Reposted from youtube

Highlighted comment AlayanT 3 hours ago Not to be picky, and I doubt it changes much here, but aren't add-on karts banned from running ?

Alistair Findlay 40 minutes ago (edited) Yes they are banned. Thanks for letting me know. I remember talking about it on the forum and we decided that it's okay? But I guess that changed. The rule is dumb. Too many cooks are in this mod broth. It's a weight value with a shell. Unless you are driving a 1 pixel kart with a 1 pixel hitbox it's no problem. Karts like Katie are actually a problem due to their exceptionally small size. If it's actually an issue, bring it up on the forum and have them make a decision.

I 100% don't care, this is my final intermediate% run for a while, if it's voided that's their decision. It would be a problem if this was a contested record, but it isn't. This run is slightly a problem because it's a really good time. But the novice% I was pretty sure I submitted that, and pretty sure it got verified? But UJ or kitoko got rid of it without telling me? Even though it's a terrible time that is intended to be an advertisement for speedrunning stk? IT WAS LITERALLY WORSE THAN MY PREVIOUS TIME. I WAS UPDATING IT TO CONFORM TO NEW TIMING RULES TO BEGIN WITH! But I guess I broke a different rule. Have the mod wars begun? Is consensus no longer required?

lol this is a farce. You've felt it too, open-source is full of weird people like us, it's a difficult place to arrive at any kind of consensus. It's a difficult community to broach without being reprimanded by a hyper zealous mod overstepping their grounds. That EXACT SAME DESCRIPTION can be applied to my experience with both STK and 0 A.D this week. I kinda just want to make entertainment and help people, I shouldn't have expected it to be easy, but I could never have guessed it would be this difficult. (Edit: the 0ad thing wasn't serious, just a misunderstanding that led to some dismissiveness that triggered me a bit.)

I'll just re-run them if it will keep everyone happy. I won't just give up.

Sick times btw, I'm not going to be able to touch those any time soon! :) (that is just another way to say I will never beat them haha)

I'm going to repost this to the forum. See how mad I can make everyone :( In the first place, It's my fault for not reading the forum enough, I thought I had caught up with it all but I guess I missed a bit.

Edit: By the same logic of the rule, most of our runs are void because the A.I. are not always using default karts. The rule is dumb.

Lol maybe I didn't actually submit it, it wasn't super great. I'm just very confused. :( I shouldn't have been accusing people of things.

I typed that when I had just gotten out of bed, I need to set a rule to not type anything for one hour after waking up or before going to bed, can't think properly. Alayan asked an innocent question and I just started ranting for no good reason lol.

I think I have some residual anger from the 7 really bad Follow the Leader runs this week. I need to meditate or something. Sorry.

I think the add-ons kart rule should be changed.

They should be fine imo, as long as they don't give an advantage compared to stock karts. I think this would make this run ok, wouldn't it ?

Mainly, that means they must not be smaller than the smallest stock kart of their weight size. If there are other things which may make a significant difference (wheels ? anything else ?) it should also be taken into account. The issue with that rule is that checking if an add-on kart is valid or not may be annoying ; so maybe we could have a whitelist approach : they'd have to be tested by at least two mods giving their greenlight, and we may have a thread where it would be possible to request the testing of another add-on kart.

Another side issue is that when running with an add-on kart, the overall balance of light/medium/heavy in the opponents change, especially if there are also add-on karts opponents. In 0.9.3, given that the AI karts are very quickly outran, this don't matter much (except slightly in the GP skips). However, this may matter in a future version so this should be considered.

That side issue is a really good point. I'm going to add light and heavy karts each time I add a medium, to keep it balanced. Maybe that should be the rule. It would make runs more entertaining to watch with all sorts of weird karts driving around. As long as they are no smaller or bigger than the stock standard karts. I don't even think bigger karts should be void actually, no-one wants to drive with or against a super big kart. Except for me I guess lol. It's just, "she do" tho...

Honestly I would do anything to keep driving with cuter Kiki.

You want to know something else? I was thinking earlier and I realised that it was probably me who deleted my own run when I was deleting another one...... I wanted to delete the one with no timer and replace it with a timer one, I couldn't obsolete the old run because the new one was actually a slower time even though it was more skilled and a kind of entertaining I could never replicate again. I got bodied by GP's or skips or something and lost many minutes, I can't remember. I mean, it's only novice%, it's more of an endurance challenge category haha.

I've made excuses for accusing people of deleting that run. The real fact is that I just have to do better and try harder in the future.

Bigger should not be void if used by the player (it helps him slightly to get some powerups, but it also makes it much harder to avoid anything and is overall clearly worse), but probably should be for the AIs. They are weak anyway, but it would make them weaker.

For the balance, the issue is that the stock balance isn't an exact proportion of light/medium/heavy, there are significantly more mediums. Plus, there is the medium Sara which is unlocked along the way, so the proportion is not stable all along the run.

Maybe for each medium/light/heavy add-on kart, an equivalent unlocked-from-start stock kart should be removed ? That's the only way I can think of to keep the proportions exactly as vanilla...

Wow this is actually a super complicated problem. Removing equivalently weighted stock karts is a good solution, there are one or two older, lower res karts that I wouldn't mind removing.

There are 3 classes of kart ; light, medium and heavy, with different acceleration, max speed, nitro consumption and a few other things. Each kart is assigned to one of them.

Balance : the AI opponents you get are determined at random fro the karts available. If there are 7 karts overall, 2 L, 3M and 2H, and you pick a M for running, you'll get on average 1/3rd of L, M and H as opponents. If you add-in 2 light addon-karts and pick the same M for running, then your opponents are 1/2 L, 1/4th M and H. This changes slightly how the race plays, and how difficult/easy it is to pull off a GP skip (because the positions don't change when you forfeit, and at the start of the race the lights always take the lead before the mediums and then the heavies)

I haven't touched a thing, in fact I was going to get around to checking on the run just today, but it seems stuff went down.

I was not aware that kart models affect their hit-box.

In response to Alayan, you essentially want a heavy kart CPU when starting a race, as this lets you speed ahead, collect a box, and gain a lead where the CPUs can't touch you with more plentiful items like Cupcake or Bowling Ball, and yes I've been aware of this. In fact, the karts you get when starting a race are affected by which tab you pick in kart select. If you pick all, every kart is included, even add-ons. You can have only add-on karts appear if you pick the add-ons tab.

I always pick the stock kart tab when I start a run. Now, the main problem here is that if you're trying to add this rule of adding/removing karts to the roster, you would end up having to reserve the add-ons list for your specified dummy kart, yet there are people who like having more than one add-on kart. And then, after all that, we need to question this additional character's hit-box. It's under this hindsight that I feel this rule should never come to be, as it would create more problems than solve.

Anyway, the whole "Let custom characters" thing arose from when people wanted to play as their favourite character, while still being able to use the optimal kart class (which is still Medium for all cases, except select ILs) However, I thought the game would only accept certain kart classes and have a specific unicharacter hit-box at the time, but it seems that is not the case anymore.

It's clear that it's easier to have a blanket ban on add-on karts than trying to figure out under which specific conditions it doesn't give an advantage. It's clear that those conditions do exists, but determining them AND checking them is a pain.

This sucks. Don't give up UbuntuJackson, I don't care what the rules say, Those runs were legit in my eyes. Just run them again. It's no problem.

I should have just deleted the video and vanished into the night instead of shining a big spotlight an the rule that voids your runs :( The irony is that my Expert% time is still valid.... I'm fine, it's UJ thats getting screwed in this. :(

Actually hold on, do santa hats change the hitbox? My %expert might by invalid also hahaha...... :(

I still think the rule is dumb, even after all you've explained. It doesn't change enough to be worth excluding. It's a weight value with a shell. It's still the same game.

Here's my solution "All heavy and light karts must be removed from the game before play, all medium weight addon karts allowed (within reason)."

If we are invalidating UJ's runs, lets invalidate every single run at the same time. Clear the slate. Also, before any new runs can be submitted, we need to spend a week or two MAKING ABSOLUTELY SURE that the rules are clear and understood by all.

Lol I'm going too far here. I'm just quite upset that's all. :( I wouldn't still be here without UJ. That's just a fact, sorry anyone else, you guys are cool too, I've known UJ for longer so I'm more sentimental.

EDIT: FORGET EVERYTHING ELSE - the game lets you add custom karts. custom karts are allowed because the game allows them. end of discussion? You cannot change the game in any way, you cannot use your own kart, unless it is actually in the game available to be downloaded. Any thing the game allows is allowed.

Calling this discussion "wasted effort" is only done because stronger words cannot be found. It's fine as it is/was. we need to get 3/5 votes for a decision here, we need to summon @brmbrmcar

Any more changes to the rules should have their own forum post, locked and stickied.

We are all ignoring the massive irony in the fact that changing the actual game code to add a timer is allowed, but applying a cosmetic skin using the default features of the game is currently not allowed.

"We are all ignoring the massive irony in the fact that changing the actual game code to add a timer is allowed, but applying a cosmetic skin using the default features of the game is currently not allowed."

Because the timer changes nothing about the way the game is played ; while using add-on karts do change it.

"the game lets you add custom karts. custom karts are allowed because the game allows them. end of discussion?"

The game also let you edit config files, and it's obvious that altering them in any gameplay-altering way is not ok.

"Actually hold on, do santa hats change the hitbox?"

No, they don't change it.

"I still think the rule is dumb, even after all you've explained. It doesn't change enough to be worth excluding. It's a weight value with a shell. It's still the same game." Changes from vanilla who disadvantage the runner are ok, those who advantage him are not. The rule must be set in a way which enforce this. This can be by banning add-ons karts, or by having a set of rules under which they are ok which guarantees they can't be exploited to get an advantage.

You're mad because (under the current rules), your nice intermediate% run is invalid. I understand this, especially as in this specific case I don't think you really got an advantage out of it. Understand also that if we allow add-on karts in a way which can be taken advantage of, it becomes doable to gain a few dozen of seconds over a run by exploiting it (reducing caking at start, smaller hitbox for the player's kart, easier and quicker GP skips). @Kitoko and me currently hold the 0.9.3 any% and expert% two best times, and we don't want to have those obsoleted by a rule change.

"Here's my solution "All heavy and light karts must be removed from the game before play, all medium weight addon karts allowed (within reason)."" That's obviously wrong, because it would make vanilla runs invalid, which is absurd.

I'm really happy that you are so passionate about this @Alayan It's just that you are trying to argue against things that I already invalidated, or things that you've misunderstood due to my poor choices of words, my exaggerations and my hyperbole.

"we don't want to have those obsoleted by a rule change." "That's obviously wrong, because it would make vanilla runs invalid, which is absurd."

• When I said "EDIT: FORGET EVERYTHING ELSE" That was in reference to everything that was above it. also I said, "Lol I'm going too far here."

"reducing caking at start"

• That is a really funny sentence out of context hahaha.

"Because the timer changes nothing about the way the game is played ; while using add-on karts do change it."

• Of course. I was merely pointing out an interesting irony.

"Actually hold on, do santa hats change the hitbox?" - "No, they don't change it."

• It was a joke :P I didn't think it would.

"You're mad because (under the current rules), your nice intermediate% run is invalid."

• Lol bro, it's only intermediate%, also, did you just "UMADBRO?" at me? :(

I'm upset because I don't want to have any actually good runs, like @UbuntuJackson runs be void. I'm okay when i need to void my own runs, I know exactly how trash they are, I'm not saying that in a joking way. I would like to have a rule that satisfies everyone, which is why I am playing devil's advocate and not deleting bad ideas. Remember that I said "Lol I'm going too far here"

"The game also let you edit config files, and it's obvious that altering them in any gameplay-altering way is not ok."

• The game does not let you edit config files from within the game itself. My point was that custom karts are a feature of the game.

I still think the rule is dumb. It should be up to the verifier to determine whether or not an add-on kart impacts the run in any significant way.

I'm guilty of structuring my writing in an unnecessarily convoluted way. I've made it too confusing. :( I simultaneously hate and love the english language, it can be florid, but it can also be confusing.

Edit: Is it even possible to make a 1 pixel hitbox kart? And would the add-ons moderator allow it in the game? Is there a minimum and maximum texture/hit-box size?

@UbuntuJackson I'm not sure if blocking karts is possible, i was going too far when I said that. It was much easier when it was as simple as this : https://www.speedrun.com/stk/thread/iyr5h

Here's the thing, DLC karts are allowed in Mario Kart 8 speedruns. I think our situation should be exactly the same. I don't know how the add-ons submission process works, but there must be some kind of vetting process. The STK add-ons (DLC) moderators decided these karts were allowed in the game.

A final word. Vanilla runs are more "legit" and will always be seen as the "real" world record, even if a DLC run beats a vanilla time, the vanilla time holder is well within their rights to entitle their run the "Vanilla World Record" I don't think existing DLC runs should be voided. I don't think DLC or vanilla require a subcategory. I also think that trying to isolate our future DLC runs to minor categories is something to be considered, and that we shouldn't try beating a current vanilla record using DLC karts. I don't think it requires a rule, just courtesy.

Sub note, I thought that the Katie kart was a bit dodgy and might provide an unfair advantage when driving, but I just tried it, for some reason that kart turns like a brick. She's a "medium kart" but she feels almost like a heavy kart. There's just something off about it. Even considering that, I think that this one new kart should be banned from running with/against unless/until it is accepted in the base game, it's just too small.