Recently hardware differences have become a hot topic with more research on Bigmanjapan's part regarding PS2 emulation and have always been a concern because of huge differences in a lot of Silent Hill games - the drastic differences between SH:0 on PS2 and PSP, the differences between SH2 on console and PC, etc.
The proposed change would be to organize the leaderboards to include separation of consoles/emu/other differences (HD collection, backwards-compatibility that uses emulators, etc.), similar to some of the Resident Evil games - http://www.speedrun.com/re2
As an example, this could include
SH1 - [Console, Emu, PSN] x [NG (Easy), NG Good+ (Easy), UFO Ending, 10 Star]
with more input from each game's community. We already have many people who run games on different hardware (I have reasonable PBs for PS1, PSN, and Emu for SH1, etc.), and I've always been of the opinion in cases like this that ignoring hardware differences negates the point of leaderboards in the first place. In addition, I think it would do more to encourage playing in different situations - console having mandatory Abstract Daddy fight, having your life ruined by Homecoming PC version, and so on.
I think we can do this pretty painlessly with a little time and it would benefit everyone in the long run. I just wanted to get the ball rolling with discussion - which versions of each game are worth having a separate list for?
Why not just make them not overlap on leaderboards? So it still shows top version of each console. But doesn't make it look stupid and have full game categories considered ILs.
I'm sorry it just bugs me a lot and I hate it so much lol. Especially if a game only has a few diff consoles ¤Cough cough Fatal Frame 2¤
Obviously I'll go with whatever the community decides though.
Also SH3 on HD should probably just be its own game because it basically is. Kinda like RE:Make.
You can make it so PBs among consoles don't overlap. It's what we did with the LIS leaderboards since we need the ILs for the individual episode runs. I think Chapter 2 you can go see what I mean by having them not overlap.
Like it wont say 1st or that on it. But if you look you can easily find which is the fastest for which console. While still having the fastest overall considered fastest overall. Because really very few communities outside of like REs actually considered diff consoles a problem for the overall WR.
Sorry It was Episode 1 100% http://www.speedrun.com/Life_Is_Strange/Episode_1_Chrysalis#100 Sorry my bad. Thought it was 2. But like, you can see they don't overlap. There's even a drop down menu letting you filter the consoles. Like it's a built in feature already to use. And literally no one randomly seems to use it. And when you filter. It literally takes the top of that console and says its the first place for that console.
You can also do that for games with multiple characters if it's the same game or IL and the character just have different movesets or stuff. Like I'm sorry but that little drop down is so much nicer than trying to pick it out of a bullshit grid to find a leaderboard.
Oh btw, I was meaning to ask, can you add Installed Hardrive as a variable on the Homecoming Leaderboards, I think it saves like a minute of time or something over non-installed 360. I don't know if you can install on PS3 and you can't on PC so it would have to be like "Yes" "No" "N/A"
Main reason for SH2 reorganizing initiative is a fact that values responsible for RNG puzzles in SH2 are set during menu bootup (at least on PCSX2 emulator). Runner can make a Save state while being in the menu, run the game and check solutions to all puzzles. Then load that Save state and do a run knowing solution to every puzzle.
This is what I did with my only submitted emulator run of SH2. I spent an hour for a good clock puzzle and then did a run up to suitcase puzzle to learn all the solutions. While I stand for allowing this trick on PCSX2, I also think that such emulator runs should not be compared to any other platform runs. In a matter of hours you can "achive" RNG lineup that took me weeks to grind on PC version.
Second reason is that emulators in general doesn't process values in the same way like original consoles do and even feature different processing modes.
"The fundamental issue is that we're emulating the EE FPU and the 2 Vector Units using x86 SSE. There is a slight difference in how the PS2 and x86 SSE round floating point values. PS2 games normally should not break because of this, but there are a couple that do, for various reasons." — http://forums.pcsx2.net/Thread-About-rounding-mode-clamping?pid=193584#pid193584 / http://pcsx2.net/developer-blog/209-whats-clamping-why-do-we-need-it.html
In practice differencies probably wouldn't be even noticable, but in theory it is an undeniable difference.
For SH2 I imagine categories being arranged like that:
¤¤¤ N/N 1. PC | 2. Consoles | 3. Emu
- NG (Normal) x x x
- NG (Any difficulty) x x x ...
- 10 Star x x x
¤¤¤
-
PC — self-explanatory.
-
Consoles — runs made on Xbox original and PS2 consoles; runs made on XBOX360 and PS3 with original Xbox/PS2 discs (go under emulator flags); runs made on XBOX360 and PS3 with HD Collections discs¤ (go without emulator flag). Emulator flag here is just to make a destinction between HD Collection and original discs. It is known that XBOX360/PS3 also use emulation to run original discs but when compared to PCSX2 runs done with Save/Load state trick they are more close to original consoles than to emulation.
¤ I don't know anything about HD Collection behavior, so I put it in this category for now.
- Emu — runs done on PCSX2 emulator. Save/Load state trick is allowed. Using other runners memcards files with "perfect" RNG set is allowed. Runner is to provide emulator settings (although could be easily faked). Important rule: codes that responsible for Joseph box opening in Hospital should be checked even if a runner already know what the codes are (might rethink that).
Runs from Emu category do not obsolete runs from Console category and vice versa.
I also welcome other forms of arrangement. If one list of runs is chosen then there must be a notice that emulator runs do not obsolete console runs anymore.
Who cares?
It's playing video game quickly on the interent. Does there really need to be a category for every possible iteration or release of a game? Consider how quiet SH speedrunning is and wouldn't there just end up being a bunch of categories with no competition or perhaps worse people appearing that just want a free "WR"? Sounds like a recipe for turning the leaderboards into a bloated mess. Then again I never wanted leaderboards in the first place, so somewhere to start would be figuring out what their purpose should be.
"Main reason for SH2 reorganizing initiative is a fact that values responsible for RNG puzzles in SH2 are set during menu bootup (at least on PCSX2 emulator). Runner can make a Save state while being in the menu, run the game and check solutions to all puzzles. Then load that Save state and do a run knowing solution to every puzzle. "
Is this serious? Because it reads like a joke. Making decisions to allow save states in a pcsx2 emulated speedrun? If this is the "main reason" for any change it only further serves to highlight the absurdity of it all.
I agree with the points Shunpuk and Radge brought up above. There aren't a lot of runners who run on a different platform to justify changing the current system. If we were to change things, It would just create clutter and confusion - something I don't personally want here.
The difference with the resident evil community is that they have a significant number of people who play on different platforms. With Silent Hill 3 for example, we only have one person who has submitted a run on the HD version and only four runners have submitted a ps2 version run.
Regarding savestates, I don't think they should be allowed at all in the manner used.
I would encourage people to just get used to the drop-down menu to classify by platforms. If the vast majority runs on one platform I don't think an "RE-style" layout could work for the SH series.
With that being said, I think the "Free WR" appeal could attract newcomers to the scene (people who happens to own the HD Collection or the old PS2 games and doesn't want to deal with PC stuff for the moment), but at the same time cause unnecessary segmentation of the competiton.
Honestly I don't think it's even that attractive for "new easy free WR's" If you look at RE3. For the most part it comes down to a few people who buy more consoles for more WR's because they have the money too.
Good points. If Save/Load state is not allowed there is no point to change layout in SH2 leaderboard. Unfortunately there is no way to tell if a runner used it, but I guess noone runs it on emulator anyway. Can't say anything about SH1 or SH3.
Delete my SH2 PS2 emulator run submission since I'm not a mod.
To clarify, I thought the value of using a save state with perfect RNG was to basically truly run the segmented route, bypassing all puzzle RNG and skipping the code checks. Obviously it would require its own leaderboard if anyone felt like doing that, and frankly I wouldn't be opposed (then again, I've made up plenty of BS categories lol).
Because there aren't any options that would make the leaderboards less chunky than they already are I have no problem keeping them the way they are, but also ask that mods don't delete times from slower consoles. (My console SH1 run is missing, which was a better run than my emulator PB, for instance.)
If there's anything else that needs cleaning up let me know. GOOD DISCUSSION TEAM~!
