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dobu gabu maru

The DWmegawad Club plays: Struggle

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map14: A ticket from Inferno, by antares031
zdoom2.8.1, uvmax, pistol start, no saves, first time played

A facility with an amazing layout. There are snipers perched on almost every ledge, nook and cranny over the toxic waste in the hub area where you begin. It will take you some time to clear them to the point that it is safe to explore.

I found the progression to be quite confusing, with several switches all over the facility that need to be pressed as well as some semi hidden lifts that need to be used. The red key is the first pickup, then the yellow key and finally the red key.

Most of the traps can be avoided but usually at the expense of falling down and having to retrace your steps. Fortunately there is ample health strewn around or found in the 4 secret areas.

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MAP12: Into the Danger

100% kills, 0/4 secrets

 

Back into techbase land. As someone who likes techbases a lot, I don't mind it, as long as you can maybe come up with a way to keep them somewhat thematically different. This one shares a lot of the same color scheme (grey/white with blue/green trim) but does manage to somewhat show some individuality with the tile flooring, making this place seem a bit snazzier than the first set.

 

I was a bit disappointed early on though, as this one seemed to have a bad case of hallway-room-hallway-room design. Even with some interesting ways of opening up new areas, it still was feeling a bit rote. There are a couple of decent ambushes in the middle (the soulsphere leading to the revenants one is a good scare even when you know it's coming thanks to the 'free' powerup) but unfortunately the end sorta fell flat for me too. I think it fails partially because the cramped layout makes it easy for the player to choke-point the enemies, but also because of the monsters; too much emphasis on fast, straight projectiles - it's quite easy to stand in place and only sidestep a bit, since the revenants, with homing missiles designed to make that impossible, have had that threat removed. In that vein, the new chaingunner elite does nothing for me, since it's just another 'dodge the really fast projectiles' monster, albeit one with a quicker draw and less HP than the others so far. Maybe they'll have a better showing in maps where they aren't used so often as snipers when the player has plenty of corners to safely peek-a-boo from.

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MAP14 A Ticket From Inferno

 

Annoying level alert. Not a very speedrun-friendly layout with quite a few nasty bits of platforming and strafejumping I had to do. Action remained consistent throughout, and the cacos and revenants as usual stay the most annoying enemies, especially after key ambushes. There was an interesting refill area where a dead cyberdemon corpse was, and the secrets I somehow managed to get with some frustrating jumps. Oh yeah, and this map seems to be bad to use the rifle in, I've noticed.

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MAP14: A Ticket From Inferno

 

There's a sense at this point that the maps are getting smaller even as their  populations rise, leading to cramped battles in uncomfortable spaces; here, often enough, it's not walls or corners penning you in, but precipitous drops into the deep but narrow channels of a toxic sludge reservoir above which the whole map is constructed.  The visually "busy" layout combines with the presence of enemies launching their attacks from every angle and elevation to create a sense that the player is being constantly harried, never in a safe spot, never able to stand still and catch a breath.  I found this map to be an exhausting one, and the layout to be one that discourages the usual end-of-level ammo-scraping and secret-scouring that's a part of continuous play.

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map15: Teleportation Delta, by antares031
zdoom2.8.1, uv, pistol start, first time played, [using saves due to time constraints and difficulty ramp up]

The map has an evil 666 monsters! The layout is fairly simple with a mostly linear progression. You can tackle the west and east areas in either order but after that you must go to the north area and then to the huge central arena.

The west area seems to be the easiest, the east area is a square room over lava with lots of teleporters and is more difficult. The north area is a small but intense fight. The lion share of the monsters though have been placed and choreographed for the epic final battle in the large circular arena you get locked into at the end. After a couple of attempts, the strategy that worked best for me is to basically run the gauntlet, going round and round and letting as much infighting take place as possible, then mopping up at the end. There is ample health to snag when required as well as 2 invulnerability spheres.

The exit is revealed in the middle of the arena after a slowly lowering blue pillar finally comes down. The exit takes you map31, I don't think there is a normal exit to map16.

map31: Scorching flames, by antares031
zdoom2.8.1, uv, pistol start, first time played, [using saves due to time constraints and difficulty ramp up]

A marvelous, lava filled, fire and brimstone map, full of rocky terrain. The scenery into the distance is quite stunning. There's a huge marble building to the west while to the east is an intimidating red building with eyes staring back at you. Evil looking red rocks rise sharply out of the lava with torches and ancient trees on them.

The game play is a little rough at first because new enemies spawn as you move in any direction so it is difficult to pick the safer path based on what you see.

There are 2 switches on the south island to raise platforms out of the lava that allow you to snag the red key. There are also 2 teleporters you need to reach. The easiest teleporter is near the red-yellow switch. It maliciously deposits you into the heart of the red evil eyes building. But far worse is the teleporter on a small platform to the northeast of the starting island that takes you to an isolated area on the southeast of the map, a rectangular marble hellhole for a vicious showdown for the yellow key. Good luck with this fight, imps posted all around the outside and a ton of spawns coming in relentlessly, including an archvile and antaresias among other horrors.

Once you've finally got both the red and yellow keys and have unlocked the way across the northern bridge, you have the pleasure of stepping onto the north island. You won't be surprised to learn that there's a welcoming party to greet you. Cybie is particularly thrilled you have arrived as he fires off rockets in every direction from his central perch.

Finally you teleport to the outside of the marble monster building and you get to enter for the finale. The fights here are not as difficult as the earlier 2 fights, thankfully. If you've made it this far you will easily wrap it up for a well earned exit to map32.

map32: The Leviathan, by antares031
zdoom2.8.1, uv, pistol start, first time played, [using saves due to time constraints and difficulty ramp up]

The Leviathan, huh! Pshaw! There's only 76 enemies on the map. What a laugh, what could be easier? WTF? Even the statues don't like us around here and are taking shots at us. What's worse we can't target the statue or return fire.

Our first battle takes place in a beautiful courtyard in nighttime blue. Running the gauntlet of the afriest statue as well as a cast of dozens of enemies of the tougher variety, archviles, antaresias, afriests as well as the usual motley collection of scum. Two switches open the way to the north.

Wow, who would have thought there would be a trap on the bridge, led by cybie of course and his archvile buddies. As you climb a set of stairs up to the entrance to an enormous building, the afriest statue finally stops firing at you. About time, sheesh!

Now for the finale. Lookie, lots of ammo! Lookie a switch in the middle. Lookie at the Leviathan, with 12800 hit points, moving at you like greased lightning and firing 5 mancubus like fireballs each shot. Arghhh! Oh great, adds apawn as you are fighting and running from the Leviathan. What a nasty piece of work and to think that there is worse to come in the maps to follow.

Edited by tmorrow : note using saves due to time constraints and difficulty ramp up

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map10 fda

always partial to a good cave level. this one is pretty nice. i got lost a few times which wasnt that fun

 

map11 fda

never been a fan of turret monster/puzzle levels. i am dumb and it took me two tries to work out that *duh* the double resurrect-or resurrects the masterminds! there's no accounting for idiocy in game design. aside from that i didnt enjoy the wide-open map coupled with all the chaos going on with multiple warp-ins. it just forces you to run about and spam or risk being blind-sided by a random flyer that you hadnt accounted for.

 

map12 fda

watched this back and it was pretty forgettable. i did like the tree courtyard and the column-y sort of room design but apart from that nothing stuck out to me.

 

map13 fda

this demo is worth watching for the first minute or so, i wont spoil the surprise (and a surprise it was!).

 

map14 fda

reading the other players reviews above, i didnt have as much trouble with the platforming and didnt lose much health when i made mistakes and fell in. i think the bigger issue with this map is the confusing layout. there's a double lift which just doesnt seem like the 'intended' way to progress to the BK and found it basically by fumbling around rather than by working it out. the dark room with the vile is dangerous and was the closest i came to copping it in here. luckily the health packs are very liberal - which is a good concession when some of the enemies are so dangerous.

 

my issues so far with Struggle are (1) im not really enjoying the changes to the weapons (they are also a bit obnoxiously loud, especially the pistols), (2) the visual design of the maps is quite 'busy' to my eyes and i find that 'stressful', and (3) the new enemies are a bit too dangerous for their own good. this forces you/encourages you to duck out of any encounter and retreat to a safe distance to avoid being obliterated by ambushes. the increased danger of the hitscanners also encourages this door camping/methodical play.

finally - and this is a completely personal choice - playing on cl2 making demos means i cant save, and so im worried about potentially taking an hour or more to complete later levels. luckily i havent died too much yet, but as i anticipate the difficult rising towards the 2nd half of the wad i fear that my motivation to finish the mapset will dwindle as the time-to-complete increases.

sorry if this sounds very critical; i think theres a germ of a great megawad in here but for me (and i have to stress that, FOR ME), this so far is missing the mark.

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I don't have the time ATM to catch up on doing level by level write ups, but I will try posting some brief stuff (in general, I had few issues with the maps):

 

Level 11 - This level really impressed me; you explore what seems to be a ruined cityscape of sorts in the lava. It was not initially intuitive to me that I needed to kill the Masterminds on my own as I didn't realize they could be resurrected before I got to the central switch.

 

Level 12-14 - Good techbase levels with a bit different aesthetic from the early ones. Levels 13 and 14 were considerably tougher than Level 12. The shooting range in Level 13 was a cool idea.

 

Levels 15/31 - You get a sequence quite reminiscent of Delta Labs giving way to the single hell level in DooM 3 here; the teleportation device throws you straight into the depths of hell. The big slaughter waves at the end of Level 15 in the circular area also reminded me of skillsaw's 'The Final Countdown' (last level of Lunatic & reappears in Valiant as an easter egg). No Final Countdown music - oh well. 

 

Level 31 is long and very hard with the only true red hell architecture in the game (plus some green and brown). It was one of the most memorable levels for me although there are quite a few highlight maps later on. The last two fights (after crossing the bridge) were the toughest.

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MAP15: Teleportation Delta

 

Oh, wow, 471 enemies?

 

So the lion's share of those arrive in a gigantic multi-stage arena battle to round out the level and the episode, pitting the player against wave upon wave of progressively tougher enemies in an encounter that, given my recent playing habits, I can't help but compare to the optional 'Final Countdown' area of Valiant's MAP27.  Compared to the relatively free-roaming levels that I've come to think of as Struggle's own signature style, the very orchestrated nature of this one is a change of pace, with the player's most significant choice being which of the two "units" priot to the fake-out exit they want to tackle first.  I didn't aim for 100% kills here, just scrambled to the exit under fire as by that point I'd let the monster population get out of hand to a point where infighting just wasn't a great enough friend for me to pull off a max.

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MAP15 Teleportation Delta

 

And here we have an even bigger monster count, but not a whole lot on onset. The circular area has some final countdown vibes, but is completely empty. Go to one area, clear that out, only a few monsters, then the other one. Why, this one has some annoyingly large gaps I cross over. BOO. That exit leads to a spiderdemon and a blue wavy staircase, while remarkable, fuck you so fucking much for having no real ways of avoiding this guy. No an invisibility never actually helps.

 

And here comes the main event, the real final countdown, waiting all that time for the stupid column in the middle to go down and fighting waves of enemies. Quite fun. Two invulnerabilities, I save them for when the revenant-mancubus combo come as well as when the column actually reveals the cyberdemon, which spawns in yet another wave of annoyances, those managing to be honestly more dangerous than cybie himself. Doesn't look like this map has a normal exit, hmm...

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22 minutes ago, TheOrganGrinder said:

MAP15: Teleportation Delta

 

I can't help but compare to the optional 'Final Countdown' area of Valiant's MAP27. 

 

Actually just as a note, that area actually has origins as the last level (idclev05) of Lunatic, appropriately titled The Final Countdown.

 

 

 

Edited by FrancisT18

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MAP31 Scorching Flames

 

Always that one fire level, eh? Well, this one is an island hopper of a map, somewhat gimmicky in that enemies seem to spontaneously show up by teleporting in, but they don't actually do that, they are there by default and its just an effect. The red and yellow bars at the first island are the first obstacle, and while the red key is easy, the yellow key wasn't that easy to figure out. Also annoying arena fight, best to get rid of the sniping support as early as possible along with cacos. The second arena fight involving the cyberdemon was a full-fledged circlestrafe around, smacking grenades since I wanted to save my rifle for cybie himself, who's more susceptible to it. Last part is a nice looking cathedral with not a whole lot of opposition excepting the spiderdemon and afriests.

 

MAP32 The Leviathan

 

We've got ourselves an interesting level here, One with setpiece boss-style fights against our newer foes for a bit while a perpetually impossible to kill afriest is sitting around up top a high pillar. The blue arena is great, except when I actually have to see what I'm shooting at. The stairs up lead to a rather unique boss fight. This "leviathan" I guess has 12800 hitpoints, 3.2 times a cyberdemon, so imagine me burning rifle bullets at three cyberdemons. He has the spread mancubus attack, as well as one that actually is a monster spawning attack on three different spots, so stay from those and kill anything that can really be troublesome. It's a marathon boss otherwise.

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MAP13: Military Base

100% kills, 1/4 secrets

 

This one felt very similar to what has come before, big techbase full of tiny cramped corridors with a lot of hellspawn packed in, and a lot of areas to explore before finally reaching the first key that will let you set off the chain of keys and locked doors to reach the end. I admittedly did find myself running through this one a bit on autopilot without really stopping to look around or think about what I'm doing; I think perhaps the sameness of the levels so far is starting to wear. I did finally have some ammo concerns as I was totally out of shells and low on bullets for the fights before the yellow key, and didn't have the AR yet and rockets were hard to use in the cramped corridors.

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I've been quite busy recently and this wad is getting quite hard so as a timesaver I'm allowing myself saves, against my usual uvmax playstyle. In fact, I've used saves for the last 3 maps in my last post so I updated it. Once this wad goes live I look forward to going back to try to uvmax as many of the maps as I can.

map16: Return to Earth, by antares031
zdoom2.8.1, uv, pistol start, first time played, [using saves due to time constraints and difficulty ramp up]

We have a techbase with an interesting layout. Working out how to progress this map is tricky and you will probably end of clearing several areas before working out what needs to be done.

There's a teleporter that takes you to the yellow key room in the west. You hear a bell ring but somehow you just know that ain't the dinner bell just as the enemies spawn into the room. Or more horrifying, maybe it IS the dinner bell and you are the meal! Pressing a couple of more switches and open a door and you hear the dinner bell again. Eeek!

There's an enjoyable red key hunt in the evil rock garden north of the main building. Boy have the gardeners let this place get out of control!

With the yellow and red keys, you can bring both unit 1 and 2 back online and then get to the exit. That's the theory anyway.

The secret hunt was quite tricky this time, especially the megaarmor secret. You can also pick up a backpack, ammo, 2 soulspheres and a berserk pack.

My favorite areas were in the northeast, working out how to build the stairs to get to unit 1 and the evil rock garden, red key hunt.
 

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MAP16 Return to Earth

 

Alright these levels are starting to really get samey. High monster counts, fucking cacodemons up the anus holes, and the layouts still aren't speedrun-friendly at all. At least one secret had me stumped for a while. The red key outdoor area was pretty cool and the yellow key monster spawner arena tried something new but not entirely fresh anyways. Rounding about multiple times is as fun as you might expect. In other words, I'm bored from it. Red and yellow keys to open up the exit. Surprisingly I didn't see one arch-vile.

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MAP13 – Military Base

PrBoom+, UV - Pistol Start, KIS(%): 100/100/100

 

The name of this level wasn’t chosen, until I designed a shooting range and a dormitory with some resupplies. Other than that, the level itself looks like an another tech-base, decorated with camouflage pattern for exterior grey walls. This level was way more difficult than the current version, since each room had more monsters than before; mostly packed with lots of zombiemen, because this was used to be a military base. The non-linearity of this level is pretty much same to the previous level, except it’s a little bit more claustrophobic.

 

It seems like many people got lost, while they’re trying to find a way to the blue keycard door. I’m going to adjust it to make it easier to be recognized for the next version. And perhaps it’d be a good idea to place a non-secret assault rifle, before the player hit the yellow keycard switch. Although there are two secrets with an assault rifle, both of them are pretty difficult to find, especially the one in the shooting range.

 

 

 

MAP14 – A Ticket from Inferno

PrBoom+, UV - Pistol Start, KIS(%): 100/100/100

 

A tech-base, where the hub area is filled with poisonous sewage and turret monsters. To help out the player, there are three radiation shields in the pit, which make the lowest ground pretty comfortable for a limited time. Around the platform, there are lots of switches that raise the escape lifts from the pit. So whenever you see those switches, just press them to raise the lifts, allowing you to escape the pit from multiple directions. The beginning part gives you those options; go left and spray duel pistols in the green area, go right and get some basic supplies in the yellow area, or just push forward to the grey area to get a red keycard and press one of two “Unit” switches.

 

Two things that I need to make sure to change for the next version: redesigning the lift to the yellow keycard door; instead of small 64 x 64 lift, put a bigger one with more significant architectural detail. And automatically raises the platform to the red keycard without pressing the button. Maybe I can also adjust some monster placement in the beginning, with less turrets around the hub, but not that much.

 

 

 

MAP15A – Teleportation Delta

PrBoom+, UV - Pistol Start, KIS(%): 101/100/100

 

Obviously inspired by many circular arena levels, like the one from Valiant. But before you reach the final countdown, you need to visit two smaller arenas to enter it. Unit 1 is nothing special; just a bunch of zombiemen and imps, with some pinkies and revenants. Also, be careful with the last monsters from the exit teleporter. Unit 2 is basically Claustrophobia 1024; playable area is limited to 1024 x 1024 square. Kinda nasty monster placements, but you can take some breathe, once you know how to telefrag those mancubi. And yeah, there’s a simple encounter with a spider mastermind, telling you that a blursphere can make an encounter more intense.

 

The final encounter includes the stages of monster teleportation from all around the arena. Good thing to know is that there aren’t many arch-viles during the entire sequence; only 4 arch-viles appear during the final wave. I could add some more arch-viles for earlier stages. But I decided to leave it, just because I didn’t like arch-viles back then. :D

 

 

 

MAP15B – Scorching Flames

PrBoom+, UV - Pistol Start, KIS(%): 105/100/100

 

This level shows the concept that I scrapped for the second episode; an inferno with red, brown rocky textures and an ocean of lava. Yes, this is how the levels for the second episode could have been, if I didn’t change my mind. Not to mention that I could use the red, cloudy skybox for this level, instead of endless void. We’ll see the reason in the last episode. The earlier version had more details around the lava. But it only decreased the framerate, so I cut them for the final version. It also used to have more claustrophobic layout with more obstacles, like rocky pillars, and less connections between the areas. Honestly, I’m happy with the current layout.

 

Combat is pretty difficult, especially for those setpieces, outside of the hub area. The one with a cyberdemon is the middle is the toughest, although there’s a secret around to help you out a little bit. There’s also a small easter egg, related to the Icon of Sin, telling you that this wad will have a different boss fight than the original one.

 

 

 

MAP15C – The Leviathan

PrBoom+, UV - Pistol Start, KIS(%): 127/100/100

 

This one is basically a recreation of the final level of my previous megawad project. And this is the first level that uses blue textures for giant, artificial structures, unlike the previous showcases with relatively small areas. For new custom monsters, an afriest turret makes the first appearance from the middle of the first arena, shooting projectiles from the top of the tower. If you read the text file, you know that this turret is completely indestructible, so don’t waste your ammo against that statue. Instead, try to figure out the way to neutralize it, by lowering its platform, or raising the cover around it.

 

The second custom monster is actually a boss-level monster, which uses the sprite of Heresiarch from Hexen. It moves fast, it has lots of health, and it can spawn more monsters during the pain state. The tactic is pretty much same; shoot it until it dies. Thankfully, it’s not immune to blast damage, so it will take full damage from grenade shots. Or, if you’re extra lucky, you can make it stuck (or even telefrag it in some sourceports), while it’s standing on the monster-spawning point, summoning monsters at the same time. Once you kill the boss monster, you can now walk into one of exit teleporters around the arena, or take the escape teleporter, if you missed the secret from the previous area.

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MAP14 : A ticket from Inferno

 

The main feature of this map is a poison pit that doesn't leave a lot of space to deal with the numerous monsters, there's also a lot of snipers everywhere that can't be easily dealt with by the usual strategy of nonstop running, as doing so would probably cause you to fall on the pit, having to look for safe spots while constantly changed my back made for a small change from the gameplay on the last few maps.

 

While this map seems to be quite confusing I didn't get lost for as long as the last 2 (still got lost a little).

 

 

MAP15 : Teleportation Delta

 

A map that consists on a few arena fights, this is a complete change on gameplay from the previous levels that was really needed.

 

The most difficult part by far was the lava room, wherever you go you will always be in front of a fast revenant with almost no room to dodge, I died a few times before realizing I could just jump down and keep telefraging the mancubusesies.

 

The last fight has most of the monsters but is not all that bad since they can be circlestrafed easily for the most part and there are a lot of resources around. I only died once when some monsters teleported right in front of me, but after learning when and where everything will show up there's not much danger here. At the end I accidentally stepped on the secret exit while I was trying to make use of an invulneravility to kill the monsters from up close, I don't know if there's even a normal exit here.

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MAP14: A Ticket From Inferno

100% kills, 0/4 secrets

 

Another techbase, and things are still getting more and more cramped, but I also found this one easier to just plow through and enjoyed it more. I do like how this one is constructed with the little 'islands' and creating a sense of progression through unlocking new islands and raising the lifts to them. The unrelenting action is wearing a bit though, gotta take some time to let things breathe now and then. If anything the monster placement is starting to get predictable, at this point it was surprising if I entered a new hallway and DIDN'T have a little cubbyhole open to reveal another monster on the side or behind me. I also got to the end and said "ya know I bet there's an Afriest or three behind these final doors" and lo and behold, there were.

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map17: Infinity Edge, by antares031
zdoom2.8.1, uv, pistol start, first time played, [using saves due to time constraints and difficulty ramp up]

A facility with larger rooms and an open architecture. I like how you can see into other rooms and fight through windows etc. With 479 enemies, we've got a lot fighting to do.

The opening is frantic but there are several different side rooms, stairs and passages where you take over and then use to funnel the initial onslaught. In the doom tradition, the enemy like to perch themselves on top of pillars and from that vantage point lob shots at you incessantly. They also make for an easy take down if you can get the drop on them.

Initially it helps to look for the paths off the starting room that lead to the upper corridors, since these usually arrive at switches to enable lifts, allowing better movement through the base.

I enjoyed the large northeast room. Especially the mini climbing puzzles to reach all the ammo, goodies and even the blue key. There's even a cute little battleship in the water that turns out to be an important fixture in the room.

The locked in fight in the southeast and southwest are difficult fights, even harder than the finale in the south to unlock the exit where you have more room to move and avoid damage. UVmaxing these kind of locked in fights full of powerful enemies will be very hard indeed.

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MAP17 Infinity Edge

 

Are you feeling edgy yet? Unfortunately I am, since this is more of the same but with more meat. It does feel better than the last level, we have an actual hub where we can go everywhere for once, some pretty good areas that actually stand out. Nice hallway that ends with a cyberdemon and the yellow key. A few nice square arenas. Wait, is that a mini-city? With a goddamn BATTLESHIP REPLICA? I actually have a fetish for that. Ending area is honestly awkward but plays pretty well.

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MAP31: Scorching flames

 

This is my favourite level so far, the hellish scenery is really well made and the encounters are a bit more interesting than before.

 

The first part of the map takes place on some rocky area where monsters keep appearing everywhere and you need to be careful to not fall in the lava. There's also a few fights in closed areas where you need to go after getting the keys. The last part is a green temple where it's necessary to progress slowly to not wake too many enemies at once.

 

 

MAP32 : The Leviathan

 

I really like the blue with golden yellow highlights look of this map, that combined with big areas give it an air of grandeur.

 

After some short fights on a square, area we go into the temple to fight a boss, I was confused at first about the new monsters showing up, but they seem to come from one of it's attacks, most of the time the boss just runs after you at a very high speed shooting the full mancubus attack all at once, but really, the biggest threat here are the candelabra that got me stuck a couple of times while I was running backwards. Anyway, it's nice to see a custom boss that manages to be challenging but not too insane.

 

MAP16 : Return to Earth

 

Return to the techbases, this one seems to have some color-coded areas, the blue one killed me a few times, maybe because I went there too early.

 

I'm not sure how progress works here, but it seems like going the wrong way will cause a lot of backtracking, some shortcuts can be opened after clearing each area, but I got confused a few times... the layout is very interesting but it can be difficult to navigate for me sometimes.

 

Also, I liked that plant midtexture.

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map18: Point Lima Foxtrot, by antares031
zdoom2.8.1, uv, pistol start, first time played, [using saves due to time constraints and difficulty ramp up]

You begin in a huge courtyard, with ledges, perhes, steps, pedestals, spires everywhere. Once again you begin in the thick of the action. There are plenty of obstacles to hide behind temporarily but you have to stay on the move as you are sniped at and chased from everywhere. Ammo and health is spread out all over as well so you need to stay on the move and constantly pick up stuff while thinning out the 100+ enemies as you go. Two switches form walkways so you can reach the east and west doors out of the area.

The west side leads to the yellow key. When you first enter the room, you hear that dastardly bell go off again and get to watch in horror as the enemy land and materialise before you very eyes. Of course the yellow key trap is sprung when you get close to it. Fortunately You have room to move in this fight though so it isn't too difficult.

The east leads to a change of scenery at long last, to an outside area. There's a small puzzle to solve to get deeper to the east where you head back inside for a big revenant battle after finding the red key and the new bfg replacement aka leichenfaust, all new weapons are now accounted for. You can make immediate use of the leichenfaust on those damned revenants. The leichenfaust works similarly to the bfg but it uses 6 units of ammo and you only have at most 5 shots (30) available at any time. The good news in this fight is that after the invulnerability runs out you can get the hell out of there and come back later if you need to.

The red and yellow keys allow you access to the switch south of the courtyard, unleashing some floating enemies to chase down and raising the path to the north.

The 2 secrets are quite helpful. One of them makes the final fight for the exit very easy indeed.

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MAP18 Point Lima Foxtrot

 

What is it with outdoor areas and shit ways to get to the high ground once you hit the bottom? That's sort of what I don't like about them on the whole. While I get rid of the enemies, I start banging my head on the metallic surfaces trying to look for a way to GET UP. I do figure out the symmetrical puzzle eventually, or not since I also find a random secret by jumping through an invisible wall that I have no way of reaching from the bottom.

 

But then I look past hubby here to find two areas. One has those flossie dickey bishops spawning enemies ahead of me and then I get the yellow key soon enough. The other area honestly was worse, another outdoor area where at least I don't have to worry about the overall high ground too much, except it took me forever to realize where a shootable switch was. Yes, this target texture actually is difficult to actually see effectively. The reward pays off in the end. Look what I found. The Lechenfaust, a BFG-type weapon that shoots rockets, and a nice set of monsters I can actually test it on. Fucking FINALLY we finish the repetoire of weapons. And more red and yellow keys to open up the exit, also this invulnerability sphere made things much easier. Admittingly, I want to get more use out of this, but the low ammo count for this weapon is a real burden.

 

Why isn't admittingly considered a word? https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-definition-of-admittingly-is-it-even-a-word

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map19: Teleportation Theta, by antares031
zdoom2.8.1, uv, pistol start, first time played, [using saves due to time constraints and difficulty ramp up]

OMG! 597 enemies in a large facility. I really like the facility layout and the way this map plays. You have a fighting chance right throughout, even at the major key fights. Antares031 has color coordinated various sections in red, blue and yellow and that helps quite a bit for orientation purposes.

My favorite area is in the east side, green area for the red keycard. The fight involves a lot of difficult foes including archviles but you have plenty of room to move and can use pillars or the stairs as cover throughout the fight. You have to stay on the move though so the fight is quite exhilarating without being too overwhelming.

The west side fight for the blue key can be made much easier by picking up the red and yellow keys first and then using the southwest teleporter to enter the area which will start you with an invulnerability sphere.

After collecting all 3 keys, you can collect the leichenfaust from the south.

The finale is an arena fight to the north in multiple phases. This time you have the leichenfaust to help. My strategy for the battle was to only use the uber weapon to take out the archviles and then spend most of the time running and ducking into the north and west areas for temporary cover. When the Leviathan shows up you should have a freshly filled leichenfaust to try out on the speedy bugger to ruin his day much quicker than when you met him on map32.

The secret hunt is a blast and will net you major health and armor.

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MAP19 Teleportation Theta

 

Well now they are getting bigger. I'm afraid that E3 is gonna be nothing but "Longer than Eternal Doom" maps soon. I see this is the most nonlinear one yet, we've got a few places that function as hubs in this level, along with the secrets either being pretty easy or somehow considerably more perplexing than ever before. Well then, the key hunt has me going for all three this time. What does this Struggleguy end up finding first? Well, there's the red key in a nicely done arena fight, good practicing the Lechenfaust on these enemies here. The yellow key is in a sort of puzzler. The blue key can be accessed a number of ways, if you remember that teleporter where the arch-vile and the SSG were with the red and yellow keys are, an invulnerability helps out here.

 

And the other area that has color key bars only hides another Lechenfaust. Maybe I'll need it, since the endgame of this is another circular arena. This time, opening up with the monster spawners shooting backwards, and we got the other bishop variant, put to use to simply best be annoying. Yeah, I'm gonna be honest here. Struggleguy often needs to sit back and stretch his legs every now and then. This arena fight tends to stages according to the switches on the left, should be basic knowledge what to expect here. Except our (not) good friend Leviathan shows up for another round. The Lechenfaust can get some use here.

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MAP16 – Return to Earth

PrBoom+, UV - Pistol Start, KIS(%): 105/100/100

 

After visiting the another world for a brief moment, you’ve come back to the land of techbases. This time, we have a giant techbase complex with four different texture schemes; green, blue, red, and yellow. We already saw the similar concept from MAP14, but with one more additional color, and layout with broader rooms and corridors. It still has a basic concept that there’s a giant hub area that connects the other sections of the level. In this case, it must be the small canal in the center. You need to find yellow and red keycards from green section, in order to unlock the doors to the “Unit” switches in each colored section.

 

For the new custom element, we have an Afriest Staute. One statue is capable of spawning one random monster, like Icon of Sin’s skullcube. You may encounter lots of imps, if you’re lucky. Or, you need to kill many high-tier monsters, like Antaresias and Arch-viles, if you have a bad RNG pattern. And yes, stay away from the spot, where the monsters are spawned, if you don’t want to get stuck by a spawned monster. (or even telefragging, depending on your sourceport) Anyway, since I was satisfied with the concept of this level, I expanded it with better layout and gameplay, and made Kerberos Complex for Doomworld Mega Project 2017. If you check out that level, you will see some similarity of both levels.

 

 

MAP17 – Infinity Edge

PrBoom+, UV - Pistol Start, KIS(%): 104/100/100

 

Obviously the name was inspired by one of items in League of Legends. But instead of big f***ing swords, we have some miniature models of supertalls in real life. For your information, supertall is a term to describe a skyscraper over 300 meters in height, or 984 feet, defined by The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. If you’re familiar with tall buildings, you may recognize some models in the level. It even has a miniature of city’s central business district, because I was facing the mapper’s block, so I needed some unique ideas for making the level. And I’m honestly happy with the concept. I mean, it even has a miniature of a battleship. :D

 

The hub area is designed with light-brown brick wall texture scheme, that we saw from MAP04 for the first time. I thought it was a good way to use less grey-colored textures. The combat is not that difficult, except for each “Unit” switch section. Remember to bring your assault rifle, before you encounter some nasty monster ambushes. The last fight in front of Burj Khalifa was more difficult than the current one. But I cut some monsters, after I got some feedback opinions that it’s way too cruel, even if it’s the last fight in front of the exit switch.

 

 

MAP18 – Point Lima Foxtrot

PrBoom+, UV - Pistol Start, KIS(%): 113/100/100

 

Seriously, who put a BFG for the first time in the eighteenth level of a megawad? Yes, this level features the last custom weapon, which replaces the BFG. The name of it was from my favorite weapon in Raven Software’s Wolfenstein. Like the name “Corpse Fist” suggests, it’s strong enough to smash tens of low-tier monsters into piles of corpses, like the original BFG did. Think of it as a BFG, but now the each tracer has rocket’s blast damage, because that’s what it is. Keep in mind that the main projectile is weaker than the original one. And stay away from tracers, if you don’t want to get yourself killed from blast damage. Lastly, because it’s technically an explosive projectile, it uses 6 rounds of grenades per shot, instead of 40 rifle rounds.

 

The level itself is pretty much straightforward. You start the level from the hub area, filled with numerous monsters. Keep your eyes on weapons and supplies, if you play the level with pistol start. The left side of hub leads you to the yellow section, where you test your RNG once more. The right side of hub features a simple combat from outside, an elevator fight, and a proper demonstration of your new BFG.

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MAP19 - Teleportation Theta - UV [Continuous, PrBoom+]

 

This is probably my favourite map from the set so far, at map27 as of the moment (I have been playing through without really participating, but making exception with this map). While I was kinda expecting similar ordeal to map15, which I frankly did not like since the parts out of arena felt tacked on, this was quite something else.

 

The layout is excellent rather non-linear, and if I recall correctly, you only needed yellow and blue key to finish the map - although getting red key to acquire Lechenfaust, which might be instrumental to surviving the final encounter. I am not sure which would be faster, killing Leviathan without it or getting it even if it meant to dealing with encounter in green room. It does come nicely together visually, too, although this should go without saying at this point.  

 

The encounters are rather nice and varied - something Struggle has done well for lot of the maps, although it does reuse the 'go around a bend and AHA the bend was actually going around room full of ambush!' from other map I am forgetting. Although, like other maps, it isn't only set-pieces, and has well-placed enemies through the facility creating some nice incidental encounters. As for the final encounter, it is neat that it allows you to control the pace of it - not personally fan of Leviathan, but really, in retrospect it isn't as aggravating as two other things I have seen *cough*

Midi-track is excellent as well. 

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I'm going to drop out of this one. I'm bored half the time because the aesthetic is constant from what I've seen or I'm getting irritated with the new enemies because they're enforcing a "hide or die" mindset, which I'm not finding fun.

Sorry, Antares, but I'm not liking Struggle.

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map20: Chorok Yeonok, by antares031
zdoom2.8.1, uv, pistol start, first time played, [using saves due to time constraints and difficulty ramp up]

Yay, a change of scenery! A lovely outdoor area surrounded by a sea of toxic waste. There are east and west teleporters that will take you to separate areas to the east and west. Unfortunately you have a very hard opening with around 100 enemies in the hub area blocking your way before you can comfortably explore.

There seems to be no quick way to pick up either of the 2 leichenfausts present on the map. There are yellow and red bars blocking paths to switches at the north end of the hub. You need a yellow key to unlock west leichenfaust (where the red key resides) and a red key to unlock the east leichenfaust (where the yellow key resides). So essentially you must have made your way through both the east and west areas before being able to pick up either of the leichenfausts.

On the west side you get to see your first cyberdemon vs spider mastermind face off. Poor cybie, no longer cock of the roost. After that though all hell breaks loose and you will be in for a choreographed sequence of fights that is quite difficult. Good luck. At the end you can pick up the red key.

Of course returning to the hub area, you find more enemies have spawned.

The east side consists of a labyrinth of caves and in my view has the better fights where you stand a chance against the enemy. The archvile area with the chaingunners is nasty though. At least you can get to the leichenfaust at the end of the cave exploration.

Returning to the hub area spawns even more enemies than the last time you returned.

The finale takes place in a large hexagonal arena to the north after you have both keys to raise the bars to the teleporter. After fighting off the initial riffraff, you hit a switch that releases the spectroleviathans, the mostly invisible counterparts to the leviathan but with only 2800 hitpoints. To make up for the low hitpoints, antares031 gives us 6 of these spectro bastards to face at once. Make sure you have you leichenfaust at the ready and run like hell to avoid the mancubi like bullets if you can. Good luck!

The secret booty amounts to a megasphere, soulsphere, berserk pack and some ammo.

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Level 20 reminded me of Level 28 of Sunlust, although there are notable differences in almost every regard other than the green aesthetic and relatively large scale. Also, you will get some time to breathe after it.

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MAP20 Chorok Veonok

 

You know now I'm getting tired of this techbase stuff, and somehow the blue is gonna wear off on me long before I get to the actually blue levels that I saw in screenshots (and MAP32). How about something different like, oh I don't know...green!

 

Hmm...yes, this is an overrated as fuck color, but a change of scheme right now is good enough no matter which color we use. I can even take brown, a color that Doomworld seems to collectively hate for stupid as fuck reasons. Anyways, another of these starts with an open field and pillar snipers, and it looks hubby enough for two distinct other areas. One is a nice looking cavern that expectedly has boatloads of enemies in it, cool enough for a few moments like the radsuit battle and then the one with the progressing hitscanners, where the invisibility in good use. The other one, well now, you know how the spiderdemon's new groove can easily take down the cyberdemon. Now's our chance to find out. It's an arena block with a few compartments opening until the red key makes its entrance, along with teleporting enemies. A very, VERY easy to miss Lechenfaust resides here in a secret, and another one in the yellow key cavern area although its not a secret.

 

One last arena, what's this. Invisible Leviathans? Ok, they are weaker, but WHERE ARE THEIR ATTACK FRAMES. BAD. I NEED TO SEE THE ATTACK FRAMES ON THIS ENEMY. Oh yeah and a death exit is here too.

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