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Katamori

Linear maps - Pro and contra

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What do you think about maps with linear gameplay? You hate it and avoid them at all costs or you give them a try? Maybe, do you like them?

Also, write here, what are the disadvantages and the possible advantages at the gameplay of linear maps.

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I don't wanna derail the thread, but I've been playing DooM for years now and I'm still not sure what linear gameplay means (in DooM terms anyway). Whats your definition Katamori?

Do you mean linear levels where the level just flows in one direction: go here, get this key, then go here etc. etc?

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Good Idea: Linear maps can be good if most of its areas are revisited over the run.

Bad Idea: Linear maps can't be good if it's gameplay just goes through a tunnel without looking back behind. Just like "Deja Vu" from CChest (1 or 2? Heh I forgot). :P

MAP11 is linear, but it's great!

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Chex Warrior: I'm not sure but I thinl linear maps are those where you don't have to go back to any places if you were already there. Like a corridor where you go straight forward. Of course, a map with a single corridor line would be boring. :D


C30N9: I think Doom 2 MAP11 wasn't linear.

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C30N9

You said:

MAP11 is linear, but it's great!


I thought you are talking about Doom 2 MAP11. Am I wrong?

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Katamori said:

C30N9

I thought you are talking about Doom 2 MAP11. Am I wrong?


Yeah. Circle of Doom. ;)

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I actually like linear maps because I don't like getting lost and it's harder for mappers to make a good mapflow with non-linear maps. Obviously, strictly linear maps are no fun because you feel too limited in your choices

Like anything both have their pros and cons especially at their extremes and the middle ground is probably the sweet spot.

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C30N9 said:

Yeah. Circle of DOOM. ;)


Hmm, then we're definitely not talking about the same Doom II map :P

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I'm okay with linear maps if the progression makes the map feel non-linear. IE: Lots of turns, overlapping rooms, backtracking, etc.

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I find it fun to react to a (likely complex) situation in real time as opposed to memorizing what to do. Randomness or sensitivity to initial conditions can make the world constantly generate interesting/surprising conditions to react to. Street fighter only has 2 elements really (player1/player2) but still manages to be surprising and fun for me to replay over and over.

'linear' as applied to doom isn't very precise so I'll give it a definition to use in this post at least:

watch a doom demo for some map in automap. Trace a line everywhere doomguy goes. Obviously a monsterless single thin hallway to a single exit switch would be a single line = linear. You could have a map even without monsters, but switches all over the place and the path could be a mess of zigzags. However, replay the map again and again, and compare how similar this path is on each REplay. Probably the same basic zigzag path so = linear ON REPLAYS. Or maybe linear is wrong term there, just 'little variation'.
Now try a chaotic map with monsters everywhere, and compare paths of multiple replays. You probably dodge a caco on THIS play that was in a different location on NEXT play, ie. zigzagging all around dodging chaotic stuff that is unique to each replay = 'lots of variation' or nonlinear or whatever on replays.
Even a path like that could be 'normalized' to remove smaller scale 'fuzzyness' to see how linear that normalized path is.
The actual architecture in doom is pretty linear. Go to position p1, hit switch, go to position p2. Chaos/randomness comes from monsters. If you have a big group of monsters that all stay way over there in a pit for you to easily kill from over here with a rocket launcher, then they're being used in a 'same every replay' linear way.

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I have to agree with gggmork here. A way to add more replayability to a map is to give more freedom to monsters.

Of course there are constraints, like not giving this freedom in a way that monsters become too sparse in the level. This problem can be counter-balanced by making necessary to walk multiple times in crossroads.

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Ok first of all DOOM 2 Map11 is called Circle of Death(or "O" of Destruction on the automap), not "Circle of DOOM". Second, it is linear in the sense that there is clearly only one path to take(excluding secrets of course). You grab the blue key, go through the blue door, grab the red key, go through the red door, and then you exit the level. There is only one way to complete each required objective, hence LINEAR.

On topic, I don't think linear levels are necessarily inferior to non-linear ones, but I'm always impressed when a mapper can successfully pull off a good non-linear map because it's something I often struggle with.

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I think the best maps have a good freedom of the order you do things such as the refueling base from doom2. You still have to get the keys to progress, but it has the feeling of exploration and choice of which way you want to go.

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Linear progression is cool when the map feels like an adventure, where the theme changes as you progress... like Beast Island from Alien Vendetta for example. Personally, I like megawads that can mix it up a little between linearity and non linearity..

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DeathevokatioN said:

Linear progression is cool when the map feels like an adventure

Agreed. That's why I love map18 from Epic 2 and long linear maps from Foodles's upcoming megawad.

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A guy said my first Doom WAD had linear switch/key hunts. Ever since then, I'm now working hard on my upcoming Megawad to avoid linear gameplay.

I don't mind linear gameplay much, but did any of the maps in The Ultimate Doom or Doom 2 have linear gameplay?

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I'd call linearity a secondary trait of a map. It doesn't really make a map good, and neither does it make a map bad per se. Same goes for non-linearity. Bottom line is that what really matters is how the map's gameplay and item placement suits the chosen style. Linear maps are obviously easier to balance, and they are a good choice if you are planning to create maps where the emphasis is on planned out fights, or set pieces if you want to call them that. Similarly non-linear maps are a good choice if you want to emphasize the map as an adventure.

You can't really say that one of those types is objectively superior to the other, because they're completely different things. It would be like comparing Legend of Zelda to Super Mario Brothers, and arguing that one is better than the other simply because it's more linear/non-linear.

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One really great non- linear map that comes to mind is E1M7. I LOVE it. I always try to emulate its convoluted craziness.

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Krispy said:

One really great non- linear map that comes to mind is E1M7. I LOVE it. I always try to emulate its convoluted craziness.

Except that it's perfectly linear. It only has a few small side areas that don't offer anything important to the level's progress (barring secrets, of course).

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Well what about having to run back through the whole map to open the door that leads to the red key, then running back to the red key, then to the red door?

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Given the definition on which Jodwin is basing his assumptions, it is still linear. Because you do not have the choice to do something else instead of grabing that red key to open the red door preventing your progression.

A non-linear setup would be this: you have to run through the map either in the path to the blue key or the path to the red key, then opening the door either with the BK or the RK.

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I'm personally guilty of making most of my maps linear, so they're not a big problem to me. It has to be a good blend of being linear and open at the same time. I have always percieved linear as walking in a fixed path with no deviation whatsoever. (Like room to room, no need to go back but for ammo)

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NitroactiveStudios said:

I don't mind linear gameplay much, but did any of the maps in The Ultimate Doom or Doom 2 have linear gameplay?

Depending on how you define linear, some, most, or all of them.

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Hmm, in order to answer this question correctly, I find it's important to realize that there are two different types of linearity.

The first is what I call macrolinearity. Simply put, it's linearity applied to the entire game's progression. Is there a single, linear sequence of levels the player must travel through, with little to no plot branches? If so, it's macrolinear. Doom itself is a great example of this: it's nonlinear on a small scale (more on that in a minute), but in the end you progress from E1M1 to E1M2 and so forth with very little deviation from the path (i.e. secret maps).

A lesser version of this can be applied to a single level's progression as well. Almost all Doom maps boil down to a series of intermediate goals (e.g. "Get blue key, open blue door... exit"), which suggests a linear progression (i.e. macrolinearity). This does not, however, imply that there is only one path from A to B, which leads into the next item.

The second, and more important (IMO) type is that of microlinearity, which is linearity in terms of how the player actually gets from A to B. Microlinear paths involve a single route the player can travel, with little (if any) branching paths. This is the type of linearity most people think of, what with most modern shooters following this trope to a T. Doom's maps, on the other hand, often have several ways to reach an objective and large, extensive optional areas for one to explore. Not all, but enough that it's worth a mention. ;)

An interesting example of a recent game that exhibits microlinearity but not macrolinearity is Skyrim. Although it's very nonlinear on a macro scale, each dungeon is generally a straight path from beginning to end, with only minor side-rooms to explore (cool as their contents may be). Granted, there are so many of said dungeons that it largely doesn't matter in such a context anyway, but it's still there.

Different games will exhibit different combinations of the two. The Deus Ex series, for example, is neither macrolinear nor microlinear, whereas our 'beloved' Doom 3 (like most shooters nowadays) is linear on both accounts (sans that one part where you can choose a jumping puzzle over some combat). But given these and the additional examples from earlier, just describing a game as "linear" is a bit ambiguous. Nobody in their right mind would call Skyrim a linear game, but applying the label to Doom, while correct in one way, would suggest something about its individual level progression that's simply not true. Hence the distinction.


Now, of the two, Micro is the more 'dangerous', I'd say. Though a strictly-linear map isn't really a bad thing, constricting the player on too many grounds (e.g. giving no optional places to explore at all) can sometimes lead to boredom and will definitely shoot replayability in the foot. In my opinion, of course. :P

I guess that in the end, it's hard to argue that linearity detracts from a game. It's more like it prevents additional enjoyment that stems the exploration process. I definitely appreciate having the freedom to choose one's own path through a map, and given that Doom is one of the few games to have the magic automap, I figure one may as well take advantage of it. :P

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I think an important distinction to be made between different kinds of microlinearity, is path-linearity versus goal-linearity. I think that many of Doom's maps are linear in goal-linearity, but very nonlinear in path-linearity. I suppose linearity when referring to path-linearity in this case could mean one path that you just go straight forward and never revisit areas.

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Your definition of micro still seems relatively macro. Micro is like the x and y position of doomguy. When you think about all the possible states of doomguy's position and direction alone (let alone the monster states and other states like shooting/berzerk/health/etc, and history of past states), no 2 human played demos of almost any map would ever likely be exactly identical on the micro level (probably even hard to find 2 single-tick time snapshots that are identical), giving a nice mini simulation of almost the 'free will' of reality. Ha ha, do you have free will in doom, an interesting question. Maybe the answer is the same in doom and reality, you have no free will but there's just so many damn states that it seems like it? Then again doom isn't completely contained. There's a super complex wetware supercomputer 'brain' in the real world attached to fingers manipulating it with input.

The concept of 'choice' got me thinking, like it seems to be a core of what makes games fun. Mazes have choice but are often boring though. I think because there you have say 3 paths; 2 are wrong 1 is right.. go to next node, repeat. Its a searching chore, not fun. In street fighter when the enemy jumps you can CHOOSE to do a dragon punch or a high fierce etc- there you have multiple choices but MORE THAN ONE can be correct making it more complex. You're also timed to make a choice fast and visually stimulated with animations and have to enter more skill oriented button sequences.
The amount of input a game has allows more choice (imagine a game w/ 1 button). Like each map in doom could have doomguy's x/y path and direction scripted like a movie and you only have the choice of when to press the shoot button, that'd be linear (cool, I ended with 'linear' so it still appears like I was on topic).

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gggmork said:

Your definition of micro still seems relatively macro.
*player movement discussion*

It has to be, else the term would be useless. :P

Breaking it down to that level is no longer analyzing linearity at all, at least not by any practical means. Then you're just discussing what separates interactive media from, say, films. Though you sorta touched on that. :P

Sodaholic said:

I suppose linearity when referring to path-linearity in this case could mean one path that you just go straight forward and never revisit areas.

Not exactly. The way I see it, a map where you travel in a single path and don't revisit any areas is just as linear as a map where you cross through a few rooms more than once but in a specific, pre-defined order. The latter is an interesting case in that by presenting familiar areas to the player, it sorta "fakes" nonlinearity while still remaining almost wholly microlinear.

I actually got finished playing through a good example of this recently: Quake 2 (plus expansions). It has hubs, but the way the objectives are structured basically means that you progress through the maps in a specific order each and every playthrough. You revisit maps a lot, but in a predefined, linear fashion (though there are a few rare maps with branching paths in a Doom-like open fashion, particularly in Ground Zero). This results in a very linear game in both aspects, in contrast to Hexen whose hubs offer plenty of micro-nonlinearity in the sense that you can often do objectives in any order you please (the Shadow Wood hub in particular comes to mind).

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