So me and some other runners think its pointless to start timing when you hit yes to skip the tutorial and think it should be changed to when you select a character. It doesn't make any sense to not do this since you aren't playing as that character until you select it and most other games with different characters start timing on character select. If we have to retime or change everyones times on the leaderboards i volunteer to be one of the people to do this.

I really do think it should be this way, since in nearly every other game with a character select start on the character select screen. Another thing to note is that if you don't play the tutorial the IGT doesn't really start until after you have picked the character. We also stop timing before IGT finishes so I personally don't think it matters.

I understand that it is the way it is currently for consistency with the other games in the series, but I really feel that this would be a better way to time this game.

I agree. Doesn't make much sense to me to start the timer before selecting the character. Also the time it takes to select each character varies (really slightly of course).

I personally wouldn't be a fan of this change since I like the consistency we have across the games, but I don't run the BBS games, so my opinion should probably have less weight here than those of the runners.

It doesn't really matter to me which we end up doing, but doing it at character selection i think would be better. Since nothing of any real significance happens between selecting start and character selection and it would look cleaner in runs since you start at the character you are running. I know the main argument of not doing it will probably be "all the other games start at the beginning" but the other games dont have a character selection either into the run. Like i stated earlier it doesn't really matter to me which ends up being the official thing, but i prefer character selection since its like another option, before the actual game. Like selecting a character is just another option but it happens to have a fancy animation

I would not be a fan of changing the starting time anyways since it does make more sense to start timing from pressing "Yes" if you want to skip the Tutorial since that confirms starting a New Game instead of selecting a Character.

I don't thing we should change it. There is nothing wrong with the current method and I agree that it keeps a consistency between all games. If it's not broken, don't try to fix it.

One other thing: it's not like changing it will reduce time of resets or anything. You'll still have to do the same actions. To me it's like considering starting timing for KHFMHD after the opening cutscene; there isn't much point, it'll just drop all runs by x seconds.

I am all for the rule change even if I haven't ran BBS in over a year but I do think the one point that stands is the fact that you choose the difficulty on the Title Screen and if the runner starts their timing (and maybe their local recording) on the character select. How are we as the viewers supposed to know what the difficulty is without seeing the gameplay. Sure Beginner and Crit have their obvious differences but what about Standard and Proud? If we were to change this then it would need to be a requirement to show you selecting the category (or showing the end screen after the final fights) in the video to show the category that was chosen.

Just my two cents.

All the Category's are Arbitrary anyways.

I think the rule change would be beneficial because it would remove one load time - even up to the character select screen on my own PS3 I've seen 3-4 seconds of variation, just due to changes in loads, and my PS3 tends to have optimal loads. Removing the effects of loads would probably be a good thing as much as possible.

That being said, I also understand the side in support of keeping things the way they are - the current timing method has worked, so it's not a huge material difference. I just think to keep (especially) races and runs comparable, reducing the effects of loads would probably be good.

I agree that this would be an issue gold. We would have to implement rules such as "Videos MUST include start and end screen" or "Videos must start from main menu or include the end screen" and since we would see difficulty on main menu or on the end screen. I believe that would alleviate that from being an issue if we did change the timing to this method.

True but half my videos start while hovering over 'yes' and don't actually show to difficulty being selected in the first place so I'm not sure that's ever been considered a real problem.

I don't run BBS, so I don't have much stake in this but I figured I'd chime in. I agree with Hobz in this case, I think it makes sense for all KH games to have the same start timing. Starting the timer after selecting New Game and confirming settings makes the most sense to me. This selection and the chime with the title screen fade out signifies the start of the game and it makes the most sense to me to start the timer there.

Pretty much on the fence about this like most other people. I would like the change because, in my opinion, it would look cleaner. I just like the idea of starting at character select because that seems like the first major input in the run. On the other hand, I don't really see a point in changing it because it doesn't change anything from what we already have to do. Either way is fine with me. Won't complain about any decision that is made.

I'm in favor of the rule change. It doesn't make much sense to include picking the character in the overall time for the run since the run actually doesn't start until you choose the character. Prior to that you're basically timing loading and an animation as opposed to the actual run itself.

And to Gold's point, I think most people would tend to highlight their videos/local recordings from main menu start, but enforcing that rule explicitly to show the difficulty is a good way to make it clear that that is required.

To Hobz's points, I think this is completely different from KHFMHD and starting the timer after the opening cutscene. With that, there's no clear point in which the timer should start. Does it start when Sora's feet hit the ground? Does it start when the first text shows up? Does it start when the song stops and the camera pans out on the platform? See, in that case there's no clear way to decide when to start the timer. But in this case, there is a clear point - when you say "yes, I want to play as X character".

As a final note, I don't think there is any reason to start all KH games at the same time for consistency. Many series have different games start on different timings. For example, in Zelda, OOT starts on file select but Z1 and Z2 start on gaining control of Link. Point being, what's important is starting the timer on what makes the most sense for a game (and personally I see the actual selection of a character in BBS as making the most sense), as opposed to setting to a specific start point for consistency in a series.

But like others have said, I'm not a BBS runner so my opinions hold less value than those who run it often.

Change it to character select so i dont have to worry about drop inputs after skiping teh tutorial OpieOP b

I'm not a runner of BBS currently but I do plan to run it at some point so I thought I'd throw in some kind of spare change.

I'm all for the timing change, because when you're starting the time for where you would every other game you have menuing to do to select x character, not that it's particulary easy to screw up a small thing like that but It can happen. which could cause an unneccessary reset/resets. Another thing is that some people may not wanna speed through the character select menu, so it might be a lot easier to just let the timing start after that.

edit: It's only less than maybe 40 secs difference so in the grandscheme of things it won't matter too too much if timing is or isn't changed, because even with a timing change that extra 40 secs could mean nothing if things go bad I'm guessing. imo it's kind of weird that this wasn't the case to begin with but then again I can see the consistency thing with the rest of the series making sense because as an example Tales of Xillia starts their timing like the rest of the series and not after choosing Jude or Milla, So it's the same thing here because we chose to keep consistency I suppose.

I won't say I added anything to the topic at hand, nor will I believe I have anyway sway but my vote is for changing it, and I have a firm belief that in the end it should be left up to people that run the game very frequently.

[quote=FaizingMousy]It's only less than maybe 5 secs difference[/quote] Just to clarify this, it's 35-40 seconds from when you select "yes" to skip tutorial (current timing) to when you select "yes" to play as a certain character (proposed new timing).

Its high 33-34 for terra, mid 34-35 for ven and aqua (with good loads)

Yeah Sorry, it's been a while since i played BBS didn't remember how long, I also wrote that at like maybe 2am? I dunno