A question about mapping

Hello everyone,

 

I recently read Not Jabba's excellent dissertation The Roots of Doom Mapping (thank you for your hard work Not Jabba).  I'm now curious to learn more about Doom level design, but first I think I should find out what techniques (such a material texturing), concepts (such as map flow), and design tropes to look out for when playing maps, as well as the language which level designers and players use to communicate these ideas.  After a bit of searching online I couldn't find a comprehensive source for all this information, so my question is this:

 

What techniques, concepts, and design tropes form the bread and butter of Doom level design?

 

I'm interested in answers from all schools of level design, and even historical answers that have fallen out of fashion, but with a particular focus on the ubiquitous or influential, since otherwise I imagine there'd be just too much to cover.

 

I hope this is the correct forum for this post, since I'm not asking about specific wads/mods, nor am I asking how to actually implement anything in an editor, I assume Doom General is the correct place. Also, I hope I'm not being too presumptuous to ask this question in the first place.

 

Have a nice day :)

 

UPDATE:  I hope nobody minds, I've decided to put everyone's suggestions together in one place so it's easier to see at a glance.  I will also add any new contributions as they come in assuming nobody objects.  Thank you to everyone :)

Concepts

• map flow — degree of freedom of movement within a map, as well as interconnectivity
• clean texture usage — e.g. no misalignment, no clashing textures/colours
• engaging encounters — self explanatory, ideally takes advantage of the multitude of different ways to set up enemy encounters (e.g. use of teleporters, timed ambushes, use of environmental hazards like damaging floors and crushers), avoid cases where a fight feels just like a previous one (but is merely bigger in scope)
• encounter types:
  - incidental — some stuff here and there so you have something to shoot while exploring
  - setpieces — usually a bit more difficult than the rest of a map, the final fights of a map are often setpieces of some sort
  - traps/ambushes — kinda self-explanatory - for example's sake: pick up an item, stuff appears and wants to murder you
  - "slaughtery" — not to be confused with slaughter™, usually involves smaller or medium sized packs, often with ample firepower on the player's side for fun
  - slaughter™ — large amounts of monsters, often hundreds or thousands in a single fight, requires heavy firepower, and decent strategies to be survivable
  - challenge — basically a slaughter™-offspring but usually with less monsters than a slaughter-fight would have. Often very focused on a particular trope, and usually harder than most other kinds of fights, due to either being tight on resources, employing unusual gimmicks, or both
• spartan — very little visual detail. Not necessarily a bad thing, simply refers to minimalism in detail
• compatibility — which ports can and cannot play the wad, and how the wad is intended to be played
• visual language — think about what you're telling players.  You are establishing rules and motifs and patterns, you are foreshadowing future events, you are providing them with all sorts of information
• conveyance — not knowing where you're supposed to go is one of the most exhausting things as a player, it saps your enthusiasm quickly, but not conveying what something does isn't necessarily bad if you get a decent effect out of it
• environmental storytelling
• colour coordination — using colours aesthetically well (and ideally not copying existing designs as this can get monotonous)

 

Techniques

• material texturing — thinking about maps as containing structures made out of one material, that intersects with structures made out of a different material; as opposed to just shapes plopped down, and then textures used as mere wallpaper
• height variation — a world that is too flat is boring, on the other hand poorly thought out height variation can hinder player and monster movement, and thus getting in the way of enjoyable combat
• monster placement
• monster group composition
• detailing

 

Design Tropes

• rectangular rooms — bad if they are plain looking, with no interesting visuals, such as sprite decorations, a skylight, a pool of blood/water/nukage, an alcove with a different set of textures (i.e: a green marble baphomet texture in an alcove of a square room with wooden textures), a window that lets the player look at another area of the map, which might be an outside area with a sky texture, a previously visited area or an area which the player can visit
• misaligned textures — generally considered bad
• bottlenecks — cramped spots where the player or enemies get stuck resulting in some boring combat before progressing
• backtracking — continually revisiting the same area of a map before exiting, often to the point of boredom if this term is being used
• platforming
• logic puzzles
• vantage points

Edited February 17, 2020 by UninvitedGuest

I think the fundamental "bread and butter" of Doom mapping would be simply knowing how to create and join sectors, create doors/stairs/windows, and creating tagged functions like teleporters or lifts.

 

Another important element of Doom mapping is understanding how textures work, on both a technical and visual level, and the importance of clean texture usage regardless of how much actual visual detail there is in your map. A lot of misaligned and totally clashing textures/colors will end up ugly to look at, but it's easily avoided. Ugliness is sort of a "trope" of experimental 1994 wads, pretty uncommon today beyond "my first wad" types of releases.

 

In terms of actual design philosophy, everyone has different approaches to what they consider a fun Doom experience, but this thread on engaging enemy encounters was super interesting imo and would serve as a nice cornerstone for getting started with making exciting maps, specifically avoiding the (sometimes) boring approach of open door -> shoot monsters -> rinse and repeat.

 

There are any number of ways to have monsters approach you/to have combat play out in Doom and every "legendary" wad out there takes advantage of the multitude of ways to set up enemy encounters. I think listing all the ways in which one might theoretically set up a fun ambush in Doom would be way too exhaustive, but use of teleporters, timed ambushes, use of environmental hazards like damaging floors and crushers are just some of the ways you see mappers keeping the players on their toes and excited by the gameplay of Doom even after so many years.

 

As far as the language used in Doom mapping, here is some jargon you might come across often:

• Height variation - Refers to the use of different floor and ceiling heights. A world that is too flat is boring, height variation adds character.
• Bottlenecks - cramped spots where the player or enemies get stuck resulting in some boring combat before progressing.
• Backtracking - continually revisiting the same area of a map before exiting, often to the point of boredom if this term is being used.
• Spartan - Very little visual detail. Not necessarily a bad thing, simply refers to minimalism in detail.
• Compatibility - A very important concept to understand in Doom mapping, referring to what ports can and cannot play the wad, and how the wad is intended to be played.

There are loads more of course, but those just came to mind.

 

Hope this is somewhat helpful and to see others weigh in!

2 hours ago, UninvitedGuest said:

what techniques (such a material texturing), concepts (such as map flow), and design tropes to look out for when playing maps, as well as the language which level designers and players use to communicate these ideas

 

in terms of language, "material" to me is a term from Half Life, where a structure (e.g. a door) should consist of the same type of texture on all sides (in this case, wood) for 2 purposes: a) telling the engine how this texture should sound when hit and b) convincing the player that this lump of shapes is uniformly "wooden". Not sure if that's how you meant it but:

 

yeah "material texturing" has become common in community mapping, i.e. people are generally thinking about their maps as containing structures made out of one material, that intersects with structures made out of a different material.  For example a structure such as a cave floor will follow texturing rules of "mossy brown flat, mossy brown linedefs during height changes" and also adhere to a rule of shape, in this case random/jagged aka "organic".

 

this is different than say to early/mid 90's mapping, where maps were rarely conceptualized as having structures or "being built" out of something. They were just shapes plopped down, and then textures were wallpaper. Reasoning here was monitor resolution was so low, that 90% of the time any texture was just a blurry mess of something vaguely "blue" or "brown" and so on, so instead of communicating what a structure was made out of, you wanted to convey what the dimensions were of the playable area through the use of bold and wildly different colors for walls and different structures and so on.

 

"material" texturing (which influences how the mapper will shape things too, so really it's "material mapping") is probably more common today, but old timey 90's texturing is prevalent too. Most people probably dont think too deeply about it and just call that "abstract" mapping.

1 hour ago, UninvitedGuest said:

What techniques, concepts, and design tropes form the bread and butter of Doom level design?

 

There is no "bread and butter" of level design (which we usually just call "mapping").

 

Some people will tell you what a "good map" should or shouldn't do, or which design goals are "wrong" and which ones are "correct" and therefore worth pursuing. And they're all wrong in selling a mere opinion as objective fact.

 

When you look at the cacowards, you'll notice that plenty entries there are really quite diverse, both visually and in terms of gameplay or concept. So, there's really no "ideal" way to go about it. There are popular maps (stuff with broad appeal, the mainstream if you will), and niche maps (special interest, usually not mainstream), but none is intrinsically "better" than the other. If there is such a thing as a "bad map", then I'd say that a map which does not accomplish what it was meant to accomplish probably belongs into that category. Conversely, a map that does what it is supposed to be doing overall is at least "not bad" (doesn't mean it's the greatest thing ever, mind).

 

As for techniques, there are plenty essays written on monster placement, detailing, etc... Many of which can be found with google (search classic doom, then add whatever topic, it will find you something worthwhile) some of which are in the "editing tutorials" subforum of this very site. If you wanna learn, that's where you gotta head next, because nobody's gonna write several entire essays from scratch to answer your question :P

 

Concepts and design tropes are pretty much the same thing for me personally. You can make maps tight on ammo, tight on health, tight on both... Or you can drown players in resources. You can do setpieces, incidental combat, combat puzzles, freewheeling slaughter, agility checks like platforming, even maths or puzzles like in "the given". It's all fair game, and no matter what you do, somebody is gonna like it or hate it.

Thank you for everyone's replies so far, they've been very interesting and very informative :)
 

1 hour ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

There is no "bread and butter" of level design (which we usually just call "mapping").

My apologies :(

 

1 hour ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

Some people will tell you what a "good map" should or shouldn't do, or which design goals are "wrong" and which ones are "correct" and therefore worth pursuing. And they're all wrong in selling a mere opinion as objective fact.

I'm not judging anyone, just curious what opinions exist, so when I play a map I can not only recognise the mapper's intentions, but I can also communicate those intentions to other people.

 

1 hour ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

because nobody's gonna write several entire essays from scratch to answer your question :P

Not looking for essays here, just the names of the techniques, concepts, and design tropes that exist within classic Doom mapping.  Once I know it's a thing I can research it myself.  Sorry for the misunderstanding.

I do appreciate your feedback Nine Inch Heels.

First: I don't always agree with everything @Nine Inch Heels posts, but they are absolutely one of my favourite posters for explaining their point in a way that lets even those users who disagree with them get something insightful out of their words.

 

Second: I don't know if this is useful as the name of a "technique, concept, or design trope," but I've long felt that visual language is a handy way to look at level design.  When you build a level you are communicating with your player, so think about what you're telling them: you are establishing rules and motifs and patterns, you are foreshadowing future events, you are providing them with all sorts of information, and it can be helpful to think about the level in those terms.

 

(With the caveat that not every player is going to understand the visual language you are trying to employ, and that's not specifically their failure as a player nor your failure as a level designer, it's simply a fact that different people can approach the same situation in different ways and can derive different results from the same set of data.)

13 hours ago, TheOrganGrinder said:

Second: I don't know if this is useful as the name of a "technique, concept, or design trope," but I've long felt that visual language is a handy way to look at level design.

I think that counts as a concept :).  If not, then perhaps in my ignorance I asked the wrong question...

Anyway, thank you very much for your insights TheOrganGrinder :D

Best tip I'd give to a newcomer is to play wads. A lot of wads. Pick out your favorites and when mapping, try to emulate what makes them special for you. From enemy placement, to their layout theory, design consistencies, texture formulas, etc.

To add to Doomkid's post, I'd say what you can take from it is that the only way to go about doing levels 'wrong' if it's they're not fun, or displeasing.

21 hours ago, UninvitedGuest said:

My apologies :(

There is nothing to apologize for, really. The point I was trying to get across is that, more often than not, people have their very own ideas of what makes "thing X" "successful". And that successful thing, in case it is popular, is then perceived to be the "correct way" to design maps by virtue of being popular. Basically, "successful and popular thing" then becomes the poster child lots of folks refer to as "this is how maps should be". However, when you dig around a little bit, you'll notice that some folks have managed to make ideas or concepts, which were perceived "wrong" by many a player, actually work in a compelling way.

 

So if the question is "What's the kind of stuff mappers need to put into their maps in order for them to be well-received?", then there really is no good answer, because a lot of the quality in a map depends on how well something is done, rather than what's in the map to begin with. Of course there are several genres of mapping that emerged over decades, and not everybody enjoys every genre, but each of those genres has its own "measuring sticks" for quality, or what's "the bread and butter" of said genre.

 

Some maps are extremely encounter driven, others are about exploration, while some other maps are "esoteric" in some way shape or form. And all these maps have their audiences as much as they have people who dislike them. Also, all these maps vary greatly in aesthetics, scope, theme (both visual theme as well as "encounter tropes"), etc...

 

The bottom line is that each "genre" requires a different focus. If you want to build something suited for exploration, then it is usually good to think about concepts like "environmental storytelling", vantage points, and stuff like "how do I avoid backtracking through empty areas?". Encounter driven maps require more of a focus on how fights are staged, how well tuned they are, or how to avoid cases where a fight in a map feels just like a previous one (but is merely bigger in scope) and suchlike. Some encounter driven maps also employ "gimmicks", like for example allowing players to control the flow of battle a little bit with switches they can press. Then there are maps which manage to work both previously mentioned concepts into one magnum opus type of map like "Miasma", which offers a lot to explore, but still has some pretty punchy fights that are going to give you a hard time if you're not careful.

 

21 hours ago, UninvitedGuest said:

I'm not judging anyone, just curious what opinions exist, so when I play a map I can not only recognise the mapper's intentions, but I can also communicate those intentions to other people.

It's usually difficult to ask someone who didn't build a particular map about the intentions of the author, because it's by no means easy to discern every thought that went into an area in a map. There are general ideas and concepts, but finer points are usually tricky to "get", and your best shot would be taking a map, looking at who made it, and perhaps asking the person directly. I don't think there's a mapper who isn't willing at all to discuss their ideas for a while, so give it a shot.

 

21 hours ago, UninvitedGuest said:

Not looking for essays here, just the names of the techniques, concepts, and design tropes that exist within classic Doom mapping.  Once I know it's a thing I can research it myself.  Sorry for the misunderstanding

For encounters I usually differentiate between...

 

-Incidental

(some stuff here and there so you have something to shoot while exploring)

The vast majority of classic doom2's combat is something I'd put into this category.

 

-Setpieces

(usually a bit more difficult than the rest of a map, the final fights of a map are often setpieces of some sort)

Most modern maps have setpieces in them, even the easier ones out there. You get locked in for a while, for example, and need to deal with stuff before you can leave. That's roughly what a setpiece is.

 

-Traps/ambushes

(kinda self-explanatory - for example's sake: pick up an item, stuff appears and wants to murder you)

 

-"Slaughtery"

(not to be confused with slaughter™, usually involves smaller or medium sized packs, often with ample firepower on the player's side for fun)

Valiant or Ancient Aliens are WADs I'd call "slaughtery" overall.

 

-Slaughter™

(Large amounts of monsters, often hundreds or thousands in a single fight, requires heavy firepower, and decent strategies to be survivable)

Sunder, Cryogenics, Toilet of the gods, Newgothic Movement 1 and 2... Those are WADs I'd put in the slaughter category.

 

-Challenge

(Basically a slaughter™-offspring but usually with less monsters than a slaughter-fight would have. Often very focused on a particular trope, and usually harder than most other kinds of fights, due to either being tight on resources, employing unusual gimmicks, or both)

Many slaughter maps have challenge fights built in as well, which makes them more varied.

A good example for challenge maps would be "dimensions". Map 02 and map 03 are very "challenge" driven, though I would recommend you don't play those on UV, unless you're lubed up good. Also, some challenge maps work without any monsters at all (or use just a handful)... Those would then be focused a lot on for example movement skills, or exact aim to hit shoot switches, and other more esoteric kinds of ideas like using arch viles to "jump" around, or using splash damage from rockets to be able to cross gaps.

 

And now I'm getting tired of writing.... :P

Edited February 15, 2020 by Nine Inch Heels

Something I think is important in level design is conveyance. When considering hard progression it should be obvious what a switch or something does. Some maps fall into the trap of switch hunting. Instead of being clear a critical switch may have some cryptic function like revealing another switch in some random corner of the map. This is not cryptic as much as it is bad design in my opinion. Something I think about when saying this is Eternal Doom (not to be confused with Doom Eternal). While it's visuals were impressive for its time the gameplay leaves a lot to be desired. So let your players know what something does if it's important to progression. 

1 hour ago, Super Mighty G said:

When considering hard progression it should be obvious what a switch or something does.

This. This this this. Guardian Of Steel is an excellent example of how not to do it. Two identical ways to go at the start, both lead to switches at the top, neither switch gives any indication of what it does, and they're repeatable so it doesn't even count as blind level progression: you have to figure them out. You can't even open it in an editor to see because all it does is run a script you don't have the code to. Once you know how the level works, it's easy enough, but anyone who says they figured it out on their own without a guide is a damn liar. It's possible to get through the level without understanding the switches, but then the player doesn't understand why they were able to succeed, so their success was out of their hands, which is disempowering.

 

Not knowing where you're supposed to go is one of the most exhausting things as a player. It saps your enthusiasm quickly. It's like holding your breath; you can do it, but only for so long. Don't make the player hold their breath.

 

The simplest way to do switches properly (and other world triggers like walkover linedefs) is to set them up so you can see what happens when you trigger it. Either literally as you trigger it, or unavoidably afterward.

 

Keys and switches are similar, from a progression standpoint: you encounter an obstacle, and have to go elsewhere to make it passable. For example, encounter a locked door and find the key; encounter a pit and find the switch that raises a bridge. The player has to encounter the obstacle before finding the way to bypass it: this gives a sense of progression and accomplishment. Otherwise, like if you find a key and haven't found the door it goes to yet, then it's basically just linear progression with an unnecessary complication; that, or you have a key and no idea where you're supposed to use it because you don't know where the door is. Keys are like a special case of switch: you already know it opens that door, even if you're nowhere near the door itself; while switches could be anything, so the player needs some other confirmation of what new options have just opened up.

 

Perhaps another option is to open up a monster closet (or monster teleporter system) around where you expect the player to go. As the player explores, they will eventually find the monsters, not previously slain, so they know there's something new here since last time.

Rectangular rooms are fine.

1 hour ago, Super Mighty G said:

When considering hard progression it should be obvious what a switch or something does. Some maps fall into the trap of switch hunting. Instead of being clear a critical switch may have some cryptic function like revealing another switch in some random corner of the map. This is not cryptic as much as it is bad design in my opinion.

This is why I said that opinions on the subject of what is "good design" vary to a pretty huge degree. Ribbiks's magnolia comes to mind... The first map has a switch, which I believe was even YK-switch, and near the switch you see a pack of viles or something along those lines. So you grab your strongest weapon, press the switch, and hope you're gonna make it out alive. Joke's on you, nothing in your vicinity happens, instead the switch that is literally made to look like it does what you expect it to do (which is releasing the viles and all), actually unlocks something else in the map that is important for your progression.

 

It's one of those things where I'd say that not conveying what something does isn't necessarily bad, if you get a decent effect out of it. The effect being "oh shit, here we go again.... or... do we, actually? Wait... what did that switch do?" And then you go exploring for a bit and find out that something else has changed. I'm not the biggest fan of "cryptic progression", but I do appreciate it, if it has some "flair" to it. And this is one of those cases where I'd say there's definitely flair to be seen.

 

If there is a problem with "cryptic progression" from my POV, then it would be cases where the next step in progression is too easy to overlook. However something players are able to identify quite clearly, ideally in a somewhat navigable map, doesn't really have to be in your immediate field of view when you press the switch.

 

I mean, at the end of the day, tastes are different, and I'm not gonna tell you that cryptic progression is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but sometimes, if done well, it really is a fun experience that you wouldn't have had, if the map in question always pointed you in the right direction.

Square and rectangular rooms are bad only if they are plain looking, with no interesting visuals, such as sprite decorations, a skylight, a pool of blood/water/nukage, an alcove with a different set of textures (i.e: a green marble baphomet texture in an alcove of a square room with wooden textures), a window that lets the player look at another area of the map, wich may be an outside area with a sky texture, a previously visited area or an area wich the player may visit.

13 hours ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

It's one of those things where I'd say that not conveying what something does isn't necessarily bad, if you get a decent effect out of it.

As always with art, you can break the rules if you understand them well enough to know how and when you can get away with breaking them.

"Not understanding the conventions/rules and creating art anyway" is probably how most new genres are created ;-P

That's how you create genres like "outsider art" or "naïve art", yeah. But otherwise, it's done by people who do understand the conventions and then decide to make changes. Though that's a much wider topic than "breaking away with the rules at one specific point to subvert expectations" ; when you break a rule for effect, you're still playing by those rules.

It's a mistake for a new mapper to go study what the rules and conventions are, when they could just instead be getting dirty in the editor and making their own crap, unburdened. I'm sure there's loads and loads of garbage first-time-mapper maps, where someone considers it a precious pearl precisely because of the NOT understanding of conventions. I know I have plenty of favorite maps in this vein, and I also had a famous 90's mapper (well, as famous as a doom mapper can be, but hey) gush in praise over my 2nd map, which was deep deep into the "I have no idea what I'm doing" heap of garbage category.

8 hours ago, Vorpal said:

It's a mistake for a new mapper to go study what the rules and conventions are, when they could just instead be getting dirty in the editor and making their own crap, unburdened.

If you don't learn to differentiate good from garbage, you're probably going to end up making garbage.

When mapping, it's not bad to trust your instinct. I thought it was fun to pistol down a pinkie in my map, but then I realized some might not like this and I actually removed the pinkie a bit before I got it done.

16 minutes ago, Juza said:

If you don't learn to differentiate good from garbage, you're probably going to end up making garbage.

 

And if you read the various threads on what is "good mapping" you are probably going to end up making garbage. e.g. one of the most common rules is "pick 2 or 3 colors for your map's theme". I can't really describe how sad I get now that most of our best talent just makes the orange + black maps or the purple + turquoise maps, entire cacoward megawads all adhering to the Color Coordination theme :-(

 

But we're getting into a different discussion heh, OP is mainly concerned about terminology in our community so we should probably get back to that

 

2 hours ago, Vorpal said:

e.g. one of the most common rules is "pick 2 or 3 colors for your map's theme"

I don't think that rule is true. But I agree about the monotony of so many levels nowadays.

Edit: Don't interpret this as if I were saying color theory isn't important

 

The abundance and formula of guides and tutorials for every little thing about "level designing" is disappointing and unnecessary. "How much should I detail?" "How should I make this work?" "How should my map look like?"...  Being told what to do generates blatant, uncreative and uninspired works, as I think it's very visible nowadays, with the amount of copycats of many large Doom releases out there. (hot take? don't ask)

Plus, it makes Doom mapping look like more of a job than a hobby.

 

You have more than enough games and usermaps to take as basis for work. You don't need someone to hold your hand. People can and should learn by watching closely and figuring the pieces out by themselves. You are your best critic. Do you think the original level designers for classics such as Doom, Duke3D, Blood, Quake, Half-Life, etc. had the benefit of taking level design courses, or to ask strangers online how they should do their work? They barely had references to take inspiration from, which is the biggest benefit you have nowadays.

 

I'm gonna give a short example: What I love about Kama Sutra is how unconventional it is with many of its design decisions -- it doesn't follow the rules many 'great' level designers of the community would want them to, and the result was a work with unique levels and combat. Gusta and Method made what they think is good and succeeded at it, while clearly taking inspiration from other wads, and games such as Duke3D.

 

tl;dr: ask yourself the questions, rather than asking someone else how you should "progress"

 

Now, making a thread like this is fine... as long as you're truly only taking things into consideration, as you should, rather than asking and being told how you should make them. Be yourself most of all

Edited February 17, 2020 by Juza

13 hours ago, Vorpal said:

But we're getting into a different discussion heh, OP is mainly concerned about terminology in our community so we should probably get back to that

 

 

10 hours ago, Juza said:

Now, making a thread like this is fine... as long as you're truly only taking things into consideration, as you should, rather than asking and being told how you should make them. Be yourself most of all

 

Couldn't have put it better myself :)

Also, thank you to everyone that has contributed so far!  I am truly grateful.

16 hours ago, Juza said:

If you don't learn to differentiate good from garbage, you're probably going to end up making garbage

On 2/15/2020 at 6:54 AM, Juza said:

Best tip I'd give to a newcomer is to play wads. A lot of wads. Pick out your favorites and when mapping, try to emulate what makes them special for you. From enemy placement, to their layout theory, design consistencies, texture formulas, etc.

13 hours ago, Juza said:

The abundance and formula of guides and tutorials for every little thing about "level designing" is disappointing and unnecessary. "How much should I detail?" "How should I make this work?" "How should my map look like?"...  Being told what to do generates blatant, uncreative and uninspired works, as I think it's very visible nowadays, with the amount of copycats of many large Doom releases out there. (hot take? don't ask)

 

So, being able to differentiate good from garbage is important, and emulating what other mappers do is fine, but when people take their time to write a tutorial that explains their reasoning behind some of the things they do, which also provides new mappers with a couple tools they can use to make whatever it is they want to make, then it's suddenly not okay any more because you felt like you were in the mood for a "hot take" that totally contradicts literally everything you said previously?

 

What would you rather do? Spend 20 minutes with a tutorial, or waste a couple hours in the builder trying to figure out why something doesn't work? If you're gonna tell me now that you'd spend several hours instead of having a look at the knowledge that exists (not that I'd believe you in this case, but whatever), go ahead and do that, but believe it or not, some people don't have the time to spare. In fact, some problems people encounter during mapping are simply something they want to get sorted out, so they can do what they enjoy the most about mapping.

 

Tutorials exist for a reason, and the reason is more often than not that the same questions and problems keep showing up over time, and somebody felt like it would be better to write something down which could be referenced in the future, so that the knowledge is readily available when it is needed.

 

It's also pretty nonsensical to complain about tutorials that explain how something can be made to work, because -whatever that something may be- it's a mechanical issue, not an "aesthetics or gameplay issue".

@Nine Inch Heels ah, you misunderstood me. I wasn't referring to mechanics, workarounds, actions, or general 'how to make a switch work', etc. but specifically about progression of level designing.