Guild Wars 2

MauricioCezar.2673:

Enko.6123:

Eh I use my xp boosters all the time when I’m doing map completions with my 80s. I need approximately more 8400 skill points to make all the ascended armor and weapons that I want.

Champ Bag farm in SW will give you loads more Skill Points than levelling you 80. Just a tip.

No it doesn’t unless you’re talking about tagging all events on an event map though you’ll get DR after a bit which means you have to stop. If you’re talking about chest farming, killing all the random mobs while you’re mapping gets you way more skill points in less time and is a heck of a lot less boring. Also gets me progress on map completions.

I’m not doing map completion while I’m leveling. I do map completion with full ascended and dps builds so things die quickly. If you kill things that haven’t been killed in a while with full xp buffs up, you get around 6-7k xp per kill with mobs being grouped up fairly close together where I can pull 5-15 together fairly easily and kill them at once. Getting 70k xp whenever I fight groups is faster than SW chest farming.

Edit:
An example: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2vobml/my_1k_silverwaste_bag_opening_results/
This guy got 158 skill point scrolls from 1000 Champ bags. That same number of skill points I would get from 7 or 8 maps which would take me about 1.5 hours each since I kill most things I come across. Unless you’re telling me you can farm 1000 champ bags in 12 hours or less, I’d rather go get map completions while getting skill points than farm SW chests and go brain dead. I make my gold off the TP so money isn’t a problem for me.

If you go back through the previous weeks votes or discussions,

Specifically about blocked pathways. The discussion people had were based off of what the rule stated. Someone mentioned the spirit of the ruleset (which is what I have asked to clearly state since people have different views on it) and someone else asked for the logical reasoning on why some were allowed and why others weren’t allowed. All discussion done based off the framework of the rule.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/gw2dungeons-net-Rule-5-discussion/first

In week 22’s decision, I think the key problem was the wording of Issue 2 that was voted on.

I originally thought that A would be giving the vote to people to determine how each issue should be decided based on the rules. I obviously misunderstood that once we saw how people were voting in week 23 with basically disregarding the rules since it didn’t mention “votes based on rules” like option B did. B was at least someone basing a decision if something should be allowed or not on the rules.

A) Decide case by case with voting.
B) Wethospu decides based on rules.

This is why I’m asking that we provide a general statement about what Restricted is supposed to be since we all obviously have different ideas and we’re not voting on the same thing.

Week 23.
Issue 1: Safespotting trash – Refinement of safespotting rule
Issue 2: AC story gate skip – Stepping on weight panel is the required sequence
Issue 3: CoE exp door skip – Selecting path is the required sequence
Issue 4: ArahP3 door skip – Killing the mobs is the required sequence
Issue 5: AC exp burrow skip – Doesn’t block progress, irrelevant
Issue 6: Molten Facility lightning riding – Unintended area, fixed with geometry change
Issue 7: Arah p4 final jumping puzzle – Unintended area, still banned with geometry change.

These all could have been voted on based on the existing framework or refinement. Bypassing an event that triggers the door to close or open seems like abusing event scripting. This applied to both 3 and 4 but people voted on opposite ways.
6 and 7 with Out of bounds were both the same issue but rule was modified to clarify to breaking into geometry.

All of these had existing rules that we derived our thought processes from and they either led to the refinement of rules (1, 7), the following of rules (3), or the ignoring of rules (5).

This leads to why I ‘m asking for “events” to be defined since I’m viewing events in a broader aspect of how things like an event log in a computer works. Something happened. Something is supposed to happen.
Some people view events as what the game considers an in game event. There needs to be an orange circle or indicator saying that this is an event.

There are different understandings of what an “event” consists of which then makes it so different people who are doing record are playing by different sets of rules and don’t find out until they post a video and it gets denied or they see someone else post a video that gets approved with things that they thought weren’t allowed.

Let me put it another way. People want to ban assault weapons. Some people consider any weapon used by the military as an assault weapon. Some people consider assault weapons only those that are used exclusively by the military and you can’t get elsewhere. The federal government defined what they consider an assault weapon and that’s what the federal law is based off of. Makes it clear cut and everybody is on the same page.

NikeEU.7690:

spoj.9672:

But contradicting rules like these simply open up the possibility of endless path specific rules. Do we really want inconsistencies like this which requires people to go and check a long list of rules everytime?

Yes. And don’t exaggerate, most paths don’t have anything like this. It would be like 1 rule here or there.

That we know of for now. For all we know, people could find new stuff that people haven’t even figured out yet and we would have to then vote on the endless possible path specific rules. If you look at last week, those were all path specific rules with the majority of them that could have been resolved by just defining what we mean by “event”.

If you try to create a rule system that allows Arah p3 door but disallows CoE door you’re going to be treading the finest of fine lines in your wording and you WILL have unintended consequences.

I would rather have a general ruleset that would be the baseline how we base future decisions on than just take each issue at hand as a brand new thing every single time where it seems to become an arbitrary decision. I would rather be able to make the decision to depart from a plan than start from scratch every time.
In this post, https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/gw2dungeons-net-Week-23-discussion/first#post5120661, I went through and explained how I voted on issues. I went issue by issue and asked, does this violate any of the rules? If not, then I voted it was allowed. If it did violate the rules, then I voted to not allow it. If it was not explicitly denied by a rule, but it was something that probably needed to be fixed, then we modified the rules such as the safespotting of trash mobs.

Without a general framework to go off of, the vote decision would have been, “Do I like doing this? nah” vs “Do I like doing this? sure.” There’s absolutely no basis of why you would go one way or another which then leads to inconsistency and weird reasons why or why we don’t have a rule.

As for the rule there, yes I did try to word it in a way that would allow and disallow how people have been voting on so we had something to frame any future issues.

Wethospu.6437:

Some thing to consider:

1) People voted to have no exceptions. It was reopened to specifically have this result.

2) We barely have enough players for one rule set.

3) Based on current voting behavior, people want neither ultra-restrictive (“what anet intended”) or very open rule set

4) “What Anet intended” is a pretty bad metric because if you want to follow that you should farm SW

At least the way I see it, enforcing a “what anet intended” ruleset would be simply destructive. You get a ruleset which nobody actually likes or follows even in pug runs. And for what? To please developers?

Which leads to the next point about defining the intention of restricted rule set. Why would we define it to something no one really wants? Why would we define it to something we can’t really enforce?

For example we define that restricted rule should be about what people think Anet intended. Do you think that would be better than a rule set about what people actually want? How do we know if someone votes as he likes instead of what he thinks Anet intended? What do we do if we suspect that someone didn’t vote like that?

Could someone explain what’s wrong with the current approach where few things are voted weekly and we finally end up with a rule set which most people agree with?

I am not asking to define it “as anet intended” or to something that no one really wants. I am asking for a broad statement people can agree on. A simple change to the gwscr.com one basically would read as follows and provide the mindset of what the rules would cover since that has shifted from the original.

Restricted ruleset (or whatever we call it)is governed by a set of rules which requires players to complete most if not all parts of the dungeon while the Unrestricted ruleset has relaxed rules allowing players to do anything in the dungeon to complete it as fast as possible

As opposed to the original broad statement from gwscr.com here:

Records in the restricted category are governed by a strict rule set which requires players to complete most if not all of the dungeon as it was intended while records in the unrestricted category have relaxed rules, allowing players to get away with most things.

These two are almost the same with one major change. The only thing I took out was the “as it was intended” part. For the past issues we’ve had, I would have voted differently on these because the mindset I have is that restricted originally was following what we thought Anet had intended the dungeon.

The current approach can work but it does mean that there are a bunch of path specific, seemingly arbitrary decisions for every dungeon. What we’re doing is voting on do we like this exploit or not. Do we like it when people do this but not that.
If bypassing a door is ok in one path, why is it not on another? Just because some people said they liked it?
If not being able to jump past stuff is ok in one path, why is it not on another? Just because some people said they liked it?
This is why when you don’t have a general framework that is held to consistently, it turns into a bunch of seemingly arbitrary rules.

Rising Dusk.2408:

I think what restricted/unrestricted means has always been a colloquial thing and never formally defined. It sounds okay to me if we want to have some description, if only because it will help newbies who read GW2 Dungeons know what the rulesets mean outside of the specific rules themselves.

As I’ve stated many times now, the original intentions and what’s posted on gwscr.com suffices as the broad statement of the basis of each ruleset. Just having something simple like that is actually needed.

If you really think it will only be for newbies who read gw2dungeons.net, then you need to question why we’re having the discussion on these rules for the past few weeks then. This all stems from a basic disagreement on what the restricted ruleset means from when we first created it. People who are doing records now want to show off the creative tricks that they’ve found to get through the dungeons. The restricted ruleset was created to minimize exploits which a lot of those creative tricks can be defined as. If we want to change that, then again fine but lets make that clear to people.
If this is something so easy to do, then lets just do it.

EcoRI.9273:

I agree with Enko on defining what restricted actually means. Remember gais, it took the US decades to define who is a person and who is not so take your time Kappa.

If you want to introduce snark into this, fine, but go look at when we were first deciding on having a rule split to begin with. There’s a reason why we did that originally and people have lost sight of that and just basically want to do whatever they feel like. I can tell you now that if we acknowledged what we want Restricted to mean to how I’ve seen other people state in these threads (basically doing exploits that are interesting to see to bypass or speed up some of the dungeon scripting), then I’d agree and be fine with it since I think that stuff is interesting to see as well.

The entire nature of why its called Restricted was to put restrictions on what we can do and that original intent of that was what’s still posted on gwscr.com on the differences between the two.

EcoRI.9273:

A different interpretation of the term impede progress: skipping the crushers via mountain goating will not impede my progress for arah p3.

Can you still complete the path without breaking out of the map or going into geometry?

Rising Dusk.2408:

Just reiterating in case my previous post wasn’t clear that I agree with Nike. I’d much rather have the general rules we have and then path-specific rules to address CoE and Arah p3 and the like.

I really appreciate what you’re trying to do Enko, but I’m just not convinced that it buys us anything other than more of the kind of interpretation that leads to the disagreements you mentioned disliking earlier. It’s just going to have unintended consequences and take more work to manage when new issues come up.

Then fine. These are the three things that I would want.

Define what restricted means. Is it do what we think is fun or the original intention of how things are intended.

Define what an “event” is.

Actually hold to the ruleset that’s decided.

I have consistently asked for one thing and one thing only, that we be consistent with the rules. If you go through all my posts on this, all of this goes to this. A lot of this came about because through the course of voting on issues, some topics were voted one way while others were voted differently despite being the same rule issue.

I would have loved to just stick with the general rules we have but people apparently can’t stick to them or try to squeeze things in based on vague interpretations of them.

We need to simply define what an event is, define what we want restricted to be, and stick with it. If we do that, the current ruleset works fine and pretty much everything we’ve been voting on becomes a non issue that’s resolved by this..

Eh I think what I put down is a general enough ruleset that covered everything and we would just need to put something down specifically for the CoE door jump. I’m not asking for an overarching rule to unite everything but a framework that we could base any other exceptions off of. Our existing ruleset could have done that too if people would actually follow them instead of creeping in more and more things that shouldn’t have been allowed.

Without a framework or basic guidelines to go off of and we go on individual path by path basis on what is or isn’t allowed, you’re pretty much now telling people you have to run things like this or they wont’ be considered a record. Leaving it open ended with guidelines gives people the freedom to try new and creative things. If they find something that’s a huge exploit that’s basically gamebreaking, then those are probably the things that need to be discussed on an individual basis.

If we do continue with individual rule voting then I think we still need to decide on what the overarching broad statement of what restricted/unrestricted mean. gwscr.com had a single sentence that did this and was basically how we discussed the rules at the meetings we did have

Records in the restricted category are governed by a strict rule set which requires players to complete most if not all of the dungeon as it was intended while records in the unrestricted category have relaxed rules, allowing players to get away with most things.

Just something simple like that is all I would want so we’re all on the same page of what restricted represents.

You would also need to define events. All of this week’s votes stemmed from the vague definition of what an event is. 4 of last week’s were also due to this as well. Defining this would have resolved most of those.

The Out of bounds rules was already changed satisfactory to cover issues.

Sure, having a corpus of path based errata isn’t elegant but its a good deal better than trying to write a brand new constitution every time someone finds a new bug/exploit

If you notice from last week, I was trying to avoid that by judging each issue in accordance with the existing posted rule set which apparently didn’t fly with a lot of people. If you go through all my posts on this topic, I’ve just been asking for a standard framework that we can work off of instead of being forced to decide on each individual issue as a separate issue. Not having any basic guidelines on some things (like what is an event), is causing us to have to vote on each and every thing when simply defining it would have solved it.

EcoRI.9273:

“All progress impeding bosses to advance progress must be completed.”

This actually promotes mountain goating as progress impeding bosses can be interupted differently.

Could be all bosses with cutscenes immediately before or after must be killed.

I do like the other rule wordings though it is basically the restricted ruleset minus a few things.

Line casting not mentioned

No mention of when the timer starts.

Racial skills not mentioned.

leaving dungeon with a character not mentioned.

Not sure by what you mean by interrupted differently.

Line casting, yeah didn’t mention this one. Something for people to decide if it should be allowed again or not since the original reason why it was banned was that people either thought it was cheesy or that it was an exploit.

The timers, racial skills, and leaving dungeons were a given but yeah should be on the list of the final rules.

The entire progress impeding thing if you went with events, you would need to define what an event is. Do we just mean things that have an event indicator in the top right of your screen or do we mean triggers in dungeons such as thresholds that activate things or NPC dialogues that start fights, etc. I personally think its interesting when people find things to avoid stuff like that.
The progress impeding rule was originally put into place to prevent people from just mountain goating to the end of dungeons. Either wording with bosses vs events does it but just stating bosses allows us to do the other stuff with NPC manipulation and such.

Eh I use my xp boosters all the time when I’m doing map completions with my 80s. I need approximately more 8400 skill points to make all the ascended armor and weapons that I want.

Rising Dusk.2408:

I’m just going to reiterate, Enko, that many of our rules—and many of the voters in these polls—are against changes that enable things that “feel exploitative or unintended”. Many things some people think are exploitative other people think are clever and/or neat usage of intended mechanics, however, resulting in the mish-mash as we currently have it. Honestly, I like our current ruleset a lot.

I think we should, honestly, just keep doing path-by-path exceptions. Just explicitly say that the p3 door is okay and the CoE door isn’t. It’d be nice if we had rules that weren’t vague and covered everything, but as they stand they are open to interpretation.

Umm my suggested ruleset allows everything people have voted on and simplifies the rules pretty much.

If they are against changes that enable things that “feel exploitative or unintended” then they should stop voting for things that “feel exploitative or unintended” or they could post and be involved in this discussion so their viewpoints are represented beyond a single sentence statement that they voted on.

I already suggested that we should first define what the restricted ruleset is about and then make the rules accordingly since as I explained earlier, this ruleset was created originally for what we thought was intended by anet and the usage of exploits was supposed to be in unrestricted. A lot of those clever usage of mechanics that we’re discussing fell into that category of exploits previously. Now if people want to change the meaning of restricted, then I’m fine with that. Let’s just be clear about it, fix the root issue, and go on with it. This is basically what Weth has posted for next week and that’s a good thing. A lot of these votes could be prevented if we just fixed the root issue at hand first.

Wethospu.6437:

Enko.6123:

gwscr.com

Records in the restricted category are governed by a strict rule set which requires players to complete most if not all of the dungeon as it was intended while records in the unrestricted category have relaxed rules, allowing players to get away with most things.

So gwscr.com was where GW2 records were originally posted. This is what it said the Restricted and Unrestricted rulesets were all about. If we can just get a simple base statement on what the two rulesets are supposed to be then it would clear up pretty much any of the inconsistency in voting.

Since the majority of the rules are copied and pasted from gwscr.com, I would consider this basic statement still relevant.

If that was carried over it would be on the rule page.

But ok, next week I will add a poll:

How the restricted rule set should be like?

A) As Anet intended

• Abuse of path selection banned
• Any kind of event manipulation banned
• NPC manipulation banned
• Being past blocked pathways banned
• Areas which can’t be reached by walking or jumping banned
• In rare cases your opinion may get asked

B) As you want

• Keep the current system of voting

C) Open

• Event / boss manipulation, safespotting, bugging etc. allowed
• Mandatory events must be completed
• Entering inside textures banned
• In rare cases your opinion may get asked

Can we have the following suggestion as an option?
The following is actually a middle ground of your two listed things and actually would encompass how everyone’s been voting. This would clear up pretty much every vote we’ve done so far.

No gemstore items
No third party programs like teleport hacks and such
No breaking out of maps or into geometry.
All progress impeding bosses to advance progress must be completed.
No safespotting enemies.
No consumables beyond food/utility.
Dungeon completion must trigger.

Changing it to progress impeding bosses from events would allow the Arah p3 door skips or the AC story mode gate teleport trick.
If people want it to be any progress impeding event, we would need to discuss what we’re actually defining as an event such as NPC dialogue, thresholds that close doors, belka’s bone wall, etc. Everyone so far has been voting to allow these things.
The only exception is the CoE door skip but you’d still have to kill Alpha to open the next door unless you considered jumping the door breaking into geometry which would ban it then.
If anyone else has any ideas to reword that one line that would allow the Arah p3 door trick, bypassing Belka’s bone wall, etc and still block the CoE door jump, I’m open for ideas or just leave as with it saying bosses and just have a single dungeon specific note that flat out states bypassing the door isn’t allowed.

The two options available are such extremes that everyone is going to vote for continued voting.

Wethospu, what I copied from gwscr is from the page that describes what records are all about. http://gwscr.com/records

For some history, here’s the link that Cookie posted that first kicked off discussing how we do records. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/What-makes-a-record-legit/first
On pg 2, the Arah p3 gate trick was questioned by Cookie back then.

The thread gets derailed by pg 3 and from there, I think we went to a teamspeak or whatever voice comms and had a meeting with the guilds that were interested in speed clears.

A lot of the same issues we’re discussing now happened back then as well and we went with the route of minimal exploits to try to follow what we thought Anet intended. That has obviously changed so lets just make it official and make it clear.

Wethospu.6437:

The fact that Arah P3 gate trick has been allowed the whole time kind of disqualifies that Restricted rule set is about how Anet intended them to be played.

That encounter was specifically added after release to slow down people farming Crusher over and over. I’m pretty sure they didn’t leave that loophole there on purpose.

The Arah P3 gate trick seems like it was just used by everybody and people didn’t even think about it as being unintended or count it as an event so it was never discussed. People were using that way before we even had the rule split on the earliest Arah P3 I could find on gwscr.com. Since we’re having the discussion now though, it is going to depend on how we define an “event”. Allowing this in a ruleset that was for how Anet intended things was probably an oversight that was missed because it was a common knowledge thing very early in the game. If you look through the gwscr.com records, the first record that was posted with a video was an Arah p3 that used it. Since it was well known for so long a time and during a time when Anet was still tinkering with things in dungeons relatively often, people may have just thought that Anet was ok with it because they hadn’t stopped it. We could use that line of logic now as well but that would mean basically allowing everything and anything since Anet hasn’t really fixed anything in dungeons in a while. During the first gwscr.com rules meeting though, I think it was brought up and people had agreed to allow it since that’s pretty much how literally everybody was doing it and Anet seemed ok with it.

If it is a discrepancy, then fine lets fix it now since we’re actually discussing it. If we’re going the route everybody seems to want to go to where we just want to see what people are capable of and throw out the original intentions of the ruleset, then I’m all for it. I’m just asking that we decide that and we make that clear so we’re all on the same page.

Going back through the weekly discussions, it looks like it might only have gotten brought up because someone had asked about the AC burrows and that led into the discussion on the Arah p3 door issue.

gwscr.com

Records in the restricted category are governed by a strict rule set which requires players to complete most if not all of the dungeon as it was intended while records in the unrestricted category have relaxed rules, allowing players to get away with most things.

So gwscr.com was where GW2 records were originally posted. This is what it said the Restricted and Unrestricted rulesets were all about. If we can just get a simple base statement on what the two rulesets are supposed to be then it would clear up pretty much any of the inconsistency in voting.

Since the majority of the rules are copied and pasted from gwscr.com, I would consider this basic statement still relevant.

Jerus.4350:

Well, it should be said I don’t get a vote and I’m usually drunk so /shrug. But, from what I’ve seen there’s quite an inconsistency in voting and rules. And, I’ve just always felt that the restricted set was about making the competition more fun than anything because fo that. Feel free to ignore my drunk self Much love. And give Moon a kiss for me he’s a great guy. (ok that may come off as weird, but really, cool guy I know in your guild )

Moon isn’t in LOD anymore. He hasn’t been for a while. No idea what guild he went to.

As I stated earlier, the ruleset wasn’t just about what we considered fun. There was a reason why it was set up the way it was and we’re moving away from that. I’m fine with doing that as long as everyone is on the same page. The inconsistency in voting is pretty much based on this key issue that people have different ideas on what Restricted is and I think that needs to be clarified. Once that’s clarified, I think the individual issue voting should be resumed (if its even needed anymore which I don’t think it would be).

The things we’re voting on have been grey areas for the existing rules which is why votes are being held to determine if they should be allowed or not. Have you missed that in all of this conversation? None of these issues were just out of the blue.

We’re not just voting on random things. Everything we’ve been voting on have been discrepancies in the rules. It should have been to vote on if the rule needed to be changed or if a new rule needed to be made or not. Not on just what we like though it has devolved into that which makes this all kind of pointless since we don’t have an overarching reason for the Restricted Ruleset.

I would probably be voting for everything to be allowed too if we’re just voting on what we think is fun. The problem is that’s not what Restricted was originally for. That’s what Unrestricted was originally for. At this point with how a lot of the votes have been going, we might as well adopt the Unrestricted ruleset with a couple of modifications and call it a day.

Wethospu.6437:

Nothing stops you from voting as you want. If you think restricted should be “as Anet intended” then you can vote according to that. If you have some other criteria feel free to vote according to that.

If enough people think that restricted should be “as Anet intended” then the voting should reflect that.

I would say the reason for discussion is simply that people disagree with stuff. There would be discussion and disagreement even if we had defined some sort of a guideline for voting.

You guys are both missing the entire point of what I’m posting about. I know nothing is stopping me from voting how I want. I’m just saying that we’re wasting a lot of time by voting on these issues when people don’t even know what the Restricted rule set is supposed to be.

If it’s just supposed to be what’s fun and competitive, then allow all of this stuff and there’s no issues. You’re basically saying this since most of the people involved in records weren’t even around when we first started the ruleset and you know that I’m one vote among ten so you don’t have to actually discuss this issue.

You’re going to decrease the amount of work you have to do and votes we have to do if we work out the root issue first.

Jerus.4350:

Well said Wethospu, if it means anything personally I liked the idea of you just being dictator of the competition.

Votes are good, but I agree, vote on fun sounds the best, whatever that means to people, vote for what you want, don’t limit yourself based on ANets intentions unless that’s what you want.

Jerus, if we didn’t want to limit ourselves with what we saw with Anet’s intentions, then we wouldn’t even have the Restricted ruleset in the first place. That’s what I’m trying to get fixed. If we’re voting on what we just think is fun, then fine. Let’s do that. But let’s make sure everybody is on the same page first since we’re deciding the speed clear rules.

I already posted a ruleset that I think would pretty much cover all the issues we’re working out, is simple, would be fun to watch, and would encourage competitiveness and I’ll post it here again if you missed it.

No gemstore items
No third party programs like teleport hacks and such
No breaking out of maps out of geometry or unintended areas.
All required events to advance progress must be completed.

This lets us do all the cool tricks you can pull out of your sleeve to get a better time and avoids the mountain goating that originated the Unrestricted/Restricted split.

5.) You are only allowed to use food, nourishment and Metabolic Primer. All other consumables and items are banned.

8.) Compression of AoE hitboxes by moving, blinking and/or dodging is banned.

10.) Abusing trait swapping to use any skill prior to its natural cool down is banned. This includes but is not limited to Mesmer Blink and Guardian Wall of Reflection.

I’m going to use these three rules as an example. These rules were originally put into place because something was being done that we thought were unintended gameplay mechanics and shouldn’t be allowed because we were all pretty sure Anet didn’t intend the skill or trait to work that way.

Rule 5 was originally to deal with Harpy Feathers for infinite stealth on any class and the spamming of Embers, Ogre Pet Whistles, and Mortar kits since all of these originally had no cooldown. It was agreed that Anet probably didn’t foresee people just having perma stealth for everyone on a dungeon without using a mechanic like chaining Stealth blasts or Shadow Refuge.

Rule 8 was created to deal with Dodge Ice Bows/Meteor Showers because we didn’t think Anet inteded for these skills to be able to have their areas compressed to stack all their hits in one place like that. It was also banned because people thought it was a cheesy tactic.

Rule 10 was created to deal with things like double Wall of Reflection or double Blinks because we didn’t think Anet intended for these traits to work like that so they were not allowed.

All these examples were created because the people who were on the rules meeting agreed that Anet probably didn’t intend for these things to happen and thus we shouldn’t allow it in Restricted records.

I personally think that the hitbox manipulation, trait tricks, and the usage of some consumables consumables could be kind of cool to see in records if the point of the records is to showcase what’s fun and what’s possible in dungeons. Under that mindset, these rules wouldn’t be needed.

If the point of records was to run them as best as possible to what Anet intended, then that’s why these rules were created.

That’s why I’m saying that we need to make clear what we’re aiming for records. If we want to go with what’s fun and competitive, then lets clear out these three rules (maybe not the consumable one) and make that clear that’s the road we’re going down.
If we’re sticking with the original reasons for the Restricted ruleset, then lets keep them in.
If we decide this root issue first, then a lot of the rules we’re voting on now would make more sense.

The problem is that some people are voting in accordance what we originally had set up Restricted for which is why there’s differences in how we’re discussing this. This is the root cause of the issues we’re all having with this. Until that’s resolved, there’s no reason to keep voting on things.

If we’re just aiming for whatever we think is fun to play and encourages participation vs what Restricted was originally set up to be, then I’d be voting differently. That’s why I’m saying we should probably discuss what the overall thing is supposed to be and set that first.

If we want it to be where the records are fun to watch and all, then I don’t see why we’re banning consumables and some other cool tricks that are available.
I still think the simplest ruleset that would encourage this would be:
No gemstore items
No third party programs like teleport hacks and such
No breaking out of maps out of geometry or unintended areas.
All required events to advance progress must be completed. (events need to be defined such as cutscene, dialogue, thresholds to close doors, etc)

Other than that, if it’s available in game to everybody, then it should be ok. This would allow pretty much everything we have been voting yes on without all this weekly discussion stuff. This provides an even playing field for everybody and we get to actually see all the cool tricks that people can come up with.

I can see why mountain goating should be banned since it just means all we see is random jumping instead of gameplay though chances are you’re bypassing something that impedes progress. Same with one shotting Lupi on the wall as its more interesting to see people actually fight Lupi.

For the questions for next week, if we’re voting according to how Restricted was originally set up and to how the rules are worded, then the first 2 would be no. If we’re voting according to what you said where we should only be worrying if its fun to play, then it would be yes. Again, this is why we need to put out what Restricted means first before we continue to vote or we’re always going to have issues since people are voting according to completely different mindsets.

BTW, I like someone’s earlier comment about calling renaming them as well to indicate the shift if you want us voting these issues according to a “rule set is fun to play and encourages participation/competition.”

Competitive Records
and
Anything Goes Records (or whatever we want to call it)

They might just rework what the xp reward for dungeons is completely. Maybe add mastery xp to fractals too since currently the only xp you get from fractals is from killing stuff.

Fermi.2409:

Forgotten Legend.9281:

i still want the option to fast cast at TARGET’s feet, since i am a mouseclicker and i feel like i’m at a very big DISadvantage because of it.

That’s because mouse clicking is objectively really bad; of course you’re disadvantaged for doing it. Learn to play and it’s a nonissue.

I wouldn’t say he needs to “learn to play” since you’re implying to not mouse click. If mouse clicking works for him, he needs to figure out what WILL work for him. It would definitely be easier if he didn’t mouse click and either used a gaming mouse with thumb buttons or reworked his keybindings to have his skills accessible.

There’s some people that can play with purely skill clicking that do very well. He just needs to figure out how it works for him.

If you’re trying to drop a skill on top of you, you can just click the skill twice. The default position of ground targeted skills if the game doesn’t see your cursor targeting anything is on top of you. This also happens if you have your mouse over your inventory, other panels, etc.

For Unrestricted, this is the only rule that states when the timer stops:

3.) The timer stops when the final boss of the dungeon has been killed. In Fractal records timer stops when the shard reward chest appears.

Is this the only rule in question for this? If it is, is there anything else that would invalidate this beyond they didn’t complete the dungeon?

Rule needs to be updated to include that the dungeon must be completed (ie the game views it as completed) which is what the vote is about.

spoj.9672:

In fairness that was my fault for overuling Risings decision without discussing it.

But yeah i see issues like these popping up in the future more and more with the rules current state. The voting is trying to fix it. But i dont see it working out too well with how people are inconsistent with their own votes.

I honestly feel like we need to stop voting on rules until we determine what the overall vision of what Restricted and Unrestricted are supposed to represent.

After that’s hammered out, then we can make rules to conform to that vision. As I said earlier, people are viewing Restricted through different tinted glasses and that’s what’s causing all of these disagreements.

Rising Dusk.2408:

If you would’ve handled it differently, please inform us what you would have done and we will see if that is appropriate for future disagreements.

Leave is Unrestricted because according to the listed rules at the time, it wasn’t Restricted. Once the rule was voted on and changed to breaking into map geometry, then it could have been changed to Restricted. Just because someone posts [Restricted] into the title doesn’t mean it automatically gets put into that category. Should be put into Unrestricted if gray areas or questionable things were involved and then once decided on, the decision can be made to move to Restricted or not.

spoj.9672:

I have moved it to unrestricted for the time being. If we want to create a path specific rule we can move it back.

Spoj stated he was going to put it as Unrestricted until the vote.

Rising Dusk.2408:

I really don’t think this is the appropriate action. It should be restricted until voted to be banned as a path-specific rule by the speed clearing guilds.

This was your argument. How this was restricted when out of bounds is out of bounds is questionable.

spoj.9672:

Ill leave it as restricted. Hopefully we will get this particular issue voted on in the next week or so.

It went back and forth and this was the final thing.

spoj.9672:

Surely the better solution would be less rules and clarity on glaring issues. Like the proposed ruleset Enko posted.

Concur but if people want tighter rules sets, the rules should be general rules that can be applied to everything and should actually be conformed to.

We have two ends of the spectrum:
Unrestricted (or whatever we choose to call it)
No third party programs like teleport hacks and such.
Breaking out of maps or out of bounds with unintended areas allowed.
Dungeon completion required.
Everything else fair game.

Restricted (or whatever we choose to call it)
No gemstore exclusive items
No third party programs like teleport hacks and such
No breaking out of maps out of geometry or unintended areas.
All required events to advance progress must be completed. (events need to be defined such as cutscene, dialogue, thresholds to close doors, etc)

Regardless, the overall vision of what Restricted is supposed to be needs to be decided.

Unrestricted was originally Free For All do whatever you want to see how fast you can do dungeons.

Restricted was originally run it as close as we think Anet intended which is why restrictions were put on it. I don’t think people see it this way anymore which is representative in how people are voting. Without a clear overall statement of what Restricted is expected to be, we can’t come up with consistent rules to comply with the overarching vision of it which is why we’re having these disagreements on what to decide.

Before voting and deciding on specific rules, we really need to decide on what we’re actually aiming for the Restricted ruleset. Once that’s established, the rules can then be decided to meet that vision.

NikeEU.7690:

I agree, the interpretation has loosened up over time. But in every community rule meeting and in most of the voting we’ve done so far most of the time the community comes down in favor is tightening the restricted rules when given a voice.

If anything I would rather have the rules tightened up instead of the loosening via interpretation and with the votes we’re seeing now.

NikeEU.7690:

I think you’re wrong. The community again and again has come down in favor of the restricted rules and has consistently opposed loosening them. I really wish you would end your crusade for changing Restricted from what it was designed to be and spend your time working on getting the Unrestricted rules to a place where people care about them if you have so much energy.

I think that the interpretation of the rules have loosened up which why I think we’re having this discussion now to clarify them so they are more clear cut instead of everything being in a grey area.

All of the current records could still be valid if we reworded some of the rules by actually defining what we’re considering an event and such. Some of us were holding ourselves to a much stricter interpretation than others.

Rising Dusk.2408:

A vote was held regarding Molten Furnace and it was determined to be allowed.

That vote was held after it was approved.

You had one approver saying it was approved, another approver saying they were going to move it to unrestricted until the vote happened, and it was left as approved in restricted before the vote.

I would say that’s pretty inconsistent.

Aiming it at the roof isn’t even a violation of any rule so what would be the issue here anyways?

Rule 8 states:
8.) Compression of AoE hitboxes by moving, blinking and/or dodging is banned.

DresdenAllblack.1249:

goes where exactly? And does that ‘cut’ go towards anything even remotely useful to the player?
Man, it feels like the excise tax on my car.

It’s 5% that gets taken when you post something. This gets taken from your wallet.
10% gets taken from when you sell it. This gets taken out of the proceeds of the sale.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Enko.6123:

The problem we’ve been having is that the same issue is being denied on some videos and being allowed on others.

Regardless of the rules themselves, can you please cite the times these rules have been applied inconsistently? We, as approvers, would like to review them and ensure that things are approved consistently. Furthermore, if you notice this in the future, please let us know so we can look into it!

I did concerning the Molten Furnace and going out of bounds.

The Belka Bone Wall skip was mentioned when that one first happened and was approved anyways.

MYTH’s post of CM P3 had a lot of pushback on things not based in rules for why it shouldn’t be approved initially and it wasn’t until there was a fairly large discussion on it did it get approved.

If you look at the discussions that have been happening on this week’s thread and last week’s threads, these issues should have been looked at when those records were first submitted since they’re apparent grey areas.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Because an NPC following players teleporting to those players out of range is intended functionality and is working by design. Because a dead NPC not talking is intended functionality and is working by design. Using these two functionalities in unison is a clever way to speed up functionality. I literally know that this is OK by ANet and do not even have to guess.

Enko.6123:

So if there’s a door that is supposed to close but players glitch it so it doesn’t close and they’re able to go through, is this ok?

I would say yes, they are fine because the door never closes and/or opens early.

I don’t think anyone is arguing that Anet isn’t ok with those mechanics. I would say that people would probably agree that Anet probably didn’t envision that that was how the dungeon was supposed to be done though.

As for the door thing as well as other rules that are decided, I’m fine with really anything we come up with as long as its applied consistently and is compliant with the posted rules.
The problem we’ve been having is that the same issue is being denied on some videos and being allowed on others. This inconsistency was even shown in last week’s voting with people stating that they were voting in compliance with the listed rules even though they weren’t. Or videos posted with questionable things that were in a gray area because they weren’t explicitly banned but the rule implied that those actions wouldn’t have been allowed. This all led to the creeping in of more and more exploitive things into a ruleset that was originally decided on to attempt to complete the dungeons in the quickest way possible while conforming to what we thought Anet’s intentions were.

WPing and killing NPCs to speed things up would have belonged in a different category which one was provided to submit records for but for some reason when it’s called Unrestricted, no one is interested.

Again, I just want a consistent rule set that is applied evenly. This discussion on the two different rule sets is a separate discussion.

Jerus.4350:

Why do the rules have to necessarily make sense?

I’ve always seen the restricted set not as necessarily an avoidance of exploit but just an attempt to create a playing field that more people want to participate in.

I’d say the names should just be changed to “Competitive PVE” and “Speed Runs” just my 2cents.

I’d be fine with that if people can comply with a consistent ruleset and that the dungeons that are approved all follow that ruleset. This hasn’t been happening though.

spoj.9672:

And the people who want to do restricted records end up exploiting anyway. So its more of a case that people dont know what they want. Which is what ive been saying since the beginning.

Restricted originally meant we run the dungeons as close to what we think Anet intended (since we can’t really tell sometimes). I’m pretty sure Anet didn’t intend for us to kill their NPCs, break past doors, jump over doors, glitch things so normally triggered events don’t occur, etc.

Some of the things that were banned such as consumables seem like they were intended to be used since Anet actually are the ones that programmed them into the game but are not allowed.

BTW Spoj, I was on board with you supporting the Unrestricted ruleset for a long time.

As I said earlier in these discussions,

Enko.6123:

Standardized ruleset would look something like:
No gemstore exclusive items
No third party programs like teleport hacks and such
No breaking out of maps like going under the map.
All required events to advance progress must be completed.

Other than that, have at it. Basically if something is available to everyone then it should be allowed. This is sounding pretty much like Unrestricted at this point.
This was pretty much how records were done in GW1 and there was a heck of a lot less drama then.

If we still wanted rules like no non food or oil consumables, then fine but the rules should be pretty much standardized across everything.

This would allow all the tricks that people seem to be wanting instead of arguing between Unrestricted vs Restricted since it seems like that line is pretty much going away anyways.

NikeEU.7690:

Because the people who want to do Unrestricted type records know that no one gives a crap about them. If someone posts an 8 minute unrestricted Arah path 4 that will be met with a collective “who cares” from the community. The only way to get people to care is to do restricted records, and so rather than work within the unrestricted framework there is a constant push by segments to ruin the restricted rules.

I don’t even know why some people call some of their records “Restricted” when they’re doing as you stated and are constantly pushing against the restricted rules by arguing that its a creative use of game mechanics so should be allowed. At the rate we’re going, the only differentiation between Restricted and Unrestricted is that one you can’t use gem store items or random consumables available in the game and the other you can.

Rising Dusk.2408:

A closed door is literally a physical manifestation of the developers’ desire for you to open the kitten door. To skip it feels extremely exploitative. Things like killing an NPC to skip some of its dialogue, in contrast, feels clever because you’re still completing the event and killing the boss, you’ve just discovered a tricky way to speed up the prerequisites for that boss’s activation. Another example of things I like is the cutscene in CM where if you have someone stay in the cutscene the Riflemen don’t spawn, allowing players to get into position before starting the boss’s burn.

So if there’s a door that is supposed to close but players glitch it so it doesn’t close and they’re able to go through, is this ok?

spoj.9672:

The developers made those dialogues and cutscenes for you to listen and watch them. Its no different when you look at it like that.

Also just look at the CM p2 records. Dieing and running to the boss before mobs spawn, blinking through a floor, getting turmaine stuck near the tree and so on. Yeah theres no way what is and isnt intended can be used as a valid reason. As weth said to me earlier. Its not about whether something is an exploit or not (intended/unintended). “It can be a good exploit or a bad exploit”. But why do people consider jumping over a door worse than breaking/teleporting NPC’s and skipping/exploiting triggers? I dont understand it at all.

I agree the NPC exploits are cool and add to the records but they are far more exploitive than a harmless jump in my opinion.

A lot of those things because they’re exploitive feel like they should really be in Unrestricted.

When the split between Unrestricted and Restricted first happened, there were a lot of people who didn’t want Unrestricted to exist or participate in it because it was seen as just who can glitch the most. Restricted seems to be moving in that direction anyways.

This may all just come down to exactly what Restricted and Unrestricted are supposed to represent.

What if the wording of the rule for blockades was that the blockades must be closed at some point and opened by a player action to allow the team to go by.

For AC SM, the door starts closed. Player action to open it is to step on the weight panel to open it and let your team through and you get through via a teleport. Getting past this accomplishes the event of stepping on the weight panel which would be allowed..

For Arah P3, this wouldn’t be allowed since breaking past the threshold means that the door is never closed. Breaking past this without completing the event to open namely killing the 4 doorkeepers would move the usage of this to unrestricted.

For Belka bone wall, someone got by it before it closed. The player action to normally open this wall would be killing Belka so this wouln’t be allowed. Going past the bone wall without completing the event to open namely killing Belka would move the usage of this to unrestricted.

For CoE jumping over the door, it starts closed and the player action that opens it is to select the path. Breaking past this without completing the event to open namely selecting a path would move the usage of this to unrestricted.

CoE door jump, Arah P3 and Belka bone wall have event script triggers that you’re bypassing. These skips have generally always felt like they belonged in Unrestricted but have been allowed through probably through ambiguity in the rules.

AC SM does not.

For AC, if we didn’t allow someone to teleport past the door with a blink skill, the other 4 could go split and kill a boss and spawn a waypoint to let that person through or let the other 4 through and then go get a rock by himself to let himself through later.

When you select the path and approach the door, there’s a threshold that closes the door. Tried out a few things to see specifically what closes the door.

Select path.
Approach threshold
Door closes when threshold is crossed.
4 mobs at door must be killed to open door.

Select path.
Stealth.
Approach threshold while stealthed.
Door closes when threshold is crossed.
4 mobs at door must be killed to open door.

Stealth.
Approach door.
Pick path.
Let stealth run out.
Door does not close when mobs agro on you.
Door does not close when threshold is crossed.

It looks like what’s happening is that all the doors defaults to being closed, then when the path is picked, it opens that door so players know which way to go. If path 3 is picked, the game opens so door so you know which way to go and creates a trigger that when players cross a threshold at the door, it closes and players have to clear the doorkeepers to open it again.

If the four mobs agro before anyone crosses the threshold (because you’re already inside it), it looks like it breaks the trigger since the threshold would normally need to be crossed.

This seems like its bypassing event scripting which is supposed to activate a progress impeding event.

I think the Arah P3 issue would be more related to the blockade issue we’re voting on now since that door is supposed to be closed until you kill the mobs.

If we wanted to allow/disallow path selection in regards to event abuse, the litmus test for it should be if the event that’s people are trying to bypass is a progress blocking one or not.

I think the general consensus is that non mandatory events that don’t block progress can pretty much be ignored (burrow at start okittenholer, burrow on the way to essence collectors on P3, etc). The Arah P3 is something that the rules need to address since that is something that would normally actually block progress that we’re bypassing. The CoE door jump is the same issue.

Wanze.8410:

Enko.6123:

most spineguards all go for higher prices for some reason.

Compared to what?

than other greens and yellows. pvt spineguards are 2-4g for some reason. why people buy those and exotic berserker rings for high prices is kind of weird because you can get cheaper ones with much better stats elsewhere.

most spineguards all go for higher prices for some reason.

EcoRI.9273:

The rules sound alittle too complicated, it doesn’t sound like it is catering to fresh blood.

Do you have input on how you think they should be worded then?

If the rule states mandatory spawns (ie progress blocking. doors don’t open until they’re killed), then that would take care of the AC burow, right?

The Arah P3 is probably the one that’s actually in question here since normally that door is closed until you kill the mobs.

For the dialogue issue, I agree with Spoj that it’s neat to see tricks like that but feels like it belongs more in unrestricted where the mindset is pull out any tricks you can manage.

I had always interpreted event scripts to include NPC or boss dialogue such as at the end of SE P3 and end of CM P3 but since it seemed like people were allowing those just thought it was one of those unstated exceptions that people put in to see if the record would be approved or not.

So going with that, should the burrow even be considered to affect the rule since its an optional event anyways?

With mandatory bosses, this should be pretty clear since you obviously won’t be able to continue normally if it’s still alive.

Are things such as scripted dialogue going to be counted as events that have to run their course or as long as you can get the end result to trigger, its fine?

“Abusing of event scripts is banned. This includes but is not limited to manipulating event spawns, disabling event mechanics, etc. All cutscenes within a dungeon that are relevant to the path must be triggered. "

So this includes event spawns. Would forcing a NPC’s dialogue to not happen to cause event spawns to happen faster be considered manipulating an event spawns? In the past, we have allowed this so most people are probably fine on it. I’m not looking to change how it’s implemented but just want the wording clarified so if we get any new people looking at doing records, it won’t be a question for them.

What are we defining as events? Things that pop up in the event display on the right side of your screen or scripted triggers like NPC dialogue? Are we only including events that impede progress? Even if the AC burrow has to be triggered, it doesn’t impede progress and people would just run past it anyways.

On a semi related note, is NPC dialogue considered an event or scripting?

Thanks for clarifying the out of bounds rule from last week. The geometry description works very well to pretty much address everything with what constituted “out of bounds”

i make most of my money from crafting stuff . ..

The shown limit is three. As you open them, they’ll be replaced with any others you have pending.
If you have more than 4 and you zone to a different map or go to character select, any chests over 4 get automatically opened. You’ll still have 4 chests to open when you load into your new area.

This includes heart rewards as well.