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HAK3180

*2020 HAKAWARDS* I'm Also Looking to Play and Record Your Maps 2 *CLOSED*

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Table of Contents

 

 

@ViolentBeetle

 

Doomworld forum topic

 

I had to leave suddenly while playing this, but I was basically just two arch-vile kills from the finish line, so I decided not to upload a whole extra video for an extra 30 seconds of footage. Anyway, I like this Toenail guy. This thing was so heady and intricate that I was fairly certain fairly early that it was made by the same mapper who did 10. As much as this map felt daunting in terms of being able to understand what was going on, it all made sense and I only got mentally lost very briefly. So much excitement was happening with the map itself that the gameplay could have been fun with haphazardly placed monsters, but the encounters were suitable and challenging.

 

Bottom line: Very intelligent mapping

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On 12/5/2020 at 11:20 PM, Mr. LBN said:

[Overbuffed]

 

I will play at least one of these, but my guess is that this will not be up my alley at all. I love your screenshots, but the weapon and monster changes, I fear, will be a major deterrent. 

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1 minute ago, HAK3180 said:

 

I will play at least one of these, but my guess is that this will not be up my alley at all. I love your screenshots, but the weapon and monster changes, I fear, will be a major deterrent. 

Completely understandable.  I'm still working out the kinks in the enemies with the feedback I've gotten so far.  Granted the criticism is highly welcome and I will be redoing "everything" starting next year once I get enough perspectives from other testers.

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Heyo, here with a new level, Map08.  Only had one other tester this time, so hopefully, it's all good.

[ (G)ZDoom / TnT ]

 

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@Mr. LBN

 

Doomworld forum topic

 

Well, I guess I should have tried Hey, Not Too Rough, but I did not like the core gameplay at all. The biggest issue is probably the unforgiving nature of almost all enemies. If two normal imps corner you, you might take 1-3 slashes before killing one and escaping. That’s ~70 damage with terrible RNG. In this wad, if two monsters corner you, or even get close to you, you might be taking four melee hits before you even fire once, but your weapons are so weak that you can’t kill them fast enough anyway, so you just die, because everyone’s melee hits seem to do 20+ damage. Pain state is greatly diminished on all monsters, but their speed and health is greatly increased, while Doomguy’s weapons are junk. Where’s the balance? I did not find the shotguns valuable at all because with the speed of the monsters, you just need to have rapid fire. The shotguns would be good for one hit KOs if you could land them, but it seems every monster has too much health for that.

What’s done quite well in this wad is the map progression. Although the maps I played were similar and monotonously textured, the layouts were quite good – elegant and intuitive.

 

Bottom line: I’m not a conversion kind of guy, and this one does not change my mind

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@ViolentBeetle

 

Doomworld forum topic

 

This is a high-tension map all the way through. From large waves of fodder to tight spaces with revenants to arch-viles to the looming cyberdemon, there’s always a different threat. I also like how the whole map is a loop. I don’t think it’s the best looking one out there, but it’s fun to play.

 

Bottom line: the pressure is on. Watch your back.

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2 hours ago, HAK3180 said:

Well, I guess I should have tried Hey, Not Too Rough, but I did not like the core gameplay at all. The biggest issue is probably the unforgiving nature of almost all enemies. If two normal imps corner you, you might take 1-3 slashes before killing one and escaping. That’s ~70 damage with terrible RNG. In this wad, if two monsters corner you, or even get close to you, you might be taking four melee hits before you even fire once, but your weapons are so weak that you can’t kill them fast enough anyway, so you just die, because everyone’s melee hits seem to do 20+ damage. Pain state is greatly diminished on all monsters, but their speed and health is greatly increased, while Doomguy’s weapons are junk. Where’s the balance? I did not find the shotguns valuable at all because with the speed of the monsters, you just need to have rapid fire. The shotguns would be good for one hit KOs if you could land them, but it seems every monster has too much health for that.

What’s done quite well in this wad is the map progression. Although the maps I played were similar and monotonously textured, the layouts were quite good – elegant and intuitive.

Even though you didn't enjoy this, I really do (and I mean it) appreciate that you took the time out to not only give this pWAD a shot but also upload commentary as well since this is the best type of feedback I can get since I'm a very visual learner.  Thanks.

 

Quick question before reading below.  I attempted to make this play a bit more like quake where you have to SSG enemies 2-4x before they fall or you're shotgunning them a fair amount before they die.  In QUAKE the enemies were more independent and could really fight you unlike DOOM which relies a bit more on hoards of enemies due to how weak they are.  How close did I get to achieving that since I'm actually trying to force the player to take numerous shots on enemies with the SSG (That's why it reloads faster than the Vanilla D1 Shotgun).

 

There's no difficulty level since I literally only play UV so I actually have no idea how to balance for anything other than that, and almost don't care to (Obviously I'm going to at least have to be aware of that if I want to appeal to a broader audience, but that's a tedious task in and of itself and would rather have a playtester do that for me or at least give me pointers).

 

It's also pretty apparent that the enemies yet again for the millionth time need to be nerfed (When I initially started this project earlier this year they were faster, more durable, smaller hitbox, and hit like almost like a Revenants rocket and the weapons were weaker) because you (and others) seem to have more of a problem with the health and speed vs "weak/junk" weapons because they're all literally WAY better than their vanilla counterpart by a long shot.  I could quite literally route most of your complaints about the weapons back to the enemies since you provided me with a visual aid on how a more laidback player is going to tackle scenarios (i.e. shotguns suck because they can't down low tier enemies with 1 shot or even if they could you can't entirely take advantage of the faster firing rate because of the speed of the enemies).  Personally I couldn't notice this because I became so accustomed to their smaller hitbox and increased speed during testing, but I definitely will be toning some of them down.

 

What was really weird was your closing statement regarding the balance since I probably put more time into that than some of the layouts on paper and I haven't gotten too many complaints about it being that unbalanced.  I didn't see the assault rifle as the defacto weapon in regards to the SSG/Shotgun but I did get to see how it can easily overshadow the regular shotgun for many players and they actually do have scenarios where this weapon is more ideal than that weapon which you mentioned that this arsenal didn't balance for.  I think, like you mentioned before is that you and quite a few other players are looking for a DOOMy experience and I was purposely altering and deviating away from that and I wanted to make it more like QUAKE (In QUAKE even with the SSG you're hitting enemies a good 2-4 times before they die) so maybe that's where a noticeable disconnect would come into play in regards to balance.  I'm literally not even balancing for a proper DOOM experience at this point, just DOOM graphics, engine, coded behavior.  If it manages to still feel/play like DOOM then I've done a good job.

 

With all that being said I WILL BE DOING CHANGES TO ISSUES THAT YOU BROUGHT UP:

-Enemies having a bit too much HP

-Enemies move too fast (Although I've slowed them down so much I won't be noticeably dialing them back because that, with the HP nerf is defeating the entire purpose of the pWAD)

- Monotonous texturing

-Hitscanners being too automatic and next to no pain chance

-Enemies killing way too quickly (i.e the pink chomper and shotgunners)

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Appreciate your playing the Hellevator. Don't have much comment on it, but a few observations.

 

Both MAP32 and MAP18 were submitted very early (I believe MAP32 was actually the very first one) before anyone came up with wild gimmicks. The unusual thing about MAP32 is that it happens in the cave, which I think is quite a nice cave.

MAP18 is just very easy because there was no frame of reference at the time, I was going to move it earlier, but there's not much space for it to go, so I just let the difficulty dip be. I have no idea how much experience the mapper has, personally I quite enjoyed his design, though it is indeed very easy.

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@Mr. LBN, thanks for your thoughts. My commentary was all made assuming I was not playing the hardest difficulty. If you have not made any medium and easy adjustments, that changes things, and had I known I was still playing Ultra-Violence, I may not have been as harsh. I played Quake ~20 years ago for a decent amount of time but then never again, so I don't remember many specifics. Take my commentary with a grain of salt. If you don't even want it to feel like Doom, then you are effectively ruining the chance of me liking it. But that's just me. There is definitely an audience for more significant conversion projects.

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@Kyukon

 

Doomworld forum topic

 

I think Kyukon is most interested in layouts. They are well planned, clever, and interesting. There’s good environmental storytelling and the feeling of Doomguy agency, often through a nonlinear setup. Probably the next step would be being more intentional about building the combat into the space. The encounters are not bad, but convince me that they need to happen here. I get the impression this was a two-step process: space first, monsters later. It’s okay to implement it that way, but if that’s also the mental process, the gameplay may never develop into what it could have been.

 

Bottom line: It may not take the best mapper ever to make this, but it’s a fun classic Doom adventure

 

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@ViolentBeetle

 

Doomworld forum topic

 

Right away you’re presented with an obvious choice of weapon and monster combo. Eventually you get all the weapons, but you can get them in any order and I think you also choose which monsters you face several times. That makes for replay potential and sounds very fun, but it just didn’t really come alive in a meaningful way. The action was basic enough that you didn’t really think about your decisions; you just shot monsters with what you happened to have. Visually, it’s pretty good, even with a borderline monotone theme. It’s also clever how it all works out within this nonlinear space, but to me this is one to appreciate more than to enjoy.

 

Bottom line: it seemed cooler at the beginning than at the end

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@ViolentBeetle

 

Doomworld forum topic

 

It certainly feels like DFF was trying to channel his inner Romero. It felt a lot like Perfect Hatred Wickedly meeting Sigil – spatial challenges in elegant architecture. There seemed to be a couple problems with the map, but it’s a cool idea and stands out a bit in terms of style. Several of the last few have had some teeth, so it's good to see an overall upward trajectory

 

Bottom line: Romero vibes

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@HAK3180

First of all thanks as always for checking it out.

This map started off as being a little bit too easy for me to test run, which is how I ended up adding more mid tiers around the place.  That might be why it felt like some of them were thrown in afterward.  Most notably, the Arachnotrons were never a part of the original plan.  Either way, it's good advice to try and keep the species down, for better results.  In-fighting has just seemed to be the go-to route to have more intimidating-looking fights that don't overstay their welcome, but there's definitely room for improvement.  

 

I also don't plan on making a frequent habit of false walls going forward, but glad to see they weren't too obscure of a secondary gimmick for the map.

The current plan is up to 10 or 11, I'd like to do more, but I'm not sure if there's enough interest.  I have a few ideas for some larger, standalone maps that I could be working on.  Otherwise, I do have some ideas to explore for a hell episode of this wad, and could fill in the middle somehow.

 

Regardless of that, thanks for the encouragement on the theme-ing and progression.

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@ViolentBeetle

 

Doomworld forum topic

 

Well, this mapper definitely has a style, even if the three maps so far are quite different. Something about the pace here was off to me. The beginning tried to force you forward, but you often still have to play peekaboo. Then you spend a little too long for me without rockets or plasma. The result is a rather oppressive map. Even with big guns, the space is always tight, so the overall feel is similar to the E4/E5-esque Romero stuff that we also saw in Map 23. I thought the overall progression was thoughtful and efficient. Essentially, it's a clockwise circuit, but little deviations and visibility of the whole map spice it up well.

 

Bottom line: Still good, but my least favorite by this mapper in this wad so far

 

 

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Unfortunately I was not able to see your video in its entirety, but I think something went wrong with friction. Personally I love how dickish this map is, although it was overshadowed by Captain's later maps (It was his first submission)

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On 12/8/2020 at 6:53 PM, HAK3180 said:

 

 

It certainly feels like DFF was trying to channel his inner Romero. It felt a lot like Perfect Hatred Wickedly meeting Sigil – spatial challenges in elegant architecture. There seemed to be a couple problems with the map, but it’s a cool idea and stands out a bit in terms of style. Several of the last few have had some teeth, so it's good to see an overall upward trajectory

 

Bottom line: Romero vibes

 

Thanks to you and some other player's feedback I am making changes to remove the soft-locking and also open the map back up at the end. yeah idk how I missed that, or I found it and forgot to fix it. I also took suggestions to telefrag the cybers as the door opens. One bad habit I always have is placing medkits in the player's path, but you always remind me not to HAK, a good little rule I need to remember.

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@ViolentBeetle

 

Doomworld forum topic

 

There's not much negative to say here. It does a lot of things right by me: visually pleasing, different paths to check out, varied combat including a well done setpiece, and good balance. If I had to nitpick something, I guess it would be that the identifying gimmick of the map seems just a touch cheap: throw in some Führer pics and some nazis and call it a day, but at the same time, I would say it is more cheap than actually feels cheep; the monsters are used fairly well and the textures don't ruin the aesthetic. 

 

Bottom line: Checks a lot of positive boxes

 

 

And that's it for Hellevator. All the rest I played by request earlier. Thanks for the request.

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Ok... just saying 18:40 is a WILD guess (unless I made a translate error and unforgotten strickly means remembered for something positive, which I don´t think that is does) the truth is the opposite of that, the guts and gore around the portraits suggest that and the fact that if you shoot all the portaits you get a BFG. In any case the answer is not, that is not what I was going for, at all.

 

Back to the map. Yeah, I wanted to create a techbase because in span of 3 maps I have created since this one none is a techbase. About the same time BluePineapple did map 31 and I told myself I could do a Nazi techbase to spice things up. As I am pretty sure you mentioned in the past, the SS hitscan enemy is a legit one but unutilized due to subject matter. Considering that player is ascending a hell tower of sorts, having a floor being occupied by one of the most atrocius people in history would probably not be that unheard of.

 

Layout-wise, yeah it is linear for the most part with some optional areas (where you can get SSG and RL earlier) with some level shifting while backtracking.

I tried to do something a bit different for each map.

Map01 is quick non-linear one.

Map13 is more or less a loop with level shifting.

Map22 is an experimental one where you choose weapons and enemies to fight with some alteration to the level with each weapon path.

Map26 is a mostly linear map with backtracking.

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Penultimate map for the Enceladus episode, E4M7

 

https://www.mediafire.com/file/1fgkcyph6hqhh4h/ENCELA48.wad/file

 

It's a big map with free key order, I tested it using different paths but this one was hard to balance, I also wouldn't be surprised if you find a bug /something I forgot/ because of the high number of areas so waiting to see what is next to be improved from the video!

 

Tested in prboom, should work with crispy.

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@HAK3180 Thanks for playtesting, I enjoyed your videos. I'm not entirely certain what happened on map25 when you entered the blood pit and sped up, you were supposed to slow down! I've been puzzling over this and have been unable to replicate the issue.

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9 hours ago, Shawny said:

unless I made a translate error and unforgotten strickly means remembered for something positive, which I don´t think that is does) the truth is the opposite of that, the guts and gore around the portraits suggest that and the fact that if you shoot all the portaits you get a BFG. In any case the answer is not, that is not what I was going for, at all.

Your English is quite good. I usually pick up on people using it not as their first language. Never guessed that for you. "Unforgotten" simply means it is remembered and is more neutral. "Unforgettable" means something was so significant that it will always be remembered, for better or for worse. In the end, I guess either makes sense. "Unforgotten" used this way is a bit more sinister and probably a better choice, even if more ambiguous. Oddly enough, "The Forgotten Floor" would communicate pretty much the same thing. And to be clear, I wasn't wondering whether you were pro Nazi, but whether the people who decorated this particular floor in this building were pro Nazi.

 

2 hours ago, Captain Toenail said:

Thanks for playtesting, I enjoyed your videos. I'm not entirely certain what happened on map25 when you entered the blood pit and sped up, you were supposed to slow down! I've been puzzling over this and have been unable to replicate the issue.

Hmmm, I can't replicate it either! Probably don't worry about it then.

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@JezChrist

 

Doomworld forum topic

 

 

This mapper seems to have good ideas/instincts because most of what could be improved here is stuff that just kinda happens organically after more weeks/months/years of experience. What's encouraging is the level of thought put into progression and actual gameplay. The map has a solid flow, decent contrast of big/small, dark/bright, and a few points of identity, such as the very start, the commando assault, the dark tomato invasion, and the vile ending. There were some encounters I didn't care for, but even at least one of those was at least distinct. Lighting is noticeable throughout, which is good. Beginners often underdetail and then overcompensate by overdetailing boring geometry. While the spatial setups are not mind-blowing here, they are functional, but I do think there is some noticeable monotone in texturing, especially in the outside where only one texture is used. Tekgreen also comes to mind. Depending on what exactly "first map" means in this case, we could see very good stuff from this individual before too long.

 

Bottom line: there's work to be done, but this is a strong showing for a beginner

 

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First and foremost : thank you for playing and recording. It helps to vizualise how other players behave in a given enironnement.

 

Secrets : There is nothing more unbearable to see someone being so close to get a secret.... and just move on.
The pathway you spotted at the beginning was accesible right away, you could even see it on your map ! There was a sudden break in the carving on the cave walls. This was a secret door that lead to the imp balcony.
The door at the beginning open thanks to a hidden linedef. if you remembered the existence of the door at any point while being somewhere in the bunker, you should be able to reach the door open if you go straight for it. It gives a fight and a partial invisibily, destined to balance out UV-fast, as the blue room can be very frustating whitout partial invisibility.
The generator in the corners are indeed secrets, but you have to shoot their screen, not interact with them. I'm not sure about this at all. I like the fact that you have to shoot them, but should I deny the player from finding the secret when he has technically found it ? Should I put both shoot and select linedef ? I'm not sure....
(Its also a reference to a map in Plutonia, where shooting some consoles gave you rockets for a though in a room full of barrels).
The Computer Area secret is really the kind of secret I like : its honest and fair. You can sse what is the price, so there is no disappointenment when you find it ; you always knew it was a computer area map secret. It also give additional shotgun ammo and bullets, as the health and armor are more decorative than anything to be honest.
The Chainsaw secret, as you noted yourself, is hinted whith the fact that the flanking pinkies comes from the pathway, so vigilant players will notice that they came from somewhere.

 

For me, a secret is optionnal, so every secret triggers prior to the item picking, so if the players knows of the secret but doesn't want to pick up the invisibility or the chainsaw, he can get his 100% secret percentage without having to actually pick up anything. If you find my secrets, I give opportunities for more content, but I don't force it on you.


Fights: The greentek corridor fight was supposed to be an ambush, triggering when you passed the rubbles, but I added a linedef to the console so you could trigger it early to kind of cheese it. ..... It wasn't supposed to be found on a first blind run TT. I don't if this was a bad idea or not and I'm sorry it kind of made the fight uninteresting. Feel free to replay the map as "intended" but I'm not sure it will salvage much for this particuliar encounter.
The Cacos in the dark is one of my favorite encounter, but also the worst setup ever. Because no vodoo dolls of any kind, picking up the blue key both trigger the cacos to spawn, and the pathway to open behind you. Expect the player will only notice one of these, and because of the sound, it's genrally the pathway that will catch their attention. Therefore, many just skipped the cacas or didn't notice their arrival, teleporting majesticly (I speak english very well and I'm very modest) in the dark. Than, reaching for the bottom of the trench, will just bump into 6 cacos, making the fight a real slough. The original idea was to have a fight with the cocos in the bunker and through the window, where you had to dodge their projectiles, when you could just see them seconds before the shoot. Or you could see them better if they were above the glowing trench, meaning you had to push them back with the SSG to get a better vision. And I liked the sight of seeing their black corpses falling in front of the bright windows.
But once again, the door sound catch way more the attention. I have learn something.

The 4 pinkies that attacks when you exit the blue room were placed as both punishement and opportunity : if you wanted to exit the blue room during the fight, as I loked the path behind, there was no reason the way foward was to be cleared. It was supposed to be a room where the only option is to fight. So I put 4 pinkies as a bad suprise for the cowards. But, they also serve as additionnal meatshields against the chaingunners, so even if they seemed to be a punishement, you could still use them as a protection ( and a visible one !). Otherwise, yeah... bit of a grind.

For the last fight I'll add a yellow skull key behind the heart in the middle of the stone circle, so you have to reach for it, then go for the lift. It may encourage the player to investigate the circle first (the armor didn't work well enough apparently), be surprised and attacked before they could reach for the key, and force them to fight to reach the end. The other solution is to have the lift trigger when everybody's dead. But I didn't wanted to spit at a speedrunner face. (and I try to avoid ZDoom only compatibility).

 

Visual : With stock D2 textures, lighting is important to break the monotony. Not many rocks textures go well together, so I had to works with only one wall texture. I did my best, and I still like the result. If a area doesn't look completly out of place with the rest, I guess its fine.... Otex makes really your life better in that regard.

Once again, lighting saves most cave (thinking of Candle Cove, from Valiant).
In the blue room, the misaligned top steel texture was unintended, expect for the fact that the do not stop at the tip of the arrows. If you look closely, you can see that they are actually align so there's a continuity from one side to the other at the tip.

For the outside of the bunker, there is actaully several texture, especially the one with impact and sign of fights that I added to break the monotony and give the place a bit more history. It is still a bunker so it look ... grey.


On the topic of doors, you noted that grey doors were openable, and brown not. It was the way it worked before I realised that the door leading to the blue key was hideous in grey, so I changed it to one of the door's shade of brown, so it fitted the corridor well. I counted on the blue light trim to make a difference. I guess it kind of confuses people. I'll be more careful about that too.

The map was short, and it introduces the wad and the character. I wanted to show in this map the idea that its the kinda of stuff the main character (a doomguy but not the dommguy) is used to, hence the fact that you can always see the next area, the next objective before you move on : you see the end path with the light at the very beginning, with the health flasks showing you that you can get there, you see the bunker in through the windows, (with the door that opens because of the fucking imps I put a block monsters so the chaingunners can't get out or wait just right at the door but the imps are all over it ffs) and the trench, even if the fact you actually walk through it is more of a surprise.

 

The "vile ending" had a central idea : the stonehenge and the shadows. When I went to choose the textures and pick the torchs I realized two things : the torches are not yellow but green (I'm colorblind), and the marble goes pretty well with it. so let's go. When I choose the teleporting monsters, I picked monsters that fitted the color theme and that made for an intersting fight, while only picking monsters coming straight from hell, and trying to keep the fight interseting and dynamic : hence pinkies and specters for area control and challenging the players movement when facing the arch-vile, main threat and top prioriy target that will teste your mobility, with additional help from the Hell knight, generally here to make everyones days more rainy, by throwing firballs, and keeping the pressure on (when the get closer and start to aim but you can't move because you have to wait for the arch-vile to finish his attack).

 

I put a lift so players wouldn't press the exit, thinking it was a element of the fight. I was so wrong. Next time the exit will have its function made more obvious.


Thanks again for playing ! The advice was very appreciated =)

Edited by JezChrist

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Hey buddy just in time for Clipmas, you might want to put an hour aside if you're interested also stick around for a short and sweet map 02 :)

 

 

 

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On 12/12/2020 at 7:08 PM, JezChrist said:

There is nothing more unbearable to see someone being so close to get a secret.... and just move on.

Get used to it. Secrets don't feel rewarding if they're too easy. So that means players will often not find them. And also realize that the elements of your own map (secrets, optional stuff, progression in general) will always make way more sense to you than someone else, at least at first.

 

On 12/12/2020 at 7:08 PM, JezChrist said:

The 4 pinkies that attacks when you exit the blue room were placed as both punishement and opportunity : if you wanted to exit the blue room during the fight, as I loked the path behind, there was no reason the way foward was to be cleared. It was supposed to be a room where the only option is to fight. So I put 4 pinkies as a bad suprise for the cowards.

Okay, this makes more sense. You can't always predict how a player is going to play, so there can be a seesawing effect to the "success" of different encounters. But I would say two would probably do the trick, rather than four.

 

On 12/12/2020 at 7:08 PM, JezChrist said:

Not many rocks textures go well together, so I had to works with only one wall texture. I did my best, and I still like the result. If a area doesn't look completly out of place with the rest, I guess its fine.... Otex makes really your life better in that regard.

Once again, lighting saves most cave

I disagree with this. I think there are plenty of legitimate complements to ASHWALL in the stock set of textures, and while lighting is a better approach than adding several different textures, in a space that big, I think the sweet spot is 2-3 discrete textures. In this case, mixing in some ZIMMER, SP_ROCK, ROCK 4/5, and others (not all but pick one or two) would make the area come alive nicely.

 

I do think forcing the issue of fighting the cacodemons in the bunker where they are in darkness would be a good approach because that's pretty interesting. Perhaps a timed event of some sort would work there, like a slowly lowering key or something.

 

Thanks for all your subsequent thoughts. Best of luck as you continue mapping.

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@nicolas monti

 

Part 1

 

Part 2

 

The first thing I would say is this has no business in this wad. Obviously, the style is the same, but the length is such an outlier that this one map just takes over the set. This is much more forgivable in a 27 or 32 or 36-map set, but as it is, this one map has almost 40% of the wad’s monsters with only one more to play. It completely overshadows the brilliance of all the other modest-length maps. I definitely think this works better as a standalone.

 

But as for the map itself, it’s as intelligent as you would expect. We must praise Nic here for at least always showing you what switches are doing and a very heady design in general with an unbelievable amount of signature Monti jumps that really do make traversing this thing entertaining. Unfortunately, I spent a lot of time lost, either not knowing what to do next or not knowing how to get where I knew I needed to go. Frustration set in when this involved damaging floors. I don’t recall getting a single suit in this map, yet there were numerous times I had to travel across damaging floor without boats. The critical path involves getting three keys in any order and then going to the triple-locked door. But those key paths are multi-faceted, involving hitting switches and then re-entering areas. Add to that a massive sandbox of optional content, and I rarely knew whether I was on a key path or a secret hunt or a weapon pickup path. This is a map that must feel great to play when you know what you’re doing, but I just didn’t. That also made a lot of the combat annoying to me. I just wanted to figure out what to do, rather than shoot monsters, especially when I couldn’t see where they were shooting me from, which is an issue I have with most of the episode, honestly. One day I’d like to do an easy or no monsters run of this map just to see if I can make more sense of the progression.

 

Bottom line: a very full map that I didn’t really enjoy but cannot say much bad about

Edited by HAK3180

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8 hours ago, HAK3180 said:

@nicolas monti

 

Part 1

 

 

Thanks for the video and sorry for some inconveniences because of the premature state of the map!

 

Some short conclusions from the first video:

 

*Ammo: seems fine

*health: 10-20% more will help in some areas.

*switch/event: most events are visible but some are very hard to catch because of being too far away, I'll make them way more noticeable.

*path order: I'll make a couple of secondarily activated shortcurts/barriers depending of what route the player chooses in order to prevent him to go through long portions twice (like you had to do traversing the crate area)

*big jump secret: there is a bug, sector artivated with enemies in it is not tall enough and you cannot get out of the building.. I'll fix.

 

That's for now, I think the map will be clearly benefited with the changes.

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Doom 2 format (tested in PrBoom)

These are the first maps I've made, has taken about a year on/off to get this far. Just looking for some feedback on how they play.
There are 7 levels that are mostly techbase themed, with hellish and some natural themes as well. Some textures are taken from TNT and Plutonia, and a few I made myself remixing Doom 2 textures

https://www.mediafire.com/file/3og6wb2abmbg4d1/skulltek_v3-1.wad/file

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I'd think Enceladus might work better with E4M7 moved to E4M9, add a BFG, and move E4M9 to a regular level & take out the BFG. An abnormally giant level as the secret level would probably work comparably well to making it a standalone release, especially since the current E4M9 seems perfectly fitting as a regular level other than having the BFG at the end.

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