The Blast Furnace [/idgames]

Hey there everyone I made a wad from scratch which I did not even finish :/ (as in beatable). I wanted to go with a lava like gothic theme which fits a furnace atmosphere or image . Design was priority over game play so don't expect much compensation for these screenshots, sorry . I am hoping any game play edits can be made, I am just Gonna release this directly rather than add it with my other junk. Its relatively short and is only comprised of area after area after area. But Dang the way prboom plus takes screenshots is freaking terrible, they become very distorted and uneven in colour .

Current version v1 , all gameplay edits previously were made by me . I could not beat the level so Good Luck :)

Port Tested: prboom-plus (complevel9)

Name : The Blast Furnace 

Monsters : Under 900 and Over 800

Difficulty : HARD like really hard

Download : TBlstFu.zip (cc4-tex is not required , as I have already merged the textures) 

Requirements: CC4-TEX.wad

Comments : Have Fun!

Screenshots:

was this inspired by Sunder Map 11?

No Not really , Just the midi used . I made Most of the designs myself

A su11 styled map that doesn't appear to be grindy, I'm interested!

I don't have enough save slots left to go and play this map in it's entirety.  I'm writing this post as I go along, posting some images and giving a few thoughts.  I'll probably end up stopping pretty soon as I'm playing without saves :(   

I like what you did with the second fight here, viles coming in off the pickups.  My only suggestion would be to make it a lock in.  Running away and baiting a storm of projectiles into the cybers made it very easy to hang back and watch the room kill itself.  

Thank fuck this isn't a lock in, I almost panicked.  Maybe I should discriminate a bit when it comes to what I think should be a lock in or not.  

I killed the cybers first for some reason then had a very real "oh shit" reaction once I saw the revenants.  I was able to get it into a pretty quick circle-strafe.  Baiting them far onto the stairs gave me the room to move around the pillars.  

This left me wanting more, much more.  I'm not sure what could be added to this.  

wtf is this?  

Here's where my journey ended.  I pulled all the HK's to the right side, had the cyber fighting them and turned back to deal with the vile through the bars.  I was 200/200 starting this fight so I'm not sure how I died so fast, I'll assume a cyber rocket and some stacked rev/hk projectiles.  

Got halfway through the map on one attempt.  Not going to lie, I was hoping to one-shot it ;))  This is fun, I look forward to finishing it later.

Yeah, most encounters are relatively simple. Some tougher ones are sprinkled around at times, but are all comfortably manageable with the supplies given. The harshest one by a mile is the fight with ten cubby viles released in open space. Running the long distance to the big pillars to cover can work, but there is RNG in how many of the viles target you, and if it's too many you'll die. So the seemingly intended strategy of holing up in the upper right cubby for a short time and then diving in to get the megasphere is the safest bet, but still way more dangerous than anything else in the map, and if you get bad vile RNG it can go bad quick. I think you should soften this a bit and make other fights slightly harsher to compensate. 

One thing that would make me not want to spend too much time on this map, though, is the way voodoo doll triggers are used. In the second area, there are bars that eventually lower after a set time. The thing is there is basically no threat while waiting for this, not even the two viles that show up suddenly. You can stay there and clean stuff up, but in a run or a just a regular saveless playthrough, I really just want to get the cybs infighting stuff and then leave immediately, because everything roaming gets mopped up later when I return anyway, and the perched stuff can be thinned by cybs progressively before being cleaned up at the end. So I'm kind of confused about why the map is actively constraining me to a couple of minutes of cleanup duty at this point.  

Voodoo dolls, on top of their obvious ability to script simultaneous and sequential events, are sometimes a good way of getting things to go 'automatically' in a map when setting up a player trigger can be more clunky, but that can be counterproductive if they slow down the pace of a map. I think that given the nature of the second area, which is completely nonthreatening if you clear out the first area and can retreat into it, and not too harsh even if you rush and leave stuff behind in the first area, there isn't much of a need to gate the player in. So I'd suggest removing the bars entirely, or at least controlling them with a switch instead, or drastically reducing how long it takes for them to lower. The encounters where the timed bars are fine are the big ones in the side area where you first get the backpack, and the very last fight.

I think it has the core of a fun map though, and can get there with changes to allow the player to set their own pace at times. Reminds me of a CS2-type map. 'Neat' assortments of big blocks of monsters, fights often using two or three species of monsters, with an emphasis on cyb infighting.  

Nice

This reminds of me the time when I played sunder map 11 ,  this is in my opinion a neat designing capability . 

I like this

I would like to a huge thanks to @rdwpaand @loveless for giving some feedback on this . I don't think I have the skills of a 'good' mapper , and from what I have read, I still have a long way to understand the gameplay mentality and it's mechanism . I will continue making maps for doom and I will update the wad shortly with extra changes and buffs. I am hoping that loveless can add some more info before I add the changes and edits . I hope this sums up my reply.

Cheers.

14 hours ago, CarboxylicAcids said:

I am hoping that loveless can add some more info before I add the changes and edits.

I actually made a second installation of prboom+ just to have other save slots and stuff for playing multiple wads.  I'll give it a complete playthrough sometime tomorrow.

Did a casual max for v1. I didn't realize where the last monster spawned at the end, but that isn't a big deal I guess. 

tbfv1_rd_demo.zip

As far as difficulty reassignment -- to compensate for the mass vile reveal being softer -- one part that stands out as being a good option is the last arena fight, which is fairly easygoing.  

An interesting thing I noticed is that the bars in the backpack area allow projectiles to pass through, so you always have to watch your back when you leave monsters behind, making the 'hold your ground' fights in there a bit more complicated, which I guess is a good thing in this case. 

Hello.

Fun map. Your mapping style fills a place which I really enjoy tbh. Not really going to say too much sense rdwpa and loveless already provided commentary but..

I would say watch your linedef triggers. I skipped the final vile ambush without realizing it. If the player is moving south/west skipping linedefs, even slanted linedefs, is pretty easy if they are not doubled. Situate your lines so that there are two duplicate lines 16 units apart. I havent ever skipped any triggers I have setup like this. No need to slant your lines either.

You can skip lines moving north/east but you will need something else to boost your speed (like a rocket jump). But I would still double them wherever possible because I basically skipped the final fight without realizing it =x.

Looking forwards to more maps!

Hey there! I made same minor changes , including ammo distribution and monster placement . Here is the full details:

-Added a bunch of Mancubus in the first area to spice things up a bit

-A Secret Megasphere

-Design and some minor texture alignment

-Added some floor pinky in the final area and increased archi count , a soulsphere was added for compensation

-Hell knight horde area was nerfed, removed 4 archi from 10 and replaced with revs to make it less grindy, a soulsphere was added as well

-2 archviles spawn after picking up the bfg

-Cyberdemon and rev teleport delay was removed , so they will teleport the moment you pass the lindef(aka pick up the bfg)

-Doubled every trigger linedef in the map just like what @Killer5 mentioned to prevent any linedef skipping

-Reduced time for gate to lower by 20% just like what @rdwpa mentioned and reduced time for gate to open by 10% in the rev horde area

-Added a vile a midst the pinky and rev horde to spice things up a bit

-Added extra vile in the final area , to compensate a soulsphere was added

-Changed ammo placement and order to prevent wastage of ammo and accidental use, thanks to @loveless for this mention

-Added a vile after gate opens to spice things up

-Reduced time for guns to lower by 1 sec

-Removed switch so after the player is done with the rev area he can go straight to pick up the bfg which they will need in on order to beat the huge horde area , I also changed changed the ammunition position so that its not a forced pickup and the ammo is not wasted in any way whatsoever .

Thats all , I will be adding some difficulty settings soon! yep soon!

Also huge thanks to @bemused for some awesome support , he makes some truly scary awesome stuff =)

*Update in the first post*

Hope this helps, have a good day :)

Hello Again! I am here to post my probably the final updates before I upload this onto idgames for official link .Major edits include: 

-Not a very coop friendly however, Added Coop game play.

-Minor texture alignments .

-Difficulty settings have been introduced.

-Minor ammo distribution.

-Only the necessary textures were merged , took me quite a while to figure and learn the texture merging process.

-Fixed some small bugs .

-Added a very basic and non-amusing titlepic which I made in like half an hour

-Added a titlepic midi and a custom title

-Monsters were nerfed with adding more pinkies in the final fight

-Health and armor added in the final area for precautions

Probably the final update , thanks everyone for those feedback and support.

Have a nice weekend , link updated in the first post.

On 4/25/2018 at 11:48 PM, loveless said:

I don't have enough save slots left to go and play this map in it's entirety.  I'm writing this post as I go along, posting some images and giving a few thoughts.  I'll probably end up stopping pretty soon as I'm playing without saves :(   

  

 

I like what you did with the second fight here, viles coming in off the pickups.  My only suggestion would be to make it a lock in.  Running away and baiting a storm of projectiles into the cybers made it very easy to hang back and watch the room kill itself.  

  

Thank fuck this isn't a lock in, I almost panicked.  Maybe I should discriminate a bit when it comes to what I think should be a lock in or not.  

  

I killed the cybers first for some reason then had a very real "oh shit" reaction once I saw the revenants.  I was able to get it into a pretty quick circle-strafe.  Baiting them far onto the stairs gave me the room to move around the pillars.  

  

This left me wanting more, much more.  I'm not sure what could be added to this.  

  

wtf is this?  

  

Here's where my journey ended.  I pulled all the HK's to the right side, had the cyber fighting them and turned back to deal with the vile through the bars.  I was 200/200 starting this fight so I'm not sure how I died so fast, I'll assume a cyber rocket and some stacked rev/hk projectiles.  

Got halfway through the map on one attempt.  Not going to lie, I was hoping to one-shot it ;))  This is fun, I look forward to finishing it later.

Nice custom image in the status bar at the bottom.

Thanks @mArt1And00m3r11339 :))

Blast furnace has been finally uploaded into idgames for official release . Thank you very much for support and awesome feedback , and here is the official link :

https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/s-u/tblstfu

I beat your level. Kills (1,044/909) and 100% on items and secrets.