Does anyone else struggle with the *Second* room of a map?

[GrnKnght]

I am a new mapper, and I feel like I can make really cool single room combat arenas, with height variation and engaging combat, but I always draw a blank on how to expand the map outwards from those encounters.

 

I have a bunch of discarded .wad files, that are just a single setpiece room, because I can't figure out the leadup or winddown after it.z

Anyone have the same issue? and if so, are there any tips for overcoming it?

["JL" was too short]

Make a second one of those rooms, maybe?  And then a third?

I ain't gonna say that a map that's just combat arenas strung together is the best thing but it will at least break through the rust and get the nut turning.

[RataUnderground]

Perhaps you are not having a proper approach to the problem of how to make a map. Try not to think so much about individual rooms as about the flow of the player, what areas they have to go through, what feeling you want them to have as they go through those areas. Think about the map as a whole and the concept of the place rather than isolated rooms.

[NightRiding Doom]

I have the same issue. I can build a room, a stairway, or a hub, but for the life of me, connecting them only happens when I start putting multiple rooms from multiple different projects together into one single project, as then i start seeing how the player interacts, where the windows etc could be. 

 

The main problem with mapping, is that you need to test it and play it multiple times over and over and over again. This entices creativity in short hops, but in long run it can actually stifle it. 

 

The way I deal with it:

1) Architectural design is more important to me, so i focus on making a place feel like somewhere a person could realistically be (In this case, doomguy). 

2) If you have multiple single room wads, copy and paste some of those set pieces into the same map. Then connect them with varied height and geometry of corridors. Test it. once you run through, something might jolt.

3) Sit on it and leave it be for a while, then come back. But always make sure you let your idea sit in your head a little bit before you use it. This gives your brain time to refine out something to use.

 

Spoiler

Currently I am stuck on a big empty room. I know it will have a pillar with soul sphere in the center. However, i do not know even, what else that room should have. The corridor leading to it also needs adjustment, to say the least. So in my spare time (since I work a lot of the time), i try to think of the room and how to build it,  during the morning commute (Public transport). then I leave it to sit on for the rest of the day. usually by the time it's evening, i have something thought up (Thought of the pillar just now lol, but i ran a couple of other things in my head and it didn't pan out). Now that I know a pillar will be there, I still will not draw the pillar, I am waiting to see if anything else pops. if not, I styrt from the pillar tomorrow. if yes, I start from pillar and whatever else popped. 

 

In all creativity blocks, the key is, ironicly, hitting your head against the proverbial wall once or twice, then sit on it for a few days, then hit the wall again. Something usually shakes loose, either the wall, or head. Best result is when shaking the head loose also breaks down the wall and you get whatever you were stuck on, done in a matter of hours. Or days.