Questions about God Mode and the Invuln Sphere

[DavidB1000]

Well, it's a question I've been curious about. We all know that God Mode despite it's title, only protects from 1000 damage. Which is nice, because nothing in Doom itself can do that. Save a telefrag.

But with the advent of Decorate, and many other features, we can have damage that goes well above 1000, including MDK. Which either does 10,000 damage or a lot more.

Now we also have that lovable Invulnerability sphere. Which will stop everything but a telefrag, although I have MDK a voodoo doll with it on and didn't die...So, yes, it's powerful, despite making you blind.

Now the question I have, why is God Mode so limited? I mean, I'm certain it's in the source code somewhere that defines it and other cheats, I hope!

Now, we've all heard silly bug reports and/or feature requests around the cheats and how messed up they are, but the question remains. How hard would it be to change God Mode to have more health protection than the Invun Sphere.

I'm guessing it's either very complicated, or there's something else that prevents it from being increased.
Somehow I seriously doubt it's easy as adding 10,000,000 to the current protection value. Because Um, even I could do that. No matter how fast the SVN changes I could keep up with it. And I know nothing about Code Editing.

[Medricel]

I don't think any of the devs are even going to bother looking for the reason if they don't already know it. As for instant-killers--telefrags, MDK, the Kill command, and falling damage from an extreme height--they all deal exactly 1,000,000 damage. Also, godmode-killing damage was around before DECORATE. You can easily make 1000+ damage projectiles in DeHackEd.

As for not dying with Godmode on, you can just give yourself loads of health. Making a +/- alias that gives 32767 health and binding it to a key, I was easily able to stack over 3 million health in a few seconds. There are ways to prevent dying in god mode, but bothering the devs about it isn't one of them.

[DavidB1000]

This is one of the main reasons I always have falling damage off.
But, while I understand the concepts behind it, I'm not really understanding the whole point of the reasoning behind not making it more like it's name.

Yes, I could use health cheats, but the display won't notice it. It will just say I have 999 health. What if I don't want to stand next to 40 cyberdemons to see if it does go down at all?

I mean, if the coding is simple, it really doesn't make sense that it can't be fixed. Just saying they won't bother with it because it's cheating, doesn't really make a bit of sense.

I mean, hell, I could go and add the +NODAMAGE flag to the Player class if I wanted too, if that would actually work. Or reduce the damage factors by 99.9999% from everything.

But hey, it would be easier for me though, to add several zeros to a line then do all those...
Also, I'm not trying to BOTHER the devs. I'm simply curious. They don't strike me as Wizards, quick to anger, etc.

[Enjay]

You keep referring to this in terms as if it is a bug and that it could be fixed. What makes you so sure that this is not a deliberate situation? It's certainly one that has been known about for some time and I suspect that it would be relatively easy to change but, perhaps, there is a reason other than just coding for it to not be changed. Perhaps it is an intentional situation. If so, there is no need to fix it because it isn't broken.

[Unknown_Assassin]

God mode was based on regular Doom. My assumption is that since no original Doom monsters dealt more than 1000 damage, they put 1000 heatlh (for lack of better term) as your God Mode.

Invulnerability Sphere has a duration unlike God mode, so it doesn't matter how much damage the invulnerability sphere can absorb. It runs out after every level or runs out 30 seconds(?). People who play Vanilla Doom, don't want to keep on cheating to give themselves the sphere, when they can give themselves God mode. Would you rather type IDBEHOLDV many times or only IDDQD once? I assume this is how the id staff thought about these two.

[DavidB1000]

Good point, Unknown Assassin. Good point.

I'd much rather type in IDDQD once then IDbeholdV a lot.

To Enjay, I don't know, it just seems that it's a little silly to assume it's not fixed just because it's a cheat code. I mean, if it is so simple, why hasn't it been changed over the years?

Because it's a cheat? By that logic, let's just remove the cheats. I mean, they're cheats, they're not really useful, so hey, let's remove them.

It just seems that no one can see how the increase of damage amounts and see how that God Mode might need to be increased to maintain the balance.

I don't know, I just don't get why cheating needs to be punished even more than the lack of skills it gives you anyway.
Besides, God Mode is nice because rockets don't damage you. I love spamming rockets. Of course, everyone in the AEOD topic thinks something else. And for somewhat good reason.

[Enjay]

Funnily enough, I actually find god mode working the way that it does quite useful. I use it primarily for testing and sometimes, just sometimes, I need to invulnerable to regular stuff but killed by something special.

Also, where would the OMG factor of weapons where people post "it even kills you in god mode" be if god mode was absolute?

[DavidB1000]

Hmm, it just seems silly to do that though. I remember playing a weapons mod and the alt-fire of the rocket launcher was a nuclear missile, and for a long time I couldn't figure out why I kept being killed.

Yeah, if you're going to make a powerful weapon that can kill a Cyber-demon in one hit, make it fire bullets, or non explosives, please. Otherwise don't do it. We already have MDK for a reason. Which has to do only 10,000, because otherwise I would have died hitting a voodoo doll with it while having the Invunsphere.

Um, okay, I just tested that, call me splattered... I swear I did it once!

[Unknown_Assassin]

It just seems that no one can see how the increase of damage amounts and see how that God Mode might need to be increased to maintain the balance.

I don't know, I just don't get why cheating needs to be punished even more than the lack of skills it gives you anyway.
Besides, God Mode is nice because rockets don't damage you. I love spamming rockets. Of course, everyone in the AEOD topic thinks something else. And for somewhat good reason.

God mode was meant for Doom and Doom only, not other wads. Therefore, I think it should remain as what it is.
If you don't like monsters that do instant kill:
1) Use Decorate to....
a) lower monster's attack
b) increase weapon's attack
c) give yourself perhaps a powerup that will have the +NODAMAGE

2) Give yourself lots of health

3) Use Invulnerability sphere cheat (with binding if you don't want to type repeteadly). If this blinds you, use the automap and type IDDT a couple of times.

[DavidB1000]

Okay, so how about a player flag? Like +NODAMAGE? Can you do that? And would the result be immune to Telefrags and MDking voodoo dolls?
Just wondering. I'm curious about these things, and if they're easier than editing the source code, then yeah, I'll shut up and concede the point.

[Unknown_Assassin]

Okay, so how about a player flag? Like +NODAMAGE? Can you do that? And would the result be immune to Telefrags and MDking voodoo dolls?

I'm not sure if it would work directly on the player, hence why I said use it on powerup. Plus the fact that the powerup.duration can have 9999999999999999 (more or less).

I'm also not sure about telefrags and mdking voodoo dolls. Since MDK doesn't work against Spectral monsters, you could technically equip the +SPECTRAL to the powerup. I haven't done this, yet, but I'm thinking it would work. As for telefrags, I haven't tested it yet.

[DavidB1000]

But even with a huge duration, lasting a couple of decades, , how would you set it up so it gets immediately activated on the next level? Could that be done very easliy, or would it break ACS scripts or something on a map, say if you tried it on any of the famous hub levels?

Heh, I just tested MDK against voodoo dolls, and apparently the give health command has no upper limit of 32757 or so, because I started doing that after giving myself 3,500,000 each and they counted, or I spammed 32757 a lot, because I MDKed a voodoo doll twice, and nothing really bad happened besides making my screen red.

[Unknown_Assassin]

But even with a huge duration, lasting a couple of decades, , how would you set it up so it gets immediately activated on the next level? Could that be done very easliy, or would it break ACS scripts or something on a map, say if you tried it on any of the famous hub levels?

Heh, I just tested MDK against voodoo dolls, and apparently the give health command has no upper limit of 32757 or so, because I started doing that after giving myself 3,500,000 each and they counted, or I spammed 32757 a lot, because I MDKed a voodoo doll twice, and nothing really bad happened besides making my screen red.

Bind a key to give yourself the powerup. At the start, hit the key. It won't break ACS scripts because you are only giving yourself a powerup.

The limit is 32757. There's nothing bad about that; it is enough to make you live. Then when health is low, use same cheat again.

EDIT: I tested with the powerup, I don't seem to get Telefragged with +NODAMAGE.

[DavidB1000]

Fair enough, so how do I go about making a mod like that? I wouldn't know where to begin, it actually would be easier to add 10 zeros to a certain line in Zdoom's source code.

Also, would it conflict with anything? And would you still hear the Doom guy's grunts?

Are you certain about the upper health limit? Because how could I shrug off two Mdks if each one did 1,000,000 damage, and it would take a lot more than spamming give health 32757 the sixty times I did to get that much... 1,965,420 is 32,767 times 60, and that's still not enough to shrug off two direct MDKs,
Edit, I figured it out. Right, you're correct, I just spammed it 60 times.

[Medricel]

Also, in the even that you do die, there's always the resurrect command. The only time you can't res yourself is if the player actor calls A_SkullPop (like the Hexen Fighter), or if the player dies from ice damage and shatters.