For the love of god, stop speeding up monster projectiles

[Cynical]

So, playing a couple of the Cacoward winners and runners up, I'm seeing a consistent theme -- people pulling a Valiant and speeding up monster projectiles, presumably not understanding that it actually makes their wad play really, really slowly and badly (yes, Valiant was really bad, stop modelling your own maps after it).

 

Yes, I said making monster projectiles faster makes your wad play slower.  If you don't understand why this is, please stick to just making maps and stop making gameplay mods immediately because you clearly don't play much Doom, nor have a good enough understanding of it to be changing it to any sort of positive effect.

 

The only times a player is going to be playing "reactively" to incoming projectiles is either individual mancubii at certain ranges, Cybie BFG 2-shot, chaingun stulock, or the dreaded "corner camp", and in those former two cases, they're only reacting to the fact that a shot was fired, not to where it was fired.  Otherwise, they're simply running certain memorized patterns (U-shapes, S-shapes, figure 8s, or circle strafing).  As such, by making a projectile faster, you're not making a monster more threatening in open ground except for in the case of chaingun stunlock; if you want to make monsters more threatening at range, you need up up the monster's firing rate (or give them homing), not their projectile speed.  Making stunlock more dangerous is very rarely going to be desirable; you generally want the player to be able to take down one thing with confidence using chaingun or plasma if you're planning on having the player use those heavily, otherwise you're highly encouraging the player to camp and draw enemies down alleys.  Worse still, though, is that it does something that's almost *never* desirable, and certainly never in the context of Cacodemons or Imps -- it makes the monster far more dangerous at close range (since the shot is aimed straight at the player, the angle that a player moves has to become more perpendicular at close range, and the range at which they can physically get their collision box out of the path of the projectile is smaller), which, in open layouts, removes the player's ability to play with aggression confidently and reduces the player to plinking with long-range weapons  (to Valiant's credit, it at least seemed to realize this was an issue and its super chaingun does a bit to combat this issue, but most other wads that have done this have not buffed the changun any), which in Doom's ecosystem, is generally really damn boring, since it means lots of long TTKs at distances with no immediate pressure.

[xdarkmasterx]

firstly, relax man let people make what they want. you'll have heart attack if you take this much offence to some slightly annoying aspect of free game mods :p

 

now that that is out of my system i look at rest of the post

 

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The only times a player is going to be playing "reactively" to incoming projectiles is either individual mancubii at certain ranges, Cybie BFG 2-shot, chaingun stulock, or the dreaded "corner camp",and in those former two cases, they're only reacting to the fact that a shot was fired, not to where it was fired. Otherwise, they're simply running certain memorized patterns (U-shapes, S-shapes, figure 8s, or circle strafing).  As such, by making a projectile faster, you're not making a monster more threatening in open ground

then we can use them in hallways, cramped area and other places, where player cannot simply circle strafe or camp outside

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except for in the case of chaingun stunlock; if you want to make monsters more threatening at range, you need up up the monster's firing rate (or give them homing), not their projectile speed.  Making stunlock more dangerous is very rarely going to be desirable; you generally want the player to be able to take down one thing with confidence using chaingun or plasma if you're planning on having the player use those heavily, otherwise you're highly encouraging the player to camp and draw enemies down alleys.

perhaps, but you can say such things about any sort of difficulty. "using revenants without cover encourages camping because they are hard to dodge"  "surrounding the player encourages camping because they cannot see behind them" "using cyberdemon encourages camping because he 1shots you". but just like we look at those players and say "get better", anyone who is more adaptable to gameplay change or is just used to the custom enemies will say same to you. i and many other players do not feel need "to camp" in any part of valiant on UV, or certain zdoom levels with even more difficult to avoid DECORATE monsters, so dont assume your experience is aligned with all players

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  Worse still, though, is that it does something that's almost *never* desirable, and certainly never in the context of Cacodemons or Imps -- it makes the monster far more dangerous at close range (since the shot is aimed straight at the player, the angle that a player moves has to become more perpendicular at close range, and the range at which they can physically get their collision box out of the path of the projectile is smaller), which, in open layouts, removes the player's ability to play with aggression confidently and reduces the player to plinking with long-range weapons  (to Valiant's credit, it at least seemed to realize this was an issue and its super chaingun does a bit to combat this issue, but most other wads that have done this have not buffed the changun any), which in Doom's ecosystem, is generally really damn boring, since it means lots of long TTKs at distances with no immediate pressure.

 

 

of course they change dynamic of gameplay by very much significantly, that is why the monster was modified in first place. i do not know but all you do here is state how they accomplish such, and then again you reiterate point before that monster will force the player to camp (which i respond to in previous quote)

Edited December 26, 2018 by xdarkmasterx

[Beezle]

The 2 that come to mind to that do that are Struggle: Antaresian Legacy and Valiant, two favorites of mine. Both of em have one or more weapons with increased firing speeds to help deal with that, I believe that's the reason, but yeah, both are really damn hard hehe. I know Struggle doesn't have this but Valiant has a mod-friendly version called valve.wad where it's regular monsters.

[Not Jabba]

I've been trying to come up with a response to the OP that isn't snarky. So I'm just going to level with you. I think you mostly have no idea what you're talking about, and the community's best mappers know more about Doom and its gameplay than you do. You're just some rando who makes a lot of negative forum posts.

[VanaheimRanger]

Ooh, getting burned by @Not Jabba this is getting spicy!

[Dark Pulse]

If threads like these are popping up, pretty soon we're going to have mods whose whole purpose is simply to rebalance other mods.

 

And then mods to rebalance the mods that rebalance the mods.

[Cynical]

I would like to think that the "community's best mappers know more about Doom and its gameplay than (I) do", but the continued decay of how well released wads play post-2008 doesn't give me any hope for this.  In just a small sampling of this year's Cacowards, I've seen 2-sided impassible lines at non-90 degree angles (completely ruin collision detection with this one weird trick!), medikits unavoidably blocking ammo in maps with tight resources, narrow decoration things in field-of-play (as opposed to on raised terraces or such where they won't fuck player movement), and all sorts of other snafus that demonstrate that "modern" mappers consistently fuck up things that 20 years ago's mappers were consistently getting right.  Not even stuff that's arguable, just basic things that the only reason to get wrong is complete ignorance either of the engine or of FPS level design standards.

 

Anways, to quote the one actual response:

ok, then use them in hallways and tight spaces and not in places you can just circle strafe or camp in tiny rooms

Yeah, and the two enemies that most commonly get this treatment are the imp and the cacodemon... the two enemies that are most likely to be encountered in open terrain lol (the former being general popcorn, the latter's defining trait being their ability to fly and thus follow the player onto open terrain).  I could imagine a situation where the Pyroknight would be a welcome addition to the bestiary (Valiant itself sure doesn't make much of a case for it, although I think that's just because Skillsaw's strengths as a mapper lie in layout, not in encounter design), but completely throwing away the game's close range vs. low/mid tier dynamic is just silly, given that it's one of the things people most love Doom 2 for, and the primary reason it's cited as being better than Doom 1.

[Soundblock]

I’ll agree with OP in so far as Doom’s slower enemy missiles is a hallmark for the original and largely not seen in any other shooters. Certainly not in any 3D offerings. Not bashing Valiant without having tried it - any experimentation to break the mold a bit is cool, but modified/new enemies have largely a poor record for fitting in and adding cohesively to the original cast, which “increased everythings” (missile speed included) - in a vain attempt to add difficulty/layers of strategy - is partly to blame for.

 

In other terms, long missile history (forcing you to constantly evaluate your loops and figure 8’s for fresh appearances, particularily in large/long spaces) is a particular to original Doom.

[ReaperAA]

3 hours ago, Cynical said:

(yes, Valiant was really bad, stop modelling your own maps after it).

 

Despite being a filthy casual myself, I disagree with ur post. Valiant had some of the best use of DEHACKED monsters. Imps finally became viable threats.

Edited December 26, 2018 by ReaperAA

[xdarkmasterx]

34 minutes ago, Cynical said:

 

Yeah, and the two enemies that most commonly get this treatment are the imp and the cacodemon... the two enemies that are most likely to be encountered in open terrain lol 

well yeah, they do. but that hardly makes the changes pointless, because they appear in situations in which the attack is more threatening to "pragmatic" (cowardly XD) player who doesn't mind camping. but to such a player you could say that the difference between many monster attacks is redundant (what's the difference between an arachnotron, mancubus and revenant attack if our "pragmatist" is behind a wall second enemy raises his weapon?) when the most campy approach is taken and the map does not enough to prevent the player from hiding, or creates easy strategy (ex: circlestrafing without even simple change indrection) to defeat the encounter

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but completely throwing away the game's close range vs. low/mid tier dynamic is just silly, given that it's one of the things people most love Doom 2 for, and the primary reason it's cited as being better than Doom 1.

 

the dynamic is still intact, only a little harder to completely avoid damage. only if would be this change is something ridiculous (imps shooting rockets with 0 frame startup or such things like that)

 

25 minutes ago, Soundblock said:

In other terms, long missile history (forcing you to constantly evaluate your loops and figure 8’s for fresh appearances, particularily in large/long spaces) is a particular to original Doom.

 

nobody said we had to make sacrifices ;)

 

 

Edited December 26, 2018 by xdarkmasterx

[Cynical]

8 minutes ago, ReaperAA said:

 

Despite being a filthy casual myself, I disagree with ur post. Valiant had some of the best use of DEHACKED monsters. Imps finally became viable threats.

Play HR23 from pistol start.

 

3 minutes ago, xdarkmasterx said:

the dynamic is still intact, only a little harder to completely avoid damage. only if would be this change is something ridiculous (imps shooting rockets with 0 frame startup or such things like that)

Not being able to completely avoid damage consistently means the dynamic is no longer intact, though.  Knowing that you aren't going to get attritioned out and can play with confidence is the very reason the dynamic exists at all.

[Soundblock]

12 minutes ago, xdarkmasterx said:

 

nobody said we had to pick one or the other ;)

 

No, but by providing for both you might be attempting to do the splits over a major fps schism! Perhaps an enemy with a slower than average projectile attack would be a potential way to further explore the slaughter genre, for instance. If such an enemy isn’t already widespread in use... 

 

Easily overtaking a missile by running might be a breach of disbelief for many though. Don’t know how much design room there is to explore, if any.

Edited December 26, 2018 by Soundblock

[Cynical]

Just now, Soundblock said:

Of course, easily overtaking a missile by running might be a breach of disbelief for many.

You can already do that, heh.

 

Anyways, re: "even slower projectiles en masse", some of the bosses from Claustrophobia (the one by Virgil, not the 1024 wad and also not the throwaway wad by the same name that makes explosive barrels move) do exactly that in some of their patterns.  Really cool wad.

[Spectre.Charles]

My only issue with speeding up enemy projectiles (and just changing gameplay in general) is that it feels like modders map first then change things instead of vise-versa, making maps feel like they'd play amazingly balanced if the enemies weren't changed, but only ending up fucking pissing everyone off and forcing you to constantly run around like an idiot hoping you can land at least one shot before the giant avalanche of fireballs come and wreck your ass while you're probably stuck on a random piece of detailing protruding from the wall preventing you from strafing out of the way.

 

TL;DR design the gameplay before the levels/maps and get a feel for how the player is actually supposed to counter stuff.

Edited December 26, 2018 by DepravedDiptera

[xdarkmasterx]

43 minutes ago, Cynical said:

 

Not being able to completely avoid damage consistently means the dynamic is no longer intact, though.

 

Didn't say that, I said "a little" harder. i hate undodgeable stuff as much as the next guy but doom is pretty forgiving with damage for most monsters so whatever XD

 

besides, unavoidable and nearly unavoidable damage has been accepted as a part of doom since it first came out, hasn't it? (forced pain sectors, enemies right in front of teleporters, hitscanners almost 1-framing you and so on)

[Xaser]

40 minutes ago, Soundblock said:

Perhaps an enemy with a slower than average projectile attack would be a potential way to further explore the slaughter genre, for instance. If such an enemy isn’t already widespread in use... 

This is the coolest take by far. STRAIN did something kinda like this with the Holobots (Revenant replacement) -- they shoot homing fireballs that travel roughly half the speed of revs', totally changing the dynamic (much better seeking and they linger around) -- but I dunno offhand if any non-homing variant exists somewhere. Sounds like untapped potential to me.

[Dark Pulse]

Xaser, always a voice of reason and awesomeness in this community.

[GarrettChan]

1 hour ago, Cynical said:

Play HR23 from pistol start.

I actually played the map because of this. I assume you're talking about the beginning part, but to be honest, you have too much space for that to be threatening...

 

1 hour ago, Xaser said:

travel roughly half the speed of revs'

I would say this makes the projectiles' turning power (I hope this is a term) much higher, which would definitely be an interesting way to mix things up.

Edited December 26, 2018 by GarrettChan

[Nevander]

I don't mind fast projectiles, but fast monsters get on my nerves.

[Deadwing]

I don't think faster projectiles makes the gameplay any better or worse, it depends on how people use their monsters.

 

I'm used to do it a lot before Valiant, though :P (although before I didn't enjoy slower projectiles and now I do)

Edited December 26, 2018 by Deadwing

[Avoozl]

I would prefer to just use -fast mode.

[Remilia Scarlet]

I know Umbra of Fate certainly has faster projectiles on hell nights, barons, and (on medium and hard) the cultists.  These were put in because I enjoy them more, and UoF (as stated in the readme and on the release post) was specifically designed around the type of gameplay I specifically enjoy.  The faster projectiles were also in place to exercise my reaction time a bit more, and to enforce memorization, kinda like old 8-bit games.

 

Freaky Panties also sped up projectiles, but only if you were doing well.  If you weren't, it started slowing them down a bit, even below Doom's original speed.  In my testing with my wife (who enjoys Doom, but is definitely not very skilled player), the projectile speed definitely made a difference.

 

So yeah.  Sorry, but I have no plans to slow down my projectiles.

 

Also, what's Valiant?

Edited December 26, 2018 by YukiRaven

[leodoom85]

To the OP, make sure that you master your reflexes instead of complaining for nothing. Thanks.

And I did played maps with faster projectiles like the one above. Have no problem with that, just to be more alert of those...

[Sharessa]

You seem a bit Cynical.

[Liberation]

Tbh, I'm not a great fan of sped up projectiles and monsters. However if done correctly I'm happy, ie sped up projectiles balanced out by lower HP for enemies or faster firing rate for weapons. 

 

I think gameplay changes are going to be subjective with people, some will welcome them and others will detest them.

 

For what it's worth I think Struggle balanced things nicely.

 

However it is worth pointing out that when people make mapsets with altered gameplay, they have made the changes they personally find fun and that is all that really matters.

 

 

Edited December 26, 2018 by Liberation

[GoneAway]

Playing cacoward wads and expecting quality 🤔

[riderr3]

There are for example old and sore people who cannot play with such projectile speed. It’s easy for young people to talk. Remember, you too will become old men.

[Dark Pulse]

4 minutes ago, riderr3 said:

There are for example old and sore people who cannot play with such projectile speed. It’s easy for young people to talk. Remember, you too will become old men.

Old men... are the future.

Edited December 26, 2018 by Dark Pulse

[Novaseer]

The WAD I'm currently working on has a custom monster that fires a cone of explosive fireballs that move extremely slowly. It's a fun monster to fight.

[geo]

With shmups, I always enjoyed faster projectiles, because that means they clear off screen quick.