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Tristan

Doom 2 In Name Only - Now (supsiciously) on a load of gaming articles

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Eris Falling said:
But that's your opinion, and I respect that, I certainly won't try and change it. But in the end, it comes down to what the majority of players prefer.

Personally, if I were Antroid, I'd go with Gez's idea and do both a death exit and normal exit.


I would suggest that the majority of players prefer to play levels the way they like, and that a mandatory death exit denies that option to those who like continuous play, whereas a normal exit doesn't deny it to pistol starters.

A level with both a death exit and a normal exit is okay, since that restores choice.

Memfis said:
Some fights oriented on weaker weapons or limited health/ammo turn into complete jokes if the player has the BFG and a lot of cells.


And maybe the continuous player likes it that way. Or maybe they don't, and they either choose not to use the BFG, or they decide to pistol start the level after all. Importantly, the choice is left to the player, not forced upon them.

Memfis said:
calling death exits lazy design is just disrespectful to the mappers.


Speaking as a mapper, I disagree :)

Forced death exits - you have no choice, you must die - are a sign someone has been lazy. They mean that the next level's designer went "ahh, it's too much work to try and balance this for both styles of play, so I'm just going to force players to pistol start".

Continuous play or pistol start is a player choice, based on their personal preference and what they find the most enjoyable. Forcing them to adopt a style they dislike is bad form, and is actively at odds with what I consider to be the single most important goal of level design: providing players with the greatest possible opportunity to have fun.

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I dunno, isn't everything lazy design by that logic? For example, you place an arch-vile in a map. But Memfy doesn't like to fight arch-viles, how dare you to force him to do that? There should be an option to play without arch-viles. Slacker!

"ahh, it's too much work to try and balance this for both styles of play, so I'm just going to force players to pistol start".

It's not only too much work but it many cases it is completely impossible. In a wad I'm making I have a map where you start surrounded by a lot of imps, plus a few revs, cacos and one spider. And you get only sg, cg and very few stimpacks. There is just no way to make it any difficult for the player with a BFG. He will just shoot two or three times and here goes my carefully balanced battle that I've been playtesting for days.

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Capellan said:

[snip]




Continuous play or pistol start is a player choice, based on their personal preference and what they find the most enjoyable. Forcing them to adopt a style they dislike is bad form, and is actively at odds with what I consider to be the single most important goal of level design: providing players with the greatest possible opportunity to have fun.



seconded. i learned about suicide exits by watching some speedrun that made use of this trick, and found it neat, but i also considered it a speedrunning trick only and never something that should be forced upon the player.

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I've never really had an opinion on the concept of death-exits themselves as much as I've had opinions on the context in which they've happened. If you're going to kill me and then just drop me in the middle of a regular map immediately afterwards then you're doing it wrong. I'll use Speed of Doom's transition from Map 11 to Map 12 as an example of it being done extremely well: The design of the maps themselves tell you what's going on (you died, now you're in hell); right after you lose everything you're given the bare essentials to start killing stuff again (your shotguns, some ammo and some armor); you slowly regain everything as you progress through the map. Everything fits together, it all makes sense and is fair, etc. etc.

As long as those responsible for maps 29 and 30 can fulfil the same requirements (i.e. that it's fine in context of the maps themselves) then I'm fine with whatever they do. A death-exit, along with everything that happens before and afterwards*, will only be as bad as the mappers who are in charge of making it happen.

* a quick and dirty example would be giving me a megasphere right before I have to die and quit the level. That's just being an asshole.

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Well I'm going to destroy this chain of long well-thought posts and simply state that MAP29 is "The Living End" "Living" is the living city (cough) and "End" to mark the player's death.

Now if mouldy can set up MAP30 to be balanced between continuous and pistol start gameplay, then I don't see why you shouldn't have both kinds of exit. If the player goes for the death exit, it's a neat bit of storyline and MAP30 is difficult. If they find the normal exit, it's a reward for finding the secret and MAP30 is difficult. Just don't put a megasphere infront of the death exit :P

You could even make the secret switch in plain view, but inacessible unless the player finds hidden switches throughout the level.

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Hey Capellan, I heard some players do not enjoy dying in Doom, should I place an invulnerability in every corner to accomodate those kinds of players too?
No, thank you very much, if it is my map the player will play by my rules. If an idea of map30 demands a pistol start, I am not going to give the player a button to break the level.

Also Eris, pls don't post any more unflattering screenshots of my unreleased map thx :>

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Memfis said:
It's not only too much work but it many cases it is completely impossible. In a wad I'm making I have a map where you start surrounded by a lot of imps, plus a few revs, cacos and one spider. And you get only sg, cg and very few stimpacks. There is just no way to make it any difficult for the player with a BFG. He will just shoot two or three times and here goes my carefully balanced battle that I've been playtesting for days.


Then release it as a single level in map01, which is by definition a pistol start situation. Or if it has to be in a larger project, place it in a level slot where the player does not yet have access to the BFG.

If you're locked into a slot where the BFG will definitely be available for continuous play, then design with that in mind from the beginning. Failing to do so is on you as the designer, not the player.


Edit to add: also, don't assume that having a BFG means the player will automatically use it. I regularly engage in battles with the chaingun or SSG rather than the BFG, because I'm conserving it for emergencies. I generally only bust it out if I'm stuck, or if I'm finding cell packs and have a full count of ammo for it already.

Antroid said:
Hey Capellan, I heard some players do not enjoy dying in Doom, should I place an invulnerability in every corner to accomodate those kinds of players too?
No, thank you very much, if it is my map the player will play by my rules. If an idea of map30 demands a pistol start, I am not going to give the player a button to break the level.


Spurious hyperbolic example is spurious hyperbole.

Frankly, if your idea of map30 "requires" a pistol start, I'll just not play it (or type IDFA while calling you unkind names for being a lazy designer). It's map30, for chrissakes. The most continuous of continuous map slots.


Edit to add: On the flip side of this, if you're mapping for a multi-level project, be aware of that. It's not good form to stick a megasphere, BFG and 600 cells in your exit room. If a player deliberately saves those items so they can exit the level with them, great - that's a part of the continuous gameplay they're engaging with and employing. But you shouldn't make the next level designer's life more difficult than it has to be :)

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Capellan said:

Then release it as a single level in map01, which is by definition a pistol start situation.

So if I release 32 maps separately you will happily play each one from pistol start, but if I pack them in one wad and say "play each map from pistol start" you will refuse to do it? This is funny.

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Yeah, I think death-exits can be pretty sweet as a special effect when handled skillfully, and they also represent a convenient way to enforce an Ultimate Doom-ish 'episodic' progression style in a Doom II/Final Doom PWAD, e.g. Scythe 2, where the player can choose to play each map from a fresh start or accumulate an arsenal over the course of the maps in each "zone", but everyone is required to start each zone fresh (which works well with the way the first map in each zone has been made). This is what I'd call a viable design choice, rather than the product of a lazy development cycle.

At the end of the day, I don't buy the argument that it is a level designer's duty to make his creations appeal to as wide an audience as possible (or, in other words, to maximize choice); maximizing flexibility can in many cases be a viable goal that leads to good things, but there are other, equally viable goals that are only ever going to have a relatively niche appeal, and which by their nature require the designer to enact a few additional strictures upon the game world. Particular players, of course, may or may not feel the end result to be worth the trouble of putting up with these strictures; but that's neither here nor there.

Although I habitually pistol-start everything myself, I do think that this matter is a two-way street, note. I recently finished Saulter's "Hell Awakened." On the UV skill level, this WAD is not consistently properly balanced for pistol-starts, although I've read that HMP and lower are. So, I had a choice of playing on a lower difficulty or doing a carryover playthrough on UV; I chose the latter, and ended up having a good time. I probably would still have enjoyed it more if I'd been able to play on UV with the balance I prefer, but for my part, I'm alright with not necessarily being catered to at all turns (and the carryover balance was well-calculated in its own right); I think the variety we see in WADing as a result is more than worth the price of my occasional inconvenience.

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Capellan said:

Spurious hyperbolic example is spurious hyperbole.

More like the same exact flawed logic applied to a different preference doom players might have.

Capellan said:

Frankly, if your idea of map30 "requires" a pistol start, I'll just not play it (or type IDFA while calling you unkind names for being a lazy designer). It's map30, for chrissakes. The most continuous of continuous map slots.

It's your problem then, not mine and not map30's author's. If he decides that his vision calls for a pistol start, that's what we'll have. You can be as anal about death exits as you like, mappers are not obligated to give you exactly what you're used to even if you try to paint their ideas as "lazy design" (good luck with that by the way, noone's buying it).

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IIRC, the end of MAP29 isn't exactly item heavy, and while there are cells present (as seen in my unflattering screenshot), I'm pretty certain there's no megasphere and no BFG.

Now, given that one of the project's requirements for a level is that it has to be pistol start compatible, I would hope that the mix of continuous play and pistol start playability would be implemented into a map anyway.

Demon of the Well said:

and they also represent a convenient way to enforce an Ultimate Doom-ish 'episodic' progression style in a Doom II/Final Doom PWAD


QFT.

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I don't actually expect mouldy's map30 to outright require the death exit, but we'll have to wait until we hear from him on the subject - not even now, but when (if?) he finishes it. What I'm certainly not going to do though is try to cram an alternate exit somewhere in the last part of map29.

Eris Falling said:

QFT.

By the way, I think Doom 2 would've been better if our weapons were taken from us after the o of destruction and after gotcha. A little bit, but better.

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Antroid said:

By the way, I think Doom 2 would've been better if our weapons were taken from us after the o of destruction and after gotcha. A little bit, but better.


Maybe moreso after Gotcha. The marine is still on earth between MAP11 and MAP12

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Eris Falling said:

Maybe moreso after Gotcha. The marine is still on earth between MAP11 and MAP12


Yeah but if I remember correctly a lot of time passed between those two maps, and I think the marine even gave up at some point there. Wouldn't contradict the story too much to have him drop all his heavy gear somewhere, and it would've made for a nice three-episode structure and a nice challenge at the start of map12 that I wouldn't have to impose on myself every time. It's actually a bit strange that the marine keeps his arsenal exactly the same down to the last bullet throughout everything that supposedly happens between 11 and 12. Hey, maybe we could have death exits on maps 11 and 20 in our project? Whadda ya think, Eris?

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In response to the "death exit" thing, it should only be reserved for maps where the player MUST lose their stuff - remember they fought hard for it and probably hoarded much of it through a number of maps. They might not thank you for taking it away in one go.

Community megawads can seem broken if you carry your equipment from the previous map, since mappers usually seem to assume theirs is the first in the megawad and you'll be starting with the pistol. I was really proud of myself for slaughtering my way through Alien Vendetta on Ultra Violence, then I realised I might not have made it if I hadn't carried tons of rockets and plasma into maps where they are scarce or non-existent.

Finally, every time the "IoS question" is raised in a thread, more people seem to be against it, so I really don't understand why we keep seeing them in megawads.

For "gluttony", you could have booby-trapped power-ups, for example a battle could keep getting ridiculously bigger every time you collect a soul sphere or blue armour, and you can avoid triggering new hordes by abstaining from the pickup. Differentiating between "lust" and "gluttony" would be challenging - lust might be more to do with weapons in an area made from flesh and blood, for example.

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Antroid said:

Hey, maybe we could have death exits on maps 11 and 20 in our project? Whadda ya think, Eris?


Personally I don't think it's at all a bad idea. MAP11 could have that choice thing like in Plutonia MAP11, with two pillars, one a safe exit one a death exit perhaps?

As far as I know, having MAP21 with your weapons carried over would seem very easy even on UV as it is by no means a difficult map. All intentional of course. But this means that it might be better to have the death exit in MAP20.

MajorRawne: As for the IoS, most megawads seem to alter the IoS very slightly, but there's not usually something different. That said, I think TNT 2 is making a brand new boss for their MAP30.

Trouble is though with this project, the level names remain unchanged. We have the seven sins, but where is the icon?

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Rather than arguing religion why not just take a vote? Capellan doesn't like death exits, everyone else does. If someone wants to play a level different than the way the author intended there are cheat codes.

32 levels with no breaks to lose weapons/ammo is an arbitrary construct that wasn't decided on by anyone involved in this project. Death exits and otherwise losing all weapons/ammo were in place in Doom 1, and a similar breakup of "episodes" in Doom 2. What's the issue with bringing them back together?

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Alright, if anyone's recording the votes, I am strongly for adding death exits to map11 and map20 then.
As far as IoS goes, my personal opinion on the matter is that we don't need the huge tube-face and a variant of the "reach IoS's hole with your rockets" mechanic for our final boss. Like I said before, the name of the level could refer purely to some major visual element. Maybe the whole level takes place in (or on?) said "icon", which is more like a 3d diorama or something :D Although to make the map appropriately finalbossy I'd say the infinitely spawning monsters should stay and the player should still be required to perform some actions in a set place, to make the monsters relevant. Maybe just a timed survival type of deal, maybe with opening layers of the arena. Well, it's all up to mouldy now. No pressure!

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I'm of the opinion that death exits are ok but should be used sparingly. There's nothing more annoying than playing consecutively and spending ages getting hold of the big guns only to have them taken away before you can make good use of them.

Acquiring all the weapons can usually take a few maps to achieve, so it stands as a gameplay feature on its own separately from pistol starting every map. Its like providing a story arc within a bigger narrative, so I see it as an additional gameplay feature rather than a subtraction (for example it allows you to engineer alternative weapon progressions within a single wad). HOWEVER, to be used well it should really be designed with the flow of the whole wad in mind, and that's something which is hard to pull off when no single mapper sees the wad as a whole.

I have mixed feelings about adding one before map 30. Maybe we should put it to a vote.

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A possibility would be to make 2 versions of the maps in question and then test it.
I don't vote for or against things which individual merit I have yet to experience.

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mouldy said:

I have mixed feelings about adding one before map 30. Maybe we should put it to a vote.


It should only really depend on whether or not your map30 is going to require it to work as intended. If you say you don't need the player to start with pistol only on map30 then I'll remove it from map29.

The matter of gear removal between "episodes" (after map11 and map20) is another question which (even though I voted yes in case we end up voting) I don't really feel should be resolved that way. I'd say that authors of map12 and map21 should have a big part in deciding it, as well as Eris because he is currently the project handler. If Ella Guro ever comes back, we'll ask her too :)

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Antroid said:

If Ella Guro ever comes back, we'll ask her too :)


Huh..turns out she is contactable via e-mail...

Funnily enough, MAP12 and MAP21 share the same author.

EDIT: Well I sent a message out to her. Whether she replies or not is a different matter entirely :P

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I'm all for death exits, just because I miss the episodic nature of Doom from Doom II. As a player, I don't understand why id changed the format for Doom II anyway, especially since the weapons are given away so early. All the weapons are available from MAP08, which means the end of progressively collecting weaponry for 22-24 levels!

As a mapper I like death exits for similar reasons but mainly because you lose a lot of artistic control when the player is potentially for-armed from the start of a map. This is particulary acute in community projects as considerations for the balance of subsequent maps is rarely observed.

My only stipulation would be that they should be tastefully applied so it feels either in fitting of the story or symbolic as an episode marker. The idea of twin exits allowing a player to sneakily hold their weaponry by finding a secret is cool.

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I don't really mind death exits, though if it's end of episode it gives me pressure because I have the map12 and map21 slots :D

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ella guro said:

as far as death exits go - the original idea was just to make reinterpretation of the original maps based off the titled alone. anything anyone chose to do outside of that didn't really matter to me, as long as it wasn't too difficult and followed some sort of difficulty curve. but i didn't care if people stuck to the original in terms of start/exits or things like that - i wanted people to be creative with that. so i personally don't mind death exits, as long as they're not too cryptic.

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I grew up playing the PSX version of Doom, so I don't give a toss about episodes, and there's no real distinction between Doom, Ultimate Doom and Doom 2. We just got Doom and we loved the lack of distractions from all that shotgun action :D

As for IoS, the main reasons I don't like it are:

1. The stupid, repetitive lift.

2. The precise timing required to hit the target.

3. The ever-growing crowd of monsters. I've always found multiplying monster hordes to be stressful when you know they'll just keep coming. This is one reason why I never play on Nightmare - the pragmatic part of me thinks "What's the point?"

But if everyone else wants an IoS, I won't complain about it as some people apparently do like them (as opposed to simply feeling that there must be one because there was one in Doom 2, as there must be an Arachnotron battle in map 7). I will just call the megawad beaten when I finish map 29.

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I also grew up on PSX Doom. Don't forget the difference between Master Levels, TNT and Plutonia ;)
However, I do like the death exit episode transition concept. Obviously if it's opposed by everyone it won't go in.


Having not played many megaWADs, I'm not too fussed on it being a generic IoS fight right NOW but...

1) The community will want something different
2) I will in many months time.

It can still be an IoS, and the fact that this project is a world where Doom II was never released, it makes sense to keep the original IoS idea. A clever twist on the IoS fight would be cool.

as opposed to simply feeling that there must be one because there was one in Doom 2, as there must be an Arachnotron battle in map 7


Hmm...Well MAP07 is still a good level slot to introduce the Arachontron in..right?

Right?

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Eris Falling said:

However, I do like the death exit episode transition concept. Obviously if it's opposed by everyone it won't go in.

So far almost noone is opposed to the idea. I think it's safe to assume that it'll never be opposed by everyone.

About IoS. I still say we drop the "shoot the face on the wall in a small hole" thing, and only keep the monster spawning aspect of the original. Make it a final struggle type of deal where we have to do something (something that isn't trying to reach a place of the exact height to allow you to send a rocket into a hole, killing the boss - I always thought that was a very stupid concept for a final boss) while monsters are just swarming us. In the end it's all up to whoever makes map30, meaning mouldy, unless he doesn't finish it.

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