Phml
Senior Member
Posts: 1823
Registered: 06-09 |
I'm with Solarn, map03 is just great. Even at the beginning there's different options to tackle that huge horde of monsters, and while many AV jumps are possible they are made very challenging by the number of monsters around and lack of health.
Even the end AV jump isn't so easy as I thought, replaying it I can see the first time was a fluke. With so many monsters teleporting in the last room it's pretty common for the archviles to end up infighting, more than once I started running to the exit with the flame on me only to see the AV switch targets at last second and let me fall into the lava. :)
Map02 - It does feel like it ends a little soon, doesn't it? I think it needs a little extra something to feel complete.
Now that you mention it, that's *exactly* what it feels like. It's like, starting area, revenant mouth tunnel, hell knight room, back to starting area, and it's already over.
Regardless, it is still a fine and fun map as it is. The fights can be made very easy - for example, all the stuff in the starting area will nicely stack (and infight) near the revvie tunnel, allowing the player to snipe easily with the RL - but I don't see this as a bad thing on map02.
As for FPS issues, to be fair I've had some slowdowns on map05 too (anytime I look at a spot with a bunch of torches). I'm using a fairly high end rig by 2007 standards, but I'm also playing on 1680x1050 with 4x AA and so on. I ought to make a second .cfg without all the graphic candy to try the biggest maps.
Forgot to mention, the reason you were probably confused as where to go on Map05, was due to a switch I broke ages ago - and a certain platform not lowering, allowing you to continue. (I have tried to set up teleporters and so on, to make it obvious where to go. Lets hope players don't get too lost... (They will!))
You know, I actually find map05 on Pacifist to be an enjoyable experience, and I'm the kind of player who disliked Eternal Doom. It's like a giant exploration puzzle with tricky jumps.
... Alright, I know I'm supposed to *fight* stuff too, but so far I've had so much fun on Pacifist I didn't try fighting. :)
I had a look on other maps, but as the difficulty ramps higher it'll take me longer to test these properly.
*Edit : I did some benchmarks with FRAPS, running through map04 and map05, and indeed I was wrong. Map05 slows down to 25-30 FPS sometimes, but Map04 is at 60 FPS all the time (capped by vsync).
It still feels sluggish somehow. I think it's the floor texture that plays tricks with my eyes - it's rather bland and pale, and there's large surfaces covered with this texture without breaks, and while having more detail walls have the same color as well.
That being said, my eyesight isn't perfect so it might not be the texture that is at fault here. :)
--
*Edit 2 : Just ran through map06.
Great map, fun fights. At first, the texture choice seemed weird, but after a while it all blends together. It's amazing how good you are with architecture, not only these maps play well but they're also fantastic to look at, each with a completely different look and feel.
Now, I think the map is way too easy - but note by this I mean "only as hard as a Hell Revealed map instead of the absolute insane slaughterfest that is a Sunder map". ;)
For starters, there's too much health and too much ammo. With these large, open areas, it isn't hard to avoid getting hit, especially as there's no hitscanner and the monsters will infight a lot. As for ammo, I spammed RL and Plasma for the whole map, hardly running out of ammo on these weapons (which means at all times I had a SSG with 100 shells to fall back on, anyway). I didn't kill everything, but there was plenty of ammo left.
I found the fights themselves to be rather easy. More detail :
The first room was alright and challenging, although once you get used to it it's rather straightforward to get the hell knights to infight the cyberdemon/mancubii, flip the switch, wait for the archvile to come in, run past it, grab the plasma rifle, kill the archvile, then snipe the remaining monsters without risk.
Having cleared the first room, the second fight is too easy as the revenants/barons all come out at the same spot in a tight formation, and the player has plenty of room to maneuver. Getting them to infight or dispatching them with the RL is trivial.
The cybie/demons fight isn't really dangerous either, unless the demons surround the doomguy while the cyberdemon has a clear light of sight - but that doesn't happen often, most likely it'll have demons in its way.
Up until that part, health balance was OK, but with the megasphere in the demons room it all goes downhill. The archviles aren't dangerous at all as they'll run right to sector 4 and stick there, rezzing stuff that won't move either if the Doomguy himself stays in sector 3 or 8. Easy to kill everything with RL splash damage, without taking a hit, so you go in the red key room with 200/200 and the option to pick up another blue armor and soulsphere when hurt.
Something else I considered is as the archviles weren't an issue, it should be easy to keep a few demons, say 5-6, behind the player in sector 3 after having killed the cyberdemon, and entering the red key room with them to keep the door open, making the next fights much easier as well. I didn't do it because I didn't feel the need for it, but it might be something to consider.
Moving on to the red key room, it could have been hard, especially for the first part with the cyberdemon and barons/hell knights, but it becomes too easy with all the health/ammo.
The imp/baron fight isn't much of a threat, either, but for this one I suppose you wanted to give the player a break after the previous fights that should have been harder.
The switch room is much better. I rushed to the invul sphere like a kid reaching for candy and met my demise. :)
Other than that, the switchhunt and the fights were good in this room. With so many monsters and no BFG, the invul sphere doesn't last long enough to get rid of them all ; however, I found it easy to stay up and pop in, pop out for a few shots. More cacodemons and/or adding lost souls and pain elementals might help with this.
I don't want this to sound negative, again I had a lot of fun during the whole map, the only problem is that I finished it in about 3-4 tries, while, for reference, map01 and map02 took me more than 10 attempts each. Most of the fights would be very challenging if there wasn't so much ammo and health available.
Last edited by Phml on 08-07-09 at 23:45
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08-07-09 11:10 
