FanTazTiCxD Posted June 3, 2019 (edited) Download link: https://gofile.io/?c=fIuvYY To play, drag the file FightorFlight.wad into GZdoom, and choose to play through Doom 2. This map replaces MAP01 Works for all doom versions! Jumping is not required, however jumping may help you, especially around the town area. Choose between: I'm Too Young to Die or Hurt Me Plenty (Hurt me Plenty recommended. Change to ITYTD if you give up) Difference in I'm Too Young to Die: BFG and invulnerability given instantly + megaspeares appear many more places Yes, I have completed the level myself on both ITYTD and HMP There's this one issue, that the game might lag a bit when playing, since a lot of details are showing at once. I don't know if other people will be able to play this without lag, but my computer doesn't run it completely smoothly, unfortunately. I am back with another WAD. This time, we are heading to hell! Story: You were misunderstood in your human life, and was sent to hell after your death. You spend your time hanging out with nazi's and 9/11 terrorists... Everyone slowly gets more and more tired of each other, and one day, you wake up to a big chaos. Civil war has broke lose. People/monsters are losing their minds. They just want to relieve their stress. Suddenly you have no choice but to join the war... or to run... the choice is yours. But you want to escape. Escape from this crazy hell with spiders, demons, nazis and soldiers attacking each other, seeing fire everywhere, witnessing 9/11 constantly, the dark brown skies. Even the sea is made out of blood, but at least it's peaceful. This is where you want to go. You want to escape from the zone in hell. And this is what you decide to do. Task: To escape this crazy place, find all three skulls keys. Being in the possession of a skull key will magically send a signal to the demon of roars to destroy one of the three walls - and after they are all down, you can finally escape. Advice: 1: Let monsters fight against each other 2: Find places where you can take cover. You'll often find ammo and health there, and you can take a rest while waiting for the monsters to kill each other 3: Go to the odd, hidden-away, non-obvious places that seems out of the regular path, to find the good stuff 4: Know where the best powerups are, and save them for when you really need them! Background: This is something I have worked on for a while! I liked the idea of a map, where you can (almost) never stand still, because there will be a monster attacking you no matter where you go. So I started working on this map, which focuses on the concept of not having rooms, but having everything thrown at your face right from the beginning in one big open field! In this map, you will often be faced with the decision of either running away, or fighting. And there are definitely places that are better to go to early, and places you shouldn't go to from the beginning, to save yourself from a quick death. Some monsters MUST be killed for you to complete this level. Other monsters should just be avoided to save you ammo. There is a lot of tactical thinking in this level, and if you know the locations of the good powerups/weapons in the back of your head, especially the few invulnerability powerups, you have a much better chance of surviving. Tip: Find the long row of barrels, and start the domino effect. It's fun! Cracked stone-floor with lava in between gives this place a lot of heat. And don't forget to take advantage of the barrels! Use the pits to hide from the fireballs. These pits will give you some time to breathe for a while, and pick up some health and ammo As long as you are wearing a radioactive suit, you don't have to worry about the lava in the pits What do you expect? This is hell. This is where your worst memories reappear. Especially those from 2001. There is a lot of helpful stuff to grab from the roof tops, and from the small alleys and corners between the buildings. You may not like the heat from the streets in hell, but at least you get a break from the rest up there, while taking cover down there. So it may be beneficial to spend some time on the streets The better the balance and skill, the better the rewards Use the trenches to take cover, and grab some useful items meanwhile that you will need Another trench, but this one is occupied by nazi soldiers. You have to take them out first. Architecture by the devil himself An overview of it all How it looks from groundlevel when playing the level Give me your comments on it! Everything from reactions to constructive feedback is welcome. Especially a gameplay video, if someone would mind ;D Edited June 4, 2019 by FanTazTiCxD 6 Share this post Link to post
Dragonfly Posted June 3, 2019 The lift to the yellow skull stayed up and won't seem to lower, oops! Sadly I didn't have time to play fully right now but so far it's certainly quite thrilling. :) 0 Share this post Link to post
FanTazTiCxD Posted June 4, 2019 8 hours ago, Dragonfly said: The lift to the yellow skull stayed up and won't seem to lower, oops! Sadly I didn't have time to play fully right now but so far it's certainly quite thrilling. :) It should be a repeatable proces. Did you press the switch down in town? If you go down there again and press it, I think it should lower. Otherwise, if here's a mistake here, I will fix it and update the download link. Thanks for trying and pointing it out! 😊 0 Share this post Link to post
FanTazTiCxD Posted June 4, 2019 To anyone who plays this, is there anyone who is able to play it without their framerate dropping? If so, I'd like to know the trick... 0 Share this post Link to post
HAK3180 Posted June 5, 2019 It doesn't seem to matter what recording settings I use; as soon as I hit record it goes from mildly annoying to unplayable. So here are my real time thoughts: For a map this size, really consider changing the music and the sky. Neither is fitting for this map. I don't really like the "jump allowed, not required" thing. It feels like a way to stick it to guys like me on a technicality. No secrets is almost never a good thing, in my opinion The first thing I did was run around the perimeter to try to collect ammo and kill a few enemies. I like how there's plenty of ammo, but the weapons aren't readily available. I do like this kind of map, where the whole huge thing is open to you from the beginning. Almost reminds me of a Super Mario Sunshine type thing, where you have a huge open world but you can also hunker down into your actual puzzles/tasks I like the prevalence of barrels I like how there appears to be just one pain elemental. It's an early priority, but just one makes it not an absolute annoyance I did not get a super shotgun until 419 enemies in, and it was the one right by the start Speaking of which, holy crap: that many are dead already? I'm not 7 minutes in. The supplies are extremely generous. That might be okay though, with how big and scattered the map is It's a nice cyberdemon use: A threat for much of the map that keeps you moving, but there's not a lot you can do about him early Yeah, some of the jumpable moments were definitely significant shafts to non-jumpers Wow, had no idea about the city area below until I rushed into it with an invulnerability Interesting: I didn't hit a switch until 557 kills in, 12:30 in. But I didn't know what the switch did, which is very dangerous in a large map The arrows could be somewhat confusing. I never did figure out the dark ones. The twin towers allusion is somewhat subtle, but may well be seen as in poor taste. There are a few moments where movement is excessively difficult due to Things Or maybe there are unmarked secrets... You have to do a lot more to make a Mastermind meaningful in a map of unlimited health and cells After finally getting the yellow key, I really had no idea where red might be Oh, there's how to get to blue. I might mark that a little better. Maybe just make some higher DOORBLUE pillars The marbface lift section was pretty fun. Overall, a really good use of a cyberdemon. There are maps with a dozen cyberdemons not cumulatively as effective as this one. Some cool views from some of the high places Oh, there's red. Okay, I wouldn't change anything. I just didn't see it earlier. The ending was weird and somewhat anticlimactic. If all I have to do is travel to the edge, then why are there tons of BFGs and megaspheres? Finished 88/73/100. Never got a BFG. Overall thoughts I liked it very much. It had a really fun progression and layout with a ton of optional content. There's a present threat the whole way through the map because of the cyberdemon and the fact that a lot of the map leaves you exposed. It does tend to get easier the longer you stay alive, but that's okay. Visually, it's cohesive and thematic even if it doesn't offer a ton of detail. The supply balance is not so bad because of the monster density. You're almost never going to run out of plasma, but often you'll want rockets instead, and those weren't so unlimited. Chaingun and shotguns are pretty much worthless after a certain point, but they'd be kinda grindy later on anyway, once you're primarily dealing with perched mid-tiers. Even the extreme abundance of health and powerups does not make this a breeze because they're spread out enough, so you still have to survive the present encounter and go get the health. I say there's definitely still too much plasma, but the setup makes this thing interesting and challenging regardless. Except the Mastermind. The difference of quality of use of Cyberdemon vs. Mastermind in this map is night and day. I like it a lot. 1 Share this post Link to post
baja blast rd. Posted June 5, 2019 (edited) One thing that jumps out in the screenshots is the ROCKRED wall bordering the perimeter. I'd strongly consider reworking that, as it's pretty rough looking compared to everything else, which is pretty cool-looking. Even something very quick and conceptually simple like... - drawing a bunch of sectors around it - building stair-like tiers of roughly 128 units tall each, and then - gradienting the light levels of each tier so that it fades from normal (bottom) to dark (top), or whatever scheme looks best ...would be quite an improvement over just having a slab of ROCKRED like that. Alternatively, a couple hours on a more typical rocky diorama would go a long way. Edited June 5, 2019 by rdwpa 3 Share this post Link to post
FanTazTiCxD Posted June 5, 2019 2 hours ago, HAK3180 said: Overall thoughts I liked it very much. It had a really fun progression and layout with a ton of optional content. There's a present threat the whole way through the map because of the cyberdemon and the fact that a lot of the map leaves you exposed. It does tend to get easier the longer you stay alive, but that's okay. Visually, it's cohesive and thematic even if it doesn't offer a ton of detail. The supply balance is not so bad because of the monster density. You're almost never going to run out of plasma, but often you'll want rockets instead, and those weren't so unlimited. Chaingun and shotguns are pretty much worthless after a certain point, but they'd be kinda grindy later on anyway, once you're primarily dealing with perched mid-tiers. Even the extreme abundance of health and powerups does not make this a breeze because they're spread out enough, so you still have to survive the present encounter and go get the health. I say there's definitely still too much plasma, but the setup makes this thing interesting and challenging regardless. Except the Mastermind. The difference of quality of use of Cyberdemon vs. Mastermind in this map is night and day. I like it a lot. Okay, I accept that you didn't record your gameplay, although I would have loved to see it I am happy with all your praise of my map! And I never forgot when you played my map "The Forbidden Terminal" and you kept talking about the lack of health, so I made sure to add plenty this time. Plenty of health and ammo. I didn't notice myself that there should be too much plasma. Maybe you were more lucky to find the good places with plasma, or you are better at saving them than me? The Spider Mastermind could be considered a regular enemy like the other monsters, more than a really difficult boss. Actually, maybe even see it as a help, because it will shoot down the monsters in the city for you? The black arrows should be ignored, while the white arrows help you with the directions. As you get to a "checkpoint" the white arrows will turn black, and some of the black arrows will turn white instead, to help you progress from there, and so on. It also says "Follow white arrows for (yellow skull)" About the switch, the arrows were supposed to help you with the directions. They directed you too the switch, and onwards to the lift that the switch had lowered. The BFG was put at two places in the map (before the walls going down) One of them was even highlighted on a pole above a pool of lava. I am surprised how you missed that! But overall, thanks for playing my map, and adding a lot of constructive words to it, as usual! You're great! 1 hour ago, rdwpa said: One thing that jumps out in the screenshots is the ROCKRED wall bordering the perimeter. I'd strongly consider reworking that, as it's pretty rough looking compared to everything else, which is pretty cool-looking. Even something very quick and conceptually simple like... - drawing a bunch of sectors around it - building stair-like tiers of roughly 128 units tall each, and then - gradienting the light levels of each tier so that it fades from normal (bottom) to dark (top), or whatever scheme looks best ...would be quite an improvement over just having a slab of ROCKRED like that. Alternatively, a couple hours on a more typical rocky diorama would go a long way. That sounds like a good advice! I should take it next time. Maybe you didn't notice, but the rockred wall isn't supposed to be there all the time. As you progress the level, and you find the red key, it will lower to reveal a different wall behind it, that will lower once you get the yellow key, and then a third wall that will lower once you get the blue key. So if I had to follow your advice, I would have to add an effect of several walls to come down when you grab one of the keys (which would require a lot of sector tagged lines) but, well, it would still be possible to do, with some workarounds. In that case they should all be seperated with a tiny space, so that they could "lower to (the same) lowest floor" Thanks for your advice :-) 0 Share this post Link to post
BoxY Posted June 5, 2019 It's an interesting and cool-looking map design, but I found the lack of visible and accessible weapon pickups really frustrating. I had to run around forever in random directions, usually with no usable ammo, until i finally managed to get lucky and snag some. Most are covered in enemies so you can't get them, it would be much nicer if there were just a couple more in the open that you can run over when you really need them. Skill 3 I didn't bother much with, it seems like the only way to survive more than 30 seconds is to either know exactly what spots to run to immediately, or get insanely lucky, or probably both. Jumping down with only the rocket launcher and only 7 rockets on top of shotgunners was too deadly because there's no way to defend yourself at such close range except with the pistol (useless). I think it would be better for gameplay to start in the tower with the SSG and some shells so the player has a chance to kill the hitscanners, and move the rocket launcher and rockets to the small plinth just outside. The revenant turrets in the centre seem a bit OP for this style of map because it's so hard to shake the homers in the open and you can be targeted from a long range. Often I would be trying to fight arachnotrons or barons and the only warning I got that I was being attacked by a revenant was when random rockets hit me in the back. Adding a few strategic columns in the open or any other feature you can cover behind temporarily would make the fighting a lot more fun. After that the map tends to get really easy as 2/3 or more of the monsters quickly infight to death. In a couple of minutes the map turns from a chaotic 600 monster map to a 200 monster map that feels very empty. You could maybe rearrange some of the monster spawns so that the same kinds of monsters are grouped and less likely to fight the guys right next to them, or partition some groups off with a few barriers so they're less likely to hit each other. I did get a bit of lag as you mentioned at the start, but only when my line of sight was looking right over the open map. It probably has to do with a combination of looking over dozens or hundreds of sectors at once and all the enemies, projectiles and obstacles being drawn, so it might be best to put a few partitioning cliffs or something down to cut the player's line of sight into segments. Speaking of obstacles, I felt like there were way too many in the way, especially in the open. Most of the times I got hit were because of getting stuck on random trees and barrels scattered everywhere. In the end I couldn't beat the map without cheating because I got lost. I got the yellow and blue keys quite easily (those arrows were very useful, a great addition), but the red key eluded me. I used automap hax and it turns out it was hiding completely behind a baron corpse and some metal posts, which is partly me being unlucky but it's also a flaw that the map doesn't make the red key more elevated and visible. Balance-wise I think skill 3 is silly just because of the start and easy otherwise, and skill 2 is far too easy because the map has megas scattered around like candy all over the map to the point where it's almost impossible to die by accident. I think the skills could be split by moving 3 to 4, and the new skill 3 should have the skill 2 start but only as many megaspheres as skill 3. Overall it's still a very cool map, I'm not trying being overly critical. 0 Share this post Link to post
FanTazTiCxD Posted June 7, 2019 (edited) On 6/5/2019 at 10:49 PM, BoxY said: A lot of text Overall it's still a very cool map, I'm not trying being overly critical. Thanks for your constructive criticism. I must say, that was a lot of criticism compared to things you liked. And when you say it's overall a very cool map, I assume there are a lot of positive things you noticed too, that you left out of your post. But thank you anyway... The trick with my map is to fail several times, and try a new strategy. Eventually, you will learn about the tricks you need to use to finish the map. You'll learn about where the good powerups are. And that's what I personally like a lot about it. If you fail, you can always try another strategy, unlike many maps, where you have one way to go, and if you fail, you just have to try the same thing again, and hope for better luck next time. Here you can actually use another route and see if it will help you. Just something I think you should consider :-) 0 Share this post Link to post
FanTazTiCxD Posted June 9, 2019 I would still love to see someone record themselves playing my WAD though, anyone interested in doing some gameplay? :) 0 Share this post Link to post
