If anyone wants to discuss any ideas/changes with the series before KH3 release now is the time (I will exclude KH3 board talk since that will be such a big discussion, a second post can be made for that)

I'll start 1: KHCOM J (Can we discuss if the differences are large enough they should need a separate game), there is still other options available instead of what we have running now, we can just have one COM page and allow JP and english runs in the same board, or we can make tabs like we do for say 2FMHD where we filter JP and English. I am also very happy to leave this, I just wonder if this is similar to Recoded where its only minor AI differences and its just the case of buying the most optimal version to play on

2: I really want to flush out [PS2 HDD/BC PS3] from the PS2 boards, it makes the boards looks cluttered and confusing and honestly no one besides DJ will run this I personally think if at least 3+ runners are actively doing it then we should bother with it. Just some stats for consideration there is over 20+ categories on the KH1/J/FM boards alone that are completely empty, all the others have only a run by DJ, also what do we do about the arbitrary page in terms of BC PS3 as well that would be even more empty boards. I say just cull it until more runners gain interest to consider tracking the history of runs on our page.

3: This leads into the third point and this is a big one merging KH1FM/HD 2FM/HD, This can very easily be done and would make the boards look way more compact and easy to navigate, I hate how we have what feels like 5-6 KH2 game pages (which has console variation tabs on top of that) on the boards seems way to intimidating for anyone new who may gain interest in running the series after a speedrun event or KH3 is out. An example of what it will semi look like is a page I moderate. Some pages may have to be slightly altered to make it less confusing but I believe this would be a possitive step forward, showcasing some of the best speedgames our series has to offer right there on the first page

Any% | All Worlds | JJ 100% [PS2] [PS3] [PS4] (Beginner) (Standard) (Proud)

https://www.speedrun.com/miscreamteam

4: I have half done the series with game covers so you guys can get an idea of how different the series looks with logos and with game covers please refer to this tweet and vote on what you prefer the look of to gain feedback on the decision process.

https://twitter.com/elsaiyanz/status/1085130768278380544

5: Lastly I have gone ahead and already done this but I manually changed the dates of the Extension/Arbitrary category pages so they are at the end of the list, so that way when people click on the series page they see the main games, thoughts?

1. This boils down to “how much time does the different AI save?” If it saves a substantial amount of time, I think they need to be split (a variable for subcategories is probably best). If it saves practically no time then they could be merged. I think having two pages is pointless either way. Same could be said for Days J - it should be one page with sub categories.

2. I know I’ll be doing runs on HDD eventually, but I also don’t like creating categories to satisfy 1 or 2 people (I never liked our current solution). However, removing them means mods will need to look at runs very closely to make sure they aren’t BC PS3 or HDD runs and in the past that has been a problem. We’ve had mods in the past approve an HDD run as a regular run because they didn’t watch the video at all or didn’t pay attention to load differences. It would also need to be put in the rules that both are banned, but banning official releases bothers me. Idk what to do about this yet.

3. This website wants to implement the feature of multiple LBs under one game and this would be perfect for this situation if they ever do it. Your idea is clean, but doesn’t work when you consider categories like Plat or the difficulty of Level 1. I don’t think the site allows subcategories to not be on some of the tabs, I think it’s an “all or nothing”. If it does allow it, this is a moot point and I like your idea, but if it doesn’t allow it, I don’t like this option since I’d rather have it the way it currently is than merged with an empty category for Plat PS2 or Level 1 PS2.

4. Game covers.

5. Good.

My own 6th point: Can we make sure to create the KH3 board when the game comes out but also do what SMO did and put a 2 week embargo on run submissions and auto reject anything that comes in? People need time to play the game to even properly verify anything and figure out rules (plus day one runs are literally the worst).

My own 7th point: I know Sonic changed the rules for 0.2 to remove the part about a timer being required, but can we get it removed from the rules of all the other applicable games since it’s no longer required? Can we also address this thread https://www.speedrun.com/kh/thread/20194 which talks about how to get a run on the boards and is very out dated? (Un- sticky it, lock it and say it’s not applicable anymore or something). It’s confusing seeing like 3 different places where we have rules listed and all are different - we just need to make sure each games’s rules are setup correct.

Made a video to showcase more of what the merge would look like I am going to keep creating 'concept' example pages and linking them in this forum please have a look and consider how simple yet huge this change will be

Currently working on 2FM Concept & Days Concept to show off a FM/HD Merge aswell a language merge

https://www.strawpoll.me/17236068

I know im not much of a kh runner these days, but i think you have a really good idea, and it makes the page look so much cleaner. and so many of these games only have just a few runs and dont really justify having a whole page dedicated to it.

Went ahead and created 2 Concept Leaderboard pages (don't worry nothing has been removed or altered I have just added onto pre-existing boards) showing off how cleaner and condensed the boards look

FM/HD Merge https://www.speedrun.com/khfm https://www.speedrun.com/kh2fmhd [I did 2FMHD just to not hide 100s of runs away, hard to explain unless you heavily moderate on this site, this website is being reworked by Pac currently]

Language Merge https://www.speedrun.com/kh358

Edit for 2FMHD I planned on making a variable option so Glitched/NMS Gold Crown can be merged together but has its own variable

The ideass are good Saiyanz, hopefully this stuff is decided on because the ideas is a lot cleaner than what we have.

This has been discussed in the moderator discord and on the community discord but for the sake of transparency this is my thoughts on the matter:

1. If a game is different to another it warrants a category difference no matter how minor. Yeah its probably only going to save in the realms of 30 seconds to a minute over an entire run but if me or ghost were to pick it up and play it seriously we may end up coming up with completely different strategies and such. Sure right now no one is actually doing runs of it but I think its something that needs to be separated to future proof the game much in the same way we changed Re:Coded any% GOSU to Re:Coded any% / Re:Coded no major glitches, which in turn has now proven to be a smart move due to the multiple sequence breaks that have been found for the game on top of GOSU.

2. I don't touch these games so will leave it to the respective moderators to discuss I have no strong feelings one way or the other.

3. We are implementing this for Days and Probably CoM. I am satisfied with the solution Saiyanz has provided

4. I am awful at design so let the community decide

5. Seems fine

Oh also to Timmi's point I will be making a post later in the week regarding Kh3 it is something we have heavily discussed in the moderator channel and I think the solutions I've already hinted at in the past.

I can’t watch the video yet, but I’m still not sold on the 1FM Merge. Level 1 and Plat are outliers and the condensed look doesn’t work with them (and makes the board look odd and cluttered, especially since Level 1 is a main category but has the main categories as sub categories, it looks backwards)

I’m almost in favor of leaving 1FM as it’s own game and 1FMHD as it’s own game. The two games are actually kinda different (cutscene skips, Level 1, etc) and as a result merging them can be a bit weird. 2FM I think can be merged cleaner aside from Plat, but 1FM is a bit more of an outlier.

I personally disagree I vouch for an all or nothing transformation for consistency purposes, this will only effect kh1fm and even then all it is, is an extra category tab or difficulty variable its very minor and don't believe there should be 2 speedrun game pages for the sake of the level 1 tab looking slightly wonky for 1 game out of 9

Lowkey out of all the games I'd love to see kh1fm merged the most since it's my main speedgame haha oh well guess we should hear what the community has to say

I'm gonna have to side with Timmi on this one. Considering the original (PlayStation 2) version for Kingdom Hearts Final Mix has no Level 1 (because no EXP Zero ability) or no Trophies of course (because PSN didn't exist at the time), I'm in favor of merging 2FM, but leaving 1FM & 1FMHD separately.

Whether the game plays different doesn't matter, its still, in the end, Kingdom Hearts Final Mix. It still has its own leader board, it still has its own console, it still has its own categories, etc, its not like ps2 times are being mixed with ps4 times.I don't think y'all are looking at the bigger picture.

Like he said, the only thing is level 1, and if thats the ONLY thing that is empty on a single category, who cares, its 1 game out all of them with this, and keeping it seperate for that 1 issues is ridiculous

I am looking at the bigger picture, and nobody said or complained about times being mixed so I’m not sure where they came from.

The bigger picture is that we are trying to do something the site isn’t built to handle which is multiple LBs with different categorical needs underneath a single game. We are not the first community to try to do this and realize it’s a site shortcoming. Creating two empty categories that exist but can’t be submitted to is a problem in my eyes. It looks bad and can confuse some users (I’ll bet money that someone submits a run to PS2 Level 1 by mistake). Mods can obviously fix it but it can still be confusing to look at when someone looks at the boards not knowing that Level 1 doesn’t exist on PS2 FM.

Keeping 1FM and 1FMHD separate isn’t ridiculous, it makes sense given the limitations we have. I’m suggesting leaving one game split out instead of having all of them. We could condense like every other board: CoM, Days, BBS, 2FM (although this gets an empty category for Plat too) , DDD - heck you could even combine PS2 KH2 and KH1 using JP as a platform for the former and a difficulty for the latter. Condensing those boards alone cleans up the LBs significantly. Leaving two games split up when they have legit reasons to be (they can’t share the same categories) makes perfect sense given the site’s current capabilities.

Obviously whatever decision everyone agrees on is what we’ll do, and both of these options for 1FM have merit. It just boils down to whether you see empty/impossible categories or two games as a bigger issue (I see the former as a problem and you see the latter).

Going to throw out some reasoning as to why BBS shouldn't be condensed imo here (also mentioned on the discord but just to have it in this post as well). Fundamentally, the different versions of BBS are, well, different.

1. From BBSJ to regular BBS, Critical + level 1 was added as well as some extra features (such as pete d-link and mf).

2. From BBS to BBS FM, the mirage arena gained new content including some minor adjustments (and before you say this is irrelevant some crit fm runs actually go to MA) but more importantly, FM is the only version of BBS has that a NG+ version, which would be incredibly hard to integrate.

3. From regular BBS and BBS FM to BBS FM HD, how level 1 works is fundamentally changed. In psp version, zero exp does not make you body enemies in a few hits. Hence why on psp regular crit is faster than level 1. Because on PS4 and PS3 lvl 1 is faster than regular crit, currently the category is named Critical/ lvl 1. Combining the boards would result into a situation where Crit and lvl 1 need to be separate due to the psp games, but for ps3 and ps4, crit runs would just be level 1 runs which would be incredibly confusing.

TL;DR = NG+ from psp fm would be incredibly hard to integrate if combining boards, and splitting crit and lvl 1 wouldn't really work for bbs fm hd

Well I'm not a KH runner whatsoever (I do follow the KH speedrunning community a lot though) so I dunno how relevant my voice is in this discussion but at least I have experience with leaderboard modding and merging or seperating different versions of the same games (I haven't watched the video just fyi):

I believe that merging boards is always a good idea if we're talking about the same core game. 1FM and 1FMHD are precisely that whereas CoM and Re:CoM for instance are not. Essentially I'm under the impression that a remaster, if not titled differently from the original, should share leaderboards with the original. So without being too pedantic, therefore excluding the "HD" in 1FMHD, it should share boards with 1FM (the Re:CoM board is a good example of how all other boards should look). As for categories that can only be applied to certain versions like the Plat Trophy: You'd have to set seperate subcategories for every single main category on the same page to make sure that the correct subcategories are in their relevant spots only. The console split will be maintained either way with seperate subcats for each respective console. I would even go as far as merging JP and English versions in all of the games and maintaining the split with just subcategories only. That's my personal preference of course.

Game covers are also a lot better and aesthetically pleasing than just the logos. The only thing I'd have to criticize there would be cutting off the console labels. That way (if a merge happens) the KH2FM cover, for instance, wouldn't just be a PS2 cover but a more neutral one as it houses the PS3 and PS4 versions too.

If it were just about my plan would be to merge the following: KH1 (J) and KH1 1FM and 1FMHD CoM (J) and CoM KH2 (J) and KH2 2FM and 2FMHD Days (J) and Days BBS (J) and BBS BBSFM and BBSFMHD DDD and DDDHD

I won't be too arrogant on my point regarding this whole merge if certain communities within KH want there games to stay separated that is fine as long as majority feels that way which seems to be the case for BBS however I just have some things I want to clarify about the merge.

I understand what your saying about the difficulty factor, I do have a solution to the problem but that solution would make BBS look quit different to the rest of the games so I am happy to leave it the way it is. It just sucks knowing we have a page with 18 empty categories, its not like merging would fill them but by combining a variable that has a run for example BBS-E Ven Standard if the J version does not have a run in that category it wont say (empty) next to it I believe.

Just to quickly touch on your second/third point I do not see there being any issue merging BBSFM/HD. Your main point of debate is that the PSP port has NG+ where the HD remasters do not. I am unaware how knowledge you are with moderation on this site but there's this really cool thing you can use on leaderboards known as Extra Variables/Subcategories. With that you can make each category different from the previous if you refer to my example on http://speedrun.com/khfmhd you can see with Platinum Trophy RTA I added its own variable for the category so only PS3/PS4 would show since PS2 has no Platinum Trophy (duh), this exact method can be correlated the same way with NG+ when people click the tab it will only show the PSP console as an option and that qualifies the user that the category is only doable on the PSP. You pointed out some great points about the differences between OG/HD versions regarding crit speedruns which is an excellent point but that's the whole purpose of the extra variables existing is to separate each version and not confuse people. I personally would default the PS4 console since there is only 9 runs on the PSP version anyway so I doubt people would be majorly confused navigating BBSFM boards, I believe I can make the board look really condensed and simplified given the chance to do it.

In the end if none of BBS want this merge im happy to leave it be but it will standout when every other game in the series has some form of a merge and BBS doesn't due to small differences (mind you I understand the BBSJ/E debate)

Regarding Timmi/Blitz/Ikswozol response about KHFM merge. You make mention that the website is not built to handle this style of merge but I believe with what I have done with the KHFM boards that should in some degree invalidate that point, yes the website isn't at its peak for complex moderation on the layout of leaderboards but with what I have done with the extra variables I have figured a solution which should make most people happy. To clarify your problem of empty categories, KHFM will have no design flaw regarding empty categories, I have created a separate category known as Level 1 which has its own variables of categories and the console its played on. By doing this the dilemma of having empty categories no longer exists as I made a separate variable for Level 1 being PS3/PS4 only same with Plat Trophy etc.

If you were only allowed 1 Variable/Subcategory you would be 100% right but with being allowed to make several variables a design flaw like the PS2 Lvl 1 will not come about, same with BBSFM having NG+ and HD not.

Take a look at what i've done with KHFM I went ahead and basically completed the merge for it, don't worry if people vote against this it takes me minimal time to restore back to the way it was, this was definitely going to be one of the toughest merges (3 hours/165 Tabs), I have word Volvagia is currently fixing a 'Right Click/Open Run in a New Tab' for the site which will allow me to finish this merge at a rapid speed.

https://www.speedrun.com/khfmhd

Also a final note if we go ahead I will change the url to KHFM and change the release date to the respected original date (same with every other game)

Loving the feedback though really appreciate it guys! :D

Yeah I guess that’s a decent compromise for 1FM to alleviate some of the issue with Level 1. Still looks relatively clean and works well

Did you ever consider doing the difficulties as the main categories and the platforms/ runs as the subcategories? In other words, having main categories of Beginner, Standard, Proud and Level 1 and then having the subcategories be platform and run (exactly like Level 1 is set up as in your example board)? You could have Plat and 100% the same as they are now since they don’t follow that pattern.

Not saying it’s a better idea (it’s kinda backwards from how most other games set their boards up), just sharing an idea that popped into my head.

I think traditionally the way it is visually looks better but I do wonder if your method Timmi will help for the BBS merge being possible?

Beginner | Standard | Proud | Critical | Lvl 1 [ENG] [JPN] (Any%) (All Stories) (100%)

I think when I made my response for BBS this was the idea roughly, i'm glad were thinking on a similar wave length

Yeah I agree that visually the traditional way is better, that’s why I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea in practice. As for BBS, I know diddly squat about that game so that’ll be up to someone like gamebrain