Meowgi's Practice Hub [Boom compat, -complevel 9]

[Meowgi]

Practice Hub is a Boom-compatible wad (-cl9) that showcases, teaches, and allows the player to practice the most common tricks and techniques within the vanilla Doom engine. It is a one-stop shop to help new and seasoned players alike learn and master speedrunning tech. The main map (MAP01) features a central hub and nine rooms, each dedicated to different tech including 2-Shotting Cybers, Glides, Platforming, a "Shooting Range", Item Bumping, SR50/Movement, Archvile Jumps, Zero Press, and Rocketjumping.

 

Each of the rooms branching from the main hub have their own ILs (Maps 02-10), plus a "Thank you" (No Underhalls) Map, and a Super Duper Secret Map. Additionally, the Hub room was designed with speedrunning in mind, where one of each colored skull key allows a UV Speed exit, but all rooms + advanced rooms are required for UV-Max. Pacifist, NoMo, and Stroller categories are confirmed possible (sorry Tyson!)

 

Each room will be accompanied by a youtube video that describes the tech and tips for how to perform the tricks.
Once created, the videos will be listed here (I plan to have the first tutorial, dedicated to SR50, created this week). In the meantime, if anyone would like assistance with how to complete any of these rooms/tricks, feel free to DM me and I would be more than happy to teach!

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

DSDA-Doom or PRBoom+ are highly recommended! Because this wad intends to focus on speedrunning/vanilla engine tech, it has not been tested for nor is it intended for GZ/ZDoom ports.

 

Big thanks to my playtesters!:

akolai

Colossus

Gosu_Noob

Kvothesixstring

Spendoragon

 

 

DOWNLOAD:

PracticeHub.zip

idgames mirror

 

Screenshots:

Spoiler

Platforming:

 

Shooting Gallery:

 

Archvile Jumps:

 

SR50:

 

 

Edited May 6, 2023 by Meowgi
Updated with Glide Guide

[Colossus]

He helped me with the zero press too
 

[Electro Rage]

He helped me with the zero press too

[Degree23]

Fantastic idea, and seems to be really well made. For my own skillset, the yellow key seems by far the hardest to get as I can platform pretty well (easily well enough for the first key anyway) and I can 2-shot Cyberdemons almost all the time thanks to tom19.wad Map 31, where you have to do that to 100 Cyberdemons. Zero pressing, item grabs, and glides, however, are not things I ever use in my playthroughs of WADs, so they will be where I spend by far the most time trying to get a key! Despite that, I do like how you've grouped the levels into general themes. Blue seems to be about movement, yellow seems to be about tricks and red seems to be about combat.

 

I'm also looking forward to a video for the advanced SR50 because that looks absolutely bonkers to complete.

[Meowgi]

2 hours ago, Degree23 said:

Fantastic idea, and seems to be really well made. For my own skillset, the yellow key seems by far the hardest to get as I can platform pretty well (easily well enough for the first key anyway) and I can 2-shot Cyberdemons almost all the time thanks to tom19.wad Map 31, where you have to do that to 100 Cyberdemons. Zero pressing, item grabs, and glides, however, are not things I ever use in my playthroughs of WADs, so they will be where I spend by far the most time trying to get a key! Despite that, I do like how you've grouped the levels into general themes. Blue seems to be about movement, yellow seems to be about tricks and red seems to be about combat.

 

I'm also looking forward to a video for the advanced SR50 because that looks absolutely bonkers to complete.

 

Are you having issues with the Yellow Skull Key or the Yellow Key Card (behind the bars)? The YSK should be bumpable with SR40, but is much easier with SR50. It's just about getting the correct angle and if you aren't sure what angle to take, ramming into it for a minute or so at different angles should give you an idea. The YKC is a lot trickier because you need to get a "wobble" on the impassable bars, but rather than just run at it and pray, it requires you to run to get a wobble, STOP (this causes you to "slip" closer to the bars), then SR50 against the bars at an angle that will allow you to grab the key. If none of this makes sense, I can post a demo to show how it is performed, or you can wait for the youtube tutorial :)

Also, I'm glad someone picked up on the "themes" for the keys. What you described is exactly what I was going for so I'm glad it came across well :)

[GarrettChan]

He helped me with the zero press two

 

Am I crazy that I missed the complevel? (Oh, I saw it in the txt, but I guess putting in the title of the thread makes it better)

Edited December 22, 2021 by GarrettChan

[Meowgi]

5 minutes ago, GarrettChan said:

He helped me with the zero press two

 

Am I crazy that I missed the complevel? (Oh, I saw it in the txt, but I guess putting in the title of the thread makes it better)

 

Good call ;)

[Andromeda]

Spotted a typo in the text file under "Primary purpose", should be Single instead of Singe.

 

Good stuff, recorded a couple of low effort demos for your viewing (dis)pleasure:

practicehub_demos.zip

 

^{(This wad should be bundled with DSDA-Doom honestly)}

Edited December 22, 2021 by Andromeda

[DuckReconMajor]

Fun stuff. Managed to do the glides and zero presses, both regular and bonus. Died to stupid arch vile

Probably a silly question but going into the menu to turn "Carry Fractional Tics" on and off is legal in a demo, right?

demo

[BigBoy91]

Awesome idea!

[Meowgi]

1 hour ago, DuckReconMajor said:

Fun stuff. Managed to do the glides and zero presses, both regular and bonus. Died to stupid arch vile

Probably a silly question but going into the menu to turn "Carry Fractional Tics" on and off is legal in a demo, right?

demo

 

Yes turning CFT off is legal, but I've been told before not to switch it mid-recording as it could mess with demo playback. I haven't ever tried it myself though. Maybe someone who knows better than I could chime in.

[GarrettChan]

 

10 minutes ago, Meowgi said:

Yes turning CFT off is legal, but I've been told before not to switch it mid-recording as it could mess with demo playback. I haven't ever tried it myself though. Maybe someone who knows better than I could chime in.

I never turn that on because it messed up my movement, but I guess there's no point to switch it on or off during a run unlike Y movement... but on the safe side, everything with a switch could potentially mess up something... (like strict mode toggle is not fixed until 0.20 or something)

[Meowgi]

The use case for it is it makes VMM guides much easier, as you are less likely to accidentally turn left or right one tic when moving your mouse forward.

[GarrettChan]

Oh yeah, that's true. I guess I don't have this issue because it's always off on my side.

[Jacek Bourne]

Excellent. I’ve been thinking about making a map like this for several months. You’ve beaten me to it.

[Spendoragon]

This helped me press my zero too. Grats on the release mang

Edited December 22, 2021 by Spendoragon

[El Juancho]

Thank you meowgi

[Daerik]

I helped him with the zero press too

[El Inferno]

 

Cool! Definitely going to use some of these :) Small things:

- The water in the first advanced platforming section is not damaging.

- In the first sr50 room you don't really need sr50, can wall-run instead. 

- In the advanced 2shotting I think bfg-rushing those cybs is both safer and faster than trying to 2 shot them :) 

[Degree23]

1 hour ago, El Inferno said:

- In the advanced 2shotting I think bfg-rushing those cybs is both safer and faster than trying to 2 shot them :) 

 

And I think for 2-shot rooms, don't give more BFG ammo than is necessary, which you can do by using the smaller ammo pickup.

[Maribo]

For the advanced BFG two-shotting room, I took it as an exercise in popping the BFG ball on the wall and quickly stepping out with tracers to two-shot. The space is so tight for the first two that it functions as two instances of that and then a final instance of a two-shot in a very narrow hallway.

[Meowgi]

2 hours ago, El Inferno said:

 

Cool! Definitely going to use some of these :) Small things:

- The water in the first advanced platforming section is not damaging.

- In the first sr50 room you don't really need sr50, can wall-run instead. 

- In the advanced 2shotting I think bfg-rushing those cybs is both safer and faster than trying to 2 shot them :) 

 

Thanks for the note about the lack of damaging floor. Will fix.

I left the wallrun in that room so I can showcase it in the video. My thought is, its a straight line where you press four buttons and if you don't use the room for its intended purpose of finding a comfortable set of binds, there isn't really a reason to say you beat it or whatever.

 

1 hour ago, Maribo said:

For the advanced BFG two-shotting room, I took it as an exercise in popping the BFG ball on the wall and quickly stepping out with tracers to two-shot. The space is so tight for the first two that it functions as two instances of that and then a final instance of a two-shot in a very narrow hallway.

 

^This was the intended strategy for the advanced room, with the third being a setup where you can "prime" a BFG ball by firing it and running with it to stack tracers. I didn't expect the player to 2 shot these, and thats why I left the ammo in from the map its referencing :)

Edited December 23, 2021 by Meowgi

[kvothesixstring]

I am the proverbial one who was helped with the zero press as well. 

Thanks for making this and I am glad I could help with testing. This is a good resource for the community and I am proud of you. 

[El Inferno]

Did a run of platforming map. Maybe will do advanced section later, it a bit tough to do full speed :)

 

Map 6 in 17.8: hub6-00489.zip

Spoiler

 

 

[Meowgi]

36 minutes ago, El Inferno said:

Did a run of platforming map. Maybe will do advanced section later, it a bit tough to do full speed :)

 

Map 6 in 17.8: hub6-00489.zip

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

 

Incredible time! and yeah the max route for that one will be hard to optimize I think

 

Keep these demos btw. The only changes that have been made are 2 textures in the glide room and the addition of a damaging floor to the advanced platforming stair segment. Hopefully it doesn't cause desyncs with the current demos people have already recorded

[Meowgi]

Here is the first guide to accompany the map: Movement Basics and SR50. Let me know if you find this helpful, and look forward to more!

 

 

[Meowgi]

The wad is finally on idgames! : https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/p-r/practicehub

 

Also the demo thread is up if anyone wants to speedrun it: 

 

 

 

[pagophagia]

alright so I'm a huge noob to dsda doom. How do I enable shorttics? I'm guessing I have to go into the .cfg file but I have no idea where to put the parameter.

[Maribo]

13 minutes ago, pagophagia said:

alright so I'm a huge noob to dsda doom. How do I enable shorttics? I'm guessing I have to go into the .cfg file but I have no idea where to put the parameter.

-shorttics in command line.

Example:

dsda-doom -file PracticeHub.wad -complevel 9 -shorttics -skill 4 -warp 1

[Meowgi]

2 hours ago, pagophagia said:

alright so I'm a huge noob to dsda doom. How do I enable shorttics? I'm guessing I have to go into the .cfg file but I have no idea where to put the parameter.

 

+1 to what Maribo said, although if you are using a launcher in lieu of the command line, it may be called something else. Below is a pic of how it looks in ZDL for reference: