Competition ladder started on Doom2.net

There is a new section for competition ladders on doom2.net. Three out of the four ladders are complete, and ready for competing. The link to the main ladder page is http://www.doom2.net/~alliance/ladder1.html .

In case you don't know what a competition ladder is, it's a never-ending tournament, and the players are ranked in a big list instead of having just a few winners. Historically, competition ladders were set up on BBS's, where people were all playing at approximately the same times each night, and matches between the players were not too difficult to coordinate.

The three doom2.net competition ladders that are now available are different from normal ladders. They use recordings in which the players play against a bot, and a program that analyzes the resulting recordings. This makes very large, international ladders possible without the ladders turning into a collective administrative nightmare.

This particular bot is a major bitch to hit, and it seems to piss off quite a few deathmatch players when they first give it a try. With some practice, people can get accustomed to how it moves and are less frustrated by it, though, and can do reasonably well against it. It is not, in reality, a "deathmatch bot" in that it does not attempt to mimic a player. It is simply a shotgun seargent that is very fast, has a wide pattern of movement, and has 3500 hitpoints (and can therefore be hard to kill). It may be changed in the future, using an enhanced future version of PRBoom, to remove the bot's frameskipping (the primary complaint most players have about it).

The bot's zipfile includes the program that analyzes the demos, so people who play against the bot can know the "rating" each time they play against the bot. So, there is no guesswork as to where players stand when they upload their recordings for inclusion in the ladder.

The bot's documentation can be read at http://www.doom2.net/~alliance/cmat.html , and the bot download is named CMAT and is linked off of the Combat Shotgun ladder page.

--BahdKo

It's a superb idea, looking at it now.

hmm, got a 200... will try to improve

Heh, the sprite looks like a player in zdaemon with high ping and low rate (they tend to blink out too.) Isn't this because the speed is so high? You could lower it if you shortened all the frames to 1/3 (to 3 for the ones that are 10, to 1 the ones that are 3.) You could then test to find an appropiate speed for they new frame lengths (one that would give the same overall movement effect.) It would probably look better. You could also easily make the sarge look like indigo (makes more sense.)

Why are other things (fireballs, the trooper, etc.) changed in the DEH file?

I can help out if you want/need.

it says clearly in the .txt that if they used shorter frame durations instead of high speed, the movement pattern screwed up.

I have seen the FAQ now, so I see what the problem would be with shorter frames. Maybe using the demon instead of the shotgun guy, but with the sarge's attack frames (and changing appearances) may help a bit, since the demon is normally very fast.

myk said:

Why are other things (fireballs, the trooper, etc.) changed in the DEH file?

I don't really know. This dehacked patch has been through several hands before it got to me - - Ugwad originally made it, then Ocelot might have played with it too. It sounds like there is stuff in the dehacked file that I don't even know about, hmm.

that cmat bot is cool... :)
Maybe i can train my ssg aim with it. Let us see...