Jump to content
Search In
  • More options...
Find results that contain...
Find results in...
Soundblock

Tropes throughout the years

Recommended Posts

As Doom editing has grown, its gone through many evolving tropes. They don't so much serve as a rule book, but they might need to be observed in order for the mapper to make good decisions about them. Different map styles have different tropes. Slaughter maps have theirs, 90's style map have theirs. Here's a few I could think of that I've come across.

- Don't use too many brown textures. "Too much brown" used to be a common criticism of certain wads, though since its the deep end of the Doom palette its no surprise that this criticism has dissipated over the years.

- Don't place switches whose purpose aren't clear. A switch's effect should be readily apparent on its use. Of course, switch-hunting maps breaks this trope willfully.

- Source port maps should take as much advantage of their chosen engine's strengths as possible. I.e. progressive mapping.

...please add your own observations!

Share this post


Link to post

run-and-gun > pop-shoot-hide (gameplay)
non-linear > linear (progression)
non-orthogonal > orthogonal (angles)
non-symmetrical > symmetrical (architecture)
varied > repetitive (anything)

Share this post


Link to post

tightly controlled ammo - a gameplay design pitfall I often work myself into as well.

Generally I feel that 90's maps were very liberal with ammo And It Was Good(tm), and fastforward to present day where we are striving for more elaborate gameplay set-piece scenarios there is a natural tendency to also want to give the player *just enough* ammo to deal with each room/fight. Or the "you have too much rockets so here's a room/map where you are forced to deplete your rocket supply" I feel is actually insulting the player's intelligence, punishing the player for your supreme vision of "balance".

Share this post


Link to post

Here are some of my personal thoughts:

- Always provide some solid, reliable pillars around the area with revenants and arch-viles, so the players can protect her/himself against homing missiles and flame magics.

- Do not abuse arch-viles too much.

- Be strict to the texture alignment, including flats if possible, unless you're designing an entrance of a secret area. When it's hard to manage the overall texture alignment properly, just use some border textures between those lines.

- Do not place the original monster spawners, which spawn the monsters repeatedly until the end, around the level if you're designing an ordinary one, not a final boss round with the Icon of Sin.

- Please leave at least a tiny little hint around the secret area.

- Do not abuse arch-viles too much. (2)

- Be friendly to players with blind play; the players should be able to beat the level with no huge problems in their first try.

- Test your levels frequently during the development. Not just to figure out gameplay flaws, but the designers should feel the space, environment, architectural designs of the area that they've just created. So they can figure out the way to make the current section & the next section much better.

- Do not abuse arch-viles too much. (3)

Share this post


Link to post

That third one is an interesting topic, soundblock. One of the major reasons I steer away from making any ZDoom projects is that I dont feel very well-versed in its capabilities and that even the things I do know are mostly cosmetic or can contaminate the natural flow of Doom that I like.

Not that Echelon is any evidence of that, but I feel the temptation to change things that can potentially cause more harm to Doom than good would be too strong for me and so I prefer to pick a solid base to work from than to dive into the ability to mold Doom like clay.

Share this post


Link to post
antares031 said:

- Do not abuse arch-viles too much.

To be fair, don't abuse anything too much. Too much is too much.

HughLawrie
Yes but too much is bad for you.

Stephen Fry
Well of course too much is bad for you, that's what "too much" means you blithering twat. If you had too much water it would be bad for you, wouldn't it? "Too much" precisely means that quantity which is excessive, that's what it means. Could you ever say "too much water is good for you"? I mean if it's too much it's too much. Too much of anything is too much. Obviously. Jesus.

;)


That being said, I fully agree with your sentiment. Archvile abuse can completely ruin a map for me. I actually have a button bound to MDK in ZDoom (press it and whatever is under the cross-hair dies) that I generally use for testing purposes. However, its second main use is to instakill archviles that I feel have been poorly used (and, unfortunately the button gets quite a bit of use). Once I have killed the archie, my opinion of the map has usually gone way down and it's at that point that I might just put on god mode, have a quick tour around the rest of the level to see what it looks like and then quit.

So many maps have been ruined for me by "oh no, here comes the dull archvile bit". Remember folks, it's not compulsory to have an achvile in your map so use 'em well or not at all please.


Now, don't get me started on revenant abuse... :P

Share this post


Link to post

Frankly too many complaints about "bad monster usage" come down to the player being bad at Doom and not being well practiced with basic tactics and strategy.

There is dull monster usage -- e.g. awkward revenant/vile ledge snipers that are inefficient to kill because they roam quickly and freely, or boring to kill because you have to do something like wait for the vile to target you and then shoot rockets, etc. -- and monster usage that merely poses a serious threat to survival and turns out to be dull for a particular player who can't handle it, and for obvious reasons feedback loses a lot of value when the two are conflated.

antares031 said:

- Be friendly to players with blind play; the players should be able to beat the level with no huge problems in their first try.


Friendly to which players? Maybe UV on a map will only be beatable in one attempt without foreknowledge by top-flight players. I don't see anything wrong with that at all.

Share this post


Link to post

Progressive mapping is, I think, one of the most important aspects of map design and I echo the thoughts of 40.

One thing I'd like to add to the list: rocket-centric gameplay over SSG-centric gameplay. For as much trash as folk talk about Doom 1's gameplay possibilities due to its lack of an SSG (among other things; the added monsters were a total boon), it's kinda funny how the RL surpasses it in every category, including "fun to use," save extreme CQB only due to its splash damage. Save the PG (against bosses; no splash dmg) and the BFG, nothing puts out such massive amounts of damage so quickly. The best part of it is that it is the only weapon in Doom that is directly risky to use to the player's health; even the pistol is only indirectly risky to the player's hp. "Good at Doom" isn't possible without a RL :)

The SSG is a comfort weapon more than anything, but in its function to comfort the player, it also has the bad habit of slowing gameplay and making the evil duck-and-cover moments so much worse than they are on their own, especially given that it's a burst damage weapon. Replace all shells with rockets and watch map times drop by 25%. Ok, that might be overly generous and a tad unbelievable, granted, but I'd buy 5-10%. That's not factoring in the time spent by players replaying the map due to constant "GaD" moments, of course, because that would utterly destroy that leg of the point. But even for that, rockets for shells adds more risk to every encounter, effectively changing the roles of some monsters. Never mind that it's more difficult to cheese a fight by exploiting monster projectile's hitboxes against floors/walls when the player also has mostly projectiles.

Fun fact: if one has a RL with 4 or more rockets, they really don't have much room to complain about a single AV without cover; the RL kills them before they get their attack off every time. What if they don't have their RL out? So, they take one big hit; the point of health+armor pickups is to establish an acceptable amount of damage to be taken, which includes both incidental damage as well as "highly likely" damage. Most maps aren't reality maps so it is in the plan for players to take damage, as well as to plan for "acceptable damage spots" as a player. Same reason I don't tend to agree with complaints over Plu-style chaingunners. If it's such a big deal, health can be added before the encounter or the ole mandatory berserk/SS/medikit trope can be used beforehand to ensure the player is at least at x % or supplies before entering. Some fights are also made to be more fun when the player enters with a mandatory <50% hp, so once again use of an AV without cover needs to be taken into context.


Random totally unrelated thing that doesn't belong here:

Spoiler

I saw a car accident while typing this message; a van t-boned a truck right on their back wheel, above the bed, but the van likely wasn't going more than 20 mph. The guy who got hit kept driving for like 100 ft, then stoped in the middle of the road, waited a bit, got out, looked at damage, walked all the way back to the van who was still sitting in the intersection, which became a bad idea once the truck kept driving a hundred feet. That van totally could have run and gotten away; the dude gave them ample opportunity for it and I guarantee he couldn't have gotten the licence plate of that van while he was still driving a hundred feet. So the guy walks back to his truck, doesn't bother to make a U-turn or drive through the parking lot, which would have been a straight shot back anyway; no, he reverses in the middle of the road all the way back. When I say middle of the road, I mean there were cars behind him going one way and in front of him going the other (from my perspective). This is a two-lane road (one for each way); prolly should throw that out there too. That means that not only did he reverse in the middle of the road, he also parked in the middle of the road. Ironically kinda in an intersection. My day has officially been made. A most humble "thank you" to that guy in the truck for his actions after getting into a fender bender.

Also, +1 on "dull usage," that's a great way to put it.

Share this post


Link to post

^ I agree completely with that. I think maps tend to skew too SSG-centric these days. It's somewhat rare for them to hand out LOTS of rockets or plasma. It's almost a thing now for most maps to be primarily SSG (often with a perfunctory SG or CG leadup that exists solely for progression so isn't actually tailored for fun), with the RL and PR (or BFG if the mapper gets frisky outside of a secret or before the climatic end fight) and ammo for it handed out in such a way that the majority of it has to be reserved for the most threatening fights, or for certain moments where high DPS is necessary not to slow down the action too much. It's such a thing that it's practically embedded into the way people talk about monster usage (anything about barons, basically, which aren't actually tedious time sinks if the player has the RL/BFG and to a lesser extent the PR, or can just, you know, ignore them).

Also mandatory <x% health sounds really fun. If only there were a more elegant way to enforce it than a zerk/GA pickup followed by mandatory traveling for x amount of time over 20% damaging floor. Or offmap voodoo dolls taking damage from crushed barrels. :D

Share this post


Link to post

The super shotgun is very "safe" to use. Getting close to monsters isn't very difficult anymore (after so many years of practice) but not only is the rocket launcher a hilariously rewarding weapon to use, its tough when damage sponge monsters are closing in on you. I wonder if hell barons will become cool again in that regard?

Share this post


Link to post

RL-centric maps usually feel very gimmicky. I play one and I'm like "ye ye whatever, you're so original, now pls back to normal Doom". The chance of killing yourself results in exactly the type of challenge that is way more annoying than it is fun.

Share this post


Link to post
Vorpal said:

tightly controlled ammo - a gameplay design pitfall I often work myself into as well.



Fully agreed. And too often these maps are made by good players who of course use their own high standards for ammo placement, so that these maps often even become an utter chore on lower skill levels.

As a corollary: Lower skill levels should not just mean 'less monsters' but are also an opportunity to give the player more ammo for certain weapons.

The real fun with Doom is if you can fast-forward into the action, not hiding behind pillars and slowly taking out the monsters one at a time, hoping they don't score a random hit.

Share this post


Link to post
Memfis said:

RL-centric maps usually feel very gimmicky. I play one and I'm like "ye ye whatever, you're so original, now pls back to normal Doom". The chance of killing yourself results in exactly the type of challenge that is way more annoying than it is fun.


The chance of killing yourself can be near 0% (personally I don't like it when the chance is much higher, or things like rocket troll lost souls that exist solely to prevent you from spamming recklessly), but it still influences the way you have to use the weapon in close- and mid-quarters fights. It forces active repositioning, and it's the reason that you can't simply walk directly up to a horde and spam rockets (and the fact that invuls allow you to do this make it such a good powerup to place liberally, which for no good reason most people don't seem to use invuls outside of fights that would be lethal without them).

Also I think when RL maps come off as gimmicky, it's a sign that the dull status quo has "won". It's also a mistake to assume that the mapper is trying to do something "original", instead of just making something they find fun. After all, SSG maps are a lot less original, in that sense.

Share this post


Link to post
Graf Zahl said:

As a corollary: Lower skill levels should not just mean 'less monsters' but are also an opportunity to give the player more ammo for certain weapons.


Usually when I do skill 3 and skill 2 thing placement (except in unique circumstances), I always make sure that there are enough shells to kill everything on the map at least once without using any other weapons. Usually that means there's a good surplus unless the map is a CG/SG/SSG-Centric map.

Share this post


Link to post
Graf Zahl said:

The real fun with Doom is if you can fast-forward into the action, not hiding behind pillars and slowly taking out the monsters one at a time, hoping they don't score a random hit.

+1 Totally agree. I love being able to jump in and go apeshit.

Some of my guidelines:
- remember coop: Make hallways wide enough for at least 2 players to fight side-by-side.

- avoid doors that lock behind the player, without a way for another player to open the door from the outside. This forces the use of noclip in a coop game, if your source port even allows multiplayer noclip.

- I dislike ammo starvation maps, so, if you must make one of these, reserve it for UV. As a general rule, UV should be for expert mode. If the mapper is a really good player, make your expert gameplay in UV, and give the player more ammo in lesser skills.

- again, for coop, make multiple paths from the start, or nearby, so each player can explore a different area first. This is always fun in coop.

Share this post


Link to post
rdwpa said:

Friendly to which players? Maybe UV on a map will only be beatable in one attempt without foreknowledge by top-flight players. I don't see anything wrong with that at all.


Not just for expert players or speedrunners, but for ordinary players like myself. You usually don't expect a normal player to beat MAP29 of Sunlust on UV, with no foreknowledge, in the first hundred shots.

Share this post


Link to post
Vorpal said:

I feel is actually insulting the player's intelligence, punishing the player for your supreme vision of "balance".

wuh

Share this post


Link to post
Arctangent said:

wuh


a) gee I hope you didn't notice that room full of 15 barons was to deplete your cells, so that the cyb I spawn in the next room is arbitrarily more difficult

b) oh you were trying to be smart and conserve your shots, saving ammo for a boss fight? Here's a horde revs that will make sure you are down to your last 6 shells by the exit, ensuring you play the following boss map "properly".

it's a question of choreography I guess. Some people value the unpredictable element of player choice, let them find their own wacky solution. Others value predictable and finely tuned elements so that the player is not so much making their own choices as they are having intentional ideas placed in their mind by the designer on how to defeat X or travel to Y.

Yes this is pretentious but I'm old now so it's my right

Share this post


Link to post

That sounds like you just discovered a lot of concepts of game design yesterday, and for some reason you're insulted that there's some science behind it.

Share this post


Link to post

I think there's a spectrum there of classic Doom's use of powerups as rewards and resources vs. a more modern tendency toward using powerups as a pacing mechanism.

If the player is used resource management as an integral part of gameplay and to the idea that combat encounters can and should play out in different ways depending on what resources the player has available at the time, then an encounter design scheme that seeks to deplete or replenish the player's resources to a specific point before an encounter can feel like a restrictive set of rails.

OTOH tigher control over what tools and resources are at the player's disposal before an encounter allows a mapper to push harder within that encounter because they don't have to cater to as broad a spectrum of possible starting conditions and capabilities.

I think there's merit to be had in both approaches.

Share this post


Link to post
Arctangent said:

That sounds like you just discovered a lot of concepts of game design yesterday, and for some reason you're insulted that there's some science behind it.


No the OP is trying to start a discussion of how tropes have changed through the years. I'm making the argument that (very) old wads allowed the player a very long leash to beat maps their own way, largely through the ammo/arsenal but other ways as well.

Was it designer talent, or the lack of talent, could argue either way. It'd be nice if you could pick a topic or side of an argument and stand by it instead of the ad hominem stuff

Share this post


Link to post

Yeah vorpal raises a good point. I'm not sure what arctangent is trying to say and there's no context for me to go off of.

Share this post


Link to post

I, for one, really like using strategic item placement to encourage certain types of play. It's not right for every map or every scenario, but luring timid players into the middle of a fight using the promise of some much-needed pickups on the other end of the room can be an effective way to stave off corner-camping tendencies and encourage more fast/reckless play. At the same time, players who really, really want to do things differently generally still can. (And it's certainly possible for things to backfire and cause players to be even more timid.)

Short of using extremely annoying and invasive ACS scripting to control the proceedings, it's unlikely that a map is ever going to force players to behave how the mapper expects them to, but strategic item placements can be a valuable tool in choreographing more interesting and varied fights without relying on restrictive "player gets locked in an arena every time they enter a room" scenarios.

I like using some combination of approaches in my maps. I've used item placements, lock-ins (especially unorthodox ones that don't rely on blocking pillars!) and drop-offs, nukage runs (whether to enforce a time limit or to discourage the "backtrack and camp" approach), etc.

Share this post


Link to post
Soundblock said:

- Source port maps should take as much advantage of their chosen engine's strengths as possible. I.e. progressive mapping.


I slightly disagree with this one.

I'm making a map at the moment that strongly features a foggy, swamp-like area. In order to correctly render the fog, hanging clouds and natural landscape (i.e. slopes), there's just one valid choice: GZDoom.

But other than those three things, I'm not necessarily going to use any of the other GZDoom features just because they're there. That would be shoe-horning in features the (otherwise pretty vanilla) map doesn't need. The source-port features are there to enable you to create your vision for a map, not the other way around.

Share this post


Link to post
Vorpal said:

stuff

I think my argument is pretty clearly "if you think designing games and levels around resource management and tightly knit experiences is spitting on the player, then you must be drowning in at least twenty gallons of saliva."

40oz said:

Yeah vorpal raises a good point. I'm not sure what arctangent is trying to say and there's no context for me to go off of.

That's some awfully lazy searching y'did there.

Share this post


Link to post

Well I'm not too lazy to have this conversation you keep beating around.

Share this post


Link to post
40oz said:

beating around.

I feel like you're either using this in exactly the opposite way you're supposed to, or there's some really obscure idiom that's been buried under a more common one that you're trying to use here.

Share this post


Link to post
antares031 said:

Not just for expert players or speedrunners, but for ordinary players like myself. You usually don't expect a normal player to beat MAP29 of Sunlust on UV, with no foreknowledge, in the first hundred shots.


Once again, I don't see anything wrong with this. HNTR and HMP are implemented anyway.

Share this post


Link to post
Arctangent said:

I think my argument is pretty clearly "if you think designing games and levels around resource management and tightly knit experiences is spitting on the player, then you must be drowning in at least twenty gallons of saliva."

I'm not even in vorpal's free-roaming, improvised gameplay camp and I'm pissed off how smug and dismissive you are in this thread. Just shitting all over those uncultured idiots, who are they even lol amirite guise eh eh. So I'm gonna argue for his case.

I've recently replayed Sunlust and I've realized I actually strongly dislike it as a game experience, exactly for the reasons vorpal mentions. The wad really considers the player a monkey that has to jump through the hoops (that are both on fire and spew acid) like the mappers wanted. Almost every scenario has The Official Strategy and non-linearity is handled as "yeah, you can do this optional, but also 100% scripted route to make the straight route easier later on."

And I'd be able to stomach that, I like diverse styles a lot, but the maps don't let me even MOVE the way I'd like. Just simply dodging a revenant rocket runs a high risk of colliding with a wall and getting propelled right the fuck in harm's way, because everything is cramped, detailed and circular. Touch that wall and Doom's faulty collision code goes nuts, so if you have the health and are not standing in the exact precise spot necessary to make a successful dodge, you might as well eat that revenant missile voluntarily, because anything else will bounce you back into the rocket AND probably an ongoing archvile blast.

I'm also growing weary of scenarios that pretty much depend on making the perfect prescient decision right as you press a switch/initiate the next room fight. Yup, that's the early archvile teleport spot. You didn't start spamming rockets at it before it even arrived there? Haha, eat death. That pack of revenants? You started shooting rockets at them? Haha, well here's a cyberdemon that was supposed to infight them, so eat death. It's so meta that it's more Boshy than Doom and I'm not a big fan of that school of game design at all. The single most defining trait of Doom gameplay for me is fast movement and I'm getting none of it, because I need to dance on a needle's head.

edit: I originally planned making a "Slaughter vs. Challenge" thread to vent this, heh.

Share this post


Link to post

I played Sunlust on HNTR when it first came out, it was fairly manageable and pretty cool, but I absolutely hated MAP17, and I think it's for those same reasons. Apparently the only way you're supposed to be able to do that map is by luring arch-viles into a crusher or something, and I don't think I'd ever have figured that one out by myself.
And realistically there's no other option. I had to use a mixture of sheer agression and save-scumming to get through that, and it was one of the least enjoyable things I've ever played. And this was on HNTR, I guess there were way more arch-viles on UV.

You can design an "intended" way of playing all you like but holy shit don't make it the ONLY way of playing your map.

Share this post


Link to post

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×