I've been thinking of switching to a more SDA style ruleset. Such as reducing difficulty categories down to just normal (easiest) and master ninja (hardest). Any%/100% single segment for each.
I wouldn't consider Ninja Dog as a regular way of playing the game. It's an unlockable mode that requires the game to be played before hand. You die a bunch of times on the first chapter, make a new save, and then reload from that save to play the mode.
A low% run for normal is possible but I think it's impossible for Master Ninja. It's basically a lvl1 dragonsword only firewheels ninpo only no healing no talisman original lifebar run. You do get TDS just before fighting Awakened Alma.
I've thought of switching from real time to ingame timer, another SDA style rule, however the game does pause the timer while you are in the save menu. So I can't follow through with that as you can just take a break in there while doing Master Ninja 100% not be penalized for the time spent idling the game.
Idling on save screen for 6min and still ending chapter 1 with a 3:29
tldr; Only difficulties now are normal and master ninja, both get any% and 100%
Personally my vote is highly in favor of real time. SDA's rules are very outdated and idk anybody who still uses SDA. I also think idling during a longer category like master ninja 100% should be counted against you, as there are plenty of 6+ hour speedruns out there with that rule.
As for difficulty I'd defer to others. Normal and Master Ninja are the only ones I'd be interested in running, but I know Kris has spent a good deal of time working on Hard. I've also heard that in some ways Very Hard is harder than Master Ninja (particularly for 100%).
Anyway, I'm a scrub whose opinion should be taken with a grain of salt. If any of these rule changes would convince JTB and/or Caleb to actually submit their times to the leaderboards so they'd be accurate I'm in favor of that.
I think getting Caleb or JTB to submit run times to this site is a pipe dream. Both are pretty adamant that that won't be happening. That being said I agree with Kanis in regards to RTA.
