Doom 2 level design is very gimmicky

[TheSlipgateStudios]

I dislike every the city level, the chasm, the pit and some others, Doom 1 is way superior than 2.

[Nine Inch Heels]

12 hours ago, darmok said:

As I'm going through Doom 2 I am struck by how silly many of the levels feel. A lot of these feel like something I would have made myself at the time playing around with an editor. Just creating shapes or copying my house layout. Without much thought to good design. And then you have levels like Tricks and Traps, Barrels of Fun, and the infamous Chasm which are the most gimmicky of all.

Let's remind ourselves real quick that id was basically pioneering the FPS genre back then. Looking at those maps of a bygone age, when the genre was still in its infancy, and then being like "yeah, I could have done those too with all the stuff I 'know' about FPS today" is basically the same as talking down on Leonardo da Vinci's inventions on the basis that you're owning a smartphone that you happen to be able to operate - with a rudimentary level of expertise at least... And if you think about arguing that you were better than id have been way back when, even without the supposed "talent" that stems from decades worth of hindsight: Sorry to break it to you, but the onus to prove that is on you.

 

And in case you're new around the block: Waving the almighty "good design" club around as if you yourself, or anyone else, for that matter were the arbiter of "how-to-make-video-games" has gotten old long before you were around. What's fun and what isn't is subject to the eye of the beholder. You not liking thing does not mean "thing bad".

12 hours ago, darmok said:

And then there is the gameplay itself which mostly consists of having 50 enemies appear out of nowhere. It just seems like they were needlessly punishing the player by clicking Add Monster over and over. Again something I would expect from amateur level designers. (And I know Final Doom is even harder)

Not willing to dignify your troll-post any more than I already have, but I can't resist telling you that maybe you're the amateur in this case, because people around here seem to be able to beat doom2 without breaking much of a sweat. The average modern map is certainly more difficult than the average doom2 map in the grand scheme of things. Matter of fact, I don't know of anyone here who would consider doom2 to be legitimately difficult.

[Guff dotD]

12 hours ago, darmok said:

Sandy Peterson and there are lots of opinions about him. But he also did all of Episode 2 and 3 of Doom and I never really got this feeling with those levels.

Umm... E3M5 isn't gimmicky?

The one built around aggravating (for me) teleport puzzles.

Unholy Cathedral is the height of gimmick-ness in Doom 1. A fair assessment would be to say that it's pretty unpopular as a level.

E2M9, where the entire gimmick of the level is built around infighting? I would say that's gimmicky, but not as gimmicky as Doom II, for sure.

I know that none of these examples hold a candle to, say, MAP06: The Crusher, or MAP24: The Chasm, or Barrels o' Fun in terms of pure gimmicks.

But to say that Doom 1 didn't have gimmicks is ignoring some aspects of the original game.

 

But, in my opinion, the height of aggravation in terms of pure gimmickry (outside of E3M5) is T.E.E.T.H. from the Master Levels for Doom II.

T.E.E.T.H. is just so unfun, getting sniped from chaingunners from all directions while you undulate up and down on a large platform is just so aggravating.

Also, how cramped that level is, especially when chaingunning a Baron in close quarters.

This is one of the levels where the gimmick truly hinders what could have been a passable concept.

^I raise this point as a counter-argument to my earlier post.

 

But, IMO, the execution of the gimmick matters as well. It isn't as simple is it seems. An idea can be done very well, or it can be done very poorly.

[Individualised]

The types of level designs in Doom 2 can be sorted into 2 categories. Some levels focus on realism, with more realistic designs than what was seen in Doom 1, while others focus on gimmicks and mechanics and don't attempt to look like any sort of real building or structure. Keep in mind most levels in Doom 1 that were credited to Sandy were actually originally started by Tom Hall, and Tom Hall's levels were known to be a bit "too realistic" for the rest of the id guys's tastes, hence why Sandy's levels for Doom 2 are much different from his Doom 1 levels (as said by @Guff dotD above, E3M5 and E2M9 were designed by Sandy alone, and they are gimmicky levels similar to what would later be seen in Doom 2). When you get round to playing Final Doom, you might enjoy Evilution more than Plutonia; as someone else once said, both episodes take the two "extremes" of Doom 2's types of level designs and bring them to the max. Evilution focuses on levels that look more like realistic buildings and structures while Plutonia primarily focuses on gimmicks, with more abstract looking levels.

Edited March 2, 2023 by Individualised

[GarrettChan]

It's weird that OP says it's lazy (or without much thought, but I don't want to pick on words with similar meaning in this context) to copy their home layouts and create a map out of it... Doom 2 is supposed to be on earth, with city levels. With so many limitation of the vanilla engine, I don't know why this is called "lazy copied layouts". Not to mention mapper tools are way harder to use back then.

[Poncho1]

Why has the label "gimmick" become such a pejorative? Maps *should* be more gimmicky. Gives a jolt of energy and individuality to a lot of them.

[GarrettChan]

5 minutes ago, Poncho1 said:

Why has the label "gimmick" become such a pejorative? Maps *should* be more gimmicky. Gives a jolt of energy and individuality to a lot of them.

Honestly "gimmick" is supposed to be a neutral word, but this title, well, I got baited anyway :)

[Guff dotD]

Someone should make a Community Project where all of the maps have as many gimmicks as possible crammed in them;

 

just to see the community's reaction.

[GarrettChan]

2 minutes ago, Guff dotD said:

Someone should make a Community Project where all of the maps have as many gimmicks as possible crammed in them;

 

just to see the community's reaction.

I think NoYe quite fits the bill here, though probably not all maps are gimmicky.

[zokum]

Doom 2 could easily had been a much better game if they reordered the map progression and retextured several of the maps. Doom's world feel more coherent. Doom 2 is just a ton of content with no narrative. Doom 2 also had less polish than Doom. Gone were the different animated automaps, the end of episode-pictures.

The setting in Doom is weird as hell and very abstract, but it is nothing like what Doom 2 has to offer. It mixes styles wildly from map to map. There's also a pacing problem in Doom 2.

Doom 1 had 3 starter maps, 3 boss maps, 3 secret maps and 21 regular maps, with a bit of progression + 3 secret exits. So a ratio of ~28% non-mid-maps. Doom 2 has one starter map, two secret maps that are more like joke maps and one not all that good boss map. It has a better difficulty curve, but the _28_ regular maps make the ratio in this game 12.5% special maps. That's a bit too low.

They could have cut 1-2 maps, changed a several of the maps to be secret maps. Map07 and map23 would make sense to have as secret maps. All the less good maps could also be relegated to secret maps OR alternative progression maps to throw in a bit of variety. I'd easily relegate 12 and 08 to secret maps as well.

There would be several secret exits in the game, more to explore and the game wouldn't feel so long compared to Doom episodes. Doom episodes reset the ammo and equipment, allowing you to reset the difficulty curve. Doom 2 has none of that, so it instead makes the monsters-introduced curve much gentler.

Map01 -> two monsters, map02 -> two new monsters, map03 -> two new -> map04, no new monsters, but adds hurt floors, map05 -> 3 new monsters, map06 -> 2 new monsters, map07 -> 2 new monsters, map08 -> 2 new monsters. The final new decent monster is the arch-vile on map11. And after that there is another _18_ maps of mostly the same difficulty and not all that much content other than new maps. There's some story, but it's pretty lackluster. Almost all the new tricks have been used and shown by then.

This would be less than a days work to reorder and add secret exits, and I think the game would have been significantly better. Retexturing would probably add more add a few days, but we know they did this anyway. Look at the theme on the beta version of map03. Hindsight is of course 20/20.

The game would probably have been considered better if they dropped 2-3 single player levels and added 3 very deathmatch-oriented maps. Have them as secret maps and add a boss battle to them to make it into sp-content. Map07 is a bit like that, and we should have had more of that!

They did get a lot of this right for Quake. Doom 2 was a bit rushed and poorly planned. Quake had other problems, but it has more of a plan behind the design compared to Doom 2. A lot of Sandy's texturing is pretty poor. It isn't on all his maps and he does this job much better in Quake. His maps most likely suffers since he had to make so damn many of them. If Romero had churned out 20 maps for Doom 2 and Sandy did 6-7, I think we'd had different ideas about who the best mapper was. It might very well have been McGee in many's eyes. If sandy did 1/3 of the map amount, he could have spent 3 times more on each map, just polishing and making it look better.

Doom kept the biggest gimmick maps as secret maps, doom 2 had many of them as normal progression maps and two secret maps with more or less the exact same gimmick. Map31 and 32 can't have taken long to design.

[Gez]

48 minutes ago, zokum said:

Doom 2 could easily had been a much better game if they reordered the map progression and retextured several of the maps. Doom's world feel more coherent. Doom 2 is just a ton of content with no narrative. Doom 2 also had less polish than Doom. Gone were the different animated automaps, the end of episode-pictures.

I think those little intermaps that show your progression in the game world between each level are in fact a large part for why Doom 1 has more of a "sense of place" than Doom II.

 

Fortunately, @oliacym has done intermap for Doom II and Final Doom and some others.

I think if Doom II had had those back in the days, there would have been a lot less complaints about Doom II's levels being gimmicky and devoid of sense of place. And that wouldn't even change the levels themselves!

[NiGHTS108]

This aspect is something about Doom II I've honestly come to really like over time, even on occasion when the ambition doesn't really pull through I respect the effort to really try something new

[Individualised]

Early prototypes of Doom 2 had a more sensible level order (for example The Inmost Dens didn't interrupt the city levels). The level order was switched around near the end of development presumably to make for a better difficulty curve. Same with episode 2 and episode 3 of Doom 1 being switched around very late in development.

Edited March 2, 2023 by Individualised

[Eon Toad]

I get what you mean. Doom was more serious in its design. Doom 2 takes more of a fun house approach and leans more heavily on rule of cool. Personally, I find Doom 2 much more replayable largely for that reason.

[Andromeda]

2 hours ago, Guff dotD said:

Someone should make a Community Project where all of the maps have as many gimmicks as possible crammed in them;

 

just to see the community's reaction.

You're in luck:

 

[xScavengerWolfx]

So i look at the maps in two ways: The player and the mapper.

 

The Player side: I mean the first half of the game is good i really like, i mean sure it's dare i say it dead simple, but they do have flaws in most of them not going to lie. The later half like in Map 20 and on are eh and map 30....oh boy map 30.

 

I hated map 30, the Icon of sin fight is dumb, just dumb. Kinda wish the fight was more fun and i wish they made a final end game boss but due to limitations and time resents...we got a wall texture with Romero's head on a stick. 

 

The mapper: I've taken a look at all the maps in Doom 2 and i got to say most of them are great but some are kinda lack luster. I know i know, sandy did most of the maps but the one with the giant arrow pointing to the steps in which ever map that was, it's dumb.... says the person that makes arrows in his maps as well. (Note: yes i am guilty and will admit it but Doom 2 came out when i was 2 years old).

 

Monster Condo for me was like "great idea.....but kinda flopped in the end result" Gotcha! the only thing i remember of this one was the Spider Mastermind and the Cyberdemon fight. The """"City"""" levels are just bad, just bad.

 

And again the Icon of sin fight was dumb bland and boring. Maybe i'm being a little too harsh on it but playing a lot of better versions of map 30 i can say that i wish and i do mean i wish they made a end game final boss that was actually worth a damn, instead of a Romero's head on a stick.

 

Best example of a good Icon of sin fight when i starting to get into Doom was Plutonia's map 30. That felt like a final boss fight, gotta kill the cyber demons first then you can blast the icon of sin to death. I mean yes plutonia is a mean map set but i enjoy it more then Doom 2 and TNT Evilution (sorry but you like that megawad, more power to you).

 

But overall do i think Doom 2 maps are gimmicks? The answer is yes and no, yes there gimmicky but they have a nice balance of fights and puzzles in them. But not all of them are super great some are note worthy, some are ok, a couple of them are eh and the rest of them can just go to the trash.

 

TL;DC: For me yes some maps are gimmicky but that's what makes them fun maps. Can't just have bland boring hand holding maps that make you yawn a lot when playing them.

[SleepyVelvet]

Quote

OP: Doom 2 level design is very good

 

Agreed.  I sometimes like to snoop in on people's "First Time Doom 2" streams.  It's charming seeing people's reactions to stuff like Tricks and Traps, Gotcha, Barrels of Fun, and The Chasm for the first time.

Edited March 2, 2023 by NoisyVelvet

[Eurisko]

“Shaka, when the walls fell”

[darmok]

22 minutes ago, Eurisko said:

“Shaka, when the walls fell”

 

Me and Jalad are at Tanagra. ;)

 

Fun reading all the comments so far. I might not have fully articulated my opinion. Maybe "gimmick" isn't the right word. I've seen some using "joke" or "lazy". I don't want to be that harsh but that's kind of the vibe I get.

 

Best comparison I can give is the "Nuts" wad. That was obviously created as a joke. "Here is a room with 10000 monsters. Have at it". No thought whatsoever for a creative and fun level design.

 

Well isn't "Dead Simple" just about the same thing? "Here is a simple square with a dozen mancubi and arachnatrons. Go for it". And that's far from the only level that gave me that feeling.

 

And yes I am obviously looking at this with 30 years of foresight. I'm sure no one thought this when this was the first FPS they ever played. And you certainly can't fault the designers when they were in uncharted territory.

[GarrettChan]

^ Funny how your tone is this way, nice :)

[darmok]

5 hours ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

Not willing to dignify your troll-post any more than I already have,

 

Just because somebody disagrees with you doesn't make them a troll.

 

5 hours ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

but I can't resist telling you that maybe you're the amateur in this case, because people around here seem to be able to beat doom2 without breaking much of a sweat. The average modern map is certainly more difficult than the average doom2 map in the grand scheme of things. Matter of fact, I don't know of anyone here who would consider doom2 to be legitimately difficult.

 

I bow down before your greatness at a 30 year old video game. Did I ever say I wasn't an amateur?

[Fiber Wire]

Yeah, and the gimmicks seem to have worked out because people are still talking about and playing Doom II to this day. If it wasn’t effective people would’ve forgotten about it by now. 
 

Besides, gimmicks were always Id’s thing, it is not specific to Doom II. 

Edited March 3, 2023 by Fiber Wire

[Individualised]

1 hour ago, darmok said:

 

Well isn't "Dead Simple" just about the same thing? "Here is a simple square with a dozen mancubi and arachnatrons. Go for it". And that's far from the only level that gave me that feeling.

Dead Simple is a boss level. Not the same thing at all.

 

Doom 2 certainly has a lot that can be criticised but I honestly can't say the points you make in this thread would be included in that.

Edited March 3, 2023 by Individualised

[Noiser]

Are you really comparing Dead Simple to NUTS? I mean, even if NUTS had the same amount of monsters as Map07, this comparison would still not make any sense.

Edited March 3, 2023 by Noiser

[baja blast rd.]

14 hours ago, darmok said:

Best comparison I can give is the "Nuts" wad. That was obviously created as a joke. "Here is a room with 10000 monsters. Have at it". No thought whatsoever for a creative and fun level design.

 

Well isn't "Dead Simple" just about the same thing? "Here is a simple square with a dozen mancubi and arachnatrons. Go for it".

 

On 3/2/2023 at 12:59 AM, darmok said:

And then there is the gameplay itself which mostly consists of having 50 enemies appear out of nowhere.

 

 

Your main approach to criticism seems to be making really (and I mean really) broad strokes comparisons at an extreme level of abstraction. Like 'we're all made of atoms'-type analysis. So no wonder everything feels the same to you.

 

 

On 3/2/2023 at 1:36 AM, darmok said:

almost every level has new enemies that appear when you press a switch or a key or backtrack. This can be fun the first couple of times but not when its relied on as a crutch.

 

 

Went back and spotted this one too. You're pointing out that "enemies appear sometimes when you do something that is possible in the game" and saying it's a highly specific device that Doom 2 overrelies on to the point of it being a "crutch."

 

When you think about it, one major failing of Doom 2 is that the only way to deal with enemies is to either deal with them somehow or avoid them. That happens in basically every level. It's very uncreative. You'd think good level designers would know how to spice things up like, you could sometimes vanquish monsters by playing Pong with them or debating philosophy.  

[Chezza]

Doom 2 is fine. There is definitely a mix in quality and becomes too brown in the second half.

 

I just think it overstays its welcome. 30 odd levels is a lot and the lack of linear maps like in Doom 1 adds to the time and tedium to complete the later levels. I did not enjoy the puzzles to progress in urban maps, no sir. And the Chasm can get f#@*&%.

[TheEyeOfStone]

21 hours ago, darmok said:

Maybe these were received differently at the time since it was still the infancy of FPS games. What were your thoughts then and now?

 

My thoughts, now as then, are that DOOM, DOOM II and FINAL DOOM will all happily grind my face into the pavement if I don't Get Psyched! and fight smart. 

I loved it back then and I love it now.

Edited March 3, 2023 by TheEyeOfStone

[Eon Toad]

You might be interested in this video, which shares a similar opinion. I never stopped to think about it before, but Doom and Doom 2 hit very differently for me, and I suspect the more devious puzzle box design of Doom 2 is why. I love it and love Plutonia for doubling down on it, but it's definitely not for everyone.

 

https://youtu.be/hh6glXpsQDE

[dististik]

4 hours ago, darmok said:

Best comparison I can give is the "Nuts" wad. That was obviously created as a joke. "Here is a room with 10000 monsters. Have at it". No thought whatsoever for a creative and fun level design.

 

Well isn't "Dead Simple" just about the same thing?

 

Oh, oh! I know this one I know the answer! No! Hope that helps :)

 

Dead Simple, while very straightforward, has layers of strategy to it. You need to take cover, get out in the open to heal or grab weapons, avoid the level's hazards in the form of the blur spheres, and so on.

[Professor Hastig]

2 hours ago, dististik said:

avoid the level's hazards in the form of the blur spheres, and so on.

 

I am fairly certain that they were not added as a hazard but as an aid. How things have changed... :D

MAP07 is an interesting case. The map itself is rather dull and uninspired, but on the other hand it's also short and intense, so it's not like you are stuck for too long in it.