Specifically with how NMG/All Bosses is currently it's own category. Right now, merging the two of these seems to be done with the purpose of eliminating the use of Forge Skip in the run. But by having one of the criteria be no major glitches, the forge still needs to be done for the sake of completing it. But the forge doesn't have any bosses (if we were to say, use the criteria of an enemy using the boss theme).

I would propose that an All Bosses category exist with the parameter that every boss need to be defeated. Everything else goes. Currently, that would mean All Bosses would allow the forge skip.

Should anything else be discovered in the future that could be considered a major glitch, this would also cover how to address it in the future. Say, theoretically, if something were discovered to clip through walls and make the sunken pyramid extremely fast. A NMG category could arguably ban that from being used.

In addition, I'd propose a category called "Glitchless" which would take inspiration from other games like Paper Mario and Ocarina of Time. Essentially, something that would allow limited use of glitches/techniques but nothing too major (e.g. using the menu glitch to get into the Dave room a little quicker is fine, Forge Skip would not be). I feel like this would better define what NMG/All Bosses currently looks like.

I know as of now there may not be a lot of glitches that we're aware of, but I figured I'd toss it out there since I'd like to start running other categories and maybe try to look for glitches myself.

I do like the suggestion... I don't want to overcomplicate anything, but maybe that's what I've done by fusing (har har) the two categories. NMG/All Bosses is supposed to be essentially a "normal" playthrough of the game as fast as possible. Like, fight all bosses/don't do any glitches that would skip over something you'd discover if you were playing the game casually. I like how it is right now with 3 contrasting categories, which are essentially "anything goes" (Any%), "full story" (this one), and "full game" (101%). Plus CBF, which is basically a category extension but I thought it deserved a slot next to the other 3 lol.

idk for sure. I'd love to hear others' input on this.

It's funny i was just thinking about this today why don't we just do forge skip, it doesn't really take out the killing all the bosses since light warrior is the last boss we face until we go back to the forge. I don't mind having a Glitch/Glitchless category hopefully more people comment on this lol.

well with that it's been 10 days and I think the three of us are the only ones actively running the game at the moment.

Haha, true. Well for what it’s worth I think splitting them is a good idea, and I think I’ll change the categories later today when I get back to my PC. Pretty sure it’ll be:

Forge Skip and all other glitches allowed, only rule is you need to fight Dave, Squaridot, Mace, and Light Warrior. This category is the only one where you can skip the puzzle room before Light Warrior and skip Hall to the Heart entirely by using Forge Skip.

Exactly what the title suggests, but I guess pause menu buffer could be allowed... not using it might be a fun challenge though? Either way, this is basically a fast-as-possible “casual” playthrough. This includes completing the puzzle room before Light Warrior and beating the first 3 Hall to the Heart fights.

This would mean Dave Skip is only in Any%.

Objections?

Oh yeah “Glitchless” would be a way better name than “No Glitches or Skips” wouldn’t it lmao

To take inspiration from other games, Ocarina of Time uses the philosophy of "if the means are not a glitch, neither are the ends" to try to help define things. Granted, OoT has a lot more things known than this game does. In that case I would say, all we're doing is being Steven, opening the menu, and then using his out of combat character ability. I kinda feel like we're not "actively" doing something in the sense that say, Forge Skip is a technique that requires a set of inputs and conscious effort on your end. I'd say it's a small and simple enough to allow in Glitchless, but frankly I'm alright with it either way.

That’s some sound logic. Alright, we can allow pause buffer

I wanted to come back to this now that I've learned All Bosses and done a couple attempts of it.

I'm not really sure if I would consider the portal hopping thing in the Peridot and Connie room, and the puzzle skip before Light Warrior to be glitches.

Both cases seem to be an example of the game's coding just being done in a way that unintentional ways of doing things, which are faster, are possible without intentionally performing a gltich-breaking maneuver.

For the portals -- it just so happens that the portals were given a large enough hitbox that moving the block is unnecessary.

For The Depths skip, that's actually what ended up happening on my casual playthrough. At that point in the game, yeah, you're intended to beat the puzzle and continue on. But all the game seems to read is "go through the door and the story continues". I think this is similar to how the Forge Skip works -- by entering and exiting, the game believes you to have gone through The Forge and so continues the game as such, even though you didn't go to the rest of the world and clear the bosses there.

So for that, I don't think we're performing a glitch. A skip, and doing it in the way that likely was not intended? Yes. A glitch? I'd argue no.

Essentially, then, I think the only thing I'd consider a true glitch at this point is Forge Skip, due to it involving clipping out of bounds.

I know what defines a glitch can be kind of arbitrary, and so each community has to decide on the definitions themselves. As before, I'm fine with any decision, but I would argue that those two things shouldn't count as glitches.

I could perhaps see The Depths skip as being fairly debatable as it does end up skipping an entire room from being completed as intended. But the Connie/Peridot portals I'm a lot more strongly opposed to labeling that a glitch.

Figured I'd come back to this with the ghost enemy stuff that's been discovered.

So I think avoiding the enemy's first strike isn't a glitch, I doubt anyone would contest to that.

Now, Pearl Skip. The way it works, if we strip it down, is putting a character into a part of the room that does not generate aggro, solving a "puzzle" (for lack of a better word), and while doing it, switching back to the aforementioned character in order to avoid engaging in a battle in the room that would be unavoidable without this trick.

This could be kinda debatable. We don't go out of bounds to get behind the rubble, switching characters while Pearl's spear is active is just a thing that you can do. I feel like you can argue either way in this one, but I kinda lean towards considering this one a glitch, honestly. In the same way I argued for why Forge Skip counts as a glitch (due to having to set things up, certain timing to perform it ,etc.), I would say the way this is performed has enough complexity and in a way abuses how the enemy's aggro is generated and can be avoided and thus I would be okay with categorizing it as a glitch for the sake of our Glitchless category.

So as of now, my stance is that with everything that we know in the game currently, Forge Skip and Pearl Skip should be considered glitches, but the other things I've mentioned should be allowed.

(More opinions on this would be appreciated soonish since I'd like to do Glitchless attempts sometime soon, after getting a better All Bosses run and giving CBF% a few shots)

ok so the only thing i would disagree with would be the depth skip just because it skips basically a entire room which was intended to fight light warrior and plus frog earlier post he didn't want something that would skip a room or something like that.

Ok for that pearl skip as we will call it i think should be allowed really because it's not like that fight is needed to unlock the gate. now yes it does take some set up to get that trick to work but all i see is just using that method to not get hit while unlocking the gate. I could also see a debate against that though since i wouldn't really see anyone doing that in a normal play though as frog stated earlier but i like to heard feedback on this since we are the only three really paying attention to the category.

Hmm okay. I can see that perspective as well. I suppose if one of the definitions of Glitchless is something like "no major skips", then Depths Skip can be banned from usage. Including "major" in that and how technically yeah the fight isn't necessary to unlock the gate, Pearl Skip could be allowed in the category as well. I feel like the added "major" should carry the weight of like... if it would cause an entire room to be skipped (in that, a room that is selected on the warp pad) then it constitutes a major skip. Per that, Forge Skip and Depths Skip are disallowed due to their usage resulting in you skipping at least one entire warpable room.

So yeah I'm in agreement with you then. Forge Skip and Depths Skip banned, everything else fair game. (Also it's probably nice having The Depths in the run just cause it adds a split where time save and time loss is dependent on how well you're playing and not RNG, which I'd appreciate)

Right i would do glitchless just need to actually practice that the depths lol

Oh another thing I completely forgot about... the dew skip thingie in Familiar Grounds that lets us grab the key.

I kinda feel like that should be disallowed. If not for just giving Glitchless more things to do... it's sorta maybe teetering the line of going out of bounds and in a way kinda constitutes a decent bit of a skip since it makes a forced vanilla fight get skipped.

So, I don't really want to do Glitchless runs until I know what we currently allow in Glitchless since things have been discovered since we split the categories. Frog's the only mod who's active and also runs the game so I feel it kinda comes down to you making a final call. Unless you have any disagreements, I believe polar and I both agree that Glitchless should disallow Depths Skip, Forge Skip, and Familiar Grounds key skip, with everything else being allowed. With the way every trick thus far in the game works, we seem to more or less be disallowing things that skip a "major" portion of an area. I think this helps rule in Pearl Skip's favor. To juxtapose it with Familiar Grounds - doing that fight doesn't actually give you an item, it's just a fight that's sort of intended to be done because if you tried to open the gate, you'd get hit and initiate the fight. But if you do the Pearl Skip, you still accomplish the obstacle in that room - opening the gate .

In Familiar Grounds, the key skip thing that we do makes it so we skip a fight that drops a key item required in a vanilla playthrough to progress. Which is why I would argue that Pearl Skip is acceptable in Glitchless but the dew skip thing is not. The difference is in what the fight results in you obtaining.

And as I argued for the Peridot/Connie portals, I think it works similarly to Pearl Skip in the sense that it's a thing that works just due to very large hitboxes put in by the programmers. Holding up for two portals and then left isn't really a glitch. And the menu thing is fairly minor.

I'd like to propose changing the rules to the following:

Complete the game as fast as possible without the use of major glitches, skips, or out of bounds tricks. Currently, Glitchless bans the following techniques from runs:

-Dew Skip (getting the green key early in Familiar Grounds) -Depths Skip (skipping The Depths by warping to The Descent and running to the end of The Depths in order to trigger Light Warrior spawning) -Forge Skip (skipping Bismuth's Forge to gain early access to Hessonite's Warship)

Start: When you select New Game. End: When the screen flashes white after the final hit on Hessonite.

Since I'm all finished with moving and getting settled I'm gonna do and submit a run using the aforementioned skips being disallowed (after I do a 101% in a few runs). Polarbear and I agreed that those three things being banned for glitchless make sense.

We're adding another trick to be banned in Glitchless. In The Descent it's possible you may switch to another character and they'll be out of bounds, and as such can jump right down onto the bottom floor. Since this one involves going out of bounds to save time we're banning it from Glitchless.

As a result of the discussion we had due to the file duping glitch being discovered (thanks, rubbertoe!) the following changes have been made to the leaderboards:

• Any% (File Dupe) is a new main category. This allows any and all glitches and skips including File Dupe. (I suppose in a way, it's like the "true" Any% in the sense of "hitting the new file button and beating it as fast as possible")

-All Character% categories have been merged into Connieless. The rules for it have been streamlined: remove Connie from your party at Waterfall Way, and you only use her when forced to during her segment in the Pyramid with Peridot. (technically speaking the runs myself and polarbear have in there are invalid, but since our fastest run of those can be beaten easily I didn't think we needed to delete the runs entirely)

• From My Point of View The Jedi Are Evil has been given a more appropriate and Steven Universe related name: Kill The Light.

• Categories now specify whether or not the File Dupe glitch is allowed. The other four main categories ban it, as does Connieless (justification: as it is a user-imposed restriction, we felt it made sense to not let everyone be maxed from the start). CBF% and Map Completion will allow the file dupe glitch. File Duping is irrelevant for Kill The Light and Hessonite Rush since they start from a previous save file.

-Glitchless now specifies that the beginning Cutscene Skip glitch is not allowed. (As a note: as of now we're still testing this and due to how the backpack appears and disappears in various areas, we only know it to be viable in the two Any% categories.)

The reasons for a few of these changes are as follows: Renaming the category to Kill The Light just cause we found a shorter and better name for it lol. For File Duping it came down to a factor of removing a core element of the runs (managing items, xp routing etc. - the vital components of an RPG game) and thus removing challenges of the run, combined with splitting categories between PC/Console and Dupe/No Dupe means every category would have four separate leaderboards under it, and we felt that would end up creating a cluttered leaderboard for the game. Allowing it for CBF% and Map Completion is due to them being Misc. categories so we didn't feel as strongly about banning its usage in them.

Naturally in the future the legitimacy of File Duping can be discussed again, but as of now this is the conclusion we've reached in regards to how to utilize the glitch, in addition to other changes in the boards.