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jerrysheppy

Esthétique du Mal - 5 maps (so far) for testing and feedback [NEW MAP05]

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*** UPDATE JUNE 28 - MAP05; UPDATED VERSIONS OF MAPS 01-04 ***
(download URL now goes to new version)

So I've been making a few maps for myself. My goal with these was to have each map reflect a particular sort of concept or aesthetic impulse that grabbed me, and to end before wearing out its welcome (so most of these should be very short to moderately short). I'll probably make more, but I wanted to run the first four finished maps out for feedback.

WAD file - http://www.mediafire.com/download/q826vqkxg1s379q/dumal_b2.wad
Screenshot gallery - http://imgur.com/a/4jTTy

Feedback especially wanted on the gameplay, since I feel this is shakiest, but any sort of constructive criticism is appreciated.


Five maps, MAP01 through MAP05. These are for Doom 2, Boom/MBF format (Boom mode in GZDB; I used sky transfers which I don't think are in "vanilla" Boom).

Skill settings are in. MAP01-04 gameplay has been refined somewhat based on initial feedback, but feedback is still welcome. MAP05 gameplay is still completely rough.

Tested with: GZDoom (vast majority of testing); PrBoom+ (a few quick runthroughs to check for obvious problems).

Known bugs: There's a texture that refuses to tile properly in PrBoom+. You can see it on linedefs 2969 and 4024 in MAP05. I've tried everything I can think of, including splitting the linedef as you can see here. I'd welcome suggestions. It displays fine in GZDooMBuilder and GZDoom.

Coop starts are in. Maps aren't really designed for coop, but nothing should break. In MAP01 co-op, if you accidentally get stuck on the wrong side of the closing blue key door, the marbface fragment in the first "dig" room will teleport you just to the other side of it so you can continue.

Includes textures and/or flats from:
cc4tex
psytex.wad
GOTHICTX.WAD
CageTex2.wad
BAK_LEG.WAD
retres.wad
dtexpak.wad
nb5texd2.wad
q3tex.wad
tnttextures.wad
q1tex.wad
aa-tex.wad

as well as a few I made myself. No other new or additional graphics. To the best of my knowledge, all of these are used in accordance with the permissions given by their creators.

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PrBoom+ complevel -1 FDAs: https://www.doomworld.com/vb/attachment.php?postid=1615345
It's one file but I blow myself up after each map to start from pistol start.

Gameplay is indeed kind of weak for the most part, there's rarely much going on at once, it's usually from the front, and you can camp out a lot of encounters from safe spot. Those things are OK some of the time but it probably shouldn't make up the majority of the gameplay. One of the most interesting combat encounters was actually in the middle of the first map, when you climb the stairs and then there are a bunch of imps, cacos, and a pain elemental - there's suddenly a lot of directions to consider, and the PE is far enough away that he could be a real danger if you don't focus on him quickly.

There was a weird HOM in GLBoom+ in the first map, and a few things throughout that looked like they were too close to the edge of a wall and so got moved higher up.

Visuals were great, I think you have a good handle on that. I liked the little details like the broken up marble flooring and the candles in the pillars. Even with rooms that are fairly simple as far as actual space, you to a good job of making them interesting with alcoves, things in the walls, etc.

Anyhow it was fun overall, the short length and nice looks temper the simple combat -- which really isn't terrible, don't take this post as such, it's just got a lot of room for improvement.

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-cl 9 FDAs for the first two maps.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/b4a5kieuxecm5g1/dumalb1_p1_rdwpa_fdas.rar

Difficulty is well suited for starter levels in a more conventionally paced longer episode or megawad ;). The atmosphere spooks me out a bit and I really like the texturing, although the rocky areas in map02 seemed a bit bare.

If there's any real problem with the gameplay, it's that the floors are ultra-bumpy! It's no surprise that most of the actual testing was done in GZDoom, which corrects this. I'm also not such a huge fan of the health bonus stacks in map02 -- they brighten the screen too much. Perhaps stacks of four or five would be preferable -- it's not like the player needs the health.

map01: Pinkies in the exit area can block the player with their infinite height.
map02: I didn't notice a certain mandatory path at first since it was so dark. Archvile in the exit area could use monster-blocking lines, to ensure it descends the stairs instead of loafing around at the top.

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For the next two:

http://www.mediafire.com/download/kxca2hp1todk7cp/dumalb1_p2_rdwpa_fdas.rar

map03 has what map01 and map02 don't have -- namely a bunch of random HKs + barons to eat up time and do nothing much else. It's possible to encounter them before finding the SSG/RL. (The berserk pack is there too of course, but punching nobles in that narrow circle isn't an appealing option with the more flawed blockmap behavior.)

The last AV in map04 doesn't really need to exist.

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Thank you both for your replies and demos. Haven't gotten to watch the demos quite yet but your comments are already giving me a decent mental picture of what I can pay attention to improving.

Gameplay is indeed kind of weak for the most part, there's rarely much going on at once, it's usually from the front, and you can camp out a lot of encounters from safe spot. Those things are OK some of the time but it probably shouldn't make up the majority of the gameplay.


So you would recommend adding more traps, especially behind the player/in the way of their escape? Do you recall any particular places where you might have been anticipating a good trap and not gotten one? My only major inspiration at the moment is adding a teleport trap or something to the yellow key in MAP03.

If there's any real problem with the gameplay, it's that the floors are ultra-bumpy! It's no surprise that most of the actual testing was done in GZDoom, which corrects this. I'm also not such a huge fan of the health bonus stacks in map02 -- they brighten the screen too much. Perhaps stacks of four or five would be preferable -- it's not like the player needs the health.

map01: Pinkies in the exit area can block the player with their infinite height.
map02: I didn't notice a certain mandatory path at first since it was so dark. Archvile in the exit area could use monster-blocking lines, to ensure it descends the stairs instead of loafing around at the top.


Not sure what to do about the floors being bumpy. I've obviously used differences in floor height for making detail, but not any more than necessary for the appearances I want. If anyone has any specific suggestions for making things smoother while preserving the look, I'm all ears.

I may replace the health bonuses with stimpacks, or just reduce the overall number.

MAP01-- You should be able to use the stairway down to the last pit even if pinkies are milling around, no? I get that it would be convenient to be able to jump down, but it's going to be a problem with literally any situation with monsters in a pit area-- I think it's just what you get when you play with infinitely tall actors, no offense.
MAP02-- What specific path are you talking about? Good call on the exit archvile, I'll add that.

map03 has what map01 and map02 don't have -- namely a bunch of random HKs + barons to eat up time and do nothing much else. It's possible to encounter them before finding the SSG/RL. (The berserk pack is there too of course, but punching nobles in that narrow circle isn't an appealing option with the more flawed blockmap behavior.)

The last AV in map04 doesn't really need to exist.


So you would recommend relocating those nobles to someplace else (maybe a setpiece fight) and using weaker enemies there? That makes sense. As a general rule, while I want to make all the maps pistol startable, I don't think it's a problem for pistol starting to require a few tries in order to find the right route. I do think that the nobles you referred to may be too clunky in that small space anyway, though.

Re: the MAP04 arch-vile, I liked the idea of one last obstacle suddenly appearing just as the player is contending with the bridge. I don't have a problem with removing it if enough feedback tells me I should, though.

Thanks again!

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jerrysheppy said:

So you would recommend adding more traps, especially behind the player/in the way of their escape? Do you recall any particular places where you might have been anticipating a good trap and not gotten one? My only major inspiration at the moment is adding a teleport trap or something to the yellow key in MAP03.

A few more traps wouldn't hurt, but you don't even need to go that far. Just more situations where there are enemies that come at you from more than the front, or even just more enemies in general in some spots, would help.

I'd say that map 1 is fine as is, map 2 is in need of the most work (too easy to punch things out and then hoard ammo), maps 3 & 4 aren't too bad.

For MAP02 after you get the blue (IIRC) key and an Arch-Vile gets on the loose, while the revs and imps are on ledges, even just more monsters around would make things a lot different if it gave the AV time to reach you while you were still dealing with revs or other monsters you couldn't just ignore. Or another AV wandering in from the other side, that would certainly put some more pressure on. But I'm not even advocating for harder gameplay, just something a bit more engaging.

MAP03 you'll see a few times in the demo where I can coax out one or two enemies at a time. Don't let me do that :)

MAP04 was pretty good, the start is nice and there are lots of AVs to keep things from getting dull. The only thing that stands out as me exploiting the map was when all the lost souls teleported in and I could just pick them off from safety. A PE or two at the back would help maybe, and fit in with the lost souls. Also I missed a few monsters there I guess?

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Yeah, eesh, my limited PrBoom+ testing really didn't give me an idea of how annoying the glow from stacks of bonuses is. Mea culpa.

Non-exhaustive list of the changes I've made so far based on feedback and demos, if anyone cares:

Spoiler

MAP01:
-Fixed inaccessible medikit
-Tried to fix HOMs.

MAP02:
- More flashing lights added in the dark stairway to the blue key teleporter to catch the eye better
- Hell Knight released from the aforementioned stairway area should now come straight at the player instead of wandering off by a side route (hopefully serving as a clue that something's opened that way)
- Monster block lines used to keep exit archvile from wandering to the sides
- Blue key "ambush" now includes more monsters coming from the left on ground level
-Lots of health bonuses removed, some replaced with stimpacks (still equal or less healing overall)

MAP03:
- A second SSG added to the courtyard outside the three-key door, preventing the issue in both demos with missing the heavy weapons on that route
- Yellow key now has a teleport ambush
- Should now be much harder to pull enemies out of YK area one by one
- Hell nobles in the "circle door" area moved to YK ambush, replaced with imps
-Lots of bonus stacks removed


MAP04:

-Monster blocking line used to keep that one revenant on the stairs from wandering in the wrong direction and getting stuck
-Moved a few triggers for various reasons, including preventing an unintentional sequence break. (The staircase of black pillars in the lavafall is supposed to lower after the player opens up that area, as a shortcut back to the yellow bars. In both demos, monsters activated it early.)
-Switch on the pillar on top of the little hill (with the HK/AV trap) should now be much easier to press in PrBoom+. (It was possible before, but the angle had to be just right, which is why Plums couldn't seem to do it.)

In general it seems I may want to reduce the amount of health and ammo, at least on the upper difficulty levels, as both demos seemed to have too comfortable an amount of those even when the individual fights were interesting.

I probably won't post the changed versions until after I have some more new maps to include as well, so it might be a while.

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BTW I went back to map 4 briefly, it seems like a bunch of monsters didn't teleport in for me, and also I couldn't get the soulsphere secret. Double-check those things in PrBoom+ if you haven't fixed them already.

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plums said:

BTW I went back to map 4 briefly, it seems like a bunch of monsters didn't teleport in for me, and also I couldn't get the soulsphere secret. Double-check those things in PrBoom+ if you haven't fixed them already.


The lack of monster teleportation is probably due to the unintentional sequence break I mentioned, that's a combination of the lavafall staircase lowering early and the switch on the hill not working for you. Both of these should, hopefully, be fixed.

I just now fixed the soulsphere secret-- looks like I'd incorrectly set it to be next floor instead of lowest floor. I know it was working at some point, and it doesn't seem like something that should execute differently in gzdoom than prboom+, so I must have changed it at some point for some reason.

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jerrysheppy said:

In general it seems I may want to reduce the amount of health and ammo, at least on the upper difficulty levels, as both demos seemed to have too comfortable an amount of those even when the individual fights were interesting.


These days I'm starting to appreciate easier levels a lot more. It's all about creating a fun experience, and easy levels can do that in many ways: creating an immersive atmosphere; cultivating a sense of danger, even when danger objectively doesn't exist; providing a satisfying environment to move around in and do badass things; providing the sort of entertainment that isn't really about engaging combat or pretty visuals (humor, puzzles, narrative, etc.), and so on. (And in many hard levels, I get the impression that encounters were designed first and foremost to be challenging, and whether they were fun and interesting wasn't really considered.) I think this mapset is very strong at the first; isn't bad at the second, partly due to the spooky atmosphere, but could use some tune-ups, largely what plums mentioned; and would be good at the third if the bumpy floors were addressed somewhat by use of Boom's action 242, "Create Fake Ceiling And Floor". Unless you have a lot of overlapping floor and ceiling detail (instead of e.g. floor/ceiling indentations that use the same sector), they shouldn't be too hard to set up. It's not really going to be necessary everywhere the player goes, either -- just where the more demanding combat is staged (and I guess in additional places, for consistency).

So, yeah, the encounters could be a bit more dynamic (more multidirectional stuff), but I don't think you need to rework them to be much harder, unless of course you wanted a more challenging set of maps in the first place. If there's a reason to remove some of the health and ammo, it's not so much to make things harder. (Some of the current health will probably go unused by everyone, because mistakes will probably just kill you if they are bad enough.) It's more to avoid giving the impression that the mapper has misjudged the balance or is actively holding the player's hand.

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Oh yeah, for sure, I enjoy those more laid-back maps myself. But in my mind, that's the province of skill 1-3. I'd like for skill 4 to be reasonably challenging. Not frustratingly hard, since after all these are supposed to be bite-sized levels, but maybe hairier than you made them look in your FDA! ;)

So yeah, when I say reduce the supplies and/or increase the monsters, I'm aiming for something like reducing the impression that there's a lot more health/ammo lying around than is necessary.

Thank you for your kind words about the design! And I'll probably see what I can do with the action 242 stuff you mentioned, though I've never so much as touched it so I'll have to learn exactly how to use it first.

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Progress on MAP05 is coming along slowly-- the scope of this map has really gotten away from me in some regards. Fortunately I think I've nearly managed to nail down the geographic extent of the map and can now focus on the gameplay and detailing. It'll probably take a few more weeks, but it's coming.

Here's a screenshot of the beginning of MAP05 so far:



A path of flesh, flanked by demonic monuments, stretches up the hillside in front of you... but the fortifications on the cliffs above have the look of human architecture. What will you find within?

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I've just updated the link to point to a new version with MAP05 as well as updated version of MAP01-04.

Known bugs: There's a texture that refuses to tile properly in PrBoom+. You can see it on linedefs 2969 and 4024 in MAP05. I've tried everything I can think of, including splitting the linedef as you can see here. I'd welcome suggestions. It displays fine in GZDooMBuilder and GZDoom.

Coop starts are in. Maps aren't really designed for coop, but nothing should break. In MAP01 co-op, if you accidentally get stuck on the wrong side of the closing blue key door, the marbface fragment in the first "dig" room will teleport you just to the other side of it so you can continue.

Height transfers have been used to smooth out a few of the cracked floors in MAP02.

For a fuller list of changes since the first version, see several posts up this page.

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This one is a lot rougher than map01-04 imo.

1) Bases could use slightly more color -- as is they are pretty much all brown, and it looks very underdetailed compared to something like map01. Red seems to be the highlight color, and occasional light strips and indents etc. would fit in nicely.

2) I think the opening shot was quite attractive. The void is nice too.

3) I'm not a huge fan of the particular quake rock texture being used in broad swathes. I think CChest has a few other brown rock textures that work better this way -- ROCK16 for instance, if I'm remembering the number.

4) Health, ammo, and armor were excessive. Had me a bit worried that there'd be a big dangerous fight at some point, actually.

5) Archviles in the buildings are blocked by mancs and don't really work.

6) Egyptian area at the end looks good but a bit out of place. I noticed some numbers in various places. Kind of weird -- I like that.

FDA: http://www.mediafire.com/download/156p453c81ws9aw/dumalb2-05_rdwpa_fda.lmp

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Thanks for your feedback as always! I'll watch your demo soon.

I assume that by rougher you mean visually? Or gameplay-wise? Or both?

Are there any particular areas in the base that struck you as underdetailed? I was trying to make the exterior relatively spartan and ordered, as befits military fortifications and bunkers, but I tried to spice up some of the interiors with the bright orange tech conduits and wiring (and of course the corruption downstairs).

Will look into possible rock replacements.

My other tester also reported a glut of supplies, so I'll probably be toning those way down, certainly on UV.

I guess I'll see in your demo what you meant by the AVs not really working. The AVs are set up to hopefully teleport in first and get busy reviving zombies while the mancs teleport in and slow the player down from reaching/stopping the AVs.

And finally the "Egyptian" area was conceived as a demonic catacomb beneath the fortress that had sent fleshy corruption outwards and breached the fortifications from below. I did use the Egyptian stone from AA as I liked the look, but I can look at maybe developing that area out, making its Hellish origins more clear. Not sure what you meant by numbers; there are sigil designs on the walls that I made, but they aren't meant to be numerals-- that said, if they convey the general impression of weird arcanery, I'll be happy regardless of whether the player thinks they're letters, numbers, or just demonic dickbutts ;)

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The outdoor are fine mostly. I think the indoors would strongly benefit from additional contrast in certain spots, because it's all dark brown in a way that muddles up clean perception of architecture.

Here's a -nomo demo: http://www.mediafire.com/download/lncdojebd2xhd29/dumal05gestures.lmp

Chaingunner bunkers (where I fire my SSG) could use something on the walls, even something unobtrusive like a small metal support beam.

The area where I fire my pistol has a flat low ceiling and very bare walls, making it feel quite underdetailed compared to most of the larger areas.

The area where I fire my pistol after that could use some contrast between the color of the floor and the surrounding barriers, maybe something as simple as a warning strip bordering the two.

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Awesome, thanks for recording another demo. I appreciate all your help.

I haven't really been able to work on mapping for several days, and when I do, I'll probably try working on other maps for a while to sort of clear my head, but your feedback will be helpful whenever I come back to MAP05.

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I liked it. Level design wise interesting, gameplay felt good too. As mentioned map05 could go with more contrast e.g. more fire, lava details.

I did encounter a few monster placements inside geometry rendering them useless. Just streamed it on my twitch for video feedback, pretty much no commentary tho.

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