1. I'm thinking of phasing out the "No Modifiers" category and just putting those rules into the Any%, possibly renaming Any% to "Any% No Mods"? Most of the runs submitted to Any% have had no map modifiers anyway, and it feels like it'll be the most common category going forward.

2. At the suggestion of Glutensnake, I'll plan to implement a subcategory variable that indicates whether the run is focused on Real-Time Attack (RTA) or In-Game Time (IGT), basing it loosely on how Hearts of Iron does things. Without the results screen stating what the in-game time was at game end, though, I might need to enforce a rule that requires pausing right before completing the last Renown to show the "time until [next season]", and then only playing in Speed 1 until you collect the last renown (if it's event-based and not order-based).

--- Likely, we'll also take a similar time-entry format to what Hearts of Iron does as well, where we utilize the "hour" slot to indicate the Year, "minutes" to indicate the season (0 for Drizzle, 1 for Clearance, 2 for Storm), and then "seconds" and "milliseconds" will need to be manually calculated by subtracting the total time a given season lasts for a given difficulty by the time remaining until the next season, using "seconds" as minutes and "milliseconds" as 10 times seconds.

3. Reworking that "No Modifiers" category into a category I'm considering calling "Training Expedition - No Restrictions". Not much to really say on it, just find whatever combination of modifiers can reduce time even further and have fun!

4. One final category I'm thinking of making and actually running given how fast people have demonstrated the Any% category to be, is an "All Orders" run to place a bit less emphasis on trading & Tools and a bit more emphasis on the rest of the city building, survival, and roguelike aspects.

--- No offense to everyone posting such fast times (seriously, amazing jobs!), but I'm just not as much of a fan of that "trade everything, explore glades wantonly, and ignore building any sort of city outside housing and decorations" style of play, as fast as it is... ^_^;;

Thoughts?

If so, I can make a new version to submit to. All existing runs, including ones currently in the verification queue, will be placed under a label indicating the run was done on a version up to and including the Twitch Integration Update (version 0.46.3R).

Apologies for the long verification queue/wait times, too. I'm working through it! Things are more uplifting in my neck of the woods, so I've got more executive function to take care of moderation. Thanks for your patience!

Added new Global subcategory variable to cover glitched vs. less-/not-glitched

NMG: Disallows Barrier Skip, 3-player glitch, and Boots of Speed (default). No Restrictions: Allows all of the above, including Boots of Speed.

We're not sure if Boots of Speed will be particularly fast, but we've already seen Pleasant's times on Freddy using Barrier Skip and, after thinking it through, I figured this could be applied across the board.

If there are any more egregious glitches that get discovered and seem to abuse things that result in effective teleportation, duping, or what-have-you, they will also likely be included in the exclusions list for NMG. For now, though, if it's not listed under NMG, it's fair game until otherwise stated.

Reasoning: Giving glitched runs a place doesn't really harm those of us who prefer to play the game with only minimal "glitching"/engine-abusing (bomb boosts, unintended-but-within-reasonable ways to skip the 1st and sometimes 2nd floors of the Present dungeons, walking on walls, etc.). Even though the majority of the community tends to play NMG, some people like to glitch the heck out of games or watch people doing so, and some of the glitches in this game are funny.

Having this will allow CoH to be a more welcoming game in the long run, which should only help to allow the community to grow!

New Any% variable: "Any% Route"

For Story: Any% and the Any% IL/Character boards, I've added a new required variable for submissions. Indicate within it which barrier you opened on your way to defeating Ganon.

While this is sort of like a subcategory, I didn't want to clutter the subcategories section, especially since it could be useful to compare how much faster the Future route is compared to Present, or vice versa.

This variable is also set up in such a way that, if you have entries for both Future and Present, they both will show up in the list. This way, we aren't devaluing the Present route that is much more NecroDancer-like, even though it seems like, for the in-game leaderboards, the Future route will end up being the fastest in the most ideal of scenarios.

** Removed "Shortcut" category **

The above change pretty much negates any reason to keep "Shortcut" as a separate entire category from "Any%: Future route".

** Updated rules for Weaponless **

Added a number of clarifications to the Weaponless category's rules, such as what disqualifies a run, how lenient or strict are weapon pickups (as determined by the community), etc. See the rules for that full-game category for more details.

Hey folx!

Nintendo just released version 1.5.0 for Brace Yourself Games' game within the last 6 hours as of the time of this post. Go download it!

A lot of bugs that were posted to them have been fixed, some quality of life changes were introduced for Aria especially (but also for other characters), and most importantly: Future Hyrule is no longer desync'd!

One thing in the patch notes that some may wonder if it would affect times, though: the massive nerfs to Boots of Leaping

• They wear out much faster now
• Only one pair will spawn each seed now

However,

• very few runs have been submitted for v1.4.0 (largely because of the post-death boss damage killing the player bug and the Future Hyrule desync); and
• those runs hardly "abused" Boots of Leaping enough to get to an average of sub-20-minutes for Story: Any% runs (most only ever had one pair, and while they ran them out at a slower wear pace, the runs themselves weren't played entirely optimally; i.e. they could have been even faster with more practice and even more usage of Leaping),

Because of this, I am opting to NOT make a new version value for 1.5.0, despite the in-game leaderboard wipe. Most of the changes in the game will entice more people to run the game again, thus pushing our collective skills to get better times than were ever submitted in 1.4.0.

Continue posting new submissions to "1.4.0+ (Current Version)"!

Happy speedrunning!

If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to comment below!

Puzzle All-Chars

Added rule to clarify not to use milliseconds when calculating sum of IGT.

Puzzle single-char: Any% route

Added note to clarify that you should submit milliseconds when submitting specifically to the Any% subcategory of Puzzle Mode for the Character Leaderboards. Any other subcategory, being slower, should stick to seconds as the most significant measurement, leaving milliseconds blank.

100%

Added requirement to spawn the square portal from completing Future Hyrule Castle dungeon and having activated the Future Hyrule Castle's Sheikah Stone.

This is the same requirement as in All Barriers & Castles and All Floors, but was originally implied since you would need to go through all 4 floors of the dungeon, anyway, to get all 4 Unique, non-character-specific weapons and it's faster to just exit the dungeon by progressing rather than any other method.

Now, this requirement has been made explicit.

Heya folx!

So, in addition to adding in those categories we've been wanting (such as Weaponless, Puzzle All-chars and others), an idea sprung into my mind:

"A lot of these categories can technically also be run by other characters, not just in Story Mode (or as is currently the case for Dungeon Mode, Zelda is the only expected character). Why don't I just set it up as a 'Levels' leaderboard, kinda like how they do it over for Dicey Dungeons?!"

So, last night, I created those level leaderboards, and things started looking real great!.. That is, until I realized that you can't migrate a "Full-Game Run" over to a "Level Run" leaderboard (or vice versa).

Looking into this further, it seems the only way to go about such a migration is to manually resubmit every run to be converted in this manner, and then also reject every run from their original leaderboard after it's been migrated.

SO THIS IS YOUR HEADS UP!!! You'll all likely be seeing a number of notifications saying that your runs are being rejected. THIS IS NOT A BAD THING. I'll be sure to link you to where it has been relocated to in the rejection reason. PLEASE DO NOT RESUBMIT THE REJECTED RUN (many of them are also fairly old and wouldn't be easy to reproduce besides w/ the videos you've already provided).

Thank you all for your patience with me at this time! I'm hoping to have enough migrated over by tomorrow so that there can be a bunch of screenshots during FestiveDOR's CoNDOR News.

Hey there folx!

I'm almost done with my proof-of-concept edits in the Category Extensions page (which is solely for Seeded runs where you practice and optimize a given seed) and will soon be working on the migration process for the main page here.

One of the things that absolutely needs reworked are the rules for the 100% category. There's a thread here where I posted what I'd like to see changed (before I was brought on as a SuperMod), but I'm going to compile a first draft in this new thread in an attempt to keep the conversation cleaner and more specific.

For the purpose of clarity, I'm using the following conventions to denote what I think should be added and/or removed:

• Bolded words are entirely new additions
• Italicized words are modifications
• words are removals (whether straight-up or as part of a modification)
• //## Double backslash followed immediately by a number will indicate a footnote comment regarding the change to keep the rules themselves from being cluttered with comments/reasoning.

Without further preamble, the next post will contain the latest changes to the 100% rules. The post after that will be updated with a changelog as discussions go on.

Hey there folx!

I'm working on reorganizing the boards such that the Modified category will eventually be rolled into everything's main categories and using this as a testing ground for applying it to the main leaderboards.

Things will be a bit messy for a while until I'm sure that all the relevant data of Modified (Seeded) runs are fully integrated (which isn't many overall, but it's important that your runs don't become invisible just because they miss out on receiving the value for these effectively new subcategories).

If you have any questions/concerns, please leave them below or DM me on the NecroDancer/Cadence of Hyrule Discord. Please be sure to mention that you're DM'ing me in regards to this post so I know you're not a bot or creep. :D

So, a lot of people have actually been running a Weaponless Story category lately, especially with the addition of the Megaton Hammer, so it'd be nice to have this added to one of the boards. The only restriction is that you never pick up any capital-W Weapon (i.e. the shortsword outside Link's house and anything in a golden chest of a Story run), but otherwise trying to beat the game as quickly as possible with that restriction.

It's pretty much required to play only as Link since Impa will chide Zelda if you try to leave without her dagger.

Also, I'd like to offer a few other suggestions of things I'm planning to run, though we should discuss as a community a bit more about their details:

* All Instruments: Collect all 6 instruments and then defeat Ganon in a single seed (essentially, non-permadeath Necro-Mastery for the default, and then all the usual modifiers like in every other category).

Relatively self-explanatory, and is already encouraged via the Necro-Mastery achievement. Also, we could end up seeing some interesting plays where we use Link with Spin Attack in some of ToBS simply because Spin Attack is better for many if not most flawless, quick kill, and especially boulder puzzles.

• All Dungeons: Similar to All Instruments, except you also still have to defeat Octavo and do Future Hyrule Castle.

Arguably, this could be a 1.4 change for All Floors, but that could be argued to also require full-clearing ToBS, which while doing some amount of ToBS is fun, having to 100% ToBS would just be tedious.

However, if we change the name to "All Dungeons, No Skips", then it still counts as requiring all floors of the Present Hyrule dungeons, but then also forces the restriction on ToBS to at least not use Hovers (since everything that has that as one solution also always has something else as an intended solution), and perhaps to also not use Bombs/Chus in order to Bomb Boost to bypass wind/water junctions (Hookshot, P.Anklet, and Ice Rod/Arrows being valid ways to bypass them) or collect other A/X/B/Y items; essentially, Bombs/Chus would only be allowed when in combat-based and ice-block rooms.

The only point of potential confusion with "All Dungeons" (regardless of whether we include the "No Skips" stipulation to make it dissimilar enough from All Instruments) would be that we'd have to clarify whether the Mask mini-dungeons are also required or not. On the one hand, they have keys locking up their mini-boss from spawning and are one-floor dungeons similar to Kakariko. On the other, unlike Kakariko, they aren't actually required to beat the game OR unlock the Future Hyrule barrier (Future Hyrule barrier is unlocked via having two Hyrulians and the two Future Hyrule instruments; in Single-character Mode, I think it's just the instruments).

And now I'm remembering that "no skips" could also change how you enter Present Gerudo Ruins to require the gears for the bridge, let alone crossing Present Death Mountain...

My main goal was just to have a category where it's still required to defeat Octavo and go through the Future Hyrule Castle dungeon while also routing in the Future Hyrule instruments, but I'm having trouble coming up with a good name that fits those requirements together in such a way that is also dissimilar from All Instruments... All Barriers & Castles (AB&C%)? I guess Present & Future Castle extend the game length enough that it could be somewhat interesting.

There's also potentially some valid arguments that there need to be changes or clarifications to some of the other categories for 1.4, or maybe some of them need to just be dropped since they aren't run (even though the game has seen a huge dropoff due to 1.4's Future Hyrule music desync from the beatmaps), but some of those are arguably better left to other threads.

What say you all?