[Map] Cooperative-only Map

Hello

After more than 10 years of absence I've created a new Doom 2 map with the excellent Doom Builder editor. Back in the days I used Waded, and though I liked it, it was crude compared to DB :)

This time I had a specific purpose to make a new map (except Doom mapping is quite fun, compared to Q3 mapping at least), and that was that I wanted to make the cooperative gameplay of Doom slightly more enjoyable. Coop in Doom is fun, but not as fun at it could be. Most of the time the two players run off in some crazy Rambo mode and rush through the map, with little care for their team-mate or even themselves (since you are invincible in coop mode because of the respawn rules).

I gave this some thought and tried to recall why coop in Halo 1 is a LOT of fun, and realized three things:
1. In Halo, it's impossible for one player to run off for herself. If one player gets too far ahead, the other will be teleported to her position.
2. Certain elements in the game clearly made the game more enjoyable together than alone (namely the Warthog).
3. Finally, both players in Halo feel like they are making a difference, because they keep each other alive. If one player is killed, the other player must run to safety, or they'll BOTH lose! That's a very important aspect of the game, in my opinion.

Anyhow, my intention was thus to address these problems in Doom 2 somehow. The first thing I decided was that the map should not be playable in single-player, which made further map designs easier to accomplish. The second thing I wanted was to make player death more penalized. I solved this by making a door next to the respawn room that only can be opened from the other side. In other words, if one player dies, the other must run back and fetch her. If both players die - it's game over!

My next step was to make sure that both players are needed and feel useful. This was solved by adding two-player puzzles and obstacles. In addition, only one of the players will get the yellow key card, and the other the blue key card. That means they will need to cooperate all the way to the end to reach the exit button.

(Disclamer: I've been away from the Doom community for a long time, so I doubt that this is the first coop-only map you've seen. If you know about more coop maps, please let me know! It would be a blast to play them!)

Anyway, on to the technical parts:

Download link:
* http://www.oxeye.se/files/temp/Doom2_jeb_coop_only.rar

Screenshots:
* http://www.oxeye.se/files/temp/DOOM0002.png
* http://www.oxeye.se/files/temp/DOOM0003.png
* http://www.oxeye.se/files/temp/DOOM0004.png

Requirements:
* DOOM 2 IWAD
* A modern client, ZDoom 2.1.7 has been playtested with successfully
* A friend to play with

Stats:
* 2886 vertices
* 3470 linedefs
* 5074 sidedefs
* 598 sectors
* 447 things

Estimated time to play the map (two players, if none has seen the map before): 20-25 minutes

Please let me know what you think of it!

Edit: Ah, darn I forgot to mention. This map was not designed with jumping in mind, so if you use jumps in your client you will break the puzzles. I can't prevent it, but I consider it cheating! ;)

Judging by the screenshots and a quick glance in Doom Builder, this looks pretty cool. Now I just have to find someone to try it out with. :P

I just checked it out, it's pretty cool. My only issue is that if not for the 2-player only puzzles, the map is easily beatable with just 1 player, with only 190 monsters in UV. That's 95 per player, not exactly alot :P

Is it restricted to 2 players only, or can it be up to 4 players? If so that would make it even easier.

Yeah, maybe it's on the easy side for experienced players. I thought it was difficult to find a good balance there.

In my opinion, the number of monsters doesn't really mean anything, because as long as you have ammo and health you can take down all of them. I tried to balance it in this map by making health packs and ammo really scarce. During gametesting my friends ended up trying to beat Revenants with their fists :P I thought that was maybe a little harsh, so I rebalanced the map by replacing some imps with shotgun dudes (since they give +3 shells on average).

Erm... don't Shotgun Guys ALWAYS drop 4 shells? (Unless playing ITYTD or NM)

Yes, exactly. 4 shells - 1 to kill them = +3 shells for the player.

jeb said:

3. Finally, both players in Halo feel like they are making a difference, because they keep each other alive. If one player is killed, the other player must run to safety, or they'll BOTH lose! That's a very important aspect of the game, in my opinion.

Just note : There is port named Skulltag which contains gamemode called survival and it's pretty same as you describe. Also you can play all coop/single maps which you want. Survival

About map : I haven't played it yet but i'm sure i'll as soon as i get a chance!

jeb said:
I tried to balance it in this map by making health packs and ammo really scarce.

That depends on the settings. Usually, on online servers on ZDaemon or Skulltag, it's either that the weapons placed in the map stay, and the items respawn, or that the weapons stay, and items do not respawn. The latter is like Cooperative in the standard game.

In fact, there is no reason to penalize deaths when playing in the standard mode because if you die, you ammo goes to waste, and then you have only the weapons you pick up. In the standard mode the ammo available is a fixed amount, so it's easy to balance it off with the monsters.

In online "jump in and play whenever you want" servers, though, you should expect to die often, and I don't think players should be forced to wait for their comrades to open their entry door (or be otherwise unable to respawn), because that tends to kill the action. In a LAN it might be okay, but really, you can do that in the standard mode, even; just stop and restart if a player dies (people who record demos do this).

myk said:

In online "jump in and play whenever you want" servers, though, you should expect to die often, and I don't think players should be forced to wait for their comrades to open their entry door (or be otherwise unable to respawn), because that tends to kill the action. In a LAN it might be okay, but really, you can do that in the standard mode, even; just stop and restart if a player dies (people who record demos do this).

I don't think this map was meant for the "co-op zerg" crowd that usually plays co-op maps on skulltag, zDaemon, etc.

udderdude said:
I don't think this map was meant for the "co-op zerg" crowd that usually plays co-op maps on skulltag, zDaemon, etc.

Various Coop supporting wads that were not made for online servers specifically (often made before they even existed) work quite fine on public servers.

Skulltag got Survival Coop mode.

I was also thinking of a way to force actual cooperative playing instead of just trying to kill more demons than the other guy. For example: Player1 presses a switch, and a secret door opens for Player2 containing weapons. Or Player1 gets trapped in an ambush, while Player2 helps take out the enemies from a distance. Unfortunately, ideas like these require that players remain separated, and it becomes very linear.

I don't understand why you are arguing whether the map's design is "needed" or not. I wrote in my first post exactly what I tried to achieve, and I believe I succeeded. It's fun to play, the players need to cooperate, and it's not possible to zerg the map.

Thanks for the Survival Coop tip, though, I didn't know about that!