How do you fell about Doom RNG?

[Arbys550]

I don't like the RNG, I wish it was squeezed a bit, as someone above said.

[BGreener]

I think it’s a lot of fun. I’m seconding SilentD00mer’s notion here of it providing a “degree of realism”, even if on paper it might seem ironic to some.

 

I like the degrees of urgency it can create, like when a caco survives to SSG blasts and having to decide between wasting two shells on a nearly dead caco or gauging if you have time to switch and chaingun it to death.

 

I’m not really concerned with the randomness regarding received damage, but maybe it’s because I’m a weirdo who plays like every hit will *be* maximum damage. Not only that, but unlike the enemies I have way more control and influence over getting hit in the first place.

[Biodegradable]

While the RNG can be a real bitch sometimes and hurl you into a terrible situation, I think that's the beauty of it. It keeps Doom exciting and unpredictable. The RNG encourages you to be more alert, to practice your dodging maneuvers, to take risks and become a stronger player because of it. Could it be improved a little? Absolutely. Should we get rid of it completely? Personally, I don't think so.

 

That little degree of randomly-generated Good Luck/Bad Luck in any combat situation is just another little ingredient that keeps this near-30 year old game unique even in the modern day.

Edited February 1, 2022 by Biodegradable

[msx2plus]

@Shepardus just about the only other type of game i play these days is STGs/shmups and given how tightly calibrated so many of them are, it's amazing that doom is one of my favorite things ever. it does just the opposite of what makes a great STG; slippery controls, lots of randomness, but somehow they feel the same in a way. it's wild! i guess because in a sense they're both games about controlling the playfield. if you lose control, the game defeats you. it's no wonder there's a decent cross pollination between STG players and doom players all over the world.

[MoreMending]

Balanced but dumb.

[Bauul]

Reading through the comments, it seems mostly people's opinion is the one I too have: I like RNG generally as it adds a level of unpredictability to the game, but there are certain aspects of the Doom's RNG specifically that are a big too extreme (rev missiles and berserk punches being among the most egregious).

 

I wouldn't want it gone, but I also wouldn't mind a slight tightening in certain aspects.

[Plats]

It's just unpredictible and bs sometimes

[Pirx]

3 hours ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

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...

 

 

this. RNG requires the skill of improvising and dealing with unpredictable moments instead of always the same inputs, just more accurate than before. i consider it one of the factors of doom's longevity, as each run can have different results.

 

and one tends to remember the frustrating results of RNG more than the favorable ones.

 

as i see, the problem for most people is not the RNG itself, but its wide range. like afore mentioned range for berserk - you kill a pinky in one punch, and then an imp takes 3 and even fights back.

 

[Mr. LBN]

Should've had the option to toggle it on or of via command line.

 

You balance in accordance with original RNG damage output n shit when typing -norng so as to not be wildly unbalanced.

 

When you think about it, why wasn't something like this coded into the game itself?

Edited February 2, 2022 by Mr. LBN

[Edward850]

10 minutes ago, Mr. LBN said:

Should've had the option to toggle it on or of via command line.

 

You balance in accordance with original RNG damage output n shit when typing -norng so as to not be wildly unbalanced.

 

When you think about it, why wasn't something like this coded into the game itself?

Because that would have been madness. The RNG table is used extensively in the enemy, weapon, audio and visual design, not just damage output.

 

Plus removing the RNG wouldn't have been in the template. Doom's original design was supposed to be that of an RPG, similar to that of the D&D game they based it off of. While the extraneous elements got removed, the concept of dice rolls dictating moment to moment gameplay remained. And for things like the shotgun spread it's just plain common sense.

 

Finally, the notion that it's "unbalanced" is absurd. Everyone is under the influence of the same RNG table, it's not biased to one player. The same drawbacks of any random output affects you just as much as it does your opponent. You cannot and should not be relying on perfect output.

Edited February 2, 2022 by Edward850

[chungy]

13 minutes ago, Edward850 said:

And for things like the shotgun spread it's just plain common sense.

I definitely prefer random spread, but Serious Sam is a reasonably well-praised series that has a fixed spread, no randomness.

 

It does differ from Doom in significant ways, it's even moreso like an old shmup where you should have entirely predictable damage. Doom likes to keep players on their feet.

[BaileyTW]

Whether or not it is good, the rng is a big part of the design of some enemies at least to me. I do feel like something would be lost if a Revenant's range was something like 30-60 or even a flat 45 each time or the the unknown if a cyerdemon rocket is going to kill me or merely leave me dazed and confused at 30 health. It is satisfying to go in, know what will happen as far as damage goes, I mean this is a luxury afforded to you by most games really, it is good knowing I can go into a room launch 3 rockets in this direction, 4 in that one, 2 in that one, and cause I know I'll do a fixed health I did the right thing, but I also like dealing with if that 4th rocket didn't kill that archevile and my plan didnt go perfectly. Some people don't like this. Taking 2 70 damage revenant missiles then being plinked by an imp and dying feels like your run was stolen more than taking 10 damage from a revenant missile feels like it saved you but I dunno, there's a big degree of stuff I can account for, I like to have some I cannot account for cause dealing with it feels satisfying.

 

This opinion will be reversed next time I go for a uvmax run and imps keep surviving a single shotgun blast.

[galileo31dos01]

Earlier today I was playing this final map and gave an archvile four BFG balls to chew and swallow with total calm. The tracers? because of stupidity from my part some of them got nullified and I wasn't paying attention to what I was doing, but regardless, what are the odds that four BFG balls wouldn't add up to 700 hp of damage, like, come on...

 

The archvile that came after died to the BFG ball before the tracers happened, so yeah, there can be a whole long exhausting conversation about how rng affects our doom routine but in conclusion, you just gotta laugh and move on. Some people got that better, I still end up like the confused lady from the meme sometimes, whether the situation was in my favor or not.

 

A thing I thought of recently, the less I knew about rng, years ago, the less I cared about values and max rolls and whatnot... interesting...

[Nefelibeta]

Sometimes I like them and sometimes I hate them

[Shikamaze]

Nice to see the opinion of most people are that rng is good but the spread is too big and should probably be lowered. I'm surprised that no one mentioned radiation leak though. To me that has no place in the game. Feels similar to if invulnerability just didn't work, like a weird bug. It should either always work or not be a thing. 

[Bridgeburner56]

80 damage rev rockets build character. I wouldn't change a thing.

[Sneezy McGlassFace]

The radiation leak is there on purpose, isn't it? It only happens when traversing the worst of substances. Like lava is canonically 20dmg. What kind of suit would you need to perfectly seal you for walking on lava? The leaky suit makes perfect sense to me.

[Edward850]

9 minutes ago, HrnekBezucha said:

The radiation leak is there on purpose, isn't it?

Indeed it is. https://github.com/chocolate-doom/chocolate-doom/blob/e55356d93a1408ca9db9a8cc57ec243f9fc8f99a/src/doom/p_spec.c#L1063

Every tic the player is in a 20 damage sector, there is a minor chance the player protection is ignored (P_Random()<5). Note that this chance doesn't apply if you will get damaged, rather just acts as if you weren't protected. The usual level timer for damage still applies after. Both need to align for you to get damaged, which is what makes it very rare.

Edited February 2, 2022 by Edward850

[Shikamaze]

36 minutes ago, HrnekBezucha said:

The radiation leak is there on purpose, isn't it? It only happens when traversing the worst of substances. Like lava is canonically 20dmg. What kind of suit would you need to perfectly seal you for walking on lava? The leaky suit makes perfect sense to me.

Yes, it's on purpose, but it's still dumb. If any protective suit had a leak, it would be the same as a useless suit, since even a little leak would kill you. As a game mechanic it also doesn't make sense, it would be like if invulnerability just didn't protect you sometimes. ( aside from telefrags but you get what i'm saying )

[Shepardus]

I forgot about leaky radiation suits, that's also awful RNG. Not reliable enough to be useful to level designers, just enough to be annoying and gaslight players into thinking the game glitched or an unseen monster attacked them.

[msx2plus]

leaky suit is definitely the one "remove this completely" RNG call in my books. the concept of forcing a player to do a 20d hurtfloor run (especially one with low heath) with suit can be totally nullified by it.

[ZethXM]

I'm enjoying Supercharge's removal of damage rng in favor of normalization.

[Redneckerz]

Removing RNG would mean shotgun guys would deal the same damage on distances that make it nonsensical for a shotgun to deal equal amounts of damage.

 

Effectively removing RNG makes the shotgun a sniper rifle, and shotgun guys snipers.

 

Imagine how that messes the balance of maps. You would be better off with a custom monster.

[maxmanium]

Honestly I've never had any complaints about it.

[Shepardus]

1 hour ago, Redneckerz said:

Removing RNG would mean shotgun guys would deal the same damage on distances that make it nonsensical for a shotgun to deal equal amounts of damage.

 

Effectively removing RNG makes the shotgun a sniper rifle, and shotgun guys snipers.

 

Imagine how that messes the balance of maps. You would be better off with a custom monster.

You could still do a non-random spread, as mentioned earlier in the thread. Having hitscanners be perfectly accurate would make zombiemen a lot more threatening, though.

[Mr. LBN]

6 hours ago, Edward850 said:

Because that would have been madness. The RNG table is used extensively in the enemy, weapon, audio and visual design, not just damage output.

 

Plus removing the RNG wouldn't have been in the template. Doom's original design was supposed to be that of an RPG, similar to that of the D&D game they based it off of. While the extraneous elements got removed, the concept of dice rolls dictating moment to moment gameplay remained. And for things like the shotgun spread it's just plain common sense.

 

Finally, the notion that it's "unbalanced" is absurd. Everyone is under the influence of the same RNG table, it's not biased to one player. The same drawbacks of any random output affects you just as much as it does your opponent. You cannot and should not be relying on perfect output.

Since what is bolded is the case then they should've left it on enemy, weapon, and audio, not damage output.  When I mentioned disabling RNG I should've been specific about it disabling RNG damage spread (i.e. taking 4 rockets to kill a Manc instead of 3, the obvious Revenant rocket).

 

I'm pretty biased too since I used to be a small time UV-Max speedrunner so there are times where damage RNG could be the deciding factor in getting a better run over someone especially if there's a berserk pack.

[Cruduxy Pegg]

People always use the revenant 80 max damage as some proof of the crazy overpowered revenant. Thing is you almost ALWAYS have at least green armor in nearly every single IWad/Pwad I've ever seen. That alone means revenants lose 1 third of their damage. If a revenant kills you in 2 projectiles chance is you had crazy bad luck ( by a port that changes how RNG table works, or a map full to the brim with active enemies eating all RNG numbers rapidly ) or you had no armor, and most of the time it is the lack of armor.

 

If you have blue armor or anything above that revenants damage is much lower just like all other monsters. A lot of maps pelt you with megaspheres if they have more enemies than usual. if you manage to run out of armor and start taking crazy amounts of damage I think the game is working as intended, DON'T LOSE YOUR ARMOR!

[Ludi]

19 hours ago, Redneckerz said:

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

 

Come on, it's what all the cool kids are doing!

[Hawk of The Crystals]

I like it since it gives me an excuse to get even better at the game. That being said, I probably would change a couple things about it, mostly common things that some people get annoyed with.

[Ludi]

21 hours ago, Sena said:

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.

 

I always remove the refire check on the pistol in my WADs, and make it faster. It keeps it useful throughout the campaign.