Why is there no glitchless category?

[GoneAway]

Well people can also ask for help here, the discord is just faster 😀

[Looper]

I dunno if it's that much faster, maybe a bit, but at the same time the answer gets flooded with other non-related sentences. I personally prefer forums for a bit more serious questions. It allows other people read it too, hence I don't like helping people over PMs (no matter which platform) because the information is not available for others then. I guess that's also discords problem even when you don't talk in a private chat as Linguica hinted.

[GoneAway]

If the discord was too active we would make a separate help channel. But ya that wouldn't solve the discoverability issue.

[Fonze]

I think an important thing to note any time this type of discussion comes up is that categories and rules for speedrunning are created and perpetuated by the actual people that run them. Who decided you need to do x when you run y category? Probably you're favorite streamer.

 

Additionally, there is a huge reason that this isn't a mob (majority) rule: if the people who don't and won't ever participate decide the rulesets for an activity that others actively take part in, what do you think that'll do to their fun levels and motivation to continue recording attempts? It's not unlike being the guy at a McDonald's asking for a salad. When they appease that they are only trying to get people into buying their stuff, which doesn't work because those people they are trying to appeal to will never shop there with any semblance of regularity to begin with. To bring this back to the subject at hand: if the rules were changed based on a poll by a bunch of non-speedrunners, sure those people that participated in the poll might feel happier about the rules, but the people creating the content to be watched (the speedrunners) would experience a detrimental hit to their fun wrt this activity, and slowly we would lose from our speedrunning community the very runners that have kept it alive for 20+ years, and the people who took part in the poll won't pick up speedrunning anyway.  Additionally, this line of reasoning is more likely to lead to "official," rigid structuring on run classifications of runs that will lead to less different types of runs being attempted and more difficulty in creating new types of runs in the future. (after all if the people running these categories created them, yet all categories were not made on day 1, then clearly over time new categories are bound to pop up, and let's face it, the best way for a type of category to be validated is for some competition to be had with it.)

[GarrettChan]

I am too late to reply and probably people have commented things like mine but I'll say those things anyway. Reading too much English still gives me headache, so I just skimmed through it, and I probably say duplicated things.

 

"Glitcheless" is a very weird way to say things. Since I also run Pokemon Yellow Any% Glitchless, there are actually quite some "glitches" allowed. Sometimes glitches could be triggered by NPCs and you have no control to it. You can look at Mirror's Edge Any% Glitchless, and the game is still completely broken. There was a GDQ run of Mirror's Edge Any% Glitchless, the commentator joked about the name of the category throughout the run. If you want a complete glitch free run for any type of game, it would be not so fun to do. For example, Imagine that you're not allowed to use SR40/50 in a doom run. However, whether strafe running is a glitch can be debated to the day I die and you won't have an outcome of anything. Therefore, besides the definition of glitches, it's not really fun to eliminate them because the objective of a speedrun is to entertain.

 

Then, if you're talking about not newcomer friendly, I would say I feel the same, but it depends on how you deal with it. You should look for things you like rather than just breaking records or stuff. Sometimes I just want to challenge myself, and the demo is a thing that holds my memory, and I like that. For example, my Sunder Map10, Community Chest Map29 and some other runs are very slow, but it marks the point that my skill improved. There's no shame that you post a "slower than WR" run.

 

Hope you find this useful, and yeah, enjoy the pain yet joy in running Doom :D

[termrork]

since again people debated about whether SR40/50 is a glitch here again my answer to it which might solve the problem:

On 1/3/2019 at 11:53 PM, termrork said:

what I meant with the community has to decide on a ruleset on what might be called glitchless

I did not mean that you are not allowed to do anything anymore because SR40 might not have been intended. I meant not to maximize glitchlessness, but

to maximize fun. of course for everybody this is different. that is why I would the majority decide. I.e. I do not believe that the majority thinks the most fun way

to play map16 or to watch a speedrun of map16 is to do it in 11 seconds by using a glide in the end.

as GarrettChan said it nicely, in other games glitchless does not mean you are not allowed to use any glitches anymore, but those which surpass too much of the game and make it less fun. of course we should not prohibit SR40&50 because it would not be any fun for us since we are used to it. but because of this high ambiguity imo the community should come up with a ruleset for "glitchless" because otherwise we might face 10 different types of glitchless. this is also the reason why I do not like the intended way category, because there is too much debate on what might be intended or not. i.e. if you are not allowed to do glides anymore it would be crystal clear if a run does that and then it is not glitchless anymore.

@Fonze of course only speedrunner should decide. this is also the case for other games.

[GoneAway]

Unfortunately "make it less fun" has a different answer for everyone so it's not a basis for a category. Easy glides are nice, and often make levels easier and more fun. Same with rocket jumps, avj, switch presses, key bumps, impse glides, etc. Every run will transition from fun to not fun based on how low you are trying to get the time, imo. Runs with hard glides I will just optimize less. I optimize for fun already 🤷‍♂️

[Dol]

22 hours ago, 4shockblast said:

As Looper indicated, it's hard to know what is or isn't intended. Even IWAD maps had intended RJs (E3M6), and intent goes far beyond tricks: for example, using a door that is supposed to require a key but hasn't been marked correctly is hardly a glitch but is certainly unintentional I would hope.

 

10 hours ago, GarrettChan said:

For example, Imagine that you're not allowed to use SR40/50 in a doom run. However, whether strafe running is a glitch can be debated to the day I die and you won't have an outcome of anything.

 

Foreword: I have no particular agenda to push here. I just find this topic interesting for general musing.

 

There are some snippets here and there about intent vs glitches in original levels. Let's start from E3M6. I think there's no disagreement that the planned route to the secret exit was a rocket jump. Therefore this mechanic was well known and planned already in the original release. However, it involves a very specific setup, where you can move to the spot right next to a massive wall and get an invulnerability to perform the trick. I just checked and it doesn't even seem to require any backward movement. In other words, you have almost all the time in the world (well, until the invul runs out) to position yourself and then press fire once. No movement needed. And that manoeuvre gave you access to a secret level of the final episode. Therefore we can conclude that RJs were kind of planned, but in an extremely limited scope. You weren't expected to perform any in normal gameplay, and doing them in the middle of movement to reach new places would probably have counted as "impossible".

 

Meanwhile, there's this extremely interesting designer's note:

 

E3M6 -- the only way you are supposed to reach the secret switch was by (1) getting the invincibility, (2) blasting a rocket into the wall so you would fly backwards into the box. We found out early on that it was possible to flip the switch from outside, so Sandy made the walls thicker. The advanced techniques of strafe-running, et al, did not come about for almost a year after DOOM's release so there was no way we could anticipate someone getting into the secret area any other way. Much like the way we never anticipated Quake's rocket-jumping.

 

So that's possibly the best hint we have regarding SR40. Quite certainly someone did press enough keys every now and then to trigger SR40, but its potential was not really understood in 1993.

 

Another key example is E1M4, where the ledge jump (requiring SR40) was apparently discovered in 1998. The Romero vs Hall designer comments leave the intent quite ambiguous. First, there's Tom's "it stops before it gets to the stairs now", which vaguely hints that this shortcut was intentionally blocked. However, the ledge is in there. Why? It's not particularly interesting or useful as a decoration. There's nothing like that on the other side of the pool. Then he continues "I think you'd have to get propelled backward somehow..." We know that rocket jumps (in an extremely limited form) were already known and intentional during the original release (see E3M6 above), but in that location a rocket jump would have been practically impossible by 1993 standards. SR40 is not mentioned, maybe not known at all back then? Finally, Romero concludes that "So... i think he *did* design it for a shortcut", but that's his guess of Hall's intent. To me it looks like the ledge option was planned or recognised at some point of design, but they intentionally tried to prevent it by changing the architecture.

 

This SR40 skips the blue key so it looks like a "glitch" (a non-planned skip) to me.

 

Interestingly, before this ledge route, people were using the final room rocket jump, already in 1995, but it's a great deal more difficult than E3M6's and almost certainly not planned. Is that a glitch if it exploits a known mechanic in an unexpected place?

 

After the ledge route, it was discovered that one can SR50 right through the exit gap. If already SR40 was unexpected, this definitely wasn't planned or expected.

 

All of these routes skip one of the "mandatory" keys. Which ones count as glitches?

 

 

Things get a lot more complicated if we consider later WADs from the "speedrunning years" when these tricks were already known. For example, Hell Revealed MAP14 has a secret which requires a double-SR50. Many advanced compet-n WADs contain a load of specifically designed skips, which involve rocket jumps, AV jumps, SRs and whatnot. Still, there's a massive grey area where we cannot confirm whether such tricks were totally unexpected ("glitches"), somehow recognised, or simply planned as an alternate route for cool guys. Therefore it would take a lot of documenting (and undoubtedly arguing) to come up with rules for "glitchless" across all these WADs.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if at least someone out there called each of these tricks "cheating" by the time when they were discovered. There definitely was a lot of debate around the first void glides. Even some speedrunners thought that things were getting too ludicrous. I agree that it kind of spoils something. Many modern "by any means" speedruns (including Doom 2016) are just dull to watch, if the player spends 80% of time out of bounds, wading through a black screen and floating polygons. Is that even a real game any more by that point? Not really entertaining unless simply getting the lowest possible number is entertaining to you.

 

 

To wrap this up, glitchless would be a very difficult category to define universally. However, I'd be happy to see some one-off challenges like "E4M2 without the exit jump" (which has been done). There are plenty of areas in compet-n WADs which have rarely been visited in speedrunning since a major skip was discovered (which often happened in the 90s). Battling through the original route could squeeze something out of maps that everyone knows but few people really care about after skips have turned them totally trivial speedrunning-wise.

[Looper]

I think something like "get all keys" category would be quite easily defined. It would force the player to go to some of the intended places, but you don't necessarily have to use the keys anyway.

[termrork]

@Dol thank you, very interesting read!! but because of this it is barely possible to do "as intended" and therefore is very interesting for historical reason but not to define a category which

is easily adapted to all wads.

@Looper this would be one way to make a category crystal clear. but as you pointed out might not be that much fun.

 

honestly discussing this was really exhausting for me and I think I will stop now. I wanted to throw in a simple idea and the most complains were about some little details and not the real problem

I wanted to address. feel free to discuss further, but please do not expect me to go on "defending" an idea of a more fun (at least for me) category.

[Looper]

2 minutes ago, termrork said:

but as you pointed out might not be that much fun.

Hm, how did I point that one?

[termrork]

2 minutes ago, Looper said:

Hm, how did I point that one?

sorry, it seems I misinterpreted you. your "anyway" in the end I thought you wanted to point out that collecting them does not mean you have to use them which might end up in a kind of collector category which is not that popular.

but now when I think of it, it would make a lot of glitches not useful. lets see for doom2. as far as I can tell (for non tas runs):

02: glide still useful

03: jump to switch not useful anymore

05: RJ not useful anymore

07: RJ to exit still useful

11: jump to exit room not useful

12: yel key grab still useful but either way very minor

13: blue key grab still useful

14: all jumps to the exit still useful

16: exit glide not useful

17: yel key switch not useful

19: exit glide not useful

21: yel bar glide not useful

22: bar glide not useful

23: barrel fly still useful

24: wall fly to exit still useful

27: AV exit opening not useful

29: RJ at the end still useful

 

these "glitches" just came into my head and are for sure not complete. taking all keys makes some of them useless. so it would be something in between. like semiglitchless ;).

[Ancalagon]

"Get all keys" many times would turn into making a detour to get the keys and then go for the trick route anyway, "intended route" also is too not well defined to be used, and wads like scythe are full of tricks that are intended by the author, in map30 you can skip the blue and red keys yet this was done intentionally by the level-designer (I would be interested to see an "all keys" run here), or dv2 where every map contains a boring easy death exit. I think a glitchless category should ban most game breaking tricks such as all forms of glides, rocket jumps, line skips and vile jumps. But things like pressing switches in clearly unintended ways (while the switch is under the floor/too high or from the side before a wall blocking the switch opens)? sr50 jumps?.

 

Banning all these glitches for a glitchless category doesn't sound very fun tho and I don't see many players who woul be interested in running it, and usually new speedrunners like fancy tricks so this wouldn't be aimed at newcommers. And sometimes no glitches is much less fun than not doing some skip that ruins the map, in sunder map05 there is a glide that skips the whole map and allows you to exit in a few seconds, not doing the glide allows for a much more interesting run but if you also couldn't press the switches while they are under the floor this run would be totally unfun to do.

Edited January 5, 2019 by Ancalagon

[Nine Inch Heels]

1 hour ago, termrork said:

idea of a more fun (at least for me) category

Simple solution: Define a clear set of rules that people can wrap their heads around, record demos, see if people follow in your foosteps or not. Don't discuss it, just do it and see what happens.

[GoneAway]

"honestly discussing this was really exhausting for me and I think I will stop now. I wanted to throw in a simple idea and the most complains were about some little details and not the real problem I wanted to address."

 

No.

People gave a long list of reasons why the category doesn't exist "officially", what are the pitfalls of it, what you could do yourself to make an impact, how your assumptions aren't generally valid, how important context is, how each run is different, etc. Lots of useful insight from people active in the community who are relatively new and others who have been around for a long time. Pretty much you got the best replies you could get in both detail and perspectives. Since you've ignored this, don't pretend to be discussing anything. It's completely disingenuous.

[ZeroMaster010]

There is a glitchless category, it's called UV-Max :)

 

Dew said everything that needed to be said.

[Dol]

1 hour ago, Ancalagon said:

"Get all keys" many times would turn into making a detour to get the keys and then go for the trick route anyway

 

On the other hand, in some cases it would make the route longer than the "naive non-trick speed run". For a quick list (not guaranteed to be accurate), I think the following Ultimate Doom levels have optional keys: E1M3, E2M1, E2M2, E3M5, E4M5, E4M7. Indeed, all keys is easy to define and adds a variant with a bit more exploration (ranging from "none" like in no-keys E2M5 to "massive" like, well, E2M2 and E4M7?). Of course, it wouldn't really ban any of the glitches or techniques which make those skips possible, but some of them would lose their significance. Then again, others would arise when people would start looking for the new, fast routes to all keys.

 

I don't think the community is very eager to pick up whole new categories by this point, but it could be tested as a personal exercise or a quick public challenge for specific maps/WADs.

 

Obviously we already have a couple of 100% kills/secrets categories, which contain more exploration. Secrets, like keys, vary a lot and start from "none". 100% kills often means exploring pretty much the whole level, because mappers rarely make large side areas with no monsters. There you still see occasional improvements even in classic IWAD maps, because the overall combination of routes, resource management and luck can become highly complex.

 

Quote

"intended route" also in too not well defined to be used

 

Just for random fun, I think it would be viable to rewrite the secrets of maps to contain enough sectors for the "intended route" and run a silly contest for 100% secrets with those. AFAIK, that wouldn't even break any of the old demos if done with a direct "secret bit flip" so old demos with that route would still work.

 

Hey, I said it was for random fun, not a serious new category...

 

Quote

I think a glitchless category should ban most game breaking tricks such as all forms of glides, rocket jumps, line skips and vile jumps. But things like pressing switches in clearly unintended ways (while the switch is under the floor/too high or from the side before some from wall blocking the switch opens)? sr50 jumps?.

 

If SR is considered a glitch, one consequence would be simply losing a lot of speed, even on the "intended" route. Unfortunately, less speed tends to mean less excitement when it comes to speedrunning. If not...well, there are WADs where SR was not intended so using it would introduce a "glitch". I don't know, what would be a sensible solution there.

 

There are also other issues like unintentional AV jumps and line skips. Then again, we already have to deal with ambiguous stuff like accidental telefrags in pacifist runs. The rules are not 100% foolproof. Some interpretation is still needed.

 

Classic categories also have level-dependent exceptions for (almost) impossible 100% kills/secrets so it's not entirely unheard of to customise the rules for specific maps.

 

OK, I got sidetracked a few times. Meanwhile, long time ago I came up with a beginner-friendly challenge which is sort of related. I may post it at some point if anyone cares. :o)

[termrork]

@Nine Inch Heels: already did this with a d2all demo in the over 100% category and there was not a single response, so no discussion at all (apart from the responses in this thread, thank you for those!). therefore, I thought I might do it the other way around this time, namely discussing it first, before I put a lot of hours into a dead category. of course it was fun, but speedrunning is also about competition which is 0 in a dead category of course ;).

@kraflab:

> what are the pitfalls of it

yes, but none them is a nogo for that category

> what you could do yourself to make an impact

did this before and there was no discussion

> how your assumptions aren't generally valid

of course not, but they do not have to be

> how important context is

not sure what you mean here : /

> how each run is different, etc

that is why the rules should not depend on it

@ZeroMaster010:

I would say UV max is the closest to a glitchless category since probably all glitches become useless since you cannot skip anything since everywhere are monsters. nevetheless, a glitchless category would be very different to uv max runs. one example: map01, of course you will go out to the outside area since it is a secret with monsters in a uv max run, but you will not go there

in a glitchless category.

@Dol:

thank you for sharing your thoughts!

> I may post it at some point if anyone cares. :o)

oh please yes :)! please be not disappointed if the community will not like it.

[Beginner]

56 minutes ago, termrork said:

I wanted to throw in a simple idea and the most complains were about some little details and not the real problem

"The real problem" being lack of interest towards defining what kind of tricks are not ok to use in a brand new category, which tries to mimic a running category from other games that actually have "finish the entire game right here" exploits, which devalue the entertainment of watching a speed run of said games? From my point of view what you propose is "UV-Speed but you can't do XYZ tricks"-the-category which, well, may be pretty interesting in certain maps. If other players will find your brand of "complete the level or at least try to do so in fastest time possible with such and such silly and not so handicaps" interesting to record then you'll see more submissions for that than there's "Hypocritical Pacifist" demos on DSDA. What you can do is make some pretty clear distinctions of what player can and can't do, make some example demos and see if there's some interest.

[GoneAway]

"already did this with a d2all demo in the over 100% category and there was not a single response"

I personally thought it was really cool that you went and did a full run with that. It was a pleasant surprise. 😃

I don't generally reply to demos though, and I think this is the case for a lot of people (but it doesn't mean no one was interested).

It was also posted near Christmas so might have fallen through the cracks for some people.

 

The thing with wanting competition is that there is just barely any competition in anything in doom. Except in a few cases (compared to all the demos we do) the Doom community is more of a cooperative / demonstrative speedrunning scene. By that I mean people are more often working together to do a demo for every map of a wad, or making some demos to showcase routes and tricks.

 

You can generate some competition in a few ways:

1) naturally by interest, but this is somewhat unlikely except for new wads

2) start a demo pack with something in mind, but whether people would participate is hard to guess

3) pose a "challenge" like what linguica did (though I'd avoid having a monetary prize)

 

If I were you I might consider figuring out exactly what your category is (this is up to you in the end, with the opinions in here as guidance), which is the hard part, and then start posting demos in a separate thread for that category. In my experience if someone keeps posting and working on something, other people are more likely to become interested and possibly want to compete and beat some of the demos. But it's really important to run for yourself I think otherwise you will be frustrated if no one takes notice.

[Looper]

I did see the over 100% category, and I thought it was interesting but yes, the holidays made me not to comment as I had some other stuff to do. Christmas is busy time because you have to relax.

[Mordeth]

Adding to this discussion: a "glitchless" category makes more sense for a game which has glitches that makes a run unviewable / unrecognizable. Case in point: Duke Nukem 3D. A glitch run has the player shooting vertically through the void, teleporting from place to place, while an observer barely makes out what is happening on screen. It does not remotely resemble normal gameplay, so even when you're into viewing speedy runs this might not cater to your tastes at all.

[42PercentHealth]

Is it possible to play Doom glitchless? I mean, if any of the following occur, does it invalidate the run?

• Straferunning
• Wallrunning
• Mancubus fireball clipping through walls
• Finishing a map via deathslide
• Elastic collision
• Reducing AV damage by hiding behind a 25+ unit tall platform
• Whatever the heck was going on here:

[rodster]

8 hours ago, Looper said:

Christmas is busy time because you have to relax.

Loved the way you said it :) 

[termrork]

@kraflab & @Looper thank you for your feedback to over 100%, I am glad you enjoyed it! I brought it up in this thread because that recording sth your own and discussing it afterwards might not be the best order. that is why I wanted it to do the other way around this time.

 

@all let me summarize how I see the topic. the most important question about the topic is as I pointed out earlier imo whether skipping certain parts of levels due to glitches as we see it today is too much such that the fun suffers too much. the technical implementation is of secondary importance unless nobody comes up with a nogo theorem which was not the case (this is what I ment with details). from what I have seen in this thread the current speedrun community answers the first question with a clear no. that is fine, so there is no reason to think about an implementation since there is no necessity.

[Nine Inch Heels]

2 hours ago, termrork said:

let me summarize how I see the topic. the most important question about the topic is as I pointed out earlier imo whether skipping certain parts of levels due to glitches as we see it today is too much such that the fun suffers too much.

Here's one of the main issues I have with what you think constitutes a glitch:

20 hours ago, termrork said:

one example: map01, of course you will go out to the outside area since it is a secret with monsters in a uv max run, but you will not go there in a glitchless category

of course I would go there in a glitchless run (assuming "glitchless 100%" and "glitchless any%" were both categories, in which case I'd run glitchless 100%). I don't see any way to have different opinions regarding this example in the first place, because it is clearly something the mapper has wanted people to do. and as such you're walking a very slippery slope when you're calling something that a designer built around a "glitch" as far as iWADs are considered.

By the same token, any sort of glide, for example in D2m02, would be something I'd consider a glitch, because clearly the intention of the mapper was to deny access until a key is retrieved and a switch is pressed. And I say this even though it goes against my very own common sense that a 32-wide object wouldn't fit through a 32-wide gap (insert NIH-style-BDSM joke here, if you so desire). Point being: the mapper built and tested the map to see if the wall he placed would deny access until a certain condition has been met, and guess what? Kraflab for example might disagree with me on this, because he looks at the situation from a different angle than I do, but both Kraflab and I would probably agree on what the intended route has been at the time the map was made, I guess.

Any sort of rocket jump or archvile jump is something I won't consider a glitch ever, because clearly the intended behaviour of the game engine is to have an impact on the player's momentum when damage is taken, and that still holds up even if the resulting skip wasn't planned/foreseen by the mapper.

And these examples are the reasons why I think your category doesn't really take off, whereas the "intended route" category is a much easier concept to wrap one's head around, especially for people who are new to speedrunning, because people are much less likely to have to double-check what is or isn't allowed. Plus, "intended route" does still encourage people to think of ways to "outsmart the mapper" and practise the required techs, which potentially enable them to be competitive on high levels of play at some point.

 

Another elephant in the room to adress is how to apply the logic of an "intended route" to modern maps which have "mandatory tricks" in them, and it's not just things like scythe 2 that I'm talking about, but basically any small yet hard to pull off skip people put in their maps on purpose as well as mandatory SR40/SR50 jumps, to give another example. Are we supposed to always consult the respective mapper to understand how they wanted their maps to be played before we can start practicing and recording? Even "intended route" stands on less than rock-solid legs, imo. For iWADs it seems pretty clear to me, but iWADs are like less than 0.01% of the content we spoiled players have available to us.

In all honesty, I think you mean well with your idea and I can see (roughly) where you're coming from, but the merit of inventing a category that aims to level the playing field by "hard-capping" what people can do to improve their results is something that I think is - and will remain - questionable.

Edited January 6, 2019 by Nine Inch Heels

[rodster]

20 minutes ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

And I say this even though it goes against my very own common sense that a 32-wide object wouldn't fit through a 32-wide gap (insert NIH-style-BDSM joke here, if you so desire)

Wouldn't that be still pretty difficult? You kinda have to really force it. I mean, there still would be some friction making it pretty difficult to push a 32-wide object into a 32-wide gap, and Doomguy doesn't look like someone who carries Olive Oil around all the time for lubrification.

[Looper]

3 hours ago, rodster said:

and Doomguy doesn't look like someone who carries Olive Oil around all the time for lubrification.

Then how come his weapons never jam... JAM!