For mappers: Zscript to force disable jumping and crouching

[anotak]

This is a small wad that uses Zscript to force disable jumping and crouching in GZDoom. For jumping, there is a decorate fallback as well that sets jump height to 0, which works in old ZDoom and Zandronum. Can't do anything about crouching.

 

This is designed to be used together with the existing zmapinfo nojump / nocrouch flags. You will have to merge the mapinfo from this wad into your mapinfo.

 

The reason for this is that there is a flag in the GZDoom settings that allows jumping regardless of mapinfo. This flag saves in savegames. The UI does not properly explain that this ignores intended behavior of the map. This wad was created in response to the real repeated experience of mappers having players force-enable jumping and then complaining about breaking the map. This should be especially useful for mappers primarily designing for jump-less ports. Unfortunately we can't do much about jumping in PRBoom or whatever

 

There are two versions of the wad, one just disables jumping and crouching altogether, and a second more permissive one that requires you to press the button several times to reactivate it (this behavior requires GZDoom).

 

Here is a screenshot of the wad with the counter.

This message will only play if the player has overridden the ZMAPINFO nojump / nocrouch setting.

 

Hope this helps.

gzdoom-no-jumping-no-crouching.zip

 

edit:

So, 2 things keep coming up in this thread over and over, so I'm just going to address these things here:

1) "What about mods that override jumping behavior"

If you load the mod second, it will restore jumping. This is fine with me.

 

2) "People will just work around this by making a PK3/WAD to only restore jumping"

Okay, that's fine, that requires a whole extra level of intentionality. The point isn't to "prevent cheating" or to control how people play their wads. The point is to prevent people from accidentally having the wrong behavior and breaking maps.

 

edit 2:

Since people have asked, if you would like to credit me, just "anotak" is preferred. Uncapitalized is preferred but not required. I'm also for this particular wad, okay with you not crediting me at all.

 

Edited June 2, 2019 by anotak

[esselfortium]

It's really dumb that GZDoom doesn't even give you any indicator when you're overriding what the author set for their map, so you can even know whether it's intended to be used in a given map or not. Thanks for making this useful workaround (which shouldn't have been necessary in the first place if this feature was implemented sanely)!

[Officer D]

If the readme clearly states "not designed for jumping/crouching" that should be enough and if people complain about the maps breaking because they ignored the information, then it's their own stupid fault. As a passionate Doom fan, I knowingly go into every mapset assuming it wasn't designed for jumping. However I'm not supportive of the idea that would take away the freedom of choice. I say this because I love playing with gameplay mods and plenty of them utilize jumping/crouching as a combat mechanic. So you are pretty much crippling your mapset to people who enjoy these type of mods.

[anotak]

not my problem

[Officer D]

Not saying it is. Just saying if people choose to implement this. All it will do is, have someone edit the file and take out the script. And you'll end up having two files floating around on the internet. e.g. MyWad.wad and MyWad_JumpFix.wad

[Armaetus]

The ability to force it back on is counter-productive.

[anotak]

1 hour ago, Officer D said:

Not saying it is. Just saying if people choose to implement this. All it will do is, have someone edit the file and take out the script. And you'll end up having two files floating around on the internet. e.g. MyWad.wad and MyWad_JumpFix.wad

 

so in all reality if someone uses a mod that replaces the playerpawn zscript it will just replace this. and that's fine.

 

the point is that it lessens how many people might be accidentally breaking the maps.

 

1 hour ago, Glaice said:

The ability to force it back on is counter-productive.

that's why i provided 2 versions of the wad, one with the ability to turn back on, the other without.

 

it's up to the mapper to decide if they want to use one, the other, or neither.

[Officer D]

I just can't believe it, that someone accidentally breaks a map, by knowingly jumping over geometry, then going on to criticize the mapper and in the same breath calls themselves a Doom enthusiast. I guess I should never underestimate stupidity ^^ . I've played through tons of mapset that weren't intended for jumping, with gameplay mods that have jump/crouch combat mechanics, without breaking anything. And even if something would break, I would naturally first assume one of my mods broke it and never blame the mapper before playing vanilla.
 

Maybe you can add some silly or serious message and text/sound when someone tries to jump. Kind of like how High Noon Drifter did it with the cheat codes.

[Graf Zahl]

1 hour ago, Glaice said:

The ability to force it back on is counter-productive.

 

So are cheats in general. That hasn't prevented engines from implementing cheats in the past. This is no different.

 

The real problem comes with knee-jerk reactions to such engine overrides to 'protect' a map from being cheated on. Cheats are an essential tool for debugging gameplay behavior, and in that regard a jump or crouch cheat is no different from an invulnerability cheat. The setting gets reset each time the engine is restarted anyway.

 

[anotak]

the setting does get reset, but as mentioned, it stays through savegames.

 

it's not about protecting against cheating. it's about preventing the map from entering a uncompletable broken state.

i highly agree that cheating is an important tool for many purposes. however, nowhere does the menu in gzdoom inform the player that this is cheating.

 

i've seen more than one mapper have this problem. this wad was created specifically in response to a recent larger discussion involving a well-known mapper complaining about this issue. however, this has been an issue more than once for people in the past.

[Graf Zahl]

13 minutes ago, anotak said:

the setting does get reset, but as mentioned, it stays through savegames.

 

So do other cheats.

 

13 minutes ago, anotak said:

 

it's not about protecting against cheating. it's about preventing the map from entering a uncompletable broken state.

 

You cannot do that because other cheats allow the same thing.

 

 

13 minutes ago, anotak said:

i highly agree that cheating is an important tool for many purposes. however, nowhere does the menu in gzdoom inform the player that this is cheating.

 

That may be, but the vast majority of players never uses that menu anyway. And those who compulsively do cannot be helped, but those will complain most if a map blocks their attempt at cheating. In the end it is an unsolvable conundrum.

 

13 minutes ago, anotak said:

 

i've seen more than one mapper have this problem. this wad was created specifically in response to a recent larger discussion involving a well-known mapper complaining about this issue.

 

Some people really need to relax a bit. I've encountered this compulsive need to control how maps get played before and never reacted well to it, several times adding overrides or blocks to the engine as a response to give control back to the player.

 

Sometimes a simple message like "if you do xyz you are cheating, if you get stuck, you are entirely to blame yourself for your problems." in the readme is the best thing that can be done. Trying to trick the engine will only cause problems down the line if some things get shuffled around.

 

[invisible_warrior]

8 minutes ago, Graf Zahl said:

several times adding overrides or blocks to the engine as a response to give control back to the player.

On a side note, it would be nice if you somehow added a forced nojump nocrouch to classical wads, namely doom, doom2, tnt, plutonia. I mean not by Zscript or mapinfo, because iwads cannot be edited, but by some port's inner feature. People nowadays seem not to even know you're not supposed to jump in these.

For custom wads, it's better really left up to the player :)

[Liberation]

12 minutes ago, invisible_warrior said:

On a side note, it would be nice if you somehow added a forced nojump nocrouch to classical wads, namely doom, doom2, tnt, plutonia. I mean not by Zscript or mapinfo, because iwads cannot be edited, but by some port's inner feature. People nowadays seem not to even know you're not supposed to jump in these.

For custom wads, it's better really left up to the player :)

 

That's called not binding crouch and jump keys. If people want to jump all over Iwad levels, then so be it.

[Officer D]

If someone is new to classic Doom they will most likely end up playing it on a console are on Dos-Box, which will not even have it coded in. I don't see why this should be hard-coded into the engine for the iwads. This being zscript would mean it's specifically for GZDoom. Also Doom purists constantly complain about people jumping, it's hard to not know this. ;)

 

Quote

Why would I want to use GZDoom instead of regular Doom?

...

Jumping, crouching, swimming, and flying.

 

[beanz]

How is this any different then adding NoJump and NoCrouch to a levelset's mapinfo lump? For most maps I assume jumping isn't allowed and think that if it is they'll probably mention it somewhere. If it's to stop cheaters then I feel the gesture is moot.

I do think that for GZDoom there should be an easy way to get basic information about a map, like the mapping format or current midi playing, and some kind of setting to disallow certain things on certain maps, but that's neither here nor there.

 

10 minutes ago, Officer D said:

If someone is new to classic Doom they will most likely end up playing it on a console are on Dos-Box

I'm not so sure about that these days. Especially since information about modern ways to play are so easy to find. Any thread on most social media platforms will say that using something like chocolate-doom or gzdoom with certain settings disabled is the way to go, and I don't think classic Doom is officially available on any modern console. I sure played Doom first on Dosbox but I wouldn't recommend people start off that way.

[Officer D]

2 minutes ago, beanz said:

I'm not so sure about that these days. Especially since information about modern ways to play are so easy to find. Any thread on most social media platforms will say that using something like chocolate-doom or gzdoom with certain settings disabled is the way to go. I sure played Doom first on Dosbox but I wouldn't recommend people start off that way.

On PC the most common way, is to get it through Steam or GOG and both include Dosbox. Since apparently people these days are too naive to follow instructions, they will probably first try and load pootal Doom with Dosbox and then google for solution, which will lead them to the GZDoom, Zandronum, etc.

People who want the original experience will settle with the pre-configured Dosbox version included, which works fine for modern PC's.

[leodoom85]

As a mapper, I'd just add impassible lines where it's due and it's an easier solution to prevent jump/crouch issues. Done. And no code involved...

[anotak]

 

1 hour ago, leodoom85 said:

As a mapper, I'd just add impassible lines where it's due and it's an easier solution to prevent jump/crouch issues. Done. And no code involved...

 

not a practical solution for situations with lowering barriers or barriers that can be approached from other angles later. also involves far more work than this wad, actually.

 

6 hours ago, Graf Zahl said:

That may be, but the vast majority of players never uses that menu anyway. And those who compulsively do cannot be helped, but those will complain most if a map blocks their attempt at cheating. In the end it is an unsolvable conundrum.

 

Some people really need to relax a bit. I've encountered this compulsive need to control how maps get played before and never reacted well to it, several times adding overrides or blocks to the engine as a response to give control back to the player.

 

Sometimes a simple message like "if you do xyz you are cheating, if you get stuck, you are entirely to blame yourself for your problems." in the readme is the best thing that can be done. Trying to trick the engine will only cause problems down the line if some things get shuffled around.

 

 

every time this type of thing comes up you ignore the actual non-hypothetical mappers who are having actual non-hypothetical players or testers doing this and not realizing what's up. i am not taking away anyone's freedom to use gzdoom or maps how they want to. it is still trivial to circumvent these measures i have posted in this thread, it simply requires more intentionality.

 

it's absurd to have you of all people telling others to relax. for those reading this thread lacking context, during graf's past interaction with me, he called me a "r******d loser" and never apologized, then a few months later went on to shit all over my cacoward win due to sheer pettiness. not to mention, this was over a similar situation where i was trying my best to give users the correct experience on the first try. given that context, i'm not even sure why i was entertaining his obvious bad faith posting in this thread, but here i am.

 

it's especially absurd to have you tell users to relax and then imply a threat that you will break basic zscript functionality in order to prevent people from using zscript in a way you did not like. like you talk about "compulsive control", then say this? i have 0 patience for this performed politeness where you act like these things didn't happen and then pull out this kind of threat. i'm not going to negotiate with that type of abusive shit. i'm not going to sit here and pretend like that's not what that is.

 

if you want to do that, go right ahead.

Edited May 31, 2019 by anotak

[leodoom85]

Sorry Anotak but I disagree with you. I prefer to polish a map, even with jump/crouch allowed, so that players have fun with whatever vanilla enhanced/mod they are using and not forcing disabilities which players will find a way to do it. And I know that most players will also be in disagreement. Just saying.

[Nine Inch Heels]

I don't know what to think of this nonsense anymore. If we were to look at it from Graf's perspective, which thankfully we don't because we're capable of common sense, getting stuck in a map due to jumping is exactly the same as getting stuck in a map due to using IDCLIP. At least when using IDLCIP people know by and large what the cheat entails. When jumping though, what does your average player know about the map's construction? Probably next to nothing.

 

How many players have you heard of, in over 2 decades of mapping, who used IDCLIP unintentionally? If we eliminate cases where somebody used IDCLIP instead of a cheat they actually wanted, I'd say we're pretty much down to zero here.

 

And how many players have you heard of who got stuck somewhere because they thought jumping (as in: pressing a single key) is "fine and all"? Well fuck, that seems to happen more often than people like to admit. In fact last time it happened, it happened to Romero of all people, and people thought it was a bug that the map broke when jumping around like there was nothing to it.

Basically, if you're comparing jumping to IDCLIP, you're already reaching so far that a torn rotator should be the least of your worries.

 

As for polishing maps: Yeah, have fun building your map out of like 30% impassable linedefs, and making players bounce into invisible walls, because that's gonna seem "real polished™".

[Fonze]

Good luck using flyers too!

 

I think that this mod was made in the best way it could have been, I mean ffs you don't even need to open slade/etc to override the mod, just hit the jump/crouch button a few times. Like how much more friendly to players can it get?

[leodoom85]

At this point it's like 'whatever m8". We can't argue adding restrictions or stuff that allows for more movement in a 25 year old game. Players can play whatever the way that they want and this is no exception. 

 

@Nine Inch HeelsAbout mapping styles, it's up to the mapper to do whatever it wants, including adding some means to block players to skip maps...unless that are some imaginary standards to how to make a map. So yea, I'm doing my stuff and you do you. Ah...and I kinda agree with you that this is a nonsense for something that shouldn't be an issue for an old game... 

[Nine Inch Heels]

3 minutes ago, leodoom85 said:

...unless that are some imaginary standards to how to make a map.

there is nothing imaginary about people getting stuck in maps due to jumping, and there is nothing imaginary about people calling maps "bugged" because they used jumping in spite of a txt and even in spite of a mapinfo.

 

Having said that, there are limits to how much you can accommodate both playstyles in a single map, and the further back you go in map formats, the "harder" these limits become.

 

Unless I build with jumping in mind, I want to be able to map according to the original behaviour without having to worry about the additional pathways jumping opens up. As long as the mapinfo does fuckall, and people can't read a simple text file, I'll put in that Zscript if I want to, and if people don't like that they can play something else. And since there are no "imaginary standards" for how maps should be made, there also is no standard that says I can't put in a script that gives players a fair warning when they attempt to jump around in a map.

[leodoom85]

Good for you. There are other ways to solve the issue of no jumping/crouching and also, since the file is GZDoom only, ZDoom and Zandronum are excluded...and you know what that means. Even Pr/GLBoom+ has jump, which the player has the choice of simply unbind/enable the key to do it.

 

Anyway, it's getting tiresome having this talk and this will see no end because of how divisive it is. We have and said our opinions. o/

[Youda]

LOL. ZDoom and derivatives have the 3 options On, Off and MAP DEFAULT for a reason!

It provides the user the option to leave the choice for map creator or override it on his own responsbility. Hell the "default" option is even default. What more do you want? Overriding the user overrides with some script is simply unethical and retarded, you're telling the player that he has no rights for his own prefference, that he is too stupid to decide things on his own. Would you really tell this to a player in a chat? So stop doing this in your maps.

And same applies to fall damage. Sorry Sarge, your map pack is the best in Doom world to this day, but on this one you screwed up.

[Nine Inch Heels]

26 minutes ago, Youda said:

Overriding the user overrides with some script is simply unethical and retarded

Unethical and retarded is parachuting yourself into a discussion without even reading the first post here, which clearly shows that the script has a built in override by default. And the override even comes with screen messages saying that if a player wants to override anything, they are putting themselves at risk of breaking stuff in maps, which isn't what the (G)ZDoom options menu does.

 

26 minutes ago, Youda said:

you're telling the player that he has no rights for his own prefference, that he is too stupid to decide things on his own

No, it tells the players that they can decide things on their own at the risk of getting stuck somewhere, that's the difference.

26 minutes ago, Youda said:

Would you really tell this to a player in a chat?

And yeah I'd totally tell a player in chat, or even in person, that they might get themselves stuck if they abuse jumping to all hell and back, because nobody likes getting stuck in maps.

26 minutes ago, Youda said:

So stop doing this in your maps.

What I do in my maps is for me decide, and I'm not gonna change my ways because you're trying your best to come across "bossy".

[Youda]

35 minutes ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

Unethical and retarded is parachuting yourself into a discussion without even reading the first post here, which clearly shows that the script has a built in override by default. And the override even comes with screen messages saying that if a player wants to override anything, they are putting themselves at risk of breaking stuff in maps, which isn't what the (G)ZDoom options menu does.

Anyone with at least 2 brain cells would realize that jumping in a game originally not designed to jump will break things. It does not need any additional explanation in the user interface. If somebody really needs explanation, there's the wiki saying it clearly

https://zdoom.org/wiki/Gameplay_options

And if somebody still does not get it, then that's not your problem to solve. You can try to explain them, you can try to educate them, but you can't take away a freedom of choice for every single player because of the stupidity of few.

 

I'm fine with that version, which still allows at least some way of override, although it's doing it in non-standard way and thus creating confusion of players who consciously enabled jumping in settings but still can't jump.

But the version without it is simply facepalm and should burn in hell.

[Youda]

All this is gonna lead to, is somebody will create an addon ForceAllowJump.pk3 that will override your overrides of override, and people will load it along with your wads. Or even worse, author of GZDoom will create ad-hoc detection of such scripts and disable them if the player selected Allow jump: yes.

[Worst]

Just make every jump deal 1% damage and play a windows error sound; that should work for everyone.

[Edward850]

1 hour ago, Youda said:

Anyone with at least 2 brain cells would realize that jumping in a game originally not designed to jump will break things.

This isn't true anymore, and it has nothing to do with intelligence. 20 years ago, sure this would be a reasonable assumption, however the natural consequence of Doom being a 25 year old game which just had an extremely well received new title 3 years back and an upcoming anticipated one means we are guaranteed to have new players who have never played the original executable, and thus do not know what the original rules actually are, and how could they? GZDoom makes no effort to clarify this after all, but everyone just recommends downloading GZDoom. So where in this sequence of events is a new player supposed to understand what you can and can't do when the default rules of the port everyone recommends downloading having completely different behaviour? They aren't going to ask, there's no assumption that they even need to.

 

There are people who are starting to play Doom now who weren't even alive when Doom3 was released. There is no way in hell you can rely on the existing concept of "well everybody just knows Doom" when the first Doom game they play statistically may very well not even be the classic game.