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[GrimmC]

I have to admit, I haven't played much of the new version, so maybe this has changed. Just slap me if I'm wrong.

As it is right now, DoomRL lacks of a couple of things that gave Doom its essential flavor. One of the biggest is that the levels are a little, well, predictable. Currently, a typical DoomRL level plays as such: You blast your way through the waves of enemies, who are probably gathering in the center of the level, wait for the all-clear message, and then hunt for loot. Not too much variation.

But in Doom (and especially episode 1), you never knew what was going to happen. A classic example is E1M7. All throughout the level, the player sets off triggers as he hunts the keys. The level is constantly refilling with enemies as secret rooms open up.

I propose two ideas:

1) Bind certain items to room triggers. Already, there is a mini-feature where a switch opens up a vaults. Vaults filled with enemies/loot also exist. So this would use a similar mechanism: Sometimes, when exotics/rares spawn, they will be tied a room full of enemies. When you grab it, walls will lower; perhaps rooms on either side of you, perhaps elsewhere in the level. Perhaps the item in question will be somehow "prominently" placed in the room as well. This will recreate the feeling of nabbing some loot and having enemies flood in. (i.e., E1M9).

2) Late-level enemies. When you finish all the visible enemies, instead of getting, "You feel relatively safe now," you get a new message: "You feel strangely uneasy..." Somewhere on the level, somewhere from one to ? rooms filled with baddies have opened up. While hiding, they could be "silent", not making any active noises. To further spice it up, the stairs could be hidden in one of the rooms.

I see this most easily implemented in the Small Rooms layout, but it could be placed anywhere. Some of the rooms would have their doors removed and presto, there you go. I would see this happening fairly often as well.

Mostly these would be used in the first half of the game, Phobos Base. This would help break up the pseudo-monotony the first half sometimes has. Plus, the Hellbase levels tend to be a little too intense to further punish the player.

Finally, I'd like to take the chance to plug two of my other ideas: :P

http://forum.chaosforge.org/index.php/topic,4274.msg35186.html#msg35186
http://forum.chaosforge.org/index.php/topic,4284.msg35251.html#msg35251

[tehtmi]

I think the problem of enemies not being encountered throughout the level exploration has been mitigated somewhat by the new AI, but these ideas certainly stand.

To me, number 1 is great. Although, I think it may be easier to have the enemies teleport in rather than having a wall open, as fitting things into the map/rooms is troublesome when dealing with a variety of random generation algorithms, and none were designed with inaccessible areas in mind.

For number 2, the motivation is okay, but I'm less excited by it. Again, doing it with rooms rather than teleporting/spawning would be a pain.

Edit: I guess I should try to explain why I don't like 2 as much. Some reasons are maybe that triggers that occur after all enemies are killed could be annoying, and that they are easily avoidable anyway.

(P.S. Light amplification visor already has a good chance of appearing in a future version.)

[Drone]

So basically adding a keycard system similar to what doom levels had is what you're suggesting?

[Malek Deneith]

To me, number 1 is great. Although, I think it may be easier to have the enemies teleport in rather than having a wall open, as fitting things into the map/rooms is troublesome when dealing with a variety of random generation algorithms, and none were designed with inaccessible areas in mind.

Actually we could use "teleporting" to simulate "opening rooms", example:

Code: [Select]

#######
#YYYYY#
#XXXXX#
#.....#
#.....+
#.....#
#XXXXX#
#YYYYY#
#######

"X" and "Y" tiles would be walls but with different ID. Upon triggering the event both would be transmuted to floor tiles, and "Y" positions would have monsters teleported into them. Of course one big problem with this is that with DoomRL maps being what they are (i.e. filled completely) such setup is pretty damn transparent. Perhaps it'd be better left for DoomRL2, considering it is to have bigger maps.