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Old-Doomguy

What makes a map good or bad?

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Hey all 

 

I've never made any maps other than a few for Quake 1 when I was 12. (They were worthless) but sometimes I wish I could create some. I have a good imagination but lack of time and patience. 

 

But there sure are tons of great maps out there. But what makes them good or bad?

 

I've seen many people say that the master levels and TNT are bad, what is it in those maps that make them bad?

 

How do you define a good or bad map?

 

How important is 

Visuals 

Enemy count 

Weapon and ammo count 

Health, armor and power ups 

Obvious secrets 

Super hidden secrets

 

Etc. 

 

What's your opinion on this?

 

What does The Kid have to say about a topic like this?

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this is pretty nebulous and frankly I don't think any wad is bad unless it's somehow harmful to the player (exasperation at corridors doesn't count as harm!)

 

my take on TNT's bad reception is this: the music is pretty downbeat and some of the levels are long and lonely enough to let boredom set in. most of the maps in it are perfectly fine but around MAP 21 things get desperate, and the whole WAD gets a bad rap because of that effect!

 

i don't think it's really about placement or spectacle; generally as long as a level has effort put into it, someone'll notice!! and then nine other people will dismiss it based on some personal criteria giggle

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tbh there's really no answer to a question like this due to the enormous variety of genres of custom doom maps as well as all the different preferences people have. pretty much everyone will give a different answer, because there's no objective truth to what's good or bad

 

not only that, but what's considered "good" today by a large amount of people may be considered complete shit in the future, or vice versa

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That is a very vague question with any number of possible answers. Everyone is different. It is the quality of the experience that matters. No one individual thing is going to make a map great. It's the sum total of all the elements you mentioned. A quality gameplay experience will compensate for a mediocre design far more than a well designed map will compensate for a crap experience. But whether one enjoys that experience will depend on personal taste.

 

Generally, I get pissed off if I have to micromanage resources. It's a shooting game. I want to be able to shoot things as much as I like, and a certain degree of tolerance should be allowed for misses or differences in approach. However sometimes you get a skilled author who gets the balance just right, and resource deprivation adds tension and not annoyance. Personally, I could not care less about secrets but some do. Enemy count is certainly a factor. I dislike slaughtermaps. I find them tiresome. But also the size of the map is a factor. 200 demons spread over a wide area is going to be less of a pain than the same amount over a small area.

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7 hours ago, Old-Doomguy said:

I've seen many people say that the master levels and TNT are bad, what is it in those maps that make them bad?

  • Shitty level geometry/texturing/detailing.
  • Non-intuitive level progression with zero sense of pacing.
  • Cheap enemy placements, usually with Chaingunners in large, open areas or Barons in tight spaces where you can't strafe.
  • Unbalanced item placement with no regards to encounter design.

MAP22: Habitat and MAP25: Baron's Den are basically guidelines for newbies on what not to do when making a Doom map. I'm also baffled by some of Christen Klie's level design choices, particularly in The Catwalk.

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It all depends on many factors. A bad looking map can play great (MAP09 of Doom 2). A good looking map can pay terrible (some of my uninspired Whispers of Satan maps).

Edited by pcorf

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It depends on the person, everyone has different views and opinions, maybe a wad with bland textures and boring level design is decent for some people, but for others the wad is an absolute insult.

 

overall, the best thing you can do is follow basic level design, and just follow your mind and let creativity flow, replay your progress and if it's fun and challenging, you're doing a good work, if you get bored.. well... there's a problem.

 

Finally, make sure to have standards but don't let others tell you how to do things, in the end, there are casual doomers and hardcore doomers, opinions may vary.

 

Cheers!

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Here are some of my personal thoughts on the matter, separated into the different aspects of a map.

 

VISUALS

 

Visuals, I find, is one of the most important aspects of a map. You want to make something that immediately catches the player's eye and immerses them into the map's world. Whether a map uses vanilla textures, OTEX or anything in between, you want to use those textures in a way that gives the map a cohesive theme and identity. Granted, you can also mix themes, but if you do, you want to make sure that the changes don't feel abrupt and out-of-place. Detail also helps towards making an otherwise bland map look visually inviting (but do try not to overdo it!).

 

As far as guidelines for actual texture use, the most important one I can think of is this: don't use custom textures just for the sake of using custom textures. It's all good to use a few custom textures among otherwise vanilla ones if you can make them work with your theme, but slapping custom textures into your map with no regard for moderation only helps to make it look worse than it already is. Visual inconsistencies stick out like a sore thumb and are bound to turn people off.

 

Another pretty important guideline, sort of tied to the last sentence of the previous paragraph: avoid using heavily contrasting textures. What I mean by this is that some textures don't mix that well, and you should pay continuous, careful attention to whether that texture you want to use looks good or bad next to the other ones. Unless you specifically want to highlight something in your map (even then, you should consider what exactly you are highlighting - is it a switch or just a minor detail?), you don't want to use a texture that practically screams at you to look at it. But this is one of those things that you learn only by trying out different texture combinations and seeing what works. Study color theory if you need to.

 

There's a lot more advice I could give about making a map look good visuals-wise, but I don't want to make just this one section unreasonably long.

 

I know I'm providing a pretty extreme and possibly bad example here, but so many beginner-made maps simply don't work in the visual department, either because they don't feel thematically cohesive or because the visuals simply aren't that interesting. There's a lot you can do to make an ugly map look beautiful - it's largely about finding out for yourself how you want to do it, either through experimentation or by playing and studying other maps.

 

GAMEPLAY

 

Gameplay is a lot harder to nail than visuals, simply because it's arguably a more subjective matter. Different people like and dislike different gameplay styles, and there's no such thing as pleasing everyone. Generally, though, there are a few things you'll want to avoid, namely softlocks. Make your lava pits escapable, triple-check your raising/lowering platforms, make sure you can't accidentally lock yourself on the wrong side of that single-use door. Consider every possible softlock scenario and test it a dozen times, tweak if needed, test it a dozen more times, tweak again. Rinse and repeat until you're 120% sure that there's absolutely no way a softlock could happen there.

 

Also related to gameplay, it's a good idea to balance your maps around pistol starts if you're making a multi-map set. I made the mistake of not doing so when I made my first (and worst) Doom wad, which also happened to be a full 32-level megawad. But that's another discussion for another thread.

 

LAYOUT

 

This is another fairly tricky one. People around these parts tend to prefer non-linear maps, but linear maps can also work if you know how to make them work. Some things you'll want to consider when slapping down the layout for your map are height variation and room size. The latter is especially important when it comes to combat scenarios; a room can be too cramped or too big for a given encounter. But getting it just right is understandably difficult. To help with this, it's a good idea to give yourself some "empty space" around a room should you need to adjust its size later on.

 

As for height variation, while I personally don't see anything inherently wrong with a "flat" map, there is a lot that height variation can do for a map. Having that sense of verticality gives the map a sense of place that just isn't there if your floor and ceiling heights are all within an 8-pixel range. You can also make your stairs and elevators look fancy, which is another reason to implement some height variation.

 

Now, depending on the size and (non-)linearity of your map, it may not be a bad idea to slap down some distinct "landmarks" that the player can remember certain locations by. It doesn't need to be anything elaborate - even just making rooms look different can do a lot towards making your map easier to navigate. A lot of similar-looking rooms connected by doorways can and will confuse players in the long run, making them consult the automap just to remember where the next progression point is. Use landmarks if you want to make navigating your map less tedious.

 

Also, use cramped corridors in moderation.

 

FLOW

 

There is such a thing as too many doors. 'Nuff said.

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There can be no one answer to this question since what makes a map good or bad is often subjective, and what one man's trash can easily be someone else's treasure.

 

But with that being said, typically, if a map proves to be difficult to navigate, lacks in polish visibly and the gameplay is very rough, chances are, it may indeed not be a great map to experience. Worse if it is buggy or has serious progression issues.

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There are a lot of “crappy” maps out there, just checking out old shovelware discs or certain “my first wad” releases will demonstrate this, but I don’t necessarily feel like a map being crappy devalues it.

 

If the author is able to use it as a learning experience, it inherently has value, and additionally so if they care about appeasing the community’s desires based on feedback they get. They can learn what the crowd does and doesn’t like on average, determine whether or not they care about that, and move forward with their mapping accordingly.

 

On top of all that, I sometimes have more fun with crappy maps. To use a prominent example, wow.wad has provided the community with more lulz and joy than the vast majority of “competent but forgettable” maps out there (which are valuable in their own right).

 

Now, with that out of the way..

 

Really cramped corridors being overused sucks. Inescapable death pits suck. Excessive use of copy-paste sucks. The same colour everywhere with practically no variation can suck. Chaingun snipers that are numerous yet can’t be hit without freelook really suck!

 

In DM, in addition to the first points: wandering around with a pistol sucks, having not enough or too many spawn points sucks, invulnerability and invisibility suck, and maps that are too long and sprawling suck. (You’ll find some examples of this in DM wads I’ve released. How do you think I learned they suck?!)

 

Doom maps are cool and weird in that a map being crappy doesn’t necessarily translate to “not entertaining”. Ok, that’s enough rambling from me.

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Bad maps are in general "overextended" in certain aspects - e.g. size, style, details, monster count, theme, difficulty, novelty.

It's like with food... ingredients are needed but if there's no feeling for the right amounts and joy in blending them its most likely a shitty dish. Additionally if there's too much "showing off" in your creation it automatically looses its magic and may become a wannabe "master piece" as in "early mapping syndrome".

 

An easy test would be watching the author playin the map - I bet many bad maps have never been really played from start to finish and the "encounters" and scenery are vague and dissonant.

 

There's also the difference between an old bad map where the author lacked experience and tools(94-95 golden era) and the really bad maps where the tools are good and it's just a polished turd.

 

 

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Just a note, if you plan on making realistic, or "plausibly real" maps won't automatically stick you in the shit bin, providing your levels are interesting, and you have consistent custom textures to use with it, don't just jump in when making them either, plan them out like you are gardening on paper, make sure there is a flow, and coherent structure (i.e offices will not be wedged between two industrial run-off plants, because realistically the workers would hate it, and stylistically it would be inconsistent, offices would be put in the front where the entry for the facility is, and it'd be layered between grungy - less grungy, with a doorway or pedestrian traffic way separating the areas) 

Make sure that you playtest constantly, and use your instinct and gut, this is where you will prune or shape this plant into something that's better looking/feeling. Still these are tips that can fit to any style of project.

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I think ultimately the only thing that really matters regarding if a map is good or not is simply... Is it fun to play?

 

Anything else is surplus to requirements to a degree.

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From what i've been able to ascertain, only thing that is entirely objective is that a map is poor if it has technical flaws that make it unplayable.  Anything beyond that is opinion, of which there is a spectrum, probably with a curve bulging in the middle if drawn in graph.  But the bulge in no way objectifies the opinions of the majority.

 

i have loved maps that most people say they hate for various reasons, and some maps i dislike which are so popular one can't find a bad word about them.  Everyone's taste is their own, shaped by their character and life experiences.

 

Don't listen to the majority, nor the minority.  Only yourself when deciding how you want to map - popular or not, the map will find its audience.

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First of all it's really important that the gameplay is fun, the combat has to be good and fast-paced, and also don't allow the player to stand in one spot, for example have areas blend in instead of making maps that are just room after room so in order to survive you have to dodge enemies while taking out hitscanners. That's my personal formula but people like it so I felt like I could be helpful here...

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a good map is one you like.

A good map is one you don't like.

 

a bad map is one that doesn't exist.

Liking is subjetive.

I love all TNT: Evilution and most modern mapset kinda bored me being most of them all interconnected and dance waltzing.

 

Originality is fun.

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I think the main thing for me is if a map get's boring after a few minutes, it's a map I don't really wanna play. By this I don't mean every map should have tons of enemies, but the appropriate enemy placement is so important.

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A map, in a loose sense, is a lot like a movie in a way -- it's an experience rooted in emotions and feelings. 

 

Movies can differ lots in what they offer and try to do, and similarly, good maps can too. Some are great at conveying pressure-cooker style fun and excitement, others transmit a great sense of calm and peacefulness. Some sink you in awe and immersion, others are deeply creepy and horrifying. Some make you laugh, some make you cry. Some are deeply satisfying "kinetically" -- they accentuate the positive experiences of Doom's weapon feel and movement. Some are cognitively engaging: you feel you're getting a mental workout as you piece together progression and solve puzzles. In some, the dominant feeling is "fuck this is well designed, how did the mapper pull this off." Of course, it gets very complex at times -- just about every map above a certain length hits different registers, and sometimes they directly build off of each other in cool ways. There are more wavelengths like those than there are broad texture themes. In fact, there are a lot more. 

 

Good maps are generally good experiences, of which there are countless types possible. (And if they aren't good experiences for everyone, which is impossible, they at least reliably succeed for many players.) 

 

One effect of this is that the relevance of broad elements like "combat" and "visuals," or abstractions like "interconnectivity" and "(non)linearity," is not universal and unchanging; it can vary a lot from map to map based on the specific experiential identity that map is going for. As an example, in my opinion at least, a map like "Brigandine" or Ancient Aliens's "Culture Shock" didn't really need super slick gameplay and well designed fights -- just as Valiant's "Rocket Zone 2" or Sunlust's "Lost Antiques" didn't need the ultra hi-fi aesthetics of the former two, or Fruit Salad map06 (a brief BFG spam map that is good at being a satisfying power trip of a BFG spam map) didn't need any real detailing at all. 

 

So for that reason, an understanding of "what makes a good map" that stops at "good fights" and "good visuals" and "good X, Y, and Z" is often going to be lacking. Although if you want to succeed at mapping in a certain idiom, it certainly helps to learn and analyze all of the particular things you can do well under that particular umbrella. It helps to narrow your focus down, to ask things like "What makes a long exploration map really satisfying to explore; what makes it immersive; what makes it reliably engaging over its great length?" 

 

Also a bad map is one that has no boats. 

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Also one thing I have learnt in recent years is layout and interconnection compared to my lazy years beforehand. You can still get away and have some symmetrical rooms. But in my upcoming projects (one to be released around midway this year and the other next year) you'll see that I have tried my best to limit linearity and especially limit huge amounts of backtracking. The maps don't have to look like masterpieces (especially when you are working on a project when limiting the amount of linedefs like Zone 400), the layout and gameplay is what matters the most. When I worked on Whispers of Satan I was coming out of a big era of depression, I was unhappy and all I cared about was looks and I was quite lazy when it came to layout and gameplay in some of the maps. I haven't uploaded much to idgames in recent years, my last upload was Unhealthy on 7 July 2019 but you can see what I was trying to achieve in that map with interconnection and layout.

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A "Good"™ map conforms to all the expectations of the average Doom General poster

A good map has inescapable pits, slaughter gameplay, misaligned textures, ugly visuals, mandatory pickups, confusing progression, be reliant upon RNG, and have a really unpleasant, dissonant midi. Bonus points are awarded if it has stuff that you cant kill.

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24 minutes ago, bemused said:

A "Good"™ map conforms to all the expectations of the average Doom General poster

A good map has inescapable pits, slaughter gameplay, misaligned textures, ugly visuals, mandatory pickups, confusing progression, be reliant upon RNG, and have a really unpleasant, dissonant midi. Bonus points are awarded if it has stuff that you cant kill.

super bonus points if when people play it they wish for you to stub all your toes

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