What's up with Doom 2 maps?

[vinnie245]

1 hour ago, bonnie said:

One of the design philosophies behind Episode 3 was the idea that Hell is Hell. It isn't supposed to make sense. The layouts are bizzare because that's what makes sense for Hell.

Why i also dont understand why you dislike Doom 64 as i feel it has the best Hell levels out of any Doom game.

As for Doom 2, the new weapon and enemies were definitely fantastic additions but i just felt the level design was too dull and monotonous, it helps that the PSX version has the best selection of them though.

[Cacodemon345]

As for the mere gimmick, the larger space that Doom 2 provides often consists of largely empty areas, making the game boring. The earth levels also feels sort of unfun, no real thought was given to their texturing. It largely consists of brown textures that was overused. Especially The Chasm where the brown textures is really overused.

 

The Pit looked rather dull, and there's an area that would look better if the ceiling was a sky.

The early version of the Refueling Base looked better. The Downtown level emphasises too much on bricks.

A real solution to the low detail of Doom 2 would be to increase vissprites limit enough so that Doom 2 has good detail and yet still good performance, something id software didn't do.

 

It's just a opinion and nothing more. So don't take it too seriously.

It would be better if someone with good knowledge sum up this.

Edited January 22, 2018 by Cacodemon345

[GarrettChan]

1 hour ago, Poncho said:

(Sandy)

IMO, Sandy's maps are just special enough for you to like it a lot or hate it a lot. It's a good thing to me because his maps made you remember them, both positively and negatively. I don't like E2M2, E2M6 and Map09, but I like E3M6 and Map08. They are all Sandy's maps. However, there are many people who like E2M2 and E2M6 out there, so yeah, it's just that special. Compared to this, I would say McGee's and Romero's maps are a little bit boring (relatively) most of the time.

 

To me, I don't think D2 is bad, and UD and D2 are probably the same feeling in mappings. However, maybe I don't like the less variety of monsters without SSG, so this affects my feeling to UD maps.

[Optimus]

Not sure why people don't like it. Some mention the later city levels suck, others say it's the first few levels. There are good and bad levels in both, I have many favorites all over the spectrum.

 

The best addition is the new monsters. The majority of the old Doom monsters were for casual strafe. There was an interesting variation with the flying monsters (Cacos and lost souls) and between hit-scanner and imps/demons still, but Doom 2 added some really challenging monsters that change the balance, esp the homing revenant missiles and arch villes. I will never casually strafe anymore in some Doom 2 levels from the community. And of course the SSG although it's just one more weap and I wish they added more.

 

Many people mention the textures suck. But I personally I really like them, I thought they were an extension to Doom 1, not sure if all Doom 1 textures are in Doom 2, but when I make maps for Doom 2 I feel like I have more choice. And I love some of the brick textures among others.

 

But I do agree that things like each episode in Doom 1 having it's own consistent theme, while Doom 2 levels were a bit random in theme.

 

p.s. Almost forgot, I hate the icon of sin boss and the fact that as canon, almost every megawad is using it for the final level. When I reach that final level, I am too tired to figure out what hole to shoot rockets while all hell is breaking loose. I would have preferred a regular boss.

[esselfortium]

1 hour ago, Cacodemon345 said:

As for the mere gimmick, the larger space that Doom 2 provides often consists of largely empty areas, making the game boring. The earth levels also feels sort of unfun, no real thought was given to their texturing. It largely consists of brown textures that was overused. Especially The Chasm where the brown textures is really overused.

 

The Pit looked rather dull, and there's an area that would look better if the ceiling was a sky.

The early version of the Refueling Base looked better. The Downtown level emphasises too much on bricks.

A real solution to the low detail of Doom 2 would be to increase vissprites limit enough so that Doom 2 has good detail and yet still good performance, something id software didn't do.

 

It's just a opinion and nothing more. So don't take it too seriously.

It would be better if someone with good knowledge sum up this.

Raising the visplane limit wouldn’t have changed anything, because it was set higher than what they could actually get away with including in their maps. Some of the larger maps in Doom 2 needed to be stripped down and have sight-blocking structures added so that they wouldn’t be too slow to play on the computers of the time. Raising the static limits wouldn’t have solved or affected that, they were already mapping as ambitiously as the hardware and software could allow.

[Herzon]

6 hours ago, dmg_64 said:

Nah man, He's dead serious.

AND ITS DEAD SIMPLE! *badumtis*

[Woolie Wool]

3 hours ago, Cacodemon345 said:

It's just a opinion and nothing more. So don't take it too seriously.

Have you considered that not every opinion might be worth voicing, especially opinions on subjects you don't understand?

[riderr3]

I do not agree with the people who say that Doom 2 Episode 2 is lame. E2 has my favorite sandbox maps. According to the 1994 standards, this is quite a city-thematic levels. People are simply trying to compare the design of cities of modern games with the design of city levels in 1994.

As for E1 and E3, I partially agree - the techbases are not very looks like techbases, and hell is not as prominent as Mt. Erebus as example.

Edited January 22, 2018 by riderr3

[SaladBadger]

Honestly, maybe I'm just weird, but I always see so many people yell at Downtown for not looking like a city at all, but it does enough to at least convince me its supposed to resemble a city. There's a grid of tall, square, brick buildings. That's honestly enough to trick my mind into thinking that. Add a few alleys at the top of the map (which originally were supposed to docks, which looked nicer but presumably ran worse), a few boarded off alleys, and even a small hint of a back area (the secret area in the wide building), it does the job well enough

 

I've mentioned it before, I honestly would love to see a redone version of Downtown that keeps the overall layout but attempts to throw some realistic-ish texturing and the like into there. It still wouldn't make much sense, but it'd be really cool in my mind.

[Uni]

I actually like Doom 2 levels a lot more than Doom 1. There's a lot more going on in them whether it's height variation, texture usage, progression choices and monster encounters which is one of the strongest points of Doom 2, the new and fresh bestiary. Doom 2 also has still some of the best sandbox maps ever created and Sandy Petersen's best work is in Doom 2. The second episode is probably the most fun since almost every level is some sort of a sandbox style map.

 

I disagree about McGee's maps being boring though. I think his levels are small, compact and very engaging. He also made the more better looking maps in Doom 2.

 

I recently watched CapnClever Evolution of the WAD E1: Sandy Petersen and I found it to be very interesting and enjoyable to listen and learn. Their main discussion is Sandy Petersen in general but when they get to his Doom 2 maps, they talk a lot about Doom 2 in general and I can recommend watching it to anyone who is interested knowing more stuff about Doom in general. The guys behind DTWID series talk about it in great length. Still waiting for a new episode!

 

 

[Nine Inch Heels]

38 minutes ago, Woolie Wool said:

Have you considered that not every opinion might be worth voicing, especially opinions on subjects you don't understand?

Have you considered that it's actually good to talk about things one does not fully understand, because one might learn a thing or two?

[Fonze]

14 minutes ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

Have you considered that it's actually good to talk about things one does not fully understand, because one might learn a thing or two?

I think in most cases it's more about the way one goes about talking about stuff they don't fully understand rather than just talking about it in the first place. But on that note, flooding a message board with tons of thoughtless one-liners not based in logic can actually be a detriment to others' conversation and learning, in addition to a sign that said poster is not in a learning mindset.

[Jerry.C]

27 minutes ago, riderr3 said:

I do not agree with the people who say that Doom 2 Episode 2 is lame. E2 has my favorite sandbox maps. According to the 1994 standards, this is quite a city-thematic levels. People are simply trying to compare the design of cities of modern games with the design of city levels in 1994.

Actually, the thing it will inevitably be compared most with is not modern games but the city levels of Duke Nukem 3D, which was released only one year after Doom 2 and these levels actually LOOKED like a simplified version of a real city. This made all the difference. Gameplay of these levels wasn't really that much better but the immersion factor that was completely absent in Doom 2 helped a lot.

 

The biggest criticism Doom 2's city levels get is that the texture set that was used for them simply did not fit the theme. And as a result of the unfitting textures the mappers never managed to do something that could be considered a representation of what the level names said. It really would have been better to keep "Hell on Earth" a more abstract thing with these limitations - it wouldn't have failed in making an association with reality and it might just have played better. I think it says a lot that "The Inmost Dens" is the city map that plays best, closely followed by "Tenements". And these were the ones that didn't even try to build a cityscape with resources that just couldn't do the job.

 

 

27 minutes ago, riderr3 said:

 

As for E1 and E3, I partially agree - the techbases are not very looks like techbases, and hell is not as prominent as Mt. Erebus as example.

 

True, they were also rather abstract but like I said, they had the advantage of not having to approximate something realistic - and at least the first episode got the THEME right, if not the intricacies of what a genuine techbase would look like.

 

[wheresthebeef]

Theres plenty of maps I hate in Ultimate Doom

Theres plenty of maps I hate in Doom 2

Theres plenty of maps I hate in Doom 64

 

But I have plenty of favorites from all three just as well. They all have hit or miss maps; when they hit, they absolutely hit; when they miss, they fucking miss. At least they are all always within 5 minutes of playtime (except the Pit; man, fuck the Pit)

[GarrettChan]

18 minutes ago, Fonze said:

I think in most cases it's more about the way one goes about talking about stuff they don't fully understand rather than just talking about it in the first place. But on that note, flooding a message board with tons of thoughtless one-liners not based in logic can actually be a detriment to others' conversation and learning, in addition to a sign that said poster is not in a learning mindset.

Well, I have the same feeling. To me, reading others' opinions with reasons are fun, and I can learn how others approach things from a different angle of mine. However, only throwing a bunch of opinions, especially emotional ones, is usually not worth reading, I guess.

[Woolie Wool]

2 hours ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

Have you considered that it's actually good to talk about things one does not fully understand, because one might learn a thing or two?

The problem is not that he's talking about it, the problem is that he's baldly asserting opinions on subjects he doesn't understand and is nearly impervious to reason, and furthermore has a reputation for treating matters of fact (such as the reason why clock speeds of processors haven't increased significantly in many years) as matters of opinion.

[chungy]

6 hours ago, wheresthebeef said:

 (except the Pit; man, fuck the Pit)

The Pit is one of my favorite levels in all the games :P

[esselfortium]

22 minutes ago, chungy said:

The Pit is one of my favorite levels in all the games :P

The way it's constructed and connected together creates such a fascinatingly surreal dreamlike atmosphere like nothing else I've ever felt in a Doom level, even counting custom maps.

[Matthias]

What is sandbox? Serious dumb question :)

[Doomkid]

I've never been able to buy the "Doom1 looks more cohesive therefore better game" argument. Sure, E1 feels convincingly enough like a series of little sci-fi military outposts and toxin refineries set on a martian moon some time in the future, but by the time you get into E2 and E3 the 'cohesive visuals' element pretty much crumbles away entirely. Not saying that's a bad thing as I still enjoy the Doom1 episodes, what I'm saying is that by the time you beat Doom1, you should be damn well used to abstract mapping and strange visual themes. Doom2 carries on from where Doom1 left off and pushes these abstract mapping concepts further - the reduced focused on realism and increased focus on interesting/engaging encounters with various new types of enemies allows the game to break free from the tedium that is single-barreling barons and cacodemons in 128-wide hallways. The game simply offers more variety in just about every quantifiable sense.

 

Any time someone pulls the "Doom1 looked better" card I'm pretty much certain they only ever played through E1, because the two games are very close overall in terms of aesthetics. Any time someone pulls the "Doom1 played better card" I simply question their sanity. If Doom1 is better than Doom2 then surely Wolf3D is better than Doom1? It has even less enemy variety, no height variation and very cohesive visuals!
 

Quote

What is sandbox? Serious dumb question :)

This basically refers to an open-ended map that can be beaten in a variety of different ways. The exact opposite of linear, which means everything is completed in a specific order.

[SOSU]

USUALLY THE THING THAT IS UP IN DOOM 2 IS EITHER THE CEILING OR SKY.

[GarrettChan]

1 hour ago, Doomkid said:

If Doom1 is better than Doom2 then surely Wolf3D is better than Doom1?

Someone will say, "hitscan enemies who can shoot through other enemies were a mistake." :D (JK)

[Shanoa]

I don't think they're necessarily bad but, to me, they were less interesting to navigate and explore than those in Ultimate Doom just from a layout perspective, there're some exceptions of course. Industrial Zone for me stood out, it always was my favourite level of DOOM II, i'd say it's a solid map in a relatively bland sets of earth maps.

Edited January 23, 2018 by Shanoa

[Guest Unregistered account]

Industrial Zone is quite unique in that I really get an insane sense of scale and I really feel like I'm within a city (love that part overlooking a lake with the cityscape ahead), but it's one of the most abstract city levels. In a way I get a bit of a Quakish vibe from some of it, like it's a city from the future - which  I guess is what it's supposed to be.

 

I assume the castle section is meant to be a preservation of an ancient one, such as we see today, and that's just awesome. C'mon, a futuristic city that still cares about preserving ancient monuments.

[Shanoa]

30 minutes ago, Kapanyo said:

Industrial Zone is quite unique in that I really get an insane sense of scale and I really feel like I'm within a city (love that part overlooking a lake with the cityscape ahead), but it's one of the most abstract city levels. In a way I get a bit of a Quakish vibe from some of it, like it's a city from the future - which  I guess is what it's supposed to be.

 

I assume the castle section is meant to be a preservation of an ancient one, such as we see today, and that's just awesome. C'mon, a futuristic city that still cares about preserving ancient monuments.

Yeah i've always had a weak spot for city-like map (i love MAP29 of Plutonia for example, or is it MAP28) also the castle like structure contains the passage that lead to MAP31. Castle hiding an exit to castle wolfenstein maps, its prison specifically, it just has a waaay different visual style to it!

 

Of course, it's probably a coincidence. (or is it?)

[Cacodemon345]

@esselfortium, the vissprites limit could be increased so that id could have the ability to put broken street lights and anything like that, but not too much.

You are right about the fact that raising visplane limits wouldn't change anything, but visplane and vissprites are different things.

Visplanes are when floor and ceiling are drawn and vissprites are when thing objects appear on the screen like decorations, monsters and the like.

11 hours ago, Jerry.C said:

and at least the first episode got the THEME right

The first episode was designed by John Romero, whilst the second and third episodes was designed by Sandy Petersen. So you can understand the poor texturing job done by Sandy.

It is an opinion once again.

[dsm]

Well, the first part of the game is set on a Starport. It has a decent amount of techbase textures to sell you on the idea, but ever so often, it uses stuff like ashwalls that don't seem to make much sense and unlike the techbase levels in OG Doom, I find these discrepancies kinda hard to ignore.

The background sky is also disappointing; just a bunch of clouds. How about some giant space craft, control towers or hangars in the background?

 

The City Background is pretty cool, but the maps themselves mostly look like a weird mix of techbases and old brick buildings. For a futuristic city, it doesn't look all that interesting or creatively inspiring, which is something I tend to care a lot about, especially since the ending screen for Doom had a city that looked more future tech (gleaming skyscrapers where you couldn't see windows).

 

Hell is probably the section that works the best I think. Awesome sky texture, some cool themes (Bloodfalls filled with rivers of bloods, The Chasm with its walls of slimefalls, The Spirit World filled with glowing rock and a haunting theme).

 

I think it mostly boils down to disappointment at how much more immersive the visual themes could have been if the level designers had put their minds to it.

[SGS Man]

Regarding Doom 1's thematic cohesion. Every one of Doom's episodes has a clear theme, especially E1, E2, and E4 which are some of the early poster-childs for map theming and are still recognizable today. And E3's abstract levels and themes have been crystallized (due to Doom 2) into Hell maps.

 

Also regarding that Wolf3D and Doom comparison, they are complete games that work with what they had. They extract as much value as they could from extremely limited resources (seriously, corridor-shooters can only go so far). This could lead to some people finding them to be tedious/ repetitive/ boring/ etc. In fact, I find Wolf3D to be remarkably boring in some of the middle episodes because of this reason.

 

Doom 2 on the other hand, dabbles in experimentation with newer and better refined tools. It plays around with everything it had and this is reflected in the level design as well. This makes it fun and almost endlessly replayable, much more so than Doom, which I would absolutely agree with. The cool factor Doom 2 espouses is something that very few games have recaptured.

 

However, some people (myself included) view Doom 2's philosophy to be variety for the sake of variety. I find it rather lackluster in the way it utilized its bestiary and the level concepts were just that, concepts. Therefore, I find Doom 2 to be an incomplete and disappointing game, albeit with unbelievable levels of potential. This is also reflected by the fact that, the PWADs of the future (present?) worked with the tools Doom 2 gave to create multiple maps that appease to differing tastes. There is simply that much variety Doom 2 had to offer, but that came from the tools and ideas, not their implementation.

 

To better reflect my point (and go off on a slight tangent), I liken Doom 1 to Devil May Cry, and Doom 2 to Devil May Cry 4. DMC has an archaic combat system and AI but explores the ideas it had to the fullest. DMC 4 has a masterpiece of a combat system (analogous to Doom 2's weapons and bestiary), but the campaign is underwhelming, to say the least. Thankfully DMC 4 allows you to solely revel in the combat system (Bloody Palace Mode), free from the confines of the campaign. Just like Doom 2 is the IWAD resource for several great PWADs. This explains why I consider Doom 1 (and DMC) to be better games than Doom 2 (and DMC 4), while the opposite is true, when it comes to fun and replayability (which some people may value more...)

 

TL;DR: Go play DMC 1 and DMC 4, or don't...

 

Now back on topic...

 

Quote

It is an opinion once again.

 

I'd suggest you try elaborating and justifying your opinions rather than stating obvious facts, like they are opinions.

Edited January 23, 2018 by SGS Man

[Cacodemon345]

1 hour ago, SGS Man said:

I find it rather lackluster in the way it utilized its bestiary and the level concepts were just that, concepts. Therefore, I find Doom 2 to be an incomplete and disappointing game

I agree with you. Doom 2 bestiary aren't mixed well with the Doom 1 bestiary. The city maps was really lackluster in quality and Sandy Petersen didn't look at Doom 1 E3 ending screen probably, so I believe that he didn't design the city maps accordingly. The level concept isn't utilized as well as Doom 1 did.

 

id devs only looked at visplane limits but not vissprite limits and didn't give attention to putting broken street lights and the like. So the city levels look like there wasn't any invasion. id could have put on putting Former Human corpse to make it more obvious which they didn't do.

[Jayextee]

6 minutes ago, Cacodemon345 said:

id devs only looked at visplane limits but not vissprite limits and didn't give attention to putting broken street lights and the like. So the city levels look like there wasn't any invasion. id could have put on putting Former Human corpse to make it more obvious which they didn't do.

 

Dude, even stuffing the maps with sprites instead of sector detail would've taxed the average 486 back in the day. They didn't even come close to either limit. As has been pointed out. But then, I'm probably not the only one who suspects reading comprehension isn't exactly a strength of yours.