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Misty

Second attempt in Doom mapping

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So,this is my second serious attempt in Doom mapping. This map was supposed to be in DMP2017,but I decided to release this as stand-alone map. Texture renames are way too hard for me in already made map. I'm very sorry for this. I need testers and help.

Compatible ports: prboom+ and boom compatible ports. 
Skill settings: I tried to add them,but just for only few things. 

Known bugs: Lifts can be a bit buggy,barons of hell/hell knights in hard skill can get out of teleporters,but this doesn't break anything. Some unnoticed misalignments can be visible. 
Textures: I used cc4 textures
Download link:http://www.mediafire.com/file/ud0tdvf27m8k4cj/Northofhell+-+Copy.wad

Images of map(it's more about how I progressed this map): 

Spoiler

yNoaPzz.png
MDVcIfX.png
xeGAC8g.png
RzUrPLD.png
kEVG4jQ.png
zWBobjj.jpg
Nqvkciq.png


Demo recordings and criticism is welcome here. 

P.s I leave two test map videos,but they're not very informative,only for fun. 

 

 

Edited by MysteriousHaruko

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I noticed you posted a status update looking for criticism. The map has 500+ monsters which might deter some folks, but the very starting scenario might be the true culprit. I was using ammo quite efficiently and I still had to punch a few pinkies with my bare fist. (Even before this, you have to be quite careful with shotgun ammo, or you'll have to pistol out the ledge chaingunners.) The ammo distribution in general seemed wildly inconsistent: famine, followed by a big cache, followed by lots of meat, resulting in famine, repeat. 

 

I only got a third of the way through, however. I was killed by a squad chaingunners apparently located behind a false wall, unable to retreat to cover or even know what 'cover' would be in relation to whatever was shooting me. The map has no (non-secret) armor up to this point either, so margin for error there was quite narrow.


In general, the structure of what I played is 'room full of monsters -> door or other narrow opening or means of traversal', repeated continuously. I think there are some rooms that are fun to plow through, usually the ones packed with just imps and zombies, but more often than that a few rooms that are full of meat with no real logic behind it. For example, the room with arachnotrons + chaingunner snipers + ledge lost souls + mancs + archviles, all of which can (and should, because otherwise you'll die) be fought through a 64-wide opening,  followed by a room with somewhere around 30 or whatever lost souls.

 

There also seem to be occasional infinite height issues: the room with the berserk for instance is for all practical purposes inaccessible, since you can't descend at all without being bitten a couple of times by the pack of spectres occupying the room some 500+ units below you. Another problem: sound-blocking lines are used in a way that monsters with their backs turned essentially won't respond until you shoot at them, which looks silly. 

 

I'd recommend studying some of your favorite wads and taking a look at what they do to create interesting gameplay, and maybe creating a few maps at a more modest scale (150 or fewer monsters) and getting feedback on those.

Edited by rdwpa

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2 minutes ago, rdwpa said:

I noticed you posted a status update looking for criticism. The map has 500+ monsters which might deter some folks, but the very starting scenario might be the true culprit. I was using ammo quite efficiently and I still had to punch a few pinkies with my bare fist. (Even before this, you have to be quite careful with shotgun ammo, or you'll have to pistol out the ledge chaingunners.) The ammo distribution in general seemed wildly inconsistent: famine, followed by a big cache, followed by lots of meat, resulting in famine, repeat. 

 

I only got a third of the way through, however. I was killed by a squad chaingunners apparently located behind a false wall, unable to retreat to cover or even know what 'cover' would be in relation to whatever was shooting me. The map has no (non-secret) armor up to this point either, so margin for error there was quite narrow.

 

In general, the structure of what I played is 'room full of monsters -> door or other narrow opening', repeated continuously. I think there are some rooms that are fun to plow through, usually the ones packed with just imps and zombies, but more often than that a few rooms that are full of meat with no real logic behind it. For example, the room with arachnotrons + chaingunner snipers + ledge lost souls + mancs + archviles, all of which can be fought through a 64-wide opening (and which makes the archviles completely harmless), followed by a room with somewhere around 30 or whatever lost souls, which can be fought through a narrow opening too. 

 

There also seem to be occasional infinite height issues: the room with the berserk for instance is for all practical purposes inaccessible, since you can't descend at all without being bitten a couple of times by the pack of spectres occupying the room some 500+ units below you. Another problem: sound-blocking lines are used in a way that monsters with their backs turned essentially won't respond until you shoot at them, which looks silly. 

 

I'd recommend studying some of your favorite wads and taking a look at what they do to create interesting gameplay, and maybe creating a few maps at a more modest scale (150 or fewer monsters) and getting feedback on those.

Monster/things placement is my weakest spot. Compared with my first map,I feel like I progressed a lot. Anyway,thanks for your feedback,I'm still learning,searching proper mapping style. I already take notes from other people maps. 
About blocking sound,I just didn't want to alert monsters way to early,so large portions of map would feel very empy and wasted. Maybe "ambush" tick on monsters would be more better in this case. 
For the main map plan,I worked on this 3 months,trying to escape from "square-corridor-door-repeat" mindset. 
I'm aware of these problems and I'll see what can I do with them. 

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Try to use diagonal shapes like what I'm done:
hZxIikL.png

It's vanilla map by the way.

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2 minutes ago, riderr3 said:

Try to use diagonal shapes like what I'm done:
hZxIikL.png

It looks very cool. Outside doom mapping I love draw triangles and put these around that triangle,until they gets shape of the desired picture,sadly in Doom engine it won't look great. I'll try this too in different shape,when I get a rest. 

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Try to make a speed map. Only use two hours. One for the layout and one for the finishing touches. I think if you want to get the best feedback, you should make small maps. This will help you understand what you're doing right and more importantly what you're doing wrong.  I made the mistake of making a long map (really long) and not many people played it because it wasn't very fun. You'll get better with time, but until then most people won't invest the time to play through the whole map. I played through and was thrown back by how daunting the monster count was.

 

You have some cool ideas in here.

 

Try to keep the monster count below 100 if you can until you've gotten more experience. This map isn't a waste. I'm sure you learned a lot making it.

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1 hour ago, everennui said:

Try to make a speed map. Only use two hours. One for the layout and one for the finishing touches. I think if you want to get the best feedback, you should make small maps. This will help you understand what you're doing right and more importantly what you're doing wrong.  I made the mistake of making a long map (really long) and not many people played it because it wasn't very fun. You'll get better with time, but until then most people won't invest the time to play through the whole map. I played through and was thrown back by how daunting the monster count was.

 

You have some cool ideas in here.

 

Try to keep the monster count below 100 if you can until you've gotten more experience. This map isn't a waste. I'm sure you learned a lot making it.

I think concept 1024x1024 would be good start for small maps and medium count of monsters. I can't speedmap,because I always feel streesed when I do that and ideas just ran away from my head. Next time I'll manage everything better. 

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As 4shockblast said to me after I said something very similar to what you just said: "nobody is good at speedrunning." Speedmapping is much the same; just gotta get in there and do it anyway :)

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Uh, apparently the WAD is corrupt (won't open even in SLADE), is that just me? (I wouldn't be surprised, it was downloaded on a very slow connection.)

(Also, having " - Copy" in your filename is a bit unprofessional, TBH.)

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5 minutes ago, bzzrak said:

Uh, apparently the WAD is corrupt (won't open even in SLADE), is that just me? (I wouldn't be surprised, it was downloaded on a very slow connection.)

(Also, having " - Copy" in your filename is a bit unprofessional, TBH.)

I accidentally destroyed original map with renames,so I made copies of original map. I forgot delete "copy" from wad name. Well,wad works for me perfectly in qzdoom. I downloaded like casual player and ran instantly. Maybe I should provide alternative link. 

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Late to the party. :]

 

I "played" this on HMP, but eventually I realized that this is way, way above my skill level and activated cheats. Sorry!

I can see that you've put a lot of effort in this, I can respect that. The map is quite beautiful, although CC4-TEX plays a big role in that. The textures were a bit conflicting with each other sometimes, especially with all the rocks (e.g. having a gray rock wall texture, but using a brown flat on the top of it), but it doesn't negate all the care you put into this, so all is cool.

The outdoor theme is quite well done, there are not many maps like this. Kudos for that.

There's some of the traditional misalignment and bleeding midtexture mistakes, but it doesn't spoil the impression much.

I liked some touches, like teleporting you to the red door after you get to the red key. (It once teleported me before I actually picked up the key, but noclip came to the rescue. It's still a great idea, don't get me wrong.)

The fight with the Barons and silent teleports was badass, I've never seen that idea before. The Lost Souls would sometimes start rapidly teleporting while "charging", that was weird. Some Cacodemons would've been better IMHO.

The Lost Souls are a bit too, too plentiful. Like, they usually come in groups of 25 or so. And two shotgun shots per skull... boring. IDFA please, I want rockets. They don't represent any real challenge either.

The 2x Arch-Vile fight was very, very tedious. You were kind enough to provide enough shells, but those were tightly spaced, so it was quite easy to accidentally pick up two of them. Stuff like Chaingunners in the distance only made it worse.

 

So overall I did like it... with cheats. If I had any Doom skills, I could enjoy it fully, but life is cruel sometimes. :]

A fair 7/10 from me.

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10 hours ago, bzzrak said:

Late to the party. :]

 

I "played" this on HMP, but eventually I realized that this is way, way above my skill level and activated cheats. Sorry!

I can see that you've put a lot of effort in this, I can respect that. The map is quite beautiful, although CC4-TEX plays a big role in that. The textures were a bit conflicting with each other sometimes, especially with all the rocks (e.g. having a gray rock wall texture, but using a brown flat on the top of it), but it doesn't negate all the care you put into this, so all is cool.

The outdoor theme is quite well done, there are not many maps like this. Kudos for that.

There's some of the traditional misalignment and bleeding midtexture mistakes, but it doesn't spoil the impression much.

I liked some touches, like teleporting you to the red door after you get to the red key. (It once teleported me before I actually picked up the key, but noclip came to the rescue. It's still a great idea, don't get me wrong.)

The fight with the Barons and silent teleports was badass, I've never seen that idea before. The Lost Souls would sometimes start rapidly teleporting while "charging", that was weird. Some Cacodemons would've been better IMHO.

The Lost Souls are a bit too, too plentiful. Like, they usually come in groups of 25 or so. And two shotgun shots per skull... boring. IDFA please, I want rockets. They don't represent any real challenge either.

The 2x Arch-Vile fight was very, very tedious. You were kind enough to provide enough shells, but those were tightly spaced, so it was quite easy to accidentally pick up two of them. Stuff like Chaingunners in the distance only made it worse.

 

So overall I did like it... with cheats. If I had any Doom skills, I could enjoy it fully, but life is cruel sometimes. :]

A fair 7/10 from me.

Thanks for your kind words. It was my first try to map in boom(I wanted to make this in vanilla format,but I saw I couldn't fit in it,so moved on boom compatible mapping),not in udmf. I had a lot of fustration before I start respect boom-vanilla rules . I realised some mistakes a more later after this thread,re-reading people comments. I think,I'll update this map,maybe change some stuff(in moster places/count I mean and remove sound blocking lines in some silly places) and leave it as another stone in my mapping story. 
About silent teleporters - normal teleporter sound would cause annoyance(maybe it's me),so switched to silent teleporter and I loved result,so I left this as surprise. These teleporters were planned on paper. 
Anyway,you should try my third map,is not very large and it's beatable without any cheats. 

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