OK, now here is a thread so we can publicly discuss what happens with this leaderboard, with everyone being able to see everything.

    So, ever since I looked into this community, X6 has never had a leaderboard people could be happy with, and discussions about it tended to end poorly, to the point where we had two separate leaderboards with completely different moderators, rulesets, and ways of displaying runs. Now that Speedrun.com is rolling out and API that will supposedly allow to sync src and mmrta, we should try to unify the leaderboards under a clear ruleset. Since I and Zewing have mod both in here and in mmrta, we think applying changes that can get to be agreed upon will be possible even --and especially-- after the merge.

    So far the options for possible changes relating to version comparison that have been suggested are:

• Make the standard PS1 and separate XC into different categories, while banning PS2 emu and standarizing the most accurate ps1 emus.
• Same as the above but instead of separating PS1 and XC, just hide XC runs.
• Keep everything compared together, banning PS2 emu, encouraging the use of XCollection since it is the fastest version.
• Time out loads to keep all emulators and consoles relatively comparable (doing this would make JP the faster version for All Stages and 100% because of text and Blaze Heatnix last donut skip and arguably any% because of text--testing needed--). This would be done either individually or by timing conversions similar to X4 in mmrta, depending on how much stability in time loads was detected. Banning PS2 emu if this option is taken would be up for discussion.

    Along with that, it is needed to discuss what to do about the difficulties. Options that have been presented so far are:

• Compare everything together, encouraging use of the 'fastest one', that being easy in all stages and any% and normal in 100%

• Standarize normal and hide other difficulties from main view.

• Standarize normal and completely ban other difficulties from being used.

• Make separate categories for each difficulty, encouraging competition in all of them.

    And here would also be the place to discuss whether to allow or disallow Fast Disc Speed.

    Feel free to present any options that are not noted and could seem to be a good solution. Also, keep the discussion civil, no insults, unnecessary swearing, ad hominems, etc. Justify every opinion explaining the reasons that make you think it is valid and the best solution, and avoid having that reason be "because the other communities/games do it" as every game is a distinct case from the others.

2015/8/20 EDIT: [quote=Izraill] So, discussing with Zewing privately, we arrived to an idea to prevent clutter from many categories when separating difficulties and versions, as well as to give more recognition to XC. There will be 6 main (non-misc) categories: PS1 Any% (Normal), PS1 All Stages (Normal), PS1 100% (Normal), XC Any% (easy), XC All Stages (Easy), and and XC 100% (Normal). Since these seem to be the most "competitive" ones. The rest of the 18 or so categories would be sent to misc, since they are technically an option but don't matter. [/quote]

Heh, since you/most of the community seem dead set on banning PS2 emulators what in your opinion is a solid PS1 emulator then? I was just doing runs last night and I don't feel like wasting my time if people are just going to play the "You only got this time because of x; therefore it isn't valid." bs.

Besides that, I feel making all difficulties separate categories is the best solution or making it easy and xtreme only. There is always going to be two camps that want it where it's either getting the fastest time possible in a game (easy) or look down on easy and want a challenge run (hard). From what I have read and seen if anything Normal is the odd man out since it's about 15secs slower compared to Easy and should be the one removed if that's the route that is going to be taken.

Other then that I am to new to the X6 scene and don't really have an opinion on the other stuff listed. I would just like to know what is valid to use and run so I can get back to getting sub 50.

For emulation:

At this point and time, PS2 emulation should be completely removed form this leaderboard. If new versions of PS2 emulation were to come out and happen to be more accurate, then further tested should be done.

If PS2 Emulation were to be allowed, it must be hidden by default, which in essence would hide completely valid PSX emulation times (the feature is an All or None function), so it's just better to ban PS2 emulation until more accurate emulators are available.

For XC separation from PSX:

This leaderboard should reflect the current leaderboard setup on the mmrta leaderboard, no exceptions. As it stands, PSX is it's own category and XC is it's own. I'd imagine PC would be in same board as PSX but no one has tested that.

For difficulty separation:

Different difficulties are different categories, every single speed game does this. Comparing a run done on Easy to a run done on Normal is not even remotely possible. Same thing as comparing easy to Xtreme.

That being stated, however, there's been a potential discussion on banning all but normal difficulty in PSX version (as well as FDS), so it could easily be reflected in XC to just group all together, which is something I'd have no issue with since XC is only platform that actually uses easy difficulty in competitive settings.

In essence I am for this point but w/ a little bit more detail:

Make the standard PS1 and separate XC into different categories, while banning PS2 emu (Until a later time in which PS2 emulations becomes accurate) and standardizing the most accurate ps1 emus.

@SubStylee

XEBRA is currently the most accurate PSX emulator.

I think Substylee brings up a valid point about removing Normal since every speed games uses "Fastest vs. Hardest" in their rule sets. For XC at least, removing Normal times sounds like a good idea, but then again all difficulties can be different categories

[quote=SubStylee] what in your opinion is a solid PS1 emulator then?[/quote]     To my knowledge, Xebra/Arbex and PSXHawk are the most accurate Playstation1 emulators currently. I don't know about psxhawk system requirements, but if you can run PS2 emu you can run Xebra/Arbex just fine.

    As for difficulties, I would say separate them in categories in both XC and PS1 if XC and PS1 are made into separate categories, no need to ban them, because they also deserve some degree of recognition (especially anyone crazy enough to run on Xtreme).

IDK if my onion will count since I only ran this for memes, but here I go.

dealing with versions:

remove load times is the best option because 1) People can use what ever version they want. 2) Banning Ps2 emulator will make the all stages WR no longer legit, which is just silly. 3) There is already a variable for if the run uses Xc or PS1, so if people want to keep them separate, they can with a few clicks of a mouse

difficulties:

Keep it a variable and encourage the fastest one. Similar to XC/PS1, if people want to have leaderboards show one difficulty, they can with a few clicks of the mouse.

PS1 on FDS:

It is not even faster then XC, so why ban it. Again, if people do not want to see that, they can with a few clicks of the mouse.

I'm not really for removal of loading times because it would not account for lag for psx version, and it'd be dumb to force moderators to time out loads in a console game.

Either way something dumb is going to happen, and forcing mods to timeout loads is the least dumb outcome

I know it is against what you are doing right now, but why not have all versions/difficulties available for view even if some are initially hidden(Emu and/or XC possibly)? Maybe state in the rules or somewhere that there are time differences among versions/difficulties. There is no reason to alienate emu runners from the leaderboards, they are part of the X6 community as well.

My reasoning behind this: -speedrun.com is one of the go to places to see ALL available runs for me in plenty of other games. -you could put them all together so there is less clutter, granted you are already showing version and difficulty. There are far too many variables as is between versions/difficulties. -PSX and XC separate categories I don't get. Time differences, of course they are there. I have to agree with peterafro on this. We already have mmrta separating them making it harder to navigate the site for newcomers -it is unfair to emu runners who are arguably good at the game to not make their runs available. Other X6 runners will know if your run is "good" or not so I would not get caught up on a better/worse WR or PB being done on emu

We're not alienating emu runners, only runs done on PS2 emulator as it is faster than the fastest version on console (XC GCN), this is it. PSX emulators are more lightweight and more legitimate.

As for other suggestions, I'm down for just combining all versions on a full leaderboard but I'd need others to weigh in. I'd definitely want difficulty separate as I find it dumb that 1 runner can hold multiple places on the LB (as it stands, 1 runner can hold 6 spots)

9 "main" categories if you wanted to separate difficulties but i'm not sure how you could make it look accessible. One possible solution but surely not the only.

-any% easy, normal and xtreme -all stages any% easy, normal and xtreme -100% easy, normal and xtreme

Yeah the "look" of the board is gonna be hard to do, that's gonna take some time.

For starters, we can make the categories with no runs (e.g. easy 100%) misc until there is a certain number of runs to guarantee competition (say, 3 new runs from different runners in a 1 month timespan for example)l, the exception being xc, which is always misc.

If we time out loads, I don't think japanese would be faster, since if you do the donut skip you still have to slowly fight heatnix as Zero. It doesn't save -that- much time.

Removing a run (mine) after it was done because of a decision made afterward is pretty silly. If you choose to ban PS2 emulators, then ban them, but don't remove my runs, because they were done in a time period where the emulator was accepted. As I said before, I plan on switching to console as soon as possible, and my next record will be done on Gamecube (Well, wii). Also, keep in mind, my all stages run is the best run regardless of version, so removing it is just against everything related to keeping records on the site. When I beat it with console, then remove it.

Do not separate by difficulty. If someone chooses to use a slower route, that's on them. If we separate by difficulty, we may as well separate by maverick order as well. It's literally 15 seconds of difference, and the gameplay is identical (between normal and easy, anyway. No one runs Xtreme because it's too hard for them). The only logical form of difficulty separation would be fastest (easy for any% and all stages, and normal for 100%) and hardest (xtreme). Intermediate difficulties is arbitrary.

X Collection is the standard. It has been for years, I don't really understand why it's relevant that some players prefer the PS1 version. They choose to go slower, thats on them. If they want to run the game, they should compete on the fastest version available. It's the same principle as route differences. If someone CHOOSES to play a SLOWER method of play, why would we accommodate for their ineptitude?

I'm all for timing loads and doing conversions to make every version legal (including ps2 emu, because that is my preferred platform) as long as it is done properly and it is consistent. Another thing relevant in load timeout is deaths (adding X amount of seconds per death, etc) you have to consider.

Another option is to use in game time. My least favorite option, but I would prefer it over removing the world record.

I would prefer timing loads out to keep all runs legitimate, and I would help in that process if need be. Banning a run retroactively is foolish and anti-speedrun, especially since everyone knows its the best run of the game regardless of version and platform.

PS2 Emu was NEVER accepted in the community so please get this through your head

Reminder that it was accepted without many questions for a year and a half, and that the only difference between it and consoles is loading times, that when removed, would make it a fair platform. Hating an emulator because its an emulator is unhealthy. It would be extremely easy to time loads and make it fair comparison. Also, even if emulator is 30 seconds faster, my record is stil wayyyy better than the fastest console times.

EDIT: Actually the top 3 runs are all better than the fastest console run regardless of if it is played on emulator or not. If you want to ban emulator, ban it from submitting new runs, but don't remove old ones.

So you propose to ban future submissions of PS2 emu but keep the current ones on? How is this remotely competent?

Because all the runs done on emulator can be improved on console. Also, keep in mind that timing without loads removes all issues with emulator load advantages.

Until we can figure out a common ground leader board will not accept any new runs, nor shall it be edited.

@cyberdemon531 that's not a good argument, like it any sense of the word.

How is it not a good argument? Assuming emulator is 30 seconds faster which is what I was told, I can easily beat 42:28 on gamecube. That way, until I beat it, the best run is displayed on the top of the board.

Also, again, time without loads would solve all these issues as well.