Why does every modern "old school" fps game insist on having arena battles instead of clever level design with clever...

why does every modern "old school" fps game insist on having arena battles instead of clever level design with clever monster placements? games like heretic are far superior to shit like serious sam

Arenas take a lot less effort to design.

Because consoles can't handle big open-ended levels with proper enemy placement, and developers/publishers don't want to downgrade the visuals to compensate. That's why every FPS these days is either all corridors or arenas.

Also this

Single enemies don't really present that much of a challenge in these types of games. If individual enemies don't pose a threat, then the only way to keep the game exhilarating is to increase the body count. At some point they hit a wall with increasing the body count and opted for just spawning enemies in.

>Single enemies don't really present that much of a challenge in these types of games.
Thats where good level design coupled with good enemy placement comes in.

>At some point they hit a wall with increasing the body count
When was this wall hit? I must have missed it, as body counts only kept going down over the years even in series like Serious Sam which were all about it

Its all a bit subjective, user. One could argue that Heretic's level design is fairly constrained, with a lot of situations are "enemies pop out after grabbing item at the end of a room."

I havent played a lot of heretic but I could compare it to the original dooms instead, particularly doom 2. It has a lot of open areas with a lot of monters but you are never locked in until you kill everything. Plus it also has those tight corridors that heretic has.

It's just more fun to have a big battle with enemies coming from all sides than walking through a level, entering room, killing 3 enemies there, walking into another room...

>walking through a level, entering room, killing 3 enemies there, walking into another room...
that is literally what the arena battle design is you retard, except its 30 instead of 3

When spawning enemies in started to become more common. Having a bunch of enemies just on the level started becoming less and less feasible.

Akshully the arena design is you enter a room/couple of rooms, a distinct battle space that you need to memorize and use to your advantage, usually there are a couple of enemies you kill easily, but then it's locked down and you get enemies spawning, usually in waves, all around you.

And hey, a lot of modern Doom wads do something similar. One thing they like to do instead of locking you away though is just having small maps which open up gradually but keep being dangerous on every square meter. Which is kind of cool.

fairly certain you can strike a balance between the two, not everything has to be a locked arena and not everything has to be a corridor leading to an ambush

>a lot of modern Doom wads do something similar.
Such as? Only slaugher wads do that and they are very different from traditional megawads.

>Only slaugher wads do that
Yeah, I was thinking about those I guess. Not the super-huge ones like Sunder, but more compact ones, they often use space really clever, and really devilish too. Like Going Down, the maps are TINY and pretty much always dangerous, and you have to fight tooth and nail for living space. It's not even fair to compare something like Going Down to original Doom maps though, there's over 20 years of community effort behind the latter.

Slaughter wads have a very specific audience often involving speedrunning or other competitive aspects, they arent very popular with the average doom player. Everyone has tried one or two for fun but they dont have lasting appeal for most players.

Have you played Going Down? It's slaughter-y, but it's not a full on slaughter wad (except maybe for the second secret level). You don't kill tens of thousands of monsters and it doesn't feel tedious, it's not okuplok. I'm not a good Doom player, but I had fun with it.

Never finished it but I did play 15 or so levels. I wouldnt say its slaughter-y in the slightest (maybe it gets that way later) but I can see what you mean because it did have waves of enemies quite often. Although probably not thematically fitting for doom 2016, one such level wouldve been much better than the endless locked arenas.

Also I wanna add that going down is still a great example of good level design coupled with good enemy placements most of the time. It wasnt just a locked arena.

I'm not saying that there's no place for more traditional maps, I'm just saying that arena style design where you can't retreat has its merits. You give up some player freedom for game designer freedom, which can be good if game designer know what he's doing.

I have to admit though, I'm a fan of Serious Sam. I know that's often frowned upon in these discussions, but here's that.

>It wasnt just a locked arena.
Most maps are pretty much one room with some cover in it, I'd call them arenas myself. They're just well made.

>I'm just saying that arena style design where you can't retreat has its merits.
Sure, when used sparingly. Some people really like that design given how (somewhat) popular games like serious sam are. The problem is when locked arenas is all you get.

>Most maps are pretty much one room with some cover in it, I'd call them arenas myself. They're just well made.
No, Id say levels in going down are very distinct from locked arena battles. The small levels, or "arenas" are the entirety of the level and you still have individual monsters alongside bigger wave spawns.

>The problem is when locked arenas is all you get.
I'd say it's only a problem when the game is falsely advertised.
>you still have individual monsters alongside bigger wave spawns
That's what pretty much even the most infamous arena FPS do. Painkiller, Serious Sam, they all have those sort of breather levels and stragglers so you don't get bored. I think D44m has it too, right? I haven't played it yet.

>games like heretic are far superior to shit like serious sam
you don't understand sam at all then, dont even compare it to the shitheap that is Doom 2016

Id wager that arena battles in general are not that popular among fps fans thats why games like painkiller are generally not remembered as fondly. Sure they all have the occasional monster between huge arena battles, doom 2016 has too, but vast majority of fighting is done in the arenas.

I dont think theres anything wrong with liking that sort of combat over the traditional doom formula but it seems lazy design when you dont really get anything else.

Because if the combat is fun, why the fuck would you want to run past everything in the first place?

in a true "old school" fps exploration doesnt get overshadowed by combat. they are equals. and that doesnt mean you should be able to run away from everything either. have you ever played any games lol

Doom 4 rewards you for and encourages you to be aggressive, so having arenas is an extension of making players play in the way that the developers think will give them the best experience.

Nobody but speedrunners does that, what you on about? Even in games where you can ignore all combat without setting it to easy and doing a fuck ton of practice, the vast majority of players don't do it because they are there to have fun not just get from point a to point b.

doom 2016's only crime was its lack of moddability on the same level as classic doom, everything else about it is pretty great

you really swallowed those bullshit PR talking points hook line and sinker.

I played the game and had fun
sorry

Im not convinced an arena is required for aggressive play. Hell I know its not because Ive played a lot of 90s fps games.

That kind of design takes actual effort and time to design. I'm not defending it, I think Doom 2016 was the most overrated game I've played in quite some time, but the reality is developers these days seem to put no real thought or attention to detail in their games, seemingly mostly because of greed and laziness. It doesn't help that Betheshit was involved.

how on earth does a battle arena design require more effort than complex level design with appropriate monster locations?

It's not required but it does force the issue
If they are going to make Doom 5 they should probably throw some arenas in early on to get the point across that you can play like that, then spread out enemies more liberally to keep the flow going

I find arenas rarely to be fun, in doom 2016s case it just so happens that the combat itself is so enjoyable its not that big of a deal. So if we can get even a 50/50 compromise Id be happy.

i think you need to re read his post user

Because arena's were how a lot of old school FPS's were made? So ... games that try to be old school are going to do old school things? I'm not a big fan of it, but the why should be pretty fucking obvious.

old school fps with arena battles
>painkiller
>serious sam
>???

old school fps without arena battles
>doom
>heretic & hexen
>blood
>duke nukem
>shadow warrior
>literally 99% of all "doom clones" from the era

Arenas were extremely rare in oldschool fps games outside of Serious Sam which had a VERY different, exciting take on them compared to toned down dull shit like Painkiller and everything it inspired.

I think you and I have a radically different opinion on what constitutes "arena" that we will never see eye to eye on. I thank you for your time and effort to contribute to this board, goodbye.

I think it might partially be about graphical asset requirements evolving faster than the hardware. NuDoom can handle like 12 enemies active at the same time at most, right? The player can't be allowed to run through the entire map back and forth lest you come up with some clever way to deactivate the enemies that aren't in the relevant space for the player.

When the fuck is Besthesda going to reboot Commander Keen.

arena = locked down until you kill every enemy. dozens spawn in waves. bosses not included

Thats a good point actually.

in dooms case you could have enemies despawn by teleporting away if the player wanders off and then teleport back when the player returns

This, the few maps that featured both arenas and pre-spawned enemies where my favorite and where also the most challenging, i hope they feature more of that if a sequel gets made.