Pacifist god

[ducon]

When I’m bored I play very hard WADs in godmode but with the pacifist style.
I must not be cornered (if not I won’t reach the end, or until a monster hits another), please don’t jump, I must not hit any monster, even not on purpose but I can shoot (with no damage) to wake them up, I can action crushers and telefrag them (oops, wrong place).
I try to kill as much monsters I can.
Maybe some Doomgods play like this without godmode…
P.S.: I posted this in the Demos section but…

[Grazza]

Well if you take away the godmode, this sounds a bit like Ryback's "Hypocritical Pacifist", where you try to kill as many monsters as possible without actually using weapons to harm them directly.

He originally described that in a txt for a long pacifist where he had achieved rather a high proportion of kills. I don't recall anyone deliberately setting out to record such a demo. Some Tyson demos come pretty close though.

[xit-vono]

Sounds very similar to the Quake naked style. The rules for that are fairly simple: No weapons, but you can do anything else to kill monsters. The goal is to kill as many monsters as possible(with time as a tiebreaker) but at the Quake site there is a maximum time of 15 minutes I think so as to prevent boring demos. Quake naked is of course played without godmode. I personally prefer the no weapons restriction over what we currently have where it can be somewhat difficult to determine if a monster got hurt, and also the rules on crushers and telefrags are unclear. You could either play it to kill as many monsters as possible or just like a speedrun.

[Kristian Ronge]

Grazza said:
I don't recall anyone deliberately setting out to record such a demo.

I did a Hypocritical Pacifist Max of E2M2 last year (i.e. killing all monsters using only infighting, crushers, and deaths from monsters hitting barrels). It took me >70 minutes, so it's a snooze-o-rama of a demo, though, and wouldn't be any interesting for anyone to watch.

[Schneelocke]

Kristian Ronge said:

I did a Hypocritical Pacifist Max of E2M2 last year (i.e. killing all monsters using only infighting, crushers, and deaths from monsters hitting barrels). It took me >70 minutes, so it's a snooze-o-rama of a demo, though, and wouldn't be any interesting for anyone to watch.

I'd like to watch it actually. Using -timedemo, it should be watchable, too, at least... :)

[RamboBones]

Schneelocke said:

I'd like to watch it actually. Using -timedemo, it should be watchable, too, at least... :)

Make that two

[Kristian Ronge]

Well, alright, I dug it up, just for you (the timestamp is incorrect, this demo was recorded sometime in October 2005).

The time wasn't as bad as I thought, by the way, "only" 51:38. ;-)

E2M2 Hypocritical Pacifist Max in 51:38.

[Schneelocke]

That was interesting. :) BTW, since you mention it in your text file... can you do (intentional) telefrags in pacifist demos? I always thought that only unintentional ones were allowed (although that's probably hard to determine afterwards), but maybe I'm wrong.

[exp(x)]

I'm surprised you didn't do 100% items.

[Kristian Ronge]

Schneelocke said:
That was interesting. :)

Heh, well, I'm glad you didn't find it an utter waste of time.

BTW, since you mention it in your text file... can you do (intentional) telefrags in pacifist demos? I always thought that only unintentional ones were allowed (although that's probably hard to determine afterwards), but maybe I'm wrong.

Intentional telefrags are *not* allowed in Pacifist demos, however in Hypocritical Pacifist they are.

I quote from Ryback's p1m66514.txt:
"In Hypocritical Pacifist recordings, the aim is to kill as many monsters on a level as possible - *without actually kiling them yourself*. Like a cross between Tyson and Pacifist. So acceptable techniques would include:
* encouraging monsters to fight each other
* getting monsters to blow up barrels and kill themselves
* punching barrels that kill monsters ("How was I to know it was explosive - I was just letting off steam!")
* luring monsters under crushers ("Honest officer, I didn't know he was going to follow me there... pleez officer, not the cuffs...")
* hitting switches that activate traps that kill monsters ("Don't look at me - *I* didn't wire up this place...")
* intentional telefrags ("I thought he got out of the way in time... don't look at me like that")


Of course, there are always going to be grey areas regarding telefragging. As Grazza mentioned in this thread (the Stroller Pack), even avoidable unintentional telefrags may be forbidden. You just have to judge on a case-to-case basis.

Hope this clears things up a little.

exp(x) said:
I'm surprised you didn't do 100% items.

I'm surprised you'd expect me to run around collecting all the health potions and armor helmets on that map???

[Schneelocke]

Kristian Ronge said:

I quote from Ryback's p1m66514.txt:
* intentional telefrags ("I thought he got out of the way in time... don't look at me like that")

That quote seems to suggest that they actually are problematic, though, and that when you do one after all, it's gonna be a "of course it was unintentional, wink-wink-nudge-nudge" afterwards, mostly since you can't determine whether it was intentional or not from the demo itself, anyway.

In any case, I was just wondering because it seemed to me that hypocritical pacifist was a variant on pacifist - i.e., pacifist with a different goal (most kills instead of fastest time, similar to how MMH demos have a different goal. Speaking of which, has anyone actually ever done any of these?).

If hypocritical pacifist does allow intentional telefrags while "normal" pacifist doesn't, that's fine, of course, but it would be a bit unfortunate (IMO) since it would mean that the categories, despite their names, are actually subtly different.

So I really just want to be sure. :)

[Kristian Ronge]

Schneelocke said:
That quote seems to suggest that they actually are problematic, though, and that when you do one after all, it's gonna be a "of course it was unintentional, wink-wink-nudge-nudge" afterwards, mostly since you can't determine whether it was intentional or not from the demo itself, anyway.

There are instances where you can easily tell whether or not a telefrag is intentional. For example, watching a monster enter a teleport and then immediately running into the teleport after it, is clearly an intentional telefrag. Teleporting across an entire, huge map to a large area where a few monsters roam freely and thereby telefragging a monster, is clearly an unintentional telefrag.

In any case, I was just wondering because it seemed to me that hypocritical pacifist was a variant on pacifist - i.e., pacifist with a different goal (most kills instead of fastest time, similar to how MMH demos have a different goal. Speaking of which, has anyone actually ever done any of these?).

I would not consider Hypocritical pacifist a variant of Pacifist, as much of the actions forbidden in Pacifist playing (such as intentional telefragging, and activating crushers to kill monsters, etc) is allowed. As for MMH demos, these are found for many IWAD maps in the COMPET-N database.

If hypocritical pacifist does allow intentional telefrags while "normal" pacifist doesn't, that's fine, of course, but it would be a bit unfortunate (IMO) since it would mean that the categories, despite their names, are actually subtly different.

Yes, but ... then again, isn't NM and NM100S also "just" subtly different? (especially for maps with no secrets, or, say, one secret which is almost essential for the completion of the map)

[Schneelocke]

Kristian Ronge said:

Yes, but ... then again, isn't NM and NM100S also "just" subtly different? (especially for maps with no secrets, or, say, one secret which is almost essential for the completion of the map)

Yeah, but those are actually similar in a way that pacifist and hypocifist (to coin a new, shorter term ^^) aren't. With NM and NM100S, it's just the goals/requirements that are different, but you're allowed to the same things in both categories.

Ah well. :) I was really just trying to make sure that this difference is intentional - i.e., that the hypocifist definition that allows intentional telefrags and the like is actually the "standard" one. :)

[Grazza]

I'm sure the difference is intentional - Ryback's bracketed remarks were surely intended to be humorous explanations to justify the name he gave the category, but the actual rules for the category are as expressed outside the parenthesis.

Kristian Ronge said:
Teleporting across an entire, huge map to a large area where a few monsters roam freely and thereby telefragging a monster, is clearly an unintentional telefrag.

There's still of course the issue of whether you had any way of making sure the destination was clear*. Even then, I can think of cases where it might not be clear-cut. For instance, if you deliberately repeat this teleporting until you "accidentally" telefrag a monster that you need to kill in order to make progress (or end the level even), is it really still an unintentional telefrag?

<small>* This rule will tend to make some pacifists very luck-based, as any method to clear the area might take a hideously long time. In some cases the right strategy (to avoid relying on pure luck) might be to avoid awakening any monsters that might stray onto the destination, if such an approach is available.</small>

[myk]

I think that any teleport kills should be disallowed in (normal) pacifist, except in contexts like COMPET-N to make sure as many maps as possible are doable (especially the ones from the two main IWADs.)

[Grazza]

I can't agree with that at all. That would make a lot of maps a complete waste of time for pacifist, as a run could be wiped out due to things over which you have no control.

My basic point in my previous post (in case it wasn't clear) was that a route that relies on getting an "accidental" telefrag doesn't strike me as being in the spirit of the pacifist category.

[Kristian Ronge]

Does that mean that e.g. the p4m2 secret exit demos for COMPET-N are "invalid" in your book? There's a slight chance that you could get all those Cacos to kill the Cyberdemon.

Grazza said:
There's still of course the issue of whether you had any way of making sure the destination was clear. Even then, I can think of cases where it might not be clear-cut.

Oh, yes, of course. IMHO you would have to judge this on a case-to-case basis. Repeating teleporting to get an "accidental" telefrag is unacceptable, for instance. But let's say there's a very low chance in telefragging (you teleport to a large area where there's only one, slow, monster, like a zombieman), and the only way you can be 100% sure not to telefrag it is by making a large de-tour and for example try to get it to be hit by an imp's fireball from a large distance (where it is aiming at you),which may take several minutes, and with lots of other monsters shooting at you... I feel it would be utterly ridiculous to disallow a pacifist entry with the telefrag in that case.

EDIT: Spelling

[myk]

Grazza said:
That would make a lot of maps a complete waste of time for pacifist, as a run could be wiped out due to things over which you have no control.

It would make some practically (or clearly) impossible too; but then some maps make you punch monsters for hours on end if you try them on Tyson mode. What does "non-intentional" constitute? An admin or judge could well say "I think you could have avoided that telefrag; you should have stood in that corner listening to determine if there were monsters in that other area, or should have stood in this other for a while making sure all the monsters migrated away from the teleporter" and other elaborate requests or argumentations. Except for some obvious things (like when a monster stands on a teleport landing on the other side which is not accessible otherwise), you can't really know what's under the player's control, so while one could come up with a recording that supposedly has "unintentional" telefrags, another could submit a demo where he does a good work on making a reliably "accident-free" route. If any ouch route or procedure, that wasn't obvious from the start, is found, it should disqualify any previous supposedly valid pacifists that caused telefrags that were avoidable through such (or another) strategy (this in the scenario where unintentional telefrags are allowed.)

[Grazza]

Kristian Ronge said:

Does that mean that e.g. the p4m2 secret exit demos for COMPET-N are "invalid" in your book? There's a slight chance that you could get all those Cacos to kill the Cyberdemon.

Perhaps that's a situation where you could have subcategories - two records within the same category as it were. I notice that for some Quake max demos involving zombies but inadequate weapons to kill them directly, they have more than one record - one for everything but the zombies killed, and one for everything (or as much as possible) killed, which may mean a very laborious procedure by which stuff is lured around in order to get the zombies killed by other devious means.* In the p4m2s case, someone would have to show that it was possible first before such a bifurcation had any point though.

One could also question the convention that a completely unavoidable telefrag on the only route to the exit should be allowed (rather than just saying that Pacifist is impossible in that case). This convention does seem pretty well established though. (Heh, I notice that I described my old tv14 demos as Pacifist too.)

Kristian Ronge said:

But let's say there's a very low chance in telefragging (you teleport to a large area where there's only one, slow, monster, like a zombieman), and the only way you can be 100% sure not to telefrag it is by making a large de-tour and for example try to get it to be hit by an imp's fireball from a large distance (where it is aiming at you),which may take several minutes, and with lots of other monsters shooting at you... I feel it would be utterly ridiculous to disallow a pacifist entry with the telefrag in that case.

That's the kind of situation I was referring to in my footnote in my last post but one.

Actually, I'm not sure I'm in full agreement with AdamH's ruling on the initial ep29**. My natural inclination would be to allow "accidental but reckless" telefrags (I think that's a fair description of one like this, where it is in theory possible to avoid the risk) that don't really have any benefit to the player. Otherwise, as you say, when this ruling is taken to its logical conclusion, you can end up with some bizarre situations.

One marginal case from my own experience is dg06p947. That included an accidental telefrag where I had no way of making sure the destination was clear. The telefrag was slightly helpful to me, but certainly not essential in order to get where I needed to go. If it hadn't been such a bitchy run, I might have tried to rerecord as it felt a little displeasing, but I believe overall that it was within the boundaries of pacificivity.

<small>* I may have misunderstood something here - I watch a lot of Quake demos, but have no experience of Quake speedrunning.

** And it seems odd to me to disallow this, but to allow the hp19 route where you quite avoidably crush the lost souls at the start.</small>

[myk]

Kristian Ronge said:
Does that mean that e.g. the p4m2 secret exit demos for COMPET-N are "invalid" in your book? There's a slight chance that you could get all those Cacos to kill the Cyberdemon.

Actually "secret exit speed runs" are another instance of a kind of demo that stems from drawing more juice from the original wads (and they make sense in that context) but are they really necessary for PWADs? Why not just stick to the quickest exit for speed runs (or in pacifist, the quickest pacifist route)? It's not like secret exits matter in movie runs (or else there would be separate "speed" and "speed + secret map" movie categories.)

[xit-vono]

My opinion is that telefrags should be allowed under most circumstances. For example, if you are simply running the level as fast as possible you can get away with anything, even running into a teleport just after a monster. However, if you slow down to wait for a monster to reach a teleport spot(or for him to enter before you), then that would be not allowed. Also, for crushers, if you activate it by switch, then it should rarely be allowed, except for example rq08 where there is no other way to finish the map. I doubt that rq08 is possible anyways due to tons of blocking monsters, but this would be an example of what I'm talking about. If you activate a crusher by walking over a line and that line is on your route, then it's ok to kill monsters with them, as long as you don't slow down to lure monsters under them.