because they suck
An opinion. "Because I don't like this category personally, it shouldn't be included."
Any% WW should probably not be a category just because it misleadingly suggests such a player qualifies to be considered a Boshy speedrunner.
An opinion. "Short speedruns of any game are bad and irrelevant because longer speedruns showcase more skill." Super Mario Bros. 1's main category proves that incorrect.
I have a conservative view on how adding categories should be handled
An opinion. Okay, and other runners might feel differently, as seen in the thread above.
it potentially enables completely unskilled players to have a say in the community.
If you look at a leaderboard like Zelda: LADX, you'll find that the majority of the people who even try a short category are a part of the longer categories as well. Likewise, the people at the top of the leaderboards for short categories are also at the top of the leaderboards of the longer categories.
All of your arguments are just "I personally don't like short speedruns." But okay, I don't see how that matters.
Short speedruns are still ran faster by faster speedrunners.
Short speedruns don't suddenly attract tons of speedrunners that don't know the game.
People have still done Any% runs, whether you like to imagine they exist or not. The leaderboard is just inaccurate by omitting them.
I get why it's annoying that a non-runner of the game is suggesting the leaderboard to accurately reflect the speedruns of the game.
My goal is just to push for a discussion amongst the actual speedrunners to decide whether speedruns of Boshy can appear on the speedrun leaderboards or not. Not decided by you alone.
Because, it's very normal for shorter speedruns to exist on leaderboards in games that also have longer speedruns. Boshy itself has longer speedruns like Rage mode and 100%, but it still allows for Any% (No WW, DBO). It seems like a nonsensical, opinion-driven argument that doesn't hold up to any amount of scrutiny.
Post removed. We will not be dissecting each other's posts and arguing about this. You've said your piece. It's not your place to push for speedrunners of a community you're not a part of to do anything.
I have restored Velato's post as we feel it is important for everyone to have an opinion regarding this discussion, but we'd like to remind everyone to keep it civil. Nal and I already intend to add the category (and frankly always assumed it was already on SRC), and quite honestly the only important discussion is about whether it should be considered a main category or a misc category. I heavily lean towards it being a main category for the reasons outlined by Velato, as well as the fact that Super Mario World has "0 Exit" as a main category, Super Mario Sunshine has "Any% ACE" as a main category, and Ocarina of Time uses ACE in the main "Any%" category.
It needs to be stated that
The users moderating a game should represent the consensus of the players of the game. If it is evident that moderators are not representing consensus among runners, site staff may change moderation.
https://www.speedrun.com/support/learn/moderation-rules
This is not a threat, but a polite reminder that adding categories to leaderboards without consensus of the players is directly against SRC rules. I don't feel it is your privilege to just decide to add new categories on a whim. There should be a vote amongst those who play the game, and you as a mod are obligated to represent that consensus. @Velato is not a player of this game.
In my comment that Hachmimen deleted, I also pointed to other games in which short categories are allowed on the leaderboards, including the most popular category in Super Mario Bros. 1, Link's Awakening (OG, DX, and Remake), plenty of other popular games.
And technically, I am a player of the game. It seems like the other runners are in a consensus here, along with speedrunners in general.
Multiple problems: every speedrun is unique with its own merits. For Boshy, "true any%" encompasses a minuscule amount of mechanics compared to the rest of the game objectively, which makes it incomparable to an incredibly glitch-heavy SMB1 any%, which is also about the same length as a normal game of SMB1 - it goes through mostly the same levels. This is not an opinion. You claim it is.
You misunderstood what I was saying about the limited substance of "true any%", which is not that short speedruns are bad, but that in this unique circumstance, it's a category that's been historically considered mechanically shallow and not fit for being included and especially as the default category.
You also conveniently ignored my multiple points that "true any%" would a) not be fair competitively due to loads where competing for frames matters and be a burden to verify due to requiring subtracting loads, b) introduce category clutter due to difficulty separation, and c) there's no existing activity other than BBF's single run from many years ago, suggesting the community never cared about nor wanted to compete in this category. (Wolsk asked before for videos of this "true any%". None have been posted.)
I removed your post because you're wasting time arguing about this in a manner that's not appropriate (dissecting quotes), mischaracterizing what was actually said in quotes with made up statements, and now on top of that, falsely claiming you're technically a player with 0 submissions, which I'm pretty sure is not what SRC staff consider "players" in a given community.
It's 1 category. It won't cause category clutter.
The main category of SMB1 is an Any% category that plays only a fraction of the levels of the 2nd main category.
And yeah, it's difficult to find other Any% runs because they are hidden from the leaderboard. Or maybe there's really only one runner. I don't see how that matters. Without a leaderboard, why would someone put much effort into it?
I feel like all of these points are irrelevant. The purpose of a leaderboard is to show who played the game fastest in various categories. Like it or not, that run still exists, you just don't personally want one extra 60x40 pixel button on this site.
I honestly didn't care that much when I started this thread, it just seemed logical to display speedrun times for the game on the speedrun leaderboard. In fact, I still don't really care that much.
I just find it odd how you're so adamant that your opinion overrides all opinions, and that you're so staunchly against adding a very standard speedrun category to the leaderboards.
Any% is the standard speedrun for all games.
Easy solution: Reach out to the top 5 or so runners on the leaderboards, and get their opinions on whether the leaderboard can display Any% or not.
Another argument for why any% WW (true any%) shouldn't be a category is because it opens a can of worms that is onlinelicense.ini copying. Wrong warps can be done in multiple ways and one of them is deleting the onlinelicense.ini file and factoring that time into RTA.
This is completely different to SMB1 any% that uses warps created by developers. This is buggy-fangame-warps, instead.
Did you know this game has OS specific strats? You would've if you were knowledgeable about the game and a speedrunner of it. Which is why only knowledgeable speedrunners should be in charge of creating categories.
Some of the warps in SMB1 Any% are intended, some are not.
Yes, I'm aware there are OS specific strats. I've been watching Boshy speedruns since 2013.
And yes, I agree - speedrunners should be in charge of creating categories. That's speedrunners with an "s" at the end. Not just you.
And sure, you can try to overcomplicate the Any% category to try changing the timing, but that doesn't mean the run doesn't exist. Also, timing that would be unnecessary unless it happened during the gameplay itself, after beginning the game.
Anyway, I'll see myself out now.
You don't need to lecture me. I'm making this a point because @Wolsk has announced he isn't interested in player consensus and intends to create the category, anyway. I don't support this until there are enough speedrunners/players of the game who are OK with an objectively mechanically shallow any% WW category being added that wasn't appealling to the community in the past as evidenced by it not having been created or requested by players previously.
Okay, I've formed my personal view of this situation and I'll just tell it like it is.
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I don't think it's a bad idea to add new categories such as Any% with Wrong Warp and Any% Co-op, but you are required to create threads to discuss appropriate rules for these categories that the community will agree on
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The new categories should not be main categories because Any% (No WW, DBO) already exists, which is currently the most popular and sought after category
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Adding these new categories is a pointless endeavor in my opinion
Video where Yagamoth, a valued community member, says [true] any% would be "boring". [1]
Example of how different board cultures handle categories. [2] In Getting Over It, [true] any% is on a separate, extension leaderboard because the category is so short and drastically not in-line with the standard gameplay, the community felt it didn't belong on the main leaderboard that has only a few categories.
I think Boshy speedrunners should determine if categories that can potentially feature file modification [3] belong on the main leaderboard.
I just have to point out that the video you shared of Yaga just has one sentence of basically "it would be boring".
That doesn't necessarily mean Yaga thinks it shouldn't have a leaderboard. I mean, at very least, there should be a thread started where people can post their runs. It's a part of the game, it can teach Boshy speedrunning mechanics, it could (theoretically -- though, I'm sure it wouldn't) lead to other potential exploits in existing categories, and I'm sure there are more people out there who don't have the opinion of "it's boring".
I mean, should the run at least be documented somewhere on this site, since it's part of the game, and it's the most standard speedrun category of games across all of speedrunning? And yeah, I suppose a category extension works fine too, but it seems a bit extra. A whole new page, for the standard speedrunning Any% category. But that's just my two cents, I'm not pushing!
Hello - I'm just an onlooker but I manage a few boards and have a general interest in speedrun community and leaderboard management stuff. FWIW I believe leaderboard extensions are less likely to be approved these days (new boards in general are). I've talked with site mods where I asked "I want to add abc board but nobody will let me... so why does xyz board exist?" and they said "yeah tough shit, the rules were more lax in the past." YMMV here, maybe boshy has some legacy that can sway approvers. But wouldn't you want an extensions page only if you have more than one or two categories to put there?
A post earlier in the thread mentions a lack of incentive if there's no board. To the people who are in favor of adding the any% leaderboard, I'd ask what I usually hear in this situation: what's to stop you from just running the category? That's what I hear when people complain about some niche or smaller category not being added yet. Do people actually run this? How important is the feeling of validity that a spot on src brings to your category?
My two cents - any% runs that are way way way shorter than the main runs are meme runs. I know the phrase "any%" is like a golden standard and feels like a default category. But if any of the games I manage found major skips or glitches and reduced their any% times from ~30 minutes to ~2, I would ask the community to accept renaming any% to "any% no major skips" or something, and the actual any% would be in misc. or not included at all.
Hi @KazMcDemon your thoughts are very much appreciated, given that you're just offering your perspective and advice and not trying to win an argument, especially by condescendingly dissecting posts and misusing quotes to mischaracterize someone's position, but I will say your opinion on whether it's realistic for a category extension leaderboard to be created or not should not weigh into this decision.
At this point, it's become very apparent there's been inorganic activity from a single individual who's a complete outsider to the community to force this new addition onto the main leaderboard, and I've been retaliated against through de-modding and ghosted in DMs.
You are very much correct there's nothing stopping people from running categories without leaderboards. Categories being enjoyable and making sense is what motivates people to speedrun, and each community's unique culture allows to subjectively decide if we wish to track such categories. For Boshy, many "meme" categories could be created such as Mirror Mode, 100 FPS, and so on, which is why I'm of the opinion they shouldn't be on the main leaderboards. At least 2 other active speedrunners (Wogyt, AnsoWizard) agree with me that adding these, shall we say, "low value" categories would be pointless for one reason or another (such as insufficient leaderboard activity), which leads me to believe the only place such a category would belong to is a category extension leaderboard.
Because of one individual's persistent insistence to argue in favor of this category and being bizarrely confrontational about it (not so now for obvious reasons) from the beginning of the thread where I said that the category would [technically] be valid, but objectively shallow in gameplay and therefore, arguably, not fun, I'm starting to suspect there are ulterior motives at play. Short and low-skill categories could be used to artificially inflate activity to then create a vote majority to unrecognizably transform a leaderboard. (Although, SRC's rules do say 51-49 vote majority is not a valid way to run leaderboards, but it remains unknown how abusable that might be.)
You've asked a great question: do people run this? There's no evidence to support that. Naloa asked on page 1 for videos (apologies for previously stating it was Wolsk). None have been provided, and I couldn't find any footage through either YouTube's or Twitch's search functions. I can even offer you my subjective perspective as a speedrunner of why I think people hadn't run it: there's absolutely nothing exciting and satisfying about speedrunning a category where you complete nigh-easiest platforming sections in the entire game only to enter the teleporter, walk a lot, shoot the savebox, and then do the final boss fight on the easiest difficulty, which is comparable to an autoscroller (the hardest phase is skipped). And then you have to wonder: will we be doing variations of that on every difficulty level?! But I do realize the question wasn't directed at me, so by all means, show us the videos and explain why you weren't already running any% WW.
Elden Ring is an example for comparison with its any% Zips category, but it's still significantly less vapid than Boshy's any% (Ez, WW, DBO(?)). (Note that BBF's run uses Sonic and DB, so that's NG+. It seems no runs exist of just the [true] any%.) Do pay attention to the bracketed specifiers, which could also include co-op, if it were allowed, or permit other characters, leading to many potential category splits. Which is basically to say: our community has focused over the years on what we want and makes sense to play and compete in, and BBF and AnsoWizard have shown that you can speedrun the unofficial categories without cluttering the leaderboard (glitchless, mirror mode, boss rush, and more).
I am by no means against the existence of a "Category Extensions" board separate from the main Boshy leaderboard if there are people who would actually want one. My entire argument is just that "True Any%" is a category that has been run before (if even just by BBF) and is the definitive fastest way to speedrun the game--which has historically been the goal of speedrunning regardless of whether or not the fastest method is the way people prefer to run the game. This was not a decision I made entirely by myself, and there were no ulterior motives or targeted attacks from anyone. I talked with Anso about the category two separate times (and he isn't against its existence even if he finds it mostly useless), I asked BBF but didn't receive a response (which is just kind of standard fare with him), I asked Yagamoth as the creator of the run (who agrees that it should be added, if even just as a misc category), I've spoken with ItzFallenFly (who seems in favor of "True Any%" existing as well as adding several other categories through an Extensions board), and of course I've spoken with Nal about the entire situation (who was also willingly made a Super Mod by BBF because both of us are long-time trusted members of the community).
I am by no means clueless about Boshy, as I have not only learned the entire speedrun before but have also been watching runs of the game for over a decade, as well as contributing a few strats to the run and following the progression of it from pretty much the very beginning. I am not some random person who lucked my way into Super Mod status and is making wild radical decisions with no thought, and my desire for a "True Any%" category being added is not even intended to tell people how to run the game. I primarily feel that it is important to document a run like that, especially when the standard "Any%" run has so many different qualifiers (No WW, Avg Mode, DBO which is also technically NG+) and does lead people to wonder what a true fastest run of Boshy looks like.
I also don't agree with the assertion that the category requires no skill and would therefore make you not a "real Boshy runner" because speedrunning should not be about gatekeeping and elitism. Nal and I have personally managed a board that had a category which was extremely short and genuinely required no skill, and there were a ton of people who had never touched the base game before and only ran it for the sole purpose of getting a free WR. "True Any%" is by no means the same situation and does still require people to understand the game, learn the strats, and be capable of defeating Solgryn--which regardless of how much of it you're able to skip thanks to EZ Mode does still require a decent amount of skill. This instantly makes it undesirable for anyone who just sweeps through SRC to find short, easy categories and would therefore be considered a "fake Boshy runner."
The way I see it is that the "True Any%" category does have value as a speedrun regardless of how many people run it and how much of a "meme" it may be. This is why I stand pretty firm on its addition to the leaderboard, be it as a main category, misc category, or branched off to a "Category Extensions" board along with other misc categories people have run before or are interested in running in the future. I know Anso and ItzFallenFly have several different categories they'd like to see added which gives merit to there being a separate board. But if an entirely separate board is to be created, I'd like to see a discussion about what categories people would actually want to run and therefore have added to it, rather than branching off a single category and not considering what else should be there alongside it.
Whether a category is technically a good fit for the leaderboard, here's how that's a flawed argument: every game has its quirks, and sometimes those quirks involve bugs that go so drastically against the original spirit of the game, the community can subjectively decide it shouldn't be speedrun that way. An example of such a quirk for Boshy is the ability to start a savefile without attributing a difficulty flag to it. Then, after beating the game on Ez, one can press F2, choose Rage, and claim they've cleared the game on the highest difficulty setting. Makes sense why the community wouldn't want this to be the strategy for beating all the difficulties, doesn't it?
You may have had some kind of a private of conversation with Anso, but his post here is pretty clear: if we're adding new categories, the community should approve the rules and by implication, the creation of the category, and besides, do I need to cite SRC rules again? Hint: player consensus (or would that too be a "thinly-veiled threat"?). It took you an awfully long time to clarify you'll be doing this with the community's approval, Wolsk. (You still haven't directly admitted that, actually, have you?)
The point about ulterior motives was not about the past, but the future. We have an outsider here who's pushing for - not a completely skill-less, but - a low-skill category we've had no evidence so far there was a single person interested in speedrunning other than BBF's NG+ take at it, which means the actually "true" any% would be even less appealling. Someone you're showing favoritism toward, which makes you look suspect.
You claim no targeted attacks have been made, but I've been de-modded and ghosted for what could be considered a moderator mishap. I've even admitted this to Naloa at this point that a verbal warning would've been sufficient than the removal of the entire post. Is your strategy for working things out with mod recruits to embarrass and then immediately cast them out?
Are you really arguing the "true any%" category truly requires a decent amount of skill compared to any% No WW? Because anyone who actually speedruns Boshy would sneer at that statement at the very least. It makes your claim about being knowledgeable of the game and someone who has learned the speedrun extremely difficult to believe. It would certainly make new community members focused entirely on just "true any%" compare poorly skill-wise to the No WW speedrunners. Whether we want to welcome such community members is entirely up to us, isn't it? And we might feel obligated to weigh that decision against what's been historically made into competitive categories for the main leaderboards.
Finally, if we're going to use this thread for passing judgement on whether you've been made a Super Mod deservedly, I will point out that BBF, for as much of a legend as he is for his unwavering commitment to speedrunning Boshy and his many achievements, was not exactly known for engaging with community feedback to any notable extent. As far as I'm concerned, your preferences for handling moderator decisions are done hush-hush with absences spanning for weeks and even months, and I can prove that. I personally don't wish for any other speedrunner to be discarded as readily as you have discarded me despite my positive track record of contributing to the community.
But, yes, if we're opening the floodgates for meme categories, they should be on separate leaderboards.
