What's your thought about monster pop-up?

There's lots of method to place monsters for ambush such as monster closet, teleportation trap, etc. But the most annoying method for me is monster pop-up(I don't know the exact term for that, sorry.). It's activated by Action 19, Floor lower to highest floor, and it makes monsters to appear so suddenly from the floor without any clues. A fine example will be MAP15 of Sunder, where tons of imps just pop up from the ground. Or MAP32 of Plutonia 2, where three cyberdemons are guarding the gate to the plutonia sign.

At least, monster closet has door opening sound or lift-moving sound. And teleportation trap also has teleportation sound and visual effects. I can take that. But, monster pop-up is just annoying to me, and that's why I never place it to my map. I can take it if monsters "rise" from the ground, and it can be made with Action 119, Floor raise to next higher floor. But tons of monsters just "pop-up" from the ground, that's where I quit the game.

Any opinions about "monster pop-up" will be appreciated, and I'll implement that design if a lot of players take this method for granted.

I don't mind it so much in maps made by others, I guess at this point I simply accepted that people will use it no matter what I say. But I try to never use it myself because it feels like very lazy design to me. I try to avoid monster teleportation too unless it makes some sense. Like if there are teleporter pads in the area then I might spawn some monsters on them, but I won't start spawning monsters in some random corridor with no hint of that happening. That feels lazy too. Monster closets (or even better, doors leading to actual playable areas opening) are pretty much always the most elegant solution to repopulating an area IMO.

I especially dislike when the pop-up monster appears exactly in front of you and you only have one millisecond to step back. Sooooo cheap. Usually it's a hell knight.

antares031 said:

It's activated by Action 19, Floor lower to lowest floor,

It's Floor lower to highest floor - that's how the trick works, causing instant movement upwards. If it was lowest floor, the floor would consider itself its own lowest adjanced floor, and it wouldn't move at all.

antares031 said:

Any opinions about "monster pop-up" will be appreciated, and I'll implement that design if a lot of players take this method for granted.

I don't mind them out of principle. It's OK if the author uses them, and it's OK if he doesn't. In certain types of maps (such as IWAD-styled ones, or very basic ones) they might feel out of place, though.

Assuming their trigger doesn't fail (which occasionally happens due to linedef skip bug), I think they're doing their job well, to ambush the player mid-field by monsters who couldn't be spotted or damaged until that moment. Even the ones with powerful monsters and/or multiple ones can be potentially used well, IMO - it's just one more trick in the roster to challenge player's reflexes and strategical thinking, potentially both with and without preknowledge of the map.

Would you like it if you saw an enemy appear out of thin air without any special effects in a commercial game? I've only seen it in the most rushed half-official Painkiller add-ons, or by being fast enough to see things I'm not supposed to see. That's why I don't like instant pop-ups. Platform sound (when you can hear it) doesn't make the trick much better. I'd rather see the monsters visibly rise from the dirt, or from a liquid, preferably without the platform sounds.

I like pop-ups as long as it's not directly around the player. I enjoy them (and even using this method) when you clear a room but return to it later and you find a new creature or 2 inside based on you collecting the necessary key to progress.

It helps recycle old rooms, keeps the player alert knowing a room is not always perfectly cleared but also allows the player to avoid unfair ambushes if he just doesn't run into rooms carelessly.

Platform sound arguably makes it even worse. Reminds me of when you're running under a 3D bridge and hear these click-clacks which show that the author needs to learn more about Doom editing. I remember ranting about this in the commentary for my 5years.wad Map02 UV-Max demo. I said that they completely ruined the atmosphere.

Let's also not forget their pragmatic advantages. Monster pop-ups have an advantage over monster closets in that they don't require any additional space next to the intended playable area (which may be too compactly designed to leave any space for closets), and they also have an advantage over teleports in that the monsters are not awaken yet (allowing the mapper and even the player to have better control of what happens in the moment when they wake up) and they already stand in their intended spots (on the other hand, teleportation can be blocked).

I used this on my older maps but I've since decided I don't like seeing monsters just pop into view, so now if I have monsters popping up out the ground I use a fast moving rising floor just so there is some suggestion of a mechanism for their appearance.

I still use action 19 a lot, but always where the monsters are out of the player's line of sight when they pop up. It amuses me to have a player walk around a pillar and there are a load of monsters behind it that weren't there moments before.

I heartily support action 19.

I'm not a fan, generally. Instant popups tend to feel hacky and cheesy to me, and really detract from immersion because rather than seeing monsters porting in of their own accord, I'm just seeing the mapper pop up the floor. I guess that's a minor distinction when the result either way is monsters appearing near-instantly out of thin air, but teleporting feels more believable, for whatever that's worth in Doom.

If used sparingly enough so you're actually not expecting it when entering a room, though, a popup trap can make for a good mean jump-scare moment once the player thinks they've gotten a handle on the "rules" of your map's universe. Totally cruel but fun.

(On the other hand, when playing Speed of Doom, there were so many that I eventually started predicting popup traps every time I turned a corner, which took a lot of the novelty and surprise out of the traps IMO.)

Ribbiks said:

I heartily support action 19.

yup

btw, is the raising floor truly instant? Why can I see the monster through the floor when it raises? 19.wad

You can make a non-solid DEHACKED thing that looks like a teleport fog, activated upon seeing the player, with Spawn animation = infinitely looped "TFOG A" with Look codepointer, See animation = standard teleport flash, and See sound = standard teleport sound, and then (in the map editor) place this thing on top of every monster in an illusio pit / pop-up floor. When the floor instantly raises, the teleport thing will make it look like a teleport for the player. :)

EDIT:

TimeOfDeath said:

btw, is the raising floor truly instant? Why can I see the monster through the floor when it raises?

Instant floors are truly instant. It's the monsters that might not update their position within the same tic as the floor moves.

Pretty annoying, I remember running around in a few maps and having enemies pop up close to me when running and gunning then being stumped for a moment while I try to strafe around since they just suddenly popped in my way and all...so yeah it's kinda jarring and annoying :P

I've used them but pretty much only for hiding enemies in areas the player isn't supposed to be in yet so they pop up but you don't see them magically appear when they do.

I just remembered a classic video.

Monsters rising out of the ground always seemed kind of ugly to me. Generally when this is placed in a level it is done so in a way that the floor looks solid in front of you and then the creature simply rises out of it.

From a game play point of view though I don't have much of a problem with it. One of my own maps has something similar where mobs teleport behind you. I don't think such things necessarily need a sound either. It is a very common and reliable trope in doom wads that any time you see a key or a power up then you know mobs are going to spawn in or mob closets are going to open up. In my map I have a blue key that is lowered, the switch that lowers it spawns some monsters for you to fight while its being lowered. This alone to me is a sign that yes, monsters will be teleporting in in these maps. After the key is lowered and you grab it, mobs teleport in right behind you. (though, I may change this up a bit) I consider that the key itself IS the sign that a trap is coming. Though I do still use teleport sounds in this particular trap somewhat as a mercy. I would say this trap announces itself loudly.

What I typically do in later maps though is I use silent teleport traps to repopulate areas. Say you have a main hub somewhere in the map that you have to pass through a few times, I may plop a new monster platoon in there when you do something further away in the map.

I will say though that the only time pop up traps look good, is when the texture they come out of is water. It makes sense that a monster rises out of the water. But when they rise out of a solid or tiled floor, it gets strange.

@memfis, I bet that was rage inducing.

Da Werecat said:

I'd rather see the monsters visibly rise from the dirt, or from a liquid, preferably without the platform sounds.

One of the maps early on in Requiem I think possibly Map04 relied heavily on the pop-up trick but there was one part across a bridge where the cacodemons spot you probably before they were intended to pop up and it looks pretty cool the way they rise out of the lava.

Memfis said:

I just remembered a classic video.

Heh, y'all will always keep reminding me about that, won't you? I have no regrets for what I have done.

Instant pop-ups ftw, will never abandon.

In my mapping I'll do my best to avoid such things. Monster closets and teleport ambushes are aesthetically better.

But for many maps, particularly ones that utilize powerful weapons such as rocket launchers, plasma guns and BFGs, The instant monster popup has gameplay function that no other trap really performs as well. Instant floor raises with monsters works well to give you a shit ton of monsters at once in one particular place without adding to the space the player is allowed to move in.

Without a lot of extra work and 10,000 extra sector tags, teleport ambushes are very incremental at trickling in monsters, and BFGs and rocket launchers can pummel a lot of monsters in a short duration of time. And monster closets or floors lowering to reveal monsters adds a lot of extra space for the player to move in if you can manage to farm the monsters into the point where you came from, and you circle back to where they came from, eventually permitting circle strafing and drastically reducing the difficulty of the encounter. Instant floors however remove that space you once thought you had.

citation:

I had a lot of Speed of Doom and Resurgence maps in mind that utilize this trick abusively. Alternate trap ideas would reduce the difficulty considerably.

Frequently over-used but not inherently bad. I prefer maps where they're just one ingredient among many rather than the map author's sole or primary means of springing an ambush.

My thoughts :

Once a time i was playing a wad someone made for my birthday. I remember going in map02 and walking around, i saw an Spider mastermind pop up And i almost fell of of my chair, scared so hard. then a message popped up saying = YOU GOT SCARED XDD!!! Atleast the spider had the ally value which saved me

It's annoying and scary as fuck.

I personally try to avoid any instance of pop up monsters happening in view of the player, as I find it quite annoying myself when I play. If I do use it, it's usually to hide monsters from view without having to add monster closets or more teleportation systems.

It also has some advantages, as others have mentioned, it allows an entire group to be poised for a fight, rather than them slowly teleporting in or having to walk out of a closet from a single direction.

Of course where possible, non pop up methods are highly preferable to me, either in playing or designing.

Memfis said:

Platform sound arguably makes it even worse. Reminds me of when you're running under a 3D bridge and hear these click-clacks which show that the author needs to learn more about Doom editing.

I've only done this on one single map I've created and I just muted the lift "clunk" sound and it really made it far far better.

I've also of the mind that it's okay rarely, or if they're being used to populate a room you have to backtrack through. I thought it was a cool novelty as a youngster but that "suddenly" video is a prime example of how NOT to use it (the map is wonderful otherwise, by the way.)

I like it. I'm all for a wider variety of ways monsters can be deployed. Sometimes you want more than direct placements, monster closets, and warp-ins. Like anything, it can be overused or used poorly -- but judge the way the tool is used, not the tool itself. :)

One of the lesser-used means of deploying monsters that I like is using distant closets/warp-ins. They can introduce a bit of "Hey, where the hell did that come from?" surprise, because the monsters can path their way to different places in the map on different playthroughs, depending on where the player goes after they get released. I like the idea of releasing them in small numbers at different locations (except when they can fly or when the layout is sufficiently open), so that their pathfinder doesn't get large numbers of them "stuck" in certain places (smaller numbers are tolerable). This might get annoying for speedrunners, however. :)

You could also use Boom invisible floors to simulate monsters falling out of holes in the ceiling when triggered. Lol. Or scrolling floors to send then hurtling into rooms. The idea of it seems silly, but maybe it could work if used right.

riki2321 said:

My thoughts :

Once a time i was playing a wad someone made for my birthday. I remember going in map02 and walking around, i saw an Spider mastermind pop up And i almost fell of of my chair, scared so hard. then a message popped up saying = YOU GOT SCARED XDD!!! Atleast the spider had the ally value which saved me

It's annoying and scary as fuck.

Haha this is great.

When i first read this threads title i thought doomworld had pop-up adds related to monster or something related.

The few wads i have played which contain visual, in your face, monster pop up where usually part of those i stopped playing altogether. Its just a cheap death trap to me.

I used it in one of my maps with Heretic ghost monsters.

I love action 19 ever more, day by day, to make up for the people who don't love it.

I guess I'm guilty of using the instant platform effect... and pseudo 3D bridges... and normal raising platforms... and monsters teleporting in (with or without telepads)... and monster closets. I'm just trying to make things varied, because, hey that's what I thought people want! But I guess, I'm just a lazy mapper.

I dont like monster pop-ups. It looks better to at least teleport them.

I'm currently playing through Memento Mori 2 and damn, the mappers loved this shit. And yeah, a good jump-scare is okay every now and then but when it gets to the point where you see an empty plateau of floor and think "monsters?"; then cross the next linedef and OH HEY LOOK WHO'S HERE... gets a bit tiring.

Memento Mori 2's good regardless though, the rest of the mapping shines. Some other wads, not so lucky.

Making monsters appear out of thin air in your face seems a little cheap.