Our parents grew up as kids spending their time watching TV, as their parents told them that they should be more productive, go outside and do something. They're grown adults now, some of them in their senior years, still watching TV for their entertainment. Nobody questions now that their chosen way to pass the time is unacceptable.

We just happened to grow up with videogames to pass the time with. And as surprisingly as it may sound, we're all probably be in assisted living facilities sitting around a TV taking turns at Smash, and hating that our kids are wasting their time in those virtual worlds inside those newfangled helmets they're always wearing.

"Seed racer" would be dominated by fastest seed discovered. Everyone would then choose to race that seed (because it's the most optimal seed known at the time), until a more optimal seed is discovered - then everyone starts running that seed. There's no need to 'agree to' a specific seed. It's not rocket science.

I will trust that things are going on behind the scenes and leave things at that for now, but as for the refusal for seeded runs, I do not believe that is an acceptable response. That is part of the reason for the re-alignment proposal - establishing a clear link between specific game categories and leaderboards. Seeded run submissions would be restricted to the Seed Racer category, because that is the only game mode that allows users to choose a seed for their run; seeded runs would not be applicable to any other category. For any optimal seed discovered in a Daily or Weekly Challenge, players would then use the Seed Racer mode to continue to run that particular seed in order to set their best time, and potentially the absolute fastest completion time of all stages, even after the Daily/Weekly challenge has changed to a different seed.

While the game is fresh out of Early Access, and while a lot of people will be focused on non-seeded runs with unlocks and purchased starting items to achieve the fastest possible completion time, there will likely be a point where someone stumbles on an ideal seed that gives a combination of augs and cores that lead to a time faster than what can be achieved with the RNG of what random seed you are given. At that point, there will be runners who will continue to run that specific seed attempting to fully optimize movement tech and routing to establish the fastest possible time completing the game. I will likely be one of those people attempting to do that. It's happened before - those sub-10 minute in-game leaderboard times aren't from Rush Job, they're from a weekly challenge with ideal items, good boss order and shorter stage generation; runners used Vera and the nut-powering and nut-dividends Augs to fly over levels and bosses just got wrecked - the rest was a matter of optimizing item routing and good movement to claim the top times. To simply say "That run doesn't count, because you used a set seed" is equivalent to saying "Luck is superior to skill" which kinda goes against the premise of running games as a demonstration of skill level. That's why I'm saying that seeded runs should have their own category, and by obvious distinction, other categories would not include seeded runs.

@Simpstron My intention for No Unlocks was that no augs would be purchased before a given run and Permanent Upgrades would be switched off. A better description should have been "No Starting Items." The already-unlocked item pool would then be valid. I suppose the same question should be raised for the current "Beat the Game" category, as we should assume that the already unlocked item pool would be valid for those runs.

For the other question, and because of the nature of the procedural generation, I do not anticipate soul chip farming and the removal of detrimental augs would have greater benefit than purchasing starting items and having an extended item pool. Going into non-seeded categories the runner has no idea if they'll encounter the remaining items in the pool that they want, and it's simply not possible to get enough soul chips to exclude all unwanted items from the item pool at this time. For runners that are looking for a consistent, level playing field, the seeded category should exist, as Seed Racer does not gain any purchased benefits (They just don't work.)

Please review at https://pastebin.com/XqRrrn2b

Please comment below on changes that may be needed or opinions on the categories / rulesets.

I have some proper rulesets drafted for the 1.0 release, will post on Wednesday for review. It breaks things up into 4 main categories (Normal, Reverent, Rush Job, Seed Racer) and a handful of sub-categories (Nina/Ace, Low%, No Powers, No Unlocks, Co-Op) that can be applied to the main categories as desired. Because of the many combinations Defiant allows for, I don't believe any main category should be created for it unless a particular combination of skulls becomes popular to run, and the category itself would be defined by the chosen skulls.

As a heads-up, Normal runs that I have done in SF builds have averaged about the 30 minute mark. I would say ~20 minutes would be doable under the right conditions. Level 9 is the true final boss and likely to be the place where the runs die simply because of its length, skill level, and the likelihood of getting just the right augs to make it go fast.