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=> The Wind Waker => Topic started by: TrogWW on February 06, 2015, 05:29:41 AM



Title: Wind Waker categories discussion
Post by: TrogWW on February 06, 2015, 05:29:41 AM
As it stands, the only categories for The Wind Waker are Any% and 100%. This is quite a shame to only inhibit runners of the game to these categories.

I am suggesting two new categories to be on the official ZSR leaderboards;  Low% and Glitchless. Both of which have been seeing some attention recently, despite the fact there is no proper leaderboard (Heck, theres even an official Low% route on the TWW info page http://zeldaspeedruns.com/tww/Routes/low).

The common debate about adding new categories would be; "No one runs this. Why would anyone run it now ". In response, I would say that you couldn't know for sure unless you try adding it (you can always remove it if it doesn't receive much attention). Also, the major reason not many people run low% or glitchless% is there is no official leaderboard to compete times with in the first place.

I am in favor in adding new categories to keep competition fresh and reinvigorate excitement to the TWW community. For such a diverse game as TWW, we should provide more options for runners to play and compete for times.

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In addition to the aforementioned, I am also in favor in somehow bringing attention to other shorter goals within TWW.
A few years ago TWW had a "Master Sword" leaderboard. This was wildly popular, with a lot of submitted times. It was popular for a reason, and in my opinion, it might have been a mistake removing it.

Let's face it, The Wind Waker is a volatile, hard, and long game. The amount of hours required to become competitive in any% is quite significant. A few glitches, most notably 'zombie hovering' are major hinderances to many people attempting to learn this beautiful and rewarding game.

The most significant of these concerns of mine is time. There are countless people I have talked to claiming they wished they could run this game, but they simply don't have the time to compete in even the shortest category, which is on average over 6 hours when you first do runs. Heck, I stopped running any% because I simply don't have enough time to run this game while trying to balance college/real life, and speedrunning. It's so frustrating to not be able to play your favorite game because there aren't enough options of play on the ZSR leaderboards.

This is so incredibly disheartening. There is nothing more I could hope for than to see The Wind Waker be a highly competitive game, with hundreds of submitted times.
There is a huge fan base out there ready to pick up the game, all we have to do is provide them with options that are more reasonable than the ones we currently provide.


There are amazing 'alternate' categories for The Wind Waker that don't complete the game, but have the potential to be highly competitive.

  • The Master Sword - Obtain the Master Sword by pulling it from the pedestal in Hyrule (already highly popular on speedrunslive)
  • The Master Sword (glitchless) - This is the most popular category run in Japan
  • The True Master Sword - Obtain the True Master Sword by completing Wind Temple (http://pastebin.com/DxB2bZ2t)
  • Earth Temple RTA
  • Individual levels - 100% and any% for each dungeon

This list doesn't end here, there are plenty of more awesome way to speedrun this game that have so much potential.

These are short, fun, and easier to pick up categories that have the potential to bring a large competition base to the community.
With more people learning and playing the game, also means more people learning the 'Big Boy' categories: Any%, 100%, and maybe low%/glitchless too? hint hint  ;)


Now of course these categories should be considered on a lower level than the true categories of the game. Which is why I'm considering is this:

We already have an excellent page that records individual levels (see here: http://zeldaspeedruns.com/tww/Speedruns/individual-levels). Why not clean this page up so that videos/comments can be linked. In addition, I am in favor of providing a link to this page from the leaderboards tab. So when you pull the tab down to look at the route options from the main TWW leaderboards page, it would look like the following:
  • Any%
  • 100%
  • Low%
  • Glitchless
  • Other (which would link them here: http://zeldaspeedruns.com/tww/Speedruns/individual-levels)

This way, the main categories will still be the priority, however, the alternate categories are able to be directly accessed from the main page. This would significantly increase traffic to these categories, and hopefully spark competition to them.

I understand that these categories do not complete the game. But on behalf of myself and many others: I'm a speedrunner, can I just go fast?

Discuss.


Title: Re: Wind Waker categories discussion
Post by: scaramanga on February 06, 2015, 07:47:19 AM
The inclusion of categories should not be decided by how many runners do them.
For example: MC 100% has two runs on the leaderboard, but it is a "natural" category and it should be included. The same applies for ALBW Glitchless, which was recently added

According to a similar discussion about the OoT leaderboards, we can clearly see, that categories, that do not complete the game, have to be featured in some way in the ZSR leaderboards. Your argument of the lack of time to learn/run many categories can't be ignored, it is a huge obstacle to get into speedrunning longer games.


Title: Re: Wind Waker categories discussion
Post by: chasetopher on February 06, 2015, 03:27:03 PM
I agree about adding Glitchless, but there will be friction on how to decide the rules and comparing them to JP Glitchless rules. Not looking forward to that discussion.

Low% I don't think should be added, because it's more of a theoretical category and doesn't fit with the model of leaderboards. Say someone gets the "WR", but if someone else completes a run skipping just one more item, it becomes the WR regardless of time. The way the leaderboards work currently would not support that.

Master Sword will probably also not be added, for the same reason Child Dungeons was removed from OoT. ZSR only wants leaderboards for categories that start at the start and end at the end.


Title: Re: Wind Waker categories discussion
Post by: TrogWW on February 06, 2015, 05:52:18 PM
Low% I don't think should be added, because it's more of a theoretical category and doesn't fit with the model of leaderboards. Say someone gets the "WR", but if someone else completes a run skipping just one more item, it becomes the WR regardless of time. The way the leaderboards work currently would not support that.

I see your point Chase, however, the low% definition has been stable for almost two years now as far as I know. Until consistent ways are developed to skip more items, I see the viablility of this cateogry. Low% isn't any more arbitrary than some of the ALLTP (no major glitches) and OoT (no RBA/WW) categories.

Master Sword will probably also not be added, for the same reason Child Dungeons was removed from OoT. ZSR only wants leaderboards for categories that start at the start and end at the end.

I completely agree that Master Sword should not be added. The suggestion I was trying to make is include these smaller categories here: http://zeldaspeedruns.com/tww/Speedruns/individual-levels. This page should be touched up to include videos and comments.

This page should also be able to be accessed from the official TWW leaderboards page in some way.
The way I was suggesting would be to include a link to this page from the pull down tab of the category list, under a name like "Other" or similar.

In this way, the main categories still are the only ones that get to be on the official ZSR leaderboards, but, smaller categories can be accessed from the main leaderboards as well.


Title: Re: Wind Waker categories discussion
Post by: wooferzfg1 on February 09, 2015, 03:07:17 AM
I agree about adding Glitchless, but there will be friction on how to decide the rules and comparing them to JP Glitchless rules. Not looking forward to that discussion.

I think my rules (http://pastebin.com/NeHFhCDx) are logical and fit what a few runners agreed on in an earlier thread about Glitchless. Maybe we could also ban save & quit if we were to add it to ZSR. The only problem with adding Glitchless is that no one really runs it who uses ZSR as far as I'm aware.

As for Low%, it's weird to add it because someone skipping an extra item would invalidate everyone else's runs. And once again, there's not really that much interest. Maybe that would change if it was added to ZSR but I don't really know.


Title: Re: Wind Waker categories discussion
Post by: wooferzfg1 on February 09, 2015, 03:07:58 AM
Also TWWHD 100% on ZSR please?


Title: Re: Wind Waker categories discussion
Post by: TrogWW on February 09, 2015, 06:02:55 AM
I think my rules (http://pastebin.com/NeHFhCDx) are logical and fit what a few runners agreed on in an earlier thread about Glitchless. Maybe we could also ban save & quit if we were to add it to ZSR. The only problem with adding Glitchless is that no one really runs it who uses ZSR as far as I'm aware.

As for Low%, it's weird to add it because someone skipping an extra item would invalidate everyone else's runs. And once again, there's not really that much interest. Maybe that would change if it was added to ZSR but I don't really know.


I feel like both categories will receive a larger fan base if they could be official categories on ZSR. No one runs them because there is no way to compete in the first place. Its like playing football without keeping score.

Of course this is speculation, but it's not like it would hurt anyone trying it out. They can always be removed if not much interest is shown.

Low% falls under a restriction category. Similar to OoTs restriction categoris (No IM/WW) or ALTTP (No major glitches). While there are more things you could skip in theory, since the rules would say you CAN get them, you'd only be slowing yourself down skipping them. It would be equivilant to someone running No IM/WW and refusing to do bomb hovers, you're only making it harder on yourself. The category is called 'Low%', not 'Lowest%'.


Title: Re: Wind Waker categories discussion
Post by: scaramanga on February 09, 2015, 08:17:35 PM
Well SDA states:
Quote
Minimalist completion/low%: beat the game while skipping every key item or upgrade possible. If skipping everything is the fastest way to beat the game, there will not be a minimalist category separate from fastest completion.

So it would mean, that you have to skip as many items as possible. So maybe you could sort first by how many items a runner got, and after that by time. That way, you wouldn't have to delete old runs, but everybody can see, the route is outdated.

About the Glitchless definition: Does the JP category differ in any other way than S&Q? I honestly have no idea, why you should ban it.
I guess rupee-farming for Tingle would be horrible without S&Q...


Title: Re: Wind Waker categories discussion
Post by: R110forever on February 09, 2015, 08:34:38 PM
I think that, for shorter catégories like mastersword, speedrun.com would be a good solution.


Title: Re: Wind Waker categories discussion
Post by: Goldphnx on February 12, 2015, 09:34:30 AM
Glitchless getting its own LB would be neat since the JP Community love Glitchless more than Anime. As with Master Sword and other categories. Having its own Speedrun.com page would neato but its still a dumb category.








also 100% needs to be put on HD. Jeez its taken them like 18 months


Title: Re: Wind Waker categories discussion
Post by: mzxrules on February 12, 2015, 09:55:37 PM
also 100% needs to be put on HD. Jeez its taken them like 18 months

nobody has mentioned anything about it to me on #zelda, or the forums. If someone can give me the ruleset I will add it (and Glitchless).


Personally I'm not against adding "fun" runs to ZSR. You make a really good point about WW any% being too long to casually speedrun for most people. I think a lot of people here are OoT speedrunners, and OoT has a wide range of categories to race that a lot of people could fit into their schedule


Title: Re: Wind Waker categories discussion
Post by: wooferzfg1 on February 13, 2015, 12:24:03 AM
nobody has mentioned anything about it to me on #zelda, or the forums. If someone can give me the ruleset I will add it (and Glitchless).

HD 100% definition is the same as SD's:

Defeat Ganon
Timing ends when you deliver the final blow to Ganon
You must collect:
 - All Hearts
 - All Items
 - All Songs
 - All Equipment Upgrades
 - Hurricane Spin
 - Double Magic Meter
 - All Treasure Charts

The current Glitchless definition (that I think most people are ok with?) can be found here: http://pastebin.com/e8R1Ravv


Title: Re: Wind Waker categories discussion
Post by: mzxrules on February 13, 2015, 10:51:53 PM
http://zeldaspeedruns.com/leaderboards/twwhd/100


Title: Re: Wind Waker categories discussion
Post by: wooferzfg1 on February 15, 2015, 04:29:24 PM
http://zeldaspeedruns.com/leaderboards/twwhd/100

tfw Glitchless is ignored forever ;_;


Title: Re: Wind Waker categories discussion
Post by: wooferzfg1 on February 17, 2015, 03:13:15 AM
http://www.zeldaspeedruns.com/leaderboards/tww/slow
http://www.zeldaspeedruns.com/leaderboards/twwhd/slow


Title: Re: Wind Waker categories discussion
Post by: mzxrules on February 23, 2015, 06:31:04 AM
We actually have the functionality to add Low% to the leaderboards, except it won't sort times correctly.