Let's talk BDv20b Starter Pack

And by that I mean the megawad SgtMarkIV released with his last update to Brutal Doom. I gave the wad a thorough playthrough using Project Brutality over the past few days and was pleasantly surprised at how differently it played compared to other popular modern pwads.

The gameplay and level design felt like a mix of Half-Life and Duke3D. The progression from one map to the next was always seamless and made logical sense, similar to Doom 3. I also like how it combined the best location from the official Doom games, covering Mars, Earth and Hell. Speaking of these locations, the art direction and level of detail in each level is unlike anything else I've seen in a Doom wad. There was a real strong emphasis on making each place feel as realistic as possible, rather than the more abstract style Doom levels are known for. The city levels are by far the most visually impressive and fun to explore with most buildings having something to do in them. The heavy use of slopes was also a great way to avoid that blocky Minecraft look a lot of the other large and detailed custom levels have. It certainly shows what can be done with the Doom engine when you go full GZDoom and ignore Boom compatibility.

Now, onto how the maps actually play. The fact that the levels are mostly populated with enemies from the start is a great change from the usual "enter empty room > grab key/flip switch > shit teleports or pops in from all sides and doors close" that seems to be all the rage. Mostly, that leads to some dull F6'ing before and F9'ing after it's no longer a surprise. Situations can be approached in a variety of ways, including sniping from a distance or lobbing grenades around corners to thin out some of the junk in the level. In fact, there are barely any killer traps until the later hell levels. The custom bosses are also quite fun, though I did cheese the new Icon of Sin by stunlocking it with the Black Hole Generator.

Now why did I use Project Brutality instead of regular BD? I enjoy the weapon and enemy variety and especially the elite variants of each monster that you encounter later on. The gameplay is definitely more challenging than vanilla BD and works great with the small-ish encounters this wad has. I always wanted to finish a custom megawad with PB but it becomes super laggy and difficult in any remotely slaughter-esque scenarios.

Try PB with Maps of Chaos, seen in my addons section on ModDB on my signature.

The ios fight is ultra difficult without the stunlocking PB weapons. I played the entire Megawad using just BD2b. It's way overpowered when comparing to the other bosses that are arguably simple as piss - they just take lots of hits like a typical Boss monster. The ios needs some serious balancing, otherwise it's a awesome Boss.

I nominated Mark's Starterpack for a reward but he denied it, saying it is not complete and he is unsatisfied at the level of quality in its current state. I understand where he is coming from, the entire Megawad is suffering some huge spikes of quality from level to level, there are texture offsets littered everywhere, the intermission dialogue is a mess and looks like a placeholder, the Bosses need some work and finally many of the Hell levels are incredibly under detailed and boring in comparison to his tech / city maps. Personally I find some of his City maps - which are absolutely awesome - have questionable level designs when it comes to progress, imo.

But by God, the train level, the city levels and the 'Sacrifical Grounds' were just sooo cool. I'm a Brutal Doom fan boy and as I like to keep saying - am making my own project strictly revolving around this mod although I doubt I will ever hit the quality of his work. Sgt Mark's Megawad is inspiring but oddly lacking in Brutal Doom specific triggers / events. I hope Sergeant Mark adds more to it in the future updates. For example, I put in kill animations, monster vs monster triggers and even Baron throwing Barrels at player triggers in my maps - I think he should do that same.

Final Note - I feel Sergeant Mark's Starterpack and gameplay mod is under-appreciated in the Doom Community. It's a shame most of his attention comes from outsiders who could never appreciate the level of detail and time he put into his work.

This is awesome, no big compatibility errors except for some minor issues with the allied marines

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ufcrudphfyvj9ow/Screenshot_Doom_20160220_232458.png?dl=1

I just need to add a few things and my D64 mod will be as compatible too, this map pack is pretty good, feels like a Freedoom version of Super Skulltag's maps.

Very well then, i shall express my opinion on the BD Starter Pack, so to begin with, it looks like a Super Skulltag version of Freedoom's maps and some older maps as well made by Sgt.MarkIV such as Neighboorhood from Hell, After the Holocaust, you get the idea.

I kinda like them, although this megawad looks unfinished, mostly because of the Hell maps, they look rushed and i understand that, as this megawad was made to coincide with the release of BDv20b and because there was never a megawad designed for BD.

My favorite maps from the Starter Pack are the 1st map, it's a good introduction, the second map, an improved Freedoom e1m2, the city levels, the subway level, which is amazing, that e2m8 look-a-alike boss fight map and the hell maps that use Quake music.

The city maps look pretty damn great, same for Mars, but the city maps have detail and atmosphere.

Now about the unfinished said above, it's mostly because there are bugs, the bosses need some work, the hell levels need work too as well and it's difficult as you progress, it gets harder.

However the levels have decent music, mostly a mix of Q1, Q2, Q3 and some Doom metal remixes, so overall, id say it needs work and fixing, specially in the perfomance as the city maps can be laggy for older computers.

And ofc this megawad is meant to be played with BD and it's other varitions and the brother Project Brutality, although it works with some other mods, i wouldn't advise doing so, as that's against what this megawad is aimed for.

Hello there. This thread is a bit old, but since there is no newer thread dedicated to Brutal Doom Starter Pack, I decided to post my opinion here.
I have not completed this WAD yet (I am on map 13), but I came here because of one reason:
Staging Area.
Yeah, that yet-another-Dead-Simple map. Not that I do not like the idea of a DS remake. I liked original map very much, as it is one of the most fast-paced in Doom 2.
My grip with map 7 of Starter Pack is that it is a bad remake. I played this with Project Brutality, but since PB is an extension of sorts of Brutal Doom, I think the gameplay does not differ that much from BD, for which SP was designed, after all.
But what is my problem? Not enough cover. The original Dead Simple had ample cover in its inner courtyard, so you would not get roasted by Mancubi in an instant. Take away those walls between you and the fatsos and you get a poor Marine getting blazed from four sides. The only cover in the starting room are the crates in the middle. However, no matter how you position yourself, you will always get burned from at least one direction. And there is a Megasphere that you would probably want to save for later.
In fact, since I played this map in PB (difficulty: "12 on 10 Point Scale of Bad"), I had more options that in BD20b (for example, the slime mode for Mancubus' Cannon that has heavy stunlocking property). But it did not really help. I assume the map is intended to be played like Dead Simple - running like a maniac, blasting Mancubi and then Arachnotrons while regularly taking cover. But it did not work out well.
I got ashed countless times until I found a solution: throw grenades from the depressed platform you start in before you even press the lift switch. If not for those grenades I used to wipe out Mancubi in two of the corners, I would not clear that map.
As for the Arachnotrons, I was not in a mood to try run'n'gun with them after Mancubi, so I just quickly ran into one of the storage rooms and perforated them all from safe space behind some crates.

Did SgtMkIV really think that was a good concept for the map? A good run'n'gun map needs both space and cover. Staging Area has not enough of either.
I have weak grasp on good map design, but I know one thing for sure: Staging Area is not an example of a good map.

The boss fight on the finale of Mars was not really fair either: two Belphegors in another cramped room? Really? That was not a good boss arena at all. Good thing I had those four Marines (I ordered them to stay until I cleared everything before the teleporter chamber) and 20 mines. Still, that boss fight was not nearly as bad as Staging Area.

Sorry for this rant, but I had to express this somewhere. So, if you have problems in Staging Area, use grenades!

The rest of the levels are nowhere as bad, thankfully. Aside from the two aforementioned instances, I am having very good fun with this mappack. Maps are constructed in logical way and actually resemble real facilites. The monster placement is also rather sensible. I also like that map8 has numerous traps - this was a good tribute to original Tricks and Traps, unlike the previous Staging Area.
I am looking forward to the next maps, since from what I read, the middle episode of Starter Pack has the most intricate level design. I hope the worst is already past.

I found Staging Area to not be too bad by aggressively firing rockets at the Mancubi corners. If you do it right away from near the crates, you'll most likely kill/stun one group and only get potential fire from one other direction. If you quickly clear out one side then it's easy to use the crate cover to blast the other fatsos. As far as the Arachnotron phase goes, camping one of the opening crate rooms with the flame cannon was my best bet. Guaranteed stunlock on the spiders plus the burn damage as more try to get in. One weird quirk that I noticed was that they can shoot plasma through each other, so you can't use one of them as cover.

I actually thought that the Belphegor fight was challenging and well designed. If there was any more space than it would be too easy to just circle strafe around them and not take any damage. The computer terminals in that room make it very difficult to avoid their massive splash radius, which puts you on a sort of timer where you have to burn them down quickly or end up dying from the splash damage. Using the plasma rifle and aiming for the head of one of them should kill them quite fast. Dumping all your mines in front of the portal in PB also does huge initial damage.

Well, maybe that is the fault of my old-ass computer, as I was getting big lag in both fights. I could not kill enough Mancubi on time, they always roasted me in few seconds - even the rocket launcher was too slow. As for Arachnotrons, I actually enjoyed fighting them in Dead Simple, running circles across the map to avoid encirclement. But in Staging Area, there is no way to run around, since storage rooms are isolated. So yeah, it pretty much devolves into camping. Not fun.

Regarding Belphegors - I like to fight them, but not in so narrow quarters. Since their plasma balls have such a big splash damage, putting them in such obstructed room is cruel. Well, maybe that was the intent of the SgtMkIV? :) Then again, maybe I was just out of patience, since I do not quicksave. And so, after the slaughter done through that level, I really did not want to get two shotted by one of those centaurs. Hence I brought Marines from the starting room (wiping out the monsters on the way to the portal on your own is not really that hard) and dumped all of the mines before the portal. Then I just camped by the rubble with the minigun. After few tries I have done it, with one surviving Marine. It was challenging, but maybe a bit too much for me. Damn, I am getting old at this :D

Probably nobody cares about what I am about to write here, but anyway:

I am done with this megawad. But I do not mean that I beat Icon of Sin - it is the map 25 that beat me instead.

Sorry, but YET ANOTHER INESCAPABLE PIT is enough for me. I do not feel like playing this pretty hard level for about 40 minutes minimum only to get all the progress wasted by a single misstep on those damned pillars. And of course there are Pain Elementals lurking around at just the end of the pit. It is like that s***** The Chasm all over again... no, I do not have patience for this. (also, why the hell there are two armour sets in this room if you have only a single try to get over this pit? You are not going to restore armour damaged from lava if you fall, because the fall is a certain doom)

Yes, this are Hell levels, so some sadistic traps are to be expected (like that hidden flechette launchers earlier in map 25). But I have zero tolerance for pits with no exit. And even if I wanted to break my playstyle of no quicksaves to get over this obstacle quickly, I cannot, because any time I load a save from this level I will get a guaranteed crash over some texture that cannot load (I got this problem also with maps 31 and 17). So probably the only way for me to complete this level within my lifetime would be to use noclip. But I will not do that. Goodbye Starter Pack.

What a shame. Aside from map 7 and map 25, the wad was reasonable in level design and overall difficulty. Maps 13, 15 and 16 are extremely detalied and immersive. To think that the experience of all those excellent levels will get ruined by such incredibly cruel platforming section. There were some tough spots (boss battle in map 10, map 16 in general, goddamn Nazi dogs that deal damage 10x faster than Pinkies, that forsaken Belphegor in the end of map 23), but they were reasonable for me. But not this lava pit. Call me a pansy, but I am not doing this. But then again, nobody is paying me to play this. And Project Brutality deserves better mappacks than this.

So off I go.

Shame. If you didn't have the crashing issue then the whole inescapable death pit wouldn't of been such a big issue. But you're not the only person who got very frustrated with that particular segment. Fortunately for me, it wasn't a big problem to deal with.

You experienced the best the wad had on offer anyway. The icon of sin needs tweaking and smaller area of effect attacks as its difficulty is stupidly higher than the rest of the wad.

Thanks for the reply, I was not expecting any response. Considering this, I have some new thoughts to offer on the issue.

So, last post I was all "NOPE" about trying to beat map 25 and its abysmal last room. But then I remembered something...
Since I am lucky to have the newest version of Project Brutality available, you now what that means?
REVENANT TRANSFORMATION!
After you morph into a Revenant, you can activate the jetpack. So, I guess anyone who reads this already knows what that does imply: to fly over that cursed pit!
The only problem is that the Demon Morph Rune is very rare and dropped only by some of the strongest demons. But luckily, early into the map you will encounter a Vocabulus (with Dynamic Progression on), located just two rooms before the pit. So, the plan is to repeat the map until he gives me the Revenant Rune, and then I just I have to finish the rest of the level (and get rid of the last Pain Elementals fast, before they drown me in flying skulls) (oh, and the last time, when I encountered the pit, I got the Revenant Rune spawned... by one of the Arachnotrons located on other side of that pit. Hard luck)
So, if there are no similarly inane trials waiting for me afterwards, I may be able to finish this megawad. But make no mistake, I am VERY disappointed with what I just encountered. (AltimaMantoid made a quasi-review of Map 24 of Doom 2 that for obvious reasons is relevant here; his words describe my silent rage over the pit from the House of Hell Nobles better than I could)(BTW: Altima, do you really think that TNT's Habitat is worse than The Chasm? REALLY???!)

Chezza said:

You experienced the best the wad had on offer anyway. The icon of sin needs tweaking and smaller area of effect attacks as its difficulty is stupidly higher than the rest of the wad.

I read that (from you as well) map 28 is worth seeing, so I was looking forward to it (I also read about a room with 50 Pinkies and half as much Hell Knights that is borderline impossible without BFG - was it perhaps the dungeon part of map 25?). Well Hell (yeah, stupid rhyme), if I do not manage to clear map 25 I will just use idclev, for science.
And as for the Icon of Sin, supposedly there is a key for him called Black Hole Generator (in PB, of course). But you killed the monster in vanilla BD... well, I kind of can imagine the suffering he brought on you. However, he will feel ALL OF MY ANGER over map 25 when I get to him. Hell will pay... for Sarge's nightmarish map design, I guess.

Oh, and one more thing:

shotfan said:

I hope the worst is already past.

How wrong I have been...

shotfan said:

I read that (from you as well) map 28 is worth seeing, so I was looking forward to it

You must be referring to Sacrificial Grounds. My mistake, I thought that was before that painful Hell Elemental Pit segment. Yes I quite like the atmosphere of that map. You may or may not find it annoying though.

Chezza said:

You must be referring to Sacrificial Grounds. My mistake, I thought that was before that painful Hell Elemental Pit segment. Yes I quite like the atmosphere of that map. You may or may not find it annoying though.

Yup, that is the one. And I am not afraid - I have Electronic Pod, Swarmer Pod, Sentry Gun and the BFG9000 (and of course, my dear Auto Shotguns) ready. I can take on a half of thousand of monsters. The platforming sections is what I abhor, since Doomguy cannot climb or vault over ledges like in the newest Doom. For this reason I find the sections like "Hell Elemental Pit" to be bullshit, because Sarge knew for sure how wonky is jumping in (GZ)Doom, but decided to left this in anyway.

I think that is all for now. I need a break from this megawad. I will post once more if I manage to topple over that giant goat.

rileymartin said:

Now, onto how the maps actually play. The fact that the levels are mostly populated with shooting galleries from the start is a great change from the usual "enter empty room > grab key/flip switch > shit teleports or pops in from all sides and doors close" that seems to be more fun to play than walking into an encounter designed in 10 seconds. Mostly, that leads to immersion and varried gameplay; we wouldn't want that. Situations can be approached in a variety of ways, including door camping or cheesing to thin out some of the junk in the level. In fact, there are barely any killer traps until the later hell levels, sweet. The custom bosses are also quite fun, though I did cheese the new Icon of Sin by playing it with a mod it wasn't designed for, an incredibly ironic twist for a Brutal Doom mapset.

Ftfy; no need to thank me.

This has been a public service announcement from Fonze. Don't do drugs and stay in school, kids.

Oh, look, a wild Fonze appeared!

What is superior (or immersive) about key traps over enemies present in the map from the start? Key traps and monster closets get boring quickly. (do not believe me? Try Doom 3)
Where did you need excessive camping or "cheesing"? I lured Cyberdemons in map 16 to other side of the fence located near the start, but that was because the map lagged mercilessly on my ultra-old rig, so that was my only chance to get through it. That is about it.
You do not like traps at all, or what? I previously described a trap type that I loathe, but hidden arrow launchers or that crusher in map 23 were interesting and can be reliably avoided. And no traps in Hell would be weird.
Do you have a problem that people play custom maps with custom mods? Sorry, nobody is going to solve it for you. Get over it.

shotfan has spoken.

Sweet; I got a bite. Gotta love people who don't understand facetiousness.

Doom 3 was a fun game, but of a different genre than the original Dooms. Apple's and oranges. As for what's superior about them... Trap master race. Also, traps lead to more interesting, fluid encounters than simply walking into an area and there all the monsters are. Guess I'll stand here by the door where no monsters can come up behind me because they're all dead back there and pick off the monsters in the room slowly, one-by-one. Yay. That's not tedious and a totally respectable way to handle an encounter. Only fools rush right in like we're playing Doom or something. This is RL, you die for realsies here!

I never said I needed cheesing or camping, but you obviously do not understand the joke, so just chalk it up to one that flew right over your head... And there it goes... (here's your sign)

Hold on a second, how can I consider traps to be a superior way to deploy monsters if I dont like them? Lookup: sarcasm. I love traps, the fact that the guy was saying it was an awesome mod because it lacked traps and most monsters were there from the start makes it sound much like a "first wad" -supporting type of argument, aka shooting gallery, aka boring, tedious gameplay that gets old quickly. Damnit, you made me explain the joke, now look at what you've gone and done.

No problems here with custom mod mish-mashing, just stating that it was funny and ironic that the specific Brutal Doom map set was stated to be better played with a different gameplay mod that it wasn't specifically designed for, you know, kinda like how the Doodily-Broodles make posts asking if something is BD-compatible and why isn't it and all that. Now you've made me explain another joke... For shame, sir.

Unfortunately I'm only 5'5", so it'll be difficult for me to get over whatever it is I was supposed to be getting over. Heights are more challenging for people my size.

Also, I like BD so... this has been good entertainment and you, sir. You. *thumbs up*

Weird, I do not use a sweet toothpaste. But anyway...

Well, I prefer when I can spot my enemies from the start. Monster traps are nothing interesting to me: they either devolve into "retreat-and-camp" or, failing that, "blast them all with most powerful weapon ASAP". And I get any different scenario when I encounter enemies in the field. But that is subjective. (and I think Doom 3 is bad at being survival horror, but again that is only my opinion).

Only you said so in the 'fixed' quote of yours.

I thought he said so because only in Hell levels such traps are justifiable, not that it was great that there was so little traps.

I meant other traps besides key-monster traps, like hidden crushers.

Who said it is always better played with Project Brutality? It was just rileymartin's preference. Nobody here is questioning the issue that the final boss is overpowered.

It is not my fault that the language is bulit upon metaphors...

Glad you liked it. It is on the house.

No no no, you're supposed to have a snarky remark or a cheeky comeback. Now I feel like a dick, which makes you a dick; now we're both dicks, so wtf? F*cking johnsons everywhere I look; far as the eye can see.

What were we talking about again? I got distracted.

I have nothing against trap based gameplay, seeing as Plutonia is my favourite IWAD, but that doesn't mean I don't appreciate other forms of level design that strays away from the monster closet/teleport spam of the early 90's. There's a reason that type of gameplay has been phased out rather quickly, as Duke3D and Quake 2 weren't spamming enemies at you every time you grabbed a key or flipped a switch. It's overly gamey and certainly doesn't help immersion in any way. When I think of an immersive PWAD, something like Hellbound comes to mind, which again barely uses any traps or setpiece encounters.

Finally, I managed to explode that abomination...

As I am not expert at map design, I will mainly make some notes on the difficulty level:
First half of the wad was moderate (besides map 7 of course) but the second half got me for three f****** months. First, the extremely long and difficult map 16 (pretty sure now it is the biggest). After it, the difficulty lessened a bit and stayed stable until House of Hell Nobles. You all know what happened there... I will make a short rundown of the last maps:
Necropolis: MUCH EASIER than the previous map. I was tense as hell when I escaped Hell Elemental Pit and needed to breathe deeply for a while. This crypt? Short and easy. I got an Overlord in the red skull crypt, but after some tries he exploded onto history in a hail of bullets. I was confused over that rafters area, with the only swimmable water body in the wad. Why here, and not in map 13? The pool in Necropolis is empty anyway. The crusher trap was nicely done, especially with demonstrating that destroyable wall concealing the escape route. I rid of the Cyberdemon at the exit with HMG+BFG Barrier combo, and the Spiderdemon never showed up on me. Not that I miss her.

Cathedral: A decent map, albeit a bit small for a cathedral. I wonder how to access the area behind the gate at the start, but I never needed it anyway. The main chamber's trap does not really work, since you have enough time to run for the skull and back, skipping the need for the two buttons that are needed to open the door from the inside.

Sacrifical Grounds: I liked the ashfall, it somehow managed to make me feel very uneasy on this level. The tortured Marines were a great idea to feature here, and reminded me of PSX/N64 Doom's horror theme. Really conveyed the theme of demons being absolute evil that will bring you eternal suffering if you fail. The layout of the map is a standard keyhunt, not unlike Tricks&Traps, only several orders of magnitude more detailed. Candles, impaled Marines, pits and cages with victims, demonic visages... and that room with military radio captured by demons. Indeed, this map is something to behold. But enough of the map's mood.
The eastern "wing" would be nigh-insurmontable to me, if not for the fact that I went directly for one of the teleports in the blood moat and run straight upon still raised bridge back to the elevator. From then, it was a matter of patiently taking potshots, with the aid of BFG Barrier again. Southern wing has several nasty traps, especially after taking the skull, but nothing so hard as the eastern one. The western wing seems the biggest, but I skipped everything after the courtyard with its skull. I did not need the yellow skull anyway, since opening red and blue skull bars before the exit left me with just enough space to slip through and run for the exit portal. I do not know if this was intentional, but I was really tired of constant close combat and monster closets that took me over 70 minutes on 8th try or so.

Bloodfalls: It does deliver enough demon meat to be slaughtered for the penultimate map. Enemy positioning does indeed seem like demonic last stand aimed at blocking your way to Icons' of Sin place.
Poor Pinkies in the collapsing floor pit were easy to dispatch with Flamethrower or Minigun. I took at Mancubi ambush from this very pit, by standing in the gate to stall it, quickly grabbing the Soulsphere, and bailing out. Then I again used the HMG+Barrier to make a mincemeat of fatsos safely. Baron ambush behind red door was nothing special, and Revenant one can be triggered by taking the secret route, carefully approaching the edge of its shelf, and quickly retreating. Skeletons got melted in acid grenades, and f*** them. Nothing else was really hard there.

Devil's Domain: It was all over in 15 minutes. I was worried about it, since I had only BFG9000 with me, and the one in Project Brutality is rather weak. So imagine how happy I was when I got a Black Hole Generator, which spawned literally at the last moment, in the alcove just before the portal to IoS' lair! I guess that Seraphim really was watching over me...
After that, it was a few tries to figure out when to take cover from IoS' projectiles, one BFG-ed Hellknight, and eight or so black holes trepanating Icon's head. And then BOOM. Guess he got skullf*****.

Sadly, I felt no satisfaction, rather relief that I managed to beat this mappack under my rules. (Dynamic Progression spawn preset, 12 on 10 Point Scale of Badness difficulty, no quicksaving, no cheats)

That would be all.