GermanyCome on lads, let's play together!
We've been receiving requests for categories every now and then. I'm afraid the main issue of inactivity will always remain within this community. Although I personally don't oppose the idea, adding a new category for a couple of players would always result in it just dying out within a month. It may also lead to an inevitable removal of said category as it would serve no purpose and only take up space.
What I personally could see happening, which may also have a wider appeal due to simplicity, is a category for getting a kill as each class. The importance of defining some ground rules will always be a necessity when it comes to establishing such a category, however. On which servers? Against players or bots? What taboos would have to be implemented for fairness? All of that would have to be carefully considered before introducing it.
I'm afraid we have to reject the Sniper POV due to the choice of music.
This run was accidentally submitted as 10th place under any%. I moved it.
Greetings folks, we would like to get your opinion on the implementation of a new rule. As you might know, we recently banned the usage of auto clickers in MvM speedrunning. The reason this was brought up is that one of our teammates had used one in a vast majority of our runs. The issue with an auto clicker is that going by the definition, it automatically falls under cheating because it's a third-party software that gives you an advantage in a game that you would not normally have. It allows for inhuman inputs which are not executable internally (such as ingame script), it's external.
Specific advantages of an auto clicker in MvM are: -the ability to upgrade faster -shooting rockets out faster on the Beggar's Bazooka (this can be replicated with an internal script) -reviving players faster (this can be replicated with an internal script, it's not as fast though)
The reason why we are discussing this again is that I, like some other people, have looked at this whole line of reasoning and the outcome (such as debates about purging runs that have auto clickers and establishing rules for 6 povs) and came to the conclusion that we might have acted too hastily. We never considered doing the opposite, which is allowing auto clickers as another tool as we did with scripts. The reason this debate never happened is because at that time, none of us knew that a speedrunning community (us) gets to decide whether or not something that may be considered cheating in the sense of gaming, is also considered a cheat in speedrunning. The speedrun.com rules state that a community can make exceptions for third-party software to be allowed, which we, unfortunately, did not consider because we accepted the mere reason that by definition alone it is considered a cheat.
Looking back, even though we knew (or some of us did) that one of our teammates used an auto clicker to buy upgrades quickly, at the time we didn't realise that it was technically cheating and that only sprung to mind recently. This means that before this entire auto clicker debate happened, we as the community were in a silent agreement that auto clickers are not classified as cheats. This combined with our lack of knowledge that we simply could have allowed it, was the reason why we went down the definition route. Judging the auto clicker as a tool itself, it is similar to some of the scripts we use because they also allow for inhuman inputs. The only difference is that we differentiate between internal and external inputs which I consider to be a questionable method of judging a tool in speedrunning.
Do you believe that in the context of speedrunning, an external auto clicker should be classified as a cheat and therefore not be allowed or do you consider it another tool like the internal F4 script and should therefore be allowed?
This post was written by BrutalPizza - https://www.speedrun.com/user/BrutalPizza
Hey everyone, I'd like to ask for an opinion from the TF2 speedrun community on a couple of things.
This is being asked in regards to MvM speedruns, so some extra information will be provided here and there, in case people who don't speedrun MvM don't understand certain things.
The overall question is about using an auto clicker (software) in MvM speedruns to buy upgrades quickly. We're talking about an auto clicker program which basically clicks your mouse for you at a fast rate which you choose. So for example, if you know you are going to max out firing speed on Heavy, you can have it buy those 4 upgrades really quick compared to just clicking really fast yourself.
One of the teammates on our MvM speedrun team has used one for the upgrades in I think all of the runs he's been part of (if not all, most).
It wasn't until very recently that I realised that using an auto clicker could technically be seen as a form of cheating, even though it's not ban-able in TF2 (I think). Simply because one of the definitions of cheating in a video game is using third-party software to gain an advantage over others. I didn't think about this until now because as of late, multiple people have started to use auto clickers to get the perfect tap-fire rate for the Beggars Bazooka. Basically, even though most people just spam mouse 1 with the Beggars to fire 1 rocket at a time, there is actually a click rate (which everyone usually times the clicks manually for) where you can actually get a faster tap-firing rate. This is when a friend or two of mine said that using an auto clicker like that could technically be kinda classed as cheating (even if not ban-able in TF2).
The first question relating to what has been said above is a straw poll, please give your answer here: https://www.strawpoll.me/45596801
The other question is if the rule for no auto clickers does get added, do you think that previous runs that used auto clickers should be purged? Or do you think since that wasn't the rule at the time they should remain? Because also in the past, we added a rule where any runs that involved a Sniper would require a POV from the person sniping, however any previous runs that had a Sniper with no recording didn't get purged. Second question straw poll relating to what was said above: https://www.strawpoll.me/45596809
Please feel free to also give any extra opinions on the matter down below in the forum comments.
Thanks
Unfortunately, I am not qualified to verify basic runs, only MvM ones. I will contact one of the moderators who can. If your run is not verified in the next week add me on Steam and I will have a look at it myself.
Since I had to argue for Deathrowboat's point of view I will back her up and agree that canteens should be banned for the "Stock Only" category.
Alright, I updated my original post with your suggestions and sorted the restrictions a bit. As I'm trying to satisfy the most amount of people I have to ask around whether other people who currently want to run this category are fine with declaring revives as cheesing and if they want Crit/Über canteens banned from the "Stock only" category as well. As I said, I totally agree with these additions but at the same time, I have to keep this balanced for everyone.
@Deathrowboat It's an acceptable addition to the categories in my opinion. Personally I never thought much of airblasting bosses into pits because it usually takes longer. Well the current restrictions could potentially make airblasting faster than killing it normally but you are right, it's always been cheesy. As for the exploits, it's quite reasonable to ban them too. That +10% firing speed on the soda popper does far more than the numbers lead us to believe. Since we never really did bother to trap busters that's an easy ditch too.
I actually had some debates on whether we should just ban Medic altogether but that wouldn't seem fair for the amount of effort that went into making him more useful in MvM. Having canteens banned, no shield, no reviving would eventually revert him to his original state before the 2C update came out. I could certainly handle the change but the question is whether players can resist the urge to revive their dead teammates or if we actually have to stop playing him for good since he is merely useful for crits and healing. Which also raises the question of his usefulness compared to an actual damage class that could be played instead of him.
I'm going to get called out on this but I'm also a believer of the old myth that the pan/ham have a higher crit chance than usual stock weapons. It sounds stupid but after playing this game for a while it just sunk deeper into my head to the point where I would honestly want some developers to either confirm or debunk this. The other problem I see with using reskins (as in decorative weapon skins) is the lack of identifying them as such. I would prefer to give the moderators an easier time to identify a stock a weapon instead of puzzling around for each inviduals weapon that a player has equipped. So I have to go one step further than you and right out demand that all players use the original stock weapons without skins/reskins.
I've talked to a moderator about adding these new categories and now it's your turn to shine. In order to get these approved, I will need a quick confirmation from you below. Simply state whether you are interested in these categories to be added to the MvM speedruns.
The "No Cheesing" category will exclude: -Gas Passer -Shield -Revive -Airblasting bosses -Canteens -Refunds -Buybacks -Exploits (unobtainable upgrades/robot AI*/Sentry Buster trapping/teleport to spawn via tank entrance on Rottenburg) -Exclusive strategy for Ghosttown which involves using the 'retry' command to switch class and have all the money by simply deducting upgrades before doing so
The "Stock Only": -Only default weapons -No reskins of the original stock weapons (e.g. Original) -No decorative weapon skins -No Canteens (on debate)
*Refers to things like Spy+Medic combo on Bigrock
@darG Same here. I went directly to the "last resort" forum because I was told these exact things. But hopefully, we can revive this speedrun community again.
Hello I would like to apply as a moderator for https://www.speedrun.com/tf2/full_game I've been doing a lot of speedruns with my friends and currently hold nearly all of the level-leaderboard world records. We currently have 4 moderators in the community, one of them hasn't been online for 6 months, another one hasn't been online for 1 month and unfortunately, the other two seem to show a lack of care. The main reason why I want to apply as a moderator is that the community has been demanding new categories for 7 months now, yet there haven't been any responses from the current moderators, not a single reply to our requests. Yes, we did contact them, but they simply do not care. I fully understand that these people have lives, but right now we need some people who are actively participating within this community and show some care.
Since I consider this to be necessary for my previous point, I will explain why new categories have been demanded for so long. Due to the updates from the past few months the game mode, Mann vs. Machine (MvM) has been suffering from a lack of care from the current developer team of the game (This interview between a community member and a current developer should explain this more explicit https://cdn.potato.tf/host/valve/valve.pdf (Page 8 and 15)). Therefore the community is now having an extremely easy time passing this mode with one hand tied behind their back. Features like the Gas Passer or the Refund feature have turned MvM into childsplay for anyone (not to mention that this is a 6 player game mode which can most of the time be completed with only 2-4 players. The community wants these features to be banned, a new category that right out forbids the usage of these features. This is also one of the main reasons why the level-leaderboard is so inactive right now, people are annoyed at the fact that once they put up a professional world record it gets taken from them with ease.
With that said I do hope that our issue becomes relatable and that my request to become a moderator gets accepted. I've read all the user & moderator rules to make sure I provide satisfaction among the community.
