Details of detailed maps

It'd be interesting to see you make a map with a limited amount of textures, look at lunchlunch's 10x10 mapset that only has 10 textures and flats per map, it has tons of details and still looks crazy despite the limitation.

i.imgur.com/rQCp5cR.png

MegaPancakeStrategist
I like your mapping very much. I suggest that you continue cultivating and developing your style.

underthevolcano Oh yeah I see what you mean when it comes to places like that. Somehow I totally forgot about maps like these but those environments do get raw with being intentionally contrasting (but not in an explicitly ugly way at least not ugly to me). Recently I've wanted to make more maps with that look and wanting to keep in touch with my "roots" though maybe there wasn't a need to if I've just been turning the dial on that kind of texturing back and forth all along which I can see a case for.

joe-ilya Sounds like a good enough reason as any to make another map so I may yet try that out even if I have a stigma against limits.

lunchlunch It is part of that WAD's theme but it is an explicit example of what's meant by that explanation. The detail in Luminescent Synapse does make up a part of the experience atmosphere-wise but I'd like to think it's more about the layout and map balance since that's what makes it special if every map can have such detail. If I make another sandbox city map like that then that's what it will be compared to and I hope it will be different enough so I won't feel bad if someone says that map was better :y

kvsari Thanks I've recently been trying to incorporate damaging sectors to make up for a lack of that core part of the Doom experience and learning my way to design around them.

@panurge Yeah that makes sense. I admit that part of what brought this on was that as successful A;Z was there hasn't been any new, real analysis on my maps in those paragraphs of text in the way that those Doomworld mods write sometimes. Asking for not just praise but about what makes them praiseworthy in the first place or criticism you can only find on /vr/ these days. As funny as it is seeing such a unique WAD being ignored I would like to read someone's retrospective eventually.

EDIT: Though enough feedback over time has been given that its made up for it and I've learned quite a bit taking it all in about the project and reflecting upon it. Sometimes I'm just not sure about where to go from here after making a lot of maps ya' know?

I love the detail. Its your own signature style that sets you apart. It makes your Doom maps feel like BUILD maps -- and that's a huge compliment.

Not a particular jab at you, cuppy. But you see, that's the kind of thing that i've tried (and failed miserably) to convey on The death of reviews thread - i think that some of you guys are trapped or even addicted to feedback loops. It seems that people playing, enjoying and posting gameplay footage of your content isn't enough. It has to be more.. it has to be dissected like a frog and it's insides displayed on a table with each part being carefully cataloged. And the one behind the scalpel must be a relevant figure. That is pretty dangerous, imo.

This doesn't feel right. I'm not saying that my position on this is correct and yours is wrong. No, to each his own. It just seems that very few people even try to see past this. You enter a Doom community and you are bombarded with this approach, so you assume that it has to be the wae things roll. But why?

It's that hard to not care that much for this kinda of stuff? It's that strange to not a give a shit about what x or y blog, yt channel or whatever tells about your craft? Idk, if maybe because i'm something of a outsider that got into Doom way too late.. but i feel like the very doom fanbase that created such amazing content over the years is rapidily transforming this fantastic hobby into a business model - and the profit they seek is more, more and more feedback. More glory from the right people at the right place, if you catch my drift.

To make an analogy to retro games; there's two main mindsets that i often perceive when watching speedrun streams or level design critics. The first is the type of person that picks a game and play around it's quirks. The person may not like the way your character knocks back in the said game, or lack recovery frames or have some weird collision box, wathever.. but he or she accept that and move on. The second type is the person who will not let any of that slide, he or she will complain about it endlessly and say that those devs should have known better and not implemented such asinine things in the game to begin with. Often recurring to a anachronistic or revisionist stance to ground it's criticism. I have my fun watch them complain, but to take them seriously? Pff, hell no.

I'm more of the former type; i don't expect that every single platformer i play to have smooth controls like Super Marion Bros. I don't expect every single metroidvania to be as polished as Hollow Knight. I prefer to experience what the team's vision behind the game managed to deliver in the final product. Along with it's inevitable flaws. Doom maps? Same thing. Not saying that playtesting don't have it's place, of course it does. But how far are you gonna sever your style for more acceptance? How many risks are you willing to take in the end?

To put A;Z into perspective, the gameplay you aimed for in your maps clicks better with me than, for example, 40oz's maps. But i don't think that Financial or Sunset Plaza are inferior maps compared to Mega-City Vengeance. I enjoy each of them for what they are. Financial is fun to play in a different way than Luminecent Synapse is, for example. And i hope that things stay that way; you've got your style, forty got he's and as long as none push theirs as the definitive wae things should be done it's all good in my books. For me the real meat always lies within the gameplay. In the end i see map detailing as just a way to better convey a place or to transport the player into a piece of the author's mind.. being the mind of a normie or the mind of a lunatic, i'm fine with it either way.

MegaPancakeStrategist

I've liked your style since I played Spiral Edge when it was new. It's busy, all over the place - and that goes not only for the texture scheme, but for the gameplay as well. Walls open up left and right, barrels, a multitude of enemies and everything is in your face. It's the cheese grater experience and I like it.

As I'm coming back to dooming after a long absence one thing stands out to me and that is how varied the doom maps are. Obviously, there are trends in everything and many authors try to mimic some style or the other, but no-one makes exactly the same kind of maps as someone else. The personal touch is always there, and I think it's a great strength when so many are interested in making maps. One might not enjoy what everyone is offering (I sure don't), but sooner or later you will find something to your liking if you look hard enough.



skyr
Aarrrgh!
Options->Display Options->Texture Filter Mode: NONE



That's interesting, as that would be the opposite to what I would describe your maps as. I find that they remind me of a "new car". Sleek, clean and functional. No unnecessary parts or questionable design choices. I could probably go so far as to say they're objectively good from a gameplay perspective. I'm more of an "old car guy" myself though - The less polished maps have so much more character even though they are rusty and the transmission breaks down every few miles.

I like how after playing many DBPs, I start noticing certain authors styles and definitely yours too. So, I'd agree with some saying don't change your style, it's unique. But when we discuss detail, I don't mind the very detailed stuff, it's just that yours has a mix of a big variant of different colored textures, that visually I am struggling more to distinguish what's going on in the environment, how I should react to the enemies fast, and navigation of course. They also have some tight spaces which collect all these visual details closer together. Maybe if there were fewer colors together in an area and more consistent with each other, or expand the areas to be more vast, it would be better for the experience. It's not a matter of detail, sometimes I remember highly detailed maps that use certain textures with closer colors together yet they are easier to distinguish the space, but sometimes I like the occasional plain flat wall without too much visual clutter.

I personally enjoy hyperdetailed, texture crazy maps in the yakfak / toooooasty /cupcake vein. They're fun, interesting to look at, and full of nook and crannies that make for great gameplay.

@panurge Aye, I wouldn't say I'm hooked on that kind of addiction (I do try looking for some when I'm bored/procrastinating/having another sleepless night though knowing it's a waste of time and I should go hunt down more MIDIs instead). Part of it is that I've seen such feedback before so it's kind of curious why there hasn't been any since, but it's not worth thinking about beyond just making note. As for so-called relevant figures (the writers I regard in my previous sentence) I don't really have any in mind besides the now-moderators that have talked about my work before or I used to share a few PMs with. You know, before the paradigm/timeline shift

I am thankful for all the feedback I've gotten even if I've stopped responding to some of it as of late (its been a dream come true). As for the rest of your post I don't have much to respond with but I hope I can eventually take you to other cool places in a lunatic's mind. Maybe I'll go play Hollow Knight (when it's on sale).

40oz I admit there is still excessive visual noise in my maps time to time that I let stay because it looks great on the whole even if a new player may be overwhelmed. I don't particularily like the thought of someone playing my map for the first time and being overly cautious not because of the map's difficulty but because it's LSD trip on the inside rife with intimidating technocolors. I liked it when my brain felt some electricity when playtesting my Wishy Wackadoodle map and listening to Final Fantasy XIII-2's Run music. I try to have some matching visual language in my maps and I even think back to lunchlunch 's musings on making atmospheric maps time to time focusing on that point of having recurring visual elements throughout.

Man it'd be weird if more mappers mapped like me. Cool if they got the visual composition plays down, worrying if it's the attention to detail part. I've wanted to teach before so my lectures might be a lot of ramblings; inconsistent but interesting depending on my mood and star alignments.

@olroda2
Hey thanks for remembering Spiral Edge! Sometimes I wonder if I've lost touch with that kind of chaotic gameplay, though that may easily be remedied by just throwing in random lost souls and more explosive barrels of mostly neutral stance. Good to know I have my own little niche carved out for myself (by making the maps I wish to exist of course).

optimus
Thank you these are definitely points for me to think about, though I'm not sure how I'd adapt to those concerns just yet and even then it may hinge upon 40oz 's training wheel resource packs. I've tried to use lighting variation to highlight important parts but perhaps I need a greater contrast in lighting.

@saltator Thank you

lunchlunch Yeah sorry if I seemed desperate (it's not like that really but also not completely untrue D:) but I elaborated on my tangent more in my above response to @panurge  within this post (aaaaaaaaaah!!!).

I am totally guilty of taking mapping too seriously though and most of the time enjoy having mapped rather than the mapping itself. This reality check hurts.

No idea what you're talking about but you sound like a big soybaby if you're upset about a movie spoiler. If you're talking about The Northman, all I said was that there was unapologetic raping and pillaging in it, which I appreciate considering modern sensibilities tend to sanitize these aspects of war within film.
If saying there's "raping and pillaging" in a goddamn viking movie is a spoiler to you, grow up.

re: the validation of myself through doom mapping

I like to watch doom content on twitch and youtube the way some people binge content on netflix or disney plus. Its really nice to have content to watch that is so dearly personalized to my interests. Every DBP is a new season and every player is a different protagonist. its empowering to no longer need subscription-based services when watching people dominate at Doom is what i want to be watching on my couch with my girlfriend in my living room.

A lot of doom content ive watched people play is often a source of frustration and the constant repetition of dying and loading a save to try again at some ridiculously hard part over and over and over is really boring to watch.

I have really fond memories of playing Doom in my teens and exploring all of the classic megawads for a seemingly infinite doom adventure. A lot of people dont get that same experience when all the "popular" wads are too difficult to beat and getting frustrated on stream makes you a magnet for trolls and that sucks. I'd rather create content that people can enjoy without too much effort.

and its really rewarding to see a casual doom player on twitch or youtube get through a DBP of 10-15 maps and be hungry for more. There are plenty to pick from the catalog now, and getting to practice with DBP might help set them up for playing the harder Doom wads out there so they can get a more fulfilling doom experience.

Or i could just be addicted, i dont know.