so let me kind of explain this idea
i would say about 1 1/2 month ago i found something called IL on smf speedrun.com there was only 1 run for level 1 and 1 run for level 2 and i thought to myself this looks cool so i started to grind IL
well alot has changed in that month and a half. when i submiteed my first lvl 1 run i thought that i had to submit it to all catgories but i turned out ThePianoEnthusiast would submit the runs on my behalf
well about 1 month or so ago i asked him if he could add low% as a subcategory to the ILs and he gave in. well about 1 hour later i got a notification that he had posted a forum post that we would have to submit it to all the subcategories ourselves so he wouldnt submit it on our behalf.
so here is the problem it has been about a month and me i was looking around earlier today and saw how many times are in the low% section that could easily be put into small or free. Now i did notice this alot earlier but just never really spoke up about it. but now i thought it would be neccessary to explain in the forums
so ThePianoEnthusiast posted " I find this pretty unnecessary and with the addition of Low% as an IL category, I don't want to that work." which is leading to a problem because there are quite a few small runners who dont really know the game/rules and just submit it to 1 category which leads me and im sure a few other runners to confusion
now if you have read all my forum posts and read some of my messages on discord. Then you will probably have noticed by now i put a :( face whenever i discuss the fact that ThePianoEnthusast is the only mod of smf
when i talked to him about adding me as the second mod he didnt want to add me he told me " smf is a small community and doesnt need a second mod" and i agree 100% but after witnessing how many runs needed to be cloned to other subcategories i think this is worth speaking up about
he claims he doesnt have the time to clone all the runs and the way i see it he has 3 options
1.) add me as mod and i clone the runs ( ThePianoEnthusiast i hope you know that you can add me as a verifier not a super or regular if you dont trust me around the categories)
2.) he can either clone the runs himself and quit being lazy ( not trying to talk smack or insult anyone here)
3.) not do anything about this problem
there is also 1 run in the any% glitchless category that can immediately get top 5 any% now i am not sure if aeuske he just didnt realize or just doesnt care
now personally this really really really really really bothers me and it is very confusing to try and figure out who is in what place/position so something really needs to be done or changed about this so ThePianoEnthusiast option 1 or 2 please dont pick 3
Here's what I'm thinking: on almost every level, the ideal run of Small and Low% are completely identical unless glitches are used. For Level 5 (Castle), Low% would be identical to Small, but you'd have to grind Bowser RNG because you can't always get past Bowser without taking damage all while holding right. If haven't actually looked at all the levels, but I think that (still unless glitches are used) the only levels where Low% and Small would be different are Levels 6 and 10 (Koopa Castle). Level 6 it'd probably be faster to take a mushroom so you don't have all the stops to jump over the two piranhas; you can just run through and lose the mushroom. In Koopa Castle, it may be faster to lose a mushroom at the fire bars. So, I'm starting to think that the categories aren't even arranged properly. Instead of Free, Small, and Low%, it'd make more sense to have glitched and glitchless. I don't think there's a problem with having a standard rule that you start a level small, because really. No one actually does Free runs. Nearly every single IL run on the leaderboards qualifies as Free, Small, and often Low%. There are enough runners or enough competition to have those three categories. If I reduced the IL leaderboard to glitched/glitchless categories, and required every run to start as small Mario/Luigi (I wouldn't be opposed to removing my runs that start big/fire), we wouldn't lose hardly anything at all. In fact, trying to do Free runs to start big/fire is a HUGE PAIN because when you die you have to go get your mushroom/flower back to do another attempt. Nobody likes doing that, and there are very, VERY few Free-exclusive runs on the leaderboard. People often tell me "these are your options". I rarely use one they list, and in this case, I propose option 4:
- Reduce leaderboards to glitched-glitchless (Involves copying current runs into their places, which I could do)
- I'd probably continue to clone new runs if applicable, if they are top-3 runs.
I have two more points to make. First, no one actually runs glitched either. I will someday, but really no one actually does. I may just reduce ILs to one category, and if someone gets a glitched run, I will add glitched for that IL. Second, as far as me cloning runs into applicable categories, sure there's that. But is it important? Really? Did you know that (at the time of posting) L2000 has the fastest recorded time for Level 6? But he didn't submit an IL. That makes it really hard to "figure out who is in what place/position" and if you expect me to check every full-game run's ILs and highlight them and copy them into IL leaderboards so that you can have a totally accurate IL leaderboard, you're insane. If you're worried about people being confused by the categories, my proposed option 4 would pretty well fix that, and I could also put in the rules for runs something that clearly indicates that all Low% runs are valid Small and Free runs, and that all Small runs are valid Free runs, or that all Glitchless runs are valid Glitched runs.
Thank you for reading my essay if you did. If not, then: tl;dr Good points afnannen136 but I don't like your options. Instead, I'm considering rearranging IL categories to Glitched and Glitchless, and always requiring you enter the level small, and always allow collecting power-ups mid-run. I could then easily clone runs around when applicable.
Honstely what's the worst he could possibly do with verifier like he seems like a pretty honest guy
