Any% now finally has load-removed timing implemented. This is something that a lot of people have wanted to see for a long time (myself included), but it took a while for us to get there. It was always known that load times were quite different across consoles, but the exact time difference wasn't really known, so nothing could be done to the leaderboards to accommodate it.

The issue became a bit controversial when michael_1985 set Any% times that beat the former WR by JXD, but only when using RTA timing. Michael played on USB Loader GX, which can provide much faster load times than any official version of the game, but nothing was done about this at the time - ultimately, his run stayed on top of the boards above JXD's for a very long time. Unfortunately, JXD's WR never got a lot of the attention it deserved because of this (not to discredit Michael's run, as it is still very good).

While this is the main reason why people wanted LRT to be added to the boards, it was obviously also important to resolve the differences between official versions (mainly between physical and digital versions). Timeattack made an autosplitter in May last year that removed level entry/exit loads, and the animations on the map after beating a boss. This gave us a good idea of the load times of the top 4 Any% runs. Unfortunately, loads ended up being a lot more complicated than we realised, so a lengthy manual retime process was the only way it could be done. So I did that.

I've spent a lot of time recently working on a spreadsheet to help me with retiming runs, and also spent a lot of time actually retiming the top 6 Any% runs. I'm now happy with how the spreadsheet is, so I've added the LRT time to these runs. The main rank change as a result of this is that Michael has moved down to 4th, boosting me and JXD up to 2nd and 3rd respectively. I'm aiming to eventually retime all sub-1:35 runs for Any%, all sub-2:20 runs for All Stages, and high-ranking Full World runs.

In addition to this, it seems best to disallow USB Loader GX for all runs, going forward. It's highly unusual for a Wii community to have allowed it for so long, and it can clearly produce unrealistic load times as it has for Michael (though interestingly, Fonzoide's run on USB Loader GX actually had the slowest loads in the top 6). However, now that they have been retimed without loads, and because they are important and high-ranking runs, their runs are being kept on the leaderboards.

This is an update I've wanted to make for a long time, so it feels great to finally have it done. I will continue to work through the other sub-1:35 Any% runs, then retime obsolete PBs, and then move on to other categories. The spreadsheet is publicly available so that runners can see exactly how their loads are broken down, and how their runs compare to other retimed runs. Please take a look if you're interested: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZmpV8Gg0GrmaTuwgaLebVkP5gFgJMaRylEtPB-3_wi4

Update 26/08/24: modified the spreadsheet to include another type of load which was overlooked previously (only accounts for 3s at most though). Run times have been updated to reflect this. Should hopefully be everything...

Update 12/09/24: modified the spreadsheet again to add a flat 25.500 to all LRT times, to fix an oversight and bring the LRT times closer to RTA again. Sorry about this - at least I noticed it in less than a month of LRT being on the boards. Should actually be everything now...