Things id got wrong

[mdmenzel]

Really they should have designed the levels so that monsters could hold the keycards (ie pickup from the corpse of a designated enemy just like ammo). If Doom was like a movie or book or something, the keys wouldn't just be lying around, they would be in the possession of a former human or something.

[Stupid Bunny]

mdmenzel said:

Really they should have designed the levels so that monsters could hold the keycards (ie pickup from the corpse of a designated enemy just like ammo). If Doom was like a movie or book or something, the keys wouldn't just be lying around, they would be in the possession of a former human or something.

Also, the demons should have been aliens, or people who got turned into freaks by a disease because they were assholes. If Doom was a movie or a book that's what would happen.

(That would've been a cool feature though...if Commander Keen 6 could do it why not Doom?)

[Gez]

You can do that with DeHackEd technically. You'll have to use the shotgunner or chaingunner as your key guardian monster, and change the shotgun or chaingun to use the key sprite. Then when you kill one and they drop their weapon, they actually drop a key, because Doom pickups work according to which sprite is displayed. To get back shotgun or chaingun pickups, do the reverse and edit a key to use the shotgun or chaingun pickup sprite.

Problem with dropped keys: make sure the monster cannot move under a door, a crusher, or at the edge of a platform that moves past a ceiling (like at several places of E1M2). If the key gets crushed, as a dropped item, it disappears and if the player hasn't picked it up yet, they can get stuck. I suppose it's fine if the key is only needed to get to a secret area and the regular exit can still be accessed without it.

Of course if it had been a regular feature of Doom, they would have coded in a key immunity to crushing. This actually was added to ZDoom some time ago.

It's also possible in Hexen without any real scripting. Use a Thing_Spawn special on a thing (since in Hexen maps, things can have specials too), using the spawn ID of the key. Kill the monster and a key will spawn.

[Xegethra]

I rather liked them being hell spawn, I've already killed a million aliens.

But as for Former Humans not dropping keys, I always took it as the keys were being hidden, or placed temporarily for later use by the demons. As the base is no longer run by humans, why would humans still be holding the keys? It makes more sense to me for the guys in charge, to have them placed elsewhere for whatever reason.

[Krazov]

In "Strife" there was a situation where a player had to kill a prison warden in order to obtain his, let's say, key--actually, his severed hand. So engine itself, at least later, allowed for such solutions. But there was no crushing anything around.

[mdmenzel]

Xegethra said:

I rather liked them being hell spawn, I've already killed a million aliens.

But as for Former Humans not dropping keys, I always took it as the keys were being hidden, or placed temporarily for later use by the demons. As the base is no longer run by humans, why would humans still be holding the keys? It makes more sense to me for the guys in charge, to have them placed elsewhere for whatever reason.

Well, if the marine had the key when he was turned, wouldn't the key still be on his person?

[Xegethra]

No, not if a demon in command had taken it off him to place it elsewhere.

[T-Rex]

I feel the level lineup of Doom 2 left a lot to be desired, probably cause most of the maps were designed by Sandy Petersen. Now, I think he's got neat concepts for his maps here and there, but in terms of map quality, many, if not all, are subpar and not as polished as the maps designed by John Romero and American McGee.

[Gez]

Removing the MF_COUNTKILL flag from lost souls because of the addition of Pain Elementals. Especially meaningless since they also added arch-viles and monster spawners. (And the Nightmare! skill.)

What they should have done is remove the COUNTKILL flag dynamically in the codepointers that spawn or resurrect a monster during the game, and let all monsters present at map start-up count.

[roadworx]

T-Rex said:

I feel the level lineup of Doom 2 left a lot to be desired, probably cause most of the maps were designed by Sandy Petersen. Now, I think he's got neat concepts for his maps here and there, but in terms of map quality, many, if not all, are subpar and not as polished as the maps designed by John Romero and American McGee.

Especially after The Pit *shivers*

[billbuckner]

Here's something about the Cyberdemon that isn't "he should have been the E3 boss". Doom generally does a very good job at implicitly communicating game mechanics with the art design- the implied rule of "bigger monster = more HP" is probably the most obvious example, but there's another good one: the enemy projectiles. Imps throw basic fireballs. Cacos throw red and blue fireballs that do more damage, and Barons throw green fireballs that look nothing like anything else in the game. It's good design, for two reasons: You can reasonably infer, without even touching them, that their projectiles do more damage than the standard imp fireballs, and, more importantly, they stand out as priority threats for the player to avoid.

So, with that being said, why the hell does the Cybie fire boring-looking brown rockets? Brown is a neutral color that often blends into the map, the rocket sprite is small, and makes it difficult to judge the distance of the rockets (which is important), and the result is that the most dangerous enemy projectiles in the game are really tough to see. You could make a case that it's part of the challenge, but I've never really liked that explanation. Cyberdemon rockets are priority threats to avoid (or guide into groups of monsters), and they should be highly visible to reflect that.

[Linguica]

By the time a player reaches E2M8, they will have become painfully aware of how dangerous their own rockets are, so to suddenly encounter an enemy that obviously (by look and sound) is lobbing those same rockets at you immediately sets the stakes in a way that a different new projectile sprite wouldn't do.

Don't forget that the Cyberdemon was originally designed as something you only encountered a single time, ever (not counting E3M9, which as a secret level doesn't really count). It's also the only monster whose projectiles have splash damage. So while the Cyberdemon could have had a new projectile sprite, the first time you were killed because its new fireball hit the wall next to you, it would have felt cheap. Whereas the first time a rocket hits the wall next to you and you die, you think, "well, I deserved that."

You could argue that the rocket sprite itself should have been more visible in general, but that also would carry over to deathmatch, and I'm sure id was aware of how brown and unassuming an incoming rocket looked, and were OK with it. In fact, if you look at E2M8, all the walls are brown! There's no way they could have not noticed that it was difficult to see incoming rockets, especially at 320x200, and decided that it was appropriate.

[The_MártonJános]

dethtoll said:

E2M9 can go fuck itself though

I guess - as the former commenter said - E2M9 is the real definition of a reject map, which truly looks like if being a 11 year old's third-fourth-fifth attempt to make a playable map.

[scifista42]

Cell said:

I guess - as the former commenter said - E2M9 is the real definition of a reject map, which truly looks like if being a 11 year old's third-fourth-fifth attempt to make a playable map.

It's true, but on the other hand, we have to keep in mind that their mapping editor back then wasn't as easy to work with as Doom Builder 2. Not to mention that quality standards haven't been defined yet, because Doom maps were the first of their kind. Sandy Petersen might have told himself: "I'm too busy making the other maps, so let's keep this one simple. It's not that bad, after all, and players won't have any other choice than to accept it, anyway." And that was it.

[Gez]

E2M9 was a gimmick map, the gimmick being to exploit infighting. At the time that map was made, this was a new concept and an idea not everybody had yet. E2M9 was a challenge; it's near impossible without infighting.

[VGA]

T-Rex said:

I feel the level lineup of Doom 2 left a lot to be desired, probably cause most of the maps were designed by Sandy Petersen. Now, I think he's got neat concepts for his maps here and there, but in terms of map quality, many, if not all, are subpar and not as polished as the maps designed by John Romero and American McGee.

If those two had to make as many maps (and as big) as sandy, you'd see the quality drop like a brick. Doom 2 development was way too short IMO.

[Koko Ricky]

VGA said:

If those two had to make as many maps (and as big) as sandy, you'd see the quality drop like a brick. Doom 2 development was way too short IMO.

Absolutely. Less than a year after the original Doom? I mean, c'mon! Granted, games typically took less than a year to develop back then, but still … I think id really should have waited until '95, even if that meant no Ultimate Doom. As great As Doom 2 is, it's clear that less than a year wasn't enough time.

[Avoozl]

Gez said:

E2M9 was a gimmick map, the gimmick being to exploit infighting. At the time that map was made, this was a new concept and an idea not everybody had yet. E2M9 was a challenge; it's near impossible without infighting.

Funny thing is I remember being able to complete it without actively trying to provoke any infighting.

[Krazov]

^^

Me too. I learned from wiki that it should involve infighting.

[ETTiNGRiNDER]

Avoozl said:

Funny thing is I remember being able to complete it without actively trying to provoke any infighting.

Same. I think it only works that way if you have to pistol-start it.

I always recall this with amusement whenever "E2M9 sucks" posts come up:
http://www.quakewiki.net/archives/qref/sandy.html

[Salt-Man Z]

Avoozl said:

Funny thing is I remember being able to complete it without actively trying to provoke any infighting.

Same here. I actually just played that level for the first time a couple months ago (on my first-ever UV run of the original game) and didn't have any real problems with it. Then again, I play continuous; likely pistol-starters would have to exploit infighting to get max kills.

[wesleyjohnson]

Too many of these posts give no regard to there being other styles of players and how some level maps and other id design elements were lacking. Doom II is does not support its story line in the actual level maps. For many of us, strategic planning is an integral part.
A player cannot strategic plan in Doom II where the only places where it appears you have figured it out, it is used to set and spring a trap.
For those of you who do not understand strategic planning in playing games like Doom, and believe that no one else should either, I have no sympathy towards your arguments.

The monsters are as they needed to be. Monsters happen, you cannot design them expressly for your personal style of play. It is part of the game to adapt to the monster that must be defeated, whatever it is.
The SpiderDemon was clearly the brain and needed to be last in the story. That it did not fight as well as a Cyberdemon is contest-style centric and denies the story-line and logic that other players enjoy.
The boss is never as hard to kill as their chief hit-man. There is a different satisfaction in killing the boss than just how strong they are.

Things that I cannot escape these days are more important.
1. Palette.
2. Fixing bugs in the wad instead of fixing them in the engine.
Notable: rising stair bug that we must maintain to make some levels playable.
3. Should never have implemented auto-aim. Other games of the era did it better with some control over what the target was. Descent manged to have free-aim and Doom should have too.
4. Chaingun looks like a tie-in to Rambo. It is a machine gun.
A chaingun should have many times the hitting power and a much higher firing rate.
5. Lack of a carry limit system. Other games limited the carry weight, and could drop things. Carrying 600 lbs of weapons and ammo is not reasonable. Carry 50 rockets is fanciful, maybe 10 if the player was not carrying anything else. Not being able to drop anything is too centric on one style of play.
6. Using palette tricks for things like invulnerability. This was just using the available mechanism for everything, without regards for appearance, nor how hampering it would become.
7. Repeating missile launcher. Is that thing magazine feed or what?
8. Needs 3 times as many monsters. Even small variations would have helped. Could have 5 kinds of baron of varying strength and weapons. Too many complaints about how you want to tweak the monsters to your style of play.
9. Needs more levels of difficulty and personality selections.
Nightmare is not really a level of difficulty. It shows that they knew it would wear thin after players become experienced and it needed a difficulty enhancer that could be selectively applied.
The personality selections are obvious in how ports can turn off so many choices to fit player play styles.

[Da Werecat]

I wanted to write something thoughtful, but I changed my mind on the part where Doom is being criticized for not having a weight-based inventory system.

[raymoohawk]

i only agree with the 3 times as many monsters part (oh no my zdoomer is showing!)

[Gez]

wesleyjohnson said:

5. Lack of a carry limit system. Other games limited the carry weight, and could drop things. Carrying 600 lbs of weapons and ammo is not reasonable. Carry 50 rockets is fanciful, maybe 10 if the player was not carrying anything else. Not being able to drop anything is too centric on one style of play.

And being forced to manage your inventory wouldn't be "too centric on one style of play"?

Most of the items on your list would have made Doom a more complicated game. More complicated to make (additional monster types: more resources), more complicated to map for (more skill levels means more playtesting and balancing), more complicated to play (having to manage your inventory in between two firefights).

Part of Doom's strength is its great simplicity.

[dew]

wesleyjohnson said:

3. Should never have implemented auto-aim. Other games of the era did it better with some control over what the target was. Descent manged to have free-aim and Doom should have too.

This sort of bullshit just makes me sad. How old are you? You clearly don't remember "the era".

[Memfis]

Gez said:

And being forced to manage your inventory wouldn't be "too centric on one style of play"?

Yes. Instead of just carrying as much of every type of ammo as possible, you would have to decide whether you want to carry more rockets or, perhaps, shells. That would add some choices.

[Salt-Man Z]

Without autoaim, I (a keyboarder) couldn't even play Doom.

[VGA]

Descent is full 3d, not pseudo3d like doom. They are nothing alike.

Weighted ammo for a fast shooter of that era that didn't have RPG elements seems daft to me.

Also, more difficulties, really? How many do you need? I don't understand the personality options stuff either.

[BaronOfStuff]

wesleyjohnson said:

3. Should never have implemented auto-aim. Other games of the era did it better with some control over what the target was. Descent manged to have free-aim and Doom should have too.

Yeah, let me just look up and sh-... oh wait, I don't have that sort of wizardry in this era and certainly not in this renderer without the game display warping and looking like an example of Escher dimensions. Son, I don't know what you're smoking to come out with nonsense statements like this, but you should be passing that shit around.