Official Green Box Discussion

[seras/roberto]

it's a mapper's duty to fix their own bugs in their own maps, if it's left in the map, treat it as a part of the map tbh. old maps are effectively abandoned but they should still be treated as any other map

This is a completely stupid take.  If we weren't actively fixing bugs in maps, people would be endlessly getting softlocked 1hr into jump_depression runs, getting their runs nuked by getting stuck in nonsolid displacements on jump_camp and on and on and on.

[John]

This is a completely stupid take.  If we weren't actively fixing bugs in maps, people would be endlessly getting softlocked 1hr into jump_depression runs, getting their runs nuked by getting stuck in nonsolid displacements on jump_camp and on and on and on.

This is a completely stupid take. Softlocks exist in many speedrun games already, and it's always on the runner to avoid them, but I will concede that fixing softlocks is a straight benefit for the speedrunners. However, you guys aren't JUST fixing softlocks since it's already been mentioned that tele and out of bounds cheats have been patched out. Please do not act like you're helping people out by fixing "unintended strats" that exist on multitudes of maps due to mapper error already.

Consider the following:
1) Fix actual bugs in the map that cause speedruns to break e.g. softlocks, dev routes (solved by checkpoints anyways...), **potentially** consistency issues in jumps due to rng or whatever.
2) Don't fix cheats e.g. skips, things that give a runner an advantage, etc. We can argue on the (il)legality of angled bhops and other highly precise strats that potentially involve external tools somewhere else.
3) Don't bring a map onto Tempus unless you're fine with it being never touched again aside from the mapper who made it (or given permission to modify to fix said issues, recorded publicly for people to see of course). Strats will always be found later down the line, records will always be broken. Do not cater to old WR holders.

edit: typo

[Gorge004]

We've been doing some testing about greenbox skip, and I want to share what we've done/found so far. This is mostly to explain exactly what IS the skip, I feel like most people get their opinion based on a meme post made several months ago without really putting much thought into it.

This is a complete objective post, I'm not trying to tell you the skip is good or bad, just sharing information so everyone is on the same playing field and theres no misinformation about it. Also, those tests were done as soldier. If anyone is willing to do furtert testing as demo they are welcome to do so. Also this focus mainly on map runs that skip the box, course 2 runs only is another story.

How it works
Details about those steps are more explained in the testing section

Before starting a map run, you have to enter the greenbox. Doing this:

• resets the 30s greenbox timer. It also starts counting up from 0 to 30
• sets a logic_branch to TRUE, wich is what enables the teleport at the end. This just means that you HAVE to enter greenbox to have the tele enable to get to c2 jump 2.
• This is also where you would start a timer of your own on your 2nd monitor or on your phone or other timing device to know when the 30s timer will end

*As a side semi-related note, this would lead to people creating a bind on their mouse or keyboad to start the timer more efficently.

You are now free to go to c1 and start your run, with either a kill bind or a setpos bind.

If you're fast enough and reach greenbox jump before the 30s timer runs out:

• When the timer reaches 30s, the teleport around greenbox is active for 0.25sec
• Entering the boundaries of the jump BEFORE the 30s timer runs out resets everything and you failed the skip.

The boundaries are not the same as the greenbox. Here's the area you can not touch before the 30s timer runs out:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/604424421041766426/837069858620964865/unknown.png

• AFTER the 30s timer runs out, you need to reach the actual greenbox (shown in the picture above) before the new 0.25s timer runs out.
• Doing so will teleport you instantly to the connector before jump2, skipping the greenbox

SOLDIER TESTING

 We tried to test how viable/hard the strat actually is to pull in a MAP run. Obviously, c2 runs are just reset and wait 30s. For map run, the question was "Is it actually possible to reach greenbox jump under 30s, starting from spawn?"

Before going ingame, we analyzed current map runs on Tempus:

Boshy's time from start of tempus run to entering the green box (wr run) : 27.63
Boshy's time from start of when he gains control of his character after resetting : 28.60
Assuming you have the same speed as Boshy heading from end of c1 to when you touch the box, you would need a c1 time of 23.03, which is a #3 c1 time.
The only 2 soldiers who would have actually been even capable of doing the green box skip in their map runs are kidder and boshy, no other soldier had a fast enough c1.

Soldier takes roughly 5.2 seconds to get from the end of c1 to green box entrance

If you compare those calculation with course/cp time of Boshy on Tempus, you'll find our number are different. This is explained by:

• C1 timer starts when you leave this zone, and boshy does a wallshot to pogo before leaving the start. Wich we have to account for the 30s greenbox timer
• C2 timer starts in the room before greenbox. Making Boshy's cp time of entering course 2 slightly different then when he enters greenbox jump

You can see exactly in those pictures: https://imgur.com/a/ud2SqhT

First frame of run: https://i.imgur.com/BAyrJBu.png
Frame he enters greenbox: https://i.imgur.com/G9S1ZRv.png
Duration: 28.60

Since this was calculated from the first rocket shot, you ovbiously need to add maybe 0.5 to 1s for the time it takes to reset after hitting greenbox and start your run. maybe less, but I think its safe to say current wr run would take roughly 29s to reach greenbox if he was going for the skip and did the initial reset setup.

To speculate a bit more, knowing those numbers now, realistically you would need to look at your own timer before reaching the greenbox jump, otherwise you would have about 1s to look at your timer, and react ingame when it passes 30s.

We estimated that people would look at their own timer around here: https://i.imgur.com/8PVOGpp.png
Wich is 26.96s from the first frame shown above, giving you about 3s to react.


Greenbox initial setup
After knowing those numbers, the first question that raised: Is it really possible to do this with a killbind for the intiail setup? The answer seemed obvious that no you wouldnt be able to reach the start of C1 in 1sec.

Just incase, we got the help of one of the best housebeta soldier runner on the planet, kidder, to do some test run. Here are the results:

Time spent from hitting killbind to getting to the first part of c1 where tempus timer starts: 5.30s

Unless someone can cut down 4.30s to the c1 time of boshy in current map wr run, it is impossible to attempt greenbox skip with a killbind for the initial greenbox timer setup (where you hit greenbox and go back to c1).

The only solution is to use a setpos bind (or reset on tempus) to tele directly back to the start of c1.


______________________________________

I hope this clears things up. You make your own opinion on the strat, this was meant to only be informative to hopefully clear some misinformation about it.

[seras/roberto]

This is a completely stupid take.  If we weren't actively fixing bugs in maps, people would be endlessly getting softlocked 1hr into jump_depression runs, getting their runs nuked by getting stuck in nonsolid displacements on jump_camp and on and on and on.

This is a completely stupid take. Softlocks exist in many speedrun games already, and it's always on the runner to avoid them, but I will concede that fixing softlocks is a straight benefit for the speedrunners. However, you guys aren't JUST fixing softlocks since it's already been mentioned that tele and out of bounds cheats have been patched out. Please do not act like you're helping people out by fixing "unintended strats" that exist on multitudes of maps due to mapper error already.

Consider the following:
1) Fix actual bugs in the map that cause speedruns to break e.g. softlocks, dev routes (solved by checkpoints anyways...), **potentially** consistency issues in jumps due to rng or whatever.
2) Don't fix cheats e.g. skips, things that give a runner an advantage, etc. We can argue on the (il)legality of angled bhops and other highly precise strats that potentially involve external tools somewhere else.
3) Don't bring a map onto Tempus unless you're fine with it being never touched again aside from the mapper who made it (or given permission to modify to fix said issues, recorded publicly for people to see of course). Strats will always be found later down the line, records will always be broken. Do not cater to old WR holders.

Your actual only words were "it's a mapper's duty to fix their own bugs in their own maps, if it's left in the map, treat it as a part of the map". I don't think you can say that whole spiel was implied from that statement but anyway; for the most part I actually agree with you on those points - I just didn't agree with you about not fixing bugs in general, which is definitely what your post seemed to mean.
If you're referring to the jump escape out of bonds patch on the changelog by the way, that wasn't a cheat (as far as I know), that was a way you could get stuck outside of the map over half way into your run.

Please do not act like you're helping people out by fixing "unintended strats" that exist on multitudes of maps due to mapper error already.

I'm really not. I know that I haven't said it on this forum post yet but I've told many people who care about this that I actually do support leaving the greenbox in. I was simply replying to your very vague comment on bugs in maps, which I thought was incorrect.
 Anyway, no interest starting an argument here since I mostly agree with what you've said after you've expounded.  Keep the greenbox talk going if you feel inclined.

[John]

fwiw i do think it's better to have maps stay consistent across servers and online/offline to avoid a potential situation where if players want to practice running a map but servers are all playing some other map so there's no real way to recreate the same environment unless stripper stuff is public (and even then, a bit harder to work with for average gamer). a solution could be _tempus suffixed .bsp files for maps that do need to be modified to fit tempus standards, but again ideally the standard is raised so mappers who want their maps on tempus create maps without such bugs and are willing to update them down the line, or have someone from the tempus team do it, i know some of you are mappers.

that being said, it's definitely not something tempus should feel inclined to do as a speedrun server for its own interests in keeping server growth, capitalism, etc. so i do apologize for not elaborating more on my stance initially.

in regards to the green box skip, it sounds like a tempus-only issue with how start zones are defined so if you want to match offline jumping for some reason then a patch should be put in place (or the start zone gets moved, killing all current runs), otherwise leave the glitch be and it simply becomes a part of the tempus housebeta speedrunning strategy

[hex]

a solution could be _tempus suffixed .bsp files for maps that do need to be modified to fit tempus standards

yes please give jump_nbn_b4b_redo_a1_tempus2_final_fix3_tmps extra suffixes empower me

[firestabber]

As someone outside of Tempus, if this were any other speedrunning community the run with the skip and without would be considered two separate categories.  Obviously that doesn't work with Tempus' model, but perhaps one of the two could be considered the official map run, and the other listed as a trick.  I know this would heavily skew point incentive towards whichever was given as the full map run, and perhaps because of the way this skip works there's no way to zone the trick separately from the map run (Can zones require you stay in them for a while?).  I just think it would be a shame to lose an interesting trick *or* to lose the ability to run this map seriously like a normal map (and not have to do a trick that only works because Tempus' start zone is close enough to the green box). 

[Shunix]

if this was on a map that wasnt terrible this would matter................. but its not... why waste time changing anything.. just leave it lol.

 

[firestabber]

You can save minutes on wallpogo by doing one of these four, but the only way to prevent them is to build it into new maps with higher teleport triggers or obnoxious clipping.

Very late but I was re-reading this and noticed it.  You can get rid of random bounces/bhops/jumpbugs/edgebugs by using phase for pogo surfaces and a teleport height of 1.  Doesn't get rid of texturebugs on walls, and it doesn't work if you want to have wallpogo on a brush that has floor pogo on top of it, but it's a good start.