Discuss Fights

[baja blast rd.]

Thread I'm making to talk about different encounters in different things. Feel free to join in with your own analyses. Post video clips or diagrams or whatever. Obviously going to be full of spoilers.

 

Cydonia map11 

 

This encounter is very simple but elegant, and one of the best single-cyb fights I have played in the past year or so. 

 

Two barons appear in a small arena, then behind them, a door lowers revealing the centerpiece: a cyberdemon. The first dilemma is that you're on clock: the cyb will only infight for so long, and a pistol starter won't have the cells to kill the cyb, so those two bulk cells in the bright room opposite you are mighty enticing. If you rush in while the cyb is infighting (which you should), a couple sneaky shotgunners are present to give you a scare. (Easily disposed of, but startling anyway in the heat of action.) The 128-wide door means you also shouldn't stay in that room for very long, because the cyb finishing off the barons and then cornering you is imminent, so there is time pressure to grab everything and get back out. Finally, assuming you haven't fled the whole thing, which is possible too, there is a satisfying cyber hosedown, in an arena spacious enough to let you move freely but cramped enough that it's still mechanically engaging.

 

(...I made it look too easy there; ignore that, it's actually pretty tense.)

 

 

- It's a very simple setup -- but with the way it plays off the player's likely intuitions, it unfolds a lot like a sophisticated scripted encounter despite having no timed events. 
- The minimalism and signposting (down to basic things like the switch room being bright) cuts down on ambiguity, making it more likely to play smoothly, instead of the player missing that ammo is there, for example. 
- Note the atypical baron use. Dogma would have you prefer hell knights, but since the early phase of the fight hangs on the infight, two barons are more consistent cyb attention magnets than four hell knights; and since nimble movement is part of the fun, they also give you more space to move instead of being a potential roadblock.
- The setup shows a good general pattern for making smaller encounters engaging: yank the player around from spot to spot, with threats or rewards or both; don't let them hole up in one advantageous spot the whole time.

 

Cydonia, one of the best wads of last year, is full of clever small-scale setups.

[blob1024]

42 minutes ago, rd. said:

 

Cydonia, one of the best wads of last year, is full of clever small-scale setups.

I agree

i've found several excellent maps so far, and i'm only 13 lvls in the wad

about the fight you described perfectly. barons are holding off cyber for a very limited time, and he can still ignore the second and fire you in the back while collecting cell. the area you handled him is fine, unless the demon likes to ignore pain and walk too close, that's why I usually tend to kill cyber in wider room (if there is one avaiable...)

 

by the way this fight is in map11, not 13

[philcul]

A great thread idea and a great post! I will need to think about what fights I want to discuss but I'll be back later today, I hope.

[Nefelibeta]

The finale of Sphinx Rising, it's so fucked.

A fight only consists 36 monsters and will ruin anyone that is willing to finish the map save less.

 

First of all, it's on a timer, and there is a certain pattern of monster teleportations. First there is a wave of barons, revenants and chaingunners. Doesn't seem to be much of a deal until you realize that the arena is uncomfortably cramped and tight that you can't get pass 2 monsters standing next to each other. And unfortunately there isn't additional health and cell pick up, so you'll have to go for the worst option - rocket launcher.

 

And then, if you're careful enough and don't blow yourself up, 4 arch-viles will teleport in, mind you the fight is on a timer, so if you don't kill the monsters from the first way quickly enough then well fuck you, you'll have to forget what you're doing and rush the arch-viles with BFG. Not to mention the fact that how the room is designed to be difficult to dodge flame boys' attacks.

 

And then there's another wave of barons and a pain elemental. (trying to kill a PE inside a tiny room with RL, good luck with that) And then, there's 4 more arch-viles, and then then 6 more will warp in and murder the poor souls who ever spent their 600 cells on something else. It's a complete clusterfuck.

 

I found the design of this fight really elaborate. In your usual difficult fights, the most important thing is to have a good strategy, and maybe some luck and a good arch-vile dodging skill. But this fight is really something else, it's all about memorization, precise movement, great ammo management and the ability to adapt to the situation. You'll need to think fast and clear about what you will need to do next, do you ignore a baron and get prepared for the arch-viles? Or do you use a bfg shot to clean some space for you? Decision making is desperately important. As for ammo management and precise movement. Most difficult fights will give you tons of ammo and space to move around, so it's mostly about manipulating enemy ai and crowd control. But this is nothing like that. You can't manipulate enemy ai anymore because how the room is designed. And  you can't rely on infighting, so you'll have do everything on your own, but resource is also tight, and that's where the challenge of this fight comes from. Oh, cramped arena also seems to cooperate with the fact that you only get 200 health and armor. So yeah, try your best to avoid damage or die.

 

 

This is the reason I find most of the difficult fights engaging, they are really unique, and I love unconventional fights.

 

Maybe I'll find some time to talk about other fights from ribbiks maps, or probably death-destiny's stuff because he seems to love this kind of minimalism design.

[Jacek Bourne]

In this video I explain all of the fights I made in a combat puzzle test map.

 

 

I really like the idea of this thread. Excellent idea @rd.!

[Kinetic]

Hello, I'd like to talk about Omega Minor's Box Fight. This fight comes from Dimensions Map03. This is a one of the best ever uses of archviles to deny space and force very cool gamer moves. If you want to get good at tight combat, quick decision making, threat prioritization, in-fight resource management, shot placement, micro-crowd control, whatever, I highly recommend this fight. This is real doom combat.

 

 

There are 3 or 4 phases to the fight depending on whether the player comes has already done a secret fight or not, as said secret fight grants the player a BFG for this fight (albeit the amount of BFG shots for said fight varies depending on how you used it in previous fights), but in return the fight deals a 4th phase which I will talk about later. It goes without saying that the fight is easier with the BFG, and can be much easier if you budget BFG shots for each phase.

 

The arena is pretty square. There is a switch in the center of each side of the central box, and each starts a phase. Phases follow a linear sequence, so no picking and choosing which fight you want to do. The main gimmick of the fight is the central viles inside the box, which are virtually unkillable unless you want to waste all your SSG and pistol ammo and maybe BFG tracers, and even then, more viles teleport in behind in case you try and cheese that way. The viles can still see the player and target them through slits in the bottom of the box, and the only cover are the aforementioned switches which start the phases, and the corners of the box.

 

Phase 1 switch (north) spawns in a total of 6 barons IIRC, which teleport in at the 4 corners of the central box randomly, along with a bunch of imps. An archvile spawns on the (south) side opposite of the phase 1 switch immediately as well. Without BFG, the vile should be taken down immediately with the RL, and after that, the SSG should be used to strategically carve your way through imps when they get up in your grill, and once you find some space, rockets should be unloaded on the 6 barons, ideally when some of the barons are grouped up. With BFG, you rush the vile and take him out immediately with BFG, then fall back on SSG and RL. Typically, you lose around half a mega here.

 

Phase 2 switch (east) spawns in a PE where the previous phases's vile teleported in (north), along with 2 revs at each corner. Usually the strat here is to hold position on a side or corner for a couple seconds (typically the southeastern corner), luring revs toward your position, before you swing to the opposite corner (northwestern) and have space to rocket the revs. With BFG, just use it when you feel endangered.

 

Phase 3 switch (west) quickly spawns in 2 barons on the corners bordering the western side of the box, and a vile each at the remaining 2 corners on the opposite side (east) of the box. Viles should be taken down immediately with rockets or BFG if you have it. Need to be quick though, barons will harass you and make taking out the viles difficult, particularly if you do not have a BFG, and by this point you probably have low health, so one bad move or baron ball could kill you now. After some time during this phase, the central viles begin to get crushed, allowing you to breathe and move around freely. The only issue is these viles usually get crushed after you've killed everything else, so don't count on waiting on them to die and free up space before you take on the 2 roaming viles in phase 3.

 

Phase 4 switch (south) is where you'd normally get your red keycard and leave, but if you did the secret fight earlier in the map, you now have to deal with 3 cyberdemons in the cramped box arena. In this phase 4, 3 stacked cell packs spawn in, in front of the red keycard. Do not rush to where the cells spawn too quickly after hitting the phase 4 switch, you will block their destination and they will not spawn in, leaving you probably dead, or at least unable to kill the cyberdemons until later in the map. A cyber each at the north eastern and western corners spawn in, along with a cyber spawning in and blocking the entrance/exit out of the arena, but he is also kept there by monster block lines, so he's more of a turret that can scam you if you're on the northern side of the box. You pretty much have to 2-shot each cyber, or if there's enough SSG ammo laying around you can kill the exit cyber that way as well to afford better margin for error when you BFG the 2 roaming cybers.

 

 

I really like this fight, because it ammo, health, and movement is restricted so tightly. Even with BFG, you can't afford too many missed rockets, or missed BFG 1-shot kills on archviles. IMO, the fight is better without BFG though, because the archviles are so much more dangerous. The first phase in particular is so awesome in the randomness of where and how many barons will teleport in at any corner, which you may think is BS (only if you're speedrunning), but it just forces you to react differently. You're constantly being threatened by getting surrounded in phase 1, you have to judge in a split second whether to use SSG or RL, when to move from corner to corner or to the center of each side to avoid the central box viles, and you also have to aim your SSG and RL shots at the right group of imps to bust a hole through to get to another safe spot when you're getting surrounded in the safe spot you're currently in. Phase 2 you have to force the revs to get close so you can eventually get space to RL them. Phase 3 the roaming viles make things unpredictable with the corpses they resurrect, and their movement can mess with you too. Phase 4 you need to be able to 2-shot in cramped space, and splash damage is a real danger there as well. Your game needs to be on-point to beat the fight, and strategy cannot carry a player through this fight, you need to execute and constantly react to the monsters to win. Jack better be nimble, and jack better be quick to win.

 

If you are speedrunning this map, you can hit the phase 2 switch during phase 1, and add 8 revs + a PE into 6 barons + imps (+ a vile if you haven't killed the phase 1 vile already), which is extra dangerous and requires even more concentration and combat movement finesse. The faster you attempt to go in this fight, the harder it gets, and it's already not easy if you go slow.

 

So yeah overall just the combat movement is so big in this fight, and the fight is really fun. The archvile box gimmick is great. Someone should write about a Poogers Map31 fight.

[Roofi]

The last fight of 180 minutes pour vivre's map 29 aka the "Party Room"

 

One man, One BFG, Tons of monsters who will win?

I will be brief for my part. Endless BFG spamming has never be more fun. There are three spheres of invulnerability to use at the right time. Each moment of invincibility provides an extremely pleasurable feeling of domination and powerfulness.

 

Also, this map uses SOD's map 26 music but I turn off the music in my video.

 

 

 

[Jacek Bourne]

In this video I explain some of the though behind the fights and layout of the map Curvular I made:

 

 

[Maribo]

Postponing some writing I wanted to do about Wormwood because there's some light musing I wanted to do about a couple of maps I really enjoy

 

NoSp3 Map29: Castle of the Frozen Guardian

I draw an immediate comparison in my mind to Combat Shock 2 Map04: Rapid Fire when I think about this map. It's not immediately obvious why, since if you play Map29 in the most reasonable way, you'd probably have a different experience, but if you press all the switches at once then the map kind of turns into a more sinister and fucked up version of the main room in Rapid Fire. When you walk into the 2nd room in Rapid Fire, everything just immediately starts killing each other as long as you don't stand there with your mouth agape and get hit by the line of arachnotrons near the front door. In the NoSp3 map, you hit the three switches and everything also starts killing each other, but the sheer density in monsters also demands that you get a bit more... creative. Progressing through Rapid Fire's room is a lot more lax... the cybers tend to die very quickly and the caco cloud gets thinned out so you can just go into a lazy circle strafe while your combined rockets and monster infighting bring the monster total way down. Getting through Castle is like aggressively drilling through a few walls, if you could so imagine. Everything will murder each other so long as you don't stand in one spot for too long, but you also need to force your way through a thick wall of some kind of enemy, because of the layout of the map, and the most opportune path (unless you want to sprint through a bunch of infighting cybers), is usually through the mass of flyers that floods in from the center (relative to the other two teleporters, not the centerpiece of the room) teleporter. This is done by stacking a bunch of bfg balls and jamming your way through them, hence why I think of it as "drilling" through a wall.

 

I think overall in this pair of maps, you spend more time either trying not to catch stray projectiles or cleaning up stragglers than you do actively clearing monsters out, so it ends up more like a hectic survival test rather than a Slaughterfest(tm). For Rapid Fire that means climbing up onto the ledges and slowly killing anything left and triggering the remaining teleport traps, and for Castle it means trying not to die to all of the remaining flyers before you get to go clean up the rude cyberdemons in the first room. :P

 

Fun maps. Some shots:

Spoiler

  

 

[baja blast rd.]

I really like the end fight of Sunlust map10 for a bunch of reasons. Some footage: 

 

 

First off, let's think about infighting. If infighting damage between monsters were a thing, but infighting behavior weren't, the early phase of this encounter would have no risk because you'd simply smolmove laterally against the cybs 'til oblivion, while everything gets destroyed by the four rocket launchers in the room. But because of infighting behavior, the cybs counter that by dispersing rockets semi-randomly at times, which is very dangerous to you and forces you to reactively dodge sometimes instead. 

 

That leads to a somewhat obscure concept, which is that of attentional strategies. It's invisible in footage because how do you know what exactly the player is focusing on? But what I'm really thinking about and looking at is the cyb rockets behind the mass of imps and hell knights, and making sure I notice them so I don't have one suddenly intercept me as I'm moving. (The rockets can get even more messy than this.) This means I'm autopiloting my rocketing.

If I weren't paying close attention to the cybers, from an outside perspective my approach would look pretty much the same -- only I'd die maybe a fifth of the time from a rocket volley instead. So this is a meaningful way that demos and videos (even with commentary) can sometimes omit useful information. 

 

Focusing on the cyb rockets invokes another concept, which is higher-mean lower-variance thinking: I don't care if I tank up to 200 damage from the imps and hell knights (which sometimes happens), as long as I never eat a rocket from a cyb. It's a big mistake to try and avoid all damage here, because all I'm doing by weaving through imp and HK fireballs, if I somehow get an oppressive pattern of those or get surprised by a barrage, is paying less attention to the cyb rockets that are the primary source of lethality. Dying to this fight ~10% but sometimes near-reality-ing it is way worse than dying ~0% even but always tanking 100-300 damage. The second of those would look less "impressive" on any given completed run, but it would be better playing. 

 

That is not an uncommon concept and appears to some degree in most challenging encounters, but this setup makes it very relevant. (Also that's one of the mechanisms through which god-like TAS play sometimes outs itself as a cheat, because completely gratuitous reality-ing is kind of unpragmatic for succeeding at runs -- even if without any context of the game, one would assume "less damage = higher skill play.") 

 

On top of all that, and most importantly -- even though this isn't always as interesting to talk about -- it's a fight that is very fun and satisfying to do, in both typical ways, with you lobbing lots of rockets at imps and BFG-ing cybs up close (I finish with the sort of smolmove exploitation that I talked about in the first paragraph), and in more specific ways, from the way I can bombard a distant group of viles with rockets, the way the cyb trio is like an artillery setup that melts all those hell knights spectacularly, and even the movement speed changeup, going from ~<50% of full running speed, to SR40, to again ~<50% in the same setup. 

[baja blast rd.]

Here's another fight from Cydonia, because it has good fights. 

 

 

So you drop down into this dark spooky chamber with a comical number of dead marines strewn about, obviously a portent of something awful -- good staging here. In a very story-driven wad this staging might blend in, but here it's enough to tell you that something fucked is going to happen. The surprise: a door springing open, artillery cattle behind it, sends you fleeing, startled into the next room (I hope you enjoy my acting). 

 

Naturally you get the barons infighting with the cyb, but it's worth noting how two of the barons are permanently confined to their pizza-shaped wedge, guarding the switch. This is subtle, but it's an important wrinkle that prevents the middle of this encounter from being a spectator exercise; it requires non-trivial maneuvering to get the cyb to infight those two (unless RNG does it for you). This means that come cyb mop-up time, you either do that or those barons are pesky distractors while you're fighting the cyb. 

 

Even with just the cyb left one-on-one, it's unlikely the barons hurt it badly, so what remains is a pretty involved and fun cyb battle, due to the complex cramped topography of the space. It's definitely a fight to study if feel your on-one-on cyb battles tend towards dullness. You'll see me whittling the cyb down with SSG in the video, something people don't always consider doing because it feels contradictory -- you get infighting started, but then you also interfere with it?! But if you can ballpark how much damage one faction can do to the other and it's not much, it makes sense to start chipping away at the usual survivor early. But doing that is fun and not-trivial because I have to take care to get potshots in only while the cyb is occupied and targeting something else (a corpse counts lol), and meanwhile the two guardian barons might be targeting me. The setup requires me to either do this or just have a more difficult cyb duel, and both are fun options. 

 

Another beautiful thing about the setup is the geometry. If you're booked up on mapping dogma, the whole setup screams no-no: there are two separate rooms, connected by a door with a chokepoint?! But this is a reminder that mapping dogma should not be adhered to rigidly and without consideration. The cyb uses that chokepoint and small room far better than you can, threatening to pin you into the dark room and force you to juke around it if you try to camp out in there, making that a poor idea. 

 

I like to have fun with cybs and milk them (don't quote me on that), so I keep it alive to help take out the archvile and the pain elemental that are released in the next phase. With the cyb having low health, I don't think this adds much risk. 

 

But even this minimalist capper is set up smartly. The archvile can very easily resurrect a baron or two, or worse, and the pain elemental's presence forces you to either pick your poison with which monster you let pester you unabated, or to juggle cover and positioning smartly, hoping to keep both Nuisance Monsters separated and lure the vile away from the biggest concentration of baron corpses at the same time. There's even a chaingunner trickling out in the other room while you do this, preventing you from fleeing there without complications (it will definitely surprise you in FDA -- I even forgot about it in this recording). If you stay, it saunters into the room as yet another threat, which is one of those ways you can do a "multi-wave" fight with purely natural timing (like cacos rising up to windows or floating over from a distance).   

I didn't mention how the important, life-restoring health and armor is positioned so that you have to run back to the cyb's closet to get it and then attend to the cyb and barons again, which is fun context-juggling. (And it makes no sense to camp out in this empty dark room after stocking up, while the infighting is happening, for the reasons I mentioned earlier.)

 

10/10 setup. Brilliant minimalism. 

[Azure_Horror]

On 7/24/2022 at 4:48 AM, baja blast rd. said:

Here's another fight from Cydonia, because it has good fights. 

 

...

 

10/10 setup. Brilliant minimalism. 

 

That settles it, Cydonia is on my 'to play' list now!

 

My first idea for such a set up would be to use resurrected barons and grind the cyber down even further.

Can this approach work?

Or the whole space gets too chaotic with both the cyber and the archvile running around?

Edited July 28, 2022 by Azure_Horror : grammar

[baja blast rd.]

Yeah the vile being around is pretty messy. And we'd need to resurrect many barons.

 

Spoiler

 

 

(Also I partly cheesed the encounter by not waking up the PE, but that seems fine because (in normal play) we wouldn't want the vile to get free rein on the baron corpses.) 

 

Glad I tried this though because it shows the dynamic of trying to camp against the cyb. (Even camping against the cyb when it's in the small room is risky because it can suddenly shoot a rocket out while you're in front of the doorway. It's really quite a good space for the encounter.) 

 

It actually surprised me how little damage the barons will do to the cyb, because I'd remembered barons generally being very dangerous against them in infighting, but the baron count is just below the critical mass where they start scratching the cyb and threatening to get it stuck.

[baja blast rd.]

Here's a bit from the beginning of Speed of Doom map26, which is not a staged setpiece, but incidental fights are fights too.

 

 

The way I play this map, I like to get the big outside space embroiled in chaos ASAP -- no real reason to pick off every faction one by one. So I grab SSG, then RL, taking out the archvile near the rocket launcher as my one concession to "methodical" play in the early going. It turns out that the revenants are the ideal foils for the archvile duel. 

 

Think about the easiest way to dodge an archvile's attack -- you hug a pillar. But revenant missiles can easily follow you while you're at this, which makes them a perfect complement for the archvile's flame attack. The revenant missiles render it unwise to remain stationary behind cover for more than a fraction of a second. To account for this, I sometimes have to improvise a movement scheme on the fly where, as the archvile is attacking me, I'm drifting slowly towards a pillar, away from the revenant missile chasing me, poised to be behind the pillar the moment the archvile actually attacks, and then drift out of cover right afterwards. It's a fun little maneuver to have to do. The missiles can also be used to distract the archvile. Revenants and archviles are by no means an uncommon pairing, but the open space and all the little interactions that are possible gives this setup a unique character. 

 

I'm also thinking about how this type of encounter would rarely be designed as a choreographed set piece. The "arena" is large (I'm talking about the boomerang-shaped area stretching from the SSG to the RL, before the walls lower), and all it has is a lone archvile on one side and 5-6 revenants on the other? That's really not an efficient use of space. But it works out. Battles like this counteract the myth that large, flat, open spaces need larger numbers of monsters. You are somewhat restricted in your choices -- it's not like a small crew of imps or HKs will be at all dangerous. But I can see a tag-team as simple as a single pain elemental, paired with an arachnotron or mancubus on the other side, working out in an arena of this size, even more so if the lose condition isn't dying but getting hit and falling below a critical HP point. There is potentially a major difference between 81hp and 80hp, or between 65hp and 64hp, and understanding why and how allows you to design "low-threat" fights that are still important in the scheme of a map. 

[baja blast rd.]

 

Yes, there is a mapset named Capybara where you play as a Capybara. Spoilers for anyone who is planning on playing that. 

 

This encounter from map09 is genius. It's not just the silly idea and staging (even though that is the majority of it), it's also the way it's a gameplay dynamic, which significantly affects how the encounter plays out and the tactics you have to use. Pro-tip: don't try to don't dodge a cyb against the tongue-scroll direction. That you kind of have to wake up a cyb with a butt tap to start it off is chef's kiss and adds even more to the amusement factor. 

 

Normally RNG is a Bad Word in fight design, but the RNG element here -- that the infighting is pretty random and the viles can suddenly decide to target you -- just results in more fun. At that point all hell breaks loose and the second 1000HP cyb comes flying out of the other head and it's pure bedlam. Ridiculous RNG is fine imo when you have the cushion to smooth out its extremes. You can take 200h/200a into this encounter, and also pick up a mega, and there's also more surplus healing after that. 

 

Out off all scroller encounters ever made -- which...is actually a genre of encounter --  this one definitely has to be up there! Someone do a Best Scroller Fights of All Time article. This is also probably my favorite fusion of back-facing infighting encounter plus scroller encounter. (I don't know any other examples.) 

[Astro X]

@baja blast rd. I'm not sure I understood what a scroller fight is, but there's a similar setup in the final fight of Triangulum MAP23.

 

You have archviles teleporting in and a cyberdemon you can use to hit/distract/kill them for you, while you try your best to dodge the zaps and rockets. There's a little bit of rng involved, but I think it's a fair and cool concept, if anyone would like to try that :)

[Maribo]

3 hours ago, baja blast rd. said:

Out off all scroller encounters ever made -- which...is actually a genre of encounter --  this one definitely has to be up there! Someone do a Best Scroller Fights of All Time article.

Would surely have to include that scroller + timer fight in IG's Fractured Worlds map, right?

 

I remember when I was testing this map, I didn't think to pacifist the first part of the fight, just woke both of the cybers up with a shot immediately... It's a really funny sight to see, makes up for how it kills you almost immediately.

[baja blast rd.]

 

So Valiant has plenty of setups that I've seen discussed a lot -- such as Mancubian Candidate's central gimmick, map15's explosive zombie sex party, and map27's Rocket Zone tribute --  but I wanted to discuss one that is more "emergent" rather than designed as a setpiece, at the end of map28 "A Lightbridge Too Far." Can a setup that takes no pains to confine the player end up as enjoyable as a choreographed setpiece? How exactly? 

First off, if this were a lock-in, it probably would be Valiant's hardest fight, at least with the given resources. That said, part of why I like it so much is that I play the whole area like one -- any escape has to be directly into the bowels of another raging fight. Nothing stops the player from fleeing this entire area and camping just about everything (after dealing with the arachnorb fleet that will follow them). But also nothing stops a more aggressive playing style. I'm sure in 2016, my conception of encounters was more literal and "this one isn't that great because you can just leave" might have been something I thought. But after those noob days, I came to feel that playing looser encounters as literally as possible, meaning trying to maximize survival % all the time, is the opposite of my preferred approach. I just try to maximize fun (or…since I can't predict the future…play in the way I feel might maximize fun). In this setup, that means chaotic play. 

 

Wads with custom monsters have at least three distinct "phases"; the first phase is where you're gradually introducing the monsters and all, and their use is pretty measured and restrained. This early period might be thought of as teaching the player how to fight the monsters. The middle phase can be more conceptually inventive and break off the training gloves, but it also tends to have a distinct consciousness of the player's relative newness to everything and is careful to keep situations "legible." The final phase is where you can start to treat the cast like the player is really familiar with it and even slightly tired of the most basic setups, and throw different combinations of monsters together as freely as you might with the Doom 2 bestiary, even breaking any "biome" rules that might have been established earlier. (I might be talking out of my ass there but it seems like bigger bestiaries often follow that arc in well designed wads! Sometimes the phases apply more to each individual monster, rather than the bestiary as a whole, where monsters introduced early might hit their "late-game" phase around the middle of the set, while other monsters, gradually being introduced, are still in their first phase.)

 

And part of the spectacle and the distinct late-game feel of this region (I keep calling it an "area" in my head, but it's a bit too big and complex for that term) is that it's pretty much a big slurry of monsters that is well aware by now that the player understands how cybruisers, supermancs, pyrodemons, and arachnorbs work, not to mention the special characteristics of super imps.  

 

Pyrodemons have gaudy long-range projectile attack, orange fire that stands out very well against the gray backdrop. Super mancubi also fit that bill, and their projectile vomit is very effective and actually tactically interesting in such big spaces, where they act as a projectile hell generator (from afar) or soft area denial (up close -- you really don't want to be too close to these for long). (This is one of the rarer cases in Valiant, along with map19's secret cow-tipping squad, where the super mancubus is playing a role no other monster could.) Arachnorbs are very effective at following the player over the terrain and also not getting sidetracked much by infights. Cyberbruisers are the encounter's designated dickish monster. With their chrome coloring, they barely stand out against the light gray moon scenery, especially when far away. Rockets are a lot harder to spot than the fiery onslaughts of the pyrodemon and supermanc. 

 

Also think about what is missing: Revenants are extremely scarce, which reads as a way of keeping the encounter from having too many serious nuisances. (Also no pain elementals to speak of, and there's only that one archvile.) Another critical one, NO SUICIDE BOMBERS. Thank goodness. Valiant is very good at knowing when not to use these (which is "usually," and which also is "'never as gag traps, lurking behind crates or corners, that make you regret running around like the wad wants you to"). 

 

One unusual inclusion is a mastermind in this encounter that basically dies no matter what, even if you never engage it. I think that's a good use tbh. Not every monster has to be effective. The mastermind contributes to the spectacle -- and spectacle is a big part of what makes this setup cool -- so that makes it worth it. Mastermind "purpose" can be overcriticized. I've sometimes seen people talk about a MM being harmless even if in spots they wouldn't do the same for five non-contributing, grindy mancubi. 

All of these elements combine in a setup is that is really fun to zip around to and fro, and that plays as a microcosm on its own, with a distinct arc: the first light bridge, the highest one above the surrounding terrain in the map, which work as an emotional point of no return; the early anticipation and setup, when all hell breaks loose when you hit the main switch and you're fleeing for your life, waking up the enormous horde of imps; the battle in the main crater (which has at least three phases itself: usually arachnorbs first, then cybruisers next, then super mancs later); taking out the imps and spiders on the lightbridge ramp; and finally, a fun one-on-one duel with a cyb regardless of whether you stand on the ramp or battle it on its own turf. Any clean-up that might exist in any of these sections is minimal and still very dangerous (like taking out the last super mancs), partly because of monsters that are still around (you have to be careful about the cyberdemon sniping you from certain angles), partly because of monsters you don't know are still around (gotta worry about missing one or two cybruisers). 

 

Just about every part of this whole setup rewards you for upping the pace: no pain elementals can make a mess, the one archvile involved can get caught up in infighting, the imp lightbridge setup takes time to fully populate so there's no harm in setting it off and leaving, the initial groups that populate spaces are meant to be fought straight-up but still give you enough freedom to unleash something else before they're dead without overcrowding the space, and there's generally lots of possible infighting. One of the more amusing possible events is coming back to the last lightbridge ramp and seeing a big pile of imp corpses, because sometimes they get into a big dispute with the cyberdemon.

 

There is a secret invulnerability sphere in this region (it's the tower that I don't enter in the video) that is nearly impossible to grab in the heat of the mayhem, because of infight height monsters blocking the jump to the teleporter, meaning you have to grab it first and then rush over to the switch to use it when it might help most; this quirk kinda balances the invul.

 

Despite being loose and open in theory, there are absolutely moments when you can get pinched into certain areas by the roving walls of meat, and it's exhilarating and terrifying to realize your escape path to more health is being watched over by a troop of cybruisers that you won't easily be able to juke past.

 

I had a lot to say about this one I guess, because it's really more than one fight. :P

[Azure_Horror]

11 hours ago, baja blast rd. said:

Can a setup that takes no pains to confine the player end up as enjoyable as a choreographed setpiece? How exactly?

 

This lightbridge section clearly shows that a well-planned combat encounter does not need any lock-in!

 

IMO, lock-ins are overrated in general. They have their role as a cheese prevention mechanism, or as barrier which prevents the player from accidentally blocking themself. However, you can have perfectly fine setup fights without lock-ins. For example, Going Down has a lot of such fights.

 

Wish modern combat was less lock-in centric. (To be fair, there is a lot of variety in modern design approach, and mapsets like above-mentioned Valiant are pretty balanced between lock-ins and no lock-ins)

[Nefelibeta]

1 hour ago, Azure_Horror said:

IMO, lock-ins are overrated in general.

Except that it's much more convenient to set up a challenging fight, note that Valiant and Going Down aren't necessarily hard. Lock-in is the most efficient way to limit players' movement, and thus create a more deadly environment. However I'm not saying it isn't possible to create a difficult map without lock-ins, but it will simply be far more obnoxious and exhausting. (Check out Death-Destiny maps for example)

 

Also, maps in Going Down are always very small and interconnective, which makes it a lot easier to make the fights engaging without using lock-ins. But not every map is or should be like that to avoid lock-ins, it's more a matter of mapper's taste.

[Azure_Horror]

On 7/30/2022 at 12:50 PM, Nefelibeta said:

Except that it's much more convenient to set up a challenging fight, note that Valiant and Going Down aren't necessarily hard. Lock-in is the most efficient way to limit players' movement, and thus create a more deadly environment. However I'm not saying it isn't possible to create a difficult map without lock-ins, but it will simply be far more obnoxious and exhausting. (Check out Death-Destiny maps for example)

 

Also, maps in Going Down are always very small and interconnective, which makes it a lot easier to make the fights engaging without using lock-ins. But not every map is or should be like that to avoid lock-ins, it's more a matter of mapper's taste. 

 

My previous post has a very bad choice of words.

 

I do like a good lock in fight. But sometimes map makers rely on lock in fights too much. This can lead to maps which feel like a collection of "fight boxes" and "walking corridors" between them.

 

On such maps geometry for fights is separated from geometry for travel and exploration. Oberdose of such design makes the levels less fun, IMHO.

 

Going Down is the polar opposite of the above. Almost every map of Going Down can be considered a singular big arena. This leads to a very memorable type of battles, were both the player and the monsters can move through the whole map.

 

But there are ways of avoiding "fight boxes" and "walking corridors" design while still using lock-ins. Sunlust Map 29 has two good examples.

First example is the central room of the map. It starts as lock-in arena for a particular fight (or two, depending on how you count fights). But this room is also connected to every other major location on the map.

 

Second example is the outside area (with six cybers and invulnerability secret). On the most basic level, the whole outside area is one multi-stage lock in arena. However, it does not feel that way. With every next step, a new section of background becomes a part of playable area. This way, exploration and traversal are incorporated into the fight itself.

 

In both those examples the "fight box" and the "walking corridor" are one and the same. On Sunlust Map 29, fight geometry, travel geometry and even scenic geometry are very interconnected. This makes the level even cooler, IMHO.

[baja blast rd.]

Okay, so far the little detour into a discussion of a multi-fight area, I decided to travel back to the realm of standalone encounters. For that, the opening fight of Micro Slaughter Community Project map08. *evil grin*

 

 

Yes, it's technically all one encounter, a cyber chase par excellence. The title of "three kings" is an allusion to the three cyberdemons that chase you around this palatial-themed map -- along with the fourth cyberdemon, who is named Jeff.

 

Hearing that RJD really loved Bauul's own Mayhem 2020 cyber chase submission has me wondering if some bit of that map inspired this one. It would not be a stretch. That one is an amusingly absurd, madcap map where several stomping cyberdemons chase you through an intricate maze of corridors and cramped rooms, filled mostly with imps and zombies that go splat to tell you, "get out of here soon."

 

The layout of The Three Kings is tightly constrained and triggers are set up such that cybers, and sometimes hordes of revenants, are always chasing you and pushing you where you need to go next. I have played this map, uh…fight, almost a dozen times by now, and it is remarkably consistent in its core mechanics, at least for casual play. 

 

Part of what makes this work so well is it uses the "monsters as walls" approach I've sometimes seen in three-linedef maps. (I'd guess that "monsters as walls" and "three-linedef map" are totally new phrases to a significant % of people reading this post, but I'm not joking.)  In the first fight phase, a big wall of pinkies serves as a timed barrier against the three cyberdemons' incoming volley of rockets, and you do have to be wary of softening up one patch of the pinky meat too much and having a rocket coast through it. But every meatwall is also repurposed as a more mobile group of blockers, leading up to the second phase, where the three cybers have looped around to the right side of the track, where you initially were, and threaten to flank you with rocket hell if you don't get through the pinkies and revenants quickly enough. (I stop for a moment when the cybs teleport to try and get infighting going, which helps clear up the revenants more fluidly.) 

 

The cyberdemon trio continues to chase you throughout the map, and then they ask for backup from Jeff when it looks like they might be outgunned. One of my favorite little parts of this is that the chase around the bend is purely organic. In fact the cyberdemons, while they are turning the corner, can see you all the way by the megasphere.   

 

Fighting revenants in a tunnel is a popular encounter for a reason. It's one of the rare single-species fights that is tactically sophisticated with simple geometry, partly because the revenant horde acts as two species: half of the projectiles are non-homing missiles that go where you were, and half follow you where you are, making for a pretty involved little projectile hell.

 

The choice of goats as a chaser is perfect. There's a little strategic wrinkle of escaping back out through the BFG tunnel and getting the north-south fleet of goats to infight with the cybs earlier than they normally would, which here leaves me with just the three kings to clean up at the end of it all. Or more likely, two kings -- and Jeff. 

[KeaganDunn]

Only just recently discovered this thread, and it's nice to bring attention to the things we play that may not seem as clever at first glance.

 

This thread prompted me to finish a Google Doc I've been working on for some time on and off - complete descriptions of some of my works and how to overcome the greater obstacles I've created. It's a WIP and always will be.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BxN02xDcuCLgqWlir-4uQt-eaKOfpE7jKQRaRpNPl0Y

 

Hopefully I'll be more involved with this thread and actually play some things. :P

 

Here's a quick teaser from the doc:

Spoiler

 

 

  

[baja blast rd.]

From 10x10 map08

 

 

This fight is really good. Some observations: 

 

Imps: More than half of the 1400+ monsters in this area are imps, and they are, crucially, constantly replenishing, so you don't end up KO'ing them all fast and then having to grind down the meat. Deep into the encounter, there are still hordes of imps to take out. 

 

Terrain: A lot of what prevents this encounter from quickly becoming a big infight stew is the way the apparently flat cave surface isn't all that flat! Some of the turrets are obvious, but there are also some less obvious points that are harder for monsters to traverse. This confines some of the hordes to their own parts of terrain. It might seem surprising, but a bit of terrain awkwardness can be a good thing. 

Cacos: Cacos are kind of the MVP here. Their enormous bright corpses are satisfying to pile up and look at, and they are this mobile mob that can freely travel over all the cave's obstacles and pile up, which makes them the most important species in terms of shaping your movement.

 

Resource balance: You get so many cells (and spheres) that you can just BFG plow through everything -- but not so much that it feels trivial. Even though there are cybies, the amount of cells you get pretty much communicates "M1." 

 

Pants-wearing cyberdemons: they exist, and they are kind of scary, but this is not meant to be an infight-dominant encounter, so you only get a handful of them. 

 

Tactile identity: A term I just completely made up. The encounter knows exactly what monsters it's using and what sort of fun they create. Common are cacos, imps, revenants, hell knights, and mancubi, with cybies and archies and arachs used for seasoning, and hitscanners and pain elementals pretty much nonexistent. What that amounts to is a very clear sense of what you are allowed to and encouraged to do (for example plow through stuff with BFG) without being easily punished for it or having to switch course on a dime to something else. Since this fight is seemingly aiming to be a 'turn your brain off and shoot shit' fight, that is a good thing. 

 

Pacing relative to the rest of the map: By the time you are done with it all, this will undoubtedly register as the last fight in the map, which makes the 'pure cleanup' phase kind of free in terms of not being a downer. It's your victory lap. It's also kind of fun in itself, taking out the last big clumped up groups of monsters. (Also worth point out that despite this being a BFG spam fight, ledge monsters are clumped up tightly in a way that is fun to take out with the rocket launcher, which is good because you might have these 20-30 second stretches where you don't have rockets.)

 

Staging: All this god damn aesthetic effort for the backdrop of a big rowdy fight. Over-the-top fights feel even better to me when the scenery is pretty. They make even more sense as 'theater' that way, which amplifies the fun value. The staging here is not just the looks, though, but also the way the whole fight is engineered to 'look' quite cool (especially that cacoswarm). Also the way monsters inhabit just about every strip of something like it's a coordinated, planned-out attack (think of the double-HK balconies near the back). 

[baja blast rd.]

I decided on a whim to FDA a Good Morning Phobos map and I ended up liking the final fight here a bunch and wanted to think about it more. 

 

It kind of throws random-seeming monsters at you, which people often don't think of as 'smart monster placement' . But that particular way of thinking is something I've rejected, because there are different ways for an encounter to be thoughtfully designed, and what people consider 'smart monster placement' is only one of many! 

 

What this fight is good at doing is creating a particular experience, which unfolds in phases that each have a strong identity to them. You get the invul in the room leading up to it, so you already know there's going to be something intense. There's also good reason to use that invul ASAP: a couple of archies and a pain elemental reviving lots of stuff, along with new hordes. But the encounter just doesn't stop where you might expect it to. What seems like a race to use the invul well turns out to be just the first act. It keeps going and going, first a surprising massive fleet hitscanners from the back. Then…what the fuck, really, a cyberdemon?

 

I'm almost out of cells at this point (unsurprising considering how hectic the fight got and how I had no idea a cyber was coming). The chef's kiss is that the whole setup not only lets me outwit the cybie with a telefrag, but also 'work for that' in the sense that I have to juke past it along the narrow bridge if fled from it. I also have to remember and notice that the telefrag is possible. 

 

All this in a fight that kind of...dumps stuff at you -- which is exactly why I don't use 'the monster placement seems random' as a knock. (On top of that, 'random monster placement' can be used deliberately to create specific dynamics.)  

 

 

[Geniraul]

How to fight Hans Grösse on Doom Center by @Doorhenge

 

There is a simple way to fight Wolfenstein 3D's boss who has quite a lot of hp in the mini-game on the Doom II map Doom Center by Doorhenge.

 

First, you need to earn a little in-map currency to enter the Wolfenstein 3D slot-machine, but don't worry: it's only $1 :) It can be easily done by fighting any monster in the "Holodojo" building or collecting a bonus after punching any garbage bin.

 

Now that you have some money, just go ahead and ride the motorcycle that is showed in the video below. Make sure to be fast enough while driving, because the duration of all the vehicles on this map is limited on time.

 

Go to the "Arcade" centre and teleport through the "Wolfenstein 3D" slot-machine while still riding the motorbike. Continue driving to the exit, don’t hesitate to bump into some of the enemies that are standing on your way, but make sure to not waste too much time.

 

Once you arrive to the exit area, quickly deal with all the soldiers waiting for you there, and take the secret exit.

 

That's it, you're almost done! Just drive all the way to Hans Grösse and keep bumping into him until he’s down. You can take your trophy and return to the regular life now.

 

Also, point your attention on the fact that exactly this motorcycle is suitable to fight the boss, as it's narrow enough to pass through the doors on the Wolf levels and is fast enough to move and make damage to the enemies, preventing their attacks.

 

This way you don’t really risk running out of ammo, since you don’t need any to ride a bike with a motor ;)

 

 

 

[baja blast rd.]

On 7/30/2022 at 4:21 AM, Azure_Horror said:

 

This lightbridge section clearly shows that a well-planned combat encounter does not need any lock-in!

 

IMO, lock-ins are overrated in general. They have their role as a cheese prevention mechanism, or as barrier which prevents the player from accidentally blocking themself. However, you can have perfectly fine setup fights without lock-ins. For example, Going Down has a lot of such fights.

 

Wish modern combat was less lock-in centric. (To be fair, there is a lot of variety in modern design approach, and mapsets like above-mentioned Valiant are pretty balanced between lock-ins and no lock-ins)

 

I tend to prefer minimizing lock-ins (even in harder wads, there are a lot of cool devices for that, like "allow the player to escape but escaping leads them into another source of danger or makes it less convenient to deal with what you escaped from") and heavily lampshading the ones that exist. But the irony is that what we might call a "fight" is skewed more towards encounters that might have them. 

 

Open, connected regions like the below rank up there along with my favorite 'fights', so it is probably worth considering them big fights.

 

 

[Azure_Horror]

On 2/16/2023 at 3:22 AM, baja blast rd. said:

But the irony is that what we might call a "fight" is skewed more towards encounters that might have [lock-ins]. 

 

That's true up to a point. But sometimes we can go much further than "No lock-in". Sometimes, a "fight" can be completely devoid of any fixed location!

 

Example: The lost soul legion from @ukiro's Anagnorisis (map32 of Eviternity). The lost souls can be fought in many different locations. But the player should defeat the whole cloud eventually, because the huge mass of skulls can chase the Doomguy to the most far-away corner of the huge map.

 

This whole encounter is quite unique: Essentially, that whole setup is a location-neutral setpiece! It is definitely a pre-set fight, but its location is not set in stone. The player decides, where the battle will take place.