Random demo categories innovation

ITT: think of some possible innovations to any speedrunning category or entirely new one. Some I had on mind:

UV-Survival :
Stay alive as long as possible in maps with spawners, with the following restrictions: you must kill a monster using own guns (not infight) each 30 seconds after approaching the spawner ;
demo is valid only if every non-spawned monster in map is dead. If there is very high monster count and it's difficult to determine whether all of the non-spawned monsters had been slained before dying, map in this category is unplayable.

UV/NM-SpeedAK :
Similar to UV-Speed, with added restriction - every keycard/skullkey in level must be obtained before exiting.

UV-Fast&Respawn :
Similar to NM-Speed, but with regular ammo amount.

UV-FullMax :
Kill every physically-possible-to-kill monsters in level including lost souls, flag each triggerable secret and highest possible % of items in map.

Note: They are not supposed to apply anywhere, just use a bit of your imagination / funny bone ;)

The problem with "random" categories is I don't believe there will be huge interest in them. Personally, I find odd categories demos very entertaining, especially if they are well chosen for a certain map/WAD, but who else will watch them? *raise your hands*

UV-Survival: wow, I don't get this idea at all after reading the definition twice :) Could you provide an example demo?

UV/NM-SpeedAK often is equal to "UV Speed without dirty tricks", very good for maps such as Vae Victus 2 MAP06. I recall a contest at idoom.cz and a debate concerning this very map with two "parties" present:
- purists (rocket suicide is a stupid way to exit this map)
- all-tricks-count enthusiasts (this is an ancient trick, it is silly not to exploit the suicide exit possibility)

Still, there was yet another way to exit this map, without keys, but without rocket suicide and it involved an arch-vile jump, so... all the restrictions must be carefully planned.

UV-Fast&Respawn:
Hm, this should be a painful category when playing maps with little ammo, never tried it. "Nitemare lite" (-skill 1 -fast -respawn) is more interesting for me, as more mistakes are allowed. I think finishing Requiem or AV (full 30 map run) on Nitemare lite should be possible and fun.

UV-FullMax:
I've recorded too many normal Max demos, this may be the reason I don't find this one particularly interesting. Some items are so useless and oddly placed...

EDIT:
http://contest.idoom.cz/news02-en.php
Scroll down to Contest #12 to see VV2 MAP06 demos, Draza's demo in 1:09.00 is the one with AV jump, Twister's and Hokis' demos are the ones without tricks.

I like UV -respawn speed with 100% secrets. Essentially a lighter counterpart of NM100 for less stress or sets where NM starts to get out of hand. It does have an ammo disadvantage compared to NM, so it isn't necessarily much easier, and I guess it could be harder sometimes. It should be fun, unlike that "nightmare clone with less ammo" idea.

j4rio said:
UV/NM-SpeedAK :
Similar to UV-Speed, with added restriction - every keycard/skullkey in level must be obtained before exiting.

TGH used this one recently in one of his Baronhse demos because it supposedly requires a blue key to open the final door, but the author made a mistake and used a normal door line.

vdgg said:
Some items are so useless and oddly placed...

Yeah, lost soul inclusion is one thing some can prefer or not, but 100% items just makes things more boring. There's a reason why they're ignored even though they are part of the stats screen.

UV/NM-SpeedAK often is equal to "UV Speed without dirty tricks"

Well, getting keys is totally objective, because they are items that are registered for the player (status bar) so 100% keys variants should work unambiguously and without issue.

vdgg said:

UV-Survival[/b]: wow, I don't get this idea at all after reading the definition twice :) Could you provide an example demo?

yeah sure, somewhat crappy one as well :S
hope you get the idea

(though there will have to be added some requirements / allowments so this may apply to different maps)

doom2map30.zip

So you have to kill atleast one monster every 30seconds to prevent camping, kill all non-spawned monsters and exit the level at slowest time?

Paska said:

So you have to kill atleast one monster every 30seconds to prevent camping, kill all non-spawned monsters and exit the level at slowest time?

nope, you don't have to exit, just stay alive as long as possible ( I wanted to get megasphere before screwing, not win level)

E: though now that I think about it, winning level with slowest possible time might be somewhat more logical

I would *love* to see some maps done "Realist" style (no plasma weapons; picking them up is fine, using them is not), especially some of the later Karma Sutra maps. Without being able to just shred a Cybie in seconds with the BFG, in some areas a lot more tactics / sniping may be required, and possibly significant use of infighting with said Cybie depending on map layout.

Not all maps would suit this, as some are designes specifically with BFG/PR Shred in mind, but for the ones that have sufficiently high ammo / monster counts...

UV-speed-backwards.

No "move forward" input allowed (must be played with zero vertical mouse sensitivity). Even -nomonsters is pretty interesting.

j4rio said:

UV-Fast&Respawn :
Similar to NM-Speed, but with regular ammo amount.

"Double Nightmare" would be interesting on Hell Revealed MAP18. On regular skill 5, the opening cyberdemon doesn't go out for anything, making it almost physically impossible to pass the start. Fortunately, on UV+Fast+Respawn he does teleport out, due to different mechanics of monster reaction on UV-Fast and NM.

Speedrunning through this level in "Double Nightmare" mode is very feasible -- these loads of cells are enough even in regular amount.

This is more how I envisioned "Survival mode": You don't try to beat the boss in a spawning level, you try to stay alive as long as you can. Another optional one: "Survival pacifist": Same as above, but survive without killing anything at all.

j4rio said:

UV-Survival :
Stay alive as long as possible in maps with spawners, with the following restrictions: you must kill a monster using own guns (not infight) each 30 seconds after approaching the spawner ;
demo is valid only if every non-spawned monster in map is dead. If there is very high monster count and it's difficult to determine whether all of the non-spawned monsters had been slained before dying, map in this category is unplayable.

Better idea: Finish Doom2 MAP30 with the highest possible kill%.

Creaphis said:

Better idea: Finish Doom2 MAP30 with the highest possible kill%.

DoomHero85 said:

This is more how I envisioned "Survival mode": You don't try to beat the boss in a spawning level, you try to stay alive as long as you can. Another optional one: "Survival pacifist": Same as above, but survive without killing anything at all.

thats what I had in mind but when you put it like that, it'll allow player to camp (if there is such spot) :S

Also, isn't there some kills% overlap in maps like doom2-30? in dsda demos, just killing Romero grants 300% kills ... or something

We could make that another type. Camper: See how long you can last by finding a spot that is safe, stay there until it becomes unsafe, find another spot, etc. until you die.

DoomHero85 said:

We could make that another type. Camper: See how long you can last by finding a spot that is safe, stay there until it becomes unsafe, find another spot, etc. until you die.

Boring.

j4rio said:

Also, isn't there some kills% overlap in maps like doom2-30? in dsda demos, just killing Romero grants 300% kills ... or something

There is only one thing in MAP30 that counts as a monster right from the get-go: the revenant on the platform beneath the Icon of Sin's face. It's common to get 300% or greater kills because each new monster that is spawned and then killed adds to your kill counter for the level, but the Doom engine still only considers there to have been one monster in the map. For example, if you kill the revenant, two spawned monsters and then Romero, your kill percentage will be calculated thusly:

(3 monsters) / (1 monster) = 300%

That's enough about that - I want to talk about my challenge idea. I think it would be more interesting than other proposed MAP30 challenges because it forces the player to get out of hiding to spend his limited ammo or to stir up some infighting, and also because the player has to make the conscious decision to kill Romero as late as possible. Of course, it may be that the best way to succeed at this challenge is also to just camp somewhere, and let the spawned monsters telefrag each other. Then, these demos would also be pretty dull to watch.

PS: I'm curious now about the tally screen. Is there a maximum percentage that can be displayed? Also, if you put a monster spawner in a map with no other monsters, will you get a divide-by-zero error on exit?

Well I was actually thinking a little deeper about this, and in wads like TNT, it will be quite awkward. It'll need a little more indepthly formed restrictions to be pullable off, imo.

Yeah, the camper thing is kinda boring I admit. Demos with that wouldn't be fun to watch. Just throwing ideas around though. How about "infighting max". Playing a map where you're only allowed to provoke infighting to get kills, and see who can get the most kills that way?

DoomHero85 said:

How about "infighting max". Playing a map where you're only allowed to provoke infighting to get kills, and see who can get the most kills that way?

This is called "Hypocritical Pacifist".

Ah okay. I didn't know there was another thread for all those other categories. Perhaps someone should merge these two threads so no more repeats happen.

Creaphis said:

Better idea: Finish Doom2 MAP30 with the highest possible kill%.

There was some competition for this in 1996, but it was abandoned after Kai-Uwe Humpert showed that you could get an arbitrarily high kill percentage by just waiting in the right spot.

demo here

Grazza said:

There was some competition for this in 1996, but it was abandoned after Kai-Uwe Humpert showed that you could get an arbitrarily high kill percentage by just waiting in the right spot.

demo here

Dang, for some reason I thought that spawned monsters start out alerted. Yeah, "maxkills" definitely isn't a workable demo category. It was funny seeing how long it took for the tally screen to complete, though.

How about "Redneck mode" :), only use the shotgun.