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revan1141

Is it forgiveable for a map to look kind of subpar if the action in the map is good?

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Sometimes I just can't seem to keep the theme of my map consistent or cool looking, and I've been wondering if it's forgiveable for the map to look kind of subpar if the action in the map is good enough.

I don't mean subpar as in, shitty brown textures on everything with square sectors everywhere, but just kind of like... a 5/10 average in the looks department.

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Absolutely! If a map is enjoyable I don't care one bit about the visuals (if the visuals are good then it's just a bonus thing that is nice to have).

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Dude, gameplay is the biggest part a lot of the time. You can learn to make a map pretty with time and practice, learning to make it fun isn't as easy to teach. So you go to town, release something fun, and work on your sector toilets later.

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Marcaek said:

It's fine sure but criticising the visuals is no less fair game.

^^

That being said, I find myself compelled to once again laboriously trot out the point that visuals and gameplay should not be treated as though they have no interplay between them--from an end-user standpoint there is much to be said about the way a map "feels", and this is to some extent a function of the intersection of gameplay/choreography with aesthetics.

So, put another way, if you make a map that plays really great but half-ass the visuals, the end product will probably be enjoyable on the whole ( likely moreso than if you were to make a beautiful map that plays like crap, to whit), but that doesn't mean you aren't still losing out on some of the map's overall potential by half-assing the visuals, if that makes sense.

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Think as long as its IWAD level of visual quality people won't mind at all. A varied layout can enhance both gameplay and visuals so the two often go together naturally, I think the biggest visual crimes aren't so much lack of detail and architectural flourish, but things like texture misalignments, arbitrary texture choices, wacky geometry and bland uniform lighting. Those are the kind of things that take you out of the game, and like demon says the immersion is part of the gameplay for some people.

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If a map is fun to play and doesn't have any garish errors like misaligned textures then it's fine if it doesn't look like a Tormentor project.

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Gameplay > Visuals

Besides, you can strategically utilize lots vs minimal visuals as a form of clever and subtle pacing.

For example, you have one room with a couple challenging creatures and items to pick up, perhaps a secret too. Pretty it up well! It will encourage players to invest time looking around and appreciate the scenery you have created.

Then you may have a hallway leading to another room. Nothing special about it, just a couple of trash mobs there.

The hallway can have a few lights, a wall texture and a couple of side computer panels. Not much to see, nothing complicated etc. So the player will just kill the monsters and move on.

Enter the next room that again has monsters and items of interest. Pretty it up again! And if you effectively create a consistent pattern of rewarding a player who searches detailed rooms with bonuses while saving time of hastily passing through boring locations then you essentially trained the player how to play your maps. That sir, is some good pacing!

They say a picture is like a 1000 words. I feel it's also valid in mapping.

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For a good map this applies: gameplay first, details second.
Always remember that.
However it is forgivable if a map is looking bad in detail and good in gameplay, the oposite on the other hand is unforgivable.

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I guess it's true that an ugly map can still be 100% fulfilling.

However, relatively few will bother with it, and those who do appreciate it, would appreciate it beyond 100% if it had a better presentation.

To me, visuals come first, because this is no longer the 1970s when all we had was a black background and some white dots to represent a spaceship and alien spacecraft.

Also, visuals are the first indicator of what the rest of the package is all about - for example if something has terrific art direction, then I'm inclined to assume that the rest of the package is also creative.

But then again, a person or a team, will have limited amount of productivity at their disposal, so if everything goes into graphics then it will be on the expense of gameplay, and vice versa.

Personally I'm sick and tired of all those indie games that flood the market with terrible graphics and hardly any interesting gameplay - at least not for those of us who've already played hundreds and thousands of side-scrollers.

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Yeah it's forgiveable but you want more than forgiveness for your your work don't you?

I agree with the general consensus here but to expand on what DOTW says, bad visuals can impair gameplay - not just in the atmospheric or suspension of belief aspect but in actual practical terms too. For instance, interesting theme changes or cool architecture can help a player landmark an area to prevent them being lost, could lighting choicing and texture clues can help with mapflow by nudging the player in the right directions. Bad visuals can cause players to miss switches and get lost in bland hallways.

Chances are you will end up with a net positive reception but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try harder.

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As long as there are no HoM and the textures are suitably aligned, I can play it. The map will have to have some degree of decent architecture for the gameplay to be any good, but ultimately the aesthetics just add to it rather than make it.

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Hell yeah, actually I'm a gameplay first kind of guy. If the map is pretty and well designed but it drags out, and the secrets are overly complex to find, and there's pointless structures in the background, they can be overall forgettable. But one that plays good is always fun and worth coming back to. Kind of like Scythe: simple levels that are replayable and fun, then compare it to Knee Deep in Zdoom: cool the first time but, it's just blah in game play.

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A lot of the good gameplay-first-visuals-distant-second maps are ostensibly sub-par in the aesthetics department -- but when you take a deeper, more analytical look at things, the visuals are governed by certain organizing principles (which are either consciously thought out or intuitively hit upon), that have the net effect of making the "ugliness" palatable or even attractive, often in a way that doesn't register in the topmost part of one's consciousness.

SuperCupcakeTactics's trademark texture-diarrhea style is a good (albeit stylized) example of this.

SuperCupcakeTactics said:

Screenshot from Zenith Zucchini
http://i.imgur.com/oRPYVwX.png
This map was supposed to be another single player map aimed at being pretty much 100% run & gun with ledges for the player to run through from one side of the map to the other, granting lots of directions of movement and a bit of doom parkour in a sense. In the state it is now I've decided it would probably work alot better as a deathmatch map. Planning to just keep it as just spare ideas and maybe finish this one to actually release as a deathmatch map.
http://i.imgur.com/2FCIC6T.png
http://i.imgur.com/2yPY28E.png
http://i.imgur.com/6K494tr.png

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I would probably be the only one here who would say that I really-really value the visuals. Gameplay is important to me, but I can also switch to an ambient mode and just explore things. And I've seen maps that I like just for visuals. Valiant would be an example. I am unable to play it, it is so tough, I am usually killed very quickly. But I love walking around it in nomonsters mode or just exploring it with the simplest difficulty setting.

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In terms of DM; yes. Game play always comes first every single time. Ever wondered why Gothic DM is considered one of the worst DM wads? They focused on making it more of a wank fest than focusing on the number one element. For single player I would say that visuals are just as important but I would still vote game play over visuals Hell core is a good example of a level set that fails drastically as a playable level set. Yes it looks amazing but the game play is shocking. Doom is a video game, you play it, not roll your foreskin up and down over it.

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Gameplay over visuals but try not to let your map look too much like a turd if you're skimping on the details. :P

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Looks matter. I'm more likely to play an ornate alien/hellish level with custom textures, things and power metal music, than through a boring human-built supply depot with stock Doom 2 textures and D_RUNNING or some generic electronic midi.

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I refuse to play maps that have less than 4 linedefs per 8 map units squared.

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I don't think simplicity necessarily means sub-par visuals. you can actually make some pretty striking environments and set-pieces with very few visplanes.

to answer your question though, I think if the gameplay is good enough then people will certainly be receptive of it. a good example of this is "no more detail" http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom/megawads/nmdu.zip . this kind of falls into my previous statement though, as the maps are still very good looking despite lacking lots of detail.

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molten_ said:

I don't think simplicity necessarily means sub-par visuals. you can actually make some pretty striking environments and set-pieces with very few visplanes.

Yep, a ultra-detailed map can be ugly as hell. It's just a matter of balance.

It's actually more difficult (and better, in my opinion) make a refined design using a basic structure. Minimalism ftw!

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I just played your vault wad to understand what you are saying, That map at least looks ok to me, I see some refined detail put into it and the tech theme seems very consistent. Maybe you choose weird flats sometimes for big surfaces but well, I think you tried to make some ship so I guess it's fine. One personal observation is some subordination to 90 degrees angles and 128 unit height, but many people don't concern about that anyway. If you play a bit more with curves and height contrast I guess you'll do fine. Cramped areas adjacent to the open ones and light contrast helps too. Finally as I saw in one of the vault review, don't use symetrical copy pasta traps.
Regarding your original question it seems to depend on the player.

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Job said:

gameplay > architecture

Every time.

If the map rocks my socks, I couldn't care less about a few misaligned textures. That said, both should have equal amounts of effort put into them.

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I actually like shitty texturing maps as well as beautiful Scythe2-esque visuals. The variety is great. Either one has it's appeal to me personally.

Bad gameplay on the other hand is unforgivable. Well, not unforgivable - We've all made crappy maps at one point or another - But balancing your map should certainly be top priority. What constitues good gameplay is somewhat debatable in itself... But that's a discuassion for another time.

No matter what visual style you go with you will have fans of your work, as long as you put thought into the progression of the map.

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I prefer that the gameplay for a WAD be fun over it having super-detailed looks.

You know, so long as HOM's and missing textures and texture misalignments aren't all over the place. :v

Admittedly though I do love Torm667's maps even if the gameplay in some of those maps happens to suffer. I'm a bit of a sucker for complex/realistic/eye candy-like architecture in idtech1 custom content. :P

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