Minnesota, USATo eliminate the advantage that emulators and USB loaders provide due to faster loading times, the Boss Battles category will now be tracked with the in-game time instead of RTA. There are a few runs on the leaderboard without videos, so I couldn't get in-game times for them; those will remain on the leaderboard for archive purposes, but will automatically be last place (assuming I can do this; if not, I'll remove them).
However, in-game time does not keep track of the room between boss fights. Getting hearts to heal obviously takes time, so you must add four seconds to your time for every heart you get in your run.
The Boss Battles leaderboards may look a bit off as I implement this change. If you see anything wrong in the next few hours, feel free to say something, but chances are that I'm still working on things. I'll post a reply here when I'm done, too.
A similar change may come to All-Star soon, especially if it becomes more active.
As for the other rule, any and all top 3 runs must have a video along with their submission, unless said run would be last place in the category. If it's the first-ever run for a category, a video is still required. This has basically been an unwritten rule for a few months, so I figured I'd make it official.
As always, I appreciate your feedback, support, and cooperation! Don't hesitate to contact me (preferably on Discord) if you have any questions or concerns.
I had a request to switch the timing method for Boss Battles from real time to in-game time, and this applies to All-Star as well. Because All-Star and Boss-Battles already keep track of in-game time, it would be very easy to switch for those categories.
Doing this would remove the advantage that USB loaders and emulators have due to their faster load times, making the leaderboards more fair. Currently, due to how optimized Boss Battles (and possibly All-Star) is, it's necessary to run on emulator to compete for the world record. Changing to in-game time would fix this.
There are two issues with this, however: First is getting hearts to heal between levels. Obviously, this takes time, but in-game time is paused during these transitions. A proposed solution is to simply add four seconds per heart, and top runs pick up very few hearts, if any, to begin with. The second issue is that some runs on the leaderboard don't have videos, so it's impossible to find in-game time for those. I would like to keep these runs on the leaderboard, but put them in last place, as they wouldn't have an in-game time listed.
I was going to do this for Classic as well, but the timer for Classic counts down for each individual level, meaning that runners would have to find their times for each level and add them together, which I think is very tedious. However, I am open to splitting the leaderboards for Classic into console and emulator categories. With how optimized Classic is, this might be necessary.
I wanted to run these changes by the community before implementing them, so let me know what you think, both about switching to in-game time for All-Star and Boss Battles, and splitting the leaderboards into console and emulator categories for Classic.
EDIT: USB loaders are counted as emulators.
Fixed, thanks
Tomorrow (Sunday, March 4th) at around 6:00 PM central time (subject to change), Shadrake, Swanner, and I are doing an All Events race for MidWinter SpeedSprinter, a speedrunning marathon raising money for Maria Soria, whose son is currently fighting leukemia. We are currently the top three runners in this category, so it should be an entertaining race, and it's for a good cause. After the race, Shadrake is running Subspace Emissary!
The run isn't till tomorrow evening, but the marathon is in progress right now, and has raised $490 as of this post. You can watch at http://twitch.tv/midwestspeedfest, look at the schedule at https://horaro.org/speedsprinter/schedule, and donate at https://www.speedrun.com/MidWinter_SpeedSprinter . Keep an eye on the schedule to see exactly when the All Events race and Subspace Emissary speedrun will be.
For those of you who don't know, we have a Smash speedrunning Discord, featuring 64, Melee, Brawl, Sm4sh, and, of course, PM. It's a great place to hang out with other speedrunners and discuss strategies, share PBs, and whatever else you might want to do. I'm also very active in it, so if you need to ask me a question or suggest something, this Discord works much better than a forum post.
Invite: https://discord.gg/EK4RZMG
Because European Speedrunner Assembly (ESA) conflicts with MidWinter SpeedSprinter, we are considering rescheduling our marathon. We realize this may cause conflicts with some runners, so we're putting it up to a vote. Here's the poll: http://www.strawpoll.me/14793774
Yeah, like Shadrake said, this happens to me, too. Your run will still be accepted, as long as you're using the vanilla PM 3.6 build.
I actually do a lot of my runs on USB Loader; it's considered an emulator because it (usually) causes better loading times. As for running on a PAL system, I don't know how region locking works, but I don't know of any differences that would arise. If you submit a run, I'll accept it, unless there are other issues.
Well, that didn't work. The problem with using the in-game timer is that some characters' times are combined. As in, it takes the lowest time for one character and counts it as the best time for multiple characters. This happens with Sheik/Zelda, Samus/ZSS, Lucario/Mewtwo, Roy/Marth, and Charizard/Ivysaur/Squirtle. Oh well, I tried.
This means we'll have to go back to timing runs normally. Emulators and USB loaders will not be banned, but do not compare the times. Thanks for your cooperation.
Thanks to CountGooby for bringing this issue to my attention.
I was thinking this, too. I'll talk to the lead moderator and see what I can do.
There are categories for Break the Targets; they're under Level Leaderboard. However, Sonic and Snake are strangely missing, which is actually making me pretty frustrated.
There isn't anything for Homerun Contest though, come to think of it. I'd say it should be added, but that doesn't really have anything to do with speedrunning.
I was looking through the level leaderboard, and I noticed that both Sonic and Snake are not listed. Can this be fixed? Is there a specific reason for this?
