Hi there, I've been running this game and documenting a lot of stuff regarding the speedrun.

It seems that using the "music Off" option (this mutes the music only inside of missions) saves a considerable amount of time. I calculated the timesave to be around 30 frames (0.5 seconds) per commander turn (that's when the music loads). This results in about a 3:55 to 4 minutes difference between having or not having music on.

I don't really know what we should do about this, I mostly want to open the discussion and get some opinions in the matter. I personally love playing with music and I find really boring to have silence for most of the run, its also not as easy to put random music on top of the run cuz the result screen and overworld music still plays with "music Off", which for me gives a lot of anxiety I get more than 1 song playing at the same time. Should we split categories? accept the silent meta? It also complicates things the fact that the 1st place already has music Off.

Hi there! I have two questions.

1 - Which emulators are allowed for runs?

2 - Are there any guides or tutorials for the run?

Hi there! I'm a big fan of the FAITH series and yesterday (or today I guess?) I saw the Chapter II speedrun for the first time at AGDQ.

I got into the FAITH games after watching Vinny from vinesauce play the game, and during the run I noticed that runners don't take what looks like a faster path at one point (maybe about 5 seconds faster).

You can see the faster path here on Vinny's video:

Now, I'm not familiar at all with the tech of the run, so maybe that collision got patched or there's a reason runners take the longer path. In any case I wanted to share this in case is useful.

I created a leaderboard for 100% since we have a consistent ruleset and at least one run to put there.

The rules are the same as Any% plus:

• Kill every kind of hybrid at least once in order to unlock them in Survival.
• Learn every move that can be learnt (14 Punches, 20 Kicks, 40 Techs and 3 Reversals).

On other related news, I designed trackers for Any% and 100% (a friend helped me programming them). They're available now on the resources page: https://www.speedrun.com/hybrid_heaven/resources

These trackers are simple tools that help keep track of important items and techs in the case of 100%. I designed them to adjust to my streaming layout, but you can ask me for a different design or different assets if you provide them.

I added an autosplitter for the SNES version to the Resources page.

• It has been tested with snes9x 1.6. It can be expanded to other versions or emulators, but I would need help finding the pointers.
• Start function automatically starts the run when pressing New Game.
• Split function splits every level at the black screen.
• Reset function resets the run when you go to the main menu (it also works if you're using a savestate for resets).
• Needless to say, but you'll need a split for every level for this to give you the correct run time.

An important note: The variable I found to work best for the autosplitter actually starts the timer 1 cycle after our usual timing method. But, at the same time, it splits all levels also 1 cycle late (including the last level), which evens out and gives the correct splits and time for every level. I already tested this with edition software and the time is accurate.

I added 2 new full game categories for SNES: Special Moves and Special Moves (1P2C).

I can eventually add Any% (1P2C) if anyone is willing to run that.

For now all the Norse by Norsewest platforms will be together in one category (Playstation, PC and Saturn). We can still split them in the future if runners or those platforms see fit.

I had to do some adjustments with variables here and there in order to have only one platform in Special Moves. This resulted in Individual Level runs not showing up for some reason. I'll wait until tomorrow to see if the page fixes this automatically, if not, then I guess I'll just submit every run again. IL runs won't be verified until this gets sorted out.

A couple days ago Freeze discovered that changing the Music and Sound options in the SNES version leads to lower loading times when starting levels from passwords.

I did some statistical analyses on console and emulator to see how much this would impact runs, you can see the results here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TerCoNwO5OSs2nQzOZ0EsjCt9G-j2_efFqSazNlQ8ng/edit?usp=sharing

Here are my notes in case you don't want to see the document:

• Every level can have 2~3 more frames of loading time because of frame input cycles
• Turning Sound OFF reduces loading time by 1 frame
• Turning Music OFF reduces loading time by 49 frames
• Sound and Music OFF add up on frames, reducing loading time by 50 frames
• Music can be turned OFF, then ON, and it'll still save 49 frames
• Two Players option doesn't seem to change loading time

Because of this issue, we decided to ban any manipulation of the Music and Sound options. For runs, they have to always be "ON", and also never be turned "OFF". This is very important because the Music option reduces loading times even if you turn it "ON" after turning it "OFF".

Would anyone want milliseconds to be available for submissions on leaderboards?

I'm fine either way with milliseconds or just run ties with seconds precision, and it would probably just matter on individual levels.

I need some opinions regarding 100%, please try to give them either as a possible runner of the category or as a viewer of it.

So far I'm conflicted choosing between two options for the category. I want to give emphasis that I don't care that much about the "real" definition, and I care more about what runners and viewers/followers of the category think.

Option A: "True 100%" The idea here is to beat the game 3 times from scratch with an empty memory card and get the Mantorok ending at the end. Pros:

• It's the most "legit" definition, since you go from having nothing to unlocking the secret ending (and watching it at the end).
• Even while it's pretty long, the ending cutscenes are in a good spot to take a small break in case you need it.
• You can show cool stuff for all three alignments of the game.
• You can get all the autopsies in the game. Cons:
• It's pretty long, I estimate between 7 and 8 hours.
• You cannot skip most cutscenes since it's not NG+.
• You have to beat the game 3 times. It adds variety, but can also just be annoying.

Option B: "One take 100%" Here we would start with a completed file (just like on Any%) and choose not to carry your gameplay information into the next playthrough. This way we can get all the possible autopsies on the allignment. Pros:

• You can skip all cutscenes, so the gameplay rhythm will feel just as fast as Any%.
• It shouldn't be a long category, around 2 hours or so.
• Resets don't hurt that much because you don't have to re-watch all cutscenes. Cons:
• There's no way to get all the autopsies on just one alignment, so we'll just get all the possible ones.
• We don't get to show the 3 alignments of the game.
• There's no Mantorok secret ending before the credits, because we chose not to carry information in order to do the autopsies (this can technically be solved using a special savefile, but that seems weird to me).

Those are the two options I think have the best pros vs cons. There's also a hybrid take of doing 3 playthoughs on NG+ to skip cutscenes. While that allows for faster gameplay, it also means you need to play more than 6 hours non stop, I personally don't like that.

For both options, this is the list of things I'm considering for a 100% run:

• All runes, including Mantorok.
• All Codices and Scrolls.
• All Autopsies (or all possible ones).
• Enchanted Gladius.
• (maybe?) Make all the Spells (3, 5 and 7 versions).

@Sivart0 just made a mod of the game that allows to play Extra Mode (level 7 to 12) and every Individual Level from the title menu.

Should we make categories for this mod? What do you think?

I'm fine allowing the mod for extra categories, although I think I would prefer to keep Normal Mode with the vanilla version only.

I put an invitation to the MS-DOS Speedruns Discord server in the Discord tab of this page.

https://discord.gg/tugeCVr

I uploaded the last version (1.2) of the Mario & Luigi Autosplitter, you can find it in the Resourses page.

The use of the Autosplitter is not mandatory but still highly recommended, as you wont need to retime runs.

You can find all the details on how it works in the ReadMe inside the .rar file.

Hello everyone. After talking a lot with @AlphaTemp we came out with the following ruleset for Normal Mode:

(Every line after a "-" is how the ruleset will look like, and every line in brackets "[ ]" are comments about why we want that ruleset)

Timing method

• Timer starts at the first frame the player gets control over Mario.

• The Status Line has to be active at the start of Level 1.

[This is the same frame where the Status Line shows on the screen, see here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/18R5YDpUNOjHZRj0Z_8QkmLendraDthBg/view?usp=sharing] [Because of this, every run has to have the Status Line active and visible at least at the start of Level 1 to be valid] [Even while the autosplitter can do all this for you, we as moderators need a consistent way to retime runs in case someone is not using the autosplitter (and for old runs)] [If you don't have the Status Line active, you can activate it from the options menu or press the "S" Key while playing]

• Timer ends at the first frame the player loses control over Mario.

[This happens one frame before you see Mario a couple pixels inside the final pipe of Level 6, see here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rHhCjIUmTlcNuSGUanzuiQsT_vus8wAe/view?usp=sharing]

Emulator Rules

• All runs have to be done on DosBox 0.74.

[This is because this is the most consistent emulator so far. Also, the autosplitter only works with this version of DosBox]

• Use 15.000 cycles in DosBox configuration.

[This is a reasonable value that keeps the game at good speed]

I'm interested in being a Moderator for this game.

I have experience moderating another DOS game called Hocus Pocus (see https://www.speedrun.com/hocus ).

I also made an autosplitter for DosBox 0.74 that was tested by @Sivart0 . We think it gives the most consistent timing method for the rules.

Hope to see your reply @AlphaTemp cheers, Pandora

I noticed there's no rules for this game. I saw some different timing methods on the LB's runs.

I would be nice to have some rules on when to start and finish the timer.

Just to be clear about rules, when do we stop the timer for Individual Levels?

• When we reach the first "fade to black screen" after completing the chapter (losing control of the character) (this option allows you to leave the final cutscene in the run if you want)

• Or after we skip the final cutscene using Start

Hello there!

question for the MS-DOS runners: where can I find a ROM for DOSBox? I've only found shareware versions that don't include all the levels.

Thanks!

Hello everyone. In my latest upload of the autosplitter I made, I included a feature that allows Livesplit to measure In-Game Time in Hocus Pocus. With that, I corroborated that I've always been "losing" real time due to different loading times (which depends on the computer).

I added an In Game Time column to the leaderboards if anyone else wants to use it. The places will still be ordered by Real Time since the autosplitter is pretty new, most runs are on RTA, and I don't know if people would like to change to IGT.

On the next weeks I'll try to get the static addresses of the steam version and maybe other DOSBox versions so the autosplitter can be more accesible.

Pandora~

So, as some of you might know, DOSBox has an option for key mapping. This allows players to change the native key configuration (controls for moving, shooting, jumping, etc) to either any key on your keyboard or even to a controller plugged into your PC.

While this option can be more comfortable for playing, it also allows the player to do unfairly easier setups for bonus glitches (in both keyboard and controller).

On the other hand, one can also do "instant" bonus glitches setups using macros, which it's also super broken.

My opinion on this is to ban both macros and key-mapping. I think that's the healthy option otherwise using macros would be a standart to get top times, then just adding more unnecessary stuff for newer players.

I want more opinions before making the desicion though.

Pandora.

Hello!

I decided to expand the leaderboards to also have individual levels.

The timing method for SNES is:

• Timer starts when the password is selected and ends at the fade to black at the end of the level (this way the loading is always consistent).

Edit: Rules for other platforms

The timing method for PS and Saturn is:

• Timer starts when the password is selected in "Load Game" and ends at the fade to black at the end of the level (this way the loading is always consistent).

The general rules are the same than for Any%.