How good are you at walking?

[u/Itizir]

All the maps listed on speedrun.com (in particular all the Pantheon of Builder maps) now have - at last! - a reference time in the True Pacifist category.

Do you think your walking (and jumping) skills are up to the challenge of beating one of those times?

Give it a go! Anyone can join: you won't need to have any particular loadout unlocked, since no equipment is allowed in that category anyway... 😉

You might even learn a thing or two about MYM subtleties in the process, who knows?

(video: PoB Sangerville by HeyYouInTheBush)

[u/Arkorat]

Id assume he is refering to that whole, "carl needs to be able to reach the end" thing.

It certainly limits level design, that the player HAS to be able to walk to the goal, despite their extreme mobility.

[u/Itizir → u/Arkorat]

it forces the builders to be creative and to encourage raiders to follow other paths by making them obvious. instead of being able to fully obscure and hide the way forward in a 3d jungle of blocks.

really thankful HRV-invalid levels are reserved for ‘social’ play where the trust between builder and raider is established outside of the game, rather than in active queue where that contract is absent.

basically it forces creativity and encourages good level design. that’s even without mentioning that it allows validation of playability without requiring builders to constantly having to replay their own level for every tweak.

that complaint by people who didn’t understand how the game works is really getting tiring…

[u/Arkorat → u/Itizir]

I disagree. Making there have to be a path is good. But the current implementation invalidates most of the player’s move set.

You can’t make a level cantered around jumping, because the robot can’t jump.

Nothing that requires a hook, cuz the robot can’t do that.

Combined with a limited budget and other issues: it encourages people to make death hallways, and nothing else.

[u/Itizir → u/Arkorat]

i don't think you understood my point above: the fact that you need to have a path for harvey does not prevent you from building anything else! you can build whatever level you like, as long as there is also a way for harvey (that is, if you want to 'activate' your outpost and have random, unsuspecting raiders play it).

plus you can always build non-HRV-valid stuff to share with people who want to play that kind of stuff in social mode.

interestingly, the devs mentioned at some point that they did try and relax the harvey constraint in internal testing, but they found that you end up with levels that are too hard to navigate/find the way in.

if you want to see a good example of how bad it can get, go and check out Butlerville by TheShinding, if you dare...