I know the current NG+ run on the board is Normal. I'll edit it to show that soon.

From what I've routed, the optimal way to run the game probably involves switching difficulties on the fly, since the difference is a damage multiplier and reflect damage is higher on harder difficulties.

If I'm using the search bar at the top, type in a game and hit enter, the search bar just stops working, rather than either actually searching or defaulting to what the actual search was. Really frustrating to use, especially when a refresh doesn't seem to fix the issue...

I assume it's already been brought up, but going to add it anyway.

Just FYI, JP PS3 runs usually go from selecting the game off the XMB, not console power on, if they don't do New Game timing (subtle difference). That said, I don't think the western Tales community has a standard, especially for Graces...

Also note that 2 player coop is a lot slower than single player. In single player, you're not bound by the character's walking speed, since Mog is a thing.

I thought the coop scaling changed at 1, 2 and 3 players (with 4 being identical to 3?). MLSTRM probably knows more about it than I do though, so I'll trust his word on that.

If for whatever reason you did do a two player run, the optimal team is probably Any% character of your choice and a Yuke.

Yeah, it also works on inspirits, but I've never gotten it to work on Venoct's inspirit late.

Maddiman is actually the fight it's the least useful on - your party isn't set up to handle him, since your main damage from before in Komasan is rendered useless. Ratelle's multi hit property makes SUCAH borderline inpossible as well. I'm considering trying to use Mirapo with a logical book to force him to attack more.

It's a 5 dollar game in Japan, and while importing is going to raise that a bit, it's not the hardest game to get ahold of at a reasonable cost. And any unofficial versions or modifications to a game or console to make it run faster is a no no, so you'll have to run on disk, probably through a modded Wii.

That said, practicing the final gauntlet of bosses on emulator using a GCN to USB adaptor with save states is an absolute godsend.

Only, most series have this. See Final Fantasy, where the picture is always the games official logo. Or Kingdom Hearts, same thing. Having a standard look for box art/game image is literally best practice for the website. Yes, it's a hobby at the end of the day. The community should still try to put its best foot forward.

You're also right, I came forward with the guidelines. I also was incredibly careful to reach out to every mod of another game with runners before making any changes. There are places to discuss if there are issues or if people disagree, which are actively monitored.

Moderators are trusted to yes, verify runs to the best of their ability. They're supposed to listen to feedback, which I have at every turn. I'm also trying to keep the boards looking as presentable as possible to people looking at them which is another part of being a moderator.

I'm not going to argue the last point and agree that yes, segmented runners are runners. I never said otherwise.

It's being taken care of off here, but thank you for your input.

Right, I agree on the any% thing - the only reason I brought it up there was that it doesn't feel all that applicable for a lot of games (DDS being the main exception I can think of). I'd still prefer Very Easy Bad End for P4G instead of any%, but I won't debate it if the runner wants to call it any% since I'm probably never going to actually do that run.

Good point though on P1, I'll message and ask about that. I'm not going to overly press it though, since I'm not nearly as familiar with the game.

Okay... Let's try this.

I'm really sorry the first tweet came off as abrasive. It definitely should have started with please and been a fair bit nicer. That's on me. and probably started the whole thing being more aggressive than it should have been.

Can you unblock me on Twitter, let's DM this and take care of it quietly. Fair?

I wish I were on the popcorn eating side Deln. Sounds fun.

Did you really block me? Okay then... :/

Going down your list Game was created before the new rules where you have to have a run of the game and video proof to create a board. Meh. The game had no runs or routes available at the time. I don't really know the history before I had mod of the board, which was when I was halfway through learning the game and when Mulsqi had finished his first run. Mulsqi didn't submit to the leaderboards, and I wanted to make sure it was out there. I finished my first run not long after. and had been actively routing and working with the game for a while. I was the one that placed the other categories under misc and removed the background, and since you were not a runner of the game and presumed to be inactive on the board, yes, I did not message you. At this point, I assumed that I and Mulsqi, who were the runners, had ownership of the board and that was that. A few months ago, I was lamenting that every SMT board looked different, at which point, I finally did something about it. I sent the PM to T3tsuya you linked. This wasn't related to P4G which, because I was already moderating it, and it was set up how I wanted it. Note that I was not a series moderator at the time. T3tsuya agreed with me and offered to make me a series mod, which I didn't ask for. I posted it to the forum at this point as well, because it was the best way to allow for some transparency and for people to have a chance to say something. This is unrelated to P4G btw, as I would still have been upset to see the change regardless of whether I was series mod or not.

If you absolutely want to see the dirty laundry, this is the tweet chain. https://twitter.com/ghoul02/status/721174519046475776 Yes, my first tweet is probably too brusque and accusatory.

That said I'm done talking about it until an actual site mod says something or has questions.

It's fine. I probably came off harsher than I intended to in the initial post due to a couple of factors - I typed it on my phone, which can be a pain and shorthand has a tendency to do that. I was also still incredibly frustrated due to being told by the other mod (who does not run the game) that I was "a series mod flexing" on a game that I run and have moderated since I started running it. I don't particularly like arguing which put me in a particularly bad mood. I usually try to be a lot more careful with words, because my goal isn't to tick people off or start drama. And you were right, that yes, I had the details but they weren't as clean as they could have been, so I've gone back and cleaned that up.

When I made these, here were my reasonings. If there are any problems or talking points on any of these, let me know.

1. [box art] This gives the most consistent look to the series, while keeping the games as recognizable as possible. US release is generally the one that people will recognize looking at this as an English speaking site. USA release is also usually the first English release, since Atlus has no European publishing arm. Where this isn't applicable, obviously, the JP box art is more than fine.

2. [backgrounds/color] This is admittedly something that people probably may disagree with. Here is my reasoning. First, I think that the website looks very clean as it is, and adding or changing it clashes with the basic design philosophy of a website. Second, adding a large picture has issues when loaded on mobile phones (admittedly an area that the website lacks in), as well as different screen resolutions. While 1080p is "standard", browser window sizes change, many laptops still only have 1336x786 screens, and 4K is not necessarily uncommon. Third, there's no way to standardize this across games, nor a way to definitively say which picture should be used. Lastly, on anything but the fastest fiber connection, there's that slow line going in the background as the page loads. It's not major, but I'd like for somebody's first impression of the leaderboard if they stumble upon it to not wonder about the design of the page. That said, I'm open to opinions on this, if anybody disagrees.

3. [categories] I think this is pretty self explanatory? I'm part of the group that doesn't like stuff like "Hard%", so again, there's maybe some bias here, but stating the difficulty and ending is imo the best option. That said, this does come down somewhat to what the runners of the game decide - this was written for stuff like Persona 3 FES where the categories were initially "The Journey" and "The Answer", the former of which was not a complete category.

4. I don't like seeing a ton of empty leaderboards, since they distract from runs that have been completed. At the end of the day, when people search "_ speedrun" and go to the leaderboard page, they should see a list of completed PBs, rather than do digging or wonder why the categories are there in the first place if nobody runs them. I know that the site says empty, but using the misc tab to hide them takes things one step further. I personally am not sure that theoretical categories need to be created at all, but that's the fairest compromise between the ideologies I can think of. If a run is done of a new category and the runner isn't a mod, it can be submitted with a comment detailing the new category, and the mod can take care of the rest.

5. This falls under similar jurisdictions as number 4, so everything there still applies. As an additional component however, I don't like it when boards have mods that either don't run the game or have approval from the runners themselves - this usually just muddies up the leaderboard situation. If the runners themselves don't want to maintain the leaderboards, that's fine, but usually, having a community work together to moderate the games the run is the best option. On completion, just request the game and submit the run. If you don't want to moderate the game, let me or somebody know.

So yeah, those are my thoughts. I am open if anybody or a specific games community wants to deviate and talks about it, either here or elsewhere, but I'd really prefer that we all stick to the same look and feel.

Looking at the first thread for this, it might be a bit clear or get muddled, so I wanted to make these clearer, as well as allow a point of discussion in case people disagree. I'll leave the first post clear of my thoughts so this can be edited as need be.

1. Box art should be the first NA release box art unless it never had US release.

2 ) No background images or changes to the general look of speedrun.com.

3. Categories should be complete. Any% is usually not a category for SMT - ending and difficulty should be preferred over vague terms.

4. Any category without a run should be marked as misc if not outright deleted.

5. Games should not be created until there is a completed run. (Older boards may have been created before this rule was in place)

Adding a background? Whatever. Doing it without talking to any of the other 3 mods is a problem. I don't want to be blindsided by this at all, and me nor the other runner of the game were talked to about it. It just shows up one day. That's not something that I want to deal with.

You're right, it's a large block of text that I've been intending to clean up, then sticky as well as allow for feedback if people disagree/want changes.

I would like Token removed from moderating the Persona 4 Golden page. He hasn't run the game so the only reason he has mod is creating the page before there was a known route or run. Usually I don't care but he recently added a background without consulting any mods or runners which also goes against the series guidelines and when asked to not do it again after it was removed, became argumentative. Thank you.

http://www.speedrun.com/Persona_4_Golden

If you have a problem with the guidelines, please let me know, but otherwise, I'm going to stick to them.

It had zero runs, didn't follow the guidelines I set up at all, and had no runs. If you want it, I'll recreate it properly but please don't do that without asking and especially without having a reason to make the board. And if you do create the board, please look at the series guidelines for box art, no backgrounds, and not having extra categories without runs.

Thank you, Ghoul02

Sorry, I thought I had actually responded here.

When you complete a run, submit it and I'll add it. However, until then, I'm not going to add it because it'd be adding an empty category which doesn't make sense.

I could maybe look into a more complicated system later, but if I did it now, the leaderboard would legit look kinda dumb... I have 3 runs for 2 categories, each on different endings and difficulties. There's literally no point atm.

If they want to use it for reference, the videos are here. They aren't going anywhere and PPJ is likely going to do a real run at some point.