Shock 1 Level Design Discussion

[666302e3a8635Join2]

Discuss Shock 1's level design in this thread.

Perhaps controversial, what I want to talk about and suggest is related to my Shock 1 level design burnout experience. Level design to me often makes or breaks a game, and while Shock 1's level design is generally very good I did have moments of burnout when playing the game that was rooted in level design, particularly on Level 7 and some other areas.

So to explain and give some examples: Med deck you've got your semi-recognizable surgery rooms and research labs, lots of varied geometry, wide open corridors as well as lots of tunnels with grav shaft/propulsion lifts, the large irradiated area and the sector where a massacre took place. Very fleshed out, varied and memorable in aesthetics, events and gameplay. Now can you say the same for deck 7? My memory of deck 7 is mostly tedium and burnout from the constant tunnels that look the same, battling over and over with the same swarms of hitscan enemies, and not much else. Both gameplay and aesthetics are at a low point here I think...but it wasn't just deck 7 either, there's a number of geometrically simplistic block mazes of the same repeating texture that provides little aesthetic or gameplay variety. Don't get me wrong I love expansive maze-like level design that you get lost in (pretty much a dead concept these days, sadly) but I like there to be plenty to see and do and to engage the player in those mazes.

I don't think I'm the only one that feels this way, this was never a problem for me in later Immersive Sims, and I want to suggest NightDive place additional focus in fleshing out some sections of the game with new creative content more than others. Maze-like qualities, simplistic geometry, repeating textures and a focus on mostly combat is fine, but a small effort would go a long way, for me, such as the addition of new security system obstacles unique to this deck, a new puzzle or event or two, a new aesthetic sub-theme in one sector; any well-meaning efforts would be appreciated. If the combat is to be better then nothing else may be necessary though, as it may be able to hold its own a little better.

Other potential subtopics of discussion:

Should the remake have rooms over rooms (multi-story geometry) in 3D space, in some areas at least? Obviously we don't want things to change too much but I'd be happy to see rooms over rooms with the intention of creating deeper gameplay and a more realistic layout.

Also, there's a lot of potential in the remastering of the groves.

[666302e3a887fJosiahJack]

Level 7 in particular is the largest and most maze like section of the game.  The north middle half of the level has a  "quadrafoil" section with four over and under hallways that look identical in texture and lighting.  This particular section has minute differences but itherwise can be very disorienting even with the map.  Sensaround makes it worse.  I've been considering methods for adding interest to this section and am open to ideas.

[666302e3a8a6dJoin2]

I like disorientation and having to navigate my way through a maze...it's just boring and lacking in variety in every respect in the case of deck 7, I think. Every deck had at least that one cool thing unique to it, such as 3 having the darkness, 4 with the cool force bridge puzzle, 5 the verticality and novelty of the flight decks, 6 the groves...and so on.

For NightDive I'd suggest more extensive level design expansion than usual, new events and gameplay obstacles as well as better combat and related systems making that deck more intense and enjoyable than usual, and for you where the expectation of 1:1 faithfulness is higher I'm not sure what I'd suggest. Add some kind of new security system deck-wide that serves as an interesting new obstacle, new scripted events, perhaps be cautious of too many repeating textures if possible.

Again it's not just deck 7 though, many areas are far from the gameplay and aesthetic diversity of the likes of med deck in every way, but 7 stands out as the biggest offender.

[666302e3a8bbfJosiahJack]

It's not that boring...

But yes, I agree it could use some more interest.  Level 3's maintenance halls and Level 9's autobomb area are the worst in my opinion.

[666302e3a8ce4Join2]

It's not that boring...

Well, no, not exactly. It's System Shock, of course.

 "Level 3's maintenance halls"

Yes, this was one of the other areas I had in mind. Don't recall the autobomb area on lvl 9.

[666302e3a8effHikari]

The thing to remember is we can apply what was learned since then about level design and hinting via texture and layout what's important and what's not without resorting to hand holdyness.

The thing is I'm VERY low sight, so I'm someone that needs some fairly non-subtle hinting on where is important and where isn't. Shock2 I never really had trouble navigating, doom is a clusterfuck to me most times, and a lot of quake levels tend to be too @.@ to figure out before dying.

Shock itself? What I remember playing once upon a time was a confusing mass of textures and rooms that individually looked interesting but left me feeling like I was missing something important. Then again I was fighting the controls the whole time so that didn't help.

[666302e3a9082callum13117]

I really liked the one "basement" section of deck 7 (Around the bottom-left of JosiahJack's map), which you could use to stealthily make your way around the level. But yeah. Mostly pretty uninteresting level design.

lol Call me crazy, but I loved the autobomb maze on deck 9. So disorienting, but intentionally so - unlike deck 7. (Join Us - the autobomb maze is in the lower-right corner of the map of Deck 9 that I've attached.)

And in regards to Hikari's comment about textures, at least Night Dive's made those a lot clearer. I had no idea that one maintenance texture was supposed to represent pipes!
[deck 9.gif expired]

[666302e3a91edJoin2]

The whole game is cumulatively one big maze with enough repeating textures and simplistic geometry as it is, so these additional areas where it seems they've gone for mazes within a maze seem a bit overkill, at least given that there are more than one. I'd rather platforming or puzzle sectors, not enough of either in Shock  else something unique and standout. 

Edit: well, a maze is considered a puzzle, but there's plenty other forms of puzzles available like in UW.

[666302e3a92eeXKILLJOY98]

I kind of like system shock's level design (I don't mind the textures), I never found it to be too maze like (except in the maintenance level, and the autobomb maze where in certain parts it was intended to be a maze).

[666302e3a949eJoin2]

Everything in moderation. Furthermore it's not so much the maze-ness but the contents of the maze. In these mazes there is little to no interactivity, verticality, geometric & visual diversity (same shapes, textures and enemies over and over), no unique events, and no other forms of gameplay. Not what they could have been.
Since the level design is very maze-like as a whole, these mini-mazes stand out as wasted potential to me. One would have been fine, if every deck in Shock 2 had one of these it'd get pretty annoying too. The engineering tubes are a good example of how it's done actually: spots of radiation, a scripted ghost event, two keypad-locked storage rooms, geometry more complex than simple blocks, the dynamic music unique to this area and so on. Shock 1 was capable of doing pretty much all of that and did often, so why those mazes are so simplistic I don't understand.

[666302e3a95faHikari]

I would suggest if mazes are gonna stick around making the nav marker function better suited to leaving a breadcrumb trail. Like being able to cycle marker colors or see 'quick notes' in air as an aug-reality thing (dead end) or some other five or ten word phrase you can see when hovering crosshair over marker.

Also going to add in my support of making sure in mazes there are still points of interest, like a corpse or other loot here, a simi qunieque/different from the crowd enemy group there. Things that make it feel like less copypasta all throughout. Even event triggers like automated announcements, or the lights going out in a corner (and just that corner) or something here and there to break up the monotony.

[666302e3a97bbvoodoo47]

or connect them with a nav beam.

[666302e3a98e4Join2]

God damn it no augmented reality navigation help, except maybe on the easiest difficulty. With more points of interest they will be easier to navigate naturally anyway through unintentional signposting, as you'll remember that specific tunnel having a flickering light/unique texture/radiation leak/whatever.

[666302e3a9a64Hikari]

I'm not saying have floating signposts. I'm saying if you PLACE A BEACON DOWN you can annotate it so you don't have a primitive shape and nothing else. You have a shape that relays information you have to put in. So sit down and shut up with your pissing and moaning about pandering and whatever bullshit cane waving at how easy kids have it these days. I'm in my thirties now. I help take care of a pair of special needs kids, my mom who's in the process of slowly dying due to a bad heart, and babysitting my niece.

I want to game, not have to pull out a fucking piece of graph paper during what irregular downtime I have. So stop with the true scotsman bullshit. We can find ways of making things somewhat easier and less bullshitty to deal with while still forcing the player to think how to get through a puzzle.

[666302e3a9b79callum13117]

I agree - manual beacon-placing would be helpful and non-intrusive. But chill out Hikari - I think he just misunderstood. 

[666302e3a9cd8Hikari]

Sorry, it's just i'm sick of the wankfest 'DURR DURR CONSOLIFICATION IS TEH CANCERS DUUUUUUUUH!' We can learn a lot from what making things console friendly has done right to allow us to enjoy the game rather than fighting with complication for it's own sake, and at the same time look at when consoles go too far in th futile chase of that fabled target demographic. I mean on the one hand you could argue the fact you have to fight the interface is part of the immersion. You the player are harrowed and fearful of screwing up and so are placed in the Hacker's shoes. However that isn't fun kind of immersion and it turned people off twenty years ago, it'll do the same now.

[666302e3a9e0ccallum13117]

That's fair. I think we're all hoping that Night Dive leans a little more towards System Shock 2 than the original Shock as far as design philosophy goes (i.e. complexity without causing too much pain). And like with the autosave/manual save discussion (not to start that again, lol), if features like manual beacon-placing are implemented, a player going for "total immersion" can just choose not to use them.

[666302e3aa66eJoin2]

We can learn a lot from what making things console friendly has done right to allow us to enjoy the game rather than fighting with complication for it's own sakeWe can learn a lot from what making things console friendly has done right to allow us to enjoy the game rather than fighting with complication for it's own sake

Navigation through a maze without aids is not "complication for it's own sake", it's a legitimate, basic form of gameplay. Some people find navigation fun, that's why things like hedge mazes, orienteering and hiking, and maze games in a puzzle book exist. Setting down nav markers can be part of the fun without defeating the point in the first place, though can hinder it under certain circumstances: depends on the intricacies, like whether they are infinite use, visually linked like voodoo suggested, and so on.

Sorry, it's just i'm sick of the wankfest 'DURR DURR CONSOLIFICATION IS TEH CANCERS DUUUUUUUUH!' We can learn a lot from what making things console friendly has done right to allow us to enjoy the game rather than fighting with complication for it's own sake

I am a console gamer as much as I am a PC gamer, and I'm sick of that wankfest too, but only because it is ill-informed. For example, navigation assistance the likes of persistent objective markers are generally a new-ish development that became commonplace in console games and PC games somewhat uniformly. There isn't a single notable console game from the '90s with persistent obnoxious objective markers that I recall. People would know these things if they were actually informed. Commercialization, or just modern design conventions is teh cancers, yes. And no, there's little to learn, overly commercialized games do things mostly all wrong in my book. Everything except feature design that appeals to non-gamers to optimize profit. If you want to learn from console games, generally you should play older ones that are actually worthwhile, like, say, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.

Evidence that I actually know what the fuck I am talking about: the only one of these games that had objective markers was Grand Theft Auto 2, which was released on PC first.

Anyway, you sit down, shut up, and chill out. I'm sorry you are facing a bunch of major personal problems but they are not relevant here, and we all have problems. Let's stay on topic.