ZSR Forums

Lately people have been arguing about how categories will change with the new glitch: http://pastebin.com/69Jkkp6r

What I propose is that we seperate the ZSR Ocarina of Time Leaderboards into Tiers to discourage more restrictions/weird goals near the top and have more fun based categories towards the bottom. Here's how I might group it.

Tier 1
- Any% (new name to consider?)
- All Dungeons (or something simliar)
- All Quests (a super epic name for 100%)

**idea** make it so you need a video to be able to submit to tier 1?

Tier 2
- Warpless (no ww)
- MST
- No RBA/WW
- Ganonless

Tier 3
- All Medallions
- MSB
- No RBA/WW with Early Light Arrows
- All Cows?
- Ect.

With this system we would naturally encourage more Tier 1 and Tier 2 competition and relevance but still wouldn't discourage people from branching out into new categories and having fun.

I was following the discussion on IRC and came up with an idea to create tiers of categories without "grading" them by a number. My suggestion would be actual names for the tiers, like

- "Completion" or something (any%, 100%)
- "Restriction" (e.g. AD = Beat all dungeons before beating the game, noWW: Beat game without using Wrong Warp etc.)
- "Special Goals" like All Cows, Child Dungeons.

That would prevent people from fighting over which category is more important/relevant/popular, and still improve clarity of the leaderboards.
The names could obviously look completely different, this was just a first idea.

I agree this might be a better way to organize the tiers, but I do think All Dungeons should be tier 1 since it isn't restrictive, its simply 2 goals. Beat all the dungeons and beat ganon

My thoughts:

Tier 1/Completion Categories:
-Any%
-All Dungeons
-100%/All Quests (100% is a better name but w/e)

Tier 2/Restriction Categories:
-Warpless/No Wrong Warp
-No Major Glitches (RBA/WW/new glitch)
-Glitchless
-Ganonless
-MST

Tier 3/Alternate Categories:
-No RBA/WW (with the new glitch)
-All Medallions or MSB, I don't think we should have both, and imo MSB is better but it needs a new name
-Reverse Dungeon Order? (w/o rba but w/ the new glitch, also no trials)

I don't think we should include categories that don't beat the game like All Cows or Child Dungeons.

Wouldn't the same apply to MST?


I agree. 100% doesn't do all quests, which would - in my opinion -  include ones, that have an effect (e.g. cow in house, planting all the beans) and useless ones (e.g. Running Man mini game).
Also "Warpless" for no WW might be a bit misleading, as triggering the blue lights and using warp songs are warps and can't be banned.

I love this tiering idea, especially having a Tier 3 with All Medallions, All Cows, No Doors, etc. OoT is such a crazy glitched and optimized game that silly categories are a lot of fun too :)

Personally I'd prefer MST to be in tier 1 over AD, since I feel like it's more active than AD is.

I like the tier idea and I think fenyan's idea for names is pretty good. I also think that documenting more times for the more fun and popular categories can never be a bad thing, even if it's in an "unofficial tier." More routes is always more fun.

I also think the tier 1 should be the most popular short, medium and long category. So basically any%, 100% and whatever medium category we end up with (no rba/ww, mst, all dungeons, S2G6T3GFE2).

I'm really not sure if tiering categories does anything even remotely useful. What's the functional difference to just having all the categories in a list? The community already makes category elitism pretty clear on its own, the leaderboard isn't necessary to reflect that. If anything I think it should be strictly by number of runners, since anything else is pretty arbitrary, especially whether or not something goes in tier 2 or 3.

P.S. MSB goes in T2, MST goes in T3

I think you're right that the tiering doesn't add that much direct value, but I think it appeals to people anyways for a few reasons:

1. Some people have argued that leaderboards should only be for "legit categories," and have even suggested removing no rba/ww  / ganonless. By clearly delineating a few categories as "tier 1," you can satisfy those people without giving up leaderboards for arbitrary/fun categories.

2. For people not familiar with oot categories, this indicates to them the prestige level of various categories, similar to the way some leaderboards right now default to a category other than any%-- e.g. MQ defaults to no rba/ww, ALttP defaults to No Major glitches, Links Awakening defaults to Warpless. It saves the oot community from having to clear up the confusion of so many categories when anyone asks.

3. At least with the current leaderboards UI, having many more categories would simply be unwieldy. The drop down menu would get far too large. By shoving all of the "for fun" or less serious categories into tier 3, we can keep the more competitive categories from getting lost / hard to find.

Since Droma suggested it I'll give a short introduction: Hi, I'm EverAlert/EVAL but most people call me EA. I've been active since mid-2012, but lurking since around 2004/2005. I'm mainly knowledgeable about MST, No Wrong Warp, Max% Child and I've done tons of bingo.

Anyway, I really like this idea. I think it will help the serious categories be more competitive by drawing attention to them, while at the same time creating an opportunity to have a leaderboard for the more "for fun" or race categories.

For that reason I kinda feel like only two tiers are needed. I'll add an optional separation of my 2nd tier in case that doesn't sit well with anyone, though. Ordered by run length:


Tier 1 / Competitive Categories
- Any%
- No Wrong Warp (historical importance as previous major any%; has been gaining popularity recently)
- No RBA/WW/GIM (most competitive category aside from any% by far)
- All Dungeons (sensibly-defined variant of mst; very unique despite goal similarities)
- Medallions/Stones/Trials (historical importance as the original "no major skips"; extremely popular in the past and regaining popularity recently)
- Glitchless (a variant of any%; limiting almost all glitches in such a broken game makes this very unique)
- 100%

Tier 2a / Race Categories (that beat the game)
- Ganonless
- No RBA/WW
- All Medallions
- Medallions/Stones/Barrier
- 5 Boss Edition
- Reverse Dungeon Order
- etc.

Tier 2b / Race Categories (that don't beat the game)
- Master Sword
- Child Dungeons RBA
- Child Dungeons
- Nocturne No RBA
- All Gold Skulltulas
- etc.


I realize most will disagree, but I feel categories that don't beat the game definitely have a place in the "for fun" tier. As an activity I see speedrunning as completing any goal in a game as fast as possible, not just strictly game-winning goals. Aside from that, I feel anything from Jbop's spreadsheet (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Agd2Z9LUz1qvdGRqM21VSVNSRHd6dm1yem83UkZabFE&usp=drive_web#gid=0) could be suitable for tier 2; for the list I just picked the ones I felt were most prominent or interesting.

About naming, I'm not suggesting we call No RBA/WW with or without the new trick by the names I put here, I just wrote what made sense for clarity. Also, please do not call No Wrong Warp "Warpless", lol.

Extra thought: leaderboard for individual levels?

Posting for people who do not have forum accounts.


Dromaslyvia:


"Hey i'm droma, i've been running OoT for 2 years now, i've top time in lot of categories including best time for no ww and all medallions. Also i've done 100~ bingo or something)
 
Sorry if this is long lol.
I've been thinking about ZSR's categories for a while now and theres definetly something to be worked on. I like the way it is on the website now but i think we can do a little better =)
 
Bassicly when i was working on all medallion and trying to be good at that, lot of people (goes from random stream monster to not so random member of this community) would not understand why i run this "silly" category since it's not represented on ZSR. Some people would make fun of me or call me a WR whore saying i'd run this just so i get wr lol. They would say the category is fake and not worth carring about even if they never tried to run it.
 
But here is the thing, as long as one person run a category, it's not fake. As long as 2 people run it, it become competitive.
 
All medallion got some cool history behind it, if you think the category just happenned and that its easy to get good time in it, well you're wrong.
Sera (japanese runner) took the original route from SVA and reworked it (idk if cosmo did some routing adjustment at some point but maybe that too). He put lot of work into making it faster and getting decent run from it. then CMA improved it even more and started optimizing it. Then thats when i started playing it and i improved the route too. Also more recently sniping figured out some stuff and got good runs.
People worked on that route a lot, practiced it and tried to get good at it. In the end for what ? Getting mocked by the "community" ? Well that sucks man. Of course i'm not saying everybody is like that, also some people are just trolling (but its just as rude and stupid to do).
 
Just having a place on the ZSR leaderboard would solve all that crap, when i asked if all medallion could get on there i got some other "yea just so u'd get a wr in there".
Some other people told me that it's too similar to no ww.
Really ? Even if it is a bit similar then what ? The route is soo cool man, on top of RBA, you get BA farore wind's on B, you do 2 crazy-ass WW with it, u do hookshot jump in DC. Swordless Fire temple is nice.  It's ton of fun
I also got feedback that the category doesn't beat ganon. So what ? Ganonless doesn't either. AM warp to credit too and not from the same place as ganonless.
 
Anyway AM is just an exemple here. Similar could be said for other categories where people put lot of work into: Low% MST, 100% glitchless, Reverse dungeon order...Yet many people don't know about those amazing run because it's not on ZSR.
 
Those category maybe aren't worth anything to your eyes but they are to those who enjoy running and routing them. Is being featured on ZSR too much ?
 
I get that current ZSR's system isn't good for having many categories because it would be unclear, popular category would be lost in middle of a bunch of categories.
Thats when i thought about having tiers.
Having tiers of category allows for finding quickly the most popular and relevant runs (like most current categories featured on ZSR) while still having a hub for less popular category.
Originaly i thought about just having 2 tiers. But more can be good too. I like that idea about having 3: "main" "secondary" "misc" or "main" restriction" "misc".
Another thing that could work out well with tier is IL (Individual Level) as a tier 4 or something.
 
I don't know how feasible that would be in term of using that system on the actual website and how it would look like, but i'm sure something can be worked on, even if its just link to other website like google doc leaderboard or w/e
 
It's nice this topic is being discussed, it should have been long ago i think, this new glitch shook stuff up so its a good time for that.
 
Also, i don't know if those guys will come speak their mind here because registering on the forum since bugged but i know i can speak for Marco, Psybotteh, Bonooruu, Chopperman, Amateseru (and if you don't know who those guys are i've no word lol) they are all 100% for it.
 
Anyway thanks for reading my bad english
 
Dromasylvia"

Amateseru:


"I really agree with the tiers, it sounds a good idea, but trully the current list is not really perfect at all,

Top tier:

Any%
100%
glitchless maybe ?

That seems super legit to put them here, if you want to add a 4th one then it's mst. Not all dungeons (seriously all dungeons...) what about ban GIM in mst maybe ? because seriously, if you have to wait to get RNGeesus in deku tree.... I heard a lot of people sayin if you have to do that, they will quit for ever the category even if they're still thinking this is the best one (I'm talking about people like Marco you see ?") The best solution would be to wait until a new good route in mst which not involves retarded RNG is found... After all RBA is banned.

2nd tier

Glitchess 100% if you don't want glitchless in top tier
All dungeons
no WW
No RBA/WW
No RBA/WW/GIM
ganonless

3rd tier

RDO (just because I love this category)
glitchless 100% if you want glitchless in 2nd tier
ganonless if you don't want it in 2nd tier too
100%, every glitches allowed ? (except duplication because duplication just has no sense) that could be something...
another mst with glitches like RBA and GIM (you will still have to touch every blue warp) ?

Rubbish tier Kappa :

whatever you want (child dungeons, all owls maybe, low% no RBA/WW/GIM, etc...)


Clearly you can see the main problem is mst, really it's just not my opinion a lot and a lot of people agree with me, this category shouldn't die, this is like.... the spirit of OoT.

Just some extra informations about me: I'm running on emu, I'm running any% no RBA/WW, not mst yet but this my favorite category, and I will probably just touch  every category because they all look intersting"

Frogburt:

"Hello everyone, I'd like to start by thanking you for reading my post and contributing to this discussion, also thank you to Audacity for posting this to allow my voice to be heard.  First I'd like to say that I strongly support Pit's idea of tier'd categories.  This system would dispel a lot of the frustration over which categories appear on the leaderboards.  Although some certainly may be upset by the placement of some categories, I think this would at least be a step in the right direction.  Right now I feel that many of the decisions made about the leaderboards are made by only a few and that not every runner really has a say in what appears on the leaderboards and this system would bring an end to this.

One thing that we definitely need to have a discussion about is how many tiers we have/which categories go where.  Even though I don't really care for MST and I think the goal is sort of arbitrary it is one of the oldest speedrun categories in this community so I would argue for it to be in the first tier.  Regardless I think we first need to decide if this is the system we want to go with and then I'd love to have a discussion over which categories go where.  Thank you all again for reading this."

A few more thoughts after reflecting about this for a few hours.

About the leaderboards:
With the current presentation of the leaderboards, we can't have more than ~10 categories per game. Therefore cutting out categories that don't finish the game seems to be a reasonable decision. However we must think, if there might be a better way from time to time. And this tiering system looks like a good idea.
To keep it short: The more categories there are, the easier it is for newcomers to participate.

About categories:
I'm pretty new to speedrunning and sentences like "the community decided on these rules" really appealed to me, maybe this mix of competition and community effort to push a game forward is what got me interested in becoming a part of it in the first place. Anyway, GIM is obviously the first major breakthrough since I started lurking and I really looked forward to the discussion, where it would be allowed and where not.
When I saw the split of No RBA/WW earlier today, I was a bit disappointed, because there was (from my point of view) no discussion about that whatsoever. Maybe I wasn't in the IRC at the right time, maybe this is just to keep track of runs, to have it easier when a decision is made, but to me it seems like a lack of transparency.
In my opinion, we should take the opportunity of this exciting new glitch, to discuss most of the category definitions. There might be no change at all, but perhaps the "collect all tokens" definition with RBA and GIM (even, if it should have no use) allowed for 100% is the way to go (I don't say in any way, that I'm in favor or totally against this scenario).

To conclude: I'm really looking forward to the IRC-dicussion tomorrow, we surely have to talk about some things, which no one thought about, when the event was announced.

On the No RBA/WW category split:

On one side No RBA (and later no WW) was created to sort of capture the essence of any% from the pre-rba era. With the new glitch, you end up cutting out a big chunk (up to 20 minutes atm) of what makes No RBA/WW unique.

On the other side, you can argue that GIM is not explicitly banned from No RBA/WW (before the split). Several runners have shown interest in pushing the limit of the category as is utilizing the new trick.

To me, the difference between the categories is great enough to warrant a split. Furthermore, if people give up on No RBA/WW (GIM allowed), or if the No RBA/WW community wants to allow GIM, we can make the appropriate changes later on, when we have a better idea of people's feelings towards No RBA/WW with GIM.

So for the time being, the categories will be split.

Main Completion Goal Categories
-Any% (beat the game, glitched, minimalist, w/e)
-All Dungeons
-100% (or "completionist")

Race Categories
-MST
-No IM/WW
-Glitchless

Legacy Categories
-Ganonless
-No WW
-5 boss

Challenge Categories
-Minimalist (Low%) MST
-Reverse Dungeon Order
-No Doors

Alternative Categories
-All Medallions
-MSB
-"Glitched" 100%
-No RBA/WW

Other Categories
*everything else*

I'm not in favor of tiers.

What is even the point of tiers? To say x world record is better than y? What's suppose to be the least arbitrary? I don't see the point.

Well, for me the point is, that runners of more categories want to be represented on ZSR. But with the current layout, that wouldn't be feasible, it would be an overload of the drop down menu. With tiers, or by introducing secondary leaderboards, as suggested in the thread in the TWW-section of this forum, we could preserve the current system of highlighting certain categories, while still allowing other ones (which would fall under the definition of "race categories") to be represented on ZSR.
With tiers we had the opportunity to bring back categories that do not finish (like Child Dungeons), without distract from the more prestigious ones.

See, I personally want to start running, but don't have much time to practice. As I want to focus on glitch less, learning short runs like Any% or Ganonless is not an option. A good starting point would be Child Dungeons Glitchless, maybe with a leaderboard, I would try to begin streaming earlier. I know that nothing is hindering me, to run CD nevertheless, but having my name ion a leaderboard is definitely one of the first goals, that comes into my mind.

I mean, we already have the WR Spreadsheet, why not have more leaderboards here? Again, they don't have to interfere with the "big" categories, but it would be nice, if people could see more categories on ones profile.

Not in favor of Tiers either (no matter what they're called). I don't see the point of categorizing things when everything is already well-organized in a dropdown menu.

However, the "popularity highlight" idea that was mentioned in the ZSR discussion today was interesting IMO. (categories with the highest submissions average per week (or month) would get highlighted in red for example)

Do any of the people against tiers support adding more categories to the leaderboards?

One of the presiding arguments in favor of tiers seems to be that the current set up doesn't work as well if we add any more categories. I wonder if everyone against tiers is also against adding more categories.

I am against adding tiers, but like radio said I would be for highlighting popular categories, as well as having the categories listed from top to bottom by number of runs submitted. I would also not be in favor of adding more categories.

I like grouping by categories, but I agree that defining them as "tiers" poses it in a way to make Category X sound better than Category Y. This will just lead to fighting about things like whether MST and AD are top tier or 2nd tier or what. On the other hand, if we group them by their rules (Completion, Restriction, Non-completion, etc) there is nothing to argue about, because it is objective.

Mostly, I just hope that there are more categories on the leaderboards. I really enjoy seeing different routes and the incredibly diverse and interesting things that can be done with this game, but without it on the leaderboards I won't find the videos at all.

Agreed with sveet. The whole concept of "tiers" would just lead to developing category elitism. Just dropping the word "tiers" into this and just grouping the categories by "main goals, restriction, race, legacy, challenge, etc" would be ideal.

category elitism already exists tho. adding tiers wouldnt change anything

So would for example MST and No Doors both be in "restriction" or would MST be in restriction and No Doors in "challenge"? Seems important to get the different classifications right so that we don't have too many buckets but also don't exclude interesting stuff.

That's why I put MST under "race categories." I don't really like using "restriction"

Yeah "Restriction" is too vague. Everything that isn't any% is restriction. Perhaps a more descriptive terms would be "Sequence Restriction" which would include Any%, 100%, AD and MST (and others, like Ganonless) and "Glitch Restriction" which would umbrella all the No RBA/WW/IM combinations and glitchless, and then the 3rd category "Non-completion" which would cover anything else.

I don't know if "tiers" is the best way to go about this, but I think something needs to be done to make sure that the uncontroversially "legitimate" categories (any%, 100%, etc.) are highlighted over the arbitrary ones (no rba/ww, etc.) that people complain about. A lot of the complaints from opponents of arbitrary categories seem to come down to the concern that, if arbitrary categories are tracked on par with "legitimate" ones, there will be so many categories of equal importance that competition and development will stagnate across the board. I've talked to a few of these people and most of them have said that making it more explicit as to which categories are "legitimate" and which ones are "just for fun" would alleviate the majority of their issues with the creation of new categories. And besides wanting as many people as possible to be happy, I'm tired of seeing category drama on my twitter timeline. :P

Just as long as All Medallions is officially supported somewhere along the line, I'd be pretty happy because then I can utilize the official ZSR leaderboards. Even if it's on a lower tier.

I think it would be cool to support the creation of any arbitrary ruleset by any runner, and have a leaderboard for it. Like clearly the desire is there. lol

How to organize/display such a thing I don't really know tho.

Yea. I'd like it if we had a way to easily add in ILs, fun categories, and possibly low%.

Also, this thread makes some good points as to why there should be more fun categories

http://forums.zeldaspeedruns.com/index.php?topic=1787.0

I've been a advocate of tracking arbitrary/less popular categories for a long time. I don't think supporting a bunch of these on a leaderboard like ZSR or speedrun.com is ideal because it would clutter the site and potentially limit the creation of new arbitrary categories by a user. Using a Google doc with a submission form could work. I would love to see All Cows or some of the SRT OoT goals represented for example.

This discussion feels really weird.

To me all cows are just as valid as a speedrun as any% or glitchless. It might be a joke run but it's still a speedrun, you still have to route it, you have set goals and if you have a list on ZSR you could even compete against others. I feel that the most important thing is that everyone should run the routes they feel are the most fun otherwise we should all be farming nuts by now because anything other than any% is a restriction based category. Putting different categories into tiers just enforces elitism and just tells new users that these runs are "better" than these runs which they absolutely are not, they might be more or less serious but that's something completely different.

A better UI would be cool, and maybe a drop down list isn't ideal to represent the different categories but differentiating the runs by tiers doesn't feel like a good way to go about it.

I do think the current list can hold several more run types before being anywhere near cluttered.

I am in favor of adding more categories as long as there are people playing them.

i agree that there could definitely be some additions to the leaderboards before they got cluttered, and even then, couldnt we just make the list alphabetical so we could still find things easily?

Alphabetical is actually a pretty good idea, because any% and the any% categories would come first, the only problem would be where to put 100%. You don't want to put it at the bottom of the list, but you also don't want to make it first on the list. Maybe you could make the leaderboards load any% when you select a game, but still have 100% at the top of the list?

Why not have it first on the list? I think 100% and any% are the two "main" categories for any game.

My thought behind it is just that the main speedrun of a game is to beat it as fast as possible, which is what people will be looking for.

But then again, ALTTP doesn't direct to any%, even though that is the fastest run of the game. It's a complicated situation I guess.

You forgot all cows.  ;D


But yeah I agree with you, having 100% and then any% would totally make sense.