Hello o/ I wanted to submit this idea since few months. I really enjoy running this game, but in the current state of the leaderboard, if you want to be competitive, you need to use RNG manip. The issue is, running with RNG manip is not something I would find fun personally, and I know a runner who have the same vision of the run (I can understand that some runners find it fun though).

So my idea was to split runs with RNG manip and without RNG manip, probably in 2 different sub-categories. Here are my arguments:

• These 2 ways of running the game don't have the same "philosophy". While you need to react to patterns you get when you run without manip, which makes RNG, knowledges of the game and decision-making more important, running with RNG manip makes the run entirely focused on memorizing the patterns, and pure speed.
• It's easy for mods to spot a run with RNG manip. While without manip, the runner will start the run at a "random" time, with RNG manip, the runner will start at a very specific timing. On top of that, runs with RNG manip are way faster in terms of putting pipes on the board, since the pattern is already known, and pose of pipes seems unorthodox compared to runs without manip (I hope I explained it well ^^').

Of course, I'll let the community discuss about it, if it think it's a good idea or not. If most runners think the leaderboard must be unchanged, I'll understand.

I sympathize with your position. I've seen many leaderboards thrive for years, then have RNG manipulation discovered and have 2 separate categories for the runs, and everybody's happy. Unfortunately, in this game I don't think there's anyway to prove that no RNG manipulation is being used. Theoretically someone could do what looks like a normal run, but go faster than normal out of advance knowledge of what pieces are coming.

Under normal circumstances I would want 2 categories for this game too. But because there is apparently no way to prove a runner wasn't using RNG manipulation, I'm not sure it's feasible here.

I imagined it would be easy to differantiate runs with manip, and without manip, but you made a good point. I hope we could find a way to differentiate them with a more reliable method.

I thought about splitting the categories when people started submitting manipulated runs. At the time I was thinking the same way as NESCardinality. I think it would be possible to make a run where you aren't following a top level RNG route, but you are using knowledge of the RNG to your advantage (and not revealing it).

I think that is still true, but I think you could argue the mashing through the start, the decision making, and the time should give you a strong hint as to whether RNG was manipulated. I'm also not sure I'm convinced it is a prestigious enough category that someone would go through the effort, and therefore the honor system may be sufficient.

Especially since NESCardinality is part of this discussion I wanted to mention a few other examples of 'no RNG manip' categories. It seems like (to a lesser degree perhaps) Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy have the same problem. Dr. Mario definitely has the same problem, and perhaps even Tetris. It seems like in these other cases the rules just state that manipulation isn't allowed and that seems to have been sufficient.

I'm inclined to make a new category, but I'd like to allow time for other opinions or rebuttals first.

I think the benefit of having a new category outweighs any downsides of potential cheating which I think is pretty low for a game like Pipe Dream. I am one of those people that enjoyed routing this with a known seed value (which is still wide open for improvements), but I doubt I can compete at the highest level without it. I think the runners that can play this "normally" should be recognized for their skills with a new category and for now we can just rely on good faith.

We're all here to have fun, but right now it's not fun for those that don't want to play with RNG manipulation.

Dragon Warrior's RNG, while otherwise straightforward, is for whatever reason unpredictable after the hero opens a door. Since there is a door in the throne room, RNG manipulation requires a save after exiting the throne room, which there would be no reason to do in a no manipulation run. In Final Fantasy you can beat the game to reset the RAM RNG which governs attacks, and then you get first strike against 5 Imps in your first battle, but in order to continue manipulating the RNG you would have to do something really obvious in the second round of that battle (there is no way to kill 5 Imps with 4 characters in the first round of the first battle). For these reasons, no RNG manipulation categories in those games appear to be free of extended manipulation.

The general debate that occurred when these categories were being conceived centered around the possibility of hiding manipulation, and that is the main issue here. If the community supports the idea of taking the risk and the Moderator is comfortable with the implications, I would support the choice to divide the categories if the rules for no RNG manipulation include a requirement to show a game over from the previous game or something like that.

(For the record, if the categories were split, I would fully intend to play both of them.)

I have created a new category as discussed here, and included the previous game over requirement.

I was unaware of those details for Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy manipulations. Interesting info

I guess this leaves a question of if I should move over runs older runs that didn't have the game over, but were before people started doing manipulations. I guess I'm thinking I should move them and just make a note that older runs were grandfathered in

I've read the rule about the game over requirement again. Does it mean, whenever you want to try another run, you need to loose all your lives? Even if you want to retry just because your run is too slow?

That was the idea, yeah. just because that would make it harder to set up the RNG for a manipulated run.

Ok! Thanks for the answer! I'm supposed to run this game tomorrow, so I know what I have to do now :)

I got a new PB which I submitted in the No RNG Manip leaderboard! So I have another question: what about my other runs in the other leaderboard? It would be weird to keep them here, even though I started to run the game after RNG manip was discovered. If you don't want to move them in the other leaderboard, I'll understand, but I think I would delete them ^^'

I have moved the old runs and verified your new one.

I'm really glad for this split, even though I've been able to find very good seeds, it was fun to find them but the grind on them is way less enjoyable then getting into the flow state and let the pieces fall where they will. I'll be picking the controller back up again for sure on this one now.