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Death-Destiny

"No Chance", the hardest Doom2 map you will ever play ready for playtesting!

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DOWNLOAD: http://www.doomuniverse.net/DDChance.html

(Yeah, I'm just going to put the download link at the top this time so you don't have to hunt through my rambling for it...)

Yay, I finally had some time this weekend to make another Boom-compatible map. OK, the title might be an exaggeration (possible, but not necessarily), but this map is pretty hard, though. Let me preface. The mood around here recently seemed to be giving attention to slaughter maps, so it got me in the mood to make one. Then I figured it would be fun to make something completely crazy like eaxt.WAD. So that's where this came from.

UV is balanced such that the only incentive for playing it is purely for the challenge to see if you can complete what initially may seem like an impossible task, and is neither playable nor fun for any other reason. HMP is comparable to my regular UV difficulty, so you can play that if you're not interested in UV. Finally, Skills 1 and 2 are implemented as usual for those who aren't looking for too much of a challenge. Skills 1-3 take about 15-20 minutes and in the hypothetical case where UV is possible, it would take about 40 minutes.

I tried to make the map look nice for this type of map (I think I did a fair job). It's set in a Hell cavern, which seemed appropriate. You can see some screenies on my webpage for this map, as well as the downloas link. Sorry, no demo this time. It was as much as I could manage with my schedule just to get this map finished. There's probably some janky glitch I couldn't find anyway where if you do X,Y, and Z in that order, you get stuck or something. I wouldn't want my demo to desync when I fix the map. =( It would probably be better for some public playtesting first anyway. So yeah, that's it.

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For a hard map: very enjoyable. The only thing I can mention is this:



The IMP there just walks helplessly in a circle (I played on ITYTD).

That’s all for now, but maybe I find another less good thing, let’s see :-P ...

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This is awesome, really. Pure murder all the way long.
The "red cave + lava" theme is quite "common", but very well executed here.
I'd love to see a UV Max demo on this :>

@ Deeforce : Yeah, in UV it's a Revenant and he walks around as well, but I guess it's only some kind of warning / clue before you take the Berserk pack and unleash more hellspawn :>

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Really really fun map, but... easy. :P

I was able to plough, unscathed, through the first few crowds of monsters (and the narrow walkway) and get a rough idea of what was around. I grabbed the plasma gun and BFG almost first thing. It was easy from then on, heh. :P I finished it in about 28 minutes.

EDIT: Um, I was using GZDoom, so I had full freelook, jumping and crouching. Thorry. :/

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[WH]-Wilou84 said:
I'd love to see a UV Max demo on this :>

Me too, but it should be created when the wad is ready (for compatibility). UV would be a monster to beat without saving, lol :-P !

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Very fun. I finally beat uv max with a butt load of saves and deaths, very slow route, an hour and ten minutes... and highly doubt I can do it without saves unless I try 87,346 times. I think someone could do it without saves though.

At the beginning, one desperate tactic was to immediately head to the narrow walkway and 'use' the side so it goes down, then run off the walkway through the lava to the opposite end (prevents the blocking walls from going up) so you can attempt to infight that first group from the opposite side... didn't really work that well, mostly because that cyber over there, for whatever reason, is an extremely uncooperative infighter. I watch him get hit four times in a row and he still aims for me even though I never shot him, wtf. So... instead I went to the secret cover and peeked out to infight as much as possible before getting the megasphere. Oh yeah and I nabbed the berzerk before shooting.
My key order was yellow, red, blue (not that it was fast).Right after getting the yellow key I ran out past the left viles to a slight wall cubby/shelter as a somewhat safe strategy for that horde. I went to that that same cubby again after hitting all 3 key switches (first awoke all the viles so the cybers can infight them). For the very hard end battle I just decided to kill all the viles with the bfg instead of infighting them with the cyber (works much better if you hang out in that first small area you fall into and aim bfg blasts at the wall before peeking out repeatedly (instead of directly at them)). Similarly with the reverent horde I strafed back and forth behind a pole while aiming at the pole not the reverents.

One minor thing is that one of the key switches is slightly behind a scrolling linedef (but still usable from the side). You have to remember which lava areas take away damage since they have the same texture regardless of harm but that doesn't really bother me; with difficult maps you need to know the level pretty well anyway.

I like how the cybersky demoer timed the bfg blasts with cybers to try and kill them in 2 hits but I can't do it very well and often die.

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Finally just finished this map. I don't think I've yelled the line: "You've got to be kidding me!" so many times at a single doom map before. This is great stuff.

Unlike gggmork, I used a different strategy to get out of the start, using the berserk room as temporary cover, circling around the BFG platform to get the Mancubus up, as well as some chaingunners - all to create some solid in fighting, before running back to the start to grab the health kits, which I most certainly needed at that point.

From this, I was able to clear the start, and move on. This took me an insane amount of tries, especially when, for the first time I recall, I managed to overwrite my save. Had to be on this map, didn't it? :(

Anyhow, a few concerns:

Mostly, I found myself skipping certain packs of enemies purely to conserve ammo. I had a feeling I might eventually run out, and I did eventually once I hit the blue key room. Even with as much infighting as I could create, I found myself without ammo once I hit the cyberdemon's and archviles that were guarding the way out.
Maybe a small cache could open up on the other side once the key is taken? Or, it's possible I just wasted too much on lost souls.

Also, because sectors 284/285 are lit differently than adjacent sectors you can see that something is probably going to spawn in them. Is this intentional?

It also might be wise to give the player some health to deal with what spawns when you trigger the final key lock - it's probable that the player will need a bit to deal with the cyber's and subsequent archviles. (I got through that whole bit on 10 health. Eek.)
Perhaps the rocket packs could be moved next to the cellpack's, too? (Assuming you put them in to deal with the archviles and mancubus.)

I also felt that the last room could use a little tweaking. Once the main horde of revenant's eventually start to push forward, the chances of a stray rocket curving around and hitting a pillar behind the player increases dramatically. (After a while, it was the only thing killing me.) Of course, this is also part of the challenge, so it could very well be fine as is.

So other than some possible ammo/health tweaks (and if some of the players more skilled than me don't voice similar concerns, then it's probable health/ammo are fine, and that I simply mucked up) - perhaps the monster block tag, blocking the cyberdemon's leaving sector 373 after the yellow key is taken might be removed? It's quite easy just to ignore them at this point. (Unless of course you discovered that letting them loose caused more problems?)

Still, awesome map. I'd love to see more like this.

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Hey guys, thanks for all the feedback. I'll try to address some things.

Firstly, I do believe there's enough ammo. What I did to test this was I put in the minimum of ammo the player should need to complete the map with 100% kills, testing it to be sure (with Godmode, obviously.) After this, I added an additional 1000 plasma cells, 200 SSG shells, and 80 rockets throughout the map, which should give the player a margin of error assuming they can't aim perfectly since they aren't using Godmode, but only to a point. The player will still need to prioritize Archies and PEs, as no amount of ammo will help if they live too long. I'm not sure if I should add more health or not, as there is the equivalent of 5 megaspheres throughout the map already (not counting medpacks) and I worry if I add another that there won't be enough emphasis on evasion with the extra protection and thus negate a lot of the challenge. I gave the player the equivalent of a megasphere for each key, so maybe a strategy would be to get whichever key you find easiest last to escape with the most health?

I noticed that the scroll line partially blocked the red switch, but it seemed to be only slightly, so I left it be. The imp/rev on the Berserk pack's only assignment is to stand on top of it so you have to kill it. Same for the Cyb in the yellow key area, just so the player can't hang out in the lava pool easily. Also, I tried to keep most of the Cybs in fixed locations or 1-on-1 fights, as letting them move around just caused them to kill everything for you, which isn't very challenging. =( I think I left a few sectors lit up a bit to hint at some teleport locations to kinda help the first play through.

That said, I think the map should be ready for demo-running at this point, since no one found any map-breaking glitches (I thought I got rid of them all, but it's good to be sure.) It would be a really sweet demo and I'd love to watch it. =) Just reading these comments and from my own testing, it should definitely be possible. It looks like a route just needs to be devised to make the most of the resources available.

Making this map was a lot of fun, so I'd definitely make another of this style sometime when I get more time. It's never a bad time to make a new slaugher map! I'm glad you people enjoyed the challenge! =)

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I'm still pretty far from beating it. I tried up until I grabbed the red key then got flanked by two Cyberdemons. I decided that I'd just try another day. Not dooming for a while dulled my skills.

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Looks like I managed to waste a lot of ammo somewhere then. (Probably on Cyberdemon's. Those guys can really hog the ammo if you're not careful.)

Health wise, every part of the map is fine, except for the section after unlocking the final key. While there is health set aside for every other section, there's nothing for that little part. (Six Archies, Four Cyberdemons and Seven Mancubus, plus the other Arch Viles up the back, plus anything the Archies manage to resurrect. Not impossible not to get hit by both waves, but you would need to be lucky and skilled to do so.)

I also mentioned the rocket packs, because they appear to be guarded by the very enemies they're there to help defeat? Unless they're really meant to help out on the final room? This is about the only gripe I had, and it's very minor in the scope of things.

Would be fun to try and make a map pack out of this sort of thing, and I'm tempted to go back and re-shape some of the maps I started with.

In fact, bugger it. I'm going to go and map right now. You've inspired me, DD :)

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Sectors 284, 285 and 286 appear to have slightly too low a light level. As you approach the blue key area, the perfectly square boxes of darkness look odd amongst the natural rock formations.

I'm not sure about the exit. You press the switch, lower the wall, kill the monsters, then there's nothing really there behind them, except a decoration. It doesn't immediately suggest "the exit is right here", it's more like "turn round, the exit has opened somewhere else in the cavern".

Other than that, fine. You seem to have improved at setting a playable difficulty on HNTR - I appreciated not having to rely on ITYTD's half damage (I don't like ITYTD because of the unbalancing effect of double ammunition)

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I made a couple of very slight changes to the map. I agree with you about the health, Insane_Gazebo. I don't want the player to have to fight like hell to get the last key and not be able to proceed from there. The health should be independent of previous areas. I added 4 medkits with the BFG ammo so that the player can at least have enough health to survive some stray splash damage. I also brightened up those squares near the blue key since that probably takes away from the atmosphere. (Download link updated, BTW. Changes won't desync any demos anyone might have been made already.)

Hey, I've been using a different formula for setting skills 1-2 now that seems to work better than what I was doing before, I'm glad the difference is noticable. =) I agree it would be cool to have at least a small map pack like this, since Erik Alm never got around to it. =( Map's like this are really fun in their own way, IMO.

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Something else I tried that would probably be faster is don't shoot (to keep most teleporters dormant), first wake the cyb up by bumping into him, then run past the left chaingunners and get the plasma. Get the soulsphere and try to survive up to the switch at the top of the stairs. Go back down and arch blast jump over the walkway (since the stairs are too crowded probably). Then get the berzerk for health. Maybe better to kill everyone here now because if you go to the secret now you'll be blocked when you warp out.

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Sorry, made another minor change, but it will desync demos. Please use the most recent version posted after I posted this message. Apologies. (link updated again.)

@Ismaele: Will do. The map's only been out for a couple of days, but it shouldn't take too much longer to get anything else sorted out, hopefully.

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edit: I think I finally fixed my weird once-a-minute brief pause problem with prboom 2.4.8.3 (made more hard drive room, deleted java, tweaked internet explorer and antivirus stuff, etc, not sure what did it). But for the record prboom 2.4.8.4 seems to have an infighting problem/bug (I also don't like how you have to manually close the end credits window in that version). So the first time I beat this map (with tons of saves) everyone infought 1/4 as much making it even harder. I guess I'll retry from scratch with 2.4.8.3 and normal infighting.

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Apparently you didn't make it hard enough. Well, now that I'm inspired, I'll try my hand at making a mean map.

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gggmork said:
But for the record prboom 2.4.8.4 seems to have an infighting problem/bug

I can't reproduce this, and besides, none of the gameplay code was touched at all between 2.4.8.3 and 2.4.8.4.

Maybe your options or compatibility settings have been changed. Go into the menu, options, setup, enemies, and make sure that "monster infighting when provoked" is set to "yes".

gggmork said:
(I also don't like how you have to manually close the end credits window in that version).

Go into the menus again, options, general, then find "fast exit" and set it to "yes". It's under "misc" on the fourth page or thereabouts.

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Fast exit worked, cool. But I doublechecked that monsters infight when provoked is 'yes' and have the same problem (they do infight occasionally but require maybe 3 or 4 hits instead of 1, and I can line a mancubus behind a chaingunner and the manc keeps aiming at me regardless of being pummeled). 2.4.8.3 works fine though, weird. Probably is some problem on my end since.. most problems are..

Ok, I re-beat uv max with 2.4.8.3 (with tons of saves again but better than last time) at 48:00. I might try a saveless run (which would probably add on 10-20 minutes) but doubt I can do it.

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Butts said:

Apparently you didn't make it hard enough. Well, now that I'm inspired, I'll try my hand at making a mean map.


Im going to have to second that. Challengers will approach soon

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Here's a failed demo spam, 1st half is ok, 2nd half is really slow and probably boring to watch and I only got midway then died. But it shows a pretty good way to do the whole beginning I guess, mostly just exploiting stuff instead of having much skill (preventing warpers from coming in by not firing at the beginning and kinda nudging the berzerk guarding reverent so you trigger the linedef but don't get the berzerk until later). I should have done the winding rocket stairway key first so I would have had more plasma for the vile maze key. And I would normally have that megasphere for later but screwed up. I can probably beat the whole thing in a lot more tries (the strategies for the parts I didn't do have maybe 80% death rate though).

http://www.sendspace.com/file/w4zied

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yeah thats a pretty nice demo. if i can just get around to beating it... in nightmare!!! no, but really, i havent beat it yet on uv. ittyd and hmp were fairly easy, but uv is a fair bit tougher.

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wh...y....iss...tthe.....ma...pp....sh...sh..aak...king...?

nvm i figured out the problem. sorry that was embarrassing.

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Ha! i finally beat it. the ending took me forever to get past, i was attempting it at least for 2 hours straight... but i was determined. definitely the hardest parts are the beginning and the end. now the only thing to do is beat this with consistency....

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Woa!

I made the mistake of trying on UV!

I struggled to beat it on ITYTD.

But I think the map was broke for me

I never could find a switch or anything that allowed me into the area where the yellow key is, and that secret area had no way of getting out, So I had to clip a couple times.

Oh and when I hit the 3rd key required button nothing happened, so I had to clip to get the bfg and get into the final area.

What could I have missed?

I was playing it on legacy fyi but it shouldnt make a difference.

Other than that awsome map, I still have yet to try it on a harder level

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RHINO said:

But I think the map was broke for me ... I was playing it on legacy fyi but it shouldnt make a difference.

Well actually it does make a very fundamental difference.

This map uses voodoo dolls, which Legacy doesn't support at all. So you'll need to use a fully Boom-compatible port (or Boom itself) to play this wad (and be sure that Boom behaviour is chosen).

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