Hey!

After doing some research, I've come to the conclusion that there are no runs occurring due to a few different reasons. Let's go over some history before I elaborate on that, though.

Speed Demos Archive used to be ¤¤the¤¤ hub for all things speedrunning back when this game was released. Naturally, that's where I looked to find some thread, run, or discussion regarding the formation of the current and past categories, the corresponding rules of these categories, and any record runs of the time that were considered good enough to make the cut for their own pages. I found one submission - the complete dissertation of Miku Uyama's Any% NG record of 1:14:34. This was run even longer ago than I thought, with the post being dated May 22, 2009. Considering the game was only released August 27, 2008, it is /absolutely/ remarkable this record has gone untouched for nearly a decade. Nobody's even come close - second place is nearly two minutes off from this ancient record. The post can be found here: http://speeddemosarchive.com/CastleCrashers.html

Now, also included in that post, there's a single sentence near the top of the page that was clearly agreed upon. "Category Note: Characters are not considered separate categories for a new game run because there are not enough differences between the characters." Never actually having read src's rules on the NG and NG+ categories myself (I always wondered by NG+ was so much slower), it's quite obvious a bit has changed over time and doesn't reflect the old rules for NG and NG+. Here, the rules for NG state that the character chosen 'be played with one of the four starting knights.' When was this changed? I couldn't find any discussion regarding it. Perhaps I didn't look hard enough, but I don't see a reason for this restriction.

Now, the most significant issue I see with the current rules lie in NG+. Aside from having some wording changed around in the rules found here, this is the only /actual/ change in NG+ rules (besides shovel and boomerang, which are essentially useless, and ironically could not be obtained without leveling up at least once) - "Can be on any character." Hold on, that doesn't sound like proper rules for NG+. SDA stated that there wasn't enough of a significant change among NG characters to warrant different categories. Doesn't NG+ imply that you've beaten the game before, and have access to a previously-played character? Would the route not stay the same, but the character be of a much higher level? This is what seems intuitive, and is widely accepted among the rules for NG+ among countless games that have such a category.

All that having been said, I am in strong favour of merging the current NG and NG+ categories into a single NG category. This is what the rules were agreed upon shortly after the game's release, and the best runs, still today, abide by them. I am also in favour of updating the NG+ rules to proper NG+ standards, allow the use of previously-played characters. Obviously, the levels would still need to be beaten in NG sequence (the only questionable route change being moon skip and its application in a NG+ setting). I do believe that the modernization of these categories would not only increase the game's activity as a speedgame, make for several very interesting NG+ routing choices, and allow for a fair playing field to the currently unjustly-separated NG and NG+ runs.

Thank you.

-GG

^ Spot-on. Also, one thing I would like to see added would be a character slot in the submission. The "DLC Yes or No" seems completely unnecessary, too. This could be easily fixed with the replacement of this column with a character column.

First I'd like to say thanks for the comprehensive post, Gameguy! the amount of detail you went into is pretty crazy.

These rules on speedrun.com for NG and NG+ have been this since before I was mod and I just assumed that they were standard, however the mods and I have discussed your post and are considering changing the current rules to match the SDA rules, but we want to leave some time to ask the runners of this game what they would think of this change. Personally, I think that the SDA rules are better than the current rules and will make the leaderboards look cleaner, I made some changes a while ago that people do not seem to like, sorry about this.

The only problem that we have with this is that several runners have submitted a time for both NG and NG+, and if we merge these then they would lose a time from the leaderboards which some runners may not like, so we're just checking with everyone that we can reach.

The NG+ that you described was the original plan for NG+, but I later decided against it in favour of the current rules since people would want a level 99 character to be as fast as possible, however if we kept current NG rules then they'd lose their level 99 characters whenever they wanted to do a NG run.

Regarding full moon skip we may just ban it entirely since it is only possible on the unpatched version of the game on Xbox 360.

To comment on slippys post, that's a much better idea and we will definitely make that change soon. Thanks!

Our current idea is to merge the NG and NG+ runs keeping only the fastest time from each person (since there 31 characters, 31 different submissions from the same person would be untidy) and a change to the NG rules to allow any character as long as they're level 1 with no gold and are allowed the bow, shovel and boomerang from the start of the run.

The NG+ rules would be the exact same as NG expect the character can start from any level, but must still go through the levels in order and are not allowed to visit any shops that they wouldn't be able to get to (returning to map at Cyclops Cave and going to Lava Store for example) and are allowed to start off with gold, potions, bombs, sandwiches and the horn with any weapon and animal orb that they want.

Many thanks.

Here's my two cents:

Back when I started this leaderboard, there really wasn't a standard set of rules. The only things I could find related to Castle Crashers speedrunning were the SDA run, Soxdye's runs, and this document by Soxdye: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LlT1no9YKEP2kY66c0fXYOCY5lcVwwMqPaKgNNoHTQQ/edit Looking back, there were probably some other runs, but because there was no place to post runs, I couldn't find them. Plus they certainly didn't have any standardized rules between them.

So when I had to come up with the categories, I used this note from the document linked above as a starting point: Note: When starting a run you must start at level 1 with no gold or experience. Either a new profile on XBox 360 or clear your Saved Data on Steam. If you don’t your run will be considered NG+ and not NG. Thus that is why NG has to be on the starting knights and without bow, shovel, and boomerang. If you reset your saved data, those requirements are automatically fulfilled. You won't have the bow, shovel, or boomerang, and the only characters unlocked would be starting characters.

As for the SDA's conclusion that different characters don't have enough differences to warrant different categories, I thought that he was talking about only the 4 starting characters.

1. The starting characters only differences are in magic, which isn't used in an optimal run (as stated in the SDA post).
2. I concluded that there was enough of a difference if it was about all characters due to starting weapons. Obviously my opinion matters more ;)
3. You can't be playing any other characters if you reset saved data.
4. Related to 3, the lack of boomerang at the start of the SDA run tells me he reset saved data as well. If you spin it that way, the current NG rules still fit SDA's rule.

As for NG+, I do admit that there are some unnecessary restrictions on the rules I came up. When I was making NG+ rules, there weren't any that I could find (nor could I find a formal NG+ run), so I made the rules what I wanted the NG+ rules to be instead of what they should've been. The main part of the NG+ rules is "Character must have zero exp. earned, must be level one, must have only the bow, the shovel, and the boomerang. You must have the character's default weapon as well as no animal orbs at the start of the run.", which is saying "Reset your character before you start". Why did I make that a rule? Well,

1. If you don't reset, you can just skip all the levels. I mean, you can grind on the first level over and over if you want to avoid that problem, but making that the rule would just deter people.
2. Grinding to level 99 just so you can get the perfect run isn't fun.
3. I just wanted a category where I could play characters other than the starting four and use unlockable items, but not ROFLstomp everything because I was massively over leveled. I mean sure, you can resolve 1 by just making it a rule you have to do all levels in order, 2 shouldn't be a consideration, and 3 can be resolved by making NG like the way you're suggesting, but I wanted to keep NG the way it had been for previous runs. Plus NG+ was made for me at the time, so I didn't do the correct thing, and it stuck.

Regarding changing the rules, I don't think that what I say would matter, considering the most I do for Castle Crashers speedrunning right now is logging in once a couple months and seeing what's happening. But if it was me personally, I'd leave it as it is, and make a separate extra-leveled category.

Some extra side notes:

1. Ban the full moon skip. I decided to merge the skip & skipless categories despite what Soxdye's guide said, just because realistically very few people can actually do the skip.

2. Also, GameGuy, boomerang useless? Then explain this (at 4:45) :

I figured I should give my comments on the matter seeing as I have the fastest time on our leaderboards and second fastest time in the game at any%. The leaderboards should stay as is with how the rules currently are. The main reason for this is that the routing between the two runs is different at least for the start of the game. Since with NG+ there are two characters that can start with a +5 strength weapon as well as snoot who gives +2 strength for a total of +7 at the start of the run. If you were to compare that to the NG any% run with blue knight at different points of the game. At barbarian war Blue Knight is level 2 with +3 strength (you start with +1 all stats), with bear/iceskimo you are level 1 with +8 strength (+5 wep +2 snoot +1 starting str). Now these stats get closer together due to the way experience works since its dependent on hitting enemies who are above 0hp. The stats go in favor of NG over NG+ at level 10 since that is when you can get the clunky mace in NG which also give +5 strength and you’ll have snoot +2 strength and from levels you will have + 18 strength whereas NG+ will have +5 wep +2 snoot and + 14/16 depending on if you hit level 9 before lava world. However, due to having to buy that weapon on NG which 240 gold and needing 2 bombs for 15 gold each and throw in 5 potions (70 gold at thieves) to be safe, it adds up to about 340 gold (This isn’t considering the sandwiches that are needed to be bought for the run since both runs need roughly the same amount) to get the same stats as NG+ while ng+ needs maybe 70 gold just for potions. This adds more shopping and routing for regular NG runs while NG+ runs can get by with less shopping trips as well as less money needed in the route. NG+ doesn’t need the 100 gold from barbarian but NG needs it to guarantee they have enough potions bombs and sandwiches for a run. Basically you only need to route around getting 5 pots and 9 sandwiches for NG+ while NG needs the clunky mace (240 gold) + 2 bombs (30 gold) as well as 5 pots and 9 sandwiches. Not to mention that the NG+ run is much faster at the beginning of the game than the NG run and relatively safer as well. I personally enjoy starting from a new save file and having this route meticulously planned out for the exact gold I will need to have by a certain point and leveling up at specific points of the run (i.e. hitting enough bats to hit level 6 before Catfish is something only NG runs need to worry about since if you aren’t level 6 you miss out on one cycle Catfish. As well as losing the XYY combo at level 8 which happens on flowery field/castle top. Though, I do agree on a new category being an overleveled character running through the game as fast as possible. I know I went mostly on route differences but NG+ changes early game too much and merging the two categories would make beating Mike’s 1:15:02 easier and beating it right now is definitely possible. These are just my thoughts on the matter and I will stand by that the categories shouldn’t be merged.

I see both sides. I do think at the very least a new category should be added. We could call it NG++, or maybe NG+ (Level 99) and re-name the current NG+ - NG+ (Level 1)? I'd like to have some sort of category in which you can use however high of a level character you want to play through normal mode. You'd have to do every required level, of course. There would also be no skipping ahead to shops and stuff that normally wouldn't be accessible at that point.

Maybe this is just me, but I also think quitting out of the level early (when the stats come up) shouldn't be allowed in this new category, either. It wouldn't seem right.

Alright!

 Now that there's been some hefty discussion, I can definitely see where my original arguments were flawed. Special thanks to Develo for explaining in detail his thought process for defining the categories - using a method that made it easy to see why things are currently defined as they are. With that and Soxdye's in-depth game knowledge, it's pretty clear that the two categories shouldn't be merged, and the proposed new category fits neither of the current definitions. Just to clarify everything now and moving forward, this is what I understand to be true. I'll try to describe these in a method that would make it understandable to a new player.

NG - This category is what you would be required to run, by default, if you were to launch Castle Crashers on a completely new game file. That is, only the four main knights are able to be selected upon the opening character selection. The boomerang, bow, shovel, any potions, sandwiches, gold, weapons, animal orbs, etc - all of these are intuitively banned because none of these would be available upon the most strict of NG definitions. Bare bones category, only for the best runners to play to optimisation.

NG+ - Very similar to NG, but in many ways, completely different. Here is where your platform starts to have an effect on the category. As you play through NG, you unlock characters along the way through a few different ways - be it beating arenas, clearing the game with various characters, or unlocking them through ulterior means, such as purchasing other Behemoth titles. That being said, you will have to have played through the game, or a portion of the game, in a NG setting in order to even select other characters. This, by definition, makes all other possible characters an NG+ selection. This separates them from the primary four characters, who are all designed (from a physical perspective) very similarly. On top of all this, because it would be possible to unlock the boomerang, shovel, and bow in a NG setting, it is logical to allow these at the start of a NG+ run. Any combination of Weapons and Animal Orbs are also allowed, though they must be obtained through the Weapons Frog and Animal Ark respectively after beginning a run.

 Platform variance:
    Console - Gold transfers between characters, and is therefore allowed at the start of NG+ runs. This saves time from having to collect gold along the route.
    Steam    - Gold does not transfer between characters. Therefore, no gold is allowed at the start of NG+ runs on the Steam version. This makes gold routing as important as the NG route if any purchasing is to be made.

That's where the leaderboards current stand, and the NG and NG+ definitions apply in a similar manner in co-op runs. Now, the category merge I originally proposed is completely unreasonable upon seeing the differences between them. A new category or subcategory is clearly required. Here are a few possible solutions I've come up with for a category that removes level, run preliminaries, and equippable restrictions.

1. Create a subcategory for NG and NG+ to allow for a previously-played character. This would not add any new categories to the leaderboards, but instead allow access to a secondary leaderboard for each of the current categories, accessible via two buttons. This would create additional possibilities for competition, as absorbing NG and NG+ into one unrestricted category would more than likely obsolete any possible competition regarding the NG characters. Though this subcategorization may seem conflicting under the NG and NG+ criteria, it is possible to add, and therefore modify, rules for each subcategory. A possible name for this subcategory may be "No Restrictions."

2. Create an additional category to encompass both NG and NG+ Pre-leveled speedrunning. This would allow for a runner to "ROFLstomp" (~Develo) their way through the game in a manner much faster than any of the current categories allow. This would also be massively more accessible to lesser-skilled runners who may have difficulty achieving competitive times in NG and NG+. Therefore, it may be beneficial to add a new category by the name "No Restrictions."

I think that just about covers everything. It's been very interesting learning about this game, the history behind it, and the different views from members of the community. I know this is absolutely ridiculously long-winded, but I feel as though it's necessary to avoid any possible confusion in the future.

Tl;dr: Don't merge or modify NG and/or NG+. Polish the rules a bit. Add a new (sub)category to allow for competition among unrestricted runs.

Thank you!

-GG