Progressive Fiction (Hadephobia now on /idgames)

I finished MAP18. It was a pretty cool map. I liked the shift in the difficulty after passing the first area. A few notes:

- The 3 keys have 2 ways to use on the large door (or floor). Wouldn't it be better with 1 only? (Ok I think this is a stupid point to say)

- The 2 cages blocking monsters include Cacodemons. They can fly over the cage, but are blocked by nothing. Why not putting down a ceiling to prevent this from happening?

- Would be cool if there was a small fight after taking the yellow key.

- This secret is obvious in the automap. Put "Secret" flag on it.
http://i1183.photobucket.com/albums/x476/C30N9/Screenshot_Doom_20111109_134345.png

- When the Cyber-Demon appears at the end, it should be "Deaf", because it may block your way out.

- It gets really hard after 3 Archviles get in the action. But it is your choice.

Anyway it is a pretty cool map.

C30N9 said:

- The 3 keys have 2 ways to use on the large door (or floor). Wouldn't it be better with 1 only? (Ok I think this is a stupid point to say)

What is the other way you'e talking about? You should only be able to open the door with the switches.

- The 2 cages blocking monsters include Cacodemons. They can fly over the cage, but are blocked by nothing. Why not putting down a ceiling to prevent this from happening?

I've never seen them leaving the cages, as the cage's lines are impassable, so they shouldn't be doing that. Wath port did you used while testing the map?

- Would be cool if there was a small fight after taking the yellow key.

I was thinking about that too. Maybe I'll put it something in.

- This secret is obvious in the automap. Put "Secret" flag on it.
http://i1183.photobucket.com/albums/x476/C30N9/Screenshot_Doom_20111109_134345.png

What do you mean by "obvious"? You could see the secret area without actually opening it? Or are you reffering to putting the "Secret" effect on the sector (wich I did)?

- When the Cyber-Demon appears at the end, it should be "Deaf", because it may block your way out.

I can't really see how the cybie can block you, as there are the two "doorways" to get back to the altar room, plus the teleporter before them (in the small lava pit) wich teleports you at the main gate (where you came in).

- It gets really hard after 3 Archviles get in the action. But it is your choice.

Yeah, that was the purpose of it.

Thanks for the comments!

"What is the other way you'e talking about? You should only be able to open the door with the switches."

When I "use" on the switch that is on the door itself, "you need all three keys to activate this object" message will appear.



"I've never seen them leaving the cages, as the cage's lines are impassable, so they shouldn't be doing that. Wath port did you used while testing the map?"

No they didn't leave it. They flew over the height level of the cage textures. But they are still blocked, but the player sees them blocked by nothing in air. A picture says it all:



"What do you mean by "obvious"? You could see the secret area without actually opening it? Or are you reffering to putting the "Secret" effect on the sector (wich I did)?"

I was able to see the secret area from the Automap. This is the front side of the door (I'm looking at):



"I can't really see how the cybie can block you, as there are the two "doorways" to get back to the altar room, plus the teleporter before them (in the small lava pit) wich teleports you at the main gate (where you came in)."

Sorry, it did once. :P

I'm sorry that my points were not obvious.

C30N9 said:

When I "use" on the switch that is on the door itself, "you need all three keys to activate this object" message will appear.
http://i41.tinypic.com/20idour.png

Oh, this. I don't think this counts as a bug (as you still can't open the door by just pushing it).

No they didn't leave it. They flew over the height level of the cage textures. But they are still blocked, but the player sees them blocked by nothing in air. A picture says it all:

Ah, now I understand.

I was able to see the secret area from the Automap. This is the front side of the door (I'm looking at):

Well, that certanly shows that I'm still a newbie at mapping. I didn't knew what the Secret tag does until now. :D

"I can't really see how the cybie can block you, as there are the two "doorways" to get back to the altar room, plus the teleporter before them (in the small lava pit) wich teleports you at the main gate (where you came in)."

Sorry, it did once. :P

Hmmm. I'll see what can I do about it if I encounter it.

OK, so my notes now. I'll mark in bold anything critical, which requires attention prior to the map being added to the megawad. Everything else is just comments including parts that in my opinion would improve the level but I will let you make the judgement call on those:

18.1 - I'm not keen on the music for this map. It doesn't feel like it fits because it's the music I used for MAP04, which has imprinted on my brain now.

18.2 - It's hard to remember the previous version but it feels like the beginning area has lengthened. It's got more of a tech feel now, which mixed with the brick and marble isn't exactly my taste but does evoke a stronger feeling of the place being a UAC facility.

18.3 - Gameplay-wise it still feels like it lacks a bit of spice early on but now there are at least a few set pieces that force the player to concentrate. There's less of a clash between the key hunting area and altar area.

18.4 - I like how you gather all the keys to open the one entrance to the altar. It gives the altar area a real feeling of significance, which is in fitting with the story.

18.5 - I can't decide whether I miss the chaingunners in the first altar attack or not! Sorry to be contrary, for all the annoyance of being stripped to 0% health in a panic when you can't see where they were shooting from, it did add an edge. Gah, I think a second opinion is needed here.

18.6 - The baron/HK fight in the Eastern annex doesn't work for me because they never got out of the room and I could just rocket them through the door way. They either need better access.

18.7 - The communication equipment looks better but is still not epic enough in my opinion. If you don't mind I'll try building something because it should really be the centre piece of the map.

18.8 - Ah, you relented on the Cyb/Manc fight :-) It's possibly my favourite part of the map.

18.9 - The lava annex didn't play as well as I remembered. It's a pain to kill anything from range without freelook due to the distance/height difference. The issue I remember with the HK fight hasn't really been resolved either. It's a bit luck based depending on the proximity of the HK's to you whether you handle the fight comfortable or get torn to shreds. One thing about the area that definitely needs changing is the jumping sequence. The last jump is too far for comfort and I can see it driving some players mad.

18.10 - Ran into the same issue with AV's as in the previous version. The fight would be really cool in the altar room but both times I've played it happens in the annex because they run to you.

18.11 - I never had a serious ammo problem at any point, though there were times I had to be resourceful. I would say the balance and distribution is now about right.

18.12 - Needs co-op starts

18.13 - backpack secret has two sectors with the secret effect

18.14 - PR secret sector does not have secret effect

Pick the bones out of that and let me know your thoughts. Oddly C30N9 and I never found the same issues.

Melon said:

On the plus side, I have the next week off so if the map isn't finished by this time next week, I'll eat my goddamn hat.

Buuurrrrp! Mmmm... leather.

Sorry about the lateness. Was that the second deadline I'd set myself to finish this map that I've missed now? Sigh.

It's mostly done, texturing and detailing is getting me hung up again. I spotted a rather nasty visual bug today and spent ages trying to fix it, which serves me right for doing some extreme node building manipulation to make a cool effect. I also decided that my original level gimmick wasn't all that fun in practice (I had it set up so that you picked up a BFG that kept respawning ammo), fortunately it's pretty easy to balance out removing it without any serious re-working of what I've already done. I'd tried hard to not make a slaughter-style map with my regenerating BFG gimmick because I felt that it would have put off a lot of people, but in the end it was either too easy, or I made the regeneration really slow in which case it encouraged hanging around for it to regenerate.

Have some screenshots of bland, not yet fully detailed areas while you wait.

1
2
3

EDIT: Some imps look like they're dancing in that last shot.

purist said:

18.1 - I'm not keen on the music for this map. It doesn't feel like it fits because it's the music I used for MAP04, which has imprinted on my brain now.

I'll change it then.

18.3 - Gameplay-wise it still feels like it lacks a bit of spice early on but now there are at least a few set pieces that force the player to concentrate. There's less of a clash between the key hunting area and altar area.

That's good to hear. Looks like I have to put more monsters (maybe some more traps) in it.

18.5 - I can't decide whether I miss the chaingunners in the first altar attack or not! Sorry to be contrary, for all the annoyance of being stripped to 0% health in a panic when you can't see where they were shooting from, it did add an edge. Gah, I think a second opinion is needed here.

:D Maybe I'll put the chaingunners back for UV, but leave the shotty guys for the other difficulty settings.

18.6 - The baron/HK fight in the Eastern annex doesn't work for me because they never got out of the room and I could just rocket them through the door way. They either need better access.

I see. I'll do something about it.

18.7 - The communication equipment looks better but is still not epic enough in my opinion. If you don't mind I'll try building something because it should really be the centre piece of the map.

If I'm done with my map 100%, then I wouldn't mind if you could tweak it a bit. Just show me first what have you changed.

18.9 - The lava annex didn't play as well as I remembered. It's a pain to kill anything from range without freelook due to the distance/height difference. The issue I remember with the HK fight hasn't really been resolved either. It's a bit luck based depending on the proximity of the HK's to you whether you handle the fight comfortable or get torn to shreds. One thing about the area that definitely needs changing is the jumping sequence. The last jump is too far for comfort and I can see it driving some players mad.

I could make the jumping sequence a bit easier, but I personally didn't had much problem with the aiming (and I don't use freelook). I also put a block monster line between the HKs and the teleport pad, so you should have enough space for dodging their attacks (at least I never had a problem with it).

18.10 - Ran into the same issue with AV's as in the previous version. The fight would be really cool in the altar room but both times I've played it happens in the annex because they run to you.

I have no idea how to make it work though. They teleport right next to the eastern annex, so they should resurrect SOME enemis while they're going after you. Any tips how can I improve it?

The co-op and secret sector bugs will be fixed.

I'll let you finish up before I have a go at the communication equipment. I will have some time free tonight but I will use that finishing up MAP17. Hopefully next week both MAP17 and 18 will be in the megawad.

The only solutions I could think of for the AV fight were:

1. Use block monster lines. The simplest solution though it may cause problems with the other battles.

2. Teleport them onto raised pillars that only drop as the player returns to (or nearly reaches) the altar room. Granted, this will reduce the time AVs will have for resurrecting but there are 3 of them so I'm sure there will be plenty of opportunity to res while the player is battling them.

.

My draft of the edited MAP17 will be up this week. Ironing out a few bugs and then I will share with you guys. It's looking darker, meaner and has a new sting in the tail.

Photobucket is being wierd but I eventually managed to upload a couple of screenshots:



EDIT: There are another 2 pics on my Photobucket album but it won't let me link to them for some reason. It's images 1-4.

Hey purist, your improvements to MAP17 look excellent.

So instead of moping around struggling to get in the right state of mind to finish off MAP30, I thought I'd make myself useful and give MAP29 a proper playtest now that it's finished. I recorded my attempts if you're interested and like to watch me play horribly. The short end of it is that I didn't actually get very far at all in the 20-ish minutes the demo file takes, but I'm sure you can get some good laughs. I do spend some time on the lookout for bugs and misalignments, so pardon some of the slowness.

]Download demo

On the plus side, trying that first area a couple of times let me experiment with trying different ways to take on the fight, such as not shooting pillars point-blank with the rocket launcher (this helped!) and also trying to run back into the building and chokepoint the enemies, which you will be glad to know was not very successful thanks to the archville reviving everything and me almost running out of ammo.

I will likely try again later, I may even give Hey Not To Rough a playtest first (although I'd like to finish it on UV without saving), in the meantime here's some comment for what I did play:

* I spotted a texture misalignment (and got killed looking at it :p) ]Pic
* I remembered an early version before the level was finished having repetitive repeated fights around the yellow key, so I was caught unawares by the extra monsters after the fourth switch press. This is not a complaint, I like it.
* I don't think it would hurt to have the pillars in the yellow key fight a little bit wider for slightly easier dodging of the archville but that may be because I'm a huge wuss. Avoiding the second archville with all the extra monsters flanking you at first glance seems pretty hard, but I'll have to try another attempt where I don't suck first. (EDIT: I just checked it out in DoomBuilder and the pillars will already give you 32-45 map units of cover, which is alright. For some reason I felt they were much smaller when playing, not sure why. They might be fine as is.)
* When you make it into the big open area past the yellow key door, those chaingunners are really powerful, but again this is cool.

Thanks Melon, I noticed there's no secrets in MAP17 so I'm going I'm going to put a couple of nice ones in but that will add a bit more time. Never mind, I'm having fun working with this neat little level :-)

Regarding MAP29, I watched your demo. It was great to watch someone play one of my maps as usual. Your play style reminds me of my own in the sense that after your deaths you restart with increasingly aggressive tactics and then give it up after around 3 attempts, ha. On top form I'm sure you'd get much further but it's a difficult map without saves as there's several battles that can easily spell death if you make a mistake or are caught flat footed. I designed it to be pretty much as hard as I can manage in the hope it would be fittingly difficult for the penultimate map. I'm not sure I've even beaten it without saves myself, but I have done a 100% kill 0% secret UV exit with saves so it must be possible. If I lose impetus with MAP17 I will try to record a demo of my own.

I will fix the misalignment but I will first wait to see if there's anything else you find. Incidently, I've never killed anyone with a misalignment before. I feel peversley proud. Hope you have fun trying to beat my level.

Just now I thought I'd try out the map again on Hurt Me Plenty and I now have a major criticism. The map is too hard on lower difficulties and it makes almost no difference. At first I honestly thought you hadn't changed anything at all, but I opened it up in Doom Builder and noticed that the changes were minor. If you haven't really gotten around to balancing the difficulties yet, then you have my apologies.

Either way, it might help to try and break down the fights in the yellow key area to see where the real challenge lies and what can be done about it for the lower difficulties (I can't yet give any opinion on other areas). I remember you saying that the lower difficulties I had set for MAP28 were too easy, so we may have a fundamental difference in opinions on what is appropriate. Here are my suggestions:

• The chaingunners on the buildings when you enter the area could be downgraded/removed. At that time I'm half concentrating on the roaming imps and they do tend to result in me sucking up a large number of the stimpacks before I've triggered the enemy waves.
  
• Pretty much the majority of the challenge in the final wave comes from the fact that you're being flanked and surrounded when there's an archville on the loose, and due to where and when he spawns, he's a very high priority. In all honesty for the Easy difficulties I would just remove the archvilles entirely (A Hell Knight would be a nice replacement if you think a replacement is necessary). Either that or remove the extra flanking enemies, but then you've got two identical fights in a row. For Medium, something still needs to be done, but I think you could strip down the flanking wave a bit more than just removing one arachnatron (which I never felt were a threat in this fight, but I rarely lived long enough to find out).
  
• You can ignore my previous comment wondering if the pillars were too small, they are perfectly fine as is, my strafing was just poor.
  
• If you want to remove as few enemies as possible, consider upgrading some stimpacks to medikits, or swap the green armour for a blue one, but keep in mind that thinning monsters is the go-to option because getting surrounded is usually a death sentence regardless of difficulty level.
  

I must admit lower difficulties tend to be an afterthought for me. I don't consider myself a particulary skillful Doom player so I always assume if I can beat the map with no secrets most others will too. Hence I make the map hard for me in UV and then remove token monsters for the lower difficulties. IIRC in MAP29 this was mainly the thinning of the caco waves.

I think all your suggestions sound reasonable. I won't have any time tonight but tomorrow I will go right through MAP29 in the lower difficulties.

MAP17 is almost ready for a first draft - is anyone available for playtesting this weekend? If so let me know and I'll post it here or PM you.

I can playtest it as i'm not busy with anything right now.

Great. That would be most appropriate since it's your map. I'll upload it tonight or tomorrow after a few last minute tweaks and you can let me know what you think.

@Melon: I've been trying to do a UV max kill on MAP29 with 0% secrets and failing repeatedly. Here is my demo with the version of progfic.wad I did it in. My fourth and last run was my best. I got just after the red key then made a silly error. It's scary how much harder this level is without saves. So many places you can get scorched if you put a foot wrong. The start area will at least be easier with weapons carried over from the previous maps. I will beat it at some point!

Also, here is the newest version of progfic.wad. With some new skies and the skill setting enhanced MAP29 for you to playtest. I've gone right through the level and thinned monsters in almost every battle. Specifically, in YK area I made the following changes:

• In the little room near the SSG I've added a bezerk as well as the stimpacks in easy and instead of in medium. Idea is that you can judge for yourself what point you need the top up.
  
• I've replaced the chaingunners on the buildings for former humans in easy and sergeants in medium. In easy I've also removed the other hitscanners on the highest rooftops.
  
• I've thinned out the imps in the outdoor area and various monsters in the pens/teleports in both lower difficulties.
  
• I've removed the AV's in easy and replaced them with revs in medium.
  
• I finally located the sole rogue caco that flies over at awkward moments and deleted his elusive ass!

I've continued a similar theme beyond the YK door but I'll let you witness this for yourself. Let me know what you think.

EDIT: No MAP17 yet. I'll do that next.

Hey purist.

I had fun watching your demo, it's reassuring to my ego to see that you died in the yellow key area for many of the same reasons that I did. I think it's important to try and balance difficulty levels around playing from pistol start without saving, I always felt that when saving I was too tempted to retry some fights until they go really well and as a result I would underestimate the amount of resources that you really need. No saves exaggerates the impact of mistakes that you make and causes you to consume a lot more resources.

With regards to difficulty, this wad is a bit different to many in that the continual narrative feels like it promotes carrying weapons across levels more than usual. Difficulty balancing might be tough in that respect. I'm especially worried that MAP28 will be far too easy. When I finally finish MAP30 I may have time to help you get a start on fine tuning the difficulty of other levels, I remember getting the impression that Cell's MAP07 was particularly tricky but it's been so long since I played it I'd have to take another look. I don't think this mapset will ever have a perfect difficulty curve because there's no flexibility in shuffling levels around, but the odd spike or drop here and there isn't a major problem and helps with pacing.

In other news, I was about to go to bed but thought I'd try one more attempt at MAP29 Hurt Me Plenty using the new release, with the condition that I'd stop when/if I died. I'm not doing these recordings to bore you, I just hope they might be helpful for you to see where the difficulty spikes are. Comments:

• I like the new music.
  
• The yellow key fight felt generous enough that I could get away with the odd mistake but not so generous that I could play sloppily, so I think it's perfect on HMP right about now. As you can see in the demo I stupidly got caught out by a pair of imps but it wasn't fatal like it would have been on UV.
  
• The area outside the yellow door was similarly nice. Almost felt like there was too much health this time though, but you come back to that area later so maybe not.
  
• I'd watched your demo go the red key route so I took the blue key path, where I died when reaching the outdoor area. I had ran out of armour at this point and was going to ask if there was any, but I cracked open Doombuilder and it looks like there's one in the middle of the enemy group by the door. Would it be worth moving it towards the switch, I'm not sure, I'd eaten a lot of damage in the yellow key area so I think I'm to blame for that. The revenant fight inside the building was tough but doable, I would have had to have used the plasma gun on UV which I'm sure is the intent.

Download demo

We've played it so much between us that that yellow key area will balanced to hell and back by the time the wad is finished ;)

EDIT: Sorry, let me clarify that armour point. Not having seen how that area plays out on UV I'm wondering if it might be better to move that armour to somewhere a bit more accessible. By "the switch" I mean the one outside in that courtyard with the trees, but maybe on the top floor in the building with the revenant fight could be another good choice. Or maybe it's fine as is.

i always wanted to notice you these bugs, but for some reason i'll never did it, and so:


MAP09: A little misalignment in this wall..


MAP16: Missing textures in the central outdoor area...

@walter confalonieri: I'll look to those at some point. MAP16 was your map... was this an area I'd edited or something?

@Malinku: Here's my draft of MAP17. I'm still working on texture alignment and tweaking gameplay. I'm still not sure it's hard enough considering the player will have all the weapons except the BFG from previous maps and I would like to change the secret invincibility sphere but can't think of an appropriate replacement. Suggestions in all areas are welcome.

@Melon: It would be good to have someone to bounce ideas off in terms of the megawad's overall difficulty when played continuously. That will be a task... and I've been putting it off until all the maps are in. Going to watch your demo now... more comments to follow.

EDIT: Watched your demo. It was funny watching you nervously grabbing the PR and running away, wondering why nothing happened, then casually triggering the trap, haha.

I've took your point and moved the armour to the ledge prior to the garden. It'll give the player a little more margin for error in the garden fight.

Don't worry about the excess medikits yet. If they still seem superflous after you beat the map I'll remove some but you might be glad they're there later.

Hey purist, getting late here right now, I was determined to beat the map on HMP. I didn't quite do it, but I did get up to the final fight and that's good enough for now as I intend to eventually beat it on UV so I'll be playing it again. I've got two demos if you want to watch them, the first (take3) reaches the blue key and can be skipped entirely if you don't want to waste 15 minutes, while the second (take4) takes the red key path first and makes it up to the final fight. I know you've been making some changes, so I included the wad version I used just in case. It makes the download significantly bigger though, sorry. I tried to avoid secrets if I encountered them, but accidentally grabbed a single secret rocket box in the last demo. You can happily skip the first 5 minutes of each demo, you've seen it all before.

]Download demos

Comments:

• Across the level as a whole I feel like it would be better if most or all of the armour was blue. The majority of my deaths have been due to sudden damage spikes, in take3 as soon as I ran out of armour I happened to lose over 100% health in a fraction of a second where I died. With all of the powerful monsters about, death tends to be sudden and harsh. You would of course need to rebalance the amount of health available. It might be worth just making a test version of the level where you find/replace all the green armour for blue and delete some health and see how it plays. I know one of your secrets is blue armour, but I'm sure it could be easily replaced with something like a soulsphere/more cells.
  
• The opening revenant fight of the blue key path can be totally cheesed by triggering the trap and running out of the door before it closes, I'd advise the step before it to instantly close the door (move it UP to the lowest floor and it'll snap shut instantly). If you do this I think a revenant or two could be removed from HMP at least as it can get hectic in there.
  
• Taking the red key path first makes the entire level significantly easier. The red key path has way too many rockets, while the blue key path has not enough, and starting the blue key path with about 90 rockets instead of 15 makes things a lot more managable. I think you should shuffle around the ammo for the two paths a little bit. I'd also suggest slightly more rockets throughout the level, nothing more than the odd 5 rocket box here and there, it would speed things up a little bit and some fights are quite long right now. At the moment there is no reason to consider taking the blue key path first.
  
• Boy did that final fight catch me out when I went back to restock on all those health kits I left behind, wow. Although I didn't get much chance to fight my initial thought was that all the cybers and archvilles would be more comfortably tackled if i could get my hands on some more cells. Maybe the final "outside" ledge where you're facing down the exit switch could have 2 cell packs on it, a cyber teleports to the exit switch and I'm worried that someone might end up having to plink away at him from a distance with the SSG if they clear out the rest of the cybers first. Bear in mind I still need to give this fight a proper attempt so I might be jumping the gun.

EDIT: Rewatched my demo later the next day. If there's going to be any blue armour anywhere, having some for the final fight would be best. Just outside the last door would be fine.

Just played through map 17.

1. The yellow key switch is way too easy. Just spam rockets. I think that having that door open when you grab the yellow key will make it a lot better.

2. secret at top of the first stairs is too easy to get. ether make it hold stuff of less value or make it harder to get.

3. The way to get to the red key fells really weird. I think having 2 sets of bars one switching lowering half of them. Then when you get into the baron room having the bars rise will feel better.

4. Works great from pistol start but still be too easy when you carry over items.

Other then that it just needs a little detail (break up the rock wall, and in the hallway with the switch to lower the yellow).

purist said:

@walter confalonieri: I'll look to those at some point. MAP16 was your map... was this an area I'd edited or something?

Actually in that place there was the communication tower actually... so yes, is something you edited for some reason...

Melon said:

I've got two demos if you want to watch them, the first (take3) reaches the blue key and can be skipped entirely if you don't want to waste 15 minutes, while the second (take4) takes the red key path first and makes it up to the final fight.

I watched them both. I was a little worried watching take 4 that it was too casual. Until you hit that last fight it came off almost as if you were sleepwalking. Have I neutered the map too much on HMP? Take 3 restored some confidence in my changes. There was more nerve and edge to the playthrough. My sadist instincts compel me to make the RK route playout more like the BK route rather than vise-versa...

Melon said:

Across the level as a whole I feel like it would be better if most or all of the armour was blue.

Watching your playthrough I'm not convinced that it's necessary to change them all but I will change the first one to help pistol starters take the first area more aggressively and change one at the end to help with the final fight as suggested.

Melon said:

The opening revenant fight of the blue key path can be totally cheesed by triggering the trap and running out of the door before it closes, I'd advise the step before it to instantly close the door (move it UP to the lowest floor and it'll snap shut instantly). If you do this I think a revenant or two could be removed from HMP at least as it can get hectic in there.

That's true. I thought it would be unlikely someone would anticipate it in time without prior knowledge of the trap and, if someone wanted to knowingly circumnavigate the obvious intended gameplay, I would let them... buuut, it's easily remedied so I've put a fix in.

Melon said:

Taking the red key path first makes the entire level significantly easier. The red key path has way too many rockets, while the blue key path has not enough, and starting the blue key path with about 90 rockets instead of 15 makes things a lot more managable. I think you should shuffle around the ammo for the two paths a little bit. I'd also suggest slightly more rockets throughout the level, nothing more than the odd 5 rocket box here and there, it would speed things up a little bit and some fights are quite long right now. At the moment there is no reason to consider taking the blue key path first.

I didn't get the impression there was a lack of ammo, even rocket ammo, in either of your demos. Though I do agree it's lopsided and could be better distributed. Oddly, I remember consistently running out of rockets after gettting the RK in UV so I've been conservative and only made these changes in HMP where the RK route is more drastically diluted in terms of monster population. If this continues to be a problem during UV testing I'll make further changes.

Melon said:

Boy did that final fight catch me out when I went back to restock on all those health kits I left behind, wow. Although I didn't get much chance to fight my initial thought was that all the cybers and archvilles would be more comfortably tackled if i could get my hands on some more cells. Maybe the final "outside" ledge where you're facing down the exit switch could have 2 cell packs on it, a cyber teleports to the exit switch and I'm worried that someone might end up having to plink away at him from a distance with the SSG if they clear out the rest of the cybers first. Bear in mind I still need to give this fight a proper attempt so I might be jumping the gun.

There should definitely be enough ammo. If you felt you were running short it may have been partly due to you missing a large ammo cache. In the BFG room near the end you dodged the rising bars. If you didn't you'd have been teleported onto the South-Eastern rooftop where there is every type of ammo, medikits and green armour (which I changed to blue).

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• I think one of the traps failed to trigger. In medium 3 chaingunners and an AV were supposed to teleport between the Central and Northern-Central buidlings. I've re-checked it in Doombuilder and it seems sound so either I missed it in the demo, it's a freak occurrance or there's a problem I can't find.
  
• The fight in the northern building with the teleporting monster is cheesed (as you put it) as it encourages doorway fighting. I thought this would happen but did nothing as I thought the one sided door trick was becoming stale.

@walter confalonieri: That's right, I remember now. I had to change your exit area as the original didn't leave enough room to make MAP17 in. My new version is not impressive but it works. Both bugs have been fixed for the next upload. Thanks for reporting them. Since you must have played it, what do you think of MAP09 by the way?

@Malinku: I've addressed most of your points but I will upload when I'm more certain you'll be happy with the map. It will hopefully be before next weekend if you have more free time for playtesting?

Purist, it's good to see you critically assessing and pushing back against some of my comments, I usually post my comments straight after a play session in the hope that thoughts stay fresh in my mind but a more thorough analysis afterwards is definitely needed. I think the demos are handy in that regard.

With regards to the ammo issue, maybe the issue is that I wasn't using the SSG enough in an effort to play it too safely. I'd definitely gotten the opening fight down to an art in conserving the big ammo, but in hindsight might have been using the big guns too liberally later on. I still think the rockets could be redistributed a bit more evenly between the two paths but I've yet to play them both on UV.

purist said:

I watched them both. I was a little worried watching take 4 that it was too casual. Until you hit that last fight it came off almost as if you were sleepwalking. Have I neutered the map too much on HMP? Take 3 restored some confidence in my changes. There was more nerve and edge to the playthrough. My sadist instincts compel me to make the RK route playout more like the BK route rather than vise-versa...

I don't believe there is any reason to worry. I can assure you that I wasn't sleepwalking (well, maybe for the yellow key fight but I've played that a number of times now) but you need to bear in mind that I did have foreknowledge of what was coming up for a large amount of the map by the fourth attempt and had played those areas before. If I wanted to be really challenged in spite of this foreknowledge, I'd play on UV. My personal opinion on difficulty balance (which some may disagree with) is that UV should provide challenge on repeat play for experienced players, while HMP should give a more reasonable chance to succeed on first-time play without them becoming frustrated, or provide some a nice challenge for "less experienced" players. Easy on the other hand would be for people who mainly want to see the sights where dying too easily would make them feel bad due to wasting time. My first balancing attempt for MAP28 might have gone overboard but those are the thoughts I have in mind when balancing. It is worth noting that on HMP with some foreknowledge it still took me until my fourth attempt to make it to the final fight.

What might be useful is to get a group consensus on where the difficulty levels should be aimed at. Doom's audience after 17 years errs on the hardcore side but I think this wad has slightly more appeal to the part of the Doom audience that doesn't casually stroll through Hell Revealed. I'm more inclined to tip the lower difficulties toward the easy side, but I'm sure many do not agree. It would nice to know to give more focus to difficulty balancing.

Oh jerk. I was about to upload teh MAP26, but there are still minor faults to corrige. It wouldn't consume so much time if it wasn't too late. Never mind, that which is late doesn't fade.

It's in the "same" state MAP02 was when I uploaded it. I forgot to put both decoration items (such as hanging and/or dead gibbed bodies all over, meaning it's invaded) and the Co-op starts. Meanwhile, in here, I've made the list out of the most vital changes I should make IODT make my maps aesthetically and logically flawless. Along with MAP26 link it is likely to be posted.

Holy moley! It's MAP30! About friggin' time too.

]Download

Please note that I will be back to clean up a few things looks-wise later, most importantly two rooms are a bit boring looking right now (the opening room and "the green room") and also the ending spaceship looks a bit crap. The level is gameplay complete though (barring future balance tweaks). I don't think it's quite as difficult as purist's map, but I have played this level a whole bunch recently so I might not be the best to judge.

I'll also get back to you on the story. You're free to replace the music if you wish.

Sorry it took so long, when I first took the slot I was planning on only taking about a week, but after a first draft of the level I was unhappy with how it turned out, and then I got hung up on texturing it while rebalancing the entire level from scratch after removing a gimmick that didn't really work.

Let me know what you think. It ended up more like a regular level than a typical final level.

I've had a quick dabble with MAP30. I've not yet played all the way through (got to the -first?- Cyb, after the blue key) but I'll give it a thorough playtest when I no longer have MAP17 to focus on. Here are my early impressions:

• You said you abandoned a gimmick and it turned out to be more of a normal map. I'm intrigued what that gimmick was. Despite being forewarned I was still a little suprised about the shape and style of the map. I was expecting an arena type map or a condensed group of areas in the style of MAP28. This doesn't really matter of course it just didn't feel like a final map where I got to - more a second MAP29.
  
• I'm thinking that now I know what to expect it might not be so tricky but on my first 3 plays I thought the first real fight was a bit luck based due to the projectiles flying from all angles.
  
• Where I got upto the health and ammo balance seems good. I felt health starved when I made mistakes but as long as I survived a few battles unscathed there was a top up to keep me going. I found myself using every weapon I was given out of choice not lack of ammo, which is another good sign.
  
• There was some odd texture choices particulary the wooden beams and tan stone walls with gothic lanterns in a techbase (even a techbase-ment). From experience this is likely to be something you work on after gameplay is sorted though so I'm not worried.
  
• The music was quite nice - where was it from?
  
• I'm keen to get your story.txt to see how you've translated it to your map and how how have handled the ending. I think this side of it is of most acute importance in this last map slot.

In our great new tradition: =FDA=

I enjoyed watching the FDA. I'm actually a bit uneasy about how some people will find this map as a whole, there's more to come and I don't want to ruin any surprises. I dread the thought that later on in the level you will scream my name in angst, but don't let me put you off! (It's not that bad, but I'm curious to how you will feel as someone experiencing the map for the first time).

purist said:

You said you abandoned a gimmick and it turned out to be more of a normal map. I'm intrigued what that gimmick was. Despite being forewarned I was still a little suprised about the shape and style of the map. I was expecting an arena type map or a condensed group of areas in the style of MAP28. This doesn't really matter of course it just didn't feel like a final map where I got to - more a second MAP29.

When I tell you the gimmick there will be no surprise why it didn't work. That at the start with all the ammo cache had a BFG that regenerated ammo (cells were fed to a voodoo doll via a conveyor belt) but it regenerated slowly enough that I wanted to encourage people to use other weapons. At the same time, I wanted the level to be a dark underground UAC labs so the level layout didn't really fit the gimmick very well. That, and the gimmick encouraged just standing around waiting and it really wasn't very entertaining at all. It wasn't exactly as it is now, all rooms got reworked and some were replaced entirely (all the areas you've seen so far were largely the same in layout, just more enemy packed and a cyberdemon in the first fight).

I agree that the level is not very final map like. I'm not really sure what to do in this regard while making the map still make sense narratively, I didn't want to suddenly plunge the player into a massive hellish final arena against a big wall texture etc. As far as the story was concerned at the end of MAP29, the player is just trying to get a ship to leave the planet, so that's what the level is all about.

purist said:

I'm thinking that now I know what to expect it might not be so tricky but on my first 3 plays I thought the first real fight was a bit luck based due to the projectiles flying from all angles.

I wasn't totally sure about this opening fight, as I tested it more and more and got better I found I had too much health, there were originally 2 extra medikits in the room, but now I can consistently clear out the room with enough damage for the current health to cover it all. The lower difficulty levels give a soulsphere before the fight and I find that to make huge difference, I don't know if that's the right approach to take balance-wise.

purist said:

There was some odd texture choices particulary the wooden beams and tan stone walls with gothic lanterns in a techbase (even a techbase-ment). From experience this is likely to be something you work on after gameplay is sorted though so I'm not worried.

It definitely needs work, although I must admit I've grown fond of the dark brown with gothic latern style. I'll see what I can do. The next room you would come across behind the blue key door definitely needs work, before you wonder if I'm blind.

purist said:

The music was quite nice - where was it from?

I honestly don't know right now but can find out. A while ago somebody posted a download link to all of the midis on vgmusic.com, this was in the PS1 section and was called "DemonLord", which caught my eye as a Doomy sounding name because it had the word demon in it.

purist said:

I'm keen to get your story.txt to see how you've translated it to your map and how how have handled the ending. I think this side of it is of most acute importance in this last map slot.

I'm still working on this but the main gist of it is the player going through these underground UAC labs to get to the nearby airfield to get on a spaceship to leave the planet. He knows one is nearby because of the one seen at the end of your level. The ending text will be him escaping. I was thinking that what happens after he escapes could be left open and never gone into, it's more realistic but is it satisfying? They just leave Earth to burn?


Lastly, in case you are worried by the first paragraph in this post, here's a quick detail of what's left to come in the level, but I've stuck it in a spoiler box, don't read it if you don't want it spoiled! Do try to avoid reading it right now.

I think MAP17 is done. Here it is. There's also a demo in the .zip but it ended prematurely when my laptop screen had one of it's hissy fits and blacked out.

I've acted on most of Malinku's suggestions and done a lot of work on texture alignment.

1. The yellow key switch is way too easy. Just spam rockets. I think that having that door open when you grab the yellow key will make it a lot better.

It's not so easy now. But it's still fair.

2. secret at top of the first stairs is too easy to get. ether make it hold stuff of less value or make it harder to get.

The invulnerability sphere is gone. It's blue armour now.

3. The way to get to the red key fells really weird. I think having 2 sets of bars one switching lowering half of them. Then when you get into the baron room having the bars rise will feel better.

This I've not changed. It's more unusual than wierd IMO. It's fairly easy to see what to do and is something different to the usual setup in this scenario.

4. Works great from pistol start but still be too easy when you carry over items.

This might still be true but the main battles will still be a challenge unless the player is overstocked with cells. Melon and I have already discussed balancing difficulty when the full beta is ready and ammo surplus should be a big consideration.

Other then that it just needs a little detail (break up the rock wall, and in the hallway with the switch to lower the yellow).

I've not gone overboard with this but the map has a nice clean look that I don't want to break up any more with superflous decor.

Comments welcome as usual but I've reached the stage where I'm hoping it can go in the megawad now unless there's something critical.