I'd like to see a stat on all runners' profiles (no idea what it would be called; rank score?) calculated by adding how many people they're ahead of on all leaderboards.

For example if you have 1 run in 1 category of 1 game, and that run is faster than 100 other people's time, you get a score of 100. And if you're ahead of 10 people in another category that's an additional 10.

I see this as a way to encourage people to run a wider variety of games and categories. Getting decent times in multiple popular games would take less time than getting really good times in just one game, and would be worth more rank score point coin things.

This is also one way to help quantify success in speedrunning as a whole. If someone has top 50 times in the 10 most popular games, that's INSANE. But I'll never know unless I comb through every leaderboard. Of course, I suppose I'm also asking for the ability to browse runners by rank score stat thing.

Speedrunner Score? Speedrun Points? SRC Score?

I guess that kinda makes sense, but it’s also incredibly skewed towards popular games. If you have a run that’s better than 100 people in a game with 400 runs, is that a better score than you having first place in a game with 50 runs? Since any kind of scoring and ranking like this is heavily subjective I’m not sure a system like this makes any sense to have.

You’re better off going to the game page and looking at the most popular games to see who’s got good times in them although you’re gonna see very little cross over between popular games, it doesn’t happen very often.

Interesting but idk ?

A leaderboard dominated by meme game runners with day 1 PBs

Great idea.

No reason in hell for this to ever become a thing. Speedrunning isn't about leaderboards in the first place. It's about having fun playing a game, and pushing yourself to do better and better with it. It's not a competitive hobby, but a collaborative one. Now that's not to say there's not a competitive aspect. But that competitive aspect is mostly aimed at competing against yourself.

Absolutely no reason for this to ever become a thing. Terrible idea.

If people want to run more games, they should run more games. If people don't want to run more games, then they shouldn't. Giving people fake internet points so that they do things they don't necessarily want to do is stupid.

"Getting decent times in multiple popular games would take less time than getting really good times in just one game, and would be worth more rank score point coin things."

This is absurd. Getting a "decent" time in 10 games is easier than getting a really good time in one game, so why the hell would it be worth more points? That makes no goddamn sense.

didn't rommaster make a spreadsheet that basically had a pseudo-ranking system

I'm not really a fan of it being an integrated thing because I tend to think it incentivises meta-gaming rather than just playin a dang video game, but it's fun to look at.

Guys. This might be a stupid idea. I agree. But one thing I don't like about this site is the community's tendency to bandwagon and repeat the same point 10 times over. I'm sure he got the point after the first couple people said something (especially after a full mod chimed in, discussion seemed over at that point). On the surface, the idea seemed nice enough, but because he neglected to look further into the idea and consider all possible outcomes, he overlooked some details that would be less than desirable, sure - but thats no reason to burn him at the stake? Why do 7 people feel the need to tell this guy he's an idiot and that his ideas are 'absurd' for suggesting an idea and attempting to help better the site? It's redundant after the first few people have made their point.

Keep a track record like this up, and soon no-one will want to say anything for fear of being shunned. It sets a bad precedent for the rest of the site. Its almost like you guys don't want to facilitate discussion.

And I get the sentiment, but I just laugh at the irony of making a point like "Speedrunning isn't about leaderboards in the first place." on the biggest speedrunning leaderboard site. Fun times.

We've already addressed how the idea, as it stands, is not a good idea for the site. The OP hasn't responded yet, so I see no reason for people to continuously pile on their two cents. I'm not saying that only 2 or 3 people's opinions are allowed, but if your opinion is the same as everyone's before it you should realise that maybe people get the idea. If your opinion is conflicting or brings new information to the table, of course, go ahead and make your case. Otherwise you're just being redundant. I'm speaking more generally about the site too, not just about this specific thread.

And however you're posting your point as, you are still a full mod and people are going to hold your opinions much higher than the average speedrunner. No matter the intent.

Edit: post was made before your edit. to clarify. People weren't explicitly calling him an idiot, but it was heavily implied. "Terrible idea." "Absurd." "That makes no goddamn sense." "Silly." as if to say the flaws of the idea were obvious from the start.

Yeah most threads like this end this way. idk why people post the same thing that has been said 10 times already.

@diggitydingdong Meh, you're overreacting IMO. Someone had an idea, a bunch of people had different things to say about said idea (most of which ultimately boiled down to "this is a terrible idea"). I really don't see the problem here.

Anyway, no need to clog this up with meta-discussion over whether or not people with similar opinions are allowed to post in the same thread.

@ShikenNuggets "overreacting" Okay sure, but lets not forget these classic lines: "stupid." "This is absurd." "so why the hell would it be worth more points? That makes no goddamn sense."

Where should we discuss this then? I feel like it's an issue that is worthy of discussion rather than just being swept under the rug.

Cool, let's take quotes out of context to make each other look bad, that's a fun game that'll end well and definitely be helpful [/sarcasm].

Make a new thread I guess?

I do want to say this, since it seems like there's some animosity being thrown around here. The general concept of finding someone who's very good at many games is not a bad one, in fact it's a rather intriguing one. My feedback was aimed at the idea used to show this concept, and that that idea was not a good one.

The concept behind it is intriguing and interesting. This simply isn't the way to go about it.

@ShikenNuggets I don't feel like the context changes much. Did you want me to quote your whole post?

Okay, guys, I've got a new idea for the site. How about any time someone responds to a post you make in the forums, you get an email about it? Because I had no idea anyone had read this or said anything XD And I don't think I changed any settings related to the forums.

Back to topic, what I'm looking for is some kind of quantification of overall speedrunning success, because "who's the most accomplished speedrunner of all time/right now" is an interesting subject. I want some way to compare between TGH, Vallu and Werster. And a hundred other people. And I'm sure "how many people you're ahead of" isn't accurate. Frankly, I don't care if it isn't especially accurate, I'm fine with this stat being nothing more than a reference point. I think it would be interesting to have.

The problem is that you’re comparing apples and oranges and aside from being both fruits they have nothing in common. You can’t accurately compare runners across incredibly different games. Comparing Werster and all his Pokémon accomplishments to Vallu and all his Mario ones just can’t be done, even as only a “reference point” - both have accomplished amazing things over the years, trying to compare who is better though will only be biased and heavily opinionated.

Like I said originally, it’s not that it’s necessarily a bad idea, it’s just one that can’t be done in an unbiased manor. The idea also has a flaw in how it handles historical data long before this site ever existed. For example, Werster isn’t the best in Pokémon Red/Blue right now, but what about all his accomplishments 4-5 years ago with the game long before this site existed? How do you factor in historical data/runs that didn’t get ported to this site when it came about?

You’ll never know who is the “best” speedrunner right now, it’ll always be someone’s opinion. A ranking system like this just can exist or work, even ROMaster’s spreadsheet however long ago he made it still wasn’t perfect and people beat that system by spamming WRs on new games or games with no runs.

There isn't really such a thing as "best speedrunner". Unless you want to look for players that can adapt / do well at any game/genre that is thrown there way, but that wouldn't really be "best speedrunner". If you're naturally talented at games then you're able to play anything and everything well, and that to me is how you would also define "best speedrunner". You don't need to have the absolute best time in everything you run, because a lot of the time it is relative to how much time you've put into those games.

Just define what you mean by success.

Popularity? Money? Top times in popular games? Etc?

Namely though the stat, regardless of what it is narrowed down to, just wouldn't ever work. If someone is the top in a particular game then that respective leaderboard already reflects that. To have something as broad and opinion-based as "best speedrunner" would just not work well at all. In my eyes it would just appear tacky and probably reflect that the site seems to view certain games (popular games to be more precise) more highly than others which is a bad view to give.

It's not that it's a bad idea, but speedrunning is vastly different even between games of the same series. It's not reasonable to find someone at a high level on many highly competitive games, and if it is the case it's only a rare few people. If it weren't for the terrible amount of flash / rom hacks / visual novels this wouldn't be a bad idea, but then you have to factor in each game could have IL's or category disputes on what's considered a main category (since sub category would be even harder to want to give point value too).

That being said, I do think that a grouping system would need in place to make this real. Like at the very top, you'd have games that carry the most weight (maybe a group of the top 50 most ran games?), followed by another group of a set weight, then another, then finally the bottom tier (ran by like 1 or 2 people). However many groups is required would take time to decided but this is just an example of tier listing by weight. Obviously no shitty games like flash / visual novels / rom hacks would be included in this ranking, nor would misc. categories to keep everything simpler.

I think the above is a very real possibility, it's better than the trueskill alternative, but yeah the only downside is of course, you'd need to run games you may not like just to get a higher score, and it could also in theory dissuade people from running lower scoring games.

I guess in conclusion, this kind of idea would be neat to see, but in reality I can only see this being done on a game series basis (like all zelda combined / all mario / etc.)

"I want some way to compare between TGH, Vallu and Werster"

That is just not possible, on account of the fact that they run different games that are not comparable.

The only way in which it makes sense to directly compare runners is on the same leaderboard, and even then PB is not an absolute indicator of skill as it only tracks your single fastest completed attempt, not your overall consistency, knowledge, capabilities, etc.