Though DOOM is a so-called shooter, the first thing you should learn is not even shooting (you’ll learn how to shoot with time) but simple movement about the labyrinth. Rather often not to lose your bearings and not to get confused in control keys while fighting the enemy is as important as to make the first shot sharp and quick at the first sight of the enemy since very often one shot is not enough and also besides a killing task you have a surviving one.
1. Learn to run quickly not losing your bearings.
To begin with, choose a level with large vast areas without monsters and just run around. Take several turns. Try to turn at a different speed. Feel the turn. And what is important – don’t stop. Run at full speed all the time. Don’t forget about Speed On option. Try to keep the direction, you should feel your player location as your own one. IMHO, spatial imagination is one of the most important things in DOOM.
Maneuver, for example, make eights. Practice making turns on the spot. When you are satisfied with your doing, run round the corridors and learn not to run against the walls.
Silly? Boring? It’s none the more boring and silly as e.g. practicing chromatic scales, but musicians still practice them… ?
2. I can recommend only one way to learn shooting and to stop being an easy target – playing. Just start playing at EASY difficulty level (IMHO nobody needs UV here. Techniques practice is important here, so the more courageous you are and the more ammo you have, the better). Don’t use cheat-codes, they deprave. I wouldn’t also recommend too much hiding behind the corners and slow playing. It may be better to work the level out twice, first – to get to know it and second – using speed abilities at most. It doesn’t mean that you should set up records while practicing, but it’s worth getting aesthetic satisfaction of the speed and the sharpness of your movements. What important is not the level time but game speed which you should learn to keep high. For the second time try not to use save option and try to play good game. Try to record a lmp and take a detached view on your playing. It helps a beginner to realize the time wasted on standing, waiting, looking out of the corner and so on. Aim at impressiveness of your lmp, minimize the time waste on waiting and slow wary movements.
Remember that if your ideal of a player is not a motionless target (you don’t want to be that one for sure, unless you are reading this), try to follow the rule: those monsters that don’t shoot instant rockets shouldn’t frag you when you are face to face. To achieve this effect you are to start strafing. Don’t use Strafe on function in no circumstances!!! Use only strafe left/strafe right function. Strafe, aim again, shoot, strafe again… In short, learn to strafe, if you want to stay alive. A little of controls practice, a very little of good responsiveness (a very little indeed). Having worked out a couple of episodes you’ll find out that it’s become much easier to play than it used to, before you start strafing actively: it’s much more difficult to frag you. And your aiming skills have increased for sure!
3. And another very important detail for a beginner. Tricky question. What do you usually do when you suddenly come across a monster (an ordinary one, not too strong, take imp, for example) and you should recoil?
Variants of behavior:
1. Draw the mouse back abruptly in order to jump back;
2. Turn round quickly and run away;
3. Press Back to step back and then act depending on the circumstances.
What answer suits you? If you choose the first variant you should obviously get rid of the responsive desire to draw back. Take it into consideration, your automatic actions when you get frightened are natural but ineffective.
If you choose the second one it’s a kind of progress as your behavior is more composed and reasonable in comparison with the first answer. But it’s hardly the right one.
If you choose the third variant, you are probably doing absolutely right. Taking alone, it’s not much, but indirectly it indicates a rather advanced level of controls management.
Shooting
- Shoot, Gleb Egorovich! He’ll get away for sure! A line from the Russian cinema ”One can’t change the meeting point”
In this subchapter we’ll clear up two points: how the shot is produced in DOOM and how you should shoot to hit the target. We’ll leave all the tricks aside. Difference between different kinds of weapon and their attributes are also discussed in a separate chapter, here there’ll be just general principles.
Generally you shoot just by pushing the mouse button (though it’s a question of a keyboard layout, but usually you shoot by pushing the left mouse button), it’s just like pushing the trigger, in a while (for most weapons it takes really little time) a shot is produced, under which we understand a charge launching. A charge can be flying with unlimited speed (a pistol bullet, a machine-gun bullet, a Shotgun shell) are it can be slow (Plasma Rifle, Rocket Launcher or BFG). Here the slowest charge is a rocket as it’s 1.25 times slower than plasma or BFG cell.
The shot direction is the center of the screen at the moment of shooting. Thus, in order to aim you should position the target in the center of the screen, at least if we are talking about horizontal position.
It’s easy when the target is at the same level with you, otherwise it’s a little bit more difficult. The matter is that vertical aiming is accomplished automatically if you point horizontally. Thus, as it says in DOOM README file, you can shoot off everything what you see. It holds true for instant charge weapons as their aiming doesn’t require an advance-time. When you’ve aimed precisely in the horizontal direction, the shot will be produced higher or lower depending on the circumstances, and you’ll hit the target. But if the weapon is slow and you’ve aimed precisely, the target can get away while the charge is launching, so you should shoot considering the advance-time. With advance-time shooting DOOM can’t understand what you are shooting at, so there is no vertical aiming.
Conclusion: ADVANCE-TIME SHOOTING IS IMPOSSIBLE IF THE TARGET IS HIGHER OR LOWER THAN YOU.
As charges of the most powerful kinds of weapons are slow, advance-time shooting is widely used in a game. Taking it into the consideration the described feature is one of the saddest and one of the most remarkable DOOM drawbacks.
How should one shoot in order to hit the target?
1. Stay calm while shooting. Very often it’s better to waste several tenths of a second for aiming than to shoot at once, to miss and then to wait for weapon recharge. The shotgun and the grenade launcher don’t forget the mistakes in particular. The first one – for its long charging, time, the second one – for you can hit the nearby wall and kill yourself.
2. You can aim in two different ways: in turning and in strafing. The latest seems to be very popular among the keyboarders. The mousers prefer turning aiming. However, usually both ways go together, at least turning aiming while strafing is a common thing for a mouser.
3. You can make separate sharp shots or you can pour your fire hoping to hit the target even once and also shooting around by strafes and turns, especially in deathmatch.
4. Strafing and turning around the target and fire-pouring is a very effective and very important technique for fragging a slow but shooting-back target. Try it on a column in the center of a large room. Standing at a decent distance from the column take the Plasma Rifle (6) and strafe to the left (or to the right), as the column shifts, aim at it by mouse. Start making a circle. Try to shoot. Try to make sure that all shells would hit the column. Try to move along the circle as long as possible, shifting the mouse across the pad quickly if necessary. This technique is good not only in single player game but also in deathmatch, though in the latest it is combined as it’s difficult to make the enemy stand still. Nevertheless, 180-degrees arc with his plasma-gun is usually a great impression for a beginner. For you it’s the first example of simultaneous strafe and turning. Remember it and work it out. Switching to the advanced technique we’ll recall it more than once.
5. Don’t forget that you can combine the last technique with stepping back and forth, approaching and withdrawing – that is usage of all controls simultaneously. Here you can move spirally, the center will be your target. Generally you should know that simultaneous strafing and moving forward let you advance QUICKER than just moving forward. It takes time to learn to use strafing in a game as diagonal but not forward running is a little bit confusing at the beginning. Don’t bother yourself about it so far, just bear this possibility in mind. Sooner or later as you progress you’ll make a point of diagonal running combined with strafing. And besides in many cases this kind of running in particular is normal, straight running is used in extremely inconvenient situations. (see volume II). Don’t try to use this trick widely so far, for now your tasks are less pretentious.
6. Of afoot aiming.
When a player is running, a weapon in his hands is also jerking that makes it difficult to aim precisely that is so important in gun shooting. Rather often a strafer can hardly fragt even the motionless player. Thus strafing around the potential frag, you should bear in mind that he can stop for a moment and kill you easily and probably it’ll be easier for him than for you to kill him. I know those who rarely use strafing but play rather moderate for their accurate supershotgun shooting. Of course, moderate (but not good) playing is their limit, but remember that it’s not only difficult to frag the moving target, but it’s also difficult to shoot while moving. It doesn’t mean that you should stand while supershotgun shooting, but you should observe the golden mean between the moving that hinders your enemy aiming and your own aiming, i.e. between anti-aiming and aiming techniques, between the defense and the attack.
Remember that in DOOM weapon jerking doesn’t affect the shot direction. The aim is always in the center of the screen. Don’t look at the barrel . Look at the center of the screen. Finally you can draw a cross in the center of the screen ?
7. of pistol and gun shooting. You’d better to know that if you hold Fire constantly, shooting accuracy of these kinds of weapon becomes a little bit less. Conclusion: don’t use constant Fire with guns. Nearly always it’s better to shoot not so often but more accurate.
