It's actually a hard problem because the doorway is the safest spot in the room. It's a funnel, you're protected from all threats and can easily scoot to the side when you need to reload or whatever.

You'll be hard pressed to give me a better vantage point than the door to the arena. Unless I'm low on ammo and HAVE to enter the arena to get more but even then ... I'm going to circle back to the doorway.

Back spawning isn't the answer because that's pretty much universally loathed and considered cheap.

"This might be almost the same as the locked door, but have the player drop down into a space from above. This makes backtracking impossible until they find a new way out of the arena. What makes this different than locking the door behind you is you know and choose to go through the point of no return, rather than it being a cheap surprise."

This is usually a good solution although it's also pretty obvious these days. There were several times in RAGE I saw a drop down and saved immediately - you KNOW there's an ambush waiting just beyond that invisible trigger brush on the floor.

But Left for Dead and Uncharted developers have talked about this tactic. L4D has a name for it but I can't recall right now ... but yes, it's all about player initiation. They don't have to activate the encounter until they're ready. That at least gives them some empowerment and control over the situation. 

*brain explodes* 

Players tend to avoid this by instinct and look for alternative routes. The bastards.

5. Place a trap in the corridor before the doorway - once the player sees the monsters they're unwilling to backpedal into a nailshooter or pit of death.

6. Place a big, obvious button in the middle of the room - when it's pressed, the fight starts.

But, number 1 wins. 

Behaviour depends on the player though. I surely do not hide in a safe place to snipe enemies, where would that be fun. 

Sure, everyone is different. But most players will try to conserve health and ammo - and the doorway is the best place to do that from. 

- Don't have doorways

Build organic spaces that aren't conceptually divided by corridors and thresholds, and there's never a doorway for the player to stand in. He's just always somewhere where there are knights in front and ogres above and scrags circling, but still entirely controls the pace of his own progression. 

Dropdowns, lifts that don't go back down again, wind tunnels, and other one-way means of spitting you into a room do all function the same way as back-locking the door. They represent a designer using his power as "guy who built the place" to remove the player's power to turn around and leave a situation he doesn't feel ready for or in adequate control of.

Any time you leverage that omnipotent designer power, you have to be very measured in how much force you apply. Sometimes it's okay, like when you know better than the player does (since you're the only one who understands the next room) that he's ready for it and doesn't need to backpedal and you've decided it's a good time for a panic beat. Using that power now and then to spike the pacing is okay - relying on it just wears the player down.

Eliminating optimal but un-fun choices like sniping from a safe spot (like the door) is also a good time to use the power, but the rules still apply. When you do it with architecture that has that backblocking effect as a natural outcome (the dropdown, the lift) you're playing a little more fair, and also not being quite so naked in your intrusion on the experience. func_plats don't go back down if you stay on them - players already know that. If you can't fly back up through a hole, that's the game world doing that, and players understand why. Doors don't always suddenly lock - someone did that.

Rendering the optimal un-fun choice non-optimal by moving some brushes, shifting where you put the ogres, and changing the nature of the cover just a little bit is a lot more subtle, and leads to a much smoother experience since you're encouraging the player to choose to dive into that room rather than forcing him to. 

Give them a mega health beforehand. 

can't we just make a firing squad follow the player and execute him if he turns around? 

BWWEEEEP BWWEEEEEPPP BWEEEEPPP TURN AROUND YOU ARE LEAVING THE COMBAT ZONE BWWEEEEP BWWEEEEEPPP BWEEEEPPP 

"Build organic spaces that aren't conceptually divided by corridors and thresholds, and there's never a doorway for the player to stand in. He's just always somewhere where there are knights in front and ogres above and scrags circling, but still entirely controls the pace of his own progression."

I was speaking more generally. If you're going to get specific about Quake or Doom, then sure. 

My point being that it's a different challenge with a game like Half-Life or Left 4 dead, which are set in the modern world. 

*looks at spirit* 

Reminds me of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZfOy7u8R7M

Also the sea worms in HL2. 

5. Place a trap in the corridor before the doorway - once the player sees the monsters they're unwilling to backpedal into a nailshooter or pit of death.

Another good one. It doesn't have to be a literal trap, just a hazard that you can only navigate slowly and carefully, and therefore can't just backpedal through at full speed. 

A ladder for example. 

I thank you for your insights.. 

awesome, thanks everyone - this is a goldmine of ideas!

interesting point that a vertical fall-off is another variant of the same basic pattern. In zendar, I really enjoyed the func_illusionary window that you can jump through down into a room where you're ambushed by a fiend. This is an optional side area, though, so the ambush didn't feel cheap - and you get a bunch of rewards for finding that area and surviving the trap. 

Yes, of course you can. 

 

IMHO Quake is about traps, ambushes and locked areas, if you take that away you are left with just a standard FPS game. In Quake the environment is trying to kill you, with crushers, spike shooters and large pits of lava/slime. Quake is about the fear and dread of what is around you in all directions and being thrown into difficult situations.

I think it is perfectly fine to have locked areas if the visual language is right, single items on Indiana style plinths, floors covered in blood where traps trigger or dark ominous holes in walls around powerful items to collect. Creating visual clues for the observant player is all part of the charm of the setup.

"Knowing where the trap is - is half the battle won"

The key to designing good ambush areas is there should be plenty of cover (destructible or moving), multiple routes around the space and it should be obvious where all supplies are or going to be. Ideally a player should be allowed to explore the area first, let the player feel the moment, the silence before the storm.

Eric said:
I'm thinking of the horde of Zendar, sock used this at least twice (the cathedral, and the final fight before the exit unlocks)

@Eric, The Cathedral is just a trigger on the alter, the doors do not lock, the player can move around the room and even exit out to the central hub if they want. I saw plenty of demo's where players did this. I originally had the doors lock but I felt it was unfair, so I did something different. I had all the monsters ready in the room (up high on balconies, which the player can access early) and let the player explore the room before anything happens.

The final fight is the ONLY locked area in the map, but it is very large with all the monsters spawning from specific locations. There is even a side area with supplies that the player can go to if they don't want to move around the central hub. All of the monsters are setup to wake up on sight of the player (not other monsters) and there are counters on all waves to allow the player to control the pace of the fight.

I think the "locked in" final fight in Zendar works because the player knows this area already, they have passed through it several times and understand where everything is. The environment is a known quantity, the only thing that has changed is not knowing where the waves of encounters are going to initially spawn.

Locking players into confined areas is a good game mechanic if used sparely and with good supporting visual language. Traps and ambushes are the life blood of Quake and IMHO think it would be unwise to ignore this fact if creating new maps. 

http://quakewiki.org 

 

Just counted, Antediluvian has 6 drop-downs and 5 wind tunnels. Total: 11! And almost all of them drop you into a place with immediately-alerted monsters. Does this make it a masterpiece or the worst map of all time? (Strangely, no self-locking doors.) 

You could combine the drop-down and trapped-retreat-route to create a soft obstacle. Have a series of short drops, like little cliff face things, where you can jump back up each time, but you can't just walk back up like steps. That way it's slow to retreat and requires some concentration to pull off, but you maintain two-way flow through the level to return for ammo or health. Obviously this is much less effective if the enemies at the bottom are melee-based, as you can escape them in a single jump.