Phlegethontic Waves

[Demonologist]

A single map in limit-removing format (-complevel 3 in prboom-plus, though glboom-plus is recommended for best looks) for Ultimate Doom that was used for the First-try Demo Contest #18. All the demos and the results table are also included, so this is another opportunity for me to thank all the participants, as well as @skepticist for playtesting.

 

!!! Please note that in plays on e3m5.

 

Screenshots:

Spoiler

 

Download (Mediafire)

 

So @Steve D, do you remember when you once said that I should make a map for Ultimate Doom?.. And thus, worst nightmares come true, it's time to reap what was sown back then.

 

Have fun!

Edited September 22, 2018 by Demonologist

[tourniquet]

Always nice to see you work outside of your usual Quake texture routine. The map does a perfect job at providing some well defined challenge without overbearing and tedious Caco/Baron usage. I tried to point out some misalignments and bleeding mid textures in Software Mode in the demo i'll attach below. Hopefully i made it obvious enough. Initially i also wanted to complain about the mandatory armor pick up for the BFG secret but in hindsight it seems actually appropriate.

 

Awesome map, would def play more of these

 

phlegwvs-FDAsaves_TNq.zip

[Demonologist]

Thanks tourn, glad you liked it!

 

2 hours ago, tourniquet said:

Always nice to see you work outside of your usual Quake texture routine.

Nah at this point I'm done with those for good, so this routine is no more. Enough is enough, and besides, folks like Urthar utilize Q1-related stuff much more competently than I ever had.

 

2 hours ago, tourniquet said:

I tried to point out some misalignments and bleeding mid textures in Software Mode in the demo i'll attach below.

Heh yeah, chainsawing things is a crystally clear indication. Well, something like that always slips through, and even though I tried to fix those bleeding midtextures on the go - I've obviously forgotten about some of those, and the fact that both skep and I did our test runs in ogl-based ports didn't help, either. Seems like Im leaving those in to prevent the demo playback from messing up, as having different versions of a single map for different purposes goes against my program.

I suppose I'll have to ask for your help as well next time since you seem to have a keener eye for that sort of thing, heh.

 

By the way, it's been a while since I last played a tourniquet map... *wink wink nudge nudge*

 

 

[Aquila Chrysaetos]

I just played your map, it's a lot of fun.

Played pistol start, UV, GZDoom 1.8.2.

First, I have to say that Inferno is my least favorite episode of Doom 1/Ultimate Doom, but this really captured the Inferno essence while remaining more fun than the base maps are for me. Appropriate for someone who studies demons.

 

I really liked your use of traps to keep the player on their toes, they were creative and fun to fight out of.

I only found two secrets (one was the BFG, the other was one of the first ones, can't remember what it was), but it was clear to me that I wouldn't have needed them, so that's really good.

A little too much ammo for me, but that's alright, it doesn't matter too much to me.

Getting the monsters to infight was really fun to do in those cramped trap areas, made them really interesting with the baron use.

On the topic of barons, there use here was really good, I mean, expert use here, especially in the BFG secret, way to use their tanky nature to put on the pressure.

 

The visuals were on point, and never got in the way, I liked that.

That ending fight was an absolute blast, pun intended. I had so much fun getting the cybers to kill everything else in the arena, then when I finished and still got that soulsphere and blue armor for 200 health and armor, I felt so badass.

I've got to hand it to you, you used the limited beastiary very well. I'd look forward to playing some of your other maps.

[tourniquet]

6 hours ago, Demonologist said:

I suppose I'll have to ask for your help as well next time

Sure thing, hit me up whenever you need something tested.

 

6 hours ago, Demonologist said:

it's been a while since I last played a tourniquet map...

That might change at some point but not in the near future.

[Steve D]

I cannot believe it. My prayers have been answered!!!!

 

Playing through this map, I was astounded by how great it looks, which is really not a surprise in a Demonologist map, but I'm so accustomed to one arena after another that I never considered the possibility of you excelling in a traditional map. After all, I've never seen a traditional map from you, only slaughter.

 

I think you have traditional mapping well in hand. The outdoor environment was beautiful thanks to all the lava flows and falls. The interiors were exceptionally well decorated and detailed. My only complaints are, first, there's a lot of texture cutoffs with the GStone walls. Some people view things differently, but as you can see in the screenshot below, the texture is cut off at top and bottom along the walls, and at the bottom of every window. Further, the marble surrounds on the TLite cut off the bottoms of the skulls. And there is also a horizontally misaligned brick below the candle. I guess you can say I'm anal about this stuff.  :D

 

 

 

Gameplay was the biggest surprise. It was really, really easy. I died 3 times at the start on my first playthrough, mainly thanks to the Sergeants on that cannonball-style gallery above the curving staircase. But after I had some ammo and armor, everything else was rather mild, although there were some hectic traps, especially at the Baron/Caco lock-in and the Red Key Fight. Probably the easiest fight was the big slaughterfest at the end. On my first run, 1 of the Cybs was killed by the hordes, and on my second run, I dusted one off with rockets before putting the plasma on the other.

 

Once all that was over, I couldn't believe that I had played through a Demonologist map on UV and survived once I was over that opening hump. And I had killed 398 of 401 monsters. Then, to my horror, I discovered that I had accidentally played on HNTR, because I'd been checking monster counts in one of my maps and forgot to switch ZDL back to UV. 

 

Well, the only thing to do was check UV. So this time I died once at the start -- dem Sergeants!!!! -- and basically every fight was easier thanks to foreknowledge. I didn't even take a hit at the Baron/Caco lock-in. Made me feel like a badass. ;) Also, there's only 40 more monsters on UV, and the only difference I noticed was when that Baron warped in on the upper platform after the Baron/Caco lock-in. Thus, UV was almost the same as HNTR.

 

So altogether, this is an auspicious debut of a kinder, gentler Demonologist. Gameplay was easy but fun. The layout was really cool and nonlinear. I did have occasional ammo panic until about midway through. I had to use rockets on the Sergeants at the blood pool by the switch that lowers the lift leading to the Baron/Caco lock-in, but everything after that was fine. My only other complaint is the switch sequence at the big arena fight. Please, make it simpler -- just one press for every switch. I had to go around several times to finish the sequence. That was a lot of work for a fight no one needs to run from. I only took 1 hit in that fight, from Baron slime. That was embarrassing, but I'd placed myself  in a position where it was either Baron slime or a Cyb rocket. I made the right choice.

 

I hope you do more of these.

 

Final stats on UV

Kills - 438

Health/Armor - 180/180

Secrets - 2

Bullets - 73

Shells - 32

Rockets - 49

Cells -300

[Demonologist]

@Aquila Chrysaetos Thanks, that's a lot of praise, heh. Glad you liked it!

 

23 hours ago, Aquila Chrysaetos said:

Appropriate for someone who studies demons.

Aurum nostrum non est aurum vulgi, or so they say.

 

@Steve D Thanks a ton for the writeup! Indeed, ask and ye shall receive.

Well yes, I'm much less anal about texture cutoffs (more like indifferent, really), and horizontal alignment becomes a PITA at some point unless the "breaking things up with another texture" design paradigm is applied, didn't really want to do that for this particular building at least, so at some point I predictably ended up saying "ah, screw it". Marble skulls, on the other hand, are 100% intentional, so whenever you see those - know that this is how I wanted for them to look like in terms of vertical alignment.

Re: "kindler, gentler Demonologist" - I kept saying some time ago that I grew tired of doing things the way I used to since endless self-repetition is hardly a good thing, so for the last couple years I've been mostly exploring different things, one small step at a time. It's not that I'm going to adandon slaughter completely mind, but I'd rather mix it up with something else and push it much farther towards the background, with something else being prevalent and layouts not being series of arenas. Batshit-grade difficulty is not among my primary goals these days, too.

The main purpose of the slaughter fight in this map is to intimidate, especially during the contest when the player is already stressed enough, but it was never meant to punish, it's very manageable unless something really stupid is done, or the track of those cybers is lost, especially in the very beginning when failing to split one's attention between them potentially means catching a rocket or two.

Now, to that switch sequence - admittedly mean, somewhat, yet at the very least during contests most players are eager to beat the map as fast as possible, so this was primarily meant to complicate their escape from the massacre; essentially every pressed switch reveals another one in the opposite direction, so basically the player has to cross the battlefield several times before finally being able to lower the bars, that's the logic behind all this.

Cheers, and I'm very glad that you liked it!

[boris]

Excellent map. The lava and white rock clash so nicely, and the green stone and wood textures thrown into the mix give off a nice E3/E4 vibe. The change between outdoor and indoor areas, and interconnectivity where you can peak into other areas of the map and loop around are what I really like in Doom maps.

 

That said getting teleported right in front of the red key door after getting the key felt rather cheap, but seeing how far the door and its key are apart it's still a better solution than backtracking. The big fight near the end felt a bit out of place, but since it didn't really divert from the rest of the map difficulty wise it wasn't annoying or anything.

[Demonologist]

Thanks a lot, @boris ! Yeah, the sp_rock and gstone/marble combo à la Against Thee Wickedly has always been among the most striking in Ultimate Doom for me, so I didn't think twice when it came to visual style.

Cheers!

[WH-Wilou84]

Finally got around to playing this one. I've completely missed the contest, but I've recorded a FDA anyway.

Great stuff !
This medium-sized map features a nice classic hellish theme. I think it's the first map from you that exclusively uses Ultimate Doom resources.

There's a classic progression here as regards to weaponry and monsters, which is perfectly fine by me, and the map ends with a cool large-scale (by Ultimate Doom standards) frantic battle and another skirmish at the very end.
Both of these fights can be neutered pretty harshly if you find the secret battle leading to the BFG9000, and maybe it should've been slightly harder to obtain.

You've already said that you didn't really care about vertical texture alignment on marble textures, so I won't complain much about that, but IMHO it's always worth putting that extra effort to give the map a stronger, prettier look.

So yeah, it's nice to see you venturing into other styles while still aiming for a more than decent challenge. Keep going !

Edited July 4, 2018 by WH-Wilou84 : FDA removed, see below

[Demonologist]

Thanks a ton, W! Unfortunately I can't download your FDA, gives me an error.

[WH-Wilou84]

Hmm, that's weird. Here's the file !

phlegwvs-fda-27XX-wh.zip

[Demonologist]

Got it this time, thanks again!

[Catpho]

bumpy bump of bumpness

phlgwavescat.zip

Played in PrBoom+ cl3. Knowing your penchant for q1tex and slaughter nightmares, i'm pleasantly surprised by this effort. Your visuals are only getting better with each map: a very attractive lava+rock+marble combo. The classic Inferno texture scheme, but your application is oh so delicious with the smooth lighting and the many complex color contrast scenes. A+ art all the way.

 

Glad to know your "gentle" side. Mayyybe it's a bit too soft, though never dull. The opening shotgun guy traps may catch many off-guard, especially lethal when you are still basically naked at start. You are taking those "hitscanners make UDoom hard!" lessons to heart huh? There's a lot of entertaining incidental combat set-ups here, an d i like it how there are plenty of traps that require you to play as the puppetmaster. Of course you would never withhold the slaughterguns right? The big final somewhat quenches that bloodthirst, but in the end the solution was a wee bit too simple.

 

A relaxing sightseeing trip through hell (gee how many times can i say that?). Love to see more of this.

Edited September 20, 2018 by Catpho : wrong cl

[Demonologist]

Thanks a lot! What can I say, at some point one must awaken from their nightmare and see the morning light. There are other gameplay styles aside from slaughter that are enjoyable, and stagnation isn't exactly a good thing when it comes to creativity, be it the particular genre or some specific texture pack.

Also nice to know that someone considers my stuff sightseeing-worthy, heh.

 

3 hours ago, Catpho said:

The big final somewhat quenches that bloodthirst, but in the end the solution was a wee bit too simple.

Welp, them's the breaks. Besides, I'm not really a fan of sudden difficulty spikes within a single map, things feel much more natural when the transition is more or less smooth. Not necessarily a steady escalation mind, but still, alleviating notable surges is the right thing to do to achieve consistency and polishedness in gameplay department.

[Darch]

I read it was easy, so I gave it a shot yesterday. I was recording an fda, but I died 3 times at the beginning, heh. Tried again today, this is my second  run, so not a proper fda (attached). Recorded with ZDoom 8.1

 

But I got stuck after this button, a Baron teleported in, but I didn't notice what else it did. There's a midtex bleeding there, by the way.

 

 

 

I liked it a lot, great job with stock textures, it's visually pleasant, and interconnected in such a way that it doesn't feel linear. Still want to finish it! Where do I goooo

 

Thanks for making an easy map, so I could survive until I got stuck. Guess I can't finish Doom maps one way or another! :P

darchdies.zip

[Demonologist]

Thanks @Darch, nice to see you!

Yeah, so I've been told that there's quite a number of those bleeding midtextures in software mode, so much for not even bothering with non-ogl stuff anymore, both for me and my main playtester, ironically. So uhh, I'm clenching my teeth and leaving things as they are since I don't want to mess up the demo playback for all the stuff that was recorded during the contest, figures. Apologies for that, gotta be more attentive next time I suppose. For now, the lame advice would be to use the ogl-based sourceport.

 

That switch should open the bars blocking your escape from this building and also grant access to the wooden building left of your current position (you could even see it from this balcony). I wonder if something went wrong there as well...

[Benjogami]

1 hour ago, Demonologist said:

So uhh, I'm clenching my teeth and leaving things as they are since I don't want to mess up the demo playback for all the stuff that was recorded during the contest, figures.

These can be fixed without desyncing demos, since all it needs is the sector light levels to be different on either side of the midtex, even if just by 1.

[bioshockfan90]

Awesome map! Nice to see a modern-styled Udoom map, loved the slaughterlite stuff toward the end (was expecting the map to be much longer though). Keep it up, I'd personally like to see an episode full of this, but I understand that's a tall order in itself. Regardless, fine job. 2 thumbs up :)

[Demonologist]

@bioshockfan90 Thanks! Yeah, never really planned an episode but who knows, one day I might just get drunk enough for the idea to root itself deep within my brain.

 

@Benjogami Huh, you were right re demo desync. Heh, now I'm standing ashamed, as I've always thought that every time the nodes get rebuild causes said desync. Turns out there are minor and major changes in that regard. Well, live and learn I guess. Thanks a ton for the tip!

 

The link in the OP is updated, hopefully I've got all of those bleeding midtextures (still, if you happen to find any - please let me know), and all the demos should be watchable. So yes, my grievances regarding the demo playback are no longer relevant. Cheers!

[Memfis]

I think in this case even though technically you do rebuild the nodes, you get exactly the same ones (the NODES lump doesn't contain info about brightness levels). That's why it's not a problem. You can probably also get away with changing textures and flats, for example.