Things id got wrong

It always bugged me how Doom 2 has maps with lots of vertical space when the monsters have infinite height. That seems like a limitation you would try to design around, and yet the game has plenty of jumps from high ledges for demons to disrupt from below.

Also technically not id but the new music in Evilution is too loud compared to the recycled Doom 1/2 songs. On top of that the title screen song doesn't seem to work (fade) properly in General MIDI.

I agree with anyone who said the Lost Soul has too much HP. They fixed this for the Playstation version, but I find it incredibly annoying how, on the PC version, it's harder than an Imp.

I also don't feel the Arch-Vile fits in with the other monsters, it seems way OP considering how well-balanced the other monsters are against each other.

The Spider Mastermind is a total joke, they could at least have halved its pain chance or something and made out that its metal undercarriage deflects your attacks or something.

In fact the pain levels in general make the game too easy. Cacodemons and Demons/Spectres/Nightmare Spectres are laughable at best, they never get to attack you. This leads to another issue: rapid firing weapons are ridiculously OP. I always switch to the chaingun or plasma rifle if I'm nearly dead, it prevents most of the enemies getting attacks off.

Finally, the brightness levels and lack of coloured sectors on the PC. It always looks like someone replaced the lights with 1000w bulbs. The lack of colouring really shows with Doom's limited palette; they didn't disguise this very well - those horrible vine textures are fooling no-one.

MajorRawne said:

I also don't feel the Arch-Vile fits in with the other monsters

That's probably because it wasn't included in "the best Doom yet".

Rumia said:

It always bugged me how Doom 2 has maps with lots of vertical space when the monsters have infinite height. That seems like a limitation you would try to design around, and yet the game has plenty of jumps from high ledges for demons to disrupt from below.

Makes me wonder what would have been so difficult about adding the extra lines of Code to let sprites be stacked on top of each other.

MajorRawne said:

I agree with anyone who said the Lost Soul has too much HP. They fixed this for the Playstation version, but I find it incredibly annoying how, on the PC version, it's harder than an Imp.

I also don't feel the Arch-Vile fits in with the other monsters, it seems way OP considering how well-balanced the other monsters are against each other.

The Spider Mastermind is a total joke, they could at least have halved its pain chance or something and made out that its metal undercarriage deflects your attacks or something.

In fact the pain levels in general make the game too easy. Cacodemons and Demons/Spectres/Nightmare Spectres are laughable at best, they never get to attack you. This leads to another issue: rapid firing weapons are ridiculously OP. I always switch to the chaingun or plasma rifle if I'm nearly dead, it prevents most of the enemies getting attacks off.

Are there any monsters that you do like?

Finally, the brightness levels and lack of coloured sectors on the PC. It always looks like someone replaced the lights with 1000w bulbs. The lack of colouring really shows with Doom's limited palette; they didn't disguise this very well - those horrible vine textures are fooling no-one.

On the contrary, the absence of colored lighting was really the only reasonable option given the palette constraints. A 256 color palette can't plausibly accommodate the countless tints needed for colored lighting to not look like puke due to color quantization (see: countless early ZDoom wads), and I doubt there were many better options on the table that wouldn't involve major performance sacrifices.

Though I would argue that the colored lighting on PSX Doom also looked like puke for other reasons, that's a different discussion entirely. :P

GoatLord said:

Makes me wonder what would have been so difficult about adding the extra lines of Code to let sprites be stacked on top of each other.

Due to Doom's movement system, it's actually remarkably difficult. Keeping track of flying monsters and rising/lowering floors complicate things, too. They could have probably backported the 3D thing clipping from Heretic, but if I recall correctly, it was buggy and could lead to things getting stuck inside each other. ZDoom's way of handling it seems pretty reliable, but of course they didn't have that back then.

The reloading on the SSG. And I don't just mean the fact that it refires too early (the moment Doomguy snaps it shut), but the perspective on it while open is all sorts of fucked-up.

He's holding it with his right hand, yet the breech is open with the barrels pointing across him and down at his right foot. What is this I don't even... how the fuck does that work? Who holds a shotgun like that?

Cell said:

Ahem! The final area, don't you forget, contains a huge wooden pillar behind which the Spidey cannot move, but you can bait all the present Barons, Imps and other mosters there. And, of course, a massive amount of cell ammo is at your service (even BFG if you're playing continous).

Reread the bit where I said if you're not paying attention.

dethtoll said:

Reread the bit where I said if you're not paying attention.

Tell me, who the hell doesn't pay attention? Only newbies I guess, and for newbies, everything is harder by default.

BaronOfStuff said:

He's holding it with his right hand, yet the breech is open with the barrels pointing across him and down at his right foot. What is this I don't even... how the fuck does that work? Who holds a shotgun like that?

Doomguy is left handed but right eyed. He fires shotguns and rifles with his non-dominant hand so that he can aim with his dominant eye (most cross-dominant shooters who try the opposite find that although they can hold the weapon more easily, they can't aim for shit). Of course, this doesn't prevent him reloading with his dominant hand, which looks bizarre to people who don't know that he really is left handed.

No no no, that's not the point I'm making. Just look at the angle the SSG is being held at during the reload frames. Then look at which hand is putting the shells in place. Now try doing that yourself.

I don't see a problem here. He seems to be taking his hand off of the grip under the barrel and grabbing the shells below the "screen". Then he places them in.

I guess it looks a bit odd as he is doing it quite quickly, as soon as he let's go of the grip he warp speeds his hand to grab the ammo. You can't really see his hand move away from the grip to the ammo, which does seem to be what is happening, because like you say, it looks as if it is happening under the screen ass we fill in the gaps.

Makes sense, we don't wanna have to stand there for ages watching him reload for too long while getting shot at.

Excuse the shit-tastic scribbling, but this is what I am getting at:


Nobody reloads a shotgun while holding it like that. Nobody.

Heck, I think that pales in comparison to how HUGE doomguy's hand is on the single barrel shotgun. That thing looks like a toy! (I mean, it is, but still.. What a huge hand.)

I think the weird angle (and implied malformation of Doomguy's right hand) is just an artistic license. Drawing a perspective-correct break-action shotgun during reloading, with the barrels pointing directly at the player, would look much more underwhelming, while this dramatic skew lets you see both barrels getting reloaded.

Speaking of which....we don't get to see the spent shells being ejected, nor is there any ejector-extractor mechanism visible. Doomguy must be extracting them with his hands or simply sliding/jerking them out.

Another detail: the angle at which the barrels break open is really exaggerated: no real break-action, single- or double- barreled shotgun or rifle breaks open that much, to the point of not being able to see the body. What is it, an air rifle?! It's almost as if Doomguy detaches the barrels from the shotgun's receiver everytime he has to reload it.

Everything about the SSG is wrong!

SSG is rad, stop h8ing.

BaronOfStuff said:

Everything about the SSG is wrong!

Not everything. Doomguy actually does take the time to reload it, contortionism not withstanding, which is more than can be said for any of the other weapons.

When I was a kid I thought that doom guy was shoving shells into the front of the SSG barrel like it was some kind of a muzzle loader.

Maes said:

I think the weird angle (and implied malformation of Doomguy's right hand) is just an artistic license. Drawing a perspective-correct break-action shotgun during reloading, with the barrels pointing directly at the player, would look much more underwhelming, while this dramatic skew lets you see both barrels getting reloaded.

Yeah, artistic license. You see the gun being reloaded, it helps you wait patiently until you can fire again.

And likewise:

Woolie Wool said:

* I'm not a fan of the replacement with the alpha submachine gun with a chaingun sprite. The chaingun's behavior feels and sounds like a submachine gun, and it shares ammo with the pistol.

The decision to go with Wolf3D-like pistol and chaingun instead of rifle and machine gun as in the alpha is basically artistic license too. It makes the guns that much more distinctive.

Here are Doomguy's hitscan weapons of Doom: melee, peashooter, buckshot, rapid fire. In the alpha and in the final game:


Note how shape and size and even dominant colors are all very different in the final game, while in the alpha, well, all of them have a long dark gray or black barrel. Sure, they're distinguishable, but not as much as the final designs, and the hierarchy of power isn't as apparent too. The shotgun's bigger than the pistol, so it's obvious that it's a stronger weapon. The chaingun has several barrels, so it's obvious it's a rapid fire weapon. The fist has no barrel at all, so it's obvious it's melee.

Especially funny in the alpha how the gun on which the bayonet is mounted is different from all others. Alpha Doomguy keeps a spare gun without any ammo just to use it as a pointy stick.

TL;DR: id software went with weapon designs that may annoy gun enthusiasts because they know enough about firearms to see their lack of realism; but it's more legible and distinctive for the greater public.

Gez said:

Especially funny in the alpha how the gun on which the bayonet is mounted is different from all others. Alpha Doomguy keeps a spare gun without any ammo just to use it as a pointy stick.

The guns are different in 0.5, but they're same in 0.4. Since these are development versions, there's nothing strange about some of the sprites being overhauled while others are still old.

Gez said:

Note how shape and size and even dominant colors are all very different in the final game, while in the alpha, well, all of them have a long dark gray or black barrel. Sure, they're distinguishable, but not as much as the final designs, and the hierarchy of power isn't as apparent too. The shotgun's bigger than the pistol, so it's obvious that it's a stronger weapon. The chaingun has several barrels, so it's obvious it's a rapid fire weapon. The fist has no barrel at all, so it's obvious it's melee.

Especially funny in the alpha how the gun on which the bayonet is mounted is different from all others. Alpha Doomguy keeps a spare gun without any ammo just to use it as a pointy stick.

TL;DR: id software went with weapon designs that may annoy gun enthusiasts because they know enough about firearms to see their lack of realism; but it's more legible and distinctive for the greater public.

I didn't say all the alpha weapons and also that's the wrong alpha, I meant specifically the submachine gun from the 0.4 alpha and nothing else:



It's clearly different enough in silhouette and proportions that it's obviously a different type of weapon from the shotgun. It makes sense that it would use the same type of ammo as the pistol and fire at a fairly low rate of fire because that's what full-length 9mm SMGs are like.

As for the 0.5 bayonet being a different rifle, that's because that bayonet sprite is the 0.4 rifle and they hadn't gotten around to changing it.

Another thing that Lost Souls have blood. How does that make any sense?

Really? Do souls have blood? That may be another thing they got wrong.

Woolie Wool said:

I didn't say all the alpha weapons and also that's the wrong alpha, I meant specifically the submachine gun from the 0.4 alpha and nothing else:

Man it's even worse as far as samelook goes.



I remain unconvinced. Final designs are more different from each others, more distinctive, and more legible to people who aren't very familiar with firearms and just want to shoot demons in space.

I quite like the designs of all of those weapons, Alpha or not.

But I see why they changed them. In the final game they could have been a bit more spacey perhaps, but at least we can tell them apart.

I like the alpha weapons too but the shotgun (minus the end part), the MP40-esque SMG and the grey AR (which I guess is a Browning Assault Rifle) the most.

BaronOfStuff said:

Nobody reloads a shotgun while holding it like that. Nobody.

The way you're drawing it is like it is a flat plane. The shotgun and the hand with the shells in it are not side by side. Nobody puts shells in a shotgun like that. The doomguys left arm with the shells is bent with the elbow extending out to the left which is why his hand comes from the furthest left hand corner of the screen and is big because it is about 9 inches from his face. The right arm is extended forward (so he can see into the barrels) with his elbow closer to his abdomen, so it should be depicted coming almost directly from the center of the screen and his hand should look smaller being further away. I suspect the top of the shotgun is a bit tilted away from doomguy too. I'd draw a picture but the computer I'm posting from has the windows 7 version of paint and they reconstructed the layout in a way I don't feel like learning.

Limited palette
Lame secret maps
Spider Mastermind being easier than the Cyberdemon
Dis being a lame map that highlighted spidey's weaknesses
Lost souls having twice as much hitpoints as they should've
Doom 2 essentially being a glorified mission pack
No animated waterfall textures
Tim Willits
Icon of Sin was really kind of a retarded concept
Donut effect being wonky as all hell
Not being able to add new monsters
Doom 2 getting rid of some of Doom 1's really useful textures
Not much new hell textures in Doom 2
Can only enter secret levels from certain maps
Not having individual music for each map
The end of E1 not having an equivalent to this
No real boss enemies in Doom 2

I'll probably add more to this later but I gotta go atm

Marnetmar said:

Limited palette

Not much you coulda done about that in 1993-1994.

Lame secret maps

They've lost a good deal of their charm as I've gotten older. They tend to be the weakest maps in a given set.

Spider Mastermind being easier than the Cyberdemon

Absolutely.

Dis being a lame map that highlighted spidey's weaknesses

Makes me wonder what id had against making big, epic boss maps instead of really short dumb ones.

Lost souls having twice as much hitpoints as they should've

This never really bugged me, but, from a balance stance, it is too high.

Doom 2 essentially being a glorified mission pack

Sequels to games were often like that back then. That's just you speaking retrospectively.

No animated waterfall textures

Inexcusable.

Tim Willits

Not super familiar with the guy…So what's your beef?

Icon of Sin was really kind of a retarded concept

Pretty cool for 1994, though. It can be used tastefully, it just wasn't used tastefully in Doom 2.

Donut effect being wonky as all hell

What exactly does it do?

Not being able to add new monsters

Considering id made moddability a focus, this is surprising.

Doom 2 getting rid of some of Doom 1's really useful textures

I've touched on this and I can't agree more. None of them should have been omitted.

Not much new hell textures in Doom 2

Damn straight. There really needed to be more of that, instead of all that zimmer shit.

Can only enter secret levels from certain maps

Why is that such a big deal?

Not having individual music for each map

Most older games were like that.

The end of E1 not having an equivalent to this

Eh, it was the shareware episode, whadaya gonna do?

No real boss enemies in Doom 2

Yeah, even though I defend the Icon of Sin, there should have been another high-tier monster to compete with spideys and cybers.

GoatLord said:

I've touched on this and I can't agree more. None of them should have been omitted.

They were omitted because they weren't used on the levels.