40oz
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Post by 40oz on Jun 22, 2024 7:35:53 GMT -5
Most people know that a screenshot taken with the HUD completely turned off makes for a better screenshot. I think it's very underrated to play Doom with the HUD completely turned off. I find the experience very immersive, especially in days where I'm feeling kinda bored of Doom or having trouble finding something to play. Having no numbers on the screen helps me feel more "in it" than with a HUD, or even a minimalist HUD does. I recommend it for those like me that compulsively have to do the mental math all the time to get the most out of every item pickup. For newcomers, I would first try it on Doom: Knee Deep in the Dead due to the abundance of health and ammo so there's less risk of getting killed. I find it is best to play as if I have infinite ammo, and 1% health at all times. The panic of running out of ammo in moments where you didn't know you were low is actually pretty intense sometimes. In harder wads, I sometimes run a infiniteammo dehacked patch (attached). Remember to save often! ![](https://i.vgy.me/dda3Zw.png) Attachments:infiniteammo.deh (1.02 KB)
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Post by thelokk on Jun 22, 2024 8:17:46 GMT -5
Don't know, tried in the past but I'm not a huge fan. I like the visuals to be 'framed' so to speak, no HUD gives me this sort of stretchy, slightly distorted perception field (can't really describe it any better) that disorients me. The HUD also helps me with motion sickness, as it's very handy to have at least a few visual elements that don't move around.
On the other hand, I wouldn't argue that Doom's stock HUD is very obtrusive. Another "good enough for Wolf3d, good enough for Doom" rush job tbh.
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40oz
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Post by 40oz on Jun 22, 2024 20:36:37 GMT -5
A couple things of note:
- You have to max out your inventory of a particular type or completely deplete it to be able to know for sure how much of something you have. - You can get a general idea of how much damage you took by the intensity of the redness of the pallete every time you get hurt* - You lose your directional damage indicators by not having doom guys face look in the direction you're taking damage from, so wear head phones so you can use sound to help you out
(*) Does anyone know the exact damage threshold between each reddened pallete shift? There's 7 of them. I tried searching on doomworld, looking it up on doomwiki.org, and looking into it in the Unofficial Doom Specs.
There is a brief note about it in there; according to the Unofficial Doom Specs it says this, but Matt Fell is not entirely sure and doesn't seem very interested in finding out. Apparently the first red pallete shift never gets used though, which is news to me.
If the player is hurt, then the palette shifts up to number X, then comes "down" one every second or so, to palette 2, then palette 0 (normal) again. What X is depends on how badly the player got hurt: Over 100% damage (add health loss and armor loss), X=8. 93%, X=7. 81%, X=6. 55%, X=5. 35%, X=4. 16%, X=2. These are just rough estimates based on a single test session long ago. Why bother tracking down the exact division points?
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Post by Un'Gosoth on Jun 22, 2024 22:06:36 GMT -5
- You can get a general idea of how much damage you took by the intensity of the redness of the pallete every time you get hurt* I've enjoyed playing HUDless for a while now (except when recording demos for playtesting), and this was one of the biggest things it trained me to appreciate. Beforehand, I would just eat damage and never really think to pay attention to my health until it was too late. But the redness of the screen now helps me gauge at a moment's notice how much damage, say, a Rev or Manc fireball is hitting me in the heat of combat. I definitely relate to the immersion that playing HUDless allows for, too. Makes me much more cautious, like any hit could be my last, and it makes every hit I survive feel like a fuckin' blessing. One thing I think it actually accentuates too is the usefulness of the map, since it pretty much forces the HUD to display (at least, in my source ports of choice.) Gives the map an extra level of appreciability as a tool to employ between encounters to gauge my resources before venturing forward. Gameplay videos without the HUD, while rare, are also pretty choice, ironically for the inverse reason that thelokk mentioned. I feel like seeing more of the screen in playback lets me appreciate the gameplay a lot more, and makes those videos more immersive as well. A number of streamers use custom HUDs, so I can see why they wouldn't want to play HUDless, and it's arguably an extra bit of difficulty on top of all that. Also, looking through the Doom source code, it looks like the pain palette chosen (1 thru 8) is determined by the amount of damage taken, plus 7, roughly divided by 8. There's some fuckery after that operation that results in pain palette 1 being impossible to achieve (basically, whatever pain palette would be chosen, it's always increased by 1 level unless it's already 8. Ironically tho, this means that if the math WOULD result in, say, pain palette 7 being chosen, 8 is chosen instead, so it's actually always 1 level more intense than intended.) All this is to say, from what I could find, it's more like: 56% or more (possibly including armor, I didn't look that deep) is the reddest pain palette, then it goes down 1 level of intensity for every 8% of damage. Obligatory disclaimer that I spent like 10 minutes looking at the source code for this, so I might be slightly mistaken. ======================== The code snippet I'm referencing is below: (cnt = damage the player just took, but it's also set by the berserk palette code) (NUMREDPALS = 8, STARTREDPALS = 1) if (cnt) { palette = (cnt+7)>>3;
if (palette >= NUMREDPALS) palette = NUMREDPALS-1;
palette += STARTREDPALS; }
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nnn✓ork
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Post by nnn✓ork on Jun 22, 2024 22:40:15 GMT -5
Since I gotta replay/finish Lost Civ, I might play through it with no HUD, but with God-Mode too. Just chill out and click on monsters while vibing out. Slightly different than OP suggestion but it sounds like a good idea right now.
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40oz
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Post by 40oz on Jun 23, 2024 6:58:54 GMT -5
I definitely relate to the immersion that playing HUDless allows for, too. Makes me much more cautious, like any hit could be my last, and it makes every hit I survive feel like a fuckin' blessing. One thing I think it actually accentuates too is the usefulness of the map, since it pretty much forces the HUD to display (at least, in my source ports of choice.) Gives the map an extra level of appreciability as a tool to employ between encounters to gauge my resources before venturing forward. Gameplay videos without the HUD, while rare, are also pretty choice, ironically for the inverse reason that thelokk mentioned. I feel like seeing more of the screen in playback lets me appreciate the gameplay a lot more, and makes those videos more immersive as well. A number of streamers use custom HUDs, so I can see why they wouldn't want to play HUDless, and it's arguably an extra bit of difficulty on top of all that. Yes! Exactly! I've used the automap to look at my health a few times... I feel like its cheating, but the automap blocks your vision so you cannot reliably use it if you're in danger. You have to secure a safe spot to check on your vitals and your ammunition, which is probably closer to how combat might be in real life too. I don't see many gameplay videos that play with no HUD. Most of what I see uses the full status bar HUD. Also, looking through the Doom source code, it looks like the pain palette chosen (1 thru 8) is determined by the amount of damage taken, plus 7, roughly divided by 8. There's some fuckery after that operation that results in pain palette 1 being impossible to achieve (basically, whatever pain palette would be chosen, it's always increased by 1 level unless it's already 8. Ironically tho, this means that if the math WOULD result in, say, pain palette 7 being chosen, 8 is chosen instead, so it's actually always 1 level more intense than intended.) All this is to say, from what I could find, it's more like: 56% or more (possibly including armor, I didn't look that deep) is the reddest pain palette, then it goes down 1 level of intensity for every 8% of damage. Obligatory disclaimer that I spent like 10 minutes looking at the source code for this, so I might be slightly mistaken. Thank you for this ![:)](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/smiley.png) Since I gotta replay/finish Lost Civ, I might play through it with no HUD, but with God-Mode too. Just chill out and click on monsters while vibing out. Slightly different than OP suggestion but it sounds like a good idea right now. I can appreciate that. I played Doom with god mode on for a little bit recently. I had a lot of hesitation (read: negative self talk telling me not to be a baby,) but I found playing without god mode for so long has trained me to do my best not to get hit even with it turned on. I think playing this way actually helps train me in a way. If I get hit, I don't get to retry. I just move on to the next part. It also gives me room to attempt risky things that might risk a certain death in a no-god mode situation. This trains me better for improvisation than just dying and repeating a hard part over and over until i get it.
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Post by Tangra on Jun 23, 2024 7:11:33 GMT -5
For pure exploration with no monsters, yeah, for sure. For actual gameplay? I don't know. I can see it getting very frustrating, very fast, even on easy maps like in Knee-Deep in the Dead, with the main reason for that being the damage RNG.
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joe-ilya
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Post by joe-ilya on Jun 23, 2024 7:31:46 GMT -5
It could be fun to do with the lowest difficulty setting and not have to worry too much about health and ammo.
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Post by hex11 on Jun 23, 2024 21:33:31 GMT -5
There are some wads designed for playing this way, for example: Aloha2X for Doom II. In the text file he also says to play in the dark and without music. I think his other wads work pretty well that way too, because he puts lots of effort into the lighting and creating a spooky atmosphere.
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40oz
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Post by 40oz on Jun 24, 2024 5:47:17 GMT -5
It could be fun to do with the lowest difficulty setting and not have to worry too much about health and ammo. Yes! OR! Play one of the many DBPs! Mappers that listened to my feedback about keeping their maps pretty easy and including more health & ammo than the player really needs are perfect. The maps I made are the same on all difficulty levels, so you can play on ITYTD (double ammo, halved damage) without losing any of the monsters.
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