Are voodoo dolls coop friendly?

[Tuxlar]

My impression is a game mode where Player 1 isn't compulsory (I think this is only relevant for more modern source ports...?), such as when a game's Player 1 player leaves the server, would essentially break all voodoo-powered contraptions (unless some tedious, restrictive redundancy was in effect using player 2-4 voodoo dolls). Either the voodoo dolls would just cease to be, or somehow no longer correctly behave without the respective player to indicate their health status and such. Is this a valid concern?

[Memfis]

Speaking about ZDaemon, not sure about other ports since I don't use them often.

If there are voodoo dolls on the map, they will always appear no matter how many players are on the server. Oh, and you need correct server settings for them to appear (there is a certain DMFLAG that disables voodoo dolls).

[Tuxlar]

Ah, so I guess this is an intentional accommodation most ports could be expected to have? I'll expect as much for my map, then.

[wesleyjohnson]

DoomLegacy 1.44 later alphas and 1.45 have coop play with voodoo doll fixes to the engine behavior. There is a menu option to have player 1 voodoo dolls affect all players, to play maps that did not take coop in to account.

If a player leaves the game, then I expect that they just won't respawn.
That would leave them as a player 1 corpse.
Have not tested this.

[Ribbiks]

interesting. so what happens if a voodoo doll gets crushed or telefragged, do all players die? I bet that gets tricky when people start respawning.

[traversd]

What sort of stuff are you looking to do with the voodoo dolls Tuxlar?

If it is for scripts that affect doors/lifts/floors/ceilings/stairs you might get by without them -> http://www.doomworld.com/vb/doom-editing/64263-boom-using-generalised-linedefs-for-scripting-in-multiplayer/

I am (slowly) fixing my maps for 1994TU to use a decoration thing instead wherever possible.

[Tuxlar]

traversd said:

What sort of stuff are you looking to do with the voodoo dolls Tuxlar?

If it is for scripts that affect doors/lifts/floors/ceilings/stairs you might get by without them -> http://www.doomworld.com/vb/doom-editing/64263-boom-using-generalised-linedefs-for-scripting-in-multiplayer/

I am (slowly) fixing my maps for 1994TU to use a decoration thing instead wherever possible.

Interesting. Actually, I assumed because they were failing regularly that Things didn't trigger linedefs, but I knew this must have been wrong, as I know there are things they do trigger. Apparently, specifying 'Yes' to the 'crush' and 'change' flags makes this the case?

In that case, the only use for voodoos would be to emulate damage, or enable crushers and such.

[traversd]

Yes, and any lighting or exit linedef types.

I'm compiling a (wish) list for extended set of boom generalised linedef types - which given the other port features about at present will most likely stay both wishful and a list ;0)

[Superluigieth1]

In my "The EVIL Sacrifice" Had teleports for all 4 players.

[Foxpup]

I've done extensive testing of voodoo dolls in coop, mostly in vanilla, but most ports except Legacy don't change the behaviour much.

Voodoo dolls are only spawned for each player who is present at the start of the level. For example, the player 1 voodoo doll will not be spawned if player 1 disconnected on a previous level and the remaining players continued without him (which can happen even in vanilla). Voodoo dolls already spawned do not disappear or die when a player disconnects during a level, nor (in modern ports) are new dolls spawned as additional players join. This of course assumes that the map designer actually remembered to place voodoo dolls for players 2 and up.

Voodoo dolls do not keep track of who damaged them; that is, damaging the player 1 voodoo doll will damage player 1, regardless of who inflicted the damage (Doom Legacy has an option to fix this, but it's not perfect). Likewise, the player 1 voodoo doll picking up items will give said items to player 1, not any other player.

Death by voodoo doll causes a strange effect in multiplayer: the real player's body will remain standing (this happens in single player too, but is not noticed as the player cannot see his own body), even after the player has respawned. The standing body can be "killed" again, and this does not harm the player.

Finally, remember that dead voodoo dolls never respawn, so voodoo doll deathtraps will only work once.

[wesleyjohnson]

Consider the following. There is an electric arc across a door and if the player walks into it they die. This is done with a linedef trigger that releases a voodoo doll into a teleporter that telefrag it with another voodoo doll.

The usual behavior for port is to spawn the extra player1 as a player1 voodoo doll. It damages player1 and no other. So if player3 walks into the electric arc, player1 standing across the room explodes into a telefrag cloud. This is not right, apologies must be offered by player3.

DoomLegacy has some menu options to alter this behavior. One of them tries to connect the last player who triggered something to the damage received. So in this case, player3 walks into the electric arc triggering the linedef. DoomLegacy remembers that player3 triggered a linedef. When the voodoo doll gets the telefrag damage, it is given to the last player who triggered a linedef, player3 instead of player1.

It is possible to fool it with race conditions. If player3 walks into the electric arc, and player1 pushes a button in the short interval before the voodoo doll can move into the teleporter. Player1 triggered the last linedef (the button) so player1 explodes in the telefrag caused by player3.

[Foxpup]

wesleyjohnson said:

Consider the following. There is an electric arc across a door and if the player walks into it they die. This is done with a linedef trigger that releases a voodoo doll into a teleporter that telefrag it with another voodoo doll.

I should point out that this won't work except on MAP30, as voodoo dolls otherwise can't telefrag anything.

wesleyjohnson said:

DoomLegacy has some menu options to alter this behavior. One of them tries to connect the last player who triggered something to the damage received.

This is DoomLegacy's default behaviour on maps that only include player 1 voodoo dolls. This option only needs to be specifically selected to enable this behaviour on maps with voodoo dolls for players 2-4, which is not recommended since the map designer probably knows what they're doing in that case.