Category Discussion 2020

[GoneAway]

Hello everyone, we've been discussing a topic on the discord and I'd like to bring it here so more voices can participate. We've been thinking about what to do about categories on DSDA, whether there are too many or too few, if they could be organized differently, etc.

 

Disclaimer

Not looking to make any changes right now, this is just to get an idea of where the community stands on this topic.

 

Should we select a set of "main" categories on DSDA?

- basically the tables would have a split between the main categories at the top and the additional categories below (it wouldn't look that different from now).

- highlight categories that have the most importance to the community / where the main competition is / what has the most value historically.

- open the gates to add more miscellaneous categories to the area below without having a category explosion in the main table. Less notes and runs in other.

 

As an example: move -fast, -respawn, stroller, nomo100, and collector to the additional category section and add ballerina and sightseer.

 

[baja blast rd.]

7 minutes ago, Redneckerz said:

...

 

Since this thread is already a mess and going to be restarted (hopefully): I just want to say, this is not the first time you've annoyed a bunch of people. Please post less frequently and in a more informed way. Jeez it's annoying. 

[BigBoy91]

I'd love to see ballerina and sightseer added to the DSDA! Sounds like a good way of keeping the site a little more organized.

[rehelekretep]

hmm.

it would be quite nice to have runs in a non-traditional category (by trad i mean uv-speed and uv-max) appear in 'other' if they only have one entry. however if there is some competition it would be nice for them to have their own section in the maps list.

i dont know if that is possible but it would be quite nice - it would avoid weird niche cases where there was only competition in nomo for example, and nothing really in uv-max/speed while acknowledging that most maps see only any competition in max/speed

 

i hope that makes sense im typing this before i go to sleep

[DuckReconMajor]

As a very casual demo attempter and a sub-par software engineer my view of the OP is that:

• sorting into more categories is easy and we'd like the community's go-ahead
• or
• sorting into more categories is hard and many have been asking for it.

I know it shouldn't matter but as someone who could go either way on the issue I wonder which it is.

I know earlier today I mentioned that 2 new demos for CC2 needed "requires patch WAD" annotation notes. I doubt this had anything to do with OP but I see it as something that could be labeled on the level/WAD itself, as Anima Zero was the only madlad to ZDoom it while it was broken.

 

The only definitive thing I can say is that I understand that running the new DSDA comes with many of the challenges like the one in the OP and that I appreciate the work that's being done and extend my gratitude.

 

If I was forced to come up with a concrete answer I'd say that I'm fine with how the categories are now, and that the current system of adding annotations is sufficient, provided ya'll aren't having issues keeping up with the upkeep that requires. If there was a way to submit your own annotations that wasn't susceptible to spam I'd go for that.

 

I don't know what sightseer is but it sounds cool.

[Bob9001]

My opinion is: keep UV-Fast as a main category and add Solo-net to the main instead of how it's a sub-category at the moment.

 

I can see how UV-Fast and Solo-net are boring to most, but my reasoning is that UV-Fast and Solo-net make the game and speedrunning more fun and challenging for someone like me who has put many hours into Doom in their life. Apart from UV-Max, all the other categories are not fun to speedrun for IWADS especially Doom 2. For PWADS on the other hand, I like trying all the rest of the categories like Pacifist, Tyson etc. So I guess there is a bit to consider from every perspective (:

 

However, my opinion is only one opinion, so please nobody take it personal.

[Dimon12321]

Can someone please provide a list of Ballerina and Sightseer runs? I'm curious how many of them exist that it might become a category? I can't recall anything besides Beginner's Doom E1 TAS which I didn't manage to watch till the end.

[GoneAway]

DuckReconMajor: I thought I was pretty clear on the motivation behind the question in the bullet points. This has nothing at all to do with software engineering or implementation issues.

 

Bob: solo-net is a "modifier" and not a category. You could do almost any category with solo-net on in the same way you could do coop. Splitting up the "game mode" type options into separate tables is something to consider, but the volume of those runs is so low that I think this would have the reverse effect of what you want. It would make those runs even less visible.

 

Dimon: those categories are just examples, as you can see where I said "as an example".

 

[GarrettChan]

Personally, I just want a more clean way to represent Reality, possible just an icon with "reality" displayed when the mouse cursor hanging over it instead of a one liner which makes the table a little bit strange.

[Grazza]

In terms of categories that deserve a separate listing, Nightmare! Pacifist is perhaps the most glaring one that is missing at present (there are more of those than for several established categories). I suggest Max Reality should be a separate category, since in pretty much all cases this requires a different approach entirely, and is not comparable with regular Max in terms of times. In all other cases (Speed, Pacifist, NM), a Reality run is usually just a normal run where the player happens to take no damage, so a simple modifier is sufficient.

 

Tyson with -fast ("GM" to call it by a most inappropriate name!) is of historical interest, but isn't so popular nowadays. There are a fair number of them in the archive, and it isn't a subset of any other category. It could be a candidate for separate category treatment, but unless it becomes popular again, it isn't worth it.

 

In terms of establishing two tiers of categories, I'm not sure that is worth doing, and I'm not sure what the basis should be. Current popularity? Otherwise it is sort of arbitrary, and kind of a slap in the face for anyone who specializes in categories that get demoted. Respawn is clearly the main traditional category that would be dropped into this bucket. Maybe NM 100S too, as it is a little rare. In terms of popularity, Stroller is probably top tier, even if it started as an obvious novelty category. Fast is perhaps a marginal case. I'd say it's important and popular enough to be top-tier.

 

Nomo is of course a world apart from categories with monsters. I don't know if nomo 100 should be put into a second tier or if both nomo categories should be in a tier all of their own.

 

In terms of a completely different organization, categories could be organized into Speed-like (Speed, Pacifist, Stroller, NM, NM Pacifist and I guess NM100 and the nomos) and Max-like (Max, Fast, Respawn, Tyson, Max Reality and "GM").

 

No view on "Collector". Does anyone do these outside of some special competitions and external sites?

 

BTW (and largely unrelated to the topic, sorry), I don't at all like the nuking of demos on different/old versions of wads, especially when they are already in the archive, and especially when the wad has a different name. It's meant to be an archive, after all. It just seems like arbitrary dogma. For instance, Elmle's Zodiac fix demos were in some cases amazing, and they're just being lost to demo history. Meanwhile dozens of junk e1m1-010s are being lovingly preserved.

 

[rehelekretep]

completely agree with everything Grazza just said lol

[GoneAway]

I think the main thing with versions is just that we don't want to encourage people to record on unfinished content since it results in more mess on the archive. I don't think it's a dogma though. We're not going to wipe the sunder table for instance.

 

It doesn't make sense to put 2 demos on the same table / category if they sync on different versions of a wad imo, because then they aren't the same run anymore. Then the question is whether every desyncing run deserves its own page, or how many runs are needed to justify another page. I don't like deleting things, but I also like things to be clean when possible so to me there's a balancing act there.

[Coincident]

6 hours ago, Grazza said:

In all other cases (Speed, Pacifist, NM), a Reality run is usually just a normal run where the player happens to take no damage, so a simple modifier is sufficient.

I can think of many maps where Speed+Reality, Pacifist+Reality, or NM+Reality require their own unique route and strategy, just like Max+Reality.

I personally really like running Reality, but I don't think that any of those should be categories; since reality is something you can mix with any other main category, and it's not extremely popular anyway, I think they should just be modifiers like they are now (including max+reality)

However, it might be interesting to have an alternative solution for modifiers (such as reality and solo-net):

 - Add extra parameters to filter the leaderboard view of DSDA to show only runs with certain modifiers.

This would allow you to create a "view" to whatever kind of runs you want to see, regardless if they are a "category", or a "modifier".

 

Spoiler

But of course, this means extra work for kraflab :D

 

[Da Werecat]

I almost want to advocate for different versions of wads having different pages. Maybe it would remove the stigma of updating wads post-release in this community. Not holding my breath though.

[GarrettChan]

12 hours ago, Grazza said:

I suggest Max Reality should be a separate category, since in pretty much all cases this requires a different approach entirely, and is not comparable with regular Max in terms of times. In all other cases (Speed, Pacifist, NM), a Reality run is usually just a normal run where the player happens to take no damage, so a simple modifier is sufficient.

As someone who did a few stupid UV Max/Reality runs, my mind is pretty complicated to myself... On one hand, when I did those, I was too lazy to make optimal routes and improve my movements, but on the other hand, UV Max/Reality also requires quite a lot of investments before actually doing it, so probably the best conclusion is that I hate myself, haha. However, whether competing against other times, I think it's fine either way since it's more like an extra achievement to me, and most of the time, watching a UV Max/Reality run is not so fun to be honest. The best example for me is that on Sunlust Map02, I forgot I have to hit a switch to exit a room and was stuck there for 45s, and then I can't make another run of that...

 

I agree with the later assessment that UV Speed etc. runs without taking damage. That's probably why I think an icon would be better than a one liner. Also, once there was somebody that got confused with that one liner, thinking that everything below it is no damage runs.