what's your process for creating individual areas?

[roadworx]

when i'm mapping, i do my best to create an area's geometry based solely on the encounter that's going to be there, put the monsters in place, and then focus on how it looks n stuff. however, i find this way of doing things takes forever, because i have to think up of an encounter which is kinda hard for me. so, i'm wondering how the rest of you do it? do you just make something that looks pretty, and then put stuff in it that works well with it? or something else?

 

if you base it around the encounter you have in mind like i do, then i'd also really appreciate some tips on how to come up with stuff to throw at the player

[Stabbey]

That's sort-of my process as well. I generally have an overall idea for the theme of the level, some kind of gimmick, and I start from there.

 

For specific encounters, the important thing to understand for challenge is that there is a maximum limit to how tough Doomguy can be. They'll never have more than 200% health and 200% of 50% damage absorbing armor. You don't need to throw in hundreds of monsters into one room to challenge that. Fewer monsters in smaller spaces can be even more effective.

 

An encounter's difficulty can change dramatically based on where you put the supplies needed. Putting a pile of stimpaks in the center of the room means the player will need to go into the middle to get the health. The plasma rifle and BFG aren't as overpowered if you rarely use the 100-cell ammo pickups, and instead scatter a handful of the 20-cell ones. The Super Shotgun isn't as effective once enemies are a certain distance away, so ledges or gaps can make it ineffective to use in certain areas. Vary the weapons provided. The Rocket Launcher is excellent at hitting long-range targets which can't move around much. Give the player a plasma rifle instead and even a little movement by the enemies can mean a lot of wasted shots. The Rocket Launcher in general is a great weapon because the splash damage is risky to the player as well. If the player has to fight with it in close quarters, they'll need to be careful.

 

Specific monsters fill specific roles, and their combinations can be really strong. A Revenant missile makes you want to keep moving. An Arch-Vile attack makes you want to stand still behind cover. When you combine those enemies into one encounter, when the player stops behind a pillar to hide from the flame attack, the missile chasing them catches up. Arachnotrons encourage players to keep moving in open spaces. Pain Elementals add time pressure to any encounter - players can't just run in circles and let monsters infight, or else the room will fill up with Lost Souls.

 

 

This article can help:

 

 

For the encounter, I try and come up with something creative.  Some examples:

 

- In an unreleased MAP 03 I made, I had the player cross a bridge to a building on a column at the top of a courtyard, and an Arch-Vile teleports to a nearby balcony with enemy corpses, meanwhile a monster closet back to the balcony releases more enemies to help shield the arch-vile and give it more to resurrect, while a different closet releases Cacos and Pain Elementals. The Arch-Vile is too far to hit with a shotgun, but more than close enough to light you up if you poke your head out. Meanwhile, the flying monsters keep you from safely approaching the Arch-Vile to use better cover, and some enemies from the monster closet can trickle out to where you are.

 

- I decided to make the first combat encounter of my upcoming "Nukage Treatment Pools" map be a large arena where the outside walls of the playable space are not solid, but blocked by cages, and this makes fighting Revenants harder, because you can't just juke a missile into the wall, it'll pass through, so you need to concentrate more on constantly moving and hiding behind some of the pillars when you get a chance, because if you stop, you're essentially dead.

 

In "More Tricks and Traps Than You Require", I put in a big obvious combat arena with big obvious doors on both sides, and the first thing which comes out is a TON of Pinkies, and while there's a lot of space, there is such an overwhelming number that the threat is them cornering you, and there are additional walls which lower and release more foes in waves, which come before finishing off the previous wave, so you need to keep moving and can't dawdle, because if you leave the pinkies alive, you'll get boxed in and killed.

[SpaceTrash]

Doom maps are a series of encounters. It is tough to come up with new ideas for encounters, but really that's what needs to be worked out. The Ghastly post above is great, it's part of my own personal Doom bible. It points out that everything is an encounter, even if it's not a major encounter. What I would really consider is what do you want to play? Do you want to play a tiered arena that changes after every wave? Do you want a split level path that winds through the same space multiple times? Maybe an "open world" tech base that can be approached in lots of ways? Once you've worked that out you can build rooms to fit. This is the main creative part of map making for me - detailing is easy, making stuff fun to move through and fight in is the hard part.