Skill 0

[ultdoomer]

As I'm sure many people know, using -skill 0 causes a map to be loaded without any things and without the ability to use any special linedefs. Does anyone know the purpose of implementing this skill level?

[Kaiser]

Sounds like you're using Doom95. If memory serves, it had a unique skill level which was meant for debugging purposes. But I could be wrong.

[ultdoomer]

No, according to the Doom Wiki, this happens in vanilla, but I tested it out in Chocolate Doom and it emulates this behavior.

[myk]

It's accidental, if I am not mistaken, even depending on the compiler used to build the executable. I think fraggle explained the technical cause somewhere. Special linedefs do work, it's just teleporter lines that don't function because the required teleport exit things are absent.

[Christoph]

So it basically removes from the game any and all things besides player starts?

[LogicDeLuxe]

I always thought of it as an unintentional feature, since I never could think of doing anything useful with it.

Player starts are excluded from skill level settings, ie. you can't place separate ones for each skill level. You will get voodoo players, just like you would expect it if all skill level flags were set on each player start. I guess, this behavior is the reason, skill 0 works at all.

[Terra-jin]

It makes sense that all things disappear with skill 0, because each things can be toggled to appear at skill 1-2, skill 3 and skill 4-5. This means that any thing can at most be present at skill 1-5.

[CODOR]

LogicDeLuxe said:
Player starts are excluded from skill level settings, ie. you can't place separate ones for each skill level. You will get voodoo players, just like you would expect it if all skill level flags were set on each player start.

That's unfortunate, I always thought it'd be a good way to completely change a level's gameplay (by altering the starting position) based upon the skill level.

[LogicDeLuxe]

CODOR said:

That's unfortunate, I always thought it'd be a good way to completely change a level's gameplay (by altering the starting position) based upon the skill level.

You can change teleporter targets based on skill levels, though.

[Snarboo]

CODOR said:

That's unfortunate, I always thought it'd be a good way to completely change a level's gameplay (by altering the starting position) based upon the skill level.

Someone actually did that in a map IIRC. I forget the name of the map, but depending on the difficulty, you would appear at a different starting location. It might have been Boom compatible instead of vanilla, though.

[Creaphis]

Hm. I once asked a question about that on these boards, and as a response I was given a link to a map that promised three different starting positions for the three difficulties, which I never actually tried playing. But I can't think of what search terms I would need to find it.

Edit: Okay, I actually did find the thread with the map, which also displays ye olde Creaphis being a jackass. Here's a direct link to the wad.

Edit again: That level works by only having one player start, but having the player immediately enter a teleporter which determines his starting position, which should be a perfectly vanilla-friendly solution. What's weird, then, is I can't seem to get it to work in Chocolate Doom.

[chungy]

Creaphis said:

What's weird, then, is I can't seem to get it to work in Chocolate Doom.

works for me

[Csonicgo]

MikeRS said:

works for me

Hey MikeRS, when you shitpost, at least make it funny.

Anyway, the problem might be related to your Chocolate-Doom version. You might wanna get the latest and see if that fixes it. If not... you may have found a bug.

[EarthQuake]

A bit off-topic, but you know you can make skill-level-specific areas by using decorations as well? I used this in one of my survival maps like a decade ago to redirect my monsters to different areas depending on the difficulty. Although, looking back at it, I could have just made different areas outside the map and used the skill flags on the monsters themselves, but yeah.

You can also place such decorations in like an intersection of sorts, and redirect the flow of the player to another area, giving a new dimension to replayability. There's so many uses for the skill flags, but sadly, no one seems to abuse them...

[Creaphis]

Csonicgo said:

Anyway, the problem might be related to your Chocolate-Doom version. You might wanna get the latest and see if that fixes it. If not... you may have found a bug.

I must have been entering the wad's filename incorrectly. It works now.

EarthQuake said:

A bit off-topic, but you know you can make skill-level-specific areas by using decorations as well?

I guess that most mappers make their levels with a specific linear progression and difficulty in mind while ignoring the chance to remix the gameplay for the other difficulties, or they aim to make levels that are non-linear and sprawling, and this goal isn't benefited by blocking off certain paths with things. More levels could be made where thing flags are exploited, but I'm not surprised that there aren't many levels like that.

[purist]

EarthQuake said:

There's so many uses for the skill flags, but sadly, no one seems to abuse them...

Another reason is that most people only play UV so the alternative versions would rarely be played.

[arrrgh]

Well, instead of the skill levels being "skill levels," you could replace the skill level graphics with something different, so you could choose a puzzly sort of level, a slaughterfest sort of level and so on.

[Creaphis]

arrrgh said:

Well, instead of the skill levels being "skill levels," you could replace the skill level graphics with something different, so you could choose a puzzly sort of level, a slaughterfest sort of level and so on.

Something along these lines was done in Phobia: The Age.

[ultdoomer]

myk said:

I think fraggle explained the technical cause somewhere.

Can anyone link me to this post?