Wide open spaces without combat - a good idea?

[Stabbey]

I'm working on a map which is essentially 3 separate mayan temples, plus an arena and a couple outlying buildings. I wanted the player to be able to see all three keys they'll need to collect from the start. I got that visual to work, but creating all the space to connect the buildings leaves a lot of open space.  The player can take the trials in any order, and the space between the trials is somewhat supposed to serve as a breather between tough combat encounters.

Because there's so much open space on the map, there's a ton of room to dodge and maneuver. There's not much I could at which would be threatening without be annoying. I've placed a couple of Arachnotrons at places with long sight lines to slightly discourage players who are poorly armed from approaching, but they're not a big threat. I don't really want to clutter up the open area too much with outcroppings and walls, especially since I'm already being very generous with excess lines and sectors. The majority of the combat will take place in the interiors of the temples, and in the climactic final fight. The monster count is already about 360 (although at least 50 of that will start dead for effects, and another 60 or so will be part of a secret, not progression)

 

My question is if it's generally considered all right to just leave large open spaces mostly empty of threat, just used to give a proper sense of scale and scope to the map? Or would that just be boring, moving through empty place to get to another place?

 

 

EDIT:

I suppose I should put in some images. Keep in mind though, that this is just a work in progress and I haven't fully completed the skybox surround, I haven't fully tweaked the terrain and ground, and I haven't started adding in additional details like vines, grass, and shrubs.

 

The images might be a little small, as I don't recall the allowed image dimensions on the site and didn't want to make them too big.

 

Spoiler

View from the start, with all three keys visible. This is what I want the player to see first so they get an idea of their goal instantly. I also want to make it clear that these are separate buildings.

 

Health bonuses try and direct the player to the path I want them to take, there's some combat in that direction as well.

 

The other direction shows the exit temple in the distance. An Arachnotron will be on a hill shooting at the player, to slightly discourage the poorly armed player from approaching.

 

The pond separating the exit temple from the rest of the map. A closer view of the hill where the Arachnotron will be. There will be another one on the far side of that hill.

 

The path along the third trial shrine, going past the key altars. This area is currently empty except for the Arachnotrons on the hills, but I'm thinking of adding in a few enemies in that area.

 

An overview of the map. The player is in the lower left pathway, which will be overlooked by Arachnotrons on a raised area in the lower middle of the map. The start is in the upper-middle of the map, the three trial shrines are on the left and bottom, the key altars are in the middle-right, and the exit is on the far right.

Edited October 25, 2022 by Stabbey
added images.

[Sonikkumania]

14 minutes ago, Stabbey said:

would that just be boring, moving through empty place to get to another place?

Propably yes. I struggled with a similar dilemma and felt like it's better to add in monsters and other variety like powerup platforms to add interactivity tothe map. The key is to find the balance which I'm not sure I succeeded in, lol.

[Kappes Buur]

Large areas without combat, probably not a good idea.

It all depends on how large the open spaces are, but it's your map so you decide.

But, you could make it somewhat challenging if you include a fair amount of differing monsters, vegetation (grass, trees), maybe some boulders to hide behind or some variation in terrain height or some liquid pools.

 

Edited October 25, 2022 by Kappes Buur

[Lucius Wooding]

It's your map, fam. I wouldn't consider big open areas with no monsters that big a deal, Doomguy can zoom around real fast. I'd just make it fairly easy to move through if you don't want it to break up the pace of the map. I've seen plenty of maps use empty spaces in this kind of way, many of them highly regarded. I'd recommend making a good atmosphere and putting some nice details in, that way the player will take something from that area aside from it being a slight nuisance. I'd say just don't make the place outrageously humongous  where it takes like 30 seconds of SR40 to cross, but that would require a lot of excess for a 300 monster count (something like 22K map units). You could also get cute and throw in a wall you can wallrun with, but it'd probably break immersion.

 

You can consider making some teleporters with distinctive floor textures to allow fast traversal, that's one option. Do like a summoning circle by each building with 3 or 4 glyphs that take you across the open area, and possibly you can lower those via progression. I'd consider that more of an opportunity to make cool decorations if you wanted to though than a required concession to the player.

 

Personally I'd avoid putting monsters in the big open areas since they're pretty inconsequential; you could certainly cluster them around areas you want the player to go, however. 

[SMG_Man]

I like large empty spaces that eventually become less empty. A textbook example of what I mean is in doom 2's map 16, the suburbs. When you nab that blue skull key and all the monsters start flooding in, it becomes a lot more interesting. Or who could forget the never-ending chaos of Go 2 It's twisted rendition of the original Entryway's outdoor area? There are ways to have combat in large open areas without making it too easy on the player.

[Stabbey]

I suppose I should put in some images. Keep in mind though, that this is just a work in progress and I haven't fully completed the skybox surround, I haven't fully tweaked the terrain and ground, and I haven't started adding in additional details like vines, grass, and shrubs.

 

The images might be a little small, as I don't recall the allowed image dimensions on the site and didn't want to make them too big.

 

Spoiler

View from the start, with all three keys visible. This is what I want the player to see first so they get an idea of their goal instantly. I also want to make it clear that these are separate buildings.

 

Health bonuses try and direct the player to the path I want them to take, there's some combat in that direction as well.

 

The other direction shows the exit temple in the distance. An Arachnotron will be on a hill shooting at the player, to slightly discourage the poorly armed player from approaching.

 

The pond separating the exit temple from the rest of the map. A closer view of the hill where the Arachnotron will be. There will be another one on the far side of that hill.

 

The path along the third trial shrine, going past the key altars. This area is currently empty except for the Arachnotrons on the hills, but I'm thinking of adding in a few enemies in that area.

 

An overview of the map. The player is in the lower left pathway, which will be overlooked by Arachnotrons on a raised area in the lower middle of the map. The start is in the upper-middle of the map, the three trial shrines are on the left and bottom, the key altars are in the middle-right, and the exit is on the far right.

 

4 hours ago, Kappes Buur said:

Large areas without combat, probably not a good idea.

It all depends on how large the open spaces are, but it's your map so you decide.

But, you could make it somewhat challenging if you include a fair amount of differing monsters, vegetation (grass, trees), maybe some boulders to hide behind or some variation in terrain height or some liquid pools.

 

 

Some vegetation and terrain stuff will be coming, but I feel like I don't want to try and add too much visual clutter.

 

4 hours ago, Lucius Wooding said:

It's your map, fam. I wouldn't consider big open areas with no monsters that big a deal, Doomguy can zoom around real fast. I'd just make it fairly easy to move through if you don't want it to break up the pace of the map. I've seen plenty of maps use empty spaces in this kind of way, many of them highly regarded. I'd recommend making a good atmosphere and putting some nice details in, that way the player will take something from that area aside from it being a slight nuisance. I'd say just don't make the place outrageously humongous  where it takes like 30 seconds of SR40 to cross, but that would require a lot of excess for a 300 monster count (something like 22K map units). You could also get cute and throw in a wall you can wallrun with, but it'd probably break immersion.

 

You can consider making some teleporters with distinctive floor textures to allow fast traversal, that's one option. Do like a summoning circle by each building with 3 or 4 glyphs that take you across the open area, and possibly you can lower those via progression. I'd consider that more of an opportunity to make cool decorations if you wanted to though than a required concession to the player.

 

Personally I'd avoid putting monsters in the big open areas since they're pretty inconsequential; you could certainly cluster them around areas you want the player to go, however. 

 

The largest straight-line view is about 9300 units, although the actual map path to the third trial shrine would be longer because the entrance is in the back.

I did put in a teleporter room at the start for quick return to the action in co-op play after death, with the teleporters to various trial shrines unlocking once a player has reached one of the shrine entrances.  There's no point in opening that up in single-player, though, as there's no reason to return to the start room. Given the "ancient ruins" aesthetic, I'm reluctant to toss in a lot of teleporters.

 

The shrines themselves loop back to the open area. Two of the shrine entrances are close together, the third one is farther away. The players can visit the trial shrines in any order, but I do want to subtly encourage players to do the closest ones first and the third one last.

 

4 hours ago, SMG_Man said:

I like large empty spaces that eventually become less empty. A textbook example of what I mean is in doom 2's map 16, the suburbs. When you nab that blue skull key and all the monsters start flooding in, it becomes a lot more interesting. Or who could forget the never-ending chaos of Go 2 It's twisted rendition of the original Entryway's outdoor area? There are ways to have combat in large open areas without making it too easy on the player.

 

This area is much bigger than the suburbs fight, and wider than Go 2 It's outdoor area. In addition, the player's arsenal will be limited and additional weapons will come from the trial shrines.

 

Fights should have a purpose, and spaces should be designed to fit that purpose. I won't know what weapons the player has, and I don't feel like putting in a big huge fight for the sake of adding a big huge fight will be satisfying for either me or the player.

Edited October 25, 2022 by Stabbey
fights should have a purpose

[Desfar]

While I have yet to get anything firmly released, the purpose of the room is for the theme of the wad.
Is the room there to set a tone? Is it to show off an especially cool bit of architecture, or give the player a moment for music to start?

When it comes to outdoors areas I still try to make the ground feel cramped and busy even with the line of sight being relatively open.
Countrycide is an example of what I try to emulate, as well as some of the hubworlds on Hedon

Edited October 25, 2022 by Desfar

[slugger]

Besides arachnotrons, there are two enemies that clog up tons of space without hitscan or bullet sponging: mancubi and pain elementals. You could teleport some in when the player completes a temple. The pain elementals could come in later for a nasty surprise, since they'll start filling the space regardless or whether or not the player is ready.

[Stabbey]

4 hours ago, slugger said:

Besides arachnotrons, there are two enemies that clog up tons of space without hitscan or bullet sponging: mancubi and pain elementals. You could teleport some in when the player completes a temple. The pain elementals could come in later for a nasty surprise, since they'll start filling the space regardless or whether or not the player is ready.

 

People have complained when I used Pain Elementals in an arena which could fit in the open area of this map like three times. Absolutely no Pain Elementals on the outside of this map. The amount of ammo I would need to add to deal with even one Pain Elemental in that space would wreck the map balance. I only have one PE in the map, it's on Easy difficulty to replace a nastier enemy, and it's inside.

 

***

 

All right, thanks to everyone for their feedback.

 

- I've decided to increase the amount of Arachnotrons on the long-distance-shooting ledges based on difficulty: 1/ledge on easy, 2 on medium, 3 on hard. This doesn't increase the amount of fire coming the player's way much, it just means completely eliminating the source of fire would require a greater ammo expenditure.

- I've added a couple of imps on one ledge beside the third trial shrine, and a couple shotgunners on another ledge.

- I've additionally put some shotgunners on the ground level (1-4, based on difficulty) along the path to the trial shrine. Thus, approaching the shrine with only the pistol is possible, but it'll have some added risk since the player will want to be slow to get in range of the shotgunners, which will leave them vulnerable to arachnotron fire from behind if they aren't careful. I've added some additional health in that area.

 

I'll consider how and where I can add some more incidental combat to the outside.

 

I'm not adding new monsters appearing in the open area after the completion of a trial shrine for multiple reasons.

- Pacing purposes. I prefer to give the player a slight breather between trials. Each trial shrine already ends in a tough fight. The area is too wide open for any fight I add there to be too difficult unless I add in a tremendous amount of monsters, and I won't do that because it would dilute the impact of the trial fights.

- Resource Management. Because the players can do the trials in any order, I am uncertain of their weapon loadout and ammo supply, so balancing any major fights outside would be challenging. Adding ammo outside would give them too much for the trial shrines, and leaving ammo inside the trial shrines would force backtracking to retrieve it, which would defeat the purpose of adding combat to avoid crossing largely empty areas.

- Intended atmosphere. This map is slightly more of an exploratory map than a combat grind. I want to give the players a bit of time to soak in the view even if it isn't the most detailed.

 

I'll have to wait for player feedback to see if what I intend works, but for now I'm not going to add too much stuff to the outdoor area.

[IcarusOfDaggers]

From the images I see, it is going to be a headache to adress, so heres some history.

 

Mayan temples were usually connected by water canals and pathways to various parts of the city. Most temples also had parks around them, that were full of plant and wild life. The 4 cardinal directions(north-south-east-west) are suspected of having had altars, as a lot of bones are from those directions, next to pathways.

 

I belive you can build canals, pathways, altars and sludge or slime parks with some zombiman in it to cover the emptyness

 

 

Edit: TL;DR: Canals, altars, pathways, sludge/water pond parks with decrepit trees could fill out that area nicely. Use architecture, rather than monsters.

 

Edited October 27, 2022 by IcarusOfDaggers
Tl,dr

[Stabbey]

I'm not going for pure historical accuracy, although thank you for the context. My thought is that the way to the actual city (which will not be part of this single-level WAD) is through the exit temple. This is the outskirts. I did add in some paths and paved roads to connect places.

 

But now, people can play the map for themselves and decide if my instincts about the pacing of the map were correct: