Welcome to Extreme Infight Arena!

[Blue Shadow]

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

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It was taken down by request from the original author.

[Arch]

I love infights so I really liked this idea, although I think it will not work with the current rules only. I think you need to directly forbid lots of actor flags and make the monster flag combo obligatory. The unlimited health and damage concept is something too cheap IMO, I would suggest a point system, for example you have 2000 points to distribute at your health, speed, damage, and etc. The seven round rule only makes sense if there are 7 different arena layouts, otherwise the fight results would probably be the same at every round. You could even add some traps at some environments.

How about people send you the monsters, you set the fights up and upload the videos? It would be easier for participants.

Suggested forbidden flags:
+GHOST +DORMANT +THRUACTORS +THRUSPECIES +NOTARGET +NEVERTARGET +NODAMAGE +INVULNERABLE +STEALTH +INVISIBLE +FORCEPAIN +NONSHOOTABLE +NOCLIP +NOINTERACTION +NOSECTOR

[malon3]

publicly available

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.

These monsters are not for the player to fight, this will be AI vs AI, which is why cheapness is allowed. And I agree that quality monsters should be based on the player. I'm not trying to make a legitimately hard but fair monster fight. But I want to see monster vs monster.

[malon3]

I love infights so I really liked this idea, although I think it will not work with the current rules only. I think you need to directly forbid lots of actor flags and make the monster flag combo obligatory. The unlimited health and damage concept is something too cheap IMO, I would suggest a point system, for example you have 2000 points to distribute at your health, speed, damage, and etc. The seven round rule only makes sense if there are 7 different arena layouts, otherwise the fight results would probably be the same at every round. You could even add some traps at some environments.

How about people send you the monsters, you set the fights up and upload the videos? It would be easier for participants.

Suggested forbidden flags:
+GHOST +DORMANT +THRUACTORS +THRUSPECIES +NOTARGET +NEVERTARGET +NODAMAGE +INVULNERABLE +STEALTH +INVISIBLE +FORCEPAIN +NONSHOOTABLE +NOCLIP +NOINTERACTION +NOSECTOR

I love everything about this post! I would be more than happy to do the videos and upload them! Thank you!

Just a few points:

• 2000 points to distribute between health, damage etc is a bit low, I think. Around 5x that amount might give more leeway. The vanilla cyberdemon by itself has 4000hp.
• The round thing I believe is necessary. I've spent HOURS doing infights on my own, and fights are not always consistent. Maybe best of 5.
• Environmental traps add luck into the mix. I'd rather see raw programming grit.

I've added your suggestions to the main list. Thanks again!

[Arch]

Just a few points:

• 2000 points to distribute between health, damage etc is a bit low, I think. Around 5x that amount might give more leeway. The vanilla cyberdemon by itself has 4000hp.
• The round thing I believe is necessary. I've spent HOURS doing infights on my own, and fights are not always consistent. Maybe best of 5.
• Environmental traps add luck into the mix. I'd rather see raw programming grit.

Yup 2000 was just an example, it could be much more than that. If this idea goes really well and you get lots of monster submissions, you could even add point classes that would fight only between themselves like weights in boxing.

I'm not against the round system, I think it would be nice to see how monsters behave in different scenarios. I understand that you don't want direct external influence like traps, but things like columns and height variation could add monster mobility into account.

[malon3]

I understand that you don't want direct external influence like traps, but things like columns and height variation could add monster mobility into account.

I suppose, but I think monster mobility should be up to the programmer. I'm open to whatever idea the community would prefer...traps or no traps. I prefer no traps, you prefer traps. Tie vote right now, I'll make a final decision if others chime in.

[Arch]

The project is yours, you decide. I don't even know if I really prefer traps, that was just an idea that occurred, so I shared it. I'm not trying to push it, I just thought all rounds would have same results at flat arenas, so I made some suggestions.

Oh, another rule that might be necessary: monsters cannot spawn other monsters or clones of themselves. Or, if you want to give challengers more freedom, any spawned actor must use unused points, so a 6000 point monster could spawn two 2000 point monsters, for example. Again, this is just an idea, if you want only 1x1 fights, just forbid any monster spawning.

[wildweasel]

A thing that should be kept in mind if we use this "points" system for speed: speed can be expressed two different ways in terms of monster movement. More accurately, speed is defined by two different numbers. The actual "speed" property determines how far the monster will move in one call of A_Chase. But A_Chase can be called any number of times per second, so the tic-rate needs to be taken into account as well. I propose this formula:

Actual Speed = A
Property Speed = P
Tic Delay (averaged) = T

A = P/T

And to put it in line with the rest of the properties, I'd suggest multiplying A by ten when calculating the point-value of a monster. That way, we don't have turbo-fast cyberdemons that sacrifice ten hit-points in order to move 10 units in 1 tic.

[Arch]

Sounds good, but a bit complicated. I didn't understand what property speed is, to speak the truth. Maybe there could be a minimum number of tics at every state? Otherwise we will watch some ugly fights: why waste time with animations if you can spam attacks at any rate? I don't know how mugen works, but you can do virtually anything in Doom editing, so I maybe it's a good idea to have some kind of monster mould.

Some more rules that just came to mind:
- one projectile at a time, otherwise people will spawn 10000000 projectiles that inflict 1 damage each
- sprites must be visible

[malon3]

I've created the official thread here, as this quickly seemed to generate interest:

http://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=45425

This thread may be locked.

[Arch]

I'm replying here, I suppose the official thread is for monster submissions. Since you didn't include the monster flag combo in the rules, I think you should make clear that at least the +SHOOTABLE flag is obligatory.
Maybe its a good idea if you make a monster yourself and defy users to beat it, its easier for people to participate if you give them an example.

[malon3]

I'm replying here, I suppose the official thread is for monster submissions. Since you didn't include the monster flag combo in the rules, I think you should make clear that at least the +SHOOTABLE flag is obligatory.
Maybe its a good idea if you make a monster yourself and defy users to beat it, its easier for people to participate if you give them an example.

The very first line of the official post says "This thread is for discussion of .... and monster submissions". But that's a good idea, I can try and make an unbeatable monster to kick it off! Doing that now!

Also, doesn't the rule of "Your monster must take damage from all types" imply +MONSTER and +SHOOTABLE ?

[Arch]

Also, doesn't the rule of "Your monster must take damage from all types" imply +MONSTER and +SHOOTABLE ?

Yes, I was just trying to help you to have clear rules instead of implied rules. By that logic, you can take out half of the forbidden flags, because they are also already implied.

I love monster infighting, but the way this is being executed lacks many rules to provide entertaining fights. It turned out to be more like programming fights then monster fights. It allows me to make a 1 pixel black dot that shoots invisible projeticles, and that will be very boring to watch.

[Nash]

So I'm guessing every monster submitted will have 0x7FFFFFFF health in this contest...

[malon3]

Also, doesn't the rule of "Your monster must take damage from all types" imply +MONSTER and +SHOOTABLE ?

Yes, I was just trying to help you to have clear rules instead of implied rules. By that logic, you can take out half of the forbidden flags, because they are also already implied.

I love monster infighting, but the way this is being executed lacks many rules to provide entertaining fights. It turned out to be more like programming fights then monster fights. It allows me to make a 1 pixel black dot that shoots invisible projeticles, and that will be very boring to watch.

From the official thread:

What if I want to watch watch quality, non-broken monsters fight instead?
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.

But yes, you are correct, my idea is a programmer's challenge, to push the very limits of the zdoom engine.