For those who are unaware, as of today (December 1, 2017) a patch has been released for Cuphead, updating it to version 1.1.3. Full patch notes can be found here: http://studiomdhr.com/cupdate-patch-notes-v1-1-3/

I'm not going to go into detail as to how this patch affects Cuphead itself. That's what those notes are for. There are also many members of the community who are working to figure specific things out, so you can always ask in the Discord. Hopefully, we'll have a document or something set up soon with a list of specific changes.

However, with this patch, a major change is coming to a few of the categories, which is why I'm writing this post in the first place. The major change is regarding what patch you play on. We feel that it is in the best interest of the community to require any and all Glitchless runs to be performed on the current patch. This has been updated in the rules for those categories.

While this patch prevents some of the major glitches from happening, we are aware that there are minor ones that can still be done on this patch. As the name suggests, these are still banned.

As for any non-Glitchless category, we are not restricting you to use a certain version. If you want to run it on the new patch, that's fine. If you want to run it on the old, that's fine too. There are certainly going to be differences in times due to things that were fixed within the patch, but that is something you'll have to accept should you choose to run on the newer patch.

In accordance with these new rules, the boards for the Glitchless categories have been wiped. I understand that this may be frustrating to those of you who had runs. Trust me, I get it. However, it is something we had to do to uphold the integrity of the boards.

If you have any questions about the new rule set or about how this affects the boards, please ask me or one of the other mods and we'll be happy to try to answer your question to the best of our ability. Thanks!

Is post-patch going to be a separate category from pre-patch? As far as I know, Xbox users cannot revert to the old patch, so if we have to compete with people playing pre-patch we won’t stand a chance.

As of right now, there are no plans to separate the patches aside from what we've already done. If there is enough interest in doing so, we can consider it, but honestly it'll probably only affect a small proportion of the community

Guess I’m going Glitchless only from now on lol.

The game updated automatically for me, I want to run in non-Glitchless, how do I revert back to the old patch? (BTW I'm using steam)

For downpatching, check here https://www.speedrun.com/cuphead/thread/6jkk6

With all due respect to the mods and all the appreciation for verifying the runs (must be such a big time effort), I am pretty unhappy when it comes to the current state of Cuphead speedrunning. Not because of the new patch, but how it is handled.

1. Glitchless runs: From my understanding (correct me if I am wrong) "Glitchless" is (almost?) not affected by the patch at all. Despite that all runs got deleted. I can understand the logic used by the mods, but by the same logic... shouldn't the glitchless runs be wiped every single patch? So if you submit a run, you basically know at the day of submission, that your record will be eventually invalidated.

2. All other runs: This is what the patch actually tried to fix, but here the patch (and all future ones?) will be ignored for the most part. Except that you basically have to downgrade the game in order to speedrun it (which makes speedrunning it much less accessible). Oh yeah... and you have a Xbox version of the game? You're out of luck... you can only run glitchless now (see "1.") if you want to have a good time (again decreasing accessibility for speedrunning this game). This also means that the pause menu glitch is doomed to stay in the game, from what I understand, which makes a lot of runners don't want to run these categories anymore.

So the way I see it, the situation after the patch is much worse and that is not because of the patch. Basically the newest (and thereby best version) of the game is unrunnable. I think it is the wrong approach to run the oldest, buggiest version of a game by default, especially since there is no real justification for it, besides "there are a lot of runs for the old patch" (guess what... the newer patches will exist for a much longer time):

• Glitchless? Cuphead is dead.
• Xbox? Cuphead is dead.
• Don't want to pause glitch? Cuphead is dead.
• Don't want to WSG/Want to run current patch? Cuphead is dead. (which the new patch specifically addresses)

I think other games (like Bloodborne) have much better solutions like current patch/legacy categories. Even with subcategories like that (like we have for difficulties in Cuphead), I believe such a solution, would make much more people happy. Roughly speaking get rid of glitchless and make the following sub-categories:

• Legacy: We have a category for all old runs. Different versions might get put together, but I feel that old patch runs aren't as relevant anymore anyways.
• Newest patch: Highlights the most current/relevant runs. Also makes glitchless eventually obsolete
• Glitchless: Rules change with every patch (and runs may get moved to legacy) and deals with issues like pause glitch.

Such a solution would lead to:

• Glitchless? Basically only there to increase appeal to running the game depending on the current patch
• Xbox? Alive and kicking
• Don't want to pause glitch? Play glitchless for now and wait for next patch
• Don't want to WSG/Want to run current patch? Just run newest patch.

Another approach would be to attribute a run with a game version (like NieR:Automata does). This way people can differentiate between a good current patch run and a legacy one.

I feel that my suggestions are only rough ideas, but I am pretty sure that the current way of handling things is probably the worst for the community overall.

As an Xbox player, I completely agree icy_. I’m completely demotivated from playing since I have no way of competing on an even playing field with everyone else. It seems odd for the most competitive categories of the leaderboards to essentially require tampering with your game to play a version that’s no longer available. I understand runs post-patch are also accepted, but we all know that they stand no chance to compete with pre-patch submissions.

On top of that, I have no motivation to play a full game run either since Xbox users get screwed there too since we don’t have access to an auto splitter. So even if we have a world record performance, it’ll get ranked below inferior submissions simply because we have to submit by RTA time.

Xbox players are in the minority here, so I don’t expect anything will be changed to accommodate us though. This patch and how it’s being handled here really kills the game for me though.

As for why they wiped pre-patch submissions from the leaderboard: I understand that. They made a LOT of changes to the game, both announced and unannounced that would affect existing runs. Charge damage was nerfed, some bosses have slightly different patterns including parryable objects in sections that previously had none, the domino boss in king dice’s floor scrolls slightly faster now, Cagney’s face attack comes out quicker, etc. Wiping it provides an even playing field for new runs to compete with old ones, so it makes sense. I’m just surprised they only did it for Glitchless runs.

I agree with icy also. Using an old version of the game makes it less accessible and is more than likely going to kill the game. Steam users will down patch if they really want to but a casual speed runner or somehow who wants to just try to speedrun will probably pick up a game that doesn't require any extra effort to play. Xbox runs are not even worth the effort now because they have two disadvantages now. And trying to speed run the current version to try to compete against the old patch is is laughable. Forget about all the other patches and just think of how important weapon swap was. The WSG let you skip so many phases of so many bosses now that it's patched you are going to add so much time to you run. As the game is right now I feel the only category really worth playing is glitches because I atleast know it's fair for all players (on pc cause Xbox players still have to submit RTA). But as for glitched runs I think we should be moving forward with the game instead of playing an outdated version of it. I really think we should take a better look at icy's solutions and decide which way the cuphead speed running community wants to deal with not only this patch but any other patch that will come in the future.

Made an account just to say I agree with icy_ when he says that you shouldn't keep the older glitched runs of the game based on "Because there's already a lot of runs.

I think to keep counting runs on older patches is not the right way to go about it. Then the game only becomes a PC game. I run it on PC and can downgrade, but that's not what the game is now.

I think the more simple option it's to add a filter for each run , old version or new version. Then you don't need to create other sub-categories and each runner is free to run in old or new patch.

I agree with Icy. The way it is being handled now is extremely asinine and seems to be very poorly thought out.

Just so that we can work on it, would it be a good idea to go with icy's idea of making an old patch category (named legacy)? Such as putting all current categories into 1 category named as legacy. It would look something like this: Solo Co-op All Bosses All Bosses - Glitchless Any% 100% 100% Glitchless Simple Low% 200% 200% Glitchless Simple Regular Expert

The only problem, which is moderately big, is that 200%, Low%, Simple wouldn't work in this. 200% only allows expert, Simple only allows... simple and Low% only allows regular and expert. Which can be avoided by putting that only certain difficulties are allowed for the categories, but there are going to be cases where people don't read the rules. It also makes the categories look sloppy. With that set up there are 35 different categories that are made from this (2 (solo/coop)*9(categories)*3(difficulties) - the amount left out because they won't be allowed). Then if we keep doing this we could make it certain versions (v1.0, v1.1, v1.2) which would create hundreds of subcategories.

As for the current patch it could be labeled as current patch as a category and have the above pattern, or it would just have all the categories spread out.

I'd be interested seeing the opinion on this and would it work? If people think it will work or it is better than the current design I can try and bring it up to other moderators and see if this would work better than what we have currently.

For those of you not in the Discord when we had this discussion earlier, I want to make a few comments:

1. First and foremost, thank you for all your constructive feedback. We're not always going to agree on everything, but I want to make sure that this community is one in which you are able to voice your opinions. Furthermore, I want to make sure that you feel like your voice is being heard, regardless of how things turn out.

2. We're not always going to get everything right, despite our best efforts. People see things from different perspectives and what may seem right to us, may very well not seem right to you. Things we think we've thought out well will likely not consider everything. We're only human, after all. So thank you for bearing with us as we make mistakes and missteps here and there. The important thing is not that we make the mistakes, but that we fix and learn from them.

Taking these things into consideration, there has been a very vocal outcry from parts of the community regarding the issue of the patch. I will concede that we probably acted a bit too rashly with our plan to deal with the patch. I believe that we took a lot of the initial opinions about the patch and made a decision based on that, without fully asking the community their opinions. For this, I sincerely apologize.

So, after today's discussion, here's what we're going to do about things:

1. For the time being, we're going to leave the boards as they are. This is only to ensure that we don't screw them up any further. I would highly recommend not submitting any Glitchless runs at this time, as this will likely be one of the main things changed going forward. I would also recommend holding onto any runs performed on the new patch until we figure out how to handle them. If you want to submit those to any non-Glitchless category, feel free to do so, as we will not reject them solely on the basis of being on the new patch. I imagine this will not be an issue for a large portion of you. however.

2. Hopefully by the end of tomorrow, I'm going to create a poll to gather community opinions on potential solutions. Please take this when it is ready. I'm not sure how we'll do it yet, but it may very well be done in the speedrunner-only channel on Discord, as I would like to limit outside influence on this matter as much as possible. I'll make an announcement when it's ready. The poll will likely only be open for a few days, so please make sure you take part ASAP.

3. After the poll closes, we'll look at the results and implement an appropriate solution, hopefully within a day or two.

Again, I appreciate the conversation we've had about this matter thus far. I look forward to working with you all to create a solution that works better for the community. Thanks for your patience and willingness to work with us as we continue to develop as a community.

@Nrr, I don't think difficulty would be a problem. I think I should be able to design the boards in such a way that we wouldn't have a Simple - Expert run. It'd take a bit of rearranging from how we do it now, but I think it is in fact possible.

If we wanted to, with a Legacy category, we could also add a tag or something to indicate the version instead of making separate categories. Either that or we can say screw it and not worry about which version is being run. Just some things to consider with that option

If we are having this new poll in the speedrunners discord, would it also make sense to re-do the menuglitch poll there as well?

It is there :P

Or at least should be

So the patch fixed everything but the pause glitch and OOB, right?

Why not run have glitchless categories be run on new patch exclusively, banning pause glitch and OOB, and let everything else be run on old patch? Seems like a no-brainer and the most convenient way to go about this. All future patches would most likely have no impact on the only runs being relevant to them (they probably wouldn't recaliber weapon dmg output a second time). When a new patch drops, if there's a significant change, just add a variable/filter for it.

I don't think there's any need to add more categories at all. You can add a variable (version) for glitched runs, in case console runners would want to still play them. Since playing new patch on PC for glitched versions would essentially make no sense, this filter would likely create a console-only leaderboards without having to make it it's own category.

To people arguing Xbox always gets the short end of the stick: I'm sorry you chose to buy an Xbox. I really am. Truth is, for every speedgame released on multiple ports, there is always one version that's better than the other(s), and it's usually not the console version. Whether it's because of a technicality like a load remover you can't use in a community that chooses to go by IGT or simply the game performing worse or allowing less skips. You can still get a great run, and I hope this doesn't discourage people who don't want to switch to PC. But it simply is what it is and no matter what consensus we come to, it'll never give equal space to both versions.

The problem is forcing people to play a non-standard version of the game in order to be competitive in major categories. Newer players aren’t going to want to downgrade a play a buggy version of the game in order to speedrun it.

Also, this patch completely ruins the IL leaderboards for anyone on Xbox or anyone on PC that doesn’t want to go through the hassle of modifying their game. At the very least, IL leaderboards should have pre and post-patch categories. None of the IL records (aside from Run n Guns) are achievable by anyone playing with the latest version of the game.

That is something I forgot to mention as well. We can certainly work out a pre/post patch thing for ILs as well