Max definition discussion

Some people insist on killing revived monsters and lost souls in Max runs. Personally, I couldn't care less about that.

These are two different things.

Killing lost souls is not necessary for Max, it's a matter of taste.
Most of the old packs, like much of rquvlmp2, has maxes with lost souls killed. Never_Again, Andy Olivera and myself tend to kill lost souls whenever possible.

Not killing revived monsters means making a failed Max demo.

See http://www.doomworld.com/vb/doom-speed-demos/47212-maxdemo-definition/

These are two different things.

It's very much the same thing in my eyes, rules that were invented by players themselves. Ultimately I wish I could just care about the kill%, but obviously it is flawed so killing everything once except lost souls works. Killing revived monsters is pretty boring as it removes tactical options regarding archviles and can make great runs failed or slow by having to hunt back one last missed revived monster.

That isn't to say I have any problem about these rules, but I just don't care about it. If someone wants to go and tag all my maxes as invalid, feel free.

Phml said:

It's very much the same thing in my eyes, rules that were invented by players themselves.

However, everyone followed this rule, including c-n players and DSDA players, newcomer speedrunners don't know this rule sometimes though. If everyone each plays UV-Max with their own interpretation, speedrunning would be ruined. You have to follow the rule.

Phml said:

Killing revived monsters can make great runs failed.

I mostly see "HUD used" in your text. You just hate that you check kill counter is full but your great max demos would be invalid by missing revived enemies, don't you? However, most of the players don't use HUD. They look over the areas for checking all enemies are dead or not, or charge into the exit with risk of failed as a max.

Phml said:

Killing revived monsters can slow by having to hunt back one last missed revived monster.

You can think good tactics for preventing vile from revive monsters, or wait good situations by many attempts.

However, everyone followed this rule, including c-n players and DSDA players, newcomer speedrunners don't know this rule sometimes though. If everyone each plays UV-Max with their own interpretation, speedrunning would be ruined. You have to follow the rule.

Heh, sorry but I'm pretty sure I don't *have* to do anything, much like nobody *has* to watch my demos.

Again, call my demos "NotMax" or "FailedMax" if you want, I don't care, and I certainly won't start playing in an unfun way for the sake of a rule I don't care about. Simply ignore any demos made by Phml.

I mostly see "HUD used" in your text. You just hate that you check kill counter is full but your great max demos would be invalid by missing revived enemies, don't you? However, most of the players don't use HUD. They look over the areas for checking all enemies are dead or not, or charge into the exit with risk of failed as a max.

I don't hate that my max demos (none of which I'd boast as being great) would be invalid because 1) they ARE already technically invalid, going by these rules and 2) as I said, I don't care, nor do I wish to enforce my way of playing onto anyone else.

Where did that come from anyway ? What does me using the HUD have to do with anything ? If you're pissy that I use it because you think speedrunning is a competition, let's clear things up : I'm not a competitor. Ignore my demos and move on. Problem solved.

It could be just me and I might be reacting harshly, but I'm reading your comment as insinuating I'm looking for recognition, which is more than slightly annoying considering I've already gone through the same "ignore me if I annoy you, it's that simple" speech multiple times. It's not some kind of reverse psychology. I like recording demos and figure people might eventually be interested in watching them, but if they aren't no biggie. There's absolutely zero interest in competition against other players from me.

You can think good tactics for preventing vile from revive monsters, or wait good situations by many attempts.

I may be dumb, the only tactic I can think of to stop a vile from reviving monsters is killing it as soon as possible ; which isn't much of a tactic, and certainly isn't varied.

Whereas when you don't care about killing revived monsters, you can prioritize different targets, create more infighting (with the added risk of having these extra monsters being a problem, which is what I like) and such, as well as having different routes that don't require killing archviles ASAP.

I could kill AVs ASAP, or I could ignore a rule I don't care about nor agree with, don't throw away X% attempts and overall having more options and more fun. I think I'll stick with the latter.

Indeed, all demos are welcome here, and you're welcome to record them in any way you like, and to any set of rules you like.

But if you use a named standard demo category, then you need to use the standard definitions. (That is, as moderator of this forum, I am asking that you do so when you used this forum.) If you record to different rules, then you need to state them, and, for instance, not call it a Max when there are missed monsters according to the standard well-established rules that other players follow, and have followed for years.

Why does this matter? Well, if demos with missed monsters are claimed and to some extent accepted as Maxes, then it tends to ruin the category in that map from then on (not to mention irritation for a player whose demo was "beaten" in this way). Most players don't like to release demos that aren't a new record (what's the point?), but if there is a best-so-far time without missed monsters, and a faster one with missed monsters, what time do they try to beat? Is there any point trying to beat the slower time, and making a parenthetical comment that it really is a new best Max, even though there is an apparently faster demo in the archive? Or should the player try to make a new record with missed monsters? Most players would feel that was wrong, and rather pointless. It's messy, so they'll probably do something else instead. An example along these lines is Punisher.wad, where DSDA accepted some Max demos with missed monsters (I don't know why).

Sure, OK, you might reply that you're just playing for fun. OK then, record in whatever way you prefer and call them a new category of your choosing if they don't fit into one of the standard categories. Then people can appreciate them for what they are without any misgivings.

Phml said:

Whereas when you don't care about killing revived monsters, you can prioritize different targets, create more infighting (with the added risk of having these extra monsters being a problem, which is what I like) and such, as well as having different routes that don't require killing archviles ASAP.

You have just made a perfect case for why this should be regarded as a separate category.

vdgg said:

These are two different things.

Killing lost souls is not necessary for Max, it's a matter of taste.

Unless you use a pre-1.666 version of the .exe. ;)

Sure, OK, you might reply that you're just playing for fun. OK then, record in whatever way you prefer and call them a new category of your choosing if they don't fit into one of the standard categories. Then people can appreciate them for what they are without any misgivings.

Fair enough.

Not killing revived monsters means making a failed Max demo.

1) Just for me it is a moot point.

2) We even didn't have a right tool for simply check of this rule variant. For example, how about rechecking every demo in the C-N of past-Hegyi era with noclipping-fly-around-the-map method only?

I'm not quite sure what you're getting at, but verification that resurrected monsters have been rekilled is not difficult with a live monsters counter. And that has existed for quite a long time - Tasdoom had it, and so did timer.exe, which I believe AdamH used for verifying compet-n runs.

The messiest case is of course maps with monster spawners, but there aren't so many of those.

(ok for counter)

May I ask you about permission to making a poll topic about this rule?

Phml; too cool for school.

Hitherto said:

May I ask you about permission to making a poll topic about this rule?

I don't believe that would be helpful. The standard definition of Max, and thousands of demos recorded based on it, predate this forum.

Heh, I bang to this milestone by my head already twice:
http://www.doomworld.com/vb/doom-speed-demos/47212-maxdemo-definition/

OK, I'd better be humble. But results of such poll will be intersting anyway.

resurrected monsters or even ghosts are still valid monsters, imo. on the other hand, ever since the introduction of pain elementals, lost souls are "living projectiles" to me, not monsters. if you think my interpretation is wrong, then answer me this: which other sub-boss monster CANNOT be resurrected in any thinkable scenario? i have seen demos of pain elementals being crushed and revived, but never lost souls. that is enough for me.

Grazza said:
The messiest case is of course maps with monster spawners, but there aren't so many of those.

What I do is with PrBoom+ is:
Options -> Setup -> Status Bar/HUD -> Smart Totals
- set to NO in regular maps, such as AV MAP03. It should show something like K 168 M 0 at the end (or K 200 M 0 if there were 32 resurrections)
- set to YES in case of MAP30 and other icon of sin boss maps (obtic11 MAP16). If I see K 18/18 I'm sure it's a valid Max.

vdgg said:

- set to YES in case of MAP30 and other icon of sin boss maps (obtic11 MAP16). If I see K 18/18 I'm sure it's a valid Max.

That's the best bet, but if there have been arch-vile resurrections of non-spawned monsters, then this method doesn't tell you if they have been rekilled.

Phml - do you turn off "smart totals" in prboom-plus? I was happy but also pretty bummed out/annoyed when I found out about that option because I always used the default monster counter and my demos up until then might not have been valid maxes. I like killing revived monsters for max, but another category for not killing revived monsters sounds fun too.

Since it was brought up: I think the advantage of a monster counter depends on certain maps. And, criticizing someone for using the HUD is harsh, depending on the map. HUD users can adapt, and so can non-HUD users. Also, Phml makes his own maps, that I assume are intended to be played with the HUD.

About lost souls: I don't kill all in classic ports because they don't count towards kill percentage. But, in zdoom I always kill them all, only because for some reason they are counted toward kill percentage.

Phml - do you turn off "smart totals" in prboom-plus? I was happy but also pretty bummed out/annoyed when I found out about that option because I always used the default monster counter and my demos up until then might not have been valid maxes. I like killing revived monsters for max, but another category for not killing revived monsters sounds fun too.

I didn't know about that, to be honest ; but PrBoom+'s HUD isn't the reason I avoid killing revived monsters, although I admit that it is convenient that out of the box it works exactly how I like to play.

Also, Phml makes his own maps, that I assume are intended to be played with the HUD.

Not necessarily intended to be played with the HUD, but that is indeed what I use ; and things are balanced with the idea that killing revived monsters isn't mandatory. I should probably add a disclaimer about that.

TimeOfDeath said:

About lost souls: I don't kill all in classic ports because they don't count towards kill percentage. But, in zdoom I always kill them all, only because for some reason they are counted toward kill percentage.

It's been discussed about a lot before, but here goes:

Play Doom with the original exe, before v1.666. For example v1.2 (which is what I personally used for the longest time before source ports). Look at what happens to your kill percent when you neglect lost souls in episodes 2 and 3.

Rather than fixing their monster tally system to take into account monsters dynamically created during gameplay (by pain elementals, arch-viles, the nightmare skill, etc.) or clearing their COUNTKILL flag when they're spawned/resurrected dynamically, either options which would have fixed the problems they met in their tally screen, they just decided to hack the lost soul to make it not a monster anymore officially, which was rather dumb IMO.

ZDoom keeps a dynamic count of the monsters in the level, regardless whether they were map things or dynamically spawned, and thus did not need the v1.666 hack.

Maybe they didn't want the lost soul to be counted as a monster anymore? Do we know for sure? Either way, the final version of doom didn't count it as a monster for whatever reason, but zdoom does. Not that I really mind, I think it's cool having to kill lost souls in one port and not having to kill them in another port. But why not an option in zdoom? :)

Another problem with lost souls is that sometimes they end up outside of the map. You can hear them bom-ba-dombing but can't see or shoot them :(

4mer said:

Another problem with lost souls is that sometimes they end up outside of the map. You can hear them bom-ba-dombing but can't see or shoot them :(

I haven't seen this happen in 1.9 in a long time, but that's true.

It happens rather easily if you back a PE into a corner and kill it hard up against the walls. Clearly the introduction of the PE made the status of lost souls as monsters that are countable for the purpose of the kills percentage rather problematic. That doesn't mean that they are not monsters, of course. But it was natural for the Max definition to take its lead from this.

But really, the kills percentage shown on the stats screen is quite a different thing from the rules for a demo category. Determining whether a demo is valid is based on comparing it with the rules of the category in question, and the reported percentages on the stats screen are no more than a possible aid in determining that, and sometimes a complete irrelevance.

TimeOfDeath said:

Maybe they didn't want the lost soul to be counted as a monster anymore? Do we know for sure? Either way, the final version of doom didn't count it as a monster for whatever reason, but zdoom does. Not that I really mind, I think it's cool having to kill lost souls in one port and not having to kill them in another port. But why not an option in zdoom? :)

A dehacked patch making them not countable for the kills percentage does the trick:

Patch File for DeHackEd v3.0

# Note: Use the pound sign ('#') to start comment lines.

Doom version = 19
Patch format = 6


Thing 19 (Lost Soul)
Bits = 16902

Note: this was created by editing a deh in Notepad, since so far as dehacked.exe is concerned, this is setting the value to the default, so it doesn't create any output if you choose this value in the program itself. To make them countable with other ports or Doom2.exe, set the Bits to 4211206.

vdgg said:
Killing lost souls is not necessary for Max, it's a matter of taste.
Most of the old packs, like much of rquvlmp2, has maxes with lost souls killed. Never_Again, Andy Olivera and myself tend to kill lost souls whenever possible.

It's a matter of taste unless runs become optimized by competition, especially if they need to be chaingunned or shotgunned. I tend to see them like dew does, though. They add an extra element by acting more like obstacles than monsters, like a little speed running touch in max. Placement in a map may vary depending on whether the designer considers them a "true monster" or a "special obstacle monster or projectile".

- set to YES in case of MAP30 and other icon of sin boss maps (obtic11 MAP16). If I see K 18/18 I'm sure it's a valid Max.

From a vanilla perspective, a Map30 which makes starting monsters get easily confused with spawned ones is a poor map for max runs.

As for the smart HUD-dependent approach, it can semantically be taken as "all starting monster kills" instead of "max kills" because you don't need to destroy the maximum possible amount of accountable monsters. It's not the only "all kills" possibility, however. For example, one could record demos going for 100% kills where anything that leads to that goal counts, including boss spawned monsters or resurrected ones. This could be called "100% kills" and would be somewhat similar to respawn in some levels. This "100% with resurrects" mode is certainly more vanilla friendly than "all stating monster kills" because is relies on the tally screen. For Doom2, there is no indication whatsoever, other than visual clues, whether one manages 100% "starting monsters only" kills.

Thanks for the dehacked, Grazza. I can't test on this computer, but will playing that with zdoom really make them not count as monsters like in vanilla?

I guess the big difference for me is how the ports behave. The max definition was made before zdoom existed. Zdoom didn't count lost souls as monsters in the beginning, but then it changed and started counting lost souls as monsters. Lost souls don't go into the void in zdoom. You can't use iddt in zdoom demos.

The vanilla max definition was created with common sense for vanilla, not for zdoom. Wouldn't common sense dictate a slightly different max definition for zdoom?

EDIT: dehacked works, cool.

You missed the recent discussion on the lost soul counting or not counting in ZDoom.

Both ZDoom's lost soul management and the presence of the smart totals HUD in Phml's choice show how changes in the engine can demand changes in speed running rules.