Hello Everyone,

As you can see, there have been changes in the Dragon's Crown speedrunning community. After discussions and deep thought, we believed that changes needed to be made. The leaderboard has been simplified and cleaned up in order to make speedrunning the game more accessible and user-friendly.

The previous state, rules, and categories were chaotic and unattractive, and overly competitive, which was unnecessary. In our attempts to improve this, we have decided to split into the following categories: NG Normal Any%: This run is akin to playing the game for the first time.

Here's an example of what NG Normal Any% entails, demonstrated by Snow Aqua: NG+ Any%: NG+ refers to playing a save file where you have already finished the game at least once. Even if you create a new character in this save, it still counts as NG+ because you skip the story and retain completed quests to gain free skill points. This simplifies and cleans up the leaderboard. To avoid issues, runs can be submitted and sorted by difficulty, as indicated when clicking on this category.

This includes All Bosses in Normal, Hard, Infernal, and Ultimate difficulties. All Bosses: An example of this category can be seen in Snow Aqua's video . In the video, he doesn't defeat the ancient dragon, although we believe he should. We don't count the hidden boss in the LoS Labyrinth of Chaos to prevent the run from becoming too lengthy for just one boss.

There may already be some questions answered: Why such changes in the leaderboard and categories? The previous state, as mentioned above, wasn't attractive or fun. Few speedrunners participated, as they required high levels of training. There were too many categories and subcategories for just one run, which was unnecessary and unattractive. We believe the revamp will address these issues and attract potential speedrunners.

Why are emulations allowed now? As of the time of writing this post in 2024, the PlayStation 3 emulation scene has grown considerably. The only emulator allowed currently is rpcs3. Moderators will check if any new emulators are in good and stable condition; otherwise, only rpcs3 will be allowed for the time being.

Do you plan to add more categories or subcategories? No, not at the moment. We want to see if these changes attract potential runners. Unless there is a massive request, we won't add any new categories or subcategories. We don't want to create categories for just one or two people. Adding endless categories would be unnecessary at this time.

What about hacked gear? This is a concern some people have raised. To address this without being unfair, as stated in the rules, runners must show their gear piece by piece to determine its legitimacy. While this may require moderators to be more diligent, it will prevent any potential issues.

What's next? For now, we want to see how these changes are received. We hope that our efforts to breathe new life into this amazing game will attract new runners. We plan to provide resources and potential guides that can be found on YouTube or elsewhere.

You may have already seen the Dragon's Crown Planner that was posted earlier. Let us know what you think of these changes. Do you like them? Do you agree with them? Perhaps you think something needs to be adjusted? We are all ears and open to any feedback. Our goal is to make speedrunning this amazing game enjoyable for everyone.