Balancing around Pistol Start vs Continuous Play

mappers should start giving players a choice at the end of maps then, put them to a vote, either to hit a regular exit switch, or a dexit switch, let them choose if they want to fuck themselves over.

It's not fucking yourself over though, as the next maps are balanced for less weapons and such, Like staed before it's done to have episodes. It helps with pacing and balance of the megawad. I plan on doing this will all my megawads I release.

In Boom format, it's possible to scale death exits to difficulty settings. UV might have a lot of them, HMP might have just a few, and HNTR might have none at all. This is something I haven't seen, but it's a good idea.

You can do that in vanilla too, just make multiple exits and make some of them blocked by solid decorations that appear only on some difficulty levels.

wow, really? I had no clue. Thats amazing.

rdwpa said:

In Boom format, it's possible to scale death exits to difficulty settings. UV might have a lot of them, HMP might have just a few, and HNTR might have none at all. This is something I haven't seen, but it's a good idea.

Resurgence actually does just that. The UV difficulty uses a Scythe 2 style death exit after maps 05, 11, 15, 20 and 25. Meanwhile, and I'm quoting Joshy here: "Additionally, there are a lot less death exits on skill 1 (HNTR or IATYTD) if you want a more smooth playthrough with less trial/erroring: from memory, on skill 1 there are only death exits in map11 and map20."

One way to give continuous players and pistol starters a different experience, is to drop the "provide only ammo for weapons availiable in the map" rule that most mappers adhere to.

For instance, if map 8 has a (secret) BFG, map 9 could be a map with a challenging Cyberdemon, where you get a rocket launcher but no BFG (for pistol starters) but still have some cell ammo (for continuous players).

That way both types of players get the experience they prefer: continuous players are rewarderd for their carry-overs, while pistol-started receive a slightly more challenging "each map as its own adventure" experience.

The way I see it, that's how the IWADS were built: the rocket launcher in MAP01 or the BFG in E3M3 are useless within those levels, but come in handy in the following levels, rewarding exploration throughout levels, instead of only within them.

Off course, in that case mappers should make it clear in the .txt file that this is how it works in their wad, to avoid having pistol-starters wasting time searching for weapons which simply aren't provided in the map.

Polri said:

The way I see it, that's how the IWADS were built: the rocket launcher in MAP01 or the BFG in E3M3 are useless within those levels, but come in handy in the following levels, rewarding exploration throughout levels, instead of only within them.

Yeah, according to the Doom Wiki Sandy said: "Most people started levels with some kind of significant equipment. However, almost all our playtesting was done starting each level with just a pistol. We made the game too easy for the average player." I find it rather strange that testing was done like that considering the average player is not going to clear his equipment every level through the use of a cheat code. Nor does the game support such an option through the interface. I sure as hell wouldn't be dumping my stuff after every map when I played back in the day, especially after getting a BFG or 200/200 HP/AR.

rileymartin said:

I find it rather strange that testing was done like that considering the average player is not going to clear his equipment every level through the use of a cheat code. Nor does the game support such an option through the interface.

Dying.

That's what the save option is for.

Saves are for reducing the fun. :P

Seriously, I'd recommend everyone who plays with lots of saving to occasionally try to one-shot either a shorter level that at the upper end of their skill range or a longer level that has nothing particularly hard. It's pretty exciting.

rileymartin said:

That's what the save option is for.

When I first started mapping about ten years ago, I always saved before the end of the previous level in order to test the level I was working on. In fact I never even considered pistol starts tbh. Only recently have I mapped with them in mind, though I still don't like it. In fact, I despise pistol starts, but play wads like that because I feel like I'm missing out on something if I don't. My brother made a wad with continuous play in mind, and the biggest complaint was that pistol starting each level was nigh impossible because he didn't give weapons, so you'd have at most a shotgun and chaingun for each level if you played it like that. The wad was Hell Awakened.

Magnusblitz said:

I may be misinterpreting purist here, but I think what he's saying is that it's easier to make it "work" in terms of "the player can beat it." If a map is balanced for a pistol start (i.e. the level contains enough weapons/ammo on its own), then certainly a continuous player can also beat it. But with the inverse, designing for continous, there exists a definite possibility that a pistol starter can't beat it because there's simply not enough weapons/ammo. Assuming that the mapmaker can only have the time/patience/ability to balance for one, the latter (impossible for pistol starters) is a bigger flaw than the former (too easy for continous players).

Yes that is the point I was trying to make. The the level will work in its most fundemental sense - ie is not broken or unbeatable. Not that it will work in the sense that all the design choices will play out as intended.

I always enjoy making the first few maps because I like controlled scenarios where I can have a good idea of what provisions the player will have. Want the player to run from those revenants until they find more ammo? Want the player to take a risk to reach that SSG? Want the player to chainsaw those Pain Elementals? All difficult scenarios to communicate to a stocked up player late into a map set where those delicately balanced set pieces just play like bland time sinks.

Ive always been a continuous player, never really occurred to me to play any other way, I may try pistol start in the future, I dunno.

Simple, start the player next to a Shotgun/Super Shotgun with some shells. Pistol start, there's a weapon to survive with. Continuous, some extra shells. One advantage of working a level around a pistol start is you don't have to worry about the player running out of a certain type of ammo since play styles can vary and they might not have the amount of things you'd expect them to entering the level.

Actually I like to start the level with some shotgunners and troopers so the player can fight for the shotgun quickly. I feel it's a bit of a waist to just lay a shotty there unless your stern on not having zombies in the beginning of the map. This way the player can acrue ammo or gun if need be while creating conflict.

The obvious answer is to only release individual maps. Not only does it avoid this issue altogether - you can only play the map from a pistol start, without cheats - but you also avoid the issue of potentially not releasing anything because you never finish the later levels. :v

Recently, I found pistol starting to be essential when testing my mods...