'Blood, Fire & Ice'---A six-map SP Snapmap Campaign!

[Caffeine Freak]

'Blood, Fire & Ice' takes you to a UAC research facility where power fluctuations have both de-stabilized the teleporter and plunged the base into sub-freezing temperatures. Hayden has tasked you with disabling each facility power station, thereby disabling the teleporter and cutting off the gateway the demons are currently using the infest the base. In the first half of the campaign, you'll slice through hundreds of demons across several frozen base levels, shut down the teleporter, and wind up getting sucked through the interdimensional rift into hell itself. The second half tasks you with finding your way back out and destroying the source of the invasion along the way.

 

Features: 

 

- 4 classic difficulty levels to choose from (I'm Too Young to Die, Hurt Me Plenty, Ultra-Violence, Nightmare) that will greatly impact the difficulty of the monsters you face throughout the campaign.

 

- Numerous suit upgrades, ranging from Ammo/Health/Armor boosts to more extravagant things like permanent speed boosts and power-up extenders. Your upgrades will carry with you across levels.

 

- The ability to gradually and permanently increase your speed by nearly 2x by glory killing monsters after picking up a particular upgrade early in the campaign. 

 

- Optional Playable Rune Trials. Functionally very similar to those in the DOOM SP Campaign, they will grant you extraordinary abilities.

 

- A boss battle at the end, accompanied by a classic hell fight comprised of swarms of demons numbering in the literal hundreds.

 

Note that it is possible to start from any of these maps and play from there. However, this will cause you to bypass all the earlier upgrades that will make the campaign considerably easier. 

 

'Part I: Below Freezing' --- ID# NHDTWJHC

 

'Part II: Layers of Frost' --- ID# 3PRJ8WX6

 

'Part III: A Rift in the Ice' --- ID# KCXN453J

 

'Part IV: Into the Void' --- ID# WK9QD9F3

 

'Part V: Broiling Point' --- ID# K74GLFTQ

 

'Part VI: Ashes to Ice' --- ID# A9BGHYYT

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 25, 2018 by Caffeine Freak

[Caffeine Freak]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Deleted_Account]

Looks amazing! I'll have to check it out.

[Caffeine Freak]

Thanks, man. Let me know what you think!

[Touchdown]

It's time to re-install DOOM4, isn't it? Looks pretty damn cool. I actually haven't even checked the Snapmap section at all but this seems like a good reason to do so. :)

[Caffeine Freak]

Hope you enjoy it. ;)

[Caffeine Freak]

I'm kind of realizing now that I may have shot myself in the foot by working in persistent upgrades that carry between levels, since the only way you can finish the map pack with those upgrades is to start from the beginning and play all the way through, in one sitting. It's a tall order. And although I did it because I wanted this to be as close to something like the SP campaign as possible, I'm wondering if it was the best decision.

[Touchdown]

I was just going to ask about it because I played to map03 and took a break only to find that I can't actually continue with previously acquired upgrades. That kind of sucks. I don't know if I can find enough time and patience to play through all 6 maps in one sitting so I might have to push through without upgrades somehow. :/

[Doom64guy6]

16 hours ago, Caffeine Freak said:

I'm kind of realizing now that I may have shot myself in the foot by working in persistent upgrades that carry between levels, since the only way you can finish the map pack with those upgrades is to start from the beginning and play all the way through, in one sitting. It's a tall order. And although I did it because I wanted this to be as close to something like the SP campaign as possible, I'm wondering if it was the best decision.

In that case it works only thing it's just like making wads in doom 2 you just have to make that every level is beatable by starting on that level

 

 

Also you have that problem even in the old dooms to an extent.

[Caffeine Freak]

12 hours ago, Doom64guy6 said:

In that case it works only thing it's just like making wads in doom 2 you just have to make that every level is beatable by starting on that level

 

 

Also you have that problem even in the old dooms to an extent.

 

That's true, but losing your weapons and being able to regain them all is one thing. Losing one-opportunity upgrades that you can't get back is quite another. People REALLY hate that.

 

I could've made it more workable by putting multiple instances of the same upgrades in different places throughout the levels, but doing it that way means there's less reward for being exploratory, if both the diligent and lazier players end the campaign with essentially the same level of upgrades.

 

The funny thing is, working in the upgrades so that they were persistent across maps was the biggest hurdle I had to figure out. I had given up on it more than once and just decided that even if the player missed the upgrades in a particular map, I'd give them to him at the beginning of the next map. But then, probably 3/4 or more through development, I had a breakthrough and finally figured out how to work in the upgrades so that they were persistent. Even then, I hadn't quite worked out the speed upgrade, since it's not one or two upgrades like everything else, but dozens and dozens of smaller upgrades, and that was a bit trickier to figure out. I eventually worked it out though, and then implemented the difficulty settings last (they use the same persistent system as the upgrades).

 

But yeah, it might've been better to just ditch the persistent system altogether. Or maybe at least for the speed upgrade, since that's really the most important upgrade.

 

@Touchdown  I guess I'd probably recommend just grabbing an energy drink and powering through the campaign from start to finish. It's exhilarating when you make it through all six levels and then finally reach the end (not that I'm biased or anything!) and beating the final two maps is really much more fun with your upgrades, especially the speed boost. Moving at that speed almost turns DOOM into Q3A at times.

 

[Touchdown]

You will have to tell me what am I supposed to do at the start of map03. I've pressed the button at the bottom of the big room but I have no idea what to do next.

 

Edit: Never mind, I've figured it out by shooting blindly everywhere.

Edited April 29, 2018 by Touchdown

[Touchdown]

Alright, I've just finished it. I played on HMP to make sure I could get through it in one sitting without spending too much time restarting - took ~2,5h. Here are some quick thoughts.

 

Overally it was really cool. I have no idea how Snapmap works so I don't know how much control you actually have over level design / level of detail and such... Hell levels definitely looked more refined whereas some base areas were pretty bland. I dig the frozen setting though, reminds me of Winter's Fury though it does make things look a bit same'y because everything is covered in ice. Some interactive elements are hard to spot at first glance.

 

I didn't really have a lot of problems figuring out what to do but that one moment at the beginning of Map03... I don't know, I've spent maybe 15min running around before realizing that I have to shoot those things next to the switch. And the same exact things at the other end of the room were indestructible so... that was unintuitive.

 

Encounters are pretty oldschool - tons of high tier demons at once. The final fight was really impressive near the end and reminded me a lot of some classic DOOM maps that folks make though I'm not sure I'd be able to beat that on NM. The amount of monsters makes executions rather useless later on because you get swarmed before the animation ends. I guess you just have to upgrade your speed before the Hell maps and rely on pickups.

 

Speaking of which, I really like that there's an upgrade progression system. The only downside is that you have to play the whole thing without stopping. That alone makes me a bit less excited to replay it because I know I'd be missing out a lot by playing each level individually.

 

I also have to ask, did you make any changes to enemies and such? I'm pretty sure certain things were altered but maybe that's because I'm used to NM.

 

All in all, I enjoyed it. I don't know how well it stacks up against other Snapmap SP levels because I haven't played any but at least on its own it's really neat - looks cool and plays well.

[Caffeine Freak]

If you played on HMP but usually play SP on NM, the enemies probably felt easier. Is that right?

 

I play the campaign on NM as well, and always felt like the default enemy settings in snapmap were easier than what I was used to, so I went and carefully tweaked each enemy types health and damage until it felt closest to what I was used to. If you play UV, those are the settings you'll get. All enemies have damage set at 150%, and a majority have their health set at 150% as well, though a few are set at 100. With a few exceptions, the health threshold for glory kill stagger is set at either 25% or 40%.

 

HMP sets all enemy damage and health at 100%. ITYTD sets both at 75. NM uses the same settings as UV, except all enemy damage is set to 350%. I've never beaten the map set on NM, would honestly be surprised if someone did, but I figured I'd throw it in there for anyone who wants a real challenge.

 

Anyway, thanks for the feedback! :)

[Touchdown]

So in DOOM4 the enemy health scales with difficulty? I thought it was only damage though I can be wrong about this.

 

There were things that caught my attention while playing your mapset when it comes to monsters. For instance I was surprised I couldn't insta-execute regular zombies. In the default campaign you can double tap the execution button on them so that the game registers the first hit but because it puts them in a stagger state, it just skips ahead and goes straight into the execution. In your maps it seems like they have slightly more health so that you can't do that anymore. Pinkies/Spectres are another thing: bulls demons were surprisingly easy to stagger with a cluster strike while Spectres seemed really resistant all around. I also don't remember staggering Revenants with a single Double Barrel Shotgun blast. I'm not 100% sure about all of that but I felt like I had to re-adjust in order to play properly.

 

I will try at least the first level on NM and see how it goes. I kind of want to give those maps a spin on NM/pistol-start just to see how hard they are under those conditions (well, not pistol-start technically, but you know what I mean).

 

Also on another note, am I just stupid or is the HAR and Chainsaw on the same button for some reason in Snapmap? That's pretty inconvenient. HAR is great for dealing quick, precise damage but "4" gives me Chainsaw first.

[Caffeine Freak]

I'm almost positive enemy health scales with difficulty, yes. In either case, I know that the Snapmap enemies have default health values that are weaker than what I'm used to in Campaign mode.

 

Yeah, the weakened player melee attack is something particular to Snapmap in general. I don't know why it's like that. The Pinkies in Snapmap don't have the ultra-hard shell plating protecting their front, at least not nearly to the same extent as in the campaign. The Spectres have their health set the same as the Pinkies in my mapset, so it's always seemed a bit weird to me that they were more resistant to damage, but in my assessment they're closer to the campaign version than the Pinky is.

 

As far as hotkeys, I dunno. I have all the weapons hotkeyed and mapped in a way that I have memorized for the SP campaign, but in Snapmap those functions don't really seem to work. I think Snapmap uses the defaults from multiplayer, which uses weapon loadouts, so when you go to weapon key settings there, it's labeled as 'Weapon Set 1, 2, 3 or something along those lines, instead of Pistol, Shotgun, etc. I've tried working it out before and can't. So I just use the mouse wheel in custom maps.

[Touchdown]

I've been able to rebind most of the weapon keys - the numbers are the same, it's just that it doesn't give you names when you try to bind them. On the higher skill level DOOM4 is basically a 'weapon switching simulator'. You really have to be able to do combos by swapping weapons to deal ridiculous damage to high tier demons. That's why I've got SSG on R and Gauss on Mouse4 (or 5, I don't know which is which) under my thumb. Going between Shotgun, SSG, Gauss and Rocket Launcher has to be smooth. The only thing that cannot be changed in Snapmap, from what I see, is the HAR/Chainsaw thingy which is really stupid.

 

By the way, I played the first two levels on NM without carrying upgrades from one level to another. Map01 went well, no deaths. In Map02 I also avoided dying everywhere except for the Red Keycard room - that one is hectic as all hell. Took maybe 20 retries to get through it but I managed. Had to keep doing combos like crazy. It's actually fairly easy to kill Cacodemons quickly but you really need to press the right buttons.

 

Might try to do Map03 today.

[Caffeine Freak]

You intentionally avoided the upgrades? (I'm just making sure you aren't saying there was some bug that prevented you from keeping upgrades between maps.)

 

Yeah, I know what you mean about the hotkeys. I haven't used the weapon wheel in campaign mode for ages. I have the weapon keys set as: 1 - Pistol, 2 - Shotgun, 3 - SSG, 4 - HAR, 5 - Chaingun, X - Guass Cannon, Z - Plasma Rifle, Q - Rocket Launcher, and BFG and Chainsaw set at their default T and G, respectively.

 

Come to think of it though, maybe R - Chaingun would make more sense, since the 5 key is the only one I have trouble reaching with my fingers and I don't think I use the R key for anything else.

[Touchdown]

Well, I do pick up upgrades within levels but I'm not playing continuously now so I basically start each level from the default setup.

 

The only bug that I've seen so far is probably related to the way the checkpoint system works and it's caused by me doing something unintended. Essentially that Red Keycard fight in Map02 - I tried to figure it out a bit so I kept restarting it even after a successful attempt. And by restarting I mean blowing myself up to retry. But when you do that after winning, the door remains open but not entirely - it's open but still shows the red 'denied' sign.

 

Regarding weapons, Chaingun is the only weapon I really dislike in DOOM4 so I usually forget to use it. I don't like how its rate of fire increases overtime - rubs me the wrong way for some reason. I prefer the more classic, DOOM3-style Chain Gatling Gun that takes a moment to start spinning but fires at full speed right off the bat. So in the campaign I only use it with the Mobile Turret mod. I don't know. It always feels like I'm better off firing another explosive shell or blasting something with Gauss than waiting for the damn Chaingun to start firing properly.

 

By the way, something I wanted to ask, any idea how does the difficulty work in Snapmap? I mean, you select your skill level at the start of Map01... but if I exit and go straight to Map03, does it remember the last selected difficulty or default to something else?

[Caffeine Freak]

9 hours ago, Touchdown said:

By the way, something I wanted to ask, any idea how does the difficulty work in Snapmap? I mean, you select your skill level at the start of Map01... but if I exit and go straight to Map03, does it remember the last selected difficulty or default to something else?

 

That's interesting about the red keycard room. I've seen a couple other relatively minor bugs that I apparently missed before releasing, but nothing that breaks the game.

 

Snapmap doesn't have a selectable difficulty by default. The room you start in on Map01, where you select your difficulty, was something I added. It affects enemy health/damage as I described above and uses the same Persistent system that the upgrades use---so if you skip around levels, you'll be playing the default difficulty, which is UV.

[Caffeine Freak]

On 5/2/2018 at 9:12 AM, Touchdown said:

So in the campaign I only use it with the Mobile Turret mod. I don't know. It always feels like I'm better off firing another explosive shell or blasting something with Gauss than waiting for the damn Chaingun to start firing properly.

 

I initially overlooked this part of your post. I use the chaingun in the exact same way. I very seldom use it with it's default mode, and the Gatling mod is usually the last upgrade I pick up in the Campaign, after I've grabbed everything else. I always make sure I have a lot of accumulated upgrade points by the time I get to Kadingir Sanctum, where you first get the Chaingun, because I want to grab that Turret mod first thing and get the mastered mode on it as soon as possible.

 

I should also mention that the reason you don't get the Turret mod in this level set is because it simply isn't available in Snapmap. Don't know why. Neither are the Siege mod for the Gauss cannon, or the triple seeker mod for the Rocket launcher. And I'm pretty sure the Plasma gun doesn't have either of it's original mods, though it has an altered version of the Stun mod (it works more like a traditional splash damage projectile, as I recall.) 

 

I will say though, that after testing Snapmap maps hundreds of times without the option of using the Turret mod, I've grown to appreciate the Gatling mod slightly more than I did previously. Being able to keep that motor running is useful when you're in the middle of a big fight and don't want to wait for that damn thing to crank all the way back to it's full speed every time.