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TMD

MAYhem 2012 - Released July 17, durr hurr

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FDA for CDIH v1.3. Finally got an exit, but had to resort to fairly extreme AI abuse to get through the parts I didn't know yet.

Main issue for me is how little help there is for a map that pits you against cyberdemons and archies so often in relatively confined environments. Up to the yellow key it's not that bothersome, but coming back to the beginning room once those archies start popping out it becomes awfully tight on ammo *and* at such low health you don't want to take too much risk to optimize that ammo, as a single hit from say a revenant fireball or an archie blast could potentially be death.

Likewise in that final outdoor area, you see a bunch of cacos, arachnotrons, PEs, mancs and three (!) cyberdemons, barely four stimpaks in sight and 200 cells, in the middle of the monsters mind you. Again, seeing these kinds of odds I'm not inclined to try my luck; which is too bad, because that bunch of ammo, soulsphere and a green armor behind the corner sure would have helped.

Looking at it in DB2 I see I missed a secret with a megasphere. I think it's a wee bit overpowering considering the lack of health otherwise. My suggestion would be to change it for a blue armor and put a soulsphere on top of the candle instead.

Those two cell charge packs in the outdoor area would belong better in sector 259 or sector 225 IMHO, so there's no need to dash through a bazillion projectiles to get the very ammo you're supposed to use to kill that stuff. I'd think moving the final stack of ammo/soulsphere/armor right at that corner so it's barely visible from the door would be better as well so the player knows what to expect beforehand.

Regarding those three archies guarding the exit, they were quite high, right at the edge of autoaim, and the depth of their hill, leading them to move back and forth, makes killing them more frustrating than dangerous, the only option being to take it slow.

Final but minor and entirely subjective complaint, it felt weird to exit like that. The teleporter didn't seem too ominous somehow (and perhaps I had this expectation I'd move up after seeing the imps, cacos and archies on higher ground).

That said, I liked playing through it all if in a masochistic way at times. :)

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SDA for Infiltration. I know you said you'd update it, but since I've seen so little of the map I figure it didn't hurt to try it again before that.

Trying to follow your advice I cleared everything before moving forward, but I still ran out of ammo fairly soon - to the point I had to non-berserk punch hell knights and cacos to progress. I will say one thing, this ammo attrition and relative low health makes for a more tenseful experience than many atmospheric maps purposefully trying to do just that.

Still, after a stupid death like I just had (two revenants not doing a single sound for half a minute leading me to believe nothing was left, I let one of them corner me while I was picking ammo and only had a RL or my fist) any desire to go through it again just evaporates and I believe giving more ammo generally speaking would fix that.

It's like when fighting those barons in the very first big outdoor area; it ends up not being very interesting because with the ample amount of space they're not in any danger of killing you unless you slip up, but still, with so little health you have to watch out, and at the same time with how tight ammo is killing them can take a while. They end up feeling more like annoying buzzing flies rather than fearsome monsters.

Eventually, you could just throw a berserk pack in there. That would keep ammo as it is right now, and significantly alleviates killing time for players who'd run out of it. Plus, punching is always fun.

Other than that, nothing particulary struck out to me as problematic. Yet. ;)

It's an enjoyable map and ammo is just about the only sore point.

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I've managed about 3 hours of progress on a smaller map than my previous one, which makes use of a strict colour pallette (or very limited texture choices) and works in the Abandoned Outpost setting, although I intend to have it kept strictly indoors with no sky to be seen, so it's more like an underground lab or something really.

I'm shooting to have a beta or RC finished tomorrow evening so I can loose it on you all for testing. It's going to be an early map (like, one of the first 3) in terms of difficulty, complexity and size, so it should all work out :)

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Here are the fixed levels
Cold Day In Hell
http://www.mediafire.com/?zgvec8tltjxcaru
More ammo added in the yellow key room and ammo moved in the outdoor section. A soulsphere added also to the yk room with the megasphere replaced with a blue armour in the secret.
Also an added surprise at the end, also arch-viles have now a different role to play now.

Infiltration
http://www.mediafire.com/?oy34d1nmlptci1d
Just more ammo added in the central room, also a few more stimpacks.
Also in the blue key area, the rocket launcher and rocket boxes where moved from the rev closet into open play before that trap. That should help with that section.
If I could say one thing, you can just about ignore the monsters in the large central cavern, as they cannot follow you throughout the rest of the level. I just filled it a little just to not make it completely empty until the final stages of the level.
There is a beserk pack in one of the secrets, it's near the start of the level.

I just hope this makes the levels playable, namely as I can't spend much time at all on this stuff at the moment.

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One more WIP shot.



Layout is pretty much 95% done, what's left to do is some bugfixing and detailing. The latter may take a while, but I believe we're gonna be able to finish this map a couple of days before the end of the month.

The monstercount, however, won't change. This is a long map and takes around an hour to finish. ;)

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I think we can already collectively say we've failed in the project's original goal of creating a full MegaWAD in a month with (IIRC from the original idea discussion?) a Scythe influence :P Looks like we're good for 5-10 maps though, so it's a reasonably sized episode, even if the themes, styles and map sizes are all over the place.

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if it couldn't be a mapping spree near the deadline :P

oh, anyway, for the few maps i've played so far, this looks like to become a very nice mapset!

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There probably won't be any more maps from me, don't have time with 4 exams over the next week. Hopefully the two maps I have made will be in some playable fashion by deadline.
The other levels in this wad are good though :)

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walter confalonieri said:

if it couldn't be a mapping spree near the deadline :P

Now that would be impressive :P

oh, anyway, for the few maps i've played so far, this looks like to become a very nice mapset!

Certainly looks like we're doing alright for map quality by the amount of work and testing going in, although I've only played my own underwhelming offering so far - I'll try and rectify that in the next couple of weeks (the playing of other maps, that is :P). My main observation would be that it's all very... colourful... still

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And without further ado (thanks walter - both for the comment and breaking up a potential triple post) here is Vigilance. It plays on MAP01 currently and has no new music. Does have all difficulty modes implemented along with co-op (which it must be ill-suited for due to it's size) and DM (might work, but the arsenal is weak for the most part). It's pretty easy IMO, so it might make a good MAP01 for the project?

Enjoy! Feedback is appreciated :)

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http://speedy.sh/c5hZJ/derpmn3d.wad

fixed the blue key pillar trap, now you can't take it until the pillar is lowered...

EDIT: played vigilante, it's a really cool and short map, i liked it!
Also, this evening i started a speed mapping map07, since there's no one around:






tell me what do you think. Maybe in few more hours it could finished...
but for tomorrow i think it could be ready to download.

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Phobus, the colour variation on your screenshots is awesome!

W.C.: your shots aren't bad too.

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:)

@walter: Cheers - this speed-mapped effort looks pretty solid. Judging by the mapslot and presence of Mancubuses, I'm guessing it uses the MAP07 special actions?

@TheMionicDonut: Do you think it'd be possible to alter (and maintain) the OP to have a list of submitted maps, preferably with the author's name, the map it currently plays on and the download link? Currently this stuff is all scattered through the thread, which makes checking out the maps a bit harder than it needs to be.

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I stuck the most recent iterations of maps on OP yesterday. I'll update it with the playable map now-ish.

Phobus said:

I think we can already collectively say we've failed in the project's original goal of creating a full MegaWAD in a month with (IIRC from the original idea discussion?) a Scythe influence :P Looks like we're good for 5-10 maps though, so it's a reasonably sized episode, even if the themes, styles and map sizes are all over the place.


Meh probably not. This is just something that Ive been thinking about doing for some time. I just highballed it because why not. I'd be cool with an 11 map episode. Or this can become a summer project. I'll see how things pan out in the next week.

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Thanks for that!

I see now we're only two maps short of a traditional 9-map episode at least. That's pretty good considering this is May, when people have exams and things to deal with.

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Phobus said:

Thanks for that!

I see now we're only two maps short of a traditional 9-map episode at least.


What's left?

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Phobus said:

Thanks for that!

I see now we're only two maps short of a traditional 9-map episode at least. That's pretty good considering this is May, when people have exams and things to deal with.


I actually forgot to post mine. [derp] That gives 8 done ones. And a few more supposedly in the works.

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Yeah, I'm sure me and Kongming will be able to finish our map by the end of the month. Heck, it might even be done in the weekend.

It's a really long map, so I think it might be fitting as the last one, if that's how we're going to arrange the maps.

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I just realised when looking at the first post that we actually made pretty little number of maps :< but that actually made me more motivated to finish my second entry.

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I've had a few now (literally) and can't be arsed with anything particularly productive, so prepare yourselves for some unadulterated opinions on what this project (well... the 75% of maps that I didn't make) has to offer.

EDIT 1: Hell's Ravines. Severely lacks balance. After a couple of failed attempts at actually killing enemies I found the distinct lack of space around the Arachnotrons on UV to be insurmountable without cheating. This map feels fundamentally flawed to me, as fighting the monsters doesn't work and there's not enough space to dodge, until the end sequence with the IoS, which is then a very simple running exercise. Needs more maneuvering room with the Arachs (or less enemies) and more ammo.

EDIT2: Mediafire didn't fancy playing ball with me, so Cold Day in Hell and Infiltration will be getting no feedback from me yet.

EDIT3: Walter: derpman 3D feels rather basic in the "hell" section. The E2-ish part felt alright to me and put up a reasonable challenge with the damaging floors and tougher Doom 2 enemies present on UV. Not bad! :)

EDIT 4: Walter again - your other map feels quite nicely classically styled and presents a nice, if rather linear, challenge. Good job!

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I'm sure it is indeed beatable, but it's certainly not a good map for a player like me to enjoy. You are incredibly good at this game afteral ToD :P

As for Infliltration... taking into account the amount I've had to drink tonight, it's still a bit short on health for UV IMO. The main problem is that every time you're confronted with an Arch-Vile, the cover tends to be in a place that goes against the basic instinct of backing away from danger. The room full of Archies wasn't so bad in this respect, but the Spider Mastermind battle definitely didn't have enough health or cover for a "stand and fight" approach and really needed a swift retreat. I'd be tempted to say the map might be a little over-populated too, as chaingunners were largely infighting rather than battling me and the corridor on the way to the red (IIRC) keycard seemed far too packed with monsters to be anything other than a time sink.

Overall though, the map certainly isn't bad. IMO it needs tweaking a bit more in the player's favour, but I'll gladly concede I'm not the best player out there.

EDIT: Similar sentiments for Cold Day in Hell - UV would want balancing in the players favour for it to be a map for me. That bit where you get a key just to fight two cyberdemons, a horde of barons and then a corridor full of chaingunners and then a load of revenants and a couple of arch-viles was far too much like hard work, particularly with limited space and inadequete supplies. You seem a bit too adept at killing the player for my liking, cannonball ;)

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You just gotta change your strategy for the arachnotron room and it's not that hard (might take a couple of attempts though, depending how the spiders walk). :)

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I tried pushing through, dodging and getting round the edges where the crushers are - that encounter just seems too luck-based for my liking. As I mentioned before, I've had a few alcoholic beverages, so I'll concede that my reflexes will be down a bit.

EDIT: As I'm sober now, I figured I'd give Hell's Ravines another go. Managed to eventually beat it by camping in the corner behind the radsuit pillar after pushing through (which was luck more than judgement there). The only thing I'll say in this map's favour is that it's short, so at least making multiple attempts at it isn't too frustrating.

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I'll bump this up so that TMD doesn't miss it:

I've played Eerie Canals now. It's probably the best map of the bunch so far - ties with the E2 part of derpman 3D for visuals, I think, but boasts more architectural complexity and a less linear layout (although progression is still largely linear, aside from the area behind the yellow key door). Gameplay-wise, I think I might actually prefer walter's work, but only because the start of Eerie Canals requires some ridiculously aggressive playing in order to stay in with any real hope of maintaining enough ammo to kill all of the baddies. In fact, up until the yellow key door ammo barely felt sufficient (I did actually have to punch out the Revenant before the first door out of the surface part) - then there was a period where I had plenty of ammo and as the map came to a close I was running out again, even after finding all of the secrets (although I didn't use the SSG, in order to fairly test balance). Thinking about it, the map needs more shells at least, because without the 8 from the SSG I'd have been punching out that baron at the end and I doubt that'd have gone well.

Couple of things I disagree with too:
1) The silently teleporting Demons onto where the blue key is just looks wrong to me - particularly as there's so many of them coming in, so you're bound to see it happening
2) The sheer number of Demons in the aforementioned warp-in and the similarly huge number of Spectres after pressing the switch behind the blur key bars is completely unnecessary. The only challenge they pose is not running out of ammo when chewing through them with the maps relatively weak firepower. You could probably benefit much more from either halving their numbers or replacing the entire horde with a couple of more dangerous enemies.

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