I don't see how this thread should exists yet without any real testing and evidence. I'm on PS4 Pro stock HD and I'm not jumping on the "must ban SSD, or separate categories". Why? Because not enough evidence otherwise.

I understand pay2win is bad, but this has always existed in some form. For example, 1.5 JP is nearly required to get 1.5 Beginner Mode WR. And we still didn't split that category back when it was almost 1 min time save. Nor did we split PS3 Slim/Super Slim from fat PS3 for saving tons of time in 2.5 2FM. So it's a bit weird now that people are jumping to ban SSD without knowing how much time they really will even save in 2.8.

Here is some more insight. Someone said earlier that accessibility is always a thought in speedrunning. And that's true, which is why the leaderboards won't allow a BC PS3 to be used for PS2 KH1/2 runs, since they are extremely inaccessible and very expensive now. That argument doesn't hold much weight though here when the fastest PS4 is the most recent and SSD drives are very accessible.

Furthermore, this would add tons of confusion and also just lead to people whining about what WR really is. I don't know about you, but I would hate to be like "No that's WR for KH2.8 0.2 PS4 Pro SSD Beginner Any%." This gets confused as is with just KH2 vs KH2FM, much less with so many possible variations of setups.

So as of right now, I say they should be allowed, at least until more testing is done. Sony supports SSDs and they're not impossible to get or afford (nor is a PS4 Pro), especially when so many people (such as myself) spent $70 to get 1.5 JP just to be faster. It's part of speedrunning. Making a ton of different categories to protect everyone isn't the solution to jump to.

tldr version; Test more first, jumping to an opinion this early means you didn't consider all factors yet, which doesn't solve anything

That was the thing though, Plat does have a trophy popup, as does JJ 100% in 2.5. So I would consider it pretty weird to time it by trophy pop up in one version and the other be final boss, but yet still have Gold Crown be done by a pop up. This all leads to confusion throughout the categories and versions imo

As I've said, you have to beat the game once for all of these categories normally. If you have Gold Crown/Plat end early, you should allow 100% JJ to follow that as well. 100% JJ can be confirmed on a single screen at any time you complete the journal, or if someones playing 2.5 a trophy would confirm it too. If anything, only full 100% (the category no one really runs anyway) would be an issue here, since while you can confirm it by showing the Journal and every route on the World Map, it isn't an instant proof thing like only showing Journal, or obtaining a crown/trophy.

I don't have a PS4 yet to test anything, nor do I follow any PS4 speedrunning communities, but since it's a simple HD upgrade and all games require data install, I don't see a big issue with allowing SSDs (as of now). To me, it's the same thing as buying a PS2 Slim if you own a PS2 Fat just to be faster, or PS3 Fat vs Super Slim. Plus it seems like a huge ordeal to have people prove they're not using their own SSD (I could be wrong on this, no PS4 yet).

Both 100% categories are timed to final boss hit though, unless I missed some change that I didn't hear of. 100% JJ is confirmed through a simple menu check anyway before final bosses and full 100% is only verifiable through the final screen, but we still don't time to there even though the recordings should go to that point (pretty pointless to time to there anyway, since there is no player input past final boss hit). So I still don't really see why you would change the timing for only a few of those and not all when all the categories currently time until final boss hit.

I'm not sure how many people would actually WANT to run this if it were split. I know I was one of the people who lost interest in the category when the glitch was found (as said, gets rid of the most hype fights of the run), but it seems a bit silly to make another Gold Crown category to try to fix this when there were only a few runners in the first place. I'm not planning to fight the idea though, if that's what is preferred by people then sounds good to me personally, since many other communities have to split categories over big skips/glitches. Hopefully the "No CoR Skip" category gets new runners though, otherwise it's pointless.

As for different timing, I'm fully against it because it goes against the way we have always timed non-arbitrary categories. They have always been new game to final boss hit ending. If you change this for Gold Crown then it should be changed for all the other long categories that also require beating the game more than once (JJ 100%/100%/Plat/Silver Crown). Wouldn't make sense to single out Gold Crown only. Personally, I find it more interesting to end runs on a final boss hit as well instead of when you complete the category objective.

Pretty much what Liquid said. It saves far too much time to group it together with the PS2.

I'm super late to the party, but I might as well throw my 2 cents in. I did not read 90% of the thread, since I don't really have the time, but what I did skim through covered most of what I believe anyway.

Let me explain my background in this beforehand. I came into the KH speedrun community as a Brawl Tournament Organizer, where I would write my own rulesets for tourneys and strictly run by them. I feel that carries over into KH leaderboards easily, since that's what we try to do here, where we're trying to create organized leaderboards with strong integrity. I always believe leaderboard rules should be as objective as possible as long as it's not unreasonably hindering the KH speedrun community.

For example, we would not allow backwards compatible PS3's to have runs posted with regular PS2 runs, since it would cripple and kill PS2 KH runs due to the massive time difference. Backwards Compatible PS3's are not even remotely easily accessible, while PS2's still are pretty reasonable to get. In that situation, an arbitrary rule is used to help us from killing all PS2 competition. But in a situation of asking for video proof, that would not hinder most at all. Not to mention arbitrary rules are messy and incredibly questionable normally.

Quite frankly I completely do not see any real issue with forcing video proof for submitting runs. It really should have always been like this, but back on the Google Docs, it wasn't strictly a rule then (mostly probably because Toji did not expect the Leaderboards to grow the way they did), though we were slowly getting to that point before things moved here anyway. It is incredibly easy to record/stream/upload a run (even with garbage internet, you can get by these too), as has been stated many times in the thread from what I've seen. I only keep seeing counter-assumptions of "it MAY deter people" or "MAY make things more complex and stop them from running". That's all they are, unfortunately, is assumptions. No real data backing this up, while we still have new runners popping up all the time just fine with streams or videos.

Bottom line is that it is really not hard to have some form of video proof for a pb, this isn't really 8 years ago when recording/streaming was much harder to do. Jhobz decision isn't going to suddenly stop people from doing runs or competing on the Leaderboards. If a runner is willing to put the effort into running a multi-hour KH category for a leaderboard, they are probably not going to have an issue with putting a tiny bit of effort to show some sort of video proof.

As for DDD runs, it does indeed make sense to waive proof for those, since there is no easily accessible option to record those runs, because Nintendo is in the dark ages forever. Not sure on other DS KH runs, since I think emu runs were approved a bit too fast according to Vulajin (he claims emu is always faster than the handheld), but I didn't really offer any testing of my own, so I can't say much anyway, but would be interesting to bring up another time.

@Royalcyanidefuneral the link works, just remove the "."