Why do a ton of older megawads always have slaughter maps occupying the map32 slot?

[Aquila Chrysaetos]

I guess that makes somewhat for replayability? Like, "huh, the secret level's really hard or otherwise not fun. I can skip it, though, and play through the rest of the maps, which are fun."

Of course, you can always save beforehand. I should really do that myself, but I'm stupid.

On the other hand, I agree, it's cool to see the secret levels and what they have to offer, and it can seem punishing to be dropped in a hard map for finding them, but these people liked what Plutonia started and so decided thought it would be fun to incorporate that idea into their own wads.

Really, it's more a matter of personal preference than anything else.

Edited May 12, 2018 by Aquila Chrysaetos : Better wording

[kb1]

18 hours ago, AbsorbedHatch said:

A weird and probably stupid question, but I have plenty of reason behind it. Today, I got to the 32nd level of Scythe 2. I didn't imagine it being THIS bad (in regard to the enemy count), but it was. It was far worse than what I could've imagined. Too many of the same enemies, including archviles and revenants. I decided I've had enough of it, and moved on to another different megawad. I got to the secret levels again, and proceeded. Once again, a slaughter map that wasn't AS annoying as the first, but still a slaughter map regardless. I thought to myself, "How many of these levels use the same concept?" Then I went exploring for ANOTHER old megawad: Alien Vendetta. I decided to just skip straight to MAP32 this time, and once again it was a slaughter map. Just as annoying as the first, if not worse than it.

 

Now the question floats before me and you: Why? What compelled people back then to follow this stupid trend of making the second secret map of each megawad a slaughter fest? Why are they so punishing? Answers are appreciated, and desired as well. I cannot for the love of me figure this out at all.

Check out the adjectives you used in this post:

• bad, worse, annoying, stupid, punishing

You take a stance that there's some universal truth that these types of maps are bad, and it sounds like you feel personally attacked by their presence. But that's just an opinion, and no one is attacking you. In fact, some people actually appreciate and enjoy these maps.

 

Personally, I win every slaughter map I play. Because I cheat: I play in single-player coop mode. Or multiplayer when friends show up. It's a blast.

 

I could also just iddqd/idkfa. Or just noclip to the exit. There's no shame in cheating, to beat a super hard map, and it's kinda fun...which is the whole point of Doom.

[Ancalagon]

7 hours ago, spd7693 said:

who just enjoy playing on UV

Complains about difficult maps but only plays on UV.

[Aquila Chrysaetos]

5 minutes ago, Ancalagon said:

Complains about difficult maps but only plays on UV.

I'm guilty of this myself, raging because it's hard when I'm playing on UV. A+ for me.

[Woolie Wool]

Jesus Christ, this thread is fucking ridiculous. Map32 is the ultimate secret in a megawad, where you put something that's weird and out-there compared to the rest of the megawad. For a slower-paced mapset a slaughtermap is quite an obvious choice for a map32 so it gets used quite often.

 

(oh boy some people are going to hate the final secret level of Wolfenstein Missions--a Wolf3D slaughtermap with 461 guards. And this is in a game with mostly hitscan enemies and no armor!)

[42PercentHealth]

Welp, this thread was an entertaining read! Been a while since we've had a good slaughter fight in the forums.

 

My opinion is this: There is enough Doom content being published to keep everyone happy, no matter what their particular preferred map style is. Anyone who complains about mappers making too much of what someone else likes and not enough of what I like needs to grow up already and realize they are not entitled to anyone else's labor. Mapping is work that doesn't pay well, y'know.

[leodoom85]

7 minutes ago, 42PercentHealth said:

Mapping is work that doesn't pay well, y'know.

Free and no payback other than reviews and feedback :D

[Impie]

13 hours ago, Aquila Chrysaetos said:

I think a good question here might be why are you playing slaughter wads if you hate them.

I've played tons of wads don't start out as slaughter wads, but turn into them little over halfway through. So the bitching is valid, and "get gud" isn't a valid argument because you can be a master at Doom and still find them tedious and unfun.

[StoneMason]

I just always saw secret levels as the slots for "breaking the formula". A slaughtermap in an otherwise non-slaughterwad would count as such.

I always thought it was funny that slaughterfest 2012 had its level 32 a non-slaughtermap.

[spd7693]

5 hours ago, Benjogami said:

Why don't you like Halloween?

 

Do you have in mind some people here are not from an English speaking country and have no Halloween? Furthermore, do you have in mind some people - like me - are orthodox christians and don't have the guts to celebrate Halloween? 

 

Disclaimer: The fact I am a christian shouldn't mean playing Doom is a sin. After all, in this game you fight demons. And escape from hell while defeating them. Something a true christian does every day - fighting the demons within him/herself and trying to run away from hell. 

[Arctangent]

1 hour ago, Impie said:

I've played tons of wads don't start out as slaughter wads, but turn into them little over halfway through. So the bitching is valid, and "get gud" isn't a valid argument because you can be a master at Doom and still find them tedious and unfun.

You could always, y'know

 

just say "yeah I'm good" halfway through and do something else at that point.

[spd7693]

3 hours ago, Ancalagon said:

Complains about difficult maps but only plays on UV.

 

You're trying to laugh at me for that? I play on Ultra Violence because it suits my skill best. I don't complain about hard maps, I just find some that are unnecessarily difficult. If you remove a few arch-viles and/or a few cyberdemons and/or a few pain in the *ss elementals the map stays the same difficult. Your logic statement sounds like that: 

 

"Can't score the ball into the basket. Plays basketball." 

 

Basketball is not only about scoring. Basketball is also about dynamics, fun, catching and is actually a very tactical game for being this fast. I have been in my high school team. Yeah, I was bad at scoring, but still grabbed no shortage of rebounds, had a lot of assists and was fine at blocking. And was a good team player. Yet everybody from the watchers thought I was the worst in the team. Even though whenever I scored, it was an important set of points. If I can put up a good performance in an important game, does this make me a bad player? 

 

Same as in Doom. If I can play on Ultra Violence, why not? In Star Craft I also select the Hard skill. Because I can handle it. There just are maps and wads I feel they are for pros which I'm not. But they should just scream "for pros" from the description. Not to trick you to think the wad is easy and then BANG - slaughter map after slaughter map. I'm looking at you, Eric Alm and Yonathan Donner. 

[Spectre01]

You can always drop down to a lower skill setting (HMP/HNTR), if a wad that you've been enjoying on UV becomes too difficult to be fun in the later stages; i.e. Scythe 2 map23+. There is no rule that you have to finish every map on UV, and the flexibility of pistol-starts makes switching difficulties easy.

[Aquila Chrysaetos]

5 hours ago, spd7693 said:

Your logic statement sounds like that: 

 

"Can't score the ball into the basket. Plays basketball." 

No, what he was saying is that which I, personally, am guilty of myself, and I noted it.

It's not "can't score the ball into the basket, but plays basketball," it's more like "can't score the ball into the basket from across the court and complains about basketball being hard."

Playing on UV is something I always do, and maybe if I was a little smarter, I'd reduce the difficulty on really difficult maps, but complaining about it being difficult on UV and not switching the difficulty is absurd. Of course it's difficult, you're playing on hard.

"Can't score the ball into the basket" would be like playing UV, but using god mode to get through it. Plays the game, isn't great at it, but has fun how he can anyway.

That's what @Ancalagon was saying.

[Arctangent]

1 hour ago, Aquila Chrysaetos said:

"Can't score the ball into the basket" would be like playing UV, but using god mode to get through it. Plays the game, isn't great at it, but has fun how he can anyway.

I think in this case it's more like playing any difficulty mode while being completely unable to hit anything with your guns, even the hitscan ones.

[Aquila Chrysaetos]

The demons are too elusive for me, bro.

[Nine Inch Heels]

7 hours ago, spd7693 said:

You're trying to laugh at me for that? I play on Ultra Violence because it suits my skill best. I don't complain about hard maps, I just find some that are unnecessarily difficult. If you remove a few arch-viles and/or a few cyberdemons and/or a few pain in the *ss elementals the map stays the same difficult.

Sorry, but you're doing it again, and you're doing it wrong.

 

There is no such thing as unnecessarily difficult. Get that schtick out of your head already. There's different skill levels among players here, some of us require for maps to have a more difficult baseline to feel like we're up against a challenge. If you play any of these maps, then you shouldn't play on UV. And you shouldn't expect for UV to be tailored towards your level of skill either. You're not entitled in any way shape or form to get a UV setting that you're okay with from other mappers.

 

And no, a map does not retain its difficulty when you remove high threat monsters like archviles or cyberdemons etc. It becomes easier. It clearly does. How could it not? UV is not supposed to be what you think it should be when you're looking at somebody else's maps, it's what the other mapper thinks UV needs to be for the maps he makes. You're just trying to force your ideal of how difficult a map should be on others instead of facing the cold reality that I mentioned earlier: People have gotten better at the game. Unfortunately, you're the one who seems to be stuck somewhere in the 90s, where things seemed a lot more difficult than they were in reality. Simply put: This community at large is well past the point of considering OG Doom II a difficult WAD to beat on UV.

 

If you think something is too difficult, you best learn to swallow your pride and dial down to Hurt Me Plenty or lower. The earlier you accept that the baseline of skill is a good bit higher around here, the better off you'll be in the long run. Your alternatives to dialing down are getting better at doom, or straight up cheating. God help you if you ever stumble across a ribbiks map...

7 hours ago, spd7693 said:

There just are maps and wads I feel they are for pros which I'm not. But they should just scream "for pros" from the description. Not to trick you to think the wad is easy and then BANG - slaughter map after slaughter map. I'm looking at you, Eric Alm and Yonathan Donner.

That's why when you're faced with too difficult maps you can dial down the difficulty. Besides, both Erik Alm, and Yonathan Donner state in their readme files that the maps are harder than most other stuff at the time IIRC. In case of Erik Alm he clearly states that the difficulty ramps up a good deal eventually in Scythe II. So, matter of fact is, you have been given a warning that you just didn't care to read. Besides, Scythe (2) and Hell revealed aren't slaughter WADs.

[kb1]

On 5/12/2018 at 1:22 AM, Impie said:

I've played tons of wads don't start out as slaughter wads, but turn into them little over halfway through. So the bitching is valid, and "get gud" isn't a valid argument because you can be a master at Doom and still find them tedious and unfun.

Yeah, the bitching is valid...if you're the only person on Earth. "Tedious and unfun?" The same can be said for any map in existence.

 

On 5/12/2018 at 2:41 AM, spd7693 said:

You're trying to laugh at me for that? I play on Ultra Violence because it suits my skill best. I don't complain about hard maps, I just find some that are unnecessarily difficult. If you remove a few arch-viles and/or a few cyberdemons and/or a few pain in the *ss elementals the map stays the same difficult.

If the difficulty is the same after removing monsters, then why remove them? This makes no sense.

 

But, let's pretend that it does make sense, and let's remove a few monsters from every map you think is too difficult. After which, I ask you: What about all the people that didn't think the maps were too difficult? Now you're happy, but the maps are too easy for a bunch of other people. At least you're having fun, right?

 

Here's what I continue to hear over and over:

I want:

• originality, non-linearity, nice use of texture themes, beautiful unique architecture, interesting layouts, something that feels fresh and new...

Yet, I want:

• exactly the proper difficulty, exactly the right monsters, no cheap shots, exactly the right amount of ammo, exactly the right amount of searching, bla bla...

For wanting a new and fresh experience, a lot of people are pretty darn inflexible as to what they'll accept as "proper", before they rage quit.

 

For something that's supposed to be fun, it sure does get pretty serious around here, at times.

[leodoom85]

12 minutes ago, kb1 said:

For wanting a new and fresh experience, a lot of people are pretty darn inflexible as to what they'll accept as "proper", before they rage quit.

 

For something that's supposed to be fun, it sure does get pretty serious around here, at times.

Three words for that: balance, balance and balance....

[GarrettChan]

22 minutes ago, kb1 said:

But, let's pretend that it does make sense, and let's remove a few monsters from every map you think is too difficult. After which, I ask you: What about all the people that didn't think the maps were too difficult? Now you're happy, but the maps are too easy for a bunch of other people. At least you're having fun, right?

Well, this is why difficulty is there. Of course, there's an OCD with UV thing going on here and there. Therefore, the problem is that people are talking about a map in UV doesn't fit their skill level or stuff, ignoring the fact that maybe HMP/HNTR is a good difficulty for them. Of course, if someone wants to say even HMP/HNTR is too hard for him/her, I have no word then.

 

Other than this, sometimes people like to question me or somebody else that "do you really not mind unfairness?". To be honest, I don't really mind because I do like play Nightmare! from time to time, even the game said that is unfair. Probably I got this idea from life because life is unfair, but what can you do? Just work hard and live with it, or simply quit.

[kb1]

Hey, mappers:

Next time you release a 32-level (yes, 32. 8*4. SQR(1024). 3 sets of ten. Plus 2. Let's write it out for justice: 'Thirty-two'. A free 32-level map set. )

 

Anyway, next time you release a 32-level WAD, you had just better make sure that each map is the same difficulty as all the others, or I'm going to be mad! And, we all know that there's no exact formula for how difficult a map is, so they had better all just 'feel like' the same difficulty. To me. Or, I'm going to be mad.

 

🙂 <--- oooh, nice!

[Quagsire]

I never said increased difficulty was bad though? I simply said that the amount of map32s in megawads tend to overdo the whole slaughtermap concept. Stop trying to twist my words up.

[yakfak]

just wanna say that I don't play Doom for the challenge *at all* but I think a lot of the most interesting mapmakers right now are slaughtermappers, and that I think that's cool. if your problem with the maps is that you have to change the way you play in order to beat them, try practising! there's lots of gameplay on DSDA or Twitch from which you could work out some monster flow manipulating patterns to move along. by watching good slaughter players I have found that I can beat some entry-level stuff like PL32, Scythe 26 and my fave Zones of Fear maps; before I got into watching demos I assumed levels like these were simply too much for me

 

I agree with the guy who said Doom could use a bunch of mazes and platforming, but at the same time, Doom needs creative people coming at it from every angle possible, and for everyone involved in the scene to have a live-and-let-live attitude concerning content that falls outside their gameplay sphere. it's sad to dismiss people's creations because they played out differently than you hoped they would!

[Nine Inch Heels]

10 hours ago, AbsorbedHatch said:

I simply said that the amount of map32s in megawads tend to overdo the whole slaughtermap concept.

I don't even know what this is supposed to mean.

[leodoom85]

1 hour ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

I don't even know what this is supposed to mean.

Hey, he probably played wads that contained that...bad luck, kinda.

[Woolie Wool]

I agree that slaughtermaps on map32 are overused so let's start putting them on map31 instead.

[GarrettChan]

45 minutes ago, Woolie Wool said:

I agree that slaughtermaps on map32 are overused so let's start putting them on map31 instead.

Let's put them throughout Map01 to Map32 please. Wait, isn't this what we have now? ;P

[Nine Inch Heels]

1 hour ago, Woolie Wool said:

I agree that slaughtermaps on map32 are overused so let's start putting them on map31 instead.

Can't do that either.... Valiant already did that :P

[Arctangent]

15 hours ago, AbsorbedHatch said:

I never said increased difficulty was bad though? I simply said that the amount of map32s in megawads tend to overdo the whole slaughtermap concept. Stop trying to twist my words up.

y'might want to read your own topic because this clearly shows you haven't been doing so

[Quagsire]

1 hour ago, Arctangent said:

y'might want to read your own topic because this clearly shows you haven't been doing so

It's one thing for a megawad to get increasingly difficult, but it's another to completely change the play-style to Hell Revealed 3. Why hasn't anyone managed to understand this is what I was implying?