How much of a DOOM purist are you?

[Scorpinax]

On a scale of one to ten, how purist are you when it comes to your preferred way of playing classic DOOM? 

1- will play anything with the doom engine

10- absolute purist, classic controls only, no extra enemies/weapons/mechanics

 

Some things to consider:

-do you play with autoaim or do you use mouselook?

-do map sets that incorporate jumping and crouching as something you HAVE to do bother you? 

-does it bother you if a map set has some things in it that don't perfectly fit the DOOM style?

-do scaled sprites bother you?  Do you want everything that old doom pixel way? 

-Do custom monsters or weapons affect your enjoyment of the wad you're playing?

-do you prefer the music to be MIDI?

 

I'm curious because I've seen it both ways here.

[Biodegradable]

I prefer to play with GZDoom because I love the OpenGL screen support and dynamic lighting, but I do prefer to keep texture filtering off because Doom's more crispy old-school pixel art looks much better without it. I love playing with gameplay mods, though I specifically gravitate towards weapon-based mods that give you new toys to play with and have sexy animations, visual effects and sound design without said weapons being too OP and the mod doesn't affect the demon's behaviour too much with the acception of Zagemod and Supercharge that use spirte variants but only make really subtle behaviour differences that don't stray too far away from their unaltered state. Zagemod makes the bastards a little more aggressive and Supercharge has some slight health/attack tweaks. I prefer mouselook to autoaim because I want to be in control of who I'm trying to kill and autoaim has gotten me killed more times than I'd like to mention. I'm not bothered by jumping or crouching if the map is made for it because why wouldn't you be open to new level design dynamics? It's that evolution that's helped keep the community alive, baby! I think custom demons and weapons can be great fun and show off the creativity and versatility of the game and the community. I don't really care if the music is specifically MIDI or not and honestly I wouldn't be able to tell the difference anyways! I am absolutely more in favour of the revolutionary things the community continues to achieve in programming, spriting and mapping that elevate Doom to knew heights that have kept it alive for nearly 30 years, rather than strictly playing in its Vanilla form.

 

I'm definitely more of a heretic than a puritan by any standard, so I probably score about a 2.

Edited November 2, 2020 by Biodegradable

[DooM Bear]

I’d say probably around a 6 :-P

 

I like higher resolution gameplay / sprites, dehacked enemies and like nice lighting but dislike using a mouse in DooM or crouching / jumping. Weapon changes can be cool if implemented well like Valiant but wouldn’t play with weapon packs.

 

I also prefer MIDI music but think that might be just a nostalgia type thing and hearing new music in MIDI form always excites me :-P

[jmac]

Probably a 7. I don't use any gameplay mods, but I have no problem with wads that introduce new monsters and weapons, as long as the changes feel justified and are well done.

[Dr. Toboggan]

I like them all differently.. Just depends on my mood.

 

Sometimes I'm feeling a chocolate doom vanilla runthrough. Sometimes I'm feeling a brutal doom mouselook runthrough. They all are fun in their own ways. If you passionately hate something so similar to something else, you're discounting yourself.

[AinuTheTaken]

I like custom weapons. I'll take a grenade launcher over the rocket launcher and I also like it when I can fire the pistol more rapidly than Doom lets me. I always use mouselook.

[xvertigox]

I snort fat lines of ketamine then ram my head into a wall until i think its mid 1993 the complain on usenet that dooms not out yet

[Doomkid]

Some days I play pure vanilla in DosBox, some days I play absurdly modded stuff in GZDoom and Zandronum. I never use the default controls though, but you can change them easily even in vanilla

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

13 minutes ago, xvertigox said:

I snort fat lines of ketamine then ram my head into a wall until i think its mid 1993 the complain on usenet that dooms not out yet

I snort fat lines of shrooms then ram my head into my head until I understand the concept of time and bend it to my will. Nothing to do with Doom though.

 

I play vanilla mostly. But I like things like Smooth Doom.

[Juza]

Haven't opened GZDoom, or any advanced sourceports of the kind to play a mapset or mod in quite a while. Probably over a year or so, since the last time. I usually go with Crispy or Chocolate Doom depending on the mood and necessity, and prboom+ or Woof for Boom and MBF.

I use the usually use one of the sourceport's provided custom HUDs, and disable infinite height. Also use a default WASD + mouse scheme.

Most of the maps I make are completely vanilla-compatible, too.

 

Edit: Actually, I just remembered I've played some deathmatch and co-op recently in Zandronum, but never in a mapset that required its advanced tools such as UDMF and the sort. Never played multiplayer Doom in a classic way.

[joepallai]

Close to a 9.   Prefer the vanilla experience and use Chocolate Doom.  Will play highly recommended modern maps on whatever sourceport they require but generally think said ports feel too loose control-wise.  I do like some modern features, for example the key doors showing their respective colors on the automap.  I love the drag and drop startup feature of the newer ports--hated using command lines to get a map loaded (use to play all maps through the editor to get around that).

 

13 hours ago, Scorpinax said:

Some things to consider:

-do you play with autoaim or do you use mouselook?

-do map sets that incorporate jumping and crouching as something you HAVE to do bother you? 

-does it bother you if a map set has some things in it that don't perfectly fit the DOOM style?

-do scaled sprites bother you?  Do you want everything that old doom pixel way? 

-Do custom monsters or weapons affect your enjoyment of the wad you're playing?

-do you prefer the music to be MIDI?

 

Mouselook   (apparently I've been auto-aiming this whole time)   

I always forget to jump about 5 minutes into the map so while it doesn't really bother me, I'd rather not have to jump unless its a really cartoony like map.

Depends on the execution.

yes; pixel look for the win

No I enjoy them unless they're badly done

don't care honestly

Edited November 2, 2020 by joepallai

[GarrettChan]

I just care about original behaviors, but I don't care too much about the visual, so I played on 1920x1200.

 

Crispy Doom definitely looks nice as it emulates the original look with the shades for farther things, but I also like the sharper look of GLBoom+.

[Juza]

I have no business with freelook, jumping, and the sort, either, since I don't play wads that require them. I care a lot about original behavior, but the one thing I change and disable is infinite height, since in my opinion, that was just a straight up bad choice by the developers, and I don't imagine good maps are ruined without it. I guess resolution too, since I play in 1920x1080.

And as an explanation, the only reason I don't really play advanced stuff is because I prefer it simple and oldschool. I wouldn't say I'm a hardcore purist, because I don't think modern additions are inherently bad, nor that old = always better, but as I said, I just prefer it simpler, and not much new and advanced has caught my attention yet.

[spd7693]

3 hours ago, Scorpinax said:

-do you play with autoaim or do you use mouselook?

 

Autoaim. Tried mouse look, liked it at first, but without it I feel more mobile. Later when I turned it off I found out I anyways liked the classical approach more. 

 

3 hours ago, Scorpinax said:

-do map sets that incorporate jumping and crouching as something you HAVE to do bother you? 

 

I never jump and crouch, I already said it earlier. Crouching has actually always bothered me as a mechanic, even in Star Wars Jedi Academy. 

 

3 hours ago, Scorpinax said:

-does it bother you if a map set has some things in it that don't perfectly fit the DOOM style?

 

Not sure what to say, but I strongly don't like when the maps are strictly requiring specific things like strict ZDoom actions. 

 

3 hours ago, Scorpinax said:

-do scaled sprites bother you?  Do you want everything that old doom pixel way? 

-Do custom monsters or weapons affect your enjoyment of the wad you're playing?

 

I don't care about sprites, I care only that there is nothing that doesn't appear in Doom, Doom 2 and Final Doom. Except graphics. I don't even like the usage of Nazis and Commander Keens in custom maps. Hatred in Requiem maybe is the only exception, because Dario Casali used them for a different purpose than as "just monsters". But still, 100% kills, secrets and items on that map are impossible, even though that's fine in an Icon map. 

 

3 hours ago, Scorpinax said:

-do you prefer the music to be MIDI?

 

Well, maybe MIDI, but the music I wanted to import in my wads turned out just meh in midi format. Some have pre-recorded MIDI versions, but the others are meant to be mp3s. At least Crispy runs OGG Vobris. 

 

With that being said, maybe a 7 or an 8. Or? 

[CaseStorn]

Honestly, whatever the wad i'm playing is designed for. Visuals, i don't have a preference, but, sometimes i like to use Freelook
on maps that were not designed for it, mostly to admire the architecture that you couldn't originally see.

[Araki]

I play keyboard-n-mouse, auto-aim, pistol start, some saves, no mods, strict compat on LZDoom. I like music to be MIDI mainly because the wad file doesn't balloon up to 800MB as a result.

[TenenteZashu]

I'm probably an heretic when it comes to Doom:

Mouse Look, check

Jumps, check

scaled textures, check

 

Lately I've been playing more on crispy doom with classic controls but it doesn't feel the same as blasting thru some of my own maps with Project Brutality and some custom music playing in the background or even using spotify

[seed]

Not much, and I never was a big purist in the first place. I used to care for things like demo compatibility in the past but I have since changed my mind after I realized how much of a blocker it can be for developing new features, and how dead set some people are on the "most important feature in the world". All I need is faithful gameplay, but I don't need pixel perfect accuracy, that's a hardcore purist concern.

 

Most of the time I play in PrBoom or GZDoom, currently the sole reason for why I tend to use the former more than the latter is because I mostly play Boom wads, and GZDoom's RNG is something that still frustrates me periodically, but mainly when I use a more conservative port for extended periods of time, which makes me notice the difference more easily, specifically, the RL seeming less effective, that Imp who refuses to die to the Shotgun in one blast, and the BFG killing SMMs in one blast more often.

 

So, I'm probably a 2 or 3 on that scale. As for things like crouching and freelook, I only use them when needed. I want to play wads the way they were meant to be played as envisioned by their creator.

[Mr. Duk]

@Scorpinax I play with multiple different source ports depending on the wad/mod and my mood. However, I always like to have vanilla-ish options, and I play them frequently. So I'd say an 8. I don't like Crispy Doom, I prefer to have widescreen 1080p and an unlocked framerate. The 35fps hurts my eyes in 2020. Besides that, I play completely vanilla. No rocket trails, no decals, no mouselook (I do use the mouse, but no up and down aiming).

 

I still prefer software rendering for the vanilla games or some vanilla wads or mods like Smooth Doom. Why software? 1) I like the look. 2) The clipping errors with hardware in tight hallways bother me. Especially in Knee-Deep in the Dead, I have to play that one on software. I play a lot of classic vanilla wads the same way, too. Arch-Viles in tight spaces with hardware rendering always end up being half of a sprite, for example, and it looks unprofessional to me. I wish there was a way to replicate the fake 3D sprites of software Doom with hardware rendering, but alas... first world problems.

 

However, for mods like Beautiful Doom, Brutal Doom or Complex Doom, I *do* play hardware GZDoom. For more specialty wads I usually play with hardware settings in GZDoom as well. I typically use Z/Q/GZdoom or Zandronum. Each one has little pluses and minuses. GZDoom software gets ride of slime trails, but objects like torches have textures that quiver, etc. The new GZDoom also introduces some software problems with wads like TNT Revilution where you see lines floating in the middle of nowhere, so I use ZDoom 2.8.1 or QZDoom.

 

Never really liked PrBoom+ personally.

[Murdoch]

I am about in the middle.

 

-do you play with autoaim or do you use mouselook? Depends on the map and intended port.

-do map sets that incorporate jumping and crouching as something you HAVE to do bother you? Not remotely. More free movement does not change the inherent feel of the gameplay.

 

-does it bother you if a map set has some things in it that don't perfectly fit the DOOM style?

Depends on how far it goes. Stopping every now and then for something unique like a bit of a chat with an NPC is OK but if am say collecting money to buy weapons and ammo, that would feel a bit weird. "Yes you may be single-handedly saving us from the forces of Hell, but that won't feed my kids!"

 

-do scaled sprites bother you?  Do you want everything that old doom pixel way? 

 

Improved resources do not bother me so long as they fit stylistically. I have tried to play with 3d models but in spite of sprites looking a bit weird in say GZDoom, models just do not look right. However hi-res sprites, smoother animations, nothing wrong with that. And Andrew Hulshult's remade soundtrack is awesome.

 

-Do custom monsters or weapons affect your enjoyment of the wad you're playing?

 

If they are good, genuinely unique and fit stylistically, then I welcome a bit of variety. Just leave the original sounds alone. I hate when map authors say change the sound of the shotgun for no real reason. Throws me off.

 

The only type of new monster/weapon I do not like (besides crap ones) are those pulled from other games I recognise. If I pick up a pistol and it's the magnum from Half-Life  I am going to think "Dude, when did I black out and knick Gordon Freeman's magnum?" not "Oh cool, a revolver!"

 

-do you prefer the music to be MIDI?

 

No, just had to be good.

 

I have not played the DOS exe in years save the one included with Unity ports briefly. My eyes just cannot handle that resolution at that speed anymore.

 

Edited November 2, 2020 by Murdoch

[Omniarch]

I'm boring and middle of the road. On the one hand, I can't stand mouse look, or jumping, or swimming for that matter, but on the other I really like it when mappers modify the arsenal or bestiary. I suppose a numbered list might help to make my position clear.

 

1. I like my modifications to be in dehacked format over decorate. The inherent limitations tend to give these a more retro feel.

 

2. I have a preference for maps that stray from the norm, however I like these deviations to occur within a vanilla (or maybe boom) context.

 

3. I love both stark and detailed sector lighting, but find dynamic lighting to be a bit incongruous.

 

4. I like my music in midi format, so that it fits in with the general soundscape. No music is also acceptable.

 

5. I really enjoy new or heavily modified monsters, however they must fit in with original bestiary. None of this zdoom multi-attack bullshit.

 

6. I like it when the arsenal is modified or even replaced entirely. I general I prefer vanilla-feeling weapons but a few bells and whistles won't drive me away (Final Doomer).

 

7. I hate pretty much all scripting, especially if there is dialog. I loathe dialog in Doom. Let the maps and text screens tell the story.

 

Now, with regards to source ports, my favourite would have to be Crispy Doom, though for Boom- or MBF-compatible wads I tend to use either Doom Retro or PrBoom+. One issue I have with playing vanilla, limit-removing or Boom-compatible source ports is the hardcoded text screens in Doom 2. As someone who likes their neatly-defined episodes, this drives me crazy, to the point where I feel compelled to play wads like Eviternity in GZDoom or Eternity just so the damned text screens appear in the right places. I would love to play more wads with Eternity, but the wonky mouse-sensitivity and its inability to keep track of kills and secrets makes it hard to use.

[Doom-X-Machina]

I'll rate myself a 5 on this scale.

I use GZDoom with mouselook, crouch and jump functions as default these days along with a bunch of other graphical mods so I can't say I'm hardcore-retro. I'm all for experimentation with the game (that was the whole point of id releasing the source code). I tend to do a lot of scripting in maps simply because the ability is there to do it so why not make use of it?

I actually went back to vanilla-Doom recently for a run-through and MY GOD it felt strange... no mouselook totally fucked me XD

[snapshot]

6 hours ago, Scorpinax said:

On a scale of one to ten, how purist are you when it comes to your preferred way of playing classic DOOM?

As long as it's not some extremely difficult, doom god or speedrunner only map I'll probably have no problem playing it.

6 hours ago, Scorpinax said:

-do you play with autoaim or do you use mouselook?

Mouselook, but never to shoot switches that I'm not supposed to shoot without mouselook or break progression.

6 hours ago, Scorpinax said:

-do map sets that incorporate jumping and crouching as something you HAVE to do bother you? 

Not at all, I actually like it when maps make use of them.

6 hours ago, Scorpinax said:

-does it bother you if a map set has some things in it that don't perfectly fit the DOOM style?

Never really paid much attention to this in old school shooters.

6 hours ago, Scorpinax said:

-Do custom monsters or weapons affect your enjoyment of the wad you're playing?

I guess only if you make them bulletspongy enough that they ruin the flow, haven't yet run into an instance that made me think "oh this monster sucks, why did they add it here" so I don't mind them that much.

6 hours ago, Scorpinax said:

-do you prefer the music to be MIDI?

Anything goes, as long as it's not too loud or obnoxious.

[Swordofdanu]

No jump, crouch or free aim. 

I don't know where this would rate myself as I play on as many any devices and ports as I can. 

[MFG38]

7 hours ago, Scorpinax said:

-do you play with autoaim or do you use mouselook?

 

Both, depending on the source port.

 

7 hours ago, Scorpinax said:

-do map sets that incorporate jumping and crouching as something you HAVE to do bother you? 

 

Not as long as it's clearly stated, either in the readme or in-game, that jumping and/or crouching is required.

 

7 hours ago, Scorpinax said:

-does it bother you if a map set has some things in it that don't perfectly fit the DOOM style?

 

Only in rare cases. I've played my fair share of TCs over my years of Dooming, and if anything, I like it when people turn the default Doom experience into something totally different. That said, the experience has to be a cohesive whole. You wouldn't want to mix things that feel like they're in conflict with each other - a prime example that pops into my mind is a WIP Heretic gameplay mod (I forget its name) that has a Magnum in it. A Magnum of all things. In a magical fantasy setting. It just doesn't work.

 

7 hours ago, Scorpinax said:

-do scaled sprites bother you?  Do you want everything that old doom pixel way? 

 

While I don't have a problem with all these "HD" mods existing, I haven't played with any of them myself, mostly because I'm used to Doom's default graphics. Give me those chunky pixels!

 

7 hours ago, Scorpinax said:

-Do custom monsters or weapons affect your enjoyment of the wad you're playing?

 

Only if they're used badly.

 

7 hours ago, Scorpinax said:

-do you prefer the music to be MIDI?

 

It depends wholly on the target source port and the atmosphere that a map is going for. The sonic capabilities of General MIDI are quite limited as opposed to making music with a proper DAW, but that's not to say you can't convey a decent range of different atmospheres with MIDI. It comes largely down to knowing how to convey that atmosphere. Generally, I'm fine with MIDI music in most cases, but when it comes to a super-high-quality set like the still-WIP Elementalism, I expect the music to have the same level of quality as the maps themselves. It's a good thing that Elementalism is going to have a high-fidelity soundtrack, because MIDI music simply wouldn't be enough.

[Matias]

90% of the time i play GZDoom with all the graphical features and stuff, i also play freelook on and autoaim off to have more modern experience but i pay attention if maps are designed for freelook or not so i don't purposefully break anything. Also texture filtering was a mistake, it just looks awful in my eyes, i like the sharp pixels.

 

I don't care what modders and mappers do, in my eyes we all have our preferences and that is perfectly fine. There is nothing wrong liking super extensive mods and mapsets that really throw out the entire "doom feel", but there is also nothing wrong not liking these. If you only play vanilla or boom maps great, if you only play latest gzdoom maps with brutal doom or some other mod that is also great. As for me, i rarely play with mods and i can apprecciate a really nice and advanced gzdoom map as much as something that keeps the more vanilla feel. Not every map or mod is made for you

 

For sourceports i have GZDoom, k8vavoom and Crispy installed on my computer.

 

Even tho i prefer GZDoom and it's features, there is something to be said for going back to more simpler Doom with Crispy or even dosbox. It's a different experience and i like them both.

[inkoalawetrust]

Honestly I haven't really used many source ports outside of the ones based on ZDoom like Zandronum/ GZDoom and LZDoom so that alone shows that I'm not much of a purist. I also can't really do without being able to vetically freelook which is even less vanilla. And even when I can freelook I prefer not having any Y-shearing which limits me to non-software rendering ports or to not using a software renderer which is also less vanilla.

If I had a computer that had OpenGL 3.3 and above instead of only OpenGL 2.1 I'd just use GZDoom with dynamic lighting, dynamic shadows and ambient occlusion on. Especially since the latter adds more depth to the levels that is lost without the light fade out of the software renderer. On the subject of that, when I have access to a computer that can run GZDoom I almost always set the light mode to either Doom or Software to emulate the software renderers' light fadeout because I prefer it to the normally pretty flat lighting, especially on LZDoom which I have to use since I only have OpenGL 2.1.

But to answer the list of questions here's my answers:

 

8 hours ago, Scorpinax said:

-do you play with autoaim or do you use mouselook?

I always play with mouselook, plus autoaim can really fuck you over especially with enemies like Lost Souls, or by just not hitting what you want to hit.
 

8 hours ago, Scorpinax said:

-do map sets that incorporate jumping and crouching as something you HAVE to do bother you? 

No they don't, even some of my own maps require jumping and crouching for some sections.
 

8 hours ago, Scorpinax said:

-does it bother you if a map set has some things in it that don't perfectly fit the DOOM style?

Depends, if it's a Total Conversion or something then I obviously won't mind, if it's supposed to be a mod that adds on Doom then I do find weird if there's stuff that doesn't stylistically or thematically fit, but again it depends on the situation.

 

8 hours ago, Scorpinax said:

-do scaled sprites bother you?  Do you want everything that old doom pixel way? 

I do find it odd to have very high resolution sprites since it looks weird when they are ultra high resolution 2D images that move around based on the viewing angle like the vanilla and just low resolution in general sprites do. Basically there's a sense of unrealness and cartoonyness when it's low resolution sprites, and it allows you to fill in the details yourself, while with realistic or at least just high resolution sprites it looks weird.
 

8 hours ago, Scorpinax said:

-Do custom monsters or weapons affect your enjoyment of the wad you're playing?

I play Project Brutality pretty often so take a guess. I only really have an issue if they are something out of a TerryWAD (And even then I may not mind depending on the situation.) or if they are just really unfair and/or don't fit at all with the rest of the mod/level.
 

8 hours ago, Scorpinax said:

-do you prefer the music to be MIDI?

If the music is good and/or fits then I don't really care if it's a midi or in a format like MP3, WAV or OGG.

[grodzio]

8 hours ago, Scorpinax said:

-do you play with autoaim or do you use mouselook?

-do map sets that incorporate jumping and crouching as something you HAVE to do bother you? 

-does it bother you if a map set has some things in it that don't perfectly fit the DOOM style?

-do scaled sprites bother you?  Do you want everything that old doom pixel way? 

-Do custom monsters or weapons affect your enjoyment of the wad you're playing?

-do you prefer the music to be MIDI?

-I use autoaim, mostly because that's how Doom and many other .wad's were intended to play, altough it can get boring sometimes.
-They bother me, jumping and crouching in Doom just feels weird.
-I don't mind usually.
-Not a fan of high res sprites, the chunky and pixelated Doom sprites and textures have a certain charm to them.
-No, as long as they fit vanilla Doom. I don't like over the top weapons with tens of altfires.
-I like midi more, I think it has a nice charm to it and it's nice to listen something different than complex mp3 music, not to mention that it can be customized with soundfonts.
I'm probably somewhere around 5 or 6 on the purist scale. I like modded Doom as long as it doesn't stray away from Vanilla a lot.

[lubba127]

i play on gzdoom. take that as you will.

 

[idbeholdME]

I'd say about 8.

 

While I do use ZDoom, all the mechanics (compatibility options) are set to vanilla behavior. The only thing I am fine with is removing the original engine limitations and bugs. That means fixed blockmap bug, infinite Lost Souls and no infinite height. Also playing in 1440p with 240 FPS. No texture filtering or anything else that changes visuals.

 

9 hours ago, Scorpinax said:

-do you play with autoaim or do you use mouselook?

I play on keyboard only, so with autoaim.

9 hours ago, Scorpinax said:

-do map sets that incorporate jumping and crouching as something you HAVE to do bother you? 

I usually avoid them, yes.

9 hours ago, Scorpinax said:

-does it bother you if a map set has some things in it that don't perfectly fit the DOOM style?

Usually, yes. I am OK with a new enemy or two but anything that changes weapons in any way other than visually, I usually avoid.

9 hours ago, Scorpinax said:

-do scaled sprites bother you?  Do you want everything that old doom pixel way? 

I never used anything else other than the default sprites. So yes, the old pixel way. Also any shit-smear filter is a no go too.

9 hours ago, Scorpinax said:

-Do custom monsters or weapons affect your enjoyment of the wad you're playing?

Yes. Don't think I've played any WAD with custom weapons and the only one that had custom monsters (not just reskins) that I've played was Ancient Aliens I think.

9 hours ago, Scorpinax said:

-do you prefer the music to be MIDI?

Yes. Don't think I've played a WAD that did not have MIDI music and I honestly feel like it fits Doom more than any modern format.