Policy for "modded" games
7 years ago
Canada

So my submission for Man the Ramparts was rejected on the basis that I was running a "modded" version of the game. I imagine this is because you can see the LupoMod message in the chat, which we use because it allows us to restart missions more frequently.

Now, I understand the logic behind disallowing runs like this, but does it really achieve what you want it to? The purpose is to disallow any mods that might alter the game, but this could be true on any of the 3 players who aren't the main video PoV.

There is no way to regulate what other players are using, so why are we basing the rulings solely on the player who is streaming?

I think that the only way a run should be disqualified is if it actively breaks any rules, or if it can be proved that a mod is active that is altering the game.

There is no good reason for our run to be disallowed. If we had a video of any of the other 3 players we could have submitted that and the run would count as being 100% legit.

Something with the system is wrong, and it needs to be fixed.

edit: In case it's not clear, the major problem here is the fact that a run can be considered illegal/illegitimate solely based on which player's PoV the video is from. That is, any player in the party can have any number of non-obtrusive/non-game-altering mods active, as long as their PoV isn't the one that is being streamed/recorded.

Edited by the author 7 years ago
Illinois, USA

There is no anticheat, but blatantly showing that your running mods that can drastically alter the game. I can see it causing problems. You just have to be honest. Have your host be the one streaming. I know that doesn't solve the issues here, but cheats are cheats. Sadly this is probably one of the biggest issues for this game.

Besides patches...

1.6 looks like it kills a variety of huge skips. The sad times are here. Only hope now is someone finds a way to keep this patch state, and a way to connect n play. From what I got from talking to Robin. Fatshark is about 70% sure that they will put a stable patch out, but it wont be for another 1 or 2 patches. Like 3 months. Sadly by then a large amount of the skips will just be gone. We need a hero.

Edited by the author 7 years ago
Canada

Fair enough, but I still think it's a drag. If no one had typed in the chat during my game, the run would have been 100% valid. Also, I'm not worried about Glitched runs, Glitchless category is still a lot of fun.

You say to have the host be the one streaming, but this isn't in the rules, nor is it currently enforceable, nor should it be enforced unless there is a simple way to determine host without being in the Inn.

The only thing that we need to use from a "mod" is the ability to fail the mission (thus allowing you to restart more quickly). I imagine that I could strip down the existing mod, remove any chat messages and only use the fail functionality and it would be impossible to tell that it was being used.

It's really too bad we can't just proceed with openness and honesty and verify runs based on if they are actually using game altering mods. This rule does nothing to prevent cheating at all, it only prevents people who complete missions 100% legit while having a mod (that doesn't affect gameplay) from submitting times here. Tragic.

Illinois, USA

The host is the one with the crown in there picture during gameplay, but yah I agree noone is saying you are scripting any of it, but just like the flamewave video. Neone new watching the video is gonna be like oh whats that now i need Iamlupo mod. durka durka. You can inject scripts to push all your procs to 99% speed pots etc. Itd be tragic if thats the way the speed records go. If you really need a mod to restart faster keep it outta the vids my only advice.

Canada

Fair enough, and like I said, I do understand the reasoning behind the decision, but it's just too bad it has to be like that. Thanks for your time and input though.

Contact me individually and consider what it would take to police this game, and because of all the variables and things you can do that is hard to moderate, this has become a bad speed game and struggles to have integrity with it but I am trying to make the best of the bad situation and everyone can't have their way unfortunately.

Canada

You just rejected our other two runs that are 100% legit and show no sign of any mods in the video. Please explain why these were rejected, I would like them to be re-approved as they were, before they suddenly got rejected for no good reason.

EDIT: What the hell is the point of a "mods" category? That is basically the "cheater" category? Seems very useless and I doubt anyone will be interested in submitting times in that category.

EDIT2: I just removed the glitchless 2:50 run for Ramparts, because it does show the use of a mod, so it's invalid. But the Any% one looks all good, please re-approve the Any% run, or explain why it's not allowed.

Edited by the author 7 years ago

Like I said, contact me individually and due to there being no way to police a lot of things in this game there are complications due to the other players not being visible, modding the % chance of pots and other ways that would make the runs invalid and since you guys are the only group of runners that this has come up for being suspect of using third party tools, I am skeptical. I also found it strange that in the first few runs you submitted, 3 of you got really strange procs with your potions, like anywhere from 3-6 times back to back, this could be good RNG but since you admitted using a mod to restart quicker this just makes myself even more skeptical on top of in the new run one of your members said as long as you don't show chat you will be fine which is how I spotted the mod in the first place. So with that being said it is very difficult to police this game in general, you would have to have all players recording and have their PoV's edited together in the submission video from starting the game in the steam client to the end of the runs which would be a hassle or, I just accept anyone who submits runs with suspicious gameplay and just walk away with no integrity for this game so instead of getting upset, make suggestions for solutions.

Edit: I'm taking a look at the runs again. So when you say "show" that just suggests that you are hiding the use of any extra mods or tools, using any of them in general whether visible or not would make a run invalid but because your any% run I could tell was legitimate I re-approved it however the glitchless run needs to be done again, it easily shows that a mod is being used unfortunately.

Edited by the author 7 years ago
Canada

When I say "show" I mean that it shows in the video at some point that there is a "mod" active. This is the reason you have been denying our runs. I'm not saying that we have ever used a "mod" to affect any gameplay, we haven't done that ever. The problem is that you don't care about if the mod has affected any gameplay, you don't even care if a mod is active. The only thing you care about is if a mod is shown as being active at some point during the submitted video. If the mod doesn't show, you have no problem with the run.

What a farce. But I guess it's the easiest way to maintain your records. It's interesting, the correlation between you being a moderator for other game pages on speedrun.com and your "world records" for those games.

EDIT: And I also already provided a suggestion for a solution. ONLY DISALLOW RUNS THAT CAN BE PROVED TO BE COMPLETED WITH A MOD THAT AFFECTS GAMEPLAY.

Edited by the author 7 years ago

You misunderstood what I said, there should be no use of any mods being active ever, this would mean I do care about the integrity of the runs. This means if I watch the run and see 6+ potion procs in a row and or from multiple people, of course I will be suspicious alongside anything else that would justify an invalid run.

This second comment is just throwing out insults and assumptions just because you are upset with a few runs submitted for this particular game when I'm trying to work with you like other stricter mods would not. This is a hobby and I'm taking time out of my day to respond and handle the situation so what are you accomplishing by doing this? This is not what the speedrunning community is about which is why I suggest you familiarize yourself with AGDQ/SGDQ. Then to answer your comment anyways, I would not expect any runs I did months ago to hold since there has been many changes for this game. If no one has done a run for a game, they request the game and receive automatic moderator which also means if I am the only person to submit a run then it will technically be world record until someone else submits a run. I just wanted to run those games personally so that means I had to set them up.

This 3rd comment is still up in the air because it's difficult to prove if someone is using one in the first place or other players are using one in the background and making the best of a bad situation is to just accept runs that "at least" don't show using one obviously. I could only make claims for seeing chat pop ups, which people will hide and potion spam which could just be really good RNG, so again it's not very simple to police this game but given that you aren't showing basic respect, what reason do I have to work with you any further?

Edited by the author 7 years ago
Canada

You thought I misunderstood, but I did not. You misinterpreted my statement. Although you do care about a "mod" being used, it ONLY matters if you can VISIBLY see that it is being used (on the stream screen only). This is why it is silly to make a distinction between visible and invisible mods, and it matters much more that we simply check for gameplay altering mods.

Anyone who is submitting runs for this game, is submitting them because they care about the game and they want to push the competition. No one cares about holding a title for an IL or campaign completion, we care about playing the game, completing it fast, and competing against others who share the same passion for the game.

I'm sorry if you feel that I insulted you, it wasn't my intention. I just wanted to call into question the integrity of the moderatorship here, and if the motivations behind decisions being made have the community's best interest in mind. It would seem to me that this is not the case, and I want to create some discourse to hopefully have these issues resolved.

I have no problems with a rule enforcing "no visible" mods, and I do understand why it could be necessary. I still think it's a drag that we have to do that, and I will carry on using mods invisibly (I will always say this openly and honestly as I do not use any mods that alter gameplay).

I do think we could use some player count categories, and I also think a 100% Cata category would be very interesting, but these discussions are best had in a different thread.

EDIT: Oh I forgot, the "w/Mods" category is so stupid, and there was no reason for adding it. Are you planning to remove it?

Edited by the author 7 years ago

Okay, I'll keep the rules for opening chat and press tab to verify the difficulty, that way if there is something visibly off I can easily monitor the run to see if anything strange happens, this should be understandable, I accepted the current runs but moving forward you need to press enter and tab to verify.

Yes I like the passion statement and for the fun of it all +1 to that.

There hasn't been interest until now, otherwise it was me and the variety players including jeez0 that set everything up and agreed upon what has been in place, there needs to be tweaking for updates but I'm not also not going to change every little thing.

I already removed it, I put it up to see what peoples intentions were and if there was interest because maybe some wanted to speed potion spam and see how far they could go with that.

Edited by the author 7 years ago
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