• "Mods are not living on this site 24/7 staring at the IL's seething at the fact that they exist, so I fail to see the problem." Perhaps this wasn't clear before, but I'll say it now: the bloating issue is not merely an aesthetic one. Yes, a bloated board is ugly, but that's not a big deal. The issue with bloating is that a larger board is demonstrably more laggy than a smaller one (most notably when looking at the levels table). This website is already poorly optimized, and massive boards don't help this issue.
• "The amount of levels unaffected by co-op is minimal." Yeah, I suppose this is true. The issue for me is the fact that these levels exist in the first place. Speedrun.com only allows IL categories to apply to either a) all levels, or b) only one; these Co-Op-redundant levels would still exist, and they would be, as stated before, a more grotesque form of record farms. And while maybe some people don't care about record farming, I think it's despicable, exploitative, and unimpressive; and the term "record farming" doesn't even adequately describe what will be observed on these boards. Either way, I'm rambling - this is a solid point and worth considering.
• "I should also note, because the mods have yet to do so in the rules, it is not required to show difficulty on UV if you are playing on NoMonsters." We did, around 2 weeks(?) ago. From the Kex ruleset: "Quick saving just before a death, and quick loading the IL for Any% and NoMonsters is accepted."

Sorry for the wall of text, (and the two-message split; speedrun.com limits the size of these comments and I made a pretty big one) but I hope this at least provides some more elaboration onto what my official stance on this whole issue is. When making the board, I and the other mods agreed that we'd consider new categories if demand was high enough. Obviously, demand for Co-Op ILs is higher than I previously thought, so we are re-discussing the prospect of expanding the board. As stated before, I thank you guys for you patience, and trust that this patience will endure for a bit while we iron things out. This board is still in its infancy and there's quite a few kinks that need to be worked out.

Edit: spelling error

Warning: massive text dump below. Since I haven't been responding periodically, I have to do it all at once lol.

First and foremost, to those that have been offering constructive feedback (both praise and criticism), I appreciate your patience and thank you for your input. A wide range of perspectives can only be beneficial, especially for a mod team that is only 3 people strong. However, the key word here is "constructive". Being overtly combative, resorting to ad hominem attacks, and being generally rude will not convince anyone of the point you're trying to make, but rather push people away. Besides, such a display on a public forum for the board is frankly embarrassing and reflects poorly on both you and the community at large. Appeal to reason, respect people's opinions, and stay sensible.

Second, there are some things that require correction or clarification. I'll respond to them below.

• "That's a blatantly stupid reason considering source still tracks it." Drawing a parallel between the way co-op would be housed here - how it has to be, due to speedrun.com limitations - and the way DSDA houses co-op is a bit of a stretch. While DSDA houses Co-Op ILs, they don't have their own distinct board; Co-Op ILs are lumped in with all the others, given a note to differentiate them from solo runs, and are unable to be classified as record, even if they beat all other runs for a given level. If this was possible here, we'd do it in a heartbeat, but speedrun.com is nowhere near as robust as a custom site such as DSDA.
• "You clearly have no idea how to build a board if you think adding in co-op IL's are bloating the leaderboard, especially with all the new features SRC added in..." Earlier, I said that adding Co-Op ILs would increase the current number of IL categories by 50% or 100%, depending on if 3-4p Co-Op runs were supported. This isn't conjecture or opinion, so I don't really know how to respond to anyone disputing this statement. As far as speedrun.com's new tools, they really aren't that versatile at all. Creating nested variables (variables that are only considered when other variables are toggled a certain way), which is exactly what this board needs, don't exist, among other more nitpicky complaints.
• "More runners show up when they see the category ACTUALLY exists." Maybe, but Full Game Co-Op does actually exist, and isn't receiving much attention yet (though hopefully this changes in the coming months).
• "I’d do Coop full Games if I could record longer than 30 seconds..." As much as it may suck, Potato Cam POVs would suffice for Co-Op submissions (though hopefully the host has a higher-quality recording).
• "...Most people don’t like doing full game runs anyway." Probably the comment that speaks to me the most. Yeah, there's not a lot of appetite for full game, so anyone who's averse to full game is instantly pushed away from Co-Op as a whole currently.
• "A simple drop down with 1-4p (or 1-3?) will suffice..." Unfortunately not. Since we split the leaderboard by input, and doing so for co-op runs would be nonsensical, the IL boards would be expanded in the same way as the Full Game boards are. The selections would probably be "Solo KBM", "Solo Controller", or "Co-Op" (hopefully only duos supported in this third category). Would be much neater if nested variables existed and we only had players pick an input if they were running solo, but that's not supported on this site, so this'll do. Not a massive deal though.
• "Any%, UV, NM and NoMo categories mean from the 200 maps there's 800 IL's. They are seperated by controller and keyboard and mouse so it's actually double that at 1,600 IL's." You forgot UV-Max, so make that 2,000 ILs lol.

I just realized I was completely wrong regarding the audio rules. Audio requirements are indeed only for top 5 full game runs, as @MissRaven originally said. I got completely confused with another issue and have since been corrected. I sincerely apologize for any confusion.

So to answer the original question from @Puke: Audio is only required for top 5 full game run submissions. Other than that, feel free to mute game audio.

Edit: This comment is completely wrong. Disregard what is written here, and see my most recent comment below.

Audio requirements were something that we deliberated when creating the boards. Unity's moderation hasn't been (still isn't) perfect, and IL audio on this board was something we decided should have a tad more regulation than in Unity.

Besides, high quality runs should be preserved in... well, high quality. I maintain that the best of runs (both Full Game and IL) should definitely have game audio as an additional form of authentication, as well as a credit to the preservation of the run.

Edit: This comment is completely wrong. Disregard what is written here, and see my most recent comment below.

Correcting something @MissRaven said:

Yes, there are audio requirements for ILs on Kex. If the IL you're submitting claims to be world record, then it is expected to have audio. For Solo Full Game runs, yes, top 5 runs are expected to have audio. For Co-Op Full Game runs, top 3 runs are expected to have audio (only applies to the host). See ruleset for more info.

Here's the biggest reasons Co-Op ILs are not currently supported:

1. There are too many ILs where there is no advantage to having multiple people. Without being able to damage boost your teammates, a chunk of the Co-Op IL leaderboard will be one person doing a run while the other person sits still or wanders aimlessly. These levels will turn into a game of convincing a high-level player to run with you, just so you can have a WR on your profile for doing nothing - a worse form of world record farming.

2. Bloating. As we've stated before, one of the goals of this leaderboard is to avoid making it an ugly mess like the Unity boards (and their even more unfortunate Category Extensions) were. Adding co-op ILs would multiply the current number of IL categories by either 1.5 or 2, depending on if we were to support 3-4 player co-op. And this wouldn't be a problem if people would run co-op ILs constantly, but that leads to my next point...

3. There will not be many people that run Co-Op ILs. If the current Co-Op Full Game boards are any indication, this is a massive understatement. Currently, after around a half a month (?) of the boards being up (with Co-Op being an epic and novel feature that wasn't on Unity), there is... one co-op run on the boards. Not even joking. If Co-Op full game runs (which are far more exciting and important than Co-Op ILs anyway) get some more attention, then this conversation can be had. But until then, adding Co-Op ILs is frankly out of the question.

As of right now, we aren't planning on adding any more categories in the near future.

I personally would love to house UV-Pacifist and NM100S categories, but there simply isn't enough demand for it to be worth bloating the leaderboards. After Unity, we've decided we want to avoid overbloating this leaderboard as much as possible (which is made difficult by the introduction of co-op categories lol). If more people wanted a specific category, we'd consider adding it, but until we get a massive influx of demand, it's not on the itinerary.

Also, since UV+ isn't an actual difficulty on Kex (and A UV Fast + Respawn + Co-Op Spawns is dumb), that category specifically will probably never happen on Kex.

No, loading a save to be put directly into the level isn't allowed. Starting from a fresh screen melt/wipescreen has been the standard for a while for a couple good reasons, mostly dealing with ease of verification. Also, frankly, it looks better to start from screen melt than from just instantly loading in.

Unfortunately, there's no real way to "fix" this, and your best bet is to just avoid using saves on Nightmare difficulty. This is a known issue and it's best to just freshly load into the maps via the main menu if you wish to play them on Nightmare.

The short answer is that it wouldn’t make much difference - it would be rejected as it is in violation of the ruleset.

However, it honestly depends. The practical reason for rejection (the reason for the rule in the first place) is that, as previously stated, it is not the moderators’ responsibility to watch your entire recording to vet and verify a single run. Now, if someone’s recording was just, for example: level select, first attempt, die, respawn, second attempt, succeed; then this would maybe get accepted since it’s not too much of a headache to verify (though keep in mind that this is the exception, not the rule).

As with most of the rules, the final call is up to moderators’ discretion. Legalistically, a run in violation of any of the rules is not entitled to be accepted, even if the violation is minor or petty. However, depending on the moderator’s (singular since typically a single mod reviews a given run) discretion, the run may be accepted anyway if the violation is insignificant.

Unfortunately, this may cause inconsistencies in the enforcement of specific rules if unchecked, which is a reason for coordination among the mod team. If you experience run rejections that you believe to be unfair or inconsistent, feel free to let one of us know (preferably via DM), though we try our best to keep these incidents to a minimum obviously.

Honestly, BigTWONeli, you're right - the rules could be a bit more specific, and I'll look into making them more satisfactory. However, there are some things I want to lay out.

The reason I assumed your run started on a death save is because your primary video does not show you dying - it starts with you already dead. From this point, it is a common assumption that this start is via a quickload to a death save; this is also an effectively correct assumption since it makes no difference whether you actually died or just loaded a death save, since RNG tables reset once you press space either way.

The only real distinction between a quickload to a death save (or equivalently, an actual death) and a manual load w/ save info displayed is... well, that the save info is displayed. The immediate (and that's key) display of the difficulty information is the only reason we require the save info to be displayed for non-Any% difficulties. Again, your actual death can be treated the exact same as a quickload since, for speedrunning, they are the exact same thing.

The reason immediate information is important is for the same reason I rejected your run: it is not the moderators' responsibility to look through an entire recording (regardless of length) to ensure fair play (viz. discreetly choosing a different difficulty at some point). However, if the information is immediately displayed, that saves moderators a heck of a headache and shows beyond a shadow of a doubt what difficulty the player is on. Quickloads to a death save (and, again, actually dying and restarting) do not display this information, at least not immediately.

TL;DR: your run can effectively be treated as a run started via quickload to a death save, as can any other run in which the player dies and restarts the level. I can make the rules more specific to lay this out in plain language, since they are kinda pathetic in their current state imo.

Edit: I have since updated the rules to be more specific. Honestly, I think the changes I made are kind of pointless and self-obvious, but that should be the point of a ruleset anyway: lay everything out for the sake of pedantry if nothing else.

One correction: The run did not start via a quickload, it started via an actual death. However, this still does not comply with the ruleset, which states that there are only two valid ways to start a non-Any% run:

1. enter from the main menu, or
2. load to a (normal) death save after showing save info.

Dying and restarting the level is not a valid way of starting a run for this board.

I apologize for incorrectly stating that the run used a quickload, but that doesn't change the fact that you did not follow the rules for non-Any% runs. As such, your run got rejected. Everything else in my initial post still holds.

Here is the run this post references: UV-Pacifist in 01:09.430 by BigTWONeli - Doom (Unity Ports) - Speedrun.com

To provide context:

You submitted a 1-minute UV-Pacifist IL run that neglected to follow the rules laid out for non-Any% runs - specifically, you quickloaded to a death save to start the level (there is a long paragraph in the ruleset detailing how you can start runs on non-Any% difficulties; quickloading to a death save is not allowed and never has been). Instead, you posted a secondary link of the entire recording (~11 minutes), of which 10 minutes were failed attempts. As I said in the rejection message, it is not the moderators' job to review your entire recording and ensure that you did didn't quicksave at any point and/or tamper with your initial save.

Quite frankly, the length of the recording does not matter - the moderators are not obligated to cover for you, regardless of how much extra footage you link. Your run did not follow the rules, and thus it got rejected.

If you were to submit an 11-minute run, then absolutely, it is the moderators' responsibility to review the run in its entirety. But it is not the moderator's responsibility to review your entire recording (regardless of length) because you chose to ignore the rules. Making a public post like this in which you omit crucial context is incredibly disingenuous and embarrassing.

Gotta agree with MissRaven here. The leaderboard is bloated as is and most of it goes untouched.

I floated the idea of Tyson (and a few other interesting categories, such as UV Reality!) a few years ago, but there really wasn’t any demand for it. Heck, some of the categories that are already on the board are meme categories that should never have been added (looking at you, NM-Pacifist), and I think people have lost demand for new categories.

Not exactly sure what value this adds to discussions surrounding Doom speedrunning. Bringing up legitimate issues in a manner conducive to fixing them is fine (and even encouraged), but I view posts like this at nothing more than trolling. If you have actual critiques, feel free to voice them, but this doesn't appear to be a post made in good faith.

The Unity leaderboards are mainly for the Steam (PC) and latest-gen console (XB1, PS4, Switch, etc.) versions of The Ultimate Doom and Doom II, which can be bought for $5 USD each, I'm pretty sure. After purchasing the game, launch it through Steam, then select "Play DOOM (1993)".

As far as categories, most people start off running Episode 1 Any% or E1M1 Any%. Running the full episode is fine so long as you don't burn yourself out, but I can't recommend running E1M1 for too long; that level sucks. I would simply suggest branching out and playing a variety of maps so you can decide which ones you like to run, and then focus on them if you want! Same goes for different categories, if you felt like switching things up. The Unity leaderboards are really expansive, but unfortunately most of it goes unnoticed because most people don't venture past Episode 1.

If you have any more questions, feel free to join the Discord (link is just below the game title) and ask there!

The leaderboards (both base leaderboards and category extensions) are already so expansive as it is - I think it's well over two thousand runs last I heard - so adding miscellaneous categories like that would just make the leaderboard even more bloated for almost no one to run the categories. If I had to guess, I'd say there would be unanimous opposition among the moderators toward something like this.

Simply put, don’t attempt it. Especially not in a full game setting.

If you are curious, however, the way I pulled it off was by bounding move-backwards to mouse_down, slowly moving your mouse back against the wall, and tapping d. After you get the wobble, you lower the lift, line the top of the chaingun with a specific megapixel on the wall, hold the A and D buttons, and wait for the lift to take you back up. After all this you’ll save about 15 seconds.

Once again, very complicated and unnecessary, I’d suggest keeping your distance from this trick.

You can go into the menu to toggle vertical mouse movement in full game runs. In ILs, however, you would need to have it toggled on beforehand and keep it on throughout the entire run since entering the menu during an IL for any reason will invalidate your run.

As far as I know, no macros or third-party tools/scripts that affect gameplay are permitted.

To answer your first question, pausing mid-run is will invalidate individual level (IL) runs, but pausing during full-game runs is allowed.

Second, to get better information than the generic "practice makes perfect" type of answer, I would suggest joining the Console Doom Discord if you haven't already (linked on the left side of this speedrun.com page) and asking there; there'll likely be people willing to help you out in more depth there.