The current or 1-2 patches before changed the way to run Barbarossa 4 entirely. Its not possible anymore to build the wonder outside of Veniece so to get the current best times or even close to that is also impossible now.

Thats why i wanted to suggest a pre and post patch category to determine the now fastest possible runs for that mission !?

My thought is that we already had a patch filter option, adding a sub-category just because of some exploits fixes in some levels doesn't make that much of a difference, and we have other things like civs balances to work with and not just exploits. It's also hard to keep track of what metas the devs have fixed because they usually don't include them in the patch notes and the fact that sometimes bugs came after bugs, this one got fixed in that patch but not that one, it's stressful to categorize. But it's all up to the mods to decide, I have no rights here to judge.

Than without a sub-category the times should be ranked via the patch filter. Like with many other games the newest patch and the times for that should be the valid once. As stated the change of the mission just makes it impossible to get the current top times ever again and for AoE2 DE its hard to revert to old patches and for some it is even impossible at all. Would be unfair for new runners to have to compete with impossible times cause of game changes.

I think it also depends on whether the thing that was changed should be considered a glitch. Glitches aren't permitted for this very reason, but this could actually be a case of having to retroactively consider something a glitch and rejecting old runs using it. I feel like in this case it's reasonable to assume it was a "glitch" that the devs decided to "fix" rather than some random change, but I don't feel like jumping to conclusions so the discussion over whether it's a glitch or not should happen first.

Technically they're the scenarios holes which were made by the devs by accident while designing (i.e. the wonder victory site was made too big) and can be easily found by opening them in the scenario editor, it's completely different from glitches which are caused by the game itself. If you want to run this game I would say pick a time and version to compete with and don't take it too seriously. There is this idea which was on a AoM thread: because it's the scenarios that changed, you can replace the current campaign files with the old ones to play the old version of them without having to patch back the entire game. They can be found in the resources section. But I think it's kinda too sketchy to make sense as the very big difference is the game data (e.g. civs balance). TL;DR: It's not a bug, it's a feature.

Btw still think that the ranking shoud be either split in dif patch versions or only current patch. It is just not possible to play "The Lombard League" like before as Devs changed the wonder placement. The way its now people cant even try to compete for better times as downgrading DE is a damn hassle if at all possible should you not get the old patch data from some dubious side ...

The way its now people are activly hedged out to compete for records. At least imo that shouldnt be the principels of this side. Know some people that dont even try running Barbarossa cause they know their attempts for 4 wouldnt be recogniced at all this way.

And most Runs nowadays only count the most recent Patch for ranking especialy if it changes the way of the run in such a heavy was as Lombard League. Also it makes for more competitiona and new strategies as the current top placed runners have to rethink and do a new run to hold their place.

I'm not against it, but currently we are using this method to improve: https://www.speedrun.com/aoe2de/guide/7l9v6