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Sourcerer

DOOM 2 20th Anniversary Map Pack

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I think I don't understand about which place you're talking when you say "left of that secret" in MAP17. When you jump of the window you can land either in the secret or on the broken wall in front of the secret. From the broken wall you can go right (which is a dead end) but not go left (where the revenants/hell-knights are). And IMO there is no way to turn left in mid-air while that jump so you can end up where the revenants/hell-knights are.

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Maybe you can only jump to it in Zandronum. I tried in PRBoom and ZDoom and wasn't able to make it. Still, if you jump to the right you still end up stuck with no way back which I'm not sure is a great idea.

Map 21: The start needs the SSG, or the Baron needs to be replaced with a Hell Knight. If you do a Pistol start you need to take out the Baron on the staircase with only a Shotgun and that's nothing short of tedious. I know there is a SSG near the start, but the secret containing it seems to be very difficult to jump to with no room for error or guidance as to where exactly you need to jump. Again, all these pits seem to have no way out which I think is fine if used sparingly, but not to punish every mistake. As for the rest of the level, I really enjoyed it. Pleasingly, the lava in the main area wasn't ridiculously damaging.

Map 22: I sort of like the idea, but the map is about 4 times too long to be enjoyable in my opinion. I don't really want to be looking at the automap every 10 seconds to try and work out where I am, and endless dark corridors aren't as frustrating as endless dark corridors with damaging floor, but they are tedious. The Light Amplification Visor in the Arch Vile room allowed me to scout out about twice as much in 120 seconds than I'd done in about the previous 8 minutes I think. Then I arrived at the Yellow Key fight. My initial reaction after finishing the fight was "hmm". The damaging floor is what stops me loving that fight mainly because depending where you are, you are already dodging a ton of Arachnatron fire. The setup and environment the fight take place in is amazing, but maybe a radiation suit (if there was a secret one I missed it, especially when I later realised how many places you can fall down into this area from) would help. I know there is quite a bit of health in there, but you don't see that immediately. The encounter with the Cyberdemon and Revenants in a tight dark corridor beyond the yellow door was also "hmm". I just BFG'd the hell out of the Cyberdemon as I had one from a previous map. Overall I was glad to finish this because it was just endless looking in rooms that contained either Imps, Revenants, Hell Knights or Barons and that got old fast. The map could do with another obvious Light Amplification Visor or 2 and could really do with being shorter.

Map 23: You should know what to expect by the name! In the bottom left of the map, if you lower the bridge that goes to the red key, it appears you get trapped on a damaging floor with no way out as far as I could see. Also, if you go over to the red door before you have the red key, it doesn't seem like you can get back over there to get the yellow key? I don't know if this is intentional, but I didn't think I missed a way of reactivating those objects. (I know you can raise the red key bridge again, but not from the damaging floor) This map was pretty good apart from the fact it seems like it can be broken.

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Map 24: You can definitely see the homages to the original map here. This map suffers a bit from "exploration over damaging floor required/unclear where you need to go" syndrome in the early stages. To me it feels like to get the yellow key I needed to guess where to go rather than it being as a result of a natural sequence of map exploration. The yellow key room took me a few minutes to work out and I liked the clue of the enormous number of Large Medikits that were there, which made me realise I should be going back a few times; cleverly done. After that room there seemed to be a bit more structure into where you needed to go. The dark room with all the caged monsters was brilliant. Given the red key is optional, I was expecting the room you need it for to contain more than it did. By that point in the level you may have used all the radiation suits you can find, so I was expecting a Soul Sphere as well as the MegaArmour, or a MegaSphere instead.

Map 25: I do feel that if you're going to make a player stand on damaging floor for a while, especially at the start of a map, then there should be a radiation suit in the immediate vicinity rather than having to venture out over the floor to find one. In a continuous playthrough it's not so bad (I entered this with 95/174) but with only 100 health it would be more annoying. Maybe that's what you're considering part of the challenge, though I guess I'm partly fed up with it because it's occurred on so many maps! The rest of the level is excellent and a great runaround on what is basically an ascending circular cliff.

Map 26: This was more abandoned than I thought it would be as I was expecting more monsters! It is possible to grab the red key through the bars though I'm not sure if that's what the intention was.

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Thanks for all the nice new feedback ... but you're giving feedback faster than I can process it ;)

I checked the issues and you're right with most of them.

MAP21: Will make it a bit easier to get the super-shotgun.

MAP22: Yes, the map is dark, large and scary. But the intention was to force people to carefully explore it and get scared at every corner. And about the map size ... well, I just couldn't stop building ;)

But I think I should make it a bit easier to find some secrets. The map got 34 of them, including 3 additional visors and a save place to kill the cyberdemon and to clean the spider lair. Would be sad if nobody can find these places.

MAP23: No, the map is not broken - just tricky. The disappearing bridge and the slime in front of the red key are a deadly trap. But there are 3 ways to get the key (however none of them includes jumping/falling into the slime). And about the path to the red door, the last platform (which turns out as a crusher) is a lift. But I'll add a switch texture to it so it's clear that you can use it to get to the red door.

MAP24: I'll add a small hint where to start so you don't get lost in the beginning while searching for the yellow key. And yes, it's a good idea to add more goodies to the red room.

MAP25: You missed the secret in the starting room that holds the radiation shielding suits. And that one should be really easy to find because of its different texture.

MAP26: OMG! You're right, when you just try hard enough you can pick up the red key through the bars. This was of course not intended. Will move it a bit away from the bars.

As you're pretty close to the end of the episode, I guess you'll either play MAP15 again to search for the secret level or directly IDCLEV31. To prevent some unnecessary frustration, I should give some hints now:

MAP15: There is a switch that opens 2 doors (not only the obvious door). I don't know if your DOOM engine let you hear it ... but after killing all monsters, press some switches again and carefully listen for a double door opening sound.

MAP31: Finding the entrance to the super-secret level is even more difficult than finding the secret level (not like original MAP31 of DOOM2 where I found the super-secret exit before finding the normal exit). In order to unlock my super-secret level you have to use some "special technic" to get to a platform. This "special technic" should be well-known to all experienced doomers. After pressing the switch on the platform explore to map again and look for a new cave. When you found the cave, remember that I love secrets in secrets (and secrets in secrets in secrets). And sorry for the time pressure that this map will put on you ...

MAP32: This map is kinda special ... you'll see when you enter it. There are some puzzles to solve on this map and one of them is almost impossible to solve if your DOOM engine does not support higher resolution and better texture rendering than original DOOM2 because you'll have to shoot walls with different textures that are at some distance to you and in original DOOM2 you simply can't see the texture difference because of the distance (while you can clearly see them in e.g. DOOMSDAY). Please let me know if you have any idea how to make this puzzle solvable on low resolution engines.

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Map 22: That may be true, but the vast amount of repetition makes what could be a quite fun map just a tedious one.

Map 23: I now see that there is a lift to get to the crushing platform, but yes it was not at all obvious.

Map 25: I think it's easy to miss the secret at the start because it's on the inside of the staircase, and I didn't even see it first time.

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Map 27: The room where you come out of a tunnel to be greeted by an army of enemies on several levels was nothing short of awesome. The Spider Mastermind fight is exceptionally easy if you have a BFG but I'm not sure how to modify it.

Map 28: This map suffers the same problem as some of the others - damaging floor and it is not obvious where I need to be going. This is most frustrating aspect of this WAD. I don't even know where I got the yellow key from, but I worked my way to the blue key and after that there doesn't seem to be a teleporter to take you anywhere useful. After running around for a bit I find a lift from the damaging floor to one of the platforms, but after taking this path I end up on a lone platform with a door ahead of me but no bridge to get to it. There seem to only be a couple of teleporters you can access from the ground floor and they all seem to lead to places I've been before with nothing new. The fact I'm being sniped by Arch Viles that are so high up you can almost never see them should be very annoying, but compared to the frustrations of this map that is nothing. In a level like this where everything interesting is inside pillars or tower-like structures, I would expect a fairly simple progression as you teleport across them, but I'm obviously missing something. I haven't seen the blue or yellow door (or switch) yet and whatever I've missed I don't feel is exactly obvious. I don't normally review until I get to the end of a level but I've had about all I can take of this one.

Edit: Ok, I found a switch and I now have all three keys but I'm back to where I was earlier. I've seen nothing of any coloured doors/switches and no obvious sign of what to do next. There is a cage with a switch that I haven't got into yet that I'm assuming does something important, but I don't know what the switch by the BFG has done.

Edit 2: Ok, I eventually noticed what that switch did but now I have absolutely no idea what to do. I've activated all the coloured switches in the second area, and I hit what I thought was the exit switch. After surviving the Cyberdemon ambush I'm now back to running around on a tedious switch hunt or game of spot the difference. I'm guessing I need to raise some platform in the Cyberdemon ambush area so I can get across to the Chaingunner but, as ever with this map, there is no indication of what is going to do that. There's also a door in this area that won't open, and I don't know how to open that either. I've clocked in at 50 minutes on this map now, not including reloads, 45 of which I wouldn't class as fun. There is a texture error in the area off to the side of the first area.

Edit 3: Alright I'm skipping this now. I came back to it today in the hopes that seeing it fresh would let me see something I'd missed but it hasn't. I don't see anything to indicate what I need to do so I just IDCLIP'd across to the previously mentioned Chaingunner and that led me to a teleporter to the main cross with 2 Cyberdemons and the exit. While IDCLIPing I ran past a teleporter that was behind a wall in the Cyberdemon ambush pit, but I also don't know how to open that and whether it's important or just a secret. Overall a very disappointing end to a map that I think could work very well without the Eternal Doom "guess what this switch does!" elements.

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Map 29: Awesome. I was expecting it to be a bit longer, but it was great. Map 29 is a map that I think should generally be the best or most epic in the WAD. There's a few things I think make for a good Map 29, and one of them is having to fight your way through an infested ascending scenario of some kind, which this does brilliantly. I don't know if the outside area needed to be quite so big, or maybe there could be something like a Cyberdemon guarding a switch around the back that you need to hit to get into the main building or something.

Map 30: I really love the idea apart from one thing, and I bet you won't be able to guess what it is. The damaging floor (insane damage) in the Cyberdemon area isn't great. You have to spend a lot of time traversing that area because not all of the platforms are near a visible exit, and while I did find one radiation suit I really feel there should be visible ones if you're going to have to spend that much time on a damaging floor, especially one as damaging as that. The Spider Mastermind area was awesome, in part because they infight so easily. I noticed that you can escape that area hitting all but one of the Cyberdemon platform switches in the previous area (which I did the first time) so if you want to make hitting them all mandatory, you'll need to lower the lift a bit or raise the platform. The lift rises just enough for you to be able to walk over, but not by much. I only noticed on a re-run through the area after going back for Cells that I'd missed a switch. The dark maze section was awesome. The final part was a bit frustrating. I assume you need to somehow end up on the lip just sticking out in front of the bars, but I don't see any way to get there. (Is an Arch Vile jump intended? Very tricky if so even with the 2 Invulnerabilities in the previous section) I just IDCLIP'd to that small ledge and ended the level. Overall a pretty good level to end on, reducing the damage on the lava would be nice.

I will go back to 15 and try to find the secret exit, but if I don't I'll just IDCLEV to 31.

My impression overall is that this is fundamentally a pretty good WAD. I know it's been compiled over a length of time, but still for a one person effort it's good. My main dislikes were the very large amount of time you need to spend on damaging floors, especially when they were combined with non-intuitive mazes. If it's a linear map then it's not too bad, but maps where you need to run around and explore don't work well with damaging floors in my opinion. It seems to be something you were fond of, but it was so prevalent and so restricting on my playthrough that I had grown to be very tired of it by the end.

My Top 3 Maps

Map 29 - A superb penultimate map.

Map 15 - The whole setup was just awesome. I've not found the secret exit yet, but just a fantastic level overall.

Map 19 - Challenging in a manageable way.


My 3 Most Unenjoyable Maps

Map 10 - This needs a serious overhaul to be playable for anyone other than someone who intricately knows the level layout. There was too much time spent on damaging floors, no real indication of where to go and too many tunnels that look the same. Without a real overhaul one of the only things I can think of is to use the damaging floor only when you're getting near something important and to reduce the damage to 5.

Map 28 - Apart from the fact there's no darkness, my feelings on this map are the same as Map 10. Unlike Map 10 I don't think this needs as much changed to it because there is fundamentally a great map here. I had no idea what I was doing at the end because you have access to so many switches and it's virtually impossible to know what each of them do. If one switch led to another and so on it may be easier to work out what each of them were doing, but I spent well over an hour on this map and couldn't be bothered to look any more.

Map 22 - Apart from the fact there's no damaging floor, my feelings on this map are the same as Map 10. Far too many samey corridors and I spent more time looking at the Automap than I did the game. It could do with a good few tunnels being removed as I don't think it needs to be quite as long as it is to give the impression you're trying to give with the map.

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So there you go, there's my thoughts. Feel free to ignore them. :D I hope you get some feedback from others as other people will have different preferences. Who knows, maybe others will enjoy the long mazes on damaging floors!

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I've finally found the time to process your new feedback and uploaded a new version (1.03) of the episode:
http://www.kitana.org/arena/doom/doom20anniversary.html

Changes:
- MAP16: Added several visors.

- MAP17: Added a secret door to leave the dead area on the right side across the lava chasm. Also added a hint how to unlock the exit door.

- MAP19: Replaced the fake wall in the castle starting room with a broken grate texture so the chain-gunner is no longer hidden.

- MAP20: Removed 1 of the 2 arachnotrons from the exit room so they're no longer stuck in each other.

- MAP21: Simplified the super-shotgun secret near the start so you no longer need outstanding jumping skills to reach it.

- MAP22: Made many secret areas easier to find by adding hints or different textures.

- MAP23: Added a switch texture to the lift near the red door.

- MAP24: Added a hint how to get to the yellow key.

- MAP26: Fixed position of red key and added missing sector damage effect to poison areas around red key. Sorry for adding more damage floors degree23 :D

- MAP28: Easy and normal mode have now printed the path to all 3 keys on the floor.

- MAP30: Fixed elevator in spider mastermind room so you have to press all 7 switches in the cyberdemon room.

Note:
While writing this post I noticed that I forgot to fix the texture bug in MAP28 reported by degree23. Will do this with the next update. Also in contradiction to my earlier posting there is no need to add more goodies to the red room in MAP24 because it also gives access to another secret full of stuff. Seems I fell for my own secret in secret feature ...

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Thanks for the fixes.

Map 21: The jump is more accessible, though still very easy to miss. I can't even see it's there with the normal HUD.

Map 24: I'm not sure what you're referring to about the red room as I hunted around in there pretty well and didn't seem to find anything else? There's an Armour, MegaArmour, Small Medikits and ammo, but some big health and/or a Radiation Suit would be good.

Map 28: Something I missed on my first playthrough was that this switch can be hit from down on the damaging floor to raise that bridge you can see going up. I don't know if that's intentional, but if not then you might want to move it further in so it can't be reached.

The addition of the health/armour hints are great for lower difficulties, but the map still falls down at the end for me. I hit every switch I could possibly find and I still couldn't get across here, which leads to a teleporter to the exit platform. There are too many switches you can hit (especially in the second area) and no real indication of what they do. I got to basically the same point I did on my first playthrough and got stuck again. Most pertinently, I have no idea what the 2 side switches in this section do. You can hit them repeatedly, which makes me think they are a rising/lowering combination, but I tried that a few times in different ways and still had no idea what they did. It leaves me feeling very dissatisfied because fundamentally the map and idea are fantastic, but the end is still terrible and it ruins the whole map for me.

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Wow! You're fast with testing!

About MAP24, the 2nd secret isn't actually inside the 1st secret. But walking around in the 1st secret will unlock a nearby door to a secret with tons of ammo, more mega-armors (useful in multi-player games) and an empty crate (which is already flagged as secret - doh! forgot to put something in there). I'll put a soulsphere in it with next release.

About MAP28, thanks for the new feedback and bug reports. You can even hit that damn switch at a distance of 40! But with next update it will no longer be exploitable.

Your "here" link points to the same picture as the exploitable switch, so I'm sure about what area you're talking. But the map has 2 exits and 1 can only be reached in multi-player mode (since 1 player must press a switch far away from a door that another player can then enter to skip a few puzzles).

And about the other 2 switches, you didn't miss anything. They're just light switches to make the ambush area a bit easier.

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Oops. I meant this gap. Down below is where there's a Cyberdemon ambush after hitting a switch (which I don't know the end result of) and I know from IDCLIPing over there that I can get to the exit, but I don't know how to get across there properly. If those 2 switches in my previous post are merely for lights, then I don't know what to do because I hit everything I could find.

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This is the way to the 2nd exit which can only be used in multi-player mode. My original idea was to have a bridge that can be lowered and raised at the place shown on your screenshot. But for some unknown reason it caused DOOM to crash when walking over it. So I decided to add a switch that require 2 people to use it.

The normal exit can be opened by pressing the 3rd switch (that is not a light switch). However that switch does not directly open the exit but opens another room with another switch that open another room ...

I think I should play the map again and see if I can solve its puzzles myself (after 3 months break). If not then I'll try to label the switches.

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!

Ok, as far as I can see there's a switch in the first area (in a secret with some rockets) that opens up a way in to a tower that has a teleporter to the exit platform at the top of the stairs. It is not at all obvious, especially because it's not unreasonable to assume that you've missed something important in the second area. The identical layouts don't help with trying to remember what you've done. I IDBEHOLDR'd about 10 times while exploring around. I've never simultaneously enjoyed a map concept so much and hated playing it at the same time. I'm curious as to why you put such a puzzle map (and Map 10) with predominantly damaging floors. Like, what's your intention behind it? I'm not the target audience for it obviously because they did nothing but annoy me and I found no enjoyment in them whatsoever. After you hopefully get feedback from others and release this, they are 2 maps I will never ever touch again. I like Map 28 a lot, but I didn't enjoy it.

Map 29: Can't believe I'm saying this, but I forgot to mention that you have what looks like it should be a damaging floor texture around the starting platform, but it's not damaging. It probably should be, or the texture should be changed.

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I've labeled all important switches in MAP28 now. Switches without a picture next or behind them are light switches or open non-relevant secret areas. This new version of MAP28 will be included in the next update.

BTW, did anyone yet find the secret levels or already solved them?

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Going back I found I had a saved game after killing everything in Map 15. I eventually found the secret exit but the door opening is quite difficult to hear partly because another door opens as well, and there are crushers going at the same time.

Map 31: Wow. So there's an Icon of Sin on this level. You just love restricting people's ability to explore don't you? The vast open area means that homing Revenant rockets and Lost Souls everywhere are inevitable after a few minutes. This is tolerable mainly because there's a few Invulnerabilities and I'm coming in with 157/200 and virtually full ammo. I didn't find the secret exit, and I'm not 100% sure how I managed to find the regular exit. (I thought I was getting somewhere to the secret exit, but it turned out to just be a path to the BFG)

I gave it a second play through and I noticed a platform in the first area that I didn't get to first time around. I waited for an Arch Vile to blast me up there and there was a switch which I hit. I think I found what it opened (A small jump where the entrance is a blood floor) and it had some health and ammo in there, but I couldn't find any more secrets in there. I pressed against all the walls and shot everywhere with a Chaingun but nothing opened or happened so I'm not sure what triggers anything in there.

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You did the archvile jump. Good job! In my test runs it was pretty hard to lure an archvile to the platform because they used to spawn on the wrong side of the map.

Too bad, you didn't find the secret exit ... you were so close to it. There is a different wall texture on one of the pillars in the ammo/health cave that opens the secret exit. But you don't have to search for it again. When I think again, it requires really much skill to open this cave so there is no need to force the player to search even deeper. In the next version of the map the door that you've missed will already be open.

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I hit everything in there I could think of but it having gone back in there now I can see it's on the back of the far pillar.

I've gone through Map 31 3 times now and in each case an Arch Vile has spawned down in the trench-like section. The jump is quite difficult as you have to time your run quite well depending on where exactly the Arch Vile is. It gets almost exponentially more complex the longer the map goes though because the monster count is always increasing.

Map 32: I got the blue and red keys, but I have no idea where I need to go now. I've found 2 yellow doors (one of which at the bottom which I assume will have ammo in like the red/blue one near it) and one further away. I can't seem to find any other open doors at the moment. There is an awful lot of ammo around but every monster is on the outside of the building, so I've not felt the need to shoot at them yet.

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To get the yellow key in MAP32 you have to open the doors on the north side of the second large hall. Can you see the different rock textures outside (which is almost impossible with low resolution like original DOOM2 engine)? Shoot them until all revenants behind them are dead.

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I've released a new version of the episode. V1.04 will be the final version now, unless someone finds a serious bug that must be fixed:
http://www.kitana.org/arena/doom/doom20anniversary.html

Changes:
- MAP28: Fixed the bug reported by degree23 and added hints how to solve the puzzle by adding switch descriptions.

- MAP29: The lava room at the start is now correctly flagged as damage floor.

- MAP31: Made it easier to find the super secret level by replacing the last secret door with an open door.

- MAP32: Moved the mountains closer to the castle so it's possible to see the shootable walls even on low resolution engines.

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This seems interesting so I will definitely give it a test spin. Some of your custom textures are pretty impressive in these screenshots.

Update: alright so I played through this and I gotta say...its pretty impressive. You use a lot of cool ideas in your maps especially when it comes to the level of environmental interaction in the Downtown map. I like it!

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After collecting lot of feedback during the last months, I've release a new version of the map pack containing a few bug fixes and some multiplayer balancing (difficulty 1-3 only - Ultra-Violence almost untouched).

You can download V1.05 here:
http://www.kitana.org/arena/doom/doom20anniversary.html

Changes:

- MAP03: Fixed a multiplayer issue preventing players from getting the red key when a player died in red key room.

- MAP08: Fixed multiplayer ammo issues.

- MAP10: Added about 50 radiation-shielding-suits in multiplayer mode and a few in singleplayer.

- MAP14: Fixed an unwanted closing ceiling.

- MAP20: Fixed a hall-of-mirrors / missing texture issue.

- MAP21: Added a few small islands to the lava. Fixed visplane-overflow errors.

- MAP22: Added lot of ammo in multiplayer mode as well as a few visors.

- MAP24: Added some radiation-shielding-suits and extra ammo in multiplayer mode.

- MAP25: Added non-damage paths to the main area that will be enabled after some map progress.

- MAP28: Added 16 more radiation-shielding-suits in multiplayer mode.

Thanks again to everybody who submitted feedback!

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I'm getting really into this wad lately. I love how virtually every map looks intimidating at first (especially due to health\ammo problems) but as you explore it you gradually begin to understand it better and soon some sort of strategy forms in your head. Map10 is especially interesting and seems to require good planning, otherwise you'll simply run out of radiation suits and die. Levels can feature 10, 20, 30 or even more secrets and there are always tons of optional areas, so it takes a long time to discover everything. Very nontrivial gameplay, I like that. Can we consider 1.05 the final version?

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