Difficulty with outdoor areas

[SilentD00mer]

Hi, there!

I find hard to design maps with large outdoor areas(consider Courtyard as an example of large area), basically I have difficulty to place the monsters to make the encounter interesting, specially if the area is meant to be visited more than once or it's just an area with a lot of zombies and imps, where the player can get some ammo for later encounters. As a result I tend to make maps with lots of rooms and corridors with small outdoor areas. I end up not finishing the maps because I feel they are something that can't be fixed :(

So, I'd like to ask how do you design the open areas and how do you place the monsters in a way to make the fights interesting?

 

[Kan3]

It often depends on the nature of the open area itself.

Usually, what unites open areas are the presence of rocky formations, so the first thing to work on are those: in open areas is harder to make ambushes, you have no tight spaces, not many possibilities to add openable walls etc. so, one way to make the area challenging is to use "snipers" on top of some rock.

 

Generally open areas are used to create large fields of monsters for large scale battles, or bullets hell, placing tons of monsters far away and on high edges, but I tend to dislike this kind of solutions.

I usually add several hiding spot (for both players and monsters) and variations in open areas, to not make it feel like a giant, potentially boring, arena.

I model the area with some pillars, "trenches", rocks and different things (trees etc.), put some snipers on some rocky formation (definitely not using chaingunners miles away in wide open fields) and some melee units on the ground and or a couple of flying monsters, but I will start to modify the peace with triggers in the middle of the area or something like that, so that I erase the possibility for the player to play like a camper in Call of Duty.

Triggers that can teleport monsters in, lock the exits (or entrances since we are outside), raise/lower stuff.

 

So my suggestion is to not think an open area as a static part of the map useful only to be filled with some monsters and nothing else: you can use the same trickery you use in closed environment, even if you have to create new way to get the same results.

 

Oh, a nice thing to add is the possibility for the player to let the monsters infight ;) 

[SilentD00mer]

Thanks for your answer!

On 4/9/2022 at 6:07 AM, Kan3 said:

 

Generally open areas are used to create large fields of monsters for large scale battles

I tend to create areas where the player will visit more times, often changing the scene by lowering some walls or pillars, revealing some monsters, but this can be hard to do if the area is too large, so I use the classic "monsters teleporting behind the player" approach in some cases.

 

On 4/9/2022 at 6:07 AM, Kan3 said:

I usually add several hiding spot (for both players and monsters) and variations in open areas, to not make it feel like a giant, potentially boring, arena.

I model the area with some pillars, "trenches", rocks and different things (trees etc.), put some snipers on some rocky formation (definitely not using chaingunners miles away in wide open fields) and some melee units on the ground and or a couple of flying monsters, but I will start to modify the peace with triggers in the middle of the area or something like that, so that I erase the possibility for the player to play like a camper in Call of Duty. 

Triggers that can teleport monsters in, lock the exits (or entrances since we are outside), raise/lower stuff.

I guess I'm using some of the tricks commonly used, like the projectile monsters on high edges, except that I don't like to put many chaingunners far away, I prefer to use shotgunners on the ground for open areas. It takes some time to get the correct placement for melee monsters like the Pinkies because of their speed and because their role in the fight depends on the situation, like they can be barriers but they can also manipulate the movement of the player very efficiently. I also have a problem defining if the monster must be visible or not when the player enters the area. Analyzing your solution, looks like you create some linear progression to the area(the triggers suggest an order to be followed), even if the combat don't follow this linearity (in case of the arenas).

 

[Kan3]

7 hours ago, SilentD00mer said:

I don't like to put many chaingunners far away

That's already a 10/10 for your maps :D

 

7 hours ago, SilentD00mer said:

It takes some time to get the correct placement for melee monsters like the Pinkies because of their speed and because their role in the fight depends on the situation, like they can be barriers but they can also manipulate the movement of the player very efficiently. I also have a problem defining if the monster must be visible or not when the player enters the area.

 It is a common "issue" actually: a very cautions player will always be able to spot and/or guess where the monsters are hiding in open areas (unless you create not very pleasant solutions to hide them).

I never worked with very large areas, cause I tend to dislike them due to sense of dispersion and waste of time it takes to navigate them, so I cannot really help you if you're aiming at something wider than ~2000x2000 units x)

There's no real rule about having or not visible monsters in open fields, it always depends on what your aim is.

Already placed and well noticeable monsters are generally used as decoys or to give the players something to shoot while "loading" the real deal.

Usually I use these "rules": imps/mancubus (less frequently revenants cause they're under the "real deal" package) are perfect "turrets" to be placed on high spots to challenge the players to not get damaged, while zombies, pinkies and flying monsters (except for pain elementals) are great to reduce the players freedom.

 

But again, having them already inside the area or not it's up to you, or better, up to what your map "theme" is: you're making a more atmospheric kind of map, with moments of peace followed by storms and blasphemies? You probably want your open area to be completely or mostly empty and wait for something to unleash hell.

Are you making an open area that is not necessary to visit more than once and has a quite complex structure (like an exterior rocky field or a garden full of different buildings)? Then fill it up with hidden and visible monsters, ready for action (you can even just use block sound flags on some linedefs to decide which monster to wake up and when).

Is you open area a part of the level that the player will have to pass by multiple times? Then do both.

 

7 hours ago, SilentD00mer said:

Analyzing your solution, looks like you create some linear progression to the area(the triggers suggest an order to be followed), even if the combat don't follow this linearity (in case of the arenas).

Yes and no.

I definitely tend to linearity, so that the player will trigger different fights in a same area depending on progression (and working in UDMF and GZdoom helps me finding tons of different ways to trigger stuff up whenever I want to), but you can just add more random triggers in the area and give the player freewill (harder to balance out, cause you can never know what a random player will do in certain situations)