Big Arena Fights

[Mechazawa]

So, I have had a few biggish fights in some of my maps, but I am on the 4th map of my upcoming pack. I want to have quite a few big arena type fights (slaughter map tier) but every attempt at making good ones ends in an in-fighting clusterfuck.

I was wondering if anyone had any tips or suggestions on how to manage decent fights? In most maps I have played the enemy types are sectioned off in waves or in regions. But doing that requires some kind of arbitrary lock in system to keep the player from escaping and I kinda want to avoid that.

If you are a mapper and you make big arena fights or slaughter maps, what do you do to prevent your stages from turning into in-fighting mess?

[riki2321]

Mechazawa said:

So, I have had a few biggish fights in some of my maps, but I am on the 4th map of my upcoming pack. I want to have quite a few big arena type fights (slaughter map tier) but every attempt at making good ones ends in an in-fighting clusterfuck.

I was wondering if anyone had any tips or suggestions on how to manage decent fights? In most maps I have played the enemy types are sectioned off in waves or in regions. But doing that requires some kind of arbitrary lock in system to keep the player from escaping and I kinda want to avoid that.

If you are a mapper and you make big arena fights or slaughter maps, what do you do to prevent your stages from turning into in-fighting mess?

Try decorate lump. Make an enemy that shoots rolling like touhou or something and that becomes fucking epic, you know.

example of one (not my video!)

Mechazawa said:

If you are a mapper and you make big arena fights or slaughter maps, what do you do to prevent your stages from turning into in-fighting mess?

Hmm this question sounds good, Try not to put enemies and do something like waves, etc. Your best solution for a good fight is using decorate. Just don't do this =

# Don't make 6 enemies that shoot you projectiles and you kill them easily, Make them decorate invincible. and make them shoot in only some periods! (like 5-5 seconds or something.) Don't forget to tell the player that the enemy will attack!

# Don't add so much enemies (You can depend this if you want difficulty levels.)

# Make sure you think the player will like that boss and it's difficulty. Because if not it can turn into a true mess of rage.

[scifista42]

https://www.doomworld.com/vb/doom-editing/69457-slaughter-map-making-tips/
and
https://www.doomworld.com/vb/doom-general/74571-tips-for-making-slaughter-maps/
provided some decent advices on the topic. Just skip the joke replies. :)

[40oz]

I have some posts in the threads scifista linked to that are a bit more in depth if you're looking for more detail. But if you want a quick answer:

Dilute the species of monsters to maybe two or three types to make up the majority of the swarm to reduce infighting. Alternatively, height variation with a lot of ledges, mountainous terrain, and tall guard towers reduce crossfire (monsters throw fireballs in a straight line so having them on a flat plane means they all hit each other and the player is only exposed to the ones in the front of the mob) Use linedef types for traps such as teleporting monsters in, opening up a closet, lowering a platform with monsters on it, etc. The point being that you want the player in the room and to not be able to get out before the monsters are activated to avoid "choke points." (areas where the player can easily mow down monsters as they funnel into a narrow passage)

[riki2321]

scifista42 said:

https://www.doomworld.com/vb/doom-editing/69457-slaughter-map-making-tips/
and
https://www.doomworld.com/vb/doom-general/74571-tips-for-making-slaughter-maps/
provided some decent advices on the topic. Just skip the joke replies. :)

You should check out scifista's advice, That one is very good.

[Mechazawa]

Yeah, I read both threads and some of the stuff linked in those threads as well, pretty useful info. The final map in my pack is not exactly full on Slaughter, though some of the rooms can probably be classified as that.

I think in my particular case its the design of the room that may cause the most issue.



The trap is activated when the card at 1 is picked up, all of these mob boxes open up instantly. The issue is that in boxes 2, the imps always infight with the knights pulling some of them away (line of sight between the imps and player occurs upon setting off the trap). I actually had chaingunners there at first but they just slaughtered each other :(

I don't think there is much I can do short of redesigning the room. I suppose I could remove the cages and put cacos in boxes 2.

[Mechazawa]

I think disabling in-fighting would be to drastic of a change.

[scifista42]

I agree, I wouldn't recommend to do it.

[Memfis]

I think you shouldn't feel so bad about some monsters killing each other. That's a core part of Doom's gameplay, there's nothing wrong about it.

Perhaps what happens here is that you overanalyze the gameplay of your map. You're working on it, you want everything to work exactly as you planned, so you get frustrated when monsters start killing each other instead of working together to kill the player. You see it as a design flaw and you want to correct it. But do you feel the same when playing maps made by others? If you manage to take advantage of monster infighting in some level, do you see that as a flaw of that level? Probably not, I imagine you just have fun doing that (unless it's just way too easy to do).

[Mechazawa]

Well, the issue I was having is there were times the player could just stand their idle... and nothing would really attack him. Maybe the lone cacodemon or lost soul, but most things were just concentrating on the maelstrom of infighting going on. I at least have it to where the player cannot easily run away or stand idle now.

[Fonze]

My advice is to separate the imps and HK's. They are coming from quite some distance away, from the looks of it. That gives them plenty of time to grab some brews, talk about the latest football game, and fire a shot or three. With both being grouped together, one will always be directly in front of the other. That is a design flaw, not in-fighting. In-fighting should be worked for, not directly given and I think that's the fine line of it.

My suggestion would be a couple things:
First, separate them from one-another. At least have them come in at slightly different angles, rather than all from one box. Possibly even teleport some in to split em up a bit more.
Second, if all else fails, re-evaluate your set-up and chosen monsters. HK's and imps will do nothing from afar but hit each other. On the other hand, few people want a map with all revs all the time. So where's the balance? In the areas you design. Try replacing that entire group with some arachnotrons, mancubi, or even a group of spectres to sneak up on the player while that arch-vile distracts him.

*Edit*
It looks like, though I cant see completely, that the imps are technically separated in the picture there. But they still come from that same angle when they round the turn. That's what I'm referring to.

[gemini09]

I think it would be good to disable in-fighting from any of the zombies --- they are just zombies, after all!

Game-wise too I think it does more bad than good to have them with in-fighting dynamics.

[Mechazawa]

Can in-fighting be disabled on a per class basis?

[scifista42]

Yes, give +NOTARGET flag to the monster class you don't want to be targetted.