Why do you not use free look?

[ipecacodemon]

 

2 hours ago, EraserheadBaby said:

Alright.  I just got so excited by all the UDB options that I didn't even consider the limitation as a unique feature.  I need to pull in the scope of my levels anyway.  I'll consider this on my next build. 

 

On top of all the gameplay and authenticity reasons people have already stated, since you're coming at this question from a level designer perspective too, I'd like to add another reason: designing for a limited view angle not only allows you to get away with little imperfections if they're not gonna be visible, but more importantly gives you the opportunity to create various illusions for the player. Using middle textures that are infinitely thin but carefully positioned within a scene (and often aided by lighting) can create the illusion of solid 3D geometry that is otherwise impossible in Doom and in all but a few specific advanced source ports. You can see all kinds of examples of this ever since the 90s whether as arches in doorways (Eternal Doom was big on this), a support beam spanning horizontally along a wall kind of at the middle of its height (I think it was either Requiem or Memento Mori 2 where I first saw this, or maybe one of the Gothic DMs), vertically standing crosses (don't remember an early instance but I know SlayeR Map01 and Sunder Map02 both feature instances of this), that hanging crate from Map01 of Suspended in Dusk, the "lightbridges" in Valiant episode 5, various types of floating cubes (Ancient Aliens does this a few times, Sunder Map31's secret exit as well), some of the ancient Greek looking structures near the end of Eviternity and uh, a lot of other things throughout Phobos: Anomaly Reborn ... and the list could go on forever, I'm sure I've missed someone's favourite doomcute from Kama Sutra or Claustrophobia 1024!

 

Needless to say many of these will break if you're able to look up and down and notice they're actually paper thin and not solid objects. Of course if you've made levels before or know a bit about the engine you know it's not possible for solid geometry to exist in the middle of the air (i.e. not a floor or a ceiling), but the point is that with a fixed angle and some trickery you can make it look as if it's totally possible.

 

Though of course if your intended target for your levels is something ZDoom-derived then you have access to that engine's 3D floors and polyobjects and whatnot so you probably won't be using any of what I mentioned above.

Edited April 7, 2023 by ipecacodemon

[Sammy J]

I played the DOS Shareware version on release. A lot of controller preference comes from nostalgia.

There's also more precise player movement on a tuned mouse X & Y Axis than any other input controller apart from joysticks.

[Fairen]

That's just Doom. The charm of it, the simplicity of it. Doomguy's helmet does not allow him to move his head. He can only turn his body and glance back and forth. He lives with it.

[Mr. Alexander]

I just don't like having to aim up and down while moving my mouse back and forth. Too much precision to keep track of. Fortunately, most of the wads I play assume this style of movement.

[EraserheadBaby]

1 hour ago, ipecacodemon said:

Though of course if your intended target for your levels is something ZDoom-derived then you have access to that engine's 3D floors and polyobjects and whatnot so you probably won't be using any of what I mentioned above.

I may not use it but that was fascinating to read.  I had no idea you could trick the engine that way.  Sounds like a lot to learn, and I've dumped many hours into GZ and UDB.  I really need to sit down and play through all the best wads I can. 

[Faceman2000]

The longer I play Doom, the more classic my style becomes. I started playing GZDoom with all sorts of mods. Things like Brutal Doom, Stronghold, and anything with 3D floors was my jam. Then I began to favor more classic mapsets, preferably limit-removing or vanilla compatible. Then a year and a half ago I stopped using mouselook. Three years ago I would’ve said you couldn’t pry it from me, now I just don’t want it. I dunno.

[The Doommer]

6 hours ago, Auxilant said:

kinda like a 2D top down shooter in a 3D form. There is a million true 3D FPS games out there,

I mean Doom is 3D, just limited.

How would you justify heights in it if it was really 2D.

or projectiles going up/down

 

6 hours ago, Stabbey said:

I always have free look on and auto-aim off, even if the WAD says to not use free look.

Honestly same, I don't recall a wad that'd be ruined with freelook.

Except the sky but eh, that's texture nature in the engine

[besus]

A lot of the wads I play are designed for play without mouse look.

I find that when pivoting my arm/elbow in my usual position, aiming up and down is much more awkward that sideways.

Additionally, vertical mouse movement is very useful for platforming, especially the automap kind.

[Biz!]

because doom didn't come with freelook, i do however use it in heretic and hexen though, because they originally supported it.

[The Doommer]

1 minute ago, snotface said:

A lot of the wads I play are designed for play without mouse look.

What does it change if freelook is used tho?

 

Just now, Biz! said:

because doom didn't come with freelook

If doom came in like a few years after it would have it ig

[besus]

1 minute ago, The Doommer said:

What does it change if freelook is used tho?

I meant that as in they were designed so that I wouldn't encounter any problem if I don't use it, so no reason to use it. I have a reason to not use it: the arm position mentioned above.

[EPICALLL]

Personally, I don't use it when mapping because most people don't anyways, and I don't use it while playing because there aren't too many WADs (before 2015) that are built with it in mind.

[The Doommer]

3 minutes ago, snotface said:

I have a reason to not use it: the arm position mentioned above.

Yeah I get that

Was just curious if it really made any change to wad experiences.

[kwc]

16 minutes ago, The Doommer said:

Yeah I get that

Was just curious if it really made any change to wad experiences.

Shooting switches you shouldn’t be able to, breaking perspective tricks, shooting enemies that are beyond autoaim metrics, etc

[uber]

I play on software.

[Lonespacemarine]

It kinda suits the style of doom since it has autoaim and stuff which will help you. For me when i play doom wads or multiplayer I disable freelook but when playing weapon mods freelook is a must because weapon mods can be more suitable with freelook and also auto aim in mods aren't available 

 

 

[Gothic]

I use freelook all the time, except when I'm giving feedback to a map that's not intended for modern source port features. And when I don't feel like to.

[Maribo]

Doom's auto-aim function is interesting, especially in contrast to the highly adopted freelook of almost every FPS that came out afterwards. Playing around auto-aim is a bit of a double-edged sword: you have to put up with the frustrating bits (the weird windows where it's in effect, the range limit it has, odd target choices) for the upsides (can get away with higher mouse sensitivity, don't have to be consciously aiming at roughly head/chest height, don't have to have the same kind of precision for targeting flyers or turret/elevated monsters). Rather than lacking depth compared to playing with freelook, it's more like a bit of a trade-off. Enabling freelook has a bag of its own shenanigans in the form of warping perspective, becoming harder to aim without an accompanying crosshair, enabling rocket jumping when you otherwise wouldn't be able to, shooting switches you're not supposed to be able to hit, etc.

[heliumlamb]

freelook is For Hardcore Movement Shooters, like killer7

[CyberDreamsInteractive]

I don't usually use freelook because I enjoy using the Doom Software renderer, and since freelook causes it to skew weird I typically don't use it.

[Ludi]

It's way easier to flick your hand without freelook, and it's comforting to know you where your cursor lands is nearly guaranteed to be where you want it. I also hate when my playtesters say that the map is broken with freelook when I never, ever design maps with it in mind. Shoutouts to the playtesters of the community, though :D

[ebrl]

Weird as this sounds, it helps to think about Doom as more of an arcade game than a FPS: technological constraints funneling design decisions into an easily understandable set of rules. As such, freelook is arguably the first step in a "what if Doom was less like Doom and more like every other game out there?" slippery slope.

[Ludi]

18 minutes ago, ebrl said:

Weird as this sounds, it helps to think about Doom as more of an arcade game than a FPS: technological constraints funneling design decisions into an easily understandable set of rules. As such, freelook is arguably the first step in a "what if Doom was less like Doom and more like every other game out there?" slippery slope.

 

Is calling Doom an arcade-y experience controversial? If it is, then people must be playing this game like it's F.E.A.R. or Minecraft or something.

[Individualised]

4 minutes ago, Ludi said:

 

Is calling Doom an arcade-y experience controversial? If it is, then people must be playing this game like it's F.E.A.R. or Minecraft or something.

It doesn't have the arcade-y gameplay elements like score and lives as seen in Wolfenstein 3D, for what it's worth (though they were once present in Doom).

[reaction]

Working with the autoaim is a big part of what makes Doom Doom for me. It's also a fun skill to have, one of my favorite shots to go for is a double rocket for a caco - one where he is currently and the second predicting where the first will blast him. You can do the same with freelook but it doesn't resonate quite as much for me.

[Individualised]

I've always left freelook on but recently for the first time I've been trying to play with more vanilla gameplay. I've always loved ZDoom/GZDoom but something about it's presentation of the vanilla WADs feels less appealing to me now. Maybe I'm just getting sick of the same gameplay style and need a change.

Edited April 8, 2023 by Individualised

[bofu]

If a map is designed with it in mind (or if I'm playing a gameplay mod that really requires it to get the full experience), then sure, I'll use it, but otherwise? It tends to mess too much with the author's intended experience, and I prefer to play levels how the author intended. Freelook might let you shoot enemies or switches you shouldn't be able to hit right away or see traps you shouldn't be able to see coming. It might break the immersion of certain lighting or sector effects (like putting a torch in the middle of a tall, dark room and having the child sector the torch is in have its ceiling be significantly higher than the rest of the room without the upper sidedef textures being defined, which causes the ceiling to render at the same light level as the rest of the room... until the player looks up and spots the super bright ceiling way up in the distance).

 

But since you stated in your OP that you intended your levels to be played with freelook, I would go ahead and enable it (provided that I noticed that bit first and didn't skip it like the ADHD creature that I am). I'm not categorically opposed to freelook or anything, I just think it it's a Sometimes Feature.

Edited April 8, 2023 by bofu

[Stabbey]

1 hour ago, Maribo said:

Doom's auto-aim function is interesting, especially in contrast to the highly adopted freelook of almost every FPS that came out afterwards. Playing around auto-aim is a bit of a double-edged sword: you have to put up with the frustrating bits (the weird windows where it's in effect, the range limit it has, odd target choices) for the upsides (can get away with higher mouse sensitivity, don't have to be consciously aiming at roughly head/chest height, don't have to have the same kind of precision for targeting flyers or turret/elevated monsters). Rather than lacking depth compared to playing with freelook, it's more like a bit of a trade-off. Enabling freelook has a bag of its own shenanigans in the form of warping perspective, becoming harder to aim without an accompanying crosshair, enabling rocket jumping when you otherwise wouldn't be able to, shooting switches you're not supposed to be able to hit, etc.

 

Who uses free look without a crosshair? I try to respect the author's intent: I don't rocket jump (which has caused issues in my levels when playtesters decide to try breaking things by RJ'ing) and I don't shoot at switches which don't look like I should be shooting them from that angle. So those don't seem like big drawbacks.

 

If I could shoot an enemy easily with free-look, I don't find "you can't shoot this enemy unless you find the magic auto-aim spot" to be compelling gameplay. Even if "that's what the author intended", that feels more like artificial difficulty. The same goes for "you can't reliably choose what enemies you're shooting at."

[Alfwin]

A couple of reasons.  Firstly, it harms the balance of levels that weren't designed to account for it (most notably, it trivializes the Icon of Sin boss fight).  Second, the graphics weren't designed for it and look weird when viewed from non-perpendicular angles.  And finally, DOOM has, imo, a near-perfect level of complexity in its core gameplay loop.  An extra axis of view to account for isn't all that complex, but its addition nudges DOOM ever so slightly outside of that "Goldilocks zone".

[Maribo]

3 minutes ago, Stabbey said:

Who uses free look without a crosshair? I try to respect the author's intent: I don't rocket jump (which has caused issues in my levels when playtesters decide to try breaking things by RJ'ing) and I don't shoot at switches which don't look like I should be shooting them from that angle. So those don't seem like big drawbacks.

I know for a fact Clippy doesn't, and I'd imagine there are others.

 

4 minutes ago, Stabbey said:

If I could shoot an enemy easily with free-look, I don't find "you can't shoot this enemy unless you find the magic auto-aim spot" to be compelling gameplay. Even if "that's what the author intended", that feels more like artificial difficulty. The same goes for "you can't reliably choose what enemies you're shooting at."

Not really here to debate whether or not it's compelling gameplay, but within the context of Doom, I wouldn't call accounting for auto-aim to be artificial difficulty at all. If Doom's monster AI was, for instance, randomly toggling -fast projectile behavior if you have too much health and/or ammo, that would be much more aligned with what I'd consider artificial difficulty for this game. Working around auto-aim behavior is entirely possible, much like adapting your positioning to work around the blockmap.