A ZDoom-type Source Port that Doesn't Count Lost Souls

Hey Everyone,

I'm a returned Doom player (a year and a half back now) after a 14 year absence or so - last played when I was a kid; feels good to return to a great game.

I was wanting to know if anyone knows of a ZDoom-type source port that DOESN'T count lost souls as enemies. I currently use GZDOOM, which doesn't seem to let you change this setting. From my understanding, ZDoom also does not let you change this. Some maps have tons of lost souls (one in particular) that ruins the kills count at the end of the map, which is unfortunate when I know I've killed every other enemy in a fast time. I know there are other decent ports, but I definitely prefer the ZDoom/GZDoom look and feel.

http://www.doomworld.com/vb/post/893489

Awesome, don't know why that didn't show up when I searched for an almost identical thread title.

I'm only halfway there though overall. I'm new to this command line stuff, and there doesn't appear to be any INI file within my doom folder. There is a .pk3 file for gzdoom, but user myk suggested not to mess with that. Specifically, he says:

"Make a DECORATE replacement of the lost soul adding the -countkill flag and add that DECORATE in the command line. If you want it to work always, just add the file to the DOOM autoload in the INI file."

????? Very new to this. I have the DECORATE file he attached now though.

I think you want "zdoom-[user].cfg" (or similar--I'm away from a proper computer at the moment), rather than .ini.

Open that file in notepad or whatever. It should have an autoload section; add a path to the DECORATE file there.

Graf Zahl said:

The irony here is that the crap they added to make the Lost Soul a non-counting monster was far more work than to add a proper monster counter...

Can someone (preferably Graf Zahl if he sees this thread) expand on this post from the thread Linguica linked?

I have the config file exactly as stated, but there doesn't appear to be an autoload section. The closest thing to an autoload section is a header labeled AutoExec, which appears close to the top:

[Doom.AutoExec]
Path=C:/Users/(My name)/Desktop/New folder/Doom/DOOM 2/autoexec.cfg

There is nothing else under it. The following sections are there though:

GlobalSettings
GlobalSettings.Unknown
Doom.ConsoleVariables
Doom.LocalServerInfo
Doom.UnknownConsoleVariables
Doom.ConsoleAliases
Doom.Bindings
Doom.DoubleBindings
Doom.WeaponSlots

And some Joystick settings. Perhaps because I'm using GZDoom and not ZDoom? A message at the top of the config file says:
'# This file was generated by GZDoom 1.0.29 - 2.1.7xx (r563M) on Wed Aug 05 17:38:19 2015
# It is not really meant to be modified outside of ZDoom, nyo.'

There also doesn't appear to be anything close to any sort of -countkill or DECORATE flag as described in the linked thread.

UPDATE:
OK, I went ahead and downloaded ZDoom, which has numerous autoload sections for all three original Doom games. Feel so close.....

Okay, my gzdoom config file (which IS .ini, my bad) has the autoload section right beneath the autoexec stuff you found.

All my autoloaded Doom stuff goes in there under [Doom.Autoload]. I'm not sure why it'd be missing from your config, but you're using an older build of gzdoom than I am, so perhaps things have changed.

Don't worry about DECORATE or the countkill flag, that's set in the file you downloaded from the other thread.

I downloaded ZDoom instead, which has the relevant autoload sections. I copy and pasted it over into the autoload sections for Doom 2, TNT and Plutonia, but it doesn't appear to have worked. Lost souls still being counted.

Also, I strongly prefer the look and feel of my older GZDoom build over the newer one, as well as over the inferior look and feel of ZDoom. I'll try to figure out a way to make my current GZDoom not count Lost souls somehow, perhaps by adding the autoload sections.....getting so close to a UV Max record, if only the Lost Souls wouldn't count. Damn. Guess I'll have to settle for a 90% kills 'UV Max'.

Why do Lost Souls count anyways?

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/42338465/LostSoul_DontCount.wad

There. Put that in your skins folder, and lost souls won't count towards the kill percentage

Jaxxoon R said:

Why do Lost Souls count anyways?

They actually used to, originally. It was 1.666 that changed this expressly for Pain Elementals.

I'm fully aware of that.

I'm asking why Zdoom even uses the pre-1.666 behavior.

Because it can. It doesn't need a reason to revert a kludge.

Then it doesn't need a reason not to.

HorrorMovieGuy said:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/42338465/LostSoul_DontCount.wad

There. Put that in your skins folder, and lost souls won't count towards the kill percentage

Yup, that did it. A big thanks to everyone for helping.

rdwpa said:

Can someone (preferably Graf Zahl if he sees this thread) expand on this post from the thread Linguica linked?

Before doom2, maps had a static number of monsters on them. So the % killed can be calculated from the state of the start of the map against the state at the end of the map.

doom 2 introduces ways of having more monsters during a map than were there at the start (PE, icon of sin, arch vile, sortof). So that formula no longer works.

The correct way to fix this would be to make both sides of the ratio counters: monsters-killed is a counter, starting at zero, and monsters-total a counter, starting with the number present at the start of the map. Whenever a new monster is generated, increment monsters-total.

Instead they made lost souls not count as monsters, which means getting 100% kills on any map with a lost soul in it is now much easier than it used to be, you can't be sure you got all the lost souls based on the intermission stats. They didn't fix the ratio for levels with the icon of sin. So the bodge fix they went for isn't anywhere near complete.

Jon said:

So the bodge fix they went for isn't anywhere near complete.

Brought to you by the same team which brought you the OUCHFACE bug.

Wasn't the "fix" implemented because pain elementals killed in a narrow corridor would sometimes spawn lost souls outside of the map, which would make 100% kills impossible? I remember reading something about that.

129thVisplane said:

Wasn't the "fix" implemented because pain elementals killed in a narrow corridor would sometimes spawn lost souls outside of the map, which would make 100% kills impossible? I remember reading something about that.

I think it had more to do with not wanting every map with PEs to have an unlimited kill percentage.

Either way, this is so simple in Eternity. You just remove the KILLABLE flag and add COUNTKILL if you want Lost Souls to count for kills, or leave them as-is otherwise. There was no need to upset the entire arrangement of the game engine or recreate entire archives. Why all the complexity?

Aight aight, Zdoom peeps, lemme axe some questions. If Zdoom is so goddamn righteous with its superior monster counting techniques and its weird 100% kills fetish, then...

How were monsters counted in Doom 1.2 when NM was introduced? Please don't tell me they went over 100%, because that would make Zdoom's total monster count increments wrong from the very beginning conceptually, not just "after the hacks from id introduced PEs". I understand Zdoom doesn't give the slightest shit about demo recording, but as a speedrunner, this irks me somewhat. The -respawn parameter presents the same problem. Going over 100% is cool, it's totally a Romero thing to have. Skateboards!

So incrementing monster count when PEs spawn lost souls is the correct way in your opinion? Again, I understand no one in this discussion gives the slightest shit about speedrunning and consistency, but do you have any idea what that can do to the monster counter with the lost soul limit relaxed? I beg for the author's forgiveness for linking it, but consider this. id's way simply becomes more reasonable as the counter would become meaningless in Zdoom.

As already mentioned, Zdoom's 100% kills fetish would get a mighty dent in its armour if it kept vanilla collision code. It is extremely easy to force the lost souls spawned upon PE death into the void, which would prevent Zdoom logic from achieving holy 100% kills. I know Zdoom probably fixes this, but that means the counter logic is heavily dependent on additional fixes.

Speaking of which, I find it hypocritical for Zdoom devs to deny an option to ignore lost souls in the total counter. Just in comparison - Jon claims vanilla's map30 logic is broken, but what does Zdoom do about it? It increases monster count happily and offers you an option to kill all IoS spawns when Romero dies. How is this consistent with anything ever? It doesn't follow any logic, it's simply fanservice for OCD people who need their 100% fix on the tally screen. But it's an option. And ignoring lost souls or archvile respawns is not.

And guess what, Zdoom goes as far as offering an option to ignore monsters on e1m8-like exit floors towards the monster total count. I know muh 100% are the sacredest, but... this gets to be an option, but lost souls don't? This is so arbitrary. This option is broken entirely anyways. If this option is on and the monsters wander out of the exit floor sector they started on, they don't exist for Zdoom! They don't count towards either the kills or the totals, because nope, can't ever go over 100%. There might be an exception to lost souls spawning from a PE on an exitfloor, but tbh I don't give enough crap to bugfix Zdoom's bugs pretending to be features.

And finally, what logic is it to increase the total counter when a monster is revived? Shouldn't you be decreasing the kill count instead? It's the same monster, not a new one! This is importantly and agitatening!

tl;dr Zdoom chooses an arbitrary logic, tweaks it with tons of back compat settings and exceptions, then runs with it and pretends it is consistent and "fixes" id's "flawed" logic when both could be picked apart easily.

dew said:

tl;dr Zdoom chooses an arbitrary logic, tweaks it with tons of back compat settings and exceptions, then runs with it and pretends it is consistent and "fixes" id's "flawed" logic when both could be picked apart easily.

Hey dude, first off, calm the hell down. If you genuinely want an option like that, ripping on ZDoom isn't going to be the way you're going to get it.

Here's how I see it: if you're adding up monster counts, there are two possible ways to do it. One way of looking at things is, "the monster percentage is whatever it was in Vanilla Doom". Another way of looking at it is, "monster percentage means the percentage of the monsters that were in the level that were killed". And these are mutually exclusive, because of what are probably unintentional Vanilla bugs (we can debate whether it's deliberate - I really don't think it is, but it doesn't matter).

Here's the thing - there's nothing "objectively correct" about either of these positions. Either of them is perfectly valid when viewed from the right perspective. They're really reflections of different philosophies. The former philosophy, the one you seem to be espousing, is what I've used as the basis for designing Chocolate Doom. The latter is what's been used for ZDoom: I'd summarize it as: fix bugs, make everything extensible and moddable, and make things work in what seems to be the most logical, sensible way.

It's no different from different political viewpoints, or I dare say religious views. Differences of opinion like these exist between people; the important thing is to keep a sense of perspective. Putting aside the fact that you'd personally rather count things up in a different way, isn't it at least reasonable to accept that there is a logic, a rationale behind what ZDoom does? That the idea of having more than 100% kills, technically speaking is at the very least counterintuitive and at worst, nonsensical?

This isn't an advert - I'm not trying to get you to come and use Chocolate Doom instead. But backwards compatibility isn't a feature of ZDoom; it never has been and I'd go so far as to say that it intentionally eschews such features entirely. And that's perfectly okay. I have a lot of respect for ZDoom - it's a very good port. But it would be a considerably worse port if it was filled with hundreds of compatibility flags trying to please everyone who uses it.

fraggle said:

But backwards compatibility isn't a feature of ZDoom;

Careful with the wording there. That's not true. Demo compatibility or strict backwards compatibility maybe, but if we didn't have backwards compatibility as a feature we'd remove a lot of dead code and would be only a fraction as popular as we are.

Otherwise your post says everything that needs to be said. The only two things I will add some of the behavior dew mentions is inspired by Heretic/Hexen (see D'Sparil), and I seriously don't know what the big deal with having to load a mod to remove the COUNTKILL flag from the lost soul if you don't want them to count is.

When I say "backwards compatibility" I'm referring to the strict behavioral compatibility that ports like PrBoom+ and Chocolate Doom have - ability to play vanilla demos, etc. It's not a feature or design goal of ZDoom, and that's fine.

I don't need anything for myself, fraggle. I agree with pretty much everything you said, but it's not like it goes against anything I said.

And to answer the original question - both Zdaemon and Odamex are Zdoom-based ports that revert Zdoom's "fixed" counter logic to the proper vanilla one.

Who says which behaviour is the proper one? This isn't a democracy, the Zdoom devs do things the way they want and that's that. It's open source so people can and have forked it.

dew said:

And to answer the original question - both Zdaemon and Odamex are Zdoom-based ports that revert Zdoom's "fixed" counter logic to the proper vanilla one.

Not correct. ZDaemon forked so long ago that it predates the fix.

Besides, what is proper here?

The original Doom 1 I own (version 1.2) clearly counts the Lost Souls, so I consider that game broken from 1.666 onwards. This was something I immediately noticed when playing E3M6 on 1.666 and it has been bothering me since 1994 to inflict such a gratuitous change to the monster counting.

1.9 is not the Holy Grail.

Graf Zahl said:

1.9 is not the Holy Grail.

I beg to differ:

dew said:

How were monsters counted in Doom 1.2 when NM was introduced? Please don't tell me they went over 100%, because that would make Zdoom's total monster count increments wrong from the very beginning conceptually, not just "after the hacks from id introduced PEs".

NM was hacked in for lulz, and I wouldn't call 1.2 "the very beginning".

Monster counting never worked properly in Nightmare, it's pointless anyway because you'd never be able to achieve 100%, so who cares?

Concerning 'what is correct?'
One thing is clear: id never got it right after 1.666. The monster counter was broken. Period.
It wasn't just the Lost Souls but also the monsters resurrected by Arch Viles that messed up the counter, not to mention the Icon of Sin.

So please stop declaring the clearly broken 1.666/1.9 behavior as 'the only correct one'. What was done here only really works if there's no monsters being spawned EVER. As soon as monsters can be added/removed dynamically the counting system completely falls apart. So this is acceptable for a source port that has no or very limited monster spawning facilities - but it reveals a multitude of problems once scripted monster spawns (ACS, Decorate, even FraggleScript) come into play.