Does anyone have suggestions for categories for this game? I have not played it sofar, as it just came out yesterday.
Two Players as separate category? Individual Levels?
two players should definitely be its own category. the advantages/disadvantages of having multiple builders makes it very difficult to compare a coop playthrough to a solo. map awareness alone at the later levels is huge.
they've completely changed the way the islands work in this iteration; you can go back to previous islands and (though they suffer some damage and need to be rebuilt) everything that you've earned/built remains. i haven't found a way to do individual islands like in New Lands, but a full playthrough will take longer than 4 hours unless it gets really optimized. i spent over 4 hours playing just figuring out the new mechanics yesterday and i haven't sailed to the 5th island yet.
you may be able to do individual islands by recording how long it takes to destroy the Greed on that island? i don't know how spoilers work here but in this version you can go inside the greed cave and use a bomb to blow up the portal for good on each island. you can sail to the next island without destroying the portal so maybe you could time how long it takes to destroy that islands portal.
i think a fun but exhausting category would be 100% unlocks, since you have to unlock all of the hermits/mounts/statues with gems now. it would be shorter than a full run because it doesn't require killing the greed but you'd still have to get to island 5 to complete it.
now that i think about it you'd probably have to differentiate between biomes as well, as the japanese dlc has different units and the biome adds at least twice the amount of trees. i've only played the dlc a small amount but the difference is quite noticeable.
I tried out doing an Island 1 run on the default biome and it still took longer than I thought it would lmao. At least I figured out how to get out of the cave alive! I think I can take out the Knights split and just stick to the bomb, maybe add the Archer statue in there but it's not necessary unless I'm bad at remembering to unlock it...
I'm also on the fence about whether clearing the dock portal is necessary for a completed run. It wasn't necessary to get the Kingdom Secure screen but I don't know how picky folks want to be. Also! Should the timer stop when the text "The Monarch has secured the kingdom" displays on screen? Or when the crown displaying the game is being saved after?
I am still on a casual playthrough and have not yet watched your run.
Coop definitly is a seperate category and the DLC is a seperate thing...
For IL you could do a "until you are in the boat" version, I am not sure if the bomb is even possibly on a single island run. Tough to judge at the moment... Dock portal does not seem neccesary to me, because we do only the things needed to complete something...
I am still looking for some more input, as it seems really hard for me to define what completed means for this game...
Yea to get the bomb you have to reach the 4th island and get the gem mine upgrade. It took me an hour and a half to blow the cave on the first island. If we did it just based on getting on the boat then it would be about the same length as the previous game. The first islands would be a lot faster now since the boat requirements are less at the start. Boat would be a good any%? The only issue would be that you'd have to do the previous islands every time in order to run any of the later islands. Unlike New Lands you can't just hop around between the islands to retry indefinitely. There's also the new part where the upgrades are static, the only RNG would be the location of gold chests/peasants/trees.
I've been addicted to the game since it came out lol, it's really easy to play for hours.
I'm pretty satisfied with the greed cave completion, though it's unfortunate that it's so long compared to the previous game.
Maybe something like this:
For individual levels we have a "boat%" category and an "any%" category, one for "escaping", the other one for real completion. The any% feels to me however more like something what in other games would be a "new game+" category, however it just doesn't seem to make any sense to start this one totally clean...
You are able to go back to previous islands whenever, theoretically you could continue playing for as long as you want. However the seasons are cyclical and become progressively longer. I don't see how it would be possible to make a "New Game+" scenario work in this case because there's no way to track how far along the runner is in the seasons. The Greed become stronger as well, unless you destroy the caves on every island.
The any% category, if it's about real completion of that island, I think would have to include the beginning playthrough up to the point where you get the onscreen notif saying you've secured that land. There's so many variables to account for if you're strictly looking at when they go back to the island to bomb the greed. You would have the seasonal advantage, you could have gone all the way to island 5 and gotten the unicorn, you could build up the base camp on the island all the way and then just come back and start the run when you arrive even though the island has already progressed so far.
To get the full completion you have to get to island 4 and then go back to the island you want to finish, but I feel like there's lots of space for developing strats and efficiency. The boat% is available if you want to do fast and easy runs, but I honestly feel more inclined to do the completion runs just because it's actually challenging.
Currently the rules for a full playthrough are to reach island five and destory the portal, but I'd suggest that the rule needs to be to get the end-game credits. This can happen on any island you would destroy last, thereby, providing more flexibility in developing speedrun strategies. If I read the rules now, I wouldn't even need to destroy island 1-4 at all to achieve the speedrun for the complete run essentially.
IMO, there don't have to be records for each island separately. Since you have to get to island 4 to be able to beat any island, the records for island 1 - 4 are likely to be very close and thus not interesting to keep track of separately at all. I think people will be more motivated to participate when they have a single specific goal, rather than of a set of arbitrary goals that feel the same. Also, given the fact that there's 2 results per biome and the developers are planning on creating new biomes, I think the records as they are now are going to get messy really fast. "Fastest time to complete island 3 in the Shogun biome" doesn't really sound like an achievement anyone would be inclined to get when there's 4 islands to choose from in God knows how many biomes to come.
Here's a list of categories I think makes sense for this game:
-- Destroy any portal -- With this category, people that are exclusively interested in doing shorter runs can compete for a record as well.
-- Unlock all 5 islands -- The moment you step in the boat on island 4. I imagine treechopping galore and crazy record times.
-- Clear any island -- The moment the statistics start showing up. Going back to island 1 after reaching island 4 is probably faster than clearing island 4.
-- Clear all 5 islands -- Reach end credits.
Completely agree with GustvandeWal here by the way. It would be nice to see others attempting speedruns of this game in order for a conversation to start taking place on what the best methods are. However, in order to do so, there needs to be fun and interesting goals. Some people enjoy much shorter runs that they can reset quickly if it goes badly. So far, you need a little over an hour to even attempt a single island run and three hours to beat the entire game. If we want this to be a bit more accessible for others and get acquainted with running this game, we are going to need shorter and fun challenges that can actually draw these people in. Therefore, the category of destroying any portal is a good one, as well as simply leaving island 1 as fast as possible.
As of right now there seem to be only a handful of people actually interested in running this game. We would like to see more people engaged with it, especially since Gust and I regard it as a very fun game to speedrun. Maybe we could speak to one another through discord and discuss these matters? If there is a lack of time or attention that you can or want to invest in this platform of speedrunning Kingdom Two Crowns, then maybe it would be nice if one of us could become a moderator as well? In order to help with implementing some of these proposed changes I mean.
Maybe we could ask the community through the Raw Fury discord channel and reddit what categories they would like to see? This could help us with both getting more interesting ideas/categories as well as exposure of speedrunning this game. Just food for thought. Yours truly, soufletboi ;)
Hey @GrumbleBottom, Fragbringer has promoted Soufletboi and I to moderator, and we'd like to make changes to the categories. Do you have input for the changes I've proposed? If you ask me, 'Destroy any portal' and 'Clear any island' should be added, no matter what. In hindsight, though, 'Unlock all 5 islands' might be a bit too arbitrary.
We'll have to see what we have to do with the newly added biomes later. I'm thinking it might be best to drop the biomes from the leaderboards altogether and only keep the times for the standard biome.
You could add the biome as a dropdown, similar too like the horse works. I think you could then choose one as the "this is the standard that is shown" and the others as minor categories you reach at a later point.
That sounds like a great idea. With that one added to the list, the changes come down to:
- Remove separate island levels
- Add 'Destroy any portal' level
- Add 'Clear any island' level
- Put biomes behind a variable (with 'Europe' being the default)
I'm going to mention this discussion in the Discord server as well. If nobody flags an issue within, say, a month, I'll go ahead and make the changes.
The categories and levels have been updated 🎉 We'll probably have to revisit them again soon, when the Challenge Islands are added.
Also, all runs shortly got lost when I changed everything. Luckily, they were to be found in the log, so I could re-verify them. Nonetheless, you should be aware when making small changes. I had only changed some rule descriptions and they still disappeared, so always double-check when making changes 🙂
