Reverie Map28 deep water

These poor barons seem to be unable to attack me when I'm in water, is that how it's supposed to work? I decided to spare them out of pity.

I guess Valkiri didn't use the proper nodebuilder settings, or it IS intentional and just a joke or something.

I remember that I read in a thread some time ago where someone explained that the monsters with certain nodebuilders can't target the player if he's standing in self referecing sector, or something like that.

Hm, a map as old as MM MAP09 has the same thing. I thought it was kind of a normal concession.

gaspe said:

I remember that I read in a thread some time ago where someone explained that the monsters with certain nodebuilders can't target the player if he's standing in self referecing sector, or something like that.

Precisely, some nodebuilders are not properly programmed to handle self-referencing sectors, they will evaluate them as "unseeable" from any other sectors, and build a REJECT lump that will effectively make them actually "unseeable" in the game (it means that any line-of-sight checks with other sectors will be automatically aborted, considered to be always false).

Okay, this is just crazy. I've looked at a bunch of Reverie levels in the editor and it seems like there are no "block sound" lines at all in the wad! ZERO. And yet it plays so well... I don't know what to think anymore, it's like everything I've been ever taught about mapping is wrong.

Maps in general don't use much "block sound" or at all, so don't get excited.

I use it all the time, in like almost every major area of my maps... I feel like I need to sit in a corner a little, reevaluate my life choices, look at the trees in silence, things like that.

Who in the world taught you to use those all the time?

Block sound lines are very important to open maps as well as maps that feature windows and/or sound-operated traps. Never mind that it's important to have sound-triggers for conveyor traps as a back-up in case the destination is blocked. Don't want that trigger going off early, heh.

They ultimately control the flow of a map in very important ways, is what it all comes down to.

Fonze said:

Don't want that trigger going off early, heh.

They ultimately control the flow of a map in very important ways, is what it all comes down to.

That's exactly it, especially when there's an area that can be attacked from 3 or so different routes, there's no point in going through the trouble of connecting the layout in such a way when either way it plays out as a zombie mosh pit.

Just set the enemies deaf and you're good to go.

Block sound lines are important. It doesn't take that much effort to use them, and they give you far more control over how monsters will behave in your map than just flagging every enemy as deaf.

This is a great article worth reading.

Linguica said:

SOUND PROPAGATION

...

I agree it's important to know how sound works, but imo sound blocking lines aren't that important. You can make a perfectly good map without using any. They're permanent, unlike opening a sector to let sound through at a later time. And they give players the opportunity to abuse your scenarios by standing behind sound blocking lines or holding their fire.

I think it depends on the mapper, some use them more than others, and either method will work. I only use them sparingly and sometimes not at all. I actually use them more often as a way to highlight block monster lines in blue in the editor (while making sure they don't interfere with sound propagation).

That's a good point TimeOfDeath; you don't need any to make a good or even great map. It's situational, for sure. But blanket-deafening tons of monsters isn't the way. Players should never be able to abuse sound-blocking lines; that means they were implemented incorrectly. That's the reason why it takes 2 lines to fully block a sound.

Of course without GZDB, most of us have to use our brains to figure out where sound will go, which leads to human error, which is a shame. But it's not hard to figure out and newer programs like GZDB give tools to help take a good chunk of the brain-work out of it.

Personally, I like using them so that when a player enters an area, they have a bit to sneak/look around before schtuff hits the proverbial fan. Also I find them incredibly useful for many trap set-ups, even just as a back-up.

I don't think I've ever used a sound block line in my life, I don't really see the point in them.

it really depends on your design style. some mappers are better at funneling the enemies into specific areas and therefore don't need to use soundblocking lines as much. ultimately it doesn't really matter as long as the map is fun to play, and unlike most mapping things it's invisible so if you screw up it's pretty unlikely most people will notice