Hello. I understand there's a precedent for this, but I don’t think the way the categories are for this game make sense to me. If you do a solo 2 Player run w/o AI, it’s the w/o AI category, but if you do a co-op 2 Player run w/o AI, it’s a different category, even though the run is the same? Similarly, if I do a solo run with 2 AI, is that still Any%? What if I have 1 human with me, and an AI, is that Any%, or 3-Player Co-Op? To me, it would make more sense to have 2, 3, and 4 player categories, then differentiating if AI is used or not. This isn’t a demand, just trying to start a conversation about it! Thank you for your time in advance.

Heyhey, I am a bit out of the loop of the Dokapon speedruns so I am happy you are posting this. I indeed recreated the Wii version for this. And I do agree on the AI and w/o AI part. I am open to re-organise the categories that would seem more sense. Merging the any% with and without AI. Just an any% category where everything is allowed. Mixing AI, how many players you have in the game etc. Perhaps that makes more sense that everything is allowed in this category as it is any%. No restrictions in this.

Although, making one big any% where everything is allowed, it might discourage co-op players. As you are categorised with the solo runners. I am unsure how to implement categories for this. I am not sure if 2, 3, 4 players divided would solve that problem in any%. If that would make sense..

I think the way that accommodates the most situations is to have the 3 main categories be 2 Player, 3 Player, and 4 Player. Then each of those gets a category With CPU, and Without CPU. No matter how many players, With and Without CPU fundamentally changes how the run works. I think with it set up this way, this encourages any amount of players, with or without CPU, and gives it a category that makes sense. The only thing that this structure doesn't really account for is a RNG manipulated run; example here Maybe this would be a flag for each individual run? Yet at the same time, RNG manip changes the run more than anything discussed so far. So not really sure what to do with that.

The thing about With AI vs. Without AI is that the two runs are very different and one relies more heavily on RNG than the other. Without AI is overall faster because you can get excellent gear very early, plus you can abuse the Darkling's Come Here ability in certain situations if you time it right, whereas it's not the case With AI, but people do like the challenge of speedrunning with the added RNG of the AI, hence the two separate categories.

And Co-Op runs, while can be similar to Without AI, still add a new element to the game in relying on a second person to do things, communicating with each other, and trusting that the team will sync up with each other. Co-op is a different beast entirely and in my opinion deserves a separate category still.

That being said, I can see where Any% and Any% w/o AI can be put into a "Solo" category with With AI and Without AI as sub-categories, while "Co-op" can be its own category with 2-P, 3-P, and 4-P as sub-categories.

I think the rules are a bit hard to define for a straight co-op where it is essentially the same as without AI. The optimal strat will often be one main character with a support that passes turns most of the time.

I'd like to see (and attempt, once my friends run-out) a hero or robo knight speedrun. Maybe there is a more suitable strategy for co-op there. Although currently I think it would consist of many weeks grinding job exp, so passing the turn remains optimal.

I just condensed the Any% category to have w/ AI and w/o AI as sub-categories. If anybody sees that their run is missing, please let me know and I will look for it (I think I found all of them, but I am not 100% certain).

As far as co-op, yeah, the rules are pretty much the same as w/o AI but just the requirement of having two human players.

hey y'all! i've been picking up this run, but via the wii version rather than the newer one, so i hadn't thought to check here before now.

the RNG manip does indeed make the run significantly faster and significantly different, and though i don't play this version at the moment, i don't personally think it makes sense to combine them. the current manip record on the Wii leaderboards is half the time of the non-manipped single-AI run, and it's just overall an entirely different experience.

i get the concern regarding the different possible ways to run the game, but i think a better way to split things would be to create distinct categories that people are actually likely to run. if you're speedrunning with other people , it makes very little sense to add a third or a fourth person, as they inherently slow the game down. with AI, aside from a single weak CPU, i think the most meaningful contrast in a category would be vs 3 sneaky AI, as a "hard mode" run (although in practice the CPUs still fall apart and become irrelevant after a while anyway).

so a category spread might look like

any% w/ AI: no restrictions | full AI (3 sneaky CPUs)

any% w/o AI: RNG manip | co-op (non-manip)

i can't imagine anybody genuinely doing serious attempts outside of this, and it retains more similarity to the leaderboard setup for the Wii version, as these are all runs that already exist there (except the "full AI" one). but if you were doing casual runs with some other AI configuration or with other people, nothing would really stop you from submitting to the first or last category, respectively.

i realize i'm a little late with this suggestion, but i wanted to add my thoughts if anybody is interested in revisiting this discussion. thanks!