How much of a DOOM purist are you?

[Captain Ventris]

Not a purist at all. I’ll play most anything any way, always use GZDoom. Have been entertaining the idea of running up chocolate doom or dsda-doom and playing doom 1 and 2 old school just to have the experience.

 

edit: Will either port detect MIDI hardware? I love my SC-55 and can’t imagine playing without it.

[BGreener]

Something like Ashes 2063 or Hideous Destructor playthroughs will have me going all out with control schemes and features. If it’s standard or slightly modified Doom gameplay, I’ll limit myself to standard vanilla play: No vertical aiming, and no crouching or jumping unless the author states otherwise.

If I’m going through GZDoom I’ll likely play in 1920x1080 as well as other features, maybe a smooth weapon animation or some brightmaps, but I otherwise go through DSDA and Eternity with either a 640x400 resolution or 1024x768.

 

Don’t know where’d I’d be on a scale, but it’s certainly not playing it through Dosbox (which I might try sometime).

[SuyaSSS]

1 or 2. I mostly play on GZDoom with Mouselook but try my best not to jump. 

On 11/2/2020 at 10:34 AM, Scorpinax said:

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

and use DSDA Doom for testing Vanilla Maps.

 

On 11/2/2020 at 10:34 AM, Scorpinax said:

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

Mouselook

 

On 11/2/2020 at 10:34 AM, Scorpinax said:

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

Not at all.

 

On 11/2/2020 at 10:34 AM, Scorpinax said:

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

I love those kind of things

 

On 11/2/2020 at 10:34 AM, Scorpinax said:

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

I don't like Texture Filtering

 

On 11/2/2020 at 10:34 AM, Scorpinax said:

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

I will love a wad more if it has good custom enemies or weapons. I also use tons of mods for Custom enemies and guns.

 

On 11/2/2020 at 10:34 AM, Scorpinax said:

-do you prefer the music to be MIDI?

Meh. Will agree for both

[Lippeth]

9 minutes ago, Captain Ventris said:

Will either port detect MIDI hardware? I love my SC-55 and can’t imagine playing without it.

 

Yes, as long as you have MIDI Mapper which lets you select between all your available hardware and software MIDI devices, otherwise it would most likely default to your OS's MIDI synth. MIDI Mapper should detect your hardware MIDI device and let you select it. With Chocolate Doom you'll need to set MIDI to "Native MIDI" and leave the fields empty. With DSDA set it to PortMidi.

[Quill]

On 11/2/2020 at 8:04 AM, Scorpinax said:

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

Autoaim, unless it's ZDoom.

On 11/2/2020 at 8:04 AM, Scorpinax said:

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

Nope.

On 11/2/2020 at 8:04 AM, Scorpinax said:

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

Only if it's 3D models. Voxels or stylistically different sprites (ex. Heretic, Hexen, Strife) are fine by me.

On 11/2/2020 at 8:04 AM, Scorpinax said:

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

Only if they are inconsistent with other sprites. Stuff like Neural 2x is fine by me.

On 11/2/2020 at 8:04 AM, Scorpinax said:

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

Only if they're Doom-styled.

On 11/2/2020 at 8:04 AM, Scorpinax said:

-do you prefer the music to be MIDI?

Nope. Anything goes.

 

Kinda a bit of a 9/10. I use different ports for different WADS. For example: Crispy Doom for Vanilla/Limit-Removing, Nugget Doom for Boom/MBF, and ZZDoom for ZDoom mapsets.

[Rymante]

I'd say I fall somewhere in the middle.

 

I've played a lot of maps in GZDoom with mouselook on & autoaim disabled, infinitely tall monsters disabled & a selection of small visual mods (smoother weapon animations, Fullscreen Status Bar mod, higher quality sound effects, minor sprite fixes & brightmaps) & for a while I thought that was my preferred way to play Classic Doom.

 

However I've been exposed to many other good source ports since I started making my own maps (because you must remember to NEVER JUST TEST IN GZDOOM).  I've since played a couple megawads under DSDA Doom & Woof with the proper complevel enforced & mouselook disabled & I enjoyed it more than I expected, though I still use Minor Sprite Fixes, higher quality sound effects & widescreen assets if available.

 

You can put me in with the group that HATES GZDoom's default texture filtering options though, get that ugly ass blur outta my face!  That said, I do like running in high resolution with an uncapped frame rate, but give me those crisp, chunky pixels please.

 

Music wise, I have no preference, if the music fits the map & is good, it's fine.

 

Considering skillsaw's works are among some of my favourites, safe to say I am not bothered by custom monsters and weapons.  Done right it can enhance the experience, like with Valiant's Super Chaingun or Heartland's selection of new guns.  In fact I hope future MBF21 mapsets get creative with custom enemies & weapons.  I've also enjoyed messing around with weapon gameplay mods for ZDoom ports like Guncaster, Trailblazer & High Noon Drifter on occasion, but at the end of the day I enjoy experiencing new, high quality maps more than new gameplay mods.

[thiccyosh]

A solid 4, or at times a hard 9. I don't mind it really when a few textures or when sounds are changed, heck I'll even play with mouselook and freeaim. However full on mods that change a lot of Dooms aspects like enemy attacks or weapons are more a thorn in my eye when I play, doesn't really feel like Doom anymore, does it? Total conversions also count.

 

Which is problematic as I'm making a wad which is a half-total conversion of Doom. But at the same time I don't want to change everything, you know? 

[7Mahonin]

I play with WASD style control scheme, but I don’t use freelook for Doom. It just has never felt right to me. I do like higher res screen resolutions but still prefer lower frame rate cap. So I’d rate myself as an 8. 
 

Custom assets only annoy me when they are very out-of-place. I also can’t stand people making “realistic” weapons in their mods that are not realistic in any sense, they’re just the false idea of being realistic to people who refuse to do any meaningful research. For example, revolvers are often designed to be slow shooting, inaccurate, and extremely slow to reload. In actuality, revolvers can be just as accurate, if not more so, than semi automatic pistols, and are often quite powerful at longer ranges, and tend to use more powerful bullets than most semi auto pistols. Reloading is slower than a semi auto… but it should take about 3 seconds like the SSG, not a marathon of nonsense for visual effect. 

Edited March 4, 2022 by 7Mahonin

[ApprihensivSoul]

Probably a 4-6. Not quite in the middle, but it depends. I actively dislike the vanilla monster and weapon balance, and find it to be clunky and influid, something that later installments improved on slightly. But I can brush it off as experimental given the era and usually can get into a grove where I enjoy most Iwads with smaller populations regardless of the difficulty. Usually, the less time I spend firing, the better the wad tends to be.

I typically play with autoaim off and mouselook on, no jumping, and when running a wad I've finished before I use original rules for death. Saves when leaving only, death restarts the level with pistol, UV Fast. Wads I'm new to, UV normal, Quicksave Scum like I've got a problem.
When mapping, I tend to do a ton of math based on interlevel ammo supply, to limit resources as much as I can, but every map has to be pistol completed with autoaim and no mouselook before I consider it complete.

[ifreakinlovedoom208]

Depends 

 

If I feel like playin Sunlust on PrBoom+, I would

 

On the other hand, If I feel like playing gameplay mods such as Brutal Doom or some obscure shit i found on itch.io, yea why not.

 

 

So I guess im a 3.

 

[gudermannian function]

Probably 7 to 8 out of 10. I use appropriate complevel in PrBoom+. When the mapset requires zdoom features I play with GZdoom. Regarding enemies just don't make copies of already existing monsters. And in weapons don't abolish RL and SSG

[fai1025]

5 or 6 maybe, I prefer boom compatible wads and insist mapping in boom format, otherwise, anything is cool

 

But I do have extreme hate towards texture filtering, HD texture, rescales, 3d models, reshade over done, and 500th fork of brutal Doom with ten thousand weapon and equipment and having more key to bind than ARMA

[xmonkeyofevil]

I'd say 7. Only turn on features like mouselook/jumping as needed in custom mapsets, but I don't necessarily play with strict Doom 2 compatibility settings all the time. Although I don't like to venture too far away from "vanilla" gameplay most of the time.

[BedrockCastle]

I'm probably around an 8. I exclusively play in Chocolate Doom and PrBoom+, and if a WAD requires something like GZDoom, I usually don't play it.

[TheHambourgeois]

Im basically bisexual on the issue. If it is vanilla compatible I am running it in Chocolate doom, if it's boom compatible I'm running it with autoaim

 

but i'll also play something like Hellforged and be fine with it, you really gotta wow me though

If it's a raven game whatever, zdoom was the only extended port for so long that ive made my peace with it. Counting down till eternity has raven support

[Marisa the Magician]

I would give myself a -1 because not only am I not a purist at all, but I actively avoid vanilla gameplay as much as possible. I can't NOT play with some kind of gameplay mod, vanilla is simply off-putting to me.

[Fletcher`]

I don't really consider my a purist. I can find the value in gzdoom mods and boom mapsets in their own ways.

[enigma101]

Probably a 5. I play mainly on GZDoom with mouselook and crouching/jumping, though I don't use them much. I also don't have texture filtering but use a 1920x1080 resolution. I like playing vanilla and Boom mapsets, but I usually just play in GZDoom for convenience. 

[Ragu]

Maybe a 6? I like to play maps fairly close to the context which they were created for, so usually prboom+/dsda complevel 2/9 in software rendering, but I don't mind playing in GZ if that's what the map was built for. That said, I play in ultrawide at 720p with frame interpolation, so I still make a few QOL concessions even if everything else is vanilla.

 

Custom monsters, different music formats, new weapons, I'm cool with whatever the map set is doing, though I think it's pretty easy to make the game less fun with custom weapons and monsters. I'm not a fan of jumping or crouching unless the set is explicitly trying to do something pretty explicitly un-doomlike, and I'd usually rather autoaim but I'm not opposed to mouselook.

 

I absolutely cannot deal with texture filtering, it's nearest neighbor or nothing for me, and I think that software-style banded lighting is a must for anything that isn't explicitly designed with advanced hardware acceleration features in mind. I have been known to turn on stuff like ambient occlusion and lightmaps in GZDoom when I'm feeling a little spicy though.

[Herr Dethnout]

On 11/2/2020 at 1:04 AM, 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?

-Autoaim except for GZDoom (a lot of mods requires to disable it to play properly lol)
-Yes if is not GZDoom nor Eternity heh
-Nope, DOOM has a lot of styles B)
-Meh I prefer pixels anyways.
-Nope.
-Yes, and YES! but don't my streamed music if is OGG (never use MP3 dammit!)

So in that scale I'm probably 8-9. I use the modern WASD + mouse but Doom was intended for Mouse play sooo :P

[Somniac]

I'm a purist in the sense that I play a vanilla map in Chocolate, a Boom map in a Boom port, a limit-removing map in any port (typically Crispy), and so on. Outside of that, if jumping and mouselook are required or not recommended then that's fine, I'll go with the recommendation either way. 

[Fluuschoen]

I think 7 or 8. Not more, because I like Boom and MBF stuff as well, I recently started to use a custom status bar besides the advanced HUD (the wide screen status bar for Uprising, but I attached the STARMS lump to it) for WADs which don't have their own, I love DSDA's advanced features for practicing/file handling, plus I use uncapped fps the vast majority of the time. My purism is more about complevels than anything else, but I prefer content leaning towards vanilla in general.

 

 

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

 

Auto aim with a mouse and custom, WASD-based controls. Freelook somehow bothers me in this game, it just feels so out of place, much less 'locked in' and alienating. Well, turning horizontally with a mouse is technically mouselook already, so 'freelook' refers to the ability to move the PoV's center, i.e. the 'crosshair' up and down.

 

 

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

 

Yeah. There are a handful of really quality total/partial conversions with these out there, which absolutely worth playing, but at the end of day, I find myself playing complevel 2, 3, 4,  9 or 11 stuff 99 percent of the time.

 

 

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

 

Not necessarily, but you have to define "Doom style" first, because it's a bit open ended like this (I mean my favorite PWAD is AUGER;ZENITH), and I'm leaning more towards yes. I deeply care about complevels though.

 

 

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

Old pixel way, all the way, preferably in 640 x 480. I admit that the game (especially certain atmospheric WADs) looks really cool or downright effin awesome in 1080p, but after some occasional wide screen fun, I always go back to the chunky low res roots. Sharp and clear visuals somehow partly dispel the magic, if you know what I mean. And you have worse frame times. : >

 

 

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

 

It really depends on the implementation and the consistency/extrapolability in behavior/design, but I heavily favor original weapons and monsters as a general disposition (especially weapons).

 

 

-do you prefer the music to be MIDI?

 

Well, it's Doom, so yeah, but after a first playthrough, I turn the music off. I mean it helped creating an atmosphere, might even enjoy it outside of the game, but after the initial experience, it becomes a distraction gameplay-wise. You should listen to Buckethead more though. And I want an actual SC-55 badly.

Edited December 27, 2022 by Fluuschoen

[Baskiat]

About, 5?

 

First time I played doom I was 16 (when it was launched, but played little)

 

then I met Quake, and stayed with it for loooong time... then I discover Doom again (the mods, doomworld, doomwiki etc, and gzdoom and so on, yeah, maybe 5, not so purist (never I'll play on the keyboard only haha)

 

 

Some things to consider:

 

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

 

R: mouselook, always (autoaim was 'invented' because doom ddnt have mouselook, so you couldn't 'see' in all directions, so is something 'necessary'. with mouselook: no autoaim

 

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

 

R: good either way (I'm more into freedom, if there's jump and crouch I like it more (more possibilities), but I like it anyway it goes)

 

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

 

R: define "doom style". I love doom, there's plenty of mods, play as much as I can, dunno

 

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

 

R: mixed bag, use gzdoom, but not too 'blurry' (don't know the especifics), but like more 'pixelated'

 

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

 

R: none at all, play mods and love it all (in fact I welcome monster changes, even in 'vanilla' doom)

 

-do you prefer the music to be MIDI?

 

R: don't mind

[Gougaru]

Honestly I'll have moods. Sometimes I'll want just pure vanilla and others just modded insanity. Life's to short to limit yourself 

[Shibboleth]

I play DOOM keyboard only with autoaim (the way I've always played it since I first did in 2012), and if I'm playing a vanilla compatible WAD or vanilla campaign I use Chocolate Doom... otherwise I use GZDoom. I don't have jumping or mouse enabled unless I'm playing a WAD which absolutely requires it (usually TCs like the Castlevania one or Ashes 2063). So I think of myself as a moderate purist but not a complete purist. 

[Professor Hastig]

I'm not much of a purist when it comes to gameplay mechanics. I only got back to Doom after an extended break in which I played more modern games and got used to them. As a result some of Doom's original behaviour does not mix well with how I prefer to play, mainly the lack of looking up and down and the forced autoaim,

 

I want to use the mouse like modern games handle it, i.e. full mouse look and proper mouse aim are just an important part of how I want to play. This unfortunately limits my choice of ports quite considerably. I tried playing with more classic ones but the constraints they impose just feel annoying, so I probably do 99% of my Dooming with GZDoom because its mouse handling is simply the best by a wide margin.

 

On the other hand I can be anally puristic when it comes to gameplay mods and even more with 'hi-def' texture replacements. Give me the original art of the 90's and we may talk. None of these half-baked 'improvements', please!

[Biz!]

I'm mostly a purist? Whenever I play on gzdoom I play on Doom (Strict) without infinitely tall monsters, same goes for any other port, so I'd be a 7/10.

[esselfortium]

On 11/2/2020 at 12:04 AM, Scorpinax said:

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.

4 I guess.

 

I usually use mouselook.

 

Jumping and crouching are fine.

 

I like when things are stylistically coherent, whether that means Doom style or whichever other style.

 

Sprite scaling algorithms look like smeared garbage, so no thanks.

 

Custom monsters and weapons are nice when they're bringing something new to the table.

 

Any music format is fine, but ripped MP3s are a bit tacky. If you're going to double the size of your WAD with lots of audio, I want something custom-made instead of music you lifted from elsewhere. I say this mostly just because a lot of ripped MP3 tracks I've heard used in Doom (from other games or wherever) seem to be really mismatched for the maps they're in.

[dististik]

It's hard putting a number to it, but I suppose 6 or 7?

 

I prefer no freelook with autoaim (although I won't pretend like autoaim isn't very good frequently), jumping and crouching being required can be a big jarring for me but they're by no means deal breakers, maps can have any style they like and it generally doesn't bother me, scaled sprites look dreadful to me, custom monsters and weapons can be really fun, and while I prefer midi I'm also one to use Hulshult's IDKFA whenever I replay Ultimate Doom and not infrequently use sigil_shreds for playing Sigil; my real preference is probably in instrumentals.

 

That all said, I do explicitly keep the blockmap bug/errors enabled despite my port of choice having an option to fix it, not having "infinitely tall" things feels off to me, truecolor is off-putting to me, I adore software rendering over hardware, and while I'm not sure if this adds purism points or if it's just a weird me thing but having a stat tracker for kills, items, and secrets outside of the auto-map bugs me for a reason I can't quite find words for.

[TheEyeOfStone]

No purity factor here.

Anymore, I'd say 3 or 4, someone else looking at me might well say 1 or 2.

 

- I use Mouselook, and as of last night I am going back to using a Crosshairs. Consider, what's more bad@55? Using something that helps you shoot accurately, (assuming the crosshairs actually does, personal preference) or risking less accuracy? I shoot real firearms in real life. Sure, at 15 or 7 yards or below, it is useful to be able to point shoot and hit the center of mass, but beyond that the idea of not aiming is ridiculous and is almost certain to give rise to bad habits, to say nothing of reduced accuracy. You need to be able to engage and kill the Demons at longer ranges than 15 yards equivalent in the game. I dunno how many DU's that is. I play enough DOOM that not using a crosshairs while I play could damage my program compliance when I'm at the range or God forbid in a self defense incident. DOOM has so many red textures that I prefer a smallish, bright neon Green circle. I focus on the sight and fire when I see a demon centered in it. In real life I favor either a white or Tritium three dot sight OR, lately I have a red fiber optic front sight with a painted white U rear sight, Ball in a bucket, seems to be accurate and quick.

So, long story long, that's why I've decided to go back to using the crosshairs. Not very authentic, I suppose. Same goes for mouse look, but again, I don't want to be doing anything which trains the idea that you have to move your body just to move your head to assess a situation. Playing too much DOOM authentically might give you bad ideas about reality, all kinds of bad ideas actually, lol...oh wait...too late. Oops...oh well.

 

- I use GZDOOM and PrBoom+, so not Vanilla or Chocolate or Stawberry DOOM, so I am assuming that would be points off for authenticity right there.

 

- I also mess with the screen resolution and HUD until I get them the way I want them, and I like the PrBoom+ text only HUD, even though I mainly use GZDOOM and its similar full screen HUD. I push myself harder to stay in a fight when my health is just a number, not DOOM guy subjectively seeming to get worse and worse visually. I also like knowing how many DEMONS are left. I will be more likely to engage that nest of Arch Viles if I know that one more push will clear me the level than if I have no idea what's after them. If they're the last five Demons left after I've fought through 1430 Demons, I daresay, I'm entitled to know how far I've come by that point, but I concede that that's not what the guys at id Software originally intended it seems. Again, not really authentic at all.

 

- What else do I do? These are the biggest ones, I think. So yes, as the years have gone on, I have not been above making use of some of the more modern conveniences on offer. Then again, Alien Vendetta or Bloodstain on UV are not DOOM II, or Final DOOM for that matter. The community has stepped up the difficulty a great deal. So is using a crosshairs and mouse look to aid your accuracy and situational awareness when you are becoming surrounded by a telehorde in an open area with no cover the same thing as typing IDDQD? I would say it is not, but that is just my opinion. I am sure some people want to make the game AS HARD AS POSSIBLE for themselves. Others probably don't consider just playing with the classic controls to be "making the game as hard as possible". I am sure some people just see playing authentically as playing authentically. For me, I always play on UV, so selecting how sadistically I want to treat myself is all about deciding which Megawad I'm gonna play next. The selection of a Megawad and its characteristics IS my difficulty selection.

That is also a very inauthentic way to go about this, but I am a better player for it.