The Mucus Flow?

If you've watched MtPain27's video on it and decino's playthrough of it, they both say say it's "an experience" and that it'll "never be matched". The best of the best.

I'd really love to complete it someday and see if it's truly the best map ever. Too bad I keep dying 30 trillion times! What about you?

I don't remember either of them saying it's the "best map ever" but it's certainly unique, and I think it's excellent. Difficulty settings were implemented pretty well in the map IIRC, so don't hesitate to dial it down if UV is giving you too much trouble. 

One thing.

Those fucking....chaingunner......turrets.........

*shaking my fist furiously*

There’s a difference between being the greatest map ever (which cannot be attributed to any map reliably) and having one of the best atmospheres created by a doom map. 

I didn't want to create a whole new topic, so I decided to post my opinion here.

I know a lot of people are going to hate me for saying this, but in my opinion, The Mucus Flow is the most overrated Doom map ever made. When I read all the praise this map got, I thought it would be solid gold in Doom map form. When I finally played through it, I was both disappointed and infuriated. I hated The Mucus Flow. I hated it, hated it, hated it. And I hate it for one simple reason: it's not fun to play.

Oh, sure, the music and architecture are okay, but the actual gameplay is cock and ball torture. Nearly all the health and ammo in this map is located right behind you at the beginning. If you run out, then you're screwed. This also means you have to do a massive amount of backtracking, and that gets old very quickly. You're pretty much required to get the secret berserk if you want to have any hope of conserving ammo. Because the level hates the idea of giving you ammo, you have to either punch everything to death or ignore the hordes of monsters that are trying to kill you. Why must the level incentivize me to ignore giant fights like that? The progression is confusing beyond belief. When I played this map for the first time, I had no idea where I was supposed to go and I died a lot as a result. Even after I figured out what to do, I still died a lot, mainly because of the many bullshit traps and monster placements, especially the chaingunners. Those monster placements made me camp a lot, and that's not fun. Eventually, I started avoiding fights not out of necessity, but because I grew sick and tired of B.P.R.D.'s bullshit. I'm sure someone will defend these design choices by saying something along the lines of, "The author wanted to make you feel powerless against the raging demonic hordes." Nah, B.P.R.D. is just an asshole who never bothered to playtest this map. This is made obvious by the numerous bugs it has.

I don't care if it's "artistic". I don't care if it's "atmospheric". I don't care if it has "haunting" music. I don't care if it's "an experience". I don't care how much certain individuals wax poetic about it. None of that matters to me because this map is not fun to play. I would rather play any other map in Community Chest 2 than The Mucus Flow. Even Gene Bird's maps are more fun to play than The Mucus Flow. I hate this map that much.

56 minutes ago, E.M. said:

-a lot-

It's a niche.

6 minutes ago, Dunn & Dunn said:

It's a niche.

Relatively speaking.

One of the weird things about this map, and also about Community Chest 2 as a whole in a few other maps, is how it seemed to be playtested. According to the wiki, yes, there's several bugs in this level. For those playing on ports under PrBoom+, you won't ever be able to get to that super secret that crushes the remaining hitscanners the teleport closet, since the secret requires that Use passes thru special lines, and people playing on PrBoom+ or higher can have this option on to get the secret. Which means that the max amount of secrets in ports under PrBoom+ will be 37%, and PrBoom+ or higher is 62% (you still have the crate secrets that are inaccessible without noclip, but that must've just been an editing mistake there). Heck, one particular switch a bit after that secret is also not usable pre-PrBoom+ as well. I too think the author playtested this in ZDoom only, which isn't the best of ideas. Certainly not the only one who did it in this wad as MAP20 has a secret that requires a certain ZDoom build version to increase arch-vile jump height that is no longer a thing.

For the oP, keep watching that video, or other demos, in order to see how to actually get through it without dying. Don't be afraid to save (unless you're heading for a saveless run, good luck there if you are).

I don't think they said about being the best map ever, but the experience is probably one that won't be emulated again in years, or ever since it's a really unique map that the experience can't be the same on another map. But yeah, part of it is the tough difficulty though I suggest you save often (and have a backup save in case you save in a bad spot) and watch people try to beat it

btw, there will never be the "best level" in Doom so the Mucus Flow can't be the best doom level, even if there was a best doom level, the Mucus Flow probably wouldn't be that one

i never played sp because i think cchest gets a bit boring after a while but i did play it on zandronum one time its really a cool level the visuals the music are all great but i wouldint say its the best level i played my favorite is and will probaly forever be emperor from eviternity

I mean don't play Mucus Flow if you only like maps all about adrenaline, you'll have no fun. but it's like a style guide for all the stuff I like about Doom and the midi is so scatterbrained and incredible that people keep reviving it for their own work. realize that "testedness" just isn't an accepted mark of quality for every type of player.

Funny nose map

Just played it, and it wasted me 30 minutes because I don't know there's a bug for PrBoom+. Nice QA in 200X, I suppose.

"Quite an experience" could be best way to describe it because this experience is very awful that nobody copies this gimmick in a way to emulate the playstyle of this map, maybe except Disturbia.

20 hours ago, GarrettChan said:

 

 

"Quite an experience" could be best way to describe it because this experience is very awful that nobody copies this gimmick in a way to emulate the playstyle of this map, maybe except Disturbia.

12 minutes ago, 1Destro3456 said:

 

Maybe you should look at who tested this, and this map doesn't emulate the stupid unlocking ammo at the start kind of setup.

I played it after MtPain's video (never heard of it before), I'd say it was a mix of great and disappointing. The best part is the music, hands down. Absolutely weird and magical, I sometimes start my day with it because it puts me in a strange creative mood. I can't help but feel that the map itself could be more memorable and more of a journey. As it is, it has some memorable, beautiful parts (the bucket room, the mancubus gallery), but outside areas are meh and there is not much to really explore. Hiding the critical secret behind an anonymous wall is a dick move. Even making you fight for an automap so you could find it would be a better choice. And then, if you already know where the secret is, it plays very differently, because it's located relatively early in the map. Go get it, then ration your supplies for the rest of the fights.

It's still a one of a kind map and an influential one, which is great. But yeah, a bit overrated. Understandable, it's hard not to overrate a map with a MIDI that good.

On 5/17/2021 at 9:41 AM, GarrettChan said:

Just played it, and it wasted me 30 minutes because I don't know there's a bug for PrBoom+. Nice QA in 200X, I suppose.

 

"Quite an experience" could be best way to describe it because this experience is very awful that nobody copies this gimmick in a way to emulate the playstyle of this map, maybe except Disturbia.

Just played Disturbia a few days ago, even though it's made by Death-Destiny but still doesn't change my mind that this gimmick is annoying.

Maybe I just don't like saving health and ammo in general? But the best maps that emulate The Mucus Flow in my heart are the ones in SOD and Miasma, and they don't emulate its playstyle for good reasons.

Btw, B.P.R.D probably didn't make its playstyle like this only because he wanted to make something unique.

If you've ever played B.P.R.D's previous wads, you'll most likely to notice that ammo starvation is pretty much in all of his maps,

I guess he just doesn't like killing all the demons he placed. Oh well.

43 minutes ago, Nefelibeta said:

(Disturbia)

Disturbia has ammo in the middle of the map, which is different. In Mucus Flow, the SSG is placed in a cage without a key out of your sight, which is a bad design to begin with because when you look there, there are keyed cages, so maybe you'll not go inside and check others.

Not to mention that bug in the map is super annoying unless you know about it.