Phml wrote:Unpredictability can come from complexity rather than randomness
That's basically it right there. Since Doom's damage/ballistics model is so incredibly simple, a degree of realism is attained by adding in a random factor. In real life there are millions of variables that allow the most unbelievable outcomes.
To me, when every action happens exactly like a spreadsheet and is totally predictable, it feels completely unrealistic and lessens my experience.
Enjay wrote:I prefer random. To me it helps convey some of the genuine randomness that occurs when shooting a target (in RL not all wounds from the same gun are the same (aim, weather, target moving etc all play a part)). Also, it means that shot counting isn't always correct. ie You can't just fire a certain number of shots at a particular enemy and know for certain that it is going down.
My two cents here, I completely agree with EnJay on this.
So long as the randomization isn't so ridiculous that a pistol can XDeath a Zombieman.
Actually I remember playing vanilla DoomII Co-Op with a highschool buddy back in the day, and one time I gibbed a Zombieman with the plasma rifle!Only one time though, I could never do it again! According to the plasma ball's damage value (http://zdoom.org/wiki/Classes:PlasmaBall, damage=1 to 5 which is multiplied by random (1,8) in DOOM), I now know that this only has a very slim chance of happening, and that the randomness sure made things things fun to watch during that game.
Mr. Tee wrote:Actually I remember playing vanilla DoomII Co-Op with a highschool buddy back in the day, and one time I gibbed a Zombieman with the plasma rifle!
It's more fun when you see a sufficiently hurt zombieman get gibbed by an imp's fireball. Now there's a truly rare situation.
I like reasonable random damages. For example, buckshot from point blank, hollowpoint against armor (especially, if it penetrates weak point of the armor.) Or non-killing headshot could just be scratch. That kind of randomization I am OK with.
And random damage should be just a spice-up, not a dominating thing of the game.
Mr. Tee wrote:Actually I remember playing vanilla DoomII Co-Op with a highschool buddy back in the day, and one time I gibbed a Zombieman with the plasma rifle!
It's more fun when you see a sufficiently hurt zombieman get gibbed by an imp's fireball. Now there's a truly rare situation.
Oof.... Most rare, and random indeed!
I think we mostly all agree, some randomization of damage makes things interesting.
Bren wrote:That's basically it right there. Since Doom's damage/ballistics model is so incredibly simple, a degree of realism is attained by adding in a random factor. In real life there are millions of variables that allow the most unbelievable outcomes.
I remember watching a video of a presentation by a surgeon about how to identify, diagnose and treat various sorts of gunshot wounds. I looked at the pictures, listened to the doctor, and thought of some of the best way to model that in Doom.
The next time I tried to do "realistic" rifle damage in a Doom mod it was just random(20,120).
That said, I've always enjoyed things more when the gun is modeled in a way that any shot inaccuracy is an emergent property of swaying, breathing, running, recoil, etc., rather than pushing a button and seeing a cone of random spray based on a bunch of intellectually known but audiovisually unperceived variables. I don't know what the equivalent might be for damage, though, at least that which could be done for Doom-style hitboxes.
Really, I couldn't give two hoots for realism, especially in a game like Doom. I think Doom is more fun with randomized damage the way it is now. Sure, it might not be great for competitions, where you want an even playing field. But for actually playing a game that's supposed to be enjoyable it keeps even simple encounters (i.e. an Imp and a Demon charging at you down a hallway) stimulating.
If damage were steady I would walk into a room and start shooting monsters like I was checking boxes on a spreadsheet. Former Human spotted > aiming > pistol shot 1 of 3 > 2 of 3 > 3 of 3. Another Former human > aiming > 1 of 3 > 2 of 3... et cetera.
That said, it would be interesting if ZDoom had an option for players who don't like variables outside of skill.
Dortold wrote:That said, it would be interesting if ZDoom had an option for players who don't like variables outside of skill.
Well, if you're up to modding a bit, you can actually go set the damage values to never be random by setting their respective numbers to ([n]), where n is the damage number that will never, ever change. For instance, I'd set the Doom pistol to do (10) damage.
I use such a mod from my ZDoom playing, and it's hard to understand the claim fixed damage values leads to such predictability fighting monsters would be akin to filling a spreadsheet.
The random aspect of weapon damage in Doom is alleviated by how these weapons are designed, in most cases. For example, with the SSG firing 20 shells at a time, you're unlikely to end anywhere close to either end of the damage distribution. Likewise with the BFG and its 40 tracers, the RL and more than half of its damage being fixed, the plasma gun and its high fire of rate. Monster HP being what it is, taking down a pinky in one SSG shot, a revenant in 2, a HK/arach in 3, an AV in 4 is a certainty given adequate aim. So is taking down a cybie in 2 BFG shots, or a spider in 2 (or 1 with the blockmap fix).
Only the pistol, the fist and the chaingun are consistently affected by the random factor, and only against low-tier monsters (as the damage spread inevitably smoothes out over a high number of shots); those weapons don't exist in a vacuum either, and being on the lower end of the arsenal, are likely to be replaced by stronger or more reliable options. Swap to the mere single shotgun, and suddenly any randomness in weapon damage is gone against former humans.
There is essentially no actual randomness in weapon damage most of the time, the way weapons and monsters are set up. It's fringe cases and the odd dice roll here and there rather than the norm.
Beyond that whole point, there still is, to me, the meat of the game: movement, and to a lesser extent shooting. I haven't perfect aim nor supernatural analytical skills, so personally, when I enter a room, say even one with just a dozen monsters, I'm not going to know where each of them is going to move exactly. I'm not going to know when exactly every single one of them is going to start throwing a fireball at me, the exact time it'll take for those fireballs launched from multiple angles and positions to travel to my own position (even if I were standing still, and this being Doom it's likely I'm not), or to the position of other, also moving monsters who might get hit and provoked into infighting, and start throwing their own projectiles at yet another target. All I can use is my best estimate of a situation I have to reassess consistently, and, provided everything is set up so that the deck isn't too ridiculously stacked for the doomguy, that's a challenge.
Even if we were to assume I somehow had perfect knowledge of this particular fight (maybe I replayed it fifty times, watched a bunch of demos of that fight and studied the patterns so I could see how each monster reacts to any particular action I take), there's still the actual physical skill of pointing at the right target, a moving target, at the right time, with the mouse, while also dodging attacks with the movement keys, maneuvering so the doomguy doesn't bump into an obstacle or get cornered, positioning to maximise infights or get within range (sg/ssg) or outside of range (rl).
Now, if you want to fight two zombiemen at a time, or one imp and a demon, or pick a shotgun and kill some demons, I'll give you randomness can spice things up, but I'd argue that's because there's not much going for these particular encounters. Random or no random, low tier monsters in low numbers tend to be too weak in Doom to present much of a threat or a thrill, the only danger coming from resource depletion, generally over minutes - which, again, is somewhat of a counterpoint to the whole random damage aspect, although I suppose you could argue it's the one extra pistol shot you need at the wrong time that can get you killed, everything else being a lead up to that. I could see it, I could get the appeal, but I don't think it's the only way to go.
An interesting discussion, and helpful from the stand point of a modder. Many here prefer randomness it seems, I have been toying with fixed damage for awhile so I this has got me interested in seeing how well random does.
One thing that popped up early on in this thread was damage falloff, is such a thing possible in ZDoom or even desirable in a game like Doom?
I suppose that could work if you had, say, a perfectly accurate hitscan weapon that shot X number of hitscans, each going exactly the same way and having different maximum ranges, or an exploding projectile that exploded differently depending on a timer, or a non-exploding projectile with X number of damage variants and each one spawning the next.
It works very well for limiting the range some weapons have over others, as well as preventing boneheaded total fluke kills with a shotgun from all the way across a map. I test most of my stuff on Industrial Zone and Factory (and, on rare occasions, Hangar) so even in vanilla you've got plenty of ranges where making these distinctions is worth the effort.
Ya, a projectile that loses its effectiveness as it travels for example, judging by your examples I guess that means I couldn't change the damage of it after its been spawned
Well, the weapons most affected by the randomization (the fist and pistol) are the least enjoyable to use. I don't know if that is by design or just a function of their worthlessness, but I doubt that for the rest of the weapons simply changing them to always deal the mean damage would actually alter the gameplay in any significant way. I was just about to mention that the build games, with non-random damage, are incredibly fun (especially blood). IMO, the lack of hit boxes is my biggest gripe with either engine.
As far projectiles that dealt less damage as they traveled, you could set them to 0 damage and have them lose health each tic. Upon their death state, they do a small radius explosion that used health for the damage argument. Something like this.
//...
health 40 //max damage to do
damage 0 // or set higher if you want a minimum level of random damage
States
{
Spawn:
MISS AB 4 Bright DamageThing(2)
Loop
Death:
MISS C 1 A_Explode (health , 32, 0, 0, 1)
//...
Note: I have no idea what would happen if you tried this in a fastprojectile. Also, having enemies start out in a range of health (ex: TNT1 AA 0 DamageThing(random(0,health/8)) )might be a nice way to implement randomness instead (after all, a monster may have been hurt prior to encountering the player.)
Having the enemy health be random instead of weapon damage would be an interesting idea if it could be made to matter - facing 5 goons of equal threat, hit the one that has the least health first, 4 goons after the first shot instead of 5, but you'd have to be able to tell that somehow. (little health bars over the head?)
I don't see how fastprojectiles would work any differently for that, but what happens when the health hits 0?
