Murphy's law and Doom

My observations:

1) If you are fighting revenant(s) with very low health, the released rocket is always a homing one, inflicting maximum damage.

2) There is lava you can barely cross without taking damage; but 90% of times you make it safely. But when your health is lower than the damage (say, 8% and the lava sector is -10% health), you will take that damage.

3) According to probability, with Berserk you have 80% chance of killing an imp with the first punch. In case:
- this imp is blocking your way out of the slaughter
- your health is lower than 15%,
the aforementioned probability is 1% (and the imp scratches you to death).

4) With partial invisibility, the monsters firing projectiles always know where you dodge and always hit you.

vdgg said:

4) With partial invisibility, the monsters firing projectiles always know where you dodge and always hit you.

I once started a MAP07 remake but used Barons instead of Mancubi. I actually found it harder with the Invisibility Sphere, as more often than not they'd shoot to the side and I'd strafe right into it.

I often wonder if this had any influence on the design of the Manc's two-shot attack.

All 4 are true, I've observed them on several occasions myself. Especially number 4. In fact, for a while I thought it would be interesting to make a map where invisibility spheres were used to hinder the player rather than help.

@Superjamie; Possibly, but the 2shot attack still has one shot going where it thinks you are and another at about 30 degrees to the left or right, so unless you're strafing really fast having the invisibility sphere is still more of a liability -.- It does make starting infighting a lot easier though.

And on topic, I agree -.-

vdgg said:

My observations:
1) If you are fighting revenant(s) with very low health, the released rocket is always a homing one, inflicting maximum damage.

How low are we talking? Revenant rockets deal generally 35-45 damage, and I wouldn't really consider close to 50% very low.

Super Jamie said:

I often wonder if this had any influence on the design of the Manc's two-shot attack.

It's fucking murder. You don't want to experience it.

- if you need an archvile to attack you for a jump, he will run around in circles, revive monsters, get distracted, infight and finally, die from his own blasts.

- upon encountering a chaingunner at close range without armor or low on health, you will not kill him in one SG shot. and he will rape you.

- While walking on long, thin ledges or tall evelators, a projectile will always knock you down, half a second before you get to your destination.

When you pull out your SSG, you will always encounter single zombies and imps.

Lava that does the maximum damage will still seep through a radsuit and randomly (but not often) damage you. If you're real low on health, it's almost guaranteed that you'll take some of that damage before making it across.

You make a long and tedious trek up a huge cliff and reach the top, only to get blasted by a horde of revenants and find yourself back at the bottom again.

This.

There will always be a box of shells, box of bullets, or cell pack in the way when you have around 4 short of the maximum.

You will end up just short of ammo as a result of this

When you chainsaw a demon, it will somehow bite through your constant sawing, despite having one of the highest pain chances. Same for Cacodemon.

arrrgh said:

When you pull out your SSG, you will always encounter single zombies and imps.

Depending on ammo/health balance on the map, I usually have no problem justifying an SSG blast per Imp, Sergeant or Heavy Weapons dude.

Whilst these dudes can fall with one shotty blast, they don't always. I figure it's better to spend 2 shells in the SSG to do 20 pellets of damage and be sure of it, rather than risk a one-shot kill and end up spending 2 shells in the normal shotgun anyway, to do a mere 14 pellets of damage and take longer to do so, plus risking damage as monsters can attack during your reload.

Another Murphy's Law: When you're low on health, the Imp or Sergeant that kills you will be the one that managed to survive a point-blank single-shotgun blast.

//murphy_law.c
  if (something->can_go_wrong) // always true ololololol
	something = will_go_wrong;
  else
	something = will_go_wrong; // u still screwed XD XD XD

// lets hope they fall for that Pseudorandom number generator bs...hehehe im a genius

Lost souls like to randomly appear right in my fucking face the second i fire a rocket.

And partial invisibility is the shittiest powerup ever. I find it makes dodging so much harder... it's ok for speedrunning though.

You'll never, ever find a medikit when you need one, until you're killed by the Sarge standing around the corner, at which point the momentum of your corpse will carry you just far enough that there's a medikit right in your face.

Also, bad times to use rockets:
-- When a Lost Soul attacks you from the side, causing the rocket to impact the Soul
-- When the door closes right in front of you (bonus Murphy points if it's a blazing door)
-- When it turns out that there's a monster teleport destination right in front of you and a Baron just stepped through

When trooper shots, imp or hellknight fireballs do max damage at the worst moments is annoying.

Also, sergeants tend to be keen at shooting you. They barely seem to miss the moment. If you can't kill one with the shotgun in a shot, he'll retaliate in a short moment.

Your chances will diminish highly if you release demons under nightmare mode.

When you get stuck on a detail at the worst moment possible.(ie, there is an angry mob of imps behind you)

Here's another one: You don't see where that lone chaingunner is until your 200/200 is 0/0.


Ok, maybe that doesn't happen ALL the time... but I play doom under many different influences. Fairly often. It happens.

After saving, you get hit by an Archvile and die.

Speaking of archviles, when you duck behind something to escape their flames, peek out after you think he's finished and then get blasted.

40oz said:

How low are we talking? Revenant rockets deal generally 35-45 damage, and I wouldn't really consider close to 50% very low.

To give a more scientific law, futher research is needed

Also, the revs damage is 10-80 from rockets, 6-60 from punches.

http://www.doom2.net/single/weaponfaq.html

dew said:

- if you need an archvile to attack you for a jump, he will run around in circles, revive monsters, get distracted, infight and finally, die from his own blasts.

I love this one! Like Plutonia 2, MAP 23, eh?

Bashe said:

When you chainsaw a demon, it will somehow bite through your constant sawing, despite having one of the highest pain chances. Same for Cacodemon.

This has an explanation in the engine's behaviour.

EDITED: wrong link

- if you got damaged enough to turn the screen completely red and you think you're dead. The moment you realize that you have some health left and you didn't die after all, you do.

DuckReconMajor said:
After saving, you get hit by an Archvile and die.

Ha, that's usually not Murphy's law but divine justice :p

Since I saw this thread, I've been testing each one. I played plutonia 2 for about 4 hours or so tonight, and each of the aforementioned seem to happen fairly often.

And another one I learned tonight: Specters will eat you if you are on a hallucinogen. And they will fuck up the screen...

You're down to the last radsuit and have to back-track into a nukeage/lava zone to search for the last switch.

An area you need to re-visit has been made inaccessible by a W1 linedef action - no prizes for guessing where that switch is.

I do not believe in Murphy's law. I however do believe that human memory is biased.

Yeah, I kinda second that. I've been playing Doom on single player for the longest time, I'm pretty good at preventing the things that are said here from happening. However, I only learned recently that lost souls, even in their attack state can climb stairs like that. Their attacks seem so sensitive, I think they can even be blocked by powerups.

Krispavera said:

In fact, for a while I thought it would be interesting to make a map where invisibility spheres were used to hinder the player rather than help.

Yeah, I once dreamed up a fight where on lower difficulties, the player gets a Megasphere or Soulsphere or something. But if you're playing on UV, you would get Partial Invisibility! Bwahahahaha...

Krispavera said:

All 4 are true, I've observed them on several occasions myself. Especially number 4. In fact, for a while I thought it would be interesting to make a map where invisibility spheres were used to hinder the player rather than help.

I already used this in Scythe map27.

Revenant missiles always do 80 HP damage. And I mean always.

Sometimes this even applies to unwary hell knights that allow revenants to get a couple of hits advantage over them...