Least favourite mechanic?

[xdude_gamer]

That one linedef glitch where your bullets go right through enemies. Or Mancubus fireballs going through walls.

[Jacek Bourne]

40 minutes ago, DynamiteKaitorn said:

In terms of level design:

Having literally no idea where the bloody hell I'm meant to go, especially in larger maps. Too much detail can sometimes be a bad thing.

 

In terms of mechanics:

A R C H V I L E S .

Archviles are the most well designed enemies in the game. What makes you hate them?

[Foxhead]

Hold to interect, i hate it so much.
also maps that are all about waves and waves of monsters coming at you are boring as hell.

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

Not really a mechanic per se, but in terms of OG DOOM, spectres are a missed opportunity. id could have done something to make them unique. They should have either some special attack or at least a very short wind-up when they attack. They are by far the most useless stock enemy.

 

If they wanted a stealth enemy, they should have made a new one. The thought of a giant pink gorilla trying to blend in with the wild by turning partially invisible is hilarious.

 

 

[msx2plus]

6 minutes ago, TheMagicMushroomMan said:

spectres are a missed opportunity

they should have made no sound until they attack tbh, even that would be a vast improvement

 

also no idea how anybody could hate archviles. expose yourself to them more frequently, they're often not that threatening and provide great tests of spatial awareness. usually the key is to move less. if you start to play all hasty you'll just keep hating them. less is often more in terms of movement.

 

also re: cyberdemon not being a good boss: this is true, but he's a great monster and endlessly useful

Edited September 1, 2021 by msx2plus

[Ragu]

3 hours ago, Doomkid said:

Man, the IOS hate, I should be numb to it by now but I just can't get over it, lol. Do you guys seriously prefer "hold down the fire button at a wall of meat" fights to something that actually requires some timing and planning?

 

The Doom 1 bosses are literally just "a big fat imp" followed by "a big fat chaingunner". I mean they are cool enemies, don't get me wrong.. I just feel like the IOS battle is a stroke of misunderstood genius tragically housed in an ugly/visually uninspiring arena.

 

I guess what people really want is something better than any of the existing Classic Doom boss fights, because I refuse to believe that everyone is satisfied with the Doom 1 bosses. I beat them without cheats when I was 7 years old for Pete's sake..

 

The Doom 1 bosses are not good at all. The Cyberdemon has some shock value the first time you fight it, but the Mastermind is practically a non-entity. But that doesn't mean the IoS isn't shitty (to me)! There being absolutely no rhythm to the timing is what gets me, it doesn't feel like timing so much as just guessing. And then you have to do it two or three times! I'm sure there's a setup to do it consistently, but that feels more like speedrunner stuff -- determining the exact frame to start lobbing rockets based on crossing an arbitrary pixel or something like that. Without that, though, it's guesswork, and that's frustrating to me.

 

I think that id just wasn't great at boss design! See also: Quake.

[slugger]

The cyberdemon and mastermind duels are fantastic. For that matter the Bruiser Brothers and the mancubi in Dead Simple are also classics. Just regular enemies, yet the architecture is so theatrical that it feels like you really walked into the lion's den.

 

 

Unless there's some setup that I'm not familiar with, the IOS architecture puzzle fight is more than a little RNG-based. You have to cross your fingers and hope something doesn't spawn and shoot you in the back while you're waiting on the elevator. The Icon doesn't even do anything; it's all about tracking a random stream of monsters who are mostly behind you. It feels like you have to abandon strategy and move by reflex and pray to survive, which is thematically appropriate and atmospheric, but less tight and fair.

 

I think the mastermind is the least "studied" demon; that is to say it has the most unused potential due to lack of interest. I think we're due for a spiderdemon renaissance. She's so huge and threatening that she's hard to place fairly without turning her into a stationary turret. How often do you see a spider mastermind actually chase you around levels?

[Nimoy]

I don't see much use in the automaps.

[PsychEyeball]

4 minutes ago, slugger said:

The cyberdemon and mastermind duels are fantastic. For that matter the Bruiser Brothers and the mancubi in Dead Simple are also classics. Just regular enemies, yet the architecture is so theatrical that it feels like you really walked into the lion's den.

I really enjoyed the first time I fought the Cyberdemon in Doom, it did feel like an end boss back in the time. However, time has not been kind to him in the slightest, it's much harder to take the Cyberdemon seriously in the Tower of Babel after you played a WAD like Alien Vendetta where a single level can feature over a dozen of these. It doesn't feel the same anymore.

 

The Spider Mastermind just never left a big impact on me like ever. When you meet it, it's in this giant uninteresting arena which barely features anything interesting and the boss is stationed in a random corner of the map. You have the BFG-9000 by then and you are fearless. You shoot a few giant balls of plasma in its face and it dies with little fanfare. There was some actual tension and method to the fight against the Cyberdemon since there was no end game weapon to deal with him and I feel this is why the Cyberdemon is better regarded today.

 

Maybe if the fight featured something more unique, the Spider Mastermind would be better remembered.

[msx2plus]

4 minutes ago, Hans Grosse said:

I don't see much use in the automaps.

certainly not harmful though, can't imagine it being a least favorite! they're often beautiful too. always worth bringing up things like Grove's automap:

 

or maybe 54-PIT from JPCP

 

or the immaculate beauty of The Given:

 

but this isn't an automap-porn thread so i'll stop ;)

[slugger]

9 minutes ago, PsychEyeball said:

I really enjoyed the first time I fought the Cyberdemon in Doom, it did feel like an end boss back in the time. However, time has not been kind to him in the slightest, it's much harder to take the Cyberdemon seriously in the Tower of Babel after you played a WAD like Alien Vendetta where a single level can feature over a dozen of these. It doesn't feel the same anymore.

 

The Spider Mastermind just never left a big impact on me like ever.

 

Yeah, cyberdemons aren't as scary when you've fought a hundred at once - It's still a killer map. You should try E3M8 from a pistol start; it's not hard, but it's much more fun than cheesing it.

[D.Vile]

2 hours ago, TheMagicMushroomMan said:

Not really a mechanic per se, but in terms of OG DOOM, spectres are a missed opportunity. id could have done something to make them unique. They should have either some special attack or at least a very short wind-up when they attack. They are by far the most useless stock enemy.

 

If they wanted a stealth enemy, they should have made a new one. The thought of a giant pink gorilla trying to blend in with the wild by turning partially invisible is hilarious.

 

In the Spectre's defense, they are legitimately tricky to spot in dark areas if you run the game's original software renderer and keep it at a relatively low resolution. But of course, most people nowadays prefer to play Doom in modern source ports, often in video settings that don't preserve the game's intended visuals. So it's no wonder Spectres end up sticking out like a sore thumb.

 

Edit: Case in point, this is me running GZDoom on a hardware accelerated render mode.

 

And this is what the same room looks like on Chocolate Doom:

 

Edited September 1, 2021 by D.Vile
Added a few pictures to prove my point.

[Snark]

I'm just not a fan of random damage. I realise it's a nice thumbs up to the whole pen and paper roleplaying system, but I just hate when it takes two shotgun blasts PLUS 1 PISTOL BULLET to down a pinky, or two super shotgun blasts PLUS ONE PISTOL BULLET to kill a caco, or when a revenant missile takes  80 GODDAM HEALTH OFF because it just decided to. It adds RNG to fights that should be pure strategy.

[BaileyTW]

Automatic weapon switching. Maybe it's less so me hating the mechanic, because the concept of automatically switching to your new weapon with an evil grin is a neat characterization of Doomguy, and more so I very much dislike encounters where a weapon switch at the beginning of the encounter will almost surely leave to death. Always feels a liiitle dishonest to try to trigger a line on a small platform with a rocket launcher on it to trigger the fight but not grab the rocket launcher cause i dunno the pinkies would spawn point blank and the rocket launcher is the farthest thing from the right tool. Feels a bit bad cause that maybe wasn't intended, and then I remember what was intended is dumb and I don't like it.

[Andromeda]

Randomly moving floors.

[oxobun]

The MIDI in E2M4 and E4M6, I hate it with a passion.

[Rytrik]

The "Quit Game" option in the menu.

[Jayextee]

Having to read a pretend email or listen to a minute-long monologue in order to procure a 3-digit numeric code which will grant access to a few trinkets in a locker. Absolutely abhorrent.

OP didn't specify classic DOOM.

[Rytrik]

20 hours ago, msx2plus said:

or the immaculate beauty of The Given:

 

but this isn't an automap-porn thread so i'll stop ;)

 

That is absolutely beautiful. A+

[DynamiteKaitorn]

On 9/1/2021 at 8:19 PM, Jacek Bourne said:

Archviles are the most well designed enemies in the game. What makes you hate them?

1: stupidly fast

2: tanky AF

3: Causes PTSD

4: Can res a lot of enemies quickly

5: Deals stupidly high damage even on ITYTD/HNTR

[Jacek Bourne]

1 hour ago, DynamiteKaitorn said:

1: stupidly fast

2: tanky AF

3: Causes PTSD

4: Can res a lot of enemies quickly

5: Deals stupidly high damage even on ITYTD/HNTR

 

These are the things that make them so well designed.

[galileo31dos01]

Lately been feeling a little, disturbed, mentally and spiritually, by repeatable doors - the type you have to wait for them to fully close to reopen. Much less common in nowadays stuff, thankfully.

[Dusty_Rhodes]

On 9/1/2021 at 8:54 AM, RHhe82 said:

or that one master level (Catwalk perhaps?).

Don't even get me started on Klie's maps for the Master Levels. It wasn't fun 1995 and it's not fun now. I don't hate the guy, but come on. Some things just make no sense from a design or ganeplay perspective. Why do those stair / wall things in Catwalk lower and raise so awkwardly (or at all), why do you have to do an weird slide / jump thing to get the yellow key in Garrison? 

 

Those maps just bother me on a subatomic level.

[slugger]

You know when you fire a bunch of rockets at an archvile and it does a little jig and neatly sidesteps them all? That's what it feels like for demons all. the. time.

[Pirx]

Automatic weapon switching and infinite height is irrelevant with ports (I use gzdoom mostly), but they'd be infuriating. Especially the switch - how the hell does my avatar do something I did not do? 

 

So, of everything else, for me it's the range for damage randomization being too wide, it makes the game feel inconsistent. So I kill a 140 HP punky in one punch, and the next second, a measly 60 HP imp takes 3 punches and even scratches back at me? 

 

Also the 20 HP lava seeping through. Yeah one could say it's more realistic, because a bulletproof vest won't protect you from every bullet type either, but biting the lava because of randomness isn't fun. 

[Pirx]

Double post 

 

 

Edited September 3, 2021 by Pirx

[Pirx]

Triple

Edited September 3, 2021 by Pirx

[Rymante]

Another vote here for The Icon of Sin/Monster Spawners.

 

Map 30 in Doom 2 is just not a very enjoyable experience, I usually cheese it with the power of mouselook.  I'm not a fan of the constantly spawning enemies either, RNG can screw you over with what monster the game feels like spawning and well.......in most Doom maps, both official & fan made, your skill at the game can help reduce the pressure you might be under in a fight, but if there are monster spawners actively spewing out new monsters constantly the pressure never really lets up & you don't get a breather until the map is over.

 

I also prefer it when 100% kills is possible in a map and well, it's not possible in Icon of Sin/Monster Spawner maps.

[Dirk]

The safety on the BFG.

[ChestedArmor]

On 9/1/2021 at 9:16 PM, Theperson said:

Why all the hate for Archviles? 

Ever played Plutonia?