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babo

Doom 2 was a terrible game

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MajorRawne said:

It always seemed weird that in two hundred years' time when humans are beginning to learn interdimensional travel, their most useful weapons were developed and built in the 1800s-1900s.

So much for antimatter, lasers, zero-point energy, super-advanced body armour, remote drones etc.

Doom is a game from the 90's.
That means: Got an idea? Great, put it in! The idea could have been better, or more further developed? Doesn't matter.

*shrugs shoulders*

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Platinum Shell said:

Actually, it can't. The SSG's damage output is anywhere from 100-300, and, assuming the armor type the player is wearing is blue (absorbs 50% of all damage), then a blast of 300 points will leave a 200 200 player with 50 50. Still incredibly powerful though.


So in code its not technically possible? I swear many times i have seen someone grab a megasphere only to be instakilled right after. How strange. Does the megasphere count as blue armor?

dew:


Overpowered relative to what? Keep in mind, it's impossible to reach that optimal 300dmg. Doom's lookup table of RNG values is fixed and pellet damage is added up in also fixed uninterrupted jumps, so you'll never hit all the high values. This histogram is closer to truth. In reality, anything over 200 (basically a maxed full hit) will get you an evil eye from the opponent, heh. SSG only really ruins CG and SG and those suck anyways. :) RL, PG and BFG can be considered even deadlier murdersticks.


What I mean is, weapons that do that much damage don't really compliment a death match game that emphasis item placement as a means to control a level. If the downed player merely needs to grab one weapon to become a significant threat it undermines his urge to regain control of the map at all.

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TheCastle said:

What I mean is, weapons that do that much damage don't really compliment a death match game that emphasis item placement as a means to control a level. If the downed player merely needs to grab one weapon to become a significant threat it undermines his urge to regain control of the map at all.

You are correct, but Doom is not about map control in the sense Quake is. Quake's more complex and sophisticated DM emphasizes map control as the one and only God and on the micro level it is an item-for-item battle with fragless skirmishes. I hugely respect that and the skill ceiling is even higher than in Doom, but it's almost absurd at times - hiding for a few minutes before building up a proper stack? That's an antithesis to Doom's fast movement.

Doom focuses on frag-for-frag gameplay instead. The one-shot kills give you the option to hamstring the "dominant" opponent at almost any time and reclaiming map control is merely a vehicle for some spawnfragging. In Quake you always have the cat and the mouse, in Doom players are on equal footing most of the time (unless it's map01). This also means getting fragged is often worth the risk and your current life is easily dispensable if it doesn't put you into a vulnerable respawn position. It is a different mindset and I'm sure the frenetic, more hypnotic pace of Doom DM is a very important part of why it survived the dawn of Quake DM to this day.

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dew said:

You are correct, but Doom is not about map control in the sense Quake is. Quake's more complex and sophisticated DM emphasizes map control as the one and only God and on the micro level it is an item-for-item battle with fragless skirmishes. I hugely respect that and the skill ceiling is even higher than in Doom, but it's almost absurd at times - hiding for a few minutes before building up a proper stack? That's an antithesis to Doom's fast movement.

Doom focuses on frag-for-frag gameplay instead. The one-shot kills give you the option to hamstring the "dominant" opponent at almost any time and reclaiming map control is merely a vehicle for some spawnfragging. In Quake you always have the cat and the mouse, in Doom players are on equal footing most of the time (unless it's map01). This also means getting fragged is often worth the risk and your current life is easily dispensable if it doesn't put you into a vulnerable respawn position. It is a different mindset and I'm sure the frenetic, more hypnotic pace of Doom DM is a very important part of why it survived the dawn of Quake DM to this day.

:O

Dew. Now completely seriously. I admire you for your wonderfully mature outlook, how you can theorize and describe the game, and how you express yourself. I really do. I enjoy to read through your post and realize it's all truth, but it'd never occur to me to even think this way.

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scifista42 said:

:O

Dew. Now completely seriously. I admire you for your wonderfully mature outlook, how you can theorize and describe the game, and how you express yourself. I really do. I enjoy to read through your post and realize it's all truth, but it'd never occur to me to even think this way.




+1 for dew

as he actually knows what he's talking about, as opposed to "ssg unbalances the gameplay".

it makes the game balanced against the mid-tier monsters introduced in doom2, yes. as he said, anyone arguing for ssg = bad should play maps from pistol start, with only a shotty taken from a sergeant, and see how tedious that is.

it's a 19th century weapon so effective only because of doomguy's mobility. if he ran like in a modern game, he could never close in, shoot a manc point-blank, and step aside before the manc fired. sg and especially ssg are weapons for nimble players. even more in dm, where one ssg blast can drop an opponent while his bfg is charging up. that's one of the best things in doom2 dm, when you frag someone with a perfect 180° flick shot, or evade his hail of rockets and plasma and put that double buckshot right in his face. doom2 old dm is not "chess with items" as quake dm is, it's moment of awesomeness comes when a player on his last health points gets on a killing spree against fresh opponents, being invulnerable not because of having built up health, but because of tactics and sheer agility.

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dew said:

You are correct, but Doom is not about map control in the sense Quake is. Quake's more complex and sophisticated DM emphasizes map control as the one and only God and on the micro level it is an item-for-item battle with fragless skirmishes. I hugely respect that and the skill ceiling is even higher than in Doom, but it's almost absurd at times - hiding for a few minutes before building up a proper stack? That's an antithesis to Doom's fast movement.

Doom focuses on frag-for-frag gameplay instead. The one-shot kills give you the option to hamstring the "dominant" opponent at almost any time and reclaiming map control is merely a vehicle for some spawnfragging. In Quake you always have the cat and the mouse, in Doom players are on equal footing most of the time (unless it's map01). This also means getting fragged is often worth the risk and your current life is easily dispensable if it doesn't put you into a vulnerable respawn position. It is a different mindset and I'm sure the frenetic, more hypnotic pace of Doom DM is a very important part of why it survived the dawn of Quake DM to this day.


I like your points on this topic quite a lot! Can you recommend a video of a well known doom 2 tournament? I would very much like to see how the best of the best players actually play Doom 2 in a competitive environment.

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TheCastle said:

I like your points on this topic quite a lot! Can you recommend a video of a well known doom 2 tournament? I would very much like to see how the best of the best players actually play Doom 2 in a competitive environment.


Not dew, but the DSDA has quite an extensive deathmatch section with demos from top players such as ocelot, Adam Hegyi, Sedlo, etc. You can play back and watch the demos in PrBoom+ or the original executable, I think (I'm not sure if there are any that use advanced ports). There's no split screen, unfortunately, but you can switch between player views in PrBoom+. Most of these are older demos, though; I'm not sure about modern DM since I never play deathmatch.

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Honestly, I agree that Doom 2 is dwarfed by Doom 1/

Though abstract, Doom 1's level design was still "realistic."
Doom 2 is just a bunch of textures slapped about on a level design that focuses on "Hold M1 and spray your boomstick into the crowd of OP demons in a level which is on par with the gameplay style of mediocre wads."

All spray, no play.

I mean, come on.
Tricks and Traps was a joke.

TnT and Plutonia are the same thing as Doom 2.
Except Plutonia has pretty waterfall textures.

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Burktross said:

TnT and Plutonia are the same thing as Doom 2.
Except Plutonia has pretty waterfall textures.


Wtf are you talking about

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SFoZ911 said:

Wtf are you talking about


I was saying that Final Doom gives me that same feeling I get from Doom 2.

Waterfalls were a joke; Plutonia has nice, extra textures to map with.

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Burktross said:

Though abstract, Doom 1's level design was still "realistic."
Doom 2 is just a bunch of textures slapped about on a level design that focuses on "Hold M1 and spray your boomstick into the crowd of OP demons in a level which is on par with the gameplay style of mediocre wads."

All spray, no play.

It's very thoughtful of you to not say anything about Doom 1's gameplay, focusing instead on its aesthetics.

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Burktross said:

Though abstract, Doom 1's level design was still "realistic."
Doom 2 is just a bunch of textures slapped about on a level design that focuses on "Hold M1 and spray your boomstick into the crowd of OP demons in a level which is on par with the gameplay style of mediocre wads."

All spray, no play.

As Da Werecat so kindly pointed out, you're out of your element. You're mixing visuals in one product with level design and gameplay in the other. That is no way to introduce yourself into a discussion with nearly 200 posts. Try again and be careful of your reasoning. You've already made rather bold and utterly wrong claims about the gameplay of Doom 2 and Plutonia. You don't want to be irreversibly labeled a filthy casual, do you?

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dew said:

As Da Werecat so kindly pointed out, you're out of your element. You're mixing visuals in one product with level design and gameplay in the other. That is no way to introduce yourself into a discussion with nearly 200 posts. Try again and be careful of your reasoning. You've already made rather bold and utterly wrong claims about the gameplay of Doom 2 and Plutonia. You don't want to be irreversibly labeled a filthy casual, do you?


You misconstrued my statements on the level design. Even if both games only used the default DB2 startan texture sets, the levels in Doom one generally are more fun to play than in Doom 2 because of their general layout. Doom 2 is rather everywhere at once in some levels as you progress, where as Doom 1 keeps a slower paced, corner checking, "tighter" style of gameplay in which its challenges come from maneuvering within said smaller areas. Doom 2 has heavier emphasis on weaponry and enemy count/power in contrast to Doom 1.

Am I saying Doom 2 is terrible? No.
Am I saying Doom 1 is better. Yes.

Unless my opinion of my preferred type of playstyle is wrong, then you have misinterpreted my words or thought my joking exaggerations to be serious.

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DeathevokatioN said:

Doom 2 also has nice, extra textures to map with in comparison to Doom. ;)


Well of course Doom 2 is much better in terms of resources for mapping. Plutonia just throws in the waterfall and some nice brick textures on top of that.

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Plutonia gameplay and doom2 gameplay differs from each other.
While doom2 relies on weapons and enemy count(as you said)plutonia's level design and monster count is smaller and more compact which make the maps harder and more effective then doom2's maps.

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SFoZ911 said:

Plutonia gameplay and doom2 gameplay differs from each other.
While doom2 relies on weapons and enemy count(as you said)plutonia's level design and monster count is smaller and more compact which make the maps harder and more effective then doom2's maps.

Yes, Plutonia is not quite Doom 2. It leans more towards D2 style than D1, though.

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Burktross said:

Doom 2 is rather everywhere at once in some levels as you progress, where as Doom 1 keeps a slower paced, corner checking, "tighter" style of gameplay in which its challenges come from maneuvering within said smaller areas.

Today I learned that cramped mazes are the pinnacle of Doom level design. :)

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Da Werecat said:

Today I learned that cramped mazes are the pinnacle of Doom level design. :)

I like dark mazes much better than straight to the point monster hordes (and rather inappropriately placed boss monsters, sometimes in crushers or for infighting). The Doom 1 levels themselves conjured up difficulty and interesting situations in combat; situations that I rarely experienced in Doom 2's relatively open settings.

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Burktross said:

straight to the point monster hordes

Well, I guess it's only fair that you simplified things like I simplified them.

I wasn't very serious though.

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Da Werecat said:

Well, I guess it's only fair that you simplified things like I simplified them.

I wasn't very serious though.

Apologies. I thought you were being passive aggressive.

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Burktross said:

Doom 2 is rather everywhere at once in some levels as you progress, where as Doom 1 keeps a slower paced, corner checking, "tighter" style of gameplay in which its challenges come from maneuvering within said smaller areas. Doom 2 has heavier emphasis on weaponry and enemy count/power in contrast to Doom 1.

This is exactly why Doom is so inferior to Doom 2 when it comes to raw gameplay. It's hardly ever challenging and you can destroy any difficulty with disgustingly efficient corner camping. Slow paced low threat corridor crawls pretty much suck when nostalgia is taken away. That's why just E1 truly stands out from the original game... and that is because Romero made sure monsters could navigate those semi-open mazes. Doom either needs to throw cacos and barons in your face, or it needs to be a terrible war of attrition a la Double Impact. The original game is neither and most people found it terrifying, because they were keyboarding and probably had to stop going forward in order to strafe. And Doom's boss usage is so oversimplified and stunted that it's like a slap of contempt these days.

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Burktross said:

Apologies. I thought you were being passive aggressive.

On the other hand, you've simplified things even before me. Stating that Doom 2 is about higher monster count/power (one of the mildest descriptions) is superficial.

It's about more complex monster behaviors utilized in more complex layouts with more height variation, blah blah blah, it was all discussed countless times already.

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dew said:

This is exactly why Doom is so inferior to Doom 2 when it comes to raw gameplay. It's hardly ever challenging and you can destroy any difficulty with disgustingly efficient corner camping. Slow paced low threat corridor crawls pretty much suck when nostalgia is taken away. That's why just E1 truly stands out from the original game... and that is because Romero made sure monsters could navigate those semi-open mazes. Doom either needs to throw cacos and barons in your face, or it needs to be a terrible war of attrition a la Double Impact. The original game is neither and most people found it terrifying, because they were keyboarding and probably had to stop going forward in order to strafe. And Doom's boss usage is so oversimplified and stunted that it's like a slap of contempt these days.


Granted, the bosses were pretty bad, especially the Mastermind.

I can say the opposite about the level design: Doom 1's lack of the ability to charge head on into combat made it much more interesting in terms of planning that involved more thought than Doom 2(Not to say Doom is super duper advanced), where I felt the maps just sort of passed by. Anything that wasn't the main idea of the map just didn't stand out; wasn't intriguing.

Doom 2 is much more interesting in terms of monsters. Weapon choice is debatable, SSG itself isn't OP; its OP in terms of its ammo rarity. Perhaps should it have been a different gun with the same mechanics and damage values, and thus it could use a different ammo type to balance its use with its power.

Doom 1's map layouts were always neat and fun to progress through for me, though it was the opposite for Doom 2. I always felt rather bored by the layouts which focused more vertically than horizontally. Such an idea (vertical levels)would be nice to have should Doom 2 have actually had 3d floors, but obviously it didn't, and the idea led to bland up and downs in between open spaces with large amounts of monsters (and the occasional 'infight' room; a rather silly gimick, no?).

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Burktross said:

Doom 1's lack of the ability to charge head on into combat

Actually, you don't need level design for that. All you need is one narrow corridor.

Who said "modern shooter"?

much more interesting in terms of planning that involved more thought than Doom 2

Doom 1 is too straightforward to require planning. Unless you're playing on a keyboard and it's 1994.

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Da Werecat said:

Doom 1 is too straightforward to require planning. Unless you're playing on a keyboard and it's 1994.

Unless you be speed running or doing one of them UV-Max runs for the first time.

EDIT:

Burktross said:

TnT and Plutonia are the same thing as Doom 2.
Except Plutonia has pretty waterfall textures.

Same game, different (And better) execution though.

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Burktross said:

Doom 1's map layouts were always neat and fun to progress through for me, though it was the opposite for Doom 2. I always felt rather bored by the layouts which focused more vertically than horizontally. Such an idea (vertical levels)would be nice to have should Doom 2 have actually had 3d floors, but obviously it didn't, and the idea led to bland up and downs in between open spaces with large amounts of monsters (and the occasional 'infight' room; a rather silly gimick, no?).

The vertical focus is part of what makes the map design richer, though. The scenic view is far more interesting with its ups and downs, the gameplay is altered significantly (there are numerous monsters that have their mechanics altered significantly by height differences), the way a level can unfold is increased by a large portion.

What's more, Doom 2's more open deisgn necessitates a vertical thought process. Can you imagine a map the size of industrial zone with a 256-and-less height setting? It'd be incredibly redundant to look at and play. What's more, Doom 2's new monsters were all seemingly designed with a more open layout in mind. I've said it before - put an arachnotron in a map like E2M6 and it's the dullest fight you'll experience. At a distance and with room to roam, though, it becomes an interesting foe.

The fact of the matter is Doom 2 has far more variety than Doom in every aspect. Are these ideas perfectly executed? No, but I'd rather play a game with 16 maps that have distinct ideas behind them than 16 maps with fairly repetitive ones (referring to E2 and E3 on that).

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