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hardcore_gamer

What is the worst monster placement you have ever seen in a WAD?

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I save my games often and I don't really care what Myk has to say on the matter in any way, shape, or form at all.

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myk said:

It does make them more effective and efficient

Which is not "better" in any moral sense.

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Grazza said:

No, I wouldn't. I'd call that bad map design (in a similar category to a lack of pistol-start playability) and probably not play the map again unless it was truly outstanding in other ways.


This is priceless.

If you play a map for more then a half an hour and you die and have to start all over again, its not because you could not be arsed to save your game.....its because of bad map design!

It only takes 5 seconds to hit the F6 key, stop blaming map authors for not making their mapping decisions according to your needs.

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I save because I just suck at playing doom, terribly. I can imagine getting an kick out of beating an very hard map without using any saves. I can respect those types of players. And maybe that is the only good way of playing an doom map, you get more satifaction out of it. Really good players never save I guess :P

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hardcore_gamer said:

This is priceless.

If you play a map for more then a half an hour and you die and have to start all over again, its not because you could not be arsed to save your game.....its because of bad map design!

It only takes 5 seconds to hit the F6 key, stop blaming map authors for not making their mapping decisions according to your needs.

You're an idiot.

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Gez said:
Which is not "better" in any moral sense.

It's funny you used quotation marks, but I'll get back to you after I ask my friend Aristotle about this!

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hardcore_gamer said:

If you play a map for more then a half an hour and you die and have to start all over again, its not because you could not be arsed to save your game.....its because of bad map design!

Assuming you will eventually find your way out of Losers, I'll respond to this.

Please reread the post I was responding to. It referred to a trap that caused an almost inevitable death if you didn't know about it in advance. My comment related to that quite literally, and not just a situation where, e.g., a slightly nasty ambush caused a death due to bad playing.

I don't think you'll find too many of the best current mappers who place instadeath traps in their maps, especially late on in lengthy maps. If you truly think otherwise, please cite some examples.

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This is a very interesting discussion and I know I'm late to it and don't have the time to really get into it so I just want to say a few things. It seems simple to me; with or without infinite lives the penalty for death is the loss of your acquired weapons/ammo and power-ups. Imagine the message In Doom/II "You died, press Use to retry." vs "You died, press F3 to select a save game if available to retry." I find it very hard to believe that id were sitting around saying 'yeah this is great and then once the player beats the level with their extra health and weapons all they have to do is press F2 or F6 and name the save before they continue, in case they die, for perfect game flow because the menus are as integral to the gameplay mechanic as the level design itself'.

I think it is understood that id did away with the Lives system of Wolf for a more "Arcade feel" but I don't remember many arcades with a save feature. In Super Mario Bros for the NES when you make it to World 1-2 as Big Mario your reward is the progression to that new level as well as the possession of that Mushroom power-up to aid in the completion of that new level. If you get hurt and become Small Mario you can not reload a save to get it back, if you then die the penalty for death is the loss of a life as well as the loss of the power-up acquired after the successful completion of World 1-1 by having to restart World 1-2 as Small Mario. Play the game with save states and things change. Handheld Mario games often have a single save system where upon loading a save it gets deleted to allow a very loooong dinner to interrupt a gaming session without also devaluing the Lives system. Intent is pretty clear from Nintendo I think.

Moving on to Halo and the time I was noticing a cry from gamers that games were getting too easy. Halo has Check-points and auto regen health. What is the penalty for death in Halo? To replay the last 5, 10, 20 minutes and it can't really be helped since Halo basically uses a hub system and pistol starting in the middle of a hub is generally nonsense.

Saves are fine if you want to use them, I use them all the time but at least I admit that they help me beat levels more then they help me develop a more consistently successful skill level. Using a save is pretending that had you started again you would have played everything exactly the same with the exact same out come and continued from there without having to had spend the time or practice with those previous situations.

But enough from me and what I think. Here is what the man himself said last year on the Doom Classic iphone port.

John Carmack said:

There was usually an attempt to put some weapons near the start point of levels to handle death respawns, but it was far from uniform or well tested. I basically don't want to punish players overmuch for not saving the game continuously, or getting the savegame overwritten by having to take a phone call.


Has his opinion changed over the years or was it never fully expressed in his coding? Either way I see the original release of Doom/II as a very forgiving Nintendo Mario release. The player is meant to be punished but doesn't have to be if they don't want.

I think that unless a wad is a hub or going for ultra tight ammo survival it ought to be pistol start-able however that doesn't automatically mean pistol start-overly-friendly-able.

I don't understand how this got to be a moral choice in absolutes but I'd guess that the issue depends highly on how much of an inconvenience you think death ought be for the player.

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Map24 in the second release of AV. There's a narrow underground slime tunnel with a Hell Knight blocking your path. Its only effect is to slow the player.

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myk said:

It's funny you used quotation marks, but I'll get back to you after I ask my friend Aristotle about this!

I quoted the word because I refer to the word as a word.

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Szymanski said:
Map24 in the second release of AV. There's a narrow underground slime tunnel with a Hell Knight blocking your path. Its only effect is to slow the player.

Heh, was that your idea, or did Anthony put it there?

Gez said:
I quoted the word because I refer to the word as a word.

You're better off using italics in that case, as quotes are generally taken to mean that the term is being borrowed or its meaning is being questioned. In any case, I think you meant "playing DOOM well doesn't make you better at dating girls, baking pies and administering a province," which I think we all can agree to, rather than "any moral sense."

HackNeyed said:
I think it is understood that id did away with the Lives system of Wolf for a more "Arcade feel" but I don't remember many arcades with a save feature.

Both are still arcade-like games, though I'd say they removed lives (which is a rule that's external to the action and arcade games do tend to have) to add a "virtual reality" element. Lives are still there in DOOM but in the form of armor and higher maximum health internally, and as infinite lives externally. Using saves to progress is also an external element, like lives, but controlled by the player.

Has his opinion changed over the years or was it never fully expressed in his coding? Either way I see the original release of Doom/II as a very forgiving Nintendo Mario release. The player is meant to be punished but doesn't have to be if they don't want.

Keep in mind he was referring to the iPhone implementation. Playing on a hand-held is not the same as playing on a PC. In any case, Carmack was never as game-play or design oriented as others in id back then, namely Romero.

I don't understand how this got to be a moral choice in absolutes but I'd guess that the issue depends highly on how much of an inconvenience you think death ought be for the player.

It didn't. Some people use "you're moralizing" as a stratagem when they can only provide vague contrasting arguments. Nothing I said implied saves cannot be or should not be used. Rather, that they don't really serve the "game play" aspect of the game directly. Dedicated play is not the only aspect of DOOM, so there is no need for everybody to be concerned with its requirements, although that does not mean they can effectively deny them.

DOOM is a game with three main pillars holding it up. The technical pillar, held up by programmers and anyone interested in engine mechanics. The design pillar, held up by WAD makers and anyone interested in the artistic aspects of the game. The playing pillar, held up by speed runners, online players and anyone interested in game play. Unless they are simply unaware of it, some seem to be implying that third pillar does not really exist or should be scorned as "srs bsns". If dedicated play is serious business, so is quality programming and WAD making. And no one is obligated to create Erik Alm-caliber maps or Randy Heit-level source ports, but they should be able to appreciate the results and the process behind them.

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Sometimes, just for fun, I like to spawn a stupid bot instead of saving throughout the level. This way you get penalized for dying but you don't have to gun down every monster again.

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myk said:

Heh, was that your idea, or did Anthony put it there?


I believe I either put it there to get the scale right (same for the big spider in the exit) , or it should have gone in the room just beyond which was remodelled a few times.

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I think (and this is just my opinion from years of game play)that the 4th episode of Ultimate Doom had pretty... whats the right word... Annoying monster placement on some of the levels, especially when you die and you have to start over with just the pistol. I'm guessing that is partially because I'm not the greatest at Doom (even though I think the game is the greatest) and the whole 4th episode was made to be very hard... Anyone agree?

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DoomGuy123 said:

I think (and this is just my opinion from years of game play)that the 4th episode of Ultimate Doom had pretty... whats the right word... Annoying monster placement on some of the levels, especially when you die and you have to start over with just the pistol. I'm guessing that is partially because I'm not the greatest at Doom (even though I think the game is the greatest) and the whole 4th episode was made to be very hard... Anyone agree?


I agree with you that the entire episode 4 was tough and the monsters, especially the "bite-you-in-the-top-of-your-head" Lost Souls were placed in a very annoying manner. But I must admit that these maps were not unbeatable on UV and, since the topic of saving (or not saving) one's game is going around, I can say with pride that I beat them all on the Playstation version which only had passwords to restart you at the beginning of each level.

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"i liked what aliens vs. predator did in the 1999 game. it gave you a limited number of saves per map and you got less and less with increased difficulty level."

Interesting, but I like how doom gives you freedom to play however you want. Things like idclip/iddqd/saving are useful tools to practice hard parts on a level. If you feel like playing under your own rules to increase difficulty or whatever like 'pistol start/no saves' then you can.
A lot of games were like contra SNES where losing all lives means completely restarting. That can be fun too in its own way and has its own quirks. For one, your heart starts beating fast when you get far for the first time (if its a hard game) because you have a lot to lose (restarting vs. loading a save). And you get lots of practice on earlier levels and little practice on later levels.
One thing I like is how quick you start playing again after a death. Just like mario 1; fall in a hole, and you're playing again in a few seconds. Some games give you long menus/loading time/cutscenes etc when restarting.

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Guest

Later sections of Perditions Gate.

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I'm going to be a bastard and say Sunder. The crowds take far too long to thin out and certain sections are just so monster-choked that it's almost impossible to move. Or maybe I'm just not 'good enough' :P

So maybe it's not the worst, but it's the most glaring example of "awesome mapping quality, WTF gameplay" I've run into. Either way, not my thing.

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Xaser said:

I'm going to be a bastard and say Sunder. The crowds take far too long to thin out and certain sections are just so monster-choked that it's almost impossible to move. Or maybe I'm just not 'good enough' :P

So maybe it's not the worst, but it's the most glaring example of "awesome mapping quality, WTF gameplay" I've run into. Either way, not my thing.


BASTARD!!

jk :P however I oppose that opinion, as sunder has actually the best monster placement in epic proportions I have ever seen. Also it was originally made for doom gawds. I fell in love with map 10 so much that I tried to win it almost week just for the sake of that HOLYSHITIDIDIT feeling.

OT... well nothing to say... nuts.wad

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GreyGhost said:

Infantry - it's a bit like Nuts only the monsters are facing you instead of the far wall.


LOL! I've never heard of that one, I should try it, could you give me a link to it?

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Any megawad with archviles in the first map. It's fine if it's a long single level, but not a megawad. Archvile abuse is worse than cyberdemon abuse.

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Xaser said:

I'm going to be a bastard and say Sunder.

Sunder was created to be so Hardcore. Nothing complaint about it.

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DoomGuy123 said:

I think (and this is just my opinion from years of game play)that the 4th episode of Ultimate Doom had pretty... whats the right word... Annoying monster placement on some of the levels, especially when you die and you have to start over with just the pistol. I'm guessing that is partially because I'm not the greatest at Doom (even though I think the game is the greatest) and the whole 4th episode was made to be very hard... Anyone agree?


What an ironic though came to mind! E4M4 (Unruly Evil) is quite an easy map compared to E4M1 (Hell Beneath). The gameplay itself seems to go easier and easier after E4M4. And yeah, sometimes the monster placement is also that annoying.

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Andy Olivera said:

2002ADO E3M3.

Do you mean the Well of Cacodemons in the exiting area?
Well, it wasn't that good idea. Even Sindrom11 couldn't make it through with 100% kills.

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Cell said:

Do you mean the Well of Cacodemons in the exiting area?
Well, it wasn't that good idea. Even Sindrom11 couldn't make it through with 100% kills.

Yep. It would've been fine if not for two things. First, there's no ammo in the area and no Berserk Pack in the level. Second, the teleporter system is atrocious. Even if someone wanted to non-Berserk all the Cacodemons after running out of ammo, the chance of getting all of them into the area in any reasonable amount of time is next to zero.

BTW, watch the Demos forum for a TAS with 100% Kills within the next week.

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