Figured I'd get a dialog started here for some of these new options that came in the latest patch. This is probably the sort of thing to get a consensus on for what people want to be allowed in speedruns. (Again I'm no authority on the matter, but it'd be good to have some coordination)

Personally I think the home point option at the very least would add some interesting routing and timesave opportunities. Some of the other options might be a little more obviously 'cheaty' but hey, it depends on what we want as rules.

Anyone here that have opinions on this? :)

I think mini race skipping should be allowed or it will end up being the degenerate reset fest of getting 1st in the Salmon race in 1 try with the rent-a-fish () 30 minutes in and seems barely possible as I have gone faster than that video (30.83 left on the clock) and still only got 3rd which leads me to believe that you also need RNG for the lead fish to be blocked by one of the other fish.

Mini game race skipping will not be allowed currently for at the very least a non boosted xp category. Reason behind this currently the reset fest you are talking about isn't a thing, if you skip mini game with rent-a-fish it doesn't give you first. Second no one has even looked into manipulating rent-a-fish racing. Third if you do something like this and it turns out there is a perfectly reasonable strategy you can do to win with rent-a-fish and it is faster, then we have to keep the skip in and we just cut out gameplay due to a quick knee jerk reaction to a new game (because obviously skipping is faster than doing the race even if you win so old runs on a different ruleset have X amount of time advantage meaning invalidating old runs or keeping in an arbitrary rule).

The short: Currently not a problem, so not going to create a potential future problem until something is a current problem.

I am talking about swimming with rent-a-fish to get violin, dismounting, then skipping the race to get automatic first as opposed to the reset fest that top runners will feel obligated to do if skips are banned and because someone wants to save like 90 seconds. Unless you have some sort of strat or shortcut that I don't know getting 1st seems terribly inconsistent and I don't know that there is more than 1 person that has got it up until now and it took him about 80 attempts. 80 attempts 30 minutes into a run to save 90 seconds is such a deal breaker you just kind of don't want to run the game at all at that point, all easily fixed by just allowing it.

I, uh.. definitely can get first pretty consistently (i've been working on the run offstream because of other stuff last week), i've been working on it because I assumed it would be a reset point if not. It's all the other stuff I don't have nailed down.

If that's the case then there is just missing information and I retract everything :) Anything special? Or are you just jumping on top of other fish for boosts and trying to bodyblock them.

- i'm not even bodyblocking them with violin to get cello, because they're trash at racing lines, the biggest thing you need to do is jump cleanly and stay in the water most of the time: staying bottomed out in the last part of the race so you can go under all the logs is big as well. this is a win against a breakaway first fish: nothing got in their way but themselves and i took 'em pretty easy

The rent-a-fish is grey though, yes the race is easy with the violin, we are talking about winning with the 1 silver grey rent-a-fish.

As I mentioned your scenario doesn't change with having mini game skip enabled. If you skip the mini game with rent-a-fish you do not get 1st, you get 10th. You get 1st with skipping with violin. Which again just skips gameplay since its designed to be winnable with violin.

Yes I understand how it works, the point is to enable skipping so you don't feel obligated to win manually with the rent-a-fish only. Go get Violin and dismount is like 1:10 + however long it takes to pick violin and skip the race. This is going to be faster than the 1:30 it takes to win on rent-a-fish manually but a million times less dumb. Doing the race manually on the violin is free and pretty uninteresting anyways.

So I just noticed you have actual any% off to the side as a category called "unrestricted" but the rules are not written correctly, perhaps you should add another mod or 2 to help out. Also it's not really your job to nitpick what categories people want to run, if I just want to run Standard exp w/ mini race skipping and you feel like it's different than standard exp just make a new category, why is this becoming so time consuming?

I'll start with the point of the topic first.

So your point was that it is too hard and random to win with rent-a-fish so we should turn on mini-game skip while understanding that you cannot win with rent-a-fish with mini-game skip enabled. If you have mini-game skip disabled your options to get a permanent fish are to win game with rent-a-fish or go take the rent-a-fish to violin. If you have mini-game skip enabled your options are win game with rent-a-fish or go take rent-a-fish to violin. So I guess your current argument is that you don't like doing fish racing with any of the fish mounts so it should be allowed to skip. Which comes back to the concept which other runners have stated mini-game skip just removes gameplay for the sake of removing gameplay.

As for your second point this isn't time consuming at all. I see you have moderation experience so I don't need to explain the basics. But obviously we aren't going to add every possible scenario of category without someone doing a run of it first. If you want to do a run of something you are correct you can and we will either have a category extension of it or if it fits and makes sense on the main board we will add it here. If we did what you are suggesting we would need a category for every combination of accessibility option and even potential the amount of xp boost available. No one at any point had nitpicked you for wanting to run said combination. You suggested mini-game skip be allowed with no specification of a separate category and it has been explained why it is not allowed on the current main category. I suggest and welcome you to hop in the discord where I ask the runners what they would want and take their input into what is done.

And I appreciate pointing out the rule mistake.

It's not removing content for the sake of removing it. It's removing it on the off chance that someone actually comes around and wins with the rent-a-fish in a run manually at which point you have to spend 100's of hours grinding out a racing game just to match them. A 10 second difference where the rest of the run is identical doesn't feel like it needs a new category to me but if you want to have messy boards with multiple categories that are basically the same that's up to you I guess.

At any rate, interested in learning standard exp with skips.

I would be fine with not allowing any kind of boosts or minigameskips for a "standard any%", however, i dont get why you would split boosts and mini game skips (and possible even more), just pack all the "assist" runs into one category, otherwise there is a ton of split runs and a dozen of empty categories for pretty much no reason except small differences.

Imo it should just be Any% standard and Any% unrestricted

In any% Standard, why "multiple home set" is allowed and the XP and minigame skip are banned? I mean allowing multiple home set is not standard. Should be in Any% unrestricted category. I can see the point what I'm reading here but anything that is using the "assist option" is Any% unrestricted.

The reason for that which was discussed when they were released is again minigame skip removes gameplay meaning you do not need to ever do what is being skipped. Multiple homepoint if used which when released and still exists the possibility that it may not be faster, does not remove any of the game as you need to reach said homepoint to set it. It was seen as more of a QoL of the game, the developer of this game has stated that they believe in keeping the original game the same as much as possible, so most QoL features will probably end up as a toggle option if more release as well. Which when released was early enough that it was originally decided that we can just take the QoL update and allow it.

Well if this 1 dev stated that he should just have that in the game already without putting that as an assist option. So, there is no need to have that in the first place and the multi home set is already there. Like I said any run that has assist option = unrestricted run.

Like "Standard XP gain" = XP increase option ban and enhanced home point and minigame skip are allowed BUT like that argument that has happen, you just went against it and saying that is "not allow" just because you're a mod. So having Minigame skip ban then Enhanced home point is not allowed either. Just saying, I don't see the point about not allowing minigame skip.

Again, Enhanced home point is in Assist option. If that is turned on means unrestricted run. If Enhanced home point was already built in the game and it's NOT in the assist option, then that is a standard run.

I'm not sure if I heard this somewhere from my twitch friends told me what happen or in Discord where they heard and told me. The reason dev added the enhanced home point IN THE ASSIST OPTION is because some players start to complain and cry about it that they have travel ALL the way back and and walk ALL the way there and this a boohoo that when it first came out. For that reason, you have that tiny crystal to teleport you (the mar, mercury, Callisto item). It like how they still complain and cry the bosses are too hard for them at their first death at the 3rd or 4th boss on Normal/hard mode... Even on Easy mode they cry about it LOL

Shrug So my point is, Enhanced home point is in assist option and should be unresticted run. Just like Minigame skip that you point out and XP,LP,Gold boost are unrestricted.

I think I went overboard typing this long LOL

Well I imagine that adding multiple home points in the assist option was also intended to to integrate its functionality seamlessly into a game file between patches. If you throw in an update like that there's always room for a game's data to become corrupt.

I understand the idea of all assist options being in the unrestricted category. I also think that issues like this would be best handled with a community vote (whether it be on here or the discord). I was asked by another mod during a run of mine whether I think it should be allowed or not and I was all for it. That being said, my current Easy% run was with a version that had the multiple home points available but I didn't really know how to use it lol