Question from a wad noob

[TheRevenant212]

Does anyone have any advice regarding difficulty balancing? I feel this is one of my biggest problems as a creator. I want my WAD to be difficult but I do not want to be PLUTONIA difficult. I'm kinda having trouble with this. Does anyone have any tips?

[IcarusOfDaggers]

First: what difficulty you usually play on will have the biggest impact on how to approach balancing a map.

 

If you usually play on HMP, that's the difficulty you should aim for at first. Then once you are borderline satisfied with HMP, then go for UV by making the map harder. 

Things to keep in mind:

What type of monster you have in a fight greatly impacts the difficulty of the fight. So removing 1 arch vile can change the difficulty more than removing 3 hell knights.

 

You also want to make sure that most of the environment, including monster closets, is integrated into the combat design as well. many ways to approach this one, I prefer to first make the map with combat, then once I get to near completion, revamp the combat (if needed, completely from ground up) utilizing the architecture and level geometry. A fight can be made harder or easier just by 1 pillar in the middle of the room, or in most ports outside of zdoom family, even by floor detailing that makes hitting the monsters harder thanks to wobbly movement.

 

As for health and ammo balance, that really depends what you want to encourage in the map.

 

 

Second: Always ask for feedback from playtesters. 

Check this one for more recent active playtesters. But keep in mind you have to shuffle through some of the pages. 

Check this one out for an easier to manage list, but make sure you check if they are active or not: 

 Edit: Also Lucious Wooding has a good point on enemy usage.

Only thing I would add is that pistol to shotgun escalation is a lot more stronger when the player has to rely on pistol for easier enemies like imps and zombieman.

Okay, one final note to add: Arachnotrons are great for denying area of movement, but perform very poorly in cramped spaces or doorways.

 

Edited August 31, 2022 by IcarusOfDaggers

[Lucius Wooding]

I assume you're talking about overall balance and not necessarily comparing the different difficulty settings. There are a bunch of threads on HNTR/HMP/UV type of balancing but this will somewhat apply to both.

 

I can suggest a few ideas that might not be 100% applicable depending on what experience you're going for, but it comes down to the mapper's touch in the end. It has to be learned somewhat. I think if you want to make anything really good, you should seek to play many wads before you make one so you can get an idea of what works. 

 

-If you place a significant amount of hitscan, be sure to place health and armor to compensate in most cases. This is especially true in open areas rather than narrow corridors with lots of cover. The latter is much easier to avoid damage. Without lots of cover and/or a chaingun, hitscan heavy layouts turn into forced damage. A shotgunner can get a lucky snipe for over 40 damage from far away, and chaingunners deal up to 15 damage per shot at a high rate of fire as well. A blind player is not going to know their locations in advance so it's pretty much a given that they might take damage before being able to react. On low health below 50% or so these kinds of sections become really slow because the player will be forced to take every corner super careful. However they can be some of the most fun enemies to kill so don't be afraid to place crowds of them sometimes. 

 

-With revenants and archviles, it's necessary to provide a bit of nearby cover to allow the player to hide and get rid of homing missiles. This is more necessary for easier maps, sometimes you can get away with not doing so but typically less skilled players will find these enemies very deadly. 

 

-With arachnotrons, they become much less of a threat if they're raised a good bit above the player as turrets. Instead of a line of projectiles which can't be safely crossed in most cases, you can run around or under their attacks in more directions due to the difference in heights. They force the player to keep moving rather than trapping them. Their attacks can kill very quickly as a single shot can deal around 40 damage. Plus their hitbox is enormous so using them as turrets frees up space.

 

-Consider placing barrels, especially if the player is a bit undergeared. They can be a double edged hazard but are a very satisfying way to soften up a fight. They can also turn the threat of a monster like a revenant for example which can deal high damage into something that can still be killed with a couple shells, and also make turret monsters a bit more convenient to kill. 

 

-If you place lots of projectile based enemies such as hell knights with plenty of room to maneuver, you should only need to place a bit of health. Even if their damage is high usually any competent player can avoid them pretty much infinitely unless there are other hazards. You can always add more health on lower skill settings. Pinkies should pretty much never score a hit on a player unless it's on fast monsters or in a very cramped arena.

 

-If the map is very long, consider loading the earlier parts with spare health and ammo and allow backtracking. You can limit this to medikits and shells so the player can recover from a rough section, but not necessarily have heaps of cells and mega health when they progress. You can also place secrets more in the first half of the map so a backtracking player will have a better chance of finding them when needed.

 

-Monster closets and lifts are generally less difficult and more obvious to predict than teleporting enemies. However bear in mind it's often possible to camp the teleport destination and prevent stuff spawning in so using multiple spots or having some pressure on the player is a good idea to prevent cheese strats. I find it's generally more work to teleport them in anyway.

 

-If you want the wad to be easier than Plutonia, definitely be careful about using archviles. They are the most interesting enemy in the roster but it might be worth it to give the player good weapons, remove other enemies in the area, or make them into turrets which they still do very well. Some players just get spooked by them and don't appreciate how good they are for spicing up fights.

 

-Personally, I like giving the player some cells and rockets so they can kick ass. Don't be afraid to spoil the player a bit, particularly for a big fight. You may not want the entire map to be like this but it can be very crowd pleasing if you give them a fast paced fight.

 

-Sometimes with a fight I'll have a goal for the kind of experience I want, rather than trying to put together a balanced encounter. Sometimes I might design an arena around a couple enemy types, others I might start with the room pretty much built and try to pick enemies that fit it. For one fight I designed I lock the player in a room and lower a heap of enemies after giving them a plasma with some cells. It was probably the most successful single fight in that map and it just started from the idea of "give them a plasma but make them shit their pants and waste it straight away". Experiment a bit with your approach to designing encounters, and see what works best for you.

 

And finally, get people to playtest and get feedback. I've been very surprised sometimes how differently 2 players can react to the same map. Usually you can't please everyone but it's helpful to get multiple viewpoints so you can successfully play to your target audience.

[kalensar]

For difficulty balancing... Well you said it point blank you don't want Plutonia hard. =)

For your maps, pick the example that they most resemble out of Doom1, Doom 2 or TNT maps and you'll probably get a good idea for balancing to the difficulty you want. So say that your map is similar to Map03 of Doom 2( chosen because its the first actual hard map of the wad). If the monsters are different like say closer to Map13 or map 10( both have a little bit of everything) then use those as a ruler to measure what you need to place for resources, and monster type.

The best idea is to break your Map down into a comic strip/story board where each fight is a different room and panel in the comic. What does that story look like to you? What Hollywood action scene are you trying to build in any specific fight or circumstance? Doom story is told through fights and environment akin to action scenes from movies.

[IcarusOfDaggers]

43 minutes ago, kalensar said:

 Doom story is told through fights and environment akin to action scenes from movies.

This is the most accurate description of doom I've seen. It's also why Icon of Sin was such a big let down in doom II. Map31 did not tell a story.