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Moon Marin

Deimos Escape - Toxic Facility (e1m1 of my new WIP campaign)

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Hi, i've finished the early build of Toxic Facility as part of my 'Deimos Escape' campaign.

Code - UXLE6ETZ

You can also search "moonmarooned" under tags to find the map.

The basic premise of the campaign is you're stuck down on a bottom level of a Deimos-located facility, and you have to fight through each floor to get to different elevators to gradually climb out. The final mission will hopefully take place on the surface of mars (or maybe in hell) when the new snapmap modules are available.

It's a classic-doom styled map using enemy placements liberally and there is only 1 room with a forced lock, but its on a displayed timer and only temporary. All other locked areas are opened with keycards. The level is mostly linear as it is the first level of the campaign, but the final half of the level is non-linear. There are 3 secrets, one is especially well hidden in my opinion. One is hidden in plain sight, and the remaining secret is hinted at openly and accessed through exploration.

I would love any feedback you have, but try to be constructive.

Here's a screenshot of the level from top-down object mode.



And from edit/module mode :




Edit : Changelog


Changelog 1.01

Enemy Count has been lowered in
- Blue Key Room
- Staging Area
- Dark Room
- Toxic Waste Sector A1

Music Triggers have been fixed in
- Staging Area
- Toxic Waste Sector A1

Audio Queues have been fixed in
- Dark Room
- Toxic Waste Sector A2

Lockdown Trigger has been added to
- Toxic Waste Sector A1

Spawn Triggers have been fixed in
- Toxic Waste Sector A2

COOP Related Changes
- Doors that are opened with keys now stay open, so that only one player needs to unlock the door and it is permanently open for all players.

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Well, there are certainly enough enemies. :) Perhaps a little too many, try to phase them in a little more gently. I also had a moment where the combat music would end while mobs were still actively engaging me. Also it seemed easy to progress sometimes while leaving mobs behind, I cant imagine this is a good thing.

The keycard "lockdown" is interesting but if I would want to I could just rush to the keycard and the corresponding door and break your map. What I've done in my wip map is to actually put the keycard itself under lockdown.

You can just place a player blocking volume over it, turn it transparant, color it red and have it show on start. Tada now you have created your own forcefield. Its still a fully functional lockdown, just a little different. :) Remove the forcefield once all the mobs are dead, the player can now get the key and evacuate the area.

There are no checkpoints but the player is allowed to respawn. This is bad. Either end the map when the player dies or work with checkpoints. Here is my simple method for checkpoints (but there are multiple):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvC3m22gRHk

Some triggers can be repeated multiple times (especially audio cues).

The ending was very, very unclear. It took me a long time to realize the wave was endless and I was supposed just to rush past them and there the exit would be. If you want to apply this mechanic you should make it clear, without a doubt, that the only way to win is to ignore the mobs, rush past them (and hit that button).

Final vedict; promising but needs a lot of polish.

Appearantly you enabled coop for this map. Its not coop compatible. People joined, the entire experience went to shit with people getting locked out of area's. Only enable coop if you actually put the work in. Downvoted.

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redrage said:

Well, there are certainly enough enemies. :) Perhaps a little too many, try to phase them in a little more gently. I also had a moment where the combat music would end while mobs were still actively engaging me. Also it seemed easy to progress sometimes while leaving mobs behind, I cant imagine this is a good thing.

The keycard "lockdown" is interesting but if I would want to I could just rush to the keycard and the corresponding door and break your map. What I've done in my wip map is to actually put the keycard itself under lockdown.

You can just place a player blocking volume over it, turn it transparant, color it red and have it show on start. Tada now you have created your own forcefield. Its still a fully functional lockdown, just a little different. :) Remove the forcefield once all the mobs are dead, the player can now get the key and evacuate the area.

There are no checkpoints but the player is allowed to respawn. This is bad. Either end the map when the player dies or work with checkpoints. Here is my simple method for checkpoints (but there are multiple):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvC3m22gRHk

Some triggers can be repeated multiple times (especially audio cues).

The ending was very, very unclear. It took me a long time to realize the wave was endless and I was supposed just to rush past them and there the exit would be. If you want to apply this mechanic you should make it clear, without a doubt, that the only way to win is to ignore the mobs, rush past them (and hit that button).

Final vedict; promising but needs a lot of polish.

Appearantly you enabled coop for this map. Its not coop compatible. People joined, the entire experience went to shit with people getting locked out of area's. Only enable coop if you actually put the work in. Downvoted.



Hi, thanks for the feedback, i'll address the criticisms briefly, i'd like you to expand on one or two parts.

1) enemy count. There indeed is a lot of enemies, but their health percentages are heavily tweaked downward. Soldiers are at 60%, pinkys and hellknights at 75%. Imps are 100% but they are fragile already. The idea is high enemy density but they die very quickly, sort of like classic doom maps where you can take out soldiers with 1 shotgun blast at range easily, or a pinky in 3 shotgun rounds. More enemies but they die faster. I'm sure there is at least one area that could use a few less though.

2)music - yep working on the music tweaks issue. I tried to not lock areas down but some triggers are based on movement, I was sort of hoping people would clear areas before moving on but you can indeed break some triggers on the map that way. Music being one of them.

3) no checkpoints and no insta death fail, this is mostly so people who test the map early can provide feedback so I can make adjustments. As you have mentioned, the enemy count is quite high, if people are dying a lot i'll adjust the enemies health or damage or count until i feel its balanced nicely, then I intend to make it death = mission fail. Its just a temporary design choice for testing.

4) Unclear ending, what infinite spawn wave are you referring to? There is not a single infinite spawn wave in the map. But there are multiple 12 enemy group encounters that spawn simultaneously to keep a 12 enemy count populated in the bigger area's for a period of time. The final area is past the Green + Yellow double locked door, that area has less than 20 monsters total, and you can sprint past them to hit the exit like in old doom games if you wish, which i thought was clear because its the only door that is "always open" by default in the level, showing you the exit, also marked with exit signs. Are you meaning the area which connects to the yellow and green key rooms? that area indeed has a surplus of enemies. If you ran past them to other rooms you probably caused more triggers to spawn, which may have made the enemy count feel endless.

5) coop is enabled, and I have played through it with a group of four players successfully, but I was guiding them through the area's to some degree which may have prevented the triggers from breaking. Maybe you guys are running past each other into separate rooms or something? The map works well with coop because of the enemy count, it gives every player plenty to shoot at. But if you and your friends find shooting the enemies boring and skip areas that could possibly cause some triggers to malfunction, but that can be done as a solo player too.

I appreciate the feedback, I agree the map needs polishing. I think the downvote is a bit harsh since i'm looking for ways to improve the map, but hopefully you'll play it after an update and maybe feel it has improved enough to gain an upvote!

venom1984 said:

Very good Map, good Design.

But to many Monsters. It is difficulty with the time to play.


Thanks, both of you have said there may be too many monsters, so i will probably cut the enemy count down some.

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1) I like the philosophy behind it and it certainly beats the maps where you can hear your own voice echo (that is if doomguy would talk). Still feels a little excessive but if this is what characterizes your mapping style I could live with it :)

2) This actually happened while I was clearing a module. While I have pointed out your map could potentially break because of design decisions I did not intentionally try to break it and in my playthrough did not rush past anything. So if I point these things out you can be quite certain they are real issues. That is unless you don't care about making your map foolproof.

3) Glad to hear its temporary.

4) The module leading up to the exit room with the bridge over the slime. I am positive it broke leading to an endless wave. Its kinda odd you actually do expect me to run past enemies and to the exit room at the end of the level while if I would have done that before I would have broken your map. Think about that one...

5) I am sorry but that is just a poor excuse. When you play online on a coop enabled map you have no control who joins, who you join and whether the map just started or people have been playing it for a little while. If players get locked out of area's because keys don't respawn or because keys that are picked up are not shared by all players it simply means you did not make this map fit for coop. Plain and simple.

Red

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redrage said:

1) I like the philosophy behind it and it certainly beats the maps where you can hear your own voice echo (that is if doomguy would talk). Still feels a little excessive but if this is what characterizes your mapping style I could live with it :)

2) This actually happened while I was clearing a module. While I have pointed out your map could potentially break because of design decisions I did not intentionally try to break it and in my playthrough did not rush past anything. So if I point these things out you can be quite certain they are real issues. That is unless you don't care about making your map foolproof.

3) Glad to hear its temporary.

4) The module leading up to the exit room with the bridge over the slime. I am positive it broke leading to an endless wave. Its kinda odd you actually do expect me to run past enemies and to the exit room at the end of the level while if I would have done that before I would have broken your map. Think about that one...

5) I am sorry but that is just a poor excuse. When you play online on a coop enabled map you have no control who joins, who you join and whether the map just started or people have been playing it for a little while. If players get locked out of area's because keys don't respawn or because keys that are picked up are not shared by all players it simply means you did not make this map fit for coop. Plain and simple.

Red


Sounds like a major bug in that final toxic area with the bridge and slime, there are supposed to be less than 20 monsters, about 10 soldiers, a few pinks, a few imps and then right when you get near the exit 2 revenants spawn. If there was an endless count then something needs to be fixed.

I think the music that broke you are referring to might be the first pinky that spawns, on his death music ends, he is meant to be the final spawn enemy but i have seen him spawn in too early depending which zombies die in what order, so i'll need to fix the music trigger for that room.

The biggest issue with coop fixes is needing people to play with you to fix them, then to have them have patients long enough for me to edit and republish the map, then re-test. Maybe that is a huge problem, but I am in need of people to help test that stuff.

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I have made changes based on feedback.

Changelog 1.01

Enemy Count has been lowered in
- Blue Key Room
- Staging Area
- Dark Room
- Toxic Waste Sector A1

Music Triggers have been fixed in
- Staging Area
- Toxic Waste Sector A1

Audio Queues have been fixed in
- Dark Room
- Toxic Waste Sector A2

Lockdown Trigger has been added to
- Toxic Waste Sector A1

Spawn Triggers have been fixed in
- Toxic Waste Sector A2

COOP Related Changes
- Doors that are opened with keys now stay open, so that only one player needs to unlock the door and it is permanently open for all players.

Map has been republished with new update, would love if either of you (or anyone else) could retry and let me know about any improvements you see or any further bugs/issues you have. Checkpoints and death fail have not been added yet, I will add them in the next update.

P.S. - Redrage, you were right about the infinite spawns. The open-door trigger refreshed the demon encounters endlessly. Although it was not intended, i did recreate that bug myself tonight while working on fixes. It has been resolved. :)

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While I comment you on fixing some of the issues many still remain:

- Encounters can be passed without killing enemies (sometimes even quite unintentionally)
- Music still not in line with combat all the time

This became appearant quite early on so I haven't bothered playing through it fully.

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redrage said:

While I comment you on fixing some of the issues many still remain:

- Encounters can be passed without killing enemies (sometimes even quite unintentionally)
- Music still not in line with combat all the time

This became appearant quite early on so I haven't bothered playing through it fully.


Which areas are you able to skip the combat in, if you can remember? It will help me to figure out which area's need fixing.

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Hey Moon, here's me playing your map.

https://www.twitch.tv/gwlenglish/v/73687169

I dug the health changes and pacing at first, but then once I got to the infinite imp room it became tiresome. I felt there were too many imps and it was quite a change from earlier encounters, which were limited and manageable. I also would advise to add at least one checkpoint, maybe after the dark room.

Due to the continuous spawning imps, after I got the green card I just ran through the rest of the level. As a player, I had no reason to believe anymore that the encounters would be limited (like how the map started out). And without a checkpoint and decreased HP on the mobs which makes glory kills more difficult to achieve, I also felt it wasn't beneficial to continue fighting the imps.

Good first map of a series though. Cheers.

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VentedPennies said:

Hey Moon, here's me playing your map.

https://www.twitch.tv/gwlenglish/v/73687169

I dug the health changes and pacing at first, but then once I got to the infinite imp room it became tiresome. I felt there were too many imps and it was quite a change from earlier encounters, which were limited and manageable. I also would advise to add at least one checkpoint, maybe after the dark room.

Due to the continuous spawning imps, after I got the green card I just ran through the rest of the level. As a player, I had no reason to believe anymore that the encounters would be limited (like how the map started out). And without a checkpoint and decreased HP on the mobs which makes glory kills more difficult to achieve, I also felt it wasn't beneficial to continue fighting the imps.

Good first map of a series though. Cheers.


Thanks for play testing it, I see the imp trigger is broken in the toxic floor area. I've removed it now, as that room was a bit over crowded. Since the snapmap monster limit is 12, when you entered the yellow key room and the demons didn't spawn it was because of the monster limit and the broken imp trigger!

In the secret area where you got the Haste, you walked right over the chaingun and didn't pick it up. There was also a super shotgun you passed in the room after the blue key. And a rocket launcher secret as well, but the RL is particularly well hidden.

With the imp trigger fixed, the level should be good to go now. Thanks a lot.

I'm still considering checkpoints, or a one life system. I think i prefer the one life system, but still working on balance. I cut pinky and soldier count down in a couple places, which should help. I noticed most of your deaths were from pinkys, so reducing the count slightly should help.

If you feel like trying it one more time post-changes, it might feel more comfortable. Most of the changes i made this iteration were based on things i saw in your video playthrough.

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Gave it another play.

Blue key encounter can still be skipped if you want to.
The encounter after the blue door still stops combat music early while mobs are still present (no biggie I guess).

Rest seemed to work fine.

Changed my downvote into an upvote because your map no longer deserves a downvote and I quite like the monster amounts as they are down. It would be a pretty tough map for me if you turn it into a single live. :3

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redrage said:

Gave it another play.

Blue key encounter can still be skipped if you want to.
The encounter after the blue door still stops combat music early while mobs are still present (no biggie I guess).

Rest seemed to work fine.

Changed my downvote into an upvote because your map no longer deserves a downvote and I quite like the monster amounts as they are down. It would be a pretty tough map for me if you turn it into a single live. :3


thanks for the replay and upvote. I know you can skip the blue key encounter if you want but i don't want to make every area in the level a forced-lockdown.

The good news is the next area cant be progressed through without finishing most of the encounters, so even if you run past the blue key room you wont get through without killing all blue-key mobs, because the mobs have to spawn in the next room in order to pass through. So its sort of skippable, sort of not. You can take the encounter to the next area, but thats really the limit.

Glad monster counts seem to be nearing the proper amount. I will probably go ahead and add the one-life mechanic on the next update. I'm still trying to fix the music trigger in that one room, i've added like 10+ changes to that room and still can't get it to work right every time. I think something is bugged but i have no idea what. Maybe i'll delete the room and rebuild it.

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Moon Marin said:

thanks for the replay and upvote. I know you can skip the blue key encounter if you want but i don't want to make every area in the level a forced-lockdown.


I totally understand that sentiment, its something I struggle with in my map as well. Lockdowns are the cleanest way to progress but so "stiff" for lack of a better word. Its something I have not been able to find a real "solution" for if there even is any.

Moon Marin said:

The good news is the next area cant be progressed through without finishing most of the encounters, so even if you run past the blue key room you wont get through without killing all blue-key mobs, because the mobs have to spawn in the next room in order to pass through. So its sort of skippable, sort of not. You can take the encounter to the next area, but thats really the limit.


Thats great. The most intuitive thing is to kill the monsters before going through the blue door. I am certain most players will do that. Its more a "this could potentially break your map" thing. However, if you solve this with dependencies a little further ahead the blue key encounter is perfectly fine as it is. :)

Moon Marin said:

Glad monster counts seem to be nearing the proper amount. I will probably go ahead and add the one-life mechanic on the next update.


I think its a pretty harsh map for one life. Only one way to find out though. ;)

Moon Marin said:

I'm still trying to fix the music trigger in that one room, i've added like 10+ changes to that room and still can't get it to work right every time. I think something is bugged but i have no idea what. Maybe i'll delete the room and rebuild it.


If its giving you that much trouble Ill open the map and take a gander. Maybe a fresh pair of eyes is all it takes. ;)

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The reason the music stops prematurely is because the first few mobs directly after the blue door do not have their kill events taken into account.

So if any of them are not killed before all the other demons that you use spawners for and do manage the kill events of are killed your music will go to idle while monsters are still active.

The soldier higher up is very easy to skip at first when rushing into the module but really all of them should have their kill events managed.

I suggest using a counter just for that group and then send a single signal to the "end encounter" logic.

For clarity, these demons do not have their kill events managed:

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Its not just these, I've found at least two others who were also not tracked. Even with that I don't think the final number you compare to is correct.

Its no wonder though with the way you set it up. Its far too complex to maintain without losing track halfway. Lets make everything a lot simpler shall we? :)

You can skip the entire integer variable and just use a counter node instead. Like so:



See how i've used it to conveniently group 5 demons together? And the counter fires of just one signal when its done. So this means your final "end encounter" counter will have way less node lines running to it. Its not only more efficient, its also much cleaner to look at which will only benefit your sanity in the long run. :)

Hope this helps. Counters will become your best friend.

PS
Got it fixed just now locally so its definitely that your not tracking the kill events properly.

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awesome, that helps a lot. i'm still learning how to use the nodes effectively and that gives me something to work towards. I'll see about rebuilding the logic in that room, ill probably just delete all enemy encounters and start over with that counter node you suggested.

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Map has been updated with checkpoints and can be considered the final version of the map for now. There might be a music issue in one room still, but all other bugs and errors should be fixed. I plan to resolve the music issue on this map when the snapmap update comes.

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I just played it, i will give you my opinion:
I like it, good amount of enemies, nice design, fun to play.
BUT Dark Room is way too dark near the console that open the Door. It took a good amount of time, till i saw the console. Since the main color of the Dark Room is red, i was looking for a red keycard, till i was able to find the console by accident.
It was easier to find the 3 secrets than that console. By the way i like were you put the secrets. Let's say that the minigun, Rpg were quite nice to have :)

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Wild Dog said:

I just played it, i will give you my opinion:
I like it, good amount of enemies, nice design, fun to play.
BUT Dark Room is way too dark near the console that open the Door. It took a good amount of time, till i saw the console. Since the main color of the Dark Room is red, i was looking for a red keycard, till i was able to find the console by accident.
It was easier to find the 3 secrets than that console. By the way i like were you put the secrets. Let's say that the minigun, Rpg were quite nice to have :)


thanks for the feedback, i should probably add some colored text to the panel. That would help visibility issues. Glad you found the RPG not many have so far!

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