Negative times
6 years ago
New Zealand

Some games (especially racing games) have ILs where you can freeze and deduct time during the race by collecting items. In those games it is often possible on some ILs to end up with a negative time as a result. Is there any possibility of this being implemented?

If I may suggest, something like a "negative time" checkbox would work perfectly.

Edited by the author 6 years ago
Switzerland

I guess your talking about in game timer (IGT).

The point of a time is to see how fast someone is, with negative times this would be gone unless you already know how the game works. So I don't think this should be implemented.

England

Generally speaking, times that can't properly be expressed are instead shown on the boards by ranking the runs with a placeholder time, (00:01. 00:02, 00:03, etc) and then the real time is listed in a comment. That could be an option?

In some games the timer can get glitched into the negatives

European Union

tbh I feel like if you can manipulate the ingame-timer you just shouldn't be using that, as there's no accuracy in it. just use RTA on these games - no reason to use a timer that isn't timing the time.

SlushPuppy, Alayan and 10 others like this
Scotland

In PDZ we time ILs with IGT, so anything to mess with that (reloading checkpoints etc) isn't allowed. I second that RTA timing would have to be used for runs where the timer clearly isnt accurate.

blueYOSHI and Hako like this
New Zealand

Sorry, I should explain since you all seem to be misunderstanding. This isn't messing with the IGT. The IGT is working as intended. It's a type of race that is behaving as intended, for example Freeze Rally mode in Jak X and Relic Race in Crash Team Racing. In both games collecting items in these races freezes the timer for a couple seconds (this is intended!) and then at the end if you managed to collect every single item it also deducts 10 seconds from your finishing time (this is also an intended mechanic!). This means that if you managed to race fast enough while collecting items constantly you can actually finish with a negative time!

European Union

it still isn't an accurate timing method, so my statement that it should not be used still stands.

should come natural when you say a) stops the timer and b) takes time off of it. doesn't matter if it's intented mechanics, these timers just aren't doing their one job.

blueYOSHI and toca like this
Scotland

I wasn't suggesting you were using sneaky tricks haha

I think RTA timing is still the best method for that though, assuing the goal is still to finish the race in the shortest amount of actual tme. You could start timing the moment you can move and end the moment you cross the finish line, for instance.

New Zealand

RTA timing would mean ignoring the actual objectives of the race and playing it identically to a time trial. Perhaps it is just not fit for this site until high scores are implemented.

Kent, England

An alternative, although a bit arbitrary, would be to add an agreed base time, e.g. 10 seconds or whatever, to every run time (IGT) so that the leaderboard could still accommodate negative IGT.