Mini Slaughter map

The name of this map is "Mini Slaughter" and that's basically what it is. A small slaughter map for slaughter beginners with 200 monsters.

I created it with Slade 3.1.11 and ZDBSP 1.19
Tested it with GZDoom 4.3.3 and PrBoom 2.5.0 (custom sky texture is not visible in PrBoom (by the way, does anyone know how to use the custom sky texture in PrBoom?))

Not compatible with Boom 2.02 and Doom2 v1.9 in DOSBox, sorry.

You need DOOM2.WAD to play.

Freelook, jumping, crouching is not needed.

It has a custom sky texture made by me.

Only one skill level.

Thanks for playing

WAD file:

MINI_SLAUGHTER_WAD V2.zip

Old versions:

Screenshots:

I UV maxed this in about 6 minutes. I had fun playing through it, but beyond instigating a lot of infighting, there was little here that I would generally think of as “slaughter”. Keeping in mind, still, that you said this was a “mini-slaughter” intended for beginners -- it still felt incredibly generous, from the huge supply of resources, to the massive amount of space afforded to the player.

As a side note, I personally see Plutonia’s Go 2 It as the quintessential “beginner’s” slaughter map. Of course, this is widely debatable, but just to give a sense of where I’m coming from on a difficulty scale.

Here’s some quick, initial thoughts on the 3 areas:

• 1) The first area is a nice warmup, but can easily be cheesed by simply eliminating the shotgunners (and grabbing their ammo), then immediately running for the door at the north end and camping in that small corridor. I would at least make that door a 1 time use, so that once the player opens it, it stays open. To this end, I would also suggest having some stairs at the north end of each side ledge, that the Imps can use to climb down and chase the player into that corridor. (Pic in the spoiler tag below, for clarity). 

  Spoiler

  

   

• 2) This is a nice choke point, making the player slow down a bit and clear the rooms to gather resources before committing to the final arena. This area felt like a wasted opportunity, however. Some of these small rooms are begging for random, surprise monster closet ambushes (certainly the one with the blood on the door, which in theory would’ve been a great signal to the player). Something to just liven up the combat here, a bit.

• 3) I loved the general chaos of this final battle, certainly with the Cyberdemon in the mix. The trouble with these huge open spaces and (relatively) sparse, projectile-based monsters is that the player can just start running and never stop – and ultimately, feel little-to-no pressure. In fact, I was able to simply run to each key box/pillar, grab the keys, and immediately head for the exit with very little thought or much to worry about. With the Cyb (and most other things) infighting, there’s virtually no threat here. One change that I think would instantly spice this arena up, and add some much needed pressure, would be to replace the Revenants inside the key boxes with Archviles (on Ultra-Violence at least) or, mix it up with a Rev in one, an AV in one, and perhaps even a second Cyb in the third. There’s certainly enough ammunition in the level to compensate for a second Cyberdemon.

Overall, this isn’t a bad start. I hope you continue to tinker with the map, and, in general with these ideas! I think there’s likely a great niche to fill in the form of “beginner slaughter maps”.

Regarding your sky trouble: 

here is an fda recorded in prboom+

noisy_MINISLAU.zip

Thank you both for playing. I see the map was not difficult at all for you. I guess you're not beginners, but I will rethink monster placement and balance...

@RonnieJamesDiner Your suggestions are great and can be easily implemented. I like the idea of the door that will stay open, and the stairs for the imps, so that the monsters in the first area can't be avoided that easily. I think I will also do something more in the little supply rooms and with monster placement in the wide "arena".

Thanks for pointing out how the sky is done in PrBoom. Unfortunately not as easy as in GZDoom...

Well, I found you can basically run past everything.  I think this map could easily be pacifisted in under a minute by a good speedrunner.  Try to make some fights ones that you cannot escape and make the monsters denser so that they can't just be avoided.  

Thanks @Clippy for playing my map. You proved what the other guys also mentioned: The first warmup battle can too easily be avoided, the big arena also. I will defintely implement some of the improvements Ronnie suggested and will try to prevent that the fights can be avoided too easily.

I liked dancing around demons trying to play it like a speedrunner. Got 1.18.

Hi, I uploaded version 2 of the map in the original post. I have implemented some of the ideas you mentioned here in the thread (mostly @RonnieJamesDiners tips), thank you all for those!

Now I think it's not as easy to avoid all the fights and the difficulty got increased a little bit.

Changelog V2:
- monster placement changed a bit
- added some monsters (there are 229 now)
- added some stimpacks in first area
- added a little ambush
- made some stairs for the imps in first area
- enhanced rooms behind blue door