Why do you not use free look?

[SMG_Man]

10 hours ago, EraserheadBaby said:

sticking to neck brace doom just seems like rose colored glasses to me.

 

The main thing for me is that the games were originally designed around not having to look up/down, and the auto-aim function makes up for the lack of free-look pretty well. It's antiquated sure, but it also just plays legitimately solid.

 

On a similar note, I played the Metroid Prime remaster using the classic GCN control scheme (rather than with a modern Halo/CoD-like dualstick setup) because its lock-on function was pretty perfectly designed to compensate for the movement and aiming quirks a single-stick setup has.

 

In a sense, neither of these games were designed to test the player's ability to "aim", so adding it in doesn't do much for the games unless you also make further changes (in my opinion, of course).

[spineapple tea]

12 hours and three pages late to the thread, but here's my comprehensive and well thought out answer.

 

I don't like it.

[ReaperAA]

2 hours ago, Stabbey said:

Who uses free look without a crosshair?

 

I know Clippy is one. Also @Kes Gaming YT plays with freelook but without crosshair. 

I am in the opposite camp. I generally play without freelook and still have crosshair enabled.

 

As for when I use freelook or not, it depends on what the wad was intended for. For GZDoom wads, those generally are designed around freelook and thus I use it there. But vanilla/limit-removing/boom/mbf wads are almost always designed with freelook turned off in mind. And since I mostly play non-GZDoom wads, I play without freelook. It about the intended experience for me. Same reason I very rarely play with gameplay mods, but don't mind playing TCs/mapsets that come with gameplay modifications.

[Lucius Wooding]

Not being able to see things below or above you is a bit annoying, but it's your responsibility as a player to be aware of that particular danger. Being able to shoot up or down, for example with the BFG into the ground to streetsweep is also potentially an advantage, while being able to hit shootable switches or monsters at extreme range is potentially game breaking on some maps. Those quirks are a big part of Doom to me and I don't really have the same love for most shooters that came later, even though obviously a lot of people rely on or expect those features.

 

Being on planar aim lets you focus on short and mid range combat, and skillful movement; many games which demand marksmanship don't place the same emphasis on movement. I do use a crosshair, since it's a convenience and very helpful for sniping. Finally, seeing sprite based graphics from an unintended angle is extremely cursed and unacceptable to me. It's not Paper Mario turned FPS. 

[SilentD00mer]

I like the the simplicity of movement of Doom, without freelook, I feel like I can move faster because I have a single angle to change and I can focus more on the other movements. Tbh, I tried to adapt the "non-freelook style" to other FPS (and failed, of course :P ) because it feels very comfortable in many situations

[philcul]

1 hour ago, ReaperAA said:

I am in the opposite camp. I generally play without freelook and still have crosshair enabled.

 

Glad to see that I'm not the only one who does that! 

[Klear]

I kinda feel more strongly about playing with a crosshair (never) than playing with freelook (usually).

 

It just feels ugly to me. Doesn't belong in Doom. Broken skyboxes and squished sprites don't bother me as much for some reason.

[idbeholdME]

Don't use it because sprites. It looks really bad when you start tiliting the camera up or down. And no manual Z axis aiming allows the game to be comfortably played on keyboard only.

[TheSlipgateStudios]

I did use freelook when playing Brutal Doom mod. But I won't play Brutal Doom anymore because it sucks a**.

[RottingZombie]

because it warps the view (i prefer software rendering), and because it feels right (nostalgia). Also keeps it simple. I do turn it on and enable crosshair once the wad resets on zd friday night survival so i can aim with the railgun.

 

I'd play a wad designed with it in mind, but it'd have to look good in hardware rendering and use 3d models, sprites look stupid when they warp.

[rita remton]

i use freelook when playing vanilla/exploration maps to enjoy their visual aesthetics, but rarely for slaughter maps. for the latter, i loose time looking up and down to find monsters to target. i also become disoriented (loose sense of direction) when my hud is full of hitting projectiles from monsters - playing without freelook helps me to quickly re-orient myself.

 

good timing too! currently attempting to make a map with copious amounts of verticality. after reading this topic however, i toned the heights down so that players who do not use freelook could see high-perched monsters from a short distance away. thank you for bringing up this topic :)

[banjiepixel]

I started with classic keyboard only, then went with modern style freelook for some many years and then eventually switched to the classic keyboard and mouse contols.

 

Reasons for me not liking freelook:

 

I don't like freelook in a game that uses 2D sprites so heavily.

I don't want to remove or alter autoaim mechanic of the original game.

I don't want to make Classic Doom feel less unique by playing it like a more modern shooter.

I love 2D shooters in general, both scrolling type shooters and multidirectional type shooters similar to Enter the Gungeon.

I like that not having freelook allows player to focus more on their movement and to be more precise with it.

I like that the original aiming system makes your position in relation to the monsters actually matter alot.

I like that controls without freelook work better with a controller.

I feel like playing with the classic autoaim system is very relaxing and more fun in general.

[Noiser]

Freelook can really mess with the balance of vanilla maps, at the point of being considered a cheat in some cases. Examples would be monsters that are on high positions and are not meant to be attacked until you kill what is below him, gun switches, enemies or items hidden on lower or higher levels, etc. 

[ReaperAA]

19 hours ago, Klear said:

I kinda feel more strongly about playing with a crosshair (never) than playing with freelook (usually).

 

This isn't targetted particularly towards you, but I am really curious about why do many Doom (and even Quake 1 players) not prefer using a crosshair? I get that a big crosshair can obstruct vision, but many source ports like GZDoom and DSDA-Doom allow to have a small (dot-sized) crosshair. It doesn't break the maps and can be helpful in a few situations where you have to use chaingun to snipe distant hitscanners.

[Graf Zahl]

55 minutes ago, ReaperAA said:

 

This isn't targetted particularly towards you, but I am really curious about why do many Doom (and even Quake 1 players) not prefer using a crosshair? I get that a big crosshair can obstruct vision, but many source ports like GZDoom and DSDA-Doom allow to have a small (dot-sized) crosshair. It doesn't break the maps and can be helpful in a few situations where you have to use chaingun to snipe distant hitscanners. 

 

A crosshair really does not make much sense with autoaim on and especially without freelook.

On the other hand, with freelook on and autoaim off it becomes very useful.

 

Of course, there's another issue at hand, i.e. if the original game did not have it, some players will consider it a cheat by default, and I think that's the primary reason here.

 

Those big crosshairs in some of the Build engine games did bother me, too, so I added the option to use the ZDoom crosshairs as an option. Much better. :)

 

[RataUnderground]

The fact that Doom it's designed to not require precise aiming on the vertical axis takes the strain off your mouse hand. Ergonomics for me is an important factor in this issue, especially after eight hours of drawing in a normal work day.

[Klear]

5 hours ago, ReaperAA said:

 

This isn't targetted particularly towards you, but I am really curious about why do many Doom (and even Quake 1 players) not prefer using a crosshair? I get that a big crosshair can obstruct vision, but many source ports like GZDoom and DSDA-Doom allow to have a small (dot-sized) crosshair. It doesn't break the maps and can be helpful in a few situations where you have to use chaingun to snipe distant hitscanners.

 

Immersion, I guess. I've gotten into habit of removing crosshair from most games which allow aiming down the sights. But it depends.

 

I keep it in the likes of Cyberpunk or Deus Ex, because cyber. But Doom never had a crosshair so off it goes.

 

I kinda wonder what I would do with Duke, since I haven't played it in ages and remember switching the crosshair on and off periodically back in the day.

Edited April 9, 2023 by Klear

[ducon]

In fact, I use mouselook but only with GZDoom.

[baja blast rd.]

Freelook is important for the Intended Experience of maps like this 

 

 

[Steve D]

Because I play keyboard only, whether it's a vanilla or GZDoom map. I will sometimes put myself in a corner and turn freelook on if it's necessary to dispose of some monster in a difficult location, or some annoying sniper beyond autoaim range, but otherwise, I never use freelook.

[Capellan]

Because I play Doom to play Doom, and there is no freelook in Doom.  If I want to play a shooter which does have freelook, I have a bajillionty other options.

[Makedounia]

Because it doesn't feel like Doom to me.

[Classic SSG Enjoyer]

I want to play Doom, the way it was originally made, not the edited/modified version of Doom.

 

I like the pure Doom experience, and that's why I don't play with freelook, nor do I use any other demo incompatible features.

[D0M0]

Personally, and this first statement shouldn’t really be something you can argue against, I think freelook adds a more modern element to the classic doom experience. People can play however they want and if they enjoy using freelook in their playthroughs then there’s nothing wrong with it. I would actually go as far as to encourage it in certain cases, since you can further appreciate components of a map you couldn’t see before (such as subtle decorations on the ceiling), it was an addition to many sourceports that I personally like and find interesting.

 

 

On the other hand, I myself do not really associate my playthroughs with freelook enabled. The reason as to why, well I don’t really know exactly. I feel that maybe it’s just a personal preference. I can’t really call it old-school since some would go as extreme as to argue that widescreen and keyb+mouse is not the “traditional” way. Really I just booted up prboom+ one time, and used most of the default settings on there, and it’s how i’ve played classic doom ever since.

[DoomGater]

- It's not Doom

- It slows Doom DM down

- A real Doomer does not have to turn his head up or down to shoot and hit.   ;-)

[AbeAwesome]

With a software renderer, I will not use free-look because it makes me want to vomit.

With a hardware renderer, I will use full free-look because it helps me want to vomit less.

[PsychEyeball]

Sorry everyone, but I am a freelook apologist. Don't care if the sprites get warped. I like to look around my surroundings whenever I like to see what's around and who's around.

 

(With that said I play with autoaim on in order to disallow me to shoot vertically at will. You gotta keep the gameplay intact at least!)

[Captain POLAND]

I freely admit to using it a lot.

 

 

[bofu]

28 minutes ago, PsychEyeball said:

Sorry everyone, but I am a freelook apologist. Don't care if the sprites get warped. I like to look around my surroundings whenever I like to see what's around and who's around.

 

(With that said I play with autoaim on in order to disallow me to shoot vertically at will. You gotta keep the gameplay intact at least!)

 

Hey, that's fine. I know you won't be one of those people who docks me a star if my vanilla format maps start showing weird visual glitches when you start looking up and down and seeing how the sausage is made. "Huh, it's cool that Bofu made that torch only light up the floor surrounding it and not the ceili—oh, I can see the higher, brighter ceiling 800 map units up above me, -1 star!"

[EraserheadBaby]

3 minutes ago, bofu said:

 

Hey, that's fine. I know you won't be one of those people who docks me a star if my vanilla format maps start showing weird visual glitches when you start looking up and down and seeing how the sausage is made. "Huh, it's cool that Bofu made that torch only light up the floor surrounding it and not the ceili—oh, I can see the higher, brighter ceiling 800 map units up above me, -1 star!"

People really do that?  smh