How do you fell about Doom RNG?

[Shikamaze]

How do you fell about all Doom RNG?

Revenants do between 10 and 80 damage, Hell Knights do between 8 and 64, and this isn't limited to monster damage.

Archviles take either 4 or 5 rockets. Barons sometimes survive 5 SSG blasts. There is also more stuff, like the radiation suit leak and pain chances. 

Do you think Doom would be improved if there was no RNG at all, or if the ranges were a little less wild (ie: rev missile does 40-70 damage, BFG ball does between 300-600 damage)?

 

 

[idbeholdME]

The RNG would greatly benefit from a squeeze, everything can just tickle or 2 shot you based on pure chance. I've already laid out my suggestion in other threads, so I'll just link it here:

However, I would leave pain chances and odd stuff like suit leaks as is. The pain chances are balanced VERY well as they are.

Edited February 1, 2022 by idbeholdME

[Ludi]

Revenant missle damage range is ridiculous, but hell knights and barons are great at infighting, especially up close with their devastating melee attacks so I'd keep those

[SilentD00mer]

I think RNG in Doom adds some "realism" to the game, so I don't think is good to remove, but it would be good if the damage was more balanced, I guess. Tbh, I don't feel annoyed so much by the RNG, even when I die because of it.

[Ludi]

2 minutes ago, SilentD00mer said:

I think RNG in Doom adds some "realism" to the game, so I don't think is good to remove, but it would be good if the damage was more balanced, I guess. Tbh, I don't feel annoyed so much by the RNG, even when I die because of it.

 

Agreed. RNG adds flavor, but there are definitely cases where some changes would be welcome

[Sena]

I'd advocate for removing the random spread on the pistol, because accuracy and ammo conservation is the one thing it has going for it, but that's only applicable if you either wait 2 seconds inbetween shots, or you just get lucky, because if the RNG isn't on your side then you can shove yourself up against enemies and still miss 5 shots in a row. Beyond that, I have no issue with the RNG in the game, I think some level of randomness is always healthy for a game, although they could probably cut down the max revenant damage to 50 or 60, but that one doesn't ruin the game to the extent that I'd want to download a mod for it.

Edited February 1, 2022 by Sena

[roadworx]

i know some people aren't really into it - that's perfectly understandable - but i actually quite like it. it keeps things fresh

 

i'll agree that rev damage is a bit too spread out tho

[Redneckerz]

Is it the ''In'' thing to suddenly wonder what Doom plays like without RNG or no random damage?

 

I literally answered this 10 days ago. (Not to my surprise the OP of that thread just disappeared).

 

50 minutes ago, Shikamaze said:

Do you think Doom would be improved if there was no RNG at all, or if the ranges were a little less wild (ie: rev missile does 40-70 damage, BFG ball does between 300-600 damage)?

 

You can try it out yourself:

Quote

But as always, there are examples. Back in 2013, @TwinBeast made a fork of Chocolate Doom 1.7.0 without the random damage called Chocolate-NoRanDoom:

 

 

The links in the posts are dead, but here they are archived:

Binary: Here

Source: Here

 

Edited February 1, 2022 by Redneckerz

[ENEMY!!!]

I'm one of those who thinks the RNG is a good thing but that it's more aggressive than I would like, and I've experimented with similar ideas to the Tighter RNG mod.  It's fairly easy to do in Decorate or ZScript, if time consuming.

Edited February 1, 2022 by ENEMY!!!

[7Mahonin]

I like it because it adds a bit of unpredictability to the game. Far more predictable than Wolfenstein 3D though. That game seems to be even more unpredictable about when one shot vs 3-4 will take out the weakest of guards. All the weapons in that game have the same rng just different firing rates, so you’ll generally never have to change weapons once you get a better gun. 
 

I do agree with Sena about the pistol though. I think it could be of great benefit if it was more precise with each shot instead of how it is now where it gets drunk after the first shot. That, or if it shot a tad bit faster. 

Edited February 1, 2022 by 7Mahonin

[HAK3180]

In general, I like games that depend on both skill and luck. I like RNG, and I actually like the spreads too. The thing I would maybe mess with is the probability. For example, I would keep 10 rockets and 80 rockets, but they would be less common than 40 and 50. So it would be more like rolling two dice instead of one (Theoretically, 44% of 2-dice rolls are 6, 7, or 8). Maybe someone's already done such a mod; I don't know.

[idbeholdME]

12 minutes ago, 7Mahonin said:

I like it because it adds a bit of unpredictability to the game. Far more predictable than Wolfenstein 3D though. That game seems to be even more unpredictable about when one shot vs 3-4 will take out the weakest of guards. All the weapons in that game have the same rng just different firing rates, so you’ll generally never have to change weapons once you get a better gun.

If I remember correctly, the damage in Wolf 3D is mostly affected by distance. The closer you are to the target, the more damage you deal.

Edited February 1, 2022 by idbeholdME

[7Mahonin]

@idbeholdME There’s definitely truth to that that the distance does make a difference as well, but it also seems the guns have some RNG to them, but they’re all the same. Like the pistol and chaingun have the same chances, just different rates of fire. 

[GarrettChan]

20 minutes ago, 7Mahonin said:

@idbeholdME There’s definitely truth to that that the distance does make a difference as well, but it also seems the guns have some RNG to them, but they’re all the same. Like the pistol and chaingun have the same chances, just different rates of fire. 

There's no RNG difference between all 3 guns. I somewhat like this design because it encourages you to play aggressively. I think the only weird thing in the game is you deal extra damage if the enemy is not activated, but I can't confirm. I once killed a Mutant in one shot, but they have 65 health, which meaning you can't kill it in one shot normally (64 damage max)

 

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Well, despite always saying not having good RNG for speedruns, still think RNG is one of more interesting part in Doom. Though, less variance could be a bit better I assume, but sometimes taking 10 damage from a Rev missile feels good :P (despite I took 80 damage way more frequently, heh)

 

This is something why SSG is great. It eliminated the chance of Demon/Spectre surviving 2 SG shots. Also I think it always kills AV in 4 full blasts. Didn't do my math, but it feels like it :p

 

Low roll rockets are one of the most annoying thing for real. Like Demon/Spectre surviving 1 rocket, or like the one mentioned above, AV surviving 4 rockets.

Edited February 1, 2022 by GarrettChan

[Nine Inch Heels]

2 hours ago, Shikamaze said:

Do you think Doom would be improved if there was no RNG at all, or if the ranges were a little less wild (ie: rev missile does 40-70 damage, BFG ball does between 300-600 damage)?

Before getting to the meat of this, I'll just go ahead and point out that the BFG would probably still be the arguably best weapon out there if the BFG projectile itself had a damage range of 1-8, because what you really want to "connect" are the tracers. Moving on...

 

I remember a somewhat lengthy argument from a while back, where the claim was made that, for example quake with its absence of RNG was a game with a higher skill-ceiling... And while I could agree with the notion that the presence of RNG can make for some "ugly looking runs" sometimes, or that the RNG might even "obfuscate" the skill that went into producing a run in the first place, playing around the RNG is an expression of skill. We all get the muddy end of the stick sometimes, and this one homing rev rocket that we thought we had gotten rid of catches up and deals 80. It's annoying when it happens, can end or cripple runs, but it's something that could have been played around...

 

There's probably an argument to be made that not everything can always be played around, and some of the hardest maps out there make unfavourable RNG extremely hard to tolerate, while many UV max runs involve RNG grinds, which can frustrate runners, but most people in most cases suffer from "bad RNG" because they played poorly. People also tend to forget the many instances where they didn't die because luck was on their side in some particular instance...

 

So I don't really see a problem with RNG in particular, but some of the RNG ranges, like for example the berserk, are somewhat grating...

[idbeholdME]

17 minutes ago, GarrettChan said:

This is something why SSG is great. It eliminated the chance of Demon/Spectre surviving 2 SG shots. Also I think it always kills AV in 4 full blasts. Didn't do my math, but it feels like it :p

 

Low roll rockets are one of the most annoying thing for real. Like Demon/Spectre surviving 1 rocket, or like the one mentioned above, AV surviving 4 rockets.

I actually think this is the main reason why they made the Super Shotgun shoot 20 pellets even though one shell was only 7 before. They just thought, "Well, we want the SSG to always kill a Demon in one shot. One hitscan attack has a minimum damage of 5, so let's make it shoot 20 to always kill a Demon/Spectre in one full hit (150HP)." But they disregarded that with how the RNG works in Doom, 20 consecutive minimum or maximum rolls are actually impossible.

 

And yeah, direct rocket hits are probably the biggest offender (20-160), along with the main BFG projectile (100-800). At least splash damage is the one thing that is consistent in Doom.

Edited February 1, 2022 by idbeholdME

[Murdoch]

Personally if anything, I would add more randomness. Variable hit points and projectile speed, for example. I would also say movement speed - some demons will be a bit "fitter" after all than others - but this would be potentially make the animations look a bit out of sync with the movement.

[idbeholdME]

7 minutes ago, Murdoch said:

Personally if anything, I would add more randomness. Variable hit points and projectile speed, for example. I would also say movement speed - some demons will be a bit "fitter" after all than others - but this would be potentially make the animations look a bit out of sync with the movement.

A sort of a "chaos" mode is an idea I've thought about several times in the past. Slightly randomized projectile speeds would mean having to react more rather than just always knowing "This projectile is this fast, dodge in this pattern etc." Could definitely freshen up the game a bit and make it harder and less predictable in the process. Same with speeds, HP and other potential variables. Never knowing what the next encounter will hold. A Cacodemon with 30% more HP and movement speed or a Baron of Hell with 20% less health but 30% more speed.

 

Everything but the damage numbers. I would still squeeze those. The spiking with the vanilla RNG just feels a bit too much. I roll my eyes the same way, no matter if a Revenant missile hits me for 10 or 80 damage.

Edited February 1, 2022 by idbeholdME

[Murdoch]

Just now, idbeholdME said:

Revenant missile hits me for 10 or 80 damage.

 

Yes, that's a bit of an extreme variation.

[brick]

If anything Heretic has even more of this problem, it's very noticeable with the crossbow taking anything between 1 and 3 shots to kill a golem even with all 3 projectiles hitting full-on at close range. That said I like a the presence of the RNG, I think a bit of randomness is more fun than everything being purely deterministic. I do think (some of) the ranges are maybe a bit too wide and would have benefited from some squeezing, but I also like the games enough as they are to not mind too much.

Edited February 1, 2022 by brick

[xdarkmasterx]

Bullshit, get rid of it.

[SleepyVelvet]

I'm mostly a casual player and don't mind a little fuzziness.

Though then there's stuff like the berserk range.  I'm not a fan of Archviles tanking 10 berserk punches...

In general, there are lots of situations where I feel like I'm getting punished for doing the thing that works "most of the time", but not always.

This is an opinion I have 3/10 passion for though.

[Roofi]

RNG is perfect , just dodge the projectiles.

[Marisa the Magician]

As someone who spent more time on games like Unreal, I very much prefer to have no RNG damage whatsoever.

 

The devs may like their D&D as much as they want, but Doom is an FPS. That getting blasted in the face with a rocket can be randomly survivable because of a dice roll is honestly mindboggling and would almost feel like a bug to anyone not familiar with the RNG.

Edited February 1, 2022 by Marisa Kirisame
typo

[Nine Inch Heels]

10 minutes ago, Marisa Kirisame said:

The devs may like their D&D as much as they want, but Doom is an FPS. That getting blasted in the face with a rocket can be randomly survivable because of a dice roll is honestly mindboggling and would almost feel like a bug to anyone not familiar with the RNG.

To be fair... Getting all your insides ventilated by shotgun blasts and still surviving based on random helmets strewn about and bandages found in stimpacks... Doesn't really make that much more sense either...

[ReaperAA]

I don't think that RNG damage variation should be completely removed, but I definitely would have preferred if the damage variation was less. Berserk damage variation of 20-200 is probably the most annoying of all because depending on RNG, you may 2-shot kill a revenant or even a cacodemon, or would hit 3+ punches on a pinky and still see it standing.

 

 

[NoOne]

The RNG is just right. Who'm I to argue with Carmack? Like @Roofi says, just don't get hit ;)

Edited February 1, 2022 by NoOne

[Noiser]

I love it! It's what make the game so great in terms of replayability, imo. And I imagine Doom would not survive with such a strong scene without it.

[msx2plus]

when you design around it, it is good. when you do not, it is bad. simple as that. a couple things could absolutely stand to be tightened, but it's fine. even though i've greatly reduced rng ranges in my own current project (but have made up for with hilariously rare random drop occurrences), i have no real qualms with it when the mapper keeps in mind that it is indeed a variable the player has to cope with.

 

the whole idea is that any couple hits could be deadly, and almost certainly will be *mostly* deadly. you should always assume the next thing is going to kill you. anything that doesn't is a brilliant story to tell. "i tanked SIX rev rockets holy SHIT" is a great shot of adrenaline when it happens. but you should assume that even 2-3 will kill you.

[Shepardus]

I think some RNG is a good thing, like when determining how enemies move and act; I think dealing with that unpredictability is fun and a form of skill. Some I can live with, like taking 3-4 rockets to kill a mancubus. Then there are the really ridiculous ones like revenant missiles and berserk punches that range from almost nothing to world-shattering. Berserk punching is probably the worst of those for its ability to make or break speedruns for no reason other than sheer luck. At the point that RNG is determined, the action has already happened, and what's being randomized is the outcome, which I generally don't like as much as randomizing events that can be reacted to, like monster movements.

 

I imagine (not being a mapper myself) that balancing resources for a map is tricky when there's such large variation in damage, too. In the long run it tends to even out, but for an individual fight you better hope you don't get a spike of bad luck. For example, if you place a megasphere, those 400 hitpoints could tank anywhere from 5 to 40 revenant missiles. This is a far cry from the shmups I used to play a lot where you typically have one hit per life and a fixed number or small range of lives. I feel that shmup creators are able to create tighter encounters, for better or worse, when they have a clearer idea of how much punishment the player can take. Of course, the encounters are designed so that very skilled players can avoid taking any hits at all, but for the rest of us, the amount of leeway we're given is a big factor in the overall difficulty of the game, and in Doom that's pretty much a crapshoot.

Edited February 1, 2022 by Shepardus