Hi, so I'm sure anyone who's seen the Resident Evil boards knows that Resident Evil games have like a million categories. Bear with me, but I want to figure out how to get the RE community in general to just stick with a nice, clean leaderboard system but still be happy with the appropriate rank/category. Right now, it's a hotbed for free WRs, and while anyone is free to call whatever run they want WR for whatever reason, it makes the leaderboards look like a convoluted mess and I really want other people to play and not have to see it look like a trainwreck.

Resident Evil 4 and Resident Evil: Code: Veronica are fine under the standard "Full Game" leaderboard system (fundamental gameplay is exactly the same, the only difference is load times, and 99% of people play on the fastest version anyway), but Resident Evil 2 for instance is a case of an extreme scenario that is next to impossible to categorize under only one leaderboard with dropdowns and still be fair. We had to opt for turning it into an "IL" system.

The way the categories are tiered in the RE2 community, at a base level, goes something like this:

-Platform (GCN, PS1, PSP/Emu, and PC absolutely cannot exist together, because of massive In-Game timer and load/gameplay differences) -Difficulty -Character/Scenario -Then MAYBE any%/low%/100%.

Say for instance you have a PC/Hard Mode/Leon A run.

My own run should be 3rd place if "variables don't obsolete each other": http://gyazo.com/361aadbe1899a0cb87604f5dd65e026a

However, whether I make "variables don't obsolete each other" or not, this Hard Mode run is listed overall as "22nd place" (and lumped in automatically with the Normal Mode runs) when you look at my profile: http://gyazo.com/ef72491ebf058ac3a5505c4e783fd667

If I changed this board to "variables obsolete each other", then the next PC/Normal Mode/Leon A that I submit would throw my PC/Hard/Leon A into a lower ranking.

Obviously, the only way to fix it would be to separate it into another PC/Hard column (or PC/Hard leaderboard if it were a default leaderboard, but that also means I have to separate Leon A, Claire A, Leon B, and Claire B one more time each, and it would look like garbage). I don't wanna do that.

Another such instance of this is when I separate Glitched and Glitchless with a simple dropdown in a Full-Game leaderboard. Here's the Code: Veronica leaderboard: http://gyazo.com/7c9278ff4703050903b2e187882c89e5

Now here's CLBGamer's profile: http://gyazo.com/20aa7da4d9d63e5a57b5e3c3bdc8d0f9

As you can see, the Glitched run from the same runner still ranks higher than the Glitchless despite the Glitchless actually being a WR, even with "Variables don't obsolete each other" clicked.

So really, "Variables don't obsolete each other" just makes two different runs from the same person exist in the default view without deleting them, and one STILL ranks higher than the other. How can we get it to NOT do that, similarly to how Miscellaneous categories work?

Like, we need the PS1/Leon A/low% (Knife) run to not be in the same ranking tier as a PC/Leon A/Hard Mode run and still have few actual leaderboards, only requiring to change between refined and very specific categories dropdown menus (like on ZSR). Is that possible?

[quote] So really, "Variables don't obsolete each other" just makes two different runs from the same person exist in the default view without deleting them, and one STILL ranks higher than the other. [/quote] Pretty much. To go with the Code: Veronica example, with "Values obsolete each other" enabled on "Glitch use?", CLBGamer's Glitchless run will become obsolete, as he has a faster run which is only different by that variable (i.e. the Glitched one). With "Values obsolete each other" disabled on "Glitch use?" neither run is obsolete, so both are shown. Which is because the runs only differ by that value and it's set so that's not enough to obsolete the slower run. That's what the "Values obsolete each other" does, and that's what it's meant to do.

Regardless of what you set that option to, if you use the "Glitch use?" dropdown menu and set it to Glitchless, his Glitchless run will show up in first place. Which if I understand correctly is basically what you're after. The problem you have is that for the user profiles, there are no dropdown menus, so the place calculation can't know if you want to know the place it has when all values are visible (which is 11th for the glitchless run) or the place it has when only looking at runs with a specific set of values. So it opts to show the place when all values are visible.

For example for your PC/Hard Mode/Leon A run, you have manually selected Hard mode in the drop down. On your user profile, the place calculation can't magically know that you want to take only hard mode into account. So it uses the place it has with all values 'lumped in'. [small] Although it should really show 24th based on the main leaderboard, I'll look into why it's off there. [/small]

[quote] Like, we need the PS1/Leon A/low% (Knife) run to not be in the same ranking tier as a PC/Leon A/Hard Mode run and still have few actual leaderboards, only requiring to change between refined and very specific categories dropdown menus (like on ZSR). Is that possible? [/quote] As far as I can see, yes it's possible and it's already what you have set up for the leaderboards.

What's not possible is for the user profile to guess what it is you want to see and calculate the right place for that combination of values. At the moment I'm struggling to think of ways to solve it that would not involve needing all the dropdown menus on every user profile. There might be something we can do with extra options for variables but I will have to think about how that could work exactly. On a sidenote, ZSR doesn't seem to show the place at all on user profiles, which is why you don't notice the problem there.

I've mentioned the idea of an option to "require" the user to select a value for a variable in the front-end before the runs are listed. (With a user option to override that feature.)

Let's define this variable as "locked" Then I think when comparing run placements you generate the placing based off all runs with the same locked variable values. Maybe there's complication here as well.

I think avoiding utilizing the modularity of the category system is generally suboptimal, and I'd rather look into ways to get better use out of listing things under the same modularity. Using an IL table to separate platforms and things really isn't optimal in my opinion, and the site should ideally have features to not cause any need for that in my opinion.

If that idea isn't clear I can elaborate more. Obviously the current situation isn't great at the moment. I really do think the "locked" idea would improve the ability for organization a lot.