Things That WAD Designers Do That Irritate You

A couple of my item dislikes.

-Putting items where you are forced to pick them up. For example a medikit in a narrow corridor. Put stuff somewhere where the player has a choice whether to pick it up or not, or can come back for it.

-Putting several of the same items in the same place. If I have 499 cells, I don't want to run over a cell charge pack, thinking I am picking up one, but suddenly: 600 cells. AAAAAARRRRRGGGGGH !!

Impassible lines.
In all instances where they inhibit movement and cause the player to do that sticky exaggerated bouncing when running into them, especially at angles. Zdoom has fixed this problem, but I still take issue with impassible lines in general, aside from special use, if that makes sense.

I prefer to use self-referencing sectors to block the player, rather than use impassible lines. No Bouncy.

Also, catching the player up on map geometry, Gothic99 style. Hitting a funny angle at full straferun and having the player bounce off or get impeded somehow. No Bouncy.

KiiiYiiiKiiiA said:

-Putting several of the same items in the same place. If I have 499 cells, I don't want to run over a cell charge pack, thinking I am picking up one, but suddenly: 600 cells. AAAAAARRRRRGGGGGH !!

This is probably my one gripe about Sunder.wad. I see why he did it, but still it's highly annoying. Then again I'm a bit of a noob when it comes to slaughter maps, so perhaps I shouldn't be so critical.

Yeah. Although, if it is done consistently and you know that, say, everytime you pick up a box of rockets, you are going to get 10 reckets, then it is tolerable, so you can at least plan for it.


I will forgive this overlapping items thing sometimes in slaughtermaps, because often otherwise you will just end up with every inch of floorspace covered with piles of ammunition, which means when you are fighting, you will probably run over lots of them and waste ammo anyway.

Vordakk said:

This is probably my one gripe about Sunder.wad. I see why he did it, but still it's highly annoying. Then again I'm a bit of a noob when it comes to slaughter maps, so perhaps I shouldn't be so critical.

That actually gives me another point, slaughter maps with no Multiplayer support, I hate playing Doom alone if I wanted to play with my self I'd jerk off.

I bet that a good designer could take most of these cliches and make a fun, playable map out of them.

Conversely, someone looking to poke fun at this thread will take all the cliches, then turn up the dial to 11. Just think: a map of nothing but crates, with inescapable pits that don't have nukage floors (but damage 20% anyway), baron teleporter tricks/ambuhes on critical items, map sections you can't return to, one-time secrets, it's Doom II but you never find anything but pistol and regular shotgun despite there being ammo for everything else, etc. ;)

hex11 said:

Conversely, someone looking to poke fun at this thread will take all the cliches, then turn up the dial to 11. Just think: a map of nothing but crates, with inescapable pits that don't have nukage floors (but damage 20% anyway), baron teleporter tricks/ambuhes on critical items, map sections you can't return to, one-time secrets, it's Doom II but you never find anything but pistol and regular shotgun despite there being ammo for everything else, etc. ;)

WHERE IS TERRY WHEN YOU NEED HIM ???

Memfis said:
- Infinitely respawning chaingunners (usually encountered in Plutonia wads) [/B]

Community Chest 2 map 24?

Sergeant_Mark_IV said:

- Having to fight against more than 2 or 3 Arch-Viles at the same time, specially if you have no cover to hid from their attacks.

....

- Placing Revenants in areas with no cover.

Those were ones I was going to use. I really cannot stand these.

Also really am not fond of lava and poison pits. Some times they are implemented well, but for the most part it really annoys me to take so much damage because I naturally like to explore every thing on a map.

I won't waste time agreeing and disagreeing with what's been said so far. Here's my petty complaint:

-Heretic maps that mess with the established yellow->green->blue key order.

Spinesplitter said:

Community Chest 2 map 24?

Plutonia-style infinitely respawning chaingunners get resurrected by a hidden archvile. In CC2 MAP24 the chaingunners just teleport in (and there's something like 30 chaingunners for every tower - have fun killing them all).

Xaser said:

Cross-post from [url=http://www.doomworld.com/vb/wads-mods/55923-list-the-things-you-like-and-dont-like-in-wads/]the last time we did this

If I had known we already had done this, I wouldn't have made a thread about it.

THINGS I HATE:

-maps with no secrets at all (bonus points if they're huge)

-secrets that require you to find a number of things (buttons,items) in order to give you something (bonus points if the item is not worth the effort)(yes,KYKA's MAP07,I'm looking at you)

-vanilla or limit-removing WAD's with no possibility to pistol start

-unfair revenant fights (no place to dodge)

-levels with really dumb secrets (ok,you fought the 3 cyberdemons,here's your medkit)

-levels with detail that makes you get stuck

-levels that force you to use the shotgun for incredibly boring fights (baron of hell/hellknight)

-levels in a WAD with pistol starts that are frigging impossible to pistol start (I remember an instance in...Needs More Detail I think,all levels in the series were pistol startable,but E4M2 was a lot harder that the others,bordering on impossibility)

-levels with really great detail but shitty gameplay (Dawn of Reality for example)

-levels designed solely for multiplayer that could have been ported to single player

-levels that use a lot of damaging floors (bonus points if they are 20 DMG and leak the radsuit)

-levels that give you powerful weapons in secrets but nothing to use them on (alternatively,powerful weapons with nearly no ammo)

-bossbrain levels

-most instances where a spider mastermind is used (not all,some are clever)

-stealth based maps (like the one in Doom 2 Reloaded)

-cyberdemons fights that rely solely on circle-strafing with a BFG or SSG

-maps that start in a secret sector

-secret sectors used for incredibly obvious secrets

-3D enemies ripped from various games and made into sprites

-levels with good gameplay that look like utter crap (map may not have any detail,but it needs to have texture alignments/proper texture usage in order for me to like it)

-Plasma Rifle oriented levels

-pistol oriented levels

-levels that use both a chainsaw and a berserk (unless one of them,or both are secret;in this case,chainsaw must come before berserk)

-levels that spam cacodemons,lost souls or (*shrug*) pain elementals

-non-linear levels with incredibly confusing layout


THINGS I LIKE OTHERS DISLIKE

-rocketjump secrets

-hard to find secrets

-maps where you HAVE to use the Berserk

-pistol start enforcing

-challenging fights in an otherwise easy level

-levels with chaingunner/archvile trick

-starting with pistol and having to get around monsters to get a shotgun

-maps with a gameplay-changing element (Plutonia map11 and variations of it, 1monster, 1024, Serpent:Resurrection, Jumpmaze, maps that have hard to find secrets required to finish the level

-GZDoom WAD's that add 3D floors,jumping and crouching (bonus points if the secrets are really clever)

-cyberdemon fights in packs of 2 or more

-BFG9000 oriented levels

-levels that spam revenants,mancubi or cyberdemons

-really hard levels (but not blatantly impossible WAD's like nochance or Sunder...even though the first maps of Sunder were somewhat OK)

-megawads with a constant theme (only if the gameplay changes from map to map,a good example being the first 20 maps of Doom 2 Reloaded)

-ZDoom community projects (KDIZD,ZPack,Doom community project take 1)

-Tormentorr667 wads (Austerity,TUTnT,TCoTD 1 and 2,Sapphire Project)(I didn't like Stronghold,too multiplayer based/boring)

-really abstract levels (they don't look like anything specific)(Hellground MAP04)

-levels that use chaingunners in large numbers

-levels that use recolored original monsters

-jokewads (must be well made, preferably by Xaser or Wills)

-zdoom mods with lots of new resources that lose their "old feel" (Zen Dynamics,Demon Eclipse)

[tl;dr] I dislike levels with no secrets,no pistol start capability, or lackluster gameplay.
I don't dislike jokewads, well made ZDoom or GZDoom wads, or levels that have a weird or abstract theme. I also don't dislike really hard levels unless near impossible.I hate the plasma rifle in
single-player.

I hate secrets which make the level easier. Saving & loading b/c you're at 10% health, only to find out that there was a secret megasphere? Fuck those levels.

Only two that I can really think of.

-Any wad that is difficult to navigate due to poorly implemented "switch-hunt" puzzles. I have a pretty good amount of patience when it comes to doom (I fully played through Nightmares of Loki for some context), and if I ever have to whip out an editor to find out what your switch or (groan) walk-over line changed in the map, you failed. Speaking of Nightmares of Loki...

-Game breaking oversights. Inescapable pits that do not kill you, doors/teleports/etc. that don't work due to poor playtesting. If cheating is ever necessary to complete a map, it's a map done wrong IMO.

lupinx-Kassman said:

-Game breaking oversights. Inescapable pits that do not kill you, doors/teleports/etc. that don't work due to poor playtesting. If cheating is ever necessary to complete a map, it's a map done wrong IMO.

Heh...I'm particurarly curious in this aspect.I always stay in secrets until the door closes to see if stuff was properly tagged and try to find ways to get stuck.I remember an instance in Jimmy's Jenesis where you could get stuck between a computer terminal and a wall,and another where a secret megasphere niche had a door(a lift actually) that didn't work from the inside.

I hate when I have to wait for the elevator to lower for,like, 10 minutes and when it finally comes ,it brings,let's say, two Mancubus bastards , and ,needless to say , i have to forget about the elevator and deal with them first ,and then to wait for the stupid thing again ...AAAARGH

*Hitscanner traps that open right next to you, or when you're miles away from cover.
*Health/ammo/armour etc. that you're forced to pick up in order to reach the next room, or trigger a trap that leads to the key etc. (so it gets wasted if you're almost full)
*One-way doors that don't have a means of re-opening after the arena set-piece etc. or just exist for no reason. (prevents going back for items you didn't need at the time)
*Obscure switch hunts. (hello Eternal Doom/Cheogsh)
*Maps with too much ammo and nothing to use it on. (hello 99% of all Phobos wads out there)
*Maps with too little health/ammo.
*Wads that give the ssg away within a few maps.

*Maps with bugs that prevent it being finished.
*Maps with loads of detail that gets in the way.
*Maps with loads of detail and nothing else going for it. (hello Valhalla)
*Maps that are aimed at <0.1% of all players out there. (hello Scythe map 28)
*Wads with too much hype, as they never live up to it.
*Tribute wads that directly copy/emulate areas of the original wads (come on...that's something you do when starting out mapping, now it's just lazy)
*Wads that look like they were made to copy trends and win awards instead of being made for fun.

Phml said:

I can just picture how some people must have reacted to E2M1 back in the day. Where is my rocket launcher this is so unfair and mean aaaaarggghhhhhhh

So I guess the trick is to cut your megawad at parts where you would have to use a death exit and release a bunch of smaller PWADs instead. More files to manage and more bloat due to identical custom resources used multiple times, but hey, people are tricked into pistol starting when they ought to! Victory!

I don't agree with the first. Doom was always divided in episodes, you start a new episode with your pistol and the maps (should be, at least) are accustomed to that fact. So there's no need for death exits nor do I have a problem with starting a new when starting a new episode.

Doom II wads are different. They're one 'episode' from start to finish. I never had to die to proceed in Doom II. Why do I suddenly have to die and lose all my progress to proceed? Doom Core did this right at the end, killing you off to make the last 6 maps easy, small earth maps again. What's the point? Why could those just not have been added at the beginning? Does it make the WAD that much better?

Scythe II did this as well to divide itself in episodes. I can kind of let that slide since it somewhere made sense to start a new 'episode' from pistol start, but when it comes right the flying fuck out of nowhere, that does annoy me, and hinders the flow of the WAD for me.

(That being said, I still enjoyed Doom Core. And Scythe II.)

Keeper of Jericho said:

RANT

Who the hell cares how Doom2 was? It is a different idea,and just because you don't like it,doesn't mean it's bad.Stop with the "OMG I don't like this and it sucks because it wasn't in the original" attitude! Who cares if it was not,this is NOT the original,Hell Core wasn't even a remake of the original so your point has no substance.

Reading over the replies to this thread it would seem no matter what anyone does someone will always have a problem. That's the glory of Doom mapping you make what you would like to play and don't even try to satisfy everyone because it's just not possible.

I think I'm the only person who likes everything, even 3,000,000,000 chaingunners and revenants all in gigantic gay sniping positions of suckage.

The Ultimate DooMer said:

*Maps with bugs that prevent it being finished.

That's pretty much the only thing that bothers me. Bugs and/or no gameplay testing.

killer2 said:

Who the hell cares how Doom2 was? It is a different idea,and just because you don't like it,doesn't mean it's bad.Stop with the "OMG I don't like this and it sucks because it wasn't in the original" attitude! Who cares if it was not,this is NOT the original,Hell Core wasn't even a remake of the original so your point has no substance.

The point was brought up that Doom 1 also started each new episode with pistol start to counter my dislike of death-exits, so in return, I pointed out that Doom II had no such thing, obviously.

Also, did I say it was bad because it wasn't in the original? No. I dislike it in general. Had it been in Doom II, guess what? I still wouldn't have liked it, so point's moot. In case you didn't notice, this thread is kinda about things you DON'T like in Doom maps. So don't be so surprised people bring up arguments and say things that you don't like. I don't really care how much people change from the original. If I did, Chocolate Doom would be my standard Doom launcher, and not ZDoom.

Oh, and I was talking about Doom Core, not Hell Core. And as far as I'm concerned, death exits still aren't that great (I never said they 'suck'. Thread isn't about what 'sucks' but what 'irritates' you, so I was honest, stop jumping on me for that), be they in the original or not.

Spinesplitter said:

If I had known we already had done this, I wouldn't have made a thread about it.

Meh, no worries. A few topics tend to cycle around often, and it's no harm done when they come back. At least it gave me a 'reason' to repost my satirical rantling. :P

Secrets with BFGs or Megaspheres.

Starting levels with weak weapons and low ammo against Cyberdemon(s) in small places >:-(

D_RUNNIN

Keeper of Jericho said:

The point was brought up that Doom 1 also started each new episode with pistol start to counter my dislike of death-exits, so in return, I pointed out that Doom II had no such thing, obviously.

Also, did I say it was bad because it wasn't in the original? No. I dislike it in general. Had it been in Doom II, guess what? I still wouldn't have liked it, so point's moot. In case you didn't notice, this thread is kinda about things you DON'T like in Doom maps. So don't be so surprised people bring up arguments and say things that you don't like. I don't really care how much people change from the original. If I did, Chocolate Doom would be my standard Doom launcher, and not ZDoom.

Oh, and I was talking about Doom Core, not Hell Core. And as far as I'm concerned, death exits still aren't that great (I never said they 'suck'. Thread isn't about what 'sucks' but what 'irritates' you, so I was honest, stop jumping on me for that), be they in the original or not.

While I can sympathize that this is your taste, and we all have different quirks to our taste with things that annoy us, but without force pistol starting, maps like Map21 of Speed of Doom would have been pretty much redundant as opposed to the nightmarish evil little freak of nature that it is, and that is pretty much the point. Fighting more with less. Also SoD still uses it to break up episodes and as a level designer myself I'm also going to do this so that I can hand out the bfg towards the end of each episode and not have to worry about it destroying the beginning of the next. :)

Sodaholic said:

D_RUNNIN

D_RUNNIN is awesome!