DOOMWAVE - 16 UDMF/GZDoom maps! (12/04)

Current version is version .4

Download here: DOOMWAVE_v.4.zip

Essentials:

• 16! new levels (starts at E1M1); I'm aiming for 4 episodes with 7 levels each

• Requires the Doom 2 IWAD

• Built in UDMF, requires GZDoom in order to function properly.
• New weapons added
• New monsters added

• New powerups added

• Community-sourced music from a few noteworthy midi collections (see assets section for more details)
• Does not require jumping/crouching/mouselook (the Rifle and Railgun have autoaim disabled though)

• Three additional difficulty settings: Ultra-Violence+, Famine Mode, and Barrels o’ Fun

• Supports cooperative, but has not been fine-tuned yet. Deathmatch is not available.

 

This project is a work in progress. Episodes 1 and 2 have all 8 difficulty settings implemented, and have co-op starts and Things placed as well. Deathmatch is not yet available; still not sure whether I'll try to put it in or not.

 

Episode 1 Screenshots:

Episode 2 screenshots:

 

Interlude screenshots (new!):

 

New difficulty settings added:

 

Ultra-Violence+

Fastmonsters is enabled and cooperative things will be present in singleplayer. Monster respawning is off.

 

Famine Mode

Less ammo. Less health. Fewer but stronger enemies. Fastmonsters is enabled, and enemy hitscanners (Shotgunguy, chaingunner, etc.) are changed to fire fast projectiles.

 

Barrels o’ Fun

No armor, and loads of barrels and rockets. Enemies will respawn twice.

 

Assets used:

 

Background and general info:

 

 

Edited December 5, 2021 by SMG_Man : New version introducing the map updater

Huh what's this?

I have recorded some footage of a few of the levels:

 

 

Edited November 16, 2021 by SMG_Man : formatting

UPDATE - 9/27

 

Episode 2 has been added, and it is playable on the default Ultraviolence difficulty. Not sure whether I'll continue by making Episode 3 next, or implementing the other 7 difficulty levels for Episode 2.

 

Also, all vanilla Doom/Doom 2 tracks used for map music have been replaced by MIDIs from the Master Levels and Plutonia midi packs.

 

And a bonus, some demo footage of E2M4:

 

 

looks interesting, will try it later today

This looks awesome, looking forward to getting to it!

Wow cool

On 10/6/2021 at 11:43 AM, auber said:

looks interesting, will try it later today

uhhhh
whoops.
i'm a month late to trying this out, but i found this to be very fun! good job on this
demo - doomwave(e1m1-m4).zip

Couldn't get the demo to play on my end, but I'm glad you had fun w/ it!

Gonna drop the next update for the project now. It’s more modest than the last one, mostly just implementing the various difficulty settings besides UV for Episode 2, but I also modified the status bar, added a few new weapons, and made two more levels (with all difficulty settings done for them), and I’m gonna be honest, one of the new maps is the largest and most technically complex map I’ve ever created bar none, so look forward to that.

 

I do have several great ideas in mind for Episode 3, but for now I need to take a step back and honor my commitments to a couple of other projects. And so, in the meantime I leave you with some screenshots of the two new levels (in the post above) as well as a recording of some gameplay to go with this update:

 

 

edit: Small bugfix; accidentally messed up the status bar scaling stuff. Should be fixed now in .32a

Edited November 14, 2021 by SMG_Man

This is an odd hit for me. I think the level designs are good, a bit confusing but bearable! The secrets are literally no worse than Doom 1 episode 1 when playing blind so definitely don't think I'm complaining at all at that. I was having a blast honestly. Good music.

 

My only eyebrow raise is why do I get 3 different machine guns that are redundant when weighed against each other. Of the 3 I'm happy using the SMG looking one. 3 machine guns but not a SSG in sight all before E1M5? That one little bit actually grated on my nerves. I definitely advise slim it down to the SMG only because the 3-burst rifle and the 4 bullet per click Chaingun were just a waste of ammo and weapon cycling time.  Then I went through the other weapons after seeing that and only saw one other type of thing which was a double up on Rocket Launchers. Now to be fair on the RLs I just did IDFA, but if you do have 2 types of single fire rocketlaunchers then you may want to change that as well; if not then disregard that advice. 

 

On the weapons balancing, I'm relaying that advice because I primarily specialize in making custom Weapons packs and monster packs, and have a really fair idea on Vanilla Doom game balance when dealing with gameplay aspects of custom assets. Basically after using/having 3 different machine guns in the first 3 levels it was quickly feeling like N64 Goldeneye days of cycling through redundant weaponry just to get to what I needed. 

 

The extra enemies were A-OK. Nothing wrong at all with adding balanced variety.

 

This mod is a TC and is NOT UDMF(THough the maps may be), It is actually ZDOOM Family in order to run properly.

Edited November 15, 2021 by kalensar

2 hours ago, kalensar said:

3 machine guns but not a SSG in sight all before E1M5?

 

This probably isn't a surprise, but I'm half of the mind nowadays that the vanilla super-shotgun is kind of too good for what it is. Especially in the original doom 2, where (on a typical playthrough) you get it on map 2 of the game and pretty much have the most universally useful weapon in the game. I would rather have the player play around not having that crutch in the first episode instead of directly nerfing the weapon.

 

I do appreciate the concern about the automatic weapons, and I may dial it back a little bit in some way. With the automatic weapons, here's the balance I tried to strike:

 

• Machinegun is basically the original chaingun - fires every 4 tics, bullets are perfectly accurate on the first shot, etc.

• The modified Chaingun is more like the quake 2 chaingun - fast rate of fire makes it good for tearing through crowds of mooks, but because of the windup and its lower accuracy, it's less suited for med-long range engagements or anything demanding precision. (Good for flinching enemies though.)

• The burst rifle has more consistent accuracy than the machinegun, and to compensate for its odder firing pattern, its bullets are slightly stronger

 

I am of course open to rebalancing things, either through changing the weapons' characteristics or perhaps making it where the player won't have all of these weapons at the same time in an episode (e.g., the chaingun doesn't appear in episode 1, while the burst rifle doesn't appear in episode 2). I want to avoid weapon bloat, but I also like the idea of different weapons having different niches. if that makes sense.

 

On the rocket launchers, I was mostly motivated to add some more due to the barrels o' fun mode; I figured that mode would get stale extremely quick if the player literally only had the rocket launcher and the grenade launcher hidden in secrets. I feel like I was able to better differentiate the rocket weapons:

 

• Rocket launcher stays as is: high rate of fire, packs a punch.

• Grenade launcher: fires a bouncy grenade that deals more damage than rockets, but has a smaller blast radius

• Phalanx (the one that looks similar to the rocket launcher): fires 3 missiles that are individually weaker than the normal rocket, but together deal more damage against a single target. Again, they all have smaller blast radii than the normal rocket.

• Seeker launcher: Low rate of fire, but shoots a really powerful homing missile. The homing effect isn't perfect though, so you have to be careful with it and make sure not to blow yourself up.

 

I think these have more prominent niches than the automatic weapons, but again I'm open to suggestions and tweaks to make it more enjoyable.

 

Also, I'll go ahead and update the post about the format - I didn't realize just how dependent my wad was on GZDoom until I tried loading it in Zandronum earlier.

1 hour ago, SMG_Man said:

 

This probably isn't a surprise, but I'm half of the mind nowadays that the vanilla super-shotgun is kind of too good for what it is. Especially in the original doom 2, where (on a typical playthrough) you get it on map 2 of the game and pretty much have the most universally useful weapon in the game. I would rather have the player play around not having that crutch in the first episode instead of directly nerfing the weapon.

 

I do appreciate the concern about the automatic weapons, and I may dial it back a little bit in some way. With the automatic weapons, here's the balance I tried to strike:

 

• Machinegun is basically the original chaingun - fires every 4 tics, bullets are perfectly accurate on the first shot, etc.

• The modified Chaingun is more like the quake 2 chaingun - fast rate of fire makes it good for tearing through crowds of mooks, but because of the windup and its lower accuracy, it's less suited for med-long range engagements or anything demanding precision. (Good for flinching enemies though.)

• The burst rifle has more consistent accuracy than the machinegun, and to compensate for its odder firing pattern, its bullets are slightly stronger

 

I am of course open to rebalancing things, either through changing the weapons' characteristics or perhaps making it where the player won't have all of these weapons at the same time in an episode (e.g., the chaingun doesn't appear in episode 1, while the burst rifle doesn't appear in episode 2). I want to avoid weapon bloat, but I also like the idea of different weapons having different niches. if that makes sense.

 

On the rocket launchers, I was mostly motivated to add some more due to the barrels o' fun mode; I figured that mode would get stale extremely quick if the player literally only had the rocket launcher and the grenade launcher hidden in secrets. I feel like I was able to better differentiate the rocket weapons:

 

• Rocket launcher stays as is: high rate of fire, packs a punch.

• Grenade launcher: fires a bouncy grenade that deals more damage than rockets, but has a smaller blast radius

• Phalanx (the one that looks similar to the rocket launcher): fires 3 missiles that are individually weaker than the normal rocket, but together deal more damage against a single target. Again, they all have smaller blast radii than the normal rocket.

• Seeker launcher: Low rate of fire, but shoots a really powerful homing missile. The homing effect isn't perfect though, so you have to be careful with it and make sure not to blow yourself up.

 

I think these have more prominent niches than the automatic weapons, but again I'm open to suggestions and tweaks to make it more enjoyable.

 

Also, I'll go ahead and update the post about the format - I didn't realize just how dependent my wad was on GZDoom until I tried loading it in Zandronum earlier.

 

 

Whoa! You think the SSG is broken so you replace it with a Auto Shotgun that has  the same rate of fire as the vanilla pistol, and has normal shotgun damage and similar-ish spread? My friend, I would gladly take that Auto Shotgun over the SSG any given day especially on Taco Tuesdays! You literally obsoleted both shotguns in one fell swoop by adding that Auto Shotgun to fill the void of the SSG.

 

As for the Rifles, the Machinegun(SMG one) Has a better fire rate and accuracy than the other AR and the Chaingun simply by single clicking on the mouse. And thats not even including the insane fire rate of the SMG over even the Chaingun. That SMG is a bullet hose while the other 2 are lawn sprinklers by comparison.

 

And thats not even mentioning how obsoleted the Pistol itself becomes. Even in Vanilla Doom the Pistol can be used to surprising ability for bullet conservation and sniping of Shotgunners and Chaingunners, or just as a hazing weapon. I've spent way too many weird wads hosing down Hell Knights with a Pistol just because some creators are keen to the Chaingun's power.

 

Basically on the SSG topic, the Great Equalizer wad of Plutonia is where the SSG lost its all star shine ages ago because of the reload time. You were best off using the Rocket Launcher despite all the dangers involved because the SSG would get you killed due to the Revenants and Chaingunners. It reopened the love of the Normal Shotgun all over again due to the sniping ability it had.

 

Basically if I had a suggestion, it would be to switch the ammo type of the Chaingun to Magnum or some such variation, that way it actually gains a powerful slot instead of dead weight to the almighty SMG. Seriously, that SMG is super fun.

1 hour ago, kalensar said:

You think the SSG is broken so you replace it with a Auto Shotgun that has  the same rate of fire as the vanilla pistol, and has normal shotgun damage and similar-ish spread?

 

 

Hold on a second there, I gotta correct you on this. The auto-shotgun isn't replacing anything lol. On the standard difficulties, it's in exactly 1 place in the first episode (hidden in a secret in a challenging secret level), and 1 place in the second episode (again, hidden in a secret). Since the SSG becomes a regularly occurring weapon in the second episode and the player's inventory is reset between episodes, the auto-shotgun doesn't replace the SSG in the arsenal by any means at all. If the player can actually find it, they can have fun with it. If not, oh well.

 

As to your commentary about the chaingun, I will look into making it use magnum ammo like you mentioned. My main concern will be that its damage to ammo ratio will not be high enough to warrant using it over the revolver or the rifle unless I comically inflate it, which could lead to other issues.

 

I'm not too worried about the standard pistol becoming obsolete; it's basically an incentive for the player to look for other weapons at the start of each episode. Additionally I've tested most of the levels and so far they've all proven winnable from pistol start for me, so even hardcore types shouldn't have a problem working around it.

9 hours ago, SMG_Man said:

 

 

Hold on a second there, I gotta correct you on this. The auto-shotgun isn't replacing anything lol. On the standard difficulties, it's in exactly 1 place in the first episode (hidden in a secret in a challenging secret level), and 1 place in the second episode (again, hidden in a secret). Since the SSG becomes a regularly occurring weapon in the second episode and the player's inventory is reset between episodes, the auto-shotgun doesn't replace the SSG in the arsenal by any means at all. If the player can actually find it, they can have fun with it. If not, oh well.

 

As to your commentary about the chaingun, I will look into making it use magnum ammo like you mentioned. My main concern will be that its damage to ammo ratio will not be high enough to warrant using it over the revolver or the rifle unless I comically inflate it, which could lead to other issues.

 

I'm not too worried about the standard pistol becoming obsolete; it's basically an incentive for the player to look for other weapons at the start of each episode. Additionally I've tested most of the levels and so far they've all proven winnable from pistol start for me, so even hardcore types shouldn't have a problem working around it.

Playtesting Continued:

BTW:  

E2M7: Requires Jumping! Maybe I missed the switch to get the Yellow Key, but holy moly it sure didn't seem like it.

           

E1M7: The Hall with the Shooting projectiles that leads to the platforming run across the lava. You might want to slow down the lowering of the platforms by just a small couple of  seconds. Not Huge, just a fraction longer would make that way less daunting and certainly less frustrating. The Blue Key Room? I have no words on that because the main jail   door didn't open to get the Blue Key and there was no semi-obvious path to get it. The Red Key room wasn't much better due to the army on the other side. I used IDFA and no use of BFG and got freaking whomped on because of that Hell storm. You can't use rockets in there at all because of the Pain Boys and even the almighty Auto Shotgun left a lot to be desired. I couldn't get a single key because of a gimmicky platform, an unfair fight against equally unfair cheating , and a door that didn't logically open. I can't even imagine a pistol start on that map on the HMP difficulty I played on.

 

Yeah, That info on the Auto shotgun spawns definitely is not readily knowable, and given the previous responses it was easy to jump  to the conclusion that the SSG was not even available at all. Yup that does solve some balancing issues as far as shotguns are concerned.

 

The Chaingun to Magnum was mainly just an example, but as it currently sits the AR and Chaingun are definitely dead weight on current settings. The rocket launcher weapons are less to worry about than 2 mediocre weapons you after  you get the SMG bullet hose. To be slightly fair, the AR does have use for sniping, especially at those dastard Female zombies and chaingunners because of its accuracy, but the Chaingun is definitely the low gun on the totem pole for ammo use and firing rate.

 

Also, while I'm still on the subject of game balance: Why does it take less than 20 shots to kill a cyberdemon with the magnum rifle? Holy moly dude! I tested this on Map20 of Doom 2 because I wanted to get a really good idea of how OP these weapons really got. There's my answer. 

Once again, I'm just critiquing mainly from experience on balancing my own weapons mods. The Doom gun formula is basically that no guns are worthless even if they get overshadowed by a better gun that uses different ammo. I can easily go in and fix all the values to what I would personally see as a balanced version just as  a personal version of this GZDoom TC mod, but I think the hiccups warrant higher than just my personal wants.

 

I'm also aware of where the guns came from asset wise and how they would normally perform even if you ripped them from Original source or not or DLed from R667: AR is from Vanilla Brutal Doom which is a recolored Brutal Doom rifle, Doom 64 Rocket Launcher, KDIZD Grenade Launcher from R667, Machinegun from R667, Double Chainsaw is R667, Smasher from R667. 

So that leaves all of 2 guns, one rocket launcher and the Rail Gun,  unlisted for Credits which I would assume came from Final Doomer . 

 

As for the Custom Monsters: Stone Imp could have come from R667 or Project Brutality 3.0 or RLDoom, Female Zombie is definitely R667, the darker super imp dude is either RLdoom or R667,  SlimeWorm is R667.

 

The decorations and skyboxes and other stuff I have no clue on where they come from, but it would be really cool to know if they are original or are from somewhere else. =)

 

 

Please understand I'm literally just giving a Game Tester perspective, and also fellow Author perspective.

re: e2m7

 

 

re: e1m7

 

 

re: rifle

2 hours ago, kalensar said:

Why does it take less than 20 shots to kill a cyberdemon with the magnum rifle?

 

re: automatic weapons

 

Last thing:

2 hours ago, kalensar said:

The decorations and skyboxes and other stuff I have no clue on where they come from, but it would be really cool to know if they are original or are from somewhere else. =)

 

I have my asset list for the last two episodes pretty much set in stone now, so I'm going to get credits/sources for everything in the wad compiled for the next episode's release.

1 hour ago, SMG_Man said:

re: e2m7

 

  Hide contents

There are four main rooms in the map, one for each of the three keys, and one with the exit.

In each key room there is a switch tucked away somewhere. These switches give access to a set of switches in the exit room, and the switches in the exit room in turn lower stuff to make the keys accessible.

The switch needed in the yellow key room is on the east wall here:

 

 

re: e1m7

 

  Hide contents

Yellow key area: The raising platforms bit looks a lot scarier than it actually is. All you have to do is hit the switch and run over to the last pillar then wait for it to raise. Actually running across all the pillars as they rise and fall isn't necessary; they're just there to throw you off.

 

Blue key area: There are two wooden switches in the canyon. One can be immediately accessed, and pressing it raises stairs to the second switch. The second switch then lowers the pillars blocking the blue skull.

 

Red key area: There is a single Pain Elemental on HMP (three of them on UV/NM). I've run through this level a few times on UV pistol start, so it is definitely possible. You need to make use of every tool available to you, and it may take a few tries to figure out target priorities and survive the onslaught. There is also a secret invulnerability hidden behind a fake wall in that area (I will note that I only put it in after making sure to beat the fight a few times; mandatory secrets are rather lame.)

 

 

Okay, So you definitely need to see some gameplay of the issues I spoke of E1M7 from a perspective that is not of the creator. I put together a gameplay video of HMP and HNTR of pistol start on E1M7. Its 8 minutes long and unedited.

 

 

All right, I can definitely see where you're coming from. The way the level is set up though, you don't have to get the skullkeys in a specific order. In other words, you don't have to get the Red one first. From my pistol start runs, it's the one I would get last (I would go yellow -> blue -> red) so that way I would be geared up for it.

 

With the yellow key area, like I said earlier all the rising pillars are a bit of a red herring. But I do take your point about that not really being the most obvious thing, so I'll adjust the delay a bit to make it more feasible to run across that way and also reroute that teleporter so you don't go all the way back to the beginning of the gauntlet if you fall.

 

The blue key area seems fine enough from your video, so I see no need to change it.

 

I still intend for the level to be a bit of a challenge, as it is an entirely optional secret level, so I'm fine with it testing the player's skills and giving them a few deaths along the way. I'll make the changes I noted above and put that out in an update here shortly.

55 minutes ago, SMG_Man said:

All right, I can definitely see where you're coming from. The way the level is set up though, you don't have to get the skullkeys in a specific order. In other words, you don't have to get the Red one first. From my pistol start runs, it's the one I would get last (I would go yellow -> blue -> red) so that way I would be geared up for it.

 

With the yellow key area, like I said earlier all the rising pillars are a bit of a red herring. But I do take your point about that not really being the most obvious thing, so I'll adjust the delay a bit to make it more feasible to run across that way and also reroute that teleporter so you don't go all the way back to the beginning of the gauntlet if you fall.

 

The blue key area seems fine enough from your video, so I see no need to change it.

 

I still intend for the level to be a bit of a challenge, as it is an entirely optional secret level, so I'm fine with it testing the player's skills and giving them a few deaths along the way. I'll make the changes I noted above and put that out in an update here shortly.

EDIT__ I had no Idea that was the Secret Level!!! I thought that was the Episode end stage!

 

 

I wasn't playing to make a point. I really do set my mouse speed up that high and everything, and I did test run the UV Pistol start as well with bit better tactics of getting the MegaArmor first, but using only a shotgun and a Machine Gun vs 6 barons, 15ish imps on and off ledges, 20 hitscanners and topped off with 3 pain elementals..... Like dang dude... I'd hope for at least a plasma rifle in that kind of fight, or an SSG in that tiny arena. That was painful mainly because of GZDoom and how it handles Pain Elementals.

 

 

37 minutes ago, kalensar said:

I had no Idea that was the Secret Level!!! I thought that was the Episode end stage!

 

Ah lol, it's all good. Yeah, the way I have it set up in both episodes rn is 1-6 are the normal stages, and 7 is the secret level. In the future I may add in two more normal levels to each episode to more closely match the original doom, but for now this is how I'm handling it.

All right, after some more input from a few sources, I ended up settling on some changes for the bullet-based slot 4 weapons. I've updated the WAD (along with a few other minor fixes), and here's a video with commentary going a little more in-depth on the functionality of each of the three weapons:

 

 

One last update before the year is out. I performed some balancing adjustments on certain weapons and a few powerups, fixed a few oddities in some maps, and (more importantly) added in a new feature that informs the player where they are in the level like in Doom 3. See below:

 

 

In the normal view, the room name will flash into view and then fade out after a couple of seconds whenever the player enters a different zone. In the Automap view, the room name is static and stays visible while the Automap is pulled up, updating instantly as the player moves around into different zones. Hopefully this will help with navigating some of the larger and more complex levels.

 

Happy holidays!