Addressing concerns about Playstation disadvantage
5 years ago
Bulgaria

As some of you may know the Xbox Live Arcade version of the original game has a massive advantage over any Playstation release. This is both due to loading times being longer and graphical lag on PS. We have been tracking both platforms on the same leaderboards since the start.

Some games have used different methods to help level the playing field, I am going to explain why we haven't been using them.

In Game Time : Menuing and pause buffering are actively used in the game and are not measured at all in the IGT. Furthermore IGT does not discard loading times. Game time is also not shown after defeating Dracula.

Load Time Removal or Equalization : This is possible but highly time consuming. In addition this will not account for lag.

The Clock Rush Factor : Due to sub 8 being possible on Playstation platforms any adjustments would need to somehow take that into consideration. How would that even be done for runs that do not hit sub 8? Remove loads up to sub 8? How do we account for clock room jump timing? It becomes a bit of a mess.

Leaderboard Separation : This would be the most practical way to tackle this. The two versions are different enough to warrant that. We haven't done that in order to keep the participation very visible for the categories and have them look full. You can already use filtering to effectively view a Playstation leaderboard. The high-level competitive players are almost exclusively playing on XBLA.

For now there are no plans to change up the way categories are tracked. We will see how the Playstation 4 release may affect this. Do you feel less motivated to participate due to not playing on the optimal version? Would separation change that in any way? Please share any thoughts or concerns you have.

lozplyr89 and MASH like this
New York, USA

I should note while I am currently learning Richter All Bosses, I do not have previous experience speedrunning the game.

That being said, I am learning on the PSX Disc version being played on a ps3, and will move to the ps4 when the re release drops.

I personally did not feel less motivated to learn the game, and went in full knowing I was in a disadvantage state. My perception is that if I really wanted to, I completely could get the XBLA version, but decided to just start learning on the version I already owned, instead of putting in more money before completely understanding the dedication I want to put in.

I am generally against splitting of regions/consoles as ejecting people out of competition on the basis of a percentage of people feel its unfair competition. I completely feel if its a legitamate release of the game, it should be compared with all other legitamate releases of the game, emulator being it's own game by game monster the community needs to deal with.

I feel in this case, keeping the way the leaderboards have been would be best.

Edited by the author 5 years ago
MASH likes this
Bulgaria

I should note that the PS4 version may end up not being acceptable for the standard categories if it ends up being a DXC port.

MASH and Turbodog702 like this
Kentucky, USA

My immediate reaction says to split them into separate categories. However I think best practice would be to table this discussion until Requiem comes out and we know exactly what we're dealing with.

Bobbykaze likes this
Ontario, Canada

No matter what kind of Competition your looking at there will always be advantages and disadvantages. The major factor to look at is how can we minimize the variance in these and still let underdogs compete even if they may have a disadvantage. Plenty of people will put up with a disadvantage for the sake of comfort and accessibility, when we start excluding these things is when we run back into more problems. The only way to really make a divisions in a competition is if there is enough difference that would affect rules or possibly need to have them adjusted specifically for said division.

There is reasons for Platform Division but I disagree with it most cases solely if its down to performance cases unless it actually goes against the rules that work with the majority of other cases, or other case by case discrepancies.

I for one will almost always choose to play a game on console over PC even if its against others on PC if that were the case of a competition and it really comes down to preferences and comfort to me, If I wanted to sacrifice that then I could like anyone else to compete on a higher standard.

Keep in mind that speedrunning is a hobby and hobbies to cost time and money is most cases, Same with real competition.

If for instance Requiem comes and there is significant differences, not to be confused with advantages or disadvantages. Then there will be a reason to have separation for it much like how Saturn has its own thing.

California, USA

Good runners know what a good run is, regardless of platform. Any split in the boards would be awarding higher spots to people due to high level players being on a separate platform. I would not be in favor of handing out gold stars to people for playing on a sub-optimal version with a poor time.

The exception to this is this question: "Are there runners who are deserving of merit based on their achievements on the worse platform?". So far, only TalicZealot, bastoune22, and Xeiz have put in the effort and time to get what I would consider times worthy of recognition on a new board. If these three unanimously would want a board split, I would be okay with it.

Aldriel, Rasha and 2 others like this
Texas, USA

Yeah. I might buy the Xbox One version since I have a console.

Belgium

Hello there ^^

I m not from Castlevania community ( Resident Evil ) but i always wanted to work a little on Sotn Sadly i don't have Xbox console and i don't want to.

So yes splitted leaderboard seems like a good idea for those who doesn't want to buy a console only for that ;) We are not all aiming top leaderboard stuff on some specific game and i think it's often more convenient to run a a console we already have.

If we forget my case, it's always good to have splitted leaderboard to have newcomers on the game. Top players will be on top on each laderboard BTW so it's not an issue ;) More people we have, more knowledge is shared ^^ Atleast this is the way i always seen speedrun and that's the way i moderated Resident Evil 1 for the moment.

But as i said, i m not a castlevania runner for the moment ;) So i ll wait and see what is ur decision about that and maybe i ll try PS4 version if it's splitted ( cause way more convenient for me )

Thanks for reading ;)

Bulgaria

I actually just made a new thread regarding the PS4 release, explaining what exactly it is and how that will be handled.

To summarize it is identical to the Pal release of Dracula X Chronices and will be treated the same way.

Edited by the author 5 years ago
MASH likes this