It bothered me GREATLY right from the start that MrKvikur changed the leaderboards over to IGT without presenting any data on whether or not the IGT is accurate. From my findings it very much is not.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-wCDynTowM deviation of 10:18
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P21Iv-wsR0E deviation of 11:00

What makes the deviation of the 2nd video much more significant is that there is a lesser amount of time in the run which means that the deviation is actually higher when compared to the first. Here's how the math works on that.

In the first video we've got a real time run of 5,388 seconds with a deviation of 618 seconds. That's an 11.46% difference.

In the second video we've got a real time run of 4,924 seconds with a deviation of 660 seconds. That's a 13.4% difference and at that rate the original video would have been a 722 second deviation.

So with that information, let's look at lotsofmath's video. RTA 1:23:31.86, essentially 5012 seconds. IGT of 1:12:46. This is a devation of 10:45 (645 seconds) at a percentile of 12.87%.

The reason I compare these three videos is that they were all recorded with IGT in mind and that their gameplay methods are all the same - i.e. skipping stage score cards as soon as possible, etc. The simple fact is that the discrepancy shouldn't be nearly that high.

Am at the moment watching the "WR" vs my run, stage by stage, and pausing them when needed to match them up. I'm not trying to insult pinballwiz here, but I've only paused his vid once in half of a game and the gaps are massively in my run's favor. Yet further evidence that IGT is unacceptable.

The biggest problems here are that we don't know when IGT starts and stops counting, obviously it doesn't count loading time, but there's any number of other things it may or may not count. We don't know if the final time is consistent with the individual stage times (such as God Hand's IGT), and we don't know if any in-stage element manipulates it in an inconsistent or unfair way.

Tl;dr using IGT for this is dumb. Changing over to IGT with no data on whether or not it was viable was also dumb. Not changing this leaderboard back to RTA, even more dumb.

Hey, I'm new to this game but I just did some timing that may help with the IGT vs RTA discussion.

I looked at both of these runs, pulled each stage completion time and put them together in a spreadsheet. I believe the game starts the level time when the balls come out of the chute and ends when the last ball is cleared (clearly). If you take any level and time it manually, you get should get the given level time. I'm not sure how the game rounds, it could be the standard convention (X.5 or greater rounds up, else round down), or it always takes the ceiling (a 30.1 rounds to 31). I timed the bosses in a similar manner, but the level ends when the boss takes the last hit (or the last flame goes out in Zhaka Mu 1).

Using this timing method, I found that the first run you gave exactly matches the given IGT. The second run is off by 13 seconds. However, in your second run, you use a new file which gives you a cut scene that lasts about 13 seconds, so the difference may be because of the new file start.

Here's a google doc link to the spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1NCU71II50j9xXzSZhX12F1n8BrNHrkAQ2kgL9BYgDqs/edit?usp=sharing

Hope this helps.

That makes the fact that my second run has an IGT of over four hours when the run itself was 1:25:21.51 even more hilarious.

https://youtu.be/Btobs8u5d_Q?t=1h25m54s

Also, the "current WR" is mostly comprised of individual segments much slower than mine. ALSO, there is no score card for the bosses that shows a time.

Likely, the IGT works off of system clock cycles or some such, meaning that in one run it'll be accurate (enough) and on another it will be effected by something that is likely outside of the game entirely.

Plus, I mean... putting in a bunch of MAY BE INACCURATE, bosses with no score cards to double check, etc. then saying that something "exactly matches" is... odd?

I didn't say that the timing method I used is what the game used. I'm saying I have found a timing that ended up being exactly equal to what the in game timer shows. It's good evidence that's how the game is timing. I was trying to provide some "data" as you put it:

"Changing over to IGT with no data on whether or not it was viable was also dumb"

On the other hand, you're using the argument that you have a hunch the IGT "likely" works off system cycles which makes it inaccurate. Do you have more evidence? I'm not on either side of this argument. I'm not an enemy here, just trying to provide some data.

I do think it's funny the IGT shows 4 hours for a run that was 1:25 IGT. THAT would be a good reason why IGT is not accurate. Not some hunch on how you THINK it works. It could also be the way you started the adventure mode, who knows. We need "data" as you put it.