It's come to my attention that the way we time this game would be more beneficial if we turn to IGT, however I only have limited knowledge as I ran this game prior to mission objective skips.

When I ran it, mission 9 death abuse was the leading factor as to why IGT was not going to be used as the IGT did not factor in how long it took to die so, optimally, one would have wanted to take 0 damage, complete the objective, and fall off edge. This would cost, depending on the difficulty, 10 - 20 seconds RTA to save IGT time.

I for one do not care if the IGT does not count milliseconds in this game, and I do understand that times w/ the same IGT could differ by 1 frame all the way upwards to ~ 10 seconds.

Therefore, with the way the game is ran nowadays w/ mission objectives skip, do you see the IGT being accurate enough to be used to compare runs? Please list all positives, negatives, concerns, and comments.

IGT PROS:

1. Only actual game play will be timed as the IGT does not count cut scenes, mission transitions, and loads.
2. Runs across Wii and Gamecube will be even competition as Wii's are known to load faster
3. Mission 1 has an odd cutscene that has random skip points, which won't affect runs anymore.

IGT CONS:

1. A new rule would have to be put in place in case death from non objective skip.
2. Some runs would have to be removed that used death abuse (mine included but I'm fine with that).
3. IGT does not display milliseconds, so missions with an IGT of 1m50s could vary by .98 seconds (for full game)
4. IGT must be calculated manually as it is the sum of all mission times in a single segment run.
5. Pause buffering

COMMENTS:

1. If one were to die in a run (either due to losing all health or failing a mission objective skip) and still "pb," should we calculate the adjusted IGT for that mission?

Replies: Yes. That being said, this would fall on the moderators to ensure all runs submitted have accurate IGT sums as well as an accurated "adjusted" IGT for missions w/ a death that doesn't benefit the IGT

(will keep updated)

Does this mean we can still use the mission 9 skip? Also, so we add up all the times that it says from the ending of the mission right?

Mission 3 and Mission 9 skips bypass the final objective, thus, unless I'm mistaken, means it's accurate compared to death abuse then completing the final objective.

The way IGT would work for this game would be a sum of the Individual Mission times, which can be found after the final mission complete screen.

With the Objective Skips the in-game time is accurate as to when the level ends, however on Mission 9 if the player were to fail it in a run and continue the time would have to be done by hand.

Using in-game time will factor out the time that the cutscene of entering Fortuna's atmosphere wastes, which averaged ~5s over the fastest skip I've ever gotten on it. I think the most I have ever lost to it (once I stopped reseting over it) was around ~10s. It will also cut load times. I've not looked into load times to see how much they very or not nor has anyone else as far as I'm aware. Without the load times runs done on Gamecube and ones done on the Wii would more fair to compare as it stands to reason that the Wii would have faster load times, or at least I know it does for other various games.

It doesn't show the final in-game time in the game itself but it's very easy to calculate, especially if you use something like an excel/google spreadsheet. Just throw in the times and use the sum function and you're done.

My run was timed via IGT by Israel_D on SDA and we did indeed do this for mission 9. Should we add this in a possible rule?

I think it should be part of the rule. I wouldn't want to ban a run just because some one failed a trick/glitch, that would be stupid in my opinion.

I agree, it's not that hard to calculate in any case. I want more feedback from runners (SGDQ is going on so we'll have to wait) before I collect all input and make a decision

I think it would be good to have IGT to be more of a "must" for top ranking times but along with real time. The faster IGT determines who gets the better ranking if it comes down to it. but I think both should be provided just so it doesn't affect new people and old runs.

Something I forgot to mention is pausing. With the use of in-game time a player could pause the game, leave, and then come back. There would need to be some kind of rule to ban that I think.

Not that it is necessary but when starting out I always pause buffered the clip on Fichina. It just made it way easier to get. Would a strat like that still be allowed? As far as I'm aware it doesn't manipulate the in-game timer but who knows.

Yeah I was thinking about that Jimmie, but I think it is pretty easy to see if they are using pausing inappropriately. Even if it does mess with the IGT (which I don't think it does) we would be able to see. People will pause like you said on Fichina and after cutscenes and the beginning of levels when they are mashing.

Most runs that use in game time bans pausing. Also about the death abuse to cut time, a lot of speedruns put "no deaths" or "deathless" as a part of their category goal. We could just do "no checkpoint restarts" or whatever as a rule. This would make it the same category that it is right now except we time it with in game time.

Pausing doesn't affect the IGT so if we time by IGT we gotta allow IGT strats, no exceptions.

As for rules on the deaths, it'd suck but it's the easiest to just ban mission checkpoint restarts, if that's all right with everyone.

Also the "pause and leave" rule is pretty dumb lol, I'd not worry about that one.

Who would pause and leave in the middle of a speedrun that is about an hour long anyway?

I still dislike pausing. That means you could use pause buffering a lot for frame perfect shit and not affect the time negatively, it would only be advantageous. That would be retarded. Take bombs, lazer charges and the Fichina clip for example, you could buffer 10 times more than the WR and still beat it. It would suck.

bombs, lazer charges? not sure what pausing could do with that. I think you are thinking of it in a weird way. We have a pretty tight community. I don't think we are going to have some tard come and abuse it. I feel like we have a level of trust with our like 6 active runners.

No, accepting pause buffering without any disadvantages is stupid. Skill is left out of the game and it makes it all retarded to speedrun. You can pause buffer everything to make sure you get it earliest frame possible.

If actions can be buffered from the pause menu (meaning you can hold a button in, unpause, and then that action is peformed), then IGT wouldn't be needed but I'd like for people to test this w/ input viewers if possible. Otherwise IGT looks like a good thing to switch to.

If the only advantage pause buffering has is to make some skips easier, then I see no need to stick to RTA as the advantages of timing IGT instead of RTA are really numerous.

If IGT comes through as the new timing the game will suck to watch. Trust me, you can pause buffer everything.

Pottoww that's why we are deciding to ban pause buffering, if we are going to do in game time we can ban pause buffering. I rather stick with what we have now, but if the majority rules, the majority rules.

Geo I am the one trying to ban pause buffering, read.