[Benjamin Foley]

If someone could help, perhaps guide me to some articles on the topic.

Does anyone have a kind of formula based approach for creating good encounters with enemies?

or what makes some pointers a good encounter, especially in the older style of game like Duke/Doom/Wolfenstein etc...

or any rules in general that they use for level design for Duke?

[Forge]

Play top rated maps from each game and see the methods they use.

What applies in Duke3D might not necessarily apply in Doom

typical:
supplies - then enemies - then resupplies (give the player a bit more powerful weapon - then enemies (variety of types that compliment each other or a bit stronger enemy) - resupply - repeat.
This can be dragged out through the entire level with a slow escalation.
Some have a quick ramp up and keep it there the entire time.
Some have escalation, deescalation, then re-escalation throughout

the level environment & design play big factors

[Mike Norvak]

"Does anyone have a kind of formula based approach for creating good encounters with enemies?"

I think there is no formula, and it depends on the type of game you are doing. But speaking of Duke Nukem, the first things that come to my mind are make the player can learn its behaviour until a new enemy appears, and making the enemies to look more intelligent like placing them coming out of doors or behind explosive walls, instead of just obvious respawns, or make them respawn when the player is not looking, placing monsters according to environments and not just random encounters, you can look in the original maps and put atention on how enemies are placed and on wich sitiatioms are used.

"or any rules in general that they use for level design for Duke?"

Again, you can look at the original stuff, what is always mwntioned is that most of those were made for both single player and duke match modes so the layout is mainly non linear, you have focal points where you can enter/exit from different routes often blocked by keycards or other barriers, so you don't just find a key card to go from A to B and then to C, instead you can find a key card, a rpg or a jet pack to go from D to B or A to C that's something most usermaps fail to achieve, also original maps use to be small focused on central themes and not huge and redundant like some usermaps.

There have been comversations about it in a thread I can't find.

But maybe this video can help you:



And the video at the start of this thread:

https://forums.duke4...81-game-design/

And of course the thread it self, about game design.

This is another thing that can help, but is often overlooked:

http://tvtropes.org/...tiveLevelDesign

[quakis]

Regarding enemies, I quite like this guide: https://www.doomworl...ster-placement/ - It may be specific to Doom but many of the concepts presented can also be applied to Duke3D. Definitely worth a read to spark that line of thinking.

[NNC]

Doom is different to Duke 3D. Doom needs higher monster count and more diversity to excell. Doom is the quintessential shooter where most of the fun comes from shooting the enemies and listen to the great soundtrack. The reason is partly the leveldesign is less important (atmosphere and layout-wise it is, but not on the variety of locations). Also Doom has monster infighting, which definately helps this kind of experience. Doom is also a better game than Duke for large, battlefield type areas.

Duke is a more cinematic game, where the levels are based on 2.5D realism, and where monsters are just part of this audiovisual experience. Most usermaps use Doom-style monster count, but it doesn't help the gameplay, since the fun comes from atmosphere, interactivity and location variety (sometimes even in a level).

Some original maps that have great (and smart) enemy placement IMHO:
Fusion Station
Occupied Territory
Dark Side
Flood Zone
LA Rumble
Derelict
Golden Carnage

Some usermaps I like the enemy placement:
Red 3
Traffic Jam
LRWB TC last few maps like Alienation, Tower in Space or Back in LA
Generally in the DNF2013 TC (especially in Mikko's levels, like the Hoover Dam)

If you play these maps, you can see most of them have lesser diversity. For example there is not a single Pigcop (other than a few RPVs) or Enforcer in Derelict, the largest level in the game. Replace some monsters with them, and you get a lot duller experience. The same can be said about many of the vanilla levels, particulary Allen Blum's levels, who never really mixed the enemy types unless it's necessary. Sometimes one dominates the first half of the map, enter a blue or red key door, and another type will appear and dominate in the second half. Or a few enemy types dominate the upper half, and another enemy dominate the lower type. Like in Flood Zone. It's definately something that wouldn't work out as good in Doom.

Too bad most usermaps have lousy enemy placement. There is so much effort have been put on the actual design, but the most important gameplay element is lacking. A map where pigs, enforcers, liztroops etc mix too much, the whole experience will be just one idle ride.

Also, I don't like how the weapons were used in many user levels. You got a shotgun, than the first pigs appear. You got an RPG, and a Battlelord is spawned. It's predictable.

[Micky C]

I'm surprised no one's referenced my guide to making good maps, available at the bottom of this page: http://www.dukemaps.net/?page_id=36

[Mike Norvak]

That's a wonderful guide quakis!!

@Nancsi: I forgot about what you said, and yeah most usermaps have all the monster types mixed up everywhere and you always find the shotgun and then pigcops, chaingun and lizman, etc. other problem with most usermaps is that they are huge, this isn't a problem per se but the map is done conceptually as if it were just a huge map, huge city, huge spaceship, huge ocean base, etc. Imagine Hollywood hollocaust, red light district and death row in a singlemap, or raw meat, bank roll and flood zone, I'm pretty sure it would take less walls than the limit and you have a lot of variety in just one map.

[NNC]

 Mike Norvak, on 27 January 2018 - 06:07 AM, said:

That's a wonderful guide quakis!!

@Nancsi: I forgot about what you said, and yeah most usermaps have all the monster types mixed up everywhere and you always find the shotgun and then pigcops, chaingun and lizman, etc. other problem with most usermaps is that they are huge, this isn't a problem per se but the map is done conceptually as if it were just a huge map, huge city, huge spaceship, huge ocean base, etc. Imagine Hollywood hollocaust, red light district and death row in a singlemap, or raw meat, bank roll and flood zone, I'm pretty sure it would take less walls than the limit and you have a lot of variety in just one map.

I have no problem with big maps, but they need to have some progression to keep things interesting. Look at Dark Side for example, one of the biggest levels in the game. You have to clear two separate bases which can be reached by two moon subway lines from the same central station. Then enter the third line to get into the moon surface and fight drones there. Then enter a cave with the monolith, and teleport to a big hive with knotted girls. It's an adventure, not like an open door, search the key/button, enemy spawn, get to the other door routine with crazy and unnecessary details etc etc.

[Mike Norvak]

Indeed, I think there is a lot still to learn from the original maps.

One thing that always has bothere me is he central room in Death Row, where you open up a wall showing the map of the actual level and a circle pointing where you need to go next (the secret tunnel behind that poster) is that supposeed to be obvious and good game design? I mean, a player could easily miss that's actually a map of the level and get frustrated without not knowing what to do. The first time I played the map I was a kid and the "adult" art was disabled so there wasn't any poster covering the hole XD.

[NNC]

 Mike Norvak, on 27 January 2018 - 10:40 AM, said:

Indeed, I think there is a lot still to learn from the original maps.

One thing that always has bothere me is he central room in Death Row, where you open up a wall showing the map of the actual level and a circle pointing where you need to go next (the secret tunnel behind that poster) is that supposeed to be obvious and good game design? I mean, a player could easily miss that's actually a map of the level and get frustrated without not knowing what to do. The first time I played the map I was a kid and the "adult" art was disabled so there wasn't any poster covering the hole XD.

I definitely missed it at first. It's not helpful at all, but I don't bother it. At least Death Row separated the true Duke fans from the "yea, macho guy tipped girls, next game please" casual posers.

[Merlijn]

Most of the basics have been covered already: there are enemies which work best in specific settings (pig cops for urban locations for example).
The supply/monster ratio should be balanced, there's should enough room to fight, smaller rooms shouldn't be spammed with large numbers of enemies etc.

Furthermore, I think good enemy placement simply requires a lot of in-game testing. There's a lot of variety in Duke's enemies, but the AI is very limited.
So sometimes an idea simply doesn't work, and sometimes it works even better than you hoped for.
Sometimes you need to switch to a different type of enemy, sometimes the environment needs to be tweaked.

Small example: when using battlelords as turrets they should be able to reach you with their mortars (making the fight more challening).
And it should be possible to avoid their hitscan attack, to keep things fair.

I think I succeeded in creating such a fight in the first Shaky Grounds, when 2 stayput battlelords appear on the other side of the cliff.
Because they're on a higher platform, they can throw their mortars over the cliff, making them very dangerous.
But there's still plenty of room to move around and to take cover, which keeps things fair (IMO of course )

Again, it's just a small example. Think of a combat scenario you would like to implement and test it to see if it actually works.