Hitscan enemies were a mistake

[Nine Inch Heels]

Just now, Xaser said:

Didn't we just have this thread? Except with a real title instead of dickbait.

Can't expect Hardcore_gamer to read the forums, because he's busy with hardcore_gaming.

[Edward850]

2 minutes ago, Xaser said:

Didn't we just have this thread? Except with a real title instead of dickbait.

Maybe next thread the OP will have a real opinion.

Edited July 29, 2017 by Edward850

[Csonicgo]

[Xaser]

ITT: "Hitscan enemies were a mistake" was a mistake.

[EmotionalFelineinaMadstate]

I understand this guy's pain, he can't stand far enough away.

[leodoom85]

2 minutes ago, Edward850 said:

Maybe next thread the OP will have a real opinion.

When?

[Nine Inch Heels]

@hardcore_gamer, today's special is the "mortal frenzy" with a side order of carnage. Cooked it up just for you, now with 17% less hitscans.

 

NIHspd02.zip

 

Load it with cc4-tex.wad, and good luck, you are going to need it.

[leodoom85]

1 minute ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

@hardcore_gamer, today's special is the "mortal frenzy" with a side order of carnage. Cooked it up just for you, now with 17% less hitscans.

 

NIHspd02.zip

 

Load it with cc4-tex.wad, and good luck, you are going to need it.

hehe
By the way....he must play Doom 1 just to avoid the poor chaingunners :(

Edited July 29, 2017 by leodoom85

[hardcore_gamer]

I fail to see what would be lost if zombies were projectile based. You could just make it so that their projectiles move too fast to be doged at closer ranges, very hard to dodge and medium ranges, and possible to dodge at longer ranges.

 

Look I like Doom as well but I think too often people here look at the game with rose tinted googles and just refuse to accept that it had any design flaws. A lot of the time hitscan enemies (and then chaingunner is a perfect example of this)  are basically just fake difficulty. I am playing Plutonia right now and there are medkits everywhere to make up for the fact that a lot of the time it's just not possible to avoid hitscan attacks at all.

[Marcaek]

yeah you're definitely not a hardcore_reader

[Xaser]

6 minutes ago, hardcore_gamer said:

I am playing Plutonia right now and there are medkits everywhere to make up for the fact that a lot of the time it's just not possible to avoid hitscan attacks at all.

Indeed -- what rubbish. It's like when lazy mappers put ammo everywhere to make up for the fact that monsters don't die by themselves.

[leodoom85]

-_-

@hardcore_gamer

To me, the game is fairly balanced. It's up to the player that must decide the priorities, the use of every weapon and the pace of gameplay. Of course that hitscan attacks are unavoidable but you can prevent it. If there's a blur sphere, pick it up. If there's an invul sphere to avoid damage, pick it up. I said it before, every weapon is better than others if you know the pain chance of every monster. The one that doesn't get it is you. Practice makes perfect, especially in vanilla.

[Csonicgo]

6 minutes ago, hardcore_gamer said:

I fail to see what would be lost if zombies were projectile based. You could just make it so that their projectiles move too fast to be doged at closer ranges, very hard to dodge and medium ranges, and possible to dodge at longer ranges.

 

Look I like Doom as well but I think too often people here look at the game with rose tinted googles and just refuse to accept that it had any design flaws. A lot of the time hitscan enemies (and then chaingunner is a perfect example of this)  are basically just fake difficulty. I am playing Plutonia right now and there are medkits everywhere to make up for the fact that a lot of the time it's just not possible to avoid hitscan attacks at all.

If you really wanna know, it's because of precision - or the lack thereof.

 

Go right now in DeHackEd and make a super fast projectile - say, the plasma ball. Watch what happens.

[EmotionalFelineinaMadstate]

See? Now look how boring it is without hitscan.

[Csonicgo]

1 minute ago, Angry_Cat said:

 

See? Now look how boring it is without hitscan.

 

[scifista42]

40 minutes ago, hardcore_gamer said:

I fail to see what would be lost if zombies were projectile based. [...] I think too often people here look at the game with rose tinted googles and just refuse to accept that it had any design flaws.

Instead of just repeating what you already said and then accusing people of unobjectivity, how about addressing any of the numerous arguments that people made in this thread to support their opinions? Did you even try to understand them, or did you stop reading as soon as you realized that they disagree with you?

[EmotionalFelineinaMadstate]

Just now, scifista42 said:

Did you even try to understand them, or did you stop reading as soon as you realized that they disagree with you?

Don't ask this question, he already did the latter.

[leodoom85]

3 minutes ago, scifista42 said:

Instead of just repeating what you already said and then accusing people of unobjectivity, how about addressing any of the numerous arguments that people made in this thread to support their opinions? Did you even try to understand them, or did you stop reading as soon as you realized that they disagree with you?

It won't hurt by learning from it...just saying...

[Da Werecat]

1 hour ago, Xaser said:

Didn't we just have this thread? Except with a real title instead of dickbait.

Didn't we just have a bunch of these threads, except with different things for the OP to be baffled with?

 

But wait, something's missing. Ah yes, I think the OP once again raised an important question, only to be shot down by people who don't want to think for themselves, or are simply stuck with their predispositions towards the status quo. No real arguments here, but a worrying amount of abuse. Tsk.

[leodoom85]

Well....action and reaction, cause and effect...

Whatever you want to call it...

Time to sleep for me. Good night...

Edited July 29, 2017 by leodoom85

[Lila Feuer]

hardcore_weenie it's called the shotgun, the super shotgun, the chaingun. Fight fire with fire. Use rockets for groups to remove them immediately, use the BFG for a huge group if you have to.

Also git gud.

[Doomkid]

Projectile based enemies were a mistake

[BigDickBzzrak]

Enemies were a mistake.

[Jayextee]

8 hours ago, hardcore_gamer said:

Hitscan enemies like chaingunners however force you to use a more modern playstyle where you pop in and out of covers to take shots at them.

 

Just like that "more modern" game Wolfenstein 3D AMIRITE.

 

I used to hate hitscanners, when I was a wee bairn and didn't know of the world. I have however come to the conclusion that some popcorn is a nice treat when enjoying the show.

[Cruduxy Pegg]

Our relationship with chaingunners looks like an abusive one, We love them but they kill us so much. OP is here to save us.

[hardcore_gamer]

4 hours ago, Jayextee said:

 

Just like that "more modern" game Wolfenstein 3D AMIRITE.

 

I actually hate Wolfenstein 3D exactly because almost all the enemies are hitscan (well that and because of the ultra-simple level design).

[ASD]

13 hours ago, hardcore_gamer said:

One of the biggest reasons I like Doom way more than Duke Nukem 3D was largely because the later has much roughter hitscan enemies and shots are much harder to dodge in general.

How? You can circlestrafe groups of duke hitscanners without taking a hit. Were you trying to duck their shots?

 

Regarding Doom's hitscanners, I find them ambiguous. They're easy to take out but their attacks are RNG based. Not much a trouble in compact maps where the player can use their environment in quick succession but becomes more painful in open areas, particularly in NM runs. Also, nothing sucks more than getting longshotted by a single former human due to bad luck.

[Cruduxy Pegg]

The very first episode of Doom 1 is infested with hitscanners and every episode afterward has them as the biggest threat to kill you (Maybe not episode 3, stupid damaging floors). Doom 2 has hitscanners until the very end (The living end has chaingunners and even zombiemen). Doom was never all about projectile monsters.  I don't count Plutonia and TNT because they are pretty much fan made DLC by today standards [They still have hitscanners til the very end]. 

Edited July 29, 2017 by Pegg

[everennui]

Hitscans are my favorite.

 

Imagine you have a BoH in a small room with Pistol Zombies shooting you from above. You want to kill the BoH, but those former humans are just plinking you down. This is the scenario that I like. That BoH is still a threat and you need to keep your eye on him, but you also gotta move around him to take care of the guys that are doing damage against you. This makes it feel like a living shooting gallery.

 

Now replace one zombie with a CG and now you've created a higher priority. This means that you can all but force the player in certain directions. Moving the player in a natural way is a beautiful dance and I couldn't see it happen the same way without Hitscan monsters. Wait two seconds, strafe left, repeat. The hitscans really break this up.

 

Hitscanners make the player think fast and plan strategies. Taking cover can be fun if you're forced to find new cover.

 

Finding out the best way to use monsters is a tricky thing. It takes a lot of thought and time. That's why the people who have been mapping the longest generally make the best maps.

 

Dying sucks, but it's going to happen if you're playing a good map. Hitscanners can be a huge bane, but they make the game challenging so I appreciate them.

 

Any monster can be misused (or not optimally used) and this can make them more of a pain. There are certainly maps that use HS in a crappy way where the best strategy is to back up and Wolfenstein it. Wolfenstein 3D is a perfect example of this. I hate this type of gameplay. I think it's better to keep the player in the action. So using a BoH behind the player to keep him from retreating, lock ins, drop downs, sequences and other ways to prevent cheesing is always appreciated.

 

I don't like mindless shooting. I like thinking, "okay going here trips this trap, so I gotta run here, but when I'm here this window will open up and I'll be sitting duck. I could go here, but the first threat - behind me is slowly closing. I could go here and give myself a few more seconds, but then I'll have to sneak around them to get the rocket launcher........" it can be a pretty long combo as long as it seems doable." moving perfectly and not making mistakes is insanely fun. The best Doom maps to me are the ones that require planning. These are also the worst kind to record because they require so much practice.

[40oz]

were very lucky to have someone like hardcore_gamer to raise these types of questions. If you love the game you should be able to defend it without attacking him personally.

 

Circumstances permitting, a map with 100 mancubi and no health items is much easier to get through with 100% health than a map with 100 shotgunners. Would doom be better with Duke Nukem 3D projectile based laser guns than hit scans? I dont know. Its about the same to me. There's a pretty awesome article that Ling linked to a while ago about how beneficial hitscan enemies are to a game like Doom that changed my opinion about them.

 

What I do think is kinda/sorta a mistake is the zombiemen, shotgunners and chaingunners being depicted as the easy guys. They go down easy but that's usually not the best excuse to use them early in the game especially when level designers create their maps with incremental monster progression in parallel with incremental inventory progression. What I mean by incremental monster progression in parallel with inventory progression is best exemplified in maps like Ian Cunning series like ic2005.wad for example. You fight zombiemen and shotgun guys with a pistol, chainsaw, and no armor, which is way more difficult than mopping up fleets of mancubi with a plasma gun and a backpack.

 

In terms of arranging a progressing range of monsters by difficulty, I feel it makes sense to give the player a decent killing tool up front, and use monsters like imps, pinky demons, and hell knights first before introducing hitscanners into the mix. Your fate is just much easier to control with dumb projectile based monsters.