California, USAThe Wind Waker leaderboards allows runners three potential methods of skipping the introduction cutscene if they wish to do so. Please note that skipping the introduction cutscene is optional and by no means required.
Method 1: Savefile ACE Load the provided .gci file onto your memory card using GCMM linked in the resources section. Load the game and select File 3, named "Intro Skip". The game will reboot, and intro skip is now active. This folder contains the necessary homebrew and memory card files for skipping the intro cutscene and is available to use for all categories at all leaderboard positions. When using this method, you must start your run timing with an offset already on the timer to account for the intro time which was skipped.
Offset for all languages:
3:37.190
Method 2: Gecko Cheat Code Load the provided .gct file with the Neogamma loader linked in the resources section. This folder contains the necessary homebrew and cheat code files for skipping the intro cutscene and is available to use for all categories at all leaderboard positions. When using this method, you must start your run timing with an offset already on the timer to account for the intro time which was skipped.
Offset for all languages:
3:37.190
Method 2: Savefile (above a certain time cutoff) Save your game right after you gain control of Link without making any progress. You may then copy over and use this savefile to start runs without watching the intro cutscene. This method is only available for the Any%, Any% No MSS, and All Dungeons categories currently AND is only allowed at or above the emulator threshold for those categories on the leaderboards. The time offset to use for this method depends on the language being used and whether or not the runner is performing the manual superswim. Note that these times were rounded up to the nearest second so that they do not give a time advantage over watching the intro cutscene (this method will generally lose the runner about 4-6 frames compared to watching the intro).
Offset to start on timer:
Japanese, MSS: 5:12.00 Japanese, No MSS: 5:14.00 English, MSS: 5:18.00 English, No MSS: 5:20.00 Italian, MSS: 5:15.00 Italian, No MSS: 5:17.00
Yeah this is known about and unfortunately has no use. It is pretty funny when it happens accidentally though.
Requesting that the leaderboard https://www.speedrun.com/twwhdext be set to the game type of Category Extensions for The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD. There's been demand for one in the community lately.
Most runners probably don't care to check any forum posts on speedrun.com. At least in the communities that I'm a part of (3D Zelda games), the only function of this site that gets any consistent attention is the leaderboard itself. Communication within our communities happens almost solely through discord servers, so if there is a "right" place to post this guide or start a discussion about it, it would probably be in either the Wind Waker Randomizer discord or the general Wind Waker speedrunning discord (so you would have to create an account).
That aside, there definitely has been confusion about the proper triggers for this quest in the past. I personally had trouble with it before, although that's because the specific flags of this quest hardly ever come up within runs that I do, and as such, it was never a priority of mine to try and memorize exactly what they were (as I usually just forgot about it altogether after runs which may have needed it).
The only glitch I can think of that's version exclusive is the barrier cutscene skip, which only works on the Japanese version. On PAL and NTSC you have to break the barrier and watch the cutscene.
It's possible to hop (basically teleport) between nearly any pair of islands with item sliding. It could be that this spot only clips Link through when he has a specific speed, but island hopping in general is very inconsistent if it's more than 1 quadrant long. It's cool to see though, but due to it being somewhat up the island's path, superswimming is likely still faster.
The differences in NG+ compared to a normal file making speedrunning slower for all categories of the game (except 100%, but it's banned in 100% because it starts you with the deluxe pictobox) so there isn't really a point in doing any runs with NG+ for most categories if you want a good time. There are some people who will occasionally do 100% NG+ All Figurines runs for fun though. If you do runs in NG+ you can still submit them for any category besides 100%, but you'll be at a disadvantage compared to the rest of those who run on normal files.
In the case of Helmaroc Skip, we are using the bomb boost technique to gain enough height which allows us to go up and over the vertical collision presented by the spikes. There is no clipping involved in this version of the skip. The collision made for the spikes basically represents a rectangular prism and we are using the height from a bomb boost to exceed the height of the vertical surface on this prism. Clipping would involve going ¤through¤ collision, not around it.
The top surface of this prism also does a constant quarter heart of damage to Link like other spikes in the game which we go across as well (in Wind Temple and the Molgera boss trial in Ganon’s Tower). All of these spikes have a limit to the height they extend and this height can be exceeded through various allowed methods.
I can understand why many would think skipping a big developer intended part of the game might seem unethical to the “spirit” of glitchless. However, for Wind Waker HD (and most other Zelda titles) the category glitchless is defined by methods, not results. You’re allowed to skip whatever you want, but you’re confined to the techniques which are allowed in the category. Based on these grounds Helmaroc Skip is valid using the bomb boost method. Obviously though not everybody has the same idea as to which techniques are glitches and which aren’t. Because of this, a perfect set of rules will likely never exist for the category. There are other people who argue that techniques such as leaf pumping or skipping the Wind God’s Aria stone in wind temple by sidling should be considered glitches as well. There will always be controversy with any techniques involved. I’m sorry that the Helmaroc Skip makes you feel that the category has been cheated in a way. However, I will be performing the skip when running this category. Very few people before me have actually run glitchless and therefore formally defined rules were never created due to lack of interest, which I would expect to continue once I finish running it.
I do understand your reasoning for considering Helmaroc Skip to be a glitch, and I respect it. If for some reason a whole community of people suddenly had the urge to run glitchless and they all wanted the Helmaroc Skip banned, then the rule would probably be put in place and my run could be considered invalid. With the history of the category though, I wouldn’t expect something like this to happen.
In any case, I will be done with this category soon and moving on to 100% where we can have debates over what should be required in the 100% category instead! Hope to see you there!
I personally use the Elgato HD 60 Pro which is an expensive card but works decently. You can also get standard definition capture cards for a relatively low cost. Outside of Elgato products I have no experience though so I would recommend asking other runners about what they use.
For recording you can use either a capture card or a webcam, it doesn't matter if the quality is bad as long as the game is somewhat discernible. For showing a timer isn't necessary since we can deduce what the time is from the length of the video, but if you want to use a timer program, most runners prefer to use Livesplit.
The runners who had times on the All Shrines leaderboard and those who were seen to have done runs, but did not post time on the leaderboard were all asked about their opinion on wanting to require killing Dark Beast Ganon. They were all either indifferent or wanted the requirement to be put in place for the category, so the change was implemented. If you would like to discuss it with them, you can do so in the BotW speedrunning discord server: https://discordapp.com/invite/mh8YYuD
Left hand grips normally, right hand does this: https://twitter.com/MrGymnast86/status/843231806916771840/photo/1
With past games in the Zelda franchise, there have almost never been any complaints towards needing to pay extra money to compete in speedrunning competitively (I have only ever heard 1 person complain about this out of hundreds of people who run the games).
I've been in the Wind Waker community for 4 years now, and not once have I heard a single complaint about needing to purchase a Japanese version of the game, a gameboy, or a gameboy to gamecube adapter to compete for the best times (both of which combined save more than 15 minutes over the English version + not using the gameboy).
In the Skyward Sword community players have never complained about putting down money for a Japanese copy of the game in order to save 12 minutes over the English version.
For runners of Twilight Princess HD, using a Wolf Link Amiibo saves ~20 seconds over not using the Wolf Link Amiibo due to faster savewarping and nobody has complained. Both Amiibo and non Amiibo runs go up on the same leaderboard.
For players who want to seriously compete in the Ocarina of Time 100% category, they'll need to purchase an N64 if they don't have one, and a Japanese 1.0 copy of the game to perform a glitch that saves more than 5 minutes, and as far as I know, nobody has ever complained.
There are more examples besides these but I think you get what I'm saying. In the past, Zelda speedrunners have never complained about needing to buy extra versions of the game or some other piece of plastic in order to compete for top times. To me, it seems silly to restrict some feature that was developed for the game intentionally, especially for the any% category which I have always seen defined as simply "No Restrictions" (besides obvious restrictions such as unintended hardware manipulation or the injection of cheat codes).
I do, however, understand that the players congregating to speedrun Breath of the Wild are from many other speedrunning communities who do not actively participate in the the speedrunning of Zelda games, and thus have different expectations on how the leaderboards should be handled and how times should be compared. This is why filters exist on the leaderboards; it's a much more efficient way of managing the leaderboards instead of creating separate pages for Amiibo/Non-Amiibo for every already defined category. This has worked perfectly fine on other Zelda leaderboards and allows players to filter through to see what the times are for a run done on X console using/not using item Y, on language Z.
A lot of people (at least in this forum) are claiming that including both Amiibo/Non Amiibo runs on the same leaderboard is unfair. While I do agree this is technically true, simply separating or banning Amiibo from use does not come close to solving the problem of fairness for this game. Already we know that the Wii U version of Breath of the Wild saves a massive amount of time on loading over the Switch version (~30 seconds in Any% which is probably around how much time using Amiiibo saves in the category). As well, if you are playing on a disc version of the game, you will also lose small amounts of time to those that play on the digital version on the same console. Also, different consoles of the same model can potentially have drasticly different loading times simply by luck of the draw. Loading times are not consistent between consoles (at least for the Wii U, I don't know if this is true for the Switch or not). To top it all off, the German language (only available on PAL) saves 3 seconds over the fastest languages on both NTSC and NTSC-J.
So, if we want to solve the problem of fairness between all speedrunners of this game, I don't see that happening without potentially everybody using an in-game timer of some sort via homebrew (which I believe dragonbane is working on for Wii U, but don't quote me on that).
In perhaps a few weeks, when the scene for this game has settled a little more, we can perhaps make a decision to initiate completely separate pages for runs that use amiibo if many players still feel that this is the right thing to do. For now though, all the variables of each run (console, region, Amiibo, and DLC) will remain as filters to prevent the leaderboards from significant crowding of many categories in which only a few people will have times in. To me, it makes speedrunning for a game feel more like a joke when there are 3 or 4 people who all hold top times in some different <1 minute variation of Any% for a game (at least of this length, for games that are only a few minutes long this makes more sense).
I myself do not own a single Amiibo and have never planned on purchasing any. I still plan on competing competitively for a top time in this game even if some users have a small advantage over me as I honestly don't believe it makes a serious enough difference for me to care about purchasing one.
Those are my thoughts and reasons.
For now Amiibo will remain as a variable when submitting a time to the leaderboards. Currently there are no plans to ban/separate amiibo (at least in terms of any%). However, as other categories become figured out, Amiibo may or may not be separated/banned for those categories. A decision to separate/ban the usage of Amiibo will probably only happen if, after the speedrunning scene for the game settles down, a majority of runners want Amiibo to be separated/banned, then it might happen. As a comparison to the Tingle Tuner in Wind Waker, one could argue that the Tingle Tuner also gives a straight up advantage with functionalities such as restoring magic on a whim and being able to walk on air, both of which are straight up advantages and used in speedruns of the game.
As for Orcastraw's 3:39, whether or not it gets added to the leaderboards depends on whether or not she wants to submit that time.
When submitting a time to the leaderboards, amiibo usage is a Yes or No option.
As for categories, all the categories on the main leaderboard will be ones which start with a new file and beat the final boss. Popular categories that don't beat the final boss (i.e. Time finishes upon completing a dungeon) will go under a miscellaneous tab. To prevent crowding, only the few (3-5 perhaps) most popular categories that do not beat the final boss will probably be added to that leaderboard.
For the old puzzle skip, we do crawl after lining up. This method however is outdated as we can just clip straight into the statue with an item slide.
