The DWIronman League dies to: SIGIL

[Jimmy]

Will be dying to SIGIL in 30 mins as of posting.

 

 

 

[Jimmy]

Ha! What a fool was I! Of course I can't stream! For I live in the most isolated city in the world where the concepts of halfway-decent internet do not exist and streaming is an outright impossibility! Let's give it up for Perth and its complete inability to sustain a viable livestream!

 

Also I guess I died on M2. But I'm not even gonna dig the footage up, it's just an national fucking embarrassment.

[Vince Vega]

DOSBox party!

 

The DWIronman League dies waiting for: SIGIL (Fava Beans): category I, survived+1 in 49:27.

The DWIronman League dies to: SIGIL: category I (obviously), died on E3M2 with 3 kills in 2:32.

 

This month (June) I had literally few free hours to record an entry, so unfortunately I didn't even warmed up before the main event. One (ONE YOU DUCKING DUCK!!11) completed map as a result. In other words,

 

5 hours ago, Jimmy said:

just an national fucking embarrassment.

 

But I don't share an opinion that SIGIL is hard: it's simply very dark (especially if you're a pervert like me and love to play with original doom.exe) and you need to be quite precise and careful with movement and balancing over all this ledges.

Generally, I've expected much more than Sigil really is. Meh.

 

Running Fava Beans was a nice experience thought.

 

dwifagil.zip

 

[ PLACEHOLDER FOR RENDERS ]

[NaZa]

On 6/29/2019 at 10:07 AM, Pegleg said:

EDIT 2: @NaZa You have my Category listed as 3 on your results spreadsheet. I didn't do any preparation for my exquisite run. I would accept your assessment of Category 2 because I had watched parts of the second and third map on stream, and you could argue that's how I knew how to get out of the first room. But, I really think those streams didn't help me at all for my splendid run, which is why I called in Category 1.

 

This may seem nitpicking, but if I am going to contribute to my collection of atrocious Ironman runs with a run that had no preparation, I would like it identified as such.

Misread. Thanks for notifying me. 

[dt_]

Totally forgot about this until today, sorry

 

 

Cat 3, I wanted to play this for the first time without the pressure of an ironman run

 

 

Got flattened on m4 as I knew I would, think one of my shoelaces got snagged in the crusher or something

 

[Scotty]

Cat 1 (i don't consider seeing random tidbits of maps on streams to be equal to a proper cat 2), made it to M5. I am guessing those crushers in M4 despatched a fair number of players... thankfully i was able to twinkle-toe my way through that section and survive a little longer. Just got ground down over time by the masses of damaging floors and eventually finished off by a gunner.

 

 

[Alfonzo]

Hello. I've been absolutely AWOL this month and as such have every intention of pilfering from @NaZa's good work before moving on to July. Heh heh. A pirate's life for me!

 

I must say, SIGIL emerges mostly as the antithesis of what I look for in an Ironman selection, normally. It was picked on obvious grounds (twice over!), but had it been an established title in the Doom catalog it would probably have never entered into consideration. Intuitive though the design is it runs heavily counter to most modern archetypes. That's fine, of course, but blind players are made to reckon with the lot of it near instantly, and that's not ideal for a monthly competition. I would be very interested to read your thoughts, here.

 

Anyway, we will soon return to your regularly scheduled program.

[Doomkid]

[the design] runs heavily counter to most modern archetypes. That's fine, of course, but blind players are made to reckon with the lot of it near instantly, and that's not ideal for a monthly competition.

Wait, what? Is this the IRON MAN league or the marshmallow man league?! One would think such bitchslaps are to be expected given the name of the event :B

[Alfonzo]

Bitchslaps of the sort I'm thinking of become more acceptable the further away they are from the starting point, although since you want as much of the content as possible to be readable by the player and within their skill set to overcome, it's never a good thing to have. Generally speaking, in Ironman, there's nothing worse than a well-paced and challenging two-hour experience buried behind a MAP01 microsecond of horseshit, or something you can't reasonably anticipate. Sure, in casual play it's cool stuff, but it's a write-off in this space if I can help it.

 

Think of it as one of those funfair High Striker games where you have to swing at the target with a hammer, except that in this case you first have to roll the dice to determine whether the machine will get a reading past the first increment. This isn't the measure you want to compare your ability against others with. Come again next month!

 

In a perfect world where PWADs run amok our cities as ideal Ironman selections, shit starts low, builds up somewhat linearly so that players get to toil in it for a good while (a few spikes are cool), and then really runs them through the gauntlet to determine the champion. In this world, we have to make do with half-broken machines or fully functional ones that are just kind of fun, with only the occasional hit for six.

[leodoom85]

1 hour ago, Alfonzo said:

 

In a perfect world where PWADs run amok our cities as ideal Ironman selections, shit starts low, builds up somewhat linearly so that players get to toil in it for a good while (a few spikes are cool), and then really runs them through the gauntlet to determine the champion.

Surprise me with the next month's wad choice ;)

[Nine Inch Heels]

1 hour ago, Alfonzo said:

In a perfect world where PWADs run amok our cities as ideal Ironman selections, shit starts low, builds up somewhat linearly so that players get to toil in it for a good while (a few spikes are cool), and then really runs them through the gauntlet to determine the champion. In this world, we have to make do with half-broken machines or fully functional ones that are just kind of fun, with only the occasional hit for six.

In my opinion all this would be much less of a concern if category 3 were less stigmatized. Look a page ago where Leo at first refused to list his run in that category, even though it was glaringly obvious it belongs in cat 3.... As if that would somehow make surviving Sigil less of an accomplishment (which it doesn't). Now look at the past threads... Category 3, almost nowhere to be seen, if we ignore a particular case from the past. I mean, fair enuff... prepping a run from start to finish takes additional effort, and not everybody has the time to spare, but I'm still under the impression there's a stigma anyway.

If people wanna run in blind, and risk getting their heads pushed into a brickwall, who cares? Let'em run blind and watch them get ruined by the first mean ambush in the set. I don't see how you can avoid having the occasional "great filter" in WADs to begin with, because how are you going to tip-toe around that long-term? Seems like an exercise in futility to me.

[Alfonzo]

I can't speak to why there aren't more Category 3 runs. We'd have to conduct a poll of some sort. My last guess would be that people are more comfortable in keeping with the majority for competition sake. More likely we just can't be bothered (or don't have enough time) to invest enough preparation, or enough at least to be satisfied with the label, since it implies that you've done your homework, at a glance. Or perhaps it's just history speaking to us through other "race" competitions and their ilk.

 

Truly, though, I believe you could be correct in identifying some sort of bias (I'd be reluctant in calling it stigma, but maybe you're right), and in the interest of being honest I must also admit that I am apprehensive about the category, moving forward. I think @Pegleg was smart in omitting preparation as an option for his monthly competition, and I'd like to get his take on things. Would splitting the table into 1/2 and 3 runs and declaring two winners ⁠— perhaps even granting one attempt for each in the month ⁠— be a happy compromise? Or would it be something that further exacerbates any existing separation of the kind you're seeing?

 

Anyway, it's something to stew on.

 

1 hour ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

I don't see how you can avoid having the occasional "great filter" in WADs to begin with, because how are you going to tip-toe around that long-term?

 

Other than a legion of dedicated mappers laying down the brickwork as we walk? Heh. I'm not opposed to any filter as long as...

 

Quote

as much of the content as possible [is] readable by the player and within their skill set to overcome

 

I like filters, in fact! Just not so early as to terminate the gig before the non-prepareds have a chance to show something (1CC can add enough mileage to a WAD to make this a non-factor, of course, but generally the whole the map set has to be Bad News Bears before this condition gets rolled out). But yes, I take your point: maybe that's on the player for thinking they're a chance with 1/2, and maybe it's on me for not recommending 3 instead in the OP as I did for Base Ganymede two months ago.

 

EDIT: I should also add: when I say Pegleg was smart in omitting prep runs, the inverse would also have been. Mingling the two as I have may have been a mistake because it allows for bias — an inconvenience to whichever party is in in the minority and prefers this way of play. I don't see either approach as more or less legit in any official sense.

Edited July 1, 2019 by Alfonzo : Bit at the end.

[seed]

Wait, what, stigma against Cat 3 runs?

 

Since when is that a thing? I'm yet to notice any (but maybe I'm just oblivious to the fact).

[Nine Inch Heels]

3 hours ago, Alfonzo said:

Stuff about category 3

So, for somebody in my shoes, who's merely around in these threads to perhaps grab a few demos to watch, and have an opinion at times, there's a lot of stuff that is kinda unclear to me wrt categories anyway. For example, if I submitted a cat3 that finishes in almost exactly the same time as a cat2 run, who would "win"? In my mind, the cat2 run would be the winner, because the category indicates that survival is less likely in the first place, and the same applies to "cat1 vs cat2" scenarios.

 

By the looks of it, the further up I go in categories, the more it seems to read like "I should be pretty disappointed in myself if I don't finish (with the fastest time), or make it further into the set than everybody else". So what's the point in shooting for category 3 in the first place, when I could simply run cat1/2, have a laugh for like half an hour or perhaps longer depending on how forgiving the set is or how lucky I was, and call it a day? And that's where I think the unattractiveness of cat3 stems from.

 

Just to sum it up, running cat3 seems to simply come with a kind of "burden" which the other categories do not have (nearly as much)...

 

And then there's the thing about only being allowed one attempt... Why should I spend like let's say 5 hours on routing and practice, when there's still a chance the run whiffs like 20 minutes into a megawad, meaning all the prep-time was for naught but the exercise itself? (which, by the way, was the reason I decided against participating in combat shock2 with a prepped "UVspeedALL" a while ago)

 

Category 3, imo, also has a wide "range". A prepped run can be anything from "I played the entire WAD once before committing to a run" to "I prepped a highly optimized run, with very good routing, that also applies speedrunning tricks such as glides", and "I routed the maps primarily for survival" would be somewhere in the middle.

 

Having said that, "isolating" cat3 and allowing cat1/2 runners to also submit a cat3 seems like not too bad of an idea. It comes with the benefit of giving people who died early another shot at the WAD, but it also comes with the possibility of becoming the "dumpster tier" where failed runs go to perhaps just die another time.

 

/ramble

Edited July 1, 2019 by Nine Inch Heels

[Spectre01]

17 minutes ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

And then there's the thing about only being allowed one attempt... Why should I spend like let's say 5 hours on routing and practice, when there's still a chance the run whiffs like 20 minutes into a megawad, meaning all the prep-time was for naught but the exercise itself? (which, by the way, was the reason I decided against participating in combat shock2 with a prepped "UVspeedALL" a while ago)

I'm willing to bet anyone investing that much time preparing will submit their best attempt despite the one attempt rule. Unless the individual is streaming, there is really no way to verify how many serious attempts were made, or whether they considered unsatisfactory attempts as "just practice".

[Nine Inch Heels]

4 minutes ago, Spectre01 said:

I'm willing to bet anyone investing that much time preparing will submit their best attempt despite the one attempt rule. Unless the individual is streaming, there is really no way to verify how many serious attempts were made

Can't really disagree there. And I guess it kinda hits a similar note wrt stigmata, because when you get demos from people who didn't stream, it opens up the floodgates for all sorts of scrutiny, especially if the run was fast and employed a few risky moves...

[Alfonzo]

Thanks for that write-up, NIH. Lots to think about. I'd like others to weigh in before making any moves (or not).

 

2 hours ago, Spectre01 said:

I'm willing to bet anyone investing that much time preparing will submit their best attempt despite the one attempt rule. Unless the individual is streaming, there is really no way to verify how many serious attempts were made, or whether they considered unsatisfactory attempts as "just practice".

 

While possibly true, this is thankfully the least of my concerns as I can do nothing about it.

 

At some point we will have to come to terms with the fact that this will always be an imperfect system. We're just trying to strike a balance without distracting ourselves with the ever-present flaws and leaning too far in one direction. Keep it accessible; keep it a competition second; keep it light on rules.

[leodoom85]

- Oh great, now we have problems with category 3...

- Well, let's delete it.

- No...don't delete it because it part of the ironman's rules...

- Gonna wait to decide...

 

Looks like this topic is touched each time an ironman is over, especially the last 3 sessions when Krypto and I did prepared runs...

Personally, I don't bother much if a category gets deleted for good if blind runs are enforced heh...

[Nine Inch Heels]

1 hour ago, leodoom85 said:

- Oh great, now we have problems with category 3...

- Well, let's delete it.

- No...don't delete it because it part of the ironman's rules...

- Gonna wait to decide...

 

Looks like this topic is touched each time an ironman is over, especially the last 3 sessions when Krypto and I did prepared runs...

Personally, I don't bother much if a category gets deleted for good if blind runs are enforced heh...

 

Nobody said anything about deleting a category, and nobody said anything about enforcing blind play. If cat3 didn't exist right now, your prepped run for this month couldn't even be part of the competition, because it would have a clear and unfair advantage over any actual cat1/2 run. So, logically, cat3 simply needs to exist, so that people who belong under the umbrella of "preparedness" can still participate here in the first place.

 

And the same counts for enforcing blind runs. How is that even supposed to be possible without potentially drying out this competition, either by way of excluding too many players (especially those with a long history of playing PWADs), or due to having to pick obscure (potentially bottom-shelf) sets and myfirstWADs (which in turn simply isn't going to be very interesting long-term)?

 

Edit: Basically the 3 categories exist primarily to make sure people can participate regardless of how much they know about a WAD, and the secondary function of the categories is to put the resulting runs into perspective.

Edited July 1, 2019 by Nine Inch Heels

[leodoom85]

You know, it's whatever at this point for me. I'll continue doing blind or prepare runs anyway...it's just why bringing that specific topic again.

Like...why bother? I get the point of legitimate runs and the importance of it and why the boss here carefully choose a wad for us to die or survive and why some clarification is needed for a run...yea, I said that was category 2 when in reality was 3 as you said. In fact, I had doubts if it was one or the another, so I went to 2 first, then you showed up with that clarification.

[Nine Inch Heels]

4 minutes ago, leodoom85 said:

You know, it's whatever at this point for me. I'll continue doing blind or prepare runs anyway...it's just why bringing that specific topic again.

Like...why bother?

If you took the time to read the convo I had here with Alfonzo you'd know what's being discussed, why it's being discussed, and how it has basically nothing to do with your runs, or Kryto's runs, or anybody else's runs in particular.

 

It went from which WADs to choose for the ironman, to why people seem reluctant to run cat3, and how cat3 should or shouldn't get "adjusted" moving forward.

[Alfonzo]

I know my prattle is banal, leo. Sorry about that! But this is a forum. Talking is all we have :)

 

NIH is on the money. Category 3 is not getting removed. I may have given that impression in saying I was apprehensive about it, personally; but at this stage I'm just getting a read on whether it should be given some room to breathe on its own i.e. with another leader board, possibly as an additional if not exclusive option.

 

No dramas.

[NaZa]

@Alfonzo Any news on when to expect the upcoming thread(s)? Or your run of SI6IL :)

 

As for Category 3, I see it as a cheap shot of getting better positions, but I don't want it removed, obviously some people like to play it that way, are not sure about their survival skills, or anything. Splitting the leaderboards up can be a smart idea.

[Alfonzo]

My run of SIGIL ended on June 1st on E5M1 and my dignity died with it.

 

New thread up in roughly 20 hours or so.

[Nine Inch Heels]

15 minutes ago, Alfonzo said:

at this stage I'm just getting a read on whether it should be given some room to breathe on its own i.e. with another leader board, possibly as an additional if not exclusive option.

I'm all for giving it its own leaderboard, simply due to how massive of an advantage it can be to prepare a run, especially if prepped well. I am, however, against making it exclusive in some way shape or form, for example by forcing people to choose if they want to get their cat1/2 or their cat3 counted.

 

As it currently stands, the only reason that keeps players from submitting a cat1 and a cat3 during the same month is basically that both runs would end up on the same board anyway, thus violating the "1 attempt per month rule". At least that's what it looks like to me.

 

Even though I brought up the potential risk of cat3 becoming a "dumpster tier", I'd take that any day regardless, so long as it allows in particular the most unfortunate players to still be a part of the game, even if their other run ended disappointingly early. Never mind that said risk could very well turn out to be a non-issue anyway. I generally think player-retention is good and important, especially in "circles" as small as this one.

[DuckReconMajor]

9 hours ago, Alfonzo said:

My run of SIGIL ended on June 1st on E5M1 and my dignity died with it.

If you're comfortable uploading it (and haven't deleted) I think many of us would love watching it regardless.

[xvertigox]

Currently, scoring is weighted based on category, correct? If so, then maybe that could changed to a standardized system. That would allow players to submit any sort of run with no disadvantage unless playing with self imposed limits i.e cat1

[Pegleg]

16 hours ago, Alfonzo said:

I think @Pegleg was smart in omitting preparation as an option for his monthly competition, and I'd like to get his take on things. Would splitting the table into 1/2 and 3 runs and declaring two winners ⁠— perhaps even granting one attempt for each in the month ⁠— be a happy compromise? Or would it be something that further exacerbates any existing separation of the kind you're seeing?

 

EDIT: I should also add: when I say Pegleg was smart in omitting prep runs, the inverse would also have been. Mingling the two as I have may have been a mistake because it allows for bias — an inconvenience to whichever party is in in the minority and prefers this way of play. I don't see either approach as more or less legit in any official sense.

 

I remember a discussion about Category 3 runs, specifically a bit of alarm that had been raised about the increasing number of Category 3 runs. Historically, Category 3 was introduced to accommodate a few specific players who liked to intricately prepare a run by studying the maps in an editor, planning the route carefully, practicing, and then recording their playthrough. Historically, they weren't viewed in exactly the same light as someone who played as one of the other categories. I wouldn't call it a stigma, but they were definitely viewed through a different lens.

 

I started out with the intention of doing blind runs, with Double Impact and Rush being my first two entries in DWIL (technically, Double Impact ended up being classes as Category 2 because I had previously played the first two levels on ITYTD). After performing poorly, I decided that I wanted to make it past the first map (which I've said before), so I started playing through the mapsets ahead of time in order to practice. I spent the better part of 3 weeks practicing Doom 64 for Doom 2, which is the last selection that I've really spent a lot of time preparing for. Since then, I haven't had a lot of free time, so I've been resorting to more of a blind approach. Any Category 3 entries over the past 5 months were owing to starting, dying very quickly (and when I say very, I'm talking about within the first 10 seconds or so--I have some degree of pride), and starting another recording. This contest is about the only time I play UV, and I usually save, so I'm definitely outside my comfort zone on both counts.

 

I don't think one is inherently better than the other--Category 1/2 or Category 3. There is a definite difference, though, in knowing what is coming while you're playing. That can be a definite advantage at times, so I think there is definite merit in the idea of splitting apart the two concepts. However, suppose that, by coincidence, you had played a lot of Stardate 20X6 in February, 2019. You could rightly claim your March 2019 Ironman run of Stardate 20X6 was Category 2, but your Category 2 was likely very different from the person that played Stardate 20X6 in February, 2017. So, there is still potentially a big difference between Category 1 and Category 2.

 

I think a decent solution would be to allow, for those who wanted to, a chance to submit a Category 1/2 run and a Category 3 run. You wouldn't have to, just like you don't have to submit more than the UV run under 1CC rules. Of course, ultimately, this would complicate the scoring, so you might not want to do that.

 

 

13 hours ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

Category 3, imo, also has a wide "range". A prepped run can be anything from "I played the entire WAD once before committing to a run" to "I prepped a highly optimized run, with very good routing, that also applies speedrunning tricks such as glides", and "I routed the maps primarily for survival" would be somewhere in the middle

 

It's absolutely true that there is a wide range of what could be classed as Category 3. This is why Alfonzo, several months ago, wrote that if you're going to go Category 3 you should go all the way. Play through all the maps. Look at maps in an editor. Plan. If you're going to play through one map, you've already blown your "blind" classification, so you may as well go whole hog. That being said, whole hog takes a lot of time to prepare.

 

 

10 hours ago, leodoom85 said:

 especially the last 3 sessions when Krypto and I did prepared runs...

 

Krypto never claimed any of his runs were prepared, although others doubted the veracity of those claims. That being said, in the last 3 sessions, you were far from the only participant who claimed a prepared run.

 

 

12 hours ago, Spectre01 said:

I'm willing to bet anyone investing that much time preparing will submit their best attempt despite the one attempt rule. Unless the individual is streaming, there is really no way to verify how many serious attempts were made, or whether they considered unsatisfactory attempts as "just practice".

 

12 hours ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

Can't really disagree there. And I guess it kinda hits a similar note wrt stigmata, because when you get demos from people who didn't stream, it opens up the floodgates for all sorts of scrutiny, especially if the run was fast and employed a few risky moves...

 

10 hours ago, Alfonzo said:

At some point we will have to come to terms with the fact that this will always be an imperfect system.

 

Ultimately, this competition relies on the honor system. I'd like @Steve D to weigh in with his thoughts here, because he has submitted runs where he did worse than on his practice runs (and has stated this openly, so I'm not throwing him under the bus). Ultimately, this is just for enjoyment and the challenge, so we have to rely on the honor system, unless we're going to start instituting a lot of extra rules (see the April discussions for more on that), which would just drive people away, I think.

[NaZa]

1 hour ago, xvertigox said:

Currently, scoring is weighted based on category, correct? If so, then maybe that could changed to a standardized system. That would allow players to submit any sort of run with no disadvantage unless playing with self imposed limits i.e cat1

Nah. Scoring is based on the time it took you to find the level. Always has been that way. 

[xvertigox]

Thanks @NaZa

 

My concern in making two separate leaderboards is that it would splinter this already small group. I personally really like having everyone battle it out on the same board.

 

If the issue is a perceived stigma around category 3 then it's a cultural issue and can be resolved through a change in behavior rather than changing the mechanics of the league itself. I know I'll be doing category 3 runs from now on - all my previous runs have been just for fun with no thought that I'd actually complete the wad. I want to actually do well now so I'll route and grind tough sections.