Worn-out concepts in Doom wads?

I feel that the most overused technique is, by far, that darn Indiana Jones dropkick ego-boosting flameroast butterslap mapping technique. You know the one. You enter a room, clear out a swarm of monsters, and see that yellow key (holy grail) on a pedestal in the middle of the room. You know that when you take it, the mighty wrath of the heavens will be struck down upon you and your oversized freak head.

Strangely enough, classic Doom level design followed almost the opposite pattern. Once you cleared out the group of enemies, the prized key or weapon was your reward. The game rewarded you for surviving. It didn't punish you for taking something that was crucial to completing the level.

I agree. Lately I've been surprised when I play a map and there ISN'T a rush of enemies when I pick up an item. It's especially lame when a crushing ceiling is used instead of monsters.

Cyberdemon arena's have also become tiresome. What I mean is that at some point yuu'll reach an area in a pwad which is noticeably large and empty. Eventually you end up fighting a cybie in there. Fighting a cyber in a large open area is usually boring and requires little skill. Conversely, I remember a map in final doom where you were trapped in a series of medium-sized corridors with a raging cyberdemon. It was probably one of the more pulse-pounding doom experiences I've had.

AndrewB said:
The game rewarded you for surviving. It didn't punish you for taking something that was crucial to completing the level.

I don't know about that. buy the end of doom, I was always finding yellow keys in the middle of an empty rooms and thinking "duh... do you think this might be a trap?" I mean that was a very 'id' thing to do. Hell, they even did it in wolf 3d.

AndrewB said:

Worn-out concepts in Doom wads?

Shooting things!

Yeah, nowadays any time I see a key or artifact in a corner/on a platform/near a wall I immeditely think "blah, another monster trap."

If you feel like you're being "punished", you are definately playing the wrong kind of WADs.

I dislike ambushes like a ton of monsters coming at you when you get a key. I would much rather getting a key unleash monsters into a previously visited part of the level that you need to backtrack to. It would seem like they were looking for you, rather than closing themselves in a air-tight room waiting for you to grab a key.

Mordeth said:

If you feel like you're being "punished", you are definately playing the wrong kind of WADs.

Or the right kind, depending on your outlook. HR and HR2 are "punishing" WADs, as is my very own baby, Murderous Intent.

Although, now I think about it, as yet Intent2 has all the keys as rewards. I think I need more traps, just to mix it up a bit (/me starts planning a nasty keytrap in MAP04)...

[edit 2]No, not a nasty keytrap, but IMHO a clever one, that actually has the key as a reward, but you're going to have to work for it.[/edit 2]

[edit]Oh, my 2 cents about overused Doom things? Personally, I'm sick to death of bright tech bases. They should be IMHO dirty and look taken over, to fit the theme of Doom better, and yet most bases are the STARGR/SHAWN2 variety - very clean, and well maintained.

And I just KNOW a whole load of you are gonna disagree, ut that's the nature of opinion; get used to it :p[/edit]

Jayextee said:

[edit]Oh, my 2 cents about overused Doom things? Personally, I'm sick to death of bright tech bases. They should be IMHO dirty and look taken over, to fit the theme of Doom better, and yet most bases are the STARGR/SHAWN2 variety - very clean, and well maintained.[/edit]

Well, to be quite honest - I like techy E1 maps, although I have to agree: they're completly unrealistic. Clean and almost sterile bases filled with hellish minions?

Worn-out concepts?
Lemme think - ArchViles on the back of 100 monsters army, and dozens of Revenants placed somewhere far away from player's position, but still being dangerous with their homing missiles.

ellmo said:

Worn-out concepts?
Lemme think - ArchViles on the back of 100 monsters army, and dozens of Revenants placed somewhere far away from player's position, but still being dangerous with their homing missiles.

Isn't that good design? Would you prefer archviles in FRONT of the monster pack and revenants up close where their missiles aren't as big of an issue?

I hate maps like this:

1. Press a switch
2. Spend a half hour looking for what that switch opened
3. Discovering that it wasn't anything important
4. Spend another half hour looking for another switch
5. Go back to step 1

ellmo said:

Well, to be quite honest - I like techy E1 maps, although I have to agree: they're completly unrealistic. Clean and almost sterile bases filled with hellish minions?

Heh, it makes sense if the base was just attacked, say, 15 minutes ago by hellspawn :)

DooMBoy said:

Heh, it makes sense if the base was just attacked, say, 15 minutes ago by hellspawn :)

Then the base should have some signs of fight not long ago, right? Pullet holes in the walls and blood stains...

Depending on the size of the base, parts of it could look relatively sterile (showing little or no signs of damage or attack or whatever) while other parts could show signs of being heavily damaged; bullet holes, blood stains, dead Marines/demons, big chunks torn out of the floor or ceiling, blinking/flashing lights, etc.

ellmo said:

Then the base should have some signs of fight not long ago, right? Pullet holes in the walls and blood stains...

This can easily be fixed with custom textures.

And the whole grab a key and release a trap thing can be a bit annoying but to be honest it's never bothered me that much.
Though I must say really cramped spaces and 4 revenants are really stupid.

Yeah.. most of the maps today are just shoot a load of monsters. Everything would be fine-but where are the tactics? I'm tired of blasting a bunch of imps and revenants coming straight ahead at me. Now if I had a crate to hide behind, a demon comes at me on a right, but there's a lift.. pheew, on top is a revenant! Punches me down into the middle of demons-but wait, there's a vent.. You know what I'm saying? tactics!
oh and about e1-there were signs of fighting there-what about all those dead green fellas? :)

Ichor said:

5 things he hates about switches

The main problem is that You can't really give the player a vital clue in vanilla doom what does that switch does. If there was a security camera by a switch monitoring the thing just activated, or a message saying "water drained" puzzles would be definately more fun, knowing where to go, not guessing it. The clues we have in vanilla Doom are keys, meaning picking up a blue key You know You need to locate a blue door.

I think the most cliche part of levels is having monsters in them at all

Nmn said:

The main problem is that You can't really give the player a vital clue in vanilla doom what does that switch does.....The clues we have in vanilla Doom are keys, meaning picking up a blue key You know You need to locate a blue door.

You're quite correct about it being difficult to provide clues in vanilla DooM, and that color-keys are the easiest way to provide such clues. Alternatively, the map could be designed such that the player would be able to see (or hear) what the switch does. For example, if the player is faced with an unopenable door to a room, the switch to the door could be placed in an area overlooking the room, or next to a window with a view of the door.

And yes, it is frustrating to press a switch and spend a while trying to discover what the switch did.

Nmn said:

Yeah.. most of the maps today are just shoot a load of monsters. Everything would be fine-but where are the tactics? I'm tired of blasting a bunch of imps and revenants coming straight ahead at me. Now if I had a crate to hide behind, a demon comes at me on a right, but there's a lift.. pheew, on top is a revenant! Punches me down into the middle of demons-but wait, there's a vent.. You know what I'm saying? tactics!

Yeah, but shooting a load of monsters in HR-type quantities does require a lot of tactics - whether it be infighting, targeting specific monsters in a horde, ammo/health management, clearing a path etc. Particularly the slaughter maps, which I think are the best for this sort of thing, and by putting you right up against the odds they bring out the best in a player (as you can't win with just brute force and ignorance). It also depends on what the monsters are, what you have to fight them with and what the terrain's like.

ellmo said:

100 monsters army,

Those suck; that's why I don't use them.

Granted, most of my maps will have 200+ enemies, but they're also average sized maps, and I implement strategy to take advantage of the surroundings.

Edit: Revenants suck.

About the clues-there are several things that could be done using more effort-like let's say there's a particular sign near a door on the wall. The door is locked. Later in the level You encounter a switch with the same symbol nearby the switch and You know pressing this particular switch something will happen to that particular door-like pressing a switch next to a computer with number 1 You'll remember a big "one" near a cargo bay door-meaning that switch operates cargo bay 1, etc. ;)
The worst enemy is presumably an Archvile-let's say You're in the middle of large arena and suddenly 3 archviles are released at You-how the heck are You supposed to hide from them? Making tough gameplay requires more effort than making impossible to beat gameplay IMO.
EDIT: Doom64 didn't have Archviles and Revenants-one of the reasons I preffer it from the standard Doom levels.

Daniel's "New World" maps seem to break from current norms a little, ie you fight the big monster horde BEFORE picking up the key/super weapon, not after, though sometimes he unleashes a small amount of monsters elsewhere on the map, which i think isnt as bad (and is actually more of a suprise, doom maps as they are nowadays, when lifts packed with revenants and hellknights lower after you pick up a key, it isnt a suprise). Also Revenants are over-used full stop, most of todays 'good maps' have more revenants than anything else, and usually get praised for thier "innovatve style and well-made battles", but the people doing the praising are usually revenant-fest mappers themselves, and shouldnt be trusted!

ellmo said:

Then the base should have some signs of fight not long ago, right? Pullet holes in the walls and blood stains...

STARGR2, STARTAN2, STARG2.

deathbringer said:

(...)but the people doing the praising are usually revenant-fest mappers themselves, and shouldnt be trusted!

AMEN!

Definitely HR and AV as far as punishing goes. I mean, in a specific map in HR, the number I cant recall... Well, you hit a switch or something, in the center of this cage, and you already know you're doomed from that very moment. The walls open, and you're stuck in a cage, getting blown away. I mean, the cacos and imps and whatever there was, werent TOO bad, but the chaingunners... *shudder* Those damn chaingunners.

and in AV, there was a map that punished you for going up to a door. It opens and suddenly you're flooded with monsters from all sides. After you kill them, you decide to look in the opened doors to find some items and stuff, reload and recover, and for touching THOSE items, some more monsters come out. You kill them, and decide to grab the brand new set of items and powerups from the new room that just opened, and find out that MORE come out. That ends up being the last trap, but come on... Who needs a trap, that's trapped, that's trapped. a trap in a trap in a trap... Meh

This may be worth mentioning, but.....if anybody's tired of worn and weary themes, then go download RTC-3057. :P

Worn out themes?? castle maps I think. There's only so much you can do with them ie. limited textures, structures etc.
Dont get me wrong, I like castle maps, but once you've seen one or two, there'll be no surprises in further ones.

Agree with others' comments about revenants although I'm being a bit hypocritical as I have a nasty bunch of em in one level.
I disagree however with the ambushes, they make it more interesting. I prefer traps and fast and furious gameplay to boring linear no surprises levels. However, it is good to add a slant on things, ie popping up in front of you unexpectadly, teleporting in, opening in other rooms etc

ummm i was gonna go on about worn out themes but long thread. for another time maybe :)

Worn-out concepts in Doom wads?

E1 style maps.

duncan said:

Worn out themes?? castle maps I think. There's only so much you can do with them ie. limited textures, structures etc.
Dont get me wrong, I like castle maps, but once you've seen one or two, there'll be no surprises in further ones.

Agreed.

Without any doubt, this thread is very interesting and might be useful, if we want to change something about it ;)

But before I get to the maintask of this post, I have to say something else: The problem is not, that the community isn't creative enough to create something else like "open door; kill monsters; grab key; kill trap-monsters", it is the fact that most of them don't use the special features of sourceports or don't even know about sourceports at all.
Legacy(FraggleScript) and ZDoom(ACS) have great capabilites and you could do a lot of different new puzzles and traps, if you put some effort into your map.

Nevertheless, what about putting all this "worn-out concepts" on a seperate page? Not just with what Doomers could avoid while creating the map, also with some new ideas for map concepts?! I think, it's easy to criticise what you don't like but it might be better, to add some new ideas and concepts to your comment ;)

First at all, I think the usage of puzzle items (Hexen style) in ZDoom maps is great and innovative and adds an interesting part to the gameplay itself, because it isn't just this dumb "search a key and open a closed door" thing. ;)