Runner: Zero-Master
Date: 2022-03-24
IWAD: Doom2.wad
PWAD: Sunder 2407.wad
Category: UV-Max
Map: 20 (Beneath the Waves of Styx)
Source Port: DSDA-Doom v0.24.1
Time: 1:01:59

Description:
Lost motivation to finish this map so it took a few weeks. I’d say this level is similar in difficulty to map32, a slightly difficult first few minutes followed by mostly straightforward stuff until the very last fight an hour in which is like 50/50 or so chance of survival (should probably survive 2 out of 3 times if I’m playing at least decent).

Anyways that’s it, a single segment UV-Max for every sunder level! It’s been 6 months since I started this, I’ve mostly enjoy routing so it’s been fun to come in and have a look at the max routes for these levels and come up with new ideas. I don’t think I’m particularly happy with any of the times I got. Since there were so few existing legit runs for new sunder those ended up being more about survival where the time of all of them can be significantly improved.

Some misc info about my 22 sunder maxes:
– Most attempts was by far map05 since I’d fall off 80-90% of the time at the very start (2112 out of about 6000).
– Estimated total playtime of all attempts is close to 100 hours, 30% of it on new sunder (map 15 onwards) and 70% on old sunder (maps 1-14).
– 175 of those 6000 or so attempts went past the 5 minute mark (21 of them being the uploaded runs).
– The easiest level turned out to be map18 as it only took 1 attempt past the first 2 fights.
– The biggest surprise to me was how a couple of tiny gaps managed to bring down city at the mouth of ire with ease. And I maxed 16,17,18 and 19 in 6 days, of course it took more than that if you include routing/practice.
– Most frustrating and took the longest was map07, I had some pain in my left arm at the time and I was constantly getting unlucky on a very rough route. I remember a few comments saying it would be easy, which casually is probably true, but it’s a bit funny how that turned out.
(Map01 attempts are not included in the above numbers as they weren’t stored).

Some might be wondering why I went for 100% items… it all started with map02 as the berserk was like right next to the exit.. I might as well pick it up and get 100% items! And then map03, ok sure I have to throw away a second or two to grab the berserk behind the exit, but it’s not a big deal. And then all of the sudden I’m at sunder map 32 “ok let’s just waste several seconds picking up vials”. Anyways there are no secrets with exception of 1 in map15 so it was a nice replacement, it looks nice to have everything at 100% and I didn’t really care care too much about the time. I would have regretted it badly if I had been a few frames slower on map06, but mostly it was no issue. For new sunder maps the times are very slow anyways, so a few more seconds doesn’t matter.

The levels I liked the most are 05,06,08,11,18,19. I think most the levels are excellent and overall I enjoyed running all of them. I still have some route ideas that were just far too crazy to do without TAS.

Obviously a massive thanks to Insane_Gazebo for creating this masterpiece of a wad. There’s still new maps to come, so it’s not over yet, but for now at least all existing maps are done. Whenever new maps come out though I don’t know when I’ll get to them, might focus on something else like IWAD runs or even do something with doom eternal again or do nothing at all, who knows.

Some have also asked about a non-TAS run of okuplok, I don’t think that’s something I’ll do as it’s just too long for me. Finding the motivation to run sunder map16 was difficult, okuplok which is 10x as boring and twice as long might be too much. Most of the difficult fights can be cheesed though so it’s not impossible or anything.

Comments about the run:
I was going to go to sleep, but I figured I’d just do a quick attempt for the day and die in the first 2 minutes, so I was a bit tired here. Overall quite slow, with saves/loads I had a time of 53 minutes. Lost about 2 minutes to the BFG skip alone.

Pinky room about 8 minutes in was a disaster, didn’t manage to get on top of the teleporter spot quickly enough and I missed a rocket resulting in the pinkies getting too close. Had to SSG my way out of there, still managed to keep track of when the arch-viles arrived so I managed to keep control of the fight.

BFG skip was another disaster.

Spectre room the second wave of arch-viles was horrible, I should never take more than 1 hit here if that, so I had to go for a megasphere which slows down the next fight by quite a bit.

The cyberdemons at the end were both really unlucky and lucky. Unlucky because they positioned themselves to block me so I had to take a second run through the middle and later had a complete block by one of them, and lucky because he didn’t fire and kill me.

Route/Strategy:
https://pastebin.com/GppGmKc3

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