Compet-N: incoming and discussion, part 2 [post Compet-N entries here]

It could be because there are endless supplies of more interesting wads to record on.

at least in my case, It's exactly what vile wrote
In fact I never even completed the whole original level set for doom2 in its totality

blob1024 said:

at least in my case, It's exactly what vile wrote
In fact I never even completed the whole original level set for doom2 in its totality

I never finished Plutonia Revisited... note to self, finish Plutonia Revisited.

The last one I finished was BTSX.

kunkun said:

Plutonia ep3 in 12:31

Great! I am lokking forward to your 30pl.


Doom2 Map 20 UV-Max in 2:42

Vdgg and dew, thank you for sending hokis' lv20 demo. His route was just within the assumption, but it was enough just to make sure there are no unexpectedly new routes.

lv20-242.zip

tatsurd-cacocaco said:

Doom2 Map 20 UV-Max in 2:42

Just as I say iwad records must be close to perfect you beat one by over half a minute. 30pl might take a while, haven't even got past map17 yet.

Posting this before my hard drive blows up or something

30pl3239.zip

That's quick, I expected you to work on it for a few months :) Congratulations!

vdgg said:

That's quick, I expected you to work on it for a few months :) Congratulations!

Thanks. Only reason I got it this fast is because I had a couple of weeks off and put a completely ridiculous amount of hours into this crap just to get it out of the way before uni starts next monday. That said, it was only 1076 (+a couple of hundred with older dosbox version) attempts. I'll actually post the whole batch of them, maybe some statistician will get a kick out of it if he finds a way to script levelstats from every attempt.

Very interesting movie, great job!
Btw why you dodn't used the glide through the red pillar on map24? It's pretty userful for speed and safety. Time to try ep3 speed movie...

Plut said:

Time to try ep3 speed movie...

Clearly my plan is working (actually I didn't even know there's a glide in that map). AndyO, for DSDA, you might want to use the .zip on compet-n site instead, it has a .txt file.

That was sweet, probably best 'legit' movie since last doom2 one.

Soon you will be able to upload Chocolate/PrBoom+/TAS demos to COMPET-N, read more about it here:
http://www.doom.com.hr/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=439&p=3148#p3148

Suggestions are welcome, I'll enable uploads for few days to see if I did something wrong in the meantime.

If someone didn't notice I've re-uploaded new mm11fix.zip, thank you marineController ;)

I personally object to it. You can use Kills/Items/Secrets Hud and Timer in PrBoom- plus, and you seldom notice that a player uses it without himself-advertisement. They have unfair advantages beyond compatibility. Certainly it seems to be no problem if demos are definitely discriminated, but it seems to be unnecessary because DSDA archives such demos, including TAS demos. I want Compet-N to keep for speedrunning under strict rules and I am afraid that discrimination between vanilla demos and non-vanilla demos will gradually vanish.

However, it's a pity that a lot of compet-N records were beaten by many players with source ports. Now I aim such records intensively, but I don't get good results easily. I therefore think my opinion is lack of persuasiveness. I can't completely deny your plan, but like I said I personally object to it.

HUD just reduces a chunk of wasted time you'd have to endure if you didn't use it. It won't make you play better. I don't find any honor in not using it. If you find it as such a problem, have fun beating whole tnt max tables.

You can't even see the non-vanilla demos in database unless you know where to look for so I don't mind this too much. Non-vanilla stuff is only shown on map pages. I guess it's not necessarily bad to have the unofficial records shown there just so you know what times to aim for if you try that map yourself. If something is done with prboom might as well assume it's done with huds, widescreen FOV and whatever. It does sometimes give a very unfair advantage especially at maxes (check out Rizeras max movie map27, heh) but I guess that's why they don't count as the "official" record. Whether you find huds bad thing is up to you, I'd imagine longer demos can be really bs without using one when you constantly have to worry about missing that one secret or monster.

So how does all this new stuff relate to cndoom, is that still going to be a thing?

j4rio said:

HUD just reduces a chunk of wasted time you'd have to endure if you didn't use it. It won't make you play better.

Of course it will. Those awkward glances into areas frequented by stragglers... gone. I'm not against + runs on CN wads, but I usually avoid them personally, because I use HUD info and I do feel like I have an unfair advantage over CNers. Even that better time management issue is a massive advantage over blind vanilla runs.

A table with the nonCN record doesn't hurt anything, imo, but I'd also warn against mixing demos casually, especially on the CN site itself.

Those awkward glances into areas frequented by stragglers... gone.

You just wouldn't do them in hopes of not missing monster. I did a bunch of c-n stuff so I know what I'm talking about. If there's any notable category it would downright make you better, it'd be max movies where the time it can save you may be over 2-3 hours if your memory isn't doing its thing.

E: Now that I think about it, the thing I quoted doesn't even make sense. How is HUD supposed to reduce stragglers?

j4rio said:

Now that I think about it, the thing I quoted doesn't even make sense. How is HUD supposed to reduce stragglers?

Well, it would be quite ludicrous of me to imply a HUD could affect monster migration. If I ever claimed such a thing. :)

edit: Not to taunt you without giving you an answer: It removes the uncertainty, which leads to double checking in longer runs.

Which brings us to my original point, that is if you had unlimited amount of time for recording, HUD wouldn't make a direct change to final time, just the amount of time you spend on demo.

Well, that's a rather philosophical point to make. If God is omnipotent, can he beat his own runs?

It would have been cool if he did at least first exit. I don't think I was philosophical that much.

If you had infinite time, you can get the same time as your re-recorded demo without slow motion and strafe 50 on turnning. The supposition that there is unlimited time is incorrect because the discuss finally reaches TAS features. Records of doom's speedrunning depend on not only your skill but also your luck. You try the same map many times for getting good randomized numbers, don't you? Certainly HUD might not affect your skill, but HUD affects records even if it is slight, especially a long map or a movie.

If you had infinite time, you can get the same time as your re-recorded demo without slow motion and strafe 50 on turnning.

Maybe it would be even better than casual re-record. So much for theorycrafting.

The supposition that there is unlimited time is incorrect because the discuss finally reaches TAS features.

How? Having unlimited time is not a TAS feature. Err, well, maybe it should be. I don't know, probably God should be disqualified. Sorry, God. Okay enough of this philosophy crap.

Records of doom's speedrunning depend on not only your skill but also your luck. You try the same map many times for getting good randomized numbers, don't you? Certainly HUD might not affect your skill, but HUD affects records even if it is slight, especially a long map or a movie.

I dare say HUD doesn't alter luck as well. If anybody thinks it does, I think that's stretching it. The effect it causes for me is really just better 'non-ingame' time management. Pretty much the most significant would be that I can quit an attempt before exiting and rewatching demo charade, sometimes before reaching exit and making a checkpoint where I can be relatively sure I didn't forget anything because a number of dead monsters is easier to remember than nine million bajillion monster positions especially if they are prone to wandering or getting in random infights. I admit that time it saves in movies can be very significant, it can be a lot of hours if your memory is bad, but I'll never go as far as to consider that ingame luck boost.

I don't think there's any question that hud is a very powerful metagame feature and as such there shouldn't really be discussion if runs with and without hud are compareable. Whether it's saving you from missing a secret or letting you quit when you know there's that one zombieman wondering in some giant maze and you cba to look for it, it's a pretty big time management advantage. Better question would be if they make the game more or less interesting to play and if they do would it be reasonable to say, have them in the new cn database if that's going to be a thing. Huds remove certain amounts of shittiness from longer maxes without really affecting the core gameplay that much.

I guess you didn't read whole news about ports. COMPET-N will stay as it is. I'm just adding new feature so you can upload prboom, choco, tas demos but they will be marked as ports in database and will NOT be counted for points or even shown in scores. BUT, if you click on a player, then all demos will be listed, vanilla, prboom, choco and tas, but ports will have different color or something. Also if you click on map to see all map records then you will see prboom, tas and choco records. It's a feature just for reference to see possible times. If current players do not like that I can make a separate clean base for ports or remove it.

I like the idea. Port demos will be marked as port demos, so I don't see a problem. Thanks!

fx02 said:

I guess you didn't read whole news about ports.

Personally, I didn't read that post because when I followed your link it asked for registration and, well... I didn't feel like registering just to read one news item. I'd recommend to make that section of the site available for everyone or to repost the news in this thread instead of just linking to them.
Also I totally agree with Tatsurd in that it seems pointless to show non-CN demos on the CN website since we already have DSDA. In some sense, "acknowledging" port demos like that will make Compet-N look less serious\strict about competition, which might be a bad thing. Not that my opinion is of any importance as I've never submitted anything to CN.

Ok, forum is open for lazy people so you can read without registering :)
I don't see harm done to COMPET-N by allowing other demos. It's a feature not change of rule. COMPET-N was already accepting such demos (misc category) so I don't see a problem. I really don't want to poison this demo thread with discussion, if you want to discuss about COMPET-N, put some effort and register. NHF

You guys should upload your port records before the door closes. I know j4rio and dew have some port records on av.

j4rio said:

I dare say HUD doesn't alter luck as well. If anybody thinks it does, I think that's stretching it. The effect it causes for me is really just better 'non-ingame' time management.

The number of your attempts increase in fixed term, then the success rate clearly increase in broad perspective. It is equal to luck boost. This is the same as saving time like you said. You can try another map for time you saved and get better result in fixed time. Infinite time never exists, so I said "HUD affects records".

I do actually not think using Kills/Items/Secrets counter is very unfair advantages in a single map run, excluding a very long map or a tricky map. However, HUD displays not only Kills/Items/Secrets counter but also Timer. I think Timer more effects a record in a single map run. You can compare your time with target time in some checkpoints while you are recording a demo, then you can find whether the attempt would beat the record or not in the early stage. The difference between a player with HUD and without HUD is obvious if the run is enough polished.

j4rio said:

I admit that time it saves in movies can be very significant, it can be a lot of hours if your memory is bad, but I'll never go as far as to consider that ingame luck boost.

If your memory is good, is it equal to doing a movie with HUD? No, it's wrong. For example, there is a route by which you can finish a map quickly but miss some enemies easily and the map has some viles. A player without HUD might select another route for safety because he avoid missing some enemies or going to a next map without noticing it for over 100% Kills. He also might spent time for checking the whole map again before the exit. In short, reliable routes for a movie would be very different between a player with HUD and without HUD because the success rate is extremely different. This example is not rare case. I think over 100% Kills by a vile is pretty troublesome. Your memory can't supplement the disadvantage in no HUD and a player with HUD never has risk of the exit with missing enemies. I think the difference is too large and too unfair.


Alien Vendetta Map 26 UV-Fast in 16:15

af261615.zip