Secret areas should be visible, call me crazy

[PsychoGoatee]

If you have a piece of wall that raises like a door, be a doll and lighten the pallet a bit. Humping walls was fun, but who really has time for it these days.

I think your average secret area is a bit too secret, quite frankly, call me crazy, don't call me Shirley.

I just don't see most of them, and I think that goes for many of the average players. If you took the time to make 10 secrets, why not make 5 of them noticeable.

[Chezza]

I agree. I think secrets should be either visible with a small hint on how to get to them or have a unique pattern / path that can be spotted by an observant player.

[Chewyninja69]

Chezza said:

I agree. I think secrets should be either visible with a small hint on how to get to them or have a unique pattern / path that can be spotted by an observant player.

Then it wouldn't be "a secret" anymore, would it?

[VGamingJunkie]

It can also be a good challenge of creativity to see what kind of inventive ways you can come up with to hint the player at a secret area. You could even make a custom texture just for the secret that's just slightly off, like maybe a stone texture with barely visible grime on the surface. Just enough that the player has to be observant.

[Chezza]

Chewyninja69 said:

Then it wouldn't be "a secret" anymore, would it?

That's right, once you uncover the secret path to your goal or find its entrance it won't be a secret anymore. That's the point of finding secrets.

[Job]

When a slightly different or subtly-misaligned texture tips me off, it makes me feel like a bit of a genius. Same goes for decorations, geometry or architecture variations serving as clues. It's the obligation of the mapper to reward the player and create an incentive for exploring their map. When you establish an understanding that noticing details leads to a benefit, it helps create a positive rapport between a mapper and player.

[purist]

I agree there should be clues but it annoys me when OCD players complain that secrets were too hard to find on a single playthrough of a level. One treasure from the IWAD maps is finding new secrets having been playing the game for years.

[Fonze]

All secrets should have a hint. Anything less is just lazy.

Hints can be literally anything in my book, but there are some people generally frown upon. I've used hints of all sorts, though, because one type of anything is simply underwhelming. Like purist said, it's good to be able to play something through a second time, or tenth time, and find something new. That's why I like secrets with hints that are somewhat outside of the box. Of course make sure your hint doesn't need a hint ;p or at least provide it, haha.

In one map I made, I made a secret who's hint is the title screen, lol.

[Yuki Senmatsu]

Huh.

I may have a bad habit of making them hard to find but, alright then.

*Gets back to work on MAP03 of The NIGHTMARE! Palace*

Might as well since that map is huge.

[Avoozl]

Maybe the secret doesn't need to be the area itself, but the way in which you get into the area can be the secret.

[scifista42]

I prefer when secrets are subtly hinted to, possible to find by any observant or clever player. I also like variety and creativity among the ways how exactly they are hinted to and/or accessed. I don't like random wall humping or pure relying on automap when searching for secrets.

[snapshot]

Chewyninja69 said:

Then it wouldn't be "a secret" anymore, would it?

But it must at least have hints to it, Many of DOOM 2 Secrets sound like they don't have hint to them .

[Maes]

There's also the case of secrets which are not really secrets: I'm not referring to unmarked ones, but to inaccessible/nonfunctional areas which however still ended up in the map.

They may be mapping leftovers, they may be legit secrets which were (unintentionally) rendered inaccessible through a mapping error etc. and may be there in plain view, teasing you, or worse, barely register on the automap, prompting you to investigate.

I dunno, but I always found an unfinished section of a map to have an eerie feeling, other than the obvious frustration.

[BaronOfStuff]

All 'official' (Sector Type 9) areas should be visible or hinted at in some form or other, yes. Whether it's a window overlooking said area, a differently-textured wall panel in a set, a slight texture offset, audio cues or a blinking light among constant lights, there should always be some sort of clue to their existence. Even if it requires looking at the automap and checking for clues or hints in the form of which colour the goddamn lines are compared to others in the area.

Unofficial areas can be hidden away in as much of a cryptic or stupid style as you like though. Finding stuff like this after several playthroughs is a reward all in itself.

[LogicDeLuxe]

BaronOfStuff said:

All 'official' (Sector Type 9) areas should be visible or hinted at in some form or other, yes. Whether it's a window overlooking said area, a differently-textured wall panel in a set, a slight texture offset, audio cues or a blinking light among constant lights, there should always be some sort of clue to their existence.

My thoughts exactly.

BaronOfStuff said:

Even if it requires looking at the automap and checking for clues or hints in the form of which colour the goddamn lines are compared to others in the area.

A map author should flag secret lines as "secret" in order to avoid exactly that.
However, the secret area itself may be flagged "not on map", which can be a clue, if you can see that area in first person view.

[TimeOfDeath]

I've lost patience for people who flag lines as "secret". Now I pretty much only play with iddtx2 for casual games.

[Obsidian]

TimeOfDeath said:

I've lost patience for people who flag lines as "secret".

Harumph!

Kids and their disorganized automaps...*Grumbles off*

[Six]

Relentless wall humping with no indication of anything is the absolute worst when it comes to accessing secrets. In my honest opinion it's probably the laziest way to hide something.

Reverie suffered from this FAR too often. When i eventually found a secret i was just like "christ... really?" every time. It just seemed a bit bullshit really, it comes across less rewarding and just lucky that i happened to press the right texture.

Also one time secrets can go jump off a bridge. Why is this ever a good idea? Especially when the secret is triggered by walking over a lindef, and you had nothing to suggest that it was activated this way. That isn't clever, it's stupid.

[Lvangundy]

Sunlust is full of secrets that are extremely difficult to find. Kind of frustrating actually.

NERVE.WAD has very GOOD secret placement.

I agree that secrets should be a *tad* easier.

[Hoodie]

People don't provide clues to where the secrets are...? but...they do...?????

[BaronOfStuff]

Six said:

Relentless wall humping with no indication of anything is the absolute worst when it comes to accessing secrets. In my honest opinion it's probably the laziest way to hide something.

2002:ADO is one of the worst for this. Fucking HELL it's horrific.

[Xeriphas1994]

scifista42 said:

I prefer when secrets are subtly hinted to, possible to find by any observant or clever player. I also like variety and creativity among the ways how exactly they are hinted to and/or accessed. I don't like random wall humping or pure relying on automap when searching for secrets.

+1.  I still remember Maximum Doom maps using a mixture of the methods described in this thread; the player could choose how much effort to spend harvesting that day, and be rewarded proportionally.  It wasn't "no secrets" vs "wallhump until head hits keyboard".

Of course, back then it could happen by accident because the mapping utility was so slow and clunky that the author lost patience and didn't flag everything the same way.  But still.  :D

[DeathevokatioN]

Chewyninja69 said:

Then it wouldn't be "a secret" anymore, would it?

I think what he's trying to express is that secrets shouldn't be found by random wallhumping.

[Maes]

Don't forget that not all secrets can be found by wall humping: some involve shootable switches, backtracking or timing-based puzzles. Some may also only give you ONE chance to get everything right, and then simply stay there to tease you if you miss your chance.

[VGA]

Maes said:

Don't forget that not all secrets can be found by wall humping: some involve shootable switches, backtracking or timing-based puzzles. Some may also only give you ONE chance to get everything right, and then simply stay there to tease you if you miss your chance.

The worst are timed secrets (starting when the map starts) If you miss it you will be wallhumping forever.

[BaronOfStuff]

One-shot (official) secrets in general are the work of scum. Hit a switch, something opens, then closes, but you don't know what or where. And you can't hit the switch again to find out without restarting the map*.

What the fuck sort of logic causes a mapper to implement this sort of thing, then sit back and say "this is good"?

*Unless you save before hitting every switch, or just open the map in an editor to look at it all like some sort of scrub.

[drygnfyre]

Chezza said:

I agree. I think secrets should be either visible with a small hint on how to get to them or have a unique pattern / path that can be spotted by an observant player.

I agree with this, too. I don't care for secrets that don't have a single visual clue that they can be interacted with, nor do I like time-limited secrets. In vanilla Doom, the latter could be exampled with E4M2. But that's a fairly tame setup, because you don't have to run that far to get to the secret exit, and I recall there's a fairly audible noise that something (other than the ledge you lowered), also lowered.

Hitscan walls are fine, at least if they're using a different texture (like in E1M2). But one "secret" that always bothered me was Silures from Eternal Doom, where you had to interact with a tree to open a door. It's certainly a secret, but I never liked it because there was no indication whatsoever that something like that was even possible.

I think E1M3 is a perfect setup of how to properly do secrets. Looking at your map and into several rooms, you know there is more than meets the eye. There's just enough visual clues that a secret area can be accessed, but it's not hand-holding, either.

[Koko Ricky]

So often, I've found myself saving right next to the exit (done this in Duke 3D and Blood as well), then going back through the level and searching every possibly nook and cranny for remaining secrets, only to be unsuccessful. Sometimes I have to noclip to get an idea of what to do. I understand that some authors get tired of standard secret reveals: differently colored walls, differently colored torches, recesses or decorations that looks shootable, switches hidden slightly out of view, walk-over triggers that open a nearby door, etc. But sometimes they get too creative and end up obscuring the secret. What I like to do when mapping is step away from it for awhile, then come back and pretend I don't really know the map inside and out. It can make it somewhat clear, at that point, what might be oblivious to other players.

I played a map recently--I can't recall the name right now--which had the audacity to use a walk-through wall as an entrance for a massive secret. There was pretty much no indication that you could walk through this area, so I only found out by no-clipping.

Also, Doom 64--while its secrets are kind of ingenious--are a bit too ridiculous for someone to figure out on their own, when pertaining to the MAP01 exit to Hectic, or the acquisition of the first demon key.

[Mithran Denizen]

Heh, thinking back, I used to save in the exit room of every Wolf3D level, then go back to look for 100% secrets/kills/items. It was usually an exercise in frustration; I think this gave me an anticompletionist disposition toward Doom before I even played it.

As a designer, I agree that secrets should generally communicate their existence to the observant.

As a player, I don't care in the slightest. If nothing in the level hints at the existence of a secret, I don't waste my time looking for one. There are more fun things to do in Doom than run around humping walls.

[Xaser]

GoatLord said:

I played a map recently--I can't recall the name right now--which had the audacity to use a walk-through wall as an entrance for a massive secret. There was pretty much no indication that you could walk through this area, so I only found out by no-clipping.

I wonder if this was me -- BTSX E2 MAP26?

If so, my justification would be that the walk-through-wall in question is a waterfall (well, purple coolant fall) texture, and there are always secrets behind waterfalls. :P