50 Shades of Graytall (now on idgames!)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/3wcu4mo5pg29qtv/50shd_b4.wad?dl=0

I'll edit the OP in a bit. Cuurently 17 maps, including some I was waiting on for a while. Order still subject to change etc.

Cool. Is this the complete set now, or are you still waiting on stuff?

Not accepting any more maps, technically the only reason these 2 got in is because I was waiting on them from the start, heh. The order is very likely to change, some maps may need minor alterations for coop, but otherwise idk what else I'd need to finalize it.

The intermission "Entering <map>" screen doesn't show in ZDoom based ports, because the maps are not part of any cluster. Define at least cluster 1 and set all maps to it at least.

Hey Marcaek, I just ran through the beta really quick, and I noticed that my map wasn't updated to use the latest version. Just wanted to give you a heads up.

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF dammit sorry i'll fix tomorrow evening. I imagine not many people are gonna be playtesting tonight looking at that timer up right, heh.

Marcaek said:

I could put that in for you dobu.

That'd be great, thanks! And the original version had a cyber but some complained about that fight so I'm not sure he's well suited to there. If the barons bother you, you could remove one of them or replace two of them with HKs, but otherwise I'm not feeling too inclined to change it. Ammo won't need to be rebalanced since it's tight enough as is.

Is that midi Beyonce at the start?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/i8gxdb57n1lj624/50shd_b5.wad?dl=0 updated mek's map, and dobu's sky.

Alright, playing through the set has revealed no major problems for solo play, however Megalyth and shockblast's maps both break in coop, which will require fixing and also brings me to my second point.

I'm considering organizing a final survival playthrough of the mapset for authors to determine what changes may be necessary to make the maps more suitable for online play, bearing in mind that the average survival server is usually no less than 12 players. If authors would rather not tackle this, Alfonzo has volunteered to do multiplayer rebalancing and bugfixing.

What would people rather see, at this point?

I never touch multi personally, so In Alfonzo I Trust™

Ditto. Feel free to make any multiplayer changes you like to my map.

Go ahead and make any COOP changes you guys want to my map.

Feel free to add multiplayer things to my map too. I'd like to keep my demo in sync though, so making sectors/lines/moving vertices would desync it, but adding multiplayer things is fine. Could you send me the coop-ized version of the map before it gets added to the final wad, please? Just so I can re-save it on my comp with the same node builder settings.

Actually, yours was one of the maps that seems to be fine as is for coop :P If anything changes I'll send tho.

Played in ZDoom on HMP with Beta 3. Since the OP wasn't updated, I didn't notice newer versions so these are possibly already fixed

MAP01 - Exit switch is a HOM. While I see HOMs are used decoratively in some cases in this WAD (like MAP06, which is actually kinda cool), this just looks like a bug, so maybe it should be FIREBLU instead.

MAP06 - The sergeant here didn't attack me. Not sure if he was already active (don't think he was), so its either stuck or blind.



Also, I spent most of the first half of MAP06 running around looking for ammo, because there just wasn't enough ammo to deal with the monsters that were given. A chainsaw and a berserk pack isn't really that useful when dealing with cacodemons up above and arachnotrons/mancubi with their huge hitboxes. Up until map06, maps were generally fun and quite easy. MAP08 was a bit frustrating, haven't played beyond that yet.

dammit

http://www.best-ever.org/download?file=50shd_b6b.wad

i'll update op now

Marcaek said:

Noisyvelvet, your map seems to be unplayable in Zandronum due to line 6107. Is... it being used for some kind of effect?

It looks like the map06 in the beta is the one that still has that one unclosed sector. Just incase you missed this post from earlier:

NoisyVelvet said:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/56831507/Doom/Finished/50sogt/CountTrakula-r2.wad

There is already a heap of multiplayer monsters. I don't play multiplayer, but my idea of multiplayer balance is to have tons of cyberdemons and archviles everywhere (but still totally playable). Feel free to do whatever with it though.
Although, due to the large amount of HOMs and 1x1 columns and self-referencing sectors in the map, i might need it back for node-building too.

Regarding the ammo balance criticism (which is valid): You're right that there isn't enough ammo to pick off all the sniper monsters around the perimeter of the castle before you enter it. If there was enough ammo at the beginning, I have a hunch that players, instead of complaining about the lack of ammo, would compulsively kill all the sniper monsters and complain about how tedious it was. I also want remaining mancubuses and siege-cacos for when you are actually in the castle. Also, I don't want the player to have an early SSG or RL, to make the archvile fight funner from pistol start;

Two possible alternatives: 1. change the flying monsters and mancubuses to teleport-in; or 2. put temporary barricades that prevent the player from traveling around the perimeter of the castle before they enter it.
I don't personally mind running out of ammo in doom, so i never saw the real need to implement these.

100% kills can be achieved from pistol start on all difficulties without using melee nor ammo from secrets. There should be some already, but more ammo can be added inside the castle if it's still too tight on lower skill settings.

@Eris: i know the stuck shotgunner you're talking about. he does that only in zdoom for some reason. I don't think it affects the map much, and he's fun to punch off his perch :)

all in all though, the map's fate is all up to marcaek.

I think ammowise it's fine. Ammo conservation in Doom is a skill as far as I'm concerned and you shouldn't pick at monsters that aren't an immediate threat if you're low, that's bad planning.

There are some blocking lines present to keep monsters in certain areas outside the castle(north\east\west) is there a practical reason for this? I was considering removing them but i have a feeling it's to prevent monsters from bunching up on one side of the map while you expore the castle, is this the case?

The map needs very little in changes otherwise, I'll hand it back to you before release. Fonz is almost done and I have little to add myself at this point before I can ship this out the door.

I put those two monster blocking lines in for some reason or another a while back, but I can't remember the exact reasoning i had for it. I generally use monster blocking lines liberally for some reason or another. I think these ones had something to do with containing some of the arachnotrons behind the castle: letting a couple of the spiders wander towards the front while the others were forced to wander in their respective patrol zones. When I think about it now though, deaf monsters and blocking lines are redundant. Perhaps i was having problems with deaf monsters waking up and put those there as a safety guard? I know that i didn't want every single arachnotron to travel to the front of the castle before you enter it. It also might have had something to do with funneling some of the flying monsters that are woken up into the castle instead of down the alley-ways. I don't entirely know.

It might not hurt to take it out and test the map, but i would pay attention to see if monsters move around un-ideally or bunch up somewhere. if too many monsters bunch up at the front of the castle, for example, that might not be good.

edit: the monster blocking line on the east side actually causes the flying monsters to bunch up in that one pocket, which isn't ideal. I tried fixing the issue right now by adding even more blocking lines, but that just funneled them into a hallway in the castle which became a large door of meat down the road. whatever you guys decide on is fine. if you wanna change something yourselves', then that's just less work for me. but if you want me to edit it myself i might be able to do it if you give me a heads up.

We'll take care of it and get back to you.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/a1kc0e9mpy88kuo/50shd_multiv2.wad?dl=0

Alright. Barring a few issues this is ready to go.

Noisyvelvet: For some reason the exit torches in your map disappear online in Zandronum. I have no idea what the cause is, heh. If you can figure out how to fix it that'd be great but failing that, consider perhaps using sky transfers and TimeofDeath's solid color skies to put color on the respective floors at the exit.

The MAPINFO still needs to be finalized but the Dehacked is complete and everything should be playable from start to end.

Marcaek said:

Noisyvelvet, your map seems to be unplayable in Zandronum due to line 6107. Is... it being used for some kind of effect?

You said this a while back; is this still an issue? this new version still has this line but playing it in zandronum works for me. i'm guessing this isn't an issue.

As for this weird "torch vanishing" bug, i'm not entirely sure what you mean at the moment. tomorrow i will have some time to experiment with zandronum net-play. i'll try to reproduce the bug and see if there's a fix.

I believe that line may still be there, I probably forgot it while building the credits map :/

I'll playtest it again and see if I can reproduce any issues.

I found a couple of bugs + things I wanted to tweak today while testing out the map in GZDoom Builder. I hope its not too late for an update. Also I wasn't sure if you guys had made any COOP changes to my map or not (hopefully not since this would create conflicting versions).

Anywho here ya go: http://mekworx.the-powerhouse.net/mekastuff/wads/fiddyshadesofgraydumb/mek-graydumb-v5.wad

Just wondering, what's the status of this project? Anything that still needs doing?

An interpic. Preferably with a siezure warning because one or 2 maps use strobing effects and I'm not changing them at this point.

Has this been used anywhere yet?

That is just gold. use it already.

My computer won't read the file when I download.