What was Doom missing? Opinions here

In the original games, was there something you feel they could've done to make it better. please respond here

Not to sound obnoxious, but there are several threads about this already, both older and more recent (in fact, they pop up with regularity whenever some new member registers), and in different sauces and variations.

TBQH, in all the years that I played vanilla Doom on a 486, the only thing I ever felt was "missing" was for it to be more optimized and run better on my hardware, but I never wished for it to be like e.g. Boom or ZDoom ahead of its time. Oh and I wished that certain mods were not so obnoxious to install (in particular mods involving sprites).

However, these are technical considerations. I never wished for it to be any different as a game: I was perfectly pleased with the gameplay and features as they were, exactly because they kept the game mechanisms fast and simple, which proved spot-on to be Doom's strength through the years. I didn't want full 3D freelook a-la Ultima at the expense of speed, nor did I want increased interactivity at the expense of enjoyable and fast gameplay. I just wanted to play the game with the guy that runs like the wind, chooses between 8-9 different weapons and kills monsters :-)

Drivable vehicles, fully rendered cut scenes, orchestra music, playable renegade demons, giant venus fly traps, obnoxious college humor machinema series.

Map design, for the most part. Maybe a railgun..The rest for me is just perfect.

Probably nothing, and if it did, source ports have added those features. But I think it felt a little bit weird sometimes when player and everyone else just walked on water and other liquids. Perhaps there could have been that floorclip effect that was added in Heretic.

Jimi said:

Probably nothing, and if it did, source ports have added those features. But I think it felt a little bit weird sometimes when player and everyone else just walked on water and other liquids. Perhaps there could have been that floorclip effect that was added in Heretic.

Well, the deep water effect was already possible with the original Doom engine using self-referencing sectors, it just was not used much in the original IWADs (doom.wad and doom2.wad).

However, it's used much more in TNT.WAD. I'm surprised that even the wiki doesn't fully cover this: in MAP31: "Pharaoh" of TNT.WAD, the entire water area in the final part of the map exhibits a "deep water" effect (sector 371 is self-referencing).

Gore.

Everything that Tom Hall wanted to put in it :P

That hitscan grenade launcher from Serious Sam 3.

Technician said:

Drivable vehicles, fully rendered cut scenes, orchestra music, playable renegade demons, giant venus fly traps, obnoxious college humor machinema series.

You forgot regenerating health, achievements, annoying NPC's, hats and werewolves. Can never have too many werewolves.

Maes said:

Well, the deep water effect was already possible with the original Doom engine using self-referencing sectors, it just was not used much in the original IWADs (doom.wad and doom2.wad).

However, it's used much more in TNT.WAD. I'm surprised that even the wiki doesn't fully cover this: in MAP31: "Pharaoh" of TNT.WAD, the entire water area in the final part of the map exhibits a "deep water" effect (sector 371 is self-referencing).

That method is pretty glitchy, though. If monsters or pickup items or anything else is allowed into the water, the sprites will continue drawing down 'below' the rendered water surface level.

It also expends drawsegs (and possibly visplanes?) to create the self-referencing sector, which is a non-issue for a cleaner system like Heretic's floorclip.

Technician said:

Drivable vehicles, fully rendered cut scenes, orchestra music, playable renegade demons, giant venus fly traps, obnoxious college humor machinema series.

You're missing two things; overdramatic, tear-inducing cutscenes and a cheap sex scene with a human woman or an Imp, depending on your choice.

...

Darkman 4 said:

You're missing two things; overdramatic, tear-inducing cutscenes and a cheap sex scene with a human woman or an Imp, depending on your choice.

We're in the Bioware days, boy. We need gay marine on marine sex. I have the perfect woman to write the script, just don't expect her to play the game, though.

Technician said:

We're in the Bioware days, boy. We need gay marine on marine sex. I have the perfect woman to write the script, just don't expect her to play the game, though.

Gay sex with one of your co-op partners. :O

Better Episode 3 and better boss fights.Doom wasn't perfect but it was the 90s which is also why people didn't complain about Doom 2's ugly levels and Quake 1 and 2's ugly design.

DooM_RO said:

Better Episode 3 and better boss fights.Doom wasn't perfect but it was the 90s which is also why people didn't complain about Doom 2's ugly levels and Quake 1 and 2's ugly design.

Doom 1's boss fights were legendary! Well, the Spider one was a little easy, though. The Cyber and Bruiser Bros. were definitely intimidating. I can't say Doom 2's boss was very inspirational.

3D factor. The objects, corpses, guns etc. Everything looks the same whatever which position I look at them.

pogo stick to wreak havoc ala commander keen

What Doom was missing and I wanted to have even in 1995 when I was playing it for the first time? A points and achievements system. I really wanted to be rewarded for either beating the partime or getting 100% on kills/items/secret, and get a big one if I finish the entire episode that way. But it didn't happen, it was all a wild-goose chase.

Nothing. That's why it's still being played today.

Maps of the first Doom may be done really, really better. Unfortunately, I played doom II first and I was pretty disappointed with doom 1 maps. They're rather flat compared to doom 2 ones.

Doom was pretty perfect and I wouldn't wish for anything to have been different.

esselfortium said:

That method is pretty glitchy, though.

And let's not forget: It *is* a hack which abuses some shortcuts in the engine. And as most hacks, those shortcuts being taken can also have some unwanted side effects on gameplay.

It will work fine if the mapper knows how this works and why this works as it does but as soon as people just start messing around 'until it looks fine' you can be sure that the glitches will have consequences.

I have seen too many maps that used self referencing sectors without a full understanding of what makes them tick, even in high profile WADs and the results were hard to find glitches - in some rare cases they only show after rebuilding the map with a different node builder.

esselfortium said:

That method is pretty glitchy, though. If monsters or pickup items or anything else is allowed into the water, the sprites will continue drawing down 'below' the rendered water surface level.

That may be handwaved as the water being transparent, but real water also has partial refraction and absorption.

Yeah, except it looks nothing like the things being submerged in water, and entirely like the things being drawn over the water.

Technician said:

I can't say Doom 2's boss was very inspirational.

I probably first played the game when I was too young, but I can say, with complete honesty, that the Icon of Sin downright spooked me the first time I faced it. Then, after running through it degreelessness style and getting killed anyways, I decided that it was a fitting end.

All grown-up, I see how the potential for a monster spawner was missed out on, but most people weren't masters at Doom back then, and probably found the map difficult enough anyways.

scrolling floors! (for voodoo doll scripts)

a fix for blockmap bug and infinitely tall actors, maybe a powerup that would make pistol ammo infinite for a map (not chaingun)

A couple more monsters that are approx cacodemon toughness. ( ~2 SSG blasts to kill.) I think this would have made gameplay even more fast and furious. The more time goes on, I like monsters that dish out a lot of damage, but are not super tough to kill.

Also a completely original monster in place of the cheap recolor that was the hell knight.