How do you use armor/health bonuses?

I play test my wads on hurt me plenty and if I die too much I just add more health packs and armor to the map

obake said:

Not to promote my own work, but a few of the maps from UAC Enterprsies do this. Sometimes, simply as a way to save make a small room with bonuses look more clean (not needing to have the bonuses littering the entire floor.)

But more often, these "stacks" are hidden in small, non-secret portions of a map as sort of hidden bonuses for perceptive players.

Often, players who are fresh from the heat of battle or are actively searching out secrets don't notice the huge bonuses granted to their health or armor, because they don't expect to get that much out of (seemingly) one blue bottle or helmet.

The maps I remember doing this in: Maps 06, 25, and 26. I hope this helps.

Wadhost doesn't seem to have it anymore, (404) and googling it (can only find a reference to rtmd.wad/zip) doesn't bring up anything either, could you upload it again somewhere?

I tend to use these a lot as treasure hoards to reward exploration, or in maps where every pickup of ammo, health and armour are needed. I don't tend to place many suits of armour in my maps. Green armour seems mandatory in 99% of Doom wads. I like to challenge the player and make them feel vulnerable, so they're grateful for the kind of things they wouldn't normally go out of their way to collect. This means armour bonuses instead of armour suits, for example.

Shadow Hog said:

First, I use it as a "hey, I want the player to come over here

I even spawn trails of bonuses in front of the player, if there's an important place I think can be missed.

invictius said:
How do you use armor/health bonuses?

You walk over them!

I've only ever seen them as decorative really, it feels like not many people actually implement them for their original purpose (Though there are usually too few of them placed to be of much effect anyway)

It depends much on the map, but I use them considerably. I don't use saves, however, which can ruin their value because restoring the game when something bad happens becomes more "economic" than the slight benefit of walking over the bottles and helms.

What about maps that use them in an "arrow pattern" in the floor to hint at a secret, for example? I don't remember specific examples, but now every time I see a group of bottles/helmets, I try to make sure they aren't "pointing" to the nearest wall, just in case. And given it rarely happens, I feel it's a waste of time. And that seriously pisses me off.

Zed said:

I don't remember specific examples

Not even E1M6: Central Processing?

Huh, I just discovered that -- in ZDoom, at least -- you can put power-ups (incl. Health Bonuses) in little lowered sectors, then have them pop up, as you might do with Revenants. The player can't see / pick up the bonuses until their raised, so this might be a decent alternative to lit-ceiling arrows, to guide the player to a new area that might not otherwise be obvious.

I never actually thought of putting anything but monsters in the floor. This really helps with the creation of large hub areas that the player will be fighting in at several stages through the map.

Anyway, pop-up Health/Armour Bonuses; thoughts?

schwerpunk said:

Huh, I just discovered that -- in ZDoom, at least -- you can put power-ups (incl. Health Bonuses) in little lowered sectors, then have them pop up, as you might do with Revenants.

That works in vanilla as well, and is kinda obvious if you stop to think about it: many maps place items on lifts, and the items don't just hang in the air like Looney Tunes characters when the lift lowers.

I wasn't obvious to me until I'd tried it. I just assumed that powerups were as tall (i.e. 'infinitely') as monsters, and so might be picked up without a height check.

I know it's been used to make primitive cupboards or lockers. You have one trigger that activates a voodooveyor which 1. opens the door (instant lower "closed door" sector, instant raise "opened door" sector) and 2. instant lift a pickup under Doomguy's feet. So you activate a locker, and you get the illusion that the locker's door is now open plus you get a message about picking up some item...

A less complex system, which can work in vanilla: set up a computer console that, when activated, instantly raise under Doomguy's feet a computer area map. Here you go, Doomguy just downloaded the floorplan from the computer, so 31337!

Gez said:

A less complex system, which can work in vanilla: set up a computer console that, when activated, instantly raise under Doomguy's feet a computer area map. Here you go, Doomguy just downloaded the floorplan from the computer, so 31337!

Whoa

schwerpunk said:

I wasn't obvious to me until I'd tried it. I just assumed that powerups were as tall (i.e. 'infinitely') as monsters, and so might be picked up without a height check.

Acutally, nothing in Doom is infinitely tall, that's just a side-effect of the fact that two solid objects cannot cross in the XY plane. In all other cases except blast damage*, the height of the two objects is taken into account, so projectiles can pass above your head without hitting you, and items can be out of reach by being too high or too low.

*Although blast damage does not decrease with vertical distance, the LOS check does still takes height into consideration, so a player standing on a high ledge will not take damage from explosions at the bottom, if the vertical angle is such that the ledge itself blocks the line of sight.

Foxpup said:

Acutally, nothing in Doom is infinitely tall, that's just a side-effect of the fact that two solid objects cannot cross in the XY plane. In all other cases except blast damage*, the height of the two objects is taken into account, so projectiles can pass above your head without hitting you, and items can be out of reach by being too high or too low.

*Although blast damage does not decrease with vertical distance, the LOS check does still takes height into consideration, so a player standing on a high ledge will not take damage from explosions at the bottom, if the vertical angle is such that the ledge itself blocks the line of sight.

I'm probably mistaken here, but as I understand it, that only applies for some things. Quoting the Wiki:

In the original implementation as utilized in Doom itself, solid objects may not overlap on the x-y plane even if they would not visibly or tangibly overlap given their stated heights and positions on the z axis. Doom features a limited z-clipping that is only designed for projectiles and hitscan attacks, and for allowing moving solid objects, like monsters, to be able to enter a sector depending on its floor and ceiling heights. Aside from that, a given thing's height or z-coordinates are largely ignored by the engine, causing actors to have apparently infinite height.

Zed said:

I'm probably mistaken here, but as I understand it, that only applies for some things. Quoting the Wiki:

The Wiki is wrong. Z-clipping applies equally to all things. While two solid objects cannot cross on the XY plane (most likely to avoid the special case of one player/monster standing on top of another, which Heretic, Hexen, and Strife handled notoriously poorly), if one or both of the objects is non-solid, they can, and the collision detection takes the Z axis into account correctly in all such cases (except for charging lost souls, but that's due to an unrelated bug). Furthermore, all things, solid or not, are affected by changing sector heights. Not taking the Z axis into account is the exception rather than the rule in the Doom engine.

invictius said:

How do you use armor/health bonuses?

I drink them and/or put them on my head.

Foxpup said:

The Wiki is wrong. Z-clipping applies equally to all things. While two solid objects cannot cross on the XY plane (most likely to avoid the special case of one player/monster standing on top of another, which Heretic, Hexen, and Strife handled notoriously poorly), if one or both of the objects is non-solid, they can, and the collision detection takes the Z axis into account correctly in all such cases (except for charging lost souls, but that's due to an unrelated bug). Furthermore, all things, solid or not, are affected by changing sector heights. Not taking the Z axis into account is the exception rather than the rule in the Doom engine.

First of all, you may be right.
Second, I don't know if this is the corect way to say this, but I'll try.

The Wiki is wrong. It may be true, in which case you should consider making a correction.
Z-clipping applies equally to all things. While two solid objects cannot cross on the XY plane (most likely to avoid the special case of one player/monster standing on top of another, which Heretic, Hexen, and Strife handled notoriously poorly), if one or both of the objects is non-solid, they can, and the collision detection takes the Z axis into account correctly in all such cases (except for charging lost souls, but that's due to an unrelated bug).
I have a doubt: if that's the case, why Lost Souls can't pass above Shotguns, for example, or above a clip? They can pass with no issues above Medikits or Stimpacks. What's the difference?

Zed said:

The Wiki is wrong. It may be true, in which case you should consider making a correction.

I've noticed more than a few errors on the Wiki, but, well, I've never actually edited a Wiki before, so... *shrugs*

Zed said:

I have a doubt: if that's the case, why Lost Souls can't pass above Shotguns, for example, or above a clip? They can pass with no issues above Medikits or Stimpacks. What's the difference?

There is no difference. Charging lost souls simply assume any objects in their path are solid (and therefore cannot be crossed regardless of altitude), without actually checking whether this is the case. I highly doubt you actually saw a charging lost soul pass above a medikit or stimpack; the collision code makes it impossible and it doesn't have any special handling for certain types of items. I won't believe it without a demo. Most likely, you saw a lost soul cross an item while moving normally, in which case the collision detection works properly, or you were using a port which fixes the bug.

esselfortium said:

I drink them and/or put them on my head.

I just absorb their essence osmotically through my boots, personally.

esselfortium said:

I drink them and/or put them on my head.

When I think of that, I think of doomguy in his underwear, slouching in a comfy chair, eating chips, watching tv, with a scraggly beard, wearing 200 helmets on top of each other so that the last helmet is so big because it's stretched over 199 others, and a whole bunch of empty/tipped over health bottles scattered around the room with spilled liquid everywhere.