Categories
7 years ago
Sweden

No offense but why is 0 exit a maincategory and NCNSW and 95 no Cape is not?

AntBlueR likes this
Colorado, USA

Because the leaderboard in general is ran by biased individuals who will shut down any outside opinion including your own very quickly.

AntBlueR and Volpey like this
Sweden

Out of a new runners perspective you chose a run that looks cool and entertaining that requires alot of skill most of the time, both of the 2 categories i mentioned looks far more interesting than lets say No Starworld with cape and 0 Exit, hiding those categories might make a new runner not want to run the game. I have asked Ellonija several times to run SMW and he has replied that he doesn't want to but if he would he would definetly chose NCNSW which leads me to that maybe we'd have more runners of this game if they saw it as a maincategory, i know alot of viewers find it dull to tap left over many stages.

AntBlueR likes this
United States

If being biased means giving more weight to people who have ran this game for years rather than months and to those who actually contribute to the community consistently, then yes, the people who run this leaderboard are biased.

Don't lash out at the mods and expect your opinion to hold more weight in the future.

Edited by the author 7 years ago
WitheredRxse and AntBlueR like this
Colorado, USA

I'm not saying they are wrong all the time, but they should always be open to new ideas. I have never once seen a suggestion, no matter how valid, go through mods in this community. Even something as simple as saying "No Cape, Goal" and "Goal, No Cape" should be changed has been denied. It is logical and formal, but the mods are so blind to see why the inconsistency is wrong. It's understandable to baby a leaderboard like this when they put so much effort into it, but rejecting the communities ideas one by one every single time without fail is wrong in this case. A line has to be drawn, no community is perfect and there's always a way to improve.

AntBlueR likes this
Pennsylvania, USA

Oh good, I only missed the previews. Anyone else want some popcorn?

AntBlueR and Parkraft123 like this
Alberta, Canada

As I new runner I think that 0 Exit as a main category makes sense. It's the fastest anyone can possibly do the game and I think that's very important.

AntBlueR and Jumpyluff like this
British Indian Ocean Territory

Putting aside the criticism of the moderators here (which I don't agree with; all interactions I've had with them suggest that they are wholly acting in favor of growth of the community), Akisto's question seems reasonable. There's already a board for extra categories at http://www.speedrun.com/smwext for less optimized/less serious categories. Everything on the main boards is relatively serious and important, so splitting them into miscellaneous and main categories seems kind-of arbitrary. It also seems unnecessary to have a split at all as the header can fit all of the categories if it's simply extended to 2 lines, which is not really a big issue. So it would be nice to know what the split is supposed to signify about the categories and why certain ones are considered main categories and others are miscellaneous.

Actually a few months ago, NCNSW was listed as a main category, and All Castles as a Miscellaneous one. Then one day their positions were flipped on the boards to what it is now. As best I can tell there was no official notice, and the decision was not explained. I tried asking in Discord what the reason was for the change, but no one could give me an answer beyond "Volpey wanted to change it" or something like that. So it seems (to a non-mod like me) like a haphazard decision.

I suspect there was a better reason for the change, but I don't know what it was, and no concrete metric I can think of would rank NCNSW as only the 7th most important category in the game. If the split is based on the number of runners, NCNSW beats out low% and 0 exit. If it's based on the perceived quality of the run, then both as a viewer and a runner, NCNSW seems to be head-and-shoulders over NSW (I've talked with several top RTA runners including multiple leaderboard mods and they all seem to agree with me on this), and at least comparable to All Castles if not better. If it's based on the historical importance, note that prior to the existence of this board, when the leaderboards were on the wiki, NCNSW was actually listed above both NSW and low% (only behind 11 exit and 96 exit), and All Castles and "Credits Warp" were considered miscellaneous categories. If it's based on the relative level of optimization, the top NCNSW runs seem pretty comparable in quality to the other mid-length categories; actually there's probably more realistic timesaves remaining in All Castles than in NCNSW. So I could see a case for ranking NCNSW below some of the current main categories, but not all of them. The case for 95 NC is weaker, but many of the same points apply.

I'm not saying that the current split is wrong, just that it would be nice to have some transparency about how the decisions are actually made. Depending on the reasoning, it could also have an affect on me personally, as I primarily do strat-finding for what seems to be the "major" categories (I have limited time and all that). So if there's a concrete reason to think that certain categories are fundamentally less important, I'll spend less time thinking about them. But if the split is just a product of what is recently popular, I'd probably mostly ignore it and work on whatever I presently care about the most, since popularity seems to change a lot more quickly than strats do.

Edited by the author 7 years ago
Obroe, AntBlueR and 5 others like this
Mexico

I'm no expert on the topic but here are my thoughts:

I agree with what OP is saying because I don't really like the 0 exit, and it has significantly less runs than most of the other categories, but the thing is, it's pretty much the any% of SMW, wether you like it or not, it's the fastest way to beat the game right now, so it would be stupid to not be a main category.

However, in regards of the main and misc categories, I would like some changes to be made, for me, it doesn't make sense that NCNS and low% are main categories, when no starworld is a misc category, that's the only thing I wish they changed, because I think they have way too much self-imposed restrictions to not be a misc category.

And, for the guy saying that they are given more weight to people that have been around for years.... I don't know if it's true. but I don't agree with it. Yeah sure let's have some respect for them, but whatever choice is made should be based around the game and the community overall, not just a couple of people.

Also as a final comment, I've seen other threads here and the SMW community doesn't seem too friendly, specially with new people like me, which is sad, because I love the game and I constantly want to get better at it, but peopole just make me want to not be part of the community.

AntBlueR, AlexTHF, and Jumpyluff like this
Sweden

just because its the fastest way doesn't mean it should be on the leaderboard, take Pokemon Yellow for example, you can beat that game even faster than SMW i believe and they don't have a leaderboard for it :p

AntBlueR likes this
Colorado, USA

That's because there would be a lot of 1st place ties. I think 0 exit is fine as a main, but there are a lot of others that should / shouldn't be main/misc. It's not reflective of what the community wants at all.

Just the fact that NCNSW is main and No Star World is misc is confusing. It's an extra arbitrary restriction and has a LOT less runners. The site as a whole is littered with crap like this.

Edited by the author 7 years ago
AntBlueR and McBobX like this
Sweden

No Star World is a terrible category because its too easy, NCNSW is more appealing for viewers/new runners

AntBlueR and Cannalyst like this
Michigan, USA

We had a mod discussion about this and the overall thought was that the distinction between main and miscellaneous categories is purely visual and holds no meaning. The more popular categories at the current time get their own tabs so that people can get to them quicker. Our real "split" between "real" and "arbitrary" categories is our split Category Extensions leaderboard. Eventually we would like to merge the two; maybe then the miscellaneous tab will hold more meaning.

Obroe, AntBlueR and 3 others like this
Colorado, USA

And wouldn't making 'no cape' a subcategory (literally exactly what it is supposed to be used for) fix this? You would be able to show the categories you're currently showing, no star world, 95 no cape, 11 no cape, etc: everything the community has been asking you for one thread at a time.

AntBlueR likes this
Michigan, USA

"No Cape" categories aren't viewed as subcategories to us, so it wouldn't make sense to use that feature. They are different enough from their "with cape" equivalent that we just see them as entirely different categories. In particular, the one example you listed, 95 No Cape, doesn't even have the same name since you can't do one exit. Are we supposed to change the category name to "96/95 Exit"?

Also,

everything the community has been asking you for one thread at a time Give me a fucking break.

AntBlueR, keap3 and 6 others like this
Morocco

Normally, in every game, there are only 3 (or more) main categories: Any%, 100%, Low% and Glitched (if exist), and Warpless (sometimes), applying this to SMW will give that: -Any% is 11-exit. -100% is 96-exit. -Low% is small only (I think). -Glitched is 0-exit. Warpless in this game has 2 possibilities: -If we comparing against the Any% because it uses Starworld as warp then a warpless run means that it avoids it which give that Warpless is No Starworld -If we comparing against Any% because it doesn't clear every castle then Warpless is All Castles. Other categories like NCNSW or 95-NC or so are misc as they just add some other unnecessary conditions to make the speedrun a bit hard, so if these are main for example, then a new runner will keep running only categories that will feel comfortable with and avoid others while there are more interesting categories but in misc and he won't take a look at them, and thus having less players. Currently, No Starworld has more than 120 players while NCNSW has only around 80 players. This is only my view point about categories in SMW.

Edited by the author 6 years ago
AntBlueR and fitz1889 like this
Staffordshire, England

The latter half of this thread perfectly sums up why I think people who don't run a game a lot shouldn't have a say in the way its leaderboards are maintained. Sorry to sound like a dick, cause I know I do right now, but they simply don't understand the game as much. The usual categories of "100%" etc just don't make sense to apply to SMW for various reasons which pretty much all runners understand and agree on.

The whole reason there's always so many arguments over category names is because people try to define them based off of how other games define them. That's a problem. SMW is SMW. You can't base a name or ruleset off a different game because it's exactly that; different. If all games worked the same then sure, moderate them the same way... but they don't. So they aren't.

(Again, apologies if I sound like an ass; I just get passionate about this lol)

WitheredRxse, AntBlueR and 3 others like this
North Carolina, USA

Xander is right. He does sound like an ass. :P

But also he is correct as well.

Also, holy heck, imagine caring about whether your favorite category is visible, under misc, or on the meme boards. Like honestly who cares? Just run the category you want to and submit to the leaderboard if you feel like it. It's not as if NSW got deleted or something. There are just like 800 categories for this game and to keep it uncluttered, the subjectively "best" categories are visible, the rest tucked away under misc. Most (but not all) runners of SMW agree that NCNSW is a category that is more worth highlighting than NSW.

Let the salt flow though. It's kinda amusing.

AntBlueR, keap3 and 3 others like this
Kentucky, USA
Moderatorkeap3
He/Him, They/Them
2 years ago

:)

AntBlueR likes this
São Paulo, Brazil

didn't know about this thread tho

AntBlueR likes this