Why are slaughter maps looked down upon?

[Nine Inch Heels]

6 hours ago, galileo31dos01 said:

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.

It's not that simple. You're right in that weapon-availability can be part of the problem, same thing with health/ammo. But these things don't exist in a vacuum and they are not independent of one another either, not at all in fact. Even difficult sets made by the likes of Ribbiks have some leeway in terms of health or ammo, because they still allow for the occasional mistake. This is how you get the feeling of a very high difficulty that doesn't feel entirely unfair to play (unless you aim far past your individual gameplay skills), hence there's something that maintains the motivation to keep trying until you can make it happen. Anyway, however tight on health/ammo a map is, in most conceivable cases there is some leeway in each individual map already (however small it may be), for good reasons.

 

So, if you play one or two maps continuously, the problem with regards to the additional leeway that continuous play offers might not be as evident. It can very well be for lots of reasons, but let's just say it isn't for the time being. Now you advance within the mapset, 4 maps, 10 maps, 24 maps, and what happens is that the additional leeway you manage to create for yourself is equal to -or even greater than- the sum total of all the previously played maps (until maybe being maxed out at some point when in reality that wouldn't happen from a pistol start POV), and that warps the perception of difficulty quite a bit, even if you stick to what the singular map in question gives you in terms of firepower/health.

 

But let's take it a step further. So let's say you have 20 leftover rockets from the map prior, for example. Now you start the next map, play it, use the RL when the map gives that to you (and no ealier), and finish it with 20 rockets left. Now you could make an argument that you only used as many rockets as the map gave you, and you can argue that you used the weapons in question only when you saw them in the map you talk about. That's fine so far, but it doesn't account for when you get the additional ammo, it doesn't account for things like deliberate, inconvenient ammo/health/armour placement during fights which further enforces a certain approach that you might not have taken (because you didn't have to). So, what I'm saying here is that, the higher the mapset aims for with its inherent difficulty, the more even small advantages start to matter in spite of the pseudo random aspect of doom. There's more subtle aspects to this, things like difficulty curve over the course of a mapset, or the occasional breather maps also factor into this. I get where you are coming from, but I can't quite bring myself to just agree here for reasons which go a bit deeper than just the sum-total of health and ammo available, because an increasing number of small advantages eventually transforms into a large enough advantage that makes a difference that really matters.

 

7 hours ago, galileo31dos01 said:

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...

As explained previously, you sort of oversimplify a more complex aspect from my POV. Besides I do make maps myself, though I wouldn't call myself a "mapper" (if a mapper is somebody spending their spare time on mapping primarily).

[Arctangent]

11 hours ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

Difficult maps in particular are designed to be played from pistol start.

is this really something you can say 100%

[Nine Inch Heels]

1 hour ago, Arctangent said:

is this really something you can say 100%

Yes. If the readme states that the maps are designed to be played from pistol start, which is the case for the VAST MAJORITY (read: +99%) of all challenge maps (if not WADs in general). Then yes, I can, and I do so, because guess what, I read the readmes of PWADs because I am interested in those. And I wouldn't even have to read them, because I can just play the maps in question from pistol start and see wether or not it's possible to reach the exit. I have yet to play a map that is impossible to finish from pistol start. How many maps have you played that you and nobody else could beat from pistol start, because it was impossible even under TAS conditions? Is there any map you can think of? Do you have anything that you can present here, instead arguing for the sake of arguing in pursuit of whatever "agenda" it is that you're apparently running?

[Da Werecat]

FWIW, "not designed for" doesn't equal "impossible even with tools".

[Arctangent]

 

3 minutes ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

 

You haven't explained why you speak as if you're so aghast at people playing continuously, despite the fact that even if a mapset says it's designed to be able to be pistol started, it doesn't mean that it wasn't also designed for continuous play.

[Cipher]

12 hours ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

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.

Not a ton to add to the debate here, but since this brought up a gameplay issue that was on my mind the other day:

 

I do think a late-game difficulty spike can be a design-based rather than end-user-based issue. Not because it puts anyone out--as you noted, there are work-arounds aplenty, and dropping down a difficulty and idcleving a pistol-start is a completely reasonable way to fix the issue if you've bitten off more than you can chew--but because it's kind of a basic design and balance thing. I like it when campaigns don't end up on a different planet in terms of the difficulty they start with, though obviously you want incremental progression. If it's going to be challenging for me by map 30, I'd like it to be challenging in maps 1-3. (I've seen someone else here point out that Plutonia does a rad job of handling this, as if you can finish map 03, you can reasonably expect yourself to finish the game without hitting an insurmountable wall, though it does get harder throughout.) On the other hand, I've just about finished playing Scythe for the first time, and while episode 3's been a blast, I feel like the first ... eighteen or so(?) levels might as well have been a separate release. I certainly didn't get many kicks out of playing them, and on the other side, I can't imagine the players who do love them will be glad to have the end of the game cut off by what is functionally a completely different kind of skill/experience requirement.

 

So I do think it's a basic kindness to know what general range of skill you're designing a game for and to not wait too long into the campaign to telegraph that. At the very least, it leaves more positive memories for the audience and is more respectful of everyone's time (to the extent a video-game can be respectful of someone's time).

 

At least that's my .02 as a player.

[Nine Inch Heels]

1 hour ago, Arctangent said:

 

You haven't explained why you speak as if you're so aghast at people playing continuously, despite the fact that even if a mapset says it's designed to be able to be pistol started, it doesn't mean that it wasn't also designed for continuous play.

I am not aghast to these people. Build your strawman elsewhere, or at least have the decency to point me to where I made such a mistake so that I might learn something from my mistakes.

 

Any mapset consisting of maps that can all be beaten from pistol start can (as a logical consequence of making things easier for the continuous-player) be beaten when played continuously. The moment you design for pistol starts, you already designed for continuous as well in the sense that both "works" in regards to beating a map, one of which being easier than the other, obviously. This by the way falsifies your claim that continuous players can be a valid source of information in regards to difficulty spikes, because what continuous play does in reality is that it smoothens out difficulty spikes by way of allowing and even encouraging players to "forge ahead". Continuous players also are perhaps less helpful when it comes to pointing out where things might be too easy, because that concept also falls apart due to the intrinsically warped perception of how a map plays. I'm not saying their feedback isn't of any value at all, so don't even try building that strawman, but their feedback in regards to difficulty in particular is objectively less valid for obvious reasons, so they aren't necessarily the best of sources as far as detecting difficulty spikes for example is considered.

 

Sure, you can accommodate continuous players in some way, if you throw them a bone here and there, even if your maps are designed for pistol starts otherwise, but it doesn't change the fact that the validity of feedback in regards to an individual map's difficulty by a continuous player is less valid at a fundamental level. I'm not criticizing continuous players for playing the way they want to, I am pointing out how continuous play influences the perception of difficulty on a map by map perspective.

 

I said that, if I wanted for people to test a mapset I make (which by the way I'm currently doing), that is designed for pistol starts (as is the case for hard maps generally speaking), the feedback about difficulty from continuous players is less valid (given the overarching design goal) than the feedback of somebody who plays them in a way that is in line with the overarching design goal. And I've explained the reasons why I think so in what I think qualifies as thourough enough detail. I don't dictate people how to play maps, but I bloody well can point out the problems that can stem from people not playing any given set of maps the intended way, because it messes with gameplay flow (to some extent) and the subjective perception of what's difficult and what isn't, more often than not in a way that won't result in the most productive of feedback for the mapper in question.

 

1 hour ago, Cipher said:

So I do think it's a basic kindness to know what general range of skill you're designing a game for and to not wait too long into the campaign to telegraph that. At the very least, it leaves more positive memories for the audience and it's more respectful of everyone's time.

I'm not quite willing to agree to this, because how something is telegraphed or perceived is subjective in both cases. On a surface level, I'd argue that how somebody cranks up the difficulty over the course of X-number of maps is a creative liberty that shouldn't be messed with. Voicing one's opinion about this okay, if the curve is too sharp on a subjective level that's neither good nor bad, but the moment you try and enforce a "norm" for difficulty curves, you start limiting creative liberties, and I'm not willing to go there at all.

Edited October 5, 2017 by Nine Inch Heels

[Arctangent]

Well, okay, maybe not continuous play specifically, but if we want to go into how you just exude elitism ...

 

On 9/30/2017 at 11:03 AM, Nine Inch Heels said:

I didn't want to quote all the other stuff prior to this, so I'll just say that first off, if you don't like these maps, don't play them.

( in the context of of a map deep into a mapset )

On 9/30/2017 at 11:03 AM, Nine Inch Heels said:

Well, obviously the maps are at fault here I'm sure...

 

On 9/30/2017 at 6:56 PM, Nine Inch Heels said:

Everybody can beat pretty much any map with enough save/load. If it isn't difficult, why do it in the first place? ;-)

 

14 hours ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

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.

 

13 hours ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

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.

 

13 hours 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. End user issue again.

 

13 hours ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

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.

 

57 minutes ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

Then yes, I can, and I do so, because guess what, I read the readmes of PWADs because I am interested in those. And I wouldn't even have to read them, because I can just play the maps in question from pistol start and see wether or not it's possible to reach the exit. I have yet to play a map that is impossible to finish from pistol start. How many maps have you played that you and nobody else could beat from pistol start, because it was impossible even under TAS conditions?

 

Let's not pretend you don't have a massive undercurrent of "git gud" and "it's always your fault if you aren't gud," not to mention your fetish for there being only one single exact way that you can play something otherwise it's "invalid."

[Cipher]

16 minutes ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

I'm not quite willing to agree to this, because how something is telegraphed or perceived is subjective in both cases. On a surface level, I'd argue that how somebody cranks up the difficulty over the course of X-number of maps is a creative liberty that shouldn't be messed with. Voicing one's opinion about this okay, if the curve is too sharp on a subjective level that's neither good nor bad, but the moment you try and enforce a "norm" for difficulty curves, you start limiting creative liberties, and I'm not willing to go there at all.

I mean, obviously a designer reserves the same right to dismiss criticism as a player does to report their experience.

 

That said, I don't think I'm alone in expressing preference for a style of difficulty progression that's more or less standard, or saying I think it has the most potential to leave players looking back fondly for a number of reasons--but if you have a compelling reason to break a rule, fucking go for it. If someone else digs it, that's rad.

[Nine Inch Heels]

1 hour ago, Arctangent said:

Let's not pretend you don't have a massive undercurrent of "git gud" and "it's always your fault if you aren't gud," not to mention your fetish for there being only one single exact way that you can play something otherwise it's "invalid."

You still didn't point me to...

...where I said that feedback from continuous players is entirely invalid.

...where I said players should git gud and they don't matter at all if they don't.

...where I said there is only one true way of playing a set of maps when it's released.

...etc...

Sure, I said that if people don't dial down the difficulty, or give later maps a short look that's their fault. It's also their fault if they aim past their skill level. Don't act like rampups in difficulty over time in gaming are something entirely unheard of. At least I have suggestions as to how this can be solved without messing with the experience that is continuous play entirely, because I'm such an elitist bitch, right? Sort your perception out for a bit, and then try to tell me what you think I am.

 

But you know what? I'm not gonna bother with your strawman style of discussing any longer and instead give you a bloody good example as to why feedback from continuous players in terms of difficulty can lead to false results. Download this set of maps:

 

Look at map 01, then look at map02 and now tell me why there is no reason not to take feedback from a continuous player with a grain of salt, which is everything I advocate here, regardless of how you interpret what I say. So let's not pretend you're making your points based on actual examples.

[Arctangent]

2 minutes ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

I'm blind to the fact that I type like elitist jerk even when shown it right to my eyeballs.

Well, okay, but I'm not going to stop telling you that it bugs the crap out of me.

[Nine Inch Heels]

1 hour ago, Arctangent said:

Well, okay, but I'm not going to stop telling you that it bugs the crap out of me.

Then let's sort this out right here: If you're willing to take it low enough for personal attacks in the open: Don't expect me to care what you think when all you do is cherrypick quotes to justify your own misbehaviour towards me.

[Da Werecat]

This is so depressing.

[Cynical]

16 hours ago, Arctangent said:

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.

The map he was talking about, Dark Dome, does exactly this -- it spawns you on top of every weapon + full ammo for it + a megasphere.  Pistol start makes no difference.

[Ancalagon]

23 hours ago, Cynical said:

The map he was talking about, Dark Dome, does exactly this -- it spawns you on top of every weapon + full ammo for it + a megasphere.  Pistol start makes no difference.

Technically if you don't pistol start then you don't take those resources at the start and have them available for later, making a difference.

Edited October 6, 2017 by Ancalagon

[Cruduxy Pegg]

Continuous well always be easier unless some levels are so tight you won't get out with much ammo and health, especially when said maps are designed for pistol start. Balancing for continuous would also be dramatically different to maintain high difficulty, maps would be balanced around having a set amount of resources from previous map(s); Which can effectively put a dead wall in a run after a few levels. I'd take complaints about not being able to get past map25 in a 30 maps wad than getting stuck on map04.

 

[Cipher]

20 minutes ago, Pegg said:

Continuous well always be easier unless some levels are so tight you won't get out with much ammo and health, especially when said maps are designed for pistol start. Balancing for continuous would also be dramatically different to maintain high difficulty, maps would be balanced around having a set amount of resources from previous map(s); Which can effectively put a dead wall in a run after a few levels. I'd take complaints about not being able to get past map25 in a 30 maps wad than getting stuck on map04.

 

It's possible to minimize the difference between continuous and pistol-start play, but it requires the entire levelset be either fairly consistently stingy (preventing much carryover) or consistently generous (such that the only difference is having to route in and sequence a few pick-ups) with ammo and weapons.

 

But yeah, it's a given with optimal play that continuous is going to be easier, and certain wads will present more of a difference between those experiences than others.

 

Is this thread still about slaughtermaps?

[Tristan]

How much time have you lot got on your hands?

[baja blast rd.]

A laught of it.

[reflex17]

Slaughter maps are interesting because I suppose they are like any sub-genre that is taken and a small gameplay mechanic becomes the focus, in Doom free and quick player movement is a core part of the game, and any map defined as 'slaughter' will exploit this mechanic to the utmost, beyond just the opening shot? Pistol start is less up to the mapper and more up to the player isn't that true? Icon of Sin has all the guns at the start and it could be seen as a type of slaughter map? I'm not sure. 

 

I always think back to the first user maps I saw that contained similar elements, and Doomsday of UAC has slaughterish elements in the opening moments, and also the 'conveyor belt' room and 'board room' areas. Unholy Trinity is another one, is a slaughter map Doom's answer to a bullet-hell kaizo SHMUP? The issue lies in the definition of the thing and emergent player qualities have little to do with the mechanics as they exist in the map, in an ideal scenario I would imagine that the player's actions are defined by the map and not the other way around. Pacing is something that is essential to any map, even in the first Doom wads ever made that were a 256 box with a Baron inside, you could still call that gameplay although it's technically very difficult.

 

Edited October 14, 2017 by reflex17

[Optimus]

The conclusion of this thread: https://twitter.com/doom_txt/status/916063411980480512

[reflex17]

I didn't mean for my original post to be un-copy-able, I am just unfamiliar with forum codes etc., my original plan was for the information to be embedded in a vast and labyrinthine array of nested spoiler tags, but I figured that would contain far too much humanity/realism. I had to take a break when posting to make sure the content actually had something in it besides an absurd comparison to the Steward of Gondor, that's just a really funny image to me. Any forum post should be like an essay or whatever, it's just like understood that it's your, like, opinion, man? There's no intent on my part to belittle discussion or genre typing, this is precisely how forms and larger pieces take shape, assembly and synthesis are just as valid as innovation in the first place.

 

Like the poet said, I have only laid out the food, it is now you who must eat of it ~~~ We all stand by the flames of post hell if we know it or not, the fetid stank we can still remember, when those times we wake up from that secret place between wakefulness and dreams and can hear the music, that sweet tinny echo/reverb oh just right like some robot ape jam in a hollow cave, but from where? right beneath our feet, dear friends, each and every forum post but a leaf to wither before the heat, and the dank funk, the cyborg apes will dance forever in the land where light goes not for ever more~~~

 

ON TOPIC: but yeah Optimus, it's a fair point I'd say, 'bullet hell' games and slaughter maps both come down to extreme economy of space as a resource, when I'm playing either it's like the only thing I care about is the 57 pixels surrounding my player character, nothing else really matters beyond just anticipating projectiles for the next few seconds.

 

 

Edited October 14, 2017 by reflex17 : adiditionall content

[GarrettChan]

I don't think the things you should focus on is only the small amount of spaces near you. Many bullet hell screens you need to plan for future dodge and movements by watching other places of the screen/arena.

[reflex17]

2 hours ago, GarrettChan said:

I don't think the things you should focus on is only the small amount of spaces near you. Many bullet hell screens you need to plan for future dodge and movements by watching other places of the screen/arena.

Exactly, yes, the setup is crucial to the types of actions then taken by the player, in any map regardless of style this point is the central identity of any particular level. Slaughter maps/bullet hell comparison I was speaking of the extreme opposite end when you know where the turrets are, the gameplay constantly going back and forth between panic and calm rapidly.

 

Threat assessment is a good way to put it I guess, and my reference was to the part of bullet hell when the screen is already swamped with projectiles and it then becomes a state of finding the tiny free spaces where Doomguy doesn't get destroyed. That opening shot of a slaughter map is like the fly-in moment at the start of any space-shooter game, where you sort of get a feel for the ship and it's maneuverability/check out the HUD etc. 

[Cynical]

16 hours ago, GarrettChan said:

I don't think the things you should focus on is only the small amount of spaces near you. Many bullet hell screens you need to plan for future dodge and movements by watching other places of the screen/arena.

This.  The exact area around your ship is exactly where you *don't* want to be looking in a bullet hell game, unless it's that one goofy "black out the screen" pattern from Imperishable Night.

[GarrettChan]

3 minutes ago, Cynical said:

This.  The exact area around your ship is exactly where you *don't* want to be looking in a bullet hell game, unless it's that one goofy "black out the screen" pattern from Imperishable Night.

Haha, nice example. Well, there are still some styles you should look at the space around you. Something like Marisa's "Asteroid Belt" or Kanako's last SC on Lunatic (don't know the English name of that), you definitely need to look at the whole screen, and have your movement feeling on the hitbox but not actually staring at it.

[Nine Inch Heels]

What comes to mind here is "blue revolver". It's a shmup that has a mode which makes bullets become translucent the closer they get to your hitbox until they're entirely invisible. A nice game all things considered, and probably a pretty potent tool for learning where to look and not to look just by virtue of this certain gameplay mode it has.

[Ichor]

You also need to be careful that you don't bump into a wall or decoration at the absolute worst possible time (like when you have 50 revenant rockets hot on your tail).

[Nine Inch Heels]

1 hour ago, Ichor said:

You also need to be careful that you don't bump into a wall or decoration at the absolute worst possible time (like when you have 50 revenant rockets hot on your tail).

That happened to me recently when I was trying to improve on my UVmax for dimensions m31. But not by bumping into a solid object. It was getting lifted into a cloud of revenant rockets by an AV blast, which immobilized and killed me as a consequence. Quite a feisty map, that one.

[Uni]

I don't mind playing a slaughter map as part of a well made megawad, like Back to Saturn X 2 MAP31 but playing an entire megawad of slaughter maps is simply not my cup of tea. 

 

I remember playing SF2011 a while back and the first 7 maps gave me a really bad impression of the WAD since they felt like they were lazily made and the design didn't appeal to me at all.