I actually was learning All bosses (Normal) before the patch happened. Since the patch, I've been forced to sit here waiting since it's still unclear how the categories will be handled. And I'm not blaming anyone, I'd rather wait and have it done properly than otherwise. Just stating my own 2 cents that most other speedrunning communities I'm part of have the most accessible version as the "main" speedrun so to speak. For example in the KH community, the JP versions are always faster and sometimes buggier than English, but English is often the main category, since it's most accessible and most commonly ran. People may not prefer the new patch, which is why the old patch can still have its own categories, but I personally hope the new patch will become the main route. PC users and Xbox users would both be able to run, and feel they have a purpose to run. As a new runner to this game, I definitely won't have any motivation to run "dead" categories just because PC users prefer the old patch. Looking forward to when you guys come up with the resolution.

I promised myself as someone who has never done an actual KH run I would keep my comments only on twitter, but also as someone has done speedruns of other games in the past, and someone who has watched this community grow for a few years now, I'm gonna chime in anyway. I am 100% for video proof on all leaderboard runs (cept for 3DS). ¤Warning- there will be a lot of smash examples I use, gimme a break I've been in competitive smash for 8 years lol

I wanna start by saying my interest in speedrunning myself was basically revived recently as my interest in smash is fading. The very first point I'm going to say here is I'm not on board with with cut-off times. Just for the soul fact that I haven't ever done a run makes me feel not 100% a part of the community. Not that I don't feel accepted by all of you, I do even though I haven't contributed anything. However, not having my name listed on any game's leaderboard on here makes me feel that way. Now, if I did decide to run KH, I'd want my absolute very first run to be on the leaderboard. It could very well be that my first run's time isn't good enough to meet the cut-off. You'd think that shouldn't matter, but it does- and that it should motivate me to keep going for a better time until I do meet the cut-off, but it doesn't. I want my run to be enforced with the same exact rules as everyone else, and that not being the case makes me feel like my run is not legitimate and doesn't actually mean anything to the community. In smash, EVERY player's results and wins are looked at extremely closely when we make our monthly power rankings, even players who attended one tourney some have never heard of. The conclusion we come to is yeah, some players are better than others, and there's always a best player with the best results. But they're all treated equally. Results, wins, losses, seeds, everything is treated the same. There's no bias, so it's very easy to feel welcomed in that sort of community and see you're impacting it the second you enter a tourney even with like 5 people in it. Shouldn't all of the runners in this community deserve that same feeling of belonging? I can safely say I would be one of the discouraged ones if my time wasn't treated with the same rules as everyone else's just because it was slow. You know what happens to discouraged smashers? They quit. I bet it could be the same in speedrunning. So already you have me: one person who would not want to do runs of this game unless video-proof is required for everyone, AKA same rules for all.

BB made a good point earlier however saying that new players don't really know where to start, and it's not fair to force them into an overcomplicated scenario. I totally get that, but again, picking up a new hobby and joining a new community usually involves a sort of "wake-up call" moment. Again in smash, even if you're a new player, you have to know how the community's ruleset works. You have to know what stages are legal, that items are set to off, that stalling is banned, what the time limit is, what the mode is, and just a shitload of stuff that you have to know upon entering a tourney. Or if you don't you're told on the spot and are like "oh shit I didn't know what". Well, now you know for next time. New speedrunners of KH should be able to respect how your leaderboards are managed and they're taken seriously, like any other community. It shouldn't be a hassle to demand video-proof from new runners, or if they didn't know then hey, let them know for next time and why. And not only this, but newbies might not even know about leaderboards at first to begin with. I had no idea communities has leaderboards when I speedran pikmin the first time, and that smash had power rankings at my first tourney.

There are the other points I could touch on but they've all been nailed on the head by Hobz, Timmi, Spike etc. All hobbies require money, AGAIN in smash you have to pay venue fee for every tourney you go to, even if you're not entering which can range $5-15 for locals and up to $100 for nationals. Not to mention money for a controller, the game, the console, even the DLC stages/characters.

The very last thing I wanna mention is this. I keep seeing people say "well this community does it this way" as reasoning for how our leaderboard should do things. First of all different regions in smash use different rulesets all the time based on what the majority of THEIR players want. YOU decide how legitimate you want your leaderboards to be. Yes speedrunning is a hobby, but it brought us into a community. There needs to be some form of organization and consistency here and if we want to keep growing, which is why smash has to come to conclusions on rulesets too or else they'll never be taken seriously (like customs being legal in smash 4 oh god) and look how HUGE smash is now that they've become so professional. Just saying. Do YOU want your leaderboards to be serious? Because I feel they can only be serious if you take ALL the times on them seriously as well, not just WRs. So you decide just how important the runs are of new players with slower times. I firmly believe their times should be treated just as importantly as the others. I know my first shitty run would still mean a lot to me, but that won't be the case if it doesn't matter to the community I'd want to be a part of. Consistency is important too.

Anyway end rant. Thought I'd pitch in as someone who is MAYBEEEE considering running a KH game in the future. SORRY FOR SO MANY SMASH EXAMPLES FUCK