we should do the thing where we add milliseconds so that we dont have a 3 way tie for wr lol whos with me okay cool thanks

There has been some discussion in the Luigi's Mansion discord about a potential change in categories. It was proposed to remove Chauncey Key and Bogmire Key from the leaderboards, and replace them with A Rank and All Boos categories. These categories would be interesting because they vary from the current 100% route, and allow for runners to play to their strengths, either with money routing or boo catching. The Boss Key categories are rarely ran, and don't contribute much to the leaderboards. Please post your thoughts here on whether you support this change or not.

So, it has been a while since we did one of those. I know Adam usually takes charge on them, but we felt that I would do this topic more justice, so here we go. The rules for the PAL categories right now are, as many of you probably know, very washy.

For anyone who doesn't know what I mean, allow me to explain. PAL runs with a signal called PAL50, and that 50 is an important number. It signifies that LM runs at 25fps. Now, this becomes an issue when people who are not from Europe try to run the version. In order to run the game, many people convert the signal to NTSC, which often means loading the game at 30fps. That's not just a visual change, however; the game actually will often run at 30fps. If you don't know what that means, very simply, every 6 seconds in PAL is 5 seconds in NTSC. That's a lot of time in a speedrun. This isn't the only issue with loading PAL, however. Some runners even load the game at 25fps, but it's still not fair to the European runners. Loading the game from an app instead of the disc channel will often reduce lag/load times.

There are several ways to be able to see the game without loading it in an NTSC signal. The obvious one is to buy a PAL tv, but that's expensive and unrealistic. For most runners, the easiest way to do this is probably to buy a cheap standard definition capture card that can convert the signal. An example is my ion video 2 pc, which converts the signal with no delay. You can also buy a signal converter, however I have no experience with it and cannot confirm how much delay it would have.

Okay, I know that's a lot to understand, so let me explain what I'm trying to say. I am proposing that we ban loading PAL LM from anything other than the default disc channel, to keep loading times/framerate/lag consistent between all runners. As we have little to no way to know what version people already on the leaderboards have run on, I propose leaving all times up. None of the times on the leaderboards are very optimal, and the 100% world record is on disc channel anyway. The downside to this is that runners will need to both buy a disc, and find a way to convert the signal so that they can run it. In my opinion, that's worth the fairness of competition. Let me know what you guys think, so that we can make the rules benefit everyone.

Also, I just want to mention briefly. I know that a lot of people don't care about PAL. That doesn't mean we should just brush it under the rug. If you can't look at it as a legitimate category, then please don't bother commenting.

An idea was just brought up by SamuelHellJackson involving the new Any% (No OoB) route. He proposes that we adapt to the butler cycle in order to save more time. Currently, nobody has timed any of these options in order to double check that they are optimal, but based on logic they should be. It's worth noting that in scenarios where you catch the laundry boo early, it is likely fastest to send him into kitchen at 0hp, because you can suck him up as he is traveling to the center of the kitchen after being unveiled. Also, if the boo goes into the hallway instead of the kitchen, continue on as normal. There is a chance that he goes into Hidden Room instead of Dining Room, in which case your run isn't dead. If he isn't in the Hidden Room, however, gg wp.

So I suppose the optimal things to do go as follows On worst butler cycle: collect hat in dark room, laundry boo early, beat shivers, get the mouse hole, and mirror warp from hidden room On bad butler cycle: collect hat in dark room, send laundry boo into kitchen, open mouse hole, get shivers, mirror warp from hidden room On medium to good butler cycle: skip chest animation with hat, open chest, open mouse hole, walk back through laundry room

Obviously the most important thing with this concept is to react well to situations. You need to know how much time you have in your butler cycle, and when to back down as opposed to continuing trying to optimize. If you miss the butler, you lose astronomical time, so that should always be priority