Welcome to Extreme Infight Arena!

[malon3]

This thread is dedicated to the discussion of Extreme Infight Arena and the submission of fighters.

What is Extreme Infight Arena?
Extreme Infight Arena (EIA) is a combat arena where custom DECORATE monsters duke it out in a best-of-7 round-based battles. The monsters are AI controlled and may be as difficult/cheap as possible. The goal is to have your monster win, regardless of tactics used. Quality monsters do not belong here. This is a place for broken monsters. A human player should not even come remotely close to winning any battle with even a low-level EIA combatant. This is strictly AI vs AI, to push the very limits of the ZDoom engine and programmers alike.

Where did this idea come from? What makes it interesting?
I find it interesting because it's technically challenging. If you've ever watched a Tool Assisted Speedrun (TAS), it allows players to play frame-by-frame through a video game, allowing for frame-perfect maneuvers. This can lead to very strange behavior. For example, it was discovered in Super Mario World that using Yoshi, eating various objects in order, jumping on shells and timing things perfectly, one can arrange the game memory to trigger the ending credits only a minute or so into the game. Very broken, but very interesting. What inspired EIA was actually MUGEN fights. MUGEN is a 2D game engine that allows people to create their own fighters with very little restriction. Every time someone had made an unbeatable character, someone else would figure out a new tactic. It's all about pushing the limits.

What if I want to watch watch quality, non-broken monsters fight instead?
User Arch (http://forum.zdoom.org/memberlist.php?m ... ile&u=6826) said he will probably be creating a "Quality Infight Arena", so keep on the lookout for it!
After discussing with the community, it became clear that there existed a good many people who also desired quality fights. It also became clear that high quality fights would take a not insignificant amount of proper balancing and unfortunately, that lies beyond the scope of my original vision. However, if someone would like to start their own "Quality Infight Arena", please do! I would gladly help out in any way I can, as I also have a desire to view for quality fights, just not the motivation for all the balancing it would require.

Fight History Spreadsheet
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc ... _web#gid=0

Videos of Fights can be found here (I'll do my best, if anyone else wishes to record video, I will add your YouTube channel here as well):
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_anB4r ... BBw/videos

The rules are extremely open. This is to allow for the maximum amount of flexibility in your monster. These rules will no doubt be revised over time. However the primary goal is to initially allow programmers as much freedom as possible. The more freedom there is, the more creative one can be.

Current Ruleset:

• Your monster should be posted pre-compiled in the form of a .wad, .pk3, .zip, or other compatible file.
• Your monster may have as much health as you want, so long as it decreases when damaged.
• Your monster cannot be invulnerable and cannot be impervious to specific damage types - they must be able to take damage from all types.
• Your monster cannot be resurrected after death. Once dead, the round is over.
• Your monster may do as much damage you want.
• Your monster may shoot as fast as you'd like.
• Your monster may use hitscan or projectiles.
• Your monster may wear unlimited armor.
• Your monster may move as fast as you wish.
• Your monster is not restricted to pure DECORATE. ACS and any other supported language (if any?) is allowed.
• Your monster cannot be resurrected after death.
• Your monster may NOT crash ZDoom.
• Your monster may be closed or open source, the choice is yours.
• The latest ZDoom SVN build will always be used. This will allow for faster bug fixes if certain monsters abuse a flaw within the ZDoom engine itself and as well as allowing for rematches using different engine versions.
• The fights are round based, best-of-7.
• There are a maximum of 3 minutes per round.
• Difficulty will be Ultra Violence with -fastmonsters flag.
• Banned Flags: +GHOST +DORMANT +THRUACTORS +THRUSPECIES +NOTARGET +NEVERTARGET +NODAMAGE +INVULNERABLE +INVISIBLE +NONSHOOTABLE +NOINTERACTION +NOSECTOR

*New rules will only be added if a given monster has an ability that absolutely prevents them from losing or forces an absolute guaranteed win. Basically, a rule is considered needed if a character becomes so powerful that a formidable rival becomes impossible or that further character progression has stalemated.

[Yholl]

There really needs to be more rules than that.

Off the top of my head, I already thought of how to make a monster that insta-kills anything, cannot be hit, takes no damage from anything and resurrects instantly if killed.

[Ryan Cordell]

.. So, the AEoD Phoenix then, Yholl?

[Ghastly]

Perhaps tournament isn't the right word, but essentially we keep track of the most deadly actor and have them face off against challengers until beaten, ad infinitum.

Code: Select all

Actor Lol : DoomImp
{
  +NoDamage
  States
  {
  Missile:
    TROO E 2 A_CustomBulletAttack(0, 0, 1, 1000000)
    TROO E 2 A_CPosRefire
    Loop
  Death:
    TROO A 5 Thing_Raise(0)
    Loop
  }
}

[malon3]

Awesome!

You guys are coming up with interesting concepts, already! If you don't like one of my suggested rules, PLEASE SUGGEST A RULE REPLACEMENT/ADDITION! Rules don't make themselves!

I believe that even though there are methods to create "invincible" monsters and such, doing a tournament like this can help expose bugs. "He was supposed to be invincible, but that he died anyway with a 1 hit kill which changes sector types and adds actor flags blah blah blah"

[Yholl]

You guys are coming up with interesting concepts, already!

Interesting? My idea was a monster that simply causes you to die when it targets you. It doesn't even attack.

If you don't like one of my suggested rules, PLEASE SUGGEST A RULE REPLACEMENT/ADDITION! Rules don't make themselves!

I honestly do not have the energy or motivation to come up with all the rules such a thing would require. If you'd like to get something like this going, you'd probably need to start on that yourself.

I believe that even though there are methods to create "invincible" monsters and such, doing a tournament like this can help expose bugs. "He was supposed to be invincible, but that he died anyway with a 1 hit kill which changes sector types and adds actor flags blah blah blah"

I can't really see bugs cropping up in it, unless the monsters entered are purposely designed to screw up the game somehow. Even then, it's likely to simply be a case of "ZDoom doesn't work that way" rather than a bug.

[malon3]

You guys are coming up with interesting concepts, already!

Interesting? My idea was a monster that simply causes you to die when it targets you. It doesn't even attack.

If you don't like one of my suggested rules, PLEASE SUGGEST A RULE REPLACEMENT/ADDITION! Rules don't make themselves!

I honestly do not have the energy or motivation to come up with all the rules such a thing would require. If you'd like to get something like this going, you'd probably need to start on that yourself.

I believe that even though there are methods to create "invincible" monsters and such, doing a tournament like this can help expose bugs. "He was supposed to be invincible, but that he died anyway with a 1 hit kill which changes sector types and adds actor flags blah blah blah"

I can't really see bugs cropping up in it, unless the monsters entered are purposely designed to screw up the game somehow. Even then, it's likely to simply be a case of "ZDoom doesn't work that way" rather than a bug.

lol mr friendly over here

[Yholl]

lol mr friendly over here

I wasn't trying to be mean or anything, I apologise if I came off sounding that way.

[IMX]

If we were to pick any current, publicly available custom monster for being hardest/cheapest, the Vore wins. Any day.

Or, well, at least that's what I think

[Ghastly]

publicly available

I nerfed it two or three times, but after the fourth or fifth massive shitstorm from people who hadn't even tried the update, I just took down the link. Once it's bad, it's forever bad. So, not publicly available anymore.

[Ethril]

1337man's a pretty good contender; He'll win against pretty much anything that's not immune to being morphed.

[wildweasel]

I still think people should lighten up about the Vore. It does not deserve that sort of backlash.

[malon3]

Can we start getting links to some of these monsters? I can build a simple arena to house the fights in, that part's easy. But we need some links!

[IMX]

publicly available

I nerfed it two or three times, but after the fourth or fifth massive shitstorm from people who hadn't even tried the update, I just took down the link. Once it's bad, it's forever bad. So, not publicly available anymore.

I don't think you seem to understand the "hate" towards her. It's more like that feel of loving to hate something, sorta like we hate/love the revenants in Doom or the Creepers in Minecraft, or at least that's how I feel it. Also, NMN did a marvelous job at spriting her in Doom style, and it's completely unfair that people might hate on something that took that much effort to do and reenact in the Doom engine.

If there's someone to blame for actual (and objectively irrational) hate towards her, it should be directed at the people who don't know how to use the Vore, and not the actual monster. I personally ended up hating the Flesh Spawns more than the Vore in ZDCMP2 She was just so damn well put in the places she was in the WAD. Once again, I don't really think there's people that unironically hate the Vore, and if there is, well, like I said, it's the mapper's fault.

---

Where's the Daedabus? That's a fine ass variant of the Mancubus

[NeuralStunner]

publicly available

I nerfed it two or three times, but after the fourth or fifth massive shitstorm from people who hadn't even tried the update, I just took down the link.

This sounds like an exaggeration, but it's actually low.

I playtested the thing in development (before any of the nerf updates and far before any of WW's further nerfs) and didn't have anything close to the agonizing futility I keep hearing about. But then i wasn't dealing with bad map placement or reckless playing, either.

It's just like any time a game mechanics discussion pops up and the first thing on the hit list is "no regenerating health", things that are too different get lodged in the community mind as some kind of taboo.

In summary, I don't see such a contest amounting to much. If you want a monster contest of some kind, aim for a goal of quality. Making a legitimately hard but fair monster takes a lot of skill. Allowing straight-up "cheap" into the roster sabotages the whole thing.

I don't think you seem to understand the "hate" towards her.

How can you tell the person who recieved the msot direct text-lashings over it that he "do[es]n't understand"? You should be laughing at yourself right now.