Racing on twitch with Beyond Chaos

is the spreadsheet limited to those 5 racers? Anyway i join Cecil188's club of undefined schedule racers...

Those are the only five who have submitted anything concrete. I'll add more people if/when they post something.

p sure Andrew will be free more often than I am, but yeah, he's at least basically always around when I am.

I had a quick look at the flags in BC just now since it's been awhile, I'm not sure exactly which flags aside from random blitz are agreed on being disabled, but there's a couple other one's I'd suggest not using (or just not using all at once, to keep the game somewhat resembling ff6) for racing purposes (though I'm really open to trying anything, not enough people race and are merely content to throw attempts at a game until the game co-operates for a PB, WR, what-have-you);

-Blitz input : self explanatory.

-New character commands : while the new commands are neat, they're quite luck-based oftentimes. race could come down to who rolls fire-3 the most on random fire, for example.

-Sprint shoes : This one depends actually, if sprint shoes just make you quadruply fast like in the gba version its ok. reason being, sprint shoes are usually the main reason to explore early game, they are the single biggest timesaver if you find a pair before south figaro (I also do not know if BC has the guaranteed sprint shoes at the SF relic shop like dess's randomiser does though)

-Enemies/players : I'd say only do one or the other as a personal preference, but am willing to try both simultaneously

-Stats of equipment : if this affects procs, elemental attributes, relic abilities etc on top of just numbers, that's irritating. otherwise go nuts, 255 bat pwr dirks are funny

-Umaro risk : mainly for vargas, but IDK how BC handles that fight

-Window colour : rather not stare at something painful on the eyes. basic blue is fine.


Gettin psyched to run circles around you guys!

To address some of your concerns:

New Character Commands - You do have a point. The counter-argument is that sometimes it feels plain if the characters are all using original commands. Also, new commands often tend to be more powerful than the originals, at least for this stage in the game before Kefka @ Narshe, which could shorten the race in some cases (which is probably what we want). Finally, a lot of the vanilla commands are boring/useless at this point in the game. Morph/Runic/Lore/Sketch/Berserker/Steal are all practically non-events this early (although Runic is extremely useful against TunnelArmor if you're lucky enough to have it there, and against Kefka himself). This could make a lot of characters uninteresting and make it more difficult to win, especially aganist TunnelArmor, who has not been nerfed like in Dessy's; a ridiculous TunnelArmor fight is my biggest fear for this type of run.

In some ways I'd liken it to leaving Items on or off in Smash Bros. If you want to play competitively or semi-competitively and you want skill to play a larger role, you might turn Items off, but if you want things to be zanier and more likely to change at a moment's notice, while still necessitating some skill, you might turn them on. It's something of a preference thing and I can see it working either way, so I think more input would be necessary. I can guess the response others will give though; most people here don't do heavy speedrunning as far as I'm aware.

Sprint Shoes - Sprint Shoes do not increase walking speed if you have auto-run, but IIRC they are guaranteed to teach some sort of spell. However, there is still a possibility of finding an early Charm Bangle in some places (particularly Elixir clocks). Also, I'd like to point out that bosses are somewhat buffed in Beyond Chaos compared to Dessy's and vanilla, so more preparation might be necessitated anyways just so that you don't die. That's not to say that you'll probably need to spend any time specifically for grinding, but utterly ignoring preparation by running from every encounter and not opening chests can be a huge mistake if you don't have something great backing you up that you're relying on to carry you.

Oh, and a friendly note: save before entering towns. There can be Monster-In-A-Boxes.

Enemies/players - Something tells me that everybody is on board for doing both already. I really like random enemies, since you have to figure out how to kill things on the fly, what isn't worth fighting because they are too dangerous and what isn't worth fighting because they don't give you anything resembling a decent return for your time. I'm hoping that after trying it you'll see it the same way. My only gripe with random enemies is that there are no good ways to figure out the new Rages quickly, with the vast array of information to sort through.

-Procs, statuses, breakable equipment, elements, and Relic abilities are all affected. But they are affected reasonably; modifications of this sort are pretty rare. Your knowledge of the game will still serve you well, but occasionally you'll find out that your equipment does something cool and interesting that can often give flavour to a random piece of equipment that is otherwise unnoteworthy. For example, on one run Stratos randomly procced Flare. Finding a couple weirdly early, my brother and I were prompted to use a front row, dual wielding setup with an otherwise sucky character for most of the WoR, which we both agreed made him far more interesting. You also certainly won't be seeing 255 power Dirks. Well, first off, Dirks are removed from the game to make way for a single secret rare piece of equipment that we won't be seeing anyways. But also, equipment stats are modified using their original stats as a base. Your Stout Spear will always be more powerful than a Mythril Spear, even if the stats are a little different from on run to the next, so there is a logical progression.

Umaro Risk - I don't care one way or the other. But I'll note that problems with Vargas are essentially non-existent in BC, except possibly in the Berserker case. The Berserker is usually loaded with a fairly powerful weapon, so IDK if it would be an issue there either. My brother will comment more, he's played it more.

Window Colour - Yeah, probably. I don't really want window colours changed, but I keep forgetting to turn it off myself, and it cascaded here too. Unless it's bundled with something else like changing palettes (I can't remember), then it's more debatable.

Alright, so I've played a dozen games of BC, so I'd wager I can answer any specific questions. My thoughts on the flags:

New Character Commands: I simply feel like this should be turned on almost as a prerequisite to the races. The only point of doing multiple races is to have different ones every time, but if character commands are always the same, Blitz will always outpace Bushido which will always outpace Steal.

Sprint Shoes: I feel like this should be turned on, if only by a little bit/personal preference. Doing something like not buying Sprint Shoes in the Returners' Hideout would be a fatal mistake, ending any possibility of winning if it's the only place to buy them. That's an uncommon scenario, but more seriously, it would basically kill one Relic slot, which I feel reduces the strategy. Granted, Relics aren't super cool at the beginning anyways. Additionally, it would be an overall speed up until about SF anyways, in a way that just axes boring walking segments, and nothing more. Regardless, I'm still open on this flag. This flag isn't a deal breaker to me.

As for other things:

Equipment: Generally, if equipment is changed it's a minor buff or evasion change. Things like Shell and Image show up on random pieces of equipment. New effects are generally positive(except a certain coronet with auto-confuse, which could even have use late game, but whatever.), and the new effects are also very rare. Additionally, they are generally extra, and not replacing previous effects. I've only encountered a handful of them, though. Procs are a much bigger deal. I've had more of them, and they've had greater variety. I've had Shurikens that cast reflect, brushes that cast Vanish, the aforementioned Flare Stratos, and my current run even has Fixed Dice that cast Ultima(simply broken). I haven't had any random castings of devastating things like Quake or Merton, but I wouldn't be surprised if it could happen. Finally, items can break for just about any spell, and it's common enough to be game changing, but not game ending(at least as far as we're going). While we probably won't see an indestructible Hero Ring that casts Bolt 3(which is as ridiculous as it sounds), or a Pearl Lance that instantly ends your party with Quake, Poison, -ara spells, and Cure 2 are not off the table, and if no one has Tools, we'll be seeing a lot more of that. Definitely a way to spice up the game.

Berserker: I personally believe this shouldn't be set for the race, but like the Sprint Shoes, it isn't a deal breaker. In all my runs, I've never seen Sabin be a berserker, unless he was one in one of my older AC files, where I wouldn't have noticed. However, even if he couldn't be Sabin, it's still a boring character. It's unlikely we'll find a Rage Ring, or the actually interesting Blizzard Orb, and without it, there's really no depth to the character. I almost always axe my Berserker by the end of the game, and if I keep him, it's generally due to his Relics. I'm fairly certain that the berserker does not have anything special equipped except by random chance(I've had a character without any access to shields except the Genji Shield, so they were equipped with one by default), and this random chance extends to all characters, so it's not a noteworthy feature that would spice up the existence of a berserker. Just my thoughts though.

Window Colour: With the exception of a retina-searing magenta, the window colours aren't that bad. I don't care though.

Other: Overall, the difficulty of BC isn't high until Floating Continent, and it's balanced enough to yield almost no random difficulty spikes except Zozo, which we won't be reaching, and a paltry amount of sporadic but surmountable difficulty spikes across the rest of the game.

That's it for now. Hopefully I'll be able to demonstrate the experience I've gained from repeated playthroughs.

Cecil's probably played BC more than I have, at this point. It's disappointing that you're not into the berserkers though; I thought they were pretty cool now that I've started giving them commands other than Fight. Well, except for when they come with Steal. That would definitely be a huge speedbump at Vargas.

As Lockirby2 and Cecil188 said there's nothing to worry about flags, just some extreme case, which involves rare encounters or monster-in-a-box chests, which can be quite thrilling, but shouldn't ruin any run. Abyss spent a lot of time succeeding in remove unwinnable configurations, especially in tutorial battles, like Vargas and such. looks like that's not the case for TunnelArmor, which i didn't noticed since i found a MiaB with a presenter and i killed him breaking Genji Glove for casting Shout esper and dropped Genji Shield + Wing Edge... you can image what does that mean in that point of the game
Anyway... the best you can do, if you fear that battle, is playing that scenario as last, and getting some good loot from the other 2 scenarios before.

Besides i believe that Berseker settings on Sabin would crush Vargas as a fry(all tutorial battle, especially Vargas are nerfed and so he has less than 1000 HP)
i must say that i enjoyed the berseker, especially on WoB, the only reason i kept him away was to avoid that he could kill enemies while i was stealing from them.

While i fought random battles, (after seeing enemies once, then i ran away when i saw them again) i must say that the only real moments in which i had to grind was for Kefka and Fanatic's towers


In conclusion i believe(actually looks like even the others do) that, except random blitz input flag, all the other flags should stay set. stream a race or two and i'm sure you'll be agree about that too.
We can still treat flags as the guide: all, except that one flag, set by default unless someone requests a discussion about doing some run with different flags settings.

While you are free to do that, if you want, i guess in that case i won't race (maybe just watch) if the settings will start to resemble more vanilla than BC. I mean, in that case what you'd search for should be a Dessyreqt's randomizer race(a BC rom with configurations similar to vanilla would start to look like that)

when are we starting

Not sure yet. Who here participating hasn't posted at least an estimate of when they are available? Is it just Gi Nattak and possibly Abyssonym (not sure if he plans on racing at all)?

I'll just watch for the first and maybe also second race, i need some time...