Hi everyone, after this conversation coming up multiple times over the last couple of months everyone is now on the same page and changes were enacted!

1: No more JRTA timing!

This was a relic of the past and probably needed to go sooner. The new timing now starts at new game as usual and ends at the end of the boat escape when the screen fades to black at the end of the Ultimate Being chase sequence. See here for an example: In this case the end time of the run would be 2:42:31. This cuts 15mins of doing nothing from the run.

2: In game time is no longer tracked. This is a result of no longer requiring a new game + save split time after the credits. IGT was never used for rankings and only tracked to provide context for runs on different platforms. It had however many issues with consistency and was never a useful information for runs that included resets or pauses.

These 2 changes affect both the New Game and New Game + Normal Ending categories.

New Game + Chrysler Building remains unchanged.

All runs have already been re-timed and updated.

And finally, Plywood was added as moderator to land a hand which is greatly appreciated.

After some scattered conversations here and there with different members of the community over several months I'd like to propose some changes to the leaderboard and possibly the timing method to help keep the competition fair to everyone.

First the rankings. As of right now every platforms are grouped together on a single board despite some significant differences in speed between platforms. Anyone wishing to compete for WR has to play on PSP/Vita/PSTV with PS2 in the middle and emulators trailing far behind.

I would like to propose a move to subcategories similar to what the Paper Mario leaderboard does. https://www.speedrun.com/pmario

Every platforms have their own separate rankings and all runs are regrouped together under the "All" category which is the default ranking shown.

This makes it easier to compare runs per platforms more directly, keep things fair for everyone and at the same time keeps the current leaderboard with all runs intact. I believe that given that almost every platforms are currently represented in the top times posted and as the community continues to grow now is the right moment to make these changes.

If we move in this direction I think we should consider removing the in game time from the leaderboard altogether.

Adding it was my idea as a way to compare runs on different hardware but it causes several issues. The biggest one is obviously in regards to safety saves and reloads which throws the validity of the in game timer out the window.

There's also the issue of inconsistencies with the in game timer itself which varies from run to run by a few seconds. The best example of that I can give was Professor Palmer getting 2 consecutive WRs, 3:00:05 followed by 2:59:59. Both runs had the same IGT of 2:22:07. Same runner, same console, same route, same IGT, different RTA.

If the boards are split with subcategories IGT comparisons become redundant.

Final point I'd like to bring up is where to actually end the timer. This only applies if we do remove the in game timer. If we do then I see little reasons to wait until after the credits and final save to split.

I think the best moment to end the run is upon escaping the cruiser. Once you exit the last corridor and the cutscene starts there is no more gameplay to speak of. There are a few scenes with text to mash but all of it is limited by animations that needs to play and doesn't require the runner to mash quickly in order to not lose time.

So here are the suggestions. Let's get the conversation going.

After yesterday's run i decided to compare my new PB to Dreamboum's 3:09:20 run. The 2 main reasons being that both were done on the same emulator and that this run has the fastest posted in game time. It seemed like a great place to see where I need to improve to close the gap further.

My run is 3 minutes slower both in terms of in-game time and RTA which confirms that the emulator behaves the same in both cases.

So from that I wanted to see where I lost 3mins. I had some ideas already since my run still incorporates some safety strats but not 3mins worth.

After the first 4 days I was 10 secs ahead. We both avoided the possible extra encounters in the police station. I did the safety save before the Micro UZ while Dreamboum got into one extra encounter in the hospital. These two things mostly cancel each other out. So up until this point nothing of note really seperate the two runs.

Day 5

I take the CM Protector from the warehouse which Dreamboum does not. In total this takes approximately 30 secs. This includes getting the armor, equipping it and discarding the CM Vest 2. However I'm not entirely convinced that this is a net 30 secs loss. The CM Protector does make a substantial difference in PE damage taken which removes the need for manual healing when facing some of the more powerful attacks from later bosses. This can help saving a few turns and play more aggressively. It is still a time loss but an educated guess here would be something more along the lines of 15 secs.

In Chinatown, Dreamboum goes for the tool which I no longer do, this saves me 15 secs.

We both get into one extra encounter in the sewers, Dreamboum's being a bit easier than mine (3 bats vs 2 bats and 2 snakes respectively). When entering the subway I am now 39 secs behind which seems right given the longer encounter and getting the CM Protector.

Subway.

Now the route commonly thought to be the fastest through the subway is to go directly up the right tunnel, ignoring the middle platform and left tunnel.

This is wrong for a couple reasons.

You can reach the middle platform faster than entering the right tunnel.

The left tunnel is 3 secs shorter to run through than the right tunnel. This works both ways, so 6 secs faster in total.

Then you have the fight itself which is significantly faster (1 mole compared to 1 mole and 2 bats). This also works both ways, as getting this encounter again on the way out saves time once again compared to getting the right tunnel's encounter again. Depending on luck with the bats this is anywhere from 1 to 3 extra ATBs per fight in the right tunnel.

The time needed to return to the left or right tunnel on the way back from getting the subway key is identical and from exiting either tunnels to reaching the last screen where the subway exit is takes approximately 10 secs in both cases.

Taking the left tunnel is faster and opens the option of grabbing up to 2 extra medicine 3 if needed. My guess is that even if you grab both chests this route is still faster by a few seconds.

Museum

I'll simply say that because of some ridiculously good RNG I had 3 fewer fights in the museum compared to Dreamboum. This allowed me to catch up some of the time I lost in the sewers/subway (because of a slower Centipede fight) but ended up costing me one level and therefore not getting Liberate. Also since the enemy composition in encounters in the museum is largely random it's difficult to directly compare runs without timing each individual fights. At the end of the museum i was back down to 47 secs behind Dreamboum from 1:04 after Centipede.

Eve 4 and Ultimate Being.

You REALLY want Liberate for Eve 4. The idea of not using Liberate in favor of just using the gun and hoping for crits in the 2nd phase is absolutely not viable as lengthy as the Liberate animation is.

First Eve's movement is very erratic and makes hitting her with the short range of the Micro UZ difficult at best, then you have the slow animation when she flies up to shoot her spears and the wait for her to come back down and finally she has a number of attacks that slows you down or simply debuffs your haste status. I lost around 50secs on this phase alone by not having Liberate.

Next use of Liberate comes against the 3rd phase of U.B. which is much less of an issue but still most likely slower in all but the best possible circumstances.

In this phase I lost approximately 17 secs compared to Dreamboum. Two things to note here, Dreamboum goes for 6 ATBs before using Liberate which is probably one more than necessary while I went for one manual healing which was also most likely unnecessary. These two cancel each other out however so the 17 secs time loss is once again the lack of Liberate. It is conceivable that with a lot of luck with U.B. sticking in the same corner multiple times in a row and with enough crits that the phase could have been similar in length but unlikely and certainly a lot less safe.

So there we have it. No liberate means around 1:10 of time lost by itself. Removing this and some of the time lost to safety strats the rest of the time i lost is due to slower fights (2nd phase of U.B was 9 secs slower for example) and possibly faster menuing on Dreamboum's part.