Sasuke 29 Stage Two

[darthvaderlim]

Why do you think Inui reduced the time limit in 29's Stage Two to 90 seconds? 28 was far too lenient with over two minutes and the Backstream is just a swimming obstacle with no jets. Did he think 90 seconds would be doable?

[zoran]

He probably had testers run it beforehand and it was deemed doable. He wanted to restore stage 2's reputation as a speed stage and prove the backstreams place on the course given the controversy of its introduction.

[subtleagent]

I don't think the time limit was the issue, it was the Backstream buff. Keitaro and Yuuji reached it with more than enough time to clear but the buff was just too great. Even Yuuya Kadono reached it with a decent amount of time left. And with said buff being inconsistently scaled it was just unfair. Then again Kong and Asa still got pretty low times despite not going particularly slow so...

[dakohosu]

Agreed with the above comments.

When you consider that Asa and Kanno went at an absolute snail's pace in 28 yet still both cleared with over 25 seconds left, it wouldn't have been that much of a stretch to think that they, and a few other competitors, could've easily gone 20 or so seconds faster. Especially considering that the obstacles themselves weren't too difficult, but could easily cause a fatal error from rushing, like getting crushed under the first wall, mistiming a Swap SL transition, swallowing water in the pool etc.

That said, I do think 90 seconds, combined with the tougher Backstream that would've eaten up more time than 28, was a bit overkill. The main reason being that anything short of a picture perfect run would result in a timeout, which meant that any single hesitation or slip-up would likely end a competitor's chances of clearing, which inherently made it less exciting to watch. Basically either reach the Backstream with minimum 40 seconds left or you're screwed, and the issue was that most competitors didn't/couldn't. Kong went at breakneck speed and ran when the jets were at their weakest and still only cleared with 5 seconds left.

But yeah, as subtleagent mentioned 29's Stage 2 isn't hated because of the time limit, but more that the Backstream was unfair. It wasn't even as brutal as many make it out to be, only Shingo and Koji had to deal with the downright hazardous jets, and the medium strength after Kong ran was still doable by a few competitors and only took out the weaker swimmers like Ryo, Keitaro, Yuuji etc. but the fact that they were turning the jet strengths up and down based on clear and failure rates was pretty heinous imo.

But yeah, this just culminated in a pretty monotous set of Backstream fails and/or timeouts. I'm doubtful the course was properly tested based on what we saw, given that they clearly realised part way into Stage 2 that there was a genuine risk of no one clearing the course, which is why they turned down the jet strengths, and maybe this is a hot take, but potentially why they allowed Yusuke to clear because he did straight up just drop the wall and duck under it. Had they tested the course in these conditions they would've been able to see from a mile away that it just wasn't possible.

I would've personally gone with 100 seconds to allow for a bit of wiggle room and hence more close call runs, with the jets set to the same strength as after Kong's run. Decent amount of Backstream and wall fails, with maybe 7-8 clears total.