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baja blast rd.

Untitled WIP Series (2nd map released)

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I felt like making a set of small to mid-sized speedmaps.

Everything will be in a single wad this time -- will update the wad as new maps are made. HNTR-UV are all there. No plans on using afrits and cybruisers. Yet :).



As usual, comments + FDAs much appreciated. Designed for -complevel 9. Non-generic title and wad name when I think of one. :)

Credits + Sources

map01: A Sunlust black rock texture, a midi gaspe used in a Roulette map (this is a placeholder for now -- I'll probably compose a midi to use).

map02: A Sunlust black rock texture, a midi from somewhere.

Current version:

http://www.mediafire.com/download/iz4rvr9neo2aa2v/rsm_v122.wad

Old versions (mostly for watching demos):

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This looks interesting, trying it out now.

Pretty fun (and difficult) map, although ammo is way too scarce, even if you intended for the player to use berserk a lot.

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FDA

Cool little map. Ammo was really tight, but I'm guessing there's a secret RL somehwere...

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HMP FDA for v11
https://www.doomworld.com/vb/attachment.php?postid=1620107

Fun map. Didn't find ammo too scarce at all, though I knew to be stingy with it from reading replies. Also HMP probably made a difference. I'll go back and try UV to see how it compares. edit: Harder, but doable, if you rely on some infighting and don't miss at all. 2 monsters didn't teleport on UV, 1 on HMP.

That sky (the moon) looks super squished in GLBoom if vertical mouselook is off.

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Hallo, I actually recorded my very first demo for this, but seeing as how I'm... more than a little drunk and am used to playing on ZDoom, I'm not posting it because it's absolutely terrible and I died three times on UV haha.

Anyway, this is the kind of gameplay I like best. Not much room to move in, but enough to be challenging. Same with ammo and health. Don't honestly care much for that weirdly-colored blue Sunlust(?) rock texture, but other than that, looks good. Will play more as you post them (assuming and hoping there are more)! Oh and the blue key felt kind of odd seeing as how there's no blue door and it's right at the very beginning, but maybe it was just used to set up that fake "trap" (green armor and such)?

...love that sky, though.

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FDA

Neat map, didn't have a problem with resources but was fortunate enough to find the rl. Even without, tysoning the barons or thoroughly utilising infighting leaves the player with enough to max things. Managed to leave an imp alive at the end of the map. He seems a little bit useless tucked away back there.

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Passed first map, difficulty level is ok. To win this map need save ammos :) Easy monsters punch, hard monsters make beat each other and later kill them.

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oh yes, this was nice. very straightforward design (layout-wise). gameplay is my preferred flavor, I liked the motif of having imposing enemies push you forward subsequently engaging more enemies. the AV set-piece was nice, would've been damn hard if I didn't find the RL, as I went in with less shells than desired (that PE got a little carried away in my playthrough). I'll spare you my fda as there are runs here that fared much better :p.

will subsequent maps be similarly themed, or is the all-in-one.wad just for player convenience?

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Ty all.

Octavarium said:

Don't honestly care much for that weirdly-colored blue Sunlust(?) rock texture


The Sunlust rock texture is the black one. The one you're referring to is a waterfall, which yeah would probably be better off darker.

Ribbiks said:

will subsequent maps be similarly themed, or is the all-in-one.wad just for player convenience?


I think I'll do multiple blocks, each with a similar (but varied) theme.

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FDA MAP02

Rockets and I do not get along very well. I do believe I ended up killing myself more than anything, however the random teleporters in the double SS room made hitting monsters and keeping your distance difficult. Found a strat for it eventually.

Good map, although I regret not going into the one area with the bookcases in it. Is it possible to get back there after going into the BK door?

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Rayzik said:

FDA MAP02

Rockets and I do not get along very well. I do believe I ended up killing myself more than anything, however the random teleporters in the double SS room made hitting monsters and keeping your distance difficult. Found a strat for it eventually.

Good map, although I regret not going into the one area with the bookcases in it. Is it possible to get back there after going into the BK door?


Thanks. Yeah, the doors open back up. For the benefit of anyone watching demos, your FDA plays back with v12 (I quickly fixed/added something).

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Map02 FDA
I had a glimpse of m01, the one that struck me as something experimental in its approach and thus left me scratching my head in confusion, so I decided to wait for more. Will probably give it a proper playthrough one day when my head is more or less clear.
Well anyway, got curious on what you did with m02, this time I managed to drag myself all the way through, yet it still felt pretty bizarre most of the time, as if the fights were highly experimental in regards to setpiece-based combat but not exactly well-rounded up, that's unusual considering your demonstrated-more-than-once skill at creating extensively choreographed battle scenarios. Well, devilspeed in any case, too early for me to make any conclusions I guess.

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Ty, I decided to buff the last area on UV because I didn't anticipate how many rockets you can take there (which spoils the intended idea). Hopefully no more quick updates ;)

And yeah, I'm glad you described it as "experimental". That isn't quite the way I'd describe it, but I would have quit mapping if I had to keep making the same things.

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I'm certainly not the target public for this haha it's way too hard for me.

I recorded an FDA for the first one, but it took me like 20 tries to be able to finish it on UV, even when it is quite short. For the second map, I wasn't able to past the second room lol (even on HMP). I don't think it's a problem with the map, it is just that its style is focused for more skilled players, where you need to use in-fighting, tight ammo management and know how to dodge the projectiles propely in a mid-sized room.

Most of encounters was like "setpiece" based, never going slaugher (I guess) but with lots of monsters where the player is always out of his comfort zone (which is always more fun, IMO): using teleporters, lifts and drop-off to avoid camping and cheesy tatics. I liked how you forced the player to go back to the first area in the first level, it was a nice punishment for the players that just skipped the first battles so he could progress faster (like me), but without being a too harsh punishment.

The theme was very immersive, with this more melancholic music and lots of blue allied with a clean architecture and nice blue sky.

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(MAP1) Woaaa, too hard for me and my skills, hahaha... Just for "advanced players" or "killing machines".

Good surprises, good enemy teleports just in the very same face of player, and nice ambient (too dark for me... my eyes are not what they were, hahaha)... I have been massacrated a dozen times (at least)... BUT as many enemies kill each other, so IF you run like a chicken (me) and are very lucky, you have to kill less enemies. (What a discover, pff) Really nice surprises that keep player always on edge.

Maybe to lower down a tiny bit the skill needed (less enemies), so more players would enjoy that little but very interesting map? IMHO :D

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I have no idea how I missed this thread, but I'm looking forward to playing these later on!

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m02 is fantastic imo. I think you managed to take these small-scale encounter-centric designs in a unique direction. the calm music choices and overall surreal atmosphere mesh well with the "experimental" setups (demonologist's descriptor that I partially agree with). the "tele to the outskirts" fight reminds me of what I was going for in sd20x6_m02 :p, the wooden puzzle room was a nice little side-quest. the "push-forward" final fight was neat as well, I wasn't 100% sure what was happening at first but I seemed to stumble into a good strat (which pretty much worked for UV as well).

you had enough uv-fdas so here's hmp-fda: http://www.mediafire.com/download/0ci52pqhee738om/rsm_v112_02_skill3_fda_rbk.lmp

followed by a uv run (omitting 2 previous attempts that died in the big tele fight): http://www.mediafire.com/download/pzr6xzbfx7qb2am/rsm_v112_skill4_rbk.lmp

I like the differences in the settings, the ssg makes a huge difference, and the main challenge becomes health stringency, it seems. The final fight felt more chaotic on UV (either more mobs, or less rockets, or both?), was a lot of fun. I was almost expecting the map to be littered with AVs on UV but was pleasantly surprised :)

btw there's a missing texture behind that wooden wall that reveals the 2 PEs.

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Deadwing said:

For the second map, I wasn't able to past the second room lol (even on HMP).


One strategy that helps (probably too well on HMP in the current version, given the amount of soulspheres) is to hide out in the damaging floor while thinning out the field with rockets (and ofc dealing with the revs that harass you), periodically returning to grab a soulsphere. The soulsphere on the very right should be grabbed first if possible, because monster density will be slightly higher on that side.

Re the "target audience" thing, I really don't want HNTR/HMP to go unused. HNTR is meant to be comparable to a more traditionally balanced mapset on UV -- dynamic and bloody action with the ball being in the player's court, with one or two potentially tricky moments per level. These days I can enjoy the full spectrum of gameplay, from iwad-like stuff to the masochistic, and UV in my maps can get quite challenging simply because I wouldn't feel good about not at least having the option to play a "hard version" of a level. I think difficulty settings are probably underused in most mapsets these days, with UV being "normal" and HNTR/HMP being ignored by most, the only options for harder play involving changing the mechanics (-fast, nightmare) or being somewhat haphazard (-solonet).

Ribbiks said:

m02 is fantastic imo. I think you managed to take these small-scale encounter-centric designs in a unique direction.


Thank you -- this was actually my favorite map I've ever made in this time frame. :)

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rdwpa said:

(...)

Re the "target audience" thing, I really don't want HNTR/HMP to go unused. HNTR is meant to be comparable to a more traditionally balanced mapset on UV -- dynamic and bloody action with the ball being in the player's court, with one or two potentially tricky moments per level. These days I can enjoy the full spectrum of gameplay, from iwad-like stuff to the masochistic, and UV in my maps can get quite challenging simply because I wouldn't feel good about not at least having the option to play a "hard version" of a level. I think difficulty settings are probably underused in most mapsets these days, with UV being "normal" and HNTR/HMP being ignored by most, the only options for harder play involving changing the mechanics (-fast, nightmare) or being somewhat haphazard (-solonet).

(...)


Yes, level skills I think is a "powerful" weapon when creating maps... not everybody have 0.1 seconds reflexes, or maybe some players want to encounter a more "soft" play and discover tricks, secrets, traps, etc. I know it is easy (me) to talk about it but to balance a map in order to get a good amount of people enjoy is a hard thing...

You are right, the full spectrum of gameplay is good to get more people enjoy a FUN thing, I said before that my skills are not prepared for that amount of hardness -even in HMP (my standard)- but I know many players with more skills (reflexes, hand-fingers ballet, etc...) will enjoy very much those two maps... I have to admit -with a tip to the hat- that they are SMART map building. IMHO.

Just remember poor guys like me, hahahaha, when designing maps... do not want a *walking Ms Daisy* of course, but something we can play and enjoy... and of course, give hard-core (my definition) player what they want...

Anyway, GREAT map building. (I will copy some of your ideas for future levels, copy the concept, not how you did it...) (Is it ok?) :D

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Finally had the chance to play this map set; great job with these rdwpa!

Of course pretty maps as usual; I especially liked the gameplay designs of both maps. MAP01's use of few enemies shows that a map as small as this can be much more difficult than a map with just tons of enemies haphazardly placed around, though this map wasn't really that hard. It seemed to me like resource starvation was more the word of the day for this map. Granted, things eased up after I got that berserk pack, but stuff got a little rough going into some encounters with very little ammo. I think my favorite fight of this map was the one right above the lift. I really liked the arachnotron's placement in particular, but one run I played on this thing, I was killing the revs (which didn't always teleport correctly, though I kinda liked that) and accidently rode the lift most of the way up before jumping down. The imps and PE saw me. Apparently you made that lift have a monster-blocking line, which really made me scratch my head given the PE there just becomes useless with a MB line. In addition, I really think the use of the two barons in this map was bad. Also, there was a random imp that teleported to the start for no reason fairly early on (before the lift, I think) and a strange white (solid wall) line that would show up through the wall on the map by the start. The two arachnotrons the player kills directly before the two barons have a strange habit of getting stuck close to the switch and to the left and back-left side of the player as he faces the switch.

The second map was much shorter than it appeared, but had a decent brutal part. For starters, I kept mucking up the beginning of it, which was confusing and frustrating because it wasn't hard at all, but then that fight through the teleporter... ho ho, what a beauty. That is, until the player gets to the blue key, then all the mobs become sitting ducks. That fight was a lot of fun to try to unwind, just fighting it out, but I suppose part of the point was that eventually when there's like 5-10 'ports in a one-second interval, that's when it's supposed to get overrun. Or something like that. Idk, that was fun, but a bit of a let down when I got the blue key. But literally everything up to that alcove being just cleared out was great; in addition, that trap in that little BK alcove was pretty fun. Also it brings me to another point I'd like to make.

Delayed-action traps/mechanics; why do we not see enough of them? I loved the delayed teleport on the revs in the first map as well as the delayed traps in the BK alcove in MAP02. From what I could gleam, it appeared that you used more than a few timed-actions, which is always a cool thing. Adding that delay to pieces of the traps adds so much depth to an otherwise straightforward setup; like say the player dies 20 times in the first 10 seconds, then he finally lives long enough for the next stage to kick in and the player get's that "Oh." feeling, because that complicates and confounds matters.

Speaking of teleports (not really), there were two I needed to point out. One; I liked the BK teleport in MAP01, that made me lol. For some reason I like random things that exist only to mess with players' expectations. Two; one of the CG's in MAP02's beginning, I believe it was one that teleports behind a column to the 10 o'clock position relative to the player start, facing the mancubus; he got stuck one time. I would guess it had something to do with you using a conveyor belt and perhaps him teleporting too close to a linedef there, hitting it with his decelerating motion after teleporting, which occasionally leads to stuck monsters (until they get shot/alerted).

Anyway, great maps here man; I had a ton of fun playing them and will recommend these to be featured in this week's TWID article. I will not subjugate you to my God-awful FDAwithsaves, unless you are hard up on entertainment, in which case PM and I'll send the embarrassing thing, heh.

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