Tactical or assault: Which one are you?

[Quagsire]

When it comes to the world of FPS gaming, AND Doom as well, which one do you prefer in the classic 1990's first person shooter? For me, I lean more towards tactical when I can. It offers a great advantage to level completion and preserving health/armor points. For example, in D4D whenever I encounter a larger crowd of enemies, I toss in a holo and run rather than throwing ammo at them.

But anyways, tell me which one you are, and why.

[Voros]

I am assault for single maps, because its fun to challenge yourself.

But for whole playthroughs, like the whole campaign or a megawad, i go tactical so that i can finish it.

[scifista42]

Both.

[lil'devil]

If the game/wad is easy i go assault, if it's hard then i play cautiously and tactical.

[40oz]

I feel like neither of the two options really mean anything.

[Deleted_Account]

Tactical assault?

[Zulk RS]

40oz said:

I feel like neither of the two options really mean anything.

This.

[Tracer]

It varies depending in the situation.

[General Rainbow Bacon]

I think the OP means "are you cautious and calculated, or do you run in guns blazing?"

[Tracer]

General Rainbow Bacon said:

I think the OP means "are you cautious and calculated, or do you run in guns blazing?"

Of course that's what the OP meant. Any reasonable person could have ascertained that. But you always have some guy who has to be a pretentious asshat who says some "Well actually..." kind of shit instead of just answering the question.

[dew]

Or maybe some of us don't feel like pretending they're some kind of specops types when shooting demons in a vidyagame. But hey, enjoy your SSG with a scope and a pistol grip.

And to answer the question: I play Doom faster & looser than Donald Trump plays with the truth.

[Quagsire]

dew said:

Or maybe some of us don't feel like pretending they're some kind of specops types when shooting demons in a vidyagame. But hey, enjoy your SSG with a scope and a pistol grip.

And to answer the question: I play Doom faster & looser than Donald Trump plays with the truth.

It's good to mix the two honestly. I'm not saying ALWAYS go tactical, but do it when you can. There's a time and place for these things.

[joe-ilya]

If I have low health (under 40% without blue armor) I play tactical.

[yakfak]

my doomguy just sorta types in all the cheats and wades through the level looking for something cool

is that tactical or assault? i cant decide

[BuuBee]

Tactical since I feel too fragile ((((゜д゜;))))

[Pencil of Doom]

Screw goin' silently, when i go in, i go loud, making 'em eat lead.
Come get some!

[Spectre01]

Tactical for sure. I don't really do speedrunning and tend to kill anything I can see from the safest distance. ^I think our Revenants are twitching out of sync.

[Quagsire]

J.B.R said:

Screw goin' silently, when i go in, i go loud, making 'em eat lead.
Come get some!

rileymartin said:

Tactical for sure. I don't really do speedrunning and tend to kill anything I can see from the safest distance.

Two different kinds of people. ^ ^ ^

[MFG38]

Piper Maru said:

Tactical assault?

Assaultingly tactical.

[Maes]

I assault tactically.

[129thVisplane]

Most of the time I just run the fuck in and die instantly. I'm not good at Doom.

[Maes]

129thVisplane said:

Most of the time I just run the fuck in and die instantly. I'm not good at Doom.

Judging by your username, one'd hope you say "i always look at the wrong direction and crash the game".

[Voros]

129thVisplane said:

Most of the time I just run the fuck in and die instantly.

Me too. But it's fun if you don't die.

[Lila Feuer]

Depends on the IWAD/PWAD and the map I'm in. It depends on enemy placement, item availability, and the way the map's structured to allow the kind of playstyle desired. Usually both approaches are made available and work in their own ways, be it you're confident enough to rush in, have good reflexes and are able to control the battle while in the thick of it, or you can go about more cautiously, using cover where possible, pick/hold them off from a distance, divide and conquer a large group, and making each shot and item pickup count, thus maximizing your supplies in the long run.

The typical Doom approach of run-n-gun tends to work better on maps one's familiar with I feel. I'm almost always more cautious in new unexplored territory.

[Maes]

dew said:

But hey, enjoy your SSG with a scope and a pistol grip.

You forgot "painted black". Because as we all know, painting something black and using some military-sounding jargon to describe it makes it more tactical.

Besides, the SSG does appear to actually have a pistol-style grip (that looks more tactical), rather than an English-style straight grip of the shotgun (which makes it appear more like a hunting firearm).

For comparison: Engligh grip at the top, pistol grip at the bottom.



In Doom:





Edit: now that I noticed it...the Shotgun's pickup sprite does seem to have something near its grip too, but it's hard to tell whether it's a darker and less pronounced pistol grip, or even the remnant of a lever-action (!) mechanism.

Edit 2: OK, the actual Tootsietoy Dakota shotgun does have a kind of half-assed pistol grip that's really an intermediate situation. That didnt translate well into the sprite at all.



In comparison, the edited sprite's stock appears unnaturally short and placed way too high, almost as if it should be moved a few pixels down to the left and extended. No real weapon would have that kind of ergonomics.

[Reisal]

A mix of both depending on health, ammo and monster variety.

[Pirx]

mostly assault, until i bite the dust. then i can get surprisingly tactical.

[Angst929]

A bit of both. If the map is easy I'll usually go in guns blazing. If the level is really difficult, then I'll obviously take it slower and try be more tactical.

If a map is really beautiful or interesting, then I may take my time to soak it all in. Ancient Aliens and Sunlust are good for that.

[CapnClever]

I favor "assault", because I find that such a playstyle is Doom's strong point: if you want to play "tactical", there are many more FPS games available that benefit from it (so-called "cover shooters"). Doom doesn't have land mines or bouncing projectiles or remote detonators or personal teleporters: it's just your guns and the enemies' guns. There isn't a particular need to be tactical if you're given even a little room to work with. As a rule of thumb, if a map isn't playable via assault most of the time it's not a Doom map I will end up enjoying.

I mean sure, it's good to cautiously scan a room if you don't know the encounter, but learning to read enemy movement and set priorities on the fly in the midst of crossfire is what gets the adrenaline pumping and what keeps Doom a continually interesting experience. For me there's nothing less entertaining in combat than repetitively shooting your SSG and dodging behind a wall to wait for the reload. And if there's no sane approach to an encounter that doesn't involve that, it makes me question why I'm bothering. (Thankfully most of the time the solution to that problem is "get good".)

So I'm only one who was confused by the terms just from the thread title? In context they make enough sense but I would probably call them more like "offensive" and "defensive" play. Or maybe I still don't understand them accurately.

[Avoozl]

I'd go either way, whichever sparks my interest at a time.