So I think that rta timing should be optional for runners because its a pain for runs like 100% and all moons cause it's so long
You didn’t need a second thread for this.
TA changes the entire of the meta of the speedrun and creates a very uneven playing field, as such putting RTA and TA runs on the same leaderboard makes it much less accurate
also no one's stopping you from doing a TA aum/hundo run yourself and just not submitting it, like people do that all the time
Yeah, this is kinda the age-old debate when it comes to these marathon categories.
It's unfortunate to those of us who can't just set aside an entire day for a single run, but that's kinda just how it is. I would love to run AM or Hundo, but I have a job, bills to pay, and many other "adult" responsibilities. I just don't have the time for these marathon categories. Hell, even Damageless is kind of inaccessible to me now. I had to end my PB run because I just ran out of time to play.
So that kinda leaves us with the option of doing segmented runs and just not submitting them. Maybe somebody could start a new leaderboard through Google Sheets or something? It's been done before. But if there's a leaderboard, then we'd have to agree on rules for these segmented runs. How many segments would we be allowed? If we can take as many breaks as we want, we can basically just optimize the hell out of really small segments, at which point you're losing the spirit of the category. Where are we allowed to take breaks? Whenever we want? Or at specified points? How do we prove we're playing on the same save file between splices? and that it hasn't been tampered with?
I remember back in the day, the OoT and MM communities often did segmented runs, simply because recording technology wasn't really there yet to allow for longer recordings. So they would split the run into as many segments as they wanted (I think), and when they started up the next segment, they would show their pause menu or something to prove they were playing on the same save file and no cheating had been done between splices. But I don't even think leaderboards were even a thing yet back then. Runs were done purely for entertainment and to see how quickly the games could be beaten, and they were shared on forums like this one. The "honor system" was all that was really needed, since it really wasn't a competition back then.
So I guess my point is, yeah, it sucks that these longer categories are inaccessible to most people. But we aren't totally SOL. We can do segmented runs on our own terms if we want. Somebody could even make an unofficial leaderboard for segmented runs. Damageless used to just be a Google Sheet. If the category gets popular enough, maybe it could be added to the official leaderboard.
