The Doom Confessional Booth

[Spectre01]

You're damn right we'll judge you! Why even bother with resurrect when you can just quicksave? It's perfectly legitimate for a casual play through unless you're abusing the feature to "TAS" encounters you otherwise can't beat.

[Rayziik]

roadworx said:

playing on a lower difficulty makes me feel like i'm a sissy and people will judge me tho ):

I'll judge you (and surely a bunch of others will, as well) more for NOT using the difficulties as they are intended to be.

It's like playing an instrument; unless you are some sort of naturally talented god, you'll never be able to pick it up and play something at full speed and make no mistakes. You'll start at a slower tempo and learn the passage first, and gradually rise in skill until you can play the passage at full speed without mistakes. As you practice more and more with different passages, you will develop skills that make learning them easier, and as such you will eventually be able to play passages after only practicing them a few times, perhaps not even at reduced speed.

This is essentially the same when it comes to playing Doom. Play the game at the next lower difficulty. If you can't make it through without dying or you still have to save/load a lot more times than you like, drop down a further level. Learn the maps first, along with the general composition of the enemies within them. When you can beat the levels/game without saving/loading/dying or however YOU feel comfortable with, then you can start to increase the difficulty. Forcing yourself to play the game at a difficulty you can't immediately survive in will only lead you to disliking the game and you probably won't find as much enjoyment from it as you want to. From how you described your performance already, I wager you are already experiencing this.

[rehelekretep]

Fonze said:

I think it has to do just with us being creatures of habit. Most people don't use freelook in demo recording, so in practice they do not use it either.

As for software vs hardware, I'm unaware of any differences aside from the OpenGL stuff between GLBoom+ and PrBoom+, so it is somewhat interesting that few people seem to use GLBoom+ and almost nobody maps specifically for it.

just to elaborate, i thought id test it out:

Sunlust Map28 - Maelstrom, nomonsters test (1st minute running through the map, same route both times)

GlBoom+
Frames: 7504 - Time: 60000ms - Avg: 125.067 - Min: 29 - Max: 331
PrBoom+
Frames: 3151 - Time: 60000ms - Avg: 52.517 - Min: 27 - Max: 78

to be fair my GPU is 1 year old, my CPU is 8 years old!
i really like the software lighting but its unplayable. is there any technical reason why software style lighting cannot be replicated in an OpenGL method?

[roadworx]

Rayzik said:

I'll judge you (and surely a bunch of others will, as well) more for NOT using the difficulties as they are intended to be.

It's like playing an instrument; unless you are some sort of naturally talented god, you'll never be able to pick it up and play something at full speed and make no mistakes. You'll start at a slower tempo and learn the passage first, and gradually rise in skill until you can play the passage at full speed without mistakes. As you practice more and more with different passages, you will develop skills that make learning them easier, and as such you will eventually be able to play passages after only practicing them a few times, perhaps not even at reduced speed.

This is essentially the same when it comes to playing Doom. Play the game at the next lower difficulty. If you can't make it through without dying or you still have to save/load a lot more times than you like, drop down a further level. Learn the maps first, along with the general composition of the enemies within them. When you can beat the levels/game without saving/loading/dying or however YOU feel comfortable with, then you can start to increase the difficulty. Forcing yourself to play the game at a difficulty you can't immediately survive in will only lead you to disliking the game and you probably won't find as much enjoyment from it as you want to. From how you described your performance already, I wager you are already experiencing this.

thanks; you actually motivated me to try and go through the original doom on a lower difficulty. this time without cheating! :)

[Mehlord]

I can't beat map29 of Scythe 1

[Tracer]

rileymartin said:

You're damn right we'll judge you! Why even bother with resurrect when you can just quicksave? It's perfectly legitimate for a casual play through unless you're abusing the feature to "TAS" encounters you otherwise can't beat.

What is a TAS Encounter?

[Bauul]

roadworx said:

thanks; you actually motivated me to try and go through the original doom on a lower difficulty. this time without cheating! :)

If it helps motivate you to know, I've been playing Doom for 22 years, and I very rarely (if ever) pick Ultra-Violence.

I play Hurt Me Plenty, because I know that's where my ability sits. Sometimes with notoriously hard Wads I'll play HNTR. Doom has a full five difficulty settings for a reason!

[Spectre01]

TraceOfSpades said:

What is a TAS Encounter?

When you can't clear a fight without reloading and saving every few seconds.

[scifista42]

TraceOfSpades said:

What is a TAS Encounter?

A situation within the game (specific usage of monsters or other obstacles that prevent the player from winning) that is so hard and harsh that beating it may require "half-cheating" methods, such as abusing saves/loads or using TAS (Tool Assisted Speedrunning) tools for building artificial demo recordings, improving your maneuverability or showing you information that you wouldn't naturally have access to within the game.

[Guest Unregistered account]

I've recently found it a whole load of fun to play GLBoom and go to Options > General and set the Game speed, Percentage of normal to like 15-50. It's like playing Doom in the matrix! It's great amusement, moonwalking around demons and watching them lumber over to you as you blast them with your shotgun (which takes several millennia to reload), and it helps with your aim and your dodging skills. But you have to remember to do this in GLBoom, NOT PRBoom because, in the software renderer, the "game speed" also counts the rendering - so the game will become increasingly choppy the slower you set it.

[scifista42]

Kapanyo said:

in the software renderer, the "game speed" also counts the rendering - so the game will become increasingly choppy the slower you set it.

Not if you go to "Options -> General" and set "Uncapped framerate" on the first page to "Yes". And conversely, rendering will become choppy in GlBoom-plus if you set "Uncapped framerate" to "No". The type of renderer doesn't matter, the "Uncapped framerate" option does.

[Guest Unregistered account]

Oh, okay, thanks for clearing that up. I must have missed that while switching between the two on D-Touch.

[damerell]

rehelekretep said:

is there any technical reason why software style lighting cannot be replicated in an OpenGL method?

No. As mentioned upthread, one of the current GLboom+ lighting models is really very like software lighting. I forget which, I'm afraid, but it only takes a quick fiddle to find it.

[rehelekretep]

had a look at the options(Options-General-OpenGL Options-Sector Light Mode), couldnt get it to look quite right (see for yourself):

Software mode
http://i.imgur.com/dRXrF7y.png?1

Software with GL surface


GLBoom+ lighting


Fog lighting


Shader lighting


GZdoom lighting


http://imgur.com/a/oVaXX

i think 'shader' looks closest but not quite the same

[baja blast rd.]

I find Big Mac Davis's style hilarious. It evokes, like, airplane instructional announcements. "Before stowing your carry-ons, make sure you have killed any revenants in the overhead bin."

[rehelekretep]

when i was a nub i watched Big Mac Davis's Doom 2 playthrough because i kept getting lost...

[roadworx]

Bauul said:

If it helps motivate you to know, I've been playing Doom for 22 years, and I very rarely (if ever) pick Ultra-Violence.

I play Hurt Me Plenty, because I know that's where my ability sits. Sometimes with notoriously hard Wads I'll play HNTR. Doom has a full five difficulty settings for a reason!

really?
wow i thought everybody played on UV

[Bauul]

roadworx said:

really?
wow i thought everybody played on UV

That's probably true. Mostly it's because the original IWADs are rather easy played on anything less than UV, as they were designed for a time people usually didn't use mouselook.

However, I personally believe that a WAD author today should treat the difficulty settings as they should be: HMP is "normal" (how the WAD is meant to be played). HNTR is an easier version and UV is a super-challenging version.

For some reason a lot of people jump straight to UV though as the default choice, even if the WAD author has implemented difficulties properly. It's weird.

[BigDickBzzrak]

Bauul said:

as they were designed for a time people usually didn't use mouselook.

Wait, you're saying that they DO use mouselook now? I always thought that using mouselook all the time is for sissies.

[Spectre01]

I use mouselook all the time and freelook during demo recordings, even if you're still restricted to auto-aim. Not being able to look up and down is so pre '96 maaan...

[roadworx]

bzzrak said:

Wait, you're saying that they DO use mouselook now? I always thought that using mouselook all the time is for sissies.

wait what's wrong with mouselook? using only the keyboard makes strafing and dodging projectiles way harder...and looking up and down to see monsters and admire the architecture is always nice.

next you're gonna tell me you only play in 320x200 resolution on your 1993 packard bell with DOS 6.22!

[Doomkid]

Personally I just use freelook in modern/newschool stuff and turn it off in old/classic styled stuff.

[Li'l devil]

Currently i play Doom on 320x240 resolution, even in PrBoom+ and (G)ZDoom. I just like the Vanilla crispyness. For me this crispyness makes the game somewhat scarier and i like it.

About mouselook, i use it only in GZDoom, because it's the only port (that i use) that can handle it properly (no screen warping like in ZDoom) and mouselook is necessary when playing mods like Brutal Doom, where you can do headshots.

[scifista42]

I don't play with mouse at all, but I have keys on the keyboard mapped for looking up/down and to center view in ports that support it, and I use them occasionally to aim at monsters above or below me, or to have a better look at things that are too high or too low to see.

Also, I think there's a confusion of the meaning of the word "mouselook" in this thread (as there always is when the topic comes up). Some people assume it means "turn left/right by mouse", and other people assume it means "look up/down".

[Rathori]

I've been playing so much Doom lately, I can't read properly anymore: I literally see Archviles everywhere instead of archives.

[Fonze]

scifista42 said:

Also, I think there's a confusion of the meaning of the word "mouselook" in this thread (as there always is when the topic comes up). Some people assume it means "turn left/right by mouse", and other people assume it means "look up/down".

Mouselook vs freelook vs freeaim, indeed

[BigDickBzzrak]

I sometimes hear Doom music in the surrounding sounds, mostly E1M1 and E1M9. Feels kinda creepy.

[damerell]

rehelekretep said:

i think 'shader' looks closest but not quite the same

Shader is what I use. It looks pretty similar, apart from the sharp transitions near the player that are a result of the limited colourmap in software mode. I don't miss those.

I don't think the start of MAP01 is a good example. What I really find other lighting modes don't get right is attenuation at distance, and there isn't much of that to see...

[Jaxxoon R]

bzzrak said:

I sometimes hear Doom music in the surrounding sounds, mostly E1M1 and E1M9. Feels kinda creepy.

At least it's not D_RUNNIN.

[rehelekretep]

damerell said:

Shader is what I use. It looks pretty similar, apart from the sharp transitions near the player that are a result of the limited colourmap in software mode. I don't miss those.

I don't think the start of MAP01 is a good example. What I really find other lighting modes don't get right is attenuation at distance, and there isn't much of that to see...

fair enough. will try shader :)