Hello Everyone!

Over the past week, speedrun community members of Sonic 2 have discussed and voted on a potential switch to the primary timing method for Sonic 2, which has been IGT (In-Game Time) for as long as the game has been ran. IGT promotes a playstyle that abuses pausing, which gets amplified in higher levels of play. RTA-TBC (Real Time Attack Minus Time Bonuses+Continues) is a way to fix that issue. Some users wagered that a change must be made, and others consider IGT should stay in place. We decided to set up a poll for 72 hours, where RTA-TBC gets put in-place IF there's a 70/30 percentage split in favor of RTA-TBC.

Here were the results...

Out of 30 individual Sonic 2 speedrunners that pitched in their thoughts and their vote on the matter, we ended off with a 87/13 percentage split in favor of RTA-TBC! Because of this outcome, it is clear that the majority of the active speedrunners of Sonic 2 are in favor of a switch, so as of April 17th, 2024, RTA-TBC will be the primary timing method for Sonic 2 (1992) speedruns! IGT will still be around, but as a secondary timing method.

The reason we remove Time Bonuses and Continues in runs is because these punish runners that go fast by having them waste time seeing longer time bonuses tick down, and seeing the continue jingle. Raw RTA would incentivize going slow to go fast, so this is why we added -TBC into the timing method.

Additional hot-fixes on some rules/restrictions have been put in-place due to irrelevancy:

PAL(50HZ) HAS BEEN UNBANNED FOR FULLGAME RUNS

Previously, PAL was an issue when IGT was the primary timing method due to the slower framerate. It gave speedrunners a huge advantage for playing in slower speeds which IGT didn't punish. PAL got banned sometime last year due to this, but since RTA-TBC is primary now, this change has been reversed.

PAUSE RESTRICTIONS HAS BEEN REMOVED FOR FULLGAME RUNS

Speedrunners weren't allowed to have a singular pause for longer than 20 seconds prior to today. This was to prevent players from "taking a break" midrun while not being penalized for doing so. Length of pauses are now a non-issue as they are automatically accounted for in RTA-TBC.

If you are curious in how you can get started in timing your runs in RTA-TBC, I have posted a link to an RTA-TBC LiveSplit Component that can help subtract your Time Bonuses and Continues in your runs.

I look forward to the future of RTA-TBC Sonic 2 speedruns and the new barriers we push!