So something I've noticed (and had problems with in the past) is having an advantage playing on certain flashcarts with faster load times. The new Everdrive Pro saves a bunch of time loading FDS games over the normal Everdrive, which leaves people who don't/can't play on Everdrive Pro at a disadvantage. For example, I played my Famicom Trilogy run before the Everdrive Pro came out, so now my run is easily beatable just because of the new cart (a rough estimate comes to about 15 seconds of time save from the faster load times). Now I could easily do that since I now own the Everdrive Pro, but people who couldn't use the Pro would now be at a disadvantage. I was wondering if there could be a different timing method for runs that would eliminate this issue. My idea would be using the time of all the individual runs put together (without switch times) and using the full RTA time with switches as a secondary time (like what some leaderboards do for IGT; they use RTA as a secondary). I just feel like this load time advantage on certain flashcarts is substantial and makes it unfair to certain runners. It's less important for the longer multi game runs, but I feel shorter runs like trilogy runs do suffer a lot from this issue. What do others think?

The moderation team has considered discussing removing flashcart loading times for runs earlier this month.

Since runners are starting to notice advantages, I might bring this up with moderators and I agree that there should be a change in timing here.

ive been doing NES Trilogy runs on the everdrive pro pretty much since i got it. and all of a sudden now its an issue? cmon man.

It's a fair issue to discuss. On my end, I feel like comparing gameplay time is the main priority. We're at a point where some categories are becoming more and more optimized, so it can be a deciding factor. Plus, we want the leaderboard to be accessible to everybody, so we don't want people to pay hundreds of dollars to gain an advantage on others.

The solution you proposed was briefly mentioned a couple months ago by moderators when we talked about the game order for some categories, so I think it's fair. If we go with that, we would need to set some rules (i.e. when do we start counting after the switch (bootup, individual game rules), is there a time limit between games, what do we do with the game order since loading time will not be a factor anymore, etc).

I'm curious for other opinions! We will check this out for sure with the other mods before making a decision.

I feel the same with Stewie. After my powerpak that I had for 3 years broke, I got an everdrive n8 pro. This was about 1 month ago. I started doing runs on it the day I got it. I started doing some Famicom trilogy and now I am only 2 seconds off record because of a mistake in 8-fort. All of this to say, I have worked my butt off for this record and if I get it, it might not have it because of some load times. Sure if you have an everdrive that does not work, that is a problem, but you can always get it fixed someway or another. I feel like this should be a rule that should stay. If it, unfortunately, does not stay, then I feel like you should put RoyLT's runs that did 2J first back up, because the mods rejected it in the first place because of 'load times' and 'fixed orders.'

the timing of this coming up too is rather convenient. someone getting close to your wr and now its a problem? im sorry thats not cool

Yes, I just noticed there was an issue since I saw a run a couple seconds off the record despite being about 17 seconds slower gameplay wise and seeing that made me realize that the Everdrive Pro has much faster load times. And yes, in my opinion that seems unfair to have about a 15 second advantage just because the Everdrive Pro didn't exist when I did my run. I have an Everdrive Pro and would happily use it for future runs to save the free 15 seconds of time save, but that's not the point I'm trying to make. The point is I don't think people should pay more on a better Everdrive just to not suffer from a load time disadvantage. What if people can't afford or don't want the Everdrive Pro? That feels very "pay to win" for me, which isn't what speedrunning should be. It should be based on who played the games faster. If these changes are made, then it feels more fair for everyone. I just wanted this to be discussed, if nothing is changed about this I'm not going to throw a fit. And if game order doesn't become an issue, then yes, add runs back that were previously rejected because of the game order sounds perfectly fair. I don't want this to be about me, I want things to be fair for everyone.

I think it is fair to remove the loading times in-between games. I don't think it's fair for someone to have a high rank just because their flashcart can boot up games faster, and I'm not anywhere near WR territory in the Trilogy Any% categories anymore like I was in 2019.

The moderation team is discussing possible solutions to this issue.

there was a similar issue with the 1+2 categories when they were around. and it was also when a wr was in danger. in the description of the pro cart it even lists how fast the game load times were. at the same time the same argument could be made for people who just switch out the cart and loads just as fast. or emulator. instant game load. is that unfair?

If we're just comparing Everdrive Pro users, and people who can switch cartridges/load ROMs via emulator at the same speed, then no. But we're taking everyone into consideration, which includes Everdrive n8 users. If anyone is at a disadvantage, then we should at least talk about it and come up with a solution.

We are actively discussing this and likely looks like we'll have it figured out over the weekend.