Leaderboard category changes
It has been just over a year since we launched our leaderboards, and overall it has been a success. Over 1000 times have been submitted, and we get new submissions every day. SpeedRunsLive is currently in the process of designing their own leaderboard system for various games, and our boards are (generally) considered a useful source of information, while also being a fun place to compete.
A new version of ZSR is coming soon, and with it there will be some changes to the leaderboards. We didn't really know what would work at first, but I think we have a pretty clear idea now. After discussing things with several members of the communities surrounding different Zelda games, including many members of SRL, there are some changes coming that everyone should know about:
Categories must complete the game
While we do appreciate that there are many players who like to participate in shorter goals, what we have come to learn in the past year is that goals like these are more suited to SRL races. They also draw a bit of attention away from the "real" categories that finish the game, and rarely inspire any sort of real competition. While there might be some competition between some players on these boards, the community at large does not feel that their inclusion is warranted anymore. These categories will be removed, as they do not complete the game:
Categories must start from a new file
The only game this really affects is Majora's Mask. As much as we all hate it, Cycle 1 is a part of MM and it must be timed. These categories will be modified to start from a new file:
Categories should have speedruns
Some categories just have no interest. It isn't due to a fault in the rules or the way the category is defined, just that no runners really care very much to do a speedrun. These categories will be removed due to lack of interest:
Categories should not be separated based on region, language, etc.
The culprit here is The Wind Waker. This issue was caused by a shortcoming in our leaderboard system. Runners were only able to submit one run for each category, so filtering was not doing the job it was supposed to. Ideally, you should be able to see the top English time for TWW, or the top Japanese time, or the top time overall. The problem is that one runner could have both the top English and the top Japanese run, but only be able to submit one. The exact same issue applied to runs done with or without the Tingle Tuner accessory. Our new leaderboards will allow multiple submissions and a more robust filtering system (covering cases like the Tingle Tuner), making 4 different "Any%" categories a thing of the past. These categories will be merged into a single category:
That's it for categories being removed/combined. As always, we will continue to get feedback from the community in order to make our leaderboards as fair and competitive as possible.
Now for some better news: there will be some new categories appearing! These include: Skyward Sword - 100%, A Link to the Past - No Exploration Glitch, and The Minish Cap - 100%.
Expect these categories to be removed this weekend (May 3rd - May 5th, 2013). If you want to continue to keep track of your personal best time for any of these runs, you should take note of your final time before the categories are gone. As for MM All Masks and TWW Any%, those times will remain up, but will be transferred into a new system. You should not have to do anything at all for TWW Any% times, but MM All Masks runs should be retimed from a new file (or re-ran if the submitted time started from a race file). All Masks runs that were originally done from a racefile will be deleted.
Note: Although this news has been posted under the OoT section, these changes will affect several games.
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