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dobu gabu maru

The DWmegawad Club plays: Newgothic Movement 2 & Deus Vult II

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32 minutes ago, rehelekretep said:

it seems like whatever order i go in, the number of monsters fucks me around the 3rd key.

i wonder if youre meant to run around without picking up the BFG until the last key? YK?

i dunno :(

NG2-12 is literally my hate-map in the set because after trying it like a dozen times I still can't quite tell what works properly and what doesn't. So far, going for the BFG first, opening the door with the HKs and PEs behind it while grabbing the backpack seems best, because then you can finally start to clear this hell-hole somewhat decently and the cybies take truckloads of damage as well. I still haven't figured out how to get to the invul without AVJs, and if it's AVJ exclusive, then it's not even an option for me for lack of health and ammo at the time I would want to grab it.

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yz6beLmh.png

 

Map 09

gzDoom - UV – pistol start/saves

 

Wow. I don’t think I’ve ever dealt with that many monsters before. Thankfully there was A LOT of ammo and health. Almost too much, but I can’t even begin to think of how someone would fine tune or balance something this crazy. Everything starts slow enough (for this wad) but then ramps up tenfold through a series of doors connecting to the other 90% of this map. It gives this kind of a big revealing sensation where you go, “Ohhhhh, I’m just getting started here.”

 

This has to be the grandest slaughter map I’ve ever played. It was great! I loved the feel and look of it and all the "little" side areas. You feel so small running around this massive complex filled with an insane amount of enemies at every turn. The maze at the center was REALLY cool. Too bad it’s easily cheesed from above.

 

The battle over the YSK on the throne was epic. As was opening up the doors from a distance and dealing with all the missiles flying from afar. One measly little IV sphere didn’t even cover a fraction of what it’ll take to survive getting back out. Unreal. Such a neat looking interior too with all of the lights and water shrines teleporting in more and more enemies as the seconds tick by waiting to get out. When I noticed the doors were finally open, I high tailed it out of there and camped the door. Stacked more bodies than I can ever remember. Just look at this shit! ROFL, I can’t even. My god.

 

I didn’t like the music here but I don’t know how you could manage any kind of acceptable music in a map this long. Which is probably the biggest problem here. It’s almost too much. I think it took me 3 or so days with 4 to 5 different play sessions to get through it. I mean… it was good, but damn dude. By the end of my final sit down, my eyes were tired and index finger was killing me, lol.

 

Whew, I fell behind quite a bit with a weekend camping trip. Going to take a lot of work to catch up but doubt that'll happen with another trip again (off to see an Iron Maiden concert!!). Glad to see that others have barreled on alright. Or just skipped it, lol. 

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For map12 I'd probably try this or a variation of it. Plan for 600 cells by the time the cybies come in to the Building of Camp, so you can clear your way out if several come rolling in. Apparently there are monster-blocking lines, which I realized midway through this, so you don't have to kill any of the pinkies either. At the end of these ~3-4 mins, about 75% of the map is dead. What's left is cleaning up the main area, the two easy key set pieces, and the ending fights.

 

This is a bit kludgy because it's really humid, and mouse etc. 

 

ng2_12_rd_startstuff.zip


 

Edited by rdwpa

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You guys having troubles with map 12 and I still haven't figured a strategy for the cyber-archviles combo in map 11, but I will find something, I know I'll do. For the record, I hate revenants on ledges. 

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5 minutes ago, galileo31dos01 said:

You guys having troubles with map 12 and I still haven't figured a strategy for the cyber-archviles combo in map 11, but I will find something, I know I'll do. For the record, I hate revenants on ledges. 

you go straight for the elevator instead of messing with the viles and cybies. stay close to the walls. once it's down far enough, things can't touch you anymore from above. meaning the megaspheres should keep you alive by then. when you get out the elevator, you get an invul sphere, which you can use to clean up most if not all of the viles quickly with the BFG.

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*shouts and curses in spanish*

 

...

 

There are too many revenants on the ledges always dodging my rockets and me eating their rockets even if I hide myself the homing rockets find me like surpriiiise!!. I'm still practicing in god mode but damn just raged and quit. My most hated enemy used that way... ok I'm going to calm down.

 

28 minutes ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

when you get out the elevator, you get an invul sphere

You mean the one in front of the switch? (I know how to get the spheres btw)  

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9 minutes ago, galileo31dos01 said:

You mean the one in front of the switch? (I know how to get the spheres btw)

yes, you use that, flick the switch, move back to the elevator, kill all things on your way there, then at the elevator there is another switch that gives another invul. That should be enough for most of the cleanup.

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Map 04 -- Author: Archi?

For much of the upcoming middle stretch of the WAD I'm generally less confident in my guesses as to who authored each of the maps, so I'll try to give some of my reasoning for them, where applicable. This map is trickier to call than the previous ones simply because it's so far out of line with the rest of the set in terms of its pacing and gameplay style (even the otherwise oddball map 07 has a similarly oddball sibling to keep it company in map 13) that it almost reads like a guest map or something. Regardless, my guess here for the author is Archi, as the level's basic structure--a freestanding chunky building or temple surrounded by a freer outdoor space before running up against the actual level boundaries--is a template his past work shows a notable preference for.

 

The majority of the level's action bears little resemblance to 'slaughter' by most conventional definitions of the term, reading a little more like a fairly mild setpiece-based 'gauntlet' map, a very modern offering underwritten by the brazenly CC4 visual theme (though CC4 is arguably old enough now that it's slipping out of 'modernity', I suppose!), with sizable numbers of monsters only really showing up in the final outdoor stroll, and even those are framed in a soft-segmented two-part wave. The level's best bit is definitely the megasphere/soulsphere cupola on the east side, which fast-ports a pile of goats and a pair of cybs into a very small space, tasking you with using misdirection rather than force of arms to secure your escape. The actual length of the lock-in here is only something like 10 seconds long, but I reckon it's a credit to the encounter's effectiveness as an adrenaline-jolt that it feels longer while it's happening.

 

Other fights don't strike me as being as strong. One possible issue is that, apart from the aforementioned cupola trap, other major battles tend to be very easy to exploit or simply escape from. There's a very real chance for players given to constantly moving about like an overcaffeinated squirrel as a matter of habit to flat-out skip the RSK's cyberdemon guardian without even meaning to do so, for instance (and in fact, there's a pretty solid chance to unwittingly skip the linedef triggering the encounter in the first place), and many have pointed out how vulnerable the later outdoor combat is to blatant cheese of various sorts. Allowing thinking players to engineer a nigh total defanging of major battles is actually something I like to see on occasion in fullscale slaughtermaps (perhaps because my experience with the genre begins in the 'olden days' where slaughter play was as much about trench warfare as about blitzkrieg), but the rub here is that this map is not a fullscale slaughtermap, and being able to break so many of its setpieces leaves an impression that the level as a whole is somewhat halfhearted, or a token 'breather' map inserted to meet some kind of perceived expectation, one that feels like it doesn't quite fit with the rest of the game.

 

Map 05 -- Author: ArmouredBlood

Guessing AB for the author here, mainly because of the overall physical scaling of areas and because most of the monsters are technically pre-placed, rather than introduced into a set space after the fact, something Archi does far more frequently. The sort of between-level blood-pipes area also smacks of his touch. That being said, there's some sneaking suspicion that this map might actually be a collab, the first of a few times in the set I've had that impression.

 

Anyway, I enjoyed this one more or less throughout, I'd say it's probably the strongest of the earlier maps. Most of the encounters here are fun, and while essentially all proffer some variant of the concept that you're suddenly thrown into an enclosed space with a crapload of monsters which appear suddenly to immediately swamp you, there's a goodly amount of variety in design between them, and a good chance for many of the different weapon types to shine, from buckshot to rockets to cells. I like the way many of the fights encourage and reward aggressive play without actually insisting on it, which is shown in different ways between them. The huge underground blood-cistern, for instance, lets you camp out on top of the giant pile of corpses/batteries if you like, which limits your exposure to frictional damage from the smaller monsters moving between the downspouts, but also subtly exposes you to more rockets from more sneaky angles than if you move farther into the thick of things. Likewise, the lava-forge area lets you hang out up top by the switch to fight the big cloud of tomatoes at the cost of space (not a trivial handicap depending on your abilities for tight dodges), but you can get a much faster and cleaner clear by diving right in, and perhaps snatching the BFG from under the hooves of the resident cybs while they inevitably tangle with some of the rest of the horde. Also liked the way the first large hub area is reused as a combat space at the end, where the trick is not so much the intensity of the onslaught as that the carefully-timed spiderdemon appearances can really get you scrambling if you don't anticipate them (and they are pretty tough to anticipate, methinks).

 

Also of note is that the level's generally more thematically unified and has more of a sense of actual place/setting than AB's earlier maps. This is of course founded at least in part in the stylistic nods to Sunder via the texturing and the choice of a common 'slaughter anthem' for the BGM track (one of the good ones, fortunately!) and in the way the actual structure seems to have some sense of logic behind scenic/architectural shifts between areas (i.e. you drop into the sacrificial pit in the hub, end up in an intermediary blood-sewers area, and then drop farther down to the massive bloody cistern where the system terminates), but is also communicated through some stylistic kinship between the ways different fights are framed, as aforesaid. This impression of cohesiveness helps the level maintain interest throughout, whereas some of AB's other longer maps can at times leave the impression of having highlight/marquee areas often preceded or surrounded by extended periods of more directionless 'warmup' stuff which often seems to exist primarily to fill space (literally).

 

A number of rather nasty HOMs exist down in the western side of the lava-dip area, incidentally, at least in software rendering.

 

Map 06 -- Author: ArmouredBlood

I guess this much like what I described an Archi-type layout being just a few minutes ago, but after some consideration I still think the author is AB, given the overall scale, the piles of preplaced monsters, and another experimental teleporter concept ala map 02, this time a 'Simon Says' telefrag setup for optionally dealing with the cyberdemons atop the RSK building.

 

This is another enjoyable one, with a lower overall monster density relative to the huge amount of space you're given to run around in outside, while still offering healthy amounts of pressure and sustained action via the use of many long-range/elevated snipers of different types, and an outer ring of incidental creatures which path/behave differently from game to game. Progression takes the shape of the classic non-linear 3-key scavenger hunt, allowing for denser encounters in smaller spaces as mid-map climaxes. Both the BSK and YSK fights are quite similar in terms of both framing and composition, though the BSK fight will require a different strategy depending on which point during progression you happen to visit there (there is a BFG in the YSK area which precludes the BSK fight's need to prioritize eliminating weaker monsters with the RL ahead of more direct threats if you have it available when the time comes). The RSK encounter, as aforesaid, gives you the option of telefragging the fast-phasing cybs guarding the key there (the idea being to bait them into firing and then quickly choosing the correct color mini-porter while they're still locked into place by the attack), which is mainly for style points, I think, since there's also a V-sphere there which allows you to eliminate most or all of them more conventionally (clever the way the powerup's visual effect works directly against the teleporter setup's mode of visual conveyance, incidentally).

 

While these self-contained battles are the pace climaxes, as aforesaid,  I think the level shines more through the flexibility of the general outdoor area, which on a first play is something you'll likely run around aimlessly while gradually exterminating the infestation as you search for means of mechanical progression. On repeat plays, or on initial play with a certain sort of moxie, this space is also highly amenable to rushing or cheeky pseudo-pacifistic play, allowing it to turn into a relatively lively cauldron by the end even given its expanse and the relative weakness of many of its occupants. It's a level more immediately customizable to one's particular playstyle, then, without having to know everything about it and its 'route diagram' beforehand, and for that reason I reckon it leads more like a natural breather map for the set than the left-field style shift of m04 or the like.

 

More HOMs on the red slabs on the little altars overlooking the shallow ditch, incidentally. The RSK cyberdemons also apparently are able to occasionally skip their teleportation lines and break the sequence. Oh, and while I generally am not one quick to call 'bullshit' as a general matter, the infinitely-tall/deaf revenants lurking just below the tall dropoff into the YSK chamber are straight bullshit. Not funny, AB.

 

Map 07 -- Author: ArmouredBlood

Speaking of left-field stylistic shifts, this is certainly one of those, though its combination of early resource austerity and heavy slant towards potentially harrowing low-ceiled claustrophobia mean that it fits in quite nicely from a tonal perspective with the bigger/more open levels, still emphasizing horde management and heavy weaponry, even if the scaling and overall pacing are different. As rdwpa remarked, I don't reckon this is one that will be one of the set's more popular levels, founded as it is on deliberately uncomfortable/inconvenient scenarios designed to leave you feeling trapped even if death is not immediately imminent, but I found it to my liking, for the most part. It's really more of an overt puzzle map, posing a series of direct brainteasers (albeit with their main elements generally being monsters and items, as opposed to buttons or secret doors or such), requiring wits and a steady nerve moreso than highly tuned martial skill (though you can gather quite a bit of extra momentum in the early/midgame if you're good at consistently two-shotting cyberdemons with the BFG).

 

The ingenuity to exploit/weaponize monster behaviors and physical features of the labyrinth will be of great help throughout the duration, and a clever player will be able to seriously limit the danger potential of most of the encounters with the application of a little patience and guile. The scuffle on the fast multi-level elevator at the center of the layout is quite easy to reliably handle entirely pacifistically, for instance, but there's a wittiness in the way it's framed that makes pacifism seem like the worst of all possible approaches until you've an inkling to try it. This in turn also opens up a number of additional possibilities for clearing out the massive cacoswarm which at first blush seems intended to lock you into the spidery-ass catacombs, which then in turn leaves you with extra secret V-spheres to spend as you see fit, perhaps to take the stress out of the otherwise highly dangerous second melee in the BSK fountain area just before exiting. It's all quite clever the way different developments in the level and its rolling balance fit together, and I reckon no two players will have quite the same solutions to the problems it poses. Probably for the best that it's not a long level, mind you (and if you end up playing it a certain way there's a possibility for it to still get kind of grindy, granted), but all in all it's a much-welcome change of pace that offers a completely different angle on some of the mapset's core design precepts without reading like a semi-requisite breather or interlude.

 

Oh yes, and lest I forget, +1000 bonus points for not being a Dead Simple map. It does actually use the special tags, mind you, but in a way that fits in neatly with the overall design concept, and without making it obvious that you're actuating them whenever you happen to see a 'tron or mancubus.

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Map12 first finish, unsegmented session with 2 saves.

 

There is a funny moment where I "save-scummed" through the BFG lift.  I brute forced it through a caco blob until I won.

 

It's relatively doable to get either three keys without the BFG, or two keys and the BFG, but to get all keys and the BFG... that's hard.  Basically by the time you go for the last of the four items, the monsters have taken over.  As you can see from my recording, by the time I went for the BFG, there was an inconvenient caco blob blocking the BFG lift.  Perhaps I could have courted them away while getting plasma ammo from the east side, but this only just occurred to me in hindsight.

 

My goal was always to get to the "safety tunnel" right after entering the first indoor area after getting three keys.  This also seemed like the most intuitive place to put my first save.  However, I just couldn't get there with all the keys and equipment that I wanted.  I suppose I could have gotten there without the BFG, but would have risked being trapped into the indoor section without it.  Nor did I try this, because there was still a wall of barons on top of the stairs that I would have to widdle away with rockets.  It seemed like a bad idea personally.

 

If you manage to get to the "tunnel of safety", though, the rest of the map is a bit easier.  Heck, I just sat back and let the monsters infight and picked off the cyberdemons safely and slowly with rockets from the lobby, as they clogged the stairwell, but couldn't really shoot you either.

 

edit: just watched @rdwpa tutorial on how conquer the initial part of the map, well done.

Edited by NoisyVelvet

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1 hour ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

yes, you use that, flick the switch, move back to the elevator, kill all things on your way there, then at the elevator there is another switch that gives another invul. That should be enough for most of the cleanup.

When I teleport right after grabbing the red key, the ledges are insanely full of revenants, again, everywhere. And even if I get on the ledge to go to the teleport to the invul sphere, there's shit ton of rockets coming to my face and pushing me off. I don't know what to do, it makes me rage and give up, do you have a demo or something? Does anyone have one? :( 

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1 hour ago, galileo31dos01 said:

When I teleport right after grabbing the red key, the ledges are insanely full of revenants, again, everywhere. And even if I get on the ledge to go to the teleport to the invul sphere, there's shit ton of rockets coming to my face and pushing me off. I don't know what to do, it makes me rage and give up, do you have a demo or something? Does anyone have one? :( 

This is what it looks like when I play this map slow and steady... It's like 10:30-ish for this demo. All in one go.

NG211.zip

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Map13:  I really loved the pool area of the map.  In fact, I love the pool area that it makes this map my favorite of the set so far.  This might be the easiest map of the set so far imo, depending on how you play it.  After the pool area, there are two paths, I went down the RK one first, but got rekt by a dark room full of revenants.  I'm wondering what was down there...  This is because the second go, I went down the YK branch, which had an exit, so I just took it.  The RK path must either have a great secret, or just another exit, perhaps.  Oh well. on to the next one.

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Map 08 -- Author: Archi

I feel pretty comfortable pinning this as one of Archi's maps, but man, does it ever have me second-guessing myself about m05's authorship, as like that one this is one of the most polished and tidily-conducted maps in the set, which seems a little more unified as an actual place, with an elaborate progression route with lots of visual teases that wrings a lot of mileage out of a fairly small space. It's broadly similar to map 04 (and note also the repeated motif of a Quake-style exit gate atop a small podium, ala map 03) in that it operates more on controlled setpiece fights than on big rolling and roiling zones of generalized slaughter than many of the set's larger/later maps, but here the ante has been upped considerably, and the level fits in much more naturally with its compeers as a result. While many of the fights are small by the standards of the larger mapset (both in terms of number of creatures involved and in terms of being confined to relatively small spaces), at a monster count of somewhere around 600 it fields much more of the density and intensity one might expect from the NG brand, and indeed the founding aspect of play/strategy for most of the fights is crowd control/space management, tasking you with brisk and decisive exertions to prevent yourself from being rapidly cornered and mauled in one of its assorted sacrificial chambers.

 

That being said, for regulars to this style of play it's still a fairly simple ask, as supplies (particularly spheres and cells) are generously appointed throughout and the strategies for all of the big fights are pretty transparent, presumably by design, with thing placement and arena shapes both usually visually conveying what needs to be done to succeed for a given challenge. For example, the out-of-bounds viles in the final yard fight naturally make targets of themselves, and it's necessary to immediately kill at least 2-3 of them to give yourself some room to work. Moving into position to fire on them, in turn, kites you to and from across the yard to its different edges, which of course also happens to be the fundamental strategy for dealing with the main horde itself. It also strikes me that many of the fights have obvious/effective shortcuts built into them that become apparent after you've seen them for the first time, facilitating much faster progress on subsequent plays or attempts. While it's certainly the 'real deal' in a way that maps 03 and 04 were not, then, it still remains quite approachable, in that sense reminding me of a spin on much of the flavor of the original New Gothic mapset, which I always felt made a good introduction to full slaughter since it married uncompromising placements and densities with very generous item/powerup placement.

 

Like m05, as aforesaid, I also felt that the level was more neatly trimmed/judged than many of the others. That is, every fight has a purpose, and while a number of the areas feature combat which unfolds (though seldom truly escalates) in stages, ala the BFG room, none overstays its welcome, and apart from a few optional cyber-turrets there is generally very little cleanup action that doesn't naturally take place during the main action in a given fight. Small spates of incidental fare credibly fill out the minute bits of backtracking through interstitial areas (though some may be uncomfortable referring to skirmishes against viles and cyberdemons as 'incidental', I suppose!), such that there's never a dull moment, and again the actual setting hangs together well as a credible location, something like a Mesoamerican-style sacrificial temple (I reckon the big ornate cut-through separating its two main halves does a lot of the heavy lifting, here). There is something of an exception to all this neatness and tidiness in that, as several other players have mentioned, the final big warp-in fight often seems to miscue somewhat in the sense that shit just keeps trickling in inefficaciously for long after the point where you're allowed to leave, though this strikes me as more the product of some mechanical looseness than of any kind of bloat in actual design.

 

Map 09 -- Author: ArmouredBlood

This one's a big sonuvabitch, and blends a few different styles of gameplay into one lumbering slaughter epic. This is another map where I felt there was some suggestion that it might be the product of a direct collab (i.e. with AB building some parts and Archi building others), though I've pegged it primarily as an ArmouredBlood map due to overall scale and style.

 

This is very much a level with three distinct phases. Two of these I greatly enjoyed; I see very little real reason for the other to exist, frankly. The most notable of these is surely the grand battle royale in the YSK's throne room, a really smart endurance/overwhelming odds invasion-type challenge which I personally feel to be the single best fight in the game up to the point I've currently played (up to m14, at the time of this writing). The staggered, mirrored waves of hellish onslaught make for a delightful longform waltz of death where the pressure to eliminate key threats operates in direct competition with the simple but all-important need to manage the kiting of the greater horde on a macro scale, lest what initially appears to be huge, grandiose arena rapidly and lethally become as cramped and congested as the inside of a sardine can. The strategic layers and possibilities of this fight are many, ranging from practical concerns like ensuring that you move in such a way that you always have the cell ammo you might need at a given moment (again, what can initially seem a limitless supply can come perilously close to drying up if you don't adequately balance the urge to kill as much as possible as quickly as possible with a more conservative overarching strategy) to toying around with whether or not to leave the room's initial bevy of cyberdemons alive for when the larger fight breaks out--they make passing by/over the actual throne to grab a megasphere or the V-sphere more complicated/risky, but can take a lot of the encroachment pressure off of you earlier in the fight for as long as they last, which can help you build up crucial momentum for that last nasty-as-hell wave of commandos, viles, and more cyberdemons. There are some 'quality of life' nuisances in the design here, I think--the little posts at the corners of each level of the throne pedestal are surprisingly obnoxious and obstructive whenever you need to pass through the center in the heat of things, and I think the actual physical placement of the all-important V-sphere is a mite daft, as it's fairly easy to pick it up accidentally too early and thus put yourself at a huge/fatal disadvantage later on--but for the most part I think this is great stuff.

 

I also quite like the big, rollicking monster-carpeted slaughter sandbox comprising the southern half of the level, which uses huge roving hordes in the context of varied but intuitive terrain to allow for a great richness of freestyle play. It's a highly symmetrical area, for sure, but it readily plays in a very asymmetrical way, always fascinating. Some of the inherent incidental ungainliness of this scale of slaughter play is inevitably on display here, in the sense that if you really want to kill off everything it's going to take some time, and not all of that time is exactly going to be AAA memory-making stuff, but the fact of some janitoring (which you don't even HAVE to do, really) is worth the price of admission in this case. Provided you don't try to totally turtle up, you can play this segment of the map literally almost any way you want and still meet with good progress (though of course some approaches are VASTLY faster than others), and the possibilities alone are delightful. Crucially, the monsters are all mostly free to move around just as freely as you are (barring the presence of some weird blocking lines at the entrances to the two little mazes), and so a board setup that initially begins with huge homogeneous blocks of hellspawn in rank and file almost inevitably boils into a massive heterogeneous riot of rolling chaos as the minutes go by. So many different things can happen in this greater setting that I doubt any two games will be quite alike here, and there are several interesting ways I can see an enthusiast toying with them. For instance, given the sheer density of the cacoswarms from the side pavillions, if you do some prep work to make it so that they can path over to one (or more) of the entrances to the YSK throne room, you can actually use them to jam one of the doors for long enough for you to slip back out after grabbing the key from the throne (the doors continue their closing cycle when obstructed until the obstruction is cleared, but with enough bodies choking the threshold you can still make this work). Probably more trouble than it's worth from a speed perspective, I'm sure, and equally unlikely to be a wrinkle of intended design, but nevertheless I love to see this sort of kooky possibility as afforded by looser, freer design.

 

As for the third segment, well...I don't think the first bit, with the recessed yards and the little setpieces in the northeast/northwest towers, really contribute much of great value to the overall experience, being far less colorful and conceptual than the later parts of the level. This content is not exactly 'bad' in a big picture sense, I suppose, but given how long the stronger, richer parts of the map already take, this stuff's presence seems excessive, getting what is arguably one of the game's strongest levels off to something of a drab start. Players for whom the style of gameplay enshrined in New Gothic is daily bread and butter might well disagree here--I've always gotten the impression that for the most devoted fans there's a sort of 'tantric' rhythm to really big slaughtermaps like this, where the marquee stuff is spaced out by designed clearing routines as part of the larger composition--but speaking for myself I think this is something of a posterchild for one of the set's weaknesses (also shared by the original NG), where the prime stuff is somewhat diluted by a lot of awkward and somewhat unsatisfying foreplay before things really start to hot up.

 

As touched upon earlier, this map also has a number of technical problems, ranging from relatively minor visual issues (HOMs in the northern areas, etc.) to really serious craft faults, ala the potentially game-ending nodebuilding problems in the northeast tower. Of these issues, perhaps the most interesting of all from an end-user perspective is that if you don't fire a shot (or swing a fist) inside the room that you start in (which is a bit of a hassle, granted, but eminently doable/manageable), none of the massive wave of creatures tied to the YSK fight will ever wake up, allowing you to make off with the prize like a thief in the night once you get there later on. Given who the intended audience of this mapset is, this is arguably not actually a very serious issue from a practical standpoint, mind you, but it's stuff like this I'm talking about when I say, with all due respect, that this set probably needed a weightier beta period before hitting /idgames.

Edited by Demon of the Well

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14 hours ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

This is what it looks like when I play this map slow and steady... It's like 10:30-ish for this demo. All in one go.

NG211.zip

Thank you very much! I've just seen it and damn you like to take risks!

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12 minutes ago, galileo31dos01 said:

Thank you very much! I've just seen it and damn you like to take risks!

In my opinion there was only one risky spot during the elevator sequence. The rest was straight forward.

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Xv3ErOvh.png

 

Map 10

gzDoom - UV – pistol start/saves

 

Well that was fun! Short and killer. The start was hilarious to get the AV to leave you alone long enough for you to run around him and dash through the revs in order to activate the switches for the BFG at the center. Really cool to see shootable switches activated with rockets. I’m so used to them being bullet based only. Nice touch.

 

Loved the layout here. It’s almost Pac-Man esque with a rectangular design, allow escape from the center and keeping the power ups in the corner. Plasma ammo everywhere! Nice. Just let it rip. The end was like a doubling down on crazy with the gates going up to lock you in (and keep others out) while assaulting you with a comical amount of beef followed by a hitscan scare right before the exit.

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ume7Fq7h.png

 

Map 11

gzDoom - UV – pistol start/saves

 

YES! Finally a midi that does some justice to an Iron Maiden song! Aces High, mother fucker. Perfect. Especially for a very fast paced map. This makes me happy. So pumped to see them this weekend!!

 

Anyways, the map starts as sort of a precision slaughter with the RL. Space is so tight to begin with, you really have to make each rocket fire count and, for the love of god, don’t kill yourself. Appreciated the use of zombie fodder for a little extra fun. *splat*

 

It’s a really great layout with multi-tiered enemies on each side as you run around on the bottom but can later get up top as well. The beginning sets the tone for what’s to come as it only gets harder with lots of revs leading up to the BFG. After that, shit gets real with cyberdemons. LOTS of them and AV’s. I liked how the soulsphere pick up spots now have megaspheres from that point on. The stakes have risen, for sure.

 

I don’t know how it was done but the infinite plasma ammo on the giant dropping circle was amazing. Running circles making sure to grab one of the megaspheres when needed. Excellent set piece of awesome crazyness. Just keep the trigger down and let it rip!

 

Finally having to somehow get through to the exit is a rough one. All of the sneaky hidden specters take up your precious space as another 8 or so cyberdicks are brought in to play with a bunch of AV’s right in front of the double locked exit. Not to mention the leftovers from behind. Hahaha. That was nuts.

 

Good stuff. Circling back to where you came from is usually a fun design. I missed the hidden IV sphere which would have been useful but oh well. Wasn’t quite able to kill everything (Circle of Death indeed) on this map as an AV launched me into the exit after I frantically opened the bars, hah. I want to go back but am too far behind and it sounds like 12 is a tricky bitch.

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1 minute ago, Demtor said:

I don’t know how it was done but the infinite plasma ammo on the giant dropping circle was amazing.

that was a voodoo doll script which pushes one puppet after another on cell charge packs during the elevator sequence. ;-)

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I'm about ready to throw in the towel on New Gothic 2.  It's pretty obvious that I'm punching way above my actual skill level with this one, and it's starting to get a bit discouraging.  I'll keep writing the reviews as I play through (probably on ITYTD from now on), and I'll give DVII a shot in a few days since it's an oldie, but it's looking like it'll take a lot longer than a month if I want to actually clear New Gothic 2.

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DVii's later maps aren't much (if any) easier than NG2 (although DVii does at least have skill levels).

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Isn't ITYTD the same as every other skill here? I remember map 01 had the same number of enemies as in UV, that's all I know. 

 

Anyway...

 

MAP11

Time: 41:25

Death Count: ?

Secrets: 1/1

 

First of all, let me introduce my first demo ever: ngm2lvl11.zip. And also let my warn you if you really want to see it, keep in mind that it lasts at least 40 minutes, if I did things right because I practically have no idea how it resulted... also thanks to Nine Inch Heels for her demo, it really helped me.

Ok, now my thoughts. A small (in terms of architecture) linear map that gives you no rest until you finnish it. I liked it for the most parts, honestly it's very hard, intense, and nuts. A lot of iddqd-practice before actually committing to play it. 

It started with a very wild scenario with lots of turrets, ambushes, and almost no space to camp for a second. My most worries were the arachnotrons and obviously the revenants. I liked blasting zombiemen troops! Then a wall of imps to rocket and chaingun why not. My idea with the Hell Knights was to lead the projectiles that came from afar to hit the nobles so I can save rockets. That didn't go well during my iddqd sessions so this time I just killed them by myself. Then I got rid of the rest and went to the BFG, to release more revenants and I made sure I killed them all because I hate revenants with all my heart.

Flipped the switch, and if you see the demo I pretty much killed all the Cyberdemons, using the HK's platform as a shield. Although a few dancing moves I had to perform to save my ass too... 

So the next part was the Circle of Death, as the map's name states, it is a fucking circle of death. I don't know if my deaths were recorded in the demo too (I hope not), but all of my deaths in the map were there. Funnily enough, most of them were just in front of the next megasphere lol. In my opinion, chaingunners and archviles there were the true fuckers. Ok, in my last attempt, I changed to the chaingun/SSG to kill the last cybers, just to save cells. And after they died, the rest is, hilarious. Teleported and asafp run to get the first invulnerability sphere. Ignoring the SMMs, run while BFG-spamming the way to reach the second sphere. Returned and tried to kill as much you-know-whom as possible, but the effect run out and I had to camp behind the circle of hell. Lucky for me, most of the cybers died due to infighting, so all I had to do is to kill whoever was coming to my spot and then make sure that there were no more cybers, no more archviles, and no more spectres. A few remaining revefuckinants and pickups and the map was ready to be exit. Yay!       

Edited by galileo31dos01 : corrected map name

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ITYTD always gives you double ammo and makes monsters do half-damage, regardless of the wad being played.

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4 minutes ago, Cynical said:

ITYTD always gives you double ammo and makes monsters do half-damage, regardless of the wad being played.

*facepalm* You're right, I forgot about that...

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49 minutes ago, galileo31dos01 said:

First of all, let me introduce my first demo ever: ngm2lvl11.zip.

welp... It doesn't play properly for me. You die like less than 10 seconds in and from there it's floor hugginng all the way...

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14 hours ago, Demon of the Well said:

Given who the intended audience of this mapset is, this is arguably not actually a very serious issue from a practical standpoint, mind you, but it's stuff like this I'm talking about when I say, with all due respect, that this set probably needed a weightier beta period before hitting /idgames.

I'm going to take this as permission to draft you as a beta tester if I make another mapset. Map9 was possibly the first map I started working on after NG1 was made and almost no one wanted to say anything about it except for nerfing the hell out of the ysk fight lol.

 

Glad the rest of you are enjoying the maps, sorry I never got around to skill levels but I figured you'd only play this if you liked ng1 and got through that.

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1 hour ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

welp... It doesn't play properly for me. You die like less than 10 seconds in and from there it's floor hugginng all the way...

Apparently I messed up everything, the recording is fine but it needs a savestate to load properly and now that savestate is occupied by map 12. So yeah, there's anything I can do *curses in spanish*

 

EDIT: Unless I do a new savestate where I can load the demo with the same status (ammo/health/armor) and probably it can be seen ok, hold on...

 

EDIT 2: Nope, it doesn't work.

Edited by galileo31dos01

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MAP14

 

Yay, another low monster count, and an easy start to go with it too. From onset, another three-key map here, with some interconnectivity in the works and some setpieces to go by. You may think it's boring but I like it that way. Given its setpiece nature, at least three strategies can be done. Like my first strategy worked in the red key zone, run around getting most of the chaingunners, but what I discover were the teleports which came in real handy for quick getaways from chaingunners and cacos alike. Yellow key area had several different strats I can think of, mostly random due to archviles and spectres. Not again with the corridor of two-shot trialing, this time, more annoying archies to counter. And then the blue key area, which I decided to save for last. No cybers to tackle, but more than enough arch-viles to punch another keyboard through. I could joke and say I can make an entire slaughtermap that doesn't contain a single arch-vile, but then again, there's all of Ultimate Doom for others to do the same thing. The teleporting horde requires the BFG as far as I'm concerned, which was available on the yellow key path. Good thing I saved this for last. This is perhaps the shortest map time-wise as well.

 

How did this guy get up there?

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NG2 m12

 

Nice to play casually by way of cheesing virtually 2/3 of the map, not going to spend any time on optimizing this thing though.

 

The opening is chaotic but grabbing the BFG and the backpack early, while playing conservative and causing lots of infights makes it a lot easier to manage, doubly so when using the monster block lines in the large building for "cover". Once most of the map's roaming monsters are down, cleaning up isn't much of a problem anymore.

 

After grabbing all keys, the encounter downstairs is easily trivialized as well, due to an invul and another megasphere.

 

The last encounter on the stairs isn't as harsh as it looks, espeically if you manage to conserve most of the last megasphere.

 

The "hinting" at the next map's theme is a nice touch that I would like to see more mappers do.

 

In regards to optimization: Sorry, I am not gong to spend any more time on that. There is too much stuff that can go wrong at any given point in time, most importantly, the invul-secret can turn into a problem when SR50s are getting spoiled by incoming projectiles, and if that's not the issue, there's always a good chance that an AV-jump gets ruined later down the line, because the AVs switch their targets in the worst possible moment, ruining the attempt entirely. A fast route would require the invul and at least 2 successful AV jumps, and since I simply do not have the nerve to roll this over and over again, I won't do any optimization for this map any time soon.

 

Sorry Archi, the map is fun to play "normally", but going for fastest route here is nothing I can bring myself to do. ;-)

 

EDIT: Also, I think this map too tight on cell-ammo.

Edited by Nine Inch Heels

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