I'm personally not against having shorter categories when it comes to runtime. Categories like HoH and Super Costumes won't get as much traffic as NG and NG+, of course, but I think they might provide valuable information, eventually, since the combat won't be at the center of attention when it comes to optimization. That, in my mind, would likely lead to optimizations in movement, routing, skips, etc. It also might be beginner friendly category for people to just experiment with running DMCV (even more so than NG+).

I've talked about Faust many times with a lot of people in the community and most people are concerned that if Faust is removed, that means it's an open invitation to restrict other moves or weapons in the game, since then we'd likely have to look at Real Impact being the most damaging move after Faust is gone. However, I do feel like hitting a RI is at least marginally more entertaining and involved than just sitting there and deleting red orbs into an enemy or boss. The nature of Faust being a gun gives you a sense of safety, combined with DT, which makes you the Black Knight from Monty Python's The Holy Grail, as you charge up Red Hot Night. My other concern is that it creates this air of unfairness with console runners of NG+, as they don't have access to trainers and such, so they have to manually grind missions in order to prepare for runs, while PC runners have to simply press a button. Other than that the mechanical differences between the two versions of the game are practically nonexistent, unlike some ports for some games (see Metal Gear Solid for PSX and PC). It just feels like all PC players get to use the red orb DLCs, while console players can't. That said, I do support having Faustless%, despite the concerns. Even if the consensus is mixed, I think there is no shame in having a trial run of the category.

No Merchant might be interesting, but it will likely only ever get one or two runs per runner, since it's more of a novelty category extension. It would likely include in itself the No Deaths category, since you wouldn't want people using stacks of red orbs to revive and holy water bosses like Tek. You'd likely be limited to basically playing NG but with the added difficulty and only being able to use breakers you find (which is RNG in NG+) and only using gold orbs you find in the maps if need be. It might also be worth considering picking up blue or purple orbs in that mode, since health is scarce. Maybe considering it something more of a Low% category would put it in better terms.

S-Rank runs would be really weird, since they'd only have relevance on higher difficulties, because unless you're dying like 20 times per mission, you'll hardly get anything lower than and S or an A on Human or DH. Mission 10 and 18 will likely be the deciding ones for the category, since they have the good habit of scoring weird and giving you As. Also, resetting at mission 10 or 18 would be annoying, since you're already like 60 to 85% through the game. It's not like in DMC3, DMC4, and MGS where you have multiple statistics factoring into the rank. Here it would most likely be a No Damage category in disguise.

100% runs or All Orbs + Secret Missions doesn't sound like a worthwhile detour. Some missions require having three levels of Faust upgrades and that requires a substantial amount of grind. It might be interesting, but I don't think it has staying power.

Them's my two cents...

I went and talked to Ted - he said that he ran 3DA was because that's the only one they had in the shop he got his copy from, since he's running original hardware. He's persistent in running that 'till he dies and/or everyone starts running the PS2 categories (whichever comes first) Everyone is running with Turbo On, so I doubt there'll be a lot of competition.

There is currently no category for the original DMC3: Dante's Awakening, which is weird since DMC4 has different leaderboards for both the original and SE.