Why are slaughter maps looked down upon?

[rehelekretep]

get rekt

[Nine Inch Heels]

1 minute ago, rehelekretep said:

get rekt

who?

[rehelekretep]

Optimus :)

[Nine Inch Heels]

REKThelekretep? ;-)

[rehelekretep]

ooh very nice (▀̿Ĺ̯▀̿ ̿)

[Arctangent]

1 hour ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

Turning down the difficulty is not an option? Well, obviously the maps are at fault here I'm sure...

I'm pretty sure exactly zero source ports allow you to change the difficulty without having to restart from the very beginning.

[Grain of Salt]

Pick a new skill and IDCLEV to where you were.

[42PercentHealth]

I'm pretty sure exactly zero source ports don't support IDCLEV.

[Optimus]

Fair enough, I guess I don't like slaughtermaps then. It's true what you say that you have to follow a specific strategy, you run around and the designer wants you to do one thing. If you miss a soulsphere/invulerability before it's surrounded by monsters or take it too early, or go to the wrong corridor where you are surrounded or not use the limited time of invulnerability to clean an area fast, then it's time to play again and work on your strategy. It's just that it feels to me like I don't have enough options or ability to make little mistake and correct in the process. I'd guess then real slaughter maps are the ones where you will die the first few times you play, till you know exactly where to go and how to clean parts of the level without being surrounded or miss specific power ups.

 

Btw, I'd think then that MAP25 is the map that gives you X space, but MAP26 is closer to your definition of a slaugter map, because it's just that, always in an open space with horrible hordes of monsters, wherever you go something opens and you can't backtrack anywhere and play safe.

 

Anyway, I don't have a true hate for slaughter maps, just dislike. And maybe I don't vote too harsh on them (if I like the layout of a slaughtermap, maybe it gets 3 or 4 out of 5, I am not one of the reviewers that go instantly at 0/5 or 1/5 of genuinely good works because of a bad experience, that always bugged me)

[Maes]

45 minutes ago, Optimus said:

I'd guess then real slaughter maps are the ones where you will die the first few times you play, till you know exactly where to go and how to clean parts of the level without being surrounded or miss specific power ups.

Pretty much. You cannot deny that there is an art/strategy to them, though, even if in the end it boils down to following a choreography/script. Sure, it takes skill to do it perfectly/consistently, but it's still following a script/choreography//patterns. Again, I'll bring in Chillax into the discussion, whose maps often require carefully choreographed starts. Really NOT multiplayer material -_-

 

But come think of it...that's not at all unlike a speedrun. So you could say that a slaughter map is a kind of forced speedrun, and usually the optimal way to play it might also be the only viable way to play it. I agree, this doesn't let a lot of room to improvisation or alternative strategies, unless you manage to find a hole/flaw in the mapper's intentions and break the map ;-) 

 

Of course, just like in other forms of performing arts, e.g. ballet or classical piano/violin, there can be "virtuosi" that complete the run even in such slaughtermaps in their own signature style and with their own unique touches, but at the end of the day, they will have to perform the piece that the composer/mapper behind the scenes intended for them to perform.

 

To keep with musical/artistic comparison, maybe you like more "jazz" maps, where the artist (player) is more free to improvise, and there's no score/choreography set in stone that you have to perform in a certain way.

Edited September 30, 2017 by Maes

[galileo31dos01]

Off topic... let's see, two of the meanings of slaughter according to Wordreference are: "a brutal or violent killing", "to kill in a brutal or violent manner, or in great numbers."

 

I'm a little confused to what is considered slaughter in Doom, now. If you have AV's map 25, not considered as slaughter but slaughtery (what's the difference?), but NGM2's map 03 for example, in both cases having quite a lot of space to maneuver but a lot to kill, then why is the first one not slaughter but the second one is? I've always thought slaughter in Doom could come in different colours and shapes, constricted or wide space, this reminds me to one comment in the DWMC that SoD's map 28 wasn't actually slaughter, but almost everyone else did think of it as slaughter. The map had like a thousand or so of enemies, a lot of space, mainly BFG usage, taking a lot of time to clear the whole map, that to me is spacious slaughter, lite if we talk about difficulty/opposition. Resurgence's map 11 had less enemies (I think) but much more tightness in some occasions, and I still think it's spacious slaughter. Last night I watched a video of Holy Hell map 05, skipping the door camping parts, I instantly thought of what NiH would say about the map, because to me it was mostly grinding enormous packs of the same monster plus the couple filler cybers here and there, but also some tight massive hordes, similar to traps in maps I've played before, considered slaughtermaps by the authors. So I started to think, at what point that starts to feel repetitive or dull, and why wouldn't you spend a save from time to time to avoid throwing 2 hours to the bin because of a possible slip-up, or how is the whole map considered, regardless of being a megamap.  

 

Perhaps, the term "slaughter" in Doom is mostly subjective, a label that some people will put to this but not that, while others to that and not this, if it makes sense. Also I don't know too many slaughtermaps and false called slaughtermaps to actually dictate a verdict, sometimes I play short maps with heavy opposition and I end up wondering if that is slaughter or not. The labels shouldn't be so important in my opinion, but I would like someone to enlighten me about this, while I do my research of course.  

[Ichor]

2 hours ago, Maes said:

To keep with musical/artistic comparison, maybe you like more "jazz" maps, where the artist (player) is more free to improvise, and there's no score/choreography set in stone that you have to perform in a certain way.

Did someone say jazz?

jrocket.zip

[Marcaek]

4 hours ago, Maes said:

 Again, I'll bring in Chillax into the discussion, whose maps often require carefully choreographed starts. Really NOT multiplayer material -_-

 

Chillax enjoyed years of dedicated Survival play, so this is untrue.

[Nine Inch Heels]

10 hours ago, galileo31dos01 said:

I'm a little confused to what is considered slaughter in Doom, now. If you have AV's map 25, not considered as slaughter but slaughtery (what's the difference?), but NGM2's map 03 for example, in both cases having quite a lot of space to maneuver but a lot to kill, then why is the first one not slaughter but the second one is?

The difference between a slaughtery map and an actual slaughtermap is difficult to explain, because it depends on why the slaughtery map is slaughtery to begin with. That being said, it's difficult to give an answer that is generally applicable to every slaughtery map in existence. Basically what slaughter entails can be boiled down to a set of criteria such as

-fights requiring a very specific approach to them (choreography)

-cases in which players are being put in a strategically disadvantageous position (Lock ins and arenas)

-a relatively strong emphasis on monster/crowd manipulation

-a somewhat high dependency on infights

-a higher lethalty of fights than is usually the case (several cybies at once, viles from different directions etc)

-several threat vectors at once (not a bunch of stuff awake at once, but getting attacked from multiple directions at the same time)

-the need for consistent execution of movement and dodging

-and some other stuff I mentioned already...

...and this is by no means a definitive (or complete) list, for that matter.

 

That aside newgothic2 m03 is actually more like an outlier in the WAD, and arguably one of the easiest maps the set has going for it, if not the easiest of them all. So it's no wonder that, if you take a map such as NG2 03 as a baseline for comparison, you end up with somewhat blurry lines.

 

10 hours ago, galileo31dos01 said:

I've always thought slaughter in Doom could come in different colours and shapes, constricted or wide space, this reminds me to one comment in the DWMC that SoD's map 28 wasn't actually slaughter, but almost everyone else did think of it as slaughter.

I'm not sure if I made that argument or not, but thinking about it, I could have said that myself and if not I probably would agree to this sentiment to a considerable extent. Of course slaughter can come in different sizes and loads of different styles, but if you take the list here as a baseline you may realize that a lot of these points do not apply to "twilight massacre", which is basically what it says on the box, you massacre several thousands of things, and that's about it.

 

The reason almost everyone else thought of it as slaughter was because most people don't play slaughter maps on a regular basis, and thus these people think that large quantities = slaughter, when in reality that's not the case at all and in some situations the high monster count can just as well be a necessary evil rather than a defining factor of the genre.

 

10 hours ago, galileo31dos01 said:

Last night I watched a video of Holy Hell map 05, skipping the door camping parts, I instantly thought of what NiH would say about the map, because to me it was mostly grinding enormous packs of the same monster plus the couple filler cybers here and there, but also some tight massive hordes, similar to traps in maps I've played before, considered slaughtermaps by the authors. So I started to think, at what point that starts to feel repetitive or dull, and why wouldn't you spend a save from time to time to avoid throwing 2 hours to the bin because of a possible slip-up, or how is the whole map considered, regardless of being a megamap.

I wouldn't take holy hell too serious when it comes to examples of slaughter maps, because in some sense holy hell is kind of like a parody of slaughter maps. ;-)

 

When what starts to feel dull or not is entirely subjective.

 

If you throw in saves you basically didn't beat the thing saveless (which is the idea of recording a demo to upload it to the DSDA, for example). Everybody can beat pretty much any map with enough save/load. If it isn't difficult, why do it in the first place? ;-)

 

10 hours ago, galileo31dos01 said:

Perhaps, the term "slaughter" in Doom is mostly subjective, a label that some people will put to this but not that, while others to that and not this, if it makes sense.

That is currently the case, and as far as I'm concerned it is also a problem to some extent, because while slaughter is a pretty well defined thing among inclined players, it is a term others throw around willy-nilly at everything that they think miiight be slaughter when it probably isn't. It leads to misunderstandings, false sentiments and last but not least to threats like these, which come to be because somebody doesn't like slaughter maps and can't be arsed to explain this POV without pissing off mappers, playtesters and so forth by way of childish insults.

Edited October 1, 2017 by Nine Inch Heels

[Maes]

8 hours ago, Marcaek said:

 

Chillax enjoyed years of dedicated Survival play, so this is untrue.

I meant the starts are not MP material, at least not casual MP material: often a single player has a much better chance of "opening" a map's start, while all it takes to totally send everything titties-up is a noob or troll joining at the wrong time and starting shooting or activating traps, pretty much forcing a restart. A map designed for MP shouldn't allow that to happen, but maybe it's just me.

[EdwunclerIII]

Because they're hard as all living hell.

[Woolie Wool]

I feel like these days there's a sort of backlash against the hyper-competitive mentality of traditional gaming communities by people who perhaps could "git gud" but aren't interested in competing either with other people or a computer, and enjoy games as works of multimedia interactive art than tests of skill. These people are not going to enjoy slaughter maps, which are about pushing the mechanics as far as they can possibly go and creating incredibly difficult challenges at the expense of the "arty" side of a video game. The hyper-competitive types used to completely control gaming discourse and shout down and humiliate anyone who didn't agree with their perspective, but they no longer have that power.

 

But are slaughter maps "looked down on" in general? No. They've been popular since Hell Revealed dropped in 1997 and remain popular today. It's just that the people who don't like them, and there have always been people who didn't like them, feel more able to voice their dislike of them. And that's fine. Different people play games, even Doom, for different reasons. One of the problems with armchair game designers, and I've personally been guilty of this, deciding on the "best" way to make a retro FPS or a Doom sequel is that they project what Doom means to them onto Doom. Doom can be many things, from a slow-paced dungeon crawler where you can stop and reflect on the scenery whenever you like to brutal speed-chess slaughter challenges and that's perfectly fine.

[Cynical]

9 minutes ago, Woolie Wool said:

I feel like these days there's a sort of backlash against the hyper-competitive mentality of traditional gaming communities by people who perhaps could "git gud" but aren't interested in competing either with other people or a computer, and enjoy games as works of multimedia interactive art than tests of skill. These people are not going to enjoy slaughter maps, which are about pushing the mechanics as far as they can possibly go and creating incredibly difficult challenges at the expense of the "arty" side of a video game.

Sunder, Ribbik's work, and Deus Vult 2 have done more to push the "arty" side of Doom wad development than the hordes of "classic E1 things", so I have no idea what you're talking about.

[loveless]

13 minutes ago, Cynical said:

Sunder, Ribbik's work, and Deus Vult 2 have done more to push the "arty" side of Doom wad development than the hordes of "classic E1 things", so I have no idea what you're talking about.

I agree with Woolie in general but I agree with your point as well.  Ribbiks and Insane_Gazebo's influence on architecture and detailing at this point is undeniable.

[Nine Inch Heels]

I generally agree with what you said, the point about visuals has been discussed already, so I'll just adress this one because I feel like this is sort of a one sided view on a more complex issue:

 

1 hour ago, Woolie Wool said:

The hyper-competitive types used to completely control gaming discourse and shout down and humiliate anyone who didn't agree with their perspective, but they no longer have that power.

 

The very existence of this thread (and it isn't the first of its kind, I suppose) is more than enough of a proof for me personally that the "shouting down" goes both ways. And I'm confident that I can bet whichever amount of money I so desire on threads like this one being a thing in the future as well. If not here, then it's reddit, or the YouTube comment section, or twitch chat, you name it. Why? Because we're all guilty of the same thing: Failing to express our stance towards something without employing "problematic" terms of some sort. And there's "physical evidence" for this. Here's a quote from "Major Arlene's Doom WAD Reviews"

(Sorry, but this was the first thing that came to my mind, no offense intended at all, you do you):

Quote

"Slaughtermaps- nah. They are a ginormous waste of time to review, not to mention boring."

You know, I get the message here. Slaughtermaps take a relatively long time to get through. Some people don't like to play them. That's fine, don't review something you know you won't enjoy. I don't have any issue with the content of what has been said at a base-level, or "face value" as some might say. I have an issue with how it's phrased, because the phrasing implies that people who play these maps waste their time by way of consuming a supposedly boring product. That's something that can trigger people relatively easily. And don't get me started on how things have been going down in the past, when slaughter was more of a novelty. I'm sure I can dig up some bone headed arguments about how stupid slaughter supposedly is if I dig around some YT comment sections for a bit, and believe me I've seen more than one discussion like that which went down years ago.

 

The "discrimination" goes both ways, it always has as far as I'm concerned. How could it not? And people rally around statements such as the one I examplified here quickly. I'm certainly not a saint in that regard either, and I'm willing to openly admit that some things can get my blood boiling a bit at times, but arguing that the non-slaughter crowd is the victim here (or has been), and the ultra-competitive players have been the "tyrants" is wrong on many levels, imo.

[Arctangent]

On 9/30/2017 at 1:25 PM, Grain of Salt said:

Pick a new skill and IDCLEV to where you were.

 

On 9/30/2017 at 1:30 PM, 42PercentHealth said:

I'm pretty sure exactly zero source ports don't support IDCLEV.

That's all well and good if you're playing pistol start, but if you're not ...

[Nine Inch Heels]

1 hour ago, Arctangent said:

 

That's all well and good if you're playing pistol start, but if you're not ...

If you're not you can still use cheats to get yourself back to a certain threshold of health/armour etc, if that's what it takes. It's not like maps aren't designed with pistol starts in mind.

[Arctangent]

Unless we're talking about the types of maps that dump every weapon and loads of ammo on you at or near the start anyway, I can't help but feel that if you're unable to beat a map with the extra leeway you get from continuous play, moving onto a pistol start even at a lower difficultly level isn't going to be any easier.

[Nine Inch Heels]

Good point, but still not one I'd subscribe to, because if people can't beat the map on a lower setting from pistol start (and you really don't need everything right away because fights usually aren't designed like that), then they've aimed way beyond their skill level when picking UV anyway (which is what most people tend to do for some reason).

 

So, yeah, I can see where you're coming from, but most of the sets I can think of state that maps are designed to be played from pistol start anyway, so if people aim past their skill level, and then cheese maps by way of surplus firepower and health, well... No sympathy from me in regards to this. Besides, the point that you can cheat for weapons and armour to "emulate" continuous play still stands, even for maps which have a hot start (because you can cheat the map prior just fine). So I kinda fail to see the problem, because there's workarounds for these things.

[Arctangent]

It's mostly a matter of the fact that, in a game that only allows you to pick difficulty at the very beginning, telling someone to kick their difficulty setting down a notch when they're at map 25 seems a little late.

 

I mean, also, if they handled the previous 24 well enough to get through 'em, getting stuck on the next one could be an indication of a serious difficulty spike that could potentially be smoothed out a bit.

[Nine Inch Heels]

1 hour ago, Arctangent said:

It's mostly a matter of the fact that, in a game that only allows you to pick difficulty at the very beginning, telling someone to kick their difficulty setting down a notch when they're at map 25 seems a little late.

Since we all know that this is the case for Doom because it always has been, it's reasonable to assume that people might be able to look at some later maps in a set to get a better estimate as to what manner of "end game" the set will have. It's still an end user issue as far as I'm concerned.

 

1 hour ago, Arctangent said:

I mean, also, if they handled the previous 24 well enough to get through 'em, getting stuck on the next one could be an indication of a serious difficulty spike that could potentially be smoothed out a bit.

Difficult maps in particular are designed to be played from pistol start. If they beat the maps up to a certain point on continuous (which I would seriously doubt when I look at things like startdate or sunlust or italo Doom etc), they didn't handle the maps well enough because they already relied on the abuse of an extra leeway which the map has not been designed for to begin with. End user issue again.

 

Difficult slaughter maps and tough challenge maps get tested quite a bit by their respective mappers and other people. If there's a spike in difficulty, then there's a good chance that might have been intentional. And if I were look for difficulty spikes, I definitely wouldn't rely on the "verdict" of a person who does not play the maps the intended way to begin with. Sounds arrogant perhaps, but when the design goal is to balance maps for pistol starts, the opinion of somebody who does not play these maps the intended way isn't necessarily the best of indications of difficulty spikes anyway.

[Fonze]

ITYTD is always an option!

[galileo31dos01]

1 hour ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

If they beat the maps up to a certain point on continuous (which I would seriously doubt when I look at things like startdate or sunlust or italo Doom etc), they didn't handle the maps well enough because they already relied on the abuse of an extra leeway which the map has not been designed for to begin with.

The only abuse I can think of is overusing your previous toys at the start of a map, or using a weapon which is nonexistent in that map. Not all continuous players start a map and SSG/rocket/BFG everything in front of them, some might limit themselves to the pistol or chainsaw until another weapon appears in the map, to mention an example. Starting with extra health/armor is an advantage, no denying, but not a guarantee the map's start will be a cakewalk, and later encounters be much easier, if any, it will depend on the mapset and your way of playing. 

 

If you later say the map was too difficult but then you say something like "I was BFG-ing my way until a couple of pinkies cornered me and the two archies blew me up, you should place less pinkies more cells and expand the arena" and there is no BFG in the map but a berserk, I agree it's a critique that cannot be taken into account, as the mapper gave you other things to tackle the encounter. Another thing is to say "I was punching the pinkies until the two archies inevitably blew me up, I think a couple of revs would work better because you spend too much in the sight of them while punching the pinkies ", it can be valid because there was a berserk for the pinkies, but maybe two archies don't work well for those reasons, and you're still playing with carryovers yet you decided to use what's there. What I'm saying with all of this, is that continuous players can also talk about difficulty and give a proper verdict. The moment a player talks about stuff that isn't present in the map, that's another story, but if it's something anyone regardless of their preferred style would experience, there is no reason to ignore those comments (not you, a mapper). I hope my point is clear... 

[Optimus]

9 hours ago, Woolie Wool said:

I feel like these days there's a sort of backlash against the hyper-competitive mentality of traditional gaming communities by people who perhaps could "git gud" but aren't interested in competing either with other people or a computer, and enjoy games as works of multimedia interactive art than tests of skill. These people are not going to enjoy slaughter maps, which are about pushing the mechanics as far as they can possibly go and creating incredibly difficult challenges at the expense of the "arty" side of a video game. The hyper-competitive types used to completely control gaming discourse and shout down and humiliate anyone who didn't agree with their perspective, but they no longer have that power.

Heh, and here I am actually agreeing with this, lamenting how much people complain about Cuphead or that recent ridiculous article of journalists asking for skip boss fight. I am disappointed how people complain they have to play Cuphead bosses more than once and want all the content feed to them without giving anything. And then I remembered that few days ago I complained about slaughter maps :)

 

Well, at least I don't ask for simplifying those maps for all people, I just think they are not my cup of tea and play something else.

 

p.s. I think now, slaughter maps is the difference between a bullet hell shoot em up and a traditional one. Sometimes you want to relax and play something but in more relaxed manner.

[Optimus]

7 hours ago, Arctangent said:

It's mostly a matter of the fact that, in a game that only allows you to pick difficulty at the very beginning, telling someone to kick their difficulty setting down a notch when they're at map 25 seems a little late.

 

I mean, also, if they handled the previous 24 well enough to get through 'em, getting stuck on the next one could be an indication of a serious difficulty spike that could potentially be smoothed out a bit.

To tell you the truth, I find that map (26 btw) pretty ridiculous and quite different than the rest of the megawad even at the easiest difficulty.