Will there ever be a category that is more accessible to casual players than the ones that currently exist? For example, a no-glitch category which bans things like:
- Glitch exploits (bypassing walls, swimming in air)
- Sequence-breaking techniques (trampolining off enemies, wall-scraping for extra flight distance)
- Frame-perfect or near-frame-perfect techniques (such as bandit insta-takeout) I think this kind of category would be fun for a lot of people. Am I out to lunch on this?
What's stopping you from developing your own? Would love to see your own attempt first, and see if others join. However, arguments like banning frame-perfect techniques that aren't really glitches is a hard thing to enforce.
Max completion categories already are fairly glitchless for a majority of runners (maybe with spyro 2 as the main exception). Start with one of those if you're less interested in the glitch side of speedrunning.
Sure anyone can run any category without glitches, exploits, & ultra-precise techniques, but it's impossible to be even remotely competitive without doing them. What I was getting at is that a category that removes these very hard to pull off tricks might be far less intimidating for most players to take a swing at, allowing them to achieve decent-ish times for the category.
For example, making the long glide in Icy Peak (essentially skipping the level) or the level skipping glide in Cloud Spires are the kinds of things that require a very high level of precision, and most players can't pull them off with any consistency.
Theres simply less demand for these kinds of categories, otherwise more runners would be doing them. Theres nothing stopping any runner from doing these runs with those restrictions in mind.
Adding restrictions only hinders creativity and routing in runs, which honestly creates an even bigger barrier to entry as top level runners would have the best tools for movement and routing compared to new runners, and that divide between the top and bottom would still be relatively present, regardless of tricks being removed. It's just less fun also.
Regardless of whether glitches are allowed, becoming “remotely competitive” in any category actually has almost nothing to do with glitches. The world record holders can usually still destroy even most decent runners without doing any glitches. So for that reason, glitchless categories aren’t actually any more “accessible” than other categories, especially considering what has already been said: that glitches are never required.
Also, in the Spyro trilogy as a whole, it is objectively impossible to define what constitutes glitches in a way that a whole community can agree on. I hate to just say it like, “don’t even try to push for this, buddy it’s not going to work”. But there’s honestly not really a way the community of these games could effectively make it so.
I agree tho, wish more people would run categories with more glitch restrictions, mostly for the appeal of new routing and strat exploration. The thing is, people still can, they just don’t.
On the same topic, I want to optimise Spyro 3 any% without any proxies. This restriction actually makes the end game skip into sorceress even less accessible than the current strategy of helmet proxy. More restrictions does not always mean “easier”, it can often do the exact opposite.
In my opinion, it'd like saying piano is inaccessible because in order to play difficult pieces well, it requires you to learn tons of precise techniques. However, if you want to just learn some easier songs, have fun, and enjoy playing it, that's absolutely an option. and very accessible.
The same can be applied to speedrunning by learning easier routes, not doing glitches, etc. Just because tippy top level times are inaccessible to those who don't learn the hardest strategies, doesn't mean the categories themself are inaccessible as a result of that.
Like fady and hop are saying, even really good times are accessible to those who learn the easier routes/less trick heavy routes, with enough practice.
Accessibility shouldn't be based on how difficult optional strategies are imo
Ok, I get what you're saying. But from my perspective there's no way I'd put time into playing something where I'd have to restart every time I'd miss an ultra-precise trick. Zero enjoyment in that whatsoever. And I very much doubt I'm the only one who feels this way.
The other thing is too, when doing things like bypassing walls or exploiting the swimming glitch, it feels like you're not even playing the game that the devs made, in the way they intended it to be played, but instead playing some bizarre distorted version of the game. (Just my opinion.)
Then do a speedrun where you don't do any "glitches" or "ultra-precise" tricks. Runs like 100 egg have less glitches so you can start there. You could even go to the category extension board and try any% ILE (intended level entries) which have even less "glitches". But you can just do runs without the glitches and have fun that way. Yeah it may not be a competitive time, but speedrunning is about beating your own time. Plus, once you practice a bit a lot of the "ultra-precise" tricks become very much not "ultra-precise", as do any tricks in any speedrunning category for any game. I would honestly just give it a shot and ask for advice from other runners on how to do some of the tricks, if you plan to do tricks at all, and see how you like the run.
The main issue that will probably always keep us from having a glitchless leaderboard here is the difficulty of defining what qualifies as a glitch. There are some obvious restrictions that would be made, but the finer details are contended.
I did some glitchless runs of Spyro 3 Any% last year with a relatively strict ruleset. You can compare to those attempts and look at my routes if you'd like to. I outlined the rules I used for the run in the description of my PB video.
Thanks for sharing that video. Now I definitely see your point about people disagreeing on what's a glitch and what's not.
