Install Steam
login
|
language
简体中文 (Simplified Chinese)
繁體中文 (Traditional Chinese)
日本語 (Japanese)
한국어 (Korean)
ไทย (Thai)
Български (Bulgarian)
Čeština (Czech)
Dansk (Danish)
Deutsch (German)
Español - España (Spanish - Spain)
Español - Latinoamérica (Spanish - Latin America)
Ελληνικά (Greek)
Français (French)
Italiano (Italian)
Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian)
Magyar (Hungarian)
Nederlands (Dutch)
Norsk (Norwegian)
Polski (Polish)
Português (Portuguese - Portugal)
Português - Brasil (Portuguese - Brazil)
Română (Romanian)
Русский (Russian)
Suomi (Finnish)
Svenska (Swedish)
Türkçe (Turkish)
Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese)
Українська (Ukrainian)
Report a translation problem
Discussions Rules and Guidelines
5 
Report this post
Although i use GZdoom to play doom (and heretic/hexen) i also hope Nightdive will remaster these classics (and maybe add coop to Doom64)
But yah ROTT is just a great game. I just discovered on my attic i still have the Official Player Guide by Bernie Yee
First of all, Rise of the Triad came out on the 21st of december 1994. Doom 2 came out in October 1994 - two months earlier. So the zeitgeist isn't comparing ROTT to Doom 1 - it's comparing to doom 2, and that changes the equation a lot.
wrt weapon design:
Ahum.
There's a lot more to Doom's weapon design then just "point and shoot". First of all:
Rise of the triad doesn't doesn't have any weapon that rewards getting right into an enemy's face and pulling the trigger. All the specials are going to kill you if you do that. It effectively means that the best engagement distance for anything in ROTT is staying as far away as possible - whether you're fighting the melee zomks or the enforcer. As Dave keeps saying 'round these parts: *The game needs a shotgun*. The whole point of the shotgun is that it does more damage as you get closer. It's a risk/reward weapon.
I do also think that Doom has ROTT beat on weapon variety: ROTT gives you a pistol, two pistols, or a machine pistol - all with infinite ammo, and there's absolutely no point to switch back to the pistols once you have the MP40. And then you have an explosive weapon with an ammo pool. Doom gives you multiple guns with their own ammo pool - that alone means you'll have to switch things up. Each weapon actually has a role, an enemy against which it is best used, and because they all have their own ammo pools, you're encouraged to switch things up rather then... well, brute-force the issue by peppering people with your infinite mp40.
I think you're underselling the Plasma Rifle a lot: Aside from it being a projectile weapon (which is quite important! It's not just point and shoot!), its whole deal is that it has a rare ammo type and does a lot of damage. With ROTT, you're considering "Should I use my explosives for this or switch to the MP40"? With Doom, you're considering "Should I use my plasma for this, or switch to the chaingun, shotgun or rocket launcher?", which is a decision that's fueled both by enemy type and how much ammo you have remaining for any of them.
I should probably also point out that the berserk pack is underrated by a lot of doom rookies - it lasts for the whole map, not just until your screen stops being red - but if you have it, that gives you yet another different way of dealing with enemies that doesn't cost ammo at all.
And... Infighting! Infighting! Tricking enemies into fighting eachother! Sure, ROTT allows enemies to blow up other enemies, but making enemies fight eachother in Doom is an excellent mechanic that some levels use really well.
wrt enemy design:
Rise of the Triad's enemy roster is mostly hitscan enemies, with one melee enemy (monk) and a couple of enemies that shoot projectiles at you. Notably, most of those more varied enemies aren't introduced until later into the game. It'll be a while until you meet monks or robots.
From the start, Doom gives you a wider variety of enemies to fight that need a different tactic for each. You do have the former human soldiers being their usual hitscan selves, but you'll face imps in the first level as well - enemies whose attacks can be dodged! You also get the pinkies - the fast melee enemies, who need a different tactic to either the hitscanners or the imps.
And then we have Doom 2's expanded roster (which, again, ROTT is competing with when it comes out in december 1994) - you have a revenant, which shoots homing projectiles, but can be tricked into punching you instead. You have the arch-vile, the enemy that revives your opponents and has this special (and terrifying) line-of-sight-warm-up attack. You have the pain elemental, an enemy who spawns more enemies. These are genuinely quite unique enemies that need their own approaches. The Revenant in particular is interesting: The best way to deal with them is to try and close in, make them try to punch you, and dodge away from the punch, but then close in again so they're encouraged to punch again rather then firing rockets at you. ROTT doesn't have any enemy that requires such a switchup in tactics beyond "switch to rocket launcher". Doom 2 has several.
That's where Doom's strenghts are imo: The weapon and enemy variety work together really well, so a lot of variation in doom maps comes from level designers switching up enemy types, the weapons you have access to, and the ranges at which you get to engage enemies at. ROTT's varied levels are a lot more about how you navigate the environment itself rather then what you're shooting at, simply becuaes the available enemies and weapons don't allow you to switch it up that much.
I would agree ROTT has a few things it does better, but DOOM is the better game its not even debatable for that time period.
Doing that, I'd say Doom very much has the best overall flow and balance between all the weapons and enemies. That ends up being what really defines the gameplay of Doom, as there isn't really anything else going on. I guess you can make puzzles in the editor, but no official Doom map has anything resembling a puzzle, so it's just shooting. Damn good shooting, of course!
Rise of the Triad is much more varied in terms of what mechanics you can engange with. At least it feels like it. Traps, GADs, push walls and jump pads really add a lot to the gameplay loop. This makes it totally ok that the combat is - while fun - clearly somewhat weaker than the combat in Doom.
I love the style and atmosphere of both Doom and Rise of the Triad, but the latter is so weird and feels so unique that I like it more in terms of presentation. I mean, that soundtrack alone is pure win.
Doom is conventional and very, very solid in every way. Rise of the Triad is a more flawed design but also more interesting. Especially in retrospect where decades of imitation has made doom truly conventional and Rise of the Triad very much still a weird outlier in the genre. Some hold this against Rise of the Triad, but I'd say it's part of the reason why it has aged well. It's still unique and interesting in 2023.
First of all, the game we *should* be comparing it to is Doom 2, because it was released after Doom 2. But never mind, I'll play by these rules.
No, it doesn't. This is a common misconception that spread like wildfire based on a ridiculously under-researched youtube video that was making the rounds years ago. There are a few instances where Doom doesn't take height into account, notably for collisions between enemies and players and for calculating whether players or enemies are in range for melee attacks or blast damage. For all other intents and purposes the appearance of 3D is also corroborated by the mechanics of the engine; rockets travel in a straight line towards their targets and will hit floors and walls that are in the way based on their height. Projectiles can travel above or even below enemies, you can leap from from ledge to ledge if you have enough momentum to make it etc.
Either you haven't really considered what you are saying, or you haven't spent enough time playing Doom to understand its mechanics. If Doom practically takes place on a flat plane, why can I jump down a ledge over items and pick them up only while I'm down there and then not walk right back up the ledge? It's such a nonsensical argument if you have ever played Doom. Even on E1M1 you can quite clearly demonstrate the obvious mechanical role the height differences play.
It is true that Doom only allows for 3D geometry in a very limited sense, but it's certainly not a flat plane.
The results look worse, though, which is what matters in the end. Static sector based lightning combined with arbitrary polygon sectors is a better tool for creating interesting lighting than ROTT's "you're now in a bright room so the entire world is bright, including the dark room you just left" approach combined with crude dynamic lighting that only applies to walls, and then only on a per wall unit basis.
That's because it's based on a fresh coat of paint on the Wolfenstein 3D engine, Id's by then years old tech. Game that runs in a much more limited engine runs better on old hardware? Big deal, and by that metric, Pong did something amazing that ROTT didn't.
Again, only someone who hasn't spent significant time on Doom will say that Rise of the Triad is more varied. As I said, I love ROTT and its kitchen sink design, but having played through it again and regularly playing through Doom and Doom 2, what Doom does with what on the paper is comparably little in terms of arsenal and enemies makes for much more varied gameplay than ROTT, because it all seems so much more carefully considered. What ROTT adds are mostly fun gimmicks and a silly flavor. For what that makes it, I love it, but I don't agree for a second that it's more varied.
As often as Doom puts you in situations that make you consider in the blink of an eye things like "well, there five imps down here. There's a group of low-damage zombiemen up on the ledge that I could dispatch first with a rocket or two first not to lose health to hitscanners while dodging fireballs, but there are lost souls coming in from the side that I don't want to be in my face when I fire a rocket", ROTT goes "here, enjoy consistently stunlocking an enforcer or a monk in a door opening for ten seconds with the only hitscan weapon that matters while the cannon fodder guards patiently wait for their turn."
Nearly every weapon in Doom has a distinct role and certainly, distinct mechanics. To say that they are the same completely ignores the pain mechanics of Doom. Unlike ROTT, where enemies are kept in rather consistent stunlock for as long as you fire at them, enemies in Doom have a varying *pain chance*. Inflicting many hits in a short span of time regardless of the damage caused is sometimes more useful than inflicting one powerful hit. This is especially important in Doom 2 where you will face archviles. Not to mention the difference between hitscan and missile weapons, which you completely ignore when you say that the plasma gun is anything like the chaingun and even the shotgun.
For some examples of how these mechanics play out, consider that the chain gun can fire two bullets in quick succession without any spread. Firing it in short bursts makes it perfect for sniping single enemies at range. The shotgun, meanwhile, has a high level of spread on every shot, firing more slowly, but can inflict more hits in a single shot, giving it a high chance of causing pain at closer distances (thus interrupting enemies' firing sequence) but still being useful for sniping groups at range. The plasma rifle causes high damage per second while causing many hits, but because the projectiles aren't instant, it's a better choice when you both want to inflict much damage at a short to medium range. Because it has a cooldown period after firing, it's unsuitable for single, weak enemies but can be efficiently be used to dispatch larger groups of enemies or more powerful enemies, while having a high chance of keeping them stunned.
The only weapon ever obviated by another in Doom is the pistol, once you get the chaingun. Even the fists remain useful throughout the game for tearing up imp and pinkie groups thanks to the berserk powerup.
Meanwhile, in ROTT, I've gone through three different hitscan weapon variations within the first minute in the first level, each making the former completely useless (except pulling the single pistol every once in a while to ceremoniously execute a guard begging for his life). Then there are a bunch of missile weapons which aside from the flame wall, fire bomb, the dark staff and the near useless excalibat are all gimmicky variations of the bazooka. Don't get me wrong; the drunk missile is *fun* but its inclusion doesn't significantly add a strategic choice, especially since you're in an either/or situation; it's the bazooka but not the bazooka for a change, and you use it because it's the missile weapon you have on you.
You do you. It's your loss if you don't use the BFG in e.g. Inferno where there's plenty of plasma ammo and situations where the BFG is just plainly the right choice. In multiplayer, the choice is even more obvious. BFG play is one of the best parts of deathmatch.
In Doom 2, the number of situations in single player mode where the BFG is the right choice is greatly increased. In third party wads, even moreso.
And don't even get me started on the rocket launcher. The strategic benefits of splash damage are massive. You can multiply the damage caused by any one shot by herding enemies into groups or selectively picking off enemies that are already in groups. But it always comes with the risk of hurting yourself on a stray lost soul or plain being to close to the bad guys you're aiming for.
Splash damage in ROTT by comparison is significantly nerfed. The range and damage is so little that shooting a bazooka into a group of enemies hardly has any strategic advantage. Only the fire bomb creates enough of a splash to be a crowd destroyer.
The most strategically interesting weapon in ROTT IMO is the dark staff, in that it makes it advantageous to line enemies up before your shot which works as a significant damage multiplier. Getting the most out of a dark staff while dodging monk fire is some of the most intricate combat the game offers.
... removing the strategic element of resource management Doom has, and as mentioned before, completely obviating the previous bullet weapons. In Doom, you don't always fire the best weapon on hand; there truly is no best weapon because each weapon has properties that makes it more or less applicable to any given situation, and because of resource management you won't even always use the best weapon for the situation. In ROTT, the choice is always between the MP40 with ∞ ammo or the missile weapon you last swept off the floor.
IMO Doom was right to get rid of the scoring and lives system altogether. IIRC the only mechanically significant bonus ROTT gives you is if you end the level with very little health and get to replenish it on the next level.
Don't forget the useless powerdowns that practically do nothing except slow down your progress while you back into a safe place and wait for them to expire.
Honestly, this is the only point where I think ROTT clearly excels over Doom, though I think Doom's soundtrack fits its theme and pace. The best thing that could happen related to this was Bobby Prince and Lee Jackson both working on the Duke Nukem 3D soundtrack. And, while we're at it, I want to mention that I think Duke Nukem 3D strikes a good balance between Doom and ROTT sensibilities, taking the best of ROTT in terms of zany weapons and interactivity and adding it to a game that in terms of combat and resource management is more focused and strategic like Doom, in a powerful engine that allowed for its great and distinct levels.
But also usually much less memorable, because the tools it has to make Wolfenstein 3D map design fun again have all been used within the first ten levels. You've already mentioned the significant ones. GADs, jump pads, moving walls and traps. Yes, you can do fun things with GADs but when they are nearly the only way to add height variation to a level it gets old quick.
Remember also that by this time, Id had released not only Doom, but Doom 2; 59 official levels in total, and by the time of ROTT's release, a growing community of third party map makers. I won't even comment on Extreme ROTT other than to say that it is what it sounds like; every pain point of ROTT boiled down to its essence. There's a good reason why there's no achievement for completing it in Ludicrous Edition.
Because it was released more than a year later running on tech that was a year behind? The question you should be asking is why ROTT couldn't overshadow Doom, or Doom 2 for that matter, which was released several months earlier. It's quite clear to me, both in terms of gameplay and engine technology.
Better enemy variation, better weapon and resource dynamics, comparably realistic geometry and lighting, more consistent setting, easily recognizable and clearly distinct levels. Less jokes and gimmicks, but I think the advantages of Doom more than make up for it.
The zeitgeist still seems to favor Doom over ROTT. Even with the recent surge of maps in the workshop here, the activity completely pales compared to how actively people work on Doom levels; there's more than a lifetime's worth of it now and there are no signs of it stopping. It's the more engaging game for map makers, it's the more engaging game for players and it's the more engaging game for people making ports and engine modifications.
There's a whole genre of wads that swear by the original weapon and enemy sets of Doom and Doom 2, with the only fundamental addition to the engine being the ability to use more lines and sectors and monsters. It's because the fundamental mechanics of Doom were good from the get go and have aged like wine.
Doom 2 adds only a few things mechanically, but the things it adds are game changing. The chaingunners and especially archviles and pain elementals are complete game changers that require even stronger prioritization and resource allocation strategies, and the super shotgun does a great job of being a new shotgun weapon that doesn't obviate the regular shotgun, because the upsides come with downsides and any given situation can demand one or the other. The level design is arguably even better or at least more consistently great than in Doom, and the fights are more engaging and challenging, especially since the levels make good use of the new enemies.
They split up after Doom 2? Tom Hall left after Doom, because the design ethos he got to realize at Apogee in the form of ROTT wasn't in line with what Id had in mind. Other than that I'm not aware of a significant split until after Quake when Romero left.
Quake is much more than a "tech demo". It's a masterpiece in terms of theme, setting and atmosphere and continues Doom's tradition of giving most weapons and enemies very distinct roles that add a huge element of strategy to playing in addition to the improved possibilities in terms of level geometry. Truly one of the best, tightest FPS games ever made with a skill ceiling out of this world.
I like to think that in another reality ROTT is the one that took the gaming world by storm and there are countless high quality source-ports, mods, maps, music covers, retrospectives and artwork. One day I hope to visit that reality. :)
Doom, especially Doom 2, is much deeper than ROTT. Modern megawads show the versatility of that game, the variety of enemies, the layout of the map, the resources the player has available for each situation, good mappers are able to combine these things in basically infinite ways. The original version of Doom 2 is not very good when it comes to level design, but 30 years after its release, I don't think anyone judges the game by the original 32 levels anymore, but by all the extra content that uses the game's vanilla mechanics.
ROTT is a much simpler game. Sure, it's light years ahead of Wolfenstein 3D, and there's a lot of interesting stuff to explore, but you can't compare it to Doom 2. There's just a certain limit to what the mappers can do with the hitscanners, enforcers, robots, and monks. The new campaign levels show that there are interesting things to explore, such as using ballistics to force the player to be constantly on the move, but even in the most tense situations that require you to move quickly and creatively, you never get anything like what a clever combination of Doom 2's enemies can offer.
That being said it's still a fun game to play.
Sure, ROTT is based on "square based" layouts with 90 degree angles as far as the eye can see, but it's obviously got a great deal more moving parts than Wolfenstein 3D. And all those things have a clear impact. ROTT does not feel like Wolfenstein 3D.
I do agree that ROTT has more verticality going for it, and the player can jump up instead of dropping off a ledge. The EGADs also add movement elements that Doom does not have.
Not to take away from ROTT. It was a cool game and I'm glad their remaking it, but there is no comparison. Doom 2 was a way better game.
Nonetheless, I'll still be getting this remake. The 2013 ROTT was not good at all, and I never finished it.
Edit: By the way, I see this remake came out back in July and I didn't know about that until recently. Which is fine because it's 25% off now lol.