MAYhem2048! Now on idgames!

Memfis said:

Alright, I decided to post my map. I know I could keep working on it, add some more details and stuff but the question is... do I need to or is it good enough already? Tell me what you think.

Probably good enough, but it needs difficulty settings.

In other news, Hey, Toto, we're not in Kuchitsu anymore! ;D Very cleverly laid-out and, for me, a VERY brutal map. Only 94 monsters on UV -- 90 on the other settings -- no Cybs, but I still died 21 times. Second most brutal map for me after GRB's, but I should note, I DNFed the map on GLBoom and switched to Risen3D because, to me, the controls on GLBoom are too numb for a map like this. Remember, I'm a keyboarder. Anyway, my death count on GLBoom was epic, probably north of 30 when I threw in the towel.

So what we have here is a Hitscanner Holocaust with a strong spice of heavier monsters -- mainly Revvies -- a couple dick traps, some very tight spaces, and you have to go through most of the map with just the shotgun and chaingun, but there's nowhere near as many bullets as I wanted, so most of the time I was stuck with the slow-firing peashooter, which was tons of fun in face-to-face fights with Revvies in tight spaces. Not.

A lot of my deaths in Risen3D came in the courtyard where you finally get the SSG. I got tired of camping at the doorway to take out the Manc and decided to run out and die a lot trying to get infights going, but that didn't work too well and I finally ended up killing almost everything myself. Then the Archie rail-shooter section took me out several times when I tried dodging behind a column. Alas, this is where Risen3D's raw speed betrayed me, because you tend to slide when you want to stop if you're a keyboarder, and this exposed me to fire. In the end, I had to charge the Archies and pain-chance them, so for once raw aggression paid off. I was also very lucky to deal with them one at a time.

So all in all a wonderfully put-together map, with edge detail well-used to create a sense of distance and size. I'm guessing the gameplay is Plutonia-style? Definitely geared for better players than me, which is why you need real difficulty settings. And more bullets. Like 4 times as many bullets. And more Stimpacks. And the SSG sooner. And . . . :D

My final stats; Kills - 101, Items - 84, Secrets - 50. Time - 12:30. End Health - 82, Armor - 61. Death Count - 21. Shells - 46, Bullets - 41, Rockets - Zero.

Well, the difficulty settings are somewhat there already: on HMP you get blue armor instead of green and some of the most dangerous enemies are removed or replaced with weaker ones. If that's not enough I can add more health or something I guess.

I imagine it can be indeed very brutal for a keyboarder with all that dodging in small space, hitscan spam, etc. Thanks for the feedback. :)

masterplan.wad

Smallish level with decent action and visuals. tried to make an intersting spidermaster mind encounter.

This map with co-op stuff is the hardest thing I have done so far(not a slaughter person myself).

http://www.mediafire.com/download/ha2g7lhw886yyau/masterplan.wad

Breezeep said:

ok, V2 of Emerald Gardens is up.
I decided to add some barons in one of the ambushes.
Let me know if there is anything else wrong with this.

I didn't play the first version, but this version, once I switched to Risen3D from a disastrous GLBoom attempt, was extremely easy. No deaths for me this time.

As Magnus said, the map is a mirror of itself. Play one side, you play them all. Of the 2 sides, the Blue Key was better. The Hell Noble trap is really a PITA if you don't run out the door you entered by. If you closed that door as part of a trap, it would be nothing but a complete dick trap, because I found it nearly impossible to generate infighting or to retain enough health to survive the Chaingunners -- when I played on GLBoom. On Risen3D, I just ran out the door, camped in sight of the Mancs and Chaingunners, generated a lot of good infighting that way, and mopped-up the survivors with no problem at all. But camping is a bit dull, so it sucks the fun out of the battle. The fight with the Archie at the end of this sequence was the best fight in the map, and even that one was mostly a door-camping exercise. The red key fight was even easier, with nothing but Pinkies and a Baron at that trap, though the surviving Revvies were a potential problem. And at the end of this sequence, the Archie fight was another door-camp, and this time the Archie couldn't climb down the steps, so it was just strafing at the door until Archie was dead. Easy.

I don't like camping, but it seemed pointless to charge into the trap rooms facing almost certain death just to make the map more exciting, so I'm saying I had no good options here. It was camp and survive, or charge in and die.

So the essential problem as I see it is that the fights are not flowy, there's no real run 'n gun sequence unless you're a gifted player like Memfis. I'm not that player. ;)

The reason the fights are not flowy is because, at the traps, the Mancs and Chaingunners on one side, and the Revvies and Chaingunners on the other, essentially constitute a turret capable of laying down a tremendous volume of fire. Without a rocket launcher or BFG, those of us who are ordinary players can't kill these guys quick enough to avoid being taken out, and thus have little incentive to challenge the turret. Much better to let the turret monsters die in combat with some heavy meat.

There is another option, part of which I tried, by taking out the Chaingunners first. This can be done by camping the corner on the stairs leading to the switch. The second part, coming back before pressing the switch to camp the Mancs/Revvies, I did not do. But if I had done that, it would have been 3 camping sessions, one for each group of monsters, because I still would have run out the door and camped it to kill the hell nobles. You can see that camping only once is more efficient, because you still have a camping trip at the Archie fights, making 4 camps for each key if you do it sequentially, vs. 2 if you run out of the room.

So I'm saying that a rocket launcher might make the map more fun, since it would encourage more aggressive play. A Backpack would be a good idea, too, so we don't have to keep running back into cleared areas for ammo we left behind.

I'd be a liar if I said there was no other option in the trap areas. The most obvious one is to change the monster mix that teleports in, or/and teleport some monsters into the corridors as well, so that players who run out of the room to camp get a nasty surprise.

I agree with Magnus in that I see no reason to do heavy restructuring of the map. Then again, you're one helluva fast mapper to pop out 974 sectors so rapidly! Jeez! That's damned impressive.

The map looks great with lots of nice detail. Excellent work.

Lastly, I found the MIDI annoying, but I'm especially sensitive to high squealing notes because I play with headphones on.

My final stats; Kills - 111, Items - 100, Secrets - 0. Time - 17:08. End Health - 100, Armor - 0. Death Count - Zero. Shells - 50, Bullets - 45.

Memfis said:

Well, the difficulty settings are somewhat there already: on HMP you get blue armor instead of green and some of the most dangerous enemies are removed or replaced with weaker ones. If that's not enough I can add more health or something I guess.
:)

Okay, I'll give it a whirl on HMP, and maybe HNTR, too. I personally have no problem with mappers aiming UV for master players, as long as there's a decent option for players like me.

Memfis said:

I imagine it can be indeed very brutal for a keyboarder with all that dodging in small space, hitscan spam, etc.

Not to mention the ammo stress! I would have loved more bullets at the Yellow Key trap and at the super-tight areas after you drop into the water. For that section, I would have also liked the SSG already in my hand. ;)

On one of my plays I did get Vile-jumped through a stained-glass window.

Lastly, allow me to say that the sheer amount of pain I felt is testament to your exceptional monster placement. There were really no safe areas in battle until after I'd killed at least half the monsters in the area. So few monsters, so much agony! :D

I look forward to comments from better players on this one.

I had completely forgot to mention that I had not put in difficulty settings for Sligenous either, except for coop stuff.

Getsu Fune said:

I had completely forgot to mention that I had not put in difficulty settings for Sligenous either, except for coop stuff.

Still got a few weeks. Put them in!

SteveD said:

I agree with Magnus in that I see no reason to do heavy restructuring of the map. Then again, you're one helluva fast mapper to pop out 974 sectors so rapidly! Jeez! That's damned impressive.

Well, it actually took me half a week (I think)

Lastly, I found the MIDI annoying, but I'm especially sensitive to high squealing notes because I play with headphones on.

I'll find a different MIDI then.

emerald garden is really cool I reckon. the lack of armor makes me camp around corners, though, I suspect everyone hugged a certain wall. if that's intentional then your map works lol

V3 is up. Hopefully this will be the last time I make changes to the map.

Emerald Gardens

Breezeep said:

V3 is up. Hopefully this will be the last time I make changes to the map.

Emerald Gardens

Haven't played earlier versions. Impressive design, it really is. I'd actually advise you to rework an entire half of the map to be something completely else, to avoid the repetitiveness. It kind of spoils the experience. I'd like to see more of original interesting design in this beautiful style. But it's up to you. Another fault I can see is that the map motivates to a campy playstyle and sniping monsters from a cover (instead of a fast paced combat, testing player's moving/shooting skills and reactions, disallowing him to just hide). I'm talking about the groups of teleporting monsters that just clutter somewhere to deny player's path. Aside from these parts, the map is very little challenging. Definitely a nice one, though. I admire your design.

Here's Version 1 of my map; http://www.mediafire.com/download/qjh0zp6j6bzu50q/Mayhem2ajp.wad

Name: Heat Miser
Song: Amiga MOD - Heat-Miser Remix by Substance
Difficulty Settings Implemented
Co-Op starts, no deathmatch starts yet.
Some detailing left to do.

Sandbox in Amiga Demo Party style. Comments appreciated.

SteveD said:

Here's Version 1 of my map; http://www.mediafire.com/download/qjh0zp6j6bzu50q/Mayhem2ajp.wad

Name: Heat Miser
Song: Amiga MOD - Heat-Miser Remix by Substance
Difficulty Settings Implemented
Co-Op starts, no deathmatch starts yet.
Some detailing left to do.

Sandbox in Amiga Demo Party style. Comments appreciated.

Heh, a true Mayhem. But I've managed to beat it, although with saves and countless deaths. However, the first time I saved was after I sniped all monsters in the initial area including the two cyberdemons, using a plasmagun and chaingun. I wasted ALL my ammo on them before advancing further. Of course it was after numerous failed attempts. I've found out that the ideal strategy was to run round the arena, press the first switch and run back to hide, letting infighting do the rest, occassionally sniping incoming baddies. Well, then the caco crowd-control game started, and I needed saves. Devious map, I like it though. Aesthetically it's awesome. :)

scifista42 said:

Heh, a true Mayhem. But I've managed to beat it, although with saves and countless deaths. However, the first time I saved was after I sniped all monsters in the initial area including the two cyberdemons, using a plasmagun and chaingun. I wasted ALL my ammo on them before advancing further. Of course it was after numerous failed attempts. I've found out that the ideal strategy was to run round the arena, press the first switch and run back to hide, letting infighting do the rest, occassionally sniping incoming baddies. Well, then the caco crowd-control game started, and I needed saves. Devious map, I like it though. Aesthetically it's awesome. :)

Thanks, scifista! And good on ya for having the determination to keep going at the Caco swarm. I added 4 Medikits in that arena after I was unable to beat the original version of the fight, quitting after 21 deaths. I got weak for a little bit and was going to put a BFG in that arena, but I knew that would trivialize the fight for slaughter players, and even now I'm worried it will be too easy for them. But even they will have to keep moving, I think. But that fight is rough for us keyboarders. ;D

Edit: One thing I thought about doing was to lower the bars in the start room after the player leaves, so they can't camp in there. What do you think?

SteveD said:

Edit: One thing I thought about doing was to lower the bars in the start room after the player leaves, so they can't camp in there. What do you think?

That will be really mean. But I agree. :)
Make sure that the bars will be still, and repeatedly, openable from inside.

SteveD said:

Here's Version 1 of my map; http://www.mediafire.com/download/qjh0zp6j6bzu50q/Mayhem2ajp.wad

Name: Heat Miser
Song: Amiga MOD - Heat-Miser Remix by Substance
Difficulty Settings Implemented
Co-Op starts, no deathmatch starts yet.
Some detailing left to do.

Sandbox in Amiga Demo Party style. Comments appreciated.

This was really neat and nasty. Well constructed arena which eventually shits red everywhere :P

cannonball said:

This was really neat and nasty. Well constructed arena which eventually shits red everywhere :P

Thanks, cb! I hope I got at least one of your pelts here, given that you've collected enough hides off me lately to open your own leather factory. ;D :P

there's still room for one more :c?

http://oi58.tinypic.com/2roj7cx.jpg

Okay, that looks cool. :) And somehow I doubt we've hit 32 yet, so go wild.

I have my finals until 20th. But after that, I can spend 24h/day on mapping. I'm gonna make it.

Played your map SteveD; it was some pretty creative stuff, an outing I honestly didn't expect you to undertake. Slaughter balancing seems to come naturally to you since I found the ammo and health to be pretty nicely tuned, if not a tad on the generous side. This is also a map that varies with the port, as Zdoom allowed me to scoot under many of the cacos to make an escape when needs be. A few notes:

I'm unsure of the AV placement in the map. It's fine when you see it coming but it feels unavoidable to deal the first time, as he appears behind you and cover is some distance off. Perhaps replacing him with two revs would be more fair, and if you wanted to still use him as a tactical suppressant you could have him warp in with the chaingunners once you pick up the PG. The other two notes are merely aesthetics: you should do something to make it more easily understood that the wall lowered allowing you to cross into the other half of the arena (like making it some big slab), and the little wall that pops up near the exit may need to have a secondary switch somewhere on it since a caco corpse can obscure the switch and make it quite confusing for players (it's not necessary if you want to leave that single switch there to stop speedrunners from exiting too early, although I think by that point the player must have dealt with all the cacos [since you need to get rid of a big cyber brute to nab the blue key anyway])

----

I also gave your map a whirl Breezeep, and found it to be excellent. It's super impressive for the short amount of time you put into it and quite a bit of fun. The only knock against it is a touch of symmetry in the gameplay design, but it doesn't tarnish some phenomenal work. Great job.

So far 2014 definitely seems like the best MAYhem set yet.

here's a v0 of my map:

https://www.mediafire.com/?8qp1hm4ck1njfkc

Title: Mayhem Town
Music: From twilight Zone 2 by Paul Corfiatis, map29 if i don't go wrong
Difficulty settings: not fully implemented
Co-op starts, no dm start yet

Comments will be really appreciated!

dobu gabu maru said:

Played your map SteveD; it was some pretty creative stuff, an outing I honestly didn't expect you to undertake. Slaughter balancing seems to come naturally to you since I found the ammo and health to be pretty nicely tuned, if not a tad on the generous side. This is also a map that varies with the port, as Zdoom allowed me to scoot under many of the cacos to make an escape when needs be.

You can lay the blame on General Rainbow Bacon for the shift in my mapping style. When I zipped through his fourplay map last year, I suddenly decided to -- at least temporarily -- stop building huge adventure/exploration maps and instead turn to short, extremely violent maps. He might have thought I was bullshitting when I mentioned this in another thread, but it's true.

I found fourplay to be very fast-paced and fun, and to have a neat balance between slaughter and traditional, which seemed like a good fit for me. You've already played another map in this basic style, The Miley Cyrus Concert from Shotgun Symphony.

The balance of elements I was going for was to put the player in monster and health stress, but not ammo, although I reckon ammo stress can happen if there's not enough infighting. I shocked the shit out of myself when I beat this on UV with only 3 deaths. ;D

Thanks for your comments, very spot-on as always. I realized the Archie placement was a real jagoff move. When I play it, I usually leave a couple Mancs alive, and edge past them to use them as meat shields, but even when they're dead, I can turn on the jets and -- sometimes ;D -- survive and come back to kill the bastard. But yeah, it's an effort at a cheap kill. ;D You just have to boogy when you hear Archie spinning up. Your suggestions are definitely worth thinking about, though.

I'll make the change you suggested to the descending slab that gives access to the second arena. It's possible to get Archie-jumped in there, too, so I'd already put a switch on the other side before uploading the map. I hadn't thought about the possibility of dead Cacos covering that wall-switch. Yeah, that's a major potential problem. I'll look into that. That wall is there mostly to force players to fight the free-roaming Cyb, assuming it survived that long.

Lastly, I agree that this is shaping up to be a nice mapset. I've played almost every map submitted, and will soon get back to it, and can say that I'm well-pleased.

I made a map. It's not quite finished, difficulty setting still need some work. Just want some opinions before I finish it. Let me know what you think.

V2 of my previous map: https://www.dropbox.com/s/wdue71fculxpqv6/m2048_bof_V2.wad

Few things and fixes, took away some enemies, put difficulties... I don't got much time to test things, with stuff I have IRL, so feedback is now definitely needed.

Monster count is high as it was, but if you can shoot those three similar switches, it takes 45% or so of the enemies, and if you shoot one and flip two on, takes another 45% or so enemies. All you need to do is to find them.

I've started work on a map for this project. I hope I can finish it in time.

@Memfis: Excellent map! But, I think some impassable lines on the walkway near the AV and red key would be a good idea. I was retreating from his attacks when he hit me and I got thrown all the way across sector 329 and landed in sector 649. I don't think that was an intentional design from you ;)

Played some of the other maps too. SteveD's looks good, but kills me 10 seconds after entering it! :D Paul's is more manageable, but still rough. As always, the architecture and layout is excellent! Jimmy's is what I'm aiming at. Not in looks, but in terms layout. It's a perfect example of taking full advantage of the space available. Obsidian's map is tricky in the beginning. So much in fact, that I gave up the first time. Simply couldn't figure it out. But after having read Steve's comments I gave it another shot. Very good map! Didn't download Jaws In Space's map... it's a executable file, don't trust those. Still have to download and play the other maps.

Chris Hansen said:

Didn't download Jaws In Space's map... it's a executable file, don't trust those.

You're supposed to click the small text "direct download link", not the big green "download" button.

Sneaky, thank you! Getting old I am, yes.

Version 2 of my map with various fixes, improved skill settings, impassable linest to prevent arch-vile jumping out of the level, etc. Thx to people who found all that stuff.
If you need a name, you can call this map "Serenity in the Air" if that sounds ok.

By the way I liked the idea of maintaining a list of submissions in the first post, what happened to that?

A couple of teaser shots just to give you an idea on what my level will look like. I regret never having worked with this ressource pack before! It's absolutely fantastic, lots of variety and opportunities! I just hope I can finish the level in time, fingers crossed! :)