Allow mixed difficulties in IL tables

2013-01-22 07:12:44 am

Currently you're not allowed to mix difficulties, you have to stick with one. Let's say you want to show two different levels played on two different difficulties. Then you'd have to run every single level in the game on both of those difficulties because you can't submit incomplete tables. Why is this important? Because in some games there are drastic differences between difficulties and running on higher difficulties may actually be faster than running on the easiest, depending on the level. The whole stick with one difficulty doesn't make any sense to me because we're talking about runs of individual levels and thus they should also be treated as that. They are not comparable to single-segment runs where you have to stick with one difficulty throughout the entire game because whenever you start an IL you are always asked which difficulty you want to play on (if you aren't then it's most likely a segmented run). My suggestions:

1. Allow mixed difficulties, only keep the fastest times of each level regardless of difficulty.
2. Allow mixed difficulties and multiple entries for each level, but only count the fastest times of each level towards the total time. Since some people like to run on harder difficulties this may be the better option. If the table has level 1 on easy and someone submits level 1 on hard, then you just add another row for that level.

Having just one table for each game/category instead of one for each difficulty also makes it look cleaner and easier to compare easy vs hard times. Game versions are not treated as separate tables so I don't see why difficulties should be either. I pretty much only run ILs so that's why I would want to see something like this instead of the current system.

Thread title:

Currently you're not allowed to mix difficulties, you have to stick with one. Let's say you want to show two different levels played on two different difficulties. Then you'd have to run every single level in the game on both of those difficulties because you can't submit incomplete tables. Why is this important? Because in some games there are drastic differences between difficulties and running on higher difficulties may actually be faster than running on the easiest, depending on the level. The whole stick with one difficulty doesn't make any sense to me because we're talking about runs of individual levels and thus they should also be treated as that. They are not comparable to single-segment runs where you have to stick with one difficulty throughout the entire game because whenever you start an IL you are always asked which difficulty you want to play on (if you aren't then it's most likely a segmented run). My suggestions:

1. Allow mixed difficulties, only keep the fastest times of each level regardless of difficulty.
2. Allow mixed difficulties and multiple entries for each level, but only count the fastest times of each level towards the total time. Since some people like to run on harder difficulties this may be the better option. If the table has level 1 on easy and someone submits level 1 on hard, then you just add another row for that level.

Having just one table for each game/category instead of one for each difficulty also makes it look cleaner and easier to compare easy vs hard times. Game versions are not treated as separate tables so I don't see why difficulties should be either. I pretty much only run ILs so that's why I would want to see something like this instead of the current system.

Kiyura

2013-01-22 07:45:54 am

Wiiaboo

I agree fully with this sentiment:

Quote:

1. Allow mixed difficulties, only keep the fastest times of each level regardless of difficulty.

But if we're basing a table off of "fastest time, regardless of game settings required," I think that the table should not even include the difficulty. That would just lead to confusion. Either the difficulty is not there and is not a consideration, or there are complete tables for each difficulty, IMO.

LLCoolDave

2013-01-22 09:12:44 am

This isn't actually true, unless there's been a policy change that I am not aware of. There's precedence of IL tables of mixed difficulties (for instance, Duke Nukem 3D) on SDA.

MAS8705

2013-01-22 09:59:18 am

SDA Apprentice -- (3-1)

Well, as always it depends on the kind of game it is. If there is a clear indication that going up to the next difficulty is much harder or offers different challenges, then I can see how having different categories can work. In the case of other games such as Doom (where there are 5 difficulty levels), that would probably be overkill and probably wouldn't differ as much.

It can be difficult to say, but then again, I'm sure that once one of the admins post, they can clear a few things up. I'm pretty sure something like this has been discussed in "The Rules"

Softman25

2013-01-22 05:21:47 pm

Personally, I want to know in which game this becomes a "thing" so to speak.

MAS8705

2013-01-22 06:19:18 pm

SDA Apprentice -- (3-1)

Well... I can give one good example: Dynasty Warriors.

There are four difficulties: Easy, Medium, Hard, and Chaos. The higher in the difficulty you go, the harder it is to kill enemy officers and units. At the Chaos difficulty, you do not get any health drops, and you can get killed in a few hits. The thing though is that outside of DW, it is hard to saw how it differs for other games since for games like CoD, you have the difficulty of "You die in several shots" to "you will be shot in the head the moment you are seen."

InsipidMuckyWater

2013-01-22 06:47:08 pm

Visit my profile to see my runs!

^ Is this really a game that is appropriate for IL? Just curious. From what I remember of those games, at least based on the sequels, it'd be ... strange, to do IL's for it.

Softman25

Edit history:

Softman25: 2013-01-22 07:11:45 pm

2013-01-22 06:58:26 pm

Sorry, I should have articulated myself better.

I meant that, in which game would going to higher difficulty be a thing? Wouldn't in theory, the lowest possible time be achievable on a single difficulty. i.e. in Dynasty Warriors, I would guess that Easy would make it faster to kill things. Although Chaos might be a whole different category, as different strats would be used...but for an IL table of just, fastest times (and nothing else) mostly useless.

EDIT: I should really stop posting when I'm tired...I'm trying to say there's no reason to blend IL tables, just separate them, one for low difficulty fast times, one for the higher difficulty - maybe a little slower, but also more challenging.

PJ

2013-01-22 07:09:45 pm

Is PJ

Obsoleting every IL table with low difficulty runs is ridiculously dumb, IMO. What about the people who actually want to do runs that are somewhat challenging?

Separate by difficulty.

MAS8705

2013-01-22 07:13:55 pm

SDA Apprentice -- (3-1)

I honestly lost my train of thought while writing this, so I'll keep it hidden so that it doesn't clutter up the thread. Still, you can read what I wrote if you can properly decipher it.

Quote from InsipidMuckyWater:

^ Is this really a game that is appropriate for IL? Just curious. From what I remember of those games, at least based on the sequels, it'd be ... strange, to do IL's for it.

Depends on the game we are talking about. If we are talking about DW4 & DW7, it would be a waste of time since that it is more towards which kingdom you are with rather than the character (or in 7, the characters are assigned at specific times). However, if you look at DW5 & DW6 (& SW2), their story modes are more focused on specific characters and the scenarios that they participate in.

...

I think that was what you were asking for correct? If we are taking about difficulty setting, that wouldn't be that far off of a possibility since you can see a clear indication of how the difficulty can change how the game is played. On easier difficulties, you can just run into the enemy base and kill the commander in two hits, whereas on higher difficulties, the commander will still be able to get up many times over and can even go into a "Berserk mode" in order to kill you.

Anyway, for Softman: You are correct on the aspect of different difficulties. Granted that I would somewhat disagree depending on what game in the series we are talking about, but if we are talking about one where there isn't that many differences (I.E. DW4) then yeah, the IL would be a waste of time. If it is DW5, then the ILs could still work.

Overall, It depends on the game, but there is little argument that the majority of the runners will go with Easy if they want a fast completion, and only on rare occasions do we see higher difficulties in play, such as the GoW runs on the site where the runner pretty much did it on the highest difficulty.

Otherwise, yeah... what PJ said: keep it all separated by the difficulty. It wouldn't be right for ILs to be taken down just because of a fast speed run. If that was the case, there would be no reason to do ILs for Punch out.

I honestly lost my train of thought while writing this, so I'll keep it hidden so that it doesn't clutter up the thread.  Still, you can read what I wrote if you can properly decipher it.

[hidden]

[quote="InsipidMuckyWater"]^ Is this really a game that is appropriate for IL?  Just curious.  From what I remember of those games, at least based on the sequels, it'd be ... strange, to do IL's for it.[/quote]

Depends on the game we are talking about.  If we are talking about DW4 & DW7, it would be a waste of time since that it is more towards which kingdom you are with rather than the character (or in 7, the characters are assigned at specific times).   However, if you look at DW5 & DW6 (& SW2), their story modes are more focused on specific characters and the scenarios that they participate in.

...

I think that was what you were asking for correct?  If we are taking about difficulty setting, that wouldn't be that far off of a possibility since you can see a clear indication of how the difficulty can change how the game is played.  On easier difficulties, you can just run into the enemy base and kill the commander in two hits, whereas on higher difficulties, the commander will still be able to get up many times over and can even go into a "Berserk mode" in order to kill you.

Anyway, for Softman: You are correct on the aspect of different difficulties.  Granted that I would somewhat disagree depending on what game in the series we are talking about, but if we are talking about one where there isn't that many differences (I.E. DW4) then yeah, the IL would be a waste of time.  If it is DW5, then the ILs could still work.

Overall, It depends on the game, but there is little argument that the majority of the runners will go with Easy if they want a fast completion, and only on rare occasions do we see higher difficulties in play, such as the GoW runs on the site where the runner pretty much did it on the highest difficulty.

Otherwise, yeah... what PJ said: keep it all separated by the difficulty.  It wouldn't be right for ILs to be taken down just because of a fast speed run.  If that was the case, there would be no reason to do ILs for Punch out.
[/hidden]

Freezard

2013-01-23 05:32:22 am

Quote from LLCoolDave:

This isn't actually true, unless there's been a policy change that I am not aware of. There's precedence of IL tables of mixed difficulties (for instance, Duke Nukem 3D) on SDA.

"Note: Difficulties are not counted as separate categories for individual levels. Choose whichever difficulty is fastest."

I guess the rules have changed since then cause Flip told me it's not allowed.

Does Punch-Out even have difficulty settings? Tongue

And Dynasty Warriors doesn't seem to be a game where it's beneficial to run on higher difficulties. It's mostly when enemies/objectives/stuff changes between difficulties that missions can be faster on hard, not when enemies are more difficult. Many RTS games are like that, plus they have AI changes (SC2). Doom can be faster due to different enemy/key placements, also Doom 64 if I heard it right from a marathon run. In all the Serious Sam games you can only rocket jump on normal or higher so some missions are much quicker on hard, also different enemies. L4D where friendly fire is disabled on easy. And apparently Duke 3D is faster on hard sometimes, so it's mostly FPS/RTS games where this matters I suppose. Like there are others I forgot but you kinda have to know a game really well to figure out what's faster.

[quote="LLCoolDave"]This isn't actually true, unless there's been a policy change that I am not aware of. There's precedence of IL tables of mixed difficulties (for instance, Duke Nukem 3D) on SDA.[/quote]

"Note: Difficulties are not counted as separate categories for individual levels. Choose whichever difficulty is fastest."

I guess the rules have changed since then cause Flip told me it's not allowed.

Does Punch-Out even have difficulty settings? :P And Dynasty Warriors doesn't seem to be a game where it's beneficial to run on higher difficulties. It's mostly when enemies/objectives/stuff changes between difficulties that missions can be faster on hard, not when enemies are more difficult. Many RTS games are like that, plus they have AI changes (SC2). Doom can be faster due to different enemy/key placements, also Doom 64 if I heard it right from a marathon run. In all the Serious Sam games you can only rocket jump on normal or higher so some missions are much quicker on hard, also different enemies. L4D where friendly fire is disabled on easy. And apparently Duke 3D is faster on hard sometimes, so it's mostly FPS/RTS games where this matters I suppose. Like there are others I forgot but you kinda have to know a game really well to figure out what's faster.

moooh

2013-01-23 06:06:50 am

Exoray

Mixed difficulty tables are not the norm. Some games have been allowed to have them, decided on a case-by-case basis.

In general, difficulty is a strong categorization. One of the most commonly asked questions when someone watches a run of a game they've played is "what difficulty is this on?".
Difficulty is something you choose when you play a game. Version is not often something you choose (unless you're a runner), hence why version is not separated but difficulty is.

We strive to avoid category bloat, i.e. not having several categories for games where the runs would look identical for most of the part. As such, for games that have 5 different difficulties we usually only allow the lowest and the highest difficulties (and sometimes the middle).
Serious Sam was a good example, where runs on Tourist and runs on Serious would look completely different due to the different mechanics in place. Therefore these games would have one tourist table and one serious table but never a mixed table.

DN3D was probably allowed a mixed table because most levels are so short and they would look pretty much the same for most of the part in the other difficulties.

tl;dr; Mixed difficulty tables are not allowed. Exceptions on case-by-case basis.

Mixed difficulty tables are not the norm. Some games have been allowed to have them, decided on a case-by-case basis.

In general, difficulty is a strong categorization. One of the most commonly asked questions when someone watches a run of a game they've played is "what difficulty is this on?".
Difficulty is something you choose when you play a game. Version is not often something you choose (unless you're a runner), hence why version is not separated but difficulty is.

We strive to avoid category bloat, i.e. not having several categories for games where the runs would look identical for most of the part. As such, for games that have 5 different difficulties we usually only allow the lowest and the highest difficulties (and sometimes the middle).
Serious Sam was a good example, where runs on Tourist and runs on Serious would look completely different due to the different mechanics in place. Therefore these games would have one tourist table and one serious table but never a mixed table.

DN3D was probably allowed a mixed table because most levels are so short and they would look pretty much the same for most of the part in the other difficulties.

tl;dr; Mixed difficulty tables are not allowed. Exceptions on case-by-case basis.

ais523

2013-01-23 06:10:43 am

One example for the other point of view is Mega Man Powered Up. It lets you choose difficulty on a per-level basis even when playing single-segment, and speedrunners will typically choose Easy for some levels and Medium for others. (Enemies move faster on higher difficulties, meaning that they move out of the way faster; on some levels, this trumps the time loss you get from having to negotiate harder levels.) If someone were to make an IL table for that game (being a Megaman game, it ILs decently but not perfectly due to the existence of boss weapons), it'd make sense to be able to use the same rules.