Hello,
About 4 years ago, I started speed running Twilight Princess with the intention to do a run for SDA. At the time, Single Segment with Resets (henceforth referred to as RTA for the sake of brevity) was just becoming accepted on the site, so I decided to try my hand at that. Obviously, things didn't work out too well... considering that the run currently up is a regular SS (no save+quit) run from 2009, with my name very noticeably absent from the author's name field
At the time I ran the game, the main differences between RTA and no save+quit were the use of the Back in Time glitch (to speed up the beginning a bit and avoid backtracking later) and savewarps to cut out some travel time in dungeons, with the overall route being essentially identical between the two. (The segmented run used a much different route because of being able to do rupee dive, which requires extreme RNG manipulation.) Nowadays, the routes are dramatically different, with the no save+quit route having stayed largely the same and the RTA route having changed dramatically to be closer to the old segmented route. As such, the TP community recognizes two separate divisions for the any% run: the regular Any% RTA (which uses resets), and Any% No Save+Quit, which does not. Both categories are more than capable of beating the current no save+quit run on SDA by at least 30 minutes - the current RTA record is 2:59, the current no save+quit record is 3:20, and the no save+quit run on SDA right now is a 3:56. My first question, then, is: Will these count as separate categories on SDA, and if so, would an RTA run obsolete the current no save+quit run on SDA since it would still be faster by 30+ minutes even without the resets?
My second question is a bit trickier. There is a glitch in Twilight Princess, which was discovered within the past year, called Early Boss Fights. This glitch involves the use of more than one save file, although all of the files are created during the run and are not pre-existing. The glitch is explained here. As you can see, it involves use of a flag that is not set in any particular file, but is rather set temporarily in the game's RAM and carries over between soft resets until you power off the console. My question is, first of all, whether this would even be allowed for an SDA run, and second of all, how this would work in a segmented run if it is allowed. Would the time you spend going into another file and setting the flag count toward the final time, even though you never actually save before resetting the game? The flag is set only once but is used twice over the course of the run (with a forced savewarp in between the two uses, so it would have to be at least two different segments that use it). How would this be handled? If you left the console on the whole time, you wouldn't need to set the flag twice, but if you powered off, you would have to set it again before the second segment. Would the time spent setting the flag count against us both times, or only the first time? How would you even prove whether you turned the console off or not? This is a huge gray area that hasn't really been discussed much, especially because most TP players these days only do single segment runs. The community has decided to allow it for RTA, so there would be a rule discrepancy between the community and SDA on this if SDA decided not to allow it, meaning that no one would likely ever submit an RTA run here.
I hope what I've written makes sense; it's kind of late at night right now so it's kind of hard for me to think at 100% capacity at the moment.
About 4 years ago, I started speed running Twilight Princess with the intention to do a run for SDA. At the time, Single Segment with Resets (henceforth referred to as RTA for the sake of brevity) was just becoming accepted on the site, so I decided to try my hand at that. Obviously, things didn't work out too well... considering that the run currently up is a regular SS (no save+quit) run from 2009, with my name very noticeably absent from the author's name field
At the time I ran the game, the main differences between RTA and no save+quit were the use of the Back in Time glitch (to speed up the beginning a bit and avoid backtracking later) and savewarps to cut out some travel time in dungeons, with the overall route being essentially identical between the two. (The segmented run used a much different route because of being able to do rupee dive, which requires extreme RNG manipulation.) Nowadays, the routes are dramatically different, with the no save+quit route having stayed largely the same and the RTA route having changed dramatically to be closer to the old segmented route. As such, the TP community recognizes two separate divisions for the any% run: the regular Any% RTA (which uses resets), and Any% No Save+Quit, which does not. Both categories are more than capable of beating the current no save+quit run on SDA by at least 30 minutes - the current RTA record is 2:59, the current no save+quit record is 3:20, and the no save+quit run on SDA right now is a 3:56. My first question, then, is: Will these count as separate categories on SDA, and if so, would an RTA run obsolete the current no save+quit run on SDA since it would still be faster by 30+ minutes even without the resets?
My second question is a bit trickier. There is a glitch in Twilight Princess, which was discovered within the past year, called Early Boss Fights. This glitch involves the use of more than one save file, although all of the files are created during the run and are not pre-existing. The glitch is explained here. As you can see, it involves use of a flag that is not set in any particular file, but is rather set temporarily in the game's RAM and carries over between soft resets until you power off the console. My question is, first of all, whether this would even be allowed for an SDA run, and second of all, how this would work in a segmented run if it is allowed. Would the time you spend going into another file and setting the flag count toward the final time, even though you never actually save before resetting the game? The flag is set only once but is used twice over the course of the run (with a forced savewarp in between the two uses, so it would have to be at least two different segments that use it). How would this be handled? If you left the console on the whole time, you wouldn't need to set the flag twice, but if you powered off, you would have to set it again before the second segment. Would the time spent setting the flag count against us both times, or only the first time? How would you even prove whether you turned the console off or not? This is a huge gray area that hasn't really been discussed much, especially because most TP players these days only do single segment runs. The community has decided to allow it for RTA, so there would be a rule discrepancy between the community and SDA on this if SDA decided not to allow it, meaning that no one would likely ever submit an RTA run here.
I hope what I've written makes sense; it's kind of late at night right now so it's kind of hard for me to think at 100% capacity at the moment.
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