The sorry state of MAP05 (and questions about the new MAP06)

I have recently (tried to) play through MAP05 again, and I have to say this map holds some of the most frustrating moments when playing FreeDoom. The damaging floor literally *everywhere* (Doomguy does "ouch, ouch, ouch" all the time while you try to get rid of the dozens of Imps... and then you die. Repeat.), the stupid DOOM-shaped secret room that nobody will miss, the nearly impossible to find rocket launcher secret, the certain death pit around the yellow key card, and so on. And all of this so early in the game.

I'd like to give the map a serious overhaul, addressing all of the issues I pointed out above and many more. I don't know who its author "Amarande" is or if he is still around, so there is nobody to ask directly.

Do you all agree? Or do you think that the map is fine as it is and I should stop bitching around? ;)

Yeah the DOOM secret should definitely go, especially since Freedoom is not Doom :P

this is one of those maps that should just be outright replaced.

Yeesh, it's a bad map alright. Things I disliked:
1. All that damaging floor is bullshit. At the very least, turn the brown water into non-damaging.
2. The red key puzzle is nonsensical. Lower the red key in the slime? And then you've got to comb through all the damaging floor sewers to find out where it went to? Argh.
3. Grabbing the yellow key, from the wrong angle, can let you fall in a no-escape pit. Fun.
4. Blue bars are actioned from a switch on the wall nearby; yellow bars are actioned directly. Have you heard about consistency?
5. Why is one of the blue key doors given a non-door texture? If it tries to be a secret door, it shouldn't have the blue trims next to it, nor a big staircase leading right to it on the other side.
6. That dumb DOOM secret room.
7. The music track is bad, too. Sorry, whoever made it.

Things I liked:
1. Blowing up the barrels in the exit room.
2. No, that's it. No item #2.

I complained about it a few times, and it does have an author if you want to
argue about it.

My Likes:
- the things that are different than every other level map I have played.
- The exit room
- the damaging tunnels, with the dash from safe spot to safe spot, with plenty
of suits to do some serious exploring.

My concerns:
- Too much learn by dying, and relying upon information gleaned in previous
failures.
- the damaging slime is OK with me, as there are plenty of suits, but having the imps
in the tunnel before getting to the suits made it way to difficult for Map05.
- going to the secret cave (the other direction) you meet invisible monsters, in damaging slime, trying to find a transport platform that you don't know exists.
- Different doors and switches are fine with me, but cannot be experimenting
with how you need to open this one while standing in damaging sector. Dying
and having to trying something different the next play is not acceptable to many players (learn by dying).
- secret switches hidden behind the torches, must go around poking and shooting every innocent alcove
- the Secret Doom room.
- The key just disappears, so the player has no idea where to look for it.
Another exhaustive search over ground already covered.

What would help:
- eliminate doom in the secret room, make it much smaller.
- provide two or three ways to get key,
1. run fast
2. push button filling in gap in pit.
3. An alternative key hidden somewhere.
- Provide a way to climb down into tunnels instead of just jumping into nest of imps
- Bridge across chasm is not a true bridge, and play occurs on both sides
1. move the crossing to the edge of the chasm
2. or eliminate crossing and provide for leaps across the chasm
3. or make it a passable bridge with walk under
4. or move all play to one side of the bridge
- Provide secret doors in the back of the torch alcoves to find secret areas. No secret shoot or press switches. (a blinking alcove light is not a clue, it is a bad light).
- Some small boxes in the tunnels so a player without a suit can dash from box to alcove to stairs.
- entirely different red key puzzle. I cannot think of a way to save that one without using a complex of conveyors to move the key down a drainway to where it is found.

I've always hated this map and I think it should be cut. There are other maps that could stand to be cut as well, such as MAP09.

wesleyjohnson said:

What would help:
- eliminate doom in the secret room, make it much smaller.
- provide two or three ways to get key,
1. run fast
2. push button filling in gap in pit.
3. An alternative key hidden somewhere.
- Provide a way to climb down into tunnels instead of just jumping into nest of imps
- Bridge across chasm is not a true bridge, and play occurs on both sides
1. move the crossing to the edge of the chasm
2. or eliminate crossing and provide for leaps across the chasm
3. or make it a passable bridge with walk under
4. or move all play to one side of the bridge
- Provide secret doors in the back of the torch alcoves to find secret areas. No secret shoot or press switches. (a blinking alcove light is not a clue, it is a bad light).
- Some small boxes in the tunnels so a player without a suit can dash from box to alcove to stairs.
- entirely different red key puzzle. I cannot think of a way to save that one without using a complex of conveyors to move the key down a drainway to where it is found.

These are a lot of big fixes for a map with a large number of issues with a limited number of redeeming qualities. It might be easier to just create a new map with a similar theme.

Is it perhaps time to start outright decommissioning all the maps that clearly don't make the grade?

Jimmy said:

Is it perhaps time to start outright decommissioning all the maps that clearly don't make the grade?

I think so. I'm going to edit the needed maps thread to include phase 2 maps that don't make the cut, and I think we should just start dropping them after 0.10.

Ugh. I never really liked this map either. Honesty, this is usually the map I stop playing at once I reach it. Though some of the starting area is nice, the overall constant damaging floor tunnels for a majority of the map are quite obnoxious especially if you either.

A. Run out of rad suits.
or
B. Get swarmed or stuck fighting an enemy while said rad suit is wearing off.

I'll be honest when I say that I really don't feel guilty warping to the next map. It's a tad too early in the game for something of that jolting difficulty.

Then again.. Map09 itself bored me as well from a gameplay standpoint.

So why right after I post a comment about similar concerns I have about Map05, is there a call for cutting one of my maps (MAP09 The Mine) which was specifically made for FreeDoom and that map slot, and is maintained, and a new version was just submitted in the last month. What is with that ?

I always prefer to save a map than discard it. Ideas are hard enough to come by.
The replacement may just be another bunch of purposeless rooms and corridors with monsters, which would not be an great improvement.

Who is going to be deciding what "the grade" is that determines when a map gets cut, and what is supposed to be the criteria. Why do I get the feeling that it will just
be the who-ever was commenting at some forum-meeting, and not being present to defend your level creation will be the end of it.

A lot of Freedoom's maps have been around since before the birth of the universe, and I've never seen much serious involvement from actual playtesters (bug testing and playtesting are not the same thing) or any real creative direction. It would be far easier and yield far better results to scrap and replace bad old stuff than to needlessly cling on to junk for no reason other than tradition.

Wesley, you're not as well-equipped as you think you are to talk about level design or, really, much of anything you pretend to be an expert on.

Further, you've had no problem calling for other peoples' assets to be altered or replaced with your own work, but when someone considers your own work subpar, it's suddenly not alright for that to happen without your involvement?

MAP09 is awwwful haha, nothing is ever objective but I'm pretty everyone (except you, somehow) can agree its a terrible map.

wesleyjohnson said:

Ideas are hard enough to come by. The replacement may just be another bunch of purposeless rooms and corridors with monsters, which would not be an great improvement.

So by your own admission you're making a directionless mess with no core idea to back it up?

What about seeking out high quality pre-existing maps to fill things out? People could nominate a map, and if others like it, the author could be contacted to see if they're willing to donate it.

And Wesley, I mean no offense, I just simply do not like MAP09.

Doctor Nick said:

These are a lot of big fixes for a map with a large number of issues with a limited number of redeeming qualities. It might be easier to just create a new map with a similar theme.

It isn't even that bad in general. I actually like the whole bridge/river/sewers/baser/hell setup. But it's the details that suck. I'd really like to give this map a chance and try to turn it into something easier resp. more fun before we decide to scrap it.

Sodaholic said:

And Wesley, I mean no offense, I just simply do not like MAP09.

Honestly, me neither.

Yeah, MAP09 isn't very fun to play. Excessively long narrow corridors, cramped rooms cluttered by attempts at crafting realistic-looking furniture out of sectors... It seems you've tried too hard to make something that could be a believable mine, but not hard enough to make something that is a level.

I fixed up MAP05:

1. Damaging slime is now harmless water
2. Rad suits are now stim packs)
3. No more inescapable pits
4. No "Doom" text anymore

Sodaholic said:

I fixed up MAP05:

Sigh, after I have been editing this map for two days now. :-/

But, thanks anyway, all of your changes were also part of my change set. So, if I ever get to finishing it, the delta to the version currently in Freedoom will be smaller.

I think that this map now mostly sucks in (a) thing placement and (b) secret placement and access. Which is a vast improvement already!

I'm sorry, I had no idea you were working on it. You mentioned that you'd like to, but never mentioned actually working on it (at least that I saw).

Sodaholic said:

I'm sorry, I had no idea you were working on it. You mentioned that you'd like to, but never mentioned actually working on it (at least that I saw).

Nevermind, I rebased all my previous work entirely on your new submission. And guess what? Now it rocks!


We should really re-consider thing placement in a future commit, but I'd say the map is rehabilitated for now. Thank you very much! \o/

Edit: Well, now, I'm stuck at MAP06. That sucks! :/

You thought map05 was bad? I always thought map06 was *worse*. Very confusing, very unclear, very annoying...

I think we should cut MAP03. It's playable and it looks nice, but the gameplay is so linear and mediocre.

Danfun64 said:

You thought map05 was bad? I always thought map06 was *worse*. Very confusing, very unclear, very annoying...

MAP05 was largely frustrating due to the unavoidable damaging floors.

I agree that MAP06 needs to be scrapped.

Danfun64 said:

You thought map05 was bad? I always thought map06 was *worse*. Very confusing, very unclear, very annoying...

map06 was usually were I would ragequit over the years. It's been in Freedoom for practically forever, and I don't know why. It stinks.

I know this is not the nicest thing to say, but I think it would be better to have that "unfinished map" that is just a box and an exit switch instead of some of the maps that are really bad. At least until they can be replaced with something better.

Maybe we could have a thread where people playtest the various levels with the most current build and make comments on what works and what doesn't. Maybe also vote on which ones need to be excised from the project if they are really bad.

I liked map05, by the way...

edit: But I usually play most maps and wads with godmode enabled the first time around, and then play normally after I've spent some time sightseeing.

The original map05 was somewhat annoying, but at least it was playable. Map06 is confusing garbage that gives no clue on how you are supposed to beat it. The most annoying part is that maze like area with the poisonous liquid surrounding you and every area looking the same as the one before. Not even the automap helps matters unless you use IDDT.

I would rather have the placeholder box map then the current map06.

How about Jenesis MAP03 as a replacement for MAP06?

Did you pick that map number out of the blue, or was there a specific reason you chose that map instead of the others in the pack?

Danfun64 said:

Did you pick that map number out of the blue, or was there a specific reason you chose that map instead of the others in the pack?

He probably played through Jenesis (or at least started to) before picking that one. MAP03 from Jenesis would be a great replacement.

I think there are some textures in there that need to be changed, though (the obvious textures being the ones that say things like "UAC").

There are a lot of really good maps in Jenesis that could be used in Phase 2.

edit: Maybe some of the extra textures could be added to Freedoom. I think someone in another thread was talking about adding extra textures that weren't specifically "vanilla".

For me, map 05 was not so complicated. It was balanced: in the corridors with damaging floors were only weak enemies: Imps and pinkies. Everywhere rad suits. Map 05 was difficult? For me, it is challenging those maps on which dozens tripods, and you suddenly killed by missiles.

Urra said:

Map 05 was difficult? For me, ...

Sure, the map was beatable before. I have also beaten it before. The point is: It was no fun, not at all. And now it is.

Danfun64 said:

Did you pick that map number out of the blue, or was there a specific reason you chose that map instead of the others in the pack?

I picked it because it's a tech base, seems between 05 and 07 in terms of difficulty and for its length.