This game needs more specific rules for its categories
7 years ago
New Mexico, USA

Gauntlet is pretty fun to speedrun in my opinion and although it doesn't have much activity the current rules for speedrunning this game under all its current categories are completely unacceptable. Let's go over each and how it can be made better, more fun for the players and more entertainment for the viewers.

Glitchless (current rules): Time starts when pressing "Start Game", Time ends when cutscene after Morak starts

I'm ok with the time starting at "Start Game" and ending at Morak's death cutscene. Here's the issue though, this game is played on ps4/steam, once you've played through the game once you unlock all the stages to immediately pick. The vagueness of this rule allows you to select easy mode, and kill morak in less than 2 minutes (on the 1st phase even) if you're lucky enough to land 3 sword hits and a ring of illusions spawn directly on top of the correct morak. Which I have submitted as my own world record time being 2min 21sec.

No wall boosting, warps or any other glitches.

This is ok as a rule but it's also vague about what is and is not allowed. It does not point out what constitutes a warp, the importance here should be more directed at completing the regular stages without going out of bounds or clipping walls in game, or other major game skipping methods.

Additionally it is important to clarify in the rules whether or not you are allowed to use unlocked weapons, relics, and talismans. Preferably they should be allowed, as optimizing your character is not level based but preference based and once you unlock something for your character you keep it forever. Intentionally limiting yourself to 1 weapon (the default) allows for no creativity or variety in a speedrun. And of course limiting your talisman to the default makes elf by far the best option as he can clear multiple spawners more optimally than other characters default, and not having a relic just slows down gameplay further. There would be no planning behind a somewhat major cooldown for clearing rooms in a more strategic way.

Switching characters should also be fine, this game is very balanced (even the necromancer is) and some are better at dealing with certain stages than others, it's all a matter i guess if you want to sacrifice the time selecting another character for a certain stage.

In the end the rules should be the following imo: Time starts at "Start Game", complete all main path stages, time ends at Morak's Death scene trigger.

No going out of bounds or clipping walls in game, or other major game skipping/breaking/glitch methods.

You are allowed to use unlocked weapons, relics, and talismans. (And switch characters for different stages submit most used character)

Boomer likes this
Germany

Thanks for your advice. I have altered the rules to be more clear. If you have any other suggestions, please let me know!

New Zealand

Yeah I fully understand you bro. I find it fairer to leave unlocked weapons, relics and talismans out. If this was allowed before, I would've worked my way through the Gauntlet on the hardest difficulty, unlocked all the armour, weapons etc, then switched to Easy and then the game would be so much quicker. Plus I think equipping unlocked weapons and gear tends to slow down time a bit and isn't essential. My friend SpectralChimaera who speedruns Ys Origin has to switch weapons in his games as it's essential to beat some of the bosses.

New Mexico, USA

Thank you for updating the rules, it's much appreciated! The only bit that kind of bothers now is the english is a little bit silly in this sentence: "Time ends when you do the final it on Morak."

And also thanks for the new category, but also can you add New Game+? With the rules at the bottom of my initial post I think this would nice for people who want to speedrun the game but not on a fresh file. It also wouldn't obsolete previous runs which is a win win for everyone. Just a quick repost of that:

Time starts at "Start Game", complete all main path stages, time ends at Morak's Death scene trigger.

No going out of bounds or clipping walls in game, or other major game skipping/breaking/glitch methods.

You are allowed to use unlocked weapons, relics, and talismans. (And switch characters for different stages submit most used character)

Germany

First of all, I splits up the leaderboards into "Solo" and "Co-op". I think that makes the most sense for this game.

I also changed the wording for the final boss. It should sound better now. I made "All Levels" a glitchless category, since I feel like, that people who would run that, do not want to use glitches.

I see that there's demand for a NG+ category. I personally can not think of a good way wording it out, which is I won't add it as of right now, but If you guys give me a proper definition of what NG+ would be to you, I can easily add that in the future.

Germany

You can add me on Discord, I'm more than down to actually talk to you guys about this.

Here's my ID: i300m3r#5162

Utah, USA

I am second with Iceworld because to be honest, how much sense does it make to:

  1. manage your file EVERY time you play for run attempts
  2. people whose game autosaves and cannot do anything about it

This literally makes the majority of people who play this game and say "I want to speedrun it now that I got the hang of it" out of the question. Is probably one reason why there are very little submissions for this game overall. A good solution would be to do a NG+ No Item, and NG+ with items category for single and co-op available.

That is just my opinion on the matter, someone who genuinely wants to run the game with my friend but cannot because of current categories/rules in place.

Boomer likes this
Germany

Again, I am very sorry about that inconvinience. I watched both runs you submitted and you seemed to have tons of fun with it - I am not going to take that from you, because of silly rules. I still have your runs and I will add them to the New Category, as soon as WE make it.

The ruleset had to be changed though, since you technically could have just went to the final area on an already finished file and beaten the Boss. To me, that was not acceptable.

I am currently working on a Definition for a NG+ run. Give it a bit of time and you will be able to run the game, just as you did before.

New Mexico, USA

Me and Boomer are communicating good rules and categories for this game at the moment. Expect great options in the future, I also saw your live stream of the game malzahar, I immediately wanted to compete your time on the site but work had to be done here x) Here's to future gauntlet runs!

One very important thing I think that needs to be made available to users wanting to run a new file for the game should be instructions on how to start a new file without losing current progress (having 2 files essentially). Malzahar looks like he shares this troublesome detail with me, so it may very well be a somewhat of a bad idea to even keep the new file categories if it is not possible to have 2 files. Of course malzahars solution is a good one. We could call the categories NG+ No Item and NG+ with items

Germany

I added the invalidated runs back to the new NG+ category that IcyWorld and I just made - you guys enjoy your record! ;)

I also recorded a video showing off how to make a fresh file and how to keep your old one for Any% and NG+ runs. http://www.speedrun.com/Gauntlet_2014/guide/383rh

Quick reminder that there has been a tutorial for over a year now, which can be found here: http://www.speedrun.com/Gauntlet_2014/guide/z0x3c

If you have any other questions or problems you came across, feel free to contact me and I will reply as fast as I can.

New Zealand

This game was dormant until I posted my awful first run lol. Glad I am part of the competition! Now I feel like this might be my new thing :).

Boomer likes this
Germany

Happy running everyone!

Mercuraz likes this
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