As a leaderboard moderator for Final Fantasy VII, I don't believe that speedrun leaderboards, as they are implemented now, should exist primarily to show a history of the speedgame and a progression of fastest times, but rather to show the state of competition at the current moment, divided into the current categories that represent the types of runs that the community currently considers interesting based on the state of the game and the community. (for one, the History button hasn't existed for very long, nor has one been able to view the state of the leaderboards in the past for long, and the structure of many communities' leaderboards are a holdover from then) I also generally believe that it is more useful to have a run posted exactly once on the leaderboard instead of under all categories under which it fulfills the criteria. As an example, our game splits Any% based on whether the run allows the use of the Slots limit break or not, as it very significantly affects the optimal strategies for combat and the run as a whole in ways that many runners don't like, and we consider the process of beating the game with slots both allowed or disallowed to be interesting questions. However, for a period from late 2020 to early 2021, despite typically being around 10-15 minutes slower, the No Slots world record was actually faster than the Any% record that used Slots. This was fine, however, as the run used strategies that we knew to be significantly slower than what would be optimal for Any%: the category was just in a state where no one interested in Slots wanted to even try to do runs on the PlayStation version of the game (for reasons mostly unrelated to the differences between Slots and No Slots runs). As a computer science university student who likes thinking up unnecessarily overcomplicated systems, my ideal leaderboard system wouldn't actually divide runs into separated leaderboards, but instead have a single list of all of the runs currently on the leaderboard. Each run would be flagged or tagged with all of the information that we would have used to divide them into different categories: whether they used slots, whether they completed 100% of the game, whether it defeats Ganon or uses SRM, what version of the game it's run on or if it uses an emulator, whatever makes sense for the game. A leaderboard user could select any arbitrary set of flags to filter runs for any set of conditions, which would be calculated from the entire list of runs for the game. There could still be the defined categories we have now, but they would be implemented as preset filter selections instead of entirely separated leaderboards. With this, the faster No Slots run would have appeared on the "Any% Leaderboard" due to the design of the board itself. However, we don't have the tools for this: speedrun.com naturally divides games up into entirely separated leaderboards, even with their sub-categorization selections requiring one to choose between two or more options instead of not necessarily having to choose between them. I really want this sort of database system for a leaderboard, as it would, for example, fully resolve a debate that has occurred occasionally in our community: whether to allow turbo controllers. They have recently been allowed, but under a separate leaderboard filter. Thing is, though, for our game, it's not unreasonable to compare turbo and non-turbo times with each other, as it doesn't give players a significant gameplay advantage right now. I would like the ability to easily view a leaderboard with both types of runs, but also the ability to select whether to view only runs with or without turbo. This is technically possible with speedrun.com filters right now, but selecting different filter options is a somewhat obscure process, and this obscurity would create the implication that our moderators view turbo and non-turbo runs as being exactly equal, that turbo provides no advantage at all, and the community currently doesn't want that. Another sort of humorous result of speedrun.com's leaderboards: when using multiple filters, they can result in dummied-out categories due to how filters combine (the example I like is the Minecraft (Java) leaderboard's Any% Glitchless (Peaceful) category with the Random Seed and 1.9+ filters being an effectively impossible set of conditions and therefore the category is effectively dummied out with a placeholder run to tell people not to submit to that leaderboard) One final point: our leaderboards currently do not accurately reflect the state of the game's competition, as they do not list the current best time for the No Slots category because the record holder for this category does not want to be affiliated with speedrun.com at all. They have chosen not to submit their runs and we have respected their wishes by not including them.
Hey there! Thank you very much for your thoughtful comment and sharing your thoughts. One consistent piece of feedback I have received about this video is that, whether someone agrees with the underlying concepts I get at in the video or not, there is pretty common agreement that speedrun.com has significant limitations. These limitations make it impossible or *very* annoying to implement some of the ideas in the video and, probably more importantly, experiment with new ways to keep speedrun information in a useful way. I want to highlight my favourite part of your comment (in part so I can come back to this idea later): "... ideal leaderboard system wouldn't actually divide runs into separated leaderboards, but instead have a single list of all of the runs currently on the leaderboard. Each run would be flagged or tagged with all of the information that we would have used to divide them into different categories: whether they used slots, whether they completed 100% of the game, whether it defeats Ganon or uses SRM, what version of the game it's run on or if it uses an emulator, whatever makes sense for the game..." I really like this idea. One obvious limitation is that it could (probably?) only account for full-game speedruns. Still, as long as there was a record of when the runs occurred, I think that this actually solves most of the issues I raised in the video. In the future I would like to put together my thoughts on the tools we use as speedrunners with a significant focus on speedrun.com and alternatives. There are a few speedrunners I respect who reject SRC for various reasons and I have had to avoid posting my own times to a leaderboard that had toxic but sadly unavoidable mods. The technical challenges that speedrun.com has only compound the other reasons that make a potential alternative appealing.
Seems like an easy fix would be for these sites to have an "All" tab that includes runs from every single category lumped together. Or maybe it's time to switch to a tag and filter system.
Hey, thanks for your comment. There are a few alternatives that I've heard from folks responding to this video. Pretty clear there are limitations to the way we currently keep most speedrun leaderboards.
I find that your arguments make a lot of sense. I agree it is important to discuss and clarify what counts as "Any%", although I somewhat doubt we could generate a new colloquial definition since every game is significantly different and has a different community to reflect that. Good luck with your future projects, and have a great day.
Very interesting stuff. It's definitely a topic worth discussing. Also the transition at 3:10 is one of the most hilarious things I've seen in a video essay to date. You made me choke on my water. Thanks gamer.
Zericc is a man of immense talent, skill, and dedication. Don't even get me started on his Solar Jetman and Qix runs. They're like works of art, each and every one of them. But here's the thing: even though Zericc is a god among men, his speedruns don't always live up to how great he is. I mean, sure, he's got the skill and the talent and the dedication, but sometimes it just feels like he's not giving it his all. Like he's holding back, you know?
Nice. Im actually surprised this is the first time you've heard of the term toys to life. I used to constantly see ads for skylanders (spyro the dragon's toys to life game) and used to play Lego Dimensions with the husbear. he used to really love that one cause it had DC heroes, Dr. Who, scooby doo, etc. and each character was programmed with wild random conversations they would have with all of the games other characters. Though nintendo's amiibo is the most long lasting of the toys to life enabled things part of it could be their easy replication as many people use unofficial amiibo cards sold by 3rd parties online. But overall neat video. :)
I didn't think this way at first. However, after watching this video, you've fully persuaded me. I'm now completely convinced this was entirely a ploy to make us watch you play Solar Jetman. 😴
I am mildly annoyed after watching this because for the first 30min i was just thinking "yes ok categories are arbitrary, what's this guy's fucking point" and then you FINALLY introduced the idea of one big leaderboard that cross references all the categories of a game and I was like "ooh I love this !" it would be so nice for the first page of a speedrunning leaderboard to actually feature every run and not just the ones that belong to the "default category" I don't fully agree with the way you talk about any%, at times it almost sounds like you're defining it as "no restriction" but the core definition has more to do with "no requirement (other than beating the game)" and on that note I think it is practical to have a generic word that means "no other goal than just beating the game" even though it can sound redundant in categories' names it's still a useful term as for the video itself I'd say some of the visuals are sometimes a bit irrelevant and maybe a few keywords on the screen could help underlining your points, more importantly the whole thing is way too slow, I feel like a few parts are too generic to really be noteworthy and could be trimmed down the start of the video is particularly guilty of that (hearing about how 2020 was a shit year is really not something that made me want to keep watching -_-) and I think addressing the video title should be done first thing not after over 2min of vague contextualizing, after all it's your hook and we already saw the title so beating around the bush to keep people guessing is just gonna make your video lose momentum at that point
Hey there, thank you for your feedback. I appreciate that the way we use the term "Any%", be it strictly as "the fasted way from beginning to end" or in the less literal sense "beginning to end, with the following qualifications", has a history and I tried to present as much of that as it made sense to do. My point was that the use of Any% in the second sense is not only an abuse of the word "any", it is also redundant the qualification acts as the only necessary language to define the category. Thanks for your feedback on the visuals and intro. Especially the intro length. This is my first attempt at a video like this and feedback like that will help me improve them in the future.
This is a UA-cam video that is on the Internet. Can't believe no one said it until now. Good work putting this together. Can't wait for the people who don't like it or disagree about Any%. The best speedrun category is Any%. First!
As a leaderboard moderator for Final Fantasy VII, I don't believe that speedrun leaderboards, as they are implemented now, should exist primarily to show a history of the speedgame and a progression of fastest times, but rather to show the state of competition at the current moment, divided into the current categories that represent the types of runs that the community currently considers interesting based on the state of the game and the community. (for one, the History button hasn't existed for very long, nor has one been able to view the state of the leaderboards in the past for long, and the structure of many communities' leaderboards are a holdover from then)
I also generally believe that it is more useful to have a run posted exactly once on the leaderboard instead of under all categories under which it fulfills the criteria. As an example, our game splits Any% based on whether the run allows the use of the Slots limit break or not, as it very significantly affects the optimal strategies for combat and the run as a whole in ways that many runners don't like, and we consider the process of beating the game with slots both allowed or disallowed to be interesting questions. However, for a period from late 2020 to early 2021, despite typically being around 10-15 minutes slower, the No Slots world record was actually faster than the Any% record that used Slots. This was fine, however, as the run used strategies that we knew to be significantly slower than what would be optimal for Any%: the category was just in a state where no one interested in Slots wanted to even try to do runs on the PlayStation version of the game (for reasons mostly unrelated to the differences between Slots and No Slots runs).
As a computer science university student who likes thinking up unnecessarily overcomplicated systems, my ideal leaderboard system wouldn't actually divide runs into separated leaderboards, but instead have a single list of all of the runs currently on the leaderboard. Each run would be flagged or tagged with all of the information that we would have used to divide them into different categories: whether they used slots, whether they completed 100% of the game, whether it defeats Ganon or uses SRM, what version of the game it's run on or if it uses an emulator, whatever makes sense for the game. A leaderboard user could select any arbitrary set of flags to filter runs for any set of conditions, which would be calculated from the entire list of runs for the game. There could still be the defined categories we have now, but they would be implemented as preset filter selections instead of entirely separated leaderboards. With this, the faster No Slots run would have appeared on the "Any% Leaderboard" due to the design of the board itself. However, we don't have the tools for this: speedrun.com naturally divides games up into entirely separated leaderboards, even with their sub-categorization selections requiring one to choose between two or more options instead of not necessarily having to choose between them.
I really want this sort of database system for a leaderboard, as it would, for example, fully resolve a debate that has occurred occasionally in our community: whether to allow turbo controllers. They have recently been allowed, but under a separate leaderboard filter. Thing is, though, for our game, it's not unreasonable to compare turbo and non-turbo times with each other, as it doesn't give players a significant gameplay advantage right now. I would like the ability to easily view a leaderboard with both types of runs, but also the ability to select whether to view only runs with or without turbo. This is technically possible with speedrun.com filters right now, but selecting different filter options is a somewhat obscure process, and this obscurity would create the implication that our moderators view turbo and non-turbo runs as being exactly equal, that turbo provides no advantage at all, and the community currently doesn't want that.
Another sort of humorous result of speedrun.com's leaderboards: when using multiple filters, they can result in dummied-out categories due to how filters combine (the example I like is the Minecraft (Java) leaderboard's Any% Glitchless (Peaceful) category with the Random Seed and 1.9+ filters being an effectively impossible set of conditions and therefore the category is effectively dummied out with a placeholder run to tell people not to submit to that leaderboard)
One final point: our leaderboards currently do not accurately reflect the state of the game's competition, as they do not list the current best time for the No Slots category because the record holder for this category does not want to be affiliated with speedrun.com at all. They have chosen not to submit their runs and we have respected their wishes by not including them.
Hey there! Thank you very much for your thoughtful comment and sharing your thoughts. One consistent piece of feedback I have received about this video is that, whether someone agrees with the underlying concepts I get at in the video or not, there is pretty common agreement that speedrun.com has significant limitations. These limitations make it impossible or *very* annoying to implement some of the ideas in the video and, probably more importantly, experiment with new ways to keep speedrun information in a useful way.
I want to highlight my favourite part of your comment (in part so I can come back to this idea later): "... ideal leaderboard system wouldn't actually divide runs into separated leaderboards, but instead have a single list of all of the runs currently on the leaderboard. Each run would be flagged or tagged with all of the information that we would have used to divide them into different categories: whether they used slots, whether they completed 100% of the game, whether it defeats Ganon or uses SRM, what version of the game it's run on or if it uses an emulator, whatever makes sense for the game..."
I really like this idea. One obvious limitation is that it could (probably?) only account for full-game speedruns. Still, as long as there was a record of when the runs occurred, I think that this actually solves most of the issues I raised in the video.
In the future I would like to put together my thoughts on the tools we use as speedrunners with a significant focus on speedrun.com and alternatives. There are a few speedrunners I respect who reject SRC for various reasons and I have had to avoid posting my own times to a leaderboard that had toxic but sadly unavoidable mods. The technical challenges that speedrun.com has only compound the other reasons that make a potential alternative appealing.
Seems like an easy fix would be for these sites to have an "All" tab that includes runs from every single category lumped together. Or maybe it's time to switch to a tag and filter system.
Hey, thanks for your comment. There are a few alternatives that I've heard from folks responding to this video. Pretty clear there are limitations to the way we currently keep most speedrun leaderboards.
If this video taught me one thing, it's this:
Speed-Run looks way better with the hyphen.
Just like Lolo-Guru!
I find that your arguments make a lot of sense. I agree it is important to discuss and clarify what counts as "Any%", although I somewhat doubt we could generate a new colloquial definition since every game is significantly different and has a different community to reflect that.
Good luck with your future projects, and have a great day.
Thanks for watching!
It’s a supreme term of case by case basis
Very interesting stuff. It's definitely a topic worth discussing.
Also the transition at 3:10 is one of the most hilarious things I've seen in a video essay to date. You made me choke on my water. Thanks gamer.
LMAO if only one person chokes in laughter from the video then I'm happy!
Awesome video 😸
Thank you!
Zericc is a man of immense talent, skill, and dedication. Don't even get me started on his Solar Jetman and Qix runs. They're like works of art, each and every one of them. But here's the thing: even though Zericc is a god among men, his speedruns don't always live up to how great he is. I mean, sure, he's got the skill and the talent and the dedication, but sometimes it just feels like he's not giving it his all. Like he's holding back, you know?
LMAO thank you
Very cool video Zericc! Glad to have worked on it!
Also I would like to clarify that myself and BugDR only edited the script, not the video itself
I really enjoyed working on this. Thank you so much for your help my friend!
Nice. Im actually surprised this is the first time you've heard of the term toys to life. I used to constantly see ads for skylanders (spyro the dragon's toys to life game) and used to play Lego Dimensions with the husbear. he used to really love that one cause it had DC heroes, Dr. Who, scooby doo, etc. and each character was programmed with wild random conversations they would have with all of the games other characters. Though nintendo's amiibo is the most long lasting of the toys to life enabled things part of it could be their easy replication as many people use unofficial amiibo cards sold by 3rd parties online. But overall neat video. :)
The first person I showed the script to was like, "What about Skylanders..." lol
I didn't think this way at first. However, after watching this video, you've fully persuaded me. I'm now completely convinced this was entirely a ploy to make us watch you play Solar Jetman. 😴
Name a better Rare title on the NES about space.
I am mildly annoyed after watching this because for the first 30min i was just thinking "yes ok categories are arbitrary, what's this guy's fucking point"
and then you FINALLY introduced the idea of one big leaderboard that cross references all the categories of a game and I was like "ooh I love this !" it would be so nice for the first page of a speedrunning leaderboard to actually feature every run and not just the ones that belong to the "default category"
I don't fully agree with the way you talk about any%, at times it almost sounds like you're defining it as "no restriction" but the core definition has more to do with "no requirement (other than beating the game)" and on that note I think it is practical to have a generic word that means "no other goal than just beating the game" even though it can sound redundant in categories' names it's still a useful term
as for the video itself I'd say some of the visuals are sometimes a bit irrelevant and maybe a few keywords on the screen could help underlining your points, more importantly the whole thing is way too slow, I feel like a few parts are too generic to really be noteworthy and could be trimmed down
the start of the video is particularly guilty of that (hearing about how 2020 was a shit year is really not something that made me want to keep watching -_-) and I think addressing the video title should be done first thing not after over 2min of vague contextualizing, after all it's your hook and we already saw the title so beating around the bush to keep people guessing is just gonna make your video lose momentum at that point
Hey there, thank you for your feedback. I appreciate that the way we use the term "Any%", be it strictly as "the fasted way from beginning to end" or in the less literal sense "beginning to end, with the following qualifications", has a history and I tried to present as much of that as it made sense to do. My point was that the use of Any% in the second sense is not only an abuse of the word "any", it is also redundant the qualification acts as the only necessary language to define the category.
Thanks for your feedback on the visuals and intro. Especially the intro length. This is my first attempt at a video like this and feedback like that will help me improve them in the future.
This is a UA-cam video that is on the Internet. Can't believe no one said it until now. Good work putting this together. Can't wait for the people who don't like it or disagree about Any%. The best speedrun category is Any%. First!
This is definitely a UA-cam comment.
Just here so I don't get banned
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