What's the most annoying thing in the classic DOOM games?

Partial invisibility is a problem on vanilla.

I am of the opinion that most players would probably not notice (or take a long time to notice) if you significantly removed or reduced RNG damage from the game. removing RNG in mods that I use has made the game more enjoyable for me, and I don't really empathize with the idea that removing the RNG damage somehow homogenizes the gameplay. there are plenty of other factors that make no two runs feel the same, but barely not killing something when I need to or taking a 70 damage rev rocket are not ones that I want or need.

I think most players have grown accustomed to the wildly random damage but would probably never think to introduce such huge variance if they were making a game themselves

28 minutes ago, Roofi said:

- I don't quite understand this hatred toward the Arch-viles. In Doom 2 maps...

To be honest, most of the time, if a player has your kind of caliber, he/she probably won't complain too much about the game. I'm definitely not your level yet (or probably never will be :P), but I don't have too much things to complain about Classic Doom in general since they work fine. However, this is a strange iteration where people found things in Doom annoying, and they probably won't play a lot to improve themselves, so they probably will complain more in the future. I probably say this applies to all the points you listed.

Back to the first point, in Doom 2, Archies are probably not annoying since there are only a few, but in Plutonia and onwards, probably this will be changed, especially those Archies behind walls to resurrect things. I would say when people are talking about the annoyance from Archies, it's more likely to be the resurrection rather than the actual attack itself. Of course, we all know when you're facing multiple Archies where you get burned due to the time differences, it's also pretty annoying, but this doesn't happen a lot unless you're playing higher difficulty modern mapsets.

7 minutes ago, Tango said:

if you significantly removed or reduced RNG damage from the game. removing RNG in mods that I use has made the game more enjoyable for me

I understand this even though I don't find big variance RNG annoying. For example, when I was routing Max for some maps, it's difficult to calculate how many rockets you need for a Mancubus. Most of the time, you should probably assume 4 instead of 3... but if every time a Mancubus will die from 3/4 rockets, it would be more interesting to route.

12 minutes ago, Tango said:

I think most players have grown accustomed to the wildly random damage but would probably never think to introduce such huge variance if they were making a game themselves

That's an interesting point. Even if I did think about it (which is hard to say if I would or not), I feel like I'd be very conservative with implementing it in game, out of fear of not being able to confidently balance the damn thing. An enemy rocket that may or may not seek the player, and will do anywhere between 10-80 damage, seems absurd on paper. And yet, I love the classic Revenant for it. It's just so wildly unnerving watching that rocket flying towards you, not knowing whether your 60 HP is gonna save you. And it feels amazing taking a Rev rocket at 12 HP and living, haha :P

RADIATION SUITS

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Time limited - I'd rather they function like Berserk and last until the end of the level. I quick save before I pick up each of them for fear of running out.

Random chance to get hurt from a damaging floor - I don't know why this is a thing, even if it's a very low chance.

Green tint - It's a suit, why is my vision green? It doesn't even have a head component!

Regarding the random numbers - there's 256 values(shared by game and menu) and, "of course", every single one has to be unique and the sequence without an obvious pattern. This makes the value differences "jumpy" by nature. An option would be to have a flattened "graph" but this would result in similar numbers along the range. One could just tinker with the set but then a demo would have to store the numbers it was recorded with.

Maybe somebody on here has insight into rng?

It would also be interesting if John just used rand() and picked proper values or if he used the same algorithm as in Wolf to generate the coordinates for the "fizzle fade" - as Fabien Sanglard explained in https://fabiensanglard.net/fizzlefade/index.php

Archviles are not bad.

Ammo limits - every time I'm forced to collect a shell box while at 99 shells I die a little inside...

6 hours ago, LateToDOOM2020 said:

Just reading I see many people dislike the infinite height.
When I realize the original doom couldn't aim upwards or downwards I thought it was a pretty cool design as the creators of doom were clever in how they designed it to automatically aim. What about it is annoying to people is there a specific thing about it that causes issues i don't understand?

That's not what people are talking about when discussing infinite height. In vanilla Doom, you can't walk directly under flying enemies and you can't walk over enemies either, as if they're infinitely tall. In other words, you can't occupy the same X and Y coordinates at the same time as a monster, regardless of any difference in Z. Depending on the source port you're using, this setting might be off by default. I remember using an older version of GZDoom when I first played the game and I didn't realize infinitely tall monsters was a thing for multiple years (some of which weren't spent playing Doom at all, admittedly).

I've gotten used to it at this point though. Now, whenever I play an FPS that isn't Doom, it feels somehow wrong if I end up positioned above or below an enemy.

1 hour ago, Andromeda said:

Ammo limits - every time I'm forced to collect a shell box while at 99 shells I die a little inside...

Which of the following annoys you the most? (:P)

1. Pick up a Cell Pack when you have 299/599 cells (no backpack/have backpack respectively)

2. Pick up a SoulSphere when you have 99 health

3. Pick up a MegaSphere when you have 199 health and 200 whatever armor

4. Pick up an Armor when you have 99 MegaArmor

5. Pick up a Berserk when you are in the middle of a fight where punch is not viable

6. Have odd number of bullets

7. Have odd number of shells

1 hour ago, Andromeda said:

Ammo limits - every time I'm forced to collect a shell box while at 99 shells I die a little inside...

Smart scavenger is there for you. :)

9 minutes ago, GarrettChan said:

Which of the following annoys you the most? (:P)

 

1. Pick up a Cell Pack when you have 299/599 cells (no backpack/have backpack respectively)

2. Pick up a SoulSphere when you have 99 health

3. Pick up a MegaSphere when you have 199 health and 200 whatever armor

4. Pick up an Armor when you have 99 MegaArmor

5. Pick up a Berserk when you are in the middle of a fight where punch is not viable

6. Have odd number of bullets

7. Have odd number of shells

From least to most annoying: 2 (doesn't annoy me), 6, 7, 5, 4, 1, 3 (calm down satan :P)

1 hour ago, Andromeda said:

Ammo limits - every time I'm forced to collect a shell box while at 99 shells I die a little inside...

I forget which map slot it was, but a certain level from Hell Revealed 2 comes to mind...

7 hours ago, Roofi said:

I'm answering a few things. Consider my response as unpopular opinion !

 

- I don't quite understand this hatred toward the Arch-viles. In Doom 2 maps, they are used very occasionally and even in general, their attacks are relatively easy to dodge. For my part, I understand more the disgust for revenants. Revenants often do similar damage to AVs and are way more heavily used.

 

- I also don't understand the rejection of "infinity heights". It's true that it's quite annoying in some badly designed maps. On the other hand, I find it really fun to kill monsters at the bottom of the map thanks to the splash damage of the RL and it can really benefit the player in some situations. I've always seen that as an acceptable limitation of the game. On the contrary, playing without infinity height is much weirder in my opinion. I'm not an inveterate modern port player...

 

- About the RNG. It's pretty cruel sometimes but it never really bothered me. I think the very variable RNG is one of the components that makes Doom so interesting. The strategy to adopt often changes and rush is equivalent to taking a big risk in some maps.

 

just a few points, as i see many of these in a similar way, and THE most annoying thing in doom has quickly become "to complain about everything that annoys me":

- what's with arch-viles. they're a genius of an enemy. would be boring if every enemy just threw some stuff that one could leisurely dodge.

- infinity heights work both ways. yes, it puts people off when they can't jump over a chasm because there are pinkies below. or get munched on while falling. in the same way, they can kill said pinkies by shooting the rock above, or "pull" a floating caco down.

- rng: yeah, it sucks sometimes. the proposal by @idbeholdme to keep the random values and discard the outliers can work if we want to keep randomness, just without all too weird stuff happening. however, life is like that. there are people who slip in their bath, or choke on their food, and die, and others who take several bullets and live, or even get nuked [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsutomu_Yamaguchi]twice[/url]. one could argue that, unlike life, doom is supposed to be fun. still, as you say: better players learn to cope better with variables. i remember a blooper reel from zeromaster, but hardly a rant.

- as for the partial invisibility, iirc it was inspired by the fuzz effect in predator, and the commandos were shooting in the general direction they had seen something move. more plausible,  i think (apart from how much ammo they had), than what happens in quake: first they don't see you at all (fine, you're invisible), and, as soon as they're alerted, you'Re suddenly quite visible. must be those silly floating eyes. 

Lost souls and pain elementals.

1 hour ago, Artman2004 said:

Lost souls and pain elementals.

I never really understood the hatred towards lost souls, they're pretty damn easy to deal with. I just chaingun the shit out of them, lmao

I guess preferring the RNG exactly how it is in vanilla Doom is an unpopular opinion! I never knew, but I’m not surprised. I’ve heard DMers complain about it to no end, but I guess I’m not surprised it’s just as common in the SP realm.

I’ve tried playing the game when RNG and randomised bullet spreads were turned off and it made the game extremely boring and predictable, the combat was almost lifeless for me personally.

The idea of some foes requiring more damage than others feels much more natural - just like in the real world, some people and some creatures are stronger than others, even ones of the same species. The fact that it’s not always “a shell, an imp” or “one Doomguy, one SSG blast” keeps me in a state of hoping I get a good roll, which is a big part of what makes the game replayable and fun for me.

If every time I was shot with an SSG I died, rather than having plenty of times where I just manage to scrape by since they got a bad damage roll, that would remove one of the few dynamic aspects of a mostly fixed experience. Instead of having those lucky moments that make you go “HELL YEAH! I’m so lucky!”, it all just flows predictably and boringly. Well, this is how I felt about it, anyway.

51 minutes ago, Doomkid said:

Instead of having those lucky moments that make you go “HELL YEAH! I’m so lucky!”, it all just flows predictably and boringly.

I think one thing that affects people's perception of RNG being bad is that you tend to remember the unlucky events a lot more than the lucky ones. Everyone has been hit with a revenant rocket for 80 damage at least once and has thought it was too harsh, but what about the times when you take one for minimum damage, especially if you were low on health? I'm sure it happens just as often but most people probably don't register it the same way.

edit: I will admit that the values of monster health makes random damage a bit frustrating; that is, most monsters usually take x amount of shots from the SG/SSG/RL etc., but sometimes take x+1, and rarely/never take x-1.

Prolly infinite Z height of monsters, which is why I love zdoom.

10 hours ago, idbeholdME said:

Anything else would probably require a complete rework of how the RNG in the game functions. But I am not really that deep into Doom modding so not sure what all the possible options are. Maybe someone with more knowledge can chime in.

It probably wouldn't be that hard to adjust all the damage formulas so that they have some kind of base level, that the random damage is added to. e.g. a plasma gun right now is 8d5 damage meaning it'll do 5-40 damage in increments of 5, with an average damage of 22.5; you change it so it does 4d5 + 10 damage, which is the same average damage but a range of 15-30 damage instead.

Another option used in some RPGs etc. is to do the damage calculation twice or more, and then average the results. So you still get the occasional damage spike, but the usual damage values tend much more towards the middle.

Yeah I'll go infinitely tall things as well, I don't like getting scratched by an imp at the top of a elevator I just got onto, or having to drop down off a ledge where you know alerted enemies are (like that one room in The Citadel, where you gotta do a blind jump down into a bunch of pinkies). 

Also, The Citadel

8 hours ago, AtimZarr1 said:

RADIATION SUITS

Time limited - I'd rather they function like Berserk and last until the end of the level. I quick save before I pick up each of them for fear of running out.

 

I actually don't like this idea at all. Radsuits works a lot better when they are a limited artifact. I think a Radsuit that last as long as you play the level would make things more boring and uninteresting. Damaging hazard can play a big part in doom's dynamic gameplay and can be a great tool for mapping.

8 hours ago, AtimZarr1 said:

Random chance to get hurt from a damaging floor - I don't know why this is a thing, even if it's a very low chance.

Yeah, that's kinda weird but it only happens with the 20% damaging types. Still I agree it's rather random.

8 hours ago, AtimZarr1 said:

Green tint - It's a suit, why is my vision green? It doesn't even have a head component!

Well the game must indicate to you somehow that you're in a protected mode and when that effect is about to wear off. Would you prefer a timer in one of the upper corners?

Lost Souls. I can't stand them! I hate how it takes basically two Shotgun blasts to kill them too!

I actually dont mind lost souls

Mainly pain elementals and the chasm to be honest

Revenants

7 hours ago, Pseudonaut said:

That's not what people are talking about when discussing infinite height. In vanilla Doom, you can't walk directly under flying enemies and you can't walk over enemies either, as if they're infinitely tall.

Oh! that makes sense I actually realized this a few times without understanding its infinite height! Those dumb imps always prevent me from jumping downwards to anther place and I end up getting scratched by them. 
Thanks for clarifying i guess that is pretty annoying sometimes though I haven't yet had an issue with lost souls or cacodemons but I'm sure that will be a huge pain.

 

4 hours ago, Rackevin said:

I never really understood the hatred towards lost souls, they're pretty damn easy to deal with. I just chaingun the shit out of them, lmao

Your right its easy to just shoot tons at them The thing I always think when seeing them is.... Oh great im going to waist tons of ammo. I must admit they are a pain!

 

8 minutes ago, LateToDOOM2020 said:

Oh great im going to waist tons of ammo. I must admit they are a pain!

Can't argue with that. True, Doom really enjoys to keep your ammo supply to the barest minimum sometimes.

Pain elementals annoy me to no end and I don't think enough people abhor them. I'd rather fight 10 archviles.

13 hours ago, The Strife Commando said:

Partial invisibility is a problem on vanilla.

It can be a godsend when dealing with hitscanners though.

5 hours ago, Doomkid said:

I guess preferring the RNG exactly how it is in vanilla Doom is an unpopular opinion! I never knew, but I’m not surprised. I’ve heard DMers complain about it to no end, but I guess I’m not surprised it’s just as common in the SP realm.

Personally speaking, I (and probably many other players) don't necessarily hate the RNG damage, just the huge variation of damage. All attacks (except bullets) in Doom have a "random(1,8)" multiplier. If this was a "random(4,5)" or "random(3,6)" multiplier, people would complain much less.