Exit-cum-refrigerator and other devices of questionable merit.

You can probably think of innumerable examples over the years. You open the exit door, and inside is a largely innocuous piece of meat in a small room. A single monster that halts your progress for a few seconds without posing any sort of threat. Sometimes it's an imp or a demon; occasionally it's a hell knight or (gasp) a baron.

I wouldn't call it completely worthless; the alert sound can work as a visceral jolt for those of us who might start to relax after we open the exit door. But an actual (semi-)challenging fight would do the same thing.

It appears even in the levels of good modern mappers and always strikes me as pretty quaint, a callback of sorts to the iwads.

Any other examples? Typical mapping devices that sort of make you scratch your head -- without being offensively bad or significantly detracting from the level as a whole.

Suggestions as to why:

A punctuation period at the end of the map?

A way of representing that the exit was guarded (even if there was little challenge in the guard)?

A way of ensuring that you have something to do right to the end?

Ensuring that you stay on your toes to the end?

Simply better than an empty room?




Personally, I quite like those little encounters.

When EVERY key/weapon/artifact pickup in a level springs a trap. Ugh!! Learn about pacing!!

Linguica said:

When EVERY key/weapon/artifact pickup in a level springs a trap. Ugh!! Learn about pacing!!

Nothing in life is free... :)
Actually, that's a good idea for a map: absolutely every pickupable thing springs a trap.

Now I really want to make an "obvious trap", like for a BFG or something big, that teleports in a single former human trooper.

Usually they are completely ineffective, but if for example the player's been getting the absolute shit kicked out of them and is only trying to reach the exit alive then even the most piddly of guards in the exit room can ruin their day.

That being said, I often put something in the exit room just for the sake of having one last obstacle.

I thought the design choice (put a monster to block exit room) was good, because it halts the player from skipping fighting monsters right before the exit room too easily. There might be a specially-thought-out final fight (not necessarily a big one, maybe just a cumulated mass of enemies left alive) taking place in front of the exit room, thus the mapper doesn't want to let the player break the climax by skipping it in a matter of seconds. It's a gimmick to make speedrunning harder.

- Putting chainsaw in a level where noone would ever use it, like slaughtermaps.
- Giving more armor than it's theoretically possible to spend.
- Placing ammo for the weapons you can only find in other levels (I don't want to feel limited compared to continuous players).
- Secrets you can't avoid (unless it's Map07-style).

rdwpa said:

Now I really want to make an "obvious trap", like for a BFG or something big, that teleports in a single former human trooper.

Reminds me of when I first played Xaser's D2INO map, and was presented at the end with a mega-super-intense boss fight :P

scrolling sp_face. it's always scrolling.

It's kind of a rule at this point... There's no specific reason to make it scrolling I guess but since everyone does it, non-scrolling just feels wrong now. I remember complaining about non-scrolling sp_face in a map made by Archi. I said that it looked unnatural.

Damaging floors with inconsistent damage outputs per type within one level. I personally loathe inconsistent damage outputs of same-looking floors even over multiple levels in the same wad or episode, but that probably doesn't meet the criteria of this thread.

Linguica said:

When EVERY key/weapon/artifact pickup in a level springs a trap. Ugh!! Learn about pacing!!

I am quite fond of giving some key items away for free, after all you worked hard to get there so you should be rewarded.

Dave

It's very predictable in PWADs to put an Archvile in the exit room, sometimes the only one from the level. It does have the potential to catch you off guard, even if it's by now so common to happen.

I thought this thread would have been about a weird trend of modeling a "My House"-style semi-realistic fridge in maps and putting the exit switch inside.

I am disappointed.

I thought it was about keeping cum frozen in a refrigerator, lewinsky-style.

Gez said:

I thought this thread would have been about a weird trend of modeling a "My House"-style semi-realistic fridge in maps and putting the exit switch inside.

I am disappointed.

Secret exit anyone?

scifista42 said:

I thought the design choice (put a monster to block exit room) was good, because it halts the player from skipping fighting monsters right before the exit room too easily. There might be a specially-thought-out final fight (not necessarily a big one, maybe just a cumulated mass of enemies left alive) taking place in front of the exit room, thus the mapper doesn't want to let the player break the climax by skipping it in a matter of seconds. It's a gimmick to make speedrunning harder.

I hadn't considered this. Yeah, now it's pretty clear that it has its uses.

There was this one map. When the player stepped into the exit room, it would throw up a slab, right in their face. Then they would have to search around the level for a way to deal with that. Found a new door, found a new exit, and it does the same thing.
Find a new switch, that makes the original slab retreat.
It that along the lines of what this question is about?

So.. You guys just all magically knew what "Exit-cum-refrigerator" meant? I mean I was expecting a joke thread here about.. fuck knows what.

Anyway, as the OP said, this theme by no means breaks maps or makes them "bad" at all, but I do get tired of the "shotgun, then chaingun, then ssg, then rockets" etc etc weapon progression in SP / Coop maps. I'm not one to talk, as 9 times out of 10 my maps employ the same curve, but it's so tired and overdone and this point that I'll be refraining from doing so as much as possible in the future.

On a related note, fuck all DM maps that have SSG spawns right by SG and CG spawns. This includes many of my older maps. That's the most unfair fucking b00lshit weapon placement, as if spawn camping wasn't headache-inducing enough, lets double layer it with unfair weapon placement! Ugh. In an FFA it's not quite as bad, since you're not targeting one other person only, but it still blows getting spawnkilled 5 times in a row because you started with the shitty chaingun and they already happened to have the SSG.

It's kinda surprising though as many "acclaimed" duel maps employ this unfair weapon placement crap. A lot of them are from the bygone era of mapping - and to be fair, are still fun to play - but the thought of someone being like "Yeah, I whooped his ass in SSL2 and Judas so he sux at DM" just makes me cringe. Maps like that test such a tiny, limited sliver of a person's Doom skill. They absolutely have their place, but I feel these old duel maps "loom" over the competitive scene rather than inspiring it to become something more than it already is. I love what AlexMax has done with Duel32/Duel40, and I love things like ZDDL, as both compilations bring a lot of great maps to the table and go in with the mindset of encouraging players to try new turf.. But for whatever reason, that doesn't happen - Only about 5 or 6 of them are ever actually played competitively. Try to pick a more modern map and the other dude in the server is almost guaranteed to be like "no fuk dat either play judas, ssl or d5m1 or gtfo"

If I don't ever play Judas23 again it'll be too fucking soon! [/instantly hated by all DM players]

Linguica said:

When EVERY key/weapon/artifact pickup in a level springs a trap. Ugh!! Learn about pacing!!

This worked in Quake for a few levels then it got old when it happened every single time throughout the entire game. I can't remember one key in that game that never had teleporting enemies far behind.

I also don't like when maps start throwing in elite tier monsters (anything past Revenant) without giving you a chaingun or SSG bare minimum. It simply isn't fun using the SG to take down 6 Barons.

Linguica said:

When EVERY key/weapon/artifact pickup in a level springs a trap. Ugh!! Learn about pacing!!

...puts down a long line of health potions, and every single one of them opens a trap, each with dozens of revenants. Best map ever...

SavageCorona said:

I also don't like when maps start throwing in elite tier monsters (anything past Revenant) without giving you a chaingun or SSG bare minimum. It simply isn't fun using the SG to take down 6 Barons.

I find this OK when it's clear that the intended strategy was to (temporarily) outrun the high-HP monsters, rather than immediately trying to fight them. That said, I personally don't enjoy maps that are all about running away from monsters. I prefer being led to (or at least able to) come back to them later, with a bigger weapon, and fight them properly.

Doomkid said:

So.. You guys just all magically knew what "Exit-cum-refrigerator" meant? I mean I was expecting a joke thread here about.. fuck knows what.

I trust people's deductive abilities. The second sentence of the OP provides enough context. I will admit to using the X-cum-Y construct specifically because it sounds dirty.

oh, another (response to OP): spectres in pits.

I guess the original intention was to make slime scarier, there are invisible baddies that lurk in these harsh depths!! once the mystique is gone it's mostly just enemies that are tedious to kill, or infinity-tall annoyances.

rdwpa said:

the X-cum-Y construct

I never knew this was a thing. Learn something new every day.

Linguica said:

When EVERY key/weapon/artifact pickup in a level springs a trap. Ugh!! Learn about pacing!!

What if every item in the map triggers a crusher and every sector is a crusher? In order to convey the morality of not being burdened by possessions, so if you don't collect any items you can beat the map once the lesson becomes apparent. Also the textures are slightly misaligned by a pixel, because we are imperfect beings and by pointing it out you're pointing out your own inward imperfections marked upon your soul.

Doomkid said:

It's kinda surprising though as many "acclaimed" duel maps employ this unfair weapon placement crap....Try to pick a more modern map and the other dude in the server is almost guaranteed to be like "no fuk dat either play judas, ssl or d5m1 or gtfo"

If I don't ever play Judas23 again it'll be too fucking soon! [/instantly hated by all DM players]

This is the sort of thing that turned me off from playing DM/Duel. Same old shit, every fucking time. Yawn.