Me and Krazyd4n are currently running with music in order to don't have splitted categories, and reading all the opinions I think the most healthy decision for the leaderboard is to ban no music.

I got my values comparing Krazyd4n's run with one of my music pb's. There's more details to get the estimate I got, the very first turn in the mission doesn't add time, as well as the last turn when there's a country theme at the end (Liberation for example plays the orange star theme no matter your music option).

Here are some of the results comparing runs (on the music tab): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/17YL6W3hUKIu-hRNfSylQy49HxIckni9g6Yeq9jYZWms

Loading time with music on at the beginning of each turn is 30 frames average, but varies randomly between 24 and 40 frames. Then long turns time difference due to enemy unit movement seems extremely inconsistent, on Foul play for instance turns can randomly go from 50 frames up to 110+ frames. This makes so it's unreliable to fairly compare runs with and without music.

This is why I suggested banning no music after adding a certain amount of time to the runs that already have no music, just so we have them on the same leaderboard for historical reasons, the time added can range from 4 to 5 minutes I think. I could calculate the exact difference but that would take some time, cuz it means analysing every single turn in the run.

It might be seen by a lot of people as "not fun", but for a lot of runners speedrunning a game/category usually means a lot of fun, most top runners really enjoy the categories they grind.

I particularly enjoy playing this game with music, and I'll keep grinding 'music any%' cuz I can't enjoy 'no music'. I only got the record as an statement to show how much time 'no music' saves and to make the discussion more visible, but I think playing without music was such a dull grind, I can't imagine expending a competitive amount of time in such a boring endeavor.

Update on Music On/Off research.

I've been doing more research comparing different runs and testing with frame counter on emulator. It seems that music off not only saves time at the beginning of turns (when the music loads) but also saves some loading time when the enemy moves their units. This is barely noticiable on short missions with small maps and few units, but it becomes massive on bigger maps with a lot of enemy units. The big differences start being important around Foul Play, where enemy turns save between 1 and 2 seconds without music, this of course adds up quickly considering the amount of big missions and enemy turns.

With all this the previous 4 minute estimation should go up to 5 or even 6 minutes. I have two takes on what to do about this depending on whether we want to split categories or not.

1. Split Any% into Music On and Music Off: This is the easiest solution in general, but is always a shame to make splits in a game with a small community, is also sort of detrimental for future competition, since is difficult to compare runs On/Off that are basically doing the same strats (nothing changes apart from loading times, there's no difference in tech or skill on both categories).

2. Add music loading time to Krazyd4n's run (1:19:58) and my last pb (1:19:56), then ban No Music on the leaderboard for future runs. This solution makes it so all competition on a small community remains healthier, and still keeps the spirit of respecting the solid run that has been record for so long before any discussion was made. Of course we would need to agree on what time we should add, which is definitely complicated.

I just got a 1:24:24 with music on, this time is considerably close to the wr if you discount the 4 minutes of turning the music off. While this game isn't "competitive" in the sense of we don't have a lot of runners, and also most runs are from many years ago, it still has a healthy amount of development (moreso than a lot of other games when I started them), I ran this game just enough to know that both Krazydan and Werster runs are solid in terms of execution and luck grinding, wr even has 1st try on A LOT of luck rolls, which is something you don't just get by doing a couple attempts. I run games that are on the 2 hours+ mark where even just a 1 minute timesave will completely break a category, these are also games where I'm literally the only active runner. 4 minutes is A LOT on this run, is more than retrying all the save and load levels several times, is more than a lot of entire missions.

I'll also emphasize that the 'music off' options doesn't actually put the whole game silent, you'll still hear the overworld map music, the victory and results music, as well as the countries themes and credits music. This makes is particularly hard to put you own preferred music on top of gameplay, or even just listen to the soundtrack of the game on loop.

Hi there, I've been running this game and documenting a lot of stuff regarding the speedrun.

It seems that using the "music Off" option (this mutes the music only inside of missions) saves a considerable amount of time. I calculated the timesave to be around 30 frames (0.5 seconds) per commander turn (that's when the music loads). This results in about a 3:55 to 4 minutes difference between having or not having music on.

I don't really know what we should do about this, I mostly want to open the discussion and get some opinions in the matter. I personally love playing with music and I find really boring to have silence for most of the run, its also not as easy to put random music on top of the run cuz the result screen and overworld music still plays with "music Off", which for me gives a lot of anxiety I get more than 1 song playing at the same time. Should we split categories? accept the silent meta? It also complicates things the fact that the 1st place already has music Off.

Hi there! I have two questions.

1 - Which emulators are allowed for runs?

2 - Are there any guides or tutorials for the run?

Glad it was useful ;D

Hi there! I'm a big fan of the FAITH series and yesterday (or today I guess?) I saw the Chapter II speedrun for the first time at AGDQ.

I got into the FAITH games after watching Vinny from vinesauce play the game, and during the run I noticed that runners don't take what looks like a faster path at one point (maybe about 5 seconds faster).

You can see the faster path here on Vinny's video:

Now, I'm not familiar at all with the tech of the run, so maybe that collision got patched or there's a reason runners take the longer path. In any case I wanted to share this in case is useful.

I added another autosplitter for SNES Individual Levels, made by @BigNoNo.

• It has been tested with snes9x 1.6. It can be expanded to other versions or emulators, but we would need help finding the pointers.
• Start function automatically starts the run when inputting a level password.
• Split function splits when you finish the level.
• Reset function resets the run when you go to the main menu (it also works if you're using a savestate for resets).
• It assumes you only use one split for your level.

An important note: The variable we use for the autosplitter actually starts the timer 2 cycles after our usual timing method. But, at the same time, it splits 1 cycle late. So, in order to get the exact time of your run, you must start your timer on -0.05 seconds if you want to use the autosplitter.

I created a leaderboard for 100% since we have a consistent ruleset and at least one run to put there.

The rules are the same as Any% plus:

• Kill every kind of hybrid at least once in order to unlock them in Survival.
• Learn every move that can be learnt (14 Punches, 20 Kicks, 40 Techs and 3 Reversals).

On other related news, I designed trackers for Any% and 100% (a friend helped me programming them). They're available now on the resources page: https://www.speedrun.com/hybrid_heaven/resources

These trackers are simple tools that help keep track of important items and techs in the case of 100%. I designed them to adjust to my streaming layout, but you can ask me for a different design or different assets if you provide them.

I added an autosplitter for the SNES version to the Resources page.

• It has been tested with snes9x 1.6. It can be expanded to other versions or emulators, but I would need help finding the pointers.
• Start function automatically starts the run when pressing New Game.
• Split function splits every level at the black screen.
• Reset function resets the run when you go to the main menu (it also works if you're using a savestate for resets).
• Needless to say, but you'll need a split for every level for this to give you the correct run time.

An important note: The variable I found to work best for the autosplitter actually starts the timer 1 cycle after our usual timing method. But, at the same time, it splits all levels also 1 cycle late (including the last level), which evens out and gives the correct splits and time for every level. I already tested this with edition software and the time is accurate.

The site was unable to recognize the IL runs after the variable change, so I ended up submitting all the runs again.

There's sadly a big chance I missed some of them, please message me if you don't see any of your runs in the leaderboards and I'll fix it immediatelly.

Thanks for the patience.

I added 2 new full game categories for SNES: Special Moves and Special Moves (1P2C).

I can eventually add Any% (1P2C) if anyone is willing to run that.

For now all the Norse by Norsewest platforms will be together in one category (Playstation, PC and Saturn). We can still split them in the future if runners or those platforms see fit.

I had to do some adjustments with variables here and there in order to have only one platform in Special Moves. This resulted in Individual Level runs not showing up for some reason. I'll wait until tomorrow to see if the page fixes this automatically, if not, then I guess I'll just submit every run again. IL runs won't be verified until this gets sorted out.

A couple days ago Freeze discovered that changing the Music and Sound options in the SNES version leads to lower loading times when starting levels from passwords.

I did some statistical analyses on console and emulator to see how much this would impact runs, you can see the results here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TerCoNwO5OSs2nQzOZ0EsjCt9G-j2_efFqSazNlQ8ng/edit?usp=sharing

Here are my notes in case you don't want to see the document:

• Every level can have 2~3 more frames of loading time because of frame input cycles
• Turning Sound OFF reduces loading time by 1 frame
• Turning Music OFF reduces loading time by 49 frames
• Sound and Music OFF add up on frames, reducing loading time by 50 frames
• Music can be turned OFF, then ON, and it'll still save 49 frames
• Two Players option doesn't seem to change loading time

Because of this issue, we decided to ban any manipulation of the Music and Sound options. For runs, they have to always be "ON", and also never be turned "OFF". This is very important because the Music option reduces loading times even if you turn it "ON" after turning it "OFF".

I decided to put milliseconds as optional for now in case we want to untie pb's eventually

Would anyone want milliseconds to be available for submissions on leaderboards?

I'm fine either way with milliseconds or just run ties with seconds precision, and it would probably just matter on individual levels.

Friendly reminder that this game has an autosplitter, which allows you to always start and end the run at the frames that the official timing method uses.

I did a 100% One alignment test run (skippable cutscenes) to add to the discussion. I copy my video description here:

"This is my first attemp of 100% One Alignment (skipping cutscenes and all that).

I had to go back for Pargon Codex on Paul. I also lost 9 or 10 minutes on the Restore for Alex End skip. There's a lot of sub-optimal movement and menus in the run but, on the other hand, I got modified Silver Skip and BG Skip first try, so still solid gameplay.

My criteria for 100% is getting all the things that remain in your pause menu until the end of the game, that is, until the last fight against Pious. This includes:

• All Runes, including Mantorok.
• All Codices.
• All Spell Scrolls.
• Enchanted Gladius.
• All possible Autopsies (Trapper, M. Zombie, Zombie, Horror, Bonethief and Guardian for One Alignment).
• The Mix and Mode options in the inventory.

There's a couple things that I'm still not entirely sure should be included or not, these are:

• Alex weapons: Normal Gladius, Revolver and Shotgun.
• Creating every single Spell (level 3, 5 and 7).
• Having all the Cinematics on the menu.

About the weapons: So far, Gladius and Revolver cannot be avoided on the route. The Shotgun, on the other hand, can be skipped since we finish Pious with the Enchanted Gladius. I'm indifferent to include the Shotgun, since it only takes a couple seconds.

About the Spells: We can beat the game without creating most of the different level spells. This is kind of a grey area, it only adds the bigger circle option in your spells. Creating every single spell is a lot of extra menu, but still not that big of a deal, just pretty annoying.

About the Cinematics: I personally think they shouldn't be mandatory, because the game gives you all the Cinematics of your current alignment once you beat Pious (you'll see all of them in the menu in your next playthrough if you carry the info, even the ones you skipped). Another important note in favor of not requiring them is that is actually impossible to get "The Eternal Darkness Prevails" before finishing the game, since you can't save after getting a Game Over."