Death's Door Break Survey Draft

Death's Door Break Survey Draft

1) In general, do you support allowing some form of breaks during Death's Door Speedruns (ie: stopping the timer, doing nothing while the timer is stopped, and restarting the timer and resuming the run)?
Possible answers:
Yes
No

2) In general, do you support allowing "planned" breaks? (ie: bathroom breaks, stretch breaks)
Possible answers:
Yes
No

3) In general, do you support allowing "unplanned" breaks? (ie: phone call, knock at door)
Possible answers:
Yes
No

4) In general, do you support breaks for dealing with nerves? (ie: short break before grey crow when on PB pace)
Possible answers:
Yes
No

5) If breaks are allowed, how important is it for you that breaks avoid any minor associated time loss compared to not taking that break (ie: time loss due to manually stopping and restarting the timer)?
Very important
Somewhat important
Not at all important

6) Do you think that breaks be restricted only to runs above a certain length?
Possible answers:
I do not support breaks
Any length run should be allowed breaks
30 minutes +
45 minutes +
60 minutes +
90 minutes +
120 minutes +

7) How much break time should be allowable per run?
Possible answers:
I do not support breaks
5% of total run time (3 minutes of break per hour of run)
10% of total run time (6 minutes of break per hour of run)
25% of total run time (15 minutes of break time per hour of run)
50% of total run time (30 minutes of break time per hour of run)
Any reasonable amount, to mods discretion
Something else (Please specify)

8) In addition to total break time, should the number of breaks be restricted?
Possible answers:
I do not support breaks
1 break per 30 minutes of run
1 break per hour of run
I do not think that the number of breaks should be restricted, only the total time
Something else (Please specify)

9) If breaks are allowed, do you think that having an RTA timer on screen to more easily verify the length of the breaks should be required?
Yes
No

10) Below are several options for how breaks could be implemented. Please give them a score between 1-5 where 1 means you do not like this implementation and 5 means you love the implementation.


a) Players can take a break at any time by pausing the game and then stopping the timer.

Pros
- Allows breaks at any time
- Doesn't invalidate any current runs

Cons
- The pause screen may not actually fully "pause" the game. Enemies in certain animations can very slowly move while paused. Furnace is in-sync with the music, which continues to play while paused. Frog King is music linked as well. Rules could be messy with pauses allowed only in certain places/scenarios.
- Opening the pause screen could be desirable, ie: take a break when you want to swap weapons anyways
- Needs to be manually done by players, incurring potential time loss.
- Potentially more work for mods to verify.


b) Livesplit autosplitter automatically pauses on the main menu. Breaks are allowed only on the main menu.

Pros
- Simple for verifiers - no need to do any work to verify that nothing was done during timer pauses or that the timer was stopped and started before the runner stopped taking actions.
- Simple for runners - Just take your break at the title screen, no need to figure out how to manually stop/start the timer.
- Zero time loss for breaks
- Neatly solves the "controller doesn't respond for a few seconds" issue that controller players have on the main menu
- No issues with in-game advantages being gained from the main menu if the timer pauses there for everyone

Cons
- Some runs may have long stretches without quitouts, making timing breaks with this system potentially prohibitive without incurring time loss
- Routes may change as quitouts are now slightly faster with regards to the in game timer
- Cannot limit the number of breaks, only the total break time, since it is impossible to differentiate a 5 second break from the "my controller wasn't responding" issue
- Different timing method means old runs don't directly compare, new runs will be faster.
- Only applicable to PC. Console runners can't use the autosplitter
- Autosplitter needs to be updated to do this. This *should* be relatively simple, but no developers have chimed in.


c) Players can manually pause the timer, but only on the main menu. Breaks are allowed only on the main menu.

Pros
- Doesn't invalidate any current runs

Cons
- Some runs may have long stretches without quitouts, making timing breaks with this system potentially prohibitive without incurring time loss
- Needs to be manually done by players, incurring potential time loss.
- Potentially more work for mods to verify.
- Potential for in-game advantage where taking a break could be optimal due to the "controller not responding on the main menu" issue


d) Livesplit autosplitter automatically pauses during in-game text. Breaks are allowed during these pauses.

Pros
- Simple for verifiers - no need to do any work to verify that nothing was done during timer pauses or that the timer was stopped and started before the runner stopped taking actions.
- Simple for runners - Just take your break at the title screen, no need to figure out how to manually stop/start the timer.
- Zero time loss for breaks
- There are big dialogs at key points in the run so they would make sense for planned break situations.
- Neatly solves all text skipper stuff. Text skipper no longer feels necessary. Text skipper speed no longer needs to be capped at all.

Cons
- Some runs may have long stretches without text, making timing breaks with this system potentially prohibitive.
- Only applicable to PC. Console runners can't use the autosplitter
- Possible minor reroutes, since it may no longer be necessary to move around dialog triggers.
- Crow can still move during text like during a zoomy through scripted text.
- Projectiles and some other things continue movement during text
- If people want no limits on break time or break numbers, this doesn't work well with that.
- Different timing method means old runs don't directly compare.
- Unclear if this can be implemented at all or how difficult it may be. Any autosplitter developers can chime in? What about text timestop glitch or Jefferson text?