Right now, the IL boards are vast and mostly empty. There are 252 ILs, and with the "With/Without soul" distinction, that's 504 categories! (Keep in mind that 132 of these categories will never be filled because Bosses/Races/Apocalypse have no souls to collect.)

The only way to fill 372 of these 504 ILs would require hundreds upon hundreds of submissions, (to say nothing of the amount of time needed for verification,) and pushing IL categories forward will require an unbelievable amount of repetitive grinding on ILs that may burn some runners out.

All of this is underpinned by the fact that 246 of the "Without soul" levels already have leaderboards with automatic submissions built-in to the game.

What I'd like to propose is consolidating and/or streamlining ILs a bit so that the board isn't so empty and isn't so intimidating for new runners and easier on mods should the game grow further, and I have a few suggestions/options I'd like to get feedback on (even if the end result is "leave it alone":

• Remove "Without soul" so "With soul" is the default/only option. This is the easiest change for mods to make, though it would also be the most confusing to view and submit to. (since boss/race/apocalypse levels don't have souls) and would leave 126 ILs that are not duplicative of what's already built-in to the game (non-apocalypse base levels with souls, and bosses).
• Change "Without soul" and "With soul" to annotations instead of subcategories. This would be the least disruptive change to the board, though it will require some manual labor. It would maintain all 252 levels without visually splitting the boards in half (souls that 132 levels don't have anyway) and retains "With soul" records for those who want to filter and see those only.
• Combine levels 1-20 in each world. This would make the largest difference in number of categories (from 504/372 to 30!) by effectively moving the "Single World" category (and all existing Single World runs) from the "Full Game Runs" section to the ILs section, but archiving existing IL runs (Boss/Bonus ILs would remain). This would also mean no longer having IL "With Soul" times, but we could discuss having "Single World (20 Souls)" options available.
• In combination with "Combine 1-20 levels in each world", create a second board (Category Extension CE on SRcom, Spreadsheet via Google Sheets, etc) for ILs. This would maintain existing records with all of their details and nuance (with/without soul etc) for those who want them without clogging up the more-public-facing SRcom boards, and without relying exclusively on a Steam/Obelisk server. There would be a link on the main SRcom board pointing to the IL record board/spreadsheet, so it would still be easily accessible for those who want it.

I've done my best to keep my personal opinion out of this post, and sticking solely to "here are the potential benefits/drawbacks" for now. I'll share my personal opinion in subsequent posts. Please let us know your thoughts as well!

An easy solution (but not my preferred one):

Change "Without soul" and "With soul" to annotations instead of subcategories.

If combining levels 1-20 (my preferred solution) is a non-starter, changing souls from subcategories to annotations feels like an easy "yes" for me. It's non-destructive, It will require some manual labor, but there are few enough IL submissions right now that it's still doable. This change will get harder to make the longer we put it off. And as of writing this post, it will only obsolete two "with soul" runs.

This reminds me a bit of a discussion in the Spyro board where someone requested the Japanese version be made into a subcategory instead of a variable because the gameplay was so different in some significant ways. While I saw the merits in that, the market for people seeking/playing the Japanese version was so small that breaking up the board felt like an exercise in trophy-hunting rather than pushing the game forward.

Personally, I feel the vast majority of folks coming to this board are only going to be looking for "fast time," not "fast time with soul." A handful of technical players will care, and filterable annotation means they can still find those times.

My preferred solution (though one that questions the philosophy of what's important in running):

Combine levels 1-20 in each world.

I think moving the Single World category into ILs is my preferred solution. Base levels are just entirely too short on their own (typically under 30sec) and would require a lot of burnout-inducing grind for a few extra hundredths of a second. Combining them into sets creates more opportunities for variance, and will require runners to become more consistent at more variable terrain. Demonstrations of consistent skill (instead of a lucky one half of one second, the 1/100 frame-perfect input, etc) that's developed more through practice than grinding is the kind of thing I (personally) think ought to be celebrated in speedrunning, and that's what these boards are - a celebration and recognition of skill.

This would also reduce the number of "Single World" subcategories from 4 (with/without bosses, with/without bonuses) that are hard to compare due to imperfect overlap, down to 3 (1-20, boss, and bonus would be separate runs) that are easily comparable. Converting Marthmer's existing "All Levels (legacy)" run into 6 "1-20 IL" runs (instead of waiting for them to submit a new any% run) is a nice bonus that preserves a really good run.

This does have the drawback of making the with/without souls distinction difficult (if not impossible) to record, since there's 20 different sections that could be with/without soul - but personally, as I've said above, I don't think many runners or layfolk care much about the distinction when the goal is "go fast." If the demand truly exists, we could implement separate "W1 - Caves" "W1 - Caves (with 20 souls)" IL categories, or add a "with 20 souls" annotation, but I don't think that discussion's worth having until after we've actually undergone consolidation.

Hey Tara !

I took the time to read all your suggestions (sorry it took so much time, I wanted to take the time to read it calmly)

I think those are all great point and ideas, and I think I agree with all of them ! It's true that the board in it's current state is exhaustive but yeah it's too much, thinning out the run options seems like a good thing to move forward.

Moving ILs to a spreadsheet to keep the best ILs runs is a really good idea, we need to define how we would maintain this and how people can submit. A second board is a possibility as well for sure but maybe only if we find the spreadsheet to be impractical first, I think it would be nice to try this out.

Regarding the souls / without soul, I don't think we have anyone doing soul runs for now, so we might just remove this completely (or just use annotations as you suggested). Maybe soul runs (IL, Single World) are a good fit for a category extension as well ? But I think it is too soon to create a CE for this specifically, let's keep it simple.

Moving the single world category to the ILs is good for me, it's a good way to thin out the categories and as you said levels are mostly super short so it makes a lot of sense (except late apocalypse ones but we are clearly not running those yet)

All great suggestions I'm ok with trying those :)