ZDoom

I was testing the "Allow skipping of intermission scrollers" option in version 4.0.0 just now.

• I turned off the option and went to the bunny scene.
• Pressing the USE key didn't skip the scrolling to the decapitated bunny (as intended) BUT
• it did cause the "THE END" text to appear prematurely AND
• it also "froze" the scene in a way that the scrolling never started as the music progressed.
• So what I ended up with was just the first scene with Daisy all well and good with the THE END text above. Such a happy ending; with an oddly dark ending tune, sure, but everything seems to be just fine and dandy otherwise.

All kidding aside, I'm guessing what I described above isn't intended behaviour? I'm assuming that if the option is turned off, it shouldn't allow the player to skip to the THE END text, but just sit tightly and wait for the game to do its thing?

Orangestar wrote:I vote that CVar is the best course of action for this.

Agreed. A mapping option makes little sense here.

I vote that CVar is the best course of action for this.

Maybe a Y/N prompt instead of a complete block? (Press USE: A - Normal behaviour. B - Skip? Y/N)

Although my post was prompted by yours, I was more venting a bit of general frustration over how often we all (me included) waste time worrying about and curtailing our own options because of the perceived threat of abusive mods which, actually, haven't really been an issue (nor can they be really).

While I do take on board what you say about inadvertently frustrating, but otherwise good, mods, they already exist. If the author is the kind of person to listen to criticisms, fortunately they often fix the frustrating part of their mod. Failing that, a fix becomes available either in the format of a fixed file put up by someone else, or instructions on how to do it. The quick, easy fast scroll that you suggested, however, would make skipping the unlikely-to-every-really-be-a-problem slow scrolling intermissions a non-issue.

As I was typing this, however, I did imagine a nice use for such intermissions. Imagine a couple of map images with a route drawn on them. The scrolling could be used to simulate travelling from one area to another in the same style as the old movie trope of a scrolling map overlaid on the screen to show that the characters are travelling somewhere but you don't actually want to show the journey in any real detail.

I'm not worried about troll mods; it'll be just as unfortunate (moreso really) if someone releases an otherwise-good wad with an unskippable cutscene between every map. D:

Personally, I feel that we spend far too much time worrying about abusive/troll mods. If a feature can be genuinely harmful (e.g. altering a player's settings) then it shouldn't exist. Everything else just makes the mod in question run badly/annoyingly. The solution there is to quit, delete the mod and never play it again. Of course, caution should be exercised when implementing a new feature to ensure that it works as well as possible to do what it is intended for without causing problems but trying to ensure there is no way to abuse any new feature is close to pointless. There are literally thousands of ways to make a mod annoying already. We can't, and shouldn't, disable or disallow them all "just in case", especially when doing so means the far-more-likely-to-be-seen legitimate use of the feature is disabled as a result.

The reality is that abusive mods are a tiny, tiny, insignificant problem. Most are of such low quality you wouldn't want to play them anyway and none of them can do any real harm. It's an overblown fear IMO. I should never have brought up the possible abuse of this feature. I mean, really, how likely is it to become a problem?

Aaanyway, I guess that the following is not really a workable suggestion seeing as how I don't think anything else in ZDoom works this way but a "double tap" might solve the problem. i.e. pressing [use] once would not perform the skip but pressing it a second time would.

As for the suggestion of [use] causing a fast-scroll, I actually quite like that and would be happy for it to be an overall game option, not just a mod specific one. e.g. I like the Doom bunny scroller but I don't always want to wait for the whole thing. However, skipping straight to the end is not satisfying. A fast-scroll to the end would look better and still give some of the impact of the original animation (even if the change in music would no longer be synchronised with the visuals). For my own particular case, the scroller that I am making is actually pretty quick anyway (about twice as quick as the default Heretic scroller). I just don't like seeing it skip straight to the second image with no scrolling - especially as what follows the scrolling part of the intermission is supposed to blend seamlessly with the scroll, but doesn't when [use] is pressed. The fast-scroll option would probably work quite nicely here too, provided the timer to bring on the next linked part of the intermission was adjusted accordingly. Otherwise, the whole idea would be pointless.

Mid-game intermissions aren't supported just yet, but it'd be best to plan for them eventually. That alone would make me a bit wary about this feature.

I wonder if a feasible alternative would be to have it scroll very quickly on 'use' instead, so you still technically get the transition. Or at least present that as an option instead of the insta-skip.

Enjay wrote:Or perhaps players could just ignore the often feared but rarely seen abusive troll mods.

I tend to look at it this way. You only run into trouble when the "abusability" is tempting to "legit" modders. (But how likely is that for this request, outside of some sort of "Metal Doom Solid"? )

I would say it's pointless to skip endgames in most cases. (Though between-map scenes should be completely skippable.) Should be fine as as a property of the intermission, and possibly even as default. One could add a CVar to override it if it becomes a problem.

Would it be possible to add a property to the current [wiki]Intermission_definition#Scroller_properties[/wiki] so that pressing [USE] would not skip to the end of the scroller? e.g. pressing [USE] while the default Doom bunny scroller is active skips straight to the second image and the "THE END" graphic appears. I would like to be able to disable this so that the scroller always plays right through to the end instead of skipping.

Why? It's very easy for a player to press [use] without thinking about it and accidentally miss the intended effect of the intermission.

But won't that remove a user's choices? No, not really. Not if it's an endgame scroller anyway. The game is finished when the intermission is running (so no delay in the game) and the player can still bring up the menu if they want to quit before the scroller plays out.

Could it be abused? Maybe. If scroller intermissions can be used between maps (not sure if they can) then someone could set up a really slow scroller making the transition to the next map very slow. Perhaps intermission and endgame scrollers could be handled differently (i.e. make it not possible for a modder to force a scroller to play-out between maps, but allow it for endgames)? Or perhaps players could just ignore the often feared but rarely seen abusive troll mods.