A ZDoom-type Source Port that Doesn't Count Lost Souls

[dew]

Point taken about Zdaemon/Odamex forking age.

I never claimed it was "the only correct one", but it annoys me how often it's claimed that Zdoom "fixes" counter logic when in fact it is at least as awkward as vanilla in some regards. Again, I don't see what's wrong with id's logic of going over 100% with AV-respawns and IoS-spawns. The former clearly makes more sense as you rekill the same monsters over and over. If anything, Zdoom should detract from kill count when a monster gets revived.

I agree with you that the latter is an awful clusterfuck on any map that starts at very low monster count, like Doom2 map30 does. I always thought it was cool how the kill counter kept climbing for so long, like it was a part of the endgame sequence and Doomguy just murdered the hell out of.. umm.. hell, but it's definitely not "by design" and it can quickly get out of hand if PWADs spam monster spawners in initially empty maps. On the other hand Zdoom's awkward option to kill all cube spawns on Romero death, because otherwise it would be impossible to get 100%... apparently someone cares. :P I prefer (pr)boom's smart counter, despite the hideous presentation, it makes exciting things like Okuplok's SoD map30 max reasonably possible.

And of course I see nothing wrong with you guys treating the counter logic behind scripted (de)spawning events.

[Graf Zahl]

dew said:

On the other hand Zdoom's awkward option to kill all cube spawns on Romero death, because otherwise it would be impossible to get 100%... apparently someone cares. :P

You can't get 100% on that map, unless you kill precisely the correct amount of monsters. The counter here is broken beyond repair and id should have done the same as for ExM8 on Doom 1: Do not show the stats!

dew said:

And of course I see nothing wrong with you guys treating the counter logic behind scripted (de)spawning events.

Problem: It's either all or nothing, otherwise it falls apart. Do not forget that with ZDoom you can create Map30 monster spawners that can be destroyed or removed so making an exception for this spawning function would also create problems.

The bottom line: You cannot fix a mess without breaking the side effects of that mess. Priorities had to be set and most people agreed with how it is now.

[RjY]

As an aside, regarding demo compatibility, it is unwise to change the way the kill percentages are calculated because the timings of the intermission screen are sensitive. For example:

• Suppose a multi-level demo is being recorded. Recall that if you click early while the numbers are still rolling you must click again to progress. However, if you wait you have only to click once.
  
• So suppose the player watches the counter climb much above 100%, then clicks once. The numbers stop rolling, and a few seconds later he clicks again to start the next level. He carries on, finishes the demo, and uploads it.
  
• Then later the way kills are counted is changed so that the numbers only climb to 100%.
  
• Now when playing the demo, the first click comes after the numbers finish rolling, the next map starts early, the second click shoots a gun, and the rest of the demo goes out of sync.
  

In fairness intermission screen timing preserval is only an issue for "movie" demos. Single map runs, which comprise a majority of interesting speedruns, are not affected. Plus, it's pretty hard to trigger, since most movie demo players seem to click quickly to skip the rolling numbers between levels.

But the fact remains, if you care about making every demo play back correctly, you can't tamper with the intermission screen timings.

[Quasar]

Of course a MAPINFO option that said "This map expects 100% kills accounting for scripted spawns" would have been an acceptable compromise, in my eyes. I might implement such a thing in EE :>