Hi everyone. I just finished an all bosses speedrun and wanted to know if there's a way to submit it on speedrun.com. Here's a link if you're interested:

Hi Serge,

To prevent category bloat, our policy thus far has always been to only add categories with at least two runs. As it stands, I think your run is the only one that we have time and video of, so I am holding off on adding it for now.

Hi Zwanzig. I'm pretty sure Metako and Krob also did a run but i don't want to force anything if they don't want to submit. But it would be cool to have a leaderboard for this category. (Like it's more legit than fleeless Kappa) In any case thanks for your answer.

Krob doesn't have a VOD of his run anymore, so don't even think that would be a possibility for submission. I noticed your run was surprisingly fast when I watched it. If you send me your notes and let me get my time from 16:XX:XX to 14:XX:XX time I'd be happy to submit ;)

Hi Metako. First sorry for my late answer didn't check the forum for a while. I actually only have short written notes but I suppose I could write a short guide on a google doc. I can't make a full guide because my menus are not optimised at all (plus I use no tantarian menus, and Tantarian would probably be a lot better for all bosses) but I can a least describe the route, the bosses strats, some knowledge about frogs and important menus. Like the main thing about the route is to not go for excalibur 2. This allows to not rush disc 3 and get a lot of frogs there. When I'll be done with the guide I'll post it here ;)

Hey team! Going to throw in my 2 cents here. FFIX is very up in the air with what is defined as "All Bosses". I in no way mean to discourage or discredit anyones work at an All Bosses run because I am someone who is very grateful to Runners of Ozma% and All Bosses% since it is something I love working on but unfortunately never have a chance to run.

FFIX is a cluster of fights that can be debated whether or not they are a boss fight (I have plenty of notes on this as it would be WAY too much to list here). But we as a community would need to sit down and discuss what IS and what ISN'T a requirement for this category.

I would like to welcome anyone interested in this run or the general mechanics behind it to come together and set out an offical set of requirements for All Bosses.

If you would not mind sharing what you have on this run Serge as I would love to compare it against what I have routed (which is an modification of my Ozma% to fit All Bosses mainly in the optimsation of Frogs).

Hi Mizzow. Don't worry as I said earlier I'll post my notes here soon. The requirements on the run I did were: -Beat Quale -Beat Tantarian -Beat Ozma -Beat Hades -And of course beat Necron.

I chose those ones because they're clearly intended to be some of the hardest fights in the game but of course depending on how you define a boss you could add a lot of fights. Like Zagnhol during festival of the hunt or Yana monsters could be considered "unique" fights because you can't choose your party here, some have unique hp etc...If you decide that a boss can't give you xp then all the ones in the list would not be bosses but Zaghnol could be. I'm also aware that the fact that the fight is hard is not enough to define a boss. A boss can be easy. Also the fact that Quale is a hard fight is arguable. So what do you guys think?

Is there a platform we can talk dynamically and not in single posts. If we have to wait for days and days between posts it'll waste so much time. Discord would be much much better, like I PM'd you, Serge (mine is discord.gg/metako for reference). We need a set definition for what a boss is and what defeating a boss is.

For example. does suiciding early fights count, do you defeat every enemy with the heavy status, does fleeing from Armodullahan count?

I've added you on discord ;) Also I'll have time this week I'll write the notes for sure. About Armodullahan the thing is that you can't defeat it. If you fight an ko it you have to flee to continue. The thing about early fights is that suiciding or do the fight changes nothing to the outcome so I'd say suicide is just a way to beat the opponnent. It's the same for Beatrix 1, you can fight or wait 8/10 turns the outcome is the same. What's the heavy status?

In our call the other day, we agreed that suiciding was fine for Steiner 3, but not Steiner 2. The reason being, we agreed that you should defeat every boss encounter the way the game intends. This allows for waiting out Beatrix 1,2, and 3. We also agreed on fighting all three Red Dragon fights, not just the one mandatory. Also, Armodullahan has similar properties to Zaghnol in terms of qualifying for a boss, so we have said engage and fleeing is fine. This goes nicely with how the game intends. It's all in the spreadsheet. There are four new fights I think and about two/three that now need to be defeated differently from any%. I hope we can all agree on these. Mizzow is also rerouting chocobos and frogs. It's very exciting. We collaborated on Ozma%, and this all bosses route looks really nice. Hope to see your comments on it in Discord!

Ps. Heavy status is a status certain enemies have. Most undeniable bosses have it, but some normal enemies do to. We were hoping for an easy description for what a boss is, but the heavy status did not qualify.

Hello everyone! I apologise for the lateness to have input on this, I think I’ve caught up on the results of your discussions and want to present a choice of 2 solutions. This might be a little long because I’m trying to comment on everything at once that you guys have discussed over multiple hours and days, I’ll try to provide a tl;dr at the bottom for those that want to skip the details and quickly see what I'm going for, as I'm sure the focus of "consistency" is something we can all agree on.

Trying to specify what is "intended" by the game is over complicated and subjective. A victory in FFIX fixed fights is doing whatever possible to end the encounter because you proceed with the game afterwards. There is no such thing as a draw, the only other possible outcome is a loss, which is clearly shown as Game Over. For example, waiting out Beatrix 1, 2 or 3 for 10 turns all work thematically and objectively because surviving is still a perfectly viable win condition, you can still lose, and for flavour’s sake you are still PLAYING the game.

This is the document I've received for the currently agreed upon rule-set which I will be talking about: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xzJ0sft6mUN3ApIrsId-CsHwfCahg536WD9upGGGDlE/edit#gid=0

Dealing damage is sometimes an option, not always a requirement. The ONLY reason it’s a requirement by default for most encounters is because there is literally no other way to end the encounter. This is important to remember because it removes the unnecessary and purely opinionated decisions of certain methods being intended whereas others aren’t.

The 2 main examples of the document I want to address are:

• Masked Man: This is a fight that is impossible to lose unless you cheat and softlock. Opinions on whether KOing yourself or depleting Masked Man’s HP is more “intended” are irrelevant, I would argue that the cutscene after the fight makes it more “intended” for the party to lose, but I digress. If there is a way other than winning, you get a Game Over screen. Multiple ways to win means the choice can/should be entirely yours, just like it is for all Beatrix fights, Zaghnol, and Armodullahan.

• Zaghnol: Agreed, my view is it can be defeated by self KO or killing, but ONLY because the game gives you the freedom to, and definitely not because self KOing “completes the objective of one party member still winning the Festival of the Hunt” like the document says. This one is such a head scratcher, I can’t explain my confusion how the monster/encounter credit has been completely disregarded for the irrelevant story event that is nothing to do with the speedrun.

This inconsistency in the ruleset needs to be addressed. Personally, I prefer the freedom to end encounters however possible, although there is the second solution.

With “All Bosses” it becomes fair to suggest something more like: “boss encounters must be ended by defeating the relevant enemy at least once.” For the sake of tedious argument you could put an explanation of what “defeat” is at the top: -Example: Death; either Doom or Instant, reducing HP to 0, or status ailments: Petrify, Stop, and Venom - which by the way should be perfectly allowed options for Red Dragons if the player wants to, this isn’t in the document whether it was actively decided against or an oversight.

I suggest removing the “defeat by reducing X’s HP to 0” text from everything, it’s completely useless information as everything except Red Dragons HAVE to be fought like that anyway. The objective column could then state (if we’re going for the “kill everything” rule) the specific target(s) of the encounter: -Example: Prison Cage 1: Defeat Prison Cage This ensures clarity that only the target "Prison Cage" needs to die even though Garnet is also flagged as a boss target.

I am happy to discuss either idea further, I have full confidence that one rule or the other must be broadly applied for this category to make sense. There can always be exceptions which are also open to debate, I’m extremely against this conditional treatment for every encounter by default, especially when things like Beatrix's logic is simple and secure, and Zaghnol’s reasoning makes absolutely no sense at all.

Looking forward to your feedback, Cheers

tl;dr There is absolutely no way to justify being allowed to self KO on Zaghnol but not Masked Man, it is a completely arbitrary inconsistency and ignores objective conditions and factors of the game state. There is no such thing as intentions by the game, ALL ways are intended, if it was not intended, you would not be able to continue without some sort of glitch/bug exploit. If you want to go down the “defeat” should be the key word” road, apply it to ALL boss encounters.

My opinion is pretty irrelevant because I've no intention of running this but I'd like to add some food for thought anyway.

I think with a category like this I think you need to step back and consider why you're routing it in the first place, and that's probably to add more strategies and change up the routing from what you're all used to. I think if you go about circumventing this by clearing battles in questionable ways it kind of makes the category less interesting. So I'd argue, for the integrity of the category and interest in routing, it'd be better to fight these battles properly anyway. Mostly looking at Armodullahan here considering Zaghnol would just be attacks (but Zaghnol could also change your equipment/shopping I don't know).

Anyway, if you're doing all bosses I think it's better to actually fight them, there aren't exactly many additional bosses in this game anyway so it's a bit of a waste to basically skip the extra ones you do get. Technicalities on what exactly a boss or a victory is aside, I think the goal should be something that's interesting to route/run/watch.

Now that I've had time to talk to a few people, I honestly feel the same way. I've heard opinions very similar to yours multiple times that all focus on the theme of killing everything, and I trust them because if it's easy enough for people that are not at all interested in the category to grasp, then it should be more than simple enough for runners that are interested. Overall I believe this should be the target - for all parties to understand as best and simply as possible. Initially I thought "do anything you want to end any battle" sounded more appropriate because it fits more into a no-restrictions way of playing, like "as long as it's not a game over" condition I tried to explain. Discussions have quickly enlightened to the reason to run All Bosses in the first place: to fight stuff you'd normally skip.

The point I was trying to convey when presenting "kill everything" as the second solution is to make sure it applies to everything, so as an example we'd fight both Masked Man and Zaghnol, because victory over the Zaghnol itself is the goal and not the Festival of the Hunt. Self KO still worked as a victory in my previous mindset with "anything goes", but obviously does not when considering "defeat" being the key word.

A definition or explanation of what exactly defeating/killing a boss enemy entails would be pretty much the foundation, as this could easily apply to 100% of boss encounters in the game with no alternate ways to end (we don't know of any glitches/bugs so let's worry about All Bosses Glitchless another day if it ever comes to it), leaving no confusion for win conditions.

The list of enemies/encounters that classify as bosses is the easy part to work on I think, the current list has been put together well and I also wouldn't be sad to see anything go (especially Armodullahan). I assume everyone who voted on the current document is also (still) okay with the list of enemies(?)

Hi Odin and Cereth. We have a discussion group on discord. I'll ask Mizzow if he can send you an invitation if you don't mind joining? I'll just answer this here: we had discussions (especially about red dragons and zaghnol) and yes we agreed on the list of ennemies.

I replied to Mizzow but just in case it doesn't get relayed: I'm past trying to have discussions after the small bit of drama that I won't highlight the details of.

I'll leave my final words here then you guys can do whatever you want. I had hoped criticism could be taken maturely but it's clear that by objecting to flawed logic and inconsistency, I've apparently offended people enough to warrant not having a discussion or getting feedback at all. Even after I personally messaged several of them in polite request to look at my forum post - the exception is you, Serge,because I couldn't find you on discord to send a message.

After 3 days of waiting I didn't care anymore and I've decided to do my own thing. With the feedback I received by other FF9 runners, I thought carefully about a list of enemies with a solid criteria on what classifies as a boss and with a "kill all bosses" goal in mind. The results are here: https://pastebin.com/sayLDH9c

The 2 biggest differences are:

1. I don't consider repeating enemies like Red Dragons to be bosses because if that ruling were consistent, it'd also require all the Alexandrian Soldiers and possibly Bandersnatches (if they don't respawn). These are just normal enemies in fixed encounters and I don't want to spend extra time on arbitrary objectives. You should also require the Treno Shop monsters by this logic as they are fixed encounters. Either require all fixed encounters with normal enemies, or none of them at all.

2. I defeat everything possible - no entire party KO'ing is allowed ever. The obvious exceptions are Steiner 3 and Armodullahan because you can't defeat them. Encountering and fleeing from Armodullahan is, again, an arbitrary objective. Ignoring nonsense speculation, defeating Beatrix 1 is also 100% free with 4 characters, so overall there really is no problem with this rule, it makes perfect sense as a concept and an objective.

In conclusion: I gave the best examples of why the document rule-set doesn't work and other people that have seen it also agree without my bias being a part of their opinion. The difference is you don't hear their feedback because they couldn't care less what you/we do with a category that has nothing to do with them and they have no intention of running. Eventually it would come down to a vote and apparently I'm alone in arguing for the logic of "pick a clear objective", so now I'm picking a clear objective for myself. Good luck with whatever you guys decide to do.

Well at first I didn't agree with fighting red dragons so I can understand, but I also don't agree with putting Beatrix 1 to 0hp because you don't defeat her anyway, she defeats you. Waiting or getting her to 0 hp doesn't change that outcome. But my opinion doesn't really matter, what matters is that we can all agree on rules. If we succed to do that by voting for each boss or by proposing our own detailed rules, both solutions are fine with me. For now here's the temporary solution I'll use:

-getting masked man, steiner 2 and beatrix 1 to 0hp -beat zaghnol -fight armodullahan -do the 3 red dragons fights

That way, even if the rules change the run will still be valid. (unless we decide something like fighting treno monsters, but nobody seems to want that) Like you would not invalidate an any % run because the runner decide to fight Hades, it's just that it's a timeloss so it would be stupid to do it.

There it is:

Hi all,

Just wanted to say that for simplification reasons there is a group chat in Discord that anyone and everyone is welcome to join to discuss the future of All Bosses as a category. The aim for this is to have one central place where everyone can openly discuss the category and prevent any posts and comments from being lost or unseen. If you would like to be added, please let me know and I will make sure you are!

My Discord handle is: Metako#1683

Really pleased to see a new run with the current ruleset! I am currently waiting for a reroute to do attempts myself, but as soon as things are concrete and routing is sufficient I will be doing runs.

I got unlucky on frogs but this route has the potential to sub 14 hours. I'll do more tries soon ;)

But I'm curious about a new route. A huge change would be to do ozma disc 4. That would allow to get excalibur 2, but that would probably mean skipping some frogs on disc 3.