Hey guys hope everyone is doing well. I'm new to the Castlevania speedrunning scene and was wondering if there were any plans to add a Maxim all bosses glitchless category? Might be an interesting way to run the game with a different perspective seeing as how more rooms will need to be run through in this category in addition to utilizing maxims moveset more.

If someone wants to run glitchless then that can be a category. There are no plans for it, but I know you're not the only one interested in seeing a run of it. I was thinking of doing a glitchless Juste run because the skips are so awful and inconsistent, but I didn't even do all furniture yet so that's not happening anytime soon.

For Maxim all bosses glitchless would just be any% glitchless since you normally have to defeat all bosses to get to Dracula. Though what glitchless means has to be defined. Does it include the door-glitch? Damage-glitch? Zips without warping? Launching at all?

I could quickly make a route for it if you're asking because you want to run it. It'll be much easier to make than the other routes. I doubt anyone here wants to run it right now though.

Yeah it would consist of all the things you mentioned regarding maxim. basically no zips, out of bounds, door glitch, damage glitch and everything else that was mentioned. That would be awesome to see a route of it. I do want to try running it with those restrictions if possible.

Hmm. When I pictured glitchless to myself I was thinking of it more like skipless, which would have excluded only the glitches that allow skips, meaning that launches and the damage glitch would still be allowed, but nothing else. Being totally glitchless is more of a problem for Juste than for Maxim because if you attack as fast you can with Juste you often accidentally get the damage glitch anyway, though that doesn't happen for Maxim. I can regretfully concede the damage glitch but why not allow launching without zipping? That's like trying to go slow. But whatever I'm not sure if I ever want to run it anyway.

I'll post a route here sometime later, hopefully in less than a week.

EDIT: I just remembered that you can skip through the wall to go to living armor by launching off a candle in the left room, so launching allows skips too. That would make the damage glitch the only glitch left so it might as well not be included in glitchless either. I'm fine with the rules being everything restricted then.

I'd be interested in running a zipless or glitchless category as well. I'd probably run it with damage glitch personally but i also wouldn't mind if it were banned

I’d rather see a ‘maxim, in-bounds’ category than glitchless, e.g. launches and damage glitches are ok as long as you don’t zip into any walls or do any wrong warps.

I have the route down to a few candidates and they're all close enough together that the choice between them might come down to what exactly the rules are. So I'll likely need some decision on that.

When I was timing some segments it felt really slow to not go for any launches at all, and when I did launches it was natural to get into walls and zip up, even if I wasn't warping with them. I also don't like not making use of the non warping door glitch. So my preference is to allow zips as long as they don't warp or go out of bounds, to allow launches as long as they don't go through walls, and to allow door glitches as long as they don't warp or go through walls. So basically like this old TAS called "Maxim, in bounds" (http://tasvideos.org/1162M.html), except without the launch into living armor and without the one door warp it uses. If this is too glitchy, then I'd say take it to the other extreme and have no launches or damage glitch at all.

So what should I make the route for?

EDIT: I'll make it for the more glitchy extreme here if there are no objections. This means that zipping up walls would be allowed as long as they don't warp you anywhere.

Which zips don't go out of bounds?

I'm really glad to have checked out the video and all the comments here! Happy to see that so many are involved. Ultimately I trust everyone's judgment here regarding the rules for the category mainly because I'm new to speedrunning, and you guys have devoted significantly more time to know all the ins and outs of harmony of dissonance. If the tas is any indication of how the run/ route will be for in bounds, I am all for keeping the launches as I think there should be some interesting movement tech there personally. For what it's worth the damage glitch is also good to be included as well, mainly because repeatedly doing the boss fights in a slower manner seems unnecessarily slow and I can see that becoming tedious with the limitation to not use it. Personally I am not a fan of zips mainly because I'm more into seeing how quickly the game can be beaten without glitching through terrain but if it makes for a more interesting in-bounds category then, by all means, go for it.

With that said, is it possible to see routes of both extremes? Completely glitchless and the one you are planning on doing? I'm interested in seeing what a completely glitchless run/category would look like as a means to be an entry level run for new players (like myself) that are looking to break into running this game and then work their way toward the more technical runs. Completely glitchless doesn't have to be a category (although it would be neat!) but I'm more eager and excited in trying to run the game in that manner and seeing a route of that would help me out immensely! Sorry if I'm asking for a lot!

@Hetfield90 I want to allow the zips which don't take you to a screen that isn't normally connected on the map, and which don't take you to an OoB, non-wall part of a screen like on the outside of the chapel. The reason for defining it this way is to allow minor zips like in the pendulum room in the clock tower where you can launch past the pendulums and zip up the little platforms between spikes. This would also allow larger zips like zipping up the big entrance room to the save, and the hard zip after skull knight in all bosses. As I said, the same rules as the inbounds tas except without door warps and without launching through locked walls.

@JustLeeBelmont The routes would be mostly the same. I only want to set the rules so I can take into account heart and magic management, and to compare how long different paths take. The route most likely goes from the start through Giant Bat and Minotaur Flail to the warp near Dracula. The bottom-left bosses are easily gotten from there through Living Armor. Then from the center there's the Pazuzu, Clock Tower, and Cavern warps to get to, from which getting the bosses is easy. There are only a few possible paths connecting these 4 warps so it mostly comes down to timing these paths against each other and choosing the fastest ones, and zipping would make the path from the cavern up through aqueduct faster for example. How to connect Shadow to the route is a big factor in choosing these paths, since he only quickly connects to Legion Saint and he's far away from everything else.

Optimizing both routes would be kind of tedious, so I don't think I'll do it. But I can post the candidates so you can time them against each other if you want.

Are there any launches that go through walls but stay in bounds on both sides and don’t cause major sequence breaks? If so, that seems to me like it would be more or less on par with the small vertical zips since some of those go through solid ceilings/floors.

It’s hard to tell what’s going on in the tas sometimes when the launches cause offscreen movement.

There might be launches like that. By my suggested rules they would be allowed, but they don't appear in the route.

Anyway I think I have the route now and the exact rules turned out to not matter. I still want to test it and make sure before posting it though.

Here's the route. It's for both in bounds and totally glitchless. I made a picture of it but it got kind of messy. https://imgur.com/7tVt4bm

Start -> (save next to bat if you need magic) -> Giant Bat -> Minotaur Flail -> Activate Center Warp -> Living Armor -> (save in basement for magic) -> Legion Core -> Warp from Basement to Center -> Death -> Talos -> Activate Cavern Warp -> Merman -> Max Slimer -> Devil -> Pazuzu -> Open the gate going down in the left room -> Switch to Castle B near Pazuzu -> Shadow -> Legion Saint -> Peeping Big -> Warp from Clock Tower to Basement B -> (save if you need magic) -> Skull Knight -> Cyclops -> Warp from Basement to Cavern B -> Golem -> Warp from Cavern to Top Floor B -> Minotaur Axe -> Dracula

Hearts aren't a problem as long as you know which candles give them. Since you don't go to save rooms as much as in All Bosses, it's best to avoid using the magic attack if you can, though there are good saves for it before Legion Core and Skull Knight. For healing, there's lots of Life Ups along the route that only take 2 seconds to regain health. Using them is better than going to save rooms or playing very safely on bosses.

There's lots of zips around, but it doesn't work nearly as much as I thought it could. The big ones are in Entrance, after Skull Knight, and in the first room of Clock Tower after Merman. The one after Merman has borderline legality since it skips a gate you're supposed to unlock, but I think it should be legal. There might be some more zips I missed. Also it's best to take the lower path in Shrine going to Living Armor, and it's better jumping up the platforms in the elevator room.

That's it for the route, but I'll post some alternatives too. The first alternative was only 6 seconds slower by my timing. It activates the Clock Tower warp after Max Slimer before going to Devil, then warps there near the end after Golem to get the Clock Tower B bosses, then from Shadow you go all the way back to the Clock Tower warp.

A second alternative is to warp to the Center Warp at the end before going to Minotaur Axe instead of to the Top Floor Warp. Even with a risky zip in the elevator room it's slightly slower and you get less hearts from it due to not opening the gate near Pazuzu. It's a good backup if you forgot to open that gate though.

Sorry it took me so long to do the run. I really appreciate you routing it Sopha, it helped me immensely.