Hello everyone,
As the community slowly continues to grow and different categories and different ways of speedrunning the games are becoming more popular, there have been many requests to change some of the ways in which the categories for each of these games are represented on the leaderboards.
The following are some changes that we feel may help make certain categories more approachable and better represented on the leaderboard.
1. Moving No HPT/ No Major Exploits / Any% categories from category extension into the main categories as a sub-category.
We feel that the NME/NHPT categories represented a much desired way to speedrun the game. They are essentially the equivalent of what could be considered "Glitchless" as far as Mortal Kombat is concerned. While “High Punch Trick” (HPT) is a lot more challenging and a lot more fun than it looks, it does devolve the speedrun significantly by removing a large strategic portion of the game which can otherwise be a very complex and enjoyable part of speedrunning.
The NHPT/NME categories have since received a considerable amount of competition proving that there is a desire to run the game this way and therefore we feel it deserves its spot on the main leaderboard as opposed to being on the Category Extensions Board.
In Regards to WolfMAME INP requirements on No HPT/NME/Any%: Our approach to the Category Extensions board has generally been "its for fun, its for the memes" etc, and we have not enforced any harsh requirements for them. However we feel that moving it into a main category does necessitate the need for more appropriate legitimacy requirements on the top runs. Therefore we would like to require WolfMAME INP's for NME/No HPT/Any% for any top time runs in these categories going forward.
This requirement will be implemented the same way it is required for the current main category runs (only required if the run is faster than a certain threshold). NOTE: We aren’t disputing any currently submitted runs for these categories and current runs with no INP will NOT be removed, it is specifically a requirement "from this point forward" and will NOT retro-actively disqualify any runs from the leaderboard.
Most people who are running in these categories are already using INP's anyway, but the ones who aren’t are strongly advised to learn how to record a WolfMAME INP if they wish to continue running these categories at sub-threshold times. You can find a guide on how to do this in any of the guide sections for MK1,2,3,U3 and if you have any trouble getting it to work PLEASE CONTACT ME. I will walk you through it.
Currently we are only intending to make these changes for the "Arcade" platform categories. However if you would like to see similar sub-categories implemented for some of the consoles where these categories can apply, please let us know.
2. Mortal Kombat 3/Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 - Renaming of "Credit Skip" category to "Standard".
As it currently is, whether or not Credit Skip is used is a binary choice and the category names reflect that. However with the addition of NME and Any% sub categories it then becomes a little bit more confusing which category is the "main" category to anyone observing the leaderboard.
We feel that "Credit Skip" should still be considered the main category, it represents what we feel is the basic way of running the game (Hardest difficulty, Hardest Tower, Anything goes). To reflect this, "Standard" is the best name we could come up with to make it obvious to anyone observing. Suggestions for a better name are welcome.
3. (SNES) Mortal Kombat 3/ Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 - Separating Soundless runs into a sub-category.
Back when the Soundless exploit was found on SNES MK3/UMK3, there was some discussion about whether or not it should be allowed. The community was smaller and there was no complaints or issues about allowing the exploit and the main runners at the time were happy to go ahead using it so we allowed it.
However since then multiple people have made it known to us that they don't wish to run the game this way and it has squashed any appeal the speedrun might have had. We don’t believe in unnecessarily disqualifying runs on a technicality so we are planning to move all runs that abused turning off sound to a separate category that we will call "Soundless". Hopefully this will make running MK3/UMK3 on SNES much more appealing to onlookers and hopefully generate some more runners.
4. Using the "Individual Levels" Leaderboard for "Character Specific" runs.
The main categories have done a lot to keep the speedrun simple and approachable and digging into the game to find "which character is the fastest" for any given category has been a fairly challenging endeavour. Seeing the title of "Optimal character" change over the years has been quite interesting and in some cases I believe it is still yet to be proven, (MK3 in particular).
However there is a lot left to be discovered and lot more fun to be had running the game by trying to master certain specific characters. The current method of just using a filter with the "Character Variable" is far from satisfying, and frankly most people dont even know how to use filters on the leaderboard so any visibility or credit you could get from mastering a specific non-optimal character of your choice is basically non-existent. We would like to give runners a better way of going for these goals, however we also like the way the current speedrun categories work and don't want to disrupt it or convolute the leaderboard with 10+ main categories to support every character.
The best alternative we have found on some of the other leaderboards we moderate is to use the Individual Levels leaderboard and make each character a "Level", see Example for Street Fighter III: Third Strike - Main category: https://www.speedrun.com/street_fighter_iii_3rd_strike , IL categories: https://www.speedrun.com/street_fighter_iii_3rd_strike/individual_levels
The individual level leaderboard will not affect the main leaderboard categories in any way and if you dont like it, you can literally just ignore it. Any runs submitted can qualify for both the main category runs AND its respective Individual character run simultaneously and you may submit the same run to both categories if you wish.
We hope that these changes accurately reflect community desires. Making these changes will cause a lot of work for us since we will need to copy a lot of runs from one leaderboard to another. Please give us feedback on your thoughts about these changes, we will NOT be making any of these changes if there is any significant objection from the community. We want to make sure that any decisions comply with what the community wishes to see, so please comment down below with your feedback.
Alright guys,
Its been long enough. For the most part the response to the changes from actual runners has been either positive or indifferent. We're gonna pull the trigger and start implementing the changes tomorrow.
Last chance to have your voice heard.
