So the forums are not spammed with countless idea threads, please respond to this post with any category ideas you may have.

For your convenience, ideas that have been accepted or rejected will be added to this post.

Accepted Categories Fresh Account Boss Completion (Bloonarius, Lych, Vortex, Dreadbloon), Max Paragon, $1,000,000 cash

Rejected Categories "Get to round (x)",

*Implementation Pending

Yo, yo, yo. How ’s it going BTD6 runners. Another month as gone, so let’s recap everything that happened this month.

Starting off with admin things Update 31.0 looks like it’s going to drop in April. We’ll set up an entry for the new map as soon as it drops so those of you who are world record hungry can get your names up there immediately.

We’ve seen a lot of requests for new categories to be added to the game. Unfortunately, we have some internal issues at the moment when it comes to adding special categories to the leaderboards, so we’ll try to get that sorted. Also, it appears most people asking for new categories don’t actually speedrun this game, so to those people - your requests will hold more weight if you’re actually invested in the game.

The pause bug looks like it will continue to exist at least until update 32 as it’s not a priority for BTD6 devs at the moment. We will continue to allow runners to subtract 1/60th of a second for each pause in their run. NOTE: for best results, record at 60fps as recording at 30 fps may cause some pauses to be skipped.

And now let’s talk runners and strategy! natom27 has been quietly running in the background setting many top 3 and top 5 pbs on multiple maps, and even lowering the Geared Easy WR. Congrats natom :) and best of luck in April!

SummerPi set 10 or so world records on the course of March… all of which were promptly retaken by Arisune who doesn’t let Pi have a break! In lighter news, Pi seems to have fixed their frame capping issue, so they are now able to be competitive in full force! And they started by taking my Alpine Run Easy record -_-. Not cool man, not cool! Jokes aside, we look forward to seeing what you can do in April.

Burningflames set 2 records this month, but they were beaten by Arisune so they are lost now. But hey, maybe he will come back and retake them, if university work will allow :P

Me, noneleft. I did some damage this month on easy mode records. I developed a new strat that I’m dubbing the “0.1 strat” (pronounced as ‘point one strat’) that has allowed me to get 39.1s across many beginner and intermediate maps. Feel free to use it to beat me. Oh and I set a 4:38 on Streambed but I don’t like talking about myself so it doesn’t matter.

Arisune. Where to start with this one. Well, how about two sub 14 minute impoppable times? They become the second person to ever sub 14 min which is awesome. The subbed 11:30 on Hard mode, becoming the first person to do that. And then they did it again. They surpassed 100 simultaneous records (115 as of writing this), and have just in general been insane at the game. There are currently 240 WRs available which means they basically have half of them. Truly a cracked gamer, great work.

And finally, FroSteeMate. This man, this absolute madlad just spent the entire month of March speedrunning every completing every single black border in BTD6, starting with Monkey Meadow and ending with all 10 expert maps, including Ravine, Bloody Puddles, and #Ouch. I don't think it can be overstated how amazing this is. The amount of dedication and willpower to keep going, 31 days in a row for sometimes over 8 hours a day. But he completed all 59 black borders. Congratulations, Frostee. Absolute legend.

Some statistics: Just one for now, the sum of best across all maps was lowered by 13 minutes in March, from 39:43:19.466 to 39:30:29.187. Very nice.

Well, that’s all for now. Congrats to everyone who submitted a run this month. See you in May!

There is currently a bug in BTD6 as of patch 30.1 where the game will randomly pause for one frame (1/60th of a second , or 0.01666... seconds) after a round even though you have auto start on.

To combat this bug in terms of speedrunning, we are allowing you to subtract this pausing time from your runs, under these conditions.

1. It is up to you to determine which rounds your run paused on. We will not do it for you

• You can do this by loading the run into video editing software or Avidemux - any softwtware that allows you to advance frame by frame.

• When you see the game pause briefly, advance to the frame it does so and note down the round in the top right corner.

2. Any round with a pause you want subtracted must be reported in your run description.

• Do not try to give us rounds with no pauses, as we will be checking every round you tell us.

• If we find you reported incorrect rounds, we either won't subtract the time from your run, or we'll reject the run if we think you're wasting our time or trying to cheat.

3. You must report the initial run time from start to finish (with pauses) in the run description.

• Just helps with verification. Makes life easier for the mods.

If you choose not to report rounds where there is a pause, that's fine, we'll just take your time from start to finish and call it a day. This rule is only for those people who want that extra push, maybe for a world record or a top 3, 5, or 10 time.

This rule will not be applied retroactively. It starts 2/22/2022 and ends whenever Ninja Kiwi fixes the bug.

We hope this rule seems fair to those who want to use it. Any questions, feel free to ask me or another mod. Thank you.

noneleft

Hey y’all. New month, new post! In this one, I’ll just update you on some things I’ve been doing behind the scene. In addition, I have a poll for you all to fill out regarding some changes to leaderboards and rules.

First off, I have a beginner’s guide to speedrunning bloons recorded but I recently moved into an apartment, so editing has been slow. I hope to get that out in a week or two, we’ll see! I hope the guide will spark new interest in BTD6 speedrunning

Second off, I want to give huge regonizition to some players.

The most notable player at the moment is obviously Arisune, who has been absolutely tearing up the leaderboards and has nearly surpassed 50 records simultaneously (they may pass that number as February goes on)! I believe they are currently the undisputed Bloons champion. Congrats on all your world records, Arisune~!

I also want to recognize Schwitzman who is just insane at the game, taking nearly every single Expert map Impoppable and Hard WR as well has a lot of the Advanced maps. Basically if the category is difficult, Shwitzman does it. He hasn’t posted a run in a while, but I hope he comes back… and maybe someone will finally fill out Cargo impoppable. Hmm.

Australian streamer FroSteeMate came onto the scene and tackled the Black Border% category, knocking the time down by multiple minutes. He has recently ventured into IL’s including vastly improving the times in Workshop! I look forward to what he can do next.

And finally, SummerPi314159 has been quietly running Impoppable categories in the background on various maps. They’ve been posted really good times without the use of big trap or triple first strike! (Wait until they hear about those strats!)

Third! Speaking of Bloons Champion, I’m currently working with an old friend to make a Bloons overall leaderboard for ILs. Idk if you guys follow Mario Kart records at all, but I definitely feel our game shares a lot of similarity with theirs, so I think we had a sort of Champion leaderboard it could be fun! That way those of us who are active (GET YOUR FRIENDS TO SPEEDRUN THIS GAME COME ON) can compete for something greater than just the ILs! I hope to have it finished by next month, but I’m a busy gal (and also lazy) so who knows.

Fourth <o/ Did you guys know we have more categories than just each map and Easy through Impoppable on each map? Yes! We have “full game runs” (or as close as we can get!) You can compete for the #1 fastest CHIMPS completion on a map category (Easy, Int. Adv. and Expert), solo or CO-OP. In addition, you can race for the time spent to black border an entire map! Twitch streamer FroSteeMate has been running the Intermediate subset of this category and it looks pretty fun! If trying to optimize individual maps isn’t your style, try out these longer-form categories, it may suit you :)

And Last, I have two questions for all of you. Feel free to discuss the questions below, have a great February, and I’ll see you next month :)

Happy popping!

Questions:

1. Should PC and iOS/Android be separate categories? Mobile users are unable to uncap their FPS

2. Should BTD6 have its own speedrunning discord? Idk should we?

For those of you not in the discord server, I managed to get lvl 10 Ben before round 40 in Easy mode.

Question: Is it viable?

Answer: Not like how I did it lol. Ben loses so much time early game at the moment since he can't pop any bloons and forgoing popping power = slower times.

But some crazy person out there will try to make it work and optimize this. In fact, you should try to. I think it has potential.

Could be the future of easy mode runs, who knows.

Hi everyone,

For those of you who don’t know me, I’m noneleft. I’m currently the sole (active) moderator of Bloons TD6, having taken over earlier this month. Since I’m going to be verifying all your runs, here’s a little bit about myself: I’m from the United States, I’ve been playing bloons since 2007/2008 (that’s 14 years ago!), and I love kpop which you can see by my livesplit timers in my runs :D (my favorite group is GFRIEND). This thread is to give the community (whatever’s left of it) an update as to what the plans are moving forward to grow the BTD6 speedrunning scene.

NUMBER ONE: Quality of Life/Rules Updates

• The rules have been formatted and updated to be easier to read and clearer for new players. If you notice an error or have any questions regarding rules, feel free to ask in the speedrunning discord or on this forum post

• Timing for Impoppable and CHIMPS runs have been changed slightly. Sometimes the screen dims before the insta monkey appears, which is a time loss of 1-2 frames. Impoppable runs are not yet optimized to really care about these frames, but should we get to that point, we are now standardizing time stop to when the screen goes dark, NOT when the insta begins to appear

• All runs are now required to be Youtube videos only. Since I’m doing this on my own, I want to make this as easy as possible for both me and you, the speedrunners. Youtube allows for very easy frame counting in a few simple clicks. Using YouTube only means the time your run spends in verification decreasing, and your leaderboard time and placement are completely accurate. Please convert all videos or twitch streams to YouTube videos.

• All Times will no longer be rounded up should they end in 0.xx6 repeating (ex: A time of 4:41.966 will remain as such instead of showing 4:41.967) If your time is affected by this 1 ms change, please let me know.

NUMBER TWO: The Future - Guides and Fun Items

• Guides for speedrunning Bloons TD 6 are very limited. Over the next few months I hope to make a few guides – ranging from complete beginner tips to very advanced strategies. BTD6 players span a very wide age range, so we want the game to be accessible for all while ensuring that those who want to push the game to its limits can also do so. In other words: Low skill floor, high skill ceiling.

• For those who are interested in competing for leaderboard spots, I was thinking of setting up a separate leaderboard titled “Bloons TD6 Champion” (we can come up with a catchier name later) It basically totals your average leaderboard position and ranks you based on that. This could be fun, especially if the community ends up growing and we get more competitors.

• To hype up the scene a little, I was thinking about a world record/top times review. A video series where we look at some of the best times that players have set recently and break them down and praise them for being completely awesome (as all our runners are :D). If you’re interested in this and/or interested in helping, let me know.

NUMBER THREE: Questions for You all

1. The current Black Border% category states that times are to be calculated without time spent on the menu. I think we should actually include menu times as menuing effectively is a skill that can be learned. For example, being able to switch heroes quickly or being able to find the map in the map selector quickly as well. Would you guys be okay with this change? This would apply retroactively.

2. I swear I had more questions. Well, should they come up I’ll ask in a later post probably.

Anyway, that’s the plan for the future of Bloons TD6 speedrunning. Very lofty goals, but doable if there’s a community behind it. To get involved, please join our speedrunning discord here: https://discord.com/invite/VwrDMa7 Let me know what you think, and happy popping 😊

Today while grinding Cargo Easy and Blons Easy categories, I stumbled across a glitch that saves about 4-5 seconds. You can skip round 2.

I'm not exactly sure how it works, but I've recreated it (without trying to do so)

The first time it happened was here:

And the second time is here:

As you can see, it doesn't seem dependent on map, towers, or hero (I thought it was hero initially)

The only thing consistent in both runs is that it took me 20 or 21 frames to hit the fast forward button after pressing start. I'm not sure why that would be significant, but that's the current lead.

Not sure if anyone is going to read this, this forum is pretty dead, but it's very significant so I thought I'd bring it to your attentions.

Hey,

I've been trying to get a good run of All Achievements so I can submit a run for realsies, but whenever I try to alt+F4 to reload a wither skeleton after not getting a skull, the skeleton just disappears. (It's also failing on blazes, but ghasts seem to be unaffected for some reason...)

I thought it might be something related to the amount of entities being rendered, but lowering my render distance did not solve the issue. I can't really think of any other reason for this glitch not working, so I decided to ask here lol.

If the solution is already posted somewhere, sorry for this repeat :p