SwedenJust to establish where my POV is coming from. As someone that hasn't really put much time into DMC until last year with DMC4SE which was my first ever speedrun game. My feedback will be bias.
1 ) HaH and SoS seem completely redundant at this point. I don't have any particular interest in it unless it's proven to have some interesting memes that aren't just "more of a chore"-version of the Demon Hunter run. Sure there might be a niche demographic for it but as of now the community is so small that the main categories barely are being run anymore which is what should be pushed IMO and if people do the HaH or SoS run and find it cool it'll be brought up eventually. So I think you should be safe to remove it as of now.
2 ) I'm not familiar with Super Costume runs, hell I'm not even familiar with the Vergil route even. So take whatever I say with a bucket of salt. That said. The issue would mainly be that people who run without Super Costume would feel like they're running with a handicap which would be straight up unfair. HOWEVER. I'm okay with that change. NG is there to preform with limitations imposed on you. NG+ being a "do whatever" mode with freedom to choose your gameplay with unlimited resources or not at this pool of people should be completely fine as of now. Worst case scenario is someone gets upset their free WR is bopped which I can count there would be 3 of? 1 in the Nero/Dante HoH section and 2 in the Vergil DH and DMD section. Which at the end of the day is pretty much dead categories anyway so any attachments to rekkys there shouldn't be expected. You'll have a more streamlined intended competetive scene which I think is a fair trade. At this size. If it grew and you got like 15 Super Costume runs taking up the top board there should probably be a change but we're not at that point. However could you submit the NG+ category with and without Super Costume and take up 2 spaces? Or would submitting one take out the other?
"Putting Nero/Dante. Vergil. Lady/Trish under one category called New game" This should be fine. From a "Presentation POV" You'll still have Nero/Dante as the "Main Category" when you open the leaderboard and Vergil or Lady/Trish isn't literally pushed to the side like "oh and there's these memes too if you wanna give them a go and would be more integrated in the "Main Category". Doing NG and NG+ vs Nero/Dante, Vergil and Lady/Trish would also be more compact. However leaving them separated as categories really emphasises that they are different runs. So it's a matter of whether you want the presentation of the board to leave the impression that Vergil and Lady/Trish is synonymous with Nero/Dante as a main category or have it emphasize that "These runs are very different but available if you wanna run". To me who regularly comes by it's not that big of a deal but I'm considering the POV of someone dropping by to consider running. Like I can see someone looking at the integrated NG and NG+ versions thinking it's taking away the spotlight from them being separate tabs but I can also see someone looking at the NG and NG+ categories being like "Ah yes Vergil is in the first category tab, that means it's also important".
Now to the " I'd like to hear your opinions based on the gripes of running this or the barrier of running this game. (Is it due to lack of resource ? Unforgiving ? More help needed ?..etc.)"
As I started taking this game seriously around last year I'll tell my experience learning the run.
Resources? Meka has done an AMAZING job pooling the information together in terms of learning the run. I pretty much learned it without interacting with any of the community. Mainly through his pastebin, youtube tutorial and ESA run I watched a couple of times as a reference cause I'm very much a visual learner. Though once I submitted my run and got more engaged with the community I got even more help which I'm very grateful for.
Unforgiving? Yes. Very. There are so many places that have a "You can fail here" moment and I'm not just counting the skips. The battles themselves in terms of playing optimally for maximum damage and speed stack up into a massive time junkyard filling up the run. Being consistent with attacks that require timing inputs takes so much practice. I'm kind of exception where I actually very much enjoy punishing learning curves so I'm not sure how someone who isn't would experience learning the run and what they would like or if this run is even for them, which is fine.
More help needed? I'm familiar enough with the NG Nero/Dante that I'm not even sure what I would've wanted more help with when learning this run.
I think alot of people (including me at some point) only looked at DMC4 as like "Ah yes the unfinished game with good combat that I will never be good at" and that perception still lingers with people so if they would run any of the DMC games then 4 is probably the least likely unless they have some sort of appreciation for its combat. The majority people didn't even exceed with Nero when playing through this game and would actively complain that he was a boring/not-fun character. So I think the game kind of from the Get-Go is considered kinda "it was cool but kinda meh" with the majority? I'm talking about your Average Joe that played through this game casually. Which is fine to do. Now the meme is how do we appeal to them to grow the community? Just the idea of Speedrunning turn alot of people off so it's a very hard market to appeal to. While we like to meme this game is cursed and terrible between ourselves I think I should probably not do so with people on the outside unless they're aware of how much I actually like the game to encourage newcomers. It may still be terrible in some aspect or cursed but rhetorically it's not very healthy of me to market the run like a terrible curse. So that's one change I'll make for myself at least in hope of encouraging others.
Not that I think that this runs community should be like other communities. But that is one appeal some runs have to people. Just being a cool community. Which I think you guys have done a good job at, despite being so small. Initially I worried that the speedrun community would be similar to the general DMC community. The tryhard elitists that would at every possible moment downplay anyone else's achievements and always jerk off themselves that they're always better than you. I'm cool with a healthy amount toxicity. The one that encourages others to do better. But I acknowledge that even that is a turnoff to the majority of people that aren't competitive so I never really enter that mode unless I'm aware the other party is cool with that. So any newcomer should probably be warmly welcomed to optimally foster a community which probably goes without saying but I just wanted to acknowledge there's that appeal and how to make use of it. And of course, I appreciate you all for being helpful so far and encouraging me to do better.
Now I spent a little more time than I wanted into writing this but I figure I should take part and try to give as much feedback as I can, even if some of it is redundant. Just that I'm here and taking part is for the better of the community vs just lurking like I usually do. As I said at the start, new runner. I got my biases. I might wanna change something I wrote or add something. But these are just my general thoughts surrounding this.
