I noticed this a while ago but I've been distracted with other things, figure it'd be best to post about it now though.

It's unfair to both Ricky's runs and my runs that infinite ammo was changed since it removes a large aspect of routing, specifically at the start of both Encounters. If a rule like this is to be allowed, I think it best be separated by sub-categories. The idea that the only reason it was disallowed was it was "cheap" is completely ignores that fact, it's definitely an issue with how the ruling was previously phrased but I think removing that aspect of runs and trying to compare the two isn't just. Would like to hear from other SSR runners of course, just putting my two cents out there since it doesn't seem I (or Damagak, not sure about Ricky and Cippy) ever got to chime in.

Are you able to list the instances in which infinite ammo changes the run significantly? I only remember Alley of the Sphinxes.

There are a lot of settings that change how something is routed; for example, fire rate would eliminate the insane damage boosts (which account for the majority of the time saves in Revolution, so almost a complete re-route would be necessary), player health would eliminate them as well, and player movement would at least have a much larger impact on time than ammo. IMO there should be a more compelling reason to single out infinite ammo over the other settings, which impact the run in a significantly larger way.

Scrapping questionable rules without preserving the old runs' placement isn't new to Serious Sam; in the past, deaths were disallowed in co-op runs, and thankfully that's not a thing anymore. It sucks that work was put in for the sake of a rule that was removed, but I don't think the ammo rule makes that much of a difference.

Also <3 Haruhi

Infinite ammo is the least impactful to runs so it made no sense that it was singled out before. Why is that setting "cheap" and the others aren't? If I recall, the rules before even called it a "cheat" setting, whatever that means when you can also set fire rate and such. As stated by deagle already, there are massive differences with other settings that are already allowed, and infinite ammo is more a nuisance than anything. Initially, deagle and I even did a run with infinite ammo off since that's what the rule was at the time and still blew away the record because of new routing and many new skips and techniques. At the time we realized how little it did matter besides starting each encounter, which only resulted in it making even less sense it was disallowed.

The change to infinite ammo had no weight whatsoever on your runs falling behind, that was due to the massive advancements that have been made to the route since then. It's a completely different run now. Seeing that this is an offshoot from the original games, I don't believe the crazy settings should be disallowed in any way, including infinite ammo, since they are basic menu options here. Then we would just be inching it closer and closer to being redundant with the leaderboards for the classic games.

I'd instead invite you to come back and check out what's being done with the run nowadays. All of the boosts are pretty fun, particularly Second Encounter is nuts now with sniper boosts.

EDIT: Here's a link to that run that didn't use infinite ammo, and keep in mind this was when we very first started so there has been a lot of practice and improvements to routing since this, https://www.speedrun.com/sscr/run/zg7v49vz#

I apologize if it came off as me saying the sole reason our runs fell behind was infinite ammo, but I'm just more confused as to why y'all literally didn't any of the older runners, let alone the one SR mod that has actually touched the game. Just feels like y'all purposely strayed away from discussion.

The management of weapon ammo is something that isn't relevant outside of a few select spots, but stuff like being limited to only 5 rockets at the start of both TFE and TSE did change how a few earlier levels were handled, especially in categories like All Secrets. I definitely overstated it's significance which I apologize for, I kind of just threw the post together so it wasn't worded well.. As for why it wasn't allowed, I could've sworn at one point in time it was literally listed as a cheat in the game options but I may be mistaken, regardless it's always been classified as a cheat in the other SS games so it made more sense to keep it off. It's always been separate from the mutators so I never really got too familiar with the menus, since I literally never hosted the servers.

The argument that disallowing it made it closer to the originals is kind of redundant when it was set to 1000% anyways, so I don't see what you're trying to get out with that one. Along with that, mutators are a configurable option while submitting runs if you haven't noticed (which I doubt since you guys have submitted plenty of runs) so the whole point about crazy options in the first point is completely moot. It's just a topic I wanted to bring up because there has been interest in coming back over the years, and I was more than a bit tilted that there wasn't at least a little bit of discussion before a rule change with former runners, because regardless of how other SS games have been handled it is it's own spin-off like you said so it should be handled as such.

As for coming back, I would love to but my computer loads way too slow when playing co-op to be competitive in the slightest, and even single-player my framerate would be unplayable with appropriate levels of enemies on. So it'll have to wait until much later. I'd instead invite you to play Glover instead, and not be so dismissive :^ )

I'm with YP on this, while I don't want to in anyway dismiss the massive improvement that was made to the run, I think blatantly ignoring what is and was obviously the rule, especially when you say you were doing runs with the correct rules, and then just changing it with no notice is absurd. I actually have no real problem with allowing infinite ammo, but there obviously should be some amount of process before changing rules. Once again, I don't think anyone in anyway is saying you guys are cheating to "outdate" or that "we would be better if you guys didn't cheat!" just that we (or at least I) don't want rules to literally change because someone felt like it. For example if YP and I started doing runs again and we just decided that you can ignore all loads and one player can stand still until the other loads, and we just used IGT with no notice to the other people who are playing the game that would be insane of us, and obviously the run would have to be re-timed. No one wants the rules to just be a whiteboard that changes for the convenience of whoever has a marker.

[quote="yp"]I'm just more confused as to why y'all literally didn't any of the older runners, let alone the one SR mod that has actually touched the game. Just feels like y'all purposely strayed away from discussion.[/quote]

[quote="damagak"]I think blatantly ignoring what is and was obviously the rule, especially when you say you were doing runs with the correct rules, and then just changing it with no notice is absurd. I actually have no real problem with allowing infinite ammo, but there obviously should be some amount of process before changing rules.[/quote]

To answer both of you, when Master and I asked about the rule in the #revolution channel of Discord, a couple of moderators chimed in and we reached a consensus to remove the rule. A forum thread about it was then posted, and since nobody responded for months, Master and I happily went ahead and improved the route without the rule over that time. We even persuaded Tezur0 to create that thread, so I'd say we encouraged discussion more than anything.

If reaching out directly to old runners is somehow a required part of the rule change process, which I am not familiar with, you'll want to contact Tezur0 directly for that because Master and I aren't mods. (Personally, I'd expect anyone who cares about a game to follow it so that important forum posts like the rules one are seen quickly.)

[quote="damagak"]For example if YP and I started doing runs again and we just decided that you can ignore all loads and one player can stand still until the other loads, and we just used IGT with no notice to the other people who are playing the game that would be insane of us, and obviously the run would have to be re-timed. No one wants the rules to just be a whiteboard that changes for the convenience of whoever has a marker.[/quote]

If a forum post or SSDQ Discord discussion happened first, which did for both the infinite ammo rule and 300% enemies rule, then I would have no problem with it, as I adjusted my notification settings according to how much I care about the game. In fact, the 300% rule had some pushback, so the moderator created a strawpoll for it: https://www.strawpoll.me/16303016/r

[quote="yp"]The management of weapon ammo is something that isn't relevant outside of a few select spots, but stuff like being limited to only 5 rockets at the start of both TFE and TSE did change how a few earlier levels were handled, especially in categories like All Secrets.[/quote]

I haven't and don't currently intend to run All Secrets, but if infinite ammo does change the run enough to warrant a subcategory, I'd be interested in seeing a bulleted list of route differences. Any%, however, I know does not change much because I ran it.

[quote="yp"]As for why it wasn't allowed, I could've sworn at one point in time it was literally listed as a cheat in the game options but I may be mistaken, regardless it's always been classified as a cheat in the other SS games so it made more sense to keep it off. It's always been separate from the mutators so I never really got too familiar with the menus, since I literally never hosted the servers.[/quote]

I've never seen the infinite ammo setting listed as a cheat since I started playing v1.05. Singleplayer's cht_bInfiniteAmmo console command yes, but the co-op menu setting no. I just checked Serious Sam 2 and Serious Sam 3 as well, and they too just put infinite ammo alongside benign settings like "Clients may pause".

[quote="yp"]The argument that disallowing it made it closer to the originals is kind of redundant when it was set to 1000% anyways, so I don't see what you're trying to get out with that one...[/quote]

Spoiler alert: you two are in agreement with that one, but I'll leave this for Master to clarify.

If any part of the post came off as dismissive, I am sorry as that wasn't my intention. I'm not sure if that was about my talking about our runs or not, but I just wanted to say how the pathing advanced to stress that infinite ammo didn't matter since it did look like you might have felt that way. Looks like we're on the same page with this now.

Yes, mutators are a variable when submitting, but that option in itself is redundant with the main game because with them off, this is exactly the same as running a classic game, with the exception of the All Encounters category. I would be fine with that column being removed since it'd just result in duplicated runs with the main game, but it isn't a big deal. The place for Revolution is to play with all of the available modifiers to make it an entirely different run, and none of them should be disallowed because we already have leaderboards for that, classic TFE and TSE.

There was discussion held on these rules in the Serious Sam Done Quick Discord server with the community active there. A poll was held about the enemy limit, and then results were posted to these forums so things were clear. If anything, it was the previous state of rules that weren't discussed as nobody knew the reason why they were instated as such, and since there wasn't any reason to argue for it being disallowed, it seemed a pretty obvious change to make. They fell apart with the slightest bit of scrutiny of "wait, why is this one thing specifically banned?" which shows how poorly thought out it was in the first place. Somebody who was active from back then please do correct me if I'm not remembering this right, but I believe it was said that a previous mod (not sure if it was the founder?) had just written it in themselves and they aren't around anymore. So, really, if you think about it, the previous state of the rule was the one that wasn't fair, which was solved.

We've got it easy here. Other times when things change in a speedgame it could be a rule that needs to be added which makes runs slower, splitting up the boards in a messy way with legacy runs. Generally changes which don't make previous records impossible to beat are left up as-is, unless the change is substantial enough to warrant a subcategory, which I would very much advocate this does not at all (especially considering this is a barely-played offshoot of the main games). Exception here being All Secrets as I have no idea how that routing is. At least in co-op it's just going to be an OOB-fest with as many players as there are secrets so we never bothered, but solo could be entirely different... I'm not sure. I'd probably still argue that infinite ammo isn't necessary to subcategorize anyway.

I didn't think you guys were accusing us of cheating or anything. We aren't even moderators, we just brought this up to the attention of the community when we started seriously looking into running this game because the mutators are fun stuff. We only completed the one run without infinite ammo at the time more for a fair comparison to the old WR to see how all of the new stuff in the run compared, and yes, because it was in the rules at the time, but the discussion about the rules changing was already taking place so we thought "well, we'll do it with ammo for now to get a 1:1 against the old record". We likely would have continued that way had the rules not changed, but that doesn't mean we agreed with the way it was, nor did others once it was brought up.

So, anyway, in summary, there was process and discussion for the changes amongst multiple people, and I don't think that anything unfair took place. I hope it's a bit clearer now about what the community did behind these rules, and I hope you guys would like to come in again in the future to give the new pathing a go. One last thing about the enemy spawn rate, I have a pretty solid computer and I get lag when there are a lot of enemies too, it's just kind of how the engine works, so with even a moderately slow modern system I don't think you'd be on unfair footing there. Loads in co-op is something else... you can use the in-game time which discounts loading, but if you don't load in time to help your partner that could definitely be a problem. Maybe the slower loader should try hosting? I'm not sure what will happen then, but it might be worth investigating. It could be better than you're thinking, hopefully.

Also, Glover is great! That one is a hidden gem platformer from my childhood, not many people have heard of it. I don't think I'd ever run it but I can imagine it might be interesting since the levels were fairly open, usually. Ah, memories...

EDIT: Jesus. This came out longer than I expected. I'm known for writing essays, and I guess that doesn't stop here.

Hi, I guess me as a person who actually applied new rules owes you all some insight.

Conversation about infinite ammo was first brought up by Master and Mr.Deagle in regard to classic TFE and TSE couple of weeks before Revolution. Arguement similar to what was brought up here was held. Back then there were more people to discuss it with as TFE was pretty active and people had talked their opinions out. In the end we reached conclusion of the matter which looked something like that: "All coop settings are applied through ingame menu and as a result are just part of a game. You can use whatever coop settings you like, but keep in mind that fastest would be this <set of settings>. As for creating subcategories - we can't draw the line on what needs a subcategory and what doesn't need it, so subcategories as of right now won't be created"

Later same conversation was held regarding Revolution. And here I must confess my only sin in this whole situation. I really didn't care about Revolution and generally was very light with how the runs were done + I swear that yoshipro was back in a day in a discord and at a time of discussion - you weren't, so I jumped to conclusion (without asking you, which clearly is my mistake, since you ran these LBs in a past, I just inherited them as series mod) that rules aren't really based on any logic other than "cheap otherwise". My response in discord was the following: "-well, I changed rule about cheats. since IA is in a game menu I don't think it is a cheat by any definition -this game already has so much crazy shit going on with mutators that banning anything in advance makes no bloody sense -maybe it was missed in menus upon writing these rules or it was considered "cheap" -yet again these are VERY old rules -written by yoshipro, who I don't think is in this discord anymore I'll probably specify a bit more about what CHEAT is, but as of right now IA should be allowed by the rules" Some time later after that we were trying to figure out 300%, had some fight for and against it and then the rule got changed aswell.

Rules aren't something that is set in stone and if large part of community agrees on something subcategories or new variables can appear or just everything might turn upside-down.

I'd encourage to join discord for conversations as it is just more convenient than forums, each game has it's own channel there, all logs about us discussing rulechanges are also there.

If anything - last thing I wanted to do is to negate all the previous job done by moderators or runners, but yet again running around and asking every single person who ever touched game, might not be best solution in some cases (not here, I admitted that I was not completely right in my actions, just did what seemed to me as best in that scenario). I hope you are willing to get this game a go once again since it got quite a bit of development.

Have a nice day.