What's with the maps that pop up monsters in your face

[ebrl]

I could go on and on and on about how adversity builds character or about how enemies in Doom have a noticeably slower reaction time than the average person, but instead I'll just stick to my universal stance on pop up monsters, inescapable pits, and the like: the map author's word is the law. Or, for a more modern take, "deal with it".

[Nine Inch Heels]

Immersion-breaking aside (which is an argument I'm not buying into myself, for the record), these supposedly cheap pop-ups are actually a win-win:

 

Either, you die and get to tell yourself that, if only it wasn't so "cheap" you could have made it, so it's a "guilt-free" death...

 

...Or, you survive and get to tell yourself that you're the hottest shit to ever wield a pixelated boomstick, because you just survived the impossible unfair...

 

I wonder why this perspective is not being entertained, let alone considered, by a (supposedly) large number of people, but then again, I have a great many suspicions as to why that's the case...

[Bauul]

One thing to point out is that there's a small difference between pop-up monsters and insta-pop-up monsters.  The former, where you can physically see the monster rising from the ground (even if it is very fast) feels more organic to me - like zombies rising from their graves or whatever.

 

The latter, usually achieved using the "Lower to higher floor" bug, feels more jarring to me.  Having enemies just literally appear out of nowhere, especially with no teleport fog, is rather immersion breaking.  

 

 

[dasho]

24 minutes ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

I wonder why this perspective is not being entertained, let alone considered, by a (supposedly) large number of people, but then again, I have a great many suspicions as to why that's the case...

 

Well, let's hear them then. You've already suggested that someone feeling that a certain type of trap is cheap is a coping mechanism for their lack of skill, so might as well go the distance.

Edited May 2, 2023 by dasho

[DNSKILL5]

I've noticed a pattern with threads like these where anytime anyone says they don't care for something related to Doom mapping the same exact people come to the defense of any and every aspect of level design and always retort that anyone who disagrees must just have a skill issue and/or can't possibly understand the complexities of level design enough if they dislike anything whatsoever. Then they claim these discussions are pointless but never seem to pass up the opportunity to engage in such conversations.

Edited May 2, 2023 by CAM-7EA

[Noiser]

Doom is a game where you pick floating items, medikits and weapons in hell, chainsaws on space, semi-abstract architecture that defies human logic...

My point is: In a broader sense, Doom is not a realistic game. Why bother if something "doesn't make sense"? I see it as a good thing - it's videogame logic. It allows for more creativity, refined game design and unique aesthetic scenarios. Break the chains of reason, be free. :-)
 

51 minutes ago, CAM-7EA said:

Then they claim these discussions are pointless but never seem to pass up the opportunity to engage in such conversations.

These types of discussion are pointless because they are related to personal taste (which people disguise as objective truth). You can't achieve anything by saying something is "unfair", "not fun", etc. I don't mind it tho, I like to read it.

Edited May 2, 2023 by Noiser

[TheDanMarine]

it can be done well, it can be done poorly. 

I'm not sure where the line is, but my best guess is in the author's intentions. it certainly can be a cheap jumpscare if it simply pops up out of nowhere with no real indication and breaks the map flow by being in a really awkward spot.

 

it can also be used well, one example has already been mentioned. if you want backtracking to be less tedious but want something less obvious and overused than monster closets, silent-teleporting enemies in is an easy solution.

you can also use them as a well-telegraphed jump scare, something that rewards the player for paying attention or punishes them for rushing ahead if you have environmental clues to help cue in that it's about to happen. like a button surrounded by those enemy head textures, or a bunch of dead marines. and of course you can use them for arena-wave type levels. having everything not silently teleport in for those is ear-shattering. 

 

in fact I think the biggest problem people have with it is not the immersion, that's a byproduct, but that it's so poorly telegraphed in almost every case. there are few cases in vanilla doom where you get genuinely no warning that something's about to rip your face off. you can hear a door opening in the distance, or see new monsters fill in old areas, or when you go through a teleporter there's an implicit contract that there might be monsters on the other side, but silent teleports can be anywhere at any time, and give you no warning or indication whatsoever. 

 

26 minutes ago, CAM-7EA said:

I've noticed a pattern with threads like these where anytime anyone says they don't care for something related to Doom mapping the same exact people come to the defense of any and every aspect of level design and always retort that anyone who disagrees must just have a skill issue and/or can't possibly understand the complexities of level design enough if they dislike anything whatsoever. Then they claim these discussions are pointless but never seem to pass up the opportunity to engage in such conversations.

 

you're gonna notice that pattern all over the internet now that you've seen it. if you want a massive ton of examples just look at any discussion about giving dark souls an easy mode. I even agree with the side I'm criticizing here, but most of them fit your description to a T. 

[baja blast rd.]

37 minutes ago, CAM-7EA said:

I've noticed a pattern with threads like these where anytime anyone says they don't care for something related to Doom mapping the same exact people come to the defense of any and every aspect of level design and always retort that anyone who disagrees must just have a skill issue and/or can't possibly understand the complexities of level design enough if they dislike anything whatsoever. Then they claim these discussions are pointless but never seem to pass up the opportunity to engage in such conversations.

 

These discussions are almost without exception dead on arrival, because the extent of the negative claim's specifity is "such-and-such element is bad," without any real analysis or probing into any specific cases. If a thread is just going to say "inescapable pits are bad" or "slaughter is bad" with a uselessly broad brush and shallow analysis, then yes "any and every aspect of level design," since it can be used well in specific cases, can be defended against such broad-brush claims.

 

I think a lot of people import their mentality about complaining from wider Games. Corporations will listen to you whine when you get on a pulpit because their goal is to get every dollar they can out of you, and just saying "fuck off" is bad business. 

 

Doom wads are free, though, and the modding scene is not an industry. When you're about to start a gripe thread like "X is bad, mappers should stop doing it," the first thing you should ask, which is conveniently often overlooked, is if anyone should give a shit about you and what you like. You should ask if mappers should stop using, say, inescapable pits to please an unlikable enraged g*mer who's offering up shitty shallow analysis. (Also this is extra funny because there's not even any upside there. Satisfy either someone who posts poorly written rageposts on forums, or maxers who like niche stuff who might record cool demos. You can't win, sorry.) If your first impulse is that mappers are doing something to piss you off, you should ask if it's not kind of weird that you're making everything about you. 

 

 

 

In fairness this OP is not the (usual) terrible kind, but it still looks a bit tilted -- "Is there any design or gameplay reason for this crap?" And then the first reply goes with "It's usually just a cheap shot by authors to exploit human reaction times" which is basically made-up and steers things into the usual bad faith territory. (And since these threads tend to cast the first stone making it personal like that, it's not a surprise that "skill issue" retort comes back the other way.) So this is absolutely not the best start a sober analytical discussion can have. And it still got thoughtful serious responses, so count your blessings I guess. 

[msx2plus]

16 hours ago, Lucius Wooding said:

It's the same kind of aversion that keeps me from enjoying Kaizo Mario/Terry WAD type stuff

i feel like zeroing in on this because it interests me. lumping these things together is strange: kaizo is generally hyper-skill-based (with some funny gotchas) and terry wads are just obnoxious, loud, and horrible to the player. i can see this being the understanding of kaizo if you've only ever seen the original hack, which is largely a collection of pranks, but for many years it's been nothing like that.

 

beyond that i could see it being the whole "doing it over and over again until you get it right" thing being a dealbreaker. lots of kaizo design won't be something you can do in one shot, and that echoes through here as well: popup monsters can surprise the player, resulting in a death. this is i guess where the paths split; a map utilizing this may very well expect you to learn it rather than just play it.

 

there is something to be said for theoretically "smart" design that signposts and prepares the player for what is to come, but there is also sterility and limitation in it. it's just another tool in the toolbox to evoke a feeling or push the player to adapt to a certain style of play.

[DNSKILL5]

I mentioned inescapable pits but I think l was initially misunderstood. I don’t mean in general. I get their purpose and don’t find them to be “bad”. What I meant were pits that you can get stuck in permanently with the only option being to reload or restart. In single player it is far less of a problem, sure, but as someone who plays deathmatch it is something I do feel should be avoided because reloading and restarting isn’t always going to be an option there, and if you have no rocket launcher to off yourself with then you are stuck until someone else falls in and kills you, or you become the pit monster and defend the pit until the end of the match. Maybe these traps aren’t “cheap” but they aren’t really enjoyable for multiplayer whatsoever. I guess “inescapable pit” primarily refers to pits like in E1M3, but I assumed the terminology referred to pits like the one I’ve described, so forgive me for the confusion. 
 

edit: also, in these situations you’d learn to avoid the pit areas, yes, but you are still stuck in this situation the first time around, and the nature of DM doesn’t always mean you entered the pit willingly. You can easily fall into one from the way doomguy takes damage, and it doesn’t count as a frag for the person who put you there, so it’s really not a great situation in these cases.

Edited May 2, 2023 by CAM-7EA

[dasho]

Just now, CAM-7EA said:

What I meant were pits that you can get stuck in permanently with the only option being to reload or restart.

 

I don't see how anyone could argue against this being bad map design. If it's meant to punish being inattentive, then kill the player. It's not that hard.

[BiZ]

On 5/1/2023 at 5:02 AM, bLUEbYTE said:

I've seen this happen a lot in Base Ganymede, and some final or secret maps in 3 hours d'agonie 3...

You walk into an area that is empty and suddenly a squad of monsters appear right in front of you, at times at an arm's length. They just pop up, not even with a teleport effect.
It makes no sense, and is a huge turn off for me.

Is there any design or gameplay reason for this crap?

 

There are both design and gameplay reasons for using this technique:

 

On the design side, they can often be easier and faster to setup when compared to teleport traps.

On the gameplay side, they can be more efficient at bringing large numbers of enemies into play when compared to teleport traps.

On the design side, they can be used to hide enemies in wide open areas, as opposed to traditional monster closets which require walls to hide the enemies.

On the gameplay side, they can be used to show the player an area without the player being able to wake up the monsters in that area.

 

And the list goes on and on. As with any technique, it can be done well or it can be done poorly.

 

I can understand the logical argument about how it makes little sense to have pits in the floor with monsters which spring up randomly, but sometimes logic is sacrificed in order to shake up the standard formula and create unique and interesting gameplay. The more doom you play, the more you will see this technique, and the more these abstract and illogical concepts just become a natural part of the game's level design.

 

To illustrate my point, lets look at the traditional monster closet by examining the OG grand-daddy monster closet in e1m3. This is a classic example of sacrificing logic for interesting gameplay.

 

Spoiler

 

Logically this closet makes no sense whatsoever when you think about it. Why is there no door to this room? Why does a solid piece of wall open instead? Why is there nothing inside of this room but demons? Did the demons get in there somehow and just lie in wait, or was the room built around them? What conceivable purpose could a room like this serve on a military/industrial base? Why does the wall open only when you step on the pedestal with the key? Why does the mechanism that opens the door also turn off all the lights? That seems weird.

 

So while the concept of a monster closet itself makes little sense from a logical standpoint, it does provide the opportunity for a unique gameplay experience and so a tradeoff is made. This concept has stuck over the decades and become a core mechanic of doom level design. It is so ingrained into the fabric of the classic doom experience that nobody really bats an eye at them.

 

So the more you play doom and get to understand the engine and it's strengths, quirks, and limitations, I think the easier it becomes to see techniques like pop-up monsters not as immersion breaking logical paradoxes, but more as monster closets in the ground, instead of in the walls...

 

Edited May 2, 2023 by BiZ

[baja blast rd.]

1 minute ago, CAM-7EA said:

I mentioned inescapable pits but I think l was initially misunderstood. ...

 

To be clear, I'm referring to the many threads that have been started complaining about stuff like that (in a sort of vague "this is bad" way), not your own posts here. 

[GarrettChan]

1 hour ago, baja blast rd. said:

and just saying "fuck off" is bad business. 

 

....

 

Satisfy either someone who posts poorly written rageposts on forums, or maxers who like niche stuff who might record cool demos.

Somehow the first sentence cracks me up, but hey, if a game company dare to do this, they probably earn my dollar, but obviously the trade-off is they are losing millions of dollars.

 

Then the second one, yeah, I guess if I'm making a map, I would tend to listen to demo recorders (a person, not as a device) about whether the maps are fun and they want to record a demo for it etc., heh.

 

2 hours ago, Maribo said:

I'd love it if someone could tell me what exactly a map being "fair" means to you.

 

I guess the real problem is that nobody knows what's exactly is fair. To me, I really don't mind "unfair" games in single players because there's no real "skillful competition" between 2 players or whatever. Then if the game is all "fair" to me, which somewhat is boring since I don't feel I'm challenged.

 

I've played quite a bit of "unfair" games and it's like I like almost all of them... The non Doom ones are like, Castlevania 3 the second loop, which is somewhat unfair game to many.

Edited May 2, 2023 by GarrettChan

[Daerik]

1 hour ago, CAM-7EA said:

I've noticed a pattern with threads like these where anytime anyone says they don't care for something related to Doom mapping the same exact people come to the defense of any and every aspect of level design and always retort that anyone who disagrees must just have a skill issue and/or can't possibly understand the complexities of level design enough if they dislike anything whatsoever. Then they claim these discussions are pointless but never seem to pass up the opportunity to engage in such conversations.

 

What is there to even discuss? For every possible facet of the game, there are going to be things some people like and others don’t like. Anyone is capable of downloading the map making tools and creating the kind of content they enjoy, so it’s almost always wasted effort to complain about other peoples works not being tailored to what you enjoy when you can just do it yourself.

 

By posting “I don’t like x” there’s not much to say other than “haha yeah x sucks” or “actually here’s why x is fine”.

 

The former response leads to nothing of substance, and the latter almost always turns into people shouting past one another until the thread is locked because very few people ever post with the intent of having their mind changed.

[DNSKILL5]

OK. I get the point. It's been addressed by like 3 other people already, but thanks anyways.