What's with players punching in the air?

[Xyzzу]

Or using the chainsaw without hurting anything? I've seen this numerous times in demos and playthroughs. Does it really provoke monsters to attack more? Is that what's going on? If so, I'd love to hear the mechanics behind it.

[Edward850]

Doing an attack, even with the fist, alerts all enemies in the area. The fist and chainsaw cost no ammo to use.

It's not exactly a hard-to-guess observation, given the effect is a simultaneous alert sound from every enemy.

[Xyzzу]

What I mean is when the monsters are already alerted.

 

A couple examples: 7:54 3:10

[MrSkeltal]

From looking at it, it seems like the first is to make sure every monster has been alerted (look how he does it near the doorway) to get them infighting and the second is to spread the sound to another sector, making sure the enemies on the other side start teleporting before they normally would.

[galileo31dos01]

Well something from vanilla Doom is that when a non-alerted monster is hit by another one, if the first one kills the second one, it will return to its "sleepy" state, only if it hasn't perceived you. By using the fist, or any other weapon, you wake up that enemy. And the case of your first example is in regards to archviles specifically. It can happen that an archvile resurrects an enemy and this one doesn't turn on the player, I don't know which are the exceptions. The second example you gave is to wake up monsters that are in other rooms so they teleport in whatever they are meant to teleport in. Sometimes you must make some noise because otherwise you may find yourself in scenarios where you feel like the only living thing in the map, and it's because some monsters just didn't hear you.

 

[Arctangent]

Worth noting that in vanilla Doom, sound is permanent. Once sound propagates to a sector, monsters in that sector will be alerted to you forever - even if they're pushed into the sector five hours after you shot something in a nearby sector.

[Xyzzу]

Huh, so it really is just sound propagation techniques? I didn't know you can alert monsters through a wall!

 

@Arctangent So what you're saying is that if I fired in one room and a dormant monster later teleports in that room (say, through a control sector that has a conveyor belt), then it will wake up?

[Grain of Salt]

Nah, you're all wrong :3

 

Some players do this because they think it makes monsters more likely to attack, which is good for infighting.

[GarrettChan]

It seems that the monsters would attack more frequently if you do so. However, I don't have prove of this, but I just keep doing it.

 

It's interesting to see Altima's video though ;P

 

[GarrettChan]

Just now, Grain of Salt said:

Nah, you're all wrong :3

 

Some players do this because they think it makes monsters more likely to attack, which is good for infighting.

Well, you read my mind and posted this in the same time. Yeah, it's "they think", not actually is.

[Grain of Salt]

Ya, I've heard mixed things about whether attacking actually does make monsters more likely to attack, so I'm kinda on the fence about it. I'd have to pester vita to look it up in the code or something, heh.

[Xyzzу]

See, this is what I thought was happening in the first example. What is this, some sort of urban legend like mashing the A button when you catch a pokemon? XD

[GarrettChan]

2 minutes ago, Grain of Salt said:

Ya, I've heard mixed things about whether attacking actually does make monsters more likely to attack, so I'm kinda on the fence about it. I'd have to pester vita to look it up in the code or something, heh.

Another thing is that if you're out of the sight, it feels attacking will make the monster more likely to move towards you. However, what I thought was that the original AI for these old games is doing the same thing, so it looks contradict with each other.

[gaspe]

I do that to celebrate when I find secrets or other important stuff. Or when I have to make some lone backtracking so it's less boring.

[loveless]

I'm fist-pumping because I'm hyped.

[GarrettChan]

I just want to say I have so many examples about myself, like 37:50. (<--Consider this is an attention grabbing, so please totally ignore me ;P) I am actually really curious about this though.

[Doomkid]

Quote

Ya, I've heard mixed things about whether attacking actually does make monsters more likely to attack, so I'm kinda on the fence about it.

Monsters are more likely to attack right after being attacked themselves, but I'm pretty sure just attacking without actually hitting them has no effect.

[Xyzzу]

7 minutes ago, GarrettChan said:

I just want to say I have so many examples about myself, like 37:50. (<--Consider this is an attention grabbing, so please totally ignore me ;P) I am actually really curious about this though.

 

Yeah, I'm curious too. I know the engine determines how often a monster attacks depending on its target's distance, but what about punching (or sawing) aimlessly? Hence this thread.

 

Also, I don't see it as attention grabbing. You're just making a point that you have done this as well ;)

[Arctangent]

There is one additional effect to punching the air, and that's the fact that A_Punch advances the RNG by three steps. Which honestly surprised me, because two of those P_Random calls are for determining the punch's inaccuracy. I always thought the melee attacks were perfectly accurate, but nope.

[Xyzzу]

Ah, so the punching could affect exactly when a monster retaliates then because of the PRNG? And in turn speed up the process of monsters firing?

[Arctangent]

Indeed. Of course, it can do the exact opposite; the RNG doesn't so much increase or decrease, as the distribution of values in the table that stores 'em is actually pretty random.

[Xyzzу]

Okay, cool! RNG manipulation at its finest!

[Doomkid]

31 minutes ago, Arctangent said:

There is one additional effect to punching the air, and that's the fact that A_Punch advances the RNG by three steps. Which honestly surprised me, because two of those P_Random calls are for determining the punch's inaccuracy. I always thought the melee attacks were perfectly accurate, but nope.

Holy crap, Doom's craziness under the hood continues to amaze.

[Xyzzу]

Welp, time to start swingin'!

[The_MártonJános]

2 hours ago, loveless said:

I'm fist-pumping because I'm hyped.

Go Hellknight! Finish the Rev off!

[printz]

I'm pretty sure the only reason you see players pump their fists and chainsaws during monster infighting is to cheer for the show. Seems to be a tradition among demo players. It's also to keep the chainsaw engines running, 'cuz they're so rarely used.

[loveless]

10 hours ago, Cell said:

Go Hellknight! Finish the Rev off!

I like to say things like that to myself when I watch infighting.  

  

"Go get it, buddy; I believe in you."

[rehelekretep]

add me to the list of people convinced it makes the enemies more likely to shoot at you ̿̿ ̿̿ ̿̿ ̿'̿'\̵͇̿̿\з= ( ▀ ͜͞ʖ▀) =ε/̵͇̿̿/’̿’̿ ̿ ̿̿ ̿̿ ̿̿

[Maisth]

What if the player its bored? and its just doing it to not get bored

[dew]

Grain of Salt is right, it's one of those urban myths like the swingshot and people just tend to go with it, because.. well, it can't hurt, right? A good luck charm. Also sometimes I punch around to kill time, like when riding long elevators or waiting for slow bars.