Hey all, after running this game for the past 6 months I've realized that there is no difference between the difficulties in terms of time if you turn off the help text boxes in the options section of the game. Given this information, I think we should discuss getting rid of the different difficulties as different categories.

I see the biggest issue people may have is the removal of incentive to play the harder categories and while it technically would i see that very hard runs tend not to be numerous and the wr in story mode (ntscu) is done on very hard mode yet only beats one other run while it should be on top of the runs on other difficulties.

What do other people think? I'd like to hear other's opinions on this?

Eventually there was no difference in difficulty and the division of categories makes no sense. People are generally only interested in the "fastest time" and current leaderboards take too long to figure it out.

In addition, it is recommended to set subcategories for those that cannot be compared directly by moderation rules. https://www.speedrun.com/moderationrules Difficulty should be treated as a variable.

hopefully there will be a verdict reached that condenses the leaderboard to story mode ntsc jp, story mode ntscu, story mode ex ntsc jp, and story mode ex ntscu. i would be good with making the difficulties variables so the runners that play on very hard can maintain that type of clout

Surely if categories can be done in exactly the same speed REGARDLESS of difficulty there is no rational argument for keeping it split into sub categories. While difficulty should be noted as a variable on the boards, it should be a single leaderboard that looks better to new prospective runners. It would also be way more inviting to submit a run if there was somewhere to do it with everyone else.

Speedruns should only be split by something that affects time of completion, anything else is silly.

haven't played the game in awhile, but I believe Easy is different than the rest because I believe it skips a few things. Not entirely sure though, could be misremembering. I agree overall though

the difference is the instruction menus showing up before some songs, however:

you can turn off the instructions in settings before the run, this makes the difficulties identical in timing

Hi, I am the mod who initially created this leaderboard and is still running it. I initially separated the difficulties as failing a level is easier on harder difficulty, leading to retrying levels and wasting more time. In fact, there were a few runs in which runners failed a level leading to a longer run. I created a poll on the discord channel as to decide if to change it or not.