Editing Talk:Sequence break

==Scope==
This article was created to be a better place to document the exploits that allow parts of the ''Pikmin'' games to be skipped. The [[out of bounds]] article wasn't the best place because it has more of a focus on locations and methods of going out of bounds, and the main [[glitch]] articles weren't the best place either since often there were no glitches past the initial out of bounds movement. So now we have this article. But what exactly should this article have? What should it cover in each game?

Here are my thoughts. The only tricks that should count as sequence breaks are those that break the sequence of major events in the story, such as unlocking a Pikmin type. Thus skipping a wall to access a cave faster wouldn't count, even though it's a faster way to get to the cave, unless it also allowed you to get to the cave before unlocking a Pikmin type intended to be used to get there. This definition has different effects for different games. For ''Pikmin'', it leaves very little counted as a sequence break because of how few major events it has. Getting a few ship parts without Blue Pikmin is basically all that can be counted. For ''Pikmin 2'', it leaves a bit more considering how more major sequence breaks exist and are used in the [[5 day run]], but there still aren't many, considering it excludes most of the [[napsack]] tricks that are already documented on the [[path oversights]] article. For ''Pikmin 3'', it's much more broad considering the linear story, and there is the potential to document loads of tricks to get fruits before the intended type. For this reason, I don't think fruits (or treasures in ''Pikmin 2'') should be discussed in this article, only ship parts. This definition isn't perfect, as it's hard to define exactly what a sequence break is. But for the purposes of this article, is it good enough for now? &mdash; [[User:Soprano|'''Soprano''']]<sub>[[User talk:Soprano|''(talk)'']]</sub> 17:43, August 24, 2021 (EDT)

:When designing the game, the lead game designers had a certain sequence in mind, like what order stages should be visited in, what order Pikmin types should be unlocked in, etc. With that established, they hand it off to other designers to create content with these aspects in mind, like the area designers. That said, the area designers themselves also have an intended sequence of events within the area, at least for some parts of it. Like "before getting to this item, the player must first push this box and then open this gate", or "before accessing this boss, the player has to have a certain Pikmin type to complete a puzzle", etc. Both these "macro" and "micro" sequences count as designed sequences by the designers, in my book. So any exploit that allows skipping any sequence should be documented.

:As for sequence breaks that do skip content, but don't allow the player to get back onto the main sequence, i.e. exploits that leave the game unwinnable or let it crash, I don't think those would count. However, for the sake of completion, I reckon there could be a section just for these scenarios. &mdash; '''{''[[User:Espyo|Espyo]]''<sup>[[User talk:Espyo|T]]</sup>}''' 13:41, August 26, 2021 (EDT)

::I’m a little late, but here’s my perspective on the matter. While, yes, skipping a wall may not be as grandiose as something like Pikmin 2’s early Blues, it still is breaking the sequence intended by the developers, and is therefore a sequence break. And while it may seem like not including them may make sense at first, we still should document them somewhere, and they don’t really warrant their own article for the sake of their similarity to the content of this one. Therefore, they should be included here. On the other hand, grouping Early Tremendous Sniffer with Early Pink Pikmin still feels off, so perhaps for each game we could make two sections: Major and minor. Major should handle things like early Pikmin types or more complicated cave earlys like Shower Room Early, while minor could have simple yet still important tricks like Tremendous Sniffer early or Glutton’s Kitchen early.

::Also, why should we skip over the Napsack tricks? The Path Mistake article only says where the tricks are and gives a vague idea of their benefits at most. This article could go into further detail on what the exploit allows, while the Path Mistake article can go into some practically useless but still notable exploits, giving each article its own purpose.

::This is a message from [[User:Lord Breadbug|Lord Breadbug]], “I await you on the Bread Isle,” 21:41, August 30, 2021 (EDT)

:::You've both raised good points. I see why breaking the sequence of events within an area should count; after all, the ''Pikmin 3'' sequence breaks already documented do this. But at the same time, making that consistent across all the games would involve documenting a bunch of napsack tricks that are already on the [[Path oversights]] article on this article. Would they be on both articles at different levels of detail, or would the napsack tricks that allow for sequence breaks be documented here and not there? It's hard to answer.

:::As for the other issues, I don't know of any sequence breaks that make the game actually incompletable, because Day 1 escape in ''Pikmin 3'' does let you continue with the game if you do the right things, plus it can let you skip defeating the Vehemoth Phosbat in the regular Distant Tundra visit, so it can still break the sequence in a way that doesn't break the game. So we won't need a section for those. In my opinion, we also don't need a section for minor sequence breaks, because if we documented every way to get a fruit or overground treasure early, this article would be really long. Plus, it can be difficult to define what counts as early. (I wouldn't call the Tremendous Sniffer trick a sequence break, for instance, since it's just bypassing a single wall in a way that requires an extra day in the area.) Only ship parts are unique enough and in low enough numbers to justify being documented here, I think. But what do you think? &mdash; [[User:Soprano|'''Soprano''']]<sub>[[User talk:Soprano|''(talk)'']]</sub> 01:55, August 31, 2021 (EDT)