Yoyo. I've heard a bunch of streamers and people in general discuss this in dotted-about places, so I feel as though we should have a centralised discussion about whether we should order the leaderboards based on IGT or RTA.

My opinion is that IGT should be the timing method to order the leaderboards - I feel as though while IGT is accurate and consistent, it's a more fair, equal way of judging a player's time as opposed to RTA. Below I'll try and address my points of view to opposing questions that I'm sure you'll have.

1. What about console runners? Should they be split?

A) Console/PC should not be split categories on the leaderboards in my opinion because there's not enough difference in gameplay between the versions to warrant it. Whilst it may be argued that console runs will now become 'more obsolete', the truth is that they're already incomparable with times on PC, so organising by IGT doesn't change this.

2. What about those on the leaderboards who have submitted without loadless times?

A) That's an issue that would be slowly ironed out over time. I ¤think¤ we're at a point where all RTA WRs have a loadless time, so it's not as if there are any incredibly strong runs on the boards that can't be beaten if the runner wants their run to be comparable again. As more runners submit with IGT, this slowly becomes less of an issue.

Was going to address more questions here but I'm having a mind-blank. I'm sure there'll be some open discussion here, so I'm interested to see what people think about this.

My questions are:

1. Is there a consistent way to measure loadless times on console without just timing them after the run?

2. Why do you think PC and console shouldn't be split? I know the runs are the same but because loads are so much worse it means a console run will never be top of the leaderboard and I think that subconsciously de-values it in some people's eyes. I know of a fair few games that split by platform even when the runs are exactly the same purely because of load times and I personally think that seeing so many times that are faster than mine and I know I have no chance of beating unless I get a different version of the game demotivates me from running (which is why I think they should be separate, to allow new runners to see the times they can aim for rather than just the best times but also so we can more easily see the differences between platforms whilst also showing fast console times in their true light)

Yo Seasoner. My response to this is:

1. I'm not sure if there's a way to measure loadless times on console consistently and accurately - I'm not sure how much it varies.

2. PC and Console times shouldn't be split because they're not different enough in gameplay to need a different category. For example - Super Mario Galaxy split 'Any%' into 'Any% Luigi' and 'Any% Mario', which is appropriate, because you use different characters who have different properties to complete the same objective. In this instance, everything is exactly the same, but you look at load screens for a bit longer in a console run, so there's no difference in what you're doing at all - just the length of time it takes your console to load, if that makes sense. I don't feel as though giving console runners their own category solves anything, because they'll still be incomparable to PC times, and because PC's faster, all the best runners will just compete on PC. PC is also an easily accessible version, and if we use IGT, it will become even more accessible because people will worry less about their load times and be able to compare equally with other runners.

Hope that answers your questions.

Leaderboard split shouldn't happen. You can already use the filters set up to see who has the best time for each individual console. No reason to do that since you can always just get the game for the fastest platform, this being PC. Its like saying WiiVC and N64 should be separated for Ocarina of Time because VC loads faster.

Furthermore, splitting the boards would just create the same problem between consoles too. The logical choice would be to pick the console with the best loading times and you're going to have the same issue where someone using the faster platform is going to be ahead. For example, you'd want to take something with reasonable load times, but also has the invisible Frink lag to clip through the power plant wall so you can chop off a good amount of time end game assuming you get it. Say a backwards compatible first gen PS3.

I think IGT needs to be the main timing method, my PB is 1:48:15 RTA, but has 2 minutes of loads, putting me at a disadvantage since my computer is a glorified potato. Plus, I'm going to re-time any of the top runs that don't have IGT.

As far as console is concerned there's no need to split the leaderboards as it is a lot of effort just to achieve something that only a few people actually want.

Console loads are consistent on each individual console, I know from when I hand removed loads from my PS2 runs. All of my total load times were within a couple of seconds of each other. This doesn't mean that they are the same as on another PS2. For example, Croc's PS2 time had much better loads than mine, this is probably due to quality/use of the disc or the console. So if console runners really care about their IGT times, watch back your run, use a timer on your phone to time how long the loads take over the whole run. PLEASE take a note of that, as it will be how long your loads always take, plus or minus a few seconds. Then take that away from your RTA time to get an IGT time.

My vote is DEFINITELTY for IGT. It makes it so much more fair for console runners who put in the time to remove load times from their run (Cough, me, cough) and it is a much more accurate measure of SKILL rather than a measure of superior technology.

There seems to be a support of IGT thus far - I'd be interested to hear mods' opinions and other people's

I heavily back IGT for being the main method of timing as loads can be hit and miss depending on people's tech. Obviously though this creates a problem for console runners as there is no proper way to time their runs with loadless yet so I feel once that kinda gets figured out then we'll be onto something

I feel that if you're genuinely happy with a console run and care about IGT you will go through and put the effort in to remove loads yourself like Glitched does. If it isn't good enough to warrant you taking the time to remove loads why are you caring about proper comparisons anyway?

(I say not even having a sub 2 on PC and my current PB doesn't even have a loadless time but its awful so I don't care.)

Hand removing loads doesn't take that long if you just do it with a stopwatch like i do (unless it's 100%) so I don't see why they can't do it if they really want an IGT

I only started running this game recently and I have noticed that loads are quite inconsistent so yes I would be all for IGT as the default timing method for this game.