Hello. I've been tracing the history of some of these categories, and I have always thought about turning these documents online. Which would be both easier to manage, and more accessible for anyone.

If you have doubts about certain of the information presented, please share them here. This is a one man work after all.

any% : https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1cQladUjfnSex2u4MdXaB7AvwsyGGVw4IU5v60H9-wMo/edit?usp=sharing

Hello. I've been tracing the history of some of these categories, and I have always thought about turning these documents online. Which would be both easier to manage, and more accessible for anyone.

If you have doubts about certain of the information presented, please share them here. This is a one man work after all.

any% : https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1w-I8UPcFQUyxfViGNjaf50sDJTmjQJjdJhSROAQNZpc/edit?usp=sharing

Hello. I've been tracing the history of some of these categories, and I have always thought about turning these documents online. Which would be both easier to manage, and more accessible for anyone.

If you have doubts about certain of the information presented, please share them here. This is a one man work after all.

Doc (all-in-one) : https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wCRedWtKEpRzouKzC_JWgdMyT8APfPFeu1V_4js0RAg/edit?usp=sharing

Hello. I've been tracing the history of some of these categories, and I have always thought about turning these documents online. Which would be both easier to manage, and more accessible for anyone.

If you have doubts about certain of the information presented, please share them here. This is a one man work after all.

Doc (all-in-one) : https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1HSiirDh9UXDHldVYoasS6l7e0KEHDzfB_TnehbhQ6oY/edit?usp=sharing

I moved ahead and added a new difficulty variable called "Irrelevant".

These are the newly updated difficulty rules :

" Input the difficulty level you have played on.

If you are playing between multiple difficulties in the run, it belongs to the difficulty irrelevant category. If you have changed it during a stage (as opposed to during the world map), the run will be considered as being a Pause Abuse run .

When playing on a fixed difficulty, if you intend on using pause warping, but do not have access to costumes, you are allowed to warp by changing difficulty, then warping a second time in a row to reset the difficulty to what you were originally playing on, in order for the run to remain being a fixed difficulty speedrun. "

That way, you can still run the game on the Low IGT playstyle. As a recall, Low IGT is a way to play the game where you strive to get the lowest possible times technically achievable in the game. For such a run to be submittable here, your run would have to play on the difficulty irrelevant setting, and doing pause abuse. The pace of the run is much different than that of a titular speedrun, because you are allowed to pause the game at will (and therefore, the run itself), and you will have to pause a lot anyways to use the various time-saves this gamestyle allows. Which are :

• Doing pause warping on many checkpoints in the game, either to skip movement (either skipping entire sections, backtrack, or a tiny bit of walking), to reset the room cycle, or to skip backtrack after grabbing certain collectibles like phantomilians (because they still save after you die or warp, like extra lives and unlike dreamstones).
• Pausing the game to take breath, prepare, set up tricks.
• Alternating difficulties between normal or easy in order to optimise the game by damage-bouncing on the side of enemies for extra speed depending on your health and the duration of the invulnerability frames (routing is required), as well as refresh your health. But also, playing the bosses on easy as they have less health. And finally, activate clocks well after you've died to stop the IGT while warping, much like it is done in Balue's Tower ILs or Cursed Leorina. The state of Low IGT runs will change depending on the main category (any%, 100%, using support mode or not).

But now, the problem with Low IGT as a name, is that it implies you get the lowest IGT times allowed by the game using whatever means possible, compared to the more restricted speedruns that currently ban most of the tricks I have listed. More simply, you need to closely match the theoretical human limit of these restricted speedruns, then employ these various Low IGT exclusive techniques, in the hopes of reaching this isolate realm of fast times that normal runs are absolutely locked from. And your final time has to be faster times than the human limit, because if you don't, you're technically not reaching the lowest IGT times possible of the game. Do you understand the catch ? Basically, no one can do this except very dedicated top players.

Hence why we should probably stop using this term, as it implies that if you're not doing exactly this, then you're not doing anything Low IGT related. I mean, if your Low IGT run is still minutes slower than that of first place without it, it's only fair to say that you're not actually doing any Low IGT stuff at all. You're only just using restricted tricks that are allowed either by the pause abuse mode, or irrelevant difficulty choice.

Now, this doesn't mean we have abolish the categories we currently have to accomodate this. Everything works fine, it's just that we should stop using Low IGT to designate these runs. Pause abuse can do

Now, about my earlier time-save estimation of the five known clock snipes + pause warping skips... I've come to realise two mistakes in it :

• I completely forgot that you can immediately fall on the gondola pit in 3-1. So, the pause warp doesn't actually save 15 seconds, it saves nothing compared to a simple death warp (both save like 15 seconds, but their individual difference are nigh).
• For 1-2, you would correctly save 5 seconds if you death warp... but if you just go the intended way past the pillar, which is the thing I forgot to consider, you save at most a second...

Which in turn, lowers the already measly gain of 30 seconds... down to 10. 10 seconds for combining all these 5 tricks. 8 seconds of which come only from the 5-2 clock warp. And exclusively on easy.

I was pretty angry learning about this. Imagine considering a new way to play the game that revoles about abusing the fact that pausing the game stops the IGT. You add entire category slots and rulesets... all just for the interesting tricks to be miserably slow, runners doing 10% of what you could do to save time, only making use of the same 5 pause warping uses, leading to... a 10 seconds different speedrun. 0.5% of Roku's current first place time of 32:39 removed.

At this point, I am really tempted to remove everything having anything to do with the pause abuse category. To get an interesting looking run would require an insanely good player, tons of effort on planning, grinding, patience with all the pausing... all for something that might not even lead to a very different speedrun time-wise. I am sorry, but such a run or challenge is something that belongs more to a place like youtube, where some popular youtuber like Karl Jobst present it, and someone who completed it (and even then it's not that interesting in comparison to the other speedruns or challenges he's covered). Not an actual speedrunning category for people to run on. Catering to too specific players to be interesting. It's to my taste being given too much credit for what people actually do and fare with them, basically nothing. It's severely underwhelming, and fundamentally it has nothing to do with a speedrun.

And, honestly, I think the same thing for difficulty irrelevant runs for that matter. It seems to lead to a completely unoriginal looking speedrun. Why would you play on anything other than easy ? If you don't allow yourself to switch difficulties during stages (= pause warping, so back with the issues explained above), you would only lose time not playing on easy.

If it were all on me, I would have disallowed pause warping speedruns on the spot. But I won't, for a couple reasons.

• Horrible moderation practices if I actually carry on with this without proper discussions and warnings, especially for big matters. Lol.
• I still want to hope, and give these sets of categories a chance, I'd love to see being wrong, see if people actually do interesting stuff with them (I am on the stance that this hasn't happened yet)
• I may still be okay with allowing these five pause warping uses in normal runs. That way, the current runs that use them are not lost, and it would mean more fun tricks for everyone. ...But at the same time I may not. After all, they are so slow we might as well forget about them. The fact that you would have to pause the game (and run) for 8 seconds, 5 separate times to use them adds hurt to injury. Maybe only the 5-2 one, as that one actually saves time and is a big developer meme. There may still be cases where we could allow exceptions. If, for instance, we could manage to skip the two last engines of Ishras Ark (not the revisited version) using pause warping, that could end up saving a lot of time. It's not confirmed though.

So I would give the current design a couple months. If I see that nothing of significance has been achieved, that no new interesting pause tricks that would change things around haver been discovered, that these categories still look dull and and that the runs all look the same, I think I would allow myself to go ahead and redesign the leaderboard to competely remove these categories (pause abuse, difficulty irrelevant speedruns, anything that is to the spirit of Low IGT), as it's clear, they are overstaying their welcome, and it is for the sake of the leaderboard, keeping it relevant. Pruning the withered branches off the tree.

pirik :

People would disagree with you about disregarding it. But when I see for myself that the only thing Low IGT runners do differently than normal runs are the clock warping technique in 5 locations. That despite each of these use feeling like they skip either movement or entire sections (which is why they're appealing, especially also because they're easy time-saves), a decent bunch of them are barely faster if you death warp instead (5-1 red orb, 6-1 blue crystal snipe because of death planes right below). And that the remaining few (1-2 : 5 seconds / 5-2 gate : 8 s / 3-1 gondola wait : 15 s) only save upwards of 30 seconds. Even if more are found, still not overly huge... unless a miracle happens. I don't know if making a whole different speedrun category for a 30 seconds faster speedrun is worth it. Cherry on top, this time gain only applies to Support runs. On Standard... only the 5-2 gate one can be done... also only easy. The whole Low IGT/Pause abuse debacle only affect extremely specific runs...

Right now, someone accidentally managed to disable the support move cooldowns : https://twitter.com/twistedelf6966/status/1557607918287040512 If we can manage to consistently reproduce that, then KPRS game will be dead. We will have found our ultimate glitch. With that, we're not just gonna save 30 seconds off runs. We're gonna destroy the entirety of Vision 6, Vision 3-2 - if we can't just completely skip them - and possibly much more. It might even end up edging out PS1 DtP, RTA wise. And perhaps, we'll get to abusing it on Lunatea's Veil !

Now THAT, sounds like it will require its own category day one (next to Support mode). It's already so broken on its own that getting it to happen at all will be like randomly capturing a legendary pokemon early in the game. Not pause warping. At the very least merge these cool applications to normal runs. We're still speedrunning. And not like constantly pausing the run for 8 seconds to skip walking a distance that you would otherwise manually do in less than a second. Small tangent. About the pause function abuse itself, pirik, I agree with your idea of instating a time limit to it. I believe I am suggesting the same thing, when I talk about regulating pause utilisation [and in general, the various situations where the game is paused in general, like world map screen or cutscenes) for top level runs. It only matters to them, as at that point you've extinguished much of the possible time-saves, and where speedruns are of a whole other significance.])

I sound like I don't want this to ever become a legitimate way to play the game. It absolutely is ! I would love to see a properly optimised run (even if it asks for TAS). It seems like something fun to route or simulate, less so to perform in real-time. But is it important, relevant, meaningful to add to a proper speedrunning leaderboard, even regardless of the myriad of technical issues it introduces (which pirik also pinpoints) ? I don't think so, given what I demonstrated about the time-saves and accessibility. And are people currently showing off its true potential ? Not really. Even then, the best easy support Low IGT run, is still more than 3 min slower than that of first place who isn't.

It makes sense that these players still go for these tricks, because they save time in interesting and skippy ways and are easier compared to death warping. So again, it would really make more sense if we just allow these uses of pause warping during normal runs from the beginning, and probably not proceeding any further with Low IGT stuff as a whole. The current Low IGT runs would be able to merge with the normal runs and not be left alone anymore - on an isolated island without much point of interest - on top of massively simplifying the leaderboard, not only for now, but for then. Honestly, the quirk about these uses being scarcely available between categories, and only fully usable in easy Support, and nowhere on Standard, really seals the deal for me thinking it is truly the best way we should go about this, and that it has no merits to deserve its own category. Especially if people are only going to play it that specific way, and not like how it's designed to be (the speedrunning unfriendly way).

But again, that's another way to see it. We will go by how people want it.

amoser : I reassure you that in none of the solutions that I am keeping track of, we would get to delete any of the runs. At most moving them around and removing a category layer.

We could have all the possible categories in the world, but only if the board look good with them and is easy to use. If our problem right now was only about being able to do difficulty irrelevant runs, it would be simple troubleshoot by this point. But... let's look at this again.

People could want to do pause function abuse only stuff, whereas others would want to do pause warping only stuff. Then for the people who want to switch difficulties mid-run, there are two groups. Those who want to change them during the stages. And those who want to change difficulties between stages. Why the latter ? Well, because pause warping remains overpowered for other reasons than just being able to change the difficulty, and some people wouldn't like doing it (much like death warping is not appreciated by everyone).

How can we go about adding these ? The first one, we could add two new difficulty variables (irrelevant & irrelevant but only between stages or something). The second one, add 4 different pause abuse variables (pause function abuse / it + pause warping / pause warping only / none - the main one) to keep track of all of these. I'm not even counting stuff like death warping, or no skips/glitchless...

Do we really want to have this many categories ? Especially when we can expect that, at top levels, the vast majority of them won't affect the run time by more than a minute, and the gameplay differences are just like arguing semantics at that point ? It will interest one runner out of a thousand... for an entire src category slot ? It's not like a google spreadsheet you can afford to infinitely extend on any directions, or fill how you want without it looking necessarily bad. This is the src official page of the game's speedruns. This is why I think the 4th variable difficulty solution mentioned in my previous post is not ideal. It will still leave the question open about the other possible Low IGT categories. Although it would be fine if we arbitrarily decide to not count them, and only focus on the main ways to play Low IGT stuff. And, taking account of what amoser said, we could revert it back to how it originally was, a difficulty variable where all Low IGT runs are (again, a very reckless decision on my part). I do not see why though someone wouldn't want to play on hard and Support mode on. Making fun of it. Regardless, it's not like they programmed that hard mode automatically disables it.

That, or the second idea, which we would couple by tracking these extremely specific types of runs at least unofficially. But I would still find relevance in allowing people to use pause warping in normal runs, at least specifically the five known usages. Barring people off such tricks by requiring them to play on Low IGT does not do it for me.

I'm sorry if my last post made you feel worried about me. I am very sound and good. I'm very enthusiast and expressive about this subject, but I may for sure be looking at it too seriously with the wrong lenses. It really doesn't look simple the way I see it, perhaps because it's not just a discussion about the game, but also about speedrunning fundamentals, and approaches with managing leaderboards. And I didn't always help it very much given my mistakes.

Anyways, we have two new solutions I'm fine with. I do have a preference, the simpler one, but that's just one voice.

Only saw your comments now. Src notification feature is currently heavily desynchronised

I'm sorry for what's to come.

traccsuichi : yes, though they might be possible using pause warping as well.

I think there would also be two other uses :

• Mostly your idea but with tweaks : Play on normal to have an one second of invulnerability, use it to be faster by damage-bouncing on many enemies, and pause warp at the next checkpoint to refill your limited health.

• Much like it is used in og DtP extra ILs, if you throw an enemy at a clock, but die before it, the timer would stop earlier than anything having to do with pause warping. Possible uses would be insanely uncommon, and still small time-saves, but they're here.

NoobKillerRoof : I am not sure I get what you mean, there is an IL page for all the extras of the games, namely Balue's Tower, Chamber o'Fun, Chamber o'Horror.

It might prove to be a bit too late to reconsider a complete revamp of the difficulty category design. I assumed it was very obvious that playing the game on one specific difficulty would yield distinct speedruns, hence why I suggested it first. A ton of other games do this, and in fact, I might dare say this is the common approach. I'm not familiar with the game you cite as an example. I assume that there, being able to change the difficulty in the run yields big time-saves. But as far as KPRS goes, it doesn't seem to give much difference. You'd probably play the game on easy most of the time. Or, considering the difficulty irrelevant exclusive strats, you would need to both be extremely good at the game, and have very calculated routing to be able to save time more than you normally would by just playing the game better.

But I will say this. Given the way the board is currently set (which I did totally not change on a whim one time), it would seem like we can add a 4th difficulty option, which is the one where the difficulty setting wouldn't matter. Yes, I know, Low IGT was like this. Except that then you couldn't do a Low IGT run playing only one difficulty. Accessibility problem is the same. And yes, it will also restore the 4 difficulty tabs unfolding button issue... you know, the one I was obstinate on solving in the first place. But I guess it's not a fault of the design, solely src limitations. No point fighting through it. Not like it's a huge deal

Since changing difficulty would imply pause warping, we have no choice but to allow the broken move. (How else would you be supposed to change difficulty ? I guess between levels. If that's a thing, I'm not exactly sure ? If true, there would be another choice to make, whether or not we enforce players to change difficulty only at the map screen. Or, just add a 5th diffculty variable for that stuff).

Given the way the rules are currently set up, in the case of full-game runs, playing difficulty irrelevant runs it would seem to be the same as doing Pause abuse runs. But remember that this gameplay mode is not exclusively about pause warping. It's also about abusing the pause mechanic itself, like pausing the entire run, anticipating what's happening next, setting up tricks... It's just that this isn't regulated yet for full-game runs but it is planned to be in the future, and only for top runs (which is ulimately where those speedruns are truly gonna thrive). So, these variable would still indicate that something is slightly different about the run.

I know that adding this extra difficulty variable would raise eyebrows. With such a big variety of ways to play the game, there's bound to be some that will never ever get played. It's a waste of space, the board needs space optimisation, some could say. Yes. But it already was like so. There currently are categories that likely wouldn't ever get played regardless of this change. Really negligible stuff like using support mode with a boss that makes it not particularly useful to have (Pamela, Polonte). Or, impossible categories like 100% for bosses. In the end it's more about what people ultimately feel like running. And at least, if we do add this, no one will be able to complain that we can't do x or y like you seem to. Every way to play the game will be possible.

...Well, turns out that not at all actually. Cause what if you want to abuse the pause button, but not use any pause warping ? And what about the reverse ? Well first, because it was a convention. Both were considered to go by hand. More concerning yet, trying to make room for them would most likely put a lot of stress on the design of the leaderboard. And, listen. I think this is going too far. We can't allow every running possibilities, without making the board be very convoluted and the rules be super heavy and technical, puzzling people. I'll remind you that Low IGT stuff is still not exactly like speedrunning, since you can just pause the entire run, and plan your next course of actions in advance without any penalties. If we had felt like so from the beginning, we could have very well banned any form of Low IGT runs, and leave other people to keep track of such runs outside src. Haru didn't consider Low IGT as proper speedruns and I would tend to agree. In the end, I did suggest trying to implement them, as I thought it wasn't very complicated. But that seems to grow more and more untrue in retrospect. Unfortuntely, if it means we have to turn the leaderboard into a chimera of two opposed ways to speed through the game... we might have to go back to the fundamentals. Now, in order to keep this leaderboard in good shape, we should try to stick only with the most relevant bits of Low IGT. Which at the maximum limit, would be to add a 4th difficulty variable, called "irrelevant". The rules would be easy to update with.

That. Orrrrrr...... (and as another reminder) : we could allow exclusive pause warping uses to non-pause abuse categories, if we take the time to discuss them. I'm pretty sure everyone would be okay with them. I am confident as well it would put any other Low IGT based categories that do more than just sniping clocks and teleporting to them, out of business instantly. Despite the bunch of Low IGT oriented runs that there exist, I have yet to see any player do anything beyond just this one trick. These runs, Low IGT wise, cannot seem to be more bare-bones than this. Maybe that's just a tell this is only what most players are most comfortable with. If we do that, it will also massively simplify the leaderboard. Moreover, we may stop caring about anything pause related, as it's really insignificant, and is a way too specific of a playstyle, only catering to top players for any real results. And difficulty irrelevant stuff too, for these reasons, and also since it's already quite a sketchy way to play the game.

Final word. Maybe. We can't have anything. If we do anyways, the board will become an ugly and unreadable mess, with tons of rule text explaining every little things, quirks, and caveats so the player can technically make the good submission choice, but they will in reality most likely be totally overwhelmed (and honestly, mods themselves might as well). So we can't. We have to make choices to exclude certain ways to play the game. Even if some are technically possible, it always returns back to this question : do we need it ? Is it relevant to add ? Will people play it ?

Before we bring any changes to low IGT runs, I request that a choice needs to be made between :

• adding that 4th difficulty category (let's just call it "irrelevant") and stopping on expanding the leaderboard with too specific categories in the future (maybe excepted no skips/glitchless stuff, but then maybe not)

• completely disregarding pause abuse/pause warping/Low IGT runs, and focus on the proven to be more relevant categories and actual speedrun-like gameplay, only by allowing pause warping tricks to be used in a couple places that actually feel like they save time and are fast in the run (as opposed to spending 8 real-life seconds to save fractions of one, or change difficulty levels during the run, which saves really negligible time that again only truly matter at extreme top play).

I'm not sure a lot of people will understand the intricacies of this as I'm trying to illustrate them. This is all maddening hell. What is anyone expected to be able to do with such a game like that ? Even if I hadn't personally been adamant on regulating regular pausing abuse, pause warping would still have been found, and changed the game forever, forcing us to do something about it. That time is now, and I hate to say it.

Decided to go ahead and add a 4th variable based category distinction called Pause abuse.

" Pause abuse is a way to play the game that is defined as abusing the pause function of the game and using the pause warping technique. Not to be mistaken with death warping, which is always allowed.

For full-game runs, for now, only select it if your run use the pause warping technique. For ILs, select it if you pause and/or use the pause warping technique during the run. "

I was really annoyed to have to click on the unfolding button every time to have access to the difficulties, so I decided to finally move Low IGT out of the way and redefine it in a way that runs can still be submitted playing the "Low IGT" way, but that the leaderboard now is a bit clearer.

As such, the rules were also slightly tweaked, and I believe word count wise they are a bit shorter than they used to be.

Right now, these runs are fully operational, "Low IGT" runs can be clearly categorized depending on their difficulties. "Low IGT" like runs are even possible on ILs now ! The only thing runners currently can't perform at the moment are runs where you change difficulties during them. But we'd need to see if this type of run would amount to anything different first.

Obviously, all pending and verified runs have been updated with this.

[Tweaked the writing :

" Pause abuse is a way to play the game that is defined as abusing the pause function of the game and using the pause warping technique. It is much akin to Low IGT. Not to be mistaken with death warping, which is always allowed. Bear in mind this is not a fully established category, and that these rules may change.

• For full-game runs, for now, only select it if your run use the pause warping technique.
• For ILs, select it if you pause and/or use the pause warping technique during the run. " ]

Added 100% to full-game runs.

But writing it, I have come to notice two concerns.

• On DtP, as we start on a new save-file, you have no choice but to beat Nahatomb first. But on L'sV, you have full choice over what you want to beat next, between the two extras, and the King of Sorrow. You could do extra 2, then KoS, then extra 1 for instance. Furthermore, if you were to force people to beat the final boss first like in the first remaster, they would have to wait for the long credits cutscene, therefore making it annoying. So, may I suggest that we allow this slight wriggle room for L'sV ? It doesn't affect the times.

• In any%, when you accidentally enter a stage again, the IGT continues and you suffer a time-loss as a result of having to exit it. But, after the final boss is defeated, the timer does NOT continue in the normal stages. This affect both games.

What does this imply ? Well, first of all, that measurement becomes impossible after you defeat the final boss, outside of the extras. Meaning New game + based runs are basically impossible.

Second, it means that, if we define the final time of 100% as the addition of the full-game time (final time during the final boss) + the extra stage times, that people could intentionally beat the stages quicker than normal, almost as if they were on any%, then beat the final boss, then go back in each stages to 100% them without having their IGT time be raised by any digit whatsoever.

Obviously, that is extremely cheesy to do and wouldn't be greeted warmly. But even then, if say, some runner beat the final boss, then realize they actually missed some piece somewhere, and go back to the stage to complete it again (instead of resetting the run altogether), the time spent during that stage won't be counted even though it's part of the global 100% time.

So it's sad to say, but I think it is necessary that we enforce runners to 100% the main stages before beating the final boss, as otherwise the run cannot be timed and would thus be unacceptable. Extra stages are separate and unaffected.

Well, good news, you can skip the KPRS DtP ending cutscenes + credit in the blink of an eye :

So, DtP could have the player start on a new save-file, beat the game, skip the cutscenes, and finally beat the extra. L'sV, on the other hand, still on a new save-file, would get to play the extras before the final boss. As otherwise, skipping the final cutscenes isn't possible and people would have to wait minutes (why)

Both are different enough that we may still require adequate text for each of them, but at least, we can seem to be able to start on a new save-file for both. Hurray

Well, in L'sV you've still got to beat the second extra to have access to the music box (something something barbarian organ), and get all the gems to have access to the final artwork. In DtP, there's no such things, only a bonus sprite on the world map.

People often aren't sure if getting the gems is part of 100% or an optional challenge. But given the game is clearly programmed to recognise scores, that you get a different gem texture for 150, that it is abudantly clear there are 150 per stages, and that it may be argued that getting all of them show mastery of the game, I think they shouldn't be brushed off.

I should mention that there could completely be a speedrun where you get and beat all of the stages of a given game. One where you only get to focus on the permanent collectibles, and not the dreamstones. Obviously, the rules we decide for 100% would henceforth apply to it, since they're virtually the same.

But in other pressing news, in my previous post I had claimed that the ending cutscenes could be skipped. Well, how happy was I to learn the opposite ! It is apparently not possible on L'sV. This is not a big problem since you can still get to play all the stages before beating the King of Sorrow, and that from a new save-file. ...But what if you could not skip the DtP ones ? You cannot access Balue's Tower before beating the game. So if that were to be true, would we still require people to wait through the absurdly extremely long ending cutscene of that game ? Now, that still wouldn't be much of a problem if you could still fast forward through them. But is that possible ?

The answers to these questions are unknown, and we cannot really advance without them. Depending on the results, it might be necessary to have slightly different rules for each games. Which isn't a bad or problematic thing for say, but for sure regrettable.

Since some people seem interested on the matter, let's begin talk on adding the 100% category for full-game runs.

To begin with, what would be 100% ? Well, probably about beating the game while grabbing all dreamstones and collectibles (phantomilians, Mommet doll pieces), implying you need to unlock and beat the extras.

How would the run look like ?

Well, we could have the player begin on a new save-file, just like in any%, then beat the game while getting all dreamstones and phantomilians in the process. After getting past the credits (which doesn't take a lot of time thanks to competently designed cutscene skipping and fast-forwarding, and the timer being continuously paused), the player goes to the extra to 100% it and finish the run. ...Or, is that the only way to see it ?

Another approach would be to play on a beaten save-file with no phantomilians saved. That way, we can skip having to go through the ending cutscenes, by playing the extra(s) first and then the final boss.

While this would be a big deal if not a dealbreaker in the older games like DtP, here the gain is kinda negligible. It would also be annoying to setup, whereas with the first approach you just create a save-file and the run can begin. Another small negative side effect, would be that the timer cannot start at zero. Indeed, the timer is always active and running in the background, even if you never toggle it once in one specific save-file. So, toggling it again will have the timer start on some count, but not zero () It's not much, it might simply require doing an additional calculation to determine the IGT time, subtracting the final end time with the beginning time of the run. But the biggest annoyance is obviously having to actually set up the save-file.

So the first one really seems like the best. Or so I personally think.

Either way, what we can't avoid talking about next are the timed extra stages. Indeed, their timer work in milliseconds which is not directly compatible with IGT timing that are in seconds. Not only that, but the in-game timer simply doesn't display during them, only the special incorporated time-attack one. How may we proceed ?

I don't see many solutions, but it seems easiest to simply add the time of the extra in seconds, to the final IGT. In L'sV, there are two extra stages, so you would need to check if adding their two milliseconds counts would make a second. It is annoying because of the obvious lack of accuracy. But given the length of 100% runs, is a second truly relevant ?

Is there anything else I'm missing ?

[Edit : I effectively forgot to talk about the subject of the dreamstones count. Are we allowed to collect more than 150 ? Do we strictly need to get 150 ? Do we allow fairy exploits ?

Personally, as long as 150 dreamstones are reached, the amount that usually amounts to something special in both games, I don't see why someone couldn't get the amount they want. Fairy exploits are extremely complicated to route in the stage, and usually won't save much time, it's therefore limited to top play. Besides, it would make odd scores such as the Kingdom of Sorrow 153, and Empty Sea of Tears 154 extremely annoying to deal with. In these stages, you can get beyond the 150 ds amount with them extremely easily and unconsciously, even during casual play. Enforcing a 150 limit would be stupidly hindering the gameplay. So, I'd personally favor getting at least 150 per stages.]

Re-added Low IGT, it turns out that it had a bit more activity despite the apparently lacking submissions. Now these runs have a place - not a perfect one - and that they will easier to manage in the future.

It is more like a temporal category slot than something official, and it will mostly be updated once we get to discuss Low IGT and more in greater details.

The leaderboard is now open. Thank you very much for your patience.

Rules have been tweaked, board design altered, staff added, IGT stuff indefinitely removed.

Let's finally enjoy ourselves.

100% isn't a thing for full-game runs just yet, but if people are currently interested, they can start discussing it here. We would need to discuss and make clear exactly how we would envision that speedrun to be like, and how to go about timing it, even if some of this has been discussed already.

In the close future, we might consider new categories, particular changes and such, though it will depend on the player activity at that time.

Now, we will get to work with verifying the runs. Do not forget that PC players have to meet the 60 FPS + counter requirements. Unfortunately, it means that some of the pending runs will become unacceptable as a result. Though only leaderboard-wise. Not in our hearts. Make sure to ask for help with setting this up. Either in new threads or in the server.

Well, removing a staff member would probably be considered if they were to not be much responsive and helpful anymore, despite new submissions pouring in, or when being prompted for help. So in that side, it would check itself off. Of course, people can also tell us that they want to stop.

If it gets hardly manageable, we may add more people in haste. It would take some additional time to instruct those people, but most likely not much. And I guess that in this case it would be alright if they are not really experienced with the games. Technically, I've watched and reviewed lots of Klonoa speedruns despite not having any expertise in them (Wii, L'sV, EoD, DCT, KBV...), so...

A significant portion of the runs are short ILs, so clearing the submissions may also not take as long as planned. But it still should be taken seriously

I appreciate your input.

Your times doesn't seem to be bad at all, which is surprising since you're a brand new speedrunner. There seems to not be many easy standard mode full-game speedruns out there, however, so it's hard to judge at what time ranges one could be considered proficient at the game/category.

But most importantly, and this is what I was referring to when saying that it was probably a bit too early to conduct recruitment of brand new staff people : It is true that - at least to my eye - you have definitely been present since you've joined, some time after the game came out. But, when someone first begins a given speedgame, there's no tell as to how much time they will continue to run it. They may very well choose to move on to another game, for instance in the span of two months. And, this is particularly unpredictable in your case, understandably so as you've just joined this enormous and vast gaming culture. Where every single games are their own stories. While that is perfectly valid to change games, you'd agree with me that it doesn't make much sense to consider adding a person that possibly doesn't plan on staying. In general, I'd rather have people in charge that have shown to be around and alive for extended periods of time. And that, we can only get to know as time goes on. So, I think that for a while, it's probably for the better that you don't worry too much about this side of speedrunning, and reroute your time and effort on having fun running and interacting with other players. Slowly gaining speedrunning experience and maturity in the process. Sorry for the disappointment. But I'm still happy you replied.

In the end, I think that proposal was not very well thought out, since it doesn't concern a lot of people to begin with, especially this early on in this game's life, where we can't even really say that history has begun. I think it would have been better to wait at the very least a couple weeks past the opening day, that the run landscape and player activity evolves, that some runners rise out of this, as mid to long term game residents of sorts.

For all we know, the five of us may also be enough to handle the continuous pouring and stacking of submissions without much issue and stress. And that's with me considering that all of us would watch all of the runs fully, which is a very optimistic assumption that will most likely not happen in practice. Which is fine anyways, because it's by no means an obligation and it would be very strict otherwise (and hard to police). But if this still appears to not be enough, we may have to proceed differenly. Regardless, it will take time to get rid of the 75 or so now-pending submissions, but I'm sure unclogging it will get done in less time than it took to set up the leaderboard. Lol

I suggest that we add Neko as moderator, since he's working on running both games, is very good, and would like to become more involved with the leaderboard and moderation side of the game, something I believe he didn't have much opportunity before.

For verifiers, I'd propose we add BobbyKaze. Even not taking account of his past whereabouts, he's very present and active, a efficient game-breaker, interested in probably about anything. He could most certainly at the very least help us with verifying runs. Amoser also proposed himself (albeit in the non-public run reviewer channel) to help with the reviews of this game, and although he hasn't necessarily done a ton with the game, he's still interested in it, has helped with discussion, and is reliable as proven in other games.

I also think I'd be fine with taking brand new people as well. Wouldn't want to always reuse the same people and make these positions effectively unreachable to rising newcomers. Besides, bringing in some fresh air is always good and more fun. So, I think that the requirements would ask applicants to show/have shown interest and investment in the game, are at least decently good at it (enough that they understand what's going on in a run, and perhaps grasp their pace), and being active in the community. And obviously, free-time. This is voluntary work. Additionally, the person would be required to be present on the Discord server. This is necessary as long as you have at least a position in one of the Klonoa boards.

If anyone is interested and think they fit these requirements, please don't hesitate.

This might be a bit early to announce, but I think it doesn't hurt. I'm much less sure if this is how you'd properly handle these things, but at least I tried.

Once the board is open, we will probably review the earliest submissions first, and slowly climb up time. There currently are 72 pending submissions.

I wouldn't want to force a resolve to this issue, Haru, especially if you were planning something for it.

But it seems that most if not everyone who expressed their opinions on the Discord, seems okay with leaving it be. For mostly the same reasons as my post : accessibility for PC, minor to insignificant advantage, and a absolute pain to police. And not really cheating.

In other news, I believe I have mostly finished planning the rules and leaderboard changes once we are good with opening it. Which will probably be around friday or saturday, just to allow a tiny more dialogue.

As for moderators and reviewers, I and Haru will clearly not be enough for the massive workload, so we will need more people. I will expand on what we could do later.

I thought most people were fine the way I suggested it, though no one really commented on it

To be perfectly honest, I know absolutely nothing about this stuff, and I'm not qualified to help with anything related. In fact I'd have to be taught.

I don't know if Steam has functions like that, I don't even know exactly how you're normally supposed to play 2 player mode on PC if let's say there were two people. If you even can in a easy, official way. Lots of ifs. It should be obvious that using scripts, turbo and macros are banned. Makes a significant difference on the run when it should normally be off-human-limits, and console can't use them. Abiding by this, using external other softwares may be considered fine. Besides, it's not like we can make sure of it without explicit proof.

I am lost at the mention of a converter. What is it, and why do you think it is more reliable than an input display ?

I am not sure what you mean by item and input indicator. If you mean a variable, yes it is possible. We would simply need that we define the possible situations that the variable can track. Which is hard for me to picture since I don't know how the process visually looks like on PC, so I don't know what could be the best English terms.

I always felt that this subject wasn't of much importance, especially because it only concerns PC players, which have it completely differently with input devices anyways (they have access to many different controllers, and keyboard =/= other input devices). It remains true however that it doesn't hurt to add a variable about this, even if I lack knowledge over this subject to understand its relevancy, and that I wonder if knowing that people bind controllers for Support Mode will ever actually become meaningful to know.

Anyways, that is something I will probably leave up to you to manage Haru, and for the people to discuss, while I try to follow your tracks. Though, please keep in mind that if it gets too complicated, or imply additional regulations to the like of the FPS situation - which is already complicated enough, as every computers are different and need trial and error solutions to play comfortably in 60 fps play - I think it would be best that we simply drop this issue altogether. It's really not that important in my opinion.

As for the leaderboard making progress, I don't think it should be delayed for the sake of this inquiry. It can be added as we go.

That all I know to say

Added all stage ILs for the time being. They're not open yet but it doesn't hurt to add.

I felt that laying them out in their order of appearance fitted the most. Also, stage ILs shouldn't include bosses, because those have reserved slots in boss time-attack. And it would defeat the purpose of helping with comparing stage portions between IL and full-game runs

Edit : I have just realized that in the IL overwiew page, some of the verified submissions do not appear to show up. After further inspection, it does only seem to display times that are made on the first category distinction of each variable (so, Standard Mode and Easy). I'm afraid there's not gonna be much we can do. Even if we only kept the difficulties variables around, the problem would be the same. Sucks, but manageable.