I don’t think the menuing should be timed. Save deletion isn’t the only action done in HL2 runs that sometimes requires the main menu. Say, if you have a bad auto-save/quick save, and have to reload your 2nd quick save/auto save, would we have to start timing that too? What about making manual hard saves for c17_01 (or any other trick) via the menu? I’m aware that some of these can be done via binds, but what if a player doesn’t have the keyboard space, or the mouse buttons, or knows those binds? Or on the off chance, somebody does save load clipping via the menu, is their time going to be punished because they didn’t know about quick saves/quick loads? It seems to me that timing the menuing for save deletion would lead to more problems if you ever did menuing outside of save deletion.
I think the alternate timing(without loads/IGT whatever you want to call it) should only serve to even out hardware differences between runners(difference in loading times). Otherwise all input should be timed, I don’t think you should get to cherry pick which actions are timed and which are not. The aim should always be to complete the game as fast as possible, whether that time is spent in the menu or just playing the game.
If someone does save/loading slower through the menu then yes they should be “punished” for it. Also surely everyone speedrunning HL2 knows about quick saves. I don’t think keyboard space really differs between people apart from some people not having a keypad, but I don’t think that’s honestly a big deal.
Menuing is a part of the run and is something that can be optimized and some people will be better at it than others. And yes there have definitely been issues even before save deletion with people loading saves through the menu manually and that time not being counted towards the final time.
Maybe not for segmented runs, but when you’re doing an RTA, you’re being timed from the moment you gain control to the second you can’t progress any further. Just because someone doesn’t bind a key to their other saves doesn’t mean they can just pause the timer. That’s on-par with pausing because you died. And, as Jukspa said~
To return to this point, the reason reload was allowed is because before it was only used in a way that did exactly what loading an autosave or a quicksave would do, which is just loading the save. So the context has definitely changed since people started doing runs, because it actually does do something different.
I think this should give enough of a reason to revisit this rule, other than that I’m pretty sure there has never been any sort of a vote about it. Nobody just bothered to complain about it because it didn’t give you an advantage.
In my opinion reload should be allowed in source runs since Wait spamming is allowed on GoldSource.
Also if we rule out using reload in runs because you have to use the console to use it ((bind it to a key)wouldn’t we have to rule out binding mwheelup and down to jump since you cant bind two keys to the same command without using the console.
Also what about stuff like turn binds (bind q +left) or using r_portalsopenall or having more than one quick save key eg. bind q “save quick1” etc.
Whatever commands are allowed is going to be slightly arbitrary no matter whatever the ruleset is. Sticking strictly to the menu probably isn’t going to happen since you can’t have more than one key bound to one command, but there are a bunch of unprotected cheats in Source so you’re going to have to regulate it somehow. However having some sort of logic behind the ruling would make sense.
I’d be fine with just being allowed to bind keys to commands that you can find in the menu and only being allowed to change cvars that are accessible in the menu. With the exception that you can make multiples of those binds, so for example you could bind multiple keys to jumping.
The other idea that has been around is allowing commands that you can use in multiplayer. However there’s a slight issue with this as some commands are cheat protected in other games, but aren’t in others. This doesn’t say anything for allowing reload though, as the command doesn’t exist in multiplayer games(?)
EDIT: The ruleset is probably going to be arbitrary so I think it would be good to actually have a vote on these things instead of people just doing whatever.
Making comparisons to GoldSource is sometimes a good idea and sometimes a bad idea. In this case I think it’s a bad idea because although the engines share similarities, in terms of the console HL is pretty limited in the way of what you can do without scripts/tools compared to Source.
Also, speaking of ‘wait’, another point that I think the community should be concerned about is that there’s a double standard in that for some reason ‘wait’ is allowed in Source segmented runs (DQer) and not in SS/RTA.
I know one argument people have often used for this is “wait is only allowed in scripted/tool-assisted” but there’s two flaws to that. The first thing is that ‘wait’ on it’s own is not even a script and can be spammed without a script via hyper-scrolling (which we banned in HL) or other means. The second thing is that scriptless for a segmented run is pointless and scripted for a SS/RTA run is pointless, therefore I don’t really see the point in recognizing the use of scripts as a categorical definition because they only serve a legitimate purpose(?) in one category anyway.
These were the reasons we decided to clear up the grey area/assumption-based rule for GoldSource and allow it for SS/RTA.
I’m not arguing for/against you guys allowing ‘wait’ in Source running because as I originally mentioned the circumstances for Source are quite a lot different, but I am making the suggestion that you either ban it altogether or allow it in all the categories for theoretical comparison. If you ask me, it doesn’t make much sense that you can say “this is how fast the game can be done by a human in one sitting” and then say “this is how fast the game can be done by a human in multiple sittings, but with an extra trick allowed” without any real reason.
So, since it seems that everybody wants to time menuing, somebody NEEDS to reprogram source split so that pauses and menuing are included in the autosplitter. Otherwise, it’s going to really suck when you have a lower time than your PB according to the loadless time, but turns out you menued slower so you didn’t actually PB, it just looked like you did and now your splits aren’t accurate.
As far as reload goes, do we ban it from all runs that use it? That doesn’t seem like a good idea since pretty much every single sub 1:40 run uses it.
Do we only ban it if you use it for save deletion? That seems really arbitrary (something something all rules are arbitrary something something) and inconsistent.
Or, do we just let people keep using it in all cases? I mean, other console commands are allowed; EG binding keys to make hard saves, quick save/quick load script, so why not this one?