I know it has only been days since Kex port was released, and even less since the leaderboards were opened for submissions, but still I want to ask about future categories.

Since I really loved UV+ on Unity, will there be UV-Fast, UV+, or even the UV+ of Unity (and UV+Max too)? Also I'm interested about Pacifist (though I probably won't run it, not my cup of tea) and NM100S. Maybe even something exclusive to Kex port, like NM-Pacifist was on Unity? Just to know what are your plans on categories.

Thanks. :)

As of right now, we aren't planning on adding any more categories in the near future.

I personally would love to house UV-Pacifist and NM100S categories, but there simply isn't enough demand for it to be worth bloating the leaderboards. After Unity, we've decided we want to avoid overbloating this leaderboard as much as possible (which is made difficult by the introduction of co-op categories lol). If more people wanted a specific category, we'd consider adding it, but until we get a massive influx of demand, it's not on the itinerary.

Also, since UV+ isn't an actual difficulty on Kex (and A UV Fast + Respawn + Co-Op Spawns is dumb), that category specifically will probably never happen on Kex.

If y’all add No Monsters 100S and Coop ILs I’ll be happy

Co-op IL's should already be a thing why is it not, lots of people have been asking for it, myself included.

Here's the biggest reasons Co-Op ILs are not currently supported:

1. There are too many ILs where there is no advantage to having multiple people. Without being able to damage boost your teammates, a chunk of the Co-Op IL leaderboard will be one person doing a run while the other person sits still or wanders aimlessly. These levels will turn into a game of convincing a high-level player to run with you, just so you can have a WR on your profile for doing nothing - a worse form of world record farming.

2. Bloating. As we've stated before, one of the goals of this leaderboard is to avoid making it an ugly mess like the Unity boards (and their even more unfortunate Category Extensions) were. Adding co-op ILs would multiply the current number of IL categories by either 1.5 or 2, depending on if we were to support 3-4 player co-op. And this wouldn't be a problem if people would run co-op ILs constantly, but that leads to my next point...

3. There will not be many people that run Co-Op ILs. If the current Co-Op Full Game boards are any indication, this is a massive understatement. Currently, after around a half a month (?) of the boards being up (with Co-Op being an epic and novel feature that wasn't on Unity), there is... one co-op run on the boards. Not even joking. If Co-Op full game runs (which are far more exciting and important than Co-Op ILs anyway) get some more attention, then this conversation can be had. But until then, adding Co-Op ILs is frankly out of the question.

1. That's a blatantly stupid reason considering source still tracks it. Who tf cares if people record farm? That's not your problem. At least people are running the game.

2. You're not bloating anything. You clearly have no idea how to build a board if you think adding in co-op IL's are bloating the leaderboard, especially with all the new features SRC added in since I left. It wouldn't take much to fix up Unity, yet you insist on complaining about it repeatedly, trying to "not make the same mistakes" like you could have done better given what we had/what the community wanted at the time.

3. You are literally wrong. Multiple people, from here on this site, to the Discord, have been asking for co-op IL's. More runners show up when they see the category ACTUALLY exists. A lot of people don't bother if it hasn't been made because they think you're not going to do it.

Add the fucking category dude. People are literally asking for it, and more will come over time. ALL of your reasonings are ridiculous.

I’d do Coop full Games if I could record longer than 30 seconds, stupid switch bullshit. I’d be running coop a lot if it were here, and comparing full game runs to ILs really isn’t really a good comparison, since most people don’t like doing full game runs anyway. Look at Final Doom ILs on Unity compared to full game runs, or runs of Entryway or Hangar compared to E1 and D2All.

I'd definitely love to see some Coop IL's though I do see the concern about the bloat. Like 2-player any%, UV, NM and NoMo IL's would already double the number of IL's? And that's not even considering 3-player or 4-player IL's. It's already seperated by controller and KB&M for individual IL's which double the number. Definitely not sure on the best solution.

@OMTonyG With how things can be arranged here on SRC now, that's a non-issue. A simple drop down with 1-4p (or 1-3?) will suffice, and not cause any bloating at all. It's one extra button on the leaderboard. That's it.

I understand that, but it would still increase the total number of IL's (Individual Levels) by a lot.

There's currently 201 maps, we'll say 200 to make it easier. Any%, UV, NM and NoMo categories mean from the 200 maps there's 800 IL's. They are seperated by controller and keyboard and mouse so it's actually double that at 1,600 IL's.

Every Coop you add would be another 800 IL's. (Assuming they are not seperated by controller and KB&M, if they are seperated it would be 1,600 IL's)

To get into some specifics: I think I'd love 2-player coop IL's and am interested in how many maps 2-player would make a difference. 3-player coop IL's seem like a weird idea to me. I'm unsure how many maps would play out different and am really not sure if a 3rd person would warrant a whole set of IL's. I kind of feel the same way about 4-player coop but I admit ignorance on coop routes. Am sure a 3rd and 4th person would help on a handful of maps but have no idea the number or whether it's worth a whole set of IL's. Oh, looking at how we are currently dealing with coop with full-game runs is certainly a possible option: Duo and a 3-4 player option.

Really since we only have 3 mods and verifying coop runs seem more time-consuming I'm fine with leaving it up to them.

Yeah that leads back to my first point. It doesn't matter if a bunch of levels are added. It only gives people more options. At least people are running the game/have interest in the category. No reason for it to not exist, when there is literally demand for it. Mods are not living on this site 24/7 staring at the IL's seething at the fact that they exist, so I fail to see the problem. And no, record farming doesn't count. It's not the mods problem, as I said previously.

Yeah co-op ILs need to be a thing. Such a missed opportunity not adding them as it seems the majority of players active in the Doom community really want it, myself included. There are so many pros to adding co-op ILs to these boards and like one con. 8/9 levels in E1, E2 and E4 benefit from co-op, and 7/9 benefit from it in E3. The amount of levels unaffected by co-op is minimal.

I did a pacifist run of E3M8. If there are no plans to include the pacifist category, then could I theoretically submit it to the any% instead?

@Reb3l_Vagabond Was it on UV?

@AlexEightch Yes

It would go into the standard UV category, so long as you showed difficulty

@MissRaven Oooh I see, was not aware of needing to show the difficulty. In that case I won't submit it, my recording doesn't include the difficulty

I should also note, because the mods have yet to do so in the rules, it is not required to show difficulty on UV if you are playing on NoMonsters. (however, it is if doing full game)

Warning: massive text dump below. Since I haven't been responding periodically, I have to do it all at once lol.

First and foremost, to those that have been offering constructive feedback (both praise and criticism), I appreciate your patience and thank you for your input. A wide range of perspectives can only be beneficial, especially for a mod team that is only 3 people strong. However, the key word here is "constructive". Being overtly combative, resorting to ad hominem attacks, and being generally rude will not convince anyone of the point you're trying to make, but rather push people away. Besides, such a display on a public forum for the board is frankly embarrassing and reflects poorly on both you and the community at large. Appeal to reason, respect people's opinions, and stay sensible.

Second, there are some things that require correction or clarification. I'll respond to them below.

• "That's a blatantly stupid reason considering source still tracks it." Drawing a parallel between the way co-op would be housed here - how it has to be, due to speedrun.com limitations - and the way DSDA houses co-op is a bit of a stretch. While DSDA houses Co-Op ILs, they don't have their own distinct board; Co-Op ILs are lumped in with all the others, given a note to differentiate them from solo runs, and are unable to be classified as record, even if they beat all other runs for a given level. If this was possible here, we'd do it in a heartbeat, but speedrun.com is nowhere near as robust as a custom site such as DSDA.
• "You clearly have no idea how to build a board if you think adding in co-op IL's are bloating the leaderboard, especially with all the new features SRC added in..." Earlier, I said that adding Co-Op ILs would increase the current number of IL categories by 50% or 100%, depending on if 3-4p Co-Op runs were supported. This isn't conjecture or opinion, so I don't really know how to respond to anyone disputing this statement. As far as speedrun.com's new tools, they really aren't that versatile at all. Creating nested variables (variables that are only considered when other variables are toggled a certain way), which is exactly what this board needs, don't exist, among other more nitpicky complaints.
• "More runners show up when they see the category ACTUALLY exists." Maybe, but Full Game Co-Op does actually exist, and isn't receiving much attention yet (though hopefully this changes in the coming months).
• "I’d do Coop full Games if I could record longer than 30 seconds..." As much as it may suck, Potato Cam POVs would suffice for Co-Op submissions (though hopefully the host has a higher-quality recording).
• "...Most people don’t like doing full game runs anyway." Probably the comment that speaks to me the most. Yeah, there's not a lot of appetite for full game, so anyone who's averse to full game is instantly pushed away from Co-Op as a whole currently.
• "A simple drop down with 1-4p (or 1-3?) will suffice..." Unfortunately not. Since we split the leaderboard by input, and doing so for co-op runs would be nonsensical, the IL boards would be expanded in the same way as the Full Game boards are. The selections would probably be "Solo KBM", "Solo Controller", or "Co-Op" (hopefully only duos supported in this third category). Would be much neater if nested variables existed and we only had players pick an input if they were running solo, but that's not supported on this site, so this'll do. Not a massive deal though.
• "Any%, UV, NM and NoMo categories mean from the 200 maps there's 800 IL's. They are seperated by controller and keyboard and mouse so it's actually double that at 1,600 IL's." You forgot UV-Max, so make that 2,000 ILs lol.

• "Mods are not living on this site 24/7 staring at the IL's seething at the fact that they exist, so I fail to see the problem." Perhaps this wasn't clear before, but I'll say it now: the bloating issue is not merely an aesthetic one. Yes, a bloated board is ugly, but that's not a big deal. The issue with bloating is that a larger board is demonstrably more laggy than a smaller one (most notably when looking at the levels table). This website is already poorly optimized, and massive boards don't help this issue.
• "The amount of levels unaffected by co-op is minimal." Yeah, I suppose this is true. The issue for me is the fact that these levels exist in the first place. Speedrun.com only allows IL categories to apply to either a) all levels, or b) only one; these Co-Op-redundant levels would still exist, and they would be, as stated before, a more grotesque form of record farms. And while maybe some people don't care about record farming, I think it's despicable, exploitative, and unimpressive; and the term "record farming" doesn't even adequately describe what will be observed on these boards. Either way, I'm rambling - this is a solid point and worth considering.
• "I should also note, because the mods have yet to do so in the rules, it is not required to show difficulty on UV if you are playing on NoMonsters." We did, around 2 weeks(?) ago. From the Kex ruleset: "Quick saving just before a death, and quick loading the IL for Any% and NoMonsters is accepted."

Sorry for the wall of text, (and the two-message split; speedrun.com limits the size of these comments and I made a pretty big one) but I hope this at least provides some more elaboration onto what my official stance on this whole issue is. When making the board, I and the other mods agreed that we'd consider new categories if demand was high enough. Obviously, demand for Co-Op ILs is higher than I previously thought, so we are re-discussing the prospect of expanding the board. As stated before, I thank you guys for you patience, and trust that this patience will endure for a bit while we iron things out. This board is still in its infancy and there's quite a few kinks that need to be worked out.

Edit: spelling error