Nova III - now on /idgames

Uploading is so annoying but finally the video is uploaded. The resolution may be bad for the moment.

Map candidate: Alpha Scorpii Supercluster by @antares031

Can UV Max be done?-Yes.

Time: 39:26-anta-3926.zip

Youtube video: Alpha Scorpii Supercluster UV Max in 39:26

A very long map...It took me long time to find the way out.

Also I hate a cyberdemon upstairs.

It's hard to believe this is still considered a newbie contributed megawad, NOVA II was leaps and bounds better than the original and this looks like it's going to potentially outdo the second one too. Just great work all-round.

1 hour ago, lirui1001 said:

Time: 39:26-anta-3926.zip

Thanks for the UV-Max demo, lirui! I really appreciate this one. :)

It seems like the MIDI now loops fine with other people's computer, and the monster placements also look no problem with the current beta version (thanks for pointing them out from the previous version, @loveless! ). I'm sure that this one will be the final beta version, if there's no major glitch that breaks the level. The cyberdemon encounter in front of the blue key door was designed to practice two-shot tactic under the difficult circumstance; a 192-units wide staircase. That's why I placed a BFG and some cells right near that encounter. :D

2 hours ago, Scotty said:

......is your map entirely made of addon textures? It appears that way. I'm not sure about the prospect of that to be honest, because it adds unnecessary bloat to the texture wad especially where there are masses of general usage rock and tech textures already in there.

While some of them are quoted, and edited, from my texture pack called Kerberos Complex Texture Pack, most of them were newly-designed exclusively for this level to demonstrate the moon base with white-colored metal panel textures. And I'll be honest that I can't bring an alternative choice of textures for current design, since changing texture will give totally different feeling and environment. I'm sure that several megawads had a level like this with unique textures, compare to other levels, like MAP20 of Alien Vendetta. Besides, the size of custom textures is lighter than the level itself; while the level is about 5.8MB, the textures are 2.2MB in total. I believe that it won't cause too much overload to the texture pack.

But then again, I will try to find some textures from the current texture pack, if they can replace the original ones perfectly, and I'll update my level sooner or later.

9 minutes ago, antares031 said:

The cyberdemon encounter in front of the blue key door was designed to practice two-shot tactic under the difficult circumstance; a 192-units wide staircase.

And definitely I made you disappointed :(

Alrighty, so the plan is that in early March i compile a new alpha. That seems like a good point to do a big old testing and feedback stream (if my net connection allows) - so get something posted by March 1st if you want my undivided attention on it for a thorough round of testing! We're getting there - slowly but surely.

@antares031 i get that the white techbase is an important part of how your map looks, that's fine, i don't want to compromise the basic vision anyone has in terms of aesthetics, but equally the project has to work as a whole and so some compromise is always to be expected. I can't just add tonnes of textures where they are only very slightly different to stuff already provided in the texture pack, this is to avoid precedents being set for random minor new textures and things getting out of control in that area. Your map definitely doesn't HAVE to be 100% new textures as you have presented.

Yes if antares read the OP they'd see the suggested limit of around 10 new textures, if they can't follow the project guidelines then I'm not sure why they're trying to submit their map for this project and not just taking it elsewhere.

Antares started on his map before i assumed responsibility as project lead and added that stipulation, to be fair. That's why i haven't mentioned it.

Template copied from @antares031. ;)

Requires the resource pack found in the 2nd post here.

Map Download (map28): Voyagers28_V1.zip

Author: Spectre01
Map name: Voyagers Beneath The Mare Imbrium
Version: Beta

Difficulty: Hard

Suggested map slot: map28 or 29. Currently occupies the 28 slot. It's likely to be one of the longer and harder maps in the set.

Compatibility: Boom
Playtesting: PRBoom+ 2.5.1.4
Skill settings: Yes, but lower settings not yet tested.

Estimated playtime: 45~55 minutes to UV-Max

 
Build time: 1 year, on and off.
Tools used: GZDB (Bugfix), Slade 3, GIMP 2.0
Resources: Nova 3 resource pack
Music track: Midi remix of Ecuador by Sash! (Yes, really.)

Lore: A large UAC base on the Moon; inside a massive crater. Overtaken and corrupted by Hellspawn. Destroy the reactor to close the main portal!

Comments: Designed to be played from a Pistol Start. Gameplay starts somewhat low-key (use that Berserk!) and then escalates when you lower the large red force-field. A lot more spacious and low-pressure compared to my other maps, while hopefully keeping some of that intimidating factor. Any kind of feedback, especially for non-UV difficulty settings, is much appreciated! Also, let me know if you find any exploits/cheese, as I take that very seriously. Good luck and have fun!

Screenshots:

Starting Area

Geothermal Activity

Tower

Super Lunar Reactor

An updated version of my level. Special thanks to @MegaBlast, for the live playtesting stream on Twitch.

- Now requires nv3txv1.3.wad

- Deleted 161 custom textures

Click Here to download

I think I can go ahead and call this the final version - I certainly can't think of much else to change. All that's left to do is difficulty levels, coop placements and overall balancing but I'll get around to those closer to release.

Nova3-amok-Deep Space 9mmFinal.wad

Also @antares031, that link is broken!
 

Best of luck to you guys.

39 minutes ago, amok said:

@antares031, that link is broken!

Thanks for the notice. It's fixed now.

On 24/02/2018 at 7:27 AM, Spectre01 said:

Voyagers Beneath The Mare Imbrium

This is a giant Sunder style slaughter map, and so isn't suitable for this project, in exactly the same way that Market Anarchy's wasn't. I have already posted about slaughter maps and their place in this project in the OP, and to you directly in pm some time ago.

Having mulled things over in the last 24 hours, any future submissions to this project (ie brand new maps) will have to meet a non-negotiable 350 monster limit. This is to ensure thorough playtesting is possible.

@Scotty The monster limit before was stated to be around 1000, which my map slightly exceeds. Second of all, this map is nowhere near @MarketAnarchy's in both scale and difficulty. Thirdly, there is nothing "Sunder-style" about my map. If something is "too hard", I can always reduce the difficulty, as seen in HMP and HNTR. Also, what does monster count have to do with "thorough playtesting"?

It goes past the prior limit by 140 monsters, that isn't "slightly". Your map absolutely in the same ball park as Market's, it took me around 55 mins on the timer to finish it. I have played every single map submitted to this, and yours is not even close to the other maps. So i disagree about the length and difficulty.

I'm implementing the monster limit because testing big maps takes much, much longer than smaller ones and things have to be done properly, and i don't have all the time in the world just to work on this one project. I would have thought the correlation was obvious.

Cutting down the monster count by 140 is within the realm of possibility; to fit an arbitrary limit. Also, antares' map has a similarly long playtime, and I don't see any complaints there. Authors and other members are perfectly capable of map testing. Not sure why you're making it sound like you'll be the only bloke testing these maps.

My map is getting close to finished... But due to some stupid personal problems I'm not sure if I'll get it ready for playtesting by the deadline...

Here are some quick screenshots:

On 2/24/2018 at 2:27 AM, Spectre01 said:

Template copied from @antares031. ;)

 

Requires the resource pack found in the 2nd post here.

Map Download (map28): Voyagers28_V1.zip

 

Author: Spectre01
Map name: Voyagers Beneath The Mare Imbrium
Version: Beta

Difficulty: Hard

Suggested map slot: map28 or 29. Currently occupies the 28 slot. It's likely to be one of the longer and harder maps in the set.

 

Compatibility: Boom
Playtesting: PRBoom+ 2.5.1.4
Skill settings: Yes, but lower settings not yet tested.

Estimated playtime: 45~55 minutes to UV-Max

 
Build time: 1 year, on and off.
Tools used: GZDB (Bugfix), Slade 3, GIMP 2.0
Resources: Nova 3 resource pack
Music track: Midi remix of Ecuador by Sash! (Yes, really.)

 

Lore: A large UAC base on the Moon; inside a massive crater. Overtaken and corrupted by Hellspawn. Destroy the reactor to close the main portal!

 

Comments: Designed to be played from a Pistol Start. Gameplay starts somewhat low-key (use that Berserk!) and then escalates when you lower the large red force-field. A lot more spacious and low-pressure compared to my other maps, while hopefully keeping some of that intimidating factor. Any kind of feedback, especially for non-UV difficulty settings, is much appreciated! Also, let me know if you find any exploits/cheese, as I take that very seriously. Good luck and have fun!

I had to open the map in DB to figure out what to do in the hell/lava area with lots of monsters.

The one bit of staging that seemed dickish was the big goat horde + cybs after getting the YK. Like everything about this suggests that it's a "hold the breach" type fight where you have to stand your ground against the goats, but a cyb appears behind you too. 

Fights are pretty fun, but progression at times has been tiresome. After the big rev horde + other stuff, there's also that switch in a hard-to-spot position, for no particular reason. I think I've spent a good third of my time playing this map so far just hunting for switches, which is surprising given how relatively straightforward the layout is. 

Thanks for the feedback @rdwpa!

3 hours ago, rdwpa said:

I had to open the map in DB to figure out what to do in the hell/lava area with lots of monsters.

Was the issue finding the 2 switches near the monster teleporters? Those seemed like logical points of interest to me; any suggestions on how to make that more obvious?

Quote

The one bit of staging that seemed dickish was the big goat horde + cybs after getting the YK. Like everything about this suggests that it's a "hold the breach" type fight where you have to stand your ground against the goats, but a cyb appears behind you too.

I felt the original "hold the line" fight was a bit mundane; so that Cyber created an interesting infighting scenario where you can make him engage the incoming goats, and then decide on a good time to get rid of him so he doesn't randomly rocket you in the face when stuff gets too close. I could probably make the Cyber-spawn locations more visually consistent, so that the player catches on by the time they reach the lower level. 

Quote

Fights are pretty fun, but progression at times has been tiresome. After the big rev horde + other stuff, there's also that switch in a hard-to-spot position, for no particular reason. I think I've spent a good third of my time playing this map so far just hunting for switches, which is surprising given how relatively straightforward the layout is. 

I thought that switch might be an issue, so I added that blood trail + corpse to try and signpost it. I can definitely change that to a more obvious location. Obscure progression was not my intention. And yeah, there are a few somewhat redundant switches that I can cut as well.

On 26/02/2018 at 12:10 AM, Spectre01 said:

Cutting down the monster count by 140 is within the realm of possibility; to fit an arbitrary limit. Also, antares' map has a similarly long playtime, and I don't see any complaints there. Authors and other members are perfectly capable of map testing. Not sure why you're making it sound like you'll be the only bloke testing these maps.

Nothing "arbitrary" about any limits imposed they are all there for a considered reason, all of which i have explained. Antares' map is a completely different kettle of fish in terms of general difficulty and if you've actually played it you'd know that. Yes, others can playtest of course, but it's my job to pay attention and make sure everything works out as a whole and so my attention is necessary in many areas, at least by my own standards of leading what i would consider to be a cohesive and good quality wad.

Truth is, you've just blatantly ignored my prior advice as to where to pitch the difficulty as well as the monster limit, and yet rather than actually taking this onboard you're just arguing about it in spite of how clearly wide of the mark you have been. You know what i can't actually be bothered to try and work with you in this project going forward, i'll use my energy helping people that give a shit. Good luck elsewhere.

On 26/02/2018 at 9:48 PM, Skeletonpatch said:

My map is getting close to finished... But due to some stupid personal problems I'm not sure if I'll get it ready for playtesting by the deadline...

 

Here are some quick screenshots:

  Reveal hidden contents

The Exterior:

 

The Roof:

 

And the automap:

 

Keep going for now. I have some important IRL stuff going on this week so you got a couple of extra days...

@Scotty You take over the project after it's been going for over a year, during which people have been making maps, and then impose your own harsh limits that never existed before. A single, medium-difficulty, slaughter-ish map is not going to ruin the entire megawad, which is what you're trying to make it sound like: "0/5, good wad but I died on map28." Is there no difficulty/scale progression here at all? Or is the intention to cater this set to "that guy" who always plays on UV with no saves and then whines if he happens to die? I have already cut down everything significantly and implemented lower difficulty levels which are: A) under the 1k monster limit and B) significantly easier, which can always been switched out for the current UV. You're creating drama where there isn't any; and, furthermore, trying to treat this as "your wad", where you make all the rules and disregard any other opinions.

I certainly give a shit about making a positive contribution, but am not sure if you actually give a shit about the work other people have put in if it doesn't fit your "vision" of what this wad should be.

23 hours ago, Spectre01 said:

"that guy" who always plays on UV with no saves and then whines if he happens to die?

:^)

here's an fda from "that guy", for @Spectre01's Voyager. (prb+; cl-1; uv-saves)

2 sessions: 1 hour last night and 2 hours (i think) today.  ~3.1 hrs total.

i played last night before bedtime.  In the left wing: I spent 20 mins trying to find the eyeball switch, but by then my brain was already preparing for slumber; i did poorly in the fight that followed, so i stopped there.

i continued today from last save; copied first demo; if you care about the 5 mins that were chopped off first session, it's included.  I beat the map after a while but used save states at an accelerating rate.  A couple parts I sorta brute-forced through.  my playstyle patter is that i always become a limp noodle over time.  And for long maps like this, that's when they like to heat things up too.  additionally, I'm not the best at slaughter anyways.

link: noisy_Voyager.zip not worth watching unless you wanna see me suck for 3 hrs straight.

I had a bit of switch-hunt confusion (i read above that others did too).  also, there's the furthest lift in the east wing that doesn't seem to be marked the same as the other lifts, so it didn't register as "lift" to me.  perhaps a texturing error?  cool map.  a bit grindy for me here and there (and when i'm already 30 mins into a map i'm unlikely to restart on lower difficulty).  favorite parts were the little platforming nuggets in a couple places, and the map looked cool all around. 

on the note of contention above though: The map seemed a lot harder/longer than the maps in Nova 2 (eg. Map26,29,32)

I see where Spectre is coming from if there were actually ex-post-facto restrictions, or hard-limits interpreted as ballpark guidelines, etc.  But on the otherhand, i kinda don't like mind seeing hard-handed process Scotty is using to wrap this thing up.  Not my project anyways so w/e.  Sorry if you become a sacrificial lamb, Spectre, i assume the map isn't gonna go to waste either way. *salutes*

On 2/27/2018 at 8:13 AM, Spectre01 said:

Thanks for the feedback @rdwpa!

 

Was the issue finding the 2 switches near the monster teleporters? Those seemed like logical points of interest to me; any suggestions on how to make that more obvious?

It was the "eye" switches that triggered the big fight. I'm not sure what's possible other than just using a conventional switch or something, because tbh even if I looked directly at it (prior to having to check GZDB), I would have just thought it was unconventional texture use for the sake of design, rather than switches you'd have to press. 

As far as difficulty goes, the comparisons to 26/29/32 in N2 are worth looking at. Most of 29 is really softballed despite being a Ribbiks/Tourniquet collab that has lots of setpieces. 32 is extremely long, but the slaughter combat in it is also extremely airy -- the sort where an experienced player can just run around and not get hit by stuff, and where someone with no slaughter experience can conceivably not die for long stretches due to how much space they have. 26 has the toughest fights on average of those three, but the danger is mostly concentrated at the beginnings of a few big encounters. 

Your map is relatively chill by your standards, and if it were "just" an hour long (meaning a 20-30 minute casual max with foreknowledge), it wouldn't be too far removed from N2 26/29/32. The difficulty of encounters isn't much higher at its peak than in those maps. But the combination of more frequent lethality (the difficulty doesn't peak exceptionally high, but it hits or gets close to that peak very often compared to N2 26/29/32), coupled with also being two or three hours long, make it a different kettle of fish entirely. I personally think that length doesn't scale linearly with effort: once we're into "upper mid-length" territory and beyond, a map that is twice as long as another represents more like 3-4 times the effort, rather than just 2x, because of the fatigue factor. So, yeah, that combination of factors make it a bit much for a set like this, I'd say.

It's still not too late, right? Right?! @Scotty?

I've finally gotten my map to the point where I'm satisfied enough to upload it here.
 

Author: Skeletonpatch
Map name: Platform Base

Version: V1 (Version #1, or Beta 0.1 if you really care about how I number things)

Difficulty: Balanced for Easy, Medium and Hard. Meant to be an early episode 3 map, so I tried to reflect that in the difficulty.

Suggested map slot: Currently occupies MAP25, I'd prefer an earlier slot than that if possible

Compatibility: Boom
Playtesting: PRBoom+ 2.5.1.4, GZDoom 1-5-03
Skill settings: Yes

Estimated playtime: 20~30 if you're not taking your time

 
Build time: Four months, on and off
Tools used: GZDoom Builder R2787
Resources: Nova 3 resource pack
Music track: Currently the default Doom II MAP25 MIDI, it seems to fit the map well enough. If you can find something more appropriate, go ahead.

[Download link removed]

Not much of the map has changed since I last uploaded screenshots, so I didn't feel the need to include any new ones.

You just gotta love it when real life comes to punch you in the gut when trying to do anything personally important to you. Please let me know if there are any problems with the map, specifically balancing issues (too hard on easy, too easy on hard). I used joined dummy sectors for several things in the map (most importantly in the monsters' teleportation closet) that GZDoom builder was quite fond of separating for absolutely no reason at all, breaking the map. I must have needed to go through the map fixing those maybe four separate times, so tell me if that has happened again. In the extremely high chance that I am too late, I'll probably repackage the map and release it separately at some point assuming I don't get lazy.

14 hours ago, Skeletonpatch said:

You just gotta love it when real life comes to punch you in the gut when trying to do anything personally important to you. Please let me know if there are any problems with the map, specifically balancing issues (too hard on easy, too easy on hard). I used joined dummy sectors for several things in the map (most importantly in the monsters' teleportation closet) that GZDoom builder was quite fond of separating for absolutely no reason at all, breaking the map. I must have needed to go through the map fixing those maybe four separate times, so tell me if that has happened again. In the extremely high chance that I am too late, I'll probably repackage the map and release it separately at some point assuming I don't get lazy.

Really cute map. Reminds me of Icarus with all of those bedrooms. Funny use of bathrooms. Recurring motifs, such as the stock-up rooms with resources, are done well. Fights are mostly quite leisurely, but I did enjoy the sudden baron appearance at the desk that you platform to.

One problem to address would be the last fight, with the four cybers in each quadrant. You can just circle around the arena while firing streams of 20-40 plasma at one cyber, stopping, moving to the next cyber, and repeating until all four are dead. It's impossible to die, but quite boring. I initially tried to see if there was a way to get the BFG, but it's difficult to hunt for subtle cues with cybs still around, so I didn't go for it. Hitting the four switches that allow you to leave is also risky with the cybs alive, because the spiral stairs are awkward to climb quickly. (And I think it's a bad idea to make the incentive for taking such a risk "avoiding the tedium of the straightforward method" -- better to make the straightforward way fun enough, but the risky way even more fun, imo.)

To restructure the fight, I'd suggest removing two of the cyberdemons and adding some number of archviles, pain elementals, and hitscanners. That would make the fight more dangerous and also a lot faster without the BFG. 

1 hour ago, rdwpa said:

 

Really cute map. Reminds me of Icarus with all of those bedrooms. Funny use of bathrooms. Recurring motifs, such as the stock-up rooms with resources, are done well. Fights are mostly quite leisurely, but I did enjoy the sudden baron appearance at the desk that you platform to.

 

One problem to address would be the last fight, with the four cybers in each quadrant. You can just circle around the arena while firing streams of 20-40 plasma at one cyber, stopping, moving to the next cyber, and repeating until all four are dead. It's impossible to die, but quite boring. I initially tried to see if there was a way to get the BFG, but it's difficult to hunt for subtle cues with cybs still around, so I didn't go for it. Hitting the four switches that allow you to leave is also risky with the cybs alive, because the spiral stairs are awkward to climb quickly. (And I think it's a bad idea to make the incentive for taking such a risk "avoiding the tedium of the straightforward method" -- better to make the straightforward way fun enough, but the risky way even more fun, imo.)

 

To restructure the fight, I'd suggest removing two of the cyberdemons and adding some number of archviles, pain elementals, and hitscanners. That would make the fight more dangerous and also a lot faster without the BFG. 

Thanks for the feedback. As I was making this map I was quite proud of the little things that I implemented, such as the lights on the doors having different colours and effects depending on how that door was operated (red/blue/yellow for keys, green for doors requiring switches, glowing lights for readily openable and flickering lights for not readily openable). Of course, this idea came to me about half way through making the map and I'm pretty sure I forgot to correct some doors that were made before that idea was implemented, but I'll try to remember to fix it if I have time. I also added quite a bit of environmental storytelling that I'm quite proud of, and I hope that it doesn't go unnoticed.

Concerning the bossfight, I personally found it enjoyable in the sense that I liked the way I approached it (as in, I enjoyed running around the circumference of the arena pumping plasma into the Cybies). I see what you mean though, not everyone will like that sort of setup and the way I designed the encounter probably doesn't facilitate other methods of fighting particularly well. I didn't add hitscanners to the fight because I thought they would either die too quickly to make a difference or make the fight more frustrating than it needs to be. The latter reason also applies to why I didn't include Pain Elementals or Arch Viles. The BFG is a secret and there is a specific floor panel that must be stepped on in order to access it, I tried to make this floor panel kind of obvious, but I did find myself activating it unintentionally several times so it is possible to simply stumble upon it. I'll try to address these problems and make the fight more exciting if I have time, and to be completely honest I found the fight to be more relaxing whenever I tested it which is kind of ironic.

*del*

I found some time to work on my map and address some of @rdwpa's concerns, hopefully the bossfight is more interesting now as well as more easily approachable with more than one method of fighting. I cut the number of Cybies down from four to two, and also divided the arena into quadrants that the monsters cannot freely pass between (I did this so that there wouldn't be massive clumps of monsters infighting with one another, in V1 the arena was divided into halves). I also added some more monster types to hopefully inject the fight with more variety since that was rather lacking before.

A quick repeat of the map's background info:

[Download link removed]

14 hours ago, Skeletonpatch said:

Platform Base V2 Download

The player spawns in the wrong spot. 

1 hour ago, rdwpa said:

The player spawns in the wrong spot. 

After looking back at the .wad I uploaded, it would seem I forgot to put the Player 1 Start Spot back at the beginning of the map after revamping the bossfight. Thank you for pointing that out, I'll fix it and upload V3.

Though that should make it a bit less time consuming for you to playtest the bossfight since that was the only major thing that I changed between versions of the map and I deliberately designed the encounter to be beatable without collecting any resources from the rest of the map (mainly to make my own playtesting less time-consuming), though the only weapons available are the rocket launcher, plasma gun and BFG if you start the map at the bossfight.