Things you used to believe before source code was released & studied

[sandwedge]

This is funny.  Until last year I had only played the iwads sporadically, I loved doom but didn't know a ton about it, just whatever I had picked up from my own play.  Things I believed:

-the berserk pack only lasted while the screen was red (a classic)

-damage was static and not randomized - I thought if I didn' t shotgun an imp in one hit I hadn't hit it exactly center.  never noticed randomization in incoming damage.  randomized damage blew my mind when I learned about it, and also just seemed like a weird concept for a shooter.  How common is it even, does any modern shooter use that?

-I really thought Ultraviolence had more differences.  I usually played HMP and assumed ultraviolence did more damage to the player and maybe sped things up.  Turns out it only seemed that way because of the increased monster counts and changed items.

-I never used always run.  I held shift to run, and I didnt do that by default when exploring, especially since it's hard to hold my pinky like that forever.  Of course this meant that if I was surprised by an attack, I had to hit shift quick, but it's never as fast as just running all the time.  Always run also felt super weird at first so I held off.  Once I committed to it, it made a massive difference in my play and skill - probably the biggest leap from any one change.  It's funny to look back on the wads that were hard because of this (I need to play plutonia again...)

 

Those are the biggest I can think of, but I've learned a ton in the last few months.  there was a video some guy did recently (not decino) on revenants that blew my mind and made revenants way more predictable in close quarters.  Basically the fact that within a certain range they always go for melee, BUT if you hit them they immediately try to retaliate with a missile regardless of range.  They also continue to "owe" you that missile even after they try to melee you.  If you're close enough they only try to punch, which allows you to juke and berserk punch them.  Now I basically know when I hit them that a missile is coming in melee range so it's quite predictable.  So I've learned lots of cool stuff that's helped me graduate to harder levels, and it even lets me have fun steamrolling easier stuff.

 

Edit: Pretty sure I still wasn't sure about viles rezzing gibs until I read it in this thread... lol.

Edited April 19, 2022 by sandwedge

[Gez]

1 hour ago, sandwedge said:

I thought if I didn't shotgun an imp in one hit I hadn't hit it exactly center.

That's not entirely wrong, because the shotguns have spread so it could happen that some of the pellets are indeed missing the target. Though on the other hand there's autoaim, which automatically centers your shot. So to miss an imp with some of the pellets, you need to be at some minimal range; at point blank you're basically guaranteed they will all hit.

[Maes]

On 4/9/2022 at 5:10 PM, resle said:

For instance, I thought distance influenced damage, so a close range fireball or firearm blast would be deadlier. (That's true for the shotgun, but back then I had no idea it had a spread and multiple pellets were fired).

 

OK, I just can't wrap my head around that. The effects of the spread/pellets were pretty obvious visually and, well, ever since the 1970s everybody should know how a pump-action shotgun and its shells operate, what with all those action/crime movies, amirite?

 

OT, I used to believe that the Archvile couldn't resurrect monsters it had killed itself, and also that the way the OUCHFACE bug worked was entirely intentional.

 

1 hour ago, sandwedge said:

-damage was static and not randomized

 

Guilty of that myself, and I had even figured out certain specific figures like e.g. 6 bullets for an imp and 14 for a Demon/Spectre, and 35 for a Cacodemon (or exactly 5 shotgun shots. 7 pellets = 70 HP). For some reason I also assumed that 1 bullet = 10 HP. Thing is, with heat-of-battle counting, at least those specific figures were almost always right on the money. It's interesting how the Cacodemon's estimate (350 HP) undercuts the actual one significantly (400 HP), meaning that random effects only become significant once you really start stretching the "dice rolls", so to speak. For a Baron I think I estimated it around 700 HP or 10 shotgun blasts.

 

2 hours ago, HrnekBezucha said:

A whole bunch of things!

• IDDQD gives a ton of invisible health points but I can still totally run out and die
• berserker only lasts as long as the red screen effect

 

Well, you weren't entirely wrong about IDDQD. It's definitively defeatable by design in certain situations, e.g. telefragging, end-level death sectors etc.

 

As for Berserker....yeah, I got why everybody thinks it only lasts so long, but a) I had read about it before even encountering, so I always knew it lasted the entire level and b) Its screen tinting effect doesn't have that "expiration warning flash" effect you get with radsuit, invisibility or lite amp. It just fades gradually to a less intense shade of red, thus indicating that it doesn't really expire the way the other powerups do.  Ha, I bet several people just found this out ;-) Semantics, semantics.

Edited April 19, 2022 by Maes

[Sneezy McGlassFace]

2 hours ago, Maes said:

 

OK, I just can't wrap my head around that. The effects of the spread/pellets were pretty obvious visually and, well, ever since the 1970s everybody should know how a pump-action shotgun and its shells operate, what with all those action/crime movies, amirite?

 

OT, I used to believe that the Archvile couldn't resurrect monsters it had killed itself, and also that the way the OUCHFACE bug worked was entirely intentional.

 

 

Guilty of that myself, and I had even figured out certain specific figures like e.g. 6 bullets for an imp and 14 for a Demon/Spectre, and 35 for a Cacodemon (or exactly 5 shotgun shots. 7 pellets = 70 HP). For some reason I also assumed that 1 bullet = 10 HP. Thing is, with heat-of-battle counting, at least those specific figures were almost always right on the money. It's interesting how the Cacodemon's estimate (350 HP) undercuts the actual one significantly (400 HP), meaning that random effects only become significant once you really start stretching the "dice rolls", so to speak. For a Baron I think I estimated it around 700 HP or 10 shotgun blasts.

 

 

Well, you weren't entirely wrong about IDDQD. It's definitively defeatable by design in certain situations, e.g. telefragging, end-level death sectors etc.

 

As for Berserker....yeah, I got why everybody thinks it only lasts so long, but a) I had read about it before even encountering, so I always knew it lasted the entire level and b) Its screen tinting effect doesn't have that "expiration warning flash" effect you get with radsuit, invisibility or lite amp. It just fades gradually to a less intense shade of red, thus indicating that it doesn't really expire the way the other powerups do.  Ha, I bet several people just found this out ;-) Semantics, semantics.

One thing about berserk that gets me is that there is an internal counter for it. It's something ridiculous but it does run out. If they wanted to make it infinite, why having a counter at all? Why not have berserk = 1, and reset that on level exit? Variables don't eat processing time like counters do. You know what I mean? 

Also, you don't need the blinking effect because it's less likely to get you killed if it run out unexpectedly. It is important for rad suit or involn. 

[sandwedge]

5 hours ago, Gez said:

That's not entirely wrong, because the shotguns have spread so it could happen that some of the pellets are indeed missing the target. Though on the other hand there's autoaim, which automatically centers your shot. So to miss an imp with some of the pellets, you need to be at some minimal range; at point blank you're basically guaranteed they will all hit.

 

Yeah I noticed the pellets so I figured maybe I was just missing one or two if they didn't die in one hit.  Come to think of it I don't actually know how many pellets need to hit on average to one shot, it's more that I've gotten an intuitive feel for how close I have to be to virtually guarentee a one shot, and how far it is to only one shot about 1/2 to 3/4 of the time.

 

2 hours ago, HrnekBezucha said:

One thing about berserk that gets me is that there is an internal counter for it. It's something ridiculous but it does run out. If they wanted to make it infinite, why having a counter at all? Why not have berserk = 1, and reset that on level exit? Variables don't eat processing time like counters do. You know what I mean? 

Also, you don't need the blinking effect because it's less likely to get you killed if it run out unexpectedly. It is important for rad suit or involn. 

 

Huh interesting, I wonder if at some point in development it did run out?  So they developed that gradual red effect and counter, and then later changed the counter to be infinite.  I could see them thinking it needed to balanced and then going... but what if I could gib-punch imps for the WHOLE LEVEL.  And they had to change it.  Also maybe they loved the idea of a tyson run ;-)

[Pechudin]

5 minutes ago, sandwedge said:

Huh interesting, I wonder if at some point in development it did run out?  So they developed that gradual red effect and counter, and then later changed the counter to be infinite.  I could see them thinking it needed to balanced and then going... but what if I could gib-punch imps for the WHOLE LEVEL.  And they had to change it.  Also maybe they loved the idea of a tyson run ;-)

 

The counter is used for the red fade effect. Maybe a counter and a static eats less memory than one huge counter? IDK.

[Maes]

3 hours ago, HrnekBezucha said:

Also, you don't need the blinking effect because it's less likely to get you killed if it run out unexpectedly. It is important for rad suit or involn. 

 

[DiR]

I used to think that the OUCHFACE bug was an easter egg, kind of like when the map throws a curveball at you with a nasty trap guarding a megasphere, or an enemy got the jump on you while your back was turned while you were picking up items. I didn't really put in much thought into how that was programmed, I just saw the face a couple times and thought "Oh that must've caught Doomguy by surprise" or something. I also thought it was an easter egg because of how rarely I saw it.

 

Also, I would throw my arm a little bit into the punches when using brass knuckles, like I would run towards the enemy WHILE swinging the mouse thinking that it'll hit harder somehow. On keyboard I would look a bit to the side and while turning to face the enemy I would simultaneously punch. The "snap-on" autoaim when doing melee attacks made me think Doomguy did a swift jab or something and made me think it did more damage. Man I feel silly for believing that back then.

 

Attacking a demon from the back sadly did not have a higher chance at staggering the enemy, contrary to how much I believed it. I genuinely believed that since the few times I got a backshot on the Mancubi in Dead Simple I thought they were more likely to reach their pain state.

 

 

Used to also think that demons had "weak spots. I thought that I had to fight a cyberdemon head-on because of the exposed fleshy front section. Other demons that I thought had weak spots were Mancubi's backs (as I mentioned earlier) and the Spider Mastermind's legs. I'm still trying to kick the habit of attacking Spider Masterminds from a 45 degree angle because of this belief, some old habits die hard.

 

Then there's the more usual misconceptions like Berserk packs being only a few seconds, Partial Invisibility Sphere meant you wouldn't alert monsters unless nearby, E1M8's Barons being stronger than the other ones you meet later on, BFGs being big plasma shotguns, and enemy spawns being randomized.

[Womp the Cat]

as a young kid, I believed it was possible to get to the mountains in E1, In fact in my mind it was Doomguy's ultimate goal.

[Maes]

1 hour ago, DiR said:

Used to also think that demons had "weak spots. I thought that I had to fight a cyberdemon head-on because of the exposed fleshy front section. Other demons that I thought had weak spots were Mancubi's backs (as I mentioned earlier) and the Spider Mastermind's legs. I'm still trying to kick the habit of attacking Spider Masterminds from a 45 degree angle because of this belief, some old habits die hard.

 

Actually the 45 degree angle thing has some merit: due to the square hitboxes, there's actually more "surface area" to hit. Very beneficial when using SG/SSG and most importantly, BFG. It also explains the widely held misconception that "strafing" makes attacks more powerful by itself. The catch is that the square's sides are fixed to the map's N/S/W/E directions regardless of monster's rotation (otherwise it would defeat the purpose of simplicity) and thus what you perceive as the monster's "diagonal view" , may actually a full frontal for what regards the hitbox. Unless you have an uncanny sense of orientation and only attack monsters purely from SW, NW, SE, NE directions relative to the map's grid ;-)

 

As for "back sneaks", you probably tend to get a lot closer than you do with regular attacks, so especially with SSG you get a much fuller hit spread.

 

Also, I thought everybody knew that you're supposed to uhm...approach Cyberdemons from behind ;-)

Edited April 20, 2022 by Maes

[Blzut3]

On 4/19/2022 at 5:04 AM, Maes said:

As for Berserker....yeah, I got why everybody thinks it only lasts so long, but a) I had read about it before even encountering, so I always knew it lasted the entire level and b) Its screen tinting effect doesn't have that "expiration warning flash" effect you get with radsuit, invisibility or lite amp. It just fades gradually to a less intense shade of red, thus indicating that it doesn't really expire the way the other powerups do.  Ha, I bet several people just found this out ;-) Semantics, semantics.

It's also pretty obvious if you just punch something after the fade goes away, so it is surprising to me that so many people didn't know.  That said, while I knew it lasted the whole level I definitely had confirmation bias convince me that it gets less powerful after the fade.  Just feels like you get more one hit kills initially.

 

7 hours ago, Maes said:

Unless you have an uncanny sense of orientation and only attack monsters purely from SW, NW, SE, NE directions relative to the map's grid ;-)

Fortunately humans like to design stuff grid aligned so it's often not that hard to find the diagonal. ;)

 

Although now that I'm thinking about it, three way CTF maps have probably all been designed to give one team an arguable disadvantage.  Not that it's a popular competitive game mode.

[Doomkid]

9 hours ago, DiR said:

I used to think that the OUCHFACE bug was an easter egg, kind of like when the map throws a curveball at you with a nasty trap guarding a megasphere, or an enemy got the jump on you while your back was turned while you were picking up items. I didn't really put in much thought into how that was programmed, I just saw the face a couple times and thought "Oh that must've caught Doomguy by surprise" or something. I also thought it was an easter egg because of how rarely I saw it.

On 4/19/2022 at 7:04 PM, Maes said:

I used to believe that [..] the way the OUCHFACE bug worked was entirely intentional.

 

Yep, same here. For me, I swear it was always a Baron that would cause it. I'd either git hit with a snot ball or scratched from behind, then very quickly pick up a medikit or soulsphere.

 

I have always (and probably will always) think of it as Doomguy saying "Oh shit, I can't believe I found health just now! I thought I was a goner!"

 

..Besides, seeing doomguy pull that stupid Ö face every 20 seconds with the "fixed" behavior is just weird. In deathmatch specifically, taking less than ~30 damage in a single blast is exceedingly rare, so Doomguy just runs around with this Ö orgasm face 24/7. It works way better as a "once in a blue moon" occurrence in unlikely circumstances, imo.

 

On 4/19/2022 at 4:50 PM, HrnekBezucha said:

Everybody's Doom has different maps in it (cousin had some custom map pack)

 

"Every copy of Doom is personalized."

 

No, really! We've got people playing on Chocolate Doom, GZDoom, DOSBox, some using wads from 1994, and some using wads released 3 days ago. If that's not personalized, I dunno what is!

[sandwedge]

8 hours ago, Doomkid said:

..Besides, seeing doomguy pull that stupid Ö face every 20 seconds with the "fixed" behavior is just weird. In deathmatch specifically, taking less than ~30 damage in a single blast is exceedingly rare, so Doomguy just runs around with this Ö orgasm face 24/7.

 

Ok this has me laughing a lot.  My explanation is that doomguy gets off a little too much on the rip and tear if you know what I mean.

[Dubbag]

I thought doors were a complete mystery. It was like, what?

[thiccyosh]

I used to believe that the more damage an enemy received from the player the more aggressive the demon becomes, as in: Baron has 1 health left and throws 3 fireballs in a row instead of one because of it.

[LouigiVerona]

On 4/9/2022 at 10:47 PM, TheOrganGrinder said:

For some reason I had it in my head that 1) arch-viles couldn't revive gibbed enemies, only those that left non-gibbed "intact" corpses, and 2) arch-viles revived enemies at one-half their standard health.

 

I actually still wonder about that: I frequently notice that revived enemies seem to get killed easier. It's possible the reason is because you might be trying to kill the archvile, and thus also hitting those other enemies, but I wonder if there's at all anything to it.

[Zulk RS]

Here's a few. A lot of them have already been mentioned but still:

 

• Hitscan damage is increased if you are closer to the target. Goes for both the player and monsters
• Berserk lasts until the red screen (Though this misconception didn't last very long as I soon figured out I could gib imps even when the screen went back to normal)
• BFG works like a souped up Rocket Launcher with a huge splash damage radius but the player is immune to this splash damage
• (This one is more like an evolution of the last point about the BFG after I figured out Peekaboo Shooting doesn't work with the weapon) BFG damages everything on screen at the time of Ball detonation
• I underestimated the armor. Kind of hard to explain. I knew that it reduced damage but I thought it didn't help too much.
• (Adding on to the previous point) Green armor reduced bullet damage a bit more. Blue armor reduced plasma damage more
• Different damage types exist in the game: Bullet, Slime (Exclusive to nukage floors), Fire, Plasma.
• Nightmare mode didn't infinitely respawn monsters but gave maps a massive monster closet that teleported stronger and stronger monsters. It was possible to get 100% kills in Nightmare but it was not doable without cheats.
• MAP06 had a secret that would "Turn on" all the lights in the room for a limited time. You'd have to go back into that room to do it again if the lights go out again.

I should point out that this was AFTER the source code was already out but that didn't really make much of a difference for me since I didn't know how the engine worked at all.