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Alain Post posted:That's just getting into semantics, though. You got into semantics first by bitching about "core mechanics". If iD didn't want the cheats to be options they intended people to use, it wouldn't be there.
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Feb 10, 2015 21:52
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Nintendo Kid posted:You got into semantics first by bitching about "core mechanics". If iD didn't want the cheats to be options they intended people to use, it wouldn't be there. You can use them, but in practice they're tangental to the game, unless you want to claim that 99% of the Doom playerbase is playing the game wrong by intentionally gimping themselves.
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Feb 10, 2015 21:57
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all of you are just bad at fps
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Feb 10, 2015 22:00
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I will agree, though, that it might be interesting to see what you would get when you deliberately design a FPS around the concept of an immortal player character. Obviously something else would have to replace the whole health mechanic and such, but it's been done with relatively good results in both the platformer and WRPG genres (respectively: Wario Land 2/3; Planescape: Torment to a degree). That said, the only obvious tangents I can think of for such an FPS would be some sort of score attack; some sort of timed mission where taking damage reduces time instead of health; or some sort of jump map where the challenge comes from just being able to make the tricky rocket jumps required to reach the end of a stage. As for cheating in Doom, I really don't consider a WAD beaten unless I can do it legitimately, but I do have several "cheat" mods that would let me at least appreciate the level design of a slaughtermap without having to worry about savescumming just to get through. Started when I made a DEH file that reduced all the enemies' health values to 1 while raising the Doomguy's health and armor limits to 999%, but I think I'm more proud of some DECORATE replacements I made where all the enemies jump straight to their death state the instant they confirm visual contact with the player (originally it was jumping to the death state when they woke up, but then enemies in dummy sectors would never enter the map proper; this seemed like a good compromise, as it lets them at least teleport into the play area before dying). Incompatible with mods that have custom monsters for fairly obvious reasons.
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Feb 10, 2015 22:02
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Alain Post posted:You can use them, but in practice they're tangental to the game, unless you want to claim that 99% of the Doom playerbase is playing the game wrong by intentionally gimping themselves. They're about as tangential to the game as custom levels are.
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Feb 10, 2015 22:13
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Nintendo Kid posted:They're about as tangential to the game as custom levels are. Custom levels are basically using the same ruleset for a different scenario, which has long been an accepted thing to do in lots of game systems (especially in RPGs). I don't see them as comparable to cheat codes at all.
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Feb 10, 2015 22:17
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Shadow Hog posted:I will agree, though, that it might be interesting to see what you would get when you deliberately design a FPS around the concept of an immortal player character. Obviously something else would have to replace the whole health mechanic and such, but it's been done with relatively good results in both the platformer and WRPG genres (respectively: Wario Land 2/3; Planescape: Torment to a degree). Even in Torment your inability to die is more a story point than a gameplay point- failure still means your situation is disrupted and you have to repeat a small amount of content to take another chance at whatever it was you failed at. In Fable 2 when you die you get back up right where you were but your character is permanently uglier. Whatever else you can say about that game, it's different. One of the Superman games made Supes 100% invincible but gave the city around him a health bar, meaning that allowing collateral damage counts as a mistake and if the city "dies" you lose even though you're still healthy.
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Feb 10, 2015 22:21
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Alain Post posted:That's just getting into semantics, though. I mean, I've always been of the opinion that stuff like save systems don't get considered as core mechanics enough, but the nature of cheat codes (down to the name of them) makes them really tangential mechanics in a game- even when using them doesn't have any mechanical consequences (i.e. Wolf3D not putting you in the high score list if you use cheat codes). Alain Post posted:You can use them, but in practice they're tangental to the game, unless you want to claim that 99% of the Doom playerbase is playing the game wrong by intentionally gimping themselves. This is unnecessarily binary thinking. False dichotomy. The "core mechanics" can be a multi-dimensional system, not just a single 1-d linear graph of "good - bad". Its not "right and wrong". Some people like savescumming, some don't. I don't think its safe to say that either party is "wrong" inherently. They're just playing two very similar but slightly different games. And which is better is a matter of preference, mostly. There is the artistic intent, but the game designers would try hard to lock you out of savescumming if they feel that way. (Course some still copy folders and savescum anyways...) Its like different modes of the same game, deathmatch vs instagib. Shadow Hog posted:I will agree, though, that it might be interesting to see what you would get when you deliberately design a FPS around the concept of an immortal player character. Obviously something else would have to replace the whole health mechanic and such, but it's been done with relatively good results in both the platformer and WRPG genres (respectively: Wario Land 2/3; Planescape: Torment to a degree). Yeah, that's all I was sayin'. You would have to really design the game around it to make it ideal. Doom wasn't designed around it (but is still fun that way at times) and so loses a little bit of itself when you turn on godmode. But you could build a game around it, and I think that's interesting. That's why I used Bulletstorm as an example; score attack is one of the obvious ways to really focus on something other than survival. Something like Devil May Cry's score attack system where you're trying to quickly build up style points, and where getting hit loses your combo, and wasting time loses your combo, could keep the tension up just as much as staying alive. And it could even make the game more tense, because you can't just turtle up. Zaphod42 fucked around with this message at 22:34 on Feb 10, 2015 |
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Feb 10, 2015 22:29
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The nature of 'cheat codes' is pretty plain from their name.
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Feb 10, 2015 22:34
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The reason I mentioned save systems is that I think game developers make games too often without considering the effect the game's save system will have on it. Unlimited quicksave/quickload can be tremendously damaging to a game- I think Dishonored was the most recent game that I thought was badly comprimised by giving the player the ability to save whenever he wanted. The goon OP of Dishonored even said "don't use quicksave", because people were coming in, and saying that they weren't having fun quickloading every time someone saw them, instead of living with the mistake, and using the cool combat system to fight their way out of trouble. As far as cheat codes go, it's a somewhat weird discussion because if they were "core elements", we'd be forced to conclude that any game with them is a piece of poo poo. Imagine if instead of them being explicit "cheat codes", you instead had a really powerful ability that instantly trivialized a huge amout of the game. Or abstract that out and imagine it's something like a degenrate strategy that renderes a huge amount of the game's mechanics utterly meaningless. This is something that actually comes up on occasion in strategy game discussion- when a degenerate strategy arises and some people try to defend the game by saying, "well, you don't have to use that strategy!"- that's horseshit, becuase you have to assume players will game the system to win, and you can't put the responsibility of un-breaking the game on them- that's the game designer's job. So if cheat codes are somewhat similar to things like overpowered builds/abilities/strategies on the surface, things which are pretty much universally considered undesirable in a game system, why aren't they considered to be damaging elements to a game system? I think it's because it's understood (culturally understood, if you want) that cheat codes aren't "really" mechanics in the same way as the other ways the player can interact with the game are.
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Feb 10, 2015 22:37
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Alain Post posted:Custom levels are basically using the same ruleset for a different scenario, which has long been an accepted thing to do in lots of game systems (especially in RPGs). I don't see them as comparable to cheat codes at all. They're an extra thing you have to add to the "real core" of the game. Hell, you can even use the cheats without attaching an external file argument! The only mode in Doom where cheat codes can not be considered a core mechanic is Nightmare where they're intentionally disabled. Alain Post posted:As far as cheat codes go, it's a somewhat weird discussion because if they were "core elements", we'd be forced to conclude that any game with them is a piece of poo poo. Only if you're a tryhard basement dweller, to be quite honest.
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Feb 10, 2015 22:41
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If they're core mechanics, then Doom is a terrible, unchallenging game.
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Feb 10, 2015 22:43
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Nintendo Kid posted:You got into semantics first by bitching about "core mechanics". If iD didn't want the cheats to be options they intended people to use, it wouldn't be there. I'm almost completely sure that id made the cheats so development would be easier and left them in because they didn't mind players being able to goof around with cheats too.
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Feb 10, 2015 22:45
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Cheats are not core mechanics, fishmech
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Feb 10, 2015 22:46
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Nintendo Kid posted:They're an extra thing you have to add to the "real core" of the game. Hell, you can even use the cheats without attaching an external file argument! Extra levels aren't mechanics at all, though. Like I said, think of it like an RPG system- you have the ruleset, and you have the scenario. These are two different things. You're right that scythe.wad is tangental to Doom II- as in the game that you can buy on Steam- but these days, people in the community are usually talking about Doom II as a ruleset more than a complete game including the 32 original levels (mainly because the ruleset is really good and the vanilla levels aren't so good). Nintendo Kid posted:Only if you're a tryhard basement dweller, to be quite honest. yeah it's a silly statement. the fact that nobody actually believes this is my point- people don't consider cheat codes to be gameplay mechanics in the same sense that they consider shooting/monster behavior to be. Feels Villeneuve fucked around with this message at 22:49 on Feb 10, 2015 |
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Feb 10, 2015 22:47
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This makes me want to design a map where iddqd is a requirement for completion.
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Feb 10, 2015 22:50
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Tippis posted:That means it's time for more leftovers: Grabbed this one, thanks!
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Feb 10, 2015 22:54
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The point of cheats is to make actual core mechanics less important to gameplay. Calling cheats core mechanics kind of implies that you're expected to have to use them to beat the game, which is kind of ridiculous
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Feb 10, 2015 22:55
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There are also cases- especially in sandbox games- where the ability to gently caress the game world up and have wacky fun times can legitimately be considered a "core feature"- this is probably because the "plot missions" in these sandbox games tend to be the least interesting thing about them. (I think sandbox games are kind of stupid, in related news)
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Feb 10, 2015 22:58
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daft punk railroad posted:The point of cheats is to make actual core mechanics less important to gameplay. Calling cheats core mechanics kind of implies that you're expected to have to use them to beat the game, which is kind of ridiculous There's a lot of RPG type games out there where you're free to avoid either magic or melee entirely and still beat the game normally. Does that make one or the other "not a core mechanic'? Alain Post posted:people in the community are usually talking about Doom II as a ruleset more than a complete game including the 32 original levels (mainly because the ruleset is really good and the vanilla levels aren't so good).\ This ruleset includes cheats.
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Feb 10, 2015 22:59
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Nintendo Kid posted:There's a lot of RPG type games out there where you're free to avoid either magic or melee entirely and still beat the game normally. Does that make one or the other "not a core mechanic'? They are, becuase an important part of these games is deciding which mechanics to use. Magic doesn't like, disappear from the ruleset because a player goes melee only- it's a choice he decided not to take.
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Feb 10, 2015 23:00
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Doom's core mechanics died for your cheat codes.
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Feb 10, 2015 23:05
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Alain Post posted:The reason I mentioned save systems is that I think game developers make games too often without considering the effect the game's save system will have on it. Unlimited quicksave/quickload can be tremendously damaging to a game- I think Dishonored was the most recent game that I thought was badly comprimised by giving the player the ability to save whenever he wanted. The goon OP of Dishonored even said "don't use quicksave", because people were coming in, and saying that they weren't having fun quickloading every time someone saw them, instead of living with the mistake, and using the cool combat system to fight their way out of trouble. I agree with you that perceived "cheap" moves in fighting games can't simply be ignored, because they can be used against you. That's totally legitimate. Its the same way with cheat codes... in multiplayer. If you're cheating in multiplayer, you're loving other people over, making the game largely trivial for yourself, and they can't simply ignore your cheats. You're almost forcing them to accept cheats as part of the game and cheat themselves, which is really lame. But what about single player? What about setting your own goals that are different from survival? Here's a doom "alternate game mode" (uninforced mod?): Play the game on UV, with IDDQD and IDKFA, and get 100% monster kills as absolute fast as you can. There's still strategy in that, and there's a level playing field to it too. It doesn't make the game "trivialized" because that is the game. I'm choosing to play a subset of the game that appeals to me. And maybe when I get bored of it, I'll go back to playing the normal way. Now imagine a game with the whole game designed to use that mechanic. An FPS like Bulletstorm where you never die, but getting hit loses you points and breaks your combo, and you're trying to rack up the biggest point score you can. Like I said before, an FPS that's more like Tony Hawk's Pro Skater than it is about managing resources and surviving. About moving fast and stringing together moves without any gaps between them, keeping your eyes out for opportunities, the game moving at a blistering speed and never letting up. That could be really fun. Like I compared before, its like deathmatch vs instagib. Instagib is a mutator, it wasn't how the game was originally planned, and it "trivializes" the game in some ways, because its just about the fastest and most accurate shot. The time to kill is reduced to zero, death is instant. Does that mean there's no skill? No, it means the skill has changed its focus. Now all that matters is reflexes. Look at something like Evolve, which just released. Its a 4v1 FPS/TPS where one team respawns if they die, but the other team only has one life and if they die, that's game over. The rules are asymmetrical and not necessarily how standard FPS work, but they're still fun. In fact that can offer some more variety and be more fun than just more of the same deathmatch. Alain Post posted:If they're core mechanics, then Doom is a terrible, unchallenging game. They're not "core mechanics", definitely not. But you guys seem to be making an implicit determination that "Playing a videogame in any way other than according to its core mechanics is wrong and dumb" and that's simply shortsighted. Mods came from people loving around with FPS games and coming up with other ideas, other "core mechanics". Tippis posted:This makes me want to design a map where iddqd is a requirement for completion. Do it. Doooo itttt.  I'll play the gently caress out of it.
Zaphod42 fucked around with this message at 23:09 on Feb 10, 2015 |
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Feb 10, 2015 23:05
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Alain Post posted:They are, becuase an important part of these games is deciding which mechanics to use. Magic doesn't like, disappear from the ruleset because a player goes melee only- it's a choice he decided not to take. By that standard cheats are a core mechanic. They're in the game and you can choose whether to use them. It would be an entirely different story if we started talking like Gamesharks or external cheat programs, mind.
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Feb 10, 2015 23:10
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Nintendo Kid posted:By that standard cheats are a core mechanic. They're in the game and you can choose whether to use them. OK- if this were true, then pretty much all Doom players are being idiots, because they aren't taking a game option that has only upsides, and no downsides. Keep in mind that these are grognardy bastards who are likely fully fine with using cheap tactics to win.
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Feb 10, 2015 23:12
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Nintendo Kid posted:By that standard cheats are a core mechanic. They're in the game and you can choose whether to use them. His point is though that using cheats kinda invalidates all the health mechanics, and he's not wrong. Using cheats is something that's an optional effect and is unintended for normal play. But who says you have to engage in normal play all day? House rules, baby! I play my way. Like I said, that's where mutators and mods come from. If you made mod that scored players based on performance, and made it so they get godmode by default, then that would be a mod and cheats would be part of its "core mechanics", and that's perfectly legitimate. Demonsteele already has DMC style rankings, right? You could rebalance Demonsteele into a game that didn't have health, if you wanted to. That's not its goal right now, but it could be a thing. As-is cheats are not part of doom's core mechanics, but that's okay. 
Zaphod42 fucked around with this message at 23:17 on Feb 10, 2015 |
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Feb 10, 2015 23:14
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Alain Post posted:OK- if this were true, then pretty much all Doom players are being idiots, because they aren't taking a game option that has only upsides, and no downsides. Keep in mind that these are grognardy bastards who are likely fully fine with using cheap tactics to win. No, just the Doom players who rant for pages about how cheats are bad are idiots. Zaphod42 posted:His point is though that using cheats kinda invalidates all the health mechanics, and he's not wrong. He is wrong because for example there are built in game things that will affect you even with IDDQD, such as that one type of sector, or telefrags.
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Feb 10, 2015 23:24
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Zaphod42 posted:His point is though that using cheats kinda invalidates all the health mechanics, and he's not wrong. Not just health mechanics. Cheats invalidate the inventory system as well (idkfa/idfa) This causes the most important part of Doom, the combat, to become completely irrelevant. The other important part of Doom, the exploration, gets invalidated by other cheats (idclip/idspispopd, iddt and idkfa). With all cheats on, what is there to Doom?
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Feb 10, 2015 23:25
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Nintendo Kid posted:No, just the Doom players who rant for pages about how cheats are bad are idiots. Nobody is doing this. Saying that something can't really be considered a core mechanic isn't saying it's bad.
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Feb 10, 2015 23:25
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Nintendo Kid posted:By that standard cheats are a core mechanic. They're in the game and you can choose whether to use them. Core feature maybe, not core mechanic. What the hell is the point of level balance if the core mechanic of the game is "players can opt to not die whenever the hell they feel like it"?
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Feb 10, 2015 23:27
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Tippis posted:This makes me want to design a map where iddqd is a requirement for completion.
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Feb 10, 2015 23:27
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Falsum posted:With all cheats on, what is there to Doom? A double barrel shotgun, and running up to enemies at 500mph 
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Feb 10, 2015 23:28
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Falsum posted:Not just health mechanics. Cheats invalidate the inventory system as well (idkfa/idfa) This causes the most important part of Doom, the combat, to become completely irrelevant. The other important part of Doom, the exploration, gets invalidated by other cheats (idclip/idspispopd, iddt and idkfa). IDKFA doesn't flip all switches in the correct order to end the level. Some levels are designed such that ending them through just noclipping is impossible. Dewgy posted:Core feature maybe, not core mechanic. A distinction without a difference.
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Feb 10, 2015 23:39
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Nintendo Kid posted:IDKFA doesn't flip all switches in the correct order to end the level. There's no way you really think that's the criterion that's being used as "trivializing most of the game". Come on.
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Feb 10, 2015 23:40
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Alain Post posted:There's no way you really think that's the criterion that's being used as "trivializing most of the game". Come on. It really doesn't though, is the thing. Especially if you really do consider "the game" to include more than just the shipped levels (and even in them there's plenty of stuff gated by more than the keycards).
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Feb 10, 2015 23:46
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Nintendo Kid posted:A distinction without a difference. I have to believe you're basically just trying to rile people up at this point, but maybe you're just that guy who cheats his way through every game and gets mad because they're too easy. Or gets mad that they're too hard when there's no cheats?
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Feb 10, 2015 23:50
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Nintendo Kid posted:It really doesn't though, is the thing. Especially if you really do consider "the game" to include more than just the shipped levels (and even in them there's plenty of stuff gated by more than the keycards). Well, if your criterion for beating a .wad is beating the last level (which is pretty reasonable), IDCLEV trivializes a majority of the work you have to do to get there. but really, completely removing the impact of the health mechanic, completely trivializing combat (just pull out the BFG and insta-reload with IDKFA if you run out!), significanlty trivializing exploration by giving you all the keys- I can't think of a single argument that this doesn't constitute trivializing the game.
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Feb 10, 2015 23:50
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Alain Post posted:Well, if your criterion for beating a .wad is beating the last level (which is pretty reasonable), IDCLEV trivializes a majority of the work you have to do to get there. Not that anybody particularly cares, but when I do IDDQD runs I almost never use IDKFA, and I definitely never repeat IDKFA throughout the level to top off on BFG, and I don't use IDNOCLIP. So while you are trivializing the health aspect, not the others. You keep acting like everything is binary, black & white thinking. There's degrees.
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Feb 10, 2015 23:55
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I seem to recall that there are a couple of maps in vanilla Doom 1 that can't be completed if you IDKFA, because the key pick-up (or the failure to pick up the key) is somehow detected beyond just running across a linedef, and without that trigger, the paths don't open up properly.
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Feb 10, 2015 23:55
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Zaphod42 posted:Not that anybody particularly cares, but when I do IDDQD runs I almost never use IDKFA, and I definitely never repeat IDKFA throughout the level to top off on BFG, and I don't use IDNOCLIP. By this standard, it's only appropriate to say that something trivializes a game if it like, beats the game for the player without any input required. You're right that there are degrees- and that's why people don't hold that phrase to that silly standard.
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Feb 10, 2015 23:58
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