First Map -- Looking for Feedback

Hey folks,

I've finally worked up the courage to ask for feedback for my first level. It's pretty short, and it probably won't knock your socks off. I first made it about a year ago, forgot about it, and then came back to it recently, polishing it, adding finishing touches, and changing the balance. This is vanilla compatible. I use Crispy Doom for playtesting; it runs in Chocolate Doom as well, but Visplane Explorer says there are a few spots with drawsegs overflows. Nonetheless, I don't see any HOMs.

I have implemented difficulty settings in this map as well. I tried to make it challenging, but fair. (Try -solo-net!) I also love secrets in Doom levels, so naturally my map has them as well; keep your eyes peeled (though they shouldn't be difficult to find).

Screenshots:

Any feedback or constructive criticism would be much appreciated. I don't have much creative drive, but I'm hoping I can include this as the first of a five-level Doom II episode, à la Scythe 2.

access.zip

While I'm at it, what is the "code of conduct" for using midi's that aren't yours? I grabbed the one in this wad from a website containing a plethora of midi's sequenced from video games. The author is listed in the metadata in SLADE, but I assume it would at least need to be credited in the accompanying text file, right?

Thanks in advance!

I finished the map in about a minute. There isn't really much to talk about, because the map offers too little.

Chainsaw-based combat is boring, it's not really fun to have to chainsaw a bunch of imps and zombiemen. Luckily I found the Berserk. The map looks alright, far from impressive but it doesn't look bad either.

So... it's not a bad map, but it's not one I'd call good either. It just suffers from a lack of content.

Welcome to wadding! I did a video playthrough of your map here, it can be quite daunting to release your work to the public and any criticism can be very hurtful so congrats on finding the strength to upload this wad!.

-I liked your texture work and set dressing it looked very visually interesting

-It's quite abit easy especially on UV where you get a bezerk pack

-It is very short if this were a first level to a megawad it might be good to stretch it out twice as big 

-Sonic adventure music is a very bizzare choice of music for a doom wad

-I did like the secrets however one requires looking up and down so maybe it'd be good to state that looking up and down is recommended 

Overall it's a pretty alright first level keep at it!

Did a quick playthrough.

I used the berserk the whole map because why not.

Relatively easy. Monster placement was very "Corridor" like - Just a line of monsters. A pack looks threatening, but only a few can attack you at a time and it tends to end up with monster infighting.

An admirable first map though.

Comments below:

It's not bad, but the jump from HMP to UV is pretty strong with regards to item placing, and a bit pointless, too.

So, the chainsaw and berserk pack only appear on hard skill because spectres. But more, and more varied, monsters means infighting can be accomplished more easily, leaving you without the need for additional weapons and power-ups.

Also, the shootable switch should be positioned in a way it would be shootable without mouselook. Otherwise, you should not state it to be vanilla compatible.

9 hours ago, Juza said:

I finished the map in about a minute. There isn't really much to talk about, because the map offers too little.

Chainsaw-based combat is boring, it's not really fun to have to chainsaw a bunch of imps and zombiemen. Luckily I found the Berserk. The map looks alright, far from impressive but it doesn't look bad either.

So... it's not a bad map, but it's not one I'd call good either. It just suffers from a lack of content.

Fair enough. I do realize it's quite short, so additional content could go a long way.

5 hours ago, WolfBlue said:

Welcome to wadding! I did a video playthrough of your map here, it can be quite daunting to release your work to the public and any criticism can be very hurtful so congrats on finding the strength to upload this wad!.

 

-I liked your texture work and set dressing it looked very visually interesting

 

-It's quite abit easy especially on UV where you get a bezerk pack

 

-It is very short if this were a first level to a megawad it might be good to stretch it out twice as big 

 

-Sonic adventure music is a very bizzare choice of music for a doom wad

 

-I did like the secrets however one requires looking up and down so maybe it'd be good to state that looking up and down is recommended 

 

Overall it's a pretty alright first level keep at it!

 

 

Thank you. I'll probably try to make the map longer and rearrange the combat scenarios. If you're talking about the switch secret, it actually doesn't require mouselook. The idea is that a player would notice the switch and try to find where to shoot it from:

Thanks for pointing out the door near the end -- it's actually misaligned, but I somehow never noticed. The misalignment is probably why the little indentation is there in the first place... regardless, I'll mess around with it.

I thought the music was at least somewhat fitting, but to each their own.

4 hours ago, Magicana said:

 

Did a quick playthrough.

 

I used the berserk the whole map because why not.

 

Relatively easy. Monster placement was very "Corridor" like - Just a line of monsters. A pack looks threatening, but only a few can attack you at a time and it tends to end up with monster infighting.

 

An admirable first map though.

Thank you. I thought this was harder than it is, apparently. Whoops!

4 hours ago, rdwpa said:

Comments below:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Played this and I felt the problem isn't so much that 'chainsaw combat is boring' rather than the specific deployments of monsters used in this map aren't suited for it.

 

The nukage hallway exemplifies this, but it is present in just about every other encounter.

 

The liability of the chainsaw is that it exposes you to attack from other monsters. In that hallway I mentioned, you have 12 roaming low-tiers clustered in a 192-wide hallway and it is often difficult to kill one without worrying about the others attacking me. Yet there is also no rush to kill them, because I can just retreat to the start area and funnel them into that. 

 

So given this, the pace is kind of slow, and every other weapon in the armory would play more smoothly. (I'm sure the SSG, RL, PR, BFG all seem ridiculously overpowered for a few dozen imps and troopers, but I'm just talking about pace here.) 

 

I'll give suggestions to make the chainsaw work better in this map, however. Because 'just add new weapons' strikes me as kind of a cop-out. :P

 

- More spread-out, more varied monster placement. So instead of relying on packs on the ground, have some roaming on the ground, some perched, etc. Some might be active as they are, some might be hidden and 'deaf', some might warp, some might appear on a timer, etc. The chainsaw is fundamentally a weapon suited more towards fewer monsters. But that doesn't mean you have to lower the monster count -- just don't dump everything at once, and in one spot.

 

- Similarly, think of your options wrt staging. The last ambush is four imps in two closets apiece. Maybe that would be more chainsaw-friendly if you had two in each, and then had the other four warp appear elsewhere.

 

- If you do use packs, waltzing into imps armorless with the chainsaw is kind of dangerous, and not very pleasant. So even for an aggressive-minded player (like me), it isn't an appealing option. So maybe lean more on troopers for those.

 

- Lock-ins. It might not be in the spirit of this map but it's still important to understand how and why it works. In the nukage hallway, for instance, if I actually had to kill that stuff quickly before it advanced and cornered me, maybe because the stairs was a shallow drop-off instead, that might play more interestingly. (You'd probably also want to compensate with an additional medkit or two.) 

 

- Place the barrels in the start in more usable spots. (I actually didn't realize the ones under the nukage were there.)

 

- Infighting. Not a suggestion of something to incorporate as much as 'I think this tends to make chainsaw combat better', which I'll say because I saw it mentioned. That applies more when mid-tiers are around, however. 

 

Aesthetically, I thought the rooms were very monocolored. You have decent architecture going on in the start room, but 90% of it is the same shade of brown. In this case, at the very least, it's worth looking into using a different texture for the top architectural 'layer' of the room. The nukeslad sections could use a bit more going on too. Also unless you have reasons to do otherwise, I'd cut off the nukeslad naturally at its seams for the torch cubbies, rather than midway through. The shootswitch secret was really well done. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These are really helpful points, thanks so much. I'm still learning how to balance the gameplay. Adding perched monsters seems like a smart idea which I simply didn't think about.

1 hour ago, Get Phobo said:

It's not bad, but the jump from HMP to UV is pretty strong with regards to item placing, and a bit pointless, too.

 

So, the chainsaw and berserk pack only appear on hard skill because spectres. But more, and more varied, monsters means infighting can be accomplished more easily, leaving you without the need for additional weapons and power-ups.

 

Also, the shootable switch should be positioned in a way it would be shootable without mouselook. Otherwise, you should not state it to be vanilla compatible.

Thanks! I did notice that I was changing a lot for UV. I was pretty unsure about it; I think I just didn't want to "force" the player to use infighting, but I suppose it's really not a bad thing. That said, I'm unsure which weapons to give for the first level, and I already placed the shotgun in a secret. See my comment above for the shootable switch secret.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/487646207

I play this at 28:05 into this playtest livestream.