ZDoom

I actually made this thread more from a player perspective... I mean, I love playing Doom maps but it's like I'm confused ... I kind of don't like over-the-top gameplay/weapon mods but at the same time I can't stand 100% vanilla uniless it's like an Episode 1 playthrough. :S

And yes, what Enjay said in that other thread is also kind of how I feel about Megawads.

I won't stop playing though... which is weird, considering how Doom is basically Robotron in a first person perspective... :S

EDIT Courtesy Quote

leileilol wrote:One way I tried to fight boredom with UT2004 was to install MapMixer for a more 'shuffled' experience, since browsing the options of maps available take a lot of damn time and can be paralyzing if there's so much of them. Same goes for Q3a by using the UIEnhanced mod.


Maybe Doom needs something similar, like a frontend with an instant grabbag feature, loading random wads from folders (like a maps folder, a weapons folder and a monster folder, perhaps maybe even a music folder)

that's true that weapon mods tend to never be anywhere as creative as Half-Life's RocketCrowbar and are mostly hitscan/projectiletossing lookatmysprites thisrequiresgzdoombecauseIlovespammingspritesanddynamiclight's thing.

I'm not going to lie, something like Brutal Doom does actually sound like what you want. Granted, that's still probably too over-the-top, but maybe one of the thousand redux mods of it sticks closer to standard Doom without clogging it up.

undead003 wrote:To be brutally honest, a big part of Heretic is a reskin of Doom. Hexen actually has true gameplay innovations[...]

Okay, here's what I don't understand: Doom is such a favorite, why is being quite a bit like it such a bad thing? Why is that used like an insult? There are still drastic differences: Enemies are tougher and less pain-prone, with a larger variety of attacks, but there aren't any hitscanners. Every wepaon has its own ammo, keeping them from directly obsoleting each other. The Ghost effect diminishes the effectiveness of some of your hard-hitters, further spreading out your weapon choice. Even your starting weapons remain useful, especially in powered mode.

Most of Hexen's "innovations" didn't even work that well. The powerful weapons are almost entirely countered by damage-sponge enemies (and people complain that Heretic's weapons feel "weak"), the ammo system is boring, the armor is basically useless, "puzzles" are simply key hunts, instant death traps make no-save runs a crock, bosses (or regular monsters!) with invincibility states are still not fun, and the final boss is a joke. On the technical side, most of its finer features (I.E. not ACS or polyobject related) are more properly attributed to the game it's a sequel to and built from.

Contrast, nowadays, where a gameplay mod taking Heretic's "similar to Doom gameplay" approach is going to be found more palatable, while something with Hexen's degree of change will be more likely to net snarky remarks about its attempted originality (unless it manages to be over-the-top enough to stand on its own). And it's difficult to use ZDoom features in a Doom map without someone complaining about them being there. I can never figure out what this community wants.

NeuralStunner wrote:

undead003 wrote:To be brutally honest, a big part of Heretic is a reskin of Doom. Hexen actually has true gameplay innovations[...]

...

I never said it was a bad thing and I sure as heck don't mean it, but what I said contributes to the topic. Nash is tired of Doom's repetivity, and so I advise against Heretic as an experience to take him away from Doom's gameplay because they're quite similar, moreso than how similar Doom is to Hexen/Strife. So in the case that Nash hasn't played Heretic, Hexen or Strife, he knows which two games are more suitable for sliding away from Doom's style of gameplay. Even if Hexen's innovations are poorly designed, they're still innovations, and I think there are more things Hexen has innovated than how many Heretic has innovated.

undead003 wrote:Nash is tired of Doom's repetivity, and so I advise against Heretic as an experience to take him away from Doom's gameplay because they're quite similar, moreso than how similar Doom is to Hexen/Strife.

I'm pointing out how it's similar but not samey, to the extent that I think the warning is misguided. Since Nash expressly wants something just a little different, you should be putting Heretic on the list of recommendations.

NeuralStunner wrote:I'm pointing out how it's similar but not samey, to the extent that I think the warning is misguided. Since Nash expressly wants something just a little different, you should be putting Heretic on the list of recommendations.

Fair enough. Yes, Heretic has its strong points, and I admit the inventory items can make the game a blast. I should finish it sometime.

Heretic plays quite a bit differently than Doom, i feel. even if the weapon load-out is generally the same, the inventory system is quite interesting. it's actually quite difficult in comparison, since of higher damage-randomization IIRC, making fights more of a gamble. i don't think i ever beat Kristus' Curse of D'Sparil, because goddamn is it hard and makes you think of doing tricks the vanilla game just partially explored, just as how new Doom levels are more challenging than the base game. my only gripe with it is that it could need more music, but it has to be so specific: putting a Doom or Duke track into Heretic just doesn't work the same way a Heretic track fits in Doom. i don't even know why that is, it just feels clashing to me.

NeuralStunner wrote:Most of Hexen's "innovations" didn't even work that well. The powerful weapons are almost entirely countered by damage-sponge enemies (and people complain that Heretic's weapons feel "weak"), the ammo system is boring, the armor is basically useless, "puzzles" are simply key hunts, instant death traps make no-save runs a crock, bosses (or regular monsters!) with invincibility states are still not fun, and the final boss is a joke.

I'm actually working on a mod that addresses most of Hexen's issues while staying true to the spirit of the original. I guess that's sort of what Nash is looking for.

My best advice would be to play nearly any modern shooter. When you're done throwing up from boredom, playing doom again should feel like the first breath of air after nearly drowning.

/opinionated rant

^ Hey that might actually be a good idea.

On the topic at hand; I've recently played this cool port called Doom Retro and I think it's managed to add some cool gimmicks but still keep it fairly vanilla. Not too sure I'm a fan of the dark palette though but otherwise, it did make my E1 run a little fun.

Re: Heretic - I just couldn't enjoy this game. Heretic feels like a cheap toy - weak sounds, cartoony pixel graphics... it just doesn't have the explosive impact of Doom.

One of the things I did was write a Doom launcher that would scan the maps in the wad files I'd loaded, then randomly pick a map to play.

So pick Alien Vendetta, click start, then appear on a random map in the wad.

Nash wrote:Re: Heretic - I just couldn't enjoy this game. Heretic feels like a cheap toy - weak sounds, cartoony pixel graphics... it just doesn't have the explosive impact of Doom.

If you were expecting it to be Doom, I'm not surprised you were disappointed. But those specific complaints are about the silliest thing I've ever heard. Doom itself has more than its share of "weak" sounds and "cartoony" hand-drawn graphics, so this just comes across as yet another case of "already didn't like it for some reason". Heretic suffers a lot from this attitude, which is why it hardly gets jack for custom maps or other stuff.

zrrion the insect wrote:I'm actually working on a mod that addresses most of Hexen's issues while staying true to the spirit of the original. I guess that's sort of what Nash is looking for.

Heh, kind of started doing the same thing. More of a relaunch of the crappy old one I have done my best to bury. Though I keep ending up moving feature ideas for it into a different mod.

Just switch between Doom 3 with RoE and the Classic Doom, since they differs alot in every aspect.

Or in any case you can switch to Doom's young brother, Quake, like last week i played Quake 4 all over again in months and i got the feel of playing it for the first time again.

EDIT: Or just go play some MMO to stay away from Doom for a entire year or more

Revilution wrote:EDIT: Or just go play some MMO to stay away from Doom for a entire year or more

It is so easy to get lost in the wastes of the modern Fallout games. But I also do not think an MMO would really ... work...