Last maps of most megawads are unenjoyable

[MegaSphere]

And that's because mappers always mistake fast pace with swarming the player with Revenants. First of all having a bunch of homid missles fly at me from the second I spawn and not giving me any cover is cheap bullshit second forcing me to fight my way to some tiny pillar and play peek-a-boo with monsters slows the game down and turns it into a cover based shooter. Original Dooms didn't have any maps that went ''hurr you're gonna be surrounded by chaingunners, hell knights, revenants and Archies from the get go enjoy losing half of your HP in 3 seconds'' I don't know why those death zone maps are so popular it doesn't feel epic it feels tedious. Fuck Swift Death for consisting entirely of this bullshit.

[Deleted_Account]

[baja blast rd.]

MegaSphere said:

And that's because mappers always mistake fast pace with swarming the player with Revenants. First of all having a bunch of homid missles fly at me from the second I spawn and not giving me any cover is cheap bullshit second forcing me to fight my way to some tiny pillar and play peek-a-boo with monsters slows the game down and turns it into a cover based shooter. Original Dooms didn't have any maps that went ''hurr you're gonna be surrounded by chaingunners, hell knights, revenants and Archies from the get go enjoy losing half of your HP in 3 seconds'' I don't know why those death zone maps are so popular it doesn't feel epic it feels tedious. Fuck Swift Death for consisting entirely of this bullshit.

k

[Suitepee]

I agree with you that Revenants suck (but they have their place in Doom), but otherwise what the heck is this Post Hell designated mess?

Are you ranting about Swift Death's difficulty but then weirdly generalising this to a topic entitled "last maps of most megawads are unenjoyable?" I'm befuddled.

Swift Death is meant to be immediately AND brutally unforgiving, yet brief. (it's been compared to Super Meat Boy) I'd imagine some people enjoy "death zone" maps for the challenge they provide.

[SavageCorona]

Stop playing slaughtermaps then.

[AD_79]

MegaSphere said:

And that's because mappers always mistake fast pace with swarming the player with Revenants. First of all having a bunch of homid missles fly at me from the second I spawn and not giving me any cover is cheap bullshit second forcing me to fight my way to some tiny pillar and play peek-a-boo with monsters slows the game down and turns it into a cover based shooter. Original Dooms didn't have any maps that went ''hurr you're gonna be surrounded by chaingunners, hell knights, revenants and Archies from the get go enjoy losing half of your HP in 3 seconds'' I don't know why those death zone maps are so popular it doesn't feel epic it feels tedious. Fuck Swift Death for consisting entirely of this bullshit.

Ok, you have to accept that this sort of thing is simply above your skill level. Sit back and play sets that are more your speed! It's as easy as that. Swift Death is meant to be balls-to-the-wall hard. Slaughtermaps are meant to be hard.

Also, generally the latter maps of a set are more fun (to me) due to being more engaging and challenging compared to a set's earlier offerings.

[Demon of the Well]

Well, I've encountered monster-heavy lategame maps I might describe as tedious, certainly, and in at least some of those cases the primary source of the tediousness is indeed a function of the monster-heaviness. Broadly speaking, though, many accusations I see from players about high-pressure scenarios necessarily becoming a slow-paced "cover shooter" tend not to hold water, more indicative of a lack of imagination, tactical insight, or simple courage (or all three) on said player's part--I find that some players more accustomed to stock content tend to vastly underestimate what Doomguy (and by extension, they themselves as players) is capable of, and dismiss out of hand scenarios that seem initially overwhelming as "cheap" or "luck-based" or "artificially difficult" or whatnot without ever trying to seriously engage with them beyond the level of throwing a tantrum and dragging heels through them the whole way (e.g. by trying to play like them a cover-based snipe-a-thon). Of course, playing this way for extended periods of time tends not to be very enjoyable (or very effective if the map has been designed from a kinetic action perspective), which tends to further cement the initial adversarial reaction. Bit of a vicious circle/cycle, really, rather unfortunate.

Generally the best remedy is to try a lower difficulty setting, but of course not all maps support these (or support them very well), and not all players are willing to accede to what they view as slanderous affronts to their immaculate Doom skills.

That aside, speaking purely for myself, I find that I personally tend to enjoy the second half of most mapsets more than the first, whether it's a modern piece or something from previous decades. Usually I'm least taken with the early E1 stuff, where maps tend to be smaller, more conceptually straightforward, and yes, easier--content that may be suitably entertaining while I'm playing it but seldom leaves much of an impression after it's over. I feel like in your E2 stuff you start to see more novel/interesting settings and progression concepts, and by the time E3 rolls around the raw combat is often peaking. Very crude generalizations there, I suppose, and of course not applicable to all design models (e.g. mapsets that are only 10 or so maps long and the like), but a good rule of thumb in my experience.

[HorrorMovieRei]

You'd think the name "Swift Death" would be a hint that you're in for a, well, swift death.

[Noiser]

First you talk about not having cover for revenants, then you complain about peek-a-boo. I don't get it.

[Doomkid]

I also hate getting swarmed by homid missiles. Also it sounds like you need to play different WADs.

[HavoX]

The only thing worse than getting spammed by the Revenants' homing missiles is getting spammed by the Iron Liches' homing tornadoes. Now THAT'S annoying

[Wereknight]

Hey kiddo, what's the word of the day?

[Bloodshedder]

I thought this thread was going to be about crappy Icon of Sin maps. I'm disappointed.

[printz]

This is where Heretic beats Doom totally. In such situations you're usually required in Heretic to use your inventory for maximum benefit. In Doom you just have to move and shoot around and hope you're fast enough to evade everything.

[40oz]

This is my favorite argument about Doom maps.

"This isn't hard, there are just revenants and chaingunners everywhere"

Speaking as a level designer, someone doesn't simply make their map hard by putting revenants everywhere. There's other qualities about the map that you are missing that are causing you to die, and I can prove by making a map with 1000 revenants that's easy af.

Its a common problem with players to start a megawad and not think about the long term. Everyone has this horrible misconception about doom that if you play on a lesser skill level that you are only going to fight quantities of monsters in the single digits each map. But no one considers this when they get to the later part of the wad and the problem is once again, too many monsters. The mistake you made was playing a megawad that the author explicitly states is going to be hard, and you played it on the hardest skill level.

My argument is that the early parts of megawads dont have ENOUGH revenants to warn you ahead of time that the later part of the megawad is a bitch. The first ten maps always baby the player with imps and pinkie demons and zombiemen like we haven't already killed 40,000 of them before.

[scifista42]

I agree that maps with too dense placement of high-HP monsters, and/or maps where taking cover is the optimum strategy (or downright a required one) for most of the time, are tedious and unenjoyable for me. On the other hand, I'm not particularly offended by being attacked from the get go and not being able to take fully safe cover anywhere, or by dying in a situation where I clearly saw that victory was within my reach and I only spoiled my chance by my own mistake.

[yakfak]

*doesn't read thread*

I agree, OP, the hell theme bores me to tears

[SavageCorona]

Bloodshedder said:

I thought this thread was going to be about crappy Icon of Sin maps. I'm disappointed.

Yeah that fucking map at the end of doom2.wad sucks I hate it so much

[printz]

yakfak said:

*doesn't read thread*

I agree, OP, the hell theme bores me to tears

Heh, my problem is when megawad authors don't bother to put any new music in the last few levels, so I start hearing 'wonders' like the map22 or map23 music.

[Zulk RS]

Threads such as this is a good place for me to try and derive mapping tips from the replies and responses of experienced doomers.

[Phml]

Ah, 'tis the season indeed. Our yearly reminder to make more maps with revenants.

[Suitepee]

Phml said:

Ah, 'tis the season indeed. Our yearly reminder to make more maps with revenants.

You monster!

[dobu gabu maru]

MegaSphere said:

Original Dooms didn't have any maps that went ''hurr you're gonna be surrounded by chaingunners, hell knights, revenants and Archies from the get go enjoy losing half of your HP in 3 seconds''

That's why the Doom 1 and Doom 2 are

Spoiler

boring to play

Spoiler

(unless playing nightmare/speedrunning)

[General Rainbow Bacon]

What's a "Homid" missile? I thought they were "Homing" missiles.

[Doom_Dude]

General Rainbow Bacon said:

What's a "Homid" missile? I thought they were "Homing" missiles.

Maybe he meant hominid. :p

[Pencil of Doom]

I don't mind revenants at all, because i love skeletons and i like to kill them and be killed by them and besides we are best friends, cuz we blow each other up.
However if a megawad is boring or tedious, i'll just use a weapon mod or just use ruskie armory aka Russian Overkill.

[Six]

Most megawads?

I wouldn't call Swift Death 'most' and considering general difficulty progression (especially with slaughter maps) why would anyone not expect enemy spam in some form?

I thought this was going to be a discussion about authors getting creative burnout or something.

[Rayziik]

Huh. So if revenants being common in late maps is so bad, I guess it's good thing my current project has 2 of them within the first 20 seconds of play on the first map and they comprise ~15% of the enemies on said map.

Revenants are awesome though.

[SYS]

Love is a really long & tight corridor with a revenant at the end of it.

[baja blast rd.]

Best monsters: revs, archies, mancs, chaingunners. I wish the Doom bestiary had 3x as many monsters this awesome!