The DWIronman League dies to: Syringe

On 3/7/2022 at 6:23 PM, NaZa said:

Leaderboard updated. @AdNauseam, @sandwedge and @ginc, welcome to the League! As dobu once said, the challenge of an Ironman run can take many forms; and going out of one's comfort zone can be one of them. Settings were okay - nothing disqualifying - for both you and ginc, who I have to compliment for definitely providing quite a notable debut performance just out of Top 5 presently.

Thanks for the welcome, category 2 is a fun challenge - as you can see in the video, I definitely knew about some traps but also got blindsided by others, and spent a bit of time figuring out where to go and trying to remember details. I'm pretty good at missing obvious progression sometimes, but in my defense the shootable switches in MAP02 are a bit odd. In any event, there are lots of WADs that I've played once and would fall into category 2 for me.

While I typically use GZDoom, I do play Boom and vanilla WADs without freelook and use whatever compatibility settings the authors intended, so this wasn't too far out of my comfort zone - I know when playing without freelook to be extra careful with rockets because of the autoaim. Honestly my only real gripe with strict compatibility (ie. Doom(strict) and Boom(strict) in GZDoom) is the blockmap bug, its quite annoying when you get used to playing without it.

I'll see if I can do the next one on DSDA-Doom if possible. If I do use GZDoom I'll show the settings menu in the video and the kill counter after death, apologies for not doing that. FWIW I had 14 monsters remaining on MAP03 - the arachnotron, 3 archviles, and 10 monsters in other areas that I missed.

Cat 1, Died on map03

awful :(

IMSyringe_mhrz.zip

Very interestind WAD indeed...

Category : 1

Dead : Map02

Time: 15:35

Kills: 94/244

https://www.twitch.tv/austinado_

                                                                                  ***STARTS AT 12:06***

As we approach the midway point, @Pseudonaut is still in the lead with a category 1 run getting to MAP06, an incredible result so far. Not having won before yet ranking high, Top 5 last year, could this be the month Pseudonaut finally gets rewarded? 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/8d82b5g4kpjzt6v/dtsyringe.lmp?dl=1

Cat  1

Think I made it to map4 but can't remember, I do remember being cheesed off at dying cause I was enjoying it

Category 2

Died on MAP01 at 4:26 with 59 kills

ironman_syringe_Shepardus.zip

Category: 1
Dead on: Map 01

Kills: 60/71

Time: 6:24

dwi_pegleg_syringe_cat1.zip

That ended up much better than I expected given how the map started. Running around lava at 30% health while surrounded by enemies usually doesn't end well for me. Oh well, given the start, I'm happy enough with the finish. Map 01 was fairly tight on ammo, but generous enough with health that you didn't have to be on death's door. The monsters were arranged to provide effective pressure, and that last surprise guarding the red key was diabolical (in my opinion). I liked it. Assuming the rest of the maps were put together like Map 01, I can see that it wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea, but I can also see why it would have won a Cacoward.

So what I feared would happen happened. @Major Arlene had 61 kills, but due to the way ZDoom counts kills, it was 61/88 while @Pegleg has 60/71. Normally the number with the kills, to compensate, would be subtracted and Major Arlene would have 44/71, but it's clear Major Arlene killed most of the monsters, but not all, that were in the field to begin with, and many resurrected monsters weren't killed because Arlene backtracked, technically. This being the first map, as well as having few monsters, makes it difficult to judge. There is no way to tell which monsters Arlene killed were resurrected, but it was probably at least one. @Shepardus said they have 59, but prB+ displayed 63, so they're not concerned.

A potential compromise is to meet in the middle, at 53/71, but that isn't all that satisfactory to me. I need the community's intel in how to approach this, as keeping it at 61 might be seen as unfair to prB+/DSDA/FDWL runners, yet subtracting a count is unfair to GZD runners. If it were solely up to me, I'd probably go with the compromise, but it could set a precedent, so that's why I'm asking around.

2 hours ago, NaZa said:

So what I feared would happen happened. @Major Arlene had 61 kills, but due to the way ZDoom counts kills, it was 61/88 while @Pegleg has 60/71. Normally the number with the kills, to compensate, would be subtracted and Major Arlene would have 44/71, but it's clear Major Arlene killed most of the monsters, but not all, that were in the field to begin with, and many resurrected monsters weren't killed because Arlene backtracked, technically. This being the first map, as well as having few monsters, makes it difficult to judge. There is no way to tell which monsters Arlene killed were resurrected, but it was probably at least one. @Shepardus said they have 59, but prB+ displayed 63, so they're not concerned.

 

A potential compromise is to meet in the middle, at 53/71, but that isn't all that satisfactory to me. I need the community's intel in how to approach this, as keeping it at 61 might be seen as unfair to prB+/DSDA/FDWL runners, yet subtracting a count is unfair to GZD runners. If it were solely up to me, I'd probably go with the compromise, but it could set a precedent, so that's why I'm asking around.

I'd honestly be happy to subtract from my run as I'm not playing in intended source port, technically, I'm not super concerned, personally!

4 hours ago, NaZa said:

So what I feared would happen happened. @Major Arlene had 61 kills, but due to the way ZDoom counts kills, it was 61/88 while @Pegleg has 60/71. Normally the number with the kills, to compensate, would be subtracted and Major Arlene would have 44/71, but it's clear Major Arlene killed most of the monsters, but not all, that were in the field to begin with, and many resurrected monsters weren't killed because Arlene backtracked, technically. This being the first map, as well as having few monsters, makes it difficult to judge. There is no way to tell which monsters Arlene killed were resurrected, but it was probably at least one. @Shepardus said they have 59, but prB+ displayed 63, so they're not concerned.

 

A potential compromise is to meet in the middle, at 53/71, but that isn't all that satisfactory to me. I need the community's intel in how to approach this, as keeping it at 61 might be seen as unfair to prB+/DSDA/FDWL runners, yet subtracting a count is unfair to GZD runners. If it were solely up to me, I'd probably go with the compromise, but it could set a precedent, so that's why I'm asking around.

I was using dsda-doom's max counters, which work a little differently from PrBoom+'s smart counters with regards to arch-vile resurrections. When an arch-vile resurrects a monster, it's subtracted from the kill counter in dsda-doom (this is because the UV-Max category requires resurrected monsters to be killed). PrBoom+'s smart counters do not subtract resurrections, but also do not double-count the resurrected monster upon killing it again. GZDoom counts that as two kills. Technically all of these ports (as well as Crispy Doom and Woof) can count kills the GZDoom way (in dsda-doom/PrBoom+, turn off max/smart totals in options -> setup -> status bar/hud second page, and use the fullscreen/advanced hud), so that might be the way to go if consistency is king.

Another complication is that by default, GZDoom counts lost souls as kills, while other source ports do not. You can add a dehacked file to make lost souls countable when playing back a demo in dsda-doom/PrBoom+, and there's probably a way to do the reverse in GZDoom, though that of course wouldn't work on a video recording.

15 hours ago, Shepardus said:

I was using dsda-doom's max counters, which work a little differently from PrBoom+'s smart counters with regards to arch-vile resurrections. When an arch-vile resurrects a monster, it's subtracted from the kill counter in dsda-doom (this is because the UV-Max category requires resurrected monsters to be killed). PrBoom+'s smart counters do not subtract resurrections, but also do not double-count the resurrected monster upon killing it again. GZDoom counts that as two kills. Technically all of these ports (as well as Crispy Doom and Woof) can count kills the GZDoom way (in dsda-doom/PrBoom+, turn off max/smart totals in options -> setup -> status bar/hud second page, and use the fullscreen/advanced hud), so that might be the way to go if consistency is king.

 

Another complication is that by default, GZDoom counts lost souls as kills, while other source ports do not. You can add a dehacked file to make lost souls countable when playing back a demo in dsda-doom/PrBoom+, and there's probably a way to do the reverse in GZDoom, though that of course wouldn't work on a video recording.

Ah, I see. I was aware dsda-doom counts resurrections a bit differently to prB+ from re-reading the April 2021 Ironman thread, but up until now not exactly how. Thank you for the explanation! The lost soul thing I knew as I trialed it a long time ago by making a .bex and looking at various Jenesis Ironman runs with it.

Having slept in the meantime, I don't see a reason to count everything the same way as GZDoom, though. These cases are few and far between and really, REALLY rarely happen. The first level of Syringe is just... special in that regard. There's both an archvile and lost souls, the latter of which I've somehow completely glossed over, as over the course of Arlene's run at least 3 lost souls die, so Arlene's best theoretical total would have been 58 either way, so that's solved, and putting Arlene below Pegleg is a done deal. I thought about your case as well and I'll just count the kills as is in prB+, and as is currently on the board (63 kills) because Ironman isn't a competition where maxing maps is too important, so resurrected monsters shouldn't weigh so much in the end that you "lose" potential kills by allowing an archvile to resurrect more and more. Besides, in the aforementioned April 2021 thread, kills were indeed counted the "old" way.

Maybe soon things could change, though! If we did count them the GZDoom way - you would have 86 kills (12 alive), Noisy 76 kills (6 alive), Pegleg 68 kills (11? alive) and Arlene 61 (27 alive). Not a lot of change at the bottom five, except switching Noisy and you, so that kind of confirms the "old" style isn't so far off GZDoom in its essence. And if we detracted monsters alive from the 78 (when you add lost souls in), we'd be looking at Noisy 72, Pegleg 67, Shepardus 66 and Arlene 61, which, I reckon, is how the "new" way would be calculating it, and which wouldn't be far off from 66-60-59/63-58 as is currently.

Either way, this opening level is an extreme case that shows the size of the holes, if you consider this competition cheese. (But I'd guess not, seeing as nobody survived Syringe yet :P) But the holes rarely ever appear, so it's not too hazardous to continue to cover them with cardboard for the time being, I think. I'm not sure if we ever had an opening level with an archvile given access to so many corpses.

edit:

39 minutes ago, NoisyVelvet said:

D... Don't strain yourself NaZa.

*laughs like a cartoon villain*

D... Don't strain yourself NaZa.

I guess the question now lies in whether or not we should restrict to intended ports when playing maps- I personally feel hamstringed playing on anything but GZDoom but I can appreciate that it can become a major pain in the ass to deal with situations like this- obviously it isn't my call but if the GZDoom compat settings aren't robust enough to fully imitate older source port monster behavior by way of kill counting then I wonder if it may be worth streamlining to intended port. or maybe just have everyone play on DSDA Doom (which I've tried and found was pretty decent). 

1 hour ago, Major Arlene said:

I guess the question now lies in whether or not we should restrict to intended ports when playing maps- I personally feel hamstringed playing on anything but GZDoom but I can appreciate that it can become a major pain in the ass to deal with situations like this- obviously it isn't my call but if the GZDoom compat settings aren't robust enough to fully imitate older source port monster behavior by way of kill counting then I wonder if it may be worth streamlining to intended port. or maybe just have everyone play on DSDA Doom (which I've tried and found was pretty decent). 

To be fair, I'd put my money that this was a one-off due to the uniqueness of the map itself and such stringency with ports isn't necessary, especially as there's no real prize in Ironman. It's just playing the month WAD trying to survive to the end. I was mostly just looking at a potential way to approach such a peculiar situation from a host's perspective, and I'd be willing to toy with using DSDA-Doom totals if I host another one of these, provided such a situation arises again.

Blind type 1 attempt:  An unremarkable end on the first map.  4 living monsters according to my settings in DSDA-Doom.

Scouting ahead to gauge my chances at a prepared run, not liking my chances of passing map 2.

dsda-doom -complevel 9

dwiron_syringe_cnr.zip

Standard [1]. Never Played the map and got surprised by the Archvile. Nothing Special was done.

Also, it is my first time uploading a demo. Please inform me if something is wrong.

Kills:56/71

syrun.zip

13 hours ago, Crusader No Regret said:

Blind type 1 attempt:  An unremarkable end on the first map.  4 living monsters according to my settings in DSDA-Doom.

 

Scouting ahead to gauge my chances at a prepared run, not liking my chances of passing map 2.

 

dsda-doom -complevel 9

dwiron_syringe_cnr.zip

Syringe is not a Boom mapset, so -complevel 9 is not the correct one. You'll want to use -complevel 2, which is the one you wanna use for vanilla or limit-removing vanilla Doom 2 maps.

Make sure you read the OP's Essential Info part for future reference, it will tell you what compatibility settings to use when recording your demo.

It's not really that big a problem if it's a mistake. The illegal comp level bracket hasn't been used in a very long time and afaik nothing outright breaks by using a higher complevel. So, it's fine Crusader but please pay attention to the essential info as @PsychEyeball suggested.

On 3/20/2022 at 9:05 PM, Shepardus said:

Another complication is that by default, GZDoom counts lost souls as kills, while other source ports do not. You can add a dehacked file to make lost souls countable when playing back a demo in dsda-doom/PrBoom+, and there's probably a way to do the reverse in GZDoom, though that of course wouldn't work on a video recording.

In GZDoom you could basically put the following in a ZScript file in a PK3, which participants would have to load alongside the WAD:

class LostSoulNotCounted : LostSoul replaces LostSoul {
	Default	{
		-COUNTKILL
	}
}

From there, you could rank runs by monsters remaining on the counter instead of total kills, so that arch-vile resurrections are counted equally between ports.

Now that I think about it, this would probably be the fairest way to do it. Vanilla/Boom-derived sourceport users wouldn't have to change anything, while GZDoom users would only have to load an extra mod to stop Lost Souls from counting. And if a GZDoom player neglects to load the mod, then they would potentially be hurting their rank because extra lost souls would show up as more monsters remaining.

Hmm. That's not a bad idea, actually. Might be worth a trial. We'll see who the next month's host will be (still up in the air), but it's definitely an idea that could prevent such an issue from arising again, and it's not difficult to implement at all. 

The main issue is single maps, where a player can hoard archvile resurrections to build up their kill counter while not actually progressing in the map, however. If that were to happen, I'd imagine prBoom+/DSDA-Doom kill totals are a better method. Ah, nevermind, I'm an idiot; just subtract the monsters alive from total monsters instead of looking at total kills. Yeah, that could work.

7 hours ago, SuyaSS said:

Standard [1]. Never Played the map and got surprised by the Archvile. Nothing Special was done.

Also, it is my first time uploading a demo. Please inform me if something is wrong.

 

Kills:56/71

syrun.zip

Nothing is wrong; welcome to the league! 

Prepared run, survived in 57:34.

DWIL_03-22_Syringe_Prep_SCF.zip

Never done something like this before. Originally, I was just going to play through it once or twice and see where I'd end up, but then I realized it was very beatable so I put in some real practice. Had fun figuring out safe & reliable ways through the few roadblocks. I was still expecting that nerves would get to me on the actual run, but I ended up with a comfortable amount of health throughout maps 3-6. Still very tense considering you only get one shot at it.

I also went ahead and did a prepared run, with my preparation being watching people's runs. Prepared runs are supposed to be better than standard runs, right?

Dead on MAP02.

:))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

naza_prep_national_embarrassment.zip

Here's a tiny PK3 for ZDoom-based sourceports that stops Lost Souls from affecting the monster/kill count.

Should work fine as long as its loaded last.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ia7_lUXTh_7JMEo8yY77BiKg0JlnVplw/view?usp=sharing

This one made me bite the dust pretty quick. Rough map!

Cat 1

Died on MAP02

Kills: 15/244

IronManMarchEndless.zip

Category 2 demo. Died on map06 like an absolute idiot, as usual.

Ouch! That's agonizing and it hurts even when watching it happen, especially considering the comfort you entered the map (and were beating the set) in. At the same time, though, you probably broke the world record in going from 200/200 to single digit on both counts there, so that might well be something to take solace in. As well as leading for the time being.

IronmanSyringeHC.zip

Category 2 - I played version 1.0 back when it first released.

Dead in MAP02 with 118 kills.

I think the alterations to the familiar textures are really cool, and the gameplay's not half-bad. I'm gonna have to go back in to play Acheron's Needle again as soon as I'm done here.

Buffer post that the new thread will be up in around 10-11 hours. To my knowledge, there might be a run going on as we speak either way, so...!

Last minute prepared attempt.  I passed the first map at least and in healthy shape.  Still croaked on map 2.  Wasting a radsuit was not my finest moment but defeat through more conventional means caught up first.

DSDA-doom  -complevel 2

dwiron_syringeprep_cnr.zip

Category 2 Survived in 1:09:06.

I played this wad around the time of its final release so wasn't that long ago... Map 06 was still scary. :^)

DWIronman-Syringe-Dubzzz.zip