even if you activate the conversation with the mouse, it is not always certain that any line will skip. The most lines I have had skipped in one take was two as seen in the video linked, one line skip every so often but more often than not it is still normal and all dialog is spoken normally.
Loading a previous save made during the run does seem sensible however due to the fact we know little about this, if it does happen, since we have no control over this (as we know so far) a time penalty could also seem reasonable so I'm undecided on the ruling of this.
Notice that the PBS ending trigger trick is possible on any version of the game, while wall-hug interaction doesn't work on v52. Also take into account that you can pick up an item with wall-hug interaction in Von Croy's Apartment which will result in Lara clipping through collision, so that definitely should exclude this trick from glitchless runs.
I personally draw the line at the action button: do you need to press it for getting that thing (trigger, pickup) on the other side of the wall? If yes, then we should consider the trick a glitch.
Thanks for your input, I feel I've worded the rule on that a bit vaguely.
I've updated the glitchless rulesets on both the segmented and the RTA boards. If you have some time, please check one of them out. Please tell me if you think that something is still not clear or I've forgotten something: I've tried to clear out weird jargon from the ruleset so it's easy to read, and I hope every possible scenario that can arise in a glitchless run is covered. And as we previously agreed upon regarding the Strahov railing clip, I've placed a small text to these runs:
I'd like to address a statement from one of my previous posts: "However, this is definitely not a trigger bug. The trigger bug comes from the broken coordinate calculation in the P3 executable, which causes Lara's meshes to stretch across triggers on the map. You can see the stretching when Lara disappears for a frame or two." This is incorrect. I explain why here: https://pastebin.com/r1aJScgc - but still, the PBS end trick is not a trigger bug, since it doesn't trigger everything on the map.
A different thing I wanted to bring up: in Aquatic Research Area there is a bug with the turrets not spawning occasionally. I'd like to include a note into the rules that for a valid run you need to shoot the box near them no matter if the turrets are there or not. If you're fine with this, like the post, if not, discuss as usual.
Small addendum to the ruleset: surviving death triggers via the interaction invincibility, for example at the oil tank in Louvre Storm Drains, is not allowed. Any other scenario with interaction invincibility is still considered fine for glitchless.
This doesn't change the current route in any way, it's just for clearing up the situation.
