Doom map tropes you love & hate

What's some stuff that comes up in wads often enough to feel like a trope? Any you particularly like or dislike?

Like: Starting a level surrounded by enemies who all have their backs to you, so you have a moment to rest and figure out the best means of attack

Hate: Getting a weapon directly after when it would have been really useful (eg. getting the SSG as a reward for killing a hell knight or baron)

Like : Crate maze

Hate : Boring arenas with mancubus/arachnotrons for slot 07 in wads using Doom2 iwads.

Like: Horror elements

Hate: Teleporting monster traps next to player especially when playing in high difficulties. I'm looking at you Sigil.

Like: berserk -> demon trap

dislike: chainsaw -> demon trap

13 minutes ago, whirledtsar said:

Like: Starting a level surrounded by enemies who all have their backs to you, so you have a moment to rest and figure out the best means of attack

I love this, as well. 

Like: The pick up a key --> fight ambush trope. On the one hand, this can be seen as predictable, but for me that's the point. I look at keys like I look at Gore Nests in D2016. I know what it means when I see one. I can prepare mentally. I can stop and think, run around and gather supplies, maybe go back and take that other route I skipped first, before unleashing this new horde. It gives me options, and a breather, and I just love it.

Dislike: When a WAD with at least 15 levels (worse for me if it's a full blown 32-map megawad), gives me literally every weapon (except maybe the BFG) within the first 2 levels. I know I may be alone on this, but it just feels disappointing to me, and can go as far as ruining the entire sense of progression. First of all, it forces the author to begin introducing mid and high-tier enemies extremely early to compensate, which not only chips away at the relevance of the low-tier baddies, it basically reduces the impact of high-tier monsters as well. Everyone gets knocked down a peg. More importantly, it almost entirely removes the impact that getting a new gun should have. I love to feel like I'm building an arsenal as I progress through the demon-laden world before me, rather than just being handed everything. If I've struggled against the hordes of Hell for 3 or 4 or 5 levels, I feel like I've actually earned the RL, and I appreciate it so much more. On top of that, better weaponry can actually then be used as high-reward, tough-to-find secrets in the early levels, giving secrets more of an impact as well. 

Like: Attention to detailing and texture alignment.

Dislike: Random texture misalignments or, even worse, intentional misalignments on things like rock textures or natural terrain.

Like: Clean layouts
Hate: 1.When map starts from shootable switch in front of you.
         2.New palettes with desaturated/replaced colours
         3.Ambushes in secret areas.

18 minutes ago, Сhaingunner said:

Hate: 1.When map starts from shootable switch in front of you.

It's a lazy way of making sure some smartass doesn't break your monster teleports.

Like: Weird, quirky, creative, unorthodox stuff

Dislike: Stuff that apes "The Aspiring WAD-Designer's Handbook of objectively™ good design"

Like: Any map that allows me to cream my enemies in a shower of thicc plasma rifle ammo pain.  I do quite enjoy maps that give me a good amount of health and ammo so I don't have to panic about my resources.

Dislike: Forced damage floors. They're annoying and pointless.

Tropes that I like:

• When you can see or find the exit relatively early in the map, but it's locked, or it's on the other side of a pit or chasm, or it's on an elevated level that you can't reach, and so you have to spend the rest of the map going around trying to gain access to it.
  
• Optional content.  Rooms that you don't have to visit, encounters that you don't have to overcome, even keys that you don't have to pick up and doors that you don't have to unlock.
  
• One-way local transitions.  Doors that lock behind you until later in the map, ledges or platforms from which you have to jump down in order to progress, without the ability to immediately scramble back to safety.  Structures that compel the player to commit and to decisively abandon safe and familiar territory, for a while.
  
• Monsters in secret areas.  Secret areas in monster closets.
  
• Information flow.  Windows and outdoor areas aren't just scenery, they're great tools for showing the player how different parts of the map fit together.  Colour-coded doors aren't just obstacles, they're instructions that tell the player where they can go next or where they ought to go back to once they've achieved another objective (retrieving the matching key).
  
• Revisiting areas and re-using spaces.  Traversing a ledge or platform that looks down onto an area the player had a memorable encounter in five minutes earlier is something I find more interesting than heading along a corridor that skirts around that area but doesn't connect to it.  I like it when safe and familiar territory changes to become unsafe and unfamiliar when the path of progression loops back toward it.
  
• Shortcuts.  Your player has overcome a sequence of obstacles, and there isn't necessarily much value to be added in making the player go through the motions of those obstacles again; lowering a barrier, raising a set of stairs, revealing a teleporter, or just making sure there's an appropriately colour-coded door nearby can get the player back into new and engaging content more quickly.

9 minutes ago, AD_79 said:

Dislike: posting what I dislike. There's too much emphasis on that kind of thing nowadays, and I simply don't see the point in it anymore. It's draining and quite frankly annoying. Can we post more about what we like in general, instead of complaining please? Let's get some more positivity going on this site, yeah?

Dislike: Symmetrical rooms with symmetrical enemy placement, so once you enter through one door you already know exactly what awaits you near the other door.

Annoying: Realistic levels where the monster placement imitates the positioning of real-life people using the building. E.g. imps in bathroom stalls, offices with monsters sitting in cubicles, manager's office which has a mid/high-tier monster behind the desk. I suppose it makes sense if they're zombified people, but it makes no sense for e.g. demons (in Doom), evil cultists (in Blood), and other such creatures.

11 minutes ago, JudgeDeadd said:

Annoying: Realistic levels where the monster placement imitates the positioning of real-life people using the building. E.g. imps in bathroom stalls, offices with monsters sitting in cubicles, manager's office which has a mid/high-tier monster behind the desk. I suppose it makes sense if they're zombified people, but it makes no sense for e.g. demons (in Doom), evil cultists (in Blood), and other such creatures.

What levels are these?

I just here to say that forced damage floors are stupid, pointless, and can even softlock you, I would rather have it so you can avoid the floors, like a platforming section or some type of challenge, and not just a floor that forces you to take damage. And they can softlock you because if there is a floor that you must go across and you must take some damage to get across. What if you use all the health packs before you get to that section and you save? Then you will have to restart the level over again because its impossible to get across, because you will die from the damage you take.

while i sorta understand the frustration of forced damage floors softlocking, you can "effectively" softlock yourself if you use all the health packs even with no forced damage floors. after all, there's still monsters to contend with, and while in theory "perfect play" in these action games lets you avoid all damage, lets be honest, if you just absorbed every health pack, are you really going to be able to play perfectly against all monster encounters between you and more health?

@Sir Hattington That sounds like a textbook example of why you use several save slots so that you don't end up in that situation.

1 hour ago, TheOrganGrinder said:

Tropes that I like:

 

• [snipped a lot of what I would have said also]

 

Seems like you're talking about my upcoming map-set. :)

1 hour ago, AD_79 said:

-Forced damage floors. They're a good source of tension and force players to move quickly, as well as forcing them out of their comfort zone. It's something I think a lot of people need.

What if the player has just 10 health, and traversing the forced damage floor will take that much? Without the forced damage they could've possibly recovered from the brink of death with good play. With it, they're softlocked. That's the issue. And such a thing has happened to me before.

1 minute ago, whirledtsar said:

What if the player has just 10 health

then the player played poorly prior to the hurt floor segment and didn't deserve to survive. Simple.

2 hours ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

Dislike: Stuff that apes

Read that as "stuff that has apes" :O

On Topic:
I like maps with a lot of monsters where you kill them in big groups (Taking on a horde of imps witha rocket launcher and stuff like that)
I dislike long maps with tons of monsters where you slowly fight them of and they only appar in small groups or as one or two beefy monsters

 

Just now, Nine Inch Heels said:

then the player played poorly prior to the hurt floor segment and didn't deserve to survive. Simple.

Intentionally softlocking the player is never okay, if they are not dead then they should still be able to progress.

Just now, Sir Hattington said:

Intentionally softlocking the player is never okay, if they are not dead then they should still be able to progress.

I don't care what you think is okay, and I never intentionally softlock players anyway, because playtesting exists. So, if I can beat a map just fine, and somebody else gets softlocked because they didn't play properly, that's not my problem.

Just now, Nine Inch Heels said:

I don't care what you think is okay, and I never intentionally softlock players anyway, because playtesting exists. So, if I can beat a map just fine, and somebody else gets softlocked because they didn't play properly, that's not my problem.

You should always think of the people who play your map and not yourself, when you are playing the map you will do things better than most people because you made the map and you know were everything is and how everything works.

Just now, Sir Hattington said:

You should always think of the people who play your map and not yourself, when you are playing the map you will do things better than most people because you made the map and you know were everything is and how everything works.

Thank you for reminding me why I hate discussing my approach to mapping with randos on the internet. Again: I don't care what you want. I make maps primarily for myself, they contain what I want to find in a map, I add difficulty settings if I feel like it, and if I share a map then you can take it or leave it for all I care.

5 minutes ago, Sir Hattington said:

You should always think of the people who play your map and not yourself, when you are playing the map you will do things better than most people because you made the map and you know were everything is and how everything works.

Absolutes always have exceptions. Some maps cater to players who often end up knowing more about the map than the author. A well-known set Sunlust is a great example of this. In such cases, maps are judged more by the depth they offer with deep knowledge, and the process of acquiring it, than how they play 'fresh'. 

44 minutes ago, Sir Hattington said:

I just here to say that forced damage floors are stupid, pointless, and can even softlock you, I would rather have it so you can avoid the floors, like a platforming section or some type of challenge, and not just a floor that forces you to take damage. And they can softlock you because if there is a floor that you must go across and you must take some damage to get across. What if you use all the health packs before you get to that section and you save? Then you will have to restart the level over again because its impossible to get across, because you will die from the damage you take.

The problem I have with this argument is, you could softlock yourself like this in a lot of different ways, none of which would be the mappers fault (in my opinion). It would be like saving with 1% HP, in a wide open area with a Chaingunner up in a window somewhere, and there's no way of killing him before he kills you. It's like, well, you effed yourself. You can restart the level, or you can sneeze and type iddqd by accident. 

I think this whole concept is polarizing to begin with, anyways. It's like Dark Souls. Until you know what lies ahead, you're going to die learning. This is part of the challenge, and the fun. You run into that sort of thing all the time in survival horror games as well. But I think a lot of players today don't like games where you have to learn the hard way; where levels demand a learning curve, as much as the game mechanics do. Just my two cents, though.

Just now, RonnieJamesDiner said:

 

The problem I have with this argument is, you could softlock yourself like this in a lot of different ways, none of which would be the mappers fault (in my opinion). It would be like saving with 1% HP, in a wide open area with a Chaingunner up in a window somewhere, and there's no way of killing him before he kills you. It's like, well, you effed yourself. You can restart the level, or you can sneeze and type iddqd by accident. 

 

I think this whole concept is polarizing to begin with, anyways. It's like Dark Souls. Until you know what lies ahead, you're going to die learning. This is part of the challenge, and the fun. You run into that sort of thing all the time in survival horror games as well. But I think a lot of players today don't like games where you have to learn the hard way; where levels demand a learning curve, as much as the game mechanics do. Just my two cents, though.

That's fair, but as I said you can put some type of way to get around the damaging floor, like a challenging platforming section with some lost souls, there are many softlocks that can occur in doom but this one is arguably one of the more common ones, excluding the chaingunner example, witch I don't have anything to add on to besides that hitscanners in open areas are busted.

When i get into a soflock situation i cheat :D