As of 10/20/2020, these are the current rules:
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Timing starts when you hit play on Round 1 and ends when the Victory banner appears at the end of the run.

• Run MUST be shown in it's entirety, hitting play at the start and the "victory" banner at the end must visible • Taskbar MUST be shown on PC •Map Selection Screen MUST be shown before the run • Play on X Difficulty • Monkey Knowledge upgrades are permitted • Runs on Emulator are permitted • No Continues • No Game Modding of any kind • No Glitches of any kind • No Insta Monkeys • No Powers aside from Monkey Farmers • No Double Cash
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Some of these rules are unnecessary and some rules should really be added.

Rules that should be removed

Taskbar MUST be shown on PC
There is no reason for this rule to exist. I have modified BTD programs in the past and you do not need an external program open to cheat. Moderators should be able to tell if the program has been modified, especially when dealing with high-level runs.

Map Selection Screen MUST be shown before the run
This rule is also not really needed. It should be easy to tell instantly what map and difficulty the user is playing on. It's not needed.

Two players only for CO-OP
This rule is truly not needed. It is almost always faster to run two-player but we should allow runs that exceed the 2P limit.

Rules that I think should be added

Sound FX must be on
Sound FX allows for the ability to tell if the footage has been sped up or if a variable on a monkey has changed. I believe all runs on the leaderboards currently have Sound FX enabled, but I would like to see this be a rule to remove doubt around a run being illegitimate. The BTD series has had situations where users turn all sound off and speed up footage.

Steam users must show FPS counter & not go above 60 FPS
BTD6 is natively capped at 60 FPS due to always having VSYNC enabled. Users have to disable VSYNC outside of the program to reach over 60 FPS. Framerates over 60 FPS allow for an unfair advantage based on the quality of the hardware. Old runs should be grandfathered in but runs that we believe go over 60 FPS should be removed.

Please let me know what you think. I would like to try to make these rules official if I can. We are also in need of more moderators. If you are interested, please join the BTD discord and let someone know!

- Sloths

Here's an idea for the Co-Op rule; make different run categories for 3P and 4P?

I do not think a 60 fps cap should be in place. It's just as any other speedgame, platforms have an advantage.

TMK, we could split the leaderboard that way but with so few coop runs submitted it would likely make more sense to keep it as one larger board. Being able to split them in the future would be fairly easy if we do decide to go down that route.

Tmob, many PC games do not allow uncapped framerate. It should not be a requirement to have the newest and fastest CPU, RAM, and GPU in order to compete for a top time. Platforms do have their differences in performance in other games, but the hardware for those platforms is always the same. Runners also need to use external programs to uncap the framerate which almost universally is not allowed.

Just a question is using monkey money to get your hero instantly to level 10 allowed? me and my friend want to do a speedrun soon yet we don't know if this is allowed.

The use of monkey money in-game is not allowed. So no, you cannot level your hero up to 10 instantly with monkey money.

Reasons why I think that the 60fps rule should not be a rule!
-First things first it’s just making the runs way slower since when you enable V-Sync I’m able to get way higher fps wich meant faster poping and faster round sends.
-Second: Mobile only barley has a chance either way!
-Third: The records that are record rn can’t be beaten in any way any more then!

I hope you reconsider you decision! Also thanks to the mods for being nice and always fair!

Reasons why I think that the 60fps rule should not be a rule!
-First things first it’s just making the runs way slower since when you enable V-Sync I’m able to get way higher fps wich meant faster poping and faster round sends.
-Second: Mobile only barley has a chance either way!
-Third: The records that are record rn can’t be beaten in any way any more then!

I hope you reconsider you decision! Also thanks to the mods for being nice and always fair!

I'm for the FPS cap. Currently, those without the technical expertise to go around and disable V-sync, or those without the hardware to get as high frames as others are handicapped.

For the longest time I thought that I was doing something wrong when submitting runs because I couldn't get close to the "easy" times below 5 min that others were submitting even when trying to mimic the builds. I only saw the answer once I came here. I don't know what the right solution is if this FPS cap is implemented. If the old runs are grandfathered in, they will never be caught, right? It'll be impossible to set new records..

I am against the FPS cap. Having better hardware should not disqualify you from a speedrun, and I personally think that removing FPS rules completely would be nice, and being able to run the game at a higher frame rate would be better.

The only thing I would suggest is mobile improbable but I don't care either way im gonna submit runs anyway even if I have no chance
Edit 1 misspelled imppopable

I like that you are going to submit runs no matter what that is dedication, keep it up.

I'm going to submit runs too probably, as I have already submitted a bunch. However I wouldn't think of it that better hardware is disqualifying you. The game is made for 60FPS and defaults to it, and you are doing stuff out of the game to make it higher from what I understand. Not having an FPS cap is actual what disqualifies people as those can't compete.

True just tested this I did not know the game default is 60 fps. I didn't even know you could use 3 party software to uncap the FPS. In that case then ya it should disqualify people.

Thanks for looking into it, being open minded, and even changing your perspective on the FPS topic.

well then why dont we add a glitchless category ? this game depend on fps so if we uncap the fps its kinda a glitch if the game is normally supposed to play at 60 frames, the goal of a speedrun is to go as fast as possible. i understand that not having the require hardware is annoying but deleting the runs that are "to good" maybe isint the best way to do it. i know adding a glitchless category whould be annoying for the mods but at least people that dont have the setup will be able to run the game and people that do have the setup could aswell
-CS

So someone just came with a 20 min chimps run on chimps at 60 fps that isn't possible so isn't that modding if it goes faster since that is a hard cap?

After looking at the rules there is no rule that modding the game is banned gonna quickly take all the records lol since cheating isn't banned (not actually don't ban me but I could and I wouldn't be breaking rules at least for the chimps category the others have rules like no cheating but that is missing for beginner chimps which means cheating is allowed)

Aye, could we get a mod on that, add the rule so this dude can't cheat, and also how could we get a glitchless category?

I wouldn't actually but fix it before someone se realizes