While looking over some recent WRs, I was surprised to see someone had beaten my Yavin IV: Arena time. I thought it was a new route, but it was the exact same one I used, and I was surprised by the amount of time that was shaved off.

Upon further inspection of the video, I found the reason why - the Dark Trooper's Jump Pack behaves differently on the PC version Spinda is playing on.

I compared the PS2 and XBox (using OG's videos) Jump Pack, and noticed that you can get 2 jumps out a full bar, then you need to wait around 15-17 seconds for the bar to fill up halfway so you can do a 3rd jump. In the PC version, you can see that Spinda can get 3 full jumps on a single bar. I don't know what causes this exactly, but it looks like on PC, each jump takes 1/3 of the bar instead of 1/2. This one extra jump is a huge time save on certain levels where you're doing consecutive jumps. So much so that it cuts out around 15s of walking/waiting on Yavin IV: Arena alone.

I voiced my opinion before about wanting to see subcategories based on platform because of the loads between versions. I completely understand the reasoning of not wanting to do that because of loading alone. However, this is now a gameplay difference. This creates strats that are impossible to do on a version of the game that is not PC. One of the draws of ILs was that because the timing was only gameplay in the level, it didn't matter what version you played on - it was an even playing field that depended only on your ability to play the game. This removes that even playing field because anybody who tries to match Spinda on Yavin IV: Arena in an IL won't even be able to come close without either a new strat or the PC version of the game.

Given this, I'd like to re-open the discussion on creating sub categories for the different platforms - PS2/XBox, and PC - to once again even the playing field. If it was just loading times, I'm fine with leaving it as it is, but the difference in gameplay now bothers me (there may be other differences too). Even if we only add the sub-categories for ILs and leave the full game LBs intact, I think that's better than mixing platforms now. Obviously I want to hear from others (especially since this game is now rather active compared to years ago) about whether or not this difference is worth adding sub-categories to the ILs.

I copied and pasted (and slightly edited) this from my overall speedrun guides. I don't care what way the community goes, but the previous argument was "run it on the faster system", and if you're going to separate PC out, you should probably separate XBone in the overall categories because of those fast load times. It would be a ton of work for the mods here.

XBOX and PS2 run the same stats as PC version 1.0 with the exception of slightly longer PC/PS2 (compared to XBone) load times and no auto aim on PC. However, version 1.0 only came on the three disc set. Best of PC and Fan Favorites and Steam all came with version 1.2, which has some differences from 1.0.

CW 1.2 Vehicle hitpoints lowered EMP Launcher reload time increased, longer jet recharge time for REP Jet Trooper, more health for Droideka Shield GCW 1.2 Shotgun spread lowered for IMP Dark Trooper, Shorter jet recharge for IMP Dark Trooper, Wookiee time bomb shorter (not sure whether this is just 1.2 or PC overall)

PC was also deemed to be harder (especially on hard) than other systems because of AI accuracy.

And just like how the PC can't play hard mode compared to the consoles, now the PC has its own advantages over consoles like they did over PC. I think we shouldn't split the categories, as people'll look to the faster times anyways, and very few people play on PC as is, so anyone new won't want to even try to run that category

All of those reasons above seem like just more reasons to separate them out if the PC version behaves differently (especially in the context of different enemy AI). It seems like it would be fairer to both console players and PC players if they were treated differently since PC’s differences are a mix of good and bad changes. I think the argument of “just get the fastest version” is fine when the only differences are developer patched glitches or loading or something like that since the games are functionally the same. But when you start getting into actual differences in the core gameplay, you could argue that it’s not even the same game anymore.

[quote]so anyone new won't want to even try to run that category[/quote] I may be misunderstanding your point here, but wouldn't you want to encourage people to run a category? If people are seeing a category and avoiding it because of an unbeatable run exploiting a gameplay difference between versions, that seems kinda counterproductive to growing a community and competition. If the consoles were separated out, then people might be more apt to give it a shot. Maybe I misunderstood what you meant, so if I’m wrong let me know, but that’s how I see it anyway.

By that i mean that we’re going to put so many categories down, that the records’ll be muddled to the point of where most wont even matter anymore. While he’s the two versions may be slightly different, they’re still the same name, and came out as the same game, there aren’t enough differences in the core game to call for an ENTIRELY new category fo EVERYTHING that’s already on there. And also, there are very few PC runners, so most people will see that the console versions are being ran more, ignore the PC runs, and just go for those instead, creating a gap in value between the two categories. Besides, as I was told with the emulator forum, the PC version’s on steam, it’s an old game, why not just buy that one and do a run on there if you can’t do it on console? It’s not that much money anyways

Okay, I see what you meant now. Thanks for clarifying, and I can see your point. I guess thats always the trade-off when categories have so few runs - it can make the LBs look empty when there’s so few runs on each of the platforms.

Money was never my concern, I’ve just always had opinions about when to do platform splits for games, so I just wanted to open the discussion again to voice it with more examples of why I feel that way.

But if the rest of the community doesn’t want it, then so be it, I can gladly do my own thing without the LBs or submitting to them. I just wanted to hear other runners’s viewpoints about it and whether or not it matters to them.

Disclaimer: if I say something that's not accurate in this comment regarding PC or console experience, please feel free to correct me.

Before I voice my opinion, I'd like to highlight that there was always a difference in gameplay when considering PC and Xbox (I haven't seen enough footage from PS2 to take any conclusions): the AI behavior. While the different behavior might allow the same strats to be done, the consistency of these will vary a lot between platforms. Also, there must be a lot of other gameplay differences that we've not found yet between platforms.

Example: fast Hoth on Hard - it's doable but extremely annoying on Xbox, from what I've seen. Now imagine doing this with PC's hard AI... probably still doable, but way more inconsistent. Another example: I just tested the same strat that lemon used for his hard Geonosis: Spire on PC. I'm pretty sure that the auxiliary LAAT weapons do near to zero damage to the Techno Union Ships, making this strat considerably slower. He took around 56s to take the first TUS - I took 1:35 min (yes, my execution was sloppier than his, but still). Third example: I think I heard phantom say on one of his streams that wookie time bombs on console take twice as much time to explode (please correct me if I'm wrong phantom). I won't even bother getting into GC and the random menu times and bugged bonuses on PC (this might also be true on console).

Considering the Geonosis example: if you take more time to kill each TUS (remember that you run out of missiles after the first TUS, so your DPS goes down), you'll have less time to capture the remaining CP's on the map and in this map specifically, this strat leaves you with a very tight time window to do so - at least from what I've seen in my attempts.

With this in mind, yes, I'd like to see differentiation between the platforms on the leaderboards. What needs to be considered is if Xbox and PS2 are similar enough to be categorized as "console". The first problem with this are PS2 loading times, which are probably the worst between all three platforms. Having a three-way between PC/XBOX/PS2 on the leaderboards would probably be too much, so I think it would have to be at maximum between PC and consoles.

What I actually think that can be done to reduce some of the current issues is removing loading times from runs: just send the full run with RTA time and manually remove loading times (unless a good soul makes an autosplitter for this game). This won't fix the IL problems (which can favor both PC and Console atm), but would make the big 4 categories more interesting for all players - after all, those should be the main attraction for speedruns. The AI issues (which aren't negligible) would remain, but at least something would change.

Most of this is my personal opinion and some self-tested data, so ignore anything inaccurate here. That's why I thought a discord would be a good idea, so we could talk about stuff like this in a more interactive environment hehe

It's absolutely true that PS2 loading times are slower than xbox by 5-10 seconds per map, which added up over a campaign, all maps, 100%, or GC run can absolutely make the difference. Other than load times, I do believe the PS2 and xbox code is the same, and that the game should run identical, minus perhaps some frame hiccups on PS2 and minor graphical differences. Furthermore there's the problem of OG xbox/x360/xbone load times difference...

PC is more of a different story. As Timmi explained above with 3 dark trooper jumps to the console's 2, Dema's allegation of different gunship weapon behavior, and the shorter wookie time bomb fuses, there are some significant differences in the behavior of the sandbox. I've seen the video of the dark trooper jump advantage on PC, but could one of you PC folks document different gunship behavior or short time bomb fuses?

As for AI behavior, I'm not sure there's enough testing done to definitively say there's a difference between PC and "console". If I recall correctly, the reason PC hard AI is so insanely difficult is due to a later patch, which affected PC but never made it onto console (Can anyone dig up hard info surrounding this patch's release?)

Tentatively, I see 3 options:

1. Leave the leaderboard as it currently is, ignoring differences between platform. Note that upon clicking into any category or IL, users can filter by platform to get de facto subcats already.

2. Divide into further sub-categories by either PC/console (2 subcats) or PC/PS2/Xbox (3 subcats)

3. Divide as some games do, by version. Two categories, 1.0 and 1.2. This obviously sucks since all existing runs don't note which version, though it's not difficult to figure out thanks to map names displayed on loading screens.

What do we think?

At least we all agreed that loading times are a common issue between all versions, being Xbox the fastest and PS2 the slowest. The removal of these in runs could be a way to fix problems in the short-term. I'll try to do a testing run today with all the issues I brought up in my last comment. I'll try also try to show a couple of places where PC's AI seems much more bloodthirsty than console's one. I'll also try to find a 1.0 version of battlefront for PC and test a couple of things in it. It would be great if someone else with access to SWBF's PC version could do all these same things. I'd just like to ask that we give enough time to take all factors in consideration before any decisions are made, so we minimize potential LB reworks and take a better overall decision.

I’m in favor of a two way category split - one for PS2/XBox and one for PC. Since PS2 and XBox are identical aside from loading, I don’t see a need to further split it out because the games play the same.

And it’s true the filters can give pseudo-sub categories already, that’s always been an option (I usually advocate for more filter use by some LBs), but I still think PC is so different that putting it side by side with the consoles isn’t good. I’d rather use the filters to differentiate PS2/XBox where it’s just loading (kinda how some Switch games can be filtered by Physical/Digital because of different load times).

Edit: The 1.0 and 1.1/1.2 split is an interesting idea the more I think about it since it doesn't handicap 1.0 PC players. This might not be a bad way to split it either, as long as it’s clear via rules or something that PS2/XBox should only go to 1.0 and PC needs to be put in the correct one based on your version.

Shameless plug: SWBFgamers has a ton of modding data floating around. I'll just hit the relevant speedrunning questions though: Version 1.0 - Release (September 2004), still PS2 and Xbox current version (there were no balancing updates because 2004/2005, only Xbox DLC Jabba's Palace)

PC updates: Version 1.1 (and 1.11) - November 2004 --Improved AI Behavior

• Ground vehicle hitpoints were lowered.
• Droideka shield hitpoints were increased.
• Jet Trooper jet pack recharge time was increased.
• Jet Trooper EMP launcher reload time was increased.
• Dark Trooper jet pack recharge time was decreased.
• Dark Trooper Blast Cannon is more accurate.

All of this is in the official readmes. There's some stuff that isn't actually documented either. I actually think the behavior is not with the gunship but that the Techno Union has more health than in other versions. The Wookiee time bomb on PC for no reason is 5 seconds but console is 10 seconds. If there's any other questions, let me know if I can answer them. I can definitely just do a 1.0 stream someday since I keep both versions handy.

As promised, here are the results of my (brief) testing session.

1. You can quickly see the 5s wookie time bombs.

2. I tried my best to replicated lemon's strat. You can see that the LAAT beam lasers do almost zero damage to the TUS (ironically, I kill at least one of using them). I took around 4:30 min to destroy all TUS - and notice that the AT-TE did some of the dirt work for me. Lemon took around 2min to do the same thing. Also, notice that the friendly reinforcements number drops faster on PC, due to AI behavior (friendlies = numbnuts, enemies = murder machines).

3. I tried to replicate the IL WR strat for arena. I actually, to my surprise, managed to replicate the first part - after many failed tries... some of them I didn't even get close (and in a few ones I simply played badly). I think the second part of the stage helps showing how PC's AI focus the player down. This test is probably the least relevant one, but I think it's pretty clear that the AI here is "harder" than console. At the moment I have two any% runs and two GC runs on hard on the LBs which also shows in different ways how the AI behaves on PC.

Regarding the 1.0/1.2 separation mentioned by Lemon: even though there would be some obvious "transition" problems, it sounds like a pretty interesting idea to me. With the console ports being equivalent, there would be a natural separation between console and PC, and PC users wouldn't even need to bother testing/finding the 1.0 version of the game and altering the game's files for a faster version (which could also potentially lead to cheating). Also, idk if there's evidence rn that PC 1.0 has the same AI behavior as console.

I'm in favor of keeping the leaderboards as is, both games play similarly enough to not be separate games, both are called and play as Star Wars Battlefront. As they told me with the console version, if one version has a benefit over the other, than go buy that version, the PC port on Steam is no different in this regard. New people and others will view the console runs as the more popular/superior categories to the PC ones, to which then the PC runs will be pushed onto the back burner, and won't hold as much value as their console counterparts

Ok people, I have some new info.

I managed to get a 1.0 version of the PC game rolling and did some testing. From what I've seen so far, the patch notes available for the 1.2 version are accurate - jet pack recharging times, AI, etc.

What I was really curious to see was if the 1.0 version of the game had similarities with the console ports, like 10s time bombs and LAAT guns doing more damage to TUS. THERE ARE NO SIMILARITIES IN THIS REGARD. That means that time bombs still take 5s to boom and LAAT beam lasers do little damage to TUS. I also tried to test some of the AI behavior and, even though I can't prove it with precision, it feels that the AI is actually tuned down in this version.

I also found one more thing that I feel that is very important. On the 1.2 version I couldn't do the Rhen Var's OOB strat where you go from the side of the cave entrance to the bottom of the stairs, inside the enemy's main base. I didn't manage to achieve this due to the jet trooper's flight time being a bit too short - or maybe because I did it wrong. When playing in 1.0, this was very easy to do - first tried it and did it consistently after.

With these observations, I would say that:

• THERE ARE DIFFERENT GAMEPLAY MECHANICS BETWEEN CONSOLE AND PC. Since the PC 1.0 doesn't share features like 10s time bombs and LAAT weapons being useful against TUS, the differentiation, if there's ever going to be one, shouldn't be between patch versions, but between platforms (PC/XBOX/PS2 or PC/Console).

I'd appreciate if someone else with access to 1.0 could confirm the things I said in this post.

Really awesome work to research the different versions/platforms like this. Regardless of whether or not a split happens, having all this info is really great.

I brought this up in my stream once, and I obviously know the limitations with it (and inconvenience - etc, it's not a truly viable solution) but at least those mechanics can be modded. Somewhere i have recorded the initial values of the Dark/Jet Trooper and can use some tools to figure out some specific differences, and the TUS/LAAT difference can be figured out. Time bombs can be changed to 10s, etc. You can even modify load times to match Xbox (assuming your PC is not the issue). An autosplitter would fix that but I've never tried making one.

However, in an attempt to not nullify previous runs and not be an inconvenience especially to new runners with the Steam/Origin version who haven't used mods, I don't think this is a good idea. I am also not in favor of a split of the leaderboards, although there should be a pinned forum post about it (like "HEY look here before posting about 'My version can't do three jet jumps'"). It's not the same, but I've seen other games (looking at you, Dragon Age: Origins) that say you need a certain disk version and patch on PC to do the Any% route because glitches don't work in other versions (and PS3/Xbox360 generally auto update unless disconnected). Nobody has done console runs of their game, which is a great benefit to us over them, but obviously leads to other questions that we have here.

One thing I can't change anyway is the AI difficulty on Hard. However, I'm still totally willing to run total categories even if I'm not running on the optimal version (looking at you, Xbox One load times and better CW stats). The only reason I've really gotten into ILs is because of Galactic Conquest% - so maybe my opinion shouldn't be taken in regards to those. But we could easily start nitpicking response times and smoothness on PS2 and Xbox One and argue that there's different RNG because the Xbox One is technically emulation, and I don't want that either.

I'm glad we're having a healthy discussion on this though :)

Considering all opinions shared here, it seems that the players are more leaned towards not splitting the LB. I think that's fine considering that there was a debate and several points were discussed and analyzed in this post. Even though this won't change my will to speedrun certain categories, I get a little sad knowing that some categories, at least until new strats or glitches are found, will have clear advantages on certain platforms. But as noted, this isn't something exclusive to SWBF.

However, I still think that there should be a change regarding loading times. It would be simple change compared to the others proposed and that would, in my vision, encourage more runs for the 4 main categories.

Seems pretty even to me on what people want (I see 2 for wanting it split, 2 for not, and Lemon who never gave an opinion, only some options). So, I feel like it's up to the mods at this point to decide what they feel the best course of action is based on what was said/shared here.

For you console players, Plains has an X-Wing/Jedi Starfighter on PS2/Xbox, and not on PC. Always forget that one. Lucky bums. Also, I just learned the bonus "Sabotage" does not work in version 1.2 on PC, but does on 1.0, and also seems to on console.

I believe "sabotage" works on some maps and not on others, at least on 1.0 on console.

Plains doesn't have a fighter on PC, and geonosis gunships are weak sauce, but there are now a few other known benefits for PC players, like faster dark trooper regen, better visibility and draw distance, and better medium vehicle handling. It's the same core game, and it'll be really interesting as times get down to the wire to see which categories become preferably on console or PC.

Now let's enjoy spending time actually running the game, refining our strats, and beating times.