cipher42223 Posted December 18, 2018 (edited) Hello everyone, so I've been into doom mods and stuff for a while now, and I thought I'd finally try to get into mapping. This is a single map wad I started earlier this year, and every now and then I would come back to it and add some stuff or change some things around. Eventually I got to a point where I felt like it was finished. A few points: -This wad uses DOOM2.WAD as the iwad -There is only 1 map that is edited: MAP01. All other maps are unchanged from original doom 2 -It was tested in GZDoom and Zandronum, but it should work in any zdoom based source port. -Make sure crouch, jump, and free-look are disabled -There is no difference between any of the difficulties Resources used: -Textures from cc4-tex.wad -Music: 3 Cans Later by Chris Geehan & Dan Byrne McCullough Some screenshots: Spoiler ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ >> DOWNLOAD HERE << ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I had fun making this map, and I hope to improve my doom mapping skills in the future. Hopefully you'll all enjoy playing and give me your feedback!! Goodbye for now.... 7 Share this post Link to post
HAK3180 Posted December 18, 2018 (edited) Random thoughts from playing, as they occurred to me: Spoiler Imps at the start are way too high, especially if you don't want freelooking Nice little building entry, but I think the uninterrupted rock5 or whatever is a little much, especially since it's so high. First indoor area is very grey. The imp/chaingun room is also monotonous. It also feels basement-ish. Perhaps consider stairs or a lift/elevator, rather than a door to that area The room with cacodemons et al. has a lot of ammo. It kinda suggests a pretty big fight forthcoming. Or maybe that there won't be much ammo the rest of the way. nukage fall is an interesting touch. I don't mind it. There's a sector in there that is much brighter, but it doesn't seem to have a light source. Then there are numerous tech lamps whose surrounding areas are not any brighter. I like the geometry of that room Oh, I get it. The blue room is brighter and its light spills into the other rooms. Not a bad idea, but works better if the blue room had a light source. The blue key room immediately seemed out of place. It's very Doom 2, but the map so far has been clean, somewhat modern tech base. the blue key room is very simplistic from a combat standpoint. It's too big for its opposition, and there's nothing to stop you from retreating as far as you want. Cool lighting in the blue key room Upstairs, not a bad use of arachnotron, since he kinda forces you toward cover, which is basically toward the other enemies, but again, the room is so big and underpopulated that there's not much threat I very much enjoyed the rocket launcher sequence. However, I fear a lot of players will ignore "no freelook" and kinda "cheat" to get it. Also, is there any reason that's not a secret/this map has none? That room reminds me a lot of the second room I ever made, which is not a good thing, unfortunately. Here's a piece of advice for visual detail: unless you are mapping for vanilla, never look at iwads for inspiration. This is a huge rectangle with one wall texture, one ceiling texture, and one height. That just doesn't go over well in 2018, especially if the map is for GZDoom. The cacodemons through the window (nice effect, by the way) were very late to the party. Were they triggered by the rocket launcher? I was surprised to see archie, and I thought it was a decent use of one Outdoor area's opposition is much too weak for the amount of space there is. This is a common problem for newer mappers. Big, open spaces are very hard to do well in Doom. You need the right monsters and you really have to build the space with the encounter in mind. Again, a little too much uninterrupted rock texture for my liking I like the gradient lighting into the demon cave I like the sergeants in the tekgreen edifice perhaps hinting at something to come. Perfect "circle" (i.e. duodevigintihedron or whatever) skylight seems a little contrived in a cave that's supposed to be more random-ish and natural I like the flow in the last several minutes: see tekgreen spot and blocked fence, go into cave, see red door, go down to red key, go through red door, open fence. The tekgreen building is pretty much entirely one texture inside and out. Oh, now I'm finally way up by those early imps. Okay, okay. There's one sidedef of bigbrik up there, by the way. It's good not to make the player go all the way back around to the red door, although the elevator is one way anyway. The tekwall or whatever does not tile vertically all that nicely The cc4 textures are kinda distinct. It seems weird to have used them fairly prominently early on and not at all later The last room is not great looking: one wall texture, one ceiling, but I didn't mind the gameplay. it's a dynamic encounter because you have to get out of the spiders' line of sight, you have to deal with pain elementals, you have to watch out for damaging floor, and there's an appropriate number of hitscanners. Then there's another decently used archie. Honestly, at first glance I thought, "here's a beginner's poor attempt at a big finale, but as I played it, I thought it was decently done. All I really disliked was the appearance and the perfect symmetry. Finished 97/100/100. Final overall thoughts/advice Work more on gameplay than on visual beauty. I think the latter comes more naturally as one plays more stuff and gets better at the editor. think about smaller spaces. The main reason most of the combat was so trivial was too much space. One of the opening tips in Doom Builder is something like "place monsters such that they put conflicting movement demands on the player." That is much more likely to happen when Doomguy doesn't have a billion pixels to run around in. Connect the map to itself more. Linear maps are fine, but it gets boring to go from discrete room to discrete room with only a door tying them together. Think about windows and wide "halls" and instead of always using doors to block progress, use more fences, lifts, height differences >24. Allow some of the monsters to projectile you before they would have the opportunity to melee you. Finally, take all advice for what it's worth. At the end of the day, I'm no acclaimed mapper. But even from someone who is, you have to ask yourself, what am I trying to create? 0 Share this post Link to post
drsnodgrass Posted December 18, 2018 (edited) I gave it a run and enjoyed it. I'd have to concur with HAK's comments regarding tighter spaces and add the idea of forcing the player into areas more. I cleared a lot of rooms pretty easily using the old stand just outside the door frame for cover and pop back and forth. A good example off the top of my head would be to have the entry area lead into the little chaingun nest, make that area more confined to give imps quicker access to the player and force more dodging, and then maybe lead from there with a lift to the next section with the sludge walls and cacos, giving a more fluid path and forcing the player to enter the room and fight within it. Overall I really liked the enemy choice and placement so being forced to face them more directly would've been fun. I also felt that there was a bit of an overabundance of shotgun shells and armor. The excess shells are fine if you're not concerned with strapping the player for ammo but having basically infinite ssg is always a little easier than being forced to swap to more risky methods. Perhaps making the super armor a secret would've made the basic play a little tougher and given a nice little reward for secret hunting. I really liked the final big green room, that was a fun fight and forced me to run around and stay on my toes, and the winding path leading to it was a nice atmospheric touch. Fun map, thanks for releasing it! 0 Share this post Link to post
cipher42223 Posted December 18, 2018 Thanks for the feedback, I agree with a lot of what you said. A lot of my influence comes from games like Half Life 2 which is why there's so much open areas, but I agree that more tighter spaces would help with combat. Also as far as there being too many items, I think maybe changing how much health and ammo you're given based on the difficulty would have been a good idea. Also I make the rocket launcher a secret but I couldn't figure out how to do it in the editor. 0 Share this post Link to post
drsnodgrass Posted December 18, 2018 Took me a while to figure the secret tag out the other night, I believe it's special - 9. I liked that one, the visible switch and run over the armor was classic Doom fun. 0 Share this post Link to post
meapineapple Posted December 19, 2018 I recorded my playthrough of this WAD. There is for sure room for improvement, though others have already given you a wealth of detailed feedback and so I won't repeat them. But it's very good for a first map, I think, and really not that bad for a Doom map in general. I enjoyed playing it! 0 Share this post Link to post
Suitepee Posted March 23, 2019 Sorry for the bump, but I played this as part of a playtesting session livestream earlier (was the first map to be played): https://www.twitch.tv/videos/399661153 Seemed a decent map overall. 0 Share this post Link to post
I_Am_Doom_Man Posted March 24, 2019 Lol dear god that last room got crazy I just bum rushed it. 0 Share this post Link to post
