How do you like your par times?

[Mitchfork]

When id Software generated the par times for the IWAD levels, someone on the team would run through the level as fast as they could and then pad a couple of seconds onto their best time - in other words, UV Speed before UV Speed was invented.

 

I have seen a few WADs calculate their par times using UV Max rules instead, getting 100% kills and secrets.  I think this is actually easier for most map authors to generate, since getting secrets usually helps with survivability and you don't have to rely on as much RNG just to survive (although times are less consistent since UV Max is inherently a more RNG influenced category overall).  Obviously this isn't true in all cases.

 

There are of course a lot of WADs that don't even bother at all and just inherit the default par times for the IWAD.  For most source ports and vanilla compatibility, you have to  use a DeHackEd patch to provide a new par time, so a lot of older WADs just don't bother.

 

What do you think is best practice?  

[baja blast rd.]

Par times aren't that important. Stardate 20x7 set them all to 1:09 and no one complained... 

But for serious ones, I really like skillsaw's beefy, normal-playthrough oriented ones. They are an interesting window into how much content the author feels the map has. Whatever you do, don't take it too seriously. Like, if you actually route your map and do runs, make sure it's not just for the sake of par times, but is part of playtesting or is just something you want to do anyway.  

[dr_st]

Where's the "Hidden by the source port" option?

[Mitchfork]

3 minutes ago, dr_st said:

Where's the "Hidden by the source port" option?

 

The fact that this is an option probably says something about how players in general treat it too.  We're okay with being graded on how much we killed or collected in a level, but we don't like feeling rushed.

[dr_st]

21 minutes ago, Mitchfork said:

We're okay with being graded on how much we killed or collected in a level, but we don't like feeling rushed.

Exactly. One of the reasons I liked Doom 2016. It doesn't even track your completion time, neither per level, nor for the entire campaign.

[Dark Pulse]

4 hours ago, Mitchfork said:

When id Software generated the par times for the IWAD levels, someone on the team would run through the level as fast as they could and then pad a couple of seconds onto their best time - in other words, UV Speed before UV Speed was invented.

That "someone" was Romero, and his method was basically simple: Run to the exit as fast as he could, round the time off, and add thirty seconds. By definition, that'd be UV-Speed. (Assuming he set them on UV, anyway, which is another question entirely!)

 

How he did the rounding isn't quite known, though, since some of those times make no sense - E1M1 is 30 seconds exactly but there's no way he could've finished the level in 0 seconds. However, all par times line up with quarters of a minute; it's possible the rounding was to the nearest 15 seconds (in which case, the E1M1 time would make sense if he, say, finished it in 7 seconds - round down to 0, add 30 seconds for the final par time).

 

This only applies to Doom though (and more specifically, the original three episodes); Doom II's times were set by someone else. But it seems to follow the same paradigm. Maybe it was Sandy Petersen setting them? I dunno.

[Maximum Matt]

8 hours ago, rdwpa said:

Par times aren't that important. Stardate 20x7 set them all to 1:09 and no one complained... 

Heh.

I always felt that par times were a hangover of games including unnecessary stats just for the sake of stats, just like the points system in Wolf3d.  Seriously, some would be a troll - one of those huge levels in TNT with that big outdoor area (Administration Center?) had a par time of :30, and even the world record speedrun of that level was like two minutes something 

[Chip]

I always thought the PARs would give you a reward, but they are meaningless. I don't play many WADs, so I don't know if there are any that do reward you with something (In NRFTL you get an easter egg if you run before the timer runs out) but nah!

[Mitchfork]

3 hours ago, Maximum Matt said:

Heh.

I always felt that par times were a hangover of games including unnecessary stats just for the sake of stats, just like the points system in Wolf3d.  Seriously, some would be a troll - one of those huge levels in TNT with that big outdoor area (Administration Center?) had a par time of :30, and even the world record speedrun of that level was like two minutes something 

 

Final Doom just uses the same par times as Doom II (guess they didn't bother to edit the executable), so several of the levels have wacky times.