Map 18 Blue Key

[JamieBGood]

I've lowered the pillars that block the blue key on Map 18, but I still can't get it. The platform is too high to go on. Is there something else I need to do, or is there a bug?

[Agarillobob]

you need to shot a switch somewehre iirc

[SYNAESTHE5IA]

There's a small raised platform to the left of the door that leads into the room with the blue key. Stand on it, face the opposite wall, and shoot the leftmost of the five targets. That will lower the blue key.

[A Bad Driver]

Originally posted by SYNAESTHE5IA:

There's a small raised platform to the left of the door that leads into the room with the blue key. Stand on it, face the opposite wall, and shoot the leftmost of the five targets. That will lower the blue key.

Thanks for this. Geez, what a crap bit of level design. Totally un-intuitive with no clear indication that you have to shoot the switch rather than activate it normally. Let alone the fact that you switch you have to shoot, is sitting next to 4 other switch lookalikes that you can't activate...

[atomicfrog]

Originally posted by Doomguy:

Originally posted by SYNAESTHE5IA:

There's a small raised platform to the left of the door that leads into the room with the blue key. Stand on it, face the opposite wall, and shoot the leftmost of the five targets. That will lower the blue key.

Thanks for this. Geez, what a crap bit of level design. Totally un-intuitive with no clear indication that you have to shoot the switch rather than activate it normally. Let alone the fact that you switch you have to shoot, is sitting next to 4 other switch lookalikes that you can't activate...

'Crap level design' ???
Because you have to work out that you need to stand a small raised platform to then shoot a switch straight in front of you?
'Totally unintuitive'
It's a really simply puzzle... and I use the word puzzle extremely loosely lol. Doom 64 has a few such puzzles.
I guess what you mean by 'Totally unintuitive' is that it demanded you to think a little further than simply shooting... dodging... and pressing switches?

[A Bad Driver]

Originally posted by atomicfrog:

'Crap level design' ???
Because you have to work out that you need to stand a small raised platform to then shoot a switch straight in front of you?
'Totally unintuitive'
It's a really simply puzzle... and I use the word puzzle extremely loosely lol. Doom 64 has a few such puzzles.
I guess what you mean by 'Totally unintuitive' is that it demanded you to think a little further than simply shooting... dodging... and pressing switches?

I think the big issue with it is that it requires you to use a tool that the game hasn't ever established is in your toolbox, and that normally never works if you had tried it earlier. It's pretty far into the game, well over the halfway point, and you don't have to shoot or attack any switches in the prior 17 levels to get to this point, so I don't think its unreasonable that it doesn't occur to the player to try it, particularly given that ammo conservation is an old habit that dies hard.

I also don't think it follows any clear in game (or universal) logic to indicate that you should shoot it rather than activate it normally. There's no visual indicator that it needs to be activated differently, the platform in the corner certainly doesn't serve that purpose as they usually operate as switches or teleporters of some kind. For instance, in a game like Zelda, switches that need to be shot are always out of normal physical reach, which leads the player to use a ranged attack to activate them. This switch is within normal reach, so if pressing it doesn't work why would I think to shoot it? What's the cause and effect explanation for why it needs to be damaged? I just don't think the game leads the player to thinking towards the solution at all, it feels like a totally random change of rules for no good reason.

Further exacerbating this is the fact that you have to shoot it by getting level with the switch. Typically if something is a valid target, your projectiles will travel up or down automatically, so the fact that it doesn't occur here is a further obfuscation. The way you're trying to paint it like you just have to "think a little further" is quite inaccurate imo. Rather than the puzzle expanding upon or uniquely utilising the established logic of the game, it just betrays it entirely without any good hint that it has done so. The only other time I can think of any in any DOOM game where there was anything like this is the final boss fight of DOOM II (raising the platform to shoot into the exposed demon brain). You shouldn't have to complete a totally different game to know that a puzzle solution is even an option.

If you liked it and thought it was clever, all the power to you, that's fine. I'm standing by my opinion as it's clear from the OP (and other threads I've read on youtube and elsewhere about this part) that people commonly get stuck here, and I think it's because of the reasons above. Textbook bad level design.

[Seamus]

Shoot switches are almost always poorly explained and telegraphed in doom games. Big part of why I never use them when mapping and why I loathe that romero used them in Sigil.

They've always been something of a bad mechanic.

[atomicfrog]

Originally posted by Doomguy:

Originally posted by atomicfrog:

'Crap level design' ???
Because you have to work out that you need to stand a small raised platform to then shoot a switch straight in front of you?
'Totally unintuitive'
It's a really simply puzzle... and I use the word puzzle extremely loosely lol. Doom 64 has a few such puzzles.
I guess what you mean by 'Totally unintuitive' is that it demanded you to think a little further than simply shooting... dodging... and pressing switches?

I think the big issue with it is that it requires you to use a tool that the game hasn't ever established is in your toolbox, and that normally never works if you had tried it earlier. It's pretty far into the game, well over the halfway point, and you don't have to shoot or attack any switches in the prior 17 levels to get to this point, so I don't think its unreasonable that it doesn't occur to the player to try it, particularly given that ammo conservation is an old habit that dies hard.

I also don't think it follows any clear in game (or universal) logic to indicate that you should shoot it rather than activate it normally. There's no visual indicator that it needs to be activated differently, the platform in the corner certainly doesn't serve that purpose as they usually operate as switches or teleporters of some kind. For instance, in a game like Zelda, switches that need to be shot are always out of normal physical reach, which leads the player to use a ranged attack to activate them. This switch is within normal reach, so if pressing it doesn't work why would I think to shoot it? What's the cause and effect explanation for why it needs to be damaged? I just don't think the game leads the player to thinking towards the solution at all, it feels like a totally random change of rules for no good reason.

Further exacerbating this is the fact that you have to shoot it by getting level with the switch. Typically if something is a valid target, your projectiles will travel up or down automatically, so the fact that it doesn't occur here is a further obfuscation. The way you're trying to paint it like you just have to "think a little further" is quite inaccurate imo. Rather than the puzzle expanding upon or uniquely utilising the established logic of the game, it just betrays it entirely without any good hint that it has done so. The only other time I can think of any in any DOOM game where there was anything like this is the final boss fight of DOOM II (raising the platform to shoot into the exposed demon brain). You shouldn't have to complete a totally different game to know that a puzzle solution is even an option.

If you liked it and thought it was clever, all the power to you, that's fine. I'm standing by my opinion as it's clear from the OP (and other threads I've read on youtube and elsewhere about this part) that people commonly get stuck here, and I think it's because of the reasons above. Textbook bad level design.

Fair doos. I just automatically put a pistol round into a switch I cant press. It's just something I do naturally. I dont think ammo conservation is ever so tight that you cant spare a single pistol round.
Some of these issues you mention have been corrected in the Reloaded version.

1) There's a shootable switch in TerrorFormer. In the room where you activate the pile driver. You cant get out of this room without shooting it. So... theres your early lesson teaching the player some switches must be shot.

2) This particular 'puzzle' is also edited. So the switches are much higher up. With a staircase leading up to get you to the correct height to shoot them.
The switches also have plates over them when you enter the room. One of those plates indicates it is the correct switch. When you go up the stairs there is a switch that raises these plates. The player is then free to pick one of the five switches to shoot. Four of which activate a fireball trap.