Monsters that won't stay put

edited 2017 Jun 27 in General
I'm just curious.

I notice that in the Doomsday engine (Doomsday 2, last stable release), monsters that would normally stay in a particular room or sector in the vanilla games are far more aggressive and will actively leave the room, open doors, and hunt down the player.

As an example - Map 16 of Doom II - Suburbs:
In the vanilla game, you start in a small room, facing a few Imps. There's a Revenant on a platform outside, and an Archvile waiting for you outside. You kill the Imps, kill the Revenant, go outside. The Archvile acivates, you kill it, and run to the next building, open the door, and a large number of Imps are packed inside, which activate when you open the door.

But in Doomsday, the scenario goes something like this:

You start in the small room, kill the imps, kill the revenant.
The Archvile outside activates, and enters the room.
The Imps inside the next building activate, open the door, leave their original room, and start coming into the starting room.

This behaviour is not limited to this map alone, it happens on quite a few maps, though fortunately, not as much as it used to in previous versions of Doomsday (I remember doing Refuelling base on an older Doomsday, and all the monsters from every room came at you all at once as soon as you left the starting area - this no longer happens).

This isn't a problem per-se, but it does force you to play the game in a different way, and can be a bit less fun. For instance hitting all those dozens of tightly-packed Imps in Suburbs with a BFG shot after opening the door used to be a lot of fun. You can no longer do that.

So, question: Is this a deliberate design feature, or is it something that still needs to be ironed out?

I've noticed that it's most prevelant in Doom 2, but I've also occasionally noticed it in the other games as well.



Comments

  • That sounds like a bug to me. Which OS are you on, and is it the 32 or 64-bit build?

    There has been a number of changes to the gameplay code, but the objective has always been to retain the original behavior as closely as possible. Unfortunately debugging these issues is not exactly trivial... It would help a lot to have a simple test map where the behavioral differences can be isolated.

    Also, please submit a bug report in the Tracker: https://tracker.dengine.net/projects/deng
  • As an example - Map 16 of Doom II - Suburbs:
    In the vanilla game, you start in a small room, facing a few Imps. There's a Revenant on a platform outside, and an Archvile waiting for you outside. You kill the Imps, kill the Revenant, go outside. The Archvile acivates, you kill it, and run to the next building, open the door, and a large number of Imps are packed inside, which activate when you open the door.
    But in Doomsday, the scenario goes something like this:

    You start in the small room, kill the imps, kill the revenant.
    The Archvile outside activates, and enters the room.
    The Imps inside the next building activate, open the door, leave their original room, and start coming into the starting room.

    I tested this behavior myself and I cannot confirm it. In Doomsday (build 2368) it behaves like you described it for vanilla doom. Can you test it with this build as well? It's the latest build.
  • Apologies Skyjake. I am using the following build:

    2.0.1 Stable [#2311] 64 bit.

    My OS is Windows 7 64 Bit, with all service packs installed.

    I encountered this issue in Doom 2, fully patched, using the JDoom Resource Pack, the new Model Pack, Texture Pack, Slide's Skyboxes, custom music, and a bunch of various other PK3s for blood splatter, lighting etc. etc.

    I will test this out one more time first using vanilla Doom 2 in Dosbox, and then again in Doomsday, to see if I can reproduce it, and make sure it wasn't a one-off.

    If it reproduces I will fill in a bug report.
  • Milten, that's a later build than the one I am using. I presume 2368 is one of the 'unstable builds'?

    I was a bit reluctant to upgrade to something called an 'unstable build', because the name of it gives the sense that it might crash a lot, and cause all kinds of issues.
  • @ErgatesTheant Please also test without any additional resource packs. It is possible that some of them modify the object states and therefore may also have impact on gameplay.
  • OK. This is going to sound weird, but it seems the problem isn't the Doomsday Engine at all, the problem is either in the game, or the player.

    Just ran Suburbs in vanilla Doom 2. Killed the starting Imps, and the Revenants, then opened the door. The Archvile and all the Imps inside the other building were already active, outside, and heading in my direction, just like in Doomsday.

    Reloaded and did it again - but this time, the game behaved as I remember it, the Imps stayed in the building, behind the door and did not come out.

    Hmm....


    Then I ran Doomsday, and loaded the map. The game behaved as it is supposed to this time, and all the Imps and the Archvile stayed put and did not hunt me down.

    I ran one of the other maps I'd had this happen on. Map 09 - The Pit. This time the Pain Elemental in the area above me did not become active as soon as I moved, which is what happened last time, and the map behaved normally.

    I wonder if somehow I am responsible? Maybe I moved into a certain position which allowed certain monsters that would normally be dormant to spot me? I have no idea. I've completed Doom II probably a hundred or more times since 1994 and thought I was pretty familiar with the game, but maybe I just did something unexpected on this particular playthrough?

    In any case, there is no issue with Doomsday, the programme is not responsible.
  • :+1: Thanks for testing!
  • Thanks, and keep up the good work. I've been following Doomsday since you released JHeretic in 1999, and it just keeps getting better and better :)
  • For what it is worth, years ago I saw this exact same behavior in Doom, namely monsters everywhere and then the next 2 or 3 rooms which should have been full of monsters were empty. I assumed it was a “work in progress” and soon would be fixed, so I did not look into it. So, I found this tread an interesting read.
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