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waverider

Do you take less damage in GZDoom vs. PRBoom+ ?

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I've used PRBoom+, well GLBoom+ for many years now almost exclusively but have recently changed to GZDoom. While playing through Eviternity recently I noticed some situations where it felt like I should've taken more damage than I did. Also I found it easier to run past enemies when I'm cornered and try to shoot my way through. Don't know if that has to do with "actors are infinitely tall", being disabled at the time though.

 

So do you take less damage in GZDoom overall compared to more "classic doom" - like ports such as PR/GLBoom+ ?

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Normally not. The random values are generally the same but as it is with different code, there is a chance that the RNG in GZDoom produces slightly different values overall.

 

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It shouldn't do modifications to the actual RNG system.

 

That being said, GZDoom does make various modifications to the games, such as changing the hitboxes of various enemies, which could lead to running easier past monsters.

 

2 hours ago, waverider said:

Don't know if that has to do with "actors are infinitely tall", being disabled at the time though.

 

It kinda does, that allows you to run under enemies (such as Cacodemons and Pain Elementals) and jump over them, which is normally not possible in vanilla and more conservative ports. You're also playing Eviternity incorrectly if you have this option disabled.

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38 minutes ago, seed said:

It shouldn't do modifications to the actual RNG system.

 

That being said, GZDoom does make various modifications to the games, such as changing the hitboxes of various enemies, which could lead to running easier past monsters.

 

 

That's kinda disappointing, especially if you're aiming to get the full intended difficulty of a map. Isn't there any way to get GZDoom to behave more like classic Doom in this regard? I was hoping I could get the same amount of damage taken from classic Doom in GZD as well.

 

Quote

It kinda does, that allows you to run under enemies (such as Cacodemons and Pain Elementals) and jump over them, which is normally not possible in vanilla and more conservative ports. You're also playing Eviternity incorrectly if you have this option disabled.

 

Indeed, it felt quite easy to jump over enemies with "actors are infinitely tall" disabled. Seems they changed this in Eviternity RC2, this is stated in the changelog: "By popular demand, infinite height is no longer enforced in GZDoom."

Edited by waverider

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30 minutes ago, seed said:

such as changing the hitboxes of various enemies, which could lead to running easier past monsters.

 

I think there might be a bit more to it.  In Vanilla Doom and indeed, many other ports, it was easy to get 'hung' on monsters - you're trying to run past them, but if you brush them, you get stopped.  Often with deadly or at least painful consequences.

 

Not anymore.  Now you can even run you're way through a crowd of monsters.  So long as there is an opening between them, of course.  If not, then they still block the same as always.  Otherwise, if you'll pardon the vernacular, monsters seem smoother somehow GZDoom.

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13 minutes ago, waverider said:

That's kinda disappointing, especially if you're aiming to get a full intended difficulty of a map. Isn't there any way to get GZDoom to behave more like classic Doom in this regard? I was hoping I could get the same amount of damage taken from classic Doom in GZD as well.

 

Indeed, it felt quite easy to jump over enemies with "actors are infinitely tall" disabled. Seems they changed this in Eviternity RC2, this is stated in the changelog: "By popular demand, infinite height is no longer enforced in GZDoom."

 

Apart from compatibility settings (and even then, they depend on what you're playing. Don't play wads with incorrect compat levels), I don't think there's other ways to make it behave more like vanilla. It's not a conservative/accurate port after all.

 

I completely forgot about that part since RC2 came out, but playing without infinitely tall actors it will almost trivialize the difficulty of some of the later maps.

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41 minutes ago, seed said:

It shouldn't do modifications to the actual RNG system.

 

That being said, GZDoom does make various modifications to the games, such as changing the hitboxes of various enemies, which could lead to running easier past monsters.

 

It doesn't make such a change. If some enemy hitbox is different that's a bug.

 

 

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4 minutes ago, Graf Zahl said:

It doesn't make such a change. If some enemy hitbox is different that's a bug.

 

Strange. I'm fairly sure my memory doesn't fail me this time around, I've heard this notion repeatedly in the past, in the case of Arachnotrons I think?

 

If that's not true, I suppose we believed the lie (well shit).

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There was a long standing bug that the SpiderMastermind had the wrong radius, that was because the definition was taken from a project that had it wrong (i.e. adjusted to match the sprite.) And for some strange reason, most people who knew about it kept quiet until many years later some more casual user reported it, after which it got fixed.

 

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1 minute ago, Graf Zahl said:

There was a long standing bug that the SpiderMastermind had the wrong radius, that was because the definition was taken from a project that had it wrong (i.e. adjusted to match the sprite.) And for some strange reason, most people who knew about it kept quiet until many years later some more casual user reported it, after which it got fixed.

 

So it was partially correct, though it was a bug, and not a feature. Fascinating.

 

Were other monster hitboxes affected by any chance? Spiders were the only one I was aware of.

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26 minutes ago, seed said:

 

Apart from compatibility settings (and even then, they depend on what you're playing. Don't play wads with incorrect compat levels), I don't think there's other ways to make it behave more like vanilla. It's not a conservative/accurate port after all.

 

I completely forgot about that part since RC2 came out, but playing without infinitely tall actors it will almost trivialize the difficulty of some of the later maps.

 

Right. I may have made my own interpretation that in RC2 it was now the intended way to play with actors not infinitely tall. My bad. Oh well, will most likely replay the wad anyway. Will try compatibility settings to see if the damage becomes more like classic Doom.

 

22 minutes ago, Graf Zahl said:

 

It doesn't make such a change. If some enemy hitbox is different that's a bug.

 

 

 

Good to hear that. Will try classic doom compat settings as well as always making sure to have actors infinitely tall.

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31 minutes ago, waverider said:

That's kinda disappointing, especially if you're aiming to get the full intended difficulty of a map. Isn't there any way to get GZDoom to behave more like classic Doom in this regard? I was hoping I could get the same amount of damage taken from classic Doom in GZD as well.

 

The damage done by monsters is determined by RNG. The "average" damage should be roughly same in both ports. Maybe u were just lucky (good RNG) when playing in GZdoom

 

21 minutes ago, seed said:

I completely forgot about that part since RC2 came out, but playing without infinitely tall actors it will almost trivialize the difficulty of some of the later maps.

 

Infinitely tall actors can still be turned on in Eviternity if one wishes. Its just not enforced anymore like it was in RC1.

 

21 minutes ago, seed said:

If that's not true, I suppose we believed the lie (well shit).

 

I believed it too. Though to be honest, my reason for believing was because for some reason I have much easier time berserking enemies in GZdoom than in PrBoom+. What could be the reason behind it.

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1 minute ago, ReaperAA said:

much easier time berserking enemies in GZdoom than in PrBoom+. What could be the reason behind it.

 

Different mechanics, even with the right compat options?

 

@Graf Zahl

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Far as I know the RNG tables have never changed regardless of port, so the damage should be more or less the same regardless of port.

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Did GZDoom go back to the Vanilla RNG array in recent versions?

Does PRBoom+ use a different RNG method than the Vanilla RNG array?

 

Zandronum, for instance, has a specific Compat_OldRandom compat flag that enables the Vanilla RNG. Otherwise it uses the RNG method that was in GZDoom 1.8.

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1 hour ago, ReaperAA said:

I believed it too. Though to be honest, my reason for believing was because for some reason I have much easier time berserking enemies in GZdoom than in PrBoom+. What could be the reason behind it.

 

The reason behind this is that GZDoom checks the bounding box for a hit while PrBoom+ checks two diagonals going through the actor. This is controlled by another compatibility option ("Use Doom code for hitscan checks"). The motivation here was that the original check makes it nearly impossible to hit larger monsters with the fist, aside from their corners. The downside, of course, is that it shortens the distance to the actual hit point which is why it was later compatibility optioned when that issue was discovered.

 

 

 

1 hour ago, Dark Pulse said:

Far as I know the RNG tables have never changed regardless of port, so the damage should be more or less the same regardless of port.

 

You couldn't be more wrong here. ;)

Even Boom already replaced the tables with a real RNG. ZDoom later swapped that RNG with a more random one. With a mod like Eviternity you'll never actually use the original tables because even PrBoom has to be run in a mode where it uses the builtin RNG and not the table.

 

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I will always be annoyed that the Cleric's Firestorm doesn't ever one-shot Ettins on GZDoom, yet does so on everything else.

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Why didn't you report it as a bug if you find it so annoying? This is the first time I hear about it.

 

 

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Because I recall to my amusement a time with Gez saying that the code in G/ZDoom was being replicated at the source and that it was intentional behavior, nothing was modified or unauthentic.

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1 hour ago, Graf Zahl said:

The reason behind this is that GZDoom checks the bounding box for a hit while PrBoom+ checks two diagonals going through the actor. This is controlled by another compatibility option ("Use Doom code for hitscan checks"). The motivation here was that the original check makes it nearly impossible to hit larger monsters with the fist, aside from their corners. The downside, of course, is that it shortens the distance to the actual hit point which is why it was later compatibility optioned when that issue was discovered.

 

So this can be changed back to vanilla? Nice.

I didn't knew about this because I don't play vanilla maps on GZdoom so I always had compatibility set to default.

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54 minutes ago, Lila Feuer said:

Because I recall to my amusement a time with Gez saying that the code in G/ZDoom was being replicated at the source and that it was intentional behavior, nothing was modified or unauthentic.

 

It actually is, but sometimes it happens that a little change elsewhere may alter something you do not expect.

 

 

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18 hours ago, seed said:

 

Apart from compatibility settings (and even then, they depend on what you're playing. Don't play wads with incorrect compat levels), I don't think there's other ways to make it behave more like vanilla. It's not a conservative/accurate port after all.

 

I completely forgot about that part since RC2 came out, but playing without infinitely tall actors it will almost trivialize the difficulty of some of the later maps.

 

Question: I understand PrBoom+ for the most part (except if you are using an older version of Doom as i have no idea if you still have to set comp levels for a PWAD or not), but how would you know what WAD's need what compat levels/settings in GZDoom, especially if it's a map that's specifically made for ZDoom/GZDoom? Are the settings just pre-configured in the mapinfo? Or am i understanding what mapinfo actually is? Unless they state it in the txtfile or something similar...

 

I understand that it's not an extremely accurate port but lately it seems to be the one that works the best for me. So for compat settings i've just set it to Doom (strict) which i know isn't correct for most newer WADs (possibly Boom for those?). I've only had it set to that setting when playing 90's PWAD's.

 

I'm on a classic PWAD binge currently so i figure that the '94/'95 PWAD's that i've been playing (mostly ones from the old Top 100 DW List) should be fine set on Doom (strict) and i've even used Doom v1.2 and v1.666 for certain WADs that don't seem to want to work with The Ultimate Doom (or stated it in the txtfile, they might work for all i know).

Edited by CyberDreams

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The compatibility presets are the thing to change if you want to make broad settings to have it as close to the target engine as possible. Obviously, if you set it to Doom or Doom (strict) there's a chance it will not handle maps for a more modern target correctly. the same applies in both directions for Boom and MBF.

 

Some maps set or clear a few compatibility flags explicitly, if that happens the map's setting will override the preset.

 

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1 hour ago, CyberDreams said:

Question: I understand PrBoom+ for the most part (except if you are using an older version of Doom as i have no idea if you still have to set comp levels for a PWAD or not), but how would you know what WAD's need what compat levels/settings in GZDoom, especially if it's a map that's specifically made for ZDoom/GZDoom? Are the settings just pre-configured in the mapinfo? Or am i understanding what mapinfo actually is? Unless they state it in the txtfile or something similar...

 

I understand that it's not an extremely accurate port but lately it seems to be the one that works the best for me. So for compat settings i've just set it to Doom (strict) which i know isn't correct for most newer WADs (possibly Boom for those?). I've only had it set to that setting when playing 90's PWAD's.

 

I'm on a classic PWAD binge currently so i figure that the '94/'95 PWAD's that i've been playing (mostly ones from the old Top 100 DW List) should be fine set on Doom (strict) and i've even used Doom v1.2 and v1.666 for certain WADs that don't seem to want to work with The Ultimate Doom (or stated it in the txtfile, they might work for all i know).

 

Some things, just as jumping/crouching can be enforced by the map somehow, so even if you bind a key to those actions it would not let you perform them.

 

But mappers must typically provide all the necessary play information in the description of the wad, or its text file, so that it can be played the way it's intended.

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