Xim's GZDoom3 for Classic Doom (Update OCT/27/23) (2025)

This mod is exactly what I've been looking for in a Doom mod for a while, so I jumped at the opportunity to play with it as soon as it was released! Just finished Doom 2 the way Id Did with this mod: Pistol starts, no saves, and ultra-violence. I loved every second of it, but I have a few critiques I would like to make. This is your mod, so do with it what you wanna do, but these are my honest suggestions after playing through 32 maps with it. I also played with a couple other mods, which I will list at the end.
First of all, the hitscanners are a little bit crazy--particularly the Zsec machinegunners. They have a nasty habit of parking themselves in one location and sniping the player across the map with impeccable accuracy. Once they initially react to you, they often fire the instant you round the corner. Maybe a slight nerf in their accuracy and/or damage is due, and perhaps a slight delay in their subsequent reactions to the player.

Secondly, it is somewhat difficult to see the Vagary's projectile, especially with the bundled DarkDoomZ. Additionally, the Vagary does not light up in the dark when it fires, which makes sense continuously since she does not fire a gun or fireball, however it makes it very difficult to react to her from long distances. Perhaps making her firing animation and her projectile fullbright would fix this, albeit a bit of an ugly and discontinuous fix?

Thirdly, I don't know what caused it and I was unable to recreate it, but a couple times while using the double-barrel shotgun and reloading the game would indefinitely hand. I was using Gzdoom 4.5.0, and as I will state at the end of this post I had a few other mods. I could not tell you with 100% certainty what I was doing when these occurred, and I do not have a log, however I believe I was using single-fire mode, reloading a single shell, and teleporting. Hope this information helps.
Fourthly, it is very hard to tell the difference between a Pain Elemental and Cacodemon. I understand many of these sprites were not created by you, however their similar sprites make it difficult to differentiate them, especially in a crowd, and even moreso with the bundled DarkDoomZ. I imagine it's something I just have to get used to, but after 32 maps I still wasn't entirely confident whether the enemy was a Cacodemon or Pain Elemental at a glance.

Fourth of all, some projectiles have deceptively large hitboxes. Some of the worst contenders are the Imps and Vulgars. Often times they will fire a projectile and hit the player, even though visually it looks no where near them. They also have a silly habit of attacking near corners, but the projectile seems to disappear right in front of them because of its large hitbox. I understand this is probably to make them easily shootable, however I did not find myself trying to destroy their projectiles very often. The only one I really did this with frequently were the Revenants.

Now on to some more minor complaints.
Firstly, I feel as if the Lost Soul and and Forgotten One should create light, just like the Lost Soul does in Gzdoom. Their fire appears somewhat pathetic without a warm glow around it.

Second of all, the Fat Zombie AKA Zombie Worker uses the sprite for the Bloated Butcher from Blood. Its appearance is somewhat jarring to me next to all the other Demon replacements. Like I said earlier, I understand you didn't create these sprites, and that it's probably difficult to find a fitting Fat Zombie sprite, however its style really clashes with the others. I'm not against this enemy's existence--I certainly appreciate a beefier Demon replacement in the spawn pool--just thought it was worth mentioning.

Third of all, some of the enemy/thing replacements can be somewhat map breaking. This is par for the course with any gameplay mod, just thought it was worth mentioning. For example, a room full of Spectres becomes a room full of Wraiths. Considering their nasty habit of attacking the instant they teleport, it can be a HUGE pain to clear out a large group of them. A large amount of space to fall back on is needed. The Archvile can also be real nasty in tight spaces, as its fire columns deal massive damage. This could be a potential softlock in certain maps unless the player gets very good RNG with which attack it casts. Lastly, the Sentry Bot that replaces Partial-Invisibility sphere is a welcome change in my opinion, however some maps rely on them for hitscanner ambushes. This is another potential softlock. I don't expect these to be changed necessarily, just figured they were worth noting as well.

Fourth minor critique: Some monsters can infight with their own species. This is understandable for the Lost Soul replacements, however it is odd for the Mancubi, especially since they often are placed next to each or in the same room by mappers. Perhaps setting a flag so enemies such as the Mancubi cannot infight? Unless this was part of your design, in which case do as you will.

Fifth. Monsters can infight with Archviles. I should note that I never actually played Doom 3, so they may have been able to do this in the original game, but it is somewhat jarring considering that this behavior was absent in Doom II.

Sixth. Very minor. Since the Machinegun sometimes replaces the Box of Bullets, it can screw up the map progression. However, this assumes that the player is using pistol starts and that the player did not obtain the Machinegun or Chaingun before encountering Box of Bullets. Typically Box of Bullets are only distributed after the player has obtained a Chaingun, but not always. Pistol starts being unbalanced with a gameplay mod is quite par for the course, however I was able to do it and still had fun, so I thought I'd mention it too.

Finally, a suggestion. Perhaps you should implement brightmaps? They would work especially well with this mod considering DarkDoomZ is included with the install. I understand that this would add more work to your plate, but I believe it would significantly increase the quality of your mod!

To wrap this up, I apologize to bring only critiques to the table rather than compliments. However, for the sake of making this post as minimal as possible, I stuck to just the critiques. If I didn't complain about a feature, I want you to understand that I loved it instead! This feels like a faithful conversion of the gameplay of Doom 3 into the OG Dooms, with creative liberties being taken in just the right places! Keep doing you, Xim!

And finally

Spoiler: Mod List

Edit: I also meant to mention that the Chaingun Commando's tentacle arm functions... very jarringly to say the least. I did not know of its existence until twenty some-odd maps in. When it finally hit me, I thought it was a bug--I suddenly and seemingly teleported across the room and died as a result. Perhaps this mechanic should be refined a bit, as it feels extremely clunky, disorienting, and inconsistent.

Xim's GZDoom3 for Classic Doom (Update OCT/27/23) (2025)
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