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fraggle

Debunking the Myth that Doom is meant to be played keyboard-only

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Try explaining all that to my obstinate friend Beezo, who thinks I'm a noob for playing Doom with a mouse. Nothing I say ever gets through to the guy.

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Necessary thread tbh.

 

By the way, I noticed in version 1.0 armor could go over 200%. Interesting.

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Who is this fraggle guy? has he played vanillay doom?

 

30 minutes ago, Sparktimus said:

People have played Doom with flight sticks before.

 

My dad and I played Hexen co-op on flight-sim joysticks all the time in the 90s. 

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I don't understand why someone would unironically use keyboard-only. What gameplay benefit is there aside from nostalgia or pretending you're better than others?
 

Whatever tho, when it comes down to it; do things how you prefer and don't force it on others, other people's opinions usually don't matter

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1 hour ago, Revenant100 said:

The following has always been the one and only officially sanctioned by its own creator peripheral of choice to play Doom:

 

6paj0CM.jpg

This is glorious.

34 minutes ago, Nymbus_Hustle said:

I don't understand why someone would unironically use keyboard-only. What gameplay benefit is there aside from nostalgia or pretending you're better than others?

I didn't play Doom until 2008, so nostalgia isn't a factor and I don't consider myself better for it. I started as it was the most comfortable way to play with my laptop on my bed as I couldn't get the mouse in a position that would cause my hand to cramp. So, I tried using keyboard only and I've just gotten used to it to the point that I was able to beat Doom on UV as easily as if I had used a mouse. Again, that's not me saying I'm better, just my personal preference.

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5 hours ago, Linguica said:

OK, but are you aware that Doom is not 3D?

 

 

OK, but does it work with Brutal Doom?

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10 minutes ago, fraggle said:

(found in readme.rtf on the root of the CD)

Well, I was wrong about being in the PDF, but it is on the disc anyway. Shows me for not checking =p

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I'm 90% sure in the back of my Doom Survivor's Guide there's a blurb somewhere in which John Romero says he tested and mapped on mouse and keyboard. Based on that I always assumed that this was the primary method of control that the game was developed around.

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1 hour ago, Nymbus_Hustle said:

I don't understand why someone would unironically use keyboard-only. What gameplay benefit is there aside from nostalgia or pretending you're better than others?

 

Technically same could be said about not using freelook. There was actually time when I moved from using freelook to using keyboard only. Played on a laptop then and at that point keyboard only felt just most simple and comfortable way to play. I later moved back to using freelook and then ended up finally using proper classic doom controls, with just vertical mouse movement disabled. Playing with keyboard only is alot like playing with a gamepad, that is what I liked about it. It could be a fun challenge to actually someday complete Doom with snes controller or maybe even with arcade stick.

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2 hours ago, Nymbus_Hustle said:

I don't understand why someone would unironically use keyboard-only. What gameplay benefit is there aside from nostalgia or pretending you're better than others?

Using the keyboard ironically would be even more odd.

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As the one who started the conversation (At least I think it was me) on the SIGIL post about classic DooM's controls, allow me to say something:

I'll admit that I thought that the keyboard-only was the primary mode of play, given that it was the default settings, and I didn't know about the hint in the manual. But I was just proven wrong. Maybe the developers knew it played better with the mouse, but set the keyboard as default because it was a more familiar control scheme for most players, especially considering how the genre was still extremelly young, and a lot of people hadn't even played Wolfenstein, so they had no familiarity at all with the game mechanics.
Still, I think that the original Doom was developed with the limitations of keyboard-only controls in mind, because there were a lot of people who didn't even had a mouse back in the early 90s. I don't think the developers would want their game to be unplayable by so many people. So I think the monsters and the encounters were designed with all that in mind. And this is why I argue that modern control scheme breaks the original maps difficulty. I do not claim that keyboard-only is the "right" way to play the game. I don't even play that way.
Now, and this is an honest question, even the keyboard + mouse controlers used back then weren't as versatile as they are today, right? Like the easy strafing and stuff. I do remember mouse being supported, I don't remember WASD + mouse at all.

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5 hours ago, Sparktimus said:

Any claim that says "x is how you're supposed to play Doom" is full of hot air. People have played Doom with flight sticks before. Hell, you can play it on a phone screen with no keyboard at all.

 

Unless you're running some kind of tournament with a specific rule set, who gives a hoot how people play?

 

Pretty much.

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5 hours ago, Nymbus_Hustle said:

I don't understand why someone would unironically use keyboard-only. 


I like to use keyboard-only from time to time. Of course, I also play with mouse and WASD. I'm always changing it.
 

I think it's fun with atmospheric or imersive maps. I don't know how to explain, but for some reason there is this kind of "intimacy", the controls are less floaty and I can concentrate more on the environments and the enemies at the same time. I don't know if it makes sense, but it something that clicks on my brain. 
 

5 hours ago, Nymbus_Hustle said:

What gameplay benefit is there aside from nostalgia or pretending you're better than others?


The nostalgia thing is very true, but why I should feel better than other people? o_o

I mean, it's indeed satisfying when you manage to beat a hard mapset (which is totally doable when you get used to it). But I'm not better than anyone. Hell, I'm not even a good player. The important thing is having fun, I guess. 

Edited by Noiser

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I love this thread. Now I can just quote this thread to the so called "Purists" who say that doom is only meant to be played with a keyboard and make them look like noobs for not configuring their controls 😈.

Edited by ReaperAA

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8 hours ago, fraggle said:

Exhibit 3: Doom's own demos are recorded with the mouse

 

Here's a recording of the demo loop from Doom shareware. Again, this is v1.0, the very first release:

 

From the very start of DEMO1, where the player (John Romero?) makes a quick turn to the left, it's obvious that this is not being recorded with keyboard controls. With a careful eye, it's obvious that the mouse is being used in all three demos.

Great thread! By the way, I think the first TNT demo is keyboard only (or keyboard+joystick), for comparison. You can tell, because turning speed feels constant. I imagine a demo analysis tool would easily tell the story.

 

I always wanted Doom to support analog input for an analog joystick, but instead it treated all joysticks as digital.

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Interesting topic fraggle! Quick question though: Were you able to turn off vertical mouse movement in sourceports before novert was created? Or was the novert utility created first and then sourceports adapted it? I'm assuming sourceports had that function first.

 

I'm not entirely sure when novert was created though. Possibly around 2000 like the textfile in the one uploaded to the idgames archive states as i know that originally there was no way to turn off vertical mouse movement in DOS Doom.

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A few years ago I discovered that MS-DOS 6.22 came with a mouse driver that allowed you to modify both vertical and horizontal sensitivities separately. This way I managed to lower the y-axis to almost zero. I wonder if anyone used that back then.

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