things about Doom that bug or puzzle you?

[Hellbent]

I finally got zdoom running on Mavericks, and decided I'd jump into Inferno. On e3m2 there is something that always irks me a little, and it's the two medkits beyond the soul sphere. I've never been able to sneak passed the soul sphere to grab the medkits and then grab the soul sphere. What is something that puzzles you or irks you about doom (or doom 2).

[BaronOfStuff]

^
Item placement like that. Also, this:

[schwerpunk]

I always disliked when levels contained both a Berserk Pack and a Chainsaw, especially if I pick up the Chainsaw before realizing there's also a 'Zerk, fml.

One of my favourite maps -- E2M2 -- does this.

BaronOfStuff said:

^
Item placement like that. Also, this:
http://imageshack.com/a/img13/4734/s8mt.png

Clearly, Doomguy needs to layoff the health bonuses. :P

[BaronOfStuff]

schwerpunk said:

I always disliked when levels contained both a Berserk Pack and a Chainsaw, especially if I pick up the Chainsaw before realizing there's also a 'Zerk, fml.

One of my favourite maps -- E2M2 -- does this.

Why is this a problem? You can freely switch between Fist and Chainsaw if you get a Berserk powerup.

On that note, the Chainsaw making the basic Fist unselectable was always something I never understood or liked. By all means the Chainsaw should take priority over a non-Berserk'd Fist when you press '1', but would being able to switch between the two for whatever reason really have been too much to ask for?

[Zed]

This is particularly irritating.

[Memfis]

BaronOfStuff said:

Why is this a problem? You can freely switch between Fist and Chainsaw if you get a Berserk powerup.

Because chainsaw is first so you have to press "1" twice, which is annoying.

[duh]

[40oz]

MAP07: Dead Simple is an otherwise awesome map except that the Mancubi seem to shoot through walls more often than not. I've never played another map where mancubi successfully do that, but they nail me pretty often in that map.

[Phml]

I think they can do it in just about any map with thin walls. Happens to me so often I got into the habit of not using any cover, even though I'm probably worse at dodging manc projectiles in open areas...

[Maes]

XCOPY said:

I tend to use it as an advantage on competitive modes very often. If I had to compare doom to chess, BFG is the queen and the Rocket Launcher is the horse.

Heh weird. I would have made a chess analogy for the monsters, where I'd give the place of the "horse" (isn't it "Knight" in English?) to the Revenant.

• Zombies/Imps and Lost Souls: obviously Pawns. Depending on subtype, placement and map, they may represent pawns in different strategic situations, but still pretty weak.
  
• Cacodemons: Bishops. In theory, they are just as mobile as Rooks/Towers in chess, only "tilted", but in practice they are not all that useful, and much less so than a Knight, with which they are often considered equal in relative strength. Even in Doom, despite being able to fly, they are much less of a threat that Revenants.
  
• Revenants: those are the true Knights in Doom: they are not particularly tough, but they are not weak either, and they can deal a lot of damage and even take down monsters which -on paper- are stronger than themselves one-on-one. Their homing attack is much more relentless and effective than the Cacodemon's ability to fly against the player, which IMO makes them as effective and harassing as Knights are in Chess.
  

There are other analogies (e.g. Baron = Rooks, Cyberdemon/Archvile = Queen, Spider Mastermind = King or Rook, depending on the situation etc.) but I feel those are best discussed in another thread.

[schwerpunk]

40oz said:

MAP07: Dead Simple is an otherwise awesome map except that the Mancubi seem to shoot through walls more often than not. I've never played another map where mancubi successfully do that, but they nail me pretty often in that map.

Phml said:

I think they can do it in just about any map with thin walls. Happens to me so often I got into the habit of not using any cover, even though I'm probably worse at dodging manc projectiles in open areas...

I've noticed this manc fireball clipping as well, but I actually think it adds a nice challenge. I don't really know why it happens (mancuballs apparently travel 20 map units/tic, so maybe if a wall is thinner than that then the ball may skip right through it? *Shrug*). Anyway, it's happened to be accidentally when mapping, but I usually leave it in because it's a nice surprise.

[Vermil]

Why there wasn't more tag666/667 like effects in Doom2 than Map07 and Map32.

[Sqrrt121]

The horrible clipping. An example is action doom 2 first level secret

[Doominator2]

In doom 64 when you see an imps body, its asshole can be clearly seen.

EDIT: Oh ya thats right the hole/anus/mangina is used so a marine can easily bang him/her/it, Oh and avoozl I can just imagine the developers snickering while designing a sprite with a bullet wound in it crotch.

[Avoozl]

Maybe it's a bullet wound.

I believe the original Imp has a anus but I get the feeling that the guys making Doom 64 misinterpreted it as a bullet wound, it does look strangely shaped.

[Pirx]

Zed said:

This is particularly irritating.

heh. i remembered this demo because of a baron hitting the player through a wall.

[kmxexii]

40oz said:

MAP07: Dead Simple is an otherwise awesome map except that the Mancubi seem to shoot through walls more often than not. I've never played another map where mancubi successfully do that, but they nail me pretty often in that map.

It happened a lot when I was recording an FDA for playtesting Reverie's MAP09 in PrBoom+.

Only the blockmap one really bugs me.

[Maes]

Doominator2 said:

In doom 64 when you see an imps body, its asshole can be clearly seen.

Ever looked behind a Cacodemon or Pain Elemental?

[Demon of the Well]

The infinitely-tall actor restriction is absolutely my biggest beef with the original engine. Naturally I learned to co-exist with it long, long ago, but if I'm not playing in some kind of circumstance where leaving it on is meet (e.g. beta-testing a map designed for classic settings, etc.), I will invariably turn it off.

[Sokoro]

That there is scroll texture only into one direction.. Would it be so hard to make another action for oposite direction?

[Gez]

Sokoro said:

That there is scroll texture only into one direction.. Would it be so hard to make another action for oposite direction?

Very easy, actually, you have scrolls in all four directions, plus combined scrollers (e.g. up and left), and even variable scrolling speed, ever since Boom.

[Sokoro]

I know, but not in vanilla engine.
Were they somehow limited by ammount of actions they could include in the engine? I think it was most likely some action requested by one of the mappers, so they coded it for the direction he needed and then forgot about it.

[Sokoro]

BaronOfStuff said:

^
Item placement like that. Also, this:
http://imageshack.com/a/img13/4734/s8mt.png

Yeah, there is also lot of these hanged legs in some E2 maps where they do not have any difficulty flags so they do not appear in the map.
It all almost seem like there is some conspiracy or wicked witchery behind these hanged legs. Who knows, maybe when doom 4 comes out, then we are going to find out.

[Edward850]

Sokoro said:

I know, but not in vanilla engine.
Were they somehow limited by ammount of actions they could include in the engine? I think it was most likely some action requested by one of the mappers, so they coded it for the direction he needed and then forgot about it.

John Romero only coded in the map features that was needed for a maps that they were working on. Basically, there was never a need to scroll another direction, so it was never put in.

[darknation]

schwerpunk said:

I always disliked when levels contained both a Berserk Pack and a Chainsaw, especially if I pick up the Chainsaw before realizing there's also a 'Zerk, fml.

it's possible the berserk powerup was only meant to last a set amount of time in the planning stages, much like the rad suit. It would explain the red screen that slowly fades.

Whereas a chainsaw is for life, not just for christmas.

[Gez]

Pretty sure the red only fades because it'd be annoying to have red vision throughout the level; to the point that some people would deliberately not pick berserk packs up because of it.

All timed powerups have their colormap blink when they're close to ending. Berserk doesn't blink, it fades smoothly (as smoothly as the engine allows, anyway). Pretty sure that's deliberate.

[killer2]

I know item placement has been said before, but some people put armor bonuses near blue armor! Why!? I can understand the soulsphere medkit situation (you can grab the medkits after the overhealth wears off), but why put armor bonuses near blue armor? I mean sure, you could come back later to collect that 6 extra armor, but really now...that would be silly.

[MajorRawne]

I always used to argue with my brother about the berserk pack. He thought it lasted until the red faded, I knew it lasted the entire level.

It bugs me that only two of the Doom ports got the upgraded sound and Aubrey Hodges music. Prince's Doom 1 music was supreme cheese but likeable, the music to Doom 2 is just a disaster. There isn't one track I like. I have never been able to understand the enthusiasm for Prince's music, nor understand what kind of statement it made about rock music. Is it even rock music?

Also, Final Doom on the PSX. While IMO it contains the very best Master Levels and TNT levels, the box states there are two new 32-level episodes. Every source online seems to get this wrong as I've never seen anyone else complain that they got 30 levels instead of 64.

[Antroid]

MajorRawne said:

It bugs me that only two of the Doom ports got the upgraded sound and Aubrey Hodges music. Prince's Doom 1 music was supreme cheese but likeable, the music to Doom 2 is just a disaster. There isn't one track I like.

Can't agree here at all. I think most of Doom 2's music as well as Doom 1's is awesome. The only few tracks I don't care for are map02's, map04's and perhaps map08's. The rest are mostly pretty great. I mean, the text intermission, map03, 05, 07, 09, 10, 18, 20, 28... All very cool songs. I can't imagine Doom 2 having nearly the same atmosphere if it had a Hodges soundtrack. Same for Doom 1. In my books that only fits Doom 64. I mean, people like PSX Doom and all, but to me it's just all wrong... Perhaps you could say that the existence of PSX Doom the way it is really bugs me.

[Patrol1985]

I find it awkward that you can sometimes reach items / buttons through walls (i.e. grabbing the BFG through a wall in E4M2).

Speaking of mancubi shooting through walls on map07 - I experienced it only recently while using PrBoom+. Even though I set the proper compatibility level, I still thought it was this source port's bug. I assume that mancubi can also shoot through walls in vanilla Doom 2?