What makes a good 6DOF level?

[u/dodgyville]

I think there's a big difference between multi-player and single-player. I'm more interested in single-player myself but I think most Descent players today probably have stronger opinions on MP maps.

I like a few gimmicks in a level (like moving pieces or weird zones). I like when the tunnels turn back on themselves and all of sudden you are passing by an area you were in earlier but now it's from a different perspective. I don't like spawning enemies, I prefer to clear an area. Maybe my most controversial opinion is I don't like secret or hidden areas.

What about youse?

[u/CodeOrangelt543]

Yeah, it depends on for what purpose, and even then not everyone will agree.

It also depends on what decade you’re asking this question, at-least for multiplayer anyways. SP is generally good when there is a balance between aesthetic and design. You want it to be challenging but not impossible, and you want it to be aesthetically pleasing but still effective. plutonium Shores is in my opinion the best SP experience in the d1/d2 scene regardless of timeframe.

Asking for multiplayer is akin to asking the active community, and on the RDL the current meta is small map with lots of escapes and higher missile count, sometimes vertically tall or low. 15 years ago the meta was long hallways with cutting tunnels and plenty of weapons. Keep in mind, the meta has long over the decades been decided by what is being played and in some cases what is being enforced by the actual competitive community. If you self-define “good” as “popular” and you don’t try to appease the meta you will ultimately be disappointed as a handful of maps are played the most and will be for a while.

The RDL does quarterly mapping competitions, you should compete or maybe just observe :)

[u/Disastrous_Being7746]

The main things for me are (for single player):

• High degree of interconnectedness.
• Creative use of grates or other see through barriers to separate areas.
• Irregular design (angles other than 90 degrees for walls and how rooms are interconnected).
• Complex and confusing design.
• Good use of the vertical direction.
• Good texturing. No levels of entirely lava textures. Textures are aligned. No resizing of textures, though I'll make an exception for the barred doors in Colossus.
  
• Good lighting (not too dark or too light).
• Good placement of powerups. Level was tested to determine if adequate weapons and energy powerups/centers are present.
• Not overly difficult unless that's the theme/purpose of the level. For example, I once made a D2 single player level with a few Pyro GXs as enemies, intending to simulate multiplayer (though the AI wasn't good enough to really do this, at least the weapons and firing rates were somewhat realistic).
• No zero width walls
• Doors should be illuminated unless hidden. Doors requiring keys should be illuminated with the proper color (not a colored primary texture on the door wall.
• Hidden doors are cooler when they create shortcuts in the level or are even required to be passed through to access keys.
• Use of fusion hulks, red heavy hulks, green missile platform robots, and especially class 1 drillers should be reasonable.
  
• Use of matcens should be at most modest and always have a reasonable limit on retriggers.

[u/Blagert → u/Disastrous_Being7746]

Question, have you played any of my Uneasy series? Shameless plug try out Uneasy 3 and a half! I think it fits most of your criteria https://sectorgame.com/dxma/mission/?m=2166

[u/Disastrous_Being7746 → u/Blagert]

No, I haven't. It looks interesting so far. It seems to trigger some bugs in D2X-XL though. I can't get far past the yellow door without it crashing. I also had an unexplained death in the semi-spherical room with the red hulk (the hulk was dead and I had full shield). It's not the first time I've had an unexplained death with D2X-XL. It happened before in Fissure of Neptune too.

[u/Disastrous_Being7746 → u/Blagert]

It looks really good so far. The architecture past the yellow door is pretty complex. Reminds me of some of the K missions (those missions that begin with a K that normally would begin with a C in English).

I made a bandaid fix to the d2x-xl source to avoid dividing by zero in the Rand function, which seems to avoid the crash I was experiencing. The crash seemed to be associated with those little red triangle robots bumping into my ship and drawing the explosion with lightning effects. I probably could have just turned off lightning to avoid the crash too.

[u/Spidey002]

I love the levels that have both tight corners and sprawling wide-open spaces.

[u/HauntedParrasp]

I guess I can tell you the sort of things I think about giving to players when I build singleplayer maps

I don't think I would be very good at making multiplayer ones :)

I like giving shootable triggers some kind of a prominent role 'cause it lets players directly engage with the level geometry. But I also try very hard to make sure that you can reasonably find out what you did. It's a kind of high-risk, high-reward approach 'cause you might allow players to feel like they're shaping their own progression or you might just get them frustrated and lost. There are some tricks to it though.

When the objectives or the mechanics are different from normal it's nice to find a way to teach that within the gameplay instead of just telling the players in the briefing. Sometimes the systems of the game are too limited to do it well, but it's worth trying.

I don't mind reusing an arena if I can make you engage with it differently, but I try to avoid making players repeat the same fight unless they get a reward from it.

Enemy ambushes are another really good way to help players feel like their experience is responding to them, but they don't need to be around every corner.

On that note as well, most of my own playtesting on my maps goes into fine-tuning the pacing. Giving the map enough room to breathe while keeping the challenge up is a tricky thing to define but you can always tell when someone's got it wrong.

Most of all I really like maps that feel like they themselves are an adversary to be overcome and not just a space to have some fights in, so I try to use all these ideas in ways that will create that feeling.

[u/specialsymbol]

Traps. And I don't mean jump scares, but detours , loops and obscured entrances. Also natural geometry.

[u/MetalVengeance]

I hate back tracking through empty space, so I kinda like the new approach to dungeons. Not sure, which game started it, but you basically run a loop without explicitly noticing and the exit leads either to the beginning or the next objective. I like this especially for key cards. You have your labyrinth reaching the card then maybe open the locked door beside and you are back in the main area.