Pet peeves in level design

[NiGHTMARE]

Having played through a lot of modern .wads recently, I've started noticing a few common design errors. Here's a quick (and currently incomplete) list, along with possible methods to avoid these problems.

I'm also curious to hear other peoples' pet peeves when it comes to level design...

#1 Clashing textures and flats on ledges, windows, steps, etc

Spoiler

No:



Yes:

#2 Paper thin walls

Spoiler

No:



Yes:

#3 No or improper use of texture borders

Spoiler

No:



Yes:



Even better (added contrast):



No:



Yes:



Even better (avoids issue #2):



No:



Yes (notice I've also made use of TEKGREN2's vertical border, as well it's horizontal border):

[Memfis]

Interesting post. Years ago I would totally agree with everything, nowadays I find all the border rules "academically boring" and find transitions like this a lot more adorable than "perfect and lifeless" texturing on your pictures. But yeah, please write more, there is always something to learn from posts like this.

[NiGHTMARE]

If you're going for an authentic ID look, then certainly not all my suggestions should be followed.

In the shot you linked to, I do think it would look better with a few relatively minor changes.

(Incidentally, the default non-seamless DOORSTOP and SUPPORT2 are another pet peeve of mine!)

[Da Werecat]

I consider many of such modern habits arbitrary and actually detracting from design. The most weird is the belief that walls and flats connected in a certain way must nearly always have the same material. It leads to weird artificial detailing such as this:

http://i.imgur.com/AXaVZLa.png (I like the wad, but it's the most recent example)

Apparently, connecting different materials is okay as long as the connection looks like , and not like . :) But if the wall is high enough, even the aforementioned creative liberty is taken away, and you need a border:



Admittedly, I don't see these borders very often nowadays.

[Memfis]

NiGHTMARE said:

(Incidentally, the default non-seamless DOORSTOP and SUPPORT2 are another pet peeve of mine!)

Oh yeah, all wads should be using the fixed versions from Espi's Back to Basics. :)

[baja blast rd.]

I hate looking at isometric representations of Doom maps precisely because the walls barely exist. Paper walls ruin my suspension of disbelief more than even rotating spiderdemon corpses.

[40oz]

One pet peeve I have is traps, like monster closets or teleport ambushes that tend to have no rewards afterwards. Sometimes ill enter a trap unsuspectingly, with 50% health or so, get flooded with monsters, spend ammo, take some damage, and for what? No new weapon, key, power up, not even so much as a single stimpack.

The fuck was the point of that?

[Cupboard]

1 sector exit rooms. There should be some kind of little details in there or something.

[TheOrganGrinder]

OP, I kind of agree with your point #2 but disagree with your example; your screenshot shows a wall 32 units thick which to me is a decent, 'chunky' thickness for an interior wall in a map with otherwise varied architecture.

In terms of my own pet peeves... I'm not a fan of inaccessible sniper cubbyholes in a map that's otherwise trying to depict a feasible place, space, or layout. Especially if the snipers in those cubbyholes drop weapons/ammo which I then can't pick up.

[Gez]

Inescapable pickups. What if I don't want to pick up the soulsphere before hitting the switch? What if I don't want to grab that ammo box while running down the corridor?

[NiGHTMARE]

TheOrganGrinder said:

OP, I kind of agree with your point #2 but disagree with your example; your screenshot shows a wall 32 units thick which to me is a decent, 'chunky' thickness for an interior wall in a map with otherwise varied architecture.

I think you missed the point of those screenshots. What I was getting at is that in the first shot, the BROWNGRN and SUPPORT2 have zero thickness because they're on each side of the corner. By moving the SUPPORT2 back 32 units both textures no longer appear to be "paper thin".

[mouldy]

I hate this


and this


and of course when they are combined like this


I'm sure I've done all 3 though.

[TheOrganGrinder]

NiGHTMARE said:
I think you missed the point of those screenshots. What I was getting at is that in the first shot, the BROWNGRN and SUPPORT2 have zero thickness because they're on each side of the corner. By moving the SUPPORT2 back 32 units both textures no longer appear to be "paper thin".

Not so much "missed the point" as "completely missed the second screenshot," but yeah, I get you now. :)

[scifista42]

Totally agree with mouldy (and with Gez). Out of NiGHTMARE's pet peeves, I can bear all of them depending on the particular setup. or example, paper-thin LITE trims as borders of wall details look completely OK to me, and paper-thin DOORTRAK/SUPPORT* next to doors/gates mostly too. I don't mind texture/flat contrast unless it particularly stands out as eye-disturbing, and I feel similarly about borders.

Although this is not an explicit design error, my pet peeve of modern level design is lack of contrast (striking variety) within a single map. Unified art-style is great, but seeing variation of ideas and visuals is way more rewarding and enriching, IMO. I despise complete randomness, though.

[40oz]

mouldy said:

I hate this

That sounds somewhat like the opposite of what Gez said. He doesn't like pickups when they're mandatory, and you don't like it when they're deliberately out of the way.

One time I was contemplating a common issue in maps during cooperative play, that an oblivious player will walk over a pile of ammo, pick it all up and then die shortly later, taking all his collected items with him.

Many multiplayer serves use item respawning to alleviate this but I think it's a sloppy cop-out for maps that are designed intentionally to be stingy with ammo. Cooperative etiquette requires players to be concious about how much ammo they're carrying before they die, and try to use up all their ammo before their health is too low. A more common strategy is rationing ammo pickups so players can get what they need, but not all players do this. So my best solution was to do exactly what you said not to do to prevent people from accidentally stepping all over items they might not be able to carry. But in my case the cubbies would have a pair of shell boxes or some medikits. Using stimpacks, clips and health bonuses is just obnoxious :)

[scifista42]

40oz said:

Using stimpacks, clips and health bonuses is just obnoxious :)

I thought this was mouldy's point. Not just that they're placed out of the way, but how they're placed in repetitive dead-end alcoves (which themselves are bad, they detract attention from the map's main areas for little/random value). Plus the fact that they're small pickups and the player will probably want to pick a lot of them at the same time, which would get annoying when they're placed this way.

[Never_Again]

Switch textures (e.g. demonic faces) used as decorations. A lot of shit 1994 WADs and WoS really suffer from that.

Switches that are given the second animation frame as their initial state, e.g. SW2WOOD instead of SW1WOOD. You look at it — oh, it's activated already — and pass it by.

[scifista42]

^Decorative demonic face switches are OK with me, I'm used to them thanks to IWAD maps and tributes to their style that do the same. I only dislike when they're used in a context that makes it unclear whether they're supposed to be pressed (mandatory switches) or not (decorations). Usually, it is possible to tell them apart, though.

SW2 instead of SW1 might be confusing and I agree with you that I prefer it not to happen.

[tomatoKetchup]

I hate being forced to cross lava/nukage lakes and loose health in order to progress.

If there's suits, ok.

Deliberately bringing the player around to waste his health such a way is a clumsy way to increase "difficulty", it's just punishing.

[SuperCupcakeTactics]

This:

[Cupboard]

^ "I'll bet the Jews did this!"

[Never_Again]

tomatoKetchup said:

I hate being forced to cross lava/nukage lakes and loose health in order to progress.

If there's suits, ok.

If there's a guaranteed rad suit for every time you have to cross damaging floors, what's the point of those damaging floors? It's like crating a pitch-black level and stuffing every corner with light goggles.

tomatoKetchup said:

Deliberately bringing the player around to waste his health such a way is a clumsy way to increase "difficulty", it's just punishing.

I wonder what you have to say about some mappers' practice of deliberately placing monsters in a level to reduce the player's health.

[Memfis]

tomatoKetchup said:

I hate being forced to cross lava/nukage lakes and loose health in order to progress.

If there's suits, ok.

Nowadays I'm on the opposite side. If you put some damaging floors in your level, you better let them actually damage me a few times. Imo mappers shouldn't be like "okay, here are the hazards but don't worry players, they don't bite!". That's silly.

[scifista42]

You can provide safe walkways over a damaging floor, which don't lead the shortest possible way to the place where the player needs to get, instead they would be a little longer detour. Release monsters while the player is in the room. Dodging the monsters and their attacks might force the player to step into a damaging floor, or not - it's up to his skill and choice, and he can decide according to the position / amount / types of the monsters and projectiles. Place radsuits sparsely, if any at all (or put them to secrets). This should ensure fairness and risk at the same time, even after the monsters are dead and the player only backtracks through the area - would he take a shortcut over the damaging floor, or not? Would he explore it (for possible secrets), or not? It's up to him.

[mouldy]

damaging floors should provide an element of tactical choice rather than just compulsory damage. A rad suit or extra health kits nearby gives players a limited usage of that space, it then becomes a tactical choice of whether to use it or not. But to just have some floor that the player is forced to take damage from is punishing the player for simply playing the map.

[Da Werecat]

SuperCupcakeTactics said:

This:

http://i.imgur.com/YbzjuMD.png

I've heard it being referred to as "headbanger stairs".

[Inkie]

40oz said:

That sounds somewhat like the opposite of what Gez said. He doesn't like pickups when they're mandatory, and you don't like it when they're deliberately out of the way.

I can't really speak for him, but I think what he's getting at is when you have a bunch of niches in a row, each with a minor item. So you kinda have to awkwardly go in and out, in and out, to get all the items. It just makes the process of getting them way slower.


My peeve is when you have really small, protruding details in the walls that only serve for the player to get caught on and stop dead in your tracks while backpedaling or something. Either angle them or even add angled or offset invisible impassable linedefs so I just deflect off of them and not stop dead.

[TheOrganGrinder]

Inkie said:
My peeve is when you have really small, protruding details in the walls that only serve for the player to get caught on and stop dead in your tracks while backpedaling or something. Either angle them or even add angled or offset invisible impassable linedefs so I just deflect off of them and not stop dead.

I'm in two minds about this; sometimes it just feels like sloppy level design by a mapper who doesn't realise that the detail they're putting in is going to cause the player no end of annoyance, but at other times it feels like a deliberate choice by a designer who's trying to curtail the player's mobility advantage. I find the latter less obnoxious than the former; at least there's deliberate intent at work there even if the results are frequently just as irritating.

[VGA]

40oz said:

That sounds somewhat like the opposite of what Gez said. He doesn't like pickups when they're mandatory, and you don't like it when they're deliberately out of the way.

One time I was contemplating a common issue in maps during cooperative play, that an oblivious player will walk over a pile of ammo, pick it all up and then die shortly later, taking all his collected items with him.

Many multiplayer serves use item respawning to alleviate this but I think it's a sloppy cop-out for maps that are designed intentionally to be stingy with ammo. Cooperative etiquette requires players to be concious about how much ammo they're carrying before they die, and try to use up all their ammo before their health is too low. A more common strategy is rationing ammo pickups so players can get what they need, but not all players do this. So my best solution was to do exactly what you said not to do to prevent people from accidentally stepping all over items they might not be able to carry. But in my case the cubbies would have a pair of shell boxes or some medikits. Using stimpacks, clips and health bonuses is just obnoxious :)

You can simply have a corridor big enough for the player to pass by the item.

About multiplayer ammo ... Zandronum should get some feature that drops a special backpack when a player dies with all or a percentage of his ammo :-D

[scifista42]

VGA said:

About multiplayer ammo ... Zandronum should get some feature that drops a special backpack when a player dies with all or a percentage of his ammo :-D

There was a Skulltag/Zandronum mod that did this, at least roughly. I think that only the same player who dropped the backpack could pick it up to get the ammo, and if someone else picked it, the ammo was lost. This way it was limited to cooperative servers with respawn allowed. I don't know its name, but I remember playing it.