This discussion happened throughout GDQ and that was a rough time for me as I was helping in the Brazilian restreaming of the event. This also made me forgot about the discussion as i would've posted earlier.

About the discussion on itself, i like Haos proposal, which aligns very well with the rest of opinions voiced so far.

I'm just curious as what would happen with Destillery Menu trick on the ASL run. Does that glitch in particular counts as a menu storage? Or does it have a different definition? It's not something that impacts me directly, but would impact the leaderboard around me. It's something i don't understand a lot and any clarification on the matter would be appreciated. Either way, it being categorized as MS or not, i'm still in favour of restricting Menu Storage on ASL.

That's the idea, get more people interested. I'm working on some IL practice right now, hope we can push the time further down in the near future. Do you have Discord, Furoceus? We could discuss strats there.

New categories look good, it's pretty much what most aspiring runners wanted. Good job Gyoo.

Awesome Colaja, hope everything is going well for you. I also will make a nice run with the IL strats.

I'll update the rules for all categories now then. If anyone have further questions, feel free to ask them here in this thread.

As the title mentions, i think the rules are a little bit too loose at the moment, as it doesn't cover the option of using the "too hard for me" mode and, since interest in the game has been grown lately, I think it would be good to talk about this sooner than later.

Too hard for me mode allows for faster recharge of energy, meaning you can transform more, grating more possibilities for faster levels times and unique IL strategies.

I honestly think it should be allowed for all categories since it means faster times and more enjoyable grind on the harder aspects of the game (Like the heavy precision section and the inconsistent IL strats that could be used on speedrun more freely).

I'd like to hear opinions on the matter, specially from other runners, to see if we can reach a consensus. If this thread gets no response and/or colaja does not see the messages I sent him on twitter to discuss about this in one more week (so august 27th), I'll update the rules as stated above, since I think it's the best direction for this game.

first world I generally focus a lot on the money management instead of the driving. You want to get the air blade asap and although a theoretical buy before first race of chem div A would be possible, buying after first race on chem 4th div a is the way to go. You need to get 13 packs out of th 25 available on the first 5 races AND get the lapping bonus on the third stage (the 8-shaped one). For the lapping bonus you mostly wanna place the spikes near the ramp just like I did here:

After you get the air blade i look for money asap to get the first turbo upgrade (should be after third race of chem div a) so i can get the lap bonus on last stage of chem iv div a race, this way I can buy the first engine upgrade super early. On drakonis B i still get money when i can but on A onwards i shift the focus on driving more than getting money.

Money in this game is pretty tight and the final time is pretty dependent on it. The faster you get the upgrades, the more usage you can get from them.

Good luck on your runs dude.

Someone on another thread showed interest in the 100% run, so fell free to drop a link for it under the guides section, the more resources the better!

There is a guide on gamefaqs that goes in-depth on that. It has a drop table and a crafting table and many more interesting resources. I'm pretty sure i put a link for that on my any% easy guide.

Here's the link: https://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/647514-before-the-echo/faqs/63648

Thanks a lot for the reply! Sadly I can't run the ps2 emulator on my potato pc but Gcah did find a lot of great info back in the day when he were testing. I guess I'll wait and see what happens, maybe these new runners coming into the leaderboard bring some life back into everyone so we get back on testing and running.

Keep up the good work sir.

Nice work GMS! One question about the AI:

-On the run we can manipulate some duels (Darkness Ruler, Necromancer, Glitch Guy) because we understand how they react to certain movements or just the general behavior of the AI (Weevil always going right to setup the perfect moth, Pegasus on T1 placing a Monster on top left or a magic card on top right and other examples). Is this sort of information written anywhere on the code? It would be nice to get an even better understanding of the duels and maybe even create more strats out of it.

From what i understand (do correct me if I'm wrong) the mystery racer has +1 on all 4 stats (like olaf), he starts with a fully maxed havac with 999k cash, is that correct? If so, you could actually use a password generator and use olaf for the selected driver and would be the same technically, right?

I made a black havac with olaf, fully upgraded with 999k cash starting on Chem IV, veteran difficulty. Password was W4FF-C0TX-5TJ! (I made the password here: http://www.barcodebattler.co.uk/SORR/pwGen2up.htm). This could be used to "replicate" the mystery race, besides the bugged avatar and be functional for the leaderboard. Could even change the car due to preference. No sure if it works or not, I'm not super familiar with the game since these runs are my first contact with the game in more than 10 years,

Dayum, i was gonna make a thread asking about the timings on the other categories but it seems you have read my mind. Nice work.

Is it possible to add in the rules about Olaf being permitted on the normal categories as well? that question sometimes pop up when I or a friend are playing and it could clear some confusion about it.

You can, you have to request it at this thread http://www.speedrun.com/The_Site/thread/frjsy

Poe hasn't been around the site for 5+ months, Kykinson still approves runs and is active on the site but he doesn't comment much around the forums and hasn't logged in for 10 days or so. He has a lot of games where he is mod so not sure if keeps himself up-to-date with sanic ball.

I agree that the change of engine brought a whole new set of phisics on the game (balls doesn't get stuck on the ground like 0.6.2) a the new GHZ definitely shows that the dev wants to make the game go on another direction (less meme and more level upgrades/reworks).

One ideia I had for that is to create 2 main categories: Version 0.6.2 and Current Patch.

Version 0.6.2 would have as sub-categories the same categories that are in the leaderboard right now: -All Stages - 2 laps - No Super Sanic; -All Stages - 2 laps - Super Sanic; -All Stages - 3 laps - NSS.

This is mostly to preserve the leaderboards and the people who likes the version, be it for being faster than current patch or like the memes.

Current Patch could have the same sub-categories but not knowing how people are going to react to the new version I would only put: -All Stages - 2 laps - No Super Sanic; -All Stages - 2 laps - Super Sanic.

This is just to see if the new version gets popular more than anything. The catch is, when a new patch is introduced there could be 2 options:

• If the game introduces a new/reworked version of an existing stage or add a new level, all previous runs on the category ( Current Patch only, 0.6.2 would always remain the same) would recieve Obsolete status, as it's not going to be comparable with previous patches (0.7 can't be compared with 0.8 because one of the stages are completely different and so on). -If the patch introduces just small bug fixes or a new character, as long as it's not broken as Super Sanic and have unfair advantage over the other ones, the previous runs on the category would remain as they are.

At least i found this way of re-organizing the leaderboard fair for everyone. People who like the old version run that, people who wants to re-do his runs whe newer patches are introduced can also do that.

All in all, we need to wait for kykinson to log in (i sent him a twitch pm and a tweet) and if he doesn't appear on 10 more days we could ask on the moderation thread for a third mod who is hopefully more active to be added and carry the changes if there is enough support (and 3 people is enough imo, me, you and icer).

Probably gonna do a run on 0.8.1 soon to have more stuff pending. Keeping the discussion would be nice too.

I'm sure Kykinson will show up sooner or later, I sent him a tweet and a PM on Twitch since his Discord info is incomplete. He is active but it may take a couple days for him to look at this thread. Maybe getting a third mod could be benefical since he has so much more games to take care of.

About the menu exploit, i think it is very clever and not a cheat at all. Definitely usable for runs as it speeds things through. Also, Poe has been inactive for 5 months so the best bet to talk with a mod is kykinson. Not sure if he keeps himself updated with the game but I'll send him a pm on discord and twitter so he take a look here.

I took a look at the bk-tn tumblr as well and he did mention about re-working all the existing stages and adding a new one on the future. If we add a category on the leaderboard, what would happen to all times that may come through on 0.80v when the new update hits? Will it be wiped and the runs would be stored on a forum post for historic purposes? Create a new leaderboard?

About the 0.6.2, i can upload it on mega or something and list it as a resource on the leaderboard so everyone can get access.

From what I saw metal sonic is normal speed compared to the other guys. The dev mentioned chermy being faster so that's something to consider as well when thinking about 0.8.

Yeah, i downloaded the version this week too because of the change on GHZ and boy, it looks totally different. 0.8 is not comparable with 0.6.2 and would need to be a separate issue, specially if bk-tn keeps on reworking stuff. I still think we should have 0.6,2 as the default one since it is the fastest but a "current patch" category would be neat too for people who like that version more.

You could even keep the subcategories the same (2 laps, super sanic, 3 laps) for them both and would work fine as well.

Instead of cutting only the time changing course menuing, why not just go for the IGT route and only time the 5 stages times and add them up? That way would be more consistent around all future versions (unless new reworks are made) and could still be applied on the more popular version. AUto splitter would be nice but i don't think anyone really cares about the game to go to that extent.

Need the mods to give their opinions too.

Kinda late to the party but welcome Brazilian friend! We have a brazilian community on facebook and a discord server as well as a website with a lot of the active runners: http://speedrunsbrasil.com/runners .

There are some playstation enthusiasts (myself included, although i don't run a lot of psx games) and could be nice if you joined and showed your runs there. So if you're interested, feel welcome to join and have fun there as well!

In order to look more fancy and clear, I reworked all four any% categories under one big "Any%" category with difficulty subcategories for all 4 difficulties. All 6 runs on this leaderboard have been added with all their details intact, these includes commentary, date the run was played, final time, runner name and splits.io links.

Since 3 of the runs were with the twitch vod broken (the ones from 2015 and older), I edited these submissions with updated links so now the VODs are working properly..

The new list looks pretty good in comparison to the older one. I second the ideas of have the number of runners on the countries and the staff list, those can come in handy, specially the later one.

I tend to look out for newer brazilian runners so I can try to invite them to our BR community and this list has been really helpful in the past few months on that regard.