[GZDoom Singleplayer Map] Suspicious Journey

Oh sweet, that looks great. I'll try to check it out.... some... day.... *sigh*

I will try this map definitely, looks very good!

Had a blast, nice fun from start to finish.

Stunningly good looking map! I like the gloomy techbase hallways with all the colors, and the lush vegetation outside and through the windows (Valiant vibes). Good use of dynamic lights all around to bring out the moody atmosphere. Gameplay was fun and well paced.

Here's a few things worth noting:

The map was not very difficult, even on UV (however I just recently played Swim With The Whales so I might still be in that mindset). Also, the use of messages was mostly unnecessary, as the player could easily find their way forward without them (I had this 'you don't say' moment about the message when the red key area opened up). I think you should primarily use the environment to guide and inform the player, and only use messages if it's to convey something that could easily be missed (like what I did with the blue sigils in Remnant). Another gripe is that the vegetation should not block the player or projectiles (apart from trees), since it hinders movement and eating a rocket when you're firing over a bush is kind of a bummer. 

The blue key room had a bit more potential than what it lived up to be. I think you could:

- remove some of the initial enemies, because players tend to stay at the doorway and shoot the monsters, since there is no incentive for them to go in

- have the monsters appear only after the player is in and trapped (teleporting or having them tactically hidden behind obstacles and not visible at the doorway)

- put some revvies or mancubi (or maybe just imps) perched up to create some tension while you circle strafe

Overall I liked it a lot, so don't take this too negatively!

7 minutes ago, Aurelius said:

The map was not very difficult, even on UV

I don't do very difficult maps overall, so that players actually enjoy the map.

8 minutes ago, Aurelius said:

the use of messages was mostly unnecessary, as the player could easily find their way forward without them (I had this 'you don't say' moment about the message when the red key area opened up). I think you should primarily use the environment to guide and inform the player, and only use messages if it's to convey something that could easily be missed

I might remove a couple of them then. Since the map is relatively...small?

22 minutes ago, Aurelius said:

 Another gripe is that the vegetation should not block the player or projectiles (apart from trees), since it hinders movement and eating a rocket when you're firing over a bush is kind of a bummer.

Yeah. Like I said on a server in Discord, I should check their decorate (it replaces the vanilla trees/stalagmite things) and change whatever flag it is to not make things solid or simply taking those out of the way.

34 minutes ago, Aurelius said:

The blue key room had a bit more potential than what it lived up to be. I think you could:

- remove some of the initial enemies, because players tend to stay at the doorway and shoot the monsters, since there is no incentive for them to go in

- have the monsters appear only after the player is in and trapped (teleporting or having them tactically hidden behind obstacles and not visible at the doorway)

- put some revvies or mancubi (or maybe just imps) perched up to create some tension while you circle strafe

First, probably I'll leave the room empty, then add the initial monsters in a wave as you said it in the second point. I considered adding mancubi but the room is kinda small. Revenants are better in that aspect since it's faster and attacks are more effective.

And thanks guys for playing my map. The feedback is not to take it negatively, so be sure to stay tuned with the updates. :)

Took my sweet time playing it but I reallly enjoyed it. Nice relaxing map with some hard moments for a not so great player such as myself. Very very pretty and great use the the bushes and trees. Thanks for making and sharing this!!
 

Nice-looking GZDoom map you've made here! I found the difficulty well-pitched on UV, as I died running into the outside area once (all the hitscanners up high and getting snagged on the bushes is what did for me) and kept finding myself precariously low on health, but able to dig my way back out. The ammo just appearing unannounced felt a bit weird, but was needed for what I was doing. Even if there'd been some item spawning fog or teleport fog I think it'd have felt a bit more coherent. Also, in the blue-key arena, you've got all cog warning signs on one side, and all poison warning ones on the other, aside from the corners left and right of the entrance door, where they're swapped. Made me feel like they're the clue to the secret, which only wasted a little time.

I did find the actual secret trail, which added a bit of risk for the eventual reward. The two soul spheres that I collected (one from the secret and one from the course of play) were much-needed, but I kind of squandered the megasphere and had to play carefully to beat the end. Still, nice map, with plenty of colour and scenery and a reasonably difficult UV for my tastes. Good work.

I'm about to add an update based on previous feedback and these are:

• Added three waves to the blue key fight, ARCHVILES included. Of course, ammo is added as well but health will be the same to add more difficulty to the fight. Noise alert scripts were also added to move the monsters, preventing spawns to be blocked.
• Deleted more of the vegetation that can block players.
• Deleted some useless messages and change some a bit. Now you'll see 4 messages in the map.

And that's it.

@PhobusCog/poison textures are just random textures that adds nothing to the map but detail :D
Glad that you liked the map. Now some people will find the map slightly hard in one of the areas.

Updated link. Please redownload the file and enjoy. :)

I just finished playing the old one. Ended up with 99% Kills, 95% Items and Zero secrets. Died 3 times, once to Chaingunners, once to Revvie and once to Archie, so by my standards this is an easy map. I also savescummed, as usual.

I thought the map was very good looking with a Quake 2 vibe, which I always like, featuring great use of Otex, but I found it too dark. The place was loaded with lights and it should have been well illuminated, but they must all be 5 watt lights, so in the end they served primarily as art objects. IMO, most of the map's difficulty is the result of being unable to clearly see the enemies, though I should note that I do myself no favors by playing in Dark mode. ;D I like Dark Mode because IMO it makes most maps look more atmospheric. It's kind of a bummer when you hit a map that's seriously dark throughout, however. I have now tried numerous sector light modes and found that only Bright works for me. In Bright Mode, this map is perfect. :)

A huge chunk of the map consisted of straight hallways with stuff in the middle, creating cramped fighting situations, whereas I prefer having more room to move.

The first outdoor area had a lot of ledge snipers and it took a long time to clean them out because they were hard to see in the darkness and among the vegetation. In the big end fight I was immediately freaked when I was surrounded by Archie flames and I had no idea where it was coming from. To me, that seemed a bit unfair, so I bailed and came back to the game later, and opened a save from immediately before the teleport. The end fight turned out to be very easy, but that's because I got lucky when the Cyb hit the Archie, and even luckier when it eventually killed him. Once again, there was a lot of clean-up, this time thanks to the PE spitting out Lost Souls. I ran around and around the central island and killed every Lost Soul before I took on the Cyb -- which I literally saw as nothing but a brownish shadow in the darkness. I stayed far away so I could at least see the rockets coming. I was able to kill him with plasma without being hit, so that turned out well. Again, I'm lucky I didn't die to the first rocket he fired. If I played this fight 5 times in a row, I might die 4 or more times, so it wasn't superb skill that got me through it. ;) 

My favorite fight was the blue key room. I agree with @Aurelius about reducing the initial group of monsters. I wasn't happy to hear that you added Archies to the fight, since there isn't much cover and this might pitch the fight to the more elite group of players. I'm guessing they'll come in the third wave, so I hope there's no more than 2. The blue key room also has a very steep stairway, and there's several of these throughout the map. I found that this made targeting difficult from above. One last thing, now that I made a God Mode run on Bright Mode, is that I was fortunate to have played the Red Key leg first, so I arrived at the Blue Key fight extremely well armed, but the fight is clearly manageable even without the RL and PG. That might change with Archies thrown in and nothing but Chaingun and SSG for those who encounter it first. At minimum, an RL would be nice if you want to hold back the PG.

The map had some very symmetrical areas. My maps also have a lot of symmetry, so I have nothing against it per se. The most symmetrical area was the Plasma Gun section, where you had to go from one side to the other to hit switches to open a gate so you could press the switch opening access to the red key. BTW, I liked that message and think it should remain, since I found progression a bit confusing. Anyway, it seemed to take a long time because I had to fight through heavy but non-threatening meat and the area was quite large, and I could barely see any monsters. Again, Bright Mode makes this area perfect, but I'm reporting from my actual playthrough in Dark.

Another issue in this area was the huge amount of health potions and armor bonuses in the darkness by the walls. This reminded me of Counterattack, where Mechadon hid all those bullet clips in pitch blackness. My least favorite aspect of the mapset.

Overall, I found the map to be long, with a lot of easy incidental combat punctuated by some harder fights and too many steep stairways with monsters at the bottom. The steepness and shallowness of the stairs prevented monsters from climbing up to attack the player, which IMO would be more fun.

Even though I suck as a player, I prefer maps to be hard, or if easy, prefer them to be short. This was a long and confusing adventure to me because a lot of those hallways looked samey, and it was so dark that I had trouble getting oriented. I think one of the best aspects of the map was how you kept putting monsters in to meet the player when they backtracked. It kept up the threat level, especially since you kept bringing in Revvies and some Mancs. I liked all your GZDoom features, too, except maybe for the monsters at the end fight. According to my monster counter, I had only 3 left, when suddenly a bunch teleported in, apparently from another planet. :D Me no like that trick, because I had my guard down. ;D Worth noting is that I had no ammo issues even though I didn't get much infighting beyond what I would in any normal map. I had plenty of cells for that Cyb, since you had cell charge packs right there. BTW, I liked how rocket boxes kept appearing behind me in a few of the rooms. Nifty!

One way to improve the map from my outlook would be to brighten up some of the areas. That might accentuate the atmosphere of your darker sections. If you did that, I'd prefer to have the heavier fights in areas where I could see the monsters more clearly. The darkness didn't prevent me from killing the monsters, but with difficult targeting I wasted more ammo than usual. Also, it seems like the end fight and the first outdoor fight have different brightness levels. For those who don't use Bright Mode, it would help if the end fight was at the same light level as the first outdoor brawl.

I'll try to give the new version a play in the next few days.

Try setting the sector light mode to Standard. Kinda works as a middle setting between Bright and Doom light modes.

20 minutes ago, Steve D said:

The place was loaded with lights and it should have been well illuminated, but they must all be 5 watt lights

UAC had lights that consume less energy at the cost of that brightness after all lol...

22 minutes ago, Steve D said:

The first outdoor area had a lot of ledge snipers and it took a long time to clean them out because they were hard to see in the darkness and among the vegetation.

A tip. Run straight to the next area by killing the monsters inside the cave. Then start killing the monsters outside. Luckily, you won't find much vegetation in the lower ground.

26 minutes ago, Steve D said:

To me, that seemed a bit unfair, so I bailed and came back to the game later, and opened a save from immediately before the teleport.

The whole idea with the darkness is that the very same darkness is a factor to add difficulty to the game. And, since the map is at night, would make no sense if the map is too bright.....right?. That's why it relies on dynamic lights to help you.

30 minutes ago, Steve D said:

I wasn't happy to hear that you added Archies to the fight, since there isn't much cover and this might pitch the fight to the more elite group of players

Now there are 4-5 waves that can popup in a relatively quick pace. The archies will appear at the last wave. I tested it myself with only one archie and it still was easy enough. A tip is that you can do the red key path first, then do the blue key path to have more than enough resources to kill the whole squad. Be lucky that I didn't added a pain elemental....

35 minutes ago, Steve D said:

Another issue in this area was the huge amount of health potions and armor bonuses in the darkness by the walls.

That's yet another aspect of the map. I made this map kinda intentionally stingy with health. Ammo is abundant to counter that particular aspect. Of course, players can save plenty. 

38 minutes ago, Steve D said:

This was a long and confusing adventure to me because a lot of those hallways looked samey, and it was so dark that I had trouble getting oriented

Funny that you say that because this map is the literal definition of a linear map that their objectives are quite clear except that you can choose the path that you want to clear.

Also, always stay alert with spawns cuz the fights aren't over until every single demon in sight is dead and you learned it the hard way :D

And yes, spawned rockets are helpful to take out whatever bastards that are popping up, courtesy of mine nonetheless.

45 minutes ago, Steve D said:

Also, it seems like the end fight and the first outdoor fight have different brightness levels. 

I don't think so. It has the same brightness value, which is 112. It's just that the starting point is small compared to the last room and have lights nearby, which it helps your sight.

BTW, the map overall should take around 20 minutes in-game (25 minutes in real time), so should be enough for a coffee break :p

Obviously, since I know the map, it takes me 15 minutes to clear the map....even less if I dare to speedrun it.

One more thing. I think people would be pissed if I added a lot of restrictions to the map like no jump/crouch/freelook/cheats :D

Funny. Pretty much everyone is better than me at doom but I played on UV without dying even once. 100% on everything except items(99%). I did not mind the block bushes very much but I can see how they would be annoying to many others.

5 minutes ago, Clay said:

Funny. Pretty much everyone is better than me at doom but I played on UV without dying even once. 100% on everything except items(99%). 

You have no idea how profoundly I suck at this game. But I love it anyway. ;)

12 hours ago, leodoom85 said:

Try setting the sector light mode to Standard. Kinda works as a middle setting between Bright and Doom light modes.

UAC had lights that consume less energy at the cost of that brightness after all lol...

Lol, no, I stuck with Bright Mode after testing all the others. Bright is perfect. :)

I UV-Maxed the map with 3 deaths, all at the new blue key fight. I'm a slow and deliberate player, so it took me 36:04.

The map was a lot more fun with my ability to see everything, and it was still atmospheric. With a touch more llumination, it was even more Quake 2 in feel. Clearing out the ledge snipers at the first outdoor battle went much faster now that I could see them better. I knew about the side alcoves, but I decided to clear the outdoors first, which is risky thanks to the Chaingunners, but I had high health coming in, so I was able to tank the damage. I also killed the Archie guarding the Yellow door and all the spawn-ins, and the Baron and Manc guarding the secret Soulsphere, before I moved on for the PG and such.

I was able to clear out the PG area without taking much damage but decided to grab the secret SS before the BK fight. I left the free SS behind me. I was feeling pretty badass at this point. But as the old saying tells us, "Pride goeth before the fall." ;D

The new BK fight is awesome. Really adds some teeth to the map. Those waves came in super fast. I was working on a strategy to beat all the Revvies and HKs when all of a sudden I had flames around me. Each death came closer to the end of the battle as I decided to do most of my fighting from the pillar on the right-hand side of the door. That way I could plasma all the Revvies spawning in and let infighting reduce my opposition elsewhere, before I moved out to hunt the Archies. I decided to save near the end of my 4th attempt, but as it happened it was unnecessary, as all I had left was a Manc and a Caco. What a relief! I finished the fight at 145% and bumped myself to 160 on the way to the exit.

Survived the end-battle on my first attempt, though I was reduced to 45% by an Archie blast before I grabbed the Megasphere. Luckily for me, the Cyb took out both the PE and the Archie, so it was another runaround killing Lost Souls before I could fight him.

All in all, thanks to Bright Mode and the new and improved BK fight, I enjoyed the hell out of this map. :)

@Steve D A kindred spirit!!! I know how you feel. I refuse to play on anything below HMP and I usually suffer as a result! Long live doom!

28 minutes ago, Clay said:

@Steve D A kindred spirit!!! I know how you feel. I refuse to play on anything below HMP and I usually suffer as a result! Long live doom!

 

Kindred spirits indeed! Actually, I will play on HNTR or even ITYTD for certain mappers, for example Bridgeburner56, danne, Dobu, and Ribbiks. With rare exceptions, I know better than to try them on UV or HMP. ;) Pretty soon I'm going to play an Ultimate Doom map by NineInchHeels, and I'll try HNTR first, but based on NIH's reputation as a merciless savage, I'll probably end up on ITYTD. And that's no guarantee that I'll finish. ;D  

Just did a UV run on this, and had a great time. 

The texture work and the ambience are all pretty damn good here. I loved the attention to detail, the atmosphere, and the choice of music was wonderful. I'm not always the biggest fan of dynamic lights (to me they just clash with the general aesthetic of Doom in a weird way), but, you seemed fairly careful and deliberate with your use of them, and I actually really liked them for the most part here. I think they pair well with OTEX -- and you used both quite well!

The combat was fine, and fun for the majority of it, though I never really felt pressured too much other than the blue key fight. I always love me some Arch-Viles, but again other than the blue key room, the rest of the Arch-Viles never seem to pose that much of a threat. They always seemed to be countered by some stretch of corridor and a corner to cheese. Even in the final arena, it was very easy to just start running a circle and get the Archies (and everything else for that matter) quickly distracted with each other. That said, if the current difficulty level of the map is deliberate, then I'd say not to worry about it, because the map is still quite enjoyable to play.

I also enjoyed the bit of ACS action, and trying to hunt down that elusive soulsphere was a fun gimmick. I kept thinking it was luring me to some awful place deep beneath the surface of the UAC facility! If I could nitpick anything, it would be the camera script when you unlock the red key. I seriously thought the map had broken and in fact I almost restarted, though thankfully I waited long enough and tried moving again. The fact that it waits 15 seconds before movement can cancel the camera, and there's zero indication to the player, seems a little too much. I think you could easily chop that time in half and still have the desired effect. EDIT// Oof nevermind, I just re-played this and, I'm not sure what happened to me the first time, but I was able to almost immediately cancel the camera with movement. Not sure if it bugged out for the me the first time or what. 

Overall, an awesome little map with great detail, very atmospheric lighting, and enjoyable combat, with perhaps a little to be desired in the way of offering a challenge (at least on UV). Awesome work, though!

@RonnieJamesDinerCamera has 1 second delay to move again.....hmmmmmI need to check that script again. I might forgot to add another ChangeCamera action that reverts to the player's FOV...

EDIT: Yup. Had the wrong value for an argument. Original action:

Quote

ChangeCamera(150,1,1);

Fixed action:

Quote

ChangeCamera(0,1,1);

I'm dumb lol.....had the camera's FOV instead of the player's FOV at the end of the script. Incoming update in 5 minutes.

EDIT 2: Updated map once again.

I can't seem to replicate my initial issue (I've re-played that sequence 4 times in a row now, and it lets me cancel the camera within 1 second every time). I'm starting to think I was fat fingering the first time and just didn't move. Other than the script itself cancelling the camera by switching ChangeCamera(150) to (0), which I think is how that would then work(?), I'm almost convinced there wasn't actually a problem to begin with. Sorry for the confusion xD

4 minutes ago, RonnieJamesDiner said:

I can't seem to replicate my initial issue (I've re-played that sequence 4 times in a row now, and it lets me cancel the camera within 1 second every time). I'm starting to think I was fat fingering the first time and just didn't move. Other than the script itself cancelling the camera by switching ChangeCamera(150) to (0), which I think is how that would then work(?), I'm almost convinced there wasn't actually a problem to begin with. Sorry for the confusion xD

AH

Then that's because I added SetPlayerProperty with both full freeze and invulnerability properties to avoid being damaged from monsters. This is toggled on while cutscene happens and toggled off as soon as the cutscene ends.

3 minutes ago, leodoom85 said:

I added SetPlayerProperty with both full freeze and invulnerability properties

Yeah I did notice that, but both of those properties are cancelled with the camera as well (within a second) as far as I can tell, which still doesn't explain where I ran into a problem -- other than being self-inflicted lol. I'm fairly certain the script is sound, it's just me that isn't.