I have done quite a bit of IL runs the last couple of weeks and I did finally find out the reason behind why the best time at the end of a race sometimes gets updated with a worse time, I call it the null value glitch.

If you look at the leaderboard you will notice that unless the time is a XX.00 flat, there are no XX.X0 IL times at all recorded throughout the entire history of the game. Considering how many IL runs there has been this is statistically unlikely, yet plausible, and I know that the timer acts strangely and speeds up after a new second is started (this can be seen quite easily if you keep your eyes on the IGT during footage of the game), so I got a bit curious about it and started to as I always do when I am curious about how oddities works in game look at it a little bit deeper.

So I started to look at runs frame by frame to see what is going on with the timer, in particular on one IL run I did where I started to notice that FLAP runs that by all means should have been PBs were actually given quite terrible times. I looked at individual frames in my video editor, and I did notice one pecurial thing. Between two nearby frames the timer went from a XY:4Z to an XY:2Z, time had somehow magically rewinded between these two frames.

I kept looking and saw this consistently happening during the first tenth of a second on a new lap. The most plausible explaination for this is that somehow the developers made the 0 in the tenths of a second a null value, meaning that instead the hundreths of seconds are being displayed there instead, and the thousands of a second being displayed on the thousands spot, or, worse yet but not implausible considering that this is HKK (I haven't looked into this posibility yet), junk data is being displayed. Although, it seems to only go up until it reaches 9 so it is most plausible that it is the actual hundreths and thousands of seconds being shown, and the heavy speedup on the timer also implies the former theory rather than it being due to junk data being shown.

This does beg the question, how do we handle this information when it comes to IL timing? Personally during my grind I did treat the IL timer as law. This is in part because this glitch is by its nature never beneficial, and I rather have runs being corrected downwards than upwards, it is fair as it affects all runners equally, but it is also because the glitch could just be so bad to spot if it happens on lap 2 or as the final time as the only really easy way to tell it happens is if one during lap 3 gets their best time changed to a higher time (as a 31.03 is better than a 31.120 as an example, even though the 31.030 is displayed as a 31.30) which could make retiming runs a nightmare for runners to know if they truly got a PB or not, assuming they KNOW about this glitch, and the reason why I make this forum post now when I have discovered it to make it fair. I do also think there is quite a good utility to use IGT for ILs which are measured down to hundreths of a second for that same reason, to make it so half a session of IL attempts are not spent retiming runs as some levels are getting quite competitive to the point that the difference between runs are hundreths of a second. But I would love to inform people about this and a set stance on this by the mod team.

Also, this glitch seems to be present in both the Wii U and Switch version of the game.

I could see this category for the master stages scores being a fun run, but for the play-o-pedia? That would probably be too long of a run for what it is.

EDIT: With that said, I do think I personally would probably try to run both, but I am not sure how many more would.

Basically in this category only 2 things would matter, RNG and how fast you finish the boss fight. It wouldn't take many hours to get perfect RNG and a decent boss fight on a level, but each subsequent attempt would have to take about that long just to get an attempt at the boss fight. In such a category we basically would just throw 15 dices in a row (you will also NEED to get the good character for the boss) to see if we get to the part of the run where execution matters, which imo doesn't sound like an amazing time.

Continues does not work when going for high scores, so that ruling would not be needed. I do like the idea of a category that sees more than stage 1 of each level tbh. :)

Did the rule change happen? I still see old runs on the board and no changes in the rules on the leaderboard. I want to know as I am going to start practicing levels soon, and I do not want to submit illegal runs nor unoptimal runs. I will start with all the 1st levels where the rule chane makes no difference first though.

Manually removing loading times on console runs is a very rough and time consuming task. I know some games which does this, but that is normally because the game is also on PC and does not have autosplitter already and the community REALLY wants to avoid having an arms race to have the best computer. I do not think I have ever seen a Switch exclusive game remove load times just because physical loads slower though. Not even for runs where this has a FAR bigger impact and a far bigger community such as Breath of the Wild where you lose minutes to loading times.

Due to the fact that the people who will feel the greatest consequence of this decision will most certainly be the mod team I think this is a question for the mod team.

I do not think subcategories is a good solution here as I do not think the time loss by physical is large enough to completely alienate physical runs from the main leaderboards. I do, however, think adding a variable for physical in the same way as there is a variable for which region your console is set at is a great solution here as that allows people to see if a run was performed on physical or digital, and this is how many communities solves this on other Switch leaderboards (MK8DX is one example where this happens).

On the topic of the new categories, on paper I do like the idea, but I am not sure if there is merit to those categories as we already have all boss fights. My reasoning here is that most time losses and time saves in WarioWare: Get it Together is found within the boss courses. What we would be doing here is to try to get a run where we get all first exits (which is really easy if we get to pick character, and is 90% an RNG fest if we don't), which might sound like a good idea on paper, but leads to that most of the run will be an autoscroller and about who is the best at menuing.

I am personally not a huge fan of runs where the lion's share of time save and time losses happens due to menuing. I am personally not opposed to more categories, but I am not certain what this category would add as so much of the time save and time loss would exclusively be due to menuing.

My stance on this would be different if there was other gameplay elements in the other categories than the microgames, but there are already microgame only categories. The big advantage of this category though that I can't deny is that it would remove almost all RNG, but I am still not convinced.

All stages, on the other hand, I do fully approv if what I assume it correct, which is all microgames stage 1-3. That category adds elements that no other category (except all missions) currently has. I am fully on board for that being a category despite sharing many of the issues with the previous category due to this.

I hold no strong feelings either way as I have said previously. There is merit to both points, but if I had to chose I would go with free starting position as that makes it posible to submit good individlal times from full game runs. However, due to the fact that Wii U is faster from a driving perspective after 1.0.1 and the Wii U version being pretty horrible to do full runs on I think this is a minimal point in favour of it, but ultimately, I do slightly favour free start.

But I do, once again, hold no strong feelings either way on this topic and my opinion is heavily affected by the fact that I primarely run this game in full rather than individual levels.

Yeah, the reason why I have mixed is mostly because I did update some of my PBs with older runs, currently waiting for a Wii U charging cable as driving is faster on the Wii U on many courses due to the infamous 1.0.1 update to the Switch version.

Initially I thought it was practice position (as in last place), but once I saw that someone posted runs where they started in 1st I assumed that was the way to go, especially as the runner who started to post these is a leaderboard moderator.

I hold no strong feelings either way (except that I might have to change the titles of some videos), both timing methods have merit to them to be honest.

The versions issue is not just tied to longer loading times, but the games are entirely different games and some courses are even different, at the boating course of tour 3 for example there are some acorns dropping in the Wii U version that are not present in the Switch version. In addition to that, the Switch version does after 1.0.1 on the Switch has a "fix" added to the walls when you drive with the car (where it converts horizontal speed to vertical speed to make you go slower for touching walls).

The only way to make Switch and Wii U versions fair is probably by having separate leaderboards, and I would also strongly encourage having a 1.0.0 legacy leaderboard as many categories are far harder to run due to the 1.0.1 wall "fix".

EDIT: To add to the topic of the IGT, the reason I thought the milliseconds wasn't used was because they seem inaccurate. But for ILs it should absolutely be usable. For full game runs I do not quite like it at all though.

I personally think there might definitely be some value to having a split for any character you want or story character.

EDIT: If not two categories, the any% forced is probably by far the most interesting one.

I really DO like the idea of this category quite a lot to be honest. Absolutely second making this a category. :)

I just looked at some gameplay of the Wii U version of this game, and it does look like an entirely different game than the Nintendo Switch version. The game uses different graphics engines and I can swear they have fundamentally different engines for physics and such, with the Wii U version being far closer to the PC version.

HUGE differences includes some extra course obstacles on the Wii U version that are not there in the switch version.

This never crossed my mind before as I never looked at runs of the Wii U games before as they are far slower than the Switch version, but due to this I feel like there would be value to making these separate categories or maybe even games all together due to how large the differences are.

Seems they haven't fixed this weird patch yet. Shall we just add a split for version 1.0.1 and 1.0?

A new update has arrived for this game on the Nintendo Switch about half an hour ago. I have been playing around with it for a bit, but the biggest change so far seem to be that they might have changed how walls operate in the game as they actually seems to impact your speed if you drive into them (and confirmed 100% that they added the fantastic creative touch of making touching walls making the camera act up like crazy when driving the car) and that boating controls seems a bit better. The changes are definitely huge enough to justify making old runs a legacy category eventually from my opinion as if the wall speed decrease is real, that might make some categories unbeatable and the fact that this game currently feels and plays like a different game.

I would however, wait a bit with doing this update as I have a feeling they will release a new patch soon as some sprites are broken, but it is still something I would personally recommend.