VOTE: PQ Traplaunches Ban

Should traplaunches be allowed in PQ?

So far, this only applies to two levels, but since the Work in Progress traplaunch was removed but the Side Stroller traplaunch has been kept, we've decided to have a vote on whether they should be banned entirely or kept entirely, for consistency. Vote in the poll above and put your comments below if you want to.

After having read the arguments people posted earlier I'm leaning more towards allow since banning traplaunches is fundamentally quite arbitrary.

Though I think we should acknowledge the fact that most people don't actually sit through the grind that is a traplaunch WR and are therefore biased towards wanting to see cool runs without putting in the effort.

I'm voting yes.

If a separate category can be made (up to HiGuy in the end) that would be cool. We can always do trapless runs for WRRs either way.

Here's my argument from before:

Banning traplaunches wouldn't necessarily be a positive change. None of MBG's traplaunches were intended, and it wasn't changed after release. So why should we do the same for PQ? If you want consistency, just do what's always been done with Marble Blast and allow traplaunches. The game was released with two unintentional traplaunch levels, which shouldn't be changed, especially two and a half years after release, and it's always been up to the community to find the fastest route through a level, including traplaunches. And it's only two levels out of 138, so I don't think it should be that big of a deal to let them stay anyway. They both still show off part of the level when speedrunning, plus they're entertaining to watch.

I voted yes as well, but I didn't consider how people could be biased without being directly involved with the runs themselves. That's a very good point for the other side.

(Also I'm debating whether to just copy and paste the arguments from before as separate quotations in one post because no one is doing it themselves.)

Posting my argument from earlier for NF. Pardon the sloppiness.

If we go with 'no', then the TLs must get patched out of the level. Speedrunning is about using all available tactics in a level to get the best time, so removing WR times that use one specific tactic would be very strange. Plus, TLs are cool to look at. Have you even seen Despair? Hellooooo?

Copy/Pasted from the Spreadsheet
PQ levels were designed so that TLs were not possible/ necessary. Obviously they couldn't catch every single one of them, and two slipped through the cracks, WIP and SS. Work In Progress was found and quickly patched out. Side-Stroller hasn't been patched out. I understand its not as simple a fix as WIP was but you can still delete the TL times, afaik theres only two TL times on the LBs anyways. Like Kalle said, TLs are too luck-based and I get that its too late to change that for MBG/U/P, but PQ was designed in a way that specifically didn't want any TLs. We found some anyways, and you even went and fixed one, its not fair to have them be treated differently, and its not fair to have them at all.

My spreadsheet response:

Just have a seperate category for traps tbh, it will satisfy all parties, plus its not like you need the traps for AT anyway

I've done traps before, they can be annoying but at the same time it feels really good when you finally pull it off. If people really like the level but don't like the trap aspect of it, they can still have a chance to shine with the non-TL category, so I'm inclined to agree with Kalle.

I'm saying yes, but I think they shouldn't be allowed for human runs and only for TAS or modified rrecs or whatever. It's just because it's almost impossible to control humanly (at least at this point and in these situations) but surely can't be completely impossible to control at all.

Response is similar to what I have on the spreadsheet:

If traplaunches are unintended shortcut methods, should we ban other unintended shortcut methods as well? Haphazard and Advanced Techniques have the "rocket jump" technique that allows for very low times. It's not intended either, but no one is talking about removing them. Banning traplaunches but not any other unintended paths/shortcuts/techniques is inconsistent. Because I am arguing for consistency, traplaunches should be kept.

Kalle29 wrote: If a separate category can be made (up to HiGuy in the end) that would be cool. We can always do trapless runs for WRRs either way.

Making a separate category for traplaunches would be difficult because detecting them is difficult. It's not like the game has an OnTraplaunch() and the only ways I can think to detect them aren't foolproof either.

In my opinion traplaunches are part of the game and should be allowed. We banned screenshots because of how terribly they broke the game (I mean look at this:

), but traplaunches are just one possible result of how the game mechanics interact. This is the difference between a glitch and consistent, emergent behavior.

As for WRRs, I have no strong opinions. Personally I kinda like watching the ridiculous cheese but I also miss the full path optimizations.

Edit: Also if you want an answer to "are traplaunches an intended/desired feature" the answer is probably no: when they were discovered in MBU they were later patched out. I considered patching them out of PQ but decided to leave them in.

To clarify, what I meant for WRRs was to have a small compilation with only the traplaunch runs, but played without the trap. It would be a fun mini project to accompany the main videos (for all games).

Ah. Generally I consider Matan to be in charge of the WRRs so that would be his decision.

HiGuy wrote: I considered patching them out of PQ but decided to leave them in.

Well there you go—proof that the lead developer fully intended traplaunches to be in PQ. Even more reason to keep them in (at least in my opinion).

Edit: I also think a no-traplaunch WRR would be super interesting! Along with no time travels for those broken levels in all the games.

I think the traplaunch on Side-Stroller should NOT be banned.

First, unlike traplaunches in other games (MBU,.MBG, MBP), the traplaunch on Side-Stroller does NOT skip the entire level. In fact, it only speeds up the ending section of the level. So it's not like traplaunching totally ruins the level either. After all, without trapping, speedrunning that level would be quite boring since you're just racing against the moving platform cycles. And while the traplaunches on Work in Progress were removed, both of those (the bumper launch and the trap off the moving wall later in the level) skipped a significant portion of the level, objectively much more than Side-Stroller. Although supposedly the moving wall trap is still possible though very, very hard. And while the objective of PQ level design was to avoid levels being destroyed by traplaunches, we're only talking about ONE level out of a total of 138. In fact, it's quite miraculous that there aren't many more levels that have been torn to shreds by trapping, considering how many moving platforms PQ levels tend to have. And abusing game physics to the maximum amount possible has always been a part of speedrunning video games in general. It's not like PQ speedrunning involves clipping through walls like in Super Mario 64 or anything.

Anyway, all I wanted to say is (1) currently traplaunches aren't know to affect enough levels to be worth removing and (2) even when they do, they don't completely break any levels. Although there may be some undiscovered traps that might change our opinions on this matter in the future.

My spreadsheet response:
Speedrunning is the act of completing a game (or level) as fast as possible. I first became interested in speedrunning a few years ago, when I was introduced to the 120 star runs of Super Mario 64. I was mind blown by the ridiculous strategies these people were attempting. Like who come up with BLJs anyway? What a creative way to save time! And that's what did it. I liked the creativity. I liked how dedicated people were to perfecting this crazy hard, semi luck based, exploit of the game's mechanics. This is what excited me about Speedrunning. There will ALWAYS be another way to do it faster, no matter how impossible it may seem.

Getting rid of traplaunches in Marble Blast (any of the games) would be like getting rid of BLJs in SM64. Why would you want to remove the most creative, insane, physics abusive tech in the game? Isn't that what Speedrunning is all about? Finding these ridiculous exploits, and perfecting them?

If we decide to ban a strat that's "too hard", it's just not a speedrun anymore.

Additional response:
I LOVE the idea of having a non-TL WRR that includes all levels with TL WRs. This would be super fun to watch, especially for those levels in MBG that we've only seen TL WRs for.

~Stormy

Nature Freak wrote:

HiGuy wrote: I considered patching them out of PQ but decided to leave them in.

Well there you go—proof that the lead developer fully intended traplaunches to be in PQ. Even more reason to keep them in (at least in my opinion).

Bringing this up again, I spent a bit more time playing around with the concept I was considering using to remove traplaunches. Turns out it caused a whole assortment of other moving platform-related bugs (you can slowly fall through when they move upwards) so it seems they are more integrated into the physics that I had thought. My opinion hasn't changed or anything, just wanted to share this.