Additional Categories - P8, Px, 100%, Multiplayer, seeded?
6 years ago
British Columbia, Canada

Hey everyone,

This has probably been brought up before, but there has been recent activity and discussion among other runners about different categories, and I was wondering if there is possibility to include them as new categories, and discuss exactly what each one should entail. I'm seeing some people already doing runs (myself included) and it'd be nice to gauge interest among the rest of the community

P8 - purely doing a run on /players 8 from character creation to last boss (Abigail% for example)

Px - Ability to change /players settings at will to gain exp and items in optimal locations. Being a very commonly used feature of a single player game, and the fact it can help a player go much faster, and thus is true to the nature of speedrunning, i feel it should be a more looked at category

100% - All quests in the quest page, including killing the Cow King

Multiplayer - Using TCP/IP or Battle.net to organize a multiplayer run (not sure if the number of players matter) - Timer starts at last person to join, or first player to leave town?

Seeded - Using a set seed or map file for the category so the maps are the same, reducing RNG and increasing consistency between runs (no losing runs to 2/3/4 way arcane, bad jungle, etc). I know that the nature of the randomness and the ability to read maps are what diablo speedrunning is mostly all about, but also the nature of speedrunning in general is finding ways to complete the game the fastest, and finding a GG map seed can accomplish that as well as reduce time lost in runs to going wrong ways. Still have to manage exp and items drops etc

Please discuss! I'd like to see more interest in these categories.

FrameDump likes this
New Zealand

I love your ideas! One problem is that this game already has a million categories, so I would rather see some of these ideas incorporated into the current categories. The most pertinent I think being Px and seeded. These are features of the game (/px especially so), so why aren't they allowed in the any% category? I only get time to do 2-3 offline runs per week, so I don't get enough volume of games to see some good RNG variance - seeded would allow me to set competitive times.

I would probably stream some runs if I could get the viewership (boring streaming to an empty channel), and Multiplayer runs would allow me to do so, so I would also be interested in seeing this happen.

Any thoughts?

Germany
  • There used to be /px and /p8 categories, but noone used them for ages.

  • 100% (100% Normal and 100%) are things we can think about aswell, but then there would have to be /p1 /px and /p8 100%-categories aswell.

The biggest downside is the huge ammount of arbitrary categories it creates: 4 Main Categories (any%, any% Hell, 100% Normal, 100%) 2 Game Modes (Softcore, Hardcore) 7 Classes (Ama, Asn, Bar, Dru, Nec, Pal, Sor) 3 Playstyles (/p1, /px, /p8)

4 x 2 x 7 x 3 = 168 categories - twice as much if we would split between seeded and non-seeded aswell.

  • Seeded: I don't like the thought of seeded RTA speedruns against nothing but the clock. It might be confusing for viewers aswell ("He always knows where to go, he must be cheating!" "Look at his time, its much better than the any% WR why is it not listed?") I think seeded runs fit better on SDA (as segmented runs) or on SRL (its fun if all participants in a race get to use the same (unknown!) map) Also everyone would end up running the same (few) map seeds.

  • Multiplayer runs: This topic is difficult aswell: Are 2-Player runs a different category than 8-Player runs? If so there would be 7 (or 8 if we go with one-player-battle.net-runs aswell, LUL). A multiplayer category would have to be a generic multiplayer category. 2-Player and 8-Player runs would have to be treated equally, maybe sortable with an extra team-size-variable or something, but if we start differentiating between 2- and 3-player runs people could argue that we should differentiate between Bar-Bar and Sor-Asn teams aswell.

We'd also have to make up our mind regarding rules for HC: What if a part of the team dies? Does it count as a completed run if not everyone from the party completes the objective?

Note: Multiplayer runs, especially well-organized 8 player runs are the best thing ever and I want to do them again, so someone go organize a team!

Edited by the author 6 years ago
United States

/p8 runs seem like they would be a real pain to validate

British Columbia, Canada

I understand that bringing this up and asking about adding dozens of categories can complicate things in terms of modding and having a clean looking board etc, but the real reason I'm bringing it up is to make more people aware that there are more than just speedrun.com categories to speedrun, I think it can encourage a lot more players to play, because there are more options to fit their playstyles but still be competitive. If not speedrun.com categories, are there other ways we can (uniformly and unbiasedly) track times in these miscellaneous categories? Can we agree on some rules or conditions that reduce the number of categories so they can be on speedrun.com? (Eg, no differentiation between sorc/sin, necro/barb, etc for 2 player speedruns).

Germany

We could treat all those things (hc/sc, classes, possibly categories) for new/rarely ran categories as extra variables [at least while the playerbase is small], then it would not be such a clutter, but it would still require a ton of work. (Re-sorting all runs manually)

But then that would be inconsistent between categories, so either way it won't look clean.

I might have time to look at stuff later this week (after my next exam)

British Columbia, Canada

I'm thinking, if nothing else, there could be a spreadsheet that runners of those categories could upkeep as a sort of unofficial leaderboard, and if there are enough runs in a particular category perhaps that one can become a main one just through popularity? It could be posted in the resources section or pinned to a thread or something like that. That way we can know which categories could end up being popular before committing to adding them to the leaderboard

Bulgaria

Why don't we create a Diablo 2 Category Extension like there is for a lot of other games?

New Zealand

The spreadsheet idea would not be hard to do using google docs. What is the category extension thing?

Bulgaria

It is like a new game but just an extension. It is attached to a game. Check the Shovel Knight Category Extension for example: https://www.speedrun.com/skext A lot of speed games has one. The most popular ones like - Super Metroid, Super Mario 64 etc. most definitely have it.

Germany

I don't like the thought of having dozens of categories in an extension, I'd rather have it well organized in one place :P

I played around a bit with the multiplayer-run-feature on this site:

  • It looks like there's no good way to differentiate between class setups as different leaderboards, the only thing we could do is have a user-defined variable and ask people to list their class setup, although that could easily be done in the comment as well - and would probably fit there better. That would be fine with me, I don't want there to be sum_n=2^8(7^n) categories (This numbёr is wrong and I don't know how to get the right one)

Our "Class" variable is currently global for all categories. That would have to be changed into local variables for each category, since you cannot opt out of global variables for specific categories, you can either set them for all or just one. That would require us to manually set the new class variable for all existing runs and I'm not sure if we would be able to set it for all obsolete runs. (This would be a buff to the pacifist leaderboard)

With the low amount of categories we currently have I like the way we split between softcore and hardcore. If we would add more categories in general we would have to think about merging them back into one any% and any% Hell category with Softcore/Hardcore subcategories. That would require an extra variable per category, more buttons on the top and - again - us to manually set the new variable on all existing runs.

That would allow us to split categories where it matters (categories with lots of runners) and keep them in one list (with the variable and the option to check "use as subcategory" on the variable later on) in categories like Pacifist.

I think the way to go would be something like this:

4 Main Single-Player Categories: any%, any% Hell, 100% Normal, 100% (can we agree that this is the way to name them and not 100% and 100% Hell?) Each with the game mode variable as subcategory, each with the class variable as subcategory. That adds up to 4 x2 x 7=56 categories.

  • Pacifist (with game mode and core variables but not as subcategory)

Damn, I forgot /px and /p8.

I don't like the though of throwing them in on an equal level as /p1. Also having that many subcategories would probably end up looking messy at some point. Where should they come into play in your opinion?

Multiplayer: (Official Battle.net-servers only!) (Note: We would require videos of all players) Which differentiation is needed in general? In the beginning? When there's actually more players?

For example we could start off using the numbёr of players as variable and make it a subcategory as soon as there's actually people playing (thus reducing the numbёr of empty categories) Same with SC/HC. As I said above I don't think differentiation by class will be possible.

Multiplayer Categories: Would people run 100%? What 100% comes down to is efficient backtracking and taking waypoints quick so no one misses out on quest completions. The Way I see it is it would be a pain in the ass to check if every character has actually completed every quest (in every difficulty) + cow kings, which would be the requirement for a valid 100% multiplayer run IMO. -> any% + any% Hell?

Would people run on HC? Probably.. If all characters completing all quests is a requirement the death from one character would be a deal-breaker for the entire team since that character cannot complete all quests anymore. -> Game mode variable, maybe as subcategory later on if people actually run it.

On a side note: Do you complete the baal quest with a dead character that lies somewhere in Act 5? Can you get the "Guardian"-Title post-mortem if you die to hell ancients but your team finishes the run anyway?

Split between player counts: Probably as variable as well in the beginning till there's actually some runs.

Max-Category Case: 2 main categories (4 if we would go for 100% and 100% Normal aswell) x 7 Player Counts (2-8) x 2 Game Modes

-> 2/4 main categories with up to 28/56 including subcategories in the 'worst case'

At least /px and /p8 are not possible here.

This is way more text than I wanted it to be and probably not a nice read. Sorry. Read it anyway and answer my questions/comment on my opinions. (And offer me your help with changing all runs :P)

Edited by the author 6 years ago
Alberta, Canada

I think a spreadsheet linked on the forums or something like that would be alot better at least for now. If one or two of these categories finds itself run regularly by more runners then maybe add it to the board then. But the board is already quite cluttered with 4 categories and 28 subcategories...

New Zealand

@EmotionallyComp I think thats a good idea. Keep a spreadsheet for now, and only make leaderboards on speedrun.com for categories that become extremely popular.

@LaV I agree with most of your points, but it would be nice to be able to do multiplayer runs on a custom server, as certain strats would get realm downs/soft bans (e.g. creating multiple games that run for less than 3 minutes), and also you wouldn't have to deal with shitty bnet lag etc.

Germany

@FrameDump Actually we never really ran into problems on battle.net other than occasionally people would try to join the next game too fast which would result in them getting the closed door.

It's annoying when that happened when the telesorc is waiting next to an act boss, but its easy to avoid it.

We never ran into problems with the 20games/hour limit, also, unless blizzard reverted the change recently, the 20games/hour limit is no more. Also if I remember correctly you don't have to wait between games anymore on battle.net (as long as it was not just a 2-second-game - really, try doing some pindle runs on battle.net and you'll see)

Private servers could be used to cheat (modifying drop chances etc.) On official battle.net-servers we can at least be sure that that's not the case.

The only good reasons to allow private servers would be being safe from griefers that join your games (which is fairly easy to avoid by not streaming, hiding passwords or so) and getting a server in a handy location to minimize the ping of players from different continents (my (EU-)Ping to US East was always around 120-150, which is perfectly fine for non-sorc-characters in a multiplayer run imo.

If you want to play with people all around the world you'll run into ping problems either way. (Especially as someone from NZ. You have what, like 250 ping to US West and Asia?

Edited by the author 6 years ago
New Zealand

@LaV It's about 150-200ms these days :).

At the end of the last ladder (just before the reset) I was botting with Etal. There are a lot of workarounds to avoid getting realmdown/softban/cdkey-ban. Most of these were avoiding by making games at least 3 minutes long etc. They've put a lot of stuff in place to stop botters, and this sometimes affects players too. Unless they've removed all this in the last ladder reset, it is something that could affect runs.

Germany

ok... part 1 of your comment doesnt really allow a comment other then: stop botting...

they have removed the limit on how many games / hour you can open / join, so that is definetly no reason to play on custom servers

So my personal thoughts on this matter: I don't think we should add a bucket-load of categories, it doesn't make sense, especially if they won't be used. I'd like to offer the idea that was done in the Hyper Light Drifter; When someone wanted to make a new category there had to be 5 submitted runs. (they were submitted over discord basically) This ensured that if they were going to make a new category it wouldn't sit there empty. It also meant that the run was possible. The reason that matters is because P8 Hell HC Barb is basically impossible, same thing with Summonmancer Hell Any% (I think) It'd be a bit more work on mods unfortunately, but I think that we are due for some new, official categories for this game, but I don't think adding a ton and just hoping people run them is a good idea. Also as a note, I'd be interested in moderating if there is an issue with workload with adding new categories.

United States

I've actually run pX pretty extensively at this point so I thought I'd chime in here - it's definitely become my favorite category, for a few reasons:

  • it's the legitimately fastest way to beat the game, and we are speedrunning after all.

  • hell runs can be significantly shorter, which might in turn inspire more people to run them and more competition.

  • there's much less exp rng which honestly can take a toll on p1 runs, imo at least.

I created pastebins which detail my strats (links on my twitch profile) in the hopes that others would learn the category and run it, but no one else is afaik. I'd very much like for pX and other alternative categories to have competition and maybe a leaderboard here, but... I agree with @arcticwolfhowls in that it doesn't make sense to add superfluous categories if they're going to get few or no submissions.

Edited by the author 6 years ago
British Columbia, Canada

Hey all, I made a quick little "leaderboard" for Players X runs just so you can see the interest that is already there in the category - if you have runs to add to it, let me know! I can always make new tabs for other new category types too

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xwW1p60aq6RLUoARGQAl7PZgS1r4hvdk90CloWgQziY/edit#gid=0

LaV likes this
New Zealand

@Teo- "was" = past tense. Although botting is obviously unethical and not allowed by bnet, it's one of the main reasons that d2 online play is not completely dead - yes there are literally thousands of bots on bnet. I don't condone botting in general, but I can see its positive effects on a 20 year old game. Botting/Hacking/Cheating/TASing provide valuable insight into how the game works. Another thing keeping the game alive is speed-running, which again is not an intended way to play the game. I apologize if you take this the wrong way and/or disagree, I just want to defend my position :).

@BLaZeR-flamewing I'm going to do a run just to get it on your leaderboard :D