Hey everyone!

I am making this announcement because A Little to the Left has been updated, called the Deep Clean Update (v. 2.1.11). While there is a lot to unpack, we unfortunately have some really bad news.

To get straight to the point: level transitions in the current patch are now about 1 second slower than before (see http://viewsync.net/watch?v=2vp-UI-4W7c&t=12&v=bri4qmVnoT0&t=40&mode=solo). This may not seem much, but when accounting for all 79 puzzles in the main game, that's over 1 minute of time loss from version differences alone.

To address this issue, we are considering these two options.

1. Retime every run by adding the time lost from transition time. The retime may take effect sometime within the next 1-2 weeks (I don’t have a lot of time in my hands unfortunately). This should not affect your placement on the leaderboards as we will add every run the same amount of time depending on the category you are running. This can allow current and new runners to compete with runs prior to the update without the 1-minute setback. 

2. Create current/legacy subcategories. Essentially, all of the runs that were run before August 31, 2023, would be moved to the Legacy subcategory and all later runs be put on the Current subcategory. Unfortunately, since the current runs will never be as fast as the legacy versions, this does create an accessibility issue, especially for games on Steam as it is a pain to down patch games. 

Ultimately, we would like to hear input from all runners on which option is best or have any suggestions.

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There are also a lot of changes and bug fixes from the update as well. Here's a list on some of the relevant ones. These aren't concerning as they have very little impact on the speedrun:

• Reset Menu - for every puzzle solved, you won’t automatically move to the next puzzle. This does slow you down, but you can disable it in your settings. Note that if you are running 100% you will need to re-enable it during the run when you are doing alternative solutions (and it can be a little annoying)
• Storage Boxes Broken Solve Patch - you can no longer cheese the tape solution for storage boxes. Doesn't really affect 100% heavily as it adds a couple more moves to solve the puzzle.
• Microscope QoL changes - you can now grab the snowflakes through readjusting the zoom of the microscope.
• Finale Skip Patch - you can actually skip the finale by performing "Let it Be" storage. Now you can't. This patch only affects me since I am the only one who is crazy enough to speedrun Any% (with puzzle skips) misc. category. That run will now be invalidated on my own accord.
• Trophy Cabinet Patch - yes, now you won't get ruined from an invisible mistake from a stupid cup trophy not being in the "right place."

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Now onto the more positive news from the latest update: there is now a new misc. category called Archives 100%! This means that you need to obtain all of the stars in the Archives pack. This category though will undergo changes if the developers add more puzzles into the game.

Also, we won’t remove the other misc. categories, Something Eggstra and Good Tidyings; nevertheless, we are changing the rules to these categories, including that you are required to do runs in Archives and must show proof that you reset your progress. Note that we won't remove the runs prior to the update.

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Please let us know if you have any questions, suggestions, or concerns about this announcement. As stated above, the level transitions from the update are now a problem for ALTTL speedruns, so it is important to respond to this thread on this issue.

Yo! I was wondering why i felt slower than before. I would say retiming would probably be the better choice in the long term. I do think that if anyone still wants to run legacy, maybe add a new cataegory for that, but that feels like a good portion of work, for little reward. Ulimately it comes down to you two Mods, and what ever choice you end up making, i know it will be impemented well

Also, if you need help moderating/retiming runs, im happy to help!

Thank you for the really important announcement. Exactly I am also one of the runners who is interested in the level transition delay and new categories. (I've just posted about this topic on my Twitter/X few days ago)

These are my personal opinions (and impressions) about latest update:

• Currently I prefer to make subcategories (version variables) and leave old records (or down-patched records) as they are.
• One thing I wonder: even ALttL doesn't require higher PC spec, runner's environment may possibly effects for longer/shorter transition times. (I haven't checked exact differences, so it there's no problem about that, please ignore this comment) If runners want to strictly compete their time and if we have differences as I mentioned by our environment, what we need to think about is reducing loading time (by load remover/AutoSplit or something), not to gain additional time and make our speedruns slower. (A topic about additional tools should be on another note and I will say no more here)
• As a runners who's using Steam, I personally feel that it's not complicated to down patch. (I am doing speedrun with down-patched version in other games and tried down patch of ALttL including DLC today. Only thing we need to do is prepare data for previous version and exchange them with current data files. It will complete less than 10 minutes, and I can share how-to if there's anyone who needs help) One problem that came up in my mind was the numbers of Daily Tidy and other achievements, but fortunately it didn't lost after down-patched.
• I think it is bit premature to exclude choice of faster down-patched runs. If it becomes sure that there is no runner who runs with older version in the future, then it will be proper (and not too late) to have discussion again about retiming or deleting subcategories. (I knew and sorry for mods to make extra tasks if it goes as I said...)
• I've wrote down a lot, but I'll respect all opinions from every runners and finally I'll follow decision by moderators.
• By the way, I am so happy and welcoming about the trophy cabinet patch! This trouble often makes my DLC run ruined and now I can play it calmly!
• As an aside by a runner of miscellaneous categories, I don't mind removing my misc. records (Good Tidyings & Something Eggstra) and unify them as Archive 100% category. (Actually I am going to practice Archive 100% run right after this post lmao) Please feel free to clean them up if it's needed (both now or in the future)!

Last but not least: thank you so much for all moderators and runners who support this community. English is not my mother tongue and I hope my translation is making sense. Please tell me if there's anything I can help for ALttL speedrun (including Japanese translation, retiming, verifying or moderating).

I do see the wisdom in legacy and current subcategories, but imo the bug fixes help a lot in speedruns

Yeah I agree that bugfixes make our speedrun stable. To talk about only trophy cabinet puzzle, personally I've lost nearly or more than 1 minute for several times because of the bug (as I wrote above) and I understand that it is safe to use latest version. (I haven't run DLC categories after update, so I don't reap its benefit yet, will try and check)

At the same time, it is not always sure that which loss (transition delay or bug loss time) will make our run slower until we try, because it is not always that bug occurs. The ideas for the speedrun depend on each runner: who want to run faster anyway even they have risk, or who want to do stable speedrun even it can be a bit slower than risky version etc. If we add same seconds for down patched run and put them in a same category, it is much more easier and simple way to organize, but it possibly means that we ignore the risk they took. (Of course I can't tell how many active or near future runners having former idea, and that also connects my idea of "premature". I knew that I am too careful person, but I think it's better to have time and make decision after finding out how many run with down-patched version submitted/planned). (Just to be sure, my comments does NOT mean I totally disagree ideas for retiming, it's kind a matter of choice!)

By the way again, How about other new options (cursor assist, effect etc) for you all? I'm dull and honestly still haven't find out what is changed, is there any good improvement for speedrun?

Also I just tried (and submitted) Archive 100%, and felt that it is effective to set version variables on 100% categories. I've turned on retry menu at every levels and thought that operation accuracy for selecting retry/level/continue is also can be a part of competitive element. (*anyone please let me know if there's any other faster way)

I'm pretty sure the cursor assist is when pressing S or Q the cursor moves to the next object, but that's always been in game, just might be an option to turn it off

Thank you for always running the community.

After running Any% several times, I noticed that the loading time between stages became longer. Rather than adding a certain amount of time to past records as load times, I support separating past runs as legacy versions by marking versions on the leaderboard.

P.S. Regarding the Trophy Cabinet Puzzle, I feel like there are still some bugs when I play the game. I've played the latest DLC about 4-5 times, and I've run into the trophy bug 2-3 times.

English is not my native language, so please excuse the translation.

Hi.

I'm going to participate in one of the speedrun events in the 100% category, so I ran once as practice for that event.

Based on the results, I agree with the division into current and legacy categories.

I feel that there is a noticeable difference between the two versions, especially in the 100% category.

In addition to the extended loading time, I could see that some stages have changed the behavior of objects and the clear judgment.

For example, "picture frames (tilt)" and "storage boxes - tape".

In the 100% category, the presence or absence of a "retry menu" has a significant impact.

Also, either way, the game progression is very different from previous versions.

(BTW, I found it less stressful to have "retry menu" turned on.)

For current/future runners who want to know how it actually differs, here's a sample comparison clip for DLC on my PC. Using retry menu makes Deep-Cleaned run a bit faster. (link to my Twitter/X post)

https://twitter.com/monochroparadox/status/1700089833837019518?s=20

@TFGA_tFoMS: Thank you for the patch update and the information about cursor assist! In speedrun I have same idea about cursor assist as you mentioned.

No problem! i wonder if it will be faster to run Deep Cleaning Patch, rather than pre Deep Cleaning for 100% DLC, as retry menu feels like a godsend

I think the retry menu would benefit a lot, although it would be for 100% original, not 100% DLC.

Even with a very rough play, I was able to run 41:36.

(The record with pre-Deep Cleaning was 41:31)

This new update is either REALLY good, or REALLY bad, depending on your perspective

I did additional comparison about delay difference about PC spec/environment. (Thanks @RiKyu for sharing recording data!)

https://twitter.com/monochroparadox/status/1700469431074488762?s=20

In conclusion, My recordings took more loading time than Rikyu's. Also on my computer, the delay differences increased in Deep Clean (about 0.2s for shortest, and over 4s for longest / in legacy there were less than 0.2s). I hope this test helps for retiming discussion or establishment of new regulation.

• As I wrote in my previous comparison video, the transition delay is not always same for each stages/runs. Also, my videos are 30fps and Rikyu's are 60fps, there may have another few flames' differences.

In 100% category I also agree that using retry menu in Deep Clean makes our run much faster and comfortable, even they have longer transition delay than legacy (I haven't checked how effective it actually is in DLC 100% yet, but I think it works better for same reason as original 100%). To talk about future runs, based on the information afaik, currently I am planning to use Deep Clean for 100% and legacy for Any%.

[Add] I checked DLC 100% with Deep Clean, and felt that the effectiveness changes by player's environment, but not much as original 100%. On my computer, waiting time for level menu is approximately 30sec, and I had at least 1.5sec delay in each stage for selecting menu and stage transition (except multiverse drawer: 28 transitions), so on the calculation my Deep Clean DLC 100% should be a bit longer than legacy.

Hey everyone!

I have read the feedback in this thread, and I do appreciate the runners engaging in the conversation.

From what I gathered, the general consensus at the moment seems to be that there should be a category split between Current and Legacy Versions. This means that runs done prior to the Deep Clean update (or before version v.2.1.11), will be moved to the Legacy subcategory and new runs running this version or later will be added to the Current version.

I do also want to take in account over the differences on hardware shown from @xionkohinata's post. Because of this, I want to discuss another potential option to discuss use of autosplitter.

I do not know how to make an autosplitter nor how to manage one. It would be great to have an autosplitter so that we can account for the time differences in the current version.

But for now, I am considering adding the sub splits for current/legacy versions of the game. If I have the time, I might consider making an autosplitter for the game.

Hello again!

It has appeared that the discussion appears to have concluded and the general consensus is that we should have a version split between legacy and current versions of the game. As such, we are adding the Current/Legacy subcategory split for many of the in-game leaderboards. Here's what will happen:

1. New run submissions must choose either the Current or Legacy subcategories. We'll define Current versions as any version of ALttL that is v2.1.11 or later and Legacy versions as any version that is before v2.2.11.
2. The default page (what you'll see first if you open ALttL SRC page) will be Any% Legacy Version. This is so that the leaderboards doesn't appear to be empty if new runners open the page. If you think the default page should show the Current Version of Any%, let us know so that we'll change it.
3. Categories that are not heavily affected by these changes (Good Tidyings, Something Eggstra, Archives 100%) will not have the subcategory splits, but instead have variables for the version differences.
4. If any category was not affected or became faster by the version changes (such as 100% if it does) or the game changes such that the later versions are faster, we'll merge the legacy and current versions of the game. A note I want to make is that @Villion did discuss with the developers about the transition changes and they are noting that down for future changes, so if things revert back to normal, we will change the leaderboards again.

Likewise, if you have any comments or questions about these changes, feel free to make a post here!