Another thing that we need to know, as far as testing goes, is if you recorded your run from a soft reset, a hard reset, from first turning your console on, or did you have you console on for a while before starting your run. All these things could cause difference in loading. There is just too much that needs to be recorded, timed, and tested that we LB mods just simply cannot do alone. The more people that help out, the sooner we can come to a conclusion. If you have recordings saved on your computer, upload them to youtube and link the video here with great detail (the whole did you start from soft reset, hard reset so on and so on that I mentioned earlier).
Edit: We also need to know if you are running on SSD, HDD, sata type, memory type. Be as detailed as you can in the description of you youtube video or in your forum post.
I don't see how this thread should exists yet without any real testing and evidence. I'm on PS4 Pro stock HD and I'm not jumping on the "must ban SSD, or separate categories". Why? Because not enough evidence otherwise.
I understand pay2win is bad, but this has always existed in some form. For example, 1.5 JP is nearly required to get 1.5 Beginner Mode WR. And we still didn't split that category back when it was almost 1 min time save. Nor did we split PS3 Slim/Super Slim from fat PS3 for saving tons of time in 2.5 2FM. So it's a bit weird now that people are jumping to ban SSD without knowing how much time they really will even save in 2.8.
Here is some more insight. Someone said earlier that accessibility is always a thought in speedrunning. And that's true, which is why the leaderboards won't allow a BC PS3 to be used for PS2 KH1/2 runs, since they are extremely inaccessible and very expensive now. That argument doesn't hold much weight though here when the fastest PS4 is the most recent and SSD drives are very accessible.
Furthermore, this would add tons of confusion and also just lead to people whining about what WR really is. I don't know about you, but I would hate to be like "No that's WR for KH2.8 0.2 PS4 Pro SSD Beginner Any%." This gets confused as is with just KH2 vs KH2FM, much less with so many possible variations of setups.
So as of right now, I say they should be allowed, at least until more testing is done. Sony supports SSDs and they're not impossible to get or afford (nor is a PS4 Pro), especially when so many people (such as myself) spent $70 to get 1.5 JP just to be faster. It's part of speedrunning. Making a ton of different categories to protect everyone isn't the solution to jump to.
tldr version; Test more first, jumping to an opinion this early means you didn't consider all factors yet, which doesn't solve anything
Preface: This is my opinion. I have a tendency to phrase things like this in such a way that can come off as offensive towards people who disagree. It's not my intention, I'm just phrasing my opinion and examples and whatever else in the way that comes most naturally to me. If you disagree, that is fine.
Buy ps4. Put SSD in PS4 to speedrun because it is allowed by literally every speedrunning community, due to accessibility, support from sony, and how cheap it is. Buy HDD because Kingdom Hearts community don't want people to have to spend an extra $60 (less than how much I spent on my capture card, and most of the individual games I've speedrun, the controller I use for my ps4 since the original broke, and many other individual items that are REQUIRED to speedrun in the first place) to compete, because the run isn't accessible.
Basically what I'm saying is if you want to speedrun a game and don't have an SSD and are upset that you're at a disadvantage and can't afford one etc., just fucking do the speedrun without one. You should still be able to tell how good your run is, you should still be able to compete with yourself, and self-improve., and eventually maybe you will be able to buy an SSD and go for top times, but you don't NEED to compete with WR to be able to speedrun, just like you don't NEED to arbitrarily ban shit on leaderboards or make a bunch of separate categories for literally everything.
EDIT: I should clarify that in the second paragraph, I'm by no means trying to imply that if every other speedrunning community does it, it is correct; it's moreso that most speedrunners who have a ps4 and/or speedrun ps4 games ALREADY have an SSD in their ps4 outside of this community. As a result of the fact that other communities allow it, so going against the grain could potentially, or no, not potentially, almost definitely will, lose us interest from prospective runners in the future. That said, this argument goes both ways I guess, but as stated above; I don't see any reason that you should just not speedrun because you're at a disadvantage. See if you like the run without spending money, if you do and want to compete, spend money, or if you can't, make a donation drive or something. it's not like SSDs being allowed is going to make HDDs run the game slower than they did already.
"As a result of the fact that other communities allow it, so going against the grain could potentially, or no, not potentially, almost definitely will, lose us interest from prospective runners in the future."
I'd really like to know the reasoning behind how unscrewing the PS4, taking out the SSD, and using the HDD, will lose us potential runners.
If that sounds condescending I'm sorry, I just really want to know how this is such a hassle.
It isn't, but it's an effort a lot of people would see as unnecessary, and some people would possibly have repurposed the old HDD from their ps4 to something else, I know I plan to whenever I get around to replacing it with an SSD.
I was gonna stay out of this discussion since I will be purchasing an SSD for my PS4 for casual play regardless of what the conclusion of this discussion was and just go with whatever happens since unscrewing an HDD and replacing it isn't really a lengthy process. However I would just like to add to Biz's point since I think its actually an interesting thought.
Pay2Win is a thing that gets thrown around in any community with this type of discussion. And while I am one that thinks that if you want to go fast then you should buy the fast things. It's also not a competition killer. What do I mean by this? Well lets look at 1.5 Beginner as Biz mentioned earlier.
1.5 JP had been out since mid 2013 and was ran by the few people that nabbed it before the English version came out a few months later. However not many people ran it after English was released and therefore English became the fastest run and the only person to run on JP after that was Saiyanz (but he even ran it sometimes since the firm belief was that the timesave was little) and then in Early 2015, BB took the record with his JP copy. This is due to the fact that noone really knew how much faster JP 1.5 was until Zetris took time out of his life to time all the text differences. When everyone found out it was 55ish seconds faster, everyone started looking for JP copies and buying them to go faster and even after that inital rush, people still buy JP 1.5 after either reaching their goal in English or even starting out on JP. I would like to bring up that importing games isn't very expensive but its also not very cheap either. You have to pay a pretty penny now if you would like to compete in 1.5.
So my point here is that we shouldn't really have the huge discussion about "competition" and "who would actually go out and buy this" until we have our definitive answer on how fast it is. If its over 2 or so minutes then yeah, I would agree with splitting the categories and maybe putting them in Misc like BB said. But as of the time I make this post I heard that HDD is actually FASTER than SSD (but thats just a rumour i actually dont know lmao)
We didnt split the 1.5 leaderboards because the timesave was so little and because some English runs were still competitive (and even now is STILL competitive since sub 2:46 is possible on English thanks to clip route). So I dont think this should be the case here either. Again thats just my opinion and I will roll with whatever gets decided since at the end of the day I payed out $300 for this PS4 and I'm gonna get my usage out of it :3
Now if we we're talking about PS4 vs PS4 Pro.....
i'm kidding.
I'm glad this discussion has stayed fairly civil since I was expecting a bloody war with everyone at each others throats but ya'll are calm and collected and thats nice.
Have a good one folks.
tl;dr
I'm buying an SSD to play the games casually regardless of what comes out of this because I want it for other games Swapping out SSD and HDD aint that much of a hassle 1.5 JP took 1 and a Half Years to be found out that its faster. Everyone bought 1.5 JP when it was found to be faster. People to this day still buy 1.5 JP because the leaderboards promote that JP is the way to go because of no split We didnt decide on splitting those leaderboards because of the small timesave If the timesave is larger than 2 minutes then I agree that SSD should be split/moved to misc I love you guys for being Civil even if i'm a large butt sometimes
I know I don't run kh ATM but I still feel like my opinion should hold some weight.
SSD should be allowed and be the same category.
I'm keeping this short. If I run this game I don't want to have to have the category be an unnecessarily long name as biz said. It would be obnoxious and purely annoying to deal with. "KH2.8 0.2 PS4 Pro SSD Any% Beginner" sounds obnoxious
Comparing SSD and HDD with ps2 and BC PS3 doesn't make sense because the BC PS3 is so uncommon that it's rarity makes it 10x more expensive than a SSD. SSDs are pretty cheap tbh
I don't like pay2win mentality, but if the company who made the console gives instructions and a guide on how to install an SSD there's not really a reason to not use it.
tl;dr
I believe SSD should be accepted and put into the same category
Even though I'm not a huge fan of having to buy things for a faster time, SSD's should still be allowed. The argument of modding your console is so irrelevant because that would mean consoles with a modchip or fliptop, etc., should be banned as well then. Like overall, paying to win to be competitive sucks but in the end, that's just what everyone does to just have the best time or compete with ppl who have it as well.
Like you can either split consoles or SSD, filter out SSD with HDD being the standard or just have it all in one leaderboard if you really wanted a compromise. Like it will probably make a slight difference if the loads for 1.5 + 2.5 aren't as good as we think. Cause as short as 0.2 is, 12 seconds in 30 minutes without any kind of huge loadings is pretty bad considering it's not even moving from one world to another.
If y'all down to ban it then that's fine too. I'd rather just have HDD as standard with SSD still on the part just filtered I guess but that's me. Overall, being broke is the best :^)
Hmm, I guess I can see re-purposing the HDD or straight up throwing it away as something most people would do. I'd still like to know exactly how much SSD would save before anything else.
I just did some testing by doing a run on my PS4 HDD and a run on my PS4 Pro SSD. I went through the footage and counted every load that was 3 seconds or greater. The total time save is about 40-45 seconds depending on how accurate my counting was. I think it is certainly over 40 because the larger level loads are about 5 second difference.
