Does anyone else dislike* getting softlocked out of secrets and kills?

[fruity lerlups]

I've been playing through Scythe2 and my patience with the mapset is starting to wear thin, i'm around map 23 right now but between the extremely difficult fights that basically force me to save between each of them rather than enjoy the map as a whole, and the hot starts which are a scramble for "what the hell do I do" to look for switches and weapons to actually progress, I find the most frustrating thing that as a reward for me choosing to take every fight, get every kill I can so I'm not just rng-ing to a finish line hoping to kite as many enemies as possible, my reward is a missing enemy and missing secret that I can't go back and find. It really makes all the hard work I do to actually just do every fight feel like its not worth it. Trying to 100% the levels should feel rewarding and when you deal with absolute nonsense, with fights that just feel cruel and sadistic, at least letting me have the satisfaction of getting 100% of the kills and secrets for your level would be a nice reward, but no. Alas I feel like i'm just frustrated with cruel level design, I want to be having fun but I'm just not enjoying these final levels.
 

edit changed the title because clearly i made it more vitriolic than i intended

Edited May 20, 2024 by fruity lerlups
because the title was vitriolic

[Doom-X-Machina]

11 minutes ago, fruity lerlups said:

I've been playing through Scythe2 and my patience with the mapset is starting to wear thin, i'm around map 23 right now but between the extremely difficult fights that basically force me to save between each of them rather than enjoy the map as a whole, and the hot starts which are a scramble for "what the hell do I do" to look for switches and weapons to actually progress, I find the most frustrating thing that as a reward for me choosing to take every fight, get every kill I can so I'm not just rng-ing to a finish line hoping to kite as many enemies as possible, my reward is a missing enemy and missing secret that I can't go back and find. It really makes all the hard work I do to actually just do every fight feel like its not worth it. Trying to 100% the levels should feel rewarding and when you deal with absolute nonsense, with fights that just feel cruel and sadistic, at least letting me have the satisfaction of getting 100% of the kills and secrets for your level would be a nice reward, but no. Alas I feel like i'm just frustrated with cruel level design, I want to be having fun but I'm just not enjoying these final levels.

Everything you described is literally THE point of game...

Scythe and it's sequel are known for being higher-tier difficulty and very challenging WADs.
You can't expect every map/mapset to be a walk-in-the-park power fantasy.
 

[fruity lerlups]

2 minutes ago, Doom-X-Machina said:

Everything you described is literally THE point of game...

Scythe and it's sequel are known for being higher-tier difficulty and very challenging WADs.
You can't expect every map/mapset to be a walk-in-the-park power fantasy.
 

you completely missed my point. I didn't complain about the difficult fights, I complained about the softlocking out of secrets and kills.

[Jayextee]

oh no not muh precious content how dare the game deny me content

[Xaser]

Gotta drop the usual advice here: If you're having a miserable time going for 100%, then don't go for 100%. If that doesn't do the trick, try lowering the difficulty level. And if that doesn't work either, you may be best off finding a new wad to play.

 

I want to zero in on that last point: you don't have to play Scythe 2 if you're not jiving with it. It's totally fine to not enjoy something even if it's something folks tend to rave about, and you're far from the only one who thinks Scythe 2 gets a bit Much(tm) in its final act. There's really not much to gain by forcing yourself through it -- I'm sure there's another wad just around the corner that you'll end up having way more fun with, and you have the power to skip ahead past the frustrating part.

 

[FWIW, I also prefer it when 100% is attainable in maps without any sneaky "point of no return"s, but it sounds more like this case is a symptom of a greater frustration, rather than the root cause.]

[fruity lerlups]

Just now, Jayextee said:

oh no not muh precious content how dare the game deny me content

i want to experience the whole map and every fight and every kill and every secret. Is that so wrong?

[RataUnderground]

Not really. I will never understand the compulsion to find 100% of the secrets and do 100% of the kills if doing so is less fun than passing the map in a normal way. If I get it, well, that's fine, but I don't mind getting to the end and hitting the exit button without any regrets about leaving a horde of monsters behind me.
Anyway, when I make my maps, I try not to let that happen and not block parts of the map as the player progresses.

[fruity lerlups]

Just now, Xaser said:

[FWIW, I also prefer it when 100% is attainable in maps without any sneaky "point of no return"s, but it sounds more like this case is a symptom of a greater frustration, rather than the root cause.]

thats what i wanted to discuss, not me finding the wad difficult. I don't want to whine but it feels like wow its such a sin to say the Scythe 2 is hard, of course it is, I expected it to be, I was more talking about disliking the design choice to have secrets and fights locked out in points of no return like you mentioned, thats what I want to discuss, so please, can we discuss that instead of people focusing on me saying Scythe 2 is hard, of course it is, I wanted a challenge.. but I wanted to comment on the soft locking, thats all. So can we discuss that?

[fruity lerlups]

2 minutes ago, RataUnderground said:

Not really. I will never understand the compulsion to find 100% of the secrets and do 100% of the kills if doing so is less fun than passing the map in a normal way. If I get it, well, that's fine, but I don't mind getting to the end and hitting the exit button without any regrets about leaving a horde of monsters behind me.
Anyway, when I make my maps, I try not to let that happen and not block parts of the map as the player progresses.

For me going for 100% kills and secrets makes me engage with it and get to enjoy every fight that the mapper intended, I don't enjoy just rushing to an exit, I want to take every fight. Thats my disposition, if its not yours, thats ok.

[Deadwing]

I used to hate that (skippable stuff, points of no return), nowadays I would mind much less tbh.

Not going for 100% allows me to skip some less interesting parts or just play more relaxed too.

Edited May 20, 2024 by Deadwing

[Stupid Bunny]

I don’t mind it. Gives me something to come back and try another time. I’ve never cared that much about 100%ing to begin with, though, to my mind the point of a map is typically to survive to the end and the point of secrets is, well, to be secret and I’ll be delighted if I find them, and excited again if I know I still have more to puzzle out. I do like to explore and take it slow through a map, but sometimes locking the player out of prior areas is in service of the map’s narrative and I wouldn’t compromise that or ask another mapper to.

Edited May 20, 2024 by Stupid Bunny

[Doomy__Doom]

Blind max without research/repeat play is not a reasonable expectation. Especially when applied to older wads. Older in this context being stuff before the fairly recent mapping and doomtubing boom (2018+-ish?), since many people have started being more explicitly conscious of soft-locking and missables in design and playtesting. It still does not mean blind max is a reasonable expectation in new wads either.

 

 

Fwiw, my own approach to 100% is to get whatever I get, but from the exit idclip/iddt around to see what I've missed, as my fresh memories of the playthrough allow me to think about "how would it have been different if I've gotten that secret plasma/megaarmor/backpack/whatever".

[RataUnderground]

1 minute ago, fruity lerlups said:

For me going for 100% kills and secrets makes me engage with it and get to enjoy every fight that the mapper intended, I don't enjoy just rushing to an exit, I want to take every fight. Thats my disposition, if its not yours, thats ok.

Thats ok, but in the title you asked if I (anyone) hated this too, and thats my answer xD

[fruity lerlups]

Just now, Doomy__Doom said:

Blind max without research/repeat play is not a reasonable expectation. Especially when applied to older wads. Older in this context being stuff before the fairly recent mapping and doomtubing boom (2018+-ish?), since many people have started being more explicitly conscious of soft-locking and missables in design and playtesting. It still does not mean blind max is a reasonable expectation in new wads either.

 

 

Fwiw, my own approach to 100% is to get whatever I get, but from the exit idclip/iddt around to see what I've missed, as my fresh memories of the playthrough allow me to think about "how would it have been different if I've gotten that secret plasma/megaarmor/backpack/whatever".

yeah i tend to consult wikis towards the end if I don't uncover them myself HOWEVER.. man those maps where its like "WHERE'S THE AMMO?" then turns out there was a berserk secret at the start when you're already half way through it like.. cmon.. that completely changes the way the level plays.

[Shepardus]

First of all, Scythe 2 is notorious for its difficulty spike, specifically at the very map you're on, so don't feel bad for lowering the difficulty level or just dropping the WAD for now.

 

I enjoy maxing levels, but I think it's a bit much to expect level designers to make everything accessible at all times no matter what you do prior. I wouldn't block stuff off just for the hell of it, but there are good reasons for not allowing players to backtrack, and I don't think creators should have to make concessions for a particular style of playing the game. Ancient Aliens MAP16 is one example that gets brought up in discussions like this; thematically it just wouldn't make sense for the player to be able to backtrack in that map, and skillsaw very intentionally didn't allow players to backtrack even though most other maps in the WAD are backtrack-friendly.

 

Sometimes I'll noclip to the last few monsters if they're just random stragglers I missed, sometimes I'll just move on and forget about it. If I miss secrets it's a good excuse for me to replay the WAD in the future; remember that you don't have to play a WAD just once if you enjoyed it.

[fruity lerlups]

1 minute ago, Shepardus said:

First of all, Scythe 2 is notorious for its difficulty spike, specifically at the very map you're on, so don't feel bad for lowering the difficulty level or just dropping the WAD for now.

 

I enjoy maxing levels, but I think it's a bit much to expect level designers to make everything accessible at all times no matter what you do prior. I wouldn't block stuff off just for the hell of it, but there are good reasons for not allowing players to backtrack, and I don't think creators should have to make concessions for a particular style of playing the game. Ancient Aliens MAP16 is one example that gets brought up in discussions like this; thematically it just wouldn't make sense for the player to be able to backtrack in that map, and skillsaw very intentionally didn't allow players to backtrack even though most other maps in the WAD are backtrack-friendly.

 

Sometimes I'll noclip to the last few monsters if they're just random stragglers I missed, sometimes I'll just move on and forget about it. If I miss secrets it's a good excuse for me to replay the WAD in the future; remember that you don't have to play a WAD just once if you enjoyed it.

yeah ive decided ill go back and do some of the levels that i didnt UV Max the first time, some of them are so exhausting so to go back after and repeat it for 100% if i really enjoyed the level. I can endure the fights in it, when they give you ammo and let you rip while dealing with tricky dances its fun, I actually loved the ending of Map23, and the yellow key room, some of it is sadistically tight but when its like, "here's your ammo and some nonsense, deal with this nonsense" I enjoy that, I think i'm gonna enjoy doing stuff like MSCP and Fast Food for this reason, but I also like the adventure aspect of a map, like Map 12 of Rush for me is so enjoyable.

[Xaser]

11 minutes ago, fruity lerlups said:

thats what i wanted to discuss, not me finding the wad difficult. I don't want to whine but it feels like wow its such a sin to say the Scythe 2 is hard, of course it is, I expected it to be, I was more talking about disliking the design choice to have secrets and fights locked out in points of no return like you mentioned, thats what I want to discuss, so please, can we discuss that instead of people focusing on me saying Scythe 2 is hard, of course it is, I wanted a challenge.. but I wanted to comment on the soft locking, thats all. So can we discuss that?

 

The original post is maybe like... 10% about the 'softlocks', and it really doesn't read like you're having fun with the wad in general. Maybe you are, though, and it didn't come through in the post -- either way, folks are going to respond to that, 'cause it's there.

 

I do think a lot of this frustation stems from the "100% or bust" mindset though -- if you're locked into that way of thinking, then flaws like these (annoying as they are) will become showstoppers. If you are having fun with Scythe 2 except for this issue, then it's worth breaking the cycle before it drags down the experience for other wads. Embrace the double-digit percentages until your second or third replay.

[fruity lerlups]

2 minutes ago, Xaser said:

 

The original post is maybe like... 10% about the 'softlocks', and it really doesn't read like you're having fun with the wad in general. Maybe you are, though, and it didn't come through in the post -- either way, folks are going to respond to that, 'cause it's there.

 

I do think a lot of this frustation stems from the "100% or bust" mindset though -- if you're locked into that way of thinking, then flaws like these (annoying as they are) will become showstoppers. If you are having fun with Scythe 2 except for this issue, then it's worth breaking the cycle before it drags down the experience for other wads. Embrace the double-digit percentages until your second or third replay.

the difficulty is one thing, its just that dissappointment that at the end of it all, i couldn't march back, see the slaughter i left behind me, and finish up. I'll admit, there's something cathartic about that 100% kills 100% secrets.

[fruity lerlups]

Come to think of it one of my favourite things in really challenging maps is that cathartic march through the graveyard you left behind, where it was once loud it is now quiet, so I feel like getting to backtrack through the map is a huge part of my enjoyment of a really tough level, thats one of the reasons I like that final cleanup and look for secrets, i like that final breather. I think thats what I kinda feel like I missed out on in level 23, just kinda makes me feel, satisfied.

[Amaruψ]

Well, in my case it more or less depends upon the severity of a fight. I don't consider myself to be a great player, so I end up trying to save up my resources as best as I can. If it's a small map where a particular secret would've just made the fights simpler, it's alright. But if I'm conserving my resources in a large fight and the map designer pulls a dick move of locking me out of secrets once the fight has initiated, it doesn't resonate with me whatsoever.

 

There's a particular map in Alien Vendetta (I can't remember the name, but I remember a massive caco-cloud over a nukage pool) where there's a megasphere sitting a top of a crate. The fight was long and I ended up using up a tonne of resources in the map, and once I've had the area wiped clean, I was ready to move on forward. But here's the kick in the teeth; that particular megasphere requires an arch-vile jump, specifically with the arch-vile that I ended up killing because I didn't know if that was the case. Things as such frustrate me to no end, since now I'm out of luck because I don't have anymore medikits to resort to, nor any way to reach the supposed "reward". 

 

So yeah... it's a bit situational for me.

[Jayextee]

31 minutes ago, fruity lerlups said:

For me going for 100% kills and secrets makes me engage with it and get to enjoy every fight that the mapper intended

Emphasis mine.

How do you know what the mapper intends? I made a megaWAD last year where my intention as a mapper was that players weren't going to be seeing the exit and then backtracking to fastidiously search through the map with a fine-tooth comb to get all the secrets; so I untagged them. I even stated my intentions to that end.

The result? There was some tiring discussion on the WAD's forum thread with posts saying that my decision, as a mapper, to make my maps, that I created, the way I wanted and intended, was wrong because I didn't tag the secrets.

Why not just stop pretending like your FOMO is mapper's intent, huh?

[Amaruψ]

3 minutes ago, Jayextee said:

Why not just stop pretending like your FOMO is mapper's intent, huh?

 

Indeed.

 

One must play the way they intent to, not the way the mapper intents. Not everybody shares the same interests and thus, not everybody is guaranteed to have fun playing a map "the way the mapper intended to" in general.

 

As a mapper, I want the person to enjoy the map in whichever way they want to. Spice it up with weapon mods? Go for it. Hook up Brutal Doom with it? I don't mind in the slightest. Added an up-scaled texture pack? Do it champ. As long as others are having fun with what I made, I don't give a damn about my own intent.

Edited May 20, 2024 by Amaruψ

[fruity lerlups]

6 minutes ago, Jayextee said:

Emphasis mine.

Why not just stop pretending like your FOMO is mapper's intent, huh?

Ok fine, then its my opinion, that I dislike the type of level design with a point of no return particularly when the secrets are obtuse, for me, getting secrets and kills is part of what I enjoy about the game, I don't feel like I experienced all a mapper put into the map without seeing all of that, so its "my intended way to play", and is my opinion shared by others. Hence why I asked, "does anyone else hate", not "debate: is it objectively wrong", clearly a lot of people don't mind, for me I like to leave no stone unturned, and I think a great reward for toughing it out of a difficult level is to be able to 100% it, thats my opinion. I didn't crap on anyone who felt otherwise, or crap on designers who made this choice, just expressed that I personally found it frustrating. For context this was Map23 of Scythe 2, brutally hard level, and I found myself very deflated at the end when I couldn't backtrack, thats just the way I play. Maybe its just my autism or whatever i guess.

[Jayextee]

Well.

If it makes you feel any better, your completionist POV looks to be common as all hell. So, to address the topic title, yes other people feel like this.

 

Although from one autistic (I have a diagnosis and everything) to another, I don't for one moment think it's an ASD thing. I can't stand the idea of wandering around an empty map wallhumping just to ding a percentage personally; and leave any secret-hunting I might do for second/third/whatever replays. But hey, you do you. I'm just a little peeved when accommodating completionism FOMO is either taken as "mapper's intent" or demanded to be the default.

[fruity lerlups]

11 minutes ago, Amaruψ said:

Things as such frustrate me to no end, since now I'm out of luck because I don't have anymore medikits to resort to, nor any way to reach the supposed "reward". 

 

So yeah... it's a bit situational for me.

This is precisely what bothers me, especially when secrets are particularly obscure which the secrets in Scythe 2 can be pretty damn obscure at times. I do also find it frustrating when secrets completely change the progression/difficulty of a map, for example theres a berserk at the start of Canyon of Blood in Scythe 2 i foolishly missed, and a lot of the early map is very tysonable, so I did find it frustrating, but its worse when its like, ohh you want to kill the 4 cyberdemons at the end, well if you shot the cross at the start of the map then sr50d over the ledge and killed the commander keens hidden out of sight with infinitely tall explosions, you get to telefrag them, simplifying the fight and not forcing you to use the last of your remaining ammo hoping to god you don't run out. How were you meant to know that, ohh some guy analyzed the map in UDB to figure that one out.

[Devalaous]

Everytime this thread/topic pops up, there is always a huge arguement forming between completionists and non-completionists, neither can understand the other's mindset, neither will budge.

 

13 minutes ago, Amaruψ said:

 

Indeed.

 

One must play the way they intent to, not the way the mapper intents. Not everybody shares the same interests and thus, not everybody is guaranteed to have fun playing a map "the way the mapper intended to" in general.

 

As a mapper, I want the person to enjoy the map in whichever way they want to. Spice it up with weapon mods? Go for it. Hook up Brutal Doom with it? I don't mind in the slightest. Added an up-scaled texture pack? Do it champ. As long as others are having fun with what I made, I don't give a damn about my own intent.

 

I appreciate it, I've never liked it when a mapset has shades of a mapper watching over your shoulder, trying to enforce every movement and action. Part of why I am so enamoured with 90s/early 2000s 'wing it' style mapsets

[fruity lerlups]

1 minute ago, Jayextee said:

I'm just a little peeved when accommodating completionism FOMO is either taken as "mapper's intent" or demanded to be the default.

Well for one i'm used to maps allowing me to backtrack and complete them, if you don't want your maps to be like that, thats fine, you do you, but clearly people enjoy this and I think its fair to express the opinion that it is desirable. If a map is designed to be a race to the finish with difficult opposition, then I think it'd be a nice category to communicate that for people who want it, and if a map is designed to be savored for every moment, then that should be communicated to. I personally don't feel that much satisfaction from just scraping by to the end, I want to devour every morsel, thats just me.

[fruity lerlups]

1 minute ago, Devalaous said:

Everytime this thread/topic pops up, there is always a huge arguement forming between completionists and non-completionists, neither can understand the other's mindset, neither will budge.

Well i'll just concede that if you're not a completionist, then maybe the choice to have points of no return are not flaws. We all like different things, I just kinda was taken aback at how sorta, idunno, people talked down to me about this, i didn't expect people to be this heated about it. I suppose there are mappers who have a legitimate grievance with the demand to cater to completionists, I don't want you to feel like you have to change what you do for me, I'm just some kid who likes the challenge. I've already kinda had to pull back on trying to single segment UV-Max stuff, it just became unreasonable :(

[Jayextee]

2 minutes ago, fruity lerlups said:

Well i'll just concede that if you're not a completionist, then maybe the choice to have points of no return are not flaws.

I'd say so, personally. Like, I get the completionist mindset but I feel (as I've said) it's more of a replay value thing than a first-run thing. Points of no return are fine by me; what's not fine is the idea that there are A and B routes (for example) and one of them will lock you off to the content of another, meaning that you absolutely can't 100% the map no matter what.

Although being the obtuse and bitter gremlin I am, maybe I'll make a map like that anyway someday.

[VICE]

 

25 minutes ago, Jayextee said:

Why not just stop pretending like your FOMO is mapper's intent, huh?

I would like to see more maps actually playing with player expectations like that on purpose. ''Post-completionism''.