your favorite method of getting rid of the assholes

[Ismaele]

Another fighting method I use with the Spider MasterMind, but that can be used with other monsters (but it is very dangerous with the CyberDemon!): run towards it and launch a single BFG shot, while you are reaching it... it should die istantly if you hit perfectly, since all the power of the BFG is focused on it! ;)

Still more fighting techniques to come...! ;)

[Epyo]

Ebon said:

Eh. That's introduced in zDoom/jDoom source ports, with the 3d thing walkover, and wasn't really meant to happen in original Doom (but in Heretic yes).

I don't understand. Why can't I stand behind a tree in the orginal doom?

[myk]

Epyo said:
I don't understand. Why can't I stand behind a tree in the orginal doom?

You can, but you'll get nailed by projectiles if you just stand there. Decorations obstruct movement but not missiles (except the Lost soul attacking, which incidentially stops when it reaches any thing whatsoever, even a small candle or a harmless stimpack.) You might be missing this fact if you never use Doom, Chocolate Doom, Boom, PrBoom, Eternity, or any other engine with relatively classic physics.

[Grazza]

Ismaele said:

Another fighting method I use with the Spider MasterMind ... run towards it and launch a single BFG shot, while you are reaching it... it should die istantly if you hit perfectly, since all the power of the BFG is focused on it! ;)

Only works with Zdoom (versions 2.0.51 and above). With standard Doom(2) behaviour (and in other ports) a one-shot kill is rare (even assuming perfect aim of both ball and traces). Try it.

[RjY]

Here are some points on monster combat that might seem counterintuitive. You probably all know them all already:

Spiders and cyberdemons are less susceptible to rockets than other monsters as they don't feel splash damage. A close range SSG is far more effective - for example a spider might take 35 rockets but only 18 SSG shots (36 shells)

Arachnotrons are very vulnerable to the chaingun - the weapon fires fast enough (or equivalently the monster's pain chance is high enough) that you can basically guaranteed to keep the thing in pain and unable to fire back. The definitive example is the one at the start of Doom2 MAP27.

Pain elementals cannot spawn lost souls unless they have room to do so, so if you stand right next to one you basically render it harmless. And with no other means to defend itself, there's nothing more pathetic than a pain elemental that can't spawn!

An archvile's long firing sequence and extremely low pain chance is its weakness. It's a sitting duck and the pain chance means it will just stand there and take punishment. Its main strengths are its movement speed and unavoidable attack - but many wad authors, especially in the early days, seem to be scared of the monsters, and put them in places where they can't move around very much. You almost feel sorry for the poor things!!

If a revenant is within 196 units of the player, it will not fire its rockets, but attempt to "close for fist attack" (P_CheckMissileRange in p_enemy.c) However no monster can use a close attack unless it is within (64 - 20 + monster's radius) of the player (P_CheckMeleeRange in p_enemy.c) Therefore if you keep it an appropriate distance away from you, it will never attack you. This is called "revenant baiting"

myk said:

(except the Lost soul attacking, which incidentially stops when it reaches any thing whatsoever, even a small candle or a harmless stimpack.)

No they can fly over candles, it's just solids and collectibles that block them. The point about collectibles is weird but very handy sometimes!

[Job]

myk said:

You can, but you'll get nailed by projectiles if you just stand there. Decorations obstruct movement but not missiles (except the Lost soul attacking, which incidentially stops when it reaches any thing whatsoever, even a small candle or a harmless stimpack.)

Actually...in SNES Doom, decorations, especially trees, are capable of blocking projectiles and enemy melee attacks.

[TheDarkArchon]

Grazza said:

Only works with Zdoom (versions 2.0.51 and above).

Bugfix time again: There was a bug with the BFG's tracers meaning that in vanilla, some of the tracers that should have hit the Spider Mastermind didn't. This is fixed in ZDoom.

[myk]

RjY said:
No they can fly over candles, it's just solids and collectibles that block them.

Indeed, my mistake!

TheDarkArchon said:
There was a bug with the BFG's tracers meaning that in vanilla, some of the tracers that should have hit the Spider Mastermind didn't. This is fixed in ZDoom.

The bug cph described related to a monster's position on the blockmap, or some other issue due to the monster's huge size?

Nonetheless, maybe Heit should feel somewhat ashamed; the poor spidey-thingy is already rather weak as it stands, in front of a BFG.

[Grazza]

TheDarkArchon said:

Bugfix time again: There was a bug with the BFG's tracers meaning that in vanilla, some of the tracers that should have hit the Spider Mastermind didn't. This is fixed in ZDoom.

These so-called "bug fixes" affect most aspects of the interactions between things, and have the effect of changing the balance of the game (in terms of how much damage an attack by one thing upon another will do on average). The behaviour being modified here is at the heart of how the Doom engine calculates damage. Read cph's article for further explanation.

myk: There were two distinct changes along these lines in 2.0.51. One of them changed the blockmap-related behaviour described in cph's article, and the other was to do with the bounding box. From 50-51_diff:

+- Fixed another Doom bug/oversimplification: PIT_AddThingIntercepts() checked
+  the trace against a line running through the middle of the thing. Now it
+  checks against the thing's actual bounding box, so chainsawing big things
+  like the Spider Mastermind is much easier now. This also means
+  P_LineAttack() doesn't need to position puffs/bullet splats closer along the
+  trace since the hit location won't be inside the thing anymore.
+- Changed blockmap thing linking so that things link to every block they touch
+  and not just the block at their center, fixing an old Doom bug.

I regard these changes as misguided.

[Ismaele]

There's no specific fighting technique for Arch-vile, because it is nearly missing weak points...! :P But I usually fight against it with the SuperShotgun, since it injures the ArchòVile very much and often stops its attack, on the contrary of many weapons. If you have got the BFG, a single shot well focused can kill it before he can complete its attack! ;)

[Belial]

It's interesting how it's attack delay is exactly long enough (with a very small safety zone) to let you fire off a BFG shot, 4 rockets, or enough plasma to kill it. Makes me wonder if it was intended.

[myk]

Grazza said:
I regard these changes as misguided.

While I agree in a personal sense since I like to play the game as it is (and tend to steer clear of altered physics) at least these are functional in-game things that don't generally affect map design; some other fixes do bring obvious incompatibilities, though, such as handling textures differently, altering the way barrels explode (which can affect tricks or devices), or changing the properties of decorative obstacles.

[Graf Zahl]

Myk said:

The bug cph described related to a monster's position on the blockmap, or some other issue due to the monster's huge size?

Exactly that bug. With Doom's original method of linking things into the blockmap any BFG trace that is not going through the block the Spider's center is in will pass right through.

Grazza said:

I regard these changes as misguided.

You are not forced to use ZDoom. Others prefer the more consistent behavior though. Doom with its many bugs and quirks often does not provide that. The blockmap linking is a good point for that. The fix has one consequence that might be considered problematic: The aforementioned Spiderdemon issue. But on the other hand you can no longer miss a monster just because you were standing in the wrong spot - which was what prompted this change.

[Grazza]

Graf Zahl said:

The fix has one consequence that might be considered problematic: The aforementioned Spiderdemon issue.

It affects the outcome every time a player (or monster) fires at another player (or monster). cph's article makes this clear.

[Graf Zahl]

In this case I consider the original behavior buggy. Just missing a target because it is improperly checked counts as a bug in my book.

[DaniJ]

In this case I consider the original behavior buggy. Just missing a target because it is improperly checked counts as a bug in my book.

That may be and I completely agree with you that it is a bug BUT what I would do in that situation is regiment the bug. It should be perfectly possible to actually fix the bug in question but at the same time implement additional non-buggy logic which mimics the bug if enabled.

That way you get the best of both worlds.

[myk]

DaniJ said:
It should be perfectly possible to actually fix the bug in question but at the same time implement additional non-buggy logic which mimics the bug if enabled.

That only matters if enough of the users of that engine care about it; otherwise you might as well say that you have the best of both worlds in different engines (let's say, using ZDoom alongside PrBoom or Chocolate Doom.) Some engines are better off providing emulation or compatibilities, especially if there isn't another alternative or they deal with that as a priority, but in others I'd say that it's best to apply them mostly if their lack causes third party issues (wads they presumably support don't work properly, or stuff like that) because adding options and code bloats a project and extends its maintenance time requirements.

[DaniJ]

That only matters if enough of the users of that engine care about it; otherwise you might as well say that you have the best of both worlds in different engines (let's say, using ZDoom alongside PrBoom or Chocolate Doom.) Some engines are better off providing emulation or compatibilities, especially if there isn't another alternative or they deal with that as a priority, but in others I'd say that it's best to apply them mostly if their lack causes third party issues (wads they presumably support don't work properly, or stuff like that) because adding options and code bloats a project and extends its maintenance time requirements.

Of course I agree. My comment wasn't very explanatory. I intended "BUT what I would do in that situation" to mean "what I would do in jDoom in that situation".

I've learned a lesson.

[Graf Zahl]

DaniJ said:

but at the same time implement additional non-buggy logic which mimics the bug if enabled.

That's not that easy here. The original code suffers from a design flaw. Either you fix that or you don't. But in this case there is nothing in between and if for some reason you want to eliminate that flaw you have to live with the consequences. And in this case there hasn't been a single complaint on the ZDoom forum itself. So it is safe to assume that the people which are regularly using that engine are not bothered by it.

Sure, you can argue that it makes certain situations easier to handle but no map will get broken by it.

Much more serious are changes that actually affect the playability of a map.
A good example for that is that in Doom you can shoot hitscan weapons through self referencing sectors but when ZDoom's hitscan code was rewritten this got changed. In cases like this which actually break the playability of certain maps a workaround is essential - which in most cases would be a compatibility option.

[Lüt]

SUITON: HASSELHOFF NO JUTSU

[Grazza]

Graf Zahl said:

And in this case there hasn't been a single complaint on the ZDoom forum itself. So it is safe to assume that the people which are regularly using that engine are not bothered by it.

Or don't realize how much is changed by it. After all, it has never really been publicized too much, so people are more likely to assume that any fault lies with the wad they're playing.

Sure, you can argue that it makes certain situations easier to handle

Or harder. It cuts both ways. Monster attacks will typically damage the player more than with the original behaviour.

but no map will get broken by it.

Two categories of play (Tyson and Pacifist) are seriously affected by these changes. Tyson is a lot easier, and Pacifist harder.

Any maps where there are a lot of hitscanners that the player has to run past will be made significantly harder - conceivably to the point of being broken. I wonder how many comments of the "Plutonia is too hard!" type are because people are playing it in Zdoom and getting raped by the chaingunners unless they pick them off in a more tedious fashion than was intended by the creators.

[myk]

Grazza said:
Or don't realize how much is changed by it. After all, it has never really been publicized too much, so people are more likely to assume that any fault lies with the wad they're playing.

Compatibilities also cause issues of this sort; especially when they aren't nearly absolute (like PrBoom's complevels are), and particularly when people start to think that because of certain emulations and compatibilities and engine is "classic"; take Boom for instance with its "play as closely as possible to Doom." It was an okay attempt for purists using Boom, but by no means equivalent to using Doom. Consider for example what Graf Zahl said on the other thread about weapon damage (being more random.) Thus I think you either go a long way (only for engines that really aim to be classic) or arbitrarily keep whatever classic touches the developer sees fit (with input from users.) Someone could take straferunning out, not caring about it and preferring a slower game because they are more into ambient stuff that hardcore playing, for example (didn't RTC3057 slow the Player down on purpose?) Also, shared playing skill has redefined "classic DOOM" with purist interests; back in the early days most of us players kind of sucked, moving slowly with the keyboard and being quite unaware of the many subtle details we know of today.

[Graf Zahl]

Grazza said:

Or don't realize how much is changed by it. After all, it has never really been publicized too much, so people are more likely to assume that any fault lies with the wad they're playing.

Or harder. It cuts both ways. Monster attacks will typically damage the player more than with the original behaviour.

But due to the small radius of the player this is not really noticable. Aside from the Spiderdemon issue I haven't experienced any change in difficulty due to this change - not even in Plutonia. You need to stand exactly on the boundary of two blocks and the monster has to shoot nearly parallel to that border for the effect to be noticable. That reduces the chance of this quite a lot.

Two categories of play (Tyson and Pacifist) are seriously affected by these changes. Tyson is a lot easier, and Pacifist harder.

Honestly, is there someone who is using an advanced port to play these styles? I get the feeling that they appeal more to people who prefer physics that stick closer to the original.

[RjY]

Graf Zahl said:

You are not forced to use ZDoom.

Except when you are, because the map is unintentionally broken in everything else. Honestly ZDoom is the biggest perpetrator of vendor lock-in since the bad old days of this website is designed for MSIE 4.0 and upwards

Yes of course it can be argued that it's the map author's fault but when experienced authors, such as ReX and Russell_P, can fall into these traps, you begin to wonder...

[The Flange Peddler]

I thought I'd noticed that the spiderdemon was a bit too easy in Zdoom, and now this explains it. I don't think I ever remember getting a 1 bfg blast death in any other port.

So this might mean that any map primarily playtested in Zdoom might be a little more difficult in other ports, as ammo balance might be off?

[myk]

RjY said:
Yes of course it can be argued that it's the map author's fault but when experienced authors, such as ReX and Russell_P, can fall into these traps, you begin to wonder...

An experienced level designer is one thing, an experienced player another. And an experienced player/designer with considerable knowledge of engine differences is not too common. In any case it's important to document what a wad was tested on (in addition to what engines or engine types it was supposedly meant for) when releasing it. These days that's more important than the utilites used or how long it took to make the wad.

You just gave me an idea...

[Graf Zahl]

The Flange Peddler said:

I don't think I ever remember getting a 1 bfg blast death in any other port.

When this issue was mentioned for the first time I tried in PrBoom. It was very, very hard but I indeed managed to get a one-shot kill once.

The Flange Peddler said:

So this might mean that any map primarily playtested in Zdoom might be a little more difficult in other ports, as ammo balance might be off?

Only in a very limited fashion. There are much more important factors to consider. You can balance a map so that the amount of ammo is perfect for you. But the next player who comes along might have worse aim and complains about lack of ammo. Another comes along who happens to be in perfect control of the game and says there's too much. If you balance your ammo in a way that factors like this become a serious consideration I'd say you don't have enough.

[Grazza]

RjY said:

Except when you are, because the map is unintentionally broken in everything else.

On that point, Prboom-plus has a couple of "compatibility with common mapping errors" settings (for invalid tags and passthru issues) that make quite a lot of these maps playable (these haven't AFAIK been implemented as yet in the "official" version, but hopefully they will). Suggestions for any other such things that could be implemented would be welcome.

RjY said:

Yes of course it can be argued that it's the map author's fault but when experienced authors, such as ReX and Russell_P, can fall into these traps, you begin to wonder...

There's also the fact that Doom Builder fails to detect invalid tags in its error checking. When a wad is described as "for a limit-removing port, made with Doom Builder and tested with Zdoom" I always check for invalid tags (with WadAuthor), and very often find some of the problematic variety. :(

Graf Zahl said:

When this issue was mentioned for the first time I tried in PrBoom. It was very, very hard but I indeed managed to get a one-shot kill once.

Yes, it is known to be possible - as demonstrated perhaps most famously in Doom Done Quick. My guess is that the chances of getting it with a randomly placed spider must be well under 5% (maybe a long way under), even assuming perfect aim. It's hard to judge that though, given that in any set piece you try to repeat many times, so much will depend on the spider's initial positioning and whether the player varies his movements in an attempt "coax" the spider into position.

[myk]

RjY said:
Spiders and cyberdemons are less susceptible to rockets than other monsters as they don't feel splash damage.

This has a curious secondary effect; Cyberdemons will never ever infight between themselves, unlke other missile shooting monsters of a same species, that can do so rarely when hurting each other with Barrels.

[Ismaele]

Another fighting method: use Chaingun with CacoDemons and Pain Elemental, since their high pain chance combined with a fast weapon make them unable to fire! ;) It can be good for Arachnotrons, Mancubi and Revenants, although their lower pain chance can be a little troublesome (especially with Revenants!).