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CrazyDoomguy

Architecture or figthsetup?

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I see, many would choose more WAD witch cool architecture than WAD with fightsetup (Skill, action, slaughterfest). Have we many noobs, which play WAD just for looking architecture (Noob tourist) or we have other interest?

I want collect statistic. You can write here percent of architecture and fightsetup, which you want to play.

I create a WAD, which have 70% fightsetup and 30% architecture.

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I'm not sure what you mean, but fighting setups are revolving around architecture. You shouldn't just put a bland square room, add a bunch of monsters into it and call it a night.

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BTSX has like 80% architecture and 80% setup.

Swift Death has 30% architecture and 100% setup.

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Voros said:

BTSX has like 80% architecture and 80% setup.

Swift Death has 30% architecture and 100% setup.

Do you even know how percents work?

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joe-ilya said:

I'm not sure what you mean, but fighting setups are revolving around architecture. You shouldn't just put a bland square room, add a bunch of monsters into it and call it a night.

Fightsetup is a form of area (no lame flat and square room) and monsters. All both elements need make a action, survive and surprise. That I call fightsetup. All these action player will focus on fight more than architecture.

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joe-ilya said:

Do you even know how percents work?

I do. That's why I did that.
Would you agree to 80% design and 20% setup for BTSX? The "fight setup" is well done in BTSX, just like the design.

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Voros said:

Would you agree to 80% design and 20% setup for BTSX?


I would. BTSX is 40% music, 40% visuals/architecture and 20% setup. If you think back to what's memorable about BTSX, it won't be the monster fighting, which is quite standard. It's not the kind of wad for which speedrunning and UV-max demos would be exciting to watch.

In response to the OP, I prefer a good 50/50. The best wads are those that combine great architecture with exciting, top-notch gameplay. Something like Sunlust gets it perfectly.

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Voros said:

I do. That's why I did that.
Would you agree to 80% design and 20% setup for BTSX? The "fight setup" is well done in BTSX, just like the design.


I'm just going to go ahead and try to save you some trouble here.

If architecture and setup are equal in BTSX, then it's 50% architecture and 50% setup. When you're talking about composition, the percentages have to add up to 100. You seem to be treating it like you're grading each element, as in 0% is horrible and 100% is perfect. If so, you're not technically wrong, but you're having a completely different conversation than everybody else in this thread.

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I'd say that gameplay is certainly the most important aspect of anything, but you can't just ignore visuals. I'd say you need a good 3:1 ratio of gameplay to looks, which is 60% gameplay, 40% visuals/other aspects.

A wad should be fun to play overall, no matter what.

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PseudoGold said:

I'd say that gameplay is certainly the msot important aspect of anything, but you can't just ignore visuals.

I'm not sure if TimeOfDeath would agree with you about the visuals. :)

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Looks of wads are much like looks of potential girlfriends/boyfriends; sure, you can really enjoy an ugly mapset with a great personality, but when it comes to just looking around and picking something out, there has to be that physical attraction.

Proof: make an online dating profile with a butt-ugly picture and talk about your great personality, then see how many takers you get.

Great personalities (gameplay) are for the long-term, the slow game, great visuals are to attract people right now. Of course visuals are also important for the long run, but there's some sort of logrithmic function that covers it, I'm sure.

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I'm all for gameplay: Erkattäññe and Manos Laikas are two of my favorite mapsets ever, IMO, better than Scythe series or Valiant (this last one I didn't really like that much)

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I will adamantly say that both aspects of map design are equally important.

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A bad looking map with great gameplay is a good map. A great looking map with bad gameplay is awful.

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I agree with kraflab. If you make fun fights you can get away with some bland / crude architecture, but not the other way around.

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And yet that horrible, good-looking map will get ten-fold more plays than the other one... imagine that. (before people talk about how "great" or "shit" it was).

Real world vs idealism. Put "in a perfect world..." before most posts in this thread and you'll have a better answer.

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In mapping I definitely focus on atmosphere first and foremost; the 'feeling' the map has, for me has to be unique at any rate. Gameplay is definitely important too. If you want an answer... 50%, 50% for sure. The atmosphere cannot undermine the play, and vice versa.

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rileymartin said:

I would. BTSX is 40% music, 40% visuals/architecture and 20% setup. If you think back to what's memorable about BTSX, it won't be the monster fighting, which is quite standard. It's not the kind of wad for which speedrunning and UV-max demos would be exciting to watch.

Eh, it didn't work like that. The maps you'd say have good percentage of setup? Most of them just popped out like that, some even speedmapped. Effortless. On the other hand, some of the most linear (and perhaps beautiful) ones that play "quite standard" had huge amounts of "post-processing" time spent on tinkering with micromanaging fights to make them "exciting (enough)".

To be honest, BtSX is a bit unfitting example for this sort of discussion, because it's overproduced and overanalyzed in every regard, haha.

Deadwing said:

I'm all for gameplay: Erkattäññe and Manos Laikas are two of my favorite mapsets ever, IMO, better than Scythe series or Valiant (this last one I didn't really like that much)

D:

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Visuals are an aspect of gameplay. Differentiating between visuals and gameplay is meaningless.

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Engaging gameplay is definitely a must for me to consider a WAD 'good,' but I will download and play a map with amazing visuals and mediocre gameplay whereas I will most likely not play a map with amazing gameplay but mediocre visuals.

It also matters what way the gameplay misses. A map with amazing visuals but mindlessly easy gameplay will still be thoroughly enjoyable (to me) as a walking simulator through Hell, but if the gameplay is tediously difficult, then the most amazing Vader-esque visuals in the world will be at least partially wasted on it since I won't be able to enjoy them as much.

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Gameplay and monster set up should always be a priority.
But I have a softspot for Mapsets that look good/great even if the gameplay is a bit lacking.

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Deadwing said:

I'm all for gameplay: Erkattäññe and Manos Laikas are two of my favorite mapsets ever, IMO, better than Scythe series or Valiant (this last one I didn't really like that much)

I mean, I love OS mapsets, but Monti's maps are genuinely ugly as sin, to me anyway. The layouts and encounters are pretty fun so I like them in a gimmicky sorta way - they bring you right back to that "best of '94" feeling. Reminds me of the pleasant surprises I used to find on GeoCities Doom sites back in the late 90s. I think that's intended, but I can truly forgive older mapsets for their poor visuals if they have fun encounters and layouts, where as there's really no excuse for texture misalignments in this era, other than going for that aforementioned 1994 nostalgia. Scythe strikes me personally as the perfect balance between the old and the new and the gameplay is just flawless.. Clever layouts, super fun difficulty curve. Alm has been my main mapping influence over the years. [/opinionated rant]

Actually I've been accused of going for the same oldschool 'gimmick' in my DM maps, but I really do try to iron out any blatant misalignments and keep theming consistent. I feel like they hit that 'E1' standard in terms of clean texturing. (I don't mean to pick on Nick Monti either, he's by no means a "bad mapper", just very sloppy on the texturing front.)

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Doomkid said:

I mean, I love OS mapsets, but Monti's maps are genuinely ugly as sin, to me anyway. The layouts and encounters are pretty fun so I like them in a gimmicky sorta way - they bring you right back to that "best of '94" feeling. Reminds me of the pleasant surprises I used to find on GeoCities Doom sites back in the late 90s. I think that's intended, but I can truly forgive older mapsets for their poor visuals if they have fun encounters and layouts, where as there's really no excuse for texture misalignments in this era, other than going for that aforementioned 1994 nostalgia. Scythe strikes me personally as the perfect balance between the old and the new and the gameplay is just flawless.. Clever layouts, super fun difficulty curve. Alm has been my main mapping influence over the years. [/opinionated rant]

Actually I've been accused of going for the same oldschool 'gimmick' in my DM maps, but I really do try to iron out any blatant misalignments and keep theming consistent. I feel like they hit that 'E1' standard in terms of clean texturing. (I don't mean to pick on Nick Monti either, he's by no means a "bad mapper", just very sloppy on the texturing front.)


What I like about Monti's levels is his distinctive enemy placement and layouts, like you said. Some (actually a lot) of his levels has really weird texture placement, but there's also some that are good, which indeed is far from these more beautiful modern stuff, but is still very atmospheric.

In most levels, even by many pro-mappers, enemies are normally in big numbers with a straightfoward placement, while monti's normally keeps the number very low (for the maps size) and place them more strategically, which still makes the level quite challenging, but forces the player to be aware of his surrounds. Also, exploring is a big factor in his levels and the distictive layout (non-linear circular rooms) makes it very interesting.

Scythe is a much more balanced pack regarding to visuals. The gameplay is a lot tight and flows really well (from what I remember, because I've played it like 10 years ago :P). It's also my main inspiration too, especially for a tight oldschool archictecture. Still, when going for enemy placement and creative layouts, Erkatainne and Manos Laikas abstraction impressed me a lot and became also my reference haha

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Architecture and setup go hand in simply because if one has been mapping long enough to design striking architecture then they have years of experience under their belt. Meaning they also know how incorparate an engaging setup due to the amount of practice and involvement they have had with mapping.

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yaqxsw said:

I see, many would choose more WAD witch cool architecture than WAD with fightsetup (Skill, action, slaughterfest). Have we many noobs, which play WAD just for looking architecture (Noob tourist) or we have other interest?


I don't really see how maps that spam monsters so that they are bound to start infighting as skill intensive. I call that "watch bots do it" -skill (its like im too young to die but easier).

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Rayzik said:

I will adamantly say that both aspects of map design are equally important.

Same here.

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