The Highscore Rankings

[ska]

You guys are crazy. And I still have 63-3 yo!

Oh shit, sorry for missing you on the rankings haha, added you in, I know why this happened, but its a long story. Luckily we won't have to deal with this again...

Wooooah, didn't see that coming!!! /s

If it's any consolation, this 0th can be recaptured, TFK... ghost it in NReality...

golf: are you meaning to say that 63-3 was your first 0th? hmmm... well... vicarious revenge is almost always just as good. :)

Luckily we won't have to deal with this again...

Aww. :(

Don't say that; it's a mistake to imply that TFK won't try to defend his pet level.

[alsojp27ace]

Luckily we won't have to deal with this again...

Aww. :(

Don't say that; it's a mistake to imply that TFK won't try to defend his pet level.

I would enjoy seeing TFK come back to defend it, taken for now though.

[golf]

golf: are you meaning to say that 63-3 was your first 0th? hmmm... well... vicarious revenge is almost always just as good. :)

Yes, I am meaning to say that 63-3 was my first 0th. Spent 20+ hours on it because of the double cj's at the end, only to have it taken within the hour with a new route :'( I've made various efforts through the years to try and retake this already, but I haven't gotten the hang of the new route, haven't been able to even beat my old 0th with it...

Luckily we won't have to deal with this again...

Don't say that; it's a mistake to imply that TFK won't try to defend his pet level.

I would enjoy seeing TFK come back to defend it, taken for now though.

I agree, would love to see him make a comeback, and then even better would be to stick around and get back over 500 highscores like Hendor has done :)

[ska]

I would enjoy seeing TFK come back to defend it, taken for now though.

ooh, shit! nice change up!

Jp27ace needs to at least be nominated for 2014 player of the year (assuming it still is going ahead, of course.)

[golf]

I would enjoy seeing TFK come back to defend it, taken for now though.

ooh, shit! nice change up!

Jp27ace needs to at least be nominated for 2014 player of the year (assuming it still is going ahead, of course.)

I don't know about that, he didn't have the balls to go for the double cj ending. It takes a true Player of the Year candidate to do that. jk, great run jp but definitely left some room for cleaning if anybody was stupid and brave enough to go for that.

[ska]

I would enjoy seeing TFK come back to defend it, taken for now though.

ooh, shit! nice change up!

Jp27ace needs to at least be nominated for 2014 player of the year (assuming it still is going ahead, of course.)

I don't know about that, he didn't have the balls to go for the double cj ending. It takes a true Player of the Year candidate to do that. jk, great run jp but definitely left some room for cleaning if anybody was stupid and brave enough to go for that.

[EddyMataGallos]

Awesome route man, this has a lot of potential, cleaned 0.2 more for now. Btw, the dronies are very incomplete for playing purposes, innovator of the year should totally exist.

[ToeFaceKiller]

Ah well done, I'm honestly shocked I wasn't knocked off the 0th ranks sooner. I might have a go at it, but I probably suck now tho.

@Golf - I was never a decent innovator, I got pretty lucky finding that route so quick. But I definitely enjoyed destroying your hard work :P

[golf]

Ah well done, I'm honestly shocked I wasn't knocked off the 0th ranks sooner. I might have a go at it, but I probably suck now tho.

@Golf - I was never a decent innovator, I got pretty lucky finding that route so quick. But I definitely enjoyed destroying your hard work :P

You know, I was also amazed that its taken so long for you to get beaten. I really hope you don't just fade back into the darkness from which you came. We don't have enough people active in the community anymore. :(

[ska]

Not sure where to put this, and I don't think it'd be prudent to make a new topic just for this, but I was interested about the state of division between speedrunning and highscoring. It used to be that generally, levels that didn't require gold would typically have slightly better times in highscore mode compared to speedrun; this was obviously true for the original Metanet episodes (00-99). However, I wanted to see how this has evolved over the years when I stumbled upon an NReality level (159-3) which had no gold. I thought this would be a good candidate because it's a fairly quick level, but it also has a decent spread when considering the low frame counts for its 0th scores in each mode. The results of my excel comparison surprised me somewhat; here's a graph showing the difference:



As you can see, the lines in the line chart are very similar; in fact, the highscores board for this map had an average of 441.3 frames, while the speedrun board was slightly slower overall, with an average score of 447.3 frames; 6 frames slower than its highscores counterpart. The chart was compiled with current data from 0th to 19th on both charts. Obviously, the higher the line, the slower the run (just in case that wasn't clear.)

I did this mostly because like many of us here, the statistics of all things N interest me quite a lot, but I'd also like to know whether there is a level (or levels) which has a lower frame count average for speedrun mode. To make things a bit easier, I have uploaded an excel spreadsheet that I used for 159-3; although, keep in mind that levels which have incidental gold will mess up this system; the current version is only compatible with levels which don't include gold.

[golf]

I was waiting on Eddy's New Year's mini-update, but apparently that isn't happening. Main reason I wanted this was for some easier annual calculations, and the main thing I was personally interested in was my TLS improvement over the year. Since as far as I know we can only get current TLS rankings through NHigh, the closest to the beginning of 2014 was the rankings of Dec 4, 2013. At that point, I had 71044.425 of TLS, and I currently have 71228.375 for a difference of 183.950. Looking at my infunity page, I improved 3 levels in December, but only one of them likely had a significant improvement (77-0). So I think I'll call it about 183 seconds improvement this year. Those that were on irc with me in the last few days of the year knew I also had a personal goal I set last month: to improve 100 different levels for 2014. I managed to reach that goal with a couple days left, and then haven't improved any more since then. So that means my average improvement for a level was 1.839 seconds o.O Not too bad over 100 levels, and starting with over 71k TLS.

[EddyMataGallos]

Sorry, this will get done. It's just I'm having my first period of exams during this month (the second one, is in June), and I'm pretty busy (rankings can easily take 2+ hours to do, even more considering I'm expecting this to be a New Year's Special, with cool stats and so on). I did save an NHigh file from 1st Jan at 00:00 (from zapkt's page, since I wasn't here when that happened), and I'll do the update using that file.

For last year's file, the closest I have is from the 6th of January, so that's the one I'll use, unless somebody has a closer one. Regarding TLS/TES, as you know, this isn't saved on NHigh files, you have to download it separately, so the closest one I have is fomr the 4th of Decemeber too, when I made the rankings. I can't do any better, so that's the one I'll have to use for any relevant facts or changes regarding TLS/TES, unless again somebody downloaded and saved a text file with this thing, closer to 1st Jan.

Anyways sorry for the delay, I'll see if I can get it done some of these days, as I said, It'll only include changes until 1st Jan, so nothing will change in that aspect. Also I'll then be able to keep a better rhythm regarding the frequency at which rankings are posted, hopefully regularly making them every 1st of the month.

[golf]

Not a problem. Wasn't seriously complaining, just thought that you had somehow forgotten and I hadn't been bothered enough to put up a friendly reminder or anything. Also, what are you doing with exams so close after Christmas? Seems more logical to have important tests like that before you take a month off and have all that time to forget everything you've learned xD

I'm pretty busy (rankings can easily take 2+ hours to do, even more considering I'm expecting this to be a New Year's Special, with cool stats and so on)

I don't think anybody here doubts how much time you put into these things, or doesn't appreciate the effort you make for us. Since I don't think I've said it recently, thanks for doing it :) For TLS/TES, yes I did know it wasn't saved in the NHigh files but I wasn't sure if there was a different way to get that data from the past.

Really though, don't worry too much about it, things like school (for you) and work (for people like me) should come before anything we do on here. Having these on a more regular schedule would be nice, but that's come and gone multiple times in the history of the rankings, and it didn't matter who was in charge at the time either. As far as I'm concerned, any time there's new rankings is a good time.

[ska]

Don't stress, Eddy.

[golf]

Well since this seems to be our stats-y thread, I guess this is the best place to put this up. So I improved my 89-0 a couple days ago, seeing that it was nearly at the bottom of the board. I remember from my last run that I talked with Kool, and he said that it looked really clean, except for the chimney on the left side. I ended up improving by 2 frames, moving me 3 spots up the leaderboard. It felt really good, and I was curious just how much time I was losing because of the chimney. So I took a bunch of runs on that level and compared them with NHigh.

I broke the level up into 3 sections of the run -

• 1) Beginning of the run, ending with the first jump of the chimney
  2) The chimney itself, ending with the corner shove at the top-left corner of the map
  3) End of the run, from the corner shove until completion

Then I used NHigh to get the frame counts of those "transition points" in the run, and from that calculated how many frames each section took. For ease of comparison, I'm going to start off with Eddy's run -

• 1) 271
  2) 46
  3) 267

with a final frame count of 584.

I also looked at the demos of Kool, macro, van, xela, Lim, and finally, my own. I haven't been able to figure out a good way to display all of this information, so what follows is just my best idea... which is to list each player, and then the frame counts of each section, followed by the final frame count of the run in bold.

• Kool - 272, 46, 267, 585
  macro - 273, 48, 269, 590
  xela - 273, 48, 272, 593
  van - 279, 46, 268, 593
  Lim - 278, 46, 273, 597
  golf - 272, 55, 268, 595

So comparing the top two runs, of Eddy and Kool - they both have the same number of frames in the chimney, and also from the corner shove to finishing the level. The only difference is that Eddy was able to start his chimney one frame before Kool, and therefore edged him out for the 0th. Next on the list is macro: he lost yet another frame before the chimney, spent 2 more frames during the chimney, and then a final 2 frames in the ending section. When it comes to xela's run, he was even with macro until the corner shove, but then he lost an incredible 5 frames to Eddy's 0th run in the finishing section. van and Lim both had chimneys that kept up with the top two runs, and both started their chimneys very late (van just from being unclean getting there, and Lim because he almost fell beneath the oneway before starting to jump). The main difference between those two runs was the ending - Lim had the slowest ending segment of all the demos I looked at while van was comparable with all the other top runs.

Now we get to the reason I started this whole mad campaign, my run. Like Kool, I'm only one frame behind Eddy going into the chimney. I also lose a frame to those two from after the chimney until finishing the level. So why then, am I so far behind these two? If you've paid attention, you'll have noticed that everybody else has completed the chimney section in either 46 or 48 frames, even Mr_Lim who stated that he was no good at chimneying. But, I took a whopping 55 frames to complete my chimney! I've heard so many times that chimneying isn't really all that important in highscoring. I would like to use this opportunity to say that while overall, it is certainly possible to get great runs while not having good chimneying skills, sometimes it simply is necessary to be able to chimney like a pro. If i was able to chimney like Eddy and Kool, I would be all the way near the top, even above spect's run.

Then after all this was said and done, I decided to look at crappitrash's run just for fun.

• crappi - 272, 42, 268, 582

As you can see, he blows everybody out of the water with his chimney (and who didn't expect that? :P ) But even I was able to match his times before the chimney, and while finishing the level. So for somebody to beat this run, you will need to either beat Eddy's very clean beginning (which nobody has been able to match) and ending, or else have an almost superhuman chimney.

Also, for interest, here's the pastebin where I collected and calculated all the values I used - http://pastebin.com/KTm4rhAu

[macrohenry]

Good work, that was very interesting to read! I'd be interested in the same kind of analysis for 02-2.The difference between Eddy's and crappi's chimneying is another sign that crappi is unlikely to be a legit player. Has it ever been proven that he is a cheater or do we just assume that he is one?

[golf]

Good work, that was very interesting to read! I'd be interested in the same kind of analysis for 02-2.The difference between Eddy's and crappi's chimneying is another sign that crappi is unlikely to be a legit player. Has it ever been proven that he is a cheater or do we just assume that he is one?

I thought about doing 2-2, but its definitely a bit harder to find easily breakable sections. It would make sense to call the chimney as one section, obviously, but there's not such an easily definable end to that as the corner shove on 89-0. You just kind of chimney and head right at the end of it... maybe that last jump to get you started moving right? And then there's another issue, it seems like it would be useful to have the entire top as one section, and then the drop plus run across the bottom as another independent section. But from looking at the NHigh analysis, how do you determine the transition between those two? That's a lot harder to figure out, and I just haven't put the thought into that yet. Altogether, with compiling this data last night and then writing the post, probably took me 45 minutes to an hour to get this analysis :P

Glad to know that somebody appreciates the work at least.

[EddyMataGallos]

I enjoyed the analysis a lot too, I love getting technical with N :P

I think a way to break 2-2 could be to use the last wj from the chimney as the first break point, as you mentioned, and the release of the jump key on the last jump in the top part as the second break point, which is the last relevant action in that section. So the final section would basically include how fast you fall and slide in the final tunnel.

Although, to be fair, maybe what you do before the chimney could be considered a different fragment too, since how fast you enter the chimney is pretty important.

[ska]

I enjoyed the analysis a lot too, I love getting technical with N :P

I think a way to break 2-2 could be to use the last wj from the chimney as the first break point, as you mentioned, and the release of the jump key on the last jump in the top part as the second break point, which is the last relevant action in that section. So the final section would basically include how fast you fall and slide in the final tunnel.

Although, to be fair, maybe what you do before the chimney could be considered a different fragment too, since how fast you enter the chimney is pretty important.

Right. I agree that the wall jump off the top-right wall is the logical break point, because it negates any existing sideways momentum.

[ska]

Sorry for the double post, but we could I please get a rankings for my retirement, just so I can clearly see this point in time in the distant future, and have something concrete to compare it against? I'd like to have a snapshot to see where I was when I stopped playing altogether. I just improved my episode 90 run (which was hanging low at 18th) to the much safer 6th. I also used the new 90-0 route to secure 10th spot. I think I'll call it a night. Thanks to everyone in the highscoring community—it's been an enjoyable 10 years.

— ska

[EddyMataGallos]

Anyways, its a bit of a weird date to make an update, I just downloaded an NHigh file, but maybe you wanna keep highscoring until the 1st of February, when I make the next update (I'm not forgetting new years update either). I'd prefer if you didn't leave though :P are you still going to frequent the forums and stuff? The community in general?

[golf]

Sorry for the double post, but we could I please get a rankings for my retirement, just so I can clearly see this point in time in the distant future, and have something concrete to compare it against? I'd like to have a snapshot to see where I was when I stopped playing altogether. I just improved my episode 90 run (which was hanging low at 18th) to the much safer 6th. I also used the new 90-0 route to secure 10th spot. I think I'll call it a night. Thanks to everyone in the highscoring community—it's been an enjoyable 10 years.

— ska

Retiring? Ok there, MJ. Just don't try and jump the ship to professional Super Meat Boy or anything crazy like that before returning to the fold again.

[TheRealOne]

Sad to hear this ska, but best of luck with your job, book, and any other endeavors you take on in life.

[ska]

Also, I am now working full time, and most of the time I am not working will be used on editing and research for my book. Ergo, I am retiring from highscoring N permanently. I will still be active on the forums and numa, however.

Yes, Eddy, as I alluded to in the above quoted post from the other topic, I will still be in touch with the community; there are no plans to abandon you guys altogether.

Edit: On N 2.0, I've altered the route for the b-3-4 as a parting gift. Topic.

Also, thanks for the well-wishes, guys.

[EddyMataGallos]

The Highscore Rankings #180
- As of 01/February/2015
- Includes Tied 0ths
- Using the Spoiler system

New 0th Report

04-3 - Old: [EddyMataGallos, 218.600] -> [macrohenry, 219.100] -> New: [EddyMataGallos, 219.300]
13-0 - Old: [ vankusss, 122.850] New: [EddyMataGallos, 122.875]
13 - Old: [ eru_bahagon, 281.225] -> [macrohenry, 283.375] -> New: [EddyMataGallos, 287.300]
16-2 - Old: [ macrohenry, 112.275] -> [EddyMataGallos, 112.375] -> [macrohenry, 112.425] -> New: [EddyMataGallos, 112.600]
17-2 - Old: [ macrohenry, 110.700] New: [EddyMataGallos, 110.950]
20-4 - Old: [EddyMataGallos, 108.500] -> [jp27ace, 108.975] -> [macrohenry, 109.725] -> New: [EddyMataGallos, 110.075]
22-1 - Old: [EddyMataGallos, 185.925] New: [ macrohenry, 186.350]
29-3 - Old: [EddyMataGallos, 122.525] New: [ macrohenry, 122.675]
29-4 - Old: [ vankusss, 121.575] New: [ macrohenry, 121.650]
35-1 - Old: [ vankusss, 128.350] New: [EddyMataGallos, 128.500]
37-1 - Old: [EddyMataGallos, 94.500] New: [EddyMataGallos, 94.575]
37-4 - Old: [EddyMataGallos, 164.800] -> [jp27ace, 166.700] -> [macrohenry, 168.250] -> New: [EddyMataGallos, 168.550]
37 - Old: [ eru_bahagon, 326.625] New: [EddyMataGallos, 336.000]
38-4 - Old: [EddyMataGallos, 144.900] -> [jp27ace, 145.700] -> [EddyMataGallos, 145.725] -> New: [EddyMataGallos, 147.025]
42-2 - Old: [ Wolfos, 167.250] New: [ macrohenry, 168.050]
58-3 - Old: [EddyMataGallos, 136.150] -> [macrohenry, 138.000] -> [EddyMataGallos, 138.025] -> New: [ macrohenry, 138.150]
63-3 - Old: [ ToeFaceKiller, 105.450] -> [EddyMataGallos, 105.500] -> [jp27ace, 105.625] -> New: [EddyMataGallos, 105.825]
65-4 - Old: [EddyMataGallos, 116.700] New: [ macrohenry, 116.900]
66-0 - Old: [EddyMataGallos, 168.675] -> [jp27ace, 168.700] -> New: [EddyMataGallos, 168.950]
71-4 - Old: [EddyMataGallos, 149.825] -> [macrohenry, 149.850] -> New: [EddyMataGallos, 150.000]
71 - Old: [ xaelar, 483.650] New: [ macrohenry, 484.600]
77-0 - Old: [ macrohenry, 110.775] -> [golfkid, 110.875] -> [macrohenry, 110.900] -> New: [EddyMataGallos, 110.925]
77 - Old: [EddyMataGallos, 233.050] -> [macrohenry, 234.850] -> New: [EddyMataGallos, 235.250]
79-4 - Old: [ vankusss, 105.125] New: [ macrohenry, 105.175]
84-3 - Old: [ vankusss, 144.725] -> [EddyMataGallos, 146.800] -> [EddyMataGallos, 147.375] -> [EddyMataGallos, 148.000] -> [EddyMataGallos, 148.750] -> New: [EddyMataGallos, 149.150]
86-4 - Old: [EddyMataGallos, 148.725] -> [jp27ace, 150.125] -> New: [ macrohenry, 150.800]
93-2 - Old: [ xaelar, 116.375] New: [ macrohenry, 116.650]
97-1 - Old: [EddyMataGallos, 118.925] -> [macrohenry, 119.175] -> New: [EddyMataGallos, 119.300]

Total: 28 changes

Total 0th Rankings

0 EddyMataGallos - 441
1 macrohenry - 128
2 Kool-aid - 17
3 jp27ace - 12
4 Ben_Schultz_11 - 10
5 vankusss - 10
6 xaelar - 6
- Raif - 6
8 nadroj347 - 5
9 golfkid - 4
10 swipenet - 3
11 Seifer - 2
- Hendor - 2
13 Knu - 1
- Mr_Lim - 1
- Gutland - 1
- Just4TheFun - 1
- Izzy - 1
- glib_jase - 1
- kryX-orange - 1
- Arctic_Pony - 1
- 1211 - 1

Level 0th Rankings

0 EddyMataGallos - 359
1 macrohenry - 112
2 Kool-aid - 17
3 jp27ace - 12
4 Ben_Schultz_11 - 10
5 vankusss - 9
6 xaelar - 6
- Raif - 6
8 nadroj347 - 5
9 golfkid - 4
10 swipenet - 3
11 Seifer - 2
12 Knu - 1
- Mr_Lim - 1
- Gutland - 1
- Just4TheFun - 1
- Izzy - 1
- glib_jase - 1
- kryX-orange - 1
- Arctic_Pony - 1
- 1211 - 1

Episode 0th Rankings

0 EddyMataGallos - 82
1 macrohenry - 16
2 Hendor - 1
- vankusss - 1

Top-20 Rankings

0 EddyMataGallos - 599
- macrohenry - 599
2 golfkid - 598
3 Hendor - 597
4 eru_bahagon - 581
5 lookatthis - 560
6 xaelar - 549
7 Mr_Lim - 521
8 Ben_Schultz_11 - 462
9 vankusss - 416
10 glib_jase - 399
11 ToeFaceKiller - 346
12 Analu - 312
13 Johnny_faneca - 269
14 Darkshadow1416 - 206
15 swipenet - 180
16 Chouse - 157
17 Izzy - 150
18 jp27ace - 146
19 trib4lmaniac - 141

Top-10 Rankings

0 EddyMataGallos - 599
- macrohenry - 599
2 xaelar - 497
3 eru_bahagon - 445
4 lookatthis - 427
5 golfkid - 373
6 vankusss - 367
7 Mr_Lim - 352
8 Hendor - 336
9 Ben_Schultz_11 - 312
10 swipenet - 107
- jp27ace - 107
12 glib_jase - 99
13 ToeFaceKiller - 95
14 Analu - 90
15 Johnny_faneca - 87
- Izzy - 87
17 nadroj347 - 77
18 Darkshadow1416 - 66
19 Kool-aid - 52

Top-5 Rankings

0 macrohenry - 599
1 EddyMataGallos - 595
2 xaelar - 333
3 vankusss - 296
4 eru_bahagon - 154
5 Mr_Lim - 141
6 golfkid - 102
7 Ben_Schultz_11 - 95
8 lookatthis - 89
9 Hendor - 85
10 jp27ace - 83
11 Kool-aid - 51
12 swipenet - 50
13 Izzy - 34
14 nadroj347 - 26
15 Johnny_faneca - 21
- glib_jase - 21
17 Darkshadow1416 - 20
- Raif - 20
19 ToeFaceKiller - 15

Total Level Score Rankings

0 EddyMataGallos : 72142.900
1 macrohenry : 72061.625
2 xaelar : 71544.475
3 eru_bahagon : 71289.675
4 lookatthis : 71275.225
5 Mr_Lim : 71268.475
6 golfkid : 71240.425
7 Hendor : 71183.525
8 Analu : 70631.975
9 Ben_Schultz_11 : 70582.250
10 glib_jase : 70294.650
11 ToeFaceKiller : 70008.150
12 johnny_faneca : 70007.175
13 Darkshadow1416 : 69970.900
14 zapkt : 69602.800
15 jg9000 : 68776.675
16 trib4lmaniac : 68322.025
17 blobglob : 67763.800
18 vankusss : 67608.225
19 innuendonewb : 67316.800

Total Episode Score Rankings

0 EddyMataGallos : 35669.900
1 macrohenry : 35461.000
2 eru_bahagon : 35040.650
3 Hendor : 34611.325
4 golfkid : 34503.000
5 lookatthis : 34368.600
6 Mr_Lim : 34106.500
7 Ben_Schultz_11 : 33985.175
8 jg9000 : 32462.500
9 Analu : 32127.975
10 zapkt : 32070.025
11 ToeFaceKiller : 32068.000
12 xaelar : 30792.200
13 OnurO : 30756.475
14 loudog004 : 30543.825
15 ari22hoops : 30164.325
16 animal_rights : 30117.050
17 innuendonewb : 29652.700
18 Jirka : 28166.500
19 J0803 : 27536.275

Total Point Rankings

0 EddyMataGallos - 11668
1 macrohenry - 11133
2 xaelar - 8430
3 eru_bahagon - 7621
4 golfkid - 7135
5 lookatthis - 6942
6 vankusss - 6567
7 Hendor - 6535
8 Mr_Lim - 6315
9 Ben_Schultz_11 - 5643
10 glib_jase - 3141
11 ToeFaceKiller - 2791
12 Analu - 2610
13 Johnny_faneca - 2401
14 swipenet - 2120
15 jp27ace - 2107
16 Darkshadow1416 - 1787
17 Izzy - 1688
18 nadroj347 - 1299
19 Chouse - 1273

Community Total Scores

Community Total Level Score: 72188.100 (20:03:08.100)
Community Total Episode Score: 35847.225 (9:57:27.225)

Difference between both : 340.875 (0:05:40.875)

Introduction

Hey there guys, 1st of the month , time to get a new rankings update, and I'll hopefully remember to keep this pace regularly and without missing updates from now on. So this past month there were 28 different 0ths being taken, and 16 of them were battled with a total 37 exchanges, for a total of 49 0th exchanges. There were also several big time savers and route changes.

Highscoring

So let's go through the interesting 0ths, whether it was because of battles or big time savers, sorted by the time that was saved in descending order. First of all we had 84-3, which suffered a collaborative creative effort from several members of the community for a final, huge gain of 4.425 seconds. Firstly, jp came up with a route change by noticing a detour players were taken in the old route; the new route bypasses a useless switch. I used this route change to clean about 2 seconds. Then, I came up with an innov in the door switch chamber to save about half a second, and later on, Hendor devised another change in the leftmost gold section to take all the gold at once, which I used to save over half a second or so. Finally, I added an innov in the top part to avoid one jump, which might save around a second. Some final cleaning left the level 0th in its current state. That's not where it ended though, as TRO proved you can take all the gold section in a single jump; something that might save about another second. Macro also contributed to this level with an innov involving a bbbwj that saves close to half a second. These last two innovations have yet to be applied in a 0th run.

Then, we had 37-4, in which the almighty jp devised a complete route change and took the level by a couple of seconds. Little did we know at that point, that the route had much more potential, as macro came along and cleaned another second and a half. Finally, I gave the level some final touches of cleaning, for a final, total gain of 3.750 seconds; this new route certainly is astounding, and is 4 seconds faster than Lim's classic run.

Moving on, we had 38-4 — yes, that level again. Last month, it was also one of the main time savers, with jp coming up with several innovs to beat half a drone loop at the end, for 1.5 seconds. This month, jp made an MBD, and later on attacked the level again with some more changes he came up with while doing that run, to beat year another half loop, and clean around 0.800. I used it to clean a frame, and eventually cleaned the run enough to manage to beat another half drone cycle, and another 1.3 seconds gain. So, the total gain on this level for this month was 2.125, and if we include the previous month, the total gain has been 3.875 seconds over xela's old 0th run.

Then, we had 86-4 innovated by jp again, with a completely new route, that after macro cleaned, was proved to be along the lines of 2 seconds faster than the previous route. In particular, macro's 0th is 2.075 faster than my old 0th. I think it's interesting to mention that that previous 0th, which had been innovated by myself and then by macro, was as well 2 seconds faster than the classic route on that level; the fastest exponent of which is currently van, standing 4 seconds below the current 0th.

Then we had 58-3 — the other stress test map — which was very close to max with the previous route. Macro came up with many innovs — or, at least, that's what he said — because its actually a friggin' route change. With this new route, he managed to grab the final piece of gold and get to the end almost as fast as the previous route did, hence entering the final bottleneck in the same cycle. I then cleaned it, and macro cleaned it once again, for a final gain of exactly 2 seconds, so the ending is standing just as clean as it was before, except it's AGD and the route is much tougher, haha.

Continuing on, we had 20-4 — another level innovated by jp — which involved a complete route change again, by doing the left chamber at the beginning rather than at the end. He cleaned about half a second; however, macro then proved the effectiveness of the new route by cleaning around 0.800 more. Finally, I cleaned it again by around 1/4 of a second for a final gain of 1.575 seconds. It's interesting to note that this route is affected by several bottlenecks, especially the one on the middle-right of the map.

Then, macro (quite recently, in fact) innovated 42-2 — a classic Wolfos 0th — by changing the beginning and going fast enough to beat the drone bottleneck on the left; he managed to clean exactly 0.800 seconds in total with a very clean ending, barring a missed cj. This was Wolfos' last 0th, so now he has fallen off the 0th boards, maybe for good? Macro also worked on 4-3, which he took by 0.500 by cleaning and adding an innov in the inner chamber. I then cleaned it once again for a final gain of 0.700.

Those were the main gains of the month, but there were some other interesting levels that are worth talking about. We had 63-3, a classic 6-year-old TFK 0th. TFK visited the forums after a long time without doing so, and so of course, that immediately prompted activity in attacking his last 0th. (I took it by cleaning). Then, jp came up with a different route, which mixes elements from van's route, TFK's route, and the classic route. I used it to clean some more time. The final gain in this level was 0.375 seconds. Consequently, TFK was the second player to lose his last 0th this month.

97-1 was another level that suffered changes. Noted for being a frame-war level, macro broke this by adding the rcj innov on the door switch ledge. I cleaned it a bit more, and the final gain here was again 0.375. Then, there was also a battle in 16-2. I took it by cleaning, and macro retook it with the same method. Then I added the full corner kick at the end to retake it again. The final gain here was 0.325 seconds.

Moving on, we had 66-0: a level that jp innovated by completely changing the first half of the map, although only managing to shave off a poultry handful of frames. The route had some more potential, though, so I retook it for a final gain of 0.275 seconds. Jp also innovated 93-2 here and there (one of xela's best runs in my opinion), although he didn't go fast enough to take it. macro utilized these innovs to surpass the German ex-beast by 0.275.

Another interesting level was 65-4. Macro came up with an innovated beginning, which is much faster than the current one, and which allows one to beat the drone on the top-right of the map. Macro pulled off a safe version of this new beginning to clean 0.200 in real-time. Then, jp MBD'd the level, and discovered a thwump push to take all the left section of gold in one single jump. Finally, 77-0 was also the subject of a battle; golfkid made his appearance and took the level by applying macro's route (which only he was using up to that point) by 4 frames. Macro came back and retook it by a frame, and I then cleaned one more frame for a final 0.150 gain. Why such small gains, you may ask? Because a bottleneck at the very end was detected, which impedes you from beating it much faster unless it is beaten, or lured away at some other part of the level.

That's it for levels. I didn't cover all; only the ones that involved either big time saves, innovations/route changes, or battles, as usual. The rest were taken by standard cleaning. We also had some activity in the episode territory, with 4 episodes being taken, 2 of them being battled. Ep77 was the first one; macro took it and I then cleaned it, both making use of the new innovs developed for that ep; mainly the innovs were in level 0 and 1. Eru's Ep13 was the second one, as macro cleaned a couple seconds from it, and I then cleaned another 4 seconds. This reduced eru to a single 0th, which was naturally shouting to be taken. This was Ep37, which I took by almost 10 seconds. Eru was the third and final player this month to lose his last 0th. That's right, 3 highscorers completely fell off the 0th leaderboards this past month. This has caused the people with a single 0th to go up to the 13th place in the 0th rankings. Finally, macro contributed to the Occupy xela movement and took Ep71 with a pretty clean run.

In different news, the list of cheated 0ths got reduced, when macro took 22-1 and passed crappi's run. This reduces the list to only 6 runs, of which one is legitimately tied in NReality. And realistically speaking, 3 of them are takable in real-time, and another 2 could be doable. 90-3 is, I'd say, the only one that will resist real-time skills. I'd also like to welcome lifdoff to the highscoring scene, as he is the first player in a long time to make his first appearance in the top-20 boards. I hope to see some more activity from him.

Conclusion

I'll finish off the rankings, as usual, by pointing out the total score gains the community had this past month. The community gained a total 20.800 seconds of Total Level Score, averaging almost 0.875 seconds per level — just incredible. On the other hand, we gained 18.600 seconds of Total Episode Score, with an average of 4.650 seconds per episode. As we gained more TLS than TES, the difference between both increased by 2.200 seconds; it stands over 340 seconds once again.

That's it for this month! Discuss.

0th Changes by Player since last Update (24th December, 2014) Click on the names:

vankusss (-5)

Lost 5 scores:
13-0 - Old: [ vankusss, 122.850] New: [EddyMataGallos, 122.875]
29-4 - Old: [ vankusss, 121.575] New: [ macrohenry, 121.650]
35-1 - Old: [ vankusss, 128.350] New: [EddyMataGallos, 128.500]
79-4 - Old: [ vankusss, 105.125] New: [ macrohenry, 105.175]
84-3 - Old: [ vankusss, 144.725] New: [EddyMataGallos, 149.150]

Before: 14 0th, 416 scores. After: 9 0th, 416 scores

xaelar (-2)

Lost 2 scores:
71 - Old: [ xaelar, 483.650] New: [ macrohenry, 484.600]
93-2 - Old: [ xaelar, 116.375] New: [ macrohenry, 116.650]

Before: 7 0th, 549 scores. After: 5 0th, 549 scores

eru_bahagon (-2)

Lost 2 scores:
13 - Old: [ eru_bahagon, 281.225] New: [EddyMataGallos, 287.300]
37 - Old: [ eru_bahagon, 326.625] New: [EddyMataGallos, 336.000]

Before: 2 0th, 582 scores. After: 0 0th, 581 scores

Wolfos (-1)

Lost 1 score:
42-2 - Old: [ Wolfos, 167.250] New: [ macrohenry, 168.050]

Before: 1 0th, 69 scores. After: 0 0th, 69 scores

ToeFaceKiller (-1)

Lost 1 score:
63-3 - Old: [ ToeFaceKiller, 105.450] New: [EddyMataGallos, 105.825]

Before: 1 0th, 350 scores. After: 0 0th, 346 scores

EddyMataGallos (+4)

Lost 5 scores:
22-1 - Old: [EddyMataGallos, 185.925] New: [ macrohenry, 186.350]
29-3 - Old: [EddyMataGallos, 122.525] New: [ macrohenry, 122.675]
58-3 - Old: [EddyMataGallos, 136.150] New: [ macrohenry, 138.150]
65-4 - Old: [EddyMataGallos, 116.700] New: [ macrohenry, 116.900]
86-4 - Old: [EddyMataGallos, 148.725] New: [ macrohenry, 150.800]
Gained 9 scores:
13-0 - Old: [ vankusss, 122.850] New: [EddyMataGallos, 122.875]
13 - Old: [ eru_bahagon, 281.225] New: [EddyMataGallos, 287.300]
16-2 - Old: [ macrohenry, 112.275] New: [EddyMataGallos, 112.600]
17-2 - Old: [ macrohenry, 110.700] New: [EddyMataGallos, 110.950]
35-1 - Old: [ vankusss, 128.350] New: [EddyMataGallos, 128.500]
37 - Old: [ eru_bahagon, 326.625] New: [EddyMataGallos, 336.000]
63-3 - Old: [ ToeFaceKiller, 105.450] New: [EddyMataGallos, 105.825]
77-0 - Old: [ macrohenry, 110.775] New: [EddyMataGallos, 110.925]
84-3 - Old: [ vankusss, 144.725] New: [EddyMataGallos, 149.150]
Retook 8 scores:
04-3 - Old: [EddyMataGallos, 218.600] New: [EddyMataGallos, 219.300]
20-4 - Old: [EddyMataGallos, 108.500] New: [EddyMataGallos, 110.075]
37-4 - Old: [EddyMataGallos, 164.800] New: [EddyMataGallos, 168.550]
38-4 - Old: [EddyMataGallos, 144.900] New: [EddyMataGallos, 147.025]
66-0 - Old: [EddyMataGallos, 168.675] New: [EddyMataGallos, 168.950]
71-4 - Old: [EddyMataGallos, 149.825] New: [EddyMataGallos, 150.000]
77 - Old: [EddyMataGallos, 233.050] New: [EddyMataGallos, 235.250]
97-1 - Old: [EddyMataGallos, 118.925] New: [EddyMataGallos, 119.300]
Improved 1 score:
37-1 - Old: [EddyMataGallos, 94.500] New: [EddyMataGallos, 94.575]

Before: 437 0th, 599 scores. After: 441 0th, 599 scores

macrohenry (+7)

Lost 3 scores:
16-2 - Old: [ macrohenry, 112.275] New: [EddyMataGallos, 112.600]
17-2 - Old: [ macrohenry, 110.700] New: [EddyMataGallos, 110.950]
77-0 - Old: [ macrohenry, 110.775] New: [EddyMataGallos, 110.925]
Gained 10 scores:
22-1 - Old: [EddyMataGallos, 185.925] New: [ macrohenry, 186.350]
29-3 - Old: [EddyMataGallos, 122.525] New: [ macrohenry, 122.675]
29-4 - Old: [ vankusss, 121.575] New: [ macrohenry, 121.650]
42-2 - Old: [ Wolfos, 167.250] New: [ macrohenry, 168.050]
58-3 - Old: [EddyMataGallos, 136.150] New: [ macrohenry, 138.150]
65-4 - Old: [EddyMataGallos, 116.700] New: [ macrohenry, 116.900]
71 - Old: [ xaelar, 483.650] New: [ macrohenry, 484.600]
79-4 - Old: [ vankusss, 105.125] New: [ macrohenry, 105.175]
86-4 - Old: [EddyMataGallos, 148.725] New: [ macrohenry, 150.800]
93-2 - Old: [ xaelar, 116.375] New: [ macrohenry, 116.650]

Before: 121 0th, 599 scores. After: 128 0th, 599 scores

Extra Things

Ignored Cheaters and Hackers

• Cheaters: ANGERFIST, kryX-orange, L3X, Bonzai, naem, crappittrash, Goo, Sp33dy, pokemaniac1342, ACEOFSPADEWINS, Vegeta, BAS3, cheese_god, fuckingyourdad, fuckingyourmom, fuckingcrappitrash, VotedStraw61372.
• Hackers: sry4trbleIMdone, haxYOscoreboard, haxyoscoreboard, igotbored:(, Cuppy33, alllan, ninjump, dnawrkshp, PolakJamByc, Yvsk, Marcao, luanplayer, KOKOZUDO, banan049, JC239, managans, JoaoGCNunes.

Adjustments to the Rankings

When doing the rankings, some adjustments together with the ignoring list must be done in order to have absolutely proper and correct rankings. This extra adjustments are the following:

• Add Last_FairyTail 0ths to xaelar.
• Add van_come_to_irc 0ths to vankusss.
• Take into account that kryX's 25-2 tied 0th is Legit, even though he is ignored because the rest are cheated.

And thats all at the moment!

Up-to-date list of Non-NReality and Cheated 0ths

Non-NReality Level 0ths

11-3 Ben_Schultz_11
32-4 macrohenry
34-3 Ben_Schultz_11
67-2 Just4TheFun (NReality-tied)
85-4 macrohenry
92-3 macrohenry
95-0 Mr_Lim (NReality-tied)

Non-NReality Episode 0ths

NONE

Cheated 0ths

02-4 Goo
32-1 kryX-orange (NReality-tied)
53-0 kryX-orange
87-0 ANGERFIST
89-0 crappitrash
90-3 kryX-orange