12 years, six hours, and 23,211 demons: Defeating one of Doom 2’s hardest maps

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Even if you have a perfect strategy mapped out for each segment, "some of the later fights are a pure RNG grind," he wrote. "Losing multiple 5-hour-long [Ultra Violence] runs over and over again that late into the map would drive me insane."
One reason why I'm fine with TAS (Tool Assisted Speed runs).

Some people have way too much time on their hands lol
No doubt. But people do what's fun. And it's not like we don't waste time in our own ways. I myself ended up liking StarCraft 2's Coop mode so much that I played many games with mutators (special conditions and rules that change the usual game play)
And the rest of us spend our time reading these articles :)
Precisely :) No frickin way I was going to do a 64-heat run in Hades (best I did was 8 to 11 heat), but I enjoyed reading about/watching it
 
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people do what's fun.
I have trouble believing this single act was done "for fun". More likely it was a combination of following through on the initial impression of the level being nearly impossible, and a desire to give his fan base what they wanted(which in this case also likely includes a monetary incentive). That said, I think the process is probably still very rewarding regardless. I'm sure the high directly after completing it is comparable to being on a winning super bowl team. This level is still legendary within the Doom community, and he may end up forever being the only person who has ever completed it in a single run.
 
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morlamweb

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One reason why I'm fine with TAS (Tool Assisted Speed runs).


No doubt. But people do what's fun. And it's not like we don't waste time in our own ways. I myself ended up liking StarCraft 2's Coop mode so much that I played many games with mutators (special conditions and rules that change the usual game play)

Precisely :) No frickin way I was going to do a 64-heat run in Hades (best I did was 8 to 11 heat), but I enjoyed reading about/watching it
Are we sure that fun was the primary driver here for coincident's run? That may be how it started out, but I'd wager that "because it's there" and stubborn "I started this, I'm damn well going to finish it, however long it takes" were also big motivators.
 
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Arivia

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It's worth mentioning that Okuplok (the map) is infamously unfinished, so part of what makes it really monotonous is that it's a marathon of time spent with large portions being very boring, pointless, and unchallenging - but letting focus slip can still get you killed and ruin an attempt. It has a few great fights that have become legendary in the community (the arch-vile condo and the revenant snake, as Coincident describes them), but also just a lot of circlestrafing boredom.

This isn't to take away from Coin's achievement at all, this is still incredible; I'm just trying to provide a bit of context as to why Okuplok in particular has kind of been left undone for so long. (In comparison, other "unbeatable" maps like new Sunder have been feasted on because they're just much higher quality.)

Also, the writing is a bit unclear about it - slaughtermap is a genre of Doom mapping where you're facing tons of enemies at once. A good rule of thumb is that when you're mentally thinking about the enemies as groups, not single enemies - so a fight has a parapet full of revenants, a cavalry of pinkies, and a pincer of flanking cacodemons - you're probably playing slaughter. One of those "you know it when you see it" and everyone defines it slightly differently kinds of things. But slaughtermaps are very legitimate, fun, cool parts of Doom mapping and have been around for over 3 decades at this point.
 
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I heard there's a level in Final Doom, where you're pitted up against 4 Cyber-Demons at the same time. AFAIK, it's designed that you can't put them against each other (dunno how it's possible, since they would take it personally to get hit by a rocket launcher). I would've liked to have tried that!

Damn, the runs at the end of the video where he dies in the fifth hour are brutal.
That's one reason why I stopped doing these sorts of "feats of endurance". Especially in some of the "challenge content" in Mario games (although for sure, many other games have them too)
 
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jonah

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Is the video embedded in this article auto-playing for anyone else?

I was trying desperately to figure out which tab was making all the noise before realizing it was this one.

Autoplaying videos with sound... bad form.
 
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Quote
Kyle Orland
Kyle Orland
Sorry about that, not sure why it's happening. I've removed the embed until we can figure it out.
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morlamweb

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I heard there's a level in Final Doom, where you're pitted up against 4 Cyber-Demons at the same time. AFAIK, it's designed that you can't put them against each other (dunno how it's possible, since they would take it personally to get hit by a rocket launcher). I would've liked to have tried that!


That's one reason why I stopped doing these sorts of "feats of endurance". Especially in some of the "challenge content" in Mario games (although for sure, many other games have them too)
Projectile-throwing enemies of the same type in Doom/D2 can't infight with each other (at least, in the OG games, which I believe is the context here. Some source ports may change that behavior. So the 4 cyberdemons wouldn't be able to hurt each other.
 
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qchronod

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Is the video embedded in this article auto-playing for anyone else?

I was trying desperately to figure out which tab was making all the noise before realizing it was this one.

Autoplaying videos with sound... bad form.
Looks like it was a Twitch VOD. Didn't know that they auto-played,
 
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snowcone

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Projectile-throwing enemies of the same type in Doom/D2 can't infight with each other (at least, in the OG games, which I believe is the context here. Some source ports may change that behavior. So the 4 cyberdemons wouldn't be able to hurt each other.

There is a way monsters of the same type can infight each other but it is exceedingly rare. Since it involves exploding barrels, it does not work on cyberdemons as they are immune to splash damage from explosions.

Decino made a video about this :

 
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I heard there's a level in Final Doom, where you're pitted up against 4 Cyber-Demons at the same time. AFAIK, it's designed that you can't put them against each other (dunno how it's possible, since they would take it personally to get hit by a rocket launcher). I would've liked to have tried that!
Enemies in Doom do not take damage from the type of projectile they fire, so they won't infight each other. Unless they set off an explosive barrel, then you can get things like a monster trying to fight itself.

That immunity doesn't apply to hitscan or melee attacks.
 
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morlamweb

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There is a way monsters of the same type can infight each other but it is exceedingly rare. Since it involves exploding barrels, it does not work on cyberdemons as they are immune to splash damage from explosions.

Decino made a video about this :


Yep, I saw Decino's video, too, but two things: one, the type of self-infighting is something that occurs only in old versions of the OG Doom games, not in the patched versions nor in the source ports (though it may be re-enabled in some ports if a compatibility flag is set); two, I doubt that the level in question relied on that obscure game mechanic.
 
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Thegs

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Jumping out of plane, with an experienced skydiving instructor, is quite safe, and when you land, it's done. It can also be done much closer to terra firma in skydiving tubes. In this case, this run took hundreds (thousands?) or hours grinding away, and I find it extremely hard that fun was had the whole time.
It's a joke, it's not that deep I promise. I'm not the person you were responding to, but my sergeants used to joke between themselves , "Have you seen Caulfield? He's crazy! He's Airborne! Why would anyone ever jump out of a perfectly good plane?" To which he would respond, "Crazy? There's no such thing as a perfectly good C-130! If you were stuck on one you would want to jump out of it too!"
 
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morlamweb

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It's a joke, it's not that deep I promise. I'm not the person you were responding to, but my sergeants used to joke between themselves , "Have you seen Caulfield? He's crazy! He's Airborne! Why would anyone ever jump out of a perfectly good plane?" To which he would respond, "Crazy? There's no such thing as a perfectly good C-130! If you were stuck on one you would want to jump out of it too!"
"It's a joke, it's not that deep I promise." It's not that good of a joke, I promise.
 
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Mongo McMongo

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He'll be back once the speed running community begins to pick up gog.


Sir Edmund Hilarity would know the answer.
Towards the end of his life Edmund Hillary may have completed his famous quote: "Because it's there. And video games hadn't been invented yet, so it was either the roof of the world or harvest another row of beehives"
 
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taxythingy

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It's a joke, it's not that deep I promise. I'm not the person you were responding to, but my sergeants used to joke between themselves , "Have you seen Caulfield? He's crazy! He's Airborne! Why would anyone ever jump out of a perfectly good plane?" To which he would respond, "Crazy? There's no such thing as a perfectly good C-130! If you were stuck on one you would want to jump out of it too!"
Yup. The joke's even used in the movie Planes: Fire and Rescue. Ask my 8yo who can quote almost all the lines how I know...
 
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