Proper use of ambushes

[bartwart]

In principle, ambushes aren't a bad thing, but I've seen them implemented in such a way that annoys it hell out of me. Surrounding me with a bunch of hellknights or revenants with no means to escape, and all I have is a supershot gun, is just plain murder. Therefor, in the interest of promoting better gameplay, I propose 5 ideas for ambushes that will not only thrill the player but won't masacre him as well.

1) Make the setting creepy. This helps set the mood so that when the monsters spring their trap it adds to their scare.

2) Try not to make it obvious, like putting the red key in a big empty room. Oh gee, you think there's an ambush in there?

3) Always leave a means of escape. Leave a relatively unobstructed path out of the ambush, so that at most the player will only have to kill 1 monster to escape.

4) Make the monsters fairly low level. Ambush monsters should be killable with 1 supershotgun blast, so imps and demons are ideal.

5) Avoid hitscan enemies because their shots are impossible to avoid. 8 shotgun or chaingun zombies unloading on you at the same time will probably kill you instantly. A notable exception could be the zombie man since his pistol shot is low power.


Any other ideas/flames/trolling?

[gemini09]

I see what you mean, but making a list of guidelines for traps is pretty silly. But I agree with you, I'm hardly surprised by any traps anymore either, and if not surprised, I'd like to at least be impressed occasionally.

[Bashe]

I don't enjoy stupid ambushes either. (OMG!!111! get owt of my 475437 revenants trap!) Your ideas seem logical.

[Dutch Doomer]

Bashe said:

I don't enjoy stupid ambushes either.

I like ambushes...at least its better than crushing ceilings.

[Fletcher`]

dutch devill said:

I like ambushes...at least its better than crushing ceilings.

We need more of those, and rising stairs.

[TwinBeast]

How to make a trap non-obivious: Make this room full of walls with "evil" symbols and make it have that red key in this empty "evil" symbol worshipping center. When the player gets the red key, nothing happens.

Now the player is scared because nothing happend. The player sees this ammo clip in the corner or somewhere. Before he came to this room, he has used a lot bullets, so he will go take that ammo clip... and anyway, why shouldn't he take it?

When the player takes this ammo clip, MUHAHHHHAAAA! A dozen arch-viles, barons or demons enter the room, depending what symbols you used... you know those marble faces...

Everything indicates to this obivious trap, it didn't happen when the player took the obivious trap triggering item. The player feels relieved because those monsters didn't come... Now if some trap comes, he doesn't expect those monsters from the marble symbols.

But of course the player will load the game and not take this ammo clip and trigger the trap... but let's make some extra thing the player can get if the trap is triggered. Give a soulsphere! Make it come visible, but not easy to get, unless all the monsters are dead.

[SulfurOccult]

i agree with Jimi. i remember playing AV sometimes, strifing around a key, thinking of how i should take the sure-to-come ambush...then, nothing happens. works great.

also, i like making ambushes where the player has to find a safe area. for example, in one of my maps a Spiderdemon spawned behind the player in the middle of a large lava field, in which the only island was completely open to the spiderdemon's devastating chaingun. the only way to survive was to find a small metal platform behind a nearby pillar.

[myk]

bartwart said:
2) Try not to make it obvious, like putting the red key in a big empty room. Oh gee, you think there's an ambush in there?

And sometimes the opposite is true. You see a key or other goody in a room after you killed some monsters outside it, and nothing happens when you pick it up. Then you just look around and say "uh, so, where's everybody?"

3) Always leave a means of escape. Leave a relatively unobstructed path out of the ambush, so that at most the player will only have to kill 1 monster to escape.

One monster? How ridiculously arbitrary.

4) Make the monsters fairly low level. Ambush monsters should be killable with 1 supershotgun blast, so imps and demons are ideal.

This depends on the set up of of the ambush and the player's arsenal.

5) Avoid hitscan enemies because their shots are impossible to avoid. 8 shotgun or chaingun zombies unloading on you at the same time will probably kill you instantly. A notable exception could be the zombie man since his pistol shot is low power.

No. Again, this depends how you set it up. Plus for any relevant trap to be good enough for a second play-through (never mind more) it should probably punish the player considerably the first time, or even kill him, unless the marine was very lucky.

[Bashe]

dutch devill said:

I like ambushes...at least its better than crushing ceilings.

I didn't mean that as in ambushes are stupid...I meant ambushes that suck are what I don't enjoy.

[Jespin]

Bashe said:

I don't enjoy stupid ambushes either. (OMG!!111! get owt of my 475437 revenants trap!) Your ideas seem logical.

OMG LUL EEZEE NUB!!!111
MAI 2,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 ARCHVILE TRAP POONZ UR STOOPUD RENVAUT TRP!!111

Another thing that I always found funny was to putin a fake trap that looks obvious.For example, something with poor texture alignment. On the opposite wall could be a real trap that is impossible to notice. The player will be watching the fake trap while moving along. When the REAL trap is triggered, it will catch him by surprise.

[Grazza]

Perhaps the "funniest" fake-based trap I've seen is to have an icon set-up, but instead of the Romero head, there's a voodoo doll. So the player dutifully pounds his rockets in, and wonders why he keeps dying.

[Bashe]

LOL! I would love to watch someone bitch when he keeps dying because he doesn't know.

[robindegen]

awesome idea :D , i should try that hehe. But... where to put romero...

[Jespin]

Bashe said:

LOL! I would love to watch someone bitch when he keeps dying because he doesn't know.

Voodoo magic... O_O

[robindegen]

lol

but he ment the ending of doom 2 (if you idclip there, you'll see john romero's head), if you replace that with a voodoo, you'll kill yourself and you cant even see that (because it's behind the evil head)