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.
I agree with IGT for all-star and maybe for classic mode. But I'm going to focus on the emulator/console issue.
I don't think we should split up the categories with load times, like subspace, Event Mode etc. I think it fractures the leaderboard when it doesn't need to be. I might be over generalizing here, but I don't think many people load off disc to play PM anymore. A lot of Wiis cannot read Brawl discs anymore, so players MUST USB load.
So, if a split were to happen, some players would have ZERO chance to compete in the console category because they can't load Brawl off of a disc, while console players could compete in both. It just seems unnecessary to split a niche speed game into more categories to appease a few players that choose not to USB load on console.
I will personally help anyone setup USB loader on console, it takes less than an hour to do. If you're going for efficiency, then play on the fastest version of the game.
You know my opinions on IGT for Boss Battles, I'm all for it. The 4 second penalty is totally fine for hearts still, imo. I haven't actually touched All-Star in ages, so I can't confidently give my opinions on that (but my thoughts on boss battles probably apply to all star, I'd imagine).
I don't have strong enough opinions on anything else to argue for those things, though.
I completely agree with changing All-Star and Boss Battles to IGT. I have no preference when it comes to Classic.
I'd say copy what the Brawl leaderboards do. Since Brawl uses In-Game time for All-Star do the same for PM All-Star.
