The DWIronman League dies to: Vrack 1, 2 and 3!

June, 2020

> The yearly leader board
> I advise you to read Essential Info before downloading. Maybe to prevent massive desyncs? :P

Standard Leaderboard:

1. 1 - SURVIVED (2:07:24): ReaperAA - Incredible blind survival; "extremely slow" but keeps a distance from second. Well done!
2. 1 - SURVIVED (2:50:55): Vince Vega - Survived despite some rather monstrous moments - that's what Ironman is about.
3. 1 - SURVIVED (3:05:27): Roofi - Back at what he does best with a comfortable green.
4. 2 - 1 471 kills: dt_ - Got mopped up on the grid.
5. 2 - 1 444 kills: NaZa - Missed morning jogging session and attempted to do it in Doom instead. Wasted both energy and invulnerability.
6. 1 - 1 379 kills: Bdubzzz - Commentator curse at its finest. Incredible clutching in Vrack 3 however. 
7. 2 - 1 212 kills: Beginner - The hell knights duly got together and hit Beginner perfectly where it hurt most.
8. 1 - 967 kills: Daerik - Those "dickish traps" let three blind people through all of them. It just wasn't Daerik's day.
9. 2 - 921 kills: RjY - A circle of mancubi appeared!
10. 1 - 884 kills: SSGmaster - Got caught in tricky situations in the latter two, but damn, that's some epic clutching in Vrack 1!
11. 1 - 870 kills: Suitepee - Always look on the bright side - at least it was revenants and not archviles.
12. 1 - 862 kills: Horus - Killed by two sneaky chaingunners around the corner. Became a nukage snail in Vrack 2.
13. 2 - 792 kills: Anima Zero - Pondered the BFG. Couldn't stop thinking about the BFG. There was no BFG in the yellow skull area.
14. 1 - 757 kills: Arbys550 - Will be haunted by the weapon reloading times for years to come.
15. 2 - 727 kills: vdgg - Waited for the doors to reopen. They did, only to reveal death.
16. 1 - 415 kills: Endless - Welcome aboard! Nice to see you experience being Good at Doom immediately.
17. 3 - 391 kills: Austinado - Disappointed despite beating friend? Followed him into the laser cell anyway.
18. 1 - 373 kills: Dieting Hippo - Vrack1 is a reminder that the SSG also spreads vertically. Painful.
19. 1 - 297 kills: NoisyVelvet - Decided looking back is a liability in Vrack2.
20. 1 - 297 kills: I_Punch_Demons - Never yet had the host of Ironman been directly responsible for a competitor's death. Until that day.
21. 1 - 278 kills: seed - Destroys every barrel and comes up short with ammo for the real enemies.
22. 1 - 276 kills: ozy - Vrack3 run is reminiscent of Nightmare! with those hitscanners, but you'd never escape from the Vrack2 rockets.
23. 1 - 188 kills: Pegleg - Poor dodging, but also misfortune in Vrack3 as a cacodemon fireball pushes Pegleg into the laser grid.
24. 1 - 133 kills: Crusader no Regret - Got backstabbed by chaingunners. (Vrack 2 - illegal skill settings)

Prepared Leaderboard:

1. # - 1 267 kills: Bashe - Was doing so well... then decided to pass through the lasers.
2. # - 210 kills: Pegleg - Attempted to rush by the hell knight. Hell knight was having none of it.

What is the Doomworld Ironman League?

The DWIronman League is a monthly competition in which participants aim to survive for as many levels as possible in the given map set, preferably in one sitting. Click the spoiler tag at the bottom of the post for a detailed list of rules. Players of all levels of ability are welcome. It could change the way you play Doom!

In June 2020 the DWIronman League dies to the three Vrack levels, -complevel 9 by @Fredrik. For the first time in the history of the league, we have three maps. The way they're going to be graded is pretty much the same as with Kassman's levels in September 2018. It doesn't matter if you survive one or two levels - what matters is if you survive all of them. Otherwise, the amount of monsters killed will be the tiebreaker. Anyway, for the maps, they're quite large maps, and reasonably challenging as well. Doomguy's ended up in space now! Who would've thought so many monsters live in a base, and they don't stop coming, and they don't stop coming... The first map might lead you onto the wrong track with its difficulty, but the second map will for sure correct you. There's a lot of ambushes in this one, mostly hordes that swarm in from an unknown area, possibly square cells thousands of units away from the map? We can't know for sure. What we can know is that Bdubzzz will win this month as well :)

Essential Info

• Doom II: Hell on Earth as the IWAD selected.
• Compatibility level 9, or "(Boom (strict))" for ZDoom derivative ports.
• Ttime estimate: 2 to 3 hours
• 3 maps, each loaded and played separately. Kill count is used to determine ranking (not maps survived) unless you survive all the way. This means that if you stream/provide a video, the kill counter must be shown when/if you die (it should ideally be present at all times though)
• You are downloading vrack2b, not vrack2. There's a REJECT lump in vrack2 so that might be crucial. I'm not that good with technicalities so I don't know. Gameplay is the same judging from the textfile, so I'll need a tech wizard like RjY to correct me on this if necessary.

> Download Vrack 1, Vrack 2(b) and Vrack 3.

prboom-plus.exe -iwad doom2.wad -file VRACKx.wad -complevel 9 -skill 4 -record demo_name.lmp

Previous threads:

Oh great! I will play them this week, definitely NOT all at the same day. Possibly I will die on Vrack2b as I haven't played it for ages. The first one I should survive and the third one I know and remember very well.

Jolly me, I write twice it's complevel 9 yet in essential info, where information should be correct, I write complevel 2. This was fixed. It has to be -complevel 9. In other news, as I'm already posting, here's my survival of Vrack 1 with 373 kills in 22:14. At a few points I was a bit stressed, and I took it maybe too slowly, but hey. I survived. That's what's important. My lucky stars might be shining, but tomorrow I'll do the other two.

27 minutes ago, NaZa said:

Jolly me, I write twice it's complevel 9 yet in essential info, where information should be correct, I write complevel 2. 

I am confused by this sentence. I just recorded my Vrack 1 demo in complevel 9.

Vrackdemo.zip (Category 1 and done in 23:13 with 104% kills)

Just now, ReaperAA said:

 

I am confused by this sentence. I just recorded my Vrack 1 demo in complevel 9.

 

Vrackdemo.zip (Category 1 and done in 23:13 with 104% kills)

 

Yes, it should in fact be complevel 9. I meant, I typed it correctly everywhere except in the part where it's meant to be correct (Essential Info).

DEAD on all 3 wads, survived none. Your typical seed performance (or rather, the lack thereof) for your personal amusement ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ .

seedvracks.zip

I lied. Here's Vrack 2. I know Vrack 3's kinda a difficult one in a different way so I won't attempt it tonight, but I felt extra motivated so I had to give this one a shot. Feels good to almost max the map with the most monsters :) Category 2 Vrack 2, 719/722 in 43:47.

EDIT: I forgot to mention a few hair-rising moments. Fairly sure I had around 10 HP twice in this run, I know once it happened because I underestimated the amount of enemies still alive in an outdoor area. Future was not looking bright when two Barons jumpscared me. Heck, the future wasn't even looking at all.

You know, sometimes I wonder if I'll ever survive another Ironman challenge.

Honestly I think my Lunatic run is here to stay for a very long time, I doubt I'm surviving any other mapset. Like, ever.

@seed If I remember correctly, you also survived Monster Hunter. Ltd wads (mohu1 and mohu2) 

13 minutes ago, ReaperAA said:

@seed If I remember correctly, you also survived Monster Hunter. Ltd wads (mohu1 and mohu2) 

Rechecked that topic and indeed, I survived that challenge too. Okay, that's two challenges then, to go down in history 🤣🤣.

2 hours ago, NaZa said:

What we can know is that Bdubzzz will win this month as well :)

Actually, it's an even-numbered month. If the pattern holds,  won't win this month. Ancalagon won in February (month 2) and joe-ilya won in April (month 4).

They say all good things come to an end. Wouldn't label my Vrack 3 run as good, though, even if it had 352 out of 553 monsters killed. I think I dropped to 13 health at the very beginning - and I cheated death once more when I forgot a bazillion arachnotrons spawn when you do a particular thing. Either way I knew I'd probably die on the grid, yet judging by how many clutch moments I've had, I've still had some hope. That hope evaporated when I picked up the invulnerability 15 seconds too early. I was still able to survive 3 arch-vile blasts, but then a very well positioned revenant and a few of his caco buddies sayonara'd me into the void in which I was hiding. Good riddance. I guess that gives me 1444 total kills out of 1689. Not even half bad, looking back. Should be a good result, even if I didn't survive. It's an easily survivable challenge if you played it in the past, I guess, as some of these setpieces are quite memorable. There's definitely two spots on Vrack2 and at least one on Vrack3 which can claim blind souls.

EDIT: Oh, another thing I forgot to mention. Lost souls and revived monsters will not count in your total kill count if you play on ZDoom. Not sure how to fully circumvent this problem - a solution is just to use the monsters remaining alive, deduct it from the unaltered kill count, and the kill count should read fine. The problem is, however, if the player decided to leave lost souls alive, or an arch vile starts resurrecting stuff before you get to it. It's an interesting problem for sure, and I'm not sure how it can be solved.

Category 1 Dead on Vrack3

Vrack1 392/414

Vrack2 637/722

Vrack3 350/553

Total: 1379/1689

DWIronman-vrack-dubz.zip

18 hours ago, NaZa said:

What we can know is that Bdubzzz will win this month as well :)

Well, this aged badly (but I am sure Naza doesn't mind this :D)

Uh can anyone help me here. I am using GlBoom+ (tried both 2.5.1.4 and 2.5.1.7um) and I am having a rendering issue at the very beginning of Vrack2b. When I saw the hanging crates from the other side, I got suspicious and tried software PrBoom+ where the issue doesn't exist.

This is the issue I have. Does anyone know a fix about this.

(I tried default settings by removing the .cfg file and even then the issue was there)

If it is even in 2.5.1.4, then it sounds a lot like a mapping error to me, one that didn't manifest in Software but the way it was built is troublesome for GL.

4 minutes ago, seed said:

If it is even in 2.5.1.4, then it sounds a lot like a mapping error to me, one that didn't manifest in Software but the way it was built is troublesome for GL.

Either that, or it is something specific with my computer/config. Can you try it in Glboom+

I've tried it; same thing happens, so it's an engine manifested bug.

Another disclaimer - if you die on the first map, this doesn't mean you can't play the second or third map. You play all three, regardless if you die on Vrack 1 or 2.

I guess I have to play it software mode then. Wonderful!

Vrack2demo.zip (Category 1 and survived in 40:25 with 648 kills)

1 hour ago, ReaperAA said:

Can you try it in Glboom+

Already did - where'd you think I made the demo :p .

Just now, seed said:

Already did - where'd you think I made the demo :p .

Oh ok :p. I only asked it to know if that issue in Vrack2 existed for you as well (which Naza confirmed to be the case).

Let's see what my fail train fingers throw forth this month shall we?

Vrack 1 - Dead at 411/414.  Might be the best death honestly because this is the one map in the series I had barely much knowledge of, if any.  Let's just say me throwing out all my rockets before reaching the exit kinda kicked my ass, heh.

To be fair though...I should have dead ass died in the room with the acid and all the jumps to switches you have to make.

Vrack 2 - Dead at 255/722.  This and Vrack 3 I do remember playing sometime in the past.  Fat lot of good that all did me when I didn't remember any of the major traps like the YK one that killed me here.

Vrack 3 - Dead at 128/553.  See above comment for Vrack 2, just replace the YK trap with the SSG one (and one asshole manco that did the dirty deed in a double KO).

DWIronman_VrackTrilogy_AnimaZero.zip

Vrack 1 - Category 1: Dead at 389/414. So frustrating not to finish this one, I was hopeful for a second.

0_ironman_horus_vrack.zip

Vrack 2 - Category 1: Dead at 399/722. Poor strategy cost me badly here

0_ironman_horus_vrack2b.zip

Vrack 3 - Category 1: Dead at 74/553. Lucky to survive as long as I did

Total: 859/1689

0_ironman_horus_vrack3.zip

Played like shit today. 414/414 on Vrack 1, 264/722 on Vrack 2, and 81/553 on Vrack 3.

Vrack 1 was okay. On Vrack 2 I don't see how I could've possibly beat that with the weaponry I had. I'm pretty sure there was a secret BFG or secret Rocket Launcher somewhere, so fuck that. I loathe secret weaponry in almost all its forms. Vrack 3 I kinda just wasn't paying attention cause I was so disappointed with Vrack 2. Category 1 for everything.

TheUltimateArbysVrackCollection.zip

I did it!!!! I survived this month.

Vrack3demo.zip (Category 1 and survived in 1:03:46 with 550 kills)

I played this extra carefully (hence the extremely slow time). Bumping and humping walls for secrets, backtracking, sniping enemies, you name it. And man, it payed off. Had I not discovered the secret in "grid/laser" area, I was done for (heck, even then I barely survived it). Other than that, there are some areas with mancubus ambushes and some with arachnotron ambushes that can be dangerous, but fortunately, I did fine in those areas.

Overall, I really enjoyed the 3 maps. The first one was a bit basic in terms of monster placement, but it was fine. 2 and 3 were much superior. My overall favorite was probably Vrack2, because it felt absolutely chaotic with tons of ammo to use but equally liberal with throwing tons of meat at you. Vrack3 was less chaotic, but overall harder due to more devious traps.

Was speechless until now. Great stuff, especially blind - would be your first victory if you hold on, as well! Looking forward to watching these runs, especially the (potentially) hot feet in the slime maze :) 

I did much better on Vrack 1 than I did on 2b and 3, those ones I died pretty close to the start with only ~10% kills.

Vrack 1

Vrack 2

Vrack 3

Total: 373/1,689

dhippo_vrack_1_2b_3_ironman.zip