If you can go faster with mods then those mods are not allowed. In this case you should just disable the team ai so that the elevators can close faster.

That looked really smooth. Must've been something like 18.5 seconds.

Awesome!

Banned jesus spots in glitchless. It affects 1 run: My slaughterhouse record :(

I've linked my DAHM4PD Discord server to this game. The community is small and it makes no sense to manage multiple servers for just a few users when most of the topics overlap.

If anyone has a problem with this decision I'm happy to hear about it.

I've recently added categories for warping and runs that use it. Because of the nature of this glitch, it can be used to drastically speed up runs on certain levels where you don't need to wait for certain events to happen. So why add it now? It's simple: the player base decreases and people have been exploiting other bugs and using trainers anyway, so there really isn't a point in keeping it hidden from the public, which for a game that no longer receives updates is the only way to keep it from getting abused.

So how does it work? Once you're on a solid object, the game keeps track of your position relative to this object. This allows you to move along with the object, like the van on Heat Street. The problem lies in the fact that it keeps track of the position for each position/posture like standing and crouching. So if you're on the object in one position and then move off of it in another position, then the game assumes you're still on it. So if the object then moves, your position is updated, but only for the body position you were in while you were still on the object. That means once you enter the body position again, your location and rotation will be updated with the translations that have been applied to the object in question. Note that the position is updated first and then the rotation, so a small rotation may be greatly exaggerated when the object moved a great distance.

To give an example: you crouch on such a solid object, stand up to switch to another body position, move away from the object in this position to (so that the crouched position still remains there), get the object vector to change (e.g. by shooting it or by letting it play its animation) and then crouch again. You will now be warped to a new location (depending on the translation of the spatial vector of the object) ignoring any objects between the old and new position. You may even end up inside another object.

By posting this I'm hoping it'll help you with the (new) any% speedruns. Just be respectful towards other players and don't use this in public gaming lobbies. The information may even help you become aware of why you're sometimes pushed out of the boundaries of the map after you've interacted with a shield unit.

NOTE: THIS IS A COPY OF ANOTHER POST AND THESE CONTENTS WILL STILL BE REVIEWED AND CLARIFIED IF NEEDED. JUST NEEDED A URL TO LINK TO.

[section=Intro]The rule listed for the categories are a listing of what applies for those categories. In this post I try to explain why some of the rules are in place and give more detail on them. If something is not clear, please post in the thread about changing these rules. In case something is not black and white, it's up to the moderators to judge whether a run should be disqualified (for a certain category).

Due to the limited number of runs present for this game, existing runs will not be disqualified if one of the more specific rules is violated. They may have to be moved to different categories.

[section=Rules] [big]General[/big] 1. Team AI may be enabled. 2. The total time of a run is the sum of all timings on the mission end screens for the host. 3. Runs recorded by clients must have some indication what the hosts time is. 4. Mods that give you (significant) advantages are not allowed. See the next section.

[big]Categories[/big] 1. The exploitation of major and time saving glitches is only allowed in the Any% and Shuffle categories. See below on what's considered a major glitch. 2. In co-op runs, it is not allowed to leave a game to speed it up unless posted under the Shuffle category. 3. It is not allowed to restart a co-op game in a category other than in the Shuffle category. It is allowed in single player mode and for individual levels. [small][1][/small]

[small][1] Restarting or ending a game will not show the time played. Unless an in-game timer is shown, the time between the intro fade-out and the opening of the menu will be used. Unless all timings are accurate to tenths of a second, they will be rounded up to the nearest second. Endgame timings are used as is (and rounded to what the vanilla game timer would've shown).[/small]

[section=Mods: What is allowed and what not.]This is a controversial topic because not everyone has the same opinion about what's cheating and what isn't. However, disallowing all mods means you can never play with any mod or "accidental" speedruns would not be allowed when you regularly play with some mods enabled. Instead, we'll be a bit more liberal on this and allow anything that's not a cheat. That is, any information that will help your run and is not provided by the game and cannot be determined manually is not allowed.

Since only the actual gameplay is recorded, intros are allowed to be skipped with mods as long as the transitions are maintained. While this may indirectly affect the state of the game in some cases, there is no advantage in starting a game a few seconds earlier. When a certain timing is of concern, the same effect can be achieved in other ways that do not involve mods. While restarting a game is allowed to restart individual levels, you are not allowed to do this to speed up multiplayer runs as you may gain a few seconds compared to when you are forced end the game by the whole team getting downed.

Examples of what's not allowed includes anything that changes the gameplay, seeing assault times in a way not possible with a stopwatch, enemy numbers (as they can tell you when the assault starts or ends), information about enemy hitpoints, etc.

If you really want to do a run on a modified game (e.g. a custom difficulty), you can use the other difficulty. Even slight alterations to the gameplay are not allowed for the regular difficulties even if they make the game more difficult. The only exception to this is the bugfixes to the Undercover map by DorHUD/DAHM to fix the boss loop as they do not impact speedruns (they're too short for the bug to have any effect).

[section=Glitches]The game has tons of bugs and some of them can be abused to make your runs faster or much easier. In the any% category all glitches can be used, but for the glitchless category they have to be defined since many small glitches are used by most of the community in regular gameplay. In general for the glitchless category the rule is simple: if it gives you a time advantage or a significant risk advantage, then it should be disallowed.

Avoiding damage or manipulating assaults by entities being in so called "god spots" or "jesus spots" are not allowed. These are areas where you are hidden from enemies (by taking advantage of their pathing limitations) and take little or no damage. Assault manipulations in general is a way to play this game, so there's nothing wrong with that as long as units can (easily) hit you in the places you go. Examples of these spots are closed off rooms in Panic Room, sitting behind doors, hiding in open containers and hiding in bags to avoid damage. This does not only apply to players but also to sentry guns as they too attract the attention of the cops just like a player would.

Interacting through objects in general does not save you any time nor is it significantly safer to do so unless you purposely put yourself at risk by being in risky places. For time advantages there's really only a few things I can think of and these are:

• Duplicating and using mission critical equipment, most notably gas cans and thermite unless explicitly attempted to be picked up again or multiple players starting the interaction at the same time.
• Interacting through the wall on panic room to set up or repair the saw. This avoids two people having to go in the panic room.
• Interacting with the gas on slaughterhouse through the container wall. This only saves a second, but every second matters.
• Destroying the glass on the cases on Diamond Heist with the GL40 from the floor above even though will only save you a second on a solo run.

For some less obvious ones it may be debatable and may have to be determined when the question arises. These include not killing the bulldozer guarding the transformer box on Counterfeit. However, for this example you're not saving any time (if your team is good enough) and in fact you already lost time at this point as the power has been turned off. To be clear: that specific case would be allowed in a glitchless run. [section=Tracking time]For runs by individuals the time simply starts from the moment you gain control of your character until you see the endgame screen. This is tracked automatically and the result is rounded to the nearest second (the time you see on Steam is rounded down to the nearest integer number so it can be a second lower). For multiplayer runs desync plays a factor, so if the host has the ability to record, then he or she should do so to prevent any questions about the validity of the time (i.e. caused by high ping and/or having delayed objectives or spawns). This can be done by communicating the time or taking screenshots. These screenshots then have to show either the endgame screen or the Steam statistics [small][1][/small] (if this was the fastest time). For full game runs the screenshots have to be of the endgame screens as the small differences can add up. In general the time shown at the mission end screen should be identical for both host and client. If there's any discrepancy, the time shown for the host will apply. Existing runs recorded by clients have to be taken as is in order not to invalidate everything.

[small][1] The time indicated by the Steam statistics has to be at most the value shown on the endgame screen. Lower values -- by one or two seconds -- are acceptable, higher values are not. Because of how the rounding is done, this may still lead to a minor discrepancy if the times are equal. A lower value on Steam is no proof the run was faster than shown in the video/screenshot.[/small]

[section=Crashes, (re)joining and other client stuff]The game isn't the most stable and it can crash or bug out and the networking code isn't the best. I do not wish to disqualify multi-heist runs when this would happen. But if the video isn't recorded by the host, it's really difficult to determine an accurate time for the run. So unless screenshots are provided in this case, the time will be based on the video and in every case of doubt the result will be rounded up. If any gaps in the video are present, there's no other option than to disqualify the whole run. For individual levels, such effort will not be taken and the run will be disqualified immediately when a player (re)joins the game.

Using mods to get yourself out of situations where you became stuck or falling through the map is tolerated, but this should not be abused. Any sign of intent or gain of advantage will disqualify the run.

[quote]For Payday 2, due to the prominent use of mods and cheats, we decided to stay true to the strict speedrunning definition which is about running the original game without the help of third-party programs and such.[/quote] Yeah the game just has too many bugs to demand vanilla gameplay, not to mention the QoL stuff like skipping the intros or even just the bugfixes that prevent the game from crashing on every little thing. So I'm ok with mods as long as they don't give you any benefits you can't have otherwise because that would just be cheating.

[quote]This is what I want you to clarify along with the PDTH community: do you want leaderboards to be focused on pure speedrunning (any% easy) or challenge (glitchless OVK/OVK 145+)? Then choose the default subcategory accordingly. [/quote] That's exactly what I asked and most of the responses I got were to make the glitchless category the default. And for getting the fastest times, there's no real difference between OVK and easy for good teams. Individually there's a difference, but I can't demand OVK runs because so few people are even able to beat it on that difficulty on normal runs.

I personally like to get the fastest possible times on the highest possible difficulty, but I don't expect many people can even come close to the times on those difficulties and the community is already quite small. However there isn't much of a difference in how fast you can be between OVK and 145+ other than on Diamond Heist where the codes won't work.

Having said that, I wish there was a better way to distinguish these runs, e.g. having subcategories. But afaik there's no option to have a subcategory that includes all options and it would only become more of a mess than it already is.

[quote]Regarding the shuffle subcategory, you also should either mention that it includes glitched runs, either that client disconnections do not void glitched runs.[/quote] It's mentioned in a post here, but I haven't updated the actual rules yet.

[quote]Finally some nitpicking about SRC features. Shuffle category is pointless for solo runs as host can't disconnect to speed up a game.[/quote] Yes, I know I still have to do that. I tried earlier but I did something wrong and reverted the whole thing. But thanks for mentioning it. :)

-- edit: Now I remember why I didn't want to change those categories. There's no easy way to apply variables to multiple categories. :\

I really don't want to disqualify single heist runs because of who is recording, regardless if the run is recorded by the host or a client. I can't demand that on older runs, but I guess those can be assumed to be correct. Actually, now I think of it a screenshot of the hosts statistics for that heist are sufficient evidence that the time was the same, assuming the run is their best time there. Even the host mentioning it in the (voice)chat would be enough. On multi-day heists these things can add up and you probably don't get the best times for each individual level, so there screenshots or a video would be required. I'll edit the post even though it's not finalised yet. I even forgot to include that part in the rules as I wrote those down first before I added the details.

Having said that, I will edit my the end time sync snippet that comes with the DorHUD bugfixes mod to (optionally) print a message that the end time has been verified or corrected. Sure, this doesn't guarantee it hasn't been tampered with, but neither do videos or screenshots.

Most of what I down applies to everything, single and multi day heists. I now realise the post wasn't clear about host ending the game, so I should edit that. I personally don't have a problem with the host leaving the game to end the session or to use a mod to accomplish the same thing. These things are always slower than "perfect" runs and the game provides you the means to quickly end a heist out of the box. But if you think that should disqualify a run, then that's something to consider.

edit:

This post has been moved to https://www.speedrun.com/pdth/thread/mhq4i

I can only state my opinion and that is: it depends. I won't ban a run if this happens by accident. I did my best to balance these things by excluding some areas from the warp and add penalties for using the command that will get you arrested on the spot you were stuck at, so someone either has to go there or you'll have a 60 second timeout. However, technically you could abuse it, but I think it would be obvious if it was done intentionally to give your team an advantage. So in most cases I won't ban the run for it and in case of doubt I'll ask for a second opinion. So try to avoid it. :)

[quote=Tromboncino]Even if I would say that clients should not be able to submit their stats UNLESS it's the same as the host (verified with another video or screenshot if the host doesn't record). Using this method even if there is huge desynch between host and clients the timer should still be accurate.[/quote] Keep in mind that the desync works two ways: both at the start and at the end. If it's only applicable at the end, you'll have spent more time on the heist. Only if there's a delay at the start and not at the end the end time will be less. But I agree, taking away the doubt by demanding evidence from the hosts perspective is a good idea, even if it's just the Steam account linked to verify the statistic. I just cannot enforce it on the runs already in the system and even for my own runs I don't think dussel made the screenshots. But most are very much beatable anyway. I actually added a little resync feature in my mod that corrects the time based on what the host had. So if the host has the same mod, it should always be correct. But as this a mod I cannot demand it. So it's both a good idea but not really enforceable because of the older runs.

[quote]Also, for multiple heists in a row, restarting should be banned and if the host crashes during a heist the run should be nullified, since there isn't any failed time to count.[/quote] Actually there is as long as the video has the whole thing on record. Sure, it's not from the end result, but it's from manually calculating it from the time stamps. I agree that it's much easier to just ban these runs, they're not going to be the best times anyway.

[quote]I don't see any problem if a client crashes and rejoins during mid-game, since the host's timer should be unchanged (as far as I know).[/quote] Correct. And if the end-game time is used, there's no difference whatsoever as the game and therefore the timer pauses when someone is joining.

[quote]About that, more in specific I think leaving and rejoining (to speed up the escape, for example) should not be banned, but put in the Any% category instead OR, like in PD2, in a complete different category called Shuffle which counts as a separate Any%.[/quote] That's actually a much better idea. I'm actually ok with either of those options, but then it can't be done the clients who record unless there's another video :)

[quote=HarrytheHeister] I don't get this, why host abandon the lobby? it's highly unlikely 4 random people play 9 heist continuously to record & publish to "speedrun.com". Anyway the continuation of remaining heist fails. [/quote] Haha, I only included this because I saw it in one of the videos on this site where they restarted Diamond Heist when the codes failed. Obviously for full-game speedruns you'd start with the maps where RNG is the biggest influence if you want to get the best times.

[quote=HarrytheHeister]I don't know which consider OK & which are even refuse to put under the glitched category. I'll list my idea after you comment on that.[/quote] In my opinion every unintended glitch that saves you time that cannot be saved in another way. To list some:

• • The manipulation of assaults by kiting or splitting it up is a valid game strategy and only makes things easier and while you're technically exploiting the lack of any anticipation for cops, I wouldn't call this a glitch;
• • Duplication of equipment can obviously save a lot of time and there's no way this was intended so this should be banned from the glitchless category;
• • Destroying the glass on the cases on Diamond Heist by the use of the GL40 from the floor above is by no means intentional and this can save you a second or two and therefore should be banned from the glitchles category;
• • Any skips to the mission in unintended ways obviously don't belong in the glitchles category;
• • Hiding in bags or using so called "god spots" (e.g. like a popular one on Heat Street) make you near invincible and should be banned from the glitchless category;

And for some less obvious ones it may be debatable, such as not killing the bulldozer guarding the transformer box on Counterfeit. If your team is good enough you're not saving any time and in fact you already lost time at this point. For this reason alone it should be allowed in the glitchless category. And if that's not enough, the pacifist achievement in part relies on bulldozers not turning the power back on if you do not kill them. Another less obvious strategy is to use level ups as a way to restore health. Since this is game feature it should not be considered a glitch -- unless done on OVK or above, which should not be possible -- even though you can no longer do this when you've reached the maximum level.

[quote=HarrytheHeister]Additionally purposely going to custody (especially the one who trigger escape or leading to escape)by using a command to get down[/quote] This is technically cheating and therefore should be banned.

[quote=HarrytheHeister][...], using GL on self, purposely not using meds after multiple downs to have a low health & have a very low bleed-out time should disqualify the run, people might use these especially in heists where escape trigger & escape locations are far apart.[/quote] These on the other hand are just features in the game and I don't see the need for the whole team to escape because in most cases that's not the fastest way to finish a heist. If there are enough requests for this then maybe it could be added as a separate (sub?)category, but I don't know how to do this without making it too complicated yet.

[quote=HarrytheHeister]I have witnessed some rare desync situations, if the people experienced stuff like below they shouldn't submit them in the first place. [...][/quote] I don't think you can even escape with these conditions unless it's only from client to client, in which case it should not make the run any easier as there will be no way to interact with one another.

[quote=HarrytheHeister]After a disconnect, rejoin with different load-out should be a disqualify - people may say various things, but everyone should know / discuss what they need before start the heist.[/quote] I agree since disconnecting to gain an advantage should be banned regardless. This includes both leaving to speed up the game, leaving to give someone your mission equipment or leaving to come back with a different loadout.

I already got many requests to make a clearer distinction between glitchless and any% runs. Therefore I made those subcategories (with glitchless being the default) and made the difficulties a regular variable. Now all that's left is to have a very clear definition of the rules of what's considered a glitch and what not.

At the time of writing the rules for full game runs are as follows:

1. Team AI may be enabled.
2. Timing begins when the players come in control of their character on the first heist and loading times ARE counted between levels, so you are NOT allowed to skip any intros.

This is just a small rewrite of the rules that were in place. I don't agree on the second rule: the netcode for this game isn't great and loading times vastly differ for someone with a 5400KPM HDD vs a modern M.2 SSD. In fact during regular games it's possible to time out because the host is loading so slowly that it exceeds the 15 (or 20) second timeout and that's just for one level. Mulitply that by the 9 different levels this game has to offer and you get a difference of nearly 3 full minutes and this doesn't even include the time it takes to connect to one another.

I propose to use the in-game timer instead. For individual levels it's easy as there's just one screen at the end. For multi level runs it gets a bit more difficult, especially when the run is recorded by a client. Obviously it should be prefered to record as host (or even from multiple views) when playing with a team, but the rules should not be that strict. We can ignore differences in the end result caused by client desync because they usually average out to the same time as the host and tend to be higher than the time the host has if this is not the case. However, in some (rare) cases the end-game time is actually lower for clients, though this will also be the case if some external timing is used. The real problem lies when a client loses connection to the host or crashes mid game. I don't think this should invalidate a run, but it invalidates the use of the in-game timer and therefore is the only case where an external timer (e.g. the video timestamps) should be used. When connection is lost because the lobby was abandoned by the host, the in-game time should be used. The end result is the sum of all these in-game times (with corrections in case these cannot be used).

I already changed the rules for individual levels as just one of them had a difference in the claimed time and the in-game time (ignoring the runs with clearly incorrect time values). All that needs to be done for these is to specify what should considered a glitch. Or rather, what should be considered glitchless. I can only think of three glitches that can be considered acceptable and those are leaving the dozer next to the transformer alive on Counterfeit, interacting through objects such as walls -- because it's so common in regular plays -- and the manipulation of assaults. The latter does not include the use of god spots where you cannot get shot. All other things, even minor ones such as the duplication of mission critical equipment, should be considered a glitch if used to speed up the run.

Now for a more controversial subject: leaving the game to speed up the escape on a level. I think this should be banned from co-op runs because it can be faster to only have the host escape. However, someone hosting games for having the best connection does not mean they also have the capability to record. Sure you'll be punished if you play with someone that's desynced, but you also have an advantage if you have such a player and thus it somewhat cancels each other out. Moreover, this avoids issues where the escape cannot be seen on all recordings.

Last but not least is the acceptance of mods. I'm the author of what's probably the biggest and most used mod for PDTH: DAHM/DorHUD. I'm firmly against cheats or anything that changes the gameplay in any way, but I do believe in the power of mods to make certain aspects of the game more convenient. Therefore I think mods should be acceptable, AS LONG AS THEY DO NOT AFFECT THE RUN AT ALL. There's also the fact that you cannot see what others are using, so really there's no point in banning them for co-op runs. To give some examples, it should be allowed to use a restart feature (and the time after this is initiated should not count towards the total time), but it should not be allowed to use a mod to put yourself into custody or get downed immediately. You are not allowed to see when exactly assaults end or start (as this is clearly not possible without any mods), but automated stopwatches to keep track of events are allowed as long as you can manually do the same. When in-game times are used instead of actual times, skipping intros are not a problem as the in-game timer only starts after the intro is done as long as a black fading screen is shown so that you cannot use these one to two additional seconds where you can actually see what you're doing. For speedruns with gameplay changing mods (e.g. my 193+ mod) there's a dedicated section, but you cannot rank entries using the same mod. The use of improved bots, health regeneration and other things that can only be classified as cheats are banned.

I won't be making any changes to the rules for at least a week. Any feedback on these changes is appreciated and I won't make any changes the majority of this (small) community does not support.

There are sub categories for the difficulties now. But you're not entirely correct there, there's still RNG involved on 145+: the spawn of the manager, whether you get the codes from Ralph and the timeout after escorting the CFO, which can be either 60 or 90 seconds.

There is now. :)