What do you use ZDoom for

[thenodger]

Hey everyone, I was following UZDoom loosely, waiting for its first stable release, and now that it has, I've loaded up Doom II and set up a config, but now I don't know what to do.

I know there are plenty of mods and maps that require a ZDoom engine to choose from, but I do not know where to start. The only Doom modding I've done is some Brutal Doom mods, but I'm not looking for something so far from the vanilla game right now. I could also just play vanilla, but why would I do that with a port that isn't so faithful rather than just DSDA-Doom?

So I've decided to ask, what do you use your ZDoom sourceport for day-to-day? Mods, maps, maybe you just like having mouselook and full 3D rendering, anything at all.

Thanks.

[bimshwel]

Back when zdoom was new, it seemed to me like the best engine for running old material, and over time it became also my system of choice for designing new material. I like the high resolution and indeed the mouse-looking, plus the larger variety of extra nonsense I can run at the same time as vintage maps (apart from it being substantially easier to use those in zdoom compared to regular doom), and I can have the same settings i use for my own project/production/whatnottery and possibly swap things between them. and and oh.

[Average Raven Fan]

I use ZDoom to, believe it or not, play Doom.

But on a more serious note, Heretic and Hexen have very little granularity in modding capability compared to Doom. There's no Boom or the MBFs or the various kinds of DEHACKED - you got vanilla/cl2 or ZDoom and that's *it*. So it's like 50/50 or better odds that any content you pick up for these games requires this port, even stuff you could swear is just vanilla like the Cyrgoth trilogy or Scourge of Viscerus.

For Doom itself sometimes I feel like crushing a slaughtermap underfoot with some overtuned weapons mod and, let's be honest, who doesn't?

[Enjay]

For Doom itself sometimes I feel like crushing a slaughtermap underfoot with some overtuned weapons mod and, let's be honest, who doesn't?

I just don't "get" slaughtermaps. To me, they have the same problem as Superman (many people won't have a problem with him either). Superman is, effectively, an invulnerable alien. He lives his life in god mode. Nothing mundane can really touch him. So, in order to challenge Superman you either have to find another invulnerable alien (or similar) to match him, or find some way of weakening him so that he is no longer an invulnerable god.

Similarly, slaughtermaps are not beatable by "normal" gameplay. They have to be set up with invulnerability and mega sphere's lying everywhere along with unfeasible piles and piles of weapons and ammo to make the player, effectively, an invulnerable alien that can beat the invulnerable alien of a map.

So, when I fire up a map that has 5000 enemies in it and huge numbers of supplies lying everywhere, I just groan, quit and delete. For me, wading through thousands of enemies as I run from powerup to powerup gets old very quickly, and even overtuned weapons merely add to the frustration, rather than enhancing the experience. I just find it intensely dull. Not my cup of lapsang souchong at all.

I've been disappointed by several maps that I have tried recently: some brilliant looking maps that seem as if they should be really fun to explore and marvel at but when I start them up and fire my first shot, I hear 100 cyberdemons waking up, I check the monster count at the automap, see that it has several thousand and - for me - it's like "what's the point". So, I might type "kill monsters" at the console and wander around looking at the map for a bit but, for me, the game is already over before it even got going.

Fine for those who enjoy it - brilliant in fact. If that's your thing, then more power to you. However, in answer to "who doesn't?"

Me!

[bimshwel]

I do not know if i have played a "slaughtermap" by that name but I have liked some older levels like trampas.wad, hell revealed (some stages more than others) and dave swift's "mud" levels that were packed with of monsters and stuff to grab but were perhaps moderated by what the base doom engine could contain within it, and I have always been a proponent of letting monsters fight each other when possible, which authors have possibly gotten better at and more inclined to try preventing over the years.

[Average Raven Fan]

I'll admit I was thinking more like... 600-800 monsters? Maybe going over a thousand but it's mostly imps or something, that's not uncommon. And sure, fair enough, those are love-or-hate affairs, like Berserk maps or Icon of Sin fights.

Five thousand bad guys and a hundred of those are Cyberdemons admittedly sounds extremely exhausting, and it's telling how little modern Doom I've played because that kinda map didn't even cross my mind.

[bimshwel]

it occurs to me that I don't even know how many monsters are in a lot of old levels that I liked beecause earlier zdoom and of course regular doom didn't show the number. And then eventually I re-disabled that since it is easier to get surprised when I do not know how many additional beasts remain. Prior to that I do remember seeing the total keep going up in some of the hell revealed levels (possibly the ones that I may have liked less) on account of an over-abundance of arch viles.
A custom set of modifications I made long ago included leting arch viles revive each other which turns out to not be fun at all under most circumstances where they might actually have a chance to do that. But I also played a lot of shovelware cd wads and sometimes erratic modifications that ruin good levels make terrible levels more interesting.

[Nems]

I use UZDoom for most idtech1 games, not just Doom, but mostly Doom. I like the modern, forward-looking approach to the port. I'm gonna say something that some folks might consider heresy: as much as I enjoyed playing vanilla Doom back in the DOS and Doom95 days, the limitations aren't charming to me. I like being able to freelook, crouch, jump, and change certain actor behaviors (i.e. turn off infinitely tall monsters) to settings that are more in line with shooters that came out the same time and around the time Quake did. I didn't start with ZDoom when I first got into ports though. I started with Doomsday/jDoom (I thought 3D models in a sprite game was the coolest shit back then ). Then I moved over to Risen3D. Then I briefly dabbled in Doom Legacy before finally trying ZDoom. I haven't looked back since.

Re: slaughter maps: I like sensible slaughter maps. By that, I mean slaughter maps that respect the engine's limitations. Stuff like Alien Vendetta and Plutonia's Go 2 It are more of my kind of slaughter. In my opinion, just because an engine allows a mapper to stick 10,000+ enemies in a map doesn't mean they should. NUTS was supposed to be a jokewad, not a blueprint for slaughter map gameplay. So when I reach a map that gets to fuck off numbers of monsters and/or I spawn in a level surrounded by monsters with nothing more than a pistol, like Enjay, I groan and quit. Mind you, what I think shouldn't stop mappers from making what they want. If they want to make an ultra-detailed map with 10,000+ monsters where the player's reliant on power up management and infighting to succeed, go for it. The great thing about Doom/idtech1 games is that there's something for everyone with all of the content available for it.

[Enjay]

I certainly don't mean to imply anything against people who enjoy maps like that. Something for everyone is right. It's just that I've been disappointed a few times recently through seeing some really nice screenshots only to find the map essentially unplayable (IMO) when I fire it up. I mean, do you even have time to look at the scenery when there are 5000 enemies to deal with?

Infighting can, of course, help but it also feels a bit like how I know some people used to "play" games like Sim city or other games where you set things up and the computer then responds to the parameters of what you've done. I used to know a guy who would make his changes before he left for work in the morning, and come home to see how his world was doing at night. Basically, the game played itself most of the time. So, starting a big infight that can logically take several minutes to run to completion does just feel like setting things up and letting the game play itself for a while.


To answer the original question: what do I use ZDoom for? In no particular order, playing the main supported games, playing add on maps and projects, editing for the games, digging into what people have done and trying to understand anything cunning that I haven't seen before and helping people solve their problems if I can. Oh, and editing for the games. I know I already mentioned that, but I do it a lot. Like nearly every day. For over 30 years. It's kind of just my doodling, my muse, my thing to do when there's nothing else to do, my creative outlet even if much of it just gets scrapped at the end of the day.

As for playing, I'm definitely not a Doom "purist". I don't care if ZDoom plays exactly like doom.exe would. Give me jumping, crouching, freelook and, yes, even filtered textures.

When I play a map, I play it because I'm interested in it and how it has been made as much as the detail of how it plays. As long as it's functional and does everything that's it's supposed to, that's close enough for me. For me, it doesn't have to do it exactly like vanilla doom. If I play a map where being like doom.exe is actually important, then I probably won't use *ZDoom for it. There are other ports that do a much better job of it, and that's fine. They are built with that purpose very much in mind as their primary function. They are always going to be better at it than an engine with wider priorities. But it's generally *ZDoom's wider priorities that interest me.

The joy of playing in a very familiar engine with all the settings that I like is, for me, far more important to me than engine quirks. Again, if it's your thing, then more power to you, but I just want to play a fun game and not get tied up in the minutiae of whether the blockmap is affecting how a hitscan weapon works etc.
If gun go bang and zombie die, me happy.

[bimshwel]

I also used to engage in a lot of sim city, but never considered the similarity in approaches. Doom at least I eventually learned how to play without cheating for extra resources. But sometimes setting up a good cross-fire situation is like a sort of art. I suppose i like being able to choose whether to do that or rely on weapons; i do not know that i ever played through a map which demanded that of the player, and I probably would not enjoy one that did, nor that tried to prevent it. I played something which might have been called Phocas I think on a recommendation, from who, I remember not, but I do remember being irritated at hall after red brick hall full of mostly if not exclusively revenants.

ALTHOUGH checking on the text file now, that I at the time apparently labeled "never EVER again" I see that it does warn "Only the best doomers should bother with UV," and possibly I am not a member of such a group.