I'm investigating a "glitchless" route that doesn't dupe items or cheese Drake. Basically requires using Freeze on Drake and using more computers/Arena fights to make up for lost nuyen.
I’d be interested in this, I did some practice towards the start of this year with a view to submitting my own run, but never quite got there. It’s definitely a more interesting route than duping the items, and not substantially longer.
"Glitchless" might not be the right name, as was pointed out by Jiseed. He pointed out it was hard to ban the Drake cheese without banning cheeky Arena AI exploits, which is hard.
My goal is to create a category that new players can learn and practice without having to execute frame-perfect glitches or stand in that miracle spot with Drake. Arena AI is both easier to learn and critical to any route where you're not breaking the economy. So rather than change the rules to match the name, I'm more interested in changing the name to match the rules.
The category I'm looking for would ban: -Any menu glitching, meaning both the weapon/armor duping and grenade duping -Beating Drake by positioning Steelflight near the door to draw his fire -Beating Drake by standing in the small area where you can attack him freely without his using fire
but would allow -Use of "turns red" strats for Arena fights -Queuing up multiple instances of "credstick" and "stake."
The things that are banned are the breaking of the game economy and the cheesing of the main boss of the game, so I like the definition "no major exploits." While the credstick and stake queuing looks weird and is likely not intended, it's not game-breaking and wouldn't likely be patched out. Meanwhile, the Arena AI was programmed in, so it could hardly be called unintentional. More, the allowed strats are accessible to new players, while the Drake strategies are difficult to execute and can end a run if failed, and the duping is very difficult.
Let me know what y'all think about this.
Seven months ago, @glitchedDoku asked what kind of time I'd expect/aim for on this category.
Turns out, the right answer is "just under 80 minutes."
Very belated reply, but I think those rules are about spot-on — well done on the run, I’ll take a look at it soon!
