The DWIronman League dies to: Disturbia

Heyo. First attempt at this wad and my first entry into a DWIronman. 

 

Spoilers: It's fucking pathetic.

 

 

pitiful_attempt.7z

Our submissions have driven Alfonzo into so much despair that he can't bring himself to update the OP!

http://www.mediafire.com/file/70871xiqpo78gng/DWIronman11_JudgeDeadd.lmp

 

33 kills, would have gotten further except I forgot about the health cache at the beginning.

You know, I thought this month's selection would scare some of the regulars off! Three cheers for showing up and giving it a fair old go; you've done yourself a service. Lambs to the slaughter, yes... but a service nonetheless.

Here's my demo thingy. I had played the map before and I've also watched Anc's proper maxdemo several times. 441/1415 kills.

 

I was doing fairly alright, I think, until I mixed up the secrets and went into the Invuln one thinking that that one was the Megasphere secret... Survived the encounter without problems but the run went into a bit of a downward spiral after that, and I eventually die in the Arach corridor in a situation where I really should not have. My target for the run was reaching The Switch, since I doubt I would've survived the ending anyway, so I'm a bit disappointed in my effort really.

 

DWIronman_distrbia_Veinen.zip

Still waiting on that an_mutt demo.....

Explained everything in the name of zip. 168/1415, was very close to a 12.0% but if it does round up to the nearest percent, yeyz! From these posts I figured that I can use these imps as a bitchy escape route but I miscounted my ammo. Besides I knew I'd die there because played the map before. And, i don't have issues with the chaingun sound. It sounds really soothing and relaxing to me for some reason. The start is tough because those fuckers I hate. I hate Pain in the Ass Elementals even more than ArchViles. I missed the last session because I forgot to actually upload the demos here (I'd probably be in the mid-table). 

 

Also I use this opportunity to start a friendly rivalry with DaIcemann76 since we were pretty close in BTSX and Mapgame. Bring it on! I hope you don't mind!

distrbia_234_168kills_11.9%.zip

Only five more days!

Hey folks, I'm finally here! I decided to do something different and fun, which was record a demo and then subsequently stream my playthrough with commentary. I'll include my actual result in the spoiler below, so please don't click this if you want to avoid being spoiled! (This is meant for Mr. Suitepee, specifically)

 

OP updated, but @DoomLover234 your zip file reads empty for me! Can you confirm and re-upload? I'd hate to miss out on an opportunity to improve my standing.

Oh yes, sorry about that Alfonzo, yes, I accidentally left the ZIP blank... Such stupidity on my side...

 

 

distrbia_234_168kills_11.9%.zip

disregard, I suck cocks

Edited June 28, 2017 by TMD

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/154973759

 

Actual, equally pathetic attempt.

No make no attempt to contact me for three weeks regarding iron man.

Edited June 28, 2017 by TMD

Insomnia strikes, so I gave this a whirl just a few minutes ago: Nocturnal Disturbances afoot.

 

Equal parts well-traveled and clumsy, this run lasted longer than it had any right to, and overcame a number of huge blunders on my part before finally petering out. Ultimately died in the same place as Ancaalagon, though for a different reason. Previously, I'd heard tell of the V-sphere stretch strategy that Krypto used to great effect, and so thought I'd try it myself, as I've never taken that tack before in my prior experiences with the map. Unfortunately, as I've not played the map in years, muscle memory alone was not nearly sharp enough to see me pull the very tight run off on top of the sphere's visual handicap, so I took a wrong turn and got stuck just floundering uselessly about near the first coven of warping viles in the flesh caves. Was able to drop down to the next cave before it expired, but got beat up by the viles there and then polished off by the wallflower cybie when skittering towards the magic potion. Probably not my smartest idea, in hindsight--I think skipping the guys in the first cave actually cost me a scoreboard place over Anc by something like a dozen kills or so, hah!--but it was fun to try, since I figured I'd snuff it in one of the traps before even reaching the mass kill-switch anyway (check out that 1% health moment!).

 

Disturbia's a fantastic map, incidentally. It starts off kind of slow--you'll notice even Krypto was pussyfooting around somewhat in the early game--but it delivers on its ammo-dump concept to great effect, with a gripping tight balance for UV that sustains tactical interest for the duration, as opposed to the same concept in "The Mucus Flow" which after a certain point does get to feeling like a bit of a chore (all the hiking and whatnot). The chaingun start and lack of buckshot weapons are also quite memorable, though the former still feels slightly underpowered in spite of its augmentations against the UV population (though of course D-D always did endorse HMP as the best/most fun way to play, with UV treated more like a bonus challenge mode). Not so keen on the music track selection--I think I used IDMUS 25 after 5 minutes or so--but I'll forgive it that! It's not my favorite of Death-Destiny's maps (that would probably be "Lich" from Dark Resolution) but it was a great pleasure to revisit, nevertheless, well-chosen once again, Alfonzo. I guess next month it'll be Fava Beans or something like that since we're all in hospital now? :D

1 hour ago, Demon of the Well said:

I guess next month it'll be Fava Beans or something like that since we're all in hospital now? :D

Hah! Mapgame is probably the most comfortable our Ironmen will be allowed to get for 2017, to be honest, but yes; I don't plan to follow up Disturbia with another swift kick in the balls. Perhaps a slow, torturous wringing...

 

Fun backstory to your death, this month — and a good run! I have often wondered if the pressure to survive a final roadblock might cause me to make surprising or odd decisions that I wouldn't under normal circumstances, but outside of Mapgame's M8 (where I bottled it with fear and paid the price in barons) I've simply never found myself in a position to explore these sorts of strange scenarios. I die too readily to basic missteps early in the run!

 

That's what I really like about Ironman, though: making the ordinary player make extraordinary decisions. Perhaps one day I'll be able to suffer the sorts of psychological trauma I so desperately seek to impose on my subjects.

http://s000.tinyupload.com/?file_id=10676335995967727823

 

I finished with 822 out of 1415 kills, or alternatively 634 live monsters, thus 781 dead (41 resurrections) so either 58% or 55%.

 

This was obviously not a blind run and indeed carefully planned and prepared.

 

 

 

Overall strategy

 

I knew surviving the whole map was unfeasible. However, since non-finishers are ranked by killcount, I can get a good placement by racking up kills from the imp teleporters. I note several other players have tried this already; it's been dubbed the Thousand Imp strategy. But I believe it can be refined, to maximise its potential return. I require a large safe zone where the only active threats are the imp teleporters themselves, and an optimal amount of usable ammunition.

 

The obvious thing to do is to try to reach the keys. Each key gives a new weapon and access to large caches of ammunition. No need to go further unless you think it's worth going all the way to the next key, as going partway will simply expose you to further risk and deplete your health and ammunition reserves.

 

The Thousand Imp Strategy has a poor return using just the starting ammunition. I would like the blue key at least, for plasma and a few hundred cells plus a thousand more bullets. However, given the blue key, it turns out the red is not much more difficult to reach, and then you have three weapons, thousands of bullets, another few hundred cells, and a bonus hundred rockets. This is enough to finish with at least 700 kills, so is likely the optimal return. If playing "properly" I would need not only the yellow key but the fourth tower and the teleporter kill switch, and the map gets much harder after the red key, with multiple roaming archviles, sniper cyberdemons, and the like.

 

Then it's just a case of memorising all the traps and secrets along the way, and figuring out the safest way to clear each battle, then practising them over and over until confident of success.

 

 

 

Preparation

 

I've played the wad before when it came out. I redownloaded it and proceeded to:

• delete the horrible weapon sprites and sounds again immediately (I hope this counts as a "cosmetic mod", which I believe are allowed)
• replay the whole thing in ITYTD, twice, to refresh memory
• study most of the map in an editor to re-learn/memorise placement of secrets, triggers etc.
• watch dist-3821.lmp (ancalagon's maxdemo) at 500% playback speed two or three times
• watch everyone else's recordings as they were posted
• work out how far I could expect to get with practice and degenerate safety play ("bourlasing")
• make lots and lots of unrecorded practice runs (several dozen, over the course of the month)
• finally make one and only one recording attempt as per rules, once I felt sufficiently prepared (realistically, never) or time was running out.

I don't believe I've broken the rules; charitably you could call this another "new breed of sensible ironman" run (as with BTSX where I stopped at a convenient point having passed the part that was ending most attempts, playing the whole thing was too long) but really, what I've done here probably takes gamesmanship to an extreme. But on the other hand, I don't think the wad pick itself was very reasonable either, so consider this a form of protest :)

 

 

Notes, tactics

 

The first area outside the blue key tower can be cleared with almost complete safety by hiding in the alcove with the partial invisibility secret teleporter at the back. You can also teleport out of here then back to base to restock/heal. Thus I think it's better to leave the blue armour for later. Watch for pain elementals getting into infights, though, you may have to dash out and regain their attention unless you want to deal with dozens of lost souls.

 

The most risky battle on route to the blue key is triggered by the third switch which lowers the large lift. At this point dozens of troopers plus revenants and an archvile begin to teleport. I found the best strategy here was not to try to run out and beat the rush, but to be partially invisible and lurk at the back. Eventually the cyberdemon will come into view and start helping you damage things from the back. I mow stuff down concentrating on revenants and the archvile until I hear a revenant wake up behind me, then dodge into the back corridor and open the teleporter to the berserk secret. I then jump around the teleporter network until everything is dead. I found this strategy slightly safer than rushing out, but it's the one place where I knew if I was going to lose the run, it would be here - usually the troopers hold up the revenants+archvile but sometimes they rush you or box you in, for example.

 

On this occasion only two things went wrong. Although I did get smacked for a big damage, it was before I picked up the berserk box, and I even managed to get the cheap telefrag in the secret. However, I courted disaster by firstly forgetting to get the blue armour before pressing the switch (the chances of an accidental archvile blast are quite high) and worse by not sufficiently carefully luring the cyberdemon out of harm's way before going up the lift. After I had the blue key I realised to my horror I would have to jump down the lift shaft with it at the bottom. Although I had full blue armour I could still have easily died to a couple of rockets at close range. Somehow though it astonishingly chose not to attack as I fell past. I then lure it towards the base entrance, into a spot where it can neither dodge much, nor hit me with rockets because the low wall of the "mouth" blocks it, safer than fighting in the open. This must really upset its brother the mouth guardian who can do nothing but watch :)

 

Onto the red key. Clearing the area outside its tower is easier, having the more powerful plasma gun, space to retreat to, and a lot of cover. Plus many of the monsters are fixed in place or can be dealt with one at a time. Overall it is much less chaotic. I then go behind the chaingunner gantry to another health cache and home base extension. I open the armour secret, but don't use the teleporter - it's much safer to go round, and clear it from the other side. Sadly, you can't get a second cheap telefrag here, I've tried.

 

Then I open the way to the red key tower. I try to kill off a couple of the pain elementals quickly with plasma. If you're good at dodging fire coming from behind, you can leave the teleporting imps for a bit, the pain elementals and chaingunners are more dangerous. I don't kill the two revenants until later because they're likely to get resurrected, I just use cover to dodge their missiles.

 

Now the red key's version of the nasty trap at the bottom of the blue key lift. However the sequel is nowhere near as risky. There's even a baron telefrag for free! I fill the air in front of me with plasma, and run as fast as possible back to cover outside. Unlike with the blue key tower, the only things that can follow you out are three chaingunners because there is a very convenient monster blocking line in the entrance. On the other hand I found it safer to clear the monsters inside myself instead of trying to get a monster fight going. The cyberdemon is an easy kill as it can't move, but do remember there is an archvile hiding behind it.

 

Finally I am instantly lifted to the top of the red key tower, into an ambush. You are rather exposed here so it's good to have as much health and armour as possible. Stay in the corner to your right and plasma everything in front of you quickly, then run into the corner at the start of the passage behind and kill the troopers and pain elemental. Basically use as much cover as possible and know how you're going to move in advance. Finally with the red key, I symbolically kiss its switch but don't press it, and return to the imp teleporters.

 

For getting the rocket launcher and a bunch of extra ammo, this is the one place where a partial invisibility is strongly advisable. Where you use the other two is a matter of taste, but here you will be instantly surrounded on all sides by hitscanners and it's so late in the run you really wouldn't want to lose it here. Blast your way out in the initial confusion.

 

All of this takes just under half an hour. I then spend a further fifteen minutes emptying the imp teleporter. Monster vertical aim is rather inaccurate - there are several places to make your stand where fireballs pass hilariously close to the top of your head without actual contact. Actually fully emptying the teleporter was unusual, I had only managed it once during practice and wasn't expecting it.

 

Eventually with no more targets I returned to the start of the map and ended the recording. I thought about sacrificing myself to the mouth guardian, but why give it the satisfaction :)

 

A whole hour was wasted for mere 432 kills. I knew it wasn't going to go well when chaingunners almost killed me at the very beginning. I was quite surprised to make it this far despite mismanaging all my resources and putting myself in a pretty disadvantageous position several times.

On 03/06/2017 at 3:07 PM, Memfis said:

GreyGhost to the rescue!

 

Memfis to the rescue! Thanks :D

 

On 03/06/2017 at 6:30 PM, Ribbiks said:

nice demo bloodite, grats :).

 

After revisiting this map I'm surprised by how much less difficult it seemed than I remembered. that is, if you know how to avoid traps, know where (borderline mandatory?) secrets are located, and from where it's safe to kill annoying sniper mobs... I would've said the two biggest areas that require good execution are the BFG hallway and the final caves, but I didn't realize how OP the invul is in letting you skip to the 3rd cave section.

 

On a side note I encourage those who were put off by UV to give it a play though on HMP, it's a raucously fun map on that setting, even blind.

 

Thanks (: It's one of DD's most forgiving offerings, given the surplus of caches you can retreat to in the event of taking a bludgeoning and the ability to escape most teleporter ambush encounters by retreating out of the room quickly. By contrast his other levels envelop the player with claustrophobia, forcing you into small areas with teleporter ambushes appearing all around you, with an instinctual reflex required to avoid getting plastered quickly. It's a key distinction with other maps in the slaughter genre which provide the player with dodging room and the capacity to cheese or backtrack encounters, DD broke this mold by creating a level design aesthetic which forces the player into most encounters with no plausible escape and is very unforgiving putting you point blank in nearly every situation.

 

 

On 04/06/2017 at 1:43 PM, WH-Wilou84 said:

Here's my attempt - 435 monsters killed, ~1 hour.

As a Death-Destiny fanboi I'm pretty familiar with this map. It's a masterpiece, even if it's not my fave from this author.
Funnily enough, the recently-released Stardate 20X7 also has an "infinite turret spawn" gimmick in a trap in its last map, and playing said map a couple weeks ago made me want to replay Disturbia again. Thanks to Alfonzo for giving me the opportunity to do so. :p

Made it pretty far, but then things went south. I handled the yellow key quest quite poorly and could never recover, only to be put out of misery by the Cyberdemon in the BFG9000 corridor while trying to sneak past him.

Man, what an epic challenge :)
I fear I could never handle the ending flesh caves properly anyway, as ammo is at a premium there, but I'd have been glad to reach them.
Congrats Bloodite, once again !

Disturbia-Ironman-CyberCloseUp-wh.zip

 

Merci (:

 

An impressive undertaking, floundering in the BFG corridor is fatal as the Archviles bring you to the brink of death if multiple hits are sustained, such was the case with myself due to clumsy movement and misanticipating the timing of their attacks, I was fortunate to not panic at the Cyber's intimidating approach. The dreaded flesh caves is an inexorable obstactle to claiming victory, it requires precise execution and foreknowledge of the Archvile ambushes to come, if ammo isn't stocked up prior to entering you've already shot yourself in the foot, if the Archvile teleports catch you off guard they'll spread everywhere like a swarm of spiders and pin you down in the blink of an eye. I recall my first playthrough of the level and reaching the area with a gross lack of resources and being baffled at how it's possible to due the absence of health, with the troll health potions sealing your fate :) then seeing it's a case of going in well stocked.

 

 

14 hours ago, Demon of the Well said:

Insomnia strikes, so I gave this a whirl just a few minutes ago: Nocturnal Disturbances afoot.

 

Equal parts well-traveled and clumsy, this run lasted longer than it had any right to, and overcame a number of huge blunders on my part before finally petering out. Ultimately died in the same place as Ancaalagon, though for a different reason. Previously, I'd heard tell of the V-sphere stretch strategy that Krypto used to great effect, and so thought I'd try it myself, as I've never taken that tack before in my prior experiences with the map. Unfortunately, as I've not played the map in years, muscle memory alone was not nearly sharp enough to see me pull the very tight run off on top of the sphere's visual handicap, so I took a wrong turn and got stuck just floundering uselessly about near the first coven of warping viles in the flesh caves. Was able to drop down to the next cave before it expired, but got beat up by the viles there and then polished off by the wallflower cybie when skittering towards the magic potion. Probably not my smartest idea, in hindsight--I think skipping the guys in the first cave actually cost me a scoreboard place over Anc by something like a dozen kills or so, hah!--but it was fun to try, since I figured I'd snuff it in one of the traps before even reaching the mass kill-switch anyway (check out that 1% health moment!).

 

Disturbia's a fantastic map, incidentally. It starts off kind of slow--you'll notice even Krypto was pussyfooting around somewhat in the early game--but it delivers on its ammo-dump concept to great effect, with a gripping tight balance for UV that sustains tactical interest for the duration, as opposed to the same concept in "The Mucus Flow" which after a certain point does get to feeling like a bit of a chore (all the hiking and whatnot). The chaingun start and lack of buckshot weapons are also quite memorable, though the former still feels slightly underpowered in spite of its augmentations against the UV population (though of course D-D always did endorse HMP as the best/most fun way to play, with UV treated more like a bonus challenge mode). Not so keen on the music track selection--I think I used IDMUS 25 after 5 minutes or so--but I'll forgive it that! It's not my favorite of Death-Destiny's maps (that would probably be "Lich" from Dark Resolution) but it was a great pleasure to revisit, nevertheless, well-chosen once again, Alfonzo. I guess next month it'll be Fava Beans or something like that since we're all in hospital now? :D

 

An exceptional effort, despite the few lethal flaws which brought you to the brink of death, you maintained consistently high health throughout, it was especially impressive demolishing the BFG corridor without taking so much as a graze, where as I took a pummeling throughout and made several uncanny errors.

 

I was perturbed by your strategy following crushing the Arachnotrons prior to the Megasphere secret, unleashing the duo Archvile and Cyber pair on the lift, but rather then dispense them quickly, instead luring the AV's out to resurrect the imps and taking refuge by the corner up the lift, which only exasperated the danger of the encounter and extended it's duration. I assume it was due to not recalling the best strategy (:

 

It was a shame the boon of the Mega was taken away by the crossfire of the Cyber duo, a more acceptable fate then the embarassment of eating a rocket from the distant turret cyber as was my case xD A tragic turn of events in the flesh caves, if you made it to the caverns below, I'm certain you would have claimed victory.

 

I'm personally hoping for a megawad next month, of moderate length and seasoned difficulty.

 

7 hours ago, RjY said:

http://s000.tinyupload.com/?file_id=10676335995967727823

 

I finished with 822 out of 1415 kills, or alternatively 634 live monsters, thus 781 dead (41 resurrections) so either 58% or 55%.

 

This was obviously not a blind run and indeed carefully planned and prepared.

 

A great attempt, but it was peculiar and disappointing you didn't go for a full attempt given the extortionate amount of preparation you did :D playing it twice, watching everyones attempt, practicing it several times, but choosing to go for the most optimal means of farming kills. Nonetheless it was an intriguing read and undertaking :)

Almost completely blind, killed few monsters but forgot how many. Recorded a few days ago but I couldn't be bothered to post until now.

distrbia_Ironman_shock.zip

Edited July 1, 2017 by 4shockblast

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/155710361

 

I played like shit but I got the red key. You gotta set achievable goals, right?

RjY has a very interesting stat - he's either survived or DNF'd. He never died so far this year.

@Bloodite Krypto I do apologise. However you overestimate my raw skills - Doom is still a random game, and all the advance planning in the world cannot make up for my terribly slow, and increasingly worsening, reaction times. That I chose to exploit the rules and engage in gamesmanship is less justifiable, but as I said, consider it a protest against the map choice.

 

As penance (and also with apologies for thread resurrection) please enjoy this alternative interpretation of the results.

 

 

 

Ranking by sectorcount

 

sectorcount is the number of unique sectors visited by the player. This is another way to measure level completion that is less susceptible to the Thousand Imp strategy, thus providing an alternative ranking.

 

sect  dead  chng
--------------------------------
1222  1377   +1   ancalagon
1163  1415   -1   dstrb-3821 (*)
1157  1360   +1   dotw
1156  1368   -1   bloodite_k (*)
 891   441   +1   veinen
 861   432   +1   beginner
 821   405   +1   wh_wilou
 755   397   +1   ribbiks
 500   781   -4   rjy
 483   250   +4   an_mutt
 432   255   +2   roofi
 374   140   +4   aquasa
 344   114   +4   anima_zero
 299   355   -3   noisyvelvet
 281   112   +3   alfonzo
 260    96   +3   elmle
 247    90   +3   dl_simc
 212   168   -3   doomlover234
 196   261   -7   bonnie
 172    86   +1   rodster
 169    80   +1   ssgmaster
 162    48   +1   cannonball
 155   365  -13   scotty
 144    34   +3   judgedeadd
 130    40    0   4shock
 125    45   -2   cynical
 114    30   +1   walter_c
 111    36   -2   gordon
 110    26    0   crusader_nr
 101    16   +2   sparktimus
  86    20    0   bzzrak
  78    24   -2   bashe
  19     2    0   loveless

sect - total unique sectors visited (max 2596)
dead - total dead monsters (max 1415)
chng - change in rank if sectorcount used

(*) - player exited level

 

 

 

Analysis

 

The obvious thing to note is that those players who employed the Thousand Imp strategy fell drastically down the ranking :)

 

We also see that surviving players have slightly lower sectorcounts than those who only almost made it. Suggesting they were able to take a more direct route to the finish. This correlates with a lower killcount of a surviving player who was able to skip monsters that the less fortunate were forced to deal with.

 

sectorcount is only a heuristic, like killcount. Not a true measure of progression. Sadly I do not believe such a measure can be consistently defined.

 

Unfortunately the method requires a prboom-plus-compatible demo, from which to extract results. Players who only posted videos are omitted.

 

dstrb-3821 is Ancalagon's maxdemo, provided for comparison.

 

 

 

Source