Your favorite secret type.

[RUSH]

Getting a chainsaw from a secret when you're low on ammo. Perfect timing. Exit the secret, and massacre the first living thing that moves. Hell yes.

[Torturephile]

I love secrets that I can see from a distance but make me wonder how to get to them, like the soulsphere on E1M3.

[Tracer]

I like the WR linedef actions where you cross over them and hear a lift and you're like, "Where the fuck is it?" similar to E1M2's soulsphere secret. Always fun trying to find out where that secret lift is before it goes back up.

[rehelekretep]

i like secrets that i end up finding :D
honestly, i must admit that when i open a map and see "S: 0/0" i am quite relieved!

[riderr3]

The backtracking on the level. Player can return to some suspicious places which opened later and find some goodies.

[Guest DILDOMASTER666]

I like secrets hidden in plain sight. I recall Painkiller doing this rather well; there is no door or switch to access the secret, you just have to know where to look. Oftentimes the secret in question is hidden cleverly just outside of normal viewing angles.

[Rathori]

TL;DR: see Sunlust, No Rest For The Living, UAC Ultra, also maybe BTSX.

 

I like secrets that reward careful exploration of the map and paying attention to your surroundings, instead of humping every wall in the map or figuring out obscure linedef triggers. Well-hidden switches, tiny switches that have a slightly different color from the rest of the wall, tricky jumps that somehow hint that you should be trying to make them, etc.

 

I had great pleasure finding every single Sunlust secret without looking them up, except the nested one on map 30 - I gave up after a while on that one. Same goes for NRFTL. I didn't find every secret in UAC Ultra and BTSX, but what I found seemed to follow a similar convention for secrets.

 

What I don't like is missable secrets, especially the "cross a linedef here, get a wall open silently half-a-map away, didn't find it on first try - tough luck" kind, or the ones that require performing some obscure chain of actions, locking up permanently if you make a tiny mistake (DOOM 64, map 01 barrels secret, anyone?).

[StoneMason]

11 hours ago, Rathori said:

DOOM 64, map 01 barrels secret, anyone?

To be fair, that was very specifically for a super secret exit to a level that if survived fully, gives you access to the cheats menu.

Edited March 16, 2017 by Mason.

[Unholypimp1n]

I like switch hunt secrets and cool looking places in maps that turn out to be secrets.  I also like secrets in which you have to explore or look behind something you normally wouldnt.

 

I also love secrets that lead to secret maps!

[galileo31dos01]

Medium to hard-to-find secrets, no matter if they are fake walls, or some kind of thing that represents a switch (e.g 5 torches, one has blue flames). I have a preference for well hidden switches like those in Plutonia 2 and PRCP. Overall, secrets you must look carefully to find a way to reach them. I don't like mandatory secrets, I don't like nonclear secrets, and I definitely don't like 30-second timing secrets.

 

EDIT: I forgot to mention, my truly favourites are the ones that are hard to find and the reward is a megasphere, I instantly start to thank goodness and I'm not even religious lol

Edited March 25, 2017 by galileo31dos01

[ETTiNGRiNDER]

Off the top of my head I have a particular liking for shoot-activate secrets I suppose.  The sort where you can see some suspicious wall somewhere you can't get close enough to push "use" on but can shoot at to open something.

 

Also, secrets that open into some sort of substantial area rather than just a closet are cool.

[yakfak]

i dislike secrets which can be fully understood before you've explored the place properly... if you find some suspicious bit of wall texturing or an obscured switch activate it and grab the goodies inside and it doesn't sabotage some important aspect of the level then it was pretty much a waste of time =P

 

(NEIS.wad rules)

[drygnfyre]

On 3/3/2017 at 7:15 AM, MetroidJunkie said:

I think Romero or someone else on the Doom team said their mapping philosophy was that, if you could see the outdoors, you should be able to get out there somehow.

Failed in a few places, though. Right in E1M1 where you can pick up a shotgun, there are windows looking outside, but no way to get there. Some WADs, might have been Knee-Deep in zDoom, actually did add a way to get outside, though.

 

I guess to answer the topic's question, I again have to cite E1M3 as the right way to do secrets. Visual clues that indicate to the player there is some way to get into rooms that appear to be unreachable include items (like a soul sphere) and enemies (that drop ammo). There are also spatial clues... E1M3 basically has two wings, and yet there is a big middle segment that seems to line up with some rooms and areas that seem unreachable... Again cluing the player into the fact there is probably more to this map than it seems.

 

Conversely, I really am not a fan of how secrets were done in E2 and E3. I pointed out in another topic I find the secret exit in E2M5 especially lazy, to the point it's almost hard to miss the secret exit. Seems these maps relied more on being large and having monotonous textures to try to disorient the player, instead of actually having truly hidden rooms that required several steps to reach, like in E1.

[drygnfyre]

To me, the absolute worst secrets are the ones that can't be deduced with any sense of logic. Two I can think of...

 

• Map 1 in Doom 64. Please, I am genuinely curious how anyone could have figured this secret out without using a guide. Did any official Doom maps, either in Doom 64 or the other games, ever use barrels as a sector trigger of sorts? Did Doom 64 offer any clues or hints that what is effectively scenery can work this way? And even if you figured out that barrels were somehow working as a sector trigger of sorts, you still have to realize that you need to save the first barrel for last, as the secret is only available for a few seconds.
• On a similar note, Knee-Deep in zDoom had a "secret" that required the yellow key... On a map that didn't have the yellow key. Of course, you won't figure this out until you scour the entire map. So, I figured this was just a fake door, just there to add a sense that the map is bigger than what can actually be explored. No, turns out the door does open... When you enter the room containing the exit switch. At which point you can go back and explore this room (which doesn't contain much). This is terrible level design... From what I can recall, there's no switch to flip, no sound that plays, no indication or clue of any kind to suggest you might want to go back and check. And again... Was something like this ever done in any other Doom maps? Very few maps ever relied on other segments of the map opening once you reach a particular room, and when it was done, it was very obvious (usually it would be a wall right in front of you).

[Gez]

Secrets that give a non-item edge to beat the map. Examples:

- Allowing to sneak on a monster closet to kill enemies before they can spring an ambush

- Activating a crusher

- Raising or lowering obstacles to get more cover

- Opening an early way out of something that otherwise would be a closed arena fight

- Allowing to enter an area from a different side in a way that increases the amount of monster infighting compared to the normal way in

 

All these things are more interesting to me than just getting some items.

[tourniquet]

secret encounters, Ribbiks is the master of that genre.....

[Empyre]

1 hour ago, Gez said:

Secrets that give a non-item edge to beat the map. Examples:

- Allowing to sneak on a monster closet to kill enemies before they can spring an ambush

- Activating a crusher

- Raising or lowering obstacles to get more cover

- Opening an early way out of something that otherwise would be a closed arena fight

- Allowing to enter an area from a different side in a way that increases the amount of monster infighting compared to the normal way in

 

All these things are more interesting to me than just getting some items.

I like that, but it had never occurred to me. The next map I make will have something like that in it.

[Ribbiks]

[Nine Inch Heels]

^What on earth..? Why so many secrets in one map?!

 

EDIT: And what map is that? Which wad is it from?

 

On 13.3.2017 at 1:31 PM, rehelekretep said:

honestly, i must admit that when i open a map and see "S: 0/0" i am quite relieved!

^This!

[Ribbiks]

ToD map, sf3/ESP. in this case he was using them as mandatory bits of platforming that were otherwise unimportant but were now required to be part of a max route. funny idea.

 

also, just stumbled across these gems from the brief dw secret-count wankery (both are boom-compat):

 

 

[leodoom85]

15 minutes ago, Ribbiks said:

ToD map, sf3/ESP. in this case he was using them as mandatory bits of platforming that were otherwise unimportant but were now required to be part of a max route. funny idea.

 

also, just stumbled across these gems from the brief dw secret-count wankery (both are boom-compat):

 

 

800000? ...........................

[baja blast rd.]

Ribbiks you just reminded me of the best type of secret ever. Pay attention to the end tally.

 

 

 

[drygnfyre]

I'd rather have 800,000 accessible secrets than maps that incorrectly tag secret sectors and make them unreachable as a result. Really irks me when it comes to map design.

[leodoom85]

50000%.....it means 500 secrets?

 

[Arctangent]

Vanilla Doom and most ports look at the number of secret sectors when the level is loaded for the maximum number of secrets at the tally screen, but doesn't actually cap the secrets obtained to that number. So if you make a sector secret by used of a line action that transfer sector specials, you end up with an over-100% secret total.

[galileo31dos01]

2 hours ago, rdwpa said:

Ribbiks you just reminded me of the best type of secret ever. Pay attention to the end tally.

 

 

 

I'm dead (2)

[Chewyninja69]

On 4/23/2017 at 10:48 PM, rdwpa said:

Ribbiks you just reminded me of the best type of secret ever. Pay attention to the end tally.

 

 

 

Goddamit, as annoying as this was to listen to, I loved it. I think I'm fucked in the head....

[Chewyninja69]

On 4/23/2017 at 10:24 PM, Ribbiks said:

ToD map, sf3/ESP. in this case he was using them as mandatory bits of platforming that were otherwise unimportant but were now required to be part of a max route. funny idea.

 

also, just stumbled across these gems from the brief dw secret-count wankery (both are boom-compat):

 

 

this is beyond absurd, but I approve 

[Empyre]

The first one looks like a fractal, which is cool. The second one gives me a nice moire pattern when I scroll.