get paid (finished my second map) + update v3

hi,

i just finished my second doom2 map. i started mapping 2 weeks ago, so i'm still noob at this. lol. it took me like 15 hours to make this. i would like to have some tips and comments.

source port: zdoom/(g)zdoom?

thanks for comments and tips in advance!

:)

edit: third version http://www13.zippyshare.com/v/1inq6Tjy/file.html
edit2: new link

So I loaded this up in glboom+, and it broke a few minutes in because some hanging things block completely, so if they're hanging in the hallway and infinitely tall things is on ... it breaks. So next time mention you built this with ZDoom in mind. Next, the first mobs encountered were archviles. Which isn't bad 100% of the time, but with only the ssg and 4 of them in a small room with a small doorway, it got old fast. The same with everything up until the corridor with hanging dead guys that block any vanilla/boom style port.

So without playing the rest of the map, which looks like a fair chunk since I only killed 30/600 mobs, you should work on making bigger rooms and use less beefy mobs to start with. It can take a lot of playing time to figure out how best to use the beefier mobs. Like archviles are almost always used singly or pairs as the big target in a group of lesser mobs like imps and zombiemen, revenants or hell knights. Maybe a mancubus. Or as area deniers who cover some parts of a room with their line of sight. Just make a map without any doom 2 mobs until the third or fourth room and it'll go better.

Anyway I'll now check out the rest of the map in gzdoom. But I'll probably cheat a bfg in for those first few rooms heheh.

E: So I played it in gzdoom. I got up to the point where the BFG is and totally skipped it because it's skippable and I didn't want to kill all the revenants there. So I basically got bored and iddqd'd through the map after the cyber + archies and mancs. Which btw doesn't work too well when the mancs are behind the archies. Especially with a cyberdemon in front too. Perhaps have the mancs up higher so they don't start infighting. It was bad enough the cyber splash was aggroing archies.

As for the rest of the map, it's pretty much what i'd expect a person with no level design experience to make if they've played some slaughtermaps. Lots of mobs, rooms too small because they don't have a good feel for how large rooms should be, and lots of slow doors that lower. Also no light level gradients, one room goes pitch black but is really just annoying since there are chaingunners on an upper level so it's blind firing up there and hoping not to get hit back.

And not a clear understanding of mobs' roles; archviles force the player to find cover or eliminate them quickly, a lot of the encounters don't permit that or are reeeeeealllly grindy because there are too many archies. And Barons, they're meant to be meatshields that take time and space to kill, there was a lot of room to run back if the doors didn't open/lower at the wrong time and trap me. They should instead force you to choose which mobs to kill before getting up in your face, or else be able to dance around them. Otherwise Hell knights are a much better mob to use. Revenants were used ok since they're heavy damage if they hit, and there's lots of doorways. The one good use of chaingunners was the dark room, making me look everywhere for the bastards. But the one room with descending ledges was bad since only the closest row could shoot me, and most were killed by infighting while I dealt with the rest of the room. If those ledges were ascending instead and spaced high enough the chaingunners wouldn't infight other rows it'd be better. Then the cyberdemons. The first one on the stairs was good, lots of area denial and a difficult encounter. But the rest were bad. The one with the archies on a ledge was more hindrance to the archies than dangerous, and the ones in the last two hallways were just in the open, blocking. Not fun to fight. The one with the cacos and pain elementals, I'm not sure. It could be interesting, but I just ran through with iddqd so idk.

A lot of the archies on pillars or alcoves could've been replaced with revenants or chaingunners and the map would be a lot less grindy, and the first room is just bad. One, maybe two archies there, ok, but four is just not good. Same with the archies behind bars in the 3rd or 4th hallways with revenants. They make no impact besides being annoying timewasters.

I'm sure the last 2-3 fights had issues but I honestly just clipped past them because there wasn't much point iddqding through 2 cybers, another 2 cybers, and a bunch of archies and other mobs without the bfg that I found and that I didn't cheat ammo for. The main takeaways are, study some maps with the fights you like and try to recreate them. Try to understand why those fights are set up the way they are, and what happens when you add a few archies or barons into it. Seriously, open your favorite wad, choose a fun fight, and stick an archvile right in the middle. You'll quickly find out some things about how they're used.

Anyway, I know this is a big block of criticism, but I did like some fights. I had to slog through a lot of shit to get to it, but keep mapping. The key is to just keep making stuff and learning what works and doesn't.

screenshots:

Some areas are Nice, yet not well connected .

thanks for your comment, ArmouredBlood. :)

edit: and DMGUYDZ64. :)

http://www13.zippyshare.com/v/1inq6Tjy/file.html

second version. i reorganized every monster and item. better? :)

edit: new link

http://www13.zippyshare.com/v/1inq6Tjy/file.html

i fixed a couple minor bugs in the map.

edit: new link

Everything is fine up to the archviles in the cages before the red key caves. But before that, I think I should mention that using the standard door action is reeeeeally annoying on doors that are spaced very close to each other. Not only because they take forever to fully open, but also fully close, trapping you in with whatever you're trying to get away from or just taking lots of seconds of your life away. And it's really easy to get into a situation we call 'door fighting', where you get off a few shots at mobs and then the door closes, you open the door, repeat. Which really screws up the flow of an encounter. Instead use an action with (fast) after whatever it does, like action 117 'door open wait close (fast)'. Better yet, the first straight hallway with all those doors could simply be open, with a D1 'door open stay', 31. Not every door needs this, play around with it, and also neither of those actions allow monsters to open the door, but if you use a different format than doom 2, you can use extra actions and define-able actions to get the mobs to also open the doors. Just don't do it with this map, changing the format of a map once it's started doesn't work. Except by copy/pasting the map contents, but I'd rather not get into that.

As for the parts after the archies, there is not enough ammo put in accessible places. And health in general. I had ~30 hp when I went into the revenant caves with the red key, and I just could not get out without bfging some revs out of the way, and then I couldn't access any of the ammo given. The halls are too wide for rockets to stop the revs advancing, and the bfg opened me up to too much damage. It needs slightly narrower hallways and some medkits to be even fair, and possibly have the ammo within the closets moved to inside the hallway. The whole running fight idea with all the revenant closets in the rest of the map is nice, but I couldn't even grab the red key before I was swarmed.

The room after the drop could also use some medkits, maybe a soulsphere or megasphere too. There's just no way to stop the revenants coming into the room without taking lots of hits.

Anyway, much better, but you should do something about the doors and make sure there's enough accessible ammo and health for your fights. And, use lower unpegged on the doortraks. It'll make them look better. I noticed you made thinner doors later on in the level, but some of the first few are reeeeallly thick, which looks weird.

thanks, ArmouredBlood!

I'll check this out in my next playtesting stream.