The New DOOM Thread (2016)

[oddech_wymarlych_swiatow]

And this is the major reason modern FPSs suck so much - they don't have any level design to speak of.

I would stomach bad level design if modern shooters done right essential part of fps genre - good gunplay.

 

[DraQ]

HL might have been somewhat more linear than classic shooters, but:

• classic shooters have never been particularly nonlinear anyway.
• HL was also a lot more structured than most shooters out there which was an immensely welcome change that made it easy to overlook any linearity.
  
• HL had actually very solid systems - gunplay, AI - accompanied by very good graphics.

It really depends what you mean by linear vs non-linear. A lot of those maze levels in id and Raven games were non-linear even if you played one after another and even if you had to get keycards in a certain order.

Unless you could choose *how* to beat a level (sometimes you could, but it was rare) all this "nonlinearity" actually amounted to backtracking.
I don't mean to disparage early FPS (Doom engine, Build, etc.) level design, because it was involved, fun, very good in a semi-abstract dungeon crawl sort of way and required player to put some effort into constructing mental models of their surroundings (or would were it not for automap), but their degree of nonlinearity is vastly overrated.

3) A feature doesn't automatically translate into fun. The variety in enemy's battle behaviors in HL was poor.

The fuck are you smoking?

This is just flat out wrong. Marines actually acted almost like people, while headcrabs, zombies, and the little dog things just charged in, then the other aliens had distinct behaviors different from them.

This. If anything Doom had almost no variety of enemy behavours. In HL it was actually one of game's main strengths (and one of the most hyped ones) - not how smart the AI was (it was nice and pretty impressive at the time, but not that ingenious) but how differently enemies behaved.
Marines tried to emulate military tactics, assassins engaged in flanking and hit&run - quite effectively too (BTW: their AI is awfully wrong in Black Mesa), pretty much each type of aliens behaved differently and sometimes even used different senses to track you, vortigaunts could be non-aggressive if not sicced at you and had easily broken morale (running, giving up or pretending to give up only to zap you in the back), houndeyes worked in packs, etc.

The original HL was *THE* go-to game where it came to enemy behaviour variety.

Anyway, regarding level design and other things I noticed that often games that offer greater variety of things are paradoxically accused of having less variety. My explanation for this is that when a game tries to include broader spectrum of something (with 'something' standing for about anything - weapon variety, enemy variety, things happening in levels, etc.) it's easy to further subdivide it into categories and then fixate on just one of them. For example almost every enemy in Doom was essentially a biped (exceptions - souls, tomatoes, spiders) trying to kill you at range (exceptions souls, demons) with colorful projectiles or hitscan. In HL you had maybe 4 such regularly occuring bipeds - BOOO!...t wait that omits all the animal-like aliens, turrets, AH-64, and also omits enemies that are similar enough to be considered "the same" to untrained eye, but different enough to pose different gameplay challenges, for example different types of grunt.

HL might have missed dungeon crawl-esque mazes, but overall it's doing a lot of things in its levels.


Sceptic , anyone interested
You might find this interesting enough:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/131815/the_cabal_valves_design_process_.php

I'm always quite surprised when people say that Half Life 1&2 are "Herald of the Decline". There have been countless discussion about the subject, but as far as I can see HL 1&2 are anything but the forefathers of the modern retarded shooter.

Sure, they introduced the "scripted" events, but they were in HL1 quite small, set-pieces that could even be lost or ignored, bar in some specific cases. Let's see....

A lot of scripting was just to telegraph the nature of dangers and not have players learn by dying which is awful design. At very few points did it actually take control away from the player.

1) Level Design. Anyone that says that HL1 had "realistic" level design has not played it recently. A ton of HL1 levels have only graphics that make them seem "realistic", but they don't make any sense in a real building. Factories work as platforming sections, parking lots and hangars are well-built arenas with different enemies and enviromental hazards. Even HL2 mantains some of the "game" logic of his forefather. I'll freely admit that they are less creative than Doom Levels, but fights in HL1 are anything but CoD script fests.

Well, I always assume it to mean "...compared to DOOM". And yeah, scripting in HL is thankfully more of a background thing. As it should be.

3) Plot, dear god plot. If I read this thread, Half Life seems to be Planescape: Torment. God, Marathon has a more complex and interesting plot than Half Life. And its levels also follow a somewhat plot-dictated progression (you have to board the Phfor ship, for example). HL plot started to became a cancer in the Episodes, when they attempted to sell "emotional engagement" for whatever reason. All the other crap? Xen? Missile silos? Labs? Slave to gameplay. See Opposing Forces and the ton new enemies thrown in to enhance the gameplay options.

HL's plot is only worth mentioning by how well it's told by gameplay.

4) Half Life 2 is the last gasp of the traditional PC shooter. There is a reason there has not been a sequel: the genre is dead. HL2 with all its problems had still a lot of characteristics of the "traditional PC shooter". I get the impression that it's rather nice to hate it, but we see the last gasp of a dying genre and we point it as the culprit. Rather peculiar. If HL was the creator of the Decline, why we don't have sequels and the Episodes died quietly? And why we have CoD 11 or 12 and countless Halo clones?

Well, HL2 was a regression in many ways - pattern attacking enemies, super-durable protagonist, weak enemy missiles, less variety. I still liked it, but it had some failings.

Half Life 2 was one of the last specimens of what I like to call "the Second Generation" of PC shooters, that had titles from Shogo to AvP2 to Jedi Outcast to the first Fear, to -sigh- Unreal 2. Different from the traditional and God-given proper FPS of the early-mid '90, but still somewhat creative in design.

I know what you mean, but have some trouble placing some games in their generations.

Strife and System Shock were probably the earliest 2nd gen games, but what about Unreal or Build games? 1.5?
Also "sigh" should have been "barf".

And this is the major reason modern FPSs suck so much - they don't have any level design to speak of.

I would stomach bad level design if modern shooters done right essential part of fps genre - good gunplay.

If I had to list three FPS games with exceptional gunplay they would be System Shock 1, Half-Life 1 and STALKER SoC.

 

[otsego]

I just found this beauty at a thrift store

Perhaps I should send it to Beth HQ?

 

[shihonage]

You can't fix stupid.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Hah, Doom 3. What a clusterfuck of decline. Tight, linear levels.

Yes, but it would be somehow okayisch if it has coop (though a 3d party mod gave that feature).

The levels offer barely enough room for one player, let alone two.

 

[resilient sphere]

This is just flat out wrong. Marines actually acted almost like people, while headcrabs, zombies, and the little dog things just charged in, then the other aliens had distinct behaviors different from them.

This. If anything Doom had almost no variety of enemy behavours. In HL it was actually one of game's main strengths (and one of the most hyped ones) - not how smart the AI was (it was nice and pretty impressive at the time, but not that ingenious) but how differently enemies behaved.

You're totally right in some ways, but at the same time having complicated enemies proves to dilute shooter gameplay - all of a sudden you can't have as many mobs acting on screen as Doom could, plus the variety of the enemies is such that they look ridiculous when encountered together... Half-Life's dramatic choices slow the game down in more ways than just its cutscenes! If you watch the very best Doom players tackle absurd enemy packed maps, they're in free flow, creating tactics to handle the slaughter PRECISELY BECAUSE the enemies are so simple in behaviour. It'd be save-loady and frustrating if Imps had a 25% chance of hiding behind cover or throwing a grenade instead of being imps and frankly it adds nothing to an action game apart from making corridor-based set-piece shooters like Half Life slightly less repetitive.

 

[retardation]

Doom 3 had pretty dense atmosphere and you could feel the horror seeping into the Martian base.
With Doom 4, I don't know what's the point - they already showed the main gimmick, the hell level design. Glowing shit dropping out of the enemies is ridiculous. As already noted, it actually looks like Quake.

 

[vonAchdorf]

Doom 3 had pretty dense atmosphere and you could feel the horror seeping jump scaring into the Martian base.

Fixed that for you.

Glowing shit dropping out of the enemies is ridiculous

 

[Astral Rag]

it actually looks like Quake.

?

 

[retardation]

it actually looks like Quake.

?

?

 

[Lyric Suite]

The game is basically Doom 3 2.0 with less shadows and moar Wolfenstein: The New Order. Nobody during development probably even took the originals under consideration. For them "old school" Doom means Doom 3. After all, it was the Xbox one, the first Xbox being when gaming first started, as we all know.

 

[racofer]

You can't fix stupid.

Actually...

 

[Unkillable Cat]

You can't fix stupid.

Actually...

There aren't enough bullets in the world to fix stupid.

Doesn't mean that we shouldn't try, though...

 

[AN4RCHID]

 

[Jaesun]

Other people use the term Popamole?

I thought the codex was a unique snowflake.

 

[Love]

I finished Doom 3 some time ago again with the expansion this time around. I can see the weaknesses the game has with it's teleporting of enemies or others being spawned after crossing a certain trigger always directly in your back (and mostly also in your front), but the core values of a good shooter are still shining through. The choice of weapons isn't bloated, but each and everyone is diverse enough in comparison to both modern and old games and everyone has its favorite from the ultimate satisfactory of the always ready shotgun to the plasma gun brightening up your mood and the room with its shots.
Every enemy type wants its own tactical approach and most of them won't be just rushed easily. The levels were pretty moody and Alpha- to Delta-Labs might be unimaginative, but this game had one of the finest and most careful world building. Every machinery you saw had it's function in that world and everything amounted to a big toolchain described to you in detail in logs.

I think Doom 3 was the logical step after Quake. Did you expect another arena like shooter filled with hordes of enemies like the first two Doom games? Is that, what would have made it a good sequel? Instead of Doom 3 id Software should have done Serious Shit Sam?
There are many traps reminiscent of those in the old games, when you get locked in some room filled with monsters. But those parts didn't receive any good words. So what did you expect to be better in Doom 3? Levels designed by John Romero?

 

[T. Reich]

I finished Doom 3 some time ago again with the expansion this time around. I can see the weaknesses the game has with it's teleporting of enemies or others being spawned after crossing a certain trigger always directly in your back (and mostly also in your front), but the core values of a good shooter are still shining through. The choice of weapons isn't bloated, but each and everyone is diverse enough in comparison to both modern and old games and everyone has its favorite from the ultimate satisfactory of the always ready shotgun to the plasma gun brightening up your mood and the room with its shots.
Every enemy type wants its own tactical approach and most of them won't be just rushed easily. The levels were pretty moody and Alpha- to Delta-Labs might be unimaginative, but this game had one of the finest and most careful world building. Every machinery you saw had it's function in that world and everything amounted to a big toolchain described to you in detail in logs.

I think Doom 3 was the logical step after Quake. Did you expect another arena like shooter filled with hordes of enemies like the first two Doom games? Is that, what would have made it a good sequel? Instead of Doom 3 id Software should have done Serious Shit Sam?
There are many traps reminiscent of those in the old games, when you get locked in some room filled with monsters. But those parts didn't receive any good words. So what did you expect to be better in Doom 3? Levels designed by John Romero?

Your apologist bullshit won't make Doom 3 any good.

 

[Great Deceiver]

I think Doom 3 was the logical step after Quake. Did you expect another arena like shooter filled with hordes of enemies like the first two Doom games? Is that, what would have made it a good sequel? Instead of Doom 3 id Software should have done Serious Shit Sam?
There are many traps reminiscent of those in the old games, when you get locked in some room filled with monsters. But those parts didn't receive any good words. So what did you expect to be better in Doom 3? Levels designed by John Romero?

If you're equating Doom to Serious Sam, you don't have the slightest clue about what Doom's design strengths are.

 

[shihonage]

I think Doom 3 was the logical step after Quake. Did you expect another arena like shooter filled with hordes of enemies like the first two Doom games? Is that, what would have made it a good sequel? Instead of Doom 3 id Software should have done Serious Shit Sam?
There are many traps reminiscent of those in the old games, when you get locked in some room filled with monsters. But those parts didn't receive any good words. So what did you expect to be better in Doom 3? Levels designed by John Romero?

Is this a CyberP alt? The level of stupidity is the same.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Obvious troll is obvious. Nobody can really be that stupid. Doom 3 had non-existent level design (just walk in a straight line for 30+ levels or however many there were, expect for that one time where you get to chose two alternative ways to walk in a straight line), and extremely slow movement which is the only reason enemies cannot be "rushed easily".

Ho, and speaking of the logs. What purpose did that shit actually serve? In System Shock 2, you have an actually interesting plot you can piece together by going through those audio logs. In Doom 3, the whole plot is revealed to you after five fucking minutes you are into the game. Evil crazy scientist working on some kind of teleporting technology opens a gateway to hell and suddenly there's demons everywhere. Great. You actually see that happening with your very eyes. So what's the point of going through log after log of people reporting "strange things" or erratic behavior? Ho, some lab technician heard creepy whispering? Far out man. Demons must be coming or some shit.

But really. Did Doom 3 do a few things better than modern shooters? Possibly i guess. Yeah, it had classic FPS weaponry, though slow movement made the word gun "play" a contradiction. More like step out of a corner and hope the enemy dies before you run out of stamina and cannot doge its attacks anymore. Yes, it had HL1 style cinematics, which unlike modern cinematics were at least unobtrusive. Yes, it had stunning looking environments filled with an extremely large amount of detail the wonderment of which kinda wears out after a while anyway. Yes, it still kind of feels like an actual game, however vaguely, which i guess makes it better than Call of Duty. What else? It was 2004, and we still weren't completely conscious of the decline, which made us more tolerant to this kind of shit? Ho ok, game is kinda shit, but better luck next time, right? If only we knew...

 

[Love]

Obvious troll is obvious. Nobody can really be that stupid. Doom 3 had non-existent level design (just walk in a straight line for 30+ levels or however many there were, expect for that one time where you get to chose two alternative ways to walk in a straight line), and extremely slow movement which is the only reason enemies cannot be "rushed easily".

The non-existent level design is that of a basic corridor shooter, which isn't that surprising because the game is trying to build an atmosphere that way. Sometimes you don't have much space to maneuver and sometimes you got a bigger spot you can't see shit in so you're struggling between your flashlight or your shotgun. I think every encounter is accounted for with tentacle marines coming at you from a distance in long stretches or big halls with cacodemons over marines, down to the frightening appearances of hell knights or the annoying revenants. It's not a big open environment, but a pretty depressing and controlled one. You can ignore all the things build around you including the logs, because it's all there for the atmosphere and some extra stuff.
It certainly is no example to show how open levels can be, but it hasn't been the only example at that time around. Return To Castle Wolfenstein leads you through wider paths, but the levels seem much more empty compared to Doom 3 and although it is another prime example of a game that turned away from its roots as much, it doesn't even get half the flak for it. If you had played it and saw the previews for Doom 3 you must have had a good picture at what it was going for. F.E.A.R. also sets the player into a much tighter area.

I get the the disappointment, that of all studios id had to go with a slow player too, which nobody would notice today since it has been the standard ever since, but still this all reads like it boils down to the level design. I mentioned Serious Sam, because many in this thread have lamented the departure from the open areas filled with enemies and at the time Serious Same went for that and so it is a reference of what games with that design would have looked like. Still I'm left with the question what people expected from Doom 3.
Also it didn't have cinematics like Half Life. Every new enemy type was introduced in a trailer as were the story bits.

 

[DraQ]

The non-existent level design is that of a basic corridor shooter, which isn't that surprising because the game is trying to build an atmosphere that way.

Now that I think about it, being stuck in a corridor shooter would indeed feel quite hellish.

 

[TheGreatOne]

https://twitter.com/RatCasket/status/610478646499766273

Why haven't developers learned from 9 years of Xbox 360 development that graybrown filters, motion blur and other modern "visual enhancements" look like shit?

 

[Cassidy]

The only good thing about Doom 3 is that its engine made the creation of the True Thief 4 possible.

Nice photoshop.

Hey, if Diablo3 got away with butchering its visual style into something generic and retarded, then they can, too.

The retarded customer base has no discernment.

I bet less than 1% of those who will purchase D00M 4 ever played Doom or Doom 2.

 

[shihonage]

https://twitter.com/RatCasket/status/610478646499766273

Why haven't developers learned from 9 years of Xbox 360 development that graybrown filters, motion blur and other modern "visual enhancements" look like shit?

Hey, if Diablo3 got away with butchering its visual style into something generic and retarded, then they can, too.

The retarded customer base has no discernment.