What's the point of Health Potions and Armor bonuses in Doom II?

[idbeholdME]

On 1/22/2023 at 2:24 PM, Maribo said:

Don't forget that you can stack 50 of them on top of each other, for the all-important 20 second long yellow tinted screen flashbang.

Speaking of which, does anybody know of a way to restore this effect in the ZDoom port family? The pickup flash there has been changed so that it no longer "stacks", meaning that the pickup effect is always the same duration.

 

Same with when you get hit extremely hard (Cyberdemon rocket). I remember seeing red screen for several seconds and that duration seems to be clipped in the Z ports.

 

Even the intensity of thr Berserk effect seems toned down.

 

Couldn't find an option that would change this. Does a mod exist that restores the original "screen tint" behavior?

Edited January 30, 2023 by idbeholdME

[galileo31dos01]

Quote

What's the point of Health Potions and Armor bonuses in Doom II?

 

Being cute

[Stabbey]

On 1/22/2023 at 11:33 AM, wallabra said:

Someone should deliberately use the yellow tint as an effect or handicap in a map! Like when trudging through a "toxic maze" (in which you can't stay for longer than 20 seconds anyway).

 

Not all players use ports which keep that effect, you realize.

[wallabra]

1 hour ago, Stabbey said:

Not all players use ports which keep that effect, you realize.

 

Their loss.

[heliumlamb]

john doom needs to stay hydrated, and is an avid headgear collector

[Kokoro Hane]

Every point counts!

[zokum]

They're also used to decorate the maps with something that isn't just scenery. They can be used when you want a secret to be just a tad better. Finding a shotgun and 4 armor bonuses is in my opinion more fun than just that lone shotgun. They can also be used as a way to guide players to go to a location. An interesting use of health pots is the blue key room in map18 in Doom 2. It has a ton of health pots and a blue keycard that is hard to spot among all the other blue items. e1m6 uses armor bonuses to indicate a secret area.

[Mr. Alexander]

On 1/22/2023 at 10:53 AM, Havok said:

I assume a McGuffin is what you said earlier in that paragraph?

Quote

In fiction, a MacGuffin (sometimes McGuffin) is an object, device, or event that is necessary to the plot and the motivation of the characters, but insignificant, unimportant, or irrelevant in itself.[1][2][3][4][5] The term was originated by Angus MacPhail for film,[2] adopted by Alfred Hitchcock,[1][2][3][4][5] and later extended to a similar device in other fiction.[4] 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacGuffin

 

rd.'s usage is an extension of this sense to items in a Doom map that don't matter in themselves, but indicate the presence of critical map triggers.

[kwc]

Health and Armor pickups are excellent as signifiers, using them as breadcrumbs to lead players to whatever path you want them to go.

Due to the nature of intermediate player habits, items like medikits, stimpacks, spheres or body armor may be less reliable for this specific purpose if your goal is to somewhat-reliably ensure a player explores an immediate space. (Some examples: avoiding green armor when you have <100% blue armor, or avoiding a sphere because you might need it later, or simply having >=100% health and not bothering.) Some of these, especially when they are in powerup-tier, are much better used as signifiers for points of interest, rather than signifiers for pathing.

I would argue that a vast majority of the time you can count on the player being compelled follow a path of those health bottles or armor helmets, especially when compounded with thoughtful spatial composition and use of affordances.

 

Plus they make that neat doo-doot sound.

Edited February 2, 2023 by kwc

[El Jeff]

It's a mappers tool to help guide the player to certain directions

[Fadri]

If you survive an attack with 1% health, you'll be thankful to that single health potion you grabbed before.

[wallabra]

Health bonuses would probably be even better at enticing players down a path if they were resprited to Cheetos, strewn on the floor a la Toy Story 2.

[Maximum Matt]

On 2/2/2023 at 11:35 PM, kwc said:

Plus they make that neat doo-doot sound.

This right here

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

13 hours ago, wallabra said:

Health bonuses would probably be even better at enticing players down a path if they were resprited to Cheetos, strewn on the floor a la Toy Story 2.

There was a map that did this. I think it was called "Lair of the Neckbeard" or something. Cheetos were the armor, and Mounting Dew was the health. Green Armor was replaced by a stained shirt, and Blue Armor was a fedora. The large medipak had a black pill on it. The small medipak was replaced with a Guy Fawkes mask. The goal of the map was to shoot a rocket into a pinkie for the first time in 38 years without blaming the rest of the world for not being able to.

[indigotyrian]

I like using armor/health bonuses along with small ammo pickups as a way to decorate a scene. Whether I stuff them alongside walls or a corner, or if I draw a cool little pattern with them, I find that they can add a little bit of visual and kinetic flair to a location. I particularly like making wavy lines and curves to encourage a player to skate along them and grab 'em all in one go, sort of like how platformer games will have pickups floating in the air in an arc.

[slugger]

Good for marking secrets, because they're small enough to be easily ignored, but rare enough to be suspicious on their own.

[Azuris]

On 1/22/2023 at 2:38 PM, Deadwing said:

They are really important to tell players that they haven't gone into a particular important place >.<

 

I find them really useful to help the player to navigate into the map easier

 

This.

 

Such Items are a clever Way to lead Players into one Direction.

 

[wallabra]

On 2/4/2023 at 12:39 PM, TheMagicMushroomMan said:

There was a map that did this. I think it was called "Lair of the Neckbeard" or something. Cheetos were the armor, and Mounting Dew was the health. Green Armor was replaced by a stained shirt, and Blue Armor was a fedora. The large medipak had a black pill on it. The small medipak was replaced with a Guy Fawkes mask. The goal of the map was to shoot a rocket into a pinkie for the first time in 38 years without blaming the rest of the world for not being able to.

 

Heh! Incels really are quite something.

 

There's some really fucked up stuff out there. It's sad how oftentimes, instead of changing for the better, a lot of them end up in the alt-right pipeline. Probably the side effect of, among other things, modern society's tendency to isolate people from one another - an isolated people cannot unite upon a common cause, and are thus easier to exploit. But enough about that.

 

I think the concept of this social parody can be extended much further. There should be an Episode 2 about the online friends that the neckbeard has, and the dubious activities these friends engage in, from Discord moderators to 4chan chuds, and all the plots they make against our protagonist in his search for redemption.

[darmok]

Main thing I don't like about the bonuses is that the game lets you pick them up even when you are maxed out essentially wasting them. In fact this is true of all the power ups. I guess this was done so they could count towards the Item total.

[BoxY]

To make sure that nobody would ever actually care about the item count stat.