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DoomUK

The Doom Confessional Booth

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Whenever I'm using the pistol, and my target is so far that the aim randomization wouldn't be reliable, I tap the fire button to perform 100% accurate shots. I do it with the chaingun too, but I'm slightly less careful about missing shots with it. I switch from SSG to single shotgun when dealing with lone low HP enemies or enemies on high ledges. I save ammo so much. But then, when I get pulled into a hectic battle or simply surrounded by monsters, I tend to shoot around furiously and miss a lot of shots.

Even though I can certainly dodge projectiles very well, I frequently fail to do so even if I see the projectile coming from a distance, either because I don't pay full attention to my movements, don't run around carefully enough, or simply fail it without being able to justify it.

I play with the keyboard, which makes dodging and aiming at the same time a bit tricky. But when playing Doom, I'm comfortable with my keyboard setup and I prefer it over mouse. In other games (or for example The Adventures of Square, where it's a default binding), I use the mouse. I've only beaten Duke3D with a keyboard setup thanks to a massive savescum, and I didn't really like playing the game like that.

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Abusing savegames allowed me ending “Blood” in the nineties with only my keyboard. I tried playing Doom keyboard only in December 2013 and died pretty quickly. I salute to all keyboard players ‘cause that path is no longer available for me.

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^
A couple of years ago a hurt my wrist and was unable to play fast games with a mouse. I tried keyboard and found it really difficult but after a week or two I got pretty used to it. Now, I play most of my Doom sessions on keyboard even though I've got a fancy controller and an expensive mouse! I dunno, there's just something I like about it. Couldn't tell you what it is though!

Just as an side note: When I first injured my wrist I couldn't use it all and had to set up the keyboard number pad for one handed play... Now that was a challenge!!

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Today was the first time I've ever gotten to the normal exit in E2M5. I've always just taken the secret exit before.

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Gordon said:

Today was the first time I've ever gotten to the normal exit in E2M5. I've always just taken the secret exit before.

Hehe, I remember that when I've played Switcheroom E1M5, which was an E1-style remake of E2M5 layout, and I got to the normal exit area, I totally couldn't remember how that area looked in the original map. I've only seen the area about once in my life before that. And only once again since that time.

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Krazov said:

Abusing savegames allowed me ending “Blood” in the nineties with only my keyboard. I tried playing Doom keyboard only in December 2013 and died pretty quickly. I salute to all keyboard players ‘cause that path is no longer available for me.


It may just not be your thing, but the trick to (PVE) keyboard play is to take out the strafe modifier key and burn it.

Shortly after the release of Doom - when I wanted to tackle episode 2, where once tomatos start showing up you really can't be fumbling when you need to dodge - I moved to a control setup using the block of 6 keys above the cursor keys - Home/End/Delete/PgDn as normal movement, and Insert and PgUp as strafe. (If you're _really_ used to WASD you might have turn and strafe the other way around, but it's pretty easy to adapt - I even played City of Heroes on WASDQE with QE as strafe and AD as turn).

The second piece of enlightenment is that a keyboard player aims by strafing. This is easier, both because you're already dodging by strafing, and because no matter how far away a target is, strafing moves your line of aim across it by the same amount (whereas turning with the keyboard is much too crude to aim at a target a long way away). Particularly, keyboard players love the shotgun because you only need to be on-target intermittently, where a mouser finds it easier to circle strafe and fire continually with the chaingun or plasma on a single target - a keyboarder will tend to use these for crowd control, where you can dodge but still be pointing the gun at someone. The turn keys are only used when you actually need to face another way.

It's easier still now that source ports do "always run", so you don't have to wedge down the run key with a coin or something. :-)

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damerell said:

The second piece of enlightenment is that a keyboard player aims by strafing.


Recentely I play sometime with a gamepad, and it works just the same in case of this controller. Which is strange at first, after a decade with mouselook. Now I got used to it, but at the beginning I was practicing circle strafing with a gamepad which is stained with random factor.

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damerell said:

It's easier still now that source ports do "always run", so you don't have to wedge down the run key with a coin or something. :-)


Tsk tsk, back to basics, young man:

  • Set default Doom keyboard controls (arrows keys and CTRL/L.ALT/L.SHIFT/SPACE).
  • Right hand on arrow keys.
  • Left hand on the action keys, as follows: PINKY FINGER on CTRL (Fire), RING FINGER on L.SHIFT (Run), INDEX FINGER on L.ALT (Strafe), THUMB on SPACE (Use). Middle finger unused ;-)
  • Alternatively, you can use MIDDLE FINGER on L.ALT (Strafe) and INDEX FINGER on SPACE (use)
  • RING FINGER remains CRIMPED on L.SHIFT key, for "always run"
Granted, this was somewhat more natural with a traditional PC Keyboard without WinKeys, which is The Way Doom Was Meant To Be Played (TM), anyway :-p

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Granted, this was somewhat more natural with a traditional PC Keyboard without WinKeys, which is The Way Doom Was Meant To Be Played (TM), anyway :-p [/B]


I always use a Model M, so no Winkeys. But I dunno why I'd want to use a finger not wedge the run key down - that implies I might want, at some point, to not run.

(In related news, I hate The Chasm with a passion.)

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I just realized that the "Medusa effect" is called like that because if you look at the wall, the game will freeze, or, in other words, it will turn into stone.

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Heh I actually use the traditional controls but rather than using alt for strafing, I use the , and . keys as they initially were programmed. Just never changed I guess.

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There are levels that use extra key items for special cool effects, e.g. Memento Mori II's MAP18. I always noclip just to pick them up as well.

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Am I the only one who thinks that Icarus Vanguard's Level 2 theme is awesome, and even slightly sad?

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I try to make a multiplayer mod, but I keep hitting walls of 'None of the multiplayer ports support [random simple feature]'. Very Frustrating

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@Joe667 : it's a great tune, and that's actually my favorite Doom 2 megawad, but it's also special for me because it was one the first maps I played in co-op with friend over modem (I mean apart from just the IWAD...)

If you take that right door at the start and go all the way down that wing, you can look across to the other side of the ship and see your buddy through the window (if he happens to be on the opposite side). I thought that was really cool back then! Real virtual reality was happening! :-)

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Fernito said:

I just realized that the "Medusa effect" is called like that because if you look at the wall, the game will freeze, or, in other words, it will turn into stone.


More specifically, it "looks like snakes and you turn to stone", based on how it looks in DOOM.EXE.

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For the longest time I always got stuck on Doom II's MAP19: The Citadel, didn't know how to get the blue skull key for some reason, so in ports that allowed jumping I would always jump up to get it from where you could see it but couldn't reach it. That is one of the more confusing levels in D2 I think.

I also don't know if I admitted this here before but I hate Doom II's MAP24: The Chasm. It goes on for too long and it's not very interesting. In fact, most of D2's levels pale in comparison to the first game, even if they are often larger and more complex, I prefer D1's tighter, more claustrophobic design, as well as D1's music, it just had a better atmosphere than the second game.

Doom II though may have the best flow in terms of freestyle mapping, it's a very easy game to blast through and get halfway through before you realize you almost finished the game in one sitting. It's the one IWAD I fire up every time I want to try out a mod and see how it plays. It's because of this I once finished D2 in a single sitting in under 3 hours just because I wanted to see if I could, and it's still kind of a long game. My ass hurt after that.

The PWAD UAC Ultra by 40oz is also the only PWAD (of singular episode length) I've played nonstop to the end because it captivated me so much. Just all out excellent design and difficulty.

Lastly off the top of my head when I used to suck at Doom many years ago and used only the ZDoom port I abused the crouch key in combat to make it easier to dodge projectiles. As well as apply a weapons mod (typically an imbalanced/overpowered one) to fight in difficult PWADs.

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Hating The Chasm is pretty normal. Real hipsters like me actually like The Chasm.

Arguably, the same can be said about the rest of the levels in Doom 2.

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And what about “Nirvana?” :]

But as for “The Citadel,” I was always jumping too. Somewhere here I read about the obligatory secret.

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back when I was young, easily scared, and had Doom95 I used to use the FHHALL code (when I found out about it) at the beginning of a level and just stroll through the level without too much harm. other than lost souls of course, but they never scare me.

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I'm regretting giving Squadron.wad 5 stars before I could even read in the description that it doesn't support Single Player startups. Man, what a shame.

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Krazov said:

And what about “Nirvana?” :]

But as for “The Citadel,” I was always jumping too. Somewhere here I read about the obligatory secret.


Nirvana is pretty damn weird, and I like it for that. Ditto with The Chasm and Barrels 'o Fun.

The Citadel is great precisely because of all the secrets. But instead of using walkthrough, just find them yourself, even if it takes many years. When you see the intermission screen without 100% secrets, you know the level is worth playing again for that alone. There is no rush to find all secrets in one day...

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Fernito said:

I just realized that the "Medusa effect" is called like that because if you look at the wall, the game will freeze, or, in other words, it will turn into stone


I confess to never have witnessed the effect myself, though I had read a description of it as early as 1994.

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I'm thinking of dissolving Beef Jerky. One reason being that it's just too ambitious, the other being that I want to use what I've learned to start over and make something far better. Maybe a nice multiplayer mod.

If anyone wants to use Atomic Baron though, I'll give him to you.

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I want to kill mappers who make boom maps that use all vanilla linedef types except maybe one or two, so unless specified otherwise in the text file, I make the assumption that its for regular doom 2, play through 85% of the map, then wander around for 15 minutes wondering why the fuck that last switch didn't do anything.

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Maes said:

Tsk tsk, back to basics, young man:

  • Set default Doom keyboard controls (arrows keys and CTRL/L.ALT/L.SHIFT/SPACE).
  • Right hand on arrow keys.
  • Left hand on the action keys, as follows: PINKY FINGER on CTRL (Fire), RING FINGER on L.SHIFT (Run), INDEX FINGER on L.ALT (Strafe), THUMB on SPACE (Use). Middle finger unused ;-)
  • Alternatively, you can use MIDDLE FINGER on L.ALT (Strafe) and INDEX FINGER on SPACE (use)
  • RING FINGER remains CRIMPED on L.SHIFT key, for "always run"
Granted, this was somewhat more natural with a traditional PC Keyboard without WinKeys, which is The Way Doom Was Meant To Be Played (TM), anyway :-p

I've come to assume that the actual intended way was probably to have the right hand on the NUMPAD, and the left hand on the RIGHT shift/alt/control keys. Doing it that way (assuming a keyboard without the Windows 95 added keys getting in the way) makes the default keys for strafing have an actually accessible position, ditto with the inventory keys for Raven's games.

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40oz said:

I want to kill mappers who make boom maps that use all vanilla linedef types except maybe one or two, so unless specified otherwise in the text file, I make the assumption that its for regular doom 2, play through 85% of the map, then wander around for 15 minutes wondering why the fuck that last switch didn't do anything.


This happens all too often these days, and there's also stuff like flats on walls or illegal 0-tagged switch (allowed in ZDoom), or even that strange 64000-whatever thing id (Doom Builder 3D view placeholder?) that all crash vanilla Doom. Of course there have always been crashes due to VPO, and various annoying bugs like HOM, but these days they seem more common because even wads that get released as "vanilla" are never properly tested. They test with ZDoom or something and assume that everything is fine, but it just ends up polluting the vanilla section of archive with bogus, unplayable wads. Even /newstuff reviews don't catch the problems, as I bluntly pointed out with Omegalore's most recent wad - it just crashes vanilla engine.

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It puzzles me that Doom streamers that use facecams fail to take the opportunity to layer it over the hudface in the bottom of the screen.

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Jaxxoon R said:

It puzzles me that Doom streamers that use facecams fail to take the opportunity to layer it over the hudface in the bottom of the screen.

I remember at least one such stream, but it seems that the recording doesn't exist anymore.

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