Hitscanners: Yay or nay?

[Memfis]

Hitscanners are main enemies in the game along with imps. It's no wonder earlier levels in megawads are usually the most fun.

[everennui]

^This is exactly what I like. Keep the map under ten minutes and kill me 100 times before I beat it. Learning the best strat for a map is what makes it entertaining.

[xdarkmasterx]

not as versatile as I'd like, i don't think dooms hitscanners are particularly well designed or fair and "tough hitscanner levels" always require either meticulous design or huge amount of health and armour in order for playing aggressively to never result in RNG death, wolfenstein 3d's are better IMO,

 

i think that they should always flinch when hit, have longer pre-firing time  and have significantly higher damage and accuracy than they do now (basically how wolfenstein 3d hitscanners are designed), always flinching would reward fast reaction times and good aiming, and more reasonale prefire frames combined with former would mean that you can realistically no-damage rooms with lots of hitscanners without camping in the doorway, as it stands they are usually just an RNG based reduction of HP and a teleport/elevator trap into a room full of hitscanners can range anywhere from non issue to unavoidable death depending on how lucky you are.

Edited June 26, 2017 by xdarkmasterx

[Cruduxy Pegg]

They are there to force you to slow down or form a strategy before jumping in. Their stun chances are respectable and health is low enough that you'll almost stun them unless you use pistol\\fist. Doomguy is also extremely fast if they attacked slower he'd be able to just run past them,Like everything else in the game; rushing is the strongest weapon doomguy has. 

 

Teleporter\elevator execution rooms are the lamest use for chaingunners\shotgunners and isn't a fault of the monsters themselves. (they almost never do this in doom 1 and doom 2, Plutonia started that shit)

[xdarkmasterx]

47 minutes ago, Pegg said:

They are there to force you to slow down or form a strategy before jumping in. Their stun chances are respectable and health is low enough that you'll almost stun them unless you use pistol\\fist. Doomguy is also extremely fast if they attacked slower he'd be able to just run past them,Like everything else in the game; rushing is the strongest weapon doomguy has. 

 

Teleporter\elevator execution rooms are the lamest use for chaingunners\shotgunners and isn't a fault of the monsters themselves. (they almost never do this in doom 1 and doom 2, Plutonia started that shit)

 

disagree, the "strategy" hitscanners force you to use is in almost all cases to stand in a doorway and shoot them from around the corner which is just a waste of time to me, games like blood or half life with more deadly hitscanners that have higher damage (and mobility in latter case) and grenades that force you out of cover do this much better. BJ from wolfenstein moves even faster (and has no inertia) but despite the slower hitscanner attack speed (only the mutants have doom style prefire animations) they far more dangerous to him because they do very high damage and the levels are designed so that you can't skip over them,

 

also,i don't care how high the stun chance is, there's plenty of times i've been drilling chaingunners with the pump shotugn/chaingun (a lot of the time it's the only weapon the mapper gave me) and lost most of my health because they didn't flinch once and the designer wanted me to fight them without cover (even the IWADs do this, map04 you have to fight tons of zombies in the beginning and you're completely at the mercy of luck from a pistol start if you aren't willing to turn the game into gears of war), my problem is that in many situations the most interesting playstyle you can use against hitscanners is dependent on RNG and not the player's skill, if they were more dangerous but more reserved in their capabilities I think it would be a lot more entertaining to fight them

 

Edited June 26, 2017 by xdarkmasterx

[Cruduxy Pegg]

Doom hitscanners force you to corner camp but Blood's don't? Sorry but how? I need to know your strategy since the enemies in blood will kill you before you can even react at times on hard difficulties, Can't even imagine trying to melee start half the maps in it without it being extremely annoying. Map04 takes like 20 seconds top to get the chaingun\shotgun then murder every chaingunner.

 

Heck you can probably put forcing pistol against chaingunners as terrible placement since chaingunners stun chance and damage is very likely to kill the player), Just like forcing pitch fork would be vs cultists (E1M1 in blood is hilarious by forcing you to do that if you don't know the tnt secret, good luck not losing most of your health!)

[yakfak]

I think they're fundamental to Doom as I know it! Being able to take out two shotgunners with your shotgun is beautiful, blowing up a barrel in a crowd of them is beautiful, tricking them into fighting each other is beautiful... and if a player says "I did nothing wrong and yet I lost health anyway", tough luck, cos there's beauty in the senseless attrition, too! As a bonus, the chaingun gets better the more zombies are present in a level and it's a relief to feel confident enough to wander a level without the plasma rifle out. When authors use mainly mid-tier, projectile-firing enemies I start to feel like I'm playing Quake with all its ogre-centric battles. Gimme cannon fodder and lots of it... and don't shy away from using wolfenstein soldiers as part of your monster make-up! They're the most evil monster of all!

 

what does bug is that I'd like to use a sufficient quantity of chaingunners and shotgunners to properly guard an area of a map, making it off-limits until the player comes back with armour and, say a rocket launcher, but players are now so good that they'll tackle that area straight off AND complain that it was poorly balanced =P

Edited June 26, 2017 by yakfak

[xdarkmasterx]

11 minutes ago, Pegg said:

Doom hitscanners force you to corner camp but Blood's don't? Sorry but how? I need to know your strategy since the enemies in blood will kill you before you can even react at times on hard difficulties, Can't even imagine trying to melee start half the maps in it without it being extremely annoying. Map04 takes like 20 seconds top to get the chaingun\shotgun then murder every chaingunner.

 

Heck you can probably put forcing pistol against chaingunners as terrible placement since chaingunners stun chance and damage is very likely to kill the player), Just like forcing pitch fork would be vs cultists (E1M1 in blood is hilarious by forcing you to do that if you don't know the tnt secret, good luck not losing most of your health!)

you missed my point, on map04 you can reach the chaingun and shotgun early and start owning everything, and you can also die in a few seconds because the hitscanners kept landing their random shots on you and rolling high amounts of damage, only "100% consistent/skill based" way to do it is to camp in the doorway at the beginning, the interesting playstyle it's down to luck and not all skill which is why i think the zombies in doom aren't as well designed as the projectile enemies are.

 

 

as for blood, its hitscanners can't attack for about 1 second when they're hurt by bullet weapons or the pitchfork which means you can "stunlock" them (although they can still walk about) if you aim well, i can play any level in blood on well done aggressively with continuous play except the first few (which are my least favourite in the game), i never said they were perfect (i think their prefiring time is too short, and they make some levels luck based on extra crispy but even the manual says that mode isn't intended for singleplayer) but that's besides point, what i meant was that playing "tactically" (not the typical "ultra fast FPS gameplay" style) against them is more entertaining than the zombies in doom, because they can flush you out of cover and are much more consistently dangerous, instead of in one instance taking almost your entire HP in a few seconds and in another barely scratching you because they kept missing.

Edited June 26, 2017 by xdarkmasterx

[Cruduxy Pegg]

Go try any blood map with melee start then since it is way more fair than pistol start on map04 (which isn't even how you'll be meeting the hitscanners in most of the game, while you spend all blood fighting those op bastards who are basically role #1 on all monster tiers ;Fodder, midgame, high priority, late game, support and the list goes forever, while all other monsters and demons can't even touch caleb.

 

[xdarkmasterx]

8 minutes ago, Pegg said:

Go try any blood map with melee start then since it is way more fair than pistol start on map04 (which isn't even how you'll be meeting the hitscanners in most of the game, while you spend all blood fighting those op bastards who are basically role #1 on all monster tiers ;Fodder, midgame, high priority, late game, support and the list goes forever, while all other monsters and demons can't even touch caleb.

 

again, not the point. i favourably compare blood hitscanner to doom on the basis of "strategic" gameplay as opposed to run and gun style, because of their attack power and ability to kill people behind walls (when they don't kill themselves with the dynamite that is), i said nothing on the fairness of hitscanners on a default start. but since you asked, here is video series of all levels in blood done on extra crispy with a pitchfork start (harder level than i play on)

 

Edited June 26, 2017 by xdarkmasterx

[Cruduxy Pegg]

What does the video have to do with the problem? I can link someone play pistol start nightmare and say it is nothing unbalanced. 

 

 

Edited June 26, 2017 by Pegg

[xdarkmasterx]

5 minutes ago, Pegg said:

What does the video have to do with the problem? I can link someone play pistol start nightmare and say it is nothing unbalanced. 

 

 

oh sorry, i misread and thought you asked for a video of pitchfork start

[Nate River]

People should use more Zombiemen and Wolf SS in their maps.

[rodster]

Depends, if you are going to use them at least give the player some kind of cover or health, because it's impossible to dodge Hitscanners.

 

What makes a lot of fun is, e.g. killing a bunch of Zombiemen with BFG or RL (checkout Slaughterfest 2012 Map30 for an example of this, I think it's a good mixture with those Archviles).

 

 

[everennui]

2 hours ago, rodster said:

Depends, if you are going to use them at least give the player some kind of cover or health, because it's impossible to dodge Hitscanners.

You can avoid a lot of hits by strafing. Watch for their firing animation and move accordingly. You won't dodge everytime, but you'll be much better off than just standing still.

[Lila Feuer]

I don't get xdarkmasterx's arguments, and I'm a huge fan of Wolf3D in addition to Doom. Both games have completely different design philosophies regarding level design and map limitations, the enemy types and their behavior on offer, and your weapons options.

[Woolie Wool]

I think Doom's hitscanners are fine as they are, but I think they might be improved a bit by prolonging their wind-up animation. As a veteran Wolf3D player, I've learned that a very essential part of Wolf3D is reading enemy attack animations and ducking into cover just in time. It basically works just like fighting archviles, but you have less time and the enemies do less damage--they can shoot through each other just like archviles can. Doom's zombie enemies give you almost no time and often it's a matter of just killing them fast before they can even get a shot off, as opposed to the more strategic timing and movement strategies of Wolf3D. Being set upon by SS from several angles, having to move quickly from cover to cover to avoid being flanked or overrun, and "dancing" with the rhythm of the SS' attack animations is an intense experience that you can't really get from Doom hitscanners. Maybe I should make a Dehacked patch that extends all the E frames of the hitscanners to 20 tics and play Plutonia with it.

 

I wouldn't like Doom nearly as much without zombies, though. They provide not just a difference in scale compared to other enemies, but a difference in kind, in that the threat they pose is utterly unlike the threat other enemies pose and they require a different approach. The variety and flexibility of Doom's gameplay design is what makes it great, and it annoys me when people say Doom is "about" this or that mechanic. Doom can be fast or slow, agitated or serene, vulgar or cerebral, joyous or somber, and express a huge variety of emotions through gameplay, architecture, art assets, and music. I kind of feel like Doom 2016 neglects a lot of this by laser-focusing on the idea of Doom being about constant motion and boiling rage. The infamous everything2 writeup is only a small fraction of classic Doom's range of expression.

Edited June 27, 2017 by Woolie Wool

[Lila Feuer]

I actually did the 20 tic thing once, it was for a personally modified version of your Mutiny 2 mod where I gave the enemies player weapon damage but made them slower to react to compensate. Actually made for some very tense firefights!

E: Also marines without helmets had only 50 HP whereas helmeted marines had 100, regardless of the weapons they carried so they'd be more on the player's level.

Edited June 27, 2017 by cyan0s1s

[Da Werecat]

9 hours ago, everennui said:

You can avoid a lot of hits by strafing. Watch for their firing animation and move accordingly. You won't dodge everytime, but you'll be much better off than just standing still.

A hitscan reaches you immediately. All the aiming, spread calculation, and dishing out the damage happens in one frame. If they don't hit you - it's because of the spread, i.e. completely random (aside from the distance between you and the shooter).

 

Edited June 27, 2017 by Da Werecat

[xdarkmasterx]

9 hours ago, cyan0s1s said:

I don't get xdarkmasterx's arguments, and I'm a huge fan of Wolf3D in addition to Doom. Both games have completely different design philosophies regarding level design and map limitations, the enemy types and their behavior on offer, and your weapons options.

not get me rong, i still place hitscanner in my levls, but when i try to make "hard" hitsanner gameplay i often come into situations in which i would lost a huge amount  HP becasue of bad luck (chaingunner refusing to die in 1 shotgun hit, large amounts of zombiemen taking ages to kill with the chaingun even when all the shots hit and never flinching etc.) when playtesting, yet i don't want to add cover because it will neuter the threat of projectile enemies, so i'm forced to remove/reduce in quantity the hitscnaner, if they were more "fair" and avoidable like in wolf3d then there would be many more instances in which I could use them because they wouldn't ask the whole enounter to be almost exclusively designed around them (if they are to be any thrat at all), unlike the other enemies

Edited June 27, 2017 by xdarkmasterx

[pcorf]

Bloody hate shotgun guys but that won't stop me from using them in my maps. Play Richard Wiles Crusades episode and you know what I mean.

[Maes]

It depends on the hitscanner, really. There's something deeply satisfying when you're forced to take ALL of a shotgunner's HOT and MANLY lead to your face, for the full 45% damage.

[scifista42]

12 hours ago, everennui said:

You can avoid a lot of hits by strafing.

Only if you strafe behind some cover in the meantime between the start of the hitscanner's attack preparation animation and the moment when he actually fires. When the latter moment comes, the hitscanner always fires straight towards its target (plus-minus a random small angle) and the bullets hit instantly. A target in a given position relative to the hitscanner at the exact moment when the hitscanner actually fires will have an equal probability of being hit regardless of whether it's standing still or moving at high speed in any direction.

Edited June 27, 2017 by scifista42

[everennui]

I don't feel like this is right, but if that's the code, who am I to argue?

[Lila Feuer]

51 minutes ago, Maes said:

something deeply satisfying when you're forced to take ALL of a shotgunner's HOT and MANLY lead to your face, for the full 45% damage.

Psst, doom_txt.

[Neurosis]

1 hour ago, Maes said:

There's something deeply satisfying when you're forced to take ALL of a shotgunner's HOT and MANLY lead to your face, for the full 45% damage.

 

After all, Doom is only one letter off from Dom. 

[everennui]

Spt on me and cll me scm.

[Nine Inch Heels]

11 hours ago, cyan0s1s said:

I don't get xdarkmasterx's arguments, and I'm a huge fan of Wolf3D in addition to Doom. Both games have completely different design philosophies regarding level design and map limitations, the enemy types and their behavior on offer, and your weapons options.

The arguments are actually quite simple from my point of view. There are only two reliable ways not to take damage from a hitscan attack, either you find cover, or you kill the hitscan before it attacks in the first place.

 

If you open a door with a shotgunner behind it, when there's no cover in reach, you take somewhere between 0 and 45 or so damage. And it's got nothing to do with skill. That just happens, because hitscans aren't consistent, if looked at on an individual basis.

 

To give one example: I was playtesting a wad like 2-3 months ago or so, and in the first map, you had to make it past a loosely scattered flock of former humans and some imps, before you would get the shotgun.

The consistent way of getting to the shotgun and minimizing damage: Pistoling the hitscans from cover, which would take like 30-45 seconds at times, felt tedious, and was boring.

The fast way of getting the shotgun: Run past all the things and grab it to then start killing things. On my way to the shotgun, I took somewhere between 25% and a whopping 100% damage over the course of less than 3 seconds of being exposed, and both cases involved not getting hit by the imps. That's the problem with hitscans in doom at times, they're inconsistent and thus impossible to gage in terms of impact.

 

If you play by the rule of expecting the worst, you need to camp them down, if there's no way to oust them fast, and that is something I personally just don't approve of. Hitscans can be nice, if you move from one cover to the next, killing one by one while you move around, but more often than not, you don't have that luxury of a nice terrain to fight them in an engaging manner. You have your one or two corner(s), or your door, and you plink away until you're clear to move, and that just doesn't feel good, when it lasts for too long and happens constantly in maps.

[MrGlide]

4 hours ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

If you open a door with a shotgunner behind it, when there's no cover in reach, you take somewhere between 0 and 45 or so damage. And it's got nothing to do with skill. That just happens, because hitscans aren't consistent, if looked at on an individual basis.

Not always, as you can get a shot off before he can get a shot off on you. And if you've a chaingun and are paying attentions you could take multiple Shotgunners without taking damage with ease.

[Nine Inch Heels]

23 minutes ago, MrGlide said:

Not always

^And that is the problem. And don't tell me how I play or not.

Edited June 27, 2017 by Nine Inch Heels