The level timing rules are absolutely ridiculous. First off, apparently certain levels require you to use the restart button for the run to count, but some levels forbid you from using the restart button. So I either have to use the restart button or I can't??? Also, the level ends AFTER THE EXIT CUTSCENE?

In every Mario game that has a timer, it starts when you gain control of your character, and ends when you touch the flagpole. The speedrun.com rules make it so much more annoying to run the game. For some cases, if I die, I have to exit the level, and re enter it. It's like the rules are meant for it to take the longest time, since the cutscenes at the start and the end combined add 14 useless seconds to the run. It would also make it so much easier if you removed that considering that the switch can only record the last 30 seconds of gameplay, so it would be the most convenient to avoid adding 14 useless seconds.

Remember, speedrun.com moderators, you have a big influence on the speedrunning community. If you make a rule, it just becomes a rule. Please change this.

(CLARIFICATION: I do not mean any disrespect to the mods, although at the time of writing this I was quite pissed off realizing the new rule, considering I had spent a lot of time grinding out a level for it to just be invalid.)

the height you get on the flagpole/the water you have in your trunk changes the length of the ending cutscene

Still adds a useless amount of time to your speedrun & still goes against every other IGT rule for every other Mario game.

Honestly, kinda yea. I could still see the argument for timing IL's with flagpole touching, as the post-flagpole doesn't realy affect that much on the run: for quite most of the cases it takes very little to now effort getting to the bottom of the flagpole, and water in trunk is also quite niche (might be underestimating it but yea most of the times doesnt exist at all).

Thinking about it, the flagpole difference also exists in some other previous mario games that has done nothing about it. I know about NSMB2, you have to grab the MIDDLE of the flagpole to be fast, not even the bottom, but there is no rule for that in IL's because they use the IGT anyways. While that's not a thing here, other games make it feel like that post-flag isn't realy important for the general of IL's in the mario comunity.

Another point in favor is, we have actualy be finding some inconsistencies, or at least the game working strangely/differently among different endings, on the fade-out of the level; this seems to be ignored by absolutely everyone except 3 of us geeks out there, but it can be a problem from shorter/simpler levels,

The point of "it can be challenging to remember these" feels quite stupid by it's own lol: it's realy just ending the time every time at the very frame the clear condition happends, and, common, there are like 4 kinds of endings maybe, it wont be that hard. Besides, just write it in the rule and check it if you forget.

I see what KilleDragon is saying, so if anything, I would agree with him and say at least the post-flagpole cutscene be removed from the run.

I'm just as confused by this ngl. For levels without IGT, aren't the mods having to retime it to specific frames anyway? In the rules it states that timing begins and ends on specific frames, it's not like it's any more work to just stop timing on the exact frame you hit the pole. It feels very counterintuitive to count an ending cutscene that has no actual influence on the performance of the run itself. So two people with the exact same time and performance will be in different spots on the leaderboard because one had water in their trunk and the other didn't? That doesn't make any sense. Hardly anybody cares about getting a shorter cutscene in an IL run, but this rule forces people to care about it, just super lame.

If there was more to do after the cutscene, like in a full game run, I would understand. I genuinely do not get the motivation behind this one and I've read through a couple of these threads now trying to piece it together. The only thing I can think of is this rule has been in place for so long that they'd have to retime every run.

ok fine ill write a piece on this gimme a minute

tbh it is ridiculus, why not end when you touch the flagpole, since thats when you lose control

Beacuse its harder to retime you can say this is the first frame but also it could be the next one or etc but with the rules rn you know what is the first frame or last frame so yeah

Wish it was like mario run since there beacuse there is a pause button the run stops when its fade then it makes sense but here there is no pause button

The IL Problem: Why our retiming method sucks and why its the best possible option.

With the release of mario wonder one of the first things you notice is the lack of in game time in the vast majority of levels. In the NSMB series we can very simply time individual levels (ILs) by subtracting the igt shown at the end of the level from the one shown at the start and while it does mean that each level cant be optimized as far, it does offer a fair and simple solution for IL runs on the leaderboard without any hassle for retiming.

In wonder we were not given that luxury so a start frame and end frame had to be chosen. The first thought i had and how we timed ILs in the early days is from first frame of movement to firwt frame of pole touch. This emulates the igt in nsmb series as close as possible but it comes with its own problems in wonder specifically. 1. in levels with cycles you could simply wait to start until the optimal time and 2. in levels such as ninji jump party you end level with wonder flower still active and so basically pause on the flagpole making it very difficult to define "pole touch"

Problem 1 can be solved by timing runs from fadeout instead of movement but that leaves a problem that differentiates level entry vs level restart. For the sake of consistency and also because of levels like item park where the cycle is wildly different upon level entry compared to restart and even has a textbox at the beginning (badge challenges and some other levels also have this textbox) that doesnt appear on level reset. This may seem strange but if you have ever tried to retime a run based on level entry you will understand instantly.

Problem 2 is the more controversial one, Instead of timing from pole touch at all we time when the level fades out (approximately 13.400 seconds after a normal pole touch) this comes with its own actual problems but it also has a few common complaints (i used to be against it) People say that it artificially increases the length of a run which is... sorta true? and it does make switch clips a less viable method of recording which sucks but honestly very very few pole levels fall in that sub 30 second window and its also kinda annoying for mods to time those kinds of runs its really not a big enough problem to be worth the downsides. From the pole to the end is part of the run and can have drastic differences for example downpour uproar my original il for the level hit the top of the flag which is a full 4 seconds slower than hitting the bottom. I find it hard to consider that 4 second slower run "faster" just because we dont consider the context of what happens immediately after grabbing the flag. Optimizing things such as having water in your trunk or where you land on the flag add another layer of skill to an IL which in most cases is a good thing. People in this thread really seem to have failed to consider why the rules are how they are with krazy even saying things that are just... blatantly false? you have to start every level with a reset i have no idea what you were talking about

I dont want to imply that current IL timing has no issues, the frame before start frame in a badge challenge has some transparency not present in normal levels which is confusing because with normal levels recorded with a phone camera you will see a transparent load frame which is actually the frame the run should start rather than the frame before. Along with this ending frame is very annoying due to various recording qualities not showing the smallest possible ending circle and runs that end with elephant are very annoying to retime due to the circle being half off the screen. in general the mods have tended to get more consistent over time and most runs are properly timed these days (i retime every IL verified and the rate of failure has gone way down)

The game itself is also wildly inconsistent especially with varying frame rates. We do have tas tools for this game and the level "Hurry, Hurry" humans have tied the tas of 7.600 But due to various inconsistencies both with 30 vs 60fps and inconsistencies in the game itself there are two runs currently verified listed as 7.567 which is faster than physically possible. I have brought this up with the mods and i think they agree that lowering the time to 7.600 makes the most sense but dont quote me on that. For a more in depth look at why loading circles seem to be nonsensical i made an entire video disecting the 3 currently known tas tie runs vs the tas itself shown below

In conclusion: Please stop complaining about how ils are timed it almost certainly doesnt affect you every criticism you have i understand and had myself back in october but really the current method is the best possible and without nintendo updating the game to include igt we arent going to get a better method

i aint readin allat

Thanks for clerfiying to everyone.

And i did read all of that lol

I appreciate the writeup, it clears a lot up. I understood the start times, it was just the end time that bothered me. I wasn't aware the framerates of the game itself were inconsistent. I wouldn't call what I said 'complaining' though, as that's very dismissive of a real confusion several of us seem to have. I myself was struggling to figure it out, and I wanted to know why. Anyway I recommend more transparency on why the rules are the way they are, if you don't want people to be confused in the future. Just stick some of this stuff in the rules and call it a day, as it stands now you have to venture into the forums to find the reasoning. Again I do appreciate it.

i just think it was a little rude how krazy came across assuming no thought was put in to these rules i dont think you personally were complaining or anything. I also would like to mention im not a mod (yet) ive just personally been hyper invested in the community and want ILs to be as fair for everyone as possible which is hard to do due to innate differences in how everyone plays

Ah I misunderstood, my apologies. I agree they were rude with how they presented their arguments. I figured yall had some legitimate reasoning behind it, I'm new here but I bet yall are tired of this by now. I look forward to submitting some runs, I've been obsessed with this game for a few weeks now. Thanks again for clearing that all up

Rules impact speedrunning; consider player convenience for fairness.

what do you mean by that

Probably be nice