will there eventually be good snapmaps?

I only spent a few minutes with snapmap to see what it was like, and found the interface to be super confusing for a console controller.

Ive played a few snapmap levels already and found them to be pretty dreadful. Mostly empty warehouses and shooting galleries. Assuming some people really take the time to learn the ins and outs of the editor and spend a lot of hours with their snapmaps, do you think there's much room for innovation? Do you think in a few months from now well have some really good user created maps?

If 1994 wads are anything to go by, I think we have a year or two before we actually get to play some good stuff.

There's been some decent maps posted on this subforum, have you tried any of those yet?

I agree with you though, anyone and everyone who bought the game has access to snapmap and not everyone has the creative capacity to make something worth playing. There's been some cool stuff so far, but it's few and far between. Right now I think we have to wait a month or two until more worthwhile content appears, because the game just came out so not only is everybody still learning how to use it, but everyone also has to give it a try.

The problem is anything worth playing takes a lot of work and a lot of time to create. I've been working o mine for 20 hours, and it's only about halfway done. Testing and fixing bugs is a big time sink. Managing the resource limit is also a big caveat.
This first week most players spent learning the snapmap editor and making some simple maps, but I expect to see some good campaign quality maps in the next few weeks.
Just give it some time it's not as easy as you think.

I've only played a handful of maps, they're alright for the most part. But I've already seen the same room twice for instance, doesn't bode well.

Use3D said:

I've only played a handful of maps, they're alright for the most part. But I've already seen the same room twice for instance, doesn't bode well.

It gives me this weird feeling anytime I walk into a room I've already used in one of my own maps, as if my work has been stolen or ripped off, but I never even created the room in the first place. Unfortunately this problem will always exist, no matter how much you alter the prop placement and other stuff.

My best guess is what we got with launch is basically snap map light. And with some time little more variety will be released when it gives us more options with extra content DLC. I just today finished the tutorials basic and advanced. I would like to get the achievement for publishing a snap map but I don't want to make a piece of trash. I have not published to doom map since jditxe. So no guarantees you might get a piece of trash maP. But hopefully it won't be a bug ridden mess like I've been seeing a lot of lately.

julz_d said:

My best guess is what we got with launch is basically snap map light. And with some time little more variety will be released when it gives us more options with extra content DLC.

I really do hope this is the case. They've got a system set up where they can certainly add a ton of extra content, so let's hope they take advantage of it.

I've got my fingers crossed for large, open rooms and general-purpose stair/catwalk objects, myself. Maybe a pipe dream at this point. :P

There certainly are alot of crap maps. But i feel confident that there will be much better to come. I am currently working on one that i have sunk all my time into and it's only 3rd of the way through. Good maps take time, creativity and an attention to detail.

To answer the question:

That 12 demon limit gives some great slaughtermap potential. I bet the reason Slaughterfest 3 isn't done yet is because the team is secretly making it in SnapMap.

That went beyond my expectations :P, This is very limited .

I'm working hard on some now. I'v still alot of learning to do, I'v got alot of the aesthetics down just figuring out some of this scripting stuff. I'll show you when I get a chance.

Xaser said:

I've got my fingers crossed for large, open rooms and general-purpose stair/catwalk objects, myself. Maybe a pipe dream at this point. :P

From what ive played it seemed like many of the rooms are very large as it is, which made for a lack of intimate monster encounters and trivialized the gameplay in most areas. If that 12 monster limit is true (that cant be right. Does that mean 12 living monsters? As in you can spawn more to replace the killed ones?) you're going to get some barren empty warehouses that you'll spend hours figuring out how to populate. I haven't seen what you're making though so I could be wrong in context.

I do agree however that there ought to be some kinda "build your own catwalk" thing because there's a ton of platforming and catwalks and fun stuff in the campaign and in the snap maps I played i found it pretty alarming that there's pretty much nothing to climb on besides the occasional crate. Having the ability to plant bridges and hanging platforms and stuff in your map can make some fun obstacle courses to figure out.

If you want your own module, load up the Observation and start placing Player Blocking Blocks according to your own design.

Why is this question being asked less than two weeks after the game's release?

Your maps look pretty cool ventedpennies. Will have to try them out.

40oz said:

From what ive played it seemed like many of the rooms are very large as it is, which made for a lack of intimate monster encounters and trivialized the gameplay in most areas. If that 12 monster limit is true (that cant be right. Does that mean 12 living monsters? As in you can spawn more to replace the killed ones?)

Yes, it's twelve monsters at a time. The real limit is 64 monsters.

That's how the Doom 4 version of 100000 Revenants has 64 revenants in total, of which you'll only face up to 12 at a time.

I've heard you can work around that limit by using generators, which don't count as monsters so you can have more than 64 generators in a map, but I don't know if it does something for the 12-at-once limit. And I can't check anything since I don't have the game, and even if I had it I couldn't run it on my PC anyway.

Gez said:

To answer the question:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ss8SyOhqk1I

No, there won't.

Ha ha ha ha! Yep!

Gez said:

Yes, it's twelve monsters at a time. The real limit is 64 monsters.

That's how the Doom 4 version of 100000 Revenants has 64 revenants in total, of which you'll only face up to 12 at a time.

I've heard you can work around that limit by using generators, which don't count as monsters so you can have more than 64 generators in a map, but I don't know if it does something for the 12-at-once limit. And I can't check anything since I don't have the game, and even if I had it I couldn't run it on my PC anyway.

Actually different monsters use up differing amounts of "space", so an Imp will use less percentage of the "Demons" limit than a Baron would. But yeah using spawners completely bypasses all of that. There is still the 12-live-monsters-at-a-time limit, but if you overload that with spawners it will queue them up, so as soon as one dies, another comes in to replace it. Which is actually a pretty good way of making nice long fights like you get in the campaign. Roll up 30 or 40 enemies from a handful of spawners and they'll keep rocking in for a couple of minutes.

12 active monsters at a time is actually more then enough. Even in big spaces, if all of them are -fighting- you, you won't be thinking "so few monsters". You'll be fighting and having fun.

The real "issue" here is that its actually pretty hard to create fully custom encounters. This is why a lot of snapmap maps feel either barren, or they have waves that take way too long and are boring. And quite frankly, most of them are broken. Its a rare exception I can actually finish a snapmap.

The reason its pretty hard to create good custom encounters is two fold.

One there is the, -ridiculous-, difference between spawners and actual monsters. The 64 monster limit is based on placing actual monsters. The asinine thing here is that hidden monsters count towards this limit as well. A hidden monster that you spawn in is practically equal to a spawner with the following differences:

Spawner:
- You cannot set AI type (default, hunt, ambush, defend) which sucks hardcore
- You can set monsters to spawn in silently (which is awesome)
- It does not count towards total monster limit (i.e. the snapmap percentage)!
- It is slow to spawn in even when set to silent spawn (yes even in an empty map to test)

Monster
- You can set AI type which is awesome (no really, you people should play with it)
- You cannot set monsters to spawn in silently (what the actual fuck?!)
- It does count towards total monster limit even when the monster is hidden (what the actual fuck)
- It is faster to spawn in when triggered then a spawn object

Now combine this with all the hand work you have to do to create "lockdowns" that span multiple modules and properly count monsters and you end up with all the bugged snapmaps, the barren snapmaps, or the -yawwn- another eternal waves snapmap.

I also agree with redrage. At first the 12 active monsters sounded terrible to me (on paper), but in real gameplay it's actually more then enough when you design room battles even for large arenas. It's not 12 in total but 12 at a time which is a big difference. A single room can easily have 30-40 demons which can be queued dynamically (just add input delay on their spawn) and will prove to be a large challenge to defeat (even too hard if you go crazy).

I hand place each enemy with single demon spawner on all of my maps which are triggered by module entry and controlled by integer counter / lockdown system. I wish I could use the AI types like hunt, defend, ambush etc... but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to go with for having unlimited demons, and bug free demon spawns.

Another small annoyance with single demon spawner is that you cannot place them in the air. Why would you do that? Cacodemons and lost souls. I found a workaround for this by adding a small 'on demon spawned' 'teleport to' and then a teleport marker in the sky. In the chaos of battle most players will never even notice that the caco bro just warped to the sky, it looks like it appeared there.

I think SnapMap as a tool is good enough to create awesome maps. The real damage is being done by all the poor quality low effort maps being published and getting to the top played / top rated brackets. It's simple... a good map takes 50-100 hours of hard work... by the time the first ones were about to see the light of day, no effort maps were already having thousands of likes.

The biggest fix SnapMap needs is some sort of a hot maps section with this week best liked maps instead of overall 'most likes' or 'most played'.

xTWx PREDATOR X said:

Your maps look pretty cool ventedpennies. Will have to try them out.

Thanks! Please do and let me know what you think.

Brevi said:

I think SnapMap as a tool is good enough to create awesome maps. The real damage is being done by all the poor quality low effort maps being published and getting to the top played / top rated brackets. It's simple... a good map takes 50-100 hours of hard work... by the time the first ones were about to see the light of day, no effort maps were already having thousands of likes.

The biggest fix SnapMap needs is some sort of a hot maps section with this week best liked maps instead of overall 'most likes' or 'most played'.

This so very much. There is also the horrible sorting on alphabet and name length (what an oversight jfc) and the fact that you really can't apply sorting or filtering of your own when your searching. I would prefer extensive filtering and sorting options over "promoted" maps. Remember promoted maps have to be picked by someone.

It is really sad but I think the only way to get your map to be played is by exhaustive social media spamming with a direct code. I.e. get your map featured on some "popular" youtuber blog or on the website of some famous doom blogger.

This means that for most of us all our maps will be played by will be the people in the community we are apart of (like doomworld) and not by anyone "outside". The snapmap sea itself is just too full of junk and spam for the good maps to be noticed.

BDNJMD6R - E2M3 Refinery Remake.

Even with these limits, you can still have moderately sized maps with decent enemy counts. Here's how:

- keep ALL limits under 50%.
- utilize one if the AI conductors, near memory free.
- place only boss monsters or specific mid or big tier guys, including invisibles. These take up the biggest %'s. Lost souls however take up less memory.
- set up 'wave' encounters, does not use much memory or demon % either.

So only the manually placed monsters will use up 'object' and 'demon' percentages noticably, the others don't. The other functions need all your limits to be under 50%, however, to work 100%. Attesting us a snap (heh) once you understand these limits and how to work around them.

Miss Bubbles said:

It gives me this weird feeling anytime I walk into a room I've already used in one of my own maps, as if my work has been stolen or ripped off, but I never even created the room in the first place.

You just perfectly summed up how I feel in those situations. It really is a bizarre feeling.

redrage said:

This so very much. There is also the horrible sorting on alphabet and name length (what an oversight jfc) and the fact that you really can't apply sorting or filtering of your own when your searching. I would prefer extensive filtering and sorting options over "promoted" maps. Remember promoted maps have to be picked by someone.

It is really sad but I think the only way to get your map to be played is by exhaustive social media spamming with a direct code. I.e. get your map featured on some "popular" youtuber blog or on the website of some famous doom blogger.

This means that for most of us all our maps will be played by will be the people in the community we are apart of (like doomworld) and not by anyone "outside". The snapmap sea itself is just too full of junk and spam for the good maps to be noticed.

Agreed 100%. It's Mario Maker all over again.

GoatLord said:

Why is this question being asked less than two weeks after the game's release?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to cynical. I got doom for ps4 and I'm not really thrilled about making levels using a controller in front of my tv screen. I haven't played with the editor much but from what i've heard, the response to snapmap has been mostly pessimistic. I was asking for people who have already gotten deep into snapmap to enlighten me. Is snapmap only bad on the surface? Is there a lot of potential with it if you take the time to work on it?

12 monster limit is not enough for fodder enemies. 12 barons? That would be too much imo - I think it would off been better too have a "Food Cap" or something.

Monsters spawning seems too be very bugged. If you hit the limit you can break triggers and therefore your map. Spawned monsters also seem too disappear if you ignore them which again will break your map. It would be better if the monsters could at least still spawn after you clear that threshold and have an option too never allow them to despawn.

Not sure what the effects of the monster conductor has on these limits but I do know that conductor spawns also disappear if you run far enough away from them.

My experience has been to never use the AI conductor, to always use controlled spawns from the spawners, and use the monsters themselves for only very specific functions.

There are some pretty good SnapMaps on SnapMap Hub.