The DWIronman League dies to: Stardate 20X6

12 minutes ago, Alfonzo said:

There's a lot of good Doomin' to get through before we reach that station. Who knows when that will be! You could very well grow from a seed to a cedar by then.

@dt_ 

Or freeze in the ground and die due to low temperatures :D.

Anyway, I'm not holding my breath, the day I survive an Ironman is the day the Earth stops moving. And as of late, I actually think the history is repeating itself, I'm getting worse at Doom. Only I could play games for years and either: a) Still suck/stay at an average or mediocre level. or b) Become worse.

(No I'm not angry at myself right now, I was just saying, judging by my performance in the last couple of wads I've played and the way I died in them. Ironman runs are not part of the equation).

Category 3. I ran some practice runs, before I decided to record the ironman demos. The goal was to reach MAP04 on UV, and beat the wad on HMP/HNTR.

UV - Died in MAP02, 326/449 kills

HMP - Died in MAP06, 206/759 kills

HNTR - Died in MAP07,  277/1077 kills

Should have beaten the wad, since I really wanted to survive this month. At least it was challenging in a good way in lower difficulties.

ironman_anta_20x6.zip

Here you go sorry about that, I accidentally recorded a warmup sesh on sunder beforehand and tried to cut it out

Survived 01 in 19:55

Carked it on 02 with 163 kills

I walked in expecting something along the lines of a 1-1-2, or 1-2-2 run, but I ended with a 2-2-2, dying three times on that damn 2nd level. It was fun all the same, I enjoyed myself and that's all that matters right?

A link to the twitch VOD below, I'll immortalize that footage over on Youtube later on. :)

Category 3, if that matters!

dnf in map02 cause I got stuck. Cat2, I've played most of this with mods (which hardly counts as playing the wad) and in a tns (idem)

sdx6ironanc.zip

Expect me to die (probably IRL of embarrassment) in about 12 hours.

HOW HAVE SO MANY PEOPLE SURVIVED MAP FUCKING ONE

Cat 3, 1-2-2.

I think I just naturally gravitate towards cyberdemon rockets. There's no other explanation.

Sorry the stream ran at like 5 FPS. Australia sucks fuck.

On 3/1/2019 at 9:43 PM, Alfonzo said:

Players are ranked either according to the time taken to survive or to reach the map they died on, with skill level taking priority in both cases.

Judging from this rule, I think Anima Zero should be ranked higher than myself, since they survived one more level on UV.

@Ribbiks <3

As I'm idiot enough to ignore 1CC, at first I wanted this to be prepared and cool (well-cooked).

But then I made a mistake and'd watched True Detective Season 2 til the end and totally lost my reality for the second half of the month.

So when I'd rehabilitated for a some, I'd grasped I had only this holidays (30-31) to practice and make a final run entry.

It means nothing serious from me this month: Category III, UV-only (UV oder Tod!), died near the start of Mud Bunny because've prepared only first map.

dwis20x6.zip

Ribbiks is one of my favourite mappers for many reasons, so it was very pleasant for me to play Stardate (despite color palette deviations, lol). Hope we'll see Swim with the Whales here somewhen, I'll throw away my life then and won't return without decent D2ALL for it.

I've also come back to upload 4K@60@SC-55 renders to YT, and all my DWIronruns are already here: Vince Vega (Stardate will be in a two days)

...including this:

Attached below are my 3 attempts at surviving this purple, metallic, cold, insidious and thoroughly evil universe.

I guess this is a category 2 run, although I've recorded a few demos of the first four maps back in 2014 or 2015 (see DSDA), and I've watched a lot of demos on this wad. I had good preknowledge of all the traps and secrets, but knowledge is not enoguh to survive Stardate 20X6. Practice is what you need most.

UV :

HMP :

HNTR :

Overall, it's been really nice to replay this wad, it's one of my all-time favorites when it comes to ultra-hard wads.

Thanks again Ribbiks for creating this masterpiece !

@ Bloodite : man, being able to survive both "Sector 8" and "Vehelits" on UV without training... Haha, you really are from another planet. :)
Congrats.

stardate20X6-Ironman-wh-demos.zip

I bet you all thought I'd chicken out of this one, like I'm scared of Ribbiks or something. Hah! As if! Well, okay, I do quake a bit whenever I face a Ribbiks mapset, so you knew this would happen . . .

Ribbiks Kills Steve

1-2-No HNTR due to time running out

Cat 3 as usual. I died near the end of Map01 on UV thanks to poor ammo management. I ran out of everything trying to kill the Cyb guarding the red door, so I made a no-ammo run for the PG, with predictable results. I had killed 189 monsters by then. 

Managed to survive Map01 on HMP despite a horrible start and generally poor play throughout. Since I do all my movement on the numeric keypad, I sometimes suffer from "dry fingers," as I did here. I also have a condition known as trigger-finger in the middle finger of each hand. This hit me last January and isn't usually a big deal, but it can lock up or stiffen my fingers, and lucky me, that happened tonight near the end of Map01. Surviving that final Cyb on 01 was a pure miracle. ;D I was then cruising along nicely on Map02 in spite of my dry, stiff fingers, but I zigged when I should have zagged at the Blue Key fight. That one really pissed me off, because on my UV practice run, I almost survived it on my first try and made it easily on my second. But practice ain't the real thing, 'ey? I had 95 kills when I bit the dust.

Overall, I had a lot of fun. Progression was a bit obtuse in the mazey section of 01, and on UV I wasted a lot of time before I realized I hadn't thrown the switch to lower the bars to the Red Key room. That'll be a painful section to watch. Sorry about that.

Looking forward to next month!

Hello I did a run over a week ago and forgot to post.

Split into two parts because, as always, my Uni net loves to shit itself every time I try to do anything.

If it's okay with The Law, I'd like to do a run of this sometime in the next few days, even if it doesn't count towards the March ironman competition itself anymore (I wouldn't have won anyway, so who cares, I just like this wad).

Ideally I wanna get to map05 so I can show off that I'm quite good at the dreaded caco square set piece. In reality I'm gonna die in 01 or 02 though, tsk.

23 hours ago, WH-Wilou84 said:

Then came "Tanagra", my old enemy. Some say that it's easier than map 03, but I think otherwise.

I reckon 04 is actually slightly harder than 05, except for the end fight of 05. The background fights in 04 are more dangerous than most of 05. When I play 04 it seems like there's always pain elementals wandering around and I don't have much ammo or armor.

04 is definitely harder than 03. What's hard (by stardate standards!) in 03 except for the traps in the cave area if you don't know where they are? (This is clearly jinxing myself, I'm now going to die to something super un-dangerous in 03)

If an_mutt's run counts, that brings the total participants this month to 27. According to Gaza's records, the only total lower than that since the beginning of 2017 (ignoring 2016, but all the months were higher, except for Perdition's Gate, which was also 27) was January's Hellfire: Dreams. That month had 24 participants, which was hailed as proof that it was an awful mapset and a terrible selection.

So, would that mean that 27 (well below the last couple years' averages in the mid-30's) indicates that ribbiks's Stardate 20x6 was also an awful mapset and a terrible choice?

Personally, I don't think so, but it must say something that so few players decided to try their hands at it.

7 hours ago, Pegleg said:

Personally, I don't think so, but it must say something that so few players decided to try their hands at it.

- The map set is not everyone's cup of tea 

- You died early

If this isn't proof enough of the low amount.... :D

6 hours ago, leodoom85 said:

- The map set is not everyone's cup of tea 

- You died early

 

If this isn't proof enough of the low amount.... :D

If dying early or not was the indicator I used to judge whether a map or mapset was a good choice for Ironman, then I would have very low opinions of the suitability of most maps.

On 4/2/2019 at 4:50 PM, Pegleg said:

 

If dying early or not was the indicator I used to judge whether a map or mapset was a good choice for Ironman, then I would have very low opinions of the suitability of most maps.

In this case, I would agree with @leodoom85. Stardate20x6 is a fantastic mapset, with super-fun -- but sometimes very difficult -- fight setups. I was having an absolute blast . . . until I died. :D But that was my fault. Facts are that even great players can't make many mistakes in a Ribbiks map, much less a jelly-toad like myself. So I'm guessing a lot of people shied away because they knew they'd suffer an early death. Personally, I was surprised I did so well on UV with only a single practice run under my belt. My heart soared. ;)

If your argument is that low participation rates don't qualify as reviews on how good a mapset is, I think you're right. Fwiw, I always liked what I played of Hellfire: Dreams.

3 hours ago, Steve D said:

Facts are that even great players can't make many mistakes in a Ribbiks map, much less a jelly-toad like myself.

Not really. Maybe on toad, or stardate20x7, but most of stardate20x6 is pretty forgiving, especially playing continuous. The way this is phrased makes it sound like every ribbiks map has the same tightrope gameplay style, but stardate20x6 has a lot more health, armor and ammo than later wads. Just look at how much ssging you can do in map02 without running out of ammo. Look how many rockets you get, and look how often you have blue armor.

More to the point, if you watch Bloodite's run you'll see several points where he makes little flubs but survives. And Nevanos and MrZzul have also streamed this wad casually without needing to play perfectly.

7 minutes ago, Grain of Salt said:

 

Not really. Maybe on toad, or stardate20x7, but most of stardate20x6 is pretty forgiving, especially playing continuous. The way this is phrased makes it sound like every ribbiks map has the same tightrope gameplay style, but stardate20x6 has a lot more health, armor and ammo than later wads.

I concede your points, but I was making a generalized observation, "a Ribbiks map" rather than "this Ribbiks map." Since you brought it up, you're right, quite a few Ribbiks maps -- for example, everything in E1 of Sunlust -- are quite reasonable. But Ribbiks has a rep, which I was alluding to but didn't make clear, for making super-hard maps. That may have kept the participation down if people assumed they didn't have a chance to complete the set. And as we can see, only 2 people out of 27 survived past Ma03 on UV. So while Bloodite, Nevanos and MrZzul can make their errors, I'm guessing they can't make too many, say, more than 3 in a single big fight. I can only speculate. But the results do verify that while Stardate 20x6 may not be any SWTW, it came down pretty hard on this month's Ironman attendees.

Btw, I hope you do your run. I don't watch many runs, usually I'm most likely to watch the YouTube streams because it's easier. Plus, I like to see where the secrets are, and it's convenient to pause and go back on YouTube to figure out a sequence. I did that with Formalhaut for the BFG secret, which of course I forget to use in the Really Big Fight. I shouldn't have taken those Dumbass Pills for breakfast. ;D I do plan to watch Bloodite's demo, and I'd make time for yours as well.