Lifts

[Reisal]

It makes me curious why lifts work the way they do. Three of my friends (two more vocally) bitched and moaned about how they work when we're all on one and one leaves to the upper floor only for the lift to go back down, causing comments about they hate the way it does that.

Am I the only one who isn't annoyed on how the lifts function, especially on walk triggered ones?

[Memfis]

This behavior can indeed be pretty annoying in coop. What I usually do to avoid problems like that is I step from the lift very carefully to the point where I'm not standing on it anymore but I haven't triggered the walkover line yet. This way the other person can get off the lift together with me. I guess people don't usually notice it but that's not important.

[scifista42]

The walkover ones are probably accustomized for singleplayer. I don't play coop, so that I usually don't have anything to complain about. But I remember that the few times I was playing coop, it was getting annoying that lifts were acting unpredictably. Prevention from the mapper's side: Don't use walkover lift actions. On the other hand, they might come in handy in SP. It's not easy to please everybody.

[Captain Toenail]

64x64 unit lifts... such frustrating bottlenecks in multiplayer. Especially when the players stack. Quite funny though.

[scifista42]

Stairs AND wide corridors are superior design elements to the lifts, in the largest majority of cases at least. They allow the player to advance fast and without unnecessary delays, dodging monsters in his way (while taking a risk), and dodging other players in coop. There has been a debate about it here: http://www.doomworld.com/vb/doom-general/68678-lifts-vs-stairs/

[printz]

I agree that lower-wait-raise lifts are quite silly in Doom. The tweek-tweek sound they make, the timed execution; it also seems like they randomly trigger on their own due to the multitude of walkable triggers common in E1 (they're also triggered by roaming monsters). And not the least, the way they're so sensitive that they trigger when you get off them.

Other games (admittedly newer than Doom) have smarter lifts, usually moved up and down by player's action button, or which don't easily trigger in the wrong direction...

Still, lifts are a good way to save space, and often look better or more appropriate than sprawling stairs. I just wish they were more interactive and less autonomous. You can easily make a pseudo-perpetual lift in vanilla Doom by putting a lost soul in a control sector and making it cross a WR-LowerLiftWaitRaise trigger. I bet most players wouldn't even notice it's "perpetual".

[Impboy4]

I wish vanilla Doom has the "Platform Up Wait Down" action from Doom 64. That would work much better for cooperative because the lift is already at the down position so it's easier for more than one person to get on.

[scifista42]

Impboy4 said:

I wish vanilla Doom has the "Platform Up Wait Down" action from Doom 64. That would work much better for cooperative because the lift is already at the down position so it's easier for more than one person to get on.

You can theoretically fake it with "WR: Floor Raise To Next Higher Floor (fast)" and "WR: Floor Lower To Lowest Floor" (or a SR action, or an instant-lowering floor trick). In Boom, this would be even faster and convenient thanks to generalized linedef types.

[Impboy4]

scifista42 said:

You can theoretically fake it with "WR: Floor Raise To Next Higher Floor (fast)" and "WR: Floor Lower To Lowest Floor" (or a SR action, or an instant-lowering floor trick). In Boom, this would be even faster and convenient thanks to generalized linedef types.

But faking a feature in my opinion is considered cheating. Boom also cheats (new line and sector actions). All I'm saying is that if regular Doom had this action from the beginning, it would have made mapping for cooperative so much easier back then.

[40oz]

I prefer instead of the walkover action to move the lift down, to have an open space between the top of the lift and the lower ceiling so the player can drop down unrealistically in lieu of wasting time with clunky technology.

[Linguica]

Has anyone ever made... a staircase that IS a lift??

[scifista42]

Linguica said:

Has anyone ever made... a staircase that IS a lift??

Eternity.wad E2M7. A couple of (relatively recent) Memfis's wads had similar gimmicks too, I think garbage.wad and legends.wad.

[Koko Ricky]

Is it possible to make Duke style lifts in vanilla, i.e. both the floor and ceiling rise simultaneously?

[40oz]

In boom you can. Speed of doom map02 for reference.

also theres a level in hell to pay, map27 I think that has a staircase that lowers down as lifts as you run up it. I was playing with it seeing if there was a way I could lower the middle steps all the way to ground level, and I could after some practice. I was sure there was going to be a killer secret there but there wasn't. I couldn't figure out what the purpose of it was otherwise. I'll have to recreate it in one of my maps with a secret included.

[Memfis]

You can fake a Duke style lift in vanilla too, with some restrictions. Here is an example by Lee Szymanski: http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/index.php?file=prefabs/fenlift.zip

[fraggle]

Basically I think a lot of levels (both Doom's original levels and fan-made ones) tend to be designed for and tested on single player, and the ability to play co-op tends to just be a nice extra feature that you get mostly for free. But there are a few papercuts with co-op, and this is one of them.

scifista42 said:

Prevention from the mapper's side: Don't use walkover lift actions.

Seems like pretty solid advice, though I wonder if it would be possible to put together a set of guidelines for how to use walkover lift actions so that they aren't completely outlawed. For example: if you only use walkovers from the lower level, not the higher level, then I guess it's probably mostly fine?

Interesting to note that Duke3D doesn't have this problem because all lifts are manually activated.

[scifista42]

fraggle said:

For example: if you only use walkovers from the lower level, not the higher level, then I guess it's probably mostly fine?

I don't think so: What about players (or monsters) approaching the lift from the bottom or players who jump off the lift, while other players are riding the lift up? It's not foolproof.

[ASD]

If there are teammates with you on the lift, straferun as fast as possible to the next room before the floor hits the top to avoid action 88/120.

[Blastfrog]

I always thought the lift behavior was stupid even when I first played the game. I think Doom 2 used the lifts a lot more effectively since they got creative with it rather than just using it as a steep staircase surrogate.

Apparently even Romero didn't think too highly of them since he replaced a few lifts with stairs in levels such as E1M4. The Jaguar version got even smarter by making the slow, one-time "lifts" proper repeatable lifts.

[Dragonsbrethren]

Can't say I agree. I hate when lifts don't have the walkover triggers, personally.

[Looper]

Memfis said:

This behavior can indeed be pretty annoying in coop. What I usually do to avoid problems like that is I step from the lift very carefully to the point where I'm not standing on it anymore but I haven't triggered the walkover line yet. This way the other person can get off the lift together with me. I guess people don't usually notice it but that's not important.

That's what I do too :P Always get first from the elevator but very slow.

[fraggle]

scifista42 said:

I don't think so: What about players (or monsters) approaching the lift from the bottom or players who jump off the lift, while other players are riding the lift up? It's not foolproof.

It's not quite so bad though - the biggest annoyance with walkover switches is when the trigger line is at the top, so that it drops down when the first player walks off the lift.

[Reisal]

My friend believes the W1/WR walkover lift line is a programming glitch or a problem with the engine itself. He doesn't recall the very original DOS version being much an issue like this.

[Doomkid]

Impboy4 said:

But faking a feature in my opinion is considered cheating.

There is nothing more fun than "faking" features with Doom :) Things like "3D Bridges", insta-moving sectors, and other stuff the ID guys didn't initially intended speak volumes on how much the mapping userbase loves this game! (And if it can run in Doom2.exe, but can still "wow" me with a trick I've yet to see, that's icing on the cake.)

Linguica said:

Has anyone ever made... a staircase that IS a lift??

Even Judas23 has the very small lift-stairs, I've played that map about a million times and only noticed recently..