First, some background:

NSMB can be played on DS, Wii U Virtual Console (VC), and emulator (emu). VC and emu have much faster loading times, giving them a significant advantage for speedruns. To combat this unfair advantage, we previously decided as a community to add 45 and 38 seconds to all Any% runs on VC and emu respectively.

Now on to the current issue:

We decided to only factor in the loading times to Any% because it was by far the most competitive category, and no issues had arisen with loading advantages in other categories. We decided that we would bring the discussion back up if/when there was an issue of loading advantages in another category.

That time has come. GregLvk just got a new personal best in Cannonless, with a time of 46:29 played on VC. This is faster than the current world record by 6 seconds. However, it would not be the world record if we factored in loading times for Cannonless, as discussed in previous threads.

I propose a rule change: factor in loading times to all categories, not just Any%, to keep things fair for everyone. I will calculate the loading time differences for both VC and emu for all categories. Below, I have linked a poll for deciding what to do with the rules. I would appreciate it greatly if everybody voted on the poll and responded to this thread explaining why they chose which answer. Thank you.

https://www.strawpoll.me/15706434

Has anyone experimented with automatically removing loads ( https://www.speedrun.com/nsmbds/thread/soxwb ) yet? This would ensure complete accuracy if there are deaths or an alternate route is used, compared to adding a set time. It shouldn't be any trouble once it's set up initially, and means you don't need to do lots of work calculating loads for different categories, and could even apply it to misc. categories and category extensions. You could put all current and obsolete runs through the program as well so everything is consistent and accurate.

I didn't vote since I don't run this game, but if you can get that load remover to work then using it for absolutely every category makes sense to me. Hope it works!

The problem is that a lot of people record using a webcam (or don't record at all), so the load remover wouldn't work for everyone unfortunately.

We should have a standard measure of adjustment for loads for every category/platform to make it identical to DS loading times. ofc it will be thrown out of wack when unnecessary deaths are taken, but enough unnecessary deaths to offset the load adjustment enough to be actually unfair would probably make your run not competitive anyway

I don't feel like there is a need to add loading time to every category. Or they could be just acurate (proportional) with the run time. For cannonless tho, There is certainely a need since the gap became closer and it is, as you said, more competitive.

in hundo helixfossil is actually quite competitive for WR Tho, and a lot of other categories are easy to factor out

Some updates:

Thank you everyone for voting on the poll! About 80% of people voted to adjust for loading times in all categories, so that's what I will do. I have been working on the loading time calculations these past few days with help from v1bertizm. We have been making progress, but it's going slow since we need to go through a couple hours of raw footage frame by frame to accurately calculate loads. Here are some updates/findings/rule changes:

• for Any%, VC and emu times will now be adjusted by 46 and 40 seconds respectively rather than 45 and 38 seconds
• for Low%, VC and emu times will now be adjusted by 60 and 55 seconds respectively

I should have the adjusted times for Cannonless soon. When I do, I will edit this post. 100% will take longer; it may be a few days.

random question but do 3ds have any faster or slower loading times than the normal ds

I finished my method for timing Cannonless, and I got that VC adds 1m29s and emu adds 1m21s. I'll wait until vibe is done timing by his method to change the rules.

I'm a little late to this but I wanted to add my two cents. I've been thinking for awhile that we should consider separating emu runs from the rest, the reasoning being that they're not done on official hardware and thus could have inaccuracies in gameplay (plus the advantage of using a keyboard). Adjusting load times for every category is a pretty good solution but ultimately my vote is for having a non-obsoleting run variable for runs done on unofficial emulators.

I finally finished calculating the loading time advantage for VC and emu for 100%! Here are the final results:

• VC 100% times will be adjusted by 290s (4m50s)
• emu 100% times will be adjusted by 267s (4m27s)

When v1bertizm finishes calculating the loading times for Cannonless using his method, we might change the time adjustment for that category. But for now, the rule changes are done.

You guys should do all levels and NSE at some point, I could contribute to that. Good Shit Walrus