The Halls

Good day, posting my first map pack (four levels) here, please leave any comments below (constructive critique would be nice).

Map-pack description: Designed around small corridors, awkward fighting positions and just generally to be difficult. Be prepared to conserve each bullet and scavenge for secrets as maps don't really tend to generously throw stuff at you.

Misc. info: Made to be played at ultra-violence difficulty. Maps can be played separately or as a continuous wad.

DL link : https://www.dropbox.com/s/9l7726uve16gvz6/halls.zip

Pics :




[EDIT 2013-09-23]
Made minor adjustments to item and monster placement, made fixes according to Rubbiks's suggestions (haven't figured out, how to fix doors disappearing into sky). Hopefully the wad is somewhat better now. New download link is up.

Cheers,
Baltic

hihi, welcome to doomworld :)

I played through your maps, and have some suggestions for improvements:

mandatory pickups are annoying because they often result in wasting resources
doors that disappear into the sky look kinda strange
some people dislike when floor textures change without height differences
questionable sky texture
door tracks that could use some lower unpegging
unfitting ceiling texture
texture alignment (also if the ceiling was either 16 units higher or lower than the wall texture would fit better)
map04 tele seemed broken, is it a W1 tele line or something? it broke after a PE teled through it.

Hello, welcome to the mapping scene, and I'm gonna give you some tips. First:

...awkward fighting positions and just generally to be difficult. Be prepared to conserve each bullet and scavenge for secrets as maps don't really tend to generously throw stuff at you.

Actually you may need to re-scale your gauges, because what you said here seems to be a big false to me. I am by far no hardcore player, and I typically die even on the simplest maps. But your maps were easy even for me. Also there was constantly very much ammo and health and goodies overally.

Maps are short and very simple. Compared to the size of the maps, I think you set up the monster count just right, however. Also the presence of various traps and little surprises along the way are signs of a better quality work, that's good.

But, in the context of maps that normally origins from this community, I wouldn't consider your maps very good - for the following reasons:

• Too easy (as I already said), short, and could have been balanced better with ammo and health.
  
• Too cramped. I'm just saying that for the player, it's more comfortable to have space to move around.
  
• Some weird visual/design choices. Textures that you used often don't really fit together well. Separate different themed textures somehow, add some border between them, and don't just let them clash in one room. Also a few times door raises seemingly "into the sky"...
  
• Low height variation. It is there I admit, but quite low, specially on some levels (1, 4).
  
• Orthogonality. Use non-orthogonal angles more. 64-units-wide corridors, with 90-degree corners everywhere... aren't the best.
  
• Inescapable pit in MAP01. Always make it possible for the player to escape every damaging or nondamaging pit.
  
• Hell knights on MAP01. You don't really have a good weapon to snipe them down, so it's easiest to just walk to the exit. If one wanted to achieve 100% kills, he'd suffer some tedious times with his shotgun. If they were lower... Or if there was a rocket launcher...
  
• Place only one secret sector per secret place.

As you're a beginner, it's all right that you make short maps. Because on them you can easiest practice, to get better in regards of your sense for design and gameplay/balance. And that is what I think you need. These are not bad maps certainly, newbies mostly come up with much worse pieces. I think you're further because you apparently mastered some mapping tricks, and you have a potential to get better. It'll all be easier for you after you learn what are actually good and what are bad mapping choices. And you'll learn it by feedback that the community will give you :) Keep up the good mapping work!

I quite liked them. I thought the health/ammo balance was pretty good (playing each map from scratch on UV) for a first play-through, though the maps would become rather easy if replaying them. Mind you, I don't play much nowadays, so am a little rusty.

The maps looked OK to me. The visuals could be improved, but don't get too caught up in nit-pickiness.

You might like to keep in mind that the player is 32 units wide, so can fit through 32-unit gaps.

First of all, thank you very much for taking your time and playing through my wad.
Secondly, every piece of feedback and information is very precious to me at the moment (so thanks once again).

I'll make minor adjustments and bugfixes according to your comments, re-upload the final version and start working on new levels.

Cheers,
Baltic