Bog of Horrors, a WAD for GZDoom

Thank you all for the advice you gave me on my last WAD, and I've tried to fix all my previous mistakes.

As the title says I made this for GZDoom, I played with jump and mouselook enabled but it shouldn't require them. I also have GZDoom's render mode set to hardware accelerated because I used walls with no textures to create more open skies.

I've experimented with storytelling with this one, both in the environment and in the end level text, and I tried to implement a secret level, but it may not be the best.

Input is again much appreciated, and I would specifically like to know if I put too much health and ammo in these levels, and if the levels are too short or too long.

If you guys notice any mistakes I'm open to going back into the WAD to fix them, and I'll reupload it if people want me to.

I hope you enjoy!

Bog_Of_Horrors_V1.zip

I cannot believe you managed to pull this off in MFin doom... 

I like the attention to detail that was put in this map A LOT.

I made a demo of it:

Bog_Of_Horrors.rar

You're an amazing artist and visual designer. Having said that, you have to work a bit on your encounter design, and I would've liked an easier way to get back from the yellow keycard spot, since nothing really happens on the way back.

Alright so, I took the time to look at this WAD critically with a notepad and annotations. It's how I play test and check my own maps.

Map 01

First of all, I loaded the WAD and found the secret level immediately. But don't worry I started over and played the map through. :)

-The computer designs are great. Really liked them.

-The enemy placement is good and that little model of the map is fun to see.

-It is however kind of empty. Perhaps add a little more monsters?

Either way Good work on this one.

Map 02

-The mancubus trap is ineffective. You see, trees and obstacles will always shield you from projectile attacks but not hitscan. Therefore, I just stood behind the mass of trees by the door and held down my fire button using the chaingun taking 0 damage.

-There is a door that raises into the sky. Not a preferable design choice. Maybe make it a lowering floor.

-Otherwise I really like your use of the grass textures by blending in some muddy grass with the normal grass. Very nice touch.

So far theses maps aren't very challenging however.

Map 03

-The large group of Pinkies in the beginning is an ineffective encounter. They cannot descend the stairs either because they are too narrow, or you put monster blocking lines infront of them. If pinkies cannot get to you, they are 0 threat so I again just sat there shooting until they were all dead. Perhaps that's what you were going for but taking pot shots till something is dead is not fun to me.

-Here you can see that there is a huge wall missing a texture. This is after you get the yellow key.

Regardless of my critique, I really like the brown valley's with the archnotrons. IDK what it is but for me they are very eye pleasing good work there. :)

Map04-

Here where things went pretty downhill.

-The Cyberdemon encounter is ineffective because he cannot shoot you over the rim of the pit he is in no matter how much he backs up or moves around making his rockets useless. Again I sat there with my head rested on one hand spamming the rocket launcher and then the chaingun until he was dead. So yeah...

-The Spidermastermind encounter is ineffective. It cannot fit between the corners of the four walls and cannot position to attack cause it cant see you from behind one. Mean while it's leg sticks out and since the hitbox of this monster is so huge, I just cheesed it by standing behind the wall shooting at it's leg with plasma till it died.

-The pit where the cyberdemon is placed in is inescapable if you fall into it.

-I was a little underwhelmed when the final enemy was an archvile.

All in all,  I did like it and I think there is alot of charm and love in it and there are ALOT of great set piece designs and other things that make this map look very very good. However all that is hard to appreciate when such glaring problems exist in your levels. I think you did a good job and you just need to go back and review a couple things and fix them. Not trying to be a dick, just being honest man. I hope to see more work from you in the future. I can tell you are gonna just get better. BTW, it is a Doom 2 based WAD, so don't be afraid to throw  a super shotgun in there somewhere. Would have made alot of the encounters more fun:)

3 hours ago, Dubbagdarrel said:

Alright so, I took the time to look at this WAD critically with a notepad and annotations. It's how I play test and check my own maps.

 

Map 01

First of all, I loaded the WAD and found the secret level immediately. But don't worry I started over and played the map through. :)

-The computer designs are great. Really liked them.

-The enemy placement is good and that little model of the map is fun to see.

-It is however kind of empty. Perhaps add a little more monsters?

Either way Good work on this one.

Map 02

-The mancubus trap is ineffective. You see, trees and obstacles will always shield you from projectile attacks but not hitscan. Therefore, I just stood behind the mass of trees by the door and held down my fire button using the chaingun taking 0 damage.

-There is a door that raises into the sky. Not a preferable design choice. Maybe make it a lowering floor.

-Otherwise I really like your use of the grass textures by blending in some muddy grass with the normal grass. Very nice touch.

So far theses maps aren't very challenging however.

Map 03

-The large group of Pinkies in the beginning is an ineffective encounter. They cannot descend the stairs either because they are too narrow, or you put monster blocking lines infront of them. If pinkies cannot get to you, they are 0 threat so I again just sat there shooting until they were all dead. Perhaps that's what you were going for but taking pot shots till something is dead is not fun to me.

-Here you can see that there is a huge wall missing a texture. This is after you get the yellow key.

Regardless of my critique, I really like the brown valley's with the archnotrons. IDK what it is but for me they are very eye pleasing good work there. :)

Map04-

Here where things went pretty downhill.

-The Cyberdemon encounter is ineffective because he cannot shoot you over the rim of the pit he is in no matter how much he backs up or moves around making his rockets useless. Again I sat there with my head rested on one hand spamming the rocket launcher and then the chaingun until he was dead. So yeah...

-The Spidermastermind encounter is ineffective. It cannot fit between the corners of the four walls and cannot position to attack cause it cant see you from behind one. Mean while it's leg sticks out and since the hitbox of this monster is so huge, I just cheesed it by standing behind the wall shooting at it's leg with plasma till it died.

-The pit where the cyberdemon is placed in is inescapable if you fall into it.

-I was a little underwhelmed when the final enemy was an archvile.

All in all,  I did like it and I think there is alot of charm and love in it and there are ALOT of great set piece designs and other things that make this map look very very good. However all that is hard to appreciate when such glaring problems exist in your levels. I think you did a good job and you just need to go back and review a couple things and fix them. Not trying to be a dick, just being honest man. I hope to see more work from you in the future. I can tell you are gonna just get better. BTW, it is a Doom 2 based WAD, so don't be afraid to throw in a supershotgun in there somewhere. Would have made alot of the encounters more fun:)

 

Thank you for the detailed analysis.

The emptiness in the first map was a combination of me trying not to make it too hard and to give the base an eerie vibe.

Didn't see that you could dodge the Mancubuses attacks when I tested that map, so thank you for pointing that out. The door raising into the sky was meant to go into the floor, but I wanted it to be locked behind a blue key and open fast, so maybe I should make that look more like a gate.

I must have missed those monster blocking lines, and maybe I could redesign the hill so they can get down it. I couldn't figure out how to fix that missing texture, so if someone could help that would be much appreciated.

And I should definitely re do that final area, and the Archvile was supposed to revive the Cyberdemon.

And there is a supershotgun in there, it's just in a secret, maybe I hid it too well.

Thank you so much again for this, and you didn't come a cross as a dick to me.

3 hours ago, Longsword97 said:

Thank you for the detailed analysis.

 

The emptiness in the first map was a combination of me trying not to make it too hard and to give the base an eerie vibe.

 

Didn't see that you could dodge the Mancubuses attacks when I tested that map, so thank you for pointing that out. The door raising into the sky was meant to go into the floor, but I wanted it to be locked behind a blue key and open fast, so maybe I should make that look more like a gate.

 

I must have missed those monster blocking lines, and maybe I could redesign the hill so they can get down it. I couldn't figure out how to fix that missing texture, so if someone could help that would be much appreciated.

 

And I should definitely re do that final area, and the Archvile was supposed to revive the Cyberdemon.

 

And there is a supershotgun in there, it's just in a secret, maybe I hid it too well.

 

Thank you so much again for this, and you didn't come a cross as a dick to me.

Well I'm glad man. You did nice work here. BTW Archviles cannot revive cyberdemons, Spidermasterminds, or other archviles.

28 minutes ago, Dubbagdarrel said:

Well I'm glad man. You did nice work here. BTW Archviles cannot revive cyberdemons, Spidermasterminds, or other archviles.

Oooooooh, thank you for sharing that.

I played it I thought was good. But yeah having to fight hell knights and pain elementals with only a shotgun is a bit too much.

2 hours ago, terrcraftguy695 said:

I played it I thought was good. But yeah having to fight hell knights and pain elementals with only a shotgun is a bit too much.

I don't remember why I did that, I think I just thought it was too easy for Ultra Violence.

7 hours ago, PeceMan said:

I cannot believe you managed to pull this off in MFin doom... 

I like the attention to detail that was put in this map A LOT.

 

I made a demo of it:

 

Bog_Of_Horrors.rar

 

You're an amazing artist and visual designer. Having said that, you have to work a bit on your encounter design, and I would've liked an easier way to get back from the yellow keycard spot, since nothing really happens on the way back.

Thank you so much, the demo was fun to watch (and actually the first doom demo I've watched that isn't a YouTube video).

And making fun levels is truly something that's more challenging than it seems.

Played your wad, I have not played your previous maps so i don't know how this is compared to them. 

Some thoughts
This visuals were a mixed bag, really nice at some parts and some parts were empty and undetailed.
Gameplay was mix of tedious, easy and broken.

With tedious i mean shotgunning the painelementals and hellknights. Also the mancubus fight would fit that

The last level would be example of broken. That level looks really nice so it's a shame the gameplay is what it is. 

Easy would be having low tier enemies right in front of the player, maybe experiment with some monster closets and work on enemy placement.

Also there was tons of health and ammo everywhere also contributing to the very easy gameplay.

If there is something i would recommend is focus more on the gameplay.

And make single map wads so you get feedback more frequently

I hope my feedback is helpful for your future maps! 

Here is my gameplay video. It should be pretty good at showing most problems 

1 hour ago, Matias said:

Played your wad, I have not played your previous maps so i don't know how this is compared to them. 

 

Some thoughts
This visuals were a mixed bag, really nice at some parts and some parts were empty and undetailed.
Gameplay was mix of tedious, easy and broken.

With tedious i mean shotgunning the painelementals and hellknights. Also the mancubus fight would fit that

The last level would be example of broken. That level looks really nice so it's a shame the gameplay is what it is. 

Easy would be having low tier enemies right in front of the player, maybe experiment with some monster closets and work on enemy placement.

Also there was tons of health and ammo everywhere also contributing to the very easy gameplay.

 

If there is something i would recommend is focus more on the gameplay.

And make single map wads so you get feedback more frequently

 

I hope my feedback is helpful for your future maps! 

 

Here is my gameplay video. It should be pretty good at showing most problems 

 

 

Thank you for the recording, but most importantly I should always test my WADs in Ultra Violence now lol.

And doing a proper final boss is something I'm still struggling with, one day I'll figure it out.

I played this set. It was quite interesting for the first mapper, plenty of the things are already noted, but I found more:
 

1. You don't need put your backups and map config in zip folder. You only should put finalised version of the map.
2. You need center your text in custom intermission texts. Look up for other sets with mapinfo to see how it's done.
3. Rely less on the room-door-room progression. Some places would benefit if they had continuous design, maybe with few objectives at once.

I suggest play your favourite sets, see what's making them fun, interesting and try replicate on your maps. I hope we will see more from you. 

So I gave this run in GZdoom 4.2.4 and there are some problems:

-MAP03: missing textures on linedefs 1026 and 1031, there are HOMs when the monster closet opens.

However, the main problem is ridiculously low difficulty, I lost zero health in MAP02 and MAP03 while playing on UV.

On lundi 16 décembre 2019 at 10:36 PM, Dubbagdarrel said:

-The mancubus trap is ineffective. You see, trees and obstacles will always shield you from projectile attacks but not hitscan.

Note: there's a compat option to make projectiles pass through obstacles. You can set compat_missileclip = 1; in MAPINFO to force it on to make sure everyone can be shot by the forest mancs.