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Hisymak

Why all (vanilla) levels are designed for pistol start?

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When I was playing Doom and Heretic as small kid years ago, I was pretty much wondering why mostly all weapons could be found in all the late levels, when I would already gain those weapons in the previous levels and carry them over. I considered this design being pointless and finding a good weapon in a late level (i.e BFG9000 in a well-hidden or hard secret in MAP20 and above, when I gained one in i.e. MAP08 already) felt strongly underwhelming and always bothered me.

Well, I was actually aware that when I die, I will repeat the level with clean inventory and pistol only. So in such case, those weapons would come in handy and I would be able to play through level after dying and replaying level with no weapons. BUT... eh... I did not think this was an intended way of playing through the game. The game allowed me to save and load at any time, so when I died, I could simply reload the last saved game and continue with all weapons. I believed restarting level with clean inventory was a continuity-breaker, that would also make the game pointlessly harder. I believed a continuous playthrough was a standard and intended way of playing through the game. Even Hexen and Qukake did exactly this - when I died there, I would restart level with all weapons and items preserved in same state as I previously started the level with. There were not all weapons in later levels as well. Duke Nukem 3D had a similar problem, but was one step further - when I died, it directly offered me to reload the last saved game.

 

Well, several years later, when I was getting more and more skilled and was aiming higher difficulties, I discovered, that starting levels with clean inventory and pistol only could offer me additional challenge and difficulty, and thus give me better gaming experience and more fun. I started to play with pistol starts on purpose. And I had to perform various workarounds to achieve that. The workarounds were for example dying in the next level on purpose, using suicide cheat (i.e. IDDQD in Heretic) in the next level, using cheat to skip levels, using Setup program or Death Manager (in Heretic) to launch that level, and the most advanced way was blasting myself into walkable exit in the previous level with a rocket launcher (in levels where it was possible to do).

I was quite upset that I needed to actually perform workarounds to achieve on-purpose pistol starts. I was missing some native feature or option to automatically and legitimately start each level with pistol start. I was really wondering, why the levels were designed for pistol starts, but the game did not offer explicit option to play a regular pistol-start game without forcing me to do mentioned workarounds.

For example in ZDoom and modern ports, where is playtime counter from the very beginning of game through all levels, this counter would reset when I use a command or cheat to restart a level. It's not possible to commit a suicide to restart level, because game would forcefully reload the last saved game. So I do not see any straightforward option to perform pistol start playthrough without commands/cheats and without resetting overall playtime counter.

So was even legitimate pistol-start mode something that was designed in the first place?

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According to Doom Wiki:
 

Quote

''It is generally considered important that the player is able to complete a level from a pistol start and with reasonable effort. However, due to the fact that the player is able to keep his supplies when advancing to a new level, it can be tricky for a mapper to balance the difficulty grades between pistol start gameplay and one with preobtained ordnance. Naturally, it is a problem in game entities that consist of more than a single level.

 

The maps in Doom and Doom II were typically created so that the player could finish them from scratch. When Sandy Petersen was asked about the things he found disappointing in Doom, he said he felt the episodes were too easy because id designers did not properly take account the player's ability to carry ordnance from earlier levels. The gameplay testing was based mainly on pistol starts, separately for each level. According to Sandy Petersen, "Most people started levels with some kind of significant equipment. However, almost all our playtesting was done starting each level with just a pistol. We made the game too easy for the average player."[2]

 

Arguably, the most striking consequence is seen in E3M8: Dis where the spiderdemon is practically powerless if the player has found a BFG9000 somewhere in the episode. If the player has managed to keep the weapon along with its ammunition and ultimately uses it against the boss monster, the battle will be dealt with ease – one may consider this anticlimactic, given that it is the final endeavor of the game. The intended challenge of the level is experienced only when the player fights the spiderdemon with the weaponry that is provided in the map.

 

A reprise of the problem is avoided in Doom II as the destruction of the final boss was made more independent of damage and more dependent on accuracy. However, this solution has a similar threat of disappointment as the boss technically ended up being a mere static wall and not a moving thing. As the main opposition in the level is produced by the spawned monsters, the player could be given a considerable arsenal in the beginning of MAP30: Icon of Sin.

 

Many custom maps are specifically designed to be played from scratch (sometimes even intentionally killing off the player in anticipation), so that the players' initial defenselessness and vulnerability force them to use discretion and evasion tactics while seeking weapons and powerups. This adds a new edge to the gameplay.

 

The conditions of a pistol start may be modified with a DeHackEd patch that can change the amount of starting health or bullets, such as in STRAIN, or with specialized scripting languages in more advanced source ports.

 

Some level sets are designed such that each individual map is playable from a pistol start, while others are only balanced for play when the players carry weapons, ammunition, and other supplies over from previous levels. By making use of the ability to save the game, any given level set can be completed this way without being reduced to beginning a map from a pistol start in the event of death.''

 

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There is no set or proper way to play.

And everyone is free to challenge themselves in unimaginable ways thanks to this.

Pistol starting offers the best challenge for the designed map.

If UV pistol starting is easy, well try Nightmare with carry over.

It surely will be challenge enough for the carried ammo.

 

Development wise, it would be stupid to make something that can't be completed on it own confined space.

Carry over ammo is a joy on some mapsets for some players, as not all people is mentally stuck to the idea that Doom is UV or nothing.

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1 hour ago, Hisymak said:

Well, I was actually aware that when I die, I will repeat the level with clean inventory and pistol only. So in such case, those weapons would come in handy and I would be able to play through level after dying and replaying level with no weapons.

 

1 hour ago, Hisymak said:

Well, several years later, when I was getting more and more skilled and was aiming higher difficulties, I discovered, that starting levels with clean inventory and pistol only could offer me additional challenge and difficulty, and thus give me better gaming experience and more fun.

 

It seems to me you've answered your own question ;p

 

1 hour ago, Hisymak said:

And I had to perform various workarounds to achieve that. The workarounds were for example dying in the next level on purpose, using suicide cheat (i.e. IDDQD in Heretic) in the next level, using cheat to skip levels, using Setup program or Death Manager (in Heretic) to launch that level, and the most advanced way was blasting myself into walkable exit in the previous level with a rocket launcher (in levels where it was possible to do).

I was quite upset that I needed to actually perform workarounds to achieve on-purpose pistol starts. I was missing some native feature or option to automatically and legitimately start each level with pistol start. I was really wondering, why the levels were designed for pistol starts, but the game did not offer explicit option to play a regular pistol-start game without forcing me to do mentioned workarounds.

 

There has always been the -warp command, plus idclev; it would be a shame if you could warp to a level halfway through the game only to find that you couldn't actually beat the game from there.

 

1 hour ago, Hisymak said:

For example in ZDoom and modern ports, where is playtime counter from the very beginning of game through all levels, this counter would reset when I use a command or cheat to restart a level. It's not possible to commit a suicide to restart level, because game would forcefully reload the last saved game. So I do not see any straightforward option to perform pistol start playthrough without commands/cheats and without resetting overall playtime counter.

So was even legitimate pistol-start mode something that was designed in the first place?

 

Yes. I think there are some quotes from sandy jostling around somewhere regarding how id felt about pistol starts, though I could be misremembering. Dying in a level without having saved ones progress was always supposed to result in a punishment, but that punishment shouldn't also end a playthrough. It's (generally) better to make a game with more room for success through errors than to make one that punishes players' time. Something about letting the player create their own fun seems to be the case here, though this also gets into my own speculation.

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I enjoy when maps are designed around pistol starts, because it ensures that whatever map I choose to play has its own independent and internal balance. Nothing wrong with designing a wad intended to be played continuous, but I think it is important to make sure (in most cases) that each map can at least be finished when starting with the pistol.

 

Plus, while pistol starts can certainly be more challenging than playing continuous, continuous play has its own big detriment as well, that detriment being the fact that you won't start each map with full health. This means that when creating a map designed to be played either way, you have to make sure that you have a fair amount of health available for people playing continuous, and that you don't provide too much health for people playing with pistol starts.

 

Personally, I enjoy pistol starts more, for the reason you point out in your original post: It removes the satisfaction of finding powerful weapons, since you already have them.

Edited by TheMagicMushroomMan

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I wouldn't say the Doom Levels were intended For Pistol Start, but rather have the levels not be a Near- permanent softlock if you die and loose all your stuff. 

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1 hour ago, jazzmaster9 said:

I wouldn't say the Doom Levels were intended For Pistol Start, but rather have the levels not be a Near- permanent softlock if you die and loose all your stuff. 

Going by the wiki, id seemed to mainly focus on pistol starts if nothing else, and seemed to fail to take into account that most people would play the game in continuous.

 

"When Sandy Petersen was asked about the things he found disappointing in Doom, he said he felt the episodes were too easy because id designers did not properly take account the player's ability to carry ordnance from earlier levels. The gameplay testing was based mainly on pistol starts, separately for each level. According to Sandy Petersen, "Most people started levels with some kind of significant equipment. However, almost all our playtesting was done starting each level with just a pistol. We made the game too easy for the average player."

 

Which is the same thing I just noticed @Redneckerz quoted.

Edited by TheMagicMushroomMan

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2 hours ago, Hisymak said:

For example in ZDoom and modern ports, where is playtime counter from the very beginning of game through all levels, this counter would reset when I use a command or cheat to restart a level. It's not possible to commit a suicide to restart level, because game would forcefully reload the last saved game. So I do not see any straightforward option to perform pistol start playthrough without commands/cheats and without resetting overall playtime counter.

ZDoom's autosave system comes from the need to support Hexen and Strife, because you absolutely cannot die-and-restart-the-level in a hub without risking getting locked out of progression. E.g. you need a key to progress in this level, a key that you are supposed to have obtained in the previous level.

 

However if you disable autosaves (which you absolutely can do) you'll get the old behavior back of restarting the level from scratch after death.

2 hours ago, Hisymak said:

So was even legitimate pistol-start mode something that was designed in the first place?

When they made levels they playtested the level by warping to it directly, so every level was playtested in pistol-start conditions. And obviously levels had to remain beatable after the player dies and has to restart the level.

 

 

The problem of starting inventory was eventually solved in Doom 3, where different levels have their own "from scratch start" equipment. So if you start playing a level directly, instead of playing the whole campaign to reach it, you'll get a starting inventory that may already include weapons, armor, extra ammo, etc. For example, if you go directly to Delta Labs 1, you'll start with shotgun, machine gun, chaingun, plasma gun, rocket launcher, chainsaw, extra bullets, shells, and rounds, a pair of grenades, and a security armor. So basically the full arsenal that you'd have acquired by playing continuous, though in continuous you can potentially get more ammo and armor.

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I'm just curious... Is there any megawad or episode wad designed to be played continuously that you can't beat with pistol starts?

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3 minutes ago, dmslr said:

I'm just curious... Is there any megawad or episode wad designed to be played continuously that you can't beat with pistol starts?

It's not uncommon at all to find megawads that have certain maps that are impossible or nearly impossible to beat using pistol starts. It's hit-and-miss.

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20 minutes ago, TheMagicMushroomMan said:

It's not uncommon at all to find megawads that have certain maps that are impossible or nearly impossible to beat using pistol starts. It's hit-and-miss.

 

But that's a rare occurrence, much more rare than some make it be, which tends to come from people who aren't particularly skilled in the first place, they die, restart without equipment, and now they realize they're not as good as they may think, then blame the wad for being "unfair", "impossible to beat", and other nonsense. Make no mistake, such wads most certainly do exist, specifically unfinished/unpolished works, but, again, the numbers are blown out of proportion sometimes, that's all I'm saying. Not all of them are Chillax in singleplayer mode.

 

As for OP, because it's the easiest to balance for, continuous balancing is much more difficult to get right and there's too much room for error there. To compensate, some wads also implement forced pistol starts in the form of suicide exits at the end of an episode to prevent trivializing the experience in some cases where continuous play helps too much.

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13 minutes ago, seed said:

 

But that's a rare occurrence, much more rare than some make it be, which tends to come from people who aren't particularly skilled in the first place, they die, restart without equipment, and now they realize they're not as good as they may think. Make no mistake, such wads most certainly do exist, specifically unfinished/unpolished works, but, again, the numbers are blown out of proportion sometimes, that's all I'm saying.

 

As for OP, because it's the easiest to balance for, continuous balancing is much more difficult to get right and there's too much room for error there. To compensate, some wads also implement forced pistol starts in the form of suicide exits at the end of an episode to prevent trivializing the experience in some cases where continuous play helps too much.

I agree, it's rare in most popular/finished megawads, but it happens to me all time when I play through wads by beginners. In the grand scheme of things, wads by new and inexperienced mappers might not get a lot of attention, but there are a lot of them. So if you regularly test new maps from inexperienced mappers, or just pick random maps from the WADS/mods forum, it's a pretty common occurrence, and it shouldn't be that hard to find a lot of examples. And I'm not talking about "I died and now this is hard", I'm talking about maps that are just flat-out impossible to beat with a pistol start. Maps that have ten Barons blocking the door that you are expected to kill with 50 bullets. Those kinds of maps.

 

When I play through finished/polished megawads, I usually play continously, but when I play through "my first megawad" maps, I always use pistol starts. I do this specifically because of the fact that a lot of new mappers seem to have continous play in mind when designing their maps, sometimes making certain maps impossible when pistol-starting. Or maybe they just didn't test their maps at all to make sure they are even beatable, which is another problem I've encountered before.

 

I can't speak to what length the problem is blown out of proportion, because it's not something I really see a lot of people complaining about, outside of threads made by new mappers.

Edited by TheMagicMushroomMan

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I sometimes want to make a concept mod where pistol starting would be cheating, but the problem is that the only way to do that is to basically not have any pickup at all throughout all the maps. So the only valid gameplay in that scenario would be to rush to exit trying to dodge enemies on the way. Not exactly pacifist playstyle because you wouldn't be forbidden to shoot monsters, it's just that you have 50 bullets for the entire megawad and that's all. And I don't think I'd have the mapping skill to make that actually interesting.

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10 minutes ago, Gez said:

I sometimes want to make a concept mod where pistol starting would be cheating, but the problem is that the only way to do that is to basically not have any pickup at all throughout all the maps. So the only valid gameplay in that scenario would be to rush to exit trying to dodge enemies on the way. Not exactly pacifist playstyle because you wouldn't be forbidden to shoot monsters, it's just that you have 50 bullets for the entire megawad and that's all. And I don't think I'd have the mapping skill to make that actually interesting.

You could have every exit be a type 11 sector where the player exits when their health is low enough, and then have very little to no health in each map.

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48 minutes ago, Gez said:

I sometimes want to make a concept mod where pistol starting would be cheating, but the problem is that the only way to do that is to basically not have any pickup at all throughout all the maps. So the only valid gameplay in that scenario would be to rush to exit trying to dodge enemies on the way. Not exactly pacifist playstyle because you wouldn't be forbidden to shoot monsters, it's just that you have 50 bullets for the entire megawad and that's all. And I don't think I'd have the mapping skill to make that actually interesting.

That's an exercise in frustration tbh.

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Pistol starts are tested and implemented to ensure that if a player forgets to save their progress when they die and the game reloads the level; they will be able to get through the current map with only the starting pistol and ammo. If they can't do this to complete the map, then they'd have to reload the previous map, start the whole level set over, or cheat. So it's all about balance and making things fair. Sure, you could design your levels to not be able to be completed without a pistol start, but you are only punishing players who are not using the save feature as often as they probably should by doing this. Also, there are players that prefer to start each level with a pistol start for the challenge of it, but the original reasoning behind it is to keep the game balanced for people who either forgot to or couldn't save their progress.

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3 hours ago, Fonze said:

It seems to me you've answered your own question ;p

That was a rhetorical question. I think there is a forced pistol start mod somewhere that you could use, OP. Maybe you could search for it.

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Another important thing to note about Doom development is that - especially in Doom II and Episode 4 - the level progression was decided after the levels had been started or completed in a lot of cases.  When Romero sat down and made E4M6 he had no idea what the player would start with because he didn't know it was going to end up in the 6th mapslot - and even if he did he didn't know what weapons other designers were putting into their maps.  I'm sure that the levels might have gotten a light balance and tweak pass once they were put into their slots (although with Episode 4's infamously weird difficulty curve maybe not) but the core design was pretty much independent on all of them, which is another reason they were pretty much all designed for pistol starts.

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