Do you get lost in maps?

[Starduster]

Sometimes I get lost for really stupid reasons. When I was playing thru Ancient Aliens, I remember (Map27 I think) seeing an area, telling myself to come back to it after I had the necessary keys and health to do so, and then completely forgetting where it was. Arggh, I was so full of frustration, it was like my brain was just longing to find the area again but I couldn't. 

[666shooter]

Hello...? I'm here from Eternal Doom, Map 30. I have been lost since 1997! Someone please send help!

[Starduster]

5 minutes ago, 666shooter said:

Hello...? I'm here from Eternal Doom, Map 30. I have been lost since 1997! Someone please send help!

Maps like that are why I will never waste my time on Eternal. There are much better things out there, such as FCFF. But that's just my opinion

Edited August 8, 2020 by Starduster

[Pirx]

i do get lost. mostly in sprawling maps where much looks the same. it annoys me pretty much to run repeatedly through halls littered with corpses and no idea where to go. navigating with the automap often helps, as plain or obvious as it sounds.

[Andromeda]

18 minutes ago, 666shooter said:

Hello...? I'm here from Eternal Doom, Map 30. I have been lost since 1997! Someone please send help!

Heh, I like how MAP30 gets a bad rep for being obtuse when there's much worse in the set, like MAP26 which was the only level I couldn't complete without looking in the editor back when I first played through Eternal Doom.

Edited August 8, 2020 by Andromeda

[P41R47]

27 minutes ago, Andromeda said:

Heh, I like how MAP30 gets a bad rep for being obtuse when there's much worse in the set, like MAP26 which was the only level I couldn't complete without looking in the editor back when I first played through Eternal Doom.

Oh, yes! Jim Flynn contributions to Eternal might be outstanding on scope, but Damm! They are really complex and obscure. Map26 have that voodoo doll that you need to push through a a windows, before a slow crushing ceiling just barely above the head starts smashing. Yeah, like we are really used to shoot a voodoo doll right? The only clue is the invencibility sphere.

Damm i really love/hate that map a lot! 

[Spie812]

I used to get lost all the time in maps. You wouldn't believe how long it took me to beat map15 for the very first time. Nowadays, however, that is almost never the case. I feel like navigation in old fps games like Doom is a skill in its own right which has to be developed over time, as it certainly takes a while to get a feel for how things flow and connect together. By now, my sense of direction is good enough to take on all but the largest maps without opening the automap at all.

 

My sense of direction is not nearly enough to handle Descent though. I love the game but goddamn.

[Optimus]

Sure, but I get better and better by the years. Sometimes if you are stuck, you save and come back to it later with a clear mind and you instantly find where you had to go. This also works with secrets too sometimes (when I want to find the secrets before I exit the level even if I don't need them, but just can't figure out how to get that visible soulsphere I can't reach). If I am stuck in one so much, just quit and come back later.

 

My hardest time was with some of the maps from Eternal Doom. Some of them can take over an hour, even if knowing where to go it should take 20 mins. Even if it's the 3rd time I replayed this megawad.

[Vorknkx]

Almost never.

 

Let's put it this way - I can't remember the faces and names of more than half of my coworkers, but I remember the layout of every Doom level I've ever played with near-perfect clarity :P

Edited August 9, 2020 by Vorknkx

[Chip]

@Vorknkx how about in new WADs you've never played before? the first time you played something large like Titan Manor from the Master Levels, did you get lost?

[VanaheimRanger]

I've had a terrible short term memory my whole life so I definitely get lost in maps.  Especially ones that are large and exploratory, even though those are some of my favorite kind.

[DooM Bear]

All the time!

 

Especially on maze like maps that require a lot of backtracking (E3M7 comes to mind) :-P

 

I like and am so use to the map design style that uses enemies to “show you the way” that I get really lost the moment I’ve killed everything and can’t see an obvious door or teleporter :-P

[boris]

If players get regularly lost in a map then it's bad map design. Change my mind.

[Arbys550]

I'm a really fast paced player when I'm going in blind, so I miss little things very easily. I constantly forget where locked doors are, especially in the more nonlinear maps.

[Deadwing]

I get lost occasionally, but normally I do well with exploratory maps.

 

BTSX, Eviternity, Valiant, etc are usually very straightfoward mapsets, with usually linear progression and clear directions.

 

It surprises me how easy some players can get lost, though. Sometimes they can miss easily items when they could just look around a bit in the room.

 

Some mapsets like Urania can be really tough regarding exploration though

Edited August 9, 2020 by Deadwing

[RottingZombie]

At least I can make it through Doom E1 perfectly since I had the shareware as a teenager. I must have played that all the way through daily for months.

[random_soldier1337]

No Since I always play with the hellscape navigator mod and set it to reveal everything. Don't really care to hump walls to find secrets. Additionally reveals the map, of course. Not that you don't still have to traverse it even if it is revealed and you don't necessarily know the order of the places you're supposed to go to.

[purist]

17 hours ago, boris said:

If players get regularly lost in a map then it's bad map design. Change my mind.

 

Not going to try and change your mind but I get lost in well designed maps quite regularly. As bad practice an assumption it is to make, sometimes it really is the player's fault.

 

I am sure there are examples that have purposely confusing progression and that could be parlayed into an engaging gameplay experience as long as the route reveals itself before frustration.

[Lutz]

I rarely get lost -- my guess is that the part of my brain devoted to spatial cognition violently annexed the part that is supposed to remember people's names, 'cause I can't do that for shit -- but certain maps do occasionally present a challenge in that it is difficult to relate the auto-map to what I am observing in the game.  I can vividly remember the first time I played Heretic E1M4 ("The Guard Tower"): I must have spent 30 minutes trying to figure out which auto-map lines represented a particular dock/building (ditto for UD E4M5).  Honestly, though, I really enjoy those maps; when you have been playing Doom-engine games for 25+ years (I'm old), it's nice to find you can still be surprised/confused.

[MassiveEdgelord]

DOOM 1 = No except for that one level in episode 4

 

DOOM 2 and 64 = FUCK YES

[NuMetalManiak]

Urania, especially MAP13.

 

Magikals Industrial as well as his famous MAP29 of the original Community Chest.

 

Nothing beats those 

Edited August 10, 2020 by NuMetalManiak
link

[wallabra]

Often. I am very poor at figuring out Doom space in my head. Sometimes it almost doesn't make sense, despite theoretically being a simple subset of actual 3D space. ^{help me}

[Archanhell]

Getting lost on maps is part of bad game/map design overall, which will make your players question what the mapper was thinking when doing X or Y.

If you create a map of any sorts, it is always important to make it clear where to go even with the most subtle hints, and sometimes you can make that a bit more challenging allowing the player to think much more without reaching utterly bad design.

 

Yeah, myself I have been lost countless times on many maps, though other factors such as bad memory, on my case, can contribute to that - Or massive maps which maybe have a lot of obstacles, narrow areas, etc, without a hint of where to go.

It is something even myself as a mapper have to be careful of (And at least with the first mod I made back on August-July, thanks to god it was mostly linear) and is something essential to bear in mind at all times.

 

I think the best way to solve this would not always act as the mapper, but as the player - Aside the mapper(s) playtesting what they do, they could visualize what the player would think and do on X situation, I think.

 

 

TL;DR:

[snapshot]

Besides MAP13, not really. I also never use the automap, would have been much more useful if it was placed in the top left corner like other games. as it is now I just find it distracting Haha.

Edited August 11, 2020 by sluggard

[Phobus]

In terms of "not knowing where I am relative to the landmarks I recognise", no, that doesn't often happen. I consider navigation in video games to be a skill, and one that I value.

 

In terms of "not knowing where I need to go next", yes, that does happen. Often it's down to mappers either trying to be clever with a limited tool set (vanilla and puzzle maps are the most common cases here), where their intentions may or may not be obvious to me or any other player, or a switch being easy to miss. The temptation here is to blame the mapper, as modern games show that it's very easy to hold the player's hand and draw attention to key objectives and routes, but by the same token, we don't have the same tools at our disposal (certainly in vanilla and other old-school formats). It's also very easy, as a mapper, to think something is obvious only for players to not get it - particularly in streams or recordings where the player is distracted by the (potential) audience to a degree.

 

 

I disagree strongly that players getting lost is evidence of bad game play design, though. A lot of people aren't very observant or very good at navigating, so one person's "lost" is another persons "clear and obvious progression". If everybody playing gets stuck and can't solve an area, then it's too obtuse and is therefore badly designed. If most players feel lost for a bit, but then find their way anyway, I'd suggest that could be intended, or a result of having multiple open paths.

[Scrumpee]

managed to get proper stuck on e2m2, and still, have never found my way out. Trying to redo every single game in order one map at a time but last time I played it, my dad must have had to guide me out of e2m2 because im goin round and round and round for hours, killed everything, still lost lol. I really do like the puzzle element to it though- if I want a more tactical and maze themed experience I play classic doom, if I wanna blast ass and get some anger out I play doom 2016 on arcade mode :^)

[Misty]

I mostly get stuck in map if I play them blindly and unfamiliar with layout, basically playing maps for the first time, unless layout is damn interconnected and plenty of paths for me are presented. Here's nothing what old good automap cheat or looking at level editor couldn't solve. 

[Deadwing]

Sometimes it's the mappers fault (for example, a switch in the middle of a detailed area without light indication, or enemies, etc). But finding a locked door should never be so difficulty when all you have to do is to open the auto-map and find where it is. If you haven't found yet and therefore it's not visible in automap, it should be easy to find where is the unexplored area.

Edited August 12, 2020 by Deadwing

[NuMetalManiak]

Now that I think about it, there hasn't been a single mention of automap markers in this thread. Am I one of the select few who is fine with using them often?

[RottingZombie]

2 hours ago, NuMetalManiak said:

Now that I think about it, there hasn't been a single mention of automap markers in this thread. Am I one of the select few who is fine with using them often?

 

I mentioned in my original post that I mark the map when I find a locked door :p