Maps with different starting points depending on difficulty

[DoomGappy]

Are there maps like this? Since you can place a player 1 start anywhere, and you can define it to be there in easy, medium or hard, are there any maps that take advantage of this to change things around? Maybe even reposition key locations? I've done that with keys but never with player starting points. It came into my mind and I got curious. 

[AD_79]

Player starts are unfortunately the only (as far as I am aware of) thing unaffected by difficulty settings. Having multiple flagged for different difficulties will result in voodoo dolls taking their places on all settings. You could use a teleporter at the very start of the map to change the starting point, but it's less immediate and I can't think of any maps that do such a thing. It's possible there are some out there though, and I think it's an idea worth exploring!

Edited October 21, 2023 by AD_79

[Not Jabba]

2 minutes ago, AD_79 said:

You could use a teleporter at the very start of the map to change the starting point, but it's less immediate and I can't think of any maps that do such a thing. It's possible there are some out there though, and I think it's an idea worth exploring!

 

Mutabor by tourniquet

[AD_79]

^ I only ever played through it on one difficulty (probably HMP) so I had no idea that it had this feature. Very cool!

[volleyvalley]

If I recall correctly, 180MPV's MAP10: "Trilèthal" changes it's keycards around depending on the difficulty, so that also means, that you're going to have an completely different map route on each difficulty setting.

[DoomGappy]

22 minutes ago, AD_79 said:

Player starts are unfortunately the only (as far as I am aware of) thing unaffected by difficulty settings. Having multiple flagged for different difficulties will result in voodoo dolls taking their places on all settings. You could use a teleporter at the very start of the map to change the starting point, but it's less immediate and I can't think of any maps that do such a thing. It's possible there are some out there though, and I think it's an idea worth exploring!

 

I haven't actually tested this, but since it's possible in the editor I thought it was possible in the game. I can think of a setup with different teleporters leading to different starting points. The idea of changing key placements is also very interesting to me.

 

21 minutes ago, Not Jabba said:

 

Mutabor by tourniquet

 

I'll play this and check it out!

[baja blast rd.]

You can also use blocking props differently on different settings (Scythe map28 is a famous example, which effectively makes the HNTR and HMP starts closer to the exit), and on Boom and above, voodoo doll scripts on different settings (by blocking the voodoo doll closet with decorations on some settings, but allowing it to work on others). Some wads have used voodoo dolls that affect different settings to soften up platforming on lower difficulties, for example, adding more/larger platforms or lowering additional teleporters for when you fall.

[DRON12261]

Not really about difficulty, but I will note that in Europe 1 and Europe 2 by Erik Alm had a starting room with several teleporters leading to different "beginnings" of the level, providing high replayability and probably different difficulty at least at the beginning of the map.

[OniriA]

The most traditional way to have different player spawns is to play under multiplayer coop settings, as you can place coop player starts in different locations like in the Memento Mori wads. This is something that has a lot of potential but very underutilised unfortunately (having 2 players starting somewhere in completely different areas of the map).

 

In some places of the maps they would be able to partly converge but not join, for example through an opening through the rocks another player from a different area could help the first player during an ambush (shooting the demons from the openings). At the climax of the map their paths would finally converge to face the final challenges to complete the map.

Edited October 21, 2023 by OniriA

[Dr. Zin]

2 hours ago, AD_79 said:

You could use a teleporter at the very start of the map to change the starting point, but it's less immediate and I can't think of any maps that do such a thing. It's possible there are some out there though, and I think it's an idea worth exploring!

 

1 hour ago, baja blast rd. said:

You can also use blocking props differently on different settings (Scythe map28 is a famous example, which effectively makes the HNTR and HMP starts closer to the exit)

 

Also Devious Deviance MAP05.

 

EDIT: Totally slipped my mind, @RED77's MAP01 of the same wad uses different starting keys depending to give a unique progression on each difficulty setting.

Edited October 21, 2023 by Dr. Zin

[Fonze]

Not posting to recommend my old, crude wads lol, but to contribute to the convo: I made a map in zdoom for job (the user, not a profession) for their father's day thingy some years ago when I was still new to the doom community, that did this. I had 3 different teleporters for each difficulty with different monster spawn lines going to each teleporter, so each starting location also got its own set of monsters. I also did similar things in myfirstmegawad.wad from before I joined the community, but I think as time went on I stopped caring so much about planning for replayability in such a time consuming way as most people will just either play my maps once or not at all, so it benefited nobody to do so. Which I think is also why it's fairly rare to see, as evidenced by others doing the same on rare occasions. I do think it's a fun novelty concept for a map, and is also just a great practice measure as a mapper to do to see how different approaches can change the gameplay of their maps, but I found for me that it's also good practice to spend that time playing more maps from other people to expand my horizons beyond my own limited perspective.

 

But yeah, would be cool to see more maps take silly novelty approaches like this 😀

[vdgg]

2 hours ago, AD_79 said:

 You could use a teleporter at the very start of the map to change the starting point, but it's less immediate and I can't think of any maps that do such a thing.

Wicked_7 and it is pretty damn good

[DoomGappy]

5 minutes ago, vdgg said:

Wicked_7 and it is pretty damn good

Damn, I love that name. 

[MFG38]

3 hours ago, volleyvalley said:

If I recall correctly, 180MPV's MAP10: "Trilèthal" changes it's keycards around depending on the difficulty

 

There's an even earlier example of such a thing in Doom 2 MAP06 where the placement of the blue key changes depending on the difficulty.

[slowfade]

Don't forget E3M6 in Doom 1. I didn't know that about Doom 2.