Well, the truth is that 50hz is not THAT much easier. At top level, it's more about muscle memory than reaction time. I think it's kind of stupid to bring up something like this after all these years. As a top 60hz player I really dont care if others choose to play 50hz.

This again, there are already separate charts...LOL!

MAY THE BEST HERTZ PIERCE THE HEAVENS!!!

Thank you Parsimonian! I hope I spelt your forum name properly!

You speak in a very respectful and mature manner Sorry for my rant earlier if it was one, I do apologise! Due to my Autism Spectrum Disorder, I don't know if my previous post was a rant and/or assertive. Not sure.

I think if I remember correctly, you are Jon Kay I say this because I also think you are a American ranked REALLY, REALLY, REALLY high in the AnyHz and 60Hz categories The reason I point this out is because I can ONLY imagine how frustrating it must be for you with your point of view when you are ranked really high and playing at a disadvantage! You are Hero or Titan for the time being I think and you are still getting better! A LOT better!

What I am trying to say is, you want a level playing field and you happen to be truly world class at this competition!

I don't like arguing or drama either.

I never had the idea of ditching the AnyHz and creating a combined Hz for competitors who play 'both' 50Hz and 60Hz it's a fascinating idea that I've never thought of. I have a rough idea of what you mean because I am in the SMKPP rankings.

Thanks for your mature response and sorry if my post was not nice, I get communication and social interactions confused.

I can't imagine how frustrating the rankings must be from your perspective being ranked very high and being at a disadvantage from having 60Hz only access.

It's a valid concern. Ocassionally, I am bothered by it too though, probably not as much as you. I wish competitions were 100% fair!!! In regards to your ideas they may be practical or not depending on what people and Alex decide can/can't and want/don't to do.

I don't know what the answer is. In my opinion, I'd either leave things as are or add your idea AND keep the AnyHz leaderboards. This way, if the AnyHz leaderboards are kept AND your new combined leaderboard version of the current existing one both exist it pleases many people. Competitors can decide which leaderboards they believe in more. If I had to choose, I'd like your idea better than the old AnyHz as it seems more accurate. I still like the AnyHz leaderboard too eventhough, 50Hz competitors have a small advantage.

Still, I wouldn't want to scrap the old AnyHz leaderboard as it is fairly accurate omitting the fact, an unknown portion of the community are probably cheating it's pretty much impossible to stop cheaters altogether when it comes to lying about PRs on any leaderboard. This is because the site is based on A LOT of trust which it MOSTLY is effective. There's A LOT of honest competitors among the cheats but this is another topic.

I can't and shouldn't speak for other people though! In reference to how the community want to implement your idea or not. I don't know if it's practical and/or desired or not.

I like your idea of adding a combined Hz leaderboard if, the old one stays. Competitors can decide which they feel is more accurate and which one they want to focus on if not able or wanting to do both.

Also, I understand A LOT of people will probably say, "have 'one system'", but I disagree. Competitors should be able to decide which leaderboards are more accurate than others.

As long as it's NOT too much work for Alex and other moderators. Again, that's up to them. I can't speak for other people.

Thanks for discussion

Thanks mate

You are welcome!

Thanks for your understanding

Good chatting with you!

Goodluck with your PRs, you are a very strong competitor mate

Also you can try the green rankings here https://www.mariokart64.com/mkdd/afn.php

The reason they are green is green means Go.

I wrote this a month ago in the discord, but I've reworked it a bit and wanted to add a few things. If you've read it there already, I'd appreciate the reread

So I'd want to start off with the fact that from the very beginning of me starting to play back in 2015, I've been firmly against 50hz being pitted against 60hz. A lot of things have happened in the community and on the leaderboards since then, but my view on 50hz has remained very similar.
Ever since the early days, there's been a decent consensus on that 50hz is advantageous. The easiest way to judge whether or not it is would be to look at the Mario Kart 64 leaderboards -- Where PAL did not have a choice to play 50hz or 60hz and see what dominates the top level rankings. I'll bring this up a bit later as well.

**Why Now?**
I feel like this is probably an even more important point, so let me explain
1. It's only been since may 2019 that all records have been done with 60hz, and now, it is again slipping away. So for the first time since the game's release, in 2019, you could say 60hz was viable to pick. This meant that all WRs can definitely be beaten on whatever region you're from, and 50hz would not have the stronghold on the game as it had done before 2019. And even then -- It's not like 50hz wasn't better at the time, there just weren't any players who would take up the job of playing it.

2. Some of the questions people have had about 50hz and 60hz have only gotten answered recently. I've heard the argument that maybe 60hz can get faster MTs than in 50hz, but we can see from TAS gameplay that the fastest MTs are still way faster than what 60hzers achieve nowadays. Then as we can see from mattilde's gameplay, clearly 50hz can compete with 60hz and outperform it, so it's not like the old wave of 50hz players were pushing the definitive limit of 50hz.

3. On top of that, a lot of players who were active during the first boom of MKDD (Richard, Andreas, Bunde) and people who followed their 50hz steps are now not playing anymore, and especially not because they *had* to because of technological reasons or competitive reasons. The only reason to pick 50hz now is that you prefer playing the game that way or that you want a competitive advantage.

4. And lastly, this change should've never have been a potential change -- I think combined should've always been a 'novelty' leaderboard, something to look at that's fun statwise, but not the main way of describing records, rankings, and overall performance.

**50hz vs 60hz**

I think there's a lot of reasons to solidify 60hz as the only way to compete against everyone. Here are my most important points:

1. Level playing field
We have the ability to let everyone compete fairly against each other, no matter their region and if they're on a non-modded gamecube or wii. It will also enforce a "tournament" standard that often already is in place (see: speedrun.com | TT1Try Tournaments).

2. 50hz's massive advantages
Not only can you have 120 seconds of input for a 60hz'ers 100 seconds, to me the reaction time and calmness of the gameplay plays a massive role. You have a lot more time to think about your adjustments, calm yourself down during slower parts, and even make more calculated precise movements to optimize MT speed for example. I can't help but describe it as massive as it really is at high level.

3. It's not necessary anymore.
I mentioned this earlier, but in order to compete with people way back in 2003 and 2004, if 50hz would've been banned from the beginning, it would've required having a 60hz TV for PAL regions. Now these were already quite common and I don't think it was much of a problem anymore quite soon after that. Regardless, nowadays this is definitely not the case anymore.

4. The future
An interesting thing to think about is that let's say 50hz remains active on the combined leaderboards, then starts dominating the top 10. Continue this cycle and you'll have a leaderboard extremely similar to MK64.
In MK64, NTSC times barely get any recognition even though it is objectively more difficult to drive as such. The only times there'll be some recognition is if it's an NTSC WR -- But even that a lot of people don't care for.

This plays into the fact that mkwrs.com is also fully combined (for both mk64 and mkdd), and thus, 60hz players will have to compete directly with 50hz to drive 'recognized world records'.

5. Indisputable advantages
As a pro player myself, I know a lot of spots where 50hz could gain me a considerable advantage. For reaction time here are some examples:
- Reacting to DKM's shortcut hop over the grass
- Balancing on the DKM bridge
- Micro-managing lines
- Slamming into the fence 2nd hairpin in RR
- Optimally reacting to any waluigi bump pretty much

What it comes down to: A lot of 'pseudo-RNG' that is manageable by reaction rather than muscle memory, and fine line adjustment. To say 50hz' advantage is not that big wouldnt be true.

6. My own experience
Here's the thing. I have no problem competing against people, as such is the nature of a leaderboard. I don't care if they'd be better, but the problem is that to me, competing against 50hz has never been fun. Be it when I was climbing up the rankings, or the defending I do now.
For the people saying I should just switch if I think 50hz is so much better: Having played a bit of 50hz as an experiment, I personally felt like I was cheating. I had so much more time to react. But on top of that, to me, that's not how the game was ever intended to be made. JP doesn't have 50hz. NTSC doesn't have 50hz. It was a necessity. 60hz is the way the game was intended to be played, and it's what I enjoy playing most as well. That's what I like competing with.


**So what to do?**
I think that preserving history is extremely important, and I also don't want to hurt people playing 50hz. HOWEVER -- it is also hurting people who play 60hz to have to compete with 50hz, which, in active and total players, is now bigger than the 50hz-group.

There's multiple solutions to this.
I've thought about this a lot but I think the easiest and probably best way would be to keep the combined leaderboards, but dial its importance back and turn it into a novelty stat page. This way people can still see how they fair against each other, but can still care about a 50/60hz record feeling as a proper legitimate record.


50hz Players can still compete for 50hz records, and in fact, people would be looking forward to 50hz records and seeing what the game can be pushed to. They'd have a lot more worth, and so would 60hz records. On top of that, switching between 50hz and 60hz would also make more sense, as you'd have different rankings to compete in.

IsThatAGoodTime wrote on 01/15/22 at 18:29:41:

I think everyone's aware of the specific rankings, but like I mentioned before the fact that mkwrs and every spot in the rankings, overall performance, etc is all default combined, says a lot about the dominance of combined.

@ndrew wrote on 01/15/22 at 17:18:32:

Because the game is slowed down, doing Faster MTs is easier than doing them on 60hz, which I think the main problem is about MTs in 50hz. Also, a lot of older 50hz players didn't ever bother trying to up MT speed to the max -- Even in MK64 this was the case until Xander G. came in and showed they can still be done faster on PAL (and NTSC)

On top of that, keeping the combined leaderboard as a novelty thing would still allow you to compare for fun without for example feeling demotivated by having to compete with 50hz  

That was a very lengthy post Goomba and you didn't really say anything different than what's already been said. I find it interesting that you make out 50hz to be so much easier when you have completely crushed all the top 50hz times. To me it seems like you are pretty much calling them bad.  

tbh, I dont think you would improve your prs that much by switching to 50hz. And I dont think someone will easily beat your 60 hz times playing in 50hz.   Prove me wrong.

I'm glad you brought up muscle memory, as we both know this is more important than reaction time at high level  

Man you guys really take this game way too seriously. It's a fuckin video game and if Goomba wanted to play 50 it wouldn't make me think anything less of him as a person. I just have major doubts that he would significantly improve his times if he switched.

Max28 wrote on 02/23/22 at 17:22:32:


This wasn't meant to include you, Stephen. It was specifically meant to not include you. I understand there are people who only have access to 50hz, and they should be able to play and enjoy MKDD Time Trials. I meant people, particularly at the top level, who can play 50 or 60hz and specifically choose to play 50hz to gain an advantage. I'm sorry you interpreted it this way, this is not a personal attack on you.

I will explain my position by outlining the starting points and logical flow.

• Playing in 50hz gains a significant competitive advantage.
• Playing in 60hz is more fun than 50hz on average for competitors.
• Watching videos of fast times/attempts is more fun in 60hz than 50hz on average for viewers.
• Very few people have no access to 60hz, while more people have no access to 50hz. The barrier to entry for 50hz play is higher than 60hz now.

From these starting points, here is my logical thought:

In the past, some records were 50hz, and some were 60hz. This was an unfair playing field.

Having an unfair playing field forces 60hz competitiors (at a disadvantage) to have less fun and be more competitive, or have more fun and be less competitive.

Recently, all the records and highest-ranked players were all playing exclusively 60hz. In effect, this was a level playing field where all the competitors had more fun than if they were playing 50hz. Everyone was better off than in the old situation.

After this new norm had been reached, any top-level player scoring records in 50hz forces players back to the old norm with the choice: to have less fun and be more competitive, or to continue having more fun and be less competitive. One person benefits competitively while everyone else's benefit is reduced.

Players choosing to play in 50hz while everyone else is playing 60hz choose themselves over the community: they value getting higher-ranked times for themselves over the community's overall benefit. They un-level the playing field and make the game/competition worse for everyone else.

There was an established social norm that top players would only play 60hz, since it is more fun, a level competition, and almost all players have better access to it. Players breaking that social norm (legally) for a competitive advantage choose themselves over the community. This is a parallel that can be drawn across different situations in the kart community (hoarding being the obvious example).

From these starting points and this perspective, choosing to play in 50hz for the competitive advantage, in the current situation, is a selfish act. I judge people based on their actions. Therefore I think less of these people, although they may not fully understand the effect of their actions on the community.  

50hz cannot be reasonably banned since there is still a vanishingly small group of people who can only play 50hz. However, the social norm of playing 60hz at the top level should be upheld for reasons outlined above, and I disagree fundamentally with those who choose to break the social norm. The ideal solution would be if everyone just agreed to play 60hz if they can (which is almost everyone.)

If anyone can reasonably dispute my starting points or logic, go ahead. I don't really have a vested interest in the situation, other than as a viewer, but these are my thoughts.

After typing my last post, I read the beginning of yours Max28.

I haven't read all the content of long posts in many cases.

I didn't think you were personally attacking me Max28. I am fearful of anyone in general hating on me with vicious words in general, anyone as the conversation between some has got very personal and heated.

Personally I think all levels top or below should be allowed to play anyHz and submit to anyHz they like even if they are top competitors. I understand this excludes me. Eventhough I am NOT a top competitor within the world rankings I still feel top competitors in the world rankings SHOULD be allowed to submit 50Hz times too. There's separate 60Hz records that aren't in the same category too.

Eventhough this is irrelevant at my level, I still stand up for top 50Hz records being updated. I am less concerned though, I must admit since I can probably still submit new 50Hz PRs myself

We disagree but I don't mind, all good

Stephen De Winter wrote on 02/23/22 at 19:37:43:


QFT!!!!