Discussing Possible Topics for Change

[Flynn]

So recently there's been a lot of new things found in LA/DX, and the shape of the game and ruleset is really up in the air at the moment to the point where the community really needs to come together to discuss this. Because of this I feel like this is really the perfect time to share any and all possible ideas or topics that may want to be explored as far as rule changes may go. Myself I feel like this is a good time to discuss the issue of dying on the stairs. In addition to this, others have expressed their wanting to explore further the ideas of Walrus Skip, Frog Song skip, and lv2 Bracelet skip to name a few.

I just wanted to make this post to allow anyone else who may want to bring up a topic to voice their opinion freely so that it may be explored in the near future, as this might be a pivotal point in LA/DX speedrun history. So if you have anything you'd like to add, feel free to post and discuss.

[aulos]

I would like the LA/DX community to write down a definitive definition of what an OoB is, on which everyone would agree, the runners as much as the TASers (I know it would involve some differences though). This done, this could eventually help defining what is allowed and not, what is an OoB, and not -such as Walrus skip, Frog Song skip...-

[Drenn]

The concern brought up with the walrus was the PoP trick to get past him from the desert side. With the current definition:

"No OoB" means no out of bounds glitches that allow link to unnaturally bypass normal screen transition boundaries by clipping through solid objects (this does not include wall clipping).

You're kind of clipping through the walrus, though not exactly... and I guess you could argue that you're trying to bypass the transition boundary at the edge of the desert? I'm not entirely sure how to interpret the bypassing screen transition boundaries thing, to be honest.

One way I might interpret it is "you can't do a screen transition between any 2 spots that aren't supposed to be connected". I think this makes the clipping through solid walls part redundant, though. This would allow walrus skip, and disallow old frog song skip. I guess you could do the shaq jump near d4 with this definition if you went back in-bounds before transitioning (not that it would be useful afaik).

Another way to interpret it is "you can't clip through solid objects to reach a screen you're not supposed to be able to reach". That would be more restrictive, disallowing all 3 things I mentioned in the last paragraph, I think.

Is one of those interpretations correct, or am I wrong on both of them, or is it not clear? In fact, what's the reason it doesn't just say "no clipping through solid objects"? It's implied that you're allowed to clip through solid objects, as long as you don't do it to bypass normal screen transition boundaries (whatever that means).

[Rapid_]

Better yet, what is a "solid object"? I understand these would be anything that restricts Link from moving, however "objects"(at this point) is too broad a definition. Does it mean tiles, or sprites? I am asking this as Walrus is a sprite, not a tile.
As well, I feel that "the Eagle Tower wrong warp in the mini-boss room" should be sent to the OoB ruleset, as it is an OoB: Link gets clipped outside of the screen transition (his y-value is set below zero and some magic mumbo-jumbo takes place, which sets his y-value to something above 255), he doesn't get sent to an unnatural entrance value.

[aulos]

Another way to interpret it is "you can't clip through solid objects to reach a screen you're not supposed to be able to reach". That would be more restrictive, disallowing all 3 things I mentioned in the last paragraph, I think.

What about the OoB after the rooster skip ? It's obviously an OoB but you could reach the screen by simply walking left. It's like a shortcut.

[Tompa]

For a regular corner clip through a wall, you can clip either 2 or 3 pixels. This has always been allowed for obvious reasons. But the moment you clip in more into a block, it has been banned. So the actual OoB definition has been "Not allowed to clip more than 3 pixels into an object".

When you jump down onto the walrus, you are clipped two pixels into him. Banning that would mean you ban all corner clips, which wouldn't make much sense. And if he was a "solid object", that would mean Link would have jumped over him too and landed in the water. As when you jump down a cliff, Link will skip past all solid objects until he can hit the ground.

And "you can't do a screen transition between any 2 spots that aren't supposed to be connected" would mean no Villa Skip, depending on how you look at it.

The way I have solved this for the new TAS, which is the least arbitary I could think of, is the following:

Main category: "No Wrong Warping". This includes going from one cave/dungeon into a different cave/dungeon. This will allow Frog Song Skip, but ban the type when you get on top of the ceiling in a cave to walk to a different cave, such as the old Walrus skip method. And obviously banning Doghouse and the methods of screen warping in LA and LADX.

I would actually suggest real time runners to have a similar ruleset. To me it makes the most sense currently =).

[LoenP]

I'm glad this was made as a formal topic/thread as it's something I've been wanting to talk about for a long time. I've felt for a while that a fair portion of tricks in the game aren't widely documented and that there's some stuff from past years before my time (I started speedrunning in late 2013) that I've seen referenced before by older runners but never knew much about and couldn't find explained anywhere. Examples are Frog Song Skip (this is more unexplored than undocumented since it was deemed OoB anyway), the "Shaq Jump" which I know at some point was allowed if I remember correctly but was later disallowed and frankly have no idea of where in the runs it could be useful if allowed, the "jesus jump" which I had to find from an old old old 100% vod from years ago, etc.

Taking inventory of the glitches in the game and ways/places they would be useful is something I've wanted to see for a long time since I feel there's been some stuff that has been lost as much of the veterans of LADX who would know about the history of the game and speedrun are retired from speedrunning in general and much of the community is of newer people.


Anyway, the thing I think right now we need to figure out and then decide on is what and why the Piece of Power allows you to clip through the Walrus sprite, and if this constitutes an OoB movement.

Secondly, as Tompa brings up, there are.. inconsistencies in the current ruleset. Specifically disallowing Out of Bounds as currently defined, while allowing Villa Skip which very much should be considered an out of bounds movement under  that ruleset. A tighter definition of the glitch types, instances of them, would be very good since the current definition of the ruleset is fairly poor for OoB and WW designations and this is the perfect time to discuss this while the community is enthused about the new glitches being found.

My own input on the rule situation is that I've always mentally internalized 3 tiers of major glitching that I Know of in LADX:

1) "Wrong Warping" which is just the action of utilizing the corrupted or 'broken' map tiles that can be accomplished with Dog House Glitch, the Dungeon 7 Miniboss Warp, and a few other areas I can't recall.
2) "Out of Bounds" which is a bit slipperier to define under the LADX run but is the act of moving through barriers and objects that isn't intended in a way that doesn't constitute a wall clip. An example I can think of is all movements that utilize the Shaq Jump, and Frog Song Skip.
3) Wall Clipping, which for any non-runners who might be reading is the act of slightly clipping into the 2 pixels of a sprite's edge allowing you to make movements or avoid hitbox areas that you otherwise wouldn't be able to or isn't intended. This is utilized massively in the run.

On top of this there's also the S&Q and No S&Q distinction which I'm conflicted on. I feel it's an antiquated holdover that doesn't add much to the run as a rule, however for LADX it does add an interesting mechanic - the piece of power - that becomes a cool mechanism for further mastery of the game at higher levels.

My own personal ideal has always been to have different categories reflecting the different tiers of rulesets listed above to give a variety of ways to play through the game giving a fun and diverse experience. With people picking up a bunch of new (relatively) categories in 2014, this has mostly been achieved. My only issues really are figuring out how to define certain subsets of glitches and how to deal with, if any are found, inconsistencies in the ones allowed in the route currently.

[Drenn]

For a regular corner clip through a wall, you can clip either 2 or 3 pixels. This has always been allowed for obvious reasons. But the moment you clip in more into a block, it has been banned. So the actual OoB definition has been "Not allowed to clip more than 3 pixels into an object".

When you jump down onto the walrus, you are clipped two pixels into him. Banning that would mean you ban all corner clips, which wouldn't make much sense. And if he was a "solid object", that would mean Link would have jumped over him too and landed in the water. As when you jump down a cliff, Link will skip past all solid objects until he can hit the ground.

It's definitely weird to apply this to sprites, since they behave differently than solid tiles, and wall clipping doesn't apply to them. So the same rules that apply to solid walls might not apply to sprites. But this is the only case where a sprite is involved. So basically, we either have to make up the rules just for this sprite, or continue using rules designed for solid walls which don't entirely apply to sprites?

I for one would actually be okay with tricks that allow you to clip through sprites, since they don't necessarily stay in one place for the entire game, and even if you're inside them, the spot you're at can be considered in-bounds. I don't know of any other consequences this would allow, because afaik this situation only just came up with the walrus.

EDIT - another excellent point brought up by daemona in another thread is that, when you exit dungeon 8, the turtle head is still there. Are you clipped into that? (Again, this is a sprite, which the game expects to be gone at this point in the game)

Also, I don't think villa skip would be considered OoB with this definition, since you're not actually clipping into anything. The game automatically puts you into a falling state so you're not inside of a bush or anything. It was just my attempts at interpreting the rules that were off.

Lastly - if the actual OoB definition is "Not allowed to clip more than 3 pixels into an object", why doesn't it say so in the rules?

[Daemonax3]

Or could it be that it is only an OoB if you bypass objects to get something faster?
You are only stuck into the turtlehead you are not trying to leave.
It would also make no sense if you wanna walk to D7 after D8 becouse its slower so you would anyways play Mambo.
But for a short moment you are stucked in a sprite.

[Tompa]

Lastly - if the actual OoB definition is "Not allowed to clip more than 3 pixels into an object", why doesn't it say so in the rules?

Because people haven't really known what kind of rule they have actually made up for the game. I tried to explain people long ago on the matter, though no one seemed to care, until now when it has brought up again by something (The Walrus) that is the same exact thing as everyone has used in every run up to this point (The Turtle).

[aulos]

The only "difference" between the Walrus and the Turtle Head is that you can walk out of the latter without needing a PoP. I would guess it's because the Turtle Head has a narrower sprite or something ?

But anyway, now you've made the comparison, I have to say that I'm definitely ok with the Walrus being not an OoB. And if people really want to set it as one, then should we kill the Turtle Head ? That sounds wrong in my opinion.

[mabdulra]

The Turtle example is very good, Tompa. I think we are in agreement that banning the Walrus clip means we ban the Turtle Rock clip as well.

The clip doesn't happen at all in S+Q but I'm curious on the Japanese opinion of it. Does anybody have a video of the Walrus despawn in the S+Q category? I want to contact the Japanese community to see if they would allow it under JRTA timing. That won't affect us on ZSR, but I'm curious to see their opinions on the matter. (though ultimately I'd like all Japanese runners to move their leaderboards to ZSR)

[Drenn]

I did walrus skip around 22 minutes into my S+Q pb - http://zeldaspeedruns.com/speedruns/66791

So, then, what do we want to do about the rules? To me, "Not allowed to clip more than 3 pixels into an object" is a lot more clear of a definition of an OoB than what the rules say right now. We could perhaps change that to "Not allowed to clip more than 3 pixels into a solid tile", noting that sprites are not tiles. Afaik the current route conforms to this, and is optimized for these rules, but correct me if I'm wrong?

We could also go for something like Tompa's definition, which just prevents us from transitioning from different cave systems. I have a feeling this would allow for a number of shenanigans which aren't used in the current route, but the only one I know of is old frog song skip. And perhaps L2 bracelet skip. Both things that were banned after the last rule change.

Anyway, thoughts?

[ZorlaxSeven]

Regarding Turtle Rock (I'm not quite sure how to phrase this either):

It seems that the Turtle's "Hitbox" or points where it's solid is only at its nose. Theoretically, if you were able to wallclip at that point (like you would when you exit the dungeon) you could bypass him there too. In other words, you're not "inside" a "solid" object, which would be essentially the same as the wall clips we do before D2 or in the Armos Knight Maze. I'm not really arguing in favour or against banning turtle head skip thingy, just a thought.

So yeah..

[Drenn]

Regarding Turtle Rock (I'm not quite sure how to phrase this either):

It seems that the Turtle's "Hitbox" or points where it's solid is only at its nose. Theoretically, if you were able to wallclip at that point (like you would when you exit the dungeon) you could bypass him there too. In other words, you're not "inside" a "solid" object, which would be essentially the same as the wall clips we do before D2 or in the Armos Knight Maze. I'm not really arguing in favour or against banning turtle head skip thingy, just a thought.

So yeah..

Makes sense to me. I guess that makes the situation with the walrus unique, then.