Topic: Lessons from Doom

[idolminds]

Lessons from Doom

I swear I saw this before and posted it but a search didn't bring it up. Anyway, you remember the dude that worked on Bioshock 2 and made a Doom map conversion? He wrote a cool little article there on lessons Doom can still teach us about game and level design.

Doom is about “maneuverability as defense”

In almost every modern FPS, the player moves fairly slowly and a huge proportion of enemies are equipped with instant hit attacks – pistols, machine guns, sniper rifles. This usually puts the player in the role of “damage sponge” – they’re intended to soak up a certain amount of damage from mostly unavoidable enemy attacks, then seek cover and heal up. Halo’s recharging shield makes this mechanic quite explicit – by default, you’re exposed to damage and will die, while seeking cover halts that and completes the basic cycle of any combat.

Contrast all this with Doom Guy, who runs at about 50 scale miles per hour – nonsensically fast by modern standards. Most of Doom’s enemies don’t have instant-hit projectile attacks, and most of the ones that do are quite weak – the lowly trooper and sergeant. Every other enemy projectile takes time to reach its target, and would look comical in a more realistic visual presentation.

So because the player moves so quickly in Doom, and because most enemy attacks are dodgeable, the player can avoid a significant amount of damage simply by moving. A skilled player can often deal with large numbers of enemies sustaining hardly a scratch. This creates a feeling that’s quite rare in modern FPS: that you are powerful because you are agile, not because you’re a tank. This frees up Doom’s encounters to feature huge numbers of enemies, to vary scenarios by mixing in different proportions of threats, and to have huge, sprawling, often non-linear spaces that the player can traverse easily. There’s nothing quite like it today.

More good stuff within.

[W7RE]

I found this last night on NeoGAF and read it this morning, some pretty good stuff in there.

The thread on GAF is a total fucking mess though. It started with someone posting the "1993 fps map design vs 2010 fps map design" picture, and somehow everyone who comes into the thread is posting multiplayer maps to defend the linearity of modern fps.

EDIT: Here's the pic:

[Cobra951]

In almost every modern FPS, the player moves fairly slowly and a huge proportion of enemies are equipped with instant hit attacks – pistols, machine guns, sniper rifles. This usually puts the player in the role of “damage sponge” – they’re intended to soak up a certain amount of damage from mostly unavoidable enemy attacks, then seek cover and heal up.

Heh, Borderlands.  Wide open landscape (most of the time) but damn, it's impossible to avoid getting pelted.  Damage sponge seems the only way to get through.  Or worse, rushing into the mob and letting yourself get "killed" so you can kill something nearby while bleeding out and get a second wind (full shield, quarter life).  This game loves to keep you mobbed.  There is no way to avoid in-your-face combat.  All non-humans move way faster than you.  Lillith looks promising with her phasewalk, but I'm not far with that character yet.

Thing is, I instinctively tried to play Borderlands as I would Doom, and got nowhere fast.  You can't sprint sideways, though dodging shots from enemies in front is not so hard.  Anyway, I couldn't help thinking about this, since I'm heavily into the game right now.

Edit:  Interesting read.  Thanks for posting it.

[idolminds]

Haha, that thread on Neogaf is hilarious. And sad.

Like that one blog suggest, Doom could be called 3d Robotron given the design of the game. Enemies were dumb and more or less simply rushed the player so player tactics were really shallow. Most of the game was spent walking backwards and dodging left and right while shooting like crazy.

Jesus, do they even teach reading comprehension anymore?

[idolminds]

Speaking of hilarious, that thread brought us this:

[W7RE]

I would love to see someone try to tackle doom-esque map design in something that is otherwise more like modern games. Not that everything else about newer FPS is better, but it would be interesting to see someone get it done. Like aiming down a gun's sights. I know, it makes no sense from a gameplay perspective to have to press/hold a button to aim, but I find snapping in and out of iron sights mode to be strangely satisfying. I think it's tricking my mind into thinking it's more tactical.

[MysterD]

There are places in the world for different styles of games.

There's room for linear corridor on-the-line shooters like COD, Max Payne, HL2, etc.
There's room for open-world experiences like STALKER and GTA4.
There's room for games w/ maps that look like something out of an old Id-style Doom game.