Jump to content
Search In
  • More options...
Find results that contain...
Find results in...
Tango

Paradise (looking for testers for v2!)

Recommended Posts

Updated to beta-02, with some difficulty adjustments to map03 for HNTR and HMP

Edited by Tango

Share this post


Link to post

God damnit I don't have time for all these amazing projects! I'll unfortunately be forced to chuck this on my "must play" list, which is looking long enough to entertain me into 2020 at this point. :P

 

Thanks for your effort Tango, I've not played it but the screenshots you've shared from this project are damn beautiful and I really look forward to giving it a whirl!

Share this post


Link to post

Tried the first map on UV. Honestly, didn't particularly enjoyed the experience. Difficulty changes feel inspired by Complex Doom on higher difficulties and favours more slow, corner-hugging gameplay rather than a more fluid flow of the unmodded Doom. I would've preferred a version of this mapset without any gameplay and monsters changes.

Share this post


Link to post

sorry to hear that :( would you be able to be more specific about what made you feel like you had to resort to that kind of gameplay? the only thing I can think of in map01 that might make you feel like that is the cyber baron in the sewer, which I definitely ought replace with a hell knight on lower difficulties, but otherwise I've been able to play through uv while being relatively aggressive.

 

there are a lot of the same resources here as in Complex Doom, no doubt,  but aside from the cyber baron, there should not be any (new) one shot mechanics, since most of the monster cast has only received slight buffs, if anything

Share this post


Link to post

Map01 sure is... something. Your usage of custom monsters is absolutely vicious, a no holds barred beat down with all sort of new demonic tricks. I'm highlighting the Diabolist, as i've never seen a modified version of the arch-vile so troublesome, making players keep watch on their movements at all times. Refreshing to not do the common pillar dance tactic. Other monsters didn't get much room, though the new imps and rocket barons are big challenges. I'll echo AL on the corner-hugging element too: lots of convenient 90 degrees shields. Also, ammo seems to be too tight on UV? I can't seem to get past the Fusionite/Diabolist/imps sandwich without burning through my resources.

 

Ultimately, most of the fun i had with this map is facing the new monsters for the first time, and the "Brutal Doom lite" death system produce some very satisfying carnage :) I'm not so keen on the rest.

 

On a different note, I adore the visuals. Good-looking vibrant and clean, your eye for colors, detailing and architecture is truly unique. Too bad we don't get to see much of the beach in this opener, but this is got to be one of the world's coolest sewers.

You also got a thing for jungles and green stuff huh?

 

Demo-y demos (i died at the end of both, patience ran out heh) (GZDoom 3.6.0):

paradisetcat01fda.zip

Edited by Catpho : Heh

Share this post


Link to post

thanks for the feedback @Catpho:D I think what I'll probably do is just remove all the barons from map01. I didn't mean to encourage the player into any situations where corner camping feels necessary, and I imagine in the tight quarters of map01, it's probably those monsters that are doing it for you guys (correct me if I am wrong though). might also lessen on the imps in the first area on non-UV as well; I think I underestimated how much it'll take to adjust to the diabolist for first-time players.

 

could you clarify what you mean about the reloading? you should be able to use the reload key to reload at will, if I'm understanding correctly

Share this post


Link to post

About the reloading, doing it automatically with the fire key alerts enemies, but pressing the actual reload button doesn't.

Share this post


Link to post

Personally i wouldn't be against more screenshots but since i love your maps and mapping style i going to take a look anyway. Plus the one screenshots is teasing me more than enough :)

 

edit: I think the archvile(or whatever he is called) and reloading at the start is kinda op start. I dont like it honestly.

edit 2: Ok, so i playing the first map and have to say you really need to rebalance gameplay. For me the realoading is gameplay breaker and i died few times only beacuse i go out of ammo and need to reload. Would be to great have the chance to disable reloading completely. Next thing i think you should do is to add more ammo. However except gameplay i have nothing bad to say, your visuals looks stunning. Awesome job, i really love your level design here.

Edited by Marlamir

Share this post


Link to post

DUUUUUUUUUUUUUDE i was playing Mayan Mishap just a few hours ago!!!
Looks cool,will play later since i can't use my pc for now...(hope these maps don't have 200+ monsters)

Share this post


Link to post
2 hours ago, SiFi270 said:

About the reloading, doing it automatically with the fire key alerts enemies, but pressing the actual reload button doesn't.

ah thanks for pointing this out! I'll make sure to fix this

 

 

sounds like map01 could do with some bigger balance changes then, appreciate all the feedback folks! again I think I vastly underestimated how much it takes to adjust to the new changes and monsters, so I'll try to make map01 more of a smooth introduction. will make some changes this evening and reupload

Edited by Tango

Share this post


Link to post

okie dokie, updated to beta 3. general changes are:

  • more ammo in map01
  • less monsters/cheese in map01, across all difficulties. should be more straightforward now, if a little tame
  • more variance in map01 for each difficulty setting. HNTR and HMP should be much more manageable now
  • more variance in map02 for each difficulty setting
  • reloading with the fire key when empty will no longer wake up monsters
  • fixed the terrain definitions that were logging missing flat errors in the console
  • fixed the critical (sub-50) HP shotgun blasts so that their damage output is now de-randomized

 

thanks again to everyone who has provided feedback so far! I added a note to the OP as well, but I would definitely advise playing on anything but UV for your first playthrough. I definitely won't rule out yet that I've not balanced map02 and map03 properly (as was the case with map01), but I've tried to balance the maps so that they give me a really solid challenge, even with total map knowledge and acclimation to all the gameplay changes. that said, I want to make sure that there is something fun here for all skill levels, so if you feel there are any more instances of tedious or corner-campy gameplay, please don't hesitate to make it known and I'll try to make the necessary adjustments!

Share this post


Link to post

Gameplay on first level is better now. Gameplay on last two maps is good, chalenging but managable and with very nice visuals. This is awesome wad i really like it. Here is my first map playtrough

 

Edited by Marlamir

Share this post


Link to post

Hi there! I've just played through all three maps on UV with 99%, 100%, and 91% kills, and thought I'd post my feedback.

 

First of all, I love the visuals, sounds and most of the adjustments. Most of the weapons feel great, and even the pistol is satisfying to use. The WAD feels like a professionally made product, if you ask me. I'm definitely going to check out your other maps :)

 

Map 01 is well-balanced, maybe even a bit on the easy side: I think I only died two times, both of them to the crushers combined with my stupidity. I died more on map 02, but it didn't really feel unfair, and no save-scumming was involved.

 

Map 03, however, was a HUGE difficulty spike for me, and I only managed to beat it with over-the-top save-scumming in several fights. You pretty much get no ammo for anything other that Scrap Gun, and if you're not familiar with how it works you end wasting a lot of shots and getting ripped apart by the mobs. There's also a lot of slime in most of the arenas, as if manoeuvring through hordes of monsters while being attacked by multiple AVs (and an occasional cyberdemon) isn't hard enough. Also, it really felt like the Rocket Launcher was too weak on this map--it doesn't do its usual job of clearing wide areas and you don't get enough nearly rockets to cut through the monsters blocking your shots at the archviles in the first cyberdemon area. And the only secret was a 25% medikit :(

 

Some more nitpicks:

- Three shotguns on one button is confusing, I kept getting lost during weapon switching, resulting in death most of the times.

- Music isn't looped and just restarts abruptly, but I assume it's because this is still a work-in-progress.

- Total amount of shotgun (and Scrap Gun) ammo isn't shown anywhere, it just stays on 0/50 no matter what, which makes Map 03 even more tense, because you don't know how many shot you've got until you end up without any ammo at all.

- No secrets on Map 01? :'(

 

And a bug: PG ammo counter doesn't work correctly - it shows the ammo count in your backpack instead of the number of shots in the clip, and it doesn't decrease when firing, only when reloading (I IDKFAed after beating the WAD to see what PG looks like, since you mentioned some work on it has already been done). There's also the broken berserk, but you know that already.

 

Btw, PG is not in any of the levels yet, is it?

Edited by Rathori

Share this post


Link to post

thanks so much for the kind words and feedback @Rathori! very much appreciated.

 

Quote

Map 03, however, was a HUGE difficulty spike for me, and I only managed to beat it with over-the-top save-scumming in several fights. You pretty much get no ammo for anything other that Scrap Gun, and if you're not familiar with how it works you end wasting a lot of shots and getting ripped apart by the mobs.

yeah, I feel that. I'm not sure how I feel about making UV easier on map03 yet, but I will definitely think about it now. I tried to make map03 on UV just a wee bit out of reach for me, but not insurmountable. I think again though I underestimated how much it takes to adjust to the new changes (notably the scrap gun in this case). I've only got one map for the scrap gun though, so I figured I would just go all out with it haha. I think it would be easier to justify this map being this difficult if it was one of the last maps in a larger set, but as it stands, it leads to a big difficulty spike, as you note. will definitely keep in mind some minor balance changes for map03 though.

 

Quote

There's also a lot of slime in most of the arenas, as if manoeuvring through hordes of monsters while being attacked by multiple AVs (and an occasional cyberdemon) isn't hard enough.

:DDDD

 

Quote

- Three shotguns on one button is confusing, I kept getting lost during weapon switching, resulting in death most of the times.

this has happened to me too actually :( but I'm not sure the most elegant way to solve this. putting it on 2 or 4 seems kind of weird given those are bullet weapons, and 5 is a no-go because I don't want the player to accidentally rocket themselves trying to get to it. maybe slot 2 makes the most sense after all?

 

 

Quote

- Total amount of shotgun (and scrapgun) ammo isn't shown anywhere, it just stays on 0/50 no matter what, which makes Map 03 even more tense, because you don't know how many shot you've got until you end up without any ammo at all.

hmm that is weird. what HUD were you using? I should probably have mentioned that the wad comes with a custom hud, which should appropriately show all primary and secondary ammo counts (see Marlamir's video here). I am not sure if the default vanilla hud is equipped to handle secondary ammo counts in ZDoom at all, but I admit I haven't looked into it and have only be focusing on the custom hud

 

 

Quote

- Music isn't looped and just restarts abruptly, but I assume it's because this is still a work-in-progress.

thanks for noting this! will make sure this gets fixed so things are a little more elegant

 

 

Quote

Btw, PG is not in any of the levels yet, is it?

you are correct! I want to turn the PG into something more exciting and mechanically demanding, as I have grown to find the vanilla PG somewhat boring. what is currently in the wad now is just one iteration of what I was working on, but not one I would consider a success. I want to explore turning it into something like the shock rifle from UT, which rewards timing and aiming a bit more, but I haven't gotten there yet as these maps don't even make use of the PG.

 

Quote

- No secrets on Map 01? :'(

no :( there was one but I cut it out as it was part of a small area that I blocked off during rebalancing. I'm generally not really sure how to treat secrets because I'm not sure how to use them without throwing off the balance I'm looking for, but maybe I'm just being too stingy

Edited by Tango

Share this post


Link to post

 

2 minutes ago, Tango said:

maybe slot 2 makes the most sense after all?

For what it's worth, I kept trying to select it with '4', but I have no logical explanation for this. Perhaps because it has 4 barrels? :D

 

5 minutes ago, Tango said:

what HUD were you using?

 

I was using vanilla HUD, but I can't remember changing any HUD options in GZDoom (doesn't mean I didn't change something, though). I'll try playing around with the settings.

 

8 minutes ago, Tango said:

I'm generally not really sure how to treat secrets because I'm not sure how to use them without throwing off the balance I'm looking for

 

The ones you have in the levels seem good--they're neither too easy nor too hard to find, and the rewards seem fair. Although the one on Map 03 is a bit anticlimactic given the difficulty of the map, but on the other hand, it's probably the easiest one to find. That reminds me: there seem to be two berserk pack secrets in Map 02. Perhaps one of them could be changed to something else, like a soul sphere?

Share this post


Link to post
1 minute ago, Rathori said:

For what it's worth, I kept trying to select it with '4', but I have no logical explanation for this. Perhaps because it has 4 barrels? :D

haha okay slot 4 it is then!

 

1 minute ago, Rathori said:

The ones you have in the levels seem good--they're neither too easy nor too hard to find, and the rewards seem fair. Although the one on Map 03 is a bit anticlimactic given the difficulty of the map, but on the other hand, it's probably the easiest one to find. That reminds me: there seem to be two berserk pack secrets in Map 02. Perhaps one of them could be changed to something else, like a soul sphere?

 

aha good call, thank you! yeah I will change that up. I'll also try to add something more substantial to map03 for a secret or 2. I guess if any map can justify meaty secrets, it would be that one

 

Share this post


Link to post

updated OP with beta 4. changes are:

  • added small secret to map01
  • fixed up secret rewards in map02
  • cleaned up automap in map02
  • fixed the berserk
  • normalized fist damage
  • moved scrap gun to slot 4 (and added a note of this in the weapon's pickup message)

Share this post


Link to post

There are a lot of things about this that are fantastic. The custom enemies are the coolest I've seen in an actual wad since Dead.Air, the music fits great with all aspects of running through this jungle, and the maps are super detailed. 

 

https://imgur.com/a/cLqNdpC

 

and then I got stuck in a voodoo doll sector on Map 03.

 

It's a great wad, but it needs a few cleanups. I found myself running out of ammo near the end of Map 02, and just had to bolt past everything. I feel like this would be easily fixed if the Cyber Barons dropped a rocket or two when they died. It makes enough sense, and I feel like it would be a great help to the flow. 

 

Also I really wanna play Map 03 without cheating, so could you please fix the player start. Thanks

Share this post


Link to post

lol what the hell that issue keeps happening even though I'm not touching the player starts. will fix and reupload posthaste, thanks for pointing out!

 

@Lazorinc what difficulty setting were you playing on map02 where you ran out of ammo? the suggestion of cyber barons dropping rockets is a good one though, I will very strongly consider that. thanks so much for the kind words though :D

 

edit: updated OP with beta 5:

 

  • contains fixed player starts for map03
  • fixed the berserk icon in the new HUD
  • fixed map01 not having damaging nukage whoops

 

I will also do some more testing of map02 and see where ammo can be adjusted.

Edited by Tango

Share this post


Link to post

updated OP with beta 6:

 

  • removed a good chunk of the blood/gib code. the only visible difference is that there is no longer any dripping ceiling blood, but otherwise everything else should be the same from the player's perspective. I'm using a modified version of Ketchup and there are a lot of code paths/actors that are never actually spawned, so I did my best to remove some low-hanging fruit. there is still a lot of extra code in there that's quite disorganized, but I'm not too keen on trying to surgically remove that stuff anytime soon
  • fixed the berserk for real
  • fixed those stealth cacos in map02 on HMP and up. those were supposed to be regular cacos

 

still intend to take another look at map02's ammo balance, and very likely add rockets as dropitems for cyber barons (maybe with a cvar to allow you to turn this off).

Share this post


Link to post

Quick tip, the Player 1 spawn will always spawn the player in the NEWEST one, so I suggest making a new one for the spawn point after you're done with every update. You probably already know this, but it couldn't hurt. Also I was on UV, so it makes more than enough sense that I was dry, and I could just be blind too.

Share this post


Link to post
On 10/14/2018 at 2:41 AM, Tango said:

moved scrap gun to slot 4 (and added a note of this in the weapon's pickup message)

 

I just played up to Map 03 again, and it seems Scrap Gun has found its way back into slot 3 (the message says it's slot 4).

 

Like the new secrets, btw, and shame about the stealth cacos - I thought they were pretty cool.

Edited by Rathori

Share this post


Link to post

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×