So I was thinking about it and the R+ mod is probably a lot better to speedrun than the base game but it only has 1 category on the leaderboards currently.

I was thinking maybe it will be nice to add also hard mode category even though it won't change much since we use "BLCK CNDL" easter egg seed to remove curses, but it will create more competition I think, and it does have the extra champions aspect and less room drops.

I guess if enough people will want to run this we can ask Hyphen to make a category for that in misc.

I like the idea of the schoolbag but I do think that if we implement this idea it needs to be to very specific characters otherwise it will be too op and boring to play IMO.

I think out of the 5 left characters besides the basic 9 characters only characters below need that buff / change: 1.Lilith - this character really sucks and not fun to play in anyway, not casually or speedrunning wise, a lot of the synergies don't even work on Lilith and also a lot of good items (like Maw Of The Void, Tech.5, Knife sucks on Lilith).

2. Apollyon - this character is nothing special as you mentioned just an Isaac with different skin and 1 hp less, really lame designed and boring to play.

3.Eden - used to be special character with really interesting / fun synergies with space-bar items + passive items combos (for example Scapular + Blood rights, Unicorn Stump + Midas Touch), I think taking that uniqueness from Eden makes him less fun and less enjoyable to play.

Now I see no reason to give Maggy or Isaac the schoolbag since those are the old vanilla (wotl, aka- Wrath Of The Lamb) characters and I think they should stay the same even if they're a little boring they're still strong with the d6 and that makes them kinda unique IMO.

I mean I was in favor of adding The Keeper to begin with so yeah I think that's fine by me doing that. I find Keeper challenging and I enjoy the challenge, also with this buff he's probably gonna be easier than blue baby (because he has stronger multiplier and better potential).

I'd like to see a change with the characters in R9's (I think it's a better name than R9) or jud9s to make it more interesting to run then the vanilla game.

so it seems like the opinions about that Keeper discussion are split, I suggest we can close this topic and create a category which will be the vanilla jud9s like before for 9 chars and separate category for jud6s 14 chars, that way people will also be able to run 9-14 and play the keeper while doing that.

Of course if people will want to make new category in the future we will be able to do that but for now I think best solution is just creating jud9s category like it was so people could run this category and submit it.

Than I would suggest changing the rules to "kill blue baby in The Chest floor and enter the chest that drops after killing him".

I wanna say we need to allow this but this is basicly allowing Cheat Engine so I don't think this can be allowed.

this can't be count as a clear since the rules are "Beat The Chest and enter the chest that drops after the boss", also I think void is same as an enemy so it should'nt count anyway.

1 char, 7 chars, 11 chars(rebirth characters) and 14 characters is my opinion for main categories. All the other categories people will want to run in the fututre can be in misc I think. Also, adding a column for version is good for now untill they stop updating major things the next month or two..

I think it shouldn't change but I think people will run this category and you'll be surprised ;p

well if they don't do it I think we should at least in ab+.

I have few suggestions that are not necessarily just for speedrunning but for the game that would also help speedrunning this game better :

1. Fix "The Keeper" devil deal system and make it more consistent to be able to take devil deals.
2. Fix "Lilith" all synergies, a lot of synergies don't work with lilith due to incubus not working with them for example : monstro's lung + tech x / brimstone, tech x + brimstone, knife (doesn't deal normal knife dmg), tech.5, cursed eye and there are more that I can't recall right now.
3. Fix the holy mantle / scapular visual graphic bug in the first room of the floor (it doesn't actually work untill you load a different room).
4. Fix angel rooms / Devil deals being empty (no pedestal items) and maybe add a way of locking in angel rooms ?
5. Fix the cage boss being impossible to beat sometimes if he jumps and stomp you with the rocks since it seems to be random / unavoidable.
6. Fix co-op baby being able to steal devil deals with it. 7.Fix spear of destiny visual grahpic bug when you have Maw of the void or Kidney stone + Fix Mega blast graphic bug when you exit and continue you still have mega blast visual effect without shooting the laser (those are just bugs that i remeber seeing in the game so thought i should mention it.)

Those are the things that came to mind now, if I'll remeber more I'll mention it here.

I also think blue baby health should'nt change just for speedrunning purpose, because this mod isnt optimized for speedrunning and having the d6 is most of the time enough to get health for the deal and sometime you dont get it with blue baby or azazel but that's just rng and part of speedrunning this game, also we can always allow co op meme ;)

I think this shouldn't be allowed and I was always against it even in rebirth when I saw it but I just never cared too much about 1 char category but I agree that this is basicly like using TAS.

Zamiell mentioned that this is "not worth" starting on Eden with 11 / 13 characters which i disagree, starting 6-7 min Eden is worth if its so easy to get, it doesnt have to be blood rights isaac's heart since there are many other combos that can get you sub 8 minutes runs which isnt very likely to find all the time and requires a lot of resets / time.

For me the main issue with this whole WR is using the speedhack to reset so fast by using cheatengine, is there any difference between using cheat engine to speedhack this way or to read floor layout (if we knew the memory location of it) besides the reason "it won't affect the run". This is still the same thing imo.

I think we should ban using cheat engine in any way just like we don't allow using missing hud 2 for speedruns.

I honestly don't think it will matter too much, if you s & quit as the lost you loose time anyway so I don't think we should ban it for racing since it allows you to push faster and makes the lost more consistent imo.

I think Missing Hud 2 is not allowed but I'm not sure about other mods. music mods are fine as far as I know sound isnt necessary for submitting a run only the video.

those are not the rules, not sure what you're reffering to like which category but the rules that I'm reffering to are for the main categories 7/11/13 characters on Normal mode to the chest.

you go to http://www.speedrun.com/afterbirth and click "view rules", those are the rules for speedrunning.

hey, I think most of your questions are answered in the rules on the leaderboard and also from what i know BrainTM has like a website that helps new speedrunners so I think you should check it out too maybe it will help you at the beginning.

also, you can allways join the discord server https://discord.gg/Gd8TVbD .

no the whole point is to prevent the co op combat which means that co op baby wont be able to deal dmg, if you allow to use it however you want nothing prevents you from binding keys and use it to copy your movement since it's the same as binding a controller key to the R key to reset...

from what I know only zamiell did that so far..

I think making any% category as main is actually a good idea not just for co op baby, for all the glitches in the game including saving and quit or black market with controller... this game has no single player mode / muiltiplayer so the whole argument of this is single player seems like it's irrelevant to this game since you can play the game either with 1 player or 2 in the same mode.

but i also think we need to solve co op baby issue after reading what zamiell said about how to use it and he's right nobody can prevent you from doing this and it shouldnt be allowed imo to use co op that way and stacking a co op baby that copies your inputs which is essentially a 150% dps up which is a lot... so for that reason i think we need to make a rule for it, also here is an example of using co op baby this way : (he used it on rebirth but it's the same thing in afterbirth)