Hi people, hope there's still someone active here. lol

I just started speedrunning this game, after seeing Towa Akeashi doing it for months and only now I've come to realize that loading is so much faster on PS3 and Xbox360 than on original PS2 and emulators.

Since Real Game Time is the one that matters, I and Towa find this pretty unfair.
I thought a bit about it and I found two solutions:
1) Making separated categories for PS3&Xbox360 from PS2/emu ones.
2) Rectificating timers. Since PS3&Xbox360 loads twice as fast as original consoles, and on PS2 every loading takes 8 seconds, we can just add up +4sec to every loading screen to get the timing right. We could even make it reverse, by subtracting -4sec from PS2/emu versions for each loading screen, so they're still even.

I know both are kinda a nuissance to put in place, but I believe this would make the runs more fair. Of course, if you decide to rectificate timers, passed runs are going to stay untouched, these rules would apply for the new ones coming.

Lastly, I kinda a have a third option. I know this may sound stupid, but if we don't wanna get neither of those in place, maybe we could just allow hardware speedup from emulators, so the loading times wouldn't be a problem anymore.
I know already: this would cut off all the speedrunners on original console, and that's unfair too... but is there anyone who still runs this game on actual PS2? lol

Ok, I said it, please tell me what you think. Bye.

There should be something done with the leaderboards between ps2/Emulator and the HD collection ports.

The gameplay between them are only very slightly different with only the load times being the largest differentiation between the them.

The speedruns should be a reflection of the players execution and game knowledge, and the load times causing there to be 5-10 second timelosses with each load is not going to illustrate how good the run is. It only frustrates players who arn't able to obtain a 360/PS3 with an SSD, and doesn't add any incentive to learn the games mechanics more thoroughly.

Giving ps2/emulator their own category from PS3/360 or separating the vanilla/Greatest Hits versions from the HD collection are the most fair ways to to rank the Budokai 3 speedruns.

I'd prefer a rectified timer, because there's two of us speedrunning already, if we play in different categories, then it's like running by ourselves alone. lol No competition.

But ofc every mod decision is good and we'll stick to it.

This was something I have been meaning to look into, I could propose making the same changes as I have done for Budokai 1 which seperates the original game from the HD Port. In terms of SSD's though I don't know the legitimacy of installing one from that generation I am quite certain you need to jailbreak your PS3 to properly install one or do some very parculiar method which was not intended by Sony or Microsoft.

The wave of load removal from speedruns has grown to levels I never would have imagined a year ago, I do agree though, whatever gives fairest competition should generally be the call

If there is any way to get loadless times in this game over having to have it be the reason why the games are separate it would be perfect for anyone who has a copy regardless of the version.

The download on SSD thing is incredibly stupid on 360 and PS3, so retiming the runs with some kind of load removal method would allow everyone to play on equal footing.

Beside what Towa said, which would be the best way, I need y'all to recall that there is a in-game timer, at least for Dragon Universe fights.
So, if you wanna speedrun comparing based on In-Game Time (IGT), you'd just have to look it up on the ending screen results. I know it is not perfect, because it stops during certain animations, but at least it is equal for all of us, even if the versions of the game are really different.

I hope we can find a way to keep the categories mixed, otherwise splitting them for PS2&Emu vs PS3&Xbox360 would create a lot of mini-subcategories that no one would ever play. And an empty category is just useless.

PS: I almost forgot. We could even count IGT just by counting frames. 0 is the frame when the fight starts, X is the last frame where the opponent gets hit and KOed. This would allow to count perfectly IGT just by knowing the fps of the video (which has obv priority over in-game fps).

I have decided to add a variable for now to seperate the versions (very easy to revert the change), I will tackle into the IL boards when I have time but theres alot of runs to flick around with so have only done full game so far, also touched up the look of all the budokai pages abit to give it more colour and personality!

I noticed, and I like it.
I hope we can find a way to merge them back together with a loadless time.

I do play on PS2 and I can say that the load times can very but are usually around 13-15 seconds long. I don't mind switching to the PS3 version I just haven't gotten to actually buying a PS3 plus I have a lot of nostalgia with the PS2 version(since that is the one I grew up with). However whatever you guys decided on I am with it.