Things I hate about secrets

aldiboronti said:

Ah wall-humping! What a joy it is! Even greater fun when you have little ammo left and you have to decide whether to waste it shooting at the damn walls to see if that triggers the secret.

heh

LogicDeLuxe said:
And since most ports are Boom compatible, shouldn't they do it too?

They're also Doom compatible, in that sense.

myk said:

They're also Doom compatible, in that sense.

That kind of compatibility is usually achieved with compatibility switches. Counting up to 100 takes a bit longer than just displaying 0, which can desync a demo of course, but other than that, this is really nothing one would miss from vanilla days, I guess. So just keeping the Boom behavior seems reasonable if demos don't matter.

aldiboronti said:

Ah wall-humping! What a joy it is! Even greater fun when you have little ammo left and you have to decide whether to waste it shooting at the damn walls to see if that triggers the secret.

Gunshot activators are hinted by no oomph sound when pressing space.

LogicDeLuxe said:
That kind of compatibility is usually achieved with compatibility switches. Counting up to 100 takes a bit longer than just displaying 0, which can desync a demo of course, but other than that, this is really nothing one would miss from vanilla days, I guess. So just keeping the Boom behavior seems reasonable if demos don't matter

I mean that saying they're "Boom compatible" means they run Boom WADs, but then, they're also "Doom compatible" because they run vanilla WADs. Being able to run Boom WADs doesn't mean having to take all Boom features for granted. The counter has no effect on demo synching, by the way. PrBoom/+ uses Boom's behavior even during Doom compatibility mode.

I don't personally care too much about whether the tally screen says 100 or 0 when there are no secrets. Being quite used to vanilla I have no need for a "fix", though. Once I'm rather familiar with a level, I tend to find out if I missed any secrets in some demo, eventually look at it in an editor or use one of those stat apps, in any case. If I miss something during the exploratory phase of play, no big deal.

I'm wondering whether Sandy Petersen placed a secret at the end of level 7 for a reason similar to the one you mention above... Maybe he did it because of the deathmatch exit, as otherwise it would be more likely for players in single player mode to use IDDT and notice there's an inaccessible room on the north west, thinking they're missing some secret.

Levels 14, 21, 25, 29, 30, 31 and 32, on the other hand, don't have any sectors marked as secret (even though some areas may warrant it.)

I don't like it when there are monsters in a secret area. The odd token imp or demon I suppose is OK but I've died in secret areas before - seems so unfair!

The exception to this are routes to a secret level but that's because your reward for the secret is different to the usual power up/health/ammo/weapon bonus.

purist said:

I don't like it when there are monsters in a secret area. The odd token imp or demon I suppose is OK but I've died in secret areas before - seems so unfair!

The exception to this are routes to a secret level but that's because your reward for the secret is different to the usual power up/health/ammo/weapon bonus.

E4M1 amirite

My new fav: wos.wad map 5, the berserk secret opens only once for a short time, and given you have two revenants in the back and a chaingunner in the face it's very likely "play it again Sam", if you see it at all that is, and not run for 1/2 hour around the map before finally putting on idclip...

Or being given the automap, yet not all (usually the well hidden ones) secrets are shown on it.

purist said:

I don't like it when there are monsters in a secret area. The odd token imp or demon I suppose is OK but I've died in secret areas before - seems so unfair!

The exception to this are routes to a secret level but that's because your reward for the secret is different to the usual power up/health/ammo/weapon bonus.

I completely agree with this.

Doesn't feel so secretive when there's a bunch of bad guys roaming around in there. I've died in the secrets before as well.

I've all ways liked secret rooms for their feeling of safety in the particularly tough levels (but the hardcore level mappers are even getting ruthless in this regard :P ).

purist said:

I don't like it when there are monsters in a secret area. The odd token imp or demon I suppose is OK but I've died in secret areas before - seems so unfair!

The exception to this are routes to a secret level but that's because your reward for the secret is different to the usual power up/health/ammo/weapon bonus.

Maybe the reward in finding a secret area with monsters teleporting or in or else is being able to complete 100% kill score. I was wondering if UV-max demoers see this as a good or bad thing? Or at least acceptable..

What about if you find a secret, you have another challenge (monsters in this case) to face to get that special reward (or after getting it, face the challenge and if you live, you deserve it) so it's not overly easy and is more satisfying, do other people see it this way too?

I suppose there should be a balance. Finding the secret for me is the challenge, not getting out of it alive! If there's going to be monsters in the secret area (or nukage, or other such hazards) the danger should be proportionate to the reward. For example I've played PWADs where the reward is ammo but you need to use more than you're given to kill the monsters released!

Personally, I don't count kill % as a reward but one scenerio where it could make sense is killing monsters from a more convenient area than you would facing them later in the map without finding the secret. For example, opening a secret door to find demons behind a cage. Later in the map the area opens into a tight corridor but, having found the secret, the danger is removed.

I do count being able to get 100% kills, or merely finding another area of the map, as a reward in itself. However, it is even nicer if there is a more traditional reward in there too. :)

The levels where when you start you are already in a sector marked as secret are the ones where no real secrets were placed. I think that with zero secret sectors the scoring at the end says 0% secrets and not 100%. That's why a dummy placed secret sector at the beginning or the end of the level is placed so that the scoring is not wrong. Maybe this has changed in newer source ports though.

Nomad said:

Osiris and I spent the better part of an hour running through NDCP1's MAP31 looking for the last secret hoping to get to MAP32 only to finally give up and find out that the regular exit went to MAP32 anyway.

Heh, I did that when I first played through Rebirth with someone in coop.