regenerating health and loadouts
Mar 4, 2021 17:47:50 GMT -5
Post by 40oz on Mar 4, 2021 17:47:50 GMT -5
regenerating health and loadouts are just cushions for bad level design. It takes the onus off the game designers and puts it on the player.
You don't have the right weapons? You don't have enough health? You're not playing the game right, buddy.
In Doom 1 and 2, item pickups validate secret areas and reward exploration. But most importantly, the level designer has a super power to influence a range of feelings for the player by the way they give and deny important pickups. A level with lots of item pickups and early super weapons provokes a very aggressive player. A level with very little ammo and health draws a very cautious and suspenseful 'survival' experience. Giving the player weapons and items incrementally in their hierarchal order in line with incrementally more powerful monsters provokes a very triumphant "levelling up" style of gameplay.
Games in which players pick their loadouts and can infinitely recover their health generally make for fine game. A game that is safe from the pitfalls of poor design and not enough testing. But that safety has the setback of guaranteeing a gameplay experience that is mostly flat on a level-to-level basis. There's a significant dynamicism that's lost in games with these gameplay mechanics that makes Doom (and other retro shooters of the era) difficult to imitate today.
I appreciate that Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal dove head-first into the super fast aggressive gameplay. The glory kill health recovery, and ammunition supply drops you get from chainsawing enemies adds a new layer of danger to what was once the old health regen system pioneered by games like Halo. This new system is intense, but it remains "flat" in the sense that all combat scenarios are more or less the same. You could put the player inside of a giant cube with infinite monster spawns, and the gameplay will feel about the same as it would feel anywhere else. The gameplay mechanics play itself.
The more I design levels for Doom, the more I understand the relationship between the players and the item pickups I leave for them. I think item placement can make or break a map. People don't like to run out of ammo or health, but the feeling I get inside someone elses map, in which my fate lies in the designers hands and not in the fixed gameplay mechanics itself makes for a very compelling gameplay experience that shifts in waves of anxiety and relief depending on the type of level designer who made it.
You don't have the right weapons? You don't have enough health? You're not playing the game right, buddy.
In Doom 1 and 2, item pickups validate secret areas and reward exploration. But most importantly, the level designer has a super power to influence a range of feelings for the player by the way they give and deny important pickups. A level with lots of item pickups and early super weapons provokes a very aggressive player. A level with very little ammo and health draws a very cautious and suspenseful 'survival' experience. Giving the player weapons and items incrementally in their hierarchal order in line with incrementally more powerful monsters provokes a very triumphant "levelling up" style of gameplay.
Games in which players pick their loadouts and can infinitely recover their health generally make for fine game. A game that is safe from the pitfalls of poor design and not enough testing. But that safety has the setback of guaranteeing a gameplay experience that is mostly flat on a level-to-level basis. There's a significant dynamicism that's lost in games with these gameplay mechanics that makes Doom (and other retro shooters of the era) difficult to imitate today.
I appreciate that Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal dove head-first into the super fast aggressive gameplay. The glory kill health recovery, and ammunition supply drops you get from chainsawing enemies adds a new layer of danger to what was once the old health regen system pioneered by games like Halo. This new system is intense, but it remains "flat" in the sense that all combat scenarios are more or less the same. You could put the player inside of a giant cube with infinite monster spawns, and the gameplay will feel about the same as it would feel anywhere else. The gameplay mechanics play itself.
The more I design levels for Doom, the more I understand the relationship between the players and the item pickups I leave for them. I think item placement can make or break a map. People don't like to run out of ammo or health, but the feeling I get inside someone elses map, in which my fate lies in the designers hands and not in the fixed gameplay mechanics itself makes for a very compelling gameplay experience that shifts in waves of anxiety and relief depending on the type of level designer who made it.