Posting this for possible future changes and/or discussion. A while back I ran into a video (below) explaining Unload, a load remover. In short, it tries to exclude frames in which an image, for example the Loading... icon, is visible.

For 8XLCE it's slightly finicky, as the loading icon both pulses and fades through transitions. So, with a low similarity it leaves a few frames counted, and with high it could take too many (in addition to potential false positives). Very high similarity would be fine, but the main issue would be inconsistency between runs.

Just throwing it out there.

the video:

16 Oct 2021 End timing changed from last frame before the final cutscene (or black screen) to frame before the UI disappears. Changed because there are no more relevant inputs, only a wait that is not always consistent between runs and runners.

30 May 2022 Zipping has been disallowed from No OoB runs.

10 Jul 2022 Start timing changed from when you select the difficulty to the frame before the screen goes black upon selecting difficulty.

Edit: mystery's solved, OP's edited with how it works. Note: this should work on all versions.

If you incapacitate the bots on the Dark Carnival finale they will get kicked when the sound stage is activated. This will work as long as they are not in the back of the room.

This will persist after campaign changes, given you call a vote to change it. The map command will simply start a new 'game', nullifying it.

This is mainly helpful for the Dead Center and Hard Rain first chapters, where you only have pistols to incap the bots. It also shaves off several seconds every chapter due to not having to incap (and damage) them.

The direct map change is relatively useless in solo runs, as not having mouse control makes it difficult to shoot the bots. Only Swamp Fever benefits from it fully, so I recommend doing it last.

Here's an example, at 10:00 (can't be assed to edit the video) I didn't realise they were gone until I switched to The Parish.

As a sidenote, Dead Center finale could possibly be pretty annoying without the bots crowd controlling as you collect cans.

I compared the two in certain locations where you have to wait for dialogue. English was faster in all four.

Uprising at Chang'an Intro: Diaochan, Dong Zhuo, Lu Bu, Private, Diaochan, Wang Yun English ~44 seconds Japanese ~50 seconds

Uprising at Chang'an Bridge: Zhang Liao (x2), Lu Bu, Messenger, Dong Zhuo, Wang Yun (x2), Dong Zhuo English ~56 seconds Japanese ~63 seconds

Capture of Puyang Intro: Lu Bu, Chen Gong, Lu Bu, Chen Gong, Zhang Miao English ~42 seconds Japanese ~50 seconds

Battle of Dingtao Escape: Xiahou Yuan, Chen Gong (x2), Lu Bu, Chen Gong, Xun Yu English ~48 seconds Japanese ~59 seconds

And then I grew tired of comparing and I'll just assume English will be faster in most, if not all, the other cases.

I'm planning to run Lu Bu's (and later Wu's) hypothetical route soon. Would be cool if they could be added to the leaderboard. I guess both regular and No OoB can be added, though I'm not sure if anyone (read: Naoremonth) is going to run this. I'm only doing going to do No OoB. We've really gotta recruit some DW8 speedrunners Kappa