How to Train Your Pet Cyber (single Boom-format map)

Single medium-sized Boom-format level (-cl 9).






Download link:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/pjy8fpw98v5nyo8/HtTYPC%28vF%29.wad

UV is for hardcore players. Would recommend HNTR or HMP for first playthrough for players like me. FDAs and comments always welcome.

Slight content spoiler:

Screensots look well. Interesting...
I'll play it later when come back to my cave.

HMP was a miserable failure, but I finished it on ITYTD. I hadn't read the spoiler.

cool map, small-scale tightly controlled combat, seems to be balanced well. pretty much exactly what I enjoy playing nowadays (though I think I've repeated that enough times already). I'll spare you my cl-1 fda, I died a bajillion times in the BK area because I saved myself into a situation where I didn't enough radsuit so I resorted to cheesing my way out -.-. didn't find the aforementioned secret (guessing the invul is the reward for it?), will probably go back and look again. rotating door fight was my favorite, easy overall, but still entertainingly tense.

some misc notes:
-- even though the supp532-whatever texture is used as a lift throughout the map, for whatever reason it took me forever to piece together how to get the RK. I almost thought it had something to do with the invul sphere and an AV jump or something. switches might make that easier.
-- the RK room is pretty campable after hitting the 2-key switch, 6 chaingunners be damned. might make more sense just to close that off? It probably doesn't matter though, because if not that area, then the cave area would serve just as well.
- some parts of this map are dark, like.. really dark, the cave area in particular. For fda play I value survival over aesthetics so I resorted to using gl-graphics gamma 4, which sucks much of the lighting detailing out of the map :P

http://www.mediafire.com/download/pdkclxn25gtpo41/HtTYPC%28v2%29.wad

Will sneak in an earlier-than-planned update since not many people have played or commented yet.

HNTR and HMP are softened even more. The lift in the RK area was bugged in v1, due to a last-minute change involving inserting a walkover trigger right next to it. It wouldn't work until you humped it very closely. Fixed.

Re the invul:

RjY said:

HMP was a miserable failure, but I finished it on ITYTD. I hadn't read the spoiler.

Fun watch. Thanks.

I had played V1 earlier, here's a skill 4 FDA, 1 death/DNF. I was at the exit but too wounded/underarmed to survive the last fight without the BFG, and I felt like my nerves were shot at the end and so didn't continue at the time, one of the psychological hardships unique to austerity-themed maps (as opposed to maps that just kill you fast/often because they're chaotic). I took a break and tried again a bit later, saw the whole map that time. It's the sort of challenge map where most of the strife is 'procedural', in that it's not too rough once you know where stuff is and can develop a plan for optimally stringing victories together, but without that knowledge it's a harsh mistress.

On that point, I didn't have the BFG at the end of the FDA because I never went to that area. Something in my little lemming brain made the snap assumption that the switch over in the cave area needed both BK and RK to operate based on the way it was signposted (hiding from a vile and from the cyb AND from a bunch of hitscanners at the time probably didn't help my concentration), when of course it only needs one or the other, and then I sort of forgot about it after leaving the area. In hindsight, I'm not sure 2-key doors are even a thing in Boom (though of course 3/6 key doors are, and ZDoom can do all kinds of wacky key-combo stuff), but that's brainfarts for you. The other unwise thing I did was to eventually kill Cybie once I'd scraped together enough resources. I tend to make it a point of trying to kill the cyberdemon early in any beta of a map where having the creature as a constant presence is a core concept of said map, because if it's too viable an option the map often breaks down or develops balance problems. I thought that might be the case here, but was eventually punished for my wiseassery--turns out it'd be really helpful to have cybie around for the penultimate ambush (which is what wounded me to the point of near death), which I suppose is the wise player's reward for putting up with his horseshit for the rest of the map.

In that sense I reckon the map is balanced well conceptually and in terms of ammo (trying to gather enough of it to make a big play for momentum being another key feature of the map), although I do believe it could do with slightly more health, largely because much of the early going is hitscan-heavy, and the layout of the RK and BK areas makes it really easy to waste what's in there (and the BK stuff has an additional damage tax on it for going back to get it later should you manage to preserve some of it on the first trip). Without changing your fundamental flow concept much, I think you could do this by swapping the two medikits in the closet-sequence area with the soulsphere in the blood-pit which precedes it, and maybe having the damage floor in the BK area 'drain' to dry land once the area is complete or something. Also might need some more health in the whack-a-mole area (maybe another soulsphere instead of the two medikits), since I believe there's a legitimate element of good luck/bad luck in not taking at least one nasty hit when the four viles first appear (expanding the size of the center protrusion so it's a little easier not be targeted by 2 or even 3 of them at once could also work).

Was going to say the level also seems a little buggy with various platforms in the RK room, but it looks like you've already addressed that. The other thing is I'm not sure the player should necessarily be allowed to step onto the whack-a-mole grid....as is it's really easy to fall into one of the outer holes, which sort of breaks the lighthearted fun of the initial part of that segment. It occurred to me that you might've done this because you had hoped that a player might be able to hide in one of the holes to escape from viles' LoS in the second part, but, eh....I think this is just too unpredictable/RNG-based (e.g. when do the viles decide to attack) to be viable, and so the area might read better if the player is kept to the periphery via blocking lines.

Visually, it is rather dark, it's true, but I don't have a problem with dark (and this is from a software player, note!), myself. Could perhaps use a mite more color, though, probably some extra red velour carpet or red neon or the like.

Hmm, the BK encounter gets quite easy when you kill the cyber off first. I'm not sure how to change that without making it too tough when the cyber is still alive, though, other than being even stingier with ammo or making the map less non-linear (making the BK obligatory in the earlygoing), which I'd rather not do. Not a big deal, though -- giving the player the ability either soften fights up with work or do it the hard way was part of the plan (hence the optional BFG stuff). Re: the secret arena, blocking lines make it hard to land punches, so I'll probably have to change the dimensions of the place significantly to do that, maybe in a later version. There's one fewer AV on UV there now, and another medkit.

Version 3: http://www.mediafire.com/download/gxh47e6klfprnkl/HtTYPC%28v3%29.wad

-- Double-key ambush is a lot nastier on UV now.
-- Slightly more health in the map.
-- Uh, the "secrets" are now more secrety. It somehow eluded me entirely that it was possible to just jump to that medkit platform.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure I'm setting the record for updates to post count ratio.

I played through this sometime over the Christmas period and completely forgot to post about it. As ever, this was a very entertaining map. Quite spartan with the visuals but tne individual encounters shine through. Don't have an FDA but I do have a sort-of max demo type thing once I solved the encounters and got a successful exit under my belt.

The resources were well balanced and put a lot of pressure on the player to push out into the unknown. The perched archvile in the caves and cyberdemon sight-lines on the entrance to the red key room combined with pain elementals put a steep penalty on passivity and discouraged hit and run or door camping tactics. Aggression in the red key room was vital because of the pain elementals tendencies to get trapped behind the hell knight & start filling the room with skulls, draining a lot of the player's very limited ammo.

Despite this, I ended up avoiding the blue key area until I absolutely had to go there because of that nukage. In my first successful attempts, I only went there after taking the cyberdemon pressure out of the equation with the bfg. In retrospect though the fight is very tightly timed, it's not that mechanically challenging even with the cybie watching the sides. The psychological pressure of pushing into the unknown and also being on a timer is what made it an obstacle.

I also fell into a hole on the whack-a-mole grid on my first playthrough. It's not really that much of a big deal though as you can escape and to melt everything with rockets eventually. I do feel that the cycle went on for just a tad too long, though and found myself getting impatient waiting for the encounter to develop into something more dangerous.

One potential bug: The ten chaingunners in sectors 155/156 never wake up and teleport in. This happened to me more than once and I don't think I missed anything obvious triggers. You can see this in my demo.

It's been a while since playing a WAD on HNTR made me long for playing Stardate or similar slaughterwads on UV.

The concept is good and the execution is flawless, really.

I was only able to finish this on ITYTD without dying with no saves lol (and after like 100 failed tries on HNTR)

Here's the demo if you wanna watch (it's kinda boring, because ITYTD, but well lol): http://www.mediafire.com/download/k6b7jjw4bzhu7mz/rdwpa-deadwing.lmp

I'm not really into slaugher playstyle, but that felt nice and compact. The non-linear layout made things quite fun, even if I died like 2387 times on HNTR, because I could try different routes and learn the map layout. If this felt just a linear experience it would have been a lot boring.

Also, you have used the monsters very well, limiting their access so things wouldn't end up being a big mess. The battles used different monsters types too, so in-fighting was always a valuable resource. (especially with revs x caco on BK trap or taking advantage of Cyberdemon's rockets) Sadly my skill wasn't good enough for a demo in higher difficult :/

Nice music, btw, FFX soundtrack is amazing haha Visuals were great too, contrasting with uplifting music

http://www.mediafire.com/download/pjy8fpw98v5nyo8/HtTYPC%28vF%29.wad

Thanks guys. Fixed broken warp-in, reformulated whack-a-mole fight, made HNTR a bit softer (one fewer vile in BFG fight + extra blue armor + a bit more health scattered around). Probably final version.