A standard of sounds or no sounds?

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Ru5tK1ng
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A standard of sounds or no sounds?

#1

Post by Ru5tK1ng » Fri May 01, 2020 3:44 am

There really isn't any ideal place I can post this, but I figured I could make this port neutral and I'm also going to say it now that if you don't have any interest in CTF, you can stop reading and press the back button on your browser.

So recently on discord there was a revitalization of a discussion we had on the forums 2 years ago regarding the effect of sounds in CTF. While there are nuances regarding each port and how they play CTF, generally for 98% of the time one map plays the same across all three. Additionally, we all know everyone has their preferences when it comes to MP Doom ports and I'm not writing this to debate any dead horse on that matter. In reality, the fact is that CTF players only choose a port where their mouse doesn't feel like shit and they drop less SSG shots. It's really that simple, however I digress this point to get back to the matter at hand.

Both ZDaemon and Zandronum have a compatflag that enables the classic silent pickup sounds (sv_oldwepsound and Compat_SilentPickUp respectively) while Odamex does not (judging by the wiki of variables) and most likely just follows the .exe behavior. Traditionally on Zandronum this flag has usually been played off so that you can hear your enemy pickup a weapon or item in your base or anywhere nearby. On ZDaemon pickups were silent in CTF although Jkist told me they used to be on during 1.06 by default and then changed when 1.07 came out. On Oda, they were always silent as far as I recall.

So what's the big deal? Well it depends on who you ask. Some say to follow the defacto standard set by ZD all those years ago while others say having them on isn't going to drastically change scores from 5-4 to 5-1. I've read we all should follow more closely to .exe and how other modes (duel and deathmatch) handle it. That's a weak argument considering CTF already deviates enough from .exe and is way different than DM/Duel. You also have to consider the nature of a lot of the maps that are pulled from various sources. Some packs were designed with their own dmflags and offered a different experience from the classic ZDaemon maps. Packs like TLS and ZD Epic even had railguns and maps designed around them.

I'd personally argue it doesn't matter since most maps aren't extreme cases like smartctf 06 and Map 20 (Cold Sweats). Having sounds on adds a dimension to gameplay that more successful competitive games like Quake follow. It adds onto the hazard of picking up items. If you pickup 50 health off the corner of a map, it shouldn't be a freebie. You should run the risk of someone hearing you and getting ready to end your misery. If you want a freebie, pick up your own base's armor or bonuses. While in map20 it's hard to avoid the pickups (but you already triggered sound with the teleport anyway) it's less of an issue in smartcft. In league play, the enemy team already knows where you're at and if they don't, they know where you're headed towards (the flag & power-ups). Sure pickup sounds add difficulty to running, but that separates the great runners from the average runners. In the future if someone wants to incorporate sounds in the maps, perhaps they can accommodate people who want to sneak by moving items out of the way.

At least we don't have footstep sounds right?

Anyway, if anyone wants to chime in their 2 cents, feel free to. I think we're all at a point where we can discuss things in a more civil way. Should it be a standard of either sounds or no sounds? Should it be up to whoever runs a league/event? Should we figure out a way to make it map specific if said map was designed for a certain flag? Thoughts below.

sleep
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Re: A standard of sounds or no sounds?

#2

Post by sleep » Fri May 01, 2020 9:43 pm

Does ZDoom 1.23b33 have any weight? It is what ZDaemon is based on and it does have sound pickups on.
https://sourceforge.net/projects/zdoom/ ... p/download
Multiplayer is broken so the only way to test it is with bots, so get the zcajun folder from this zip and paste it into the extracted 1.23b33 folder, then write addbot in the console. https://sourceforge.net/projects/zdoom/ ... p/download

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Ru5tK1ng
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Re: A standard of sounds or no sounds?

#3

Post by Ru5tK1ng » Sat May 02, 2020 4:18 am

It probably doesn't weight much considering Oda is based off 1.22 with some features from 1.23 and Zandro is obviously in sync with 2.7.1.

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