My first doom map: Looking for feedback for future projects :)

I decided to try making a map and this is what I came up with. UAC facility kinda thing featuring a hellish area. It's a short and simple map, but I wanted to try and focus on getting a little bit done right rather than a lot done poorly. Built with Doom Builder 2, and tested with GZDoom, because DB2 and PRBoom+ didn't like talking to each other for some reason. That said, I tried to make it Boom compatible and I had no issues getting it running in PRBoom+, outside of the DB2 testing mode. I used cc4-tex.wad for textures, so credit to the authors of that lovely texture pack.

I tried to make it challenging for myself on UV, but I'm not that great a player so I'm sure some of you will breeze through this. If you find it too hard on UV, there is full difficulty implementation and I even went as far as to take coop into account. Most of this map was just a means to familiarise myself with the tools of map making, but I want to hear what you guys think. Is the look good, difficulty settings balanced well, monster placement okay? Any feedback I get for this map I want to take into future attempts at mapping.

Map is unnamed at the moment, but I plan on making a set of maps and I'll include this with them, hopefully with a name by then. Still getting the hang of this, so I hope I did everything right and the map plays on your end.

olio.zip

Screenshots:

Edits:

- messed up the screenshots
- reuploaded with the switch fix, ketmar pointed out, plus a little info.txt which includes credits, map maker/source ports used and a little blurb by me.

- reuploaded with the other switch fix. Pretty sure I got them all now -_-

ok, good things first: you did a nice work with lighting, congrats! first three rooms are still simple squares, but lighting makes them much better looking. the player also have cover in those rooms, which is a good thing too.

now, to the part i love most: things to improve! ;-)

height variations! even simple-shaped rooms can be made more interesting to play by introducing several enemy planes. like, make bigger room, put some monsters into the raised alcoves on the sides, and now the player is forced to think in three dimensions. usually, when we're talking about "height variations" here, it means "introduce more playing heights (filled with enemies)".

doors. they're looking better when put into small alcoves. when some wall texture is simply changes to a door texture, it looks... unnatural. in most maps you'll see that the doors are pushed slightly deeper into the wall -- it looks much better this way.

switch that opens the wall before fake exit to hell part is one-time. i pressed it, then got back to take some ammo from bodies, and oops! i'm stuck. had to noclip there.

enemies. they are too many of the same type, and it turns boring quite fast. managing hordes of enemies is hard (for the mapper), because you cannot simply drop alot of different monsters and hope for the best -- they'll start infighting quite soon. your hell geometry is simple, and monsters are too many. it is not really hard, it fells more like grinding.

also, was it really necessary to put the whole cc4tex into your wad? (and without credits, btw) i guess that you just forgot to clean it up after some experiments, but still...

overall, a good start. with some enemy balancing and small geometry upgrades this can be a good small opening map. trick with fake exit button is fun too, i had my "oh shit, NOW it will go REALLY bad!" moment.

hope that helps.

First of all, congratulations on your first level. Be proud of your first step.

I liked the atmosphere of the first area. The lighting is put to good use. If it was my map, I would add an outdoor area, even if it's just a window looking out.

I would also second ketmar's comment: bring some verticality to your next map, or better yet, modify this one and make it an improved experience. Also, those rectangular hallways between rooms feel so Wolf3d! Spice it up, use some winding halls. Interesting architecture beats perfect texture alignment every day.

Anyway, I had fun playing your map. Keep it up :)

Thanks for the feedback!

I can't believe I messed up that switch tag... >:(

And no, if you say it's not necessary to put the whole of cc4tex into my wad, then I'm gonna guess you are right. To get access to the textures I blindly followed this tutorial, which copies all of the textures into your wad's resources. I take it that it's polite to remove any textures not used. I'll look into how to do that. And I did credit the cc4tex authors in my OP. Or are you refering to something else?

As for monster placement, I guess I'll just have to continue messing around/playing other wads to try and strike a nicer balance. Seems like something that only comes with experience.

Thanks again for the response. I'll go fix that switch now and try and clean up the excess textures.

Edit: DavitosanX, you snuck you comment in just as I posted this one. Thanks for playing and leaving a feedback. I'm not going to stick with the squares and rectangles, but a lot of making this map was just a way for me to learn how to make maps. When I started, I never expected to be posting what I was mucking around with online. But as I kept adding things and learning more features, I ended up getting quite attached to the square little guy.

Any future maps I do will be more complex and I'll see what I can do to 'enhance' this one; I'm too sentimentally attached to change it significantly now. :P

30 minutes ago, olio said:

And I did credit the cc4tex authors in my OP. Or are you refering to something else?

oh, i'm so sorry! i somehow completely missed that part of the OP. ;-) still, it would be good to put "credits.txt" into the archive too, because this is what most people have, and after some time it may look like a credit-less rip.

30 minutes ago, olio said:

As for monster placement, I guess I'll just have to continue messing around/playing other wads to try and strike a nicer balance. Seems like something that only comes with experience.

yeah, absolutely! enemy placement in this map is far from being bad (and teleporting monsters are good! ;-). also, some people say that orchestrating good fights is a hardest part of map making, and i believe that they're right. and there will always be other people who don't like your fights whatever you'll do. ;-) here's a good tutorial on monster placement, btw:

Cool, I'll check that monster placement topic out.

Thanks for the input again, I fixed that switch, removed the unused textures and added a txt document with the upload. Now that I have a basic grasp of the fundamentals, I plan on being more detail attentive which will include closer attention to texture transistions, and much more experimentation with geometry, both 2D and "3D".

Did a playthrough of your map.

For a first wad it's not too bad. 

A few points: I presume I'm not meant to trigger that trap by "Opening" the walls - It's meant to happen when the switch gets flipped?

Monster usage was a little varied. Lots of shotgunners makes balancing the ammo a little difficult - I ended up with full shotgun shells, which I only used because I like completion and used it on the Barons. Barons are also hard to use well - I could have skipped them entirely.

Still, I enjoyed the map and hope to see more.

Thanks so much for the play through! I never expected someone to take the time to record playing my map. :3

Yes, you are correct, that wall isn't meant to open like that. It's a remnant from when I didn't fully understand how to tag switches and effects properly. Once I figured out what I was doing wrong I tried to go through and change them all, but evidently missed a few.

Those barons at the end do drag on too long (although you missed one box of rockets, hidden away to help with that) and at one point I think 2 or 3 of them were hell knights. Then once I started doing difficulty balancing, I struggled to think of a way to differentiate HMP from UV, so I kinda cheaped out and made them all barons. Watching you shotgun them all for so long definitely makes me regret not thinking of another solution. Even if you had found the extra 5 rockets, I think that fight would have dragged on too long.

Glad you enjoyed and the comments have definitely motivated me to make more maps, when I get some more free time.

49 minutes ago, olio said:

Thanks so much for the play through! I never expected someone to take the time to record playing my map. :3

 

Yes, you are correct, that wall isn't meant to open like that. It's a remnant from when I didn't fully understand how to tag switches and effects properly. Once I figured out what I was doing wrong I tried to go through and change them all, but evidently missed a few.

Those barons at the end do drag on too long (although you missed one box of rockets, hidden away to help with that) and at one point I think 2 or 3 of them were hell knights. Then once I started doing difficulty balancing, I struggled to think of a way to differentiate HMP from UV, so I kinda cheaped out and made them all barons. Watching you shotgun them all for so long definitely makes me regret not thinking of another solution. Even if you had found the extra 5 rockets, I think that fight would have dragged on too long.

Glad you enjoyed and the comments have definitely motivated me to make more maps, when I get some more free time.

No problem to play through - I like single map wads because it's not too much of a time investment to do it - Working full time has it's advantages and disadvantages. I particularly like doing it for new mappers (I'm one too) because it gives you a different perspective on how the map plays.

When you play your own map, you already know intimately how it works and you always unconsciously make the best choices (Positioning, resource management). Seeing how someone else plays helps with getting out of that mindset.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/466810679

I play this at 43:46 into this playtest livestream.

Thanks a lot buddy. I'm happy people are actually playing this thing.  Working on a second map now that should be much better and more fleshed out. 

If anyone in here is interested, I posted a new map in this thread and will hopefully be posting more maps in that thread in the future.

This map was... interesting. I liked how you just wouldn't go to the next room, but instead used a hallway to go to the next room. People will tell you to, like, not use rectangular and square rooms when making tech-bases, but I suggest you exactly square rooms, as they make more sense. Human-made structures tend to be regular-shaped, so anyone who tells you "no rectangular rooms" is actually wrong, since it makes more sense to use them. The designs were pretty good for a first map. The transition between the exit and hell was pretty interesting, kinda like a trap. It didn't pose a big challenge, but the big monster ambushes really were kinda overwhelming. It was a good starter map. I wonder how long it took you to make this map. 

This first map from never having used doom mapping programs to what you played, about 2-3 days. My second map posted in the above thread took me a bit over 3 weeks.

Thanks for playing and thanks for the feedback!

2 minutes ago, Elio Nako said:

This map was... interesting. I liked how you just wouldn't go to the next room, but instead used a hallway to go to the next room. People will tell you to, like, not use rectangular and square rooms when making tech-bases, but I suggest you exactly square rooms, as they make more sense. Human-made structures tend to be regular-shaped, so anyone who tells you "no rectangular rooms" is actually wrong, since it makes more sense to use them.

This quoted portion is very messy, in terms of its logic -- and also recalls a certain infamous design guide shared here a few years back. 

What makes 'sense' in the real world is relevant if you want real-world realism, but not otherwise. A lot of aesthetics don't aim for that, which is perfectly fine. So as a broad piece of advice, this doesn't work. 

Anyone who would literally say 'no rectangular rooms' is wrong for entirely different reasons. Even the wackiest 'anglers' -- Mechadon, an_mutt, etc. -- use them from time to time. Summary: dogma is bad.

13 minutes ago, rdwpa said:

 

This quoted portion is very messy, in terms of its logic -- and also recalls a certain infamous design guide shared here a few years back. 

 

What makes 'sense' in the real world is relevant if you want real-world realism, but not otherwise. A lot of aesthetics don't aim for that, which is perfectly fine. So as a broad piece of advice, this doesn't work. 

Anyone who would literally say 'no rectangular rooms' is wrong for entirely different reasons. Even the wackiest 'anglers' -- Mechadon, an_mutt, etc. -- use them from time to time. Summary: dogma is bad.

I'm not the one who asked for feedback, thank you. Gosh, you get notifications that just aren't where you hoped they were.

In this map, I went with rectangles and squares because they were the first rooms I had ever built and those shapes were simple. I don't see any reason to avoid them altogether, but it would get a bit stale gameplay wise, using them exclusively.

1 hour ago, Elio Nako said:

This map was... interesting. I liked how you just wouldn't go to the next room, but instead used a hallway to go to the next room. People will tell you to, like, not use rectangular and square rooms when making tech-bases, but I suggest you exactly square rooms, as they make more sense. Human-made structures tend to be regular-shaped, so anyone who tells you "no rectangular rooms" is actually wrong, since it makes more sense to use them. The designs were pretty good for a first map. The transition between the exit and hell was pretty interesting, kinda like a trap. It didn't pose a big challenge, but the big monster ambushes really were kinda overwhelming. It was a good starter map. I wonder how long it took you to make this map. 

1 hour ago, rdwpa said:

 

This quoted portion is very messy, in terms of its logic -- and also recalls a certain infamous design guide shared here a few years back. 

 

What makes 'sense' in the real world is relevant if you want real-world realism, but not otherwise. A lot of aesthetics don't aim for that, which is perfectly fine. So as a broad piece of advice, this doesn't work. 

Anyone who would literally say 'no rectangular rooms' is wrong for entirely different reasons. Even the wackiest 'anglers' -- Mechadon, an_mutt, etc. -- use them from time to time. Summary: dogma is bad.

You're both right.

Maps tend to look/feel better with more interesting geometry, but squares/rectangles aren't necessarily uninteresting. 

most rectangles can be made unrecognizable (as rectangles) with details. cut some alcoves for lamps, put stairs with an armor in the corner, add some computer panes by the walls... and suddenly, your boring rectanglular room is not so boring anymore. id used that trick alot, btw.

Just recorded a first play through:

I really enjoyed this map. Combat was good and tight, monster closets always had something new to offer, and the design was simple and effective. I can't find anything to complain about, honestly. I'm generally not very critical, to be fair, but this was a very solid and fun map. 

Sorry if the audio sucks. Just starting to record playing maps and I haven't gotten it down to a science yet. I also misspoke about a door texture near the beginning of the map. I thought you had used the bottom door texture for the top, but on rewatch it's a different but similar texture. I'm only in the beginning stages of learning to map myself, so I'm fairly new at recognizing such things. 

Map was great. Looking forward to more from you!

Thanks for taking the time to play and show off my first map. I greatly appreciate play throughs and when people take the time to stop and notice the little details.

I have a second map out in the thread I posted above and plan on posting one off maps there for the forseeable future, as I get better at map design and more importantly gameplay design. My second map is much larger than this and way more punishing. I may or may not have overdone things and save scumming would be necessary on first play through. To put it in perspective, my second map took as many weeks to make as this one did days.

Map I'm working on now will be shorter but still longer than this map. Look forward to making more maps if people are looking forward to playing them.
:)
 

I didn't expect this thread to get more replies after I put out my second map, but it did and my first map even got another playthrough! For that reason, just popping in to say that I have released a third map in this thread:
 

If anyone liked this map, I have come quite a way as a map maker and would appreciate feedback on how I'm developing as a mapper. Thanks again!