SSG Swingshots

[Pirx]

[split from this thread]

Creaphis said:

I'm quite positive that one of the player's bullets/projectiles can do one of several different damage amounts. But, due to the system by which the Doom engine pulls its "random" numbers out of tables in certain orders, any 20 bullets will add up to damage amount close to 200.

anyone who can confirm this ?

[Death-Destiny]

Torr Samaho said:

anyone who can confirm this ?

That's some interesting data, but that can't possibly apply to fighting monsters, though. If it were possible to have a 700% variance between the damage of two consecutive shots and if they were completely random, then by this data, it would theoretically be possible to take 7 hits to kill a cacodemon, even hitting it square-on.

Now I'm totally confused if this data is accurate. ? =( ?

[myk]

Maybe swing shots can diminish the effect of the blockmap glitch a bit by making more shots hit targets in an angular way instead of head on.

On the other hand, it could just be a style that gives some players more confidence and thus accuracy while aiming. This human element can only be measured through stats, unless you manage to get your hands on a device that properly measures brain, nerve and muscle activity, of course :p

[GreyGhost]

I've cobbled together a small shooting gallery to observe the spread of shot from the SSG when fired at target outlines of a Caco or Doomguy. It's probably not suitable for swingshot testing without further modification. A screenshot for the curious-


Here's the wad if anyone want's to try it out.

[Csonicgo]

Personally,I think swingshots are just one of those psychological things that really do nothing in terms of "extra damage". But since some claim that it works for them, it's never really determined. Humans tend to do this a lot. There's a lot of pseudoscience babble out there fuelled solely on "it worked for me!".

Reminds me of the GameBoy Game Pokemon, where some claimed (and some still do) that holding a certain button combination after throwing a capture device will facilitate the capture of a monster. This started as a rumor somewhere in a japanese magazine, spread across the Internet like wildfire, and, at its height, was included in some third-party(yet nintendo authorised) "pokemon tips" floor decals that were placed in a mall hosting a pokemon Tourney.



It's also rumored that Game Freak, the developers of Pokemon, caught wind of this little "trick" and deliberately programmed the combinations into the next series of the games (Gold/Silver/&c.) to make the odds of capture harder. This counter Rumor was probably spread by some guy as a joke (as many many people did this in the 90s, joke codes, joke guides, that did nothing but waste a gullible person's time).

[_bruce_]

GreyGhost said:

I've cobbled together a small shooting gallery to observe the spread of shot from the SSG when fired at target outlines of a Caco or Doomguy. It's probably not suitable for swingshot testing without further modification.

Here's the wad if anyone want's to try it out.

bahaha - funny idea.

[Gez]

Should make a whole shooting range with outlines of the various Doom monsters in the same style. It wouldn't be a Cacoward winner, but it could be a nice thing to incorporate in wads that feature a "homebase" between missions, like Strife does. (I'm thinking of Stronghold, for example.)

[Creaphis]

I'm not even sure I understand that definition of "swingshot." What's meant by that, exactly?

[david_a]

Creaphis said:

I'm not even sure I understand that definition of "swingshot." What's meant by that, exactly?

Instead of lining up the gun before pulling the trigger, start at an angle and fire while "swinging" the mouse around.

[Grazza]

Death-Destiny said:

Now I'm totally confused if this data is accurate. ? =( ?

The demo from which the data are taken is linked from the page, so you can check for yourself.

If you watch it with a walkcam, then you'll notice that the hit patterns from the swingshots tend to have the pellets more tightly grouped horizontally than for the normal shots.

[Pirx]

Grazza said:

If you watch it with a walkcam, then you'll notice that the hit patterns from the swingshots tend to have the pellets more tightly grouped horizontally than for the normal shots.

if it happens in the game, then it _must_ be somewhere in the code. whether as a bug or intentional is another question. i'd rather say it's a bug, like straferunning and other little game secrets.

is there any programmer who has examined the source from this POV?

and thanks for splitting off this topic if it deserves a discussion of its own.

[Quasar]

All of the tracers for the SSG are fired in one loop, with no chance for the player to move between any of them. The player's speed, angular motion, and momentum are not considered in any way when firing the tracers. The only variables are the player's current position and angle.

Anything else you think influences tracer spread is purely psychological I'm afraid.

[gggmork]

Maybe because I'm a keyboarder I never noticed that specifically, however did notice something quite similar- I tend to kill a single imp with a single shot with a greater probability if I strafe to the side while shooting (single barrel at least). Even when an enemy is really far away, strafe shooting tends to hit them better.

[EarthQuake]

Actually, before I even heard of swingshotting, I tended to notice the same effect when playing single player. I called it strafe-shooting and it really did seem to be a genuine tactic.

But if Quasar says it can't happen, then it's just some psychological thing.

Although, I have seen screenshots and demos illustrating the idea. And the results were fairly convincing. One series of shots showed a normal blast at a wall, and another series of shots showed the decals closer together. This was in ZDaemon 1.06.

[Pirx]

EarthQuake said:

Actually, before I even heard of swingshotting, I tended to notice the same effect when playing single player. I called it strafe-shooting and it really did seem to be a genuine tactic.

because lining up your target using strafe helps you point your gun straight forward, stabilizing your aim. on the other hand, it might make other players too careful (like always trying to kill 1 imp with 1 shell) and those play more freely when swinging. it depends on the player. the careful and the flashy guys.

i like practicing swingshots on barons & knights when playing because they're not a threat as long as there's some space to move, and only strafing offers little action. i thought a baron dies more often in 5 ssg shots when they're executed with a swing, but it's probably just my imagination.

[myk]

I'd say perhaps the monster's bounding box is generally hit differently when you do swing shots (or strafe run shots), making more of the pellets hit. A gameplay advantage due to positioning or movement is not "psychological" just because the source doesn't answer the question in an immediate way. It's not always easy to understand the code at play without testing.

[Stilgar]

On the topic of swing-shots, I do recall I used to believe that the berserker fist was more effective if charging towards an enemy when punching. I seem to recall asking once, and getting a similar answer that there's nothing in the code that would cause this to be so.

Csonicgo said:

This counter Rumor was probably spread by some guy as a joke (as many many people did this in the 90s, joke codes, joke guides, that did nothing but waste a gullible person's time).

This reminds me of something, I remember back in the day having a program called "cheat" once that came on some shovelware disc and contained a database of cheat codes, where under Doom it listed "IDDOOMISDUMB - Supposed to do something... if so, WHAT?"

As far as I can discern, there was never any such code. Maybe someone here knows the story behind this rumor though, as I'm pretty sure there are some old-timers from the beginning here. I didn't have internet back in those days. I did a search once, but only dug up a similar rumour that said code existed in Hexen, I forget what the claim of its function was.

[Quasar]

myk said:

I'd say perhaps the monster's bounding box is generally hit differently when you do swing shots (or strafe run shots), making more of the pellets hit. A gameplay advantage due to positioning or movement is not "psychological" just because the source doesn't answer the question in an immediate way. It's not always easy to understand the code at play without testing.

Except that my point is that movement doesn't influence it at *all*, period. Only position and angle are important. If swing shots take your shots off the world x and y axes more frequently and thus help to negate Doom's weird clipping problems, then that is the *only* reason why swing shots grant any advantage, and in that case, you would see the same advantage by shooting stationary targets (say, barrels), at a stationary angle (not turning, just already at an angle, such as 33 degrees let's say).

DOOM is entirely deterministic, so there's no room for "magic". If the code to fire tracers doesn't consider the player's momenta, then there's no way the player's momenta have any effect on tracers. And the tracer code doesn't look at momenta (linear or angular). The spread from the bullets is calculated the same regardless of your angle. The only variable here is the alignment or non-alignment with the world axes, and thus the blockmap cells and monster's hit boxes (which are always aligned with the world axes no matter what direction the monster appears to face, BTW).

This however would utterly fail to explain any such "effects" as noticed by players of ZDoom-based ports, because ZDoom fixes all of Doom's clipping problems in such a way that even this explanation fails to account for it. In that case, it HAS to be either 1. purely psychological (you are wanting to notice the swingshots that do more damage than normal, and seeing a pattern in randomness which simply does not exist), or 2. you are just having incredibly dumb luck and the swingshots you take just happen to get the narrowest spread and highest dice rolls often enough to make you think there is a pattern where there is not one. In the latter case, additional empirical testing would show no practical difference.

[kristus]

EarthQuake said:

Actually, before I even heard of swingshotting, I tended to notice the same effect when playing single player. I called it strafe-shooting and it really did seem to be a genuine tactic.

Same here. Noticed it before ever being online, then other people spoke of it. So I figured it was somehow bunching the shots together.

It's possible that in the swing shot, you're reflexes are more at play and your brain thinks less. Lending you the effect of landing better shots.

[Death-Destiny]

I think swingshots do probably improve your damage, but not because of the swing itself affecting the shot because of speed, angular motion, or momentum. Observe my cute little diagram below to illustrate what I'm saying. See below that for my explanation of the diagram.



You're the label "Doomguy". Let's say the red square is a Cacodemon. In the top of the diagram, let's say you're standing still and aiming dead-on at the Caco. When you stand still, the demon's try to line themselves up with you relative to the map grid. If you were to shoot it now, you'd have a 32 unit side of the caco to hit.

However, if you're strafing around and swinging your mouse, it is unlikely that you will shoot it in line with the grid. If you were to shoot it at a perfect 45 degree angle to the grid, your SSG or whatever would have a total length of 45.25 units to hit the caco, an ~40% greater length (which means more pellats will tend to hit it, and thus more damage will be inflicted.)

If you're playing in an engine with the blockmap grid bug (in the diagram, the off-center plus is a blockmap intersection. Therefore, the Caco is considered to be ever so slightly in the top-right block.), this will also be beneficial. Because of the caco's position, roughly half the shells firing in a straight line will miss, whereas a greater percentage will enter the correct block in the angled shot.

I really think that's all it is. If swingshots really do help, it's simply because they put the player at a better angle to shoot the demon, which should be one of the only two things that affect damage (other than closeness, obviously.) Assuming you have to stay a fixed distance from a demon, the damge your SSG will inflict should be based on the angle at which you shoot the demon, not your speed, or momentun or whatever, and that's what I think people are noticing with swingshots.

[myk]

Death-Destinty, that analysis seems to be going in the right direction.

Quasar said:
This however would utterly fail to explain any such "effects" as noticed by players of ZDoom-based ports, because ZDoom fixes all of Doom's clipping problems in such a way that even this explanation fails to account for it.

Not earlier ZDoom based engines, such as ZDaemon. The glitch might not matter that much, though.

You comments about magic are out of place; I've seen how people fail to see the general picture the code can produce by merely looking at the code, since one fails to make relations that are more easily reproduced in action (hence the importance of testing). In any case, yes, I meant the angle facilitates the effect by shifting where the pellets hit; movement plays in by providing it more easily during play.

[40oz]

Something I'd like to draw attention to, is that I know for a fact, that when using fists or chainsaw, if you aim to the left of the monster, you are almost definitely going to hit him. Even though punching and using chainsaw tends to center on the monster upon contact, for big monsters such as a mancubus, if you tend to aim toward the left side of him, that being HIS right arm, rather than HIS left arm, then you will definitely hit him. For some reason aiming for the other side doesn't do much. Ive learned this from all the time I spent in my earlier dooming years kicking in an iddqd and idbeholds (berserk).

I would like to be so brash as to assume that punching and chainsawing are identical to bullets and shotgun pellets as they are all being hitscan projectiles. I would imagine that the hit detection in terms of bullet weapons works the same way, however it may be foolish to not aim for the center of a mancubus with a shotgun as half of the spread would probably whizz right past him.

I'm not a 100% sure if this is on topic of what you guys are talking about, but from what I have understood in this thread, this is what came to mind.

[TimeOfDeath]

But it's been proven that swingshots don't do more damage. If you swingshot, it's no different than shooting the same spot while standing still. The only things that matter are your aim, the distance between you and the monster, and where the monster lies on the blockmap. If the "swingshots do more damage" theory is a result of the blockmap, then it has nothing to do with swingshots and everything to do with the blockmap.

[myk]

TimeOfDeath said:
But it's been proven that swingshots don't do more damage.

Proved where? I mean, they don't cause a greater amount of points of damage to be generated or anything like that (though that was never really an assumption by those presenting the idea) but "a swing shot" refers to a type of movement during attacks, and if such movement (due mainly to the usual angle with which the attack is made) facilitates aim in a practical sense, it produces more damage as a result because more pellets hit (statistically).

[TimeOfDeath]

But, the same amount of damage would occur without swingshooting, if you shot the same spot you shot at with swingshooting. So it can't produce more damage.

[myk]

You get those shots because you use swing-shooting. Other methods (like the strafe shooting mentioned) may also grant similar benefits. Like I said, no one argued it mathematically increased damage values or the like, but that movement and position can help produce more damage, and it may well not just be psychological.

If you don't get those results with straight shots, then swing shooting (along with any other style that helps make shots efficient in that way) may be a factor in getting more damage done.

A truly psychological benefit, on the other hand, would merely give the player more confidence and have no practical effect but to reduce clumsiness or guarantee a decent aim.

[Fletcher`]

Quasar said:

If the code to fire tracers doesn't consider the player's momenta, then there's no way the player's momenta have any effect on tracers. And the tracer code doesn't look at momenta (linear or angular).

Heretic's firemace spheres (the slightly bigger ones that split into more spheres) and the giant ones do use the player's momentum as an additive to the projectile's speed and angle. Hence you can make it bounce in place almost forever, or accelerate it halfway across a map when running.

[Quasar]

rf` said:

Heretic's firemace spheres (the slightly bigger ones that split into more spheres) and the giant ones do use the player's momentum as an additive to the projectile's speed and angle. Hence you can make it bounce in place almost forever, or accelerate it halfway across a map when running.

True but that's a modified projectile firing and not a tracer ;) I personally think I am in agreement with myk now. What he says makes sense after his additional clarifications which met my concerns :)

[GreyGhost]

A question or two - interspersed with ill-informed speculation since the source code's only slightly more intelligible to me than Klingon. If the bounding boxes are treated as squares on a grid an off-axis attack (as in Death-Destiny's diagram) should be presented with a larger target. That should be easy to test with a voodoo doll. How closely do the bounding box dimensions correspond to the sprites?

[TimeOfDeath]

I never thought people were saying swingshots increased damage values. I just don't understand how it can be beneficial when the only things that matter are where you're aiming, your distance, and where on the blockmap the target is at the exact moment you shoot. If that's true, then anything you do before the moment you shoot should be irrelevant. If you swingshoot into the caco in DD's first pic while aiming dead-on at the moment you shoot, would it not be the same as just standing still and shooting dead-on from the same distance away that you triggered your swingshot?