ScoreDoom 2.9 Full Release (updated to 2.9g)

[Nems]

BilboHicks said:

Awesome news

:D

Sweet! I'll have to give this a go and try to tinker around with the add-on pack again. Haven't had a chance with college keeping me busy.

Awesome progress and news as always, BilboHicks.

[gun_psycho]

I found two bugs so far: The Vetis crashed as soon as I summoned him for some reason. Also, when not in no-infighting mode, if a baron chain monster gets frozen upon death, the entire chain breaks.

I'll definitely keep my eye out for more bugs.

Edit: Why is it that certain monsters like the Chaos Wyvern and the Karasawa guy have those weird boxes surrounding their sprites? Also, the Deathbringer's ricocheting plasma doesn't deal any damage at all if I remember right, shouldn't it at least deal at least a small amount of damage per bolt?

[BilboHicks]

gun_psycho said:

I found two bugs so far: The Vetis crashed as soon as I summoned him for some reason. Also, when not in no-infighting mode, if a baron chain monster gets frozen upon death, the entire chain breaks.

I'll definitely keep my eye out for more bugs.

Edit: Why is it that certain monsters like the Chaos Wyvern and the Karasawa guy have those weird boxes surrounding their sprites? Also, the Deathbringer's ricocheting plasma doesn't deal any damage at all if I remember right, shouldn't it at least deal at least a small amount of damage per bolt?

Thanks a lot.

First off to get rid of those boxes: In opengl options, turn 'Smooth Sprite Edges' from 'off' to 'on'. I may make 'on' the default.

Hmmn interesting about the Vetis. Seems ok to me. Are you using an ATI card with the latest drivers (I've heard they have problems)?

Same with the baron chains. Any 'boss' should be freeze-proof on the map07, e1m8... specials. This is probably happening in 2.8 as well.

[gun_psycho]

My ATI graphics card's a Radeon Xpress 200, as my computer still runs fine in opengl mode (except on the bigger maps) and I have no idea how exactly he crashes the game upon spawning. (I was testing out the new monsters, and when I summoned Vetis, the game just crashed with no explanation.)

Oh, and need I mention that I was surprised upon touching one of the Deathbringer's rebounding plasma shots that they didn't damage me at all. (much like the Pyro's meteor balls from his one attack that sends clusters of them all over the place.)

[BilboHicks]

gun_psycho said:

My ATI graphics card's a Radeon Xpress 200, as my computer still runs fine in opengl mode (except on the bigger maps) and I have no idea how exactly he crashes the game upon spawning. (I was testing out the new monsters, and when I summoned Vetis, the game just crashed with no explanation.)

Oh, and need I mention that I was surprised upon touching one of the Deathbringer's rebounding plasma shots that they didn't damage me at all. (much like the Pyro's meteor balls from his one attack that sends clusters of them all over the place.)

Thanks, I will take a look at the pyro & deathbringer.

Could you PM me your ini, so I can take a closer look?

[BilboHicks]

After some feedback and playing myself, I have updated to betaV3, download from usual: http://www.scoredoom.com

Changes in 2.9BetaV3
********************
In openGL options->'Smooth Sprite Edges' defaults to 'On'. 'On' is required to stop boxes forming around certain sprites with the new Add-on Pack content.
+noicedeath enforced on all monsters in Boss Rush chains.
Vetis DECORATE is fixed, hopefully this will stop crashes for some people when it is spawned.
Frozen Imp is toned down for better performance.
Points Bunny has a more realistic hitbox, so trying to hit it without rockets should be a little less frustrating.
Other minor Add-on Pack tweaks.

----------

I also added Sunder Episode 1 (v1.3) to the hi score server. I didn't even bother adding add-on pack support for it due to performance contraints!

[evouga]

I really like the idea of a Doom port with an automated online high score table. It has given me an excuse to play through AV again.

It's a shame that the play style rewarded by ScoreDoom strays so far from classic compet-n style play, though; kills are way more important than time, and infighting -- one of the features that makes Doom unique -- is heavily penalized.

When (if) I get a chunk of spare time I might make a fork that's geared more toward speedrunning, with automatic uploading of demos.

[BilboHicks]

evouga said:

I really like the idea of a Doom port with an automated online high score table. It has given me an excuse to play through AV again.

It's a shame that the play style rewarded by ScoreDoom strays so far from classic compet-n style play, though; kills are way more important than time, and infighting -- one of the features that makes Doom unique -- is heavily penalized.

When (if) I get a chunk of spare time I might make a fork that's geared more toward speedrunning, with automatic uploading of demos.

Hi, I saw your scores on AV, good stuff!

Yes, SD is indeed more geared toward clearing a level in the fastest time possible vs just speeding past through it. Infighting just gives death points, but that was to encourage more attacking play.

There is a 'no-infighting' mode score table. This means monsters neither in-fight or damage each other, so no 'penalty' for infighting... but then you get no infighting at all! :P

That would be cool to have a version more geared towards speed-running.

[sector666]

Good to see this being updated again.

Something I noticed. The Erkki seems to have excessively high splash damage or something. Even if I dodged what it shoots I would end up taking more damage than seemed reasonable if I was anywhere near where the projectiles hit.

And I had an idea. It would be cool if there was a way to set the number of waves to happen in a boss rush, if boss rushes are turned on.

[BilboHicks]

sector666 said:

Good to see this being updated again.

Something I noticed. The Erkki seems to have excessively high splash damage or something. Even if I dodged what it shoots I would end up taking more damage than seemed reasonable if I was anywhere near where the projectiles hit.

And I had an idea. It would be cool if there was a way to set the number of waves to happen in a boss rush, if boss rushes are turned on.

I'll check the Erikki out again. As far configuring Boss Rush, I had thought about that. Its possible to create your own chains (via replacements) if you are fairly comfortable with some DECORATE.

EDIT: I will create a page to help with this as well as as couple of other decorate calls you can make with scoredoom to create new actors.

[Reisal]

Hey Bilbo, nice to add the single player back to the beta..I appreciate that :7

And speaking of the Maxibus and other Mancubus variants I have talked to you before, have you discovered their origins so I could use them in my non-Scoredoom Skulltag PK3? If you have the downloads to the WADs, please send links via PM.

Also for some reason every time I play in full screen and quit, my browser window is resized and my ZDL window moves slightly down and to the right..any idea why?

Whenever I try loading up the game using ZDL, I get "Not in a level" when attempting to fire it up with my custom content and Oblige maps. Bleh

ZDoom version 1.0.29 - 2.1.7xx (r563M) (Sep  2 2010)

Command line: "D:\Doom2\ScoreDoom29v3b\gzscoredoom.exe"
 -iwad "D:\Doom2\DOOM.WAD"
 -file "D:\Doom2\SWIRLY.WAD"
 "D:\Doom2\plasma.wad"
 "D:\Doom2\shinbar.wad"
 "D:\Doom2\dwd1mus2.wad"
 "D:\Doom2\357-SD.wad"
 "D:\Doom2\pk_weapDECOR3.pk3"
 "D:\Doom2\pk_weapons.wad"
 -deh "D:\Doom2\1HPBAR.DEH" "D:\Doom2\ObligeDEH.deh"

Wad 0: gzscoredoom.pk3
Wad 1: gzscoredoom.pk3:BBA-16X.WAD
Wad 2: DOOM.WAD
Wad 3: SD-ADDONPACK.WAD
Wad 4: SWIRLY.WAD
Wad 5: plasma.wad
Wad 6: shinbar.wad
Wad 7: dwd1mus2.wad
Wad 8: 357-SD.wad
Wad 9: pk_weapDECOR3.pk3
Wad 10: pk_weapons.wad

Not in a level.

The very top of report.txt is

Code: C0000005 (Access Violation - tried to write address 005C7932)
Address: 004D2596
Flags: 00000000

I can load up the game fine just by doubleclicking the EXE but I run into problems loading it up via ZDL?

[BilboHicks]

Mr. Chris said:

Hey Bilbo, nice to add the single player back to the beta..I appreciate that :7

And speaking of the Maxibus and other Mancubus variants I have talked to you before, have you discovered their origins so I could use them in my non-Scoredoom Skulltag PK3? If you have the downloads to the WADs, please send links via PM.



Also for some reason every time I play in full screen and quit, my browser window is resized and my ZDL window moves slightly down and to the right..any idea why?

RE: Variants
I can poke around again quickly. But I lose track of where I get all the different non-realm667 stuff.

RE: browser window etc...
Im not sure why.

RE: Not in a level
Hmmn, Try doing this with regular gzdoom. You can grab gzdoom 1.0.29 from the drdteam archives if you want to try it with version I built off of. I dont this is gzscoredoom specific.

[4mer]

Mr. Chris said:

Also for some reason every time I play in full screen and quit, my browser window is resized and my ZDL window moves slightly down and to the right..any idea why?

I may be wrong but this may possibly be because the game resolution is lower than your desktop resolution.

[Twinzen]

We need more people using ScoreDoom. It's fun! :p

[gun_psycho]

I've yet to have seen anyone beat my scores 35233211 and 38693100 (My player name's Deathhand, by the way)

Then again, that's considering that I've beaten those super-hard megawads, even Kama Sutra.

[4mer]

After playing ScoreDoom in hardcore mode I had a couple of ideas:

I felt that the scoring system could be improved if the player had to pay a penalty for taking damage (i.e. score -= damage * scale). A player would then have to be quick but also careful.

This may be way too much but just an idea:
If a demo was recorded during play then when a player achieves the highest score it could be uploaded to the high score server. Other players could then download it and see how the high score was achieved.

[gun_psycho]

@4mer - About your score penalty from damage idea, I kind of think that's a tad excessive considering I already had the clock to worry about.

And about recording demos, there is no way I would have the patience to record my run through Hell Revealed in one sitting, it's just not gonna happen.

[4mer]

I was thinking the demos would be per level.

Edit: Hmmm, perhaps a less excessive method would be to have a bonus which is reduced when you take damage.

[gun_psycho]

Oh, and Bilbo, I personally would suggest removing those enemies that are not gonna be used in-game from the addon pack; that way, the addon pack would be slightly less cluttered (the rotwraith should be a cacodemon-class enemy by the way.

[Twinzen]

The link to the master levels megawad on scoredoom.com seems to be broken.

[BilboHicks]

@twinzen: Glad you are enjoying it. Some of those green 'd/l' links need to be updated by me. Some of them are to fixed/tweaked versions of wads like for 2002ADO.wad to get them to work properly in SD. I will sort this out over the next week or so.

The 'Master Levels' d/l link is to a megawad I compiled a while back that combined all of id's Master Levels with other single-level wads I liked about 10 years ago :P. I added a password to the archive that took the first 10 characters of the md5 sum of ATTACK.WAD from the Master Levels as a way of not freely distributing these official levels. (I also gave credit to the other level's authors). This is probably not legal, so I may choose a different way to allow this to be downloaded.
----

@4mer: Thanks for the ideas :-) Even though I have quit proper development with the mod, I'm always open to new ideas ;-)

Reduced points/penalties for taking damage is interesting, but it does add some complexity, like checking for slime damage etc... and you have the pseudo-randomness of hitscan attacks... and I think players should not be penalized for taking damage, especially a player that risks a ton of health to bag more points! This player would be penalized simply for taking damage for taking a risk.

I believe scoredoom can record demos ok? Oddly that's something I dont remember testing! You could start a new demo at the start of every level until finish, and upload it manually, oldskool. I would consider hosting demo files too.
----

@gun_psycho: Yeah, a few of the new additions I figured just did not look like they belonged, will remove them (then again they are there for custom users?). Other than that, did you notice any problems with the new add-on pack content? I did several quick updates over a week ago, so you may want to grab the latest if you haven't already. I will do some more playing myself but it looks good.

(Next I will try and get whatever I can of these new critters to work with the sdst-addonpack.)
-----

I think over the fall it would be cool to coordinate some multiplayer sessions with SDST. I could relink the forums on scoredoom to facilitate this.

Actually some sort of MP league/tourney (with a ref spectating) would be very cool, where players can take on each other over an episode/part of a megawad, but that would require a lot of organization & time :P

[sector666]

If that were ever done I'd love to see demos of it.

BilboHicks said:

I believe scoredoom can record demos ok?

It can, but it doesn't record whether you have random monsters on or not, so you have to keep changing that setting in scoredoom if you're watching demos recorded both ways.


I had an idea about configs. It would be really nice in order to set up unique challenges with custom monsters.

If scoredoom could be told to look at a specific file with a custom monsters list, then you could have several setups that you could easily switch between just by changing the file it's told to look at.

People could also trade these setups as challenges, for other people to play without having to do a bunch of copying and pasting into the main .ini configuration.

[BilboHicks]

sector666 said:

If that were ever done I'd love to see demos of it.


It can, but it doesn't record whether you have random monsters on or not, so you have to keep changing that setting in scoredoom if you're watching demos recorded both ways.


I had an idea about configs. It would be really nice in order to set up unique challenges with custom monsters.

If scoredoom could be told to look at a specific file with a custom monsters list, then you could have several setups that you could easily switch between just by changing the file it's told to look at.

People could also trade these setups as challenges, for other people to play without having to do a bunch of copying and pasting into the main .ini configuration.

I'll take a look into the demo fix & breaking out the config defs. These *might* be fairly straightforward, but If not I cant promise anything :-)
Thanks for the info/ideas though.

[sector666]

sector666 said:

It can, but it doesn't record whether you have random monsters on or not, so you have to keep changing that setting in scoredoom if you're watching demos recorded both ways.

I realized that could probably be taken more than one way. I've never tested if Scoredoom does remember if you had custom monsters on or not. It doesn't remember if you had random custom monsters on or not though, last I checked. That wasn't the most recent version but it wasn't too many versions back so it's probably still the same.

It does remember whatever seed number is used for random monsters correctly though, because it syncs if you have random monsters on when you record and random monsters on when you play it back.

Just wanted to be clear.


Hmm. If custom monsters were in a separate config, and demos could remember the name of the config used, that would really make playback and sharing of demos easy. All you'd have to do is include the monster config you used with the demo, and anyone should have a sync no problem.

Maybe the random monsters switch should be moved to the custom config file too, if that does get added? I'm not so sure about that one though. But I figured it wouldn't hurt to mention it and let you think about what would be best.

BilboHicks said:

These *might* be fairly straightforward, but If not I cant promise anything :-)

Hopefully they won't be too much trouble then :)

[BilboHicks]

sector666 said:

I realized that could probably be taken more than one way. I've never tested if Scoredoom does remember if you had custom monsters on or not. It doesn't remember if you had random custom monsters on or not though, last I checked. That wasn't the most recent version but it wasn't too many versions back so it's probably still the same.

It does remember whatever seed number is used for random monsters correctly though, because it syncs if you have random monsters on when you record and random monsters on when you play it back.

Just wanted to be clear.


Hmm. If custom monsters were in a separate config, and demos could remember the name of the config used, that would really make playback and sharing of demos easy. All you'd have to do is include the monster config you used with the demo, and anyone should have a sync no problem.


Maybe the random monsters switch should be moved to the custom config file too, if that does get added? I'm not so sure about that one though. But I figured it wouldn't hurt to mention it and let you think about what would be best.


Hopefully they won't be too much trouble then :)

Now, you do realize that I have quit proper development on this! ;-)

I had some free time this evening and even though it took longer than I thought, I have the separate config stuff working.

By simply placing a file called sdcustom.ini in the program directory, or using the command line with '-sdmconfig' (e.g. '-sdmconfig mycustom.ini'), the custom monster settings in the ini will override the settings in the <yourusername>-zdoom.ini, whilst also leaving them intact.

It also supports the custom replacement chance values like 'sd_rep_arachnotron_chance'.

RE: Demos. That's great to hear that the demos worked/synched (as long as sp_random_custom_monsters flag is set correctly). I don't see any reason why they still wouldn't work.

Actually, the sp_random_custom_monsters var. could easily be handled by the sdcustom.ini file as well, so like you said, the person recording the demo could set up their variables in the config, record, and the pass the config file along with the demo. This also means that demos from older add-on pack versions would be supported. :-)

[sector666]

I think the development on this is still proper :P

Sounds like that's going to work great. All desync problems I ever had were caused from having to remember/make a note of what settings were used when recording, so with all settings in the custom config that really should ensure 100% sync for demos.

BilboHicks said:

This also means that demos from older add-on pack versions would be supported. :-)

Backwards demo compatibility for a port based on zdoom/gzdoom? Now that would be a pleasant surprise.

Oh, but won't the bloodroses not being there anymore cause deysyncs? Or monster health/damage values that were changed in different versions?

[Gez]

You'd have to use older versions of the add-on pack as well, of course.

[BilboHicks]

Every upgrade to the add-on pack that concerned deletions should of always keep the 'deleted' monster's decorate in the pack, so that it can still be accessed. So in that respect running the demo with a newer add-on pack should be ok. But then there are decorate changes to monsters themselves over time (like higher health etc., changed states etc.)
This will probably cause de-synchs, so Gez is technically correct, preferably the demo should be with the add-on pack it was made with, but it may not be essential, depending on the differences. :P

For future 2.9 releases, there will be a sdcustom-defaults.ini/sdcustom.ini file included that will have all the defaults that players can look at, edit and use if they want. No need to touch the main config file (that can be left for online hi scoring.)

[BilboHicks]

Updated to 2.9BetaV4. BetaV4 adds the ability to more easily customize the add-on pack content, and to facilitate easier playback of add-on pack demos, as per Sector666's request. Download from usual http://www.scoredoom.com

More Info:

Changes in 2.9BetaV4
********************
*Recommended to be installed freshly with it's own new ini*
Adds support for a separate custom monster config to override the settings in <yourusername>-zdoom.ini.
Simply place the 'sdcustom.ini' in the same directory as gzscoredoom, or use on command line:
e.g. '-sdmconfig mycustom.ini'.

Features:
sdcustom.ini allows the chance (0->100) of add-on pack custom monster replacement, and their weightings
to be edited easier. The same with chance (0->255) and weightings of extra health and artifact drops.

Setting sp_random_custom_monsters=true will cause completely new random monsters *per play session*

Now players can share custom configurations easier, as well as send the ini file with recorded demos
with the add-on pack for better playback.

NOTE: BaronChainReplacements, CyberChainReplacements & SpiderChainReplacements should always have at
least one value specified. To stop boss rush mode, go into <yourusername>-zdoom.ini and set
sd_bossrush=false (I plan to fix this in the full 2.9 release)

[Reisal]

Somehow, the Smoke Demon crashed me when I kill him.