There has been some discussion on Discord of adding Boogey% to the leaderboard.

The arguments in support of adding it are: it will help the community by bringing in new runners, and give them a place to post their times; Boogey% is EarthBound's version of Magus% or Paladin%, both of which are on their respective leaderboards; and it will give people a chance to go for a PB after a run dies when they don't have time to do another full run.

Arguments against are: it is an arbitrary category; it is merely a race category; and the leaderboard should not be cluttered.

There was also some discussion of possibly replacing SoK% with Boogey%.

What are your thoughts?

EDIT: To be clear, I am in support of adding it.

As a new runner, I only got into this game because of Boogie% and have no clue what kind of times are out there. I heard about this months after starting to watch twitch streams, so it's not very accessible to newbs as it. Plus, its a non manip category which is really the only kind of run I am interested in. Just my 2 cents. Having Sok but not boogie is a little silly IMHO.

Agree with the arguments in support, especially having something shorter to run when a glitchless run inevitably dies 3 hours in.

And I don't think the arguments against hold much weight when looking at the categories already under misc. Boogey% is no more arbitrary then most of those and much more accessible to new runners. Likely going to see more activity.

I personally don't think adding Boogey% as a misc category would do much harm, if any. If a lot of people, especially new runners, wanna be able to post a time that isn't either a really long run that they can't do as often or a really difficult and/or intimidating glitched run, I think Boogey% would be a good solution to that. As long as everyone spells it right. 😉

I do see the potential that this category brings for new glitchless runners as well... I feel like if more people are incentivized to start with Boogey% since there's an actual leaderboard for it, then they're more likely to be like "well shucks now I really wanna try glitchless" later on even though they ¤think¤ it's too time intensive and all that stuff at first. :?

Personally my vote is no. I totally understand the point that it can draw new people in. That was the entire point of Boogey% and the EBSS to begin with. And that's where it needs to stay. If people want to see what good Boogey% times are, there are already places to see those times (SRL).

As far as it being a non-manip category, technically every category on here is a non-manip category, so I think that point is moot.

The whole idea behind starting Boogey% was to get people into running the full game, not just grinding Boogey%. I strongly urge anyone who is enjoying Boogey% to pick up Glitchless, or if you don't have the time, various other shorter categories. If manips bother you, don't do them. You can still post your time.

With all this said, if people are going to riot if we don't put Boogey% up then fine we'll do it. But at the end of the day I really don't think it accomplishes what people are expecting it to.

EDIT: If we do decide to put Boogey% up here, SoK% isn't going anywhere. There's no good reason to have Boogey% replace SoK%.

I think Boogey% should be a misc category, SRL has times but there are people who has better times outside of racing. Putting Boogey% on the leaderbaord wouldn't hurt anything IMO. No need to replace SoK cause it is still a good run aswell

fwiw, I vote yes. There are plenty of people that wish to participate in the community but do not have the time to run a 4 hour category (especially when early runs will be 5-7 hours.) Other longer games with partial game categories have seen great success and participation and even the occasional new strat. Pally%, Kefka@Narshe, Magus% are examples. There is no downside that I can see, so even if the upside is limited, it's still net positive.

I'm voting yes to adding Boogey% to the leaderboards, but there's also no reason to remove sok%.

I feel like Boogey % is a good intro to glitchless, since it follows the same non manip glitchless route, until time upon picking up the fly honey after defeating Boogey tent.

I really don't see a huge argument against not adding it, and there are people in the community who would like it added.

I'm good with boogey%. I'd vote yes. It will help with our tourny and give people running the category something to enjoy. I am OK with removing sok%, but if anyone wants to leave it I wouldn't argue that either. There just isn't a lot of submitted times for it nor anyone that particularly WANTS to run it from what I've seen.

Yeah, removing sok% wouldn't make sense
I agree with temple, the idea of boogey% being a category makes it more likely to be taken as an "I should grind this" kinda category which sorta defeats the purpose, but at the same time I don't see anything wrong with that necessarily? If people really want to grind boogey% they'd do it anyway without a leaderboard, eh?
That's why I think that if it does become a src category then it should be shoved pretty much to the back of misc, it's not a Big Category by any means but if ppl want a leaderboard for it it can be here. I don't like the idea of only being able to post a time if it's in a race

I'm generally against putting partial runs of an existing category on the leaderboard (since Boogey% is essentially just the first hour or so of glitchless). I would also be in favor of removing SoK from the leaderboards since it's just not different enough from glitchless to merit making it an entirely new category. Was SoK even talked about before being added to the leaderboards? I just remember it popping up one day.

SoK going up was kind of the early wilder days of when speedrun.com started. I'm 100% fine with taking it off. But yeah I think the biggest thing Boogey% has going against it is that it doesn't finish the game.

I agree with andy about 80%, but the bigger reason why I would like to see Boogey% on the leaderboard is to bring in more people into the EB com. (Hopefully) I feel like if you give someone a shot at getting a time on a leaderboard could come to bigger greater things, like Glitchless or Any%. I understand that it is not a complete run, which is fair to say it shouldn't be completely considered. I do also agree with Ceriam when he says FF4 has Paladin% which is also not a complete run, but is still acknowledged (Sort of) I would go to the grounds of saying put it far far far back in the misc categories. Over all, if it does not become a misc category or any category in general, doesn't mean I won't continue to grind it out in hopes that in the later future that Boogey% would be on the leaderboards. I'll continue to meme it up with Boogey% and NG+ runs 😉

Lastly, I'm not okay with the removal of SoK, I might not run it, but it has a charm I enjoy

I agree that, if added, it should be a miscellaneous category rather than a main category.

As for it being an incomplete run, as I mentioned in my initial post and others have stated, partial runs are common in other speedrunning communities and are on their respective leaderboards (i.e., playing up until Magus in Chrono Trigger, Paladin in FF4, and Master Sword in ALLTP).

I really just don't see the harm in adding it. Saying that people would grind it if it were on the leaderboard isn't much of an argument against it in my opinion. That means people are speedrunning EarthBound. How is that a bad thing?

I regret mentioning SoK% since it's really a separate issue. I don't see the harm in leaving it on the leaderboard even though it does seem out of place.

I agree about people grinding it being a weird argument. If people actually run this it means interest is real. I'd also point out that the super series is probably by a significant margin the most exposure that EB speedruns get in general. For as big and competitive as glitchless is the tournaments still brought more runners and viewers and it's a shame to have the best times relegated to an obscure leaderboard that only shows the top 5 on SRL.

All that really tells me is that we need to do more Super Series, which I don't necessarily disagree with.

More Super Series will incite more "add boogey% to the leaderboards" discussions, though, won't they?

I would certainly hope not as it never has in the past but If it does RIP Super Series.

Wait, if Super Series leads to more people wanting Boogey% on the leaderboard, that means Super Series has to be ended? That doesn't make sense to me.

Sorry