Unpopular Doom Opinions

[Firedust]

1 hour ago, Faceman2000 said:

Define “gimmicks.”

If we are talking strictly about video game development, I'd say a gimmick is a level-design trait that hinges on a set (or just one) of specific gameplay mechanics. An example, in the case of Doom, would be a level where the player is given a number of invisibility spheres required to progress to the exit through a string of hitscanner-heavy encounters. Another example would be a level in which a player has to navigate monsters through enclosed sectors so that they can open the door for the player (which cannot be opened by the player from their side) to proceed.

 

18 minutes ago, Solmyr said:

Isn't that a contradictory statement if every "gimmick" from most of these hypothetical maps happens to be different from one another? And the same "creative bankruptcy" argument applies to sticking with John Romero's mapping guidelines while not developing your own style.

 Well, I agree with the latter part of your statement, but I never said my argument is restricted to that specific group of people. As for the former, usually the type of mapmaker I'm talking about struggles to make a fun map that isn't built around a gimmick.

[Lizardcommando]

I don't really like slaughter maps and I get sad every time I see a really nice looking level that ends up being an insane 6666 monster filled slaughter map.

[Nefelibeta]

3 hours ago, Firedust said:

Well, I agree with the latter part of your statement, but I never said my argument is restricted to that specific group of people. As for the former, usually the type of mapmaker I'm talking about struggles to make a fun map that isn't built around a gimmick.

What kind of mappers are you talking about? I've never encountered a mapper who can make gimmicky maps that are fun but not fun maps that aren't gimmicky.

[baja blast rd.]

Sometimes people want to design around truly arcane mechanics and not much else, and would do their "normal" maps this way too. But unless they don't mind some inaccessibility, it often makes more sense, for conveyance purposes, for each idea to be in its own dedicated map -- where it is clear to the player what the idea is, and you can introduce the idea and then build on it. 

 

For example, if you have a "monster needs to open door idea" area in a regular map, it probably needs to be optional in some way, or be made unable to fail somehow -- otherwise that could be a softlock if the player fails to grasp the idea before it is too late. Imagine how terrible that might be 20-30 minutes into an otherwise unrelated map.

 

But in a short map (for example, with one encounter), it's okay if the player fails and has to restart.

 

But if you have a ultra-short map with just one encounter that lasts like 30 seconds, that's sometimes too short; you might be passing up on enjoyment value from not exploring the idea in more than one variation. You might be missing out on an opportunity to have a learning curve and have later fights build on the earlier concepts in more sophisticated ways.

 

You also might want to keep the supporting content spare (free of other gimmicks, and not especially lengthy), so as to not risk confusing and distracting from the core idea.

 

So a gimmick map is born, with 3-5 encounters exploring that one idea and doing little else. 

Nothing is stopping gimmicks from being done in the context of a regular map too. For example in a longer map, you could have an section that introduces an arcane gimmick, then explores it in a few ways. You can have arcane fights pop up in the context of normal play. In fact, challenge maps do something like this all the time. Authors like Dobu even have one-off puzzle sections in their regular maps. But a "gimmick map" (with a single gimmick) is just the most accessible way of presenting such ideas.

 

I've seen people be disparaging of them over the years because of the fact that it's just one idea over in one map -- a one-trick pony. But that is an odd distinction to get hung up on, since whether something is a single map to itself, or part of a larger map, is more a matter of packaging than anything else. 

 

In sum, making maps centralized around one gimmick is the path of least resistance for someone who wants to play around with arcane mechanics, and has nothing to do with their creativity. 

[baja blast rd.]

We need more blursphere-heavy maps. 

 

Blurspheres are a versatile enough element to not even feel like a "gimmick." It's kind of like how a map is not a gimmick map for being 90% RL-centric.

 

Types of setups include but are not limited to:

 

- Traditional blursphere vs. hitscanner setups where the blursphere is clearly good, and there's a) no other element; b) a "time race" factor with wanting to engage many hitscanners while the blursphere is still on; or c) an evasion factor with trying to go after just the hitscanners but running away from other monsters.

- Setups where the blursphere is closer to neutral value, due to tradeoffs, and each version plays well in its own way. (Hitscanners and projectile monsters being present is a basic example of such a tradeoff.)

 

- Setups where you are encouraged to (and should) pick up a blursphere because of a heavy presence of hitscanners, but this complicates the projectile hell phase. (I really like these -- having to actually dodge and react to projectiles is fun.) 

 

- Setups where blurspheres are poison pills (like doubled on invulnerabilities, so you'd have to do something like use the invul well so you aren't in a bad spot when it wears off and are still blur). 

 

- Setups where the blursphere is a clear positive -- against projectile monsters! 

 

- Setups where the blursphere is a negative -- against hitscanners (yes it's possible). 

- Having to avoid blurspheres placed on the ground. 

- Having to dodge blurspheres that are scrolled or hurled at you (maybe out of something like a fleshy sector-detail mouth). 

[Maribo]

23 minutes ago, baja blast rd. said:

- Having to avoid blurspheres placed on the ground. 

- Having to dodge blurspheres that are scrolled or hurled at you (maybe out of something like a fleshy sector-detail mouth). 

@Nefelibeta Since a Newt map has the first one, perhaps another map could make use of the 2nd? :P

[Nefelibeta]

Being able to see other playable areas from everywhere is probably the most efficient way to decorate your maps. Never see other people talking about it so I thought it would be interesting to bring this up.

 

Spoiler

Take these 2 screenshots from Wormwood Map02 and Fractured Worlds map03 for examples. Note how the other playable areas are presented from where I'm standing, and serve as sort of "background" for it. This kind of things create a sense of place, depth, or perhaps foreshadowing, without necessarily extending the development time. For example, you can make the area where the finale is taken place visible from all/some areas, and when the players see it, they will be like "Oh, so that's where we're heading to." Other good instances would be Sunder map10(Hag's Finger) and Struggle map28. However techniques like this are only used intentionally in grandiose/climax maps, and rarely appears in "normal" maps.

 

Spoiler

This doesn't only apply to outdoor areas, it's possible to achieve this effect in maps mostly focusing on indoor areas as well. My favourite example would be Stardate20x7 map05. There are a lot of places where you can see glimpses of other areas through windows, gaps or the openings of rocks. Really enhances the dark atmosphere and creates a sense of immersion.

 

Here's a shameless self-plug of myself attempting to do it. ;P

Spoiler

 

[peach freak]

OPL is overrated for music playback. It doesn't really mesh well with Doom's soundtrack and the music quality of it sounds low-budgeted.

 

 

[pcorf]

Cyberdemon = half unfeeling machine, half raging horned devil. But in reality he can be your best friend too.

[Ozcar]

Doom 2 is more tech demo than game.

[Azure_Horror]

Some fights are very cool and very interesting...

The attention to most minute aspects of design blows your mind...

But you hate to play them ! Just because of your taste, not because you "don't get it".

 

My most recent personal example - 1st fight on Fractured Worlds Map 06 - UV.

At its core, this fight is an elaborate and subtle revenant-AV brawl. Minimalist and seemingly innocuous, but deadly under the surface.

 

But I do not enjoy this fight. My subjective perception describes this fight as "Revenants and Archviles are being jerks yet again. That's not new at all! I still have not finished Plutonia 2, 7 and revisited. I would go play those mapsets, if I wanted to see more spicy minimalist rev-AV setups".

 

I am absolutely sure, someone out there loves this battle and describes it as "Heh, those old dogs still can put you on the ropes, don't they?" And this is okay! I get, where they are coming from. But our tastes differ. I dislike the thing, they like the thing. Nothing bad or strange about it.

 

[Firedust]

On 8/7/2022 at 11:36 PM, baja blast rd. said:

I've seen people be disparaging of them over the years because of the fact that it's just one idea over in one map -- a one-trick pony. But that is an odd distinction to get hung up on, since whether something is a single map to itself, or part of a larger map, is more a matter of packaging than anything else.

 

In sum, making maps centralized around one gimmick is the path of least resistance for someone who wants to play around with arcane mechanics, and has nothing to do with their creativity. 

I don't mind a mapper exploring several gimmicks within a map, that way the player doesn't grow tired of the experience. I was referring to maps whose gameplay is centralized around just one gimmick, sorry if I was unclear about that. And, of cource, I am not talking about maps that take 5 minutes to beat or speedmaps - I generally avoid those unless they look super slick. Because, obviously, if a map is short, chances are high the player won't be bored of whatever mechanics the mapper has put their emphasis on.

 

As for the second part of the quote, I'd rather say it's the path of least resistance for a mapper to make a themed consistent map. What is truly hard is to make a memorable and identifiable map, both visually and combatwise, without it just being an amalgam of drawn-up scenarios hinging on one specific set of mechanics. This is subjective of course, but I definitely wouldn't play a map specifically designed that way unless it's an outlier in a mapset, in which case it's understandable that the author was maybe struggling to implement those ideas elsewhere or introduce a higher degree of variety.

 

 

[yakfak]

re: blursphere-heavy maps, i like blursphere more than i like dodging lol

just doom joey wheeler style, semi-invisible, standing stock still while fireballs draw your outline

 

> gameplay

[Anarkzie]

On 8/10/2022 at 11:27 AM, Firedust said:

I don't mind a mapper exploring several gimmicks within

-----snip-----

 introduce a higher degree of variety.

 

 

 

We all have different tastes and what's good for one person will of course be different for another person but it seems like your reasoning is backwards. 

 

Maps like Hunted or Barrels of Fun which have a single gimmick, standout as being the most creative in their set. Of course people may not like them but I think they show way more creativity than just a standard tech base with enemies laying around.

 

Just to point out I'm not saying you're wrong for not enjoying these maps I just don't think their issue is that they lack imagination or creativity.

Edited August 11, 2022 by Anarkzie

[Doomkid]

4 hours ago, peach freak said:

OPL is overrated for music playback. It doesn't really mesh well with Doom's soundtrack and the music quality of it sounds low-budgeted.

I agree. I have nostalgia for the OPL sound due to Wolf3D and some Sierra games, but overall anything similar to the Roland SC-55, like the Windows soundfont or anything of that ilk, is much more well-rounded. The instruments actually sort of sound like instruments, rather than arbitrary digital tones.

 

I will say though that you can get an incredibly fat bass sound from OPL that’s hard to mimic with an SC-55, but considering most of Doom’s soundtrack is ambient and rock, a soundfont with “realistic” instrument samples conveys the intended sound of the music better than OPL does.

[Sneezy McGlassFace]

I don't know about you but it really bugs me that Revenants are the only ones with dedicated punching animation/mechanic. The skeleton dance of death is so much fun.

It would be great to play it with imps and barons and co. You get in baron's face, he tries to scratch you, you step back and immediately get faceful of green fire/slime. I know it's not that hard to dodge but it feels like these guys are cheating. You were trying to melee me, mister hell knight, sir. Where's the fire/slime ball come from? At least your skeletal friends have the dignity to swoosh and miss.. 

[Maribo]

 

I don't know about you but it really bugs me that Revenants are the only ones with dedicated punching animation/mechanic. The skeleton dance of death is so much fun.

It would be great to play it with imps and barons and co. You get in baron's face, he tries to scratch you, you step back and immediately get faceful of green fire/slime. I know it's not that hard to dodge but it feels like these guys are cheating. You were trying to melee me, mister hell knight, sir. Where's the fire/slime ball come from? At least your skeletal friends have the dignity to swoosh and miss.. 

I often wish cacos had a real animation for it, instead of biting you at 600mph out of nowhere.

I honestly like the fact that imps and barons/hks will follow through with a projectile if you step back, it adds an extra bit of flair to getting into a punch out with them. Mancubi are actually my favorite to dodge though, their pattern is SO satisfying... but you also have to put up with the godawful hit detection.

[Nefelibeta]

Punching cacodemons isn't that hard, just treat them like hell nobles. But it's so god-forsaken irritating.

[Dusty_Rhodes]

17 hours ago, pcorf said:

But in reality he can be your best friend too.

He sure is nice when he kills demons for me :D

[Kristian Nebula]

23 hours ago, pcorf said:

Cyberdemon = half unfeeling machine, half raging horned devil. But in reality he can be your best friend too.

 

Personal moving rocket launcher without ammo limitations :)

[Nefelibeta]

Incidental combat is way more exciting when you have limited ammo and monsters are used intelligently.

 

It makes me sad when a map looks cool and plays like crap. ;)

[Majin]

On 7/30/2022 at 12:03 PM, Lila Feuer said:

I don't think it's an unpopular opinion, more of a rant, but inconclusive rooms or switches that indicate nothing so you can retread areas you've already been to and see that nothing has changed, prompting you to go look up a walkthrough on doomwiki or a YT playthrough. This happens a little too often for my tastes, I do have a bad habit of missing small details, as often revealed in videos but I like to think I have pretty good spatial awareness (I don't get lost in Wolf3D) so it takes a special kind of fucking up on the mapper's part to completely lose the player. Like what the hell am I suppose to be doing now? I don't enjoy spending 10 minutes running the same places over and over just because it wasn't at all obvious what you're doing now. Being left hanging fucking sucks.

some would say it adds an element of exploration & puzzle though i don't like it much. my principles are to use colour coded doors in areas that must be backtracked, it's mere existence implies return & rewards the player for intuitively knowing what to do with it. buttons should always showcase it's effects immediately as to not only demonstrate it's purpose without confusion but it also adds and an oomph to pressing it. it can get real bad, mappers often use switches & keys interchangeably for arbitrary reasons, or it can be a case where a map is too large & uses switches as pseudo keys. sometimes my patience runs thin so i jam whatever im playing into udb to see what does what--especially on slaughtermaps: somehow i was supposed to know that pressing button #37 in the toxic waste facility area opened the obscure door in the medieval courtyard that's on the opposing corner of the map-- very silly me. 

[Codename_Delta]

I don't like Hangar, I prefer Hanger.

[Ozcar]

Doom 3 have the best story of doom.

Edited August 15, 2022 by Ozcar

[baja blast rd.]

It's more important for a wad to be good at what it's good at than actively minimize complaints among some % of players. 

 

The widely loved wads, whether popular and broadly loved or loved by a niche audience, are loved because they are exceptional at something.

 

Okay fine, it's not easy to be exceptional. 

 

All the well received wads, popular or niche, posted on DW, are that because they are genuinely pretty good at something. 

 

Minimizing bugs, potential nuisances, and all that -- and yes even potential complaints like "archviles here are overused and annoying" where those don't conflict with the mapper's vision -- are easily doable just with time and effort and conscientiousness. 

 

But having your wad's best quality be pretty good or even great, rather than just maybe decent or borderline good, is not a given and is hard to do. 

 

Implications: 

 

1) One thing I am embracing as a red flag is when there are aspects of a wad I made I thought were very good, but by all indications people only seem to think they are "just" good. Like I thought I knocked one little aspect or encounter or bit of design out of the park but it's more just a 7.5/10 or 8/10 -- and I trust people's opinion on that. (Or "I thought it was an A but it's more just a B or B+" if you want grades.) These are even better learning opportunities than stuff that is unexpectedly perceived as a negative or outright bad. But it's easy to overlook these because, well, it's still good and people still liked it. But fact is the gap between good and very good is a lot, lot larger, harder to bridge, and more important than that between bad and okay, even if those are similar absolute gaps in quality -- so is a bigger difference in expected result! 

 

2) During the creative phase you really should not care about minimizing faults and grievances -- yet. That's for playtesting and polishing. Doing that would be like writing, and you're at the phase where you are coming up with a character for a story, but you're already worrying about spell-checking and grammar. People do have limited mental load, and you have to prioritize; focusing on polish and broader appeal when you should be exploring or fleshing out something and trying to come up with something good/creative, will make the top-end potential a lot less good and creative.  

 

(This is one reason of all those "what things about wads do you hate" threads need to be taken with a grain of salt for people trying to get better at mapping.

 

Another reason is that they often reduce into intractable differences in matters of taste. Like, sure, a certain player thinks inescapable pits, or cramped vile-heavy fights, or distant hitscanners, are obnoxious -- but the author did not and actually found those elements positive, and that's way more important imo. Or maybe the author overlooked that element or the significance of it -- like expected the player to use certain routes, but the player used an approach that emphasized the annoyance of distant hitscanners (which the author also dislikes but didn't realize was a thing in their map before they got the playtesting feedback, and then fixes easily with that feedback). Or maybe the author didn't plant proper nudges within a certain setup and that caused the player to play in a way that they found annoying (which is different from the fun way the author played), which is fixable with the right nudges, or with some other subtle change to mechanics and setup, or by "teaching" the player the encounter earlier in a clear way, or something else, while still retaining the "Annoying" element. Or other causes. But in no case is "distant hitscanners are bad, inescapable pits are bad, [this element is bad], so don't use them or be way of them" useful actionable advice that is helpful to know. These threads always omit the helpful part of it, all the nuances, and are just vent dumps, which sure might have some value, but not to mappers looking to improve!)

 

I focused on more abrasive elements, but I could also start off that last paragraph with "Like, sure, a certain player thinks overly 'easy' combat, non-combat-centric mapping, or shotgunning imps, are tedious" and it would apply just as much. (Also the fact that those don't show up in complaint threads should make you go hmm. Complaint threads have a heavy skew towards highly specific types of negative feelings, but not all of them, and also towards elements that are easy to spot and complain about (like archvile spam or inescapable pits or masterminds rather than setups that annoy or bore just as much but in more nuanced ways with less clear concept labels), so are not even instructive and representative for someone who wants to be good at understanding what makes people complain in order to avoid that. :P

 

3) A lot of improving is having constructive, positive models -- not having a mental checklist of to-avoids. Understanding something like the use of creating conflicting demands within an encounter is a lot better for someone who's trying to get good at combat design than knowing x is bad, y is bad, z is bad, according to some player providing little context. The second person who has a masterful mental library of Things To Avoid might top out at really polished, broadly accessible mehness that sometimes is good through variance and often needs to be totally overhauled to be good. But the first person who has very strong constructive models (and thinks almost nothing of what to avoid) will make very good and fun encounters that, if flawed, have more easily patched blemishes that are easily patched after the slightest feedback! (Ideal balance isn't 100-0 but probably more like 98+% creative/constructive design with ~2% pitfall avoidance.)

[Majin]

38 minutes ago, baja blast rd. said:

It's more important for a wad to be good at what it's good at than actively minimize complaints among some % of players. 

 

The widely loved wads, whether popular and broadly loved or loved by a niche audience, are loved because they are exceptional at something.

 

Okay fine, it's not easy to be exceptional. 

there's something i thought about a while ago about the quality of art. the worst fate for a piece is mediocrity--neither hated nor loved. while it's good to take in the perspective of others, generally people will tell you things that will make the map conventionally smooth for most players--not necessarily things that would make the map "better", at least in your vision. taking bold risks are likely to be received very critically & harshly.

[evouga]

1. Hell Revealed is a great WAD and City in the Clouds (from pistol start) is one of the greatest maps of all time

 

2. Hexen is the best of the Doom-clones and the hub system in Hexen/Strife is a significant improvement over linear level orders.

[RoastDoom]

I think Doom 2 is not only the best IWAD, but one of the greatest games of all time....and easily has the best music of the IWADS.

[Stupid Bunny]

@baja blast rd.

 

Something I have really tried to learn about mapping is how not to be over-responsive to tester input.  Part of what I try and gauge in player responses is how much have I succeeded in what I wanted the map to be? For instance, if I’m aiming to create an exploratory, sandboxy, long-form but also fairly intuitive and navigable map, and the player’s response is “It’s too long and sprawly”, then likely they simply don’t want to play maps like those, and I’ll keep my vision for those who do. But if their critique is “the map is not remotely intuitive and I don’t know what literally any of the switches do”, then I have failed in my objective to make an intuitive map. 
 

Of course, this isn’t always so clear cut; for one, another person might say “I had no navigational problems at all what is @Person A talking about”. There’s also things like, for example, setting out with the aim of making a map or scenario that is punishingly hard, where different people may say either “That was sadistic and cruelly difficult, I hated every moment of it”, or “That was sadistic and cruelly difficult, 10/10 I wanna see more of this”. This is where waiting on a broader selection of feedback before making changes can be helpful; otherwise by fixing an encounter for one person I may be neutering it for a bunch of others who would’ve otherwise found it deeply memorable. It’s also good to take a critical eye to exactly what it was that someone hated, which is where specific feedback can be better food for thought, not as a directive to follow but as an option to consider. “Do I actually like it with this little health or this many archviles?” Feedback is really useful in this way, and a lot of what I’ve improved around telegraphing and health/ammo distribution comes from the helpful input, positive or negative, that so many of you good people have given me. But feedback shouldn’t be the only thing that dictates the outcome of a map. Usually the time I stop enjoying mapping is around the time I stop building according to what I want to play and start doing everything as a reaction to the last critique I received.

[The Nate]

I hate the Slayer lore and the kind of impact it's had on the greater Doom community and I really wish id had stuck with that "F-90" stuff they had at E3 2015 and prior