Inquination (Beta v2)

Looking for some feedback on this map I've been working on. Let me know if you have any suggestions or bug reports. Thanks!

Game: Doom 2.
Source port: GZDoom v1.8 or higher.
Required files: GOTHICTX.wad and RETRES.wad. Links to these added below.

Difficulty settings have not yet been implemented.

Download for Beta v2:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/or3fa7ig1anfmi3/INQNB2v2.zip

Screenshots:
http://imgur.com/a/MbdaX

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GOTHICTX and RETRES downloads:
http://www.doomworld.com/afterglow/textures/zips/gothictx.zip
http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/?id=10442

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UPDATE:

Beta v2 is now available. Based on some notes from rileymartin, I've gone through and made a few changes. See my post below for further details.

I'm sure someone not busy will get to it. Eventually.

I'll add this to my upcoming playtesting stream #8.

Alright bro, I gave the map a playthrough and found/killed everything in it. I felt like health/armour and ammo were very limited and after the dark room trap I spent the rest of the level at around 30HP. Also, the starting path that I took ended up with me finding no weapons and had me pistol shooting Spectres and Cacodemons which wasn't fun.

The Baron trap at the fake exit was pretty RNG for me since with low HP it takes some save-scumming to not get one-shot instantly when one spawns right behind you. That final arena has a teleporter that takes you right to the start of the map which is annoying as I hit it several times dodging/circling the gangbang there. It should be off to the side somewhere because I was F9'ing back every time I hit it, since I ain't runnin' the whole map to get there again.

The dark maze with the Invul Sphere is also really dark which had me cranking up the gamma correction to see anything. I also missed the BFG entirely before killing the Cyber with the SSG since with the Invul it's hard to see any of the new items that spawned. I also suggest you include the two necessary wads in the zip file since they are mildly annoying to track down. The automap had some parts missing as well.

As for the good parts, the monster variety is good and I liked how each area had various demons in it rather than homogeneous groups. The slopes were also nice as well as that sewer secret. Texture use was fine as well.

As a final note, I'd like to add that I'm an ubermensch Doom-God with over 5k confirmed Revenant kills so any issues I experienced in regards to health and ammo are balance issues and not related to my level of skill.

Edit: I also played it in the latest test version of Zandronum because GZDoom runs like crap for me.

Riley, which path did you take that lead to pistol-only against cacos? I've played through this every which way I can think of and I always end up with plenty of health and ammo. Not saying you're wrong or anything, just really curious how you played it for that to happen.

The BFG is part of an optional secret, mainly because by that point you should have a plasma rifle, chaingun, rocket launcher, shotgun and super shotgun already. It isn't really needed to defeat the Cyberdemon.

As for places being too dark, I can go back and maybe brighten some areas but it all looks fine in GZDoom.

I did a hard left up 2 elevators, flipped the switch opening 4 monster closets and then went forward through the secret wall which had a couple of zombies, a spectre and an imp. After that I did a hard right where the helmets are and went through the secret wall there, following the hallway down to the stealth imp. Opening the wall there takes me to an area with rubble and blue bars that contains a caco, demon and imp.

Now doing a hard right seems even worse with the pistol since you're greeted by multiple imps and 2 demons after which you emerge in the outdoor area with a chaingunner, hell knight and lots of other nasty stuff with nothing but a pistol and no armour.

So I'm not sure what the optimal path is for getting a good start.

rileymartin said:

I did a hard left up 2 elevators, flipped the switch opening 4 monster closets and then went forward through the secret wall which had a couple of zombies, a spectre and an imp. After that I did a hard right where the helmets are and went through the secret wall there, following the hallway down to the stealth imp. Opening the wall there takes me to an area with rubble and blue bars that contains a caco, demon and imp.

Now doing a hard right seems even worse with the pistol since you're greeted by multiple imps and 2 demons after which you emerge in the outdoor area with a chaingunner, hell knight and lots of other nasty stuff with nothing but a pistol and no armour.

So I'm not sure what the optimal path is for getting a good start.

Ahh, okay. That first room, the secret one, the intent there is that you grab the Berserk powerup. With that, you can easily take out the Cacodemon. Directly behind him, there's a shotgun and some ammo (it's near the squished marine under the broken door). And if you head outside through the broken wall, there's more shotgun shells outside as well as a couple former sgts that drop shotguns (and therefore ammo). There's also some shells down in the slime pit.

Also, there is a suit of green armor in that same area on a pillar, near the staircase. Now that I think about it though, those only lower if you come out the opposite way near the red key door. I'll go back and add a linedef trigger so that they will lower when you come out from the broken wall as well. Thanks for pointing that out!

But yeah, if you grab that Berserk powerup though and grab the shotgun I mentioned near the Caco, that area should be much easier to deal with, and you won't need to rely on the pistol.

Okay, Beta v2 is available. I replaced that one Cacodemon near the secret tunnel with a Spectre. This way if someone doesn't see the shotgun, it shouldn't be as difficult to take him down with a pistol (or use your fist after getting the Berserk powerup) and then grab it. I also changed the way the pillars are triggered so that they don't depend on you coming from a certain direction anymore. So it won't matter now if you come from the red key door or the broken wall. This has the added effect of making certain the player has access to the green armor. I made a few other minor tweaks and brightened up the bonus area near the end of the map (the dark maze area with the invul sphere).

New download link here:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/or3fa7ig1anfmi3/INQNB2v2.zip

Oh yeah, about that teleporter at the end... trust me, it's bugging the crap out of me too! Haha. I do plan on moving it somewhere else once I decide on a good spot for it. If you're wondering, it exists so the player can go back to grab any secrets they may have missed. But yeah, strafing into it is friggin' annoying and I fully intend on changing that. Should have that ready for the next beta release.

How do I play it? Where do I put the texture packs? I tried running it througth gzdoom builder, but I wasn't sure what to do. I got it loaded, but all you custom textures didn't show up. I put them in my steamapps/common/doom2/base folder, but everything I assume that came from those two texture packs didn't go over. I played the first map. I was able to get the red key, but I didn't have enough ammo so I had to run from everyone. When I opened up the red door, I was killed right away.

everennui said:

How do I play it? Where do I put the texture packs? I tried running it througth gzdoom builder, but I wasn't sure what to do. I got it loaded, but all you custom textures didn't show up. I put them in my steamapps/common/doom2/base folder, but everything I assume that came from those two texture packs didn't go over. I played the first map. I was able to get the red key, but I didn't have enough ammo so I had to run from everyone. When I opened up the red door, I was killed right away.

You load them the same way you would load any other wad, e.g.

gzdoom.exe -file INQNB2v2.wad GOTHICTX.wad RETRES.wad

from the command line after setting your DOOMWADDIR environment variable and either adding your GZDoom directory to your path or running the command prompt from your GZDoom directory.

everennui said:

I tried running it througth gzdoom builder

That's the problem. You need to use GZDoom, not GZDoom Builder. That's for creating your own maps. You can load the map and textures the way someone else suggested, or you can simply drag and drop them onto the gzdoom exe.