Weapon RNG vs No Weapon RNG

[Galactus]

After a discussion I had with Dragon in a duel server, he proposed the ingenious idea of making a poll to solve the debate. He was pro keeping the rng thinking the community would dislike if it were removed and I was pro removing the rng, seeing how it'd only improve the game gameplay wise and thinking people wouldn't dislike it.
So here I am with a poll to see what the community thinks about this.
I would also greatly appreciate if people posted their reasoning of why they would want to keep weapon rng instead of removing it. (Arguments towards removing weapon rng are pretty self-explanatory.)
Edit: Ofcourse the change (if people actually wanted it) would be optional and not hardcoded! I remember making a thread in the past about this and this was a common issue.

[Samurai]

I would be pro removing weapon rng.

[Konda]

Is it just damage rng or is it also bullet spread rng?

[Ru5tK1ng]

Usually Dragon has terrible ideas but this time he's 100% correct. Doom duelers don't really care about RNG, they care more that their shots dropped than anything. While there might be some like me who would try it out, the masses out there won't and they'll just stick with RNG on their weapons. For modders though, it is better to ditch RNG.

This has been done many times before and it ends the same: some new shiny constant or static damage wads pop up and they quickly disappear. RNG values can be improved upon like I've done, but regardless, players hate change and they usually just blame RNG when they lose a duel.

[Galactus]

Is it just damage rng or is it also bullet spread rng?

I'd say bullet spread rng included, but if that changes too many opinions I'm willing to go with damage rng alone.

[Dsparil]

I vote for keeping rng

[Galactus]

I vote for keeping rng

Why if I may ask?

[ZZYZX]

RNG makes me hit /more/ than I would without it. Leave and go away. (and yes, I have said this before, but there I just said it again :D)
Also, play Q3. Oh wait, too bad Q3 died due to being too shitty. And you want this game to be like that...

btw: what the hell happened with the green Zandronum theme? It's broken now.......

[Zakken]

I like not having RNG, but good luck popularising such minor alterations to weapons in a 20+ years old scene just because it's "more competitive." You're better off making more elaborate mods for fun with your friends.

[Combinebobnt]

1. i have found out that doomers love their rng especially as a scapegoat

2. decays right. off the top of my head cataguns is like the only mod with a large portion of no rng weapons that got any sort of players.

3. ive had some ideas for an ultimate no-rng weapons mod a final step above above all the other packs, maybe ill make it one day so it can get as much interest as the other packs xd.

After a discussion I had with Dragon in a duel server,

but who won...?
poor xenaero

[Galactus]

To be fair I just don't see why people are against it, never do they give gameplay related reasoning they only resort to nostalgia based arguments or they pretend that it'll change the game "too much". The only thing removing weapon rng would accomplish is people not being able to blame it when they lose, that's the only remarkable change people will notice.

[Combinebobnt]

To be fair I just don't see why people are against it, never do they give gameplay related reasoning they only resort to nostalgia based arguments or they pretend that it'll change the game "too much". The only thing removing weapon rng would accomplish is people not being able to blame it when they lose, that's the only remarkable change people will notice.

galactus has realized the true scope of doom...

[Zakken]

To be fair I just don't see why people are against it, never do they give gameplay related reasoning they only resort to nostalgia based arguments or they pretend that it'll change the game "too much". The only thing removing weapon rng would accomplish is people not being able to blame it when they lose, that's the only remarkable change people will notice.

- It makes little difference in kills, and by extension, game results;
- You may remove the RNG in damage, but what about the RNG in pellet/bullet trajectory? I'd argue that's more important than damage when hitting somebody;
- What about the RNG that comes with movebob? The position of the player in the movebob animation can slightly alter where pellets will come from. As you can see, removing RNG elements from the game is opening a can of worms here;
- Would you be able to convince Funcrusher, Grandvoid and Jenova's server to add yet another wad for all players to bother downloading (that they most likely won't even feel the effects of) on all of their competitive servers?

Like I said in my first post, I'd be happy not to have RNG in my competitive game, but I don't think it is logistically worthwhile when it comes to Doom. On the other hand, you could definitely try to rally everyone to campaign for such a thing and maybe get widespread usage of this mod in competitive servers if you feel it's that significant to the game's "competitive integrity."

[Ru5tK1ng]

- What about the RNG that comes with movebob? The position of the player in the movebob animation can slightly alter where pellets will come from. As you can see, removing RNG elements from the game is opening a can of worms here;

Gonna need a citation on that statement. Otherwise you're making shit up.

[nax]

i'm not fond of chance in anything competitive. i usually take the philosophy of the fewer variables outside of the realm of skill, the better test of skill the game is. but doom as a game was built from the ground up with rng on the weapons, and its players developed with that rng. i feel like if you're going to remove rng on the weapons you might as well begin tweaking the weapons. and once you begin tweaking the weapons to account for the lack of rng you're simply going to end up with something that is just a different dm experience.

as it's been done in wad form before i see no reason to endorse something like this.

EDIT: a good middle ground might be not necessarily make a wad that completely removes rng or force it through the client, but one that adds a cvar that does it. such a thing would probably be far more acceptable to competitive players than a straight removal. once we can get custom voting options in this could be something players could call a vote for and then easily swap between no rng/ vanilla.

also, as pertaining to the folks saying it wouldn't change much, i'm unconvinced on this. once you get to a certain level in any game, and doom does not have a very shallow skill cap, even minute changes can throw off gameflow massively. this is particularly why many competitive games that get routine updates often change numbers in extremely small ways. if the damage ranges of the weapons were far more narrow i could agree with it a bit more, but like with the ssg going from 5-10-15 to 10 is a pretty jarring change overall. while logically it may not seem like this is a jarring change, randomly picking between 5-10-15 and it's average of 10 are two very different things. the maximum and minimum damages are fairly distant on weapons with rng and this presents a large potential shift in how people are using their weapons. it is certainly more fair to have weapons always do static damage in a very reliably understandable way (considering player A may simply get more lucky with the damage rolls than player B), but competition has been built around this fact, and mitigating it / dealing with it would be part of the experience.

[Doomkid]

I like RNG because it's how Doom deathmatch was designed in the first place and I'm here to Doom.

Logistically speaking, a best of 3 match is going to cancel out the effects of RNG anyway - seeing as both parties are effected by RNG, it makes sense that, given a reasonable match time, the "lucky high damage" and "unlucky low damage" moments each player experiences in just 1 duel are going to add up to such an extent that they essentially cancel one another out and apply rather evenly to both parties. Furthermore, the RNG aspect of Doom duels keeps things interesting. Plenty of times I've first hand witnessed total sperg-outs because "that SSG shot should have totally killed you!!!" but the element of chance keeps the game more engaging to me personally. I like that "ooh, that SHOULD kill him, but it might not, so better not put all my eggs in one basket" point of consideration in the heat of battle. The small moment to moment effects of chance introduced by RNG prevent an already repetitive game from becoming insanely repetitive and predictable.

I see the appeal of constant and consistent values at a quick glance, but Doom presents the element of "luck" in such a way that, given a little time, effects both parties equally anyway so I just see it as somewhat pointless and detracting a very fun element of the game that keeps it from being overly predictable to the point of staleness.

As an aside, and I say this as a shit dueler, I've seen so many people get extremely hurt in their ass over losing and as it stands they are able to fall back on the RNG excuse (even though that makes no logistical sense) and I wouldn't want to give up that ever-providing source of comedy. If they can't blame their inability to win a duel on the RNG then what excuse will they have?! Oh right, people will make up some other shitty excuse about how Zand is a garbage port, all ports are garbage, Doom is garbage, some fucking space-demon invaded their house while they were dueling so they couldn't pay proper attention, or some other equally nonsensical bullshit.

Long story short: Keep dat RNG boi. Or have a dmfllag or mod or whatever to remove it if you must, it doesn't appeal to me personally but options are always good.

[ARGENTVM]

- What about the RNG that comes with movebob? The position of the player in the movebob animation can slightly alter where pellets will come from. As you can see, removing RNG elements from the game is opening a can of worms here;

Gonna need a citation on that statement. Otherwise you're making shit up.

Movebob and Stillbob are client-based options though. So yeah, gonna say bullshit.

[arkore]

Removing randomness allows players to learn and better strategize the gameplay (e.g. damage done to enemies); allowing you to actually become pro. With randomness, there's nothing to learn or utilize efficiently.

Even with random monster placements, players can no longer learn a map for it's monster placements. Players cannot strategize or form a plan of attack based on monster placements because they're random.

That's the downside to having RNG. There's no pattern to learn and become pro at.

[Galactus]

- It makes little difference in kills, and by extension, game results;

That's sort of my point towards people who believe removing the rng would be a huge change in gameplay.

- You may remove the RNG in damage, but what about the RNG in pellet/bullet trajectory? I'd argue that's more important than damage when hitting somebody;

I was thinking of removing these as well, if the results of this thread were in favor of removing weapon rng.

- What about the RNG that comes with movebob? The position of the player in the movebob animation can slightly alter where pellets will come from. As you can see, removing RNG elements from the game is opening a can of worms here;

I've never heard of this, I used movebob before and my shots weren't any different (or atleast they didn't feel different)

- Would you be able to convince Funcrusher, Grandvoid and Jenova's server to add yet another wad for all players to bother downloading (that they most likely won't even feel the effects of) on all of their competitive servers?

The wad in question would be incredibly small, I doubt anyone would care about downloading it.

Regardless removing rng won't make this game stale as some people choose to believe. The fun in competitive doom doesn't lie in the rng but rather in the fast-paced gameplay, which when removing the rng won't change at all.

[Mobius]

Anyone for RNG is purely not truly a competitive player in any sense of the imagination.

"But Mobius.. there's competitive games with random in it" let me clarify what I mean. Doom is TOO random.

• Random spawns
• Random damage for your attacks (Every weapon is random except BFG tracers)
• Random pellet spread
• Random pellet patterns (ssg specifically)
• The battle between both players is random

There are too many factors in one game to truly determine if the results of a roll was manipulated by the players based on the decisions they make. You're left with scenarios where both players on equal footing having an arbitrary disparity between them. An outcome decided not even by distance or position. It's determined by chance you may not get screwed over. You're left with people who don't trust their "ssg" and even worst people getting frustrated when they do. Two players with the same weapon in a confined area doing random seeded damage and only one of them is rewarded only because the next number from the table favors them.

The poll should have a third option. I believe the spread for certain weapons should remain consistent provided the damage has better ranges. There's no reason for plasma balls to deal 4 to 50. I'd say tighten the RNG for these weapons instead of a complete removal of RNG. So there's still random but it isn't outrageous. Doom went long without it because IDSoftware was going to work on Quake so the idea of a competitive Doom scene requiring updates for weapon balances wasn't even a thing back then. There's no reason to believe in the old model now.

btw doom was suppose to be largely RPG-like hence the rolls.