Hydrologica (v1.1)

[Shawny]

Hi.

First of all I would like to thank everyone who played the v1.0. I hope you had a decent time.

This map was about 1.7 year long effort (it is about 2 years now after the patch) and after getting an amazing feedback from @HAK3180 I decided to update the map and fix (or reduce) the really jaring aspects of it (that is the mosty combat and really low difficulty). But let me start from the beginning.

 

Hydrologica is map set on a remote base somewhere in the middle of the ocean. Too bad it was overrun by demons, like they do and now your task is to destroy it.

Blowing the thermal reactor should do the trick, you need to get there first.

Design-wise it is a large open map focused on exlporation with multiple routes to progress.

It has some autosave points, so if you have autosave slot limit I recommend making a backup of those first.

 

Map was tested on GZdoom 3.6.0 (It was built on GZdoom Hexen config)

Jumping and crouching is disabled by default

Freelook is not required (although I do use it)

 

Map contains from approx 600 - 1200 enemies.

There are 18 secrets in total (3 of which help player to get BFG early), many of them contain weapons or a power up.

Higher difficulties (UV/NM) have extra rooms.

There are branching paths, but they all lead somewhere you probably need to be at some point.

 

1.1 Patchnotes

Some rooms had been revamped to look better or to improve engagements.
Added few ambient sounds (waves, waterfalls, humming machinery and thomping sounds near the BFG room locks secrets).
Added details to some secret rooms triggers helping players secret hunting, in the case of BFG room secrets, sounds were added instead (as specified earlier).
Added more teleporter trigger lines and teleporter destinations from monster closets to help prevent enemies getting stuck and not teleporting properly.
Added endgame area where player faces enemies from really specific monster closets that hasn´t been activated (helping player get 100% kill count without activating every more route depending encounters).
A lot of block sound triggers had been moved or removed completely.
Killing former mankind enemies (humans, sergeants, chaingunners) now sometimes spawn lost souls or revenents near the area

to divide player attention (mostly in early game).
Killing demon dogs now spawn real (ingame) demons (pinkies/specters).
Added encounters and ambush points. Added some normal difficulty (HMP) specific fights near the keys.
Goodies in some secret rooms had been replaced/rebalanced.
Number of backpacks had been lowered, ammo rebalanced not to max out too early (note that there should be enough ammo to kill everything by doing some exploration).
Amount of healing items (stimpacks, medkits and souls spheres) had been reduced, few berserk power ups added.
Some stimpacks are medkits on the UV+ difficulty (mostly in the early game to slightly compensate for no green armor at the start).
This map version uses updated version of DavidN´s plasma zombie scientist (this version drops cells).
Some glass panels are now "breakable" so that enemies will now attack player (or start infighting, some enemies are weird).
Hard difficulty (UV/NM) arenas had been slightly altered.
                1. Ammo spawners are now one use only, but there are more of them and now spawn variety of ammo.
                    (there is just enough to complete the arena - in case you had no ammo after teleporting)
                2. Spider mastermind arena had been revamped (it´s far from perfect, but it is far better than V1.0 was).
                3. Blue key arena now has usable switch on the player side instead of shootable one on the opposite platform.
                4. Every arena now has a Soul sphere instead of regular healing items.
                5. Teleporters placements and enemy count/variety had been slightly rebalanced.

 

Download:

http://www.mediafire.com/file/lbz8wmoewn8f7o1/Hydrologica_1.1.rar/file

 

https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/g-i/hydrologica

 

Screenshots:

Spoiler

Edited January 11, 2019 by Shawny : Added idgames link

[cambreaKer]

this looks cool. i'm going to try this.

[Mere_Duke]

I come here to say that Blue Key Encounter idea is one of the coolest things I've seen in a level for a long time. Good job there, mate! (Haven't yet finished the level, hope there will be more "Unloved"-like things.)

The only flaws I've met ware a little bit of oversizing here and there and bad texture transitions in some places. Really, you should've used there some custom textures that will fit better to design such cool environments. Ok, I gonna play the rest of it now :)

 

PS And that old LP track is cool :)

[Mere_Duke]

Here's the secret that sometimes doesn't count as a secret; it is possible to run thru the walkway to the Sphere w/o triggering it.

Spoiler

 

Also I've noticed that plasma scientists miss their shots most of the time like I have Blur Sphere (playing with GZDoom 372).

 

Edit:

Aaaaand it's done! Dunno where the last 100 enemies were hiding... probably one of the secrets I've missed.

Spoiler

Nice to see another key encounters are made with the same idea in mind.

Also I've noticed that some enemies doesn't wake up even if they look directly at me. Pretty much every room have some of them.

And also I like the interconnectivity of level's layout.

 

PS Sadly I haven't found BFG :(

 

Edited February 27, 2019 by Mere_Duke

[Shawny]

Hey, thanks for the info. Glad to hear that had decent time playing.

 

The alternate encounters are UV+ specific. It is a little bonus content for those playing on skill 4+. ;-)

 

Yeah, some secrets have that not count when you run through, but I always got all those secrets on the way back so I never considered that an issue.

 

The bad texture transition/allingment is unfortunate, although I fixed every one that I have found during testing (which I did myself admittedly).

Some were fixed in v1.1 thanks to HAK3180 who did video coverage and review of the original version of the map after release.

 

8.3.2019 EDIT: I just started playing my map again to test the Dead marine mod and I now spotted that one the revamped rooms have A LOT of misalinged textures. I have no idea if I was blind at the time or completely oblivious, but yeah, that is gonna bug me. It is not worth fixing and mostly uploading "another" version of the map just for that. Maybe one day after some bigger update but for now it is what it is.

 

The 100 monsters were probably

Spoiler

still waiting in the monster closet that is activated by picking the BFG,

or part of them at least. Whatever the case may be, most of them were probably in some of the untriggered monster closets.

 

BFG can be always accesed by picking and using all 3 keys to open the bars or MUCH earlier by finding 3 secret switches, that lowers the liquid bars.

 

If the enemies are behing transparent line they will not react because most transparent lines are set to block everything.

However, some of those glass lines have triggers to be "destroyed" and then enemies react as usual.

 

The main focus of the map was the layout - "free roam" and exploration aspect. There are some custom textures, notably the waterfall, lavafall, but other than that I never felt like I need more custom textures, although I admit they would probably help the overall aesthetic.

 

The Linking Park song was specifically chosen in memory of Chester Bennington.

Edited March 8, 2019 by Shawny : Being bad at using my sight.