This post will detail all changes made to the PoE speed running website:
The format of PoE speed running is being changed after review by Balaar, Chip_Idiot, Havoc616, ImExile, Keld0rn, Tytykiller, and critical staff members from the PoE Community Racing Discord.
Among the major and most relevant changes: (1) Reverted: HC/SC as a filter subcategory will continue to exist to allow us to better evaluate interest in SC runs (2) All nontwink solo leaderboard runs must show migrate all (3) A5 and A10 skill point and lab categories have been added (4) A3 Any % category has been added (5) Runs require VoDs that do not expire. Please submit through youtube. If not make sure it is a twitch highlight (6) Leader Boards are now ranked by class within a category instead of archetype. Archetype will still be used but as an informational category rather than a ranking category. If you are unsure of archetype, a moderator will correct/select it for you on run submission (7) Occasionally there may be a PoE speed run event currently ongoing. If that is the case, the particular event will be the default selected category while it is going on. Otherwise, A5 Any % and A5 Pts+Lab will be the first two categories, followed by other categories. Brutus, Oversoul, Lvl 80, Twink A10, and Coop A10, can be found in misc category section
Minor Changes: (1) Old threads have been archived to give the board a fresh slate so topics are relevant to recent major changes. If you do not receive a reply to a question/thread within a few days, please reach out directly to a moderator. You can do so through a message or through the PoE Community Racing Discord by sending a message
Edit: Any and all rules and categories/formats or proposals to change rules/categories/formats, will be regularly reviewed by moderators. Please feel free to post a separate thread about any such requests.
If you want a format that is currently not on PoE speedrun, we are open to adding formats if sufficient interest is shown by the posting of runs for that category in this forum or in the PoE community Racing discord.
Great question, and we understand your concern about the deathless requirement being super punishing for players who are trying to get into speed running PoE or to just get better at the game. Ultimately, it is an answer that is motivated by many factors, some factors which motivated some mods and some factors which motivated others. I can only speak for myself as to what factors motivated me to vote in favor of the change.
Part of the reason involves the changes from archetypes to classes for organizing leader boards. When doing so, we went from having 3 leader boards to 7 leader boards for a particular category. Right now, the speed run board has 11 categories (only counting coop as 1). The old speed run board had 8 categories (only counting coop as 1). Thus, the old leaderboard system had 24 leader boards, which were further divided into HC and SC for a total of 48 discrete leader boards. The new system without accounting for SC/HC has 77. Even if we kept categories at 8, it would have 56. Accounting for HC/SC, the new system would have 154 or 112 leaderboards, which is a lot.
Another factor is the lack of SC specific runs submitted. Most runs submitted under the old system were deathless runs. We only had 4 submissions that have been archived in the SC runs section of the 81 runs that have been submitted since patch 3.5. If interest returns for SC, it is something that we might revisit in the future as we have indicated that we are open to run formats as long as sufficient interest is generated. Certain categories that exist on the PoE speed run website would seem to fall under this too where there is no enough interest, but the reason why those categories still persist even if they have small submission numbers is community races for those events have happened relatively recently. We do not auto-post runs for people that completed those events, and instead wait for them to post or we will from now on be working to either encourage them to post or to receive permission from them to post on their behalf.
An additional contributor is that racing and speed running in PoE is traditionally associated with deathless runs. While this may not be the best approach to onboarding new players, the expanded leader boards through class type and the fact that the first three acts and the first major boss (Brutus) are offered as racing categories can somewhat help with this as you can work in stages to reach deathless runs across a variety of classes you may be interested in playing.
Dying indeed would generally speaking be slower, but there are a number of "SC" skips you can make by having strategic deaths that would actually improve your time for certain categories. This is not something we necessarily want to encourage. Moreover, having some sort of standard penalty for a death can create issues regarding what is an appropriate penalty.
A mitigating factor to how punishing this can change can be is that there is no time threshold for a run to appear on a leader board (and there will not be one), which can allow players to go as fast as they can without dying while not having to worry about a time cut off for the leaderboard
One thing I am looking into and will be advocating for if it is feasible: is that for players interested in tracking progress / seeing relative performance is a “Progress Board” that tracks various runs and would have somewhat different formatting where players can submit a run that for some reason or other would not appear on other leader boards. For example, such as not showing migrate all, or because a death happened. This section would also not obsolete prior runs so you could track progress if you are interested at all. While this is not quite the same thing as a leader board, it also is a way to show off people working on making progress and getting better so they can eventually get on a leader board and would show up in the misc section. Whether this will be feasible or whether it will be approved by other mods, is unknown at this time.
Myself and the other mods are open to feedback and will revisit any issues that come up as necessary.
Absolutely! The point of speed running is definitely to go faster, but each speed running community acts in service of that goal in different ways that matches the context of their game. In my opinion, part of why I enjoy speed running so much is that going faster is in service of an even higher goal, mastery or skill. But more to the point, PoE also has a deep and rich history of deathless or HC being the standard for speed running and racing as another way or lever to demonstrate mastery or skill in addition to speed. Thus, for me it felt appropriate to honor that tradition while seeking to expand in other areas to allow for more flexibility such as first moving to archetypes then second broadening further to classes instead of archetypes. Other mods voting in favor in will have different answers than mine as to why deathless is preferred, but I hope my perspective can at least provide some insight. Ultimately, though as the speed running community grows things can change, and if there is enough interest in SC categories, then having some form of SC categories is a definite possibility from my perspective.
I can't help but feel like this is not a decision made by a speedrunning community. Of course, as this is an online game, there might be some unintentional features that GGG might not want you to use, so they have some control over what you can do in the runs. In speedrunning communities, it is usually the case that you want to squeeze as much as possible from the game, use all the advantages that the game gives you.
Death abuse, although maybe not extremely useful in this run (still probably faster than logging out if you have the chance), is something that's been around for so long that everyone has done it and probably in multiple games, sometimes even accidentally. This is not a thing that should be banned from any leaderboards unless you're going for glitchless runs (and that usually doesn't end up being a main category unless the Any% is too short, so there's almost always the option to go with pretty much anything and then restricting yourself is a choice, that's how most of speedrunning works)
And I don't know if this hasn't been brought up, but deathless run is different from a HC run. Even if just mentally, your decision making and care is very different when playing SC and when playing HC. Even if the result is the same, it is still very different run.
And just as an anecdote, whenever I play SC and run out of mana at boss (in acts ofc), I will just let them kill me to reset the mana. And that has been the case for like 7 years, I don't think I'm the only one. Resetting a run just because I didn't have a portal scroll for refill would probably be the most frustrating thing to deal with in these runs, especially when dying would probably be faster than opening (and wasting!) a portal and going through a load screen and all that with more walking included. (e.g. The Harvest arenas)
Hey Wafu, thank you for your heartfelt thoughts on the matter. I can tell you have a lot of passion for speed running generally. Every game has different standards, and every game chooses its goal differently. The goals must fit the context of the game and fit for those running the game. Each one of us who decided on these changes is primarily engaged in PoE as a speed runner or racer. Some of us also race in other games including games that have non-glitchless categories, so we do have perspective as to what speed running means in communities outside of PoE. Each one of us is dedicated to speed running and racing in PoE, and have put a lot of effort into creating resources, helping people learn how to speed run, promoting the speed run community, and being engaged in the community. On a personal note over the past four leagues, about 90% of my actual playtime has explicitly been for the purpose of speed running or racing. I have also spent enormous amounts of times screenshotting, studying, and solving layouts which I then push onto the broader community. Each one of these guides is a multi-day project. I am extremely passionate about speed running and racing in PoE, and I am heavily involved in pretty much every sub community within PoE that focuses on running or racing that is publicly available. Pretty much the only race/speed run format, I am not involved with is 100 pushes. This is just a small description of context from which I approach.
To move more back to the point, deathless runs for the PoE leader board categories we have right now was unanimously supported by those mods mentioned above involved the changes that were made. The community organized speed runs / races in PoE have, by an overwhelming majority, have been deathless runs. The submitted runs to PoE speedrun have, by an overwhelming majority, been deathless runs. If you tune into streamers who are heavily involved as PoE speed runners, the speed run the game deathless. If they die, they reset. These streamers include many people beyond those of us who made these changes.
Every game is different, but the way the speed run community has shaken out in PoE is with gale force winds supporting deathless runs, and barely a breeze for other approaches. If you speed run in games beyond PoE this may seem somewhat anomalous, but that doesn't mean its not speed running. It is merely a different take on speed running.
Edit: I also wanted to make clear that we are open to having SC runs as the community grows if there is sufficient interest. This was mentioned in one of my prior posts above and it is implied in another sticky about "Run Categories That Are Not Listed"
I get that the mods support deathless, but at some point it's about accessibility to the category and game. Someone new who picks up PoE, plays the game, wants to learn how to speedrun it, isn't necessarily going to be good enough to get through the whole game deathless. That stops progress towards learning a run almost instantly. If I feel like I can't actually even complete a category (no matter how safe I play), I'm not going to want to learn it. Most runs don't have this type of barrier; you can struggle through the run as much as you want, but at a base level you can start and finish the game and it will count for a run. I'm aware that this will most likely not change any minds on the mod team, but please realize that if you want people to interact within speedrun.com and do races, you should consider opening up the deathless rule to allow, at bare minimum, for non-intentional/non-skip/etc deaths. I've been wanting to get back to PoE running ever since my wrist has healed, but with these new rules I see no point in actually trying since I won't be good enough for multiple months to be able to complete a valid run.
(A similar game, Diablo 3, has no death restrictions that I can see.)
I have to speak up and support amyrlinn here. Many speedrunners like to jump into a game that they don't know very well and learn the game by improving their times. This used to be called semi-blind running but has been struggling to find a new term for it to avoid the connotations involved with blindness.
SRC allows you to track your times and see your growth over time which is what a decent number of speedrunners get into the hobby to chase after. Even if your goal is to prevent forcing softcore to be the best way to play at the top end, that's something to address once SC runs are popping up. As you said yourself, very few runs of it were appearing on the boards, but I was talking to you all about this as you tried to figure out how to attract new runners.
Part of attracting new runners means new players. Forcing a deathless rule means that they cannot submit their learning runs, they cannot track their progress. Not everyone learns a speedrun by grinding practice until they're near-perfect. I would suggest adding as amyrlinn suggested an option while submitting that shows if you died or not, still require /deaths at the end to verify it. If a large number of softcore runs using softcore only skips pop up, then that's reason enough to un-merge the boards. But until then, why restrict new players out of a fear of something that isn't currently happening?
Hey Rae! Great to hear from you again. To be abundantly clear we are open to SC runs, but we need to see sufficient interest first, and that means people doing runs, and posting them on the board or reaching out to us about the fact that they have runs. That is what we are asking for. Before any postings where even made from non-mods about new changes, we indicated in a sticky we're open to other categories if there is sufficient interest and its shown. This is not unreasonable. We are asking people to put some skin in the game, and being responsive to the community that is active. If you show your active and want to be active in PoE, great we love to have you and make space for you within the community if that space doesn't exist already
Sorry, I'm a little confused by that response. If you're open to SC runs, then why is there a rule specifically disqualifying it on the board? Part of the issue here is that the rule on the leaderboard discourages people from doing runs that you want to see in order to change the rules. Maybe leave a note on the rules/this post that if sufficient interest in shown in softcore runs with deaths the boards will be changed to accommodate that? That would get the idea across that this isn't a final declaration?
That is a valid point regarding the game rules especially since people may not always wander into the forums to see clarifications on that point. I will make explicit in the game rules that SC categories can exist if sufficient interest is shown. I will also make that clear near the top of those rules.
None of the changes mentioned above are the be all eternal rule for PoE speed running. We plan on meeting fairly regularly to review whats going on with the scene and making adjustments as necessary. We can do a much better job of communicating this, and I do apologize that this was not clearly and explicitly communicated.
I'd also like to announce that PoE speedrun.com now has its official theme song! You can find the link here: https://soundcloud.com/zorig-urangoo/sptsmvqpvqj4
I feel like whether you consider PoE speedruns to have to be deathless or not is based on your personal perspective. When I was first learning PoE the official race seasons were all HC races, and once race seasons ended the people who were still around like Alkaizer, Helman, Fitegarr, and DeadandDoom were still doing purely HC speedruns. So when I started doing my own runs, it was natural to consider every run where I died (which was a lot) to be null and void.
However, I can understand that new players without the same experiences as me might not share the same perspective that I had. In a vacuum, I don't see any reason for SC runs to be unofficial, and in fact I don't see any reason for SC not to be PoE's main category since it's technically faster and this is speedrunning. The only reason why I personally advocate for deathless-only is because of the strong, prevailing "deathless culture" in the PoE community. The truth is that right now, SC runs are incredibly hard to share or brag about. If you post an SC speedrun on reddit without explicitly specifying that you died, people will accuse of deception; if you do specify that you died, people will trashtalk you and tell you how avoidable your death was. Because I've been shaped by this culture I've ended up regarding SC runs as valueless and I'm sure some of the other people on the mod team will tell you the same.
Anyways, this turned into more of a ramble about the Path of Exile culture than an actual strong argument for deathless-only but I hope you now know where some of us are coming from. There's a case to be made that we should just reject the culture and display SC runs anyways but that is something that I'll have to do more thinking on.
I see where you are coming from. And it's great that you're willing to follow the community's wishes if they seem to run softcore. So I assume you're going to deal with this properly. I need to comment on this part though:
"So when I started doing my own runs, it was natural to consider every run where I died (which was a lot) to be null and void." - While it is a valid feeling, I wish this wasn't such a standard. I've seen this do some serious damage in several speedrunning communities. Some people don't let such a situation affect them and that's great, but many people, especially new runners, jump into this attitude and either quit running the game immediately or end up being very desperate over trying to perfect the run right from the start.
Just to give an example, I moderate the Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven game and its category extensions. Yes, it's a very different game and the runs range from 2:40 to 4:00 (hours), depending on how skilled you are, but it has a fairly big community to explain what I'm trying to say. A lot of runners who achieved the time below 3 hours tend to reset when they die. But we've had it over and over that people who can't even get close to the 3 hour mark reset the first 2 missions for countless hours, this attitude leads to not learning anything past the first half of the game. These people stagnate because they can't handle it when the run's not perfect. And this spreads a lot and brings a lot of toxicity into the community. If this community ever becomes big, I really hope this won't be the case. You'd be surprised how many people avoid some speedrunning communities because of this.
I wish you good luck in handling this and I hope to see this community growing.
Yeah, I mean, I'm not good enough to do any run except maybe Brutus deathless, which makes the deathless requirement an extreme turn-off for me wanting to run the game, plus the fact that it's only a "possibility" that the run would be added to the boards.
I like playing the game and I want to speedrun it, but I'm not going to be good enough for multiple months to do what would be considered currently a valid run (and that's IF I spent all my free time practicing), and that sucks.
From Mod Team Involved: Upon reflection, we have decided that we want to see what interest SC will drum up with it available as a subcategory again. We will use whatever interest is generated to further inform our opinion about what to do as it relates to SC and how to implement it. We have some reservations still, but we want to give players a shot of showing their interest in SC by having them being part of the leader boards again as a filter subcategory. We will continue to monitor this issue and will revisit it again when necessary. However, we will 100% be revisiting this issue at the end of patch 3.14, which is in roughly 2 months from this posting.
General Note: Please be patient as we update various portions of the website to reflect these changes including game/category rules
Personal Thoughts: A majority of us voted in favor of having SC again each of us voting for with somewhat differing reasons. There is some disagreement in how to best implement SC when it was rolled out again. In full disclosure, I voted for implementing SC again and doing so for all categories, but my preferred way of implementing it across each of the categories we currently have was not adopted. From my current perspective, the required level of interest, as demonstrated by submitted runs into those categories, to justify the continued inclusion of SC is low. Rae’s point about there being some disconnect between rules and what we were saying on forums also made me reflect on fact that to show interest in SC people may not bother in coming to forums at all or even know what category to run to show interest in SC. Therefore, when making a decision relating to showing interest, it might behoove us to make it easy to do so by keeping those categories available while we evaluate this issue further. With that being said, I do want to see at least some SC runs. Ultimately, my main concern is not necessarily with having SC, but with how its implemented.
