Forgive me if this is silly to mention. I am new to Noita speedrunning. This thread is interesting to me especially as a lifelong programmer because there is no way to guarantee the mod is what you say it is when you show the mod list at the end of the game. You can also say the same for the currently approved mods (seed changer), unless there is a detection method you guys are using that I'm not aware of? You'd need to show the mod folder itself and hash the mods if you really want perfect detection, but that doesn't seem to be in anyone's best interest and doesn't seem necessary now.

Anyway, my (maybe dumb) thought was to have a new category for acceleration-less? Similar to the current teleportless and low%. What was the reasoning for not going that direction with this decision?

I personally have 0 interest in resetting over and over for acceleration or any other flask. I'm more interested in speedrunning this game because of the quick decision-making in the dungeon itself. Having a category purely for reacting to the dungeon can be interesting but you'd run into the same situation eventually where you'd be resetting until you get black hole angry ghost. I think it would take a really long time for random seeds + no acceleration to get to that point, but that's just a guess from me...

@Kermalis To respond, yes, there currently don't exist any measures against foul play aside from some surface-level ones such as showing mods menu after the game. These mods can easily be made to look as something allowed while not being such at all.

There was a lack of consensus reached as to what to do and how to implement the mod in question, if at all. Options that were considered: 1) Raw implementation as an allowed mod everywhere - which understandably caused some discord due to being quite impactful as well as previous notes about abuse. 2) As a FSR category/sub-category which would work like the 15/14/12 bosses division in the All bosses category, but ultimately none were implemented, due to aforementioned points. Many share the opinion of fatigue from constant resets and a world with some form of acceleration-only-start category/division or acceleration-less etc. could go a long way for the enjoyment of the people.

Just adding that I'd also love if a mod like that was allowed. I speedrun for fun occasionally and I gave up on restarting for accel, it's just not fun. Would do it way more if we could use the mod (as Yolk said, other mods can't be "safe" either), or if we at least had a no-accel no-poly category.

It's also worth noting by the way, there is no practical reason to be concerned about modifying mods to do more than they say they're supposed to. Modifying data.wak is very easy, the game gives you tools to package mods right into it directly, you only need noita.exe and notepad to change the rules of Noita as you please. Something like modifying the weights of some useful perks or spells would be essentially undetectable without lots of footage and statistical evidence, a la the Dream incident, which is basically impossible to enforce. I will say that I gave up trying to get the seeded any% WR specifically because chaotic polymorphine grinding was one of the more soul-draining experiences of my life, and while it has considerably worse odds than acceleratium, making concessions in true randomness in order to make speedrunning actually fun is a reasonable path to take imho.

I signed up just to say: please allow accel mode so Yolk and HP don't have to reset for ages to get acceleratium, PLEEEEASE! :D

After lengthy discussions, we have decided to allow the "Acceleratium Starts Only" mod as an exception to the rule below.

Mods are allowed as long as they provide no gameplay advantage or disadvantage

The fatigue and annoyance with long sessions of repeatedly pressing New Game has led to a significant dissatisfaction with the act of speedrunning in Noita. Therefore, taking everything in this discussion into consideration, as well as the similitude of the present situation to many other games' speedrunner communities, a decision was made to allow the mod for use.

It will work as follows:

• It's allowed in every category.
• During the submission process you'll be prompted with the option of selecting a Yes/No answer to the usage of said mod, the default being "No".
• You will still need to show mods at some point in the submission.
• And finally, runs affected with this mod will share leaderboards with the old submissions. This may seem weird at first glance, however the game at the base is still the same, and the same results may be reached without it. Moreover, if, let's say we split the boards in half like we did with 1.0, it would simply result in a whole section of redundant submissions, as no sane individual will be playing without the mod from here on.

Happy speedrunning!