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HQDefault

How do you handle damaging floors?

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Environmental hazards in level design is always fun because literally everyone does them in a different way.

 

I'm interested to see how the Doomworld community handles things like damaging floors, especially considering not even the main games can stay 100% consistent with how they're used.

 

For me it's pretty simple. If it would logically hurt you in real life, that's what hurts you.

So brown sludge? No, that's just murky water, that wouldn't kill you. You might get sick in a few weeks, but not immediately. Blood? Yeah, nah. We got plenty of blood in our bodies, I think we'd have a problem if it hurt us.

Nukage I obviously make damaging, and I always keep it at the minimum damage level.

But lava? Hell yeah. Crank that up to maximum with the flashing lights. Lava will burn your face off.

 

There's also stuff like electric and invisible radiation hazards, which I feel like I remember Doom 1 attempting once or twice, but not to a great extent. I'm interested to see how people handle that.

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At this point I just assume that almost every liquid can be damaging and take caution every time I step on it the first time. Usually you can infer from the context whether it makes sense for the floor to be damaging (for example if there are platforms guiding you across it, it probably is.) Your logic works fine most of the time though, with lava and nukage being consistently more damaging than sludge or water. Blood is either or, and I think I've seen it used as damaging and non-damaging with somewhat equal frequency. Other types of environmental hazards like the no oxygen or toxic gas or whatever should usually be somehow indicated due to being relatively uncommon, and I do find them refreshing takes on the environmental hazard idea.

 

Considering how inconsistent the usage is between authors, I think the best you can do is stay consistent within your own map / mapset and at least try to give hints as to the damage-yness of your floors. Then again, if we take the classic damaging sectors, the maximum loss of empirical inquiry is 20% health, which in most cases isn't detrimental to completion. If you're playing maps where a damaging floor is an integral part of an encounter, it's usually 5% to give you that oppressive feel. And in my experience if there's no radsuit around, it's unlikely the higher percentages are used. Unless somebody is being very mean :P

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3 hours ago, HQDefault said:

So brown sludge? No, that's just murky water, that wouldn't kill you. You might get sick in a few weeks, but not immediately.

 

If it's raw sewage in a confined space though, the fumes alone would be able to knock you out, so not completely harmless.

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Some interesting case studies in deviating from expectations: 

 

Certain design styles, like that of tourniquet's Miasma, call for '[damaging floor] as water' basically. In maps like this, liquid that is traditionally damaging is used more for the theme and color; often it covers vast portions of the map and the author doesn't want to be shackled into using radsuit-heavy gameplay. So it is non-damaging. In Miasma, the player starts in a pool of green slime, which communicates that fact immediately. That's further reinforced by a backpack pickup nearby in another crescent pool. That prevents the player from being unnecessarily avoidant of nukage until they figure out minutes later, which is awkward and can happen to some players in maps that convey this roughly. 


In an_mutt's Port Glacia, water hurts you. There are some nifty custom-texture signs that communicate that directly. Port Glacia has no inescapable pits or bodies of water that really make you regret jumping into it and thus catch you unaware -- but going the extra length to make this difference feel logical and not arbitrary helps a lot, and it comes off as a smart choice even if you figure out the water is damaging by first stepping in it. [Because let's face it; it's called Doom, not Read :^)] In these cases, in order to prevent the player from figuring out too late -- like when an inescapable pit does exist -- sometimes maps will force you to cross damaging water (or whatever normally innocuous liquid) at an early, low-risk point in progression, and maybe give you compensatory health right afterwards.

 

Non-liquid hazards are definitely rare. In rare cases, they are tropey. If you play a Shores of Hell-inspired thing, those trenches of blue light are probably going to hurt you. Otherwise, conveyance to the rescue again. If you're given a big row of radsuits right before a door that is bordered with radiation symbols and you look into the windows and the air is red, those radsuits are probably not there just for you to look sexy in the fancy ZDoom mirrors. 

Edited by ‹rd›

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As for me, most of times I'll with 5 hp damaging floor. If the damaging floor is water or slime, I usually add a sign to warn the player. If I really don't want the player to stay in that damaging floor, I'll go with 10 hp damage. If I really want to kill the player, I'll add 20 hp damaging sectors.

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4 hours ago, HQDefault said:

There's also stuff like electric and invisible radiation hazards, which I feel like I remember Doom 1 attempting once or twice, but not to a great extent.

There are four cases I remember; all in Episode 2:

  1. Deimos Anomaly's inverted cross -- small enough that you may not actually notice it hurts.
  2. Containment Area's rows of blue bulbs
  3. Deimos Lab's baron head marble -- again, small enough and kind of out of the way so it's likely you won't notice it hurts, especially since you have no reason to go there (contrarily to the inverted cross, which at least is a passageway)
  4. Spawning Vats' redux of the Containment Area rows of blue bulbs. This time there's also a row of blue UAC logos, but same result.

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Has any map ever used different damaging floors based on difficulty? This thread got me thingking, and it's surprisingly simple in Boom.

 

The attached map has non-damaging water on ITYTD/HNTR, -5 hp nukage on HMP, and -10 hp lava on UV.

damagingfloors.zip

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29 minutes ago, boris said:

Has any map ever used different damaging floors based on difficulty? This thread got me thingking, and it's surprisingly simple in Boom.

I'm pretty sure the idea was thrown around with one of @Chris Hansen's maps, though I don't recall whether it actually got implemented. (edit: I think it was just something I suggested and he wasn't interested in doing.)

 

It would be doable in vanilla even, by having decorations force the player to go down one of three hallways each with different appropriate linedef actions for example.

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47 minutes ago, boris said:

Has any map ever used different damaging floors based on difficulty? This thread got me thingking, and it's surprisingly simple in Boom.

 

The attached map has non-damaging water on ITYTD/HNTR, -5 hp nukage on HMP, and -10 hp lava on UV.

damagingfloors.zip

 

Uh, i think it could extremely easy to do also on vanilla doom too! Even on other games, like Heretic or other IDTech 1 titles...

Just put the player start in 3 different rooms, each room have the player spawns sets by difficulty... i thought it right?

 

And answering to the OP question, i deal with the damaging floors as the same way you did

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25 minutes ago, plums said:

It would be doable in vanilla even, by having decorations force the player to go down one of three hallways each with different appropriate linedef actions for example.

 

Ah, you're right, of course. Although it'd not be as convenient since the setup would be more complex.

 

7 minutes ago, Walter confetti said:

 

Uh, i think it could extremely easy to do also on vanilla doom too! Even on other games, like Heretic or other IDTech 1 titles...

Just put the player start in 3 different rooms, each room have the player spawns sets by difficulty... i thought it right?

 

Player starts are unaffected by the difficulty settings and will spawn no matter what.

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Something that this month's playthrough of Akeldama over in the DWMC has reminded me - I tend to assume that water adjacent to snow or ice will be damaging because the environment suggests that it's freezing cold.

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23 minutes ago, boris said:

Player starts are unaffected by the difficulty settings and will spawn no matter what.

 

Oh, i see. I tough it was affected by difficulty!

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Floor damage, for me, depends on how much interaction the player will have with that specific damaging sector. Easy as.

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Typically I follow the same formula as the OP but I sometimes make blood damaging. When I am playing I expect water to be safe and lava/nukage to damage but everything else is fair game.

 

However, if it is communicated well anything is OK. In fact, the longer I have been mapping the less I feel inclined to even show fairness to a player!

 

Interesting about changing a damage sector to non-damage - I am on my phone so can't download the example map but is it to do with the floor change texture line action? It could be something given to the player as a reward in a secret.

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I don't usually do damaging floor much (Though in my upcoming map there'd be a small lava river you need to go down wearing radiation suit) - they seem more frustraing than anything. I do use glowing cracks as damaging floor that doesn't seem to be done very often.

 

Somewhere down the line I will make a map that has damaging bright lights that can be turned off. I already tested the mechanics and they seem to work well.

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Sometimes I put them at the bottom of pits with no way out.
People didn't seem to like this, so I stopped doing it mostly.

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6 hours ago, Walter confetti said:

Just put the player start in 3 different rooms, each room have the player spawns sets by difficulty... i thought it right?

 

Player starts are not affected by difficulty flags... but teleport destinations are! So you could totally do whatever you might have had in mind with player starts, just using a teleporter instead.

 

 

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8 hours ago, Gez said:

Deimos Lab's baron head marble -- again, small enough and kind of out of the way so it's likely you won't notice it hurts, especially since you have no reason to go there (contrarily to the inverted cross, which at least is a passageway)

 

Did you mean E2M5: Command Center? I don't remember a damaging marble face in Deimos Lab but I do remember one in Command Center. Also, funnily enough the ceiling of that sector is actually blood so it kind of count as a damaging liquid.

 

I'm surprised no one mentioned UAC Ultra MAP10: Skagway which features a sort of unique hazard by using the outside areas as damaging zones due to lack of oxygen, thus forcing you to pick up Radsuits any time you're outside. A neat idea for sure.

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13 minutes ago, Uni said:

Did you mean E2M5: Command Center? I don't remember a damaging marble face in Deimos Lab but I do remember one in Command Center.

This smug boi right here:

ooF1xEJ.png

 

And you're right that there's a similar instance in E2M5 (thing about Doom I just learned about) but it's a vile face, not a baron face.

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13 hours ago, ‹rd› said:

If you play a Shores of Hell-inspired thing, those trenches of blue light are probably going to hurt you. Otherwise, conveyance to the rescue again.


I always kinda liked the idea of electrified floors as a deviation from the standard nukage/lava stuff. I tried expanding on this in one of my maps by having a section with damaging water, with the rationale being that it was conducting electrical current from the surrounding machinery. I put the blue circle light on the ceiling, made them blink garishly, and threw up radiation/no personnel signs around, so I hope it was clear enough :)

The 10-20% damage should be reserved for lava in my opinion though, yeah it's not instant death but it can be really frustrating to step on it for a split second and just happen to catch the timer right so as to get damaged.

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3 hours ago, Gez said:

This smug boi right here:

ooF1xEJ.png

 

And you're right that there's a similar instance in E2M5 (thing about Doom I just learned about) but it's a vile face, not a baron face.

I intentionally did something similar in a map i am working on in an yet unreleased community project. I think it will be the only map in the project with this effect.

The memory were vague at that point in time, and now I can not remember where I had the inspiration from.

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18 hours ago, plums said:

I'm pretty sure the idea was thrown around with one of @Chris Hansen's maps, though I don't recall whether it actually got implemented. (edit: I think it was just something I suggested and he wasn't interested in doing.)

 

It would be doable in vanilla even, by having decorations force the player to go down one of three hallways each with different appropriate linedef actions for example.

I had to do a lot of work to find a proof but I think I did it. You mentioned this back when I released Bloody Realms of Hell :-) Some of you were surprised that I hadn't made an Obituary Written #2 in terms of unfairness and douchebagery :-D

 

https://www.doomworld.com/forum/post/1214583

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I don't often put damaging sectors into my levels, as I feel that's not really a satisfying thing to die from as a player. I don't completely avoid using them, but it'll largely be as a barrier which needs to be circumvented or an optional excursion for some kind of advantage rather than mandatory exploration. The places where it is used as part of the combat challenge will often have islands so players will have the choice between staying still and vulnerable or mobile and damaged.

 

If I do intend to make damaging floors as part of the challenge, whether or not I include a rad suit will be dependent on circumstances. Plentiful rad suits are appreciated by players, but if the player is at no risk of taking damage through normal traversal through a damaging sector, there's little point in the sector being damaging.

 

I have got one map where the player is given a choice between safe "nukage" and radioactive water, but the map IS a Tricks and Traps replacement, so I feel like that trick is a softball, and I have signs in the pits which change from "Poison" to blank or blank to "Radioactive" upon entering the pit.

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I usually would only use damaging floors to kill the player if they get completely stuck in an inescapable pit of some sort. Note that these places aren't easy to get into unless you use an archvile or somethings to fling yourself into it. I just use it to unstick the player.

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Quite often, damaging floors are used horribly and unnecessarily, along with radiation suits.

 

Sometimes you'll see a river of nukage and be given a rad suit, and be able to reach the end of it within a few seconds. Then, you have a screen unnecessarily tinted in green for about a minute. It's worse when a level does this multiple times, so all the memories you have of the level are colored green, when it was supposed to have any sort of color variety.

 

It's why I don't care when map makers aren't consistent with its damage, as visible in Plutonia and Alien Vendetta. If you wanted to have a level filled with nukage that the player has to walk on, it's unnecessary to have it damage them, if it's not going to provide any additional fun challenge or mechanic.

 

It's unnecessary to have a damaging floor AT ALL if you're just going to give the player several radiation suits, making the fact that it does damage nearly entirely redundant. People seem to often forget that environmental hazards are supposed to be hazardous.

 

But I gotta say, I hate damaging slime, blood and water. They should (almost) never be damaging at all, unless there's any sort of clear notice that they're damaging, and/or any actual sense to it, for example: you're in a level taking location in a very cold and snowy area, so it'd make sense that freezing cold water several degrees below celsius would hurt you.

Edited by Juza

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From a gameplay perspective, I see it as a tool to create area denial. In Doom, forcing the player to move somewhere and not "door camp" or "hallway camp" can be a challenge. One method to prevent this "safe camping" concept is to make it physically damaging to the player to stay in a particular spot by using slime or nukage, or even "radioactive areas/floors."

 

As far as mapping texture to damage, my personal rules attempt to follow the rough canon laid out by the original Doom:

 

1. Nukage (green slime) is 5%

2. Blood (red slime) is 10% or none, depending on circumstances (if it's obviously organic blood, no damage is dealt)

3. Lava (orange slime) is 20%/max.

4. Mud (brown slime) is not damaging.

 

And of course...

 

5. Water (blue) is not damaging, who ever heard of damaging water that requires a radiation suit to safely traverse? (Yes, I know about E3M3, but since there are signs, I'll allow it...this time...)

 

Note, I sometimes make an exception for Boom's 242 deep water to simulate a "suffocating" effect underwater.

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I think the best practice is to follow the soft convention (nukeage 5%, Blood 10%, Lava 20%), and if you do break it, deliberately go out of your way to make it obvious to the player with a poison sign/rad suits and then keep it consistent across your mapset. Blood is the one I am least consistent with tbh, I try to put damaging blood in a really bright sector and keep non damaging blood consistent with the rest of the lighting.

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