For the love of god, stop speeding up monster projectiles

[kmxexii]

5 hours ago, Xaser said:

This is the coolest take by far. STRAIN did something kinda like this with the Holobots (Revenant replacement) -- they shoot homing fireballs that travel roughly half the speed of revs', totally changing the dynamic (much better seeking and they linger around) -- but I dunno offhand if any non-homing variant exists somewhere. Sounds like untapped potential to me.

 

Mackey McCandlish's Doom Must Fall TC changed the rocket projectile into a "mine" that was essentially a slow-moving rocket and the final boss of that PWAD is against a Cyberdemon.

[esselfortium]

If only people would stop making Doom wads, we wouldn't have to worry anymore about them making ones I don't like.

[Juza]

I agree that sped up projectiles are unnecessary and don't really make most wads better to play. Personally, it messes with my muscle memory of the enemy, and it's specially confusing when they're paired with a different enemy type. If I wanted faster projectiles I could always go with the -fast parameter.

[NuMetalManiak]

fast projectiles + sniper centric gameplay = broken keyboard, monitor, and outside window.

fast projectiles anywhere else = ok.

 

Valiant did do it horribly, this is 100% true (hahahahahaha) but so far from what I've played from 2018 cacowards (Struggle, Avactor, UoF, GS2), the rest of the fast projectile monsters are used well. It's how these enemies are used.

 

 

Edited December 26, 2018 by NuMetalManiak : forgot golden souls 2

[Tristan]

don't tell me what to do

[esselfortium]

I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Gameplay ruined by 2-sided impassible lines at non 90-degree angles. I’ve bumped into lamp sprites while avoiding imp fireballs moving faster than the usual speed. All those moments will be lost in time, like forced ammo/health pickups in a resource-tight map. Time... to post

[jazzmaster9]

Yeah how dare those mappers model their spasms on a mod you don't like.

[Wereknight]

I'm simple man. I'll just say "nope"

[magicsofa]

12 hours ago, Cynical said:

A blanket statement

 

#notallmods

[Sparktimus]

...or you could simply not play that wad, play on a lower difficulty, or learn some DeHacked/ZScript and remove them yourself instead of telling everyone to stop doing a thing you don't like because A) it will never work, and B) implying that there should be a standard everyone follow is seriously limiting as a content creator.

If I sat here and made threads about things mappers do in Doom that I don't like, I would never get anything done. In those cases, the best thing to do is to adapt and overcome or simply concede instead of complaining about it. No one is chiding you for finding fast projectiles annoying. They're chiding you for stating this as an objective fact. When it comes to mapping/modding, hardly anything is objective.

[Philnemba]

After reading OPs complaints about fast projectiles, its almost if he doesn't realized that...everyone has different tastes in Doom mapping 🤔 

[Nirvana]

Everyone should stop making positive contributions to the Doom community by making creative content and instead complain bitterly on the forums about what they don’t like. Eventually we’re sure to find the perfect criteria for a wad once we’ve all complained enough. 

[MTrop]

I dunno dude I got buttons mapped to strafe left and right so it's not that big a deal for me

[Pirx]

11 hours ago, ReaperAA said:

 

Despite being a filthy casual myself, I disagree with ur post. Valiant had some of the best use of DEHACKED monsters. Imps finally became viable threats.

 

This. Tbh I didn't find them much more difficult than the standard imps. Just strafe immediately when they start their throw animation, or approach them at an angle. And use the berserk as a health pack, not as a weapon. At least,  they don't lead their shots, so you're safe as long as you keep moving. The bigger problem is changing the direction, as you risk running into everything that comes flying towards the spot you just have been in. Obvious for example in the city map.

Also, ssg is less effective because you expose yourself to more fire while reloading,  the super chaingun largely takes its role.

 

Antaresian legacy goes a step or two farther in this direction with massive volumes of high speed fire, so one has to play it more like a modern shooter in parts, that is by taking cover instead of just strafing, as one just can't always evade that amount of crap heading your way.

[Argent Agent]

I usually play with fast monsters on by default, so....

Although something that might be interesting is fast projectiles with a smaller damage spread similar to Strife's.

[wintertowns]

something something git gud something

 

Just kidding, I mean, the only way to get over your frustration is to make something of your own that adheres to your own standards. Just try to make a wad that doesn't contain the things you write about in your post.

 

10 hours ago, Nevander said:

I don't mind fast projectiles, but fast monsters get on my nerves.

 

Fast pinkies will fuck you up.

[grahf]

The fast non-homing projectiles from Revenants in Struggle are awesome.  I hate the stupid homing attacks...  With the fast projectile you can dodge quickly and fire, and not worry about getting hit in the back.  It actually encourages the opposite of what OP is complaining about - I play more aggressively and faster with this change.

[Doomkid]

Is it bad that, rather than wanting to snark at the OP, I agree with him almost completely?

 

I wouldn’t take the same negative tone - mappers can do whatever they want of course - but if you fuck with my Doom gameplay even slightly and can‘t even be bothered to give the altered enemies new sprites or something to make me expect new behaviour then may your soul burn eternally in the darkest, deepest pits of Hell. That’s all I’m saying!

[Woolie Wool]

14 hours ago, Cynical said:

Play HR23 from pistol start.

You mean one of the hardest map from the '90s hardest megawad, and a chief codifier of slaughtermaps, that is not only full of imps but jammed with pinkies, mancs, archviles, and more? As opposed to Valiant map08 where you can very quickly die to the relative handful of imps at the start if you don't know what you're doing.

 

Valiant was an excellent megawad and your take is garbage. I didn't camp my way through Valiant and from my experience of the megawad, such a thing isn't even possible. I had made multiple attempts years ago when I was a much more campy player and camping was never a viable strategy in many of those maps. It was only when I learned to play aggressively, by playing entry-level slaughtermaps ("Luxor" and "Mortuary" from Epic 2, Skillsaw's own Vanguard, etc.) that I completed Valiant.

[Marcaek]

- mappers can do whatever they want of course - but if you fuck with my Doom gameplay even slightly and can‘t even be bothered to give the altered enemies new sprites or something

 

he's railing against speed increases as a concept, not what you're saying here

[danbo]

9 hours ago, geo said:

With shmups, I always enjoyed faster projectiles, because that means they clear off screen quick.

 

that's an interesting point, but it works out a little differently. good shumps have a mechanic called "bullet sealing" which ensures an aggressive player doesn't get unjustly point-blanked by enemies, essentially forbidding regular enemies from firing on a player that's too close - a further range than, say, an imp's option-select. but yeah, as a heuristic in those games, slower bullets are harder just because they control the play area for longer. but maybe in doom, it's monsters that control the play area over projectiles?

 

i'm not about to tell any mapper what to do, they are all precious angels that we do not deserve, but i would say that if you're going to mess with projectile speed you should have a good reason. i always think, no matter what you're doing, that you should jump on anything that lets a player better/more quickly understand your work - if they know how things like projectile speed etc work, they can move onto figuring out and appreciating your fight dynamics or insane sector lighting or whatever (which is hopefully what they're there for!)

[Nine Inch Heels]

19 hours ago, Cynical said:

Proj-speed-rant

Git gud or die trying

[Woolie Wool]

Personally the fast imps were my favorite part of Valiant, because it meant that you couldn't just ignore imps like you often can in OG Doom. They're always a threat and you have to keep an eye on them.

[Not Jabba]

Some thoughts on the topic:

Speeding up projectiles is definitely not the *most* interesting way of making monsters challenging to fight. More complex attack patterns, unusual behaviors, homing and weaving abilities on the projectile itself, increased aggression -- these are all generally more dynamic, imo. However, I doubt skillsaw or anyone else in question considered the increased projectile speed to be the most interesting thing they were doing. The mapsets relevant to this discussion all have completely new monsters in addition to the tweaks to the existing ones, and the projectile speed increase on a couple of monsters is just one small piece of a much larger reimagining or shifting of the game's balance.

 

I also think that slow monsters can often be more interesting than fast ones (or maybe it's more accurate to say that varied speeds are more interesting), which is lesson that surprised me from my own experiences with trying to set up combat. Monsters that move slowly are difficult to herd, and projectiles that move slowly aren't simply sidestepped and forgotten, as they remain on the field longer. At the same time, this doesn't negate the usefulness of fast projectiles, and it certainly doesn't mean that adding speed to an existing monster's projectiles is a failure to see the bigger picture. In Struggle, the entire game is amped up across player weapons and monsters alike, and the proj speeds are a useful piece of that. Valiant is somewhat similar, but I think it's mostly about having each individual piece of the monster roster be threatening so that the player is never able to be complacent -- and of course it does encourage aggressive play, particularly when it goes hand in hand with generous resources for the player. In Exomoon (the Arachnorb essentially being a modified Cacodemon), it contributes to the brawliness of the gameplay, as the Arachnorb hits harder and faster but also goes down more quickly compared to the relatively slow, spongy, and non-threatening Cacodemon. In Avactor, it differentiates the Cacodemon from the Imp more, and also works well as a response to the generally larger spaces in the mapset. In Umbra of Fate, it helps to differentiate the threat levels of the Hell Knight and Baron. It seems to me that all of these mappers knew what they were doing.

[Doomkid]

2 hours ago, Marcaek said:

he's railing against speed increases as a concept, not what you're saying here

I get that that’s what he’s saying and that’s fine, but what I’m saying is if you must do it, at least give the altered enemies a fresh coat of paint. I think projectile speed increases are kind of unnecessary anyway but when unfamiliar attacks are coming from unchanged imps it strikes me as very low-ennagy on the mappers part.

[galileo31dos01]

Quote

For the love of god, stop speeding up monster projectiles

 

k but all cool with melee right?

 

 

[SaladBadger]

Speeding up projectiles is definitely not the *most* interesting way of making monsters challenging to fight. More complex attack patterns, unusual behaviors, homing and weaving abilities on the projectile itself, increased aggression -- these are all generally more dynamic, imo.

I find myself agreeing with this, but there's a problem with vanilla and boom in that it's not really possible to tweak that many parameters of aggression, beyond spending additional states to call A_Chase more frequently. Some monster slots have hardcoded increases in aggression, such as the Revenant, Lost Soul, Cyberdemon (complete with bonus higher overall chance of attacking), and Spider Mastermind, so in order to make another monster have this trait you'd have to give up one of those guys. Obviously if you're designing for ZDoom or EE, or other similarly flexible ports, you can use their thing definition scripts to set these parameters on everything, but this does restrict the playerbase some.

[loveless]

...isn't it infinitely easier to simply not play things you find distasteful?  

  

Avoids the whole mess of starting a thread with paragraphs of unintelligible nonsense.

[Avoozl]

How does one find out if something contains something they don't like about it if they don't try it first? People aren't psychic you know.

Edited December 27, 2018 by Avoozl

[Nine Inch Heels]

12 minutes ago, Not Jabba said:

Speeding up projectiles is definitely not the *most* interesting way of making monsters challenging to fight. More complex attack patterns, unusual behaviors, homing and weaving abilities on the projectile itself, increased aggression -- these are all generally more dynamic, imo. However, I doubt skillsaw or anyone else in question considered the increased projectile speed to be the most interesting thing they were doing. The mapsets relevant to this discussion all have completely new monsters in addition to the tweaks to the existing ones, and the projectile speed increase on a couple of monsters is just one small piece of a much larger reimagining or shifting of the game's balance.

The whole proj-speed-topic is down to how it's put to use. Let's remind ourselves real quick that Valiant only had 2 monsters with unusually high proj speeds (one being the imp, the other being the pyro demon) and that's already enough for the OP to throw a fit each time a respective "modern WAD" ( BOO, fucking modern maps ruining Doom, paraphrased) requires proactive play, rather than being a game of chess that allows players to calculate the rest of their lives while a fireball travels for like 20 seconds towards their current position. Never mind that Valiant in particular came with a fresh coat of paint to go along with the monsters increased/changed abilities.

 

The thing is that Umbra of fate for example wasn't exactly taylored towards fast paced non-stop action in the first place, and that'd still be true even if the proj-speeds were kept at usual levels, because the layout and the resources available simply don't promote agressive "happy-go-lucky" styles of play, unless of course you know what's coming up next.