Discussion about using the 180 turn key, and if it was ever allowed in Compet-N

So, I've caught whiff of a discussion going on Discord about using the 180 turn key press when recording demos. There seems to be some confusion regarding the historic use of this, and since I'm and old crustation from the age when Compet-N was the be all for speedrunning, I can attest to the fact that it was strictly banned. Any run using any tool to enhance the players ability led to an immediate disqualifiction of the run.

It's really weird to me to see this being a discussion at all - and also that it is a readily available tool in DSDA. Obviously it should be disabled with the -record parameter added. You cannot compare a tool assisted run to a clean run, and this goes for the 180 turn as well. Since some of the discussion touched on the recent fantastic run of Map02 max in 0:56, let me just say I think Kinetic is an incredible talent. That aside he unfortunately utilize the turn key at one point in map02, and thus it becomes invalid as a clean record to me. It's still an incredible run - just not valid as a non-assisted speedrun.

The fact that Compet-N allowed for "spinning tools" ment you were allowed to use a mouse, a trackball or similar hardware for the runs, not some software addition tool automating turns or spins. The confusion might stem from this.

There's tool assisted runs and there's clean runs, and people might record whatever they like as far as I'm concerned, but the long standing tradition for "clean" runs means you cannot tool assist, and it will never be a fair comparison regardless of how miniscule the effect in a given run.

(I'm not making a post to diss on Kinetic, I'm a fan of his stuff - I'm just baffled by the confusion going on about old rules that somehow allowed for the 180 turn to become an established speedrunning gimmick. Please keep any discussion and thoughts on this clean and on an adult level).
 

Yeah there's a lot of people joining the demo community in the last 3 years that have no basis of knowledge for any of this stuff due to poor/lost documentation and just did what was allowed by the current rulesets, which stem from people around more 10 years ago who came after competn and just tried to figure out what the rules should be in a weird time in doom where there was minimal "authority" on things. I hope that we don't retroactively discredit people who use it, but I've been around for nearly 10 years and have always found 180 bizarre. A lot of weirdness stems from the original cn rules which werent too clear, and the people who had better knowledge took many breaks so we were left with a bizarrely worded list of information that was misinterpreted in many ways, another example I can think of was AV resurrecteds "not counting" in uv max because of people misunderstanding rules, too. Anyway, I think 180 should be disabled going forward, but I hope we can work something out for people who used it when they understood it was alright to do.

I was speaking with some friends recently and a slight variation of this topic came up - I was surprised to hear that most Doomers who are "new" to the game (like, the last 15 years rofl) figured 180 was always in there, even in vanilla. I'm not a runner, but for whatever it's worth, there was never any such feature.

What about maps that require 180 turns? I think there is a map in Poogers which requires the use of it. Disabling it when using the -record parameters would practically make demos for it impossible, wouldn't it?

As someone who only really actively followed/participated in the doom speedrunning scene since 2018 I always heard the 180 turn key was acceptable for keyboard only doomers to "even the playing field" but in general it wasn't "banned" for use in demos. I think what really brought this to recent discussion is more and more Keyboard + mouse players started using it, not just Kinetic but others have mentioned recently that they used it in some of their demos. (Maybe kinetic started the trend :p ) Anyways I always did find it weird that it was allowed ( or apparently not ) but I was neutral on saying anything because I felt like most of the time it's not really much of an advantage anyway outside of some real gimmicky maps. 

It seems weird to me to actually make it yet another discussion on these forums when the argument put forth is based on the following:

4 hours ago, Andy Johnsen said:

when Compet-N was the be all for speedrunning [...] it was strictly banned.

I'm fine with discussing the ramifications of the 180° turn key with regards to modern day speedrunning - in which case my argument would be not to make such a big deal out of it, since the usefulness that informed this discussion to begin with appears to be limited to what-seems-to-be 1/1.000.000 maps or some ratio approaching meaningless looking numbers like that.

Besides, the problem with regards to what were to happen if the use of the key was banned all of a sudden as far as old demos are considered, and the arguments that will then ensue along the lines of "why could they, but I can not?" are quite frankly enough to make lengthy debates about this look highly undesirable.

As far as compet-n rules go: "It's dead, Jim..."

Discussions should never be started with "It's how we did way back when, so it's how you do today (even if you're not part of the same gang, let alone the same format)."

5 hours ago, Andy Johnsen said:

I can attest to the fact that it was strictly banned. Any run using any tool to enhance the players ability led to an immediate disqualifaction of the run.

I am very surprised you make this claim, since the rules did specifically allow it.

Quote

Various DOOM spinning utilities are allowed.

Since the (only?) well-known Doom Mouse Spinner utility's primary purpose was to "rotate your player 180 degrees with a click of the mouse", there is no room for ambiguity here. As far as I can recall, the rules always said this, from their early versions, though this is the oldest archived page on the Wayback Machine.

There is scope for discussion with respect to modern ports though, if their implementation of the 180-degree turn is in some way inconsistent with it.

11 minutes ago, Grazza said:

I am very surprised you make this claim, since the rules did specifically allow it.

Hmm, I can't find it despite reading it multiple times, funny.

11 minutes ago, Grazza said:

I am very surprised you make this claim, since the rules did specifically allow it.

Yeah, even the rules from 1999 (?) support this:
https://web.archive.org/web/19990222134218/http://ural2.hszk.bme.hu/~ha211/compet-n/rules.html

9 minutes ago, GarrettChan said:

Hmm, I can't find it despite reading it multiple times, funny.

It's the first line in the "Other Hacks" section.

2 minutes ago, Catpho said:

It's the first line in the "Other Hacks" section.

Well I thought that means something else, it's funny that I read it 100 times and never think of it saying 180 key :^)

Well, the rest of Grazza's post did clarify that :)

I believe a lot of it boils down to interpretation of what "DOOM spinning utilities" even means. Why would hardware such as a different mouse be referred to as a "DOOM spinning utility"? Software seems more obvious for me for the reference, but either way it's an absolutely bizarre string of words, and you'd think if it *meant* 180-degree turns, it *would* just say that, right? 

1 hour ago, Grazza said:

I am very surprised you make this claim, since the rules did specifically allow it.

Since the (only?) well-known Doom Mouse Spinner utility's primary purpose was to "rotate your player 180 degrees with a click of the mouse", there is no room for ambiguity here. As far as I can recall, the rules always said this, from their early versions, though this is the oldest archived page on the Wayback Machine.

 

There is scope for discussion with respect to modern ports though, if their implementation of the 180-degree turn is in some way inconsistent with it.

Yes, I'm aware of the paragraph you refer to. It's ufortunate that the original rules are worded the way the are. As I tried to explain on Discord, I don't blame individuals from the speedrunning community for taking this and running with it as far as automated 180 key press goes. All I can say is, this is not what they intended to allow for, and you didn't see submitted runs getting through with automated turns, unless it was an oversight or a demo the admins didn't catch.

Unfortunately the compet-n rules were never elaborated the way they should have been to prevent confusement down the road. Most of the discussions and the disqualfications of submitted demos happened on a case to case basis, and most of the discussions went down on IRC or by mail. The 180 key press flip thing was "banned" among competitive DM players as much as it was disregarded for singleplayer demo submissions. If you look at the bulk of demos submitted for the original compet-n you will not find many if any recordings utilizing 180 key press flips. If this was somehow allowed by the admins, you would have seen it incorperated in runs from the early days, and perhaps even more so among the hardcore deathmachers.

1 hour ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

 

 

As far as compet-n rules go: "It's dead, Jim..."

Discussions should never be started with "It's how we did way back when, so it's how you do today (even if you're not part of the same gang, let alone the same format)."

Of course historical context matters here, as I pointed out initially this not an "us" against "them" thing, simply pointing out how it was practised originally. Tool assisted runs were never compared to non tool assisted ones for the record tables. If people want to modify or alter this, sure, have the discussion - but when it's questioned if it used to be an accepted thing in the speedrunning community, the answer is no.

In regards to making a "big deal" this is more about where to draw a line in the sand as far as tool assisting goes, a witch hunt for runs already incorporating it seems counter productive. As far as it not being a "big deal" I think some players who utilize it quite a bit for navigation and have incorporated it fully into their style of play, will disagree. There's no question there's a time and place for an automated turn that makes it easier to execute a manuver.

Whenever I've seen 180's show up in UV-Maxes lately, I raise my eyebrow and say, "Hmmmmm...", but I usually shake it off.  The runs are usually impressive in other ways and the weirdness of the 180 is washed down by sheer skill elsewhere.  But, I think it's more of an advantage than some people give credit.  Sure, you can just flick your mouse and hope for something close to an instant turn-around, but there's a lot of situations where a guaranteed 180 is just more reliable, consistent, faster, frame-perfect, angle-perfect, good-for-setups, etc.  Flicking manually and getting a 181.4 turn (if you don't mess it up) is cool and all, and it's more down to earth, but if you had the option to instant 180, could you resist the potential benefits?

And extreme example of one map that puts this into play is Dmnsns MAP02:  Particularly the 2nd fight has a very orthogonal and tightly knit layout with a few technical tricks that you can employ there.  While the current record doesn't do a 180 (just checked and thought it did), some other demos do and it's a clear advantage to have a strict 180 to relieve some of burden off of you.

If 180 binds start being considered normal, I might just bind a 180 key myself too and try micro-ing it into my normal movement for fun.  Even during casual playthroughs I weave in SR50's because it's just kinda fun to hit buttons, not because it's optimal - but this may/may-not transfer into serious skill later.  The same would probably apply to instant 180's.

So far I've only seen in UV-Maxes.  I'd imagine it's more egregious in Pacifists and NoMos, and if I start seeing it there, I dunno what I'll do, lol.

Sure, there are some instances of unfortunately careless or ambiguous wording in the rules (most notably the Max definition, which should definitely have been clarified outside AdamH's forum post on the topic), but the publically stated rules on this point are completely clear. Unless, that is, you read it as meaning "... allowed, except that you can't use the only well-known one for its primary purpose."

Unless anyone can cite specific instances of runs that were rejected due to 180-degree turns (and that would no doubt have created quite a stink at the time), then the conclusion has to be that they were allowed, even if not many people found a use for them for whatever reason.

I see that you have now used the term "disregarded", which suggests some kind of tacit gentlemen's agreement, much as some players back then felt about using strafe-50 to beat runs recorded without it.

gggmork liked the 180key, we used to demo a bunch of the same maps but I didn't mind at all because he was a keyboarder. If there was a poll, I'd vote "no" for mousers. What bugs me is when people use the 180key in rocket jumping, instead of having to do a quick and accurate 180 with the mouse while mid-air during a standing superjump, you could just press a key for an exact 180.

Not a speedrunner but I have enjoyed keyboard only play in the past and recently I have been experimenting with "classic" gamepad controls (no analog sticks) and noticed that 180 turn key becomes pretty essential to keep up with faster and more accurate mouse/analog stick control. I feel in that context 180 turn key is fair because you take also so many disadvantages because of your control method.

I would generally also say that 180 turn key isn't technically that much different from use of NOVERT and basically just makes the game more accessible for many players.

38 minutes ago, Grazza said:

Sure, there are some instances of unfortunately careless or ambiguous wording in the rules (most notably the Max definition, which should definitely have been clarified outside AdamH's forum post on the topic), but the publically stated rules on this point are completely clear. Unless, that is, you read it as meaning "... allowed, except that you can't use the only well-known one for its primary purpose."

 

Unless anyone can cite specific instances of runs that were rejected due to 180-degree turns (and that would no doubt have created quite a stink at the time), then the conclusion has to be that they were allowed, even if not many people found a use for them for whatever reason.

 

I see that you have now used the term "disregarded", which suggests some kind of tacit gentlemen's agreement, much as some players back then felt about using strafe-50 to beat runs recorded without it.

I hear you, and I understand why the claim can be made in retrospect that this was allowed back in the day too, unfortunately you just have to rely on counter claims from players who were active at the time, which might not be enough to convince you, which is fair enough. Most likely we won't find a specific case where there's an open discussion about a submitted demo using the 180 key turn. I might be able to find something if I go through tons of old logs, but I wouldn't bet on it.

As a sidenote, there was no great divide from the most active players when it came to sr50 use to improve on old runs, I know the topic was discussed but there was absolutely no grand controversy around it, except when automated sr50 appeared. There were no tacit gentlemans agreement in place for the automated 180 degree key flips, either, to my knowledge. At least I never heard about it :} The difference between utilizing sr50 as far as the game allowed compared to adding a tool in order to do automated flips is quite distinct.

@Andy Johnsen Do you remember what does that line about spinning utilities allow? I'm genuinely curious about that because that sentence is really odd to be there. I used to think 180 comes with Dos, but obviously that's not the case, so it became more complicated...

I've used 180 before and usually it's not that useful, but one map did get trivialized by it. Of course I joined at 2017, so it's at an era that Andy (the other Andy :p) handling DSDA, and at that moment, I feel Andy doesn't really want to do it, but he doesn't want to give up on it either, so it's kinda a weird time that rules are not clear... lots of error made while uploading because he only read your txt, and if your txt is wrong then...

I use 180 turns in a good number of my demos, mostly stroller runs but also in a few speed/max runs. It's true that it's a macro input but it's been allowed forever (over a decade at least, probably more) and I don't see why the rule should change. This isn't Compet-N and few CN records are remotely competitive these days, why should the exact rules have any bearing? I've always viewed 180 keybind as more of a quality of life feature, it's never going to make a bad run into a good run but in the rare circumstances where it has a use case it just makes things more consistent and less aggravating in general. I'm strongly against banning it, especially for cl9+ runs, and I absolutely don't agree that existing runs should be disqualified for using it. You can always beat or tie them without using 180 keybind, even in the very specific scenarios where it makes a difference, it'll just take you more attempts.

It looks like the decision has already been made in most people's minds because an unexpected 180 in a demo can look jarring and it would seem strange for such a thing to be allowed in speedruns if you're only now hearing about it, especially since this introductory post (which is supposed to be encouraging discussion and debate, right?) is so heavily biased in favour of a ban.

So basically it didn't come up. Simplest explanation: it was allowed (as stated) but hardly anyone used it, so those who presumed it was banned never noticed people using it.

BTW, I probably did read everything in the Competn forums back in the day, and have no recollection of any non-trivial discussion of this topic (which would probably have stuck somewhere in my mind).

4 minutes ago, Andy Johnsen said:

There were no tacit gentlemans agreement in place for the automated 180 degree key flips, either, to my knowledge. At least I never heard about it :}

That's kind of what tacit means. :)

GarrettChan: Most web browsers have a feature where you can search the text of the page (often Ctrl-F).

Note: the key discussion here isn't whether it gives a major advantage, or whether anyone likes the feature or not, but if it has been for the last 25+ years either allowed, banned, or "unclear".

6 minutes ago, Grazza said:

So basically it didn't come up. Simplest explanation: it was allowed (as stated) but hardly anyone used it, so those who presumed it was banned never noticed people using it.

It would make sense to me that many people just didn't like it. Also maybe many didn't know about it or just didn't get it to work. From the pure QoL perpective 180 turn key seems to me a very reasonable thing to be allowed even back then. Mouse players are just less likely to find instant 180 turning useful and it's also something that will hurt their immersion so this could explain why it wasn't popular thing back then and as far as I know, still isn't very popular feature today.

Just speculating here but it would make sense that some simple things like using modified mouse driver to disable vertical mouse movement and allow instant 180 turn can give only so minor advantage that it is easier to just allow compared to trying to ban them.

47 minutes ago, Grazza said:

So basically it didn't come up. Simplest explanation: it was allowed (as stated) but hardly anyone used it, so those who presumed it was banned never noticed people using it.

 

BTW, I probably did read everything in the Competn forums back in the day, and have no recollection of any non-trivial discussion of this topic (which would probably have stuck somewhere in my mind).

 

That's kind of what tacit means. :)

 

GarrettChan: Most web browsers have a feature where you can search the text of the page (often Ctrl-F).

 

Note: the key discussion here isn't whether it gives a major advantage, or whether anyone likes the feature or not, but if it has been for the last 25+ years either allowed, banned, or "unclear".

The main essence and core principle of the compet-n rules are put down in this statement:

"Using a different EXE other than DOOM.EXE v1.9 (size 715493 bytes) for Ultimate DOOM, DOOM2.EXE v1.9 (size 709905 bytes) for DOOM2 and Final DOOM, DOOM2.EXE v1.9 (size 722629 bytes) for Final DOOM is not allowed."
 

If the intention was to allow for 3rd party mouse drivers to perform tool assisted movements, that were not achievable by the v1.9 vanilla config key bindings it would have said so. 

"Various DOOM spinning utilities are allowed."

Various hardware variants of the trackball mouse could be bought from different brands. They shipped with different drivers, some had issues with doom, others not. However you were not free to use a driver that actually gave you an assist advantage. The term "utilities" is a reference to the hardware+driver combination beeing used. 
Otherwise it would have stated "drivers" explicitly. 

Just because a certain aspect is not explicitly covered by the rules, does not mean it would be allowed.
If it did not allign with the general principles laid down, then you would not have a case to argue. 

I can give you a spesific personal example of that. Nothing in the rules says anything about "iddt" not beeing allowed.
I recorded pn08-546.lmp using that cheat (to spy on enemies), admitting to it ofcourse...however my intention was to just show it was possible to complete the map on nm100s. So I wrote the following: 

"First things first, I used "iddt" in the bluekey room to lure out the cacos etc, 
 so I understand if you don't wanna accept as a fully worthy entry Adam. That's up
 to you, but it's fine by me if it gets in the misc cat. Or you could just 
 delete it =)" 

It was understandably invalidated, to noones suprise. Or I could have taken another route, making a case for not
violating any rules. 

That is a spesific incident proving that AdamH (compet-n admin) did not see it as legit. Even tho the rules did not mention it beeing disallowed. You have to interpret rules according to the general core principles, its not like its possible to prove\disprove every instance case by case. 

So I(we?) cannot cite a spesific instance of AdamH invalidating a demo, where 180 turns asssist were used, however in the ruling context
I just gave, is it reasonable to belive he would see a demo as valid if he saw those instant 180 turns? I don`t think so.
Because it would be in conflict with the general ruling principles. 

1 hour ago, Grazza said:

GarrettChan: Most web browsers have a feature where you can search the text of the page (often Ctrl-F).

I mean I searched "180" at the get go, and searched "turn", and yeah... "spin" and "turn" are 2 things in my mind. Hopefully I don't feel this dumb to you by asking this question :P

That spinning utility sentence is very strangely worded, so from it, nothing can be decided IMO. I do agree that you don't see 180 in C-N records because it's not useful to begin with. With the limited amount of maps for C-N records, I don't really think any run with 180 can drastically change the outcome.

Though, for many mapsets hosted on DSDA now, there are definitely some 180 is very useful, so it does depend on how people interpret the rules back then because the whole scope is very different.

2 hours ago, Andy Johnsen said:

Of course historical context matters here, as I pointed out initially this not an "us" against "them" thing, simply pointing out how it was practised originally.

That's the thing though... It kind of becomes a "you versus them" when, earlier in the discussion, you put into question the validity of a run:

8 hours ago, Andy Johnsen said:

That aside he unfortunately utilize the turn key at one point in map02, and thus it becomes invalid as a clean record to me. It's still an incredible run - just not valid as a non-assisted speedrun.

I really don't care that you point out how great of a player the runner is, because it doesn't make this claim of invalidity any less uncharitable. First you say it's not valid in your opinion (which would have been fair enough, actually), and then, right after, you say it's not valid as a non-TAS - period...

And then there's telling the rest of us how we should do:

8 hours ago, Andy Johnsen said:

Obviously it should be disabled with the -record parameter added.

15 minutes ago, skogsto09 said:

If the intention was to allow for 3rd party mouse drivers to perform tool assisted movements, that were not achievable by the v1.9 vanilla config key bindings it would have said so. 

Not good enough. There used to be a joystick that allowed for turning while performing SR50s, what if someone used that for a run? Would you have gone out of your way to tell them that they obviously weren't allowed to use that piece of hardware, despite the fact that it would have been entirely unmodified and with no sorts of macros going on the background?

44 minutes ago, skogsto09 said:

"Various DOOM spinning utilities are allowed."

Various hardware variants of the trackball mouse could be bought from different brands. They shipped with different drivers, some had issues with doom, others not. However you were not free to use a driver that actually gave you an assist advantage. The term "utilities" is a reference to the hardware+driver combination beeing used. 
Otherwise it would have stated "drivers" explicitly. 

I have never seen the term "utilities" used to mean something other than a software program that helps the user do miscellaneous things, used to augment and complement applications. In this context, the application is the Doom game. The idea that it could mean "combination of hardware and driver" sounds very odd to me. If I read "Doom spinning utilities", I understand a TSR program that helps perform spins in Doom.

IMO if you were "not free to use a driver that gave an assist advantage", then maybe the rules should have said "you are not allowed to use a driver that gives you an assist advantage" instead of "various DOOM spinning utilities are allowed".

I found the 180 bind in DSDA-Doom.  I have mixed feelings about this.  I'm gonna take a shower.

9 minutes ago, Gez said:

I have never seen the term "utilities" used to mean something other than a software program that helps the user do miscellaneous things, used to augment and complement applications. In this context, the application is the Doom game. The idea that it could mean "combination of hardware and driver" sounds very odd to me. If I read "Doom spinning utilities", I understand a TSR program that helps perform spins in Doom.

 

IMO if you were "not free to use a driver that gave an assist advantage", then maybe the rules should have said "you are not allowed to use a driver that gives you an assist advantage" instead of "various DOOM spinning utilities are allowed".

I think it would help if you were familiar with how things where in the 90s, MsDos and how things were generally configured and set up. 
Various drivers where shipped and used, so the main point was not to maintain a list of all allowed drivers. 

Ofcourse the rules could have been improved, but like I said in my previous post. Using any tools that gave an advantage not attainable using the vanilla doom exes were strictly forbidden. Even when using codes like "iddt" which is avail when recording demos for everyone was not allowed...it did not need to be mentioned in the rules specifically even.  

There were no high profiled demos that implemented use of such programs you refer to, as it went under the "unfair advantage" categori. Also its not like it would not be noticed either. 

If dsda-doom would include a button called "spy on minimap" which entered "iddt" for you 2 times, then we would be in the same situation as now, where I could argue that in the compet-n days it would never be allowed. Where you could just make a counter argument saying there is no mention of it beeing disallowed in the rules.  If we actually did not have a direct reference to such a situation, to prove otherwise.  However it should give some insight to the context on the general ruling practice. So with that in mind, it should be pretty obvious what such a ruling would be regarding the 180 flip assist.

40 minutes ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

That's the thing though... It kind of becomes a "you versus them" when, earlier in the discussion, you put into question the validity of a run:

I really don't care that you point out how great of a player the runner is, because it doesn't make this claim of invalidity any less uncharitable. First you say it's not valid in your opinion (which would have been fair enough, actually), and then, right after, you say it's not valid as a non-TAS - period...

And then there's telling the rest of us how we should do:

 

How I view things is not automatically a statement saying how you should view things, its okay if you think the run is legitimate enough despite the use of the 180 key. It's still a tool assist, but you might feel indifferent about that, you might think it's of minor impact, you might think it should be allowed and embraced; fair enough. The original question that was floating around was "did they allow this back in the day" - and the answer to that is still no, despite a rule set that seems to indicate so and understandably causes confusion.

As for disabling a tool assist turn from being activated on recording, from a/(my) purist point of view yes, I think it would be a good idea to do so, but there's stuff to consider when it comes to this as well. Maybe there should be a comp level allowing for it specifically. It should be needless to say - these are opinions and good counter arguments are interesting.