Do you avoid using exploits in maps if you find them?

I typically tend to play maps the way they were intended. The only ones I'll generally use an exploit I've found is if the map-set is unforgivingly difficult or it's a slaughter map (of which I'm personally not a huge fan of anyway).

As a mapper, I generally only expect people to play through my maps once, so I do try to enforce some rigidity but with some slack here and there. This thread gives me differing opinions on that though, which is an awesome insight to have - especially if people do choose to re-play mine.

8 hours ago, RataUnderground said:

because an incredible number of mappers today have more fun irritating players and being mean than actually designing fun maps. 

*Sips*

"Alien Vendetta, they don't make them like those anymore"

10 hours ago, Ludi said:

As a mapper, I honestly take great joy in seeing other people find novel solutions to my encounters, whether I intend them or not. I say break the map however you want, I'm not your dad.

Are you absolutely sure about that though? XD

My answer is kinda implicitly "no", because I don't typically look for exploits/skips -- meaning if I found one, it's because I just pulled it off by mistake. :P

Sequence-breaking, intentional or not, is super-fun though, as long as it doesn't lead to broken maps. Mapping-side I'm also in the "accommodate sequence breaks rather than remove them" camp. MAP14 of TNT2 is even based around this concept, to an extent.

Nah, the sooner I finish the map, the better.

Not really. I like to "challenge" the author by breaking the rules a little. 

Depends on whether I think the exploit is cool/lame or makes the map more/less fun.

I don't really look for exploits, I just look for ways to beat a scenario. I don't think I can even reliably tell whether something is an "exploit" or just another approach. I was playing Crumpets the other day (MAP07 on HMP skill) and found myself sniping a trio of arch-viles with the chaingun, gradually whittling their health down from outside their area. It was slow, but I was out of rockets and low on health, and it was the safest thing I could think of doing in that situation. But was it an exploit? I don't know.

I guess stuff like escaping a lock-in fight is more obviously not what the mapper had in mind, but I have no qualms about doing that if it's the most straightforward way I can think of to survive. On the subject of lock-in fights, I really prefer it when mappers don't do that; I don't like to be forced to engage with a fight that I don't find fun, and I don't think mappers trying to exert control over that makes for better maps.

Personally I find cheesing time to time being entertaining 

I def avoid using exploits. As in literal sequence breaking or completely cheesing something.

To me that's kind of a middle finger to the author. Just because something is technically possible doesn't mean it should be done.

That said there's a difference between exploit/cheesing and strategy and it's not super clear where the line is always.

On 10/29/2023 at 6:47 AM, Shepardus said:

I don't really look for exploits, I just look for ways to beat a scenario. I don't think I can even reliably tell whether something is an "exploit" or just another approach. I was playing Crumpets the other day (MAP07 on HMP skill) and found myself sniping a trio of arch-viles with the chaingun, gradually whittling their health down from outside their area. It was slow, but I was out of rockets and low on health, and it was the safest thing I could think of doing in that situation. But was it an exploit? I don't know.

 

I guess stuff like escaping a lock-in fight is more obviously not what the mapper had in mind, but I have no qualms about doing that if it's the most straightforward way I can think of to survive. On the subject of lock-in fights, I really prefer it when mappers don't do that; I don't like to be forced to engage with a fight that I don't find fun, and I don't think mappers trying to exert control over that makes for better maps.

The mapmaker's dilemma: for every sentiment like this, there is a sentiment saying "why have these enemies here at all if I can just ignore them?"

As a result, I will do lock-in fights, but I will try to make it possible to pick your fights in them, make good use for monster infighting, and just survive to escape if you're good enough.

it doesn't feel right beating a map using exploits

When I first saw this thread I just thought "of course I don't" without really thinking if that was really true or not, but then last night I was playing MAP02 of Sunder and got to the end fight (the one with the house that has like a hundred-something skeletons in it) and was struggling at avoiding all of them in the open area because after all these years I still stink at horde management and revenant dodging. Then after reloading a save I realized if you fire at the door and quickly press the switch before the rocket hits it, you can stunlock the revenants before they can even come out of the narrow opening. Any tracking missiles that come through can be dodged by doing a constant figure-eight pattern since they'll loop around the pillars. All that is to say that after I finished the map, I remembered this thread and realized that no, I will abuse exploits the moment I'm given the chance. The argument could be made that this isn't an exploit and is just another strategy but anyways I hope you enjoyed the story, go about your day.

If it's possible and not a glitch, I might just go for it. I like speedruns where someone used a rocket wall jump to skip entire sections because it makes physical sense. I don't enjoy speedruns (in Doom or other games) where someone clips through the wall because of a collision bug. I can't wrap around my head over this, while the physical thing makes sense. In the real world Doom universe, if the archville pushed you up in the air, you would have gone over that blocked area (I also hate invisible walls).

The only exception where I could cheat and don't, since I prefer to play with mouse-look, if there is a shooting riddle that I realize I shouldn't just look higher and shoot, but find the higher platform, knowing it was designed with that in mind, I just try to solve the puzzle of how to get in that higher area with same level as the shoot linedef action.