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Archvile Hunter

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About Archvile Hunter

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  1. Archvile Hunter

    What the hell is "artificial difficulty"?

    For a term no one seems to have a clear definition of, it sure does get thrown around a lot in online gaming discourse. When no one can agree on what "artificial difficulty" even means, it becomes a useless descriptor. All it tells me is that somebody is unhappy with the way difficulty was implemented. In my view, ALL challenges in all video games are artificial. They were designed by a human, for someone else to overcome. That makes it different from, say, scaling a mountain. Nobody designed the mountain, so the difficulty in scaling it can't be artificial. It just is inherently difficult. If you can't climb that mountain, you don't have anyone else to blame for it. But if you fail a challenge in a video game, you know that another human put that challenge before you, and you may be inclined to blame that person for your failure, and not yourself. But I'd argue that the issue here is not about the challenge being "artificial," but just about it being poorly designed. I think the biggest issue with harder challenges in video games is whether or not the added difficulty makes the problem more engaging, or just more tedious. Take the challenge of punching out a Cyberdemon with berserk, for example. Now, you could make the fight harder by taking away the berserk, but while that does make it more difficult since you will have to keep going without a mistake for longer, it doesn't make the fight any more engaging, it just takes longer and adds tedium. Instead, what if we add Cyberdemons on raising and lowering pillars around the arena, and have them cyclically peak up to demand your attention (idk, just an idea I thought up quickly)? That would certainly also make it more challenging, maybe even more so than the berserk-less fight, depending on how it's implemented, but it would probably be way more interesting, and actually fun to play.
  2. Archvile Hunter

    Things about Doom you just found out

    Exploding barrels can trigger walk-over line specials
  3. Archvile Hunter

    What The Hell Are "Virtual Influencers"?

    For big corporations whose only goal is to make money, it's a given that they will try to rip off whatever is currently trending, hoping to hop on the lucrative bandwagon. VTubers have been hugely on the rise for the past 2-2½ years, so it's only natural that the emergence of these virtual "influencers" would occur. As is so often the case, these corporates often entirely miss the soul of what made it a popular trend in the first place, only taking the most superficial elements, and end up creating something barely familiar, yet alien. It ends up evoking a sort of uncanny valley-effect, and people just end up disturbed or disgusted. Then there's the fact that we are sold both the meta-verse and these virtual influencers as something entirely novel, when in fact, virtual worlds and virtual idols have been around for years and years. People have been socializing in VRChat, and Hatsune Miku, Gorillaz, Mori Calliope, and probably others, have already performed live concerts using virtual avatars. For anyone who knows anything about any of this, the behavior of trying to pass this off as something entirely original is extremely scummy. They weren't even trying to be subtle about their shameless rip-off, giving Polar turquoise hair and twin tails.
  4. So, I've been playing Doom through prboom-plus-rt and decided to try to get Sigil working. At first I noticed that only E3M8 would actually boot up, as trying to load any other Sigil map would crash the engine (with a very non-descript error "RT: 3"). I assumed the reason for this was the custom Baphomet texture used for the exits in all maps except for E3M8, so I went and replaced that texture with a stock texture in all the maps, and lo and behold, all Sigil maps would now load without crashing! It didn't take long however before I noticed that something was really, really wrong: There are massive textureless gaps in the world, and the weapon sprites don't render at all. So next I open the maps in GZDoom Builder to try and figure out what is going on. E3M4 seemed the most excessively broken, so I opened it up, used the Nodes Viewer, and found these giant, sharp, triangular "holes" in the map: I tried rebuilding the nodes, but only the biggest holes disappeared. There were still tiny gaps to be found throughout the map, and not only that, a new strange error appeared: After this, I remembered a report of an issue on E2M3 with similar rendering problems. So I tried opening E2M3 and inspecting the nodes, and the same odd outcroppings showed up just nearby to the room with the rendering errors: So, does anyone know what is going on? What causes these strange node building errors and how to fix them? They seem to be the only major hurdle with getting Sigil to work with ray tracing.
  5. Archvile Hunter

    Favourite menu music?

  6. Voodoo Dolls are used for Voodoo Scripting
  7. Archvile Hunter

    Thoughts on ray tracing...

    It looks great, and with DLSS enabled I get about the same performance as I would with RT+DLSS turned off.
  8. Archvile Hunter

    Issues Running while Turning in DOOM?

    It's a typical issue with cheap keyboards not being able to handle certain combinations of simultaneous keypresses. Try holding down both SHIFT keys simultaneously and typing out: "THE QUICK BROWN FOX JUMPS OVER THE LAZY DOG". A high-end keyboard will have no issues typing out every single letter, while a cheaper keyboard might miss several keystrokes. You will either need to find a keymapping that prevents jamming, or obtain a good mechanical keyboard to avoid this problem. Additionally, I would recommend using a mouse to look around rather than the arrow keys; it is much more comfortable to play with a mouse than with clunky tank controls.
  9. Archvile Hunter

    What did you think about Doom 2016/ Doom Eternal?

    These observations are certainly correct, but they are just that, observations. Doom Eternal is focused on doing one thing, and doing that one thing extremely well. The boundaries of what you can do to be successful are restrained, sure, but there's still quite a bit of freedom within these boundaries, mostly in the form of which weapon mods and runes you prefer to use. Because Doom Eternal is focused almost entirely on its combat system, it is also rather complex and hard to get into. I think most people will "get" the combat by around the fifth level, or they never will and find themselves endlessly frustrated by the game. There will also be some people who do learn the combat, but for whom it simply isn't their cup of tea, and that's fair. When the combat is as complex as it is, it necessitates slowly doling out mechanics over time, or you would simply be overwhelmed by the amount of tools in your kit. For some people that sense never goes away, and they leave a review stating that the game is "needlessly complicated". It's a necessary evil, and there's a risk that some players will never pass the beginning parts of the game, which are where the game is at its most restrained and confusing. It's a learning curve for sure, but one that I think most people can overcome. The levels serve mostly as set pieces and epic backdrops to the combat. The story is even further down the priority list, serving mostly as contrivance to bring you to the many varied locations you visit. Also, I'd recommend picking a difficulty just a notch above what you feel comfortable with. If you're stacking up extra lives, you're definitely playing on too easy a skill level. If you aren't challenged you will not be pushed to learn the mechanics, and you will not learn the intricacies of the combat system to fully enjoy Doom Eternal. I'm curious what makes you think that. In my experience, TAG1 is peak Doom Eternal, and easily the best content in the modern series. As for Doom 2016, it's a lot more braindead an experience in my opinion. I'm not saying there's anything necessarily wrong with that (and I'm not calling anyone who enjoys the game stupid), but it's much more about just "shooty-bang-bang, kill demons, blood and gore, rip and tear!" It's silly FPS fun without much depth. After playing Doom Eternal, I seriously struggle to enjoy playing Doom 2016 anymore. Anyway, between the two, I'd say there's a high chance someone who likes "old-school" shooters will find enjoyment in at least one of these two games.
  10. Archvile Hunter

    The Ancient Gods 2 - Impressions and Story Spoilers

    Yeah, I have a strong suspicion they just made shit up as they went along
  11. Archvile Hunter

    The Ancient Gods 2 - Impressions and Story Spoilers

    Damn, there's a lot of hate on the Dark Lord fight in here. It is my favorite boss fight in Doom Eternal. He does punish screwing up more than any other boss in the game, since if you fail to dodge his attacks or try hitting him when he isn't flashing green he heals. It means you can't brute force your way through it, and you have to learn his patterns to succeed. I am a bit of a masochist though, and I don't mind dying over and over on a tough boss fight.
  12. Archvile Hunter

    The Ancient Gods -- review from someone who DIDN'T like it

    It's also interesting to note that, while Doom Eternal is generally considered to be a way more difficult game than Doom 2016, proportionally more players have finished the Doom Eternal campaign than Doom 2016's campaign.
  13. Archvile Hunter

    The Ancient Gods -- review from someone who DIDN'T like it

    I have to disagree about the DLC level design having worse design that the campaign, I would actually say it's the other way around. While still fun, the enemy compositions during arena fights and their placement in incidental encounters feels arbitrary at many points later in the game. In Final Sin, they really just throw a hodgepodge of every demon type at you at once in large open areas. Not exactly the pinnacle of creativity. The DLC encounters feel so much more deliberate and thought out. Usually there are only a couple of different heavy demon types in play at once, and it gives every arena encounter much more distinct "phases" of combat, there's a better flow to each individual encounter. I also thoroughly believe that "good level design" is about restricting the player in various ways through the course of the level. Creative use of level geometry or environmental hazards are just as important for good encounter design as the composition of enemies. In the base campaign, Tyrants are mostly a non-issue. They are always encountered in large open areas, where it's easy to circle around them. When the DLC spawns a Tyrant in a small corridor you suddenly can't just circle him to death, and this restriction asks the player to think of what to do now that this option has been taken away. It holds true in Classic Doom as well. Fighting a Cyberdemon in a wide open space is boring, but put him in a tight space and he suddenly becomes much more dangerous, and consequently much more engaging to fight.
  14. Archvile Hunter

    The Ancient Gods -- review from someone who DIDN'T like it

    @icecoldduke I don't think you truly understand the purpose of the purple goo sections in the game. Sure, it's annoying having your mobility taken away, but that's the point. When you drop into the sewer in ARC Complex and you're stuck in purple goo with a Hell Knight quickly approaching, you're forced to consider your offensive options much more carefully, since you can no longer dash out of his range. Every other Hell Knight in the game could be killed with just the Shotgun or Heavy Cannon, as long as you kept dodging his attacks. But not this one. You have to use your abilities to take him down quickly. Ice Bomb to freeze him, Chaingun to falter, Chaingun Shield, Grenades, Blood Punch, Quick Swap. None of these have been necessary to deal with Hell Knights earlier in the game, since all you needed to stay alive was the Dash, but that is suddenly no longer an option. Once you learn the game, you can absolutely humiliate this Hell Knight, even though that encounter might at first have seemed unfair to you first time around. The idea is that by forcing you to use your other available tools here, you will naturally want to use them later on, after you've noticed how powerful they are. On repeat playthroughs this learning experience is of course absent, but these sections take up about 2 minutes of the entire campaign's length, so venting online about something so miniscule seems silly to me. If you don't like the platforming sections, fine, I see you'd rather just be teleported to the next arena and continue fighting immediately, but I personally enjoy these sections and find quickly navigating them really satisfying. Some sections I do find to be wasting my time are the couple of unskippable cutscenes, elevator rides, and the swimming sections in Taras Nabad, which I think even Hugo Martin admitted don't ultimately add anything to the experience.
  15. Archvile Hunter

    The Ancient Gods -- review from someone who DIDN'T like it

    You're implying there's zero player choice in Doom Eternal. That's just wrong, and you know it is. There are actually some fights in Doom Eternal you can run right past, not all of them lock you in. Though I don't think most people care about skipping fights since said fights are why we play the game in the first place. So because he likes the game and you don't, that makes him a fanboy? And when did he ever "overanalyze bugs and think they are features"?
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