The concept of a "combat puzzle"

[whirledtsar]

This term has become increasingly common in discussions of Doom maps recently. And only in Doom - communities for Quake, Blood, & Heretic/Hexen never mention such a thing. But what exactly does it mean? What distinguishes a "combat puzzle" from normal combat? Is it any encounter that requires the player to think? Is it a trial & error encounter? Or is it an encounter that was specifically designed to have only one "solution"? If so, is that truly a positive quality? Also, it seems to be applied only to modern maps. Is it a recent invention, unbeknownst to mappers of antiquity? Do the original Doom 1 & 2 campaigns not involve any "combat puzzles"? What does it all mean?

[Szuran]

I think it's quite simple: a combat puzzle is a situation where you have limited resources needed to resolve the situation.
 

So, if you have regenerating health and infinite ammo, it's not a combat puzzle as you can pretty much stay in one place and slowly exploit the system.

 

Different enemies with different abilities, posing different levels of threat are also welcome.

 

Superhot is the ultimate combat puzzle.

[Spectre01]

Good question. I am not a fan of the term as it's broadly applied to and used in the same context as "difficult encounter". A puzzle implies that there is a specific solution, something that can be made much easier by consulting a walkthrough or watching somebody else play through that section. From my experience, the hardest fights are ones that demand a consistently high level of play regardless of foreknowledge. i.e. That Revenant staircase in Stardate 20x7. It's a simple encounter, requiring precisely dodging Rev missiles while properly keeping up DPS with the Rocket Launcher and not shooting the stairs in front of you.

[amackert]

Well made slaughter scenarios are basically combat puzzles to me. You might be able to brute force your way through any given fight, but there are usually optimal strategies to discover that makes the fight considerably easier. For instance, intentionally instigating specific infighting, as an example.

 

Quake actually does have this, but its maps are designed to where it doesn't happen super often. It's best demonstrated in the last level or two of DOPA (the recent Episode 5). The downside to infighting in Quake is that anyone can be aggravated by anyone. This is probably why you don't see slaughter Quake maps--all the enemies would slaughter themselves, which defeats the purpose of a map type like that.

 

Other FPS games may not have infighting, or it just might not work all that well which is why you don't see it used in puzzle-like ways. One interesting case I never noticed until this past week is the first Halo. In a few specific late game parts, there are higher tiered Covenant that appear and it's clear to me now that the developers wanted you to get them to fight the Flood. I'd always focus on killing both sets of enemies in an intense (and very risky/difficult) fire fight, but in this turn of events I got them to fight each other and had an, "Aha!" moment. All this time I didn't realize some of these fights were puzzles to be figured out.

[whirledtsar]

19 minutes ago, amackert said:

Quake actually does have this, but its maps are designed to where it doesn't happen super often. It's best demonstrated in the last level or two of DOPA (the recent Episode 5). The downside to infighting in Quake is that anyone can be aggravated by anyone. This is probably why you don't see slaughter Quake maps--all the enemies would slaughter themselves, which defeats the purpose of a map type like that.

 

Thats not quite accurate, Quake has pretty much the same infighting logic as Doom (ie, enemies of the same species will not fight eachother). Although unlike Doom their projectiles can damage eachother. Offtopic, but I believe the real reason Quake has very little slaughter focus compared to Doom is that the enemies have higher average HP and the player has no BFG equivalent.

[baja blast rd.]

It helps to understand the opposite. 

 

A difficult encounter that might *not* be a combat puzzle generally will test, to some degree, raw "twitch skill" and understanding of the straightforward tactics for conducting a certain type of fight, while also requiring you to reach some minimal strategic floor (i.e. not shoot yourself in the foot with *bad* strategy) -- or something higher than that floor, but not by a lot. 

 

When an encounter is a combat puzzle, crafting a strong strategic course of action -- broad decisions -and/or- nuances -- becomes very important. Or sometimes, you're tasked to exploit more obscure tactics.

 

In combat puzzles, elements of raw skill and tactics don't go away -- they might even be just as important -- but winning with them alone might be impossible, impractical, or just plain worse (making your task harder for no reason).

 

I'll give a couple of examples: there isn't much you can do to "raw skill" through this final encounter of Sunlust m19 if you don't incorporate a herding scheme so that the barons don't trap you. (The video doesn't make it obvious of course since it's a demo, and 99% of people overestimate how well they understand things they haven't played from watching a demo, but those barons can do that very easily.) There are numerous ways you can approach this fight, but you have to avoid being baron mush to survive. In the same map, the archvile steeple fight (played straight up) can always be reduced into "react/dodge perfectly," but if you grok the underlying idea that archviles have slow attacks so you can preemptively go to the side with archviles about to disappear and be super safe, in addition to standing at the correct spots, it becomes so much easier. (Also that you have a megasphere here and in the next area so tanking occasional minor damage doesn't matter. :P That one is my video because the runners all use a nifty scheme to herd the advancing mob out of the way and rush to the key early -- another solution ;). ) 

 

There is some element of "human subjectivity" here too. If your raw skill or tactics are less strong, or you're inadequately booked in the ones that really help out in a certain encounter, you might have to walk a tightrope in strategy to compensate. Whereas someone who has the mechanical ability and tactics down pat for an encounter might have far more strategic options and also not need to implement them all that well. A "combat puzzle" for one player might not necessarily be one of the other. 

 

An encounter having only one solution can be an issue but not always, tbh. Bear in mind that even if you hold your broad course of action constant, to the point where everything remains the same to an observer, precise nuances can differ. Nuances can differ even in the player's head. I played a fight recently where the crux turned out to be to count while firing a weapon in order to better time needed "switch-overs," but, like, basic matters of "what is the player paying attention to at what time; what do they ignore" can make a huge difference. Also a fight might have a low enough number of elements to only really permit one approach, but it might still be very enjoyable to do it. My experience, though, is that sets like Sunlust or SD20x6/7 generally have more than one viable solution in most encounters, though.

 

This post might be 5% of my possible thoughts on the subject, maybe less. :P 

Edited March 3, 2020 by rdwpa

[amackert]

24 minutes ago, whirledtsar said:

 

Thats not quite accurate, Quake has pretty much the same infighting logic as Doom (ie, enemies of the same species will not fight eachother). Although unlike Doom their projectiles can damage eachother. Offtopic, but I believe the real reason Quake has very little slaughter focus compared to Doom is that the enemies have higher average HP and the player has no BFG equivalent.

 

Really? I could have sworn I've seen shamblers fight each other (lining one up to where its lightning hits the other, instances like that). I'll have to fire up a map where two appear to double check.

 

Quake has no BFG equivalent, sure, but there are plenty of Doom slaughter maps that make zero use of it.

[Nine Inch Heels]

Combat puzzles, to me personally, are the kinds of fights where the logic of "straight forward gameplay" fails entirely. Instead of killing viles first, you may need to kill them last, or not even in the same fight. Instead of pulling the BFG to lay down massive area damage, you may need to be very careful wrt what you apply damage to. Instead of killing "pop-corn monsters" like former humans or imps right away, you may need to leave them be, because they may be required as cover or "blockers" while you're dealing with something else entirely. Instead of rushing for the seemingly available weapon/powerup that is on display, you may need to prepare the arena you're in for whatever happens when you pick up that "thing", maybe by luring monsters into certain positions, or killing them in certain spots to mitigate for example archviles that will otherwise ruin your day. Combat puzzles can also revolve around what needs to be made to infight with which other monster so players get time to do something that would be impossible to do without tethering some monsters to certain other monsters.

 

Combat puzzles follow a somewhat rigid "chain of logic". Even if a puzzle-fight has more than one solution, once you've chosen your approach and started the fight a certain way, you are committed to that "chain of logic", and if you deviate too far from "the plan", then you're toast. Combat puzzles may or may not be harder to execute than "normal fights", but in most cases I'd say they're harder by virtue of forcing players to stick to a plan while making that plan somewhat difficult to follow through until the fight is over.

 

Simply put: Combat puzzles are something that is often deemed "unfair" by the vast majority of players, because the solution does not immediately present itself, and therefore requires finding a solution before actually having a chance to win. However, not everything that is deemed "unfair" by popular opinion is a combat puzzle. Also, not every fight in a slaughter map is a combat puzzle...

[Fonze]

As stated by others, it's a subjective thing player-to-player but I would define combat puzzles as requiring some form of lateral thinking in that the most obvious solution will not produce consistent wins in the lightest of situations or will be a pitfall/trap leading to certain death in the heaviest of them and usually require some level of knowledge about the relationships between the various inner workings (how stuff reacts to you, each other, and the environment, what moves you can make and how those affect other stuff, etc) of the game you're playing. To this degree, a combat puzzle is also a dynamic, or active, puzzle that is constantly changing as you play with it and piece it apart. Combat puzzles also focus more on the "knowing is half the battle" side of things over the raw skill of execution of those developed strategies.

 

One of the simplest, most discussion-friendly examples of a combat puzzle to me would be placing some mancubi in the outer edges of a medium-sized room and a PE or three in the middle; sure a great player may be able to muscle memory / skill their way through it directly by killing the PE's first, but most players will find more consistency in not taking a shot to the flanks or rocketing oneself in the face on a lost soul if they ironically ignore the PE's and lost souls and instead target the mancubi first, giving themselves more room to breathe and less pressure to contend with as they clear space. To this degree, E2M9 is a bit of a proto-combat puzzle, but these types of things are usually derivative of some inner mechanic so you're unlikely to see them in a base game where conveyance of what to do for players that know nothing about the game is more highly valued and less assumed, and this is why you see them less in most other games; I bet you'd find quite a few combat puzzles in player/fan-made quake/etc. levels.

 

There are many more thoughts I have on this as well, but time is always an issue so hopefully this helps to explain some of my thoughts on it; I like these types of discussions so I'll prolly just continue to read and lurk from here.

Edited March 3, 2020 by Fonze

[xdarkmasterx]

9 hours ago, whirledtsar said:

 

Thats not quite accurate, Quake has pretty much the same infighting logic as Doom (ie, enemies of the same species will not fight eachother). Although unlike Doom their projectiles can damage eachother. Offtopic, but I believe the real reason Quake has very little slaughter focus compared to Doom is that the enemies have higher average HP and the player has no BFG equivalent.

 

Enemies in Quake always infight with monster who hits him last (so, if you shoot an enemy, then he gets hit immediately by another, he will target that monster instead of you), unlike Doom which has "cooldown" before they can switch targets. I don't think that same type can infight, but they can damage each other

[Grain of Salt]

14 hours ago, whirledtsar said:

But what exactly does it mean?

 

A puzzle where the elements are combat.

 

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What distinguishes a "combat puzzle" from normal combat?

 

Puzzle.

 

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Is it any encounter that requires the player to think?

 

No.

 

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Is it a trial & error encounter?

 

No.

 

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Or is it an encounter that was specifically designed to have only one "solution"?

 

No.

 

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Do the original Doom 1 & 2 campaigns not involve any "combat puzzles"?

 

Not really in the modern sense of the term, but they have similar things, like the cyber/baron room in map08, or e2m9.

 

It's pretty anachronistic to call the iwads campaigns. They're not campaigns, for the same reason qtest wasn't a DLC and ultimate doom didn't come with a loot crate. And the word itself is just annoying. Calling a set of levels for any game a "campaign" makes it sound like all FPS games are just COD style empty propaganda vessels, designed only to get gullible men to join the army. And in reality only like 80% of FPS games are like that, so it's misleading :0)

 

When you call level sets campaigns, are you actually crying out for the comfort of a fictional drill sergeant to tell you what to do? Have you seen apocalypse now more than once? Do you have a toy gun in your room right now? Is there a flag on the wall? Have you ever found yourself saying "murica"? Do you generally find yourself yearning to become more antlike and docile?

 

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communities for Quake, Blood, & Heretic/Hexen never mention such a thing

 

I think the available monsters in those games don't really lend themselves to puzzly setups, but I think I've heard mappers for Q1 and hexen talk about combat puzzles, for what it's worth. Hexen actually has a bunch of weird mechanics that could be used to make puzzles, if anyone felt like making them.

[whirledtsar]

25 minutes ago, Grain of Salt said:

It's pretty anachronistic to call the iwads campaigns. They're not campaigns, for the same reason qtest wasn't a DLC and ultimate doom didn't come with a loot crate. And the word itself is just annoying. Calling a set of levels for any game a "campaign" makes it sound like all FPS games are just COD style empty propaganda vessels, designed only to get gullible men to join the army. And in reality only like 80% of FPS games are like that, so it's misleading :0)

 

 When you call level sets campaigns, are you actually crying out for the comfort of a fictional drill sergeant to tell you what to do? Have you seen apocalypse now more than once? Do you have a toy gun in your room right now? Is there a flag on the wall? Have you ever found yourself saying "murica"? Do you generally find yourself yearning to become more antlike and docile?

What? I really dont understand what youre trying to convey here. For me "campaign" just refers to an official, continuous, single-player experience.

[Worm318]

1 hour ago, Grain of Salt said:

It's pretty anachronistic to call the iwads campaigns. They're not campaigns, for the same reason qtest wasn't a DLC and ultimate doom didn't come with a loot crate. And the word itself is just annoying. Calling a set of levels for any game a "campaign" makes it sound like all FPS games are just COD style empty propaganda vessels, designed only to get gullible men to join the army. And in reality only like 80% of FPS games are like that, so it's misleading :0)

 

When you call level sets campaigns, are you actually crying out for the comfort of a fictional drill sergeant to tell you what to do? Have you seen apocalypse now more than once? Do you have a toy gun in your room right now? Is there a flag on the wall? Have you ever found yourself saying "murica"? Do you generally find yourself yearning to become more antlike and docile?

Well that escalated quickly. I hope no one asks for examples of Doom missions with combat puzzles later. 

Edited March 3, 2020 by Worm318

[Maggle]

On 3/3/2020 at 2:23 PM, Grain of Salt said:

It's pretty anachronistic to call the iwads campaigns. They're not campaigns, for the same reason qtest wasn't a DLC and ultimate doom didn't come with a loot crate. And the word itself is just annoying. Calling a set of levels for any game a "campaign" makes it sound like all FPS games are just COD style empty propaganda vessels, designed only to get gullible men to join the army. And in reality only like 80% of FPS games are like that, so it's misleading :0)

 

When you call level sets campaigns, are you actually crying out for the comfort of a fictional drill sergeant to tell you what to do? Have you seen apocalypse now more than once? Do you have a toy gun in your room right now? Is there a flag on the wall? Have you ever found yourself saying "murica"? Do you generally find yourself yearning to become more antlike and docile?

....What the hell are you on about? Is this really a necessary response to calling the singleplayer doom maps campaigns? Good lord

[NoXion]

On 3/3/2020 at 10:51 PM, whirledtsar said:

What? I really dont understand what youre trying to convey here. For me "campaign" just refers to an official, continuous, single-player experience.

The Ultimate Doom's single player experience is divided into chapters, any of which one can jump straight into right from the start, so I think on those grounds it could be argued that it's not a campaign in the sense you describe, due to not being continuous.

Although personally I'm not that bothered if people call it a campaign or not. People in informal settings have a tendency to use contemporary terms to describe historical things.

[Crusader No Regret]

I'm inclined to think of a combat puzzle as,

 

- There is one intended way.  Deviating from the intended way makes the encounter exponentially more difficult, maybe even intended to be impossible.

- Some minimum arbitrary level of complexity.  Providing a BFG and just enough cells to two-shot every cyberdemon on the map/segment of map does not feel puzzly to me.

[baja blast rd.]

12 hours ago, Crusader No Regret said:

- There is one intended way.  Deviating from the intended way makes the encounter exponentially more difficult, maybe even intended to be impossible.

 

Sticking to 'one' and 'intended', sets like Sunlust, SWTW, SD20x6, SD20x7, and many others, would have pretty close to no combat puzzles.  

[Tartlman]

I think that a combat puzzle is one where you can't take the standard "shoot it if it moves" approach to combat. The easiest example, which is in tricks & traps, there's that room with barons - if you try to fight them normally, you'll drain most of your ammo, but if you let the cyberdemon do the work it's much easier. I think SIGIL had that one map where you have to lure a cyberdemon onto a teleport exit to telefrag it. Going down is a megawad that probably has a lot of examples, although it's been a while since i've played that one and i don't remember everything.

[Vorpal]

First time I heard the term was during PR for doom 2016, I believe Hugo used it. Guessing it's just something marketing came up with, traditionally one might call it "the dance" or some variant of that which only makes sense to an id-FPS player. "Combat puzzle" is a little more descriptive to the uninitiated. At its core it just describes the threat assessment a player constantly does, which determines the best weapon they should be using, and then the execution (movement etc) of the player's plan.