The Doom Confessional Booth

[leodoom85]

14 minutes ago, Inno said:

HR reasons

HR 1 and 2 (and the rest of the slaughtermaps) can be played whatever the hell that we want....call it vanilla or modded. Up to the players. That's reason enough to enjoy. The rest can be considered in a specific thread.....which it won't be surprising that the thread falls into the same argument over and over and over and over again...it really gets tiring to watch imho

 

 

[Inno]

1 minute ago, leodoom85 said:

HR 1 and 2 (and the rest of the slaughtermaps) can be played whatever the hell that we want...

And no one said otherwise, so what're you fussing about?

[leodoom85]

Just now, Inno said:

And no one said otherwise, so what're you fussing about?

No one's fussing here. Just an opinion of mine.

[Inno]

Just now, leodoom85 said:

No one's fussing here. Just an opinion of mine.

Ah, then I apologise. I suppose I'm not understanding your previous post. It seemed like a reply to something I'd said, but I'm not sure what you were replying to, exactly.

[leodoom85]

4 minutes ago, Inno said:

Ah, then I apologise. I suppose I'm not understanding your previous post. It seemed like a reply to something I'd said, but I'm not sure what you were replying to, exactly.

Just TL:DR your opinion regarding HR, that's all. Because you can edit other's quotes ;)

[Linguica]

SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!!!!!!     

[bonnie]

19 minutes ago, Benjogami said:

It doesn't matter how bold or italicized you make it, all you're doing is repeating an even more poorly formed version of your original argument and adding some derision to it, without addressing any of my points.

Except I addressed all of your points, except for the one about memory, which would have been repetitive by that point. And I was bolding and italicizing the words "quite obviously" so as to make it clear to you that you trying so desperately to find the one scenario in which what I said wasn't 100% correct is a pretty poor tactic in an argument.

 

19 minutes ago, Benjogami said:

And who decides which games should do what? Might it be the designer?

Absolutely no idea what you're trying to say here. Yes, of course the designer decides that? But we as human beings can also decide that if you're playing an FPS but then the game shouldn't suddenly try to test your patience by forcing you to run in circles for 30 seconds if you want to keep playing. It doesn't fit the rest of the game at all.

 

19 minutes ago, Benjogami said:

You're only convincing me further that the concept of artificial difficulty exists only to blame the designer for one's own bad feelings, by insisting there's something objectively incorrect about how they made something.

You've thoroughly convinced me that you didn't even look at my post. It REALLY seems like you just blindly highlighted something, quoted it, and based your next post off of it.

 

19 minutes ago, Benjogami said:

In any case, I was referring to all games, which includes Doom and your hypothetical games, so it doesn't even matter.

If you had read my at all, you would have seen me say "if you pretend that different games don't have differing concepts of skill and thus different kinds of artificial difficulty, and then proceed to massively misconstrue and badly misunderstand everything I say (possibly on purpose?), then yeah it's not artificial difficulty." The point is that you CAN'T refer to all games. You can't generalize skill like that.

 

Unfortunately, no matter what you say, artificial difficulty is and always will be an existing, objective concept, with differing applications depending on the scenario. It doesn't matter if you like it. What you both seem to not understand is that your opinion of the artificial difficulty in question is completely irrelevant. It's still artificial difficulty, even if you love it.

 

I don't understand what you two have been trying to accomplish. You've been wrong every step of the way and are only digging a deeper hole for yourselves.

 

Please, for the love of heck, just get over it.

[leodoom85]

3 minutes ago, Linguica said:

SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!!!!!!     

What weapon you need to purge this thing? 

• BFG
• Flamethrower
• A black hole generator
• A portal gun 

 

[Mayomancer]

I've been eating sweet potatoes instead of studying. My grades are dropping

[Nirvana]

1 hour ago, bonnie said:

Except I addressed all of your points, except for the one about memory, which would have been repetitive by that point. And I was bolding and italicizing the words "quite obviously" so as to make it clear to you that you trying so desperately to find the one scenario in which what I said wasn't 100% correct is a pretty poor tactic in an argument.

 

You just did this exact thing to Heels for like 3 posts in a row...

 

Quote

Unfortunately, no matter what you say, artificial difficulty is and always will be an existing, objective concept, with differing applications depending on the scenario. It doesn't matter if you like it. What you both seem to not understand is that your opinion of the artificial difficulty in question is completely irrelevant. It's still artificial difficulty, even if you love it.

 

Having read all of your examples I still don't see why any of the implementations of difficulty you have mentioned would be considered 'artificial'. That is the part you need to define. Artificial seems to indicate that it acts outside of the bounds of some form of 'true' difficulty. If player skill is the determining factor for what determines 'true difficulty' then you have to find something that isn't a learned skill that is being tested by a map to call it 'artificial'. Foreknowledge is a skill because it involves learning the layout of the map (to say otherwise is to say that speedrunning in general is not skilful). RNG is a factor that is outside of the player's control but dealing with and mitigating RNG is still a skill - or dealing with the challenges that are put forward by RNG. 

I think a lot of what players determine as 'artificial difficulty' relies on their own presuppositions of what difficulty is supposed to be. This is the problem. The supposed 'objective term' is based on a number of subjective factors. It's ridiculous to determine this as 'objective', as if difficulty is some Platonic ideal that exists irrespective of human bias. You have your own personal assessment of what 'true' difficulty is and you are going into a mapset with that in mind, then it angers you when you die to things you perceive to exist outside of those truths. 

 

The fact is, 'artificial' isn't useful as a descriptor at all. Every mapper has their own definition of difficulty and so does every player. The problem seems to be when those two perceptions don't align, one of the two -usually the player- decries the other for being 'wrong' about what difficulty is. There is a reason Ribbiks constantly has to tell people not to play his wads on UV, because everyone has a preconceived idea of what UV is 'supposed to be' and it is very different to what he wants UV to be. These preconceived notions of what UV is 'supposed to be' need to go away so that mappers can feel free to experiment without being told they are 'wrong' when making wads that are of a difficulty level that they -and a lot of others- enjoy.

[xvertigox]

My confession is that I don't know many of the secrets in the iwads and I don't really care. I have a set route for each level that I follow each time more or less exactly the same. I think I'm pretty shit at finding secrets in general, do people generally try to get 100% secrets even after they've located the exit?

[bonnie]

3 minutes ago, Nirvana said:

You just did this exact thing to Heels for like 3 posts in a row...

Sorry, but no I didn't.

 

3 minutes ago, Nirvana said:

Having read all of your examples I still don't see why any of the implementations of difficulty you have mentioned would be considered 'artificial'. That is the part you need to define.

4 minutes ago, Nirvana said:

Artificial seems to indicate that it acts outside of the bounds of some form of 'true' difficulty. If player skill is the determining factor for what determines 'true difficulty' then you have to find something that isn't a learned skill that is being tested by a map to call it 'artificial'.

5 minutes ago, Nirvana said:

Foreknowledge is a skill because it involves learning the layout of the map

5 minutes ago, Nirvana said:

(to say otherwise is to say that speedrunning in general is not skilful)

5 minutes ago, Nirvana said:

RNG is a factor that is outside of the player's control but dealing with and mitigating RNG is still a skill - or dealing with the challenges that are put forward by RNG. 

5 minutes ago, Nirvana said:

I think a lot of what players determine as 'artificial difficulty' relies on their own presuppositions of what difficulty is supposed to be.

5 minutes ago, Nirvana said:

The supposed 'objective term' is based on a number of subjective factors.

9 minutes ago, Nirvana said:

Every mapper has their own definition of difficulty and so does every player.

 

Weird decision to try and bait me by purposely saying the opposite of what I've been saying in every post as if you literally didn't read any of it, especially while knowing how @Linguica feels about this argument.

[seed]

5 hours ago, Linguica said:

SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!!!!!!     

 

Yes please, it's been a day since this discussion started 3 or 4 pages ago and it's still going.

 

And it was pointless from the very beginning. Well, it's a good show to watch at least.

[Chezza]

I confess that I know little about the wads in question. I'm really out of the loop for popular Doom Wads. Except for Valiant, played it and it was great although a bit tiring to complete in a week.

[Doomkid]

4 hours ago, xvertigox said:

My confession is that I don't know many of the secrets in the iwads and I don't really care. I have a set route for each level that I follow each time more or less exactly the same. I think I'm pretty shit at finding secrets in general, do people generally try to get 100% secrets even after they've located the exit?

 

While finding my way to the exit I try to keep my eyes out for secrets, but once I'm standing in front of the switch, it's getting pressed. In the case of maps I replay several times I'll try to hunt a little harder the 2nd or 3rd time around, but I never get pedantic about it. That approach has actually given me some sweet surprises over the years where I find a new, cool little corner of a beloved mapset 10+ years after my first time through!

[Lila Feuer]

Secrets I can't find I live with, even in IWADs, I don't consult walkthroughs or guides. If I ever do happen upon them, it's like a little extra reward for being more attentive.

[leodoom85]

5 hours ago, xvertigox said:

My confession is that I don't know many of the secrets in the iwads and I don't really care. I have a set route for each level that I follow each time more or less exactly the same. I think I'm pretty shit at finding secrets in general, do people generally try to get 100% secrets even after they've located the exit?

Hey, I like finding secrets....even if it's a shitty one...

[seed]

5 hours ago, Lila Feuer said:

Secrets I can't find I live with, even in IWADs, I don't consult walkthroughs or guides. If I ever do happen upon them, it's like a little extra reward for being more attentive.

 

Sort of the same, but I do consult walkthroughs if I aim for 100% (when you're a completionist...), which has not been the case of any Doom game as of yet.

 

Which leads to the confession that I have never played the Wolfenstein secret level in Doom 2 by myself.

Edited July 3, 2018 by Agent6

[bioshockfan90]

unpopular opinion: i like ancient aliens and it is a very fun wad by my favorite mapper skillsaw :)

 

 

(please don't kill me this argument is a headache and a half and ling sums it up best, lets get back to what this thread was made for shall we?)

[leodoom85]

21 minutes ago, bioshockfan90 said:

unpopular opinion: i like ancient aliens and it is a very fun wad by my favorite mapper skillsaw :)

 

 

(please don't kill me this argument is a headache and a half and ling sums it up best, lets get back to what this thread was made for shall we?)

I liked map 24 of that wad (the sky map and props to the mapper who made it) just for the unique look of it and I wished that were more maps of that type.....shame that wasn't more of it...

[rehelekretep]

@lupinx-Kassman i believe - lovely map :)

[Dragonfly]

@leodoom85 - You'll be pleased to know that @AtroNx is continuing that style on with Kassman's blessing. I even contributed a map to their project. The project is currently going by the name 'Eden' though there is another well known wad of the same name, so I assume AtroNx will change the name at some point?

Edited July 3, 2018 by Dragonfly : I can't spell "wad", apparently!

[damerell]

7 hours ago, Lila Feuer said:

Secrets I can't find I live with, even in IWADs, I don't consult walkthroughs or guides. If I ever do happen upon them, it's like a little extra reward for being more attentive.

Here's my confession; I don't like secrets, or rather, I don't like what they do.

When I play a PWAD, I'm probably going to play it once, maybe twice. Secrets mean there's bits of that PWAD I'll either never see - I won't spot them all on a single or double playthrough - or will have to cheat to see. In my ideal world every PWAD level would give you an computer map near the end so you could go back and see anything you missed.

At least we are past the 199x tendency to mark all the linedefs in a secret invisible on the automap. I think I still have a Perl script somewhere for undoing that in a fairly crude way.

(I've also got an unpopular opinion on modern WAD design, but I've had that argument before...)

[Aquila Chrysaetos]

9 minutes ago, damerell said:

At least we are past the 199x tendency to mark all the linedefs in a secret invisible on the automap. I think I still have a Perl script somewhere for undoing that in a fairly crude way.

I'm a jerk because I like to mark them as invisible and the walls leading to them as one-sided.

In UDMF format, I make the sectors themselves invisible or, failing that, make the things in the secrets count as the secrets.

I like secrets that are out of the way, if that makes sense. If they're visible, it makes it better, I think.

 

Here's another confession: I love custom textures. Some maps I've made were done entirely with custom textures.

I don't mind custom sprites and weapons and things, but the IWAD textures don't have enough variety for me.

I've also got a major thing for liquid textures.

[seed]

26 minutes ago, Aquila Chrysaetos said:

Here's another confession: I love custom textures. Some maps I've made were done entirely with custom textures.

I don't mind custom sprites and weapons and things, but the IWAD textures don't have enough variety for me.

I've also got a major thing for liquid textures.

 

Who doesn't. You can do so much with your imagination, but without enough variety even that has its limits. In fact, some of my favorite PWADs use plenty of custom textures, sprites and so on.

 

Also I'm indifferent towards secrets, as long as not finding them doesn't make your day suck.

[DMPhobos]

1 hour ago, Aquila Chrysaetos said:

Here's another confession: I love custom textures. Some maps I've made were done entirely with custom textures.
I don't mind custom sprites and weapons and things, but the IWAD textures don't have enough variety for me.

Nothing wrong with that, in fact i found out that i tend to stick to custom textures most of the time, however making a small map using stock textures is a nice challenge to impose yourself, specially since i found out that as your skill improves, you'll soon try to make the most out of the stock textures and rely more on architecture to create a more visually interesting map

[CasualScrub]

Basically what the title says, what opinions about this franchise do you differ on than most?

[Dragonsbrethren]

PC-style save games suck: They remove any need to improve, simply letting you erase any mistakes, and the vanilla behavior is to unalert all monsters. I'd rather play a tough wad on HNTR than save-scum my way through it.

[BigDickBzzrak]

2 hours ago, damerell said:

 At least we are past the 199x tendency to mark all the linedefs in a secret invisible on the automap. I think I still have a Perl script somewhere for undoing that in a fairly crude way.

 

Vanilla has this kinda quirk where you could see some lines through walls, even 1-sided ones, which possibly leads to uncovering secrets purely by accident, so the whole hiding-stuff-on-the-map kinda makes sense. I used to always do that in my maps for that reason

[ETTiNGRiNDER]

17 hours ago, leodoom85 said:

• A black hole generator

I prefer the stellar converter; blowing up planets is generally more fun than inducing the game to crash.

 

...wait, what were we talking about again?  Anyway, since the forum for some reason loaded me up to an old post on here about mishearing the Batman Doom enemies, it reminded me that I used to think that the Wolfenstein guys in the secret levels said "Shoot!  Stop 'im!" and "I'm leaving!" or "I'm bleeding!"