Well, no one has actually been doing runs with combat co-op, so that's a big vote in itself. I'll go ahead and add the leaderboard variable with an associated rule that doesn't allow combat.

if you allow to use it however you want nothing prevents you from binding keys and use it to copy your movement

I think it's easy and effective to have a rule like "You can't dupe your input, but you're allowed to use a second set of controls manually to do whatever you want." It will be obvious from watching a run whether someone dupes input or not.

It's also easy and effective to have a rule like "You can use co-op babies to do tricks but you can't use them in combat"

The question is just what people want to be doing. The most relevant opinions are the ones from players who use co-op, who will have "co-op = yes" next to their runs on the leaderboard.

I don't think anyone actually uses co-op baby for combat (by duping input with joy2key, etc) This is mixing together two different things. You can spawn a co-op baby and use it in combat without duping inputs. In fights like gurdy it isn't even that hard.

Yeah, I guess the remaining question is whether having coop=yes means you're allowed to use co-op baby in combat, like Krak suggests. It seems clear that doing the input duping thing shouldn't be allowed.

Anyone who has been doing runs with co-op care to weigh in with their opinion?

It seems like there are at least several people who want to be running "co-op is allowed for devil deal tricks but not for combat." I think it's reasonable to add a leaderboard variable for that, and if people want to do the 150% dps thing (or even actual co-op runs with multiple players) then that should be an entirely separate category. But we should only make that category once demand for it actually materializes in the form of people doing those kinds of runs.

I guess the best way to phrase the "co-op tricks" variable is something like "you can't use a co-op baby to deal damage."

We can't have multiple misc-like dropdowns. When I'm editing the game settings, there's just a checkbox for each category called "misc".

@Hyphen, I would disagree that it is that minor of an issue. If there isn't a rule against spawning co-op babies then the run can drastically change. For an oversimplified example, we have the co-op baby being out all the time and giving you a "150%" dps up.

Oh, yeah I assumed that combat co-op wasn't going to be allowed regardless and that we were just talking about using co-op shenanigans in devil deals and any other similar tricks that might exist.

Has anyone actually been doing runs using combat co-op?

What exactly is so wrong with having multiple categories?

It's a very minor difference for such a big separation. Most of the time, different categories are for runs that are very different from each other; in particular, they usually have different end goals, and it usually doesn't make much sense to directly compare times of runs in two different categories. But the co-op issue is not like this at all; the runs are almost completely the same except for a difference that sometimes won't even come up.

Splitting into multiple categories carries a substantial cost. It makes it harder to find what you're looking for, and harder to compare things you might be interested in comparing. Also, you get exponential growth in the number of categories if additional similar issues cause more splitting in the future.

Well, there's enough split opinions about this that the idea I like the most so far is adding a variable to the leaderboard called something like "Uses co-op"

This has most of the advantages of splitting into separate categories, without what I see as the disadvantages. Is there anyone who wouldn't feel well-served by this solution?

We've been asking for this since rebirth. I dunno why this is not a rule yet.

I have not seen you or anyone else ask for this before today.

I'd be fine with this being a rule.

My personal preference is that it would be best to have the rule "You can't spawn a co-op baby."

Personally I don't think end-tasking the game should be allowed.

I'd like to hear from some more runners about what they think.

I added the category

Ok, so what are the rules exactly? I guess the same as the other multi-character runs but with the following extra stuff: "No Donation machine overflow No Co-op partner allowed No CTRL+ALT+DEL to avoid deaths No Continuing allowed"

Do you have to use the latest version of the jd6 mod, and the leaderboard should be wiped whenever there is a new one? Or are you allowed to use any version of the jd6 mod you want?

I edited the categories on this site to all have appropriate variants of this rule text. I also retimed death's 7char run; it was only actually off by one second.

Here's another draft:

Beat The Chest and enter the chest that drops after the boss, as Isaac, Maggy, Cain, Judas, Blue Baby, Eve, and Samson, in any order. (These are the original 7 characters.)

You must use a fully unlocked file.

Time starts on the first frame that the floor name banner starts to become visible at the beginning of the run, and ends on the first frame of the entering-the-chest animation at the end. You're not allowed to use any kind of automated input during this time.

Your video has to include the screen before the run starts, which will either be the main menu or another run you reset on.

You have to have a timer visible in your video. It's okay if you don't start and stop it at exactly the right times, but you shouldn't pause it during the run. Retiming a run should be done by adjusting the start and end times of the displayed timer, rather than by measuring the length of the video.

You can't replace savefiles during a run or manipulate savefiles by making them read-only.

If you start a run with a bonus item from Eden's Blessing, you measure time from the start of the run that took the Eden's Blessing.

Then in splits of characters in middle of a run you need to jump into chest, or can you just exit to menu? because in current circumstances you could exit to menu instead.

Almost everybody who runs these categories jumps into the chest, don't they? Yeah, we should just put that in the rules.

Did dea1h retime and account for the timer? It is really silly to stop and start the timer every single item room when you can simply start it after and retime if the run actually works out.

No, he did not retime and account for the timer. The current listed time on the leaderboard is as if it was legitimate to start the timer inside the item room. Obviously this just a silly mistake, and we can retime it to change it by the appropriate few seconds. I'm not trying to make a rule about when you have to physically start your timer, but rather what moment actually counts.

The timer stuff seems to harsh, you shouldn't have a streamed run become not legitimate because...you accidentally pause the timer, but retime later

Well, one issue is that if the timer is ever paused while a significant number of frames are dropped in the vod, it would not be possible to reconstruct the correct time. Timing by vod length is not completely accurate. We don't want to invalidate a run because of a second of dropped frames in a 2hr run, do we?

Additionally, I'd like some wording on the use of certain external tools, like using a reset tool to find a seed. We are not gonna allow that for any category, right? I actually think this should be fine, as long as there is no automated input after the point where the timer is supposed to start. It will cost the person using the tool some number of seconds to realize the tool found results and start playing the game. I'm not locked into this opinion.

One thing about a "valid" run. I believe that in order for the run to be considered valid, the video submitted needs to show either the run starting at "new run" or at least a single reset. Okay, I agree.

One question I have: what exactly does the "eden reset file" do and how was it created?

If it ends on chest drop, would we have to put in those ridiculous rules about how you have to survive anything left in the room, even though your timer is already stopped? I always thought those rules were really confusing and weird in the tournaments that used them, but the alternative of dying after killing the boss but the run still counting is also really weird. The issue just goes away if we time it based on entering the chest.

Here's a draft of some updated rules. This one is for 7 character; the only difference in the other categories will be the first line. The biggest new thing I put in here is exact definitions for when the timer should start and stop. In the past we haven't been exactly synchronized on when that time should be, and a few of the top runs currently have some very silly timings. (like death's 7char WR starts the timer after he enters the first item room.) I picked start and end standards that seemed to make the most sense while also being easy to see and measure on the screen.

Please post any concerns in this thread.

Text of rules draft follows:

Beat the chest with Isaac, Maggy, Cain, Judas, Blue Baby, Eve, and Samson, in any order. (These are the original 7 characters.)

You must use a fully unlocked file.

Time starts on the first frame that the floor name banner starts to become visible at the beginning of the run, and ends on the first frame of the entering-the-chest animation at the end. (This is basically beginning of input to end of input.)

You have to have a timer visible in your vod. It can't be paused for any reason.

You can't replace savefiles during a run or manipulate savefiles by making them read-only.

If you start a run with a bonus item from Eden's Blessing, you measure time from the start of the run that took the Eden's Blessing.

Conclusion: There is a general consensus for banning read-only savefiles, and there is no consensus for banning overflow.

Banning read-only has no effect if we don't also have the rule "no replacing save files during a run", so it looks like I should add the following text to the multi-character rulesets:

"You can't replace savefiles during a run or manipulate savefiles by making them read-only"

It's not really accurate to say "in speedrunning for this game and all games anything that is not an external non-graphical modification to the game is allowed." Lots of games have lots of different bans, based solely on the fact that the community has a preference to do certain kinds of runs. For example, the main lttp category is no S+Q. As a community we have the power to do whatever we want. If we want to be doing runs with overflow, we can do that. If we want to be doing runs without overflow, we can do that.

One important thing to note is this: if you're allowed to replace your save file during a run, then it's pretty easy to achieve basically the same outcome as the read-only technique. You just replace the save file after every character, relaunch the game, and you get to constantly overflow. It just costs a couple of seconds. Is this something that everybody wants to be doing? If not, then we can either ban overflow or ban replacing the save file during a run. The fact that people aren't already using this strategy constantly makes me feel like what we actually want to do is ban overflow.