Kama Sutra Released

I don't see the maps as difficult at all, let alone would call it "completely insane". I'm playing on UV and if you actually save now and then it's a piece of cake. I for one have been fully satisfied with the gameplay thus far. If it's too difficult for you, that's lamentable, but the harder skills are not that hard even if for laymen like me.

rofl, oh and best use of lower unpegging ever at the start of map11. You guys are truly evil :P

Wow!!! They did a really nice job on this mega-wad! I love new stuff like this, some thing new to play that actually rulz!
The only thing is the sexual theme, how does sex and doom go together??? Thats like peanut butter and mustard...

Well Ivan, there comes a time in a young Doomer's life.. eh, let me just show you.

Szymanski said:

You fail it! Your skill is not enough.

Seriously I don't see why they have to cater for your playing ability (or inability).

I didn't say it's too hard to play for me. To be honest, when I saw how many monsters there are in these levels I just entered 'kill monsters' into the console and just took a look. I don't play stuff like this for real because it's too overcrowded to be fun to play for me.

IMO Blastfests are the most boring stuff imaginable that can be done with Doom and this WAD is a great example for that. It's just the latest reincarnation of HR, AV or Deus Vult - all WADs I never completed because I don't like their style of gameplay.

(Sorry, just not my style.)

Stealthy Ivan said:

Wow!!! They did a really nice job on this mega-wad! I love new stuff like this, some thing new to play that actually rulz!
The only thing is the sexual theme, how does sex and doom go together??? Thats like peanut butter and mustard...

Well, if you're not careful during sex, it could end up with certain consequences that result in your girlfriend getting cravings like peanut butter and mustard... So, better to play more Doom to lower the chances of that happening ;)

Up at 21 now, and it's starting to get rough.

sargebaldy said:

Well Ivan, there comes a time in a young Doomer's life.. eh, let me just show you.

A young doomer? I wish, Going on 26 here :P
Nuthin like alittle bit of impse!!!

How long did this take for you to make?

i guess 16 months but we have long pauses and my activity wasn't comfortable :pp

I've noticed some bugs, including the possibility to get stuck in map 16 (jump to the west from the red key platform, or to the east and into the slime) and a missing texture in map 19 (linedef #820). Any chance of an upgrade release? If so, I'd strongly recommend changing the sky graphics for the two first episodes. The levels would look a lot better.

HOOORAY! It's done :)))

I'm not at home next week, so I can't play it for a while. I hope there is lots of demo stuff when I'm back again.

I'm quite addicted to Map26. Did two maxruns in 10:01 today. I'll try to break the 10 minutes barrier til tomorrow.

Happy hunting, too ;)

Graf Zahl said:

To be honest, when I saw how many monsters there are in these levels I just entered 'kill monsters' into the console and just took a look.

Yay me too. Part of it ismy thirst for death. I first bound my attack key to mdk, and thet didn't kill the 600 monsters on a level fast enough... so I had to one up that and slaughter them all with the hand of god.

heh, you didn't see any bugs before map19? i'm only on 12 and i've seen all sorts of homs and misalignments and whatnot.

I mentioned the first one that came to mind. I haven't kept a record, and I had no intention to go back and look through the maps again just to write a list for that post :P

While I don't share Graf Zuhls extreme opinion, I do agree from what I've played (admittedly not much yet) it is kind of 'insane'. The instant-imps that appear annoy me, and I've entered more than a few rooms already where I was wasted instantly by chaingunners or such. The maps seem great, I think I will play through this, it's just going to take some trial and error while I memorize where those 'cheap' spots are that i get raped.

I guess I'm a fan of challenging, but not kill 100000 monster wads.

All in all, good stuff so far, but making the lower difficulties less 'insane' would never be a bad idea.

Oh great! Now my insomnia won't be a problem for the next couple of nights! :) And it's made by compet-n players. That's gotta be good.

/downloads...

Finally some good news in this silly week.
(downloads immediatly)

heh, it does actually start to get tough. For me map13 was the first I'd consider truly difficult.

sargebaldy said:

heh, it does actually start to get tough. For me map13 was the first I'd consider truly difficult.

You haven't seen the worst yet. Prepare for Map27! (>1700 monsters...)

You know, when idcleving to HR map22, usually to run around in it with cheat codes, I used to think there was no way I'd ever beat it. But when I actually decided to play through HR, it turned out not to be so hard after all.

Beating most slaughter-style maps is just a matter of working out the right strategy, which requires some patience but not godlike skills. There is a difference between a level (segment) being hard because you need a strategy, and being hard because there's some moment that requires luck or exceptional control. If there is some part whose outcome seems to depend on luck no matter how you approach it, just use a save and retry until you make it.

Some maps require more than just a good strategy, but I haven't seen many of those. And of course, what control skill is "exceptional" is variable. But in most cases average skill is sufficient, provided that you use saves, even for many maps that may seem impossible at a first glance.

I'll see where map27 falls when I get there...

Reading this sort of makes me want to make a BEX patch that makes it so all monsters have a x% chance of dying instantly when the level starts. That way you can play through a super hard level but only say half the monsters are around to bother you.

sargebaldy said:

I don't see the maps as difficult at all, let alone would call it "completely insane".

I'd go along with that from what I have seen so far. If you take your time and play it safe (and give some thought to strategy), there is little that is unfair. Map09 is a good example. If you use infighting to your advantage and camp a bit, then it's really rather easy, and you get a huge ammo surplus and more than enough health. If you try to run through it though, it is ferocious.

I presume there are some later maps where passive methods don't work so well though, and you are forced to play more "heroically".

Yeah, I'd say it starts to change around halfway through the wad. Before that you can get away with a lot of the work by just playing it smart, saving up ammo and promoting infighting, as you say. But after a while that doesn't seem to be quite enough :P I'm looking forward to the challenge though. Sure, there's a lot of monsters here, but I think they were all used very craftily.

Grazza said:

I presume there are some later maps where passive methods don't work so well though, and you are forced to play more "heroically".

Try Map26. Play it aggressive and you will have pure fun. This map has probably the best opening fight of all maps I've ever played. And it's my favourite map since Scythe Map26.

I don't think Kama Sutra is too hard. Compare it with a music album you 'hate' at first, but you feel more and more addicted to it the more you play it. Up to the point you 'love' it. It's not 'fast food'.

Come on, guys! Not every Doom map has to be so easy that you can beat it with your first try. What is wrong about a good challenge ?

Well I guess they could have made it easy on the first skill levels, but it doesn't really matter, it's still good. Not many people are bad at Doom nowadays anyway. :)

Angus Thermopyle said:

Come on, guys! Not every Doom map has to be so easy that you can beat it with your first try. What is wrong about a good challenge ?

Nothing. But I prefer smarter ways to create a challenge than filling the map with more and more monsters. That's what is so good about Plutonia. I think there isn't a map in there with more than 200 monsters and many are well below 100 but the difficulty level is considerably higher than almost everything else with the same amount of monsters.

Plutonia is hard because 95 of those 100 monsters are camping chaingunners :P

But that's true. There are also packs or revenants everywhere and an archville in map01.

Lutrov71 said:

and an archville in map01.

Come on! Don't tell me that this particular Arch Vile is a problem.

The one in Map21 which will resurrect all the corpses created before - that is nasty!

I'm not saying it's a problem, I'm just saying that no easy Megawad has an arch-ville on the first level.