NetherlandsI've very slightly altered the timing to the start of a run, as the previous method isn't actually verifiable. The timing is basically the same, just timed from a different spot a couple frames later.
Instead of "when you select the difficulty", it now goes backwards to the frame before the black screen you get immediately after selecting the difficulty. Negligible difference and avoids guesswork.
So I was recently shown a trick using Wang Yi's musou, which allows her to 'zip' through walls (the author calls it wall masturbation, lol). If you're familiar with the original zipping in DW8, it's pretty much the same. This version only works in certain areas, where you aerial musou into a wall from some height, causing Wang Yi to float in place, building up speed until she eventually teleports through.
You can zip both into a different part of the stage and far outside of it, but regardless, I feel it's clearly an out of bounds only trick. In contrast to, for example, a ledge clip, where you circumvent a one-way wall rather than the stage boundary itself.
For this reason, I have banned it from No OoB runs, which has relatively no impact as the stages Wang Yi appear in do not benefit from it (...currently), but it does affect Individual Level runs, if anyone cares for those.
If you perhaps feel zipping INSIDE a stage should be allowed, feel free to discuss.
Lastly, here's the trick in action: https://twitter.com/nobuyo4519/status/1531253116703633408
An observation for nobody that's interested: the UI disappearing time rule does affect timing in another way. Using the Wei Hypothetical final stage as an example, you have to kill Liu Bei before the "gates are open" dialogue ends (which can be tricky), otherwise you have to sit through his speech before the cutscene will play. Now, the catch is that the UI disappears as soon as you kill him, meaning it's only a half a second timeloss compared to ~10 second one.
I still think it's better this way, but it still seems kind of circumvent-y. Perhaps if there were a people to vote for reverting the rule, this would be why!
Just documenting.
Posting this for possible future changes and/or discussion. A while back I ran into a video (below) explaining Unload, a load remover. In short, it tries to exclude frames in which an image, for example the Loading... icon, is visible.
For 8XLCE it's slightly finicky, as the loading icon both pulses and fades through transitions. So, with a low similarity it leaves a few frames counted, and with high it could take too many (in addition to potential false positives). Very high similarity would be fine, but the main issue would be inconsistency between runs.
Just throwing it out there.
the video:
16 Oct 2021 End timing changed from last frame before the final cutscene (or black screen) to frame before the UI disappears. Changed because there are no more relevant inputs, only a wait that is not always consistent between runs and runners.
30 May 2022 Zipping has been disallowed from No OoB runs.
10 Jul 2022 Start timing changed from when you select the difficulty to the frame before the screen goes black upon selecting difficulty.
Never really expected anyone to run this.
From the start: kill Cao Jia, Zhao Zhong, Jian Shuo, Xia Yun. Now you have to wait for the dialogue from the messenger (My lord! Zhang Rang and some others...). During this you have to kill Hou Lan and the (3?) unit commanders around him. Following this, you should get dialogue from Hou Lan and Cheng Kuang, and then Lu Bu, which triggers the spawn. Kill Duan Gui and Zhang Rang. Dialogue from He Jin, Yuan Shao x3, Zhang Rang. Then kill them again.
It's been two years since I've ran this, but I checked and this should be right. If you need an example, you can use ShadeOfTyranny's WR run. It's not 100% consistent.
Be careful of hitting 300 kills as it gives extra dialogue.
Good luck.
Last time this was asked, I discussed it a bit with Tiffanyfruit. We both agreed that having it as a separate category would just crowd up the (empty) leaderboards even more than they already are.
However, it could possibly be a variable for all categories instead. I looked into it earlier and it can be done. Although this does seem to hide all runs unless you select a variable for NG+ (yes, no or any). Could be a side-effect of the runs not having it not set, but it's not a required parameter, so I don't know.
Not sure if it'd be a good idea regardless.
If you are low on health during Escuela of the Streets you can grab the health pack at the hospital you pass rather than at the start of the shoot out. It doesn't cost any time this way.
That discussion was before we figured out how it works.
The L4D2 leaderboards currently have no single chapter ILs, only campaigns.
