Am I the only one who loves corridor shooters and dislikes nonlinearity?

[hardcore_gamer]

Since Doom (and also often, Quake) is often praised for being more complex and non-linear in terms of level design compared to modern games, I know that a lot of people (especially on this forum) find non-linearity to be very imporant in their games and also in their mods/levels for games like Doom and Quake.

However, I am going to say something that is bound to make a lot of people here on the forum mad: I think lots of nonlinearity sucks.

The reason is simple: Because it distracts from the fun of shooting things.

I don't care about puzzules or complex layouts. I just want a fun shooting gallery, and I personally can't stand having to spend 10 min wandering around looking for the right place to go to. It completely kills the pace of the game.

I know that A LOT of people will 100% disagree with this, but as far as I am concerned the high levels of nonlinearity are some of the biggest problems with a lot of old shooters from the 90's such as Blood. Now don't get me wrong, having SOME kind of nonlinearity is good since I don't like it when games are 100% linear, but if I spend just as much time trying to figure out where to go as I spend shooting at things then something is wrong. Having to wonder around with my automap open while trying to navigate the level I am in is easily one of the weakest gameplay aspects of Doom and the game's biggest single shortcoming in my opinion.

In a way my opinion on shooters is the same as TotalHalibuts's opinion on brawlers. He said that the doesn't like the God of War franchise because he just wants to enjoy the combat but then the game often forces him to stop and solve some damn puzzle instead which he hates because it takes him away from the combat. I feel the same way but with shooters. I only care about the action, and anything that takes me away from it is annoying.

So, am I the only one who thinks lots of nonlinearity in shooters is very overrated?

Thoughts?

[Memfis]

Well, you started talking about nonlinearity but ended up talking about levels where you can easily get lost and spend a lot of time trying to find the way. These two aren't necessarily connected I think. It is very possible to make highly nonlinear levels where the player will never get lost and will always be fighting something. Think Gusta's maps from Plutonia 2 for example: there are many, many ways to play them but they are still very compact and easy to navigate, which results in a very dynamic gameplay experience with little to no dull moments.

Getting lost in levels sucks (unless the setting is so amazing that you are happy to spend more time in it) but nonlinearity in itself doesn't.

[ComicMischief]

I think there's a difference between multiple paths and no path at all. Gimme the former.

[Technician]

Finally, after close to a decade, someone here realizes Doom's game play and mechanics suck.

I can now leave this earth... I'm coming COD, I'm coming.

[188DarkRevived]

For me it's not the linearity which turns me off from the modern games but rather the focus on emulating real-life warfare as precisely as possible without any surrealistic simplicity. (i.e. weapons which need to be reloaded at specific intervals while ducking for cover under a crate, even though the player has already picked up 200+ ammunition clips. Really really annoying! I can't enjoy this type of shit.)

[Dragonsbrethren]

Nonlinear is fine - I dislike directionless design. Sounds like you're in the same boat. Doing nonlinear design that is well-paced and makes the player feel like they're moving towards a goal is always going to be harder than straight linear design, and paired with the scripted setpieces so prevalent in modern game design, it's no surprise that almost no one bothers with it, especially in standard FPS games.

[TwinBeast]

I like some amount of nonlinearity.

So I could circle around a building and go in it from the frontdoor or the backdoor, but both ways would go the same place, and maybe even see the other door from the door I chose to use.

Or it could be just some bigger, possibly outdoor, area with lots of space to move around, but there would be just one way in and another way out of the area. There could also be some obstacles, like rocks or pillars. So I could choose to go from left or right side or maybe try jump/climb over it.

Variety is also nice.. some level/part is linear and some other has more ways to do stuff.

So I like knowing where I'm supposed to go, but there can be more than one way to do it. There should be clear landmarks too.

[Captain Red]

My problem with games that follow the Call of Duty template isn't that they are liner, it's that they're barely interactive:

[Jodwin]

Memfis said:

Well, you started talking about nonlinearity but ended up talking about levels where you can easily get lost and spend a lot of time trying to find the way. These two aren't necessarily connected I think.

In fact, they aren't connected at all. Take the early parts of Hexen for example: There's a very specific set of actions you need to do in a specific sequence in order to proceed which is a textbook definition of linear level design, yet it's very easy to get lost in the Seven Portals despite that.

As an other counter argument, you could look at Far Cry 3 (and Blood Dragon): They are very much non-linear in that you can explore freely and approach objectives in almost any way you want to, yet it's pretty much impossible to "get lost" in them since the main objective is very clearly pointed out for you. In general a lot of people seem to look at linearity in games in a very naive way without grasping all the possible nuances that different game - and level - design decisions have on linearity. And conversely, which mechanics are not products of specific degrees of linearity.

[Da Werecat]

188DarkRevived said:

For me it's not the linearity which turns me off from the modern games but rather the focus on emulating real-life warfare as precisely as possible without any surrealistic simplicity.

Bloody screen. So real. :)

[hex11]

You can have very nonlinear but small levels where it's not so easy to get lost (unless the layout is entirely maze-like). Bigger maps are easier to get lost in, unless there are enough landmarks and architecture/texturing differences between the various parts of the map.

Hexen is a PITA, because the map is effectively equivalent to a half-dozen DOOM maps (connected via a hub). One of these sub-maps has a nook or cranny (or even a secret passage!) with a switch or key you need to find in order to progress further. So you can spend hours, even days wandering around the hub, fighting the same old boring random encouters, while searching for that elusive plot device. At some point it just becomes too tedious and boring...

Plus, to make things worse, when/if you find that plot device, you don't get any feedback except a short message at the top of your screen ("Some shit happened on map X"). Now you must return to map X, and wander around to find out exactly what happened, and what your next quest will be. I hope you like those random encounters, there's gonna be lots of them! (and you won't even get any XPs for the trouble).

Hexen could have actually been nonlinear. Instead of making all those quests mandatory, they could have been optional. Like, if you complete some of them, it helps you by making future maps easier. Maybe you can find hidden weapons/things that help. Or maybe you get XPs for doing quests and get stronger that way. Or you find gold/treasure and buy stuff from shops. If you're a real badass you don't care and just fight all the bosses with just your gauntlets. Most people will probably want to do a few quests here and there so they can stand a chance. But they don't have to do all of them, just as many as they need, and only the ones they want to.

[Da Werecat]

I'm going to say something that is bound to make a few people here feel uneasy: Hexen is good as it is.

[Avoozl]

Da Werecat said:

Hexen is good as it is.

Yep.

[MFG38]

ComicMischief said:

I think there's a difference between multiple paths and no path at all. Gimme the former.

My thoughts exactly.

[hex11]

Da Werecat said:

I'm going to say something that is bound to make a few people here feel uneasy: Hexen is good as it is.

Well the atmosphere is very nice, but that's not enough incentive for me to play. DOOM and Heretic (or heck, even Quake!) have much better gameplay, so that's where I focus my time. I'd be up for a Heretic TC that uses Hexen's darker textures though.

[AndrewB]

I like something along the lines of 10-15% combat, and the rest exploration.

I think puzzles get a bad rep because of how terrible and uninspired they are. Instead of mimicking sudokus or jigsaw puzzles, developers should take a page out of a Martin Gardner book. Very simple problems with very simple solutions that we overlook because of our biases and assumptions. This is the basic formula for Hexen, 90s Zelda games and such.

[kb1]

Nope, you're not the only one. Specifically, I don't dislike non-linearity, (wow, triple negative), I dislike getting lost. I dislike spending time back-tracking, when I could be killing stuff.

Basically, when the room gets quiet, I want to know where to go. I've noticed that, the ability of people to find their way, is not universal. Some people remember visual layouts much better than others. I fall in the latter category, so, if there's a lot of ways to go, I end up doing the "hermit crab" method: Find the wall, make left turns, repeat, enough times until I am confiodent that I know where I am.

[188DarkRevived]

Da Werecat said:

Bloody screen. So real. :)

Well, to express the issue more precisely, the way in which the weapons have been programmed to function can have tremendous effect on the overall gameplay itself.
Instead of some sniper rifle which requires constant reloading I'd rather prefer a non-reloadable thing such as the Drunk Missile from Rise Of The Triad or the Hellstaff from Heretic or the Arc of Death from Hexen...
Those are not examples of realistic weapons, are they? :p
It seems like something so small but it makes such a huge difference.

[Captain Red]

Me on the other hand, would like you to keep your lame ass magical wands. I like My gun shaped thing that kills things from far away to act like an actual gun with reloading and iron-sights and everything. In fact, I want to see Receivers' gun physics become popular:

[Phml]

Captain Red, you've done it. You're the most boring person in the world.

[Captain Red]

No, that would be whoever designed heretics weapon set.

[Phml]

Ok I might just have to give you that.

[printz]

I agree; whenever I imagine a medieval-based first-person action game, I think of modding Doom, not Heretic, because Heretic feels too kitschy with all those magic staves throwing fireworks around.

[Da Werecat]

I never liked Heretic's weapon set either, but I'm not opposed to 'fantasy' weapons in general. For example, most of the Hexen weapons feel very satisfying for me.

[hardcore_gamer]

The biggest problem with the Herectic weapons is that they feel so generic and dull. The only weapon I really liked and felt had actual character was the crossbow.

[Captain Red]

Da Werecat said:

I never liked Heretic's weapon set either, but I'm not opposed to 'fantasy' weapons in general. For example, most of the Hexen weapons feel very satisfying for me.

Hexen's weapons are good, but there really isn't enough of them, and that game has other problems as well.

There's a right way and a wrong way to do fantasy weapons. Heretic is an example of the wrong way, where I'd call Dark Messiah the right way... In fact, if they ever decide to revisit the serpent rider games, I'd want Arkane Studios to make it (they also made Dishonored).

That said, the point I was trying to make in my original grumpy post was that if you want to make something that basically acts like a gun, you may as well make it a gun, with all the quirks inherit in your average firearm.

Also I have a fetish for fighting fantastical monsters with real world weapons.

[hex11]

If you really want guns, you could play HereDoom:
http://archonrealm.tripod.com/

The gameplay seems a little off to me though, I'm not sure why exactly (some timing issues...) It might be better to just convert the Heretic maps, textures and music into a DOOM or DOOM II PWAD with a tool like dm2conv, but have it convert the monsters to their closest DOOM equivalent instead of trying to emulate their behavior in MBF. That might make a nice medieval-fantasy megawad...

I don't have a problem with most of the Heretic weapons, just as I don't mind the bright, cheery textures. But there is also room for a darker fantasy game with similar gameplay. That's actually what Blasphemer is shooting for. So if you want to ensure it turns out to your liking, maybe try your hand at making some badass weapons!

[fraggle]

I think that stories in games are generally incompatible with nonlinearity. You need some degree of linearity in order to have a story you can tell, and there's no real escaping from that. Games like Deus Ex are often cited as counterexamples, but they aren't really non-linear - there are just multiple paths you can progress down. Doing that gives it some replay value but you're still constrained.

In the end I think this sort of thing matters more to some people than others. It doesn't bother me a huge amount. The Half Life games have been perfectly enjoyable to me for example, despite criticisms I've seen that they're essentially like walking down a long tube.

What I think matters most is that there is some "illusion" of freedom within the game, even if the eventual outcome is completely scripted. The Half Life games for example usually give you fairly large areas that you can freely wander around and explore before you proceed to the next area. It's not much different to a traditional Doom-like game with fixed levels in that respect.

I've seen footage of games like Call of Duty (though never actually played it) and it seems far too restrictive to be any real fun. More like an interactive storybook than a game. That perhaps appeals more to casual gamers which is probably the target market for games like that.

But I also don't side with people who want games without any plot at all and just want to shoot things. Just running around mindlessly shooting a bunch of stuff for no real purpose is to me almost as boring as something like Call of Duty that is all story and no skill. Stories do add something to games, they make it more interesting to play and more engrossing. The best games are ones that balance those two sides.

[schwerpunk]

I agree with you, fraggle, but I will add that there is more than one way to tell a good story in a video-game. You've got 1) your standard, movie-esque games (e.g. COD, Uncharted, Half-Life 2 etc.) that are all about one huge overarching plot that finishes when you complete the game. The player is also usually the protagonist in these stories. 2) You've got games with smaller stories strewn about (e.g. Elder Scrolls series, umm, etc.), commonly referred to as 'side-quests.' Although these games usually have an overarching 'main' plot, there's no reason the side-quests couldn't be the main source of narrative. Then 3), you've got games that derive their story almost entirely from the environment, and just let you discover different facets of the lore through you own exploration (ex. Uh, Minecraft).

[hex11]

schwerpunk said:

2) You've got games with smaller stories strewn about (e.g. Elder Scrolls series, umm, etc.), commonly referred to as 'side-quests.' Although these games usually have an overarching 'main' plot, there's no reason the side-quests couldn't be the main source of narrative.

Another good example is the old Might & Magic CRPGs, at least up through M&M 4-5 (World of Xeen), and probably later ones too (but I don't know anything about those). Anyway, in the old M&M games you'd find dudes in towns, castles and places in the wilderness who'd offer you all sorts of quests, with the promise of a specific reward in return for completing them. You could take on any of them you wished, and the order you did them in didn't matter. The world was vast, so it really felt like you could go anywhere and do anything, even though some things really would be difficult to tackle until you leveled-up a bit.

In tabletop RPGs they call call that a sandbox-style campaign. The GM allows the players full control to do as they wish, within the parameters of the game world. Behind the scenes though, he also controls NPCs from small-time villains to world-shakers who have their own agendas, which may or may not affect or be affected by the immediate goals and adventures of the PCs.