Why do people get so offended by player's who decide to use freelook?

[mrthejoshmon]

Play how you please.

 

To be honest seeing classic Doom with freelook in a video is agony to watch if it isn't using a different render like GZDoom or something because classic Doom rendering doesn't like it one bit.

 

Duke 3D has this issue and it comes with the ability to look up and down, the world warps and contorts, sprites billboard and I hate it.

[Cruduxy Pegg]

This is one of the very few things where I don't care what the mapper suggests and just turn it on. I am not going to shoot elevated switches in fear of breaking a map or waste my time sniping the stupid elevated revenants \ chaingunners. But I will keep it on and won't care what the mapper wants me to use, Fixed view is something I never liked.

[zokum]

Personally I don't like freelook in maps not designed explicitly for it. The design most likely doesn't take the new views possible into account. It also changes gameplay greatly and weapons like the rocket launcher become more powerful. The reduced need for autoaim makes long-range sniping easier. Jumping is often cheating on maps not designed for it.

It also tends to look "wrong" to me, and freelook is only really found in hardware accelerated ports, which tend to look boring and un-doomish.

 

[Clippy]

31 minutes ago, Biodegradable said:

Has someone else been giving you needless shit for using freelook, Clip, or are you still hung up over that one mapper's friend who made an ass out of himself in our respective comments sections over a particular playthrough that the mapper themself didn't even agree with and appreciated our vids?

Lol there were others but that was the worst one haha 

 

Maybe it wasn't worth making a topic of but needed to get my thoughts put there I guess. 

 

I love me some doom just lately a bunch of little things distracting me from the fun - I need to punch some more imps or make a map or something ☺️

[Yandere_Doomer]

12 minutes ago, mrthejoshmon said:

 

Duke 3D has this issue and it comes with the ability to look up and down, the world warps and contorts, sprites billboard and I hate it.

THAT... I hate that... like in LZDoom, you cant even look all the way up and down... I call it the Duke 3D effect..

Anyway.. im not too much of a purist... i play with nashgore religiously [I refuse to play without it a lot of the time]
but I agree with @Clippy here, I feel too restricted without freelook and I cant stand when I have to use it... And no one should tell you how to play a freaking game, am I right?
all of these so called "Purists" are just jerking themselves off to look like "True Doomers" in the eyes of the community.
along with "I only play in ultra violence!!" "I only use Doom music for my maps!" and  "Brutal Doom isnt the way Doom is meant to be played!!"
Give me a break....

[Andromeda]

4 hours ago, Clippy said:

 and also do not use autoaim or crosshairs

Heh, I'm the opposite, I don't use freelook but I use a crosshair and autoaim :P

 

Back on topic, as long as you're having fun play however you want, just my two cents :)

[Murdoch]

Freelook is an abomination pulled straight from Satan's unholy rear end! People who use it should be whipped and thrown in jail!!! Scum of the earth! SCUM OF THE EARTH!!!

 

By that I mean, people who get upset about how people play a game are idiots who really need to take a deep breath, look into a mirror, sigh wistfully, and reassess their priorities in life. It's. A. Fucking. Game. How someone else plays it should be of no relevance or import to you whatsoever. Even if the map is not designed with looking in mind, the benefit is minimal. At best they might be able to shoot a switch before they normally could but how often is that likely to come up?

Edited February 11, 2021 by Murdoch

[TakenStew22]

I use freelook because it's more comfortable killing enemies that you struggle to reach. I try my best not to exploit it in maps that using it can be considered cheating, like Icon of Sin levels.

 

The same thing goes for jumping. I just hate damaging floors and I'm OCD with my health so I do my best to bunny hop through them like a skipping rock.

Edited February 11, 2021 by TakenStew22

[Murdoch]

1 hour ago, zokum said:

Personally I don't like freelook in maps not designed explicitly for it. The design most likely doesn't take the new views possible into account.

 

I sincerely doubt even the ones that are really take this into account.

 

1 hour ago, zokum said:

The reduced need for autoaim makes long-range sniping easier.

 

And this is a good thing. Maps that set up bad guys beyond the range of the autoaim piss me off.

 

1 hour ago, zokum said:

Jumping is often cheating on maps not designed for it.

 

This I agree with, as it can obviously sequence break.

[snapshot]

I turn it on because I'm so used to playing fps games with freelook, though I try not to exploit it to sequence break or shoot switches I'm not supposed to shoot if I'm playing something not meant to be played with it. Play it however you like.

Edited February 13, 2021 by sluggard

[Sergeant_Mark_IV]

Because this is the Doom community.
Welcome.
If people understood that the most famous FPS of all time is being played by an incalculable amount of people, whose preferences varies based on their own life experiences, ranging from Vanilla, expanded experience, and total new experiences, and other factors, it would change things drastically. Being offended by the way other people plays Doom is literally part of the experience. It's a feature.
If nobody got offended it would be called something else. It would be called Rimworld community, GTA community, I don't know.

[Pseudonaut]

35 minutes ago, Murdoch said:

And this is a good thing. Maps that set up bad guys beyond the range of the autoaim piss me off.

 

The point of such design is to discourage sniping from a distance. If the player has to get close to the enemies to kill them, it's harder in pretty much every case. Circumventing this with freelook is not very different from creating sequence breaks by turning on jumping; it's an advantage that the player isn't supposed to have. I won't tell you that you must play the game a certain way, but I don't blame mappers who are unhappy about the use of freelook on their maps in cases where it makes a big difference. I recently played Sunder's map11 and noticed a great example of this in the first big area, where a huge ledge full of revenants was just high enough that I couldn't reach it with Doom's autoaim at all, forcing me to take the teleporter and fight them up-close if I wanted to kill them. If, after clearing out the ground floor, I could instead have just sniped over 200 helpless revenants with the rocket launcher from behind cover, that would be really boring.

[Nine Inch Heels]

6 hours ago, Major Arlene said:

I've never once seen freelook actually break a map, tbh. I play a lot of vanilla WADs with it on and while I can maybe see certain things and angles that are maybe less than traditional, it's not like jumping where you can actually sequence break the map.

The icon of sin would like to have a word with you...

 

Look, I'm not going to get my pants in a twist over "purism" when it comes to casual play, but there are examples of how freelook can either break a sequence (doesn't happen very often) or make the combat easier than it would be otherwise (happens a lot more often). For example, place an arch vile behind a wall of perched revs on a pillar, and the auto-aim will always gun for the revenants if the engine "finds" one in front of the arch vile on a lower level. Play the same setup with freelook, and the oh-so-threatening and hard to kill vile is nothing but easy fodder for the rocket launcher. Freelook also makes shooting down flyers easier, because you get to aim-ahead instead of having to wait for a drifting caco to come to a halt. Another thing worth noting is platforming, which gets a lot easier at times when you can look at your own feet instead of having to rely solely on your general sense of orientation and movement - extremely tight platforming sequences merely exacerbate the point made.

 

It's not about sequence breaking anything and everything, it's about a great many subtleties, which is why freelook and free-aim are not allowed in speedrunning as far as classic WADs are considered.

 

Whatever you do when you play at your leisure is not my business, but let's not pretend that freelook doesn't change things in favour of the player when it quite clearly does.

[Noiser]

5 hours ago, Murdoch said:

Even if the map is not designed with looking in mind, the benefit is minimal. At best they might be able to shoot a switch before they normally could but how often is that likely to come up?

While I agree with what you said before, this quote in special is not true. Freelook (without autoaim) can break some setpiece fights entirely, especially when monsters are used to shield the ones above them. The idea that freelook only affects switches is a myth - mostly spread by people who don't mod with vanilla behavior in mind.

But yeah, it's just a game and the important is having fun after all, so I agree with you here. People should play the maps the way they want - but we don't need to lie to validate this statement any further.

Edited February 11, 2021 by Noiser

[ketmar]

i wonder how many purists died of heart attack when they tried my sourceport and found out that it not only has freelook enabled by default (and options to ignore mapinfo "no freelook/jumping/crouch" commands), but it also has *headshots* with *criticals* enabled by default too. with some luck, and on point-blank range you can kill an imp with one good placed pistol shot!

 

next time somebody will try to blame you for using freelook, just point them to this post, so they'll have a much better target for their Religious Holy Hatred. ;-)

[Murdoch]

26 minutes ago, Noiser said:

Freelook (without autoaim) can break some set-piece fights entirely,

 

Icon of Sin is one I forgot about, yes freelook could break that. I guess it's become ingrained in me to not use it in situations where I know it could cause a problem.

 

I should also add - I hate it when maps use limitations of player movement and flexibility to create barriers. Hate is perhaps too strong a word. It irritates me a bit. And while it does apply to Doom primarily it also applies to others. If I am playing Skyrim and there's an item I need just behind some bars and it looks like I could just slip my hand through and grab it, that irritates me slightly. It breaks immersion somewhat.

 

49 minutes ago, Pseudonaut said:

I recently played Sunder's map11 and noticed a great example of this in the first big area, where a huge ledge full of revenants was just high enough that I couldn't reach it with Doom's autoaim at all

 

Fair enough but to me * that's bad design. It's a classic example of the above - making my life difficult not by clever layout and positioning of bad guys but by exploiting a weakness in what the player can do. My brain goes "I should be able to point my gun up and and shoot that guy" but I can't, and the autoaim fails to compensate for that. That said I am more forgiving of it with projectile monsters where you can at least dodge. If you put hitscanners in the same situation I may be forced to sternly wag my finger at you.

 

It's the same thing when someone puts a critical key, weapon or item on a slightly raised platform. I SHOULD be able to just reach out my hand and grab it. The original game maps were generally - but not always - good at not creating situations that bought the movement limitations into stark focus. I am probably forgetting many instances of it because I have not played the original maps in a long time, but I don't recall getting too annoyed with them for these reasons.

* Legal Disclaimer: my personal opinion and not intended as a statement of objective fact. Disagreements are welcome.

[Nine Inch Heels]

20 minutes ago, Murdoch said:

It's a classic example of the above - making my life difficult not by clever layout and positioning of bad guys but by exploiting a weakness in what the player can do.

Literally every game ever meant to challenge the player in a PvE scenario employs its own rules such that the supposed player has to overcome some manner of adversity, and the more demented or basic the AI is, the bigger the advantage that needs to be given to the player's enemies... That's a very simple and straightforward rule, which applies to more games out there than I could ever care to count... From rubberbanding in racing games, seemingly overwhelming odds in games like advance wars, to even blatantly "cheating" AIs with constant vision of a battlefield in RTS games, it's part of the package...

 

Id built the icon of sin such that you need to ride the lift to be able to kill the damn thing, they played the game's mechanical limitations as a card against the player in the most literal sense imaginable, but when another mapper pulls a similar stunt in another context it's suddenly "bad design"? Yeah, it may be your opinion, but I'm calling that a double standard and nothing else...

[Murdoch]

17 minutes ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

Id built the icon of sin such that you need to ride the lift to be able to kill the damn thing, they played the game's mechanical limitations as a card against the player in the most literal sense imaginable,

 

OK my brain is not working very well today. Too much going on and I am running on sleep fumes. You are 100% correct and yes, I dislike the Icon of Sin as implemented in Doom 2 Map30 and those like it.

[jmac]

I had no idea this was a thing people would get mad about.

 

Unless the wad I'm playing requires it, I don't use freelook, simply because I don't feel like doom needs it, and because I'm better at the game with it off. I don't see any reason to begrudge other people for using it though.

Edited February 11, 2021 by jmac

[Egg Boy]

I prefer doom with autoaim and no freelook. There's nothing wrong with freelook, but there are maps that can be broken while using it, usually involving shootable switches. Usually this is noted by the mapper, however.

[0o0[ULTIM4TE]L1FE[F0RM]0o0]

10 hours ago, Clippy said:

Because I'm someone who prefers to play this way. I played with it for so long I can no longer go back, I feel locked into an uncomfortable stuck position when I try it. But some people do give me a hard time for it. Even angry. I just don't get it, let people play how they choose. I try not to abuse it with sharp angles and also do not use autoaim or crosshairs, so I have to really call my shots. I love to look around at map details and etc. Also I like to playtest maps and I don't think a lot of authors have a problem with it, many call it out as optional. I now only won't play maps where they say it is not allowed but those are rare, but really if they were so concerned they could program the restriction into the game? For my maps I disabled jumping/crouching for example.

 

But yeah it's funny the complaints and heatedness for something so trivial. I've had ppl play my own personal maps all sorts of ridiculous ways, crazy mods and etc and one guy made a video with a magic wand or microphone or something that zapped all the monsters dead immediately. I thanked them for spending time with my map haha

 

Anyway I have fun playing the way I play and don't understand the need to get pressured to change what I enjoy or use different source ports etc

 

So here's me taking out my frustrations on a bunch of Imps 

 

 

 

 

I didn't even know that people who get offended by that exist. Is that true? I have never really seen anyone who can get offended over something as small as that...

[Bridgeburner56]

3 hours ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

Whatever you do when you play at your leisure is not my business, but let's not pretend that freelook doesn't change things in favour of the player when it quite clearly does.

I'd argue that freelook and auto aim are actually fairly balanced in terms of which one is "easier" to use (supported by anecdotal evidence watching very good players use both to play hard maps). Yes freelook allows for precision aiming that autoaim does not, but it requires exactly that. You need to aim, which takes time and APM. While the assistance given by autoaim isn't egregious, it still takes care of the last 5% of the player needing to center on their target. This is more important in fast hard fights where players need to make snap decisions and quick movements, especially if they are switching between targets at different heights. The saving on APM that having autoaim gives you does make a difference.
I'm just talking purely closeish combat here, I do agree that freelook gives an advantage when navigating areas with a lot of verticality and the fact that autoaim has a range limit makes freelook advantageous in very large areas with distant monsters.

[wallabra]

7 hours ago, GarrettChan said:

Is this... a cultural reference? Sorry I didn't get it.

 

no. it's jus tit. not much else to saya bout it

[dmslr]

It may be an unpopular opinion but it's easier for me without freelook. And also more enjoyable for some reason.

Edited February 11, 2021 by dmslr

[wallabra]

surely @Murdoch is well versed when it comes to satan's rear end

[Nine Inch Heels]

51 minutes ago, Bridgeburner56 said:

Yes freelook allows for precision aiming that autoaim does not, but it requires exactly that. You need to aim, which takes time and APM. While the assistance given by autoaim isn't egregious, it still takes care of the last 5% of the player needing to center on their target. This is more important in fast hard fights where players need to make snap decisions and quick movements, especially if they are switching between targets at different heights. The saving on APM that having autoaim gives you does make a difference.

If you go for precision aiming while you have more pressing matters to attend to, you are making a bad judgement call. Obviously you go for precise shots when you have the time to spare, so APM (this isn't starcraft, btw) are not a factor. Fast and hard fights typically mean that there is something close by that needs dealing with in some way, so you're not going to see any player worth their salt going for headshots on the arch vile that is zipping around 2,000 mapunits away to begin with.

 

The example I provided was based on the circumstance that doom's auto-aim would still function, meaning a "tangible" disadvantage compared to freelook. So, when looking at these kinds of distances, the precision-line of arguing is moot at best, because anything perched at such a range is most likely a mere flick-shot for better players, if even that much of a feat. Besides, any gun in the standard arsenal will provide you with a time-window to aim at a different target anyway, unless you are using a rapid fire weapon. Most fast and hard fights employ rockets, plasma, and BFG, so for the plasma rifle with its relatively large projectiles there's really no need for precision down to a few pixels either.

Edited February 11, 2021 by Nine Inch Heels

[Bridgeburner56]

17 minutes ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

If you go for precision aiming while you have more pressing matters to attend to, you are making a bad judgement call. Obviously you go for precise shots when you have the time to spare

Yes, which means the ability to be precise is less relevant in these situations making autoaim an advantage

 

19 minutes ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

Besides, any gun in the standard arsenal will provide you with a time-window to aim at a different target anyway, unless you are using a rapid fire weapon. Most fast and hard fights employ rockets, plasma, and BFG, so for the plasma rifle with its relatively large projectiles there's really no need for precision down to a few pixels either.

The ability to take the shot faster means that the player can go back to focusing on positioning, avoiding projectiles, target prioritisation etc in between the actual acts of ready aim fire. Yes these are all things that are broadly being done at the same time but the player only has so much "mental RAM" to use to focus on all that makes up an fps combat situation. Having to physically aim up to a 45 degree angle does take longer than not having to. Like I said, the differences are more noticeable in fights with more verticality in the combat set up but even then we're only probably talking a few % points difference in terms of performance.

We're talking very small differences between specific set ups that will impact whether freelook or autoaim is more advantageous which was my original point that, on balance, neither is "easier" than the other.

Also regarding the OP, play the way that brings you the most enjoyment. Just don't complain when you inadvertently break a mapset playing it in an unintended way ;)

[NoXion]

I always play classic Doom with freelook enabled and autoaim disabled. Fuck you computer, I'm not wearing a neck brace and I don't need your pity.

 

I've honestly never had this setup "break" any map I've played, at least not in any way that I've noticed. The only example I can recall is that it makes the Icon of Sin fight a touch easier, but that doesn't matter in my opinion because the classic Icon is a rubbish boss encounter anyway, and making it slightly less tedious means I can get it out of the way more quickly.

 

To be fair though, nobody's ever given me shit about my gameplay choices. Maybe the OP needs to find a less toxic place to hang out.

[Nine Inch Heels]

1 hour ago, Bridgeburner56 said:

Yes, which means the ability to be precise is less relevant in these situations making autoaim an advantage

I think we have either a language problem, or you think this game's combat is a heck of a lot more demanding than it actually is in regards to pinpoint precision. This idea that precise and time consuming aiming is required for anything that is within the range of the auto-aim is complete nonsense. And let's not forget that the vast majority of combat, PWADs included, is nowhere near the stunning degree of fast paced action that you've built your argument around.

 

1 hour ago, Bridgeburner56 said:

The ability to take the shot faster means that the player can go back to focusing on positioning, avoiding projectiles, target prioritisation etc in between the actual acts of ready aim fire. Yes these are all things that are broadly being done at the same time but the player only has so much "mental RAM" to use to focus on all that makes up an fps combat situation.

The mental RAM which you think is spread so awfully thin becomes a non-argument for practically all of the valiant-esque, or speed of doom-esque WADs out there, as well as anything that is easier. The only maps which require some manner of cognitive presence are the hardest tier of maps, aka later sunlust, dimensions, that sort of caliber.

Most things are done on autopilot anyway, including but not limited to pattern dodging, projectile herding, and such like. And none of these activities interfere in any way shape or form with the player's ability to look up or down. Target prioritisation is exactly what I meant when I talked about singling out one target by way of freelook in my given example, so it is happening at the same time anyway, unless you want to tell me that focusing fire on a particular thread isn't target prioritisation.

 

You may not like it, but moving the mouse while running away from a cluster of revenant rockets isn't an art form, most certainly not when you try to invoke a need for precision where none is required to begin with. It's a core-skill, and nowhere near as demanding as you would like to make believe. These very small differences you mentioned are all fine and dandy, but small differences straight up don't hold a candle to the ability to trivialize fights that would give players with auto-aim a much harder time.

[Optimus]

I went directly from keyboarding to mouse+freelook. Never played with mouse in classic Doom on DOS back in the days even if I later found it's possible. Mouse controls weren't known back in the days. Later since Quake I learned the mouselook way. And then finding modern doomports, I'd prefer to have more free axes, both for immersion, like looking how classic Doom areas look from above or below, easy to select what to shoot (not waiting for the autoaim, but have a preference if your shoots go to the Cacodemon above or the monsters below, or imagine in classic you shoot rockets high but the autoaim fails and it shoots in front of you in the wall) and also if I look the up/down view, I feel restricted. My mind believes I am moving up/down but the view is locked, that confuses a bit my aiming too for some reason. Interesting fact, when I went to modern ports with the software rendered ZDoom many years ago, I still kept playing with keyboard for a long, as the up/down view would be shearing and quit vomitting.

 

In reality, I had many changes to my preferred way of playing. For a long time I played with texture filtering on and I had these comments "OMG Please remove filtering!". Even enabled the HQ texture scalers on GZDoom. I changed it for some other reasons, a specific WAD wouldn't look as good if not crispy, then I got used to it and say ok it's fine this way too (but initially I felt something was missing when I was used to the HQ+filtering). My habits change from time to time, from ZDoom keyboarding, to mouselook filtered textures. Oh,. also, when I reach the Icon of Sin, I do abuse the mouselook because I absolutely hate the timed nature of this challenge.

 

EDIT: Forgot about shootable switches. When I notice them, as I recognize they are supposed to be shot straight and it's worth for completion and feel of proper map progression to find the proper height to shoot them. At that point, I hit the "End" button to level up to horizon, just to make sure I am aligned. But I guess other players could not know this, but I don't care how anyone plays anyway.

Edited February 11, 2021 by Optimus