Skinship - A large map for GZDoom

Skinship! What an awesome name! On my list now to play. :)

damn mate this looks awesome. the theme and environments look super well done

Looks cool dude, but I was expecting to see a boat from that title. :P

18 hours ago, Immorpher said:

Skinship! What an awesome name! On my list now to play. :)

Comes close to my all time favorite "Sunlust". But this is GZDoom and i cannot run it with Zandronum.

Looking awesome! Just downloaded, will give it a spin in the very near future. c:

It's a great looking map! (and a challenging one, too) 

I underestimated a couple of things and got thrashed nicely :-P

I'd preferred another soundtrack though, the current one (which is pretty cool/no offence!) sounds in parts too "peacefully" for a theme like that. 

Info: One Cyberdemon got stuck in that corner and was ripped apart by these red fuckers. Doesn't happen all the time, it's only possible.   

I think I will try this map at some point in the future. It looks pretty interesting. LOL "Back at it again with those noises, I see." "That's what I call nice music."

After Alienated anything you make is instantly on my need to play list. Gonna give this a go later today.

Just finished a playthrough of the map (HNTR difficulty), here are my thoughts.

If I want to begin with the visuals, the map definitely looks good. The texture choices were excellent with no visible clashing anywhere, and the various setpieces are quite nice sights. The layout of the level was generally good as well, with just enough non-linearity to not overwhelm the player with choice and plenty enough space to maneuver in the several battles that take place.

Unfortunately, I can't quite say I was a fan of the gameplay. First off, it's pretty easy to completely miss the rocket launcher early on and not get it until about halfway through the map, which can subsequently make some of the encounters quite a pain. And honestly, it's more or less required in order to deal with the Revenants perched on top of the "pillars" in the big outdoor area. Second, I didn't like how the arena battles were executed, though I don't have any valid criticism to offer about them. The custom monsters were quite a welcome change of pace, though.

Overall, not the most enjoyable map I've played gameplay-wise, but at least it's a visual treat.

@MFG38

It's unfortunate you feel this way. I'm sure a lot of your experience was negatively influenced by the lack of the rocket launcher, which many encounters are designed for, so I'll probably move it to the spawn area in the next update.

9 minutes ago, Lorenz0 said:

@MFG38

It's unfortunate you feel this way. I'm sure a lot of your experience was negatively influenced by the lack of the rocket launcher, which many encounters are designed for, so I'll probably move it to the spawn area in the next update.

The one that's in the main outdoor area is well placed. You might just want to add a couple more of them into some of the areas with big setpiece fights in case people miss it, like you did with the plasma rifle.

i loved it big thumbs up

I played what I guess is the last pre-release version and will be playing the release version co-op with a friend in the near future. Like with Alienated, IMO this level has stellar design when it comes to the map's geometry. Super detailed and good textures without feeling cluttered.

The "most" interesting aspect of the map are the new enemies that force a completely different gameplay style to traditional DOOM, where the SSG is king. The baron and caco replacements can be incredibly lethal in close range and thus, makes the rocket launcher a superior weapon for several encounters as it is often simply too risky to get close enough to use the SSG efficiently. Thankfully there is a lot of RL ammo to supply the gameplay. It's a nice and refreshing twist and I'm happy to have experienced this somewhat different style! Looking forward to the next map.

Edit: Ok, no Zandronum compatibility so no co-op for now. It is, however, more than enjoyable enough when playing alone.

Have you thought about adding PSX lighting* to this map, it can really add a whole new level of atmosphere to a map and give it a moody feel beyond what is already a great looking map.

*Check out the Threshold of Pain and Fall of TRITON remake wads, both have PSX lighting.

Really enjoyed this map for the most part. Good use of gzdoom features. Still felt like a doom map. New enemies were neat even tho I never really like changes to the bestiary, they suited the map and made some encounters pretty challenging. Somehow I used up all of my rockets and had to take out all the archviles at the end with a ssg. Good fun all around.

The wad has been updated! Changes include:

- Placing rocket launchers on all paths (and a hidden one somewhere else)

- Repositioning certain items like ammo and health

- More thorough difficulty balancing

- Making the inescapable death pit escapable

- Other small tweaks not worth mentioning

I expect this to be the last or second to last update. I will upload the wad to idgames soon-ish.

This is a beautiful looking aesthetic

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/559936298

I play this at 1:18:18 into this livestream.

Wow. This is a pretty damn amazing map.

I think I might have found a glitch, though... or is the ground supposed to show the sky in that spot?

5 hours ago, Andreas said:

I think I might have found a glitch, though... or is the ground supposed to show the sky in that spot?

It's not. Where is this exactly?

Sector 356 seems to be the culprit... Though oddly enough it looks fine in Slade 3.

My first thought was that you'd used F_SKY1 for the floor, but that's not the case. I also wondered if it was a line horizon thing, but not seeing any surrounding linedefs set with that special.

Hmm. Now I wonder if it's a rendering glitch in my port. Using GZDoom 3.5.0 on linux. Though I haven't noticed that issue anywhere else.

PS. It just occurred to me that I also have 4.3.3 installed through wine so I can test wads when working in Slade. So I just used that to check said sector... interestingly it looks as expected in this scenario. So the glitch is likely either with 3.5.0 specifically or something on my system. Though what could be causing it still puzzles me.

Yeah, I'm using GZDoom 4.2.0 and this bug doesn't show up for me. Must be a problem with older versions then.

The wad is out on idgames!

There are only a few minor differences between this release and the previous one, like texture alignment, placing a few candles for better visibility, and removing one monster from the map.

Sup @Lorenz0. I played the map because someone recommended me to play and record it...which I did.

Here are some important points to put from my experience after my gameplay...

• The visuals surely are pretty good, with a good use of vanilla textures and dynamic lights and the custom textures. That's a solid 10/10 there....but.......
• Next is gameplay and...to be honest, it's a mix feeling that I have. I have more bad moments than good moments. The blue skull area was good with the acid hazard type with those imps, mancubi and the mom spiders. Same for the exit of that whole part with the pair of crushers. The rest of them....both blue and yellow skull areas were a pain to do and that's because of the third point that comes now...
• AND the third point is the custom monsters. The "super" imps and the brown HKs (I know them as Squires, from R667) were ok but...the cacolich, even been nerfed cuz of the homing projectile, that breath attack is quite powerful. And the prize for the most annoying monster goes to the Profane One (the baron replacement, also from R667). Projectiles with poison properties, vomiting blood for big damage and extreme damage if you are quite close when they die.....and maybe it was nerfed JUST because it doesn't have the ability to revive monsters....yes, they CAN revive monsters...........I honestly think that those were a bad choice for a baron replacement. Maybe a cybruiser with less health should have been better....

Well, that's it for my resumed review of the map but, if you wanna see me sorta raging....here I present to you the video. Enjoy the salty moments.

@leodoom85 Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it. I watched the video and it seems like most of your frustration comes from the Profane Ones, which I admit are the hardest enemies to fight thanks to their spiralling attack. They originally could resurrect enemies, but I took that feature out, as well as decreased their projectile damage by half. The next time I make a wad with custom monsters, I will pick some less annoying ones lol

The main issue with those is that, one, you use them a lot and, second, custom monsters should be used on special moments and in low quantity. 

Let's take the red skull area for example....yea, profane ones are there but you used 8 of them....8. Could've been better if you used the 2 PO near the switch and the rest were normal barons.

4 hours ago, leodoom85 said:

custom monsters should be used on special moments and in low quantity.

Umm...why? I just treat them like any other monster and I don't see anything wrong with that. If you play a wad that introduces custom monsters, you just have to get used to them, instead of hoping that the mapper will hold back on using them.

I can see why you think there are too many in the red key area specifically though. One thing you didn't discover is that when you don't kill the cyberdemon in the previous area, he teleports into the red key fight and infights with the profane ones, taking down their numbers quickly.

I thought that most players would skip the cyberdemon, since he's not in a great position to fight him, so I decided to balance the next fight around that fact. You chose to kill him, which resulted in a more tedious scenario, but I just wasn't able to balance it any better than that.

That's a pretty ridiculous stance, use whatever monsters you want.

2 hours ago, Lorenz0 said:

Umm...why? I just treat them like any other monster and I don't see anything wrong with that. If you play a wad that introduces custom monsters, you just have to get used to them, instead of hoping that the mapper will hold back on using them.

 

I can see why you think there are too many in the red key area specifically though. One thing you didn't discover is that when you don't kill the cyberdemon in the previous area, he teleports into the red key fight and infights with the profane ones, taking down their numbers quickly.

I thought that most players would skip the cyberdemon, since he's not in a great position to fight him, so I decided to balance the next fight around that fact. You chose to kill him, which resulted in a more tedious scenario, but I just wasn't able to balance it any better than that.

Then you didn't thought of it clearly because people won't think of the fights OR how they'll do it in the same way as you. Maybe, using a second cybie and add more ammo in the red key can be better.

45 minutes ago, Turin Turambar said:

That's a pretty ridiculous stance, use whatever monsters you want.

It's not ridiculous. If you make a map with custom monsters, you MUST think of how you balance things...your way of thinking can definitely break balance. Just saying.