RobinSena

Part of this is the fracturing of the 'official' records (Compet-n) vs. DSDA records, as well as the fact that there are people such as myself who are competent speed runners who don't necessarily bother to learn some of the untricacies of doom programming, as well as how to record for the sake of posting to YouTube. For me, I still don't know how to record an .lmp. Compounding matters is that getting a copy of vanilla doom that is recognized as 'official' for compet-n/record purposes can be difficult. Should someone point me (as well as many others) in the right direction (how exactly do you record an .lmp?) many of the records would fall. As an addendum, many people also play as hobbyists and don't consider themselves part of the community, perhaps because many of us are a little older and have full time jobs, as well as families in some cases, and would prefer to see ourselves more from these perspectives.

Everyone gets better with time, and not just Doom. I'm old enough to have played the original NES, and compared with how I was as a player than, I'm much better now (early 30's). Games like Zelda 2, Gunsmoke, Contra, which I though were all very hard as a kid, are very easy now. As a kid I always needed the 30 life Contra code to beat that game, whereas now I can easily beat it without dying. Same for Doom. Had the PlayStation version as a teenager - thought it was VERY difficult on Ultra-Violence. Now I think the PlayStation version was WAY too easy. Now I'm almost exclusively a PC Ultra-Violence player, which is much harder than the PlayStation version, and I can break a bunch of the competn records (with gzdoom though). The difference between me as a young teenage Doom player and early 30's Doom player now you ask? No contest. And yet I thought I was such a good player than. Time, for whatever reason, has done wonders for my gaming, even if it's been a decade or more since I last played a game.

The music for TNT definitely deserves some praise, especially the music for Map 20: Central Processing. Soothing music to go along with a long level. It perfectly matches up with the later part of the level with the starry night sky. But what's with the hate for Mount Pain? (Not necessarily in this thread, but in general.) Nothing wrong with a level that tests your endurance as a Doom player. Plutonia could have benefitted from such a level as opposed to all the short but brutal levels. A good Doom player should be multi-skilled - deft in small areas/many monsters + SSG, but able to hold his own in long levels with little power.

I think what's gotten lost in this thread is that we're assuming that we're all playing on Ultraviolence. Different weapons and styles of play are warranted for different skill levels. I've noticed that in many Ultraviolence playthroughs on youtube, the plasma gun isn't used that much - a choice mirrored by others here. But I would make the argument that the plasma gun is arguably the best weapon on the Nightmare! skill level (perhaps this should get its own thread for discussion), while the SSG is arguably the best all-around weapon on Ultraviolence. The plasma gun's relative power coupled with rapid fire rate make it not only a very versatile weapon, but the ideal weapon for Nightmare! You can see this in action on the superb Nightmare! run of Doom II's the Living End by rybacksda on youtube. The extreme speed warranted by Nightmare! make the BFG a less than ideal weapon due to the slow rate of fire. Same for the SSG. Just my two cents.

Where are all the Compet-n style players? My objective is to get 100% kills and secrets as fast as possible, resulting in an aggressive style of play. I was very defensive for a while after I started playing Doom again, but seeing those record runs changed my style forever.

I would create a trigger-lock of sorts for the rocket launcher. We've all fired rockets into walls directly in front of us or next to us, usually as a result of speedrunning and strafing close to a wall, or perhaps doing a peak-a-boo style attack of some monsters and having a rocket clip a wall. In a 'real-world' situation, no one is firing a rocket into a wall in front of themselves. It would be nice to create some special lock that would prevent the rocket launcher from firing in the event that the rocket might directly hit or clip a wall if it's within a certain distance from you. **EDIT** Also, it seems ridiculous that lost souls can block your path given their small size. Doomguy should be able to run past them easily. Going back to the 'real-world' situation, it would seem that Doomguy could easily swat them out of the way. Maybe this should be another improvement in future source ports.

In the scheme of things, a record is a record I suppose, so long as no codes (iddqd, etc.) or other sorts of 'outside' aids were used in the making of a fast run. But I believe that if Romero and company were making the game again, they would smooth out some of these deficiencies in the game's code, which would eliminate things like 'wall grabs', and the like. At the very least, I would recognize two different UV Max records for a level like Perfect Hatred: one for people exploiting the BFG grab, and one for those who don't. **EDIT** A few new posts since I was typing this. Yeah, certainly some interesting things discovered over the years. Hard to draw a line between 'intended' and not. **END EDIT**

Perhaps, but it still exploits something in the code as well. As for the nature of the thread, I think it's a good one, and some good info has been shared here. There will always be a few people telling others (like certain people in this thread) what to do as if they know everything, but the reality is that they were NOT involved in the programming of the game, and as such do not know what was intended by the likes of Romero, et al., when the game was made. For the know-it-alls who want to be forum bullies (but real life losers - no surprise there), the only way to find out for sure is to go straight to the source.

Felt like I should throw my two cents into the cheating vs. exploiting argument. They are certainly different things, but even within the 'exploiting' category we can break it down even further. There are two ways I can think of to exploit a level: -exploiting something in the level design, and -exploiting something in the game's code. A good example is E4M2, Perfect Hatred. At a certain part, you can jump past the blue door, bypassing most of the level. I personally wouldn't have a problem with this, as it's still within the game's normal physics. However, at the same part, you can grab the BFG through the wall, which is exploiting something in the game's code, which is NOT within the game's 'normal' physics. Given how John Romero himself designed this level, it might be interesting to go straight to the source to see which of these things he would approve of, if any.

I play with keyboard only. Not the most comfortable way to play though, but it's what I know best. Never got the hang of the mouse thing.

About the innacurate artwork thing - have you ever seen the artwork to the American release of the very first Mega Man game for the NES? Very common in those days.

Yeah, the other post was just some comical venting. The constant line of sight is certainly a huge advantage. And just for the record, I play lots of Plutonia, and I play fairly well I think.

It says File Version: 1.0.29.563 (If there was a bug, than perhaps they've fixed it since then). As far as I know, this is an older version (I don't stay up to date with all the latest versions). I stick with it because it's what I'm most comfortable playing with, and the overall look of the game through it are awesome. Since I started playing Final Doom back in January (almost always through this version of GZDoom), this area has never worked properly. I just IDCLIP this part to get into the area. In a Youtube speedrun by Armane15 of this level, someone in the comments section posts a similar complaint, so I'm not the only one. There's definitely an issue there. If I can get the hang of this video capture thing, I'd be happy to post a video. I don't think it's just my computer either - it works fine in the other ports, but never in GZDoom. ****EDIT: I downloaded one of the newer versions of GZDoom, and the level works fine. Must have been some issue with a past version of it.****

It was just a joke, jeez. I'm sure the Doom code is quite logical. I routinely speedrun Plutonia's Map 15: The Twilight, which has lots of chaingunners, and I do fine.

Does anyone know if there is some sort of bug with this level, at least with GZDoom? There's an L-shaped blue room (has some Pain Elementals, a Cacodemon, and some chaingunners) that is accessible only when a little platform lowers (or when a stair rises, not really sure), allowing you to enter the area. The way it's apparently triggered is by going up the stairs located nearby, which lowers the platform, permitting entry. It works fine when I play Chocolate Doom and PrBoom+, but just doesn't seem to work with GZDoom. ??????