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Jaska

New maps! Feedback for my project "Lost civilization" appreciated.

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Played only the first map. It looks great, I really dig the realistic approach and its nicely done here, I know you played Bloody Steel ;)  I like the more natural setting wich also gives a rular feel. You really need to put some custom music, since you are aiming for a more exploratory style (for what I understood) it's important that you set the right mood and a fitting track it's really important to have, especially in these kind of maps. Gameplay was allright (maybe hit and miss overall but I want to play more before jugde), it reminded of Hellcore 2 where the places are quiet and desolate and then the map fills with monsters, but without being so exaggerated.

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I played a bit of Map 1 and enjoyed it. Very nice to look at and a lot of exploration, which I don't mind at all. The outdoor screenshots in particular excite me, but I'll render "official" feedback when I've played more. Somehow it reminded me of Grand Theft Auto...

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I'm up to MAP04 now. On MAP02 I liked the parkour on the roofs to get some secrets. I'm not really sure about using that wire midtexture to delimit the walkable areas, maybe on the hills a fence would look better and on the beach having that floating wire is weird where it joins the railing of the docks. Perhaps the first 2 maps feel a bit too similar on how they play, especially regarding the teleporting monsters but I must say that MAP02 was quite tricky in the city with the hidden hitscanners ready to ambush you. I understand that handling the gameplay on maps with these kind of layouts isn't easy but I think that it's fine if maps with more diverse gameplay are mixed in the future. MAP03 felt a bit different with its more contained (and also a bit faster) action. I think that the current MAP01 and MAP02 are fine in their position, MAP03 serves well as a sort of an interlude map, is less striking compared to the other maps and it wouldn't fit well in an important slot (such as the opening). MAP04 starts to challenge you a bit more, nice change to have some more tight places this time. I'm not saying much about the visuals actually, but everything is gorgeous, I love this.

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Finished the first six now. Again, the visual design is terrific. The first several actually reminded me of Twisted Metal, especially the later ones with lots to explore. I really loved Map 05 The Fort. It had kind of a covert ops feel. I did not love Map 04. I think it was because I kept getting lost but I didn't feel it was an "exploratory" kind of lost. I also did not love Map 06, but I think that was just because of comparison to the others. I tend to prefer outdoor style maps.

 

Overall, I think the maps are great. I found the combat solid - certainly not bad, but not necessarily the shining point of the wad. I did feel I was sometimes at risk of running out of ammo, but I also only found a plasma gun/ammo in two or three maps. I do like the "seamless" feel. You made it work well without making levels blend together. I'm trying to incorporate a similar concept into a wad I'm working on, but not nearly as seamless in most cases. I thought the secrets were pretty good. I did not hunt too hard for them and usually came away with somewhere around 50%, though I still haven't gotten a darn Soul Sphere. One other very minor thing I did not care for was that you need every key in every map (I think...?). The Fort, for example, was somewhat straightforward, yet still required all the keys. I thought the difficulty was good. I played on UV, died a number of times, and did not leave much health behind.

 

Very nice. I will certainly be playing the last three soon. 

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Fantastic looking screenshots, and if it's anything like Bloody Steel, we're in for a good time indeed. Will play it ASAP. Keep up the good work.

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Thanks for the feedback!

@gaspe:

I was unsure of that wire too. Couldn't figure out anything else and thought there still has to be "something" visible to block the player.

I used to have even more chaingunners in the city but changed some to shotgunners. Have to have some threat there, imps would be too easy, I think. I have used too many imps already, heh. Teleporting is there for reason. I don't have to think if anyone falls to pit if I would have used monsters raising from the ground. That could happen in multiplayer (DM). Or if player gets past the activation linedef somehow (rocket jump etc). And it would have been frustrating if hitscanners had shot from the mountain when you clean the city. Now the problem occurs only other way.

You're right that map01&02 are quite similar and that's because they are so open. And yes, I was struggling to get any sense to gameplay.


@HAK3180

I have changed a lot between previous version and this version on map04. There was an underground "city" on earlier version. Maybe I have to make it even more straightforward.

Don't know also what to do with map06. Maybe change it to have multiple paths and leave lots of areas just optional.

Have to check out ammo balance. I tried to make ammo so scarce that you would like to search it from secrets. But maybe it was too scarce then.

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Is it possible to put a sound when destroying objects?

 

Those wood planks disappearing without making a sound  when hit really breaks my immersion :P

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23 hours ago, guineu said:

Is it possible to put a sound when destroying objects?

 

Those wood planks disappearing without making a sound  when hit really breaks my immersion :P

With my knowledge and boom-compatibility, no.

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Okay, I finished. 7 is well done, but not my favorite. 8 and 9, however, are both outstanding. 

 

After revisiting, I think I would rank the maps in this order: 8, 5, 9, 2, 1, 6, 7, 3, 4.

 

Great wad.

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On 13.10.2017 at 7:23 PM, HAK3180 said:

Okay, I finished. 7 is well done, but not my favorite. 8 and 9, however, are both outstanding. 

 

After revisiting, I think I would rank the maps in this order: 8, 5, 9, 2, 1, 6, 7, 3, 4.

 

Great wad.

Thanks! Nice to see your ranking. Helps a lot when thinking on what direction I'm going with the rest of the maps.

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Quite a lot of downloads but not so many comments. Silence is usually a good sign but a bit difficult to improve without feedback.

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Yeah I tagged this thread as I definitely want to get my hands dirty in it, but might not get a chance until the weekend

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Just played Map01 so far, that sure is one gorgeous looking map! Gameplay is also solid, and overall it's a great map! I did find one bug however, you get stuck if you fall into sector 1166.

 

I will play through the other maps as well. Great work so far! :)

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On 18.10.2017 at 9:03 PM, waverider said:

Just played Map01 so far, that sure is one gorgeous looking map! Gameplay is also solid, and overall it's a great map! I did find one bug however, you get stuck if you fall into sector 1166.

 

I will play through the other maps as well. Great work so far! :)

Thanks!

 

I fixed that bug to next version which will be hopefully quite final with maybe 5 more maps and all others updated. (Map04 has to be updated, maybe get rid of map06, add monsters & ammo to coop etc.)

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Some exceedingly cool visual stuff in here for sure. Loved the rocky overhangs and beach motifs in the early levels. Animated stormy sky graphic is a great idea, too. Gameplay in general felt quite loose, imo to a fault, but I'm not really a good source for critiquing this style of map :p.

 

no music? whyyyyy. A ton of time was obviously spent on detailing and atmosphere, and I think purposeful bgm choices would add a lot to a set like this.

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On 20.10.2017 at 11:15 PM, Ribbiks said:

Some exceedingly cool visual stuff in here for sure. Loved the rocky overhangs and beach motifs in the early levels. Animated stormy sky graphic is a great idea, too. Gameplay in general felt quite loose, imo to a fault, but I'm not really a good source for critiquing this style of map :p.

 

no music? whyyyyy. A ton of time was obviously spent on detailing and atmosphere, and I think purposeful bgm choices would add a lot to a set like this.

Thanks for feedback!
Gameplay is meant to be kind of adventurous. Not tight battle all the time.

My 1st person shooter history stops at Half-life2. So I'm not into fast gameplay. Counter-strike hmmm... 1.4 or something was the coolest thing at fast paced thing on the past. But that was a multiplayer thing. That's why all gameplay feedback is important. I still want to make a megawad what will be remembered in all aspects. Maybe I have to play more to get myself to today's standards. Haven't had time to do that... Also I'm more of a creator of a "worlds", not too good on gameplay. I have still had a lot of thought about the gameplay but it's only my view how it should be implemented.. And it's quite slow and forgiving, mostly.

For animated sky you must thank @Eradrop

Music. I don't like midi music at all. So.. I yet don't know what to do with it.
bgm choices?

Edited by Jaska : Typos

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FDA dump - prboom-plus complevel 9 with saves.  I think I averaged about 30 minutes on each map, and found almost all the secrets except map09.   I relied on prboom-plus's cheaty purple automap secret sector indicator.  I had to use Doombuilder for map05 though, and didn't bother to replay the map for them (i hate those types of secrets.)

 

These are pretty fun to explore, and look beautiful too.  Best enjoyed if you arent in a hurry.  I actually think I liked maps 1, 2 and 8 the best because it was fun to wander the landscapes.  I also really liked hanging out of the roof of map 9. i liked chilling in the pool and staring at the sky for some reason.  Some of the more "doomy" maps in the middle of the wad were solid but not as impactful to me personally.

 

Minor things: in prboom i saw some HOMs on map 08.  There's also some places throughout the wad where hanging decorations are blocking, and you could get caught on them.  there might have been other things too throughout the mapset, but I don't remember anything in particular.

 

edit: these also reminded me of maps by user didy.  his maps are also atmosphere heavy and stuff.  also, good job

Edited by NoisyVelvet

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Finally got some time to play more of this, reached MAP08.

 

On 11/10/2017 at 3:16 PM, Jaska said:

You're right that map01&02 are quite similar and that's because they are so open. And yes, I was struggling to get any sense to gameplay.

I don't think it isn't a big problem anymore to me, my initial skepticism went away since the rest of the map play rather differently. Getting a sense of gameplay for this kind of maps that have lots of open spaces can be hard I guess, I remember that when I was making a big city map for my project and I see that MAP08 will be a city, I'm curious to see what you did there.

 

23 hours ago, Jaska said:

Music. I don't like midi music at all. So.. I yet don't know what to do with it.

bgm choices?

Quite a shame I think that with some fitting music the maps will be even more cool. Using midi music is the most popular common practice but there are some alternatives, like mod/tracker music. If you use ZDoom format with the scripts you can make the music to play and stop when you wish. Or another thing you can do in Boom format is to have no music but with dehacked you can make ambiental noises (crackling fire, flowing water and so on).

 

The animated sky in MAP05 is neat. The ammo balance on pistol start was very tight compared to the other levels. There's this sky cut-off on the first tall tower from both the smaller ones:

Spoiler

doom00.png.a2c22c96d1a2c1bfa2948a7b83dbea62.png

In the second tower I guess that there are some sector tricks used to make the faux floors and I somehow managed to make the monster to stay trapped in the upper rooms. I don't think it's an issue, it was rather fun actually.

MAP06 is fine imo and I really liked the level. You made a very good job with the textures to create that 3D feel, I wouldn't get rid of that map. I think that the easter jail has a bit problem of making you go back and forth too much in that area, things could be more straightforward and short.

On MAP07 I liked the boom effects of teleporting items and the scrolling floor, they looked like things normally integrated in the setting rather than being features put for the sake of it. The SS Nazi reskin was okay. That -20% health damaging steam is too much.

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very nice opening on Map01, you know immediately how you're supposed to go about the map. you're supposed to explore. the wire texture seems really off and it would actually be better if the wall was just invisible. im not a big fan of the gun sound replacements, as i think the originals are just fine but its in no way a major issue. some of the secrets felt really easy and the map was a breeze until blue key / final stretch (i did that one last)

 

map02 update... sometime

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Thanks @NoisyVelvet! Watched FDA:s. Nice play at the end of the laboratory map with 1hp :) Was close on map01 too. I added ammo&health to some maps. Changed map05's secrets a little. HOM's fixed. (I quite don't undestand why there are always 1 or 2 textures missing.. Shows up in gzdoombuilder but not in game. Also missed missing textures on testing.. Changed one texture completely.) Also one skybox hom was there. I'm thinking to delete those hanging decorations.. Or change them with dehacked. Haven't yet done anything with the dehacked though. I have the understanding it will make it harder to play with gameplay mods or something. Checked some didy's maps on editor. They looked very nice, atmospheric and the detailing was very good. Very nice texturing.

 

@gaspe Thanks for the feedback! I'm trying to find some midis but that will be maybe the last thing I'll do. I've had some suggestions though. Ambient sounds would be a great thing.. For my understanding it would need that I replace some decoration etc to get that sound on a some point of the map.. I have so much trees and stuff already replaced that I'm lacking things to replace. And the point that using dehacked would possibly prevent people from using gameplay mods.. I added ammo on map05 and also to some others. Tried to get rid of that cut-off as much as possible. Odd that i missed it myself.  I also noticed that they can be trapped there. With soundblocking lines that could be avoided. But still there is possiility to encounter them being up there by going different route to the red key. I think it's ok.

 

I'm thinking what to do with map06. It's true that too there is too much time spent in that one spot. On map07 changed damaging effect to 2-5%. I liked the idea of some kind of interaction with the laboratory and that's what I came up to.

 

@yuse Thanks! I'll get rid of that wire texture. Yes, some are easy. I'm quite sure still most of the players won't find all of them on 1st playthrough if they are not particularly searching them. I wanted to reward the player for exploring the levels rather than just running through. Map01 is the opening and not the hardest one for that reason if I undestand you right it being too easy? I'm still not sure if it will be map01 on the final mappack.

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@Jaska Make sure you get second opinions on those map05 secrets.  I just hate them cuz these maps are fun to backtrack through and find all the secrets in, so throwing that type of secret in the middle of the wad caught me off guard.  I hit switches as soon as I see 'em, so it didn't register to me that I missed it.  I ended up wasting time personally.

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Are these changes live in the link in the OP? It seems you've changed a lot by now so I don't want to beta test an old version

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For what little it's worth, I am also not a fan of sound effect changes, especially when the overall feel is still pretty much classic Doom.

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Really Amazing Mapset.

Played it in the last week, and I must say the maps felt to me very Atmosphere.

I'm a big fan of "Search and destroyed" maps, and lot's of options to search, many secrets, etc.

About the musics, im very disappointing. I really think a maps of scale like this should have special music each. In some maps I preferred playing with the music muted, to keep the atmosphere.

About map 7, (Labortory), that was really suffering to play it with D_RUNNIN.

Over all, Really damn Amazing mapset, it's something that we dont see everyday and it must be appreciated.

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