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Okay, about one minute in, I was curious why the monster death count was so high. I had killed maybe 10 monsters myself. Then, shortly after, I saw this. Three minutes in, we were up to this. That is really weird, but I liked it. It's amusing. 


The issue is that apart from that spectacle, there isn't much to the gameplay. There is some picking off of fodder, some cleaning up of civil war strays, and one truly substantial "fight" in the map, at the yellow key arena. (Which also has a cyberdemon so it self-destructs too if you hit all the switches.) You end up giving the player tooons of supplies, especially in "secrets" that aren't really all that secret, and there's little to spend them on. You can counteract this numerous ways. But either downgrade resources -- a mega might become a (still very useful) soulsphere, a few cellpacks might become one -- or choose a few good spots and implement some good fights. When you exclude everything destined for spontaneous self-destruction, the monster count is more like 100. That is low for a map this largely scaled and abundantly stocked. 

 

It looks good. Darkness, creative architecture, and imposing scale are definitely the selling points. Some aspects are unpolished, but that is room for growth.


Some other observations: 

 

- There's a habit of using SR switches that flash on and right back off, for actions that seemingly only need to be undertaken once. It's not the right visual feedback. When I see a switch turn back off immediately, I think "maybe it didn't work yet." It's common for example when operating switch lifts that haven't raised yet.

 

- There are potential "boredom traps." In the central area, standing on the level that gives you the SSG, I saw tons of cacos floating around. While I didn't, a very methodical player might be inclined to gun those down with the practically infinite ammo provided by dozens of hitscanner pickups. Those cacos don't do much beyond create a spectacle. So maybe add an earlier, carefully rationed rocket launcher for the player who wants to kill them.

 

- The layout sometimes fights the monsters. Inside at one of the blue key doors, I had the gang of canal pinkies bunch up and fail to get past it. The midtex windows defuse the flock of lost souls released outside if you decide to ignore those at first (which I did). Mix in a couple of pain elementals to encourage engagement. 

Edited by rdwpa

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i runned in a circle for like a minute and got 300 kills without firing a single shot

That is interesting to say the least. I'll give it a another look when you know it's 100% done

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Not tested this yet but when you talk about trying to reach a balance between visuals and too much detail etc., I just want to say the screenshots are visually striking to me. Maybe there's some small things that need work but all the shots look super interesting and wacky to me and seems like you've hit a "If Jim Flynn was mapping today" vibe that needs not be changed. So yeh, I think you can focus on gameplay balance at this point as has been suggested

 

On the topic of SR switches, just in case you're still confused:
SR = Switch Repeatable - the action is repeated every time the switch is hit

S1 = Switch Once - the action is performed once and then the switch is disabled (graphically it is left in its "lit up" state).

Generally (maybe some exceptions?) every SR action should have an identical S1 action, but they might not be near eachother in the list so you have to hunt to find them in the action list.

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