This is something that I have been thinking about for years now and have finally decided to put it into words. I hope you all will read it and open a discussion from the ideas I have introduced here. Thank you and have a great day :) https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vTSem_d_pUCv54olpuYn4E5NznBTmU68zdRbX4S6o2_crNcUJaLxwlLcCLTnJQ0KyfXICFgw0cKfPFP/pub

I added this to the console Guides section, but figured I'd add it here as well. https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vShp2yd1LStLncAXmxBJ4hbfNm64LrOhdpXehuUGOnImnlx3i3jpp0RdgKO6wRGFJHATthFFlL7SSjs/pub

You don't know how much i agree with every point described in this document.

Not only about the massive amount of versions that builds the illusion of necessity to have categories and WRs for each one, but also the fair argument that it deminished the prestige over time, which is something that goes much deeper than just RE4, but it's also valid to every single game who follows the same path. I see this as one of the main reasons why Speedrunning is not as relevant as it was back in the day, simply because there are so many different versions to play, but in a weird way, it feels like there is nothing new, like everything has been discovered, everything is old. I think this happens because people focus so much on Steam (i'm not saying it's wrong to do that, it's the fastest version and deserves every bit of recognition and prestige for what's been built around it all these years) and ends up forgetting about the console potential we always had, i mean like "there are so many versions, but we have zero activity over them, so why should we care?".

With that being said, i also believe the main cause of this is the way that the console board is set up, it might not seem to be for some, but the fact of the matter is, liking or not, since 2014 SRC has been the number 1 source for speedrunning rankings and the main refference for those inside and outside of the speedrunning bubble and definitely affected the way people see speedrunning as it is today and when it comes to RE4 the situation becomes awkward, we have PC Steam boards totally fine, but in the other hand, a whole console potential being wasted under the idea that "people should have as many options as they desire" when at the end of the day, no one cares, no one ever will, therefore i much rather have a board with a few options that really matter something, than a whole plethora of options with no meaning behind it.

Regarding the console board, from my perspective, i've been speedrunning this game since 2015 and i've never seen a single soul complaining about the old format we had with HD/SD subcategories and to this day i can't fathom why it is what has become, with one category for every single version. In addition, i do think this discussion should've had taken place many years ago, even before the SRC mod team (with me being part of it at the time) decided to split consoles between subcategories.

At last, just like Auddy, i'm totally fine with purging some of the records i've achieved over the years with my console PBs if it means that things can change and we reach into a consensus to start it fresh. Regardless of this leading to new changes or not, i already feel encouraged to give GCUSB a try, seems fun.

Hey Auddy, thanks for making this detailed document, I had already read this document before so as you already know I agree with pretty much everything in it and with what Kromer just said, and I think a lot of runners will agree with that too.

There's just way too many versions and records that at this point it has just become a meme to get a record on one of those, the only version where it's hard to get a record now is Steam 60, and that version has become so competitive that it's actually hard to get a record on any of the categories now (including things like NG Easy, NG+ Pro, etc. difficulties that were almost never touched in the past) and the reason why it's so competitive is precisely because there's only 1 version for Steam and people focused on it for the past years, that's kind of what we're trying to reproduce.

Ideally we want to make the same for console and only have a few (2 in that case) versions to run, I like the idea of the "fresh start" for everyone (including old/top runners) to get new records again from scratch and optimizing new versions like we used to (and the 2 USB versions are doing that since there's pretty much no time on the board for these 2 "new" versions), it kind of reminds me of what we did with sawken some months ago on PC '07 when all these exclusive glitches were found, we both went there and tried to optimize the runs and it was pretty fun and now that version actually has decent records (back when this version was such a meme and times being almost slower than PS2 lol), and of course we could have pushed it even more if we wanted to or if there were more runners, which is precisely what we want to do for the suggested versions on this document.

And yeah I agree with what Kromer said on the srcom boards thing, there's actually too many possibilities for the runners, "people should have as many options as they desire" ending up in people being lost and not caring, like there's almost more categories than runners at this point haha, so there's definitely something we could do about this, kind of the old SD/HD/Steam separation but better, what I didn't like about that old one is it still had all the versions, they were just merged, so you could have a very good Wii time and it would be at the bottom of the boards below the PS4 or 360 runs because these version were faster, sure filters exist, but yeah.

I agree that we could just keep all the current versions as it is on the leaderboard sheet, that board is way more detailed, documented and complete than the srcom board anyway and it exists even before the RE4 srcom page was created back in 2014 and I'm still continuing to update it and add more features more than ever.

But for the srom boards (which in the end will always be what people look at, no matter what) it's good to only have the 3 versions, again, it doesn't have to be the versions that are mentioned on the document, if everyone agrees to play on Switch, sure, but there's a reason why these versions were the ones that were suggested and not others.

Some other (new) runners also look at the srcom boards to decide what version or categories they'll start to run, so having a new board with only these 3 versions and also less categories for each of the 3 would be pretty nice, we already have some runs on the 2 non-Steam versions so we could start by adding those as a start and hopefully it will make people want to learn them.

There's also this thing about Steam being so optimized that it will start being very bad to try to improve the runs and it already is for some runners, having talked to sawken for example he mentioned several times that he'll quit (NG Pro Steam 60) after he gets record, because it's just so hard and exhausting to get it, now that he got he might actually do other things. Not to mention that other categories like NG+ are basically dead on Steam now because of the meme LRT ditmans, the category is just a ditman simulator and not fun at all to run or to watch.

I also agree that this should have been done earlier, but oh well, it's still not too late.

I'd like to hear other opinions on this, either here or in the discord to see, but that's definitely a topic that we should think about.

So if I understand correctly, with this change I'd be forced to only play the couple categories that mod team deems appropriate and if I wanted recognition for any other category I'd need to dwell into some underground kept spreadsheets and what not?

Sorry, but this isn't the way. Awkwardly feels like the push last year yall tried to pull and that didn't work out now did it. I can get behind cleaning up the boards by reducing different console types etc, but deleting entire categories just because yall think they're not popular is not the way to go.

Maybe my opinion isn't worth anything, but this seems to me like a mistake reminiscent of last year's minimum time ruling. Seems like a few runners and mods will like the idea and everyone else will hate it, just like last time, and honestly I'm a little surprised that this is even being considered. I don't see how this could possibly encourage growth or bring new runners into the mix - seems like it will do exactly the opposite, not to mention frustrate many existing and old runners. For the single centralized leaderboard that 99% of runners and community fans reference (this one right here), I think it makes the most sense to keep the console and difficulty options separated as they are so that runs can be compared with other runs of the same console/difficulty. If there's anything that could be trimmed for cleanup (or moved to the Google Sheet or maybe Cat Extensions), Segmented could be an option as it effectively doubles the number of total categories (with very few runs in them). Personally I think the board as it is looks neatly organized, really well maintained, and currently includes exactly what it needs to include. I think this consolidation idea might instead be better worked as an additional data sheet that just compares the most competitive versions/categories, possibly even using a load time adjustment function to compare all top 3 or so runs from each console + steam to create a single list of the most optimal runs adjusted by console/steam. If nobody ever ran most of the consoles and non-Pro difficulties the consolidation would totally make sense, but the board is already filled out with years of history. I'm just not seeing any benefit in wasting that history, agitating old runners, turning off potential new runners, and having to rework the board just to be less well defined and categorized than before. I love the gamers on the mod team and all the runners, and I want to see this community thrive and succeed. I really don't think this is it, guys.

This would remove the only category I run from the board entirely so yeah I am not really interested in being completely removed from the boards

I have a lot of thoughts about this and unfortunately couldn't fit the whole thing on this forum even if I split it into 2 parts, so I put it on a doc like Auddy did.

No, just no.

Part 1/2

First off, as Erxike said, this really seems like another attempt at doing an arbitrary change to the board (refering to the change from 2023 that was executed and then reversed: https://www.speedrun.com/re4steam/forums/f9rnx) to make it "more competitive" whilst actually having the opposite effect and removing history. That change was made without consulting more than just a few speedrunners of the game as a whole and was only reverted because of the massive backlash.

Arguing that consolidating the categories and/or platforms will create more competition and "prestige" would be antagonistic. All of a sudden people with runs on the board have their runs removed and get told it's because their categories/platforms don't matter. That literally removes competition. This also prevents any future submissions into the categories. Removing runs/categories/platforms will remove a part of the history of the game. I consider Srcom the premier example of record keeping and history archiving in speedrunning. The board is already very neatly and accurately organized.

Is this runner better than that runner? How do we compare this version to that version? Which version should I run?"

Compare runner A's time to runner B's time in the same platform/category. There is no need to compare versions because they are all either their own board (PC 2014, consoles) or as sub-categories (drop-down list for consoles). You can run whichever version you prefer or have access to. If you want the fastest possible version, it's PC 2014. If you want whatever else, you choose the one that fits your needs.

There is no government, elected officials, or laws that say we have to do this or that because you’ll get in trouble if you don’t. The beauty of speedrunning is that the runners get to decide how things are run and can change them at any time they want"

The way I see it, the mods of the game are the governing body of its speedrunning. They can and will make the boards look how they see it best. They are the de facto legislators, but that doesn't mean they should act out of their own interests. The real power will always lie in the hands of the runners of the game, who vastly outnumber the mods. Last time, their consent was never sought and it backfired majorly for the mods. If anything, there should be a vote where all runners of the game (people with a run on the board) can vote on various reasonable options eg. "keep the board as is", "change to be like X", "change to be like Y" etc. with each option explained in detail to avoid confusion.

If you want to speedrun Super Mario 64, then you buy an N64. This is a no brainer and you do what you need to do to run the game in the competitive environment. When it comes to RE4, this is the opposite and has quite frankly gone too far in the wrong direction by trying to include anything and everything related to the game and its versions. Having so many versions of the game has always been something that moderators and record keepers have struggled to maintain and has divided the community in so many ways that has only hurt us"

In regards to running a certain version: SM64 can be run on console, virtual console and emulator. The VC is actually the fastest, but the N64 is the most popular version. The runners can choose whichever they want and there's no reason to have any of that changed. It's also relatively simple to get an N64 with the Japanese version of the game, whereas running RE4 GC USB requires a PAL GC disc, a GC compatible Wii, a GC controller, an SD card and a capture card with composite cables. It's also not an official release of the game, so it doesn't make sense to prioritize it over the actual disc version.

In regards to keeping track of runs: Srcom was made to keep a track of runs and act as an archive. Just because it can be difficult to maintain the boards accurately and fairly, such as including reasonable, popular categories like "NG + Any% + difficulty + platform" and excluding actually arbitrary ones like "NG + Save the Dog + Blindfolded" and making changes to accomodate a more fair load-removing timer, doesn't mean it should be done away with. You can always recruit more moderators/verifiers to ease the burden.

Part 2/2

As to what luis_sera said, I do think it's a bit silly when there's a category with literally one run, meaning there is no recorded competition (Free WR LOL). This can be changed easily by having someone else do a run in it. Just because there aren't close top times, doesn't mean there isn't competition or prestige to be had. Steam being the most popular version is fairly natural, because it is the fastest one and generally the most accessible as well. A time being difficult to beat doesn't mean it's impossible (everytime I think "surely nobody's gonna beat THIS NG Pro time", it's beaten). Trying to artificially produce this kind of a competitive environment by removing categories/platforms will almost certainly not work out.

The only sensible changes I can see being done are combining console generations with each other eg. Wii/PS3/Xbox360 as one and PS4/XboxOne as another, as there isn't that much difference between them. Honestly, I prefer the way it is now.

I'll have you know, I only ran this on PC, but due to some oversight, the run has also been placed on the console boards. I have no qualms with that incorrectly placed run to be removed.

If you want your ideal consolidated board, you can do it on your own spreadsheets or site or whatever else instead of ruining this one.

The only sensible changes I can see being done are combining console generations with each other eg. Wii/PS3/Xbox360 as one and PS4/XboxOne as another, as there isn't that much difference between them. Honestly, I prefer the way it is now.

As simo said. this is all i can see. and move the pc 07 runs to the other board thats pc 07

I always try to not put my nose where it doesn't belong in other words (mind my own business) but I feel like this is a topic where I should express my opinion.

I respect everyone's different opinion about this and their reasons as well and no-one should try to force someone into changing their opinion or harass them about it or about something that happened in the past, everyone is free to say whatever they see fits.

So what I see fit in this situation is that since the board has been separated for each console/difficulty individually for almost 2 decades and has caused no issues I see that it should remain as is, no console should merge with other console, PC07 shouldn't be moved anywhere and no sub-category should be removed because that's how it's been since the dawn of time and since the beginning of RE4 speedrun, because if we take a look at it from a different POVs even outside of speedrunning/gaming in general the (History) of any kind about anything shouldn't be changed just because it's old or not talked about/not being used anymore, the idea is that even after a 100 years from now when people enter this site if it still exists they will be able to see each console competition separately and how it evolved overtime, with that being said I highly encourage the mod team that they leave the boards as they are now and I encourage people to stop mentioning what happened in the past the "timing rule" whether it was a mistake or not it's no longer a factor and the mod team don't need to be reminded of it every single time they say something, Please try to handle situations like adults.

There I think I was clear about the situation thank you for your time to read this and I hope you have a great day bye bye.

Just replying to Simoteus to clear this up.

It's also relatively simple to get an N64 with the Japanese version of the game, whereas running RE4 GC USB requires a PAL GC disc, a GC compatible Wii, a GC controller, an SD card and a capture card with composite cables. "

You do NOT need a disc to play USB, for either GC or Wii. Also, you don't need composite cables, as I use component and most others use HDMI adapters. Not really sure it's any harder to obtain these items than the N64 with it's game, controller, and cables.