Your thoughts on using Novert in Vanilla DOOM.

[Samurai Fox]

As much as it helps in many situations, I feel that using the novert utility could be considered cheating because it's simply not a part of the game in any way.

What are your thoughts?

(Apologies in advance if a similar thread was made).

[DuckReconMajor]

I don't think any part of the game was built around bothersome vertical mouse movement. You could argue that it makes The Chasm easier, but I don't see that as much of a big deal.

[hex11]

I play with keyboard only. Mouse is cheating. :)

[GreyGhost]

I wouldn't consider novert usage to be cheating unless there's proof it gives a player a noticeable advantage - DKS and DMS are another story, with them the difference would be easier to spot.

Any source port that provides separate x/y sliders for mouse configuration can support novert functionality, some provide it as a config option and at least one defaults to novert movement when installed, so I'd say go ahead and use it - unless it's specifically banned for competitive play or speedrunning.

[Mithran Denizen]

I modded an old mouse by ripping apart and resoldering its pieces to force 'hardware novert' once. It was useless for anything but Doom (you never realize how much you love your y-axis until it's gone), but I didn't consider it to be cheating, and I can't see doing the same thing via software to be cheating either.

I'm not competitive enough to care though, so don't take my word for it.

[40oz]

I don't consider mouse cheating I just think autoaim is superior. Agree or die.

[bgraybr]

40oz said:

I don't consider mouse cheating I just think autoaim is superior. Agree or die.

This thread isn't about mouse aiming.

Novert blocks any vertical mouse movement, which in vanilla causes forward/backwards movement which can be disorientating and hard to control.

[printz]

I like vertical mouse-triggered movement in Doom. It lets you walk without having to extend your left hand to reach W or S (so you can play Doom just with one hand), and is particularly useful when punching demons.

[Maes]

Mithran Denizen said:

I modded an old mouse by ripping apart and resoldering its pieces to force 'hardware novert' once. It was useless for anything but Doom (you never realize how much you love your y-axis until it's gone).

Heh I have an old opto-mechanical mouse that developed that same condition spontaneously. Maybe I can sell it as a "Doom optimized mouse" ? ;-)

But seriously, I always considered vertical movement a total hindrance. It simply does not fit in with the typical Doom gameplay (there's no situation where you'd want e.g. a small controllable forward speed, this ain't no heli sim, and there are plenty where you want Doomguy to be pinned to the ground instead).

At best, I consider vertical movement a sort of fake difficulty or crippled control scheme. And no, disabling it is not cheating since with the keyboard you can have exactly that: on demand, single-spot pivoting.

printz said:

I like vertical mouse-triggered movement in Doom. It lets you walk without having to extend your left hand to reach W or S (so you can play Doom just with one hand), and is particularly useful when punching demons.

The punching demons part makes sense, provided that then -and ONLY then- you also have high sensitivity in the y-axis which allows you to dart back and forth when punching, otherwise it would be too slow.

But using it for walking....makes little sense unless you have to simulate "stealthy steps" or something.

Perhaps the best thing would be to have it toggle-able on and off with a button, just like always run and mouselook.

[Sigvatr]

hex11 said:

I play with keyboard only. Mouse is cheating. :)

[dew]

Maes said:

there's no situation where you'd want e.g. a small controllable forward speed

vert mouse movement facilitates glides

[chungy]

Vertical mouse movement is only useful for trackballs.

[Graf Zahl]

This was the main reason why I never played with the mouse before some source ports made it a switchable option.

Novert is not cheating, just adding a control option id forgot to implement.

[Maes]

dew said:

vert mouse movement facilitates glides

What are they/who uses them anyway? :-p

'tis Doom, not some precision drilling ;-)

[printz]

Maes said:

The punching demons part makes sense, provided that then -and ONLY then- you also have high sensitivity in the y-axis which allows you to dart back and forth when punching, otherwise it would be too slow.

I forgot to mention that it lets you better control your running speed than the keyboard buttons, making you feel less mechanical. But anyway, as for punching demons, I saw nightmare demos with the player moving only 10cm backwards in order to avoid getting bitten, so I don't think mouse speed is an issue.

[kristus]

I have vertical movement on in EE. But there I have it set up to a lesser value than that in Vanilla Doom as I find that one too much.

[Koko Ricky]

chungy said:

Vertical mouse movement is only useful for trackballs.

You said it, buddy. I used to play Doom on my dad's laptop from work, back in the mid 90s. He had a trackball mouse and it worked really well for Doom.

[Grazza]

printz said:

But anyway, as for punching demons, I saw nightmare demos with the player moving only 10cm backwards in order to avoid getting bitten, so I don't think mouse speed is an issue.

Yes, if you watch Donce's NM demos in particular, you'll very often see him avoiding damage by drifting backwards ever so slightly when fighting them. I'm guessing he does this with mouse movement.

I recall Adam Hegyi also used mouse movement. I'm not sure exactly what his rationale was, but he clearly achieved a degree of fine control of his movement that few others have matched.

Glides are the most clear-cut usefulness of mouse movement, as others have indicated. Precisely why (more or less) was explained by Creaphis in this post, although the usefulness of low movement speed had been shown by cack-handed several years earlier.

[_bruce_]

novert = godsend.

[mcopo]

I think mouse movement useful sometimes. After playing Wolfeinstein 3D mostly with mouse, and keyboard for running only, you get used to this.

[Megamur]

I say, who cares if it's cheating or not? It's just a game, after all, and games are designed to be enjoyed. If you derive more enjoyment from using Novert, by all means, use it.

Besides, if I remember correctly, I thought it was possible to disable vertical mouse movement in DOOM/DOS with autoexec trickery or something. Novert just makes the process simpler.

[mcopo]

Megamur said:

I say, who cares if it's cheating or not? It's just a game, after all, and games are designed to be enjoyed. If you derive more enjoyment from using Novert, by all means, use it.

INDEED!

But doom isn't a game, it's THE game :D

[EarthQuake]

It helps in multiplayer when you're trying to be stealthy. That very fine mouse movement is great for peeking around corners without revealing too much of yourself.

Besides, it nice when you can reach for a can of soda while still navigating a level.

[Xeros612]

Forward/backward movement caused by the mouse is terrible and it should in no way be considered cheating to disable it. Wasn't there an option to disable it in the DOS executable? Or am I just thinking about the chocolate Doom executable?

[Grazza]

Xeros612 said:

Wasn't there an option to disable it in the DOS executable?

If so, there would have been no need for anyone to create Novert.

On the "Is Novert cheating?" question, I don't think so. After all, you could achieve the same effect by physically altering your mouse or by using a mouse that provides the option of reducing vertical sensitivity. This is a far cry from something like a strafe-50 mouse driver, which is a specific hack of the driver for the purpose of automating something rather unnatural that is very hard to achieve in any other way.

[DuckReconMajor]

It's just in Chocolate Doom.

Inspired by this thread I re-installed vanilla Doom and played it some without novert, it's not too bad so far, maybe I can get used to it. Anyway someday I want to get back to playing Wolfenstein, which I quit partly because I couldn't disable vertical mouse movement.

[Grazza]

DuckReconMajor said:

Anyway someday I want to get back to playing Wolfenstein, which I quit partly because I couldn't disable vertical mouse movement.

There's nothing Doom-specific about Novert. You could use it with Wolf3D in just the same way.

[Megamur]

Grazza said:

There's nothing Doom-specific about Novert. You could use it with Wolf3D in just the same way.

Though I've found it causes menu screens to go a bit mad and your cursor will constantly scroll through the selectable items. At least, that's what happened to me. Worked fine otherwise, though.

[DuckReconMajor]

Yeah, it happened to me, and I just couldn't deal with it. Then I read quite the opposite from what Grazza is saying, that it was meant for Doom and not really much else, and it made sense.

[myk]

Samurai Fox said:
As much as it helps in many situations, I feel that using the novert utility could be considered cheating because it's simply not a part of the game in any way.

It's part of the mouse, which is used by the game. The only difference with mouse drivers or mice that do the same or are even more powerful by allowing degrees of vertical sensitivity or to turn it on and off during runtime, is that it was made to be used specifically with DOOM.

Xeros612 said:
Forward/backward movement caused by the mouse is terrible and it should in no way be considered cheating to disable it.

For speed running or general play it tends to be a handicap, but in deathmatch it can be useful because it offers quick acceleration.