[FINAL RELEASE] Eviternity

[SP_FACE1]

I like the silver Cacodemons. First time I heard the shrieking it went all the way down to my balls. Now I'm just scared in a milder way. If they kill me, they are just doing their job and I'm not doing mine. This experience is on HMP.

 

I want to say I really like the secrets in this megawad. You can almost always see them and then you just have to figure out how to get them. Some can even be reached in more than one way. I don't like "I'm a secret wall, go hug all the walls in the level to find me!" ie. Wolf3D kind of secrets. Those are boring.

[SP_FACE1]

MAP19: Near the beginning you can get trapped here, no way out.

Spoiler

 

[galileo31dos01]

1 hour ago, Dragonfly said:

The center 'powerfireball' on the Astral Caco will be replaced with a single caco-ball instead, but I feel taking away any of it's other assets would be a disservice to the creature; it's supposed to be an intimidating foe that scares you.

 

Could it spit three mucus balls (HK) instead of fireballs?. I feel like green projectiles would suit their scary appearance better, as if they were real monstrosities that had toxic inside, plus they do the same damage. Just an opinion (:

[antares031]

We appreciate all those helpful feedback comments so far. We're working on the next release candidate to resolve many issues that have mentioned. I hope the adjustments on some custom monsters will get some better responses than now. And yeah, sorry about me being harsh about the difficulty of MAP14. ^_^;;

[Firedust]

Don't be, Antares. They are just pussying out lmao

 

Sorry, love you guys <3

[Deadwing]

Just finished episode 2!

 

 

 

It's very different from the first one, not only in theme but also in playstyle, offering some easier but very exploratory maps, which is more my taste. The MIDI's are gorgeous, omg, loved especially the one from map's 9. I got a strong BTSX E1 vibe with the texturing, but without any griding regarding thing placement, which was perfect for me. Map 10 was a spectacle on its own, at the beginning I was lost on what I was actually supposed to do, but the light's were a very good way to indicate. It seems cyber-barons are back, but with an extra-machine gun? Unfortunately, the wave of Imps ended up killing them up, I guess lol, but I'll discover soon.
 

 

 

[SP_FACE1]

A couple of more issues in MAP19:

Spoiler

In GZDooM 3.6.0 standing in this corner turned the water to sky:

 

In the north eastern part of the map you can go through this window by stepping on the base of the pipe on the right...

...and then you get locked down here:

 

Overall this was the hardest level so far. Not because fights were too tough or lack of resources but because I got lost and frustrated multiple times. There are so many switches it's easy to miss one and feel confused for a long time. Or you just can't figure out what the switch opened. Also the floor buttons were sometimes hard to spot.

One example was this switch:

Spoiler

It took a while to realize it opened a way to this elevator:

 

It took me more than two hours to finish MAP19. Two hours is not bad per se, in fact it took me even longer to play MAP32. The difference is that I wanted to stay in MAP32. I wanted to figure out the secrets. MAP32 was complex but it was so well interconnected and you could often see to the other side of the map. I knew where things were, and reading the map made sense. In MAP19 I sometimes got stuck even with the map. I wanted to get out as soon as possible after the first hour. Visually MAP19 is stunning. If it weren't, I would have probably skipped it after an hour. I hope it can be tweaked to be a little less confusing. Or maybe I'm just tired and don't know how to play.

[koren]

Strange bug at the end of map11 or am I missing something? Playing with glboom 2.5.1.4, cl11:

 

 

[SP_FACE1]

MAP20:

You can get stuck in sector 345

Spoiler

 

You can easily bypass the blue bars from the right side and exit the level:

Spoiler

 

[Dragonfly]

2 hours ago, koren said:

Strange bug at the end of map11 or am I missing something? Playing with glboom 2.5.1.4, cl11:

 

This is a known bug, PrBoom kinda fails with the generalised switch which got missed in late testing and this will be fixed in RC2, along with all above bug reports. Either play that part in GZDoom, or warp to the next map - you're very close to the end of the map anyway!

 

So annoyed that this, and the red-key-door issue in MAP31 slipped through.

[Loud Silence]

I still enjoy replaying first five maps (they are epic) in different ways. And i have found imp with jetpack in map4. PrBoom+

[Dragonfly]

That's just basic doom behaviour, you or another enemies' attack has partially knocked them off the edge and now they're stuck. It is funny though :P

 

[elend]

Map 13, those flats ontop of the pillars are conveyor belts and move / push me. Just a tiny error, I guess. Still amazing WAD. :D

^{(Man, my Screenshot looks dark here... why?! It's not as dark in GzDoom?!)}

 

Spoiler

 

[Loud Silence]

58 minutes ago, Dragonfly said:

That's just basic doom behaviour, you or another enemies' attack has partially knocked them off the edge and now they're stuck. It is funny though :P

 

I knew that, but i never saw anything stuck completely in air like this. :) 2nd screenshot is from Duke 3D.

[Killer5]

Used prboom+ cl11

 

At the end of map29 there are hks stuck in their popup areas after starting the final fight. The mega secret area at the end of map29 is also incredibly cheesable. You just sit in there and shoot the wall with rockets which allows you to kill everything in safety via infinite height abuse.

 

Also in map29 I think monsters can use those jump pads. It caused some demons to get stuck.

[elend]

Not sure, if mentioned already, but Map15: Wrong texture near the exit..

 

 

Spoiler

https://abload.de/img/screenshot_doom_20181v3fv2.png

 

 

 

[Dragonfly]

Thanks for all the reports everyone! Appreciate the constant stream of feedback. 

[Loud Silence]

Big guy got high after infighting. Too bad i didn't see how this happened. Map3

[jerrysheppy]

Had to put this down for a couple of days because of lots of other shit, but I started playing again last night and got a few maps through the snow episode. 

 

I just wanted to say that the little detail of snow fading out around heat sources/under trees blew me away, out of all proportion to how simple it actually is.  Just a really neat touch that seems so obvious but that I'd never seen before.  It's like the first time I saw sector-based faux lightmapping two decades ago in Darkening 1 or whatever it was.

 

And of course everything else about the maps continues to be amazing.  I wasn't really into the aesthetic of the second episode (just how I feel about base maps; no slight against the texturing or mapping skills) but the snow episode has reeled me right back in.

[Marlamir]

It seems that i have some sky issue on Prboom(glboom), at first i thought that i have maybe something badly setup but when i try changing settings it didn't help.

Prboom:

Spoiler

 

Gzdoom 3.6:

Spoiler

(I'm sorry if someone allready wrote about this and i being repetetive.)

[ukiro]

There are several issues with skies, having to do with how different engines treat skies when mouselook is activated, and how that changes wildly depending on how tall the sky is. Sadly, there seems to be no way to ensure a sky is drawn the same way across prboomplus, glboom, and gzdoom, which is rather insane considering it's 2018. We will try some more hacks (there's some in there already) but currently it looks like there's no way to ensure consistency. It WILL break somewhere, no matter what. FWIW, Eviternity is made for "classic" gameplay, meaning mouselook is not necessary.

[eharper256]

Played up to map 20 now.

 

Having completed the Snow minisode by the skin of my teeth with half-a-dozen deaths, I have to say I feel its a tad bit too hard on HNTR from the third map onwards, and map 15 was too long. Made me lose a fair bit of enthusiasm I had from the first two minisodes.

 

The next minisode generally doesn't suffer from this issue as badly; as though it has harder set pieces; they're usually not all bumrushing you at once and are more seperated into bite sizes.

 

Dehydration [Map 19] gives me serious lag in places with GZDoom (presumably due to alerted monster pathing) making it harder than it should be: my system has never been exactly top-market, but its not a slouch either. Also, that level being obscenely long made me kinda weary (it was a whole hour to complete (!) that one considering how defensively and carefully I play~ also had to fly to the exit on that one as with the reservoir type thing just before the exit nothing happens besides you being trapped in... its possible though I sequence broke it through jumping though as I tend to do that when I get the itch to move on).

 

Hilarity ensues with those Astral Cacodemons as I have Shades of Doom on making them randomly turn into flying Commander Keens. They're more needlessly terrifying than they should be because of that. Captains also use Nazi sprites, and die standing up in a half-gibbed state. Very odd, since the Teal-coloured Demon works absolutely fine. I'm aware that's not something you need to fix, by the way, I'm fairly sure I was warned about not using monster mods with it, but thought I'd point out what happens for the amusement of others.

Edited December 15, 2018 by eharper256

[Loud Silence]

37 minutes ago, ukiro said:

Eviternity is made for "classic" gameplay, meaning mouselook is not necessary.

Welcome to Doom, guys. :)

[Snikle]

I just a have a quick question about the former captains. How come they don't drop cell ammo when they die? Was that a choice the Eviternity team made for gameplay or balance purposes, or is it something that just can't be done with DehackEd? The plasma troopers in Struggle were the same way.

 

Not a problem, just curious

[floatRand]

27 minutes ago, Snikle said:

I just a have a quick question about the former captains. How come they don't drop cell ammo when they die? Was that a choice the Eviternity team made for gameplay or balance purposes, or is it something that just can't be done with DehackEd? The plasma troopers in Struggle were the same way.

 

Not a problem, just curious

The drop is hardcoded per thing index. They can't be changed (well, you can shuffle things around). MBF does offers a codepointer to create things at thing's location - not sure if Eviternity uses MBF features.

Plus there is the obvious balance concerns.

[SP_FACE1]

Finished. Didn't run into any issues after map20. Favorite maps 8, 10, 18, 20, 29, 31, 32.

I will play this again in coop in the holiday season. Hopefully RC2 is ready by then :)

[-TDRR-]

Looks amazing, going to test it in WiiDoom (yeah i like my playthroughs challenging) and see how it performs.

I assume i can't use any DEH patch? Or can i load vsmooth.wad with it?

[elend]

Not sure if reported already, if so, please ignore. Also not even sure, if it is really a bug, sometimes I just play like an idiot.

Map20 (amazing btw); fell down and was stuck here!?

 

Spoiler

 

[Touchdown]

Having just finished playing Eviternity there's a couple of things I want to say about it. It's a bit of a mixed bag in my opinion - I've found large portions of the megawad really tedious and on the other hand there are levels that are absolutely amazing.

The beginning of Eviternity was... really underwhelming. I don't think I can say that those levels were objectively bad but to me personally they were really boring. It's not that there was anything specifically wrong with them - they were competently made and had a decent amount of details. But they felt really generic to me, to the point where I considered just skipping ahead to other episodes. It's kind of the same problem I had with BTSX E1 - maps are well made but they're really boring to me. Not to mention the music (primarily in E1/2 but in most of the other levels as well) is something that I find 100% not appropriate for DOOM ever, under any circumstances.

Episode 3 is really where I got a bit of hope for the rest of the set. From my experience winter levels in DOOM are generally either really cool or complete garbage. In Eviternity they were a bit more in the middle but leaning strongly towards really cool. This is probably my favourite episode overally and I had a lot of fun with it.

As for the secret levels, I enjoyed both of them (except the broken map31 part where the door required the wrong key - did anyone even playtest this map?). Map32 was really great - I enjoy large levels sometimes and this one had a lot of great environments and fun gameplay. But holy crap, that was a bit excessive and it got a bit tiresome near the end. I'm pretty sure the only reason it's not even larger is because the author ran out of linedefs.

E4 is were things got generic again. As before - not that there's anything really wrong with those levels but they were just more of abstract tech bases - not my cup of tea at all. My favourite level by far is Dehydration - great visuals and fun gameplay, thought it started dragging a bit towards the end, much like Map32. The indoor section in the second half felt like the author just wanted to make it longer which wasn't really necessary because that map is pretty long anyway. But it's a really nice level overally - I might replay it separetely later on.

E5 was another good episode - I love the dark lighting and color usage. I enjoyed most of the maps but Viscera and Gossamer are definitely my favourites. Interesting thing about Gossamer - I didn't look at the author but somehow I immediately knew it was Mechadon. :) Looks great, plays nicely - another candidate for a replay. Very solid Hell episode.

About E6... I knew there was going to be a Heaven episode and frankly I didn't have high hopes for it. I wasn't sure it'd work too well. But I'll be damned, Transcendence... Just wow. That was the best opening shot in any map ever, I think, and one of the most beautiful DOOM levels I've seen. That map single-handedly made playing this mapset worth it. And the ending was fantastic. Phenomenal job. The rest of the episode was neat as well (minus the music) - I like those open environments and the details were pretty interesting. The second half of Eviternity was definitely better in my opinion.

I don't have any strong feelings about custom monsters. I didn't like that the new Demon was green and the other two enemies felt kind of overpowered sometimes. But a stronger melee enemy was a cool addition.

So yeah, a lot of the maps were not my cup of tea. But I'm glad I got to play the other ones.

[Dragonfly]

Really goes to show you can't please them all! I've heard more people having a preference for episodes 1 and 2 over the rest, so I guess I'll take comfort in knowing there's at least something for everyone here.

 

1 hour ago, Touchdown said:

(did anyone even playtest this map?)

 

Yes, they did - As said earlier in this thread - this was a cock-up I made in the very last hours of changes made to the project, something that was a simple mistake with dire consequences; I changed all key doors from DR to D1 for coop play, but being incredibly tired / burned out I clearly made a mistake.