I wrote this post in an old thread here moments ago:

(TL;DR at the bottom)

"I am fairly confident that Saturn's "Very Hard" for AI cars is the same as PS3/X360's "Arcade" difficulty setting.

Though I don't normally play on the arcade emulator due to the fact that I prefer the X360 version; I can quickly boot the Arcade up and see what changing the difficulty actually does to the game. If that, too, is only about AI cars, it should behave similar to the ports.

As for the difficulty regarding the timer in the game, I feel like it is pointless to discuss as even when the timer is set to the hardest/lowest; your run is simply not good enough for submission if you can't beat the timer."

With that, I wanted to spark some interest of anyone who is still around and read these forums; Should a difficulty be enforce for a run to be valid? Should we add different categories for the other difficulty settings?

As I mentioned, the timer can be ignored, if you can't beat it, you didn't complete the race, and your run is not valid. Simple as that, I'm sure we all agree. (Yes, you can increase the timer, but anyone beating the race on the hardest timer setting will automatically get the better time)

But what about the CPU vehicles? I've only ever played on "Arcade" (Very Hard) since the very beginning. It should come as no surprise that the actual arcade cabinets are most likely set to this option as well, as the whole point is to milk money out of customers (it's a business, what did you expect?) Anyone who's played Daytona knows how frustrating it can be when AI cars are getting in the way constantly and interrupts that otherwise close-to-perfect run you had.

So I've seen a lot of submissions lately (none rejected) playing on an easier setting. Sometimes "Normal" and sometimes all the way down to "Very Easy" (or is is Easiest/Hardest? Can't remember...) To me, personally, it does make a difference. If you play Beginner Endurance (80 laps) on the hardest difficulty, you know that a small mistake like bumping into another car, while not a big problem to you, will cause the AI cars to catch up super quickly, even if you took 1st place 20 laps ago and never made a mistake since. Then you have to deal with them all over again.

This is already a long post, so I'll round up for now. I might be the only one with this opinion, but I feel like lowering the difficulty setting of the game to anything other than the hardest is a "dishonest" act against all the arcade cabinets that we (all?) enjoyed in the past.

Please do tell me how you feel about this. Should the game always be played on hardest or should we continue to do as we please? (My vote is on making/keeping the game hard)

TL;DR: I want to enforce a new rule that Daytona USA has to be played on the hardest difficulty setting (for AI cars, timer doesn't matter). This because I feel like the easier settings (on the same leaderboards) complete makes the harder runs irrelevant (easier = usually faster/better times due to lack of AI car interference). I want your opinions.

Thank you for reading.

Howdy howdy! A bit of a new face around here, but I'm glad to see the game has a bit more activity recently. It's always fun racing with more people. :D

As far as the timer goes, I totally agree that it doesn't matter. I do think the AI difficulty should matter or at least be consistent in some manner. I've been putting a lot of time in the Model 2 emulator playing the US arcade version. I do plan to get a ps3 at some point and purchase it there, because pausing and hitting restart sound VERY appealing. I've only dabbled in the saturn version using the Yabause emulator just to toy around with it and see what it had to offer.

In the emulated arcade version I'm currently playing, I'm 99% sure that the difficulty option only effects the timer and how much time you earn at checkpoints. The car AI doesn't seem to change depending on the difficulty option in the original arcade, but on the saturn version and onward there is a specific car difficulty option that does effect the AI cars. I did a beginner track with default settings and easily finished in the top 5, but after setting it to hardest and running a fairly similar race, i only finished 20th. Keep in mind i have little experience on the saturn version, plus it's emulated and not perfectly either. Even then I could still notice a difference in the AI after changing the difficulty.

The runs i have submitted have been the emulated arcade version and in various difficulty, though going forward I plan to leave it on hardest, just to be consistent.

Now as far as a standard difficulty to use across all speedruns, I'm not sure what setting would be best because I can see pros and cons for both ends of the spectrum. Very Easy would let you advance past cars faster, but then you face the potential of lapping those cars again (depending on the track and lap settings) as well as not having any cars to draft to go faster than your max speed. Very Hard on the other hand would have more cars keeping up with you, therefor more drafting potential for a theoreticaly faster run, but then you also have many cars to deal with throughout the race. The only experience i have so far is with the emulated arcade version, so I don't know if making the AI harder would also make them more aggressive as well.

Personally, I think the difficulty setting for the versions of the game that have the option should match the original arcade setting. Once I get a ps3 and the game, I'll do some back and forth comparisons and test to see myself. Until then, I look forward to figuring something out :D

There aren't very many runs on this board. So personally in those instances, I wouldn't add extra restrictions or rules. Most games which feature difficulty players use whatever they find fastest. This game there is actually debate as to what CAN be fastest for each player. Whether its Very Hard and using the draft or Easy and running past everyone and running a good clean line. I say leave things as is to encourage more experimentation to find and perform different strats.

Personally for me, I've always played on normal. That's usually the defacto unless stated otherwise. I'd prefer it to stay that way, Normal is how most if not all people play the game. I think it should be kept as is.