I have been speedrunning the game with no glitch at the highest difficulty Inferno for 2 months now, and it's been a blast. I have improved my time to 4:46:44 and posted my runs on Youtube. I have put a lot of work into the run and it would be cool if a leaderboard could be made to recognize the category.

This seems pretty interesting, but I'm surprised it hasn't been done before.🙄

Probably because you actually have to play the game and get good, which sounds way less interesting than glitching your way to the end.🙄

Glitchless has been around a long while. There is no official leaderboard category for it because a ton of stuff is too easy to perform accidentally because Ys VIII has its share of spaghetti code. Glitchless speedruns would run into the issue of people trying to get away with as many little accidents as possible, defeating the purpose.

You're also welcome to try and get a sub-1:15 in ASB if you think glitches make the game too easy 😉

If glitchless is around for a while, why is there no leaderboard? And also why I couldn't find anyone who did a glitchless Inferno run? Maybe because glitchless is not being recognized...🙄

I have played glitchless runs for around 2 months and I didn't come across any issues you are talking about. The game behavior during runs has been very consistent and I never performed any unintentional glitches. Limit your fps with a software and there is no glitches. Like any game, don't do glitches in a glitchless run or it doesn't count. It's not hard to not do glitches.

You saying it's around for a while, then saying it's impossible to make a glitchless run sounds like an excuse.

Maybe you do not want to put the effort to moderate?

Also, why is there is no category at all for Inferno difficulty? There should be easiest then hardest difficulty. For example, Halo runs are either easy or legendary. Why would you ever have 4 out of the 5 difficulty settings? Should be Easy or Inferno, and remove other difficulties.

Also, why is the main plateform not PC when you open the game page?

They are different set of skills: being good at glitches vs. good at the vanilla game. Glitches are hard, but they won't make you good at fighting Inferno Kiergaard 6 level behind if you skip 95% of the game.😉

"If glitchless is around for a while, why is there no leaderboard?"

Because everybody who has done "glitchless" set their own definitions and were doing it more or less for fun. There's all kinds of little things ranging from how swaps and jumps are abused to bypass things, to whether Early Hummel should be allowed, that make codifying an ironclad ruleset that everyone agrees upon tricky. To say nothing of "damage glitch", which despite what you say is still liable to proc even at 60 frames per second because this game has its share of programming oddities. Then you start getting into really granular rulemaking, like the banning of otherwise optimal skills lest they have the chance of procing damage glitch, or making people roll the dice with using said optimal skills and hoping they wouldn't proc it.

"And also why I couldn't find anyone who did a glitchless Inferno run?"

Nobody runs on Inferno at all, let alone glitchless. A few people have talked about it, but nothing manifested.

"Then saying it's impossible to make a glitchless run sounds like an excuse."

Never said it was, but enough people have disagreed on what to allow and what not to allow that it's never really been codified.

"Maybe you do not want to put the effort to moderate?"

Or maybe you do not want to put the effort to listen to what a moderator has to say before asking questions you don't know the answer to.

"Also, why is there is no category at all for Inferno difficulty?"

Nobody runs Inferno. Barely anyone has run anything higher than Easy for all manner of reasons, so there's never been much impetus to add it. Ys VIII didn't originally release with Inferno as an option. Part the reason the leaderboard is as cluttered as it is is because the difficulties above Easy were added very early on by the mods who created this page, and removing after the fact something poses more problems.

Honestly more than willing to add the difficulty to the leaderboard, there's just not been any real push to do so since pretty much nobody runs anything above Easy even with the leaderboards there.

"Also, why is the main plateform not PC when you open the game page?"

Better question, is an extra click on the Console sub-category bar too much trouble for you to find the PC runs?

Although PC became the most run platform eventually, the game released on Vita before anything else, eventually getting its PS4 expanded console release, then PC then Switch. PC also launched as an absolute mess before PH3 more or less fixed the game, so it was far from the preferred platform until several years after it released. The simple answer is just that the sequence of consoles on that bar is in order of platforms by their respective release date for the game. We didn't even have a Switch option there until someone started doing Switch runs.

"They are different set of skills: being good at glitches vs. good at the vanilla game."

Speedrunning definitionally is not simply "being good at the vanilla game" to begin with. Hell, if you want to beat the game blindfolded 1-handed on a guitar hero controller that'd be its own set of skills, but that does not necessarily make for something should be given a category on the leaderboard. You're welcome to do whatever runs you want under whatever ruleset you like, but that does not mean that they have to be given a spot on a leaderboard under the exact rules you define them as. And in this case I've already explained why we don't have a codified, "people agreed upon this" ruleset for what is/isn't glitchless in this game because the amount of things you'd have to set specific restrictions on to minimize the risk of anything that could even conceivably be a glitch borders on baroque, and there's no full agreement on what possible glitches/tricks/exploits to allow as a compromise to make the ruleset more reasonable. Nothings stopping you from running your own thing without it being on a leaderboard anyways.

“everybody who has done "glitchless" set their own definitions”

Every glitchless run available online had pretty much the same “definitions”. Early Hummel is a sequence break not a glitch, it’s not rocket science. You are creating an artificial problem and you have a fixed mindset. With early Hummel, you are using a simple mechanic (EXTRA) to bypass an obstacle. No airwalk glitch, No quick swap glitch. No out of bound. Another example is that you can use Adol areal slash to hover a bit. You are exploiting intended attack movement and paying full attack gauge costs.

“codifying an ironclad ruleset that everyone agrees upon tricky”

Oot is a game made in the early era of 3D and it is glitchy as hell. But they have glitchless?!? Wow, how is that possible? They use a chicken to hover and enter Gerudo Valley with a way more intricate setup than doing a simple EXTRA. It’s a massive sequence break giving bombchu early, but still, they just exploit intended game mechanics and stay inbound of the game. Deciding whether a technique is considered a glitch or not is ultimately up to the community to decide. But mods can facilitate discussion by making a post or something, like starting to draft some rules. They did just that:

https://oot-speedruns.fandom.com/wiki/Glitchless#Category_Ruleset

See also this:

Obvious glitches are ban, unintended loading zone triggered ban, out of bound banned. It’s not that hard. Ban all documented glitches, make a post about it and add the category so we can start somewhere. Other glitchy games like Harry Potter Chamber of Secrets PC or The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim all have glitchless categories.

“and were doing it more or less for fun”

No kidding. Of course it’s for fun. You know what’s fun? Trying to improve your time on the leaderboard with a structured run format. But nope, no leaderboard for glitchless. Learning every boss, making a route and improving is fun but also a lot of work. No acknowledgment for any glitchless runner is senseless. I want other people to try glitchless so they have as much fun as I did. The leaderboard is the main way to discover runs of the games, and I care about showing people this game because Ys 8 is awesome.

”banning optimal skills lest they have the chance of proccing damage glitch”

What skills are we talking about? I’ve used all optimal skills (in my opinion) for Inferno runs and didn’t come across any dmg glitch. All glitchless runs I’ve seen didn’t have any dmg glitch. In my 300+ hours of gameplay at 60fps, I didn’t come across dmg glitch. I ask you this, is “dmg glitch” in this room with us right now? I invite you to watch my 2 videos of glitchless runs and tell me if you find any dmg glitch in them:

Maybe your “optimal” skills are optimal because they cause the dmg glitch in the first place? Or if there is a specific skill that causes the dmg glitch, just ban it. Do you have any video proof that the dmg glitch is that much of a problem at 60fps using Rivatuner Statistics Server, enough to decide to completely dismiss the idea of glitchless? This seems the main point of our disagreement.

”enough people have disagreed”

Does it mean we gotta abandon the idea of glitchless altogether, one of the main way to speedrun a game (not one hand blindfolded like your ludicrous example), as being good at the game and being fast is literally the definition of speedrunning. Of course, people will disagree. For example, doing a skill hover out of bound is not using a glitch, but out of bound should be banned for obvious reasons. Now in this clip (I just found on discord), is going over this invisible wall considered out of bound?

https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxGLGkE8u1yvz1ct-0GDkIGnzs-eBFgLQQ?feature=shared

It could be ruled “touching misplaced or accidentally exposed loading zones” because the invisible wall isn’t high enough, or a too big sequence break since you skip a mandatory boss, or it could be ruled like a correct sequence break like early Hummel skip. It’s grey and that’s fine.

“Nobody runs on Inferno at all”

Why would nobody run Inferno? Don’t say because it’s too hard because that’s bs. Do halo runners don’t run legendary because it’s too hard? Nope. Maybe becauuuuuse… IT’S NOT IN THE FRICKING LEADERBOARD and that’s why we don’t see them. “My hard Inferno run that I will have to learn and put some work into it will not get acknowledged by anybody because it’s not on the leaderboard. Uhmmm, maybe I’m just gonna stick with nightmare.” Also, even if nobody runs it, it doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be there. We can think for ourselves for a second and use a bit of our brain to realize: “eh maybe any% highest difficulty should be there”. But noooo, gotta put “PS-Vita normal difficulty all boss pre patch” instead.

“A few people have talked about it, but nothing manifested”

Quick though, maybe nothing manifested because the mods didn’t do anything? If you are willing to add it, why are we not adding it exactly? Like I said in the previous response, there should be easiest and hardest difficulty. It’s basic stuff, you don’t need average joe telling you to add it. Nobody will be offended because you added the category that is present in most speedruned game’s leaderboard. Now, if you wanna get fancy you can keep the intermediate difficulty because the damage has been done already as it was added by the original mod. If you don’t know how to manage leaderboards, see this link:

https://www.speedrun.com/support/learn/editing-a-leaderboard

”is an extra click on the Console sub-category bar too much trouble”

Is sliding categories order too much trouble? See the link. Category should not be organized by chronological order, but by order of importance. It’s like this for any game and it’s logical. The main category should always be the first you see when you open the leaderboards, so any% PC easy. Newcomers who doesn’t know anything about the game come here and sees PS-Vita as the main way to run the game. Is it normal to you there are 5 platformx4difficultiesx2patchx3categories, that’s 120 different tab for a game barely played. My suggestion: remove (archive) old patch, remove PS Vita, remove normal and hard difficulty. And of course, add Inferno difficulty and glitchless.