Recently several new skips have been discovered in Bastion, all centering around the ability to "store" menus to use at a later time. The purpose of this thread is to determine whether these tricks will be permitted or not permitted in our various categories, and whether or not new categories should be created. Even if you have previously shared your thoughts in the Discord, please repeat them here so we have a formal record.

WHAT IS MENU STORAGE?

Bastion's user interface does weird things if you perform two different interactions with it on the same frame. Most commonly, on the main menu you can mouse over the "Story" mode option and press Escape and Enter simultaneously. The Escape action causes the game to send you back to the splash screen, while the Enter action loads the Story mode menu. These events both occur, so that you now have two menus open. Other menus in the game may be stored (effectively, duplicated) using similar techniques.

TYPES OF MENU STORAGE

There are three known types of menu storage that are useful to speedruns:

Main menu storage: as described above, you can duplicate the main menu by pressing Escape and Enter simultaneously while mousing over the Story option. If you are able to select "Story" > "Continue" while already in the game, you will be sent back to your respawn point from wherever you are, with any progress you had made preserved. While you are in this state, the main menu completely covers the screen and you cannot see gameplay at all.

Main menu storage with no background: this involves a more complicated setup than normal main menu storage. Exit your game, duplicate the main menu, select "Continue", then duplicate the main menu again. After you load into the game, wait until the Kid falls to the ground, then click "Continue" and after a brief moment press Enter. The result should be that you have the main menu covering the center third of the screen, with the sides both visible. This setup does not work in all circumstances and we're still researching why it works.

Confirmation storage: when leaving the Distillery with empty spirit slots, the game will want to ask if you are sure. Before it displays this confirmation, if you simultaneously click the Continue button and press Escape, it will present two confirmation screens. After confirming one of them, the game will allow you to move freely while keeping a confirmation dialog visible. While you are in this state, the entire screen is partially obscured by the transparent confirmation screen. This can remove certain affects applied to the Kid.

SPECIFIC APPLICATIONS OF MENU STORAGE

There are four specific applications of the menu storage techniques described above:

Hanging Gardens cutscene skip: after Hanging Gardens, you can set up main menu storage and "Continue" once to start the cutscene, then again to cause the game to skip. This saves around 8 seconds and is already known and used in all categories.

Tazal Terminals slowdown skips: confirmation storage can be used in Tazal Terminals to remove the slowdown effects applied on the last two screens of the level. You can use it on the Battering Ram screen to restore your rolls and exit without picking up the Ram; or you can use it on the last screen to regain normal speed, at the cost of taking triple damage. The former skip is thought to save around 10-20 seconds, while the latter saves around 40 seconds. You can do both slowdown skips, but storing two confirmation screens almost completely hides the gameplay.

Partial level skips: after picking up the core in a given level, you can "Continue" using a stored main menu to return to the Bastion with the cores still in your inventory. This saves varying amounts of time depending on which level, but requires you to reach the core with the center of the screen covered by the main menu.

Wharf District duplication: the same principle as partial level skips, but applied in the Wharf District area. Since you haven't reached the Bastion yet, the game respawns you on the same screen when you "Continue" instead of sending you to the Bastion. Again, requires you to play with the center of the screen covered by the main menu.

WHAT'S THE BIG DEAL?

Menu storage is kind of a Pandora's box, and there is great potential for it to alter our various categories in ways that makes them significantly less fun or less competitive. As an example, the fastest route might involve completing Wharf District 7 times, then finishing the game immediately. Even with less repetition of Wharf District, there's still a lot of potential for playing the game with the majority of the interesting action covered by the main menu. To many people, this doesn't seem particularly fun to play or to watch.

DISCUSSION SO FAR

These summaries are NOT intended to suggest we have already reached any decisions. They are simply summaries of discussion which has happened. All of the below topics, and any others you may think of, are available for discussion in this thread. Please share your thoughts accordingly.

Pure any% category: so far the community has generally expressed support for at least one category which permits all of the tech that we know about, including all forms of menu storage. It seems to make the most sense for this category to be called "any%" - complete the game as fast as possible with no restrictions.

"Old any%" category: several runners expressed a preference for keeping a category which more closely resembles the current any% route. One such proposal would be to create "any% no main menu storage." On the one hand, this category might be more popular due to not involving effectively blind movement. On the other hand, it might simply stagnate. There's also a question of how older runs would be categorized. Additionally, "no main menu storage" would invalidate and obsolete effectively all of the top end runs in the current any% category. However, maybe that's not avoidable?

New intermediate category between any% and ASL: at least one runner proposed that the gap created in the absence of the current any% route could be filled via an alternative category, e.g. All Weapons or The Culture. So far these categories have not achieved much traction yet, but perhaps they'll pick up as any% gets shorter and shorter.

Ban partial level skips in ASL: the majority so far are in support of prohibiting partial level skips in ASL (via unspecified rules changes). Such skips are generally seen to go against the spirit of the category of completing all of the stages in the game. That said, banning specifically these skips without banning other forms of main menu storage could result in needlessly complex and confusing rules, creating ambiguity later on.

Hanging Gardens cutscene skip in ASL: banning one form of main menu storage in ASL may necessitate banning another form of it - the HG cutscene skip. Many runners expressed disapproval for banning this cutscene skip because everybody uses it, and all such times would either be invalidated, require grandfathering in, or need to be retimed according to some rule. None of these options seems particularly enticing. However, it might not be straightforward to craft an understandable rule that preserves this skip while banning partial level skips.

Keep Tazal Terminals slowdown skips in ASL: so far the general consensus favors allowing confirmation storage in ASL to permit TT slowdown skips. These skips do make the final stage somewhat difficult to play and watch, but they are generally seen as a cool new routing development and a legitimate method of going fast without violating the category's spirit.

Here are my thoughts:

• Any% should remain any%. Everything is permitted, including all forms of menu storage.
• ASL should ban main menu storage, including the HG cutscene skip. It's too ambiguous to try to permit one form of main menu storage but not others.
• I am ambivalent about confirmation storage in ASL. I generally don't care for tricks that obscure the gameplay completely, but the amount of time this would be used isn't enough for me to say I would never agree to allow it.
• I'm not totally sure we should bother creating "any% no main menu storage." Generally, I don't like to just split a category into two categories on the basis of a single trick or class of tricks. That said, this trick certainly results in a very different speedrun route, so the categories at least wouldn't be that redundant. I am most open to change my mind on this point.

Any% = Any% (For those that love to break things)

All Levels = ASL -> No main menu storage. Yes confirmation storage. One screen dim doesn't ruin visibility and adds a more interesting ending. Two screen dims will never be RTA viable. (For those that want the game to remain mostly intact)

Any% No Main Menu Storage = Valid category (For those that want a good speedgame)

Meme opinion = All runs post May 2013 are invalid

No new category imo. If people want a run without this then they can do ASL. I don't think this is big enough to warrant another any% offshoot since it probably won't just be doing wharf district 7 times or whatever cause of it being slow.

I never ran ASL but banning main menu storage seems kinda redundant since you'd have to do all the story levels anyway. May as well allow it for skipping them cutscenes.

So my thoughts on this matter are:

ASL: Ban main menu storage including HG cutscene skip to make a clean cut rule Allow unlimited confirmation storage It'd be too arbitrary to limit the amount of storages one can do in my opinion furthermore I'm fine with 2 storages and I doubt anyone in their right minds would do 3 storages. (Should probably note that I'm on the fence on confirmation storage)

Any%: All main menu stacking should be allowed as it's any% and should remain without restrictions

As for whether to split current any% from the new any% I don't have a strong opinion one way or the other since I don't run any% very often

My opinion:

Any% should stay as Any%, bringing the game into Wharf District hell.

Any% NMMS should be created, I think, and any valid runs from the current Any% leaderboard migrated over. However, I hadn't given thought to letting a category like All Weapons take the place of Any% NMMS. I'm not sure if we could really get community support behind that. Any% currently is what every new player comes and learns, and I think Any% NMMS would continue to fulfill that role. I think one of the big benefits of Bastion is that we have a fun, easy to learn, short category, and NMMS preserves that.

ASL should ban MMS so we don't play Lemaign and Langston blind. Keep confirmation storage - Fast Tazal is just too good to pass up, and I don't think there is much room for confirmation storage to get out of hand.

(Also, All Weapons will be banning MMS)

Any%: Absolutely for creating a "pure any%" and simply calling it Any%. Please no silly names.

"Old" Any%: As others have said, the levels that were covered by the past route are still done in ASL runs in the same way, and the niche of a shorter category that isn't glitch-ridden can indeed be filled by All Weapons/Culture style runs. However, I'd request that the current "NG Any%" and "NG+ Any%" pages be preserved as separate categories with the "Old "- prefix purely for archival purposes.

ASL: I'll dissent and say that all forms of menu storage, including confirmation storage, should be banned from ASL, despite the fact that this will mean everyone's current top runs will become invalid, which is merely a temporary inconvenience. My reasoning is that despite recent findings, tech possible with menu storage is still in its infancy, and potentially could lead to more not-very-fun strategies in the future. I believe the spirit of ASL as a category isn't to just hit the checkpoints of visiting every level, but to maintain a more basic Bastion gameplay of optimizing movement and combat rather than abusing uninteresting ways to ignore it. DISCLAIMER due to a general lack of properly organized information, I still feel somewhat in unbeknownst as to the specfics of the Tazal Terminals confirmation skips, and my opinion on this might change, but as of right now I strongly disagree with the idea that no one would ever attempt the level blind in a run, especially if it does save nearly as much time as the top post says.

My thoughts: (as per usual - keep in mind that the following is coming from someone who has almost exclusively done NG Any% runs for the last three years)

Selfishly I would be against using any form of MMS in the Any% runs. However, I understand that Any% is supposed to allow essentially everything that speeds up the playing/running process. As far as I as a Speedrunner am concerned, logically Any% should stay Any% - whichever tricks and glitches that contains. Splitting categories could be a solution to this although I don’t think that’s the definitive right choice either. I agree that if we consider new runners stumbling upon Bastion, there should be a space where they can have quick, fast-paced runs without having to do MMS so splitting categories might be an awkward but appropriate fix. I suppose we don’t lose anything from splitting the categories up either so the longer I think about it, it sounds more and more appealing.

With that being said, if we were to decide that we allow MMS in Any% and NOT split up the categories, we definitely should bring the All Weapons and/or The Culture categories up on the leaderboard so people that are not as involved in Bastion as we are also have a chance to get to know those “gimmicky” routes. I think that those categories are underrepresented because they have not gotten the same exposure yet.

This is where I stand of now. If any of my opinions/views change due to conversations with the other members of the community for example, I will edit this post accordingly since I am always open for more input.

Summary of who I am for posterity: New NG ASL runner - my free PB is still the one on the leaderboards. I have, however, been active in the community/Discord for roughly a couple of months now. This is my first speedgame.

Any%:

Any% should, for essentially philosophical reasons, be Any%. If that means people don't end up wanting to run it, so be it.

I'm in favor of creating an Any% NMMS category, or something of its like, for those that like the category but don't quite like the idea of spamming an obscured Wharf district over and over. Also, Any% categories in general are attractive to marathons, new runners, and casual viewers due to their short length and lolwtf glitch moments. I consider this to be important to speedrunning as a hobby (and to enticing new potential Bastion runners), though others here have expressed disagreement on that point. Regardless, obscured screens and repetition outweigh the novelty of a highly glitched run and are unlikely to make the new Any% attractive to outside audiences. Having a restricted Any% provides a happy medium. As for leaderboard fixes, I'm not on that leaderboard so I don't consider my thoughts on that to be important.

ASL:

I'm heavily in favor of banning main menu storage - if there's a way to keep the cutscene skip, cool, but if not it's a price I'll happily pay. Blind levels are not fun to me, and since ASL is already essentially our "No Major Glitches" category, restricting menu storage (at least partially) fits.

Confirmation storage is spooky to me. As it stands currently, I'd be fine with having it in the category, though it will probably make Tazal one of my least favorite levels. That said, like Arctice, I'm also a bit skeptical that no one will ever grind out a good enough "legally blind" Tazal, and that other, more obnoxious confirmation storage strats won't be found. I'm new to the community, but I've seen so many runners at GDQ refer to a strat as "previously TAS-only." I'm worried that this is ours, and I don't want a 45-minute run to culminate in a blind level. It only takes one runner getting a good run - and while all strats are technically optional, it feels bad to knowingly choose to lose most of a minute compared to what the WR route does. To sum up, I'm against allowing confirmation storage, but since I'm new and my fears may well be unfounded, I'll defer to more experienced voices on this one.

I want to clear up, on this thread, some ideas about Tazal:

Ram Skip doesn't save 40 seconds like Vulajin says in the main post - I haven't timed it but it is definitely more like 20 seconds. Fast Tazal does save 40.

Also, if we get to a point in ASL that confirmation storage becomes problematic, I think we could revisit this issue then. ASL is what we want to make it - and I'm not sure that it's necessary we cover scenarios now that have not yet come to pass. We could even consider the slightly less beautiful rule of banning 2+ confirmation storage.

My point is, that this doesn't have to be the final discussion on ASL rules. Say we ban MMS in ASL, as it appears we will. If we ban confirmation storage now, we have to wipe the ASL leaderboard because grandfathering doesn't make sense. If we ban confirmation storage later because it becomes problematic, we have to do the same thing. I'm okay with delaying the wipe, so to speak, to see if it does indeed become a problem.

I agree with allowing Any% to use MMS and creating Any% NMMS as the default beginner's category. Without it, we have no short, easy to learn category. That said, I also support All Weapons becoming a main category. This is partially just because I like the category, but also because every category so far is either 15 minutes or 45 minutes. That isn't inherently problematic, but I do like the idea of an intermediate category being added between the two in terms of time estimate.

In ASL, MMS should absolutely be banned. I'm not certain about confirmation skip. It isn't game breaking enough to have a No Major Glitches kind of opinion towards it, but abusing it further could require us to have the whole discussion over and over again. If doing blind Tazal is enough to ban the glitch and wipe the leaderboards anyway (and I do believe that would be a matter of when, not if), then I advocate for either just banning it and getting the wipe done and over with, or (preferably) putting a limit on how many storages can be done. I'd like to see where we can take this glitch, but it's not worth allowing the stupider version of it considering we know it's there, we know it's possible, and we know it will throw the leaderboard for a loop when it's done successfully.

My thoughts, note that I only run ASL and that I entered the community at the same time as Wingspan, even if I've done a fair amount of runs more than him

Any% allows MMS

New sub category, Any% NMMS. To avoid clutter we just make this a subcategory kind of how Dishonored 2 has subcategories for characters or Hollow Knight has subcategories for different OOBs or NMG

ASL: I personally would hate seeing HG cutscene skip go. I understand just banning MMS is the cleaner cut rule, and the better one, but I would appreciate it if we could only restrict its use to cutscenes. This way we don't end up with a heavily grandfathered in leaderboard either. Keep Building Menu storage in, allowing Fast Tazal

Making a push for AW to be a main category: Don't care either way.

Any% should be any%. All game related bugs included (maybe no jaunt though?).

Depending on the number of WDs, either blend old any% with new any%, or split old any% into a new category. Just don't want any% to be boing from playing the same level to much (In my opinion, max 3 times) without the option of doing old any%. Don't kill old any% if new any% is boring.

I personally do like the HG cutscene skip a lot. Waiting when you know you could skip it would just make me furious. Therefor i would want to keep it in old any%.

I don't think we should try pushing a category to become a main category. If people want to play a certain category, they will.

I probably shouldn't have much of a say in ASL, but anything that would skip part of / all of a level feels like it counters the entire point of the category to me.

My thoughts:

Any% is any%, I don't think banning MMS is "fair".

Old Any%: Having a new category for a Any% NMMS could be interesting for the reasons people already mentionned, but I would not mind replacing it by All Weapons or something like that.

ASL: MMS should be banned to preserved the soul of the category. For the rest, I'll leave it to more experienced runners that have a better idea of what it means for the run and the future of the category.

Note that I only ran the Any% categories so far (NG and NG+), but I am interested in trying the other categories later.

Thank you all for your feedback. Based on this thread and the discussions in Discord, we settled on the following changes:

Any%: everything is allowed, including all forms of menu storage. (No, not jaunting.) Any% no MMS: new category, core duplication permitted, main menu storage prohibited. All Story Levels: main menu storage prohibited, otherwise same rules as before.

We've restructured the leaderboard in line with this categorization scheme, and also took the opportunity to merge NG and NG+ leaderboards for the same goal as subcategories. Any% runs which did not use main menu storage (including all historical runs from before the discovery of menu storage) were placed in the corresponding any% no MMS subcategory. Any% runs which did use main menu storage stayed in any%.

No changes have been made to all story levels runs, even those which did use main menu storage prior to the ban. We can continue the discussion on how these runs should be handled, but since confirmation storage is now permitted, the times are beatable and therefore we feel it's not necessary to invalidate all of them. We're open to the possibility of adjusting the times if the community supports that.